Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
Deborah:
Judges 4:1-10 And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, when Ehud was dead. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.
***
And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
***
And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedeshnaphtali, and said unto him,
Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun? And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.
And Barak said unto her (to Deborah), If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.
And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.
And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.
***
Judges 4:11-16 Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father in law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.
And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river of Kishon.
And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the Lord gone out before thee?
So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.
And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.
***
Honor goes to a woman, Jael, who kills Sisera:
Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite: for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
And Jael (Heber's wife) went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.
And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.
Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, "No."
(Sisera thought he was safe in her tent.)
Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.
And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest.
And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.
So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.
And the hand of the children of Israel prospered, and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.
***
Isaiah 55:8-13 For MY thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways MY ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are MY ways higher than your ways, and MY thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall MY word be that goeth forth out of MY mouth: it shall not return unto ME void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
***
After moving to Colorado (USA) in 2019, I became acquainted with one of Pam Padgett's neighbors.
This young woman, mother of 2 children, had a very strange accident a few months before I moved here. She was cleaning snow from her driveway when a car came speeding down the adjacent hill and bounded into her driveway and trapped her body between the car fender and a large snow bank.
She thought she was going to die. And at that second, she realized she believed in God!
I was only around this young woman two times but I enjoyed her. She probably knew almost no Bible but something was right about her.
I talked with her about God as I was led by the Holy Spirit and I gave her one of my books when she left the house after the first visit.
I usually pray for God to lead me in what I say to any person who comes to visit and I do not hold back, speaking all that I believe God has given to me.
At the end of December, 2019, this young woman came to tell us they were moving to Arizona where her husband had taken a new job.
She was slightly concerned about leaving Colorado for Arizona.
I said to her, "I think I might be able to help you with that."
She replied, "I thought you could."
I gave her a scripture which says God chooses the exact places where we will live and the times we will live there. (Paraphrased from NIV original translation.)
After she left Pam's house, Pam sent her, by text message, the above scripture and she replied she was so glad to have this for she wanted to look at it again.
***
While she was at Pam's house, I told this young woman two stories which shocked her.
(I think she has a lot of politically correct stuff in her and milk-toast church ideas.)
First, I told her the story of a woman who had been trouble for me in our church group for the past 39-years, and how this woman finally left.
When I was in rehabilitation hospital this woman came to me and said, "I don't care about anyone or anything any more."
(The young woman hearing this story gasped!)
She, the woman from our church group, then told me she no longer read Bible or our blog.
I replied: "But if you go that way, what will happen to you?
She replied: "I don't want to talk with you about this."
(This happened approximately two weeks after I had surgery after an accident.)
When I was in the regular hospital where the surgery was performed, I was recovering from that surgery, and I had what I thought to be a drug hallucination from pain medicine.
This same woman was standing at the foot of my hospital bed. She was wearing a bright, red shirt. She stood there at my bed looking down at me while saying nothing. Then she turned and walked through the wall, disappearing.
So that day she told me she no longer cared about anyone or anything anymore, I was not surprised and when she snuck out of my hospital room after saying this, then I knew what I had experienced in the surgery hospital was actually a vision from God rather than something caused by the pain medicine.
The young woman who was listening to my story seems both shocked and disturbed over that which the church woman had done.
But I told the young woman, "NO ... this was great for me because this woman had troubled me for the past 39-years and now, at last, I was free from her!"
The young woman seemed very surprised.
Then I told this young woman the following strangely remarkable story:
In 1975, I was a new Christian. My best friend had married a man who had 3 children by a previous wife who died. The youngest child was now a freshman in college at TCU where Donna was teaching in the music department. Marianne had dropped out of TCU and was hiding out in one of the dormitories there and was giving hot checks on Donna and Hal. Marianne was completely unruleable.
Donna came to me asking me if I would accompany her to take Marianne to Tucson, Arizona, where she and Hal had decided to "drop her." It was far enough from Dallas, where they lived, that they didn't think Marianne could get back. They decided to pay for one month in the YWCA in Tucson, room and board, and Marianne would have to then take responsibility for herself.
I went with Donna and we left Marianne in Tucson.
(A Methodist woman who worked for me was shocked that I would go with Donna and do this.)
Somehow Marianne made her way to San Francisco where she met and married a man and had a child and later returned to Dallas to visit Donna and Hal.
The report Donna gave is that Marianne had completely straightened up.
***
Many times I've seen, what I believe to be God's way, that was very different from that which people would think was right.
Certainly these many Old Testament examples reveal that to us!
*****