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After I was born again in 1975, my best friend said, "Joanie ... you have to go to church."
I said: "I do?"
So I did.
(1975 through 1982)
***
Believer's Chapel: (Approximately 150 members in 1975.)
The people were extremely proud of their church.
Their pastors were professors at Dallas Theological Seminary.
When I began attending in late 1975, their main pastor was conducting a seminar on the subject: "Tongues are of the devil."
I attended this.
I don't believe I had ever heard of a tongue before going to this church group.
It surely scared me!
I
wanted nothing to do with those people who spoke in tongues or with
their churches, although I didn't know anyone who spoke with tongues nor
any churches that did this, at that time.
About 3 weeks later, I was reading the Bible and saw this verse.
The apostle Paul said:
I had to choose between attending Believer's Chapel and the Bible.
Instantly I chose the Bible.
I never returned to that church group again.
***
Neighborhood prayer group:
I was attending a neighborhood prayer group at the same time I encountered the subject of speaking with tongues.
We met in the home of a woman who lived in our neighborhood, which was in Highland Park in
the center of Dallas. The women were very educated. One woman was the
wife of a doctor. I, myself, owned a business and had an earned
doctorate and had taught at SMU.
Everything seemed very respectable.
One
day 5 of us had gathered to pray for people. One woman mentioned a
person we should pray for, and briefly told the problem this woman was
having. We bowed our heads, and I began hearing a very soft murmuring
sound, an undercurrent. I had no idea at first what it was I was
hearing.
Then I realized these women were praying in tongues!
I was terrified! and I fled that house as soon as I could make an appropriate exit.
One of the women in the prayer group followed me out of the house where we had been meeting and she said, "Joan, now don't let this bother you."
"No, of course not." I responded as I was fleeing.
I wanted no more to do with these tongues women ever!
***
At that same time, I began having what they called "Satanic Attacks", where I was bombarded with thoughts, seemingly from devils.
A
woman who worked for me would call the women in that tongues prayer
group when I was stricken, and they would pray for me and I would get
better.
This went on for weeks.
The husband of my bookkeeper for my small business, was a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.
My business was American Indian Arts.
Someone
put forth the idea that my problem was being caused by the Indian
symbols on the art objects. I was at the point of destroying all the
art objects at my shop.
Walt, my bookkeeper's husband, said the art objects could not be the problem.
He said, "Art objects have no power unless you are worshipping them and attributing special powers to them."
(I knew I was not doing that.)
At one point, God reminded me of a scripture.
"How is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it?" (NIV)
I Peter 2:20 (KJV) For
what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall
take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take
it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
I seriously looked into this scripture and I realized my problem was the following: I wanted to marry and I wasn't getting what I wanted.
Then
I realized while everyone at church and in that prayer group and my
best friend had been praying for God to send me to an husband, perhaps it was not the will of God for me to marry.
I John 5:14-15 And
this is the confidence that we have in HIM, that, if we ask any thing
according to HIS will, HE heareth us: And if we know that HE hear us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of
HIM .
Shortly after I was born again I was taken into heaven in the night. I was with God and with Christ and with the Holy Spirit. (No physical images just in the spirit.) At that time I was merged into the body of Jesus, made one with the Word of God, God and the Holy Spirit witnessing.
And then a few nights later, that exact same thing happened a second time.
I
was also given significant spiritual gifts at that same time and people
in churches would see me operating in these spiritual gifts and they
kept saying, "We know the HAND of God is upon you."
It might not be the will of God for me to marry. There might be another work God had ordained for me to do.
And when I gave up my own will and began to focus on the will of God for me in my life, the "Satanic attacks" stopped.
I also studied every scripture in the New Testament pertaining to the subject of speaking in tongues and proved to my own satisfaction that tongues were a legitimate part of the church in our time.
Then I accepted the women again in that prayer group.
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Beverly Hills Baptist: (3,000 member church in Dallas, Texas.)
A
woman in the prayer group, who many of us considered to be most
spiritual, was named Barbara Christian. I began attending Beverly Hills
Baptist Church with Barbara and her husband.
An "iconic" man was pastor at this 3000 member church.
At
one point, I made an appointment and went to talk with him concerning
following God and shared with him the subject of hearing from God by HIS
Spirit and following God by HIS Spirit.
This pastor said, "A person would have to be a spiritual giant to do that!"
I was surprised for I saw this as a normal part of being a Christian.
(God had taught me these things.)
John 14:26 Jesus said: But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in MY name, HE shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 16:13 Howbeit when HE, the Spirit of truth, is come, HE will guide you into all truth: for HE shall not speak of HIMSELF; but whatsoever HE shall hear (from God), that shall HE speak: and HE will shew you things to come.
I
had been living by these truths for several months and I even ran my
business operations by these truths and I never saw them fail!
Shortly
after my meeting with this pastor, Barbara decided to change churches
and I followed her and her husband to a church called, Word of Faith.
(The
iconic pastor at that Baptist church died, and a nurse by his bedside
said he began speaking the foulest language she had ever heard a human
speak just before he died. I suspect devils were leaving his body.)
***
Word of Faith: (200
members meeting in an old warehouse when I began attending in 1977.
8,000 seat auditorium when I left in 1982. By 2002 the pastor, Robert
Tilton and wife divorced; pastor was involved in fund raising scandals,
multiple divorces and marriages; lawsuits with church members; church
building was torn down and that church vanished. Tilton tried to
start another church in Florida and married third wife, and finally
ended up with an hotel in Culver City, California. )
People love their pastors and I loved Robert Tilton, but in his own pursuit of greatness, everything around him crumbled.
From 1977 through most of 1982, I attended Word of Faith church, Robert Tilton, pastor, outside of Dallas, Texas, in Farmers Branch, Texas.
God gave me the following dream in 1979:
"The poison gas dream"
In this dream, destruction was everywhere.
I went into a room where a man was speaking to a group of people.
A second man rushed into the room and said, "Stop ... wait ... it's too late ... can't you see ... it's already begun."
Then this man disappeared and the first man resumed speaking to the group of people.
No one seemed at all interested in what it was that had already begun, but I was interested.
I
looked out the window and saw a tall pole with a yellow civil defense
type speaker on top of the pole. Out of the speaker I saw a vapor like
gas floating through the air. The gas was a poison and it was coming
directly toward the room where I was sitting. I knew it was a poison
and it would kill us.
The
shocking thing to me was the speaker which had been set there to warn
us was being used as the instrument which distributed the poison and
would kill us!
I
looked at the man who was sitting next to me. He had a very big smile
on his face and he was staring attentively at the man who was speaking.
Then I saw it. This man who was seated next to me was dead! He was a corpse.
I looked at the other people who were in the room and I saw they, too, were all dead!
And as I sat among them I knew the poison that was coming from the man who was speaking was killing me also.
The dream ended.
I was very disturbed over this dream for many weeks but I didn't know what the dream meant.
In
1982, I was sitting at a Wednesday night meeting at Word of Faith and
our pastor, Robert Tilton, was speaking to the congregation.
I looked at the man who was sitting next to me and saw he was the man in the poison gas dream!
I looked about the congregation and they looked like the dead people in that dream!
I got up immediately and went into the ladies room and began praying.
I said to God,
"I believe YOU are showing me to leave this church group. So I am going to get into my car and drive away. But if YOU want me to return to this church group, I will."
God did not want me to return.
Instead God began showing me things about the message at Word of Faith, especially about the message of "The Authority of the Believer," with the following teaching:
All
good is from God and all bad is from the devil. As believers we have
authority over devils. So when something "bad" begins to happen we can
command the devil to stop and he will not be able to touch us or our
families or our property.
Hail was said to be "bad" for it could destroy our property.
But I found a scripture which said hail is from God!
And I saw the following scripture:
Matthew 27:54 Now
when the centurion, and they that were with HIM, watching Jesus, saw
the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly,
saying, Truly this was the Son of God.
This earthquake was not bad but good ... and it was from God and not from the devil.
And I realized man does not necessarily know what is good and what is bad. God knows that.
I was reminded of Eve who wanted to be wise of her own self, "knowing good from evil."
Genesis 3:4-5
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God
doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And I remembered this same thing of being "as gods" was the goal of antichrist.
And I remembered this same thing of being "as gods" was the goal of antichrist.
2 Thessalonians 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
And I knew that was the goal at Word of Faith.
We were not seeking the will of God. We were being taught to be "as God", knowing good and evil of our own selves and controlling all things by finding a scripture to support what we wanted and claiming that scripture.
When it didn't work, we were told we had weak faith.
I also realized this: When God called a scripture to my attention and I believed that scripture it was of God.
But when we hunted for a scripture to get what we wanted it was of our own selves and our desires.
And
I understood the evils of the doctrines being taught in the Faith
Movement and I saw how these doctrines were doctrines of the antichrist.
And I spoke this on radio from coast to coast and wrote about this perversion in the faith movement.
And I knew the truth of this scripture. Jesus said: Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. (John 16:2)
For after I spoke this message those in church groups who had "loved" me now fought against me.
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