Book: Following God By His Spirit
Chapter 2
Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
The first example of the giving of the Holy Spirit to all in the church was at Pentecost.
Acts 1 ...And, being assembled together with them, (HE, Jesus)
commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for
the promise of the Father, which, saith HE , ye have heard of ME. For
John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost not many days hence ... ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto ME both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Some people in churches try to witness without having the Spirit of God. They even teach each other how to "witness".
But when we have the Spirit of God in us, we are a witness.
But when we have the Spirit of God in us, we are a witness.
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Several years ago, I had gone to a copy story to make reproductions of writings.
An older man came up to me and said, "Little lady ... you didn't park behind that green and gold car did you?" I replied, "No sir." He continued, "That's a Baylor car." (Baptist University in Texas) I replied, "Okay ..."
Then he asked: "You don't happen to be a Christian, do you?"
I excitedly replied, "YES! I am!"
(I had been born again about 6 months earlier and was on fire for things of God.)
His reply to me: "OH HECK ... I just joined the witnessing class at First Baptist Church and you were the first person I chose to witness to."
(He was disappointed that I was a Christian!)
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When
you throw a rock into a pond of water, ripples go in all directions.
You do not have to try to make ripples happen. It is a by-product of the
rock hitting the water.
When you have the Holy Spirit in you, you do not have to try to witness. You are a witness.
You are different from other people, even from other church people for
many in churches do not have the Holy Spirit of God in them.
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When we obey God, doing as HE instructs, we "are" a witness to God.
The following happened to me after I was born again in 1975.
I owned a business and was flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA) on a buying trip. Many of my relatives lived in Albuquerque at that time. My cousin met me at the plane.
The following happened to me after I was born again in 1975.
I owned a business and was flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA) on a buying trip. Many of my relatives lived in Albuquerque at that time. My cousin met me at the plane.
Just as the plane landed, I heard these words from the Holy Spirit, "Be baptized."
When my cousin picked me up and we got into her car, I said, "Jeanne ... if you can arrange it at church I will be baptized this afternoon before I return to Dallas."
She replied: "But you've already been baptized."
She replied: "But you've already been baptized."
"Yes," I said, "But I wasn't born again until now."
Jeanne was a member of Church of Christ.
They love to baptize in water. So she arranged for me to be baptized
that afternoon. Many of my relatives (who were also Church of Christ)
gathered at the church building. Before being taken to the baptistery,
the young minister said to me: "Would you like to say something?"
I was greatly shocked for Church of Christ never allow a woman to speak at the church. But I replied, "I guess so."
And I began speaking by the Holy Spirit, telling how I had been born again.
I noticed my uncle who was seated in the congregation. He was crying. I also noticed a cousin. She was shaking her head up and down, saying, "YES!", and she was very excited as I spoke.
I noticed my uncle who was seated in the congregation. He was crying. I also noticed a cousin. She was shaking her head up and down, saying, "YES!", and she was very excited as I spoke.
When I was baptized and the minister lowered me into the water, the Holy Spirit began teaching me. The Holy Spirit said to me, "This is like being buried with Christ."
As the minister raised me out of the water, the Holy Spirit said to me, "This is like being raised with Christ."
I didn't know Romans 6 at that time but that is exactly what Romans 6 teaches us.
Know
ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into HIS death? Therefore we are buried with HIM by baptism
into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory
of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
After we are born again, we die to our flesh, thus are “buried with HIM”. We no longer have to serve our flesh as we once did. We “keep the flesh under” by praying and by allowing God to work with us in the temptation. We yield to the Spirit of God rather than obeying our flesh.
The works of the flesh are: Adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft (living in superstitions), hatred,
variance (arguing/debating), emulations (copying others to try to equal or excel their achievements), wrath (desire to see another person punished), strife, seditions, heresies, envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like:
of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5
of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5
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Dead
people do not sin. Therefore we “reckon” ourselves dead to our flesh,
being now buried with Jesus, and being raised with Jesus we now serve
God instead of serving our flesh as we once did.
When we are tempted to yield to the flesh,
we can pray to God for help to overcome the temptations of the flesh …
notice hatred, wrath, strife, envy, drunkenness are some of those
fleshly temptation as well as things such as adultery and fornication. (drunkenness is not a disease as today's world teaches but rather drunkenness is a sin of the flesh as the Bible says.)
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In James 1, we are shown what to do when tempted. The apostle James says: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
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After the baptism, I dressed and returned to the congregation area of the church building and my uncle came to me. He was very excited. He said, "I've never heard anything like that which you said today. Could you write that out for me and send it to me?"
I told him I thought I could. So when I returned to Dallas I wrote it
and sent it to him. I think my uncle was born again at the time he heard
what the Holy Spirit spoke through me that day.
When the Holy Spirit is doing the work through us there is power.
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Many
people will hate you because you are different. Remember how they hated
Jesus. If they hated the master they will hate you, HIS servant. If
they hate the instruction in the Bible, as so many church people do
today, they will hate you if you try to follow the Bible in the church.
Here is an amazing example: This happened to Pam Padgett when she was attending a church group near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (USA).
Pam says
… During the last months of college, I rented a room in a house owned
by a woman I met in the singles group of the church group I attended at
the time. This woman had been divorced twice and had a young daughter.
At first she seemed content to remain unmarried and raise her daughter. But then she started looking for another husband. I shared with her scripture that tell us that a divorced woman commits adultery if she remarries:
Matthew 5:31-32... It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I (Jesus)
say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the
cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever
shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Mark 10:11-12 ... And HE (Jesus)
saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another,
committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her
husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
Romans 7
... For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her
husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed
from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she
be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her
husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no
adulteress, though she be married to another man.
After
sharing these scriptures, I was shocked when she told me that she
didn't care what the Bible says. She said she knew what she believed. (antichrist in the church)
I moved from her house shortly after this.
The
place I moved was quite a distance from where this church group met.
Although I continued to attend the Sunday services and would sit in the
area of the auditorium where the singles group sat, I no longer attended
the singles meetings.
I heard this divorced woman was engaged to a man I also knew from the singles group.
I went and spoke with him, and I shared scriptures with him, showing
him that they would commit adultery if he married her since she was
divorced. He said he would consider these things, but he did not stop
the engagement.
Then I heard that the maid of honor at the wedding was to be a woman I also knew.
I went and spoke with her, sharing scripture about the adultery that
would be committed by this marriage. She said she knew it was wrong for
them to marry but they would get married whether or not she was the maid
of honor, so she was going to do it.
(I Tim. 5 … neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure.)
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About this time,
I went to one of the Sunday morning services. I arrived before any of
the other singles, and sat in the area where we usually sat. But no
other singles came to sit there. Right before the service began, I
looked around and saw that the singles were sitting a few pews behind
me. I thought this strange, but didn't think a lot about it.
The next Sunday I sat in the "new" singles area, but they sat in the "old" singles area.
The following week, I got there shortly before the service began, and went to where the singles were sitting.
Without saying a word, those I sat next to got up and moved away from me.
It was obvious they wanted nothing to do with me, but I had no idea why. I cried out to God asking what was going on? “Had I done something wrong?”
For a few weeks I didn't hear anything from God, and didn't know why I had become an outcast from the singles.
Then after the service one Sunday morning,
a woman I didn't know very well stopped me and said she had a message
from God for me. The message she delivered was that God knew how I was
being treated by those in the singles group, and that I needed to know
it was because of what I had spoken about this divorced woman remarrying
and that this was what HE had wanted me to do.
I
was so helped by this message, now knowing why I was being shunned and
that it was for doing good in the sight of God. It was also very helpful
to realize so strongly that God was watching over me, and the mercy and
kindness God had shown to me in having this woman deliver this message
to me.
Comments by Joan Boney
As
Christians we are excited over the Bible. We love the Word of God. We
know the Bible shows us the way of God and the way we are to go on the
present earth.
It is very shocking to encounter people from a church group who do not care what the Bible says.
What we are witnessing in cases such as this is antichrist who has moved into the church.
What we are witnessing in cases such as this is antichrist who has moved into the church.
The apostle Paul told us in II Thess. 2, that Jesus could not return until antichrist moved into the churches and the apostasy took place in the churches. That is exactly what is happening in churches today.
(Antichrist is not "one" man ... antichrist is a spirit in many men just as the devil is not one man but a spirit in many men.)
II Thess. 2 ... NASB ... Paul says ...
Let no one in any way deceive you, for it (the day of the LORD) will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?
And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed
The restraint
against antichrist was removed when the churches changed the
scriptures, allowing lawlessness against the Word of God to come into
the church ... such as the removal of what Jesus said in Mt. 5:32 ... whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
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In 2017, after hearing the above information from God as to what it meant by removing the "restraint"
and how that restraint against antichrist was the scripture they had
removed from the church group ... I told God I wished I could somehow
make the teaching stronger concerning antichrist in the churches today,
and I heard immediately the following: "Tell the poison gas dream"
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The poison gas dream:
In 1979, God gave me the following terrifying dream:
Destruction was everywhere.
A meeting was going on. A man was speaking to a room filled with people. I went in and began to listen.
In 1979, God gave me the following terrifying dream:
Destruction was everywhere.
A meeting was going on. A man was speaking to a room filled with people. I went in and began to listen.
A second man rushed in and said: "Stop ... Wait ... Can't you see ... It's too late ... It's already begun."
The first man resumed speaking.
I looked out the window to see what had "already begun."
There was a tall pole with a yellow civil defense speaker at top of the pole. A gas was coming out of the speaker. I knew it was poisonous and would kill the people. It was coming directly toward us!
The shocking thing was the speaker that was set there for the purpose of warning us was being used as the instrument which dispersed the gas that was poison and would kill us!
I looked at the man seated next to me. He had a big grin on his face and was looking directly at the man who was speaking to the group. But then I saw this man was a corpse, though he looked alive. He was already dead!
I looked about the room at the other people and realized they were all dead.
As I sat back in my chair and listened to the man speaking I began to feel sleepy and I knew as I sat there among them this was killing me too.
God was showing me the anarchy that was already going on in our church groups in 1979. Destruction was everywhere in church groups. And it is much worse today. (Nearer to the coming of Jesus.)
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Peter says to us:
I Peter 4 … Beloved,
think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when HIS glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part HE (The Word) is evil spoken of, but on your part HE is glorified.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.
Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to HIM in well doing, as unto a faithful creator.
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part HE (The Word) is evil spoken of, but on your part HE is glorified.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.
Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to HIM in well doing, as unto a faithful creator.
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While
those persons who do not have the Spirit of God (or the reprobates in
the church group) may despise you when you share things of God with
them, those who are of God will recognize you because of HIS Spirit and
because you are “different”. They, too, are “different” because of God.
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BOOK: Following God By His Spirit
Chapter 2
Joan Boney
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