Good morning John,
I woke up very early this morning. Laid in bed for a while but could not go back to sleep. Finally after a good while of unsuccessfully trying, I just started speaking in tongues and prayed silently in the bed. And the Spirit started to flow as I did…. I was praying in tongues for a little while, then the Spirit started speaking to me, in English. Here’s what it said, as close to what I remember. I inserted in [brackets] things that I felt, that were not really spoken just, so I could relate what I was feeling:
“Expect to be used. Tell that to the young people [meaning about 10+ to young adults among us]. Tell them to expect it.
[God talking] …. If you [young people] will get still, and put aside some “things” [not bad things, just things that occupy your time and thoughts], and listen carefully, expect to hear from me. I will talk to you, just get still, and listen.
You are going to have experiences. You are already having them, you just don’t think they are important, but they are. If you will tell what I’m doing in you, and what I’m saying when I talk to you, and tell how I’m making you feel, no matter how small YOU think those things are, I will do things [in you, and for others] that will surprise you when they happen. Expect to be used.”
That was it best I can recall, it’s pretty close.
Gary
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John,
Here recently, I’ve been typing out your short sermons from our meetings. I had literally just finished reading this one below about experiences and saw this email from Gary. Wonderful lessons!
Taylor
Experience
Saturday, December 31, 2011
A lot of people push aside the need for experience saying, “It’s not by works”. It’s by God’s work. That’s not work of the Law; He’s never kept the Law. God has never kept that Law. He isn’t about to keep that Law. He IS the Law. Praise God. We are His workmanship.
When God first somehow got through to me that He was calling me out of Christianity, I was afraid to move, I remember telling you about it, you might remember. I was telling you, “I don’t know what to do next; I’m afraid to move in any direction.” And I felt like and said, back in ’93, I felt like my back was right outside the walls of Christianity. I had come out but there was nothing out ahead of me but a desert with no signs, no roads, no nothing. I didn’t know which direction to go. Didn’t know how I was going to get across it, get us across it, to the promised land; didn’t know. I had no idea.
A good little time passed because I was sitting in the basement at Elderwood Lane (when the Lord showed me about leaving Christianity I was living in Lexington). I was sitting in the basement at Elderwood Lane rewriting the tract on “You Must Be Born Again”. And the Lord surprised me by speaking to me. And when he did I was just amazed at what he showed me there. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that when I leaned back against that wall of Christianity, I fell down because it wasn’t there anymore. I was out. I was out there in the desert. What got me out there was an experience, with God. He moved me. He moved me with His voice. He got me farther away from it.
And what He showed me, it’s a little bit embarrassing but it’s a perfect parable, it shows that when the Bible calls something, something, that’s what it is. Solomon said a parable in the mouth of a fool is like a man with one leg shorter than the other. But God’s no fool. When he says something, when he describes something with a word, that word fits. And when he called Christianity Babylon, the Great Whore, that’s exactly what it is. Because what He showed me when I was writing the tract, was that those street walkers make their money by committing the act that ought to produce children, but children is not what she’s after. If she finds out she’s going to have one she gets rid of it.
In this New Testament, the seed of God comes through the mouth. Jesus said the seed is the Word. And Satan’s ministers make their money by doing the thing that ought to produce children to God, but if someone really gets under conviction they tell them they’re already saved and put it out; real children of God is not what they’re after. They’re after the money. When He says that’s the Great Harlot – glory to God – while He was talking I was being transported across the air. The back of the wall wasn’t there, it was over there somewhere. And He’s continued to move us through the desert with experience. We still don’t know where to go from here, but we know what’s going to get us across it. It’s an experience with Him. God, don’t leave us. Don’t leave us out here; we don’t know where to go. Praise God. Praise God for the experience.