Hello All,
I was asked to address this:
Jude 1:20
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
Now, we all know that there is no punctuation in the original manuscripts, but we should notice that there is a comma here, which means it is not a complete thought. People often use this verse, on it's own to support speaking in tongues as a prayer language.
I used to use it!
Jude is one of those letters that speak specifically to someone. I have heard it said that it is the Pastors book. It is for those who have the call to preach.
Some people would say that it is impossible for a woman to have this calling. I disagree. I would say that a woman should not be the Pastor of a church, but that doesn't mean she can't preach! Preaching is giving the good news of the Gospel to people. It is sharing the truth from Scripture, it is not putting your authority on someone, like a Pastor does. The Pastor of a church is like a Shepherd. He is the leader. A Preacher is someone who has been given the ability by the Holy Spirit to expound from the Scriptures meaning and message.
NOW that I got that out. I have KNOWN for some time now what spiritual gifts I have.
I have the gift of discernment of spirits. AND yes that means I can see demons. I don't 'see' them, they aren't beastly apparitions, but I can 'see' them through the Spirit, when they are on people.
I have known that I had this gift from just about as soon as I received the Holy Spirit.
This wasn't at a church. I wasn't speaking in tongues.
I was in my room praying. I submitted myself to God. ALL of myself.
I FELT (not in my body) but in my spirit, a refreshing. I felt like God had cleansed me. From that moment forward I have had this gift.
I was involved in wicca before I came to Christ. I have SEEN (with the eyes of my flesh) demons. I have SEEN people do stuff that they aren't supposed to be able to do. DEMONS are REAL.
God gave me this gift so that I could see what is of God and what isn't. I do not take it lightly. It is a gift that I must share. If not, then it would be only for my 'edification'.
NO gift of the Holy Spirit is for your OWN edification. Every gift that is given is to edify the WHOLE church. The Body.
I also have the gift of prophecy. NOW before any one called me a heretic and trys to burn me at the stake, let me tell you what I mean by that.
Most people think of a prophet and they think 'someone who tells the future'. That isn't always the case. In my case my prophetic gift is the ability to read from the Bible and have it open up to the benifit of others. The key there is OTHERS.
Here is an example. I was reading from Hebrews to my husband. (his eyes hurt him) I suddenly could HEAR in my head the voice of a man. I related every thing I was hearing, as if it were my own voice. I could HEAR the author. I could feel his tone, and emotions when he wrote it. When I got through reading it, my husband was speechless and just sat there for a minute or two.
He said that he had NEVER heard that in those words before. He had never heard the message of that book until just then. Now what did HE get out of my reading? FAITH, HOPE, PEACE, and more than anything else a new love for the Word of God.
There is nothing for me in it. It doesn't make me feel all warm and gooey. I don't knock at the knees. But it happens to me allot. It happens when I talk to people. The Holy Spirit prompts me to talk to someone, and after I do, they are in tears, and at peace. Like God just spoke to them. I don't know how else to explain it.
It is a gift! I prayed for that one! The discernment was God's way of showing me how demonic my surroundings were. (btw I can also see the good spirits! I love that. That is edifying to me, but I always try to share it, so that it isn't just me getting a blessing from their presence)
NOW, let me take you back to when I spoke in 'tongues'. I told you all that I would relate to you the 'test' that I put on it.
Well here goes nothin'
I noted before that the gift of discernment came to me in full force at the moment I was converted. I had "it" before. When I was a little girl I was molested and went through about a decade of depression as a child. My parents feared that I would commit suicide. I could see people's auras. I could see demons. I could see if people were lying. If someone came to me that had a Spirit of God, it was OFFENSIVE to me. I was possessed. I had a counterfeit gift. I had discernment from demons. The DEMONS gave me discernment of spirits.
If there is anyone out there who thinks that it is impossible for the devil to immitate God, you are WRONG. He comes as an ANGEL of light. That means MESSENGER. He comes like God's Angels would, so that he can deceive. He doesn't come in a red suit with a pitchfork, offering you an apple. He is subtle, and sneaky, and tricky, and a LIAR. He is a very good liar. So are the people who live for him. But those who are NOT living for him can and ARE effected by him.
The Bible says "be not deceived, God is NOT mocked". When someone 'appears' to be using a gift of God, but are really only edifying themselves, it is 'mocking'. Like a little kid. You know repeating everything you say, mocking. "for whatever a man sows, that he will reap, if you sow to the flesh, you will, of the flesh, reap corruption". If we do something to gratify our flesh, or to 'get a feeling', HOW is that glorifying to God, or edifying to the Body? If we are only doing something because it 'feels good', then it is NOT of God, because it is NOT edifying to the Body. "but if you sow to the Spirit, you will, OF THE SPIRIT, reap, LIFE everlasting." The use of God's gifts through the Holy Spirit, are to be used by the receiver to edify the body, so that those who receive the effect of the gift will be led to Christ, drawn to the Holy Spirit, and drawn to His Word.
The purpose of tongues in the NT Church was for WITNESSING. There was no other purpose for it.
NOW, some will immediatly say, 'what about Jude 20'.
Well let me finish my story and I'll tell you.
When I was a sophmore in high school my parents became very worried about my behavior. I was very violent, and totally rebellious. I refused to go to school, refused to go to church, refused to eat, refused to obey. I couldn't sleep and I was constantly bothered by demons.
I have been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I was 9 when they first discovered this. I still live with it today, but through the power of the Holy Spirit (the fruit of self control) I am able to live without drugs.
My parents decided that they needed to get me away from the environment I was in before I self destructed. They put me in a psychiatric rehab center for a month. I got worse. The psychiatrist advised them about a girls home that was in Texas. They sent me to a place called 'Holy Highway'. It is a pentecostal, charismatic, group that uses hard labor for discipline and teaches the traditional 'you must speak in tongues to be saved' theology of the charismatic movement.
I spent 6 months there 'playing church'. We went 3 times a week to a local Assembly that was fairly conservative, and had some sort of order. But occasionally we would go to visit other churches, like if they were having revival meetings and what not.
One night we went to a church that was fairly large and had about 200 people in it. It was total chaos. There was a band playing and women were dancing and 'uttering' and everyone was walking around the sanctuary in a conga line like procession. When we first arrived I immediatly saw the presence there. It was NOT God. I was NOT uncomfortable. The chaos that was there was from the demons that were controlling the people there. There was no order to the service. The pastor was speaking in tongues from the pulpit, people all around us were screaming and singing in tongues. It was intense. There was NO order. When we left there, I felt like I had just been to a wiccan seance. There were demons ALL OVER the other girls. They were mocking and laughing, and giggling, and barking out this mock language that they learned by hearing the others there.
They all had a FALSE sense of the presence of God. Many of them claimed conversion. Many of those same girls who were claiming conversion that night were caught running away 3 nights later. 7 of them. They planned it THAT night while we were at that church.
The next time we went to visit a church it was a very small group. There were only about 12 pews in the whole place. It was very cold there. It was July. There were so many demons there that the roof seemed to be lifting off the place. The walls were melting. It was so vile. There was a band, and the people were dancing and screaming, and singing, and jumping and running. There was a very large woman there that started talking to me. She had a spirit of perversion on her. I know that spirit. I have seen it many times before. I could see it on my older brother. I could see it on the man that molested me. I could see it on a neighbor we had in Louisiana who turned out to have molested 18 of his male relatives.
This woman wouldn't leave me alone. She kept telling me that I needed to speak in tongues. She said I needed to get Jeezzuus. So she pulled me up and made me stand in front of her and she was holding my arms and shaking me and she said "say Hallelujah" so I did, and she persisted that I keep saying it over and over and over and over again. After about 3 minutes of this I still was not speaking in anything other than Hebrew. I was saying Hallelujah! So she took the butt of her hand and smacked me in the forehead. It knocked me out.
When I came to, I was laying on the floor and there were about 10 people around me touching me and screaming and speaking in tongues. I tried to get up, but they wouldn't let me.
I left there feeling a bit disoriented and violated. I was told that I had been 'slain' in the spirit. All the while I continued to get in trouble every day and was ALWAYS on hard labor.
I eventually started speaking 'in tongues' at the regular church that we went to on Sundays because of the intense pressure of the people there. I had not one drop of the Holy Spirit in me. I was doing just what they were doing. Mocking.
I was eventually kicked out of that home and sent to an IFB home called New Bethany. It is in LA. It was there, that I had my first taste of real repentance. I sought God with all of my heart there. The demons left. The Holy Spirit filled me with peace and hope. Faith guided me.
I stayed in the IFB Church system until after attending HA College. I saw THERE that this movement was not for me. There are some good people in the IFB Church, but there was a lot of error, and I could see it. The spirit of error was all over every preacher that I saw speak. It was very disheartening to me, because I had really felt that this was where God wanted me to be. He led me from there for better things though.
I could now see so much more from the gift that the Holy Spirit had given me. I could see the good in people and I could see the demons for what they were. The enemy.
I started going to Calvary Chapel in CA after leaving HAC. With my parents. I got very involved in the Young Adults ministries and even worked at the CCCC (calvary chapel conference center) in Murrieta Hot Springs. I loved the people there. Something was still lacking though. There was an overwhelming spirit of deceit there, and I couldn't seem to put my finger on it.
I prayed that God would show me what to do.
About that time I met a man who wanted to date me. He was a YOUTH PASTOR. He and I went on our first date. It was to a Christmas party at one of the Young Adults ministry people's house. Everyone was there. He was handsome, and sensitive and very polite, and MAN did he know the Bible. I was impressed!
At the end of the date he kissed my hand. I was blown away. We went on 2 or 3 more dates, to church and to church functions.
One Sunday after church (he didn't go to the same church as my parents) he asked me if we could stop by his house before he took me to my parents house so that he could change his clothes (get out of the suit and all). I saw no problem with this, so we went. He had 2 roomates. They were renting a house together. When we first got there, the roomates were there. So I saw no problem with taking the 'tour'. By the time we got upstairs I noticed that the roomates were leaving. So I told him that I was going to go wait in the car while he changed. He wanted me to see his room. So I walked the length of the hall way to his room and walked in and he closed the door behind me. I felt REALLY uncomfortable. He asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. So, as strange as I thought this was, I consented because I really liked him, and I didn't want to put him off. So as we were watching the movie, he started trying to get touchy feely. I was a virgin. As bad as I was in high school, I was too scared to have sex.
I was STILL too scared, and also at 20 wanted to wait until I got married. Without going into all the details. He pinned me down and raped me.
I left the church all together.
I told the pastor what he did, so that he couldn't pastor teenage girls anymore. Then left. I joined the Air Force and got out of California. This was when I got into Wicca again. You see, some would say that if you could do that, you weren't really saved to begin with. I'm not buying it! YOU CAN LEAVE. You cannot tell me that I wasn't saved during the time that I was at New Bethany and after. I know for a fact that I deliberatly and intentionally LEFT my Savior and blamed him for this mans actions. I couldn't get my brain around it. That God would let this happen to me. After all I had been through, and I was finally on the right path......or was I?
I met a girl in the wicca group that told me a story.
She and her mother have been in wicca for as long as she can remember. Her mother practices and her grandma too. They have been at it a while. She told me that when she was in high school she had a friend that begged her to come to church with her. So she did. She said that it was charismatic. She also said that during the 'training' her mother had given her she had become well aquanted with the different languages that the demons spoke to her and her mother. She told me that at this church service there were people dancing and laughing and running and barking out this obscene language that SHE hadn't ever heard before. So she told her mother that she HAD to come and see these people and see what they were saying. Her mother consented to go, but told her that she wanted to sit in back so as to remain unnoticed.
They both went the following wednesday night (which was worse than sunday morning). She told me that when her mother got there, at first she made this very strange face. Like she sensed something. She said that she too sensed it, but didn't know what it was. After the service started and the band played the people went berzerk. She said that they were all over the place. (This was in an Assemblies of God church btw).
She said that in the middle of the service her mother just got up and left.
When she got to her, she asked her if she knew what that was. This is what she said. She said it was a language that she had only heard maybe 2 or 3 times. She said it was a spirit of sensuality. It was a demon of lust. She said that this demon was controlling the mouths of these people through the lust of their own bodies. She said that she couldn't stay in there any longer. She said something greater was keeping them there. She said there was a demon there that was strong, and there was a contention with her demons and those there, and they wouldn't let her leave. She finally overpowered them and got up. She said they were arguing about the people. Her demons wanted to take those people. The demons that were there didn't want to give them up. The demons that this woman had were just familiar spirits. This demon of sensuality was very powerful. He was trying to pull her into this deception too.
Now. Back to me. I decided to go to the Christian church on base. I went and even started playing the piano for the services. 3 times on Sunday. I met my ex husband there! He had a SENSUAL SPIRIT. I met, this spirit that she encountered. I lived under it for 2 and a half years. It came with me when I left him. (for adultery).
I went back to California in 1999 after leaving him. This spirit followed me. I knew he was there, and he wasn't alone. I had no desire to go to church again. I didn't want anything to do with God at that point. I was very angry. I lashed out at men in general. I used them, while they used me. This sensual spirit attracted men terribly.
I decided after 3 months that I was going to have to go to my parents in AR for help. I had been running from God, and I fell flat on my face.
I had $7 to my name when I called my dad. He wired me $200 to buy a bus ticket. I used that seven dollars to buy a bible. I read it that night and gave my heart to Jesus. I submitted to Him. I told Him that I would go wherever He wanted me to go and do whatever He wanted me to do. MAKE your will MY desire, I said.
I tried the spirits to see if they were of God or not. Those spirits that were in those churches were not of God.
I still see demons all the time. There are some right outside of my apartment. There were some when I took my kids to school. I see them on the highway, I see them at the grocery store. I see them outside the doors of my church.
I have only seen them inside on one person. This guy that is a Sheperds Rod. (they want to kill us).
His come in with him. The demons who follow the faithful around do not come in with them. I don't know why. There was one on a baby last week. It was making it cry. While our pastor was talking about keeping yourself unspotted from the world.
You see, I have seen. I have taste. I have touched and know that this spirit that YOU cannot test because you cannot ask it to say that Jesus is come in the flesh (the test), is not of God.
God is the one who gave us the test.
He would not send a spirit that could not be tested.
Jude 20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
here is what is missing to complete this statement:
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
(read it together)
NOW, would you like to know who he is comparing them to?
Jud 1:18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
Jud 1:19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
The first time I read this book it made me think of those people that I just told you about.
SO God is telling us to LOOK OUT! HOW???
Building up your HOLY FAITH.....by reading the Bible....KNOW the Truth.
Praying......to God, by Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
Keep yourself in the LOVE.....If I speak with men and angels and have not love....
LOOKING for HIS mercy......His coming with eternal life!
So read your Bible, pray every day and you'll "grow, grow, grow".
Praying through the Holy Spirit is HOW your prayers get heard. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God here on earth. He is the ultimate translator, and even translates the thoughts and intents of your heart that CANNOT be uttered.
Notice that. THAT CANNOT be uttered. CANNOT.
He translates every language known to man to the Father through the Son.
THAT is what tongues is. It is the Holy Spirit TRANSLATING for you, so that you can speak to the edification of others. SO that OTHERS might know him. This gift should be very rare in this day in age because we now have machines that can translate, and we have multilingual people all over the world. I still, have heard of instances of people speaking in authentic tongues for the cause of the gospel.
In conclusion: If it feels good do it. That is the mentality of some. They are sensual, and have not the Spirit.
If you had the patience to read all of this, I hope you got a blessing out of it.
God Bless
