Spiritual gifts are not a sign of holiness. Holiness is love for the WHOLE of humanity.
We ALL have spiritual gifts on a spectrum. Some use them in the name of LOVE. Others choose to use them for harmful selfishness.
We ALL have access to infinite intelligence in one form or another. Like with athletic talents, certain families may have the practice strongly threaded throughout their genetic lines. Labeling the use of these gifts as evil outside of the man-made churches’ traditional restrictions is out of order. The spirit of Jesus makes this plain. Yet it remains misunderstood by many of those who claim to love his message.
Growing up in the church I knew I could see things. I often wonder if it had gotten stronger when I hit my head on the ground after falling from the top of a domed jungle gym at 4 years old. I was in preschool and needed to be rushed to the hospital. Blood was everywhere but all I ended up needing were stitches. Maybe that was an initiation. 🤷🏾♀️
As an adult, after being drawn back to associating with the Seventh-day Adventist church through the For My People Ministry, I found myself in a group of others who were spiritually gifted. We often had shared dreams and could read into things that others had a hard time seeing. While I was in the group, I found myself studying everyone in it. Most had such a hard time dealing with life. But the messages they would get had a lot of useful information for me. What I didn’t resonate with, I chose to disregard. However, I noticed that the group started to revere the founder of the ministry as a holy man of sorts. Mervyn and I thought it quite weird but continued to participate as the people were very kind to us.
Over time, things of concern came to me by former members. The founder convinced many in the group to take his dreams literally and to join him in his fantasies. While I have now come to understand that it could very well be that his ignorance may have played a role in how he choose to read his dreams, I don’t see him now as malicious.
He was instructed not to interpret his dreams himself. It is quite possible some embarrassment could have been avoided by many who followed him if they would have taken heed.
After exposing the error, there was much backlash toward my family. The founder continued to have dreams but many were aimed toward me and my friends. As he would receive these new messages, I choose to ignore them as I expected them to cause mental distress due to respecting his prior messages.
The dream entitled “Houses of Ivory” followed the the release of the website, Surviving Ernie Knoll (this website is now ran by former members), which I created to document my findings. I ended up quick scanning this dream because it was brought to my attention that he expected my entire family and I to die a horrific death. I took offense with that and him calling me a cow birthing calf after calf. This brought on a depression of sorts because of the time I had invested with the people seemed to be a waste as their prophet instructed all members to block me, not take our calls and to count us as dead and condemned of God. I would not have imagined in a million years that these seemingly kind hearted people would be comfortable with being so cruel.
“In the ‘houses of ivory’ is the cow that delivers calf after calf, over and over, again and again, while the bull wanders the pastures, not tending to the herd. In the stalls and pastures are many calves unattended and uncared for. All the while in the ‘houses of ivory,’ the cow murmurs against the hand that had fed this herd.
God sees what this cow has done. He has watched and witnessed as this cow spoke many negative things. When there was not enough gossip, the cow and others she could gather fabricated false reports and spoke not against the messages, but against the messenger. No one has ever been able to prove error in the messages, and the heavenly Father has specifically stated that there is none.
In this it is understood that the wife, symbolized as a cow, the husband as a bull, and the calves as the sons and daughters, shall be destroyed. In the ‘houses of ivory,’ all shall perish in a destroyed, polluted land. This is because God on His throne has heard the lies and accusations against His messenger and For My People Ministry. He has seen firsthand the falsehoods and fabrications. Understand that neither the destruction of the ‘houses of ivory’ nor the destruction foretold for the city of Nashville is a fulfillment of Ezekiel 9.
God has given you the responsibility of being His messenger. So, like Elisha, you give messages. When you are repeatedly assaulted with slanderous lies, gossip, and false accusations, He sees and hears everything. They do not speak against or about you, but against and about God. He takes great offense with the things this cow and those who follow her are doing, and He will send His wrath upon her, as well as on those who agree and stand with her. This cow, her calves, and the bull that fathered them will be sent to the slaughter house, along with those who went on a rampage together against you, His messenger.”
I now understand in church culture, those who don’t agree with a prophet’s source of inspiration or interpretation of their messages become an enemy to the camp. This is due to the misunderstanding that messages received from heavenly (spiritual) realms constitute a consistent pious character.
The Bible instructs us to come together to review, as Bereans, what is received as no man on this planet has the title of sole leader or infallibility.
“You should keep asking each other, ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’ or ‘What is the Lord saying?’ But stop using this phrase, ‘prophecy from the Lord.’ For people are using it to give authority to their own ideas, turning upside down the words of our God, the living God, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” Jeremiah 23:35-36
The messenger should understand that events have great potential to change as with all psychic expression. We have biblical evidence of that with the ministry of Jonah and his warnings to Nineveh when the script was flipped to where they were able to be called Hevenin (Heaven).
“When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.”Jonah 3:10
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We also have written history of such events in scripture how false prophets are sent to educate us on our need for direct connection as children of God. It has always been for us to take instruction from what resonates with our soul.
God in his sovereignty allows for us to eat the fruit of our adverse choices.
“And if a prophet is deceived into giving a message, it is because I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet. I will lift my fist against such prophets and cut them off from the community of Israel. False prophets and those who seek their guidance will all be punished for their sins. In this way, the people of Israel will learn not to stray from me, polluting themselves with sin. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!’” Ezekiel 14:9-11
“But now I see that the prophets of Jerusalem are even worse! They commit adultery and love dishonesty. They encourage those who are doing evil so that no one turns away from their sins. These prophets are as wicked as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah once were.” Jeremiah 23:14
“I have heard these prophets say, ‘Listen to the dream I had from God last night.’ And then they proceed to tell lies in my name. How long will this go on? If they are prophets, they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say.” Jeremiah 23:25-26
Following this experience I decided to continue my investigation. At least my spirit decided for me. Thinking I had dodged a bullet, I started to see some of the same concerns with the writings of Ellen G. White. This is when things really started to hit the fan. After expressing my concerns with the group I lead out of FMPM, they in turn believed I had lost my way due to trauma. This contributed to additional heartache as it seemed everyone began to turn against me including my family. Where I once was considered wise, I was now believed to be delusional.
I made a post on Facebook with my findings from her published writings and how they were encouraged to be used as infallible prophecy from God. It was amazing to me to find as many contradictions as I had. The twilight zone feel was a bit overwhelming when it seemed that what felt like zombies from the church went on full blown attack. I could feel their anger towards me. The cognitive dissonance produced a rally of prayers to “straighten me out”.
While I felt great pain from the “shunning” God had me to keep going. There was a strong motivation to explore all things since the vision to deem everything to be wicked outside of the camp was shattered. The world became my friend as I shed all titles and associations.
(To be continued)
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