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My journey into the prophetic realm, part 13

A few days into the new year (1986), as I was busy typesetting at the office, V.P. Bob Schuelke showed up with his usual greeting: “Hello, Mr. Jones.” By this time, he had successfully wired his jaw back in place and seemed to be fully recovered from the fulfillment of the earlier prophecy about Pastor Thomas leaving the church.

I greeted him, and he quickly posed the big question on his mind. “So what’s going to happen next?” he asked. I don’t know if he expected an answer, but God gave it to him.

Before I could think about it, I blurted out, “Well, Pastor Thomas is going to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit on January 27, administered by Pastor Joe Mac.”

You would have thought I had clubbed him on the side of the head. His jaw dropped to the floor, and he could only say, “NO WAY!! Not in a million years!”

I would have regretted saying anything, except that I knew that God had taken control of my mouth. In fact, until that moment, I had not yet pieced together the revelation. I learned what was going to happen while I was telling him. The difference was that I believed the word, he did not.

So I responded with a simple, “We’ll see.”

Raising the Dead

In the next few weeks, we were led to do some minor cleansing work with prayer and fasting. None of us really thought about January 27, as this date was weeks away.

One day the phone rang. It was Jerry, the one who had urged us to attend Pastor Joe Mac’s meeting on November 10, where I had anointed the pastor with the calling to raise the dead.

“Pastor Joe Mac is in town and would like to meet with us this evening,” he said. “Do you think we could meet with him tonight?”

I looked at the calendar on the wall and suddenly realized that it was January 27. Joe Mac was right on schedule! “Yes, of course,” I said. “I’ll pass the word to everyone.” Many of us worked in the same building (print shop). However, I did not tell Bob Schuelke until the following day, since he was not called to minister in this way to Pastor Thomas. Furthermore, he did not have the same revelation. Since faith comes by hearing, and he obviously had not heard this word, he was not equipped to lay hands on Pastor Thomas to receive the baptism of the Spirit.

After work, I drove directly to the arranged meeting place, the house of another “Bob” and his wife, Judy. I told them that it was obvious that Joe Mac’s arrival on this particular day meant that it was the appointed time for him to lay hands on Pastor Thomas to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

“But what should I do?” I asked. “Should I call him and say, “We’re having a little get-together this evening, and we wanted to invite you.” Then if he should come, we could surprise him, Joe Mac could pounce on him, and give him the baptism of the Holy Spirit!

“Why not just call him and tell him the truth?” Judy suggested.

“Well, okay,” I said. “That might work.”

So I called him and said, “Pastor Joe Mac is in town and wants to have a meeting at Bob’s house. Some time ago I discerned that he was the one called to lay hands on you to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So you are welcome to come, if you wish, and if not, that’s is alright, too.”

He consulted briefly with his wife and then said, “Okay, we’ll be there.”

I could hardly believe my ears.

About 7:30 pm, everyone arrived for the meeting. I remember very little about it, except that Pastor Joe Mac gave a brief teaching before laying hands on Paster Thomas. Red told us later that he forced himself to suppress his laughter, because the experience reminded him of his early days as an alcoholic. What he experienced seemed very funny to him, because he could not stand up but was trying to reach out and touch the ceiling. It was clear that he had a supernatural experience.

From our point of view, this was what raised Pastor Thomas from the dead before he died. The main issue was about opposing the move of the Holy Spirit in the warfare in July 1984. The solution was to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Whereas he had been a walking dead man, he was suddenly raised from the dead.

On November 10, 1985 God had provided the solution by having me anoint Pastor Joe Mac with the anointing to raise the dead. Though we did not understand its significance at the time, it all came together on January 27, 1986 when Joe Mac laid hands on Red Thomas, who received the Holy Spirit.

The next day, Bob Schuelke came again to my office, having heard the report. His main question was, “Did he speak in tongues.” Well, no he had not spoken in tongues, but it was clear that he had received the Holy Spirit without that manifestation. I am quite sure that Bob remained skeptical. Nonetheless, subsequent events showed us that Red’s experience was real.

Reunification and Division

Recall that our group had given back the church to Pastor Thomas on December 31, the day after he left the church. Instead of him leaving the church, we suggested that a better solution was for us to leave, so as not to cause further trouble. We could tell that he was grateful for this, and so we remained on friendly terms with him.

After he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we met again to see if we might make a few changes and reunite with our friends at the church. The main change was that we recognized that Pastor Thomas was actually called as an evangelist, not as a pastor. We came to an agreement, and all was well. Also, our desire was to unite God’s Kingdom Church with the Christian Golden Rule Church.

Then Pastor Joe Mac called his friend Jerry to see if he might come and address the whole church. We were delighted and Pastor Thomas extended to him an invitation to speak at the Sunday morning meeting on February 9. When he came, he told us that our church had not been properly founded on the apostles and prophets, implying that this was the underlying problem.

Essentially, he took this invitation to mean that we were submitting to his apostolic authority that was required to make it a legitimate church. He took it upon himself to appoint Red Thomas as the pastor. Well, an evangelist can also be a pastor, but it was clear to us that Joe Mac lacked discernment and that he was essentially undoing the changes that we had agreed upon earlier.

We wondered how this would affect Red Thomas himself. We met to discern the Father’s will, and the “Sword of the Lord” was revealed. In this context, this seemed to be a warning sign, where the word of the Lord is a sword that separates soul from spirit (Hebrews 4:12). We decided to see what might happen the following Sunday, February 16.

On February 16, Pastor Thomas broke our earlier agreement and announced a separation between the two churches, utilizing his new-found authority under Joe Mac, our new apostle. Our group met the next evening and sadly realized that we again had to leave so as not to be under the authority of men. Our understanding of the story of King Saul was not yet fully revealed to us, but we knew that we needed to be ruled by God rather than men.

Our own understanding was not yet fully developed, and so it is likely that there was a better way to handle the situation. But we did the best we could with our revelation and understanding. At the time, however, we were led to write a letter of resignation and give it Pastor Thomas the following Sunday. We did not want to just leave without some sort of explanation. The problem is that explanations of this kind usually only make matters worse.

At any rate, we left the Golden Rule Church on February 23, 1986, and on the same day I received a phone call from out of state from a woman who did not know our situation. She did, however, confirm that we were to “leave.”

Polio Epidemic Stopped

While all of this was happening, we heard news of a polio epidemic that had hit Mountain View, AR, which was just 30 miles west of Batesville. As far as I know, this epidemic was reported only on the local news, as the CDC had already eradicated polio and did not want any contrary reports to be known.

But the local news made it clear that polio was moving east toward Batesville and that we should brace ourselves. We treated this news in the same way that we treated all other news. We prayed. God told us that we had the authority to stop it from reaching Batesville. So on February 28 a few of us drove to the western edge of town and established a boundary, forbidding the epidemic to cross that line. The epidemic ceased, and there were no reported cases of polio in Batesville.

You’re welcome, CDC.