Quote:Just a few observations about John Wimber's exposure of the flight traveler's adultery.
(1) It seems natural to assume that if JW's initial revelation (the adultery and the adulteress's name) proved correct, then the legitimacy of the warning has been validated since it was received as part of a continuous revelatory process. I'd wager that if any of us were in this same situation and a total stranger exposed our adultery and our lover's name, we too would take the warning seriously.
(2) Obviously, if we have a preconception that God is never punitive, we will automatically want to dismiss that part of JW's message. But is this intellectually honest? Suppose for the sake of argument that the threat was legitimate. What in principle would it take to change our minds about this possibility?
(3) I know that Wimber is extraordinarily gifted in the exercise of "the word of knowledge" and that his predictions have come true on other occasions.
Here, I'm not so sure there was a warning simply because no visual image appeared to indicate that "God would take him home". Had an image such as a coffin appeared then I likely would have interpreted that there was a probability that the man would die. Still, I wouldn't credit God with his possible impending demise. Intuition as we've discussed can be gleaned from various sources. The man could have held a belief that adultery was wrong and God would punish him possibly by striking him down. (A fairly common belief even when one doesn't consider themselves a Christian.) John, even if he didn't believe this himself, could have gleaned that bit of information from the man. I usually take warnings seriously if I'm reasonably sure the information is accurate. In my experience if a death was trying to be prevented, a symbol representing death would have likely appeared as the first vision followed by the others indicating a course of action to follow to change the probability.
Quote:(4) I have had several death premonitions that have invariably come true. But as I have previously posted, I have not been able to persuade the person in danger to take evasive action. So I now take these premonitions as a signal to pray that, since the future is not fixed, the danger can be averted through protective prayer.
Sometimes the probability is so strong it is not likely to change even with prayer or other intervention. After all these years I've accepted that sometimes I know things and there's little I can do to change them no matter how much I want to. In those cases all one can do is gracefully accept whatever is to come. Albeit not always an easy thing to do.
Quote:(5) The validity of inner knowing (intuition) need not depend on evidence. None of us can decisively determine the validity of JW's threat, but we should at least acknowledge the possibility that the quality of his intuition was such that he really knew.
Certainly possible, however, not likely in this particular case for the reasons stated above. If changing the probability of a death was the purpose of communication, this most likely would have been more prominent than the other two visions. Had all of the information been communicated via intuition it might be a different story. It's possible for intuition or knowing, etc. to accompany a vision, but that usually reinforces or clarifies the vision itself.
Quote:(6) How can we refine the accuracy of our intuition if our preconceptions continually censor and limit what can come through? (a) A school psychologist in my church was expanding his selfless service to our church and the poor and needy. Yet my intuition told me that he had a dark secret that should affect my relationship with him. I censored that intuition as judgmental paranoia, but soon discovered that he had been molesting boys. He is now serving a 14 1/2 year sentence. (b) A defrocked pastor sought my support to get back into the ministry. I gave him chances to serve and he performed very well. But I knew he had marital problems and felt a strong impulse to confront him on this and press him to humble himself and seek reconciliation. But I resisted this impulse. After all, he was in a small support group that included a gifted clinical psychologist and very mature men who were closer to him than I. "Who did I think I was?" I thought. Well, the ex-pastor shot and killed his wife and I was sorry I resisted the impulse to confront him!
Now you've hit on the crux of the problem with the accuracy of intuition. Intuition can only be clear and accurate when we have no preconceptions or emotion for that matter. Preconceptions and emotion follow the information, and if one allows them to arise they will likely taint the information and/or it will stop coming forth. I suspect this is why we only get bits of information at a time. Information coming forth continues as long as it is not analyzed or interfered with in any way until after it stops on its own.
As mentioned above, sometimes we do know things about someone else, yet many times we do not receive any clear information about a course of action to take. Most likely with the psychologist, anything you would have been able to do, if you'd known the full story would not have changed the outcome, unless of course it could have been stopped sooner. Same with the ex-pastor. The probability of you having changed the outcome perhaps was there, but since he was receiving help chances are you confronting him would not have changed what happened.
Still there is such a wide range of probabilities at any given moment that it is difficult to decide what to do. It's possible that had you confronted him you may have received more information such as his wife being in imminent danger. Still there may not have been anything you could have done differently to change the outcome. That's part of the uncertainty of living in this world. We can only do the best we can at any given moment and learn to live with the uncertainty that abounds.
Kathy
Home
Pages: 
