-- © Transforming Life Prophetic Ministry -- 1999 --
-- Do Not Reprint without written permission from John Webster, <prophetjpw@aol.com> --

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Author: John Webster
Transcriber: Lucy Deliganis
Editors: Paul Cummins, Teresa Seputis

Prophetic Training 201 -- Week 7 Teaching

Helps and Hindrances

In this session, we are going to be talking about the helps and hindrances to hearing God's voice. Those things that aid us, assist us, and help us to hear God's voice, and other things that hinder us from hearing God's voice. First we will talk about the helps.

Help 1 -- Fellowship with God

The first help we are going to talk about is fellowship with God -- spending time with the Lord. This is perhaps the best thing you can do in learning to hearing God's voice. In John 15:15, Jesus says to His disciples, "Henceforth, I call you no more servants because a servant does not now what his master is doing, but now I call you friends because all things that the Father has showed me I make known unto you." Now what we notice out of this verse is that there has been a change in relationship between Jesus and the disciples. Previously there was a master-servant relationship between them and now the relationship has changed and it is a friendship relationship. The thing that made the change was communication. Jesus says, "I am calling you friends because what the Father has made known to Me, I have made known to you." So it is communication that has made the change.

So one of the best things that you can do for your communication is relationship. The best thing you can do for your relationship is communication. These things work together. So what I would encourage you to do is spend quality time with the Lord and listen to the Lord. With my children, we have a practice in our home that we call "daddy time." This is where we have just one on one with one of the kids. "Daddy time" can be anything. It can be a short three minutes where one of them wants to just climb up in my lap, and they just want to be held or talked to or play. It can also be an extended time. Sometimes I take the kids out. In fact I try to make a regular practice of this. I have never committed to the children or told them what my intentions are, but in my heart I try to give my kids a major one on one time every week. Therefore, we will go out and have lunch, or do something together. That is "daddy time." It is always one on one, or one child at a time.

What I have found is that it really helps bonding, and it really helps communication. This is where the children tend to open up and talk about things that are on their mind. And I end up talking about things that are on my mind. I end up opening up. We have heard the statement before that it is not how much time you spend with somebody, it is the quality of time you spend with them. Now I think that is only half true. I think quality time is very important and so is quantity. If we are not careful, our concept of quality will lead us astray, and we will not feel as if we have to spend that much time. This also applies with your time with the Lord.

There might he several different types of time that you spend with the Lord. One of them might be your daily devotional. You just spend time with the Lord, and this is where you are being built up spiritually. God may be speaking truth to you, and you may have scripture that you prepare your heart with. You may have a prayer list and things that you cover and also some time where God can speak to you.

You may have a second type of time that you spend with the Lord where it is intercession. This is where you feel you are interceding and you are petitioning heaven and bombarding hell. The whole purpose of that time with the Lord is intercession.

There is a third type of time that you can spend with the Lord. I am not necessarily proposing that you have to do all of this every day. The devotion of course you need to do every day. But I firmly believe in another type of time with the Lord that I call "Daddy time." Galatians 4:6 says, "He has given us a spirit of adoption in our heart that we cry out, Abba Father." Abba is Aramaic for Father. It is the familiar form. In our vernacular, it might be translated "Papa" or "Daddy." "Daddy time" is where we come to the Lord and it is strictly a relational time. We do not have any jobs to do. There are no tasks to do. We are not approaching God with a prayer list. We are not interceding on behalf of everybody. It is strictly relational with no agenda. The whole reason we are getting together is to get together. What are we going to do when we get together? Oh, I do not know, just whatever comes! We will let God decide that. Or maybe something will come up in our hearts that we want to talk about. "Daddy time" is real important. This is when you develop quality and quantity "Daddy time" with the Lord. You make a practice of simply climbing up in His lap, putting your arms around His neck, saying "I just want to spend time with you. What do You want to do?" You are going to notice that your communication with the Lord is going to develop dramatically.

Probably one of the things on God's mind is that He wants to encourage you. He wants to talk about how much He loves you. He wants to talk about the wonderful things that He has made within you and the gifts you have. He wants to talk about what makes you special. God loves to do that with His kids. He likes to build them up, edify them, and prepare them for their destiny. When you learn to receive and to hear when God is speaking that way, it brings great clarity to the voice of the Lord. When you have "daddy time," you are going to open up and find out that He is a talking God.

One of the things that you can do is spend time with the Lord. This goes back to learning to tell the twins apart. You have twins on the inside of you -- the voice of the Lord and the voice of your own heart. Just like identical twins in the natural and when you first are acquainted with them, it is hard to tell them apart. The more time you spend with them you find the more distinct they become. The more time you spend with the Lord -- quality and quantity time, the more distinct and separate the voice of the Lord becomes from the voice of your own heart.

Now let me just give you an additional point to this. If there has been a gap in your quality time with the Lord, those voices then become less distinct. I mentioned in one of our earlier lessons about the twins, and I talked about Paul and Patrick Weaver. These are the twins that I got so acquainted with that I lost track of the fact that they were twins. Then I was not around them for quite some time and I saw them again. I confused them and made a mistake calling Paul, Patrick and Patrick, Paul. This was because I had not been around them enough and I had forgotten their distinct marks in their nature. So they will start to blend in together again if you lose that quality time with the Lord.

Help 2 -- Exercising the Senses

A second help in learning to hear the voice of the Lord with clarity, consistency, and confidence is to continually exercise your senses. This is to always be on the look-out-- always looking, always listening, always perceiving what is God saying to me. You have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears. Use them! Begin to function in the Spirit realm, just as you function in the natural realm. We are spiritual beings living in a spiritual dimension. Let's begin to function in that dimension. Let's sharpen our senses. Let me give you just one suggestion on how you can do this.

Many times God will examine your heart. It is as He turns the search light of His Spirit on your heart. I find God doing this with me almost continually. As often as I will listen, it seems as the Lord will speak to me. He will say, "Why did you do that? Why did you react to that person that way? What were you thinking? What was in your heart?" Sometimes the answer is good. It is not always bad. The Lord is often probing, proving, and examining, and testing. Job 23:10 is an encouraging verse to me. It says, "But He knows the way that I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold." So when God examines your heart and motives, it can be good news sometimes. Continually listen. Exercise your senses all the time.

Help 3 -- Be Obedient

A third help in hearing the voice of the Lord is very important. In fact it would be difficult for me to overstate its importance. That is to be obedient to what you hear. When the Lord speaks to you, be obedient to it. Sometimes He gives you instructions and we have to do something and be obedient. Other times, He makes aware to us an attitude or motive and we have to be obedient to make a change. Sometimes He tells us things about ourselves that are very good, and we are unwilling to believe this about ourselves. We have to be obedient and choose to believe what God says, instead of the lies of our own heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" Your heart is probably going to criticize you. Tell you things that are lies and berate you, and you have to choose to believe God. You have to choose to believe what God says about you and not what your own heart says about you.

If we are not obedient to the voice of the Lord, then what we are doing is by choice turning a deaf ear to God's voice. The repercussions to that should be obvious. When we turn a deaf ear, we are setting ourselves up to have difficulty in hearing the next thing He says because our hearing is now dulled. When we start saying to the Lord, "No, I don't want to listen to that. No, I do not want to hear that," our hearing will be effected, isn't it? It's just real important to be obedient.

Now what happens if while you are hearing this teaching, you begin to examine your heart. Or maybe the it is the Lord that is examining your heart. You begin to realize that you have not been obedient as you needed to be in some areas, and you are afraid that it has affected your hearing. What do you do now? You confess it. You take it to the Lord and say, "God, I have been wrong. I have turned a deaf ear and have not been willing to hear what you have to say. Lord, I ask You to forgive me." Then you repent, and have a change of heart-- a change of direction. "Lord, I turn my back on my spiritual deafness. I choose to have keen hearing, to listen and obey." So, this does not doom you to deafness because you disobeyed. It will affect you and it will cause your hearing to diminish, but you can also confess it and repent. Then your hearing can be restored. Isn't that good news?

Help 4 -- Covet the Gifts

A fourth help is to covet the gifts. I am talking about the gifts in I Cor., chapter 12. I Cor. 12:1 says, "Desire spiritual gifts. 1 Cor.14:39, says "Covet to prophesy." God wants us to move in the gifts of the Spirit, and we have to have a desire for that It says to desire it-- covet it, to have a strong inclination for it really, to really want it. Let me just give you a little help here. For those of you that might say, "I just do not have that gifting, or I just do not have a passion or desire along those lines." Or for those of you that fear you might make a mistake. You have a fear of failure, or a fear of man. Let me just explain to you coveting. Coveting is a very strong passion, isn't it? Now we normally think of the negative aspects of coveting like lusting. Whether it is lusting for position, fame, job, or promotion. There is one thing about lusting though and that is when you get your focus on something that you really want, nothing else seems to distract you. You are willing to ignore good sense and reason. Even though you know that that car is way overpriced and it is not practical for your family, you are willing to ignore those factors. All you know is that you want that car. Right? That is lusting or coveting. You ignore what is reasonable. You ignore the rational because of your desire. The Lord says to covet to prophesy and desire spiritual gifts. The Lord wants us to have such a strong passion and desire to hear His voice and to minister that voice to others that we lose track of what is rational and reasonable according to our natural man. It is not so much, "Am I going to make a mistake? Am I going to fail?" You just know that you want to minister to them. You want to hear God's voice and be a vessel of the voice of the Lord. You have decided this is what you want, and you do not want anyone to talk you out of it, including the fear of your own heart.

Now, how do you do that? Now I do not think anybody here needs lessons on stirring up lust and being covetous. The carnal man has probably taught you that lesson well enough. Now redeem it and do it in the spiritual way. By the way, this is the only thing God tells us to covet. So some of you that are looking for an excuse to covet. You have it on this one. Covet to prophesy. The reason we encourage you to do that is because number one it is a scriptural command. Number two is as you have a strong passion and desire to hear God's voice and to minister that voice to other people, it is going to aid you in the hearing process. Because that is your focus and burning desire, you will turn your attention to it.

Now what if you just do not have that desire. What if you do not have that passion? Stir it up. II Tim. 1:6 says, "Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands." So what do you do if you do not have a passion and desire? You stir it up. Now generally speaking, our emotions tend to follow our though processes. If you start dwelling on something like if someone said something rude to your earlier. Soon you may find that your emotions follow by feeling offended and before you know it you are in a full blown argument with this person in your mind. They are no where to be seen! Why is that? Your emotions have followed your thoughts. Now this is not an absolute and there are some strong emotional motivations that we have that it is not always easy to guide them with your thoughts. But by and large your emotions can follow your thoughts.

It works the same way with positive thoughts. Think of a friend that you have not seen for fifteen years. Maybe you have been out of contact with them. Think back to that friend and everything you liked about them and how you enjoyed their company. The first think you know is that you have fond feelings. Your emotions are beginning to respond. So if you do not have a desire when the word says to desire spiritual gifts, and you do not have a coveting nature when it comes to prophesying, what do you do? Stir it up by thinking about it.

Help 5 -- Make Hearing a Lifestyle

Another help is to make hearing the voice of the Lord a lifestyle, not just in church. Now we have talked about this extensively in earlier lessons. We are just going to mention it here. Do it all of the time.

Help 6 -- Gathering Jordan Stones

And then there is gathering Jordan stones. I want to take you over to Joshua. This is a lesson that has helped me immensely and I trust that it will be a blessing to you. In Joshua:1, we find an event and we are going to draw a principle from this event. We find that the children of Israel are coming out of forty years of wilderness wanderings under Moses, and they are entering now into the Promised Land under Joshua. As they cross over the river Jordan in chapter 4:2,3 the Lord spoke to Joshua saying, "Take for yourselves twelve men from the people. One man for every tribe and command them saying, 'Take for yourself stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place that the priests stood firm, and you shall carry them over with you and leave them in a lodging place where you lodge tonight.'' So what has happened here is that as the priests stepped in the river Jordan, God parted the river. They crossed over on dry land into their Promised Land. The Lord is saying to pick up a rock for every tribe. That would be twelve rocks. Verse 6 says, "And this may be a sign among you when your children ask in times to come saying, 'What do this stones mean to you?', Then you will answering them saying the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones shall be for a memorial of the children of Israel forever."

So they took those twelve rocks and they walked with them for a day. Where ever they lodged for that night, they piled them up and made a little memorial. So that when people came around and asked why that pile of rocks was there, they could testify of the miracle that God did to bring them into their promised land. These were rocks from the river Jordan. I call them Jordan stones. They are a place where we remember what God has done. I have Jordan stones in my heart. When God does something really exciting such as when He speaks to me, and I hear His voice clearly, and have a way to validate that it really was the Lord -- that is a Jordan stone. I even have a place where I write them down. Because you can forget them. Then when God speaks to me and you say, "Is it me or is it God?", you can remember your Jordan stones. You can remember that He came to you at a certain time and that was God. God did this, and God did that. Faith begins to arise in your heart. You have a memorial, or a place to remember what God has done for you. It really bolsters your faith.

I do this when I am prophesying. There are times when I begin to open up and prophesy the word of the Lord and fear begins to enter my heart. Maybe the natural man enters in and says, "You are making a mistake." Remember the unjust judge that doesn't know what is going on in spiritual things? In my heart sometimes and when I am prophesying, I begin to recount my Jordan stones. I put my mind to good work. See, my spirit man is prophesying. My natural man needs something to do. Faith will arise. You do the same thing. You are making hearing the voice of God a lifestyle, aren't you? Keep yourself a notebook that has your Jordan stones in it.

Help 7 -- Realize Everyone Can Hear

Another help is to realize that ordinary people can hear God's voice. It is not just for people in ministry, pastors, and prophets, etc. It is for everybody. "My sheep will hear My voice." That is the whole flock, isn't it? Realizing that helps us because sometimes our heart says, "Well, maybe everybody else hears God's voice, but I am not doing it." The enemy wants to isolate us and make us feel like a special case. In this situation, I have a special problem. That we are the only ones that are fighting this battle. We are the only ones that have a hard time hearing God's voice. We have to realize that no, everybody hears God's voice.

Hinderance 1 -- Lack of Obedience

Now, let's talk about a few hindrances. This is not to focus on the negative, but to draw your attention to things that can be setbacks so that we can avoid them. The first hindrance is lack of obedience. Jeremiah 22:21 says, "I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, I will not hear. And this has been your manner from your youth that you did not obey My voice." When we do not obey the voice of the Lord, it begins to dull our hearing. The Lord has dealt with me in this manner. When God speaks to me, if I do not like what He says, and I argue with God, He just kind of stops right there. He does not go on to the second thing. He stays with the first thing. He is very patient. You see He inhabits eternity, so He has a long time to wait. So, you see He can out wait you. If you are saying, "God, I really don't want to do that. Can't we move on?" God is saying, "I'll be right here when you come to your senses. This is where you can find me" So when we get in a place of disobedience, it hinders us from hearing God's voice because there is nothing more to hear. God said it and now we are in a place of decision. The hearing part is over. We have already heard. God is going to talk any more about it. It's a matter of obedience. One thing that hinders us from hearing God's voice is when we try to move on without obeying. You may also find that if you resist God in one area, you are resisting Him in others. That's an area for God to test your heart and prove you.

Hinderance 2 -- Reasoning

A second hindrance to hearing God's voice is reason-- analytical thinking, logic, natural though processes. Those things can hinder the voice of the Lord. There is something about our natural man that is very presumptuous. It wants to test and prove spiritual matters. We have already talked quite a bit about this. It always wants us to verify and pass judgment on spiritual things. Some people are made in such a way that if it does not line up with natural reasoning, they cannot buy into it. They have to learn to submit their natural reasoning and thought processes to God's voice. If you do not, then it is going to be hard for you to hear the voice of the Lord because there is always going to be that tension or argument. God says something, and you find your reason rejecting what God says.

Hinderance 3 -- Fears

A third hindrance is fear-- fear of making a mistake, fear of criticism, fear of rejection. All of those kinds of fears that rise up on the inside of us. Let me just give you a little tip here to help you conquer fear. Of course, probably the best way you can conquer fear is to hear God's voice as to its source or its point of origin. Why am I fearful? Well, is it because you are insecure and you have no sense of self-worth, therefore you are drawing what little value you have from the opinions of others? You are afraid to violate the opinions of others, or cause them to have the wrong opinion of you? Because then it will make you feel bad as a human being. That's a heavy one, isn't it? Until that happens, let me give you a little, small step. Ask God to speak to you. When God's voice comes to you say, "Lord, I do have this issue of fear and I am obviously not over it. I'd like to be over it. Lord, will you speak to me on the level where I am at, until I get over the fear?" If God speaks to us as if we have no fear, but we do, then it is really hard for us to get there, isn't it?

Here is what I did when I first started prophesying. I was so afraid that I was going to make a mistake. My big fear was that I was going to say something that was wrong. At that time I really did not know the Bible too well, and I was afraid I was going to prophesy something false. Now I really wanted to prophesy. I had the desire. My problem was boldness, faith, and confidence in God. I said, "Lord, will You please give me a little boost here? I need some help. I know You would love for me to get over this fear thing and get on with it, but I'm not able to do that. At least I am not doing it." Here is what He did. I found myself asking the Lord to give me a prophecy that was very scriptural. That way even if I get up and prophesy and miss it and it's not Him, at least it is scripture. The worst I have done is gotten up and quoted scripture!! How is that going to hurt anybody? Even if I failed, I have done well by quoting scripture. That was my helper step. Once I started doing that, then somehow the faith arose in my heart then to depart from just quoting a scripture or prophesying a word that was just very obviously drawn from a particular verse.

Hinderance 4 -- Tradition

Another hindrance is tradition. In the church, tradition has taken a hard rap. Tradition is not bad. Religious tradition can be very bad. Some are good. Praying before your meal is a tradition. As far as I read the Bible, there is nothing in scripture that says you have to bless your food before you eat it, right? Now we have a couple of good examples where Jesus blessed the bread before He broke it and gave it to the disciples. But there is no commandment. That is a tradition. But I think it is a good tradition. We celebration resurrection on Easter Sunday. There is not a commandment in the Bible that says on Easter Sunday have a special celebration commemorating the resurrection. That's tradition, isn't it? I think it is a very good one. So some are very good, and some are bad.

Religious tradition is when we do things in the house of the Lord, or in our spiritual lives simply because that is the way we have always done it. It's not based on the truth or word of God. Then that can be a bad thing. We want to do what God has required of us or leading us to do. But when we have traditions and God speaks to us saying to violate those traditions, that may be a real hindrance to us. So we are denying the voice of the Lord because of our tradition.

Hinderance 5 -- Opinions

Another hindrance is opinion. Hindering the voice of the Lord can be our opinions. A belief or a dogma would be a belief in something that is truth based on the word of God. An opinion is simply how we choose to believe. True or untrue, we believe it that way by choice. It is our opinion. Some people's minds are like cement. It's all mixed up and permanently set. There is just no change in it. They have their opinions, and there is no getting beyond those opinions. When people feel very strongly about their opinions, this is a major hindrance to hearing the voice of the Lord. Because when God speaks and our opinion disagrees with it, we may be unwilling to give up how we believe, even when God is telling us differently.

Hinderance 6 -- Mindset

Another hindrance is a mindset A mindset is when we believe a certain way and we are very set in that way of thinking. We are very resistant. It's very similar to an opinion, except most of the time a mindset has a certain amount of blindness. We just do not know any better. It is just the way we see things. This is our perspective on things. Some people have very strong mindsets. They see things in a certain way, and they are blind to anything other than that. They do not even know that they are blind, and when the Lord tries to say something about that, they may find themselves thinking it just does not make sense. I do not think that way, and done even know there was another way to believe.

Hinderance 7 -- Despair

Another hindrance is despair or discouragement. When we are in despair and discouraged and things are looking bleak, it can be real tough to hear God's voice. Because we are in kind of a "woe is me" mentality, and we are not open to encouragement or thinking things really can work out. When we are down in the dumps, it can be very difficult to hear the voice of the Lord.

Hinderance 8 -- Emotional Involvement

Being emotionally involved with something can be a hindrance to hearing the voice of the Lord. Emotional involvement gives us very strong feelings about something. I noticed when I was in Bible College that those Bible college students that started dating would become attached and emotionally involved. Then, when they started to turn serious with each other, they would say, "Let's stay apart for a while. Maybe a couple of weeks, even a month. Let's begin to pray and fast and see if this is the mind of the Lord." You know what? It was too late. They were way past that point. Why is that? Because they were emotionally involved. Now I am not saying it is impossible to hear God in that situation, and maybe some of you are in that situation and God really did speak to you. So it's not an absolute. But for the most part, when you are that crazy about someone and emotionally involved, thinking about marriage, you have too much momentum to really hear clearly.

I know this is not a marriage course, but let me just give you the way I see it. I think it is far better to hear the Lord clearly before you take a step in a relationship. That does not mean that you have to know if this person is going to be your husband or wife before you take them out on the first date. I would not be that extreme. I would say this, though. Spend time with them. Keep your emotions in check. Don't let them flow freely, unless you have heard from the Lord that it is okay. Because you can fall in love with somebody that is not purposed for you. What are you going to do? You either marry them out of the will of God, or you obey God, and you are crushed. Neither one of those is an attractive alternate, is it? I would suggest whether we are talking about dating or anything else, to try not to get too emotionally involved until you have heard from the Lord that it is okay. Then only be involved only to the extent that God has told you. Most of these things are step by step, aren't they? We just do not fall in love overnight. The Lord can guide you. If you find yourself very emotionally involved, it may be very difficult for you to hear clearly. If that is the case, one of the best things you can do is bring your emotions back into check. That is possible. Next, rely on the spiritual wisdom and counsel of other men and women of God that you respect. Lean on them. Be accountable to them and it could be the saving of you. Again, this is not just in marriage. This is in anything.

Hinderance 9 -- Guilt

Guilt is another hindrance to hearing the voice of the Lord. Guilt closes the door to receiving from God because we tend to avoid God when we feel guilty. When we are avoiding God, we are turning a deaf ear to what He has to say and that is a hindrance.

The Times God Does Not Speak

Now we have been spending a lot of time talking about the fact that God does speak to every one of you. God loves to talk. Is there ever a time when God does not talk? Yes, there are. There are some special circumstances. The general rule is God talks, we hear. So by and large, we should be in regular dialog and communication with the Lord.

The first one when God does not speak is when we are in a test. Evelyn Hamon, Dr. Hamon's wife, does a wonderful teaching on this. When you go to school, the teacher lectures and gives you instruction. Sooner or later, there is going to be a test. If you are taking a test and you raise your hand, saying you forgot one of the problems, the teacher will say she is sorry. She cannot answer your question because this is a test. There comes times when God has instructed you. He has shown you His character and His nature, and then He gives you a test to see if you will operate based on His character and nature that He has shown you. It's a test, and we cry out to God for answers. He says that He is sorry. He cannot answer you. It's a test.

Another time when God may be silent is that normally when He is silent in one area, He is talking to you in another. Some people that are real interested in going into ministry are asking the Lord, "When is the time for me to go into ministry?" They just do not hear an answer from the Lord. It may very well be that the Lord is talking to them about their family. Put your family in order. Let's have some structure here. Let me talk to you about disciplining your children and loving your wife sacrificially. What you do is say, "Okay, God, if you are not talking and I am in a test, what area are you talking to me in?"

A third area is if God is silent now, He may have answered you before now. There are times when we are asking God and trying to talk to Him, and God is silent. If you find yourself in that situation, go back to the last time you remember God spoke to you. What did He say and have you done it? Were you obedient to your last point of contact and conversation? If you were not, that may be the reason He is silent. You are not being obedient to that. If you will come back and be obedient, then you can get beyond that, and God will talk to you about more things. So there are times when God is silent. These are some of them.

What Can You Do?

What you can do if God is silent and you are in a test and have been for a while, what you can do is hand in your paper. You may have failed, but God I am stuck. I give up!! Just hand in your paper! If He is silent in one area, be attentive to the other areas. If you have mindsets, you may find He is talking to you about those mindsets and opinions and you just do not want to listen Finally, if He has already answered you, go back and be obedient. Remember to confess your sin, asking God to forgive you, and ask God to help you be obedient so that you can move beyond that point.

Lord, we thank You for identifying some of the things that can help us and other things that can hinder us. My prayer for these people is that You would cause them to focus on the helps and avoid those hindrances in hearing Your voice. In Jesus' Name Amen.


-- © Transforming Life Prophetic Ministry -- 1999 --
-- Do Not Reprint without written permission from John Webster <prophetjpw@aol.com> --