The Word of My Testimony

Cora Frederick

May 1998

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." Revelation 12:12

I want to establish right off that I am not writing out of any authority of my own or of things or doctrines learned or studied, but as God's appointed messenger. Like Paul I say that I am not fit in myself to form personal judgments or count anything as coming from me; but my power and ability are from God Who has justified me (2 Corinthians 2:5‑6). Therefore, I come in all humility, in the fear of the Lord and in obedience.

In 1985 after an extended stay in a rehab hospital, God sent me Susie ‑ a prayer partner I hardly knew who challenged me to seek God for wisdom until I knew His will for my life (which I was slowly losing physically) so I could pray unwavering prayers with assurance that God would not only hear but would answer because it was His will (based on James 1:5‑8 and I John 5:14‑15). She came seven days a week for at least one hour a day for 1 1/2 years. It wasn't long before the Lord gave us a tremendous burden for the Body of Christ. He showed us that my body was like a picture of His Body. The disease of MS causes the messages from the head to be blocked from reaching parts of the body because of hard places that form in the nervous system. So the parts begin to act "willfully", doing what they were made to do but randomly and out of order. Then, exhausted and weakened, they are unable to respond when the head tries to signal them even if the messages get through. At that time, my body looked good outwardly ‑ most of the problems could not be noticed by the casual observer or during brief observation. In later years, the disorder and complications that resulted became outwardly manifest ‑ the body didn't look good anymore and this is also true of the Body of Christ as it has continued on disunified and often cut off from the Head. But during that time God also revealed that His will for me and for His Body was healing, so I began to pray consistently to that end regardless of what was happening. Early in 1986, the Spirit of God came upon me in private prayer and spoke that God was pouring out special gifts of intercession on thousands in order to prepare the way of the Lord by tearing down strongholds that had been built up for years against an accurate knowledge of His true nature in order to prepare for Himself a people He could inhabit and work through. I experienced amazing breakthroughs in prayer as confirmation of this. Although I didn't realize it at the time, I believe this was an outpouring of the Spirit and power of Elijah.

All this time I had seen the blindness of the Body but knew little of my own state. Then on March 23, 1986, the Lord revealed much of my life to me ‑ a life built on fear, anxiety and striving. I was drawn to the Cross and for months God gradually unraveled the mess of my life. I discovered I was an ally to sickness because I had used it to deal with all kinds of fears like responsibility, the future and many others. In wanting a way to control the things I feared, I opened the door to what was to become a tyrant master set on destroying me. I experienced deep sadness about my life but at the same time, hope for the future since up until then I had actually been afraid to be healed but didn't know why. As God continued to cleanse me He renewed my burden for His Body and, as He showed me more of Himself, I longed to see others set free. By now I was a personal intercessor to many leaders and missionaries but especially the sick.

In the spring of 1987, I sensed the Lord telling me to come away from personal intercession and concentrate on my own healing which was, by then, on the back burner. I found this direction hard to believe as it seemed selfish to me and took me away from what had become my life. I still had a long way to go in learning discernment and obedience apart from understanding. Since I didn't know what was right I waited on the Lord for confirmation or correction. Eight days passed with no answer. On the ninth day, I had what I called a vision but it was really something else. I was taken in the spirit to another time and place. I had no awareness of being in my home and no idea of how long I was gone. I was taken to the place where Jesus received His stripes ‑ in a sense, I am a witness. I cannot begin to describe the awfulness but the worst part was that every time the lash hit His back, the Holy Spirit in me cried loudly, "In Vain!". I remember sobbing violently and asking God what He meant. He spoke to me of how men, by their traditions, made the Word of God to be of no effect (in vain) (Matthew 15:6) and reminded me of Galatians 2:20‑21 where, concerning our salvation and being crucified with Christ, we are urged not to cause His grace to be in vain by observing the law, causing Him to have died for no purpose. He impressed on me that we can make any aspect of His salvation to be in vain and that physical healing was part of His salvation! I saw Him pay the price! For many years to come, hearing certain sermons, watching Ben Hur or other triggers would take me back to the original, almost unbearable level of grief I experienced as a witness to His beating.

After that experience, I entered a long period of mourning and a deep fellowship of His sufferings as I went on an extended partial fast to wait for direction as to what to do. After about 30 days, God gave me a choice which at the time I did not understand. I could take my healing (which was already in progress) by faith or go all the way to remove the "in vain" from His stripes. I chose the second (it was impossible to do otherwise) and the calling on my life began to unfold. God wisely concealed from me the length of time and suffering involved for, if I had seen it, I probably would not have been able to say yes. But given what I know now, if I was taken back and allowed to choose again I would make the same choice. For if I had been healed at that time, I would have been a singular healing ‑ a testimony to encourage others to climb the mountain of faith ‑ but I could not have reached down and said, "Such as I have, give I you". Only a few strong sheep would have benefited (as they have throughout the faith movement ‑ leaving the weakest to die, often scorned for their lack of faith). Many of the power ministries, which are so confusing to so many Christians, contain so much truth but prey upon the weak and diseased. This is described in Ezekiel 34 where we see God allowing some sheep to find good pasture and grow fat while others are pushed out and impoverished. But in that chapter, a great judgment of the fat sheep is pronounced. This is coming soon in our day to those who lured the needy, blamed any failure of God to act on their lack of faith, reveled in the good pasture with other fat sheep while being unable themselves to pray the prayer of faith that saves the sick. Many Christians have been turned off and rejected God's truth because of the way it has been handled by men.

In the fall of 1987, God drew me again to the Cross where He reached down to the very roots of my being, revealing my foundation was the Law and pride. I had never known any other way. There was no way to patch it up ‑ it all had to die. I needed a whole new life. It was a totally life‑changing crucifixion experience at a deeper level than I had ever known. God began to reveal to me the captivity of His Body and, in light of the Truth that kept being revealed to me about God, I discovered I was the chiefest of sinners! I had been an enemy of His grace and His stripes yet God was appointing me to be His messenger ‑ surely I can never boast!

It would take a book to tell you the depths of the captivity we have all been a part of. For years the Body of Christ has not really considered Who He is and we have actually become, over a period of time, blind and dull to the things of God. The Lord told me Isaiah 42:19‑25 describes our current condition. It begins by asking who in all the world is as blind as His own people who are designed to be messengers of truth, His "Servants of the Lord"? He goes on to say He has magnified instruction and revelation and made it glorious, and through it planned to show the world that He is righteous. But instead His people are robbed and plundered, all of them snared, hidden in houses of bondage where they have become a prey with no one to say "Restore them".

As the hearts of the Body gradually got hard, compromise and idolatry set in and as we got entangled in self interest and in the world, we came again under the power of the prince of this world, losing the freedom from sin and evil that Jesus died to give us. In Isaiah 42:23 the Lord goes on to ask, "Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?" Let us say now, "We will Lord!". For it was God who let us be robbed and hurt because we would not go where He sent us or listen to His laws according to Isaiah 42:24. Then in Isaiah 42:25b God says, "Yet though set on fire and burned, they will not understand the reason why ‑ that it is God wanting them to repent."

You may be thinking ‑ that's Old Testament. God isn't like that anymore. But consider 1 Corinthians 10:9‑12 and Acts 13:40‑41 which tell us that the words of the prophets were to be a warning to us living in the last days ‑ that we were to take care lest there come upon us what is spoken of in the prophets (referring to God allowing His own people to be taken captive). Captivity is costly ‑ many die. I know now why God took me from personal intercessions to go for the bigger picture. I wasn't always obedient because I didn't understand and many people I labored over in prayer died, causing me confusion and grief because I was in disobedience. During captivity God often takes the very best from among us prematurely ‑ it is part of His judgment against the Body of Christ. Isaiah 57:1 talks about the righteous man perishing prematurely while no one even lays it to heart or wonders why. And as sin abounds and in our blindness, we go on with business as usual. We actually make peace with the evil day, attributing as God's will those things that were meant to bring us to repentance and back to obedience. So we then must build captivity theologies which deny the power of God and distort His Nature all because we need an explanation for what we are seeing so we can continue to feel good as we go on in our own ways.

Isaiah 30:15‑23 tells us that when we make other things our source, He will let us be overtaken by them and as He does this, He waits ‑ until at last we are conquered and ready to throw away our idols. We have been raised in a time that causes us to run to the counsel of the ungodly in almost every area. We have not been able to find safety in the Lord, we have not been pruned and sin has not been purged from us as a Body. We have exalted medicine, psychology, education, money and business. Things that were given to us for our good have become idols. In Numbers 21:8,9 the snake on the pole was lifted and the people healed if they looked upon it. But years later they worshipped the snake on the pole and God had to destroy it. We have let medical science become an object of worship (interestingly it bears the same symbol of the snake on the pole). God asked me in 1987 to cease from going to physicians and put my case in His Hands. I never tell others to do that for I believe God has allowed many lives to be preserved and saved during this captivity by medicine. But He showed me it would come to confusion and failure, unstoppable plagues would come, the medical profession would become more and more corrupt and ungodly. But God also said He would prepare an ark of safety for His people and that only in Him would we be safe. This is true of all areas where we have exalted the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil over the tree of Life. It's going to get more and more chaotic.But God has a plan. He has taken many deep into captivity to prepare roads back to Zion from the areas where His people have been scattered. I am one of His many hidden (but about to be released) messengers. I am sure the message of the others will be as amazing to me as mine is to you! I have already been overwhelmed by how much has happened in the medical area ‑ beyond what I imagined. I am not saying that God will never send us to physicians ‑ I don't know that. I only know there only real safety will be in Him. We will no longer have to run in fear and put our very lives into the hands of godless men.

At the end of 1990, I had a tremendous breakthrough in prayer. The Holy Spirit came upon me all night long and I saw the completion of everything God had spoken ‑ it was finished in Heavenly Places. I expected immediate release. Instead, I became increasingly afflicted ‑ often close to death. I had to fight to even desire to live ‑ truly my sacrifice has been to live as dying would have been much easier. At that time, the special spirit of intercession that had been with me for five years since 1986 departed because that work was finished. But for me, it was a confusing time. I suffered intensely as I entered deeper into captivity in such darkness. I experienced, along with the Body, the complete feeling of aloneness and helplessness. God let me taste many sorrows of the brethren, especially spiritually. The light I had walked in was now just a memory I longed for and could not find. But this too was God's planned path for me.

He had forewarned me but I couldn't have really imagined what it would be like to actually pass through it. Yes, just a few days after the breakthrough, while I was still on a "high", a sister in the Lord sent me a prophetic word she'd heard at a conference which the Holy Spirit urged her to send to me. It was that a baby wet with birthing fluids had just been released. This amazed me as God had spoken to me just weeks before the breakthrough that the church had continually aborted his purposes but He had finally found a womb (not individual but corporate) to carry in travail His purposes to birth. He had spoken through me in a prayer gathering that the baby was now in the birth canal and there was no turning back. The sister who heard and sent the "birth announcement" knew nothing of any of this. I was still full of awe and strength as I sought God as to what this meant. He showed me a huge mountain the enemy had erected which was full of sin, darkness, sickness and demons. The Church had skirted it completely, for the most part avoiding it even though on the other side was the fullness of the inheritance of the saints. A few strong sheep had climbed it, resulting in the Ezekiel 34 type of situation I already described in the Faith movement. But now God's plan was to penetrate it. This was the birthing I'd experienced but it was just the beginning ‑ not the end! It was to become God's mountain and a path was to be made so anyone who wanted to could find the way. The Lord impressed on me it would be long and dark and I would not know when I was near the end except by the increase in pressure as those who followed grew into a mighty stream, pushing through until emergence came at last. I would feel squeezed almost unto death, smothered by darkness, lose my bearings, lose the sense of His presence but would need to remember I would come out. There would be absolutely no way to turn back because of the stream pushing me through, being driven by the breath of the Lord. At the same time I saw that those in the stream would suffer with me but also feel alone ‑ we would not be able to see each other. The mountain experience would not bring death but purifying and connection to these forerunners (just as water that passes through solid rock is purified) and many would follow in the stream. What would come forth would be mature, tested and tried, yet compassionate because of all of the sufferings and thus, able to reach down and say "such as I have give I you" to the poor and afflicted in Jesus' Name.

I had been ecstatic and had embraced this awesome plan, feeling I could do this for God. But I found out I could do nothing. I couldn't even quit although I often wanted to! Now I had to really learn to live by faith and experience what it meant to endure. My life verse for the 90's has been, "You have need of steadfast patience and endurance so that you may fully accomplish the will of God and thus receive and carry away what is promised". (Heb 10:36) There is a power not often taught and therefore little known in the Church today ‑ the power of patient endurance. Having done all, to stand ‑ when years pass and things only get worse is the hardest part of all. But God never let me go, though I fell many times. He stripped me of worldly things that used to matter so much ‑ fashion, hairstyle, food, youth, ability to perform, etc. so I could learn the true things of His heart unhindered by a society where the pressures and bombardments of all of this make it almost impossible. Although these things will be restored, I pray never again to be enslaved by them.

My precious friend, God's beloved ‑ I pray this opens your understanding to the times we have been in. I have prayed for you to receive divine impartation of this message as I know only the Holy Spirit can do this. There is so much more but I trust God has led me to share the most important aspects ‑ kind of an overview. I want to close by asking you to do some things in response to this message. God assured me the time is at hand ‑ He is going to move speedily. Pray for his imprisoned messengers to be encouraged, strengthened and not lose heart. Pray for their protection and soon release. Ask God to pour out the Spirit of Grace and Supplication on the Body of Christ so our eyes are opened to Him Whom we've pierced and can turn in repentance and welcome the new things He is about to do. (Zechariah 12:10) Finally, pray to be ready ‑ to be willing to let go of all things tied to the world system that have infiltrated your life and the life of the Church. Pray that we will all be ready, for a Valley of Decision time is coming along with God's time of deliverance. He has warned me that He will not strive forever with us ‑ we must choose that day Whom we will serve, whatever the cost, or be passed by. I am assured that God will send His people forth, not in Word alone but in demonstration and power. I fully expect to be walking among you soon, ministering life and truth in His power. He showed me long ago that many died in faith longing to see this day. I have traveled on a path built on the Blood of the Lamb and the blood of the saints. I am greatly honored to have run this race by God's grace. This is a true and accurate account of a witness of Jesus Christ and is the word of my testimony. I have given it as an act of obedience from my bed of affliction, from a dying body in full confidence that He Who has called me will raise me up and prove His Word in and through me as a sign and confirmation of the raising up of the true Church out of its ruins. May God Who watches over His Word to perform it bless and prosper this testimony and cause it to produce on earth the purposes for which He sent it.

I also want to thank God for and acknowledge the many committed intercessors He divinely raised up to hold me up and confirm my calling over the years, and I want to especially thank God for those coming to our home this past year and a half, most of whom didn't know me but were led by God to pray for and affirm me as His messenger. I could not have made it without them! And most of all I thank God for my precious husband Jim and daughter Jenny who have suffered with me, laying down much of their lives to care for my needs and encourage me to go on. God has made us completely one in spirit by His divine impartation to them so that they have come to fully understand and help bear the burden God laid on my heart so long ago ‑ all praise to Him!