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Diverse Ways of Inspiration: The Visionary, August 6
It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and
revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years
ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I
cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
2 Corinthians 12:1, 2
.
As inquiries are frequently made as to my state in vision, and after I come
out, I would say that when the Lord sees fit to give a vision, I am taken into
the presence of Jesus and angels, and am entirely lost to earthly things. I can
see no farther than the angel directs me. My attention is often directed to
scenes transpiring upon earth.
At times I am carried far ahead into the future and shown what is to take
place. Then again I am shown things as they have occurred in the past. After
I come out of vision I do not at once remember all that I have seen, and the
matter is not so clear before me until I write, then the scene rises before me
as was presented in vision, and I can write with freedom.
Sometimes the things which I have seen are hid from me after I come out
of vision, and I cannot call them to mind until I am brought before a company
where that vision applies, then the things which I have seen come to my mind
with force. I am just as dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord in relating
or writing a vision, as in having the vision. It is impossible for me to call
up things which have been shown me unless the Lord brings them before
me at the time that He is pleased to have me relate or write them.—
Selected
Messages 1:36, 37
.
Although I am as dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord in writing my
views as I am in receiving them, yet the words I employ in describing what I
have seen are my own, unless they be those spoken to me by an angel, which
I always enclose in marks of quotation.—
Selected Messages 1:37
.
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