Dear Sheepies of my flock,

My shepherd's heart aches to care for you! I am amazed that you are so quickly turned aisde [sic] from the care of the one God has called to lead you.

I understand Paul's heart, that after laboring to build and teach the Galatian church, he had to say to them "I am afraid ... that I have bestowed upon you labor in vain ... I would they were even cut off which trouble you." His circumstance was the same as mine-the devil through legalists was fighting his message of liberty in Christ.

God is anointing me with a new message: "the new man (i.e., those in the last Adam who walk in the Spirit and are therefore not under the law Gal. 5:18). The flesh man can never be sanctified or made perfect-he will always sin (Rom. 7). No man will get to Tabernacles in the bondage of the law: Your elders can never lead you there-they can only lead you backwards. They need my new revelations!

Jesus is doing a good work in me and He has given me the message that He loves me and He feels my pain and cares. He has promised to raise me up when He is ready, and come with vengence (He did not say upon who but I feel I know who). This was a powerful message through Donna Grefthen as she sobbed heavily, feeling a greater place in holiness than she had ever felt before.

I am still legally, and before God, your Pastor, for the takeover was entirely illegal, but the future will depend upon a judge's decision of what the state law says (or is assumed to be meant), modified by any bias he may have against such a "wretched man" as portrayed by your elders to the media.

I know that I am not the man characterized by the usurpers of my pulpit! I'm sure God does not feel that way about me either. Even the dissidents have not slandered more maliciously and inaccurately than my own elders! I have been wounded in the house of my friends and illegally cast out as a dead branch. But God will move one day soon and woe unto them that have done violence to God's chosen undershepherd! Not that I'm special but it is God, not man, who sets up pastors!

You have experienced an illegal coup. You have been tested-many have failed the test. Let me share some principles with you, but first let me affirm before God that I have fully repented for all my sins, sincerely, before God and He has forgiven me. Second, I have lived for 6 1/2 months with only a couple of slips (I said to the church "aImost perfectly"), this is true. Although I am without my wife, and with a need for love, and have people loving me, I am experiencing very little temptation, generally none, somtimes more-but I'm holding, and generally without much strain.

PRINCIPLE #1: If God appoints Moses as leader, don't follow the complaining of Aaron and Miriam (even if he did marry an Egyptian and "hogs" all the leadership).

And don't follow Korah even if Moses does seem to be leading them into the wilderness to die. Follow the one at the top that God chose until God removes him as at Mt. Nebo. God knows how to lift up and pull down-even Nebuchadnezzar found that out.

PRINCIPLE #2: Don't regard the fact that all of the elders of Israel stood by Absalom against David, as a sign that the elders are right by sheer reason of their numbers.

PRINCIPLE #3: God does not lead to do evil that good may come of it. He never is behind illegal takeover of churches! Never follow the rebels! The enclosed papers Prove the takeover as illegal.

PRINCIPLE #4: Never leave a pastor by listening to accusations against him, without his chance to defend each charge. Paul had many charges laid at his feet-Christ too. Never leave a pastor when you are uncertain. Be fully certain before leaving your shepherd that you are in God's will.

PRINCIPLE #5: Has God cast away your shepherd? If not, don't you.

PRINCIPLE #6: Those who violate laws because they think the law is illegal due to a higher civil law are lawbreakers. A law cannot rightly be violated because someone thinks it is unconstitutional! The courts must decide that. Our Bylaws are to be followed unless the courts say they conflict with other laws.

PRINCIPLE #7: God has forbidden accepting accusations unless one has at least two witnesses (for each accusation). Two or three accusers are not witnesses, neither are they evidence of proof.

PRINCIPLE #8: Overseers oversee those under them, not those over them. The scripture to submit to one another is only an admonition to be open to hear-it is not a legal power each can enforce over the other regardless if they agree or not.

PRINCIPLE #9; The elders' theology does not take precedence over the Pastor that God calls and gives the leading of the church and revelation to. Follow Pastor Paul when he is leading the church at Galatia, not the elders. Safety in a multitude of counsellors does not mean safety in a multitude of conspirators or rebel-elders who illegally take over their pastor's church.

Dearly beloved, church boards have ruined alot [sic] more churches than pastors ever have. Pastors may fail but they are much more apt to have God's mind than anyone else, as far as God's will for the church. If the elders had left me alone, the church would have prospered and not been splintered. It was they who stumbled the church with the Pastor's sins. Do you wonder why they never enumerated their own sins?

The real issue is not my sins (they have sins too-at least one is guilty of much more than I, and yet he is one of the front men to condemn me). The real issue is legalism vs. anti-legalism. I see the warfare clearly. No one will get to Tabernacles in the flesh. I feel God's anointing on me for messages that will set us free into liberty of the Spirit. Without this, the church will sink into bondage under heavy control. The signs are already there.

I warned last year at campmeeting about rebellion in the leadership-now the seeds have come to the full.

I have been castigated as a wicked, lying man unworthy to attend church, given over to Satan, but I am a soft, broken, humble servant of God, loving, forgiving and merciful-fearing God and endeavoring to walk in all righteousness. I love God and His leading and presence is still with me.

If the court gives away my church on any grounds, I will carry on God's message elsewhere till God reunites us. The revelations, the ultimate move in the Spirit and the depths of teaching will follow my ministry. As far as Alice's message stated "God has anointed me to be Pastor."

I am not fearful for I know God will lead me, whether my following is many or few. I hope that you will be one with me.

Much Love,
Pastor Don Barnett