A testimonial letter the Holy Spirit commissioned to go before me ahead of my first prophetic speaking engagement, which I was invited to by my Mentor, Pastor Luke Heald of Muir Foursquare Gospel Church in Muir, Pennsylvania.
Dear Reader,
Since I came forth from the womb my life has always been different. Even as a child the signs of the calling on my life followed me. Deemed an outcast, I struggled with finding my place in the world. I knew there was more than what my eyes could see, even miraculous encounters witnessed to the plans God had in store for me.
At the age of eleven, our house burned down on Christmas morning. The fire began in my bedroom and traveled throughout the house in seconds. Urgently waking up my brother Allen and our sister Jessica, I ordered Allen to wake up Mom and Dad as I carried my sister and our dog to safety. My Mother swears on her life that the fire only began the moment she stepped into the room to investigate it. Eleven year old me saw it begin five minutes before it did and saved my entire family. That was my first vision, but would surely not be my last. During that season God restored one hundredfold of what we lost, but He also ordered His angels to surround us; which I was able to see.
These events marked my life since its beginning. It didn’t always appear to me as a vision, but there has always been a battle between God and the devil -light and darkness- surrounding my life; even wrestling on the inside of me. It wasn’t until two weeks before my seventeenth birthday that my life spiraled out of control, which ultimately led me toward my destiny; that is, God’s plan for my life. On that day, which I refer to as ‘The Day That I Died,’ I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle on my way home from a soccer game with my friends. According to eye witness accounts the car slammed sixty miles per hour into my left side, propelling my body over its roof, twisting and turning seven times until I smacked the road headfirst to slide twenty-two feet. My bicycle was as broken as my body, as well as the hearts of my family who didn’t know if I would live or die. My skull was cracked, blood leaked through to my brain, my femur and tibia bones severed and/or broken in multiple places. Emergency surgery with a fifty percent survival prediction, I persevered, but with titanium rods now inserted in my leg. I can go on and on about how an angel was sent to me in my hospital room before my last CT Scan, how it was healed, even astonishing my Doctors, or share about how I saw an angel in the lifeline who I instinctively knew and whom asked if I was going to live or die. However, the takeaway from that event is that it was the first time in my life I knowingly cried out to God, which was to spare my life. I was unconscious, but my soul cried out and those who witnessed the accident said that my prayer was expressed verbally, as well. God did answer that prayer, but not only on account of me. My life was written in His book before one of them came to be.
I wish I could say that my life was forever changed for the better, that I put my faith in the Lord and started following Him from that day forward, but that wasn’t the case. My thoughts continually meditated on the supernatural events that surrounded my accident, curious about the mysterious figures (who I now acknowledge were angels) that came to me at that time, also remembering the other times in my life where strange things happened to me. In my searching and longing for answers, in the loneliness and isolation of knowing no one who experienced these things, I was discovered by a secret underground society (a cult) who came to me with crafty words and deceit, promising to help me harness my gift. They offered me the counterfeit of the true supernatural of God, feeding on my insecurities and longing for acceptance, and I took the bait. I spent five and a half years serving them through their consultant (my girlfriend) who trained me in sorcery and shamanism. In the ignorance of my deception, I did not realize how evil it was at first, but my heart became tainted and more corrupt the longer I stayed in. Until the Winter of 2012 when the truth came bubbling to the surface…
Two years leading up to my conversion God began drawing me to Himself by revealing the true agenda behind the ones I served. My heart grew more distant from them, but around the time of my conversion the full weight of what the occult had planned for me came to the surface and I discovered how evil the path was that I was on. A Christian played a huge role in my conversion. My last assignment from the enemy was to convert her to the path of darkness, but when she shared the Gospel with me after months of wrestling with the truth about the path I chose, the Holy Spirit spoke through my Christian friend in the first person and said to me, “The only way to the Father is through the Son,” which He repeated three times. I fell on my face, terrified at what God was going to do to me, because of how badly I rebelled against Him, but He said, “I have come to deliver you.” I wept like a newborn baby as I gave my life to Jesus and swore an oath to never return from the way I came. I proceeded to vomit out the Spirit of Deception all that night, which was my first deliverance session.
In the discipleship phase my eyes grew sharper as a Seer (as God would later call me), and the spiritual climate was thick like a dark cloud from the warfare. The Holy Spirit commanded me to do two things the week I was saved. The first was to read the Holy Bible from Genesis to Revelation; which I did in thirteen months under the weight of heavy persecution, and the second was to write a testimonial novel to share my story with the world and was told to name it, ‘From Darkness to Light.’ I later added the subtitle., ‘A Sinner’s Memoir,’ and published it in 2018. After my discipleship phase of four months, Satan sent a demonic army to prevent me from stepping into the calling on my life as a Prophet to the Nations (I didn’t know I was a Prophet at that time.) I entered into the Valley of the Shadow of Death immediately, as I vividly witnessed a war take place in the heavens all around me, and had my first encounter with God the Father by being caught away in a dream to His throne room to worship Him in the assembly of the Prophets.
Before I entered into the Valley of Shadows, the Holy Spirit again delivered a message to me through the first person and encouraged me, “Do not be afraid. The devil is coming hard against you right now, but I will be with you every step of the way. I will go before you and fight against him. Do not give up; do not give in. This is My will; for My glory! You don’t know how much strength you have inside of you. Good things are coming; great things! You will reach the multitudes; the masses! Just keep praising My name. Just keep praising My name.” That prophetic word became an anchor that kept my feet firm in the midst of chaos and anarchy. It always rerouted me back to His heart and kept mine rooted in Him.
It appeared that my trials would never end. I spent nearly seven years being chiseled, pruned, sanctified, purged, falling and rising again, backsliding and overcoming. Spiritual warfare was not a stranger to me as I pursued the heart of my Savior. Toward the end of 2018 the Lord began declaring a new season over my life. I started having greater encounters with Him; even having open visions to the point I didn’t know whether I was having a vision or not. The lines between the physical and the spiritual began to blur as I grew in my prophetic gifts. It was during that time that the Lord led me back to Muir Foursquare Gospel Church, where I attended after I was saved. In the ignorance of not knowing how to function out of my office of Prophet, I walked into the vestibule of the church after service was over to anoint Pastor Luke Heald in the presence of his sheep, because I saw something God wanted to do there through him. Luke was very patient with me and allowed me to finish my prophecy, but he was weary (and rightfully so!) Instead of taking me at my word, he waited until everyone left and sat down to talk with me. He tested me to see if I would submit to authority, fearing that a rogue Prophet would lead others astray from the truth. I didn’t consider myself a rogue, because I loved God’s children, both in and outside of the church, but rogue is what I was by definition. I had some spiritual fruit, but no training as a Prophet, nor the character to uphold it.
During 2019 Pastor Luke took me out to dinner multiple times to reroute me when he saw me going off on a tangent or straying from the truth. My flesh wanted to rebel, but the more we had those discussions the Holy Spirit confirmed that he was right and was sent on assignment by Him. I submitted myself to him as my Pastor, sitting down toward the front pew every Sunday, eagerly awaiting him to share the Gospel, which the Lord used to sharpen me as a believer and to truly graft me into the church body. The following year Luke invited me to join the Audio/Video ministry team to help run the Livestream at the start of the pandemic; which I still help with to this day. I submitted myself again as a servant of the Lord under Luke’s eye. After a couple years of submission to the place where He called me, God stirred Luke’s heart to meet with me once a week to disciple me in the office of the Prophet. By then, I was in no rush to take hold of it, but was submitted completely to the process of purification, discipline and character building. We studied the book from Kris Vallotton, ‘Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry.’ Pastor Luke and I grew close over the course of that time. Now the foundation of the Prophetic Ministry has been laid and secured in my walk with Christ and the Holy Spirit has been building on top of it. Currently, I am not only still involved in the AV Team, but am also in our Preacher Ministry with two other God-fearing men as Pastor Luke ministers to us about what it means to preach the Word of God from the pulpit, despite whatever office we are called to.
It has been an incredibly hard-pressed journey with the Holy Ghost, but I would never change the course He brought me, because the immense joy, fruit and breakthrough He has grown from the inside of me transcends any temporary displeasure or trial I’ll ever face on this earth. Even now, I acknowledge He has only just begun, and I bow myself low to the earth each day to give Him praise, submitting to and asking Him to create in me the most humble heart in the face of the earth, so that I may get out of His way and allow Him to do His thing in and through me, whatever that may look like. I am a Prophet-Seer called to the Nations, but first and foremost I am a son of the Living God and a servant of our beloved Lord, Jesus Christ.
With brotherly love,
Charles Gates Jr,
Servant of the Lord