Missions – Part 3 Lawson Perdue and Delron Shirley

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’re with us today. I have my good friend, Dr. Delron Shirley, and we’re gonna have a great time. And we’re gonna be talking about world harvest. We’re gonna talk about missions, and we’re gonna talk about how you can be involved wherever you’re at. So stay tuned. You’re gonna hear some great word today. God bless you. Hi friends, I’m just so glad that you’re here today and it’s great to have Dr. Delron Shirley, my dean, my good friend, and I love him and his wife, Peggy. They have a great ministry, “Teach All Nations,” and he’s traveled to about 70 nations of the world, preaching the gospel, sharing Jesus, and it’s just wonderful. I’ve known you since, wow, 1987. And you’ve been a great friend, I really appreciate you.

 

  Well, thank you, and you as well.

 

  You know, you’ve been so faithful. And the Bible says, “A faithful man who can find.” And so I appreciate you 

 

  You as well.

 

  Just share about what you want. We’re talking about world missions at IC, share whatever you wanna share.

 

  Okay, yeah. Well, you know, when we talk about missions, a lot of people think, “Hey, you know, I gotta go.” And certainly there are those who go, you know, but Paul says, you know, “How can they hear unless someone goes, and how can someone go unless he’s sent?” And so, you know, the sender is just as important as the goer. And so last time, yesterday we were talking about, you know, sowing funds into mission work, you know, but there’s another aspect which is sowing your prayers into mission work. I was in Nigeria, and I did something, twisted my back or whatever, but, you know, I’ve never had any back problems, but this particular trip, I was just in excruciating pain. And I was teaching at a conference where I was teaching like four, one a day, in Africa, they like long teachings, you know?

 

  They’re not like us Americans.

 

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, an hour and a half is short for them, you know? And so I had like four hour and a half sessions, every day. And 

 

  That’s a lot of teaching.

 

  It is, yeah, standing up and, you know, and my back was just killing me. And so anyway, just before I had gone to Nigeria, I’d had dinner with a lady who just said, “Hey, you know, I wanna pray for you while you’re gone.” And I said, “Well, great.” And so I got her email and she gave me her email, and I gave her mine, or whatever. Anyway, so, you know, here I am over there in Nigeria, you know, standing up, teaching hours every day, excruciating pain, standing up. And so I emailed her that night after the first day of the conference, and I said, you know, “You said you wanted to pray for me while I was in Nigeria, and here’s my request.” And so then the next day at 2:00 in the afternoon, I’m standing up teaching, and all of a sudden, exactly at 2:00, the pain just totally disappeared. And I’ve never had it again since then, years later. But anyway, it just totally went away.

 

  Wow.

 

  And so when I got back to the hotel that night, I emailed this lady and I said, “Did you by chance open up your emails at 7:00 this morning?” Because 7:00 in the morning in Colorado Springs is 2:00 in the afternoon in Lagos, Nigeria. And, “Did you by chance at 7:00 this morning, open up your emails and pray for me?” And she says, she responded and says, “Yes, I did. And in fact, I called another friend of mine that is a prayer partner, and we agreed on the phone for your healing.” And you know, this particular lady has never given a penny to our ministry, you know, but 

 

  That’s better than money, at that point.

 

  Exactly. She is still one of my most important partners, you know, because her prayers, you know, brought healing to me.

 

  Thank God.

 

  And, and I’ve heard many, many stories. Lester Sumrall used to tell stories about when he was in Tibet, and he was almost dying. And then 

 

  I remember the story.

 

  And then he got back to the U.S. and he was preaching at this church, and a woman said, you know, “Do you keep a diary?” And he said, “Yes,” and she said, “Well, tell me about this particular day.” And when he opened up the diary, that was the day he was almost dying and suddenly got healed. And then the lady looked at her diary and she said, “Well, that was the exact day God woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to pray for you.” And, you know, so prayer intercession is very important. We have to be those who give. We have to be those who pray. And then some of us are those who actually get the opportunity to go and bring in the harvest, you know?

 

  Yeah, well, we can all bring in a harvest wherever we’re at.

 

  Yeah, exactly.

 

  You know, we have a mission field. Our neighbors, our friends, our family, wherever it is, we should never be ashamed. I liked how you started the week, don’t be ashamed of the gospel. But you know, how many times does God impress on us to pray for someone?

 

  Mmhmm.

 

  And I know a lot of times I wake up in the night, I’ll be impressed to pray for this person. I’ll be impressed to pray for someone early in the morning. In fact, a lot of times, you know, I get up and I exercise very early in the morning, but I’ll be impressed to pray for someone and I’ll pray for them, but maybe later, when I’m driving to work or something, I’ll call ’em. And I’ve had this happen.

 

  Yeah.

 

  People that I haven’t spoken to for over a year.

 

  Yeah, mmhmm.

 

  You know, on the phone 

 

  Mmhmm.

 

  I speak to ’em when I see ’em in church, but I’m impressed to pray for them, and then I pray, and they’re like, “Oh, did you know,” I know one I called, you know, within the last six months, I just felt impressed to call this person. When I called, his wife said, “We had to go to the hospital last night, and he’s dealing with this issue.” And now a few months later, he’s completely healed from that. And another person, I called him, his wife, he’s an older gentleman, she said he got so sick and he had lost 10 pounds, and thank you for calling. And well, you’ve been on my heart, you’ve been on my mind. I’ve been praying for you.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And that just encourages them. And so thank God that we do have those people who pray and who believe God stand with us.

 

  Exactly.

 

  You know, Jesus said, “If two or three of you shall agree on Earth, is touching anything that you ask,” in Matthew 18, “it shall be done for you whatsoever you ask.” And so thank God, you know, prayer works, and we have the power of agreement. We can take authority in the name of Jesus, and we can take authority over all the works of the Devil. And I know this is something that I really learned from Dr. Lester Sumrall, that we have authority over the works of the Devil, and we don’t have to just suffer with it, or we can take authority over it. And so when we understand our authority in the name of Jesus and we pray and take authority, then it just leads to great victory.

 

  Exactly, yeah. And God, speaking of great victory, in one of our earlier programs, I told you about how that we interceded for the government of Nepal to change.

 

  Right.

 

  For four or five years before we actually got a chance to go over there. Well, when I went in, I carried in cases and cases and cases of Christian literature in the Nepali language. And when we got to the customs officers, the customs officer, you know, says, you know, “What have you got in all these boxes?” And these were the same men who before the government had changed, would have arrested me for even bringing in one gospel tract.

 

  That’s crazy.

 

  But I ripped the case open and I said, “It’s just free literature I’m gonna give out to your people,” and I started handing it to those officers.

 

  Amen.

 

  And you know, so I was able to share the gospel with them before I even got in the country. They didn’t arrest me, they didn’t stop me, but, you know, they would have, except for, like you said, prayer changes things.

 

  Right, I remember I went to Russia with Dr. Lester Sumrall, and this was in 1991, and he actually held a crusade in St. Petersburg, and he held that crusade in St. Petersburg just like a couple of weeks after they had a coup. And they didn’t know whether to call it Leningrad or St. Petersburg.

 

  Right.

 

  But prior to going to St. Petersburg, we went into Moscow, and when we went to Moscow, we went to Red Square, and we were handing out tracks that just 30 days earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to do. And we were handing them to these guards, and people were so hungry to hear the gospel, to receive Jesus, and praise God, what an opportunity. And then when we went to this, they rented a big stadium, and I think it held maybe 20,000 people, but we filled half of it up and there were great miracles and people coming to Christ, and it was really an amazing thing. And I was there, we had given wheat in Kit Carson, some of my farmers, and we’d sent it to McPherson, Kansas. We had it ground into flour and put in 20 pound sacks and then shipped to the Gulf, and they put it on the ship and delivered it there. And I was there watching people receive this, and they were giving out tickets, right, to come receive, you know, this food, right, to have their physical needs met, but then to come to this great gospel crusade where thousands of people were saved and healed. And, you know, years later I went back to St. Petersburg and I was working with Kerry Pickett, Charis Bible College, and Mike, and I met a pastor, and he got saved in that exact crusade where we had given, where we had shared, and now he had a great church. And you never know how this is gonna work out, but what a privilege that we get to pray for the harvest, we get to give to the harvest, and we get to get involved in the harvest, whether it’s with our neighbors that are right next door, or whether it’s sharing with our friends around the world. And I love the gospel, I love Jesus. It’s just marvelous whatever level that we get to be involved, that we are involved, and that we don’t just put this off for somebody else.

 

  Right.

 

  And we’re gonna come back and we’re gonna talk about First Timothy chapter two, when we come back and what Paul says there, in First Timothy to his spiritual son about praying, He says some very important things about prayer in First Timothy two. And I think Jesus was a person of prayer, and he would go out all night and pray to God. And if Jesus, the Son of God needed to pray, you need to pray too, it’s not just for Jesus. So stay with us, we’re gonna be back. There’s gonna be some great things that you might learn from the scripture. And so God is so good. Dr. Shirley, it’s so good to have you. So we’ll be back in just a few seconds. Stay tuned, blessings. Friends, we’ve been sharing about world missions, but we could not effectively reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ without the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And so our special offer this week is “Outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” We have downloadable audios and downloadable videos on our website, absolutely free. Blessings. The word of God will work for you. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, it doesn’t matter where you came from. Glory to God, it matters what you believe, and you need to begin to believe what God said about you, because anywhere in the world that people will believe the Bible, they can prosper. And he said, you have a revelation of it. So I want you to teach it. Hallelujah. Welcome friends, and so good to have you back. We’re talking about the subject of prayer, and there are a lot of things that are said in the New Testament about prayer. I know Colossians, chapter four, I believe it’s verse two, says, “Continue in prayer and watching the same with Thanksgiving.” We need to always be praying. And you know, here’s something, I have actually, thinking about that, I have had times, I remember going to a men’s fellowship one month and the leader of that, it was in my own church, but there was a different leader. And he said, “What problem are you having?” And I was having a staff problem, I’ve had a few of ’em. But anyway, it was so heavy on my heart. He passed out three by five cards and he said, “Write that on this card, and we’re gonna pray about it today.” And I wrote that on a card and I stuck it in the pocket of my coat, and we prayed about it and I forgot about it. And I came back to the men’s fellowship the next month, I happened to have that same coat on and said, “Do you remember what you prayed about last month?” And I’m like, “Yes, I do. And that got worked out, thank God, by the grace of God.” But in First Timothy, chapter two, verse one, Paul is writing to Timothy, his son in the faith, and he says, “I exhort therefore that first of all, this should be a priority in our life.” Supplications that just means to pray, to ask God about it. Prayers, all kinds of different prayers. Intercessions, to intercede means to pray, to go to God on the behalf of another. He says, “And giving of thanks.” I like to sandwich my prayers in between Thanksgiving. I think it’s one of the most powerful ways to pray. “Be made for all men, for kings, and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior.” He goes on and says this in verse eight, “I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.”

 

  Yeah.

 

  Share.

 

  Okay. Well, you know, that verse was the foundation for our beginning of our ministry in Nepal. I shared in one of our earlier programs that from 1986 until 1990, that we prayed for the government to change, and the government changed in 1990. And then we started going in, and I shared also about taking in the tracks. Well, here’s the really kicker of the story. We were in Debar Square and you’ve been to Debar Square with me, the main central part of the city of Nepal, of the city of Katmandu, in Nepal, and so we were in Debar Square, passing out tracks, and people were flocking around us by the hundreds to get these tracks. They didn’t really know what I was giving out, you know, but you know, something free.

 

  Yeah, and in DePaul in these third world countries, it’s not like in America where you get, you know, a thousand pieces of junk mail in a month and you throw ’em in the trash, you know. It like there is very little literature, and so when they get literature, they’re excited about it.

 

  Yes, mmhmm, yeah. Some of my friends, you know, tell me about, you know, when they would do crusades or campaigns into areas and pass out tracks and things, that people would be inviting ’em into their homes and they would show them, “Hey, you know, I have this that you gave me when you were in this area before,” but anyway, so the people were piling around us, you know, wanting, they kept saying, “One, one, one,” you know, “I want one.” And so we were giving ’em out by the hundreds, and actually by the thousands, and I see this policeman coming up and, you know, the government has just changed, and before that it was illegal to do anything like this. So this policeman is coming up to me, and he walks over and he says, “What are you doing?” And I says, “Well, I’m just giving away free literature to all the people.” And he says, “Give me that box.” And so I handed him the box, and the next thing I know, the policeman is helping distribute the tracks. And he says, “There’s no problem with you giving out these gospel literature, problem is that you’re blocking the traffic.”

 

  Oh, wow.

 

  So many people were were there, and so he helped me to disperse the crowd by helping get the tracks out.

 

  Yeah, we had this same experience in Moscow in Red Square, just like a month after this coup or something, and I think that was September, 1991. And it was just amazing, and there was actually a McDonald’s and there’s this huge line in McDonald’s and we’re going down the line and I mean, people were so hungry to hear the gospel, and you know, Lenin and these different people thought that they would exterminate the Bible from the people, and the Bible’s alive, and they’re dead, and they’re in Hell if they didn’t receive Jesus. And so, praise God, the Bible goes on, the word of God will never lose its power.

 

  Exactly. And you know, Isaiah said that it will bring forth the thing where it was sent unto, you know?

 

  Amen, I love this.

 

  Share one really interesting story. So we were at the Himalaya Hotel where you stayed when you were with us there, you remember there’s a really steep hill that comes up.

 

  I remember it, I ran it up that hill.

 

  And the people would come on their bicycles, and then by the time they got to the hotel, most of ’em couldn’t pump the rest of the way, so they would get off and start, you know, walking and you know, pushing their bikes. And that was the perfect spot because when they got off their bikes, we could hand them tracks. So we’re handing tracks to these guys, and this one guy, you know, could speak a little English, and he said, “Oh, I’m a believer. I’m from another city,” you know, “a couple of hours drive away from here, but I’m in Katmandu today because I had to go to a training conference for my work or whatever.” And he says, “I’m a believer. Can you give me some more of these things, tracks I can take back to my people, when I go back to Chitwan?” So anyway, so I gave him a couple of boxes, and then two or three years later, we are doing an outreach in Chitwan, and my sister was with me, and we were riding in a rickshaw, little bicycle pedaled contraption, and it has a seat for two people, two Nepali people. That’s about one and a half American sized 

 

  Yeah, very little people.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Anyway, and so she started getting sciatica, you know, because she’s sitting crooked on this little seat that didn’t fit two people. And so she jumped out of the rickshaw, and she jumped out, it happened to be at a bus stop. And so she’s handing tracks to these people at the bus stop. Well, just a couple minutes later, I came back around and what had happened in the meantime is that she handed a track to this guy, and he looked at it and he said, “I know Delron Shirley.” He didn’t say, “I’ve already seen this,” he didn’t say, “I’m a believer,” but he remembered the name of the person who gave him that track two or three years prior. The gospel, you know, was so powerful to him that he remembered the name of the person who gave it to him. Anyway, and now he was associate pastor in a church with about 75 members, and it all came because that we planted gospel tracks in his hand that he took back and planted in his village.

 

  Amen, I love this scripture you’re talking about in Isaiah 55 of verse 10 and verse 11, and I think it’d be great if we could share it here, but in Isaiah 55, verse 10 and 11, he says, “As the rain comes down in the snow from Heaven and does not return there, but waters the Earth and makes it bring forth in bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth.” It does three things, he says, “It will not return to me void, it will accomplish what I please and it will prosper where I send it to you.” And I’ve had the word do that in my own life. It does not return void. Sometimes we may think something isn’t working. I’ve had instances where I got a word from God and it looked like for a little bit it wasn’t working, but then God, at the backside, brought great victory. Hallelujah.

 

  Yeah.

 

  So it never, the word of God never, ever, ever returns void.

 

  Yes.

 

  This summer, in June, I have Mark Hankins preaching and he was up there, he’s preaching on something else, but right in the middle of his message, he said, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord would beat down our enemies before our face. And you know, we were in a great battle with the church and with some things concerning a roof and different things of the building that should have been taken care of by insurance that weren’t.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And later it looked like that word didn’t work out, but God turned it around on the backside and he did it. He did it exactly like he said. And so praise God, the word never returns void. He said, “It will accomplish what I please.” The word will always produce a harvest that’s like God.

 

  Amen.

 

  Amen. And he says it will prosper 

 

  Yeah.

 

  The thing where in to I send it. Thank God the word is prospering us. Amen, Dr. Shirley, pray for the people and minister here before we go off the air today.

 

  Okay, all righty. Well, I just wanna encourage you that you know, you don’t know what part you are playing in the great scheme of things. You know, it may be offering that you’re giving and you feel like, hey, as we talked about yesterday, it may seem small, but there’s nothing is too small. And the only thing that’s too small is nothing. You know, when that you feel to do something, do it. Whether it’s a prayer, whether it’s a gift, whether it’s sharing the gospel with the people that you have opportunity to meet, maybe it’s even just having some gospel tracks in your pocket and then just handing ’em out to people, even though you don’t get a chance to talk to them. The word will never return void, but it will accomplish the thing where unto its sent. And I believe that you can be a person who changes your world. Father, let the anointing of God rest on every believer that hears this program. Let them become involved in what you are doing around the world and in their neighborhoods. In Jesus’ name, amen.

 

  I just wanna say how appreciative I am, Dr. Shirley, for you, for Peggy, for your family, for our friendship. And you can actually go to the website, it’s Teach All Nations 

 

  Mission.

 

  Mission, and so you can go find that and you can give to them. You could sow into their ministry. We partner with their ministry on a regular basis and we also give to some special projects. And I just, you know, I love the word and I love the gospel, and I love to see the gospel go around the world. The gospel is changing the world. It’s changed my life, but it’ll change everybody’s life who will believe it. And if you wanna become a partner today of “Grace for Today,” Charis Christian Center, we would love to have you call in and become a partner. If you need personal prayer for healing, for salvation, to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever it may be, just give us a call today. We’d love to hear from you, blessings.

 

  Every born again believer should be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Jesus commanded his disciples not to depart from Jerusalem until they had received power from on high. If the Acts Two church needed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we still need it today. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit,” a $25 value, free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

  Hi ladies, I am so excited to invite you to this year’s Rejoice Women’s Conference. We are gonna have a lot of fun. Kathy Duplanis is coming back, Heather will also be with us, and Pastor Honey.

 

  We are gonna have such a good time when you plan to come join us. This event is for women, 13 years and up. Not only are you gonna have a lot of fun and laugh a lot, you are also gonna experience the power of God when you see signs, wonders, and miracles.

 

  It’s time to rejoice.

 

  Thanks for watching “Grace for Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719 418 4000, or to partner online, go to CharisChristianCenter.com/Give. You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”