Missions – Part 5 Lawson Perdue and Delron Shirley

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’re here today. This is my last day to be sharing with my special guest, Dr. Delron Shirley. He’s a great friend in the ministry. I’ve known him for 35 years, and we’re gonna be sharing about world missions, but specifically, today, we’re gonna talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and how he will help you do what God called you to do. Blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you here today, and I’m so honored to have Dr. Delron Shirley, who’s a great friend, have been a friend for many, many years, and I love him. Love his wife, Peggy. You guys are a tremendous blessing to us, and we appreciate your faithfulness to the Lord, Jesus.

 

  Love you, and Barbara, and all your boys as well.

 

  Praise God. So God is so good. We were talking and I said, what do you wanna share in this broadcast? And you said, well, I want to talk a little bit about the Holy Spirit. And I remember it wasn’t too long ago, but I was reading one of your books and you were talking about the church you grew up in your childhood, and it just touched me, because you were talking about something and it reminded me of a mission trip that I took to Jamaica. But you said, “I’m saved and sanctified, and I’m filled with the sweet Holy Ghost. Hallelujah.” And so what a privilege that we’re saved, sanctified, and filled with the sweet Holy Ghost.

 

  Amen.

 

  I might not have got it quite right, but I’m close. Praise the Lord. So share, it’s awesome.

 

  Yeah. I believe that the power of missions is the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples, this was long before that American Express came up with the idea, came up with the slogan, but he said, “Don’t leave home without it.”

 

  Amen, that’s right.

 

  The disciples were in Jerusalem. He told them, you’re gonna be my witnesses all over the world, but don’t leave home without it. Don’t go out and try to do this until you get filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

  Amen.

 

  And so then he told them, go into Jerusalem. And then of course we know the story of Pentecost. And then on the day of Pentecost, 3000 people came into the kingdom in one day, because the people were filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

  Wow, that’s amazing.

 

  And we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. When I was in India, on my very first mission trip to India, the one that I shared about a couple of days ago, where that I got lost and the little porter put me on a bus and I got to the right place.

 

  What city was this?

 

  This was in Madras, which is now called Chennai.

 

  Okay, so a huge city.

 

  It’s a huge city, yes, absolutely. But anyway, at that conference, the gentleman who had invited me to come was a seminary friend of mine. And the particular denomination that he was part of is not charismatic. They don’t really understand about speaking in tongues, and laying hands on the sick, and casting out devils and all those things. But he had gotten baptized in the Holy Spirit while he was in seminary. And he was the head of the evangelism department of his entire denomination. Anyway. And so he said, “I know that my people can’t do what they’re called to do, this evangelism, unless they are filled with the Holy Spirit.”

 

  Absolutely.

 

  So he invited me over to explain to them about being filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, this is the kicker. All the people that work under him are required to come one day every month to a training conference, and that’s when they get their pay. So they all show up because they want their pay. And so I had a captive audience. So anyway, and I shared about being filled with the Holy Spirit and how to receive, and then how to implement it. Anyway, so there was this little old gray haired Indian pastor that was there. And when Indian men get gray headed, you know they’re really up in years.

 

  That’s what I was thinking. Because they got black hair.

 

  Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, he got filled with the Holy Spirit, and then he shared the story with me about what happened. He had been trying to raise up a church in his village for years and years and years. And the number 17 sticks in my mind, but I’m not really sure. But it had been a long time. It had been totally unsuccessful. He had no members in his church. Anyway, but when he went back, after he got baptized in the Holy Spirit, he found a woman in the village who had been attacked by a water buffalo, and so she was crippled and paralyzed. And he said to her, “Can I pray for you in the name of Jesus?”

 

  Amen.

 

  And of course, she was a Hindu, but she says, well, you know, yeah, you know what? It can’t be any worse than being paralyzed, you know? And so he prayed for her, and she was instantly healed. And you see, that’s what Jesus said. He says, these signs are gonna follow you. You’re gonna lay hands on the sick and they’re gonna recover. And so when she was instantly healed, the entire village knew that she was paralyzed and crippled, and then all of a sudden she’s walking, and healed, and perfect. And so the entire village came to the Lord as a result of one man getting filled with the Holy Spirit. And when we get filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to operate in the Spirit, there is no end to what God can do through our lives.

 

  Amen. Dr. Shirley, if I wasn’t, I was raised in a traditional church that didn’t believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They did not believe in speaking in tongues. But if I had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit, most of the people who know me today wouldn’t know me.

 

  Oh, exactly.

 

  And I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. I’d probably be in Southeast Colorado feeding cows and horses. I mean, it just transformed my life. But when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and a number of people from my family were baptized in the Holy Spirit, in a Bible study held by Andrew Wommack in 1978, in our town in Lamar, Colorado, in my church, they actually gave us the left foot of fellowship. And they actually, on a Sunday morning, they said, “You who believe in this stand over here, and you who don’t stay over here.” And so they caused a split, really, in the church. And that church had always run from 75. My grandparents helped start it on my mom’s side of the family, and they had a big family, and it was a lot of family. But that church went from 75 to a hundred people. There was always people being saved, and different things happened. And that church went down, and it went down to 10 to 20 people, and it stayed there for years. In fact, it was about 10 years later, by that time I had been to Dr. Sumrall’s Bible school, and we started a church in a town 60 miles away, Kit Carson, Colorado. And the pastor, they got a pastor. They did not know it, but he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. And so he invited me to come preach. And the church, immediately when they got this new pastor who was baptized in the Holy Spirit, the church went back up to 75 to a hundred people. In fact, he still teaches in that area, in a church in that denomination. But he’s baptized in the Holy Spirit, and he has a great work going on in that area. In fact, he invited me to come a couple years ago in a tent crusade, healing crusade that he was having. But I couldn’t go because I had a wedding at that exact time. And he couldn’t change the meeting. He had already established it, but the Holy Spirit changes our life. And he changed my life. He’s helped me so much. I can’t imagine what life would be without the baptism of the Holy Spirit, this precious prayer language that God has given us. Jude says, in Jude verse 20, that we build up our most holy faith praying in the Holy Spirit. And then he says in verse 21, “We keep ourselves in the love of God looking for the mercy of Jesus.” And so, thank God for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I received the baptism of Holy Spirit. It greatly changed my life. And it was actually a number of years after that that I got a revelation of grace, which I believe the Holy Spirit can give you if you’re open to that. But thank God for the Holy Spirit.

 

  Oh yeah.

 

  There’s so many amazing things. And I’ve had so many crucial moments, basically, in my life, in my finances, even in my marriage, where I didn’t know exactly where to turn. I didn’t know exactly what to do. But you take some time and you pray in the spirit. And Paul says, in 1 Corinthians:14, “When I pray in the Spirit, my understanding is unfruitful.” So you don’t know exactly what you’re praying, but after you pray a bit, you get revelation.

 

  Exactly.

 

  And he says, go here, do this, do that. And when you follow his instructions, praise God, then you look at the end and you’re like, wow, that’s amazing, Jesus, thank you. And it’s really, thank you, Jesus. Thank you Holy Spirit. And I thank God for the Holy Spirit, and I thank God. So many of our charismatic churches, like this one, were born during times of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the charismatic movement that we talked about earlier in the week, where God raised up people like me out of traditional churches. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. They were called into the ministry. And yet so many of them today don’t want to publicly teach, publicly invite people to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And really, why should we be ashamed of the Holy Spirit?

 

  We shouldn’t. And the thing is, Jesus didn’t tell the disciples, “It would be a good idea for you to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit.” He didn’t say, “I would suggest it.”

 

  No, he commanded that.

 

  He gave them a demand.

 

  He commanded.

 

  You’ve to go there, and you’ve gotta wait and don’t do anything until you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

  Yeah, he basically, in Luke 24, where you begin teaching, he basically said, this is the whole reason that I came, that I was crucified, that I was resurrected, so that you could be saved, but don’t leave Jerusalem without the Holy Spirit. And when he comes, you’re gonna be endued, you’re gonna be clothed with power from on high.

 

  Exactly.

 

  And I thank God that we have power that is not our own. There’s so many things, I’ve seen people healed, people set free by the power of God. And I’m like, that’s not me, that’s the Holy Spirit. And you know, it’s evident to me many times when the Holy Spirit is working, but it’s also evident to me when he’s not. And we need to be cautious, I wanna say, that we don’t quench the Holy Spirit, and that we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. And we need to be very aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of the direction that the Holy Spirit wants us to go. And I believe that’s available to every believer.

 

  Amen.

 

  And if you get baptized in the Holy Spirit, learn to follow his lead. Many times I pray in the morning, “Lord, help me go where you want me to go today. Do what you want me to do, direct my steps, Lord.” Before I minister many times, “Help me say what you want me to say. Help me say this with grace.” I’m not always the most gracious person. In fact, Andrew Wommack came to my church one time, and I actually didn’t know he was there, but he was in the back. Well, I actually saw him, but later I went to see him, and he had been to another church. It’s supposed to be spirit filled. I went to see him the next day and tell him thanks. And he’d left rather quickly. He said, “Well, it was so bad where I went, it was so dead.” He said, “I had to go somewhere and get some life.” But he actually told me something. He said, “Lawson, I see a lot of the anointing that was on Dr. Lester Sumrall on you, and my wife Barbara tells me that too. And so I actually been preaching a series recently on loving life, and Barbara said, “It took you four weeks to get happy.”

 

  Oh, no.

 

  And I’m trying to be happy, but sometimes I’m very direct. And Dr. Sumrall was very direct.

 

  Yes, absolutely.

 

  But praise God, thank God for the Holy Spirit. Thank God for His ministry. And thank God, you know, we couldn’t do what we do without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So we’re gonna come back and we’re gonna share more about this. You’ll wanna stay tuned. We’ll have some great things to share in the last part of this broadcast. And I wanna say a very special thank you for being with us. God is so good. We have great things to share. So stay tuned, bless you. 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.

 

  You’re not prosperous because of what you have on the outside, you’re prosperous because of what you have on the inside. But if you begin to understand what you’ve received on the inside, you can change that and begin to see what you’ve received on the inside flow to the outside. Watchman Knee said, “The greatest challenge in all of Christianity is getting what is on the inside of us to the outside.” You gotta begin to see what God says about you.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends, I’m glad you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about the Holy Spirit. And you know, we wouldn’t be where we are, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing without the Holy Spirit. And what an amazing promise that we have. The promise, you know, Jesus calls it the promise of the Father.

 

  Amen.

 

  And it is so important for us to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, to receive this promise from God our Father. And the only prerequisite that you have to have to receive the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, is that you must be born again. You’ve gotta believe in Jesus.

 

  Amen.

 

  This is a promise that’s just for believers.

 

  Exactly.

 

  And Jesus said specifically, in John chapter 14, he said, “The world cannot receive him, so you must be born again.” But once you believe in Jesus as your Savior, then you are a candidate today for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

  And then once you receive, you need to activate, and use, and give the Holy Spirit opportunity to work. I’ll tell you a little story. My wife and I were called to a church for just a special guest speaker event. And it was a spirit field church. The pastor was a graduate of our Bible school. So he was spirit filled. He knew everything that we would share, and how we would minister, and everything. But during the worship time, one of his choir members started having a demonic manifestation. And my wife and I cast that demon out of her. Well, anyway, after the service, we’re spending time with the pastor and we said, “Who was this woman?” And you know what? And he says, “Well, she’s part of our choir. She’s been part of our choir and a worship leader for all these years.” And he says, “And she quite often does that.”

 

  Oh Lord.

 

  And I said, “You mean you know about, and you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, and you know about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, ability to cast out devils, and you’ve let this go on in your church for years?” And he says, “Well, I just didn’t know how to do it.” But you know, the Holy Spirit gives us the power. And he says, these signs will follow. And he didn’t say these signs might follow.

 

  The first one he says in Mark 16:15 18, “These signs shall follow them who believe in my name. They will cast out devils and they will speak in new tongues.” You’re gonna cast out devils by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 

  Exactly, exactly. But you know, he had the ability, but he had never exerted it. And we need to exercise when the Holy Spirit gives us an ability. The Holy Spirit gives us the anointing to do that. We can’t let the world go to hell in a hand basket, as we say. We need to heal the sick. We need to cast out the devils. We need to exercise the gifts that God has given us. We need to rise up and take our God given authority. In John 14, 15, and 16, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. And he really talks about two things in that narrative. Number one, he talks about the authority that we have in his name. And number two, he talks about the coming Holy Spirit and the promise of the Holy Spirit. And it’s amazing to me that the two things that have been left out of most churches are teaching on the authority of the believer, the authority that we have in the name of Jesus. And so many people think we’re just hanging on hoping to God we make it, rather than taking authority and operating in what God’s given us and the teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

  Exactly.

 

  The person of the Holy Spirit in his work. And listen, we can’t do this in our own strength, in our own power. We need the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I’m not gonna leave you as orphans. The disciples were concerned because Jesus, they’ve given up everything to follow him. And they’re like, Lord, what are you doing talking about leaving? And he says, listen guys, I’m not gonna leave you as orphans. I’m not gonna leave you on your own. I’m not gonna leave you by yourself. The Holy Spirit’s gonna come. He’s gonna be your comforter. He’s gonna be the one called alongside, your advocate. And we need it so many times. It seems like different people may turn against you, or come against you or whatever, but the Holy Spirit will never leave you. Jesus said, “I will not leave you or forsake you.” And we need his help.

 

  One of the things that Jesus said, he says, “The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need to say it.” I was in the Philippines and just finished a pastor’s conference. And one of the things that I always love to do is to have a question and answer session. It’s one thing to teach people what you think they need to know, and it’s another thing to let them tell you, what is it I don’t know?

 

  I actually like that.

 

  I always love to have a question and answer session. So there was this one pastor who had a question, what is the proper name of the Holy Spirit? And you know, I mean like out of the blue, I mean, wow, what kind of question is that? But instantly, the Holy Spirit said, tell him the story of Abraham Isaac, and finding a wife for Isaac in Genesis chapter 24. Okay, so I say, “Abraham is like the heavenly Father, and he has a son, and he wants a bride for his son. Our heavenly Father has a son, Jesus. And he wants a bride for Jesus. And so he sent his servant to go find a bride.” And all through that chapter, Eleazar’s name is never mentioned. Now we know from other contexts that Abraham’s most trusted servant was named Eleazar, but that whole chapter never gives us his name. And I said also that when Eleazar is talking to the father, I mean, not Abraham, but the father of the bride, he brings gifts, and he talks about, “My master that I serve.” And he talks about his son. He never mentions his own self. He never mentions himself. He just talks about the Father and the Son. I says, and Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes, he will speak of the Father, he’ll speak of me, but he won’t draw attention to himself. And I said the Holy Spirit, the New Testament never gives us a proper name for the Holy Spirit, because his role right now is preparing a bride for Jesus.

 

  Wow.

 

  Anyway, so I’ve shared all that story. And then after we dismiss, the head pastor in that area came to me and he says, “That was the most amazing way you answered that man.” And he said, “He is a unitarian, people who don’t believe in the Trinity. He was trying to trick you, because they say that the Holy Spirit’s proper name is Jesus, because Father, son, and Holy Spirit are not the Trinity, not three individuals, but they’re all one.” And he says, “He was trying to trick you.” And I had no idea what the man believed. I had no idea what he was trying to do to me. But the Holy Spirit knew, gave me wisdom at that moment to say the right thing, to diffuse everything he was gonna argue against me.

 

  And it’s amazing where we were talking in John 14, 15 and 16, Jesus says, “When the Holy Spirit comes, he will teach you all things, he’ll bring to your remembrance. He’ll show you the Father’s plan.” Exactly what you’re saying. But I don’t know how anybody can read John 14, 15 and 16 and not believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so I wanna say a great big thank you to everyone watching today. I hope you’ve enjoyed the broadcast. You can go back all this week we’ve been talking about world missions, but we’ve really been sharing a lot about the Ministry of the Holy Spirit. And our offer this week is on outpouring of the Holy Spirit. You can actually download those audios and videos on our website. We’ve actually got hundreds and hundreds of hours of teaching on our website, and they’re downloadable, and they’re free of charge. And it’s costing me thousands of dollars to make this available. But Dr. Shirley, we’re hearing from all over the world. This week we heard from Bulgaria, last week we heard from Vietnam, and we heard from Belgium and Trinidad, and we’re hearing from all over the world. And we have a free children’s curriculum, and we have all this that’s available online, free of charge on our website, charischristiancenter.com. Also, if you’re in the Colorado Springs area, we would love to have you attend a service if you’re with us on a Sunday, 8:30 or 10:30 AM, or a Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM. We have great services. But you can attend all these services online at charischristiancenter.com. YouTube, Facebook, all these different things. I wanna say very special thank you to you. God bless you. Go to our website and receive those free materials. Blessings, and thanks for being with us.

 

  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 the 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 Duplantis 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.”