The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit Part 4 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit Part 4 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit Part 4 from Pastors Lawson & Aaron Perdue. In the fourth part of this series on Grace For Today, grow in your understanding and put off ignorance when it comes to spiritual gifts. You’re going to be transformed.

The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit Part 4 Transcript

Friends, I’m so glad that you tuned into the broadcast today. We’re gonna be talking about spiritual gifts. Paul says, “Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I don’t want you to be ignorant,” and there is a lot of ignorance concerning spiritual gifts. We’re specifically gonna be talking about the gift of tongues, the interpretation of tongues, and prophecy, and give some very good biblical instruction about this. You don’t wanna miss this broadcast, so stay tuned, blessings. Friends, I am so glad that you’re with us today. I have my son, Aaron. We’re teaching on understanding spiritual gifts, and today we’re actually on the last message of this. We’ve talked about the gifts of revelation, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the discerning of spirits. We’ve talked about the gifts of power, which are the gift of faith, the working of miracles, and the gifts of healing, and today we’re gonna be talking about the speaking gifts, and there’s actually a lot of instruction in 1 Corinthians 14, there’s a few biblical examples, but not as many because the baptism of the Holy Spirit wasn’t given. So when you talk about tongues and interpretation of tongues until the Book of Acts, so those are the only real examples of those gifts that we have, but there’s a lot of instruction given in 1 Corinthians 14, and you know, the Bible actually says this in 2 Timothy 1:7, it says, “God’s not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and a sound mind.” Now, in 1 Corinthians 12 we talk about the manifestation of the Spirit, right? The power of God. 1 Corinthians 13, we talk about the love of God, but 1 Corinthians 14 we get instruction concerning spiritual gifts, and Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:1, “Do not be ignorant concerning spiritual gifts, but there’s a lot of ignorance in the body about spiritual gifts, and people have tried to eliminate them. Well, eliminate them does not honor God, does not honor Jesus, does not honor the Holy Spirit, we need the gifts of the Spirit in the body of Christ, in the church today.

Mm-hmm, that’s true, yeah. And some people have a common misunderstanding too about the praying in tongues, the personal prayer language, and also the manifestation of the Spirit, which is a speaking forth of a tongue.

Yes. Could you explain that difference? ‘Cause-

Yeah.

I’ve encountered a lot of people who are kinda, get confused on those two things.

Now, here is the difference, okay? In 1 Corinthians 12, before Paul lays out these nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit, verse seven, he says, “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” So these nine gifts of the Spirit are given to every person, every person who’s born again, baptized on the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, but they are to profit the whole body, right? Now, in the end, and this will be where people get the controversy of 1 Corinthians 12. He asks these questions, in verse 28 he talks about ministry gifts, he talks about gifts of power, right? And then he talks, or the manifestations of the Spirit, then he talks about some of the motivational gifts, all in verse 28, But in verse 29 he says, “Are all apostles?” Is everyone an apostle? Well, Ephesians 4:11 says, “God gave some.” So the answer’s no. “Are all prophets?” No, God gave some, no. “Are all teachers?” Do they have the gift of pastor/teacher? I believe that’s what that’s talking about, right? No. “Does everyone operate in the working of miracles?” I think the obvious answer is no. “Does everyone operate in the gifts of healings?” No. “Do all speak with other tongues?” I think the answer here is no, but he’s not talking about the personal prayer language, he’s talking about the gift of tongues which is given for public ministry, so there’s a difference between public ministry and personal edification. And he says, “Do all interpret?” Now, he says in 1 Corinthians 14, he gives us instruction, “If you pray in tongues, pray that you may interpret,” right? So we want, we desire spiritual gifts, we , but he says this, and in 1 Corinthians 14 you have to read the context because he talks both about the personal gift, which is given for personal edification, which is a gift for every believer, every believer, nobody was left out in Acts 2, in Acts 10, in Acts 19, no one was left out of those gifts, right? In the Book of Acts. So that’s personal edification. Everybody who’s born again is a candidate to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, right? And I have a book that I’ve written, right? “Absolute Victory in Christ,” which talks about, first of all, being born again, then it talks about receiving the baptism of Holy Spirit. If you haven’t received the baptism of Holy Spirit, you should get this book, you should call in, receive prayer, receive it as a believer, right? But you gotta know the difference between public ministry gift of tongues, right? And the personal ministry, and the difference is, is it for personal edification or public speaking? Now, Sunday in our church, we had a big group, a lot of people I didn’t know, while I was up there receiving communion, there was a lady in the congregation, gave a word in tongues. We probably had close to 700 people in that service, right? But I knew it, and then I gave the interpretation, you know, while I was up there, right? That was decent and in order. I recently was in a pastor’s meeting in town, I had at my table a pastor of a smaller Foursquare church, he was, tremendous blessings, his daughter, who’s his youth leader, has been coming over to our youth, he said, “Man, you have great youth, you have a great church,” and then a reformed church pastor, and he said, “I wanna know about a full gospel church where people still operate in the gift of Spirit,” I said, “We do, but we do certain things to have it in order,” and Paul talks about that a number of times in 1 Corinthians 14 and says it needs to be done decently and in order. Now, that doesn’t mean you eliminate the gifts, because we need them, but if we begin to read, he gives specific instruction, and he says here in 1 Corinthians 14:3, “He that prophesieth speaks to men edification, exhortation, and comfort,” so that’s a biblical definition of prophecy that we’re talking about. “He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself,” that’s talking about the personal prayer language, that’s for every person who’s born again, you have to be born again to be a candidate, “But he that prophesies, edifies the church,” hut he goes on and he says what we need to seek, in verse 12, is the edifying of the church. So he says, “If you pray in tongues, pray that you may interpret,” so that’s on down in the context of this. So he’s saying tongues plus interpretation, it’s like saying tongues was $5,000, right? Interpretation’s $5,000, the prophecy’s $10,000, 5,000 plus 5,000 equals 10,000. He says tongues plus interpretation equal prophecy.

Well, I think you mentioned, so you’ve met this pastor who is wondering, “Are there any churches that kind of flow in this type of prophecy where there is a tongue, a public tongue giving and then an interpretation?” And it happens here, but I think one reason why it happens here is because the head pastor has the gift to interpret the tongue. You know, I think if the head pastor doesn’t have that gift, it’s a little harder for that to operate unless that pastor trusts someone-

Right.

That he knows flows in that prophetic type of interpretation of the tongue.

Right.

But if the pastor doesn’t do it himself, and if there’s no one there who he trusts-

Or flows in that.

Who flows in that, then it’s probably not gonna happen.

Now, Dr. Lester Sumrall was trained under Howard Carter, Howard Carter was used in the Assemblies of God, and Howard Carter has written most of the revelation that we teach in charismatic full-gospel churches, and he wrote this in the early 1900’s, and Howard Carter, you know, traveled, he spoke, he taught on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but Dr. Lester Sumrall said, you know, if you have a gift of interpretation, for instance, there may be a number of people, right? Have the gift of tongues and that flow in tongues, I’m talking about the public operation, but when a word comes forth in tongues, then, right? We’ll have someone give an interpretation. So Dr. Sumrall, if somebody was on the stage, right? Of his leadership, all of them, most all of them were baptized in the Holy Spirit and operated in the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues. So he would say, “You interpret that,” or he would appoint someone from his leadership team if someone gave a tongue in the congregation. We’re talking about a church of 2,500 people, and he’d say, “You go up and interpret that.” So Dr. Delron Shirley was there, and he would tell ’em, “You go up and interpret that,” or he would go up and interpret, you know? And there are times that people come up to me and they have a word, but it’s not the right time, and if it doesn’t flow with what’s happening in the service or it’s not the right time in the service, I say, “Well, that’s a good word,” if it is a good word, “but right now we won’t give it because it doesn’t fit.” Also, we’ve had services where there’s several tongues and interpretations, and generally I don’t let over about three people give an interpretation in a service, or a prophecy, because there’s so much information, you have to be able to utilize that information, so it’s still edifying the body, that’s the goal, right? And prophecy is what? “He that speaks prophecy, speaks edification, exhortation, and comfort.” So tongues plus interpretation equals prophecy. In the simple gift of prophecy there is no revelation. We talked about the gifts of revelation, which is a specific word of God’s wisdom concerning the future in a word of wisdom, a specific word of God’s knowledge about something present or in the past, that is a word of knowledge, in the simple gift of prophecy there is no revelation. Howard Carter taught this, and you know, all of the teaching that we’ve received from Kenneth E. Hagin, Papa Hagin, from Oral Roberts, from Dr. Lester Sumrall, these pioneers of the faith that really taught us what we know in these gifts, they all taught these. same things and it came from this basic revelation that God gave Howard Carter, and there’s some books, I think Gospel Publishing House from the Assemblies of God still has those books available from Howard Carter, “Questions and Answers on The Gifts,” they are great books.

I like that you just talked about just some practical things about how that order is kind of established at a church, like where people come to the pastor or someone appointed by the pastor if they feel that they have a word to give, and I think just everything needs to be done in unity, in order, with the right heart, with the right attitude, a submissive type of attitude. You know, there are other types of gifts as well, you know, I have a musical gift, I play the flute, you know, went to school for a number of years, I have a doctorate in music, but I don’t just show up at a church and just pull my flute out and start blasting it whenever I feel like, and it’s a gift and it’s something that God has given me but I have to do it in unity.

Right, there’s a proper way to do that, you operate under the authority that’s there. You went to Joel Osteen’s for seven years, you already had your masters, you were working on your doctorate, right? You got your masters at Rice, and then you were working on your doctorate, you emailed the music team a couple times, they didn’t get back with you. God opened the door for you to minister with your flute in another church, and they received that gift and they loved you, even though it was a different church, but they never opened the door. Now, I just met yesterday with the head worship administrator from Joel Osteen’s Church, and I’ve known him, his wife has received some teaching of mine at Charis Bible College, we had a great meeting together, he’s a great man, but that just didn’t happen when you were there, but you didn’t get upset.

No.

You didn’t get your flute, and get outta order, and act crazy, and have ’em carry you out.

No.

But Paul says, he says this, and this is really, agrees with what you’re saying, he says this a number of times in 1 Corinthians 14 on instructions of these gifts, in verse 12 he says, “Even so, for as much as you’re zealous of spiritual gifts, see that you excel to the edifying of the church.” And Paul says, you know, some people read this and say you can’t speak in tongues in the church. Paul says, listen, “I thank my God I speak in tongues more than all of you.” So he was privately practicing this, but he says we have to have some revelation, we have to have some people speaking in a language that’s known. So he says they’re a sign gift, but he says again in verse 26, “How is it, brethren, when you come together every one of you has a psalm, a doctrine, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation, interpretation, let all things be done to the edifying,” and again he says, “If you have two or three tongues,” right? “Let somebody interpret, if nobody interprets, then stop,” and he says, “Let the prophets speak,” okay, this is really important in verse 29, “two or three, and let the other judge,” prophecy can be judged. He says in verse 31, “You may all prophesy.” I believe you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit, you can move on into tongues, interpretation, prophecy, you could move into these speaking gifts, but he says, “And the spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” A prophet does not have to speak. Sometimes people think, “I got this gift, I’ve gotta be the center of attention,” you don’t have to, your spirit is subject. When I go to somebody else’s meeting, when I go to Andrew Wommack’s meetings, I am subject to Andrew Wommack, he is the head elder, he is the apostle of that ministry, and I am listening to what… When he comes to my church, he submits to what I desire, right? Because he, we flow together great, we do not fight one another.

Mm-hmm.

And so he says, “Covet to prophesy, forbid not to speak with tongues,” he says again in verse 40, “Let all things be done decently and in order,” that doesn’t mean that we don’t use these gifts, we need these gifts in operation. Praise the Lord, we’re gonna take a short break, we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna teach more on the actual biblical operation of these gifts when we come back, so stay tuned, we’ll be right back, blessings. Friends, I wanna share about the special offer that we have today. You know, we’ve been teaching about spiritual gifts and not to be ignorant, and we have some great teaching available on this. I have a series on “Understanding Spiritual Gifts,” which is on the nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. I have a teaching on “Gifts, Gifts, and More Gifts,” which is talking about the nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. It’s talking about the five ministry gifts given by Jesus, and also the seven motivational gifts, which I believe are given by God the Father, and so there’s a lot of instruction and teaching to help you move forth in the anointing that is on your life, and finally, with this package I’ve included this book, “Absolute Victory in Christ,” where we talk about receiving Jesus as your savior, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, which is like a doorway into all these gifts and believing the Word of God. You don’t have to be ignorant concerning the spiritual gifts. Praise the Lord, friends, I’m glad you stayed with us, we’ve been sharing on understanding spiritual gifts, we’ve been talking about the gift of prophecy, tongues, and interpretation. And when we talk about these things, there is a lot of confusion, but there doesn’t need to be confusion.

I like that you talked about too, about just letting things being done for edification of the church, that you seek to excel, that’s in 1 Corinthians 14:12, I like that. He’s just said, “The heart behind this is to build the church, to build up other people.” You know, I’ve seen some people who don’t get their way with how they, and they have a flesh fit.

[Lawson] Right.

Maybe quit-

Have a lot of drama.

You can see that their heart wasn’t right, they weren’t really seeking to edify, they’re looking for a platform, maybe, for what they thought was their gift.

You know, I talked to Andrew Wommack about this, about a certain individual or individuals and how they were operating, and I got some real wisdom from him, and you know, thank God for elders, older ones in the faith, and you know, I’ve been around a few years, I’ve had a few things happen, some of ’em good, some of ’em not as good, but Andrew Wommack said if there’s a lot of drama around some person or ministry, I gotta stay away from it. And well, that was a lot of wisdom.

Yeah.

And I know we’ve had certain things happen in our church with leadership, so I’ve told you if that ever happens, just go on, fire the person, whatever, don’t let them

Yeah. Well, just the, I like that, you know, let it be for the edification of the church and just submitting to one another, Paul writes a lot about that, you know, actually just recently someone approached me, they wanted to audition for the music team. We have a very high-level worship team here and I help oversee it, we have several worship leaders that rotate, but I’m usually the one who people approach if they wanna audition, and this young woman auditioned for me, and she has some talent, but quite not at the level that we need, you know, to be one of the main leaders, and I just sent her a very respectful email just saying there wasn’t a spot for her this time, but it didn’t affect her attitude, you know, she still came, she’s in the choir, you know, she still kept, was smiling, happy, loving the church, you know-

And that’s great.

Yeah.

You have to submit to the leadership and the authority that’s there, and I’m happy to do that. When I went to Dr. Sumrall’s church while I was in Bible school, I submitted to him, before that, after Andrew Wommack left, I was in a full-gospel Assembly of God, word of faith church, great pastor, I submitted to the leadership of that church, and if you don’t ever learn how to submit to someone else, you know, if you don’t learn how to honor godly authority, who’s gonna really give you your own? If you can’t be faithful in that which is another man’s, Jesus said, who’s gonna give you your own? So Paul says a lot of things, but we’re gonna talk a little bit about the operation. Let’s talk about tongues, tongues, and interpretation, specifically the gift of tongues. In Acts 2, when they were all filled with the Spirit and spoke in tongues, it says they spoke with tongues, and sang praises to God. So there wasn’t only tongues, but they were singing praises to God in languages that they never learned, is kind of an amazing operation of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 19 it says they spoke with tongues and they prophesied. In Acts 13:52, “They were filled with joy and the Holy Ghost,” and so in Acts 10, at Cornelius’s house, when the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit, Peter was called in, “As Peter preached, the Holy Spirit fell on them and they received the Holy Ghost,” and it says, “They heard them speak with tongues and magnify God,” so it’s not at just about tongues, it’s tongues and praise, tongues magnifying God, tongues, right? And prophecy that they flow, these gifts flow together. There’s more things that come and you can kinda see the fruit when people are really flowing in the spirit of these different things, and we need to have fruit that builds the edification of the church. In 1 Corinthians 12:7 he says this is to profit the whole body, right? The difference, again, between the personal prayer language, which is for personal edification, according to 1 Corinthians 14, is the public gift of tongues is for public edification, right? It’s for the edification of the body. If it’s not gonna edify the body, you don’t need to be up there just… Now, some people are like, “You can’t worship in tongues.” You know, we get up and have people worship in the Spirit, we sing in the Spirit, you know, worship God, I don’t have a problem with that, if you’re not trying to overpower everybody else.

[Aaron] Mm-hmm.

Sometimes people get so funny about this.

Some people just don’t know, you know, I’ve even had people here approach me at the church just kinda wondering, for instance, someone was leading a Bible study and people, they had prayer time at the end and people were praying in tongues, and he said, you know, “Is that okay that people pray in tongues?” You know, at my-“

Certainly.

“At my Bible study,” ’cause, like, he, and he’s a very smart person, he was actually a professor at the Air Force Academy and a great believer, but he came from a background where they never really taught-

Right.

About how these things operate. So he wanted, you know, make sure he was, you know, doing what the, you know, where he was doing this Bible study-

Well, you know-

At the church.

The Bible says, “Do not quench the Holy Spirit.” And I think we have quenched the Holy Spirit more than we have had order. I like something that Lester Sumrall said one time. So one time he was gone and his son was preaching, one of his sons, and there’s this woman and she usually was in the flesh. You know, 2,500, 2000, 2,500 people at church that morning, and she gets up and dances and, you know, and shouts, and does her thing, and his son, Frank, got up, he said, “That’s in the flesh, you sit down!” And I mean, it was like, “Ooh.” And so the next week Dr. Sumrall came and he said, “You know what?” And it was kind of his correction in a nice way. He said, “If you don’t have a little wildfire, you probably have no fire at all,” and I shared that with Mark Hankins and Mark said this, Mark said, “We’ve probably all had a little wildfire,” but you know, if you don’t have any wildfire, you may not have any fire at all, and I think more people have operated in quenching the Holy Spirit than really allowing the Holy Spirit fire to burn. So I would rather have a little bit of wildfire once in a while than not have any fire at all.

Yeah, that’s funny, just these kind of things come up quite often, you know, just, you know, being a pastor at a church, even this past Sunday, a woman came up to me after church and just said, you know, with one of the worship leaders, “I couldn’t really follow this person that well because he was just,” you know, kind of operating a little more freely at certain moments in his worship towards God, and I know his heart and he’s very, he has a great heart before God and-

Amen.

But people can get very critical about-

You know-

The smallest of things.

Sometimes things go wrong. I mean, our worship has been wonderful. I mean, the last three months we’ve had a change in the last year you’ve been administrating, it’s been really amazing, and I’ve been pinching myself like, “How good can this be?” But we had kind of a train wreck one Sunday, but we had a different person, right? Who usually was the band director, and he was leading that Sunday because he’s growing that, so you didn’t have a band director, and then we had a new drummer that we brought in from the outside and, you know, he was kinda doing his thing and mom got up there and she was trying to lead worship, and the other person was trying to build it, so it was just kind of a multiple things went wrong and we kinda had a little, and it wasn’t, the first half of it was really good, it really, three quarters of it, but then the last, it just kinda train-wrecked. I mean, the drummer broke his stick and, but he came up and hugged mom and said, “Oh, I love playing at this church,” and it just shows even though it kinda went the wrong direction, his heart, and it’s just hard not to love somebody when their heart’s right, and you know, you know those people’s heart, you work with them every day and you’re very protective of them as a pastor, and protective of your team, but you know what, you can be so critical and it’s important that, you know, music is something that’s subjective, and in all these things you can get so critical that you don’t, you know, the Bible also, it says, you know, “Do not quench the Spirit,” it says, “Despise not prophesying,” and once in a while, people, when they prophesy, they might get a little out there, but you know, I’ve been in churches where, now, what I do not like, I’ll be honest with you, I do not like when people get up and prophesy and criticize, and mom was in a church where the guy got up and prophesied and said that the people of the church gave the pastor’s wife cancer, that is a complete lie. Now, if somebody ever did that at my church, I would rebuke them immediately and get up, instruct the people, because prophecy is to edify, exhort, and comfort the church, and we know that cancer does not come from the people of the church, it comes from the devil, and so we would address it from the scripture. Now, unless it’s pretty wackadoodle, I don’t get up and just straighten it out, right? And most people, the way we operate, with the level we’re at, right? With the number of people that attend our service, they come up, if I’m here, they talk to me, right? And then I’ll say yes or no, if I don’t feel like it’s the right word or the right time, I just say it’s not for this time.

And everything, everything, like, during a church service, especially, in my view, needs to exalt Jesus, and that’s-

Right.

One thing that the Holy Spirit does is really exalt Jesus, draw people to the lordship of Jesus. So even just how people minister, how people prophesy, how people worship even on the stage, you know, what’s the heart behind it? Are they trying to exalt Jesus-

Yes.

Or exalt themselves?

Yes. Even we had this little challenge on worship this one Sunday, right? And it was a lot better in the second service, still the heart of those people was good, and we have to look at that, and you know, Bobby and Lynn Crow, they’re elders in the body, great leaders, I believe Bobby is an Apostle, has fruit all over the world, and pastors a huge church in Mexico, has been down there for 50+ years, I mean, it’s really amazing, 40+, 50, long time. And Bobby and Lynn said, you know, “You’re the leader and you’re always looking to get things right and make it better, and that’s why you’re so focused on it,” and that’s why you probably see more than other people see, but the same point in time, we gotta let people grow and allow ’em to grow, and… You know, you can be such a perfectionist that you don’t allow things to move, and we want the move of the Holy Spirit. Praise God:

Amen.

Man, without the Holy Spirit you’re not gonna go far, you’re not gonna do much, you wouldn’t know about me if it wasn’t for the Holy Spirit, so, most of you, praise God, so we’re so glad you tuned in. Aaron, close us out here.

Well, thank God for everyone watching today. We just thank you, Lord, for your Spirit. We just thank you that your Spirit is alive and working today, and ministering to and through people right now. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

[Announcer] Understanding how the gifts of the Holy Spirit operate is an essential part of a believer’s arsenal against the works of the enemy. In this Holy Spirit package, which includes the CD series “Understanding Spiritual Gifts,” “Gifts, Gifts, and More Gifts,” and the book “Absolute Victory in Christ,” you’ll learn what the gifts of the Spirit are and how to use them, get the package today for $49 when you call 719-418-4000, or visit charischristiancenter.com.

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