The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit – Part 9 Lawson and Barbara Perdue

  Friends, I’m so glad that you’re watching. Today we are sharing on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and we’re gonna be talking today about lessons that we learn as we walk with the Holy Spirit. One of them is the power of God is real, and the next one is the power of God is released where the gospel is preached. So stay tuned, God bless you. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re here today. And we’ve been talking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. You know, I’m so happy that I received the Holy Spirit. Now, I grew up in a traditional church, and in that church they did not really teach about the Holy Spirit and his gifts. They did not teach about the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. They did not talk about healing, miracles, faith, they just left a lot of the Bible out. But when I was 14 years old, my mom took me to a Bible study of Andrew Wommack’s. And it was shortly after that that I received the baptism of Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. And the Bible, the Word of God came alive. And I’m so glad, amen, to have had that experience and the Word of God changed my life.

 

  That’s exciting, I like what you just shared about the Holy Spirit, how it just opened up the Bible to you and brought the scriptures to life.

 

  Amen, and you know, we started last week by talking about the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter two, where the church was born and the Holy Spirit was poured out and these disciples of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke with other tongues as the spirit, gave them utterance. But how there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven gathered together. And they asked the question, what does this mean? And Peter got up, preached Jesus, and said, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. And they said, what must we do? He said, get saved, amen. Get baptized and get filled with the Holy Ghost, essentially. But then he said this in Acts 2:39, he said, “for this promise is to you and to your children, and to as many as are far off, even as many as the Lord shall call.” So it’s for generations, to you and your children, and it’s for nations. And it’s still for generations and nations, every generation and every nation, until Jesus comes. You know, we hear of many people coming to Christ around the world, about the power of God, about people being saved and healed and filled with the Holy Spirit, set free by the power of God. And it’s just as real today as it was then. We talked about not only that initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we talked about how in Acts 8, Samaria received the Word of God when Philip preached to them and operated in the power of God, cast out devils and healed the sick. They got saved, they got filled with the Holy Ghost later. And then we talked about Acts chapter 10, when Cornelius received Jesus as Savior and the Holy Spirit, and his whole house. I mean, he got a lot of friends because it was so supernatural. And that’s when the Gentiles received it. When we talked about Acts chapter 19, and we’re gonna jump into this, in Acts chapter 19, how Paul went to the Ephesian elders, and they were John’s disciples. They were baptized in John’s baptism, but had never been baptized in the name of Jesus. And preached to them and asked them, have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?

 

  I like how you said that it’s for this generation and the next generation, and you’re talking about being filled and being baptized, but you know, receiving Jesus Christ, how they got saved and then got spirit filled. And it was a couple of years ago, we had a special speaker at our women’s ministry, Flourish. And Flourish meets on Thursdays and we do live stream that at noon our time, Colorado time. But I love this testimony, and it’s also in Romans, where it talks about how Jesus reveals himself to people. But anyway, her testimony was powerful and she said that her father did not believe in Jesus. And so she had, it’s like what you’re saying, they hadn’t heard ’cause no one had taught about it, but she said she received Jesus because she watched what happened to her father, how Jesus kept doing things, revealing himself to her father. And eventually later in life, he finally did receive Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. But she said it was just such a testimony, there would just be such supernatural, unexplained things happen, and Jesus was revealing himself to her father.

 

  You know, if you’ve never believed, if you’ll pray and ask the Lord to reveal himself to you, he will.

 

  That’s right.

 

  And you know, I’ve had people do that, they say, well, I just don’t know. And I had a man, years ago in Cheyenne Wells, his wife came to our church in Kit Carson. She was a great woman, they had three little kids, but he prayed and asked God to reveal himself. He worked in the oil field and he actually was addicted to drugs. And you know what? He had a drug overdose, and instead of his company firing him, they sent him to a place to get set free from drugs, to Norton, Kansas. And he not only got set free from drugs, he got saved and received Jesus as his savior. But if you’ll pray and believe God, you know, if you don’t know, God will reveal himself to you. Now, Paul went down there, and these Ephesians elders, when they said, we haven’t heard, he laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. They were baptized in the name of Jesus. Then he laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost and prophesied, that’s Acts 19:6. See, the Holy Spirit is like a doorway into the other, baptism of Holy Spirit is like a doorway into the other manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and operations. And if you haven’t, you know, most of these churches that don’t teach on being baptized in the Holy Spirit, they don’t operate a lot in miracles, healings, so on and so forth. The word of wisdom, they’ll call it wisdom or knowledge, but they don’t have a lot of revelation. But when you get the Holy Spirit, you get a lot of revelation and power too, it’s a baptism of power. Jesus said, “you shall receive power.” So there were about 12 men there, that’s in Acts 19:7. “But Paul went and boldly spoke in the synagogue for three months, disputing and persuading things concerning the kingdom of God. But when the different people were hardened and did not believe but spoke evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years.” Do you know, in Act 16, he was forbidden to preach the Word in Asia, forbidden of the Holy Ghost. Man, if God forbids you, that means do what he says. But notice as he taught the Word here in Ephesus, for two years, it says, “all they,” people were going through Ephesus to Asia. “all those in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.” And verse 11 and 12, it says, “and God worked special miracles by the hands of Paul.” I thank God for special miracles, unique miracles. “So that from his body, were brought to the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons,” they would tear his clothes. And when he operated under such anointing, “and they would take them and put them on sick people and diseases departed out of them and evil spirits went out of them,” man, they got healed and delivered by the power of God. And you know, then there were these vagabond Jews and they were exorcists, and they went to these people who were demon possessed and said, “in the name of Jesus that Paul preaches,” that, you know, and the demon said, “we know Paul and we know Jesus, but we don’t know you.”

 

  We don’t know you.

 

  And those demons came out of those people and got on them and they ran naked and wounded. And it says, because of that, in verse 18, “many believed and came and confessed and showed their deeds. Many of them also that used curious arts,” they were operating in witchcraft, “brought their books together and burned them before all the men. And they counted the price of them, 50,000 pieces of silver.” It’s like $5 million or 10 million, a piece of silver was a day’s wage. So we could say that’s like $100. If it’s $100, that would be 5 million. If it’s $200, it’s more like $200. That’d be like $10 million of witchcraft stuff they had in that city. And they went and burned it.

 

  That’s a lot, and I like what it goes on to tell us in verse 20. It says, “so the Word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed,” I like it, prevailed.

 

  Amen, do you know the Word of God will grow and prevail when you let the spirit of God have his way. The Spirit works with the Word. And you know, as we were teaching through this, I taught about a number of things. I taught about divine revelation, divine protection, divine power, divine direction and divine expansion. And what happened in Acts chapter 19 was divine expansion. The Word of God was growing and prevailing. And the word of God went through as they were teaching in Ephesus, continually. You know what, people come to our church nearly every Sunday. We have somebody from, you know, another nation, sometimes several nations, other states, in our church. And the Word of God is going to many places. In fact, we had a woman, right when we opened this church, and she is now in Africa, she was the vice president’s wife. He became the president of this country. She is like the first lady of this large country in Africa. But she came here and she said, “God showed me that this is a drinking place.” And you know what, we have people come here and get filled with the Holy Spirit, get filled up with the Word of God, and they leave here and they go to the nations 

 

  That’s right,

 

  Of the world and take this word. We’ve got all kinds of stuff happening. We have a new children’s curriculum that we just started developing and it’s already in like, 10 countries. We’ve got a group in Asia that wants to translate it into four different languages in Southeast Asia. We got four groups who want to translate it in Spanish. But the Word of God is going forward from here.

 

  What I like, another young woman recently was talking to us, we were involved in a conference call from Dallas, Texas, and she’s like, “well, what’s the testimony of your church? What’s going on? What’s happening?” And I said, “well, things are growing here. But I said, “not only that, we’ve helped other young couples get started in the ministry. We’ve helped them buy and purchase buildings for their churches, and their churches are growing and prevailing,” and she was so excited because that’s not the normal testimony about churches. A lot of churches in the past couple of years closed up or haven’t started back up.

 

  Amen.

 

  And she’s like, “that’s exciting to hear.” Not only is the church here in Colorado Springs doing well, but others that we’ve helped plant and assist are thriving in doing well.

 

  Yeah, you know, we had Pastor Max Cornell, from Kansas City, Charis Church in Kansas City, Kansas, that area. And Max came and he was our assistant pastor for three years. And then we helped him go to Kansas City and plant a church. That was the plan from the beginning. And he’s done very well. And then we helped him buy a building. But he’s already had people that have come to his church, that have went to other states and now they’re pastoring and ministries that were failing are now turning around and prospering. And Max had a good friend, Brian Clark, who was here about the same time he was, and he went to North Carolina and we helped Brian and his wife Ashley, start a church. And praise God, it’s, you know, free life church or Grace Life Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. So the Word of God is going forth out of this place, but we’ve got people taking it to the nations. We have people in Italy now. We have people just last Sunday, leaving to go to France. We have people that have been to the Philippines recently. And a lot of times we have people from, we have a pretty good group of Filipino people that come here to church. And so people from different nations, and Africa, we’ve sowed a lot of seed in Africa and we have ministries that we’ve helped start, that are feeding over 1,500 single women and orphans a day in Africa. We’re helping fund hospitals in South Africa or Congo, Africa and in North Africa. And so, you know, the Word of God is going forth from this place and people are being set free by the power of God. And you know, I believe that’s God’s plan. And I believe when we follow his plan, the end is good. Amen.

 

  Amen.

 

  So I wanna keep following his plan, praise God. Well, I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. I’m glad that you’re with us. We’re gonna take a very short break. There’s a great offer so you listen to it and we’ll be back right after this break to continue to share the good Word of God. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today and I want to tell you about a very special offer today, and this week we are offering “Absolute Victory in Christ,” my book on salvation, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and believing the Word, for a donation of any amount. Plus we’re offering our teaching on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in audio or video download, free of charge, blessings. The Word will produce freedom in your life. Psalm 138:2 says, “I magnified my Word above all of my name.” Thank God His Word is magnified, praise God. When you honor the Word, you honor God. When you honor the Word, you honor Christ. You need to let the Word of God be the absolute standard for truth, praise God. Praise the Lord, friends, I’m glad that you stayed with us. You know, I’m gonna continue talking about the power of the Holy Spirit, but we’re gonna move into talking about lessons that we learn as we walk with the Holy Spirit.

 

  Amen, that’s great.

 

  Praise God. You know, I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit for 45 years.

 

  I like how you, I know you’ve shared the testimony, but I never get tired of hearing it, about when you received the baptism and how you changed and how even people at school, you were a teenager, but people at school could tell that something different happened to you. And not only that, you know, you’ve talked about your family going to the Bible study that Andrew Wommack led in homes at that time. But not only did people in the school notice your change, but I like how as you were farming and ranching, your family out in the country, honey, there was another family, other people that lived out in the country, and could see that your family radically changed. And didn’t they ask you like, “where do you go to church now?”

 

  Yeah, I had people in high school ask me where I went to church. I had teachers ask me where I went to church. We had a family that lived down the road. It was about a mile from our house, about a half mile from my granddad. They asked us where we went to church and they were going, they were very committed Christians, but they were going to a dead church like I was, and a church that didn’t really preach on the Holy Spirit. And they ended up coming to that church and were in that, you know, our Full Gospel church for a long time. And so, you know what, your life is a testimony to people around you. of the power of God. And we need to always be aware, and sometimes, you know, when we live in larger cities and things, people tend to forget how much their life testifies to people around them. But our life testifies to people that God is alive.

 

  Well, I like what you shared, I don’t think it determines whether you live in a small area or a large area because after we moved here to Colorado Springs to pioneer this church, you know, our three sons were still living at home. They were in fifth, seventh and ninth grade. So for a number of years, to make a long story short, I spent a lot of time at grocery stores and went to one on Eighth Street, which was the closest to where we lived at the time. But somebody did, after a number of years of shopping there, as we were raising the kids and doing a lot of cooking for them and their friends, someone who a lot of times ran some of the cashiers there, they made that comment to me. They said, “whenever we see you, you always have a smile on your face.”

 

  Amen.

 

  So they noticed the joy.

 

  I can remember that.

 

  Praise God, they notice the joy that, you know, comes from God.

 

  Yeah, but one thing I’ve realized and I’ve seen, is the power of God is real.

 

  Amen.

 

  I maybe can’t explain it. There’s a lot of things I can’t explain, but the power of God is real. Here’s an example, We were just in Acts 19, but we’ll move into Acts 20. It says, in verse seven, “The first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them ready to depart the next day and continued his speech till midnight. There were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. And there sat in the window, a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep.” You know, the other day I’d been working really hard and came to church, this usually doesn’t happen, but you poked me five times on Wednesday night, trying to keep me awake. And I didn’t fall outta my chair, thank God. But you know, this was a lot worse. He was sitting in the window and they were in the third story. So “Paul was preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead.” Man, it would look like that would’ve been a bad meeting, right? “But Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him and said, ‘Trouble not yourselves for his life is in him.'” You know, I’ve had two times that one, when I was preaching in church and a woman fell over with a heart attack and I went and laid hands on her and prayed for her and God raised her up. And they could tell, when they took her in the hospital and checked her, right, that she had had a heart attack, but she was also on some medication for her breathing. And after I laid hands on her and prayed for her, she didn’t have to be on that medication ’cause God not only healed her heart, God healed her of that disease.

 

  Yeah, I remember that service and I remember that happening during service. And you literally stopped preaching and went down and ministered to her. And you know, somebody did call for the medical professionals to come and they did take her to the hospital. But I like what you just said, not only was she raised from her heart stopping, but when she was raised from being dead, she was completely healed of everything else. Like, I don’t remember how many medications she said she was on, but she was literally delivered and healed of all of it, and that’s how God works.

 

  Amen, he works amazing. I mean, the things of God are amazing. “So Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him and said, ‘Trouble not yourselves for his life is in him.'” Praise God, Paul just turned something that would’ve been completely negative, totally around and made it positive. “And when he therefore, was come up again and broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till the break of day, he departed and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted.” Man, it was amazing what God did, see, God turned something that would’ve been a absolute tragedy, completely around and brought comfort to those people. And sometimes things don’t work out like we think they should, but you know, the Bible says that all things, “and we know,” I think this is Romans 8:28, “and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”

 

  Amen, praise God, that’s good.

 

  And God can turn situations, somebody’s watching today, and you’re in a situation that needs a turnaround. And I’m telling you, there is a divine turnaround coming. So don’t get discouraged and don’t let the devil defeat you. You know, the Bible says this in Psalm 27:13, “I would’ve fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” You are a believer, you are born of God and you need to continue to believe. It doesn’t look like good has come, but you need to continue to believe in the goodness of the Lord, in the land of the living. And you will see the goodness of the Lord and you will see what the devil meant for your bad, turned around and used for the good of God’s kingdom and for your good. So keep believing God and don’t be discouraged and don’t let the devil defeat you. Amen, praise God. You know what, a lot of times there’s not anything much worse than death. I mean, for a believer, death’s not a problem. I mean, it’s like being, you know, graduating. It’s like going from one room to another. But you don’t wanna let the devil, you know, have have his way. You know, my dad died when I was 17, and I just told Mama, “Hey, we’re gonna serve God and love Jesus,” and we’ve done that, you know? But we need to, you know, not just give up. But not only is the power of God real, we find out that the power of God is released where the gospel, where the grace of God is preached. And so Barbara, I want you to continue read here, Acts 20:17 24.

 

  Awesome, so it says, “From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them, ‘You know from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews. How I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews and also Greeks, repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And see now, I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city saying that chains and tribulations await me, but none of these things move me. Nor do I count my life dear to myself so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.'”

 

  So Paul knew what his ministry was, and his ministry was to preach the grace of God. But again, where great grace is preached, great power is released. And we’ve seen that in a number of places. We saw it in Acts 19, we saw it in Acts 4:33. But Paul, you know, he preached grace. And notice what he said in verse 32, he’s commending, he’s encouraging these elders. And in verse 32, Acts 20:32, he says, “Now brethren, I commend you to God and the Word of his grace.” Barbara, sometimes people get mad at me for preaching grace. But I just received a testimony, and one of my friends was in India, and as he was preaching, he said something about Lawson Purdue. And he said that there were these students there and their eyes lit up and they told him that they were just so encouraged. And they said that in their opinion, I was one of the best teachers that they ever heard on the law and grace. And I felt so encouraged that this person gave me that word, back from India, praise God. And so he says, “I commend you to God and the Word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.” The word of grace is able to build you up.

 

  I like that.

 

  Praise God, that’s why we preach grace. If you preach law, it tears people down. The Bible calls the ministry of the law, in 2 Corinthians 3, a ministry of condemnation, a ministry of death. And so we don’t wanna preach law, we don’t wanna preach performance because none of us perform at 100% all the time, but we preach grace because it’s not our performance, it’s the performance of Jesus. But it’s the preaching of the grace of God that is able to build people up and give them an inheritance. And so what do we learn as we walk with the Holy Spirit? We learn that the power of God is real, and we learn that it’s the preaching of the grace of God or the gospel of Jesus, the grace of the gospel is the good news. It’s what Jesus has already done that causes the power of God to be released. Amen.

 

  Amen, it’s all about Jesus. And not, like what you already mentioned, not about us, our goodness, but Jesus.

 

  Amen, Barbara, I want you to pray for the people today before we go off of the air.

 

  Well, dear heavenly Father, again, we pray, in the precious name of Jesus, Lord. And I thank you that you are with them, that they feel your presence right now. You are giving them wisdom. They do have the mind of Christ and they do know what to do. And Lord, I thank you for blessing them above and beyond what they could ask, hope or even think. Thank you Jesus.

 

  Praise God, well, friends, this is the last day that my staff’s gonna be here to answer your calls while we’re teaching this, we will teach it tomorrow. But we’re making this offer of “Absolute Victory in Christ.” And we’re doing this for any offer, any offering, any gift of any amount. It’s about number one, being born into victory when you’re born again, when you believe on Jesus. It’s about being baptized into victory, when you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit. If you’re not baptized in the Holy Spirit as a believer, I encourage you to call in. We’ve got many people who call in and receive the baptism of Holy Spirit, with our prayer ministers just praying for them over the phone. And the third thing is about believing the Word of God. Do you know what, God wants you to be victorious. The Bible says, thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph and gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. See, Jesus already won the victory, but we can experience that victory through faith in Jesus. Amen, through being baptized in the Holy Spirit, a baptism of power, and through believing God’s promises. And so we wanna just encourage you to call in to receive prayer. If you wanna become a partner with us and help us take this message of God’s unconditional love and faith in Jesus to the world, I encourage you to call us today. We’d love to hear from you. And I wanna remind you that we have literally hundreds of hours of teaching on the internet and free children’s curriculum on the internet. Just go to our website, 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 2 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.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends, I want to invite you to church this coming Sunday morning, whether you’re in Colorado Springs or whether you’re wherever you are at. If you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 AM, live. But you can also watch us with our livestream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 AM, or you can go to our website and get it anytime at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

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