Why Pray In Tongues – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast today; We are gonna be sharing today on how to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is an amazing gift of God, and it’s for every born again believer so you don’t wanna miss this broadcast. I’m telling you, you’ll not only learn this, you can share it with other people but you’ll learn what it will do for you. So stay tuned, blessings. Friends, I’m so glad to have you on the broadcast today, we’ve been sharing on why pray in tongues. And, you know, there are so many biblical reasons to pray in tongues, it’ll revolutionize your life and, you know what, I was raised in a church, I was born again, first of all, in a church that didn’t even believe in water baptism. And then I was baptized the Holy Spirit in Andrew Wommack’s Bible study in Lamar, Colorado in 1978 when almost nobody knew who Andrew Wommack was. And then when I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, I started reading in my Bible and I thought, “Man, when they got born again, when they got saved in the Book of Acts, they got baptized, they went ahead and got water baptized.” So we were still going to the church that my grandparents helped start years before that, probably close to 50 years before that they helped start that church and, you know, that church believed in salvation and water baptism, but not the baptism of Holy Spirit. So I went there and got water baptized. Well, after I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, kinda like the Acts 10 experience. But, you know, there’s a lot of people that don’t really know the value, we talked about it, it’ll help you understand the word of God, it’ll make Jesus real to you. That’s John 14:26, John 15:26. It’ll build you up, you’re praying mysteries that you don’t know, talked about some of those things you were yeah sharing.

 

  Well, and today we’re gonna kind of focus on just how to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it’s actually a very simple thing. Receiving from God is incredibly simple, and a lot of people like to overcomplicate it. You know, even people who are very seasoned believers sometimes tend to complicate things, like I’ve heard you have to tarry-

 

  Yeah.

 

  You know, to receive the Holy Spirit. And that’s actually kind of complicating something that’s actually very simple. And in Acts 2 the believers had a tarry until the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but now that the Holy Spirit has been poured out you don’t have to tarry. It’s something that’s available to every believer, so my first kinda point on how do you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that you have to be born again.

 

  Yeah.

 

  You know, someone who’s not born again can’t receive this, it’s something that’s only given to believers.

 

  You know, Jesus said this in John chapter 14 when He was talking about the Holy Spirit. I’m looking, I think it’s verse 17 but Jesus said this, He said, He said in John 14:17 talking about the Holy Spirit, He said, “The world cannot receive because it does not see Him neither know Him.” The world cannot receive the Holy Spirit. You’ve gotta be born again before you can receive the second aspect, which is the baptism of Holy Spirit.

 

  And Jesus said this in John 3:3, He answered and said to him, “Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

 

  Yeah.

 

  And, you know, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit is part of the kingdom of God.

 

  Yeah, it’s like that word see can also be translated, he cannot experience the kingdom of God. If you’re gonna walk in kingdom authority, if you’re gonna walk in kingdom power, if you’re gonna experience the kingdom of God. This isn’t only talking about heaven, I’m sure heaven’s included in it, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit would be part of operating in the kingdom of God.

 

  Yeah, and the kingdom of God isn’t meat and drink, it’s not rules and regulations.

 

  Right.

 

  But what is it, what is the kingdom of God?

 

  Righteousness.

 

  Righteousness,

 

  Peace and joy and the Holy Ghost, according to Romans 14:17. So it’s being right with God, and you receive right standing with God or righteousness when you believe on Jesus. And then peace, the Bible says this, Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And joy in the Holy Ghost.” Man, when you have the Holy Spirit you have the fruit of joy in your spirit.

 

  And on the day of Pentecost, you know, all these Jewish people from all these different nations were gathered together, and they were witnessing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And they were, it was a noticeable thing, they actually thought everyone was drunk because it was so strange to them. And the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it’s an experience, it’s noticeable. And Peter said this in Acts 2:3, he told them all at the end of his message, this sermon, the first sermon preached on the day the church was born. He said, “Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” So you have to be a believer to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So how do you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Number one, you have to be a believer. And number two, this is actually really important to realize, you have to believe it’s for you, you have to desire it and believe it’s for you.

 

  Yeah, Aaron, I was raised, you know, in a traditional church, didn’t believe in it but then I got baptized in the Holy Spirit in Andrew Wommack’s meetings in 1978, and then a couple years later when Andrew Wommack actually moved to Colorado Springs in 1980, his ministry headquarters, and that’s when his ministry really began to grow. And it’s grown a lot since then, it’s just amazing but then I ended up going to a full gospel, Pentecostal denominational church. And I had a great pastor who really understood the word, his name was Pastor Kenny Davis from Lamar, Colorado. He immediately saw that I was, you know, called by God to go into ministry, he recognized that, he started developing me and I have a great thanks to him and to God for what he did for me, but then I would begin, you know, so I’m like 16, 17, 18 years old, before I got married when I was 19, I would go to a lot of these Pentecostal meetings at other churches and some of them would be, you know, like youth meetings. And I remember these youth coming up to receive the baptism of Holy Spirit, but they had been taught you have to tarry. And so they’d be serving hot dogs or, you know, things that were fun for kids afterwards, and I remember praying for these kids for like 30 seconds and they’d just run off and go eat, they were more interested eating a hot dog than receiving the Holy Spirit. Well, if you’re more interested in eating a hot dog than receiving the Holy Spirit, you’ll probably get a hot dog and not the Holy Spirit. And so when you taught this, that you have to desire it; man, I think it is important that we desire the things of God. You know, Paul said, you know, “Desire spiritual gifts.” We should have a strong desire for the things of God.

 

  I love what Jesus said too. Looking at John 7, starting in verse 37 it says, “On the last day, the great day of the feasts, Jesus stood up and cried out saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in me as a scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.” So John’s saying that Jesus had to be glorified, He had to be risen from the dead before the Holy Spirit would be poured out. But he was talking about, “If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me…” He’s talking about the Holy Spirit but you have to desire it.

 

  Amen.

 

  You have to be thirsty for it.

 

  Amen. You know, we need to thirst, we need to hunger for the things of God, And it’s not like we haven’t received them but, you know what? There’s more where that came from. And I’m not talking about more of God, so to speak, but there’s more of us operating in the things of God. Amen? And so we need to operate in more of the things that have given to been given to us.

 

  And I like something that Peter said on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:39. He said, “For the promise,” he’s talking about the promise of the Holy Spirit, “This promise is to you, it’s for you,” you have to believe it’s for you, “and to your children and to all who are a far off.”

 

  That includes me.

 

  Yeah, and I love that to all who are far off. You know, Peter was actually prophesying about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, which kind of surprised him later on, you know, when he was ministering to Cornelius but he was prophesying, “This promise, it’s to you, to your children, to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

 

  You know, Pentecostals have this And, listen, I received about two years of education through a full gospel Bible school, I’m very thankful for that, but if you study their church history most of them just go back to 1900. But then I ended up finishing my school at Dr. Lester Sumrall’s, and he talks about that you can see the Holy Spirit all through the church, right? There were different aspects now in 1900, right? It really exploded, you know, with the Azusa Street and a lot of those things, and they’re fantastic. I am not putting those things down, man, they are amazing. And I actually preached, you know, years ago, and there were people up in their 90s that were around during that initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and they just loved it. I preached at some of these pretty dead Pentecostal churches, and I remember some of these ladies that I was just a young whipper snapper, they said, “We remember that, and you remind us of the power of God.” You know, the pastor would say, “You preach so long.” And I preached along those days, I try to not be like that-

 

  And I like that you said too, you know, earlier this week that, you know, the gift of the Holy Spirit, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, it’s not just only for a certain denomination but it’s actually open to all believers. So we know people who have backgrounds in, you know, different, you know, even in King Carson-

 

  Listen-

 

  There are other ministers there, there’s a Lutheran minister.

 

  Yeah.

 

  There’s a Catholic minister who’s actually, you thought he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and prayed in tongues.

 

  The Catholic priest was. A girl from our church cleaned his house and she read this book that he had on his mantle and it was, she read it, she said, “It’s just like us receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” And, you know, this Catholic priest was, he came and talked to me and even some of my own people would be challenged with me, but he encouraged me and I know some of the things that he told me came from God.

 

  Well, and also 20 years ago, I wanna mention this, 20 years ago, shortly after we started our church, we were running from Andrew Wommack facilities on Sunday mornings, but we were having a Wednesday night Bible study at the house, and it outgrew the house.

 

  Yeah.

 

  But you, you were looking for a place where we could, you know, meet on Wednesday nights as a church and our youth could meet, and kids can meet.

 

  And we met in a Lutheran church. And actually we weren’t renting from Andrew Wommack, he actually gave that to us as a gift. Now I’ve given him probably a couple million dollars since then, and so I keep sewing into his ministry and I love Andrew, I appreciate him, he’s gonna be on the broadcast here pretty quick-

 

  But you were looking for a place for Wednesday nights and-

 

  Yeah, and this Lutheran guy opened his door and he said, you know, he said, you know, “We’re God’s army,” he said, “but you’re God’s navy.”

 

  Well, when you approached him he said he was praying in tongues that day.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And knew that God showed him that someone would come and ask to use his building.

 

  Yeah., they treated us so well, they only charged us 50 or 100 bucks a night to use their whole church in Colorado Springs, they didn’t have a Wednesday night service. And we had the whole basement and fellowship hall for the youth, and we were upstairs and…

 

  Well, I love praying in tongues, I love being baptized in the Holy Spirit because it does open the doors to the supernatural, and God is so real. Maybe some of you just you’ve been having a hard time just really experiencing God yourself in a very real, very profound way. Man, I encourage you to just ask God to receive the Holy Spirit, and I believe that you’ll receive it. And, man, God will be so real to you, so alive to you, it’ll be like fire shot up in your bones.

 

  Amen. And, you know, we’re gonna come back right after the break and, you know, we’re gonna be sharing more about how you can receive this, we’ll be praying for you and, you know what? You don’t wanna miss the last half of the broadcast so stay tuned, we’ll be right back. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been tuned in with us, we wanna tell you about a special offer. We’ve been sharing on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and why pray in tongues, and you don’t want to miss more teaching on this. My son Aaron has that teaching, we’ve made it available downloadable audio, downloadable video. It’s on the website, it’s free of charge. Als, a great new children’s curriculum with teaching on the Holy Spirit free of charge. So go to charischristiancenter.com.

 

  There’s so much power in the spoken blessing. Things happen in the spiritual realm when you speak the blessing. You might not see anything happening in the physical realm but you need to speak the blessing, because things are happening in the spirit realm. There is a blessing in the congregation.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us, we’re talking about how to receive. You know, a lot of people don’t know how to receive from God. I was talking recently about receiving from God and I gave a whole lot of scriptures, and a lot of these scriptures, if you just study this word receive. You know, in the Book of Acts and in the New Testament, there are a lot of scriptures about receiving the Holy Spirit. I was actually talking about receiving healing. And after the service, you know, one of the people came out, one of the men came out and he said, “Pastor, you gave a ton of scriptures but you really didn’t tell us how.” And I thought for just a minute, I said, “Here’s how you receive from God. You thank Him.” And, you know, my prayers in English are about 50% Thanksgiving. Man, I just constantly thank God. I believe that is one of the most powerful ways to receive from God, and to receive the Holy Spirit. You know, number one, you’ve gotta ask for it, right, the ABCs. And Jesus talked about this, if you wanna receive the Holy Spirit, ask, “Ask and you shall receive,” right? Number two, you need to believe that you receive it. Here’s the problem with teaching that you gotta tarry and tarry and tarry and tarry and tarry-

 

  People aren’t sure if they tarried enough.

 

  They aren’t sure if they tarried enough and it’s just, you believe that you receive it, you know? And then number three, you just begin to operate, right, you confess or, you know, in this case I’m talking about to receive Jesus, you ask, you believe, then you confess, right, but with the Holy Spirit you start speaking, you open your mouth. You know in Acts chapter 2 when they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, they were all filled, Acts 2:4, and they all began to speak. There wasn’t one of them left out, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they all began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them the utterance. You know, the Holy Spirit will give you the words, the Holy Spirit will give you the utterance but you’ve gotta speak it. The Holy Spirit’s a gentleman, he’s not gonna open your mouth and grab your tongue and flap it up and down and make you talk. You’ve got to speak it out by faith. And like when I, for instance, a lot of times if I receive like a interpretation of a tongue or prophecy, I don’t receive the whole thing. I get one or two words, but then as I begin to share it, do you know what, it’ll break forth into more-

 

  I’m really glad that everyone’s tuned in today too because, you know, even in our church we mention this quite often and mention that, you know, if you’d like to come up and receive it but I remember several years ago at a service, there’s just a strong, you know, anointing of the Holy Spirit on the service and you just said, “I want everyone who wants this to stand up and receive.” And there were like 30 or 40 people who stood up and people have been coming to the church for, you know, five, 10 years, and they just didn’t understand it fully or just didn’t really want it, but a lot of people just stood up and just received and it was super powerful. So maybe you’ve been in these circles where you’ve heard about it, for some reason you just haven’t dove in yet.

 

  Praise God.

 

  Now’s the time to dive in and just ask for it. I love that you said ask for it.

 

  I know one of the guys that’s standing up, this guy is a businessman, he is a good businessman but he had a wife and they had major challenges. They’re my friends, I love them. I’d counsel ’em, I’d talked to ’em, I’d helped ’em but he stood up that day. And some of his friends that are older business people, they’re up in years, they gathered around him and prayed and he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But I can tell you Aaron, since he received that, man, his business is making more money than ever, it is supernatural what is happening. His mom was actually, she’s way up in years but she was testifying to me and saying, “Man, they didn’t even think about doing these things and people are coming forward to buy stuff from ’em and to rent stuff that haven’t even…” You know, they bought a building they were gonna tear down and then these people came and offer ’em to big price to rent this building from ’em, and all these different things. And it’s not, it’s for a good cause and, you know, his marriage is better, his business is better.

 

  Well, when you pray in tongues you’re being built up, but God can give you just supernatural wisdom and understanding and knowledge. I remember years ago when I was 18 years old I went off to college, I moved away for the first time, I was gonna Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and I was studying classical music. And I actually had the opportunity to study with a top flute professor in the entire world. There were flutists from all around the world there to study with her and, you know, coming from Colorado I was a big fish in a small pond, but when I moved there, just being 18, I was a very small fish in like the entire world’s pond. They were the top flutists, you know, who were a little bit older than me from Russia, from South Korea, from Argentina, all around the world and I remember a few months in I thought I needed to quit because I was taking loans and I really put a lot on the line to go for this. And I remember it was around October and I thought, “I just need to give up and quit, and just realized I made a mistake.” I thought I heard from God to go for this but I didn’t and I just needed to go back home. and you told me, “Just for a period of time you need to pray in tongues 30 minutes a day.” So maybe you’re like me, you’re just like really kind of at the bottom of the barrel and don’t know what to do. Pray in tongues, just go somewhere, pray in tongues for 30 minutes a day. And I started doing that, I actually somehow got a key to the storage room in the basement of this old music building. It’s one of the original buildings of the university that Andrew Carnegie had built himself, it’s like all marble floors and-

 

  Wow.

 

  It’s been there over 100 years but down in the basement of this facility, they call it the steam tunnels. It is ’cause how these buildings used to be heated in the winters of Pittsburgh with steam from coal, you know, but I’d go down to the steam tunnel area and I’d pray in tongues for 30 minutes every day during my lunch break. And over a couple weeks I was just like getting built up, I was fired up and I told my teacher that I wanted to do this major competition the music school had and she probably thought I was a little bit crazy ’cause it’s a big deal, you have to memorize a solo, mine was like 20 minutes long and she says, “All right, well, I’ll help you go for it.” So over Christmas break I worked on this, you know, really tough piece, 20 minutes long, all from memory. Came back, did it in the competition, and I remember I was so nervous because I was the only freshman who even entered this competition.

 

  You had people who were getting their doctorates, their masters, right, seniors, junior, you had all these people from all over the world, from some of the best-

 

  I think there were about 30 people that enter the competition. I was so nervous and I thought I made a mistake, and I remember when I played in the first round I was so nervous I kept my eyes closed the entire time.

 

  And this wasn’t only the flute, this was the piano, this was every instrument.

 

  But anyways, I kept my eyes just shut the entire time I was so nervous, but I made it through without falling on my face. So I was really glad and they announced, you know, the six people out of the 30 who had advanced and I was one of the six who had advanced, and I was just so happy that I didn’t make a complete fool outta myself. Sometimes faith is like that, sometimes you’re just happy you didn’t make a complete fool outta yourself. But I remember my teacher saying, you know, “In the second round, whatever you do, you gotta keep your eyes open.” And she told me, she said, “Even put toothpicks in your eyes to keep ’em open.” She said she had a student once, she used to teach at Julliard and, you know, she’s always had a lot of great students but she said she was judging at a major competition in Munich, Germany. And a student of hers flew all the way from New York to Germany, was competing in the Olympics of flute. And she said her student was so nervous her student kept her eyes closed the whole time, and by the time she was done she was actually facing the wrong direction. Her butt, her backside was towards the judges and she said, “I don’t want that to happen to you.” But the second round I was just so excited that I didn’t make a complete fool myself, I just didn’t have a care in the world I just had fun and just played my heart out. And, you know, after that last round they gathered the six together and they, you know, named ’em off, honorable mention, number three, number two and I won, I was number one. It was a complete miracle but that all started with me just praying in tongues, being built up in my most holy phase. So, you know, praying in tongues will help you no matter what you do. If you need help being a mother, a father, a business person, an engineer. My middle brother Andrew, he’s a engineer and they were building a natural gas refinery plant, and their entire company couldn’t figure out how to solve this problem-

 

  This is like the second largest one in the world and he was the project manager for it.

 

  A major deal, and I think this project cost, you know, $250 million. It’s a major deal and they had a big roadblock and none of their people could figure it out, so he just started praying in tongues. And God showed him what to do, you know, engineering wise to solve this problem and he solved it. And, you know, my brother, he’s a multimillionaire and it’s ’cause God has given him wisdom to do what He’s called him to do.

 

  You know, I told Andy, your brother, when he graduated from high school, he is never had a B in his life, ever. And I said, and they came to interview him from a local TV station and they said, “Have you ever had a B?” He said, “Nope, never.” And I said, “Andy, Jesus made you smart, don’t ever forget it.” He said, “I won’t, dad.” And, man, he hasn’t. And, you know, he graduated outstanding chemical engineering student from Colorado School of Mines in three years, it takes an average person five. He got his master’s in four and he was an outstanding chemical engineering student. Again, never got a B in his life, you know, and supernaturally God helped him and God blessed him, and he did all these things. And, you know, Andy had the highest grade in the nation on the organic chemistry test, it was a nationwide test. And they actually got ahold of us and said, “We’ve never seen a grade that high on that test.” That’s the wisdom of God given by the Holy Spirit. And I don’t care what aspect of life you’re in, the Holy Spirit will help you.

 

  And one thing I wanna say about the Holy Spirit too, He’ll take what you think is just natural to you, you might be just naturally a good singer, naturally a good, you know, boss, naturally entrepreneurial, but the Holy Spirit will take what God has given you, you just think it’s just a natural thing and He’ll put that super on it and it’ll become supernatural.

 

  Amen.

 

  And, man, you know, I know that God has given me giftings, just ingrained things in me, but I had to trust Him and, man, when you’re filled with the Holy Spirit and praying tongues, God will just make it a supernatural thing.

 

  Amen. Aaron, take just a moment and just pray for the people here.

 

  Yeah, I wanna pray for everyone right now. Maybe you wanna, you’ve never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit but just something is being stirred inside of you saying, you know, “I want that promise, I want that gift from the Father.” And if that’s you, you realize that you desire it, you want it, you’re asking for it. I’m gonna pray with you right now to receive it. So just right now, just stretch your hand forward towards the screen and I’m gonna pray for you right now. God, I just thank You for every single person watching this message right now, who’s asking for the gift of the Holy Spirit, asking to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, asking to just receive that just supernatural prayer language to praying tongues. I just thank You that right now Holy Spirit is being poured out on each and every one of these people, just holding their hands, stretching forth their hands right now. Thank You that they’re being filled with the Holy Spirit being, filled with boldness. And I just think that right now they’re gonna open their mouth and just as the Holy Spirit gives them utterance, just those syllables that the Holy Spirit gives them, they’re gonna speak them forth by faith. And I thank You that they have it right now in the name of Jesus. And just before we close I wanna say this, just this concluding verse here. Paul said this in, you know, 1 Corinthians 14:18, “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than you all.” So keep praying in tongues, and I believe it is an awesome thing.

 

  And if Paul said that, and he wrote about half the New Testament, you ought to pray in tongues. It’ll help you, praise God. I wanna encourage you to go to our website at charischristiancenter.com, we have absolutely 100s of hours of teaching video and audio, downloadable free. We wanna bless you.

 

  Jesus commanded His followers to wait in Jerusalem until they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit. If the early church needed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we certainly need it today. This scriptural teaching makes it clear that every believer can and should be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and pray in tongues. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of “Baptism In The Holy Spirit”, a $5 value free of charge. Download your copy today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends, I wanna 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 live stream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 AM, or you can go to our website and get it anytime at charischristiancenter.com. Friend, I encourage you to pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe in your son Jesus. I believe that He died on the cross for my sins and that you raised Him from the dead the third day, and made Him Lord. And, Jesus, right now I surrender my life to you, I surrender my direction to you. Jesus, I ask you to come in and direct my life and be my Lord and be my Savior, in your name, amen.

 

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