Missions – Part 1 Lawson Perdue and Delron Shirley

  Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’re here today. I have a great friend, Dr. Delron Shirley. He’s the head of Teach All Nations ministries, and him and his wife Peggy, have traveled all over the world preaching the gospel. We’re going to be talking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and world missions all week. So you don’t want to miss today’s program. Thanks so much, and blessings. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. And I have a very special friend, Dr. Delron Shirley. And Dr. Shirley was actually the dean of students at World Harvest Bible College, Dr. Lester Sumrall’s bible school when I went there and graduated in 1988.

 

  Oh my Lord, that seems like a long time ago.

 

  Had a great time with you, and appreciated you and Peggy. And then I went to Kit Carson and started the church where you ministered for me a number of times. And then I got my bachelor’s degree while I was in Kit Carson by correspondence. But they changed the name to Indiana Christian University.

 

  Right, yes.

 

  And then after we were in Kit Carson for 13 years pastoring Church of the Redeemed, which a group of believers and Barbara and I started and pioneered in Kit Carson, we moved to Colorado Springs and started Charis Christian Center. And it wasn’t too many years after we started that you came here to Colorado Springs and began to work some with Andrew Wommack. And now you’re part of our church and you do missions all over the world.

 

  Yes.

 

  And so I asked you if we could have a week and just talk about missions and just talk about sharing the gospel. And I know you’ve… How many nations have you been to?

 

  About 70.

 

  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

 

  Uh huh.

 

  So that’s really awesome.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, when I was just like a senior in high school, right after that, I went on my first mission trip to Jamaica and it really put a heart in me for the world. And so thank God we get to share the gospel all around the world.

 

  It’s exciting. And these are the last days, Jesus said, that the gospel would be shared, the gospel would be preached into every nation before that he would return. And I’m just excited to be part of that last wave.

 

  Amen. You know, Dr. Sumrall really talked about two things happening in the last times. He said there would be a great revival. And the Bible talks about that in the Scripture that you just mentioned, Matthew 24:14, “This gospel, the kingdom shall be preached to all nations and then shall the end come.” It also talks about it in Acts 2:17, God said he would pour out of his Spirit upon all flesh. And so on one side there’s a great revival, but there’s also an apostasy.

 

  Right.

 

  In 1 Timothy, I believe it’s chapter 4, verse 1, it says, “In the last times, perilous times shall come and some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” And so we see both of those things happening parallel. In fact, right in Matthew 24:13, right before Jesus said, “This gospel shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations,” he said that there would be some because of iniquity would abound the love of many would wax cold. So you don’t get hard just immediately, but it’s a process.

 

  Exactly.

 

  If you harden your heart to the Spirit of God. So we don’t want to do that.

 

  No.

 

  We want to let God have his way.

 

  Amen.

 

  So share a few things about the gospel.

 

  Oh, okay. Well, if you don’t mind, I know we’re talking about missions, but I want to share a story that really started my entire ministry. And this was when I was a student at North Carolina State University. My childhood desire was to be a chemist. And so I excelled in chemistry all through high school and was given special awards and different things within the chemistry realm. Anyway, and so I went to North Carolina State University with a specialized chemistry program. But one of the things that I really wanted to do was to maintain my faith while I was at campus at a secular university. And so the first thing that we did is I found a church to attend.

 

  Right.

 

  And the interesting thing is that one of the members of that church was a professional chemist. He was a doctor in chemistry, and he was a research scientist at The Research Triangle. If you know anything about North Carolina, there are three major universities. And in between those is an area where that a lot of companies do research, calling on the professors from the different universities.

 

  And they call it the triad or something.

 

  Yes, uh huh, yeah, exactly. So anyway, so he was a research chemist in The Research Triangle. And so he like became my idol, you know, because he was everything I wanted to be. And so he volunteered to come pick me up every Sunday and take me to church.

 

  That’s amazing.

 

  So the first Sunday we’re going to church, 10:00 in the morning, I’m standing on the curb in front of the dorm waiting for him to come pick me up. And here I am, I have on a suit and a tie, which I’m not wearing today, but a suit and a tie and my Bible under my arm. And one of the guys from the dorm walked by and he says, “So where are you going?” And I said, “Out.” Now, after he walked away, I thought, you know, “How dumb.” I mean, it’s 10:00 on a Sunday morning, I’m wearing a suit and a tie and I’ve got a Bible under my arm, and where do you think you’re going to go looking like that, you know? And so I decided, hey, you know, you can’t hide it, so you might as well decide not to be ashamed of the gospel. Amen.

 

  You know, Romans 1:16. Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation.” So anyway, so between that Sunday and the next, I determined to find that guy and ask him if he’d like to come to church with me the next week. And sure enough, he did. And then the next week, we had a couple more guys from the dorm. In just a few weeks down the road, we had to recruit another car because we filled up the professor’s car.

 

  That’s awesome.

 

  And then we had to get a second car to bring people. And before long, we had so many students from the university coming to church that the pastor said, “We’ve got to start a whole new Sunday school class just for the college students.”

 

  That’s great.

 

  And then back at the campus, we started having prayer meetings and bible studies on campus. And before long, we had hundreds of students that were involved. The movement actually expanded to 22 different campuses.

 

  Oh, that’s great.

 

  And we had hundreds of students that got born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, many of them healed, and a lot of them, actually, instead of pursuing their secular education that they had come for, wound up going to Bible college or seminary and are pastors all over the world. And the whole thing started just because that I decided, “Hey, I am not going to be ashamed of the gospel.”

 

  Amen.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Praise God. Now, Delron, so many people today seem like they’re afraid of like a secular university. And all of my children went to secular universities. So Aaron went to Carnegie Mellon and got his undergrad, and he got that in administration in business and music. And then he went to Rice University in Houston and got his master’s and doctorate.

 

  Right.

 

  And in a little bit of time, after Aaron was at Carnegie Mellon, he found the right church and God directed him, and he was a big witness there and took different people with him at different times. In fact, he’s still got a great relationship with the leadership in that church. And he had to ride two buses that took him an hour and a half to get to church. But they would drive him back home, the pastor’s mom or a good friend of hers, and she’s up in her 90s, still loving and serving Jesus. We actually sent her an offering a while back, but she’s just doing really, really well. She’s been one of the leaders in the nation in Aglow. And then when he went to Rice University, just like you’re talking, one of the people on campus, he’s in science or something and he’s got his doctorate, he’s one of the leading scientists in the world. In fact, they write about him all around the world. And he’s Jewish, but he received Jesus. And so every Sunday, he hosts a group of students at his house.

 

  Good.

 

  And he feeds them lunch after church. So he invites them to church with him. So just the same thing that you experienced, and you’re talking about 22 campuses, and I know it wasn’t very many years ago that I heard about a place in Texas where they’re having like 50,000 students come together on a Tuesday evening for a Bible study, all from different churches to worship Jesus. And so at the same point in time where there is apostasy, there is great revival.

 

  Yes.

 

  And there’s great revival around the world today, but we’ve gotta keep sharing Jesus.

 

  Right.

 

  We can’t be ashamed of the gospel.

 

  Well, you know, we hear a lot about, you know, the coming outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and you mentioned already Acts 2, where it says he would pour out his spirit upon all flesh. You know, I have been privileged to be in two wonderful waves of the move of the Spirit.

 

  Amen.

 

  And one of them was what I was talking about at the university, and that was what we call The Jesus Movement. And many people have seen the film that was out recently, the “Jesus Revolution.”

 

  Right.

 

  Well, I actually knew some of the people that were in that film. I mean, not in the film, but the real people that the film was made about.

 

  And that Jesus Revolution, Jesus Movement, it started almost spontaneously, and it was something that was phenomenal that people couldn’t expect, people couldn’t explain, but it was just an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And then I’ve seen the same thing happen in the nation of Nepal, where that it was a Hindu nation and people were forbidden to share the gospel, forbidden to even own Bibles. I knew people who were thrown in jail just for owning a Bible, not because they were preaching from the Bible or trying to convert other people, but they found a 

 

  This is crazy.

 

  They just found a Bible in their home and they were thrown in jail. The sentence for owning a Bible was six years. And then after six years, you would be released. And if they caught you again, then you could be thrown in possibly for the rest of your life. It was undetermined. But anyway, when we first started going to Nepal, the people there told me that they could remember the time when there were only five Christians in the nation, five Christians in the entire nation. And then in 1990, God just opened the door and the Spirit of God poured out on that nation. People were getting born again every day, all the time. And it became the fastest growing church in the world. And all the Christian magazines were talking about the revival or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that was happening in that nation.

 

  Amazing.

 

  And, you know, so twice I have been privileged to see from zero to exponential growth in the body of Christ, you know, because God poured out his Spirit.

 

  Because the Spirit of God is still moving on the face of the earth.

 

  Yeah. So we’re going to take a short break and we’re going to come back after this and we’re going to talk more about this.

 

  Yeah.

 

  In fact, I went to Nepal with you.

 

  Yes, you did.

 

  I believe it was in the late 1990s.

 

  It was.

 

  And there were about 30 of us, and you had us going all kinds of different places, and there were thousands and thousands of Christians.

 

  Yes.

 

  So this is great. So we’re going to come back in just a few seconds and we’ll be back and we’ll be sharing more about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and what God is doing on the earth in these last days. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back. Blessings. Friends, we’ve been sharing about world missions, but we could not effectively reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ without the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And so our special offer this week is “Outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” We have downloadable audios and downloadable videos on our website absolutely free. Blessings.

 

  So, Pastor Lawson’s and Pastor Aaron’s teaching on faith and who we are. So the foundation has been so solid since we are here. So it’s been growing steadily, the foundation in Jesus. And on top of that skillset, increasing by serving with joy is the best thing you can do.

 

  Yes.

 

  Friends, we’re back, and again, I’m so happy to have Dr. Delron Shirley, my good friend and minister of the gospel. And he began to talk about how God is pouring out of his Spirit and how he was involved in revival. Now, what years was that when you were involved in your college in the Jesus Movement?

 

  That was the 1970s.

 

  Okay.

 

  The very end of the ’60s, the ’70s. And then, you know, that Jesus Movement revival went through the 70s, and then the charismatic movement that where a lot of denominational churches were being filled with the Holy Spirit kind of came on the heels of that, and then went through the ’80s.

 

  Okay, so I was actually baptized by the Holy Spirit in 1978 in the charismatic movement.

 

  Right.

 

  And I came out of a traditional church, and my grandparents had actually helped start that church years and years before. And Andrew Wommack came to town when nobody knew Andrew Wommack, and he was a Baptist that had been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

 

  Right.

 

  And he had a Bible study, and it was in one of my family’s friend’s house. And then it moved to my aunt’s house. And it was just a couple of months after I started attending that I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. And I knew immediately when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit that I was called into the ministry. I was just 14 years old. So that was 45 years ago as we speak today. And the Holy Spirit revolutionized my life. And praise God, the Holy Spirit will do that.

 

  Amen.

 

  Praise God. And then ended up going to Dr. Sumrall’s bible school and graduated in 1988 where you were the dean then, and then moving to Eastern Colorado, very small town, Kit Carson, where we pastored for 13 years. And then we moved here to Colorado Springs and started again. And then you came here.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And now you’re part of the work here in Colorado Springs, and we appreciate you and your wife Peggy so much. But you were talking about Nepal and the move of the Holy Spirit and what God’s doing. And I went there with you in the late 1990s.

 

  Right.

 

    And there were about 30 of us on that trip, and you had us going, you know, two or three places a day.

 

  Exactly.

 

  Preaching and sharing and ministering to people, and people were being healed. And it was amazing to see the move of the Holy Spirit. And I’m amazed at the move of the Holy Spirit today. It’s amazing what God does. It just it never ceases to get old to me.

 

  No, no, no, no. But anyway, we were sharing about that and I had, you know, mentioned to you that I had been in two tremendous outpourings of the Holy Spirit, the one when during the college years, the Jesus Movement, and then also what happened in Nepal. And I really anticipate that we can see that happen more and more and more.

 

  Amen.

 

  I mean, we started with nothing.

 

  Right.

 

  And it exploded in both nations.

 

  This is encouraging.

 

  On the college campus and in the nation of Nepal. And a lot of people look at the world today and they say, “The world is going to hell in a hand basket.” And they talk about all the bad things and all the liberal issues, and all the ungodly rules and regulations and laws that are being put in place and et cetera. But, you know, God can start just like that and turn it all around.

 

  Yeah, he can, and you know, this brings something up. I was in Dr. Sumrall’s church when I was going to Bible school, and this was November of 1987.

 

  Okay.

 

  And he said two things, and sometimes he said, “I predict,” but in these two things he didn’t say, “I predict.” He said, “This is what’s going to happen.” He said, number one, in 1988, he said, “The high are going to be brought low and the low are going to be exalted.” He said, “It will happen in the government and in the church.” And we saw that happen. But he said this also, November of 1987, he said, “The iron curtain is going to fall.” Now, we were at the height of the Cold War. You were probably in that service. It was a Sunday morning. It was like 2,500 or 3,000 people there. It’s like he poured ice water on all of them. Because it was so opposite of what we saw happening in the natural. But he, then he said, “What is wrong with you people? And he just, he just… It was so real to him. It was such a revelation to him. Well, I sat in a meeting in August of this past year, and Andrew Wommack said, “By 2026, there will be such a change in this nation, and we will be going back to conservative principles.” And it was like, I’m thinking, “What is he smoking? Of course, Andrew don’t smoke nothing, you know?

 

  Right, yeah, exactly.

 

  What’s he drinking? He don’t drink nothing. He won’t even drink coffee. But, you know, I’m thinking that because it’s so opposite of what we were seeing. And I believe that we’re beginning to see already change. But I was reminded of when Dr. Sumrall said that, and I said, “You know what? This could be God speaking.” And I know there’s great revival, Iraq.

 

  Yes.

 

  We’ve sewn a lot of seed into Terry Law, his son Jason, and literally paid for thousands and thousands of Bibles that they smuggled in. And they’re seeing a huge outpouring of the Spirit, people being saved and coming to Christ. I hear their closing mosques.

 

  Yes.

 

  And churches are exploding. So praise God for this outpouring of the Spirit that God is doing. And you know, I think the devil meant for COVID to try to shut the church down. I’ve heard some terrible things, like the average church is down 40% numerically today. But Barbara got a vision of like tidal waves coming from the oceans to all the continents of the world, of move of the Spirit, and then in the middle of continents, like geysers shooting up, an outpouring of the Spirit at the beginning of this. And I really believe that the best is yet to come.

 

  Amen, I do too, yeah. You were talking about Iraq and Iran, we’re working with Christians in Iran, and they’re telling us that the mosques are empty.

 

  This is wonderful.

 

  Yeah. The only people that go to the mosques are the very old, you know, that have just grown up in it, you know. But the mass of the population do not attend. And I said, now, so when they have the call to worship, you know, in a lot of countries, like in Egypt and everything, everything just kind of stops. People fall down right in the middle of the street and start doing their prayers. And they said, “Well, you know, some people will go to the mosque when they hear the call to prayer, but most people just carry on with their own business.

 

  This is great.

 

  Yeah. The government is very strong against Christianity, you know, but that is just the people in charge, And they’re going to age out soon. And the new people that are going to come up are coming from a totally new perspective, and we’re going to see a turnaround in many, many nations around the world.

 

  Amen. You know, Aaron, my son, is very prophetic. And he stood on my stage in a prophetic meeting, not, you know, probably three years ago. And he said, “There’s going to be a great revival among the Arab nations.”

 

  Yes.

 

  And now we’re hearing this in the Middle East, and you’re telling me more than I heard some about Iraq because we worked, you know, with World Compassion and Terry Law, and now Jason Law, his son, and praise God, it’s great to see these good reports happening all around the world. of people coming to Jesus.

 

  Yeah, yeah.

 

  But if we can go back to the move in Nepal.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, one of the things that I saw in Nepal that I believe is foundational for any move of the Spirit is intercession. In 1986, this is six years before my first trip to Nepal, I met a man, a Nepali man, here in the U.S., and he said, “You need to pray for our people because they are totally oppressed. There’s no freedom of religion.” And I already shared about how people were thrown in jail just for owning Bibles, et cetera. And so, you know, he said, “Pray.” And so I diligently began to pray deliberately every day for freedom of religion in Nepal. And it was four years later in 1990, there was a, I guess you would essentially call it a bloodless coup, but the people wanted a democratic government. And the king had actually been educated in the West, and so he was a little bit more sympathetic than you might have thought. But anyway, and so he granted a new constitution, democratic constitution, and one of the elements was freedom of religion.

 

  That is amazing.

 

  Yeah, yeah.

 

  You know, I was thinking about this Scripture actually, when I was thinking about having you, this is one of the Scriptures, but in Acts 2:8, the Scripture says, “Ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance.” And so thank God we can still ask God. And God’s inheritance is the people. And you know, the Bible says in James 5 that the Lord has great patience, you know, for the fruit, the precious fruit of the earth. So we’ve just got a little bit before we go off today, Dr. Shirley, would you say a prayer for the people that are watching?

 

  Yes.

 

  A prayer of encouragement.

 

  Yes.

 

  Whatever you feel directed.

 

  Okay. Father, I would just pray for everybody that is tuned in today, that you would move on their hearts to understand what it is that you want to do around the world. You have a desire for the nations of the world to come to you. And Father, we just know, Lord, that there are many that are going to be called, that are going to go out and share, maybe with their neighbors, like even when I talked about on the college campus, maybe they’re going to go to the distant nations of the world. Maybe they’re going to just become prayer warriors and intercessors. Maybe they’re going to become givers and finance other people to go. But Father, you said that if we ask of you that you will give us the nations for our inheritance. And I thank you, Lord, that that’s not just something for Pastor Lawson and for me, but it’s for every believer in Jesus’ name, amen.

 

  Thank you so much, friends, for being a part of the broadcast. You can watch this again actually on our website at charischristiancenter.com, where we have actually hundreds of hours of downloadable teaching and video that you can get and see a lot of different materials. And we have many, many things that are free. Or if you need to call for prayer, call right now. 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 the digital copy of the teaching, “The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit,” a $25 value free of charge. Download it today at carischristiancenter.com.

 

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

 

  We are going to 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 going to have a lot of fun and laugh a lot, you are also going to experience the power of God when you see signs, wonders, and miracles,

 

  It’s time to rejoice.

 

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