Sid: This week is Shavuot otherwise known as Pentecost its Friday and Saturday. And you’re going to have your own Pentecost your own Shavuot this week because all of this week and today is no exception there is a river of God’s Spirit coming over the airways. I have on the telephone Dave Roberson. Dave is the Senior Pastor of The Family Prayer Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’m talking to him about his new book “The Walk of the Spirit the Walk of Power” and the vital role of praying in tongues. You will find out benefits from that God has for you from praying in tongues that I believe that you’ve never even contemplated before. For instance Dave most of the people listening to us know what they’ve read in the Bible about the benefits of praying in tongues. They know that it edifies, they know that it builds them up but what they don’t know is how it gets rid of the actual roots of sin in their lives. Explain this.
Dave: Okay well Sid as you know my past as Ultra Ultra Holiness and we had a doctrine of saved, sanctified and then filled with the Holy Ghost. And so first you had to be saved and then sanctified of course the separation from the world and from sin then that qualified you to receive the Holy Spirit. So let me get this straight now I get saved and then I need to quit sinning. I need to get sanctified and then I need to receive the Holy Spirit because I’ll get good enough. But see Roman’s 8:13 says that “It’s thru the Spirit that you mortify the deeds of the body.” See they wanted me to get good enough to get the Holy Spirit. Where actually I needed the Holy Spirit…
Sid: To get good enough (Laughing.)
Dave: To get good enough with. So see there’s a vast difference between will worship and mortification. Will worship is when I use all extreme discipline to discipline myself against the problem.
Sid: Let’s take an example let’s say losing weight most people can relate to that. Show me how to do it in the flesh and how to do it in the Spirit.
Dave: Alright. In losing weight you make your New Year’s resolutions and to me I had a pipe I was trying to throw away and he mortified me finally. But we’ll make a New Year’s resolution and say I want to lose 100 pounds and we use our will and everything to discipline ourselves and maintain a high level of discipline until usually the strongholds, the emotions whatever involved overtakes us and we fall back into the same pattern again. Well there’s a big difference between that kind of will worship and when the Lord helps you. For will worship again is when you extremely discipline yourself against a problem. But mortification is when the Holy Spirit is allowed to rise up on the inside of you and He will destroy the hold that the problem has over you. And this is from praying in tongues and when you begin to pray in tongues the first thing He will do in the edification process is He will He’ll single those things out or single those things out that are the strongholds between you and Him.
Sid: Is it possible to pray in tongues and just not be obedient when God points these things out?
Dave: Not really Sid because this is what He toke the understanding of the language away from you during the hours you prayed. Because sometimes if we knew what we was praying we would stop but He will go for the root of the problem. Such as sometimes we think like well I’m going to pray in tongues for a new car. And we try to direct it and where God thinks that a guy should quit yelling at his wife.
Sid: Hm.
Dave: He thinking he’s needing a new car and God’s going for the root of the problem He thinks he should quit yelling at his wife. But here’s the thing Sid the reason if you took the understanding of the language away from the person when they spend those hours in prayer its because first He builds you up on your most holy faith or in the edification process.
Sid: What does that mean exactly build you up?
Dave: All right He’ll build you up on your most holy faith or in other words He will take your spirit and begin to build it up and build it up and the understanding of God’s word in the mysteries. He will build you up and up to finally you’ll build yourself up above that problem. And when you do He’ll let you turn around and look at the problem through His eyes. And when you build yourself up above it then you also have the strength in the Spirit and the power and the faith to mortify it or move it out of your body. Or out of your life or out of the habitual realm. So here you’re looking at this hideous problem and you’re seeing it now with God’s eyes and you hate it with a bold faith. And God says “Good because when you didn’t care or you were weak and you loved your problem what did I have to work with? But now that you build yourself up above it you have the faith that you need to move it out of your life.” And that’s what He means when He says building yourself up on your most holy faith keeping yourself in the love of God in Jude 20 and 21.
Sid: You talk in your book about many prayer groups actually fail because people start praying in tongues and they think they’re praying the problem but they’re really praying for what has a higher priority in their life explain that.
Dave: Let’s just say that if the love of money the root of all evil had a hold of a person very severely in fact it was his master and he would serve it before God. So he hears about edification and he thinks it’s just going to build him up in God and leave the rest of his life alone. So all of a sudden it starts building him up building up and he starts getting a look at money for what it is when it’s replacing God. So he starts not liking those feelings he started to get because he loves money more. So he will either else to into a war that will cause him that he’ll have to stop praying in tongues or he will let the Holy Spirit bring money into its proper perspective and let God be first but you can’t do both. Because if you keep praying in tongues you eventually everything between you and God will be mortified everything.
Sid: So in effect the way for a carnal Christian to get out of carnality is praying in unknown tongues.
Dave: Just get stubborn about it and start about an hour a day in your car anywhere.
Sid: Now what with you you shut yourself away in a closet so to speak but is it just as valuable praying as your driving down the highway in tongues as if it’s in a room by yourself with nice music in the background?
Dave: It is Sid because again that’s why He took the understanding away because He’s creating the perfect prayer. The only thing He needs from you is the authority that’s in your spirit when He passes it through you. That’s all He needs from you not your mind.
Sid: But how do you overcome the flesh that says “I am tired of this I would rather zone out and watch something on television, watch a sporting event, watch some current events. How do you I mean the flesh would rather do anything but pray in tongues.
Dave: If you will keep this in mind that you just give yourself an hour or 2 a day and just an hour when you’re running around doing business and things. That if you won’t give up on that hour it will start changing you in the Spirit to where your heart rejoices in drawing closer to God and when things are mortified they lose their hold over you because that’s where the fight is. When they lose their hold they’re replaced with peace so that isn’t the same kind of fight. The devil will try to tell you it will always be that way it won’t they’ll be a day when it’s a delight to walk into Him and do anything that He wants.
Sid: How does this affect hearing God’s voice?
Dave: Oh my when you stay in there and let Him pour that supernatural language through your spirit. It will do nothing but tune you up I mean that place the tongues comes from in your spirit the place the Holy Spirit speaks those tongues literally in your spirit is the ear of your spirit. The Holy Spirit can also bring English through that same channel or an inner witness. So it will do nothing but make it much more acute it will tune you up.
Sid: So those that are listening right now to us and are wasting a lot of time be it while they drive be it at night zoning out on television if they were to make the switch and spend that time praying in tongues really and truly what difference is it going to make?
Dave: (Laughing) the difference Sid I didn’t think I could have any more peace until I went from one realm to another. When the Holy Spirit will bring them from glory to glory serving Him is so much life every moment is full and the peace is unspeakable. Now I’m 27 years in ministry now and I’m not burning out I’m burning in I can’t wait for each moment I can’t wait. He’ll take you from glory to glory into places in God you didn’t know existed just because you’re letting God the Holy Spirit pray for you.
Sid: And it’s possible to miss this right.
Dave: You can miss it you can miss it. I mean the devil it would how could I say it Sid his primary objective is to keep you from drawing closer to God and this is a major key. So what is he going to discredit, what is he going to keep you from finding out about? It is possible to miss it.
Sid: How long will it take for someone to see a difference in their life if they take if they do what you said take an hour a day to pray in tongues?
Dave: If they’ll be faithful for just a couple of months it will change them enough inside where they won’t want to stop.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth