Sid: I’m talking to someone right now; you were baptized in the Holy Spirit 20 years ago. You spoke in unknown tongues; you had your first love. You read the Bible every day; if there were 8 services going on in a day you would run to those 8 services. You had an insatiable appetite for the things of God, but as time went on you prayed for a few people and they didn’t get healed; you stopped praying in tongues. You became a spectator; you might have even been teaching Sunday School but things are booor-ing [emphasis intended]! And you’re just wondering “Is there something more?” I have on the telephone Tim Enloe I’m interviewing him on his latest book and it’s brand new it’s almost off the press. It’s called “Want More.” So what would you say to that person Tim?
Tim: Well, first of all I believe that we do a great disservice to the Holy Spirit almost an insult in not depending on Him. You know I want to challenge those that have… or are in that situation an area that you just mentioned their just living in status quo Christianity. And their saying “Life if just happening and when something really bad happens I’ll really commit it to prayer but otherwise I’ll just accept the status quo as being God’s will.”
Sid: And you know what I think that position is backslidden and don’t even know it.
Tim: Oh certainly they’ve lost their first love and they need to remember that the height and repent and come back and do the things that you did as first. Getting back in repentance and heart searching and calling on the Lord, no doubt. But in those cases you see one of the things that we need to recognize about the Holy Spirit is that perhaps we make the mistake many times of recognizing or reconciling that our present reality is God’s intended best for us. Well why in the world would we ever want to make such a foolish mistake? We know that He is exceedingly able to do far above anything that we could ever ask or imagine according to the power that is at work within us, the power of the Holy Spirit. And I want to encourage those that have received the Baptism in the Spirit and had kind of gotten complacent in their hearts and haven’t had an avenue of ministry. The easiest way to get those jumper cables from heaven on your earlobes again. The easiest way for God to hit you with His Holy Spirit defibrillator and give you a fresh charge is for you to get in a place that demands the anointing of the Holy Spirit flows through your life. Get in over your head and cry out help to God; get around someone that’s sick and instead of trying to give them 20 minutes of counseling and 1 minute of prayer. Give them a half hour of prayer only and cry out to God. Pray in the language of the Spirit; tell God your desperation and get in over your head. When we begin to recognize that it’s not by our might or our wisdom or our power but it’s by His Spirit and truly convictedly believe that in our hearts. It begins to magnifies the Spirit of God to come down upon the circumstances; God never flows through the wisdom of men He flows in a different trend of wisdom the mysterious wisdom Paul talked about in Corinthians chapter 2 the wisdom of the Spirit of God, His empowering, His glory, His work. And when we get into a circumstance over our head I believe the siphon down the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
Sid: Tim, what about the person that their whole life they have heard that tongues is not for today. What would you say to them?
Tim: Well I would challenge them to read their Bible; it’s very easy to accept teaching from very good, and I might add godly people. But people that they themselves have been indoctrinated that tongues is not for today. But thankfully that’s an ever shrinking corner of Christianity even among scholars. Certainly in the evangelical world it’s a very shrinking perspective. But to understand that the Bible does not teach that the Bible tells us that one of the great scriptures that the sensationalists used beginning with B.B. Warfield back with his counterfeit miracles book at the turn of the past century. He said that “It’s clear that tongues shall cease 1st Corinthians 14 “When that which is perfection has come. And he said “Well, certainly I would image that perfection to be the Bible being concluded; the Bible being written; the end being put on the end of John’s revelation of Jesus. But we understand from scripture that Paul is not talking about that at all when you read that. He’s looking forward to an eschatological conclusion when we’re with Jesus forever in heaven, tongues will be stilled, prophesy will cease.” There will be no need when we’re in heaven with Messiah. There’s no even need for a temple there; no even need for a sun because the Lord is there He is the light. The Lamb is the light.
Sid: Tim you used the words sensationalists in other words people that believe that the gifts have stopped. In your book you tell us a story of a couple that accidentally came to one of your meetings that thought that way. What happened to them?
Tim: Well this was again a couple trained and raised from knee high to a grasshopper trained and raised in a sensationalists church. Again a good godly pastor absolutely no doubt about that; people being born again. But when it came to this openness of the things of the Spirit they said “Basically they’ve said “I haven’t experienced it yet so it must not be true; which is a terrible error; a fatal error to me.” They came to the service not realizing that they were having a kooky guest like myself into the pulpit that day and a that that moment they wanted to get up and leave but they were sitting too close to the front. And by the end of the service they both found themselves walking to the front and praying to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit evidence by speaking in those unlearned languages that the Bible promised. And they both found themselves very easily experiencing the presence and the glory of God like they both testified they had never experienced before, and then speaking this new language. And of course I always encourage people after they begin to speak in that language to trust God to guide their known language in the same miraculous way. That afternoon as they pulled out of church Brother Sid, they made a right out of church and then a left on the main road. And about ½ mile down there was a car with a hazard lights blinking on along side of the road. It was a young single mom full of a car load of kids there. And she was broken down and they stopped and the wife looked at the husband and the husband looked at the wife and said “Already?” And he called the tow-truck and they sat in their car there and they decided to drive them home. And he was going to wait with the car until the tow-truck to get there because the kids needed to go home; total strangers. And as the wife newly baptized in the Spirit the wife was driving this young single mom and these kids to their house before they even pulled into the driveway she had already led them to the Lord. They were praying with her; they couldn’t believe this divine opportunity from God. And if that weren’t the clincher that night this lady laid hands on a young boy and born cross eyed and he had had 7 unsuccessful operations to cure this cross eyed condition. Laid her hands upon him not only… again she didn’t believe in miracles she was a little convinced about the baptism of the Spirit thing because she had experienced it. But now she laid hands on this young boy born cross-eyed 7 unsuccessful operations the moment her hands touched him his eyes straightened out. And he screamed out “Mom, I don’t see funny anymore.” And what a testimony service we had that night, not only from this lady who was laying aside sensationalism but she had picked up the now anointing that had already resulted in several people being born again in her life as she shared Christ with them, and now miracles taking place.
Sid: Now this is not unusual Mishpochah every time that Tim shares in these areas either people that were baptized in the Holy Spirit get it activated. Or those that haven’t get baptized in the Holy Spirit they literally get a refreshment, they get their first love back. Tell me another quick story of someone that heard your teaching, sat under the anointing and what they did.
Tim: One of my very favorites is one of a minister, a credentialed minister, with a sensationalist denomination and he accidentally got into our services as well. And I always tell people “Listen I’m not going to present an argument. I don’t believe the Holy Spirit blesses arguments the Holy Spirit blesses when you talk about Jesus.” So I just presented Jesus as the baptizer in the Holy Spirit that perhaps there are some that have never encountered Him. They’ve encountered Him as the Savior, they’ve encountered Him as the deliverer, and certainly the Messiah and all that contains and they’re looking forward to Him as the coming King but they have not experienced in the way that John prophesied. The forerunner said that “He would baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire” and they had not experienced that yet. This gentleman came forward and he was still very unconvinced but he said “It’s true Jesus I don’t think I’ve experienced You as the baptizer so I know I’m safe asking Jesus for something. He wasn’t sure about asking the Holy Spirit for something, he said “I know I’m safe asking Jesus.” And he went forward and as he began to pray all of a sudden the Holy Spirit came upon him and all of a sudden he found this beautiful interior river beginning to break-loose out of his inner most being. And he found himself suddenly speaking in a language in which he’d never understood before. And he came to me after-wards and he said “You have ruined me.” And I said “I didn’t do it I don’t know what you are talking about. (Laughing) He said “How in the world am I going to explain this to my denominational officials? I came here totally convinced against this,” but he said that “As I began to ask Jesus to show Himself to me as the baptizer in the Holy Spirit He said my guard is down because I love Jesus with all my heart.” He said “Today for the first time in my life I know that this is real and that it’s a gift that comes from Jesus He’s the baptizer.”
Sid: You know in your book you state that you feel that this next move of God’s Spirit is going to hit non-charismatic denominational churches. I actually have more faith for them than the charismatic churches that have got it and have buried it in the ground.
Tim: Well, I really believe that too, the exception of that is the young generation that God is raising up in the Pentecostal and the Charismatic Churches that are dissatisfied with form without power. That is not an acceptable model for church living, is it? And the young generation is raising up saying “Hey, wait a minute we believe all this stuff why don’t we see it?” And there is a new rekindled passion that perhaps their parents and grandparents had laid aside many years ago. But I truly…I’m with you if you gave me someone that was born and raised in a Pentecostal Church and has heard about the baptism of the Spirit all their life as Case A and someone that was just born again and delivered from demons and drug addictions as Case B, and you said pick one for the baptism of the Holy Spirit I’d run right to the….
Sid: Oh Tim we’re out of time.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth