Transcription
[Music] Greetings in Jesus' name. I'm Bishop Chester Wright, and this is the video teaching series, "Praying in the Spirit." This is part one of that series, and in this series of lessons, we are focusing on learning how to pray in the spirit. And this is lesson number 17. And this is going to have a strange kind of thought or title to it, and that is, "Praying in the Spirit Bypasses the Intellect."
And so, beginning with 1 Corinthians 14, verse 13: "Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also."
Now, praying in the spirit bypasses the natural mind, the intellect, and directly connects our soul to the Spirit of God. Well, I'll talk about this in principle in 1 Corinthians 2. When he's talked to said that he didn't come to you in enticing words of man's wisdom, that he can't, he, I said, he said, "I came to you in in weakness and in fear and much trembling." And he said, "I didn't come with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith would not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."
Well, that's not only true in principle when we're ministering to people, but it's also true in principle in the other very important and extremely great, very, very great ministry of prayer. Prayer is not just a devotional time, which is all some people believe that it is, and that's all they do, and they don't grow. All they do is survive, at best. But those who grow in God and grow in the spirit, they, they come to the place of realizing that prayer is at least equal in importance of a ministry as preaching the word is. Why? Because "the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life."
And so, if I'm preaching the letter without the Spirit, I'm killing. I'm doing harm. Jesus said, John 6:63: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." So, in order for the words that I'm speaking in ministry to give spirit and life, they must be words given by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit and spoken through us as we speak by the Spirit that gives life. To do otherwise causes death.
So, one of the worst things anybody could do is sit and listen to a prayer list preacher who is a brilliant intellectual mind who can just absolutely wow you with their oratory. Because while it is smooth as butter and so sugary and interesting to listen to, it's killing you. Jeremiah chapter 23, the Lord said, talk about preachers whose preaching made people vain. And the word "vain" means empty, useless, worthless. You imagine that preaching that actually takes people of value and makes them worthless to God? That preaching does that. Yes, intellectual preaching is just as damaging as intellectual praying. Praying, preaching through my flesh, and praying through my flesh is not of God. It's not.
So, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:15: "What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also." Now, here's the, here's the thing. Okay, I'm not, the Spirit's not doing the praying through me when I'm praying in tongues, and then I'm doing the praying in English myself. God, the Spirit of the Lord, just flows back and forth between those two. Most of the time, so that I can grow. Because as I taught the last lesson, that when I'm praying an unknown tongue, identify myself, 1 Corinthians 14:4, and then Jude, verse 20, says, "Beloved, build up your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost."
So, how am I being built up? How's my faith being built up when all I do is pray with the Spirit's faith? So, he goes back and forth with this, and this happens like this. Now, for me personally, I'm not trying to make myself out to be anybody's great example. I'm still just trying to learn how to pray. I'm no expert. I don't want to learn how to pray. I want to learn how to yield to God in prayer. And every day, the purpose is that I learn and experience whatever it is He's wanting to do to me and through me and with me with prayer. And every day is different. No, no two days the same. God have mercy for those folks that are just, they're in a rut, and they've got these words they pray every day, and they think that that's what God wants them to do is just repeat those same old things every day. Even the Lord's Prayer, that as we call it, the prayer He taught the disciples to pray, you don't ever find those words repeated like He spoke them anywhere else in the Bible. Even though they said, "Lord, teach us to pray," and this is what He gave them to pray, but you can find the elements of that prayer all throughout Acts and the Epistles because all of those things are important elements of what we should be praying for every day.
Are there some things that basically I repeat in English in prayer most days? Yes, there is. But I never repeat them the same, not intentionally. I'm never doing them just to say them. But there are specific things, elements that He commanded us to pray, that by the grace of God, I pray every day because He told me to.
Now, the problem that so many have today is the idea that the Lord wants us to let the Spirit bypass our brains. But that's exactly what the scripture says. "If I pray in an unknown tongue," verse 1 Corinthians 14:4, "my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful." Verse 15: "What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also." Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupies the room of the unlearned say amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? For verily, thou givest thanks well.
So, there's no debate with Paul that when I'm praying in tongues, I am giving thanks, very well, among other things that he's praying through me. But if I'm praying in a group of people, and I don't ever pray in the language of my mind and a language they can understand, then apparently they are not benefited. Now, for me personally, my reaction would be, "But what do they do and listen to me praying for?" But they just pray because most people learn how to pray by praying with someone that does know how to pray. So, if I'm praying and praising God in tongues, they may learn that they need to be praying in tongues, but they may not learn how to pray with their mind also, and therefore they're not edified. And they need to be on occasion hearing us pray in the language of our minds so that they can be convinced then to pray in the spirit and be edified.
And then Paul says, and this is the one that's the kicker. This is the, the wrench in people's gears that are trying to grind speaking in tongues to powder and say it's not for us today. Well, if speaking in tongues is not for us today, then the teachings of Paul are not for us today. Because he said, "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all." And in 1 Corinthians 11:1, he said, "Follow me as I follow Christ." And the Greek word there, in the English, literally means imitate. So, he says, "If I'm gonna do it, literally, I'm going to say he's telling me to imitate him like he imitates Christ." And what was one of the things I'm supposed to imitate? "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than y'all."
So, he makes it very clear that he is not teaching again speaking in tongues, but those who are uncomfortable with the Spirit bypassing their brains. Because how in the world could God know or do anything without their help, the help of their minds? Yeah, yeah, that's a little bit of sarcasm there because I'm making fun and ridiculing their audacity and and arrogance that they think that God needs their brain for anything.
Now, when I have, but I'm humble in my mind, or cute, I have humility of my mind, which only God can produce, then God can take an humble mind and use it to give revelation to and minister through and all of that in fellowship with and in balance and harmony with what He does in the Spirit that the mind isn't involved with.
Now, verse, that word "unfruitful" in 1 Corinthians 14:4, accuse me, 14:14, 14:14, "unfruitful." Strong says it means literally barren. But that comes from two Greek words. One is the negative prefix, and the other means to, means fruit as plucked, literally or figuratively. And Fair says that word means that which originates or comes from something, an effect, a result. So, fruit is produced by that which causes or originates the fruit. So, a fruitful mind would be that it would be a mind that has produced something as a mind. So, an unfruitful mind, that's not a negative thing. It just means that the mind is not responsible for what's coming out of the mouth.
So, as I taught the last lesson, what do you do with your mind? What you do with your mind is listen. Listen, listen to the Holy Ghost. On occasion, I have prayed in the language of my mind. On occasion, but I am praying those things that He would have me to pray. Now, I have two testimonies for you here that I'd like to share with you, and they're both, they're different, but both very powerful in understanding how this works. I guess it would have been back in 2002. We were having a meeting here at Antioch, and it was a meeting that was very powerful. There were young people from all over the world, from all across this country, and several, a couple of different nations of the world, almost say that totally accurately. And we called it a Youth Manifest. And myself and Brother Bill Cisco, my great friend, Brother Bill Cisco, and my friend since 1978, and fellow laborers, so many times we have ministered together, and he was here ministering. And it was the, the meeting was in our church here in Annapolis, Maryland. And Brother Cisco was doing the session that was going on at that point. And I, I had some things, as the host pastor at the time, had a couple things how to take care of. So, I stepped out of the meeting while he started and was taking care of them in the office. And then a little while, somebody came banging on my door. And I rushed to the door. I don't mean knocking, I mean banging. And I rushed to the door. They said, "Hurry, Brother Wright, something's wrong. Brother Cisco." They said, "Something, he can't talk clearly, and, and he's still trying to talk." And so, I practically ran down to the auditorium. It was a little bit of a jaunt down a long, straight hallway. And when I came in the back of the building, I immediately heard what they were talking about. But Cisco was still standing there, and he was holding the mic, and he was trying to teach, but you couldn't understand what was coming out of his mouth, and he was frustrated. You could tell he was frustrated. And we didn't know what was going on. And, and I just walked straight up, and I walked right up to him, and I just gently took the mic at him, saying, I said, "It's okay, Bill. It's alright. Come on, just sit down right over here." And so, I, you know, I turned and I said, "I'd like for all of you to pray, if you would." So, they begin to pray. I set him down. I tried to talk to him, and he couldn't, he couldn't communicate. So, we immediately called an ambulance, and they came and took Brother Cisco to the hospital. Well, there were a couple of people here in the meeting from his church. They went with him. His wife and his kids weren't with him at the time, but a couple of his saints were here, men and saints, and they went. And my wife and another lady went to the hospital with them to be there with them. And Brother, uh, Tony Bailey and I, we stayed to finish out the afternoon session with all those kids. We had over 200 kids there, and felt an obligation to them. And we, he would be in good hands. And we prayed for him again before we continued the ministry. When it was over with, Brother Bailey and I went to the hospital. And he was still in the emergency room area. Was in a curtain, you know, in a private room at that point in time. And Brother Bailey and I went in, and the man, he went up on the left side of the bed, and I went on the right side. And where we're standing there, and he's conscious, and he looks up at me, and I know he knows who I am. That wasn't even an issue. I felt really good about that. And I said to him, "Bill, how you feel?" And he tries to talk, it, it won't come out. Won't come out. He couldn't make the words come out. And I didn't understand what he was saying. And after a few minutes and moments of trying that, I saw how frustrated he was that his mind. I said, "Bill, let's just pray." So, Brother Bailey and I laid hands on him, and we began to pray. And immediately, the Cisco began to speak in perfect English. I'd prayed so many times with him. I knew exactly what he sounded like in English and in tongues, most of the time when he prayed. And if he prayed in English, and never missed a beat, and he prayed in tongues, and it was sounded like he, I don't mean the same words, but it, that was Bill Cisco praying in tongues. God was using him. God was doing it. And we went like that. And I'm standing there thinking, "We have seen an absolute miracle right here." And I'm thrilled to death. And the Holy Ghost was so strong in the room in manifestation. And, and after we just kind of, the, this, it's kind of the way a little bit. And, and finally, we stopped praying. And I said, "Wow, Bill, that's just amazing. That's awesome." And I'm expecting him to talk right back to me, just like he'd been talking all those, to, all that time. We probably prayed at least five minutes longer. And that whole time we prayed, he spoke in perfect, enunciated English, and also in tongues, back and forth as the Spirit would lead. Well, guess what? When he tried to talk to me, it was just like it was before we prayed. And I went, "What's happened here?" And I try to talk. I spoke to him again. He tried to talk back to me again. And I saw how shocked he was that he couldn't talk because he knew that when we were praying, he was, he didn't have any problem speaking English or in tongues. And so, after a few moments, I saw him frustrated was getting again. I said, "Well, let's pray again." The same exact thing happened. We're praying, and the moment we began to pray, and I'm praying in tongues, and, and, and, and, you know, but in my mind, I'm saying, "God, what's going on here?" Because immediately he started praying in perfect English, just like he always talked. And he started praying a perfect tongues back and forth as the Spirit would flow in. And this went on a while. And I said, "God, what is going on here?" And the Holy Ghost spoke to me and said, "The reason he can speak like this is, you know the relationship he has with Me, and that he's always sought for. And when he's praying, whether in English or in tongues, he is not praying out of his mind. He's praying out of his heart and his spirit, where his relationship with Me is. And that's not damaged by what's happened to his mind. But when he tries to talk to you, he has to talk to you out of his mind, and he can't speak out of his mind." We found out later he had a stroke. And to this day, thank God, Cisco's still alive. But it's been 18 years now, and his faculty of speech has never totally returned to what it was before that. That's wrong with the relationship with God is just as strong. And when I have a chance to get by to see him, and we pray together, it's the same exact thing. When we pray, you can pray in English and pray in tongues, and it's not, it's not a struggle at all.
And what does that say to you? First of all, it says it should, one, the relationship with God. You really ought to want a relationship with God. That's the first thing it should say. The second thing it should say to you is this, that there really is something to this about the fact that when you're praying in tongues, your mind is a prey, because the words aren't coming from your mind. They're coming from a completely different source. You're speaking as the Spirit gives utterance. That was so awesome to me because I knew when I spoke in tongues, the Holy Ghost was giving me that. But I didn't fully grasp how, how much that when I am, when I have a real relationship with God, and my spirit has learned to, by the grace of God, to yield to the Spirit to pray in tongues, that that same function will work when I am praising God or praying in English, when I know what I'm supposed to be praying for in English, please reveal that to me. Or when I'm ministering. In fact, what I'm saying to you right now, yes, the same way I yield to God to pray in tongues, I yield to God to talk to this camera lens, knowing that you're there watching. I don't intellectually formulate all those words. I just open my mouth when I feel that unction and say whatever He gives me. I called it hearing and repeating. And oh, praise God, does it work? I study. I study a lot. I don't ever get to study enough because I could spend all day every day doing nothing but studying, especially because I'm studying the Bible with the author. But it is an amazing thing to experience the fact that He can flow through you in prayer, in tongues, and in ministry, in the language of your mind. And it's Him both ways, if you have a yielded relationship with Him.
And finally, let me tell another story that I've told a lot, but I'd like to get recorded in this series on praying in the spirit. This happened in, oh, I think it was like May of 1981. My youngest son was nine months old at the time. He was born in September of 1980. And so, you might have been nine or ten. I'm pretty sure it was in May, early June at the latest. But I had been out that day, and this was before cell phones and text messaging and all that. And so, you know, you still had to use phones with lines connected to them, and you had to write notes down on pieces of paper for people. And so, I had been out that day, and I got home, and my wife and my eldest son and the baby weren't home. And I looked, but there was no note. That was really not like my wife because if she had to go out with me going, and she knew I didn't expect her to go out, she would leave me a note, let me know what she was doing, just to communicate. And, but there wasn't. Well, I had some things on my mind. I had some things weighing on me. And, and I, I looked around. I went up to the bedroom. We had a little built-in desk in our bedroom, and I noticed that she had a blotter, what you used to call an ink blotter there, and there was a cup of coffee turned over, and some coffee spilled on it. No one cleaned up. And I'm so wrapped up in what I'm thinking about that it didn't register in my mind at the time. I noted it, but it was in and out. That was it. And so, I'm thinking, "Okay, well, I got the house to myself. I can really cut loose in prayer if I need to." So, I went downstairs, and we had a kind of a long family room, along, not narrow, but fairly long, and it was long, much longer than it was wide. And I loved to walk back and forth in that family room and pray. And so, I'm doing that, and it's like about 11 o'clock in the morning. And I'm praying. I'm praying. And, and, you know, while I'm praying in tongues, yeah, I'm giving some things to God. I'm talking to God about things in my mind. But then all of a sudden, I kind of came to myself and realized, "I am praying in these really heavy tongues." It shocked me because my mind was so wrapped up in speaking to God about these things that had me burdened, and that I'm assuming that's what I'm praying about. The Spirit, and, and, you know, that was in my mind. And I, this home, this forceful tongue that I was praying with didn't have any connection with what was going on in my mind. I'm going, "Whoa, that's, this is stranger than the voice of the Lord spoke to me and said, 'I'm praying for something important. Let me pray.'" Well, I hadn't stopped it during that time when I was kind of came to myself and was trying to understand what was happening. And so, now I, I'm not thinking about anything else. All those problems I had, they're not anywhere. Here's important is for whatever it is I'm praying about right now. And I had no clue. And this went on for about another 15 minutes or so. I mean, it was heavy, and I wasn't being quiet about it either. It was loud, and it was, there was a deep, strong emotion with it. And I didn't know at that time that was really called intercessory prayer. I'd prayed that a few times, but I didn't really know what you called it, or at least I wasn't acknowledging what it was called. And so, I'm, I'm praying like that, and He said, "Let me pray. I'm praying about something important." So, about another 15, 20 minutes or like that, and then all of a sudden, you just stopped. Lifted. And the voice of the Lord said to me, "Everything's gonna be all right." And I heard Him say that. And I had just, not out loud. Well, no, I did say that out loud. I'm sorry. I did say out loud, "Everything, what? Everything shall be alright." Okay, everything shall be alright. That's wonderful. Thank you for the promise. But everything what? And I hadn't hardly gotten that out of my mind, "Everything what?" So, the phone rang. And normally, or a lot of times, I wouldn't stop praying to answer the phone. But prayer kind of flowed, of prayer kind of wound around down a little bit. So, I thought, "Well, maybe this is my wife. Maybe this is her. What she wants." And so, I went in the kitchen, and we had one of those phones on the wall. It had a long, squiggly cord. And I'm standing there with that. And the person on the other, I didn't know what it was at first. They were so distraught that I couldn't understand a word they were saying. And they were so distraught, I didn't even recognize the voice at first. I said, "Wait, wait, hold, hold it. I don't, who is this? I don't understand you." And finally, she calmed down just enough that she could say, "This is Alice. Alice." And it sounded like Alice. She said, "I'm at the emergency room. She said, the baby got burned." And they, and they, with that, with hot coffee. And then I remembered the pictures in the coffee on the blotter. And she said, "They're saying it's second and third-degree burns." And what she said, that the voice of the Lord that just a few minutes before had said to me, "Everything's gonna be all right," said, "This is the everything."
Well, immediately peace came over me. And I began to try to help her. And said, "Alice, I didn't know I was praying for this, but I was just praying, and the Lord said, 'It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. Just go ahead and come home.'" She said, she was able to bring him home. She said, "Just go ahead and bring him home. I believe it's going to be okay." So, she kind of collected herself and got off the phone. And in about 20 minutes or so, she drives up the driveway, and she brings him in. He's not crying. He seems, looked like he's in pain, but he had a big old bandage on his arm and on the left leg from about halfway down the thigh all the way down the back leg and the foot. It's completely covered in bandages. And she is so tore up. But the baby's fine. He's not crying at all. And I'm taking my clues from the baby, not from her, because I'm thinking, "If he's a bird, he's hurt really bad. And if he's in pain, he's gonna be crying. He'd, he cried all." And she told me the story. She just, he was a big kid. He was more than ten pounds, one ounce. Never slowed down. He's six, almost six foot six today. And he was always a head taller than everybody in the class, except for one classmate that was born just three weeks before him. And they became the twin towers on our Christian school basketball team. And, and so, he had nine months old, looked like he was about a year and a half. And she said she was carrying him, and she had just gotten a cup of hot coffee out of the microwave. And she thought she had put it far enough in the back, away from the desk, and he couldn't reach it because he was sitting in her lap. He loved his mama. And he's sitting there, and he was at that age that every time you drink something, he wanted to do that. He wanted to learn to do that. He wanted that. So, he would grab your glass or whatever. So, she had taken a sip of coffee and set it down, and she thought because it was at the end of her arm's length, that he wouldn't be able to reach it. But he was a big, strong kid. And before she knew what, he lunged toward that coffee cup and just caught that thought with the tip of his finger and spilled it this way on his arm and onto his leg. And so, she immediately, because he began to scream, she took him in. Our elder son, who was nine at the time, took them emergency, went straight to the emergency room. And, and she pointed to the arm and the knee and the foot. Said, "The doctor says those are third-degree burns, and they're probably going to require skin grafts." But he said, she said, "But, and if he'd been older, they would have kept him because of how, how great the risk of infection is with these burns, especially the ones that the third-degree areas." And she said, "But they thought that he would do better in a familiar area." But they, they I practically had to sign in blood that I would not let those bandages get wet until tomorrow when we go back to the doctor's office for him to change the bandage and look at the wounds. And so, I told her, I told her this my story of my prayer. And I said, "The Lord says everything's gonna be all right." Well, she was wanting to believe, but that was my experience, not hers. And he wanted to get down. So, she put him on the floor. He had not crawled one time up to this point. Why would he crawl when he could count his mother to carry him around in the place all the time? So, he hadn't crawled. Well, he started crawling on that knee. And she goes, "Oh, oh, he's hurt himself." I said, "Alice, trust me. If that was hurting him, he'd stop." She didn't really believe me, but she left it alone. Well, he had one of those little squeeze toy baseball bats. It's about this long, full of air. You squeeze it, makes that noise. And so, he, he found it, wanted it. And so, one of us gave it to him. And he sat there, and he was beating that leg, that bad leg, with that bat. Before we could get to him, and his mother goes, "Oh, oh, he's hurting himself." And I said, "Alice, if it, the first time he hit himself, if that would have hurt, he'd dissolve." Now, I'm not, I agree that we shouldn't let him have the bat, but I'm telling you this story to make the point clear. He had no pain. Starts crawling on that knee. Now, the next day, we go to the, excuse me, that night was thirsty. We had church that happened on a Thursday. And that night, we had church on Thursday night. So, we go to the church, and I tell the church the whole story. And I said, "I am not asking you to pray with me for this child. God's already said what's happened. So, I'm asking you to praise God with me and thank God with me for healing this child." And of course, they did. And there was such witness of the Holy Ghost. We were all sure it was K. So, the next day, we got to go get the bandage to be, to be changed. And, and I, I'm just as calm as can be. She's not. But I am. So, when we get to the doctor's office, she said, "I'm not going back there with him. You, I did had to do that yesterday. You're going today." And I didn't fuss with her because I knew how distraught she was. So, I carried the baby back into the treatment room of the doctor. When he saw that doctor in that lab coat, from the moment she brought him home, and the first time I saw him, till that moment, he had not cried one time. He cried night, then crying to daytime. He didn't cry. But when he saw that doctor in that white coat, he started screaming his head off. I didn't know what to do. And the doctor just ignored it. And the doctor put him down, sitting up on this, the treatment table. And the baby's looking at me, "You're supposed to be my father, and you're letting him hurt me like this?" And I didn't know what to do. I think that's my kid. I don't want to scar my kid for life 'cause he thinks I'm not going to help him. And the doctor said, "I got to change these bandages." He just ignored. He just started taking them off. Well, let me tell you something. My experience the day before in prayer was so great, I didn't know what I was to look for. I don't know what to expect. But I sure didn't expect what I saw because they took that bandage off here, and it was about the size of a small football in shape, and it was completely raw. It wasn't red flesh from being burned. There were blisters, which would be second-degree burns. There was no skin there. The whole top layer of skin was gone. The doctor pointed, said, "That's right. That's, uh, that's, that's third-degree burns." Then he started unwrapping that left leg, and the baby is just absolutely losing it. And I almost lost it when I saw that leg from just above the knee on the left leg to the bottom of the knee. It was completely raw. It looked like it had been flayed. And then from the bottom of the knee to the top of the ankle on a baby's leg, and he wasn't tiny, but he owned a baby's leg, there were two blisters about the size of my fists. And the doctor pointed to those and said, "That's second-degree. But as big as they look, it looks like if they pop, you could end up with third-degree there." But then when he got down to the ankle, the entire ankle, all of the heel, all of the sole of the foot, all of the ball of the foot was absolutely no skin. Third-degree. He pointed, said, "That's third-degree." And he said, "Mr. Wright, I hate to tell you this, but we're probably gonna have to do skin grafts on this baby the first part of next week." Now, we're gonna give it the weekend because this is Friday. We're gonna wait. But you've got to promise me that this, this baby's not gonna get wet any way, shape, or form, otherwise I'm gonna have you put in the hospital." Said, "Doctor, we'll do our best to not let these wounds get in." And I'm shaking right now, okay? Now, I understand how distraught she is. And it's not that my faith left, but that's not what I expected after what I experienced. So, what God had said. So, as soon as the doctor got him all bandaged up again, and we got him out, but when we left that doctor's office, that maybe that had been screaming that whole time, pouring sweat, he was screaming so bad, stopped. Stop crying. He stopped crying. He cried him, or he cried a way home. And he cried home. He didn't cry.
On Sunday morning, I told the church again what I'd seen on Friday. And I said, "Now, God said this is going to all right. Everything's gonna be all right." Now, I forget something. When we got back from the doctor's office on Friday, I'm shaking in my spirit. That I'm going, "Okay." I said, "Let me have him." She said, "Okay." I carried him. I carried him upstairs back to the back bedroom. It was where I usually prayed and studied. And had a little rocking chair back there, an upholstered rocking chair. I sat down in that chair, holding my baby. Baby, and then he wasn't crying at all. I said, "Now, Lord, I didn't know anything about this, and I didn't have anything to do with this. I'm here praying about some problems in the church, and you take over. You're praying, and I don't even know what you're praying for. And you said everything was gonna be all right. Now, I've seen what this baby looks like. So, before I ask you for anything, I'm asking you to tell me what you mean by 'all right.'" And the Lord goes, I said, "Now, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be quiet and listen for you. I'm gonna wait." The Lord goes, He didn't say a word. I didn't feel a thing. I didn't hear a thing. I said, "Okay, you haven't said anything. So, now I'm gonna tell you what 'all right' means to me. When you say 'all right,' all right to me is no scars. No skin grafts. No scars. No, these were horrible burns. No scars. No puckered skin. No, no, and no, nothing that says he was burned. And no skin grafts."
So, on Sunday, like I was going to tell, Sunday morning and Sunday night, both services, they were going back to the doctor the next day. Most services, I just said, I asked the church, "Times I want you to thank God with me for healing this baby." So, the next day, from the time we left the doctor's office on Friday afternoon till the time we got there Monday morning, this baby had not cried at all. In church, in his bed, asleep, crawl around on the floor, playing, didn't cry one time. Well, we go back to the doctor for him to take the bandages off for the second time, so that we can, he can tell us what he's going to do, what he thought. And same thing. We go to the doctor's office. My wife said, "I just can't do it. I can't go back there." I said, "Okay." So, I took him back. The moment that baby saw that man in the white coat, he went berserk. He started screaming. And the doctor took him from me and put him on the treatment table, and he's screaming and looking at me like, "What are you letting him do this for me for?" And so, I'm looking at the baby, and I'm trying to calm the baby down. And the doctor, he starts taking the bandages off. And I'm not even looking at that. I'm trying to calm the baby down right now. And he took the bandage off the arm, and he acted a little funny. And I still didn't look. And he started taking the bandages off the other leg, and he's starting to act weird. And I'm going, "Okay." And then he looks at me, says, "What's happened to this baby?" And I'm going, "Uh, I don't know, sir. What's happened to this baby?" I said, "Doctor, I don't know. What, what do you mean?" He said, "Something's happened to this baby. What's happened?" I said, "I don't know what you're referring to." He said, "Look." So, I finally looked. He said, "This baby is almost completely healed. Don't you see? There's no raw places left anymore. It's all brand new skin." And I looked at him, "Whoa." Oh, the blisters were gone. Those two huge blisters, you know, the place of all of that was nice peach skin. He said, "I don't know what's happened to this baby, but he's almost completely healed." He said, "In fact, yeah, we were there to find out about skin grafts, right? At least from his perspective." And he, he said, "I'm not even going to put bandages back on this. When you get home, take a white athletic sock, pull it up on on his leg, and put a large rubber band around the top of that, just to kind of hold it in place." He said, "Because all this new skin is going to itch, and the baby's fingernails are sharp like razors, and if he scratches the itch, he's gonna tear the skin and start it. But right now, he's not gonna have any scars." Whoa, whoa, whoa.
So, I walk out of the doctor's office with no bandages on. My wife gets about this big, eyes getting about this big. And I said, "The baby is almost healed." And she's still having a hard time believing it because I was back there and saw it. So, we may be still streaming till we get outside the doctor's office. He quit crying. Never cried again over it. We get home, and so she gets a looking, and I'm, what I'm looking for my white athletic socks. But on his foot, his leg, and she could see all that was gone now. The reason I've taken all this time to tell you these two stories because this is exactly what the Word of God teaches.
So, first story was about Brother Cisco because of his deep relationship with God that even when his mind was damaged by stroke, and he, his speech wasn't clear, and right after he, he had the stroke, he couldn't talk at all. Now, over time, he got to where he could talk better and better and better, but he was able to pray fluently in English and tongues from his spirit. And then I told you about my son's experience being burned, and how that God prayed when I didn't know anything about it. For, as I taught in the last lesson, I believe it was, or no, lesson before that, "We have an infirmity, and the Spirit helps our infirmities, because we know not what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Or in this particular case, when I was praying for that baby, the thunderings that I had no idea of what they were and where they were coming from.
I'm asking you today, don't you have a hunger and a thirst for being able to be used of God like that? Now, I'm used to God every day, but I don't know how most of the time, and I don't know what He's praying for most of the time, but I trust Him. And if His Word says it, and I've experienced those two things among others, I believe it. So, I'm gonna pray in tongues like Paul, absolutely, as much as I can. But I'm gonna pray in the Spirit. I'm gonna pray with the understanding also. I'm gonna praise God with the Spirit, and I'm gonna praise Him with the understanding also, so that He might be glorified in Jesus' name.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I loose upon you right now the spirit of faith, and the spirit of grace, and the spirit of hunger and thirst after the Spirit of God and the things of God, that you might want to have a relationship with God so that He can trust you with these kinds of experiences, because that's His will, to be able to trust you with all of this, because He is no respecter of persons. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray these things. Amen. God bless you.
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