Sid Roth - The Amazing Power of Tongues with Dave Roberson
Sid Roth: My guest can speak supernaturally in many languages that he's never learned. Next on this edition of It's Supernatural!
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth, your investigative reporter. I'm here with Dave Roberson. Now Dave was a young man, and he had a vision from God that dramatically changed his life. Tell me about that vision, Dave.
Dave Roberson: I was 30 years old. I had a hunger that was so strong in me. At the time was ultra-Pentecostal, which is just, we got caught into some things that were very legalistic. We thought that if we did these things it would please God and we would draw close to him. I did all of them. Everything they told me to do, I would do, take my jewelry off, what I wore. This hunger inside of me was so strong, at times I felt like I was going to die. The thirsting that nobody could seem to quench, you know, I was so hungry.
Sid Roth: Hungry to know God better?
Dave Roberson: To God and to know him after, after his power. I just had to know him.
Sid Roth: You know, we read the Bible, but in the average Christian church, it's so far removed it's almost like a foreign book as far as reality.
Dave Roberson: Yes. I remember in this hunger anything anybody would tell me to do, if it promised I could have more of God I'd stop. I would do what they said. Somebody asked me, how were you baptized? And I told them, and they said, "That's your problem". One of them said, "Oh your problem, you're not walking in power. Look at the jewelry you're wearing". I took it off. In each case, before I was powerless and afterwards I was powerless. But after this vision, when I woke up I expected to see the bedroom just as normal. It was the anointing that woke me up and opened my eyes. It wasn't the bedroom. It was a vision and I was in a meeting sitting on the left-hand side. A man was officiating. I knew it was my service and he was ready to turn it over to me. The atmosphere was so thick with the power of God. There was people in wheelchairs all over and I knew it was my service. So he says, "Now our evangelist". And he looks at me. I start to get up and he turns and looks at the curtain, and a beautiful young woman walks out from behind the curtain and takes the service. She ministers the power of God so thick that everybody got out of their wheelchairs. Then she looks at me and says, "One of you men failed in the ministry". And the whole crowd disappeared. There was just me and her and I knew it was me. And I came, of course, who else was there in the crowd?
Sid Roth: So in effect, God was saying that, I have this wonderful work for you to do, but you're not going to get it.
Dave Roberson: Right. So when she said this, "One of you have failed" and the whole crowd disappeared, when I woke up I told my wife or come out of the anointing. I said, "Swim or sink". I said, "I don't care. I can't live this way any more. I just can't". So I resigned my job. Two weeks later I found myself full time, nowhere to go, nowhere to preach. That's when at the same time the mill whistle blew and I went down and locked myself up in an eight-by-eight prayer closet down at the church. And I didn't know how to pray. I really didn't know about praying in tongues because of the holiness belonged to said you can only pray in tongues.
Sid Roth: Which is a supernatural language written about in the Bible.
Dave Roberson: Yes it is.
Sid Roth: Go ahead.
Dave Roberson: I could only pray in tongues when it would come on you and anoint you during the service. So I really didn't know you could just pray in tongues as a supernatural language of edification to build you up in God. So I went down to the prayer closet the same amount of hours I was gonna work. I thought if I report to the prayer closet I'd just lock myself in and begin to pray in tongues, pray in tongues, and pray in tongues, not even know it was legal, not even knowing what it would do to me just to survive the hours that I had committed.
Sid Roth: Out of curiosity, did you feel anything, did you see anything?
Dave Roberson: Not for the first two or three months.
Sid Roth: How could you keep doing that for two or three months with nothing going on?
Dave Roberson: I just knew that I couldn't live the way I was and I just knew that if I gave myself to God I thought that if I kept doing that, somewhere along the line he would come. You know, that he would do something. He would meet me. And I remember a girl finding out what I was doing and coming knocking on the door and saying, "You feeling anything"? And I said, "As a matter of fact I am". And she said, "What"? I said, "A real tired chin". I had a dry throat. And she says, "Excuse me, I've got to go". And I said, good bye. But I wouldn't stop. And just to tell you, you know, that was 25 years ago. Just two years ago on our trip to India we had half a million people there. In one mass prayer, 5000 people's teeth was filled with silver and gold.
Sid Roth: Five? Did you hear that, 5000 people's teeth were filled with silver and gold? Did you lay hands on them?
Dave Roberson: No.
Sid Roth: How did it happen?
Dave Roberson: Just prayed and the Spirit of the Lord came on me. I just lifted my hands and began to worship and he talked to me about creative miracles, and I prayed for the whole crowd, half a million. And out of it, 5000 received, and that's not counting the people that were blind and lame, and couldn't walk.
Sid Roth: What happened to some of them?
Dave Roberson: They come running up front, free and walking, and seeing, and testifying, much less the people with the teeth who were crowding up to testify. We lost track.
Sid Roth: Do you realize you could have given up after a month of praying of not feeling or seeing. Don't you give up. I believe there's someone watching us right now that's ready to give up. Don't you give up because victory is right around the corner. We're going to be back in just a moment and you're going to find out about miracle after miracle, after miracle, and find out that Dave says he's not special. He's learned the key for intimacy with God. We'll be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter. I'm here with Dave Roberson and this fellow had such a hunger for God he didn't know what to do about it. So he said, I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to work for God. I'm going to go six hours a day. When the factory whistle blows I go into prayer and when it blows again I take my lunch, and then again I go back. At the end of the day when people are finished with the factory crew I'll be finished and I'm going to pray in the supernatural language the whole time. A month goes by, nothing happens. A month and a half goes by, nothing happens. Three months go by and Dave Roberson went to a meeting, and something very strange happened. Dave?
Dave Roberson: The same woman that found out what I was doing came and knocked on my door. She said, "You know, there's a lay witness in town". I said, "What is that"? She said, "Well it's a church that really hasn't embraced speaking with tongues. They're coming in from all over the state and they're going to meet. Would you like to come to the meeting"? And I said, yes, because I would take advantage. I would do anything at that point. I said, "God, this is a legal reason to go somewhere". And so I said, "I'm going to run home and change". And I came to the meeting. So when I came I didn't know that the woman they sat me next to had come in on a crutch, was crippled in her hip, because I got there late. And so they sat me down and I was all excited because here I was with people, real live people was around me. You know, I had been locked up for three months.
Sid Roth: You're ready to explode.
Dave Roberson: Yes. The man was ready to give a little Bible study at the home meeting. And I'm sitting there, and I'm so excited. Somebody was going to actually speak the Word. I was around real people, you know. So they brought, they said, "You want some coffee"? And I said, yes. They brought me some coffee and I'm so excited. He's ready speak. When he got up there, if his notes would have been a scroll, it would have rolled out across the floor, you know. And so here I'm standing there and he begins, "And we know that Jesus Christ is the great celestial go-between, the troubled waters of mankind".
Sid Roth: Did you fall asleep?
Dave Roberson: I was watching the little rings in my coffee for excitement, out of sheer boredom. I was thinking, I'd rather be back in the prayer closet. What did I get myself into, and out of sheer boredom. Now to this time, not anything had happened really. You know, I still just, sheer boredom, I turned around and looked at the elderly lady next to me. I had no idea what was about to happen. She's about from me to you. And then suddenly, it looked like somebody put an x-ray up between us that I could see through of a deteriorated hip socket. That's what it looked like to me, deteriorated, just dark, two or three inches down into the bone. I'm looking at it and the guy was orating. And I was looking at this and I blinked real hard thinking, this will clear up, and it did not go away. So I looked around to see if anybody else could see it because it was just suspended there, and everybody was just acting normal. So I said, "Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do"? Absolute silence. He didn't say anything to me. But later on, you know, I went on to destroy that meeting as they knew it.
Sid Roth: Well what did you do?
Dave Roberson: Well I jumped up and prayed for her.
Sid Roth: Did she want prayer?
Dave Roberson: She didn't exactly ask.
Sid Roth: What happened with her? You were a little anxious.
Dave Roberson: I was a little bit. Later, I said, "God, why did you let me destroy that meeting as they knew it"? And he said to, just as plain, it was in a camp meeting later on. He says, "Oh if I wasn't listening to that man, why should I make you"? So he let me destroy the meeting.
Sid Roth: What happened to the lady with the hip? That's what, I mean, she must have been shocked when you get up there and start praying for her.
Dave Roberson: I turned to her and I said, "Ma'am, you got trouble in your hip". Just when I said "hip" "arthritis" jumped up in my spirit so loud. I said, "It's arthritis". She said, "Why young man, that's what the doctor tells me". And I yelled, "Praise God"! She goes, "I beg your pardon". I says, "I mean, he's going to heal you". She says, "I beg your pardon"? And I says, "Ma'am, can I pray for you"? Well to her prayer meant sometime in the course of my day to bow my head and remember her. Not me. I was raised Pentecostal, ultra-holiness, jumping in the back of pews, spitting cotton balls and yelling, you know. So she says, "Why yes, you may". I jumped around in front of her, got on my knees. I grabbed her legs and pulled them up even to my stomach.
Sid Roth: You sure you didn't get arrested?
Dave Roberson: One was much this much shorter than the other. You know? And so I closed my eyes because I was afraid, because I had seen other people pray, but I was afraid. So I closed my eyes and I started in, you know, my hardest prayer like they taught me to pray in holiness, "In the name of Jesus". Well little did I know, on the first Jesus it popped, came out and she was instantly healed. But did I know that? No, I didn't know that. I liked to wrestle that poor lady off on the floor.
Sid Roth: You were still praying.
Dave Roberson: So the golden-tongued, orator, he sent his associate over to break it up. He says, "Go break that up". He comes running across. And I looked up just in time to see him. It all looked in slow motion to me. He's just coming across the floor. He got there just in time and I looked up to see the miracle. Instead of breaking it up, it struck him dumb. I mean, he goes, "Ha! Ha! Ha"! He couldn't even talk. So by that time the orator was winding his message up with, "What is the most outstanding sequence of events that could possibly to be attributed to the God factor in your life"? And his associate is going, "Over here! Over here"! Well they tried to tell her that God didn't do those things. But it was too late.
Sid Roth: What did she say?
Dave Roberson: She jumped out of her chair and started dancing and run over, and got her crutch, and started beating people with it, saying, "What do think, sonny"?
Sid Roth: I think that spirit was contagious. Was she really healed?
Dave Roberson: Yes, sir. Sid, that afternoon they had a banquet. And it hurt my problems. No, it hurt my feelings because they didn't invite me.
Sid Roth: Understandably so.
Dave Roberson: But she stood up in the afternoon banquet, and told the whole testimony. And by the time she got done, she yells out, "And what he did for me he'll do for you"!
Sid Roth: And what he did for her he will do for you, and you, too, can walk in this supernatural power. Dave is going to show you how. Don't go away. We'll be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Now Dave, what happened to you, and this is the most wonderful thing, what happened to you can happen to anyone that's hungry for God. You even speak now in languages you had never been instructed. Tell me about that.
Dave Roberson: As I continued to pray in tongues and the power continued to increase, and the meetings starting taking place like overseas, when, by the way, that night that he filled 5000 people's teeth with silver and gold, there was 200,000 Hindus born again.
Sid Roth: That is power. That is power.
Dave Roberson: In one night. We average, I average that year we had 4000 born again a week.
Sid Roth: Tell me one language you spoke in that you were never instructed.
Dave Roberson: Japanese.
Sid Roth: How did you know it was Japanese?
Dave Roberson: Because there was a missionary to Japan that spoke Japanese. And I was exhorting the crowd and teaching them. And he says, "Wait a minute". And he came up and he says, "Do you know that you're doing that in Japanese"? He began to translate. French, Russian, Spanish, German.
Sid Roth: It sure beats language school. But we're talking about a supernatural language. If you are born from above, if you've told God you're sorry for your sins, asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, be Lord of your life and live inside of you, if you haven't done that, do that right now. It's urgent. We're going to pray that you would be so filled with the Spirit of God and you would speak in unknown tongues. And when you speak in these unknown tongues, the Bible says that your spirit is edified, your spirit is like a muscle, and it will be stronger and stronger like Dave's is right now. So right now I'm going to ask Dave to pray for you to be filled with God's Holy Spirit and speak in a supernatural language. Would you do that Dave?
Dave Roberson: Yes, sir. When you come into the Kingdom you were born again and received his nature. What you received is the nature of God that can be taught by God. So what he did then is made the Holy Spirit available to the church. When you were born again that happened to your spirit. That's you. But the Holy Spirit is the third person of God and when he comes he's a person, your human spirit is another person and when you get baptized this happens to you. I mean, it actually happens to you. So when you ask him to come into your spirit the Holy Spirit literally steps in the inside of you. And the very first thing he wants to do is pray for you. So he will begin creating this supernatural language that's come to you all the way from Heaven. And in this language he'll pray for your personal life, for your understanding of the Word and for the absolute unfolding of God's plan for you. He'll pray in this language for you beyond your faith and beyond where you walk. So he literally creates the supernatural language on the inside of you. At the moment he does that your tongue will literally begin to shape the very words he's creating on the inside of you. So when I begin to pray for you, what's going to happen is the Holy Spirit is going to step into the inside of you and your mouth and tongue is going to begin to shape those beautiful words. When that happens, just yield yourself over and begin to speak them out, and you will not only be filled with the Holy Spirit, but you'll have tongues, the supernatural language, for your own personal edification. The Holy Spirit will literally be able to pray for you. So get ready to receive right now. Because when he pray he's going to fall on you out of Heaven. You're going to feel him saturate you, and when you do your mouth is going to want to speak those words. Just yield over and speak them out. Now get ready to receive. Just close your eyes, open your hands, palms up just to the Lord as you're receiving and get ready now. O Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, right now let your Glory come. Baptize them in the Holy Spirit. Bring that supernatural language up out of their spirit now. Right now, Father, baptize them. Receive the Holy Spirit. Receive the gift of speaking with tongues. Now right now, right now while he's on you, and you feel him, right now just begin to yield over and speak that supernatural language out. It will be second nature to you very, very soon. Just begin. Just begin to... He's just actually saying, by the Spirit, as I translate, he's saying, "Oh yield to me, my child. Yield now".
Sid Roth: Some of you are experiencing the presence of God right now. You know you're experiencing it, but you haven't spoken this language because you're waiting for something to take over your tongue. You do the speaking. The Holy Spirit gives you the words. It's just no coming from your brain. If you will begin to tell God how much you love him. Just begin speaking out loud as quickly as you can. It doesn't come from your mind, it comes from your spirit. Oh there's such an outpouring of God's presence on you right now. And Dave, you talked about a supernatural peace. The people are experiencing a supernatural peace right now.
Dave Roberson: Yes. So strong, I named it peace, the aggressive weapon of God. It's so strong.
Sid Roth: That's what you have, peace, the aggressive weapon of God. That's exactly what you're experiencing right now. And there are people that you've got to just kind of get out of the boat. You've got to start speaking this language. You say you don't know what to say. It's perfect. Of course you don't. It's not from the mind, it's from your spirit. Just begin to speak. Oh, something so wonderful, wonderful is happening to you right now. It's the peace that passes human understanding. It's there.