Sid: Now Mishpochah this is not hard to believe for a Bible believer that believes in the Bible, but it’s hard to believe for a normal American Christian that my guest who I will introduce you to in a moment in one campaign in Brazil 45 deaf and dumb people instantly were healed, 45 many born that way. My guest Peter Gammons I’m speaking to him in Orlando, Florida where he’s pastor of Cathedral of Faith. Peter this is so mind blowing that if God hadn’t done that through your ministry would you have difficulty believing that this is going on today?
Peter: Not really when I came to Christ and I discovered Jesus heals the sick today Jesus said “You’ll do greater things than I did because I go to the Father.”
Sid: Well He said that but you know where the rubber meets the road here in America if one person that was deaf and dumb got instantly healed it would make headlines.
Peter: Yeah it makes headlines it’s made headlines in Brazil in the cities where we’ve seen it happen. There’s not been one person they say that doesn’t know about the miracles that have taken place it’s shaking cities.
Sid: Peter did you come from a good Christian family?
Peter: No I didn’t. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home the only time I ever heard the name Jesus was in blasphemy.
Sid: As you know I come from a Jewish background and the same was true for me but normally I don’t think of someone that’s not Jewish being raised in that type of environment in this day and age. So coming from that environment where did you first start having a spiritual appetite?
Peter: What happened was I was born 11 years after my brother and my parents after my brother was born and nearly died at birth were told that they couldn’t have anymore children. And so for 11 years they were thinking that they couldn’t have any more children and then suddenly I appeared. And my mother said “Lord we give this one to You” she wasn’t spiritual but she just felt that it was a miracle baby and said “I give this one to you.” From as young as I can remember I was searching for God. I involved in the music business at a young age and actually joined the local church choir just to get voice training but it was not an evangelical church and I never heard the gospel preached there but I attended for many years and was going to the 8:00 service, the 10:00 service and the 6:00 service as an unsaved person.
Sid: But why did you?
Peter: I knew that there was a God and I wanted to know Him but I didn’t know how to find Him and I even considered entering the priesthood but the priest advised me against it and said that he wouldn’t recommend it to anybody (Laughing.) I just was searching for God and then one day I was invited along to a meeting to a meeting with a group of young people and I went along to the service. And there was a young man that talked about how he met with Jesus personally and how Jesus had taken him out of a life as a gang leader. Which h I wasn’t in anything terrible like but I went away and they gave me a little booklet called “Journey into life.” And I went home and it talked about how I could know Jesus personally and there was a prayer to receive Christ as my Savior. And I prayed that prayer and there was no flash of light and there was no angels floating around the bedroom. But I had a peace inside that God had forgiven me and that Jesus had saved me and now I was just so excited I met with Jesus personally and I wanted to tell the whole world. And that’s how I got the fervor to be an evangelist.
Sid: And now I notice something else that we had in common that in additional to being raised in a household where Jesus name was predominately a curse word, I had as a young child a tremendous fear of death.
Peter: Hm.
Sid: And I remember having a conversation with myself one time that went something like this I as home and alone and the conversation was “What happens when you die?” There was just a question popped into my heard I don’t even know why and I started as a young child trying to visualize and I could only come up with the cease to exist scenario and that was so objectionable I just blocked it from my mind. Why did you have such a fear of death?
Peter: Yeah what happen was one day I was walking home from a club where I had been performing a nightclub where I had been performing and I noticed that this man was following me everywhere I went he followed me and he was getting closer and closer and I could hear his footsteps behind him and in the end I stopped and I turned to him and said to him “Why are you following me?” And he said “I’m going to kill you.” And I said “Why and he said “I don’t like you.” And he’d been watching me all night and I’d had friends all around me and was having a lot of fun and he was a strange character just standing in a corner watching. What happened I regarded as a miracle but my mother had been at home and she had been feeling very uneasy and she decided she was just going to drive around and see if she could see me anywhere and she pulled up alongside me as I’m standing there with this man. And she wound down the window and said “Get in the car.” And so I jumped in the car and then she just sat there thinking that it was a friend of mine that I was talking to and waiting for him to get into the car. (Chuckling.)
Sid: Hm.
Peter: And I just said “Go go he’s going to kill me” and she said “Well we’re going to call the police.” And I said he’s got brothers who are bigger than him. And what happened was he ended up stabbing a policeman. But it left me with a terrible fear of death and I started was music and my whole life was a singer. I started singing about having guard dogs and bars at the window and suddenly what I thought was going to be freedom and happiness and success became my prison. And I used to have a single prayer I prayed “Don’t let me die, don’t ley my cat die, don’t ley my grandma die, don’t ley my mother die, and don’t let me die” and that was my whole prayer life I was afraid of death. And the night that I received Jesus I got the Bible that my grandmother had given me many years earlier though I’d never read it before. And I didn’t know where to look in the Bible but I just opened it up and it fell open in Philippians chapter 1 and I read these words “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” And I said “How can anybody say that to die is gain? And I thought well the night I was saved I thought I’m only going to be with Jesus what could be better? And for the first time I turned the light off and I went to sleep. I used to sleep with the light on because I was afraid someone was going to get me I had my bed in the middle of the room.
Sid: Hm. A lot of children do that.
Peter: I had a knife beside my bed and I even got myself a gun and that’s how afraid of somebody killing me I had this phobia.
Sid: And so the fear was surrounding you and instantly it disappeared?
Peter: As instant as this I turned the light off and went to sleep and I’ve never had problems sleeping since. I’ve had problems waking up but no problems going to sleep since.
Sid: (Laughing) Yeah I noticed something else in your bio that intrigued me and there came a point in your life where you wanted God’s power desperately tell me about that point.
Peter: Hm. What happened was I had a year as a Christian after I was born again. I had a whole year of trying to win people for Jesus I’d tell them about Jesus and they were not interested. And I couldn’t work this out because I was so desperate to know God and I couldn’t work out how everybody wasn’t. And then…
Sid: I had that same problem when I became a believer my biggest shock is very few Christians were Christians.
Peter: Yeah yeah it’s amazing and of course living in England which I was born and raised there and only moved to America 3 years ago so I was far more cynical in anti-Christian environment and with very few evangelical Christians. And so here I was in a situation where I tried evangelizing I tried praying and I didn’t know how to pray. I heard someone talk about anything but they never said that tithing had anything to do with money it just said we need to give 10%. So I thought it meant 10% of my time and I thought I had to pray 10% of my time. And so I tried giving God 2 hours and 40 minutes and if you can imagine as a new Christian trying to give God 2 hours and 40minutes within 2 minutes I run out of ideas what to pray about so I got under total condemnation that I as a useless Christian and in the end I just got to the point where one point I lay in bed and I said “God I don’t know how to live this Christian life I’m messing it up if I were you I’d take me home now because I’m only going to let You down.” And I said “I’m going to count to 10” and I was very serious I said “I’m going to count to 10 and if I’m still here when I get to 10 I’m going to live for you.”And I began to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.” When I got to 10 I was still there and I’m going to live for You but I’m going to need something and I don’t know what I need.” So I went along to a service where I heard that they prayed for people afterwards and at the end I went forward I didn’t listen to a word that the minister had prayed it was a charismatic service and they’d have people that were hopping around and dancing in the service and I thought that this was terrible and I thought they should be reverent and this kind of thing. And I never seen the enthusiasm on people alive for Jesus. But they prayed for people at the end and I went forward and I said “I just need something in my life I just need power.” And the man showed me in Acts chapter 1:8 where it says “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you’ll be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” And he showed how when the power of the Holy Spirit came on the early disciples it turned them into preachers and people were saved 3000 saved the first day and he said “You need the Baptism.” He said “Have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?” I said “I’ve never heard of it before and he said “You need it.” And I said well if I need it I’ll have it. And so he prayed for me to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and I just felt such power I felt twice as tall as I walked out of the meeting. And the preacher said to me “Have you spoken in tongues yet?” Who had been preaching and I said “I’ve never heard about that I’ll have to read a book on that subject.”
Sid: (Laughing)
Peter: But I knew that there was a power in my life so I got this book that was by Rita and Dennis Bennett called “The Holy Spirit in You.” About the revival that took place in the Episcopal Church and I got as far as page…as far as the second chapter and I said “Lord I can’t wait and tried to speak in tongues. And I thought that the Holy Spirit was going to come and take control but God never possesses you have to cooperate with Him and take a step of faith and speak out by faith. But I didn’t understand all of that then and I was expecting God to do something but it said “They spoke in tongues it didn’t say God did.”
Sid: Peter hold that thought we’re going to pick up here on tomorrow’s broadcast…
