It's Supernatural

Sid:  Red hot is kind of an understatement; it might be white hot for my guest Pastor Benny Perez.  He’s Senior Pastor of the church in South Las Vegas.  In the past four years has gone from 100 people to 2,500 people and the thing that’s so exciting is may the superstar system rest in peace because what Pastor Benny is doing is transferring to his people the same fire and passion that he has.  And you know in your book “Upside Down.”  By the way where did you get the title for your book pastor Benny Perez “Upside Down”?

Benny:  I actually got it right out of the scriptures where it says the men that have turned the world upside down have come here too in Acts chapter 17.

Sid:  And so of all the places in the world God put you in Las Vegas, Nevada to turn that area upside down.  On yesterday’s broadcast you were talking about you could have in your church a mega-millionaire businessman, and a prostitute, and a pimp.  And you were telling me about a woman in your church that is literally her name is it “Annie Lobert?”

Benny:  Yes sir.

Sid:   Tell me a little bit more about Annie, she excites me.

Benny:  Well, Annie was one of the top call girls again in Las Vegas here and she would basically was a high end prostitute to many famous people and some people we know unfortunately, but she had an encounter with Jesus Christ radically changed her life, and she is not red hot she is white hot for God Sid.

Sid:  She’s really on fire?

Benny:  Oh, she’s probably the most on fire woman that I have known in a long time.  White hot for souls, white hot to see people get saved and her relationship with Christ.  And she’s out on the streets, and ministering, and has a great internet ministry.  She’s ministering literally to hundreds and hundreds of people.  She had the number one blog on MySpace out of all the hundreds and thousands of blogs she had the number one blog.

Sid:  Now does she move in the same type of fire, you said greater, but does she pray for the sick?  Does she have people slain in the spirit when she prays for them?

Benny:  She has people, she has manifestations of power, she prays for people on the strip, on the street, she prays for people wherever, she has great influence.

Sid:  Well, I was talking about doing, this is my hearts desire to do one of my television shows “It’s supernatural right in Las Vegas” in the casino letting people watch.  Wouldn’t it be neat to have a tandem of her and you and do a television show?

Benny:  Well, I tell you what it would be incredible especially for most having people hear the testimonies and then letting the power of God begin to flow; who knows what God will do you know if He’s given that opportunity.

Sid:  I mean you were talking on yesterday’s show about just walking through the street and witnessing to people and demons start manifesting and reacting and casting them out.  I mean where are the cameras when we need them?  [Laughing]

Benny:  [Laughing], well you know it’s so funny because after I think about that you know the testimonies spread that God is moving. The great thing is Sid, you said in the beginning of the show is that the superstar days of Christianity; I don’t want to be a superstar, I want to be a servant.

Sid:  You want to be a carrier of the Superstar.

Benny:  Exactly He is the superstar and we are just carriers of the anointing to wherever we go whether it’s the golf course, the restaurant…

Sid:  You realize you’re going to drive the devil nuts if it’s not just superstars and it’s “Thee Superstar” in every believer the Hope of Glory?

Benny:  Well, then he can’t stop it.

Sid:  No!  [Laughing] you’re going to drive him…we have a Hebrew word, we say mischugah, you’re going to drive the devil mischugah; mischugah means crazy.  You’re going to drive the devil mischugah.

Benny:  Well, we should be doing that let’s drive him mischugah come on Sid let’s every person drive him mischugah by just allowing the Superstar to flow though all of us. And I tell you that’s my passion, that’s my heart, that’s what the book communicates.

Sid:  Okay, your book is “Upside Down” and so we were going to go to the back of the book first and you talk about a young man less than ninety years about a man by the name of Evan Roberts he was just twenty-six years of age of Wales.  Tell me about him.

Benny:  Well, Evans Robert was a young man who God really impacted.  He had a profound experience with God and with the permission of his college principal; Roberts left his studies and went home to the village of Lamford and began to preach his first sermon.  Now understand he didn’t really have any formal training and when he preached his first sermon Sid only seventeen people showed up to hear his first message.  And his first message, his first sermon was so simple it had four basic points.  The first point was confess any known sin to God and make right any wrong done to man.  The second thing he said was put away any doubtful habit, the third thing is obey the Holy Spirit promptly.  And lastly confess faith in Christ openly.  Now I don’t think that anybody could have imaged the response; in fact Dr. Jay Edwin Or said, “That within three months a 100,000 converts had been added to the churches of Wales.”  Five years later a book came out debunking the revival that was published and the main point by the scholarly author was that that of the 100,000 people added to the church only 80,000 remained.  If that’s the worse that they could say about Evan Roberts I don’t think 80,000 converts remained…

Sid:  Well you know the story of Billy Graham he was asked the question “What is your greatest regret?”  And he said, “That I made converts rather than disciples, those figures were reversed almost, it was more than 95% weren’t even in a church a year after they made a decision for Jesus.

Benny:  Exactly and Evans Roberts was exactly the opposite and then this was a man 90 to 100 years ago with a great Welsh revival, and it began with just a simple man who had an incredible experience.

Sid:   Alright you’re a simple man that had an incredible experience with God.  God has placed you in sin city Las Vegas; paint me a picture of what God is going to do through the on fire flame of fire people in your congregation.

Benny:  Well, I tell you what is happening and what’s going to continue to happen is that we believe that sin city is vital to what God wants to do in the world today.  In other words, we believe where sin abounds grace much more does abound. It is our desire, and we’re on a mission one person at a time to turn the city cup side down which would really make it right side up.  And I believe this that if God continues to pour out His Spirit and revival continues to flow, not just in my church but in many churches in this valley of the Las Vegas Valley. That if that happens that could be a great catalyst for people around the world to say “If God could do that in Las Vegas then certainly He can do it in my city.”  So our passion is for our valley to see it flooded with the power of God and that now would be a catalyst to excite everybody else around the world to believe God for their city, their region and their area that God could do the same thing.

Sid:  Let me ask you a question.  When you see words of knowledge and deliverance the most is it in your church or is it out in the streets?

Benny:  Well, I would actually say that it’s probably a variety of both Sid.  I would see every church service I mean we’re open to it and there’s a definite atmosphere of the words of knowledge.  And the way the word of knowledge works with me is I will get something once, I’ll get it twice and when I get it the third time then I’ll speak that out.

Sid:  Oh, I’m far more impulsive, the second I hear it I blurt it out.  [Laughing]

Benny:  [Laughing] and you probably step out in faith more than me; I still need a little bit more assurance, okay God, okay and it comes to me literally in milliseconds, boom, boom, boom.  So I’ll be able to say something, somebody will come and wait at a table at me and I’ll just look at him or her and the Holy Spirit will say “Hey ask them this?”  And I hear it so quick then I ask them, they say “Why are you asking?  And I’ll say “I know that this may sound strange to you but I just felt like God just spoke to me to give you this word.”  And sometimes it’s not a deep word, it’s just a little word for instance I looked at somebody and said, “You know I know you feel lonely, I know that you’re here in the city all by yourself, but God wants you to know something that He’s got His eyes on you.”  She begins to break and cry because she had just recently moved here, she’s all be herself, I didn’t know that and she was feeling like she wanted to go home and that little word in that restaurant as she was waiting on our table.

Sid:  Do you remember when it first started with you?

Benny:  It first started right after I had my encounter in 1986 Sid, the supernatural, the first person I prayed for fell to the ground in 1986.

Sid:  Now just out of curiosity did someone with a great anointing lay hands on you?

Benny:  Well, you know what I’m glad you brought that up because there was a man named Tim Story.  Tim Story was a man that I saw great power flowing through he’d wave his hands Sid and fifty people in a church would fallout under the power.  He’d call people out, give them words of knowledge, pray for them, signs and wonders would begin to happen.  And I just got so intrigued by that I began to hang around him because I believe Sid the anointing can’t be really taught as much as caught.

Sid:  I believe that also.

Benny:  And so the anointing got caught and he laid his hands on me and just prayed a double mantle on me and just you know start stepping out.  I just saw an increase of supernatural phenomena in my ministry throughout the years.  If you ask people about Benny Perez they will say “Yeah, he’s the supernatural guy we bring him into youth conferences and conferences and he stirs things up.”  At Christ for the nations they bring me in to stir things up, I was preaching there this past summer, power of God came and in fact Gordon Lindsay’s wife is still alive.

Sid:  Frieda and her daughter Shira I ministered at their congregation in Tel Aviv, Israel and through a word of knowledge she got a healing in her shoulder, this was just recently.

Benny:  Right, you know that great heritage of that family. Well I was ministering and Frieda Lindsay was on the platform and she said, “I haven’t seen power like this since the days of Branham.”

Sid:  Listen, I believe that the anointing which is caught is in your book, it’s just like you sitting down and mentoring someone. Is that really truly what you had in your heart of hearts when you wrote the book “Upside Down”?

Benny:  Absolutely Sid, our role is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, and if the anointing can be transferred by a cloth, certainly the anointing can be transferred by a book.