Sid: My guest, Dennis Jernigan is red hot for the Messiah. You know Dennis I understand and I have to tell you something that you would probably not know about me but I was involved in the New Age before I became a believer. And I was Jewish and I got in over my head, I realized that there was a devil, I realized that there was evil, I wanted out and Jesus literally rescued me, set me free and I don’t even understand backsliders when you know what’s back there. Is that part of what happened with you Dennis?
Dennis: Well, I was so overwhelmed with the lie of the enemy that there came that point and I shared with your listeners in the earlier interviews that after my mentor made that advance on me…
Sid: And for those that are listening for the first time, Dennis was a Christian, he had played the piano in church, he was a worship leader, but he was homosexual and he was living in such a conflict that he even despaired of life so go ahead.
Dennis: Well, what I was going to say was, there came a point after that night when I tried to take my life that even in the middle of, I turned on my gas stove and didn’t light the flame and I just couldn’t take it anymore it was just the pressure was too much. And I heard this little voice say to me, “Are you prepared for what awaits you in eternity? And that scared me so badly I get up after a few minutes, turn off the gas and I make this declaration to my own self this is just the way that I was born, I am going to stop fighting it. So I lived the next year believing that this was all I had to look forward to in my life. But what really happened at that “Second of Acts” concert was that the Lord met me with the reality of who He says I am. I had been seeing life from the wrong perspective, so when we get to that place where we understand, “You know what, I’m who my Father says I am, I am not defined by my past, I’m not defined by what tempts me, I’m not defined by any present circumstances there’s only one who gets to define me and that’s my Creator and so I had better be going to Him.” So that’s what happened to me, I just decided “You know what, I’m not even going to believe my own feelings anymore; in fact you know what You feel Father; in fact when I go to lead worship, that’s how I lead worship. “Lord would you give me a sense of the need for this group and then besides that would you just let me feel what you feel toward them so I can tap into what you feel towards them.” And my goodness, I can’t go wrong even in my leading of worship because it all begins and ends with Jesus, it just does.
Sid: Now in your wildest imagination could you believe when you were in the midst of sin, in the midst of such turmoil you couldn’t even think straight that you would be married with nine children? As a matter of fact, you had a vision of that, you must have thought that must have been a pizza vision.
Dennis: Well, after the Lord, in November 7th 1981 I can just remember I can never forget that day, but when the Lord began to flood me with His love, he also began to flood me with an understanding of who He says I am and if He says I am this, or I am that then I am going to choose to believe that. And in the process of that, He said, “What do you want out of life, Son? Well, here’s what I have for you, I want you to be the children of many children.” I said, “Well, Lord, I do I want many children.” And the number that came into my heart was the number nine and the funny story of that to show you the power of the Holy Spirit after Melinda and I became pregnant with what we thought was number eight Melinda just felt like this is all the grace I have left, I have grace for eight.
Sid: I don’t know how she had grace for eight, but go ahead. Ha-ha.
Dennis: I said, okay Lord, I thought I heard you but I missed you before and I could have missed you, and He said “No, I told you nine, there are two in there.” And so I told Melinda, “You are going to have twins.” And then my daughter Hannah, who was six at that time had a dream from the Lord, and in this dream, the Lord showed her that she was going to have twin brothers. So she told her Momma, you are going to have twins so Melinda wouldn’t believe it but low and behold, when it came time to have that first ultrasound, Melinda called me and said, “Are you sitting down?” She said, “It’s twins, and so the Lord really did give us that particular number and then it came to past.
Sid: Now give me a description of the atmosphere in your praise gatherings, what are you after, what are you looking for?
Dennis: My number one goal is to, all I have to do as a worship leader, this is the truth, is to remind people that God is there and that they need to deal with that reality. And then we begin wherever I feel like the Holy Spirit says to begin. I don’t necessarily begin with celebration but a lot of times I do, but I want people to understand that this is what’s going on in Heaven, let’s take part in that. And even and because I have so many people who come who don’t have a charismatic background or don’t understand outward demonstrations of worship I’ll often begin with this, you know what there are people here in this group tonight who this is going to be outrageous to them. You are going to see people doing things that you reserve for football games even, but here’s the deal, he who has been forgiven much, loves much. So I want you to extend grace to those that are very demonstrative and now you people that are very demonstrative you need to extend grace to those that this is brand new to and don’t try to force them into your mold because God is totally giving them the peace of mind to just soak in His presence. Both are acceptable, both are good, so when I set the people at ease in that way, you’d be surprised how free people get. And in the midst of that, all I’m doing is okay Lord, where do we go next, okay Lord, who do you want me to sing over next? In fact there was one time, it was probably ten years ago we were having a New Years Eve night of praise in Oklahoma City and I felt the Holy Spirit say “Ask all of those who are considering taking their lives tonight to stand. And those that are coming and this is their last resort, we had over fifty people stand. And I just asked the people present to go lay hands on those people and I sang a prophetic song over them and not one of those people took their lives that night.
Sid: Well, I believe that as we play one of your songs the anointing will be so strong that even before they get their CDs deliverance is going to happen. Tell me about the song that you received called, “Holy is Your Name.”
Dennis: Well, that is…the Lord’s Name is so significant to me that when we begin a relationship with anyone we get to know their name and with that name we attach, we associate their character, their nature. So I went on this long journey of understanding the covenant names of God. Jehovah Shema, Jehovah Tsidkenu, Jehovah Rophe, all the names that He calls Himself throughout the word and then I realized that because this is my Father and this is who He says I am, then that has a whole realm of possibility for me as an heir and joint heir with Christ. So the magnificent, holiness of God is available to me as His child, as His new creation. So it’s a song of worship just extolling the fact that our God is holy, He is like no other god and there is no other god who could be like Him.
Sid: “Holy is Your Name” by Dennis Jernigan.
Music excerpt: “Holy is Your Name” Dennis Jernigan
Sid: That was the Psalmist, Dennis Jernigan and I promise you the anointing is so strong in the studio right now, is so strong on his music, is so strong on his words that this is you know I keep saying this every time I get a new CD, but without a doubt this the strongest I have ever seen in our prayer meetings when we use his music for that.
