January 30, 2001, re-edited October 9, 2006
Some believers, I'm sure, are talking about the controversial subject of the Gift of Tongues. I am not an expert on this subject because I only accepted this truth 35 years AFTER I accepted Jesus as my Saviour. In January of 1990 I became convinced that there was something to this tongues business, when before my very eyes, God gloriously filled my wife's mouth with Spanish and Japanese! Believe me, hearing Jan praying at 120 words a minute in one foreign language and then the other, when I knew very well that she was an English only person, well, that rocketed some of my seminary theology right out the window!! Or, at least it drove me back to the Holy Scriptures, because God had confronted me with the fact that I was a deceived person concerning the gift of tongues.
I went back and read First Corinthians, Chapters 12, 13 and 14. I had preached many sermons against tongues, using these very chapters. "Lord, YOUR word doesn't teach this..so how is Jan doing this?? I've read Chapters 12, 13 and 14 over and over and preached from them...and it tells YOUR people to "cool it on tongues" and not to get like those messed up Corinthians...so, what's going on???"
Well, the Lord spoke back to me with a military-command. HE said, "READ IT AGAIN!" I did and a blindness fell from my mind and heart. Instantly I saw that I had been under a delusion. God lifted some kind of wrongful filter off of my mind. That day chapters 12, 13 and 14 said what God wanted them to say...and I understood for the first time how it was that my wife had prayed in Spanish and Japanese.
My wife has never again prayed in Spanish or Japanese miraculously...as far as we know...but she does have a private Heavenly prayer language from the Lord that has replaced that initial experience. So she doesn't always pray in English. Sometimes she prays in that special language known only to the Lord.
Later the Lord allowed me to step into that realm that Jan had found. I don't pretend to have arrived...but God does enable me to pray in an unknown language from time to time in my devotions with HIM. Sometimes when I am worshiping in church HE allows me to pray in this language very quietly under my breath so I don't annoy any other worshiper.
By the way...I have another web page that tells more fully how Jan and I came into this experience and how I had been very angry toward those who practiced the gift of tongues. You can find that page by clicking here:
http://www.cnm-vra.com/essays/pentecost/
After I first received the gift of tongues I remember a day when a terrible temptation attacked me. I struggled and I was so tempted that I could hardly resist this awful temptation. I was sinking and could hardly pray. Something in me wanted to follow that wrong path...but my spirit wanted to resist. The battle was about to overwhelm me when I heard the Lord tell me to open my mouth and let out the heavenly language. I did!!! And within seconds the temptation crumbled and I found that even my flesh bowed and worshiped before the Lord. Then a language poured from me in holy praise to the Lord who had given me the victory! Oh, I tell you this tongues business is like having a hand grenade with the power of an atomic bomb, to pull the pin and toss at solid walls of temptation in order to blast open a door of escape. God gave me the victory that day and I knew that the gift was real!! Hallelujah!!
Several years later I had the privilege of meeting Brother Freedom. He told me how he had sought for the baptism of the Holy Ghost for a year. Every service, nearly, he was at the altar of the church seeking for God to fill him. For some reason many things had to be prepared in his case before the Spirit filled him. But, when he was filled he was drunk in the Holy Ghost for a week or so, until people thought him crazy...and the book of Revelation opened before him and he understood every aspect of it.
I immediately asked him to tell me what he had learned about the book of Revelation, and he said that after that two week period the mystery of the Book was sealed up again and that he only understood a bit more....but most of it was sealed...and he can not remember the great mysteries he understood while under the initial power of the Holy Ghost for two weeks.
He showed me a scripture that explained how it was that the gift of tongues had saved me from terrible temptation. He often quotes it:
Jude 1:20
"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost..."
The gifts of the Spirit of God are the tools of our trade. When I was a little boy my Dad bought our first television. Often we had to have the "TV man" come to change burned out vacuum tubes and tune up the old TV set. The "TV man" came in with a huge suite case which he opened to reveal many tools. When our television became really sick he would cart it away to his shop. I visited his shop once and saw a large array of many more tools and fancy test instruments.
Can you imagine what our "TV man" would have been or an auto mechanic would be if you took all their tools away???? That is what a Christian is who has no gifts of the Spirit. They are like a soldier with only a helmet, but no weapon, no two-way radio in which to receive orders, no map of the battle field, no compass, no hand grenades, no bullets, no bayonet, no body armor, no gas mask, no night vision goggles. Such a soldier is a "push-over" for the devil. We need the gifts of the Spirit, but we need the Holy Ghost more. God is the giver of HIS Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the giver of the gifts of the Spirit.
Jesus taught "...If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"
Some believers say that the Bible is enough. But, without the Spirit-gifts the Bible can not be fully understood. It takes the Holy Ghost who inspired the Word to open it to us. Without the gifts of the Spirit we can do little with the Word.
For most spirit-filled believers the gift of tongues is for the purpose of Heaven directed prayers, receiving back orders and direction from God's Throne Room and/or for a high form of praise. These aspects of the gift are to all spirit-baptized believers.
There are some believers who operate in the Office of the Gift of Tongues. They are the ones who are additionally moved upon by the Spirit at special moments to speak in a heavenly language and then someone who has the co-gift of interpretation is given the understanding of what the Holy Ghost has revealed from the Throne Room.
It is true that the Bible indicates that Tongues is the least of the gifts of the Spirit. It is listed last in First Corinthians 12:28.
But the Holy Spirit has shown that this scripture is improperly understood by many opposed to tongues. This word "least" really means that tongues is the least of the gifts in the same way that the First Grade is the least of the school grades. If one cannot master their A,B,C's and numbers in First Grade they cannot succeed in literature, math and science in the higher grades!! This is also true in the Christian faith. Non-Spirit baptized and gifted believers don't progress very well in the faith because they don't know their spiritual A,B,C's and numbers!
I have found this true. The Gift of Tongues releases mysteries into our being. When we pray in tongues mysteries are poured into our spirit...and the Holy Spirit, living within our being, moves upon those mysteries and they come out later, at the appropriate time, to be revealed to our minds. See 1st Corinthians 14:2b.
Also, Brother Freedom has shown me that tongues is the doorway to all the other gifts of the Spirit. Just as the First Grade is the doorway to the 12th grade...so Tongues is the doorway to the greater and more powerful gifts. Tongues is the least of the gifts like the foundation is the bottom or least part of a building. Take the foundation away and the building will become unstable!!!
I must strongly state that the gifts without the Holy Ghost, can still operate...but they become of little use and the enemy can gain ground if a gifted person back slides. God never takes the gifts away...even when one falls backwards. Romans 11:29 says, "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
So, just because a person has a gift says nothing about their current state or condition. I know a back slidden man who once walked in the Spirit of God...he can still speak in the gift of tongues...but I wouldn't trust anything that comes forth in that case.
So, beware....seek the GIVER...SEEK the GIVER....SEEK the GIVER...seek the Lord. Receive any gift(s) HE gives...but SEEK HIM, SEEK HIM, SEEK HIM!!! The gifts are not our focus...God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are THE FOCUS!! GOD alone is God...there are those who worship the gifts and they are in a seriously wrong condition!!
clint