Lost in Translation

Told you, if something's weird, we have to pay extra attention

to it. We have to make sure we

understand it, right? So let's get weird.

Some of you have been here for a while.

You know, any time a sermon starts with that, we're going to

talk about some interesting stuff.

Did you all know there's things in the world you don't know?

I just throw that out there. So, yeah, there's, there's all

sorts of stuff. And did you know that?

There's things you don't know about yourself in the world?

Did you know that it's interesting, you know, the

scripture talks a lot about like not being self deceived.

The heart is desperately wicked in all of this.

This is only loosely connected, but please hear me on this

because this is something I found out about myself in the

last week. About six days after returning

from Scotland, which which was Cassie and and my second trip to

Scotland, you know, partnering with living water adopt A child.

I decided I wanted to do this big deep dive into my ancestry.

I wanted to chase down my grandparents and their

grandparents. I want to see how far back I can

go just to see because as far as I know it, I'm, I'm mostly

Swedish, you know, I've got some Polish in there.

I've got like a, a good dose of, of Irish and then a bunch of all

of the other white issues from European Europe.

I don't know if you can tell, but I am, I am what they call

white. So I'm researching this and when

I look at this and I've done it, I've done them both.

I've done ancestry, I've done the 23andMe.

You know, I've heard some people say like the government's not

getting my DNA sucker. They already got it.

I spit in a tube. I want to know what I am.

So, so I'm I'm looking at this and it says I'm about 3% Irish.

Here's why about every so often they refine with the new

science, right? And So what was listed as Irish

was because of the British Isles and it was narrowed to sort of

this area, but it was a broad area and I haven't checked it in

a couple of years. I'm about 3% Irish.

I'm about 22% Scottish now. Now here's what's cool about

this. Not only do I here's how I know

because it has traced it to a very specific region of

Scotland, which is up in the Highlands around Inverness,

which is where I have visited twice and didn't know it.

So I come from, when I've talked to people who do know these

things, they're like, oh, that's a big one.

I'm like, yeah, I guess so. I'm from a clan that's called

the Donald clan. Donald is my middle name.

It's where McDonald McDaniel come from.

Same family, same clan. I walked on a battlefield both

of my visits that has my dead ancestors buried there and

didn't know it, didn't know it. So now I'm looking into kilts

and all that, Right? So that was a joke.

All right, so I'm looking into my new heritage.

Here's the thing, there's a lot about my own genetics, my own

family line that I just don't know.

My dad's side of the family was a complete mystery.

What I want you to know is even for how you've been created and

placed on this earth, you do not know every single good work that

God has created you for. So having a good chat with a

good friend of mine, you know, text and encouragement back and

forth, texting is one of the primary ways we encourage each

other nowadays. But you know, we have to be very

careful because sometimes we can miss a moment and sometimes also

we can stay in a moment longer than we're supposed to.

But the moment that you're in right now is the moment where

God wants you. And so a lot of times we feel

unsatisfied and we're like, well, if I only had this, or if

this would happen, or if I could just see this fruit, then I'd

hold on. But this is the moment where God

wants you. If he wanted you in a different

moment, he would orchestrate it to be so.

And you may wish that you were in another moment, but God

doesn't. God wants you present where you

are, and he wants you fully equipped.

In the month of November, we're going to be talking a lot about

how to handle demonic influence and demonic oppression.

And for some people, they're like, oh, buddy, I can't wait.

And for some people, they're like, I normally get sick in

November. Look, if you want to be a

Christian, there are dark powers out there and you need to be

equipped against them. So we're going to talk about it.

We're not going to do in a way that sensationalizes them.

They are not more powerful than the God that you serve.

So you're OK. I want you to be able to walk

into this not unaware. I want you to be fully equipped.

But I did have somebody doesn't go to this church.

I had somebody say, why didn't you talk about the demonic stuff

in in October? You know, like I said, like

where Halloween is. And they were like, yeah.

And I went because I don't I don't theme the the messages

around holidays. It's not like a, it's like a

Thanksgiving sale, you know, or something, you know, But the

real reason is this. Before we talk about how to

handle demonic things, you need to have the best understanding

you can of the Holy Spirit. You don't have, you don't have a

prayer against the demonic if you don't have the Lord.

We have one more message in this series called Ghost Stories.

It's about the Holy Spirit next week, which will be all about

the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which we'll touch on briefly

today and cover in depth next week.

Today is about tongues and what is that?

I think I did this last week, but how many of y'all have have

heard that tongues are something that is not for today?

Anybody ever hear that? OK, how many of you ever seen

tongues and it's freaked you out?

OK, how many of you don't really know what you believe about it,

right. So OK, we're going to walk

through a lot of scripture today.

Welcome to Bible college. So I want to start by talking

about a name that a lot of Christians know, very famous

Christian author, His name is Max Lucado.

We aware of Max Lucado. All right, So man, he's like the

poster child for this now. So most of you probably know who

he is. And if you don't, just know that

he's written over 60 books. So he's been a pastor for

decades. And he's one of the most widely,

widely read Christian authors in the world.

And he comes from a church background that was definitely

not known for speaking in tongues.

Doesn't matter what it was. What's interesting is that he

encountered this pretty early in his life.

And this is a part of his story. Not a lot of people know he had

encountered this because when he was young, he came up in what we

now call the Jesus movement. I'm so grateful for the Jesus

movement. I'm just going to say this

though, it's man, what a lazy name for it though, because

isn't it all supposed to be the Jesus movement?

Like that's Christianity. The Jesus movement though, was

this big uptick in like spirit filled things, getting fresh

words, All the stuff we talked about last week, Word of wisdom,

word of knowledge, right? Having the Spirit fall upon his

people and creating unity that you couldn't orchestrate on your

own happened a lot in the 70s, early 80s.

And he's coming up through this, and as he's coming up through

it, he decides he's going to try to pray in a language he's never

learned. He was open to it, and he tried

and nothing happened. So he moved on.

And he decided I must have been wrong.

But eventually, Max Lucado, he wandered from God, came back to

God, went into ministry, became a pastor, and spent decades

serving Jesus. And I want you to hear what I'm

not saying. He has been a faithful servant

to the Lord. As far as I know, it's a big

Kingdom. Different denominations don't

upset me. But the tradition that he came

from taught that these kinds of supernatural gifts, including

tongues, had ceased, that they had a purpose in the early

church, but that they weren't something Christians should

expect today. And then Max Lucado got to be

about 64 years old. And I love this part of the

story. And I say his age there on

purpose because I want you to know that Max had been doing

this for a very long time. And at this point, he had

preached thousands of sermons. He had written more books than

most people ever read. Nobody would have looked at his

life and thought, this guy needs to learn a little bit more about

Christianity. And he came across a verse, and

it's an exact verse that we ended with last week.

I'm going to read it to you. It's first Corinthians 14.

One, let love be your highest goal.

But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit

gives, especially the ability to prophecy.

Max Locato said his assumption had been essentially, well, I

became a Christian. God gave me the gifts he wants

me to have. So I guess I have what I'm

supposed to have. That is how most Christians

live. We have become Christians.

We have gotten saved. And we assume if He wants us to

have something, He would do it. We assume if He ever wanted us

to get up and preach or share our story, then He would make us

love public speaking. Little do you know that most

people who do public speaking for church don't enjoy public

speaking. It puts a spotlight on them.

It makes them a target of discussion when they're not in

the room. But we don't get to choose the

gifts that God gives us because if you remember from last week,

the Holy Spirit alone decides what gifts we are to receive.

So he just said, well, I don't really have tongue, so I guess

that's not for me. But Paul says to desire them.

I mean, we just read this. And so it hit Max Lucado.

He said, I don't know if I've ever eagerly or depending on

your translation, earnestly desired the spiritual, spiritual

gifts. I've just accepted what he gave

me. So he started praying God, what

do you want me to have? I, I want to want what you want

me to want. Paraphrase mine.

He was just taking the scriptures that Paul authored

seriously and asking God if there was anything else he

wanted to give him. And then one morning at 64 years

old, Max Lucado said he was praying.

And he began praying in what he describes as a heavenly

language. And he's been pretty open about

the fact that it surprised him because he had been taught that

these languages stopped. But it has now become a part of

his private prayer life. And he describes that his words

as a very tender part of his morning with God.

Here's something I really appreciate about the way that he

tells the story. By the way, he goes out of his

way to say this, This doesn't make me a better Christian.

And I want you to hear that he does not believe it makes him a

super St. He's like levelled up.

He's got the plus package. He doesn't even display his gift

of tongues publicly. That's a different category.

We'll get there. This is just something that

happens privately between him and God.

And so I wanted to start there today because not that I'm

telling you, you need to be the next Max Lucado or something.

Max Lucado is not scripture. He's just a decent author.

But I do think his story gives us a good view about what we're

going to talk about today. Maybe you assume that there was

nothing more. Maybe you assume you understood

it. But I'm going to tell you the

day that you assume you understand everything about God,

despite every scripture that talks about it being a mystery.

That's the day you become spiritually closed off to

anything new that God may want to do in you.

You think Balaam expected his donkey to talk in the Old

Testament? He did not, right.

Do you think that Moses expected the water to part before God

said do this? He did not.

Do you think the disciples expected so much of what they

witnessed in the life of Jesus? And I'm just standing up here as

a humble servant of the Lord, telling you that I refused to

read through the Old Testament and all the supernatural things.

I refused to read through the New Testament to hear about all

the supernatural things that happened with Jesus and after

his death, burial and resurrection happened through

His disciples, His apostles, all of His servants.

I have read enough of church history to know that the

supernatural does happen. I've also watched enough TV to

know that some people take advantage of it.

But you do know that the fact that a counterfeit exists means

there's something real, right? Monopoly money only makes sense

because money exists, but only one of them spends.

Ask me how I know. So this morning, I'm not asking

for you to agree with me on everything that I'm about to say

to you. I'm not asking you to agree with

everything that you've seen somebody do in the name of the

Holy Spirit. I am asking you to do what Max

Lucado did. Here's what I'm asking you.

This is my request. Before I really start preaching,

I want you to become curious enough to open the Bible again.

Not just willing, not faithful, not obedient.

I'm asking you to become curious about what God may have for you.

In fact, I taught on this before and when I did, I gave everybody

these fill in notes because I didn't want you to just listen

to me talk about tongues for 50 minutes and then go home

believing whatever I told you. I want you to be able to look

into it after today for yourself.

We're going to do that again today.

Also. A lot of times you'll hear a

good point in a sermon, whether it's here or another church, and

then somebody that you love, you'll be telling them about it

and they'll say, well, what did they say?

And you can't quite remember all of it because there's a lot of

information that gets handed out in a sermon.

You're now armed with the paperwork.

OK, There's a lot in the Bible about this, and I think part of

the reason Christians have argued about tongues so long is

that we've taken several different things in scripture,

called them tongues, and assume they must all work the same way,

but they don't. So what does the Bible actually

say? If you're following along in the

notes, I'm going to start giving you some answers.

There are four different experiences that are all

referred to as tongues. 2 of them are very similar, but there

are four different experiences that are all referred to as

tongues, and the first one is the day of Pentecost.

So let's talk about tongues at Pentecost, right?

This is part of tongues in in public.

If we're going to figure out what the Bible means when it

talks about tongues, then the obvious place to start is

Pentecost. Jesus has told the disciples at

this point, he has told them to stay in Jerusalem and then wait.

And in Luke 2449, it says that they are going to be clothed

with power from on high. And in Acts chapter 1, he tells

Acts 1 · chapter mention

them the Holy Spirit is going to come upon them and give them the

power to be his witnesses. That's a, that's a big umbrella

to sit under though, isn't it? He says the Holy Spirit will

come upon you. He'll empower you.

You'll be able to be my witnesses.

They don't have any other details.

And we have the whole New Testament, but I want you to

imagine that you're in that day. You have no clue what to expect.

They just know Jesus told them to wait, so that's what they do.

So in Acts chapter 2, very first verse, it says on the day of

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together in one

place and suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the

roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where

they were sitting. And then what looked like flames

or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each one of them.

Ironically, that's not even the tongues we're talking about, but

everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began

speaking in other languages as the Holy Spirit gave them this

ability. That tells me they didn't even

all get that ability at the same time.

It said as the Holy Spirit gave this to them.

At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in

Jerusalem and when they heard the loud noise, everyone came

running and they were bewildered to hear their own languages

being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed.

They said how can this be? These are all people from

Galilee, but we hear them speaking in our own native

languages. It goes on to list a whole bunch

of them and it says in verse 11, both Jews and converts to

Judaism, were there Cretans and Arabs?

And it says, and we all hear these people speaking in our own

languages about the wonderful things that God has done.

So it's not just the ability to speak in another language.

It is specifically praising God and speaking about the wonderful

things he's done there. And it says they stood there

amazed and perplexed and said, what can this mean?

Just like we would have. I don't have time to really dive

into it, But I do think it's funny too, when people are like,

well, maybe they're drunk. Every preacher has always said a

sentence every now and then that they were like, I never thought

I'd have to say that. But you know, Peter comes in,

he's like 9:00 AM is much too early to be drunk.

That's his answer to them. But this is where a lot of

people immediately think about when they hear the phrase

speaking in tongues. But there's something very

specific happening at Pentecost that I don't want us to miss.

These are actual earth languages that the people around them

recognize. So these are people in Jerusalem

that are they're from all over the known world, and they're

amazed because they're hearing Galileans speaking in their own

native languages. I mean, if I start suddenly

preaching in fluent in Mandarin this morning, something has

happened, right? Nobody's going to say Pastor

Blake must have had a really productive Duolingo week, right?

But, but as far as we know, and I want to be clear on this, this

is the only time in Scripture that this has ever happened.

I'm not willing to tell you that it's never happened on the earth

outside of this, but I am willing to tell you in Scripture

this is the only time this has ever happened.

And this is important. You don't have to turn there

yet, but I'm going to read this to you first Corinthians 14.

Two, this is as Paul is talking to the church in Corinth.

Listen to what he says about tongues.

If you have the ability to speak in tongues, you will be talking

only to God. Only to God.

Does that sound like what we just read?

No, you'll be talking only to God.

He says since people won't be able to understand you, you'll

be speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But it will all be mysterious. So already you can see the split

in at least 2 because you heard this time where they've got

tongues happening and everybody hears them in their own

language. But now you've got to hear where

he says you're only talking to God.

Nobody's going to understand what you're saying.

Two different things. So at Pentecost, you hear people

listening and saying I understand what they're saying,

but Paul says they're not going to.

And there are actually two other places in the book of Acts where

tongue shows up spontaneously. So before we move on to that,

let me give you a couple of your blanks right under Luke 2449 in

your notes. If you're following along and if

you're not, you won't hurt my feelings.

What happened with this wave of the Holy Spirit that fell?

It happened due to three things, due to unity, prayer, and

obedience. And I'm just standing up here

telling you that it is very rare for a church to be unified with

all of this, to be unified with one another, unified in prayer,

unified in obedience. Most of us, honestly, we are

semi obedient Christians in America.

We will do the things that we know God wants us to do and we

will do the things that make us feel like good Christians.

And then when He tells us to do something difficult, we count on

the fact that He's so forgiving and He'll understand if we drag

our feet. But if we would get unified in

prayer and obedience, it would change everything.

The next word in your blanks there is unique.

This is unique. Just like I told you everyone

understood them. This is the only time that

happens in scripture. Your blank under Acts 2 is that

this never happens again in the Bible, never in the Bible.

And your last blank before we move on to #2 is that they could

understand them in the story from Acts 2.

So clearly, this is not the gift of tongues.

It is a supernatural experience that can be appropriately

described as tongues, but it is not the gift of tongues.

OK, All right #2 everybody good. If you're not, cheat off of your

neighbor #2 this is what we would call spontaneous tongues.

This happens in three places. The first one, we've just read

through the day of Pentecost. We can see some sort of

miraculous thing happened on the day of Pentecost.

Then in Acts chapter 10, this is what we call the Gentile

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Pentecost. Who are we?

I don't know, That's just what somebody told me.

Acts 10, starting in verse 44, it says this.

Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell

upon all who were listening to the message.

The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed at the

gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles too,

for they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.

And then Peter asked, Well, can anyone object to their being

baptized now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as

we did? So he gave orders for them to be

baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Afterwards, Cornelius asked them to stay with him for several

days. We get to Acts 19 after that,

and Acts 19 is actually our foundational scripture for next

week. So I won't spend a lot of time

on this, but this is Paul on the road to Ephesus.

This is where he approaches some believers and they say, what

baptism did you receive? And they look at Paul and they

said, well, John's baptism. And they, you know, Paul says,

listen, John, John had a baptism that was for repentance, but the

baptism, the Holy Spirit will baptize you in power.

They look at him and they say, we haven't even heard that

there's a Holy Spirit, which unfortunately would be like a

lot of modern Christians too, because the Holy Spirit doesn't

get the same attention that the Father and the Son do.

And so at that point, he lays hands on them and prays for them

and baptizes them in the name of the Holy Spirit, in the name of

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And they start speaking in

tongues. So you can see four places here

that happened spontaneously. Why do I want you to know this?

Because it is not the norm for it to happen spontaneously.

This is something I did not know before I started attending this

church well over 20 years ago. I got my information about

tongues from TV and we didn't even have streaming back then,

right? So, So what I saw was, was

normally not even made as Christian media.

It was normally like a little kid scared looking through his

window at some preacher or some church service.

And it looked like somebody was having a spiritual seizure,

yelling out Shamala Hamala, right.

And the kid didn't know what was happening.

And so I just assumed, well, if that ever happens to me, then

God's going to have to force it to happen.

I remember when we were first teaching on the Holy Spirit, we

had a student who flung himself over into a chair and then he

said the Holy Spirit hit him so hard that he bruised his

forehead. And the youth pastor at the time

that I was serving under, he said, I've never known the Holy

Spirit to harm somebody. So here's what I want you to

know. It can be easy to get swept up

in what you think it looks like and try to get moved by emotion.

That's not what you do. You cannot be pursuing these.

You can desire them, but you can't try to force them to

happen. Like we've been saying through

this whole series, here's what I want you to really understand in

Acts 19. Here's your blanks here.

Paul's introducing the disciples to the baptism of the Holy

Spirit, and it says tongues and prophecy followed.

Here's what's so important. None of these moments had

someone asking for tongues. None of them were even seeking

the gift of tongues. All they were seeking was more

of God. If we would genuinely seek God

and everything that He desires for us, He will equip us with

what we need. Now the next section, which I'll

get to in just a moment, is the public display of tongues,

church services. And this is where we'll spend

most of today because this is where almost all of the

confusion comes from. I don't want people sitting here

saying I don't want tongues and I'm not going to pursue it.

I also don't want people here thinking that they're less than

if they don't have it. I just want you to know that all

throughout the book of Acts, it shows us pretty clearly tongues

are real. They showed up in really

significant moments as the gospel began moving beyond

Jerusalem. And this is where Paul begins to

give us some boundaries on it. So here's what you need to know

before we start working through what Paul says about tongues in

First Corinthians. There's something about this

letter that is really important to understand.

And you may say, well, Pastor Blake already know.

Well, cool. Not everybody does.

This is not the first letter can be confusing, right, because

it's called First Corinthians. The first letter was sent to

Paul. So he helped establish this

church in Corinth. Corinth had questions.

They had a lot of issues. As a matter of fact, I've often

thought about how fun it would be to just do a study and go

through 1st and 2nd Corinthians. And I thought, like, I want to

call it, you know, we've got issues, right?

Because it's literally they sent him a letter and oh, how I wish

we had it where they said, here are all the problems happening

in our church. For the love of God, Paul,

please help us. And so he writes back with what

we now know as First Corinthians with answers and suggestions and

methods. And this is all sorts of things

from like gender roles in church to sexuality issues to sin that

was running rampant to tongues. So you need to understand, even

if you don't know what you believe right now, for what

we're going to read in these next few chapters, I want you to

read it through the filter that Paul believed tongues was normal

and he was answering problems and he was trying to help them.

OK, We know that from First Corinthians 7/1, by the way,

that they had already written to him.

So you can write that down if you want to look at it.

But on top of all their questions, Paul had received

reports about problems in the congregation from other people.

So we are getting his responses to their questions and his

corrections about things that he has heard.

For the Corinthians, you need to know that speaking in tongues

was a normal part of church life, and you don't find a

single verse where Paul tries to convince them that tongues is

real. He's just talking to them like

it is. OK.

So whatever disagreements Christians have about the gifts

today, we need to recognize that the controversy Paul's

addressing isn't whether these things should exist, it is how

they are handled. Apparently the Corinthians had

turned their church services into something of a free for

all. Paul was trying to get everybody

back on the same page. Normally I like to do an

illustration where I have a drummer do this, but I didn't

set it up today. We had a ghost drummer today.

Our team is so good. They can do whatever, but I'll

have the drummer come up and start drumming while I'm in the

middle of preaching and just show you how distracting it is

when something happens where it's not supposed to.

Drums are extremely helpful during the worship portion,

aren't they? I'm so grateful for the people

who practice their vocals and they sing.

I'm so grateful for the people who run sound so well.

But if they start playing around with all those things at one

time, it's discordant, it's chaos, it's out of order, right?

This is what Paul's going to tell them.

So let's go and start in First Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Look at this long list of scriptures you got there.

Isn't that beautiful? All right, this will sound

familiar. There are different kinds of

spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them.

All. This is in the context of a

church service back in the day. OK, there's different kinds of

service, but we serve the same Lord.

God works in different ways, but is the same God who does the

work in all of us. Spiritual gift is given to each

of us so that we can help each other.

Once again. Every gift you'll ever get from

the Lord is for somebody else. To one person, the Spirit gives

the ability to give wise advice. To another, the same Spirit

gives a message of special knowledge.

The same spirit gives great faith to another and to someone

else. The one spirit gives the gift of

healing. He gives one person the power to

perform miracles and another the ability to prophecy.

He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a

message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit.

That's where we ended last week. We covered those 7 gifts.

And he goes on to say still another person is given the

ability to speak in unknown languages or tongues, while

another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.

It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have.

This is a huge list of things that were happening in the

church. People were getting words of

wisdom, words of knowledge. People were seeing miracles,

right? People were experiencing great

faith for one another. And yes, messages were being

delivered in tongues and there were being interpretations.

He's just trying to emphasize this.

Everybody's getting a different gift.

So there is room for everybody in this, yes.

So we already started a lot of those gifts last week.

But I want you to remember that these gifts are so we can help

each other. So if you've got a gift of

tongues, it's not because you got a little special extra

something, something from the Father.

It is because you are supposed to be praying things that you

need to be praying, which we'll cover more in a moment.

OK, Fast forward First Corinthians 12/27.

It says all of you together are Christ's body and each of you is

a part of it. Here are some, not even all.

Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church.

First, our apostles. Second, our prophets.

Third, our teachers. Then those who do miracles.

He just gave up on the numbering, didn't He?

Those who have the gift of healing.

Those who can help others. Did you know helping others as a

gift. Those who have the gift of

leadership. Those who speak in unknown

languages or tongues. He was on to say, Are we all

apostles? Are we all prophets?

Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do

miracles? Do we all have the gift of

healing? Do we all have the ability to

speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to

interpret unknown languages? Of course not.

So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts.

Well, there's that idea again, isn't it?

How do you know what the most helpful gift for you is?

You probably don't, but I know someone who does.

He says this. Now let me show you a way of

life that is best of all. All right, on your notes here,

this is addressed exclusively in First Corinthians 12/13 and 14.

All right, Paul is addressing issues that were written to him.

He calls it a gift. That's your next blank there.

Paul calls it a gift. So whatever you think of it,

remember, it's a gift. Paul asks this giant run on

rhetorical question, and the assumed answer is no.

Do we all have these abilities? Paul never discredits it.

What's your next blank? Paul never discredits it.

He regulates it for order in a church service and even

encourages it. Get ready.

Your next blank, by the way, is that Paul will call it the

language of angels. So when we're talking about a

public gift of tongues, we're talking about something that's

intended to function in a gathering of believers for the

benefit of the congregation. Paul is pretty clear that not

everybody's going to have this gift in a church service.

And so we're going to come back to that in just a little while.

I think there's a a big difference between the public

gift Paul is talking and what he describes as praying in tongues

privately. But before he tells them how to

handle these gifts, he does something that's interesting.

I don't want you to miss this. He stops and he spends an entire

chapter talking about love. Now, this is a chapter that's

worked into weddings a lot of times.

I think sometimes we read First Corinthians 13, a wedding so

often we forget why Paul wrote it, but it's wedged right in the

middle of him talking about these gifts and these ways that

we're supposed to uplift one another and edify one another in

a church service. And I'm not saying it's bad to

have it in a wedding, but I just want you to understand that

being spiritually gifted doesn't automatically make you

spiritually mature. So he's saying, I want you to

desire these gifts, but not as much as I want you to have love

for one another. And we've heard this before.

It's been in that song for for king and country saying and all

of that. But if I possess all of this,

all knowledge, all of this, and I can speak languages of the

angels, but I don't have love. I'm nothing.

He says love is what really does matter the most.

You must genuinely love one another.

If you want tongues because you feel like you're missing out,

wrong motive. If you want tongues because you

want to feel better than you are right now, you're missing out.

If you want tongues because you think you might be able to

benefit another believer and you don't know what else to do, and

you will start eagerly desiring the gifts that the Spirit has.

Bingo. All right, so listen to this.

The beginning of 13 First Corinthians 13.

He says it. If I could speak all the

languages of earth and of angels, but didn't have love for

others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

You ever known somebody like that?

That's OK if you do, just don't look at them, he says in verse

2. If I had the gift of prophecy

and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all

knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move

mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrifice to

my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I

would have gained nothing. This is heavy.

This is very serious to Paul, and we trivialize them.

We put it on some sort of like Hobby Lobby decor.

We do. But Paul even mentioned speaking

in tongues of men and angels. And people have spent a lot of

time talking about if he's describing an actual angelic

language. I had a chat with somebody

yesterday who said that if it's the language of angels, then

when you speak in tongues and somebody else speaks in tongues,

it should sound identical. And I went, no, that's that's

the way we understand it. But we actually have lips and a

tongue and all of that. These spiritual beings, they're

made of something different than we are.

We'll get to it. This is also where people

sometimes point to Paul saying that tongues and prophecy will

eventually cease. Listen to this First Corinthians

13/8. Prophecy and tongues and special

knowledge will become useless, but love will last forever.

Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of

prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture.

But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will

become useless, he says. When I was a child, I spoke and

thought and reasoned as a child, but when I grew up I put away

childish things. That's its own sermon.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a

mirror. But then we will see everything

with perfect clarity. And he says, All that I know now

is partial and incomplete. But then I will know everything

completely, just as God now knows me completely.

And then of course, we know this one.

Three things will last forever. Faith, hope, and love.

And the greatest of these is love.

So he says that tongues will cease.

But he also says prophecy and special knowledge will become

useless. And he connects some of that to

the time when what's partial gives way to what is complete.

Think about this. When we step into glory one day,

who's going to have to give a word in tongues and get an

interpretation? Or are you going to be OK

because you're right there sitting in front of the Father,

not going to need it? Would it not be weird if you're

sitting right in front of the Father and then somebody comes

to you and says, I have a word from the Father for you.

He would go, Father does he, right?

So a lot of these gifts that he's talking about, he says one

day you won't need these. They'll be complete and you'll

understand so much more. Right now, you only understand

part of it. He's even saying he only

understands part of it. Now, some people use this

scripture to say that the perfect has come, that the time

of the perfect has come, and what they're talking about is

the Scripture, and I understand where they're coming from with

it. But he does also say that words

of knowledge and prophesying will also cease.

And in that same school of thought, which is primarily put

in like the Matthew Scofield expository, like commentary and

all of this, it talks about how prophesying is the same as

preaching. Those words are interchangeable

to them. And unless you find a church

that says preaching is no longer necessary, it's a weird church.

I don't know what it looks like. It hasn't all ceased, OK?

We can't just pick one gift that we're uncomfortable with and

declare that it's finished. How would you like to look God

in the face one day and say, I limited what you could do on

this earth because I told people you don't do that anymore.

So I would just be very hesitant before you declare that it's

over. But Paul also wants you to

remember love is the thing that has to govern everything that

you do with what God gives us. Any word of knowledge, any word

of wisdom, any miracle, any laying on of the hands, any sort

of debate, any apologetics, anything that you do for the

Lord should be fueled by love. If it's not, throw it away.

All right, First Corinthians 14, let's go to the first verse.

All right, says in verse one he's continuing this.

So let love be your highest goal.

Does this sound familiar? We said the first verse earlier,

but you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit

gives, especially the ability to prophecy, which again is

interchangeable in some denominations as preaching.

Now he says, if I have the ability to speak in tongues,

listen to this so carefully. If you have the ability to speak

in tongues, you will be talking only to God since people won't

be able to understand you. So tongues is a thing and who

are you talking to? God.

He says you will be speaking by the power of the Spirit, but it

will all be mysterious. So the one who prophesized

strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.

A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally, but

the one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire

church. So in other words, if I get up

here and it's just because of a funny video I saw online, I'll

just use Shamala Hamala as the placeholder.

If I stand up here and preach Shamala Hamala and it's genuine,

not the weird video I saw. It says right here what we read

is that I am personally strengthened and y'all are

sitting there like what is happening?

So again, he's talking about a public church service and he's

saying if you're going to do this, I'd rather you prophecy if

you're going to get a gift because you know what, if I've

got a prophecy, then I can say, hey, you know what Ahava, this

is what is going to happen. The Lord says this to you.

Fill in the blank. I don't know what it is, right?

But that's what prophecy is that benefits you.

But Shamala, Hamala strengthens me.

He's like, guys, you're gathering together.

Why are you making it all about you?

Now let's go on verse 5. Listen to what Paul says.

I wish you could all speak in tongues, but even more I wish

you could all prophecy for prophecies greater than speaking

in tongues, unless someone interprets what you are saying

so that the whole church will be strengthened.

So I just picked on Ahava, but if I were to Shamala, Hamala

right here, right? And then Ethel stands up and is

like the Lord said, that what that means is that Ahava is

going to win an Emmy or whatever it is.

OK, well that's funny. You're sitting next to Emmy

anyway. I didn't even think about that

when I said it. Now, not only has there been a

prophecy for the whole congregation, but for people

that are new, that are curious about the Spirit, they've just

witnessed a miracle. That's going to be important to

understand. We'll get there.

Paul doesn't discourage speaking in tongues.

He says, I wish you could all do it, but in a church gathering,

I'd rather you prophecy because it'll strengthen everybody.

He's saying I want you to have the best possible church

gathering you can have. I want the most people to be

impacted. I want the most people to

receive something from the Lord that is possible.

So tongues without interpretation does not

accomplish that for a congregation.

Somebody could stand up and deliver the most incredible

message you've ever heard and you wouldn't know it because it

was all in tongues. And they would be strengthened.

And they'd go home and say, I've been great.

And you'd be like, that guy's crazy.

I'm never coming back here. So it's not enough for somebody

to stand up and say something that nobody understands and then

have everybody agree. It was a really spiritual

moment. That would be weird, wouldn't

it? What was church like today, man?

Somebody got up and prayed in tongues for 35 minutes.

Oh my goodness. What was the interpretation?

What did they say? Oh, I don't know what it meant,

but it was God. You could tell he was in the

room. What does that do to equip you

for your faith? It's not the purpose when we

gather together in the ecclesia, in the gathering, OK, in the

assembly. And that's why Paul includes

interpretation as another gift of the Holy Spirit when in

public, when in a church service, because the purpose is

not for you to impress everybody with something supernatural.

It is for the church to be strengthened.

First Corinthians chapter 14. Now we're in verse 6.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

Listen, dear brothers and sisters, if I should come to you

speaking in an unknown language, how would that help you?

But if I bring you a revelation or some special knowledge or

prophecy or teaching, that will be helpful.

Even lifeless instruments like the flute or the harp must play

the notes clearly or no one will recognize the melody.

If you've ever been to a middle school band concert, it wasn't.

It wasn't anybody you know that was playing it that way.

It was the other kids. But all I'm saying is I remember

getting my recorder in the 4th grade and said, mom, listen to

me play hot cross buns. Thanks, mom.

All right, Verse 8, if a bugler doesn't sound a clear call, how

will the soldiers know they're being called the battle?

And he says in verse 9, it is the same for you.

If you speak to people in words they don't understand, how will

they know what you're saying? You might as well be talking in

the empty space. By the way, I know this is not

exactly what he's talking about there.

I also think about that when we use what I call Christianese, we

get so inundated into church culture and then we talk to

somebody who's not in a church and we start using all these

church terms and they're like, you're, you're covered in wet

blood. Like, I mean, explain it to

them, understand, like help them.

OK. So listen, verse 10.

There's many different languages in the world and every language

has meaning. But if I don't understand a

language, I'll be a foreigner to someone who speaks it.

And the one who speaks it will be a foreigner to me.

And the same is true for you. Since you're so eager to have

the special abilities the Spirit gives, seek those that will

strengthen the whole church. That is such a practical

argument, isn't? It's hard to argue that I want

you to have some cool stuff from God, but I really want it to be

the stuff that's going to benefit the whole church because

he's not interested in just raising up one and two people.

He wants to raise up a whole church that's on fire for the

Lord, wants to know what their gift is, wants to discover their

purpose, wants to make a difference.

And how do you do that unless you are lifting one another up?

Paul takes it even further and he starts talking about those

people that might visit like we were talking about in verse 20

of the same chapter. He says don't be childish in

your understanding of these things.

Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature in

understanding matters of this kind.

It's written in the Scriptures and he gives, he gives some

scriptures here. And then in verse 22, he says,

you see that speaking in tongues is a sign not for believers, but

for unbelievers. Doesn't mean there's no purpose

for believers, but it's not a sign for believers.

We're already believers. Even so, unbelievers or people

who don't understand these things may come into your church

meeting and hear everyone speaking in an unknown language.

They will think you are crazy. Have you ever dealt with that

before? This is the first church I ever

heard people pray in tongues, and it is far from the only

church where they do it. But when I first got here, I was

like, what is that? But if all of you are

prophesying and unbelievers or people who don't understand

these things come into your meeting, they'll be convicted of

sin and judged by what you say. As they listen, their secret

thoughts will be exposed in the fall to their knees.

Didn't worship God, declaring God is truly here among you.

In other words, if somebody comes in, they don't know God

and you say Shamala Hamal, they're like, oh cool, I found a

cult. But but if they walk in here and

they meet somebody and they're like word of knowledge, word of

wisdom, one of these things pops up, right?

Some sort of prophecy moment. You're really hurting.

You have a family member that is far from you and the Lord wants

you to know their story's not over.

What happens when they walk into a church and that hits and they

haven't told anybody there. Is she right?

So he's saying that this is extremely valuable for somebody

who does not understand these things.

Now in verse 26, well, we'll do verse 26.

Let me give you some some blanks here first, OK?

They speak not to men, but they speak to God.

I think that's at the top of one of your sheets for those of you

who are doing the notes right. Although this alone is not

enough to verify tongues, the next one is no one understands

him. The person praying in tongues,

nobody understands him. His spirit is speaking mysteries

to God. Mysteries to God.

Paul goes on to say tongues in public edify nobody.

That's your blank Nobody, unless accompanied by an

interpretation. OK.

Paul wishes that everyone spoke in tongues with the caveat that

there is an interpretation. Interpretation so that the

church will be built up. And we're about to read this

part coming up shortly. But he instructs the orderly

display in public while still encouraging it.

Orderly. And Paul explicitly forbids

anybody. Nobody forbids.

He forbids the forbidding of speaking in tongues.

We'll get there. Here's what he says in First

Corinthians 1426. He says, Let's summarize.

When you meet together, one will sing, one will teach, some will

give a special revelation God has given.

Another will speak in tongues. Another will interpret what is

said. But everything that is done must

strengthen all of you. Somebody's teaching something

and there's no application. It's not going to apply to your

life. Shouldn't be teaching.

If somebody's going to sing and they want to sing, it's a small

world after all, instead of worship, music shouldn't be up

here singing, OK? It has to strengthen everybody.

And he says no more than two or three should speak in tongues.

Even there, he's like, let's not get crazy.

You need to have room for everything else.

And he says they must speak one at a time and someone must

interpret what they say. Isn't that interesting?

So if there is a spiritual seizure that takes over a

believer, which there isn't, how could they go one at a time?

You have control over when you start in tongues and when you

stop praying in tongues all throughout worship.

When I'm over here, I can alternate 5050.

I pray in tongues. I pray with my understanding and

listen to this. This is an interesting statement

in verse 28. But if no one is present who can

interpret, they must be silent in your church meeting.

Some people wish that's where that sentence ends because it

says and speak in tongues to God privately.

So I've also spoken to people who say, well, I believe that

it's a miracle that happens sometimes in a church service,

but there's no such thing as a prayer language.

Well, I understand that the term prayer language isn't in the

Scripture, but neither is the word Trinity and most people

don't have a problem with that. Also, another word that's not in

the Bible is Bible. So it says if they're speaking

in tongues, but there's no one present who can interpret, they

have to be silent in the church meeting and speak in tongues to

God privately. There must be a benefit to doing

it in private. Let two or three people

prophecy, let others evaluate what is said.

But if someone's prophesying and another receives A revelation

from the Lord, the one who's speaking must stop.

And this way all who prophecy or preach will have a turn to speak

one after another so that everyone will learn and be

encouraged. Remember that those who prophecy

are in control of their Spirit and can take turns.

For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace, as in

all meetings of God's holy people.

So nobody gets to use the Holy Spirit as an excuse for

interrupting everybody, refusing correction, or taking over the

service. I've seen it happen in a public

church service here maybe three times or so in the last five

years that I've been leading the church as a lead pastor.

But I'll never forget Pastor Anna, who was our worship pastor

for many years. She was up here and, and I

remember during worship one morning because Miss Judy right

there had a word from the Lord and she was proclaiming

something in tongues and had the interpretation.

And I watched Pastor Anna immediately go, you remember it,

Sarah, do you remember this morning?

Like she goes, she goes like this and everybody just kept

doing what they're doing because she was like, we're making room

for this moment. And you had the word and you had

the interpretation. And then Pastor Anna very wisely

said what you guys just saw was biblical.

It was a manifestation of tongues and an interpretation.

She explained what it was. Now, the next day at staff

meeting, I said, what would you have done if that was a stranger

that we didn't know to be somebody who who is a a man or

woman of God? She goes, oh, I'm pretty sure

Jed would have turned up the sound a little bit more, right.

So so we're not somewhere where we're just going to let whoever

do whatever they want. Everything needs to be done in

order. So if you can tell if the Lord's

Spirit is speaking to your spirit that tongues is

happening, or if it's somebody that you recognize with a gift

that that has been proven true, it's a whole different ball

game, right? Nobody gets to use the Holy

Spirit as an excuse for interrupting everybody or for

refusing correction or for taking over service.

It will not happen in this house.

The rest of the chapter talks about instructions about women

speaking in the gathering, and that's a separate discussion and

a separate sermon that we don't have time to settle this

morning, but I'm happy to talk about it.

But then he finishes with two verses that I really wish

Christians on both sides of the tongues discussion would take

seriously. Listen to this in 39 and 40, my

dear brothers and sisters, be eager to prophecy and don't

forbid speaking in tongues, but be sure that everything is done

properly and in order. You should never forbid speaking

in tongues, but you also can't let people do whatever they want

at any time. It's a both end and and there

are church traditions that say that you are not saved unless

you speak in tongues. It's false.

There are also church traditions that say you go to hell if you

speak in tongues because it's demonic.

That's false. Paul says don't forbid it.

He just gives them boundaries while continuing to encourage

the gift. How can you exercise boundaries

and have it be orderly if you're not in control of it?

So I just think some churches have allowed so much disorder

that they've ignored practically everything else Paul said about

it. Neither of those ideas seems

like a particularly good way to handle the Scripture.

So here's what I want you to understand about tongues in the

church. Paul says it's a genuine gift of

the Holy Spirit. Not everybody receives that

public gift. He teaches that it needs

interpretation if it's going to benefit the congregation.

And then he says speak in tongues to God privately.

So not everybody has the public gift.

And one of the reasons, you know, you're not supposed to do

it in public, as if there's not an interpretation, but I really

believe that we have access to it in private.

So let me go ahead and lay that out for you before we go home

today. Private tongues #4 in your

notes, private tongues or a prayer language?

Prayer language is a better way to call it that.

If you want to talk about freaking out people that aren't

in the church, tell them that you learned about private

tongues and see what they think about that sentence.

So we're going to say prayer language.

All right. Now this is where the

conversation gets really interesting because most of the

arguments I've heard with people that say tongues don't happen

today. They focus almost exclusively on

what happens in a church service.

And people will point to Paul saying not everybody speaks in

tongues and there has to be an interpretation, but they're

correct in a public sense. But he does say, if you don't

have an interpretation, go home and pray to God in tongues in

private. Listen to this.

Let love be your high school, right?

If you have the ability to speak in tongues, you will be speaking

only to God since people won't be able to understand you.

You will be speaking by the power of the Spirit.

It'll all be mysterious. You are speaking to God when you

speak in tongues. But you notice how Paul says it?

He says you're only speaking to God, not other people.

So sometimes people will say like, I didn't get anything out

of that. That's not genuine.

No, it lines up with Scripture. If you got up here and prayed in

tongues right in front of me, unless the Lord wanted to do

something for the whole church, I would have no clue what you're

saying, nor should I. Why?

Why would I, right? But there's clearly a personal

benefit that's being described here.

Paul isn't saying that personal strengthening is bad.

He's just saying if you get up in front of everybody and try to

strengthen yourself instead of everybody, that's bad.

So he goes on even further. 1st Corinthians 1413.

Here's what Paul says, his personal experience with

tongues. Lord, would you please just set

some people free today? Says in verse 13, anyone who

speaks in tongues should pray also for the ability to

interpret what has been said. I've had people tell me you

can't pray for your own interpretation.

What does that mean? Then anybody who speaks in

tongues should pray also for the ability to interpret what has

been said. OK, verse 14, for if I pray in

tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don't understand what I'm

saying. Sometimes people have tried to

pray in tongues and they said, Pastor Blake, I tried it, I just

didn't really understand it. Good.

You're on the right track. OK, well then what shall I do?

Here's what Paul says. Here's what Paul does.

You can do what you want. He says I'll pray in the Spirit

and I'll also pray in words that I understand.

He says I'll do both. He says I'll sing in the Spirit,

but I'll also sing in words I understand.

Guys, I've never sang in the Spirit.

I've heard it. I've never done it.

I try not to sing publicly to begin with.

So, but listen to him in verse 16.

He says, if you praise God only in the Spirit, how can those who

don't understand you praise God along with you?

How can they join with you and giving thanks if they don't

understand what you're saying? And here's what he says about

praying in the Spirit, verse 17. You will be giving thanks very

well, but it won't strengthen the people who hear you.

So even in praying in tongues, you can be giving thanks to the

Lord very well and not understand what you're saying.

He just says nobody else is going to get it.

And then you know Paul, he's a little bit of a knucklehead.

Listen to him in verse 18. I thank God that I speak in

tongues more than any of you. All right, Paul.

But then he brings it back home, verse 19.

But in a church meeting, I would rather speak five understandable

words to help others than 10,000 words in an unknown language in

a church meeting. OK, lots of things are going on

there, right? So his understanding is not

involved. That's disengaged here.

He's saying in a church meeting, it's better to say words that

edify other people. But here's where my own

conviction comes in, and I want you to understand this.

I believe that while the public gift of tongues is distributed

by the Holy Spirit according to His will, I fully believe that a

private prayer language is something every believer can

earnestly desire and ask God for.

But you're going to feel weird if you've never done it before.

It's going to be weird. As a matter of fact, if you've

done it before, it still might feel weird to you.

But I also don't believe that receiving the Holy Spirit means

you've automatically experienced everything that God wants you

to. He is constantly revealing

Himself. Let me go ahead and say this

real quick. We'll be in Romans 8 in just a

moment. If I say the words red frog to

you, what did you just picture a red frog?

OK, good. It was not a trick question.

I am surprised nobody went. Jesus, give me the VBS answer.

You picture a red frog. You know why?

Because you know what red means and you know what frog means.

OK, listen to this in Romans chapter 8, verse 26 through 28.

Romans 8:26–28

Everybody loves verse 28, but we'll get there in a couple

verses. The Holy Spirit helps us in our

weakness. For example, we don't know what

God wants us to pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays for us

with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

And the Father who knows all hearts knows that what the

Spirit is saying for the Spirit capital S Spirit pleads for us

believers in harmony with God's own will.

And we know here we are in verse 28 that God causes everything to

work together for the good of those who love God and are

called according to His purpose for them.

Now, I love this because I think he acknowledges something that

every Christian can relate to. Sometimes we don't really know

what to pray for. First of all, I love that If

Paul got a little baffled when he got in the prayer closet, I

feel a little bit better about myself.

But he says this, He says that the Holy Spirit helps us in our

weakness. And I don't think that praying

in tongues is the only thing he's talking about in Romans 8.

I don't want you to think like, oh, just out of nowhere, he's

got this random spot where he's just talking about tongues.

What I want you to know is what he's speaking about there is the

Holy Spirit and how sometimes we just don't know how to pray.

We don't know exactly what God's will is.

So what does the Holy Spirit do? He intercedes for us in power,

in our weakness, and he intercedes in groans that words

can't understand. Now, does that mean the shamala

hamala that comes out? Or is that just spiritual talk?

Doesn't matter. What we know is this.

The Holy Spirit can pray in line with his own will.

And here's why this matters. When I pray for you, I've prayed

for most people that I can see here that if I know you by name,

I've prayed for you at some point.

I pray my will. I pray with my understanding.

I pray my will to God's ears. I also pray in tongues.

So I don't know what I've prayed about you there, but I hope that

I've prayed God's will on me and God's will on you.

A lot of times we are filling up our prayer time asking God for

things that we know to ask for. But the tongues will end up

asking him for things that we don't know to ask for.

And we'll be giving him thanks in different ways too, because

his own spirit prays in conjunction with our spirit to

pray God's will. We don't always pray God's will,

we pray our will. Does that make sense?

So that being said, under private tongues and prayer

language, I believe that a prayer language is for every

spirit filled Christian. This is a relevant topic for

today to address why Christians seem to lack power in their

prayer life. And I'm not here to make anybody

feel bad, but if there's conviction, that's between you

and the Lord. I think that being able to pray

in tongues adds power to your prayer life.

We can only pray our will with our understanding.

I can't pray His will. If I asked you to pray for me,

you would pray the things that you want for me and you would

pray the things you think I want for me, but you would have no

guarantee of praying everything that God wants for me unless you

pray in conjunction with his own Spirit.

OK, now the Holy Spirit knows the will of God, even we we

don't. So the last blank right there is

that most critics focus on the public display and never get to

the private benefits. And I've got a lot of context

verses for you there, but I've got one more that I want to

cover after these these blanks that are there with Romans 8.

Here's what it tells us. First of all, we don't know how

to pray. We don't know how to pray.

Secondly, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Third of all, the Spirit within us prays according to God's

will. That's according to God's will.

And by the way, this is in contrast to our own will.

I know, I know. It may shock some of us to hear

that our will is not His will. But OK, you don't have to turn,

but I've got it listed there. First, John chapter 5, verses 14

John 5:14

and 15. Listen to what we hear about the

nature of this God we serve. We are confident that He hears

us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him.

And since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we

also know that He'll give us what we asked for.

Sometimes we don't get what we asked for because we don't ask

in accordance with His will. But you know, it has a 100%

accuracy rate. Tongues praying in the Spirit.

OK, John says we're confident that God hears us when we ask

for things that please him. And I'll be the first one to

tell you I've prayed prayers that I know didn't please him.

They weren't even bad prayers. They just weren't in line with

his will. And then the last thing that

I'll read in this section is Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

It's just one verse, verse 18. How many of y'all have done

Iwana Bible studies before anybody, right?

I'm not bashing Iwana, by the way.

You don't have to, like, hold your head in shame, right.

You know, one of the things that I want to love covering, really

just churches in general love covering of those.

The armor of faith. Isn't it great what you got?

You got the helmet of salvation. You just remember this, The

breastplate of righteousness. Yeah.

The belt of which implies that there's pants, even though

that's not covered, right. So we got the belt of truth,

right. How about those shoes, The shoes

of the shoes of peace, Right. Like, I know So.

So you've got this, all right. And at the very end, it's it's

talking about all the pieces of the armor of faith.

And then it says this in verse 18.

And I've never seen this in an Awana study that covers the

armor of faith. Pray in the spirit capital S by

the way, pray in the spirit at all times and on every occasion.

Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers

everywhere. So if you say praying in the

spirits just for church, why does it say at all times and on

every occasion? That feels very inclusive,

right? Stay alert and be persistent for

your prayers for believers everywhere.

This is included in the armor of faith.

It's power guys. And so it might make you feel a

little weird, but are you willing to feel a little weird

if you're going to access something that's going to help

embolden your prayers, strengthen your your prayer

life? Again, I wouldn't argue that

every time that the Bible says pray in the spirit, it's talking

about praying in tongues, but it's talking about whatever you

have to do to pray your spirit in conjunction with God's

Spirit. So one thing that I do want to

make clear, I have something that I taught three years ago

when I taught on this that I've changed on.

And maybe you've heard this too, especially if you've been here

for three years. I have taught before that when

you pray in tongues, one of the added benefits is that the enemy

can't understand what you're saying.

I don't know that that's true. I don't know that that's true.

I, I know stories of when I was under a demonic attack and the

only way I could say the name of Jesus was in my mind and my, my

lips didn't move and I was in a paralysis moment and it broke

because I said the name of Jesus with my mind.

Scripture never tells you whether or not I don't know how

spiritual beings communicate. They don't have mouths like this

is what I was talking about earlier with the tongues of

angels. So I'm not here to tell you

whether he can or can't hear your prayers.

But what I will tell you is this.

I am much more concerned that I am praying with the backing of

heaven than to the confusion of hell.

OK, so anyway, that's further revelation that I have.

I don't want to explain something to you like it's

scriptural if it doesn't come from the Scripture.

I can't promise you that the enemy doesn't understand your

tongues. They're spiritual beings.

Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. I don't really care because I

know who I serve. Does that make sense?

OK, so I do want you to consider as we wrap up this morning,

whether or not you've ever actually asked God about this or

if you've been so dogmatic and so convinced that it's not for

you or it's not for today or it's not whatever, that you've

never asked God for it. I think there's a big difference

between saying God, I trust you with whatever you want to give

me, and God, I trust you. But I've already decided that

there are certain things I don't want to do.

So should you pray in tongues? That's the last thing.

If you want to, and I would encourage you, at least go for

it this week. OK, here's what you do.

The first thing you do is you ask for it.

But I do want you to know, if you've never spoken in tongues,

it doesn't mean that you are missing the Holy Spirit.

It just means that maybe this is something you've not

participated in before, but you've got to eagerly desire it.

And we saw some spontaneous moments where people started

praying in tongues, but it's not the norm.

So if you want it, you're going to have to ask for it and you're

going to have to get a little uncomfortable.

This is where the second step comes in.

You have to desire it more than you desire to control or

understand it. These are also your blanks there

at the end. You have to desire it more than

you desire to control or understand it.

You know, Pastor Tom was my pastor for many years.

And he told the story about how his wife prayed in tongues

before he did. And then he ended up in prayer

saying, Lord, why does she get it?

And I don't get it. I want to pray in tongues.

So just for hours he was trying to say, God, I want you to give

this to me. And then one day, or not one

day, but one moment, he said that the Lord said, what does

Marsha sound like when she does it?

And he just said what he had heard her say, because he said

I'm not going to go to bed until I speak in tongues.

And the Lord said, what does she sound like?

And he said what he heard her saying.

He said the Lord said you can go to bed now.

OK, when I say red frog, you picture a red frog because you

know what these words mean. When you just give word vehicles

to the Lord, you don't know what you're saying, but He does.

Your spirit is praying in conjunction with His Spirit and

you'll feel weird. So my advice is when you try it,

try it alone, OK? Sit on the end of your bed, lock

that door, put on a sound machine, play something from

your phone. I don't know, do it alone

because otherwise you're going to be worried about what other

people think. I was part of an experiment one

time where somebody stood people in a circle and told them to all

try. At one time it was one of the

most uncomfortable spiritual things I've ever been a part of.

I'm around 12 people all faking tongues at one time.

My poor OCD was screaming at me. Right.

You have to desire it more than you desire to control it or

understand it. And so if you really want to try

it, you've got to be asking for it.

You've got to be trying. That's Part 3.

Just try it, God. Just give them some words that

aren't your own and see if the Holy Spirit gives you peace.

You don't have to do it for hours.

You don't have to do it for 15 minutes.

Do it for 2 minutes and see what happens.

And the last thing I would tell you is don't give up.

Some people believe that you need the baptism of the Holy

Spirit in order to have tongues. I don't think that that is true,

but I think there's a lot of power in the baptism, the Holy

Spirit. And I want you to know that's

where we're going next week. This week, here's my challenge

to you. This is what I want you to pray.

Holy Spirit, is there anything you've wanted to do in my life

that I have been unwilling to receive?

If you get through this week and nothing's different, that's OK,

Nothing's different. But if there is something

different, whether it's tongues, whether it's a word of

knowledge, whether it's just listening, whether it's him

talking to you about your prayer life or how you treat your

spouse, is there anything you want me to do that I have been

unwilling to receive? Tell him I'm willing to receive

it today and see if he speaks to you.

Amen.