Tongues: What Are They?

Now, this morning, we really want to do two things. We want to talk about the definition of the gift of tongues, and we want to talk about the purpose of the gift of tongues. The definition and the purpose. Now, let's define the gift of tongues. There's really two key words we need to deal with. The first is the word gift, the second is the word tongues. Most of us won't need a definition of of, okay?

So we're only dealing with two basic words here. First of all, a gift. A spiritual gift is a supernatural ability. You see, the flesh, the energy of the flesh cannot minister spiritual things.

Therefore, God has to give us something supernatural if he wants us to minister supernatural things. So spiritual gift is a supernatural ability, sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit. Where do I get my gifts? I get them from the Holy Spirit. On what basis do I get them? I get them on the basis of the of how God wanted to give them to me. If you look with me right here in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, verse 11, we read and the one and the same spirit works all these things and he means by that gives the gifts.

Watch dividing to each one individually as he wills. Whatever gifts you've got from the Holy Spirit, you've got because that's the gift he wants you to have. Not because you asked for it, you Terry Ford, you waited for it or you prayed for it. Then have a thing to do with how God gives gifts. He gives gifts in light of his purpose for your life to give you the equipment you need to fulfill the purpose for your life. So it's a supernatural ability, sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit to every believer. Verse seven of chapter 12 says, but the manifestation of the spirit, the outworking of the spirit through spiritual gifts is given to each one.

Every believer has some spiritual gift, maybe more, but at least one. And the purpose is to enable that believer to minister spiritual things to others for the glory of God. Again, verse seven, but the manifestation of the spirit is given to each one.

Notice for mutual profits. First Peter four 10 says, is each one of us has received a gift. Use it in serving one another. God never gave spiritual gifts for personal benefit, personal edification, personal enjoyment. God gave spiritual gifts so that you could minister and meet the needs of other people for service of others. We've discussed a number of these gifts in weeks past and today we come to the one called tongues. Now actually the translation, the gift of tongues by the King James version and most of the other versions have followed suit is somewhat of an unfortunate translation. It's permissible, but I really think the King James translators miss the exact meaning of this gift and by translating it by a term that is tongues, it's somewhat undefined, somewhat fuzzy.

They've left the door open for a lot of confusion. Now this word in Greek is the word glosa. That is the word tongue is the word glosa and it's a fairly common word in Greek and really before we get to the New Testament in this unique use called the gift of tongues, it's really only used two ways in the Greek language. One was to describe a literal tongue, the organ of speech.

Okay. Sometimes it was used for something that looked like a tongue. For example, I found in one classical writer, he talked about a piece of land that jutted out into the sea like a tongue, but he's still talking about the appearance of or the actual use of your physical tongue. The only other way it's used in classical Greek is to describe human language, intelligible human language. For example, we might sometimes say, well, I heard him talking in the German tongue or the French tongue is difficult for me to grasp.

And what we mean there is language. And that's how it's used a lot of times in classical Greek to refer to language. Now I work through almost every use I could find of this thing from Aristotle to sextus empiricus. And I find no example of the use of this word, no example anywhere of this word being used for anything other than normal, coherent speech. Now when we go to the New Testament, we find it's used 50 times the word tongue.

And again, it's used in the same way. It's used for the physical tongue. James three five says the tongue is a little member and boasts great things for our physical tongue.

It's used for language. Revelation seven nine says, I saw a great multitude of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, meaning languages. And then it also refers to the gift of glow saw, which is what we're considering and we'll worry about that in a minute. So to summarize based upon looking at the word glow saw, both how it's used in the New Testament and before the New Testament, and that is it's used either for the literal tongue or coherent speech. We should expect that the gift of tongues is the supernatural ability to speak in coherent human language. That would be what we should expect to find.

Now, is that true? Well, the only way to find out is take a look through the New Testament. Let's see how it's used. I want you to turn with me to the passage we had for our scripture reading Acts chapter two. Now in Acts two, this is the only time in the entire Bible that the gift of tongues is actually described that we actually see it in operation where there's enough there to get a handle on what's happening. So I think it seems logical, doesn't it, that this passage should carry the primary weight in helping us decide exactly what the gift of tongues was, since it's the only one we have. Right? Seem logical?

Let's look at it. What's being spoken here by the apostles is known coherent human speech. Verse six. And when the sound occurred, the multitude came together and everyone heard them speak in his own language.

The Greek word here is the Greek word dialect toss. Everyone heard him speak in his own dialect. Verse eight. And how is it we hear each in our own dialect, our own language in which we were born? And then he lists 15 different languages. Finally, verse 11, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking in our tongues, meaning in our languages, the wonderful works of God.

Human language is being spoken here, which could be readily understood by someone who knew the language. In fact, what amazes the people is the fluency that the apostles are using with their language. I also want you to notice that this really is supernatural here, because these unschooled Galileans certainly didn't know all these languages. I mean, it's very unlikely that Peter had ever taken a course in Cappadocian and highly unlikely that his brother Andrew had ever taken a course in Arabic. These guys were fishermen. In fact, the Sadducees called them at one place in chapter four, unlearned and uneducated men. And the people marveled. So this was a supernatural occurrence. It would be similar to, for example, you went to the jungles of Africa and you heard a pygmy speaking Latin.

You show up and you walk into this little pygmy tribe and the chief comes out and raises his hand and goes, weenie, weenie, weenie. Those of you who ever took Latin, remember that I came, I saw and conquered Julius Caesar. Anybody remember that anybody ever take Latin? I got three hands in the whole congregation. Okay.

Remember that? So here comes this little pygmy out and he goes, weenie, weenie, weenie, and he starts talking to you in Latin and you go, this is impossible. This guy doesn't know Latin.

How could you learn Latin in the jungles of Africa? Well, that's about what was going on when a bunch of Galilee and fishermen knew everything from Cappadocia to Cretan. And the people were amazed.

It says in verse seven, they marveled and were amazed. Some people accused them of being drunk. And I want to say to you, certainly if they were drunk, people would not have been amazed to hear them speaking unintelligently, right? To hear them babbling along in some incoherent speech. Why would you be amazed to hear a drunk do that?

That's normal for a drunk. What amazed them is that they were hearing known coherent speech. Some people have said, well, the miracle was in the hearing, not in the speaking. The people were speaking gobbledygook and the miracle was God caused them to hear each one of these people in their own language.

There's only one problem with that. And that is, that's not what the Bible says, which is a fairly serious problem, I think. If you look up in verse four, it says, and the Holy Spirit filled them and they began to speak with new tongues. Not people began to understand with new tongues. They began to speak with new languages as the Holy Spirit gave utterance. So the bottom line of this is simply that in its only biblical description, the gift of tongues involved the supernatural ability for believers who didn't know a language to speak in that language fluently as God gave them the grace. Now, second of all, this exact same word, glow size used everywhere in the New Testament to describe this gift.

Everywhere we look, we find the same nomenclature for the gift. And the point there is that the same nomenclature should mean the same things being done. It seems to me, I mean, if a different kind of tongues are going on in first Corinthians that are going on in acts, which we'll talk about in a minute, then the Holy Spirit was a very poor theologian for using the same word, wasn't he? A different thing's going on. He should have changed words, at least to some degree.

Might say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. My Bible, I have the King James here. My Bible in first Corinthians 14 has unknown.

He who speaks in an unknown tongue. If you'll notice very carefully, you'll notice that that word unknown, every place it appears in chapter 14 is in italics. What that means is that the translators of the King James version, when they translated it from the Greek, if they thought a word belonged in there, but it wasn't there in the Greek, they put it in, but they put it in italics. Now I thank God for their sense of ethical behavior and at least putting it into italics so we'd know. And you'll search in vain through any Greek manuscript anywhere to find the word unknown in first Corinthians 14 with tongues.

It's simply not there. Now the King James translators were doing some interpretation rather than just translation. But everywhere you look in the New Testament, the description of tongues uses the exact same nomenclature. Third, not only is it languages in acts two, not only is that the same word that used everywhere else through the Bible, but the gift of interpretation seems rather fanciful, doesn't it?

If what's being spoken is not a language, I mean, how could you interpret something that's not a language? And so to summarize, to define the gift of tongues, the gift of tongues should be really more appropriately translated, I believe the gift of human languages because that's really what's going on. The gift of tongues is the supernatural ability to speak in a language that you don't know, a coherent human language that you don't know that the Holy Spirit gives you as a believer directly. That's the gift of tongues.

Now that brings up an additional issue that we've already kind of referred to. And that is what about tongues as a private language for prayer and praise to God? This is an extremely common view among charismatic teachers today. Basically what it says is that there are really two kinds of tongues. There is speaking in tongues, which is 1 Corinthians. There is the gift of tongues, which is acts two. And the distinction that they make is this, the gift of tongues is speaking in public. Like in acts two, this can be interpreted. Not every believer has it.

That's acts two. That's the gift of tongues. However, 1 Corinthians, they will say is talking about speaking in tongues. That's different than the gift of tongues. Speaking in tongues according to their definition is a private language for prayer and praise to God that every believer should possess if he's been baptized by the Holy Spirit that doesn't need to be interpreted.

And it doesn't have to be done publicly. I've got some quotes here I'd like to share with you just to let you know what's being taught. Basium in his book, a handbook on Holy Spirit baptism says it allows us to communicate to God in a new and exciting manner. Dennis Bennett says it is our spiritual speaking to God inspired by the Holy Spirit. But instead of speaking in a language that we know with our intellect, the believer speaks in childlike faith and trust God to provide the form of the words. Basium says it grants a Christian a freedom in prayer that enables him to praise God extravagantly beyond the limiting confines of human speech. And further, it brings with it a spiritual freedom and creates a precious intimacy with Jesus not previously known. And the way it's taught is that every believer must have this devotional use in this devotional speaking in tongues if he's going to have the deepest and most fulfilling relationship with God.

Now what about all of this? I believe there's serious reason to question whether or not such a distinction is biblical. And we need to try to spend a little bit of time trying to clear this confusion up because if the distinction between speaking in tongues and the gift of tongues is invalid, if that's not a legitimate distinction as they're making it, then I want you to know something. The whole basis of the charismatic movement's understanding of tongues crumbles. For you see, it is the devotional use of tongues that really forms the foundation of tongues as charismatic people use them. Basium says the primary, now get that, the primary use of the gift of tongues is for prayer and praise to God. Donald G, a very prolific charismatic writer says, the revealed purpose of the gift of tongues is chiefly devotional. And we do well to emphasize that fact. And Larry Christensen says, one speaks in tongues for the most part in his private devotions.

This is by far its most important use and value. Now the truth of the matter is, if speaking in tongues is not private, if it's not meant to be devotional, if there's no two categories of tongues, then everything that the charismatic movement teaches about tongues collapses. So we need to study it and decide whether or not it's right. Is there a devotional use of tongues? Well, I've got six thoughts for you because I believe the answer is no.

So I'll tell you in advance what I think the outcome is going to be. The answer, in my opinion, is absolutely not. There's no such beast as devotional tongues.

Let me share with you why I don't think so. Number one, the way a charismatic person will often present this is, well, you can't, in Acts 2 we agree with speaking to people in public, in Acts 2 we agree was able to be interpreted, in Acts 2 we agree was evangelistic, but the tongues in 1 Corinthians that the Corinthians were using were different. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about those tongues. Well, I have a problem with that, number one, because if the tongues were, in 1 Corinthians, were devotional type, and that is they weren't human language and they weren't meant to be spoken to men, then why did the Holy Spirit use the exact same terminology as he used for the thing that was for men and that was to be spoken publicly and that was to be interpreted, why did he use the same term? Didn't he know that that would mislead us?

Didn't he understand we would assume that the two were the same? I mean, is the Holy Spirit that poor, a theologian? Second, with regard to tongues being some sort of angelic language that we praise God with above our human speech, but I assure you tongues are not an angelic language. Number three, it seems to me as I look at chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians that the tongues there look just like the tongues in Acts 2. Would you turn there back with me, 1 Corinthians 14? When I look at chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, I don't see a difference, frankly. 1 Corinthians 14.

First of all, the tongues in 1 Corinthians 14 are to be interpreted just like Acts 2. Look at verse 13. Therefore, let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. Verse 27 says, says if anybody speaks in a tongue, let it be two or three at the most, each in turn, and let one interpret.

And if there's no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church. Seems to me the tongues going on here are meant to be interpreted, doesn't it to you? And also the tongues here are being used evangelistically to men, just like in Acts 2.

Look at verse 22 here in chapter 14. It says therefore tongues are a sign not for those who believe, but to those who believe not. What certainly looks like to me what Paul is saying here is that these tongues are intended to be used for men. And we've already seen that they were meant to be used in the assembly if they had interpretation, so certainly public use here is in view. And so I just don't find that the tongues in 1 Corinthians look any different than the ones in Acts 2, frankly. They're meant to be interpreted. They're meant to be spoken to men. They're meant to be used in public.

I don't see the difference. Fourth, and this may be the most important reason of all, is that I don't see that a private devotional use of tongues is in keeping with the purpose of spiritual gifts. As we've already seen, spiritual gifts have as their purpose to minister. 1 Peter 4.10, which I quoted earlier, as each one of you has received a gift, use it in serving one another. And I believe whenever a believer takes a spiritual gift and uses it for any other reason than serving other people, he is distorting and perverting the reason God gave it. God didn't give you or me spiritual gifts to use on ourselves, because God gave us gifts to serve others with. For example, how about the gift of helps? Now, how do you use the gift of helps?

Well, we have lots of ladies in the church, and men, too, but I'm thinking of the ladies. Now, we have a ministry of helps here, and a very good one. And if someone needs a meal or someone's sick and there needs to be care of the children, but especially if someone needs a meal while there's illness or emergency in the family, what do we do?

Well, the ladies who really feel like this is part of their ministry, they fix meals, they fix casseroles, they put them in the refrigerator here for the family or they take them over their home, right? Now, what would you, how would you feel if someone says to you, I have the gift of helps? So the way I use my gift of helps is I fix a casserole, and I put it in the refrigerator here at the church so my husband can pick it up on the way home from work for dinner for us.

You might say, wait a minute. If God gave you the gift of helps, He didn't give you the gift of helps to fix your own dinner. The gift of helps is to fix somebody else's dinner. The gift of helps is take care of somebody else's children. God gives you grace to fix your dinner.

God gives you grace to take care of your husband or your children. But God doesn't give you the gift of helps to do that. He gives you the gift of helps to help somebody else.

Right. It's ridiculous to say that the gift of helps is so I can help myself. The gift of helps is so that you can help somebody else. And that's true of every spiritual gift. Here in First Corinthians, Chapter 14, verse two, he who speaks in a tongue doesn't speak to men, but to God, for no one understands him. People say, uh huh.

See that right there? It says tongue speak to God. Tongues are for speaking to God. No, that's not what Paul saying at all.

And we'll talk more about that next week. But Paul saying here is if you speak in a tongue and nobody interprets, then nobody has the slightest idea what you're talking about except God. He's not saying that's the purpose of the gift, but that's the result when you don't have an interpreter. For no one understands him. He speaks in the spirit mysteries much. Oh, that sounds so exalted and so spiritual.

I want to tell you something. Paul's condemning that. Paul's not uplifting that and saying, oh, go speak in your spirit mysteries. Paul saying this is why the gift isn't much use because you're talking and nobody understands.

You don't even understand what you're saying. So what good is it? However, he says he who prophesies that is who he who teaches the word in a known language speaks for edification, for exhortation, for comfort. He who speaks in a tongue the best he can do, Paul says, is edify himself. But he who prophesies can be used to edify the church. You might say, see, their tongues are to edify me. It says it.

Well, you got to read farther. Verse five, Paul says, I'm glad you speak in tongues. I wish everybody spoke in tongues. That's great. But I wish more that you prophesied for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues.

Why? Look at the end of the verse, because the church receives edification. Friends, listen, Paul's point is that everything we do, verse 12, that we should seek to the edifying of the church.

That's the point. The point is every gift we exercise has to have as its purpose building people up, not personal ministry. And for this reason, he says you're not going to use tongues. I don't want you using tongues in the assembly without interpretation.

I have a question for you. If the purpose of tongues was personal prayer and praise, if that's really what God intended the gift to be used for, then why would the Holy Spirit forbid it in the church to be used that way? The Holy Spirit gives the gift of teaching to teach in the church.

Right. And I don't read anywhere in the Bible that God told me I can't use that gift in the church because that's its purpose. If God limits the gift, there must be a reason.

Paul even calls the gift inferior. And so you see, Paul's point is that to use the gift of tongues to minister to yourself, to use the gift of tongues in a personal way is a misuse of the gift. And so if these verses teach us anything about the gift of tongues and using it in a devotional way, it teaches us that that's a distortion and not the purpose that God had. God gave spiritual gifts for edification, not for personal use. And to take any spiritual gift and use it personally is twisting what God intended it to be used for.

Spiritual gifts are meant to be used in the marketplace, not in the prayer closet. Fifth, 1 Corinthians 13, 8 says tongues will cease. Now will prayer cease? Will praise of God cease? If tongues are exalted prayer and if tongues are exalted praise, why would God take away from believers the ability to pray to and praise God in the most exalted way? I don't understand that.

Do you? And last of all, I believe God wants prayer like everything else to be incoherent, understandable speech. Then it says in his book, tongues is speaking to God without having to accept the limitations of the intellect. Now, the only problem with that is that God says that's wrong. Look here in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 7. Paul says even things without life, whether it's a flute or a harp, when they make a sound, unless they make a distinct sound and understandable sound, how do you know what's being piped or played?

We'll talk more about that next week. Or if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, how do you know what to do for battle? I mean, if they're blowing the thing, you know, they go to the, to the, to the, to the, you know, you know what to do.

You charge, right? If they blow it another way, you go to sleep. And if they blow it another way, you wake up. But if they blow it, who knows what to do, right?

Nobody knows what they're doing. You just stand there. Do I charge? Do I retreat? Do I wake up? Do I go to sleep? What do you want me to do?

Right? Verse nine. So likewise, unless you utter by a tongue words that are understandable, who knows what you're saying?

God doesn't want to stand in around babbling out into outer space with things we don't understand. Verse 14. Paul says, if I pray in his tongue, my spirit praise, but my understanding is unfruitful.

I don't understand what I'm saying. What is the result in verse 15? Now watch, I will pray in the spirit and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit and I will also sing with the understanding. The idea of praying and singing something you don't understand is biblical hogwash. God wants conscious, coherent, understandable communication with us. He doesn't want unknown moans and syllabic chants. God wants us to understand what we're talking about. And he says such kind of thinking is childish. Verse 20 brethren, don't be children in your understanding. Be man.

Grow up. My friends, you go throughout the New Testament letters and you pull out all the prayers in the New Testament. You go through the life of Jesus and you pull out every single prayer he prayed.

You go through the entire Old Testament and you pull out every prayer in it and nowhere will you find any indication that God has some special language for prayer. In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ said exactly the opposite. First seven of Matthew six and I want you to turn there with me, please. The first book in the New Testament, Matthew Chapter six. If you have a Bible like I do, it'll be in red letters because that means Jesus is talking. He's talking about prayer. OK, now watch verse five. He says, When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. They love to stand out in the synagogues and on the corners of the street that they may be seen by men. People want by and go, Oh, what a godly man.

Look at him. He's praying on the street corner. I tell you, Jesus said they have their reward.

Their reward is having people walk by and say, Oh, look how pious they are for six. But when you pray, you go in your room, shut the door, pray to your father who's in secret for seven. But when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. And this word for vain repetitions is the word in Greek, Bata logeo. It's a compound word. It means to babble, to make unmeaningful repetitions, to say senseless things, to say the same words over and over and over again, to not pray with an understanding of what you're saying. It's a compound word. Logeo means to speak.

Bata doesn't really mean anything. Apparently it's a word that's an onomatopoeia. All right, now I'm going to take a, I'm going to take a survey. How many of you know what an onomatopoeia is? I'm really proud of you guys. I really am. That's exciting.

I didn't think I'd get two hands. That's great. They still teach English in school, don't they? An onomatopoetic word is a word that, it doesn't mean anything. It's a word that describes a sound. For example, we say a V goes bzz. Now bzz doesn't mean anything. B-U-Z-Z doesn't mean anything, right? Bzz doesn't come from French or Latin or anything. Bzz is trying to describe the way the B sounds. The B flies by and goes bzz, so we say that's what a B sounds like.

We say a zipper goes zip, right? And a plane goes whoosh, and a gun goes bang. Now whoosh and zip and bang and buzz don't mean anything.

They're words that describe a sound, but they don't mean anything. And this is the way bata is. Apparently bata was some sort of word or syllable that they used in chanting.

And I don't know the background here. Nobody does, but Jesus obviously knew that the heathen used this. And the heathen would sit around apparently and go bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata. Maybe it was to music or something and expect to be heard.

Now, that's not so unusual, is it? I mean, we have people sing Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. When I was involved in that before I was a Christian, I used to sing it, and I still don't know what Hare Krishna means. But you sit around and you just sing Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. And you know, you hope God's hearing you, but you don't know what you're saying. You're just saying it over and over again.

And that's what was going on here. So what Jesus is saying is when you come to God, God really doesn't want you to come and give him bata, bata, bata. That's not what God wants. God does not want our prayers to sound like woosh, buzz, zip, bang when we pray. God wants coherent speech.

God wants coherent communication. And to prove that to you, would you notice that he goes on to give them a model for prayer that's coherent, that's understandable. He says, when you pray, pray like this. And he doesn't say bata, father, bata, bata. He says, Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name, my kingdom come.

I understand that, don't you? That's the way God wants prayer to be. When Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane to talk to the Father, he talked coherent speech. He didn't use some heavenly language.

So why should you? Whenever God communicated with God, he always used language that was clear and coherent. Every prayer of Jesus, the disciples standing nearby, not only heard, but were able to record for us. Jesus didn't use some heavenly language. And the idea of being free from our intellect when we pray is not only unfruitful, Paul says in First Corinthians 14, but it's unscriptural. God doesn't want you separated from your intellect. God knows most of us have so little intellect, we need every bit of it we can use. God doesn't want you separated from your intellect. Believe me, God wants all the intellect massively concentrated in your prayer. And I think what disturbs God the most is not that we pray apart from the intellect in some other language, but we pray apart from the intellect in English. Really, I'm not trying to be totally funny either that we pray, but we're not really in it. Now in summary, the carnal Corinthians and I'm afraid to say our charismatic friends today see tongues as a spiritual plateau from which they can talk to the eternal God in their own private language. One man that I read said of course I can speak to God in English, but he seems a little more real to me when I speak in tongues. Now this is biblical bunk. All right, I just want to say that to you.

This is nonsense. This is the whole point of spiritual gifts. The New Testament knows no language of prayer and praise that is the gift of tongues. There's no special devotional language for believers and God never gave you any spiritual gift to talk to him with. Your prayer life may not be all that you want it to be, but I assure you friends, the solution is not the gift of tongues. It's the revival of your heart.

It's returning to your first love. And God prefers when you do that for you to tell him about it in English. The gift of tongues is the supernatural ability for, from the Holy Spirit for a believer to speak in a foreign language that he doesn't know as the Holy Spirit moves on him. And the only tongues that the New Testament knows about is the gift of public ministry of another language to others.

The New Testament knows no other use of the gift of tongues, no other definition of the gift of tongues, no difference between speaking in tongues and the gift of tongues. It's all false. It's all contrived. It's all illegitimate. And I want to say to you, boldly, I want to say it gently because I have some very good friends in the charismatic movement and I appreciate them and they are my friends and they are going to continue to stay my friends. But when I stand behind the pulpit, it doesn't matter who my friends are or who my enemies are. What matters is that the word of God is taught properly.

And I want to tell you friends, don't accept a counterfeit. Don't let yourself be tricked into accepting something that the scripture knows nothing about. Don't allow yourself to go off on some sort of non-intellect trip.

Because I've seen the results and they can be disastrous. God wants you to pray with your intellect. God wants you to communicate with him with your intellect. God never intended you to communicate from him to you or from you to him in anything but known coherent speech. That's why he didn't write this book in some esoteric language that he has to give us any special information to be able to understand.

He wrote it in language that could be understood. That's the way God communicates to us. That's the way God wants you to communicate to him. Speaking in some sort of repeated gibberish may give you an emotional high, but I assure you something, it's not in any way helping you communicate with the God of the universe.

In fact, it's doing you harm because if you took the same time and the same energy and communicated to him in English, you'd be gaining far much more. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word this morning. And Lord, we indeed do thank you for spiritual gifts and for giving them to us that we may minister. Lord, I just want to thank you this morning for the gifts that you've given me.

And I thank you for the privilege of being able to exercise them in your service and serving your people. Lord, I pray you'd help us have a balanced approach to this whole thing and that you'd help us to orient our experience at every point to the word of God. Lord, I pray that these studies that we're doing together not only would be helpful for us, but even to many others as by tape, we have the privilege of sharing them with them. So Lord, be pleased this morning to take what we've shared and allow the Holy Spirit to apply to our hearts. Lord, give us a clear understanding. We just praise and thank you that we have the word of God to keep us on the straight and narrow doctrinal path to know what indeed is from you and what indeed isn't. Thank you, Father, for your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.