ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: TONGUES II
Howdy, Howdy, Howdy!
Well, guess I should’ve known taking up this topic would spur a lot of controversy and debate. It’s one area that has polarized much of the body of Christ. Even though history clearly shows that many of the great leaders throughout the past centuries were filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, (e.g., Martin Luther, John & Charles Wesley, etc.) it wasn’t until the Pentecostal Revival that hit Azusa Street in 1906 that the Holy Spirit once again began to be poured out on large groups of people spanning segments of just about every church denomination and organization.
The Pentecostal Revival actually began before 1906 and was spreading throughout Europe and the eastern United States in the 1880’s, but the events that happened at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles under the ministry of a black preacher by the name of William Joseph Seymour turned what had been little flames of fire here and there into a bonfire as the Holy Spirit began to be poured out in unprecedented fashion.
Denominational leaders whose doctrinal understanding didn’t allow for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in modern times (they held that this was a one-time phenomenon on the Day of Pentecost that died out early in the second century) began to contrive all sorts of excuses and doctrinal teachings opposing what the Holy Spirit was doing. By the 1930’s and 1940’s, the body of Christ �?in particular, so-called “Protestantism�?�?had become polarized into opposing camps: the Pentecostals (as they were called) who had formed several major denominations or organizations of their own, having been essentially disfellowshipped by the other camp: the Evangelicals.
Most Evangelical denominations had adopted a doctrinal stance back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s holding that speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (with miracles, laying on of hands, and instantaneous healings) had ceased with the early apostles; and that the baptism in or of the Holy Spirit as it occurred on the Day of Pentecost was now relegated or limited to an inward gift of sanctification and fruitfulness.
The contention was so great between the Pentecostals and Evangelicals that when a Pentecostal (a major Pentecostal denomination) minister by the name of David Duplessis attempted to bridge the gap with ecumenical councils, he was subsequently disfellowshipped by the Assemblies of God for what they viewed as compromise and heresy. David Duplessis had been the General Secretary of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Johannesburg, South Africa prior to his invitation to join the Assemblies, and their disconnection from him �?while sad at the time �?proved to be a catalyst that spurred him all the more the bridge the dividing line between Pentecostals, Evangelicals and Catholics.
Ironically, David Duplessis had such a reception and subsequent rapport with many Catholic leaders that his ministry inspired and triggered the Pentecostal Catholic movement during the leadership of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI.
My father met him in the late 1930’s, and I was very blessed and privileged to meet David Duplessis when he was around 90 years of age. The presence of the Lord was so strong with this man that you couldn’t help but be awed. I was present at a meeting in which the then-General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God publicly apologized to David Duplessis for the division and strife their organization had been a part of in disfellowshipping him. He grinned and said, “Your leaders may have meant it for evil, but the Lord meant it for the good of the body.�?/FONT>
Over the years, his efforts to unite the body of Christ and bring understanding to the non-Pentecostals concerning the ministry and outpouring of the Holy Spirit earned him the nickname, “Mr. Pentecost.�?nbsp; As a result of his efforts, Lutheran ministers like Harald Bredesen, Episcopal ministers like Dennis Bennett, Southern Baptist ministers like Charles Simpson, and Presbyterian ministers �?including David Duplessis�?own son, Matt �?and John Hinkle experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It spawned the Charismatic Renewal that began in the early 1960’s, again spanning every major denomination and lasting for some two decades as the Day of Pentecost was revisited among people who had not only preached against speaking in tongues, they had violently opposed it, often calling it demonic.
For me personally, growing up and walking with the Lord in the 1940’s and 1950’s and being in the ministry pretty much nonstop since the 1960’s, has allowed me a perspective on the moving and operation of the Holy Spirit from which I can share things that many Christians have never seen. The experience of the infilling of the Holy Spirit �?some call it the Baptism in the Holy Spirit �?is no doctrine: it is a literal, tangible experience with demonstrable proofs resulting in a drastically altered and empowered life in Christ.
Yesterday, I said that there were three purposes incorporated into speaking in tongues. Let me spell those out for you.
First, speaking in tongues is an unnatural experience. If I don’t study a language, unless I’m otherwise imbued or empowered supernaturally, I can’t speak it. When I was in college, I first studied Latin and French. I soon found that unless I practiced my French (Latin is not really a conversant language), my ability to speak it dried up, as did my memory of the meaning of many French words and terms. Not living in a place where French was spoken regularly impaired my ability to converse well, and it didn’t take long for me to lose much of what I learned and studied.
The same thing held true of Greek and Hebrew when I first began to study them. I was fortunate that my first Greek instructor was also the senior pastor of the church where I was the associate pastor. He was Greek by birth and upbringing and spoke it fluently. Having him as an instructor, as well as one with whom I could converse, made a big difference in my retention of the Greek language.
One thing became very clear to me in my study of these languages: they were not natural to me because I didn’t grow up speaking them. In order for me to speak them, it required an enormous of amount of effort, study and practice on my part.
When I received the initial experience of being filled with the Spirit and began to speak in an unknown language I’d never heard before, I’ll admit that my mind went a thousand directions. It was illogical from a reasoning standpoint. Nevertheless, there was a supernatural peace that swept over my whole being that was indescribable. It was as though my mind and reasoning processes shut down entirely. Yet I could hear this language being articulated from my mouth. It was almost like an explosion. Once it started, it became an unstoppable river. For hour after hour after hour, words poured out of my mouth that my mind and intellect didn’t understand at all. I knew, however, that the Holy Spirit was giving glory to the Lord in a dimension and using phraseology that went beyond natural human abilities.
Like millions of other Christians who have experienced the same thing, the infilling of the Holy Spirit �?the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, if you will �?came with tangible proof: evidence that my natural being had been superintended by the Spirit of God. The first and very important reason for speaking in tongues, therefore, is to provide evidentiary proof �?first to you, personally; and secondly to those around you �?that the Holy Spirit is more than just dwelling with you: He now dwells in you!
That isn’t some kind of semantical difference. That is a difference with a life-changing purpose.
Yesterday, I quoted from John’s gospel, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.�?nbsp; (John 14:16-17)
“With�?and “in�?were not semantics with Jesus, either. He made it clear that He was initiating an experiential change in the way the Disciples would relate to Him. It was also an operational change in the way by which they would function with His power and authority in the future.
The second purpose behind speaking in tongues is one which I have already covered in a recent Coffee Break: the ability to pray and intercede according to the will of God without your mind and logical reasoning interfering with the enacting of that will. I quoted from Romans 8:26-27:
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.�?/STRONG>
When we pray in tongues, we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to pray and intercede through us. The Holy Spirit is One with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. He never does anything contrary to the desired will of the Father or the Son. That said, He knows what the will of God is in any given situation, and allowing Him to use our voices and our tongues to pray through us permits us to be an integral part of implementing the will of God in those situations for which we intercede.
It also provides a path of communication using “the tongues of angels�?�?languages unknown to men �?that Satan cannot understand, contaminate, or interfere with in any way. The apostle Paul makes a somewhat glancing reference to this aspect of speaking in tongues in I Corinthians 13:1 when he begins his discourse on agape love.
Paul opens his discourse by saying, “Although I have the ability to speak in the tongues of men and even of angels, but have not love, I have become like the clanking of coins in an empty brass vessel, or a tinkling or clanging cymbal.�?nbsp; (My translation)
I won’t take today’s discussion down that path other than to say that the ability to speak in both the different languages understandable by man, and the languages spoken by angels is an integral part of that gift of the Holy Spirit that comes as the evidence of His infilling.
A single illustration is perhaps worth mentioning in this regard.
I’ve heard the babblings throughout the years of the doctrines of unbelief when it comes to this whole area of speaking in tongues. There are those who �?in their efforts to rationalize and come to grips with a supernatural experience they’ve never personally had �?explain “tongues�?away as a gifted ability from the Lord to speak only in the languages understood by men. If they hear something that doesn’t seem to have any connection to a human language, why then it must not be of God; and it is therefore evil or demonic.
I was just thinking back to an event that happened when I was a teenager. We were in a church service where my mother was praying, and she burst out speaking in a really strange tongue. It sounded more like clicks and pops than actual verbiage being articulated. Because of her lifelong teaching, she feared that this was not real �?that somehow, her flesh had gotten in the way and she was just babbling some kind of nonsense.
We were fortunate enough �?really, it was ordered of the Lord �?to have a guest in our service that day who happened to be from the Fiji Islands. After the service, he came up to my mother and said, “It has been many years since I’ve heard that language spoken. It’s not a language used much any more, but I grew up hearing it spoken in the south Pacific islands. You’ve just uttered some of the most glorious praise to the Lord I’ve ever heard in my life, and you’ve used an almost extinct language.�?/FONT>
It set Mom’s mind at rest, and thereafter she never questioned the validity of any tongue or language that came out of her mouth. She realized that the Holy Spirit �?though not speaking with the language of angels at that moment �?was using her freely-given-over voice and tongue to magnify the Lord in a way she could never have imagined.
I’ve no doubt that there are many times when the language that comes out of my mouth is most likely the “tongues of angels,�?but it doesn’t really matter. I’m not there to analyze and critique what the Holy Spirit does through me. Whether He uses the tongues of men or of angels is quite irrelevant from a reasoning point of view. The fact is that He has the right and privilege to use my voice and tongue any way He sees fit �?whether I understand it or not. For me to arrogantly try to figure out what He is doing is roughly analogous to the clay trying to analyze the potter.
There simply is no scriptural or historical evidence to suggest that speaking in tongues is only speaking in the tongues of men. To argue that is to only get into meaningless debate �?debate that produces no life whatever �?and debate that is inconsequential to what the Spirit of God is doing in the earth today.
Finally, there is a third aspect to speaking in tongues. This is the prophetic part of tongues and is differentiated from the “normal�?speaking in tongues in that whereas the previous purposes were to (1) provide praise and glory to the Lord, and (2) to intercede in prayer with a direct hotline that cannot be contaminated by your understanding, this purpose is to minister directly to either individuals or a gathering of people with a direct word from the Lord in such a way that it clearly denotes its authorship.
The apostle Paul described it this way to the Corinthians, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.�?/FONT> I Corinthians 12:4-11)
In this instance, Paul refers to this use of tongues as a “gift.�?nbsp; Seven of the nine “gifts�?described here are prophetic in nature. I won’t try to deal with them today �?perhaps we can tackle that next week �?but I wanted to point out that the use of tongues in this instance has a specific, intended purpose. The “divers kinds of tongues�?/FONT> could well be just known languages of men �?although I Corinthians 14:2 tends to argue against that �?while the “interpretation of tongues�?/FONT> is intended to demonstrate to and speak to the unbeliever present.
Paul explains it like this: “Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.�?/FONT>
He goes on to say, “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.�?nbsp; (I Corinthians 14:1-5, 21-22)
He couldn’t be clearer, therefore. These kinds of tongues �?uttered in a public gathering �?when combined with the interpretation of the tongues, serve to build up, to edify, to encourage and inspire those who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. It becomes a sign to the unbeliever that the Lord is real, that He is working in the midst of those believers who are gathered together.
For me to go any farther today on this topic would mean getting really long-winded so I think I’ll wrap it up for now. We’ll get back to this topic again next week.
Hmmmm�?.I just realized that we dived right in and didn’t even get our coffee poured. Hope you didn’t wait for me. Enjoy the rest of your day, and your weekend!
Reason questions and argues with God. Faith just obeys Him, and acts on His Word!
Blessings on you!
Regner A. Capener
R & DC MINISTRIES
Ekklesia House
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
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