The Gift of Tongues and Godly Order

Hello, welcome to Self Talk. I'm Dr. Ray Self, your host. What is this show about? It's about getting free. Getting free from what you may ask? It's getting free from anything that keeps you away from God's plan for your life. Anything that hurts you or suppresses you or causes you harm. That's my heart, that's my passion. I want to see you free, I want to see you living your God-given dream, I want to see you being the person God created you to be. Stay tuned for our next exciting topic. Thank you for joining us today. God bless you.

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Hello, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Very glad you're with me tonight, or this morning, or this evening, or whenever you're listening. This show is sponsored by my dear friend, Holy Spirit-filled doctor, Dr. Jess Youngblood, Premier Family Care. He's got offices in Bluntsville, Alabama, Arab, Alabama, and Gunnersville, Alabama. If you're in North Alabama, you want to see a Holy Spirit-filled doctor, see Jess Youngblood. Also sponsored by International College of Ministry, icmcollege.org, enrolling right now and there's some scholarship money available. Check it out, God bless you. 

So I've been talking about tongues but now… you know, we talked in the last show about the controversy concerning tongues and I got into the baptism of the Holy Spirit which to me is the reason people don't understand tongues, it's because they haven't been baptized with the Holy Spirit. And I know whenever I say that, every Christian alive says “I'm baptized with the Holy Spirit.” But that's another topic. You know, I believe the baptism of the Holy Spirit is subsequent to salvation; can happen at the moment of salvation but for many thousands of people - millions of Christians - it happened later, including me.

But tongues and divine order. I've been in services and um, some recently and uh, they'll have uh, prayer before service or the prayer during service and people pick up the microphone and begin to speak in tongues through the microphone and there are quite a few speaking tongues where somebody will get up with a prophetic word and grab the microphone and start off speaking in tongues to the church. And you'll just see ‘er- I've heard, been in some services where the pastor would go “Let's all pray in the spirit right now”, and you hear this noise go up with everybody speaking in tongues.

Now remember this, the Apostle Paul made it clear that he wished all of us spoke in tongues, okay? He said “but the one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, the one who prophesies edifies in the church,” okay? Now, he said the one who speaks in a tongue does not- now, I'm gonna be in First Corinthians 14. “But the one who speaks in a tongue…” This is verse two, “...does not speak to men but to God,” So when you're speaking a tongue, you're not speaking to the men, you're not speaking to the church. So if you're in a service and you're speaking in a tongue, you're praying to God in an unknown tongue. That's what Paul's talking about. So in verse 3, “The one who prophesies speaks to men for edification, exhortation, and consolation.” So prophecy, which is God speaking to us, is edifying. And it encourages us and it brings us comfort. Now that's the three effects of it, that's different.

Now in the New Testament, prophecy is edifying, uh, prophecy is encouraging, and prophecy is comforting. Now even the exhortation can be a correction. In the Old Testament times, prophecy was more - generally more about judgment. But Paul - I think we make Paul too difficult in his writing; too difficult. I think he's just a common sense guy and he's given us just common sense logic concerning spiritual gifts. So obviously, the church in Corinth had a move of the spirit going on. There were a lot of things happening. He made it clear in chapter 12, he said, well, “to one is given the word of knowledge, to one is given prophecy, to one is given a word of wisdom, to one is given healing, to one is given faith, to one is given miracles…but it's the same Spirit that gives to all as He…” “...as He chooses.” And so he's, he's bringing order but he really, he spent an entire page, or pages, talking about prophecy and tongues, okay? And he said some things that to me are a very clear message that we need to pay attention to today. 

“The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.” So when you're speaking in a tongue, it builds yourself up, okay? But the one who prophesies edifies the church. Now you know, Paul loves the church and he wanted the church to be built up. I mean, sure it's good if you can build yourself up, but it's much better if you can build a church up because that's a lot of people. When you're building yourself up, it's all about you. One person is being built up. So when you speak in a tongue, one person, one person is being built up: the person speaking in their tongue. It's not benefiting anybody else, that's what Paul is trying to tell us. But prophecy is benefiting the whole church. So, “...the one who prophesies speaks to men for edification, exhortation, consolation…” I'm reading from the word: First Corinthians 14, verse 4. “...the one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself…” So when you're speaking in the tongue, it builds yourself up, okay? But the one who prophesies builds the whole church up. So what's better? One or many? One or many? In the case of Paul, a church could have been a thousand to several thousand people or it could have been a small group. But prophecy would build everybody up. Tongues only builds up the person who's speaking.

Now pay attention to this because what some people have done is, is they take the scripture out of context and go “See, that's why there are no more tongues, because you're only edifying yourself and you shouldn't be  speaking it in the church.” First Corinthians 14:5. Paul said, “Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues…” Let me say it again. “Now I wish you all spoke in tongues...” How, how clear is that? Okay? “...but even more that you prophesy.” Why? You ask. Because “...greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in the tongue, unless he interprets so the whole church may receive edifying.” So tongues… he wants people to speak in tongues but he said if you're speaking in a tongue and nobody interprets you, nobody knows what you're talking about, nobody knows what you're saying and the church is not encouraged, it's very much like- I, I do a lot of Spanish ministry and I only speak just a few words of Spanish so whenever I'm going to a Spanish church or I do a mission trip to a Spanish-speaking country, I have an interpreter because if I were just to get up and preach in English, nobody would know what I was saying. I might get a big thrill out of what I was saying, I might feel good about what I was saying. But unless somebody interpreted, I was not accomplishing anything and that's what Paul is saying.

So when you're speaking in a tongue, you're speaking a foreign language. When you speak in a tongue, you're speaking a foreign language. So why do I say this? Because I've been in multiple services where sometimes 50 or 100 people are speaking in tongues and sometimes all at once. Well, Paul, I think very clearly is telling us don't do that. Now don't do that. Now he wants us to speak in tongues, but he wants the church to be edified. Tongues doesn't edify the church unless somebody's interpreting what is being said. Tongues edifies the person who's speaking. Tongues is very good for the person who's saying, who's speaking in tongues. It's good for the person who's speaking but it's not good for the people around them. And that's what I think the church needs to understand because in some of the old traditional Pentecostal Charismatic churches, and I'm part of them and I love them dearly, there's a lot of people shouting in tongues, speaking in tongues, grabbing a mic and preaching in tongues and it's not really accomplishing anything except for the person speaking. Now, in some of the old Pentecostal churches, somebody was speaking in tongues and somebody would interpret. That's actually very scriptural.

So Paul is saying that tongues without somebody interpreting doesn't edify the church, it only edifies the person who's speaking. “I would much rather the church be edified.” And he said prophecy edifies the church, prophecy builds up the church, prophecy encourages the church, prophecy brings comfort to the church. Tongues only edifies, comforts, exhorts, does something for the person who's speaking. Now, he goes on to– he wrote quite a bit about this and that's why I think that it's worth talking about. It's not just one verse, there's multiple verses about this - a whole chapter out of Corinthians about this, so all of Corinthians 14. ‘Course, Paul didn't write in chapters, he wrote one letter, but all of Corinthians 14 is about this issue. So I think if an entire chapter is devoted to an issue, then perhaps we should pay attention.

So he goes on to explain. “...now brother…” in verse, First Corinthians 14:6. “But now, brother, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you…” “...if I come to you speaking in tongues…” what good will it do you? So Paul said if I'm going to speak to you, the church, in tongues, “...what good is it unless I speak to you by a way of revelation, or knowledge, or a prophecy, or of teaching?” He said if I speak in tongues, it doesn't profit you. It doesn't do you any good. But I'll give you a biblical revelation, it's going to do you some good. If I give you knowledge, if I give you prophecy, if I teach you, all this is in 14:6. If I teach, if I give you revelation, if I prophesy to you, if I impart knowledge to you, this is going to benefit you. But me speaking in tongues, Paul's saying it's not going to benefit you. It'll benefit Paul, but it's not going to benefit the church. 

So he decided to make an interesting analogy. He decided to talk about music so listen to him talking about music. So he's talking about music and musical instruments in First Corinthians 14:7 “Even lifeless things, either a flute or a harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how you will you know what is being played on the flute or the harp?” So what he's saying is, if somebody picks up the flute of the harp and just starts plucking and making noise and there's no tune and there's no melody, nobody knows what's being played, which would be me if I tried to play the harp. I would just be making a bunch of noise and nobody could tell you what song that was. And literally, that's what he's saying is if a flute or the harp, if there's no distinction in the tones then nobody knows what the music is. He goes on to verse 8, chapter 14. “If the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle?” Now, so in case you know, bugles were used as signals. Different bugle sounds meant, uh… a particular sound coming out of a bugle could mean “charge”, it could be “retreat”, it could be “stop”. And so many times commanders would communicate with their troops through bugles. But if– what he's saying if a bugle doesn't produce– if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who'll prepare himself for battle?

So if the bugle is just making noise and there's no distinction in what it's, playing then the soldiers don't know how to prepare themselves for battle which I think is a pretty interesting example. So he goes on, I mean, he's not finished with this. So apparently this is an important issue to him. Verse 9, “So also you, unless you utter by a tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you'll be speaking in the air”. So if you don't speak something that's understood, how will people know what you're saying? That's what he's saying, okay? So unless you utter speech that is clear, how people know what you're saying? Now, in verse 10, First Corinthians 14, “There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world, and”, ever, “and no kind is without meaning.” So he's saying there are a lot of different languages in the world, there were back then too, and every language had a meaning, okay? Verse 11, “If I do not know the meaning of the language, I'll be to the one who speaks a barbarian and the one who speaks…” a ba- “...be a barbarian to me.” In other words, he'll be like a stranger in a strange land if you don't know the meaning of the language.

So verse 12, “So also you, since you're zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.” So since you are excited about spiritual gifts, edify the church, edify the church. So these people in Corinth were all excited because the Holy Spirit was moving and there was healing and there was uh, prophecy going on and there was words of knowledge and words of wisdom. But apparently, there were a lot of people speaking in tongues and nobody knew what was being said. And he went to this great explanation that if you're speaking in a tongue, the only person who knows what's being said is God and the only person being encouraged is you. You're not helping the church out at all. So unless somebody can interpret what you're saying when you speak in a tongue, you're not doing the church any good. Now, he's saying tongues is good. Remember, tongues is good. I don't want to emphasize that but tongues does not edify the church. 

So in meetings, to get up in a meeting and start shouting in tongues, it's not going to edify. It doesn't really - according to the bible, it doesn't encourage the church. It encourages you. It may get you excited, it may get you pumped up, you may start feeling some things from the Holy Spirit because you're shouting in tongues, but unless somebody can tell what you're saying, unless it is known what tongue you're speaking, what are you saying, there's no edification. So he made it very clear in verse 13, “Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that…” may “...he may be interpreted.” “Let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.” So he– it's kind of his bottom line. If you're going to speak in a tongue, if you, if you want to do some good for the church, interpret what you're saying. And you could act- you can actually do that. Now, and I got to be honest, I don't see it very often. It's very rare when I see tongues interpreted. What I see all the time is people speaking in tongues with a microphone. Groups of people speaking in tongues. Lots of people speaking in tongues. And according to Paul, it's just a bunch of noise. And the church is not really being edified by that, the church is not being increased by that, the church is not being blessed by that. The only person being blessed are the people speaking in tongues. And they're blessing themselves but they're not blessing the people around them.

I hope this makes sense to you. Okay, so in verse 15, Paul said “What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I'll pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit, I'll sing with the mind also.” Okay? 

So you know, you don't want to take scriptures out of context. Now I've seen this done I was uh, I've been at churches where they will literally take this, what Paul is saying out of context and go, “Okay, no tongues allowed in here because there are no interpreters so we don't speak in tongues at our church because there are no interpreters.” Well, Paul's not really saying that; he's saying tongues are okay if there's an interpreter. So pray that you may interpret. So what the church ought to be doing is if there is a tongue or you feel like you have a tongue, pray for the interpretation. Then people will be edified. Remember, he said, “I wish you all spoke in a tongue.” And then when you go back to verse 12, to chapter 12, and this is just very clear he said, um, in verse, chapter 12, verse uh, I mean, maybe it's 14. Excuse me, 14. It's chapter 14, verse 39. “Therefore, my brother…” now he's summing up what he's saying here. “Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. But all things must be done properly in an orderly manner.” And that's kind of what I'm saying in this podcast. 

Tongues is good, prophecy is better but whatever you do, do it in order. Shouting, getting up in front of the church and shouting in tongues in a microphone, everybody speaking in tongues all over the place, according to Apostle Paul it's not orderly, it's just noise. Because generally speaking, what I see today in the modern church, it's not tongues with interpretation. It's just people shouting in tongues. Well, sometimes I even hear the pastor tell everybody to speak in tongues. And maybe it's okay to pray in tongues, I mean, it's good to pray in tongues, but what Paul is trying to say is you speaking in tongues publicly does not do anything for the church at all. That's what he's trying to say. In a service, you getting up and speaking a public tongue, okay? Speaking to the church or the people around you, it accomplishes nothing. It only edifies you, it doesn't edify people around you. However, if you get up and you say “Thus says the Lord,” and you speak a prophecy, people are going to be edified. The church is going to be built up. People are going to get blessed by that.

So I could do it right now to you. I can do it right now on this podcast. Here we go. [Speaks in tongues]. Now, it was a prayer language, it was part of my prayer language. And you say oh, that's “Dr. Self, he's kind of strange.” No, I'm speaking in tongues. Did it do anything for you? No, it didn't do anything for you. Did a little bit for me. I said a little prayer in the Spirit. I prayed in the Spirit. It blessed me but didn't bless you. But if I spoke in this tongue and I say “Listeners to my Self Talk podcast, this is what the Lord's saying to you,” and I give you a prophecy out of that tongue, that's something different and that will build you up. And that's what the Apostle Paul is talking about. You know uh, I think I am going to do some podcasts, we're going to focus on the prophetic. And maybe, this is, I'm going to say something bold here, I believe the Lord's going to let me prophesy to some listeners not knowing who the listeners are and that's going to be, that's going to be bold. So that's going to be coming up. I believe I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that. That's my primary gift, that's primarily where I move. And I do this humbly. I really depend on Him for this in all manners.

You know, I hope this show has blessed you; and please don't hear me as being critical of the church. I love the church, Jesus loved the church, I just want the church to flow in the anointing, to know what is of God what is not of God, to not to grieve the Holy Spirit, but let's do things decently in an order. God's not a god of confusion. Let's work on edifying. Edifying and building the entire church to the best of our ability. So heavenly Father, I thank you for each person listening to me. I pray, Father, that I have been able to make your word clear to the best of my ability. And so Father, I just speak a blessing. I thank you, especially for Jim. I thank you for Jim, I thank you for Jim, Father, and his three children, Lord. A single father named Jim. Lord, bless them, provide for them, Father. Help them, Father, heal them, Father. In Jesus' name. That just came to me. Thank you, Lord. And I'm not trying to be strange here folks, I'm just trying to be obedient to the best of my ability. I love you. Hey, don't forget to rate the show, download, subscribe, follow, do all that good stuff because it really helps me get this message out. If you could donate to be a partner, that would be terrific. Our donation page is icm– icmcollege.org/donate. icmcollege.org/donate. I've got a, one thing that's really cool for a $35 donation. I'll send you a free course. It's an eight-lesson course, it's eight hours of teaching on the Holy Spirit that's 35 dollars. icmcollege.org is enrolling right now. We have some hardship scholarship funds available, we have a free, we have a free evaluation. There's all kinds of good stuff on my primary website which is my college, icmcollege.org.

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