Is Speaking in Tongues Still Relevant? Examining Scripture’s Answer

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
What's going on, Central?
[00:00:49] Good to see everybody.
[00:00:51] If you're wondering, that was really me out there.
[00:00:53] That is not an AI-created pastor.
[00:00:57] I'm not at home sleeping right now and getting some rest.
[00:01:01] And exciting to see what God's doing through our church.
[00:01:03] Can we give God one more hand clap?
[00:01:07] I can barely hear you in here, but really, I just wanted you to see what you're doing and the effect that you're making on the community.
[00:01:14] And let me get the help team and all stand up.
[00:01:17] My friend Andre Gonzalez is here.
[00:01:19] Stand up, Andre.
[00:01:20] Andre, hey, Andre, stay standing real quick.
[00:01:25] Andre is one of my long friends.
[00:01:26] We've been friends for almost 30 years.
[00:01:29] He actually helped us start the church.
[00:01:31] He was at the first service of Freedom House Church
[00:01:35] Almost 20, 23 years ago, was here with us for a while, now he works for Love Life and serves them.
[00:01:42] Thanks man for what you do.
[00:01:43] and the effect that you have on the community.
[00:01:46] Phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal.
[00:01:48] We also got people from all over the world, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, Alaska, Delaware, Illinois, Delaware spelled wrong by the way, Sweden, hello Sweden, how are you today, Sweden?
[00:02:01] Ireland, please invite me, because I want to play golf over there.
[00:02:04] So whoever you are, would you please invite me?
[00:02:08] I'll pay my own way and give you some money too.
[00:02:11] So India,
[00:02:13] and Italy.
[00:02:14] Let's give it up for all of our live streamers.
[00:02:20] Hey, get your phones out, get your note-taking abilities right on the neighbor.
[00:02:24] Today is gonna be fast and furious.
[00:02:27] I got a message that's gonna rock your world today.
[00:02:30] We're talking about, in our Hot Seat Summer Series, a hot topic, is speaking in tongues still relevant for Christians today?
[00:02:41] Is speaking in tongues still relevant for Christians today?
[00:02:46] Acts chapter one, verse four, it says, and being assembled together with them.
[00:02:50] Okay, this is talking about Jesus.
[00:02:52] Jesus had, just to give you kind of a quick picture, he had been raised from the dead.
[00:02:56] He spent 40 days with his disciples, and he was speaking to them the very last time.
[00:03:03] So these are the last words of Jesus before he ascends into heaven.
[00:03:08] He commanded, everybody say command.
[00:03:10] This was not a suggestion.
[00:03:12] This was a commandment from God, not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.
[00:03:20] Much of his three and a half year ministry with the disciples, he explained to them that he must go away so that a better helper could come.
[00:03:28] that helper is the Holy Spirit.
[00:03:30] Which he said, you have heard from me for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
[00:03:38] Verse eight, but you shall receive power.
[00:03:41] Everybody say power out loud.
[00:03:42] Power.
[00:03:43] When the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
[00:03:53] And then what happened is the disciples went to Jerusalem, and it says that 500 of them were in this upper room.
[00:04:02] I want everybody to stand up on your feet.
[00:04:03] Everybody stand on your feet real quick, because I want you to get this picture.
[00:04:07] This is around 400 people here, maybe 370, something like that, okay?
[00:04:11] So I want this side to sit down, this side to sit down, and I want this side to sit down.
[00:04:16] You guys sit down, okay?
[00:04:17] Because all y'all went home, you didn't even believe that it was gonna come, so.
[00:04:22] You guys sit in the back, just all the way in the back, in the back there, all the way back there.
[00:04:26] You guys have a seat.
[00:04:27] I know you wanna stay, but you also go home.
[00:04:29] I want you to get a picture, because after 10 days, there was approximately 120 that were left in the upper room.
[00:04:36] Go ahead and have a seat.
[00:04:37] So now you got the picture.
[00:04:39] Verse one, when the day of Pentecost had fully come.
[00:04:41] This was 10 days.
[00:04:42] Jesus had spent 40 days with his disciples.
[00:04:45] 10 days later, which was day 50, which was actually the celebration of Pentecost,
[00:04:51] It says, When the day of Pentecost had full begun, they were all with one accord in one place.
[00:04:56] They were all together.
[00:04:57] And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, or as my daughter would say, a mushing, righty wind.
[00:05:06] That's how my daughter used to say it.
[00:05:07] It filled the whole house where they were sitting.
[00:05:10] Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire and one sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
[00:05:26] This is what we call the baptism or the infilling or the filling of the Holy Spirit.
[00:05:32] You know, there are certain things in our life that make us who we are, certain things that define us, that really set your life, and I'm not talking about everybody else's, but your life.
[00:05:42] I know we see other people's significant moments, but I remember when I developed a work ethic.
[00:05:49] I grew up in a single family home my mom's probably watching hey mom and she worked a lot of jobs to try to help us we we were i say it all the time we were po we couldn't even afford the or and we it was very difficult for us and so when i turned 11 years old i got a paper route and uh i started delivering papers now you don't even know what a paper is
[00:06:12] because most of you have no idea what I'm talking about because everything is done on the internet.
[00:06:16] But back when I grew up in the 70s, they used to deliver a paper to your house every day, twice.
[00:06:27] in the morning and in the evening.
[00:06:30] Well, at 11 years old, I would get up at 4.30 in the morning by myself, because my mom was not gonna get up.
[00:06:36] She had worked nights and came home at probably three o'clock in the morning from working at the restaurant.
[00:06:42] And I would get on my Raleigh Rampart, which was a little bike, and I would put a bag on the front of my Raleigh bike, and I would throw papers at houses at five o'clock in the morning.
[00:06:54] At 11 years old, that's how I made money.
[00:06:57] I would go into their houses and I would collect money from them.
[00:07:01] So I would come to your, if you had papers delivered to your house, I would go to your house, I would knock on your door and go, hey, you need to pay me for me delivering the paper to your house.
[00:07:08] And I would give you a little square, about that big, a little tiny square, about a half inch by half inch that said you paid for the month of August and you would get your paper delivered.
[00:07:16] If you didn't pay, you didn't get delivered.
[00:07:18] By the time I was 12, I had three paper routes, two morning and one evening.
[00:07:22] I developed a work ethic.
[00:07:24] I'm loyal, I value loyalty because my father was not very loyal.
[00:07:30] He would say that he was gonna do something and then he wouldn't show up.
[00:07:34] And I decided at a very early age, I will not be like that.
[00:07:37] I'm gonna be a man of my word.
[00:07:39] From a spiritual standpoint, my walk with God was shaped by the baptism of the Holy Spirit in November of 1990.
[00:07:49] I answered an altar call in my church that I got saved in, in Richmond, Virginia, and I walked up to the front, and by the time I hit the front row, I was speaking in tongues.
[00:08:00] I had no idea what it was.
[00:08:02] I had no understanding what it was.
[00:08:04] I think it was good that I didn't really have a lot of questions or understanding because this 30-day journey in the month of November was really the journey of my salvation.
[00:08:13] I got saved, and then God filled me with the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:16] It changed my life.
[00:08:17] It makes me who I am today.
[00:08:20] For 35 years, I've been praying in the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:24] I believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:27] I believe that it will change your life forever.
[00:08:32] In 1906, a little house on Azusa Street in California, a black preacher by the name of William Seymour, along with a small group of people, decided to press in because they had heard from a guy by the name of Charles Parham in Topeka, Kansas, that there was a move of God called the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:50] And they decided to settle themselves in that house, so much so that so many people came to Azusa Street
[00:08:57] In the early 1900s, around 1906, 1907, that the porch of the house broke off.
[00:09:05] That's how hungry they were.
[00:09:07] Today, the Pentecostal and the Charismatic movement is the fastest growing part of the church.
[00:09:14] Over 600 million people strong believe that the Holy Spirit is still relevant, imperative to the growing of the kingdom of God.
[00:09:24] Is speaking in tongues still relevant for Christians today?
[00:09:28] Absolutely.
[00:09:30] Absolutely.
[00:09:31] We at Freedom House believe this.
[00:09:34] Let me say that one more time.
[00:09:36] This is what we believe at Freedom House Church.
[00:09:38] If this makes you nervous, sorry, the doors are locked.
[00:09:44] You cannot get out.
[00:09:50] There's something that happens to you when you connect with what I believe is and who I believe is the most ignored part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:01] I went to church growing up and I'd never heard of the Holy Spirit other than in the doxology.
[00:10:08] Father, Son, and Spirit at the end of the service as you were leaving.
[00:10:12] But He wasn't talked about.
[00:10:16] We believe the Holy Spirit is more relevant today than ever.
[00:10:19] I don't think you can stay married without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:23] I don't think you can raise your kids without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:26] I don't think you can have a house in 2025 without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:30] I don't think you can send your kids to school without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:34] I don't think you can ship your kids off to college without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:38] I don't think you can have church without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:41] I don't believe that you can see miracles in the house of God without the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:45] We need a move of God.
[00:10:47] We need the Holy Spirit in our lives.
[00:10:49] Amen?
[00:10:53] We are to be filled with the Spirit.
[00:10:55] We're to live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, be led of the Spirit, have the fruit of the Spirit, manifest the gifts of the Spirit, to go from glory to glory, being transformed into the same image by the Spirit of the Lord.
[00:11:11] Jesus declared it in the Great Commission.
[00:11:14] And right after he had been raised from the dead, he defined what a believer should look like.
[00:11:19] Don't worry, I'm gonna get to the proving part because people are like, I don't know.
[00:11:22] Well, I'm gonna prove it to you biblically.
[00:11:25] Mark chapter 16, verse 15, and he said to them, he said to his disciples, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
[00:11:32] What I love about God is he never sends you somewhere without equipping you to do it.
[00:11:39] That's why I think it's difficult when people go, I'm going here, and they don't really know much about why they're going.
[00:11:45] Because God is gonna equip you.
[00:11:46] He's gonna tell you.
[00:11:47] He's not just gonna leave you in the dark.
[00:11:49] And so he says, go into all the world and preach the gospel.
[00:11:53] He who believes and is baptized will be saved, and he who does not believe will be condemned.
[00:11:58] Verse 17, and these signs will follow those who believe.
[00:12:03] So if you call yourself a believer, these are the signs that should be attributed to your life.
[00:12:10] This is what your life should look like.
[00:12:13] And it's not just, it doesn't say in here just coming to church, by the way.
[00:12:17] Just showing up to church doesn't make you a Christian.
[00:12:20] Just like me going to McDonald's doesn't make me a Big Mac.
[00:12:26] Just because you come to church doesn't mean you're saved.
[00:12:30] No, this is what Jesus said.
[00:12:31] It's all in red.
[00:12:33] It says, this is what a believer should look like.
[00:12:36] In my name they will cast out demons.
[00:12:40] Don't point at anybody right now.
[00:12:44] What's the next phrase?
[00:12:45] They will speak with new tongues.
[00:12:48] Uh-oh.
[00:12:50] Jesus said it.
[00:12:50] They will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them.
[00:12:54] They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.
[00:12:58] Now, if you grew up in any mainline denomination, typically you were talked out of the baptism of the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues.
[00:13:08] I mean, I went to a Baptist church early on in my relationship
[00:13:12] with my grandparents.
[00:13:14] I wasn't a Christian at the time, but we would go to the Baptist church.
[00:13:17] And I remember specifically the preacher saying, that praying in tongues is of the devil.
[00:13:24] He didn't know the Bible, I guess, but.
[00:13:27] So why so much attack on speaking in tongues?
[00:13:32] Because I've noticed a lot more recently.
[00:13:35] I think two things that I've noticed recently, attack on tongues and attack on women in ministry.
[00:13:43] I love having women in ministry.
[00:13:45] I think women should be pastors, amen?
[00:13:47] And all the ladies said, amen.
[00:13:50] Don't get nervous, men.
[00:13:52] As long as you're a man, they won't take your place.
[00:14:00] If you keep stepping back, then she will take over.
[00:14:04] But the moment you step up, she'll be right there beside you to partner with you and watch God's kingdom.
[00:14:13] Pastor Troy, you are preaching good today.
[00:14:16] Tear it up.
[00:14:20] So, why so much attack on tongues?
[00:14:24] Let me just give you three quick reasons.
[00:14:26] No move of God is without controversy.
[00:14:31] There's always been a controversy around the supernatural.
[00:14:35] Whenever there was a supernatural move, I've been a part of or seen in my salvation, 30 plus years of being a Christian, I've watched many moves of God, some of which were man-made and some of which were God-ordained.
[00:14:52] And some of them, they tried to push through it or they tried to connect.
[00:14:57] And what ends up happening is whenever there is a move of God and man gets involved in it, it gets weird.
[00:15:05] So sometimes it should end at a certain time, but men try to push it kind of beyond the end zone, so to speak.
[00:15:14] When you study moves of God all the way back to the beginning of the church, many started off great with humility and integrity, but sadly, almost every move of God was hijacked by scandal.
[00:15:27] Why?
[00:15:27] When man touches God things, we mess it up.
[00:15:30] Sadly, people only remember the problems.
[00:15:33] Media always shows the plane crash, but never shows you the thousand successful landings.
[00:15:41] I did a quick research.
[00:15:42] Did you know that the ratio from plane crashes to successful flights is 46 to 42 million?
[00:15:53] There are a lot of great Christians, great churches, great moves of God that are happening around the world that we don't even know about.
[00:16:03] that are amazing that the media will never, never try to get clicks from because it isn't surrounded by scandal.
[00:16:13] We have to learn to discern.
[00:16:16] Don't take what I say.
[00:16:18] I'm gonna preach this message today.
[00:16:19] Don't believe just because I said it.
[00:16:22] No, you got a Bible with 66 books in it.
[00:16:25] You go and study it.
[00:16:27] You go and learn it.
[00:16:28] Now listen, listen, before you clap, I'm not talking about Google it.
[00:16:33] No, no, no, no, no.
[00:16:34] I'm not talking about chat GPT it either.
[00:16:38] See, learn to discern.
[00:16:41] You spend time praying.
[00:16:44] Google is not God.
[00:16:47] Now you say, well, pastor, do you use Google?
[00:16:50] Absolutely, to find a good restaurant.
[00:16:54] But not to determine theology.
[00:16:57] Do you use AI?
[00:16:59] Absolutely.
[00:17:00] I use AI all the time, almost every day.
[00:17:02] But I don't use it to create messages and content.
[00:17:07] I don't get inspired through AI.
[00:17:12] I get inspired by God.
[00:17:14] I'm going to press into the Word of God.
[00:17:16] If somebody says something that kind of rubs me wrong, I'm not going to Google it or AI it.
[00:17:22] I'm not even going to go really and ask somebody else about it.
[00:17:25] I'm going to first of all go to God and I'm going to study the Word and that's what you should do too.
[00:17:30] I'm going to talk about tongues and really dig into this and you should go home and study this.
[00:17:35] Yeah, learn from people who have fruit, not just followers.
[00:17:41] Just because they got a bunch of followers doesn't mean they have fruit.
[00:17:45] What I found is a lot of people who have failed in growing churches are now consultants on Instagram.
[00:17:55] Or failed in lots of different, they couldn't grow a business, but now they know how to teach you how to be healthy.
[00:18:01] And they bought a million followers, so you think they know something.
[00:18:05] No, no, no, go search it out on your own.
[00:18:08] Number two reason why there's much attack on tongues is bad theology.
[00:18:15] Sensationalism is the theology that steals the supernatural.
[00:18:21] It's the idea that when the apostles died, so the miraculous died.
[00:18:25] It's bad theology.
[00:18:27] The idea that tongues and spiritual gifts and the miraculous have ceased after the apostles died, bad theology.
[00:18:33] Malachi chapter three, for I am the Lord, I do not change.
[00:18:36] Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever we don't make theological decisions based on our experience we base it on God's word supernatural things require faith and what cessationalism and other bad theology is trying to explain away the things that faith requires to have and so we've got to have faith for the supernatural the third thing and there's lots of them but tongues is the only gift specifically for me
[00:19:06] And so the devil's not dumb.
[00:19:07] All of the gifts that you see, the Father gives us gifts in Romans chapter 12, and the Holy Spirit gives us gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and Jesus gave us gifts in Ephesians chapter 4, are all given for the benefit of the church.
[00:19:19] Praying in the Spirit was given to you for you.
[00:19:25] And the devil would love for you never to build your faith up, never to build your life.
[00:19:30] And so he's gonna do everything to steal that gift away from you.
[00:19:33] So what is praying in tongues?
[00:19:35] Well, the Bible calls it praying in unknown tongues or praying in tongues or other tongues or praying with the Spirit or praying in the Spirit.
[00:19:46] Praying in tongues is an evidence, not the evidence, of the baptism
[00:19:54] of the Holy Spirit.
[00:19:55] There are lots of evidences of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:20:00] Fruit is an evidence.
[00:20:03] Witnessing is an evidence.
[00:20:05] The gifts of the Spirit in your life in operation is the evidence.
[00:20:10] They're not the evidence.
[00:20:11] I grew up in a ministry that if you did not pray in tongues when you got filled with the Holy Spirit, you didn't get filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:20:19] Well, that's not biblical.
[00:20:21] It's an evidence.
[00:20:23] but it's a gift for everybody.
[00:20:25] There are three baptisms.
[00:20:26] Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the third baptism for every believer.
[00:20:29] The first baptism is baptism into the body of Christ.
[00:20:33] It's called salvation.
[00:20:35] The only requirement necessary for you to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is for you to be a Christian, to be saved, to be born again.
[00:20:44] We say, well, I haven't been water baptized.
[00:20:45] That's okay because water baptism is the second baptism but it doesn't have to be the second.
[00:20:52] It can be the third after you get filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:20:56] Praying in tongues is a prayer language given by God to the believer.
[00:21:00] It can be in a known language or an unknown language.
[00:21:05] Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, 1, it says, Two weeks ago,
[00:21:13] At our South End campus, I had finished the message off and I had an altar call and we were praying for people who were dealing with pain.
[00:21:22] And one of the leaders had come up and he was behind the people praying in other tongues.
[00:21:29] And as he was praying, one of the people that had answered the altar call turned around and looked at him.
[00:21:35] And he started crying.
[00:21:37] And after, he went up to him and he goes, do you speak Polish?
[00:21:43] And he goes, no.
[00:21:45] He says, I don't speak Polish.
[00:21:46] He goes, well, when you were praying, you were saying what my grandmother said to me when I was a kid two weeks ago.
[00:21:57] Sometimes,
[00:21:58] You're gonna pray in a known language.
[00:22:01] That's what happened on the day of Pentecost.
[00:22:03] See, there were people from all over the world that had shown up to celebrate Pentecost in Jerusalem.
[00:22:09] And so when those disciples went out after the Spirit of God had filled them and they started speaking in tongues, there's no way that they're drunk, it's 9 a.m.
[00:22:20] But they heard the wonderful works of God in their own language and there were other languages which is the language of heaven or the tongues of angels.
[00:22:31] One lady I read about prayed in Chinese for a week.
[00:22:36] Didn't even know Chinese.
[00:22:37] Went to China and ministered people by praying in tongues and never learned the language.
[00:22:44] One time I was over at our house before we had built this building and we used to have these prayer meetings down in the bottom of the house and I was praying and this lady came up to me and goes, do you know Spanish?
[00:22:55] And I'm like, donde esta el baño?
[00:22:59] That's what I know.
[00:23:00] Where's the bathroom?
[00:23:05] That's all you need to know when you go to show me the bathroom.
[00:23:11] And she says, did you know that when you were praying, you were praying in Spanish?
[00:23:18] Had no idea.
[00:23:19] See, whatever's necessary through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God will pray through your spirit.
[00:23:27] Now, I know what you're saying.
[00:23:28] Well, shouldn't there be some interpretation?
[00:23:31] I mean, when somebody prays in tongues, there needs to be interpretation.
[00:23:34] Okay, let's talk about that for just real quick, real quick.
[00:23:37] There's two sides of this.
[00:23:38] Remember, in Acts chapter two, the Bible says that divided tongues as a fire came upon Saddle and Shem.
[00:23:45] Divided tongues.
[00:23:46] The word divided means two-fold purpose.
[00:23:48] So there's two sides to this tongues part.
[00:23:53] The first side, or a side, is
[00:23:55] Tongues with Interpretation, which is one of the nine gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to the church that operates through a believer.
[00:24:05] So in a corporate setting like this, if I just burst out in tongues and talked in tongues for 15 minutes, that would not benefit you at all.
[00:24:11] It would benefit me, but it would not benefit you unless Olin came up here and interpreted.
[00:24:17] Not translated, but interpreted.
[00:24:21] And so that's a gift that's in operation in the church, just like prophecy, just like faith, just like healing.
[00:24:27] All those are gifts that are in operation through the church.
[00:24:32] Tongues is the other side of that two-fold purpose, which is given to the individual, and God's Spirit prays through your spirit a language that God gives you for the purpose of building yourself up and connecting with Him, which we'll talk about.
[00:24:48] Tongues is not random.
[00:24:49] It was prophesied.
[00:24:50] That's why it didn't freak the disciples out when they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:24:57] Because in Isaiah 28, verse 10, it says, For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.
[00:25:06] Verse 11, For with stammering lips and another tongue he will speak to this people.
[00:25:12] to whom he said, this is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest.
[00:25:18] And this is the refreshing, yet they would not hear.
[00:25:22] Ezekiel 36 verse 27, I will put my spirit within you.
[00:25:29] The Old Testament.
[00:25:31] Zephaniah 3 verse 9.
[00:25:32] In the end, I will turn things around for the people.
[00:25:36] I will give them a language undistorted, unpolluted words to address God in worship and united to serve me with their shoulders to the wheel.
[00:25:48] See, that's why I didn't freak the disciples out when they received the baptism because this was all prophesied.
[00:25:53] They knew the Bible and they didn't have Google.
[00:25:58] Praying in the Spirit is for everyone.
[00:26:01] It's for every believer.
[00:26:02] No one is excluded.
[00:26:03] The only requirement is salvation.
[00:26:05] Jesus said it over and over.
[00:26:07] Look, I gotta go so I can give you this gift.
[00:26:11] And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.
[00:26:19] Because they neither see him nor know him, but you know him, for he will dwell with you.
[00:26:26] This is what happens at salvation.
[00:26:27] When you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with you.
[00:26:31] Why?
[00:26:32] So he can remind you of your salvation.
[00:26:36] Matter of fact, all three of the Trinity come and live and make home.
[00:26:39] Jesus told us that if you obey my commandments, my Father and myself will come and make our home inside of you.
[00:26:46] When you become a Christian, all three parts of the Trinity live on the inside of you.
[00:26:51] And the Holy Spirit's job is to remind you, no, no, no, you're saved.
[00:26:55] No, no, no, you're saved.
[00:26:57] No, you're saved.
[00:26:58] You're a child of God.
[00:26:59] You're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
[00:27:01] That's who you are.
[00:27:03] And so he says, for he will dwell with you and, future tense, will be in you.
[00:27:11] Peter preaches after the Holy Spirit falls on the day of Pentecost as he preaches to that group of 3,000 people that are out there.
[00:27:18] He says, for the promise, what promise?
[00:27:21] The promise of the Holy Spirit is to you and your children and to all who are afar off.
[00:27:28] That's me and you.
[00:27:31] Come on, aren't you thankful that God didn't exclude us from this amazing promise of the Holy Spirit?
[00:27:38] As many as the Lord our God will call.
[00:27:42] But listen, you are not any less of a Christian if you do not speak in tongues.
[00:27:47] I want you to understand that, because what we don't want to do is make some kind of elitist club that those that speak in tongues are the ones that are better than everybody else.
[00:27:57] No, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:27:58] It's a gift for everybody.
[00:28:00] It's for all of us.
[00:28:01] See, praying in the Spirit does not cause division.
[00:28:04] It brings unity.
[00:28:08] How do I know that?
[00:28:08] Well, let's talk about this real quick.
[00:28:11] In Genesis chapter 11, mankind had a plan to get to heaven.
[00:28:18] It's called the Tower of Babel.
[00:28:21] And so they decided, we're gonna gather together.
[00:28:23] And the Bible tells us that they had one language, one purpose.
[00:28:28] It says in verse 1, Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
[00:28:33] There were no divided languages.
[00:28:34] And so they came together for this purpose to build this tower to touch heaven.
[00:28:39] And so they were doing it.
[00:28:40] And God with His host said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second.
[00:28:45] Because they have one language and one speech, they're going to accomplish this.
[00:28:51] Like they're gonna be able to make this happen.
[00:28:54] And the Lord said, indeed the people are one and they all have one language and this is what they begin to do.
[00:29:00] Now nothing that they propose to do will be held from them.
[00:29:05] So God had to confuse their languages and in essence scatter the people abroad.
[00:29:14] See, the baptism of the Holy Spirit or this prayer language that God gives us, it doesn't divide us, it actually reverses
[00:29:23] The scattering of God's people.
[00:29:27] See, from confused and scattered to united and sent is what happens when we get filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:29:37] They wanted to take earth and get to heaven, but when we pray under the unction of the Holy Spirit, we're taking what's in heaven and getting it to earth.
[00:29:49] Are you following what I'm saying?
[00:29:53] Praying in the Spirit tames the tongue.
[00:29:56] A lot of theologians believe it's the second greatest miracle.
[00:29:59] In Proverbs 18, verse 1, it says, 18, verse 16, it says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
[00:30:05] Your tongue controls your life.
[00:30:07] Some of us are in a lot of trouble right now because of what we said on the way to church.
[00:30:12] Or yesterday or the day before.
[00:30:14] James 3 says, The tongue is little but boasts great things.
[00:30:18] True, true.
[00:30:19] Matter of fact, it says, James says, No man can tame the tongue, but God can.
[00:30:24] He gives us a language, His Spirit speaking through our spirits, the perfect will of God for our lives.
[00:30:30] See, Paul said, I wish you all spoke in tongues, all of us.
[00:30:36] It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, however, in the Spirit He speaks mysteries.
[00:30:42] He gives us this language, this amazing prayer language where we can communicate directly from God.
[00:30:49] What if I put $10 million in your checking account right now?
[00:30:54] That'd be pretty exciting, wouldn't it?
[00:30:56] If you just checked it right now and there were $10 million in your check, you'd be fired up.
[00:31:03] But if your account is filled with money and you never write any checks or purchase anything, then what value is that $10 million?
[00:31:14] You can tell everybody you have $10 million, but until your life shows the deposit that's been made, it's kind of a waste, isn't it?
[00:31:25] See, praying in tongues is writing big checks on a deposit God has already put on the inside of you.
[00:31:33] He's put it on the inside of you.
[00:31:36] We make withdrawal.
[00:31:37] Here's the great thing about this deposit of the Spirit of God.
[00:31:40] There is overdraft protection.
[00:31:45] How many of y'all got overdraft protection?
[00:31:46] Come on, raise your hand.
[00:31:47] You know you do.
[00:31:49] Half of you, you're lying.
[00:31:50] The rest of you are like...
[00:31:52] Now you may not have like protect, it may go pull out of your savings account, but there's nothing better than kind of making a mistake and realizing that your overdraft protection kicked in and saved you from a lot of fees.
[00:32:07] Well, that's what God has done through the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:32:14] When we surrender ourselves to Him and we say, yes, God, I want this gift, I want the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then He gives us overdraft protection because we overdraw a lot in our lives.
[00:32:28] But when we pray in an unknown tongue, the Bible says, my spirit prays, my understanding is unfruitful.
[00:32:34] I don't necessarily know what I'm praying, but God sure does.
[00:32:39] And He's praying His perfect will through my life.
[00:32:43] So why should I want this?
[00:32:46] By the way, this was a very difficult message to prepare because I wrote a book on this, like 200 pages on the Holy Spirit.
[00:32:55] This is my jam, by the way.
[00:32:57] My wife was like, you don't even have to write.
[00:32:59] You don't have to prepare.
[00:33:00] You're like, this is your jam because this is what made me, me.
[00:33:03] I've spent my life studying this.
[00:33:08] Because I believe that every Christian, every follower of God should be filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:33:15] Why should I want this?
[00:33:19] I don't know where you are, but why would I want this?
[00:33:22] Because, let me just give you two reasons and then we'll finish.
[00:33:26] When I don't know what or how to pray, God prays through me.
[00:33:31] Look, if there's one reason, and one reason alone, I think that's the best reason.
[00:33:38] I don't know about you, but there are times in my life where I don't know what to pray for my wife.
[00:33:48] You know, the Bible says that, I just read it to you, Mark 16, they shall cast out demons.
[00:33:53] Sometimes, I don't know, I'm really, I'm thinking, I'm praying.
[00:34:02] But honestly, there are times in my life where I just don't know what to pray for.
[00:34:09] for you sometimes as a pastor i don't know what i don't know how to pray for you i spend the majority of my time in my in praying in the holy spirit i honestly i don't know how a pastor could pastor without praying in the spirit praying in tongues romans 8 verse 26 it says likewise the spirit also helps
[00:34:32] and our weaknesses.
[00:34:34] For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit, capital S, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
[00:34:44] You know, we communicate with God through speaking and he gives us a spirit language because God is spirit and we communicate with him in spirit.
[00:34:55] My spirit doing the talking, but it is motivated, covered, enabled and directed by the Holy Spirit.
[00:35:03] Look, this is a gift that you can turn on and turn off according to your will.
[00:35:07] The Holy Spirit is a gentleman.
[00:35:09] He's not gonna make you bust out in tongues in the middle of the restaurant this afternoon.
[00:35:14] Unless it's maybe Polish and somebody needs to hear it.
[00:35:20] But He's a gentleman.
[00:35:21] He's not gonna make you do something that you don't wanna do.
[00:35:24] He's not gonna make you act in a way that you don't wanna act.
[00:35:29] No, it's according to our will.
[00:35:32] Second reason is it builds my faith.
[00:35:35] Jude 20.
[00:35:37] But you, beloved, talking about you and me, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.
[00:35:46] See, faith is the currency with which we do business with heaven.
[00:35:52] It's how we transact with heaven.
[00:35:54] It's how we connect with heaven.
[00:35:57] It's the way that we...
[00:36:00] make demands on the promises that God gave us and spoke over our lives the word build there means to add an addition to it's like you've got this house and you want to add a bedroom on it or you want to add a deck on the side of it so when he says praying building yourselves up on your most holy faith God knows that you have faith
[00:36:28] But sometimes our faith can be a little weak.
[00:36:32] Sometimes it needs an addition.
[00:36:33] Sometimes it needs an extra bedroom or maybe an extra bathroom or maybe just a deck or something to be able to strengthen our faith.
[00:36:42] Because there are things that God wants you to do that you're wondering, I just don't know.
[00:36:48] And so when you pray in an unknown tongue, when you pray in the Spirit, when you pray with the Spirit, you are making additions to that faith that God has already deposited in you.
[00:36:57] See, strengthened faith is a patient faith.
[00:37:01] Strengthened faith is a persevering faith.
[00:37:04] Strengthened faith is a bold faith.
[00:37:07] Strengthened faith is a courageous faith.
[00:37:10] It's a resilient faith.
[00:37:12] It's a fearless faith.
[00:37:15] I want that kind of faith, man.
[00:37:16] So you know what?
[00:37:17] I'm going to pray in tongues.
[00:37:18] Amen.
[00:37:19] Why don't you stand up on your feet?
[00:37:20] We're going to pray together.
[00:37:21] I want to invite you today, before we go home, if you have never been baptized in the Holy Spirit, I want to make room in this service for you to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:37:36] And if you want to pray in tongues, you can.
[00:37:38] because I feel the Holy Spirit in this place.
[00:37:40] From the moment that we walked in this today, I think Nicole identified it when she saw that people were hungry.
[00:37:47] In 1990, when God filled me with the Holy Spirit, I didn't know a lot about it.
[00:37:53] I'm thankful because I think if my mind would have got too involved in it, I probably would have tried to explain it away.
[00:38:02] But God delivered me from myself in order for me to receive.
[00:38:08] And it changed me.
[00:38:09] It made me who I was and who I am today.
[00:38:13] Or maybe you just need a fresh infilling.
[00:38:17] You know, the one wonderful thing about this deposit that God makes in our life, not only does He provide overdraft protection, but He says you can go and get deposits from Him all the time.
[00:38:28] Anytime you feel a little dry, a little maybe disconnected from Him, you just go to Him and He will fill you.
[00:38:35] The Bible says in Ephesians, he said, be filled.
[00:38:38] It's a constant in filling.
[00:38:40] At any moment in your life, you can say, God, come and fill me.
[00:38:45] I got a big decision I need to make this week.
[00:38:47] God, fill me.
[00:38:48] I got some problems with my kids.
[00:38:50] God, fill me.
[00:38:52] I got bills I need to pay.
[00:38:53] God, fill me.
[00:38:54] I gotta make a decision with my business, Lord, and I gotta decide whether to change jobs or make this move.
[00:39:02] God, fill me.
[00:39:04] I've been a little dry Lord and and walking away from you I've been so busy and distracted with life God fill me so I want to invite you if you've never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with an evidence of speaking in tongues praying in the spirit I want to invite you we're gonna pray for you today and guess what you're gonna get filled if that's you
[00:39:31] just right now right now I want you to get out of your seat and come to this altar I want to pray for you if you if you're dry today if you're dry and you just need a fresh infilling yeah come on up sweetheart come on just get out of your seat and come right now you want that fresh fresh touch maybe you're a little dry you got some things going on in your life maybe you got filled with the Holy Spirit 30 years ago and you want a fresh infilling get out of your seat and come right now I want to pray for you
[00:40:02] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:04] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:05] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:06] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:08] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:09] We're just going to be patient.
[00:40:10] No rush.
[00:40:15] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:17] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:19] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:21] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:23] A couple more people.
[00:40:24] Come on.
[00:40:26] Our leaders are going to come as well and just gather around you, pray for you.
[00:40:33] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:35] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:40:37] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:40] Just continue to come if you want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:40:43] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:46] Thank you, Lord.
[00:40:48] Awesome.
[00:40:49] Awesome.
[00:40:51] Awesome.
[00:40:51] Awesome.
[00:40:52] Awesome.
[00:40:54] Only one requirement.
[00:40:56] You gotta be saved.
[00:40:57] But you're gonna deal with that too.
[00:40:58] If you wanna give your life to Jesus, we're gonna deal with that too.
[00:41:02] We're gonna pray.
[00:41:04] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:41:05] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:41:07] Thank you, Lord.
[00:41:09] Thank you, Lord.
[00:41:13] So here's what we're gonna do.
[00:41:14] Church, would you stretch your hands out to these people?
[00:41:19] And we're gonna pray a prayer.
[00:41:21] The Bible says in Romans 10, nine and 10, it says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus died and rose from the dead, you shall be saved.
[00:41:31] It's with confession.
[00:41:34] that we start this journey and the same faith in the same confession that you use to receive Jesus Christ is the same faith in the same confession that you use to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit so I'm going to lead through you through a confession and at the moment that I finish that prayer and then say in Jesus name amen you're going to begin to pray in other tongues
[00:42:01] Now you've got to open your mouth.
[00:42:02] You've got to pray.
[00:42:04] And Jesus told us that out of your belly, out of your innermost spirit will flow a river of living water.
[00:42:12] That river is the Holy Spirit praying through your spirit.
[00:42:16] But you have to submit your spirit to His Holy Spirit.
[00:42:21] So we're going to make this confession over our lives.
[00:42:24] We're going to make sure we're Christians.
[00:42:26] And then we're going to speak
[00:42:28] The Holy Spirit right into our hearts.
[00:42:31] You ready?
[00:42:32] Church, join with them as they make this confession over their lives.
[00:42:35] Say, Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus died for me.
[00:42:41] I believe that His blood washes me of all my sins and all my mistakes.
[00:42:49] Today I give You my life.
[00:42:51] I surrender my life to You.
[00:42:56] Now Jesus,
[00:42:57] you told us in your word that we could receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon us and so right now in the name of Jesus I receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit you also said in your word that the Holy Spirit
[00:43:24] would pray through my spirit the perfect will of God praying in the spirit God's will for my life I will speak in other tongues as the Holy Spirit speaks through my spirit in Jesus name Amen now just begin to pray right now
[00:44:03] Thank you, Lord.
[00:44:13] Oh, we love you, Lord.
[00:44:19] We worship you today, God.
[00:44:22] Come on, every mouth just begin to declare His glory in this place.
[00:44:27] Father, we love you.