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from the Word of God that you have for us and help everyone to listen carefully and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen Now, in 1 Corinthians 14, the main subject here is speaking with an unknown tongue or speaking in another tongue and a lot of people are confused about what this means today because there's a lot of false teaching out there on this subject Who's ever heard of someone talking about speaking in tongues? Put up your hand if you've ever heard that term Now, the Bible never uses the term speaking in tongues It uses the term here speaking in another tongue or speaking with tongues But what does the word tongue mean? Well, go back if you would to Acts chapter 2 and while you're going back to Acts chapter 2 I'm going to read you a verse from Genesis which is actually the first time in the Bible that the word tongue is ever used The first time the word tongue is ever used is in Genesis chapter 10 verse 20 And in Genesis 10 20, the Bible says These are the sons of Ham after their families, after their tongues in their countries and in their nations So basically, back in Genesis, God is talking about different groups of people living in different areas, forming into different nations and speaking with different tongues, okay? Now, in Acts chapter 2, we have a story in the New Testament about people who spoke miraculously in another tongue Look what it says in verse number 1 of chapter 2 It says, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire and it sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance and there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven So let's review quickly The church is assembled together, right? All these different believers According to chapter 1, there were 120 people there, men and women and as they're gathered together, they're praying and all of a sudden there's some kind of a rushing wind some kind of a miraculous thing happens where they see these visions of fire and it's a miracle that's happening and as a result it says in chapter 2 verse 4 and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Now the next verse, verse 5, is important because it says, and there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews devout men out of every nation under heaven So the Bible says that at that time in Jerusalem there were people who were devout Jews basically believing in the Old Testament or claiming to believe in the Old Testament that were living there from all different nations Now look what it says in verse number 6 It says, now when this was noised abroad the multitude came together and were confounded confounded means confused because that every man heard them speak in his own what? Language So what happens is you have all these people from all different countries I mean people from Asia, people from Arabia people from Africa, people from European countries and they're all at Jerusalem Well all of a sudden God performs this major miracle, right? and next thing you know the 120 disciples are preaching the Gospel to these people from all different places in their own language and they were confused not because they didn't understand they were surprised and confounded because they did understand because they said, wow, we hear them speak every man in his own language, ok? Now let's keep reading, it says in verse 7 and they were all amazed and marvelled saying one to another Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? They're like, look, all these guys are from Galilee How are they speaking all these foreign languages, what they're saying? It says in verse 8, and how here we, every man in our own tongue wherein we were born Then he begins to list the tongues or list the languages Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphylia and Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes Crete and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God Now, this isn't really that complicated to understand, is it? You got a bunch of people speaking a bunch of different languages living in Jerusalem All of a sudden these Galileans, the disciples of Jesus, the early church begins to speak to these people in their own language and they're surprised by the fact that they can understand somebody speak to them in their own language It would be like, for example, if I were out soul winning and I knocked on the door of somebody who was from Africa and they spoke Zulu, okay? And they said, you know, sorry, no speak English I speak Zulu, and all of a sudden I just started talking to them in Zulu Do you think that would surprise them? Very much, wouldn't it? Or if I were out knocking on the door and, you know, I knock on the door and somebody comes to the door and they're from India and they speak Hindi and all of a sudden I just started talking to them in Hindi That would be surprising, wouldn't it? Because most Americans don't know Hindi or Zulu or these kind of obscure languages, okay? Or what if they came to our church, or let's say a whole bunch of people from our church and one of us is speaking Chinese, one of us is speaking Korean, one of us is speaking Arabic and just every language, oh yeah, we got somebody that speaks that It would be shocking, wouldn't it? So these people are shocked, like, wait a minute These guys are fishermen, you know, they're not exactly professors in a university or highly educated guys These guys are fishermen, they're blue-collar kind of guys and all of a sudden they're speaking to us and he listed their 17 different languages They're speaking to us in these different languages This is amazing Now, the word tongue simply can mean two things It can mean either the tongue that's in your mouth, right? That's part of your body right here? Or the word tongue can mean language And you can see right here from Acts chapter 2 that tongue means language because what does this say at the end of verse 6? Because that every man heard them speak in his own language, right? At the end of verse 6 It says at the end, in verse 11 Crete and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues And then look at verse 8, how here we every man in our own tongue So in verse 6 it says they heard every man in their own language and verse 8 it says we heard every man in our own tongue because tongue just simply means language So when the Bible is talking about speaking in an unknown tongue it's talking about speaking in an unknown language or speaking with another language And when it's talking about speaking with tongues it's talking about speaking with foreign languages, okay? And these are actual, literal languages such as Arabic, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Chaldean and this miracle took place because of the fact that Jesus Christ had just risen from the dead And He had just told His disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature And they're at Jerusalem and there are all these people from all over the world at Jerusalem So this is a perfect opportunity to get the Gospel to a lot of the world because if they can win these people to Christ at Jerusalem they're going to take the Gospel back to Crete They're going to take it back to Arabia They're going to take it back to Libya They're going to take it back to Ethiopia They're going to take it into Europe And so this was a way that God used this miracle to get the Gospel out right away to all these different languages and into all these different places And so these men are shocked and surprised that they hear the Word of God in their own language Now, if we go to 1 Corinthians 14 where we started Let's go there Now here's the thing Did we see anything in Acts 2 of people just blabbering in a language that no one can understand? Was anyone falling on the ground? Was anyone rolling in the aisles? Was anybody barking like a dog? Was anybody barking like a dog? You know, there was none of this just blabbering Today, when people talk about speaking in tongues they're not talking about what happened in Acts 2, unfortunately Because in Acts 2, people were speaking the Gospel in a foreign language and someone understood what they were saying I mean, somebody heard them speaking in his own language in Arabic, in Greek, and so forth When we get to 1 Corinthians 14, nothing has changed here Because when tongues are first manifested was in Acts 2 the subject of tongues or speaking in an unknown tongue or speaking with another tongue Nothing's changed when we get to 1 Corinthians 14 It's the same thing It's talking about foreign languages Not a blabbering Not a secret language that only one person understands Not an angelic prayer language It's giving the Gospel to unbelievers in their own language and it was a miracle that God performed Now, can God perform miracles? Absolutely God parted the Red Sea, right? God made the children of Israel be able to cross the Jordan River on dry land God is the one who protected Daniel in the lion's den God's the one who protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace God performed a miracle when the walls of Jericho fell down I mean, God performs all these miracles throughout the Bible and one of these miracles was that God miraculously gave people the ability to speak a foreign language that they had never learned in order to give someone the Gospel It's a pretty amazing miracle Now look at 1 Corinthians 14 It says in verse 1 Follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts but rather that you may prophesy Now the word prophesy means to preach Keep your finger there and go back to Proverbs chapter 31 Proverbs chapter 31 Because a lot of people think that prophesy just means to predict the future Now a lot of times God's word does predict the future, doesn't it? God's word will tell us about future events But the word prophesy simply means to preach and I'll prove it to you It says in Proverbs chapter 31 Verse number 1 The words of King Lemuel The prophecy that his mother taught him So this prophecy that his mother taught him There's no future event predicted in Proverbs 31 You can read the whole Proverbs 31 It has nothing to do with the end times It has nothing to do with the second coming of Jesus Christ It has nothing to do with predicting the future It's just preaching to a young man that he should stay away from alcohol and these are the things you should look for in the right kind of a wife and God calls that a prophecy because prophesying is just preaching So the Bible says back in 1 Corinthians 14 Verse 1 Follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts but rather that you 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 prophesies 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 You see what he's explaining here at Corinth is that when they would come together for church they could not have a multiplicity of languages being used because the church could not be edified For example, I've sat in church before and the pastor said to a gentleman in the church who was a Hispanic man He said, so and so, would you lead us in prayer? And this guy stood up and prayed in Spanish Well guess what? No one else in that whole church spoke Spanish except this guy And I don't know if the guy was just trying to be funny or I don't know why he did that Maybe he was just because he wasn't that good in English Like his English kind of stammered and stuttered a little bit So he probably felt more comfortable praying in Spanish So he stood up and prayed in Spanish And to everyone who's listening it was just total gibberish You know, like, what? What are you saying? Because nobody in the church I understand Spanish now, but back then I didn't understand Spanish And so I heard this guy stand up and pray in Spanish and no one understood him Now, he was speaking to God, wasn't he? God heard his prayer and I'm sure he had a lot of great things to say in that prayer But did it edify the church? Did it build up the church at all? Did anybody else receive any edifying? Look at verse number 16 It says here So basically, if that guy gets up and prays in Spanish Usually when someone prays, what do people say at the end of praying? Amen A lot of times, all pray and then maybe 20 people will say, amen You know, everybody will say, amen Because they're basically just saying, yes, I agree with that You know, yep, I pray that same prayer right there Well, if a guy stands up in Spanish And I'm thinking of this particular instance when this guy stood up and prayed in Spanish A whole bunch of people said, amen But I did not say, amen Because I'm not going to amen something that I don't even understand I'm not going to say amen when I don't even know what he said And that's what he said How can someone say, amen When you get up and give thanks or pray or whatever in an unknown job They don't even know what you're saying And God is saying here that there will be confusion in the church If you use a variety of languages That's why the church should use one language Now there are all different languages in this world There's nothing wrong with any of them It's not that one language is better than another It's just that in a church, you have to have one language So that everyone, the Bible says that all may hear And that all may be edified It's not like, well half of our church speaks Spanish anyway So we're going to have a Spanish preacher come in and preach to us in Spanish today No God says every single person in the church should be able to understand what's being preached Everybody And by the way, this is part of what's wrong with the Roman Catholic Church Because for centuries they preached in a language that no one understood Didn't they? Latin People would go to church their whole life And have no idea what was being preached And just say Amen blindly to something in Latin And even today in Phoenix, Arizona There are Catholic churches that still do Mass in Latin And no one even understands what's being said And that will not profit anyone anything Actually they're probably better off not hearing it anyway Because it's false teaching anyway So maybe it's better that it's in Latin But who are they kidding? Oh it just makes me feel good to go to church And to hear a bunch of stuff in a language that you don't understand Now look, God said here that if somebody does speak in an unknown tongue If somebody is there to preach That there should be someone to interpret It says in verse number 13 Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue Pray that he may interpret For if I pray in an unknown tongue My spirit pray But my understanding is unfruitful It's not going to bring forth any fruit he's saying Because no one can understand what I'm saying It's not going to help anyone else What is it then? I will pray with the spirit And I will pray with the understanding also I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding also He's saying I don't want to sing a song in a language I don't understand Right? I don't want to pray a prayer that I don't understand in Latin A language that I don't even know Look at verse number 18 Or verse 17 For thou verily give us thanks well But the other is not edified He's saying if you're doing it in another language Verse 18 I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all Yet in the church I'd rather speak five words with my understanding That by my voice I might teach others also Than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue Now look at verse 27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue Let it be by two or at the most by three And that by course and let one interpret But if there be no interpreter Let him keep silence in the church And let him speak to himself and to God Now this is where people will twist this The modern day charismatic movement Your faith healers Your Benny Hinn, you know, slapping people on the forehead Falling down on the ground, rolling in the aisles Kind of crazy tongue speaking kind of a crowd Where they'll abuse this And they'll try to say see Speaking in an unknown tongue It's a language that nobody knows But that's not what he's saying He's saying it's unknown to the church Not that it's unknown to everybody Because he said if a man speaks in an unknown tongue Have an interpreter So if nobody knew that language How could you have an interpreter? You see what I'm saying? He said if someone is speaking in an unknown tongue You need an interpreter Let's say there was just some great preacher Powerful preacher and he only preached in Spanish Right? And we really wanted to have this guy come preach at Faithful Word Baptist Church Because he's such a great preacher But the only problem is Faithful Word Baptist Church operates in English And most of the people who come here only speak English What we would have to do is we would put him behind the pulpit And then we'd have an interpreter, right? So he would preach in Spanish And then me or someone else would interpret it in English I've been to Germany And in Germany you never guess what language we had church in German We didn't do stuff in English We didn't sing English songs and have English preaching So sometimes a preacher would come in from America Okay? And I've even preached over there before And whenever I preached there was an interpreter Because this is before I spoke German fluently And so I would speak in English And then someone would interpret it into German for me You see? And that's how I was able to preach In a language where they did not understand Or in a country where they did not understand my language So there's nothing here about this bizarre kind of tongue speaking That you hear about Now let me tell you about my one experience with tongue speaking I had this experience, no I'm just kidding But anyway I basically Was a teenager And I was riding a bus one day in Roseville, California And a guy started inviting me to his church And I asked him about the church And I said, so is it the King James Bible? Oh yeah, it's King James I said, you know, what about salvation? He's given me all the right answers Sounded great So I said okay, I'll check it out So I show up at this church and he said Yeah, they have this great youth night, this teenager service On like a Thursday night or whatever So I show up on a Thursday night and there's like 200 teenagers there So I was thinking, oh this is great, wow I can make some new friends and everything A lot of teens here, this should be good So I get there And they have like a rock band on stage So they start playing like all the Christian rock and everything And they're rocking out And so I'm sitting there and They rock out through about like 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 songs So I'm kind of waiting for the preaching You know, I'm kind of thinking like okay, you know, it's a lot of music You know, can we get to some Bible preaching? You know, are we going to learn anything here? And they would kind of maybe talk for about 10 or 15, 20 seconds between songs But there wasn't really any kind of a lesson or preaching or Bible or anything like that So, you know, I was just kind of waiting for the preaching Well all of a sudden This girl that was literally, and this is a room with like 200 and some people in it But I was just right in the row with this one girl That was probably like 8 seats down from me All of a sudden, she just started like rocking back and forth And like ahhh, you know So I look over at her and I thought that she was having a seizure Like I thought she was epileptic Because just a week before I was at Round Table Pizza and this girl was playing a video game And basically just fell on the ground and started having a seizure And I was the one who had to make the 911 call And it was, you know, she had been taking some drugs and everything And so therefore she had a seizure And it looked pretty similar You know, so I see this girl And then this other girl comes over and starts kind of consoling her Like puts her arm around her I thought, oh this poor girl is epileptic You know, and this other girl is trying to make her feel better And trying to calm her down a little bit And she's like ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh You know, this kind of weird stuff So I'm just, I'm just like man, I feel sorry for this girl You know, because I had no clue I had never seen this so-called tongue speaking before So it made me really, you know, a little nervous But it was like, is she okay? Is somebody going to call the, you know, like Like this girl needs help, do you need to take her out of here? Or get a paramedic or whatever Well next thing I know, you know We get to the end of the song And this guy comes up to the microphone And he was like the youth pastor or whatever And he said, you know, he said, you know, the altar's open We're going to have an altar call You know, he said, if you need to, if you're not saved You know, you can come down the aisle and get saved Or he said, if you're, if you're not right with God If you want to rededicate yourself to the Lord Come on down here Or he said, or maybe you just haven't spoken in tongues in a while Come on down here and speak in tongues Now when he said that, I was like, whoa Because I'd heard about, I'd heard of that before This is when I was 17 I was thinking to myself, wow, I've heard of that before And when he said that All of a sudden a whole bunch of people started doing it That opened the floodgates Because first it was just this one girl I thought she had epilepsy Well next thing you know, all kinds of people are You know, just freaking out And it was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen I got scared So I got up and walked out and left the service And I had a ride picking me up I just waited outside until my ride got there And the sounds coming out of that building just got weirder and weirder Okay And there never was any preaching It was just basically a lot of music A lot of emotion And then this bizarre tongue speaking Okay Now let me tell you something about the girl That I saw eight seats down She was not in the driver's seat Now a lot of people say a lot of different things about what this so-called tongue speaking is And they might say, oh it's just, you know, they're faking it You know, who's heard people say that? You know, it's fake, they're faking it Now I'm sure that there probably is a lot of faking it going on I'm sure there aren't a lot of people faking it But let me tell you something I don't think that girl was faking it Honestly Now who's ever been exposed to tongue speaking? You've seen that kind of service You've been in a service like that Let me ask the expert here Hey, do you think everybody was always faking it? No No Okay I talked to a guy that was a youth pastor at one of these tongue speaking churches And I gave him the Gospel and showed him where he didn't believe the Gospel And where he wasn't saved And he was talking to me about tongue speaking I showed him all this and proved it to him from the Bible And he said, you're right What the Bible teaches has nothing to do with what we call tongue speaking Because he was realizing that his religion was wrong And he needed to trust Christ as his savior And here's what he said He said, well here's what happened when I spoke in tongues He said, this was the guy that I worked with in the alarm business He said, basically I just came down the aisle to speak in tongues And next thing I knew, like 20 minutes had gone by And he just said that he didn't remember anything And they just told him, oh you were speaking in tongues You did all this stuff And he was like, I didn't remember any of it I had no clue And he wasn't trying to defend it to me Because he was realizing that it was wrong And he was changing what he believed But let me tell you something It is not of God what's going on today in these charismatic churches It is not the Holy Spirit It has nothing to do with the word of God It is something demonic that is happening I'll come right out and say that, I'm not going to lie to you And that offends people and that might make you mad But you know what, if you're mad, you're mad It's the truth Because let me tell you something When some other spirit is taking control of your body That is not of God God never has done that throughout the Bible God never will do that That is only the devil and demons that will take control of people's bodies Now let me prove to you that modern day tongue speaking is not of God First of all, look at verse 32 of 1 Corinthians 14 It says right here And the spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets For God is not the author of confusion But of peace as in all churches of the saints So first of all, a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit Is still in control, right? The spirit of the prophets are subject under the prophets It's not that they just can't control themselves And all of a sudden someone else is just using their body And controlling them and speaking through them That's not of God The only time you'll see that in the Bible Is when someone is possessed with the devil That's the only time Remember when Jesus would come upon people And they were possessed with the devil And you say, wait a minute, Pastor Anderson I've seen these people speak in tongues And they were saying a lot of right things And a lot of good things Let's look at some people in the Bible that were demon possessed Look at Mark chapter 4 I'm sorry, Mark chapter 5 Look at Mark chapter number 5 In Mark chapter number 5 It talks about some people that are possessed with devils With unclean spirits What's commonly referred to today as being demon possessed Watch what they cry out when they see Jesus It says in verse 6 But when he saw Jesus afar off He ran and worshipped him So this guy that is demon possessed What is he doing? What's he doing in verse number 6? Worshipping Jesus, right? So you say, oh, how can you say they're demon possessed? They're worshipping Jesus But hold on It says here that this guy who is demon possessed When he saw Jesus afar off He ran and worshipped him And cried with a loud voice and said What have I to do with thee Jesus, thou son of the most high God Now is Jesus Christ the son of the most high God? Yep I adjure thee by God That thou torment me not For he said unto him This is what Jesus said unto him Come out of the man thou unclean spirit And he asked him What is thy name? And he answered saying My name is Legion For we are many And he besought him that he would not send him away out of the country And there was there nigh unto the mountains A great herd of swine feeding And all the devils besought him saying Send us into the swine that we may enter into them And forthwith Jesus gave them leave And the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea There were about 2,000 And were choked in the sea And they that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country And they went out to see what it was that was done Look at verse 15 And they came to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion Sitting and clothed and in his right mind And they were afraid So this guy is possessed with devils So he's doing all these crazy things And he's living outside And he's hanging out at the graveyard And he's cutting himself Now who's ever known someone who cuts themselves? Yeah, it's demonic It's satanic You know people would cut themselves When I was in school there were kids at school that would cut themselves And it's satanic And that's what was going on even back then There's nothing new under the sun This guy's cutting himself He's doing all these crazy things Well when Jesus comes to him He bows down and starts worshipping Jesus And saying all these things Jesus casts out the devil And then the guy's sitting and clothed And in his right mind He's back to normal Now there are all kinds of stories in the Bible about people being possessed with devils In the book of Acts there was a girl who was possessed with a devil And Peter is trying to give the gospel to a man And they're walking together Him and this important ruler And Peter's giving him the gospel Giving him the gospel And while Peter's giving him the gospel There's this crazy girl following him around And this was a girl that was into witchcraft and everything But she's demon possessed And she's basically saying Hey these men are telling the way to God I mean everything she said was true But she was just yelling And interrupting And Peter's trying to give the gospel Finally Peter looks at her and says He basically casts out this devil out of her And then basically she was back to normal Now can a Christian be demon possessed? Absolutely not Because the Bible says Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world The wicked one toucheth him not 1 John chapter 5 But unbelievers can be possessed with devils according to the Bible It's a true story And you say And you say Well how do you know that this modern day tongue speaking is not of God? First of all because the people who are doing it are not in control Of what they're saying Of what they're doing Of their body They lose control I mean I saw people lose control Brother Garrett will testify that people lost control People that I've talked to in the tongues movement They were even promoting it Said they were totally out of control That is not biblical For someone to be not under control of their body or words or actions Number 1 But number 2 How do I know? Look at 1 John chapter 5 Here's the other reason why I know that tongue speaking is not of God Because everyone that I've ever met in my entire life Or ever seen or ever heard of Who believed in this modern day tongues movement Believed that you could lose your salvation Isn't that the truth? Every single one of these tongue talkers believes That you could lose your salvation Because who are the ones who are doing it? The Pentecostals, the charismatic movement And they all teach that you can lose your salvation Look at 1 John chapter 5 Verse number 10 It says He that believeth on the Son of God Talking about Jesus Christ Has the witness in himself The witness is the Holy Spirit From the context verse 8 There are three that bear witness in the earth The spirit and the water and the blood These three agree in one He said He that believeth on the Son of God Has the witness in himself He that believeth not God Hath made him a liar Because he believeth not the record That God gave of his Son And this is the record That God has given to us Eternal life And this life is in his Son You see, every single one of these That believes in this kind of tongue speaking Does not believe the record That God gave of his Son Because they don't believe that God Has given to us eternal life They believe he gave us temporary life They believe he gave us life But that we're going to lose our salvation If we don't live right They believe in a work salvation They don't believe that salvation Is just by grace through faith Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ And thou shalt be saved They don't believe that whosoever believeth in him Should not perish but have everlasting life They believe that if you believe on Christ Well, you're saved But if you don't live right, you'll lose it Or if you quit the church, you'll lose it Or if you backslide, you'll lose it Or if you commit a really bad sin, you'll lose it Or if you turn away from God, you'll lose it But the Bible says that God has given to us eternal life And if God's given to us eternal life And this life's in his Son If somebody doesn't believe that It says they don't have to witness in themselves And they're making God a liar And yet these are the only people Who are involved in the so-called tongue speaking People who believe you can lose your salvation Pentecostals Charismatics They're the ones who are doing this So if the gospel that they preach is the wrong gospel If it's not salvation by faith alone Then how can this other practice that they're doing be of God? It can't be You see, the Bible says that the devil's transformed into an angel of light And that his ministers are transformed into ministers of light If somebody's preaching a totally different gospel A totally different plan of salvation A totally different way to heaven And then all of a sudden they're doing this You know, am I supposed to believe that's of God or of the devil? Okay But there's a third reason why I don't believe that tongue speaking is of God Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14 It says in verse 33 For God is not the author of confusion But of peace as in all churches of the saints So the Bible is making it clear all throughout chapter 14 That if someone's speaking and other people don't understand in the church He said that breeds confusion And God is not the author of confusion And he said that's why if anybody speaks a foreign language There has to be somebody there to interpret that Or else that person needs to keep silence in the church He said look, I speak with tongues more than you all Because Paul was a man who traveled all throughout Asia All throughout Europe preaching the gospel And he spoke many foreign languages You remember Paul spoke Hebrew Whenever he preached in the book of Acts When he preached before the whole multitude of the children of Israel That were gathered in Jerusalem Paul preached in the Hebrew tongue And the Bible says that they listened up really carefully When he switched into Hebrew Because it was a second language to them They had to listen more carefully Paul's language that he was primarily speaking was probably Aramaic When he spoke Hebrew it made a point to tell us that he spoke Hebrew But when he talked to the guard and the centurion He spoke to them in Greek And they were shocked when they looked at Paul And said, can't thou speak Greek? They said, aren't thou not that Egyptian? He said, I'm not an Egyptian He said, I'm from Tarsus He said, I'm a Roman citizen He said, I speak Greek And then he started speaking Hebrew He spoke at least three languages But because of the fact that we see him traveling to all these different parts of the earth preaching the gospel He probably spoke 6, 7, 8, 9 languages He said, that's impossible, nobody speaks that many languages There are people in this world who can speak almost 20 languages It's true Some of the guys who translated the King James Bible Could speak 18 to 20 languages I personally could speak 4 languages And I used to be able to speak 5 But if you don't use it, you lose it But I can speak 4 languages myself And I'm not some kind of a total expert Or just the best language person in the world And I can speak 4 languages There are a lot of people who grow up with 2 or 3 languages And when they grow up with 2 or 3 It's really easy to learn 4th or 5th Because they already have a lot of the tools to do it And so Paul said Hey, I thank my God, verse 18 if you're in 1 Corinthians 14 I thank my God I speak with tongues more than y'all Yet in the church I'd rather speak 5 words With my understanding That by my voice I might teach others also Than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue Did you hear that? He said I'd rather stand up in church And just have a chance to speak 5 words In a language that you understand Than to speak 10,000 in an unknown tongue Because that's not going to edify anybody That's not going to build anyone up That's not going to help anyone And so 5 words Like how about this You must be born again How about believe on the Lord Jesus You know what I mean At least that is something But something in a foreign language isn't going to help anybody Now I wish somebody would show this chapter of the Bible to these preachers Who constantly want to go back to the Greek From the pulpit Because they're speaking in an unknown tongue Who in here speaks Greek fluently? No one And yet how many times have you heard a pastor Use the Greek language from behind the pulpit? Put up your head if you've ever heard a pastor preach Greek What is the benefit? The Bible says He that speaketh in an unknown tongue Look at verse 14 Or I mean verse 4 Chapter 14 verse 4 He that speaketh in an unknown tongue Edifyeth himself But he that prophesieth Edifyeth the church So when a guy stands up And speaks in an unknown tongue Like he's using Greek or Hebrew Stuff that you don't even understand Stuff that truthfully He probably doesn't even understand He's trying to build himself up Who here speaks Spanish? You know the word edificar? What does edificar mean? Edificar means to build up, right? To build something Edificio means what in Spanish? A building So what do you think edify means? To build up So a person who gets up In front of a church of English speakers And speaks in a different language Who is he building up or edifying? Himself So if a guy gets up and he's using Greek or Hebrew Or Latin like in the case of the Catholic Church And he gets up and speaks in an unknown tongue He's not building you up He's building himself up He's trying to lift himself up He's trying to say look at me Look how smart I am Look how much I know But the church is not receiving any edifying The church would receive more edifying If he would preach unto them the word of God And prophesy in the language that they speak Which is English And if he's in Germany preach it in German If you're in Mexico preach it in Spanish But preach in a language that people understand But I'll take it a step further What about using words that people don't understand Big theological jargon That's not even biblical terms What good will it do for me to use words And go back to 1 Corinthians 2 Big fancy words that are not in the Bible Am I edifying you or edifying myself? If I get up and use the word Theophany Christophany Protoevangelium If I use these words like sovereignty You say that's in the Bible No it isn't The word sovereignty is not in the Bible If I get up and use these big fancy theological terms And you say sovereignty is in the Bible If you have the non-inspired version it is In the King James Bible it's not there You get up and use these fancy words These fancy terms To lift yourself and build yourself up Look at 1 Corinthians 2 verse 13 Which things also we speak Not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth The words that man's wisdom and the theology And the doctors and professors will use But he says but which the Holy Ghost teacheth That's the words of the Bible God's word Comparing spiritual things with spiritual Go back to 1 Corinthians 14 It says in verse 8 1 Corinthians 14 8 For if the trumpet giveth uncertain sound Who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue Words easy to be understood How shall it be known what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air He says look if you're using words that people don't understand You're speaking into the air You're just a bunch of hot air You know if you just have all these big fancy words And you have to use all these fancy terms of You know total depravity You know and brother Carl's isn't here But me and brother Carl's we were looking at the statement of faith of a church And I mean I could not even understand the statement of faith It was such big words It was saying it was like how to be saved And it's saying that you have to have this cordial Penitent obedient faith Realizing your own depravity And it was just like using all these big words That are not biblical that are not found in the Bible That are not to the express purpose that maybe people understand But rather just to sound fancy And look when I preach My goal is that you understand what's being preached I mean is everybody understanding the sermon this morning? I don't think anybody's confused right now And if you go to church and you're confused It's not because of God Because God's not the author of confusion If you go to church and you're confused If you go to church and you're confused It's because somebody behind the Pope is trying to edify themselves Instead of trying to edify you You see the purpose is to take God's word Take the Bible and to clearly express it in plain language And to make it simple for people to understand Not to make it more complicated To break it down and express it Whenever we communicate our goal is to make ourself clear Not to be like a politician You know who you could ask them a direct question And says oh well and they just kind of say a lot without saying it Politicians can talk for like two minutes without saying it It's really talent They can go on for like five minutes and you're like Did he answer the question? What did he just say? But sometimes preaching can be the same way You'll go to church and you'll hear It's kind of like Charlie Brown Remember how Charlie Brown Like when the parents would talk It was just like wah wah wah wah Who knows what I'm talking about? A lot of times you go to church and it's just like Wah wah wah wah Grace wah wah wah Mercy wah wah Peace wah wah wah wah Lord Jesus You hear these buzzwords every once in a while You're talking about Jesus, the Bible, God, faith But you're like what is the sermon about? And literally whenever I went to a sermon that I liked Like where I walked down and said wow that was a good sermon If somebody asked me what it was about I could always tell them Like if I said man that was a good sermon What was it about? It was about speaking in tongues Or hey what was that sermon about? It was about the Bible being God's word Or that every word matters It's every word What was that sermon about? It was about the deity of Jesus Christ What was that sermon about? It was about the resurrection But how many times I've asked somebody what was that sermon about And you're like I don't even know what it was about Because it wasn't clear Or you're like where does the pastor stand on speaking in tongues? I mean is there any question about where I stand on the subject right now? Speaking with tongues biblically is speaking a foreign language Spanish, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Zulu That's speaking with tongues And this stuff where people are falling on the ground Rocking back and forth drooling or speaking in gibberish Is not of God but it is of the devil Now is there anybody that didn't understand what I just said? I mean it's clear isn't it? But I've only got a little time left I don't want to spend my whole sermon on that Let's go to the positive That was the negative part of the sermon So you know we're all through with that stuff So anyway now we can get a little more positive So we talked about what is the false speaking in tongues didn't we? It's not right, it's not of God And it is scary, it is creepy, it is weird And you know what the world looks at it and thinks Christians are weirdos I mean if somebody showed me and said let me show you a religion Christianity And they took me to one of those types of services I would say you know what Christianity is a cult I mean it's weird, it's crazy I mean there are all kinds of bizarre churches out there doing a lot of bizarre things They're giving Christianity a bad name Like these ones where they handle snakes in the services You know and they say oh we have to handle these snakes to prove that we're spiritual And the pastor had been bit like 20 times It's like that But he's still trying to work up to it you know It's weird, it's bizarre And you know what usually when something seems weird and bizarre that's because it is weird and bizarre And so beware of this so called tongue speaking But what is the real application? What is God trying to teach us here? A good aspect of speaking with tongues Well what God is trying to teach us and if you would turn to Revelation chapter 7 Revelation chapter number 7 And in fact let's go ahead and look at Revelation 5, 9 first It says, and they sung a new song saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof For thou wast slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation And has made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth Look at Revelation 7 verse 9 It says in Revelation 7, 9 after this I beheld and lo a great multitude which no man could number Of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb Clothed with white robes and palms in their hands and cried with a loud voice saying salvation to our God Which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb So according to these verses in heaven there will be people in heaven speaking all different tongues Did you notice how it said they were there from all kindreds, all tongues in chapter 5 verse 9 for example All languages in Revelation 7, 9 he said all nations, all kindreds, all people, all tongues So this is talking about in the future In heaven at the end of it all what John was seeing there were people in heaven from every single language and nation in the world Why? Because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life It's God's desire that the gospel would be preached in every language so that people from all nations would get a chance to hear the gospel and be saved You see that's what separates Christianity from all these false religions by the way You know you knock on the door of someone who says they're a Hindu, what country do you think they're from? India You pretty much know for sure they're from India because you don't run into a black person usually that says I'm Hindu You don't usually run into a white person that says I'm Hindu I mean 99.9999% of Hindus are all the same nationality, Indian, as in from East India If somebody says my religion is peyote what nationality do you think that person is? Navajo And guess what? 99.99% of people who are peyote are Navajos unless they just like to do drugs so they just joined or whatever But the point is these languages are not, I mean these religions are not in every language, they're not in every nation Look at Islam, and Islam is in more places but still 99% of Islam is going to be within just a couple nationalities 99% of Islam is either going to be Arabic or North Africa or Indonesia, I mean that's pretty much the main place It's pretty much people from a certain area, it's a certain nationality Muslims in America account for like what? Less than 1% of the population? And most of those are what? Immigrants from Arabic countries, immigrants from Indonesia, immigrants from places like that Buddhism, I mean who are 99% of the Buddhists in the world? Chinese Shintoism, 99.99% of them are Japanese But what about Christianity my friend, what about Christianity? What nationality is Christianity? It's all nations, I mean there are tons of Christians all over the world, in all nations, in all languages The Quran hasn't been translated into every language but the Bible has been translated into every language in the world The Hindu scriptures have not been translated into every language but the holy Bible is found in India I gave the gospel to two Hindu young men this week and I got through the whole plan of salvation with them, talked to them for about 20 minutes and clearly went through the gospel with them and they said to me there are tons of Christians in India, that's what they told me They said oh yeah, we're from the southern tip of India and there are tons of Christians over there There are Christians all over Africa, there are Christians all over Asia, you can't even begin to say where are the most Christians They're distributed all over Europe, America, Mexico, Canada, South America, Africa, Asia God's word is available at the 99 cent store, you can buy a copy of God's perfect word, the King James Bible at the Dollar Tree It's all nations, it's all languages because Christianity is a religion of the one true God of the entire world and he wants everybody to know about it But let me tell you something, just because God's word is available in these languages that doesn't mean everybody's heard the gospel Because we live in America and yet in America I knock doors every week and run into hundreds of people where I ask them Do you know for sure if you died did you go to heaven and they say I don't know or I think so because I'm a good person And I'll say do you know Jesus, oh yeah Jesus, they know who Jesus is but they don't know how to be saved because they think that they're going to go to heaven just by being a good person They're like well I hope so you know if I'm good enough, they don't know the message of the Bible that the gift of God is eternal life They don't know for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast And so if they don't know it here in America, let me tell you something, in places like Norway where I've gone, almost nobody knows the gospel They've heard of Jesus, they have the Bible in their language but yet many many people are unsaved Germany is the same thing, down in Mexico most people are Roman Catholic You know they know who Jesus is but it's not the Jesus of the Bible and it's not the salvation of God's Word They think it's religion of salvation through the church, salvation by confessing to the priest, getting baptized, going through all these different things They don't know the true gospel of Jesus Christ so therefore God wants us to preach the gospel He said ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth It is our job as Christians to preach the gospel to every creature and not just every English speaking creature But every creature in this world we need to preach them the gospel, we need to get the gospel to them Now God gives certain people talents and abilities in different areas Some people have a talent and an ability of speaking other languages, Paul was one of those people Now God performed a miracle at the day of Pentecost, why? Because he wanted to get the gospel out fast to a large group of people right away that were all gathered there from all different languages So he performed a miracle, but let me tell you something God is not going to miraculously give you the ability to speak Spanish because he doesn't have to You have the books available if you wanted to learn, you have the tools, God's given you a mind and a brain He doesn't expect you to just wait on some miracle from God to start giving the gospel to people from India No, you're going to have to learn the Hindi language and bring the gospel to those people Paul had to study and work to learn the languages that he spoke and God's not always going to part the river every time you want to cross the river Usually you have to build a bridge across the river I mean every time I drive up to the salt river it doesn't just park before me Because there's no water there anyway, but if there were water, pretend that there was water But look, I do a lot of driving, I've never yet come to a river where God just parted it before me Really? And man, really, man has to build a bridge God expects us to work and do things ourself You know when God steps in with a miracle is when we can't do it ourself He'll come in and do a miracle sometimes to bail us out or to help us out Something that's beyond our power But you know what, when it's within our power He expects us to do it ourself I don't get up every morning and just pray God, please just miraculously feed my family and then just wait at home for the miracle to show up No, God tells me no, go out and work and do it yourself And God tells a study to show thyself approved unto God A workman that need not to be ashamed, brightly divided in the word of truth If you have a talent and an ability you should make it your goal and your mission in life to get the gospel to people of another nationality For example, we're surrounded by Spanish speaking people And therefore it would behoove us to learn how to speak Spanish to give those people the gospel of Jesus Christ to get them saved You say, well I think they should learn English, you know Well, so what? So what if they should learn English? That's not even the point Whether or not they should or shouldn't learn English, I still want them to go to heaven Either way I don't care if they're here for 50 years and never learn English I'm going to give them the gospel in Spanish because I want them to be saved And if I don't give them the gospel, I don't know if anybody else is going to do it That's why we learn Spanish and that's why we should preach the gospel to them in Spanish But you know, just right over here, three or four miles away There's a huge group of literally several hundred people all living in one block that all speak Swahili and Somali You know, that would be an opportunity right there And that's why some of us in the church have learned some Swahili You know, we have a lot more to learn That's an opportunity right there to get the gospel to some people from Africa That could then bring the gospel back to Africa, they can talk to their friends and relatives That could be a way to be a missionary to Africa right here in Phoenix, Arizona We've gone over there and want people to Christ over there We've had people saved that spoke English Some of them only speak a little bit of English And so you can kind of give them like what I have is a Swahili Bible And I would give them the verses in Swahili, I learned how to pronounce it And then I would explain it to them in English and kind of do a mixture You know, God sees that and God likes that and God can use us to reach people around the world Some people cannot learn a foreign language to save their life You know what I mean, it's just really hard for them But other people, God's given talent and ability in that area And if you have that ability, you should use that ability for the Lord Instead of trying to learn a dead language Or something that's not really going to profit anybody or get anybody saved You ought to point your language learning efforts towards something you can use to win somebody to Christ Spanish, Swahili, whatever, you pick the language And I guarantee you when you learn that language, it will give you an opportunity to give the gospel right here in America Because we have people in America from all different places I'm in the airport, I'll run into people who speak Swahili I ran into a lady out in Sonya State that spoke Dutch I used to speak a lot of Greek, okay And I've run into people who were Greek And I talked to them a little bit in Greek I wasn't fluent in Greek to give them the gospel But it provided a way to open the door Because when they heard me speak their own language, it softened them up a little bit And then they were willing to listen to the gospel and God saved I want a girl to the Lord I'm thinking of a specific girl that I wanted the Lord In her 20's Who was a native of Greece And because I talked to her in Greek That made her want to talk to me And therefore I was able to win her to Christ And yet all these dead head theologians Study all their ancient Greek And by the way, let me explain some to you Ancient Greek and modern Greek are the same language Did you know that? They are People will try to lie to you And tell you, oh it's a totally different Greek It's coin-aid Greek, it's totally different That is not true If Socrates and Aristotle and Pluto Who lived several hundred years before Jesus Christ Were put in a time machine and brought to modern Greece They could pick up the newspaper and read it perfectly And the only words that they would not understand are words like airplane You know, car, computer They would understand the rest of it perfectly The only difference is the pronunciation But guess what? How do you know how something was pronounced 2,000 years ago? Did they have a tape recorder? No So today people go to Bible colleges And they study a dead pronunciation They learn how to pronounce Greek like it was maybe Sort of pronounced 2,000 years ago In the time of Christ When they could be learning the modern pronunciation Because maybe they might be able to actually win somebody to Christ Or maybe they could actually get on an airplane and go to Greece And go soloing and knock doors But no They'd rather stand up behind a pulpit and edify themselves And talk to a bunch of English speakers In a language that they don't even understand That they're not even fluent in Just to sound smart Well, the Greeks here believe it's actually piscuo Well, so what? Piscuo And in the Greek when it says heart, it's actually cardia Well, so what? In Spanish it's corazón And in German it's herz Isn't that amazing? Don't you know the Bible better now? Don't you feel better now that you came to church and learned something? But rather we need to use unknown tongues or foreign languages To get people the gospel to get them saved That's the only purpose to learn a foreign language Not to get up and make yourself smart And to correct and change the Bible And so I would challenge you today If you're talented in that area If you have the mind for it Why not learn a foreign language So that you could give people the gospel in that language The harvest truly is plenteous But the laborers are few You know, when I go out soloing door to door Half the people I run into Seems like in a lot of neighborhoods Don't speak any English at all And thank God I'm able to win many people to the Christ in Spanish I usually get at least one person saved in Spanish every week of my life But why? Because I took the time to learn Spanish And it's not easy to learn Spanish, is it? It takes a lot of work It takes a lot of dedication But if you're learning Spanish to give people the gospel You're serving God I mean, that's work that you're doing for God When I learned German Hey, that has helped me to win people to Christ It's worth it to me The hours that I put in to learn it Or whatever other language And so understand something The world is going to hell, my friend And if you'll learn a foreign language Maybe God could even use you someday to be a missionary In that foreign country Maybe even to go there and start a church in a foreign country That's dying for the gospel Maybe you could go to India and start a church there That's a Bible believing church Maybe you could go to Mexico Maybe you could go to Europe Maybe you could go to one of these places and start a church And win people to Christ Or God can use you to win souls right here This is like a Pentecost right here in Phoenix If we can win them to the Lord here They can bring the gospel home to their country And so that's what God gave us foreign languages And the ability and the gift to speak with other tongues Is to get people saved Not this other junk that you see going on in churches People rolling in the aisle Or people just getting behind a pulpit trying to sound smart By speaking Latin or Greek or Hebrew Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer Father, thank you so much for the clear teaching of your word And Father, I pray that every single person Would understand and comprehend the lesson today And Father, I pray that you would just help us to be motivated To win souls to Christ Help us, dear God, if we know foreign languages Help us to find people in that language and get them saved And help those that have a talent for learning languages To maybe choose the language of some group of people That God would give them a burden for Whether it be the Hindus Whether it be people in Africa Whether it be people in Europe or people in Asia Help us to learn those languages and use them To see people saved, dear God That the world would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ In Jesus' name we pray, Amen Alright, let's go ahead and sing a quick song before we go Let's sing the song Send the Light And that song is found on page number 374 Send the Light, the Blessed Gospel Light Let's sing it out Song number 374 374, let's sing it out on that first verse There's a call comes ringing o'er the restless waves Send the Light, Send the Light There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save Send the Light, Send the Light Send the Light, the Blessed Gospel Light Let it shine from shore to shore Send the Light, the Blessed Gospel Light Let it shine forevermore We have heard the Macedonian call today Send the Light, Send the Light And a golden offering at the cross we lay Send the Light, Send the Light Send the Light, the Blessed Gospel Light Let it shine from shore to shore Send the Light, the Blessed Gospel Light Let it shine forevermore Alright, we're dismissed. Thanks for being here today Thank you