Gifted! - Lesson 10: Tongues and Interpretation

and I have it loaded up. So I know you're going, oh no, but it's, hopefully we're gonna have a great time and really be able to look at some things before we get started. So I've talked to you, if you were here, especially last semester, whenever I talked about spiritual warfare, I talked about our cultural biases that we have and how that we read the scriptures many times, and we look at the world many times through a lens that we don't even realize we're looking at. It's though we're reading the Bible, or we're spending time in our Christian life, but we're looking at it through the cultural lens in which we live. So what I want to do for just get us started off because I, now some of you, this may be just as common knowledge as can be, but this, if you've done the one year reading, or ever been reading in that, this past week we read in Luke chapter 24. And so if you have a Bible and want to go to it and just look at it, I want to point out a couple of things into it. Now this may be something you've been saying, oh yeah, I've looked at this many times, but about 40 years ago, shortly after I got saved, I began to learn how to read the Bible. Now, you know, I had read the Bible before, but I began to learn, and about 36,

I want to say it's probably, I was about 30 years old. Everything changed in me about the way I read the Bible and the way I looked at life. And it changed because God began to shift some things in my life. And so as you come to Luke 24, here's what I want to show you. I just want to just look at something. So in Luke 24, we read about this couple, we call them on the road to Emmaus, you know, the couple that was on the road to Emmaus. And there's some things that are said here that I just thought we might want to just quickly go over it. I mean, I wasn't even thinking about doing this, but I thought as I was coming down the stairs, I thought it might be good to come this, to come and talk about this. So in verse 15, these two are walking of Luke 24. And it says, while they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, verse 16. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And I just want to stop there for a minute. They had just been with him three days earlier. They knew him well enough that they had gone back, they went back right after this to the disciples, knew where the disciples were. So they were one of his close ones. How could they not recognize him and it was him? Why don't you just think about that? Because what's happening,

and this is what's going to start happening in you, it's going to start stirring and troubling, is your issues, culture, your cultural bias, says, well, I don't understand where they just not, I mean, I don't get it. Maybe you're saying, well, I don't see any problem with that. It messes with me, but it gets worse. As you go on down, he is there and he starts talking to him. And as he says to them, all the things he says, it also, when he finishes, you remember whenever it says he broke the bread and it says, and their eyes were opened. Do you remember that? And they suddenly knew who he was. And then it says this. It says, verse 31, and their eyes were opened and they recognized him and then it says, this was his. And he vanished from their sight. And that word that's used there is literally, he disappeared. What in the world just happened? You see, from our materialistic mindset in the Western culture, we just skip right past that and don't see it. What I'm trying to do is help you understand that the Bible speaks about a world that most of us don't even think about, but it's the truth. So let's go on. They have this happen and then they say this.

It says, we're not our hearts burning. What are they talking about? They're talking about, as he's telling things, their spirit, that's what they're talking about, their heart was being stirred because there was a truth being released. They did not previously see. It goes on, they go back to the other disciples and it says, as they got there, they came in and they tell him, say, he came in and they say, hey, he appeared to Peter. And then it says in verse 36, it says, as they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them. Now this is also referencing John chapter 20, when it happens there, it's the same parallel story. Does that make sense? In fact, we know in John 20 it tells about the fact that the doors were locked and John points this out. So the doors were locked. In other words, nobody can get in and hell of a sudden he's in. He goes on from there, verse 37, "But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit," yours may even say a ghost. And he says, "Are you troubled? Why do you doubt?" Well, those things, you see my hands, my feet, in other words, he's showing them the scars. He says, "Touch me in sea so they can touch him. He's physical. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." And then he goes on after that.

He says, "Give me something to eat." And they give him broiled fish to which he eats. And then John tells us in the same parallel story that again he disappears. Now why am I telling you all that? Because tonight I'm going to talk about speaking in tongues. And most of us have said it's weird, strange, odd. I just want to avoid it. I don't understand it. I want to stay away from it. And the problem is not the gift of tongues. I'd say we've got a problem on the abuse of it. I'll grant that and misuse of it. But the problem is that we have such a cultural bias that we are okay with an explainable gospel when the New Testament speaks of a supernatural world and gospel that we have, that the kingdom of God is a divine invasion of the world that we call explainable. Now I'm not trying to take it out into some weirdville. I'm just saying read your Bible. And when I started reading my Bible like that 35, 36 years ago, everything started changing for me. So I want to encourage you. When you come to your Bible, this is the way I do it, come to my Bible, I start reading. I just sit down and I begin to step into the stories. I just wander in there. Look around. Like I was telling what I just went through this last one, started looking around, started asking questions. You know, one of the questions I want to ask is when he disappeared, where did the fish go? I mean, he ate it. I'm not saying I have the answers to that.

I have some ideas of what I believe, but what I'm saying to you is, as we come to this, don't allow, don't allow your biases to keep you from the truth, because Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set us free. He just wants to bring freedom. So all right, let's go ahead and get into this, all right? So tonight, I'm going to be last lesson of all, and I'm focused on tongues, of all things on the last one. So we're going to leave in a bang and I'll say this is testimony. I never heard of or had any knowledge whatsoever of a thing called tongues until I met my wife. Actually, I met my mother-in-law. It was the first time I'd ever even heard of it. So I was 19 years old, so I didn't grow up on any of this. And so as it came into it though, I wanted to walk in and find what is the Bible telling us. So let's just go on and I'm going to start with, let's wander down and let me go down to just start with 1 Corinthians 12. We're going to read it again, beginning in verse 7 through verse 11, and we'll see all nine of them. I'm going to go over them quickly and then we'll go from there. So beginning in verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 12, it says, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit and to another faith by the same Spirit. To another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills." And so as we looked at them, here's kind of the way I've divided them up. This isn't just unique to me at the same time.

This isn't like some exact thing. I'm just trying to help make it a little bit clearer to us, you know, to try to look at 'em and understand it. We've been walking through this. And so we've gone through the perceiving gifts and we've gone through the power gifts. And so we started a couple of weeks ago in the proclaiming ones, we started with prophecy. We looked at it and saw that. And so you have that outline there that you've looked at and we're gonna be walking through. I think I already have prophecy filled out. Is that correct? Good, thought I did. My wife says, why do you ask that? You put it together and I'm like, I don't remember. Okay, let's go ahead and we're gonna walk through tonight and just some things that I'm just calling them five key points. Okay, that I've given you there. And I would say that I know that what we're delving in tonight, tonight, is the most controversial of all the gifts. If you wanna watch people get angry and I have seen it, just talk about this. Man, there are groups that immediately when I've had, I've had people get up and walk out. I'm like, well, okay. And so as we come into it, I wanna try to help you. Okay, maybe you're like I was and you never even heard of it till you came to cross gates or maybe you grew up in it and you saw some terrible things

and it scares you to death. And in whatever it was and whatever it is, let's just try to take and say, how does the Bible lead us in this? So let me go and let's start off with what I'm just calling the nature of tongues. What's the nature of what we're looking at here? It's what are we looking at? So in that passage again, he says, for the one is given through the spirit, various kinds of tongues. Now I wanna talk about that a little bit more in just a minute, but let me just start off by, I gave you a list of questions there that I wanna try to look at quickly. The first one is, you know, as we're looking at, is what are tongues and again, if you have that little outline on the back, here's what I'm saying in there. I've actually given you this, I think when I was doing spiritual gifts, but just giving it to you again, if you weren't here in that, but tongues, it's a supernatural utterance given by God to an individual in a language unknown to the person, okay? That's what it is. And so that's about as simple as you can get it, so... And let me give you Dave's definition, all right? This is kind of an idea of what it is. Let me give you Dave's definition.

I didn't put it, I don't think I've got this on your outline. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't. The gift of tongues is simply the God-given capacity for your spirit to express itself in words your mind does not understand. We're created a body, a soul and a spirit. Our body is our physical body. Our soul is our mind, our will and our emotions and our spirit is our spirit. And what we call sometimes is called the heart. It's the innermost being, if you will. And when we get saved, what happens is our spirit reconnects, if you will, or is made new in connection with the Holy Spirit who now dwells here. And honestly, what the Christian life is is the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, wanting to literally transform your mind because your mind has been programmed by this world to believe things according to this. That's why cultures changes. So everybody's got different mindsets by and large because of the culture they grew up. The family they grew up, in other words, you know these things, I'm not saying anything new. I mean, if you grew up in an abusive home and by maybe you had an abusive father, when we talk about God being your father, there's an immediate thing that shifts inside of you because in your mind, a father's mean and angry, always complaining and griping might hit you

if you step out of line, but you see the Holy Spirit dwelling in you wants to teach you the father, wants to renew your mind. Does that make sense? And so the spirit inside of us, the Holy Spirit that dwells within our spirit, and there are times where the spirit wants to literally release something many times it's an expression of the Spirit apart from the understanding through our mouth. So anyway, Bible indicates that tongues are not meaningless, uncontrolled babbling. In fact, the word that's used, and we're going to look at it, it means languages. There were languages. So tongues is simply, again, the God-given capacity for your Spirit to express itself in words your mind does not understand. Okay, pretty simple. Second thing, our tongues are real language, which I kind of just answered, but the word that's used here, glossalalia, or is the word, the Greek word that's used there, literally means language. You heard of a glossary? It comes from that Greek word. And so it's just, yes, they're real languages. So if somebody, this would be an indication, and I want to be careful on this, if a person is babbling and it's not, and you can tell, there's a difference between a language and not a language. You know that, man, if you've been around anybody that speaks into the language and they get talking, I don't understand a word they're saying, but I know they're saying something. And so it's different. You can almost always tell. So it's real languages. Next, this is one that kind of goes on. I thought it'd be something to look at, at least. Does a person, quote, lose control when he speaks in tongues? If you've never done it, you've never been around it, you may have these preconceived ideas that they just kind of go, and then they just start blurting out of them. That's not tongues. In fact, I'd call that demonization. That's not tongues. It flows just like a language. You know you are all there. To speak in tongues is a conscious, rational choice of the will, allowing the release, another thing I wrote here, just I know it's long, but allowing the release of what is in your spirit to be expressed through your mouth. To speak in tongues is a conscious, rational choice of the will. Does that make sense? You can choose. Now here's, so I've run into this before where somebody, you know, and listen,

please hear me. I'm not saying I got all the answers. I'm just saying a lot of experience, also at least that. And here's what I know. Well, I know even Scripture in 1 Corinthians 14 says this, somebody thinks they legitimately get a word in tongues. They're not all of a sudden at a place where it's just got to start blurting out of them. They can willfully choose to hold it. 1 Corinthians 14 says that. It says if there's not an interpretation, don't give it, which means you have a willful choice, right? So one who speaks in a tongue can choose to speak in tongues at any time or choose to remain silent. So I've heard it compared to a lot of different things and I'm not going to go into all that right now, but just you don't lose control about that. Let me go into the next one. Why pray in tongues? I just use pray in tongues because I think it's one of the most common uses of tongues. Why pray in tongues? In other words, is it even necessary? Is it even important? Is it something that, what does it matter? And so let me just give you this. The primary purpose for tongues is to be a private prayer language for intense communication between your spirit and the Lord. That's its primary purpose and it's that intimate time you have with God, you and him. time, just me and Him. And so that's, and Bible talks about what it does, and I'll say that it empowers our spirit, there's all kind of things it does for us personally. But anyway, let me go on to the next, and another question people have, well, how can you speak in tongues? And in other words, how does it happen? How can a person do that? First of all, because I believe that it's the end-dwelling Holy Spirit who draws in us, it wants out. I believe it's personally an ability that God has for all of us, because it's just the Spirit in us. I'm not saying that everybody has to speak in tongues, don't hear that. I'm not saying you have to, but I am saying you can, just like you can pray for somebody to be healed and they can be healed. And so it's not us anyway, it's the Holy Spirit through us. So anyway, that's a few of the things that I wanted to start.

So that's a nature of tongues. I know now I've got everybody worried, I guess, I don't know, but let's press on here. All right, the next thing is, I don't want to talk about a second topic or it's the kinds of tongues. We'll start about the nature, that's kind of what it is, and some basic things about it. Let's look a little bit at the kinds of tongues, and here's what he says again in that passage. He says, "For to one is given through the Spirit." It says various kinds of tongues, and literally the Greek words, there's two Greek words that are used here, and both of them are in the plural. So the first one that's used here is the word, it's the word ganos. It's where we get words like genre, comes from this Greek word. It would be various kinds or things like that, and then, of course, the glossolalia is the word for languages, and they're both in the plural. So it's various kinds of languages. And so that's what it means, and this is one of the things that people miss sometimes. And so let me just give you this again. I just went through the Bible and looked at it and just kind of, you know, me, I have to categorize if it's going to stick in my brain. So I just put it this way, I gave tongues in three divisions. Did I put this in your outline? I think I did. Yeah. And so I just see them as there's human tongues and there's angelic tongues. That's one kind, we see that, you know. In fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 1, he says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels." I didn't like, that wasn't some ingenious, deep study historical review. I just read verse 1st, verse 1 Corinthians 13, there's human tongues and angelic tongues. Second thing he talks about is there's known tongues and unknown tongues.

And he explains the difference, and here he talks about the difference. And he says, you know, so let me just give you, well, I'll just give you one of the sides of it. He says, if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. And so in there he says, so what am I going to do? I'm going to pray in my mind, and I'm going to pray in my spirit. I'm going to do both. And so there is this reality of a known and unknown type of tongues, and let me go on down in the third one, I just say, is there's private, and there's public. And so in that, he says verse Corinthians 14, verse 2, "For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God. For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit." So that's the side that we don't understand it, but he says, and it's one of the reason why Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 says it needs to be private. It's primarily a private issue. And if it goes public, he tells how to do it. And he goes on down and says in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 4, "The one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church." And so, and I've told you this before, and I think I'm going to talk about it in just a minute, but when there is an interpretation of a tongue, that interpretation becomes equivalent does that make sense? So that would be basically what I've just looked in the three different divisions, but within them. And let's get down to the, because the one we're looking at focusing on is unknown tongues, where our spirit is releasing a language that our mind doesn't understand, okay? So let me give you what the Bible gives us as four different, I just called it genres, just because they use the word genre, four different kinds of unknown that are just in the Bible, okay? Now these are me and they're pretty simple, and I know I've given them before, but let me give them to you. The first one is what I call proclaiming tongues. There is tongues that are given, and we see it perfectly given to us in Acts chapter two, when the coming of the Holy Spirit, when he came, the Bible says they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and then they began to speak in tongues, and

it talks about that whole story there, and as they go out and there's people from all over the world, or Jews from all over the world that have gathered to celebrate Pentecost. Pentecost was not about the coming of the Holy Spirit until the coming of the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit came, they went out, the 120 that were in the room, and they began to speak in languages they didn't know, but they were languages of all the world, the people from all over the world. And I've talked to you about this before and taught it before that what happened in Acts chapter two was God was bringing back together what he had separated in Genesis 11 at the Tower of Babel. You know, he separated everybody, and he separated them by languages, so they had to disperse because they refused to do what he told them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and they said, "We've got a better idea. We're going to all stay together." And they had a one-world ruler, I believe is the first one-world ruler named Nimrod that wanted to keep them all together in Nineveh, in Babylon, in that whole area. And what was what the Hebrew called Shinaar was the area, and as they had them there, God comes down and he goes, "Oh, that's not what it says in Scripture, but basically that's what he did." And in doing that, he divided them by languages. So they had to disperse. Well, as we dispersed, that's not his ultimate intent. He wants us to be one. He wants us to be unified. And so in Acts chapter two, he says, "This is the way you're unified, not by the fact you can speak the same language, but because the Holy Spirit in you connects you to one another." That's why when I go to Brazil and I meet believers that I don't understand when they're praying on me what they're saying, but, oh, man, something's shifting in the spiritual atmosphere and my heart is burning in the midst of it. And so we just need to know that's the unity that we walk in. And so the proclaiming tongue, he says it here. This is what they said was going on. It says, "We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." So they were proclaiming, they were telling, they were proclaiming the mighty works of God. And this is something that's happened I've got a friend of mine that was a missionary. He was over in another country. And in this country, he had just gotten there and he was new in the area and he was at a church where they gave people opportunity. There were a group of Christians in that country and they were all from that country. None of them spoke English. He had to learn their language and he was in a service and while he was in the service, they said the pastor stopped

from Owen. He said there was about five, six hundred people in there. And he said, all of a sudden, someone began to speak and he said, "It was perfect English." And he said, the pastor who none of them knew it, they said, "Does anybody understand? Did anybody get an interpretation of this?" And he said, "I was too scared to even say anything, but I knew exactly what they were saying." And it blew him away because he was a Baptist, non-toned talker, if you will, but it's where God began to open him up to the spirit world and see because he understood every word of it. Does that make sense? So that can happen. And there were also, they were proclaiming the glories of God. So that's the first one. The next three are all come out of 1 Corinthians 14. There's the prophesying tones. It's what I call them. Let me give it to you here. In 1st Corinthians 14, verse five, it says, "Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up." You see, that's a prophesying tongue. In other words, they have spoken a word in tongues. It has been interpreted and that interpretation is equivalent in this passage to being a word of prophesy. So I just call it a prophesying tongue, okay? The next one is a praying tongue. 1st Corinthians 14, the first part of verse 15, says, "What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also." So pray with my spirit. That's prayer language, whatever you wanna call it, praying in tongues.

But he goes on because there's another one right here in the same verse, I call it praising tongues. You know me, I got to have them all lined up there just when that weird thing works in between my ears. And he says this, verse 15, he says, "What am I to do?" And he goes on the second part of that verse. "I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing praise with my mind also." You see that? So let's go on. We have talked about the nature of tongues. We've talked about the kinds of tongues. Let's go on and I just, I didn't know what to call it. I call it parameters. I could have called it fences. I could have called it things to watch out for. You know, there's certain things whenever we're talking about tongues that the Bible does talk to us about. And maybe it's when and why should tongues be used and we need to be cautious in this. But I just, let me just give you these that I have here. I said, one of them is encouraging the church. The tongues are used when they're encouraging the church. We need to be using them that way. In other words, it needs to have a purpose to it and it's for the encouragement of building edification of the body. That's the purpose that we are to be using them for.

And this is what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 beginning in verse six, it reads this. "Now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?" In other words, unless if it doesn't have a purpose that is released that you understand, he's saying it's meaningless. It's don't do it is what he's saying. If even lifeless instruments such as the flute or the harp do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue, you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different tongues in the world and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselves, since you are eager from manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Does that make sense? So at our church, let me just say what might have started this long time ago, if a person has a word in tongues, great.

Bring it to who I would say would be the elders. Bring it to the spiritual leaders and just say, I believe God's given me a tongue. If you came to me with it, I'm gonna ask for God to give me interpretation. I've had to do this for years. And as you gave it, if God doesn't give an interpretation, we just have to say, man, praise God, probably must have been personal for you, praise God, or I didn't, we didn't know right here, or maybe he tells them the interpretation. I'm good with that. And we work through it. But we're not gonna, as far as I can tell, and this has been something, let me just tell you, when you say you're gonna stay with the Bible, you can get, let me just say things can get messy. I'll just put it that way. And so as a Baptist pastor in a church where we'll have Sunday, on Sunday morning, in our first service, Second service, about the same. If I just said, hey, anybody stand up and just let her go. I promise you, it will end in chaos. I know somebody may say, oh, I've been in them and it worked good and I understand that. Churches that are trained in it, especially. And churches typically that are smaller and can handle that.

I know several charismatic churches, big-time charismatic churches that you would know about, that they don't let anyone stand up and give a word and tongue. They bring it to the elders. So they're open to it, but they haven't a venue, an avenue in which it flows. Now, if we were in a small group of five people, and we all know each other, we all know we're believers, we all believe that God's gonna talk to us, I'm open game. Take turns. Let's let her go. I've done that many, many times. And so anyway, I had to make a decision on that a long time ago and I can tell you I've read 1 Corinthians 14 a lot of times and there's nowhere in there where I see it says they have to stand up and give it out publicly to everyone to hear. But it does say they need to have an avenue within which to do because if they're about to give one and the Bible says in a revelation comes, they need to sit down. So there's a order to all of it anyway. All right, I talked enough about that. Let me go on down. Where was I? Let's continue. Let me go on down the passage here 'cause I've got stuck, all right. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue, okay?

There's a balance. I would say this is what I found and I have found this. Is that just because somebody can speak in tongues does not mean they're walking with God. I promise you it doesn't. I've learned that the hard way. I've seen very unspiritual, rebellious people be able to speak in tongues. And in our culture and in the West with the unbelievable individualism we have or we all think we have rights to do what we wanna do and who are you to tell me I can't. It is dangerous. And you know what church we're like? In America, by and large that allows that, we're like the church in Corinth. And praise God, we're speaking in tongues, but Paul had to address the fact that they were creating disunity. That rugged individualism was creating disunity. Here's what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter one, verse 10. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you but that you be united in the same mind and in the same judgment. In 1 Corinthians 10, he even goes farther and talks about the disunity, the individualism, the I want my way, I want it done the way I want it done. I'm gonna get in line first, all those kind of things. It was what was there.

And I just say this about whenever you're living in individualism, it typically does this. It brings in divide, it starts to divide people because we're to live for one another, to live in unity. Okay, let me go to the second thing that happens is that we need to be watching for. Is the maturing, it's the purpose and we need to stay is in maturing the believer. That's what they're for, they're to mature the believers. So, verses 13 through 15, and 1 Corinthians 14 says, "Therefore one who speaks in a tongue "should pray that he may interpret." But if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. Well, I do, and here he goes. I will pray in my spirit, but I'll pray in my mind. Also, I'll sing and praise him with the spirit. Sing praise in my mind also. And so in there, he's saying we need to function on the fact of are we building maturity in ourselves and in others, and tongues privately, it does builds maturity, it builds up our spirit. It does, but we have to walk in a wisdom here and we need to know how to do that. Let me go into the next one. I'll just say here is the impact that he has on outsiders. The impact on the outsider. And I think this is important for us to just keep in mind. There's nothing wrong with tongues. [BLANK_AUDIO]

and we function within the lanes God gives us. In verses 23, 3.25, the first Corinthians 14 says, "If therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all. He is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you." So in other words, he's saying, when it's unintelligible, the unbeliever's like, "Oh, what in the world's happening there?" But when it's turned, it's given to us in a prophetic way. In other words, let's say it's turned into a prophetic word, and they begin to say there's no man, God's there. That's a good thing. So those are just some things we have to walk in. I believe some parameters there. Let me go on to the next one. This is gonna be where some of you may be interested to know about, and I'm just gonna give this to you. It's simple, I think I've already laid it out there, and I just call it the releasing of tongues. I didn't call it the receiving. You already have the Holy Spirit. How do you release tongues? How do you walk in them?

If that's something that you say, man, I want to, the first thing is just desire the gift. Desire it. First Corinthians 14, verse one, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. Run after, say, God, I want you to release this in my life. I want you to release this through me. Some of you here, I know, have said, that's what I've done, but I haven't spoken in Tongue, okay? Don't worry about that, don't, I've just learned, don't worry about it. I know for me, when I first was introduced to it, after I got saved and I was new and all of it, I was as clumsy as you could be. And man, I wanted to speak in tongues and had no idea what you even did. I mean, I was in the whole thing. Do you park your brain or not? Are you, you just start blurting out, you know, something and making stuff up or what? You know, but I want it to be real and I was as nervous as probably any of you've been. But I wanted it. I didn't understand fully why at the time. I didn't want it to be a show off. In my spirit, there was something in here that said, it was for me. I can't explain it, but I wanted it. Next is surrender to the spirit's leadership. And I'm gonna tell you, this is harder than we think.

I know it is for me. I wanna be in charge. Ultimately, that's the bottom line of the sinful nature. I wanna be my own God, it's Genesis three. I can make my own life the way I want to. I have my own rights, but the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, says, but I wanna lead you. And so there is this battle internally that goes on in us. And here's what I've learned is I have to surrender and say, "Holy Spirit, not my will, but yours be done." Now, let me just say one of the things that helped me a long time ago. And I'll just give it to you, it's not in your notes. Actually, it just popped in my head. So I'm gonna pretend like I know for sure that came from the Holy Spirit. I don't know that for sure, but hey, it's scripture, so we're good. And in Luke 11, the disciples had asked Jesus. So would you teach us to pray like John taught his disciples? So he goes and has the Lord's prayer. And then he starts talking about asking it will be given to you, seeking you will find knock in the door will be open. I mean, he's talking about an earnest desire that you have in prayer. So this is about prayer. But I, years ago, here was my concern. Man, I don't want anything from the devil. I don't wanna get into some kind of paganism

'cause I believe it's out there, masked as Christian. But my heart says I want to walk with God and listen to what he says. For everyone who is verse 10 of Luke 11, for everyone who asks, receives and the one who seeks, finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. And then he says in Luke 11, what father among you give him a serpent. Now I want you to say, I've taught you this for, but give you a serpent. So I want you to keep that word in mind 'cause this is what Luke, because it's contextual. Verse 12, or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion. So serpent and scorpion. Verse 13, if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father listen to this? Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. Give the Holy Spirit to those who say, now here's where God freed me up. Reason I said serpents and scorpions, you go back to the chapter, previous chapter, chapter 10, Jesus had sent the 72 out to go out and told him, you know, get out there and preach the gospel. And you're gonna be anointed with healing and all this stuff, and it's gonna be awesome. And they went out there and they returned, and they were rejoicing, the Bible says.

And as they returned, they said, Lord, even the demons, so notice this is about the demonic, are subject to us in your name. Verse 18 of Luke 10, and he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. So it's a spirit world he's seeing. He's talking about demonic. He's talking about the spirit world. He goes on verse 19, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and on scorpions." Hey, he's not talking about when you get home with there's a snake there, you can just walk over. He's not talking about handling them. He's talking about demons. He's equating, do you see this? So this is where God freed me up. If I'm legitimately, sincerely saying to God, or I want the Holy Spirit to release the gifts through me, and I wanna, I'm trusting you in this. I don't understand it, but I want you. He's not gonna give me a demon. Does that make sense? Okay, that's what helped me a long time ago. All right, that was extra credit, what's going on? So surrender to the Spirit's leadership. Next is this, it's exercise your will. Bottom line, here's what I'm saying, you gotta choose. You have to choose, and you have to say, I want this, I'm stepping into this, and I'm gonna just start speaking.

Best I know what to do, God, I'm just trusting you in it. And it's the weirdest thing to you, 'cause you just, it's like, I always think about it. It's like a baby learning to walk. They were made to be a walker, but men in feet aren't ready to walk yet, and they're gonna fall down a boatload of times, and they look clumsy when they walk. They're wobbling all over the place. But inside of the baby, there is a walker. It's just, it comes with the package. So you need to exercise your will. And then I just put this as the last one. Just give it time. I know with me, I was as sincere as I could be. And as I started off, I believe God gave me a, literally it was a phrase, I could say it right now. And that's all I had, nothing I will. All I know to do is say it. And then I remember the moment, I've told you about it, went out of me unleashed a full language, and it was full. And since then, I've learned and have seen how God releases literally other languages, based upon literally what I'm praying over. I was, I've been doing this for 35 years, so it's not like I'm new at it. I'm not saying, but I'm saying, give it time. Trust the Lord to guide you. He will, I believe. All right, let me go to the next one.

Ooh, I gotta hurry up. Number five, the interpretation of tongues. You're saying, oh man, we're just getting to interpretation. This is gonna go a lot quicker. Interpretation of tongues is a fifth one. He says this in verse 10, four to one is given through the spirit. And then I just said, the interpretation of tongues. And it's interpretation of languages. So here's what it is, if you wanna write this in your notes. It's a supernatural understanding. (Applause) I just, I can't make it any more simple, for the interpretation of a message in an unknown language. So what do we need to do? So how do we handle this? So I'm wanting to know that when a tongue is given, Lord, I want to be able to interpret. If he gives me a tongue and he wants me to interpret. So I've told you, I do this all the time. When I'm praying in the spirit, I'm asking the Lord, is there anything that you're saying that you want me to know? I ask it all the time. Now, what am I asking? I'm asking for the gift of interpretation. And so how do we recognize if it's interpreted, how do we recognize if what we're, how would we recognize what it is? And I just said, and I've got it in your outline.

I know it's rarely word for word translation that I have found. It's basically an understanding of the tone. It's say, it's, you know, and I don't want to say it. I have worked with interpreters overseas. I'm going to go back to Brazil this summer. I'll be working with an interpreter. And here's what happens. I've got it down to rhythm, man. You almost have a dance to it because you're talking. If you've never done it, it's quirky for a while. But you say about five or six words, you know, so I want you to know that I don't be talking about tongues. Over here, and I run, and I'm over here. And we're going to have a great time together because God is going to move in our lives. Brother, Brother, Brother. Now, let me just say, I'm saying that because he's not giving word for word translation. He's giving an interpretation of what I said. And so whenever we're in that and we receive the interpretation, it's not necessarily a word for, in fact, I've never had it be an exact word for word, but it's more of an understanding of what is being said. So the first thing you want to see is you want to recognize that you need to recognize, hey, this may be an interpretation. And so how do we then, if you're asking for it and we're starting to get something, how do we receive the interpretation? So that's the second thing, receiving an interpretation. How do we know we're receiving an interpretation? Well, let me just give you the things I've got down there

and here's what they are. It's an inner impression of words or thoughts or scripture. Had this happened often. It can be your hearing or seeing words. I've had that happen many times. I've prayed for people. I remember a man I was praying for one time and as I was praying for him, literally, it was like I could see on the inside of his brain, not the in his mind, I'll say that in his mind. And it was like it was on brass and engraved, the word unworthy. And I could see it in my spirit. And I said to him, I believe that you have a deep embedded, it's engraved in your mind that you are unworthy. And he broke immediately. And so you can have it, that can happen. So as you're there and somebody is, maybe it's yourself or if you're with somebody and they're praying in the spirit and you hear it, you're asking for interpretation. It won't be exact word for word. It will be an understanding of the tongue that's being given. It may be a word that you see, it may be a scripture, it may be a thought, thoughts all of a sudden start coming. I've found that many times happening. You may see a picture. That's very common, very common. These are interpretations of that. And then how do you release it?

I mean, what do you do, the next one I had there is releasing interpretation. How do you release this thing? Well, I would just say it this way. It needs to be conveyed in a way that's understood by the hearers and needs to be according to the personality of the interpreter. Don't, like I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound, I don't have anybody in mind or anything, but don't suddenly jump into King James English. And I would make this a major mark. Don't ever, I don't believe you should ever say the say of the Lord. I say it this way. I feel like God maybe has something to say to you, something for you. So let me share with you what I think God may be saying. And I've told you this before, I'm big on doing this because if they're saved, the Holy Spirit in them will confirm if that's a word from God. But if I say, "Thus say it the Lord," I put them on a defensive. Let me just give you a completely different side. I've told you this is something like this. My son Caleb, actually my middle son, Brian, had the same thing. But my son Caleb, I said something to him because I was worried whenever he was single for up to that age and girls were just running after him at that time. In fact, when he was in Coleman, the pastor there said, "Hey, listen, I love having Caleb here because we bring in about 800 girls, you know, just because he's here." And I said, "Okay, you need to be careful, buddy, because there are going to be, sometimes there's going to be a girl come to you and say, "The Lord told her that you were going to be her husband." He goes, "Oh."

He said, "How about double digits?" And I said, "Oh, God." And so what I'm saying is there are people that are going to say, "The Lord told me that told me to tell you, 'Don't do that, don't do that.' So in the interpretation, you're asking the Holy Spirit to give them the freedom to understand. And when you give that word, give it according to your personality. Don't turn mean on them or don't turn something you're not. Just be yourself. Just share. Okay? That was a pile of stuff. I mean, I thought well, save the best for last, I hope. But man, I've had fun sharing this semester. Don't know exactly where we're going to go next fall, just have to ask the Lord. I am by the way. I mean, I've got some busy things. It's one of the things about writing is my brain's going to zig in my, getting, narrowing it down on how I'm going to publish the book, so getting that done. But I've already started on a second thing I want to do. That I feel like is the next thing I'm supposed to write. At the same time, I've written a Bible study that's about nine weeks, ten weeks long, nine weeks. That I'm going to actually teach it, it's on leadership, I call it spirit-filled leadership. But I'm going to actually teach it in Brazil, but I'm going to give them the study workbooks for those pastors to be able to take back to their churches and teach a nine or ten week Bible study to their people because I just always want to try to do that. So I've been putting that together, got that about finished. I have, what else am I doing? Of course, I've been working on gifts, preaching Sunday, but anyway, I've been having a big time, I'm asking God to give me enough years to release all that He wants to release through

me. So just be praying for the summer and what God wants to do in the fall will just ask God to lead us. Okay? And it's time to go. Let me pray for us. Father, thank You that in spite of all the things that I have inside of me that want to keep me from following You, that You still pursue, Lord, I thank You that You've made walking with You pretty simple, so simple that any child can step in and yet so complex that the Ph.D. can't understand it. Father, I pray that as we walk from here, Lord, that we have maybe a little better grip on understanding about the gifts and then Holy Spirit, I pray that You will teach us to even increase. I know this group, so many in this group, are already walking in the gifts in so many ways. But I pray You'll use them to use us to be those conduits of Your manifested grace to the people around us. So we ask You to do this, give You all the glory in it, and Lord, thank You for this time. We could be together. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. of the Lord. of the Lord. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]