Why Everyone Should Speak in Tongues | Spiritual Leadership Podcast with Landon Schott

leaders. Today I'm going to be addressing the topic of speaking in tongues. When you pray in the spirit or speak in tongues, you will spiritually grow. There are many distracting controversies around the topic of tongues and a demonic strategy to keep you from wanting or receiving this gift from God. I'll take time to answer some of your questions and give you some practical advice. So let's get after it. [MUSIC] When you pray in the spirit, you will spiritually grow. Now the goal is not to speak in tongues. The goal is for you to hear God clearly, obey Him, and walk in His power. The goal is for you to know God intimately. And one of the ways that you'll know God and grow in God is through the gifts of the spirit. Now tongues is one of the gifts of the spirit. A spiritual gift is a supernatural ability given by the Holy Spirit to strengthen the church and reveal Jesus. We find these gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We know them as the gifts of the spirit. We have wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, power, prophecy, distinguishing between the spirits, speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues. These are the nine gifts of the spirit. So speaking in tongues may be the most controversial of all of them. Now they shouldn't be controversial, but they are, and I'm explained to you why. But you need to know from the beginning of Christianity, from the day the church was started in Acts chapter 2, all the way to the earliest fathers like to Julian and Augustine. They acknowledged and endorsed the gifts of the spirit. So they acknowledged them in Acts 2 in the early century church, and even today we need to acknowledge and be aware of these gifts. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the apostle Paul writes, "Now concerning the gifts, brothers, I don't want you to be uninformed when you were pagans and when you were led astrayed

by these idols, that word 'unformed' in the Greek is the word aga noeyo. And this is to be ignorant or unaware, uninformed or to not recognize them. And unfortunately, too many in the body of Christ today are unaware. You don't recognize when God's moving. You don't recognize gifts of the spirit. This is common today as it was back when the disciples walked the earth. We see this in Acts chapter 19, where there was a group of disciples, followers of Jesus. And when they meet the apostles, they said, "Have you been filled with the spirit?" They're like, "We didn't even know what the spirit is." He said, "So we're following Jesus, we're disciples of Jesus, but we haven't been told about the Holy Spirit." That's when they laid hands on them, and those followers of Jesus began to speak in tongues. So just like in Acts chapter 19 that there's many Christians back then that were following Jesus but hadn't heard about the Holy Spirit or His gifts, there are disciples today that are following Jesus that have not heard about the Holy Spirit or heard about His gifts. So let's talk more about the gifts. The gifts of the spirit are from God. James 1 17 teaches us this. It says, "Every gift, every perfect gift is from above. They come down from the Father of lights." So the Father gave the gift who was Jesus. Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. One more time. The Father gave us a gift of Jesus, His Son. Jesus gave us the gift of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit gives us gifts. So all of these gifts are from God. John 16 7, Jesus said this, "It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I don't go away, the helper, the Holy Spirit, will not come." And he said, "But if I go, I will send him to you.

This is wild." Jesus said, "It's better for me not to be here so that the Holy Spirit is here." You've got to get this today. God is a good Father. He loves to give gifts. Jesus gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. We see this in Mark 3.8. It says this, "I have baptized in water." He says, "But he," or Jesus, this is John the baptizer speaking, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. So Jesus said, not only is it better that I go, but he also said this in Mark 16, that his disciples would speak in tongues. He said there's going to be signs that follow believers and they will speak in new tongues. So again, Jesus gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. One more scripture. So you know this is accurate. It says this, "And while they were standing with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he had said, "You had heard from me for John baptized with water, but you Guys, this is so important. This is Acts chapter one. This is after Jesus had died on the cross and risen from the grave, risen from the dead. He's coming back. These are some of his last words to the disciples. Guys, this is like deathbed scenario. You're with your dad, your grandfather. They're giving you that last piece of wisdom of all of their life. Jesus' last words to us is wait for the Holy Spirit.

This is wild. He's telling his disciples, don't even do ministry without the Holy Spirit. And there's so many Christians that are in ministry that are doing ministry without the Holy Spirit. So watch this. Once again, the Father gave us a son, Jesus. And Jesus gave us the helper, the Holy Spirit. Then it came into fruition in Acts chapter two that I've already mentioned. It's called the day of Pentecost. This is the day of the birth of the church. They're all together waiting on the Lord in unity, Holy Spirit comes and baptizes them in the Holy Spirit and in fire. So we see this progression where the gifts are from God. Jesus told us they're gonna come. Jesus warns us that I have to go because the helper can come. And then he says, wait for the gift. That is how important these are to God. And that's how important they should be to Christ's followers or Christians. So let's talk more about the gifts. The gifts are for everyone. Let's wind that back and say it again, 'cause this is the number one question I got on social media. I get as a pastor, are they for everyone? There's so many bad teachings or misunderstanding of scripture or lazy interpretations of scripture

that people don't know this. Hear me today, the gifts of the spirit are for everyone. First Corinthians chapter 12 says they're a variety of gifts but by the same spirit. They're varieties of services by the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. Look at your screen, we're gonna underline and circle everyone. It says he empowers them in everyone. So if you hear anything today, this is one of the things I want you to hear. There is no scripture that says the gifts aren't for you. It blows my mind. How many people claim this or believe this like it's biblically accurate? What they do is they take 1 Corinthians 12, 29 through 30 and the scripture says not everyone does. It says not everyone will do these gifts. Now, just because it says not everyone does, that doesn't mean that not everyone can. There's a difference. In fact, there's scripture that says broad as the road that leads to destruction, few will find the narrow road. I have yet to hear one Christian that's claiming, I'm just taking that broad road to destruction. Salvation just might not be for me. We don't claim that. So why would you just assume the gifts aren't for you? So again, the gifts are for everyone.

Now let's get into specifically the topic of today and that is the gift of tongues or speaking in tongues. So what is the gift of tongues? Speaking in tongues is a supernatural language from the Holy Spirit that strengthens the believer and builds up the church. Again, this is the goal. It strengthens the believer and builds up the church. Now, my journey started when I was 12 years old. I was at my dad's church and on the third story, there was this little room that we called the fireside room. And it was like a junior high night and lights were kind of dim. And this little old lady, she came and she taught. She had long, long hair, she was a widow, she lived on the church property and she started talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit in her friend, the Holy Spirit. At the very end, she just said, hey, if anyone wants to get baptized in the Holy Spirit, come put your hand in mind. And at 12 years old, I went down to the front. I put my hand in hers with a group of young people. I felt this like warm sensation come over my body. I began to speak in tongues at 12 years old. And that was the moment that I got baptized in the Spirit. That was my journey and I've been doing this for 30 years now. And, but it's interesting that my theology wasn't based upon a charismatic theology or based on a Pentecostal.

It was based on my experience with God and what I've seen in scripture and I'm excited to show you today. Now, I wanna caution you that not all tongues are the same. That's why there are so many confusions. First Corinthians 12, 10 talks about the various kinds of tongues. And so I'm gonna teach you about the different kinds of tongues that we see in the Bible. And there's really two kinds of tongues or there's two categories that I would put them in. The first is a private or personal tongue or a personal prayer language. The second I would call a public tongue. So the first is private, the second is tongue. So let's talk about the personal prayer language first. We call this praying in the Spirit. but to God. Indeed, no one understands him. He utters mysteries of the spirit. I love that phrase, mysteries of the spirit means this, the secrets of heaven. Those that pray in the Holy Spirit are the ones that God will give his secrets to. Romans 826 says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes with groanings or tongues too deep for words. And when he searches the hearts, what is in the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. I love God's word. Watch this. When you pray in the spirit or tongues, you are praying the perfect will of God. I hear there's so many times people say, I don't know what to pray or I run out of things to pray or how do I know what the perfect will of God is every time you pray in the Holy Spirit. You are praying the perfect will of God. I'm going to give you a cool story. This is one of my favorite stories I've ever heard about speaking in tongues. We're in a church service. I wasn't preaching on tongues. I wasn't preaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit or even the gifts of the spirit, but I was preaching on the validity of God's word. So I'm going through from, from Plato and

Socrates. And I'm going through the evidence of the scripture. And I'm creating this awareness of the value of the word of God. And so I'm going through the scriptures. I'm going through science, archaeology. I'm doing all this stuff. We get to the end of the service. And I felt that I was supposed to, at the altar time, have people begin to declare their favorite scriptures from memory or the scripture that ministered the most to them, not opening the word, but from memory. What scriptures in your heart hide the word of God in your heart? So this was the altar time. Well, there was a visitor that came with one of our church members. They'd never been to our church before. And this visitor was very newly saved. I think the story is within a few weeks. So the visitor sitting in our chairs at that altar time, sitting in a seat in the third row, and he sits there. And when I say out loud, begin to say your favorite scripture from memory, this person was very discouraged. And this person said, I don't even know of any scriptures. He's sitting there thinking, I don't even know of one scripture. And in that moment, the Holy Spirit came on this guy. He was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. They came up to me afterwards and told me the story. I love this story. No one laid hands on him. No one had a word for him. There wasn't an altar call. There was just this random moment where this guy said, Lord, I want to know your word. And then all of a sudden, the gift of the spirits, the gift of speaking in tongues came upon him. And he started praying the perfect will of God. The prayer language is one of the most powerful parts of your relationship with God. Hear me today. I promise you, when you pray in the Holy Ghost, when you pray in your personal prayer language, you will spiritually grow. I pray in tongues every day. Majority of my prayer time is praying in tongues. Now, for those trolls online, they're like, you need to pray in your mind. I'm like, don't worry. I do that too. But when I pray in the Holy Ghost, it gives me things to pray about. All of a sudden ideas, things, people, concepts, revelations, direction comes when I pray in the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you more cool stuff about that later. So the first is your personal prayer language. The second is your public tongue or a public tongue. So what is a public tongue? Public tongues are words from God or tongues. Their spiritual coded language use to give words from God and needs understanding or interpretation. So I would say there's two kinds of publics tongues. The first is a word spoken in a new language. So we see this in Acts chapter 2. So in Acts chapter 2, they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. They begin to speak in new languages. And the Bible says that men started hearing their own languages or their own tongues. And they say, we're hearing them

tell us our own tongues, the mighty works of God. So very practically, this is what it is. It's when you're praying in a language, a spiritual language, that someone hears an actual different language in real time. Now remember, before the Tower of Babel, everyone spoke the same language. God confused the languages. And now there was many languages. So what the gift of tongues does is it allows you to pray in the spirit or speak in the spirit publicly. And someone else understands what you're saying when you're speaking a heavenly language or a heavenly tongue in their own natural language. I've seen an example of this happen in real life. altar ministry and there was somebody at the altar area praying in their prayer language at the altar area. Well, someone in Africa was watching the livestream, contacted their relative that was a friend of mine back in the United States. They said, "Hey, is there someone from this country in Africa at the conference?" And my friend's like, "I don't know why?" And they said, "Because they're saying in our perfect language, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord." Now, this person at a conference is a teenager praying in the Holy Ghost. He's not saying Jesus is Lord and some African dialect, but he's praying in his prayer language and someone in Africa is hearing Jesus is Lord and tells my friend back in America who tells me. That would be an example of how a public tongue is interpreted or is brought into someone else's language. The second time is a prophetic word in tongue. This requires an interpretation for understanding. Now, unfortunately, there's a lot of confusion in the body of Christ because most people jump straight to prophecy in tongues or prophetic tongues and they think all tongues have to do with prophetic tongues. They ignore the personal tongue. They also ignore the public tongue in a different language. So, this is important you understand. This is one part of this spiritual gift. 1 Corinthians 14 gives us context for this. It says this in verse 26, "What then shall I say, brother, when you come together, everyone has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or interpretation? All these must be done to build up the church." Verse 27 is important. If anyone speaks in tongues, two or most three should speak in turn and someone would interpret. But if there is no interpreter, that person should stay silent or not take primary public attention in the church and speak only to himself. Now, again, what the apostle Paul is saying is that you should not be standing up in church services speaking in tongues, bringing attention to yourself, disrupting services, and not have an interpretation. No one benefits from that. But there's a confusion around this because only a public word in tongues meant for an entire

congregation needs interpretation. You say, "Landon, what do you mean by this?" I mean this, that not all tongues need interpretation, only prophetic tongues. So, if there's a prophetic tongue, that's going to require an interpretation. I'll give you an example of this happening. One time in a service, Pastor Jasmine was praying in the Holy Ghost. She felt the spirit of God come on her. She started praying in the Holy Ghost. As she started praying, I started hearing in my spirit, loud in my spirit. I started hearing the nations are coming, the nations are coming, the nations are coming. And when she got done praying in the Holy Ghost, I went up to the congregation. I said, "As she prayed, this is what I heard." I believe that that was an interpretation of that moment, of that prophetic tongue. But just because people speak in tongues publicly, doesn't mean they're always public tongues. Because you could be in a corporate setting using your private language, not bringing attention on yourself, and that doesn't make it a tongue that needs interpretation. So, let me caution you, just because someone speaks in tongues with other people around doesn't mean it needs an interpretation. I mean, push deeper on this. Most people are lazy theologically. So, they hear something, they read the end of 1 Corinthians 14, and they're like, "Oh, you need interpretation. Don't speak in any tongues." That's not what the apostle was saying, because you forgot to read verse 6. 1 Corinthians 14, 6 is now, "Brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongue, how will you benefit?" Watch this. Unless I bring you a revelation, a knowledge, a prophecy, or a teaching. Guys, you can speak in tongues in public and allow the Holy Spirit to come and bring a fresh revelation. This is what I'm telling you. Most people do not wait long enough to get the revelation, the prophetic word, or the teaching. You say, "What are you saying, Landon?" I'm saying you can pray in the Holy Ghost in public settings. It's not prophecy in tongues, but you're waiting on the Holy Spirit to bring that fresh revelation. And some people are like, "Well, well, you didn't have an interpreter. It did come right in that second." Well, Scripture doesn't say it has to come in that second. There's so many times I've been in a church service, and I'll start to softly or slowly start praying in the Holy Spirit. I'll tell the congregation, "I'm not prophesying in tongues. This is my personal prayer language. As I pray in tongues or encourage the congregation to do it, all of a sudden I feel God speak. He leads. Prophetic things start happening in the room. Fresh revelation. New songs come out of the So some people never get fresh revelation, knowledge, prophecy, because they don't speak in tongues. Now I'm going to be honest with you. I love the gifts of the Spirit. I love my relationship with

the Holy Spirit. And I want to give you the reasons to speak in tongues in public and in private. Okay? So the first thing it does when you speak in tongues in public or private is it unifies believers. We see this in Acts 2 that there wasn't unity, okay? But there are gathered in one place, the Holy Spirit filled the room. Bam, unity comes. There is few things you can do in life that will unify you with believers like praying in the Holy Spirit together, husbands and wives, families, when you pray in the Holy Spirit. We do it all the time, just about every single week, multiple times a week in our staff, in meetings, opening up meetings, praying in the Holy Spirit because it unifies believers. Not only that, when you feel demonic resistance or heaviness or witchcraft, that's a great time to pray in the Holy Ghost. Ephesians 6, 18 says pray at all times in the Spirit with prayer and supplication. Every time you feel demonic resistance, it's a great time to pray in the Holy Spirit. Another great time is when you're waiting on direction. John 16, 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in truth. When you begin to pray in the Holy Spirit, you'll see direction. When I need wisdom or I need the mind of the Lord in a decision, I pray in the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2, 10 and 13 talks about God revealed these things through the Spirit. It's taught by the same Spirit, not the human wisdom or man's insight. When we pray in the Spirit and we worship in the Spirit. So a lot of people don't enter into new levels of worship because you don't engage the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 14, 15 says, I will pray with my Spirit, but I also pray with my mind. And it says this, I will sing in the Spirit and I also sing with my mind. John 4 says true worshipers will worship the Father, what, in Spirit and in truth. There's this beautiful thing that happens when the Holy Spirit in all of his gifts come into worship services and you sing in the Spirit. Not only that, it stirs up or strengthens yourself in the Lord, it strengthens your spirit, man. We see this in Jude 1 20 says, build yourself up in the most holy of faith by praying in the Spirit. Hear me today. There's few things that you can do in life that strengthens your spirit more than praying in the Spirit or speaking in tongues. 1 Corinthians 14, 4 says, the one who speaks in tongues, watch builds up himself. Guys, this will strengthen your spirit. And I said this before and I'll say it again, you are praying the perfect will of the Lord. Romans 8 26 says, the Spirit intercedes with us and groanings too deep for words. The Spirit intercedes according to the will of God. You are praying the perfect will of God. So at Mercy Culture, we will do this in services. And some people

are like, oh, you can't do that in services. I'm like, no, you can. We're not prophesying at all the time. Sometimes there's prophetic ministry, but sometimes we pray in tongues publicly. And then all of a sudden new revelations, new insights, new teachings, prophetic words come. Again, some people just don't wait long enough. Here's the strategy. Everything must be done in order. Now, remember in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, Paul says, all things should be done in decent order. Now, here's the wild part. Paul's bringing order to the church when he's writing in Corinthians. The church of Corinth was messed up. There's immorality. There was people out of order. There was false teaching. Paul's coming and bringing order to an explosive dynamic young church. And he's bringing spiritual order to it. So here's what we say at Mercy Culture. The best thing that you can do is give attention to God. The worst thing that you can do is put any attention that belongs to God on yourself. So if you start praying in tongues loud, when everybody is in a soft moment of worship, it's out of order. If you're trying to bring attention on yourself, whether it's through tongues or any language, it's out of order. You would be shut down. I've had people in our congregation be loud and obnoxious and try to bring attention on themselves. And from the platform, I check them and put them in their place. The reason why is we have a house of order. At the same time, I can say everybody in the room, "Hey, if you have a prayer language, then use your prayer language right now." No one's attaching or attracting attention to themselves. No one's trying to be seen or try to take the place or the attention of God. We're all seeking God together. So we could be in corporate settings, be using our personal prayer language and remain in order. Again, what makes it out of order is when from what God wants to do in that corporate setting. I'm gonna say this again. The goal is not to speak in tongues. The goal is for people to encounter God and spiritually grow. But when you have the gifts of the Spirit and you speak in tongues, you will spiritually grow. Now I wanna get even more spiritual. When I start looking back of my life and my journey of walking with the Lord

for a long time now, I see the most spiritual people I've ever met in my entire life. The ones that I wanna be like, the ones that walk in intimacy with the Lord, they speak in tongues and they speak in tongues a lot. It is not coincidental because when you speak in tongues, when you pray in the Spirit, you spiritually grow. So I wanna tell you where my theology of speaking in tongues was birth. I was on a prayer run years and years ago. I'm in a daily encounter and I asked the Lord a question. I said, "How do I hear from you?" And when I'm running praying this, all of a sudden I start having visions, spiritual daydreams and they're flashing. And I see myself as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, I see these moments of me in random churches, in men's five a.m. prayer. He's random times praying in the Holy Spirit and then the next thing is he speaks to me, praying in the Holy Spirit and he speaks to me. And I realized that all of these times that I heard God after I spoke in tongues, I'm gonna be very clear. I'm not talking about in the moment, I'm saying I would pray in the Holy Ghost and then the thing that I would be asking the Lord, he would speak to me.

So I wanna tell you the three main reasons why I love praying in the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues and I just gave you the first one because I hear God when I pray in the Spirit. John 16, again, Jesus said, "I have many things to tell you." And when the Spirit of truth comes, the Holy Spirit, he's gonna guide you in truth. He says this, "He will speak and he will declare to you the things that will come." The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus and he's the one that speaks to our spirit. And when we pray in the Spirit, our spirit becomes sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit. This is how and why I became so intentional with praying in the Holy Spirit when I realized, "Oh, I hear God more when I do this." Again, the goal is not to pray in tongues. I talk to people all the time and they think the epitome of spirituality is praying in tongues. It is not, okay? This is not like a bucket list for your spiritual journey. Like when I was 18 and I went skydiving, you're like, "Oh, I did it once." No, the goal's not to be trapped in a back room on a Wednesday night and you blubber out some shit about a hindus. That's not the goal, okay? The goal is you develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit and part of it is this prayer language

that does all of these amazing things. So I wanna encourage you, when you do pray in tongues, when you pray in the Spirit, God will speak to you and you will hear him more clearly. Number two, I experience deliverance when I pray in the Holy Spirit. I love deliverance. And remember, deliverance is not your bad. Deliverance is God good. It's not that you have so many issues. It's when God comes down and he lifts whatever's heavy on you, whatever's a burden on you, whatever's attacking you from anxiety, depression, fear. When that thing lifts off you, that is what deliverance is. And again, I found this out through my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you the story. Years ago, I get a phone call late at night from a young man that I mentor and I know if I'm getting a call that late at night, it's important. So I answer the call and this young man happened to struggle with same-sex attraction. And he said to me, you know, Patrick Lane, I'm just so frustrated, I thought it was delivered and temptations are coming back. And he was just so discouraged. And I said to him, when was the last time you prayed in the Holy Spirit? And he started humming and on.

I was like, ah, I don't know it. And I found a lot of people praying in the Holy Spirit about as much as they floss. Like, you know, when you go to the dentist and the dentist is like, you flossing every day, you're like, ah, not every day. And again, this can't be a one-time thing you do at one time. This is a part of you building yourself up. So watch this young man is finding himself being hit with temptation. He's finding himself getting weaker and weaker. And so I asked him, when was the last time you prayed in the Spirit? He's like, I don't remember. I was like, let's do it now. So I'm a state away. I'm praying in the Holy Spirit on the phone. He's praying in the Holy Spirit on the phone. All of a sudden, I feel the Holy Spirit come into the room. I feel the tangible presence of God, goosebumps. I feel the peace of God come on me. I was like, whoa, whoa, do you feel that? He said, yes. I said, where's your temptation? He said, it's gone. I have used this strategy in my own life and it doesn't matter if it's same. you. Listen to me today.

Look at me in the face. I have never once been attacked by the enemy, felt demonic activity witchcraft, prayed in the Holy Spirit for a portion of time and not have it lift. I mean it has happened every time and if I'm honest with you guys, I feel witchcraft a lot. I get attacked a lot. I feel demonic tension around me a lot. When people ask me all the time, like how do you carry the weight? How do you carry the load of mercy, culture and all the growth and all this stuff? How do you do it? I pray in spirit a lot. I go into daily encounters and majority of my daily encounter after I read the word is praying in the Holy Spirit and that is what has kept me strong. It's what has guided me. He speaks to me. I don't know where I would be. I don't know how I would have survived the demonic onslaught on my life if I did not use this beautiful gift. It shifts the atmosphere when the Holy Spirit comes. That's why at Mercy culture, we say fear go, Holy Spirit come. When you are praying in the Holy Spirit, you are welcoming the Holy Spirit when you are praying, praying the perfect will of God. God, I can't stress this enough. It is a game changer to your spiritual growth. When you pray in the Holy Spirit or tongues, the presence of God comes. This is why the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 and 18, I thank God that I spoke speaking tongues more than you all. So many people don't read that verse when they are bringing order or reading the scripture where Paul is bringing order. Paul says, I speak in tongues more than you all.

Who in the New Testament was persecuted in prison was beat more than Paul. He suffered so much and that's why he said, I speak in tongues more than you all because he understood the power of it, which leads me to my third point and I've said this multiple times, but it's my third favorite thing, reason why I pray in the Holy Spirit is I get spiritually stronger and you will get spiritually stronger. Jude 1, 20, we quote this every time in Mercy culture publicly, anyone starts publicly praying in the spirit or speaking tongues. It says you're building yourselves up in the most holy of faith by praying in the spirit. For Corinthians 14, four, those that speak in tongues edifies themselves. Build up yourself guys, when you pray in the Holy Spirit, you will spiritually grow. So now you need to stop. You need to pause and like, Oh, and I hear God, I experienced deliverance. I spiritually grow. If there's all of these benefits to speaking in tongues and praying the spirit, why is there so much resistance towards it? It is the most resisted gift in the church. No one has a problem with wisdom. No one has a problem with knowledge. Okay? No one has a problem with faith, but all of a sudden you start talking about tongues or I don't know if it's for today. I'm not sure if it's still a gift. Here's what I started realizing later in life. There is a demonic a strategy against speaking in tongues. Watch this. If you were the devil, if you were the enemy of God, would you want the people of God to hear God, to experience deliverance and to get stronger daily? Of course you would not. You wouldn't want to. And the reason why you wouldn't want to is because then the church is going to beat

you and the enemy knows that if the church gets filled with the Holy Spirit and starts walking in the gifts of the spirit that he cannot stop the people of God. So you need to understand this more than your deconstruction friends, more than your anti-holy spirit friends, no one hates the gifts of the spirit more than the devil. Why does he hate him? Because it unifies the church because it brings power to your life because you hear God because you become bold like Peter and the disciples when the gifts of the spirit come on you. No one hates the gifts of the spirit more than Satan. And if Satan hates it, you need to realize why because it's a gift that God has for you. I want to warn you right now. Watch out for demonic false teachings that resist the gifts of the spirit and speaking in tongues. There are some groups that don't even believe the gifts are today or no longer in operation or stop with the apostles or all sorts of weird theologies that are not biblical. Hear me today. There is nowhere in the scripture, not one place that say the gifts came to an end with the apostles, not one. First Corinthians 13, 8 is where they talk about this. And when they talk about some prophecies they will cease when they're tongues, they'll be restrained, where there's knowledge, you'll be dismissed. It goes on in verse 10 to say, "But when the perfect comes, the partial pass away." Well, the perfect is Jesus and he's coming back. He has not come back again yet. So Jesus says, listen, it makes sense theologically. So Jesus says, wait for the gifts and then he leaves and then after he leaves, then the gifts go away, that makes zero sense theologically. He said, I'm going to leave, I'm going to come back, but wait for this gift that I'm So as he leaves, he gives us the gift. And one day he's coming back for his church. That's why we need the gifts of the Holy Spirit

because according to scripture, Jesus is at the right hand of God waiting to return. But the Holy Spirit is the presence of God that is living with us. So the same way the disciples walked and talked with Jesus is the same way we walk and talk with the Holy Spirit. So again, that scripture in 1 Corinthians 13, wisdom hasn't ceased, okay? The other gifts hasn't ceased. So it's just a bad theology to say, well, tongues did. So I'm gonna tell you again, the gifts of the Spirit are for today. But the same religious community that resisted Jesus when Jesus walked the earth is the same spirit of religion that resists the Holy Spirit. You must recognize this. Religious people hated Jesus and religious people hate the Holy Spirit. And they hate the move of the Holy Spirit. So I'm gonna warn you, you have to be careful that you do not reject or resist the spirit of Jesus whenever he comes or moves in a form that you may not recognize. I'll give you an example. If someone came and gave you a gift and you would reject the gift or deny the gift, you would hurt the feelings of the person that gave the gift. And if Jesus says, I have a gift for you, but you reject the gift that Jesus gives, you are going to hurt your relationship with Jesus.

I'll say it like this. Why would you not want a gift from Jesus? And Jesus says, I have a gift I wanna give you. What theology would you come up with that you would not want a gift that Jesus has for you? So I want you to take the word gift off that for a second and just put Holy Spirit. Why wouldn't you want the Holy Spirit? Why wouldn't you want the spirit of Jesus? Why wouldn't you want the spirit of God? What you are saying when you're saying, the gifts aren't from me, tongues are not from me, is you are saying, I don't want relationship with God. Now, I know that's not what you mean to say, but when you reject the gifts, you are rejecting the gift givers. And if you want the gift of tongues or any spiritual gift, it's really easy. You just gotta ask the Lord for it. Some of you would say, well, I've already asked before and it hasn't worked, that's okay, keep asking. Matthew seven says, if your earthly father gives good gifts, how much more would your heavenly father give? I love the story of the woman who was petitioning Jesus and he said, you know, don't bother me right now. I don't come to bring the dogs food. And she responds and says, even dogs get the crumb for the table. Jesus was saying, I came for the children of Israel and her faith or her petition

begin to move the heart of God. I wanna let you know, when you begin to ask God for this gift, he is a good father and he will generously give it to you because he loves giving gifts. Okay, I'm gonna tell you a true story. It's kind of wild. Some of you might think it's weird, but it's true. And it's the story of my daughter being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now, it's kind of funny saying this and I'm not one of those weird dads that let their kids drown the world. You could swim and they really can't swim. So I'm telling you the truth. It was a late night, 930 at night, we're driving home. Her grandparents are driving the car. I'm in the back with her. She's two years old, she's in a car seat and she was fussy. And because she was fussy, I did what all good dads do. I gave her my phone. And I turned on the song, "Fill Me Up" by Jesus Culture. And at two years old, she started singing that song, "Fill Me Up, God, Fill Me Up, Fill Me Up." And I noticed when we're driving home, I said, "Lord, your daughter's asking you to fill her up." And I'm telling you the truth. She's right next to me. I put my hand like this and I said, "Lord, your daughter's asking you to fill her up.

Would you fill her up?" About 10 seconds later, she starts praying in the spirit. I'm telling you, it was not English and it wasn't baby talk. She starts praying in a heavenly language. And then all of a sudden she stops and she goes, "I pray for my mama, I pray for my daddy, I pray for my meanie, I pray for my papa." She starts interceding for her family at two years old. Now my theology is being messed with. 'Cause I'm like, "Whoa, two year olds can't do this." And she didn't even give her life to the Lord yet. Like how does this even work? And then all of a sudden I remember John the Baptist in his mother's womb. Elizabeth walks in the room of Mary, the spirit of the Lord comes on the womb. John's filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb and leaps in Elizabeth's tummy. I was like, "Whoa, if this could happen to John the Baptist in the womb, it could surely happen to my two-year-old daughter and it can surely happen to a 20-year-old, a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old, six-year-old. It doesn't matter your age. The Lord is no respecter of person. he can do it in your life. So let's recap. Tongues is a gift of God that he wants to give every person. When you pray in the Holy Spirit, you will spiritually grow.

The goal of tongues is to encounter God. It's to hear him clearly, to obey him and walk in his power. Don't resist the Holy Spirit in the gifts he wants to give you. And if you want to spiritually grow, guys pray in the Holy Spirit today, I want to pray for you. And I'm going to pray for all of those that want this gift. I'm going to encourage you right now, wherever you are, begin to ask the Holy Spirit to give it to you. And some of you would say, I asked before, let me pastor you, let me lead you, let me help you. Ask over and over, ask over and over. And here's what I encourage you to do. Until the gift comes and you begin to pray in the Holy Spirit or pray in a tongue, just tell him how holy he is. Just tell him how much you love him. And use those words, I love you, I love you, I love you. You're holy, you're holy, you're holy, until the Holy Spirit begins to give you that heavenly language. So wherever you are, I want to pray for you. And I want to let you know, there's an anointing on Mercy Culture and on this house for this. I have seen, I don't exaggerate, but I mean the tens of thousands of people baptized in the Holy Spirit across the nation. One youth conference I was at, and there's 800 students in one moment received the baptism of the Holy Spirit from services to prayer meetings to staff meetings. I'm telling you, people in our parking lot, people randomly come in our church, by themselves, walk in the sink so we get baptized in the Holy Spirit. No one lays hands on them, no one prays for them.

It happens all the time, because it's something that we value here. And I want to pray that that beautiful gift that's on this house comes to your house. And so if you desire to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, if you desire your heavenly language, your prayer language, then I want you to posture your heart to receive. So wherever you are, just close your eyes. If you need to pull over, if you need to pause the work, whatever you need to do, and I want you to concentrate, focus on the Lord. And here's what I want you to do, is I just want you to tell God how much you love him. Just tell him a few times, Lord, we love you, I love you, I love you so much. Tell him you're holy, you're holy, you're holy. Now I want you to ask him with the same faith that you put in Jesus to be saved, with that same faith, ask Jesus for the gift. Ask the Holy Spirit right now, would you fill me? I love praying this, Jesus, you said, you would give the Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, I invite you to come, fill me, baptized me in the Holy Spirit. Give me that your spiritual language. Give me the gift of speaking in tongues. Personal, private, and public. I want everything that you have for me. So Lord, I pray right now in Jesus' name, that same beautiful spirit, that Holy Spirit,

that has baptized thousands of people, I pray right now that you would come right now and meet everyone who's watching. Lord, those that have resistance in their hearts, I pray right now in Jesus' name, that that would leave. Lord, any agreements that they've made with bad doctrine or demons, that this gift isn't for them. Lord, we repent and we rebuke it. And Lord, we say today, we want everything that you have for us. So Lord, I pray like you did me at 12, my daughter at two, and so many others, I pray that you would baptize my friends with the Holy Spirit. I pray you would give them the gifts of this spirit and the gift of speaking in tongues. We receive it by faith now in Jesus' name. Now wherever you are, just breathe in the presence of God and then see what happens. There is one way to God and it's through Jesus. But in Jesus, there are many ways to connect with him. You can commune with him while creating, denying your flesh and feeding your spirit, ministering to his heart through adoration, meditating on his scripture, getting alone to be with him, meeting him in creation. Asking him questions and listening for his response, learning something new about him, moving into an encounter with him, making the crooked wave straight,

serving his people and remembering what he has done. Your daily personal encounters with God change everything. Discover how you connect with God, text and counter to 590-90 to take your assessment today. - Let me give you some practical advice. I have six things for you today. Number one, try to identify the lie or the false teaching that you've partnered with that has caused you to reject any of God's gift and give you the gift. Number two, when you hear or see other people praying in the Spirit, ask the Lord for the gift and then ask them to pray for you. It's amazing what happens when you humble yourself, you partner with people in prayer, and just like Acts 2, the Spirit of God moves in unity. Number three, pray in the Holy Spirit every day. I would encourage you, this is not to do when you're at church, this is not to do a few times a year. Use this as a part of your time with the Lord, your daily encounter every single day. Spend time praying in the Holy Spirit. Number four, pray in tongues as a family, especially in front of your kids. Now in my household, I have one child that's been baptized in the Holy Spirit, two that haven't, and we're always praying for them. We're praying in the Holy Spirit in front of them. We're asking them, hey, you want to ask the Holy Spirit, and we're just patient. So even though I had one daughter get it really, really young, I have two sons that haven't had it yet, but I know the same way that they had faith for salvation, they'll have faith for the gifts, and there'll be a moment while they're encounter the presence of God. So pray in front of your kids when you're praying the Holy Spirit. Number five, listen to the song by Mercy Culture Worship, Fire of the Holy Ghost. In this song, Pastor Ross Raines tells the story about how he received the baptism the Holy Spirit in a back room when him and I were just talking about the Holy Spirit. It was a really cool story. He was saying Holy Spirit without saying the word Holy Spirit, and I was like, bro, are you spirit filled? He's like, I think so. I said, do you speak in tongues? He goes, no. He said, I actually had a really bad experience, and it was awful at a church, and it kind of turned me off from it. I said, I think God wants to give you the gift. I was like, we pray together. Close your eyes. Power of the Holy Spirit came in the room. He gets baptized

the Holy Spirit. He talks about it in that song. I can't listen to that song. I think it's like, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes long song. It's awesome. I can't listen to that song without literally getting goosebumps during the song at different points, because I feel the presence of God. Listen to that song on a regular basis. See what God does, and Ross invites you to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit like he did, and it's a powerful time in the presence of God. It may do something special in your life. Number six, while waiting on the gift, love on God. We kind of did this at the end of my teaching when we started praying, but don't sit there and not say anything. The Holy Spirit doesn't come on you and move your mouth and move your tongue, and you can't control yourself. Sometimes it's the flood of just the spirit of God that falls on you, but other times it's an engagement. I'd put it like this, when Jesus was walking on the water, Peter got out and started walking on the water, and the miracle took place when Peter activated his faith and took action. So when you're loving on God, you're already activating your faith for that moment, for that gift to come into action. Asking questions are a great way to spiritually grow. First question, can you be baptized in the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues? Another way to say that is tongues the only proof of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, there's a little bit of semantics there, and there's differences between being baptized in the Holy Spirit and filled with the Holy Spirit. So there's a difference here. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is when the Spirit of God immerses you, just like you and your baptized in the water and you go under the water and are immersed. That's when the spiritual gifts come upon you and become activated. So I would say the proof or evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit is the gifts in operation and the gift of speaking in tongues. We saw that in Acts chapter two, but I would also say it is not the only evidence in Acts chapter four. You see the apostles boldly preaching and the greatest evidence is really the fruit of the Spirit. So there's some people that are so focused on speaking in tongues, but they also speak in the tongue of the devil because they lie in gossip. So the goal is the relationship with the Holy Spirit in desiring the spiritual gifts. Your Christ-likeness, your fruit of the Spirit is the greatest evidence, but yes, when you speak in tongues, it is an initial evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Next question, are there demonic tongues? Yes, it's called gossip, lying slander. It's amazing how many people speak in tongues of demons and don't realize it and call themselves Christians.

Now, in Scripture, is there any form of demonic tongues like speaking in tongues? I've never seen that in Scripture, but I've seen deceptive counterfeits to things that God does. We see this in 2 Thessalonians 2, 9 where Satan produces false signs and wonders. Revelation 16, unclean spirits, perform signs and deceive. Acts 16, there was a girl with a spirit divination that had We also see false prophets, false spirits from 1 John 4, Matthew 7, we see this. So there are many biblical references to demonic counterfeits, but I haven't seen anything in the scripture that is a demonic language like speaking in tongues. People have these YouTube videos of Kalundi or Lundi or I don't know what they're called this, these random things and they try to say that and speaking in tongues are all demonic and that's just bad theology from lazy people that don't know the Holy Spirit. So what you need to know is this, is the enemy is always trying to create counterfeits and distractions to what God is doing. Focus on what God is doing in your relationship with the Holy Spirit and you'll have the discernment from what's not from God. Next question, what's the difference between tongues of men and tongues of angels? Well, you're referencing 1 Corinthians chapter 13 where it says that by speaking tongues of men and of angels, well, the tongues of men is our language and the tongue of angels is a heavenly language and I'd put that in the speaking in tongues category, whether private or public. So those are the difference. One is our natural language, angels is your heavenly language. Next question, what's the difference between speaking in tongues and singing in tongues? I love this question. I do think it's funny that people argue about speaking in tongues in services and there always demand you need an interpreter in all occasions, but the apostle Paul talks about singing in the spirit with no interpretation. It's kind of like where women can't preach inside the church, but they can preach outside the church. It's like that COVID where you couldn't eat inside unless it was a tent outside and then it was inside again.

There's all these weird, confusing things that people make up. So here's the difference. Singing in the spirit is the worship expression of what praying in the spirit is in prayer. So both flow from the same gift, but one directs towards intercession while the other magnifies God in worship. We see in Ephesians chapter 5, 18 and 19 where it says, "Be filled with the spirit and they're addressing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual song, singing and making melodies of the Lord in your heart." So singing in the spirit is a worship expression. Praying in the spirit is focused on prayer, intercession, and edification while singing in the spirit would be worship, adoration, and glorification. Next question, why do I sometimes think that I'm making it up? Because the devil is really good at his job and he is always trying to tell people they're making it up. You pretended it. I want you to think about how dumb this is for a second, okay? Like a grown adult would go into a church service and make up a little language like a kid and then leave the service and do all of that just to make it up and do it on its own, okay? It's when you really think it through, it's pretty ridiculous. But if you were the devil, how would you talk people out of not stewarding the experience that you had when you got baptized in the Holy Spirit? Ah, I know. He would tell every one of us because there's not one person at some point in time that has not thought the thought, "I'm making this up." So let me ask you this. Do you think God is telling you, "Oh, you just made that up." Do you think that's him like grieved in correcting you or do you think you encountered God, you went out in faith, you partnered with the Holy Spirit, something beautiful and spiritual happen and the enemy always comes to take the seeds, steal the seeds of faith that happen

in your life and he's trying to check what kind of ground or foundation do you have? Can he steal the seeds that God sowed in that moment? So yes, if you're the enemy, that is what you do. You tell everyone who speaks in tongues, you just made that up. Final question, why didn't Jesus speak in tongues? This is a great question and I love just the thought behind it and whoever asked this. The reason why Jesus didn't speak in tongues is because he's God. So he's all man and all God. He didn't need to edify himself. He didn't need to build up his spirit. He didn't need to partner with the Spirit of God to pray the perfect prayers of God. He was the perfect son, the spotless lamb. He was the sacrificial lamb. He was the second Adam. He didn't need that gift in order to accomplish the assignment that he came to earth to do. So he didn't need to speak in tongues because he was God. At Mercy Culture Spiritual Leadership School, we recognize that leaders are everywhere but spiritual leaders are developed. Spiritual leaders walk with God and know his voice. The heart of our school is to raise up reformers who were able to spiritually lead in any room they walk into. We do this through encounters, teaching and impartation, service, equipping and activation. You can attend SLS in person or online. If you'd like more information, text SLS to 590-90. or you can follow me at @landinashot. And if you value this content, I would really appreciate it if you'd share it with a friend. I'm Landin, thank you for joining me on Spiritual Leadership where we're helping leaders become spiritual leaders. (dramatic music)