Spiritual Gifts- Tongues and Prophecy
Spiritual Gifts Series
CCCAG, 6-27-21
Scripture: 1 Cor 14:1-5
One quick note- I will have a Q&A session when we are done.
After about five years of being a full-time paramedic I had a series of pretty bad calls that started to take some of the joy out of my chosen profession. I used to love going to work. I looked forward to drive into Lake Geneva and running on a primary 911 ambulance.
The downside of doing that is you see some pretty horrific things, and no matter how strong you are or resilient you are it starts to affect you after a while.
I was in that kind of spot when I heard about a job for paramedics with leadership experience. This had no clinical work involved with it. Instead, it was being a supervisor at a medical call center. The pay and benefits were much better, and Tammie didn't have to worry about the dangers I faced on the ambulance.
I applied, and got the job. About four months into me working there the call center director was replaced by a man named Dave. Dave was a very charismatic and gifted leader and would have us all come to his office once a week for leadership seminars to make us better at our jobs.
One of the books he had us read was a leadership book called “Gung Ho, How to motivate the employees in any line of work”
The book told the story of a failing plant manager who was befriended by one of the employees who was Native American named Andy.
Andy told her stories that he grew up with and used them to teach her leadership. One of the leadership lessons he taught was called the “Gift of the Goose”.
One spring morning they were taken advantage of the nice weather and walking outside during their break and a flock of geese flew over the factory. Andy looked up and started to explain why geese flew in formation and turned it into a lesson on leadership.
Here are 5 things you may not have known about geese that you can apply to leadership.
1. The lead goose does most of the work, and bears the heaviest burden when it comes to how much and how hard they have to flap their wings. Because of his or her hard work, he followers of the leader only have to do about ¼ to ½ of the flapping as the leaders does because the leader is generating the slipstream they all are riding on.
2. The lead Goose does not honk- his followers honk to encourage him to keep going.
3. Stay in formation- when you try to go it on your own, you loose all that work your leader did for you. Think of it like walking though a jungle, and the person in the lead is swinging a machete to clear a path. That’s what the lead goose is doing for the other geese, but you have to stay behind him to benefit from his hard work.
4. Leave no goose behind- when a goose gets hurt or tired and falls out of formation, several other geese will fall out with it until it can recover enough to rejoin a flock
5. Rotate- the leader doesn’t always stay the leader, but rotates back and lets someone else carry the burden of the flock for awhile. All the geese in the formation have the responsibility of leading the flock sooner or later.
You're probably thinking at this point, “what in the world does this have to do with spiritual gifts?”
I'm glad you asked.
God has given us spiritual gifts for our encouragement, or growth, our edification, and even our protection. Having these spiritual gifts at your disposal makes you the spiritual leader when you are out in the world interacting with those who do not know Jesus. They are given as much for other’s benefit as they are for your own.
Today we will look at the speaking gifts in the church. You can think of the speaking gifts as the gift of the Goose for the modern church- something that brings encouragement to everyone.
This morning we'll be looking mostly at the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and of prophecy.
Let's read
1 Cor 14:1-5
14 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. 2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. 3 But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5 I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.
NIV
Prayer
Premise- As the pastor, I haven’t spent lot of time talking about these types of things since I’ve been here, at least not on Sunday morning. Instead I have focused more on apologetics and giving a basis for why we believe.
So my goal this morning is to bring both a biblical and historical teaching about Spiritual gifts, focusing on the speaking gifts. These include speaking in tongues and prophecy.
Before we get into the specifics of these two things, Paul opens up with this statement-
I. Vs 1- Follow the Way of Love-
It is no mistake that the Holy Spirit guided Paul to put the words of 1st Corinthians 13 right in between teaching about spiritual gifts.
God understands the heart of man. God knew that as he started handing out the supernatural power seen in the spiritual gifts that some may get the wrong idea, and think they are getting them because they project some sort of greater spirituality then someone else.
That's why he opens up with saying follow the way of love before he starts teaching about the speaking gifts in particular. God knew that these would be the gifts that would cause the greatest amounts of controversy and even the greatest amount of abuse and misuse in the church.
1 Cor 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Follow the way of love. These gifts are given to you by God to hold in trust to use for HIS Kingdom here on earth.
Have you ever borrowed something to someone, and you were unsure if you’d get it back in the same condition?
I imagine Paul when he was writing this was like many of us when we handed the car keys to our teenagers for the first time. I don't think there are many of us that were completely sure that they weren't immediately going to drive off and accelerate to 100 miles an hour just for the thrill.
I say this becausse I've read and reread and reread again these passages it's seems like that's how Paul is explaining these spiritual gifts. After all the church is only a few years old. It’s only been maybe 10 or 15 years since the death of Christ and already these gifts were being abused. That’s why Paul is writing this letter to the church in Cornith- to give instruction on the reason, use, and meaning behind the spiritual gifts.
That is why he is anchoring these speaking gifts in the highest of all Christian ideals- agape love. The same love that Jesus showed us when He went to the cross to die for us.
I want you to have that in the back of your mind as we look at the gifts of speaking in tongues and prophecy.
II. Teaching about tongues
Let’s cover speaking in tongues first. The phenomenon known as speaking in tongues was widely seen in the early church, but for some reason seemed to die out rather quickly in the early church, probably as a result of intense persecution and the scattering of Christians throughout the Roman Empire.
After about 321 AD, there have always been small pockets of believers throughout history that used this gift, but they were relegated to a cult status by the Roman Catholic church.
That is, until 1901. A minister named Charles Parham was running a bible school in Topeka Kansas that prepared people for the ministry. He assigned his students to prepare a presentation on what the gift of speaking in tongues meant since it was no longer seen among Christians.
They gave their presentation on New Years Eve before the prayer service, and then went into prayer about this gift. A student named Agnes Ozman was being prayed for when suddenly she began to cry out in a language no one had ever heard, and just as suddenly the weighty presence of God entered the room.
This is the spark that led to the Azuza Street outpouring in Los Angles, that sparked the formation of the Assemblies of God.
So let’s define this gift-
Tongues is defined as an ecstatic utterance that is done while under periods of spiritual intensity that may or may not represent a known human language.
In the bible, Paul defines it like this-
1 Cor 14:2
For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.
Therefore, the bible teaches us that tongues is more of a personal gift to the believer that will strengthen them spiritually, and later in chapter 14 Paul says it can also be a witness to the unbeliever that God is really among them.
If you want to know more about what the AG believes, you can go to their website. We have 16 Fundamental Truths. They are our statement of belief and deal with everything from the deity of Jesus, to the cross, to the bible, and so on.
The 7th and 8th statements deal with speaking in tongues.
So that's the history.
Why is this gift important for us today and is it something we should eagerly desire as Paul says?
Let me ask you this-Have you ever been in a situation where you don't know what the right thing to say is?
Men, we are really bad at this sometimes where we say the wrong thing in the wrong situation trying to help.
And all the women in the church said, “Amen!”
What about prayer? Have you ever just not known how or what to pray?
Have you ever been so overwhelmed, so depressed, or in such a pit of despair that you can't even begin to form words to describe how you feel to God?
This is what the function of what speaking in tongues is all about.
It’s really the fulfillment of this truth seen in Romans-
Rom 8:26-27 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
The gift of tongues helps us in our weakness.
It also builds us up
Jude 20 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.
Praying in the Holy Spirit has always been fairly synonymous with praying in tongues. There is an intimacy with God that comes with this kind of connection with HIM.
At our first church, there were many times I wanted to resign as interim or associate pastor because of all of the drama that was happening there. I remember a few times, I took my church keys and my credential card and laid it upon the altar and wept and begged God to release me because I didn’t want to do it anymore.
But then the Spirit came, and those groanings and words came that I had no idea what they meant, but I felt the overwhelming presence of God refill me, reanoint me, and refresh me enough to pick up the card and the key again and fulfill the ministry HE called me to.
The same power is available to everyone who calls Jesus LORD. You just need to seek him and ask him for it.
The second spoken gift is the gift of prophecy. While the gift of tongues is for you, the gift of prophecy is for the church.
Just to review there are two forms of prophecy.
The first form of prophecy is the fore telling prophecy. That's God showing us what is going to happen in the future and sending that word through someone in the church.
This type of prophecy can still happen today but I believe it is rather rare because we have the entire council of God here in the Bible and he wants us to live by faith and not by knowing every detail that is coming at us.
The second type of prophecy is forth telling prophecy. This type of prophecy is speaking to something that is happening in the present that God wants us to know about or to correct in our own lives. This is very closely tied in with the spiritual gift of words of knowledge. The difference between the two is words of knowledge are meant to be a personal thing between you and God while prophecy is meant to be shared with other believers in the church.
Let me give you an example. Let's say someone comes up to the altar to be prayed for and said that it is an unspoken prayer request because it's very personal to them or maybe they're very ashamed of it.
Let's say it's a person struggling with pornography. I start to pray and the Holy Spirit reveals to me what the unspoken prayer is so that I can pray with knowledge. That doesn't mean I'm going to loudly rebuke the person there at the altar or say it even out loud but it does give me some insight into what they are struggling with and how to help them in the future. That kind of prayer with knowledge can give great comfort for the person being prayed for as they will know that God sees what they are going through, and is willing to help.
Another example of this, is I generally will almost always know when someone is lying to me because the Holy Spirit will tell me so. That’s also part of the spiritual gift of discernment. That doesn't mean I'm going to call them out on it every time, but it does give me again some insight into how to pray for them and how to minister to them.
That is what a word of knowledge is- a supernaturally revealed truth to the believer that is really meant for them and them alone.
Forth telling prophecy however is meant for the entire church to hear. It still could be about only one person, but what will happen to that one person will affect the entire body.
Here is an example from scripture:
In Acts 21, Paul arrives in Caesarea and is staying with Phillip the Evangelist:
Acts 21:10-11
10 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'"
That’s an example of forthtelling prophecy. God speaking directly to a situation that could affect the entire church.
These days, it is most often used when the Holy Spirit needs to speak to the church about direction, or prayer needs, or exposing something with in the body that needs to be dealt with.
That’s the teaching, now to answer some common questions about these two things-
III. Final Questions-
1. Is speaking in tongues required to be saved. No, while there are a few Pentecostal denominations that teach that, there is really no where in the scriptures that indicate that at all. 2nd work of grace.
2. Do we have to speak in tongues? No- it’s a gift given by God. I would encourage everyone to seek it. Paul said he wishes everyone had that gift because he knows how powerful it can be for you and your life. God wants you to operate spiritually at peak efficiency.
Just like if I bought you lawnmower, I’d encourage you to put premium gasoline in it- regular might work, but premium makes it run a lot better.
The same is true of the baptism in the Holy Spirit- you can run on regular Christianity- billions have done just fine with that, but if you have the power and presence of Almighty God running through you, it will be a lot easier.
3. Does God use prophecy to point out individual sin. Sometimes, but it is very rare.
(Doctor Broker Example)
4. Doesn’t all of this- supernatural gifts and especially speaking in tongues turn off unbelievers (in Christ not the gifts) who might witness it. Maybe, but most critics of Christianity are going to remain critics no matter what. For some honest seekers, it can have the opposite effect. The woman at the well is a prime example- Jesus using words of knowledge to prove to the woman who he was, and that she was worthy of God’s love.
Those are a couple of questions that I have been asked about concerning these types of things.
Does anyone else have any other questions? (Email).
Reminder- Dale Speaking next week. No Sunday School
