The following teaching is the tenth in the series, Empowered for Ministry, presented by the Rev. John W. Howe. The title is, Tongues and Interpretation, and the scripture reference is 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12. 

During the last part of the Lenten season, I was invited to participate in a teaching series that is conducted every Lent. every Lent. It has been for 69 years or something like that.

It's St. Paul's Richmond, and it's a very interesting and significant program, and it was a great honor for me to be part of that. You go down, and every day for a week, you participate in this noontime service, and it's really funny, the diversity of speakers that they'll have in the course of a Lenten season, but anyway, You come in and you do your thing, and then there's a luncheon every day during Lent. And I think it's about 200, 250 people that come to this luncheon.

And on one of the days, I came in and sat down, and this woman sort of came zipping across the room. She was just waiting to see where I was going to sit. Comes up and sits down next to me, and she says, I hear you're controversial.

What are you controversial about? It's part of my Lenten discipline. And so I didn't say anything.

And the man on the other side of her says, I hear that you're an evangelical charismatic Episcopalian. And I said, I don't even have any idea what in the world that means. Where did you hear that?

And he turns to the guy next to him. who was the assistant rector. He says, he told me.

So I said, well, why don't you tell us what you mean by that? And he turned about as red as Cheryl's sweater and stammered all over the place. He said, well, evangelical, Well, that means Bible-based and gospel-oriented.

I said, that sounds okay. And charismatic means interested in the Holy Spirit. And I said, well, you're that, aren't you?

Yes. I am an evangelical, charismatic, Catholic, Orthodox, Bible-believing, Episcopalian Christian. Don't you hate labels?

You know what we do with labels? We attach them so that we can dismiss people. You know?

We'll find a label. Now I can put you in that pigeonhole and I don't need to deal with you. labels are very destructive and very dangerous we come tonight in a series that we've been doing off and on for a number of weeks probably add up to months at this point we come to a subject which has divided Christendom in our generation and if there are labels to be thrown around labels like charismatic and evangelical this is the point at which those labels are thrown around What we've been studying, for those of you who haven't been here, is the gifts of the Spirit that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 as manifested, demonstrated, in the life of Jesus himself.

If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Isn't it for you? And it's interesting, the thesis all the way through has been that Jesus, though he was and is the Son of God, didn't operate primarily out of his divinity, which obviously would put him in a class by himself, but rather he operated out of the anointing of the Spirit.

And the point of that is, he said, it's for all of you. The heritage of the Holy Spirit is ours. We enter into the same anointing that was his.

And so what we've been doing is we've been looking at how Jesus ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit as a model, as an example for us. Now we come tonight to the end of the list. The last two that are mentioned, 1 Corinthians 12 and verse...

Where does it start? Verse 10. They start in the middle of a verse.

It's been talking about miracles, prophecy, the ability to distinguish between spirits to another various kinds of tongues and to another the interpretation of tongues. Tongues and the interpretation of tongues. And these two gifts that go together have been the most controversial manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our generation.

Those who are for them, it seems want to force them down everybody's throat. Those who are against them have called them demonic, psychotic. The early Pentecostals who rediscovered or discovered in a new way, in a way that had been largely, not entirely, but largely absent for a very long time and around 1900 began to rediscover some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The early Pentecostals promoted tongues as the indispensable sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit which says, if you don't speak in tongues, you have not been baptized in the Holy Spirit, which obviously divides all Christians into two categories, the Spirit baptized and the non. And those who didn't speak in tongues didn't take it all that well. In many, many cases, they literally tarred and feathered the Pentecostals and ran them out of town.

Literally tarred and feathered. What does the Scripture have to say about tongues and the interpretation of tongues? Well, interestingly enough, out of all the gifts that we've been looking at to this point, these two are the only two for which there is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus exercised them.

Okay? However, there's no evidence that he didn't. It's a moot point. So I cannot do anything along that line.

I cannot demonstrate to you how Jesus used this gift. All we can do is see what Scripture has to say about it. tongues are not as is so often said of them the least of the gifts it doesn't say that they do come last in the list it does say if you go on and read the passage carefully it does say that tongues when used by themselves don't edify anybody but the one who is speaking in tongues they have a private use when I if God gives me that gift and I use it in the privacy of my own worship of God it blesses me that's good but it's not as good as a gift which will bless somebody else as well as me so in that sense there is perhaps a lesser value to it but it goes on to say that when tongues are coupled with interpretation they take on the character of prophecy and that's the best of the gifts as we saw a few weeks ago the one chiefly to be desired and we saw the reason because prophecy blesses the greatest number at any single time.

So I want to say to you that this is not the be all and end all but neither is it some unimportant gift. It is a gift which blesses the individual and when coupled with a gift of interpretation becomes a vehicle of prophecy and thereby blesses the community very greatly. Now I know that for some of us I'm on very, very familiar ground.

And you could teach all this as well as I can, but my suspicion is that there are others among us right here tonight who for whatever reason have resisted or held back, have drawn a line and said, well, if God really wants to zap me with it, maybe, but I really don't want anything to do with that. I'm not going to ask for a show. I was tempted to ask for a show of hands.

I'm not going to do that. I want to say just a little bit about this. I believe that there are at least three reasons why tongues are a good gift.

What am I speaking about? In case you don't even know what I'm talking about. The ability to speak, to utter a language which you have never learned and do not understand.

An anointing from the Holy Spirit which comes upon me, which enables me to speak out of my mouth words that I have never studied, do not understand. That, to some people, sounds like gibberish. How can that be useful? What good is it?

I want to suggest at least three things. Number one, it's a vehicle of praise. I don't know about you, but I find that there are only half a dozen or maybe eight or ten words to praise God.

And after I've used them, I run out. I worship you. I magnify you.

I glorify you. I praise you. I adore you.

I love you. I exalt you. Did I already say that?

See, I've already run out. But just picture that God would give me an ability to praise God with an endless stream. It is not limited to English or whatever your native language might be.

That the praise of God can well up like a fountain inside of you so that you can go on praising Him and go on praising Him. It says in Psalm 22 that the Lord God of Israel is enthroned on the praises of His people. He likes it when we praise Him.

And I'd submit to you that the greatest cure for spiritual depression is praising God. When you least feel like it. If you are down in the dumps, just start praising God.

Do it as an act of the will. But keep doing it for a little while. And as you praise God, you know what happens.

First of all, your attention is lifted off of the problem onto Him. but secondly he fulfills what I've just quoted he fulfills his promise he is enthroned upon the praises of his people he comes in a special way to indwell that praise and to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to him and so it becomes a blessing to you as well as a blessing to God bless the Lord oh my soul what a strange thing to say that I could bless him but I can and it says bless the Lord oh my soul and let all that is within me praise his holy name and so I'm releasing at a level deeper than my understanding and deeper than the limits of my language praise that is a blessing to God and as I bless him he blesses me secondly in a very similar way I'm sure that if you've ever tried to pray seriously for someone who was seriously in need of prayer, you found yourself in a quandary. How to pray?

Anybody ever? Somebody who's desperately ill, how do you pray? Do you pray that they would know healing, or do you pray that they'd go to be with the Lord?

How do you pray? Somebody's in a terrible financial bind, a job problem, a problem with their kids. You know, the bottom line is you want it to all come out right, but how do you pray specifically?

Our understanding is limited and so our prayer is limited. Tongues becomes a vehicle of intercession. It's not limited to my understanding.

The Spirit of God prays in me, through me, and unlocks another channel. So that Paul says, I will pray with my mind, with my understanding, and I will pray with my spirit also. That I release my spirit so that the Holy Spirit can pray through my spirit in a way that's not limited by my understanding.

In Romans, it talks about the Spirit himself makes intercession. The Spirit who lives inside me makes intercession to the Father with groanings too deep to be uttered. Well, one way you could think of it is tongues is an utterance of that which is too deep for me to utter in my own language.

becomes a vehicle of intercession. And then thirdly, though, please hear this. I am not saying that tongues is a necessary prerequisite.

I am not saying it is a prerequisite. But my experience is that tongues tends to be, for most people, a kind of a learning area that sensitizes me to the Holy Spirit. And after I begin to move in the area of tongues, I move on to some other gifts as well.

So that I have known very, very few Christians. I have known some, but very few who have become highly gifted and used of God in the area of prophecy who didn't first speak in tongues. I think I know why.

I think because lots of us have had experiences where either one-on-one or in the midst of public worship, we had a sense, a prompting and urging that maybe I'm supposed to say this, maybe this is a prophecy from God, but I'm not sure. And so I hold back. I don't want to be wrong.

I don't want to make a mistake. You know what I'm talking about? And so as I begin to move in the area of tongues, I get sensitive.

This is how it feels. when the Spirit of God is moving through me. This is how it feels when it's the Spirit in contrast to just my own gut reaction.

It sensitizes me to the work of the Holy Spirit. I've known very, very few Christians who have been highly used of God in any of these other gifts, as a matter of fact, in speaking the word of wisdom, or the word of knowledge, or in moving in miracle-working faith, or in healing, or in any of these other gifts. I have known some.

but very few who haven't first been sensitized by allowing the Holy Spirit to take not possession but to take use of their tongue and to give them what is often called a prayer language often called a language of praise. And so I just want to commend that to you. If you're one who has resisted that it is a good gift.

God doesn't give any other kind. It's a good gift and it might have any or all of those uses in your experience and open up a whole other channel, a whole additional channel. Nothing wrong with your experience to date.

But there's another wavelength, another channel that God would like to bless you and allow you to become a channel of blessing to others. As I've already said, tongues linked with interpretation becomes a vehicle not just of my speaking to God, but of him speaking through me to others. So it becomes a two-way street.

And we had an example of that earlier in the meeting. Right at the beginning, if you were here, somebody had a tongue and then there was a lovely interpretation of that. And as you read 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, notice this thing, that it says he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the ability to interpret.

God wants that to move from the stage of private blessing, which is fine, to the stage of also being available to him for blessing others. So I commend it to you. Just this additional word.

It says that on the very first day of Pentecost, as they were waiting, Jesus had said, You shall be my witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth, but wait until the Holy Spirit has come upon you in power. You know, I'm pretty sure they didn't know exactly what they were waiting for. Nobody had ever experienced it before.

Not in that way. But Jesus had said, wait. And then the Holy Spirit came upon them in the sound of a mighty rushing wind.

That doesn't do it justice. Sound of a cataract. sound of a freight train roaring through a tunnel, sound of Niagara, mighty rushing wind, and sheets of fire then breaking up and distributing and lighting upon each head so that they became individually like the burning bush, aflame but not consumed.

And God spoke out of the bush. And God spoke out of the apostles. But what I want you to notice in Acts chapter 2 is, and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

They began to speak. The Holy Spirit was not treating them as marionettes, just kind of manipulating them. The Holy Spirit didn't take over and do this without their cooperation.

He did not force Himself upon them. The Holy Spirit gave them the ability to speak in a new way, but they opened their mouths. They began to speak.

And an awful lot of folks who get over the first barrier of saying, well, I'm not too sure I really want, you know, then have another. They say, okay, God, waiting to be zapped. And He really doesn't zap very much.

he's a gentleman and they began to speak now I suppose that you could resist this for a set of reasons or you could want this for a set of wrong reasons you know I gotta get that gift so that I can be one of the club you know or something like that no no but if your desire is that God would simply have all of you and be able to do in you and through you whatever he wants to do, then this may be a very important area. James says the tongue is an unrighteous world that we can tame the wildest animals and no man can tame his tongue. David says my tongue is my glory.

and there's something very special about yielding my tongue to someone else. If your motive is not one of, you know, pride and I want to be better than other people by having this great gift, but it's Lord, if you want me to have that, if that would be, if that would be a vehicle of blessing to you and of intercession to others and if indeed that would be a training ground me to open up another channel of my spiritual experience so that you could move even more freely in me then Lord I ask you to give me that gift I urge you to pray for it that way don't get hung up on whether or not that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit forget all that just ask him to give you the gift of tongues alright Lord my tongue is available to you would you come and fill my mouth with a new language and then begin to speak. Only not in English.

It's really just about that simple. Often folks find it very helpful to begin doing that in the midst of praising God in song, singing in the Spirit, and somehow the fact that lots of other folks are doing that around me is a tremendous encouragement. Try that if you've never tried it.

Often, it's very helpful to pray with somebody else and ask that person, would you lay hands on me? It's not a prerequisite. God does it in a million different ways, but often that's very helpful.

And if this is something that God is now putting on your heart, I'd urge you at the close of the service, come and pray with some of the folks who will be available here at the communion rail or in the transepts. We'd love to help you come into this. It's much more simple than some of you have made it up to this point.

I think I had right theology about this for years, but a wrong attitude. I could have given you exactly the teaching that I've just given you long before I ever experienced this. Because my attitude was wrong.

If God really wants to do that, he can do it, but I don't particularly want to help him. And I came to the point one afternoon in facing a situation in ministry in which I knew I was totally out of my element. Totally over my head.

I was up against some stuff that I could not possibly cope with. And I got down on my knees and I said, Lord, first I want you to forgive me for allowing my pride to stand in the way of what you may have wanted to do for years in me. And Lord, if it would help in this situation to be able to pray in tongues, then Lord, I give you my tongue and I ask you to give me that gift.

And Lord, if it would help to have a vision, Lord, I'm ready, give me a vision. If it would help to have any other of the gifts of your Spirit, then Lord, I want you to come in, in power, and do in me whatever you want to do. And I had the first vision of my life.

it wasn't very spectacular it wasn't even in technicolor it was just black and white and I got two words I really have never gotten all that much more than that just it's not I don't some people I mean Karen has volumes but I don't have all that much if I got enough the Lord gives me a little bit of tongues my attitude was wrong don't let your attitude get in the way of God's desire to bless you and to use you for blessing others let's bow our heads together I just want to praise you lift my hands and say you. You are everything to me. And I just want to praise your holy name.

Thank you Lord Jesus that you do not give other than good gifts. And if there are those among us who haven't for whatever reason haven't entered into this particular gift and if you would desire to give this gift to them I pray that this night would be the night and you'd open up a new area a new channel a new dimension come upon us send your spirit manifest yourself