Benefits of Speaking in Tongues
PART
Important: This note is from the teacher of Section 1.
The teaching that follows is from Section 2 and is a general teaching of the
topic but does get into specific benefits of this manifestation. It is important for you to understand the two
different teachings on a similar subject. I encourage you to first read, from Section
1, the teaching that is called The Benefits and
Purpose of True Worship. (
You can feed the body on physical food, but what can you feed the spirit? Now all of us who have been in these classes on power for abundant living know the answer. But are you really practicing that answer or are you still letting Satan talk you out of it time and time and time again?
As you can feed the physical body on physical food, there is only one way you can feed the spirit. You can’t feed the spirit of God within you mashed potatoes and gravy, soup, and apple butter and peanuts and cracker jacks. You can’t feed the spirit of God within you, the Bible, and every Protestant group that I know of who believes, or they call themselves conservative Biblical men and women, I believe that they all basically believe and teach that the Bible is the spirit food, or food for the spirit. It is not. The Bible is not spirit food, it is mind food. This is why a man can read the whole Bible, quote you verse after verse after verse and not believe one lousy bit of what’s written in it. We’ve seen them, haven’t we? We’ve heard them. This Word you can put in your mind, it doesn’t feed the spirit. When I’m talking about spirit, you know what I’m talking about. God in Christ in you, the hope of glory. What feeds that spirit? The Bible says the only thing that feeds that spirit is speaking in tongues in your private life. And isn’t it remarkable, that’s about the last thing we do in our Christian walk. Maybe, first of all because we didn’t know it was even available. And secondly, for most people who did know it was available, they believed that God was a respecter of persons and they were not good enough to get it. Or after they got it, Satan kept talking them out of it, saying, well you did it once, you can’t do it again.
And so we go along as emaciated Christians. We are spiritually defeated a lifetime and yet we are born again of God’s spirit and we can’t understand why. The answer is in the Word, and what the Word says happens to us, and what is accomplished within us when we operate what God says we must operate.
If I had received a letter - I said this publicly here about a year and a half or 2 years ago and it electrified the group because they were ready to receive it and understand it. I said to them in essence what I am saying to you again tonight. If the President of the United States had sent a letter to me today and if I would have that letter here to read to you tonight, I think some of our people would blow the buttons off of their shirts, the hooks and eyes of other things that ladies wear, and you would be so tickled to death that little old VP out at the Way Headquarters had heard from the leader of the people of the United States, the president, Mr. Richard Nixon.
We’d just get so blessed, I bet you would even go home and
tomorrow morning when you hit the shop, you’d say, “Man, do you know where I
was last night? I was at a place where a
simple little old preacher got a letter from the President of the
And yet tonight, you heard from somebody I can’t even compare with the President of the United States because that somebody we heard from tonight is the creator of the heavens and the earth if the Bible is right. And it is He who set the stars in their courses. It is He who set His Word above all His name. That’s why people, I get turned on with this ministry. Because there was such a period in my life that so many, many, many, many, many years that I never understood, I never knew any of these things. I never was able to have top man talk to me.
But boy when I once learned that God the creator of heaven
and earth could so live within a believer and if you properly operated the Word
of God that God would give you these things.
And you could hear directly from heaven, from Him who created the
heavens and earth, I get excited. The
rest of the world can sit cold as cucumbers or as frozen June bugs in
November. I don’t care. Boy, I get turned on. That’s right and why not. Why shouldn’t I get excited about being able
to communicate with someone a lot bigger than the president of these our
It’s really something, isn’t it? Boy, you see why we go through these things in the foundational class and our people begin to practice a little. But along comes Satan and he digs at us, and usually through our best friend or someone else or the environment or our social position or something. And boy, before you know it, we’re back living that life which is far below par and not manifesting the effulgent beauty and glory of all that blessed life of Christ within.
This is why, for you people born again of God spirit, who know how to speak in tongues, and the how is your job, what you speak is His job, the how is yours. And if you can talk English, or any other language that you know. If you can speak English and I know all of you can, then if your born again of God’s spirit, you can speak in tongues. Because the same mechanics are involved. And if, from all the cracks that we have heard through the years, you women ought to be out-speaking the man full time. It’s a trait that women would have to maintain else the jokes would all be gone. I sometimes think that the men talk more than the women, but I can’t say this and promote the joke.
He that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. -- I Corinthians 14: 4
When I eat a lot of mashed potatoes and gravy, I’m edified too. But I’m edified in the physical body. Now, when I speak in tongues, I am edified, but I can’t be edified in my physical body, because there is a law involved. Everything after its kind remember? Everything in its category. Things in the physical or senses realm must be known via the five senses. Things in the spiritual realm or spiritual things can only be known via the spirit. Now here in Corinthians he is talking to those who are born again of God’s spirit. And he says that when these people speak in tongues, they are edified. Although speaking in tongues cannot edify my physical body, it can’t edify my mind, therefore it can edify by sheer logic only one thing and that is spirit. That’s right. Because spirit can only speak to that which it is, spirit.
This is why when I speak in tongues in my private life, in my private walk with God, that’s when I grow up spiritually. And this is the thing we need so desperately, just to walk day by day speaking much in tongues so we get built up spiritually. Secondly, we need to be with people who are gelling the Word and in whom the Word is gelling. Because if you take a hot coal away from the fire, it will turn black. It’ll lose its real effectiveness. And for you or for me to extricate myself from people who are really gelling the Word, and moving on that Word, I’d turn colder than a cucumber. You’ve got to stay with people in fellowship who are questing, who are on the move. Not whether they know a whole lot, but they are moving towards that knowledge.
When the Word says that he that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself, I am edified, built up spiritually. The word edifice comes from the root word that we use for a big building which is called a big edifice. The reason it is called an edifice is because it’s got all that bigness. Now when I speak in tongues, I am edified, I am built up. I’m getting to be a big spiritual building, so to speak.
This speaking in tongues in my private life is the root of all of my spiritual growth. And speaking in tongues is primarily designed for the individual Christian’s private life primarily. There is a secondary usage of it. And that is the usage of speaking in tongues in the church - in the body of believers. Now when I say church, I’m talking about the body of born again believers who not only believe in salvation, but who believe the totality of the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. And who are concerned about learning more and practicing the presence. So inside of a church, speaking in tongues must be utilized differently than what it’s utilized in your private life. When you speak in tongues in your private life, it does what? It edified you where, in your mind? In your spirit. So where is Christ? Christ is in you, right? He has eyes behind your eyes, he has ears behind your earballs, he has feet behind your feet. This is what that inner man is that the Bible talks about. It’s Christ in you and when you speak in tongues, that gets big and fat. Inside of a believer’s meeting, inside of the church, speaking in tongues is a message from God or for God to the body of believers. That’s why the Bible says that to speak in tongues in a believers meeting, it must be interpreted. Because the speaking in tongues in your private life, you do not understand. If I speak in tongues here tonight, I do not understand what I spoke. There are other people here tonight who spoke in tongues, they did not understand what they spoke. But when they interpreted, and gave the gist of it, the sum and substance in the language of English here, I got blessed, you got blessed, and everybody got blessed. That’s its primary usage in the church, to edify the body of believers, in their spirit, no, in their minds. That’s tremendous. So there are two wonderful places to be edified. One is in the spirit, the other is to be edified in the mind. And speaking in tongues in my life, my private life, edifies my spirit, but it doesn’t help my brain cells one iota. But if I am with a group of believers who are operating these manifestations, then when they speak in tongues and they interpret, the interpretation I will understand and that will edify my mind and just turn me on. Understand? Now, it’s a message in the church, now. It’s a message from God or it’s a specific message for God which God is bringing specifically for Himself, to people via the believer and it must always, in the church, via a believer, be interpreted. Speaking in tongues inside of the church, the body of believers, by an unbelieving believer. That is a person who is born again of God’s spirit, who can speak in tongues, but he either does not know God’s Word on how he must interpret or he does not believe he can or he does not will to. That’s what I call an unbelieving believer. That person will never have a message from God or for God. That still will only be the same result to him as it would be in his private life. Speaking in tongues in your private prayer life is always prayer or praise. For an unbelieving believer in a body of believers who would speak and not interpret, God knowing aforetime by His foreknowledge, that when I would speak, I would not interpret, He wouldn’t give me a message from Himself or for Himself. It would only be prayer and praise. Do you understand? Boy, if you could keep those three things separated regarding speaking in tongues, you’ve come a long, long way.
Number one in your private prayer life for which speaking in tongues is primarily given and is to be utilized: You never interpret, you just speak in tongues and as you speak in tongues much, it’s prayer and praise to the Father, it’s speaking divine secrets and it builds you up spiritually. In a believers meeting, when you speak in tongues, you are to interpret. And when you give the interpretation, the body of believers in their minds, will be edified, exhorted, and comforted.
Now in a believers meeting where someone has not been fully instructed or accurately instructed and that person would speak in tongues and not interpret, it would just be like in his private life - where he would simply be giving prayer or praise to the Father, back and forth. Because God knows ahead of time, he will not interpret, therefore God is not stupid, He wouldn’t give him a message from Himself or for Himself if He knows ahead of time, the man is not going to do the job or the woman. Therefore, the only thing that some of you people have seen at all in years past, before you got in the Way ministry was someone out here would speak in tongues and then the preacher would have to interpret. That’s a bunch of baloney. That’s right. The preacher isn’t baloney and the fellow speaking in tongues is not baloney, but what they said it was, is. Because when that person spoke in tongues, it couldn’t be a message to the body of believers. Why? He did not what? Interpret. Therefore it could only be prayer or praise to God for the edification of that spirit of Christ within him. Right? So when that person out there speaks in tongues and I would give the interpretation, I couldn’t give his interpretation because the Word says that he who speaks in tongues is supposed to interpret. He never had a message for God or from God. He only edified himself. That which they said is interpretation is not interpretation, it’s the minister’s own word of prophecy. Like you heard here tonight. My, how simple these things are and how we’ve been in confusion. And how we need to understand this, and teach it and teach it and teach it and teach it. Because there’s hardly anybody that really digs this thing and understands it like you do so give it to them in the Word. Here it said in 14: 4.
He that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. -- I Corinthians 14: 4
He that prophesies edifies the church, the body of believers, because prophecy is in the language of the body of the people present and here that’s English. Therefore, a word of prophecy would just give it to you straight. The body would be edified. Would you be edified in the spirit? No. In your mind, for you hear it with your senses ears and you’re able to gel it in your mind.
There’s a tremendous record in Jude. The book before Revelation. Verse 20.
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. – Jude 20
To pray in the Holy Spirit is to pray in tongues. So when you pray in tongues that which the
Holy Spirit has given you which is Christ in you, when you pray with that
ability, you are building up yourself on your most holy faith. You’re building yourself up. Physically? No spiritually. That’s spirit that’s within. That’s how you feed the spirit. Now, people, if the church objects to it, let
them object. Let them write a new
Bible. Let them tell God how to do His
lousy business if they don’t like it.
That’s right. I’m sick and tired
of everybody coming around to tell me what they think God ought to do. God’s told us what He is going to do and I’m
sufficiently capable of believing this and reading it,
and believing it too. So are you,
right? That’s right. They come around and they say, well what good
is it? Aw, nuts. Shut up.
What difference does it make? The
Word says do it, do it, quit arguing. I
mean, this is the kind of attitude if God said it, that
settles it. Look, if the President wrote
me tonight and said I’m sending you to
Four he that speaketh in a tongue [‘unknown’ is in italics so you can scratch it out - it was added by the translators] speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth [scratch ‘him’]; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. -- I Corinthians 14: 2
This does not mean that someone out there cannot understand the speaking in tongues. Remember, it is a language of men somewhere on this earth or of angels. No one understands the languages that he speaks when speaking in tongues. If this does happen, it is phenomenon - it happened as a miracle on the day of Pentecost.
God cannot do less than His Word when people believe. He can do more, then it is phenomenon, not miracles. In the spirit, God says we can speak mysteries. What you speak when you speak in tongues is God’s business. But that you speak is your business. When Peter spoke in tongues on the day of Pentecost, he did not understand what he was speaking. But there were a group of people that said that Peter was speaking in their home language and they understood everything he was saying. This was a miracle of Pentecost. When it happens individually in a small fellowship, it could be referred to as phenomenon.
In the spirit, I speak mysteries by speaking in tongues. We edify ourselves. The book of Jude says I would build myself up on my most holy faith. That’s two things that happens to me when I speak in tongues and the third thing, it is to speak mysteries which are divine secrets. Between you and your spiritual Father, who were speaking mysteries or divine secrets between you and God. Three things speaking in tongues does. You ask the average church member down at the corner tomorrow morning what does speaking in tongues do for you and they’ll say it is all of the devil - it don’t do nothing for you. Or if they belong to the outfit that halfway believe in speaking in tongues, they say my it’s wonderful but I have been after it for 35 years and haven’t got it. How can it be wonderful if you’re waiting to be kissed for 35 years and you never were? How can you know it is wonderful?
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End of part one