Reason Number 3
The third reason people should speak with other tongues is that tongues keeps us continually aware of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling Presence. Not only is speaking with tongues the initial sign or evidence of the Holy Spirit’s infilling, but continuing to pray and to worship God in tongues helps us to be ever conscious of His indwelling Presence. And if you are conscious of the indwelling Presence of the Holy Ghost every day, that is bound to affect the way you think and live.
I once heard an evangelist tell of an experience he had in a pastor’s home. As he walked into a room unexpectedly, he heard the pastor’s twelve year old daughter just throwing a fit. She had lost her temper and was bawling her mother out.
Suddenly she looked up and saw the evangelist. She stopped and put her head in her hands and began to cry. She said, “I am so sorry you saw me act this way and heard what I said.”
He said to her, “Honey, there is One who is greater than I am who heard you and saw you act that way. You are a Christian, aren’t you?”
“Yes,’” was her tearful reply.
“Filled with the Spirit?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Well, the Holy Ghost is in you, and He knows what you said and how you acted,” he told her. “Just repent and the Lord will forgive you.” They prayed together and she repented. Then in a little while she began to worship God in tongues.
This evangelist then said to her “There is one secret that will help you curb your temper. If you will just pray and worship God every day in tongues, it will help you to be conscious of the indwelling Presence of the Holy Ghost.
Then he said, “If you will remember that the Holy Spirit is in you you won’t act that way. You were ashamed because I saw you lose your temper You were embarrassed because I heard you talk the way you did to your mother. But the Holy Ghost is greater than I am, and He saw and heard you too”
Some years later when this same evangelist returned to preach at that same church the pastor’s daughter told him, “I have never forgotten what you said Every day for the past few years I have prayed and worshipped God in tongues, and I have never lost my temper again.”
Unfortunately, we all know people who have been filled with the Holy Ghost, yet still lose their temper and say and do things they shouldn’t. It is because they have been walking in the flesh instead of in the Spirit, and they haven’t been fellowshipping with God as they should have been.
It is so easy, when you are not conscious of God’s Presence, t become aggravated and easily exasperated and to allow yourself to lose your temper. But if you will take time to fellowship with God by speaking in tongues, you can continually be conscious of God’s indwelling Presence.
Reason Number 4
Speaking in tongues eliminates the possibility of selfishness entering our prayer life. For instance, if I pray a prayer out of my own mind and out of my own thinking, it may be unscriptural. It may be selfish. Too many times our prayers are like the old farmer who always prayed, “God bless me, my wife, my son John, his wife --us four and no more.”
Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “...we know not what we should pray for as we ought...” (
Rom 8:26). He didn’t say we didn’t know how to pray,because we do know how we are to pray. We are to pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ (
John 16:23, 24).
That is the correct way to pray. But just because I know how to pray doesn’t mean that I know what to pray for as I ought. So Paul said, “...we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself [Himself] maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (
Rom 8:26).
P.C. Nelson, a Greek scholar and the founder of Southwestern Bible Institute, said that the Greek in
Romans 8:26 literally reads, “...the Holy Ghost maketh intercession for us in groanings that cannot be uttered in articulate speech.”
Articulate speech means your regular kind of speech. He went on to point out the the Greek stresses that this not only includes groanings escaping your lips in prayer, but also praying in other tongues. That agrees with what Paul said in
1 Cor 14:14, “For if I pray in an unknown tongue,my spirit prayeth...” The Amplified Bible says, “...my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays...”
People should be careful making fun of tongues, because when people make fun of tongues, they are making fun of the Holy Ghost. When you pray in tongues, it is your spirit praying by the Holy Spirit within you. It is the Holy Spirit within you giving you the utterance, and you are speaking from out of our spirit. You do the talking; the Holy Spirit gives the utterance.
By praying with groanings and with other tongues, the Holy Spirit is helping you to pray according to the will of God. --to pray as things should be prayed for. This isn’t something the Holy Ghost does apart from you. Those groanings that cannot be uttered in articulate speech come from inside of you --from your spirit-- and escape your own lips.
The Holy Ghost is not going to do your raying for you. He is sent to dwell in us as a Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby (
John 14:16 Amplified). The Holy Spirit is not responsible for our prayer life. He is sent to help us pray. Speaking with other tongues is praying as the Spirit gives utterance it is Spirit-directed praying. It eliminates the possibility of selfishness in our prayers.
Many times when people have prayed out of their own minds, they have prayed for circumstances to change that were actually not the will of God were not best. If God’s people want things a certain way, even if it is not best for them or is not God’s will, He will often permit it.
For example, God id not want Israel to have a king, but they wanted one, so He permitted them to have one (
1 Sam 8:4-7). But a king was not His perfect will for them.
Therefore, speaking in tongues eliminates selfishness and praying outside of the will of Go because when we pray in tongues, we are praying the perfect will of God.
to be continued
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