1 Corinthians 14. Paul begins this chapter in verse
1 by saying, follow after charity, love. Follow after love. Follow after love. Chapter 13
was all about love and this is what he said. He said, it's so
vital. If I don't have it, I'm nothing. That's what he said. He said
that's how vital it is. If I don't have it, I'm nothing. He said faith, hope, and I'm
going to tell you this, faith is vital in salvation. It's vital. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And hope in Christ is
vital. But Paul said love is greater
than both of them. Love for the Lord Jesus Christ,
love for his people. So he said in verse one, follow
after love, pursue it, go after it. And desire spiritual gifts,
but rather that you may prophesy. Whatever spiritual gift God gives
each one of us. Whatever gift he gives to us,
may it be used for the declaration of his gospel. I want to say
that again. Whatever spiritual gift God gives
to each one of us, may he give it to be used for the declaration
of his gospel. If you can preach it, preach
it. If you can hear it, you realize
that that's a spiritual gift. You know that? If you can hear
it, listen to this very carefully. If you can hear it, hear it. Full contact, hardcore, actively,
mightily, hear it. Come and hear it. If you can
hear it. Our Lord kept saying, he that hath ears to hear, let
him hear. Let him hear it. And the only
way that we're going to hear it is by begging, Lord, let me
hear. Open my ears and let me hear. Gladly thy warm truth this
morning. Don't let me just go through
these motions. Come sit. Hey, see you. Let me hear it. Let me hear it.
If God's given you that gift, then hear it. If you can bring
somebody to hear it, bring somebody to hear it. That's a spiritual
gift. If you can. I don't think I've ever been
given that gift. If you can do it, if you can support it, and
I'm not just talking about financially, I'm talking about in word. If you can support the ministry.
Support the message wherever it's preached in word. Rather
than tearing down the ministry like this flesh is so prone to
do, if you can support it in word, if you can support it in
deed, if you can support it in prayer, pray for the message. As you drive over here in your
car, turn your radio off and call on God and beg him to allow
you to not hear from Gabe Stoniker this morning. I don't want to
hear from him anymore. I'm sick and tired of hearing from him.
I want to hear from you. I would love to hear your message. I do not want to hear Gabe's
outline. I want to hear from you. Beg
him for the message. Beg him for the messenger. Beg
him for the ministry. Beg him for his spirit. When
Elijah was called up into heaven, God sent a chariot of fire to
pick him up and Elisha watched that chariot drive him to heaven. And the mantle fell down and
Elisha picked up the mantle. But before he went, Elijah said,
you ask anything before I go, he'll do it. And he said, I pray
that God would give me a double portion of his spirit that he
gave to you. And he did. He did. And God has sent his spirit over
the years. He sent it to these apostles.
He sent it to the martyrs. He sent it to the reformers.
He sent it to Spurgeon. He sent it to Henry. He sent
it to all those men. Lord, would you, if this is the
last day especially, pour out a double portion of your spirit
on the declaration and on the hearing of the word? That's our
prayer. A double portion. So if you can
pray and support the ministry, support it, support it. May God
give us a heart for one thing only, send this gospel out. We don't need to make the preachers
rich. We don't need to do any of that stuff. We need to get
this gospel out. So chapter 13 was all about love. And chapter 14 is all about preaching,
specifically in tongues. Okay? Preaching in tongues. The title of this Bible study
is Preaching in Tongues. Verse 1 says, Follow after charity
and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy
or preach. For he that speaketh in and Now, if you have italicized words
in your Bible, you'll see that unknown is in italics. And what
that means is when this was translated from Greek to English, the translators
added some words so it would make sense. If you do a direct
translation from Spanish to English, it's usually backwards. see this
brown pulpit, I think would be see this pulpit brown. And that
doesn't make sense to us. So they had to add some words
and do some things, and they're great. Those guys did a wonderful
job. But sometimes we enter into what
was truly being said by God Almighty when we take out those added
words. And verse two says, for he that speaketh in a tongue,
it is not an unknown tongue. It may be unknown to me, but
it's known to somebody. The word tongue translates in
the dictionary that we have for this Bible, language. That's what it means, language,
same word. The Pentecostals and all of the
charismatic denominations, they have built their religion And
they have built their hope on a language that no one understands,
including the one speaking it. And bless my loved one's hearts.
My mother grew up in the Pentecostal church. And my heart's desire
and prayer to my kinsman after the flesh is that God would open
their eyes to his word. Because it's absolute foolishness. It's just foolishness. It's fake. It's phony. Turn with me, if
you would, to Acts chapter 2. This is Pentecost. This is the
foundation of the Pentecostal movement. And if the Lord would
cause them to just read what He has written, and if He would
open their eyes to it, they would see their error. God did perform
an amazing miracle. He gave to His apostles an amazing
miracle just like He said He would. He said He was going to
do this and He did it. Verse 1 says, And when the day
of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord
in one place, the Lord's disciples. And suddenly there came a sound
from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house
where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues." Now the word cloven means to partition thoroughly
in distribution, to divide, to partition thoroughly, clean lines. to partition thoroughly in distribution,
to divide. And again, the word tongues means
languages. So particular languages were
given to particular men. They did not all just receive
the ability to speak every language on earth. Particular ones were
given to particular men. Verse 3, there appeared unto
them cloven tongues like as fire. The word fire translates lightning. It could be seen. Verse 3 says,
there appeared. It could be seen. God sent these
languages down from heaven. And he sent them to each one
of these men like lightning. It could be seen. They came down,
boom, boom, boom, boom. Verse 3 says, there appeared
unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them. And they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, and the word
tongues translates languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem
Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Jews were
there from every country in the known world at that time. All
right? It would be just like saying
there are Christians in China. There are Christians in Russia.
There are Christians in Mexico. And the Christians in China speak
Chinese. and the Christians in Russia
speak Russian, and the Christians in Mexico speak Spanish. So they'd
all traveled and or moved, some of them moved to Jerusalem, and
they were observing this Jewish feast called Pentecost, verse
5. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem
Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven, Now when
this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded
because that every man heard them speak in his own language. Now, the error is that is not
saying, and we're about to, it's about to be proven to us in the
next couple of verses. It's not saying this great crowd
came to the disciples and heard the disciples speak in their
own language that they made up by themselves and nobody had
ever heard it before. He has his own language. Nobody
speaks the language but him. It's his own language. That's
not what he's saying. They all came and heard the disciples
speak in their own language. All right, now keep reading with
me, verse 7. And they were all amazed and
marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which
speak Galileans? Aren't they all from Galilee?
All of them. And how here we, every man in our own language,
wherein we were born, Parthians, the Parthians were there, and
they have their own language. And Medes, and they have their own
language. And the Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia.
You can look at your map in the back of your Bible and see all
these places. Mesopotamia, they have their own language. In Judea
and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, China's in Asia, they have
their own language. Phrygia and Pamphylia in Egypt. The Egyptians have their own
language. And in the parts of Libya, about Cyrene, and strangers
of Rome, Rome is in a country called Italy, they have their
own language. Jews and proselytes, Gentiles who were converted to
Judaism. Cretes and Arabians, we do hear
them speak in our languages the wonderful works of God. These apostles did not speak
gibberish. They clearly declared the wonderful
works of God in every language under heaven. All right, now
go with me back to our text, 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 2 says, For he that speaketh
in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God. For no man understandeth him,
howbeit in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. If a man preaches
in a language that nobody understands, and we've already established
that this unknown thing is not fake, it's real, a real language.
If it is an actual language, God understands him. He's the one who gave all the
languages, but if he is not speaking these true mysteries in a language
everybody can understand. He might really be preaching
the gospel in French. Really, I mean clearly in French,
laying it out there like it's never been laid out there before.
But if no one speaks that language, it's not doing anybody any good.
No good. He said in verse 2, he's not
speaking to men. But verse 3, he that prophesieth, he that
is truly preaching, speaketh unto men. He is preaching to
their hearts. He is preaching to their minds.
He's preaching to their souls. He is preaching to reach men. He's not just trying to put a
robe on and wave some smoke and chant some Latin and then be
done. He's trying to reach men. Verse 3 goes on to say, to edification. He's trying to build up men.
And exhortation. He's trying to warn men. And
comfort. That's the purpose in what he's
attempting to do. There's an old writer named Horatius
Bonar and he used to say, preach for a verdict. Preach for a verdict. What's
the message? Warning, make sure they hear
the warning. What's the message? Comfort,
make sure they hear the comfort. Get to them, reach them, preach. Verse four says, he that speaketh
in an unknown tongue edifieth himself. He may personally get
a, just get such a blessing out of it, truly. Verse 4 says, He that speaketh
in an unknown tongue edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth
edifies the church. The Lord has not called a preacher
to stand up and bless himself. I get the blessing in the study.
Normally, I get more of a blessing in the study than up here. I
could be done, but I've been called to pass it along as much
as the Spirit will allow. to you. It's for you. God hadn't
called us to preach to ourselves. Verse 5, I would that you all
spake with tongues. It would be wonderful if everybody
in here spoke many languages. But he said, I'd rather you just
focus on preaching. in the language God has given
you to people who speak the same language. Verse 5, I would that
you all spake with tongues, but rather that you prophesied, for
greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues,
except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying. If I could speak ten different
languages, nine of them would do you no good. They would do
you no good. In verse 1, he said in the middle
of that verse, desire spiritual gifts but only if God will give
them to be used for the declaration of Christ. Verse 6 says, now
brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall
I profit you except I shall speak to you either by revelation or
by knowledge or by prophesying or by doctrine? He's saying unless
at the end of the message, unless Christ is revealed in the heart,
truly seen and revealed in the heart, and unless there is a
knowledge of our sin and a knowledge of his mercy, And unless the
doctrine of the Word of God is clearly set forth, Christ and
Him crucified, it does not matter what tongue I speak in. It just
does not matter. It's not going to profit anybody
one bit. And he illustrates that by saying
in verse 7, and even things without life giving sound, whether pipe
or harp, we have a piano right here. Even things without life-giving
sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction
in the sounds. I've got a center reference for
sounds and it says tunes. Except they give a distinction
in the tunes, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain
sound, Who shall prepare himself to battle? So likewise ye, except
you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall
it be known what is spoken? For you shall speak into the
air. Now, what if I said, what if I told everybody, get ready,
I'm about to bless you. You ready? I'm gonna walk over
to this piano. Now, I can't play the piano. And I walk over to this piano
and I start banging on it. Is that blessing you? What if somebody who could play
the piano walked up to this piano and played. Blesses my heart. Verse eight,
if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself
to the battle? When it's time to charge, everybody
that's supposed to charge needs to charge. Everybody. If that trumpet does not sound
the charge, how are the soldiers gonna know? How are we gonna
know? Verse nine says, so likewise
ye, except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood,
how shall it be known what is spoken? For you shall speak it
into the air. There are, it may be, so many
kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore, if I know not the
meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian,
and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. Hannah and
I were at a Mexican restaurant a couple of months ago. And Hannah,
she still does pretty good, but she used to be fluent in Spanish.
When she was in middle school, she was able to go live with
the Groovers in Mexico, Cody and Winna. And she went to school
down there. And she was just immersed in
the language and the culture and she could speak it very well.
So now the only time she gets to practice is when we go to
a Mexican restaurant. And we were at this restaurant
and the waiter came up and started talking to us in English, which
I always appreciate. And Hannah answered him in Spanish. And as soon as he realized she
could speak Spanish, that man was ready to converse. And man,
he just started rattling it off, you know, went on and on and
on and on. And I was looking at Hannah and
I could just see it in her face, you know. So he left and I said,
what'd he say? She said, I have no idea. I don't
have any idea. It was so fast. It was all over
the place. He was talking about all these
different things and it was so fast and I just don't have any idea.
That guy, even though he is more intelligent than me, he speaks
two languages, I just speak one. But even though he's more intelligent
than me, All of his speaking didn't do either one of us a
bit of good. When he walked away, I didn't
understand what he said. I didn't understand what was
on special that day. I didn't understand anything.
Now let's relate that to preaching. Verse 12 says, even so ye, for
as much as you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you
may excel to the edifying of the church rather than striving
for a gift that God has not given us yet. I'd love to have this
gift and I'd love to have that gift. He's saying let's strive
to use the one he's given us to the fullest. to the absolute
fullest for the edifying of the church. Verse 13, wherefore let
him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue,
my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. I may know and
I may understand in my heart what I'm praying. But if nobody
else does, it's unfruitful. It's unfruitful for the church. You know, when we stand up here
and pray, we're praying. We are praying. Verse 15 says,
what is it then? I will pray with the Spirit.
I sure don't want to pray to God without his Holy Spirit.
People talk about praying in the Spirit. You know, I don't
want to pray without God's Holy Spirit. And I will pray with
the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit and
I will sing with the understanding also. Verse 16 else when thou shalt
bless with the spirit. How shall he that occupieth the
room of the unlearned say amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing
he understandeth not what thou sayest? We are praying on behalf of the
congregation. That's what we're doing. If you
men have the opportunity to stand up here and read and pray, we're
praying on behalf of the congregation. I'm running out of time. Don't
turn. Just listen to this, okay? This is what our Lord said concerning
this, and this is going right along with what Paul's saying.
How's everybody going to say amen to this? This is what our Lord
said in Matthew 6. He said, after this manner, therefore,
pray ye our Father. He didn't say my Father. Our
Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this
day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. He didn't say forgive me my debts
as I forgive my debtors. Verse 13 said, lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom
and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. It's all on behalf
of the people. And Paul said, if I'm not praying
in a way that can be understood, how can the congregation with
me say amen? Amen. 17, for thou verily give us thanks
well, but the other is not edified. That's what he's saying. And
because of that, he said in verse 18, I thank my God. I speak with
tongues more than you all. He said, I'm thankful for the
gifts that God has given me. He wanted them to know, I'm not
against tongues. I'm not against tongues. And Paul spoke with
more languages than anybody, and he used them on his travels. The Lord caused him to use them.
Now this is our last verse. Verse 19 says, yet, yet, in the
church I had rather speak five words with my understanding. I would rather speak five words
and be truly understood by everybody that heard me, that by my voice
I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown
tongue. I'd rather speak five simple
words that would enter a person's heart truly enter a person's
heart than 10,000 wasted words just to put on an elaborate show
for everybody. And I would too. I would too. I say the exact same thing. So
I have five words for you. I have five words. Christ's blood
is our hope. I have five words for you. Ask
and you shall receive. I have five words for you. Whosoever
will, yep, let him come. I have five words for you. Behold
the Lamb of God. May God teach us to preach the
gospel simply, clearly, in the language he's given us. All right,
you're dismissed.