Let us go into the house of the
Lord. Let's worship. This is a blessed privilege.
We count it the highest honor that a man can have, and that
is to know God, to look into this precious book, this gift,
gift of God, unspeakable gift. Not every one Lord has this blessed
revelation, has this blessed possession. If any man does,
if we have it, it's a gift of God, it's a grace of God, and
we thank you. And now, Lord, we ask you that you would meet
with us, that you would open up this word to our understanding,
because if we don't understand, then this is unfruitful. This time together is vain. If
the preacher, if you don't open up my understanding, if you don't
bless it to my heart, it won't come out of my mouth. If you
don't bless it to the hearers, they'll not profit. And all of
this is for your glory and our good, our spiritual good. So
we ask you that you be pleased, according to your eternal will
and purpose, to bless us this morning through the study of
this portion of your Word. And in the morning service, everything
today, this evening, may God be glorified, honored in all
things that we do. And may the Lord Jesus Christ
be magnified. And may sinners see their need
of Christ. May the sheep be edified, fed,
and prosper spiritually. Pray for all of your people everywhere
today. Pray for your gospel preachers. Give them unction. Give them
power, liberty. Give the people hearing ears.
And may the Lord Jesus Christ be glorified today. Forgive us of our sins, Lord.
Work in spite of us. Speak in spite of us. For the glory of God and our
good, we pray. And as they say, Amen. All right. 1 Corinthians 14. First one. Apostle Paul writes follow after
charity. Well that is love he'd been talking
about love in chapter thirteen. Love for God primarily chiefly. Love for. Others. Which is the fulfillment of all
the laws first and second table of the law. Love for God love
for others He says, follow after love, pursue it, desire it, plead
for it, nourish it, practice it. Peter said in one place,
see that you love one another with a pure or sincere or true
heart and fervently, see that you do it actively, see that
they know you love, not only hear you say you love, see that
they experience your love. And he says, follow after love
and desire spiritual gifts. Back in chapter 12, verse 8 and
9, these are the gifts that he mentioned. Chapter 12, verse
8 and 9, one is given the spirit of wisdom. Wisdom, knowledge,
by the same spirit, another faith, another gifts of healing by the
same. Verse 10, another working of miracles, prophecy. discernment
of spirits and other different kinds of languages, and to another
the interpretation, ability to interpret languages. He says, desire those things,
but rather, or for the end, or purpose,
desire these things that you may prophesy or preach, or rather
desire above all these things that you may preach or witness
or instruct or communicate the gospel to other people. or else
these things are useless, as we're going to see in a moment.
Desire that you may prophesy, preach, witness, communicate.
And not for pride, not for ego, not for personal gain, not for
power, like Simon Magus, you know, who wanted the gifts of
the Spirit for his own personal usage. No, but that
you might edify. Look at verse 2. in an unknown tongue speaketh
not unto men, but unto God." Now, the word unknown there,
do you see that it's in italics? Do you see that? Is that your
way or that way in your Bible? That means it's not in the original
Greek Testament or version of the Scriptures. It was added
there by the English translators to help with the meaning, but
here I believe, as in some places, it hurts the meaning. It can
apply if you use it properly, but look over at verse 10. Verse 10 seems to contradict
what they're saying about an unknown language. It says there
may be many kinds of voices in the world, but none of them is
without signification. There's no unknown. Right? One of them are known
by somebody. And that word unknown is not
in the original. So we'll just leave that out.
And I'll have you notice, too, that throughout the scriptures,
wherever it talks about tongue in reference to a language, it
uses this word unknown and it's in italics every time. So we'll
just leave that out, okay? Or else we will translate that
as being another tongue. another language. The word tongue
here now means language. The Greek word is glossa, which
we get the word glossary from. English glossary is a collection
of words or phrases or an explanation of passages in literature, glossary. So it says here, he that speaks
in another language If he's speaking to people that don't understand
it, he's not speaking unto them, but unto God, for no man understands
him. No man understands him. He's
speaking in a language. If he's speaking in a language
that's not native to the people he's speaking to, he may be speaking
unto God, who understands all language. God is multi-lingual. God made the languages. You remember
Tyre of Babel? That's when he confused the tongues.
That's when he made the separate languages, or different languages.
But, how be it in the Spirit, he speaketh mysteries. Mysteries. Now, if he is speaking to a people
in another language, and they don't understand him, he may
understand it, but they don't. God may understand. God does
understand. He may understand it, but the
people don't. And he may be speaking great
mysteries like this. E indiscubitilmente grande es
el misterio de la piada. Dios fue manifesto de encarne,
justificado en el espíritu, visto de los ángeles, predicado a los
gentiles. Credo el mundo, recebido arriba
en gloria." Now, did you understand that? Well, that was a great
mystery. 1 Timothy 3, 16, great is the
mystery of Godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in the
glory. Recebido arriba en gloria. Now, you didn't profit from that,
did you? I understood a little bit of
it, but God understood it in Spanish, right? And it was a
great mystery. That's exactly what he's saying
here. He speaks in the Spirit. God understands him, but the
people that he's speaking to, if he's speaking in another language,
they don't understand him. But he that prophesied, verse
3, and I'm not doing this. try to impress you with my Spanish
ability. I don't have that. When I go
down there, I don't understand much at all, and they would laugh
at me having read that. But verse 3, But he that prophesieth
speaketh unto men. He that preaches speaks unto
men to edification and exhortation and comfort. He that preaches
is speaking You see that word speaketh? He that speaketh in
a language, or he that speaketh, preaches, speaketh unto men.
Preaching is communicating, speaking, right? That's what preaching
is primarily all about, delivering a message. Thus saith the Lord,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. Now, if people
don't understand or hear me. If they don't understand what
I'm saying, why preach? Huh? Why preach? To impress people? Is that it? Demonstration of the power of
the Spirit? No, the power of the Spirit is
the gospel. The gospel is the power of God,
not this language. It's not the tongue that is the
power of God, it is the gospel that changes men's hearts and
lives. I may impress you a little bit, but your heart is not going to
be edified. Your life is not going to be
changed unless I preach the gospel. That's the only reason for this
member in your mouth, anyway, is to convey a message Right? Not to wag it around and loll
it about and stick it out at people, but it's to convey a
message. All right? That's what he's saying
here. He that prophesieth, preacheth,
speaks unto men to edification, edify, and to exhort, to exhortation. He that prophesies, preaches,
or speaks, or communicates to people, to exhort, to try to
get an understanding across, to try to get people to understand
what he's saying, in the hopes that the people will be doers
of the Word and not hearers only. Listen to this. Es necesario escribiros escortandos
que contendas adienemente por la fe que has sido uno vez dada
a los santos." Jude is saying here that it's
necessary. He said, we exhort you that you
contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. We exhort you
We exhort you, exhortandus, we exhort you that you contend for
the faith, to exhortation. That's what this exhortation
is all about, is to get people to understand the faith of the
gospel. OK? It's the only purpose for
a language, the only purpose for preaching, to get people
to understand the gospel. and comfort. You see that? Comfort. Verse four, Now he that speaketh
in an unknown or another language edifyeth himself. I can understand
reading that enough to know sometimes what it is saying, and I get
a profit from it. Like I said, when I go to Mexico,
they speak so fast, and I can't pick up, I can only understand
Mupoco, just a little bit of it. And I have to say, habla
mas despacio, speak much slower if I'm going to understand what
you're saying. But I can read this and understand a little
bit of it, and I myself will profit from it. Henry, if you
don't know Spanish, you wouldn't profit from it one bit, would
you? And that's what he's saying here. He that speaketh in an
unknown tongue, he may edify himself. But he that preaches,
he that preaches edifies the church. That's what preaching
is all about. Speaking in a language I know,
but you don't, or Milton knows and we don't, edifies him, but
not us. So why would we have Milton stand
up here and preach in Spanish? We put preachers in the pulpit
to edify and feed the body, the church, to preach the gospel,
to the glory of God and the good of the people. And if people
can understand him, why preach? Preaching edifies the church.
That's what it's for, verse 5. Now, he says, I would that you
all spoke with other languages, with languages, but rather, oh,
for this reason, that you would prophesy. Would that we all knew
Spanish and we all take a trip. We'd rent a 747 jet and all go
to Mexico and just go out in the villages and preach the gospel.
minister of the gospel to people who have never heard it before. I tell you what, go another step
further, I wish we just understood the English language enough to
preach it in English. I wish we knew the scriptures
enough to preach it here. I wish we were acquainted with the scriptures,
wise in the scriptures, approved that we might not be
ashamed, able to give a reason for the hope that's within us.
He says, I wish you all knew other languages, Spanish, French.
We'd go to Africa. Joe, you and I'd go to Africa
and preach the gospel. I don't know a lick of French, Francais.
That's about it. Well, I wish I did. I'd go down
there and preach, or German or Chinese or whatever, to preach
the gospel. I wish you all knew tongues or
languages, he said, but rather that you might preach. For greater
is he that preaches than he that speaks with tongues. Now, everybody in Mexico speaks
Spanish, don't they? Everybody in Mexico speaks Spanish,
or my, in a version of it. But who's the greatest man down
there today, and who's the best, who's the greatest gift of God
to the Spanish-speaking Mexican? Walter Groover, Milton Howard.
They're preaching the gospel to them. Everybody's speaking
Spanish, but they're not speaking the gospel in Spanish. Matter
of fact, a lot of heresy going on in Spain. So the greatest
man is the one who preaches the gospel, if he does it in the
language, a language that the people understand the gospel.
And greater is he that speaketh the language in the gospel than
he that just speaks that native language. I'll give you an illustration
of this, a little clearer illustration. I was talking to a man once,
that man was in my house one time, and he was a Greek scholar. And we were talking about scriptures
a little bit, and several verses of scripture I'd
mentioned to him, he'd begin to dissect them in the Greek. You know, that means this, and
he'd dissect it, and dissect it, and dissect it, and dissect
it, and double dissect it, and triple dissect it, until finally
the whole meaning and the spirit of the passage was gone. And
I told him in so many words, I said, Man, you've totally confused
the whole meaning of that scripture. You've dissected it so much,
it's lost its meaning. You've diluted it so much that
it doesn't have any purity whatsoever." I said, what good does it do
to know Greek? I said, there's three-year-old kids in Greece
that know Greek. They don't know the gospel. They speak it better
than you do. You take away the meaning of
the passage, you know. It doesn't matter if you've dissected it
and you understand the language or not. If you don't understand
the spirit of the passage, to do you any good to break it down
mechanically. There's a spirit of the passage. There's a message in the word,
and it's not a mechanical thing. It's not a question of a matter
of semantics. You understand that? So, he that
is greater that preaches, and not a Greek scholar or interpreter,
and except he interpret, or that is reveal the meaning, translate,
that is, that the church may receive edifying, edifying, that
the church may be edifying. That's why we preach. That's
why we preach. All right, verse 6. Now, brethren,
if I come unto you speaking with languages, what profit, what
profit is it except I speak to you either by revelation or knowledge." Revelation, or
by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine. What profit is
it if I come speaking a language, or as these idiots today do in
this gibberish which no man knows, what profit is it except I preach
or convey a message to you by revelation. This is like the gospel. This
is just like the gospel to an unregenerate man. Unless the
Holy Spirit reveals the gospel to that man, preaching doesn't
profit him one bit, does it? A man can get up and preach the
greatest message ever been preached, but unless the Holy Spirit takes
it and reveals it to the hearts of the people, He might as well
not have been preaching, right? And though the man may be impressed
with the preacher's ability. Boy, he was a good preacher,
wasn't he? Oh, he preached with power. Now, what did he say? I don't know. I didn't really
understand it, but I was impressed. What good is that? It needs to
be revealed to the man, doesn't it? It won't do him any good.
As a matter of fact, it will add to his condemnation. Unless
it's mixed with faith. And how does faith come? By hearing. Hearing. Understanding, that
is. What profit is it? And knowledge here, he said.
What profit is it except it be by revelation, revealed to someone,
or by knowledge? That's what this is all about,
what we're doing here. This is what the preaching, the
teaching of the gospel is all about, that we might know him
whom to know is to have eternal life, that we might know the
true God, because there's a lot of counterfeits being prayed,
the true God. And Jesus Christ, because there's
a lot of counterfeits out there, whom God, that God has sent.
And why? This is eternal life, that they
might know. understand, have revealed to
them who God is, who Christ is, what they are, their desperate
need of this sacrifice of Christ, and that they might grow in grace
and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what
this is all about? That's why we're here. We're not here to
put on a show. We're not here to be impressed
or entertained or or, you know, try to drum up the spirits. We're
here to learn, to learn, to come to know the gospel, the scriptures
that speak of the gospel that are able to make us wise unto
salvation, which is through knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing
and prophesying here. He says, by revelation, by knowledge
or by preaching, or that it prophesied here. We prophesy, or that is,
we reveal the meaning of Old Testament prophecies, don't we? We go through some mighty obscure
prophecies in here, don't we? Types and symbols and so forth. We're prophesying in a sense,
but it's no good unless you see that The testimony of Christ
is the spirit of prophecy. The prophecies you dig into,
no matter what they may be, they're no good unless the testimony
of the gospel of Christ is clearly seen in it. Right? Prophesying. Or by doctrine. I like the sound
of that word. It's throughout the Scriptures.
What good is preaching unless there's doctrine in it, the doctrine
of Christ specifically? But these great doctrines that
speak of Christ and his work—justification, sanctification, propitiation,
imputation, predestination, reprobation, redemption, righteousness, holiness—doctrine,
the doctrines, found doctrine, the Scripture said, distinct
doctrinal theology. And this is not going on today
in religion. It's not going on, is it? A lot
of pomp and show, a lot of emotion, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of
zeal for God, but Paul said what? Not according to knowledge. They being ignorant. Oh, they're
whipping it up and raising their hands and having a big time in
Jesus, but they're ignorant of the righteousness of God, that
great doctrine, which is more than a doctrine. Ignorant of
the righteousness of God, and it's evident because they're
going about to establish their own righteousness. If they weren't ignorant of the
righteousness of God, they wouldn't carry on this foolishness in
front of the Holy God, but they'd be still and know that he's God. They would know that God's in
heaven and they're on earth. Let your words be few, and certainly
not in a blah, blah, blah, blah, gibberish. And they're going about to establish
this right and doing it in a zealous and sincere and enthusiastic
way. People are. Folks in religion today, Pentecostalism
and all sorts of religion, denominations and all, they're zealous. And
Paul granted them that in Romans 10, didn't he? I see that they have a zeal for
God, but it's not according to the knowledge, not according
to the knowledge. Listen, if you thought that getting
to heaven depended upon your works and how hard you went about
it, you'd go about it pretty hard too, wouldn't you? Like
the Muslims, they believe that getting to heaven has something
to do with depriving their bodies and and their works and so forth,
so they go about it very zealously, don't they? And if you believe
that you would, too. But the child of God, people,
they labor hard. You've got to work for Jesus,
you know, or he won't give you a crown. Well, they labor hard,
don't they? They labor for heaven, they labor
for reward, but the child of God. John, the chief labor of
a child of God is to enter into that rest. because it's hard
work just to rest in it. This old self-righteous man wants
to work his way to heaven. When God says, I won't have it,
I won't have any part of it, it's a stench in my nostrils,
it's a filthy rag, your righteousness, it's no good, you've got to have
somebody else's, the only way you can get it is to rest and
let him, not let him, but have him put it on you, impute it
to you, stop what you're doing, stop, look, and listen. And it's hard work just to get
to rest, to rest, not try to do something to get to heaven. And we do labor for Christ, we
do labor for the Lord, but it's not for reward, it's not because
of guilt manipulation on the part of the preacher, but it's
out of love, the love of Christ constrains us to do what we do
for Him. And even if we've done all that's
required of us, still say, impossible, didn't profit me a thing, doesn't
earn me a thing with God, doesn't make me any more well-pleasing
to God, just want to do it because I love Him. So the preaching of doctrine,
knowledge, revelation, you see that? Blessed are your eyes if
they do see that. There's a whole generation of
people out there that don't see this, do they? This passage is
so clear, how it speaks here. Listen to this. He says, Brethren,
I come to you to speak with a language. What will I prophesy if I don't
speak by revelation, knowledge, prophesy, or doctrine? The Lord
Jesus Christ, God in human flesh. You reckon he could have spoken
a way nobody understands? Huh? Oh, my soul. a heavenly language that nobody
understood, but he didn't. Not one time is it recorded in
the Scriptures that Christ ever uttered some gibberish that nobody
understood. But it says, on the contrary,
all the people came to him. Was he going to impress them
with his spirituality? I suppose he had the Spirit without
measure. Was he going to impress them? No, he sat down on a rock and
taught them. And taught them how to teach
them? Simple parables and stories. Wanted to make sure everybody
understood what he was saying. Oh, he could have impressed them.
It's one time when he did. In the garden when those soldiers
came to him. One time he spoke in a language, a heavenly one.
They came to apprehend him in the garden and he said, Yah!
And they fell back to the ground. as dead men at that voice of
the sound of many waters, didn't he? I am, didn't I? Slain, but not in the
way that they say it today, in the spirit. Those men weren't
saved through what he did just then, was they? Why did he say
that? So that we might know who he was. They still didn't know. They got up and got him anyway.
Took him, apprehended him. But to reveal to us is by revelation. He said, Yah. He said, I am.
That we might know he is the I am. These men didn't know it. And what utter blasphemy. That's
what Benny Hinn and all these fools use. That's one of the
scriptures they use to justify this slaying in the spirit, you
know. Knocking a man in the head and the catcher back there, you
know. A man's been promoted to catcher. From deacon to catcher,
you heard said, slaying him in the spirit. And that's what these
hucksters use. That's one of the passages they
use to prove the slaying of the spirit. What utter blasphemy! That was the voice of the sound
of the Son of God speaking, revealing who He was. What utter blasphemy
for a mere mortal, pinhead, peanut-brained preacher to say that he can slay
somebody in the spirit, right? Only the Son of God can slay
somebody in the Spirit. Only He can give the Spirit like
that. These men have a spirit, all
right, but it's an evil one. The devil can slay a man, can't
he? He can lay him out and let him
writhe and wrangle on the ground. That's what he's done all through
the Scripture. You remember the lunatic the man brought to the
Lord and said he tears him while he's on the ground? That's what
you see these people do. I've seen them on TV. I've seen
them writhing and wriggling, looking like it's grotesque. Gentleness, goodness, meekness,
is that the fruit of the Spirit? Is that what the Spirit reaps?
Huh? No, that's the spirit of the
devil. It's another spirit. To get men
with weak minds, they'd be impressed with signs. Signs of unbelievers. Wow! Impressed with that? The Word of God is for God's
people. Now, he says even instruments,
things without even things without life-giving sound, whether pipe
or harp or piano, except they give a distinction in sound,
how's everybody going to know what's being piped? All right. Amazing Grace. Let's sing along.
Come on, folks. Isn't that ridiculous? Even a piano has to have a proper
tune. I'm not making an exhibition
here. This is what he's saying. Even
something without a distinct, without life-giving sound, without
a message, even it has to be tuned, even it has to be played
in such a way that everybody understands the notes, the chords,
what he's saying, so they can lift up their voices and sing
together for the glory of God. Don't play it if you can't play
it. You don't want me playing for the hymn service today, do
you? Can you sing along to that? Well, I know. Verse 8. If the trumpet give
an uncertain sound, who's going to prepare himself to battle?
Take a simple instrument like the trumpet. Give a trumpet. Go back to the
cavalry days. Stan, go back to the cavalry
days and give a trumpet to some old, you know, So here, play
this. When the general gives the sound,
I want you to play the cavalry charge. You know, a man never
had a trumpet in his mouth in his life. And here the enemy
comes, and the general says, OK, charge! And the man plays
taps. And everybody, what's he playing?
I don't understand it. What are we supposed to do here?
And they're all confused. What do we do here? Or if he
plays the boogie-woogie bugle boy from Company B. They're not
going to charge. They might dance. But they ain't
going to charge. And that's what they're doing
today. They're dancing. That's exactly what they're doing today.
They're dancing. There ain't nobody here in the
gospel, or very few, anyway. So likewise, verse 9, except
you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood or with
significance, how shall it be known what is spoken? You're
speaking in the air, man. Like these yodelers who go onto
a mountain and yodel, yodel-a-hee-hoo, yodel-a-hee-hoo. And you do it
over and over again. Why? You like the sound of your
own voice, you know. Oh, that's impressive. And we've
got some yodelers in the pulpit these days. They like the sound
of their own voice, but nobody hearing them. Nobody hearing
the gospel. Nobody understanding what's going
on. My, my. Except you utter plain
words, words with significant Paul said, therefore, seeing
we have such hope, that is only one hope, and it's a good hope
through grace, but it's the only hope. And because knowing the
terror of the Lord, we persuade men, seeing that we've got only
one hope, and we better hear it now, and today is the day
of salvation, we use what? Great plainness of speech. I preach as one that may never
preach again, as a dying man to dying men. And there may be
somebody in here that goes out without hearing the gospel, and
they may be impressed with my gibberish, but don't hear the
gospel and they go to hell. How let be known what's spoken.
Verse 10. Now, there may be many kinds,
he says there are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the
world, and there are many, there's thousands. Thousands. Voices in the world,
even animals have language their own, don't they? Birds understand
one another. Dogs? They understand one another. Cats? And some humans understand
cats. I think they do, don't they? But there's no voice. None of
them are without signification. That is, without meaning. There's
even a body language. Right? understood by other people. Verse eleven, now, if I know
not the meaning of the voice, that is, the fellow that's hearing
the voice doesn't know the meaning of what the fellow's saying,
well, I'm under the hymn that speaketh, the preacher, I'm like
a barbarian. I'm like a barbarian. I have
not the meaning, the fellow's talking to me. You'll think,
are you ignorant, unlearned, true? What's wrong with you?
You don't know nothing, do you? And this is what these vain babblers
today, these tongue-talking hucksters today, want people to be. They
want to be ignorant. They want to be like barbarians.
Why? They want to know why. Because they'd understand very
evil ways, wouldn't they? That's what religion did years
ago in the dark ages, it's called. They kept the Word of God from
the people. Why? Because the Word of God sets
men free. They find out, I don't need this priest. I got me a
high priest. And that man will be out of a
job, won't he? It's the people who read the Scripture that say
evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. In the latter
days, many shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits and so forth. People read that, they say, hey,
this fellow might be one. If they read 1 John 4, want to
try the Spirit, see if they'd be of God, people read that,
go verse by verse, they might find out, hey, this fellow's
not of God either, and he'd be out of a job. They want to keep
people ignorant. Keep them ignorant. Ignorant
of what they're saying, which is nothing. Get them to be impressed. Ignorant of their evil ways and
their devices. People will find out real fast
that these fellows are in it for this. and their lust for fame and so
forth. And vice versa, verse 11, to
him that speaketh I'm a barbarian, or he that speaks is like a barbarian
to me. And that's what these dudes are
to me, they're barbarians. I'd rather watch the movie Conan
the Barbarian than watch Robert Tilton preach. Because he's more of a barbarian
than Conan. And I can understand Arnold Schwarzenegger in English. He's doing a lot less damage,
too. Well, he that speaks is a barbarian
to me. I wish folks saw these fellows
for the ignorant, unlearned crooks that they are. I wish people
saw these fellows for what they are. And I really believe some
You know, a doctor, a lawyer, intelligent, learned, educated
people follow these fellows. They've got to see through their
devices, don't they? You reckon? Surely. But the Scripture says that people
are willingly ignorant, and they heaped to themselves teachers
having itching ears. you know prophesying this move
tell us what we want to know we'll pay you big money and tell
us you get me to heaven somehow preacher you keep me from having
to read the scriptures myself I'll pay you to read the scriptures
for me or do what you do for me do my religion for me and
I'll pay you big money I'll keep you in business. And I'll tell you they're clowns
they're clowns to entertain make people laugh But they're sure
not edifying anybody's soul. Teaching people Christ. Verse
12, even so, you, for as much as you're zealous, evidently
the Corinthians were zealous of these spiritual gifts. They
were impressed by other languages and they wanted to speak in them
and so forth. And Paul said, that's good. Seek
that you may excel, but only if it's for the edification of
the church. and let him that speaketh," verse
13, in another language, in a different language, pray that he may interpret. If I go to Mexico, there's a
trip being planned perhaps, hopefully I may be able to go there next
year, first of next year. I've never been to Milton's before,
and I'd like to. We support Milton, and I'd like
to go there for all of our sake. I'm going to pray that Milton
interprets for me. If I want those people to hear
the gospel through my preaching, I'm going to pray that the Lord
give Milton freedom, liberty to interpret this, or they're
not going to know what I'm saying. Now, if I pray, look at verse
14. This may be confusing to you. It was to me when I first
read it. If I pray, they like to use this verse. If I pray in an unknown tongue,
or that is a different language. My spirit prayeth. If I pray in a language, my spirit
prayeth. Now, here I go. I'm going down
to Mexico, all right? Brother Milton asked me, Brother
Paul and Mano Pablo, lead us in prayer, okay? And I pray. I pray in English. Nobody's going to understand
me, are they? Hell, they'll understand me.
I'll understand me. I'll understand me, but my understanding
of what I am saying, God will, the Holy Spirit will understand
me. I will understand me, but my
understanding of what I am saying will be unfruitful to anybody
else. Right? It's without fruit. It's
of no good, it's of no profit, no benefit. I haven't built up,
I haven't edified, I haven't caused anybody to grow, I haven't
lifted up anybody's soul to heaven, because nobody understands me."
That's what he says here. My understanding, my spirit praise,
I'm praying in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit understanding, but
my understanding of what I'm saying is unfruitful to the people
that are hearing that. Isn't that clear? My understanding is unfruitful. To whom? It's not to me. I understand. I've been edified, propheted,
proved. But not the people that hear me. It's unfruitful to them.
So what are we going to do then? This is the way to say it in
verse fifteen. What is it then? What's this all about? What's
this all about? What are we doing here? Well,
he says, if I'm going to pray with the Spirit, I'll pray with
understanding also. I sing with the Spirit, I'll
sing with understanding also. I'm going to preach, pray, sing,
whatever we're going to do, it's going to be to the glory of God.
And the spiritual good of the people, the benefit, the exhortation,
the edification, the comfort, the health, the growth, the nourishment
of the people that hear it. Verse 16, "...else when thou
shalt be blessed with the Spirit, Or pray, or preach, or whatever
you do, you bless. How's that man that occupies
the room, verse 16, of the unlearned, how's he going to say amen at
the giving of thanks if he doesn't know what you're saying? I'm
going to pray, and when's he going to know? Well, I think
I agree with what he said. He might be praying blessed for
me, or he might be cursing God for all that matter. And what's
the man going to say? Amen to that? I'll give you an example. One of my men was praying not
too long ago, and my ear was stopped up real bad. I had an excessive buildup of
wax in my ear. I had to go to the doctor the
next day. I couldn't hear. I'm hard of hearing anyway, but
I couldn't hear Rebekah at all that day. The man was praying
very softly. I couldn't hear a word he was
saying. I was up in the pulpit. I didn't
know when he was praying. I couldn't hear him pray. I didn't
know when he was stopping. I had to keep looking up. Finally I saw, I hoped he was
done. And I said, Amen. That's the
most hypocritical Amen I've ever, Amen. I didn't understand a word
the man said. Amen means I agree. So be it. I understand. I'm in full agreement. Glory to God. That's the way
it ought to be. Amen. If you don't understand what
he's saying, how can you say amen? This is a note for us fellows
in prayer. And I've got a soft voice. My
dad gets on to me all the time about it. I sing a public prayer. The reason, the purpose for public
prayer is so that everybody can enter into prayer with you. You're
leading the people in prayer. When you pray, I know that nobody
wants to pray publicly. We'd a whole lot rather pray
in our closet, that God hears us in secret, but when we're
called on to pray publicly, let everybody hear you. How's everybody
going to say amen if they don't understand what you're saying?
That's just good practical instruction there. I need to hear that too. Now, you may give thanks well,
but to others not as thanks. To others not as thanks. It may
have been a good prayer. It may have been a good message.
It may have been a good song. It may have played it well. Jeanette
even brought this to my attention. She said if she plays hymns up
here on the piano, if nobody knows what hymn she's playing,
how's anybody going to be edified? What is the purpose of music? To remind you of the message
of the hymn. Okay? This is the reason all
these bands—boy, I want to get in there. Okay. All these drums,
all those sorts of things, takes away from the music service—hymn. The message is what's important.
If anything detracts from the message of the hymn, do away
with it. And if there's not being something
played that somebody understands, they may say, boy, she's a great
pianist. Who got the glory? Jeanette? Cherry? Oh, that was beautiful. She plays
well. Oh, God forbid. Right? Let's play Amazing Grace
with one finger. And everybody can understand,
hey, that's Amazing Grace. It is amazing, isn't it? Instead
of Rachmaninoff. Now, I love that music, but this
is not the place for it, is it? That's a good point. But things with life-giving sound,
things with distinction, things that are for profit, we understand,
this chapter fourteen here. Isn't that, is that clear to
you, Violet, what the tongues, is that clear to you? That's
clear, isn't it, when you go through it and look at it in
light of other scriptures and so forth, when God reveals it
so clear? Why don't men understand this,
huh? Paul, the Holy Spirit doesn't
try to confuse people. He gives understanding. Look
why, oh Christ says that, why is it that you don't hear my
word? Why is it that men can't go down, Ed, why is it that men
can't go down through here and understand what you understand
so clearly? It's all plain to him to understand.
Why is that? Christ said, because you're not my sheep. Why is it
that you don't hear my words? Because you're not my sheep,
you don't want to hear. My sheep hear my voice. and they know
it, and they understand it, and they're edified, and they're
prophets, and they follow me, not the man. They follow me."
He said, all right, I hope that was profitable.