The Gift of Tongues

What It Is, What It Isn't and Why You Need It

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• Publisher: Chosen Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781493431298
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Is the gift of tongues for today? Does God want me to have the gift of tongues? Should I ask for the gift of tongues? Believers have asked these questions and many others about this debated and mysterious spiritual gift. Offering fresh biblical insight, Robert Henderson has written an essential guide that helps readers understand and discover the power of tongues to remove limits and establish a renewed relationship with God transcending the natural realm. In these pages, you will · gain biblical understanding of the mystery of tongues
· learn how to empower your prayer life
· defeat discouragement, depression, and disillusionment
· receive an impartation for this spiritual gift to become a reality in your own life
· enter a new realm of personal power, hope, and faith in the Lord Let go of powerless Christianity and ready yourself for the supernatural, in which the Bible declares that every believer can operate!

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Why the Debate?

It does not take an in-depth search of the Bible to discover the gift of tongues and see it in operation. Numerous Scriptures back this gift up and affirm it, and together we will look at many of them. Yet even Bible-believing people debate about whether or not this gift is for today. As a result of all the debating and questioning, many believers consider the gift of tongues obsolete and archaic. They feel that theologically, emotionally and intellectually, there is no need for this gift in today’s world or Church.

I would assert, however, that nothing could be further from the truth. Both in my experience and from a strongly theological viewpoint, I would assert that operating in the gift of tongues holds great advantage for us, and that it is even necessary to living a full life of satisfaction and effectiveness. This is what I will endeavor to illustrate as we progress through the information I will present here regarding this gift.

First of all, what are tongues? This gift of tongues is the supernatural ability to speak a language you have never learned, using this language for spiritual and heavenly reasons. Chronologically, the first place we see tongues mentioned in Scripture is Mark 16:17: “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues.” We are told here that new tongues are one of the signs that will follow a believer. Believers who have been born again are supposed to be able to manifest and demonstrate the supernatural power of God. This is quite evidently an uncommon experience for many of us today. So often, we seem powerless and without any real authority. Yet we are told that these signs should follow us.

The Greek word for sign in this verse is semeion, and it means “an indication.”1 The root word it comes from is sema, which means “a mark.” When we connect these two parts of the definition, it could be said that a sign is a mark we carry that indicates we are a believer. We will look into this Scripture from the gospel of Mark in greater depth in a moment, but suffice it to say here that we are supposed to be marked with the supernatural of God. Tongues are one of these markings or indications that we are believers and belong to Him.

As believers, we are supposed to be characterized by the supernatural. Isaiah 8:18 tells us that as God’s children, we were made to function in and live from the supernatural power of God: “Here am I and the children whom the LORD has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion.” The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament would later pick this verse up and record it in Hebrews 2:11–13, making the case from this Scripture that the same DNA and nature that was in Jesus is now in us as those joined to Him:

For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying:

“I will declare Your name to My brethren;

In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”

And again:

“I will put My trust in Him.”

And again:

“Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

When we are told that the One who sanctifies (Jesus) and the ones who are being sanctified (us as believers) “are all of one,” it means that we are all the sons and daughters of God. In other words, the same nature that is in Jesus is now in us. As a result of our new birth and salvation experience, we now carry the nature of God Himself. Notice that in Isaiah 8:18, as His children we are “for signs and wonders.” Signs and wonders are part of our portion as the ones who now carry the nature and likeness of God. We are here to demonstrate the Kingdom of God in the earth as believers marked with the supernatural of God.

Manifesting the Kingdom

Mark 16:17, the Scripture we looked at that speaks of these signs following believers, reveals another interesting factor. The word follow is the Greek word parakoloutheo, which means “to follow near.” The supernatural realm of God is supposed to be very close to those of us who are believers. We are not only supposed to speak of the Lord and His Kingdom; we are also supposed to manifest it.

This is what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:20: “For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” If all we have is a gospel of word, or of reasoning and no demonstration, we are falling far short of God’s original intent for us as believers. We are to manifest signs of the supernatural. It is these signs that will convince the world of the reality of who Jesus is.

Signs are to follow very near to us. We must position our faith and believe God for the supernatural in which the Bible says we are to operate. We cannot let a powerless Christianity fashion us. Paul warned us of this in 2 Timothy 3:5, saying some people would live their life “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” Then he told us, “And from such people turn away!” Paul calls Christianity without power merely a form of godliness, and he makes the extremely strong statement that we should get away from those who claim to be Jesus’ people but have no evident power in their life.

Wow, if we were to take this word at face value, there would be a mass exodus from much of Christianity today. I am not advocating this. I understand that there are other ideas we need to consider. This does tell us how desperate we should be, however, for a Gospel of power and not just word. We are to go after this realm of signs and wonders following us. They are not a luxury; they are an absolute necessity for us as believers. We must not settle. We must set our hearts in agreement with God’s Word, until our experience as believers lines up with the Word. This is our portion as the children of God.

One of these signs following us as believers is the gift of tongues. I would be so bold as to say that the gift of tongues is absolutely essential to walking in and demonstrating this supernatural power I have been speaking about. We will see this more as we progress. The word tongues in the Greek is the word glossa. By definition, it means “a language, especially one naturally unacquired.” In other words, we did not acquire this language through natural means. The ability to speak and function in the gift of tongues came from a supernatural encounter. Out of this supernatural encounter, the power and ability to speak and pray in tongues became present in us.

My Experience with Tongues

I first experienced this gift myself many years ago. Through a series of events, my family came into what has since been referred to as the “charismatic renewal.” This was a time from the 1960s well into the 1980s when people were encountering the Person of the Holy Spirit in new and powerful ways. The strict religious structures of many denominations were being challenged by the impact of the Holy Spirit and His gifts on people. One of these gifts was the gift of tongues.

Our family ended up leaving the denominational church we had been part of for decades, if not centuries. As a result of my father’s hunger for the supernatural, we found ourselves in one of these new charismatic churches. Its pastor had been removed from the traditional church he had led, all because of his encounter with the Holy Spirit on a new and powerful level. My dad and several other members of my family began to experience the Holy Spirit on these new levels as well, and began to speak in tongues.

As a twelve-year-old boy, I would watch this in hunger myself, even longing to have the same encounter. I remember one time when I was left in the back seat of the car while my mom went in the house. I decided I would try to speak in tongues, as I had heard others do. I could not do it. I was unable to make the sounds that would have been associated with a tongue or prayer language. I vividly remember this. It affirmed to me that I did not have the gift of tongues and that speaking in tongues was not just something I could do from a desire or natural ability.

I don’t really remember how much time passed after that incident, but later on I was in a service where people who wanted the gift of tongues were being prayed for. Because of my previous attempt in the car, I was aware that I could not pray in tongues from my own ability, so I went forward for prayer. As others prayed for me, I began to speak. To my amazement, a supernatural language I had never learned began to flow out of my mouth. It actually caught me by surprise because of my failure to speak in such an unknown language when I had tried it on my own.

From that time until now, the result has been that I have a gift of tongues I operate in, and I speak in tongues regularly. It has been and continues to be a strong and powerful influence in my life. For forty-plus years, I have been learning about the power of this gift. I would say irrevocably that this gift of tongues has been as big a blessing in my life as anything else I have ever encountered. It is a true gifting from the gracious hand of God into the lives of those who hunger and thirst for Him.

Tongues of Men and Angels

When we talk of tongues, we should know that they can be languages of earth or of heaven. The apostle Paul alluded to this in 1 Corinthians 13:1 when he said, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” Even though his emphasis is on operating in love, Paul also gives us some insight into tongues. He shares that tongues for the believer can be from languages known in the earth among men, or from languages unknown that are angelic and heavenly in nature.

This is why we must be careful in judging too harshly what our gift of tongues or someone else’s gift sounds like. We might hear someone speak in tongues and think it sounds like nothing from this earth. That could be exactly right, because it could be a tongue of angels. Clearly, from what Paul declared, not only are there earthly languages we might speak supernaturally even though we don’t know them; there are also angelic languages we might be speaking.

Acts 2:4 chronicles the initial infilling with the Holy Spirit of 120 believers, which resulted in the gift of tongues: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” The result was that other people who were listening, who spoke various languages in the natural, all heard these believers speaking of the glory of God. Verses 6–8 show that as these believers spoke in tongues, they were actually speaking the different languages of their listeners, which they had no way of knowing:

And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?”

People from many other countries and regions heard these Galilean believers speaking in a wide variety of “home dialects.” This is because the supernatural gift of tongues that the believers had received in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost came forth in earthly languages. These 120 believers, now filled with the Holy Spirit, were speaking tongues in the languages of men, which enabled their hearers afterward to understand them.

Several years ago, when I was pastoring in a small town in Texas, I brought in a guest speaker who was Haitian. In Haiti, French is a common language because of the French heritage and influence there. Our guest speaker had stayed on after his time of ministry, and he came to our morning prayer time the next day. As we were praying, I would speak in the gift of tongues and intermingle it with my native language of English, which is a common practice for me. When we were through with the hour-long prayer time, this Haitian man approached me and asked if I knew French. I assured him that I did not. He then began to tell me that every time I would speak in tongues and finish a time of praying, I would say the words je t’aime, which in French means “I love you.”

I was astounded at this. I realized that I had been saying “I love You” to the Lord in a language I did not know. Not only was it a language I did not know; it was also one of the languages considered the most romantic in the earth. I was telling the Lord through tongues “I love You” from the deepest parts of my heart.

Many people who experience the gift of tongues recount that it is as if their natural language is insufficient to express the deepest cry of their heart to the Lord. Through the gift of tongues, they are able to release from their spirit that which is longing for the Lord Himself. The Holy Spirit uses this gift of tongues to help us release the cry of our heart, filled with His passion, to God.

As we have seen, there can be times when such tongues are not of this earth; they are of the heavenly dimension. I believe one of the reasons God allows this is so heaven can come to earth. When we speak a language of heaven, the atmosphere of heaven can begin to permeate the atmosphere of earth.

One of the greatest mandates Jesus left us was to pray heaven into earth. Matthew 6:9–10 tells us to pray until heaven’s atmosphere begins to dominate the realms of earth: “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When we are empowered to pray in an angelic tongue, if it in fact brings the atmosphere of heaven into earth, this mandate is accomplished. A tongue that we share with the angels allows the atmosphere they create to become the atmosphere we encounter. What an awesome thing! This can be just one of the reasons we might be empowered to speak with the tongues of angels, as well as the tongues of men.

No Need for Tongues?

With all of this said, then why the debate over whether or not tongues are relevant and even theologically applicable for today? Throughout my history of walking with the Lord and functioning in ministry, I have encountered at least three ideas that allow resistance to tongues and their operation. The first idea is that we no longer have the need for tongues today. The second idea is that this gift is actually the work of the devil. The third is that tongues are illogical and unintelligible. Let’s look at each of these objections to tongues in more detail.

First, why would some modern-day believers maintain that we no longer need the gift of tongues today? These people say that in the beginning of the Church, tongues were necessary to spread the Gospel. As we saw in Acts 2, the disciples were able to speak in the language of other cultures. But now, those who oppose this gift insist that such an ability is no longer necessary since we have the Bible available in almost all languages. We also have the ability to translate from language to language in both speech and the written word. The miracle of tongues such as operated on the Day of Pentecost is therefore now unnecessary, say those who hold to this idea.

I believe people who say this are missing the point. The miracle occur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1. Why the Debate?
• 2. The Person of the Holy Spirit
• 3. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
• 4. The Filling of the Spirit
• 5. New Tongues
• 6. A Sign to Unbelievers
• 7. A Personal Prayer Language
• 8. Partnering with Our Intercessor
• 9. Defeating the Three “Ds”
• 10. Mysteries Unveiled
• 11. Giving Thanks
• 12. The Interpretation of Tongues
• 13. Proper Protocol
• Scripture Index
• About the Author
• Back Ad
• Back Cover