I believe in the power of speaking in tongues. I believe because I have witnessed its power in my own experience as well as in the experiences of others. One night very late I began praying in tongues and prayed aggressively for nearly three hours. Although I did not know what I was praying for, I sensed that I was praying through to victory for something very important. I wasn’t afraid or particularly in distress, just very intent to faithfully pray with the Lord until He released me.
When the burden lifted I got up and left my office to go to bed. Going down the hall I noticed the light was still on in my daughter Anna’s room, where she was studying for college semester finals. I stuck my head in to say good night and felt impressed to ask Anna not to drive my car to school that day. “Take your mother’s Jeep,” I insisted. Anna normally drove my car to class in the mornings. I knew of no reason for my request other than the deep and distinct impression I felt. I learned long ago to pay attention to these promptings of the Holy Spirit. After I repeated my request a couple of times, Anna finally rolled her eyes at me and said, “Okay, Dad, I promise!”
A few hours later Anna was on her way to her class. That particular morning she decided to take a route she was not accustomed to. An early rain had left the road surfaces slippery. Blinded by the morning sun in her eyes, Anna lost control of the vehicle as she unexpectedly came upon a hairpin curve. The Jeep skidded off the road and slammed head-on into a tree at approximately 35 mph, pinning Anna inside. The vehicle was totaled.
By the time Bonnie and I were notified and arrived on the scene, an emergency rescue team was extracting Anna from the Jeep on a stretcher. Fire, police, and emergency rescue personnel were everywhere. One of them told Bonnie, “I’ve worked nearly 30 calls like this, and this is the first time the driver survived.” We heard similar stories from other rescue personnel who were present. In their experience, accidents of this type almost always resulted in massive injuries or death. What we heard over and over that morning from officials on the scene were the words, “It’s a miracle your daughter is alive.”
After the ambulance left for the hospital, one of the police officers present pointed again at the demolished Jeep. “Those airbags saved her life,” he said. Bonnie and I knew also that God and His angels had been on assignment. My car—the one Anna normally drove to class—was not equipped with airbags. Had she been driving my car that morning, the outcome might have been altogether different. As it was, Anna suffered bad breaks in both legs, but fully recovered with no permanent ill effects from her injuries.
That morning I understood why I had been so burdened in prayer just hours before. The Holy Spirit knew of the danger ahead of time and prompted me to pray in tongues until the burden lifted. One alert watchman can save an entire house. The thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy will pass by a house where the watch lamps are brightly burning.
During nearly 30 years of ministry I have personally witnessed multiplied thousands of instances where people who have turned to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith after hear -ing the gospel preached have manifested confirming signs and wonders in their lives as evidence of the Lord’s presence. Blind people have received their sight and deaf people their hearing. Lame people have walked and demonized people have been delivered. Many new believers, even those who have never heard of the Holy Spirit, have spontaneously received the baptism of the Spirit, evidenced by speaking in tongues. I particularly remember one overseas crusade in which thousands responded to the gospel. As I prayed over these new converts and welcomed the Holy Spirit, He swept over the crowd in a wave, and 50,000 began speaking in tongues at one time.
Over the last century the Church has seen an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and of the presence and power of the Lord that are unparalleled since Pentecost. God is up to something big, and speaking in tongues is just one part—one indicator of what He is doing.
For the better part of a decade now thousands of believers have been basking in the warm flow of a spiritual renewal that has become popularly known as “the river.” Epitomized by the outpourings at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in Toronto, Ontario, and the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, this latter-day visitation of the Spirit of God has resulted in many lost people being saved—their lives totally transformed by the power of God—and many more believers who have received a fresh touch from the Spirit—a deepening sense of His intimate presence.
As wonderful and refreshing as it is, “the river” is only the beginning. Signs are all around that God has opened a new phase, which we could call “the glory.” Building on “the river” experience, “the glory” seeks to take us beyond it to even deeper levels of intimacy with the Lord and greater manifestations of His presence. It seeks to reconnect us to the kind of outpouring of the Holy Spirit that came at Pentecost, marking and empowering the Church to carry out Christ’s commission to carry the gospel to every nation.
As believers in the twenty-first century, we are part of the last-days Church. It is highly possible that our generation or that of our children will witness the return of Christ. Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Mt. 24:14). There is no logistical or technological reason why that commission cannot be fulfilled within our lifetime. We have even now the means to carry it out. Jesus charged the Church with the mission of preaching the gospel and making disciples in every nation. That is her purpose, her very reason for existing as a body. Every endowment from God, every spiritual gift, every empowerment we receive from the Lord is to equip her for that mission.
The Church is the Bride of Christ, and part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to prepare the Bride for the coming of her Bridegroom. When Jesus comes to claim His Bride, she will appear before Him arrayed in the glorious garments of grace, faith, obedience, and holiness. By herself, the Bride can do nothing. It is the Spirit of God who anoints the Bride of Christ. As the day of the Bridegroom’s return approaches, the Spirit’s activity of preparation will increase. This is an awesome mystery. God is doing a mighty work in His people. He is transforming us into a Bride fit for His Son, and His agent in this transformation is the Holy Spirit.
As the preparer of the Bride, the Holy Spirit is like Abraham’s servant in the Book of Genesis, who was the steward and administrator of everything that Abraham owned, and who Abraham sent to find and prepare a bride for his son Isaac. He went out and chose Rebekah, who became Isaac’s wife. The Holy Spirit is like the king’s eunuch in the Book of Esther who trained and taught Esther and prepared her to go before the king.
This is the same Holy Spirit who came on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus and ten days after His ascension, and filled the 120 believers who were gathered together in that upper room in Jerusalem. He is the third Person of the Godhead, coequal with God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. When the Spirit filled those believers at Pentecost, they began to speak in tongues. The Spirit’s presence connected them with the heart and mind of God in a whole new way, and speaking in tongues was the “supernaturally natural” expression of that connection.
Speaking in tongues is “spirit talk,” a language that connects us to the glory of God just as it did for those believers at Pentecost. As we move from “the river” into “the glory,” tongues will continue to be a major part of the process.
Speaking in tongues is the language of glory, an outward manifestation of the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would come to dwell permanently in the hearts and lives of believers. The Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church and part of that birth was tongues. The Church was born speaking in tongues.
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1-4).
Not long ago, two events occurred in our country that brought greater public attention to one of the lesser-known stories of World War II. President George W. Bush awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award Congress can bestow, to four surviving members of the original 29 “windtalkers”—Native Americans of the Navajo nation who served as Marines in the Pacific theater and who used their Navajo language as a communications code that the Japanese found impossible to break. At about the same time, a Hollywood motion picture named “Windtalkers” was released, which gave a fact-based but somewhat fictionalized account of the same story.
The word windtalkers refers to the Navajo way of speaking, a “talking into the wind.” A Navajo code talker was assigned to each Marine division to provide secure communication between them free from interception by the Japanese. In what undoubtedly sounded like mere gibberish to the eavesdropping enemy, these “windtalkers” used their unique language to coordinate battle plans and strategy, call in artillery fire, and give status reports. They are credited with making significant contributions to the American victories on Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and other major battles on the islands of the Pacific.
This story of the Navajo windtalkers brought to my mind a connection with those believers long ago who talked into the “wind” of Pentecost. The Greek word pneuma, which is often translated “spirit,” also means “breath” or “wind.” The 120 believers gathered in that upper room heard “a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,” and they “began to speak with other tongues.” These newly Spirit-filled believers were spiritual “windtalkers.” They spoke in a new language that was like a “breath” of Heaven.
Just as the Japanese could not penetrate the code of the Navajo windtalkers, so the devil cannot break through the language of the Spirit. Speaking in tongues is a heavenly communication, a language that links us with the glory of God. It puts us in tune with His heart and mind. Just as the Navajo windtalkers alone could understand each other in their unique tongue, so also do spiritual windtalkers have a secure communication with the Lord, a special language or “code” that cannot be intercepted, understood, or subverted by the enemy. Speaking in tongues is the language of the realm of Heaven. The problem is that we have spiritualized and religionized it to such a point of controversy that it is easy to lose sight of its true nature and purpose—to connect us with the glory of the Lord.
The last thing the risen Jesus said to His followers before He ascended to Heaven was:
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).
Jesus’ words contain two imperatives for His disciples: “You shall receive power,” and “you shall be witnesses to Me.” These two “you shalls” go together; either one is meaningless without the other. A witness to Jesus that has no spiritual power accomplishes nothing, and spiritual power that does not witness to Jesus has no purpose.
Every spiritual gift and other endowment of the Spirit, including speaking in tongues, is bestowed on believers for the ultimate purpose of equipping and enabling us to bear witness, both individually and corporately, to the saving work of Jesus Christ through His death on the cross and His bodily resurrection. Whenever we begin to focus on spiritual gifts for their own sake, whether tongues or anything else, we are headed for trouble. As Christians we are always in danger of slipping into one or the other of two extremes, both equally dangerous. Placing too little emphasis on the gifts and presence of the Holy Spirit robs us of power, while placing too much robs us of vision and direction because it takes our eyes off Jesus.
Before He went back to Heaven, Jesus charged His followers with a clear and specific commission:
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).
Our marching orders are to make disciples in every nation and teach them to obey Jesus. To enable us to carry out His command, Jesus promised to be present with us always, and His presence always brings His power. Jesus’ presence with us enables us to proclaim the gospel with power and see lives transformed by His Spirit.
Mark records the same commission in slightly different form, but the implications are the same:
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:15-18).
Both forms of Jesus’ commission stress the preeminence of bearing witness—of preaching the gospel and making disciples—and both promise the presence of the living Lord with His people. While Matthew focuses on the fact of Jesus’ presence—“I will be with you always”—Mark emphasizes the evidence of His presence—“And these signs will follow those who believe…”
Luke likewise closes his Gospel with commissioning words from Jesus, and like Matthew and Mark, they focus on proclaiming the gospel throughout the world and on the empowering presence of the Lord that makes it possible:
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high (Luke 24:46-49).
Our commission as believers is to preach to all nations “repentance and remission of sins” in Jesus’ name. The “Promise of My Father” refers to the Holy Spirit, who descended upon and filled the believers on the Day of Pentecost, at which time they were “endued with power from on high.” As Acts 2:4 makes clear, the initial evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in power was that the believers “began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” This set the stage for the preaching of the gospel to the thousands of pilgrims who were in Jerusalem for the festival.
In every instance, the release of spiritual power is inextricably bound up with the mission of bearing witness to Jesus. At the same time, speaking in tongues is clearly linked to the release of spiritual power as the initial outward manifestation of that power. Even then, however, its function was to enable the multinational crowd in Jerusalem to hear and understand the gospel, each in their own language, so that all who responded would be saved.
Here, then, is a solid and unchanging biblical principle: We are given spiritual power for the purpose of bearing witness to Jesus.
In our generation more than ever before, the world is center stage to a spiritual battle of epic proportions between the powers of darkness and the powers of light. The Church is the vanguard for the powers of light on the earth, and we need weapons equal to the fight. Human wisdom and understanding are not enough. Jesus did not say, “You shall receive knowledge when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” nor did He say, “You shall receive wisdom when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” He said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” We do not need any more plans or schemes or formulas based on human wisdom or ingenuity; we are already stuffed to the gills with those. What we need is power—spiritual power.
Once, during a trip to Israel, I was praying with my family at the Garden Tomb when I felt the gentle nudge of the Spirit asking me rhetorically, “Where is the power of the Church? Where is the power in your life?”
There is a secret to the power. It is the secret that gives me the confidence of knowing every time I stand before 50,000 or 100,000 people or more during a crusade that God is going to heal several thousand of them. It is the secret that assures me that signs and wonders and miracles will flow. The Holy Spirit is the avenue, the agent through whom the power comes, but that power is released into and through our lives when certain conditions are met.
Paul of Tarsus knew the secret. He revealed it in his first letter to the church in Corinth:
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).
Did you catch that? The apostle Paul, one of the most highly educated and brilliant intellectuals of his day, determined to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is the key. The secret to the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” in Paul’s preaching and ministry lay not in his great learning or in “persuasive words of human wisdom,” but in the simple message of “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
In our day we have so exalted excellence of human speech and profoundness of human wisdom that the basic truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified often appears hopelessly rustic and archaic to our jaded and sophisticated minds, too simple a concept for a complex and enlightened age. It was just this kind of thinking that Paul had in mind when he wrote:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.…For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18,22-24).
The secret to the release of spiritual power in our lives, our churches, and our ministries is to keep ourselves focused on the simple and basic message of “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” We have no other message for a lost and dying world. No other name under Heaven can bring salvation; only the name of Jesus. There is power in the name and the blood of Jesus. Sins are forgiven and lives are transformed in the name and by the blood of Jesus. Signs, wonders, and miracles flow when the gospel is preached and the name of Jesus is lifted up before the lost. Do you want to see the power of the Holy Spirit at work in you and through you? Then center your life on Jesus. Do not focus on the gifts but on the Giver; not on the power but on the One who is the source of the power.
We have two choices. Will our faith be in the wisdom of men or in the power of God? As long as we depend on human wisdom we will have a form of godliness but no power. If we emphasize peripherals—give primary attention to those things the Lord has said are secondary—we will also be disappointed in our desire to see God’s Spirit move in power. We must keep the chief thing the chief thing: Proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That and nothing else is the secret to the release of spiritual power.
God’s desire for us is that we be a people in whom His glory can dwell, both individually and corporately. He wants to release us as carriers of His glory and His power. Through the Holy Spirit He has anointed us to carry the light of His truth and life, a light that none of the powers of darkness can withstand. As believers, each of us has been ordained of God to carry the mantle of His power and authority and be vessels through whom He can reveal His glory.
As part of that mantle, the Lord has imparted to us specific “grace gifts” to equip us for our role as agents of His power. One of the most personally useful of these is speaking in tongues. The gift of tongues is a marvelous endowment of the Holy Spirit. It helps us communicate directly with the Lord. Speaking in tongues is the main avenue to our flying higher and swimming deeper in the things of God. It is a special prayer language that connects us with the glory of God, enabling us to pray in the Spirit when we do not know what or how to pray in the weakness and limitation of our human minds. There is no limitation to praying in the Spirit because it taps into the limitless mind of God.
In our own human weakness, we often have difficulty expressing the true depth of our feelings and burdens to the Lord. Praying in the Spirit helps us overcome that difficulty. As Paul explained it to the Romans:
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).
We may not know the will of God in every situation, but the Holy Spirit does, and intercedes for us accordingly. He aids us in prayer because He knows what is really going on in the realm that we do not see. He helps us aim our “prayer arrows” so that they always hit the target.
When the Spirit came the first time on the Day of Pentecost, He came with tongues. As He came then, He still comes today. Every true believer in Christ has the Holy Spirit living within, because the Spirit is the agent of God’s saving grace and without His presence there is no salvation. Not every believer speaks in tongues, however. Some have been taught that the gift of tongues ceased around the end of the first century; others, that tongues are for some but not all. Speaking in tongues is certainly not necessary for salvation, but it is a wonderful asset for prayer and for helping us grow in effective ministry and in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. I believe, therefore, that it is available for every born-again follower of Christ who desires it and seeks it humbly and in faith.
When we pray in tongues the Holy Spirit gives utterance to things that we cannot express in human language. Because it is by nature an “unknown tongue,” flowing in it calls for humility and submission on our part. We must be willing in faith to yield every part of ourselves to the King of glory—our body, mind, spirit, tongue, vocal cords. Everything yields to Jesus. To the natural mind this sounds foolish or even scary, but “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25). That which we surrender to Jesus willingly, completely, and in humble faith He will bless and multiply exceedingly and abundantly beyond what we could ever do with our own resources.
Speaking in tongues carries many benefits for our spiritual lives. For one thing, it helps us grow more intimate with God. The more we speak in tongues the more we become possessed by the Holy Spirit. When we are exhausted and weary, speaking in tongues refreshes us in a marvelous way. It is like being in a flowing river on a hot day. Along with getting into God’s Word regularly and spending quality time with Jesus on a daily basis, speaking in tongues is one of the best ways to get refilled.
Whenever we speak in tongues, we are magnifying and glorifying God because we are praying in the language of the Spirit—the language of glory. At the same time, we are also strengthening and building ourselves up in our faith: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 1:20-21). Praying in the Spirit is a means by which we can build ourselves up, as well as our families, our homes, and our churches. Speaking in tongues is not just some kind of badge we pull out once in awhile as proof that we have been baptized in the Spirit. On the contrary, it is a wonderful tool and awesome spiritual weapon that God has given us, one that we do not utilize nearly often enough.
It is truly unfortunate that the practice of speaking in tongues has become such a point of contention in the Church. People on both sides of the issue have made the same mistake of focusing so much attention on the manifestation of tongues as to lose sight of the meaning behind it. As much a wonder as the gift of tongues is, it is merely an outward sign of an even greater wonder, that the living God has come down in the person of the Holy Spirit to literally and permanently dwell in the hearts of His people.
Pentecost was not an afterthought with God, but part of His plan from the beginning. Joel prophesied it centuries before the fact:
And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days (Joel 2:28-29).
The glory of the Lord came down on that first Pentecost after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In a similar manner, the glory of God descended on Mt. Sinai not long after He led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. We can better understand the significance of Pentecost if we understand the significance of what happened at Mt. Sinai. In many ways, Mt. Sinai foreshadowed Pentecost.