The Rowdy Chapter

The book of First Corinthians. This is something we’ve been doing since the beginning of the year, teaching through the Book of First Corinthians. And we haven’t left anything out. We’ve gone through division, we’ve gone through sexual immorality, we’ve gone through how to be a healthy church family, how to love each other well, how to do marriage well. All these different things, all these different topics we’ve been talking about.

Today we’re rolling right into 1 Corinthians 14, 1st Corinthians 14. This is called the rowdy chapter. Okay, the rowdy chapter. Why do we call it the rowdy chapter is because this is probably, I don’t know if it’s controversial, it’s just very, very hard to teach because there’s so many different views about First Corinthians 14. And it deals specifically with tongues and prophecy.

Tongues and prophecy. Oh, we’re going to. Is this one of these tongue speaking churches? It might be. It’s one of these prophecy churches.

It might be. Right, right, right, right. But we’re going to learn in scripture what it says about these particular gifts. Paul emphasizes these two particular gifts in this chapter because it was causing a great deal of confusion in the church. There was a lot going on.

There was tongue wars going on. People were practicing gifts. Man, the Corinthians were spirit filled churches, but man, they were char maniacs. I mean, they were just going crazy tongue wars. Can you believe it or not?

I speak in tongues better than you do, you know? No, I do. I got the better gift. I’ve got all these. And last week, the week before, we talked about those gifts and the different types of gifts and the distribution of those different gifts.

Everybody’s got gifts, right? But these are pretty serious gifts. Or not necessarily serious is probably the wrong word, but, but supernatural gifts are pretty high gifts, you know, and they’re unusual gifts. Right? They’re unusual gifts that everybody has questions about.

Well, Paul addresses this with the Corinthians and it does apply to us today as churches. Alright, so if you have your bibles, turn to First Corinthians 14. And to start off, let me give you four different perspectives and then I’ll give you our perspective. Okay, four different perspectives. Very, very broad range of people that believe different things about the gifts of the spirit.

Okay, There is the cessationists, my brothers that are cessationists. I’ve got cessationist friends. I’m not a cessationist personally, but we do have cessationist friends that take this position. The position holds that the gifts like prophecy and tongues and healing have ceased. And these gifts were special sign gifts.

They were relevant only to a particular era of the church. And once the church got going, once the word was canonized and all good stuff, that we don’t need those type of gifts. They were signed gifts for that time. But the problem with this is I can’t find anything in the Bible that justifies a blanket claim that the gifts have ceased. And in fact, Paul ends this chapter saying, don’t forbid seeking spiritual gifts.

Don’t forbid these gifts, particularly tongues and prophecy, those two gifts he’s dealing with specifically. And at the end of First Corinthians 13, Paul told us that these kinds of gifts would continue at least until Jesus returns, because we would no longer need them once we’re face to face with Jesus. Amen. Praise God. But there’s nowhere I can find in the Bible that supports this position, although I love my cessationist brothers and sisters.

The second view is the Pentecostal position. This is where our movement came out of our church come out of. This movement started in the early 1900s with the Azusa Street Revival. And churches just broke out with the gifts of the Spirit speaking in tongues. They call it the renewal revival that took place in the 19th century.

A beautiful thing. And, and this is where we believe that gifts are in full operation. Everybody has the gifts available to them. Everybody can experience the gifts. There are some that wrongly say this.

And this is why Pentecostalism may get a bad rap. A bad name is if you haven’t experienced them, there must be something wrong with you. So we have to pray it into you and we have to pray over you all the time. And something spiritual. Maybe you got to get some sin out of you or something like that in order to experience it.

The charismatic position is very similar. That’s the third position, which is that these gifts are in existence. They’re part of the normal ministry of the church, just like the Pentecostals believe, though not every believer experiences all of them. So some people do and some people don’t. So it just depends on what the Spirit decides to do for certain people and not others.

And then there’s the open but cautious. I think a lot of people probably are in this category, the open but. But cautious position. This position believes that the gifts have not ceased, but that most of the ways the gifts are being used today in spirit filled churches are neither biblical or helpful. And there’s a lot of manipulation and psychological tricks that are involved in some of these.

And this position rather raises a lot of valid concerns. It does. I’ve been in those environments, and I found myself from time to time swinging back and forth in this position. Like, what do I believe about it? I believe that the gifts are for today.

I grew up Pentecostal, and I’ve seen great and mighty things and mighty works of the Lord. But at the same time, I’ve seen the manipulation. I’ve seen it in charismatic circles. I’ve seen things done in certain ways that I don’t believe was the Spirit. It was a pretend Spirit, and it was emotionalism.

But I never allowed that experience, the experiences that I had in those areas, to give me an attitude that I just shut off the gifts altogether. I’ve always been open to it till it. It led me to where I am now. Paul tells us in First Corinthians 14, if you’re following along in your Bible, he says, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that of prophecy.

So he points at prophecy as the greater gift. But we are to pursue earnestly all the spiritual gifts. Gifts, meaning that we’ve got to be hungry for them. We should be hungry. We should yearn for that experience of the Holy Spirit.

And three times in these chapters, Paul says that. He says, desire the gifts of the Spirit. Please desire the gifts of the Spirit. We need to be hungry for the gifts of the Spirit. And I don’t know about you, but I want to be a church that’s like that, that desires the gifts of the Spirit, that frequently keeps their hearts open to what God wants to do.

That when people come in or when we’re in our small groups, people will say, you know, you know what? I didn’t just hear a word today. I experienced the presence of God. I just didn’t hear a good teaching or hear some music that God was really in this place and God was moving in this place. Isn’t that what you want?

That’s what I want. Which leads me to my fifth position. And this is not in a theological textbook necessarily, although it makes a lot of sense. Pentecostal charismatics probably sit in this area, but here’s where we are. We as a church are Pentecostals with a seat belt.

Pentecostals with a seatbelt. How do you like that one? Right? We put the seat belt on, but we’re fully open to the gifts, and they’re valid today. And we should even be hungry for them.

And we believe everyone can operate according to the gift that has been given to them. We believe that they are completely available to anybody and everybody. But it has a seatbelt. We recognize that a lot of things that go under the name Spirit aren’t necessarily the Holy Spirit. So God desires us, as Paul tells us, to be decent and orderly, do things in order and with decency, practice the Spirit under the covering of order so that those who can come in won’t be scared out.

Right. I tell people all the time growing up Pentecostal, they always called us snake handlers. I don’t know where that came from. It took us a long time to get past that. But.

So let’s not add anything else to the mix. Right. But we want to be a Spirit filled church. We want to operate in the gifts of the Spirit. And I don’t typically, you know, come on off stage and lay hands on people and smack them to the ground or whatever.

You won’t see that here. Right. I’m not really. I’m not against that necessarily in certain circumstances perhaps, but I really want to be sensitive to not coercing or manipulating anything in this environment that wouldn’t be of the Spirit. So I’m very sensitive.

I don’t want a pretend spirit. I want the real spirit of God working. Amen. Amen. So I want us to experience all the things as a church, and Paul wanted us to experience all these things as he writes these to the early churches in these chapters, which actually translate very, very.

With very much strength into this area. So just out of curiosity, how many of you grew up Pentecostal Charismatic? Amen. Hallelujah. Yeah.

How many of you changed over to Pentecostal Charismatic? Okay. Yeah, yeah. And you’re like solely on board. Okay.

So we got a lot of Lutherans, Baptistals, different ones in here. You know, we got a lot of different people. Right, right. Praise God. Praise God for that.

So we love that. We love that about you guys and we love those of you who aren’t there yet, who come from other traditions. We pride ourselves in taking more of an open denominational approach so that many can come. But I want to teach not from a theological or a doctrinal standpoint a church puts in place, but what the Bible really says. Okay.

So that’s why we’re going scripture by scripture through this. So let’s move on. First, the first verse is pursue love earnestly desire the spiritual gift, especially that of prophecy. And two, verse two, for one who speaks in a tongue, speaks not to men, but to God. Not to men, but to God.

That’s really interesting. Underline, underland, underline. But to God. For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. So do you see that right there, that tongues are spoken to God, not to another person, but to God.

So having tongue wars isn’t necessarily biblical, Right? But God speaks through us and to us in the Spirit. Here’s what Wayne Grudem, theologian Wayne Grudem says. He says it is a form of prayer and praise. You express to God in a language that you do not understand.

So tongues is a language you don’t understand, but it’s praise to God. It’s your spirit praising God. Even if you don’t know what you’re saying, your spirit knows what it’s saying. Right? Outside of yourself and connecting with God, because God is Spirit and our spirits connect with God.

A language we don’t understand. Let me show you two examples of that in scripture. You’re very familiar with this first example, I’m sure. In Acts 2 it says, and when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. This is the launch of the church, by the way, if you wanted to launch a big church, Spirit filled will help, right?

And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind underlying mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them and. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. I think this was an awesome experience. When we look at this, we can easily belittle it to just, maybe just a blow on your forehead, right?

But it says in the original language, original Greek, that this was like hurricane force winds that came into this place. It was like a freight train rolling through when God had touched the people. Imagine that if we were in here and we were just praying, we were silent and waiting on the Lord and all of a sudden a freight train comes rolling through of wind that just blows us away. It was an awesome experience. A tornado like sound that came and then tongues of fire appeared on the heads of each member.

And that was the image of the Spirit coming into the church. That’s the power that you and I have inside of us. The power that raised Jesus from the dead as the Bible says, as Paul says is the same power in us, is the same power that raised Christ himself from the dead. We have that available to us and empowered them. And then it says now there were dwelling in Jerusalem.

Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. Because it was the day of Pentecost, right? Pentecost brought a lot of people into Jerusalem. There were people from all different tribes. There were different walks of life that knew many different languages.

And at this sound, the multitude came together. And they were bewildered because each one of them were hearing them speak in his own tongue. So they were hearing their own languages. They were like, these guys, they don’t know our language. These Hebrews, these guys from this particular area of Judea.

What are they saying here? Now, there’s two different interpretations of this. I’m going to get a little bit in teacher mode today, if y’ all are okay with that. Okay, so there’s two different interpretations of this. There’s J.

Rodman Williams, who is. Who is the renewal theology expert, Pentecostal charismatic theology theologian. And he says that the people were actually. That some. That the term glossolalia, by the way, is the Greek term for tongues were being interpreted on the spot as the people were speaking the unknown language.

Basically, they were speaking an unknown language. The glossolalia was going out. They didn’t know what they were saying. But God was at that moment interpreting in their own languages what was actually happening. And he does a lot of Greek work to show you how that works.

Right. So you could do some study on your own time with that. And then there’s the other view, that they were actually speaking other people languages, like preaching other languages, exhorting. But what we do, the point is that they were praising God, that they went out, they were praising God in a native tongue that they didn’t understand, but other people around were hearing. They were like, hey, he’s praising God.

They’re praising God. We hear them praising God in our own language. So another example of that is in Acts 10:44. Acts 10:44. This is where we first see Gentiles starting to experience what God was doing.

And if you know Cornelius and you read the story of Cornelius in Acts, he was a Roman centurion, soldier. He had a lot of power. He had a family. He had soldiers and all that. And he had a vision of Paul.

Peter. Yeah, Paul. And Paul. He invited. Excuse me, Peter.

It is Peter, not Paul. It’s Peter. Why did God do that with two P’s? I don’t get that. Right, right.

It kind of confuses when we’re speaking. So he asked Peter to come to share this news with him. He had heard about it, and God began to speak to him and ask Peter to come to his house and Peter begins to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s a powerful scripture if you can go and read it. How Peter’s just sharing about this Jesus who came and died for our sins and he’s coming again and all that beautiful stuff, right?

And it says while Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard these words. And the circumcised believers, that is the Jews who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues, extolling God. So what was going on? They were speaking another language.

They were lifting their voices up to God, but they didn’t know what they were saying. But the Jews saw something there. Some interpretations say perhaps they were speaking Hebrew and they were like these circumcised non believing Jews were looking at them and like, wait, wait, wait, maybe this is a real thing. Because they were hard headed. They said there’s no way that this God is available to anybody but the Jews.

And here’s, here’s Gentiles speaking in tongues, extolling God and praising God. But the point here is they needed to know and everybody needed to know. Now the kingdom of God was not only just for the Jewish people, but it was for everyone. God had come to the world to share the good news with the world. And this is the first place we see that happening.

So that’s another example. Now verse three, if we’re moving on, it says, on the other hand, which contrasts to tongues, which are a mystery, a mysterious form of praise to God, the one who prophesies, speaks, speaks to people for their rebuilding or upbuilding and encouragement and consultation. So he’s comparing the different ones. He says, you got tongues, you know, it kind of does its thing, right? But then we have prophecy.

So let’s talk about prophecy for a minute. Let’s talk about what it means in scripture. With prophecy there are three primary areas, general areas we can put prophecy in. One of those is preaching. Preaching is prophecy.

What I do each week that I come up here, I prepare my message. I seek God, I allow the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit to speak to me through the word of God, to allow God to speak and, and teach the people. And the Bible is always God’s word, of course, right? And I give examples and I give insight and all that from the Word. But there are moments when the Bible is dynamic, that’s living and it’s actively speaking.

You know, it’s just reaching you at deep places. That’s called prophecy. That’s prophecy through the Word. And then there’s two others that can come under both biblical preaching and for you and you as well. And that’s words of wisdom and words of knowledge.

Words of wisdom which are insight into issues and applications to your day to day lives, showing you what these principles mean in context. So just giving you good wisdom and insight into your everyday life. And then words of knowledge which are. When God reveals something to me in a scripture or in general about your lives, you know, like something natural, maybe even like for example, John 4. When Jesus met the woman at the well, what did he do?

He prophesied that she had five husbands that they didn’t know about. Right? And she said, I perceive you are a prophet. I think she got that right. He was prophesying over, he spoke into her life.

He had some kind of knowledge of her outside of her letting him know what was going on. And it might happen while I’m preaching. It might happen on another instance. It could happen. In any case, something speaks directly to your heart, to your life, and that’s prophecy.

Have you ever had that experience where you heard a message? Maybe a message shared or somebody else shared, or maybe you heard it in radio and you said, man, that’s really, really hitting me hard. Man, that’s really what I need to hear. Or did they hear my stuff? I had somebody actually come up to me after church one day.

Did somebody tell you? Did somebody tell you what was going on in my life? You know, they were actually mad at me. I was like, no, I promise, I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s what God does through prophecy, through preaching of the Word.

That’s a form of prophetic, prophetic gifting. But it’s not just me or whoever stands here on stage. It’s supposed to be practiced among the congregation. Paul envisioned a congregation that practiced prophecy in which this happens in conversations at all levels, small groups, one on one conversations, prayer times in and out of the church service. This is what Paul envisioned.

In fact, jump down to verse 24. It says, but if all prophecy and an unbeliever or outside enters, the secrets of the heart are disclosed. And so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. So when we do this, when we practice among ourselves, this makes God more real. This reveals God.

And guess what? Those unbelievers that walk in the house so it wouldn’t be crazy. Pentecostal worship service where everybody’s running away. They’re going to come in and they’re going to see something happening that’s real. They’re going to, you know, somebody has an insight or somebody says something to somebody or maybe to that person in general, maybe before or after the service or whatever it may be, or in a small group, they’re going to.

They were going to falter their face and say, God knows these things because he’s revealed it to them. And they will surrender to God. With words of knowledge. The secrets of the heart are revealed and he knows God. Or she knows God is in this place, that God is actually working this church.

And I’ve seen it happen many times. It’s happened to me where somebody speaks something into my life or gives me great counselor, gives me great wisdom. And I know it’s directly from God that God is speaking, that God is speaking. I know it. But it’s important here, let me give you a little nuance or a caveat here.

That these things never take the weight of Scripture. They never take the weight of Scripture. Anything in this category, whether words of wisdom, words of knowledge or some kind of spoken word over a congregation or whatever, never take the weight of Scripture. They are not the word of God. They don’t equal the word of God.

They always stand on top. They always are founded on the word of God. We always test everything. That’s why we have gifts of discernment. That’s why we have gifts of interpretation.

Because a prophet needs a discerner God. A prophet needs an interpretator. Right? Interpretation. Interpreter.

There you go. Interpretate. That might be British. I don’t know. You need an interpreter.

But God gives to some gifts of discernment for these reasons. That’s why the body of Christ is so beautiful. Because without prophecy, we can’t move forward and see. But without discernment, we don’t know whether it’s God or not. Right?

And God works in those ways. Let’s just look at some scriptures here, like 1st Thessalonians 5, 20 and 21. Paul talks about this. He says, do not despise prophesying. He loved prophecy and he thought we needed to do it often.

But test everything. Hold fast to that which is good. We need to test everything in light of Scripture. Look at Scripture, balance it out. And when someone gives a word of prophecy, test it to see if it is really of God and hold fast to it if it is.

And if there’s parts of it that aren’t and parts of it that aren’t. Throw out the other stuff and hold on to that which is good. Nobody is above the Bible. Nobody is above God. And this shows you.

Words of prophecy are different from Scripture. They’re not the same as Scripture because Paul would never say that about any of his writings or any of his scriptures. Our prophecies to each other don’t carry the weight of Scripture, nor should they ever be thought of as the Word of God. That designation is only reserved for Scripture, the Word of God. Okay, another place in Scripture, if you don’t believe me there, let’s move down to First Corinthians 14:36.

It says the word of God did not come from you. In the context here, the Corinthians were experiencing things, prophecy. And he said, you know that the word of God did not come from you, okay? So stop getting boasted in your spirit that you’re speaking thus saith the Lord, and you’re not God. He was correcting them because that’s what they were doing.

This is directly from God. Don’t challenge me. Don’t say, well, I don’t know, but this is God. Don’t touch God’s anointed. This is the anointed voice of God, right?

And even with all the spirit prompted speeches, they experienced the word of God. Scripture was always, always there and it’s infallible. But prophecy can be fallible because we are people, right? We’re not God. And that’s okay.

Let me give you an example of what happened here in Scripture of a fallible prophecy. This guy named Agabus. Agabus, if you go to Acts 21:10, he says he told Paul through the Spirit the Jews would deliver him into the hands of the Roman rulers. This was a prophecy given to him. Wayne Grudem points out.

Theologian Wayne Grudem points out that Agabus was mostly correct, but not entirely. It was a Roman who bound Paul, not the Jews, because it happened, right? And the Jews did not take Paul captive, but tried to kill him. Okay? They didn’t take.

They didn’t. So he got part of it right. Agabus got part of it right, but didn’t get it all right? And here’s what Dr. Wayne Grudem says about this.

The prediction was not far off, but it had inaccuracies in detail that would have called into question the validity of the Old Testament prophet or scriptural writing. This is exactly the kind of fallible prophecy that would fit the definition of New Testament congregational prophecy reporting in one’s own words something God has spontaneously brought to mind. So there is room for error, There is room for error in practicing prophecy. But this is why we do it appropriately and in order. Appropriately in order when we’re practicing prophecy.

So prophecy is letting the Spirit of God speak through us to someone. And Paul wants everyone in the church to operate in that gift. And Saul, honestly, we need more of it. We need encouragement, we need consultation, we need exhortation. We need people speaking into people’s lives, encouraging people.

We need more. And the Christian world is sometimes split between those who take scripture seriously and those who listen to the Spirit. And they just. They’re like, you need to be more spiritual and you need to be more biblical. But.

And some of us really dig into the Bible to discover more because we have a teaching gift. And others of us, we really connect with God and discern things very well in the spiritual. But we need both. We need both. Which is my point here, I’m making is we want to be led by the Spirit and taught by the Word.

We want to be led by the Spirit. That’s your point there. We want to be led by the Spirit and taught by the Word. If you’re following your notes, you can fill in those blanks. We want to be led by the Spirit and taught by the Word.

So before we move on to tongues, because we’re dealing with prophecy right now, before I move on to tongues, I want to give you some characteristics that we should have as prophetic people, okay? First of all, we need to practice humility. Humility in prophecy is so important. Never, never, never, ever claim this is important. Thus saith the Lord, okay?

In congregational prophecy, I think it’s important to understand that we are fallible. And sometimes it might not be God. And other people need to have the opportunity to discern whether what you’re saying, you may feel it with all of your heart that God’s saying it. And that’s okay, because at times it is, thus saith the Lord. And it’s absolutely right because that God does work that way.

But we need to never, ever take the authority of God because we’re human. So I never say to someone, when God puts something on my heart, I never say, this is what God has said. Instead, I’m like, listen, I really feel like God has placed this on my heart. I believe he’s speaking to me to tell you this. I don’t know, maybe take it, pray about it, and discern it.

But this is what God says, or this is what I believe God is saying about your situation. So I take it from that Standpoint. So that gives them the opportunity to discern it. Well, if we go the other direction, the problem with that is we’re putting people in a really awkward position, especially if it’s wrong. Right.

How do you correct somebody? I remember when I was younger, I was in a church. There was an evangelist at my church and. And the lady come up to me and said I had been sexually abused for years, you know, and God was telling her that. And it was wrong.

It was wrong. I come from a really great family of my father, a pastor and wonderful things, you know, wonderful family background that never happened. So I’m sitting there as 11 year old, a lady praying over me and I’m like, what? You know, what do you say? Like I was 11 year old and this, wow, this woman of God, damn.

I did. I really. What? When did that happen? You know, you’re just trying to figure it out.

She was wrong. But it put me in a really awkward position because I didn’t know what to say or what to do or how to step away. And she moved on and started false prophesying over other people. So we went. But it does, like, if we’re practicing prophecy, we need to allow their opportunity for people to discern whether it’s good, hold on to that which is good.

Take, test it in light of scripture and hold on to that which is good. This is how we do it appropriately and in order. But I’ve also had times where people have spoken to me and said, I feel this impressed on my heart to tell you this and it’s been dead on and I’ve gone back and prayed. I know for a fact that it’s God. It’s God.

Then we need to have expectation. Okay? This is important. Not only do we practice humility, we have to have expectation. Expectation.

Let’s expect God to move in prophecy. Let’s expect God. That he would do. He promised that he’d send his spirit. He says your sons and daughters would prophesy.

And we need to believe that God has that available to us. And we need to expect it and desire those spiritual gifts as Paul tells us to. Don’t just be open to it, expect it, look for it, want it, pray for it. And I’m not saying the first thing that pops in your head is the Holy Spirit when you, when you have something to say or whatever. But it’s a good start.

It’s a good start to test how God wants to use you. If you feel that God is saying something, don’t be afraid to open up about it or share it with somebody so that you can see whether God is really working or not. Now you say, wait a minute. Doesn’t Paul say that certain people have the gift of prophecy? I’m glad you asked that question.

That there’s actually people who are prophetically gifted, not just one of those things that just everybody can kind of have here and there. Yes, yes. That is. It’s similar to the gift of generosity and the gift of evangelism. Everybody can practice generosity.

We’re supposed to as church people, right? We’re supposed to be generous people. And all of us should evangelize. That’s what we’re called to. But there’s those who particularly are appointed to be able to be anointed to do that.

Offices or those who are generous. I have a friend who’s extremely, extremely generous. It’s just no problem. God has blessed him with wealth because he was generous before he was even wealthy. That’s what God does.

He puts that, he bestows that on people who are blessed with generosity. But there’s also those who are blessed with evangelism. They have this evangelism. Get one of our overseers, Hans Hess, he’s like that. He’s an evangelist.

He can go into a meeting and people just drop to the floor with the Holy Spirit just pouring on them and they’re giving their lives to Jesus. Some people are anointed to do that, but it’s for everybody. Everybody should evangelize. Everybody should practice generosity and everybody should practice prophecy. Prophecy is available to everyone.

I love how John Mark Comer says it like this. Everyone needs to have a place in the church where they can share what the spirit has put on their heart for the benefit of others. While only certain people have the uniquely powerful prophetic gift, Paul thinks that every member should speak word saturated exhortations to each other by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, whether as a preacher, counselor, leader, or merely servants. Obviously some will be more gifted in this respect. But in Paul’s mind, prophecy is some spirit stuff, like we talked about the other week, the spirit stuff that every member should practice, like evangelism.

So we have humility, expectation and affirmation. Affirmation. We should affirm people. We should let people know when they prophesy and it’s right. Thank you for that.

They may not even know they’re doing it. Maybe they’re just giving some counsel, some wisdom. But they say something, exactly what you need, you know, it comes from the Lord. Or maybe they’re praying over you and you can Just say amen. So be it.

Hallelujah. I receive that. That’s exactly what I needed to hear and know so that they can be affirmed that God is really working in them so they can be encouraged. And maybe you think that’s kind of weird, you know, like, I don’t want to tell them whether they got it right or not. I mean, isn’t that a God thing in the heart?

You know, he just does that and they do the prophecy and then it’s fulfilled, and I just kind of keep it to myself. No, no, you don’t keep it to yourself because God, you know, God hears your heart, but they can’t hear your heart. And people need to be affirmed and encouraged. So humility, expectation, and affirmation. Now, let’s move to the last part of this message, and hopefully I can get through this real quick, as we have about 10 minutes left in our service here.

But tongues. Talk about tongues for a minute. Tongues. We got prophecy in tongues. Okay, it says in verse four, the one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

The one who speaks in tongues, they build up themselves. Now stopping right there. Many would say, no, I’m not getting you, Will. Hey, maybe that was a prophecy. I don’t know.

Was that prophetic? Will, you can’t miss this part. Don’t even know what I’m saying. Right? The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself.

I can’t believe that just happened. Some circles would say that Paul is using this to say that that building up yourself is wrong. Guys, we don’t need to do that. We just, you know, edifying yourself is what many versions say. Those who edify themselves, they speak in tongues.

But that’s not what Paul is saying. He said, they say you should never have a tongue without a. They’re not saying that you should never have a tongue without a prophecy, because that’s what a lot of them would say. Well, you need always an interpreter when you have a tongue. That’s not what Paul is saying.

Paul isn’t saying that because it would contradict a lot of his teachings, especially ones like pray in the Spirit, build yourself up on the holy Faith. Or Ephesians 6:18, Pray at all times in the Spirit. Or Romans 8:26, the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. So the Holy Spirit, in First Corinthians 2:10, we talked about this. The Holy Spirit searches all things, right?

Even the deep things of the heart, even the deepest things he’s just saying that in a public format. Is it edifying to the rest of the church that if you’re doing it in here and nobody understands and it’s just kind of chaos and it’s, and it may be legit, but if it’s there, is it really building up the church? He says self edification isn’t forbidden, but it’s more important that we build up the entire church because the reason we seek the gifts is to build up the entire church, not just ourselves. So it’s good to be self edified. What does God do with prayer language and things when we’re doing it for self edification?

Just two things real quick. Well, it’s communication to God when we don’t know what to say when we’re at a place. Have you ever been at a place where you just can’t pray? You’re just so distraught. You’re just in a place and a funk and you’re just like God.

I can’t even, I don’t even feel like I can connect to you. Sometimes God can pour out on you his spirit and he begins to speak a language through you to heaven that praises and glorifies God and it encourages you and it builds you up and it helps you connect with God. There’s something spiritual. I can’t explain it, but I’ve experienced it many times when I’ve been there. I can’t pray God right now, you’re going to have to pray for me.

And he’s prayed for me. And it also helps build up the believer. Second thing, it builds up the believer in his or her faith. It gives you faith. That’s why Jude 20 says, Pray in the spirit.

Build yourself up in the most holy faith. Stir the spirit inside of you. Because the mind may be unfruitful, but the spirit is edifying and it builds you up. It speaks mysteries. Only your soul can connect with the deepest parts of your very being.

Connect with God. So sometimes we need that. Now verse five. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. So again, Paul’s not against tongues.

He wants people to speak tongues. But he thinks in the corporate setting we really need to prophesy. We need to, if it’s meant to be in this type of setting, out loud in front of, you know, a worship service or something like that. Out loud. I’m not.

Okay, let me take a step back. There are times where we speak, we worship in a heavenly language. But it’s not weird. Okay? It really is.

And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. There’s times where edification can happen in worship service and things like that. But he’s talking about specifically in this context. They were interrupting leaders, and they were interrupting the order of service.

And they were coming in and they were saying this. You know, they were just speaking in tongues. He says, but we need prophecy. We need to order this, have prophecy. And it says on the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues.

Unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up again. The church has to be built up. Now, brothers, in verse six, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? So the sole purposes of the gifts, what again, are what, in their context, are to build up the church? It does.

If you’re speaking in an unknown tongue, is that building up the church? The whole church? No, because nobody knows what it is. They don’t understand it. It may be good for you, it may be great for you, but it doesn’t help the whole church.

Then Paul uses three illustrations. He uses the illustrations of music, battle cries and human language. He says, if even lifeless instruments such as a flute or a harp do not give distinctive notes, how will anyone know what is played? Random blasts don’t make good music. We all know that, right?

Just instruments going all over the place. That’s how the church was, you know, just all over the place. There was no harmony, there’s no rhythm, there’s no melody. There was no syncopation. There was nothing there, right?

In verse 8, he uses battle cries as an example. If. If a bugle gives a indistinct sound, who will get ready for a battle? Think about it. If there’s a bugle call in the old days, you know, that was a call for war in context here.

And if there’s a lot of different bugles sounding, where do you go? Where do you do? Could ruin your army, your military, your soldiers. They could be against each other. Who knows?

It causes chaos. And then he goes on to say so with yourself. If with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. And then he uses human language.

In verse 10. There are doubtless many languages in the world, and none is without meaning. But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So if I’m up here and I’m preaching, and I just start speaking in another language that you don’t understand. You wouldn’t know whether to say amen or not, right?

I mean, I could be saying, you know, God is great. God is Hallelujah. He is infinitely great and powerful. And I could quote all the different attributes and y’ all would say amen, no problem. Right?

But if I said Domino’s Pizza is horrible, then you would be like, amen. Y’ all still. Y’ all would. Yeah, some people would say amen and some people wouldn’t. Right?

Would that be something you would say amen to? Right. You don’t know the difference. And that’s what Paul’s saying here in Scripture. You don’t know the difference.

So we need prophecy. That’s why we need prophecy. So with yourselves, verse 12. Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. You should always be seeking the gifts that build up the body.

Simple as that. Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue, it felt led to doing a corporate service, by the way, in the context, should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. Again, it’s good to pray. Your spirit needs to pray.

Spiritual languages are good, right? It’s good for your spirit. But Paul is saving even for the one speaking in tongues. It’s always better to have prophecy. It’s always better to build up others.

Otherwise it’s just edifying your soul and no one else. And then verse 15. I will pray with my Spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. So Paul’s saying, although I love praying in tongues, right? I want to pray in the Spirit too.

I want to pray in truth, too. I want to pray in the Word too. So it is better for me to pray in the Spirit and pray with my mind. If I’m going to pray in tongues, I’m going to want to pray in truth as well. I want to know what I’m saying.

It’s great to have edification and mysterious things happening in my heart and in my soul that need to happen. But I want to be reminded of the truth that edifies me because truth, God’s word, edifies me as well. In fact, it’s better that I know what is edifying me here in scripture. Amen. Verse 18.

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than y’ all. He reminds them that, you know what? I went to the third Heaven. None of y’ all did that, right? I Arm wrestle cobras.

Did any of you do that? Hey man, I brought somebody back from the dead. I know, I know the power of God and I love speaking in tongues and I love those things. But nevertheless, in church I would rather have five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue. 10,000 is the, in Greek is the highest number meaning infinity, meaning that I can say all the spiritual words I want to, I can have all the spiritual language of eternity.

But if I can get just five words to help edify the church or edify somebody in the church, I much rather do that. And in fact, Paul says, more than likely you’re not going to hear me speak in tongues in the church. You’re going to hear me prophesy, I’m going to be prophesying in the church. Maybe on occasion you’ll hear me speak in tongues, but I’m going to have a prophecy going on with that is what Paul’s saying. And I’d rather have five simple words of understanding than all of heaven speaking.

And he goes on in verse 20, brothers, do not be children. In your thinking be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. I love that. Do not be children and you’re thinking, but infants in evil. Be children in evil.

Let’s be willfully ignorant of evil. Let’s be like children that don’t know that the world is as bad as it is, right? As we mature, as we grow in the spirit, we don’t worry about the things of the world anymore. Amen. And like a mature gospel, like the mature gospel people, and mature gospel people know their gifts are for service, not for show.

They’re not for boasting, but to bless. They know that. And I promise you I’m getting to the end here, okay? This is a big teaching. It’s just a really, really heavy scripture here.

Okay? Okay. In the law, Isaiah, verse 21 in the law, and he quotes Isaiah, it is written by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people. And even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord. Thus tongues are assigned for not believers, but for the unbeliever.

What does that mean? Who was assigned for the unbelievers in this context? Who was it signed for? For those unbelieving Jews that God saw that the Gentiles had been poured out, that the gift had been poured out on the Gentiles and they were speaking in other languages and the Jews were hard headed, they didn’t believe it, but God Began to show them you Jews wouldn’t receive the gospel. So God has taken the gospel to the Gentiles.

Amen. Hallelujah. Praise God. That’s why we’re here today. Amen.

And if therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders and unbelievers enter, they will not say that you are out of your mind, but in verse 24. But if all prophecy and unbelievers and outsiders enter, he is convicted by all. He is called into account and the secrets of his heart are disclosed. And so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. That’s the point.

That unbelievers will see that God is real and God is moving and God is in this place. Why then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn or a lesson or revelation, a tongue or interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in tongues, let there be only two and at most three, and each in turn. And let someone interpret in context.

He was trying to put order so that the Spirit could continue to flow in a way where things were getting answered and things were getting fulfilled. In verse 28. But if there is no one to interpret, and this is interesting, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. So if you have a tongue and you don’t have an interpreter in corporate environment, great for you, man. Like, that’s great edification for you.

But Paul’s saying just, just, just worship to yourself. Just enjoy it on your own. Okay, if there’s an interpreter, let’s, let’s, let’s let the church know. Amen. There’s interpreter present.

Let’s do that. I love how J. Robin Williams says this. Dr. J.

Rodman Williams says there is no divine seizure. The people freely does the speaking. And the Holy Spirit graciously provides this language, meaning that we can control it. When we say that God just took me over, you know, and that’s not. God allows us to be able to, as Paul shares here, is to control ourselves and do it in an orderly fashion.

Yes, the Holy Spirit needs to speak. Yes, the Holy Spirit has things to say. But God isn’t going to possess you and make you stand in front of the church. Okay. Without your control.

We have control. We have control. Number 33, or verse 33. For God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace. Amen.

That’s really what it comes down to. God is a God of peace. We want the gifts to flow. We want the Spirit to flow. We want the power of God to work in this house.

Amen. I want to feel it. I want to hear it. I want to experience it. I want God to do amazing things, but peace, peace among us.

Okay, so my brothers earnestly desire to prophesy. So we’re going to desire to prophesy, right? Amen. But do not and do not forbid speaking in tongues. Okay, we will not forbid speaking tongues, but all things should be done decently and in order.

Decently and in order. So my second point is freedom in the spirit and decency. And in order is what our church should be. Freedom in the spirit. And frankly, we probably need to lean a little bit more over to the freedom of the spirit side.

We got the decency and order thing down right. We need to practice some freedom in the house. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

So we don’t want to lose verse 40, but we want to gain verse 39. Hallelujah. Praise God. Praise God. I had a little bit more here today to share.

Some of you are probably asking about the last part of this where women are to be quiet. I’ll deal with this another time because we’re running out of time. Isn’t it convenient that I get to. But y’ all heard me. If you go back to the past.

I have spoken on this in the first part of First Corinthians where we’ve dealt with those things. But today I just want to end with. We want to be a church where people do more than just sing songs and soak and sit in a chair. We want people to prophesy. We want to speak, and we want to believe and we want to receive and we want to encourage and we want to build up and we want a church where people will come in and they will say God is surely in this place and that they will fall on their knees and give their lives to Jesus.

Amen. That’s what I want. I want to experience God more. I want to desire the gifts. I want us to be a church where I, when we come together, whether in church or in small groups, that each come with an expectation, not just an openness, but an expectation, not just a caution, but an expectation of what God wants to do in our house.

Is that what you want? That’s what I want. Let’s pray, Father. Thank you for your word, Lord. Thank you, God.

It teaches itself, Lord. I’m glad that you have given us something to go to when we don’t understand it all. And, God, we may still not understand it. All after today. Maybe we’re still trying to deal with it.

Some of us are still not quite there. That’s okay, Lord. Perhaps some of us are in the middle. We’re cautious but open, Lord. Some of us are kind of in the different pockets of those things, Lord.

But the good news is, Lord, we don’t have to have it all figured out. We don’t. So we’re open. But we’re open to whatever you want to do for us, Lord Jesus. So, God, I pray for our church.

I pray for the power of your spirit to work with us and in us. And we ask this in your name, Amen.