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A family was sitting around the dinner table one evening waiting for their dad to get in from work. Finally, he came in late because it had been a rough day. When he came in, he sat down at the table and offered thanks for the food. As soon as he finished his prayer, he began to complain and grumble about how awful things were going at work. The boss was a jerk and the workers were lazy. Then his wife brought in the food. Since he had come in so late, the food that was supposed to be cold was warm and the food that was supposed to be hot was cold. The main dish was overcooked and dried out. The bread was hard. And he made sure and pointed out what was wrong with everything. Finally, after hearing all the complaints, his youngest daughter asked him a question. “Daddy, do you think God heard you when you prayed a few minutes ago?” “Well, yes sweetheart. Of course He did.” Then she asked, “Do you think He heard everything you said after that?” “Why, yes sweetheart. God hears everything.” Finally, she asked, “Which one do you think He believed?” See, that man might have offered thanks with his words, but his actions showed something entirely different.
A young American engineer was sent to Ireland by his company to work in a new electronics plant. It was a two-year assignment that he had accepted because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend. She had a job near her home in Tennessee, and their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned. They corresponded often, but as the lonely weeks went by, she began expressing doubts that he was being true to her, exposed as he was to comely Irish lasses.
The young engineer wrote back, declaring with some passion that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. “I admit,” he wrote, “that sometimes I’m tempted. But I fight it. I’m keeping myself for you.”
In the next mail, the engineer received a package. It contained a note from his girl and a harmonica. “I’m sending this to you,” she wrote, “so you can learn to play it and have something to take your mind off those girls.”
The engineer replied, “Thanks for the harmonica. I’m practicing on it every night and thinking of you.”
At the end of his two-year stint, the engineer was transferred back to company headquarters. He took the first plane to Tennessee to be reunited with his girl. Her whole family was with her, but as he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, “Just hold on there a minute, Billy Bob. Before any serious kissin’ and huggin’ gets started here, let me hear you play that harmonica!”
Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, pp. 17-18.
Quote from Justin Martyr 150AD, "If you want proof that the Spirit of God, who was with your people, and left you to come to us, come into our assemblies, and there you shall see Him cast out devils and heal the sick, and hear Him speak in tongues and prophecy."
Sin separates. Sin divides. Sin brings death to relationships and destroys fellowship.
God unites. God brings oneness and unity. On the day of Pentecost, God reversed the Babel process, and with one language from heaven, He demonstrated that all in Him will be sharers of one divine ‘language’.
No, I’m not talking about the gift of tongues, which typified what I really am talking about.
Believers from every time, from every continent, every nation, every culture and tribe, speak one language.
It is a language of love. It is a language of brotherhood in Christ. It is a language of the Spirit of God that only those with the Spirit in them can comprehend.
As I sat preparing this sermon, my daughter popped up on Instant Messenger and began to chat with me. She asked what kind of songs we sing in church, so I listed a few as examples.
When she saw the title, “Shout to the Lord”, she began telling me a story about her trip a couple of years ago to China. I copied it here to read to you.
When I went to China it was with the understanding that while we were there (for 4 weeks) we would probably not go to church. Because it is difficult to find a church that is not "underground".
We were actually in China for a total of 5 Sundays. The 4th Sunday we found a church that meets in a little building. Well, one of the teachers said that the church started at 10:30am so we all got ready and left for church around 10:10-10:15am.
We got there and they were already almost done with worship time. They saw us pull up and cleared the first 2 rows for us. Mind you it is standing room only in that church. Literally there are people standing outside at the windows, listening, whether rain or shine.
We sat down and they started the service completely over just for us. They were singing hymns. Some we knew some we didn’t.
The hymnals were in Chinese so it didn’t do us much good. But we sang along with the songs we knew...i.e.: The Old Rugged Cross
Instantly I began thinking that that is kinda what heaven will be like. Everyone coming from far and wide and yet we’ll all be singing the same songs.
(this is what I’m talking about, folks)
Anyway,...
The 5th Sunday we were on our way back home. We were in Beiging. We’d just gotten in at 8am and they told us church started at 9am. We wanted to go sooooooo bad.
We found out that the church they were talking about was International Christian Fellowship. In order to get in you have to live somewhere other than C...
I PRAYED HER HOME
Praying in Tongues
From August 2002 to December 2010 my family suffered the affliction of brain cancer which was placed by Satan (2 Corinthians 12:7; Luke 13:10-17) upon my “helpmate,” (Genesis 2:18-25) Bonnie K. Laughlin. Just like many conservative preachers of the Word of God today, I have tasted the consequence of sin in the “Institutionalized Church.” (Ezekiel 24:15-27) Every year a growing number of preachers and teachers of God’s Word experience the heartbreak of the physical death of their wives.
Bonnie and I served as Theological Reviewers for SermonCentral. We were amazed of how the “Conjuncture of Man” is being afflicted with the cancers of traditionalism, legalism, faddism and denominationalism. Even to this day I am almost overwhelmed by the hard heart of mankind. I am concerned as the people of God fail to come to the modern day prophets (Ephesians 4:11-16) and say as the people in Ezekiel’s day, “Won’t you tell us what these things have to do with us?’ (Ezekiel 24:19)
In His mercy and through His faithfulness to His own Word, I received a Holy Spirit gift that enabled me to pray a prayer that gave comfort to my dear Bonnie in her very last moments upon this earth.
Here is a truth you must grasp. Because of original sin, people do not come into the world easily (Genesis 3:16) and it is not likely they will leave it without a struggle. On December 31, in our bedroom I was awakened by Bonnie’s labored breathing. Because I have spent many hours at the bedside of dying patients and witnessed their struggle, my heart broke for her as I knew she would soon breathe her last. At that moment the Holy Spirit gave me a measure of faith to pray in my heavenly language. With my mind steadfast upon the Lord and with a surrendered heart to God’s will, I held her hand and prayed in tongues. As soon as I finished praying, Bonnie’s breathing became relaxed and, being fully aware of my presence, she went peacefully to be with Jesus.
The Bible says, “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God.” (1 Corinthians 14:2) It also says, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays…” (1 Corinthians 14:4) At that very moment, when Bonnie needed my intercession, “I thank God that I speak in tongues...” (1 Corinthians 14:18)
I prayed Her Home!
Michael Raisbeck
It is significant to mention what happened to Smith Wigglesworth when he first received the ability to speak in tongues in Sunderland in 1907.
He described this experience as follows: "She [Mrs Boddy, a minister’s wife] laid her hands on me and then had to go out of the room. The fire fell. It was a wonderful time as I was there with God alone. He bathed me in power. I was conscience of the cleansing of the precious blood, and I cried out: ’Clean! Clean! Clean!’ I was filled with the joy of the consciousness of the cleansing. I was given a vision in which I saw the Lord Jesus Christ. I beheld the empty cross, and I saw Him exalted at the right hand of God the Father. I could speak no longer in English, but I began to praise Him in other tongues as the Spirit of God gave me utterance. I knew then, although I might have received anointings previously, that now, at last, I had received the real Baptism in the Holy Spirit as they received on the day of Pentecost." (1).
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1. Frodsham, Stanley, “ Apostle Of Faith “, P. 44
Speaking in tongues has continued on through the history of the church and reveals why it is not to be forbid even today:
Early Church history reveals this gift as legitimate and being practiced (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia#Church_History_.28A.D._100_to_500.29)
1. For the prophetical gifts remain with us, even to this present time. (Justin Martyr, c.150)
a. Now, it is possible to see amongst us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God. (Justin Martyr, c.150)
2. The early church Fathers also recount the lists of gifts of the Spirit recorded in the New Testament.
a. This is He who places prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues, gives powers and healings, does wonderful works, often discrimination of spirits, affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders and arranges whatever other gifts there are of charismata; and thus make the Lord's Church everywhere, and in all, perfected and completed. (Novatian, c.200-c.258)
b. For God hath set same in the Church, first apostles...secondly prophets...thirdly teachers...next mighty works, among which are the healing of diseases... and gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of tongues. Clearly these are the Church's agents of ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained them. (Hilary of Poitiers, 360)[49]
c. Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest the secrets of the heart; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer -- only let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Creator; therefore without doubt the Christ, and the Spirit, and the apostle, belong severally to my God. Here, then, is my frank avowal for anyone who cares to require it. (Tertullian, c.207)[51]
1265 - Thomas Aquinas wrote about the gift of tongues in the New Testament, which he understood to be an ability to speak every language, given for the purposes of missionary work. He explained that Christ did not have this gift because his mission was to the Jews, "nor does each one of the faithful now speak save in one tongue"; for "no one ...
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