Gooding, David: 3 - 1 Corinthians 14

So now, as you have heard, our task tonight is to get through one Corinthians chapter fourteen. and that I shall try to do as best I can within the time available. Next week, God willing, we shall have our time of discussion. I'm certain that so far I have raised many points in your minds where you think that I am not quite right or correct, or haven't made myself clear, or have been unfair, or some other, uh, uh, undesirable thing. And next week is the chance, of course, for that to be put right. If you would prefer to write your questions and hand them in, that would be a great help too, so that we shall cover, uh, uh, the matters arising in due and proper order, and see that things are dealt with as best may be in proper proportion. We'll see. And if I haven't provoked any questions hitherto, well, it's impossible to think that I shall fail to do it, uh, tonight. Because here we come across verses that have been and are still much disputed. Now, last week we spent quite a deal of time thinking about Paul's exhortation that we were to seek earnestly, follow after spiritual gifts. And in telling us to follow after spiritual gifts and to desire them, we noticed Paul advising us and exhorting us to desire earnestly the greater gifts. For while all gifts are necessary, just as every member in the body, eh, large or small, is necessary, some members of the body are more important than others. The heart is more important than the little finger, and so gifts, some of them are more important than others. And we are to seek earnestly the greater gifts, whether it is seeking them for ourselves personally or as a church seeking them. So let us at this stage, just before we proceed, remind ourselves what it is that we are talking about and what it is that in this context we are seeking. We are to seek gifts. Now, we must distinguish, must we not, between the gifts of the Spirit, spiritual gifts in the plural, and the gift of the Spirit, which is another thing altogether. Every believer has received from the blessed Lord Jesus the gift of living water, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, let us remind ourselves that we don't have to get spiritual gifts in order for ourselves to be blessed. What do I mean by that? Well, you don't have to have the gift of an evangelist, do you, in order to hear the gospel and get saved, huh? In order to be sure you're saved, you don't have to have the gift of an evangelist. If you like, you can read the Bible in your own bedroom. John three sixteen, and the Holy Spirit will show you what it means. Believe it and be saved, and eternally saved, and absolutely certain of salvation without ever having received the gift of an evangelist. And the vast majority of us are never going to receive the gift of an evangelist, I can tell you that now. Uh, I certainly haven't, uh, and you may never have, to see. But saved we can be, of course, without having the gift of an evangelist. Why would you want the gift of an ev- of an evangelist? Well, not so that you can get saved yourself, but so that you can communicate the gospel to somebody else, so that those somebody else's can get saved. And if you haven't got the gift of an evangelist to take them the gospel, you can help those who have. And similarly, when it comes to making progress in the spiritual life, you don't have to have the gift for that, do you? Take the gift of teacher, for instance. You don't have to be a gifted teacher to understand God's word. Thank the Lord. Any believer can take the word of God, and the Holy Spirit is prepared to, uh, speak to them, is he not? Now, what you need a gift of an a teacher for is if you're going to teach it to others, whether you teach it in the Sunday school or in the mothers and Toddlers, or wherever you teach it, what you need the gift of teacher for is not to understand the word yourself, but to help other folks understand you. Moreover, there is a very important work, is there not, of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that we need constantly to be seeking, quite apart from any gift. Paul speaks of that in Ephesians chapter one and Ephesians chapter three, and it might be as well if we looked at it again. In Ephesians chapter one, we remember, you'll see verse fifteen, Paul tells the Ephesians that ever since he heard they'd been converted, he has not ceased to pray for them, uh, that, verse seventeen, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of an inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us all who believe. So Paul is praying this for the believers at Ephesus. They already have the Holy Spirit, but he prays that God would give them yet more of the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts, enlightening the eyes of their hearts so that they might know in a profound and spiritual way these great and glorious blessings. These things we need to see quite apart from gift. This is not gift. Gift, you'll see, is distributed to different people in different ways. Some have the gift of evangelists, some have the gift of being helps, some have the gift of being apostles, and some teachers and prophets, and thus and thus and thus, and not all have the same gift. But this is open to everybody, of course, without exception. And this is what we should pray for constantly. And similarly, in chapter three, these folks to whom Paul writes are believers, there's no doubt about it, they have the Holy Spirit, but Paul says he prays for them, uh, that the Father would grant them, verse sixteen, uh according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you'll be rooted and grounded in love and made strong to grasp, along with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which patheth knowledge, that you may be filled in all the fullness of God. God give us never to be satisfied, but ever to be seeking, like that man in the parable that the Lord Jesus told, who had a guest come at night, in the middle of the night, and having no bread from or more, he got up in the middle of the night and went and assailed his next door neighbor and knocked on the door at half past one in the middle of the night and asked for loaves to put before his unexpected, uh, visitor. And when a man from inside the door said, uh, Dracula, what do you think you're doing? I'm in bed with my children. He said, I can't help about that. You better get up because I've got a visitor and I need bread, and bread I'm going to have, and I'm not taking no for an answer, and kept on hammering until the man got up and gave him the bread he needed. In that sense too, we need endlessly and constantly, without ever giving up, as long as we breathe, to pray for the development of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. But that's not gifted. In praying those things for ourselves, we're praying for our own enlightenment and our own edification, and quite rightly so. Now, when we come to seek gifts, now it is a question not of seeking them for our own edification. Gift, by definition, is so that we primarily, so that we may help. And that is why, as we saw last week, that when it comes to seeking gift, the prime motivation must ever be the great and infinitely superior way of love. Why would you want gift? The only legitimate motive for seeking it is love, of course. Both in seeking it and exercising it, the only legitimate motivation is love, and love means not loving yourself, but loving the other person. And therefore, at the end of our meeting hurriedly last week, we looked at the early verses of chapter fourteen, where now Paul begins to point out, and he'll go on pointing it out through many, many verses in this chapter, that when it comes to seeking gifts, then the Holy Spirit says, don't seek tongues, seek prophecy. And when it comes to exercising gifts, if God has given you the gift of tongues, pray remember, says Paul, that unless it can be used to help other people, you mustn't use it in church. And it can only be used to help other people if it is translated into language they can understand. Now, the coward in me tells me to call your attention forthwith to verse eighteen of chapter fourteen before we proceed. For in these verses, we shall hear Paul, uh, at great length and in great detail, till and perhaps he'll weary you with his arguments, urging them not to use tongues in church. So much so that you might think he was against tongues somehow. He tells us in verse eighteen, I thank God I speak with tongues more than you all. So if you think your, your, your, your preacher tonight is a bias, then that accounts for what he's saying, well, so he might be. Paul wasn't, was he? He spoke with tongues more than they all. It's a man who spoke with tongues more than they all that says, feed my brethren in the church. I'd rather speak five words with my intellect so that everybody else may profit than ten thousand words in a tongue. So then we come down to the particular arguments. First of all, as we saw last week at the beginning of fourteen, two pairs of contrasts. Why prefer prophecy and seek prophecy rather than tongues? Verses two and four uh, and three. Because he that speaks in a tongue speaks to God, but he that prophesies speaks to men to edification and comfort and consolation. If you have the choice, then what will you do? It's the Holy Spirit that tells you, go for speaking to men. Why? Because you're out to edify, comfort, and console them. God doesn't need any edification, comfort, or consolation. The fellow believers do. Choose and seek that gift that will help you to edify, console, and encourage your fellow believer. Secondly, the second pair of contrasts, he that speaks in a tongue edifies himself, he that prophesies edifies the church. Given the choice, what will you go for? Edifying yourself or edifying the church? Ha ha. We remember the basic motivation in the use of gift, and it's got to be love for the other person. Spirituality and love will mean that you'll go for edifying the other, other person, edifying the church not also. Ah, but you say that says that he that speaks in the tongue does edify himself. There can't be anything wrong in edifying yourself, can you? If a, if somebody has a tongue, and when he uses the tongue, he edifies himself, there can't be anything wrong in that, can there? Surely not. Well, of course not. And he that uses the gift of evangelism edifies himself also. Mm. And he that uses the gift of teaching, I can speak about the only one I know, edifies himself. And you Sunday school teachers know it, don't you? Oh, you Bible class leaders, or you evangelists, you, you are got the, the children around you one afternoon, and you're, uh, talking to them, and suddenly the Lord, by his grace, seems to come on the group, and there's quietness and a hush, and you've got your message, and somehow that day you feel that God has helped you to get that message across, and you sense in your spirit it's gone home to the hearts of those children. You've made a lifelong impression, and it's edified the children, and you, you, you go home on walking on air, don't you? You, you feel edified, and of course you're edified. How could you preach the gospel to somebody else in God's grace and power of his Holy Spirit without being edified yourself? You say, righto then, I'm not going to bother about the children, you see. Uh, I'm just going to get into my bedroom and preach the gospel in my bedroom, and I shall be edified. Well, if you do it, pray soundproof the bedroom, else people will think that you've gone a little bit cranky. Yes, certainly you derive edification from preaching the gospel, edification for yourself. Isn't the prime reason why the gift of evangelist is given? The prime reason of gift, of course, is to help other folks. What would you think of a stomach that was so monstrously self-centered that all it cared for was its own being full with its cabbage and potatoes, and hadn't any concern for the other members of the body? Function of the stomach is primarily not to enjoy itself, but to digest the food and send on the benefits to all the other members of the body. So he says, verse five, I would have you all speak with tongues, but rather that you should prophesy. And greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he translates that the church may receive edifying. Uh, now this verse five has been taken by some people to mean as follows. They understand Paul to be saying in the first clause, I will, I as an apostle, I will as an apostle, I want you all to speak with tongues, full stop. That's my first wish, and as an apostle, I lay it on you. It is my apostolic desire for you that you all speak with tongues. That's number one. Second, and I want you to prophesy. So they say this is a positive exhortation from an apostle that all believers ought to speak with tongues. That cannot mean that, ladies and gentlemen, can it? For one very obvious reason. And you say, what's that? Well, in chapter twelve he's told us that not everybody speaks with tongues, and not everybody can po- can possibly speak with tongues, any more than the body could be made up of hands, all hands and no feet, all noses and no eyes, yes? All chins and no feet. How can it be? It's not going to be, says Paul. God, in his sovereign wisdom, he gives this gift to this person, another gift to somebody else. Are all apostles? Certainly not. Are are are are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all speak with tongues? No. He hasn't forgotten what he said in chapter twelve when he comes to chapter fourteen, has he? Surely not. What is the man saying then? Well, it's a strong way of saying, well, there's nothing wrong in tongues per se. But notice the preference. But rather. Like the lady who, being asked about a, you remember, the birthday present last week, will say, all right, yes, Mars bars are okay, yes, aha, but of course a little bit of perfume from Paris will be better, prefer that really rather than Mars bars. Oh, the Holy Spirit through the inspired apostle is saying rather, but nothing against tongues, but pray rather. I want you to go for prophecy. Why? Because he that prophesies is greater than he that speaks in the tongues. Why is he greater? Because he that prophesieth edifies the church, where he who speaks in the tongue edifies nobody except himself, except what he says in the tongue is properly translated. And you'll notice now, if you will please, that in verse five I use the word translate and not interpret. I shall come down to talk about that lower down in the chapter, why I suggest we should understand that word as meaning translation and not just interpretation. And so Paul, uh, applying now to himself these basic principles, he says, verse six, now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you? Do you see his, his motivation? He's thinking of them. How can he profit them? And if I come speaking with tongues, I shall not profit you anything, except I come unto you, and as I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophesying or of teaching. God conveys his truth to his people in various modes, revelation, knowledge, prophesying, or teaching. But as Paul is about to point out, if God is going to convey to his people the information he wants them to have, it will have to be in a language they can understand. So why should he come talking tongues if they can't understand the tongues? And why, when he can speak plain Greek to them and they can understand Greek, would he start off by talking in a tongue and then translating the tongue? What sense would there be in it? So he says, if I'm coming to you, you'll see I'm going to make sure that what I say can be understood. So important is that, that now from verses seventeen to ele- uh, verse, sorry, verse sorry, uh, sorry, to verse seven to eleven, he goes into a very detailed analogy to put this point home. He says in verse seven, even things without life, giving a voice, whether pipe or harp, if they give not a distinction into sounds, how shall it be known what is pipe or harp? For if the trumpet give an uncertain voice, who shall prepare himself for war? So first, the transmitter must be clear. We are all used to the old fashioned folks, aren't we, to radio and the moderns to television, you'll say, and if you're going to, uh, uh, receive a message, two things have got to happen. The transmitter has got to be transmitting a clear signal, yes, that makes sense, and then the receiver has got to be able to receive the signal that is transmitted. Both ends have got to work properly, yes? No good if the beacon out there, uh, uh, uh, is giving out a nice signal, but your TV set has all gone cranky and can't accept it. That's no good. Nor is it the other way round. If your TV set is beautiful, but the transmitter is jumbling the signals, no good happens, you see, you won't get the message. So both the transmitter and the receiver have got to be as clear as they can possibly be. Paul now gives some illustrations in nature. He says, you know, uh, my dear good brethren, there are things in life, you'll say, uh, giving a voice, pipes, harps, and so on. Uh... they must be clear in the signal they give. Let's think about that. Suppose you go to visit your Aunt Emmalina in the country, and she owns a farm, and you go around the farmyard, and there's an old barn door blowing in the wind. What do you make out of that? Well, nothing in particular. No message is coming out of it, except the barn door could do with some oiling. But as far as the noise is concerned, it isn't conveying any message. It isn't a language, is it? So it doesn't convey any message. It's just so much sound, so much noise. On the other hand, if you went to an army camp and you heard somebody playing a bugle and it went la la la la la la la la la la la la, that's the noise. Oh, but you say, yeah, but that's more than the noise, you see. But I say there's no words. Oh no, there's no words. But that particular lot of notes is conveying a message. Come to the cookhouse door, boys, in my days it was, you see. Or, or if you heard them saying, la la, la la, la la la. You'll say, yes, now be still, my good man, because this is very serious. This is a message too deep for words, but it is a message. It is a language. If you know the language of a bugle, you'll know that the army is saying goodbye to one of its fallen comrades. It's a very moving message. But you see what it has to be to be a message. It mustn't be just a lot of noise. It's got to be a structured set of sounds, and it's got to come across clearly. If I just hear a babel of sounds, what use is it? I expect with you, I've been in many an airport, and you have too, and you're waiting for your, for your flight to Shanghai and all on tenterhooks so you don't miss it, and the last you hear the ding dong. British Airways announced the departure of their flight to Shanghai at gate. You say, what on earth do you see that? Not that you are unintelligent, but the message is coming through. Utterly useless. The transmitter isn't clear. It's just a babel of sound. It isn't a real language. You get the point, don't you? What is the good of somebody getting up in church and just making a lot of sounds that are not a real language. Never the same chance of conveying anything. Oh, but secondly, not only has the transmitter to emit a language, but the receiver has got to be able to understand the language, hasn't it? Let's have an experiment. Yeah, pardon. Now the fault is yours, my boy. I was speaking beautifully clearly. You'll see. It was no good my tearing my hair and saying, this sinner down here, why can't he understand it and profit by it? I was saying something absolutely beautiful. The news of God to the salvation of thousands. But he can't take it with him. Because I happened to be talking in modern Greek, and it was John John three sixteen, But what's the good of my saying it in modern Greek, if the people listening don't know modern Greek? That's what Paul says, uh, doesn't he, Jose, uh, in verse ten, there are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and no kind is without signification. But if I don't know the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh will be a barbarian unto me. Don't be offended, but if an ancient Greek had come to Belfast and heard you talking, your beautiful accent, he would nonetheless have dubbed you barbarians. You'll say because the Greek word barbaros is an onomatopoeic word. Uh, the Greeks used it to, to describe somebody who spoke to them in a foreign language, and the Greek didn't know the language, and what they seemed to him to be saying was ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. So they said he was a barbaros. He was a barbarian. Because what his speech seemed to them to be was just a meaningless lot of syllables coming out. And if I don't understand the language that is being spoken, the man who speaks will appear to me to be a barbaro, unintelligible. For God's truth to come across in church so that people are edified, comforted, exalted, built up in their most holy faith. The transmitter will be have to be giving a very clear language, and the receiver will have to know the language so that he can understand what's being said. So also, verse twelve, he says, uh, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may abound unto the edifying of the church. What a lovely prayer to take to God on our knees. Oh Lord, help me to be a somebody that builds up the church. Wherefore, what comes of it then? Let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that he may translate. And here I'd better stop, hadn't I, to justify my translation of that particular Greek word. The Greek word is hermeneuo, from which we get the English word hermeneutics. And like many words in English and Greek, it has a possible double meaning. This Greek word hermeneuo is like our English word interpret. It can mean two slightly different things. For instance, if, uh, somebody is reading, say, the English of the Bible, okay? Uh, somebody might say to them, well, I hear what you say, it's English, I know what the English words are saying, but I don't understand what it means. Please interpret it to me. And so you interpret it to them. You're sitting by the side of your unconverted friends, and they say, I don't know what this means. It says you must be born again, but what on earth does it mean? How can a man be born again? I know the English word, you must be born again. It means you must be born again. Uh, yes, but what does it really mean? And you, continuing to use English, you interpret it to them. Yes. But suppose somebody said you must be born again in Greek, and your friend is an English speaker and doesn't know Greek, before you could interpret the thing in the first sense, you'd have to interpret it in another sense, wouldn't you? You'd first of all have to translate the Greek into English. Of course you would. And still in English, we talk about the person who translates a speaker and interpreter. I suffer the process multitudes of times in my career. I stand and gabber away in English, and somebody stands beside, and he interprets me in the sense that he translates it. Stand and jabber away in English, and somebody stands beside, and he interprets me in the sense that he translates it. You'll see, I expect when I'm gone, very often or not, the people that have been listening, they now know what I said in their language. You'll see it's gone from English to Belgian or something to Dutch. They probably have to go along to the elders and say, what on earth did that chap mean? And they take the Dutch translation and they now interpret it in the other sense. If somebody speaks in a tongue, what has to happen? Well, it's a foreign language. Before you can interpret it in the sense of telling them what the meaning of the thing is, you'll have to translate it first, won't you? And here, my brethren, we've got to be grown up men and women. One of the disconcerting things that has been, uh, shown in these many years is the kind of thing that, uh, for instance, Professor D. A. Carson mentions in his book on these chapters, kindly well-balanced book it is. But he says that he and a friend of his went to a meeting at one stage where tongues were much used and interpretations given. And his friend, a little bit naughtily perhaps, got up in the meeting and, uh, spoke the first verses of the Gospel of John chapter one in New Testament Greek. And when he sat down, it was followed by an interpretation that had nothing to do with John's Gospel chapter one whatsoever. Mm. And of course, other serious folks have said, well, let's try this thing, haven't they? And they've taken their tape recorders, recorded somebody speaking in tongues, and then taken the tape round to different folks who claim to have the gift of interpretation, and they've played it and said, please interpret this. And one interpreter has given one message and taken to another, they've given a completely different message. What do you feel about that kind of thing? Some folks will say that's terrible. The very idea, the shockingly unspiritual thing. Fancy putting a thing like that to the test in that worldly way. You ought surely to take it for granted that if the Holy Spirit moves somebody to give an interpretation, that is the right interpretation. What are you doing trying to check it in such an ungodly fashion? Oh, wait a minute. You've got me all wired up tonight, haven't you? Onto a tape recorder. Yeah? And who knows? Funnier things have happened. The old tape will go I don't know where, and folks will sit down and listen to it. What would you have them do? Would you have them say, oh, that's, that's gooding, you see, he's a teacher, so you don't have to question what he says, you just take what he says absolutely. Would you have them so? Of course you wouldn't. You would say not on the peril of your life. May you assume that just because Dog's body is a teacher, everything he says is true. Paul tells us at the end of this chapter, when the prophets give their prophecy, then the others are to judge. It is not unspiritual. The Holy Spirit will insist on it. That, in all graciousness and love, of course, but with serious sense of responsibility, you check what has been said and you test it. Even if a man is a prophet, you do test what he says, says Paul. You don't say, oh, well, he's a prophet, you see, so what he says is absolutely true, and I don't need to test it, I take it. And if that is true of the gift of prophecy, how much more must it be true of the gift of interpretation and tongues? Why must I be sure of what the man actually said in that language that he used? Well, because of the first basic principle that Paul enunciated in chapter twelve. How will you ultimately judge whether a gift is of God or not? Why, you can only judge by its doctrinal content. And to judge a gift by its doctrinal contact, the doctrinal context, content of what it communicates, you must know what the original words meant. We mustn't play about, may we? We'll say sometimes it seems to me that we tend to fall into a way of thinking that says, ah well, you'll see, uh, tongues or prophecies are somehow supernatural, whereas, oh well, evangelists are okay and teachers, well, they're a little less okay, but they're moderately okay, uh, but they're not supernatural like, uh, prophecy and tongues are. That's false, my brethren. Chapter twelve reminded us that whatever the gift, it's the same Holy Spirit that both gives and uses. The one is not more supernatural than another. For look now what is said, you'll see. Uh, verse, uh, verse thirteen: wherefore let him that speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate. Why should he? Well, for if I pray in a tongue, now notice exactly what it says, my spirit prayeth. Notice that. Doesn't say if I pray in a tongue, the Holy Spirit prayeth, does it? It says if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth. But you'll say, you'll need more than that, says Paul. What for? Well, he says, you'll say, I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. It's unfruitful why? Because I don't know what I said myself unless it's translated. And what is more, nobody else in the church receives any fruit from it. And therefore I must pray to trans- be able to translate, do you see? Eh, uh, verse fifteen goes on to say, what is it then? I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the understanding as well. I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the understanding as well. Why must I? Well, if you don't, says verse sixteen, if you don't pray with the understanding and sing with the understanding, well, how, if thou bless with the spirit, how shall he that filleth the place of the unlearned, that is the man or woman that hasn't got the gift you've got, say the amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he knoweth not what you are saying. We'll say, well, here's a, here's a man here, and he's got up in church and he's spoken in a tongue, you'll see. I don't know what he's saying, but why can't I just sense in my spirit that must be good? And say amen. No, you mustn't, says Paul. You're going to say the amen. That's not a frivolous word, is it? You know, sometimes we don't say amen enough, perhaps. We're all stoics naturally, but, uh, we'll see, uh, sometimes, uh, people can say it too much, you know. I used to beat my wife. Amen, praise the Lord. You know, that kind of thing, that's just silly, isn't it? Saying amen is a responsible thing to say, means you stand in absolutely agreement with what has been said. Amen. Yes. How can you do that if you don't know what doctrine the man's been enunciating? You can't, can you? So that he says you must pray that you will be able to translate, he says, else if you just simply bless with the spirit, how shall he that fill the place of the unlearned, that is the person who hasn't got that gift, say the amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he doesn't know what you're saying. For you verily gave thanks well, but the other, now notice what Paul says, is not edified. If people do not understand what is said, they are not edified, says Paul. We mustn't contradict him or the Holy Spirit, may we, and say, oh yes, they, the sort of the, the spirit of the thing sinks into them by osmosis, whether they understand or not, you'll see. No, no, the Holy Spirit says if you don't understand, you are not edified. I thank God I speak with tongues more than you all, he says. How be it in the church, I had rather speak five words with my understanding that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. You think of the proportion. If Paul had to choose what he would do, just five words, that's all he could say in the language that people knew, or ten thousand words in a tongue. Well, he'd say, every time I would choose to say just the five words, that's all. Why? Because those five words could edify the ten thousand words in a tongue, unless the people understood what they meant, wouldn't edify them one little bit. You'll say, Gooding, you're getting very tiresome, and the time is almost gone, and this last forty minutes you've just been standing there. What do you think you've been doing? Arguing, reasoning, logic, intellectualism. You're boring, Astif, and anyway, what good is it doing, you see? It's the trouble with the likes of you. You... Why can't you be a bit more spiritual and dump all this reasoning and intellectualism and logic and arguing and have a bit more of the spirit. Danger of being highly unspiritual, Goody. Really? Well, you can't have read the next verse, can you? I'm sure I wasn't out to trick you, but there you are. Brethren, says Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, be not children in your gray matter, in your intellect. In malice be absolute babes in arms, infants, innocent as the day is long, but in intellect, be adult. Yes, it is possible, uh, and unconverted men do it, to depend on their own wisdom instead of God's Holy Spirit. That's evil, that's fleshly. It is possible for a believer to depend on his own knowledge or supposed wisdom instead of depending on the Holy Spirit. That's carnal. But we mustn't go to the other extreme. Abandoning reason and logic and giving way to emotion and spiritual urges, that is not spirituality. The Holy Spirit says so. The gracious Holy Spirit who inspired this book hasn't been grossly unspiritual by arguing the case, has he? If we decide these arguments here are tiresome, what you're saying is the Holy Spirit's been very unspiritual. It's the Holy Spirit inspiring this. This is the way the Holy Spirit talks to us. He argues, he uses logic, he uses analogy, and he wants us, as we can, to grow up in intellect and be adult when it comes to intellect and logic, insofar as any of us can be. That is not unspiritual. Let loose to logic. Give up your moral judgment, your spiritual discernment, just accept anything because it comes through a s- a a spiritual gift without checking it doctrinally and other ways. That's the very opposite of spirituality. So when it comes to tongues, brethren, do be grown up. What is the actual purpose, original purpose in tongues? So Paul gives us the purpose, verse twenty five— twenty to twenty five. What is the purpose? Well, he says, in the Lord, you'll see, it's written by men of strange tongues, and by the lips of strangers will I speak unto this people, and not even thus will they hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to the unbelieving. For prophesying is a sign not to the unbelieving, but to them that believe. So we start with the basic principle. Purpose of tongues, to be a sign to unbelievers. Purpose of prophesying, to be a sign for believers. You'll say, if that's what he meant, he proceeds to contradict himself. Look what he says in verse twenty three. If therefore the whole church be assembled and all speak with tongues, and there come in men unlearned or unbelieving. You say, that's just the stuff to give them. Tongues assigned to unbelievers, and you're all in church and you're speaking with tongues, and in comes an unbeliever. You say, yes, this is going to be the stuff. The tongues will be assigned to the unbeliever. Instead of which, Paul proceeds to say, the dear man, when he comes in, will decide you're all mad. You say there's a big difficulty there then. Why, how does he first say it will be assigned to an unbeliever, and then when the unbeliever comes in and hears it, he says the unbeliever will decide you're crazy. Well, as I understand it, the explanation is moderately simple. Consider the first instance of tongues in Holy Scripture. It's Acts chapter two on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the hundred and twenty and they started to speak in various tongues. And presumably they went out into the street, and the noise of this got around, and the crowd began to gather. Well, can you imagine? Mm. One speaking Paphlagonian, one speaking Latin, one speaking Hebrew, one speaking Syriac, one speaking Paphlagonian, and one speaking the language of Cross MacLean. And there they are, all one hundred and twenty, each with a separate language. What a babble that would be. When the crowd came along, they said they're drunk. Huh, drunk. But as they began to shivel around, somebody from Patagonia said, oh, oh, that man there, he's speaking Patagonian. And the other chap who came from Rome said, well, that's, that's straight classical Latin, that is, that chap there speaking. And somebody else found out this chap was speaking Syriac, and the other chap was speaking, uh, we'll say the language of Pisidia. And they could see that the people who were speaking were Galileans who had never learned these exotic tongues. And the result was, there was a self-evident miracle. And the speaking in tongues became a sign to the unbeliever. Why? Because the unbeliever could understand the language that was been spoken in the tongue. Who had not been able to understand any of those languages, you would have gone off with the impression they were drunk or mad or something. The fact that the, the, the way, the reason why it was a sign to unbelievers depended on the unbeliever being able to understand it and seeing it was a miracle, a powerful sign. But you imagine the case, says Paul, in Corinth. There you are in Corinth, you're in your building there in the upper room or downstairs or in the croft or the loft or the or or the undercroft or whatever, wherever you meet, and uh, there you are, you're all Greeks and you're all native Greek speakers, you'll see. And here comes another Greek, he's an unconverted man, he lives in the city and he's heard about these odd Christian folks and wonders what they get up to, and coming by the door one Sunday, he decided going in, see what happens. So up the stairs he comes, or in the door he comes. He's a Greek, he only knows Greek, and he knows you are Greeks, and all you, you speak Greek, and he comes in, but instead of hearing you speak Greek, he hears you speaking a lot of tongues. What conclusion will he come to? Doesn't understand a word that you're saying. He'll say, well, I thought I heard they were bonkers, now I know. Absolutely raving mad. Why? You're speaking in your tongues? But he now, though he's an unbeliever, he can't understand the tongue. It's no sign to him. He doesn't see it's a miracle. He can't understand it. It's absolutely unintelligible to him. Why should anybody who knows Greek, in front of a Greek, go and speak in a tongue? You'll conclude you're mad. Of course he will. If he comes in and he's a Greek speaker and you prophesy, then he can understand exactly the Greek you're using, because he knows Greek, and it's a word that's winged to his heart by the Holy Spirit. He'll be convicted in his heart and say, God is here of a very true. Oh my brethren, don't be children, says Paul. Do in intellect be adult. Your basic thing must be you must help the other chap. And to help him, he must understand what you are saying. You'll say, but tongues does have its use. Paul admitted it the early part of the chapter. He that speaks in a tongue speaks to God. Yes, Paul admits it. He's not denying it. But what he's talking about now is what we do in church. So he says, you say, what then, my brethren, when you come together, somebody has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation, let all things be done, the golden rule, everything done must be done to edifying. If a man speaks in a tongue, let it be by two or at the most three. None of this doing it the whole lot together. And let one translate, but if there be no translator, let him keep silence in the church. What he does at home, in his own study, in his private devotions, well, that's up to him. But in church, if there's no one to translate what he says, the Holy Spirit's command is let him keep silence and talk to himself and God. Similarly with the prophets, let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others discern. For revelation be made to another sitting by, let the first keep silence. For all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be comforted. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a con- a God of confusion, but a a God of peace. So the prophets one by one. And even the prophet, when he is sat down, or the three prophets are sat down, then the others have got to judge what he says. Yes. And hence the emphasis I sought to give earlier on. In the use of spiritual gift, thank God for every spiritual gift there is, but we are not just to take what is said by any gift unquestioningly. We must judge what is said. How so far is this of God and true to what scripture reveals? And if I got to do that with a tongue, I must be sure that, first of all, I have a correct translation of what was originally said. Now, at the end of this chapter that deals with gifts, there come some very important verses about the ministry of my sisters. That, you see, being so important, we cannot, uh, deal with tonight. Whether we shall be able to deal with it next week will depend on how many questions you deliver to me at the beginning of the meeting. I imagine we ought to leave an adequate time at the end to deal with that very important topic. And I thank you, my brethren, for your charity and your patience.