What is this speaking in tongues?  It’s a language.  It’s not gibberish, it’s a language.  We’re speaking a language that we do not know.  It is supernaturally manifesting itself by the Holy Spirit through us.  And we speak, the Scripture says, “as the Holy Ghost gives us utterance.”  We’ll get into Corinthians, looking at the manifestation of the Spirit in the church, how it manifests itself in the Spirit.  But I think the thing that’s so important for us today as we’re out trying to share with a big part of the body of Christ who do not believe this to be a scriptural work or manifestation, you have to be confident in and of yourself, because the reality is Satan is trying to steal this from the church today.  Many of your Pentecostal denominations no longer allow speaking in tongues in their services.  Since when do we begin to relegate and set boundaries on the Holy Spirit?  Amen?  What is it that causes this?  “Well, we’re afraid that the people that are coming in might be put off by this particular manifestation and we’re wanting to gather all these carnal people in our midst in these last days to show how successful we are and how great our ministry is.  So, we will gladly shut the Holy Ghost out to get 100 extra carnal people in here.”  That’s what’s happening, and it’s tragic.  And it’s manifesting itself in most, if not all, of the mainline Pentecostal churches.

Let me just say this.  Let’s make the Holy Spirit welcome here; amen?  “Grieve not the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30).  Now contextually, we know what that means.  It means let’s not have bickering and bitterness and malice in our midst.  Let’s love one another.  Let’s be seeking that well-being for our brothers and sisters and prefer others more than ourselves.  That’s the environment the Holy Spirit moves in.  The Holy Spirit is grieved by corrupt communication, by pride, by bitterness, by envy.  The Holy Spirit wants to come and manifest Himself to fulfill His work of leading us into truth and unifying the body of Christ.  Those are the two primary purposes of the Holy Spirit in the church.  Tonight’s service we’re going to show the distinction between the Holy Spirit in you individually and the Holy Spirit in the church corporately.  And it’s a very interesting study and a very interesting thing to look at, and hopefully we’ll be there this evening.

As we look at the Scriptures, here, it’s not isolated, then, to this great manifestation.  It’s not isolated to Acts, Chapter 2.  We know in Acts, Chapter 8, when you’re speaking to others, you’ll be able to have biblical evidence.  It’s not because that’s what we do at Calvary Temple, this is what the Bible says.  This is what the Bible says, and we’ll go over them quickly here, but in Acts, Chapter 8, verse 17, the great revival that’s taking place in Samaria, there were signs and there were wonders that were manifesting themselves, a great move of God.  And in the midst of this move, we see that the Holy Spirit manifesting Himself in this great power brings about the necessity of calling down eldership from Jerusalem to see that everything is decent and in order.  The Holy Spirit manifests Himself “decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40); amen?

These bizarre things that you see in Pentecostal churches—you can go on YouTube and see some of the most hilarious stupid things going on in churches that you’ve ever seen.  I was watching one the other day.  There was some clown, he’s running up and down the aisle, waving his jacket, his suit coat, and running around and hollering.  The next thing you know, he throws his jacket up in the air and it lands on the pulpit and the guy takes off, runs up onto the platform, and dives into the baptismal tank.  “It’s the Holy Ghost.  The Holy Ghost came on me and I couldn’t control myself.”  The spirit is subject to the prophet; amen?  “I just couldn’t help it.  I had to speak that utterance.  I know that there were already three, but I couldn’t control it.”  Yes you can.  And you will (amen?), because there are to be two and at the most three.  When someone that’s in eldership, someone that’s leading the service, tells you to hold that utterance, the Bible says you will hold that.  “I can’t.  It’s the Holy Ghost.”  You will hold that because if you are spiritual, you will agree, Paul said, “That what I’m teaching you right now is the truth” (1 Corinthians 14:37); amen?  And that’s how 1 Corinthians 14 ends.