The Gift of Tongues

On another post I received a question/comment:

Hi Dan,
Can you explain what's the gift of tongues?

-Anonymous at 3:41 PM
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Dear 3:41,

What is the gift of tongues? I can give you an opinion based upon my personal experience. I can refer you also to several hundreds if not thousands of books on the subject at any seminary's library. My go-to book is The GIFT of the HOLY SPIRIT by J. E. Stiles (1948; Glendale, CA: The Church Press). I have also written:
Anger-caused Cancer: Healing by Forgiveness
Prelude to The Hell I Went Through to get Baptized in the Holy Spirit
The Hell I Went Through to get Baptized in the Holy Spirit
Notes Regarding J. E. Stile's Book: "The Gift of the Holy Spirit"
The Ineffable was the Beginning, is Jesus Christ (A Reply to Rob From Somewhere in the World)

I refer you also to The Gift of Tongues by Smith Wigglesworth. I've got every sermon by and just about every book written about Smith Wigglesworth. Just about everything is about faith, power, believing, and tongues.

I have noted that I went through hell to get the gift of tongues. I asked for it, and found myself rejected. I discovered that I had taken the life God had given me for my own purposes without a peep of thanks to Him or inquiry as to what he had given me life FOR. It turned out that I belong to him and am FOR him. I was able to cast the spirit of self-lordship out of myself and surrendered, submitted myself to him fully. You hear about tarrying. I think my waiting for directions from him, fully committed to him, was my "tarrying." The gift of the Holy Spirit has been given! I listened intently. As if from another mind I heard softly in mine: "Remember this, and it is all right." I was accepted.

When I realized that I was accepted, my heart burst for joy and gratitude. I adored and exalted and appreciated God from deep within my being. From there I felt a swelling upward of some sort of energy, of power flooding me. It rose toward my throat, and my jaw began to twitch on its own. The minister laying hands on me said, "Don't try to control it." You hear the expression, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Well, you do not do anything more that a bucket does to receive water from a well -- you simply let it flow in, flow up, and flow out. "Out" is tongues. I knew only that I was expressing to God a love and appreciation I could not express in words that I knew -- gratitude inexpressible to me.

I often read that tongues are to edify. They are, but not to make us feel better or more confident. I believe that we just do not know how we are to pray correctly. How to claim what is ours. How to praise God for what he is doing. How to exalt him for what IS that we do not yet see. We learn that we need to imagine a revision of what was as though it was as we desired. That we have to BELIEVE it was received. I think that is what is happening in a person's personal prayer life in tongues. We are saying, "Such-and-such IS; I AM that. Thank you for this. And etc.." Such may also be proclaimed to the church in tongues to edify -- quite literally -- that their hearts and actions ARE as they would have them.

There is also the gift of tongues Neville spoke of, as he rejected the gibberish of the Pentecostal holy-rollers of his day (of which I am one). That is the God-given ability to master foreign languages for the sake of promulgating the Word. See Wycliffe Bible Translators for that.

I want to say again that it is the spirit which gives utterance. In the gift of tongues, we are observers only of what is going on. We do not know what we are saying. We are not doing a thing except praising, adoring, and exalting God in our hearts. We exercise NO control. The spirit speaks as we OUGHT in order to edify us: “I believe I receive.”

I should note that after the initial experience of speaking in tongues at the receiving of the Holy Spirit, one takes up the speaking or praying in tongues volitionally. Volitionally in the sense that you want to do it and avail yourself of the spirit and open your mouth (or mind!) to speak. You still do not know what is going to come out, but you make the effort to initiate the speaking to God in praise, worship, adoration, and supplication. I have the feeling that supplication in tongues is a whole lot more affirmative than our native language version would be.

Praise, worship, and adore God for what? For including you, the consciousness which is thinking itself to be Dick or Jane or Anonymous at 3:41, in Its Manifestation. Think of it — YOU are destined to be HIM! FOR REAL!

“Prayer is praise; it is thanksgiving.” — Neville. Live a life of prayer. And tongues.