Today is part six in our summer series. We are looking at God's message for us today from the Book of Acts.
I'm calling this series Our Turn. That's because this book tells us that the things God began to do in the world through Jesus Christ, he now continues to do through us, his people, also called the Church. It's our turn to pick up where Jesus and his apostles left off.
Today we finally come to a hotly debated topic in Christian circles. I want to talk about
Most Christians have heard this phrase before. Some have not. Here is the main place in the Bible where this happens:
"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." (Acts 2:1-4)
The followers of Jesus were suddenly able to speak in human languages they had never studied and never knew before. These languages represented most of the known world.
Normally, when people today talk about speaking in tongues, this is NOT what they are talking about.
The modern version of speaking in tongues is not speaking in languages. Instead, today speaking in tongues is what is called ecstatic utterance.
We are going to talk about ecstatic utterances.
But ecstatic utterance is not what happened on the day of Pentecost.
There is no question that speaking in tongues that day meant speaking in normal human languages. The believers had a sudden and miraculous ability to speak in human languages they had never known before.
The apostles spoke in tongues because God the Holy Spirit enabled them to do so, because the Holy Spirit wanted the thousands of unsaved people there to hear the good news of Jesus and be saved.
So, tongues time. Here we go.
