Conscious Union With the Resurrected Christ

Conscious Union With the Resurrected Christ

by Tommy Tyson

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I think this is the last shot I’ll get at you. But I want to thank the Lord Jesus for letting me be here with you, for all the love that you have given me, but for just being caught up together in the fellowship of the body of Christ. I am more and more learning to love and appreciate the church, the body of Christ. I know, for myself at least, though our walk in the Lord is personal, it is never private. And anyone who’s looking for a corner to isolate himself in is not moving in the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit baptizes us into one body, and there’s only one body, and that’s the church. And if you’ve got some particular members of the church that sort of irritate you, hallelujah, they’re rubbing the rough edges off of you. Now, this is the way the Lord does it. He throws us with other people who rub the rough edges off and makes us… Peter said living stones. And the Lord, when He deals with stones, if you’ll notice the scripture, loves to have smooth stones. And so He’s making not only living stones out of us, but smooth stones. So rejoice in the Lord, in the body of Christ. And if you’re with a group of Christians where everybody agrees with you, then you’ve been there too long. Move on.

But yet, because woe be unto you when all men speak well of you. We need a little tension to give us traction so we can travel. Wheels without tensions are just spinning, you know. So, don’t run from that.

Last night I talked about the… really the baptism of the Holy Spirit from quickening the natural point of view. This morning I’d like to get in some other realms of the Spirit-filled life. Because the Lord Jesus not only quickens the natural, He does that, but He weds it to the supernatural. He not only comes into your mind and cleans it up and lets it think better than it ever would think without Him, but He doesn’t leave you limited to your own mind. He then marries your mind to His mind. He not only sweetens up your spirit, He does that, but He doesn’t leave you limited just to your sweet spirit. He marries it to His Spirit. He not only moves in your mortal body and quickens that and makes it feel infinitely good, but He marries it to His body. Every supernatural manifestation has a natural counterpart. The natural endowments serve as cradles that give birth and expression to supernatural gifts and manifestations. And it’s when the two are wedded together that you really have the genius of the incarnation. God works miraculously, but the difference between miracle and magic is this. Magic leaves out the natural. Miracle involves the natural. Here is the miracle of conception.

You just can’t explain it. Incidentally, don’t spend too much time trying to explain miracles. If you can explain them, the good chance they’re not a miracle. But… Here is the miraculous conception of the Lord Jesus Christ. But look at it. It’s not a matter of God snapping His fingers and suddenly, out of the blue, there stands a man in our midst. The miracle involves the womb of a virgin. Natural process. The womb involves nine months prenatal growth. Miracle. The miracle involves a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes that cries like your youngins. God didn’t just send a doctrine of a new birth. We have a baby on our hands.

And don’t you hear babies cry? You should, you know. That’s the Christmas message, isn’t it? The baby crying. And so God marries the natural to the supernatural. Look at the miracles of Jesus. The so-called natural miracles. He turned water into wine. That was the first one recorded. But He didn’t just, you know, again, snap His fingers and pull rabbits out of a hat. That’s magic. He took the water, filled the stone jars, and gave it to the servants in obedience. And somewhere between the jar and the governor’s mouth, the thing happened. And so all the way through, you’ll notice in the revelation that supernatural has to do with tying together, or miracles have to do with tying together supernatural and natural. So that when you receive a supernatural gift, the challenge is to use it as naturally as possible.

And the more natural you can receive and express the supernatural, the more in harmony you are with the revelation of the incarnation. Now last night I talked about lifting the natural up to the realm of the supernatural. That’s really what you didn’t know I said, but that’s what I was talking about last night. The quickening power of the natural, supernatural. Now this morning I want to talk about the supernatural coming into and being expressed through the natural. For this is a part of this Spirit-filled life. Let me, before I get into that, let me just take a few minutes, however, and answer the question that’s asked me more than any other question.

Any of you want to guess what that question is? No, don’t. You’d never guess. But here it is. How do you know when you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit? That question is asked me more than any other question. How do you know when you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit?

Have you ever asked that question? Anybody, am I answering a question nobody’s asking? Well, let me just give you some good, sound, scriptural teaching. And some experience too. Because we are all, first of all, we are all commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

It’s not an optional deal for a Christian. I used to think the baptism was an alternate route for those who wanted to miss downtown traffic. You know? But it’s not an alternate deal. The commandment of Jesus is be filled with the Holy Spirit. The promise coming through both John and Jesus is that He it is who were baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. And all the way through scripture, I’ll not make this in detail, but you can check me on it. All the way through the New Testament, you’ll find no other scriptural norm for the Christian walk other than the Spirit-filled life. So if you are not filled with and being continually filled with the Holy Spirit, you are living below the New Testament norm.

Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? If not, find out why not, will you? And get on with it. But how do you know when you’re really filled or baptized with the Holy Spirit? Number one. And this is number one in every way for me. Jesus Christ said, “In that day,” talking about the day the Holy Spirit comes in baptismal power, “in that day, you will know that I’m in the Father and ye in me and I in you.” The baptism with the Holy Spirit has to do with coming into a conscious and fixed awareness of the presence and power and person of the resurrected Lord on the inside of us.

You can write that one down. You can write it in your heart. The baptism with the Holy Spirit has to do with coming into a fixed and conscious awareness of the presence and power and person of the resurrected Lord on the inside of us.

Have you met and fallen in love with Jesus since the resurrection? Have you met Him on the inside of you? We’ve sung it every time and I thank you for having that as a theme song, Bebe. “He Lives,” and it’s really the truth, it’s really the affirmation and it’s really the work of the Holy Spirit. So regardless of what else may or may not have happened to you, do not settle for anything less than that which would lead you to union in a conscious way with the Lord Jesus Christ. This might not be a part of the preliminary work of the baptism. A lot of people settle for too little. It’s like getting a ring and running off and saying, “I’m married.” The ring’s wonderful but that’s not what makes you married. It’s the old boy that gave you the ring.

And so sometimes people grab a gift and run off with it and say, “I’m baptized.” But the gift doesn’t make you baptized any more than a ring makes you married. It’s the giver behind the gift that counts. So don’t settle for anything less than conscious union with the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. That’s one thing. Another thing that’s related to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit. This is scripturally and it’s true to experience.

Jesus said, “After the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you will have power. Then you will be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” A lot of times we run those two together. You have power to be witnesses. The word doesn’t say that. You will have power to be witnesses. It says you will have power. Semicolon in the King James. And you will be witnesses. Now power is the ability to fulfill the purpose of which you were made. That’s what power is.

Engine with a 200 horsepower engine is an engine that’s made with the ability to produce a 200 horsepower. That’s what the power is. When you say, “How much power is it?” you’re saying, “What is this engine made to do?”

Power is the ability to fulfill the purpose for which you were made. So whenever, and there are various aspects of this. I dealt with some of it last night, but let me hear it again. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you have power to stop apologizing for you.

And you have power to say, “There ain’t nobody in the world like me. Thank God.” You can’t have power to fulfill yourself until you have power to be yourself. So the baptism with the Holy Spirit sets you free to come out in the open and say, “This is me.”

You say, we get hang-ups on this deal. You know, we talk about somehow hiding, getting ourselves out of the way. Re-read the third chapter of Acts. Re-read the story of Peter and John at the Gate Beautiful. But old Peter came along with John and saw that man at the Gate Beautiful laying from his mother’s womb nearly 40 years or around 40 and begging alms at the gate of the temple and old Peter and John came along and he asked for an alms and I’ll not get on that sermon. That’s a good sermon in that one too. You know, what do the needy people of the world expect from the church besides a Christmas turkey and an Easter bazaar?

He’d learn to expect a quarter from the church. “Give me a quarter, mister.” And Peter and John going along, old Peter heard his cry and the Holy Spirit interpreted it for him. Cries not only need to be heard, they need to be interpreted. Jesus has given His commandment to him that would ask of thee, turn not away. But you need to know how to give. You don’t always give on the basis of the asking.

A lot of people don’t know what it is they need. And so the Holy Spirit interprets the cry. He asked for a quarter and Peter heard the cry and stopped and said, “Now get your eyes off of us. Now you put your eyes on the Lord.” Did he say that?

He said, “Look here at me.” Boy, you’re talking about ego. Or was it? “Look here at me.” The world has a right to look at you and it’s looking at you too. Your family looked at you as you drove away from home. And they said, “We hope it’ll take this time.”

We cannot. You see, the genius of the incarnation is that you are involved. There’s no way in the world you can keep from getting involved in life. You can’t give Jesus without Him giving you. Please know that. The message is never separated from the messenger.

The ministry of the priest is never separated from the priest. All tied in together. And so, Peter looked at this man. “Look here at me.” The man looked up expecting to receive something of him. Peter reached down. The man looked up and Peter reached down.

That’s another sermon. You need to walk with Jesus if you’re afraid of getting your hands dirty. The Holy Spirit has got plenty of water and He’s not afraid of dirt. And if you walk with the Spirit, you need not be afraid of getting your hands dirty. And he reached down and took a hold. “In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” And so, we see that in the genius of the incarnation is this wonderful divine involvement where we learn to accept ourselves as ministers of God. “Pray for me.” “Oh, Tommy, I can’t pray. You pray for me. My prayers hit the ceiling and bounce back.” But what are they doing up there anyhow? You know?

Here, the throat of God is on the inside of you. Why can’t you pray? Do you belong to Jesus or don’t you? Are you His or aren’t you? Then you can pray because the Holy Spirit prays through you. How about teaching the Sunday school class, John? “Oh, look, preacher, get somebody else to teach you.” Well, haven’t you been a member of that class for 10 years? “Yes, but are there so many other fellas in there and teach better than I can?” You know, what you’re really saying is, “Yes, I’ve been there 10 years and I come about every Sunday and I sit back there and look as wise as a tree full of owls.

And these old boys think I know something. But if I get up there and start teaching, they’ll find that I’m not as smart as they think I am.” You see, when you get in the Spirit, your real self starts showing.

And there’ll be some dirt showing because there’s dirt to show. The Lord doesn’t hide. He covers, but He doesn’t hide. Now, He’ll cover your sins, but He’ll show your needs. And so, when you start moving in the Spirit, you accept yourself, need and all. This is power. Power to fulfill the purpose for which you made means you accept yourself as you are. But it also means not only acceptance, self-acceptance can become self-justification. This is the difference between the Gospel and psychiatry. Modern-day psychiatry, for the most part, deals with self-acceptance as self-justification. The Gospel is self-acceptance for glorification. So, we accept ourselves as we are right out in the open in order to be used of the Lord. And so, as we accept ourselves, willing to be ourselves, then we are willing to give ourselves. You know, as much as you study, and I hope you’ll keep on studying, if you haven’t bought your two or three books yet, spend all the money your husband can afford to let you spend and then buy him a Christmas present and buy you a good book. Now, keep on studying, but after you’ve read all the books you’ll ever read, the chances are you’ll never say anything that hadn’t been said before you.

You nor I, many other people are likely to ever say many things new. The glory of it is we don’t have to. Do you know what’s new about you? It’s you. That’s the new thing. You may never say anything new, but nobody in the world has ever said it just like you can say it. And so, the glory of it is as you’re willing to be yourself, God gives you. God gives me.

I wouldn’t dare preach if it wasn’t a way whereby God gives me. Boy, I’m God’s gift to you. And He’s given a good gift too. And you’re God’s gift to me. And He’s given a good gift too. This is the glory of this thing. And we get over this false pride of trying to apologize and get out of the way if I can just get myself… No, get out. You get that stuff out of the way. And you just stay before the Lord. Let Him give you without apology the power to accept yourself in the Lord, to be yourself in the Lord, and to be given in the Lord. The danger is to try to do that outside the Lord. But it’s in the Lord. In the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, that’s the second thing about the baptism. How do I know I’m baptized? Because I know Jesus, the resurrected Lord on the inside of me. Because I’m getting power to be myself, to love myself, to give myself. In the Lord. How do I know I’m baptized? Because related to this power is terms of witnessing. Witnessing under Jesus. Two basic ways in which we witness to Jesus. Three basic ways. But two are obvious. That one basic way is the being.

What you really are. That’s… I’ll not deal with that more. But the second basic way in which you witness is by the fruit that you bear. You shall know the tree by the fruit that it bears. And you are not baptized in the Spirit as you should be if your life is not bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

You can judge a tree by its fruit. And that’s your life and that’s my life. We are trees, the psalmist said, planted by rivers of living water. And to be baptized in the Holy Spirit is just so much gobbledygook if it ends you up in a corner, a religious corner, where you sit around and get happy with just folks that get happy. And you not are bearing the fruit of the life of the Spirit in your daily walk. Now, I don’t… I have no objections to getting happy. I get happy too. I have no objections to Saturday night prayer groups. Hallelujah. But Monday morning rolling around. And the baptized person is in victory in Monday morning washing clothes as much as at the Saturday night prayer meeting while her husband is watching the ball game.

And I’m serious about this. The baptism with the Holy Spirit has to do with producing the fruit. And so regardless of our experience, I don’t care how high a person jumps, and the higher the better, if they walk as high as they jump. Let you walk be established in the Lord in producing. Are you bearing the fruit of the Spirit? And be honest, if you ought to know whether you are or not.

Study the Word of God in the Galatian letter and see what the fruits are and look your life over. Holy Ghost to show you. And if you can’t say yes, there’s some fruit that may not be the most luscious, you know, fruit in the world. Incidentally, young people, it wasn’t the apple on the tree that was the problem back there in the garden, it was the pear on the ground.

So the Holy Spirit produces fruit. But that’s the first obvious way in which we bear witness to Jesus. But another basic way in which we bear witness, and related to this, are the gifts of the Spirit. A Spirit-filled person who is operating in the Holy Spirit has access not only to the fruits but to the gifts. Now they’re both on the same level. You see, they’re fruits of the Spirit. That means comes up out of the life of the Spirit within us. An apple tree is not just any old tree that you hang apples on. Going out to an oak tree and pinning apples on it doesn’t make it an apple tree. An apple tree is an apple tree because it came from an apple seed and has the essence of applehood within its being, and when fruit comes out of it, it’s apples. Apple trees are just apple trees because of the inward nature of its own structure. Now it’s that way with the fruits of the Spirit. Fruit. You’re not a fruit-bearing Christian because you get in the limelight of somebody else’s joy and you reflect a little joy when you’re around CFOs.

Anybody be happy to CFO, even me. But we are fruit-bearers for the Lord, we are really in the Spirit, when out of our innermost being the Holy Spirit produces this fruit. Not something we try to do and, you know, “Lord, give me a little joy. Lord, give me some, you know, patience. Lord, give me some meekness. Lord, give me this, give me that,” trying to pull it to yourself. No. It’s on the inside of you, the root system. It’s not your labor. It’s not the fruit of your energy, fruit of your labor, fruit of your works. The Bible lists the works of the flesh. Look them over. So the works of the flesh are not fruits of the Spirit. Fruits of the Spirit are the inevitable result of the Holy Spirit having within you the nature of Jesus. So if you aren’t fruited, get rooted.

Work there at the root. And if you are in the root system of the new nature, the fruits are inevitable. They’ll come up. Now we need soil and climate, as I mentioned, and we need to work at that. But nevertheless the fruits are there. All the fruits are there on the inside of you by the Spirit. Every one of them. Now they’re not automatic. Just because the Lord is living within you and the fruit of the Spirit is joy and peace and love and faith and meekness and gentleness and kindness and temperance, that doesn’t mean automatically you’re going to be meek or kind or temperate or faith or any… not automatically. They are there but they are waiting your cooperation in responding, desiring, and helping to develop as you yield to the life of the Spirit and give Him opportunity to express Himself according to His nature.

Just like a light switch. I don’t see one around, but it’s all right. Okay. Not even one here. You can’t even use a mic, can I? Oh, this is all right. But there’s power coming into this wall. It’s already hooked up and some of these lights are not on. A few of them are. But nevertheless there’s as much power running to the one that’s not on as there is at all. Nothing wrong with the power. Very likely the bulb’s all right. But it’s not automatic just because the power’s in. Somebody has to throw the switch. And it’s that way in your life. The Holy Spirit can be there and you can belong to Him and still not produce the fruit because you aren’t giving yourself in obedience. We have to learn to cooperate and let all of the fruits come up through our lives. Now, when they do come we know that it’s the inevitable result of the Lord and we have a right to produce the fruit. The same way with the gifts. All nine gifts of the Spirit, they’re listed in the first Corinthian letter. The nine gifts, the gift of the word of wisdom, the gift of the word of knowledge, the gift of prophecy, gifts of healing, the gift of faith, the gift of discernment of spirits, the gift of miracles, the gift of tongues, the gift of interpretation of tongues.

All nine of these gifts are resident within the Holy Spirit. It’s not a matter you come in before the God and He’s got these gifts in a pigeon hole up here somewhere. “God, I believe I’ll take a little gift of the word of wisdom.” And so He reaches up in the pigeon hole and dabs you with a little wisdom. Now, that’s superficial. You don’t do fruits this way, you don’t do gifts that way. They are gifts of the Spirit, meaning they are resident within the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the real gift.

Jesus gives the gift of the Spirit. You receive the Spirit and the Holy Spirit uses the gifts. Don’t you see that? You don’t ever have to go around trying to get a gift from Jesus. I receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit… It comes within you, takes over within you. Now sometimes, I don’t eye in eye, when you say the Lord never does this, boy, that’s a big statement. Because He’ll jump your fence about the time you say He doesn’t do it. But usually, the Lord seldom takes hold of a person and starts shaking them and making gifts come out through them in spite of them.

And when I hear people say, “I just had to do it,” something within me says, “That’s not the Lord.” The Lord just doesn’t make you have to do it. The Lord honors you as a person. And He says, without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And faith involves solicitation on your part. Faith is a reciprocal response. Faith is never something God automatically does, but waits for you to respond. And so just as the Holy Spirit solicits our response, our desire, and our willingness to cooperate and produce the fruit, it’s that way with the gifts of the Spirit. Have you received the Holy Spirit?

Well, that’s the question to establish. Paul said, not have you spoken in tongues since you believed, not have you prophesied since you believed, not have you had a gift of healing since you believed. He said, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? Have you really been born and baptized with the Holy Spirit? Well, now, if you have, all gifts are there within the Spirit. Isn’t that a sight?

That these gifts are already there, and we’ve been running around looking for them. It’s amazing. So if the gifts are there within the Spirit, and they are the gifts of the Spirit, then our high privilege is to learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Now, blessed Holy Spirit, show me how to cooperate with You in letting You manifest not only the fruits in my life, but the gifts in my life. All except one. You’re not a sight. We do that inevitably, don’t we? Because we’ve seen a few gifts that we don’t much care for.

And we’re there. Oh, I’ll tell you, “I want wisdom. That’s the best gift.” “I want love. That’s the best gift.” As if, you know, down the ladder, that’s a sorry gift. Let me tell you something. Everything God has is good.

And when Paul says, talking about the best gifts, he’s talking about the way you use the rest of the gifts. Don’t ever deprecate any gift that comes from God. If it’s not used rightly, then that’s not God’s fault. Because He’s dealing with stuff like you and me. And we’re liable to make mistakes. There’s some fruit in my life that may have a few worms in it. But that’s not the truth. That’s not the Holy Spirit’s fault. It’s because I let a worm get in. And you might see a gift being used through me sometimes with a lot of ego in it. But don’t blame the Lord. God is paying a price to deal with folks like us. And we ought to know the difference between the humanity and frailty and weakness of the flesh and the glory of the Lord. But these gifts are there. And just like with fruits, He wants our desire. Desire spiritual gifts. You know, the Lord is a gentleman. He doesn’t force things on us. He waits until we have a heart hunger. And if you don’t hunger for spiritual gifts, ask the Holy Spirit to create within you a hunger. I was with Ruth and Henry Lee Robison a few weeks ago. Henry Lee, then as retired, as some of you know, they have this lovely place down in the eastern part of Virginia.

And through the years, they’ve collected a lot of beautiful things. Vases. You know, that’s when you pay more than $20 for it. Otherwise, it’s a vase. They have a few vases. And other fine things. So Henry Lee, the other day, was going through the house. And she said to Ruth, “You know, I wish the children would ask us for some of these things.”

That’s wonderful. Henry Lee was saying, “I wish the children would get to the place. First of all, where they knew how much we wanted to share everything we have with them. But somehow, where they’d get to the place of exercising stewardship enough to come in and accept that which we’re offering.” You see, if they just went over and flopped down a vase, then on the part of the children, would be no real responsibility of stewardship. If I go to say to Tom, my 19-year-old boy, son, “Here are the keys to the car. Don’t you want to use it tonight?” Well, he may want to use it, but there’s no sense of responsibility involved. My daddy sort of forced it on me. But he says, “Daddy, have you made plans for tonight?” “Well, a little bit. Tom, why?” “Well, I had a date and I sort of needed a car.” “Well, son, I can make arrangements otherwise. Sure, take the car.” He’s asked for it. Same car, same daddy, same boy. But the asking, the desiring, creates within him a sense of stewardship. Don’t go around forcing things on folks they ain’t asked for.

And the Lord doesn’t. And we learn to come to that place on the inside of us. Though the gifts are there, the Holy Spirit waits until we have a desire. And a lot of you are afraid that the Holy Spirit might embarrass you.

He’ll humble you, but He’ll never humiliate you. Don’t be afraid of it. It might get embarrassing a little bit at times, but not deliberately on His part. Don’t be afraid to receive things from the Lord. And know them. Know these supernatural gifts. Know their purposes. See, that’s the glory. And you give the Lord an opportunity to express Himself according to His nature. There’s a light socket over there. You hook up a certain plug in that light socket and that electricity starts sweeping the floor. Amazing, isn’t it? You hook up something else in there and it turns on a heater and starts giving off heat. You hook something else in there and it starts flashing a light. That electricity is there waiting for an opportunity to express itself according to its nature. And you stick a stick in there and it won’t do a thing. And you stick two pieces of metal in at the same time, it’ll do something. Just hold on to it.

It’s made to work in certain ways. So study the nature of the Holy Spirit. Study the Word of God. See what His nature is. And then give Him opportunity to express Himself according to His nature. The Lord is a healer, for instance. He’s not an arguer about a doctrine of healing. And the Holy Spirit is not interested in giving you the power to argue about a doctrine of healing. “Lord, give me a gift of healing,” and then run out and convince well folks that God heals.

That’s silly. You can get in all kinds of arguments with well church folks about doctrines of healing. But the gift of healing is to be ministered to sick people. Not to argue with well people. And so you get hooked up to a sick person and say, “Lord Jesus, You’re in me. Now You show me any sick person You want to express healing for. And You guide me to them, Lord.” And you give yourself to the Lord this way. And first thing you know, here comes somebody in your mind. “But Lord, that’s, you know, that’s next door, Lord. How about across town?”

“Oh Lord, that’s my pastor. How about somebody else’s pastor?” Say, He’ll start bringing somebody to your mind. Well now, you don’t have to run in and say, “Look, I prayed this morning and told the Lord to give me somebody that was sick and need to be healed and you’re it and I’ve come to heal you.”

No, just go over and make the contact. It may be a rather casual thing at first in making your contact. This wonderful thing of witnessing for Jesus and letting the power flow, the more natural it can be, naturally it can be done, the better. So you just make a contact. If you’re talking with a fisherman, you might want to ask him how many fish you caught first. You know, whatever. Make your contact and see that your points are clean. Your points of contact. That’s what you do when you want power flow in it. I have a little camera thing. The other day, it wasn’t working good and I took it down to the camera shop. I thought it was going to cost me for new batteries. The old boy took the back off and said, “Just a minute.” He took a little file and filed the points. Took him about two minutes. Didn’t cost me but a quarter. And it worked perfectly because he filed the points. You had your points filed lately? Make your point of contact clean, you see. Get it established. And then, let the power flow. I’ll give you this little illustration. I was stopped at the service station not too long ago. I noticed a fellow while he was putting gas in the car.

The fellow inside the station was all bent over and as if he were in great pain. I said, “Friend, something wrong with you this morning?” He said, “Yes, as I was lifting one of these cases of oil and I pulled my back rather badly,” and said, “Soon as my partner gets here, I’m going to the doctor.” And I said, “Well, I have a friend who’s interested in things like this.

Sort of a specialist in the field. And if you want me to, I’ll talk with him about it.” Well, he looked at me, you know, like he suspected something. And he said, “Well, go ahead if you want to.” You know, when you’re hurting enough, you’re willing to be healed. Even Jesus has to do it.

And so, I just put one hand on his back and one hand in front of him and talked to Jesus about it. I went on and signed my credit card. And I stopped by to see my brother before I left town. And when I came up to his house, he was sort of grinning. And I said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “Well, I just received a telephone call. So the fellow asked me if you were my brother.” And I said, “Yes.” “Well, he said he stopped down here and got some gas and signed the credit card. That’s how I knew his name. But said, if you happen to see him today, would you give him a message for me?” I said, “Yes.” “Well, I said, tell him it works.”

So, put yourself in position for the Lord to express Himself through you. And it’s the same way with all of the gifts. Now, I want to mention one that’s anathema a bit and so misunderstood. And I think we need a little teaching on it. And that’s the gift of tongues. Out of all the other nine gifts, this one seems to be the one that gets more use and abuse… words. But if you see what its purpose is, the Bible is plain at the point of its teaching. It says that the person who speaks in another language, prays in another tongue, is praying to God. He’s not speaking to people.

God does not give… Let me put it this way. There’s no scriptural evidence that God gives messages to people in languages they don’t understand. Now, if you will check me on that, I think you’ll find that real valid. There’s no scriptural evidence that God gives messages to people in languages they don’t understand. So when you are speaking in tongues, you are not preaching to folks.

Consequently, since you are praying to God, let it be between you and the Lord. That’s a good rule of thumb. Let it be between you and the Lord. A very precious, very intimate, very personal thing between you and the Lord. I’ve made a lot of mistakes at this point because I didn’t know. But the Lord is teaching us now. And so, it’s a pressure. And he says, furthermore, when you’re praying this way, you’re speaking directly to the Lord and you are, it is for the purpose of building yourself up, edifying yourself. We need edification. Just like a tree bearing fruit, it drops its leaves back around its roots to serve as mulch. This is the purpose of this gift. It keeps your own inner man built up, refreshed, renewed in this dimension of prayer. And it’s valid. It’s authentic. Don’t ever fight it. Now, Paul says, if it’s used in public, it should be done in such a way that no more than two or three are used in public and that it should have interpretation. Now, you see here again, let me say, interpretation, not translation necessarily. I’ve been in meetings where people stand up and give a tongue. They’ll give one sentence in tongue and somebody come along and give an interpretation that’ll be a page long.

You know? Or vice versa. Somebody give a great long tongue, somebody give a short interpretation. And it used to bug me. And I’d say, “This can’t be real.” A lot of it isn’t. I’m serious. A lot of it is the flesh. Try the spirits. Don’t accept things just because they come through me or anybody else. Try the spirits. That’s your responsibility. The Holy Spirit will witness to Jesus on the inside of you. And don’t, you don’t have to throw something out, but you don’t have to run and grab it and pull it to yourself just because it comes through at a worship service. Do my messages this way. Don’t throw them out just because I said them. But don’t grab onto them just because I said them. Try what I say. Check it out with the Word of God. Check it out with the Spirit in your own heart. Anything that’s of me you don’t need. You need that with the Lord. And we need that with the gifts. And so, when a person prays unto God and he prays in another language that his mind hadn’t learned, then God responds. He responds to that prayer through the interpretation. The interpretation is God’s response. If I said to my brother here, “Interpret this picture for me.”

He may say, “Well, that’s a picture of Jesus.” I start to say image, but we aren’t supposed to have any image. We’re Protestants. Doesn’t the Lord catch up with us? You know, we aren’t supposed to pray to the saints. So what does the Lord do to us Protestants? He slips in on us in every service with the doxology where we address the saints.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts.” Return and address the heavenly host. And we say, “Hey, you up in heaven, praise the Lord.” We’re talking to the heavenly host. Don’t you know God laughs every time Protestants sing the doxology? But if I said, “Interpret this,” you may just say, “Well, that’s an image of Jesus.” “Interpret this.” “Well, He has His hands outstretched this way. If you really want to know what that means, Jesus is saying, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’” Look at the difference. He just said an image of Jesus and he goes into a sermon. Same picture, but it’s interpretation. Different responses. So I pray a prayer that’s a sentence and God responds. And He may take a paragraph to respond. He is it. So interpretation doesn’t necessarily include literal translation, though it might. Interpretation is God’s response. So when you are hearing someone speak in tongues and God wants to use you to interpret, don’t try to figure out with your mind what they are saying. “Let’s see, that sounds like Hebrew, that sounds like Chinese, and that means, you know, ding-a-ling-ling.” You know.

You get knocked back in the flesh. So you respond to the Spirit. And let the Holy Spirit minister through you as God responds in your own heart. So, and this is why it needs to be worked out in small groups. Where people can’t, you know, where if I have a question I can say, “Why’d you do that?” And if you learn to work these things out intimately, privately, you won’t frighten folks when you get out in the big crowds. God doesn’t give us gifts to divide His church and turn all to pieces. He gives us gifts to build up the body and to edify the body and to glorify His name in the midst of the body. So if you work this out in your small group and say, “What do you mean by saying that?” Or, you know, “I heard the Lord say this.” And, you know, we share together. And as we share, we learn. The supernatural being ministered through us. These gifts are the Spirit. My time is up. But let’s realize this. That the baptism of the Holy Spirit has to do with not only quickening the natural and lifting it up into the realm of the supernatural, but it has to do with bringing the supernatural to the natural and expressing the supernatural through the natural in as natural way as possible.

And you know you’re baptized by union with the Lord Jesus Christ, by power to fulfill the purpose for which you remain, by the manifestations of the fruits and the gifts. Don’t ever level out on one and this is… “I know I’m baptized with the Holy Ghost because I do this.” Or “I know I’m baptized with the Holy Spirit because I’ve got a little love.” Let’s take all of them.

You know, you’ve got the Spirit and the Spirit’s within you, so let the gifts and the fruits be there. Also, you know you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit because He’s baptizing you into the body of Christ. And you’re finding yourself one with His children everywhere. There are four basic evidences, or assurances, or guidelines to being filled with the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, we do see evidence of Your love and light. We know that You’re not through with us. But hallelujah, You’ve started with us. Thank You, Lord. Thank You. And we’ve come too far to turn back now. So we want to go all out with You, Lord. Thank You. And Lord, just let us be free to abandon ourselves unto You and to learn to walk in that life of wonder and awe as we see both heaven and earth made one in our union with You. Thank You, Lord. Amen.