The Mark of God's Presence in a Church — Santosh Poonen

The Mark of God's Presence in a Church

I thought I would speak a few messages on what the Lord's been showing me about the mark of his presence in a church. Mark of the presence of the Lord in a church meeting or in a church. Something he's been speaking to my own heart.

A lot of people talk about being in the presence of the Lord. Presence of the Lord is here. I remember hearing a song once. He's here. I can feel him. I've never felt the presence of the Lord in a physical way.

I've had some physical experiences that I don't know if it's really of the Lord. It was a time of intimacy with the Lord. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I'd rather believe that it wasn't a real physical sensation.

But I'd rather have the real presence of the Lord in me and in my marriage and in my home and in the church. I believe like everything valuable, the devil loves to hold us in deception. In thinking that the presence of the Lord is in our midst in any area simply because of something I feel or something I'm doing.

Testing God's Presence by His Word

So let's test the only true test. I think often of what it's like. I hear that there's a way by which you can really tell if a currency note is not counterfeit. Like you can look for a specific mark and you look at it under a microscope or some specific instrument that says, Yes, this is valid.

It's real. And the only real microscope we have to test anything is the Word of God. Really, it's not even preachers, it's not teachers, it's the Word of God. And if you don't know God's Word, you don't know God's Word, you're very likely to be deceived.

As you've heard Zach say often, if you have a Bible in your language and you don't read it, you deserve to be deceived. It's like God saying, I've given you the microscope that can test every single currency note that people give you.

Every single one. And you might come to the point where you realize, Lord, I've got a stack full of notes that I just realized are counterfeit. And no wonder it hasn't been working in my life. No wonder I lack the power of God in my life because I've been using counterfeit money.

It doesn't really have power. And so the real presence of God in our midst has real power. And if you're lacking power in some area, you're lacking power over sin. If you find that those old bad moods still come up all the time, that the way of speaking to your children or your spouse still comes up every now and then.

If that way of lusting, you're not really freed from it. Jealousy, bitterness, unforgiveness. If that's still master over you, then don't fool yourself that you're sitting at RLCF and so it's a good church or anything like that.

Prophecy as a Mark of God's Presence

We really want to test the presence of the Lord. I don't know how many I'll speak on it, but the first one I'd like to speak on is prophecy. I really believe that prophecy, true prophecy, is a mark of the presence of God in a church.

Let's start in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. I think that if I was to order them, and that's why I don't want you to think of the order or importance or anything like that. I think spiritual authority would be what I would have liked to speak on first.

I hope to do that at some point. The Lord's still working that in my heart, so I'll speak on that later. But I do believe that that starts there, that we must recognize the authority of God in our lives.

The authority that he's given us over Satan. The authorities that he's placed in the church and in the home. And those sorts of things that are the mark of the presence of God. But let's look at prophecy today.

This verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 24. He says, I'm going to start in the middle of the verse, that an unbeliever or an ungifted man. Somebody who's not full of the Holy Spirit. So an unbeliever, yes, but also a believer who's not yet gifted spiritually.

Hasn't received the anointing of the Holy Spirit in his life. Comes in and he is convicted by all. He is called to account by all. Called to account means in a sense, we say, hey, you over there, sitting in that chair.

We see what's in your heart. He's convicted and he's called to account by all. Now, we've never done that in this church. Because we don't really know what's going on in the heart. But there's a sense in which true prophecy, true prophetic utterance in the church.

Will result in that person, man or woman, actually sitting there. Thinking, man, how did he know what I went through last week? How did he even know my thoughts that I've been thinking? Was he spying on me?

He is convicted by all, called to account by all. And the secrets of his heart are disclosed. And so he, an unbeliever and an ungifted man, will fall on his face and say, Surely, God is certainly among you.

He'll fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you. Now, I don't know what happens to this unbeliever or ungifted man. He may or she may still choose to not surrender their life.

And not give their all. And continue to live their own selfish lives. Or a half-hearted Christian life. But they wouldn't be able to deny that I went into that church meeting. And I saw the presence of God manifest.

There was something that was different. Maybe they're not ready for it yet. Or something like that. But there must be. And that's constantly the prayer in my heart. Lord, not just visitors. But every one of us.

There's some area in our life that's still ungifted, I believe. And that's an area in which I must say, Lord, you are here. And I want to value that. This is the mark. This is the fruit of prophecy. But I want to go back and read really quickly in verse 20.

What he's talking about before he gets to this point. I want you to see that he's contrasting the gift of tongues with the gift of prophecy. A lot of people in Christendom, in certain denominations, some people completely deny the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

They say that there's no such thing as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You get the Spirit in all its fullness when you're born again. That's not true. Other people say that, emphasize the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Gifts of tongues, especially. And there are some people, Christians, who preach, who believe and preach that the real mark of you being filled with the Holy Spirit is that you speak in tongues. That's also a lie, because the Bible never says that.

In fact, these verses right here is exactly what Paul's addressing. He's saying that the mark of God's presence in your midst is not that everybody's speaking in tongues, actually. In fact, he says it's a bad thing if everybody's speaking in tongues.

Let's read that. What you want is the gift of prophecy, which is to speak the message from God for His church in language that can be understood, not in language that can't be understood. So, verse 20.

Brethren, do not be children in your thinking. And so, I don't despise anyone. I think often of that verse, I think Job 35. God is mighty, and yet He despises no one. He looks down at all the foolishness that's going on in the world around Him, around here, and He doesn't despise any of them.

He didn't despise me. He doesn't despise me even now, even though He knows how unchrist-like I still am. And so, let's not despise anyone, but let's not be children in our thinking. Many of these people who don't really know God's Word, haven't received good teaching, and I'm thankful.

I'll say that a lot of this, the Holy Spirit revealed to me, but it was the result of godly teaching that was based in God's Word. That's why it's so important to listen to godly teaching, who will take you back to the Word, where you look at the Word of God yourself, and you see, yes, I don't just take that teacher's Word for it, but I see it.

And it's not just this fluff, that I see a lot of sermons these days around, Oh God, He's got a plan for your life. Trust Him. He'll work it all out. He'll work it all. Yes, there's a need for that. But if that's the only thing that you're feeding on, if that's the only thing you're feeding on, yes, God loves you, and He's got a plan for your life.

He can take you from the worst to the greatest. That's true. But if you're not receiving real teaching on how He's going to do that, it will never succeed in your life. Then you've got an imbalanced, you've got imbalanced teachers.

And we hope, we pray, that's why we have not just one speaker every Sunday, it's multiple ones of us that speak, that in the balance of all things, you will receive more of the whole counsel of God. Not just one man's idea.

So, and you know, a lot of people also, I just mentioned this in passing, say that we talk about the New Covenant so much. I'll tell you why. Because there's so much I see in Christendom of what is just old covenant practice.

We're given clear instruction in the Word of God of what a New Covenant church should look like. And we're not here to compare ourselves with others. We just say, if it's in God's Word in the New Covenant, we want to live it out.

Everything. We're not going to take this out and take that out. Because you look at Christendom, you look at Christendom and across the board, there are denominations that have taken a little bit out.

Whether it's people who take out the extreme. And say, you know, I don't know, think of the most extreme case of people who call themselves Christian. They've taken a whole bunch out. And then across the spectrum, there are different denominations of Christendom that have taken a little bit out.

Say, ah, that's just cultural, doesn't really apply for our time and all this. And we say, well, if it's in the New Covenant, if it's there, we just want to obey it. Plain and simple. And if there's something we are doing that's not in the New Covenant, then we don't want to do that.

We want to keep ourselves to the Word of God. So, do not be children in your thinking. Yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature. Be innocent when it comes to evil, but when it comes to spiritual things, be mature.

And that's really what this message is. It's if you desire to be more mature spiritually, not just content with the extent of revelation that God has given you up to this point. If you're hungry for more, saying, Lord, I thank you for what you've shown me in your Word, but I want more.

I want to be mature. I don't want to just be a child. I've been in third grade for a while now. It's time to move on to fourth grade. Then this message is for you. And for me, it is too. Be in your thinking, be mature.

In the law, it is written, by men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers, I will speak to this people. And even so, they will listen to me. Now, this is a prophecy from the book of Isaiah. I want to mention something in passing.

It's interesting that Paul mentions this prophecy, and Peter didn't. You remember on the day of Pentecost, keep a finger in 1 Corinthians 14. I just want you to see in Acts chapter 2. When the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the 120 that were gathered in the upper room, the beginnings of the church, as it were, and it says in Acts 2 verse 11, when verses 9 and 10 and 8, yeah, 9 and 10 says, all these people from all over, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, Pontus in Asia, from Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.

Proselytes are those who are not Jews, who were converted to the Jewish faith by the Pharisees. These Cretans and Arabs included, we hear them in our own tongues, speaking of the mighty deeds of God. And then, you know, it says, they must be drunk.

Yeah, it's verse 13. Others will mock and say they're full of sweet wine and it's early in the morning and they're already drunk. And at that point, you know, so here they're hearing these people speaking and they know these, Peter, there's no way he knows my language.

He's never been to Crete. How does he know what I'm speaking? And then maybe they're hearing other tongues that they don't fully understand. And Peter says, oh yeah, there's that prophecy in Isaiah, remember, about the stammering tongue, Isaiah 28.

No, that's not what he says. He doesn't use the prophecy about the tongues that we just read in 1 Corinthians 14. By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers, I will speak to this people. Because Peter was not there to emphasize the gift of tongues.

He would say, listen, I know you're hearing them in all these languages, but the point of that is prophecy. And then he quotes from Joel, the prophecy of Joel. And he says, verse 17, this was 16. This is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel.

It shall be in the last days that I will pour of my spirit on all mankind and your sons and your daughters shall what? Shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even on my bond slaves, men and women, and this, you know, sons, daughters, young men, old men, bond slaves, that is basically saying everybody. It used to be just the Levites or just the certain tribe of people, but now everybody.

You don't have to be a learned person. You could be a fisherman. You could be a chartered accountant like Matthew. You could be a ex-terrorist like Simon. And he says, my Holy Spirit is poured out upon you.

I will in those days pour forth of my spirit and they shall prophesy. They shall prophesy. So let's go back to 1 Corinthians 20. Sorry, 1 Corinthians 14, verse 20. Now Paul does quote from Isaiah 28 to say, to talk about tongues.

And these, he's talking to a church that does at that time speak in tongues. And he says, verse 21 again, in the Lord is written by men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers, I will speak to these people and even so they will not listen to me.

And so I don't know what happened to those, you know, it says 3 ,000 were baptized, but what about all the others? It seems like there was more. They heard the tongues and they heard the prophetic message.

And let me say that, that at that time the majority, I believe that the majority of the speaking in tongues that was going on in the day of Pentecost was in these earthly languages. For what reason? So that the people from Phrygia and Mesopotamia could hear the news about Jesus Christ.

Otherwise who was going to tell them? Peter is speaking Aramaic and this Phrygian over there is like, what are you talking about Jesus? I don't understand. And that's why God gave him the gift of Phrygian and Mesopotamian language.

The Holy Spirit gift of tongues, of earthly tongues. Now we see also that as you read the episodes that the gift of tongues also includes tongues of angels. And so it could be a non-earthly language.

In which case, if I'm speaking to people whose language is English and I speak in a tongue, there absolutely must be an interpretation. Because if there's a tongue and no interpretation, then what's the point of it?

It's just to show off that I have a tongue. Prove to you that I have a tongue. What does that do? And what we'll see here is that true prophecy comes from a heart of love. It's not selfish. It's not even trying to show that I have the gift of prophecy.

It's a care for the body. It's a care for my brother, my sister, for my wife, for my husband, for my children. And out of that care, that care is filling up within me and I don't have words. And so I speak out of that care.

That burden comes out. So let's keep reading. Verse 22, So then tongues are for a sign not to those who believe but to unbelievers. Tongues are a sign for unbelievers. How many churches really preach that?

That there's a bunch of unbelievers here so we need the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation to know exactly what the word is for that unbeliever. Tongues are a sign for the unbelievers but prophecy is for a sign not to unbelievers but for those who believe.

Those who are children and want to grow into maturity. Therefore, listen to this, if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say, you are mad?

They won't say, oh, this is a powerful meeting. They'll say, this is a mad meeting. This is the mad church, not the spirit-filled church. Even an unbeliever and an ungifted man can see this is the mad church.

And so many Christians fall for it. They think, oh, if everybody's speaking in tongues, we really had a powerful meeting. No, read your Bible. But if all prophesy and an unbeliever and ungifted man enters, he's convicted by all and he hears a prophetic word that convicts him.

Because if I speak in a tongue that he doesn't understand, he sits there and thinks, wow, what's going on? What is this flapping of the tongue that's going on here? And he thinks, you're mad. But if he hears in English a prophetic word that convicts him, he says, wow, how did he know?

I've never met these people before. We've had people come to us as visitors sometimes just passing through, sit here and says, this is my first time here but I feel like you guys know me. I remember a couple of instances where that happened.

Now, we may not always hear it. We're not looking for the approval of men, for sure. But then, is there a place for tongues? Yes, there is sometimes. If a person speaks in a tongue, then there must be an interpreter in the church who understands through the Holy Spirit, not a translator.

That means it's not going to be word for word. It's going to be an interpreter who is in tune with the Holy Spirit, who has the gift of interpretation. And the person who is not gifted enough to speak a prophetic word in English, they receive a word from the Lord and they don't know how to express it in English.

I don't know what your message is for the church clearly in English, Father, but you've given me this message so I'm just going to pray in this tongue. And hopefully and usually, I believe the way I've seen it practiced, there is a known interpreter, somebody who has clearly given the gift of interpretation in the church.

And so they can express this tongue, the person who is not as mature, not as gifted, so that a more gifted person who is in touch with the Holy Spirit can interpret it so that the people can hear it in their own language.

That is the true use of the gift of tongues in the context of the meeting. Paul also talks about how he says, I thank God that I pray in tongues more than any of you. And that was praying in tongues in secret, where it was just by himself.

And that's also a use of the gift of tongues where the burden of the heart and the praise and the prayer is building up so much that you run out of English words. And if you find that, I want to just briefly touch on this.

I have been tremendously blessed. I don't say this by any way just to draw attention to myself. I've been tremendously blessed by the gift of tongues myself. And I share that only for you to ask the Lord to see if He will give it to you.

I only use it in private. And I only use it at times when there's a burden in my heart. When I'm crying out for something. I see need in my life. Or there's a tremendous praise and the overflowing praise within me just comes out and I release my tongue as it were.

I don't try to confine it to the English language. And I let it pray. In whatever syllable, in whatever words come out. Words that I don't understand. And I let it be to the Lord. And I have found that those times bring such release for me spiritually and emotionally.

Where the devil is trying to clamp down my praise or trying to clamp down my spirit or clamp me down with discouragement. And I fight off discouragement. I fight off that condemning spirit by praising God.

Now, the Lord may give it to you, may not give it to you. Really, I don't elevate that gift any more than the Holy Spirit does. I put prophecy way above that. Because that's what we're told to seek. So seek for prophecy.

But I'll mention in passing, if you find that you're discouraged often and you fall into pits of discouragement, men and women. I've read the testimonies. And I was challenged to seek for the gift of tongues through hearing the testimony of those who received it and how it helped them.

Including both of my parents. I've heard their testimony of how when they received the gift of tongues, it gave them this praise and this way to kind of break the shackles and exalt Jesus. So I'll just mention that in passing.

So the gift of prophecy is that we hear what's speaking. Now this was also prophesied about Jesus. If you go back to Luke chapter 2, the presence of the Lord. The identifying marks of the presence of the Lord in a church is where Christ is there.

You see that in Luke 2, we read about a man in verse 26. Luke 2, verse 25. There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and devout. And he was an elderly man. And he was looking for the consolation of Israel, the Messiah.

And the Holy Spirit was upon him. Wonderful man. I hope to meet Simeon someday. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. You will see Jesus.

You will see Christ. You will see the presence of Christ himself. God told him that because he was a devout man. All the other Pharisees missed it. All the others missed it. Simeon saw it. And then when he's holding Jesus, you read in verse 34.

Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, Behold this child. Look at the prophecy of Simeon over Jesus which for me, I take it as a prophecy about the body of Christ even today. The body of Christ today, the church, which consists of local expressions of the body gathered across the world in different parts of the world, must be living in the same way that the first body of Christ lived in the spiritual way.

Not doing the same physical things but with the same spiritual experience in increasing measure. And so if it was true about Jesus and this prophecy was true about Jesus, I take it as something that must be true about our church for us who are part of that body of Christ.

Behold this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign to be opposed and a sword will pierce even your own soul. He was talking to Mary and if you really seek to be a part of building the body of Christ, you will have swords that will pierce your soul.

You will have relationships that will get cut off. You will experience pain emotionally because you're seeking to bear the body of Christ. Do you know that Mary experienced that? Up to this point, she had.

Think about the scorn and the reproach she faced where everybody thought she had committed sin, committed sin outside of marriage. You're like, what's this business of the Holy Spirit? Yeah, we know. Holy Mary went and committed sin with some guy and maybe they thought Joseph.

They had sex together before they got married and she bore that scorn. You read later on, she pondered all these things in her heart and throughout her life, Mary was pierced through, pierced in her soul and even when she saw Jesus on the cross and thought, wow, is this what being the Messiah was?

She probably didn't fully understand it. She was pierced in her soul. But the end of this we read in verse 35 was that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed and I pray this often. Lord, make us a church that is a living expression of your body even in this way that what's in the hearts of people gets exposed through their coming in our midst or sitting in our meetings or spending time with us.

What is in their heart is revealed to them first of all so that if it's sin, they can repent of it. But if they don't repent of it, it will be revealed to us so that we can deal with that and if they don't want to be free of that spirit, remove them from the church.

New Testament talks about that as well. So, that's just my way of introduction. I will see how much time I go but I just want to touch on a few things. The first thing I want to mention, if you have notes or if you have the bulletin, you can write this down.

Prophecy is for the benefit of others. Prophecy is for the benefit of others. This verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we were reading in chapter 14 but let's go back and to really understand prophecy, you kind of really have to start in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 27 or really even before that but let's just start in verse 27 where he says, you are Christ's body.

Now, before I move on, I want to mention, why am I talking about this? I believe we have a command. Not I believe, I know. I want you to see it. It's 1 Corinthians 14 verse 1. You must desire to prophesy.

You must desire to prophesy. Children, you can start that. If you're born again, if you've given your life to Jesus, pray this prayer, Lord, I want to prophesy. Brothers, sisters, pray this prayer, Lord, I want to prophesy.

In the church, in my home, I want to prophesy because we're told and we'll get to that verse. Seek earnestly that you may prophesy. I don't know. I haven't counted. How many things are we told to seek earnestly?

It's not that many. We're told in verse 1, love and prophecy. Seek it. So verse 27 of chapter 12, you are Christ's body and individually members of it. So here, I want you to see that Paul's not saying we are Christ's body like he says in Ephesians 4.

He's saying specifically Church of Corinth, you are a local expression of the body of Christ. You're individually. You are. You're an expression of the body of Christ and you're individually members of it.

That's why we believe in membership. People ask us why you have membership because the Bible uses the word membership. You're members of this Christ's body and individually in that sense. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

Notice how tongues has come long after prophets and teaching. And all are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? Again, verses that many people don't realize is in their Bible because a lot of people like to think that they can teach and we've been, you know, criticized in the past that we don't just allow every Tom, Dick and Harry to speak in our church.

We sometimes get visiting preachers coming through and say, Hey, can I speak at your church? And he says, No. We don't know if you're really a teacher. All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they?

All do not have gifts of healing, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? Clearly disproving the false teaching that everybody should speak in tongues. All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts.

And so, he's going to tell us the greater gifts. But before that, he says, so 1 Corinthians 13 is really like a parenthesis or maybe an underline or like a, let me lay a foundation first before I tell you about the gifts.

Earnestly desire the greater gifts. Earnestly desire the greater gifts. But before you do that, Paul says, the Holy Spirit says, first remember love. Let me show you, first of all, the most excellent way.

Remember to love. If you want the Holy Spirit to give you gifts in the body that he can use in the church, first remember love. Do you want to be a gifted father, a gifted mother, a gifted husband, gifted wife, gifted children, gifted brother or sister in the church in any way?

First remember love. First remember that you must be patient, verse 4, chapter 13. First remember that you must not be jealous. See how all of a sudden why we seek for gifts goes out the door. A lot of people want the gift of preaching because they're jealous of the other person who has the gift of preaching.

A lot of people want the gift of this or that because they look at somebody else who's making a name for himself and dishonoring Christ with that gift, so-called gift. No, first of all, remember, don't be jealous.

Don't brag. Don't be arrogant. This is chapter 13, verse 4. Now, I'm not going to make this a message on love, but remember that, that love and that care that comes from the body is what qualifies you for God and qualifies is probably a word that I don't necessarily want to use, but prepares you.

That's a better word because I can never earn the gift of the Holy Spirit. I can never earn gifts. I can never earn the fruit, but it prepares me and if God sees that I only want the gift, but I don't really want to be patient and I don't really want to bear all things and hope all things and to endure all things and I don't want to be easily provoked and I don't want to seek my own and I don't want to hold grudges, this is love.

And if he sees that I don't want all of that, then he says, well, I can't give you the gifts then. Now, you can get a counterfeit gift. You can flap your tongue all you want and you can say, thus said the Lord and all this stuff and imagine that the presence of the Lord is there and you're just fooling yourself.

But if we really want the true gift of prophecy, which is the mark of the presence of the Lord in this church, let's learn to love first. Let's really love each other. Never think of your own. Never think of yourself.

Think of others. Think of ways you can bless others. It's almost like you would say, well, Lord, if there's nobody else that you want to give that prominent gift, then give it to me. Can you give it to that person and give that other person the prominent gifts that everybody else in Christendom is seeking?

Give it to them, Lord. Give it to them. But if you can't give it to them for some reason, sure, use me. That's that others first, Lord. Being willing to be used by the Lord and letting the Lord use us, but not in a way that I'm holding on to it.

I'll give you a little personal testimony. I'm waiting for the day when I can step down from leading praise. I enjoy it, and I know the Lord is using me here. But brothers and sisters, and especially children, I'm looking for another, and I believe the Lord is looking for another generation of young brothers and young sisters that can take over the praise ministry from us so that I can step back.

I think that's a ministry I can step back from. So I'm sharing that so that any of you brothers and sisters that the Holy Spirit seeks, lays a finger on and says, hey, practice your piano a little bit.

Work on your singing a little bit so that you can be a blessing. No, we don't just let anybody get up here. We want to know that it will be a blessing that you can sing in a way that others are able to follow.

So, and even preaching, if the Lord says, hey, it's time for you to step back a little bit and let others speak more. Sure, Lord. I'm just, I want to love. I want to care for your body, and I want to be available to do what is in the best interest of your body that the head might be lifted up.

So, and then you get to, the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13. And then he says, pursue it. Now that I've shown you what love is, pursue it. But remember, I started by, I was wanting to talk about the gifts.

So earnestly desire these spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. This is what the Holy Spirit is telling us through Paul. Let's continue reading. For the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God.

For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. But one who prophesies speaks to men. And here's what prophecy is. This is the definition of prophecy. Take it from God's word, God's word alone.

The one who prophesies speaks to the church, speaks to men and women for edification, for exhortation, and consolation. One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. So if you only desire the gift of tongues, the Lord will say, okay, it's for yourself, right?

And then the Lord say, okay, I'll give you that. But do you want to have a gift that will be for others, that others will be lifted up by? Seek prophecy. One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies.

Edifies means builds up, makes it stronger. And I pray, and the reason I'm sharing this burden is that all of us will have impressed on our heart a desire to really build up each other. Not by just flattering words, oh, brother, I'm so thankful for you, or wow, you're going through that trial, I'll pray for you.

Well, that's good, but edifying prophetic words, words that might hurt for the person you speak to. I'm not saying we go around swinging our swords, but you may not even know that. Your intention is not to hurt, but you speak a prophetic word.

God gives you something in God's word and say, hey, brother, I just want to share this verse with you. Or you might reach out to a brother and just say I'm praying for you, or something like that. You might share something, but you know it's coming from the prophetic utterance of God.

And he says, now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy. And greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues unless he interprets so that the church may receive edifying.