knowledge at all. It is speaking about the spiritual gifts of the word of wisdom and the word of
knowledge.
As I already said, before I received the infilling of the Holy Ghost, I used to say, "We have
wisdom and knowledge and those are the important gifts." I also said, "Now a few of those
Pentecostals might have that little ole gift mentioned down toward the end of First Corinthians
12:8-10, the gift of tongues. But that gift really isn't very important, so we don't need it."
To my utter astonishment, the Spirit of God began to show me from His Word that I needed
this valuable spiritual gift; I needed to be filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of
speaking in tongues. The Lord showed me from the Word that when I got filled with the Holy
Ghost, I would speak with tongues (Acts 2:4).
The Spirit of God revealed to me from the Word that speaking with tongues is an initial
evidence or sign of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:4 says, "And they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost, and BEGAN TO SPEAK WITH OTHER TONGUES, as the Spirit gave them
utterance."
However, speaking with tongues does not occur as just one initial experience of being filled
with the Holy Ghost, and then it ceases. Speaking with tongues is a continual experience for
the rest of one's life to assist in the worship of God. As Howard Carter said, "It is a flowing
stream that should never dry up, but will [continually] enrich the life spiritually."'
Notice that in writing to the Church at Corinth, Paul very definitely encouraged the Corinthian
Christians to follow the practice of speaking with tongues in their own private prayer lives. And
he gives a number of reasons for it.
Paul said, "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself. . ." (1 Cor. 14:4). The word
"unknown" is italicized in the King James translation. When a word in the Bible is italicized in
the King James translation, that means the word isn't in the original Scriptures. It was added by
the translators to clarify the meaning.
Therefore, in one sense of the word, there isn't any such thing as an unknown tongue. For
instance, the translators of the King James Version added the word "unknown" in order to
convey the idea to readers that tongues are unknown to the speaker. However, tongues aren't
necessarily always unknown to everyone, and they are never unknown to God.
For example, as I have spoken in tongues publicly on different occasions, I have spoken in a
number of different languages that I have never learned, such as Hebrew and Chinese. And
some folks who were present have understood what I said. But if I were asked now to speak
these languages, I couldn't say one word in any of them. So in that sense, the tongues were
unknown to me, but they weren't unknown to everyone, and they are certainly never unknown
to God.
A Jewish man was present in one of my services in Texas. He didn't believe in Christ as the
Messiah, nor did he believe in the New Testament. At the close of my sermon I spoke in
tongues and then interpreted.
This Jewish man came to me after the service and said, "Sir, you made a statement tonight in
Aramaic that I never heard anyone make. In fact, no Jewish person would ever make such a
statement. I wondered what you were going to do when you began to translate it."