The Importance of Praying in Other Tongues

Recently, I did a brief recap of the previous four lessons about the Gift of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. I believe that this teaching is so, so critical and important. As I concluded the teaching, I mentioned that our battle against the enemy is an unfair battle. In this battle, we aren't fighting against things that we can see. To help make this point clear, I brought two boys onto the platform and informed them that we would do something that we have never done in my 20 years of being a children's pastor. In our service, we would have an all out, knock-down, put the smack on fight between the two boys. To make the fight even more memorable, I then gave each boy a baseball bat to use. Needless to say, our audience went wild about this idea. I then announced that to make this fight even more unforgettable, I would place a blindfold upon one of the boys. Both boys would be fighting with a baseball bat, one with full vision and the other blindfolded. You should have seen the eyes of the child that would be fighting blindfolded. It was a moment that I'll never forget. Of course, there was no fight. It was just a great illustration.

In ourselves, we are no match against Satan. The apostle Paul stated that our enemy isn't flesh and blood, but principalities and powers and rulers of darkness. There is no way that we can compete against an unseen enemy. But, the Helper from heaven has given us tools that gives us an advantage over our unseen enemy. One of these tools is the ability to communicate with God in a language that our enemy cannot understand. This language from heaven, other tongues, enables us to talk the secrets of Heaven and Satan is totally clueless.

I then gave the illustration about how our United States military utilized the Najavo Indian language to bypass the constant surveillance of the Japanese army during World War II. Rather than retell the story, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker#Use_of_Navajo. This is an illustration that will make this point come alive.

Thank God for the Holy Spirit. Thank God for the language that He enables us to speak (Acts 2:4) that gives us the ability to "put the smack down" on our blinded enemy!