Tongues: A Revelation from God

By B.L. "Buel" James

Do you have unanswered questions about tongues?

This book will answer those questions.

Tongues: A Revelation from God is not for the unteachable. Only those who are true pursuers of revealed truth should buy this book. The author will share with you the revelation knowledge that God imparted to him that brings clarity t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Dec 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685569105

B.L. "Buel" James

B.L. James has pastored churches in West Virginia, Texas, and Colorado. He is a sought-after speaker with extensive ministry experience. That includes conducting tent meetings, revivals, preaching in the prison system of Colorado and radio ministries. His first book, Nothing but the Blood: How the Passion of Christ Reversed the Curses of Sin has been sold worldwide. B.L. is currently working on a second edition of this book. B.L. resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn

Book preview

Tongues

A Revelation

from God

This Truth

Will Set You Free

B.L. Buel James

This Truth Will Set You Free

Dedication

To my wife, Lynn, for her endless hours of typing and editing of the book and to my children for always believing in me and encouraging me to never give up.

Table of Contents

Introduction 11

Chapter One: The Tongues that Divide 17

Chapter Two: The Greatest Gift 23

Chapter Three: The True Gift of Tongues 33

Chapter Four: The Language of Heaven 49

Chapter Five: The Misuse of Tongues 69

Chapter Six: The Modern Doctrine of Tongues 93

Chapter Seven: The Need of Interpretation 101

Chapter Eight: The Sign to Unbelievers 121

Chapter Nine: The New Testament Church Pattern 131

Chapter Ten: The Truth Will Set You Free 143

End Notes 161

Introduction

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:4)

These are very familiar verses of scripture to most Christians today. They seem so easy to understand and yet churches have split over them. Denominations have argued over them. Some say that if you speak in tongues you are of the devil. Others say if you don’t speak in tongues you are not Spirit filled. Still others say all the gifts ceased with the death of the original apostles. I have heard ministers stand in their pulpits and encourage their congregations to stand and all pray in tongues while another minister will rebuke anyone who stands and speaks in tongues in the church. There is probably more controversy over the issue of tongues than any other theological subject in the church today.

Since the scriptures say, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:4-6, emphasis added); is there but one scripture? If there is only one Spirit who inspired the scriptures, would there be multiple interpretations of a text of scripture? There is but one interpretation of scripture because the Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of confusion. Even on the day of Pentecost we find that all the people gathered in the upper room "were all with one accord in one place." (Acts 2:1, emphasis added) There can only be one way to understand the gift of tongues. The fore mentioned examples of some of today’s extremes on the use of tongues are all scripturally wrong. I will prove this throughout this book.

I can recall when I was just a young teenager and how I was drawn to certain preachers. Two of those were Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggart. My mother forbade my sisters and me from listening to these tongue talkers as she called them. We lived in an old two-story house and our television was in an upstairs room, which would get extremely hot during the summer months. On Sunday afternoons my family would sit out in the backyard under the shade trees to try to keep cool. I would sneak off upstairs and watch Oral Roberts preaching in his big tent. Then later, I would watch Jimmy Swaggart from his large crusades. I was drawn to the power and the anointing on these great men of God as they spoke. I knew that they had something that our local pastor did not have. When I became a Christian and began to read the scriptures, I came to realize that what they had was the baptism in the Holy Ghost. I knew that I wanted that same power at work in me.

Six weeks after I became a Christian, I found myself struggling with temptation. I remember weeping before God for a few hours asking Him to give me power over my flesh. Suddenly, I felt the fire of God hit me and I began to shout. I walked from room to room shouting to God’s glory. I did this until late in the evening. I was hoarse and tired, but I was free from the struggle with my flesh. Although I did not speak in tongues until ten years later, I had the power and the other manifestations of the Spirit found in I Corinthians 12:8-10 active in my life. It wasn’t until 1985 that I found myself seeking the presence of God all night. At about three o’clock in the morning I began to pray in tongues for the first time and oh what a joy and peace flooded my whole being, not because of the tongues but the presence of God that accompanied it. So, as you can see by this account of my own experience, I do believe in the manifestation of unknown tongues; but I also am convinced that not all believers are required to manifest tongues.

The material in this book came to me by revelation knowledge while in my first pastorate. I was teaching an in-depth study of First Corinthians in our mid-week service which took us well over a year just to get to chapter twelve where the manifestations of the Spirit are listed. We studied all of them except different kinds of tongues to which I said we would cover this manifestation when we got to chapter fourteen. I had been taught in Bible College that the gift of tongues was the ability to speak in an unlearned language to give one the ability to witness to foreigners. Although this is true, I had always felt there was more to know about the manifestation gift of tongues than what I had been taught. I sent for everything I could find regarding the subject of tongues. I studied from one extreme (it’s of the devil) to another (you don’t have anything unless you speak in tongues). I studied for two months, and I had a stack of notes several inches thick on my desk, but still did not fully understand the gift of tongues.

Finally, the day came when I was to teach on the gift of tongues. I was sitting in my study looking over all the notes I had collected on the subject when I felt the need to pray for help from God. Just two weeks earlier I had knelt at the altar in our church from eight o’clock in the morning till after six o’clock that evening asking God to reveal to me the meaning of the manifestation of tongues. At about six o’clock a peace came over me, and it was as if God were speaking to me. He said in my spirit, What are you seeking? I replied, If tongues are real let me speak in tongues just for a couple of seconds that I may understand what they are. (This was a year before I had my three o’clock in the morning experience of speaking in tongues.) It was as if I heard Him say to me, What did I promise you when I baptized you in the Holy Ghost? I answered, Power. He said, I gave you what I promised. I have manifested Myself through you in all the other manifestations so stop seeking manifestations and seek the gift, the Holy Spirit. End of conversation. I left the church with peace, but I still had no answer as to the fullness of the understanding of the manifestation of tongues. I began to wonder just what I was going to teach the congregation on this subject.

But as I sat at my desk on the Wednesday morning of the day I was to start our study of First Corinthians chapter fourteen, I began to weep before God. I said, Father, I am about to stand before Your children and tell them what tongues is all about, and all I have is half the truth. I refuse to give only half truths. I will not speak tonight unless You reveal to me the full understanding of tongues. Just then I opened my eyes and began to write. I wrote the commentary of the entire fourteenth chapter of First Corinthians. When I had finished, I began to read it and I realized that I had not written it. There were no misspelled words, and I could read the handwriting. I knew then that someone else wrote this commentary and I simply held the pen.

As I read, I began to cry. I called my wife and told her what had been revealed to me and that I finally knew what tongues are. That night I shared briefly what had been revealed to me because I had not had time to put this commentary to the litmus test of the scripture that I had examined on this subject as well as the other materials I had studied. I had researched every scripture dealing with tongues or languages. I had traced languages back to their origins, both from secular books as well as Christian writings. What was revealed to me fit every scripture and passed every test I could give it. I knew then that I had received revelation knowledge from God.

As you read this book, I ask that you bathe your study in prayer whether you believe tongues were for the first century church only, or they are of the devil, or you must speak in tongues to prove that you have the Holy Spirit. This material will challenge most who read it, but with prayerful study I believe that you will agree that this book explains the truth about the tongues of Pentecost as well as tongues for today. May you enjoy your study of this very controversial subject. This truth will set you free.

—B. L. James

Chapter One

The Tongues that Divide

For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

(I Corinthians 14:33, KJV)

The manifestation of tongues is the supernatural linguistic ability to communicate in a language or languages that you are unfamiliar with. It may involve the languages of men or the supernatural language of heaven and of angels.

I believe that most believers today do not have a problem with this definition of tongues. The problem is our coming into unity as to its place in the church today. Satan, the enemy of the church, has done a great job in dividing the body of Christ, the church, on many subjects. We have churches on nearly every street corner and in many of our strip malls. We are meeting in schools, basements of houses, and many other places throughout our nation. There was a time when we were divided by doctrinal differences, worship styles and other denominational barriers. But today it seems that people get upset over the smallest of issues and get others to join them in their exodus from the church to go forth and start an independent fellowship.

There are a number of reasons for such division in the body of Christ, such as the misuse of the manifestation gifts, especially that of tongues. Then there seems to be a great rebellion to the authority of the person in the pulpit. Due to the failures of some of those who have abused the privilege of standing in a pulpit, the church seems to have rejected all church authority. It is as though everyone has his or her own plan of salvation worked out and no one, especially a Bible-thumping preacher, can tell them they’re wrong. But God has a plan of authority for His church, and when we align ourselves with His plan, we will have true unity.

His plan is found in Ephesians 4:11-16 which states, And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Satan has well prepared us to reject the five-fold ministry that we may be divided on yet another subject. Satan knows that if the body of Christ ever gets perfected in doctrine and comes into unity, he will suffer great losses in his kingdom of darkness. Over the past few decades, the offices of prophet and apostle have been reappearing in the church. Unfortunately, Satan has been sowing counterfeit prophets and apostles to disillusion the body of Christ, thus leading to people being skeptical of these offices. The sad part of this is that it seems the only part of the body of Christ that has been receptive of these offices has been the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement or those who speak in other tongues. This causes a great part of the body of Christ to reject the offices because of the misunderstandings over tongues, thus causing division in the body. We must come to the full understanding of tongues that we may remove the chasm between the Charismatic/Pentecostal churches and other mainstream Christian churches.

Ephesians four continues in verse thirteen, Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Notice here that the five offices of the church are to bring us into the unity of the faith. Is the body of Christ walking in the unity of the faith? I think not! This is evident by the number of different types of churches we have. We must come into the unity of the faith if we, as the body of Christ, ever expect to fulfill the great commission and defeat the enemy of our souls. We also see in this verse that these five offices are to bring us to the knowledge of the Son of God. Can any church say with all truth, and with the evidence to back it up, that they are walking in the full knowledge of Christ? I say there is no way to do this unless we are sitting under the teaching of the five offices of the church and allowing the Spirit to teach us through them. Then we must apply the truths taught or we will never see the fullness of the knowledge of Christ in our lives or churches.

This verse goes on to say that we are to become a perfect man. This is possible when we understand that