1 Corinthians chapter 14, and today we'll read verses 6 through 12. But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching? yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp? For if the trumpet produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, Unless you utter by the tongue a word that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. There are perhaps a great many kinds of sounds in the world and none is without meaning. If then I do not know the meaning of the sound, be to the one who speaks a barbarian, the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me. Verse 12 says, so also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. This morning I wanna preach a message on the subject of edification requires intelligibility. Edification requires intelligibility. As Paul brings these things out to the church at Corinth, you know, they seem to have been really, really excited about the sign gifts. And we know that people are people and the flesh gets excited about things like that. I mean, somebody comes and sets up a tent or Advertisement for church service and says hey come here in the preaching of the word. That's not going to draw a lot of crowds but if he says Come down here. We're gonna have healings. We're gonna have And you start putting a bunch of stuff in there Visuals You'll draw a crowd Well Paul understood that the gifts were for a reason, but they had neglected that. And as he brings this together, he's already written about love, and he's reminded them about that. He comes back, circles back around to the gifts, and he asks this legitimate question. Right there in verse six, but now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching? Those gifts, revelation, knowledge, prophecy, teaching, they weren't as exciting as the gift of tongues to these folks there at Corinth. But he makes a valid point here. What good is it for me, Paul says, in paraphrasing this, what good is it if I come to you speaking in tongues if there's no edification in it? What good is it if I speak in an unknown tongue, as we mentioned last week? Will there be any understanding if the intention is not Revelation, knowledge, prophecy, teaching. What is my point here? In speaking of tongues, he's saying, with translation, with interpretation, there comes understanding, clarification. There comes knowledge and prophecy and teaching. With it comes edification because there is an interpreter and intelligibility. As I said in my last sermon, even if a missionary comes and he's from a foreign field, everybody gets excited about the languages that the people speak in those other countries, and yes, that is important that he knows those languages, But he ought not to bring that, he ought not to preach in the language that he preaches on the foreign field, because no one in the congregation here in the United States would be able to understand him. And by the same token, even though it may look cute, and everybody says, oh, that's really amazing, he ought not to get up with his family and sing a song in a foreign language without an interpreter. These are the principles that's being brought out here in this text. Per the text before us in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, any private use of the gift of tongues. And of course, as we mentioned before, the gift of tongues has ceased, but we're talking about in Paul's day, during the church of Corinth's day, the private use of this gift was excluded for several reasons. Number one, it's a sign to unbelievers. Down in verse 22, we'll skip ahead for a minute. He says, so then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers. But prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers, but to those who believe. And so it's a sign to unbelievers. Remember the day of Pentecost, what happened? All those people were gathered together. They spoke different languages, but they heard the gospel. They heard the truth of God's word being spoken in their language. They understood what was being said there on the day of Pentecost. Number two, it must have a translator. to have any meaning even to the speaker. And so if we go back to verse two, for 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. And so, uh, so we, we find even, even for the speaker, there needs to be an interpreter. There needed to be an interpreter. Translator. Verse 13, he says, therefore, let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate or interpret, as some translations put it. There has to be a translator. But thirdly, and very important also, it must edify the church. The sign gifts were not meant to puff anybody up or to be a show of any sort. This was meant for the edification of the church. And so in verse six, our text there, he says, but now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching? And so these are the principles that are laid down here in this text. Verse seven, he continues on and he gives an example. I love the examples in the Bible. 2,000 years old, but we still understand them. And he gives this example, and he says, yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp? There's distinction in musical instruments, even though there's no life in them. And so when a flute is played, you know it's a flute. When a harp is played, you know it's a harp. You know what it is, and if the musician takes that and plays something that you know, you know the song. You know what's being played. Verses eight and nine, he goes on. He says, for if the trumpet produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue a word that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. If an inanimate object like the musical instrument is expected to make a sound that is distinct, How much more should it be for the church? I don't know musical notes, but I know what I hear, and you know what you hear. And when Brother Barry says, we're gonna sing Trust and Obey, and Leah sits down on the piano, and she begins to play it, we know by the intro she's playing Trust and Obey. Now if Leah got on the piano and decided to instead play Amazing Grace, there would be confusion. There'd be great confusion in the congregation. Or worse yet, if she just pounded on the piano and nobody knew what was happening, that would be chaos. Total chaos. No arrangement. Nothing pleasing about it. Nobody can guess the meaning. So in one example, it might be that the piano player and the congregation are on different pages on the hymn book. But in the other example, it's just chaos. Nobody knows what's going on. So it is with tongues. So it is with tongues. And indeed, There is, there must be order. There must be edification. And when it comes to the gift of tongues, you cannot understand what is being said if it's in an unknown tongue. I know we don't speak in tongues and have that gift as it was in the New Testament age, but the principle is applicable. And if we take tongues biblically, it is languages. And so we can see how this thing would work. But imagine if you're in a foreign country and You're maybe on a vacation or on a mission trip or whatever, and a group of people comes at you. They've got guns. They're yelling in a language that you don't understand. How will you know whether those people are hostile or whether they're friends? You say, well, you can tell by their body language. Well, maybe. Maybe, I mean, if they take the gun out and start shooting at you, that's an international body language of, hey, that person doesn't like me very much. But if they're just men with guns and they're yelling at you in a language that you don't understand, you don't know whether they might be police, they might be trying to warn you about dangers that are in the area. They might be armed guards trying to warn you or they might be hostile terrorists. You just don't know because they're yelling in a language that you don't understand. Kind of a scary situation. What will happen would be chaos, be chaotic and stressful. What if you came to church and we had a guest speaker? And he says, you know what? English is my second language. I'm not very comfortable preaching in English. So today I'm going to preach in Spanish. He just goes off preaching in Spanish or Portuguese or some African language. Do we say, well, we've heard you're a good preacher. And so we're gonna sit here through the whole thing and at the end we'll say amen, shake your hand and say, I didn't understand a word of it, but I'm sure that it was a blessing and God approved of it. No, we wouldn't. We would say to this man, hey, you know what? If English is your second language, you don't feel comfortable preaching in English, let's see if someone can interpret it for you, and if there's no interpreter, you can sit down and enjoy the service while someone in English preaches. That's the way it should work for the edification of the people. And yet, in some circles, there were, well, in Catholicism, That was the thing. The mass was given in Latin for so many years and all of those things. And when people didn't understand the Latin, they were told that they still needed to come and do all those things. But what good was it? There was no edification in it. Same thing. having your Bible in your own language. For so many years across Europe, the Bible was only available in Latin. I mean, easily available in Latin, and that wasn't very easy until the printing press, when things started getting translated into the common vernacular, began to be translated in German and in English and the common languages of the people. We're blessed to have the Bible in our language. You say, but preacher, 1 Corinthians chapter 14 has nothing to do with these things. I agree. It's about tongues in the church, but the principles laid down here are applicable for the order of the service as we have them today. They do apply to missionaries coming from the foreign field. They do apply even to Bible translations. The King James translators brought this out in their preface to the reader. This is what they said in the 1600s. How shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? As it is written, except I know the power of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian to me. The apostle accepteth, notice that he's quoting from 1 Corinthians 14. The apostle accepteth no tongue, not Hebrew the ancientist, not Greek the most copious, not Latin the finest. Nature taught a natural man to confess that all of us in those tongues which we do not understand are plainly deaf. We may turn the deaf ear unto them. The King James Translators go on to say... Translation is, that openeth the window to let in the light, that breaketh the shell that we may eat the kernel, that putteth aside the curtain that we may look into the most holy place, that removeth the cover of the well that we may come by the water, even as Jacob rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of Laban were watered. Indeed, without translation into the vulgar tongue. Now, back in the 1600s, vulgar meant the common, the common language. Without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacob's well, which was deep, without a bucket or something to draw with. Or, as that person mentioned by to whom when a sealed book was delivered with this motion, read this, I pray thee, he was fain to make this answer, I cannot, for it is sealed. And so language opens up, opens up what is hidden, what is, what cannot be understood, Well, let's go on in our text here in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verses 10 and 11. Paul put it this way. He said, there are perhaps a great many kinds of sounds in the world. None is without meaning. If then I do not know the meaning of the sound, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian. The one who speaks will be a barbarian to me. Speech has an obvious reason for its use. It's for communication. Language is for communication. We take it for granted every day. But you know what we would be without communication? We'd be lost. We'd be in a terrible way. We couldn't do business. We couldn't get by with life. Try going to a restaurant and ordering something if you don't know the language. Try driving on the road if you don't know what the signs say. The Corinthians missed this obvious memo with their counterfeit. Whether they were using some outdated ancient Hebrew as John Gill thought in his commentary, or whether it was some pagan gibberish as John MacArthur thought was happening. Either way, whatever was going on there, the church at Corinth was missing out. The church is an assembly of people. Or somebody put it like, the church is like a family unit. and we welcome guests and certainly those sorts of things, but a church is like a family. Can you imagine if you went to a family reunion or sat down at your dinner table with your kids or your grandkids, parents or grandparents, and didn't understand what each other was saying? It'd be terrible. Terrible. At its base level, communication is a, language is a, is a great thing. And for a church to miss this is terrible, terrible, terrible confusion. Verse 12, he says, so also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. He tells them, look, since you're zealous for spiritual gifts, he says, you know, he's not against that, but seek for edification. The spiritual gifts were always for edification. Whether they were the sign gifts or the other gifts of the spirit, they were always for edification and edification requires intelligibility. If you don't understand it, it does nobody any good. He says, don't forget that. This is his reminder of telling them, you know, focusing on love and then bringing down. All right, here, we're going to talk about these gifts. Make sure it's for edification. Make sure it's for edification. Lord, I will continue on with the rest of this chapter next week, but thank you for your attention to the preaching of the Word. Brother Barry, Sister Leah, let's have another song.