Questions & Answers
Questions 111 (COD Page 522)
What is “speaking with tongues”?
70 Speaking with tongues is nothing but a baptism of the Holy Ghost that justified you and sanctified you. It’s so filled! Now, I’ve wanted...I wanted this question. God knows I never knew the man was going to ask, answer...or ask it.
71 Now, is it too...if it gets too hot in here, open that door if you get sleepy or something. I want you to get this good and tight. Cause it–it’s really a little warm, might make you get sleepy.
72 Now notice, notice this: justification, sanctification, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
73 Now look here, here it is. Let me illustrate it. Now, I’m down here, I’m a sinner, I’m walking this way. Once, after a while, Something speaks to me. And nothing can turn me but God. Is that right? I’m turned this way. Now, when I turn around, that’s my justification. Is that right? Now, the picture is my object of going, see, the picture of Christ.
74 Now I want to a place where I can feel good around Him. See, I’m justified. Now I come to this stage here where I can talk to Him, because...I still ashamed of myself. I still smoke, I still lied, done little sneaking things that I oughtn’t to do, and all the time my up’s and down’s, up’s and down’s, but I want Him to cleanse me from all those things so I can really walk up to Him and talk to Him. See? All right, here it is, it’s sancti-...stage of sanctification. Now, what did it do? Straightened me up. See?
75 Now I’m going on to the Holy Spirit. See? And when I get into here I’m in the Holy Spirit by a baptism. Is that right? What does the Holy Spirit do? It gives me power. Power to be a preacher, power to be a singer, power to speak with tongues, power to interpret tongues. It’s full of power, for the Holy Spirit is the power of God. And it was the power of God that turned me around. It was the power of God that sanctified me. Now it’s the power of God that’s filled me.
76 Now, on a certain occasion, I’m standing here and I’m trying to say something and the Power of God comes upon me in such a great way till I just can’t speak no more. See? And I started stammering. Like I was going to say, “Brethren,” like standing like this.
77 Here it is, I’m going to illustrate it in this way. I’m going to talk to you brethren so that you’ll be sure to get it. “How–how–how you do, brother?” See, I’m still guilty. “Uh, I–I’m sure glad that I–that I’m still one of you. I–I–I’m so glad, you see.” All right. Now, after a while, what? I know you’re looking right at me and know I’m still doing stuff, still doing things that has filth of the world on it.
78 After a while I get cleaned up. Now something’s happened, I’m sanctified. I can look you right in the face, I’m one of you. See? “All right, brother. Praise God! I’m glad to be in this Holy Ghost group. I’m glad to be amongst you holy brethren.” Why? Can’t put your finger on me, I’m cleaned up. But now God’s going to put me in service. Now, yes, sir!
79 “Brother Branham, was you justified?”
80 “Yes! I remember when I just couldn’t hardly look at you. Brother, I can look you in the face now.”
81 See, here we are. Now, what’s this other? Now I’m going to...This is cleaned and set aside for service, and this is coming into service. Now we all know that the word sanctify is a Greek word, a compound Greek word that means “cleaned, and set aside for service.” The vessels was cleansed and by the altar, and sanctified by the altar and set aside for service. But to be in service is to be filled and put in service.
82 Now, I go over here and now I’m coming into service. Now, it was God that turned me, saying, “Hear Me. Hear Me! Hear Me!” And He said...
83 You get what I mean? See? And here, [Brother Branham illustrates someone speaking in other tongues–Ed.] See, here, you’re just so full you...That’s it. There you are, that’s speaking in tongues.
84 And I believe this now: I do not believe that speaking in tongues is any evidence of the Holy Ghost. It isn’t! Because I have seen witches, wizards, snake-handlers, devils, everything else speak in tongues, and it is not an infallible act of God (when you speak in tongues) that you’ve got the Holy Ghost. But, remember, the Holy Ghost does speak in tongues and the devil can impersonate it.
85 The–the evidence that you’ve got the Holy Ghost is the life that you live, see, “By their fruits you shall know them.” And the fruit of the Spirit is not (nowhere in the Scripture found) speaking in tongues. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, faith, long-suffering, goodness, meekness, gentleness, patience. See, now, that is the fruit. That’s what you find on the tree to tell what kind of a tree it is. See?
86 That’s what men are looking to you preachers, and to you deacons, and you trustees, and you evangelists. You could speak in tongues out here on this street all day long, they’d never believe you. But you live what you’re talking about, you show sweetness, and all the roots of bitterness is out of you, then man will realize there’s something.
87 “Speaking in tongues.” Now, I do believe this, that sometime another, that a Spirit-filled person that lays under the altar of God will speak with tongues. But I’ve seen many speak with tongues that never knowed nothing about God. See? They knowed nothing about Him at all, and they still speak with tongues. Any of those gifts can be impersonated. See?
88 But the fruit of the Spirit proves what the Spirit is on the inside, you bear the witness of the Life of Jesus Christ. Because if there’s peach tree sap in the apple tree, it’ll bear peaches as sure as the world. That’s right. See, because it’s the life that’s inside of it.
89 Now, that’s the same thing it is here. But now, so that I could get this to you all, so that we could all know the same thing. I believe that a Spirit-filled person that...Now he comes into Christ by a baptism, and just...that is not...Speaking with tongues is not evidence of a baptism. See?
90 A baptism, you could be baptized into the devil’s power, and speak in tongues with the baptism of the devil’s deceiving spirit. How many times have we seen it done? How many times have I seen it done?
91 I even known of them drinking blood out of a human skull and speaking in tongues.
92 I seen the snake-dancers on the desert when they wrapped this big snake around them and go along speaking. The wizard come out like that, and they’d speak in tongues and interpret it.
93 I’ve been in their witch camps where they’d lay a pencil down like that, and put a book down like this, and a pencil run up and down the stovepipe, and play, “Shave and a haircut, two bits,” and write in unknown tongues, and the wizard interpret it and tell exactly what happened. I–I know that myself. See? So I...See, you can’t...
94 Paul said, “Where there’s tongues, they shall cease. Where there’s prophecies, it’ll fail. Where all these gifts, they’ll soon be done away with.” (We got the question a little later.) “But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is done away.” See? So we want the perfect thing, brethren. See? We seen too many things bogus and give the wrong interpretation to it.
95 And don’t never face a person and–and believe that they got the Holy Ghost because they speak in tongues. See? But you believe they have the Holy Ghost because of the fruits that they bear, for Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” See? That’s right, “By their fruit.”
96 Now, but now, let me just not get away from that now, because I don’t want to dishonor a great gift that God has given. See? And I believe that a Spirit-filled man or woman, or a child, that lives under the altar of God, won’t live there long until they’ll be speaking with tongues. See? I believe that he will do it, or she.
97 Now, you can receive the Holy Ghost and maybe you didn’t speak with tongues when you get It. See? But if you constantly lay there before God all the time, with baptism after baptism striking you, something’s going to take place. See? You’ll get so full someday till you can’t talk nothing else; see, you–you–you try to say something, you just can’t say it no more, and you just can’t say it. And many times if people realized that that was the Holy Spirit they’d go ahead and just open their heart up and let God speak to them.
98 The Bible said, “With stammering lips and with other tongues will I speak to this people.” Isaiah 28, see, 28:18. Now, “With stammering lips and with other tongues will I speak.”
99 What is a “stammer”? Somebody who can’t talk plain, going [Brother Branham illustrates someone stammering–Ed.]. You just...you stammer, just trying. See, just so full of the Spirit! He’s trying to say...Like I was going to say, “Brother Ja-Jack-...Ja-...Bro’er Jack-...Brother Ja-Ja-Jack-Jack- Jackson.” See, it like that, you’re trying to say, you can’t say it. See, that’s, so filled with the Spirit! It...
100 I want to ask you brethren, have you ever felt the Holy Ghost shake you so bad till you just couldn’t hardly say nothing, would just sit quiet sometime, just sit there and cry? Have you did that? Well, that’s the Holy Ghost. If you’d...The reason people don’t speak with tongues many times, they don’t know how to yield themselves to the Spirit and they’re looking for something way off when It’s right on them. See? That’s the reason they don’t...
101 And then some people just gets theirself worked up in emotion and say a bunch of words that has no meaning to it, and still ain’t got the Holy Ghost, and try to say they have because they spoke in tongues. “By their fruits you shall know them,” see.
102 Now, is there a question? [Brother Junior Jackson says, “Brother Branham?”–Ed.] Yes, brother. [“I’m glad that question was asked, because no doubt some might wonder what maybe I have believed and taught for a long time. But I believe it just like you taught it.”] Thank you, Brother Jackson. [“Irregardless of how many times I might speak in tongues, or anything, if my life doesn’t bear record of what the Bible says then I’m no better than an ornery dog walking the street.”] That’s right. [“And I did not ever speak in an unknown language until six months after I had received my baptism.”] That’s about the way I did it, too, Brother Jackson.
103 I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost back in my shed, see. And about a year later, or something like that, I was–I was...spoke in tongues.
104 And about a year or two after that, I was preaching again in a church, and I was–I was standing up on the platform like this, and I...When I was young and wasn’t stiff and old as I am now, I could get around a little better and I was very emotional in preaching. I was standing there preaching and I just jumped up on a desk. It was on a Baptist church, Milltown Baptist church, and went right down into the aisle, preaching just as hard as I could preach like that. And just as I stopped preaching, Something just had me all carried away and said several words, four or five, or six words, in unknown tongues. And before I knew what I was doing, I heard myself calling out “The Rock in a weary land, the Shelter in the time of storm.” See?
105 And then one day coming down a railroad track, I was walking down the railroad track, this side of Scottsburg, coming down the railroad track, patrolling. The winds blowing hard, oh, my, and ice all over the track, and I crossed over so I could walk down my thirty-three thousand; sixty-six went up the other way, kind of went parallel to the track. And I was coming down the track, and all of a sudden...I was walking along there, I was singing. I always sang. I had different places where I went to pray. And I was going along there, singing, and all at once I come to find out I was speaking in tongues, see, not knowing what I was doing.
106 Speaking in tongues comes in such a combustion that the person hardly knows what they’re doing, or, they don’t know what they’re saying. And interpretation is the same way. They know not what they’re going to say. They have no more idea going to say it, because it’s supernatural. See, as long as you get the natural in it then you don’t...you–you–you got natural, you see. But if something just grabs you and takes hold of you, and you’re doing it. See?
107 [Brother Neville says, “Brother Branham, could I say something right here?”–Ed.] Sure, you can, Brother Neville. [“Now, you saying it that way, you’re not intending to say, though, that–that tongues would have to be in order in service if a man couldn’t control it? Because he is...A man that has a gift is supposed to be in control of it.”] He can control himself. Yes. Just like...[“You’re supposed to be conscious enough to know that he is about to speak in tongues”] yeah, that’s right [“or he is out of order to start with.”] That’s right, he feels it. See? Now, like the Bible said, “If–if there be one who speaks in tongues and there be no interpreter, then let him hold his peace.” Now, of course.
108 Say, for instance, I’m standing here, anybody, when you’re fixing to shout, same thing. Did you ever feel the power of God come on you when you start to shout? How many ever did that? Well, all of us have. See? You just sit there, you feel it coming. Now, there’s times when you can quench that, see. You can hold it, see, it’s not right.
109 What if you was standing, talking to the–the President of the United States, or you was standing out here talking to the mayor of the city, and you was talking about something another, right out on the street here, talking to a bunch of people, and all at once you just feel like you could jump up and down, and scream and holler “Glory! Hallelujah!” and kick against everything and run up and down the street like that. They’d say you was crazy. See? They’d say, “That man’s crazy.” See?
110 Well, see, you know better than to do then. You hold, although it’s just digging down in you and you just can’t hardly hold it. You say, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yes, sir. Uh-huh.” Boy, she’s just digging you to pieces but you know to hold your peace right then. See?
111 Like in a courthouse here not long ago, they had some Pentecostals up for–for doing something another, screaming too loud or something, which they was–they was absolutely legitimate, you see, it’s right. But every time the judge would go to speak or go to say something to them, they’d talk in tongues. See? The judge said, “Take them crazy people away from here.” See?
112 Now, if there had been an interpretation to that tongues and told the judge “THUS SAITH THE LORD,” certain-certain thing that would have been true, “THUS SAITH THE LORD! Judge, what are you standing here judging me for when last night you lived with a prostitute? Her name was Sally Jones, she lived down at 44 Certain-certain-certain place, like that. Why do you judge me? That’s THUS SAITH
THE LORD! Now deny that and you’ll drop dead.” Now, oh, brother! There’s something different there.
113 But when you just stand and speak, and he said, “You’re a barbarian to them.” You see? Now, you know when to hold your peace and when not to do it. See? Now, that’s...See. I’m...You get me straight now, you know what I mean. See? That is. Certainly...
114 We got that question right on down here. The reason I was holding it like this, we got the same thing, “Are they supposed to hold their peace?” You see? That’s the reason I didn’t answer it out no more than what you was saying. But that’s the time, answer it now, see, right now. And we’ll get it also on this question down here, and I’ll just refer back to it. Does everybody understand that question all right?
[Brother Fred asks, “Brother Branham?”–Ed.] Yes, Brother Fred. [“Does–does a person speak in–in the Spirit, giving the utterance (say he’s an Englishman and he could speak English) and would the Spirit give the utterance?”]
115 Certainly. Yes, sir. See, because the Holy Spirit speaks in every language. See? On the Day of Pentecost every language under Heaven was gathered together, see. Speaking in English...Now, I always know this, Brother Freddie, myself, that I...if I ever preach a sermon there’s any anointing to it, it’s the Spirit giving the utterance, you see. It’s the...See? So that would be an unknown tongue to a man that didn’t understand English. But yet...
116 And just like the unknown tongue is not an “unknown” tongue, it’s...there’s somebody there...Like on the Day
of Pentecost, they said, all these sinners, they said, “How do we hear every man in our own language? How do we hear these Galileans speak in our own language?” There was no “unknown” about that at all. There’s no such a thing as “unknown” tongues at Pentecost. Now, see, that’s not Scriptural at all. See? There wasn’t unknown...it wasn’t no unknown tongue, it was a language. “How hear we every man in our own language wherein we were born?” Nothing unknown about it at all. See? That...any question on that now, right now before we leave it? “How hear we every man in our own language?” See?
117 [A brother says, “That’s–that’s where there’s a little error because of human weakness, and when people will–will fail to accept anything, only say, ‘I won’t believe it any way, only according to Acts 2:4!’”–Ed.] Well, if they had it according to Acts 2:4 they certainly wouldn’t speak in an unknown tongue. [“No, in a language.”] Uh-huh. They’d have to speak in the–in the language that the people heard you, see, ’cause “every man heard in his own language.”
118 Now, if I receive the Holy Ghost right now, according to...I say...I believe there’s one brother here seeking the Holy Ghost, which is–is–is Brother Wood. Is that right, Brother Wood? I don’t mean to call you out, but all...we’re just brethren here and we’re wanting to say this. And he’s seeking the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Now, if Brother Banks received the Holy Ghost there, the correct way, if he received It according to the Bible, he’d rise up there, speak it, he would speak it in English, and saying, “Jesus Christ the Son of God has raised,” he was speaking it with fiery prophecy that tells it. “I know that He is, because He’s just come into my heart. He’s the Son of God! My sins are gone, there’s something happened to me.” See? There you are. That’s speaking in the... “How hear we every man in our own language?”
119 Say, what if we Indiana people spoke a different language from the Kentucky people, and Brother Banks is a Kentuckian? And they spoke a different language then, and here we know that he couldn’t speak Indiana language. And then he raised up there speaking in–in Indiana language, and know that he don’t know it. See? And we hear him in Indiana language, he’s thinking he’s speaking Kentucky language. He’s just testifying, “Praise God! Jesus has raised from the dead. Hallelujah!” but we’re hearing him in Indiana language.
120 That’s the way it was on the Day of Pentecost. See? “How do we hear every man,” see, “behold, are not all these which are speaking Galileans,” see, Kentuckians? “And how do we Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, and Maine, and Massachusetts, and Californians, hear him in our language wherein we were born?” Get the idea? See, it’s inspiration. See, it’s inspiration to them to hear, it’s inspiration to them.
121 See, the message...the thing of it is, is a testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. See, that’s right. Now, if God doesn’t live that Life in you, no matter how much you testify of It, you still didn’t get It. See? That’s right. How well you...
122 Is there another question now? [Brother Roy Roberson says, “Well, Brother Branham, I think that we saw that happen in the prayer line, that Spanish girl.”–Ed.] Yes. Very good, Brother Roy. It was at–at right where I’m going now, at Beaumont–Beaumont. Was it Beaumont? Yes, sir.
123 Now, the prayer line was stopped. There was a little Spanish girl come up on the platform. Well, frankly, I believe I was going out, wasn’t it? Howard was taking me out, and–and this...I–I–I heard somebody crying, it was a little Spanish girl there, oh, about fifteen, sixteen years old, right...just a kid. And–and I looked, and she would been the next prayer card if I had went ahead. I had a bunch up there, she’d been the next prayer card. I said, “Bring her on.” So they brought her on up. I was going over to another meeting, and I said, “Bring her on up.”
124 So, I come to find out, I said to her something like this, “Now, will you believe? If Jesus will help me to tell you what’s wrong with you, will you believe that–that He will heal you?” And she just kept her head down. I thought she must be deaf and dumb. See?
125 So when I looked again, I said, “No, she just can’t speak English.” So they got an interpreter to come there, and I said, “Will you believe?” And she motioned back to...Then she could understand through the interpreter, of course. See?
126 Well, then I said...And I looked and I saw a vision. I said, “I see you sitting by an old-fashioned fireplace and a big kettle swinging out, full of ears of yellow corn. You o-...” You remember that, Brother Roy? I said, “You overeat that corn. And when you did, you fell violently ill and your mother put you on the bed and you started with epileptic fits.” And I said, “You’ve had them ever since.”
127 And then she turns around to the interpreter and said to
him through her own language, “I thought he couldn’t speak
English...or speak Spanish!”
128 And he turned to me and said, “You didn’t speak Spanish, did you?”
129 I said, “No.” So we looked on the recorder, stopped the recorders, it was absolutely English.
130 But then the interpreter said, “You tell me what he said then.” See, he had to get the interpretation. Said, “You tell me what he said.” And she said the very same words back to him, and he give it out again.
131 Now, she heard me in her own language wherein she was born, and I was speaking English. She heard it in Spanish. “How hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born?” And the child was healed. See, that’s it, it’s the wonderful works of God.
[A brother asks, “Then the vessel who is containing the Holy Spirit will not...will just be a vessel, and the One who fills it can fill it with what He...?”–Ed.]
132 Whatever He desires, that’s right. Exactly right. And then watch what it’s filled with, then you know whether you got the Holy Ghost or not, then. See? Just watch what it’s filled with. If the–if the vessel is filled with impurities, then it is not God’s vessel. But it’s filled with purities, then it is God’s vessel. See what I mean? [The brother says, “And the vessel, there are times when the vessel will be used and not known, not be known at the time what, that it was used?”–Ed.] Oh, sure. [The brother gives a testimony.] Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That’s exactly right, sure. Oh, we all, we see that. I’ve seen that many times. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We all...We know we’re acquainted with those things.
I believe that was number four:
Do all–do all Holy- Ghost-filled people speak with tongues sooner or later? I find where Paul said, “I speak with more tongues than–than them all.”
Now, what I think now, to finish the brother’s question:
Paul, speaking with more tongues than all.
133 Paul was a smart man, he knowed many languages, himself. See, he could speak with...he...Remember when he’d get in trial, he could speak with this kind of a tongue or that kind of a tongue, or whatever it was. And that’s unknown tongues to the people, but that wasn’t inspirational. That was talk languages, you see. But...and...
134 But I do believe that a Spirit-filled person that lives under the altar of God, no doubt, sooner or later, will have an experience of speaking in tongues, ’cause that’s one of the lowest and least things there is according to Paul’s description. If you’d put them in order, it’s the last thing on the line of gifts, see, is speaking with tongues.
135 But now, first, you’re baptized...Here, each one of you all are gifts. I’m on the outside. Now, “By one Door, one Spirit,” one door enters this room. Is that right? Now, I can’t come in that way, can’t come in this way and back that way. See? How do I get in here? By Brother Roberson? No, sir. By, well, say, Brother Leo? That he’d be a gift of speaking in tongues, see, do I get in by Leo? No, sir. Huh-uh. Well, how do I get in? “By one Door, by one Spirit.” The Spirit just ain’t all tongues. No. See? See, “By one Spirit I am baptized into this Body.”
136 Now, this is Spirit, you all are gifts. You say, “Well, bless God!” I’ll go over and, say, there’s–there’s Brother Wood, he’s miracles. See? “Oh, I had a miracle performed. I know I got the Holy Ghost ’cause I performed a miracle.” Not by one “miracle” are we all baptized into the Body.
137 Go to Brother Junie then, he’s knowledge, “Well, well, I got the knowledge of the Bible! Boy, I tell you, I know I got the Holy Ghost ’cause of that.” No, that still ain’t the way to enter.
138 All right. Not by Brother Leo, not by Brother Wood, not–not by Brother Junie. See? No. But by one what?
[Congregation says, “Spirit!”–Ed.] All right. I’m baptized into this Body, now I’m into it, now where’s Father going to use me? See? It happened to be Leo was sitting close to the door; no doubt this would be one of the first things would happen. But it might not be. I might be so much richer in the Spirit, till I could go plumb over here to Brother Wood, bypass all the rest of it. You can’t tell me now I haven’t got the Holy Ghost, ’cause I’m in this Body by baptism. But God never brought me in here to say, “Well, bless God, guess I’ll sit down now, take ‘er easy, I’m going to Heaven.” Huh! See what I mean?
139 But I could go plumb back from this here, plumb back to there. See what I mean? I could go from one extreme to the other, or I might go in the middle, or anywhere. But something will happen, something’s got to take place. And what is it? By the Spirit baptism shows me that I’m in the Body, “By one Spirit.” You get that, brother, here? Okay! That it? All right.