I remember listening to a sermon in my home church by Apostle Davies. When the sermon ended, I thought to myself, "Why did he stop so soon"? A look at my watch indicated his sermon alone went for 80 minutes. It seemed like it was only 15 minutes.
I have, and continue to have, the privilege of associating with many Godly men. Two men, out of the many, that had a good effect on my life were John Grice and Almer Sheehy. I am including these two ministers as I heard them both give a message through the "gift of tongues", within a year or two of each other. I recall that when Almer was presenting the message in tongues, for some reason, I timed the message. At a certain time, while speaking, he made a very emphatic gesture. I noted the elapsed time of the gesture, during the total message, which lasted about 15 minutes.
When the interpretation was given, he made the same gesture at exactly the same elapsed time as the previous one. There wasn't any question in my mind that this "gift" was a bona fide expression of the Holy Spirit. The power of message and the miracu-lous insight given, bore testimony to me of its validity.
We have talked about the absence of "spiritual gifts" in the church today. The "gifts of the spirit" are not totally absence, but I have not experienced the "gift of tongues" in a long time. Why is that, do you think?
Jesus said, "these signs shall follow them that believe", and listed speaking in tongues as one of the signs. (Mark 16:16) If there are no "signs", doesn't it follow that we are not believers? You might protest and say, "Hey, I believe"! But do we really believe? "Be-lieve" is not simply mental assent. It goes far beyond lip-service -- to placing all our trust in Jesus. "Believe" is an active verb that includes the whole idea of discipline and discipleship. To me, Jesus is saying, if you are my disciples, these signs will follow.. ..If you are my disciples, you will repent and become as a little child.. .. And the promise is, that if we "believe" (put our whole trust in Jesus) the Father will bear record of Jesus to us and the Holy Ghost will bear record of Jesus to us.. .and the signs will follow. (See 3N 5:32-40)