Derek Prince - Satan's Objections to Speaking in Tongues
Now let me just come to Satan’s two objections. If I were to ask for hands up here amongst those who have been baptized in the Spirit, you’ll find 90 percent of the people would put their hands up. Objection number one, the old accuser is right there by your side and when you begin to speak in tongues he says, “That’s not real, you’re doing it yourself.” How many... just put your hand up for a moment. You see? It’s almost everybody here. All right. What’s the answer? You need to have the answer. The answer is, “You’re quite right, Satan. I am doing it myself. I am doing the speaking but the Holy Spirit is giving me the language.”
You see, in Acts 2 it says “they all began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance.” The Spirit didn’t do the speaking, He gave them the words. They did the speaking. That’s why I said to that man who tarried 25 years he’d go to his grave without receiving because he wanted God to do it all. God won’t do it all. You do your part and God will do His. But He’s not going to make you speak. I’ve heard people say the Holy Spirit made me do this and that. I don’t believe that. The Holy Spirit never makes a child of God do anything. The apostle Peter said, “The Holy Spirit bade me go.” But he didn’t say, “He made me go.”
You have a free will and God will never overrule your free will because He created you that way. You’ve got to decide to speak. And you can’t speak with your mouth closed. I’ve helped so many people. I say, “Listen, open your mouth, move your tongue, move your lips. Speak articulately. Form every word. You’re in the driver’s seat. You make the decisions. Your will is the switch. The power is there but only you can switch it on.” All right. So the answer to Satan is, “That’s right, Satan. I am doing it myself, I’m doing the speaking, the Holy Spirit is giving me the words.”
The next objection is how do you know you got the right thing? It sounds very silly. Well, almost any language you don’t know sounds silly. I’ve heard scores of languages I don’t know in different parts of the world, they all sound strange to me. An unknown language is strange. But how do you know you’ve got the right thing? Well, we’ve just told one another. How do we know we got the right thing? Because we asked for the right thing and God guaranteed we’d never get the wrong thing if we asked for the right thing. Brothers and sisters, the basis of this thing is faith. There is no other way to come to God. "He that cometh to God must", do what? "believe that God is", that’s not enough, "that He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him".