Frankie Mazzapica - The Forgotten Spiritual Gift
The title of today’s message is «The Forgotten Spiritual Gift,» and I need my iPad for this, but I forgot to grab it. There’s so much content for this particular message that I needed to write it down. All of this content is inside your app. Please put that QR code up there for me, if you don’t mind, Zoe. Thank you so much. If you haven’t downloaded the app, all the content for this message is in the app, so you can just scan that QR code, and it’ll take you there straight away. I’m talking about a spiritual gift that most of the church has completely forgotten.
Let me say this about the gift before I tell you what it is: this gift has been made available by God for every believer. On three, say «every believer» real loud. One, two, three! One more time: every believer. Forgotten by many, but accessible to all. Listen to this: with it, the Spirit takes command; without it, emotions take control. Now, James talks about people who are like waves in the ocean. When they experience disappointment, they get rocked. Their faith gets rocked. When times are good, their faith is high. It’s just back and forth: unhappy, mad, unhappy, mad, depressed, down. It’s just constant motion, like a wave in the ocean. But there is a particular gift that allows your spirit to control your emotions, a gift that God gives to every believer; He buries it in your soul.
Let me say something else about this gift: most of life’s emotional breakdowns or relationship breakdowns stem not from too much pressure but from too little spiritual strength. Let me say it again: most of life’s breakdowns stem not from pressure but from a lack of spiritual strength. People who break down do so because they are standing on their own strength.
Now, what is this spiritual gift? No one is allowed to run out of the room when I say it! Are you with me? No one needs to use the bathroom or go check on your kids in the nursery; just stay with me. No one is allowed to go «Oh my gosh!"—even though you’re going to think it. Are you with me? This spiritual gift is speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues has become the forgotten gift for 2,000 years. It has been passed from generation to generation, like a baton, for 2,000 years—a generation telling their kids who tell their kids. But now, in 2025, probably, I don’t know how far back, the baton isn’t being passed, and the reason is that pastors, and I’m not throwing stones at anyone—I’m including myself—do not want to talk about it because we want you to come back.
It is a topic that offends your mind. You don’t understand it, and people don’t want things from God that they do not understand. Most of the time, they back up and say, «God, make sure I go to heaven and help me get out of problems while I’m here.» Aside from that, I’m good. There are problems you will never get out of unless you can speak in tongues. Let me talk about what speaking in tongues is. What is it? It is a spiritual gift in which a person speaks in a language unknown to them. You do not know what you’re saying. I’ve taken Spanish lessons for about three years, and when I say something in Spanish, I know what I’m saying; it’s a new language, but I know what I’m saying.
Are you with me? Say yes. When you speak in tongues, you do not know what you’re saying. All right, here we go: you use it in prayer, praise, and spiritual strengthening during worship. I am speaking in tongues more than I’m singing the song. It’s the cadence, it’s the rhythm, it’s the melody, but I’m speaking in tongues. You say, «Why?» Because now I’m praying about so many things that I cannot express. I’m praying for you, I’m praying for the worship team, I’m praying for me, I’m praying for the app, I’m praying for so many things. You do it during worship; you do it when you’re praying. Typically, when I come to the office, I like to pray for about two hours. I’ll shut the door, and for those two hours—120 minutes—probably 110 minutes is speaking in tongues.
Let me keep going. How often is it mentioned in the Bible or referred to? Between 20 and 22 times. So, you might ask, «Why are we skipping over this topic?» Again, pastors want you to come back. Why are we skipping over it? Because even pastors don’t understand it, and if people don’t understand it, what’s happening is people are only speaking in English, Spanish, or whatever their native language is, and they’re not speaking the mysteries. I’m going to talk about this next week in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20. It says this: «To Him who is able"—watch this; this is going to blow your mind—"to give you exceedingly abundantly, here it comes, more than you can ask for.»
Now this is the ringer: «More than you can imagine.» How do you ask God for something that you cannot imagine? So, if you can’t imagine it, how do you ask for it? And if God has something for you that you can’t imagine, James 4:2 says, «You have not because you ask not.» How are you going to ask for it? You have to ask in a language that you can’t imagine, to ask for something that you can’t picture. If you don’t, you live your life without these experiences and open doors. Are you with me? Say yes.
Let me pick up the pace here: In the Bible, where is it found? In Acts and 1 Corinthians, primarily. Roman numeral 1: I’ve got five points; I’m going to move quick. Speaking in tongues strengthens your spirit. Jude said this in chapter 1, verse 20: praying in the Spirit builds your faith. We know how to build our bodies. You know, you do exercises, you eat vegetables. My dad used to say, «If you eat carrots, then you’re going to see far.» Anyone hear that before? We know how to deal with our bodies, but we don’t know how to make our spirits strong. Ephesians 3:16: strength comes to the inner man through the Holy Spirit.
John and James in Luke 1:8—watch this—John and James became strong in the Spirit through solitude and spiritual disciplines. Watch this: in 1 Samuel 30, check this out, David has 600 mighty men. They go and fight a war against the Philistines; they win. But they took half of their army and circled back to attack their homes in Ziglag. So, they come back from the war, and all of their homes are burnt to the ground: the post office, the restaurants, their houses—it’s all burnt to the ground, and their wives and children have been kidnapped. The 600 mighty men start grabbing rocks to stone David. The Bible says that he went and strengthened himself in the Lord.
Nobody’s going to have their house burnt down and their loved ones kidnapped in the same day. Whatever problems you’re facing, it’s not like that. He strengthened himself. How do you get strong when the world is caving in? He goes alone and strengthens himself in the Lord. Let me move along because I’ll stay there too long. Here we go: Roman numeral two: clarifying who the gift is for. I’ve got friends who were raised Baptist. Not all Baptists believe in this, but I do have friends who do believe in this and have a Baptist background. What they believe is, for illustration, that the way a quarterback says, «Hike,» and throws a football over here, and then he’ll throw a different route over there, is like God giving gifts to certain people. Where do they get that theology? They didn’t just make it up; they actually have a scripture to support that.
Watch what it says in 1 Corinthians 12:1. All these, speaking of spiritual gifts, are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He distributes them to each one as He determines. So when you take that scripture, you back up and say speaking in tongues is not for everyone; He determines who He gives it to. Okay, all scripture is from God, so God said that. Let’s set that scripture right here, and I’m going to share with you two scriptures that seem to contradict that scripture. It seems like it. Here we go: in 1 Corinthians 14:5, God says this: «I wish you all spoke in tongues.» In Mark 16:17, it says, «If you are a believer and believe in God, these signs shall follow you.»
It should be a part of your life. The first one is you will cast out demons; the second one is you will speak in a new language; the next one is if you drink anything poisonous, you won’t be harmed. You’ll be able to handle snakes safely, and you’ll be able to lay your hands on the sick, and they’ll be healed. Now, handling snakes safely doesn’t mean you’re a bounty hunter and you get to go into a rainforest and like grab them. No, no, no, no. Just like some people are snakes in life, you’ve got to handle them safely.
I don’t know how your world is going to end up, but you can’t bite me. Okay? These signs are following, but they include speaking in tongues. So how do we bridge these things? Because it says that God passes them out to certain people, but over here, He’s saying, «I wish you all spoke in tongues.» How do you bridge that? I’m so glad you asked. There are four types of speaking in tongues. Four. Now, this is hard for our brains to wrap around because, like English, there’s only one type of English. Now it sounds different. If you go to Louisiana, you might not understand what they’re talking about. They are the only people who will walk by a ditch, see something crawling, and be like, «You know what? I’m going to eat that right there.»
I’m just kidding; I love Louisiana. They have their own music. Zydeco! They will invite you into their houses; they have great food. They make boudin. If I didn’t live here, this is true: I would want to go there. They have their own food that nobody else makes. If you’ve never lived in Louisiana, you don’t know what Zydeco is. They’ve got their own music; they’re legit. They do eat bugs, but don’t pay attention to that. Don’t think about that; that’s nothing. The bugs are actually pretty good. Okay, here we go: there are four different types of speaking in tongues, unlike English, where there’s just one English. Four types: two of them are public, and two of them are private. When God distributes the gifts, He’s not talking about your private language; He’s talking about a public language.
Let me talk about the two public ones. One of them is when a person speaks in tongues, and I want to go in the order. I know the four, but I want to go in the right order for the sake of the screen. It’s assigned to people who do not believe in Jesus. So when someone who does not believe in Jesus hears somebody with the gift of public tongues—I have it; I speak in tongues, but I don’t have that public gift of speaking in tongues—that proves to people that God’s alive. In fact, the contrary: I preached on speaking in tongues here about seven years ago, and I invited a friend. I spoke in tongues on stage, and I haven’t seen my friend in ten years.
Okay, so if you’re here and you’re like «If you speak in tongues, I’m out of here,» I’m not saying you will, but I’m just warning you! Here we go. Public tongues in Acts chapter 2: they could speak in tongues, and people believed in God because of it. They spoke in tongues, and when they began speaking in tongues, they were speaking in their language. Imagine a Korean coming in here. They’re sitting here, and they speak English, they understand what I’m saying, and they speak in Korean. They don’t believe in God. Suddenly, I start speaking in tongues, and it’s in their dialect. But the catch is, there’s somebody right next to them from Italy.
I don’t know; what’s another language? Some of you are like, «I don’t know; I’m from America; I only know about us.» What? Italian? Okay, yeah! I speak Canadian and American! You didn’t get it. Ask your friend—no, don’t ask your friend. Italian speaks Sicilian at the same time I’m speaking Korean. All of a sudden, I’m speaking Italian in perfect dialect. An unbeliever would go, «Wow, I think God’s hand is on you, and He’s in this place!» Another one is when someone speaks out loud and it’s prophetic. Some of us grew up in UPC. There’d be someone that starts speaking out loud in that culture; we don’t have that culture—but in that culture, they start speaking out loud in the church, and then someone comes along and prophesies what that person said.
Now, don’t email me about the culture here; we move in seasons. It might be in the next season. Did you guys all hear that? Don’t email me or give me a book—I get more books. But those are public and assigned to the unbelievers. A prophetic message corporately—those are the ones that God distributes. It’s public preaching; it’s a public ministry; He distributes it.
Now, there are private tongues. Everybody say it real loud: private tongues. Say it again: private tongues. This is the one where the Lord says, «I wish you all spoke in tongues.» This is when you’re laying down at night with your head on the pillow, and you’re speaking in tongues. There’s a connection between you and the Lord that you can’t understand. It’s wonderful! You don’t know what you’re saying, but it’s wonderful. That’s why the Lord says, «I wish you all spoke in tongues.»
Then there’s another private one that’s available: intercession. When you’re praying about someone else—when I was, I think, 10 years old or 12 years old, my dad went to preach in New Mexico. We were living on the east side of Houston, in Northshore or Channelview. He went to New Mexico to preach to the Navajo Indians every single night for three nights. He was gone for three days and four nights. I would wake up in the middle of the night begging God that my dad wouldn’t die. Now, he was an evangelist, so he traveled everywhere. That never happened. I didn’t know why I was scared, so I was speaking in tongues the whole time.
Remember, private tongues are for personal intimacy. The other one is for intercession. Both of them are available for all of you. I’m praying, speaking in tongues, I’m on the floor, face down in the carpet, speaking in tongues. I have no idea why! My dad comes home; he has asthma. He goes, «Frankie, I forgot my Primatene mist.» Now, Primatene mist—I don’t think it exists anymore—you would go to Walgreens, pull it off the shelf back in the day. He would spray it into his mouth, and he could breathe again, but he forgot it. He says, «Every single night, I was fighting for breath. My throat closed up; I could not breathe. It was like I was breathing through a coffee straw.» I had no idea that was happening. I’m on the floor speaking in tongues, and there are angels being sent out to take care of my father because I’m praying.
In 2 Corinthians 1:11, it says, «You helped us when you prayed for us.» So what does speaking in tongues do? It draws you close to the Lord, and you pray about things that you have no idea about. If you’re a mother or a father, when someone crosses your mind, you begin to speak in tongues. Even if they don’t cross your mind while you’re speaking in tongues, you’re fighting for a son, you’re fighting for a daughter. When you know that God has a special future for you, but you don’t know what it is, you speak in tongues and God begins to pave the way for you.
If you do not speak in tongues—listen to me—the pressures of the world will cause you to be weak and crush you. But if you do, you have a spiritual gift that makes you strong, and you have a relationship with Him that is unexplainable. Some people, when they pray, feel like they’re talking to a wall. I can go in and pray for two hours, and just like that, I feel like I’m face-to-face with Him. When I’m in the car, all I have to do anytime I want is put my mind’s attention on Him, and I can feel Him—not feel Him; I’m aware of Him.
I’ve been up here preaching for an undisclosed number of minutes. I’m not really thinking about Him; I’m thinking about you and sharing a message. But right now, and I did it about 45 seconds ago, I just became aware. This is what speaking in tongues does—it causes intimacy that you can’t explain.
Let me jump to Roman numeral 4; let me give you a couple of examples. John G. Lake. Everybody say John G. Lake! John Lake! Look at the person next to you and say, «I didn’t hear you.» All right, say it real loud: one, two, three: John Lake! Look at your second choice and say, «You owe me money, and I want it now!»
John G. Lake—listen to this: he prayed for 100,000 people to be physically healed, and they were! He planted 500 churches. My wife and I almost lost our lives planting one. You have no idea how hard it is—500 in five years, 100,000! I’ve prayed for maybe a couple hundred that have been healed—100,000! This is what he says: «Speaking in tongues was the making of my ministry.» Amen! What God has for you is formed within you and begins to unfold ahead of you in the future. When you speak in tongues, if John G. Lake did not speak in tongues, he could not ask for things he could not imagine.
I just became aware of that quote while I was studying this week, and I promise you I have spoken in tongues more during the day than I ever have in my life because I don’t know what’s ahead, but I want to make sure I get all of it. Are you with me? Say yes! Come on, yes!
John G. Lake, watch this: Smith Wigglesworth. If you want to read a book, pull up Smith Wigglesworth. Your brain will explode. Watch this! With Smith Wigglesworth—I’m just going to throw out three examples. Three examples; I could come up with more—this guy did stuff that even biblical people didn’t do.
Watch this: Smith Wigglesworth raised at least 14 people from the dead! One time, he walked up to a casket, pulled the person out like Weekend at Bernie’s, dragging him, and the guy’s feet were dragging on the ground. The family was upset and started banging him against the wall, and he came back to life!
Here’s number two: Smith Wigglesworth went up to a guy who had no feet. He had club feet and said, «Go buy some shoes.» He goes and buys some shoes, puts them on, and feels his feet growing! If you don’t believe it—why not? Why not? Here’s another example: instant healing of terminal cancer. Now, if you want to pray for someone, I don’t recommend you pray for them like Smith Wigglesworth did. He walked up to a person with terminal cancer and punched him in the stomach—healed!
I don’t know if Smith needed to be healed after that!
Smith Wigglesworth said: «I never get out of bed in the morning without speaking in tongues. If you want to walk with God in a supernatural way, you never will to your fullest potential without speaking in tongues.» It’s not going to happen! You will have a great relationship with Him; you have an address in heaven, and there’s a house there that’s going to blow your mind. You have a relationship; He will use you—but in supernatural ways, the examples will be few and far between. It won’t be the story of your life unless you speak in tongues.
This is why He brings it up 20 to 22 times in the New Testament. Let me give you one more example: there’s a lady by the name of Jackie Pollinger. She went to Hong Kong and only ministered to gang members. She went on that side of the street and looked for heroin addicts. She didn’t pray for them to be delivered; she walked them through speaking in tongues. 100% were delivered from heroin—watch this—and didn’t go back. They didn’t relapse. Speaking in tongues brings you a power and understanding that you cannot get any other way.
So now here’s the question: how do you speak in tongues? Well, before I get there, here are a couple of reasons why people don’t want to. Number one: there’s not a hunger for it; they’re good; they don’t understand it; they don’t get it; they’re good; the hunger isn’t there. Number two: they’re not bold enough or courageous enough to feel stupid. You have to be willing to feel stupid. You have to think to yourself, «This is dumb, I’m making it up, I’m faking it.»
Everybody who speaks in tongues has to cross that bridge: «This is dumb, this is stupid, I’m making it up.» Here’s the big one: «I’m just saying the same word over and over again.» For those who say the same word over and over again, you’re in good company because there are angels in heaven that have been saying the same word over and over again since before time. The Bible says that God sits on a throne, and there are angels that circle around the throne, and what are they saying? The same word over and over: «Holy, holy, holy.» They’re not saying «mercy, mercy, glory, glory.» No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They’re not saying «Savior, Creator, Master.» There are so many things they could say. They’re not saying that because they don’t know how to say anything else. No!
If you say the same syllable over and over again, that doesn’t mean you’re not speaking in tongues. How you know that is, you don’t know what that syllable means. Some people, when they start speaking in tongues, say a syllable and then the next one, next one, next one, next one. It just flows! Some people say the same syllable over and over again, and then their faith builds, and they say, «I think I can do another one; I think I can do another one,» and they start going with it.
When I prayed for my son, Luke, to speak in tongues, he thought I had memorized what I was saying—like I memorized Spanish—because I kept saying the same sentence over and over again. So he’s like, «You memorized that!» He started memorizing what I was saying, and when he told me that, I was like, «Oh, okay, I see what you just did there!» So I started mixing it up, and he’s laying there, and all of a sudden, he’s like, «Wait a minute, that’s not…»
Hold up! As you speak in tongues, you can start mixing it up!
Now, rather than me trying to explain to you how to speak in tongues, I’m going to have one of my heroes in the faith explain it to you: his name is John Bevere. Take a look at this.
«Please, please hear what I’m about to say: you cannot expect the Holy Spirit to grab your tongue, to grab your mouth, right? To grab your vocal cords and make you speak. Why? Because He’s given you a free will. You have to yield; the enemy pushes; the Holy Spirit leads. What the Holy Spirit does is give you the words. They bubble up like that percolator I told you about; like those bubbles coming up from deep in the sea. You may see one syllable; just look at it as like a spool of thread in your gut, and you’re getting to see just the tip.
As you begin to speak in faith, out will come the rest. You have to do it by faith. Let me make this statement: you cannot speak English and Spanish at the same time! Right? When you yield to the Holy Spirit to speak in other tongues, you can’t speak English. Just speak what He gives you by faith, and you’re going to notice it may start with a stammering lip, but it will eventually be a language. It may be two languages, three languages, or several languages—just make sure that you do it in faith, and you will receive!»
Please, now you’ll notice—or you won’t notice—but I’ll tell you. Whenever I’m on the front row during worship and speaking in tongues, it is such a soft whisper. I can’t even hear it because I know that if someone’s standing behind me or next to me and they hear me speaking in tongues, they’re not going to think about anything else except for what I’m doing. So I always ask for people to keep that in mind.
If you speak in tongues, if you speak in tongues loud enough for you to hear it, someone else hears it, and they’re not thinking about anything except for what you’re doing. I want to encourage you to not do that. He’s probably watching me live on his app, but is that you, man of God? I never call Duncan «Duncan»; I call him «man of God.» He’s the one that sings right there; isn’t he anointed? We love you very much!
Even when we text, I never call him «Duncan» because he’s a man of God. Now, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to give you an opportunity to speak in tongues this morning. Those of you who can speak in tongues, I want you to keep it to a whisper, so maybe just you can hear it—like maybe you can’t even hear it—and if you can hear it, it’s like the softest whisper there is.
At the same time, I want those of you who have never spoken in tongues, if you’re hungry enough—I’m not trying to insult you—but you might be in a season where you’re just saying, «I’m good.» Maybe you’re good because you don’t quite understand it. If you’re good, don’t feel bad about yourself; I’m not talking down to you. It might be in another season where you are hungry. If you are hungry right now, it’s available for you right now!
However, you have to be courageous enough to feel stupid because you’re not going to understand what you’re saying; you’re not going to understand it. How do you know it’s real? It’s like that spool of thread; it keeps coming out. You may say the same syllable over and over again, or you’ll start mixing it up right away.
While you’re doing it, you will think you’re making it up, but you can’t talk like that forever. Even if somebody tries to talk gibberish, they run out of gibberish in about ten seconds, but you will know in your spirit that you can go forever like this. So nobody here, if you’re new and if you’re, like, «What’s going on?"—nobody here is going to feel awkward because everybody’s going to speak in tongues very softly.
But if you would, everyone in the room, I’d like for you to put your hands like this. Everyone in the room, I want you to say: «Jesus, I love you. I’m sorry for my sins. Please forgive me. Whatever you have for me, I want it, and I want to speak to you in a new language.»
Now, don’t pray. Holy Spirit, flood everyone—Jesus, Your Word says that You pour out the Spirit on people; pour it out now!
Everyone, with a very, very soft breath—not even a whisper—a soft breath—be courageous enough to move your tongue and your lips. One, two, three—speak in tongues! Just go for it! Just go for it!
All right, now everyone stop! Whether you’ve spoken in tongues your whole life or just spoke in tongues for the first time, I want you to put both hands over your head—both hands—and wave them around like this. Wave them around like this.
Put your hands down. If you think you spoke in tongues but you’re not sure, I want you to participate. Hands up, move them around! Let me say this: if you think you did, you did! Because it wasn’t in English. If your native language is Spanish, it wasn’t in Spanish.
Now, I want you to do it again, but I’m going to let you go for about 60 seconds because I just want you to feel that. Hands up on three. One, two, three—go! Be courageous and go for it! Go for it!
I want you to do this all! Hands down. I don’t want to challenge you, but I want to know who spoke in tongues for the first time. Would you just take your hands and wave like this? First time—don’t put them down. My gosh! Wave your hands like this. My daughter’s got her hands up; keep on waving them; don’t stop! First time!
Everybody look around! Praise Jesus! I’ve talked to people before, and I’ve asked them, «Do you speak in tongues?» They said, «Well, I did like 10 years ago, but I haven’t since.» And so I don’t think I can now. If you have before, you can now. But listen to this: the reason why their faith is down is because they didn’t exercise it like a muscle. We all know that if you don’t exercise a muscle, it never gets strong.
So every single day, multiple times a day—and when you’re alone, you can put some voice under it, and that’s awesome! Would you give Jesus a standing ovation? Come on, we love You! May the Lord bless you. May He keep you. May His face shine down upon you and be gracious to you. May His countenance be lifted up on you and give you peace.
Hold on! Time out! If you’re standing next to someone who spoke in tongues, don’t interview them on the way out! Don’t be like, «So what was it like? What did you… What was that the first time? Tell me about it.» If they bring it up, you bring it up! All right? Don’t interview them. Are you with me?
All right! I love you guys! I’ll see you next week!