Going to Jesus

Gospel Tracts

 Select a tract to read:

• Tracts 1-50

  1. How I Received the Holy Ghost 2. Jesus Is Coming Again 3. You Must Be Born Again 4. Stir Up the Gift of God 5. The World’s Most Dreaded Hour 6. What is Salvation? 7. Stand Still in Jordan 9. Grieved Hearts 10. The Second Death 11. The Father and the Son 12. Suffering and the Saints 13. Cancer Conquered 14. The Church? 15. How Shall They Preach, Except They Be Sent? 16. Have You Received the Holy Ghost Since You Believed? 17. Patience 18. Alone With God 19. Tithes and Offerings 20. Prayer 21. The True Sabbath 22. The Besetting Sin 23. The Cry of the Righteous 24. What Will the Harvest Be? 25. Marriage and Divorce 26. Taking the Name of the Lord 27. The Keys of the Kingdom 28. Works 29. Politics and Believers 30. Unequally Yoked in Marriage 31. Coming Out of Babylon 32. The Forgiven Woman 33. The New Earth 34. The Sin of Silence 35. Freedom 36. Gods of the Gentiles 37. Why Some Are Not Healed 38. The Seven Pillars 39. Life, More Abundantly 40. Fear 41. The Comforter’s Testimony 42. This is My Friend 43. Conversion 44. The Time Is Drawing Near? 45. Songs in the Night 46. The Master’s Net 47. Trials are Opportunities 48. Receiving the Messenger 49. Seven Messages to the Seven Pastors 50. Keep Yourself Pure

• Tracts 51-100

  51. The New Birth 52. John the Baptist and Jesus 53. Denying Jesus 54. Bruised Reeds 56. The Wise and the Foolish 57. Holiness 58. Is Jesus God? 59. Christ or Christianity 60. Have Faith In God 61. Worthy to Suffer 63. Four Kinds of Soil 64. Communion 65. The Fullness of Time 66. Baptism 68. No Room 69. Crucified With Christ 70. Homosexuality and the Bible 71. The Kingdom of God 72. The Gospel of Christ 74. Perseverance 75. The Resurrection 76. Salvation 77. Sanctification 78. New Commandments 79. The Sacrifice of Christ 81. The Sound of the Spirit 82. The Wrath of God 84. God’s Compass 85. Perfection 86. The Abomination of Desolation 87. Antichrist 88. The Way of Grace 90. Relationships 91. The Vineyard of God 93. Subdued 94. The Spirit of Christ 95. The Blood of Christ 96. Spirit of a Serpent, Spirit of a Dove 97. Gluttony 98. The Lost Lamb 99. Scripture Burners 100. Bleating and Lowing

 

If we believe Jesus, then we must admit that there is such an experience as being moved by the Spirit to make a sound, even to speak in a language that we have not learned. The Jews received the Spirit first, in Acts 2, and they all spoke in tongues.  A few years later, Jesus began baptizing Gentiles with the Spirit, and when he did this, the Jews who were there “were astonished because the gift of the holy Spirit had also been poured out on the Gentiles.  They knew this because they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God” (Acts 10:45–46).  That this was not a experience meant just for those people is evidenced by the fact that in Acts 19, Paul was surprised that men who believed in Jesus had not received the Spirit. But when Paul laid his hands on them and prayed, the Spirit’s sound was heard, for “the holy Spirit came upon them, and they started speaking in tongues and prophesying” (Acts 19:6).  Just as Jesus said, the Spirit makes a sound when one receives it.

There is no new birth where the sound of the Spirit is not heard. The moment one receives the Spirit, the Spirit speaks, testifying to the work of God in a soul.  Jesus said, “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me” (Jn. 15:26). And Paul would later write, “The Spirit itself bears witness, together with our spirit, that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16).  The Comforter’s testimony, mentioned by Jesus, and the Spirit’s witness, mentioned by Paul, refer to the same thing: a sound of the Spirit coming from the lips of the person who receives it.

A Sign Foretold

Long before Jesus suffered and died to make the holy Spirit available to us, God decided that the sound of the Spirit would be the sign of His New Covenant, distinguishing those who have been born again from those who have not.  God announced that choice through prophets such as Isaiah: “He will speak to this people with stammering lips and another tongue, to whom He said, ‘This is the rest with which you will cause the weary one to rest,’ and ‘This is the refreshing’ ” (Isa. 28:11–12).  And Paul made it clear that Isaiah was prophesying of the Spirit producing a sound through people when it entered them: “In the law it is written, ‘With strange tongues and other lips will I speak to this people, and even at that, they will not listen to me, says the Lord.’  This means that tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to those who do not believe” (1Cor. 14:20–21).

God’s Purpose for the Spirit To Speak

Notice Paul’s words, “tongues are for a sign”, and then ask yourself, “A sign of what?”  Clearly, the sound of the Spirit is a God-given sign of the way of salvation. In this covenant, we are not dependent upon men to declare someone to be born again; God does it, by the Spirit.

My father once dreamed he was carrying the crucified Lord to a cemetery to bury him.  As he was lowering Jesus into the grave, Jesus opened his eyes and raised his hands, and in them was money. Then Jesus spoke.  “Take this,” he said to my father. “This will not be buried with me.”  Obeying the Lord, my father looked at the money in Jesus’ hands and saw that in one hand was twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents, and in the other hand was eleven dollars and twenty-eight cents. As he was waking from the dream, the twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents changed into the word “Isaiah” and the eleven dollars and twenty-eight cents changed into “Matthew”.  When he awoke, he took his Bible and turned with great anticipation to Isaiah 28:11 and to Matthew 11:28, wondering what this should mean.

In Matthew 11:28, he found Jesus pleading with his people, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest!” Then my father turned to Isaiah 28:11–12 and read, “He will speak to this people with stammering lips and another tongue, to whom He said, ‘This is the rest with which you will cause the weary one to rest’, and ‘This is the refreshing.’ ”

The Gift of Diverse Tongues

In his list of a few gifts of the Spirit (1Cor. 12:8–10), Paul mentioned the gift of “diverse tongues.”  Many think this gift is the same thing as the sound which the Spirit makes when one is born again, but not so.  It is a gift for those who have already made the sound, just as the gift of faith is for those who already believe. Paul never said that “speaking in tongues is a gift.” He knew better. The gift is “diverse tongues”.  Multitudes have received the baptism of the Spirit and been moved by the Spirit to make a sound, but only a few have received the gift of diverse tongues.

Many claim that being moved by the Spirit to speak is a thing of the past or that it is merely a gift for a few believers. Don’t swallow that poison, my friend. It is the gift of “diverse tongues” that is given only to some.  The sound of the Spirit is still given to all who truly believe, and speaking to God by the Spirit (1Cor. 14:2) makes our prayers more effective. Paul wrote, “The Spirit helps with our weaknesses, for we do not know what to pray for as one should, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us with groanings beyond words” (Rom. 8:26).  Jude also encouraged us to pray in the Spirit by saying that we build ourselves up in faith by doing so (Jude 1:20).

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A sound from the Spirit is the sign God chose to indicate that someone has been born again.  Every born-again person has produced such a “joyful sound”, beginning the moment the Spirit entered their hearts.  If you have not yet experienced this, please do not take this message as a belittling of your faith in Jesus. It is not. There were sincere followers of Christ in the days of the apostles who thought they were on the right path, but then, they had the way of God explained more perfectly to them and received the Spirit (Acts 18:26). This baptism of the Spirit is for you, my friend, and so are we.  Let us know when you receive this wonderful blessing, please, and we will rejoice with you!