We've Got to 'Preach the Truth About Being Filled With the Holy Spirit' and Speaking in Tongues, Says Jentezen Franklin
JERUSALEM — In a clarion call to a global gathering of Spirit-filled believers in Jerusalem Friday, Jentezen Franklin, senior pastor of the multi-campus Free Chapel Church, urged the anointed throng to start preaching "the truth about being filled with the Holy Spirit" and speaking in tongues to their families or risk losing a generation.
Franklin explained that speaking in tongues is the language of the Holy Spirit that was first shared with the church in the Upper Room in the book of Acts in the Bible, now known as the day of Pentecost.
That gift of the Holy Spirit, he said, has made its way down through generations of Spirit-filled believers, like those in his own family. He warned, however, that if those who have had the experience don't continue to share the gift beginning with their families, it will eventually die a slow death.
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"It is a slow process to the death of the language. The unity on the language, it's a soul thing. The less it's taught in the home, the less the children of the next generation will get it. I want to say to all of you who are parents here today, what language are you teaching your children? When you go home from church, what language do they hear?" asked Franklin, who was one of several accomplished ministers of the Gospel to address the gathering of believers at the Empowered21 Congress at the Jerusalem Pais Arena in Israel.
"If ever there was a time that we must engage ourselves in the active discipleship of our families, it's in this time. If Deuteronomy 6 ever had meaning to any generation, it is to this generation where it says that you shall diligently teach these things to your children. When they rise up, when they go to bed, when they walk, when they go to school, talk the faith, talk the Word. Let them hear the language even in the home, let them hear the language of the Holy Spirit. Let them hear, Mama," Franklin urged.
"… Speak in tongues. Let them hear the language of the Spirit because if they don't hear it they won't speak it," said Franklin on Spirit-filled believers sharing their experience with their children.
"If we don't preach on the baptism of the Holy Spirit we will not see it in the next generation. We've got to get up and preach the truth about being filled with the Holy Spirit and let the Holy Spirit do its work," he warned to cheers of approval.
"We've got a language that we've got to teach to a new generation. Joshua warned in Joshua Chapter 3, 'and there rose a generation after them that knew not the Lord, nor his works which he had done in Israel.' It was the abandonment of Deuteronomy 6 that brought this dire commentary," he said.
"They stopped teaching the Word to their children. I'm saying to every parent and to every grandparent, when you get those children, let your kids hear about how the Lord has moved in your family. Tell the stories of His grace. Tell the stories about how you went to a Holy Ghost church, and never been to one before, and my God it scared you to death. Tell how everybody, the only church you went to, the only time they raised their hand was to vote the preacher out, but when you went to that Pentecostal church every hand was raised," he continued.
"The reason we've got so many 'teensicles,' is because we've got so many 'popsicles' and 'momsicles.' They won't get it until you get it. I read where Isaiah went before the cloud of God's presence and entered into the temple, the Bible said 'and the pillars moved.' The pillars were the things that had been there from the beginning. Sometimes this generation, the older generation, is waiting on the younger generation to bring the move of God, but the move of God starts with the pillars. It starts with some of the old gray hairs and no hairs beginning to get moving under the power of God again, and when the kids see it on you then they want more," he said.
To hammer home his point, Franklin got personal during his message sharing snippets of memories and from his own life, including how his oldest daughter once lost her way in the faith.
"It's different being raised in a Spirit-filled home. My mother would fry chicken and cook collard greens and cream potatoes. And every once in a while, I can remember, just as a little boy, I'd hear something in the kitchen break out. My momma would get to singing a certain song and all of a sudden she would start breaking out in the Holy Ghost (speaking in tongues) while she's frying the chicken," he recalled.
Near the end of his sermon he talked about his daughter.
"You know, Christine Caine who preached before I did, let me tell you a story. My oldest daughter, the enemy did everything he could to destroy her. Christine stepped in and she said send her to Greece. Actually, she didn't say send her, she paid for it. And she let my daughter stay and work in one of those sex trafficking homes and help her get her life back together," said Franklin. "God refilled her with the Holy Ghost, recommissioned her call and today she and her husband are in full-time ministry."
"I'm telling you we can pass it on to our children. Every one of my children, I've got five of them, every one of them has been baptized in the Holy Ghost and speaks with tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance. God wants to do it for your children, too," he said, before praying for the families present.
