The Sound of the Spirit at Spirit Baptism

Any place, any time, and in a variety of circumstances, people may receive the experience which Jesus described to Nicodemus as being "born again" (Jn. 3:3). Jesus also told that Jewish elder that a definite sign would accompany each new birth: a sound produced by the Spirit. He said, "The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear its sound. . . . So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (Jn. 3:8). In Acts, when men began receiving the Spirit, the stories of new birth which mention the sound of the Spirit tell us that the sound was speaking in tongues (Acts 2, 10, 19), and it may even be a heavenly language of angels, unknown on earth (1Cor. 13:1). So, it may or may not be a language understood by those standing by. A young woman received the Spirit in my home one morning as we were praying, and she began to make a clicking sound. At first, I did not know where the sound was coming from, or even that a human was making it. But I soon realized that it was coming from her. A few weeks later, while watching a documentary on television, I heard the same clicking sound and was amazed to learn that it was part of the language of a tribe in the middle of Africa! For another example, a well-known evangelist told of being troubled by the unusual sound that a woman began making in his meeting while praying for the baptism of the Spirit. The next day at lunch, he said, while telling those in his party about it, he was approached by a woman who was sitting at the next table and had overheard him. She introduced herself as a missionary who had spent decades in China. Then she said that she had been there the previous evening and had heard the unusual sounds which the praying woman had made. It was a language from a remote part of China where she herself had done mission work, she told the evangelist, and she even had understood what the woman who received the Spirit was saying. Jesus did not tell Nicodemus that the sound which the Spirit makes when someone is born again would always make us comfortable; he just said we would always hear it. Nor did Jesus tell Nicodemus that the sound of the Spirit would always be a discernible language. Paul even suggested that the sound of the Spirit may even be a kind of groaning. "The Spirit itself inter-cedes for us", he said, "with groanings beyond words" (Rom. 8:26). As one brother wisely said, "God can be right any kinda way He wants to!" And that means the Spirit can make any kinda sound God wants it to. It is remarkable that in videos from around the globe, the sound of believers speaking in tongues and worshipping God seems familiar. It is not that the languages themselves are familiar, to be sure, but the sound communicates a familiar feeling to those who also have received the Spirit. That sweet sound of the Spirit (specifically, speaking in tongues) is not mentioned every time the New Testament tells of people being born again, but we cannot be wrong to assume that it was heard in each case because Jesus said it would be. This book will consider in some depth that holy sound, the sign which Jesus said would accompany every new birth experience, and show why men need that sign to be given.