Dear Gramps

I have a friend that has been telling me that when someone speaks in tongues, that is the devil speaking. I know that in the 7th Article of Faith it is stated that we believe in the gift in tongues.

Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Also just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy reading the answers to the questions that have been submitted. Now when talking with nonmembers it has helped me to answer so many of their questions. Thank you kindly for all your help.

Liberty, Bogart, GA

Dear Liberty,

Almost anything, including the gifts of the gospel, can be used for either good or evil. Nuclear energy could solve most of the world ‘s energy problem, or blow it up. The internet puts the knowledge of the world at our fingertips, but in evil hands it propagates unspeakable filth.

The mission of the adversary is to deceive and destroy, and of course he will use every means at his command to deceive the innocent and to try to destroy the works of God.

The gift of tongues is in truth a gift from God, and is perhaps the most prevalent gift of the Spirit that is given from God to man in the times in which we are living.

The Lord is calling into His service to preach the gospel to the nations of the earth about 30,000 missionaries per year. These young men and women, members of the Mormon Church, in their late teens or early twenties, either just out of high school, or with perhaps one or two years of college, are sent to all parts of the earth to teach the gospel to those of many, many nations. Their preparation includes about six weeks of language training before they leave on their missions. Upon arrival in the mission field they are able to converse with people in their new language, and before their two years as missionaries for the Mormon Church are up, it is frequently difficult to tell that they are not native speakers in their new language.

There is not a language training school on earth that even comes close to that level of language proficiency. What is the secret of the missionary language training method? I think that you would find that it is not that much different from other language training courses–with this one exception–the Lord’s missionaries in the Mormon Church are given by the Holy Spirit the gift of tongues.

Satan’s best efforts are a feeble attempt falsify that gift by having susceptible people speak gibberish, with no one around to interpret the nonsense.

Gramps