Jesus spoke of being born again.

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ... Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." - John 3:3, 5

We see from our human experience, that when a baby is born there is a sound. It is when the baby inhales his first breath that the sound is emitted – the baby lets out a cry. This is how we know the baby is alive outside the womb. He must take a breath, or he will die. If there is no sound, there is a panic: the baby must breath to live.

That breath that a baby receives when he is born in the natural is like the Spirit we receive when we are born again of the Spirit. The breath a baby receives gives him life. The Spirit we receive gives us eternal life.

When the baby takes his first breath and cries out, that is not the end of the story. If he is going to survive, he MUST continue to breath, and if he is a normal baby, he will continue to make sounds. (As the baby grows, his words become more articulate, then become sentences.)

So it is in our new birth experience. If we want to stay spiritually alive, we must continue to be filled with God’s Spirit. And, as Jesus said, there is a sound accompanying the Spirit. We see in the Bible and from our experience today that this sound is speaking in tongues.

Note: “Tongues” means “language” (specially, one naturally unacquired). Tongues as the sign of receiving the Holy Ghost is speaking in a language we do not know, as the Spirit of God speaks through us. We speak in other tongues as God is filling us with His Spirit, trusting and allowing Him to change our words of praise into a language we do not know.

Note: Speaking in tongues when receiving the Spirit is not to be confused with the gift of divers kinds of tongues, which is one of nine gifts of the Spirit given by God to MINISTER to the CHURCH BODY (along with the gift of the interpretation of tongues). The gift of faith is another of the nine gifts of the Spirit. Everyone might not have the gift of faith, and everyone might not have the gift of tongues, but EVERYONE must have faith to come to God, and EVERYONE speaks in tongues when they are filled with the Spirit.

Note: Interestingly, both the Hebrew and Greek words for “wind” is the same word used for “Spirit” and “breath.”