We are going to engage in what
the title of our study for tonight is a careful investigation of
tongues. We have, uh, we have 15 questions
that we're going to be dealing with. We're going to be patiently
working through these questions tonight. I plan on speaking to
you for about 30, 40 minutes, depending on if we can get through
our first six questions. And then, um, we're going to
be taking some. some questions. So I want you
to be thinking actively. I want you to be thinking clearly
as we go through this very important subject. Uh, tonight it's going
to probably require two to three weeks next week. We will come
back at this and then the week subsequent, because when you
deal with the subject of tongues, you are dealing with a number
of very important theological issues that are very relevant
to the issue of tongues. And so what we want to do tonight
is to overcome some basic assumptions. And those assumptions have to
do with us either knowing or not knowing what this thing of
tongues is all about. Assumptions are things that we
all find ourselves, by virtue of our culture, by virtue of
our life experience, confronted with. exposed to and in many
cases dominated by. You know what assumptions are?
Assumptions are ideas that we hold, views that we hold that
may or may not be true. Assumptions are ideas that we
hold, views that we hold that may or may not be true. Like when you assume something
to be such, you have basically allowed yourself to take a position
But you may not have verified that position. You may not have
tested that position. You may not have proven whether
or not that position is true or right or legitimate. And this is true with many issues
in the world. And I think it was Socrates who
said a life that is not examined is not a life worth living. A
life that is not examined is a life that is not worth living.
So what Christianity should be about is testing assumptions. The Christian is a person or
people who test assumptions. Assumptions in the world in which
we live. Assumptions in the secular society
in which we find ourselves engaged. Assumptions in our own world,
Christian world that we are a part of, and assumptions that we may
hold that may not have anything to do with our world or with
the Christian worldview. There are two worldviews fundamentally
that we all operate out of, a secular worldview and a Christian worldview.
And I have found over the many years that I have been doing
ministry is that most Christians are like most non-Christians.
And that is we live on assumptions. Now we live on assumptions because
it's easy. It's less arduous. When you are
a person who is naturally inclined to challenge assumptions, it
means that you are critical in your thinking. It means that
you don't simply accept things simply because other people hold
them. The reality is that Christians are too Challenge everything
So the Bible would tell us to prove all things right first
Thessalonians chapter 5 and hold fast to that which is what? Which
is good prove all things and hold fast to that which is good
which means sometimes you and I are walking around with ideas
and notions that are not right and The best thing in the world
that can happen to us is for someone to challenge our assumptions
right in order for us to know that we're holding to ideas,
holding to views, taking positions, and actually propagating them,
and they're not true. Or they're not accurate. Or they're not right. Well, a
Christian doesn't have a right to just assume things. If you guys are listening to
me on the Monday program, one of the things that I do on our
Monday program is challenge these policies of legislation that
get foisted upon us as citizens of America with agendas and goals
that our Congress and our legislature tells us we must do. For instance,
we are about to face an onslaught of citizens' obligation to accept
co-ed bathrooms everywhere, okay? uh... this legislation is about
to pass you'll hear me talk about it on monday and uh... of course
the christian world view would militate against that in terms
of what scripture teaches. And we would say that there are
horrible ramifications and implications that fall out of accepting a
condition whereby my son who is five years old is in the same
bathroom with another little girl who is five years old. Or
if there's no age limit to that bathroom, the five year old girl
can be in there with a 30 year old pervert. But I would be amiss
and sinful if I didn't challenge that legislation. Now, if that
legislation passes and we allow such a horrible, horrible travesty
to become the condition of our culture, then guess what will
occur three decades from now? Our children will assume it. They will assume it. because
we don't naturally critique and analyze and question and discern
whether or not a thing is right or wrong because more frequently
than not, culture becomes our authority rather than God's Word.
You found that to be true, haven't you? So, the steward of right
and wrong and decency and morality has to be the Church of the Living
God because our culture is pushing the boundaries of an immoral,
amoral society every day of the week in challenging whether or
not you and I are going to forego questioning the authority of
it. So you'll hear me often raise the question on Mondays, whose
authority do they have for what they want to do? Upon what authority
do they have the right to impose upon its citizens a co-ed bathroom
across the board. What authority do they have to
do that? What authority do they have to suggest that when our
children go to the secular schools that our children don't have
to tell us when they're going to the psychiatrist because they're
struggling with their sexuality and the psychiatrist can lead
them to medical doctors and clinics to help them make choices about
their sexuality and they don't have to tell their parents. They're
developing laws about these kinds of things right now. And the
question that you and I have to raise is, what authority does
the state have over my child? And then we have to, you know,
when I have in church right now, I just want you to think these
things through. We have to raise the question, what authority
do I have to allow it to occur? What right do I have for the
culture to tell me that it can redefine who I am, or who we
are, or who our children are, or who our children will be?
What authority do I have to submit to that? Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? Well, what we're doing when we
raise the question what authority is, we're challenging certain
assumptions, because they're holding assumptions. We had our
science, our evolution versus science versus God series last
week, as you know, and Dr. Mulder simply set out to challenge
a bunch of assumptions, didn't he? And in challenging those
assumptions, it opened the door for us to recognize the pure
mythological nature and fallacy of the whole evolutionary construct.
But if one does not challenge those assumptions, you can be
deceived by lies. Christians make an assumption,
ladies and gentlemen, that the Bible is the Word of God. That's
an assumption that Christians make. You know what that means? That means a person can come
to you and say, how do you know the Bible is the Word of God?
But because all it is is an assumption to you, you can't defend that
question. You can't answer that question.
Am I making some sense? Christians make a bunch of assumptions
that if those assumptions don't become verifiable facts by which
you can stand on, you're just an individual operating out of
assumptions. And because the issue of tongues
has been in the Christian Church, particularly the Western Christian
Church now, particularly in the West, since the 20th century,
going into the 21st century now, over a hundred and something
years, we are in a place of assuming a lot of things about tongues
that we have not verified. Now that's not to say that everybody
has, but as a general rule, there's an assumption. And the reason
that it's an assumption is because after so long a time of the presence
and the practice and the manifestation of any particular thing, if there
isn't a serious, vigorous inquiry as to the legitimacy of it, the
rightness or wrongness of it, we just simply let it be. Right? Can I tell you another set of
assumptions we operate out of? Just one more. We assume that
taxation is a constitutional obligation. We assume that, but
it's not. And so what has happened is our
government understands that Americans have been conditioned to assume
certain things and they take advantage of it. This is why
we're being taxed now as a whole at the tune of about 65%. We're only getting about 30%
out of our dollar based on certain assumptions You guys got that
so assumptions actually can imprison you in a process of activity
That may not be right, but because you're simply operating out of
assumptions. You're a slave to the system so what we're going
to do is read a portion of scripture in the book of Acts and then
we're going to carefully and graciously and wisely go through
the questions that you have in your outline little bit by little
bit and see if we can make some headway over the next couple
two or three weeks and I do want to say once again that the matter
of tongues and speaking in tongues as it is identified with our
Pentecostal and charismatic churches is a matter that addresses several
things in relationship to the actual gift of tongues itself. So that's going to require us
to spend more time than just tonight. We won't be on it for
a whole month. If we are careful, we can get
a couple of weeks in. We might have to do three. But
when we are done, Those of you who have never ever addressed
the issue of tongues, you have either never heard about it or
you have been subjected to it, but you have not investigated
it because you have just lived on assumptions. You will now
have a litany of questions and responses as we will have some
dialogue by which you can now ask yourself, am I better served
now that we have investigated this matter so that I can know
where I stand and where the Word of God stands and where we should
stand as Christians than I did before this class. That's what
makes study and teaching so germane and so critical in our life.
So in our outline I basically use as a opening text Acts chapter
19 so I'll do that. There are many texts I could
use but I'm going to use Acts chapter 19 verses 1 through 7
and then we'll start into our questions. We are in Acts chapter
19 which means we are geographically moving toward the outer regions
of Judea into Asia Minor and Acts 19 would be the last citation
of the spirit work in bringing Gentiles into the faith by his
presence and by his manifestation in the giving of the gift of
tongues to these Gentiles. And so here's what we would read
in Acts 19 verse 1 through 7. And it came to pass that while
Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper
coast, came to Ephesus. And finding certain disciples,
he said unto them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? And they said unto him, We have
not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what
then were you baptized? And they said unto John's baptism.
Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should
come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this,
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul
had laid hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and
they spake with tongues and prophesied. And all the men were about 12.
Thus is the reading of God's word. I chose acts because that's
where we are. And this is where we're going
to be working through over the course of the rest of the new
year, 2014. The only other place that the
issue of tongues will be addressed in your new Testament Bible is
in the book of Corinth. As you know, first Corinthians
chapter 12, 13 and 14, where it is treated by the apostle
Paul for very specific reasons of which we will also get into
as we make our way there. Suffice it to say, for those
of you who don't know your Bibles very well, the issue of tongues
is not a prominent issue in the scriptures. In the sense that
the idea of speaking in tongues is not so prolific that in every
epistle in the New Testament, Paul has to make mention of it,
or Peter has to make mention of it, or James has to make mention
of it. It's not so. It's not so you just don't have
the gift of tongues being a primary featured gift in the New Testament
epistles. It's just not. If one wanted
to kind of keep a proper scriptural proportion to the issue of tongues,
It is reduced to almost nil as a subject to be treated in all
of the churches with the exception of Corinth. And that would be
worthy of calling our attention to the fact that as we address
tongues, one has to be careful about extremes. If you are as
experienced as I am in the evangelical church and the Christian churches
abroad, Then you know that there are people who go from one extreme
to the other around the gifts of the spirit. You know that
there are people who believe in speaking in tongues and they
would be in a category of people that we would call continuationist. These are people who hold to
the present use and application of all the spiritual gifts in
first Corinthians chapter 12. through 14 and they would be
continuationists, people who believe in the continuation of
all of the gifts of the Spirit. Then you would meet that group
of people, that's one category, then you would meet a group of
people who don't believe in any spiritual gifts whatsoever with
regards to what you'll see in your outline are called signed
gifts. that were unique to the first century and were means
by which the church spread and the gospel spread throughout
the world. There are people who don't want to have anything to
do with the pneuma or pneumatology or the doctrine of the spirit
beyond him giving us a Bible to read. There are folks who
want to get as far away from anything that's mystical or spiritual
of any nature. You have extremes. So the one
extreme would be the group of people that we would often categorize
as people who are hyper-mystical. They want every sensational gift
of the spirit to be operating in their life in an indiscriminate
way, in a non-advised and non-informed way. They don't essentially know
what they're asking for when they do that, but they want to
be in on what they perceive to be a first century church experience. What that means, they don't quite
know because they weren't there, which is part of the challenge
when you are trying to be objective about what you're asking for.
Am I asking for a first century church manifestation or am I
asking for a 20th century or 21st century church manifestation
of which I am assuming is the same as the first century? Because
we've talked about that before. Simply because you see someone
doing something that they say corresponds to something else
doesn't mean, in fact, that they correspond. So the prudent thing
to do is to ask the question, is what we are engaging in now
legitimately consistent with and correspond to what they were
engaging in then? Wouldn't that be a critical question
to raise? On the other hand, with our brothers and sisters
who would be cessationists, this is what we would call it in the
theological term, the folks who believe that all of the gifts
of the spirit have ended because we now have what is called the
canon of scripture, the total canon of scripture. And so spiritual
sign gifts, the gifts of knowledge, wisdom, and all of those things
that are articulated and enumerated in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 have
cease to operate, pragmatically speaking, to these people who
are more or less wanting to simply know God through Bible verses. They are called cessationists.
That would be an extreme term. Then you have what we would call
gradations in between. What we want to ask is, as I
have laid it out in our outline, is what really was the gift of
tongues. Why were they given? And how
are they to be understood in light of the fact that we have
now 21 centuries of Christianity behind us, and we are at this
present time? And so let's just look at our
questions and deal with our questions one by one. And you are free
to write notes and raise questions. Be very thoughtful about this. Be very open about this. Don't
be afraid. Don't be intimidated. Don't cower. It doesn't matter what position
you hold. I want you to simply be open to the examination of
the doctrine. so that we can make some headway
in our own church as a body of believers to know what the scriptures
say about these things so we can walk with a little clarity. The first question that I raise
around it, and I think that any Christian would raise who has
read the book of Acts, understood that the gift of tongues was
given, was manifested at least three times in the book of Acts,
and then is affirmed in 1 Corinthians 12. It is prioritized in 1 Corinthians
13, and it is regulated in 1 Corinthians 14. The first question that we
would want to consider is, why were they given? Why were tongues given? And these
are rhetorical questions. I have the answer. You already
see that over in your answer section. The first answer that
I would pose to you, and you'll get a chance to test this, prove
it, challenge the Answers if you want to but the first answer
that I will give to you for which God gave the gift of tongues
Particularly as we have it in the book of Acts is to announce
the lordship of Christ to all nations the reason why the gift
of tongues was given was to announce the lordship of Christ to all
nations we are talking about a Tongues. We will define tongues
as we make our way. But right now we will take a
position of agreeing with the scriptures that such a thing
exists. Because we saw it on Pentecost,
didn't we? That the Spirit of God descended
from Christ as he commanded according to chapter 1 verse 8. And he
manifested himself in two temporary signs. two temporary signs, wind
and fiery tongues. And then the third sign was the
manifestation of those Galileans speaking in other languages. Technically the text says tongues,
other tongues, other tongues. So we know that there was a featured
gift of tongues essential to that immediate and beginning
work that we see taking place in the Book of Acts. So we can
accept that. We can't argue that there's no
such thing as the gift of tongues. We can't argue that tongues didn't
have a place in the culture of the Church. We also cannot argue
that tongues was not a major component in the ushering in
of the presence of the Spirit in that nucleus of the New Testament
Church. We have to accept that, embrace
that, Receive that, enjoy that, but mostly understand that. Mostly
understand that. So I say the first answer is
to announce the Lordship of Christ to all nations as you and I saw,
right? 120 Galileans, they all spoke
in their own original tongue, Aramaic. They were Aramaic Jews. They didn't even speak the Greek
language. They were Aramaic. It was what
Christ spoke for the most part throughout the Gospels was what
we call the Aramaic language. It was kind of a Again, a peculiar
Semitic language by which they took some of the Hebrew and some
of the Arab language and combined it and it was Aramaic, an Aramaic
language of which when they were filled with the Holy Spirit in
Acts 2, they were able to speak in the languages of 15 different
nations. Is that true? Now, it's important
for us to mark that because I believe that if you ignore the framework
of the Book of Acts, and particularly that first manifestation of the
Spirit and the gift of tongues, and begin to define tongues another
way, you are going to be not only unjustified in your definition
of tongues, but you are going to be inclined to err in many
other ways. Acts chapter 2 gives us a very
important framework for the gift of tongues. They were given as
a breakthrough gift to tell all the other ethnic groups that
were there at Jerusalem, both as proselyte and Jews, that Christ
is Lord of all. That Christ is Lord of all. It was a breakthrough gift. It
was a breakthrough gift. The gift was seen again in Acts
chapter 8 verse 18 when Peter goes down to Samaria, you guys
remember that, right? After Philip had preached the
gospel to the Samaritans and the apostles had heard that the
Samaritans had received the gospel, only as of yet the Holy Spirit
had not fallen on any of them. But when Peter came down and
the apostles by the laying on of hands of the apostles, no
one else, The Spirit was given to them in the book of Acts chapter
8. Now, we assume that in Acts chapter
8 that the Spirit was manifested by the gift of tongues, but that's
only an assumption, for in Acts chapter 8 it does not say literally
that they spoke in tongues. That's just an assumption that
they make. We accept that on the principle
of what is called uniformitarity. Uniformism that is uniformity
that is if it happened in Acts chapter 2 that way it in all
likelihood Happened in Acts chapter 8 that way then in Acts chapter
10 Where the Apostle Peter is speaking to Cornelius and his
band you guys remember that Acts 10 45 and 6 while Peter is yet
speaking the Holy Ghost fell upon them and it literally says
they spake in what tongues and they speak in tongues. So we
see that. And then the third time that it is explicitly expressed
is in Acts chapter 19. So we have three explicit places
in which the gift of tongues was demonstrated in the text
of scripture. The other places in the book
of Acts, Acts chapter 8, and we can even say Acts chapter
9, because when God actually saved Paul, remember, he saved
Paul on the Damascus road, knocked him down, blinded him, sent him
to a house on a street called Straight. He had to wait for
Ananias. Ananias laid hands on him so that he could receive
the Holy Ghost. Remember that? Yet, there's no evidence in the
text that he spoke in a tongue. Now, that's going to be necessary
for another assumption that some of our charismatic churches pose
when they say that everybody must speak in tongues to evidence
that they're saved. We'll demonstrate the fallacy
of that here shortly. But I'm simply saying that the
Apostle Paul received the Holy Spirit, as the text explicitly
said. We do not deny that the Apostle
Paul spoke in tongues, do we? Because he explicitly said that
he did. And so we accept the fact that
Paul received the gift of tongues. What we do challenge is that
when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, it is not going to be evidenced
by you speaking in tongues. That's what we would challenge.
And that's going to be necessary down the line that we affirm
that because we've had a lot of our brothers and sisters highly
wounded in our charismatic and Pentecostal churches because
they demanded that unless they speak in tongues, they could
not be affirmed as being saved. And that's an abuse that we're
going to talk about down the line. That's an abuse. So the
scriptures would not affirm that position. Uh, but we will affirm
that the apostle Paul did speak in tongues as we are going to
very clearly see. So my first question is, why
were they given? I would say that they were given
in order to announce the Lordship of Christ as they were set forth
in the Book of Acts. Secondly, what kind of gift were
they? Now, this question assumes that
the term kind constitutes a species, and it does. Just like we have
different kinds of animals, we have different kinds of bushes,
different kinds of trees, different kinds of birds and what have
you. Gifts of the Spirit come in different kinds and we have
generally throughout history Characterized the gifts of the
Spirit as are enumerated in 1st Corinthians 12 and Ephesians
4 as well as Romans 12 under 3 s's salvation gifts sign gifts
and service gifts salvation gifts service gifts and signs gifts.
It doesn't matter the order. These are the three sort of categories
of the signs. They were signed gifts. Salvation
gifts, ladies and gentlemen, are given to us in both the gospel
and Ephesians 2, as well as in Ephesians 4. The salvation gift
is when the Lord saves us by the preaching of the gospel,
by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and through the preaching of
the gospel brings us to a place of knowing Jesus Christ. That's
a salvation gift. The salvation gift would bestow
upon us through the preaching of the gospel, things like faith,
things like forgiveness of sins, things like the redemption of
our salvation. Salvation gifts would bestow
upon us the gift of justification. Like justification is what Christ
did when he died on Calvary street in order to make us right before
God. That's a gift. That's not something you earn,
but it's also an essential gift of your salvation. So when we
talk about salvation gifts, we're talking about the package that
the Spirit of God brings and gives to you in order that you
might experience eternal life with God. Salvation gifts. Faith
comes by what? In hearing by the Word of God.
We say that faith is a gift. Ephesians chapter 2, 5 through
9. That means that we hear the gospel and we believe everything
that the gospel says about who Jesus is and what he did for
us. That unpacks the gifts. the gift of justification, the
gift of redemption, the gift of the forgiveness of sins. And
then we move into other categories like the gift of service. That
means he may give you the gift of teaching, may give you the
gift of health, may give you another gift by which you can
build up the body. In the book of Ephesians chapter
4, the gift of teachings is falling under the category of apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. Those are five categories,
literally four, in Ephesians chapter four, around verse 12
or so, verses 12 through 15. Those are gifts that he gives.
These are teaching gifts. These are seen again in 1 Corinthians
12. The Holy Spirit gives gifts,
severally or individually, as he wills. So there's the salvation
gift that comes through the preaching of the gospel, but that salvation
gift came through a teaching gift. So the teaching gifts are
designed for the Spirit of God to teach men and women about
Jesus Christ. The salvation gift comes through
the teaching gift by which people come into a saving knowledge
of God. And then there is what we call the service gift. The
service gifts. And the service gifts are more
particularly enumerated also in 1 Corinthians chapter, I'm
sorry, the sign gifts. I don't know why I keep saying
that. Service gifts are yeah, there we go. The service gifts
are in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 Look at 1st Corinthians 12
with me verses 7 and 28 and then we'll see the final one as the
sign gifts and of course under these three Salvation service
and sign there can be some subcategories as well But in 1st Corinthians
chapter 12 where the Apostle Paul treats the full panoply
of gifts Here's what he says in verses 7 and 8 and 9, and
then verse 28. He's assuming that he's talking
to Christians. They have received the gift of
the Holy Spirit. And then this is what he says
over in verse 7. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every
man for the profit. For to one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit. to another faith by the same
spirit, to another the gift of healing by the same spirit, to
another the working of miracles, and to another prophecy, to another
discernment of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues, and
to another interpretation of tongues. So he's given us a category
of gifts here that actually include both teaching gifts and sign
gifts in verse 11. But all these worketh one in
the selfsame spirit, dividing to every man severally are individually
as he wills. So when he saves us and brings
us into the body of Christ, which Paul treats that as the work
of the spirit baptizing us into one body, what he does is gives
us different gifts. Some of those gifts are teaching
gifts and some of those gifts are mere service gifts, but some
of those gifts are also sign gifts. So as we see again in
verse 9 and 10, to another, the working of what? Miracles. To
another, prophecy. To another, discerning of spirit.
To another, tongues. To another, interpretation of
tongues. Now in this category that we
have here, what the apostle Paul is saying to the church is, that
the spirit of God is operating dynamically at that time to cause
men and women to know that it is the true and the living God
actually building his church through the ministry of the word
and he is affirming that word through signs. Miracles were
always sign gifts. They were gifts that were affirming
the authenticity of the message. While almost all of your Old
Testament prophets were prophets for whom accompanied their message
miracles. When Elijah preached or Elisha
preached, they were accompanied by miracles. The Old Testament
text that would affirm that is Deuteronomy 13. In Deuteronomy
13, it talks about a prophet coming and doing signs and wonders. The New Testament church, and
especially during the times of Christ, the Pharisees constantly
asked our master, what sign will you show us to prove that you
are who you are? Because all the sign gifts were
saying that Messiah is coming. Messiah is coming. That's what
a sign gift was for. So when Paul says here in verse
10 that he gave to some the working of miracles, That's a sign gift
to another prophecy and another discerning of spirits. Those
two are sign gifts to another diverse kinds of tongues. If
we had to do an exegesis of verse 10, when he talks about prophecy
and he talks about discernment of spirits and kinds of tongues,
you guys saw all that operating in the book of Acts. There are
times when the apostles were doing ministry, And as Peter
did in Acts chapter 5, where Ananias and Sapphira had come
and lied to them, the Spirit of God supernaturally gave him
insight into their lie, didn't he? He opened his understanding
and he was very clear on what they had done. That was a sign
gift at that time. He declared to them that they
had sinned against God and that they were going to die. That
was a sign gift. That's not like a natural gift that you and I
possess today. It was a sign gift. So we have
to be very careful of keeping them in their category. To another,
the discerning of spirits. That would have been a sign gift
in the days of the apostles too, because they were able to pick
up on men and women who were not sincere, who were not authentic
in the ministry. We can say that that gift is
still applicable today. The gift of discernment is still
applicable today. Back in the first century, though,
it's very clear that the Book of Acts was operating out of
diverse kinds of tongues. Now, the word diverse there is
in a bracket, which means what? It's not in the original language,
but kinds of tongues. And then to another, the what?
Interpretation of tongues. When Paul uses that phrase there,
the interpretation of tongues, we are kind of moving into another
advanced category around the gift of tongues. But let me simply
say, as we now move to 1 Corinthians, to affirm this, that they were
sign gifts. The gift of tongues was a sign. It was to affirm the authenticity
of the message of the gospel in the mouth of the apostles.
The first place we see this anticipated is in Mark chapter 16. Mark 16. You remember what our master
said to the disciples when he was about to send them forth
to do ministry? very explicit text now if we were dealing in
in the in the realm of scholarship and I was sitting with different
theologians they might argue about the validity of this text
but we don't argue the validity of this text because this text
corresponds with everything else the New Testament teaches and
so what we would say is that Just as we agree that verse 15
is a universal command to all the believers, go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall
be damned. We've had challenges with that one, haven't we? It
doesn't mean that if you aren't baptized, you're going to hell.
You would have to actually be more careful than that. But here's
what the same master who told us to preach and make disciples
and baptize them, he says in verse 17, and these signs shall
follow them that what? Now here's what he says, in my
name they shall cast out devils. So the casting out of devils
is a sign gift. That's a sign gift, you need
to know that. It's a sign gift. And a sign
is something that points to something else or gives you an affirmation
that something is present that is not obvious. That's what a
sign does. It's a simian. It's a manifestation
of the presence and power of the Spirit of God. And they shall
speak with what? They will speak with new tongues.
They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick,
and they shall what? So healing is a sign gift, isn't
it? We see this in the book of Acts. They heal. Healing again
is part of the gifts in first Corinthians chapter 12. So we
actually believe in healing We actually also believe in the
ability for God to supernaturally protect his people from any kind
of deadly danger verse 18 says they shall take up serpents and
if they shall Drink any deadly thing you shall not hurt them.
That's a sign gift When I use the term sign gift and emphasize
that here's what I'm saying Assigned gift is a huge unusual gift for
a specific purpose of time. It is not a normative gift Assigned
gift is an unusual gift for a specific purpose and time. It is not a
normal gift What I mean by that is you cannot drink strychnine
and think that the Lord is gonna let you live You will be a sign
But it will be a sign of foolishness You understand that? And if you
take up rattlesnakes, it's a good likelihood that you once you
are poisoned You're gonna suffer the ravages of the poison if
you should live it will be the mercy of God, but it won't be
the gift of Healing or the gift of preserving your life as a
sign gift as was the case in the latter book of Acts chapter
27 where the Apostle Paul is on the Isle of Miletus and he
Warming himself in a sack serpent latches a hole to him and everybody
thinks he's gonna die right then in there And he shakes it off
into a fire into the fire and continues to eat his sandwich.
That was a sign Right, that was a sign. That was a sign that
he was God's servant He was God's Apostle equal to the prophets
and God had protected him for the mission that he was to accomplish
That was a sign That sign God used to advance those people
into hearing the gospel, by the way. And so you and I don't want
to fall prey to thinking that sign gifts are normative gifts
to be given to everybody. Going back then to verse 17,
so we can look at this a little bit more carefully, the latter
part. These signs shall follow them
that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, and they
shall, what? Speak with new tongues. We'll
get into the ontological nature of the tongues in a little bit.
Like I said, we're going to take our time and work through this.
What I'm doing is just showing you the places in scripture where
these gifts are so that we can settle down with the fact that
we are not simply speaking into the air or making baseless assumptions
about the validity and presence of the gifts. But my observation
is that Tongues the gift of tongues were part of the sign gifts And
so go with me now in your Bible to first Corinthians chapter
14 and it will sum it up there in terms of that that particular
proposition First Corinthians 14 and your outline is it'll
say 15, but it should have been 14 first Corinthians chapter
14 and this is where we'll start at verse 20 and go through verse
23 and Brethren, be not children in understanding, howbeit in
malice be children, but in understanding be men. In the law it is written,
with men of other tongues and of other lips will I speak unto
this people, yet for all that they will not hear me, saith
the Lord. Wherefore, verse 22, tongues are for a what? It's important for you to get
that. And then Paul explains it in the larger historical context,
which historical context we will get into next week. You need
to understand the historical context. The gift of tongues
does not come out of thin air. It is a prophecy with a design
and a scope and a purpose that we must know. So he says, wherefore
tongues are for a sign and it's not to them that what believe
but to them that believe not. But prophesying serveth not for
them that believe not, but for them that believe. And if you
understand that what's taking place in verse 22, we're being
driven into Paul's argument. So we got to back out of Paul's
argument because this argument is around regulating the gifts
and prioritizing the gifts. We want to back out of that because
we're simply asking the question, why was tongues given and what
is the nature of their gifting? They were given as a breakthrough
gift to go into all the nations, to affirm the nations of the
universal lordship of Jesus. And they were given as signed
gifts. Very much like healing, very much like miracles, very
much like the protection that the apostles had when they came
over against danger. They were signed gifts that really
did accompany the apostolic ministry. And what that would mean, and
we can talk about this when we open the floor for questions
is, That they were not universal and that they were not normative
You didn't necessarily have the presence of tongues everywhere
taking place at all times among the Christian people so we have
it here very clearly that they were part of this sign gifts
and and that's what first Corinthians chapter 12 9 and 10 is asserting
to that they were among those miracle gifts verse 3 Tongues
were vehicles of prophecy. Now we're getting into somewhat
of the purpose and scope of tongues. Tongues were vehicles of prophecy. So now this is going to be important
for you to understand. That the gift of tongues is to
be understood more for its purpose than for its manifestation or
its expression. The gift of tongues is to be
understood more for its purpose than for its expression. For
instance, You and I have been conditioned to think about tongues
in terms of its manifestation or expression rather than its
purpose. So when you think about tongues,
you think about people speaking in a language, a form of communication
that is broken and that is almost unintelligible, an expression
that is other than human language that we can understand. Is that
true? That's your normative experience. In a few minutes, we're going
to pull up a video and demonstrate that because it's going to be
important for you to know. But the problem with the emphasis
on the expression is that that's not what God was calling forever,
that you and I would focus on the expression. But that has
become the offense and abuse in the church that we have to
deal with. because people have fallen prey
to what Paul is correcting in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and
14, particularly 14. And that is taking a gift and
saying, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look
at me, look at me, look at me, look at me. Got that? That's
why he uses the metaphor of a child. He uses it there. And back in
the germane text of 1 Corinthians chapter 13, which we have to
wrestle with around cessation or continuation of the gifts.
The Apostle Paul says, listen, it doesn't matter whether or
not you speak in a thousand tongues. And by the way, for those of
you who are more cerebral, it doesn't matter if you understand
every doctrine in the Scripture. If the teaching of the Scripture,
if the exercising of the gift is not based upon charity, it's
empty and useless. If it's done narcissistically,
to get people to see how spiritual you are, it's useless. If you
are saying, let me prove to you that I'm saved by speaking in
a tongue, it's useless. It's completely abused at that
point. That's the whole purpose for
which Paul is regulating it in chapter 13 and 14. You guys got
that? So now here's what I'm saying. If in fact tongues were
also used for the advancement of prophecy, then I have to ask
when a person alleges that they have the gift of tongues, do
they understand that the gift of tongues is part of the teaching
ministry, part of the edification of the body with regards to the
advancement of spiritual knowledge? Because in fact, Tongues were
clearly seen in the book of Acts as a vehicle by which knowledge
of God's glory was advanced. Acts chapter 2, and they spake
in tongues and glorified God. How here we every man speaking
in our own language the wonderful works of God. See, they weren't
focusing on nor were they describing the manifestation of the tongues.
We can challenge that. What they were describing was
the result or the purpose or the aim and objective of the
tongue, which was to advance prophecy. In Acts chapter 10,
where Peter is speaking to Cornelius house, the same thing occurs.
Acts chapter 10 verse 45 and 46 and when while Peter was yet
speaking the Spirit of God Fell upon them that were hearing the
word and they all began to speak with tongues and prophesy We
just had in our text in Acts chapter 19 right verse 6 That
when the Apostle Paul laid hands on them They they also prophesied
and they spake with tongues and prophesied well What Paul is
telling us in the book of Acts chapter 1 Corinthians rather
chapter 14 is that the goal of tongues when it was properly
applied could only be used if there was an interpretation so
that a prophetic message could come out of that interpretation.
Now we're getting into the regulatory element of that gift consistent
with its application in the book of Acts because in the book of
Acts The gift was employed, the interpretation was given, and
the people were what? Edified. The gift was employed,
the interpretation was given, and the people were edified.
So here's the other proposition that I'm laying out to you, and
you'll be able to work through this over the next week, and
you can come back and challenge me on that. Tongues were a vehicle
for prophecy. Acts 2, 4, 17, 18. Acts chapter
10, verse 46. Acts chapter 19, verse 6. And then 1 Corinthians chapter
14 verses 1 through 5. So we're in chapter 14 verses
1 through 5, read this, follow. Now, follow after charity and
desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may, what? That's going
to be the emphasis of 1 Corinthians chapter 14, and that's prophecy.
He says, for he that speaketh in a tongue, the word unknown
is not there, speaks not unto men, but unto God. For no man
understands him, how be it in the spirit he speaks mysteries.
But he that prophesies speaketh unto men to what? Edification
and exhortation and comfort. Verse four, he that speaketh
in a tongue, unknown as italifies, edifies himself, but he that
prophesies edifieth the church. Here is the regulatory principle
of chapter 14, which we call the CEO of the gifts. Clarity, edification, and order.
I would that you all speak with tongues but rather that you prophesy
for greater is he that prophesied than he that speaketh with the
tongue except he interpret that the church may receive edification
so what's taking place in verses 1 through 5 or actually is actually
is 1 through verse 8 Paul is now establishing a his preference
for how they use the gift, when he gets to the latter part of
1 Corinthians 14, he's going to establish it as a law that
in the church, you cannot speak in a tongue unless there be an
interpreter so that the interpretation of the tongue can be understood
whereby all in the church are edified. This is what we call
clarity, edification, and order. which hallmarks all of God's
mature churches. A mature church is a church whose
sound is clear, whose aim and objective for ministry is edification,
and it functions in an orderly fashion. That's what Paul is
regulating here as he deals with the gifts, because he realizes
that they are They are excited about the gift of tongues. Let's
put it that way. And point number three, it must serve as prophecy
in the church. You accept that proposition?
Point B, edification is intelligent understanding. Edification is
intelligent understanding. I won't unpack that this week.
I won't develop that. I do want you to grasp the proposition. We will be able to look at those
verses that are a little challenging around that, but here's what
I will say to you. It is impossible for me to be edified by a conversation
with you when I don't understand what you're saying. You cannot
edify me if you are a barbarian to me and I'm a barbarian to
you. And then there are again, extenuating implications for
that kind of behavior. If I intentionally speak in a
language that you do not understand and I do not have the capacity
nor the resource around me to explain, untie that knot and
to make known to you the mystery of that exercise gift, then I
am not only leaving you in the dark, but I am damning you. In
Acts chapter 2, if you recall, Out of all the people that heard
these Galileans speak in their own language the wonderful works
of God, the people that didn't get it was that one little category
of group called the Jews of Judea. Remember that? Because they did
not understand the Galileans because the Galileans weren't
speaking in Hebrew and they were Jewish. You understand that? The Galileans were speaking in
the native languages of all of those 15 tribes. So we've got
three languages going on, of which two of them can understand.
The Galileans are speaking to the other Gentile nations, of
which among those Gentile nations were Jews who actually had learned
the ethnic languages of those cultures, okay? Because they
were scattered Jews. That's a whole nother part of
our study on tongues that have to do with the history and the
judgment of God and the spreading of the gospel. But here, you
imagine that that group of Jews who were coming from everywhere
from Persia, Libya, Ethiopia, the far regions of Europe who
are coming to Pentecost. They were natives of those countries
because of the diaspora back in 587 BC and they never came
back to live in Jerusalem. But they're coming to Jerusalem
because they're Jews. They had learned how to speak
in the language of that culture that they lived in. But they
knew that the true God actually raised up a people who were Jewish
and speak Hebrew. or Aramaic. Now all of a sudden
this true God is speaking to them in the language of the culture
they live in back hundreds of miles away. The gospel is immediately
what? Spreading. This is what I'm saying.
It's a breakthrough gift immediately going into the different ethnic
nations. Implied in what I am talking about, you guys already
know this if you understand the controversy around tongues, is
this. Implied in what I'm talking about
is the fact that tongues Point number four, were the languages
of men. Tongues were the languages of
men, and they were given by the spirit. Now back at point number
three, there are three emphases in 1 Corinthians 14, which you
can read in your own time. Clarity, verses seven through
11. Edification, verses 12 through
25. And then order, verses 26 through 40. This is how the church, that had the right to exercise
the various gifts that were given to them by the spirit should
function. Let's say ostensibly that the
21st century church, our church was a continuationist church
that we continued in the gifts of the spirit. Let's say that
was a valid presupposition. We will be challenging that over
the weeks to come, but let's say that was a valid presupposition.
It was still required for our church to function with clarity,
The aim must be edification and the form and framework of our
church must be order. You guys got that? We have no
right to break out of an orderly structured worship service and
threaten the edification of the people of God by a manifestation
of expression that is babble and confusion. So I want to set
that because we're getting ready to watch a clip because I want
to challenge you on this because this is where the offense comes
in at. If the continuationists, if our
friends and brothers who hold to the gifts of the Spirit at
our present time are going to sustain those gifts and calling
in a way of integrity and character, they're going to at least have
to submit to the scriptural order and process, don't you think?
They don't get to just act a fool and expect us to want to embrace
that or them while they're doing what they're doing. Because we
would be violating scripture. Which, if you do a careful examination
of 1 Corinthians 14, you will understand that Paul is very
clearly, fundamentally silencing any kind of speaking in tongues
in the congregation, where there's not interpretation. Which means
every time a pastor or a member just goes off into an expression,
without someone standing up and interpreting that, It's sin every
time. It's sin. Because it violates
clarity. If the trumpet doesn't give a
certain sound, how should we respond? Why should I bless you
if in a tongue you're cussing God out? And how can I bless
you unless I'm edified? Now, if I bless you by an expression
or a manifestation of something you do, that does not edify me,
I'm actually perpetrating a fraud. Blessing is the response of edification. See, that's Paul's argument.
How can I bless you? You see, so clarity, edification
and order is critical, which for some of you, you know, that's
totally absent in our Pentecostal churches, right? Totally absent.
But here's my proposition to you as we get ready to look at
this film. If it's, if it's a, is that film ready? Okay. As
we get ready to look at this, cause this will be necessary
for some of you. Cause I want us to be able to talk about this.
Some of you have experienced these atmospheres. Some of you
have not experienced these atmospheres and you need to know about them
because I don't want you on the outside of our discussion around
these things. Okay. What you're about to see
are three perspectives on the issue of tongues, three perspectives.
Then I'll open the floor for questions and then we'll come
back next week. What I want you to do is just take the time to
work through our questions. If you have questions or if you
have responses, write them down so we can deal with them together
in an open context next week and hopefully the week afterwards.
Here again is my proposition to you that's going to be a challenge.
Tongues were the languages of men given by the spirit. In other
words, the gift of tongues was not just kind of a non-human
verbiage that does not correspond to some dialect in the world. That is one of the challenges
that we are posing to our charismatic and our Pentecostal brethren,
that we are departing from a scriptural grounds when we accept or put
ourselves in a position where we are identified with the pagan
cults. So what we're going to do now
is watch a clip You probably didn't know what we did with
those three clips, but I'm sure with you what we did We showed
you a form of Christianity that holds to the continuation of
the gifts but behaved themselves in an unbiblical fashion of chaos
and mayhem and utter confusion The very thing that the Apostle
Paul says in first Corinthians 14 not to do You saw that. Then we actually merged that
with the manifestation of pagan spirituality and pagan tongues
in the Hindu culture as well as in the African culture so
that you could see the similarities in expressions and behavior and
their complete similarities, particularly on the physiological
level, which what I was saying to you earlier is if you don't
exercise the discernment of separating what you think you believe from
what you are actually seeing and determine whether or not
what you are seeing corresponds with what you think you believe,
you are actually only believing what you see. In other words,
while the scriptures plainly teach that there is such things
as a gift of tongues, what you don't see in scripture is an
approval of the kind of physiological and emotional and psychological
expression and manifestation that you saw in this clip, that
you see in most churches, and that corresponds with the pagan
practices of the world, of which I have shared for decades now,
has always been my problem with our Pentecostal churches. What
I have always said was, you are reading into the text of Scripture
experience that is not there. And you are practicing things
that correspond to our pagan ancestors, almost verbatim, in
many ways. Which merits the question, are
you interpreting the passage according to your experience? Or are you interpreting your
experience according to the text? Does that make some sense? Then
I showed you a clip, and we have one more, we won't do it tonight,
of a more orderly structured assembly. And some of our Pentecostal
and charismatic friends know the more orderly structure, where
someone speaks in a tongue, and then someone interprets. You
guys saw those distinctions? It's very important for you to
know that, because as you deal with the matter of the gifts,
What you don't want to do is throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Neither do you want to convolute the experiences. Because they
have a spectrum of manifestation. Correct? They have a spectrum.
It's not fair to simply say because you saw those childish, grown
people, you know, almost a hundred years old, running around that
auditorium, clowning and buffoonery, you know, creating all sorts
of scandal. Because that's what it is when
you back up and actually look at it and assess it very clearly.
What Kenneth Hagen and Copeland and all those guys were doing
was scandalous. And it actually carried itself
like a wave throughout the churches during that era, the holy laughter
era. And people became even more frantic
in many different ways. Some of you have been exposed
to it. Some of you have not. I have been exposed to it many,
many times. My own family grew, spent a lot
of years in the charismatic movement. And one of the things that averted
me, that was an aversion to me, that was repugnant to me, was
the assumption that the more foolish you behaved, the more
spiritual you were. That was an aversion to me because
it didn't correspond with the scriptures. You guys understand
what I'm saying? So I had to start challenging
the leaders, started challenging the elders, started challenging
my peers to show me in the scriptures where that kind of behavior is
affirmed and approved and corresponds to clarity edification and order
so that was the first set of assumptions I challenged in those
churches was around the behavior and expression of it. I didn't
deny that the gift of tongues was a gift that God had given
to the church. We'll continue working through that over time
as to the validity of their presence in the 21st century. We'll deal
with that because you have to. But what I was dealing with was
the lack of biblical conformity that these expressions have.
The other problem that I had with it, which is to me still
problematic, is that our pagan ancestors, particularly those
of us who are Latino and African-American, if you go back, they do that
stuff in those pagan cults. All of the emotional gyrations.
which is virtually impossible for you to stop. You cannot regulate
that once you open the door to that kind of manifestation because
people are so susceptible on a psychological level to get
involved in those kinds of physical expressions. It's virtually impossible
to stop. Virtually impossible to stop.
Over time, if you are a person that's studying your Bible and
searching the scriptures, You come to realize that that can't
be all there is to Christianity. Is that true? This is where we're
going to be led to understand what Paul's objective was. And
I'll just share it with you. Then I'm going to open the floor
for a few questions, and then we'll close. Ladies and gentlemen,
the Apostle Paul's objective as he was led by God was not
to curse or condemn as it were, demonized Christians
who were exercising these gifts. His job was to regulate it so
that it could be proven whether or not it was validly of God
or not. What he said to them in 1 Corinthians
13 was, if ain't no love in it, it don't matter no way. That's
one thing. And then he says, and ultimately
you got to grow up out of that stuff anyhow. As we're going
to see, the job of the church was to grow up out of the sign
gifts into the service gifts because the sign gifts had served
their purpose to establish the message of the gospel. And I
think that those of you who have traversed that culture can affirm
that in your own soul that you needed to grow and grow up out
of the mere existential expression of religious fervor that did
not do anything to edify your intellect. Unfortunately, in
our charismatic and Pentecostal churches, because of such a hyper
emphasis on the gifts, they actually created an antithesis between
the gifts and the knowledge of the word, our study of the word.
And in understanding doctrine sound doctrine you guys understand
that because they went to extremes And because whenever you take
anything to an extreme you actually make it to be an antithesis over
other things that are critical as well and so now we have the
denominational battles over these things that needs to be reconciled
to a certain degree. We certainly need to work through
these things here at grace. The vast majority of us, we take
the position of being cessationist, but we do it from a thoroughly
theological basis, not an emotional basis, not simply because we're
offended at our Pentecostal and charismatic friends who do what
they do and have done it the wrong way. And, you know, and
in some cases have been rather, uh, scandalous in their expression. We don't take that position because
we believe theologically it is not the sound position to take.
And so we'll work through that. But what I do want to do is take
a few more minutes of your time to take one or two questions.
If you have been able to formulate a question, if not, then we'll
close and then we'll come back next week. Anybody have a pressing
question that you want to raise? Can you just speak up and I'll,
I'll, I'll repeat your question. So, you know, you have the 15
questions in there. So, you know, we anticipate that
we talk about that. You'll be able to work that through
in your own time. But just to field her question, she's asking,
OK, outside of a church context, can tongues be exercised without
an interpreter? With or without? Yeah. So the
question would be, is there a way in which scripture identifies
the character and nature of tongues apart from its prophetic role?
And the answer is yes. In the book of 1 Corinthians,
it implied that the gift of tongues could be exercised within the
framework of prayer, because they talked about praying in
a tongue, in the framework of singing, because they talked
about singing in a tongue, in the framework of blessing, we'll
talk about that down the line, because they talked about blessing
in a tongue. You got to understand the context. However, because
some of our brothers and sisters own the idea of a prayer language,
right? Because they understand pretty
much if you go obey the scriptures not gonna be talking like that
in the church, right? Then you are at least being prudent and
demonstrating a sense of constraint and respect for the body to take
that position Anybody else any other questions? My sister. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the question
would and I appreciate you This is why we do these kind of classes
because one of the things I want our people to do is to learn
how to think to learn how to think So if someone comes up
to you and we, we taught this back in biblical, uh, in, uh,
systematic theology, a couple of years ago, someone comes up
to you and says, how do you know the Bible is the word of God?
And if you can't demonstrate how you know, then you have just
realized that you were operating out of assumptions that you haven't
been able to verify. If you say, well, I just know,
cause I know, Well, I know because I feel whenever I read this book,
I feel well, someone can say, I listened to Bob Marley and
I feel the same thing. Right. Are you guys listening
to what I'm saying? Hold on for a second. Hold on
for a second. I'm trying to help us understand that Christians
don't have the right to operate out of assumptions. When you
say that the Bible is the word of God, you better be able to
demonstrate that. You hear me? You better be able
to demonstrate that that Bible is the word of God. You got a
big onus on your shoulders. See, cause we're saying that
there's a God and we know him. He is personal and he has revealed
himself and we believe he's revealed himself through the Bible, right?
Well, then you have to be able to actually affirm that assumption
through the scriptures. Now I can do it. Maybe you can't,
but you'll learn. I can show that person who asked
me, how do you know that this is God's word? I can say, cause
God told me in the scriptures that this is his word. Are you
hearing me? And I can show you where God
says, this is his word over and over and over again. Well, how
do you know that that was God who said that? Well, I can follow
them down that logic too. You understand? How do you know
you are who you are? Well, my mama, how do you know
that's your mama? How do you know that your great-great-grandfather
is your great-great-grandfather? Do you understand what I'm getting
at? You have to be able to demonstrate your faith on sound principles. Otherwise, people get to take
your Bible away from you and stoop you. I know this is the
word of God because the Bible says all scripture is given by
inspiration of God Profitable for doctrine reproof correction
training and righteousness the Lord gave the word and great
was the company thereof that published it I know what the
Bible says do you? The Lord gave us the word literally
Psalm 68 verse 11 just by the way and many other passages See
what I'm getting at and this is the word by which the gospel
is preached unto you to the law and to the testimony, if they
speak not according to this word, Isaiah 20, it's because there's
no light in them. I can demonstrate through the
scriptures its own self-attesting affirmation. My brother. Believe the word. Right. And
well, and I'll say this too, if you guys are understanding
the ethic in which I'm establishing this foundation, we could do
like a lot of churches, brothers and sisters, avoid doctrine. We don't avoid doctrine here.
We don't avoid nothing here. I'm just telling you, but that
is fine. Okay. So staying on this top
on the particular topic that we're at, that we're at, and
I'll take one more question back there. Just a second. My sister
didn't. It's another one to back over more, but here's what I
want to say to you who are, who are my brothers and sisters at
grace. I know, but I'm saying something right now. Here's what
I want you guys to get. that whatever doctrinal issue
or practical issue or theological issue you are confronted with,
you are to do it from a biblical perspective, not as a reactionary
out of fear or offense. You do it because you are compelled
to, by a love for the truth, prove all things and hold fast
to that which is good. in conjunction with that, seek
to sustain your love for people. You guys got that? Very critical.
So before let me start back here and work way back with my sister.
I don't want you to catch a cramp. God else's. Can I? I would have to I would I would
be free to challenge that, though, because you made a number of
propositions that those of us here would have detected when
you made that phraseology. We're not we're not at all discounting
your experience. That would be stupid. You don't
have to discount a person's experience, but you can challenge the validity
of it. So like if she says, Lord, I'm
not leaving here until you baptize me in the Holy Spirit. Well,
a whole bunch of us don't speak in tongues. Are we baptized in
the Spirit? But I'm dealing with the proposition.
Because in a lot of our churches, that's our point, isn't it? If
they hold to the evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit
is that you have to speak in a tongue Then what she's doing
is saying her experience affirms that doctrinal position, doesn't
it? But what we would say is if you examine the scriptures
carefully, you cannot accept that proposition Because it doesn't
square with the scriptures So you she would have to either
Restructure her terminology so that it comports with scripture.
Are she gonna have to keep silent? Right? Am I telling the truth? Because the scriptures are clear
that we are baptized with the spirit and don't necessarily
speak in tongues. If we accept that the initial experience of
the spirit can be defined as baptism, we can, we can argue
about that. But in the book of Acts, every time that the spirit
of God came upon someone, we demonstrated tonight that they
didn't speak in a tongue. Correct? So we, you want to be
very careful about that. That's part of the problem in
our present church. that people are making the gift of tongues
the telltale sign. That's one of the questions that
you have to deal with. That's an outline that we're
going to work through. There are implications. There are major
implications. If, in fact, the gift of tongues
has to be the telltale sign that I am baptized in the Holy Ghost,
there are major implications. That would mean that major portions
of the Christian church are not indeed baptized in the Spirit. My sister back there. in your
most holy faith. So there's no explicit reference
there to the, um, to, to the issue of tongues. You would agree
with that, right? There's no explicit reference.
So what we could not do is force tongues there, right? Cause we
want to honor the word, right? Is that true ladies and gentlemen?
So helping, helping our sister. Cause what our, what our Pentecostal
friends would do is take every verse where it talks about the
spirit, the spirit, the spirit, and praying, And often, insert
in there, this must mean praying in the Spirit and therefore praying
in tongues. We will be actually dealing with that down the line
too. What does that mean to be praying in the Spirit? But you
can't take the Jew text and suggest that what that means is that
you have to be praying in tongues. That praying in tongues is equal
to praying in the Spirit. We'll be able to work that through.
That's in the plural form there too, and it's talking to the
whole congregation. So it's not talking to one individual person.
Gotta know the language. Anybody else back there? Omar,
did you have one before we close in prayer? Omar is asking about... Omar, you're on a whole different
page. You're cool, it's cool. We're gonna shut it down right
there. Here's where the offense of the gospel of Jesus Christ
comes in. Here's where the offense... And
that is, the gospel is the exclusive way to God. Not Islam. not Buddha, not Hindu, not the
aberrations of Christianity as well, the true gospel. So when
Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life is spoken
very emphatically, I am the only way, the only truth and only
life. Other people in other religions can be persecuted and they can
be hated, but they are in a whole different
category than Christianity. They still have to come out of
those religions into Christ to be saved. Atheists are hated. Homosexuals are hated. Black
people are hated. Are you hearing me? So every
group can put a title up and say, I'm hated. I must be loved
of God. No. That's not the litmus test. You have to be hated for
his namesake. So let's close in prayer. Father,
we do thank you for your spirit, which is present today, that
allows us to study these things that are so challenging to us. We simply want to be able to
say, thus saith the Lord, around everything that we believe and
hold to. We ask your grace and your mercy
upon every soul here, whatever position they hold around these
gifts, that they would make you preeminent, that you would be
sovereign, that you would be exclusively Lord in their life,
and that we would all walk in obedience to your word. so that
we can honor you. And if we are in error, if we
are in falsehood, if we are embracing lies, deliver us from those lies,
because we know that no lie is of the truth. And we have been
wrong before, and we can be wrong again. And Lord, we know that
you alone are right. You are the truth. You are the
way. You are the life. As we go our way, Lord, forgive
us for our sins. Give us traveling mercy. Prepare
us for our evangelism class tomorrow. And this we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen. Blessings to you guys.