I'm going to read Isaiah chapter
28, which would be, in consideration of our study, the second Old
Testament pointer passage around the subject of tongues. And we
read in Isaiah chapter 28, verses 1 through verse 13, Woe to the
crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty
is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys
of them that are overcome with wine. Behold, the Lord hath a
mighty and a strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying
storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down
to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards
of Ephraim shall be trodden underfoot, and the glorious beauty which
is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower. As
the hasty fruit before the summer, which when he hath looked upon
it, seeth it while it is yet in the hand of the one that eats
it, in that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory
and for a diadem of beauty unto the residue of his people. and
for a spirit of judgment to him that sits in judgment and for
strength to them that turn the battle to the gate. But they
also have erred through wine and through strong drink are
out of the way. The priest and the prophet have
erred through strong drink. They are swallowed up of wine.
They are out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision
and they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit
and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. Whom shall
he teach knowledge, and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept,
precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a
little and there a little. For with stammering lips and
another tongue, will he speak to this people, to whom he said,
this is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest. And this is the refreshing, yet
they would not hear. But the word of the Lord was
unto them, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, line upon line, here a little and there a little, that they
might go and fall backwards and be broken and snared. Thus is the reading of the word
of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 28. Now turn with me in your
Bibles to 1 Corinthians 13, which is where we will begin to take
up our study. What is God saying in the book of Isaiah? Historically,
the context is Isaiah speaking to the rulers of Israel. God
uses this metaphor in Isaiah chapter 13 concerning them being
the crown and the pride of Israel. They were the heads. They were
the rulers of Israel. But God marked out how that they
were inebriated and drunk with wine, that they were given over
to excess, exuberation. They had lost a sense of decorum
and sobriety. They were drunkards of Ephraim. They were so bad in their excesses
and folly that he used the ignominious image of a table with vomit,
where they have regurgitated their food and their wine. All
of the men are laying on the table, regurgitating their food
and their wine, and everything on the table is unclean in the
eyes of God. The table is a mess. They are
scandalous. They are drunken. They are useless
leaders, useless prophets, useless rulers. They are in a terrible,
terrible mess. And it's Isaiah speaking to them,
Isaiah the prophet. And Isaiah is saying unto them,
now God has told us who it is that He's going to bless. And
whom God has chosen to bless are those who humbly sit under
His Word like children. In our carefully taught doctrine,
line upon line, precept upon precept, in the careful explanation
of biblical truth, and the patient unfolding of the Scriptures,
in a sound development of the text, in a manner in which the
Scriptures will appear very clear and explicit, because the children
are hungry for truth to grow up in the things of God. They
are not given to excess. They're not engaging in a level
of presumption that says that they can swallow everything that's
given to them. They're not walking in the presumption
of leadership. That's the danger, often, of
leadership. that it can lose a sense of accountability
and purpose, and then think that everything is made for them to
consume upon themselves, and then they become greedy, as Isaiah
chapter 56 says, and life really revolves around them. And rather
than being servants of the people of God, they actually abuse the
people of God, to the point where they ultimately manifest their
own incontinence. Isaiah said, the rest that God
calls his people to should have been through the careful explanation
of biblical truth, where they understood the word of the Lord
right and correctly, and their souls would have been nurtured
and grounded and settled in a relationship with the true and the living
God. But because of their presumption, the word of the Lord was to the
rulers, precept upon precept, that they might go backwards,
stumble and fall. And that's where in that text,
Isaiah chapter 28 verse 11, God says, and I will send a nation
who will be a hasty nation, a mean nation, whose tongue you will
not understand. Their lips will be stammering.
And Isaiah is 700 years before Jesus. And Isaiah is speaking
of the prophecy that had its origin in Deuteronomy chapter
28 around verse 49, 1500 years before Jesus, which means when
God warns the church, Even if it's 1,500 years before it happens,
it's going to happen when the church does not turn away from
its evil ways. And so this is the context in
which the Apostle Paul sets forth the same warning in 1 Corinthians
14, verse 21. In the law, it is written, with
men of other tongues and other lips, Will I speak unto this
people? And yet for all that they will
not hear me, saith the Lord. And you guys know that the context
in which Paul is drawing out this point of passage is judgment. They're not mercy. It's not an
affirmation of what the Corinthians were doing. It was a judgment
upon them. And so we have been dealing with
this subject of tongues and understanding it in its context and seeking
to derive some explanation as to the controversy around it
today, meaning in the 21st century. So we'll go to our PowerPoint
and we'll deal with point number five tonight, work our way through
point number five. If you have your outline, it's
probably in your outline. There is no evidence in the scripture
that biblical tongues, biblical tongues are similar to pagan
tongues. There is no evidence in the scripture
that biblical tongues are similar to pagan tongues. And we say
that on three fundamental principles. One is the prophecy given out
of the Old Testament. Secondly is the grammar of scripture. The grammar of scripture, as
we looked at it in our previous verses, the grammar of scripture
does not lend the conclusion that we would be dealing with
a non-human language dynamic. The grammar of scripture concludes
that we are dealing with the languages of men. Dialectos is
a language of men. Glossos is a language of men. It is never even hinted at in
the scripture that we are dealing with some kind of foreign language
that is non-human in nature. So there's no evidence in scripture
that biblical tongues are similar to pagan tongues, not only in
terms of the historical prophecies where with the term tongue, as
we looked at last time in the Old Testament and the New, is
used, but in terms of the manifestation. And this is the area in which
I believe the vast majority of the offense of present day manifestations
of tongues occur. What I had asked you before is
when you begin to examine doctrine and examine teaching, ask yourself
whether or not you are operating on a set of assumptions based
upon a lack of real clear and explicit examination of what's
being taught or being practiced. We looked at the definition of
assumption before, didn't we? It means to adopt something without
fully testing it, without fully proving it, without fully determining
whether or not it actually is valid. You and I live on assumptions
often until God knocks us on the head and say, hey, you better
find out whether that's right or whether that's wrong. And
then we learned also last time that it was prudent and essential
for Christians, particularly 2,000 years after Jesus has left
and 1,900 years after the apostles have died, for us to prove everything. Prove everything. 1 Thessalonians
5, verse 21. says prove all things hold fast
to that which is good what that means then is we have no right
within ourselves to simply assume or embrace a set of doctrines
and teachings as being true without first testing it that also means
by inference that you and I are called upon to labor that means
skepticism is a noble characteristic Being critical and analytical
about what's being said or done is actually a prudent thing.
So we learned in Acts 17 that they were more noble, that is
the Bereans, than the Thessalonians because they examined what the
apostles had said by searching the scriptures daily whether
those things were so. Now I want to make this statement
because this is going to apply to the latter part of our study.
They were not given to a respect of persons. They were not given
to a respect of persons, whether they were apostles or prophets
or bishops or archbishops or popes or prelates, the Bereans
were not given to simply accept and adopt the teachings of the
apostles without first determining whether it's squared with the
scripture. Now, by the way, that text in Acts 17 is actually the
foundation upon which the reformation took place. For the Reformation
had to deal with self-authenticating authorities in the Catholic Church,
which had emerged up above the Scriptures and had taken on the
role in stewardship of being the paraclete for the people
of God, so that they took the Scriptures away from the people
of God, replaced it with traditions, and told the people, as long
as you listen to us, you will be safe for heaven. so that for
many, many decades and hundreds of years, they were worshipping
God in all of the different pagan lands under Catholicism in the
Latin vernacular. In any event, they were worshipping
God essentially in a tongue they didn't understand. They didn't
have the Scriptures. And whenever they ran across
the Scriptures, they were in flux. They were in turmoil because
they would read the Scriptures and discover that the Scriptures
said something different than what the priests were doing and
the Catholic Church was doing. And every time they inquired
to their leaders, why are you doing this? And the Bible says
that. Why do you teach this? And the
Bible teaches that. And so 1500 years after Christ,
Martin Luther rises up He's not the first one. We had John Wycliffe,
we had John Huss, and we had some pre-reformers who were diligently
warning that what's going on in the church is not biblical.
But every time someone rose up to say, thus said the scriptures,
they were either expelled, excommunicated, or done away with physically. put to death. So the reformation
broke open the door by God's providence to recover the word
of God and put it at its proper place. And that is to be supreme
over the church, supreme over the leadership and supreme over
the people so that everyone has to be able to say, I do what
I do. I believe what I believe because
of the scriptures. That was the premise upon which
the Reformation took place. And it's a critical premise because
this is where you and I are today as we are dealing with the issue
of of tongues and especially in our present time. And we'll
get to that when we deal with the implications and consequences
of the lack of recognition of the canon of scripture, the authority
of scripture in our present day churches. First Corinthians 13,
the Apostle Paul is dealing with an ethic. I think you know it.
That ethic is, is that all things should be done on the basis of
charity, right? Love. Now, I would challenge
the Christian church today to do a deep and interrogatory study
on love as well, because I believe that there's a number of assumptions
also with regards to the definition of love. I would challenge you
to be able to tersely define love. Love is one of the most
profound and mysterious terms in all of human language. It
is not easy to define. It is not easy to articulate
or easy to express. So don't think that like love
is just an innate understanding. I don't think so at all. But
what 1 Corinthians 13 does, as we get ready to get into it,
is it gives us a description of the manner and characteristics
of love, which is a little bit different than a definition because
it's much more expressive. When you sum up verses 2, ladies
and gentlemen, all the way to verse 7, where the Apostle Paul,
preferring charity over the gift of tongues, over the gift of
prophecy, over the gift of knowledge, What you what you have described
in verses 3 through 7 verses 1 and 2 is a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ Who is the epitome of love? over against a body
of knowledge That people operate out of absent of that love of
Christ so verse 1 and 2 says though I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels and have not charity I am become a as
sounding brass or tinkling cymbals. You guys can already hear the
cacophony, can't you? And though I have the gift of
prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, though I have
all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity,
I am what? So two things, when an individual
is possessing the gifts in a manner that is not central to the gift's
purpose, you are making noise, but you're nothing. Now, most
sound theologians will say that Paul, beginning at chapter 12,
is going to wax very earnest in his rebuke of the Corinthian
church because of the excesses at Corinth. Corinth was a mess.
And yet here they are perpetrating a fraud with the gifts of the
church as it were appearing to be super spiritual Speaking in
tongues and prophesied and doing this and doing that when in fact
the whole church was riddled with scandal Now is he admonishing
them as someone standing on the outside throwing stones? Or is
he admonishing them as the very person whom god used to birth
that church into existence? And out of love correcting that
church The latter is true So from verse two, which by the
way, just in case you have bought into the notion that the gift
of tongue that you may have is a heavenly language, an angelic
language, as implied by verse one, verse one does not teach
us that Paul had the gift of angels, the tongues of angels. When he says, though, I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, this is not in the indicative.
This is a subjunctive. This here is a hypothetical.
He said, hypothetically, if there were the possibility of human
beings possessing the language of angels, what good would that
be if I possessed all the languages of angels? We know that he's
dealing with hyperbole and he's dealing with exaggerated speech
in order to draw home the point that those things do not mean
anything if they're not put in their proper perspective. And
so then he goes on through verses three through seven, where he
describes love. And though I bestow all my gifts to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity,
it profits me not. Verse four. Charity suffers long,
is kind. Charity envies not. Charity does
not puff itself up. It's not puffed up. It doesn't
vaunt itself and is not puffed up. Vaunt means that it works
on building itself up and then puffed up is the result of it.
Doth not behave itself unseemly. Does not seek her own. That means
it's not childish. It doesn't say, look at me, look
at me. He'll be dealing with that when he deals with the child
analogy here in a moment. It's not easily provoked, does
not think evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity,
but rejoices in the truth. Now, love rejoices in the truth. It beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endures all things. Charity never
fails. But whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they
shall seize. Whether there be knowledge, it
shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When
I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put
away childish things. For now we see through a glass
darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part. but then
I shall know even as also I am known. And then he says, and
now abided faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest
of these is charity. So in our PowerPoint PowerPoint,
if you pull that up, we'll go now into our sixth question.
Yeah, we'll go into our sixth question. And that is our sixth
proposition. Did the gift of tongues cease?
Did the gift of tongues cease? We answer that by saying we must
consider the abrupt ending and fading away of certain gifts
as implied in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I was thinking about this
this week. What an insight that God gave to the apostle Paul
here in chapter 13. Because there would have there
wouldn't have been any other indication in the scripture Particularly
New Testament that gifts would have been given and then gifts
would have been taken away It would have been assumed by the
whole of the church that the gifts that were given were always
going to be present and yet Paul very clearly says in In our text
in verse 8 that they would fade away. And in fact, here's what
he says while charity never fails Whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. And whether there be tongues,
they shall cease. And whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away. And the theologians who have
done a great deal of exegesis and expository development of
the text calls our attention to the distinction between how
prophecy and how knowledge would fade away versus how speaking
in tongues would abruptly stop. These are two radical verbs.
I just want to call your attention to them briefly. And I do want
to take us to a text or so to, um, to deal with it when it says,
uh, whether there'd be prophecies, they shall fail. They shall fail. That is a Greek term that means
they will gradually diminish to a point where they will be
obsolete. Gradually diminished to a point
where they will be obsolete. The Greek term is contour gaol
and we used the New Testament uses that term a lot all through
the scriptures where it speaks about something becoming of non
effect or Something being done away with or something vanishing
away or something failing Gradually, and I want you to be able to
see how this works over in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 7
and 11 13 and 14 the Apostle Paul is treating
the subject of the Old Covenant over against the New Covenant
and the believers experience with it and I want you to see
how he anticipates the failing falling away are failing are
doing away with of that Old Covenant the laws influence over the life
of the people of God when once the New Covenant comes in to
be 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 7 but if the ministration of
death written and engraved in stone was glorious so that the
children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of
Moses for the glory of his countenance." Now watch this, ladies and gentlemen.
Which glory was to be what? Done away. The analogy, if you
don't understand it, is that Moses had been with God. Moses
represents the law of God. Moses was the means, human mediator
by which the law of God was given to the people of God. In fact,
Moses, his name is used by the Old Testament and by the Jews
as a synonym for the law. When you read Moses, Moses face
that shown when he was in the presence of God and what it depicted
was the forcefulness and liveliness and vitality of the law. Obviously,
the law was vital. It came from God. Obviously,
it was glorious. It came from God. And yet, that
glory that was on Moses began to fade. It began to diminish. It began to wax old. It faded
and waxed old because it was never designed to be perpetual. It faded and waxed old because
it was never designed to be perpetual. The old covenant law was designed
to give way to the new covenant. And so it would fade, it would
fade. He goes on to say over in verse
11, these words, so that we might understand this, verse 11, 13
and 14, he says in verse 11, for that which is done away,
that's our same word that we have in first Corinthians 13,
for that which is done away, was glorious, much more that
which remaineth is glorious. Now he's contrasting the new
covenant with the old, isn't he? He's contrasting Christ with
Moses. Then verse 13. And not as Moses,
which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could
not steadfastly look to the end of that which is what? Abolished. That's our same Greek term. Abolished. Now in the New Testament, the
word abolished is a very technical term that means the ending of
a contract, the ending of a contract. When a contract has fulfilled
its terms, it's put away or ended or abolished. As you read in
the book of Colossians, Christ abolished the law on our behalf
by fulfilling it. Meeting all of its requirements
so that the law comes to full termination and is abolished
that mean it's done away That means it has no more efficacy
another way. The terminology is used in the
new testament It has no effect. Remember when paul says in galatians
chapter 5 you who desire to be up under the law christ has become
of no effect to you That means you can't mix the old covenant
with the new covenant and expect the new covenant to honor you.
You can only operate out of one or two systems. And from a cosmological
standpoint, God doesn't even recognize the old covenant because
it's done away in Christ. But folks who want to live up
under the law, for them the law has force. But you can't live
up under the law and live up under grace too, in that sense,
because one must give way to the other. This is why, as you
have learned, ladies and gentlemen, in biblical theology, we have
what is called the Old Testament and the what? And one of the
reasons why the Jews will not acknowledge a New Testament is
because the concept new necessarily makes void the old. Because they
are Old Testament people having no recognition of Jesus as Messiah
They cannot accept his mediatorial work as the head of the New Covenant
So they must deny the New Testament in order to retain what they
believe Ostensibly is the force of the Old Covenant the very
fact that Christ said it is finished is Meant that the old covenant
was abolished and done away with in himself making way for the
new I'm simply sharing with you how this is used The apostle
paul knows exactly what he's talking about as he's dealing
with the law here as he's dealing with the covenant I want you
to see it. Also again over in um Hebrews chapter 8 hebrews
chapter 8 which book we are going through right now. It's going
to be a wonderful study If I might say so myself, but here's what
the writer to the Hebrew says about the covenant as well. And this same expression is here.
I'm in Hebrew chapter eight. I'm going to start at verse 12.
He's describing the new covenant verse 10 and 11. He's describing
the new covenant for this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel. After those days at the Lord, I will
put my laws into their minds, write them in their hearts, and
I will be to them a God. And they shall be to me a people
that's new covenant language. That's not Old Covenant. And
they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his
brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from
the least to the greatest. We'll get into that in a moment.
Verse 12, For I will be merciful to their unrighteousnesses. and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more." This is the character and nature of
the New Covenant because of the finished work of Christ on Calvary,
right? It articulates plainly the efficacy of grace as a consequence
of the atoning work, of which promise was never in the Old
Testament. The Old Testament always said,
if you obey, you will live. The New Testament plainly and
explicitly said, I will put away your sins and you will live.
These are radical distinctions in the covenant terms. And then
he says in verse 13, in that he said a new, you guys got that? And even though the word covenant
here is in my italicist, the topic of chapter eight is covenant,
isn't it? In that he said a new, he has
made the first what? Now that which decayeth and waxes
old is ready to what? Vanish away the proposition that
I am making with regards to that is is that certain gifts? Would what vanish away? Certain
gifts would be abolished Certain gifts would be of non effect
Now that is with respect to two gifts the gifts of knowledge
That's in your text and the gift of prophecy That's in your text. They would gradually fade away.
Why would they gradually fade away? Because the gift of knowledge
and the gift of prophecy like the gift of tongues were revelatory
gifts They were vehicles by which God was giving new revelation
concerning his New Testament purpose. I So quite obviously,
while we are merely in the first century AD, we don't have the
whole of the New Testament writings. They will come as those apostles
and prophets that the Lord uses will utter by divine inspiration,
the New Testament writings. Whenever they uttered by divine
inspiration, new revelation, it was by means of knowledge,
prophecy, and sometimes, not frequently, through a tongue. It was by knowledge, prophecy,
and sometimes, not frequently, through a tongue. We'll talk
about why I say not frequently in a moment. But tongues, prophecy,
and knowledge were vehicles of revelation. This is how you have
a body of New Testament from Romans, from the book of Acts
rather, all the way to the book of what? The revelation of Jesus
Christ. The capstone of New Testament
scripture is the revelation of Jesus Christ. The revelation
of Jesus Christ. And that revelation closes with
this warning as we learned before. If you add to the writings of
this book, if you take away from the writings of this book, there
are dire and damnable consequences. Which means over the period of
the apostolic age, And shortly thereafter, God was compiling
the New Testament writings, this is called bibliology, in the
same way he did with the Old Testament prophets. Then we learn
on Sunday, fragments... parchments a little here a little
there in the same way he did with the Old Testament as it
were 39 in the old 27 in the new right 39 in the old 27 in
the new so over time in the New Testament we got 37 parchments
of writings that constitute the whole of the New Covenant and
so it is imperative for us to understand what he means when
he says in in our text again verse 8 Whether they be prophecies
or whether they be knowledge, they shall fail. Whether they
be tongues, they shall what? Cease. Cease. So now, again,
the theologians are working with this one term with regards to
tongues, which we need to deal with now. The word is cease. Cease. And the word here, cease,
is a different word. Now sometimes the apostles will
use different words for the same concepts. We call that tautology
in language. T-A-U-T-O-L-O-G-Y, tautology. And it's to say the same thing
in a different way to kind of give it a little bit of a different
nuance but not really a new meaning. Ceasing here is radically different
than fading away and vanishing away. Ceasing is an abrupt stop. An abrupt stop. He knows exactly
what he's saying under inspiration of the Spirit when he says, whether
they be tongues, they will cease. And it was critical for the church
to hear that as well. Critical. Now the word cease
here is a Greek term that is used in a very technical manner
in 1 Corinthians 13. And it means that the tongues,
the gift of tongues, the gift of languages, the gift of human
languages, which required an interpretation in the context
of the church, while that gift was applicable, the gift of tongues
at some point in church history would just What? Stop. Just stop. Cold. It wouldn't
trickle on like a car running out of gas or a train coming
into its station. It would just stop. Cease. Cease. Paotani is the Greek term
and it means that it would cease. And in fact, the way the term
is used, it means that it would actually cease of its own accord. All of these phrases are in what
is called the future verb form. They would be things that would
occur in the future. But with prophecies and with knowledge,
they would fade away gradually in a passive way as a consequence
of reaching a termination point. When they come to the termination
point, they would just dissipate. With the concept of ceasing,
it would stop on its own. It's a reflexive verb. You know
what a reflexive verb is? It's a verb that denotes the
subject actually doing something to itself. Like, you know, Jan,
when he goes a little nutty, he just punches himself. Just
punches himself. That's the idea of the reflexive
verb or the middle voice. There's a middle voice. And so,
you know, he picked himself up or he dusted himself off or he
stirred himself up. Remember when David was really
struggling and the Amorites had come in and taken all of his
family members and his his posse was really thinking about taking
David out and he went over into the corner. And what did the
text say? And David encouraged himself in the Lord. David is
the subject. And now what he is doing is encouraging
himself. He's not getting encouragement
from the outside. He's encouraging himself. That's
called a middle voice. And in this Greek language, what
it's saying is tongues of its own accord without a point of
arrival will stop. Now, there are many verses in
the New Testament also that sort of highlight that. I just want
to take you to one so that you can hear it. This would be Luke
chapter 5. I'm going to read verses 4 and
8. Luke chapter 5, 4 and 8. This is an interesting account. where our Lord Jesus Christ is
with the disciples. Luke chapter eight, Luke chapter
eight. This is when the Lord was with
his disciples in the boat and the waves were rushing and becoming
tumultuous. Verse 22, now it came to pass
on a certain date that he went into a ship with the disciples
and said unto them, let us launch and go over, let us go over to
the other side of the lake. And they launched forth, but
as they sailed, he fell asleep. And there came down a storm of
wind on the lake, and they were filled with water and were in
jeopardy. And they came to him and awake
him and said, Master, Master, we perish. Then he arose and
rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased. Got it? They ceased. And there
was a calm. And when he had said, and he
said unto them, where is your faith? And they being afraid,
wondered, saying one to another, what manner of man is this? For
he commanded even the winds and the water and they obey him. Now, I want you to take that
last statement that they made because it gives insight into
the nature of why the water abruptly ceased. Okay? The water did not
cease because the Lord merely in His power stopped it. The water ceased because the
Lord told it to cease and it obeyed Him. This is an anthropomorphism
dealing with nature. The disciples remarked that Christ
spoke to the water. which means the water had a kind
of human relationship with Christ where he spoke to it rationally,
intelligently, giving it an imperative, a command. And guess what it
did? Responded in obedience and of
itself stopped. Got it? Got it. I mean, he could
have just stopped it. But he spoke to it because it
was an analogy of the evil forces that seek to try to stop God's
people from crossing over to where God wants them to be. The
disciples grasp that inherent spiritual lesson, recognizing
that the water now becomes personified as evil, seeking to resist the
Lord's work. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? And that being the case, even the devils are subject to
Christ, So when he says stop authoritatively, they of themselves
actively obey, which is what's going on here. That's the way
the term is used in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Go back there. Whether
they be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether they be tongues,
they shall abruptly stop. So the gift of prophecy, and
we can go back to our PowerPoint now because I want to move forward.
The gift of prophecy and knowledge as a device and mechanism will
fade, fail, gradually vanish into obsoletism. And we see this
under law, covenant, and revelation. But the gift of tongues will
stop abruptly. And there are many other verses.
I won't go there. So the question that you and I are having to
grapple with now is, when did tongues cease? if in fact they
ceased. So you have your two schools,
as we dealt with over the last couple of weeks, your continuationist
schools of thought. And your continuationist schools
of thought says that all of the gifts are still all operating
presently in the church. That's going to be a problem
when we think it through here in a moment. That's going to be a real problem.
The cessationist group, which is the camp that I am in, and
both camps, by the way, are not locked into what will be hard
definitions of the term cessation. continuationism so so to think
about the two camps you have to think about them in terms
of what we call a spectrum because obviously people see things in
different shades and nuances and a little bit softer and harder
than others what I mean by that is for those who embrace the
idea that we still have apostles today we still have prophets
today and we still have miracle workers today We still have the
same kinds of application as was in the first century. In
our present generation, yours and mine, the terminology or
nomenclature that has risen up to adopt that idea is called
the five-fold ministry. You've heard it. It's a philosophy
that runs in most of your Pentecostal camps, particularly your Word
of Faith camp. Not across the board, though. All Pentecostals do not believe
that there are present-day apostles, present-day prophets, present-day
miracle workers. So I just want you to know that
even among the Pentecostals and Charismatics, there's a great
deal of difference. And the difference really, ladies
and gentlemen, when you examine it, lies in scholarship. It lies with men who are serious
about God's Word, recognizing that you cannot demonstrate grammatically
or exegetically the sustaining of certain doctrinal positions.
In other words, they have allowed the authority of Scripture to
reign them in so that they aren't adopting such highfalutin notions
such as present-day apostles. The implication of a present-day
apostle, a present-day prophet, a present-day miracle worker
enormous is enormous this is where the Christian has to wake
up and become concerned about ideas because ideas have consequences
meaning as I have said for 20 years at grace show me a real
Apostle and he can raise the dead he can authentically open
the eyes of the blind he can do the miracles of wonders of
an apostle 2nd Corinthians 12 12 He's not hooking and crooking
and he's not hoodwinking people with false miracles He's not
selling little bottles of water handkerchiefs and cards He's
not peddling cons and scams He's turning the world upside down
and by an effusion presence of the power of God that makes him
different than every other gift in the church. And the apostle
has the ability to bring further revelation of biblical truth
equivalent to the scriptures of which when affirmed by the
scriptures, they are authoritative and binding on the whole church.
In other words, a real apostle is not someone you and I can
just take or leave. He is the foundation to the church. Ephesians chapter two, verse
20 and following. Are you guys following me? So
this idea about, well, he's an apostle. Listen, this is the
diatrophies syndrome of third John. Do you remember what John
said? We are encouraging and recommending
the brethren all over the place, but diatrophies. who loves to
have the preeminence. This is your pre-antichrist,
pre-popery, ascended leadership paradigm already starting in
the days of John, where individuals would rise up over the Word of
God, over the Church of God, over the people of God. Watch
this. And John said it himself. And they even oppose us. Go there. I want you to see this. Now the
reason I'm sharing this with you is because of the arrogant,
pompous, excessive, and heretical statements that have come out
of the mouth of so-called prophets and apostles in our present day. Now listen to the language of
John as he warns the church of these kinds of persons. Third
John, are you there? Now watch what John says. Verse
5 through verse 10. Thou doest faithfully whatsoever
you are doing to the brethren and to strangers Which are born
witness of your charity before the church Whom if I bring forward
on their journey after a godly sort you shall do well Because
that for his namesake that is Christ they went forth taking
nothing of the Gentiles These are true believers who did not
get caught up in asking people for anything on the outside of
the church They only came to the church for help In other
words, they didn't start a business because they were preachers Hint
hint verse 8 we therefore ought to receive such That we might
be fellow helpers of the truth. You know, that's what john said
find men Whose integrity is consistent with that of the scriptures and
support them? Because they are dependent only
on god and god's people and not the world Now notice what it
says, verse 9. I wrote unto the church. I wrote
unto the church. And I want you to get the paradigm
here. I wrote. I didn't speak. I wrote. I wrote. I wrote unto the church. I didn't
speak. I wrote. I gave a letter unto
the church. I gave the word, the written
word unto the church. I didn't speak to the church.
I wrote to the church. I gave the church The Bible. I gave them the Word of God.
Got that? I wrote unto the church. And
it goes on to say, but diatrophies, who loveth to have the preeminence
among them, would not receive us. Wherefore, if I come, I will
remember his deeds, which he doeth. Now, hold on now. Remember, this is John. He lay
on the master's breast. Lovely John. But I tell you he
will he will be when he meets up with diatrophies the son of
thunder He will handle his business and diatrophies will learn no
longer to blaspheme Because diatrophies is not an apostle John is an
apostle john has the authority of the apostle. He has the ability
to bind and to lose He can kill And he can raise again from the
dead. He can excommunicate And he can allow back into the congregation
He had that right as an apostle as Peter did in Acts 5. When
we get there, John says, I'll deal with it when I get there.
Remember what Paul said? Now, I know there are those in the
Corinthian church who are all puffed up, talking about how
weak I am. Yeah, I'm only 4 foot 11. I'm rude. Wait till I get
there. Remember that? Wait till I get
there. We'll see whether or not they are walking carnally or
they are walking spiritually. So the point being is, If you
buy into and succumb to the notion that we have present day apostles,
you are going to be in conflict with the scriptures, even as
they were in the first century. John represents Christ writing
to us through the scriptures, giving us the highest authority
in the church. Immutable, unchangeable is black
words written on white paper. That way there's no ambiguity.
Here comes this cat named Diatrophes and is going to reject apostolic
teaching? Are you guys hearing me? And
he goes on to say, not only did he not receive them, he says,
when I come, I'll remember his deeds which he does. Now watch
this. I want you to see the character of these people, prating against
us with malicious words and not content therewith. Neither doth
he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would,
and casteth them out of the church." This man was a mess, wasn't he? He was diabolically driven. He
was controlled by a level of narcissism that was out of this
world. He thought he had more authority than the apostles.
And as a consequence of his hyper authoritarian position, he actually
went contrary to the word of God, contrary to the apostles,
contrary to the true church. And I'm here to submit to you,
you can find that arrogant display in all sorts of so-called apostles
and prophets and prophetesses today. You can find it everywhere. Can we not you can find it everywhere,
but you know the Word of God has already spied them out hasn't
it? It's already spied them out. It's already spied them out.
Let's go back to our text work through a few more considerations so
I can Make our way through I really want to finish tonight. I really
do so the the question for us and it's really not a question
for me and it's not a question for the leadership here at grace
is What are the implications? What are the consequences of
adopting a view that the gifts still maintain? What are the
problems that occur if an individual says, we still believe in apostles,
we still believe in prophets, we still believe in miracles
as such. That is, miracles being done
through the vehicle of the prophet and the apostle. See, the cessationists,
such as I am, who believe in the finality of the Scripture,
the final authority of the Word of God as the basis and rule
for our life, so that we do not have any more foundation gifts,
no more foundation apostles, no more foundational prophets.
We've got teachers, we've got evangelists, we've got people
that are gifted, but no more foundation layers. This is it. This is the foundation. We do,
however, believe in the ministry of the Spirit of God to give
miracles, to heal people, to still manifest His gracious power,
to affirm His Word, only not through a person. You got that? So that the person can make all
kinds of advantage over people because they have the gift of
healing. Does that make some sense to
you? You guys understand that? The gift of healing is the Spirit's
gift. The gift of interpretation is
the Spirit's gift. The gift of understanding our
wisdom, our knowledge, is the Spirit's gift. It is no longer
to be, as it were, confined to a certain individual where they
can benefit from it. It's the Church's gift. And the
Spirit of God will use that gift in places where the Church is
lacking. particularly in places where the church is really anemic,
either economically or spiritually or socially, such as in many
of our third world countries, where they don't have the resources
like you and I do in America. Am I making some sense? Where
the Spirit of God comes along with the ministers of the gospel,
i.e. missionaries, to establish churches
and work among them to do the kind of manifest work that only
the Spirit of God can do. to encourage, to build up, to
save, to sanctify. And then on occasion, those special
miracles that affirm his presence, only the missionary doesn't get
the glory. As a consequence, there is no
conflict between the minister and the word. The word still
reigns supreme. Am I making some sense to you?
the Word still reigns supreme. See, because you have some cessationists,
and I'm just not one, who would say when once the gifts cease,
the gift of knowledge, the gift of prophecy, and the gift of
tongues cease, also the gift of miracles cease. I don't believe
that. I mean, I guess it could happen, but I don't see that
as a necessary consequent. I don't see it necessarily so.
I see the Spirit of God still being able to work dynamically,
especially as I said, in places where we are just, as a society,
so poverty stricken that God has to do things supernaturally.
By the way, as we were affirming also last Sunday, that this notion
of the Spirit of God speaking to you ex cathedra, running over
against the finality of the Scriptures becomes a problem too. This is
loose language that goes on in your charismatic Pentecostal
churches. You guys be very careful of this. Because rational, reasonable,
God-honoring, I mean God-honoring Christians have a problem with
you when you say the Lord told me this. I just want you to hear
me now. Rational, reasonable, Bible-believing
Christians have a problem with you when you talk like you and
Jesus have an immediate one-on-one personal conversation every day.
Told you what? Told you what? Now, I think that
what you're doing is setting yourself up to lie on God by
uncareful speech. Having said that, believers have
the privilege of walking with God and hearing from God as he
makes profound impressions upon them through providence, through
circumstances, through their experience with God and through
the word of God. The Word of God now becomes the
grid by which the believer can hear God's voice in their life. Am I making some sense to you?
Am I making some sense? Now I can interpret how God is
dealing with me on a day-to-day basis or in a specific providential
situation where not only does He bring the Word back to me,
but He helps me understand that this situation is of the Lord. This situation is not of the
Lord. Go to the left. Go to the right. Stop. Wait.
Meditate, pause on that, move forward. In that sense, the believer
has an ongoing relationship with God. But this idea of somehow
God speaking in explicit terminology to you, please, your brothers
or sisters are not going to take you serious because one day you're
going to lie on God. I mean, we can be wrong, can't
we? And we often are. Okay, I won't even go into that
any further. I want you to think about that, because you need
to be careful about your term. See, Bible-believing Christians, Christians
who are close to their Bible, thy word have I hid in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee. Let my yea be yea, and
my nay be nay. Anything after that becomes evil,
becomes evil. They will listen to you and won't
say anything, and they'll be going, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
I wonder how serious they are talking about the Lord told me
last night. You want to interpret that for
me? See what I'm getting at? You don't know you're creating
a distance between you and that believer who recognizes that
if they start following you with that kind of loose talk, you're
going to unhinge them from the scripture. Inevitably, you're
going to say something that does not correspond to biblical truth,
and you're going to cause your brother or sister to stumble.
This is also the problem with what we're dealing with this
with the assumption that tongues are still present today I do
not believe that That the gift of tongues is present. I believe
that it ceased with the Apostles Because tongues was a vehicle
for revelation That's what first Corinthians chapter 14 very clearly
says tongues also was a sign wasn't it first Corinthians 14
22 Tongues were assigned not to those that believe but to
those that believe like not Contextually it was assigned to the who? Jews
It was assigned only to the Jews. It was not assigned to the Gentiles.
Tongues is not assigned to anybody. You have to understand the text
clearly. It was only to the Jews and it
was to the unbelieving Jews who did not believe that God had
raised Christ from the dead, set him on his throne and made
him the head over all and Lord over all. So they had to constantly
be reminded by God saving Gentiles, giving them the gift of languages
to show the Jews as the point of passages said with men of
other tongues and other lips. Will I speak to this people?
They still won't hear. And to today, The church is filled
with Gentile believers who praise God as it set forth very clearly
in Acts 2, and the Jews by and large, with the exception of
the elect, still don't believe. That's what is called a contextual,
historical, grammatical, and prophetic interpretation to tongues. So let me say it again so we
can go on to our next point. If you're going to be sounding your
conclusion as to what tongues is, it's going to be historical.
There's gonna be old and New Testament. It's gonna be prophetic. It's going to be the prophecy
that set forth in Daniel Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 49 Isaiah 28
11 Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 15 and then again in Acts chapter
13 Acts chapter 20 28 as well as 1st Corinthians 14 you have
to be consistent with Historically grammatically and prophetically
there is no grammar or Place in the scripture where God affirms
the pagan babble that you and I see going on in our world today
There's no place for it. So what we said last week when
we were dealing with tongues, remember that I said the problem
with tongues today is three things one is if it's a language we
can test it right and If it's a language, you can test it.
The gift of tongues when they are languages of men, you can
test them because they are dialects of some people groups somewhere
around the world. They can be tested to be. The problem with
a gift of non-human language, what you call it a heavenly language,
is you cannot test it. because it is a broken speech
pattern without syntax. And therefore, it doesn't follow
the pattern of regular language, so it can't be tested. So you're
telling me that if you have the gift of languages, some heavenly
language, some prayer language, and you are uttering that in
my presence, you're already violating the text, right? Remember what
we learned? If you utter it, you have to have an interpreter.
That's a regulatory principle. So all these folks that are just
babbling off, they're in sin. They're all in sin. That's first
Corinthians 14. But if you feel like you want
to just speak a revelation to me, speak a mystery to me, speak
a word of knowledge to me in the device called a tongue, you
better interpret it. Now, if you say that I don't
have the gift of interpretation and then you go and this is not
a human language gift like Cantonese or Mandarin or whatever, and
therefore you can't test it, Pastor Jesse, then I have to
reject you out of hand because we must test all things. We must
prove all things see the gift that god gave the church wasn't
to play games with sinners It wasn't to say the sinners you
can't you can't prove this It was a witness gift It was a witnessing
tool That god had broken through the jewish language into all
the other language groups of the world That's what that was
the implications in is Either if you have the gift of tongues,
you actually have the gift of languages and don't know it because
you don't have the gift of interpretation. Or if you have the gift of tongues,
you don't have the gift of languages, nor the gift of interpretation.
You just got some junk going on in your head, of which if
we spent the next few minutes, we could demonstrate because
it's already been tested. See, the gift of tongues has
been such a phenomenon and a troubling factor in history that sociologists,
linguists, psychologists have all examined it, Christian and
non-Christian, Christian and non-Christian. And so they've
already done the test. I think I told you last week.
So an individual will come in and say, I have the gift of tongues.
And they will say, well, what kind of tongue? What kind of
language? What kind of dialect? Because the word tongue all through
the scriptures means dialect. Every nation, kindred, tribe,
and what? That's a dialect. Which kind of tongue do you have?
Well, I don't know. OK, we'll test you to see what kind of
tongue you have. Well, you're not going to understand this
tongue. Well, are there interpreters around? Yeah, we have interpreters.
OK, we'll get some interpreters. Watch this. So they speak in
their tongue. It gets recorded. And then we
get an interpreter. Do you interpret tongues? Yes,
I interpret tongues. OK, we need you to listen to
this tongue and give us an interpretation. So he listens and he gives an
interpretation. Thus said the Lord. Da da da
da da da da. King James Version. All right.
Then they go get another one, because the way you test things
is by process of elimination. This is called empiricism. The
data. This is scientific. So you go
get another one and say, now you've got to give the interpretation.
Yes, I do. Would you interpret this? I certainly
will. He listens to it, and now in
the NIV version, he gives his interpretation. Both interpretations
are diametrically opposed to each other. The test is done. This was neither language that
one understood, and both of these two fellas perpetrated a fraud,
because they pretended to interpret when they didn't have the gift
of interpretation. And ladies and gentlemen, it
goes on in churches all the time. So why would I want to be subject
to that? What are the edifying factors of being in the midst
of some type of display, expose of something going on of which
I can't prove, test, or affirm? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? This is critically important for people who want to grow,
mature, and develop in Christ. I do want to make sure that I
give time to talk. Let's go on to our next point then. Point
number seven in our outline. If tongues and acts were the
same as in Koran, that is foreign languages, as Acts chapter 2
affirms, right? Then we are speaking of a foreign
language gift being controlled by three factors interpretation,
right? If you don't have an interpreter,
you can't speak Multiple language groups present, right? What's
the purpose? For God giving us all the gift
of tongues when we all speak English a monolinguistic group
does not need a tongue Why does God have to circumvent our language
dynamic, which is common among us, in order to give us a revelation? Since revelation is coming through
more than tongues. It's coming through knowledge,
it's coming through revelation, it's coming through prophecy,
it's coming through mysteries, right? Because we're still gathering
the scriptures, aren't we? So several vehicles of revelation
are coming according to the first century outpouring of the revelations. Why do we need to have a tongue? We don't. Tongues were specifically
for multiple people groups of which among those people groups
there would be Jews who would be suspect as to whether or not
these were truly Christian. This is the paradigm of the book
of Acts. Did that make some sense to you? First Corinthians is
the only place where tongues is talked about. Nowhere else
in the New Testament. First Corinthians, that seaport,
A babble of ethnic groups of all kind with a large constituency
of Jews. The same model as the Book of
Acts. Multiple ethnic groups coming together at Corinth. So
in any congregation, it's conceivable that you would have Italians
there, you would have Portuguese there, you would have some Asians
there, and you would have Jews. Ah, perfect scenario for God
to speak to the Jews in that context. You guys got that? Perfect
scenario, but you don't read about it in Ephesus. You don't
read about it in Colossae You don't really read about it in
Philippi. You don't read about it in Thessalonica You don't
read about it in these other places Asia Minor. Why common
linguistics? I'm making sense Emma and it's
very important for you to get this because the question has
to be answered Why did I adopt this practice? I? Did I adopt
this practice because I thoroughly examined the scriptures and saw
that this was really derived from the scripture? Or was I
simply assuming upon my environment and embraced it because I had
a natural propensity towards it? After all, you know, who
wouldn't want a gift? So it's important for you to
understand that if tongues and acts were the same as Corinth,
and we believe that it was, then these three regulatory principles
had to be there. Interpretation of tongues had
to take place if it was going to be done in public. Multiple
language groups had to be present if it was going to be done in
public. Thirdly, if it was going to be done in private, it had
to be a personal communal thing. Paul said, keep it to yourself,
didn't he? This is where a constituency
of the Pentecostal Charismatic Church says, I want the gift.
I want the gift, even if I have to keep it to myself. Well, keep
it to yourself. Keep it to yourself. Do you know
why? Because it does no one any good. without an authentic interpretation. And as soon as you get another
cat to come alongside of you and interpret it, we gonna get
a third and fourth cat to come along and interpret it. And if
we find out that you're in cahoots, you're gonna get kicked out of
the church for perpetrating the fraud in the name of Christ. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
There are other problems with that that are larger than that
when I deal with the multitude of reasons why I said, just leave
it alone. Personally, you wanna leave it alone. So point number
seven is very clear. What then is the warrant for
a difference of tongues in Corinth? That's in your outline, too.
What is the warrant for a difference of tongues in Corinth? The idea
that 1 Corinthians chapter 14 is not describing the same thing
as Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 10, Acts chapter 19. You know
that there's that interpretation, that the book of Acts does describe
human languages. But 1 Corinthians 14 is an isolated
text that's actually describing what we would call unintelligible
gibberish that is a non-human language gift. They would assert
that, but that breaks continuity with Scripture. There's no continuity,
there's no uniformity there. What lawful grounds do you have
to take 1 Corinthians 14 and snatch it up out of the New Testament
context Away from the book of Acts as a premise and framework
for the gift and say well, this is isolated all by itself It
has no support anywhere else in the scripture. It's a unique
Anomaly all by itself. You have no authority to draw
that kind of in conclusion. Am I making some sense? No authority
it Becomes also a very dangerous hermeneutic Because hermeneutics
is as I was sharing with you earlier in Isaiah 28 precept
upon precept, line upon line, a little here and a little there.
From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures cannot be broken.
They must harmonize. It's called the analogy of Scripture.
Scripture interprets Scripture, interprets Scripture, interprets
Scripture. The difficult things are interpreted
by the more clear and explicit things. The difficult things
are reigned in by the clear and explicit things. The clear and
explicit truths rule and dominate the more difficult, opaque and
mysterious truths. They don't get to just rise up,
control the whole body politic independent of everything else
in the scriptures. For instance, one of the reasons
why I abandon any continence of the gift of tongues is because
in our present day churches, they're sinning all the time
with it. They're violating first corinthians 14, right? You know
that So why is the holy spirit going to be so profusely? Operating
in the life of the people of god in a local church and letting
them just send all over the place when they got a whole chapter
That's called the ceo of first corinthians 14 clarity edification
and order As is in all the churches what gives you the right to act
a fool in your church and expect people to be edified Are you
guys hearing what I'm saying? Very important. So for me, the
fruit of the assumption of a non-language gift called tongues, wherein
people are speaking in the gibberish, that's the technical term for
it. The fruit of it is bad. I reject it because of the bad
fruit. I reject it because it doesn't edify. It doesn't build
up. It doesn't clarify. My observation
of the gift of tongues in most of our congregations that adopted,
especially over the panoply of time, the last hundred years,
is that it has not served to advance sound doctrine. It has
not served to produce maturity in the saints. Speaking in tongues
has not served to edify or build up the body. Speaking in terms
does not give the discernment critical to recognize false doctrine
and false teaching when it comes in The men are the women that
speaking in tongues very often when they come to me don't even
have a sound basis of salvation They don't know how to discern
error from truth the false prophets that we were clearly Identified
as heretical and unbiblical the people speaking in tongues. They
didn't even know they were false prophets and Until the word of
God was rightly divided Demonstrated to be clearly sound and cogent
in his argument against the practices of these false prophets and false
teachers their eyes were open and They were thankful because
you know what they really want as we said last week when you
are truly a born-again believer By necessity you have to grow
up You cannot stay obeyed and that's paul inherent argument
in first corinthians 13 and 14 And so when people go for years
and years and years in the Pentecostal system and in those Pentecostal
system They don't go deep into the word and you can't go deep
because if you go deep you gotta fix this in your churches You
have to fix it. You have to fix it and where
they don't want to fix it Then they don't they don't deal with
it. And if you don't deal with it, that means you are resisting the Holy
Ghost and So you are not going deep and so your people stay
shallow and what they have to do is be more existential as
a substitute for death and soundness of theology. I know what I'm
saying is the truth. And then finally, God's elect
says, you know what? Got to go. Got to go. Got to go. I got to
go deeper. Got to go deeper. I need to find
someone that's going to take me deeper. Because this is singing
and hooping and hollering. We getting old. We ain't running
around the building as fast as we used to. Did you see some
of those old cats running around with Kenneth Hagin there? I said,
boy, if you don't slow down, you're going to break your hip.
Old as you are, running around the building, acting a fool like
that. Point number nine. So you see it. The problem is
no contribution to sound doctrine, no contribution to personal holiness.
We already have stated and affirmed there are all kind of folks that
live super carnal lives that can speak in tongues for hours.
Perverts, adulterers, fornicators, child molesters, immoral. So
it doesn't sanctify. Sanctification comes by the Spirit
through the Word. You guys got that? A signed gift
doesn't sanctify. It only deceives, particularly
when it's used the wrong way. No contribution to discernment
of error no contribution to biblical unity or maturity. So go let's
let's go to our next point I need to get through this so I can
open the floor for questions What is the warrant for a difference
of tongues in Corinth? We already dealt with that point
number nine our point number 11 and 12. Here we go tongues
cannot cannot ladies and gentlemen be the essential sign of conversion
You guys know that, right? And yet many of our Kajik and
Word of Faith and Pentecostal churches swear, unless you speak
in tongues, you have no evidence. They're like, don't you read
your Bible? What are you doing? Keeping a
law on the people of God of which they have no ability to keep.
Forcing them into gibberish so that they can show you that they're
safe. See, that's diatrophies. You
guys got that? And when we get to the next one,
You can teach people how to speak in tongues. I can teach you right
now how to speak in tongues. I can teach you letter by letter,
line by line, and we can go to speaking in tongues, everyone
in here. I can teach you how to do it, which begs the question. So tongues cannot be the essential
gift for many reasons. It cannot be the essential gift
of conversion because when it was first given to the 120 in
the upper room, they were already what? Believers. They were already
believers. Then Paul taught us in first
Corinthians chapter 12, not all speak in tongues, not all have
the gift of apostleship, not all are teachers, not all are
miracle workers. That's a rhetorical no, right?
That eliminates the notion of an absolute principle with regards
to tongues having to be in the life of every Christian. Thirdly,
our master told us because tongues is a sign gift in Matthew chapter
seven, verse 21 and following, There would be a whole host of
people who would be boasting in doing miracles, casting out
devils, speaking and prophesying in his name. Remember tongues
is a prophecy gift of whom the Lord will say, I never knew you. That immediately disqualifies
tongues and miracles and prophecies as a necessary sign of conversion. You guys got that? You can be
speaking in a tongue, you Can be purporting to do a miracle
you can be prophesying and never ever met the Lord Which would
mean we call this an ellipsis by inference That you really
weren't operating out of the Spirit of God You were operating
out of a pagan dark spirit at best your carnal nature Are you
hearing what I'm saying? You're still lost still lost
as Paul's rhetorical argument Let's go on to our next point.
Tongues cannot be an initial sign of conversion. I think we've
got, okay. Those who insist to do so do it out of legalism and
an insecurity of their own foundation. You guys know this is true. What
do I mean by that? So many of us growing up in the
church over the decades that we've done it in our youth, you
know, our mom and our daddy drug us to church, mostly our mama
drug us to church. drug us to this little hole in
the wall, that little hole in the wall, the other little, you
know, we went to the little corner church where it was 20 people
and the pastor had you to pass the offering box around 20 times,
make sure he got his pay, and then made you feel bad if you
didn't give more. And then you still had to speak
until, you wasn't even in the kingdom then, you had to give
up all your money, you broke, and still not in the kingdom
until you speak in tongue. You didn't tear it all day, you're
hungry, but you can't leave until you start speaking in tongues.
Those days were something else, weren't they? How many of y'all
bear record with what I see there? Those hands go up, boy. I got
a hundred hands in the house. In your own time, read Proverbs
9. He talks about it. In any event, it's the insecurity
of people who don't know how to introduce people to Jesus
without getting control of them. This is called the group dynamic.
This is the group dynamic. This is the idea that if we're
going to keep them in our group, then we have to give them a special
sybilleth, shibilleth, for them to be able to be affirmed as
being part of our group. Rather than preaching the gospel
freely to them, letting them come to know Christ, and whether
they stay or go, they would be the Lord's, This insecurity that
we got to have you, we baptize you in Jesus name, the one that's
Pentecostals. Well, in what name did you baptize
them? Are you kidding? Same thing. Churches of Christ, churches
of Christ, they teach us a set of doctrines that if you don't
follow their doctrines to the T, you're not saved. See, this
is diatrophies rising up again, controlling the masses of the
people. It's sad, isn't it? Except for God's elect. You know what they do? They get
on their camel and start riding. I'm out. I'm out. If they have to sneak out, if
they have to run out, if they have to fight out, I'm out. because they come to understand
their soul longing to be right with the Savior that saved them
that they've got to grow and they're not growing here because
by and large the teachings in those places are not clear, they
are not cogent, they are not consistent, they are not developing
truth in a harmonious way that people come to love the Word
of God and grow in maturity. It's just true. It's just true.
So and then for the most part in your churches of Christ and
your kajik churches in your word-of-faith churches They have a salvation
that's based on words Most of those churches save you and they
threaten to damn you if you don't obey them, isn't that true? most
of those churches I said most a few of them get salvation right
over time they have to give it up and But most of them will
tell you that you are saved by something you do. And if you
don't hold on and hold out, you can lose your salvation. This
is clearly taught in your kajik churches, clearly taught in your
kajik churches. You know what that means? They
have no sound soteriology. They are clueless about the crosswork
of Jesus Christ, clueless about the atonement, which truth is
critical to be a gospel preacher. You cannot be a gospel preacher
without getting the gospel right. setting people up, um, on the
basis of fear rooted in works. And if they don't do them, they
can lose their salvation. And so in those systems, people
lose their salvation all the time. I meet them past. I used to be saved, but I don't
know where I'm at now because I tried to hold on. But those
holiness churches wore me out, found myself out, tired, got
tired of the hypocrites in the church, got tired of the self
righteous people in the church. Got tired of the preachers and
the elders and deacons with their lust bug in the church. You got
to sit in the back so that you wouldn't get touched. I look
by the deacon. It's horrible. But these are the conditions
in which people are in in many of these churches. And the reason
I'm talking to you about it is because it's necessary to talk
about. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Because decades
ago, it was your small storefronts. Today, it's your Joel Osteen
T.D. Jakes, Joyce Myers, and the whole
gamut of them, and they are the next echelon influencing the
White House and the world. You may not know this, but it's
true. You may not know how they are
conglomerate together, working together to shape the world.
They are very powerful now, and yet they still maintain and hold
to the very same heresies that we are denunciating right now.
They don't care about Christ. They don't care about the Word
of God. All they care about is how they can take over the world.
Teaching people how to speak in tongues begs the real question,
is a gift from God something that can be taught by man? There's
no example in the scripture nor mandate. See, the Spirit is a
personal passive dynamic without human mediation. And I give you
John chapter 3, Acts 2, 4, Acts 10, 44. You remember? Those brothers
are just sitting in the upper room, eating, talking, and going
on. Boom! Boom! Right? Peter didn't get up and
say, the Lord just sent me a letter and is giving me all of the vowel
points, so let's start with the A, E, O, O. Let's go. A, O. No. No. You didn't get taught how
to speak in tongues. The Holy Ghost came upon them
and gave them what? Utterance. They spoke very clearly,
very articulately in the language of the other people without human
mediation. Peter is speaking to the Gentiles
at Cornelius' house. He can't even get the gospel
out of his mouth. They go to speaking in tongues.
Are you hearing me? That's called a gift. That's
what Christ said in Hebrews chapter 8 when he says, No more shall
they say, Come, let us know the Lord. for they shall all know
me from the least of them to the greatest because I will come
and I will enter in through my word and I will give them such
a saving revelation of myself and bring them into such an intimacy
with me that no man will be able to boast that they were the means
by which they were initiated into the gifts. All right, so
here it is. The problem with tongues since
the canon was fulfilled is that tongues is either a redundant
practice You know what I mean by a redundant practice? It's
the same thing with a person who would say that I just received
a revelation from the Lord. Okay. You received a revelation
from the Lord. What did it say? What did the
revelation say? Well, the Lord said He's going
to give you peace. That was a revelation from the
Lord? Well, I've got that in 50 places in my Bible. The redundancy
principle begs the question, Why would the Lord speak to you
like that? And he could have shown me in
the Bible You got that that's a redundancy It's an unnecessary
redundancy Affirming the testimony of Scripture or as frequently
observed human statements actually contradicting the very teachings
of the Word of God How many of you heard somebody say the Lord
gave me a word and you listen to that word? And you know that
word was contrary to the Word of God. So I got a few of you
got a few of you Most of you don't know because you don't
know your Bibles But when someone says I got a word from the Lord
from you and they go into explicit details You should be able to
see whether that's affirmed in the Word of God or not that see
you're obligated You don't get to assume You gotta prove all
things Otherwise ladies and gentlemen what you're going to be doing
every time they practice I got a word from the Lord from you
is giving them your Bible and They become your authority And
this is the sad reality in our third world countries where there's
such a level of exaltation of the man of God that the people
don't have a Bible because they don't need one. They're waiting
for the witch doctor to tell them what the Lord said. I hope
to have that DVD in a couple of months or a couple of weeks,
and then I'll let you see it. It's sad. This is going on in
our African countries. where they're used to listening
to their superiors tell them what some God said. So now your
Word of Faith and your Pentecostals are all over there being great
men and great women of God and doing all kinds of stuff. But
see, the Word of God is not being taught. You guys understand what
I'm saying? See, here's the problem with the Pentecostal movement.
This is the problem with the Pentecostal movement. You got
that? Unfortunately. The Word of God, written and
canonized, is the problem with the Pentecostal movement. I mean,
if we didn't have the scriptures, we might be able to work with
that. But we got the scriptures now. And the scriptures can test
it, whether or not not only is it operating in an orthodox fashion,
but whether or not it's even legitimate. Point number 15. Let's check
15 out and call it if tongues and prophecies have actually
faded away and ceased Then you and I are dealing with a serious
problem of human sociological manipulation Which is very easy
Masses of people today are deceived by a lot of assumptions Egalitarianism
post-modernism secularism liberalism Pluralism. Relativism. I'm giving
you a whole list of ideologies where people operate out of these
things as being true. Evolution. We just dealt with
that class two weeks ago. People just buy evolution as
being true. Because it's everywhere taught.
It's pervasive everywhere. Oh, we know we came from a protozoan.
How do you know that? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? So, don't tell me that I'm stretching my argument when
I say Millions and billions of people can fall prey to assumptions
that are not tested and proven to be true This is what the Bible
means in first John chapter 5 when he says and we know the whole
world lieth in the lap of the wicked one in effect child of
God in effect the vast majority of people are deceived and The
vast majority of Christians in this 21st century are ignorant
at best So they're not qualified to discern prove all things so
fast to that which is true You guys hear what I'm saying? All
right, so I want to beg for just a few moments because this is
the last class We're going back to our study. I want to beg your
Patience and answer some questions if you have any if you guys have
just been overwhelmingly Influenced by the teaching we can shut it
down. But if you have some seriously burning questions, let's spend
a few minutes to talk You have to raise your hand. I can repeat.
Anybody got any questions going once. All right. Just say the
overall covenant of the Old Testament where in both the Jews were under
it as a system of works till Jesus would come. That's the
Old Testament. That's the old covenant. And
every one of the covenants that were attached to it that were
leading up to Jesus. the covenant of circumcision,
the covenant of Abraham, the covenant of David, these were
all adjacent covenants. You'll learn this when we get
back to biblical theology. They are all subsumed under these
old covenant paradigms that had their fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus
becomes the fulfillment of the old. He becomes the mediator
of the new, okay? You'll learn this even when we
go through the book of Hebrews. Somebody else, Melody. They prayed in
tongues publicly, didn't they? Mean they didn't pray in their
own private closet in their bathroom. You heard them praying in tongues
all over the church Which was a violation of first Corinthians
14 if you read the text whether it was a prayer Whether it was
blessing the Lord or whether it was a mystery if they did
it in the public It had to be interpreted because people sitting
there could not be edified You got that? Sure, you could hypothetically
if you believe that tongue still operates today But the question
we would ask is if you are praying in a tongue and your understanding
is unfruitful as the text said Where's the edification? That's
right. Of course there were the Yeah,
and I want you to listen to the CD over again because what you
have to be able to do is Grasp the conclusions that are derived
from the questions. This is critical This is learning
how to think things through. The conclusions that are derived
from the questions. If in fact tongues ceased, and
many of us believe that they did, what's taking place today? We've dealt with that in one
or two of our last questions. Our brothers and sisters who
are adopting the practice have to ask themselves whether they
are exercising a human gift taught them by men, or whether or not
they really received the gift from God, which means if they
received a gift from God, they get to emphatically say tongues
has not ceased. Don't they? All you got to do
is follow the logic. If they got a gift from God called
the tongue, then we're wrong about it having ceased. Right. Come on now, let me get a witness.
You're not that sleep. This is logic. This is what's
so important about the scriptures. If they ceased. You're doing
something that is human in nature or demonic in nature. Now, if
they didn't cease, if they didn't cease, then you're doing something
potentially that is divine in nature or human in nature, because
we proved that it's human, or demonic in nature. Remember what
we learned? The gift of tongues is a sign. It's not a sanctifying gift.
You don't even have to be saved. Somebody else, my brother. Well,
if you go back to our beginning study, our beginning study taught
that Acts chapter 2 is what is called an anti-Babylonian manifestation,
or paradigm, anti-Babylonian. At the Tower of Babel, they were
scattered, and their tongues were divided. In Acts chapter
2, they were unified. So that's an anti-Babylonian
manifestation of the kingdom of God. God is bringing his people
back together under one common language, and that language is
the gospel. That was a prophecy in John 20.
The fulfillment was in Acts chapter 2. I saw a hand back there. My brother, speak up for me.
He actually said, you'll be able to do greater things than that
because I go to my father. Right. Well, a couple of things.
What Jesus said in John chapter 14, contextually, he was speaking
to his apostles. His apostles were extensions
of him. Jesus is the Messiah. He was the quintessential prophet
and all of God's prophets were able to do miracles to affirm
and authenticate their being sent by God. The apostles also
were able to do what Jesus did. You read the book of Acts, didn't
they raise the dead? And in fact, in manners explicitly in the
same pattern Jesus did, which means Peter paid attention for
once to Jesus when he raised sister Dorcas from the dead.
Remember that? For once. What we're saying is when the
apostles and the prophets of the first century who were the
foundation of the church died off and we were able to establish
the canon of scripture, we no longer need those kinds of men
are gifted persons because we have the revelation. That's not
the greater work is not signs and wonders and miracles since
we have a firm that you don't even have to be saved. Multitudes
will perish having said we prophesied we did many miracles we cast
out devils right All right So the greater works would be the
works of reaching men and women on every planet in every nation
with the gifts given by the spirit to the church which are Manifold
more gifts than the sign gifts and the miracle gifts that were
accompanying the prophets and the apostles the church still
does Magnificent work all around the world if you pay attention
to it Magnificent work all around the world. Hold on for another
another lady any the men monopolizing any women no more women I'll
take two more and then we'll shut it down. No right here keep
that's because it would be a different it would be a different interpretation
and They would imply that knowledge, which would be done away with,
was a gift that would be contrary to the Scriptures. In other words,
the knowledge of 1 Corinthians 13 is a revelatory gift. Just
like tongues is a revelatory gift and just like prophecy.
So like knowledge and prophecy are two different things. Knowledge
can be a word that God gives to us that's relevant right now.
Prophecy can be a future revelation of something that God is going
to do in the future. So you have nuances between the term knowledge,
between the term wisdom, between the term prophecy. So one has
to be careful. But what we're saying is, if
we have a closed canon, we're not going to be receiving new
revelation in a knowledge or in a prophecy or in a tongue. It was a tool of revelation.
So when they say, I got a word of knowledge, well, that's the
same thing as saying I speak in tongues. Because if you got
a word of knowledge, you better correspond with this book. It
better not say more than this book. better not say less than
this book and if it says the same as this book we fall back
pray to redundancy don't we you got a word of knowledge for me
brother what chapter and verse is that in that just went over
your heads no no my sister right continuationist we've been talking
about that cessation means to cease cessationist means that
the miracles of the tongues the revelatory gifts and the sign
gifts that accompanied the Apostles and the prophets of the first
century When once the scriptures were completed revelation chapter
22 18 19 and so far once the scriptures were completed those
gifts faded out as a means for guiding the church and tongues
ceased because they were revelatory gifts and Once we had our Bible,
and you got to remember now, and I don't have time, but if
we went into bibliology, we would understand why Paul said tongues
ceased abruptly and knowledge and prophecy gradually faded
out because it took time to put the canon together. So the spirit
of God was still working with the people of God until all of
the scriptures were put together. Do you understand what I'm saying?
It took time. He still guides us through a
lot of impressions and providences and ways, but explicitly through
the scriptures. And that's why the church, when
once the scriptures were canonized, the main job was translation
work to get the word of God into people's languages so that they
can have the authoritative, plenary, full, verbal, inerrant, infallible
scriptures. That way they could test their
teachers. Atmosphere? Yeah. And many of them do. Yeah. Those are many of my brothers.
Mm hmm. Well, some of them, I have no doubt that some of my brothers
and sisters are true believers because they understand the gospel.
See, the gospel is the litmus test. If you tell me that, you
know, Jesus is a transformer, sometimes he's a father, sometimes
he's the Holy Ghost. Uh, and sometimes he's Jesus
and you don't have a clue on the atonement, but somehow you
didn't got filled with some spirit. You probably not say, You understand?
Because the work of the Spirit is to show you Jesus, teach you
Jesus, help you get rooted and grounded in Jesus. In terms of
these other gifts, my brothers and sisters have to... Struggle
with themselves when once they are exposed to sound biblical
teaching as to whether or not those gifts are truly authentically
from God what we can demonstrate clearly is that those gifts are
not necessary for the building up of the body because we have
the church all around the world and Multitudes of people don't
speak in tongues multitudes of people who serve God effectively
and powerfully are not clamoring after some type of sign gifts
and You guys understand that? So what my brothers and sisters
who are claiming to have signed gifts and miracle gifts have
to do is prove that. Because they got to deal with
what this book says. And I'm obligated to say the
book says this. And so there's a need to affirm
those things, and then there's a need to regulate them. In any
event, we are all to walk in charity and love one towards
another. If your sign gifts are so-called gifts that that you
say you have received from the Spirit are so Important to you
that they hinder you from working unless you're able to tell everybody
you speak in tongues. You got to grow up Isn't that
what the text is saying grow up? Those with those what are
called infant gifts They were to help the early church when
they were done, right they were helpful. I But you and I have
talked about abuses that have gone on and abuses are rampant
in our churches with these gifts They're abuses my sister back
here. Yeah, let's say hypothetically we are in a Continuationist mode
that that God's still giving revelation. I'm already told
you tongues. It's a revelatory gift Yeah,
y'all starting to think this through yet. I know you ready
to go home But let's say ostensibly, you know We didn't make the connection
here. And we're still in revelatory
times. 1 Corinthians 14 is dead serious
about how people behave with the gift. So if you have the
gift of tongues, you know you can't be edified unless there's
an interpretation. This is what the text says. See,
edification is not getting goosebumps. Edification is not getting warm
fuzzy feelings. The linguists and the sociologists
and the psychologists have already demonstrated people who talk
in tongues actually stop thinking. So the cognitive side of your
brain that's trying to understand is in conflict with that part
of your being that's just kind of letting it go. Because you
haven't been told that you have to interpret that thing. But
now that you're under obligation to interpret that thing, especially
if you're going to be dealing with people in public, you are
in trouble. Because you're sitting there
feeling good. It's an emotional feel good. Of course it is. That's why people do it. The
pagans do it until they go into trances. But without interpretation,
you are now in conflict because you realize you can't edify yourself
or anyone else. Paul made it very clear. Some
people argue that when he was describing tongues, whether in
prayer or blessing, he was dealing with it from a hypothetical standpoint,
not an indicative standpoint. That is, he was not asserting
that that's what you're supposed to do. He was saying, but since
you guys are doing it, here's the problem. Okay? Since you
guys are doing it, here's what's going on. You're getting all
caught up in yourself and feeling good emotionally, but it's not
edifying. It may be gratifying, but it's
not edifying. Because edification is it amounts
to understanding. So what he was saying is your
brother or sister next to you or around you as they're watching
you go off are not only not being edified but in some cases being
distracted. Can I get a witness? I just want
to tell you that's 80% of y'all. So that's why you have never
seen that manifestation here because there's no way you can
adopt distraction and non-edifying practices. So you're struggling
so if ostensibly the gift was allowed to be done in the context
of prayer the text plainly said let him ask for the gift of interpretation
so he can be edified because Ostensibly God's God's giving
him a revelation or her revelation, right? You'd have been praying
in tongues for 20 minutes. He said Lord. What was I talking
about? Okay. All right, you you know what though if you if you're
his he'll put you in the right place. He gonna grow you up My
brother way back there. I appreciate what you just said
my brother. I appreciate what you just said
See the problem see the problem and he mean he meant well He
was trying to interpret that thing that had no possibility
of being interpreted So he's trying to make reason out of
a pagan environment Because that's what pagans do. Okay, it is anti-intellectual
That man would have went in that service and left that service
just as ignorant of Jesus as when he went in Which can never
be the work of the Spirit of God See, this is a challenge
the continuationist is telling me that I don't have enough of
God and people who have not found the scriptures to be sufficient
and and the Holy Ghost capable of edifying and building up and
strengthening and bringing about great joy and great edification
and usefulness through the Word of God are tempted to fall prey
to those mindless, inexplicable experiences and try to interpret
it as God. At that point you're in trouble
because you have no way of testing it. Are you guys following what
I'm saying? You are adopting chaos, which is what 1st Corinthians
14 says don't do Doesn't it? Yeah, I'm telling you at the
end of the day You cannot get away from the regulatory principles
of 1st Corinthians 14. See you can't get away from it
You have to deny the book and then just go into the cacophony
and call that edification But as soon as the book is open and
say hey Watch this Let there be two or three at the most and
let them interpret And let everybody else hold their peace. Isn't
that what this book says now all the cacophony is shut down
No clowning no showboating. No, look at me No preacher reading
across the stage and going off See what i'm getting at Let's
close in prayer Let's stand Father, we thank you for your goodness
and your mercy to us. We're your children But we need
to grow up and continue to grow up that you might use us mightily
in ways that glorify your name. We thank you for our brothers
and sisters that hunger for you everywhere in all parts of the
body of Christ. We are yours. Grow us up that
we might walk in the unity of the faith of the Son of God.
Help us to be rooted and grounded in a knowledge of him. Help us
to know your word. Help us to have it to be where
it's all fitted in our lips. Help us to walk humbly with the
Lord our God. Help us to serve you. Glorify
you as we go our way give us traveling mercies. Oh lord. We
pray in jesus name amen blessings unto you saints