Tongues Today - #2

In part one of this lesson we reviewed a particular phenomenon related to the Holy Spirit and seen in the book of Acts, and that is speaking in tongues. And I said to you, basically, that the speaking in tongues that we know about today is not what is written about in the Bible. It's called the same thing, but it's not the same thing.

We reviewed the history of how this doctrine or this thing called speaking in tongues, how the modern-day practice grew, how it developed. There were four or five important points that I made. I want to review those for the first three minutes and then get into the word.

The first thing I said was that the teachings of Calvin and Wesley, two old theologians, claimed that a person was chosen by the Holy Spirit for salvation and that this choice was evident in your life through some visible signs. That's where it all started. God chooses you to be saved through the Holy Spirit. And you know that you're one of the chosen ones because there's something about you that's different. That was what Calvin and Wesley taught.

Secondly, we said that the Pentecostal movement of the early 20th century joined the idea of speaking in tongues- what I call jibberish, not just me, that's what psychologists who've studied it and others called it, jibberish- as the legitimate sign of the Holy Spirit's call. They helped to establish the Pentecostal churches in the United States.

Remember I told you that before the 20th century, this business of speaking in tongues had not been mentioned at all in any church for 19 centuries. It was mentioned of course in the first century with the apostles and the first century church, but after the first century, historians did not refer to this anymore. It was not something that anyone did in the church for 19 centuries, until the beginning of the 20th century.

We talked about how this tongue-speaking was mistakenly called the baptism of the Holy Spirit and it was practiced throughout the world and charismatic churches. I gave you all the history of that. A man named Oral Roberts has the greatest responsibility for having spread this false doctrine in the 20th century because he did it on television.

I also talked about the psychological profile that was made by sociologists and various individual psychologists who studied, over a period of 10 years, people who claim to have this gift of speaking in tongues. I shared with you the results of their 10 years of research. And the result was two things: One, it was a learned habit. And second, it was usually- not always, but usually learned through the techniques used in mass hypnosis: tremendous peer pressure, tremendous focusing on this one thing.

And I shared with you my own experience in the Pentecostal church. And I didn't say this, but that was exactly how I also thought I could speak in tongues. I mean, for days and days at the meetings. It was over and over, speaking in tongues and people doing it and doing it and doing it. Pretty soon I was speaking gibberish. "Hey, I can do it too!" Well, sure. I could do it. I mean, I've been listening to it for two, three months. Of course I can do it too. What that book said ("The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues" by J.P. Kildahl) was exactly my own experience through tremendous peer pressure and example.

Then finally, I reviewed with you the dangers of falling into this trap of false teaching, which could lead away from the true gospel and faith in Jesus Christ to faith and dependence on an artificial sign. One of the reasons why it's so difficult to study with people who think they have this gift is that they believe that this thing that they do is the sign of their salvation. And if they were to give it up, they wouldn't be saved, which of course is not true.

What the Bible says about tongues speaking, and don't get me wrong, speaking in tongues was a legitimate miracle, but the Bible describes what it waw and that's what I'd like to go over in this lesson. I'm going to start in II Timothy, but then we're going to go to Matthew and I'm going to go all the way through the New Testament. I'm going to take one scripture at a time, every scripture that talks about tongues. At the end of the 20 minutes, you'll see what the Bible teaches about tongues. And you can decide for yourself.

The Bible guides us in the search for truth.

Every scripture is inspired by God.
- II Timothy 3:16

The Bible is inspired by God. So we don't need an inspired teacher to guide us. That's very important. We have everything we need in the Bible. The Bible contains all the information that we need in order to be saved, in order to live Holy lives, in order to know God and to know Jesus Christ.

¹³Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁴Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
- II Timothy 1:13-14

Paul is saying the Bible is the standard against which we measure all teaching. Sometimes people say, "Boy, you guys are rough. You're rough on these other churches. You're rough on these other denominations." No, we're not. All we're doing is we're taking what they have publicly taught and we're holding it up to the light of scripture. Anyone has the right to do the same with what we teach. I challenge any other ministry, any other Bible teacher to hold up to the light of the scriptures, what we teach. I'm not worried about that. I won't be offended. I'd be happy, as a matter of fact.

The Bible says the standard for what is true and right is not how you feel or what you've experienced. The Bible says the standard for what is true and what is right is the Bible itself. It has nothing to do with feelings.

One of the things that's interesting, he says in verse 14, "Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in you, the treasure which has been entrusted." The reason, one of the reasons we have the Holy Spirit is to guard the Bible and to maintain it one generation to the other. That's another important thought. One of the reasons that we do teach about doctrinal matters, one of the reasons why I say, "This is what this group teaches. This is what this group teaches, and so on and so forth," and I compare it to the Bible and we're very strong on this idea. It's not to knock other people or hurt other people's feelings. It's to make sure that we retain the soundness of the word from one generation to the other. Because these young ladies and these young gentlemen here, these young Christians sitting in these first pews here, they are the ones who are going to be the Sunday school teachers and the Bible teachers, and hopefully the preachers of tomorrow.

And what I have found and discussed this matter of fact with Dr. McMillan over OSI were kind of chatting about this problem of ministry students. And he said the single biggest problem with young men who are going into OSI to train for ministry, they're not well-grounded in the word. They have to be. It was at one time they could start with these young man and just start teaching them the more difficult things about the faith, because they assume that all these young men had been grounded properly in their home congregations. They knew the difference between the old and new Testament. They knew the stories, they understood the basic doctrines. They were solid and they came to learn how to preach to not anymore. Now he says, we've got to go all the way back to the beginning and teach them all the ABCs because they're not being taught that in the local congregation.

Well, I hope that that's not true in this congregation. I hope that any young man that leaves here and goes to any of training center, preaching school, college, whatever it is, will be solid in the faith. We will not get reports from professors and Bible teachers that our kids don't know the word. I want them to know the word, be solid.

Now, what does the Bible teach about tongues? Therefore, if it's the inspiration and if it's the standard, what does it teach? Well, there are several passages that teach about this phenomenon and give examples of it being done. And the way that you learn something is that you go to the Bible and take every passage that talks about that one subject. And you read all of them and you kind of summarize, what do they say?

¹⁸And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
- Matthew 28:18-20

Jesus gives the great commission and for the purpose of our study, we also see that He promises the apostles to always be with them in their work. That's a key idea. The question is, how is he always going to be with them?

¹⁵And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. ¹⁶He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. ¹⁷These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; ¹⁸they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
- Mark 16:15-18

Jesus gives the same commission and he explains in what way, he will help the apostles in their work. He says the apostles will be empowered to do signs and the ones that they laid their hands on will also be empowered to do signs. Now, the interesting thing, as far as our lesson is concerned, one of the signs, one of the ways that he's going to help them is this. He says they will speak in new tongues. Literal translation is they will speak

In new languages,

Languages that they never spoke

Of before.

We'll talk about that a little later. So there's the promise. You're going to speak in new tongues.

Okay. Now

Let's go to acts chapter one verses

In acts chapter one, verse four. I don't

Have that one listed, but it's one that we need to do ahead

Of time. In acts chapter one, verse four, Jesus

Gathers them together and he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the father had promised, which he said, you heard from me for John baptized with water. Listen now, but you shall be baptized with the Holy spirit. Notice he doesn't say you'll receive the baptism of the Holy spirit. Doesn't say that he says you will be baptized with the Holy spirit. I challenge you to read through the entire new Testament and see if you can find anywhere where it says baptism of the Holy spirit. You won't find

It. You won't

Find it. It's baptism with the Holy spirit. And as far as the apostles were concerned, baptism with the Holy spirit was the empowering to do all those miracles, including speaking in tongues. That was what baptism with the Holy spirit was all about. And on Pentecost, they receive that thing. Okay. Now acts chapter two verses

It says,

You know, the Holy spirit comes upon them and it says, and they were all filled with the Holy spirit. There's the baptism with the Holy spirit. Okay. And began to speak with other tongues. As the spirit was giving them utterance.

It's very, very important. The word utterance to

Speak plainly

In the Greek. It

Means as he gives them utterance, planes

Beach, no mystery here just as well.

Jesus had promised the Holy spirit empowers the apostles and the first sign that they manifested of their new empowering was the gift

Gift of tongues. Okay. Now we have to do a little grammar. The word tongues here in the Greek is made up of two words. The first word is gloss and

Glosser in the Greek means a language.

The second word is Lagos. And in the Greek,

That word means tribes.

You know, like a tribe,

The word, you know, we translate speaking in tongues in the Greek, the word was gloss, a Lagos gloss, a Laos, which means

The tongues of tribes.

The Holy spirit empowered them to speak

Tongues of tribes. Every year

Instance of this word in the new Testament,

The Greek word

That they use is for human language

Widgets. There isn't

Another word in the Greek for what's called ecstatic.

It's all right.

Every time the Bible mentions speaking in tongues, it always uses the Greek

Big word for a human language, the tongue of tribes. Okay. All right. Acts chapter two,

Verses five to 11. Very interesting. Now it says there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were bewildered because they, each one hearing them speak in his

Own language.

We're amazed and marveled saying, why are not all these, excuse me. Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans and how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia and Judea and Kappa dosha, Pontus, and Asia for JIA and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the district of Libya around siren and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes cretins and Arabs. We hear them in our own tongues. Speaking of the mighty deeds of God,

What was going on here,

Parcels clearly demonstrate their ability to speak in human language that they not known or studied before

The new

Testament, even names, the languages that they were speaking. I mean, it even goes through the trouble of, of listing all the languages that they were speaking and that they were speaking them without special interpretation. The people understood,

Um, the

People understood what the apostles were saying in their own language, which means that the apostles spoke clearly each particular language. It wasn't something, you know, I hear people go bend themselves out of shape, you know, to make their own doctrinal point. Some people say, Oh yeah, well, they were speaking this like ecstatic language that nobody understood. And the miracle was that God enabled all the people out there who hear in their own language,

But you know, God doesn't

Go six blocks down the road who make a miracle.

It says each them

Possible was speaking in and new tongue. And the people who are listening to them, we're understanding them in a language, in a known human language. And it even mentions the name of the language

Clear speech. All right, let's look at a couple of more scriptures here. Acts chapter

10, verse 46 talks about Cornelius. I won't be able to read all the passages because some of them are long, but we can read this one. It says, uh, you know, Cornelius, you know, the story, the spirit falls on them. They begin speaking in tongues. And it says for, they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God Cornelius spoke in other languages and Peter and the others were understanding exactly what he was saying

In acts chapter 19, verse six,

It says. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy spirit came on them. And they began speaking with tongues and prophesied. This is a passage describing the Ephesians that Paul

Had rebaptized

After Apollo said preached

To that. And it says

That after he had baptized them for the remission of sins, then he laid hands on them. He was an apostle, and then they received

The ability to do miracles.

And the first miracle that they did these men was that they spoke in tongues again, the same Greek word, lost Soleil's. They spoke in languages of tribes,

Which were understood

By Paul and by Luke and by everyone there first Corinthians chapter 12,

This passage. And I'll

Summarize this after, at end here, I'm just going on. These are all the passages that talks about tongues. There are darn, there are no others in chapter 12, verse 10, it says into another, the effecting of miracles and to another prophecy and into another, the distinguishing of spirits into another various kinds of tongues. And to another, the interpretation of tongues. Paul is talking about the Holy spirit giving gifts to the first century church. Now, since Jesus promised only one gift of tongues, and that was the ability to speak in other languages without prior study. And at Pentecost, this gift was given to the apostles. It was demonstrated. And it was explained clearly by Luke, we must conclude that when Paul is talking to the Corinthians, he's talking about the same thing he's saying the Holy spirit gives the gift of speaking in tongues to other people.

And he gives it through the laying on of hands of the apostles. Okay. Now in verse 10, it says different languages, different from the ones that they knew, they knew how to speak Greek. So he gave them the gift of speaking in other languages. And verse 11 says the spirit gave these, but in all, but one time, these gifts were given through the laying on of the hands of the apostles. If you go through the new test, okay. And you study every time somebody spoke in tongues every single time, except one time, it was as a result of the apostles laying hands on that person. And once the apostles laid hands on that person, that person could then begin speaking in tongues, only one exception. And that was Cornelius. And the reason that Cornelius could speak in tongues is because, because he was used by God, as an example to the apostles that even the Gentiles were to receive the gospel and we're like allowed to be baptized.

And the only way that God could have to kind of demonstrate it to the apostles was to show a miracle through Cornelius. But other than Cornelius, no one else never spoken tongues unless the apostles laid hands on them. All right, let's keep going. First Corinthians 13, verse eight. He says, love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. You know, it's funny, no one today argues that prophecy is finished. There are no profits today who predict accurately the future and predict that they S I mean, some of them say, you know, I'm a prophet. And I, you know, I can tell that you're angry and you have a spirit of anger. You know, that's not biblical prophecy. Biblical prophecy says in five years, this is going to happen on this day.

Exactly. In this way, Paul says that type of prophecy will be done away with, and he says knowledge, in words, miraculous knowledge, no studying, you know, the will of God. You know, that will be done away with when well, when the, when we have the Bible, we'll have all the knowledge right here. It's funny. No one argues the fact that these things will be done away with, well, he also says tongues will be done away with two. Why do we try to hang on to that? In the 20th century? It doesn't make any sense. The gift of tongue stopped and the Holy spirit didn't do it directly anymore because he did that only for a special time and a special reason during the first century. All right, let's look at some others here.

Uh, give me the red, there you go.

First Corinthians chapter 14, 12.

Let me read that to you.

It says, so also use, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret for. If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome? Then I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with the mind. Also, I shall sing with the spirit. I shall sing with the mind also. And he goes on and on to talk about,

Um, let's see.

Uh, when in the assembly, Paul is saying a tongue speaker makes, uh, speaks only to God since no one else understands his language. I mean, if I, all of a sudden [inaudible], does anyone understand? Well, of course not. I understand God understands, but none of you understand right now, thankfully, we have an interpreter in the audience, my wife, she speaks French. She understands also what I am saying, Paul is saying, what good is this gift of tongues to the assembly? If you start speaking in a language, no one understands you understand God understand nobody else understands. It's no good to you. So if you have that gift, make sure there's an interpreter. And so you can speak. And then the interpreter can get up and interpret for the church. What you've said, that's the purpose of it?

Um, uh,

Let's see. Verses three to 19, of course, I'm just repeating this here. The object is to Edify and comfort and teach the church. And the gift that does that is the gift of prophecy, the gift of preaching and teaching. So he's saying to the church, don't try to get the gift of tongues, try to get the gift of teaching and preaching. That's what builds up the a that's what builds up the church. He says better. You have five words that people could understand. Then a thousand words that nobody can understand. What good is it? What if I preached my greatest sermon, all in French to you I'd feel good. God would understand, but who here would be at a five? Other than my wife, no one would be edified. So he says, and I skipped a little down,

Um, uh,

Verse 20. He says, brethren, you know, first Corinthians 14, 20 says, brethren do not be children in your thinking yet, an evil be babes. But in your thinking, be mature in the Lord is written by man of strange tongues. And by the lips of strangers, I will speak to this people. And even so they will not listen to me, says the

Lord. So then

Tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers, but prophecy is for assigned not to unbelievers, but for those who believe if therefore the whole church should assembled together and all speak in tongues and an ungifted man or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you're mad? But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all. Then he is called to account by all the secrets of his heart are disclosed. And so he will fall on his face and worship God declaring that God is certainly

Among you.

Paul says that tongues is assigned for unbelievers. The old Testament said that the apostles would speak in foreign languages. That would be a sign that their message was legitimate and Matthew or Mark 16, Jesus said they would have this particular gift. He goes on to say that the gift of prophecy is a sign or a gift for believers, because the word builds up the church. Prophecy also convicts. Those who assembled with the church because they can preach the gospel and people can understand it. You know, nonbelievers who have no gift of tongues or interpretation. If they come in, they don't know. And you're speaking in tongues, he can't understand what's going on.

Okay?

Then in verse 26, we'll run down again. He says, what is the outcome? Then brethren, when you assemble each one has a song. Each one has a teaching. Each has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation, let all things be done for interpretation. For edification. The goal of the meeting of the church is to Edify the church. And so everything should be done in an orderly way. And then he finishes up. I don't have time to read it up in verse 27 and 40. He goes through and talks about the proper way to conduct yourself in church. He says, there's a way to conduct yourself in the assembly and to use your particular gifts. And he explains how that should be done. If you preach, if you're prophecy, that's what prophecy was to preach. Then one gets up and he preaches and the others. Listen, if there's a comment, a comment is given. If somebody has the miraculous gift of tongues, well, if there's an interpreter, let that person get up and speak in tongues. And then let the interpreter interpret what was said. That was the proper way of doing things

In the first century. In

The end, he says, therefore, my brethren desire, earnestly to prophesy and do not forbidden to speak in tongues. And I have a lot of people today saying, see right there, it says, you know, you shouldn't forbid speaking in. Well, of course not.

He says why

The gift remains. There's a proper way of using it. You know, he wasn't telling the churches in the first century, don't speak in tongues because it causes confusion. No, he says, make sure you understand what the gift is and use it properly, but the gift doesn't exist anymore. So we don't have that

In junction. All right, that's it. Those are the scriptures. There are no more that speak about tongues. I mean, there are a lot

Of terms, you know, slayed by the spirit, drunk on the spirit. You know, a lot of terms that people have invented, but none of them are biblical and brothers and sisters, false doctrine. And heresy always begins when you start adding names and ideas to the Bible that don't exist there. All right. So let's summarize, okay.

Real quick. What have we said so far? This is what we believe the Bible teaches. First of all, Tom

Lawns, according to the grammar is the language of human,

Human language,

Static language, not language, nobody to get, understand human language, sociologists and anthropologists have studied

The tongue speakers. And then

They have concluded that what they're speaking is no known language, either modern or ancient or primitive, it has nothing. It isn't the language they call it.

Number two, the ability to

You speak in tongues was the ability to speak a foreign language without study. Yes, I speak in tongues. You know, people make jokes and say, Oh, you speak French. You speak in tongues. No, I don't. I speak a foreign language because I grew up speaking that language. The legitimate miracle was if I could speak Russian now, okay. That's that's the miracle. Or if I could speak Oki.

Yeah.

Get through the whole thing without saying that, I don't think

Actually the miracle

Is understanding oaky, not speaking,

But

What I'm saying, you know what I'm saying? It that the legitimate miracle is to be able to speak a foreign language without,

Uh, training. Thirdly,

It was given to the apostles by the Holy spirit at Pentecost, the baptism with the Holy spirit, empowered the impossibles to do a variety of things, to heal and to have knowledge and to speak in foreign languages without prior training. And they demonstrated this ability on Pentecost Sunday, the Bible even lists all the languages

That they spoke fourthly.

It was given to Cornelius as a sign by the Holy spirit. This particular miracle was given to one Gentile in a miraculous way as a signal or a symbol to the apostles that the gospel was also meant for the Gentiles. Up until that time that the apostles were only preaching to the Jews. It took them 10 years. Did you realize between Pentecost Sunday and Cornelius, 10 years went by and the apostles were just precinct to

The Jews. So finally,

You know, God had to open their eyes, that the gospel was also for the Gentiles and he did this by allowing a Gentile to speak in tongues. And so that opened their eyes and they noticed they baptized him right after that. Number five, it was given to others by the laying on of hands. It was a legitimate miracle, but only the apostles possessed it. And only those on whom they laid their hands. And we read in the book of acts, for example, a Philip goes into Samaria and he begins preaching. And he's doing all kinds of miracles. And a lot of people believe because of his preaching and the miracles. And it says in the book of acts that Phillip baptized all these people, but then he sent to Jerusalem

For Peter and John who traveled to Sumeria and

Launch the apostles were in Sumeria. They laid hands on the people that Phillip had baptized. And immediately those people began to speak in tongues. Well, why didn't Phillip lay hands on them? I mean, he could do miracles. He preached the gospel, but he didn't have the power to lay hands on them and transfer the gift. Only the apostles had that power. Number six. It is used as a sign for unbelievers in the first century.

Okay. It was used outside

To show unbelievers that the gospel was the true message of God. If you notice,

Uh, excuse

Me. It at Pentecost, it was used this way. Simon, the sorcerer saw it and was impressed. And how do you think the apostles who were Galileans went all over the place to preach the gospel in countries and nations where they didn't know how to speak the language? Wow. They did it because they could speak in tongues. Number seven. It was used as edification within

Whenever tons were spoken about

Within the assembly. In the first century, it was used simply to encourage the church and always when there was an interpreter.

Okay. Uh,

And then finally it ceased when the apostles died, because there was no way to, uh, it was no way to pass them on. Now, how do we know that God has, you know, the question is, okay, the apostles died, but God,

I could give it and say, God could do it. How do you know God didn't give this gift.

So all these people in all these charismatic churches, well, very

Simple, very simple, no

Has ever demonstrated the biblical nobody's ever demonstrated that that's the problem right there. Anytime someone comes to me, if my mother begins to speak Chinese, I will change my doctrinal position, but no one has ever demonstrated biblical tongues. Okay. And if there are no times, there are no other gifts as well. They all go together. You ever notice people have tongues, but they don't heal. They don't have wisdom. They can't prophesy. They can't do all the other gifts, just tongues. But in the Bible, if you had the tongues, you can do all the other stuff too.

Um,

So I don't have an overhead for the last few things. Why do I not believe that tongues exist today? And I know you opened TV and you'll get 10,000 people in an auditorium and they all believe that they can speak in tongues. You know? And you say to yourself, well, by sheer numbers, you ought to believe it. I mean, 10,000 people get me wrong. Hey, listen. How many billions of people are there in China? Who are atheists? Does that mean atheism is right.

We go by you. You want to go by numbers or how big the cathedral is. That's not how you go. Why do I not believe tongues exist today? Number one, they're not human languages. It's only jibberish. It's only Jim. It's not a human language. Number two, the Bible says utterance meant plain talk. They uttered in tongues. They spoke in plain languages and that's not what this is. Number three, the apostles are dead. So there's no way to receive the gift. Number four, Paul says in first Corinthians that this gift would stop. Why do we have such a problem? Believing that number five, it's never used as a sign for unbelievers today, as it was intended. That's the, for me, that's the real point. The Holy spirit says that the gift of tongues was used as a sign for unbelievers to impress them. Well, you know what? Nobody has ever impressed. As a matter of fact, Pentecostals never speak in tongues on TV. They never do it on TV. It's too weird. It's too weird. It's only used for mutual edification. If you ever went to a Pentecostal assembly, everybody's speaking tongues all at once. Well that's unbiblical. The Bible says, that's not your way. Should do it.

Number six, anthropologists have recorded African tribes reproducing the same. They've gone to African tribes.

Yes. And during their pagan rituals

Using the same type of jibberish in their pagan rituals. Well, let's make up our minds here. Is it the gift of the Holy spirit? Or is it something else? If it can be reproduced artificially, you know what? If you wanted, we could have a class next month. I could teach all of you.

I could teach you how to do it. If it's a learned thing, it's not of God, it doesn't pass the criteria.

Brothers and sisters, don't be afraid to believe the truth. Don't be afraid. You're going to hurt somebody's feelings because you say, this is right. This is true. This is what the Bible says. Don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed of the truth to stand up for it.

Don't be embarrassed.

They should be embarrassed. Not us.

Then finally,

The big argument. Well, it's the tongue of angels. That's why you can't understand. It's the tongue of angels, the language of heaven. It's what they speak in heaven. Only one problem. You go through the Bible and every time an angel is speaking, he's speaking in a language that somebody can understand. I see you have to be able to support what you say with the scripture, not with your numbers or what your pastor said or whatever. You have to be able to support it with the, with the word. What was it? You told me today? Uh, Bruce, uh, Oh, there's a movie where the guy says, show me the money. You know, movies show me the money. That was a big deal. And they got all kinds of on the radio. Now show me the money. Show me that, you know what? Show me the scripture. I believe you just show me the scripture. And I believe,

Yeah.

The ironic thing is that even if one could speak in legitimate tongues today, even if it was possible, okay, that person could not say anything different than what we've been saying all along. That's the ironic thing about all this, all the information pertaining to God and salvation and the church has already been given and recorded. Jude verse three, we don't need tongues to preach the gospel. We don't need tongues to comfort. Those who are struggling. We don't need tongues to teach and to Edify the church. Everything we need for everything we need to do is right here in this world,

We don't need anything else.

A lot of intelligent. And well-meaning people have been influenced by 20th century phenomena because, and simply because they have not followed the teaching of the new Testament, that's the only thing they go too far. They add things that are not there. Even if I could speak in tongues, my message to you would always be the same brothers and sisters be saved. Love one another glorify God with everything in your life. Even if I could say it in all the languages of the world, the message would always be the same. If you need the prayers of the church tonight, I plainly in the English language, encourage you to come to Christ for salvation and baptism. Come back to Christ to be restored. If you've been unfaithful or come to the Lord, if you need the prayers and encouragement of the saints, do that now as we stand and as we.