What Tongues are for [A]

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Transcript:

Some of you are just joining us in our series, and so I want to make very clear something I’ve tried to make very clear every week, which is that it’s not my intent in this series to say, well, we’re just going to pick on other churches or people who have other beliefs. You know, sometimes you can’t help but point out where somebody’s in error, and sometimes you can’t help but name names. But my intent in doing this is not to just beat other people over the head and say you’re just wrong, just sit there in your wrongness and I shame you.

But it’s to examine where people take the Bible out of context, I believe, where some teachings have been wrong, and as we did a few weeks ago, to even turn the microscope on ourselves and say, you know, there are some things that I’ve taught wrong over the years. Now, fortunately, it has not been anything life or death or that puts anybody’s eternity in jeopardy. But if you’ll remember back to the passage we looked at on where there’s no vision, the people perish.

For about a year, I made that a major theme of what we were doing in a church that I was pastoring, about we need to have a vision and a plan going forward. And it’s not that that’s unbiblical, but it’s that we use that verse, and that’s not what that verse teaches. That verse teaches that where we neglect, where we ignore the revelation of God, people run wild, which is also something important that churches need to proclaim these days.

And quite frankly, I think sticking with the revelation of God, sticking with the word of God, is more important than what plans you or I or we together make. And so none of this is to attack anybody or to just shame them, but rather to say whether it’s something we hold near and dear, whether it’s something somebody else teaches, we need to side not with what anybody has taught us before. We need not to side with what tradition says, but we need to side with what the clear teaching of the Word of God is and go back and revisit some of those things.

Now, the one we’re going to look at today, and there are some others that I’m working on in this series, some that I’ve taught. God never gives you more than you can handle. Oh, folks, that’s not from the Bible.

If we’re talking about temptation, then the Bible does indicate that God doesn’t give us more than, or God does not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can stand. But sometimes when we go through a difficulty, we hear, well, God never gives you more than you can handle. I don’t find that anywhere in the Bible.

And I don’t find that anywhere in life’s experience. We may talk about that in the near future. God helps those who help themselves.

A great capitalist sentiment. Love it, but I’m not sure it’s exactly from the Bible. So there are some of these things that we’re going to continue to look at over the next few weeks.

What we’re going to talk about today is on speaking in tongues. And not just attacking it for the sake of, oh, they’re wrong, so we need to attack them for it. You know, if speaking in tongues was just a matter of some people believe in speaking in tongues and some people don’t, then it’s really not that big of a deal. And I’ll just go ahead and spoil the surprise for you.

I don’t happen to believe that speaking in tongues takes place normally today. I’m just a little bit Baptist that way but if it was just a matter of we had a difference of opinion folks that’s not that huge of a deal in the eternal scheme of things when I was in junior high school I remember one time our church was not having a Wednesday night service and so I went to church with a friend of mine and it was of another denomination and it’s not one of those situations where I’ll just go to church wherever I knew what they believed and I knew what we believed and I knew the difference, but I thought I’m just going one Wednesday night for a youth thing. It’s not a big deal. I was sitting there, I was sitting there and behind me, somebody began talking while the preacher was talking.

We don’t normally do that. I mean, I like if you say amen or you just stand up and start carrying on a dialogue with me. I’m not sure I know how to handle that.

Somebody behind me, the row right behind me, starts talking while the preacher’s talking. I thought, is that Spanish? They kept going and it wasn’t Spanish.

And next thing you know, people are standing up saying, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, do we have an interpretation? What is happening here? This is not like anything that I’ve ever seen before.

And they continued talking in what was not Spanish. For several minutes, nobody ever stood up and interpreted. They ended up sitting down and that was the end of it.

That church, that denomination happens to believe in speaking in tongues. I happen to not. that’s a difference of opinion.

That’s not a huge deal. And I will go so far as to say, and I’ve said this to you before, I don’t believe that speaking in tongues is normally how God operates today, but he’s God. If somebody stood up and did it biblically, I’m not going to say, God, you can’t do that. You know, that’s God’s business.

If he wants somebody to speak in tongues, he’ll make it happen. But I don’t believe it’s normally the way God operates today. But that difference of opinion is not such, I mean, yeah, it’s unnerving.

But it’s not something that I’m going to look at them and say, you’re not my brother, you’re not my sister in Christ. The bigger issue, something like that where they just believe it’s something that happens. Okay, we can put that over here. The bigger issue is where we start looking at it as though it is essential for salvation.

I had a dear friend in high school who came from a church tradition that teaches that tongues is not only an evidence, but the evidence of salvation. And you could go home and turn on your TV or turn on your radio today and probably hear this teaching. That in order to prove that you’re saved, there’s got to be evidence there manifested by speaking in tongues.

And I knew that this friend of mine, she believed, very sweet lady, love her. I knew she believed in speaking in tongues, but one day we got into a discussion in the cafeteria about, she mentioned that it was necessary to salvation. And I will say that the rest of our friends intervened and said that we were not allowed to discuss religion at the lunch table anymore because it got so heated.

Folks, that, not whether somebody speaks in tongues, you can speak in tongues and still be my brother in Christ. okay I may think you’re wrong you may think I’m wrong but when we start talking about you have to speak in tongues in order to be saved in order to be a believer now we’re talking about the gospel now we’re talking about just like last week with baptism is Christ’s sacrifice sufficient or not as I’ve said and I want to make this very clear you can speak in tongues you can believe in speaking in tongues and still be a born-again Christian. That’s not an issue. My issue here is, do you have to speak in tongues in order to be a Christian?

And I believe that that teaching is completely false according to God’s Word. We’re going to look at a passage this morning that’s used in order to support this idea that it’s part of salvation. And then we’re going to look at some verses this morning and tonight that tell us how speaking in tongues really works, what it was for in the early church, what God gave it for, because I do believe in speaking in tongues.

If you believe in the Bible, ladies and gentlemen, you believe in speaking in tongues. It happened. It really did happen.

You open up to Acts chapter 2, it’s right there. I mean, and it happened at other times. The You believe in speaking in tongues.

It’s just a matter of when it happened and how it happened. I’m guessing since you’re here at this church, you’re probably like me. You either think it doesn’t happen today or you think, as I do, that that’s not how God normally operates.

I have heard stories where somebody’s been in another country or they’ve been speaking to somebody and they don’t understand the language and God spoke to them. You know, I can’t discount that. If that really happened, you know, that’s God’s business.

But I don’t believe it’s the way God normally operates in this day and time. We’re going to look at Mark chapter 16, starting in verse 15. Jesus is speaking to his disciples in one of the things that he said to them after his resurrection.

And if you put Matthew, Mark, and Luke together, these red letters at the end where Jesus is giving a final statement to his disciples, they’re all just a little bit different. That doesn’t mean that they all wrote down different things because some of them remembered it wrong or they forgot things. They’re not contradictory.

They’re just different. If you’re taking notes this morning on my message and two other people in here are taking notes on my message, you might write down what you remember that I say exactly correctly but you may not all write down the same things and so what what Matthew Mark and Luke have written down are I mean they match up in their themes but they included different details so this is part of the same uh part of the same sermon that he gives that we quote all the time in Matthew chapter 28 where he says go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and son and the holy spirit this is part of his last words to his disciples. And it says in verse 15, and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. We talked about that last week. Is he saying that if you’re not baptized, you’re not saved?

No, that again, you’re assuming way too much based on the information you’ve been given. And I’m not going to go back into all that today because we did just cover it last week but basically he’s saying if you believe and he ties baptism in there not because it has anything to do with salvation but just because if you made a profession of faith you were going to make a profession of faith all the way and go through with baptism so they were very much linked in people’s minds and he says if you make this profession of faith if you believe and of course you’re going to follow up that belief with baptism but if you believe, then you’ll be saved. And he that believes not is condemned.

And he says in verse 17, And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Now, this passage is taken a lot of times to say, well, if you’re a believer, here is a sign that will follow. you will speak in tongues. Ladies and gentlemen, today, if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you really are one of His followers, you’ll speak in tongues.

Wait a minute, we’ve left a lot of other stuff out, haven’t we? Very few churches will go to the further extreme, and I’m so glad that they don’t, but outside the Appalachians, very few churches go to the extreme of saying, we’re going to hold all of these up, and we’re going to say, if you’re a believer, not only are you going to speak in tongues, but you’re also going to heal the sick, and you’re going to be able to drink poisonous things and you’re going to be able to handle poisonous serpents. I’m telling you, if I go to any church that’s bring your own snake, I’m out of there.

That’s just, I’m sorry. I’m not sure, I’m not sure this, this whole church thing is going to work out for me. Now, very few churches will take all of these and say, yes, all of these are signs.

And folks, if you’re going to look at this and say, these are all signs that you’re a believer, that you have to speak in tongues in order to be a Christian, then you’ve got to take all of these signs and say you have to do all of these things. You’ve got to pick up serpents, and you’ve got to speak in tongues, and you’ve got to drink poisonous things. And I’ve read reports of church groups drinking, you know, keeping strychnine and cyanide there and using it as part of their worship.

People complain about their churches. At least you’re not being made to drink strychnine when you come to church. And healing’s going on, and certainly healings are not a bad thing, but you have to be able to heal somebody in order to be a Christian.

Folks, there’s a reason why most churches, even that say you must speak in tongues, don’t read this and say you must do all of these things in order to be a Christian. It’s because Jesus was never using these as the proof, as the evidence to you that you are a believer. If you want to look at where’s the evidence of God in my life, where’s the evidence of God’s work, where’s the evidence that I’m a believer?

Well, he gives us some great things in 1 John. He says, if you’re in Christ, if you believe God, then you’ll love your brethren. If you love the Father, you’ll love the Son.

He gives evidence in Galatians. Anybody heard of the fruit of the Spirit? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, temperance, patience.

The whole list of them. He says these are the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit means evidence.

Sometimes, you know, we’re city people. Not y’all, but Charlie and I are city people. We’ll drive through the fields out here between Lindsay and Maysville, and for weeks we’ll look at plants and say, what are those?

I wonder what those are. I’m not sure. And usually I’ve gotten pretty good at telling what corn is.

But if it’s not corn, I might, you know, is that cotton? I don’t, what is that, peanuts maybe? You don’t know.

I mean, we don’t know until we see the fruit. And we can, we can pass a particular field and for weeks, no, I think it’s cotton. No, I think it’s peanuts.

No, I think it’s, I don’t know. And we don’t know who’s right until we see the proof, until we see the fruit. You want to talk about evidence of God’s presence and God’s power in your life?

You want to talk about evidence of his saving power and of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience. Go through the list. It’s in Galatians. Because those aren’t things that you can say, well, I’m loving, I’m joyful, I’m peaceful, so now I’m saved.

No, those are things to do it the way the Bible talks about are things that really are supernatural. That we trust Christ and he fills us with his Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit begins to do those through us. Those are evidence of His Holy Spirit. What He’s talking about in the book of Mark here, as He gives these last marching orders to His disciples, He’s saying you’re going out into a skeptical world who is not going to believe you because of the incredible nature of the things that they were teaching.

I mean, they were telling people that Jesus rose from the dead. If you didn’t see it, that’s a hard pill for some people to swallow, as evidenced by the fact that they caught so much resistance. They were going out into a skeptical world that, oh, just because you’re loving, that doesn’t prove anything.

Now, the fruit of the Spirit among ourselves, we look at the fruit and can tell some things about the tree. But out there in the skeptical world, he said, these are going to be some things that are going to show them who you really are. And it’s not that these things are going to be there all the time, but when you need them, here are some things that are going to demonstrate my power to the world.

Also, these are some things that when you, ladies and gentlemen, when the Bible talks about speaking in tongues, it didn’t just take place in front of the skeptical world, sometimes coming into the church and people didn’t always want to believe the right person. There were churches where the apostle Paul’s having to defend himself and say, of course, I’m an apostle called by God. And here’s the reason why.

Here’s the evidence for you to believe when they’re wanting to believe some false teacher who’s trying to lead them back into the law and doing good and you have to do this and this and this in order to be saved. And sometimes the message had to be validated by a sign from God. And so he said, this is not proof that you’re saved.

This is proof that you speak on my behalf. Why did they need that? We’ll get into this a little bit more later, but they didn’t have the word of God, the New Testament in written form yet.

They didn’t have it written out yet. so how do we know who speaks for God well today you know whether I speak for God or not by whether or not my message is consistent with this book back then they didn’t have the New Testament and so he said you’re going to go out and you’re going to speak and sometimes they’ll be speaking in tongues you know what we see the fulfillment of that in Acts chapter 2 just a fulfillment of that in Acts chapter 2 he says you’ll be able to take up serpents we see a fulfillment of that in the story where Paul shipwrecked on Malta. He went to gather firewood.

And when he threw the wood on the fire, because of the heat, a snake came out, a viper came out and latched onto his hand. And they knew, they knew from what kind of snake it was, that it was poisonous and he was going to drop dead soon. And when he didn’t, wow, suddenly they realized there was something supernatural going on.

And Paul had an open door to speak to the people of Malta about the gospel. I’d say that’s a fulfillment of what Jesus promised. There are examples all throughout the book of Acts where people were healed.

I mean, shortly after Pentecost, Peter and John are walking into the temple. There’s the lame man laying out there. I know that’s not PC to call him lame anymore.

That’s just the word the Bible uses. But the lame man is laying out there by the temple gate and he’s begging for money. And they say, we don’t have any money, but we do have this.

In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, you rise up and walk. And the Bible says he rose up and walked. So all of these were going to be things that were going to be evidence to a skeptical world, not that you’re a believer, but that you speak on God’s behalf, that you really do carry the truth.

It’s not a command to all believers at all places in all times that you must speak in tongues to be saved. You must carry snakes around to be saved. You must drink poison to be saved.

That is not what he’s saying. He’s saying that when you’re speaking on my behalf, when you’re doing ministry in my name, when you’re fulfilling the calling that I’ve given you, and the skeptical world is watching and they’re doubting, just at the right time there will be miracles and there will be signs and wonders that follow your ministry that prove my power working in and through you. So if this passage is not teaching, as I believe it is not, teaching that tongues are a commandment, that we have to speak in tongues in order to be saved, then what are tongues really?

What are they really? I’m going to give you a few things this morning and a few things tonight and talk about how God says this is to be done. Because as Baptists, again, most of us are what we call cessationists, which is just a fancy Bible college word for it means it ceased, it stopped.

Cessationism means it stopped with the death of the apostles. It ended during the first century sometime. I do happen to believe that.

However, the Bible doesn’t say, and then tongues ended. I mean, it doesn’t give us a black and white cutoff point. And so I, again, I usually go a step further and say, if God wants to work that way today, I’m nobody to step in and stop him and say, well, I was taught that he’s God, he can do what he wants.

But I don’t see where he every day says, you’re going to speak in tongues or you must speak in tongues, and it happens the way the Bible says. There are times when it happens, and it’s not in line with what the Bible says. I have a friend who is a preacher, not far from here, who has told me a story a couple of times, and I don’t know whether to fall out of my chair laughing or be horrified.

It’s one of those stories, and he has a lot of them. But he talks about in his college days, when he was young and dumb, going to a revival meeting of some sort, and a friend offering him money if he would pretend to be in the Spirit. Now, he’s a Baptist preacher now, and he tells this story about how he got up and began to, when they got to that portion of the service, began to utter nonsense syllables, and just got up and just went with it.

And said he was so convincing, the evangelist stopped and asked for an interpretation. he kept talking he kept talking he kept talking and he says that finally some woman got up and began to interpret for him and he was making it up folks that is not that does not follow the biblical model of how this is supposed to go if tongues are for today and when they were used before the bible says this is how it’s to be done first of all first of all they’re not just any kind of unknown speech now that’s what he was doing that’s what a lot of what you’ll see on television is today professing to speak from God and it’s just syllables being uttered. There are two different words that are used for speaking in tongues.

One of them is glossolalia. I know that’s a big word. Glossolalia means just uttering syllables and it’s not in a known language.

I don’t remember what show it was. It might have been 60 Minutes, might have been Dateline. I don’t know.

I was a child. And I remember watching it on TV where they were investigating some people in the Word of Faith movement, and they had linguists come in, and they would analyze all the syllables that were being uttered at one of these meetings, and when they were speaking in tongues, and there’s no connection to hear to any known language, either living or dead. They couldn’t find any pattern in it, and they said it was totally incomprehensible.

That’s what glossolalia is, and some might say, Well, that’s the power of God. It’s an unknown language. I believe God invented human language, so certainly he could invent that.

But there’s another term called xenoglossia, which is what we see in the scriptures. If you’ll turn with me to Acts chapter 2 for just a moment. When this, probably the best known instance of this ever happening.

And folks, I really do believe that it happened. And it’s an amazing, it’s an incredible miracle that took place this day. Acts chapter 2 verse 4 it says and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance and there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews devout men out of every nation under heaven now when this was noised abroad the multitude came together and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language and some people debate here what the miracle was did they get up and speak in Aramaic and everybody heard them in their own language because it says in verse 6 they heard them in their own language.

So maybe the miracle was that the Holy Spirit made them hear their own language. But it also says in verse 4, they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. So was the miracle in the mouth of the speaker or was the miracle in the ear of the hearer?

We don’t know. But what we do know is the Holy Spirit connected mouth to ear of people who didn’t speak the same language. It’s an incredible thing.

Okay, so it says because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? Wait a minute.

Aren’t these guys from Galilee? Don’t they speak Aramaic? How are they speaking my language?

It’s like that old joke. What do you call somebody who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

Bilingual. Very good. What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American.

we just usually don’t speak as many languages as people from other countries okay same reputation here aren’t they from galilee shouldn’t they just be speaking aramaic I doubt they’ve gone to school and learned my language aren’t these people from galilee and it says they marveled they were amazed this caught their attention and how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born okay they’re galileans they speak aramaic and probably just aramaic how are we all hearing this message in our own language. But then it goes on in verse 9. Here’s where we see that this is something different called xenoglossia, where you’re speaking in an actual language that you’ve never studied.

When they named that they were Parthians and Medes. These were people from present-day Iran. And Elamites and the dwellers of Mesopotamia, Iraqis.

And Judea, Israelis. Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia, what’s now Turkey. And Phrygia and Pamphylia, areas around Turkey and Greece and Egypt and parts of Libya around Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Romans, Italians Jews and proselytes Cretes, people from the island of Crete Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

So I am not one folks to deny that speaking in tongues happens or ever has happened. But the first thing that the Bible teaches us is that when it happens, it’s somebody’s language. and it’s a language the speaker doesn’t know.

I’m not fluent in French. Well, I mean, I wouldn’t be mistaken for a native speaker of French. We’ll just put it that way.

I’m too much of an oaky. I would not be mistaken for a native Frenchman. But with enough preparation, I’ve done enough study in French that with a little bit of preparation, I could get up and preach a message in French.

I’ve done mission work in French. I could do that. With a little more preparation, I might be able to preach a message in Spanish.

I haven’t done as much study, and I have no idea why, living in this part of the country, I studied French more than Spanish, but there you go. I could probably preach a message in Spanish with some preparation, with some advanced notice. If I were to get up and speak to you a message in Mandarin Chinese, that would entirely be the work of God, because I only know the word for rice, and I don’t know how I learned that one.

These people were speaking real languages that they had not learned. The only way that happens is a miracle from God. If somebody gets up today and speaks random syllables, my guess is, you know, I’m not going to accuse them of wrong motives.

They may really believe that there’s a work of the Holy Spirit going on. Worst case scenario, they could be like my friend, the awful thing that he did at that revival meeting. But I’m going to look at that and say, I’m not convinced that’s the work of the Holy Spirit.

Brother Shank, you get up and start prophesying in Arabic, though. I’m going to look at it and say, well, that doesn’t happen every day, but that’s got to be God. When they spoke in tongues, God used that as a sign, and it made people make notice.

And you’ll notice today that people are skeptical about a lot of things that we as Christians do. People are skeptical about healings. They’re skeptical about prayer.

Folks, all this ugliness that’s gone on, with prominent Christians being caught in these website scandals. It’s just horrible, and it’s made people even more skeptical of the things that we do. Not just the way we live our lives, but whether this is true or not.

And people are skeptical about the Word of Faith movement. The outside world is skeptical about the charismatic movement. And you see people making fun of the speaking in tongues all the time.

But I guarantee you, if somebody who lived their life in a small town in Oklahoma, had never been outside of it, had never had any education in another language, got up and began speaking Chinese or German or Russian to a group of people who were from that area and spoke that language, that would catch people’s attention. That would catch people’s attention. It’s been several years since the last time I was out of the country.

I remember going to Quebec to go do mission work with our missionaries up there. And Quebec is part of Canada, so it’s officially bilingual, English and French. But Quebec is the part of Canada where the French people live, and so it’s mostly French speaking, especially the area where I was in out in the country.

And I had studied French and loved French and could communicate with people, but it doesn’t matter how much you love the language, after about a week and a half of not hearing your own language spoken, it kind of gets on your nerves. And when you’d come across somebody who speaks English, it’s just like, I heard English somewhere. Might have been in the store and there’s six aisles over.

I don’t care. I heard English. I must go to them now.

Imagine, imagine being in Jerusalem that day. And you’ve heard the Hebrew and you’ve heard the Aramaic and you’re there to worship. You’re there at the temple for the Passover.

You’ve been there worshiping, but you’re away from your home country and suddenly somebody stands up in public and they’re speaking, they’re preaching, and they’re preaching about some man you’ve never heard of and the miraculous works of God and you realize you’re hearing it in your own language. Would that not give you pause? And knowing that the man does not know your language.

Would that not give you pause and make you think, God is at work here? So tongues aren’t just any, from the Bible, they’re not just any syllables, any language that could be spoken. It’s somebody’s language that they know.

And they’re hearing you speak it even though you’ve never learned that language in your life. Second of all this morning, and this is the last point I’ll get to this morning, they’re not just for any person. If we were to interpret Mark chapter 16 to say you must speak in tongues to be saved, then there are going to be a lot of people in churches, even in the early churches, who were in trouble.

Because Paul’s letters make it clear that not every person had that gift of being able to speak in tongues. And I’d submit to you today that that would also still be the case. Some people had the gift and others did not.

1 Corinthians chapter 12, if you’ll turn there with me real quick. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. I know that we don’t like to hear that.

The idea that, well, some people have this ability, some people don’t. Some peop

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