What Tongues are for [B]

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Transcript:

Turn with me, if you would, back to Mark chapter 16. and then also you might want to mark your spot at 1 Corinthians chapter 12 where we were this morning as well. We’re going to look at both of these passages tonight.

I began sharing with you this morning how I believe that sometimes Mark chapter 16 is misinterpreted or misapplied as though it teaches that speaking in tongues is necessary for salvation. If not, they might not say the cause of salvation, but they would say it’s a necessary evidence of salvation. In other words, if you don’t speak in tongues or can’t speak in tongues, it’s, you know, there’s no evidence of you being saved.

And this is one of the passages that’s looked to. Jesus said in Mark chapter 16, starting in verse 15, 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, but he that believeth not shall be Notice there it doesn’t say anything about condemnation for those who are not baptized.

Baptism is just that connected to a profession of faith. I could not remember the word profession, pardon me. That connected to a profession of faith that it’s assumed if you’re going to profess Christ in that day, you were going to profess Christ all the way.

Once you’ve trusted him, here is water, what does hinder me from being baptized? So it’s not that baptism is part of salvation or baptism somehow earns salvation, but he’s saying, hey, if you’ve trusted Christ, if you’ve trusted Christ, you’re saved. And then he says, if you have not believed, if you have not trusted Christ, without saying a word about baptism, if you’ve not trusted Christ, if you’ve not believed, then you’re condemned.

And he says in verse 17, these signs shall follow them that believe. Again, these were signs to a skeptical, non-believing world, not proof to you and to the church and to the world that you’re a Christian, but proof to the non-believing world, proof to the non-believing world to validate the message that the apostles were carrying. That when they went and spoke to people, they spoke on God’s behalf.

When they went and spoke to the Jews, certain signs would follow. When they would go to speak to the pagan Greeks, certain signs would follow. When they would go and speak anywhere and the people were skeptical, God would just at the right time give just the right sign to validate the message.

And he says, these signs will follow them that believe in my name. Shall they cast out devils? Well, they certainly did that.

They healed. I missed that one this morning. Read it, but missed it.

Was it Paul who cast the demon out of the young girl who was a fortune teller to where her, I would say her employers or maybe her masters, she was treated like a slave. wanted to kill him because they’d lost their livelihood. They’d cast out demons.

They shall speak with new tongues. We see that in Acts chapter 2 and as well as other places because the people wanted to, the Jewish leadership wanted to make the case that these guys are ignorant. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

They’re false teachers. Oh, they’re drunk. And the people around hearing this weren’t buying it because, wait a minute, they’re Galileans and they’re here speaking in my language.

I’m an Egyptian. I’m an Arab, I’m a Cretan, I’m from Phrygia, I’m from Persia, and we’re all hearing them, this is not just, this is not drunkenness. Typically, you drink and you get, well, you seem less educated, I’ll just put it that way.

We make less educated decisions. I’m trying to think, how do I word this just the way I want it? You’re collaborating.

There you go. You’re not going to suddenly become eloquent in several languages. I’ll just put it that way.

So it was a sign. It was a sign to the non-believing world that these guys speak on God’s behalf when they came to speak in tongues. They shall take up serpents.

Paul took up a serpent, not on purpose, or maybe the serpent took up him, and there on the island of Malta, the people thought he was a dead man. He shook it off into the fire, and his hand didn’t swell. He didn’t die, and the people suddenly, he had their attention.

They wanted to listen to this message Christ. If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. Now, I don’t remember offhand.

It could be in there and forgive me for not remembering. I don’t remember offhand an instance of them drinking something poisonous being recorded in the New Testament. I’m sure they did.

And it’s just not recorded if it’s not in there. But we see them laying hands on the sick and then recovering. All of these were signs that followed the apostles.

These were signs that validated them not as believers, but validated them as God’s spokesmen, as God’s representative. That’s what an apostle means. It’s an ambassador.

The signs that accompany an ambassador of the United States, the privileges and the authority of the office and the proof of that authority are not the same characteristics that I carry to another country as an American citizen. I have my passport as proof of American citizenship. I don’t have the ambassador’s credentials.

That’s the difference here. And I don’t know why I didn’t use this example this morning. The ambassador is sent with credentials signed by the president or from another country, the head of state, whoever it is, in our case the president, is sent with an appointment from the president and ratified by the senate and sent with credentials signed by the president saying that he has authority to speak on behalf of the American government.

Now I as an American citizen have my passport as evidence of American citizenship. The apostles were ambassadors and they had certain authority to speak on God’s behalf in this day and age. And the problem we make when we look at this and say, see, if you’re a believer, you have to be speaking in tongues.

First of all, it’s twofold. First of all, why don’t most churches that teach that go back and say, well, you’ve got to be doing all these things. Now, as much as it creeps me out, I will give the snake handling churches in Appalachia, I will give them this, they’re consistent.

But most churches that teach you must speak in tongues to be saved are not looking at all of these and saying, you have to do these. Okay, what about all these other signs that follow? But second of all, we’re confusing the proof of citizenship with the proof of authority.

And it would be the equivalent, ladies and gentlemen, of me going to Canada, flying on a plane tonight to Canada, and then refusing me entry because I don’t have ambassador’s credentials to prove that I’m a U. S. citizen.

Those aren’t the proof that I’m a U. S. citizen.

My passport is the proof that I’m a U. S. citizen.

The ambassador’s credentials are proof of having a separate kind of authority. Folks, we have different things that are spelled out in the New Testament, as I talked about this morning, the love that we have for one another, faith, the fruit of the Spirit. We have all of these things that the Bible talks about as evidence, proof, if you want to use that terminology, proof of our being citizens of God’s kingdom, of being his subjects, of being Christ’s people.

We have those things as evidence. The speaking in tongues for the apostles were the ambassador’s credentials. They’re not proof of our citizenship in the kingdom.

They were given to specific people for a specific purpose as a sign of their authority. On top of which, the Bible is abundantly clear, and I go back to this in so many messages, but I don’t think you can emphasize this point too often or too strongly that the only thing necessary for our salvation was what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross and are simply taking advantage of his offer by faith. We are saved not by effort of our own, not by any religious rituals before or after the moment of conversion, but simply and completely because Jesus Christ shed his blood and died for sinners.

And then we believed, we believed, giving us nothing to boast about. We believed that we were sinners. We believed in the gravity and desperation of our situation.

and we threw ourselves on God’s mercy that he offered through Jesus Christ. We simply believe the promises of God. Now, anything else that comes after that or as a result of that is great, but we can’t confuse, as I’ve heard preachers say before, we can’t confuse the root of salvation, the cause of salvation, with the fruit or the result. And I fear that’s what’s happening.

What’s saying you’ve got to be baptized, you’ve got to speak in tongues, you’ve got to do that. We’re adding to the sacrifice of Christ. Those things are not the proof that we’re part of his kingdom. And yet the Bible does teach, as I began teaching on this morning, the Bible does teach that tongues were real. It really happened.

It’s not just a fairy tale from the Bible. It really happened. And the Bible gave instructions on how it was supposed to take place in that day.

And I maintain, even though I don’t believe it’s the way that God normally interacts and speaks to us and through us in this day and age, that if we’re going to look at the world and say, fine, you want to speak in tongues? Here’s the way it’s supposed to be done. I say the world.

We want to look at other believers who push this issue and say, you want to speak in tongues? Fine, but here’s what the Bible says has to be done. Well, as I shared with you this morning, and just to recap very, very quickly, the first two points I shared with you this morning are that tongues are not just any kind of unknown speech.

We go back to Acts chapter 2, and we see that in this most vivid example of speaking in tongues in the scripture, we see that they were speaking in actual languages. It wasn’t just a bunch of syllables stranded together and then somebody stood up with the interpretation. Another believer, someone else who was in on it, stood up with the interpretation.

They were speaking languages that they had no way of knowing. No way of knowing. This morning.

This morning, we got to Lindsay a few minutes early and had to stop by Walmart to buy diapers because I knew I was going to need them. Not for me, but I knew that I was going to need them when I got home today. So we stopped and bought diapers at Walmart.

And we were getting out of the car, and I heard a woman screaming. I heard a woman screaming. I thought a woman was being attacked in the Walmart parking lot.

And so I go looking around the car. We need to do something. I don’t know what I was going to do.

I’m not all that threatening looking and individual, but I’ve got the little knife on my key chain. We can do something. I thought a woman was being attacked in the parking lot of the Lindsay Walmart.

I look around the car and there is nobody, just a dog, just a dog standing in the bed of somebody’s truck watching its owners walk in to Walmart. And I thought, how incredible. I know you all are thinking, where’s he going with this?

I thought, how incredible. That dog sounded like a human woman, the way it was screaming. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.

I tried to get it on video, but by then the owners had walked into Walmart and it wasn’t doing anything anymore. It sounded like a human woman. And I thought, that’s crazy that it could sound that much like a human being.

What would have been incredibly miraculous is if I’d heard the dog yelling, Help me! Help me! Help me!

just the dog has no way that is not natural that is not natural behavior for the dog to be yelling help me help me has no way of speaking English I mean yes they can learn and retain a few English words my dog knows bath and treat and a few others they can retain some words but the dog cannot speak it would be incredibly miraculous for them to be speaking a language they had never heard had never learned, had never understood. Folks, there’s just about as much, there is just about as much likelihood of my being able to speak perfect Polish this evening as there would have been for that dog to speak English in the Walmart parking lot. It just doesn’t happen.

There’s no natural explanation for it. And yet they were speaking in human languages that other people understood. There is no explanation of that outside the supernatural. I know today we hear about people who get a head injury.

It’s like one in a million thing. If that, they get a head injury and suddenly they’re able to speak a different language. Okay.

You’re telling me all these apostles got head injuries at the same time. Just like when we talked about the resurrection last year, all these other things, well, there’s this scientific explanation and there’s this explanation. I don’t have enough faith sometimes to believe these scientific explanations.

I’m too much of a skeptic. Folks, the bottom line is they stood up and they spoke real languages that real people understood and not only said, hey, that sounds familiar. They heard it in the language that they were used to speaking, that they’d grown up speaking, and they understood not just a few words, but a coherent message about Jesus Christ. I don’t care when it takes place.

If it took place in the first century or it takes place in the 21st century. If tongues are to be spoken, the Bible indicates that they are to be a message in somebody’s language. That they are to be a message in somebody’s language and a message that is edifying to the church or to the non-believer, to the hearer in some way, in somebody’s language.

Now I’ve told you, and I’ll keep saying this, I don’t believe it’s the way God normally operates. But if somebody walks in here having never taken a Spanish class in their life, and start speaking Spanish, walking down the streets of Lindsay and start speaking Spanish to people who are of a Spanish background and testifying of Christ and they don’t know how they learn those words. I’m going to have to rethink some things.

But that and not just random syllables is what tongues are supposed to be according to the Bible. Second of all, tongues are not just for any person. I won’t spend a great deal of time on this one.

But we talked this morning about how the Bible teaches that there’s a diversity of gifts. Even in the early churches, Some people were given the ability to speak in tongues. Some people were given the ability to interpret tongues.

Some people were given gifts that had nothing to do with tongues at all. There was never a blanket promise in Scripture that every believer would be able to speak in tongues. We all have different gifts.

It’s not just for everybody. And I think that precludes the idea that we have to speak in tongues in order to be saved. Otherwise, God would have given that spiritual gift to every believer, I believe, at the moment of conversion.

We were in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 this morning and read through to the beginning of chapter 13. So if you’ve already marked your spot there, turn with me now. He says here in verse 29, after going through a list of all of these gifts, he says, Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles, have all the gift of healing?

Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? He says, but covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.

Then he goes on in chapter 13, verse 1. They didn’t originally break them down by chapters when these were written. That didn’t come until centuries later.

So he continues on with the thought and says, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, have not love, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. I’ve become empty noise. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I’m nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

And he goes on to say, Charity suffers long and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity bonteth not itself.

Is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not her own.

Is not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.

Beareth all things. Believeth all things. Hopeth all things.

Endureth all things. Charity never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail.

Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. And so we get to verse 8 here.

We get to verse 8 and it’s talking about these gifts. And it’s talking about these gifts in contrast to charity. Or love.

There are four different Greek words for love. It’s kind of sloppy in English. The way we use love for all these things.

I love my children. I love Chick-fil-A. I do not love my children and Chick-fil-A in the same way.

And yet we have to use the same word for them. In Greek, there are four different words, three of which are used in Scripture. There’s eros, which is a self-serving love.

I love you because of what you can do for me. There’s phileo, which is a brotherly love. I love you because of who you are.

You’re my brother, you’re my sister, you’re my brother or sister in Christ. I love you. And then there’s agape, which is God’s kind of love, which says I love you because of who I am, because it’s in my nature to love you. And we’re told, even though we know we will never fully, perfectly attain to God’s kind of love, we’re told that this is the kind of love we should aim for, that we should try to exhibit.

And when the Bible in this passage uses charity, it’s talking about agape, this God’s kind of love. And it says, it will never fail. It says we should shoot for this.

This kind of love never fails. We may fail at exhibiting this kind of love, but this kind of love never fails. It says, where there be prophecies, they shall fail.

It doesn’t mean that God’s prophecies come to pass, but it means an ending to the time of the gift of prophecy as they knew it. You may be wondering, wait a minute, didn’t you mention the gift of prophecy this morning? I did.

I still believe there is a gift of prophecy today. I know this can sound a little confusing. Prophecy being speaking on God’s behalf.

In their day, ladies and gentlemen, they spoke on God’s behalf, but they got new revelation directly from God. And they had to validate it. They had to prove that it really was from God.

And that’s where some of these other signs and miracles came in. If I have the gift of prophecy today, if you believe there’s a gift of prophecy, and I have it, I’m not getting special revelation from God. I read this book, and I tell you what it says, and I see black and white.

So we’re talking about the gift of prophecy, where God would give them new information and new teachings. He said, eventually, that’s going to pass away. That gift is going to stop.

Why? Because when the New Testament was, when it was closed, when the canon was closed, they didn’t need that gift anymore. God had spoken.

And so he said that gift of prophecy is going to go away. Where there be tongues, they shall cease. Eventually, God is not going to need to speak to you and through you.

Boy, I wish I could speak in tongues now because I’m stuttering all over the place up here. God’s not going to need to speak to you in such a way and convince you and validate the message because you’ll know what his word is. It’s written here.

Talks about knowledge. It shall vanish away. Folks, if there’s a time in world history in which knowledge has vanished away, we might think that it’s this one.

It’s not talking about all of us becoming ignorant. It’s talking about this word of knowledge. Sometimes God would just tell somebody something.

I have a word of knowledge for somebody here today. You’re going to go to the doctor tomorrow and you’re going to get a clean report. God would just tell them something.

Now does that ever happen today? If God wants it to happen it can happen with or without my permission just like any of this. But as far as his normal way of dealing with stuff I don’t see where he speaks to us in quite the same way anymore and says where there be knowledge it shall vanish away.

He says for we know in part and prophesy in part but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away. Folks we’re feeble messengers and he said we prophesy in part and we know in part we know little glimpses little little pieces of what God’s message is but when that which is perfect when that which is complete his complete word is come and that which is in part will pass away it should be done away and that brings me to my third point of this message that tongues aren’t just for any time again we were talking about this in the car on the way home this morning. And I’m saying, I am not charismatic.

I am not a tongue speaker. I will go a little further than most Baptists. And I hope you don’t hate me for this.

Most Baptists I know say, no, tongues are not for today. I’ll say, I don’t believe that they’re normally for today. But if God wants to make somebody speak in tongues, he does not need my permission.

But I will tell you, as far as being the normal way God communicates to us and through us, the tongues were not just for any period of time. They were primarily for a time before God’s written word was finalized and established. Today, if I come in teaching something totally off the wall, if I came in and taught something totally off the wall, that you had to just wear purple on Tuesdays to be saved, you could check that against God’s word and know that I was lying to you.

You have that capability today. In that day where God was speaking to people and through people, and there was no written word to validate it, somebody could come into your church and say, I have a new teaching from God. You have to only wear purple on Tuesdays or you’re going to hell.

How do you know it’s really from God? It’s going to be validated through one of these signs. There were going to be tongues that would accompany it and somebody to interpret.

There would be some sort of prophetic word. There would be something to accompany it. There would be signs that the person who’s teaching you that is also able to cast out demons, is also able to heal people.

It was a way of validating the message where today it’s this word, this written word that validates the message. Fourth of all today, tongues are not just for any purpose. Not just for any purpose.

When they were used, they were used for a specific purpose. Let’s go one chapter forward to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Starting in verse 4, it says, He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth edifieth the church.

So it’s talking about differences between two gifts here. And he’s saying somebody who gets up and speaks in tongues, God may reveal to him what he’s saying, but if it goes uninterpreted, he’s the only one getting benefit of the message where if somebody comes in and prophesies and says, this in your language, this is what God says, then the whole church benefits from that teaching. He that speaketh, I’m sorry, I would that ye all speak with tongues.

Paul says here, I wish you all had the capability of speaking in tongues. Paul there is recognizing that not everybody would or could he said I would that ye all speak with tongues but rather that you prophesy he said if I had my if I had to choose I’d rather that everybody prophesied for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues except he interpret that the church may receive edifying why are we not taught that we have to prophesy in order to be saved because he said prophecy unless there’s an interpretation prophecy has a much greater benefit to the church. Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation or by knowledge or by prophesying or by doctrine?

And even things without life-giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? He’s talking here about the danger of tongues going uninterpreted.

If you’re speaking in tongues just for your own benefit, speaking in tongues saying, well, it’s just between me and God. Well, then why are you standing up and doing it in the church here? He said, unless there’s, there’s got to be an interpretation if it’s from God, because it’s got to be for the benefit of the whole church.

And he goes on to give this example here of these indistinct sounds. And he talks about the different instruments and then goes into the trumpet. And he said, if the trumpet gives an indistinct sound, who shall prepare himself to battle?

Now today, they have walkie-talkies and GPS and all this business. In that day, if you were part of an army, you listened for the sound of the trumpet. And the trumpet had to be played very clearly and very purposefully.

And you had to be able to hear it clearly in order to know what you were supposed to be doing. Can you imagine how horrific it would be if you and your small detachment of troops were listening to the sound of the trumpet and you think you’re hearing charge when they’re really sounding retreat and you and your little detachment of soldiers charge headfirst into an invading army where the big army has retreated behind you and you’re out there on your own. He said if there’s confusion about what God is leading, if there’s confusion about the way God’s directing, who is that benefiting?

He said in verse 9, so likewise ye except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood how shall it be known what is spoken for you speak into the air if I can paraphrase that for just a minute and I’m not trying to change the meaning of anything here just trying to say it like we would today if you’re talking and nobody can understand what you’re saying then your words aren’t worth the air they’re uttered into and so he’s saying there’s if there’s just tongue speaking and there’s no interpretation you’d be better off just prophesying then the whole church could benefit. There are, it may be so many kinds of voices in the world and none of them is without significance. Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.

That word barbarian comes from the Greek because they referred to the rest of the world as barbarians. And that comes from their words barbar. I’m not making that up because that, you know, where we would say blah, blah, blah, I don’t what he’s saying, all I hear is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is what they heard when the other pagan countries around them were speaking.

And so they called them barbarians, barbarians. And so when he says you’re to me one that speaketh like a barbarian, you just, if there’s no interpretation, he says you’re just talking gibberish. If there’s no interpretation, if there’s nothing here to teach and challenge and benefit the church, then you’re just speaking gibberish, he says.

Even so ye, for as much as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church. Now he’s not putting down here people who speak in tongues. He’s saying, I’m glad that you are excited about wanting to have spiritual gifts and that you’re excited about wanting to serve the Lord and about wanting to minister.

He said, but I wish that you would put the time and energy in trying to develop a spiritual gift that is going to minister to other people and benefit the church.

to edify the church that word edify we we used to mean to to instruct to educate to encourage that word edify is is related to the word edifice a building we’re not just talking about educating someone here in in the idea of oh we’re going to give them little interesting facts that they can carry around then useless trivia we’re talking about building people up in the church and he says I wish that you would pursue things that are going to build them up he’s not knocking the people who are speaking in tongues but he’s saying if you’re speaking in tongues without an interpreter he said you’re doing nothing the whole purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up the church to build up the people in the congregation and he says where tongues do that they’re great but if they don’t why are you even doing it wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret for if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but my spirit of my understanding is unfruitful.

What is it then? I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.

Else when thou shalt bless with the Spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? He said, so if you’re going to speak in tongues, pray, pray, pray that God gives an interpretation for it. If there’s no interpretation accompanying it, he says, what are you accomplishing?

He says, you can get up and you can give thanks in an unknown tongue. But if you give thanks in an unknown tongue and there’s no understanding, he refers to the room of the unlearned. If I get up and speak in Polish, I’m assuming you’re all the room of the unlearned.

I’m assuming this whole room is. I don’t speak Polish and I’m assuming none of you do either. If you do, then I’ll just pick another language as an example.

We’re the room of the unlearned. When the blessing is spoken, How do we know to say amen? I mean, we say amen out of habit, but that word actually means something.

It means so let it be. I always think of Pharaoh in the Ten Commandments, so let it be written, so let it be done. That’s what we’re saying.

We are agreeing. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to agree to something if I don’t know what’s just been said. You don’t sign a contract without reading it, and I’m not going to amen something that I didn’t understand.

He’s saying you could give thanks, but how are they supposed to agree? How are they supposed to be encouraged? How are they supposed to be built up if there’s no interpretation?

So tongues are not just any 

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