Question about the Spirit and Tongues

It may not have gone as far away as you might think.

After I pointed out that Saved Christians are explicitly told to "Desire earnestly spiritual gifts but especially that YOU may prophesy" DHK thought to bring up the case of Saul prophesying as if this somehow discounts any effort to point that God DOES give out prophecy to "whom He wills" just as he stated in 1Cor 12 and as we see Him DOING in the book of Acts AND in 1Cor 14.

But of course that attempt on his part failed. Though most of us agree that by the end of Saul's life - he was lost even after having received the New Heart of the new covenant.

in Christ,

Bob

 

May I add

I agree with the response that Paul was rebuking the use of tongues in 1 Cor 14. The reason I say this is because he was pretty clear in 1 Corinthians 13:8

1 Cor 13:8 "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.

Paul is pretty clear in this verse.

God Bless You

:godisgood:

 

In 1Cor 12 Paul introduces Tongues.

in 1Cor 14 Paul claims that "he speaks in tongues MORE than you all".

It is hardly the place to argue that Paul wanted them to STOP doing what the H.S enabled them to do.

The modern manifestation is not what Paul was referring to - Paul was talking about the actual gift of Tongues as given by the Holy Spirit.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Of course those gifts have ceased. I challenge anyone to demonstrate the existence of those gifts in this day and age as they were practiced in the first century. (tongues, healing, miracles, prophecy)

 

I challenge anyone to look at 1Cor 12 through 14 and prove that these scriptures no longer apply "Sola scriptura"!

(I always prefer the bible to man-made tradition).

Between the OT and NT writings we had 300 years "of silence" that tactic of abandoning scripture and using that "silence" to rewrite the OT text and determine "what applies" did not work then... it does not work now either.

in Christ,

Bob

 

You have to rewrite (or butcher) the Bible in order to prove your case.
Neither is it demonstrable today, nor through the last 18 or more centuries of history.
The very fact that you cannot demonstrate that any of these gifts are in operation today means that they are not. Why believe in non-existent fantasies?

 

DHK - hint: Ad hominem attacks against me are NOT "a kind of exegesis" of 1Cor 12 - 14 showing that they no longer apply.

A lot of people see that clearly.

In fact we have many people ON THIS board that accept the ongoing authority and teaching and gifts listed in 1Cor 12 as well as the instruction given in 1Cor 14.

in Christ,

Bob

 

All Scripture has a practical application and it is true. If the Bible affirms that the gift of tongues (languages) is for today then we would see it in operation today.

I use the same argument with an evolutionist. If the theory of evolution is correct, why don't we see it in operation today. I have never seen the intermediate species--half man-half monkey, of which there should be plenty.

I have never seen the gifts of the Spirit in operation today. There should be plenty of evidence if they are operation today. The fact that you say (but can only demonstrate to your own satisfaction and not to the satisfaction of others), demonstrates that they are not for today. They are not Biblical. You do not have that evidence and cannot provide it. What you provide is a few Scriptures out of context.

 

Your reasoning is illogical. First, there is plenty of demonstration of the gifts of the Spirit in the world 'to the satisfaction' of multitudes. If you haven't seen something, that does not mean it does not exist.

The fact that there are demonstrations of the gifts of the Spirit today does prove that they still exist.

Your words here are just empty rhetoric. From the perspective of those who have seen, experienced, or ministered in these gifts, do you think your argument is persuasive? I'm sure you could find plenty of fake examples of gifts of the Spirit if you looked around. But there are plenty of people over the past hundred years who have experienced hearing someone speak a message in tongues in a church service and understanding a language. There have been people who have understood the interpretation to be authentic and genuine because they knew the language. Typically this is not the case. Typically if one speaks in tongues, no man understands him. But Acts 2 situations do occur as well. (Btw, just after the turn of the previous century, there were those witnessed 'tongues of fire' and similar things the Azusa Street revival as well.)

There are also those occasions when those who interpret tongues or prophesy find that before they can give their message, someone else across the room has given the very same message. I had two friends that told me about this with the gift of interpretation of tongues. One was a classmate in 8th grade. We went to a Christian school, and had an opportunity to share during Bible class. He was a teenage preacher, and he was pretty good. He was really serious about his faith, as were most of us in the class. He told about a time he was in church and heard a message in tongues. He got this message in English in his heart. Then, he heard someone across the room say the same thing he had gotten, an interpretation for the tongue. My college room mate said the same thing happened to him.

I have experienced similar things. I sensed the Lord was saying that it was time for my wife to share a message with another woman that she'd been waiting a few months for the right time to share. Someone else sensed the same thing as we prayed. My wife sensed the Lord tell her that it was the time to share with this woman, but the woman wasn't around yet, and my wife thought she wasnt there. A few moments later, she showed up in the room.

I am the type of person who likes to do a little research behind the scene when I see a supernatural manifestation. It irks me if someone goes on a stage and claims to be healed and the preacher says, "What did you feel go through you?' If the heater comes on, you feel something. What I want to know is if that person could walk without the wheelchair before he or she came in and things like that.

I was at a healing crusade one time. Before it started, people would pray for the sick. They'd get out of their wheelchairs or whatever and other people would clap. It was in a stadium and we were not free to go anywhere. There was a little old woman who looked like she was 90 in my section. Some ushers prayed for her. She stood up and raised her hand. People clapped. I asked the woman next to me about her. She'd seen the lady hobble down there with help, with people bringing her oxygen tank.

After a few minutes, I went down to interview the woman. I introduced myself and explained that I was there to find out what had happened. She told me that before, she could only take the oxygen off for a short time without gasping for breath. She could not climb stairs without it, and she needed help on the stairs. She showed me a letter from her doctor telling her that she could not have a heart transplant because her lungs were so bad. I asked her if she'd like to go up and down stairs. I took her hand and walked her up the steep stairs of the Omni in Atlanta. She did fine. People clapped. I asked her what she wanted to do now that she was healed. She said that she wanted to go fishing with her grandson.

It happens quite often for people prophesying or sharing words of knowledge to prophesy or know things about other people that they could not naturally know. I remember when I was a teen. May parents had moved and just kept talking about building a house. We went to a church they'd never been to before. Most people there were visitors. A man there prophesied about my parents getting land to build on and many, many other things. He prayed with my Dad about his electrical work. We certainly hadn't told him my Dad was an electrician. I worked with someone from this church and she kept whispering to me when the guy prophesied something that hit the nail on the head. For example he prophesied about someone's trip to work at a summer camp and about someone else going on a cruise. Prophecies went on for quite a long time and had a lot of content to them. It wasn't just someone showing off that he could tell you your grandmother's name. I remember this guy praying with a couple of teens about a friend of theirs named Toby, that Toby would drive carefully. This so shocked those teens that they laughed with surprise. There were a lot of sounds of shock like that when this guy ministered.

In my own experience, many years ago I sensed that while praying with things, I had certain words in my spirit to say. I started saying them, and people would make comments after I prayed for them like, "How did you know that about me?" or "How did you know I was adopted?" I realized the Lord was speaking to me, and I prayed about some rather specific situations doing that.

I remember one time my brother and his friend were out playing hacky sack and street witnessing when they were young. They always ministered to at least one person and went to the part across the street to pray. That night, they hadn't prayed with anyone. It was about 2 AM and they wanted to go home. I sensed that it wasn't time yet, so I said I thought we should wait. My brothers friend wanted to go, so I prayed out loud what was in my spirit.

"Lord, if you want us to stay here longer, please send someone around that corner with a red hat, a green shirt, and blue shoes." (Maybe the hat was green and the shirt was red. I forget.)

My brother's friend said, "We could be here all night waiting for that."

I prayed again, "In the next two minutes."

My brother's friend said if that happened, he'd pass out. Well, he did not fulfill his promise on this one.

I set my stopwatch. In about 2 minutes this guy in his late teens walked around the corner with the hat and the shirt like I prayed for. My brothers had met him before but did not know him well. His shoes looked black though under the yellow light, so we asked him, what color are your sures? He said they were blue shoes. We had him show us his shoes under the white lights from the windows of The Grill just to double check.

This guy was in some legal trouble. He had thought about becoming a Christian. We ministered to him and prayed for him that night.

I prayed that about the guys outfit because of what was in my spirit to pray. I consider it a word of knowledge, though I suppose some could say it fit into another gift category.

I got a word of knowledge one time at a seminar I had ministered at in Indonesia. I was praying for this young man I hadn't spoken with yet and I kept getting the word 'headaches.' It had been a while since I'd done much with words of knowledge, and I wasn't all that bold, so later I asked him how his health was. He said, not too good. I asked him if he had a problem with headaches. He said since he was young. Half of his head would throb with them and it was very painful. His fellow Bible college students there and I laid hands on him and prayed. He was supposed to email me and let me know how he was doing but I haven't heard from back from him.

My wife got a prophetic word about a tsunami in Padang last year, which hit last week.

There are also plenty of people who could testify of supernatural healings and other manifesations of the gifts of the Spirit. I could share more testimonies, but I need to move on to other things.

So you see, your assertion that these things do not happen today hold absolutely no weight for those of us who have witnessed or experienced them. We also see that the Bible fits with our position, and not with yours. So why should we reject the Spirit's work? That's a dangerous thing to do.

 

1. Experience does not overide the clear teaching of the Word of God that these gifts have ceased. Many people have experiences. Many experiences are not even from God. Experience is not a reliable source for truth.
2. You have trouble differentiating between a "gift" and an experience, or a "gift" and an answer to prayer.
3. I never said that God doesn't answer prayers, or that God doesn't heal, or that God doesn't work miracles, or any of the above. He does. God does heal. He does so in answer to prayer. But no one has the gift of healing as was manifested in the first century by the Apostles. Check out Acts 5:16, where all the sick came from Jerusalem and all the cities round about Jerusalem, and Peter healed them ALL--even the parapelegics, the obviously lame, the obviously blind, etc. There were no fakes with Peter. Peter had a gift--the supernatural gift of healing, a gift that cannot be replicated today. If it could why can't we see people walking into the ER rooms of hospitals and exercise those gifts, and walk up and down the corridors of hospitals and exercise those gifts. It doesn't happen because those gifts are not in operation. They don't exist.
No one has ever witnessed such an even in our times. If it were present it would be everywhere present. It would be present in almost all Bible-believing churches. But it is not found anywhere. The reason is obvious. These gifts have ceased.

 

It may be well to also point out that the Apostles never had "healing crusades".

 

Jesus certainly did and Peter, folks would get healed just coming into this shadow… Now their’s faith.

Just a question, what is your thoughts on this verse passage of scripture;

Jn 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

 

The works that Jesus was referring to was the "work" of the salvation of a soul.
Jesus healed the sick; it is more important to heal the soul.
Jesus fed the hungry; it is more important to feed the soul.
(Not to say that Christ didn't do both).

Christ lived and ministered on this earth for only three years.
I have been serving the Lord for thirty years and counting.
He is referring to that element of time. How many souls can I reach for the Lord, influence for Christ, for service; how many am I able to feed the Word--all in a thirty year period as opposed to his three year period. Because our time on earth is greater our opportunity to do "greater" works are greater. To "heal the sick" etc. is nothing compared to the salvation of the soul. These are the works he is referring to.

 

Jesus said, 'the works that I do...' What kind of works did Jesus do? Many kinds, including supernatural works.

About mass healings, usually these things happened in situations where the Gospel is being introduced initially, during the initial stages of the evangelization of a people group.

I just heard a girl, a recent college grad apparently, who goes to my church telling about the great things God did on a missions trip. She was a part of a team that would set up a crusade in some remote areas of Borneo. Thousands would come out of the little villages in the jungles there. One ministry activity they did was to pray for the sick before they saw a doctor.

At some point during her mission, she prayed for a blind person. After she prayed twice and there was no healing, she said the Lord told her that the person had gone to a witchdoctor. So after praying against the situation with the witchdoctor, the blind person was healed. Then other blind people came to her to be healed, and six of them were healed right there as she prayed.

 

DHK

If I recall correctly, I have challenged you to show a thread of evidence that miracles or healing have ceased. You haven't shown anything that points to this idea.

If you have perfect knowledge so perfect that it replaces the gift of prophecy, then you should know everything that a first century prophet could know through the gift of prophecy.

Open up your Bible and tell me the names of every little child in your church who is called to be a missionary or an evangelist. Timothy had a gift in him through prophecy, and the Spirit spoke when Saul and Barnabas were being sent out.

Also, tell me where all the natural disasters and droughts will be this year. The prophets could learn such things through the gift of prophecy. Agabus prophesied a drought.

These prophets had partial knowledge through the gift of prophecy. If complete knowledge has come and you have received it, then there should be nothing like this that you cannot tell me by reading your Bible. Go ahead. I challenge you to demonstrate that knowing in part has ceased.

 

Jesus said "greater works you shall do." But he never said "supernatural works you shall do." Don't read into Scripture that which is not there.

John 6:28-29 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

He never referred to supernatural works.

 

First your post and/or challenge is ridiculous. I have demonstrated many times on this board through Scripture how and why these gifts have ceased. If I do it again; if I give you even more Scriptural evidence, will you believe me? The answer is no. Your mind is made up. You mock the Word of God by the very nature of your post. When you want serious debate I will answer you.

 

I believe miracles of healing still take place. If miracles of healing were not still in effect, I would still be in the wheelchair God so miraculously brought me out of.

I think the problem is the many false witnesses that fake healings in crusades and such. They have caused many to doubt the hand of God working in the lives of men.

And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:58)

 

Here is where the confusion comes in (that I have repeated many times).
God still heals. No one disputes that. Today he heals in answer to prayer.
But no one today has the "gift of healing," as it was manifested in the first century. You can see such a demonstration of it in Acts 5:16.

Acts 5:16 There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.

This does not happen today. If it did there would not only be some evidence of, but plenty of evidence of it. It would not be done in a corner, but exercised as a common gift in most churches. But it is not. In fact it doesn't happen in any church, anywhere in all the world. The gift of healing has ceased, as have all the other gifts.
That is not to say that God doesn't answer prayer. He does.

 

As a cessationist myself, I think the problem is that people are quick to label God's providential healing for His purpose, as a "miraculous healing" as done by the apostles and others in Acts.