Featured The Work of the Holy Spirit

If not all have it, what makes you think you have it?
If you have admitted that tongues are real languages, then what is the real language that you speak in? Why can't you explain that?

 

You are completely avoiding my point. It's not about me. I'll reiterate it, and hope you can clear this up.

1. You have said that you believe that the tongues of Acts were private prayer languages for the believers, not languages for the purpose of witnessing to the lost. Correct?

2. You have now said that Is. 28 is prophesying NT tongues. In fact you even said that it was Jesus talking. Now, if it is Jesus talking to us, how can it be the believers talking to God in Acts? You are taking two contradictory positions.

You have said that tongues are a private prayer language, and that when you speak in tongues you do not know what you are saying, just that you are saying it to God. You were completely unable to prove in previous threads that your tongue was a literal language. However, linguists who have researched the matter say that Charismatic tongues are always gibberish, never real languages.

I'll tell you what is sad: you Charismatics put huge emphasis on a doctrine that only has five verses positive about it (and 20 negative mentions) in the whole NT, and that is only 0.06%, only six hundredths of one per cent of the NT.

There are also five positive verses about snake-handling in the NT, but no negative verses. Why are you not advocating snake-handling?

There are 14 positive verses and no negative verses in the passage about Jesus washing the disciples' feet in John 14, almost three times as many verses as positive verses about tongues. Why are you not advocating foot washing?

I'll tell you why I oppose Charismatic tongues: they are unbiblical, they cause church splits, they confuse the saints of God, they promote self-centeredness, they promote a "holier than thou" attitude in tongues speakers, and oh yes, three times tongues-speakers have tried to destroy the churches I have pastored.

Your statement that "True churches will not be destroyed" is wicked. You are saying then that only tongues-speaking churches are true churches. Nothing that consistently causes church splits as tongues do can be Biblical. Charismatic tongues cannot be of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of peace and unity, bringing zeal for the salvation of souls, not division and destruction. Eph 4:3--"Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

 

Sorry for misrepresenting your position.

But that brings up the question, why then do you argue so hard for tongues if it is optional??? This is what leaves the impression that you believe all must speak in tongues--plus it is the standard Charismatic position, and you are most certainly a Charismatic.

Furthermore, if tongues are optional, why then did you say that a true church would not be harmed by tongues? If they are optional, and a church member argues that they are not optional and thus splits the church, wouldn't that be a true church being harmed by the tongues question?

 

THis is about the work of the Holy Spirit! I have already discussed this with you!

 

Correct!

`YOur not going to understand this unless you speak in tongues. But when you pray in the spirit..many times things will be revealed to you from the Holy Spirit. That is God speaking to you!
Prayer is communication with God! John 16:13 says the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth! He speaks to our spirit!

Can we not stick to what the scriptures say about tongues! IT is plain in scripture that tongues/praying in the spirit/ speaking to God is prayer!

Paul gave prominence to speaking in tongues. As you study out Pauls epistles, you find that he wrote much about the subject of tongues, and apparently he practiced what he preached. After all, he declared to the Corinthian church "I thank my God, I speak in tongues more than ye all" ( 1 Cor. 14:18). That is a positive statement! THat is alot of speaking in tongues if it is more than the whole church! He was correcting the church at Corinth because that was there main interest and they were speaking in the wrong place in worship and the wrong manner. He was not forbidding it!

I am not aware of snake handling in a positive manner in the Bible...but that is another thread!

No one has brought up foot washing for or against it! Maybe you can start a thread on it! I thought we were discussing the work of the Holy Spirit on this thread???

I am aware of your hard feeling toward tongues and those that speak in tongues! Tongues does not make anyone "holier than thou!" But they are Biblical!

No, I said NOTHING about tongues being part of the true church! I made a general statement! Do you believe his true church will be destroyed?
The truth divides! You say you have truth! I say I have truth! We can not believe opposite and both have truth! So there will be division! You blame tongues! I blame wrong teaching about tongues!
Unity will not come until we all get in line with His Word!

 

If charismatic believes in the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is still for the today, then yes! I am charismatic! I argue for any Biblical doctrine! Most of the time on this board it is attacked the most...so I defend it the most!

I have seen a church split over the color of the carpet and many other doctrinal issue! If I was in a church that believed in tongues and someone came in and tried to claim that tongues is essential to salvation! I would stand up against that too! I am on the truth side of tongues! Most go to one extreme or the other! I believe what the Bible says and it seems pretty plain!

 

This is precisely why you and the whole Charismatic movement are wrong: you put experience above God's revelation! You say that I won't understand unless I speak in tongues. I say that I understand the entire false doctrine of tongues that you hold to precisely because of God's revelation in Scripture.

Furthermore, after saying that tongues are not required for all believers, you are now saying that no one can understand about tongues unless they speak them. This belief is the source of what I called the "holier than thou" attitude of tongues speakers.

But you still haven't answered my point about how you have contradicted yourself.

John 16:13 says nothing about tongues. This is one more example of how you and other tongues speakers have a tendency to take any Scripture about God's Holy Spirit in the whole Bible to be referring to tongues.

You are absolutely wrong. The Scriptures say no such thing anywhere. If you are not getting answers to prayer with your tongues, you are not praying Biblically. The Bible says in many places that God will answer our prayers if we pray right, believing.

Consider. If unknown tongues (what you pray) is praying (not the known tongues that Paul spoke), then how would you know your prayer was answered? You couldn't and wouldn't. God gets glory by answered prayer, not by prayer in some unknown tongue or some gibberish.

Are you even paying attention? Paul mentioned tongues in 20 verses, all of them in 1 Cor. 12-14, and all of those seeking to correct wrong attitudes and teaching about tongues. The obvious conclusion is the opposite of what you are saying: Paul did not give prominence to speaking in tongues, he gave prominence to correcting false speaking in tongues in three whole chapters! So I am following Paul by rebuking false tongues.

As for his statement that he spoke in tongues more than the Corinthians, elsewhere I have said that he was referring to actual languages he spoke: Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, etc. I defy you to prove that Paul spoke in an unknown prayer language like you claim. You cannot prove that, because the normal meaning of the Greek word glossa there is a literal, understood language. Until the original Pentecostals saw that the KJV translated added the word "unknown" in italics to the word "tongues," no one in evangelicalism spoke in "unknown" tongues. They knew that Paul spoke of earthly languages.

You missed my point entirely. My point was that both of these doctrines/practices have more positive support for them in the NT than tongues speaking, yet you put such a huge importance on tongues speaking but no importance on these.

FYI, the verses referring to snake handling are: Mark 16:18 and Acts 28:3-6. This is a total of five verses on snake handling, the same number as the number of positive verses on tongues speaking, with no negative verses against snake handling. So by your logic, snake handling is a major doctrine and practice of the NT.

Very correct: tongues do not make anyone "holier than thou." Tongues only make tongues speakers believe that they are holier and better Christians than others.

Here is one who learned that tongues made him think he was "holier than thou." Wayne Robinson wrote, "My growing disenchantment peaked. I concluded that instead of tongues turning me towards people and their needs, my preoccupation with tongues speaking had turned me inward. Instead of driving me out into the midst of a world of hurt, lost and lonely men and women, I had retreated to a closet to seek a spiritual high for myself. Instead of identifying myself with the meek and the lowly, I had set myself apart as a member of the spiritual aristocracy. I was trying to impress. In effect, I was shouting, 'Look, people, I'm a Christian who speaks in tongues and I have the evidence to prove it'" (I Once Spoke in Tongues, pp. 54-55).

The truth does not divide God's true churches. Nowhere does the Bible say that it does. Heretics do that with their heresy. The Greek word for heresy means something that causes divisions. Tongues do precisely that. Not wrong teaching about tongues, but tongues speakers who come into a church of Jesus Christ and insist that others should speak in tongues.

The Bible does not say that the Word of God brings unity. The verse I quoted to you says that the Holy Spirit brings unity. You ignored that verse. Do you deny that the Holy Spirit brings unity?

 

As I said before, no one here on the BB for a long time even mentioned tongues. Then you came along. Even now you are the only one defending tongues. You have an unhealthy emphais on a very minor teaching of Scripture (one less important than snake handling or foot washing), making it into a major doctrine by your continued vigourous defense of it.

 

John, once again, thank you for your insightful posts. Thank you, too, for strongly stating your positions without the use of terms that I won't repeat here.

Appreciate the opportunity to learn from you. :thumbsup:

 

"Doin' what I can with what I've got!" :wavey:

 

I told you that you would not understand! Nothing God reveals to you contradicts scripture! You will not understand Isaiah 28 unless you understand tongues!

Can someone really understand salvation before they experience it? No! Because it is a continual learning of who God is and how He works! Same way with anything you experience with Jesus! You understand more when you go through something with Him!

I did not say it had anything to do with tongues! This thread is about the work of the Holy Spirit, tongues is just one way He manifest! We were discussing how Jesus speaks to us! One way he speaks to us is through the Holy Spirit! I ask you earlier if you believed the Holy Spirit was God and if you believed that it was the Holy Spirit that gave the utterance. The Holy Spirit speaks to our spirit (God speaking to us)...we speak to him in all kinds of prayer tongues just being one of them! That is communication! When we are praying in the spirit God speaks to our spirit and shows/speaks us things just like John 16 says!

No, Paul is clear on this!
Tongues is speaking to God in vs. 2
Tongues is praying with your spirit in vs. 14
Tongues is blessing with the spirit vs. 16
Tongues is again speaking to God in vs. 28
Speaking to God is prayer! Seems pretty simple to me!

Tongues is not gibberish! It is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit and you are being disrespectful calling it that! But that is between you and God! When you pray for the interpretation God will give it to you. You pray with both your understanding and with your spirit! Only the Holy Spirit knows the perfect will of God! I trust Him when I allow him to manifest through praying with my spirit! Faith! IT is called our most HOly Faith in Jude!

NO! it was not false teaching! It was misusing praying in the spirit in the assembly! Yes! A rebuke but not forbidding!

Again! I have never said that tongues was not a known language. Just not known to the speaker himself (not a learned language). Tongues is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, not a learned behavior! YOu can not learn to speak in tongues...it is supernatural!

I have tried to put importance on others on this board, but if you go back and read (even in this thread) I spend most of my time defending tongues! Go on to something else concerning the Holy Spirit and I will discuss it! My first post on this thread had nothing to do with tongues!

I do not see that as "snake handling" as you put it! Nowhere in the Bible does it encourage a believer to handle snakes...But again that is another thread!

I do not believe I am any holier than the next person! As believers we are all on a journey and in different places in that journey! We should be helping each other along the journey! Not pushing them down!

Well, I experienced just the opposite! When I embraced the truth concerning the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, I repented of my unbelief! When I was baptized in the Holy Spirit it gave me more of a zeal for God and to please Him! It gave me a boldness to share with other people etc. It brought me closer to God and a better understanding of His written Word! This did not make me holier! But I did want to share with others so they could experience what I did! Just like when I received God as my Savior!

NO, I do not deny that the Holy Spirit brings unity! YOu misunderstood my post! But not everyone is following the Holy Spirit!
I have shared what I believe about tongues by scripture! I appreciate how you have discussed this by not belittling as others have...even though we do not agree!

 

Go back and read this thread! My first post was not about tongue! I love the Work of the Holy Spirit! It leads us into a closer walk with Jesus! But I, unlike others will not avoid certain subjects like tongues! The Power of the Holy Spirit has been ignored too long by too many denominations!

 

Acts 2 was a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy, but only a partial fulfillment.
Obviously the final and total fulfillment will be during the Tribulation.

Acts 2:16-21
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

 

That's not true. Let's look at your posts in response to the OP which was by Tom Butler, a post designed to differentiate between some of the different functions of the Holy Spirit today.
Your first post was in #19 where you said:

The main gift of the Holy Spirit (which almost all of us believe have ceased) is tongues. You have mentioned them here, just indirectly.

Your second post was #32

There is not a single person here that knows you don't equate your private prayer language in tongues with "praying in the spirit." You are definitely talking of speaking about tongues here. In fact you are the one introducing the topic a little more boldly than you already had before.
First the "gifts of the Spirit," and now "praying in the spirit."

And now finally in post #37 you come right out and say:

Up to this point no one had mentioned tongues. It is your darling baby; something you enter into every discussion. You can't get away from it.

You continue #38

Your next post is #46

And it has been all downhill since then. All tongues. You started the conversation on tongues. You dominated it.

 

Then why can't you give an answer? Perhaps the Holy Spirit is not working in you, but another spirit. Have you ever given serious consideration to that?
Let's go back and review what was said:

Awaken said:
I believe the baptism of the Holy Spirit is available to all! o all have to speak in tongues? NO!
But the scripture you guys use to try to prove that not all speak in tongues is taken out of context! That scripture is speaking about ministries..and not all have the calling to minister in tongues and interpretation in the assembly!

DHK responded:
If not all have it, what makes you think you have it?
If you have admitted that tongues are real languages, then what is the real language that you speak in? Why can't you explain that?

Awaken's above answer is her final response:
THis is about the work of the Holy Spirit! I have already discussed this with you!

Yes it is about the Holy Spirit. If you claim to have this manifestation of the Holy Spirit, how do you know it is of the Holy Spirit. Those in the NT, as you freely admitted, spoke in real languages that people could understand. What are the real languages that you speak in that people can understand? That would be a demonstration that it is from God.

 

I agree that it was only partial fulfillment!

 

I defend the truth of the Bible! I did not mention tongues in my first post! After praying in the spirit was brought up, I defended the Word! Sorry, you have a problem with that!

Why is it everytime with you I am having to defend myself instead of scriptures! YOu always turn the conversation around to being personal!

 

I am not hashing this out with you again! Go back and read the threads you closed! My stand on that has not changed!

 

In your first post you mentioned "the gifts of the Holy Spirit." Now why would you do that if tongues were not going to follow?
You are not defending the truth of the Bible. You are defending the error of the Charismatic movement which others have pointed out to you. You refuse to be taught, and refuse to learn. If I recall correctly there was a discussion concerning praying in the spirit and praying with the Spirit, and the difference between the two. That had nothing to do with tongues. But you jumped right in with your tongues agenda. No one had been talking about tongues--no one!

 

Hashing what out?
The fact that you can't speak in Biblical languages (the real gift of tongues), but only this fake gibberish, and you don't know what you are saying, can't identify the language as the NT believers who had the actual gift could. That demonstrates that what you do is not of the Holy Spirit at all. It is of another spirit. Be ware of what you do.