My experience at a revival - Baptism of Holy Spirit? Please Help!

HP: God is not the author of confusion. 1Co 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

 

Rando, this isn't going to be the best place or solid answers, I fear.

Do you have a church home? If so, perhaps a conversation with a pastor is in order. Otherwise, my basic advice is to relax, and commit the experience to prayer. God has worked mightily through Pentecostals as well as those of us in nonPentecostal denominations. If God wishes to work through you with a gift like tongues, interpretation, etc, God will let you know. Similarly, if it's an emotional thing, God will let you know.

 

I agree. There are too many conflicting opinions here. Underline opinions. We Baptists believe that each morning we are to pray for an infilling of the Holy Spirit. That doesn't mean he went somewhere while we were asleep, just that we want to be totally committed to Christ throughout our day. Life-changing experiences often come one day at a time.

 

You didn't realize the whole time the jerk was pinching your arm to stop the circirculation?

 

Maybe somebody was trying out their new martial arts move, the Vulcan Neck Pinch. :smilewinkgrin:

 

Did anything unusual happen to her? And what does she make of your experiences there?

 

On the tongues:

If man is speaking unto God in the unknown tongue, why are the so-called interpretations that follow in most Pentecostal churches given to man from God? Should not the interpretation be something like this:

O my Father, I thank Thee...

or

O Lord, I love you...

Also, since the tongues were a sign to the unbelieving Jews, are the Pentecostal churches saying that someone in their congregation is unsaved even though all have professed Christ years ago?

 

At my very most cynical it sounds like it could have been a very mild electric shock administered surreptitiously.

At my most trusting, I would say that I have had some very odd experiences in non-charismatic church myself (my own church or at other peoples' meetings) that even now looking back I feel were genuine. So the isolated experience of having an arm shake I don't know what to say about.

Two things you can do:
1. Try to go back and replicate the experience. Pay more attention this time! This will help expose fraud if that is what it is. Tell the preacher you want to have the same experience again, even, to encourage him to repeat whatever he did, if it was indeed something he did.
2. Trust God and pray, which of course you are already doing.

 

Have you consulted with a physician?
I would suspect a stroke if suddenly one side of my body went into spasm.

 

I say leave them alone, if its of God you couldn't tear it down anyway and if its of man it will fall flat on its face. You have your own church and as for you and your house serve the Lord and let them do as they may. I can guarntee you that you will not change their minds.

 

Rondo,

Have you seen the interpreter for the tongue speaking and praying?
I am afraid they are on the wrong track.

Many Pentecostal people misunderstand that the fullness of Holy Spirit comes with emotional feelings and tongues. But they should know this Bible verse:

1 Cor 14:27-28
27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. 28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God

If they do it without interpreter, they are disobeying God.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit are Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance ( Gal 5:22)

Does the unknown tongues praying enhance your personality and character in this aspect?
Otherwise, it is just a kind of human mental concentration or fixation, which comes from Soul, not from Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit comes to us, He convicts us of our sins, makes us repent, gives us the Forgiveness of Sins by informing us what Jesus has done at the Cross, then teach us the righteous living, the godly life, to be Sober, to find the joy in reading Bible, to live holy life in a vigilant attitude. This is called the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecostals often mislead the people to pursue the emotional feelings and some kind of a heat in their hearts.
One Pentecostal lady came into our church, but she didn’t have the conviction of the forgiveness of sins! When she listened to the Gospel, she was born again, and had all the emotional memory at the Pentecostal Church washed away.

Human souls can do many miraculous works, without the help of Holy Spirit, but it is not the Fruits of the Holy Spirit.

My criticism may not apply to all the Pentecostal churches as I met a good preacher at a Pentecostal Church who preaches Gospel correctly all the time, but in many cases, Pentecostal Churches lead the people to pursue some emotional feelings instead of the Words of God which can change their lives to be godly and holy, and of the wisdom of God.

 

Rando,

As a pentecostal myself I can say that there is indeed the possibility that you had a legitimate experience that had at its origin the Holy Spirit.

There is no need to over analyse it. It might lead to something more, it might not. You may have many more experiences like this, or you may never have another one. You might one day be given the gift of tongues, you may never recieve that gift.

The important thing is to never limit God regarding the gifts that He still gives, just like He gave them 2000 years ago. Always have a heart that desires all that God might want you to have, but at the same time dont ever let anyone put you on a guilt trip or feel that you are a "2nd class" believer if you dont recieve a particular gifts, such as tongues.

We need to be careful not to go in either extreme. The error of believing every christian must recieve a particular gift, or the equally tragic mistake of believing the gifts are not for today.

God bless you,

Mike

 

The gift of tongues is nothing more than languages... dialect.

It is not this insane babbling that people claim to be the 'unknown tongue'.

It is not this babbling that people always interpret as being from God to man.

The men of the town at Pentecost heard those who had been filled with the Spirit that day speaking 'in our own tongue', not an unknown babbling. What was their tongue? Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, the language of that day.

People of that day who never spoke Greek before began speaking it fluently. People who never spoke Latin, began orating and praising God in the Latin tongue.

When a Pentecostal speaks of the gift of tongues, he or she is not speaking of known languages, but is prompting one to speak a language that is so misinterpreted it is pathetic.