Jesus revealed himself as the father to the world for 33 years in the form of a physical body. After the resurrection of Christ in his glorified body and his ascension to the right hand of the father, he has chosen for the last nearly 2 ,000 years to reveal himself to the world in another kind of body. That body is the ecclesia, the church, the called out ones, the bride of Christ, the worldwide composite of believers. He has chosen to give to us all of the characteristics of himself so that collectively believers present a new picture to the world of the body of Christ. In so doing, he has given three kinds of gifts. These gifts are personality characteristics and affirming attributes to confirm the reality of Jesus Christ and to validate the gospel of our Lord. There were, first of all, the gifts to the church in general. They are in the form of five gifted kinds of men. Apostles, sent ones, prophets, New Testament teachers, not foretellers of truth. These two offices were given to the New Testament church as a foundational ministry, which were temporary to begin the foundation of the church according to Ephesians 2 .20 and are not operative today. There are three other kinds of gifted men that God gives to the church as gifts, plural, collectively, to the assembled congregation and to the worldwide body, pastor, evangelist, and teacher. There are specially gifted preachers today. There have always been Criswells, Truett's, Spurgeon's. These are God's gifts to the church. There are also gifted teachers that he gives to the church, men such as Dr. Toler, whom we shall hear tonight, Wayne Ward, Dr. Travis, Dwight Pentecost, Bill Pinson, Hubert Drumwright, different kinds of teachers. However, there is also the office of teacher and preacher, but the gifts of teaching and preaching to those of us who are body members. And so there is a second distinct category. There is the gift of the gifted men to the church in general. Then there are the gifts of characteristics of Jesus Christ, gifts given sovereignly by the Holy Spirit at conversion. There are 11 of them. Number one, the gift of preaching, the gift of the declaration of the facts. Two, teaching, the explanation of the facts. Three, knowledge, the assimilation of the facts. Four, wisdom, the realistic everyday application of facts. Five, the gift of giving, sharing material blessings with our fellows. Six, the gift of discerning spirits, comprehending the truth of God sensitively, whether it be of God or not. Seventh, there is the gift of showing mercy, the gift which helps us to be able to do acts of loving kindness. Eight, the gift of exhortation, the paroclesis gift, which helps us to encourage and lift those that are down. Then there is ninth, the gift of administration, ruling or government. Ten, the gift of helps. And then there is the eleventh gift, which I just forgot. All right. Now, the third thing is that there are gifts, there are gifts, there are gifts which are given to the apostles. They are confirming sign gifts. They are different. They are distinctive from the gifts that the Lord gave as permanent ongoing gifts. The concept of giving an apostolic gift was the idea to confirm the gospel of Jesus. Now, if you have your Bibles, turn over with me to the book of Mark. Please, Mark chapter number 17. And let's look at these, this cluster of three types of apostolic gifts, tongues, healing, and miracles. A 16, I'm sorry, Mark chapter 16. There's not a 17, is there? Verse 17 is what I meant to say. Mark chapter 16, verse 17. Jesus is commissioning his disciples to go and proclaim the good news worldwide. It is a new message. It is a new concept. It is the fulfillment of prophecy. It has never been done before. And it's going to be a revolutionary in the Jewish world to which the apostles were sent. And so he said, I'm going to give you some help. I'm going to validate what you do in this fashion. These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. And so then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. So they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following. So he says to us that he is going to do three things with the apostles. They will be able to handle snakes and not be harmed. They can drink poison. They can perform all kinds of miraculous acts. They can speak with a miraculous gift, the ability to communicate in language, known languages that they have never heard before, and the ability to miraculously heal people. These were the confirming signs, and it was necessary that the gospel be confirmed. You see, if three preachers came to town, and you were living in Jerusalem in the year 20 or 30 A .D., and they all preached three different kinds of messages, and one of them could walk on water and walk through doors and make axe heads float and heal cancer and raise the dead, which of the three would you believe? You would believe the man that could work the miracles. And so Jesus validated and confirmed what was affirmed with three kinds of powerful truths. The ability to speak in unlearned languages, the ability to heal, and the ability to work miracles. Now today, we don't have to have that kind of validation for the gospel message. Every believer comes to church with a copy of the Word of God in hand. The Bible is a closed system today. It is a finished product. It is a consummated, completed revelation. But they had no such validation for this new gospel message in those days. Today, a man comes to town, and he preaches to me that he's got a new revelation from God, a new kind of gospel. I don't have to have some kind of miracle to confirm whether he's of God or not. I simply turn to Galatians 1 .8 and find out that if a man comes and says an angel gave him a new gospel, a new revelation of truth that's different from the Word of God, that he is to be accursed. And I have the biblical record that he is not of God. A man comes to town and preaches that men are saved by goodness. By joining the church and doing good works, I simply turn to Ephesians 2 .8 and 9 and find out by grace are ye saved through faith, and I invalidate his claim to authenticity. A man comes to town and gets up and starts to preach that there's no hell. He comes to my front door. He's from a cult or a sect. He has his literature. He says death is the grave. Hell is not a reality. I simply turn to the Bible that says the wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget God and where Jesus in the Luke chapter 16 declares that when a man dies, he goes to hell in the lake of fire. He is alive. He is screaming. He's in pain. He wants water. He wants release. And I find that, and I understand that the man is not of God. I don't care whether I don't have to have him work a miracle or not. Another man comes. He gets up on television, and he preaches that Jesus was a good man. He was the ultimate prophet. He was the great teacher. But he was not God come in the flesh. He was not deity. I simply turn to 1 John chapter 4 and find him to be a false prophet, a spirit of antichrist, of the devil. I disbelieve him. You see, today I have the completed record of the biblical revelation to validate and confirm the reality or unreality of a message of a preacher. They had no such validation. And so God said, We will confirm what you do and make it affirmable, yes, but believable, finally true, by the ability to speak in languages you have never heard, perform miracles, and raise the dead. It's an old concept. And heal people. It's something that's been done all through history, the concept of validating truth from God's message by the miraculous. You look down through history and you find there are four primary periods of biblical history in which people performed miracles and had a miraculous validation of their message. They were limited. They were for a limited time and for a limited purpose. The first was in the days of Moses. One day God spoke to Moses and said, I want you to go to Pharaoh and you tell him to let my people go. And Pharaoh looked at him and said, I've never seen you before. I don't know who you are. I don't know who your God is. I don't know what this message is. And furthermore, I won't let my people go. So Moses just took his rod and threw it down. It turned into a snake. And Pharaoh's turned into a snake too. And Moses ate Pharaoh's snake up. And he still didn't believe. And Pharaoh trembled, but he wasn't too sure. And so God sent some frogs. He sent locusts. He sent insects. And they turned all of the water into blood. They killed the firstborn. And all of these signs came from God. And Moses got a call from Pharaoh and said, come to the palace. I've changed my mind. I think you can go after all. You see, the miracles validated the message when there was no other authoritative discipline. And you come down to the period of Elijah and Elisha. And you find after a period of centuries, the only second time in the Old Testament, there was a period of validating miracles. Then you come to the New Testament era. Jesus Christ stepped on the scene and said, I, the Lamb of God, I am the Savior of the world. They that have seen me have seen the Father. And from the very beginning, the angel said, the authenticity of the claim of this Messiah to deity will be validated by the miraculous. He said, there are going to be signs. First of all, he said, you're going to find this baby with grave clothes wrapped around him. And it will prove that he is from God. It will be a miracle, a sign, something that's unusual. Jesus came and the Pharisees. The first thing they said to him is master, what sign show us now that we believe thee again in Matthew 13, they said, show us some sign and wonder. Jesus said in dismay to his generation, except you see signs and wonders, we will not believe one day in John two 26, Jesus preached and a great crowd responded. And John said, many believed on his name when they saw the miracles which he did. Nicodemus came to Jesus by cover of night and said, master, I want to be your disciple. I believe in you. No man could do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Show me therefore the word of light and the word of life. One day, Jesus told a story in which he had claimed and discussed that men that had had enough scriptural exposition. Finally, a man wanted to come from the grave and have a great miracle and go back and have a resurrection. And Jesus said, no, they've had enough preaching. Now I want you to know that if they have Moses and the prophets, they have the word of God, they still won't believe even though a man rose from the dead. Now, when you come to the apostolic era, Jesus gave some validating signs of miracles, the ability to speak in new languages and the ability to heal further as a sign confirming the validating of the message of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, when you turn to Mark chapter 16, which we did just a moment ago, you find there is a distinctive, definite article used. He says, these signs will follow them that believe. And they did follow those who believe the signs accompanied their faith. That's why they believe. And these signs were healing, the ability to speak in languages they had never learned and the ability to perform miracles. Now you find that Jesus says these signs. It is a definite article. Watch the grammar. He does not say some signs. He says these signs. It is a definite article. It is collective. It is pluralistic. He says all of them. So today, if we believe that all of these signs are still operative now as confirmation signs of the gospel to the unbeliever, then we find that we're going to have to agree with the appellation chase snake handlers. We'll have to agree with the church of the firstborn and who practice sometimes drinking poison. It doesn't always work like they hope that it will because all of these signs, he says, will follow them that believe. So if we're going to take out some, then we're going to have to take all of them. Now, when you come down to today, you find that the kinds of gifts that God gave the body members, which were to edify each other, still continue. The kinds of gifts which were to be confirming signs to unbelievers are a different kind of category. And it's my belief that they do not, in this restrictive sense, operative and the ability that a man has, the ability miraculously given of God to do it, continue. You say to me, what is your gift? I say, well, one of my gifts is giving. Okay, so give. So I can give. One of my gifts is preaching. And so I can exercise my gift. You see, you say, well, I can help. I can show mercy. I can sing in the choir. I can assist. I can encourage. Okay. So sing in the choir and encourage mercy. And you can exhort. You can demonstrate your gift. I come to another man who has a different category of gift, an apostolic gift. He claims, and I say to him, what is your gift? He says, my gift is healing. Okay, so heal somebody. Well, you see, God doesn't always heal. That's in the sovereignty of God. You say, well, my gift is miraculous. I can work miracles. Okay, so work a miracle. Let's see you work a miracle. Well, I'm not so sure I can. You see, I am saying that God gave them the gift of being able to heal at random who they would to validate the gospel. The gift of performing miracles when they would and to whom they would to validate the gospel. Now, it's entirely different today. Now, lest you misunderstand, let me be very, very clear to hasten and say, God still heals. God still works miracles. And who is to say the spirit of God is like fire? The spirit of God is like the wind. Just the time you think you've got him bottled up, he breaks out over here and he does some new thing. You just can't pinpoint it all. And who is to say that God could not give some man in the privacy of his own closet. And we'll see why it would have to be like that. The ability to praise him in some new heavenly language he's never heard. God could do that today. God can do anything he wants to do. But I am saying that this apostolic gift in this context, which is so grossly perverted and misunderstood today, is not a sustaining, continuing gift because the gospel doesn't need to be affirmed and validated. It is a closed system, a finished product, a written revelation. And men do not simply have the power today to go around healing whom they will. Catherine Kuhlman will be the first to say she has no gift of healing. And indeed, she does not. She has the gift of faith, but not the gift of healing. That is not to say God does not still work miracles. I saw my own son pick up a deadly coral snake and it never touched him. I've seen many kinds of miracles. I've seen he, I see miracles every Sunday. I've seen lives transformed. Every one of us are living miracles. We know of physical miracles. God does at random as he will, as he chooses to do so. But men do not have the gift of performing miracles at will. It was an apostolic gift. God still heals today. Richard Hogue told me with Robert Brunson in India last summer where the gospel had never been heard by some people that they prayed for a man and scales fell from his blinded eyes and he saw. Harvey Keneiser went and I went to my inner study downstairs a few months ago and prayed for a James Taylor's wife. He was one of our neighboring pastors. And visibly before our eyes, we saw warts and carbuncles leave her hand. Captain John Levere was instantaneously healed of cancer. God still heals, but men don't have the healing gift today. There's a vast difference. And the apostolic gift of tongues is vastly neglected and misunderstood and perverted today. And what is happening far too many times is a long way from the truth. You say, now, and let me, let's take this thing of healing just for a moment, just for a moment. By the time we come to about century 70 and 80, 80 historians find that as the church was being formed, the apostles began to move off the scene, the foundation was laid, the New Testament church began to be built upon the foundation. That is difficult to validate the continuation of these things. Now, long before you get to a hundred BC in Christian history, what do you find? The very oldest book in the New Testament in forms of a sequence in all probability is the book of James. Now, James said, if anybody is sick, call for the older elders of the church, get everybody together, get the preachers and the deacons, the church leaders and anoint them and pray over them and God will bless them. Now he didn't say, go get a healer and let them heal them. You see, God still heals, but men don't have the gift of healing. He said, remember the apostle Paul had a sickness. Perhaps it was stuttering or perhaps it was some kind of eye trouble. And three times he asked God to heal him. Now, he was an apostle who had the apostolic gifts, but he didn't heal himself because the gifts began to fade because necessarily they passed away when the apostles and the New Testament prophets passed away after the foundation of the church was already laid. You will remember that he didn't heal himself. You will remember that Timothy was sick. And Paul wrote him and said, go get one of the men with the gifts of healing to heal you. No, he said, take a little wine for your stomach's sake. You see, probably had ulcers. That probably made it worse too. I don't know what kind of a, of a doctor earlier. Paul was. Well, then you find that Paul writes a letter in Acts and he says, we left Trophinius at Miletus sick. Why didn't Paul heal him? Listen closely. Because never in the New Testament do you find believers healing each other. They were never healed. It was always unbelievers. Jesus always worked miracles on unbelievers. He always raised to life unbelievers. Lazarus was no believer in Jesus. None of them really believed. They didn't become apostles and converts. They're only disciples, learners, until they saw the resurrected Christ. It was sick Jews that he healed. It was always that way. But then one of the problems, what we need to understand about neo -Pentecostalism was several things. For one thing, we need to keep in mind that it was a sign to the unbeliever. It was never intended to have a ministry of edification to itself. I've wondered if people who have healing power, they claim today, why don't they go into hospitals where there are sick people and preach the gospel and use healing as a sign to confirm and validate the gospel message. I was writing down the street the other day and I saw a truck with a big tent. It said, miracle services, miracles Monday through Friday, healing Saturdays and Sunday. It's just line up. That's very strange. That's not according to the New Testament pattern when it was a sign to unbelievers. I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, if you will, please. And you need to understand the entire basis for the New Testament miracle of languages. And remember, that is the word. 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 21. The whole concept was one of the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy which God was going to do to validate the gospel of Jesus. In the law, what law? The Old Testament, it is written where in Isaiah 28, 11? With men of other tongues. The word is languages. It is never tongues in the Greek. With men of other languages and other lips will I speak unto this people. What people? To whom was Isaiah speaking? Of course, he was speaking to Jews. He was speaking about Jews. He said, I am going to talk to Israel through men who speak in other languages. And he said, and yet for that, in spite of all of that, still they will not hear me. Most Jews still don't believe, saith the Lord. Wherefore, this is the crux. Don't miss it. Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe. It is not intended to edify each other. You know, what good does it do to me if you can speak in German or if you can speak in a language you've in Korean or some dialect. What good is that going to do me to hear you do that if you show mercy or kindness or patience or teaching toward me? But I don't need that as a miraculous sign to confirm my faith. I already have the word of God and I have faith in that. Wherefore, this sign, this ability to speak to the unbeliever, to the Jews specifically, in the fulfillment of prophecy from Isaiah, which is the crux of the matter, will be a sign not to them which believe. He said, but prophesy. He said, but to them that believe not. He said, so preaching serveth not for them that believe not. He said, we exhort, we preach to each other, but for them which believe. We need to remember that, that it was a sign. Now, the second thing that's to the Jew, to the unbeliever, the second thing we need to remember, there's one of the problems with our wonderful neo -Pentecostal friends that we must, must be tolerant of as we must ask them to be tolerant of us as we try to bring to the exposition of the word of God, exposing to the truth of scripture, not merely to experience, not what we think or have experienced. But what God says is that the expression unknown tongues does not exist anywhere biblically. You say, well, it's in my King James Bible. Well, your King James Bible, my friend, every time it has unknown is in italics, or it should be indicating it is not in the original Greek language. And the word tongue should not be used. The word is languages. It is gloside as a classical Greek expression. It's historic. It's not open to interpretation. It is fixed. It's authoritative. It's always that way. It is always languages. It is the ability to speak in a language you've never heard. The gift that he gave is a confirmation sign of the gospel in the book of acts and in first corinthians first both the apostle uses the expression gina glosa which means kinds of languages now look over in first corinthians chapter 14 verse 7 he's talking about the matter of this confusing din of of sounds that was coming from the corinthian church and even things without life giving sound whether pipe or heart except they give a distinction in the sounds how shall it be known what is piped or heart you say you say see it was a kind of gibberish it was not clear it was not distinct they were just making noises now he says kinds gina glosa kinds of languages there aren't kinds of gibberish there's only one gibberish gibberish is gibberish only language has sound only language has structure only language has categories of kinds i want you to listen to the testimony of dr william samerson phd at the university of toronto who is one of the world's greatest linguists and great authorities on linguistics in his book they speak with the tongues of men and angels dr samerson said quote i have listened to the what they call speaking in tongues all over the world he said i have heard it in the puerto ricans in the bronx and the russian molucans in los angeles i've listened to the peromanians in jamaica to the appalachian snake handlers i've heard it in the backcountry woods i've heard it in neo -pentecostal meetings and fashionable churches in london and he said he adds in houston and in jamaica and in holland and in germany all over the world neo -pentecostals as well as the old fashioned he said i've talked to two or three i've heard two or three thousand at once i've investigated i've recorded thousands of such sessions and investigated and analyzed and recorded and interviewed thousands of what they call tongues talkers dr samerson continues it is my studied opinion that basically it is not language he says further the modern tongues is linguistic nonsense it is fundamentally not any kind of known discernible language so i say to you again that we must remember now there's a theory there is a theory which may be true that god gives some men the ability to speak in a heavenly language that only god can understand i'm not saying that that could not happen i dare not say that anything could not happen because of what i know about our god but i am saying that it is certainly has no base in sound biblical exegesis there's a third thing i want you to consider and that is that the bible makes it very very clear it was assigned to unbelievers that it was to be that it was a known unclear discernible language was given to validate the gospel and that there came a time in jewish history when the problem arose that the sign god had given to the jews was to confirm the gospel to the jews arose with a great problem in a gentile church now it is the church at corinth now the church at corinth is certainly no biblical blueprint of how to have a church they were practicing adultery immorality homosexuality incest they were living with their own mothers and stepmothers in adulterous relationships there was drunkenness at the lord's supper table failure to discern the body of christ perversion of the gifts denial of the bodily resurrection all kinds of cults and heresies and perversion and division and ism and schism it was a mess so when you come to the matter of gifts naturally you find you expect to find that the the corinthian gentile church was also confused in the matter of gifts and certainly they were indeed and the worst of all was the gift of tongues now you will remember very closely that the corinthian church at corinth was a greek gentile church it was not a church of jewish believers as early as as 11 bc the greco -roman cults are are documented to have been speaking with ecstatic language unknown languages pagans in the temple and so it is quite common that this practice would have been brought into the gentile believing church but confused and perverted and misunderstood in that context paul wrote them a letter and he had a precarious balance to try to maintain because you see there were certain jews which moved in and out of the city of corinth so there had to be left some room for the proper administration of the gift of tongues as assigned to unbelieving jews in case an unbelieving jew came to church but it was not too common and so there was a gross perversion of the vein he was trying to set the record straight now over in the first verse he begins in first corinthians 12 by saying i don't want you to be ignorant brethren about spiritual gifts there was a good deal of ignorance now when you come to first corinthians chapter 14 let's keep our bibles over there open for just a moment he says he that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifyeth himself he says look there aren't any unbelievers in the church you're all talking together and the exercising of your spiritual gift the ability to speak a language you have never heard the exercising of any spiritual gift does edify a man it's good to exercise your gift but look there aren't any unbelievers there so why don't you as a church collectively major on preaching instead of everybody getting in a corner and doing his own thing i can't think of of anything as odd to me as a collection of charismatics no unbelievers have present everybody together just gibbering in tongues and doing their own thing now you come down to verse a number uh verse number 18 he says i thank my god i speak with tongues more than you all that is the king james version it is correct it is from the king it is from the greek now you probably have in some of your modern translations something which says i speak in tongues in private that is not what the greek language says that's just somebody's opinion what was paul doing he was saying now hang on i'm going to straighten this thing out i'm going to give you some proper perspective of the use of tongues in your assembly but don't think because i am restricting it and controlling it and putting guidelines and explaining it that that doesn't mean that i have that i'm any less qualified to teach on it than you are i have the gift too i am an apostle too in fact i've gone all over the world he was a missionary of course he spoke in tongues more than any of them but he's saying don't think that i don't have the gift i do it too and i've exercised it as a missionary he doesn't say do it in private he says he said just because i'm going to straighten the thing out i'm not denying it i'm trying to get it in proper perspective and you come down to verse number 28 of verse number 27 he says if any man speak in an unknown language let it be by two or at the most three they were all doing it and they were doing without interpreters and unbelievers who were coming in in this hot spots thought they were all crazy and most of the time there weren't even any unbelieving jews there and he's trying to set the thing in order to control the use of it in the validating sense that the spirit of god originally gave it as an apostolic gift now you come down to verse number 34 he says let your women keep silence in the church it's not permitted for them to speak you say they can't teach a sunday school class that's not the discussion the context of the chapter is regarding the speaking in tongues most of the modern tongues movement is led by women now i ask you in the modern expressions of churches who are call themselves charismatic churches do women speak in tongues are there never more than two or three are there always uh interpreters are there always unbelieving jews there to hear the message to validate that a miracle did occur is that the way they do it today i'm saying to you that in love the gift has been misunderstood misunderstood and has a is a very questionable in its use and he's doing his best to try to straighten the thing out i want you to turn over to second corinthians please chapter 2 uh 12 verse 12 now this is second corinthians a book forward chapter 12 verse 12 paul is again trying to validate his gospel trying to authenticate his message and his ability to straighten them out in bible doctrine and preach the truth and he says i want you to remember that truly the signs collective plural the three jesus mentioned miracles tongues and uh and healing the signs collective plural of an apostle were wrought among you i did them in your presence remember that i have validated validated my apostleship i wrought them among you and all patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds now keep on going let's go over to the book of hebrews if you will please hebrews right after first and second timothy chapter 2 verse number 3 hebrews this is important so find it quickly chapter 2 please verse number 3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation the jews it's who's this book written to man it's written to the hebrews he says we we hebrew believers we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the lord they didn't hear it from the lord they heard it from somebody else but it was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, the Lord, the apostles. God also bearing them witness, both with signs, giving witness attestation to their message, with signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will. The word confirm means made believable. It means made finally true. And so, you see, it is always a validating thing to the unbelievers, not something that was primarily for the edification of fellow believers. Edification of self, of course, he says. The exhortation of any gift is that. But he said if there are no unbelievers there, then don't do something that doesn't do anybody else any good. And over back in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, remember in verse 28, where he says that, I'm sorry, 14 verse 28, chapter 14, verse number 28, if there be no interpreter present, let him speak, keep silence in the church and let him speak to himself and to God. And your Amplified Bibles and your Living Bible says in private, in tongues. No, that's not in the Greek language either. That's just his opinion. It says just let him keep quiet and speak to God. There's nobody there to hear. Don't exercise the gift. Just be quiet and pray. All that he's saying, nothing else, nothing more. In the year 70 A .D., Titus overran Jerusalem, and God dispersed the Jews and sent them around the world. In the year 70 A .D., God quit doing signs primarily from then to about the year 100 A .D. in the face of Israel. And what did he do? He blinded their eyes, and he's not doing miraculous signs to the Jews today. Cleon Rogers, eminent church historian, says that since the year 100, it is obvious that primarily the gift of tongues, validating the gospel to the Jews in whose face God has quit doing gospel signs and miraculous signs, has ceased. He says you go several hundred years, the first 500 years, there's no mention of tongues. Well, there were two. There were two instances. Monteneus, you remember, and Tertullian. Monteneus was branded as a heretic. Monteneus said that the Holy Spirit lived only in him, and God spoke only through him on the earth, and Tertullian was his apostle. Then you come down for several hundred years, only once or twice, spasmodically through the Dark Ages. You find the Catholics speaking in tongues. You come all the way down to the beginning of the first teachings, the first history of American civilization, and you find Mother Lee leading a cult speaking in tongues. Mother Lee said, and we always have to go back and validate by Scripture, Mother Lee said that the second coming of Jesus Christ was fulfilled in her. And you come to the Azusa Street meetings in 1917, Neo -Pentecostalism in 1960. So you have only one or two scattered questionable incidences, this great historian says, from the year 100 to today. Now, has the Spirit of God sucked out this gift, which was for a time and a purpose, and then re -given it today? What's going on today? How do we explain it? Let me point out to you a couple of three things in closing. For one thing, you must turn with me in the book of 1 Corinthians to really get something that's hard to understand unless we look for a moment, as we will, at the Greek language. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. 1 Corinthians 13 .8. This is critical, please. 1 Corinthians 13 .8. Charity, that's love, never faileth. Ah, so he's obviously going to compare it with something which does fail. But whether there be prophecies, they shall cease. Now, he's talking about something that will happen in the future. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For now we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away. Now, look down, go on to verse 12. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know as I am known, even as I shall know, even as I also am known. Now, let me ask you the question. What's Paul talking about here? He says, charity shall fail, tongues shall cease, knowledge shall vanish away. He says, now when that which is perfect, that means complete, comes, that which is imperfect, incomplete, will be done away. What's he talking about? Well, I'm not sure, but I am leaning toward the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now I'll tell you why. He says, now we see through a glass darkly. Now we don't know everything. We don't have perfect knowledge. So we have to teach knowledge and share knowledge with one another. But when that which is complete will come, and the Word of God is coming, we still don't have perfect knowledge, Then I shall know as I am known. Hallelujah. That's the coming of Jesus. That's the glorification of the believer, man. We're going to know everything. We don't look through the glass darkly. We know. We don't have to ask, why did he die? Why did she get sick? How, when, why? We know everything. Perfect knowledge. And so the gift of knowledge won't have to be used. What about privacy? About whom do we prophesy? About preach. Whom do we preach? Jesus. Is there going to be any preaching in heaven? No. We don't have to preach when Jesus comes, man. We don't have to tell you what Jesus is like. You'll see him. You'll touch him. It'll be complete. Now, when you look at this Word, that love, that prophecy will vanish away, preaching shall fail, it shall quit being, and knowledge shall vanish away, for there will be tongues, they shall cease. You look at the Greek, here's what you find. The Word, vanish away, and the Word, fail, are kartageo. They are the same Word. And they are in the active voice. It means to be superimposed on, to be rendered inoperative. It means made to cease. Now, the Word that he says, where there be tongues, they shall cease, it's a different word. The word is pow. It's in the passive voice. He uses a different verb. He uses a different voice. He uses a different tense. I think he's trying to say a different thing. The word pow is in the passive voice, and it literally means, you see, after the coming of Jesus Christ, these things will be made to stop. Won't have to have knowledge. Won't have to preach. We'll see him about whom we have preached. But he says, tongues by themselves, in the passive voice, will kind of have just petered out, just fizzled out. Tongues will have ceased by themselves innately. They will not be superimposed by some event. What am I saying? I'm saying that they began to fizzle out when the apostles' mission was finished. The validating signs were finished. Now, I want to point out to you that we need to remember two or three things. First of all, the whole concept is built primarily upon an errant, biblical kind of service. Supposed scholarship. And that is the kind of a second work of grace. There is no such expression. Watch your prepositions. The word of God never says baptism of the Spirit. The apostle Paul says, by one Spirit are we all baptized into Christ. Man, that's the baptism, what they call, of the Spirit. Jesus said, in not many days hence on Pentecost, you'll be baptized with the Spirit. What happens is, the first time most believers get filled with the Spirit, and there are subsequent fillings after that, they make up a new name for it. But their scholarship is wrong. It's not to be called the baptism of the Spirit as the initial filling of the Holy Spirit. The whole concept has no proper basis in real New Testament scholarly exegesis of the word of God. Now, another problem, I want you to remember this, is that experience is not the test of validity. You say, oh, but people do speak in tongues. And so there has to be such a thing as speaking in tongues. Wait a minute. The Jews were so well acquainted with the fact that Satan could counterfeit and duplicate anything that God did, that they said when Jesus worked miracles, the unpardonable sin was committed, they said the whole things of the devil. They were well acquainted with the fact. In Matthew chapter 7, Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 13, we find that Satan was healing by his own power. As early as 11 B .C., the early Greco -Roman cults, and by 12 B .C., back in 12 and 15 B .C., the Syrophoenician cults were practicing the speaking in ecstatic languages. You go back as far as the year 429 B .C. In the writings of Plato, we find references, the dialogues of Plato, to speaking in unknown languages, ecstatic languages, 719 B .C. In the writings of Virgil, we find the Sibylline priests were speaking in unknown languages. The Agnacan, the pri -priest of the savages that were found many years ago on the island of Greenland in nudity and obscenity and all kinds of vulgarity were dancing in nudity and speaking in ecstatic languages. The Mohammeds have a doctrine of speaking in tongues. The Tibetan monks speak in tongues. The Peramanians of Jamaica, the Russian Mollacans speak in tongues. The dervishes of Persia today speak in tongues. It's nothing new. Simply the fact that it is done doesn't necessarily validate it by Scripture. Another problem with it is that it creates two kinds of Christians, the spiritual and the non -spiritual, the high power that have got it and those that don't have it. It divides churches. I'll tell you something else that it often does. It makes Jesus Christ subservient to the Holy Spirit. Now, I believe in the filling of the Spirit. I've been preaching it to you for the last eight weeks and for the last five years, but I am saying to you that it is not necessarily the priority that a person be a Holy Ghost man or a Holy Spirit denomination. Brother, we need to be a Jesus denomination and a Jesus man. That that exalts the Holy Spirit is not of the Holy Spirit. That that exalts the Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ is of the Holy Spirit. He's a well of water springing up inside you. You make Jesus real and there's a subtle temptation and danger. You say, well, some of my very dear, wonderful friends speak in tongues. Why? Well, for one reason, because it's possible to do it in the flesh. A woman in Anchorage, Alaska, told me a few days ago, she went to a church. They said, pretend that you're calling up on God's knee and that you're a baby. He's your father. Let your tongue hang loose and say, bah, bah, bah, and then say, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. Friend, that's terrible. That's trying to seduce the Holy Spirit. A gift is given sovereignly. It doesn't work that way. And I need to remind our hearts, of course, that in love, the Spirit of God, when he works, when he fills a man, listen, oh, I want you to know, I just want you to know the power, the electricity, the joy that there is for soul winning and for service when the Spirit of God fills and floods your life. I want you to understand that what the Spirit of God might do in private to you, maybe he can let you praise Jesus in a new language you've never heard. I'll leave room in love for that possibility, but let me tell you something that most of what goes in the guise of modern neo -pentecostalism is certainly open to speculation and subject to question and has very little base and sound biblical exegesis. Listen, many of our friends are very sincere. I think some of the problem is that sometimes folks don't understand the Word of God. They may be subject to physical inducements, psychological inducements, or even satanic inducements. Sometimes what happens is people are so hungry for a spiritual high that they just look for things that keep them in a state of ecstasy and they never learn to walk in the Spirit and the day -by -day realities of the power of Jesus Christ. Man, which is really where it's at. There's the problem far too many times that some folks have to have some kind of a supernatural experience to buoy up their faith because they're really weak in their ability to believe. I tell you something else that happens. Far too often what is really happening is that people who are are hungry to know God and hungry for the Word of God are subject are subject to a kind of spiritual high which buoys up their faith and which causes them to go from supernatural experience to supernatural experience rather than learning the daily Christ walk of the gift and fruit, the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I want to finish by reading one verse of Scripture over in 2 Peter the first chapter. If you have your Bibles you can turn please. I tell you another problem is a lot of people it's a shortcut to spiritual maturity. Boy, if you get this, you've arrived, you've done it all. All you got to do is talk in tongues. Man, that's the thing. Well, let me tell you what the Bible really says. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse number 3. I'm sorry. 1 Peter. Okay, 2 Peter. 2 Peter. 2 Peter. 2 Peter. 2 Peter. Verse 3. He's talking about Jesus Christ according as He His divine power hath given unto us. What's He given to us? What's He given to us? All things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of tongues. No, of some special work of grace. No, of Him, Jesus, Christ. Call us glory and virtue. He has given us all things in Jesus Christ that pertain to godliness and to life. Now, you must listen. We conclude and wrap this up. I'll be as honest as I know how. I'm not infallible. I don't claim to have the final word on anything. I'm just a man trying to teach from the Word of God as I understand the Scriptures to you to deliver your souls in integrity and honest before the Lord. And I believe that unfortunately, because of pressure from peer group, because of misunderstanding of the Word of God, and a lot because of the King James Version, because of a desire for instant spiritual success and instant spiritual maturity and to live on spiritual highs, a large, I don't know if it's 10 or 50 or 99, but a large percentage of what goes on today is unbiblical and really not of God. I still believe in miracles. I still believe in healing. I still believe that if God chooses to do so, He can give a man an experience in private in which he can praise God in a language he's never heard that's not even a known language. I suppose that can happen. That wall can turn into green cheese. The lid can blow up. God can do anything He wants to do. But I'm saying that experience must never be superseded by real biblical scholarship. What the Word of God says and doesn't say. I rather suppose that my biggest pick is that folks get the idea, brother, if you don't have this one gift, if you don't force and seduce, they put out booklets on how to make it happen, the Holy Spirit to do one thing, which Paul says is the least of things, then you just haven't got it. Oh, my dear friend, I love you, but that's just not how it is. That's just not how it is. All things in Jesus Christ. Let the Spirit of God fill you. Let Him live in you. Let Him bless you. Let Him use you. And I'm saying that it is my judgment and my recommendation as your pastor. I may not be the best shepherd in the world, but I'm the only one you've got. And I'm going to do my best under God to tell you what I believe is right for your soul, that you ought not to seek it, that you ought to stay away from it, because most of it, and that you ought not to practice it. That's why we do not allow it publicly in the services of this church. What you do in your own private prayer closet is your business. But I'm saying before you swallow it, you need to go to the Word of God afresh in light of what you've heard today and examine again, not from experience or hearsay, but from thus saith the Word of God, and bring your experience to the test of the validity of Scripture. Frankly, the greatest Christians I've ever known are in this church. I want to tell you, if a man, well, I won't call any names, but if a man can be a better Christian or a woman and a better Christian than some of the everyday corn, bread, variety, garden, variety type of everyday folks I know that are full of the Spirit and love Jesus Christ. I tell you, I don't know what Billy Graham's got, but I just give all I've got to have what he's got. Oh, for my life, for our lives, the normal Christian life is the consistent fullness of the Spirit of God. You know, most churches are so cold, the body temperature is so low that any time a new body member arrives with a 98 .66, we think he's got a fever. Man, that's normal. It's normal to rejoice. It's normal to love Jesus. It's normal to be full of the Holy Spirit, man. It's normal to just want to jump up and down and praise God. I'll tell you, it's good to know Jesus. We've got Him. All things pertinent to life and victory are in Jesus Christ. Get back to the center of the road, man, and keep Jesus sweet on your soul. Let's stand together. Father, we love you. We praise your name. We ask you to bless our invitation. In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to sing just a couple of verses.