In Acts, the first chapter, verse number five, Jesus the Lord is speaking. And he says, John truly baptized with water. Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Not many days hence. And in verse eight, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And in Acts chapter two, verse one, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. And it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire. And it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in parts of Libya, about Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians. We do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. Every student of Christianity today knows that there is a phenomena going on in the world, the resurgence of an old biblical controversy that is as confusing in most places today as it was then. I refer to speaking in tongues. Tonight it will not be my intent to force you to agree with my viewpoint. I must be honest and say to you that some of the finest Christian people that I know, members of Baptist churches and of other denominations, give personal testimony that they have had experiences of mighty fillings with the Holy Spirit, in which they said, It seemed that the Spirit of God took over their tongues and they praised the Lord in a beautiful and wonderful way in language they did not understand and that it was one of the most wonderful experiences of their lives. Suffice it to say that there is room enough in the Christian body on some of these issues for us to disagree without being disagreeable. And yet, I disagree. I do not believe in my own personal opinion and my study of the Word of God that the modern tongues movement is a reality. I do not believe that it is for today. I choose to take the other side. Now, I do not force you to agree with me. There are things about which we disagree. You will find a lot of Baptists that disagree on open and closed communion. If you and I disagree about the pre-, post - or all -millennial viewpoint, we can still agree and be brothers in Jesus Christ. And this is something on which people disagree. But I want to present some things to you tonight and say that while it is a very confusing issue and that there is much confusion in it and much that we do not know or understand about it, that there are some things of which we may be confidently assured. There are some things that are very, very explicit from the Word of God. And I would like to list them for you today. You do not have to agree with everything Baptists believe to belong to a Baptist church. People have different viewpoints about the wine that Jesus drank. I don't think there could be any difference of viewpoint, but obviously there is. There is great controversy as to what is the unpardonable sin and who has the authority to baptize and the millennial viewpoints. And I say again that many of the most wonderful people in the world believe as sincerely as I do the opposite of what my understanding of the modern tongues movement is. But as your pastor, I think it is my responsibility to point out some things to you of which we are confident, some things that we do know and things about which there is no confusion. Number one, there is no confusion as to the origin and the original purpose and intent and meaning of tongues. Jesus Christ said you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. Three verses later he said ye shall be my witnesses. The sole purpose of the fullness of the Holy Spirit on your life is to recreate the likeness and the purpose and the personality and the holiness of Jesus within you that your tongue and your body and your lips and your spirit may be walking reincarnations of Jesus Christ among the world. To spread the gospel, to reproduce Jesus Christ, to witness unto him is the sole purpose for which Jesus said, for which Jesus said the Spirit's power would come upon men. It is to witness to the gospel. Now you will recall that the disciples had been told, this early church of apostles and believers that they were to spread the gospel around the world. It was impossible. It was against the law. They had no boats. They had no money. They had no social status. And most of all, the world hadn't even been discovered yet. And Jesus more than all said that the evangelization of the world was not to take place progressively. But when he said at Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and under the uttermost part of the earth, logistically it was an impossibility because of the construction of the Scythians, he is literally saying, do it all at once. And that couldn't be done. But he said to do it. But when they were true to what they knew to do that they could do, and that was pray until they were endued with power as they were told to do, God never really had in mind their going. He was going to bring the world to them. And so on the day of Pentecost, when the believers were together and praying, one stood up to preach. And he preached in his own language. And there were men there from every nation under the sun. They all came. And when Peter spoke in his language, they all heard in their language. It was a definable, clear, literal, distinct, useful, clear miracle for the purpose of spreading the gospel. It was for this cause that the gift of speaking in other tongues was originally given. Again, to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ to other people who could not hear in their own language. Number two, we do know that the touchstone, the heart, the ultimate test of every critical doctrinal controversy is what place does it give to Jesus Christ. And we also know that the modern tongues movement seems to make the focal point one's relationship with the Holy Spirit. I was at a youth retreat the other day, and there were some young people of different denominations, and one of them came to me in love and sweetness and said, have you received the baptism of the Holy Ghost according to Acts 2 -4? I said, no, have you received it according to Acts 1 -8? That is, have you gone around the world and preached to every creature? And he said, no, I haven't. Well, I said, neither have I. Billy Graham made the statement the other night that he gets very nervous around people who are always talking about the Holy Spirit and always concerned about relationship and experience with the Holy Spirit. You must understand that the Holy Spirit's purpose in the world is to hide, to stay in the background. He is meek. He is easily offended. He is sensitive. He is modest. He is delicate. And his only purpose and desire and fulfillment is to honor Jesus Christ. And I prefer to be a church that is known as a Jesus church more than a church that is a Holy Spirit church because a church that is a Jesus church is a church in which the Holy Spirit is exalting Jesus Christ. And this is the correct New Testament order. Jesus is the heart of heaven. He is the darling of the Trinity. He is the heart of creation and eternity. All things are made by him. All things are made for him. And in him, all things consist. He is the heart of life. He is the heart of the church. He is the heart of biblical revelation. And frankly, the modern tongues movement seems to make the focal point and the most important question that they're always talking about is not Jesus Christ, but their relationship to the Holy Spirit. Number three, we do know that the expression, baptism of, watch the words. When we're going to talk about it, if we're going to discuss it, let's get the terminology straight. The expression, baptism of the Holy Spirit, or baptism of the Holy Ghost, does not occur in scripture. If someone says to you, have you received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you would well be advised to say to them, no, nor have you. There is no such thing as the baptism of the Holy Ghost. In the scripture, we find the words, in a few days hence, Jesus said, and this is a one time. This is punctiliar. It is something that happens once and for all. It is a singular action in a single time and space and place. In a few days hence, you will be baptized with the Holy Ghost. That single prophecy had a singular fulfillment on the day of Pentecost. They were baptized with the Holy Ghost. Then the Bible says in the book of Ephesians and other places, that people, when they are converted, when they are saved, are baptized by the Holy Ghost into oneness with Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit that is the converting agency. It is the Holy Spirit that introduces me into the miraculous union of oneness with Jesus Christ. Christ is in me and I in him. This miraculous experience takes place because the Holy Spirit baptizes me, introduces me, submerges me into total union with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's salvation. That takes place at conversion. One is baptized by the Spirit into Christ. At Pentecost, one time, punctiliar, they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. And there is no record. The words do not exist. There is no such thing, par se, as, quote, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Let it be clearly understood that there are many fillings with the Holy Spirit. And in most cases, in most cases, when the believer experiences his first filling with the Holy Spirit, it is a mighty and wonderful experience. The new believer who understands that there are progressive degrees and dimensions of commitment to Christ, who for the first time in his life knows what it means to really commit himself not only to that understanding of the saviorship of Christ, but now to the total lordship of Christ, and is mightily filled with the Holy Spirit, almost everyone that has ever had, I'll say that every man that has ever been used mightily of the Spirit of God, has had subsequent crisis experiences of mighty in doings and anointings of power, again and again and again, time and time again, being filled. You say, do you believe in being filled with the Spirit? Every day and every moment and every hour, again freshly tomorrow morning, and the next day, and the next day. Then the Bible speaks about water baptism, significant of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But I repeat, we must keep our terminology straight. The expression, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, does not exist in the Scriptures. Next, we understand, of course, I think it goes without being said, that Jesus Christ did not speak in other tongues. He did not speak in another language, and he was mightily fulfilled, mightily filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Next, the only type of tongues that the Bible ever emphatically and clearly states is not unknown tongues, but other tongues. Now, when you read your King James Version, anytime you have a little word in italics, it is not in the Greek original manuscript. It is only assumed that this is inferred or that this is what it means. Now, understand, the word other tongues that is recorded three times in Acts is a direct translation from the Greek. And this original speaking in other languages was when a man spoke in his language and miraculously different people heard in their languages. And it is the consensus of scholarly opinion today that all of the languages that were recorded in Acts 2 .4, Acts 10 .46, and Acts 19 .6 are specifically other tongues. Now, listen closely. Luke wrote Acts after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, not in the order they appear in our Bible. If the phenomena was different at Corinth, Luke surely would have noticed the distinction. But their terminology is identical in the Greek. Neither of them refer to what is called today as unknown tongues. The word unknown is not in the original. It is in italics, you will notice. It should be. If it's not in yours, I'm sure that it is in the King James Version. Again, the only mention of tongues, the other is only inferred, suggested, and supposed. The only specific mention of tongues in the Bible where it specifically qualifies the kind of tongue is exclusively in the book of Acts three times where it is another tongue, not an unknown tongue. Then we know this. And I want to be very kind at this point, but I want to be true to the biblical revelation as well. Now, we know that the Corinthian church was a problem church. I want to tell you what I believe happened. You will recall that Paul said, I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. The apostle Paul was very tolerant. Now, the Corinthian church was the most immoral, worldly, wicked, sinful, insecure, immature, emotionally unstable bunch in the Bible. They tolerated incest. They got drunk at the Lord's supper table. And they were allowing women to take over the services. And this and other problems of divisiveness arose in the fellowship. And they wrote Paul to find out what was going on and to get some straight doctrine on the question. Among the other controversial issues, they wrote for information about the practice of speaking in these other tongues. Now, it occurs to me that these people, who obviously in every other area of their life, were attempting to take spiritual shortcuts to obtain spiritual power, had probably been exposed to what happened at Pentecost. Now, there's a kind of an inverted psychology that is often used. An advertisement says, Mickey Mantle smokes Luckys. Now, what that is saying by an inverted psychological process is that if I smoke Luckys, I can swing the bat like Mickey Mantle. A beautiful girl is held, is shown drinking liquor. So, if I drink liquor, I'll be a beautiful girl. Well, I'd never be a beautiful girl, but a beautiful girl might be it. Well, anyway. Now, remembering that on Pentecost, that on Pentecost, two things happened. One, there was a mighty demonstration of the power of God. It was overwhelming, and thousands were saved. And that there was also, along with this, the phenomenon of speaking in other tongues. It occurs to me that these people, who were weak and worldly and sinful, and were always taking shortcuts, perhaps began to duplicate and try to reproduce the power of Pentecost by reproducing of themselves the symptom of Pentecost, the miracle of Pentecost, and that they began to try to speak in tongues. And as they did so, they had the process backwards. Now, it seems to me that the Apostle Paul, and it is obvious that he again and again puts it down. He makes it the least of all the gifts, Almost with a sarcasm and ridicule, he says far better to speak 10 ,000 intelligible words than five in a tongue that people do not understand. Paul ridiculed them almost. He put them down. He made it the least of the gifts. There are 17 symptoms, gifts, fruit, altogether of the product of the Holy Spirit. And Paul, all three times here in Corinthians, makes it the least. Now I wonder if it could not be that in attempting to be all things to all men, that the Apostle Paul, rather than cutting them off and severing from them the potential of this immature young unstable church in trying to bring them along and nurture them, starting where they were, was merely tolerating their immaturity and the practice of seeking tongues in the church. It seems to me that this is a very likely possibility because of the kind of people with whom he was dealing. Next, we also know that tongues were and are divisive. Tongues were and are divisive. That's the reason they had written. Some believed and some didn't. And they wrote Paul to get some information. The church was splitting. It was divisive. Now let me say very frankly to you, as well as I know how, that in my experience, I have known of 11 Baptist churches. Now maybe Baptists aren't as holy as some. Maybe we don't have the last word. Maybe we don't know as much as some. But I am a Baptist and I'm going to stay one. But I do know this, that I have known 11 Baptist churches where tongues became an issue and it divided the congregation and the church split. In all 11 cases, the pastor was a tongues talker. And in nine of those 11 cases, and seven of them are in Tulsa, and one of my best friends is not, but nine of the 11 cases, nine of these 11 are today out of the ministry. It seems that when one gets all caught up in continually trying to edify himself in continually seeking after an experience rather than after Christ, he seems to get off of the track and it ultimately becomes a divisive thing that divides churches and divides pastors from the will of God. It is still divisive today. Again, I know of no Baptist churches that it has hit, that it has come into with prominence, that where it has surfaced, where it has become an issue, that it has not divided the fellowship and destroyed and ruined the church. Then we know too that it is only discussed in this one book and this one place where Paul was trying to help some confused, poor, immature Christians to come along and nurture them in the faith. If it was a faith -building practice, if it was emphasized again and again in all of his writings as something that was edifying, something to be sought, something to seek for, something that was the primary thing, I imagine that our Lord and all of his followers and all of the authors of the Word of God would have been inspired to have written more about it. Then we also know that these original tongues were given as a sign to them which do not believe. Now the Bible emphatically states that our Lord did some things and allowed some things in the infancy of the gospel that were ordained to stop while the church was getting off the ground. And many of the miracles, if Jesus Christ was more concerned about the raising of the dead than he was of giving veracity to his messiahship while the new church was in its infancy, why does he allow anybody to die? If merely, if merely the miracle of breaking the loaf and feeding the thousands, the miracle of raising the dead and healing the poor was primary, then Jesus is cruel if he does not continue that today. Why do we not have the dead raised today? Why is the miraculous not continued today in these areas? Because the raising of the dead, the healing of the multitudes, the feeding of the poor, although they were a part of the Christian gospel, were primarily at that time given for a sign to the unbelievers. Over in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verses 22 and 23, we find these words, therefore tongues are for a sign. Now repeat, it doesn't say unknown tongues. The word unknown tongues is never in the scriptures. Again tongues, and because unknown does not exist, we can only assume that he was referring to other tongues. Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that do not believe. But prophesying serveth for them that believeth not. Serveth not for them that believeth not. Now preaching, he says, is not to edify the unsaved, but for them which believe. Jesus, the apostle, is saying here, and it seems that they were minimizing preaching. They were making the tongues the ultimate test, the main thing. And I want to leave the door open of love, in love for a man who disagrees with me. But I do want to say that Jesus, that the apostle was saying that you who are making tongues a test of fellowship, who are making it a sign that you are right and everyone else is wrong, that are making it the wrong thing, have missed the point. He says that preaching the gospel is to edify the church. And going to church and hearing the word of God, the prophetic declaration of the scriptures, is far more to be sought and far more beneficial than speaking in tongues. He says, if therefore the whole church comes together in one place and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned and unbelievers, will not they say that they are mad? Man, they'll think you're crazy. With what sarcasm he is now saying to those who seem to be making it primary, that if it is to be tolerated at all, it is to be delegated to the realm of the near obscurity. They seem to be making it more important than the preaching of the word of God. Now also, the apostle Paul said, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all. Again, the apostle did not say, I speak in unknown tongues more than you all. I speak in other tongues more than you all. It had to be that because again that is the only kind of tongues that we know was recorded in the word of God. But consequently, does it not follow that the apostle Paul, having traveled more than they, having preached to more people than they, having been on more missionary journeys than they, having addressed more people that could not understand him than they, that he would have spoken in tongues more than they. Over in 1 Corinthians 13 .8, I would like for you to turn now if you will please. 1 Corinthians 13 .8, Charity never faileth, but where there be prophecies, they shall fail, where there be tongues, they shall cease, whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. Now these gifts he is saying are going to be increasingly less important, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is part in part shall be done away. Now this has to be one of the most confusing and difficult to comprehend passages in the word of God. But let me say that there is one thing about this that is not confusing, and that is that some of the things that were given to originally establish and edify, he says are going to become with the passing of time less and less important. But he says, now in the last verse, and now abideth faith, hope, and charity. But the greatest of these is charity. And those who study the Bible know that a better translation of this Greek word is simply love. He is saying do all things in love. Love shall endure. Love is the heart of life. Love is to be sought. Love is primary. Now, he says there are some things when I, in verse 11, as a child, spake as a child, having understood as a child and thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things. He is saying that there are some things that are given to us to strengthen our faith, some miraculous things that happen to help get us off the ground, but when we become mature in Christ we do not have to have them. Jesus said that an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. The word evil is not so much a mean generation, but primarily an unstable generation, a weak, a wishy -washy, unconfident, uncertain generation, always needing their spiritual, their faith buoyed up with experience after experience instead of the fullness of love and the power of God. Now, he did say that these things, some of these things, would stop, would cease, but that love would endure and last. Now, when did he say they would cease? When that which is perfect is come. What did Jesus mean when he referred to that which was perfect? Not here to make God the Father real, but to make God the Son real, because this is the incarnation, this is the word, the logos, that ramification, that revelation of God we can comprehend and understand. Jesus had come, the Spirit of God had come. Now what at this time had not come? Why, the Scriptures, the Word of God, the Bible, the New Testament. And I think that it holds water to suggest that that that he was talking about was that last revelation of himself that was going to come, the revealed Word of God. And we do not have to have emotional experiences and seek for experiences and things and feelings to buoy and support our faith. We have Christ, the living Word. We have the Spirit who exalts the Word. And we have the Bible now which has come. And so we do know that when something was going to come, that which was in part and only elementary to buoy our faith in our spiritual infancy would decrease in its importance and the important things which the Holy Spirit does in us, and that is to create love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Now faith, hope, joy, patience, all of these are love's manifestation, love in action in different areas of our life. But there is, the Bible doesn't say the fruits of the Spirit are in list 9. The fruit of the Spirit is love. The purpose of the Spirit in us is to create love. What makes people come all over town to come to this church? There's love here. Why is there love here? Because Jesus, who is God in the flesh and God is love, is among us. What makes Jesus real among us? He's in many places. It is the power and presence and person of the Spirit of God who makes him alive and vital and real. Now over in 1 Corinthians 13, 8, where he has said that, he ends by saying, Now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is love. So we do know that some of these things were destined, the less important, the signs for the weak were to drop off, and the more important were to endure as life went on in the New Testament church. Now, we also know something else. We do know that seldom, if ever today, and I must say that it seems that Paul was tolerating it and saying that if you must do it, if you do do it, if you have to experience this as a support of your faith, if it must buoy up your faith, then he said, See to it that it is done in a certain way. And I have been in five services in my life when people supposedly spoke in tongues. Jesus said there must be an interpreter present. He said never more than two or three in any service, and always one at a time. Now, I've been in five services, as I've said, where people supposedly spoke in tongues, and in none of the instances were these three factors present. There was confusion and divisiveness. Now listen very closely. In all five times, only three, always something, one of these three was in error. In three of the times, someone, twice in California and once in Ohio, someone did stand up and interpret. The young man that spoke to me at camp a couple of days ago at a college retreat where I was speaking said, I think God has given me the gift of interpretation. I said, You mean when someone speaks in tongues, you interpret? He says, Yes. I say, What do you say? What messages have you had from the Lord? He says, Well, it's always scriptures. It's always Old Testament quotations. And every time that I've ever heard someone supposedly interpret, it was a quotation from the Old Testament. Now I raise the question, looking at it non -theologically, or non -analytically, but simply in your own common sense, what purpose would there be in God in this miraculous way, revealing to us something that he has already written in his word? It stands to reason to me that a very sincere person is merely stating something that has already said. That's why Paul has said, That which is complete is going to come. The Bible is a finished revelation. It is a complete revelation. And it makes little sense to me that God would go to the trouble of this, or allow the confusion that results over this problem, simply for someone to tell us something that we should have already been able to read in the Bible. I cannot understand why a man would stand on the street corner and pray, Oh, God, tell me what time it is when he's got a watch. I cannot understand why he should say, Lord, help me to know when the light is red or green. To go, oh God, should I go or stay? It sounds very spiritual. It looks very religious. But in reality, God's got to give him enough sense to open his eyes and see what time it is. And it seems to me that God giving miraculous expression today of something that he has already said does not make any kind of sense. Then we know something else. Tongues, as I said, were given as a sign to them which do not believe. It was said to cease. And he was saying to us that ultimately the definite evidence of the Holy Spirit of God was to be power to witness to Jesus Christ. Now, once again, I am trying to be as gracious and open and kind and tolerant as I know how. Because I am often in interdenominational revivals where I have friends in other denominations who disbelieve, who disbelieve. But I cannot, as your pastor, fail to speak to this issue and tell you as your under shepherd what I believe the Bible teaches. The one thing I will say expressly, and herein I get my back up, when they suppose and infer and even state that it is the exclusive evidence of the fact that one has been filled with the Holy Spirit. And they say, many of them, that if you have not spoken in tongues, you are not filled with the Spirit. And there is a denomination which goes even further and says, if you have not spoken in tongues, you are not saved. And it is prominent in our city. And that doctrine is of the devil. It is satanic. It is untrue. And I warn you to be aware of that fallacy. Now, sometimes in the Bible, it says they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke in tongues. Now, it does not say, it does not say unknown tongues. It just says tongues. The only kind of tongues that are specified in the New Testament are other tongues, other languages. Therefore, it must be logically assumed that that that was what they were doing. And there were people in attendance. There were people there that were from other places. They got messages from God and they spoke. It was a sign. They marveled. And could that not be the reason he said that tongues, among other things, would cease? Because today we have all of God's messages. I repeat, and I believe that with all my heart. The Bible is the last word from the Lord. And the last next thing we're going to get as a revelation from the Lord is the revelation of the living word, Jesus Christ, who's coming back to this world. That's the next event on God's calendar of activities. Some other things that we do know about tongues, and I said one thing we are certain of, is that it is definitely not the proof that one has been filled with the Spirit. There were many times when they were filled with the Spirit, and for whatever sign or purpose or intent it was, they spoke in some tongue, which it can only be assumed was simply another language for a miracle and for propagating the gospel message, which was as yet not completed. But sometimes when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they also gave all their money away to the poor. Sometimes when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they healed. Sometimes they did various and sundry things. And I must say dogmatically that I take severe issue with those who say that tongues is the only evidence that one is filled with the Holy Spirit, that one is filled with love, that one is a witness, is the evidence that he is filled with the Holy Spirit. That must be firmly stated. Now, two other little things I must say in closing. While there may be a genuine experience of which some of the most wonderful people in the world I know have testified, and yet while I must stay with what I believe to be true and simply agree to disagree, I do want to say this, that there is some tongue talking which is self -induced. And I think that the worst thing in this world that you can do is get together for the express purpose of a tongues service. To get together to seek speaking in tongues, to make that the focal point is, that is demonic. Because anything that makes seeking anything but Jesus is not of the Holy Spirit. And it is possible for one to so believe this, that they make that the focal point and talk themselves into it. We had a preacher on KBYE in Oklahoma City who talked in tongues on the radio. He did it every time he got on. I've heard him a thousand times, a thousand times he has said something like, discapital, the oat and dot and what out of chute, or something like that. But it might vary a little bit, but it was primarily the same thing. And it always ended with hokey hokey sundae. I've heard that a thousand times. At Oklahoma Baptist University, we used to kid each other and say, hey, hokey hokey sundae, how you doing? And call each other hokey hokey sundae. I've heard that bird say it a thousand times. It was not in the spirit. It was his little thing that he did. It is possible. It is possible to do this just in the flesh. And then it is possible to speak in another tongue. And let me say this to you. And I don't know what we're going to do about this. It is quite common knowledge that speaking in tongues is practiced by many religions around the world. Buddhism, Shintoism, it's not an, it's not commonly, it is not exclusively in the Christian religion. Now, if there's no other way to the father, but by Jesus Christ, then where is the power coming from? Men in emotional frenzy of some kind of religious experience, which may or may not be a spiritual religious experience, can work themselves up into anything. It is possible for a Buddhist so to denude the personality and destroy the psyche and delude himself into nothingness, into a state of nirvana in which he is devoid of all emotional feeling, that he can burn himself alive in the streets of Vietnam and feel nothing. It is possible in a religious experience, not necessarily a spiritually religious experience, by the Holy Spirit, to get yourself in a frenzy and do anything. And I repeat that it is quite common knowledge that many non -Christian religions around the world have ceremonies in which they jump up and down and seek, as we're doing the prophets of Baal, to try to get their Lord to listen to them and work themselves into a frenzy that their mouth begins to go and they say things in all kinds of gibberish. It is not exclusively always a spiritual experience. It can be physically induced and it can definitely be satanic induced. I was in the First Baptist Church of DeWitt, Arkansas. They had just had a Bible conference a week before that this revival I was in was supposed to tie into and conclude. And the pastor told me that on Tuesday night, a woman stood up and began to speak in tongues. And when she got down, a man in his church, who was not an especially devout Christian, just a regular old boy, stood up and said, Lady, I'd just like to say that if you spoke in tongues, you spoke in the devil's tongue. Because I was shot down and in prison for three and a half years in China, in the war. And he said, I heard you stand back there and what you did for the last two and a half minutes was to swear in the most vulgar and obscene language of that Chinese dialect that I was in that prison camp that I've ever heard. And again, I cannot but say in love that if there is something for you that you have that makes you a better person, that makes Christ more real in you, if it is eating cabbage while standing on your head, eat it and stand. But I want you to know that it is my opinion that the Bible clearly teaches that the only kind of tongues was another language which was for a purpose, a temporary sign, artificially imitated by misunderstanding, weak, unstable Christians that has passed away and is not for today. And it is possible to do so and not be in the power of the Holy Spirit. And one other thing that I must clearly state, and that is that as your pastor, I shall, I shall, I shall insist that there be no tongue speaking ever at any time in this church, even at the, at the price of physical expulsion from our services, simply because everywhere I have seen it in Baptist churches, it has split that church and divided it and ruined it and as the shepherd of the flock responsible to God for this fellowship which under God is the only unique thing we have it will be my undying purpose to protect that fellowship and as your pastor I must say that I urge you and recommend to you that you stay away from the movement that you do not pursue it that you do not get interested in it it is not the Christian life is not a series of personally enjoyable experiences that that emotionally tickle the fancy and and delight the heart the purpose of the fullness of the Holy Spirit of God is to create holiness not emotion in you it is to create the glory and the work and the person of the living Christ that your tongue and your body and your being and all that you are are an honor to the Lord Jesus Christ again if you are practicing it it is edifying to you and I cannot argue with you but well I think I can I think I did but it's your privilege to just get in your closet and go right ahead but it will not be tolerated in the public services of our church it has never been so visitors don't think that this is some problem that we're dealing with and someone we're putting down and so because of it isn't a problem it hasn't happened here but I as your pastor commend you to seeking Jesus Christ the power of God for holiness and for witness in your life remember again the touchstone the cornerstone the test of every doctrine is Jesus Christ I want us to be Jesus people and sing Jesus song and preach a Jesus gospel and when the Holy Spirit is filling us and anointing us and sometimes we've been in these services and it seems like the power of God is so electrical you just can't stand it boy when it is at its epitome when it is at its sweetest then it is that the people want to sing all hail the power of Jesus name where the Spirit of the Lord is there Jesus is first and foremost let us stand together