SPEAKING IN TONGUES

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SPEAKING IN TONGUES

• Gift Of The Spirit Or Unscriptural Confusion

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AGENDA

• Defining The Pentecostal Experience
• Brief History Of Speaking In Tongues
• Measuring Experience By The Bible
• Are Tongues A Sign Of The Holy Ghost?
• The Purpose Of The Biblical Gift
• The Sign Gifts Which Passed Away
• Review Of The Scriptures Acts
• Review Of The Scriptures - Corinth

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DEFINING THE PENTECOSTAL EXPERIENCE

• Associated With The Baptism Of The Spirit
• Involves Praying And Prophesying In Strange
  Languages
• It Is Claimed That These Languages Belong To
  Heaven

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BRIEF HISTORY OF SPEAKING IN TONGUES

• Montanus, the heretic, led a movement in the 2nd
  Century which practiced this phenomenon
• For 1800 years the practise was unknown
• 17th and 18th Centuries it appeared in the Europe
  among Roman Catholic groups called the Cevenols
  and Jansenists
• In New England it appeared among the Shakers
• In the 19th Century The Irvingites Of London were
  characterised by tongues speaking
• In the 20th Century the modern Pentecostal
  movement grew out of the holiness movement
• In the 1960s the phenomenon continued beyond the
  Pentecostals into other churches, both Protestant
  and Catholic, and became the Charismatic Movement

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Measuring Experience By The Bible

• 1 John 41
• Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the
  spirits
• whether they are of God because many false
  prophets
• are gone out into the world.
• Isaiah 820
• To the law and to the testimony if they speak
  not
• according to this word, it is because there is no
  light in
• them.

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ARE TONGUES A SIGN OF THE HOLY GHOST?

• Testimony Of Merrill F Unger
• New Testament Teaching On Tongues
• Mystic languages are spoken among
• 1 Spiritists and Moslems
• 2 Ancient Pagans, mystics of Rome and
• Greece
• 3 Modern Pagans as in the Sandwich
• Islands where the priest wild with
• ecstasy speaks on behalf of the god
• Uro. His words are translated by the
• other priests

• Testimony Of Charles R Smith
• Tongues In Biblical Perspective
• Tongues Speaking Occurs Among
• 1 Non Christian Religions, priests in Haiti,
  Greenland, Africa, Australia, North and South
  America all practice.
• 2 The mentally ill
• 3 Spiritists
• 4 The Demon Possessed

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ARE TONGUES A SIGN OF THE HOLY GHOST?

• The ability to speak in tongues is no evidence of
  the Holy Ghost
• How can we be sure that the speaker is not
  endowed with the same emotional frenzies as the
  heathen are guilty of?
• Has tongue speaking been a Satanic plot to divide
  the church?
• We must examine the scriptures on the issue

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THE PURPOSE OF THE BIBLICAL GIFT

• The word tongue means a language
• Therefore the gift enabled the speakers to speak
  in a certain language supernaturally
• The chief purpose of the gift was as a sign to
  unbelieving Jews
• 1 Corinthians 1421-22
• 21 In the law it is written, With men of other
  tongues and other lips will I speak unto this
  people and yet for all that will they not hear
  me, saith the Lord.
• 22 Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them
  that believe, but to them that believe not but
  prophesying serveth not for them that believe
  not, but for them which believe.

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WHAT WERE THE SIGN GIFTS

• Mark 1617-18
• Healing
• Miracles
• Prophesying
• Tongues
• Interpretation of Tongues

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THE PURPOSE OF THE SIGN GIFTS

• Gods testimony to the authority of the Apostles
  2 Cor 1212
• To supply the church with supernatural
  inspiration before the completion of the canon
  scripture John 1613

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THE PLACE OF TONGUE SPEAKING AMONG THE SIGN GIFTS

• Paul taught that it was the least important of
  all the gifts, 1Cor 12 8-10, 28-31, 145-6
• There is no evidence of Paul speaking in tongues

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THE PASSING AWAY OF THE SIGN GIFTS

• 1 Corinthians 138 Charity never faileth but
  whether there be prophecies,
• they shall fail whether there be tongues, they
  shall cease
• whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
  
• To fail or vanish away in the Greek means
  means to disappear gradually
• To cease means to stop suddenly
• Therefore while prophecies and knowledge would
  gradually diminish tongue speaking would vanish
  altogether
•  

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CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE THAT TONGUES DID CEASE

• Paul discussed the gift only in his First Epistle
  To The Corinthians, acknowledged to be his first
  letter
• The later epistles by all apostles do not mention
  the gift
• None of the great Christian writers of the first
  five centuries made mention of the existence of
  this gift

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THE CEASING OF THESE GIFTS FOLLOWS A SCRIPTURAL
TREND

• There are three periods of miracles in the
• Bible each of which lasted about 70 years
• 1 Moses and Joshua
• 2 Elijah and Elisha
• 3 Christ and His Apostles

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TONGUES SPEAKING IN ACTS

• 1 Ch 2 preach the gospel on the day of
  Pentecost
• 2 Ch 1044-46 as a sign to the Jews that the
  Gentiles were converted
• 3 Ch 191-6 the disciples of John prophesied
  but there is no evidence that their tongues
  speaking was supernatural

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THE CORINTHIAN EXPERIENCE

• The Corinthians failed in the following areas
• Party spirit caused division ch1
• They tolerated fornication ch5
• They took each other before law ch6
• They were drunk at the Lords Table chs 10-11
• They misunderstood the gifts of spirit ch12-14

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CORINTH AND THE GIFT OF TONGUES

• The Corinthians substituted a counterfeit gift
  for the true New Testament gift ch14
• They were not edifying the church v1-4
• They spoke in an unintelligible manner 5-20
• Their gift did not have the marks of the true
  gift v21-23
• Paul gave directions as to the use of the true
  gift v26-40

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WHAT WAS THE CORINTHIAN TONGUE?

• The word unknown is not in the original as it is
  in italics in our Authorised Version
• Therefore the Corinthians were praying and
  speaking in a language
• Some believe they were simply speaking in foreign
  tongues and substituting their knowledge for
  spiritual power
• Others are of the opinion that they were speaking
  pagan mystical gibberish which was common in
  Corinth
• It is clear, however, that they had abused the
  gift and Paul was setting the matter straight

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IN CONCLUSION

• There is no evidence of angelic tongues in
  scripture
• The true gift ceased before the end of the
  Apostolic era
• The true gift was used for evangelism not for
  prayer and fellowship
• God does not reveal himself to the church apart
  from his word Rev 2218