Is
Speaking in Tongues Valid and Biblical Today?
In many
'Charismatic' and Pentecostal churches today we see the
phenomena of 'speaking in tongues' whereby people are told
that when they are very spiritual and are baptized by the
Holy Spirit, this is EVIDENCED by being able to 'SPEAK IN
TONGUES' which they say is a 'heavenly prayer language which
offers praise to the Lord! Anyone who doesn't 'speak in
tongues' if left to feel not as 'spiritual' as those who do
speak in tongues! Is this true? Are tongues for today and
is it a sign or evidence of being baptized by the Holy
Spirit? Or are people being seriously MISLEAD? What does
the Bible say about tongues and this so-called 'tongues
movement'? As we look at tongues in the Bible we see in
Acts 2 in the early days of the Church, tongues appeared as
one of the 'sign gifts' that the Lord gave to certain people
in which they were supernaturally able to speak in known
earthly languages without going to school to learn them.
They used this ability to speak the gospel to the foreigners
who had gathered at Jerusalem during the yearly Passover.
The languages are listed in Acts 2:8-12! It is not some
'heavenly' angel language at all! For example, it would be
like me being able supernaturally to speak the German
language to a German man so I could give the gospel to him
so he could take it back to his people. You see, in the
early days of Acts, God was trying to get this new 'Gospel'
out to the world. There was no completed bible yet, nor any
media outlets such as radio, TV, or even newspapers! God
used tongues and other of the 'sign gifts' to bring
attention to this new program He was starting...the Church!
Once the bible began to be completed (around about AD 60),
these sign gifts, including TONGUES, were done away with and
CEASED. (1 Corinthians 8-10) With this background, we also
see that God gave certain guidelines for the use of tongues
in those early church days as described in 1 Corinthians 14.
Isn't it strange that charismatic groups today don't even
follow these guidelines that Paul gave? We learn several
things about the gift of tongues from the Bible when it was
present and available during the early years of the church.
In the church services in that day, an interpreter MUST be
present or the tongues person must remain QUIET! (1 Cor.
14:27, 28)…and only 3 at the most could speak during a
service and then only one at a time…and women were not to
speak in tongues AT ALL! (v. 34) Do those speaking in
tongues in churches TODAY follow these guidelines? If not,
why not? Paul indeed said in 1 Cor. 14: 39 to forbid not
those who had the gift of tongues to use it because when
Paul wrote those words around AD 50 tongues was still
present! Tongues did cease according to church history, and
now have only come ‘back to life’ in the last 100 years when
women preachers in the Holiness movement began to claim to
have the gift and claimed it was a secret prayer language
only angels and God could understand (yet wasn’t Satan an
angel??). This can not be backed up in the Bible, for
tongues in Acts 2 and 1 Cor. 12-14 were known earthly
languages (see Acts 2:8-10)! Tongues was NOT a sign of
“SPIRITUALITY” to other believers, but was a sign to unsaved
UNBELIEVERS of judgment to come because the Jews had not
obeyed God! (1 Cor. 14:22). Read this verse! It clearly
says that TONGUES is not a SIGN to other BELIEVERS of one's
spirituality, but it is a SIGN to unsaved, unbelieving Jews
that Judgment is coming! Charismatics clearly deny this
plain Scripture because it is obvious they imply that
speaking in tongues is mark of spirituality! I challenge
anyone to look at every instance of tongues in the Bible and
you will see it is always a sign to people that because they
have disobeyed God, judgment is coming! Tongues is found in
5 instances in the Bible and it is always a sign that the
Jews had disobeyed God! Tongues would then come as “foreign
languages” as a sign of judgment and dispersion would soon
come. Study carefully the following 5 examples and you must
agree:
(1) Gen. 9:1;
11:4-8 - Here God instructs the people to be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth. Instead, the people
disobey and get involved in Astrology and Occultic worship
at Babel and even build a tower for satanic worship. God
confounds their languages (sends 'tongues' so to speak) and
scatters them throughout the earth. (2) Deut. 28:1-62 -in
this passage we see God instructing the people to serve and
follow Him. If not he will send foreign armies 'whose TONGUE
thou shalt not understand’ (Deut.28:49). This is exactly
what happened!
(3) Jeremiah 4:1;
5:3-19 - Here God instructs the people to 'return unto me'
(4:1) or He will send foreign language or tongues of enemy
nations to scatter and disperse them..a "nation whose
LANGUAGE thou knowest not, neither understandest what they
say". They were dispersed and taken as slaves to 'serve
strangers' in another land! (5:19). This was the Babylonian
captivity as told in the Old Testament!
(4) Isaiah 28:10-13
-Here
again God warns the people to come back to Him, lest more
judgment come and enemy nations speaking with 'stammering
lips and another tongue' shall come in judgment and
dispersion will follow. We see this did happen and we have
the 'lost tribes' of Northern Israel to this day!
(5) Matthew. 11:28,
23:37; 1 Cor. 12-14; Luke 21:24 is the example of tongues in
the New Testament. Here Jesus instructs the Jewish nation
to go throughout the world preaching the Gospel and making
disciples. The Jewish nation as a whole, especially it
religious leaders, disobey and even crucify Jesus!
Therefore, we see TONGUES in the Book of Acts as a sign of
judgment to come to the Jews. Recall in this last example
of tongues in the NT, how tongues were spoken and judgment
soon came in 70 AD when Roman General Titus destroyed
Jerusalem and Israel was scattered as the 12 lost tribes all
over the world. Anyone who carefully studies CHURCH HISTORY
will have to acknowledge that TONGUES did disappear for 2000
years! Look at the church history books and you will not
find examples of people speaking in tongues in the Church!
Why? Because this is what the Bible said would happen! In
1 Corinthians 13:8-10 scripture clearly says when 'that
which is PERFECT is come, that which is IN PART shall be
done away with'. Now, my friend, what is the only perfect
thing on this earth today? It is God's Word. Would you
agree? When the Bible began to be completed at around the
2nd half of the first century, history testifies that
TONGUES did cease! Strangely, tongues did not come back
onto the scene until some holiness women preachers, and
notably Agnes Osman, began speaking in TONGUES at the turn
of this century! And now they claim it was a heavenly
'prayer language' which clearly it WAS NOT in all the
examples in the bible before! World-known expert on the
occult, Kurt Koch, who had devoted his life to studying the
occult and witchcraft, makes the following AMAZING statement
about the modern day tongues movement in his book OCCULT
ABC p.207: “tongues and the so-called Charismatic
Movement are the most dangerous weapons Satan is using
against the Christian Camp….” Amazing statement? Consider
the following:
(1) The Tongues
Movement places ‘EXPERIENCE’ over and above the Bible! If
you’ve spoken in tongues…it doesn’t matter what you believe
or what the Bible says…to most Charismatics! My friend, the
devil can give experiences…(2 Cor 11:13-15; 2 Thess. 2:9-11)
and even do miracles!
(2) The Tongues
Movement claims to receive visions and tongues messages,
which would ‘add to’ the Word of God! If it is not adding
to the Bible, why do we need the ‘tongues message’ since we
have the Bible in front of us?
(3) The origin and
background of the Tongues Movement is saturated with false
teaching…as it still is today. The Tongues Movement teaches
salvation can be lost; it places women in positions of
authority over men and places them as pastors in churches
teaching men when the Bible forbids it! (1 Tim. 2:12) It
promotes the ecumenical movement and yoking up with pastors
and churches that teach false plans of salvation.
Charismatic “Tongues” churches are big members of the very
Liberal National and World Council of Churches. In the last
years WCC meeting prayer was led to the mother goddess
“Sophia”!!
(4) It can cause
believers without the gift to feel ‘second class’…and has
caused many to become discouraged to the point of becoming
‘shipwreck in the faith’ and drop out of church
completely…especially if sham and hypocrisy is seen in the
‘leaders’ and those who claim to ‘have the gift’…(1 Tim.
1:19)
(5) It makes
tongues speaking the mark of true spirituality, rather than
winning lost souls to the Lord! It causes many to miss the
true spiritual life and sidetracks people from the main
objective of winning lost souls!
(6) The Tongues
Movement has lead to indecent activity and even immorality
as married women and young girls “roll” in the floor
uncontrollably as they are ‘slain in the spirit’, even to
the point where “modesty blankets” are needed to cover the
ladies! (1 Cor. 13:5)…But most seriously, it can open one up
to DEMONIC & OCCULTIC INVOLVEMENT! You’ll notice in 1 Cor.
14:27-34 ones spiritual gift COULD BE CONTROLLED! For
someone to be SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT to the point they are
unconsciously laying prostate on the floor, to me is OF
utmost DANGER if that is not the HOLY SPIRIT doing that!
Always in the Bible the Believer had full consciousness and
control of himself or herself! There is absolutely NO
example of today’s so-called being ‘SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT’ in
the Bible except for DEMONIC involvement! We at Gospel
Center agree with Kurt Koch’s assessment above and WARN
every Christian to STAY AWAY from the modern-day Charismatic
Movement no matter how nice and sincere the members of these
churches might be! It is wrong. It is dangerous. These
folks, we believe, are badly deceived.
(7) TONGUES have
left DEVASTATION whenever it has entered a church. A split
almost always results with years of work in a
Bible-believing church down the drain over night! If you
will check one history of Charismatic church in your
neighborhood, I challenge you to discover that most were
started as a result of a split from a Bible-believing church
where heartache and devastation was the result. I dare you
to discover most Charismatic churches got their members from
another church due to a split the majority of the time,
rather than a few believers starting from scratch as most
Baptist churches start out! (1 Cor. 1:10) God is not the
author of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33) and declares all things
be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40)…Two commands
which we believe are not followed very closely in most
“Tongues” churches today.
We believe it is a
shame for Christians to be seeking Spiritual Gifts that are
not even available today and neglecting the Spiritual Gift
God has given us to use for His Glory!
God has
given each of us some gift and ability to serve the Lord. We
need to get busy using it to serve the Lord instead of
seeking something that doesn't exist!