Speaking in tongues.

[cslewislover]

Well, since you're throwing the baby out with the bath water, I think you should study this subject more. I don't believe there are prophets like in the old testament either, but God still gives personal revelations, and some say He has also made revelations through time that make the bible understandable. You know how there are some things we don't understand now? You never know, God may make some of those things clear as time goes on (if Christ doesn't come back first). I myself have experienced some amazing spiritual things through the Spirit, that I guess I would consider personal revelations--but the ones I'm thinking of dealt with others. Some might say that's the gift of prophecy, but since it doesn't happen often it seems hard to call it a gift. But you have to also remember, being "a prophet" (having the office and title) is not the same as having the "gift of prophecy." Others have said I have the gift of teaching (or even counseling). A lot of it may be how we define these things, but I do know that the Spirit does more through us than what are listed as fruits.

There's a more academic book I have on the subject which I haven't read yet, but looks really great (I really need to read this, as this subject has been coming up around me alot). It's put out by InterVarsity Academic (2000), The Holy Spirit: Works & Gifts, by Donald G. Bloesch. I also like the one put out by Calvary Chapel's Chuck Smith (Harvest House 1996), LIving Water: The Power of the Holy Spirit in Your LIfe. It's not a charismatic or pentecostal book, but seems "middle of the road."

[zoegirl]

I dunno, to me it just seems very counter to the teachings of the scripture, the idea of losing control of oneself in order to babble some nonsense.

Scripture teaches to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but does this mean not being in control of one's faculties? Scripture teaches to be able to proved a reason for the hope we have....but stuff like this, can one even provide a reason for the gibberish?

However, I know that I am a product of my denomination and it is considered a loose worship day when people clap or let loose with one amen. So I am VERY incomfortable with cahrismatic churches.

[cslewislover]

I wasn't implying, though, that I agreed with the overly demonstrative tongues people (I have two other posts talking about that). I don't think the things Silvertusk experienced were from God. I've only experienced watching people speak in tongues a couple of times, and I question the spiritual validity of those tongues. I haven't spoken in tongues myself, and wouldn't want it to happen if it wasn't from God.

[zoegirl]

No, I understand, I agree with you. I am so far on this spectrum that I have hesitated to offer an opinion because mine is so strong.

[B. W.]

Warning Long Post:

Let me add some important thing to also note concerning God's Gifts of the Spirit (note Romans 11:29). Please do not throw out the baby with the bath water. Yes, there are abuses of these gifts but these should not be used as the proof text that these do not exist and ceased.

Let me try to explain:

I have seen and witnessed to two bonafide healing miracles. First, was years ago when a group of us were involved in street witnessing. There was an ornery teenage man with a broken forearm in a cast who told us, “If God is (cuss-word used) real — then heal my (cuss-word used) arm!” So one of the team said to him — okay, “Jesus — God — Lord - you heard him, heal his arm. Amen.” That was all.

I was embarrassed at first by this due to my background on thinking such gifts ceased. We continued to witness a bit more to the crowd gathered by. This guy said he broke his arm earlier same day and just had it set hours before at the hospital. He mocked us, flashing his cast in the air and told his friends he was going to a party and left.

Next night he came back to the down town area we were at all wide eyed with all his friends following and all talking excitedly. He was not wearing any cast. He told us, that night while he was partying the cast became very loose and his arm stopped hurting. He went home and by morning it was banging around on his arm. His parents took him back to hospital to have it reset. The Doctors had another x-ray taken and saw that the break had completely mended. They were shocked and no-more cast. He told them what happened. They let him keep a copy of 'that yesterday's' x-ray and 'that today's.' He showed us the photos. What can you say?

Next, was when friend and I were visiting a family and disciplining them. The Mother had MS. We did not come as miracle workers just working with the family as they were new Christians and holding bible studies with them. One night, we asked if they had any prayer needs. Mother said something to the effect — 'can the Lord heal my MS?'

We prayed a very simple prayer and left it in God's hands. Several months later after returning from Doctor, she had no more MS. It was not in remission but gone. She had a battery of test to confirm. She was diagnosed with MS in her early teens. She was at that time a mother of 6 kids and about forty five. She waited till she had the final results confirmed and then told us. We saw the reports. What can you say? She had the test results.

Now before you get excited, let me share a comparison. Years ago before marriage, I was with a Church group of about 20 college age men and women — a church singles group. They had words from the Lord that a Christian woman in the hospital who was dying of cancer would be healed. Charismatic Chaos is a fair description of this group at this time. Do not get me wrong, they were all very good people. I only went to this singles group during the mid 1980's as the church I attended singles group pastor was on vacation canceling our group. I tagged along to the hospital with them.

We entered the dying woman's room. They all gathered around her and prayed and did this and that spiritual thing. I felt grieved and sad at this display. The people were sincere but the poor woman! With grace she thanked them for their wonderful prayers. A nurse came in a tactfully had people leave. I hung out in the back and waited for the group to depart. The nurse did not bother me, just smiled, and shoed the others out of the room.

Suddenly, I was alone with her and she smiled thanked me for the groups nice prayers. I remember looking at her and mentioned that I would just like to ask her what she really wanted. She smiled and looked at me and said, “You're different, I don't know you.”

We talked a bit and she opened up to me and told me her greatest worry was for her family and that we pray that her family would not fall away from the Lord because of her illness. She was ready to go home. I said okay. We prayed. She passed away peacefully without any drugs for pain - if I remember correctly a few hours after I left.

The family was devastated and went through a lot. So did that Church group. The family's faith was shaken more. I still ask the Lord to remember that prayer for her family. I do not know what happened to all he family members as I lost contact with that family after all these years and never really new them.

Since then, I prayed for several cancer patient — all Christians and their request were similar. They were ready to go home and they all did. Yet my own father lingered 13 years with Alzheimer's and went 7 days comma before he went home to be with the Lord last December despite all prayers. Faith was strengthened through this experience — not lost. God's ways are not ours. God answer's 'no' for reason we cannot fathom at the moment but later on in life he graciously reveals them to us.

This brings me to my point — God is sovereign and these gifts are his. This goes for tongues too:

One night, I left a Christian man recently divorced who was having a hard time understanding what happened. He seemed okay. I went home and began to pray for him. I was alone - no one around. I began to pray at about 11pm — suddenly after a few minutes I realized I was not speaking English but I could not stop praying so I prayed and prayed this way knowing that whatever I was saying focused on my friend. After a while, I looked at the clock and it was 330am. It seemed like I only prayed a few minutes, not hours, and I was not even tired — all in a strange language. At 330am — all was well.

That next evening, my friend came to me and said he tired to commit suicide that very night but something changed his mind. He had it all planned and worked out. He tried but could not pull the trigger. He cried and cursed God for hours on end and then said about 330am, he found peace with God. He is still alive and remarried. Can I explain any of this? Can I deny it? Everything I wrote did happen. I learned a great deal from all these events and a few more I have not mentioned.

Let me share what I learned:

In Genesis 1:26-31 it tells of God giving humanity a gift of dominion. This was fine as long as Adam ad Eve remained knowing that only God is sovereign and they were assigned as caretakers so to speak and governed in accord to God's love. Doing so they were submitted to God's authority and could reflect this within the limits God ordained for Adam and Eve. To have authority requires being under authority.

Because of the fall, we now use this gift of dominion to usurp God's dominion seeking to replace it with our own brand of dominion — be our own gods. We can now manipulate the knowledge of evil for good purposes and manipulate the knowledge of good for evil purposes.

We have a dominion seeking mentality and it takes many subtle forms. It is subtle because it involves lengthy mental ruminations to justify our acts and actions as all good for the most noble of reasons. This also infects religious thought and theology. For example, people determining what pleases God such as using the bible, religion, dogma, etc, in a manner unknowingly used to justify God's submission to the will of man: A religious spin so to speak.

One subtle form is using God's words and gifts to manipulate God to perform for us and another seeks to make God conform to our system of operations, etc, all for the most noble and religious of motives and justifications: pleasing God, or God loves us so much that he says 'yes' all the time so we can all be healthy and wealthy or at least prosperous.

Charismatic chaos fits here as well as the mind set that the gifts and tongues have all ceased due to the abuses we all have witnessed. Both mindsets seek to dominate a sovereign God to conform to man's ways.

All I ask, for everyone to realize what we are saying. Who are we to say what God can and cannot do? The purest of motives can blind us to the dominion we seek to implement over God. Let us repent.

Lesson:

What I learned over the years is to acquiesce to God's sovereign will. For those that understand what I just said — this causes you to love God more and more as well as shows you at the same time how little one does love God. Faith is energized by love. The greatest and lasting gift is love (for God and others and his love for us).

You see, once a miracle happens — it ceases. After words are spoken, their effects fade and come to an end. Then the next miracle from God happens and then ends while another is in the works by a sovereign God. Once a prophecy is fulfilled it ceases and becomes instead a matter of history and record. A new prophecy word then comes about waiting to be fulfilled: cycles and seasons. There is a time for every purpose under heaven.

God's gifts are and have been used as toys used to manipulate God: just as much as the words spoken that justify denying that God gives any gifts today because of all the noise and clamor made over gifts. Both mindsets unknowingly seek to dominate God to submit to man's will.

However, a certain kind of love, that most excellent way, causes one to acquiesce to the Lord's sovereign dominion and accept his will in all things. Until we learn to walk in accord with that most excellent way — the gifts will be used as toys by children or denied by the intellectually astute.

The most excellent way sets things right as it does not seek its own way — dominion - but rather seeks to love God with all thy being. To be in authority requires one to be under authority. We need to stop trying to make God be under our human authority.

Therefore, let us learn to be under the Lord's sovereign authority instead. His gifts have not ceased. They belong to him and are his to dispense as he so wills however and whenever he so pleases. He does say 'no' for our protection and growth as well as 'yes.' How can he trust a child who remains like a 'loose cannon' unless he breaks it and recast it into a vessel for his use? This takes time and spiritual growing pains. Let us all learn to walk the most excellent way (1 Corinthians 13) and become matured by such great love.
-
-
-

[Daniel]

Thank you for an excellent post that hits on an important theme, namely, God's sovereignty. (It also figures in to the age of the Earth debates on the rest of this site when people argue on what God should have done rather than what God actually did.) I consider myself a cessationist, but I know I could be wrong - I am simply very skeptical of many of the modern claims of tongues. My reading of the Bible seems to imply to me that tongues were originally used to bridge language barriers and for legitimate preaching/prophesying rather than to "show off", which is, frankly, the impression I get from many charismatic churches today (and what I've heard from people who used to attend these churches who admitted they were making everything up).

[Cross.eyed]

Thanks B.W. It had been too long for my short mind to remember to check this thread again in the last month or so.

Your post brings home a reality of God that I sometimes become blinded to when I am thinking about what I want.

From time to time I have some very deep concerns just as anyone else. I can get so caught up in asking God to "fix this for me" that I don't pay enough heed to the words I'm using and altogether forgetting what I should be thinking and praying. That's what happens when I allow myself to become stressed and get worried. That is not loving God at that moment.

You put it so well in saying that these are God's gifts and He can do with them whatever He wants whether it is tongues, prophecy, or answering prayer and it will all be for the better.

Very Good.

[B. W.]

Thanks B.W. It had been too long for my short mind to remember to check this thread again in the last month or so.

Your post brings home a reality of God that I sometimes become blinded to when I am thinking about what I want.

From time to time I have some very deep concerns just as anyone else. I can get so caught up in asking God to "fix this for me" that I don't pay enough heed to the words I'm using and altogether forgetting what I should be thinking and praying. That's what happens when I allow myself to become stressed and get worried. That is not loving God at that moment.

You put it so well in saying that these are God's gifts and He can do with them whatever He wants whether it is tongues, prophecy, or answering prayer and it will all be for the better.

Very Good.

A humble thank you!

Your post have also helped me
-
-
-

[Cross.eyed]

Thank you B.W. and you are most certainly more than welcome. I can't describe how much your post affected me for the better.

[Lufia]

Thanks a lot B.W. I used to think that speaking in tongues could be the devil's work because we don't know what we 'say'. Your story convinced me totally. Did you ask for that gift ?

[B. W.]

Thanks a lot B.W. I used to think that speaking in tongues could be the devil's work because we don't know what we 'say'. Your story convinced me totally. Did you ask for that gift ?

Actually no - I was just praying and it happened. I did not seek it. Looking back, if I would have asked or sought and knowing myself as I do and how analytical I can be — It would never have happened!
-
-
-

[Lufia]

Is it the only time you prayed in tongue? Do you still have that gift? I ask, because i find it fascinating. some say it's the language of angels

[B. W.]

Is it the only time you prayed in tongue? Do you still have that gift? I ask, because i find it fascinating. some say it's the language of angels

No I have not lost it — in fact I use it for prayer when I do not know how to pray for someone. I am rather quiet about it and do not make it an issue. When I do pray, I do intuitively know what direction and what particularly I am praying for a person about.

There is and has been an abuse of this gift that many, including myself, have written about on this forum. So that is why I respect this gift and do not make an issue out of it to others. I use it mostly in privet times during prayer and praise and find that it helps when you don't know what to pray for. As for praying out loud in a Church like that - I rather not as I am not comfortable doing that.

Hope this helps
-
-
-

[Lufia]

"have written about on this forum"

Is it here? In 'Speaking in tongues' ? I haven't read all the pages

[Lufia]

Forgot to ask, when you pray ( private) in tongues , is it loud or silent?