“For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: YET THEY WOULD NOT HEAR. But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; THAT THEY MIGHT GO, AND FALL BACKWARD, AND BE BROKEN, AND SNARED, AND TAKEN” (Isaiah 28:11-13). Isaiah not only prophesied that God would give the sign of tongues to Israel but he also prophesied that Israel would reject it and be judged, which is exactly what happened. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul taught the church at Corinth that the gift of tongues would cease: “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. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Cor. 13:8-10). This passage is talking about the revelatory gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. It is not knowledge itself that will cease; it is the gift of knowledge. It is not tongues that will cease; it is the gift of tongues. When will these gifts cease? The passage indicates that they will cease in two stages. The gift of tongues is treated separately from the gifts of prophecy and knowledge. The gift of tongues is mentioned in verse 8 and then is not mentioned again, whereas the gifts of prophecy and knowledge are mentioned again in verses 9-10. I believe that this teaches that the gift of tongues would cease of its own accord prior to the cessation of the other two gifts. We can see this in the book of Acts. The final time that we see tongues speaking is in Acts 19. By that point in church history there was no question that God was calling the Gentiles by the gospel. That matter had been made crystal clear. Once a sign has been fulfilled it is foolish to continue with it. If I were to tell someone who is meeting me at the airport that he will know me because I will be wearing a red hat, the red hat is the sign. Once we meet and he recognizes me by the sign of the hat the need for the sign has ceased. If I were to continue to wear a red hat for the rest of my life, that would be foolish. Thus the gift of tongues ceased even before the events recorded in the book of Acts concluded, but the gifts of prophecy and knowledge continued to operate until “that which is perfect is come,” which was the completed canon of Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says the Scripture is able to make the man of God “perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” The gifts of prophecy and knowledge were used by the prophets and apostles for the completion of Scripture and then they vanished away. The final book of Scripture to be written was Revelation. John wrote it in his extreme old age in about A.D. 96 on the Isle of Patmos, and it concluded with a solemn divine warning not to add to or to take away from “the words of the prophecy of this book” (Rev. 22:18-19). This applies not only to the book of Revelation itself but also to the entire Book of which Revelation forms the final chapter. I am convinced that this clear biblical doctrine about tongues single-handedly destroys all modern tongues speaking. When Charles Parham’s Bible School students began speaking in “tongues” in 1901 or when “tongues” broke out on Azusa Street in 1906, what Jews were present? Had Jews been present, in what way could the tongues speaking have been a sign that God was extending the gospel to all nations and creating a new body through the Gospel? That sign had already been given 1,900 years earlier. In what way was that sign not entirely fulfilled in the first century? These are the hard questions that every Pentecostal and Charismatic must answer. If someone would rejoin that the Jews still need the sign of tongues, we would ask, “Why, then, has the Pentecostal- Charismatic movements almost entirely ignored this aspect of tongues?” Parham in Topeka and Seymour in Los Angeles did not seek for tongues as a sign to Israel but as a sign of the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” The same is true for the Assemblies of God and the Church of God of Prophecy and the Foursquare Pentecostal Churches and you name it. “Someone, after reading my book, said to me, ‘For you it all boils down to being a sign.’ Of course it does! Take a sign-post for instance; you may discourse at length on its height, its shape, the colour, the phosphorescence and size of its letters, but however accurate your remarks may be, it is impossible to get around the fact that its sole and ultimate purpose is to be a sign- post. And so is it with speaking in tongues. However you may look at it, the Holy Spirit said it was a SIGN for incredulous Israel. In this matter as in others, it can be seen that the rules of the game are not being followed” (Fernand Legrand, All about Speaking in Tongues, p. 67). BIBLICAL TONGUES WERE NOT A SIGN TO BELIEVERS. “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. 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. 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” (1 Cor. 14:20-22). The Bible plainly states that tongues are not a sign to believers. This is a far reaching doctrine, because in the context of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements tongues are commonly said to be a sign to believers. Tongues-speaking is considered a sign of faith and a sign of God’s blessing and a sign of the indwelling Holy Spirit and a sign of power. In all these cases, tongues- speaking is looked upon as a sign to believers. In 1 Cor. 14:20-22 Paul refutes this error in the clearest of words. BIBLICAL TONGUES WERE SPOKEN TO GOD. “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue SPEAKETH NOT UNTO MEN, BUT UNTO GOD: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries” (1 Cor. 14:2). Paul says that biblical tongues were not spoken unto men but unto God. This is what we see on the day of Pentecost. Those that heard the disciples speak in tongues on that day said, “We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11). The tongues messages were addressed to God but were understood by those who heard them in the various languages. The Jewish tongues speakers might even have been quoting from the Psalms that day. The Jews that heard them were amazed to hear their own Jewish brethren speaking the praises of God in the “unclean” pagan languages. When it came time for God to speak directly to men that day, He used the preaching of Peter and it was not in tongues. No one was saved through hearing a message in tongues; they were saved by hearing and believing the gospel. Paul said that the tongues-speaking in the churches was for the same purpose. The tongues were addressed to God, and if they were translated men could understand what was being said to God and thus be edified. But tongues-speaking was not a message addressed directly to men, as prophesying was. In contrast to this clear biblical teaching, Pentecostals and Charismatics everywhere claim that tongues are messages directed to men. Consider the following by former Pentecostal Fernand Legrand: “After more than thirty years of close contact with these churches, and after having accepted some of their ideas, I have been forced to admit that there is a glaring discordance with the Word of God on this point. I, first of all, capitulated before the authority of the Scriptures; I then proceeded to verify for myself what was being taught and practised. On several occasions, talking to people who were deeply anchored in their convictions, I asked the question, ‘When tongues are interpreted in your assembly, what is the context of the message?; I did not enquire because I did not know the answer, but I wanted to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, so leaving no place for ambiguity. Without exception, the replies always confirmed what I had already observed. It was a word of encouragement, or prophecy, or exhortation, or even of evangelization. Quite clearly, these were addressed to those present, that is, to men and was therefore in complete contradiction with the Holy Spirit who said just the opposite, ‘he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God.’ ... One of my friends, an enthusiastic pastor, invited me for a Gospel campaign in his church. He told me about a lady who, in a private talk with him, had spoken in tongues. ‘In what she said,’ he explained, ‘I discerned a message for myself.’ The opportunity was ideal. I simply asked him, ‘How do you reconcile the idea of a message addressed to you personally with the biblical statement that “he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God”? You are not God!’ It was like hitting him over the head. He was totally speechless. He had just discovered a text that he had never seen before, or that he had not taken the time to examine. ... “Thirty years later, nothing seems to have changed. The last interview previously mentioned, finished in the same way as the first. After having once more pointed out that the speaking in tongues in his Church, as corroborated by his personal experience and observations, was obviously addressed to men, and that it was contrary to what the Bible says, I asked him, ‘What will you put aside, the Word of God or your experiences; you must make a choice between the two; which will it be?’ Without hesitation and twice in succession, his reply was, ‘I choose experience!’ Understandable but wretched obstinacy that is explained by the terrible confession of a pastor who said to me on this particular point of doctrine, ‘When this word of Paul began to circulate in our assemblies, it had the effect of a bomb. We could not allow it to continue, because we WOULD HAVE HAD TO ADMIT THAT EVERYTHING DONE UP UNTIL THEN WAS FALSE!’” (All about Speaking in Tongues, pp. 12-14).
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 13:13:20 +0000