Paul James

My reading of a very sound 1920s Pentecostal preacher and teacher has been very informative. This preacher was well known for the many authentic and verified healing of sick people all around the world, and of many different types of sicknesses (not just headaches and backaches). The fruits of his ministry proves that he was truly moved by the Holy Spirit in what he did and taught. He says that praying in tongues provides the foundation for everything else one can do in the Spirit. It makes him to be sensitive to the moving of the Spirit, and He does not operate a gift of the Spirit, ie: praying for a sick person, unless he is definitely moved by the Holy Spirit. He says that often his faith is not enough to achieve the result, and so he waits for the Holy Spirit to give him the gift of faith, and when that happens, he can believe for anything, and so is able to move forward, pray in faith for the sick person, and see the person totally healed. So he sees tongues as a vital preparation for being able to minister to others in the Spirit. Without the facility of tongues it is like a motor vehicle without petrol. It can't go anywhere. So a person trying to do Holy Spirit ministry without tongues, can only operate in the flesh, because he wouldn't know when the Holy Spirit is moving him, or when it is just self-motivation. So, if we want sound training in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we need to go back and study the works of the early 20th Century Pentecostals, because they had keys of knowledge that are largely lost in today's modern Charismatic movement.

The problem is that there is such a widespread lack of knowledge about how the Holy Spirit works with believers, that most church leaders and members wouldn't know how to operate any of the gifts of the Spirit even if they believed in them and wanted them operating in their church meetings. To most church members the Holy Spirit is an unknown entity - some indeterminate "mist" that "hovers" over the meeting. Most prayers asking the Holy Spirit to lead the meeting are in the form that He might bless their man-made programming (three hymns and a sermon) in some magical way. Often, the program grinds its way through the hour and everyone goes out to fill themselves with coffee and biscuits. The problem is that God is not real for most church members. He is just some figurehead that people talk about, but don't know on a personal level. Therefore if God is no more personal to church members than the President, then they won't know the Holy Spirit as someone they can relate to on a personal level either. So they ignore Him and His gifts altogether. Therefore, if God is not real to people, then all they have is the Bible; and many members in liberal churches don't even have that!

I have been reading a sermon on the gifts of the Spirit by a Pentecostal preacher, given in the 1920s. His view of the gifts was quite different to how the gifts are viewed and practiced today. He says that the use of the gifts by novices and untrained folk causes the manifestation to be in the flesh rather than the Spirit. He says that one should use a gift of the Spirit only when moved by the Spirit, otherwise, again, the action would be self-motivated and therefore of the flesh. He says the same concerning tongues. He says that tongues accompanies the baptism with the Spirit because that is how the book of Acts describes it. He says that even in the cases of Paul and the Samaritans where tongues isn't actually mentioned, those who were baptised with the Spirit did speak in tongues, because that is how Peter described the baptism with the Spirit when he related the account of Cornelius' household being baptised with the Spirit. But he says that after the initial utterance, the person often does not continue speaking in tongues until he or she receives the gift of tongues where the ability to speak in tongues at will is enabled. This means that the person then can pray in tongues privately at will. But in the church meeting, he must wait until he is moved by the Holy Spirit to speak out in tongues because the utterance needs to be interpreted by either himself, or someone else similarly moved by the Holy Spirit. His view was that if anyone spoke out in tongues in a church meeting, and was not moved by the Holy Spirit, would be doing it in the flesh. My view is that this is the cause of a lot of meaningless babble that goes on in many meetings with people speaking out in tongues in the flesh, not having been motivated by the Holy Spirit to use the gift of tongues as intended by the Holy Spirit. Also, interpretations can be of the flesh (self-motivated) if the interpreter is not moved by the Holy Spirit, instead giving the interpretation from his own thoughts instead of Holy Spirit words. He also says that the greatest of all the gifts is prophecy, which can be very powerful when motivated by the Holy Spirit. My view is that many churches never experience the use of the gifts of the Spirit because no one in the churches have had any or sufficient training to know how to use them. This is because 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 are ignored in the teaching in these churches. And in those churches where the use of the gifts is dysfunctional, it is because of incompetence and faulty teaching and training in how the Holy Spirit moves people to use the gifts. This causes people to use the gifts improperly, in the flesh, achieving the commensurate results of any religious action done by self-motivated people.

the Jewish Pharisees prided themselves as being the experts in the Scriptures and the Law, and yet they missed their Messiah when He appeared. Also, what sort of a mechanic would a guy be if he said, "The instruction manual is sufficient in all areas of motor vehicle repair", but didn't use the tools provided to actually repair the vehicle? The tools provided by the Holy Spirit in the form of the 9 gifts are for the strengthening and building up of the body of Christ. But I guess if one is concerned only for his own personal walk and doesn't have any care about building up his fellow believers in the body of Christ, then the tools (gifts) of the Spirit would be of no use to him.

It is a fraud and part of the superstition that the fraudulent counterfeit church that introduced it.

If God wanted us to know enough about formation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit enough to make a doctrine out of it, He would have made it perfectly clear. But He hasn't. He has kept it to Himself, mainly because He doesn't want people to be distracted from what is absolutely required to get people saved and keep them in the faith. Any dogmatic doctrine of either the trinity or oneness is inaccurate, because there is not enough information in Scripture to prove either one.

I don't analyse my prayer language too much. We can over-analyse the life out of it and then it loses its meaning. When I am in private and I want to pray in tongues, I just do it, believing tha God understands and appreciates what I am saying. Praying in tongues is the ultimate in faith because I am praying in a language I have never learned and have no idea what I'm saying. But there is an inner release in my spirit and a sense of joy that happens, and sometimes the language changes a becomes more intense which gives me the sense that I am saying something very significant to God. Then I will have a greater freedom of expression when I come back to praying with my understanding. I never pray in tongues publicly in a meeting. Paul teaches against it. Therefore I have determined that if there is any desire to pray publicly in tongues it may very well to please men rather than God, to show others how spiritual my tongues language is. Therefore, I limit my praying in tongues to when I am alone with God, because He is the only Person listening to it. Frankly, do I need to assure others that I am truly baptised with the Spirit and able to speak in tongues? No. I don't really care if people think I am a Spirit filled person or not. I have had people being surprised when they have learned that I am a Christian and an elder of a church! It is because I don't have to prove anything to anyone, or have their approval. The Scripture says that I should study to show myself approved of God, and His approval is all I need.

The significant factor is your motivation for wanting to pray in the way you decided, and what came out of it in the end. What were you wanting God to do in response for the time you spent in prayer? Quite frankly, I wouldn't pray like that. It would be a waste of time and effort for me. For me, prayer is fellowship, something to enjoy. I never use prayer to get anything from God. Not Biblical. Philippians 4:6-7 says "Be not anxious for anything, but by prayer and supplcation, with thanksgiving make your requests known to God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will keep your hearts and mind in Christ." So, I just ask once and leave the rest to the Lord. Then the rest of the time, I find somewhere private and just converse with God about whatever comes to mind. When I was younger I had great pleasure walking along a lonely beach with my hands in my pockets just talking to God. These days, because I haven't got the energy to walk very far, I do my praying in the dead of night, or driving along in my car. I don't pray on my knees, because I don't think God cares about the position of my body. What He appreciates is that I talk to Him from my heart. Often I spent time asking questions, and then find, as fresh thoughts come to mind, that these fresh thoughts are answers to my questions, and so I realise that God talks back to me. I realise through this that fellowship with God is a two-way street. After a time of fellowship with the Lord, I feel a sense of fulfilment, and I look forward to the next time I have an opportunity to have another time of fellowship with Him. In the meantime, because I know that I have the Holy Spirit in me, I can mention anything to God anywhere and at anytime, and a lot of my prayers are under my breath, because I may be in a room with others. I don't let people know that I am praying, because fellowship with God is a very private thing for me. Also, I have learned that God is not impressed with much talking, and because of that I rarely pray with others. The prayer meetings I have been to have mainly been eyebrow massaging sessions and the prayers have merely been mini sermons to the others in the group. The only time I have felt that I have been really praying is when I am alone with God, with Him as the only Person to impress, and the only prayers that impress God are the true ones from the heart.

The nature and character of God is a mystery and no one will be able to understand it fully. The Bible teaches that there is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that they are separate entities. But how they can be separate entities and yet be one God is something we will never be able to understand. I think we need just to accept what the Bible teaches and not try to be over-curious about something that is not totally relevant to the Gospel of Christ. Neither Jesus nor Paul tried to make their listeners understand the makeup of the Godhead, because it was more important to them that sinners believe the Gospel and get saved. There are many mysteries about the nature of God which we will never know while in this life. And we might never know. The Holy Spirit has revealed everything we need to know about how to get saved and to remain godly until Christ comes again. For that reason, I don't care what people believe about the trinity. I just believe the Scripture: "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ", and Paul gives specific instructions about how to walk in the Spirit, and that is good enough for me.

John Calvin interestingly said that those whose overriding desire was to do God's will, and to glorify Christ, cannot be deceived. He says that those who are deceived into false doctrine are those who have self ambition in some form who may say they desire to do God's will, but in truth are seeking to do their own will. A person whose motivation is to know and do God's will, will carefully study the Scriptures, pray over them, and seek to glorify Christ in everything he or she says and does. If there is any doubt at all that something he or she says or does will glorify Christ, then they won't do it. They know that the total ministry of the Holy Spirit in believers is to glorify Christ. But a preacher who desires to be the "top cat" in a church or organisation is not being inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the same with the prophet who insists that his prophecies are from God and who won't take correction from those who point out inconsistencies with Scripture. He will present himself as God's special person and that God gives him special revelation that is not given to lesser believers, and because of that everyone needs to obey his prophecies, because not obeying them is being disobedient to God and grieving the Holy Spirit. They are the ones who preach "touch not God's anointed", namely themselves, because they are presenting themselves as "God's anointed", and therefore obeying them is the same as obeying God Himself. Therefore, I believe that the person whose principal desire is to do God's will and glorify Christ, will know the difference between true and false doctrine, because Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will teach truth to those ones.

I can go along with that. Much of preaching in the Holy Spirit is prophetic. If a preacher gets up and preaches the gospel and sinners are cut to the heart and start crying out to God for grace and mercy, then we can safely say that the preaching has the voice of the Holy Spirit in it, and is therefore prophetic. if you are sitting in church and the preacher says things that resonate with your heart and you know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, and you are brought closer to Christ along with the commensurate positive changes that come with it, then you are hearing from a preacher exercising the gift of prophecy.

All this is well and good, but what has it to do with the gift of tongues?

It is interesting what Paul said about himself: "Now it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not vindicate me. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Corinthians 4:2-4). This is a good way to be - to serve the Lord the best we know how according to what we have learned from the Scriptures, and to ensure that we keep short accounts with God and keep our hearts right with Him. When Paul was a Pharisee, he sincerely believed that Christians were rebellious law-breakers. He viewed his persecution of Christians as doing God's work according to what he knew of the Scriptures and from the guidance of his mentors. It took a personal appearance of Jesus to totally change him and to set his heart in the right direction. Many hypocrites sincerely believe they are on the right path, and by all appearances, they looks as though they are genuine believers. This is why we must give everyone the benefit of the doubt and allow the judgment to come from the Lord Himself. Sometimes, hypocrites are exposed in this life, but many are never revealed for who they are until the judgment. That is why Paul's advice in 1 Corinthians is sound and good to follow.

Trouble is that we can't spot who his genuine and who isn't just by appearances. This is because genuineness and hypocrisy abide in the heart which only God can see. This is the principle behind the parable of the wheat and tares. Hypocrites and genuine believers are identical in their outward conduct, Biblical knowledge, ability to talk the jargon, even to walk the talk. They can be spotlessly moral and appear very passionate in their religion. We won't know who is genuine or hypocritical until the judgment when the secrets of men's hearts are made manifest.

People in glasshouses shouldn't be throwing stones. Have a good look at your own church to make sure that there are no hidden occult stuff going on there.

Paul was quite clear about the attitude of those "who know very little about tongues" when tongues are spoken in public meetings without interpretation. My experience as a 19 year old coming into a church of 400 people speaking in tongues and prophesying. It was quite a new experience for me, and I found it exciting and fun. I think it was merged with people loving to be at church and having fun singing and worshiping God. Of course that was 50 years ago, and the Charismatic movement has drastically changed over the years with the occult and kundalini manifestation replacing the spontaneous and fun worship that Charismatic did 50 years ago when I first joined it.

The best way of speaking a biblical prophecy is to read the Bible out loud.

Of course everything about the church and Christian worship and practice can be faked. Look at the Church that claims to be Christ-established 2000 years ago, and yet is filled with paganised ceremonies and worship of the pagan entity "Queen of Heaven" tarted up to look like the Virgin Mary. That's a greater fraud than the counterfeit tongues spoken by people who have never read Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 14. We have the counterfeit story called "evolution" that contradicts God's account of the origin of the universe. We have counterfeit "prophets for the nation" trying to convince folk that God has sent them and is speaking to them. We have counterfeit "marriage" between same-sex couples. We even have counterfeit conversions in even the soundest churches, making it impossible to know whether the person you are sitting beside in church is a genuine believer or not. But the foundation of God stands sure: God knows who are His; because He looks deeper than the outward appearance, and into the heart of people.

That testimony is found in the four Gospels. Outside of those Gospels the Jesus that some go after is another Jesus, the product of their imagination. Extra-Biblical prophecy is not of the Holy Spirit, but is dreamed up from man's imagination.

All the prophetic words that you need are found in the Bible. All you have to do is read it and see what God says to you from His direct word, instead of getting something cheap, nasty and second hand from some self-appoint "prophet" whom God may not have sent and who is dreaming stuff out of his head.

So you didn't kick out people from your church just because they were Charismatic and spoke in tongues. I may have misunderstood you. I can understand your action when self-styled "prophets" were intending to invade your congregation and give unsolicited corporate and personal prophecies. Often these self-appointed "prophets" bring along divination spirits along with their dreamed-up utterances. I read the story of a preacher who was approached after a service by two of these self-appointed fellows, and they prophesied over him that he would be famous, successful and prosperous. He wasn't sure about these prophecies and put them on the "back burner" to consider them later. Soon after he developed chronic back pain, which was not corrected even after two surgeries. He went to a trusted mentor for advice, and the mentor asked him, "Have you been involved in the occult at any stage?" The preacher said no. Then the mentor asked him if he had received any doubtful personal prophecies. Then the preacher remembered the prophecies the two "prophets" gave him. The mentor said, "That's it! You are being attacked by a spirit of divination that came along with that prophecy. You need renounce it totally." When he did that, the pain immediately disappeared. False prophecy can bring many kinds of accompanying spirits, including divination, fear, unbelief, condemnation, despair. It is no surprise that as a result of false prophecy, fear, condemnation, suicide, abortions, discouragement often are the bad fruit. The devil has come to steal, kill and destroy, and one of His methods is to use self-styled false "prophets" who deceive the unwary into believing their nonsense and to opening them up to the evil spirits that come with their prophecies. A person with a genuine prophetic gift will always have their prophecy written out and submitted to the leadership before releasing it publicly. Also, all prophecy should be recorded on tape or digital recorder so it can be carefully examined to ensure that it is consistent with what God has already revealed in Scripture. If I am now reading you correctly, you don't have to be nice to any of these false pelicans. They should be firmly and decisively put in their place and be forbidden to open their traps unless they are prepared to follow the rules and submit any prophecies to the leadership first for consideration and evaluation. If they try the trick of "I don't have to, because God is sending me here to give His word to your congregation", then they should be given the bum's rush immediately, and preferably use a couple of your largest, but very pleasant ushers to assist them out the door!

There is something that concerns me about one having "pastoral responsibility" to kick people out of the church because of their Charismatic experience. Sounds like what happened at the start of the 20th Century when early Pentecostals who received tongues were kicked out of their churches by those who opposed the speaking in tongues. This gave rise to the formation of the Pentecostal denominations. Sometimes I wonder whose churches they are who discriminate between people based on their experience in God. Of course, a man-programmed, man-run church would not want anyone fellowshiping that did not fit into the man-designed theology of the particular church. Paul advised the leadership of the Corinthian church to put a man out of fellowship because the man was sleeping with his father's wife. But if a person receives an experience resulting in the person speaking in tongues, throwing him out of the church makes him as sinful as someone who commits incest with a close relative. But what if the experience was a genuine one from the Holy Spirit? Does that mean that throwing such a person out of the church is the same as throwing the Holy Spirit out at as well? Perhaps, in many such churches, there is no evidence of any Holy Spirit activity, and all the people are getting is their three hymns, man-made sermon, and nothing else. Demon possessed people continue to be oppressed by the devil, conversions are just getting religion, people get sick and die before their time. And most who make some sort of decision for Christ either fall away after a year or so through boredom, or they continue in the church in a state of suspended animation, just going through the motions for appearance sake, but no real desire for God as a real person in their lives. Of course there is no way of knowing for sure whether a person's experience in God is genuine or not. In the Pentecostal churches I was associated with, the way immature expression of spiritual gifts was dealt with was through sound teaching from mature and experienced leaders in the use of the gifts of the Spirit. Perhaps if there are no competent people in a church who have the ability to give that sound teaching, it might be better to throw people out than to make it known that the church leaders are incompetent in the practice and teaching of the gifts of the Spirit.

I think problems arise when the leadership is insufficiently strong to give correction when it is needed. Leaders are sometimes afraid to correct those who misuse the gifts because they don't want to offend people, especially if the congregation is declining. Offerings tend to decrease when there are less bums on seats. So they put up with the pelicans in the hope that somehow they will come right. Problem is that the misuse of the gifts tend to bring a church into disrepute, and people leave anyway because they don't want to put up with the turkeys sounding off and disrupting the service each Sunday. Also, interested visitors who might have otherwise stayed with the church are spooked and put off by the misuse, especially of tongues spoken in public without interpretation, and we never see those people again, and the church gets a reputation of being uncontrolled and in a "Charismania chaos". This is the important and compelling reason why good, sound leaders need to be strict about what happens in public meetings, and to insist in good sound teaching concerning the gifts, and strict conditions about the performance of the gifts, such as no public performance until demonstration that the persons are able to use them according to Scriptural teaching and practice.

What fruit of the Spirit does that show? (Just askin'...)

"Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches that have made a ruin of these gifts", etc., is rather a generalisation. I don't know how things are in your part of the world, but down here in New Zealand, the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches I know value the gifts and do what they can to manifest them correctly and appropriately as led by the Holy Spirit. At the age of 21 I was trained by a strict, traditional Pentecostal pastor in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and he said that one has to be a person of the Word and of prayer to exercise the gifts properly. I once make a remark about "this tongues business", and he tore a strip off me, and made it quite clear to me that the gift of tongues is a holy gift and is to be treated with the highest respect. The "pentecostal" and "charismatic" groups that are making a mockery of the gifts, especially tongues, are those heretical ones that promote Prosperity, extra-Biblical "revelation", voices in the head, uncontrolled laughter and public fleshly babbling which they call "tongues". These are not standard Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. They are cults that have the badge but not the real thing. True Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are low-key, not seen on Youtube, and just get on with worshiping the Lord, seeking to live and walk in the Spirit, and spend a lot of time and effort to get the gospel out to the unsaved. They have strong and dedicated leaders who promptly and effectively deal with any "lunatic fringe" types who are seen in most churches. The pastor who trained me would not have hesitated, when someone got up and started spouting rubbish, to tell him to "sit down!" Another respected leader I knew, when some random guy got up and gave a long involved, KJV type prophecy, said, "Well, we can safety ignore that one!" Another large guy with a built-in amplifier got up and gave a loud utterance, and the leader said in a loud voice, "That's not of God!"