Paul James

The foundation of walking in the Spirit is the total surrender to God's will in what we do, and the overriding desire to glorify Christ in what we do and say. The practical outworking of it is moderating our conduct and behaviour according to the fruit of the Spirit, and the walk in love as described in 1 Corinthians 13.

You have made some interesting and challenging points here. I love posts like this because it makes me think. Tongues is just one of the tools of the Spirit, in the same way that a jigsaw is just one of the tools in a woodwork shop. It is not essential for walking in the Spirit, but it sure assists when used correctly. Tongues is less preferred than prophecy in the church. In fact, Paul says that prophecy is the best gift. He says desire the best gifts, especially that you prophesy. Tongues has its place in the personal private prayer life. Paul used it often in his own prayer life, "I thank God I speak in tongues more than you all". Tongues is speaking directly to God and speaks mysteries in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:2). Tongues should only be spoken out in church as a ministry gift and should always be accompanied by interpretation. Tongues spoken out in church without interpretation, although Paul says that the people are giving thanks well enough, outsiders will think that they are mad, and the speaking is a waste of time, "into the air" because no one can understand what is being spoken and therefore are not edified. That, for me, is how I see that the use of tongues is consistent with what the Holy Spirit says about it in Scripture.

I enjoyed reading your post. I was a Pentecostal who became an Anglican, then a Baptist, after that a Presbyterian, and now a member of a Union (Methodist/Presbyterian) church! I found that after a couple of weeks of joining each church, I became as mad as the rest of them. I found that when the labels were removed, all that was left were ordinary people who loved the Lord. It is interesting that the most powerful prophetic word that the Holy Spirit gave me was during a sermon by a Baptist pastor! Three years ago I went back to a Sunday service at an AOG church (I received Christ in an AOG church). It was spooky! The pastor went around whispering in people's ears "Jesus is here", and expecting people to shake and fall over. He tried it with me and I wasn't having any of it. There was a woman writhing around the floor like a snake, and I told the pastor that she needed deliverance. I don't think he liked me telling him that! When the service was over, I got out of there, deciding never to go back to a church like that! I was glad to get back to my Presbyterian church (at the time) where the people were normal! It is interesting that tongues was mentioned in a church meeting just this week at my present church. One old lady said to me, "Those Pentecostals; they are the ones that go into trances aren't they?" That sort of thing is the false information that is spread around to people who don't know anything about Pentecostals. I told her that those who do that are the wacky wacky lunatic fringe crowd and not normal Pentecostal Christians. If you went to a standard Sunday morning service in a Pentecostal church, it would not be much different to a Baptist or Presbyterian, or even your Methodist church!

The bottom line to all this is that we need to encourage those open to the Gospel, to make a strong decision for Christ, seek to be fully converted to Him through the work of the Holy Spirit, and to receive the baptism with the Spirit with the complete potential to develop in the ministry and gifts of the Spirit as the believer develops toward maturity in the faith. Good, sound discipleship of new believers should achieve this and increase the number of them to develop into sound, long-term church members moving into their calling in Christ to do their bit to build up the body of Christ.

It is quite true that the initial utterance of tongues happens when a person is baptised with the Spirit, but does not again speak in tongues until he or she receives the gift of tongues to be able to speak at will. This is the view of the early 20th Century Pentecostals, which I concur with. I think we have to accept that what was lost during and after the 4th Century when the established church departed from the Holy Spirit and the reality of the supernatural ministry and gifts of the Holy Spirit went into decline and the keys to it were lost. When the Reformation started, the most important doctrine that was generally restored to the true church was Justification by faith. That was the first step for genuine believers from the counterfeit fraudulent established church. Luther was no theologian, but it was thought that he did speak in tongues - although modern Lutherans might deny that now. Calvin was the one who compiled a systematic theology from the Reformation. His view of the gifts of the Spirit in his 1 Corinthians commentary was that they declined through misuse. He didn't have the practical knowledge to be able to find a way to restore them to the church. We have to remember that after the dark ages when the church was steeped in paganism, false doctrine, and non-Biblical tradition, restoration of true doctrine had to be progressive because even justification by faith was a radical teaching in the 16th Century. There is just so much that can be taught at one time. I believe that God understood that and because we are saved by His grace through faith, God accepted that during that time because that was all the light they had. Then in the 17th Century during the Puritan revivals in England, holiness became important - that if a person professed Christianity, his life had to show it. This is where Alleine's teaching on true conversion became relevant - that being just a church member was not enough. One had to have a new heart and spirit and only the Holy Spirit could do that, and for Him to do it, the person had to mean business with God and earnestly seek it. In the 18th Century in America, most professing Christians were content just to be church members and the quality of personal faith and life was very low. Through the ministries of Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, this brought revival, and the importance of receiving Christ as Saviour. Finney was the pioneer in the need for a person to make the decision to receive Christ as Saviour, and came under a lot of fire from the Calvinist Presbyterians who believed that one should wait until the Holy Spirit did it. George Whitefield was the pioneer of mass evangelism. He was the "Billy Graham" of his time in America. It was in the 19th Century that the Methodist Holiness movement brought in entire sanctification by faith and they called it the baptism with the Spirit. This involved a total transformation of heart and spirit which led to full commitment to Christ and separation from the works of the flesh. During John Wesley's ministry, divine healing occurred, and he had 250 verified healings, including that of his horse. Into the 19th Century, itinerate Methodist Holiness preachers had people healed of different illness. Guy Bevington was a famous example, and he worked around the Cincinnati area. Maria Wentworth-Etter was another gospel preacher who saw people healed. She has been termed the mother of Pentecostalism, although there is no evidence that she spoke in tongues. Tongues occurred at the turn of the 20th Century, as a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit during a Bible study. By the way, John Wesley encountered a group of people whom he described as "gobbling like geese". I wonder if these people were speaking in tongues, and Wesley didn't know what it actually was? Right at the start, it just happened to believers as they prayed and sought God. Once people realised that this was the gift of tongues as described in the New Testament, they started seeking God for it and having tarrying meetings to wait for the Holy Spirit to give them the gift. Of course, as with any new move of God, the established churches persecuted the early Pentecostals and threw them out of their churches, accusing them of being possessed of the devil. It shows that you can't put new wine into old wine skins. The Pentecostals, adopted the term baptism with the Spirit to describe their experience, which is understandable seeing that many Pentecostals came from the Methodist holiness background where they already believed in it; except now, they saw tongues as the evidence of the baptism with the Spirit. So, we see the Holy Spirit working to bring the church back to where it was in the First Century where the ministry of the Holy Spirit comes back into church ministry and life. The slowness of the development has mainly been the resistance of established church groups to accept it. Justification by Faith was resisted by the established church. Puritan holiness was resisted by the Reformed churches Making a personal decision for Christ was resisted by the Calvinist churches. Divine healing was resisted by the traditional churches of its time. Entire Sanctification was resisted by many church groups. The Pentecostal revival was seen as of the devil by Evangelical groups. The Charismatic movement was resisted by the Pentecostals. This shows that every effort by the Holy Spirit to restore His ministry in the church has been resisted by religious leaders, and that is why through the centuries, the full truth of the baptism with the Spirit and the gifts was slow in developing.

I don't see how anyone can be converted to Christ before the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost The Scripture says that believers are baptised into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. But if the Holy Spirit was not present while Christ was still in the world, how can believers be baptised into the body of Christ if the Holy Spirit does it. And, how could there be a body of Christ until the coming of the Holy Spirit caused it to be birthed? Does this mean that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the same as the Holy Spirit baptising believers into the body of Christ? It seems that the events of the Day of Pentecostal, Cornelius' household and the Ephesian disciples show that this is what happened. I think that the general confusion about these things is because every denomination teaches different interpretations of how the Holy Spirit is involved in the conversion and empowering of believers.

A good response! What we need to bear in mind that Jesus said that the way to eternal life is narrow and few there be who find it. Also, multitudes followed Jesus because they sincerely believed in Him. But most followed Him for the available healing and the free lunches. When he told them that His mission was to die, and that true disciples must identify with His death and resurrection - putting it into terms of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, that is, identifying with His broken body and the shedding of His blood for their sins, they told Him the saying was too hard for them and they walked away, leaving just a small group who stayed with Jesus. This caused Jesus to ask the remainder, "Will you walk away also?" Peter answered Him, "Where will we go? You have the words of eternal life." So given the fact that prosperity and guaranteed healing preachers are filling big stadiums with their false doctrinal preaching and deceptive claims of miracles, and yet a neighborhood local church with a pastor who teaches the Bible is blessed if he can retain a membership of less than 200 people, we can see how that the road of religion that leads to hypocrisy and destruction is broad, but the way to genuine Christian conversion is narrow. Also, we know that people join a church and become members for all sorts of reasons - family, social, status; and some join because they have genuinely become converted to Christ and want to do the will of God and glorify Christ. But all these ones exhibit the same conduct and behaviour, so that on outward appearances, we can't tell the difference, because we can't see into people's hearts. Only God can, and the Scripture says, "The foundation of God stands sure, He knows who are His." So, this might mean that over 80 percent of church members of all denominations, including Charismatic, might be hypocrites who were never really converted to Christ, but give the appearance of being very religious and holy. In the face of not knowing who is genuine and who is not, we have to give everyone we fellowship with the benefit of the doubt and rely on the Judgment seat of Christ to separate the sheep from the goats Joseph Alleine, the most successful 17th Century Puritan evangelist makes this clear in his book "An Alarm to the Unconverted", in which he teaches that just believing the gospel and joining a church may be "getting religion" but that is not enough. The person must seek God with all his or her heart to ensure that the Holy Spirit does the work of conversion in the person's heart and spirit. I think that this is really the baptism with the Spirit. It may be indicated by tongues and prophecy, but the real outcome is a totally new heart and spirit, ie: conversion to Christ, or being born again. So, I believe that those who took Alleine's teaching seriously and pressed into God for a full conversion to Christ, were actually baptised with the Spirit, but not according to modern Pentecostal or Charismatic understanding of it, ie, tongues and prophecy. Although there have been movements happened that experienced the Charismatic gifts of the Spirit at times through Christian history, but were outlawed and brutally suppressed by the established church. This leads me to believe that believers who do embrace Christ, wanting to do God's will, and press into to be genuinely born again, are baptised in the Spirit, even though they may not have been taught that the supernatural gifts are available to them. The problem ones are those who teach Cessationism and make it appear that continuists are deceived by false doctrine, and even demon possessed! I have difficulty believing that such people are truly converted to Christ. In my experience, most genuine converts to Christ are those who receive Christ as Saviour and show a new heart and spirit right away and they continue with a passion for doing God's will for their lives. I believe such people are baptised with the Spirit, because the baptism is not always spectacular, and the indication is usually a total change of attitude toward Christ and a new understanding of the Bible. They are the ones who stick to Christ when problems and persecution starts to happen to them. Usually, the hypocrites who are content with just having religion, either fall away after a year or two when they become bored with the restrictions of living a holy life, or when problems or persecution happen; or they stop testifying of Christ and settle down with being content with their three hymns and sermon on Sunday morning. The sad thing about this is that many of these become elders and pastors and end up being false shepherds. Often such pastors will preach a social or liberal gospel, denying the virgin birth, resurrection and miracles of Christ, making Christ appear as a good man who taught good moral principles. Preaching then becomes a dead academic letter instead of sound gospel preaching where the voice of the Holy Spirit can speak through. In these instances, the church has separated itself from the Holy Spirit.

Believing in Christ and being converted to Christ are two different things. The disciples believed in Christ along with all the others who believed in Him at the time. It is true that they were effectively saved through their belief in the same way that the thief on the cross went to be with Jesus to Paradise. But to make their calling and election sure, they needed to be converted to Christ, ie, be born again of the Holy Spirit, and that could only happen when Jesus went to be with the Father and the Holy Spirit came to the church, which He did on the Day of Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came, the 120 were baptised with the Spirit and converted at the same time. The same happened to Cornelius' household and the Ephesian disciples. The Samaritans believed Philip's preaching of the gospel, but were fully converted to Christ when Peter and John came and laid hands on them. Paul had a big turn-around on the Damascus Road and because he now believed in Christ, he started praying. When Ananias came along, shared his vision with Paul, laid hands on him, Paul was baptised with the Spirit and converted to Christ. The prominent Puritan writers, in the golden time of Bible teaching, taught that one can believe the gospel, but full conversion to Christ must be earnestly sought for with all one's heart. Then the Holy Spirit does the work of conversion in the believer. The Puritans didn't have the revelation of the baptism with the Spirit in their time, but actually had it in practice through their teaching on conversion to Christ.

Paul calls that "living in the Spirit". He assumes that those who live in the Spirit will walk in the Spirit so that their regeneration and indwelling is consistent with their conduct and behaviour. He makes clear to them what the works of the flesh, and what the fruit of the Spirit, are. Therefore, he is guiding them on the practicability of what walking in the Spirit involves. We can assume that believers will have asked him, "How do we walk in the Spirit?" And so he makes it clear what walking in the Spirit means. So, the baptism with the Spirit is the entry point to living in the Spirit. Our developing sanctification is us working on effectively walking in the Spirit.

There is a strong indication that the one baptism is the baptism with the Spirit. This is what the resurrected Jesus told the Apostles: "On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 1:4-5). This shows clearly that Jesus intended water baptism to be replaced by baptism with the Holy Spirit. This would give a different meaning to the references of baptism in the New Testament. When Paul told the jailor to believe on Christ and be baptised, he could have meant baptism with the Spirit and not water. The Ethiopian Eunich, because he knew of the baptism of John, assumed water baptism when he believed the gospel. But there are no other references in the New Testament directly linked to water baptism for Christian believers. Paul asked the Galatians whether God gave them the Spirit through works of the Law or by believing in Christ. In this he is equating conversion to Christ by receiving the Spirit, in other words, being baptised with the Spirit. Seeing that three major events involved conversion to Christ and being baptised with the Spirit happening at the same time, it can be safely accepted that the one baptism is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Therefore seeing that Cessationists reject the baptism with the Spirit with the Scriptural indications of tongues and prophecy, and it is integrally linked with conversion to Christ so that receiving one is receiving the other, where does that place them in their Christian profession. Does this mean that if they reject baptism with the Spirit, they fall short of genuine conversion to Christ as well? Bears thinking abut.

If the 120 in the upper room were actually converted to Christ when the Holy Spirit came to them, and the utterance of tongues was one of the signs of the presence and filling of the Holy Spirit; and the indication that the Holy Spirit had filled the members of Cornelius' household was the utterance of tongues; and when Paul laid hands on the disciples at Ephesus, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied; then it is clear that conversion to Christ and the filling (baptism) with the Spirit was one and the same because of the three major examples of conversion/baptism with the Spirit. Peter had no problem with tongues as the indication that the Holy Spirit had filled the members of Cornelius' household, because he reported to his colleagues at Jerusalem that "the Holy Spirit came to them in the same way He came to us". Paul also knew that the Holy Spirit had filled the Ephesus believers because he observed them speaking in tongues and prophesying. Therefore it doesn't take much intelligence to assume that someone being baptised with the Spirit will speak in tongues and prophesy. To be consistent, the doctrine of the Trinity is built on less Scriptural evidence than tongues and prophecy accompanying the baptism with the Spirit, and yet most orthodox believers have no doubt about it. Also, most believers have accepted purpose built church buildings, programmed services, the ceremonial, ritualised Lord's "snack", denominational labels, as integral components of Christian faith when the Scripture makes no mention of these things at all. I think that even an elementary school child can comprehend that when Paul wrote at the beginning of 1 Corinthians that what he was writing was for "all believers everywhere, whom God "called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours" (1 Corinthians 1:2). So Paul does not limit his writing to just the Corinthians, but to all Christians who will read the letter, and that includes us. This would mean for a person with the most elementary comprehension skills that the whole book is meant for all Christian believers everywhere, including chapters 12 and 14. If you are going to say that chapters 12 and 14 were just intended for the Apostolic Age, then you might as well say that the whole of 1 Corinthians was intended for First Century church members only and therefore not applicable for us 2000 years later. To take this silly notion a step further, we might as well say that all of Paul's letters to churches were just for church members during the Apostolic Age. This means that man's "canon" of Scripture cannot apply to modern Christians because the bulk of the New Testament became obsolete when the last Apostle died. The real reason why the supernatural disappeared from the churches is that paganism, fornication, adultery, man's authority, politics, ritual, and ceremony invaded the church, and because the supernatural gifts of the Spirit were for those called to be Christ's holy people, when professing Christians ceased being holy people, the supernatural Holy Spirit gifts ceased. It is simple as that. Cessationist notions came from fornicating, adulterous church leaders who convinced the people that the supernatural ceased because they were just meant to be temporary - keeping the real reasons hidden because they were not going to have their unholy practices revealed. Who knows? Perhaps the same reasons apply to many Cessationist churches today!

Of course prophecies will fail and tongues will cease and knowledge will vanish away. The Scripture is quite clear about that. The timing of it is not included in the verse you quoted, therefore you have decided for yourself that it happened at the end of the Apostolic Age. That is eisegesis. The nine supernatural gifts of the Spirit are not "sign" gifts. They are tools of the Holy Spirit to build up the body of Christ, to be used in local churches. In fact, the Scripture does not label any of the gifts as "sign" gifts at all. These are notions thought up by men to try and justify why the supernatural gifts don't occur in most of our churches in the way they occurred in the Book of Acts.

Ananias and Sapphira told a little white lie about how much they sold their land for and they paid with their lives, because their lie was to the Holy Spirit. That was when the Holy Spirit was running the church. Just think about how much deception is in our churches and nobody dies. Makes one think about who is running our churches these days.

It doesn't take a very high IQ to know that Paul spoke in tongues when he was baptised with the Holy Spirit.

You never know...he might try pushing his Bible cover into Jesus' face at the judgment!

Seeing that the major events of people being converted to Christ involved the Holy Spirit falling on them so that they spoke in tongues and prophesied as the Spirit gave them utterance, the question arises that if a person has not been baptised with the Spirit, can he or she actually walk in the Spirit? There are many who either ignore or reject the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of the supernatural gifts. The fact, according to Scripture, written by the Holy Spirit Himself, is that the infilling of the Spirit and the reception of His supernatural gifts are integrated- that rejection of the gifts is tantamount to rejection of the Holy Spirit Himself. This is not according to the Pentecostal or Charismatic religious labels as some try to use the excesses of those movements to justify their rejection of the supernatural aspects of the Holy Spirit, but the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the use of His gifts is Bible - inspired by the Holy Spirit. Rejecting 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as applicable today is the same as rejecting the Holy Spirit Himself. This has wider consequences, because rejecting the Holy Spirit, is rejection of Christ, and the Father, because all three are equal and in total unity. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit and His supernatural gifts to represent Him in the world until He comes again. Therefore, for these reasons, those who reject the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, thereby rejecting the Holy Spirit's involvement in personal and church life, cannot really walk in the Spirit. How can they walk in the Spirit when they are rejecting Him at the same time?

I am not a Charismatic. I am a Presbyterian. I don't care what happens in the Charismatic movement. I care what the Holy Spirit makes known to me. He does not say anything to me that is not consistent with written Scripture. But I don't read into Scripture that is not there. Nowhere does the Scripture say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the gift of tongues is limited to the Apostolic Age, and the Scripture makes no mention of a future canon of Scripture. To say that the Perfect is the canon of Scripture is based on eisegesis - reading things into Scripture that are not there. In actual fact, your Cessationist view is your own subjective view based on what you have been taught, and is nowhere supported by Scripture at all. Cessationist doctrine was coined by a liberal theologian in the 19th Century who heard non-Biblical voices in his mind, ignoring clear Church history that shows without doubt that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit declined when the church adopted paganism and turned from holiness and Christ-centred religious observance and replaced the reality of the Holy Spirit with the authority of self-appointed bishops, and paganistic ritual and ceremony.

Luke had already outlined on two occasions the results when people are baptised with the Spirit. He didn't have to repeat every detail and assumed that his readers would naturally assume that Paul received the Holy Spirit in the same manner as all the others who spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

They spoke all kinds of languages they had never learned. The crowd who heard the languages knew that because they knew that the speakers were "uneducated Galileans" and could not have learned all the languages they spoke. Here's a good, true story: Early in the 20th Century a well-known pastor needed a rest and was invited to stay at the home of a well-known Pentecostal international preacher. When the pastor arrived in the city he went to the local YMCA and sought directions to the home of the preacher. They told him to be very careful because he was one of these Pentecostals who are of the devil and if he was not careful he could get a demon. So the pastor visited the house and decided to talk and talk so he did not have to hear anything that might harm him. There was to be a meeting in the home, and when everyone arrived the room was packed. Then two young ladies started the prayer time by praying in tongues. Suddenly the pastor sat bolt upright, went to the first young lady and then to the other. Then he asked to go to his room. The next morning he explained to the preacher that he was warned about "these Pentecostals" and to be on his guard. The preacher realised that the pastor was totally unbelieving concerning the baptism with the Spirit and speaking in tongues. The pastor went on to explain that he went to his room, got on his knees before God and was baptised with the Spirit! The preacher asked him what changed his mind. The pastor said that he was fluent in Greek and Hebrew, and when the first lady prayed in tongues, the Holy Spirit spoke to him in Greek, "Get right with God!" And when he went the second lady who spoke in Hebrew, "Get right with God". He knew that he just had to go to his room to get right with God. That he did, and was baptised with the Spirit and received the gift of tongues. That was how the Holy Spirit dealt with his unbelief. So, the Holy Spirit is well capable of speaking Greek and Hebrew through two young ladies who had never learned those languages.

The Holy Spirit told me directly that he did speak in tongues. This is because he was baptised with the Spirit in the same way as the others did on the day of Pentecost. Therefore he spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave him utterance, and he continued praying in tongues until the day he died.

This is what the Holy Spirit says to Cessationists: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51).

Overnight during a period of insomnia, I had a conversation with the Lord concerning Cessationism. It is interesting the response I received. The Holy Spirit told me directly that when I pray in tongues I am praying directly to God and that I am speaking mysteries in the Spirit. Also, when I am praising the Lord in tongues I am giving thanks well. Paul, when he was baptised with the Spirit as the result of Ananias' prayer, he spoke in tongues because his baptism with the Spirit followed the same pattern as the Day of Pentecost, and Cornelius' household. The Holy Spirit also told me that Paul prayed in tongues more than all the Corinthians put together because it was a principal part of his personal prayer life. The Holy Spirit also said something very interesting. He said that when someone is baptised with the Spirit, they will speak in tongues and prophesy as the Spirit gives them utterance. A person who does not speak in tongues or prophesy, cannot show any evidence that they are genuinely baptised with the Spirit, and those who say they are without showing such evidence are pretending that they are filled with the Spirit when they are nothing of the sort. This means that these people are doing everything in the flesh and not walking in the Spirit, because only Spirit-filled believers who have been baptised with the Spirit are able to walk in the Spirit. Those who are not baptised with the Spirit can only walk in the flesh. This is why the churches that ignore the baptism with the Spirit and His gifts are content with their man-designed programmed services with three hymns and a sermon. Usually the sermons are of the flesh, even though they may be Biblically accurate. Without the preacher having been baptised with the Spirit, the voice of the Holy Spirit does not speak through his preaching. This is because he is not endued with the power from on high that enables his preaching to occur in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why the listeners get their ears tickled and remark on the well-constructed sermon from an accomplished speaker, but their hearts are not affected, because they are getting the dead letter in an academic manner instead of being fed with the words of eternal life through the Spirit. This is why in many churches the people go home full of tea and biscuits instead of the Spirit. It is chilling and tragic that multitudes of professing Christians who are unbelieving concerning the Holy Spirit and His gifts, are actually not right with God, because their unbelief is grieving and quenching the Spirit, making the following Scripture very true in their case: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Revelation 2:8). The scary part of this is that unbelieving church members are seen as equal to abominable, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters and liars! Cessationism is an insult to the Holy Spirit, and robs godly people of the power and blessing of being filled with the Spirit, and robs the body of Christ of the upbuilding and strengthening that the operation of the gifts brings to it. So, these are the things the Holy Spirit has said to me, and who is there to prove Him wrong?

Your premise about tongues being of the flesh and have ceased is not based on exegesis of Scripture, but rather of eisegesis. Exegesis is reading the Scripture that is actually there and showing how it was understood by contemporary readers of the time it was written. Eisegesis is reading into Scripture that is actually not there at all. Therefore, to say that tongues of of the flesh and ceased is based on eisegesis - because nowhere does the Scripture expressly say that tongues is of the flesh, nor is there any reference that tongues was every meant to be just a temporary gift limited to the Apostolic age. So, your reasoning is based on two plus two equals five. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:2 that the person who speaks in tongues speaks to God and that he speaks mysteries in the Spirit. He also says later on that speaking in tongues is "giving thanks well". Therefore, to say that speaking in tongues is of the flesh is just plain codswallop, not supported anywhere in Scripture. Also, the principal examples of people being baptised with the Spirit is that they were observed speaking in tongues and the Spirit gave them utterance. Therefore, baptism with the Spirit, in Acts, was always accompanied by tongues, even with the Samaritans and Paul, even though in the two latter cases tongues is not mentioned. But why should Luke repeat himself? It was obvious to him that when the Holy Spirit fell on a person, they spoke in tongues. Paul says that he speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians, so it stands to reason that he received tongues when he was baptised with the Spirit in the house in Damascus when he regained his sight. And with the Samaritans, it was what Simon the sorcerer saw when the new converts were baptised with the Spirit that induced him to offer Peter and John money for it. Therefore it was obvious that the Samaritans spoke in tongues and prophesied in the same way that the Ephesus disciples of John did when they were baptised with the Spirit. So through exegesis of Scripture, and not eisegesis, unbiased students of Scripture can be assured that baptism with the Spirit involves the gift of tongues, prophecy, and the potential of manifesting any of the nine gifts of the Spirit, and none of these gifts were and are never meant cease until the second coming of Christ, when tongues, prophecy and other tools of the Spirit will no longer be needed. Anyone who teaches Cessationism is actually contradicting Scripture by reading stuff into it that is not there, and actually robbing their disciples of being able to access the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives and ministry. It will absolutely suck to be a Cessationist at the Judgment when it will be revealed to them how many people they have robbed through their demonic doctrine. So, until you can provide actual Scripture, instead of obscure twisting of unrelated verses and half verses that you are using eisegesis to support your premise, it might be best to stop writing codswallop and support your assertions with clearly written, sound Scripture that actually says that the gifts were designed to be temporary and just for the Apostolic age. I know you can't, because there are none!

The references you have quoted have nothing to do with the gift of tongues at all.

Your view on the cessation of tongues is based on faulty exegesis. To say that tongues is of the flesh contradicts Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. Paul never describes speaking in tongues being of the flesh. His teaching involves the use of prophecy over and above tongues in public church meetings because it is important that people understand what is being said. Also, your quote puts tongues, prophecy and knowledge in the same category that will pass away while charity continues. So, if you are going to say that tongues will pass away because it is of the flesh and not of the Spirit, then you will have to say the same of prophecy and knowledge. Seeing that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, you are effectively saying that testifying of what Jesus has done on the cross and rising from the dead, is of the flesh; as well as preaching, as a form of prophecy, is also of the flesh. So, you see, to separate tongues from prophecy and knowledge as being of the flesh and therefore temporary, is a twisting of the Scripture, but including prophecy and knowledge makes your view untenable and bordering on the ridiculous. The real reason why churches prefer not to include the gift of tongues along with other gifts of the Spirit is that they don't know anything about it, and so Cessationism is a handy nail to hang their "hats" on. 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 are mysteries to them, so they ignore those chapters and concentrate on the parts of 1 Corinthians they do understand. It would be more honest of them to say they don't understand the chapters because they have no experience of them in their churches. But I guess many religious leaders are too proud to admit they don't know everything there is to know about how the Holy Spirit works in the area of Christian faith and the running of Christian services.