Believe it or not, there's actually people out there who believe that if you're not praying in tongues, you're not saved. According to the father of the word-faith movement, Kenneth Hagin, "peaking in tongues is the initial evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit." So if you're not speaking in tongues, you're not filled with the Holy Spirit.
He goes on to say that continuing to pray and to worship God in tongues helps us to be ever-conscious of His indwelling Presence. And if you are conscious of the indwelling Presence of the Holy Ghost every day, that is bound to affect the way you think and live... When you pray in tongues, your spirit is in direct contact with God, who is a Spirit. When you speak in tongues, you are talking to Him by divine, supernatural means.
Is this true? Is this biblical? The answer is "of course not". These quotes came from the NAR's own Kenneth Hagin who has said a lot of silly things, the least of which is his false teachings on praying in tongues
Doug,
ReplyDeleteHave you ever come across any explanation of why "tongues" in the 20th and now 21st centuries never seem to be done according to Acts 2.4 & 2.6? I've never been able to get a straight Biblical answer from people like those you describe above.
1 Cor 14.33 anyone? Or maybe Paul not profitable for doctrine...
Alec
I personally believe that the gift of tongues is not needed as it was 2000 years ago, so it's not bestowed. I could be wrong, and if I am wrong, I like to think that we don't hear about it because if it is bestowed on someone who is to devoute to advertise "LOOK AT ME BEING HOLY!!!"
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote that I realized that Satan loves to imitate God in a perverse manner. For example, in the Book of Revelation Satan creates his own trinity to mock God - The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet. God gives the gift of prophesy, Satan gives the delusion of false prophesy.
This modern perversion of Tongues may just be Satan's delusion. Actress Megan Fox claims to speak in tongues and when asked how it feels she said ""It feels like a lot of energy coming through the top of your head--I'm going to sound like such a lunatic--and then your whole body is filled with this electric current. And you just start speaking, but you're not thinking because you have no idea what you're saying... The idea is that it's a language that only God understands."
Tongues is NOT a language that only God understands. He understands our every unspoken thought, why would He make a secret language that even the speaker doesn't understand? Incoherent babble is NOT part of tongues, clear coherent speech in a language that the speaker does not speak but the listener, another human being, understands.
Katy Perry, who has publically admitted to having sold her soul to the devil, claims that she learned to speak in tongues as a child "Speaking in tongues is as normal to me as 'Pass the salt' ... "My dad speaks in tongues and my mom interprets it. That's their gift." Again - God does not need someone to speak in a language that the listener does not understand and Tongues is a gift that foregoes the need for a translator. If the target of the speech needs a translator, it's not Tongues.
Hi, i totally agree with your view of "tongues". I believe that it was a specific language in the Bible. But i thought the scripture says that if someone speaks in tongues, someone must also interpret? In 1 Cor. 14:27 "If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret."
DeleteI have been to many "afterglow" meetings where believers may exercise their gifts freely. They would ask, are there any interpretors? Someone in the back would say yes or something! Then everyone closes their eyes. Someone would start to speak in an unknown tongue, basically to God. We wait for that someone to interpret! That person would say, the speaker said, oh praise the almighty God, etc etc... I always thought...wow! That's it? He couldn't have said that in English, w/only English speakers present?! To me, it was all a show to present oneself as more holy or more spiritually gifted, whatever that means to them. I felt it was all a phoney display of self-exaltation! The prophesies would be: the spirit told me that someone here has been struggling w/porn or alcohol addiction or committed adultery for years, bla bla blah...and behold, God is telling you to confess your sin. Shouldn't prophesy be a bit more specific & direct? Some even prophesied someone with a headache! Oh boy!!
Anyway, it is sad to think back to those times, but especially sad to see churches continue to have these gatherings & many deceived believe they have been gifted this power by God!
Ms. B
You were probably dead on with your estimation that it was all a phoney display of self-exaltation. How interesting that they picked up on 1 Corinthians 14:27 and asked for an interpreter, but they blew right past 1 Corinthians 14:22 -
Delete22 So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers but to those who believe. 23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?
So by speaking in tongues in an "afterglow" what they are saying is that most of the people there are foreign unbelievers because the purpose of tongues is to witness to unbelievers who don't speak the language of the witness.