Shane Idleman emphasizes the necessity of knowing Jesus Christ as the Savior and the importance of calling upon His name for salvation and deliverance from life's struggles. He discusses the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly the gift of tongues, and addresses the confusion and division surrounding these gifts within the church. Shane encourages believers to be open to the Holy Spirit's work in their lives, emphasizing that these gifts are meant for the edification of the church and the empowerment of believers. He warns against spiritual pride, urging humility and a willingness to seek God's truth regarding the gifts of the Spirit. Ultimately, Shane calls for a deeper relationship with Christ, highlighting that true peace and transformation come from surrendering to the Holy Spirit.

On this one message, this one scripture, I want to read it and just everybody if I could get your attention. Peter says, and it shall come to pass that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not might, not maybe, not someday. It says all who call upon the Lord, name of the Lord, will be saved. And in a group this size, it begs the question, do you truly know him? Do you truly know him? I mean Jesus is not a cuss word. He's not a good teacher. The Bible says that he's a judge, he's a lion, he's a redeemer, he's the rock of my salvation, he's an ever-present help, he's light of the world, he's wonderful counselor, prince of peace, everlasting father, he's the beginning, he's the end. In a nutshell, he's everything. He's everything. And if you don't know him, all the Bible says is to call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved. He'll deliver you from that addiction, he'll deliver you from a life of depression and just not knowing God and he'll deliver, he's the deliverer, he's everything. And for those who say, well that's just pie in the sky, well trust me, it's not. There will be a judgment day coming someday. And the Bible gives us hope by saying if you call on the name of the Lord, you will be saved. And I just want to just begin with that because I think it's so important to remember that if we call on his name, and it's not just salvation, it's for everything. I was with, I think I was Facebooking Holly at 2.30 in the morning or 3.30 in the morning and I'm driving around and everybody's like, man, just call on him because he's the only one that can bring peace in the midst of the storm. He's the only one that can bring comfort in the midst of what we're going through. He's the only one. He's the only true, the Bible says, a sure foundation, a strong tower that you can run into for safety and deliverance. He's it, the only name that saves. That's why they want to remove him from everything. That's why there's power in the name of Jesus Christ because that name saves, that name delivers, and that name will set you free. But you've got to call on him, not with this much, but with everything, with your entire heart. So with that said, I've been in the last week or so, this series on the power, the giftings of the Holy Spirit. And the reason is because there's a lot of questions on this area of the Holy Spirit. Maybe you haven't been in church before or you have or a long time ago, but this topic of the Holy Spirit sometimes can kind of ruffle feathers. It can kind of confuse people. And what I want to do is just take a minute and kind of switch from preaching mode to teaching mode and go through and talk about what is this power of the Holy Spirit. Last week we talked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Basically what that is, is once a person surrenders their life to God and they become a Christian, God saves them, then God fills them with his Spirit. The Bible talks about my Spirit. I bear witness to that. The Spirit of Christ in me is crying Abba Father. Even though my nature has been changed, the nature of sin hasn't been changed. So that's why you see a lot of Christians still struggling with sin, because it doesn't eradicate sin. It changes my nature, but not the nature of sin. And so once we give our hearts to Christ, we repent, we trust in him, then we're filled with the Spirit of God. And that's where that term, the filling of the Holy Spirit, comes from. The whole nature changes. Everything in life changes. And then from that, last week, now we're moving into what the Bible calls the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. You guys have heard of tongues or words of knowledge, words of prophecy. Basically what they call it, all this weird stuff. Right? You're already going, oh man, I came in at the wrong night. I can't sneak out now. And trust me, this is not a topic I really want to speak on, but I think it's important because the Bible speaks volumes as to this topic. And if we just look at what the Bible says, you'll see that weirdness is not weirdness. You'll see that these things are given by God. And what I want to do is start in Acts chapter 2. We left off there last week. Acts chapter 2, if you have your Bibles, I would encourage you to bring those. If not, we can actually get you Bibles. We have some at the office. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them, and rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it then we hear each of them in our own native tongue? We hear them telling in our tongue the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? But others, mocking, said, They are all filled with new wine. So it begs the question, why is tongues controversial? I almost titled this message, Divided Tongues of Fire, because it divides the church. And it's an interesting thing because it's a supernatural act of God that brings division because it's a little, anytime the supernatural happens, right? People are like, Oh, man, you know, it's getting a little bit out there for me. But why is this issue of tongues controversial? Well, here's why. All believers, all believers experience God's redemptive work, but not all believers experience the gift, the gifts of the Spirit. So that's why we're all on the same page when it comes to Christ. All the believers saying, Yep, absolutely. But then when it comes to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we're like, No, let's divide camps. And why is that? And that's what I want to talk about. But you might be saying that, Okay, Shane, what is the gift of tongues? What is the gift of tongues? Well, I'm going to read from John MacArthur because he's dead on what this gift of tongues is. The distinction with where I'm reading John MacArthur, Grace Community Church, sometimes I reference him a lot because he's somebody I read often. I have all his books. I read his Bible. But there's some issues that Christians are not on the same page with. This would be one of them. But he actually gives the definition of tongues perfectly. The gift of tongues was a divinely bestowed supernatural ability to speak in a human language that had not been learned by the one speaking. According to the Apostle Paul, when believers exercised the gift of tongues in the church, they would speak one at a time and only two or three were to speak in a given service. Furthermore, when tongues were spoken in church, they would be interpreted by someone with the gift of interpretation so that others might be edified by the God-given message. So that was the reason. So the big debate is this. Is it still available? Have the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased? Tongues, a gift, a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, or are they still available today? And then you might ask, Why would I waste an entire sermon on this topic? Somebody actually told me that. Why would you waste an entire sermon on this topic? Well, for two reasons. Number one, Paul invested three chapters in the book of Corinthians. He wanted to show the proper use and what abuse looks like. And as a church, we want to walk through those same steps. What does this look like? What is this church? What is our statement of faith on this? And here's the irony to me of all this. The gifts were great for the early church. Nobody disputes that, right? You won't have anybody saying that the gifts were not powerful, they were not excellent, they were not wonderful in the early church. But now they're bad. So it's the only thing that I'm aware of that was initially good, but now it's bad. It's of the devil. I can't quite make that connection. I'm going to explain to you why. Let's just look to the Bible. 1 Corinthians 12. Now concerning spiritual gifts, Paul says this. Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters. Now we have to ask ourselves, is this applicable to us or is it not? I mean, that's really what the question is. If it's not applicable to us, I might as well just rip out three chapters of my Bible and move on to chapter 15. But if it's for us, let's see what he says here. Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagan, somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore, I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus, be cursed. And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So obviously something is happening in the church for Paul to write this. What's happening, depending on the commentators you write or just looking at the context, obviously the gifts of the Spirit were being confused with something that's not of God. So Paul is saying, listen, this issue of tongues, if somebody's speaking in tongues and they're also praising God and lifting up Christ high and truth is being exalted and lies are being changed and the heart is being rent and broken and put towards God, that can't be of the devil and of God. You can't curse God and still at the same time praise him. It's not possible. So I believe that Paul is taking that argument and saying, listen, whatever is happening that's of God, if he's being praised, if he's being exalted, if Christ is being glorified, you cannot say Christ is Lord and not have the Spirit of God speaking through you. It's what he's coming to here. And then he says, there are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of workings, but in all of them and everything, it is the same God at work. Now to each one of us he manifestations of the Spirit is given for the common good. And the word manifestation there just basically means reveals. So God reveals these gifts of the Spirit for the common good. Now this is an interesting topic because what does it look like in the church? It's one thing to believe it, but it's a whole other thing to what does it look like? And that's what I want to talk about next week. But this week, I just want to get to the point of, are these things still valid today or are they not? To one, he goes on in verse 8, to one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit and he distributes them to each just as he determines. So if this is applicable to us today, which I believe it is, the first point to glean from this is the Spirit distributes them. The Spirit distributes them. This is why you can't work people up into a Holy Spirit frenzy and just, oh let's just do this and see if God moves. No, God's got to bring it down. The power of God falls from God. It can't be worked up like a Holy Spirit pep rally. You can't say to say all this gibberish and hope that God gives you this gift. It is distributed by the Holy Spirit of God. Now here's how it is distributed. In order to distribute something, you have to have somebody to receive it. You ever have somebody go to your front door and they knock, you've got to have a signature and you're not home? What happens? You get those very irritating little letters on the door that say, now I've got to take a long drive to a post office and go pick up my package. Why? It wasn't there to receive it. So the Holy Spirit distributes these things, but we have to be open. We have to be an open, willing vessel, not open to weirdness, open to sound doctrine, but to say, Lord, I don't know what Shane's saying is true. I don't know what this other side is saying is true. Lord, would you show me? I'm willing. I want to know. I want to be an open vessel. I want to receive God's best. And sometimes I think we worry about that, don't we? No, I can't do that, Shane. God will just, he'll make me into a nutcase. All this man, everything's going to, those guys on TV, that's what's going to happen to me. But we forget that God has our best interests at heart. God is sovereign. God doesn't do things. Actually, God doesn't do these things to make people weird. The whole point of the power of the Holy Spirit is to change lives. So when you talk about the gift of prophecy, that's somebody speaking boldly into somebody's life, something that God revealed that will change their life. When you're talking about the gift, the word of wisdom, God gives somebody this word for somebody that, it's a supernatural thing that actually we're going to talk about on November 8th. I'm going to have Paula give this brief testimony and it's exactly, ties in perfect with this, and I don't want to kind of give it away. I'm tempted to, but I don't want to, of how God just spoke to her very quickly. This word of wisdom gave to her. She ran and actually saved her daughter, granddaughter from drowning in the pool. That quick. That's what these things are. They're not to go look on TV and, oh, they're just laying out on the, they're just laying on the floor and they're drunk in the spirit. Just ignore them. No, that's wrong. That's wrong. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are for the body of Christ to help each other, to come alongside and help each other. And this issue of tongues is, is, is divisive because it's controversial, but God is controversial, isn't he? Verse 12, just as a body through one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one spirit. I explained that last week. That's as believers were baptized into the body of Christ. It's a Greek word, baptismo. It's overwhelmed. We're overwhelmed into the body of Christ. Whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, we were all given the one spirit to drink. And even that word, people go, oh, there, there you go. That just means to take in the spirit of God. See, we have to understand something about the Holy Spirit. You have all of the Holy Spirit at conversion, but does he have all of you? See, there's so many people living carnal, self-centered lives. Word of God is nothing to them because they haven't surrendered their life to the power and the work of the Holy Spirit. And surrender isn't this kind of just, you know, um, I don't know what the right word is, mystical kind of thing. It's saying, Lord, my life is now yours. My finances, my marriage, my attitude, my anger, my depression, my fear, who I am, Lord, everything is yours. I need you to take over. I need you to rule and reign in my life. I need you to steer my life. I need you to rejuvenate and fill me with your spirit, Lord. I need you in a nutshell. And he fills you overflowing with capacity, bubbling over, right? So much so that you have to speak about Christ. Why do you think I have to do this? Because I want to do it? Getting up and speaking in front of people is the last thing I would have ever chosen, way down there with going to get a root canal. Way down there. Down there with watching My Wife Ever For Children. That's, you know, just those things are things I can, you know, you love them afterwards, but it's hard things. I would never do this if it wasn't for the things I said 15 years ago. God, I give you all of my life. Take my life tonight. I am destroying myself. Alcohol, anger, and addiction and arrogance is going to kill me. Lord, you take over. I can't do this. I give you my life. He says, good. Now I've got you where I want you. Now here's what I'm going to call you to do. Here's what I'm going to call you to preach. I'm going to call you to win people to Christ. I'm going to empower you so it's not you, it's me. It's God. That's the filling of the Holy Spirit. That's why I love what John Knox said. I have never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time I enter the pulpit. And I can relate to that because when we come up here, we're not saying, hey guys, here's your best life now. Here's 10 positive points and go out and get them. We're speaking the Word of God. We're saying, here's what God's Word says. You better tremble a little. You better say, Lord, I need you in this. I need your help because this is your Word. This is your truth. This is your light that's given to light, to a dark culture. And you realize, as I've said before, people got mad at me about this, but if I preach like this on the streets of Hollywood or New York, I might not make it home. San Francisco, I won't make it home. I'm just telling you. I mean, that's the light in the darkness. They do not like to hear this. So what in the world would cause me to do it? The power of the Holy Spirit. His Word is in my heart like a burning fire. It's shut up in my bones. I can't hold it back. Shane wants to go home and lay down and watch TV, but the Holy Spirit of God says, no, we've got to preach. We've got to teach. That's how important this topic is. This is everything. This is everything. The power of the Holy Spirit in your life draws you to Christ. It leads you to Christ. It lets you witness in the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you know there's people who haven't talked about Jesus in a year or two or three? Why? Oh, I just don't like doing it. The reason you don't like doing it is probably because you're quenching and grieving the Spirit of God. Because when you fill yourself up with God's Word, when you fill yourself up with worship, when you surrender your life to Him, you have to. You have to. You're directing conversations in that direction. You have to because it's called the Spirit-filled life, filled with the Spirit of God. That's why this is so important. I just left off there. I went on a rabbit trail. I realize that. But just as the body, he's talking about the body. The foot doesn't say, the arm, I don't need you. I mean, does my foot tell my hand, yeah, I don't need you. I'm taking off. Of course not. It's one body. The body comes together as a no, say, I don't need you, I. If we would look at the body of Christ like that, there'd be a lot less division. There'd be a lot less fighting. There'd be a lot less critical hearts. Because we'll realize we're part of the body. I'm just the mouth. I'm just the loud mouth. That's all. Who's the feet? Who's the arms? Who's going to these hospital homes and ministering? Who's going to people in your neighborhood? Who's helping family? Don't look at the mouth. Oh, the mouth, that's great. No, the mouth sometimes needs to shut up and we just need to work. We need to work and get things done for God. So it's all one body. So that's what the giftings are. They come together to equip the body for ministry. And I would just encourage you in this area, don't let some clown on the internet hurt your relationship with Christ. Because I've seen some videos out there and I would say, I don't want anything to do with the Holy Spirit either, if that's how they act. Toking the Holy Ghost, like a bong hit. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Getting drunk on the Holy, can't even preach. This is the Holy Spirit moving, brother. I mean, are you kidding me? Wow. So this is not, I mean, this is a rebuke to that kind of phoniness, that kind of craziness. You think the Apostle Paul would sit there and applaud that? You have another thing coming. That is, that is mockery. That is blasphemy to represent God like that. The character of God should come, and a true spirit-filled believer should be the character of Christ, not weirdness, not the character of a Halloween or something. The character of Christ should come out in us. And then Paul goes on to say, verse 27, now you're the body of Christ, and each of you is part of that body. And God has placed in the church, see God, here we go, here's a couple words, people don't like these words. And God has placed in the church, first of all, Apostles. Second of all, Prophets. No, no. Then third, Pastor, Teacher. Oh, that one's okay. We'll use that one. But Paul's saying, listen, God puts these people into the church, Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers. Why? To build up the church. And Apostle, all Apostle really is, in the language here, if you look up the word Apostle, it's the sent ones. They're sent out to plant churches, they're sent out to proclaim the truth, out into a different area. So what we would call church planter, they would call Apostle. The Prophet gets a bad word, because you have all these weird people saying, thus saith the Lord, you know, you're going to grow hair of shame by tomorrow, and it's not going to happen. I don't want it at this stage, because now Bald is in, but when it, back when it first started, Bald was not in. But you guys, this is a serious sermon. What was I saying? Okay, Apostles, the Prophet, all the Prophet of God was, was to go and call the people back to him. So you need somebody to plant the church, then you need somebody to rebuke the church, and then you need somebody to pastor the church. Pastor, Teacher. So God plants these into the church, and a healthy church should have all these aspects in the ministry. I better be able to warn the church, I better have that prophetic edge, I better have some little Isaiah and Jeremiah pumping in my blood, but I also better have the role of the pastor teacher. And God plants that into the body. And then he says, then miracles, then the gifts of healing, then of helping, then the gift of guidance, then the gift of different kind of tongues. But then he says, are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have the gift of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? What would be the rhetorical, the answer there? No, right? He's saying no, not everybody has all these gifts in one package. Do all interpret. Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. So Paul's saying, eagerly desire, so the next point I glean from this is eagerly desire, don't eagerly fear. We should desire if God has something more for me, I should desire that, not fear it. This is a God who created the universe, and we're worried, oh, he better not do that to me. Well, why not? Because it's our perception. I think the enemy, I think he's done a masterful job of taking weird Christians and saying, I don't want that, I'm not open to that, and you just close yourself off. I'd rather say, I know that's not you, Christ, so I want all that you have to give me. And when you see these gifts in operation, and I'll be honest with you, when I read the early church, now I'm like, oh, wow, we definitely do not see those kind of things. Somebody has a gift of healing, why don't you go walk in Allen Valley Hospital and clear it out? Why are we seeing these things like they saw in the early church? I'm hoping I can touch on that next week, but if you talk to people who have been anywhere outside of America, in the mission field, Africa, Uganda, I've met with a couple afterwards, they saw so much on the mission field, where God's word is spreading, and these things are in operation. I mean, you've got little kids dying, and the mother's crying, and there's got them all in this burial stuff, and they pray for him, and he begins to cough, and they wake up. I hear these a lot. These aren't little fictitious stories, that God is moving in a powerful way to bring the gospel to these places. But in America, we've got, I think, a thousand translations now in the palm of our hand. We don't need God. We don't need all that stuff. Come on, how desperate are we for God? I don't need him to answer that prayer, I'll just put on Visa. And we've created this culture, really, think about it, we're not dependent upon God. If it didn't rain, they didn't eat. Now we've just got an aqueduct running back there, we've got the Sierra Mountains, we've got all this stuff. Hopefully, I mean, the drought is coming as well. I'm getting off on a lot of rabbit trails this sermon, so let me get back. Now here's what I want to mention, too. This is why I don't believe that tongues is for everyone. Because there's one group of churches that say, once you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then you receive this gift of tongues. If you don't speak in tongues, then you haven't received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And you see the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2, Acts 10, Acts 19, you see people being filled with the Spirit of God tongues, filled with the Spirit of God tongues, filled with the Spirit of God tongues. So they draw the conclusion, but when I read this, do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Well, no. I mean, there's really, this isn't like a passive voice and a middle voice in the verb context, and you've got to really need a theologian to understand this. He's saying, are all prophets, are all apostles, do all speak in tongues? No, they don't. So that's why I would say that, number one. Number two is, many Spirit-filled believers, powerful Christians, don't speak in tongues. D.L. Moody, C.H. Spurgeon, a lot of the guys I read, a lot of people I know, they don't. So what do you, you can't say that they're not filled with God's Spirit. I mean, they change, they change, they preach to thousands of people, it's how life's changed. And there's also not a gift that everyone has to have, other than we, the mark of genuine faith is salvation. We're all saved, we're all sealed by the Holy Spirit. But there's different gifts for that very reason. And then 1 Corinthians 13, he goes on to say, Paul, because remember, it's not chapters and verses, Paul's writing a whole letter. So I would encourage you, go home and read chapter 12, 13, 14 to yourself. 12, 13, 14 to yourself. 12, 13, 14 to yourself, right? Get it down, rhymes. Get home tonight or tomorrow morning, read that and just say, okay, well, I don't know what Shane was saying, but let me read this. And in chapter 13, he goes right into now eagerly desire the greater gifts. Then he goes into, but if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, it profits me nothing. If I give all my stuff to the poor and have not love, it profits me nothing. If I understand all these mysteries and great faith, but yet I don't have love, I have nothing. So he talks about how love is the greatest gift. Love is, love is eternal. That's why he goes on to say, love never fails. Now here's why people think that these gifts have ceased. They're not, we don't need them anymore. Paul says, love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be done away with. Where there's knowledge, it will pass away. For right now, we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the completeness comes or another translation would say, when that which is perfect comes, that which is in part will be done away with. When I was a child, I talked to the child. I spoke as a child, understood as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. So he's showing us how once that, when that which is perfect comes, when we're, we're in our glorified state, when we're with Christ, we don't need all these other helps. And then he says, for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror. In other words, in our sinful condition, can we see perfectly? Of course not. It's like looking through a mirror that's kind of messed up and kind of, you know, got some weird angles, like at a carnival. We don't see perfectly. We don't see perfectly. So we need the gifts of the Holy Spirit as helps to come alongside of us. Love is eternal, but the gifts help during our temporal state. So that's why he says love will never fail. Love is eternal. The love of God compels me. The love of Christ compels me to share it with you. The famous verse that everybody loves to quote, but nobody wants to embrace in our culture. If God forgot to love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, man, there's so much power in that verse. Whoever believes in him shall be saved. The love of God, that's eternal. But we don't need the gifts of the Holy Spirit forever. As soon as we're in our perfected state with Christ, we'll know. We'll have all knowledge. We won't, you know, see things dimly. We won't know in part. We need the gifts of the Holy Spirit right now. Because think about this. If we don't have the gifts of the Holy Spirit right now, then we see better than Paul. Right? Poor Paul. He looked through a mirror dimly and he really didn't know in part. Well, Paul, we have this now. So now we know better than you. Paul's saying even with the canonization of Scripture, thank God for it, even with truth. But truth, Paul didn't, you know, read, oh, Romans 1, I need to run out and grab my daughter from the pool right now. You see why you need those helps? I mean, I'm not trying to make a joke out of it. That's just true. You're not getting a lot of this stuff that God sometimes comes alongside. I've read this and said, Lord, I need help. I need direction. What do I do in this decision? I know your principles are here, but Lord, I need to know. 15 years, 14 years ago, my wife was praying for a week. Lord, are you calling me to preach? I'm going to quit my career and preach. You've got to be kidding me. I don't need, I can't find that anywhere. The principles there that you'll lead me, but Lord, I can't find that anywhere. Show me, show me, show me, show me. And then we go somewhere and this guy speaks right in the situation. My knees almost buckled. He told me, young man, stand up. God is calling you. He's calling you to preach. It's not arrogance. It's boldness. And you've got to break through the shell and you've got to be, and I'm like, we just talked about that last week. I mean, it's almost like you don't believe. Oh, come on. That didn't happen. That's all coincidence. But see, I needed that help. So these are helps. They don't take the place of the word. They don't come above the word. They compliment what God is already doing in our heart. They support the word. There's a good word. So Paul is saying when that which is perfect comes, when we're with Christ, then that which is in part will be done away with. We won't need the gifts of the Holy Spirit when that which is perfect is there. And here's another argument. That tongues are only mentioned in the early books of the New Testament. And this is a good argument. I got it off Grace Tu's website. Tongues are only mentioned in the earliest books of the New Testament. Paul wrote at least 12 epistles after 1 Corinthians and never mentioned tongues again. It's got a good point, right? Peter never mentioned tongues. James never mentioned tongues. John, even though they spoke in it. John never mentioned tongues. Neither did Jude. So tongues appeared only briefly in Acts and 1 Corinthians as a message of the gospel was being spread. But once the church was established, tongues were gone. They stopped. It's got a good point, right? A couple problems. Once you fully exhaust a topic, there's really no need to repeat it. If Paul fully exhausted this topic to the church in Corinth, these letters were to all the churches, you don't have to keep repeating that. Number one, that's not a strong enough argument in and of itself. But here's a good one. The argument that I just read is an argument from silence. You can't have strong theology, in my opinion, from an argument on silence. Just because they don't mention those things doesn't make the gift invalid. It just means they didn't mention those things. And here's what I found. Does 1 Peter or 2 Peter or James or Jude talk about the Lord's Supper? Communion? I guess we don't do that anymore. I mean, if you follow this out, right? We better not do that. It's only mentioned, well, yeah, but that's different. That's different because it's not weird. It's not different because we all do it. So just because these books of the Bible don't mention it doesn't negate the fact that Paul just is taught on exhaustively. Is marriage and divorce in 1 and 2 Peter and Jude? Those don't apply either. I mean, you see, this argument from silence doesn't work. Also, how would the reader know that these instructions to the church are now invalid? So if I'm reading the Bible, I'm saying, oh, the gifts of prophecy, the gifts of wisdom, the gifts of knowledge, okay, when that which is perfect comes, we won't need these things. How would I know, just reading the Bible, that these gifts have ceased? You wouldn't. You can't make that connection. And one website commented about the gift of tongues and the other gifts I'm sure would fit in here. The gift, if it were still available today, there would be no need for missionaries to attend language school. Missionaries would be able to travel countries and speak any language fluently just as the apostles were able to speak. The problem with that is tongues was not a new way to communicate. It was never designed to replace a language. It was meant to complement the walk of the believer and to be assigned to unbelievers. And then they asked this question, on what basis, Shane, can you distinguish yourself from cults who also claim to speak in tongues and prophecy? Pulling out the gloves, aren't they? Well, very simple. 1 Corinthians 12. Now about the gifts, I do not want you to be uninformed. I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus, be cursed. So if we're glorifying Christ, we're pointing people to Christ, and somebody speaks in tongues, you cannot be worshipping the devil. You can't flow out praises to God and praises to Beelzebub, the great destroyer. You can't. It's either crying, Abba, Father, or I hate you, Father. I'm getting out of this place of worship. And you see the tongues and the weird stuff and all these cults and different things, but you don't see them worshipping God? Because you can also ask this question, on what basis can we distinguish ourselves from cults who also use the Bible? I had a group walking up my street today with this in their hand, but they weren't Christian. What distinguishes us? The truth, the truth and fruit. So if somebody is proclaiming the truth, there's fruit there. You can't mix us in with the demonic realm. You can't sing praises to Christ and worship the devil. They don't. They would hate it. They're polar opposites. It'd be like this. Think somebody in the demonic realm would love our worship? Ronnie, Chelsea, stay camped out on that song. Resurrected. Oh, death, where is your sting? My resurrected king has rendered you defeated. I love that song. Oh, yeah, right? They're not going to be saying that. They're going to be saying, I hate that song. Get me out of this room. I have to get out of here. They wouldn't stand here and worship. They could try to disrupt the worship, but they wouldn't worship. So that to me is a huge thing that you can't. No one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed. And then there's a final argument that no one in the post-apostolic age mentioned the gifts. And that's a pretty good argument. That one has stunned me for a while. I can't say a lot to that. People like Tertullian, Origen, Polycarp, early church fathers, didn't speak a lot on this issue. I did find something from Ambrose on the Holy Spirit, on the Scripture, to one is given through the Spirit the gift of healings to another tongues and to another prophecy. He said this, so then the Spirit gives present tense the same gifts as the Father and the Son also gives them. So the early church fathers didn't write a lot on this topic. So that's the thing. See, nobody wrote on it, so it must not be true. But if you run that argument out, I think some of you know I've written about seven books now, about 400,000 words, and I never mentioned the tongues ever. So would you say, well Shane doesn't believe in the gift of tongues? No, you wouldn't. Why do I not do that? Because that's the least of my problems. We've got marriages falling apart. We've got abuse happening. We've got people walking away from Christ. That's the least of my worries. So it's not a focal point. It's the least of the gifts. It's this gift that Paul has given. I'm going to explain why God has given these gifts next week and how it operates in the church. Because you might be saying, okay Shane, I'm a little convinced. How does it work in my life? And that's what I want to talk about next week. But this week was just talking about are they valid today? Because I don't think we can say they're not valid anymore. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 14, I'm going to end shortly because I don't have enough time to get through all this. Paul said, the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues. Prophecy is just speaking forth God's truth. You're speaking forth his truth. It's greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets. So the church must be edified. But then Paul goes on to say, the one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself. So there it goes. People say, oh it's not a private prayer language. It doesn't help anything. Well Paul just said, the one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself. So either that doesn't apply or it does. Leave that to the courts. I'm just glad I don't believe it doesn't. It's funny, people argue all they want. I'm so mad. I say, well I'm glad I don't believe that. Good luck with it. Because when God radically changes your life and you see these things manifest themselves according to the word of God, it leads to a deeper prayer life, a more abundant walk with Christ, a passionate devotional life, and the fruit of the Spirit, then well, it lines up. When our experience lines up with truth, it can be trusted. You don't gauge truth by your experience. You gauge your experience by truth. If it lines up, so if you can tonight read 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14, and you ask God, Lord show me. And also I would say, Lord if you want me to experience more of you, I am open. I am open 100%. There's another thing that they said tongues was assigned to Israel that God was extending the gospel to all people. Because Paul does quote Isaiah 28, but also Peter quotes Joel when he said, in the last days God will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Just because it's been fulfilled doesn't mean it's ended. Wouldn't you say Joel still applies to us today? In the last days, oh we're past the last days now? We're in the millennium? You better not. You think it's getting better now? I mean we're in the last days. In the last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men dream dreams. Your young men see visions. And on my men servants, on my main servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days. And the sun will be darkened, the moon, and everybody who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's pretty powerful. But I'm going to leave you with this. People say manifestations of tongues are identified with groups that are heretical, fanatical, and unorthodox. The problem is, I don't know if you know people like John Piper, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, Wayne Grudem. You know a guy by the name of Francis Chan? Okay, well they all believe that the gifts of the power of the Holy Spirit are available today. So you're going to throw all those guys into this camp of weirdness and unorthodoxy. There's no way. That's impossible. Here's what's happening. Here's what's killing the gifts. Either a person has never experienced them, so they must not exist. I mean granted, if you didn't experience these things and you're reading and you see this stuff on TV, you're like, nope, that's gone. That definitely does not apply anymore. Because you've never experienced it. But don't let a fact of not experiencing something invalidate it. That's why people never experience Christianity. And they think God doesn't exist. Because they're basing off, well I've never experienced salvation. Of course you haven't. That's why you're in a dead sinful state. The only way to experience salvation is to repent of your sin. Acknowledge God, not run from Him. Acknowledge God, not deny Him. So there's no openness in this area. The second reason that I've seen is probably the biggest. It's something called spiritual pride. See, I was raised in a denomination that believes that these gifts are over. My grandpapa and my daddy taught me that these gifts were over. Who are you to say? And we live in that. Could we have been wrong? That's why Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are cults and they're leading people astray. And it's very hard to change their minds because they've been raised in that. And they've been brainwashed in that. And then somebody challenges them, they say, you know how much humility it takes to say, could we be wrong? Could we be wrong? And usually somebody says, oh Shane, what about if there's Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses there tonight? I want to say, good, good. They are cults that deny the deity of Christ. They are wrong in many points. You need to repent of that. And you need to turn to, I'm not scared to mention those things. That's exactly why these groups don't come to my house anymore. I think they have my address written down somewhere. They're on the other side of the street. I'm out front. I'm sitting in a lawn chair. Come on. Why? Because they don't want that light. But don't we have spiritual pride? We don't want to be, don't challenge me. I couldn't be wrong. So that's why humility, humility says, Lord, I could be wrong in this area. Would you show me? There's not a month that goes by we pray that, Lord, we could be wrong in this area. I mean, show us, Lord, show us. And Lord, would you, would you show us? And that's a good spot because then you're in a humble state, not in a prideful state. When you're in a prideful state, you're in a critical state. And when you're in a critical state, you're not fun to be around because you're criticizing everything. Spiritual pride. That's what the Pharisees were. The one thing that kept more people from coming to Christ than anything else was spiritual pride. Nothing good comes from Galilee. He's Joseph's son. The prophet's going to do this. They're going to restore our kingdom. Yeah, I know people are raised from the dead. I know he's healing, but I know crowds are full. I know there's fruit, but, but we are seeds of Abraham. John the Baptist said, I don't care if you're seeds of Abraham, bear fruits worthy of repentance for God can raise up children of Abraham from these very stones. Spiritual pride, spiritual pride, spiritual pride. And we try to witness to people spiritual pride. The reason a lot of people don't come to faith in Christ is spiritual pride. So I would just, I would beg you to humble yourself, humble yourself tonight. If your marriage is having problems, if you're, you're, you're, if addiction has taken over, if you're caught in sexual immorality, all these things, just humble yourself, humble yourself. Say, Lord, I've been running. Lord, I've been running. I've been far. I've been allowing anger to control me. I've been allowing all these things. I've been distant from you. Listen, spiritual pride, if spiritual pride blocks you, it blocks people from the kingdom of heaven. That's how, that's how wicked pride is. Pride says that basically I don't need God. I'll do things my way. So I just encourage you, if that's happening tonight, it must come to an end. Even in the life of believers, even in the life of believers, I've seen so much pride. They don't want to admit they're wrong. They don't want to take responsibility. They don't want to maybe say that I created this, I started this environment. And I often get a lot of guys mad at me, you know, when I'm counseling and marriage counseling, I say, it starts with you, sir. You create the environment of your home. Don't tell me about your wife. Tell me about you. Listen, if my marriage is going down the tubes, guess whose fault it is? For the most part. Yeah, right here. And people don't like to hear that. Why? Pride. Let's just be honest. Pride. Wow, yeah, but. There you go. If you have to say, yeah, but. Yeah, but. Pride. And then when you confront you on pride, you get defensive. No, no, no. I'm a pretty humble guy. No, no, I don't have to work on that. Pride. Pride. I mean, it's destroying families. It's destroying marriages. It's destroying the lives of single young adults or dating young adults. Pride. Thinking I don't need God, but you better wake up because not only do you need him, he's your only hope. Remember how people say Christianity is just a crutch? And I often say it's an entire hospital. It's the emergency wing. It's the labor and delivery. It's the recovery. It's a cardiologist. He's everything. Unless you can say like Paul and him, I live, I move and have my being, you will never know true peace. You will never have a genuine relationship with him. Maybe that's why you're here tonight. Maybe I know I won't talk to the same group again ever, ever again. Do you realize that? I will never talk to this same group again for the rest of my life. Some of you will never return. This is it. And God's saying, listen, this is your wake-up call. You need to turn to me tonight.