Are tongues for today? (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Church Growth as Edification, Not Gimmicks

Well, I was in California for a few weeks over the summer and you've got to think a lot about life and ministry. And I thought, you know what, you really need to be into church growth. Now you're looking at me like, uh-oh, what's next?

That is growing you, the body of Christ. I'm against church growth that says, let's have gimmicks and programs and do all kinds of other things just to get people in the door. But I'm very for, I'm very much supporting the idea that those whom the Father has given to the Son and the Son dies for and the Spirit regenerates, I want them to grow.

I want you to be maturing. I want you to be strengthened. I want you to be conformed to the image of the Christ, to the image of Christ. I want you to grow. Church growth is good if we mean the saints growing.

So I'd like you to turn your Bibles to the church growth chapter. Out of all the books in the Bible, this is the number one church growth chapter. First Corinthians 14. What do you mean, First Corinthians 14?

Everything in this chapter revolves around this theme. God wants His church to be edified. The building up of the church, the construction of the church, the Father has chosen the elect. He sent His Son to go die for them.

The Spirit of God has regenerated them and is now in the process of conforming them more and more to the image of Christ. And He wants the church to grow. Oh, yes, numbers will come. That's the Lord's business.

Here, the Lord's business is, let's make sure that the local church is focused on growth, edification of the individuals and corporately growing and maturing. I say it all the time. If you're a brand new Christian and you're not very mature, that's fine.

But if you're an older Christian and you're not very mature, it's time to say, Who am I in Christ? What God has done. And I have one life to live. I should want to honor Him, not to save myself, not to keep myself saved.

But because I am saved, I should want to honor Him. One flashback to think about who I was without Christ and where I would have been for all eternity should motivate me enough to think of His great mercy and grace and love for me.

I should live a life in light of what He's done. And so Paul talks to these Corinthians and they're very selfish. They're very, well, it's all about us. You know what the Corinthians were like? They were like modern churches today who say worship is all about me.

I don't like this song. I don't like that. The sermon was too long. I didn't like this scripture reading. I didn't like this, that or the other. That's our culture today when worship has nothing to do with us primarily.

Oh, secondarily, we are the ones that worship God. But I don't even think worship is about us and God. I think it's all about who God is. Even salvation. God's glory is primary in our salvation. And I'm glad we get it.

It's ancillary. It's secondary. And the Corinthians were like, it's all about us. We can have it our way. We just order things the way we want it. And this is what we like. And Paul is going to say in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, it's about the body.

It's about growth. It's about edification of the whole. So we grow in our practice to more match our position in Christ Jesus. And so this is the growth chapter. You say, I thought it was the tongues chapter.

Well, it's the tongues and growth chapter combined. And Paul is going to say, basically, speaking in tongues that's not interpreted, doesn't cause anyone to grow because we have no idea what these people are saying.

Edification and intelligibility are the end goals for the glory of God's word proclaimed. So here's what we're going to do. Since I've been gone for a while and 1 Corinthians 12 was many moons ago, let me give you seven quick foundational reminders before we get into 1 Corinthians that will help you understand 1 Corinthians 14.

1 Corinthians 14 is full of potholes and hermeneutical landmines. And you have to kind of tippy toe through. But if you've got chapter 12 and 13 down and you have these foundational truths down, you'll just read through it and you'll go, I get it.

You can go home tonight and read through the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 14. And you go, I think I've got it. I think I got that. So let me give you seven quick reminders for foundationally viewing 1 Corinthians 14 and have a good understanding.

Sovereignly Given Spiritual Gifts

Number one, spiritual gifts are sovereignly given. Go back to chapter 12, please, of the same epistle, verse 11, 1 Corinthians 12, 11. In eternity past, God knew and had decreed which spiritual gifts you would be given and that salvation.

And in time, he granted them to you by his sovereign free will. All these are empowered by one in the same spirit. First Corinthians 12, 11, who apportions to each one individually as he not the each one, but he God himself at salvation.

God gives you spiritual gifts. Every Christian gets at least one. The implication here is the deduction is you can't pray for other spiritual gifts. I really wish I had the gift of teaching. I have to pray for that.

No, at salvation eternally decreed. God, the spirit grants you certain spiritual gifts. Foundational truth. Number two, God does not give every gift to every person. Look at chapter 12, verse 29, please.

You don't have every gift that's ever been ordained. Neither do I, and neither did the Corinthians are all apostles. Are all prophets. There's a way in Greek to expect a no for the answer, right? We do this in English as well.

You don't expect the Celtics to be better than the Lakers this year. Do you are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? The answer is no, you don't get all the gifts.

So one God sovereignly chooses the gifts that he gives you and or gift. Number two, you don't get every gift, which is going to help us because they were thinking to be super spiritual. You have to speak in tongues.

Just like people today. Some people, United Pentecostal Church. You have to speak in tongues in order to be saved. Some people think to have the baptism of the spirit. You have to speak in tongues. Some people think to be godly.

You have to speak in tongues. Some people think to put away sins. You have to speak in tongues. Some people forget that the fruit of the spirit is not tongues, but it's love and joy, peace, etc. It is a mistake to assume speaking in tongues is synonymous with the baptism of the spirit and or being filled with the spirit.

Because some people don't even have this gift of speaking in tongues. Even back in those days. Foundational reminder number three that will help us remember first help us interpret first Corinthians 14.

The biblical definition of speaking in tongues. Is that someone be granted by God the ability to speak a language he never learned. Speaking in tongues. Tongues means language. This is not gibberish. This is not a repeating something.

This is not as ecstatic speech. Continuation is D .A. Carson said the evidence favors the view that Paul thought the gift of tongues was the gift of real languages. That is languages that were cognitive.

It is not a spiritual gift given to you at salvation, nor the Corinthians back in those days. The gift to babble and to repeat things and to have some pagan utterance. The word tongue means language when not used of the slab of mucus in our mouths.

Revelation five. They sang a new song saying worthy art you to take the book and to break it seals for you were slain and did purchase for God with thy blood men from every tribe and. Tongue language people and nation.

This is a language that you've never learned that God granted to you. That is impressive. It's not impressive if someone says I have my own private prayer language. That's not impressive when you just make those sounds.

Biblical tongues is not gibberish. And you can look at all kinds of pagans who think that it's spiritual to just say gibberish type of things. Eskimos mystery religions in the Greco Roman world, Quakers, Tibetan monks, people in the occult.

The biblical gift of speaking in tongues was God gave you a language you did not learn. Impressive. Number four foundational truth. We're almost done with some introduction, but it will help you believe me for first Corinthians 14.

Biblical tongues are not being spoken today. Biblical tongues are not being spoken today. I read a linguistic study from William Samarin, and he said over a period of five years, I've taken part in meetings in Italy, Holland, Jamaica, Canada, and the United States.

I've observed old fashioned Pentecostals and Neo Pentecostals. I have been in small meetings at private homes as well as in mammoth public meetings. I have seen such a different cultural settings as found from Puerto Ricans of the Bronx to the snake handlers of the Appalachians and the Russians in Los Angeles.

Tongues is indeed like language in some ways gibberish, but this is only because the speaker unconsciously wants it to be like language. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, gibberish is fundamentally not language.

So today you will not meet a person who says I can speak a language that I've never learned. One of the reasons which leads, one of the reasons is it leads me to truth number five. What were the sign gifts and do they exist today?

Sign gifts pointed to the messenger. He's from God and the message. It's from God. You had service gifts to help the body speaking gifts to teach the body and sign gifts to say we don't have the Bible.

How do I know if that guy's teaching truth? I can't say chapter and verse that matches up. So they would do things like have the gift of miracles, have the gift of healing. They could speak a language they'd never learn.

And then I would say, well, that seems to be from God to authenticate the message and the messenger. When you study the New Testament, what comes through your mind right away? All right, here's a sword drill.

How many books of the Bible? How many books of the New Testament? How many gospels? How many books of revelation? How many New Testament epistles faster? Come on. New Testament epistles, 21. How many talk about tongues?

One in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians and in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians. And when you look at miracles and signs and wonders, what will you see? Oh, they're just always happening all the time. If they happened all the time, they wouldn't be called miracles.

They'd be called regulars. As one man said, what you see is these pockets of miracles. Moses, Joshua, scriptures being revealed. Jesus and Elijah and Elisha, the prophets, and Jesus and the apostles. To confirm and authenticate the message, B .B. Warfield said something that I really liked.

There is an inseparable connection of miracles with revelation as its mark, our credential. Miracles do not appear on the pages of scripture. Listen, vaguely here, there, and everywhere, indifferently without a signable reason.

They belong to revelation periods and appear only when God is speaking to his people through accredited messengers. And so what has happened now? Now we do have the complete canon. Scripture is sufficient.

It is not deficient. And now to know if I'm preaching the Bible, you only need the Bible. If I'm speaking for God, you only need the revelation that's included. So why do we have sign gifts to point to something when we've already arrived to the completion of the canon?

God today says to churches, appoint elders in every city. Why? I wish they could only appointed an apostle in West Boylston. We'd have a lot fewer problems. But apostles have ceased as the foundation of the church has been laid.

We're now to a point where apostles and prophets don't exist anymore. So God says appoint elders in every city. Number six, two more. First Corinthians 14 discourages more than encourages the use of tongues.

J. Vernon McGee. Remember J. Vernon McGee? I remember where I was practically when, you know, Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. And I remember where I was when I realized J. Vernon McGee had been dead and in the presence of God for years, yet dead.

He still speaks on the radio. That guy's dead. He said, to sum up the chapter, Paul said to the Corinthians, cool it. Henry Chadwick, the British historian said, basically, Paul is trying to throw water on top of their experience because it's turning into being selfish.

So people say, look it. This is why I think speaking in tongues is for today. This is actually going to be something that's going to temper that. And we'll see that in just a minute. And my last foundational truth, what is prophecy today?

Look back at First Corinthians 12 .10, please. I believe prophecy was a sign gift. I believe that when you see there in First Corinthians 12 .10 and to another prophecy, it's in the context of sign gifts.

It is a flawless, authoritative revelation from God. It is inspired speech that we no longer need today. Oh, we might say somebody sounds prophetic and that's foretold, foretelling the truth. But the gift of prophecy has ceased.

Now we don't say, listen to the prophets. We say, listen to the Bible. Okay, now let's go to First Corinthians chapter 14. We're going to go through 1 through 19 today. I didn't know how far I was going to get in first service, but that's how far we got there.

So 1 through 19, the theme of the chapter is tongues that aren't interpreted, don't help build up because you can't understand them. So go for things that build up the church that you can understand. Paul is going to say, listen, speaking in tongues without an interpreter, you don't know what's going on.

Run from that because you've got to build up Christ church with real words that people can understand. This is a great sermon for people who are wandering around in all the ooze of feelings. And I'm going to grow in my Christian faith by emotion only and by emotion primary.

This is all about your mind. You cannot grow without engaging your mind. All right, I think I'm going to have a radio show called that engaging your mind. Do we have one engaging your mind? Engaging your world.

Oh, that was defunct. It's gone. But to engage your mind and don't let the world conform your mind and love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul and mind and strength. Your mind has to be connected to information you can understand.

And if someone's speaking a different language, you can understand them. So there are basically three desires that Paul is going to lay out for Corinth that I'm going to give you three desires that you need to pursue.

When you think about BBC and her growth and your growth, desire number one, found in the first five verses that you should desire as a congregation, spiritual gifts that build up the body. You as a corporate body should desire things that build up the body.

That's what you want. You want other people. And of course, you too, to be built up in the faith. Now, let's just take a quick survey of the theme building up in first Corinthians. Before I look at chapter one to five, any closer.

Look at verse three for a minute of first Corinthians 14. See this important refrain from Paul. On the other hand, first Corinthians 14, three, the one who prophesied speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself. But the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now, I want all of you to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up.

Verse 12, please see the refrain continues. So with yourselves, since you are eager for the manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Verse 17, the court is struck again for you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.

Verse 26, what then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. Even first Corinthians chapter 12, verse seven, to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

First Corinthians 8, 1, love, any guesses, builds up. So if you go back to chapter 14, verse one, you're going to see what Paul ends up saying here. That's right on this theme, things that build up. And here he says in verse one, pretty much a summary of Paul's position that explains the next 25 verses, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

Okay. So pursue love. That one seems easy enough. It's an imperative. Keep on pursuing love. Chapter 13, the love chapter. Remember, love chapters in the middle of 12 and 14 that are all talking about spiritual gifts.

Use your spiritual gifts with love, thinking about other people more importantly than you for their spiritual good. Pursue love. That one's fine. A loveless church at Corinth pretty much was the root of all their problems and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

What do you mean? Your mind should be thinking this. Mike just read those verses in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. You get your gift at salvation sovereignly. Now you're telling me I ought to pursue those things.

Now, let's not think like individualistic Americans. Let's think like Easterners 2000 years ago. The plural language is you all. Corinthians ought to desire as a church gifts that build up. You ought to desire spiritual gifts.

Can I say to you as a church member? I can say, Pastor Steve, he has the gift of teaching, but he can't pray for any other gift to get because that's what he got. For Steve, it was one and done. No, he has probably more gifts than that.

He can't pray for any more. But could I say to the congregation with Steve sitting here? You all ought to desire spiritual gifts. Don't you want the spiritual gifts among you being used? Don't you want teachers to teach and servers to serve?

And so Paul says, I'm not negatively saying church spiritual gifts are bad. He's saying I want you to desire them, but the right ones that use your mind. So Bethlehem Bible Church desire spiritual gifts.

It means you want them to be used in the congregation. It does not mean I don't have tongues. God, could you give me tongues? It can't mean that he's just got done saying before they're sovereignly given.

Collectively and faithfully as a congregation, you plural emphasizing the desire of the entire church body. Context, you're so focused on tongues. There are other things that you should be focused on.

You think tongues is the sine qua non of a great Christian. Sound familiar? Tongues are the thing that if you have, you've got it. And if you don't, you're a have not. Paul says, I want you to have spiritual gifts, exercise them in the church, especially getting direct revelation from God through the gift of prophecy.

Tongues are inferior when they are not interpreted. Now he moves to verses two and following goes to great lengths to say tongues are inferior. When they're not interpreted, they're inferior. Verse two, for one who speaks in a tongue language, he's never learned.

There's no interpreter speaks not to men, but to God. I speak a language that you don't know. I don't know, but I still speak it because it's a gift from God speaking. In tongues, there's no interpretation.

You don't speak that language. You have no idea what I'm saying. God knows what I'm saying, but you don't know for look at the text. No one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit. The refrain, the gong is edification through intelligibility.

And if somebody speaking a language that they never learned, there needs to be an interpreter. And it seems like what we can infer from this is there were a lot of people who thought they could speak in tongues.

Maybe some with babble, some with the real gift of tongues, but the interpreters, there weren't enough to go around. That makes me think that if God would give a local church gifted people with tongues, there'd be enough people to interpret.

So plenty of people must have been saying, this is my own made up language. There has to be an interpreter or you can't understand. At Pentecost, interpretation was built in, but now interpretation is a gift that needs to be used to interpret.

Verse three, on the other hand, the one who prophesies, speaking forth direct revelation from God, speaks to the people for their upbuilding, why they can understand and encouragement and consolation.

It's a rare word, never used anyplace else, but right there. And their consolation. Edification is the gold standard through understandable language. Verse four, the one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up.

You don't have an interpreter. I'm going to speak in a language that I've never learned. Look at me. As I say all the time, it's flashback to high school football. I guess I've got spirit. Yes, I do. I've got spirit.

How about you? I've got tongues. Yes, I do. And I feel like I'm built up because I'm superior. But the one who prophesies builds up the church. And of course, through this chapter, you're going to feel the dripping sarcasm come out at times as Paul, of course, in love, lays the wood to their selfish thinking that needed more love from 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

You need interpretation or you can't understand it. Now look at verse five. You've heard me say tongues with interpretation plenty, even though the text didn't directly say it. And here it says it and it's everywhere you go.

The key is interpretation. Otherwise, you can't understand. Now I want you all to speak in tongues. And he is using what Dr. Thomas calls a hyperbolic concession. Just figure of speech. He's not against speaking in the language you've never learned because it's a gift from God.

But he's using it as a comparison, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues. Why? Because you can't understand him unless someone interprets, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up.

What is that guy saying? I have no idea what he's saying. Paul's not wishing the impossible, but he's emphasizing something. Edification is the key. By the way, congregation, what does this do to private prayer language where you're just mumbling and jumbling?

Intelligible Gifts That Build Up the Church

First desire is we as a congregation should want spiritual gifts in our congregation that build up. Second of all, found in verses six to 19, we should desire as a congregation spiritual gifts that are intelligible.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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