Sermonette: Is Speaking in Tongues the Only Sign?
The Work of God's Spirit
#1428s
Ted E. Bowling
Given 14-Apr-18; 16 minutes
description: In Pentecostalism, glossolalia (speaking in 'tongues') is the unmistakable sign that God has accepted a person, deriving from a misapplication of Acts 2:4, 38. The miracle of Pentecost was not the speaking incomprehensible gibberish, but it was that a multitude of foreigners heard the Gospel in their own language. It was a miracle of hearing combined with a speaking of existing languages. In one bogus 'Pentecostal' service, a young man prayed out and cried for evidence of God's Holy Spirit (supposedly evidenced by the glossolalia) only to be denied this supposed gift, leaving him feeling that God had rejected him. God's Holy Spirit is a gift; we cannot and should not try to 'work it up.' When hands are laid on us at baptism, we do not feel a zap of electricity going through our nervous systems. The changes we receive are not external but internal, marked by inward growth in Godly character, leading to a mirror-like image of Jesus Christ.