Participants: Pastor Stephen P. Bohr
Series Code: SOP
Program Code: SOP000006A
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00:14 Well greetings, everybody.
00:16 Welcome back once again to, The Secrets of Pentecost. 00:20 I'm glad to see you all here. 00:22 This is presentation number six in this series of ten. 00:27 And the title of our study today is, 00:29 Tongues in Historical Perspective. 00:32 Basically what we're going to look at is the gift of tongues 00:37 within the entire context of the Bible, 00:40 why God gave the gift of tongues, 00:42 and if perhaps the gift of tongues will be given 00:46 at the end of time once again. 00:48 However, before we do begin, we want 00:50 to have a word of prayer. 00:52 We always pray before we open God's holy Book 00:55 because we need divine wisdom. 00:56 And so I invite you to bow your heads with me 00:59 reverently as we pray. 01:01 Our Father and our God, what a privilege it is 01:04 to call You Father. 01:06 To know that You are concerned about Your 01:08 children on this earth. 01:10 We know that You are so concerned that You gave us 01:12 Your holy Book, the Bible, so that we could understand 01:15 Your will and we could make it to the kingdom. 01:19 We ask, Father, that as we open Your Bible, 01:22 that You will enlighten our minds that we might be able to 01:26 understand what You have for us today. 01:28 And even more importantly, we ask that You will open 01:31 our hearts so that we will be willing to receive 01:35 that which You have for us. 01:37 And so be with us, enlighten us, guide us, 01:40 we pray in the precious name of Jesus, amen. 01:45 We want to begin our study in Genesis 1:28. 01:50 In the previous two verses, verses 26 and 27, 01:54 God has created male and female. 01:57 And now He's going to give Adam and Eve some instructions. 02:01 And those instructions are found in verse 28 02:05 where it says this, "Then God blessed them, 02:08 and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; 02:13 fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the 02:17 fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, 02:20 and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" 02:24 Now the particular phrase that I want to focus on, 02:26 as we begin our study, is where God said, 02:29 "fill the earth." 02:31 You see, it was not God's plan that man should aggregate 02:35 in one location on the planet. 02:37 It was God's plan that human beings spread out 02:42 over all of the earth and populate the earth 02:44 in its entirety. 02:46 And we're going to see that that's a very 02:47 important detail. 02:50 God's plan was that as Adam and Eve should multiply 02:54 through procreation, that you would have a race 02:58 of righteous people populating the entire earth. 03:02 But as we know, sin marred God's original plan. 03:06 Adam and Eve both ate from the tree of the 03:10 knowledge of good and evil. 03:11 And as a result, the infection, the virus of sin, penetrated 03:15 the human race. 03:17 And because of this, the earth did begin to fill. 03:21 But it filled, not with a righteous race, 03:24 but it filled with a wicked and sinful race. 03:28 But there was good news. 03:29 And the good news was that God promised to send 03:33 a Redeemer to the earth. 03:35 He promised to send the Messiah. 03:37 And we find that beautiful promise very early in the Bible 03:41 in Genesis 3:15. 03:43 My favorite verse in the whole Bible. 03:46 A while back I did a 52 part series just on Genesis, 03:49 all of the message of God in the book of Genesis. 03:52 And this was the central verse of our study. 03:55 And so I want to read this verse. 03:57 It has several important elements that I'm going to 04:00 underline as we begin our study. 04:03 Here, God is speaking to the serpent. 04:05 And when I say, to the serpent, I'm not talking about the snake. 04:08 I'm talking about the devil who used the serpent 04:11 as his medium. 04:13 It says there in Genesis 3:15, God is speaking... 04:30 And then what is going to be the result of this enmity 04:33 or this battle between the serpent and the woman, 04:36 and the serpent's seed and the woman's seed? 04:39 There's no doubt about what's going to happen 04:41 because the last part of the verse says... 04:48 Other versions say, "You shall bruise His heel, 04:52 and He shall crush your head." 04:55 Obviously, a wound in the head is much more serious 04:58 than a wound in the heel. 05:00 God is saying, "I'm going to send the Messiah to the world. 05:03 He's going to do battle with you. 05:04 He's going to crush your head, but you are going to wound Him. 05:07 You are going to wound His heel." 05:10 Now I want us to go to Genesis 3:21 05:13 where we have a description of how God was going to 05:17 resolve the problem through the Messiah. 05:19 We know that there was going to be enmity, 05:21 but how was God going to resolve the problem? 05:24 If you remember, when Adam and Eve sinned 05:27 the first result of their sin was that they 05:30 found themselves naked. 05:31 Right? 05:32 And they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. 05:35 Which means that they tried to cover themselves 05:37 with their own righteousness. 05:39 They tried to cover the nakedness of their sin 05:42 through their own righteousness. 05:44 But God did something very interesting with Adam and Eve. 05:48 God showed them that their nakedness, 05:50 that the nakedness of sin, was not going to be covered 05:53 by garments made by them. 05:55 It was going to be covered in a different way. 05:57 Genesis 3:21 explains how the Messiah was going to 06:02 crush the serpents head. 06:04 He was going to crush the serpents head 06:06 in a very strange way. 06:08 It says there in Genesis 3:21... 06:24 So notice here several details. 06:26 It says that God made for Adam and Eve 06:30 tunics of skin, and clothed them. 06:35 Now what needs to happen in order for you 06:38 to get the skin of an animal? 06:40 You have to kill the animal, that's right. 06:43 And so we find here God's announcement 06:46 that a lamb, an immaculate sinless lamb, 06:52 was going to be slain, and he was going to cover in this way 06:56 the nakedness of man's sin. 06:59 And undoubtedly, Satan was observing what was happening, 07:03 he was observing this sacrifice and saying, 07:06 "Hmmm, sin caused nakedness. 07:09 And now this animal, this lamb, immaculate lamb, is slain. 07:15 And God has taken the skins of the lamb and He has 07:19 covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve, 07:21 the nakedness of sin." 07:22 And so the devil is now puzzling over how God 07:26 is going to resolve the sin problem, specifically. 07:31 And so the devil very soon, he's a quick learner, 07:34 he says, "I know now what God is going to do. 07:38 He's going to send a Seed to the world born of a woman, 07:42 and He is going to, through this Seed born of the woman, 07:49 He's going to die. 07:50 He's going to live an immaculate life and He's doing to die. 07:53 And in this way, the nakedness of man's sin 07:57 is going to be covered." 07:59 And so the devil made up his mind that he was not 08:01 going to allow the promise of Genesis 3:15 to be fulfilled. 08:06 He said, "If I allow that Seed to come, then the Seed 08:10 is going to crush my head because He is going to 08:13 come and live a perfect life in place of man. 08:15 And He's going to die in place of man. 08:18 And I'm going to lose my kingdom. 08:19 So I cannot allow that Seed to come to the world." 08:23 And so the devil implemented plan A. 08:26 And plan A was to try and kill the Seed. 08:32 He said, "If I can kill the Seed, then there will be 08:35 no salvation. 08:37 And of course, the first fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 08:40 is in the story of Cain and Abel. 08:44 It's in the very next chapter. 08:46 It's in chapter 4 of Genesis. 08:48 And there you see a development of the theme of Genesis 3:15. 08:54 Do you remember that in Genesis 3:15 08:56 we have enmity, right? 08:58 We have a woman, right? 09:00 We have a serpent. 09:02 We have a seed of the serpent and a Seed of the woman. 09:06 Now do we have this in the story of Cain and Abel? 09:09 We most certainly do. 09:11 Who is the woman? 09:12 The woman is Eve. 09:14 Is the serpent there? 09:15 Well, he's not overtly there, but if you go to 1 John 3:12, 09:20 it says that Cain was of the wicked one. 09:24 So that means that there was someone behind Cain. 09:27 He was of the wicked one. 09:28 And so the serpent is involved. 09:30 Do you have a righteous seed in this story? 09:33 Yes, it's Abel. 09:34 Do you have a wicked seed of the serpent? 09:36 Yes, Cain. 09:38 And do you have enmity in this story? 09:40 Absolutely. 09:42 All of the elements of Genesis 3:15 are found 09:45 in the story of Cain and Abel. 09:47 You see, I believe that the devil thought that perhaps 09:51 Abel was the promised Seed. 09:53 And he said, "If I can wipe out this seed, 09:56 there will be no plan of salvation." 10:00 And so he wiped him out. 10:02 But God did something very interesting 10:04 after Cain killed Abel. 10:06 We find in Genesis 4:25 that God's plan 10:10 was not going to be frustrated. 10:12 It says there in Genesis 4:25... 10:20 And now she's going to explain why she called him Seth. 10:33 You see, the devil said, "Problem solved. 10:36 Abel is gone." 10:38 So God says, "I'll send another seed born of the woman." 10:41 And so God sent Seth. 10:43 And soon the devil begins to discover that God is not 10:48 introducing the Seed into the world through 10:50 these preliminary seeds. 10:52 Soon the devil realizes that what God is doing 10:55 is He's preserving a genealogy. 10:57 He's preserving a list of righteous descendants 11:00 from which eventually the Messiah will come. 11:04 So he says, "These seeds, these preliminary seeds, 11:07 are not 'the' Seed. 11:08 These preliminary seeds are a way in which God 11:12 eventually will introduce the Messiah into the world." 11:15 And so the devil said, "It does no good for me to 11:18 kill one seed, because God raises up another seed. 11:21 And so there has to be a better way of keeping this promise 11:25 from being fulfilled." 11:27 And so the devil goes to plan B. 11:29 And plan B was not to kill these seeds, 11:36 but to mingle them, or to mix or blend the two seeds 11:41 so that the righteous seed would lose its identity. 11:45 In Genesis chapters 4 and 5 we have two genealogies. 11:49 In chapter 4 we have the genealogy of Cain. 11:52 That's the list of descendants of Cain. 11:53 And by the way, there are three women, three wicked women, 11:56 mentioned in the genealogy of Cain. 11:59 These are the daughters of men, incidentally. 12:02 And then in Genesis 5 we have the list of descendants of Seth. 12:07 And then in chapter 6, at the very beginning of the chapter, 12:10 we have the sons of God and the daughters of men. 12:14 So in context, the sons of God are the descendants of Seth 12:19 who continues the righteous seed. 12:21 And the daughters of men are the women that are mentioned 12:24 in the genealogy of Cain. 12:26 They are of the wicked. 12:29 And so the devil says, "What I need to do is I need to mingle 12:32 these two seeds so that the righteous seed is swallowed up 12:36 by the wicked seed so that the righteous seed 12:38 disappears from the earth." 12:40 Let's go to Genesis 6:1-2, and then we'll jump to verse 5. 12:45 And you'll notice how the devil's plan 12:48 really was quite successful. 12:50 Not totally successful, but quite successful. 12:53 It says there in Genesis 6:1... 13:05 Remember, in context, the sons of God are the 13:07 descendants of Seth; of the righteous seed. 13:10 It says, "...the sons of God saw the daughters of men..." 13:13 The daughters of men are the women in the genealogy of Cain. 13:21 Let me ask you something. 13:23 Do you think that all the daughters of God were ugly? 13:26 Do you think there were also daughters of God? 13:29 Of course there were daughters of God. 13:30 So why did the sons of God think that the daughters of men 13:34 were so beautiful and the daughters of God 13:37 weren't so beautiful? 13:38 There must have been something external that the 13:41 daughters of men had that the daughters of God did not have. 13:45 And if you read the writings of the rabbis, they say 13:48 that the women before the flood ran around 13:51 with nakedness of flesh and they ran around with jewelry 13:54 and make-up on their faces. 13:56 That's what attracted the attention of the sons of God. 14:00 They said, "Oh, these daughters of God, they're blah. 14:05 But look at these daughters of men, how beautiful they are." 14:08 But it was artificial beauty, because it was external beauty. 14:12 And so what the devil does is he intermingles 14:16 the righteous with the wicked, 14:18 the righteous seed so that the righteous seed 14:20 will disappear from the earth. 14:22 In fact, notice what we find in Genesis 6:5; 14:26 what the result of this mingling was. 14:38 Was his plan quite successful in mingling the two seeds? 14:42 It most certainly was. 14:44 In fact, not only were the thoughts of his heart 14:48 only evil continually, but those thoughts were 14:51 manifested in action. 14:52 Notice verses 11 and 12 of Genesis 6. 15:12 That was the result of mingling the two seeds. 15:15 And you know what's interesting? 15:17 There's no doubt whatsoever that before the flood 15:20 there must have been millions of people 15:23 who lived upon this planet. 15:24 Between creation and the flood, a period of 1656 years went by. 15:31 In a world where there was no scarcity of natural resources, 15:35 in a world where there was very little disease, 15:37 and in a world where men lived to be almost 1000 years old. 15:42 How many children can a 969 year old man have? 15:47 Folks, you know, when they were 300, they were just 15:51 coming out of their teen years. 15:54 I mean, there's no doubt whatsoever that there were 15:57 millions of people on planet earth. 15:59 But the sobering fact is that the Bible tells us 16:03 that only eight people were left righteous before God. 16:08 In fact, it says that Noah was righteous in the sight of God. 16:12 If God had not cut this short, the entire human race 16:16 would have been demoralized and God would not have had 16:19 anyone through whom to bring the promised Messiah 16:22 into the world, because He had to come from a holy line. 16:26 And so God said, "I am going to cleanse the earth. 16:29 I'm going to wipe all of the wickedness from the earth 16:32 so that we can start all over again with Noah, 16:35 the righteous man." 16:37 And so God sent the flood and wiped out the entire human race. 16:41 And Noah was the one who was left to continue the holy line. 16:48 And so Noah and his family come out of the ark. 16:50 And I want you to notice what God told Noah to do. 16:53 Genesis 9:1 tells us that God gave instructions 16:57 to Noah and his family. 17:08 In other words, God is saying once again, 17:10 "Folks, don't conglomerate in one place. 17:13 Spread out over all the earth." 17:16 Because God doesn't want man to draw together, 17:19 to conglomerate, because that centralizes 17:23 apostasy against Him. 17:26 But you know, as early as 200 years after the flood, 17:30 men were up to the same thing that they were up to 17:33 before the flood. 17:34 They had proliferated and they had filled the earth, 17:39 yes, but with a wicked race. 17:41 And they came to the point where they said, 17:44 "You know, we really should not be spread out 17:46 over all of the earth. 17:48 We really should build a city and a tower, 17:51 and we should all gather together and form a capital, 17:55 a metropolis, for the world. 17:57 And so they all gathered together in one place 18:00 with the intention of consolidating evil, 18:04 centralizing evil, all on the same page. 18:08 And so God said, "This is not going to work." 18:11 And so we have the tower of Babel episode. 18:15 Let's read about it in Genesis 11:6-8. 18:18 Genesis 11:6-8 18:29 Basically it's saying they're all on the same page, right? 18:31 They all have one language. 18:33 They're one because they have one language. 18:35 "...and this is what they begin to do..." 18:37 This is only the beginning. 18:49 The word there in the Septuagint is, "glossa," 18:52 where we get the word, "glossolalia," from. 18:55 So it says, "Come, let us go down..." 19:04 So the Lord did what? 19:06 What they didn't want to do. 19:07 They didn't want to scatter abroad, so God says, 19:10 "I have a method of scattering them 19:12 so that evil is not centralized and does not consolidate." 19:15 So it says, "So the Lord scattered them abroad..." 19:36 So basically the plan of God in scattering all of the 19:40 inhabitants of the earth was so that they could not centralize 19:43 and consolidate evil. 19:46 Because now having different languages 19:48 they would gather according to their language 19:50 and they would establish different cultures. 19:52 So it would be very difficult to centralize 19:55 and to universalize evil because you would have 19:58 so many different languages and nations and cultures. 20:02 Ellen White has a very interesting way of describing 20:05 what happened at the tower of Babel 20:08 in the book, Story of Redemption, pages 73-74. 20:12 She says, speaking about the Babel builders... 20:23 You know, there's a text in the New Testament, 20:25 1 Corinthians 14:2, some versions translate, 20:27 "strange tongue." 20:30 Interesting that Ellen White would use the word, 20:31 "strange," here. 20:33 Let me ask you, were these real languages, 20:36 that were spoken at Babel, languages of the earth? 20:39 Yes. And yet Ellen White says... 21:01 And so the problem of consolidating evil is solved. 21:05 Because now you have many nations, you have many cultures, 21:08 many ways of thinking. 21:09 And all of these nations are going to be 21:11 at each others throats. 21:12 And so you're not going to be able to globalize rebellion 21:15 and centralize rebellion. 21:16 But this also created a problem. 21:20 And the problem is, how could all of these nations 21:23 be reached with the message about the Messiah? 21:28 How in the world could you present the message 21:32 to all of the language groups in all of the world? 21:36 Well, God decided that He would choose a special people 21:41 to share His message with the world, 21:44 to preserve the holy line, 21:46 and to announce the coming of the Messiah. 21:49 And He established this nation, Israel, in the Promised Land. 21:54 In fact, He established them at the crossroads 21:59 of three continents. 22:02 Because all of the people from these continents; 22:04 Europe, Asia, and Africa, had to go through Israel. 22:09 And so God says, "I'm placing my people at this strategic place 22:13 so that as people come from other nations 22:16 they will come in contact with My people 22:18 and My people will communicate with them the gospel 22:22 about the coming Messiah and the secret of their prosperity. 22:27 And then they'll go back to their nations 22:29 and they'll take the gospel to their nations." 22:32 In other words, God's plan in the Old Testament 22:34 was for the nations to come to Israel. 22:36 It wasn't Israel to go to the nations, 22:38 it was the nations to come to Israel 22:41 and there see the secret of her prosperity 22:43 and hear about the coming Messiah. 22:47 I want you to notice the description of this plan 22:50 in several text that we find in the Old Testament. 22:53 Deuteronomy 4:6-8 22:56 God tells His people, Israel, when He takes them 22:59 out of Egypt... 23:02 That is, His laws and His commandments. 23:38 So the nations would say, "This is a marvelous nation. 23:40 You have a wonderful God." 23:41 And they would go back to their nations 23:43 carrying the gospel. 23:45 We find an example of this in a specific case 23:48 of a woman, a queen. 23:50 She's known as the Queen of Sheba. 23:52 And the story is found in 2 Chronicles 9, 23:56 and we're only going to read verses 6 and 8. 23:58 You see, the Queen of Sheba had heard about 24:00 the prosperity of Israel. 24:02 She had heard about the righteous reign of King Solomon. 24:07 And she said, "I have to go have an interview with him 24:09 because I have to see what the secret 24:11 of the prosperity of Israel is." 24:13 And so she took a trip to Israel to interview King Solomon. 24:18 And I want you to notice what we find in 2 Chronicles 9:6. 24:25 Here is what the Queen of Sheba said. 24:31 That is, of the fame of Solomon. 24:44 And so it sounds like she's praising King Solomon. 24:48 Ah, but she knew where the secret was. 24:52 Solomon told her. 24:53 Notice what we find in verse 8. 24:55 She recognized that it was not Solomon. 24:57 It was the Lord. 25:06 Notice, setting Solomon on His throne, on the Lord's throne. 25:24 "You have a wonderful God," is what the Queen of Sheba 25:27 said to Solomon. 25:28 That was God's plan. 25:30 That all of the nations of the earth should come to Israel 25:33 and Israel would be a light. 25:35 And they would go back to their lands and they would share 25:37 the wonderful news about the coming Messiah. 25:41 Let's notice two or three other examples of God's plan 25:43 in the Old Testament. 25:45 Zechariah 8:20-23 25:47 I love this, it's one of my favorite passages 25:49 in the Old Testament. 26:35 What a wonderful plan God had for Israel to be a witness. 26:40 Then we have Isaiah 49:6. 26:42 God expresses the breadth of His plan 26:45 in Israel presenting the gospel to the world. 26:48 It says in Isaiah 49:6... 27:01 In other words, "I haven't called you only 27:03 to restore Israel, to lift up Israel. 27:06 No, no, no, no. My plan is much greater." 27:08 Notice the last part of the verse. 27:09 God says... 27:19 And then we have Isaiah 60:3. 27:21 Once again the idea in the Old Testament 27:23 is that the nations would come to Israel. 27:25 Because God placed Israel at this crossroads 27:28 of three continents where people would have to go 27:32 through Israel to get from one place to another. 27:35 And it says in Isaiah 60:3... 27:46 What a wonderful plan God had. 27:49 Unfortunately, Israel, to a great degree, 27:54 failed to fulfill God's plan. 27:57 First of all, before the Babylonian captivity 28:00 Israel intermingled with the nations, 28:03 and to a great degree lost their identity. 28:06 And then the Babylonian captivity cured Israel 28:10 of idolatry and of intermingling with the nations. 28:14 But then Israel shut herself up and she considered herself 28:18 better than everybody else. 28:19 And she isolated herself from the nations. 28:23 And so Israel, to a great degree, failed to fulfill 28:27 God's plan of letting people know what the secret 28:32 of Israel's prosperity was and about the coming 28:35 of the Messiah. 28:37 The Bible says that Jesus came to His own 28:41 and even His own didn't understand. 28:42 Because His own received Him not. 28:45 They were totally unprepared to receive the Messiah. 28:48 But Jesus came anyway. 28:51 Jesus said, "I have a schedule. 28:53 I have to die at a certain year at the Passover. 28:56 I must be buried and I must resurrect the third day. 29:00 And then 50 days later is the day of Pentecost. 29:03 I have a calendar that I must fulfill. 29:05 If My people didn't fulfill My plan completely, 29:10 well I'm still going to do My work. 29:12 And someday people will understand." 29:16 And so Jesus came and He fulfilled what was announced 29:19 in Genesis. 29:21 Do you remember in Genesis we have this immaculate lamb 29:24 that was chosen, and then the lamb was slain? 29:28 And the slain of the lamb covered the nakedness of man. 29:33 God was announcing that the true Lamb of God 29:36 was going to come to the world. 29:38 And He was going to live a perfect life 29:40 as the immaculate Lamb. 29:42 And He was going to die for the sins of the world. 29:45 And through His righteousness He was going to cover 29:48 the sinfulness of man's nature. 29:52 And so Jesus came and He faced the devil's temptations. 29:56 And He never failed even once. 29:58 He lived a perfect life. 30:00 He was a spotless immaculate Lamb. 30:03 And then Jesus went to the cross and He died. 30:07 Now what good would it do for Jesus to have lived His life 30:11 and to have died for sin if nobody in the world 30:15 knew about it? 30:18 It was necessary for the world to know. 30:20 You see, it was God's plan that the whole world 30:23 would know before the Messiah came. 30:25 So that when Jesus came, the whole world 30:27 would be ready to receive Him. 30:29 But not even Israel understood about the coming of the Messiah. 30:34 And so after Jesus lived and died, He says, "This message 30:39 has to go to the whole world." 30:42 And so now God adopts a different plan. 30:45 Whereas in the Old Testament the plan was that nations 30:49 would come to Israel and discover the secret of 30:52 Israel's prosperity and Israel would share how the Messiah 30:56 would come to save the human race, 30:58 now Jesus says, "The plan is not for the nations to come, 31:01 the plan is for you to go." 31:05 Notice Matthew 28:18-20. 31:08 Matthew 28:18-20 31:16 He's speaking to His disciples. 31:23 Not, "They'll come to your light." 31:25 No, that was in the Old Testament. 31:46 And then, of course, we have Acts 1:7-8. 31:50 Let's read also what God's plan involved. 31:52 God's plan involved reaching the whole world, 31:54 just like in the Old Testament. 31:55 Notice Acts 1:7-8. 32:08 And notice what the purpose of the power is. 32:10 It's not to give them a spiritual high, 32:13 or to make them feel better than anybody else, 32:15 or for self edification. 32:18 No, no. The power has a specific purpose. 32:20 It's focused on evangelism. 32:23 And so it says here... 32:30 Notice, first of all, where? 32:45 But there was a deep problem. 32:47 A very serious problem. 32:49 And that is, that all of those disciples that Jesus established 32:56 could speak only one language. 33:00 So how could they go to Corinth and Ephesus and to other nations 33:07 where different languages were spoken? 33:10 How could they proclaim the gospel? 33:12 You see, Babel created a serious problem. 33:15 Because the purpose of Babel was not to allow 33:18 evil to consolidate. 33:19 But in confusing the languages, God made it apparently 33:22 very difficult for the gospel to go to the world. 33:25 Because the nucleus of His followers spoke 33:29 probably only Aramaic. 33:31 And so Babel created a problem. 33:34 But for God, there are no problems. 33:37 And so God says, "I know what I'm going to do. 33:40 I'm going to undo Babel. 33:44 I am going to undo what happened at Babel. 33:46 And what I'm going to do is, I'm going to give the same gift 33:49 that I gave at Babel to the disciples, to My apostles. 33:53 But the purpose is not to confuse. 33:55 The purpose of the gift is so that they can go to the nations 33:58 and they can proclaim the message to all nations." 34:02 And so on the day of Pentecost, God gave the gift of tongues. 34:10 And you know, many people talk about the gift of tongues 34:12 and they say, "Oh, that's for you to edify yourself. 34:15 And you know, that's so that you can get a real spiritual high." 34:18 And you know, "If you don't speak in tongues, 34:20 you don't have the Holy Spirit." 34:21 And some people say, "If you don't speak in tongues, 34:23 you can't even be saved." 34:25 And so people have a guilt trip because they're not 34:29 able to speak in tongues. 34:30 And they do everything; even they suggest 34:32 to themselves, work themselves into a frenzy, 34:35 in order to be able to speak in tongues. 34:37 Because the idea is, if you don't speak in tongues, 34:41 you can't be saved. 34:42 But the tongues that they're talking about 34:44 are not languages. 34:46 They are words that are spoken nowhere on planet earth. 34:51 But the purpose of the gift of tongues, folks, was not to edify 34:55 yourself through a language that not even God understands. 34:58 The purpose of tongues was practical, it was evangelistic. 35:03 It was to give the apostles the ability to go to the nations 35:06 and speak the languages that were spoken in those nations. 35:10 Let's notice Acts 2:5, and then we'll read verses 9-11. 35:15 This is on the day of Pentecost. 35:16 Notice who is gathered there with the disciples 35:20 in the upper room. 35:21 It says there in Acts 2:5... 35:33 And then we'll go down to verse 9. 35:35 Notice that several nations are mentioned by name. 36:01 Did you notice all of the nationalities 36:03 that are mentioned here? 36:04 Incidentally, if you go back to Genesis 10, 36:07 which is called, the table of nations, there you have the 36:11 nations that descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 36:15 And you'll notice that most of these nations that are 36:18 mentioned here are mentioned in Genesis 10 36:20 in the table of nations, the nations that came into existence 36:25 as a result of the confusion of the languages 36:27 at the tower of Babel. 36:29 Now God, in His providence, made this happen at Pentecost. 36:35 You say, "Why at Pentecost?" 36:37 A very simple reason. 36:38 You see, there were three Hebrew feasts where all men 36:42 had to make themselves present in Jerusalem. 36:45 All men 12 years and older. 36:47 The three harvest festivals, which were Passover, Pentecost, 36:51 and the Feast of Tabernacles. 36:52 All men 12 years and older had to personally go to Jerusalem 36:56 to celebrate the feasts. 36:58 Which means that on the day of Pentecost, 37:00 there were individuals from every nation 37:03 on the planet present there. 37:06 And so in the upper room God gave the disciples 37:10 the ability to speak the languages of all of the nations 37:14 that were represented there. 37:15 Are you following me or not? 37:17 And what was the purpose of them speaking the languages 37:20 of the nations that were gathered there? 37:22 God knew that these individuals who had come to Jerusalem 37:26 for the feasts would then go back to their nations 37:30 and they would bear the news that they had heard 37:32 in their own language in the upper room. 37:35 They would share the news in their own language 37:37 about the coming of the Messiah 37:40 and salvation through Jesus Christ. 37:42 In other words, God made it very clear that at Pentecost 37:47 He gave the gift of tongues because of practical reasons. 37:51 Evangelistic reasons, in other words. 37:54 The gift was not given for self edification. 37:57 The gift was not given to experience a spiritual high. 38:00 Or as an evidence that you're saved. 38:02 The purpose was evangelistic. 38:04 The purpose was to be able to share in the languages 38:09 of the nations. 38:10 Is that point clear? 38:12 Now, we're going to study more about the gift of tongues 38:15 in our following lectures. 38:17 In fact, the last four presentations are going to be 38:21 on the gift of tongues in the New Testament. 38:23 We're going to study meticulously every text 38:26 in the New Testament that speaks about the gift of tongues 38:29 to see if we can determine what the gift of tongues really was. 38:33 Because today, the gift has been counterfeited. 38:36 The gift today is not the same gift that existed 38:38 in biblical times. 38:40 Now I want you to notice some things about the gift of tongues 38:45 in the end time. 38:46 Let's go to Matthew 24:14. 38:50 Matthew 24:14 38:53 Let me ask you, has Jesus given us the same commission 38:56 that He gave to the apostles? 38:58 He most certainly has. 39:00 Notice what we find in Matthew 24:14. 39:14 So God has given us the same commission; 39:17 to go to all of the nations and to share the gospel. 39:21 Revelation 14:6, the first angels message 39:25 tells us also as much. 39:27 It says there in Revelation 14:6... 39:45 So does Jesus give us the same commission 39:48 that He gave to the apostles? 39:50 Yes He does. 39:53 Now when's the last time that you saw a Seventh-day Adventist 39:56 who has the gift of tongues? 40:00 You know, I haven't known a single person 40:02 in the Adventist church who has the gift of tongues 40:05 that was given out at Pentecost. 40:07 Now I know of someone who had the gift of tongues. 40:11 I had a teacher in the seminary, his name is Gottfried Oosterwal. 40:15 And he tells some amazing stories of when 40:17 he went to New Guinea. 40:19 And he was able to communicate with the natives 40:22 without having studied their language. 40:24 So I have no doubts whatsoever that there are individuals 40:28 here and there who have received the gift of tongues. 40:31 But it's not very prevalent today in the 40:33 Adventist church, is it? 40:35 Not very prevalent at all. 40:36 And you say, why isn't the gift prevalent today 40:39 as it was in the days of the apostles? 40:41 The reason is very simple, folks. 40:44 In these days, the gift is not needed. 40:49 You see, the gift was given because of special circumstances 40:53 on the day of Pentecost. 40:55 Because the gospel needed to go to the world. 40:57 But let me ask you, are there Adventists in virtually 41:00 every single country of the world today? 41:03 Are there natives who speak the language in those countries? 41:06 Absolutely. 41:08 So is the gift of tongues necessary today 41:10 to carry the gospel to those nations? 41:13 No, because there are people already there 41:15 who speak those languages. 41:18 And so God... 41:19 That's not to say that if in some special circumstance 41:22 I need to share the gospel in a language that I have 41:25 never studied, that God sees it necessary 41:28 to give me the gift of tongues, He could do that. 41:30 But it's not as prevalent today because the circumstances 41:34 don't demand it. 41:35 Are you following me or not? 41:37 Now, listen up, folks. 41:41 The Bible tells us that there's going to be an end time Babylon. 41:45 Is that true? 41:47 There's going to be an end time Babylon. 41:50 And this end time Babylon is going to be very similar 41:54 to the Babylon that existed in the Old Testament 41:57 at the tower of Babel. 41:59 Babylon will rise once again. 42:03 And I want you to notice what we find in Revelation 17:1-2. 42:07 And by the way, we're not talking about literal Babylon 42:09 over next to the literal Euphrates. 42:12 The book of Revelation makes it clear that this Babylon 42:15 is a global Babylon. 42:17 It's a spiritual Babylon. 42:20 In other words, it has the same spirit as the Babylon 42:23 at the tower of Babel. 42:24 The same spirit, but it's a global worldwide Babylon. 42:28 And I want you to notice Revelation 17:1-2, 42:32 and then we'll jump to verse 15. 42:34 God's people are going to share the gospel with the world, 42:37 but there's a harlot who's going to share her wine 42:39 with the world too. 42:40 Notice... 42:51 Question, what does a harlot represent in Scripture? 42:55 It represents an apostate church. 42:57 By the way, she's not only called the great harlot, 43:01 but she's called the mother of harlots. 43:03 Which means that she must have daughters 43:05 that were born from her. 43:08 So this is a case of the mother and her daughters. 43:12 And as Adventists, we know that represents the Papacy 43:16 and apostate Protestantism that was born from the Papacy 43:19 in the 16th century. 43:22 Now, the daughters were not apostate back then. 43:24 But in the course of time, because they have not embraced 43:28 the fullness of truth, little by little they've gone astray 43:31 from the truth and they have become apostate like the mother. 43:36 And so notice what it says here. 43:45 That means that this church fornicates with the kings. 43:48 In other words, it has illicit relationships 43:51 with the civil powers of the world. 43:53 It's a church that is involved with the state. 43:56 And so it continues saying, "...with whom the kings 43:58 of the earth committed fornication..." 44:06 Her wine are her false doctrines. 44:09 In other words, this harlot and her daughters 44:11 are going to give wine to the nations; 44:13 the wine of false doctrines. 44:15 What are God's people going to present to the world? 44:18 They're going to present pure doctrine. 44:21 Unfermented grape juice, if you please. 44:23 But this is fermented wine because it makes people drunk. 44:27 And then I want you to notice, she sits on many waters. 44:30 What does that mean that she sits on many waters? 44:34 It says in verse 15 of Revelation 17... 44:51 So I want you to picture this. 44:53 In the end time a Babylon similar to the Babel 44:56 in Genesis 11; a Babel that feeds its false doctrines 45:02 to the world, in contrast to God's people 45:06 that presents the truth as it's found in the Word of God. 45:12 Now do you think the devil is going to try and counterfeit 45:15 the gift of tongues? 45:17 You think? 45:19 Does the devil have a counterfeit for everything 45:21 that God has true? 45:23 You better believe he does. 45:25 Is he going to counterfeit the second coming of Christ? 45:28 He most certainly is. 45:29 Does he have a counterfeit day of worship? 45:31 Of course. 45:32 Do you believe that perhaps he's going to have a counterfeit 45:34 gift of tongues? 45:36 A gift that instead of being evangelistic and reaching out 45:40 to the world with the gospel of Christ in a language 45:43 that people can understand, it's going to be just a language 45:48 that no one can understand, which is actually an obstacle 45:51 to communication. 45:53 I believe, as we continue studying 1 Corinthians 14 45:57 and as we study other passages from Scripture, 46:00 we're going to find that the devil is attempting now, 46:03 and is going to more and more, try to counterfeit 46:07 the gift of tongues and make it something for self edification, 46:11 to experience a spiritual high, and to show supposedly 46:15 a high degree of spirituality. 46:19 And that's exactly what's happening in the world today. 46:22 And you know what? 46:23 At Babel, God divided everyone because He gave them different 46:27 languages so that they could not consolidate evil. 46:30 But you know, the book of Revelation tells us that 46:32 in spite of having nations and tongues and peoples 46:35 at the end, all of these nations and tongues and peoples 46:38 are going to consolidate in a system of evil. 46:42 In other words, even the confusion of the languages 46:46 by God is not going to prevent a global union 46:49 in apostasy against God. 46:51 A union of the harlot with the daughters 46:54 and the kings of the earth, the civil powers of the earth. 46:58 I'd like to read you some interesting statements 47:01 from the book, Patriarchs and Prophets, 47:03 on what happened at the tower of Babel. 47:05 And immediately you're going to see similarities 47:08 to what's happening in the religious world today. 47:11 This statement is, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 118-119. 47:21 These are the Babel builders. 47:27 Does Babylon in the end time sit on the many waters 47:29 of the Euphrates? 47:31 Yes, but it's a spiritual river. 47:33 See, it's not the literal Euphrates over in the 47:36 Middle East, over in Iraq. 47:37 No, no. It's a spiritual river. 47:39 It's multitudes, nations, tongues, and peoples. 47:41 And the harlot is a global apostate system. 47:44 And the daughters are global daughters of the harlot. 47:49 And so this foreshadows on a local level what's going to 47:53 happen universally in the world. 48:10 Now notice what their objective was. 48:34 In other words, what did they want to do? 48:35 They wanted to unite the world in rebellion against God, 48:39 not scatter across the earth like God had said. 48:42 Are we seeing that... 48:43 Have you ever heard of the word, "globalism"? 48:48 She continues saying... 49:10 That's in Revelation 17 and 18, folks. 49:16 That's a system of government that is ruled from one place. 49:23 Globalism. 49:29 See, one empire. 49:53 How about it? 49:55 Notice page 119 what Ellen White further says. 50:22 Does that sound familiar today? 50:26 And then on page 123 she says... 51:25 Are people accumulating silver and gold today? 51:28 What do we call it? 51:30 We call it money, right? 51:33 Yeah. 51:34 You know, you look at the global system today, 51:37 everything revolves around money. 51:40 And by the way, Revelation 18, a very important chapter 51:44 that very few people study, it speaks about the collapse 51:48 of the world economic system. 51:51 You need to read that chapter. 51:52 Because it talks about the collapse of the economic system 51:57 when individuals will take their silver and their gold 51:59 and they'll throw it in the streets. 52:01 They'll say, "Because this cannot save us 52:03 in the day of the Lord." 52:05 Now I want to end by reading this magnificent statement 52:08 from, Patriarchs and Prophets, pages 123-124, 52:12 where Ellen White applies what happened at Babel 52:15 to what is happening in the world in the end time. 52:18 She says... 52:23 Do you know what infidels are? 52:26 An infidel is an individual who has no faith. 52:32 That's basically what it means. 52:34 Has no faith, no trust in the Bible. 52:46 Is that happening today? 52:48 The almighty god of science, you know; evolution 52:52 has become the law of the land even though it takes more faith 52:57 to believe in evolution than in creation. 53:00 And yet, it is an axiom that is accepted, 53:03 and anybody who does not accept it is considered ignorant. 53:08 Notice what she continues saying. 53:30 Now you say, "Okay, well these are the secular people. 53:33 These are the people who never really believe in God." 53:35 That's not the case. 53:38 Notice the next paragraph. 54:00 That's the preachers, by the way. 54:10 Are we hearing that today? 54:12 Absolutely. 54:14 She continues saying, "If the professed..." 54:16 Notice who she's talking about. 54:17 She's not talking about secular people. 54:54 The world-loving churches. 54:57 Not the secular people. 54:59 Not atheists. 55:01 Not people who claim not to believe in the existence of God. 55:05 Professed Christian churches. 55:07 She says, "...applies to the world-loving 55:10 churches of the last days." 55:53 I ask once again, do you think that spiritualism has 55:58 anything to do with Satan's strategy to unite the world? 56:02 Absolutely. 56:04 Is it just perhaps true that there's a counterfeit 56:07 gift of tongues that is proliferating across the 56:11 Christian world today which the devil is going to use 56:15 as a substitute for the Word of God 56:18 and that will lead most of the world astray from the Lord? 56:23 I believe that we are seeing it in the world today. 56:27 It's not something that is going to happen. 56:29 It is something that is happening even now 56:33 as I speak. 56:35 In one of our topics we're going to give an example of this. 56:38 Recently, you know about the Tony Palmer affair? 56:41 And Kenneth Copeland. 56:43 You know, when Kenneth Copeland broke out 56:45 into speaking in a tongue that nobody that was 56:48 present could understand. 56:49 There was not an interpreter to interpret it. 56:53 And he was blessing the pope. 56:55 And so the question is, 56:56 how do you know that he was pronouncing a blessing? 56:59 What control is there to know what he's really saying? 57:04 The devil could be speaking. 57:07 And I believe that we need to be very careful 57:10 about this in the end time. |
Revised 2016-07-14