False Doctrines and Claims of
Tongues People
by Evangelist John R. Rice
(Chapter 4 from Dr. Rice's excellent book, Speaking
in Tongues)
Now I come to bring the last message on the
tongues movement -- the movement that teaches speaking in tongues as the
initial evidence of the fullness of the Spirit or the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
First, let me say that many, many people of
the tongues movement are good Christian people. They believe the Bible,
they love the Lord. Many of them lead good Christian lives, and I have
many friends among them.
One time during a citywide campaign in
Springfield, Missouri, I not only spoke as a guest in the publishing house
of the Assemblies of God, but one night twenty-six Assembly of God
preachers were on the platform in that great four-pole tent.
I love people who love the Lord. In many a
revival campaign people who believe in talking in tongues have been active
in the campaign. I was with Dr. Flowers in the National Association of
Evangelicals in those old days, before it went more or less New
Evangelical. Dr. Flowers was the secretary of that movement.
So I am saying kind things about people I
love and who are good people. I am not running down people, but I am
talking about the tongues movement as such and the teachings that are
involved in it.
I think I ought to say also that I have read
the best books on this subject by the principal teachers themselves of the
Pentecostal movement. I am thoroughly familiar with their teaching and I
answer it fairly and honestly.
Let me say also, I believe in the fullness of
the Holy Spirit. I believe in a definite enduement of power that one ought
to seek and have for the work of the Lord in winning souls. Not only have
I earnestly sought before God again and again and again for such power of
God, but I am certain in my mind that unworthy as I am, God has seen fit
to put upon me the power of the Holy Spirit so that some tens of thousands
of people have been saved under my frail, human ministry. So I say thank
God for people who believe in the fullness of the Spirit.
And I think that the tongues heresy is wrong
and does harm and that it some way blocks people, turning them away from
the main truth of the fullness of the Spirit which God wants us all to
have. I believe that the gifts of the Spirit are for today, that is, as
much as they ever were and as much as God gives to each one severally as
He will. He doesn't give all those gifts to everybody and they are not
manifest in every community. For instance, how long has it been since you
saw somebody with a gift of miracles? If there is an occasion for it, God
gives such gifts as He chooses, and He taught us to pray for the power of
the Spirit to prophesy, and we may do that.
The Tongues Heresy Goes With Any Kind of
Doctrine
Now then, who is it who talks in tongues? Who
is it in what you call the charismatic meeting, who talks in tongues? Not
only Pentecostal, including Assemblies of God and Pentecostal Holiness
people and the Apostolic churches and two branches of the Church of God,
but a good many in other denominations do, too, talk in tongues. But it
generally is the Pentecostal people.
I had a letter about talking in tongues the
other day from a Baptist. They say Roman Catholics even now are taking
part, not only having tongues meetings but coming to meet with others to
talk and pray about the girl of tongues and teaching people to talk in
tongues.
I was in a hotel in Denver the other day and
there were three nondescript hippies with Levis on, and wearing tennis
shoes, and they were more or less unwashed, with clothes unironed. They
had long beards and hair. I happened to be waiting for a telephone, and
one of these hippies said, "I got baptized with the Holy Ghost the other
day." So a fellow who speaks in tongues can be a hippie or a Catholic.
Even some of the Moslems, Mohammedans, have sometimes spoken in tongues,
along with the Pentecostal people and some other denominations.
Isn't it surprising that one can believe in
confessing his sins to a priest to get forgiveness and can believe there
is a purgatory and one needs enough masses to get him out of it, and pray
to Mary, yet with that kind of doctrine still talk in tongues? There is
something wrong with any man's doctrinal position who thinks you can pray
to Mary and confess to a priest and have masses for the souls in purgatory
and then think you are following the Bible when you talk in tongues. One
is not following the Bible in any of that.
Now, then, what are some of the bad things
that go with the tongues movement? Well, there are good people, many
sincere, earnest, good people -- but what is wrong?
First of all, there is often a great deal of
false doctrine connected with it. These people say, "Oh, we want all God
has," but they are generally not good Bible students. They are not as
particular as they ought to be about Bible teaching. So it is very
customary for people in the tongues movement to believe and teach boldly
that it is God's will to heal every sickness of everybody. Now that is not
taught in the Bible. Paul did not get relief from his thorn in the flesh.
Paul said, 'Timothy, take a little wine (or grape juice) for thine often
infirmities, thy weak stomach.' Paul said, "Trophimus have I left at
Miletum sick."
So it is not always God's will to heal the
sick. A good proof of that is that good Christians die all the time. That
is a false doctrine that usually goes along with those who believe in
tongues. It is a false doctrine, just like this matter of a Catholic who
speaks in tongues.
God bless Catholic people, but you can't say
that the Bible teaches the priest can forgive sins, or that the Bible
teaches you should pray to Mary. The same people who take that kind of
teaching, take the doctrine of tongues. That means they are not very
particular about the Bible doctrine. Let us say that however sincere they
are, they are not well taught and they are not well grounded in the
Scripture.
The Arrogant Conceit of Tongues People,
Boasting They Are Better Christians
Than Those Who Win More Souls!
And another thing wrong with these good
people who talk in tongues is, they sometimes are rather arrogant and
claim they are better than other Christians, that they have "more of God."
Other people, they say, are not willing to wait on God; other people are
afraid of criticism. That is a rather shocking idea but again and again,
not only in letters to me but in their magazines and in their books, is
their constant claim that you cannot be filled with the Spirit of God
until you talk in tongues, that talking in tongues is the initial
evidence, and you are not baptized with the Spirit (the term they use
generally) or filled with the Spirit, and you are really only a
second-rate Christian, if you do not talk in tongues.
Isn't it strange that a man who doesn't win
souls to Christ but talks in tongues, would think that he has something
better than D. L. Moody had, who won a million souls to God? Isn't that
strange?
I was in big services in Toronto, in the
Avenue Road Church. There was a great crowd. Some seventeen hundred packed
the building to the door, with chairs in the aisles. When I preached we
had, I think, fifteen
adults saved, and these went with many tears to a room for further
instruction. As I stepped out of the pulpit for a moment while the
building filled up again with a good many others for a second service, a
man came up to me and said, "Dr. Rice, have you been baptized with the
Holy Ghost?"
"Well," I said, "if you mean an enduement of
power from on High, yes. In my poor, unworthy way, I thank God I have
prayed and God has given some power, with amazing results, to win souls. I
don't claim any credit. I have to say that is the power of God."
"Oh," he said, "I didn't mean that. I mean
did you talk in tongues?"
I said, "If you didn't mean that, what did
you say that for?"
"But," he said, "Brother Rice, if you talk
... if you just turn loose and you don't know what you are saying but you
just feel good and as light as a feather ... it is so wonderful!"
I said, "I talked in the English tongue
tonight. It seemed like everybody could understand me."
"Yes," he said, "I know, but you don't know
how much joy you would get if you would just cut loose and talk in
tongues."
I said, "Well, if enough people come down the
aisle and take Christ as Saviour and claim Christ and set out to live for
Him, that will be joy enough for me." I said, "Now, let me ask you a
question. Did you ever win a soul?"
"Well, I have witnessed to them."
"I know, but did you ever win a soul?"
"Well, I have prayed for them, all right."
I said, "Quit dodging. Did you ever take your
Bible and show somebody he is a sinner, show him how to trust Jesus and
get him to ask God for forgiveness and claim it and set out to live for
Him? Have you ever won a soul?"
He said, "I guess I never did."
Now, isn't that strange that he would think
he was a better Christian than I? He had never won one soul to Christ and
God knows I have not won as many as I ought to and not nearly as many as
some others, but I have seen thousands of people come to Christ. Oh, how
many! I mean drunkards and infidels and heathen of various kinds. Isn't
that a strange, arrogant spirit that is not of God when somebody thinks of
himself more highly than he ought to think because he talks in tongues?
That means those people think Gipsy Smith and R. A. Torrey and Charles G.
Finney and Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. and Billy Sunday, the great soul winners,
were not as good Christians as they are, who talk in tongues. That is a
silly and, I think, a sinful attitude. That is one great thing wrong with
the tongues movement.
Easily Misled Tongues People Regularly
Make False Claims
Now, here is another thing. I am sad to say
it, but since tongues people are often ignorant and not very well educated
and are not very intellectual, they often claim in print, as in the Full
Gospel businessmen's magazine, that D. L. Moody talked in tongues, that
Charles G. Finney talked in tongues, and so did R. A. Torrey. They did
nothing of the kind.
I have just read how R. A. Torrey learned
this blessed truth about the Spirit and how he could hardly preach about
anything else. What he learned about the Holy Spirit was not about how he
should talk in tongues, for he never did that. On D. L. Moody, I have
twelve or fifteen books -- I have everything written about him that I can
get my hands on; I have his own life story by his son and that by his
son-in-law, Pitts; and I know Moody not only
did not talk in tongues, but
he didn't believe in it. Neither did Billy Sunday. I knew Billy Sunday.
Neither did Gipsy Smith. Neither did Charles G. Finney.
There is something wrong with a man's system
of truth when he is careless in making statements like that to try to
bolster a doctrine that isn't found in the Bible. That is one thing wrong
with the tongues movement.
Here is another thing: It is rather sad that
women take a very prominent part in leadership in Pentecostal movements,
when the Bible is very clear: "Let the woman learn in silence with all
subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over
the man, but to be in silence." And, "Let your women keep silence in the
churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will
learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for
women to speak in the church" (1st Corinthians 14:34,35).
And yet, here in this matter, it is part of a
heresy -- I don't mean that unkindly -- yet Christian people are taking
part in a heresy. When people let themselves go and excuse it and cover it
up and twist it a little on one matter, then they will be a little wrong
on something else, too. For there is a moral guilt in heresy and it leads
to further wrong. So there are some things wrong with the tongues
movement.
The Basic Teaching That to Be Filled With
the Spirit
One Must Speak in Tongues Is False
Now, then, here is a basic falsehood back of
the tongues movement. That is the teaching that speaking in tongues is the
evidence and especially the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy
Ghost or the fullness of the Spirit. Now they use the term "baptism of the
Spirit." I don't use that term so often because it has been misused. I
like more the term "filled with the Spirit." But they say that speaking in
tongues is the evidence. Now there are two things wrong about that.
First, that is not what the Bible teaches
anywhere. I have read the best writings of these Pentecostal brethren from
England and America, I have their books in my library, I have read their
magazines. They frankly admit the Bible doesn't say that anywhere; but
they think it infers that! No, the Bible doesn't say that, neither does it
infer it, unless you are looking for it. The Bible does not anywhere say
that Christians ought to talk in tongues and that that would be a sign of
the fullness of the Spirit. No, sir, that is not Bible doctrine.
Here is another thing. In the Bible we have
case after case where people were filled with the Spirit. And in not a
single case is tongues given as the evidence.
For instance, John the Baptist was filled
with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. Not ever a mention of talking
in tongues. In Luke, chapter 1, Elisabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Bible tells what she said and she did it in the language that Mary,
who was with her, understood. It is not what is called talking in tongues,
but she was filled with the Holy Ghost.
In the same chapter, Luke 1, verse 67,
Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and the Bible tells us what he
said.
The Bible tells us how Jesus was filled with
the Holy Spirit in Luke 3:21-23. When He was filled with the Holy Spirit,
the Bible tells us what He said. This is the first time Jesus was filled
with the Spirit, yet He didn't talk in tongues.
Why wouldn't you be satisfied to have what
Jesus had when the Holy Spirit came on Him, and now He is endued with
power to witness and speak? Why wouldn't you be satisfied to have what
Jesus had instead of something else? You can brag, "I've got it and the
Baptists don't, and the Presbyterians don't have it, and the Methodists
don't have it. I've got it and I am it!" You ought to be ashamed! No, most
Bible characters never spoke in tongues when filled with the Spirit.
We have the case in Acts 9:17 of how Paul was
converted and how right after that he was immediately filled with the Holy
Ghost. Not a word is said about his talking in tongues. You see, people
made that up. The Bible doesn't bear it out. There are no cases in the
Bible where they did. There is the one case at Pentecost and there was a
reason for it then, but it is not named there as an evidence of the
fullness of the Spirit.
In Acts, chapter 8, the apostles, Peter and
John, came down to Samaria. Here were a group of converts and the apostles
laid their hands upon them and prayed and they received the Holy Ghost.
Nothing is said about them talking in tongues. Then why do you want to say
it when the Bible doesn't?
The Bible doesn't bear you out. There is not
any evidence that when Christian people were filled with the Holy Spirit
in the Bible, they talked in tongues as an evidence of that. They did not
except in the case at Pentecost where there was a special reason for it.
Now, more than that. I am an evangelist. I am
not only an evangelist, I am a promoter of evangelism. I have kept this
thing before God and the people all these years. And I know the great soul
winners. Now, let me tell you frankly, the best soul winners did not talk
in tongues, not Spurgeon, not Wesley, not Moody, not Torrey, not J. Wilbur
Chapman, not Gipsy Smith, not Billy Sunday and not Bob Jones, Sr.
So the tongues business is a false doctrine
that good people, but usually ignorant, take up because they are misled.
Contacting Sword of the Lord
This, and other booklets, can be obtained by
contacting Sword of the Lord Publishers directly, please do not direct
your queries to Roy Lister (me), though I will be happy to answer any
questions regarding the subject matter of the material shown here.
Sword of the Lord Publishers
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U.S.A
© Copyright 1961 by Sword of the Lord
Publishers
ISBN 0-87398-805-1
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