Let's take our Bibles, shall we? And we'll turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. 1 Corinthians chapter 14. We're going to be answering the question from the Word of God, what is our answer to the tongues' movement? Let me quickly say that some of the most godly co-workers and friends that I have met in the workplace have been those that have been characterized by the charismatic movement. I have no axe to grind outside of rightly dividing the word of truth and a desire to do so. But I am not calling to question in any way their desire to please God, their desire to serve God, the sincerity of the heart of many Charismatics to experience a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Oftentimes, we can have our heart right and our head wrong, and our interpretation of Scripture can be askew. But I think that many of you as well have experienced the warmth and the friendship of Charismatic brethren, Pentecostal brethren, You have had experiences where in need they have prayed for you, and I'm sure that you were blessed by the prayer that they offered for you in time of need. I might say that at a time in my life, there was a time where I received an unanticipated, unexpected gift in time of need from a Pentecostal church that I never had any contact with. I believe that within the Pentecostal movement are people that love the Lord, that are truly born again, and they're going to go up at the rapture and they're going to change their theology when they get there. And you know what? So are we in some areas. And therefore, I want to express the fact that if you were in an underground church being persecuted and you ran across a Pentecostal brother or sister in Christ, and all around you was hatred being spewed against Christ, and now you're sharing a prison cell with a charismatic, I guarantee you you'd have real good fellowship with them. I guarantee you that you'd praise God that you could pray with someone. So you understand my heart as I come before you today. We must understand what the Word of God has to say, and we must be Biblicists in this matter. I also understand that there are churches that are not really biblicists in their practice, but are more geared towards experiential theology, and that is where our problem begins. In reality, there's only one scripture that truly explains the nature and purpose of the gift of tongues, and that scripture is before you, 1 Corinthians Chapter 14. This is the key verse in understanding the purpose of tongues. Now, a message like this is important. Certainly we're preaching a series on spiritual gifts, and there are signed gifts. But whether you're a young person or whether you're a teenager, young adult, single, young adult, married, many of you, senior adults, you're going to rub shoulders with people that are sincerely going to believe in the practice of tongue speaking and they will ask you why you do not practice that gift. And we ought to have a biblical reason as to where we stand on this. So I think this will be helpful for us. And I'll try to keep the subject as simple as possible as we look at this particular scripture. We're looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Notice with me, if you will, beginning with verse 20. Let's step back to verse 20 of 1 Corinthians 14. Brethren, be not children in understanding, how be it in malice be ye children. Boy, I could preach a sermon just on that on another subject. Did you know that it's good to be ignorant? It's good to be ignorant with reference to the devices and the sins of the world. Towards the things of the world, we ought to be children when it comes to matters of malice. But in understanding, the Lord wants us to be men. In other words, mature in rightly dividing the word of truth. Then there's a reference in verse 21 In the law it is written, this is from Isaiah chapter 28, one of the verses that we will be looking at. In the law it is written, with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people, and yet for all that I will speak they will not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are, here's the definition, tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. But prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe." In this particular portion of Scripture, we're going to be understanding the purpose and nature of tongues. Tongues were given whenever God gave truth and it was rejected by his people, ushering in virtually a new dispensation. And we're going to see that there's a fourfold tragic pattern that occurs over and over again with reference to this matter of tongues. First of all, there's the general pattern that God has a message for his people. Whether those people are in the Old Testament or in the ushering in of the New Covenant, God has a message for his people. Secondly, the people refuse to listen. Boy, that's the Old Testament personified, isn't it? As you look at the children of Israel. God had a message through his prophets. The people refused to listen. And we will note that God causes tongues. And by the way, those tongues were always known existing foreign languages. Not aesthetic jitterish. Not gibberish or anything like that. But it was literal languages, known and understood existing languages. God causes tongues to be heard as a sign of judgment. And then finally, dispersion or judgment or scattering takes place. Let's begin where we can give some examples. And we're going to be looking at three scriptures dealing with this matter. There are others that we could go to, but for purposes of simplicity, I want to take you to the Tower of Babel. And if you'll take a journey back to the Book of Beginnings, let's go to Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. Prior to Genesis 11, tongues did not exist. You wouldn't have to worry about going through high school, taking Spanish or German or French or Latin. I know that's close to your heart, Brother Dick, but you know, the whole world was of one language. That makes it real easy, doesn't it? Now, you can go to the South Florida mall and you'd think you were in a foreign language. Am I right or wrong? you'd really be surprised and certainly many of you have been there but prior to Genesis 11 tongues did not exist. Let's go back to the message that God has for his people. The flood has taken place. God saw the iniquity of humankind abounding in every way. And he sends a universal flood. And Noah and his family are spared. The Lord sends a universal flood. He establishes the bow in the cloud as a token, a covenant, the Noahic covenant. And God has a message for his people in Genesis chapter 9. You know what that message is? God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. And all you have to do is go to the Arnold Palmer Hospital, and you'll see that's about the only command that mankind wants to obey today. Be fruitful and multiply. It seems that you walk into Arnold Palmer Hospital and you hear the background music, another baby being born. What a joy it is in our own congregation as we saw the birth of little faith. We saw the experience of the happiness that it brings into the life of a family. Be fruitful and multiply. But notice verse 7, And you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein." The Lord wanted the earth to be filled. That was His purpose. He wanted the earth to be inhabited. Replenish the earth. The word replenish just simply means fill the earth. He wanted man to be fruitful and fill the earth. But man refused to listen. What did he do? Mankind built what we call pagan, idolatrous, ziggurats, towers of idolatry, and they sought to conglomerate themselves and stick together and build centers of idolatry where they began to worship astrology and all of creation rather than the Creator. Man had that proclivity towards idolatry within his own nature. Take a look at chapter 11 and verse 1, and we'll just read all the way through. The whole earth was of one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. This is the area of Babylon. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, go to let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. That's a Hebraism for basically as high as can be. We're afraid that God's going to send another flood and we're going to build something that even God can't cover. This was a center of idolatry and archaeologists have uncovered many of these. Let us make us a name. Notice, lest we be scattered. God told them to scatter and replenish the earth. That was his message that he had for people and for Noah and his descendants. But they said, we don't want to scatter upon the face of the earth. By the way, this was man's first attempt for a new world order. This was man's attempt to organize His worldly system His way in an ecumenical fashion, a one world homogenized idolatrous center built around these ziggurats in direct defiance against God's command to fill the earth. So what took place? The people refused to listen. God caused tongues to be heard as a sign of judgment. I'm going to have a little fun here. I can't because I have to stick to the pulpit. I don't have a mic. I'll still have fun. I'm going to ask Brother Charles to do something for me. Hermano Charles, me gustaría que me traigas el libro que está en la silla al frente. I'm asking you to do something for me though. Necesito el libro que está en la silla al frente. Tráigamelo, por favor. Okay, well, hágalo. I just asked him, Charles, would you please bring me the book that is in the front of your chair and bring it to me? And he says, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But he doesn't do it. Do you see how tongues can be a problem in communication? You know what the Lord did? The Lord said, I'm going to give them all different tongues. And you know, one's not going to know what the one is asking for. And you know why? That's why we have worldwide missions today. And we need people to go into all the world and preach the gospel in people's languages. By the way, if you're in the middle of a group of people that speak English, and you speak English, you know it's rude for you to start gibberish often. Don't do that. It's not a good thing to do. I'm just going to interpolate that in my message. But for the purposes of illustration, I did that. The truth of the matter is, tongues can be confusing. And it can be very difficult. And notice, God sends tongues. Why did he send tongues? It was because In essence, God said, you're not going to listen to me? Well, I'm going to confuse you using tongues, and it's going to be a sign of judgment. That's why in 1 Corinthians 14, 22, it says tongues are given not to them that believe, not to those that are responding to God's Word, But tongues are given to those that believe not as a sign of divine disapproval and judgment. And we see it way at the beginning in Genesis chapter 11. And God sent tongues. Genesis 11 verse 7, Go to now, let us go down, and there confound their language. Notice the plural. Not just the plural of majesty, Certainly God is majestic in His person, but we have a plurality of individuals within the godly trinity involved in this judgment. Let us go down there, confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech, so the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth. And by the way, just to kind of use this as an opportunity to share something that I very rarely can do, they began gathering in pockets. Yeah, I got to find somebody I can communicate to. So they began gathering in places. And this is where we have the formation of the races, you see, and the languages. And within Adam's genetic pool, when he was first created, within his genetic pool, he had the capacity for all of the races. But those genetic characteristics did not surface until they began to scatter and then inbreeding within their groups, you see. And this is how you have the characteristic of the races as a result of the genetic pools and the scattering among the people. God causes tongues as a judgment. And then, of course, we see the dispersion follows. They scattered. The Lord scattered them abroad, verse eight, upon the face of the earth and left off to build the city. Let me take you to the scripture that we just made reference to in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 22. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verse 22. You remember in the scripture that we read, we saw that God, using through the Apostle Paul, makes this reference in verse 20. Brethren, be not children in understanding, in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men, in the law it is written." You see that quotation in verse 21? That is a quotation from Isaiah chapter 28. And if we're going to understand what verse 22 is all about, We must go back to Isaiah 28. This is the mistake that many in the Pentecostal charismatic movement make. They take scripture and they ignore the context in which it is given. If we will take the time to see what it says here, with men of other languages, other lips, will I speak unto this people? Who are the this people? First question. Yet for all of this they will not hear me, saith the Lord. Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." Well, who was it that wasn't believing? Well, let's go back to Isaiah chapter 28. So let's take our Scriptures and we'll go back to that Scripture which the Apostle Paul had on his mind. And we're going to see that Isaiah 28 is virtually identical to what happened in the Tower of Babel. In the Tower of Babel, we have God giving a message, the people refusing to listen, God causing tongues as a sign of judgment. Let's take a look at that. Isaiah chapter 28. Number one, notice how God has a message for His people. Look at the first part of verse 12 of Isaiah 28. To whom he said, this is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest. And this is the refreshing. God had a message for his people. He had a message for the people of Judah. You know what that message was? I want you to experience rest and I want you to experience refreshment because of my covenants that I have given unto you, my people. He said the same thing in Matthew 11, Come unto Me, all ye that are weak and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. God had a message for His people here, these people of Judah. He did not want to send them into a captivity of 70 years in Babylon. His desire, His message was, Respond to My Word. Obey My commands. Follow My ordinances and My statutes and My precepts. I want rest and refreshment for you. But look at the second part of verse 12. Yet they would not hear. You know, the Lord just tells them through the prophet Isaiah, verse 9, look, I wanted to give you knowledge. I want to help you to understand doctrine. I want you to be weaned from the milk. I want you to be drawn from the mother's breast so that you can enjoy T-bone steak and food that's nourishing and growing up. Sounds like 1 Corinthians. Sounds like the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 6 and chapter 5. 1 Corinthians 3. Look at verse 10. The prophets, Isaiah is saying, Israel, I tried to give you God's message as simple as I knew how, precept upon precept. I wanted to give you God's message line upon line, here a little and there a little. And I tried to give you the Word of God, and you wouldn't listen. And that's the second point, you see. The people refuse to listen. So, what are the results? Just like in the Tower of Babel, God causes tongues to be heard as a judgment. And what are those tongues? It says in verse 11 of Isaiah 28, with stammering lips and another tongue will I speak unto this people. And those people heard the Assyrian language. They heard a foreign language. They were carried captive and they heard a language that they did not understand. Why? Because they were in captivity. Sometimes reminds me of what would happen in America if God ever said, you don't want to listen to my word? I'm going to rip the Bible from your hands. and I'm gonna send you captive into a country where they will not permit you to have it any longer." How tragic a judgment that would be. And it can very well happen in America today. The Bible that we so casually neglect could be taken away. The sad part about it is a lot of professing Christians wouldn't know the difference because they don't read it anyway. We have Christians arguing versions and Many are not even reading the Bible in any version, and that's perversion and aversion to God. That's sad. But we have the situation here where tongues are given as a judgment, and they're in a foreign country now, and they hang up their harps in the willows. Psalm 137. The Babylonians are mocking them, saying, sing us a song! Sing us a song! And they say, we don't have a song. They lost their song. They were brought in judgment. Why? Because God had a message. They refused to listen. And God utilized tongues. And every time they were in exile and they heard foreign languages, they were reminded, this is a judgment that God has sent to us. Look at verse 11. Stammering lips, another tongue will he speak unto this people. What took place? Clearly, just like in the Tower of Babel, dispersion followed. It was a judgment. Dispersion followed. They were scattered abroad. Verse 13 says, But the word of the Lord was unto them, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. They refused to listen and they were taken. The word taken here is to be emphasized in verse 13. Now, having seen this pattern, the Tower of Babel, and then also with the children of Judah, God has a message. The people refuse to listen. God sends tongues as a judgment. Dispersion follows. We've seen two examples of it. Now let's apply it to the New Testament and see if that same litmus test is found with tongues in the New Testament, especially as they occurred on the day of Pentecost. Let's go to the New Testament now. Did God have a message for His people? Absolutely. You know what that message was? I quoted it earlier, so let's look at it on the page. Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 11 and verse 28. Notice the message that the Lord has for His people. As the Messiah, as the promised Messiah of the Old Covenant, He comes offering His Kingdom And He says, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. The Lord is inviting them to come. You look at the book of Luke chapter 4 and verse 18. At the beginning of Christ's ministry, He sets forth His mission, His purpose as the Anointed One. He comes to His hometown, Nazareth, and He goes to the synagogue, the place of instruction, and they deliver unto Jesus a great privilege, and that is to read the Torah and the Old Testament. And here he comes and he quotes from the book of Isaiah, the Old Covenant, and he says in verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. When he uses the term anointed, he's identifying himself as the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah. He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. This is his message now. God has a message for his people. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book. And it would have been a scroll that he would have given out. And he gave it again to the minister. And he sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened unto him. And notice what it says in verse 21. He began to say unto them, this day, this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears. I am the Messiah, the long-anticipated, proclaimed Messiah of the Old Testament. That was God's message for His people. But we're going to notice something. We're going to notice that He was not received. He came unto His own. and His own received Him not." In Matthew chapter 23 and verse 37, notice what the Lord says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, Isaiah being one of them, certainly, and stonest them which are sent unto thee. Then he uses a beautiful word picture. How often I would have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings. And let's say together the remaining part of verse 37. And ye would not. Here the people refused to listen. I'm not going to read further because I have a reason for holding off on the last two verses here. The people refused to listen. So then what happens? God causes tongues to be heard on the day of Pentecost. In the presence of unbelieving Israel, which would provoke her to jealousy, And it would cause Israel to realize what the Lord had already been teaching in parabolic form in His earthly ministry. That God had prepared a banquet for His chosen people. They would not come. Therefore, we're going to go into the highways and the byways and proclaim the invitation unto the Gentiles. And tongues And the languages was a sign of judgment to those that believe not. 1 Corinthians 14, 22. It was a sign of a new dispensation that the Lord was initiating. No longer was it, go only to the house of Israel, Matthew chapter 10. But now it was, go into all the world. And the tongues was God's way of showing Israel that my gospel is going to go out unto every nation, every tribe, every group, every ethnic group. And that is the reason for the urgency of a missions emphasis at Central Florida Bible Church, because God would have every tribe, every people to hear the Word of God. And yes, Out of Israel's disobedience and rebellion, we have had the opportunity and been grafted in, fulfilling the Abrahamic promise that in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The Lord can change a curse and bring it into a blessing. That's a lesson for our lives, certainly. And we can see how God causes tongues as a sign of judgment. dispersion. You're in Matthew 23. Let's read the rest of the story as it's given to us in verse 38 and 39. Look what it says. Behold, he's already said, I want to gather you like a hen does her chickens, but you would not. What's the result? Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." And that will be at the end of the great tribulation period when Israel has had to pass under the rod of God in judgment because of it. Well, let me answer a few related questions. Many people have. Well, Pastor John, if tongues were a sign of judgment upon the nation of Israel, then there have to be dispensational limitations to the duration of tongues, because the judgment upon Israel already took place. And therefore, how long were tongues to last? Well, we must go and answer the question by answering this question first. What was the purpose of tongues? What does first Corinthians 1422 say for the purpose of tongues? Tongues are a sign. A sign is something that doesn't take place very often or else it wouldn't be a sign. A sign of what? Of Israel's unbelief. and he tied it in to the nation of Israel in Isaiah 28 when he quoted it in 1 Corinthians 14, so therefore tongues needed to have ceased when their purpose ceased. When truly did the destruction and the dispersion of Israel take place? Well, in 70 AD, the Romans under General Titus destroyed the Jewish nation and its temple. Therefore, it must be concluded that tongues as a sign gift must have ceased on or before 70 A.D. You know, the last reference to tongues in the book of First Corinthians occurred 55 A.D., and there's no evidence historically that the genuine gift of tongues ever occurred. in 70 AD. Why? Because they had served their purpose. Tongues ceased even as God had predicted through the Apostle Paul. He also shifted, interestingly enough, from Hebrew to Greek as the language through which he would give his word. Now next week we're going to be looking at this question. Number one, Can unsaved people speak in tongues? And if unsaved people can speak in tongues, how are we to interpret that? Secondly, if Christians that know the Lord speak in tongues, how can we interpret why they speak in tongues? If Holy Spirit caused tongues have ceased, What are the resulting conclusions that we can come to in understanding why it's taking place? When we get to it, dear people, we're going to be talking about this issue. You say that tongues cease, Pastor John. Well, there were some religious groups that continued to speak in tongues. My question to you is, though, who were they? Who is speaking in tongues today? even of the false religionists today. We're going to be looking at some of those things before we leave this particular issue. The wonderful part about it is that God has given to us our tongue to be a blessing to people. If God has given you the ability to speak English, he wants you to use your English language to reach people for the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, we do have Spanish tracks and we do and have the ability, thank God, to go to the Internet. I know that many of you have been to seminars and many of you have been to doctor's offices and you've availed yourself, because you've told me, of access of the Ford Porter track. being translated in over 40 different languages. Isn't that wonderful? You can run that off and you can give it to someone in a foreign language and you may not even speak that language and you have the ability to give that to you. God has given us so many tools. I thank the Lord that we have missionaries that are willing to go to language school. Why? Because they love lost souls so much. that they're willing, many of them having PhDs and THMs and doctoral degrees, and they're willing to go back, as it were, to third grade level, learn the language, and convey it unto the people. And thank the Lord for that. But you know, that's proof that we don't have the gift of tongues today. You know that? Because you know, if the gift of tongues was available today, you wouldn't have people going to language school. It would be something that would be given and providentially provided. But no, we have people that are willing to sacrifice and study. And I thank the Lord for people that have the gift of learning languages. Not only the biblical languages, but other languages. And some of you that have grown up in multi-ethnic homes and backgrounds, that is a wonderful opportunity and gift that God has given to you to share the gospel. So let me give a word of advice. We have a few prospective and present high school students in our midst. Learn that foreign language. Listen to me. Learn it, not just to pass a test. Tell yourself this, someday I'm going to learn this language well enough to tell somebody about Jesus in this language. Somebody that needs to hear the Gospel message. And you know, brethren, someday you may even be that missionary to go across a cultural barrier and tell people about Jesus. You know, I think of that hymn, Brother Ken, Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing our great Redeemer's praise. Someday when we get to heaven, we're all going to be speaking that same language again and thank the Lord. But we'll be praising the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your purposes. We thank You, Lord, that You do answer questions for us if we will search the Scriptures and diligently understand what you have to say unto us. Lord, may we not be as children, but may we be as men, mature men and women, rightly dividing the word of truth, but, Lord, also loving those enough, Lord, to show them the grace of God. and to instruct them. Lord, we have not delivered this message with any malice or anger or hatred towards brethren that may be of that charismatic Pentecostal persuasion. But Lord, may we, as your people, have the biblical answer to share and help them to understand and rightly divide the word of truth. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.