Pastor John,
Your teachings on Holy Spirit Baptism and Tongues Speaking being received by believers of God as evidence of salvation and control of sins is very astounding.
Do I have to believe that millions of professing Christians, Catholics, Anglican, Methodists, Presbys, including their Priests, Bishops, etc who do not speaks tongues are not saved?
Pastor! I know you are very enlightened more than I can value because evidence of tongues speaking has been baffling my mind for quite a long period of time. Very often my understanding tells me that those who speak tongues are given by the Holy Spirit as He wishes, and even Holy spirit baptism generally is an evidence of spiritual fruits being demonstrated in a true believer, hence tongues speaking becomes an added gift to proof to the authenticity of God’s power over heaven and earth.
Pastor, I know you are thousands of miles far away from me, had it not been so i would have contacted you to baptize me to enable me obtain those gifts because I dearly love to evangelize for God for the rest of my life. Currently I am an Elder of one branch of our church and I am unable to tell whether I have the holy spirit baptism let alone tongues speaking as against your teachings.
I am at your feet further counseling.
AUGUSTINE BAAFUOR AFRIFA
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Dear Sir:
Thank you for writing. Please keep in touch with your thoughts and feelings. I will answer your concerns as plainly as I know how.
You obviously understand what I am teaching; namely, the baptism Jesus died for us to have is the baptism that puts us into the body of Christ (1Cor. 12:13). It is obviously also that your heart is telling you that what I am teaching is true, but your mind is unwilling to accept it, based on how many Christians around the world do not teach the same thing. It is a mistake to judge truth based on the number of people who do not believe it. Didn’t Jesus say that only a few would ever find the right way?
Secondly, my friend Augustine, not only is it true that “millions of professing Christians, Catholics, Anglican, Methodists, Presbys, including their Priests, Bishops, etc who do not speaks tongues are not saved”, but you aren’t saved either, and neither am I or anyone else still alive on this earth. Salvation is the reward that obedient children of God receive at the end of their earthly lives; it is not the beginning (1Pet. 1:9). That is what Jesus said, more than once, “He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved.”
Concerning your use of the word “saved”: I think you mean to ask me if I am teaching that all those millions of Christians you named are not yet born again. You can answer that for yourself by answering this: Has Jesus baptized all those millions of Christians with the holy Ghost? Now, if the Spirit has not spoken through them, the answer to that question has to be no because Jesus told Nicodemus that the Spirit makes a sound through every person who is born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:7–8). That mighty wind blew on the disciples on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, and they were born again that way, just as Jesus said to Nicodemus.
Lastly, you said in your letter that speaking in tongues is a gift. I know that most Christians are taught that, but it is not true. The gift is “diverse tongues” (1Cor. 12), which is an added dimension of speaking in tongues, just as the gift of faith is an added measure and dimension of having faith. Everyone with the gift of faith had faith before they received the gift of faith, and everyone with the gift of diverse tongues spoke in tongues before they received the gift of diverse tongues.
All those millions of Christians you mentioned will all tell you that I am wrong. And I tell you that they are all wrong. Faced with such a difference in teaching, a wise man will go to Jesus and ask him who is telling the truth, and I hope you will do that.
Thank you for writing, Augustine. Please stay in touch and feel free to let us know what you hear from the Lord.
Your servant,
Pastor John