{"id":6310,"date":"2015-11-19T23:14:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T23:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=6310"},"modified":"2015-11-19T23:14:50","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T23:14:50","slug":"millions-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/6310\/millions-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Millions Wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am at your feet further counseling. <\/span><\/p>\n

AUGUSTINE BAAFUOR AFRIFA<\/span><\/p>\n

==================<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Sir:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for writing.\u00a0 Please keep in touch with your thoughts and feelings.\u00a0 I will answer your concerns as plainly as I know how.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You obviously understand what I am teaching; namely, the\u00a0baptism Jesus\u00a0died for us to have is the baptism that puts us into the body of Christ (1Cor.\u00a012:13<\/span>).\u00a0 It is obviously also that your heart is\u00a0telling 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.\u00a0 It is a mistake to judge truth based on the number of people who do not believe it.\u00a0 Didn’t Jesus say that only a few would ever find the right way?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0anyone else still alive on this earth.\u00a0 Salvation is the reward that obedient children of God receive at\u00a0the end<\/u>\u00a0of their earthly lives; it is not the beginning (1Pet. 1:9).\u00a0 That is\u00a0what Jesus said, more than once, “He who endures to\u00a0the end<\/u>, the same shall be saved.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Concerning your use of the word “saved”: \u00a0I think you mean to ask me if I am teaching that all those millions of Christians you named are not yet\u00a0born again.<\/u>\u00a0\u00a0You can answer that for yourself by answering this: \u00a0Has Jesus baptized all those millions of Christians with the holy Ghost?\u00a0 Now, if the Spirit has not spoken through them, the answer to that question has to be no because Jesus told Nicodemus that\u00a0the Spirit makes a sound through every person who is born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:7\u20138).\u00a0 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.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, you said in your letter that speaking in tongues is a gift.\u00a0 I know that most Christians are taught that, but it is not true.\u00a0 The\u00a0gift<\/u>\u00a0is “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.\u00a0 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.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

All those millions of Christians you\u00a0mentioned will all tell you that I am wrong.\u00a0 And I tell you that they are all wrong.\u00a0 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.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for writing, Augustine.\u00a0 Please stay in touch and feel free to let us know what you hear from the Lord.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Your servant,<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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?\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}