Where is Your Faith?

Just a few words today about how to gauge where someone is really at with their faith in Christ and his Gospel. You can get some people to engage you on a lot of things from the Bible, and occasionally you will even run across someone who shows that they have done some serious studying and have come to some accurate conclusions about a lot of things in the scriptures. But if you really want to see where someone is at, just ask them about what they think about two issues; speaking in tongues being one of them, and the other being the sin issue. In other words, does everyone speak in tongues when they are born again? Again, in other words, can you be born again apart from or before being baptized with the holy Ghost with the accompanying sign of speaking in tongues? And regarding sin, can we truly and literally be delivered and free from sin altogether? In other words, can we attain unto and keep true holiness, meaning being without sin on the inside of us? Let me tell you my friend, that is where the rubber meets the road, as far as someone’s faith in Christ, and in the Gospel he died and rose to establish. And here is the reason: First of all, if you believe that something other than the baptism of the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues is the new birth, then OF COURSE you will not believe that you can truly be free from sin on the inside. Reason being, there simply is NO OTHER EXPERIENCE that can accomplish that spiritual reality! The apostle Paul clearly stated that it is the baptism of the Spirit that puts anyone INTO Christ: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body [of Christ], whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (I Cor. 12:13). The same apostle, describing the transforming experience of the new birth, told us plainly; “Therefore if any man be IN CHRIST, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Cor. 5:17).

For those who are IN CHRIST it is the sinful nature that passes away, and the divine nature that takes over (Col. 3:5-14). And for those who continue to follow after the Spirit, “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” is where the Spirit takes them (Rom. 8:1-4,13,14; II Cor. 7:1; Gal. 5:16; Heb. 12:14). As the referenced Hebrews 12:14 says, “Without which [holiness] NO MAN shall see the Lord.” That sounds a whole lot like Romans 8:9, which says, “Now if any man have NOT the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The fact of the matter is, anyone who takes sin to the grave with them, is NOT going to be saved, but rather will descend into the fiery torment of hell, “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). This reality is punctuated by the passage that makes clear that those who are in the “first resurrection,” or the “resurrection of life,” are both “blessed and holy” (Rev. 20:6). The scriptural fact about receiving and having the holy Ghost is that there is no such thing as receiving the Spirit without speaking in tongues, or having “stammering lips” (Isa. 28:11,12). The apostles and early believers all knew perfectly well that speaking in tongues was the initial sign of receiving the Spirit of God. Not only did all of the approximate 120 believers at Pentecost speak in tongues, but the scripture plainly shows that Peter and his Jewish brethren KNEW that the Roman centurion Cornelius and his Gentile family received the holy Ghost WHEN they heard them “speak with tongues and magnify God” (Acts 10:44-46). When Philip preached Jesus to the Samaritans in Acts chapter 8, and these people experienced many miraculous things through faith in Christ, it was still known to Philip and the apostles in Jerusalem who heard about it that these people had not yet received the Spirit (Acts 8:5-16).

So even though these people had experienced miracle healing, deliverance, and joy; somehow the established believers and elders KNEW that they had not received the holy Ghost. The apostles would have had a serious persecution on their hands from today’s Christians,’ just on that one point alone. I mean, who did they think they were, telling these humble, honest souls that they were not yet born again after they had experienced all of these miraculous things by faith in Jesus Christ? They knew the sign of the new birth my friend, the one that they had seen manifested with every soul that had received the Spirit from Pentecost to that moment, and beyond for that matter. After Peter and John prayed for the Samaritans the scripture says that “they received the Holy Ghost” (Acts 5:17). And guess what, it does NOT say that they spoke in tongues. But it DOES say that Simon the sorcerer, who had been greatly intrigued by the miracles that were wrought by Philip, “offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost” (Acts 8:18,19). Funny, he hadn’t offered Philip money to acquire any of the notable miracles that had already been wrought by him. But when Peter and John prayed for these people he saw and heard something happen to these people beyond what he had already seen, and that something was the same thing that let the apostles and Philip know that the Samaritans had NOT received the Spirit BEFORE this sign had manifested. The fact that Luke felt no need to say, “and they spoke in tongues,” is proof in itself that there was no particular NEED to say it; because everyone ALREADY KNEW that sign is present with every new birth. If someone’s “eyes are in [their] head,” they will be able to acknowledge and heed these two invaluable scriptural truths when they are expounded to them in this manner; because these two truths are inseparably linked, and as we have seen, holiness is not possible without them (Eccl. 2:14; Prov. 1:5). Amen.