Dr. Stanley is Wrong about Tongues

by Frederick Hoehn, copyright 2012.

Dr. Charles Stanley is pastor of a church in one of our major cities.  He's on TV and he's on radio.  I believe he's quite sincere, and a person of integrity, but on the subject of tongues, he's wrong.

Let me interject a warning here--there is an unforgivable sin, and that is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, who is also called the Holy Spirit, and, the Comforter.  I hope you don't ever steal, but if you did, you can ask for and receive God's forgiveness.  And so for lying.  But if you intentionally blaspheme the Holy Ghost, that is the unforgivable sin, says Jesus in the New Testament.  (Mark 3:29)  Don't ever make fun of the Holy Ghost.

The tongues I'm referring to are the languages people speak after they, as Christians, receive the Baptism with the Holy Ghost.  The evidence that a person has received the Baptism with the Holy Ghost is that they have spoken in unknown tongues, that is, they have spoken in a language that they have never learned.

The baptizer with the Holy Ghost is Jesus, who said, "Ask, and it shall be given you.  Seek, and you'll find.  Knock, and it shall be opened to you."  (Matt. 7:7)  Who also said, "When you pray, believe that you receive the things you ask for, and you shall have them." (Mark 11:24)

How can a person speak in a language that they've never learned?  This can be done because, after receiving the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost provides strange sounding words for the person to speak that the speaker doesn't understand.  He is praying to God in that unknown tongue, and God understands all languages. 

After that Christian receives the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, he can then pray any time, anywhere, in the unknown tongues, and he should continue to do so.  The Apostle Paul says: "I thank my God I pray in tongues more than you all.” (1 Cor. 14:18)  If Paul needed to pray in tongues, so do we.  

Christians without the Baptism with the Holy Ghost with the speaking in unknown tongues are weaker Christians. (Acts 1:8)

Dr. Stanley, however, believes that the Baptism with the Holy Ghost has been done away with, and is not for today.  But Jesus is the baptizer with the Holy Ghost, and Jesus is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. (Heb. 13:8)  So then, if Jesus was the baptizer with the Holy Ghost (according to John the baptist, in Mattew, Mark, Luke, and John), and if he never changes (Heb. 13:8), then Jesus still is the baptizer with the Holy Ghost, regardless of Stanley's position on the subject.

If the Baptism with the Holy Ghost has been done away with, how was I able to get it half a century ago when I was a teenager?  And how have I been able to pray in a language I don't understand every day since then?  No, the Baptism with the Holy Ghost hasn't been done away with.

The Lord rebuke you, Charles Stanley, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose I am, and whom I serve.