Day: August 19, 2026

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalm 119:9 KJV).

If our physical posterity could augment its spiritual dexterity, exactly what would that entail?

Precious few realize that “glossolalia” (speaking in tongues) is not confined to Pentecostal and charismatic groups of Christendom. “Ecstatic utterances” have been documented in world religions for millennia, including Islam, Buddhism, and Shamanism. Ancient Israel knew of such “peeping and muttering” in devil (!) worship (!) in Isaiah 8:19,20; God directed them to use the Law of Moses (as in Deuteronomy 13:1-18) to gauge the trustworthiness or deceitfulness of these “strange sounds.”

Consequently, we cannot automatically assume glossolalia is of the Holy Spirit; in contrast, Pentecostals and Charismatics are not so discerning. In their terminology, “speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of baptism with the Holy Ghost.” This is an advertisement of Bible ignorance. Heathen priests and devotees of idols in Corinth spoke “the languages of the gods” during their worship services. Such was the culture, the evil world system, out of which God had called the Corinthian believers when He sent Paul to preach to them in Acts chapter 18. Never abandoning their former conversation, they abused and counterfeited the Holy Spirit’s gift of speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians chapter 14!

Mysterious, supernatural, ecstatic utterances, or guttural sounds, are not necessarily the God of the Bible or Christianity. Hence, in 1 Corinthians chapters 12–14, the tongue must always be interpreted (so the content can be analyzed). Left untranslated, it must be rejected as false, for it cannot be reduced to sound doctrine. Chanting “Lapafa shabala doolaba” gives the speaker an adrenaline rush, a warm or fuzzy feeling, but it creates perplexity in the minds of listeners and makes them recoil in shock, embarrassment, or revulsion. There is no building up of souls—except that of the speaker who “feels special” because he or she delighted in the publicity received while bragging, “I have a spiritual experience you do not!” Remember, the Holy Spirit wrote in the context of the misuse of spiritual gifts: “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Without sound doctrine, spiritual disorder and spiritual division and spiritual destruction are guaranteed….