AN APPEAL TO PENTECOSTALISTS
By A. G. TILNEY, B.A.
First
of all let me say that we do not depreciate you dear good People. You are at times described as the cream of Christians, and we are prepared to agree,
though preferring, instead, the Scriptural epithet of very
elect (Matt. 24: 24), whom Satan is
after deceiving. Poor dull Cbristians
who are already listless, if not lifeless, the devil can afford to neglect. But as an angel of
light he aims at the orthodox, keen and devoted; and you, as we, need
the whole armour of God, with the piercing, discerning Sword. What we emphasise is that in this matter of
Tongues we are not assured and satisfied that you are not deceived, and assured
that you are not we can never really be so
long as the Divinely appointed tests are not applied and passed.
As
to your Tongues, there seems to he a contradiction; for while on the one hand
they are emphasised and insisted upon as the test and touchstone of our having
received the Holy Spirit, they are, on the other hand, pushed or put into the
background as something less secret and esoteric than questionable. Apostolic speaking in Tongues was the means of
converting multitudes of unsaved foreigners (for which outsiders Tongues were
intended, 1 Cor. 14: 22), and, negatively,
the 3,000 converts were not made to talk in Tongues; but these tests you
Pentecostalists have simply inverted. For
Tongues are useless to your missionaries, yet you encourage them in your
proselytes. Tongues (though not, if true,
to be forbidden) are the least and lowest of the miraculous Gifts - 1/20 of 1%
of words with the understanding, says the inspired Apostle; and, especially if
no interpreter be present, the easiest to counterfeit and be deceived by
Satan
sends out ministers of righteousness - not
unrighteousness, but righteousness, we are told. They can talk about God, quote Scripture,
recommend the Lords servants and the way of salvation - as thev must be able
to, if they are to deceive - take in and be taken in by the very elect, the
cream of Christians. Blasphemy would not
do, obscenity still less. They must be
orthodox, earnest, zealous, able to cast out demons, to heal, to inspire, to
prophesy in Christs name, to do many wonderful works. They disarm and attract rather than alarm and
repel. Who then can tell them, detect
them, expose them? How unmask those who
wear no mask? How analyse their poisoned
sweets, how fight their dope? How probe
the unorthodoxy of the apparently quite orthodox? It just cannot be done, the disguise is too
complete; so the unsuspecting are taken unawares, while the convinced and
satisfied - the overcome - will heed no warning.
The
God who has given us the tests and commanded their application will surely be more affronted if we refuse
than if we use them. It is neither
presumption nor blasphemy to use Gods own recommended safeguard, to make
honest and reverent inquiry. Rank disobedience and wilful pride it is to
refuse to test as God ordains. Otherwise
you dear good people have an unprotected and vulnerable heel of Achilles. For you have steadily and studiedly failed and
refused in this one vital thing. You
have rejected a counsel of God against yourselves. This test alone is the key,
proof and guarantee.
Prayer
to-day is quite inadequate, we have no oracle to give reply; hence asking God
is not His present way; nor is inventing our own questions and testings. By Johns day many deceivers and false
prophets had gone Out into the world, and the result was uncertainty, confusion
with to-day - a clear and clamant call for these critical tests (put not to
the medium but to the speaking spirit):- Is Jesus
Christ come (and coming) in the flesh? Silence,
here, is denial. And on these points all untested spirits
are allowed to be silent and therefore denying. Every spirit that
confesseth NOT that Jesus Christ is
come (1 John 4: 3) - and coming (2 John 7) -
in the flesh is NOT OF GOD. Believe not every spirit. Have you tested your
spirit, my brother, my sister? Have you given it (or him) the chance of
the positive confirmatory reply? (1 John 4: 2).
God gladly responds to His own gracious
passwords, His friendly shibboleths; for these
are the incarnation and bodily resurrection and return of the Lord Jesus
Christ, His Son, our Saviour: passwords hateful however, and impossible, to the
enemy. You believe these, of course ;
but does your spirit?
Even
in 1 Cor. 12: 1-4 (where it concerns less spiritual gifts than inspired
people) there are tests not of the man, but of the spirit speaking through him
under inspiration from above or from below. Of course, a good Christian (like yourself)
would call Jesus Lord, but, a deceitful spirit speaking through him (and only a
deceiving spirit could get into him, with its forged papers and false
passports, so to speak), a deceiving spirit would refuse - and make his medium
refuse - to reply when so addressed, refusing to call Jesus Lord, freezing into
sullen silence.
Let
your spirit confess Jesus as God manifest in
the flesh in His own appointed way, and I am for you, and with you. Will you? Dare you? Dare you not? TRY THE SPIRITS,
WHETHER THEY ARE OF GOD.
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