Expert: Elder Greg Madden - 6/7/2006

Question
1. How could Pentecostalism be God's true church if it only started 100 years ago in Los Angeles? (106 years ago if you count Kansas) Had Christians been all wrong for 1900 years before that? 2. With all the tall tales Pentecostals have been telling for 100 years about divine healings and prophecies, why hasn't there been ONE shred of evidence for a single Pentecostal healing or fulfilled Pentecostal prophecy? 3. What do you think about the reams of scientific evidence that so-called "tongues" is just a self-induced psychosis, with no more relation to real language than that of a belch or fart? 4. How can you claim your gibberish has any relation to Biblical tongues, when the Bible is quite clear that tongues were an obviously_miraculous_language which enabled its recipients to speak to foreigners in their own languages? 5. Can you deny that Pentecostalism is really just the WWF of religion? 6. Do you think we should classify Pentecostalism as a heresy or just a maniacal movement of ignorant and stupid people?

Answer
Winston,
Thanks for your questions. Since they are rather lengthy I will try to answer each one, numerically, and as briefly as possible. If you need further clarification to one I will be answering, please feel free to write back.

1. Pentecostalism is simply a shorthand way of describing a move of God that He started around 2000 years ago when in Acts 2 He sent the Holy Ghost on the first Pentecost Sunday forty days after His ascension back to the right hand of the Father. The Lord worked through His church with signs, miracles, and supernatural gifts of the Spirit to confirm the Word being preached. Yet at the same time there was great persecution brought against the church, with many Christians dying as martyrs, giving their lives for their King. These persecutions ushered in a bleak period of time know as “The Dark Ages”. They were dark because the Gospel message of salvation and the manifestations of the Spirit were hidden for centuries by so-called religion. Since the days of the early apostles, there are recordings throughout history of men and women speaking in languages unknown to them. For centuries there had been testimonies of some of these same manifestations among isolated groups, such as the Huguenots in France and Irvingites in England.

2. One shred? Winston, I can give you anecdotal evidence all day long of miracles and fulfilled prophecies that I have experienced in my own life. But if by evidence you mean a video/audio recording, no I do not have that. Nor do I have physical evidence that Jesus existed. I have the Word of God that I have total and completely have faith in, and that is enough. Thus is the same with miracles.

3. Scientific evidence also says that evolution is a fact. Do you believe science when it says that?
1Tim. 6:20  “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:”

4. Biblical evidence of tongues that were not "to speak to foreigners in their own languages".
Mk. 16:17 "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues."
Acts 10:46 "For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter,
10:47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?"
Acts 19:6 "And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied."
1Cor. 13:1 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."
1Cor. 14:18 "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all"
1Cor. 14:39 "Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues."

5. Yes. The Pentecostal movement teaches the Full-Gospel. It does not exclude any of the Scriptures. We believe that Jesus is the “same yesterday, and to day, and forever” Heb.13:8

6. Neither. And by this last question Winston, you show that you are not looking for answers, but that there is an underlying maliciousness in you. Perhaps a past hurt or disappointment. Whatever the case, I pray the Lord Jesus would show Himself real in your life, and that you will find the real answers you are looking for in Him and His Word.
Please feel free to write again,

Elder Greg