Nor was the ability to speak in tongues a necessary requirement for leaders and

teachers in the N.T., nor do we find one instance of any believer specially seeking this

gift. In I Tim. 3:, there is a list of "musts" for the office of a bishop or overseer, but

tongues are not mentioned. Some Pentecostalists link their conception of the baptism of

the Holy Spirit with sinless perfection, what they call "entire sanctification", and so one

error leads to another.

We are amazed that any true believer who loves the Word of God and bases his all

upon it, could ever accept what is so patently unscriptural and also false to experience. If

what these people say is really true then they have advanced far beyond the great

characters of the Bible and the great saints that followed.

A fine upright character as the prophet Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord in glory, and

we take it that his character was up to the standard of any modern believer, and the result

was to make him confess "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean

lips . . . . . for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts" (Isa. 6: 1-5). The

Apostle Paul declared that "in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth (present tense) no good

thing" (Rom. 7: 18). The Apostle John wrote "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive

ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (I John 1: 8). Pentecostalists who claim sinless

perfection have obviously advanced in experience beyond these outstanding children of

The trouble with these so-called sinless Pentecostalists is that, unlike Isaiah, they have

never really seen the Lord Jesus in the blaze of His glory and holiness (see I Tim. 6: 15,

16). Had they done so, they would have nothing but shame for what that searching light

would inevitably reveal. They can have little conception of the burning holiness of God.

Sinlessness and incorruption is put on at resurrection (I Cor. 15: 53, 54) and not before,

and it is self-deception to think otherwise. If tongues and holiness go together, then the

Corinthian church should have been the holiest, but in reality they were the most carnal

and immature (I Cor. 3: 1-3), which gives the lie to such Pentecostal pretensions.

One danger that results from the teaching that tongue speaking is an outward evidence

of a special baptism of the spirit, subsequent to salvation, and that believers are sadly

lacking without this, is the psychological and spiritual tensions which this teaching

creates. When a believer does not receive this "baptism", he tries a little harder to get it.

When, after several attempts he still does not receive it, he begins to feel frustrated and

depressed and many have become physically and mentally ill because they failed to

One hears too of such people being accused of some hidden sin or failure which

accounts for this, all of which is deplorable and unnecessary, and is in itself the sin of

judgment which we are warned against. Another danger is the emphasis this kind of

teaching gives to "feeling" and emotional experiences at the expense of faith. "We walk

by faith and not by sight", said the Apostle, but this doctrine leads to the opposite. One

can see very little difference between the unsaved doing things for "thrills" and the