Prayer: Our Father, we gather as your children, we love you, we thank you for letting us know Christ, for opening our eyes to His beauty, for revealing to us our wickedness.. we are very grateful people that you have been so kind, so generous to us.. we pray our Father that as we think together for these moments, that you would be our help.. we love you, we seek to follow you.. we certainly want to be obedient to the Scriptures.. and in no way grieve the Spirit of God, or take lightly His word.. so give us wisdom we pray.. we commend our way to you.. we love you.. in Jesus' name, amen. all of these groups, like in ours, there is great variety.. you can't tell a lot by the shingle that's hanging out in front of a church.. as they apply their methodology.. because application of theory is filtered through the grid of the pastor.. and whatever the pastor's personality is.... eventually, your church will look like you, your kids will look like you, your family will look like you.. why.. so churches look like their pastor.. used to for years attend Believer's Chapel.. I came to the conclusion that Believer's Chapel is a fine preaching place, but not a church.. it's a preaching time.. and it looks just like my friend S. Lewis Johnson.. he comes in, stands behind the pulpit, walks out when it's over, that's it.. he's a teacher.. I go to the Wednesday night service some times, because our church doesn't have any.. and he walks in at about 25 after 7, walks up to the lecturn, speaks until 8:30.. Gospel invitation, and walks out the side door.. in between is the best teaching I know in the city.... not a church.. that church looks likes Lewis... if you want to go into say a Methodist church, stay here a couple of years, and finish your degree at your Asbury.. don't tell them except where you got your degree.. you gotta figure out how you want to serve your Lord, and then try to put yourself in the best place of hitting that goal with the least difficulties in its accomplishment.... if I were to go into foreign missions, I'd go SBC... they got the better financial package.. if God calls me to stay in an un-air-conditioned hotel down on Industrial Boulevard, I'm going to go do it.. be obedient.. but if I had the option between that and the Hilton, or the Marriott, I'll stay at Marriott.. why be stupid.. if God calls me, I'm going to do it.. I'm not looking for the best, I'm just looking for the best deal within the will of God... but if I were going out as a foreign missionary, I'd probably go here a couple years, get my Greek and Hebrew.. go to Southwestern, get my degree.. while I'm here, I'd go to a Southern Baptist church, because once I get there.... but I've got the best health insurance.. I can come home when I need to.. I don't have to do deputation.. and I got a big retirement package.. when I throw my life away, I don't have to (needlessly suffer).... and I don't mind throwing my life away, but, you know, you still got to eat after you retire.. and I gotta pay for some of my kids.. it's a marvelous package.. and I'm not saying go do it.. I'm just saying, you know, life is a supermarket, buy wisely.. don't suffer needlessly, that's stupidity.. suffer wisely... there are disadvantages to the SBC, I know.. but there are advantages... I've been in some Nazarene churches that could hang out a sign as a Bible church.. some should be Assembly of God.. some should be Foursquare Gospel.. ..tongue speaking attributed to a known language".. a language.. I think we haven't defined what a language is.. a language can be unknown.. remember, C.S. Lewis made a language.. ever read his stories.. he was such a brilliant literary man, he made up one... everyone could hear it, but no one could understand it.. and it's not spoken by anybody.. now that raises an interesting question.. is that a language?.. and my answer is, yes.. because a language is that which conforms to certain linguistic characteristics.. and that's what makes it a language.. it's not that it's spoken by somebody.. so far so good?.. so the issue of it being a known language, to me, is not the question.. to me, the question is does it conform to a recognize rubrics of what language is, even if it's spoken by no one.... there's no emperical proof.. I remember talking with Dr. Walvoord one day, I said, Dr. Walvoord, how can you say tongues have ceased.... I thought he was going to give me a whole bunch of verses, but he didn't.. he said, John, I don't believe they're here for a very simple reason, I see no evidence, no emperical hard core evidence.. and he said, if they come up with some, great.. and I thought that was interesting.. because I know of some missionaries, non-Charismatic, who have been given the gift of speaking in a language they don't know.... so language, then, is not something simply momentary.. but it conforms to the science of what language is, which I really don't know what it is.... I thought it was funny looking at John.. I expected him to be a lawyer.. breathing fire upon my soul for such a stupid question.. but he didn't.. when you get these guys alone, sitting on a porch.. out of the light, they talk like you do.. it's amazing.. every time it comes down to emperical evidence.... I doubt that that's Chinese.. to me, it's an inibriated amputated chicken, running across some page.. leaving jots and tittles.. it doesn't have to be spoken, but it needs to conform to the nature of language.. they've retreated their position to something safer.. a prayer language.. they can sing it in the shower... but to make it a criteria of something becomes (too much).. I don't mind what people do, generally speaking, but what they make of it that causes skepticism.. and I find it intriguing in Christianity that you'll have an experience that's wonderful.. that you'll make it a test for other people.. to make it a rule or a test is what I have trouble with.. ..I like the old Pentecostal song.. I was raised Presbyterian, saved Baptist.. but in my high school years, I was in Youth for Christ, which was Assemblies of God.. so we have these hymn sings, I guess they don't do it any more.. but we would get together, on Saturday night, it started Saturday early, 2 or 3 in the morning.. just sing.. and those were great events for me.. I learned that they were Assembly of God guys.. it's amazing... what did Rueben Archer Torrey.. probably his assessment of Pentecostalism and the assessment of Harry Ironside.. probably hurt us deeply.. looking back upon it.. Rueben Archer Torrey... .. now remember what they're facing, Amy Semples McPherson.. and this is a new thing on the block.. rising feminism in the churches... he(?) called Pentecostalism the last vomit of Satan.. the damage that did to us.. the hostility.. and we're still living in that.. I would say that even in its extreme, that's an overstatement.. certainly not the last one *ha ha*.. and if you read Ironside... just devastating.. and yet I think there are lots of men and women out of the Methodist heritage.... the tragedy is.. is that we have allowed... remember, what a Pentecostal will say when it comes to sign gifts.. you guys got your heads stuck in an enlightened world, where miracles really don't exist.. what you have really done is you've bought David Hume's analogy.. we haven't done it theoretically, but practically we have.. in which David Hume says, when we hear a miracle happen, it's more reasonable to believe that somebody lied about it happening than that it happened.. and we basically bought that.. we have this great.. fear.. we're control people, we have a great fear of things out of control.. so we have to control them.. we'll give lip service to miracles, but they've got to be controlled, for us.. we're just afraid... always answer something by questioning the assumption.. in the dark ages, there were no adversaries to the gospel.... dark ages? who said it was dark.. someone who thought the enlightenment was better.. re: pentecostals and evangelicals: what I'm trying to say is.. we're dealing with a family issue.... it is true that we have had a tendency, by superior insight.. to hurt people.. we do that too.. I can remember when dispensationalism was in its glory.. we were (calling) people stupid who didn't have our insight.. so, arrogance is not endemic to a theological position, it's endemic to arrogance.. my problem with John MacArthur is.. generally.. it's the angryness with which he says them.. and the implications that he draws, that those holding those positions don't draw.. you got to be fair.. don't let people speak for you... generalized comments.. don't embrace anything from a distance.. sit down with them.. now I found something.. the closer I get to people, the more I like them.. and the further I am from them, the easier it is to shove them... I don't agree with them.. I am not Charismatic.. I have ideological, fundamental traditional differences.. I come at it from a Reformed point of view.. but they're my brothers and my sisters, generally speaking.. whether we like it or not, it has been a very solid movement.. holding up for the Bible.. and sacrifice.. we can appreciate that.... we who are Americans.. we don't like something.. if somebody doesn't agree with us, then we get all bent out of shape and condemn it.. that's childish.. just disagree with them.. some people you take wide turns from.. re: MacArthur: the analysis that I am getting from men who have read him from other points of view.. they are telling me that it's not all that accurate... it's not that are the facts true, part of it is, are the facts to be weighed to the degree that they are weighed.. ..Walt Kaiser did to me.. when he wanted me to come to Trinity.. took me into his office with my dear wife and said the LORD told me that you should come to Trinity... interesting... I said, Walt, I can't come here, if I do, I'm going to forfeit my mind.. because apparently the LORD talks to you about me, and not to me about myself.. how much more is he going tell you about me.. once I come.... now does Walt Kaiser really believe that the LORD spoke to him.. ...in public meetings we all get carried away.. and, Doyle doesn't admit that some of those things John has since retracted.. they're not admitting they're using five year old data.. to write the book.. that's not fair.. it's true.. but it's not fair.. you got to be fair, we'd want to be treated fair.. ...I don't think John has much of a.. the quest for forgiveness in his soul.. some people, the real pure in faith.. don't lead me into error, because I know how hard it is to change my mind.. some people will start down a path, and their pride is.. as big as life.. they find it very very hard... Augustine is a remarkable man.. because at the end of his life, he wrote a whole book.. called his retractions.. he retracted the mistakes he made through his life.. but I don't find many evangelicals doing that... we just kick it under the carpet and whistle down the path... we leave a.. false impression of our success in ministry...