The Promise is for You
Scripture: Acts 2:39Devotional Series: Why Tongues
Teaching: Why Tongues? pt. 1 (SUN_AM 2023-07-16) by Pastor Star R Scott
Young people, God wants to use you. “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (verse 17). That explains why some of these old guys take a nap every afternoon. And the “old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my hand maidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (verse 18), hallelujah. Well, one of the generic definitions of the word prophesy, is just a speaking forth. There’s going to become a greater boldness in our speaking forth the promises of God. Our speaking forth the testimony that Jesus is risen (amen?), of this great gift of redemption given to us. How many of you just since the Lord’s been speaking to us in the last three or four weeks, how many of you have been bolder to witness in this last period? And God’s going to use you in a greater way and you’re going to see new converts and you’re going to be responsible, then, for discipling them. They’re going to take up some of your time. You’re going to witness on the streets and you’re going to get their phone numbers and you’re going to call them back and see how they’re doing. They might not seem interested the second time, so you call them the third time and the fourth time, until they block you; amen? Because we’re to compel them to come. We’re to compel them to come, with great desperation.
The judgement of God is at hand upon this world, upon this nation. There are those yet to be plucked out of the fire; amen? There is that one of which we leave the ninety and nine, and find them where they are, in bondage, hurting, alone, and then we appear on the horizon and deliver them, like that ram caught in the thicket, and bring to them these words of eternal life. And so, we’ll go over a few of these verses and we see, then, that this fulfilling of the prophet of Joel on the day of Pentecost was accompanied clearly by speaking in other tongues. It was not just for the initial evidence on the day of Pentecost. This promise was not limited to those who were in Jerusalem that day, for verse 38 says, Peter again is speaking, and he says that this message of repentance comes to each and every one of you, that you are to “be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” and subsequent to your belief, subsequent to your regeneration, “ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise,”—this is that— “is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
And so, we see that this is a promise to the redeemed, to the regenerated, to this church that was birthed here on the day of Pentecost, to all members of the church, everyone who’s a member of the body of Christ, this “promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” And so, when you’re out ministering, and you find those people—and many are believers in the Lord Jesus—who tell you, “No, this isn’t for us today; it passed away.” Well, it doesn’t sound like it passed away from this verse; amen? As many as the Lord our God shall call, as many as have named the name of Jesus, as many as who have been regenerated. These cessationists, speaking from a place of ignorance, have been taught for generations; it’s taught in their seminaries, and we spoke last service as to why we think much of this teaching is taking place. Because they’ve not experienced it and rather than take the Word as it’s obviously revealed and the truths obviously spoken, they have applied their own experiential position as equal to Scripture. Very much the same thing that the Roman church does.
And now you have all these doctors of theology who have promoted this particular thought process and have strayed from the Scriptures. You cannot find a good Reform theologian who would have this much evidence on any other subject and not say that at the mouth of two or three witnesses that is a biblical truth and has been established. Why this prejudice? Because to admit that this is available to us today requires casting out devils, praying for the sick, raising the dead; amen? “And I’d rather not be under all that pressure. I’d rather not, in this particular hour, have to identify myself with all the criticisms that have been coming forth for generations. This is just ecstatic; this is just people that are bound by their emotions, and these are ignorant people, and this is gibberish,” and we’re going to speak toward these things here in just a moment and let the Word of God answer that.
The judgement of God is at hand upon this world, upon this nation. There are those yet to be plucked out of the fire; amen? There is that one of which we leave the ninety and nine, and find them where they are, in bondage, hurting, alone, and then we appear on the horizon and deliver them, like that ram caught in the thicket, and bring to them these words of eternal life. And so, we’ll go over a few of these verses and we see, then, that this fulfilling of the prophet of Joel on the day of Pentecost was accompanied clearly by speaking in other tongues. It was not just for the initial evidence on the day of Pentecost. This promise was not limited to those who were in Jerusalem that day, for verse 38 says, Peter again is speaking, and he says that this message of repentance comes to each and every one of you, that you are to “be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” and subsequent to your belief, subsequent to your regeneration, “ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise,”—this is that— “is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
And so, we see that this is a promise to the redeemed, to the regenerated, to this church that was birthed here on the day of Pentecost, to all members of the church, everyone who’s a member of the body of Christ, this “promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” And so, when you’re out ministering, and you find those people—and many are believers in the Lord Jesus—who tell you, “No, this isn’t for us today; it passed away.” Well, it doesn’t sound like it passed away from this verse; amen? As many as the Lord our God shall call, as many as have named the name of Jesus, as many as who have been regenerated. These cessationists, speaking from a place of ignorance, have been taught for generations; it’s taught in their seminaries, and we spoke last service as to why we think much of this teaching is taking place. Because they’ve not experienced it and rather than take the Word as it’s obviously revealed and the truths obviously spoken, they have applied their own experiential position as equal to Scripture. Very much the same thing that the Roman church does.
And now you have all these doctors of theology who have promoted this particular thought process and have strayed from the Scriptures. You cannot find a good Reform theologian who would have this much evidence on any other subject and not say that at the mouth of two or three witnesses that is a biblical truth and has been established. Why this prejudice? Because to admit that this is available to us today requires casting out devils, praying for the sick, raising the dead; amen? “And I’d rather not be under all that pressure. I’d rather not, in this particular hour, have to identify myself with all the criticisms that have been coming forth for generations. This is just ecstatic; this is just people that are bound by their emotions, and these are ignorant people, and this is gibberish,” and we’re going to speak toward these things here in just a moment and let the Word of God answer that.