Joh 6:44* No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 6:37* All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

Joh 6:65* And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

And as for you not grasping how God can do this

Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
Isa 55:9* For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

and most importantly do not lean towards your own understanding of how you think things should be.

Pr 3:5* Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

May you be guided and find peace on this subject.

One word APOSTOLIC GIFTS. The giving of/imparting of the Holy Spirit was an act the ONLY the Apostles, including the one born out of season Paul, could do. In acts 8 you will read of philip who could do all manner of miracles. He even baptised them. But when it came to the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Ghost, John and Peter were sent for. Simon the magician desired the Apostles gift of imparting the Holy Ghost. He did not desire Philips gifts.
So in summing up, unless you or any other Christian has personally had one of the twelve or paul lay hands on you then you have no chance of receiving any supernatural gift including speaking unlearned fluent spanish, german, chinese etc. Be honest with yourself, most if not all speak garble and not real unlearned earthly languages. This was certainly the case in my situation. So let the Scripture do the talking and not me and read below.

Acts 8 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.6* And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
7* For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed.8* And there was great joy in that city.
9* But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:10* To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
11 And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.12* But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.13* Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.14* ¶ Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John:15* Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost:16 (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.)17* Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.18* And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,19 Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.20* But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.21* Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
22* Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.23* For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

I have a question about pentecostalism. I currently attend a pentecostal church and I am involved in ministry and have been for the past 6 years.
The church I am in is part of a fellowship made up off 1800 churches in over a 100 nations around the world all under Pastor Wayman Mitchell.

We are very adament about world evangelism however I have one MAJOR problem with them. I wanted to find out whether this is true pentecostalism or not.

During our services eg. worship, our worship leader or Pastor will say , “lets praise God” and then start babbling in tongues over the microphone. During prayer time for the service before the the service starts, everyone shouts and prays in tongues. When the leaders pray for people to get healing or to get baptised in the Holy Spirit they start babbling in tongues.

In particular when they pray for people to get baptised in the Holy Spirit they say things like “God may only give you one word, but you need to speak it out by faith, its your heavenly language” then they lay hands and put their ear next to the person’s mouth and say “come on speak it out, don’t pray in english” and the pastor will start babling in tongues right next to the persons ear. Sometimes they call members of the congregation to all pray in tongues behind the people getting prayed for and specifically say “Come on church stand behind these folks and pray in the Holy Ghost”.

I approached my Pastor about this but as you would expect from such a large fellowship he didnt take kindly to what I had to say and brushed it of saying that speaking in tongues requires an act of faith like healing.

No where in the Bible do you find people getting prayed for in tongues. Paul even forbids speaking in tongues unless an interpeter is present. I believe you can speak in tongues but its for personal edification as Paul states in 1 Cor 14. Tongues should be banned from corporate meetings unless an interpreter is present.

I also feel people should be prayed for to receive the Holy Spirit and tongues should not even be mentioned. When God pours out his spirit the people will speak in tongues.

I also believe that Acts 2 is an example of Xenoglossy – praying in real languages that exist where people around you can understand and know that its a miracle and this is not a heavenly language.This does not happen in my church. All people do is babble and they go to the extent where a pastor preached likening the story of the 10 virgins where 5 had oil and 5 didnt have oil, he likend the virgins with oil ,oil being the baptism in the holy spirit with speaking in tongues with pentecostal christians.

The virgins who were not saved had no oil ( no baptism in the holy spirit with speaking in tongues) . Meaning every denomination that is not baptised in the holy spirit speaking in tongues is not saved.

SO I want to know is all this tongues business really pentecostalism or is this cult like characteristics in terms of doctrine?

I await a response from you.

Kind Regards
Nigel Naicker

I read your Statement of Faith and have one problem with it. You capitalize the “V” in virgin, hence, giving Mary a title. Mary has no title. She is not the “Virgin Mary”. She is just Mary, who was a virgin, and needed a Savior.

Catholics, for instance, always write “Virgin Mary”, as they are obligated by their false religion to give Mary a title.

But, I don’t expect to see born-again Christians giving Mary a title, as in, “Virgin Mary”. Unfortuantely, I have seen several websites of Christian ministries/churches, that erroneously use the false term, “Virgin Mary”.

Thank you.