What's the Real Purpose of Pentecost?

Because I was writing to a theme last month, I didn't write about Pentecost which some Christians celebrated on May fourteenth. I'm mentioning it now because it lines up with my next book's theme of who goes to heaven.

As you can read in Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit was given to all who believed, and still believe, in Christ. He spoke through the disciples in real languages which attendees of the feast could understand. It was a kind of reversal of the tower of Babel incident where people heard preaching in their native language.

Doctor Steve Wells, pastor of South Main Baptist church in Houston, Texas, made a point in his Pentecost Sunday sermon which I hadn't realized before. Though Jesus appeared to those "lost sheep of Israel," the third member of the Trinity came to dwell in all who would put their trust in Christ. We wandered from God but he came to us through the Holy Spirit.

Sadly, many Christians get hung up on the miracles of tongues of fire and speaking in tongues. They forget about the miracle of the Holy Spirit coming into them and believe that he is just there to make them jabber in a supposedly heavenly language.

The reason people hold to this misguided doctrine is because they misread what the Apostle Paul wrote. Romans 8:26 (KJV) reads, "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." If those words can't be uttered by us, how then can the Holy Spirit speak them through our mouths?

As John MacArthur pointed out in his Strange Fire series, the jabbering done by Charismatics is mere gibberish and not real speech. What the Holy Spirit does for us is express the longing to the other two members of the Trinity for the new heavens and Earth which God promised.

I used to believe the nonsense which various charismatic sects taught. Now I know that modern day speaking in tongues is bogus. You can read how I was fooled and then helped to see the light in How I Was Razed. Read more about my memoir at Amazon.