Every three years, I've reviewed the Top 10 most popular praise songs in churches according to Christian Copyright Licensing International (or CCLI). As I've shared before, the reason I don't do this review more often is because it takes a long time for this list to change. Four of the 10 songs I'll be reviewing in this article were on the list three years ago, and 3 of those songs were on my list from six years ago. (None of these songs were on my list nine years ago.)

This has not been a great year for contemporary Christian music, especially for the genre of praise and worship. I don't mean in terms of album sales or downloads or streams or exposure. One statistic I saw showed that Christian music streaming and online sales are up 60% over the past 5 years. More people stream Christian music than jazz and classical combined. But just because it bears the label "Christian," that doesn't mean it's very Christian.

At the start of the year, Michael Tait, originally of DC Talk fame, suddenly resigned as lead singer of the Newsboys after almost 16 years with the band. The world would soon find out why—he was a homosexual, drug addict, an alleged rapist, and an all-around sexual degenerate. When the worst of his offenses were not yet known, Tait wrote a public apology and asked for forgiveness, which many people were quick to give. 

But as the story unfolded, it became clear that Tait had not been honest about his addictions and sexual immorality. We still don't know everything. But apparently, these offenses go back to even his days with DC Talk. Tait used his influence to prey on people—it didn't matter whether they were men or women. According to one story, for which there's video evidence, he drugged a woman who worked as a lighting technician and watched her get raped.

Bethel Church singer Cory Asbury, known for the song "Reckless Love," hosted an "Ask Me Anything" session on social media. Someone asked him, "Did you hear/know about Michael Tait before the story was published?" He replied that "everyone knew" of Tait's history of debauchery. "Maybe not the specific details," he said, but "everyone knew." 

In a follow-up question, he was asked, "How many 'Christian' bands/artists are living a double life like Michael Tait and now NTB (referring to the band Needtobreathe)?" Asbury answered, "A lot."

Now, if "everyone knew," including Asbury, then why didn't he speak up? If there are "a lot" of musicians continuing to live this way, why doesn't he say something now? Why doesn't anyone else say anything? The industry had a predator in their ranks, having been a member of two of the most successful Christian bands of all time, and no one thought to say a word?

In fact, hardly anyone has said a word since this story came out. Who else behind the scenes in Christian music is behaving this way? Who knows and is not making it known? This may be the biggest story to come out of Christian music this year, but there are many other dark shadows in the industry. Some of them you may learn about as we go through this list.

When Israel was worshiping false gods, the Lord said to them, "Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen" (Amos 5:23). Might the Lord being saying that of today's most popular Christian music?

Here are the Top 10 praise and worship songs in churches right now according to CCLI.

1) “Goodness of God” written by Ben Fielding, Brian and Jenn Johnson, and Ed Cash
The song comes out of the infamous Bethel Church in Redding, CA. It was the number one song on the CCLI charts when I did this review three years ago. This is an immensely popular song with the potential to be one of the most popular praise and worship songs of all time.

When searching for this song on YouTube, the version with Jenn Johnson singing the lead has over 192 million views and climing. CeCe Winans has done a version of this song, and her music video has over 218 million views. She has another live version of the song with 100 million views. The lyric video of the song put out by Bethel Music has 137 million views.

We the Kingdom, Maverick City, Don Moen, Josue Avila, Rhett Walker, Jason Ingram, Gateway Worship, The Isaacs, and The Crosby Family have videos singing this song with over 100 million views combined. With all the various covers of this song, it may have a billion views on YouTube alone. That's not counting the streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music.

Among the writers of this song are Ben Fielding from Hillsong Australia and Brian and Jenn Johnson from Bethel Church. Both churches are heretical. Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church has taught that while Jesus was on earth, He was not God but only a man. This was to model for us what kind of people we could be: perfect miracle-working people just as He was. 

Among their charismatic practices, Bethel is known for gimmicks like artificially producing glory clouds during worship, using either a fog machine or dropping glitter from the ceiling. They will blasphemously claim this is an actual manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

Co-writer and lead vocalist for the song, Jenn Johnson, is Bill Johnson's daughter-in-law. She has infamously taught that the Holy Spirit is like the genie from Aladdin, saying that he's funny and blue and sneaky. This is indicative of Bethel's teaching, driven by fancy and emotionalism, not by biblical truth.

The other writer is Ed Cash, whose credits include "How Great is Our God" and "Whom Shall I Fear" sung by Chris Tomlin. Until 2015, Cash was a leader in a cult under Wayne Jolley, who had been accused of sexual and spiritual abuse. Almost immediately after the cult was exposed in Christianity Today and The Atlantic, Cash departed from the group. Jolley mysteriously died a few months later. Cash went on to form a band with his family called We the Kingdom. I'll mention something else about that in a moment. Back to the song, what's good and bad about "Goodness of God?"

Good Lyrics
I will admit, this is a well-written song. The instrumentation of the original is simple and folksy, adding to its obvious appeal. The song begins, “I love You, Lord, for Your mercy never fails me. All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands. From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, I will sing of the goodness of God.” The chorus goes, “And all my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.” It's simple, praising, and easy to sing. I understand why this song is so popular.

Questionable Lyrics
Maybe not questionable, but the bridge is odd. It has that trademark Bethel feel to it, if you’re familiar with much of their music, and it doesn’t fit the rest of the song. The lyric goes, “Because your goodness is running after, it’s running after me,” and repeats that several times, also adding your goodness “keeps running after me.” Like I said, it’s odd.

As well as the unusual phrasing, the bridge goes way up in vocal range, and it loses the humble simplicity the rest of the song has. It feels less like corporate worship and more like it was written to showcase Jenn Johnson’s vocals (or CeCe Winans' vocals, in her case).

Should the song be sung in your church?
No. As one theologian has said, "Hillsong is a prosperity movement for millennials," and "The theology of Bethel Church actually detracts from the gospel of Jesus Christ." They may have a worship song or two that hits all the right chords (pun intended). But both Hillsong and Bethel are heretical in doctrine and practice. 

Hillsong has been plagued with sex abuse scandals since their founding, and Bethel had that horrible ordeal back in 2019 claiming they could raise a dead little girl back to life again. And again, Ed Cash has been a cult leader. Why did it take until Christianity Today and The Atlantic exposed his cult for him to leave? I have not been able to figure out where he's settled since his cult days, except for founding the band We the Kingdom. 

We the Kingdom was led by Cash's daughter Franni Rae Cash Cain. According to The Tennessean, Franni Rae "left the band in 2023 and took off for California with her husband and collaborator Austin Cain in search of herself." She since launched a solo career under the name Franni Cash and toured this year with Brandon Lake. (I'll come back to him in a moment.)

I listened to a couple of her songs, artistically mediocre and lyrically critical of her experience growing up in church. (I cannot imagine why!) One of the songs is called "Koolaid," taken from the phrase "drinking the Koolaid," which is a reference to the Jim Jones cult in the 1970s.

The song starts, "I used to sit down in the basement taking in every word he was saying. Now that I'm older I am over all the play pretend facade." Sitting in the basement listening to what the preacher was saying? That wasn't my church experience. Was it yours?

Now, Franni Rae is her own woman making her own choices. But consider the culture she grew up in. She was the lead singer of a Grammy and Dove Award winning praise band with her dad, who has written some of the most well-known praise songs. She has been on the inside of the Christian music industry, and her review of that experience, according to her lyrics, is really disparaging.

2) "Holy Forever" written by Chris Tomlin, Brian and Jenn Johnson, Jason Ingram, and Phil Wickham
Yes, the first and second most popular praise songs right now are co-written by Brian and Jenn Johnson of Bethel Church. You can find versions of the song sung by Bethel, but this is more widely regarded as a Chris Tomlin song. It soared in popularity after being sung at Charlie Kirk's memorial service held in Phoenix last month, and it has become one of the most streamed songs in any genre of music ever since.

"Holy Forever" was brand new when I last did this review and had not yet appeared on the top of the CCLI charts. It was released on Chris Tomlin's album "Always" which came out in September of 2022, and he performed it on the Kelly Clarkson Show. In addition to Bethel Church, other artists he sings with on the album include Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship.

Good Lyrics
The song really was a good fit for Charlie Kirk's memorial. It begins, "A thousand generations falling down in worship to sing the song of ages to the Lamb. And all who've gone before us, and all who will believe, will sing the song of ages to the Lamb."

The song then shifts to sing directly to the Savior: "Your name is the highest, your name is the greatest, your name stands above them all." Though they say your name is the highest and greatest, the name of Jesus Christ is actually never sung in this song. I'm not saying that to be critical. It just seems like an odd decision.

The chorus is of course the most amazing part: "And the angels cry holy, all creation cries holy, you are lifted high, holy, holy forever." Whether it's a verse or a bridge or the chorus, every bit of this song is catchy and singable.

Questionable Lyrics
None. It is indeed a great song. My kids love this song, and I don't discourage them from singing it. However...

Should the song be sung in your church?
I wouldn't encourage you to. And we don't sing it in ours. Why, you may ask, shouldn't you sing this song in your church? This is one of the more difficult aspects of doing this review and giving this counsel. I know these songs are popular. I know they may stir you to worship and move you to tears. But many of these songs are written by heretics, and they make these songwriters a lot of money.

Bethel Church has outright said they use their music to draw people into their church. Their songs are the primary tool they use to evangelize. And what they evangelize people into is heresy. It is not the truth of Jesus Christ—it is an immitation of Christ. It's a lie. It's a trick. Remember, Bethel uses all kinds of schemey ways to fool people into thinking they have summoned the Holy Spirit. They use music to draw people into their theological system and enlarge their camp.

After the Charlie Kirk memorial service, I kept hearing about how these musicians—including Tomlin, Lake, and Wickham—were all so brave for leading worship there. They risked being ostracized for associating with Charlie and Donald Trump and many of the other controversial figures that spoke just to minister to this grieving crowd.

I beg to differ. I don't think these musicians are brave at all. (Incidentally, I doubt any musician's reputation was hurt by appearing at the Charlie Kirk memorial serivice. That was an opportunity and a privilege, not a risk.) If these musicians were truly brave, they'd be calling out heresy and standing on the truth. Chris Tomlin wouldn't be performing for Joyce Meyer and Steven Furtick, as he does—he would be calling out their false teaching. That would truly be brave.

But he's not going to. Why? Because his theology is just as false as theirs. He benefits from singing with Bethel Church, Hillsong, and Elevation, and he's not going to compromise that professional relationship, or he would have said something by now.

Like "Holy Forever," most popular praise songs, even the ones sung by heretics, are not going to have outlandishly false lyrics. As Justin Peters has said, most of these songs will pass a basic doctrinal smell test. They know if it doesn't, most churches won't sing them. When your church sings these songs, it's like a stamp of approval that the churches from which these songs come are okay. And that is dangerous.

3) "Praise" by Brandon Lake, Chandler Moore, Chris Brown, Cody Carnes, Pat Barrett, and Steven Furtick
That's right, the infamous Steven Furtick—the man who once preached, "I am God almighty." Just last week, he had a video go viral giving a man from his congregation a piggy-back ride during a sermon. I've covered Furtick many times. He's a hype man, not a preacher. He's a prosperity theology hack who wears $2000 sweaters, $1700 jackets, and $1000 shoes while he preaches. He's boasted before about how much money he makes and how much he has given.

Any of the music performed by Elevation Worship comes from Steven Furtick's Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. Along with Hillsong and Bethel Church, Elevation is one of the big three producing the most praise and worship songs you may hear played on K-Love and sung in most churches. This is also a team-up with the band Maverick City out of Atlanta, GA. The song is simple, high energy, rhythm driven, and gets people clapping.

Good Lyrics
I really like the lyrics of this song. The first verse goes, "I'll praise in the valley, praise on the mountain. I'll praise when I'm sure, praise when I'm doubting" (though I would think praising God would cure you of any doubting). The second verse goes, "I'll praise when I feel it, I'll praise when I don't. I'll praise 'cause I know you're still in control." 

Questionable Lyrics
The chorus is not great. It's just the line, "Praise the Lord, oh my soul," sung over and over again. But like the last two songs, there's really nothing questionable here on the surface. However, the second verse goes like this: "My praise is a weapon, it's more than a sound. My praise is the shout that brings Jericho down."

The praise music from Elevation Worship is not the shout that brings Jericho down. Their pastor Steven Furtick is a false teacher who is not leading his people in the truth. He's said things like, "Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief." And "Whatever God is, you are, too." He has said that unless you have doubts about God, you are being unbiblical.

Though Elevation Church's website has a statement of faith that appears Trinitarian, Furtick has preached things about Christ that are modalist—meaning that he doesn't really believe God is one God, three persons, but that He's one God with three forms. He explicitly said that when Jesus left His disciples, He didn't really leave them, He just changed forms. That's the modalist heresy. (Furtick's mentor and the preacher he has said he most wants to be like is T.D. Jakes, who is infamously modalist.)

So no, the praise of Elevation Worship is not going to bring down the walls of Jericho. Does their preacher even know who God is?

Should the song be sung in your church?
No. Now someone may ask the question, "Brother Gabe, if we're not supposed to be singing songs that have been written by heretics, then what about old hymns that were written by heretics?"

Well if you know that someone who wrote a hymn was actually heretical, and you're convicted to not sing it, then maybe you shouldn't. But who thinks about that? Most of the authors of these classic hymns have been dead a long time. Who's looking into their theology and being led astray by them? Again, these modern songs by these false teachers are the hooks they use to draw people in. Don't be ensnared by them, and don't let someone else get hooked by them either.

Note that the question is specifically, "Should the song be sung in your church?" For corporate worship, these songs do not belong. If you want to listen to it at home or in the car and sing along, that's between you and God. There's probably all kinds of stuff you listen to recreationally that's not fit for Sunday morning worship in the body of Christ. If you really want to listen to these songs, keep them in that category and out of your church.

4) "Gratitude" by Brandon Lake, Benjamin Hastings, and Dante Bowe
This song was released in 2020 when Brandon Lake was with Bethel Music. There's a version of it that was recorded live at Bethel Church. The music video of that song is 13 minutes long. That's right, a 13-minute version a song that takes less than 4 minutes to sing all the way through. "Gratitude" was co-written with Dante Bowe of Maverick City and Ben Hastings of Hillsong.

Good Lyrics
Though the song is called "Gratitude," that word is sung only once in the first verse. The song begins, "All my words fall short, I got nothing new. How could I express all my gratitude. I could sing these songs as I often do, but every song must end, and you never do."

Questionable Lyrics
The chorus goes like this: "So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again, 'cause all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah. And I know it's not much, but I've nothing else fit for a king except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah."

Here's the problem with this, and the song admits to it: "I know it's not much." The attitude of this song is not reflected anywhere in the Bible. No where in the Psalms does David say anything like, "God, all I can do here is just sing Hallelujah. I got nothing else." The song sounds humble and moving, but it's really vapid and rather unmotivating.

Read Psalm 13 or 42 or 139. Do David and the Sons of Korah ever sound like, "You know, I've got nothing but to just sit here and sing 'hallelujah'"? This is soft and passive theology that at its heart is more self-glorifying than God-glorifying. It's got the feels, and not much more than that.

Should you sing this song in your church?
No. Brandon Lake has an incredible voice. There's no question about his talent. It's a shame that it's not being put to better use. His theology is terrible. He's been so heavily influenced by the pragmatism and softness of the modern American church, he doesn't even know what church is for.

Earlier this year, Lake was on Bryce Crawford's podcast saying that churches should not be singing songs like "Holy Holy Holy" because unbelievers might come in, and they don't understand what those lyrics mean. Well church is not for unbelievers. Church is for the people of God to praise God. If an unbeliever comes in and doesn't understand what's going on, there's a reason for that. He's not a Christian. Take some time afterward to share the gospel with them, and by the grace of God they will be cut to the heart and come to faith.

Lake just received the Dove Award for Song of the Year for his song "Hard Fought Hallelujah," a duet with country music bad boy Jelly Roll. He also sang the song with Jelly Roll at the Dove Awards. Jelly Roll has been in an open adulterous marriage with his sex worker wife who hosts a perverse podcast, and she's putting out a book where she's naked on the cover.

This is who Lake performs with. This is who the Dove Awards let perform at their show and they gave an award to. Does this man even understand what holiness is? Does holiness not matter to the people who organize and hand out the Dove Awards? You don't think platforming an unconverted heathen like Jelly Roll is going to lead people into sin?

Rather than "Gratitude," consider instead hymns like "Be Still My Soul" or "I Need Thee Every Hour" or a song I consider to be vastly underappreciated, "How Can I Keep from Singing" by Robert Lowry. Or find music to the psalms I mentioned above. They fill the same kind of space a song like "Gratitude" might be sung in but with much deeper theology.

5) "Great Are You Lord" written by David Leonard, Jason Ingram, and Leslie Jordan
This song was recorded over 12 years ago by the now defunct band All Sons and Daughters, made up of Leonard and Jordan. (I've shared this random fact before, but in case you're new to this article, I'll share it again. In 2012 while in Franklin, TN, I sat in on a writing session with All Sons and Daughters and threw out a line for the song they were working on, which they liked and began singing in their song. But I don’t remember what song it was. There’s a very remote possibility I’m a co-writer on this song.)

Good Lyrics
The very breath of God has been given to us who are created in His image. So I like the line, “It’s your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise.” All Sons and Daughters like to sing those two-phrase repetitive choruses, so you get to sing, “It’s your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise”—a lot. You sing it more often than “Great are you Lord.” The title of the song should have been, “It’s your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise.”

Questionable Lyrics
None.

Should the song be sung in your church?
It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t (yes, despite that remote possibility that I may have contributed a line to the song). All Sons and Daughters ran in circles that included Hillsong and Bethel. The band broke up in 2018 after Leslie and her husband, Thomas, left the church in which All Sons and Daughters was formed. Leonard and Jordan couldn’t come to an agreement on the future of the band (this isn’t gossip—they made all of this public online). 

Personally, I wondered if the Jordans’ theology changed, and that’s why they left their church unable to remain under such messed-up teaching. I discovered Leslie went on to found a songwriting forum called “The Fold,” and the first quote on their website is from panentheist heretic and universalist Richard Rohr. God help us, it is so heartbreaking how bad the theology is among the most popular Christian songwriters. Of course, that very well could be why they're popular.

6) "Trust in God" by Brandon Lake, Chris Brown, Mitch Wong, and Steven Furtick
This is another song that was performed at Charlie Kirk's memorial, led by Brandon Lake. Among the other writers on this song, Chris Brown is one of the lead singers with Elevation Worship, Mitch Wong is a songwriter and worship leader residing in Nashville, and Furtick I've already mentioned.

Now this song should have Fanny Crosby among the writing credits, because lines have been directly lifted from her classic hymn "Blessed Assurance." Among those lyrics are, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine," "Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood;" "Perfect submission, all is at rest;" and "This is my story, this is my song." That's four lines. Why isn't she credited as a writer? Furtick gets a credit, but she doesn't?

Good Lyrics
The first line is great: "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. He's been my fourth man in the fire time after time." I like the line in the second verse, "I know the Author of tomorrow has ordered my steps." It's true. But I don't know that these writers actually understand what that means.

Questionable Lyrics
There's nothing questionable. But that line in the bridge just gets repeated so many times, it's monotonous: "I sought the Lord, and He heard, and He answered." Amen. But sing that just a few times, not fifty times. If you think I'm exaggerating, the Elevation Worship music video of this song is over 9 minutes long, and most of it is singing that line over and over again.

Should the song be sung in your church?
No. Sing "Blessed Assurance" instead.

7) "Firm Foundation (He Won't)" by Cody Carnes, Chandler Moore, and Austin Davis
Cody Carnes is husband to Kari Jobe, who was the worship leader at pastor Robert Morris's church in Dallas, TX. As I shared on my podcast this week, Morris is currently in prison for sexually assaulting a young girl for years. Chandler Moore is a member of Maverick City and sings with Carnes on the song, and Austin Davis is a songwriter and producer.

Good Lyrics
I liked the way the song began: "Christ is my firm foundation, the Rock on which I stand, when everything around me is shaken, I've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus."

Questionable Lyrics
I didn't care for this line: "I've still got joy in chaos. I've got peace that makes no sense." The Bible specifically says that in Christ Jesus, we have peace that surpasses all understanding guarding our hearts and our minds (Philippians 4:7). That's not peace that makes no sense. It means that it's beyond what we could have hoped for or imagined. It is peace of the highest possible kind. It's peace with God, as we are no longer under His wrath but in His mercy and love.

Though the chorus isn't questionable, there's just nothing to it. The singer sings, "He won't, He won't, He won't fai-ai-ai-ai-ail." This really isn't a good corporate worship song.

Should this song be sung in your church?
It's not very singable. I don't think your church would want to.

8) “Build My Life” written by Brett Younker, Karl Martin, Kirby Kaple, Matt Redman, and Pat Barrett
The first time I heard this song, it was performed by Michael W. Smith, and there’s a version that also features Chris Tomlin. Aside from how many names are on the song or how many people have recorded it, the original version belonged to Pat Barrett, former lead singer of the band Housefires based out of Atlanta. He's also written songs like "Good Good Father" made popular by Chris Tomlin.

Good Lyrics
All of the lyrics to this song are good. For the first verse, we sing: “Worthy of every song we could ever sing; worthy of all the praise we could ever bring; worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you.” The chorus goes, “Holy, there is no one like you; there is none beside you; open up my eyes in wonder.” It's lazy in my opinion that the second verse is exactly the first verse. With 5 songwriters on this song, they couldn’t have written another verse?

Questionable Lyrics
None.

Should the song be sung in your church?
I wouldn’t, but it’s up to you. Housefires is part of the same movement that includes Hillsong and Bethel, and musicians with Housefires are also part of Maverick City. Patt Barrett has a version of this song in which he sings with Bethel music’s Cory Asbury, and Bethel has released several of their own recordings of this song. (You get the impression that all of these praise and worship songs are by the same network of people, right?)

As I said earlier, it’s one thing to sing a song like this in your car or play it as background music in your home—it’s something else to make it a congregational worship song in your church.

9) "I Thank God" written by Brett Younker, Karl Martin, Kirby Kaple, Matt Redman, and Pat Barrett
This is another song from Housefires and Maverick City. It's interesting to see Matt Redman's name appear in this list (twice now) as he's a contemporary worship veteran like Chris Tomlin. I've liked several of Redman's songs, but even his theology is as questionable as everyone else's on this list. Redman wrote the forward to one of Steven Furtick's books.

Good Lyrics
I like this line in the chorus: "He healed my heart and changed my name, forever free I am not the same. I thank the Master, I thank the Savior, I thank God." Surprisingly, this song mentions "hell" in the bridge: "Hell lost another one, I am free."

I will add that this line made me chuckle: "I cannot deny what I've seen, got no choice but to believe." Doctrinally, this crowd of songwriters is very free-will and semi-pelagian. They would challenge the understanding that faith comes not from ourselves but is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). And yet here they are singing, "I've got no choice but to believe."

The next line goes, "My doubts are burning, oh, like ashes in the wind." As I said previously about Steven Furtick, who is a co-writer with many of these guys, he has said that faith without doubt is not real faith. And here one of his bands is singing, "My doubts are burning away."

Questionable Lyrics
None. But like with many of the other songs I've reviewed on this list, even this song can get really repetitive. The main video for this song is 8-9 minutes long because there's a bridge with just a few words that get sung over and over again: "Get up, get up, get up, get up out of that grave. Get up, get up, get up, get up out of that grave." 

Should the song be sung in your church?
Same as the previous answers I've given. When I first pulled up the video to listen to this song, I did not recognize it. Then when it hit the chorus, I realized I did know this song. It does not have the feel of a corporate worship song. It sounds like a song someone would put on their contemporary Christian pop album. It doesn't really work for congregational singing. Instead, sing something like "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" or "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

10) “What a Beautiful Name” written by Ben Fielding and Brooke Ligertwood
Like "The Goodness of God," this is a very popular song with perhaps a billion views among all its covers on YouTube. It was first released in 2017 on Hillsong’s 25th live album Let There Be Light, and it was that year's Dove Award winning song of the year. Now 8 years later, this is still one of the most popular worship songs in the world. There’s a version of the song that includes Michael W. Smith’s "Agnus Dei," which is a nice generational touch, especially for fans of 90s Contemporary Christian Music (CCM).

Good Lyrics
What could be wrong with singing of the beauty of the name of Jesus? In the bridge of the song, we hear, “Death could not hold you, the veil tore before you, you silence the boast of sin and grave. The heavens are roaring, the praise of your glory, for you are raised to life again.”

Questionable Lyrics
I don’t understand what this means: “You didn’t want heaven without us; So Jesus, you brought heaven down.” This has an air of saying, “Heaven wouldn’t be heaven without us.” Heaven is heaven for one reason and one reason only—God is there. To say God didn’t want to dwell with Himself for all eternity (contrary to John 17:5) means heaven was lonely and incomplete until we arrived. Maybe you don’t interpret the phrase that way, but where in the Bible could you point to and say, “God didn’t want heaven without us”?

Should the song be sung in your church?
Setting aside that this is another tune from Hillsong, there are much better songs to pick from. It is frustrating how much of this list is associated with Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation Churches, the big three in turning out catchy praise songs and heretical teaching. This is a pretty good barometer as to the state of American evangelicalism.

Concluding Thoughts
Earlier this year, Billboard magazine declared, "Christian music is making a serious comeback." It does not seem the news of Michael Tait has done much to affect Christian music's popularity, and the industry appears to have reverted back to business as usual.

Even if the Tait scandal had not happened, that does not change how theologically soft and empty these top worship songs are, or how heretical the artists are who sing them. The popularity of these songs is reflective of many of the people who love and consume this music. They also love the teaching that is behind it.

As read in 2 Timothy 4:3, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." When a church embraces more solid theology, it will sing more theologically solid songs—pleasing to God and His people.

In Galatians 6:7-8, the Apostle Paul said, "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life."

Five years ago today, on September 29, 2020, I posted this verse on what was then Twitter, and I said, "If Breonna Taylor had not been sleeping with her boyfriend, she'd still be alive."

Do you remember Breonna Taylor and what happened to her in 2020? Taylor was a 26 year old black woman who was fatally shot by police officers on March 13 of that year. They entered her apartment unannounced during a no-knock warrant execution. Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker, whom she was sleeping with, jumped out of bed believing intruders were breaking in, and he shot at them. The police retaliated with one of the officers fatally shooting and killing Taylor.

This contributed to the spirit of unrest that led to the George Floyd riots later that summer, when leftists, anti-fascists, and Black Lives Matter activists (et al) looted, destroyed property, and burned down entire neighborhoods in major cities across the United States. It was such a sad time in American history, a reminder of the sin sick world we live in. 

I did not comment on the Breonna Taylor situation at all when it happened. I didn't say anything about it until 6 months after she died. Oh, but when I did, social media exploded at me.

Some Firestorm of a Controversy

That one comment generated a firestorm of response, unlike anything else I'd ever posted up to that point. Perhaps the only thing more controversial was when I posted what the Bible says about homosexuality and got banned from Twitter for it (until Elon Musk bought the social media giant and thanks to a friend, my account was restored in March of last year).

While I knew some people would disagree with my observation, I did not expect the outrage it generated. I really cannot control what goes viral on social media. Some of the comments I think will be the most benign turn out to be the most controversial. I've been accused of posting certain things just to cause outrage. That has never been my motivation. I post for the people following my account. I do not decide what is going to go ignored or what will trigger a mass response.

At the time I made the post, I was in the middle of a move. We were packing up our house moving from Kansas to Texas. The church whose pastoral team I had agreed to join was getting calls about my post from the mainstream media, but I wasn't there to respond.

So that the church didn't have to deal with this mess in my absence, I deleted the post after it had been up for 28 hours, and I offered an apology via a video that was posted to all of my social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube). 

Most of my critics thought I had apologized for what I said. Even Karen Swallow Prior thanked me for issuing a retraction. But my initial statement was still correct: If Breonna Taylor had not been sleeping with her boyfriend, she may still be alive. That's simply true. Why would I apologize for that? 

Rather, what I did apologize for was that I did not have the time to respond to the controversy with more sensitivity and clarity. I did not owe anyone an apology as I had not wronged anyone. But as Proverbs 15:1 says, "A gentle answer turns away wrath." I then I took the month of October off social media for the sake of my family and the church I was moving to. If I was not moving, I never would have done anything about it at all.

People were absolutely beside themselves about that post. It was crazy. Even the Houston Chronicle was calling looking for a quote (I didn't give them one). I never had the chance to respond to some of the comments I got, though I jotted down several of them. So today, on the 5 year anniversary of that post, here are those comments and my replies.

Some Gentle Replies to Some Not so Gentle Comments

The chief criticism that I received was that I said Taylor deserved to be shot by police because she was sleeping with her boyfriend. That's not what I said. I did not even imply that she deserved to be shot by police because she was a fornicator. Rather, as I said in my apology, we would all do well to remember that sin has consequences—often indirect consequences that we seldom consider. 

During my month-long fast from social media, a campaign had started up to "cyber bully" me. I was shown a screenshot of an anonymous account on Instagram that said, "Can we all bully him in his [direct messages] please? Just look up Gabriel Hughes and cyber bully him." Then someone else commented and included my Twitter handle so everyone could find it.

What does cyber bullying entail? In addition to some of the most vile name-calling you've ever read, it includes private messages with descriptive details about how someone is going to rape your wife. I received an invitation to a gay orgy, and several persons sent explicit photos (which thankfully Instagram hides, and I never clicked on any of them as I already had a pretty good idea of what was going on).

Many of the private messages I received weren't from real accounts. People created fake or anonymous accounts so they wouldn't be in jeopardy of getting deleted, banned, shamed, or in trouble with the law. Surely explicit photos count as sexual abuse akin to a man throwing open his trenchcoat and exposing himself to women in public, and explaining to one's neighbor how he plans to rape his wife cannot possibly be without legal repercussions.

The cyber-bullying aside, here are some of the more measured replies that I received—still negative, but at least they weren't wishing criminal harm upon me.

Hart Ramsey, a pastor in Montgomery, AL, said, "Here’s my problem with what Pastor Gabe did with his Breonna Taylor tweet. What he said is Scripture. But was it necessary? It struck me as insensitive. God's Word is written to believers primarily. So unwise. But these same people give Trump a pass for his demonic behavior."

So he actually acknowledged that what I said was true. But to discredit it, he had to bring up Trump, as if to expose some inconsistency—because if I haven't called out Trump for his "demonic behavior," apparently my comment about Breonna Taylor cannot be valid. This is a tu quoque fallacy. I've been critical of Trump for over a decade. But my statement was true regardless of what I've said or haven't said about Trump. Pastor Ramsey even recognizes this.

In response to Ramsey's tweet, a woman simply identified as T said, "This may seem cruel, and you all can delete my response... I pray the pastor is not on Twitter next month for some impropriety of his own." Pastor Ramsey replied, "No, your comment does not seem cruel. I had the same thought." 

Well, rejoice! Your prayers have been answered. I wasn't.

Another woman commented, "His apology was hard to take seriously because he sounded like he was reporting the weather." So my radio voice means I cannot be taken seriously whenever I issue an apology?

A woman named Tracey said, "His tweet is the reason so many people are lost and have no interest in accepting Christ. 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her (John 8:7).'" There's no throwing stones—the woman is dead. And I didn't say anything about it until 6 months after she died.

Given that Pastor Ramsey acknowledged what I said about her was true, is she saying the reason so many people are lost and have no interest in accepting Christ is because they hate the truth? Can't say that I disagree with that.

A woman from CT said, "Here we have those who have become judge, jury, prosecutor, radio commentator and little gods using the Word of God to attempt to justify someone's murder!"

Here's the hypocrisy of that statement: This woman from CT is saying that those police officers murdered Breonna Taylor. A grand jury of persons from Taylor's neighborhood, which included Black Lives Matter sympathizers, concluded that those officers did not murder Taylor. So this woman is making herself judge, jury, and prosecutor.

A man named Joe who claimed he's a reverend said, "Thanks for clearing up that you worship the god of exchange, the deus ex machina, the Janus faced god, rather than the God revealed in fullness by Jesus of Nazareth." 

On his own Twitter page, he claimed that the idea of hell is pure evil, and teaching it to children is abuse. No one in the Bible preached about hell more than Jesus of Nazareth.

A man named Billy said, "He doubled down. Am I missing something here?  His apology essentially said her getting shot was an unintentional consequence of her sin and that IF she had held fast to the faith... He stops explaining and just quotes other scripture. Does he assume her faith? Her sin?" Well at least one person recognized I didn't actually take back what I said.

A woman with Black Lives Matter in her profile said, "Do you think that Christ crucified would have said something like that? Absolutely disgusting and vile."

When He was asked about some Galileeans who were murdered while they were offering sacrifices, Jesus said, "Unless you repent, you will likewise perish" (Luke 13:3, 5).

A man from TX said, "No, you just, without evidence, accused someone of fornication. I'm not saying she wasn't (I have no idea), but you presume *and then* condemn her for it."

The man she was sleeping with, Kenneth Walker, acknowledged they were sleeping together and had planned on moving in together. He received a $2 million settlement. She's dead, in part because he couldn't be a man and care for her properly.

A man named Ronald said, "On a personal note, if she was white and a republican, and she was fooling around with someone like Trump does... I guess you'd give that a pass, too." There's the Trump argument again. It's slander to accuse me of inconsistency when I've never demonstrated such inconsistency.

Ronald went on to say, "It's the kindness of God that leads to repentance." How did I say anything unkind?

One woman said, "The tried and true 'christian twitter apology' ...I was misunderstood, you're wrong for saying anything, and now I'm taking a social media break." It was pretty well acknowledged by a lot of people that the way I was being read was worse than mere misunderstanding. It was uncharitable and thinking the worst of me.

Some of the Gentler Comments

Not all the comments were bad. John in Michigan said, "Yup, no confusion on my part. Don’t be censored though. The Gospel is never sensitive enough for those who refuse to believe."

A fellow by the name of Nick said, "First, I knew what you meant and agreed wholeheartedly. Second, your speaking voice is amazing. Third, Still think you should not be involved in politics. It is of the world and we are not." I disagree that we should not be involved in politics. What's happening in our world politically affects people's lives. That aside, I said nothing political.

Tony from Tennessee said, "It never even crossed my mind that you were implying she deserved to be shot." Thank you, Tony.

A mom from Texas said, "Thank you for clarifying. I'm sorry that some falsely judged the hidden motivations of your heart to be unloving as your desire was to warn and convict. I hope your move to Texas goes well and without unnecessary difficulty."

A friend named Jeff said, "Anyone with an ounce of discernment knew what you were saying, Gabe. God you you and your family and be safe during the move."

John in NC, said, "God bless you Pastor Gabe! Your consistent integrity is one of the main things that drew me to your videos and podcasts! Please be safe in your move! God bless you and your family!"

Zandi from Australia said, "What a gracious man. Thanks, Pastor Gabe. I'm sorry for all the nasty comments you received. May we all receive God's grace and show it to others as well."

Marla, a missionary to Japan, said, "Unfortunately, holiness is not popular. I understood what you meant, but I think it stepped on some toes."

A reformed fellow said, "I appreciate you, sir. Even if I did disagree, I would want to show you the grace you show often in your ministry."

A woman from NC said, "Breonna deserved better. Breonna deserved more. Breonna was made in the image of God. If only Breonna was offered that same 'patient wisdom' before she was shot to death execution style."

We don't know that she wasn't offered that patient wisdom before she died. Perhaps she was and ignored it. I often speak up on social media when tragedies happen and direct people to the life-saving good news of Jesus Christ. People will call this insensitive or tone-deaf. But what better time to tell people about forgiveness of sins and everlasting life with God than when faced with their own mortality? Better you hear it now and be able to respond to it than after you die and it's too late.

Robert in IL said, "It didn't need clarification."

Tonya from NC said, "Students of scripture knew exactly where you were coming from, Pastor Gabe. I understand why you had to clarify. God bless you and your family; may your move be smooth and may all that you encounter in your new locale be a blessing."

A man from Canada responded to Tonya and said, "What a condescending comment, 'students of scripture understand' as if others aren't Berean enough. Truth apart from love is dangerous at best, evil at worst. Dangerous men should be disqualified period." What a silly statement: truth apart from love is dangerous at best, evil at worst? How can the truth be evil?

We are told to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). But truth not spoken in love doesn't somehow become evil. Should I speak the truth in an unloving way, I must answer to God for that. But the truth is still the truth. The Apostle Paul said, "If I understand all mysteries and all knowledge... but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2). That doesn't meant he truth becomes nothing.

A woman named Deb said, "I very much appreciated this clarification. I read those awful responses. I knew what you meant, but I wished you had said it another way. Thank you for being an example of Christ like behavior. It would do well for all your critics to evaluate themselves as well."

A woman from Canada responded to Deb and said, "This is the opposite of Being Christ-like... Shall we start with the woman caught in adultery? Was she stoned for her consequences? Nope, Christ shut that down! Next time, actually read the Bible, don’t just pose with it." Except, Taylor is dead. She's not being stoned as a direct consequence for her sin—she's dead as an indirect consequence for her own sin.

Savvy from New York said, "Although I know the context in which you intended, I must admit I was a bit takin aback when I read the tweet. I know you meant no ill will though."

Stace from TX said, "Good job! When I saw that, I knew people would misunderstand, some willfully. She did not deserve to be shot and killed, but her life choices had consequences. It’s amazing to me that people get so angry when it’s pointed out that death could have been avoided. Sin = death."

A man responding to Stace said, "This is just bad theology, people sin all the time and don't die from it (the way Gabe is implicating). This particular sin was no more deserving of death than you or Gabe not loving the Lord God with all your heart mind and soul."

As I said in my apology video, even I deserve to die. But I'm covered by the blood of Christ by faith in Him. Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." You, too, can have forgiveness of your sins and peace with God. Then, as recorded in John 8:11, Jesus said to the adulterous woman, "Go and sin no more."

Clayton from GA said, "You weren't wrong. It sure was taken the wrong way though. 'How dare you say fornication is sin and one of the consequences in this instance was being killed.'"

Terri from TX said, "The original tweet was fine and needed no clarification but so very kind of you to give. I wish my daughter who lives with her boyfriend could hear you preach. It wasn't unloving. People need to hear these truths."

Daiyaan (day-yawn) on Instagram said, "Did you really just finish that out without saying 'When we understand the text?" And then she put a frowny face.

Some Concluding Comments

Dan Chappell, pursuing his PhD in Christian Ministry, said, "Each time I watch this it gets harder to watch. I sincerely tried to see what he is saying. Yet, it’s clear to me he is still very much saying that her death is directly attributed to her sinful act, at that moment. It is not lacking in grace to tell him this."

But is it gracious if Mr. Chappell never actually told me that? I just happened to see it as he was ranting about it with someone else. I personally reached out to Mr. Chappell and invited him to e-mail me. He said, "I have directly responded to you a number of times. This is a public discussion as the condemnation was a public one. And I have not maligned you as a person or a believer in saying these things."

I told him that I receive many comments, and I did not recognize him. A search turned up zero results that Mr. Chappell had ever directly responded to me before. He also never e-mailed me. I would have tried to help him understand that I did not say her death was a direct result of her sexual immorality. I said it was an unintended consequence, meaning that it was an indirect result. Does Mr. Chappell deny that? Who knows. He didn't want to talk.

A woman from the UK said, "I still think that your tweet was just horrible. Instead of trying to justify it with the Bible, you should have just apologized and that's it. I can't believe that a pastor would even consider writing such a thing."

A man named Kori said, "That’s the problem when you spend your life trying to expose others; you would have to be without your own vices to not get caught yourself. 'What a man sows that shall he reap.' A lot of the people you try to destroy need the same mercy you are asking for."

Who am I trying to destroy? I am trying to do nothing but proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Jesus died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sins. He rose again from the dead for our justification (Romans 4:25), so that whoever believes in Him will not perish under the judgment of God that we all deserve, but we will have everlasting life.

Turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. Or don't turn, and you will perish in judgment to suffer the direct consequences for your sins. As you recognized: whatever one sows, that he will also reap.

Back in the fall of 2023, the documentary Cessationist debuted at the last G3 national conference, a documentary I was pleased to take part in, thanks to the invitation of creator David Lovi. I did not have an opportunity to respond to any interview requests because we were at that time moving from Texas to our home now here in Arizona.

However, charismatic pastor Sam Storms and the guys at Remnant Radio, a charismatic podcast, did a series of critical responses to the Cessationist documentary, and I did a three-part rebuttal to select portions of their combined 24-part series (Remnant Radio did 9 episodes and Storms did 15 articles). You can listen to my three rebuttals in episodes 2020, 2025, and 2030.

• Episode 2020: Q&A Responding to Critics of Cessationism
• Episode 2025: Q&A Open but Cautious, Private Prayer Language
• Episode 2030: Q&A Responding to Sam Storms and Remnant Radio

Now, in the episodes of Remnant Radio that I was able to watch and in the articles of Storms I read, I never saw an argument raised against any of what I said (most of my comments in the documentary addressed either speaking in tongues or having a private prayer language, and then I gave a presentation of the gospel at the end). Well it turns out Remnant Radio did criticize something I said in video number 9, the last installment in their 9-part series. (EDIT: They've since changed this episode to part 8.)

This is a video that until last week I didn't even know existed. I did not know the Remnant Radio guys had ever responded to anything I said in the documentary. Apparently they did, and not to my surprise, they treated my comments the same way they treated every other comment in the documentary they responded to.

When I was first responding to Remnant Radio, which was back in October of 2023, it was in episode number 2020 of this podcast where I said the following about Remnant Radio's treatment of the documentary Cessationist:

"Their arguments were not very well done. I think they were charitable. I think that they were very devoted to the Scripture. I think they did their research before they made some of the arguments that they did. But there were occasions in which these guys—it was like they weren't even hearing what was being said. They were responding to an argument that wasn't even being made."

And they did the same thing with the snippet of mine they took out of the documentary. They responded to something I said about a private prayer language as if I was talking about speaking in tongues. But I was not talking about speaking in tongues in that clip. I didn't even use the phrase. I do not believe a private prayer language is speaking in tongues.

To clarify, speaking in tongues according to the Bible is a miraculous gifting of the Holy Spirit given to a person to speak another human language they did not previously know. This is what we read of the disciples doing at Pentecost in Acts 2. Many charismatics practice a form of prayer in which they babble in a sort of private prayer language that they call speaking in tongues. But I do not believe that's what the Bible calls speaking in tongues, nor does the Bible teach us to pray this way.

Let me play that clip, where you will hear my voice from the documentary, and then I'll play a brief portion of how the Remnant Radio guys responded to it. Here we go: this is Gabe Hughes from the 2023 documentary Cessationist:

HUGHES (from the documentary)
"'But I read in Romans chapter 8 that the Spirit speaks with groanings that are too deep for words.' Maybe that verse is what is meant by this, 'I feel this overwhelming urge from the Spirit to utter something and that's what comes out.'

"There is no given permission in Scripture to speak some gibberish nonsense that no one is going to understand. Think about what Jesus said when He taught us how to pray. In Matthew 6:7, He said, 'Don't heap up empty phrases like the pagans do.' And then He says, 'Pray then like this:' and Jesus taught us to pray clear prayers.

"He was never praying anything that was some otherly language. And if there was anyone who was going to pray in such a language, it would certainly be the one who was sent down from heaven—Christ Himself."

LEWIS
"Interesting. Is Matthew 6 telling us not to speak in tongues. Is the fact that Jesus never spoke in tongues evidence that we shouldn't speak in tongues. These seem like bad arguments."

Now let me just stop it right there. We already have a problem. What is it? The problem is that  this was not my argument. I was not saying that Matthew 6 is telling us not to speak in tongues. I wasn't even talking about speaking in tongues. They did not set the clip up well, they played it out of context, they cut out part of it.

I was addressing a common charismatic belief that we can pray in some kind of heavenly language as a private prayer language. When I was in charismaticism, I heard this all the time, taking 1 Corinthians 13:1 out of context: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels." Well if I can speak in the tongues of angels, then maybe that's what this language is when I pray like this:

Keya sebba batsha, keya sebba batsha, Father God, thank you for this heavenly language...

That was a brief clip from a WWUTT video I did on this subject. As I explained, we have not been taught anywhere in Scripture to pray like this. Not one verse says anything about a private prayer language.

Even the one who came down from heaven did not pray in a private prayer language, as if there's another divine, other-worldly language spoken in heaven. In His teaching on prayer, He taught His disciples to pray clear, meaningful prayers. Praying in nonsense gibberish is not how Jesus taught us to pray. We should pray like Jesus prayed and like He taught us to pray—that was very simply my point.

There was someone in the comments under this video saying that my exegesis on this point was terrible. Sure, if I was saying what the Remnant Radio guys said I was saying. It was such a poor set up of my argument that it was a straw man—they propped up this easy to knock down dummy so their arguments would sound better, whether or not they deliberately misrepresented what I said.

Now, I'm not going to go any further in responding to the arguments they make against the argument I wasn't making—at least not today. We'll get deeper into this video another time. I just wanted to play that part for now so you could hear what initially caught my attention.

What, I'd like to do here is what they did not do with me, and that's look at their whole argument in context, especially concerning the way they define and defend the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. I'm going to make this a teaching opportunity, so this is going to take a little bit of time, and it will stretch out over more than one episode.

Let's go back a little further in this episode entitled "Responding to the Cessationist Documentary—Part #9" as it was published to YouTube on December 13, 2023. This will begin with a clip from the documentary featuring an answer given by Nathan Busenitz, professor of historical theology at The Master's Seminary.

Now, they don't really start this clip in a good spot, nor do they set it up well. However, I do not have the Cessationist documentary at the ready, so I cannot give you the original. You will hear Joshua Lewis of Remnant Radio cue this clip from Nathan Busenitz, who then explains the Greek term Glossalalia which means to speak in tongues, and then he gives a brief history of the understanding of speaking in tongues within the charismatic movement.

This is unfortunately edited—the Remnant Radio guys cut up the clip and speed it up, but whatever. This at least gives us a starting point. After Busenitz speaks, host Joshua Lewis throws it to Michael Miller, a pastor from Denver, and Michael Rountree, a pastor in Oklahoma City, with Miller being the first to respond. So here we go, with Lewis cuing up Nathan Busenitz:

BUSENITZ (from the documentary)
"[Glossalalia is] a term that comes from two Greek words: glossa meaning 'tongue' or 'language,' and laleo meaning 'to speak.' So when we use those terms together, glossolalia is used to refer to tongue-speaking or to speaking in tongues. The modern charismatic understanding of the term allows for glossolalia to refer to ecstatic spiritual speech that doesn't conform to any known language.

"Parham was in the newspaper on multiple occasions talking about how now that the gift of tongues has been restored to the church, no one is going to have to go to language school to learn foreign languages, and we'll be able to send missionaries all around the world without them having to spend years training and learning a foreign language in order to be effective.

"Of course they all came back utterly disappointed and dejected when they realized that what they were doing in terms of their modern glossolalia did not communicate in terms of a foreign language with the people they were trying to reach. And so consequently the Pentecostal movement had to change its understanding of Scripture to fit its experience rather than acknowledging that its experience did not fit the clear teaching of Scripture.

"You don't find the notion that tongue-speaking in the Bible is anything other than real human languages until you get to the modern charismatic movement. The modern charismatic movement has invented a new kind of tongues because the tongues that they practice don't match what the Scripture reveals as the real gift of tongues, and as a result they had to broaden the biblical category to make room for their experience."

LEWIS
"Interesting arguments, guys. Is it really the reason that we believe and preach about the tongues that we believe and preach today because of a historical event, because of an experience, and has nothing to do with the Bible? What say you guys?"

MILLER
"I started believing in tongues before I actually started speaking in tongues. However speaking in tongues has certainly helped affirm what I already believed in Scripture, which I actually think that's what the gifts should do: they should affirm what you already believe to be true in Scripture, and if they don't then there's something off in your practice of gifts, not the Scriptures.

"But man, he's really reaching here. One, Josh, you already proved the fact that they thought that you need to learn languages. However, there probably was some truth to that. I can't remember the book I read on this, about the number of Pentecostal missionaries that went out because of this.

"One of the things I think they failed to mention though is how the Pentecostal movement became the fastest growing worldwide denomination on the earth largely because they felt like they were empowered for ministry—which is interesting because that's what Jesus says: go and wait in Jerusalem so that you will be baptized with spirit and power, right? Like, that's the point of that.

"So regarding his idea about the gift of tongues being known human languages, uh, prove it! We actually have Paul saying flat out in 1 Corinthians 14:2, "For the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands; he's speaking mysteries by the Spirit." Well we have a pretty explicit scripture right there that seems to imply that people could be speaking a language that nobody understands because it says no one understands.

"Now the question in my mind is does that mean no one on the earth or no one through history? Does the language itself have no actual meaning, or is it that it has no meaning to those who are around that person? And I tend to lean towards the second of the two. I think it has meaning—there's no language without meaning—but who it's meaningful to is the question.

"The question is whether it's meaningful to God or some other person on the earth or some other person through history. We're just not told in Scripture. And so to pigeon-hole the view of tongues into that small confined space is not one the Bible actually explicitly states. He doesn't have a text to state that.

From here, Lewis jumps back in and he repeats the verse that Miller just gave, 1 Corinthians 14:2, as an argument for the gift of speaking in tongues being an unknown language that is not a real human language. This is their starting point on the gift of speaking in tongues, 1 Corinthians 14:2. This is the exact same error I committed when I was a charismatic. In my defense of speaking in tongues, I always started with the same verse.

It was in February of 2015, ten years ago now, when I had a conversation in the living room of a friend of mine. And it was not our intention to talk about cessationism vs. continuism, but that's where things went. And in defending my charismaticism, the gift of speaking in tongues in particular, I started with 1 Corinthians 14:2.

My friend, Joe, rightly handling the word of truth, told me you cannot start there. This is the very last chapter in the New Testament that even mentions speaking in tongues. It never comes up again after this. You cannot start building your doctrine at the end and work backwards. You must start at the beginning. So let's go back and look at the first occasion of speaking in tongues in Acts 2. After that, in the second half of this podcast, I want to address their history of charismaticism argument, which I don't believe they get right either.

First of all, Miller said, "Regarding [Nathan Busenitz's] idea about the gift of tongues being known human languages, uh prove it!" And then he said that Busenitz did not have a text to state that. Now I cannot remember if Busenitz or the Cessationist documentary did prove that. The Remnant Radio guys cut these clips up so bad, it's hardly a fair presentation.

But Miller has to prove his point with the text of Scripture, too. He has to be able prove that speaking in tongues is not only the ability to speak in another real human language, but it can also mean praying in gibberish. And I don't believe Miller did that. I'm reading here from Acts 2:1-4 which says: 

"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."

And that verse right there, verse 4, is the verse that launched the modern Charismatic movement—and you'll see how in a moment when I get to the history of Charles Parham. It was specifically a desire for the gift of tongues that was on the nose of the rocket.

It's interesting because, when I left charismaticism and became convinced of cessationism, speaking in tongues was for me the last domino to fall. I had heard enough false prophecy and seen enough false claims of healing to make me a bit skeptical whenever someone said God told them something or they witnessed a miraculous healing. But speaking in tongues was the reason I could not be a cessationist. I was a witness to it, and I could not be convinced that gifting had ceased in regularity. But I had a faulty understanding of what it was. Going on to verse 5: 

"Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in their own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and vistors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.' 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?' 13 But others mocking said, 'They are filled with new wine.'"

In these 9 verses, it is said three times—in verses 6, 8, and 11—that speaking in tongues is speaking other real human languages. Once again verse 11: "We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." And observe that the people didn't understand what they were saying. They could hear them telling the mighty works of God, but that didn't mean they knew what it meant: "And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'"

What did 1 Corinthians 14:2 say? "For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries of the Spirit." That's the same reaction the people had to the apostles speaking in tongues in Acts 2. There is not one single verse in the New Testament that ever says the gift of speaking in tongues is anything other than a supernatural, God-given ability to speak another human language that the speaker did not come to know on their own.

If you start with 1 Corinthians 14:2, and you think that verse is talking about unknown mutterings that are not real human languages, you impose that onto the text. The text says no such thing, nor is there anything prior to 1 Corinthians 14:2 that could lead someone to that conclusion.

When Miller quoted 1 Corinthians 14:2, he said, "We have a pretty explicit scripture right there that seems to imply that people could be speaking a language that nobody understands because it says no one understands." Well, that doesn't make any sense.

The word "explicit" means "fully revealed or expressed without vagueness, implication, or ambiguity." So 1 Corinthians 14:2 cannot be an "explicit Scripture" that "seems to imply" that it "could be" about indiscernable mutterings that are not a real tongue in the human language family.

Again, it is explicitly stated three times in Acts 2:5-13 that the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues is a supernatural occurrence whereby the Holy Spirit empowers a person to speak a language he did not previously know nor was he studied in. The modern charismatic practice of muttering gibberish is not explicitly described in any verse in the Bible, nor is the practice demonstrably supernatural. It is on the Remnant Radio guys to prove otherwise.

The History of Modern Charismaticism

Now as far as exposition goes, I'm going to stop here, because there is more to this video that will open up our discussion later. Let's pivot toward the historical claim Busenitz mentioned in his segment and Miller contended with briefly. Busenitz mentioned Parham, who is Charles Fox Parham, the father of the modern charismatic movement, who lived from 1873 to 1929.

Busenitz said that Parham taught that we can send missionaries all aroudn the world without having to go through years of training to learn the language, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will just be able to speak the language of the people they are sent to witness to. The Remnant Radio guys disagreed with that, but that is historically accurate.

As many of you know, I lived in Kansas for almost 30 years, and Charles Parham was someone I heard a lot about and witnessed the effects of his former ministry. Many people may be unaware that Topeka, which was just an hour away from where I pastored, was where the modern charismatic movement began. When you hear about the history of charismaticism in America, you often hear about the Azusa Street Revival. However, what was dubbed the "Topeka Outpouring" occurred a few years earlier—on literally the first day of the 20th century.

Of course there were plenty of what we might categorize as charismatic practices going on way before then. When I warned my congregation and fellow ministers of the practices found in the International House of Prayer, I compared with them the second century heresy called Montanism

A teacher named Montanus of Phrygia and his two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla, were not content with the teachings of Jesus and desired new revelation. And again, this was just in the second century. They were already bored with apostolic teaching and wanted something new and more experiential. Montanus believed he was a prophet of God and that the Holy Spirit spoke through him. His teachings spread to Africa and Gaul, the region of modern day France and Germany, and they lasted for several centuries.

However, no Montanist writings exist. We only know of Montanism through those who spoke against it. The early church father Tertullian was actually a fan. He wanted Montanism to be declared orthodox, and some believe he joined Montanism. The Montanists called themselves spiritales (or a spiritual people) and their opponents psychici (or a natural people). It was like an early form of the continuists vs. cessationist debate. I'm being a bit tongue and cheek there.

According to what Eusebius wrote, the Montanists would babble in strange utterances, sometimes they would throw themselves in a kind of spastic frenzy, and then, Eusebius said, they would prophesy "in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by the tradition from the beginning." So there would be prophecy, but not like we see in prophecy in the Bible, in other words.

Epiphanius of Salamis, writing in his "Against Heresies," captured one of these Montanus prophesies, which sounded like this: "Lo, the man is as a lyre, and I fly over him as a pick. The man sleepeth, while I watch." Obviously that's very vague. What does that mean? Well, that's kind of like a lot of the charismatic prophecies that are popular today. It's been going on for about 1800 years.

Now what got Montanus branded a heretic is because he claimed to speak as God, not merely a messenger of God. In one instance, it is said that Montus declared, "I am the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." But again, that's also not terribly unusual compared with modern day charismaticism.

You'll probably remember the controversy that Justin Peters and I responded to a few years back with Steven Furtick declaring of himself, "I am God Almighty." Now some debated whether or not that was a gaff, and I was one of them. But he never recanted it, and there are other instances of him making such claims. That wasn't the only time.

Perhaps you've seen the clip of Paula White, spiritual advisor to President Donald Trump, who along with Televangelist Larry Huch, proclaimed that Jesus Christ was not the only begotten Son of God. I'm a son of God and you're a son of God. Listen to this:

WHITE
"When Jesus Christ paid the price, the first thing that happened after he said 'It is finished' is the veil was rent from top to bottom signifying that no man could do that but the price that was paid, was that there was now no separation, so that we have direct access into the Holy of Holies. We understand, according to Hebrews that Jesus is our High Priest, and He's the first of many brethren, which means I now come into a priestly anointing, so I'm now..."

HUCH
"Say that again because they don't get it. Jesus is not the only begotten Son of God. He is not. I'm a Son of God. He's the first fruit. He's the firstborn of many."

They take words that you find in the Bible, and they twist and apply them to mean something they don't. Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God—period. John 1:14 and 18 and John 3:16, if you need a reference. You and I are children of God adopted by faith in Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean Jesus is not the only begotten Son of God, it doesn't mean we are sons of God like Jesus is the Son of God, and it does not mean we receive a priestly anointing like His.

Through this you can see how some of the heresies we've seen creep in through the modern charismatic movement are nothing new.

And by the way, I've made some posts recently on social media about Paula White that got a lot of attention. I had Roman Catholics telling me, "Well she's one of yours. She's a result of Protestantism." No, she's not. Montanism was far before Protestantism. This was when both the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox claim they were the only true church. This kind of stuff supersedes denominational bounds. Roman Catholics are heavily charismatic, which I'll get to later.

For now, let's jump way ahead to the 19th century, right in the middle of the Second Great Awakening. Like the Montanists, many professing Christians grew bored with the sound doctrinal preaching, like the teaching that came out of the First Great Awakening, with preachers such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. That kind of preaching was now regarded as stuffy and bland. Give us something new—something exciting!

The Second Great Awakening became very anti-confessional, and worship was rather feeling-driven. Many church services and sometimes outdoor meetings were filled with all kinds of what we'd call charismatic practices. The Christian faith was more about having a personal experience. As in the time of the Montanists, people were seeking after new revelation.

Charles Finney, perhaps the most well known and influential evangelists of the 19th century, claimed to have heard God speak to him and received a post-conversion second baptism of the Holy Spirit. He was critical of reforming the church and was more in favor of revivalism. Finney is still highly regarded among charismatics today.

Sean Feucht, a musician associated with Bethel Church, part of the New Apostolic Reformation, posted on Instagram pictures of himself putting the hands of his infant son on the grave of Charles Finney. Bethelites practice grave soaking, this belief that they can soak or absorb the spiritual mantle left behind by departed heroes of the faith. The late Benny Johnson, wife of Bethel's pastor Bill Johnson, had also taken pictures of herself hugging Finney's grave.

Others in the 19th century included the Stone and Campbell movement, from which the Church of Christ and the Christian Church would arise, churches affiliated with what's called the Disciples of Christ. There are still many websites of these churches where you can go and click on "What we believe," and you'll find something like, "No creed but Christ!" or "No creed but the Bible!"

Among more charismatic gatherings, there were the Shakers, or the Shaking Quakers, called that because of their trembling, ecstatic behavior. They'd fall on the floor and call out in incoherent gibberish which they claimed to be "the gift of tongues." There was the Millerite movement which splintered into the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, all built upon new revelation from God. Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, claimed to receive new revelation. He had been inspired by members of his family who were what we might today call charismatics, including relatives who were seers and a mother who claimed to receive dreams and visions from God.

In the midst of all of this religious fervor of the 1800s was the Holiness movement, which was a precursor to charismaticism. This was born out of a sermon that Finney preached in New York in 1836. It eventually led to the Keswick Convention, if you've heard of that; the general holiness conferences held in Cincinnati and New York; the Salvation Army came out of the Holiness movement, as well as the Church of God and the Nazarenes.

Another major contribution to this movement were the Methodists in the midwest—by the way, lots of Methodist churches in Kansas, and I preached or sang in several of them as a young itenerent preacher. At this time they were obsessed with the more miraculous spiritual gifts, seeking after divine healing and speaking in tongues.

One of these Methodists was Charles Fox Parham. He attended Southwestern College in Winfield, KS, which I also attended. I was a piano player for one of their traveling choirs back in 2002. Parham was a charismatic preacher, not just in the spiritual sense but in the sense that he oozed charisma, and he often employed memorable gimmicks into his sermons. For example, he might dress as someone from the Bible and preach a message from their perspective.

Parham began preaching when he was only 18. It is recorded that even at that young age, he taught that if one was baptized in the Holy Spirit, this would be manifested by the recipient speaking in tongues. If you've heard that theology taught today, it originates with Parham. So committed was he to this doctrine that in 1900, Parham opened a school in Topeka so that he may teach it. The name of this school was Bethel, meaning House of God.

The movement that was spurred by this teaching was called by several names, including Apostolic, Pentecostal, and the Latter Rain movement, all different labels for the same thing. Parham had a newspaper he called The Apostolic Faith. And all of this was to further Parhams' teaching about the spiritual anointing of speaking in tongues.

Now, when Parham first taught on speaking in tongues—and this is what Buzenitz referred to in the clip we heard a bit ago—he spoke of the gift only in the sense of being able to speak other known, earthly languages. This was the clearest understanding of speaking in tongues as we see it demonstrated and talked about in the Bible. Even the earliest charismatics understood it this way.

Parham preached that the church was on the edge of an end-time revival—influenced by the revivalism of the previous century—and they would go out preaching in other known human languages that they had not previously learned. And in so doing, the church would bring about the end of the church age and usher in the return of Christ.

On New Years Eve, 1900, when Parham was only 27, he and his students conducted what they called a Watch Night service. One of Parham's students asked that hands would be laid on her and she would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to go out into foreign countries and share the gospel. It was said that her head began to glow and she started speaking in Chinese. As no one in the room knew Chinese, no one was ever able to verify if this was true. But from that point on, everyone in the school claimed to speak in foreign human languages.

So this was how the 20th century began—on the first day of the year. And from there other revivals happened across Kansas and the rest of the Midwest. Despite all this excitement, the Bethel school closed, and Parham went out preaching up the East Coast and into Canada. From there his teachings made it across the sea and there was a big revival in England, which led to the founding of the Apostolic Church, and shortler after the Apostolic Church of Nigeria.

In 1905, Parham went to Texas and set up a school there where he taught, and his teaching attracted the attention of a black minister named William Seymour. It was through his friendship with Parham that Seymore was invited to join a little Baptist church in Los Angeles that had split from another church because they wanted to openly practice the miraculous spiritual gifts. Long story shorter, it was this move—Seymore going to LA with Parham's teachings—that would lead to the famous Azusa Street revival meetings in April of 1906.

It all kicked off believing they could and did speak in tongues. Seymore's first sermon was out of Acts 2:4, which says, "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterances." This was what launched this revival, and the meetings that resulted would go for hours—sometimes all day, from 10 am to 2 am. This was all very novel. Hardly anyone had ever heard or seen anything like this before. And during a time of segregation, these meetings brought together blacks and whites and Hispanics and Asians.

All kinds of people came to see what these meetings were all about, even preachers from other churches, and they would get caught up in the frenzy, and the revival meetings just continued to grow. It's difficult to know how many attended, because the building on Azusa Street was not that large. A few thousand people altogether may have come to Azusa. But as the word spread and revival meetings broke out in many places, that number easily could have been in the tens of thousands.

And by the way, it might be hard to picture it now, but LA was less than a quarter of a million people at that time. So it's possible that 10 percent of the city or more attended some kind of Azusa revival meeting in those days.

A reporter from the Los Angeles Times came to observe and wrote in the paper that a prophet at one of these meetings said there would be "awful destruction" against the city of LA. They may have printed this to get people to think negatively of this movement. But the very same day that was printed in the paper, April 18, the San Fransisco earthquake hit, killing hundreds, and tremors were felt in LA. Though the prophet specifically said destruction was coming to Los Angeles, this was received as an accurate prophecy, causing the revival to grow all the more.

Now these 12 to 16 hour revival meetings did not consist of hours upon hours of preaching. Seymour would say just a few words, and then he'd walk around the room and get in people's faces and tell them to start speaking in tongues. Some of these utterances were the babbling gibberish often called tongues today. The Times reported on these nonsensical outbursts that would happen in a frenzy of religious zeal. The most fanatical were blacks with a spinkling of whites, they said.

This kind of thing was all brand new to most people. It's not like there were charismatic or Pentecostal churches every few blocks like you might find today. The Assemblies of God wasn't founded for another 12 years after this. The Apostolic Church was just beginning, influenced by the teachings of Charles Parham. The Foursquare Church, founded by Aimee Semple McPherson was still 20 years away. So few people had ever seen this kind of tongues speaking.

Despite these occasions of ecstatic ramblings that sounded like the speech of a toddler, it was still believed among Parham's disciples that genuine speaking in tongues were the utterings of other languages. They thought they were speaking languages like Chinese and Hebrew and Hindi, but they had no one to verify that these were actual languages.

The Azusa Street Revival went from April to October of 1906, and it ended due to some pretty sharp divisions. There could be as many fights as there were fits of religious frenzy. I hardly ever hear this side of the revival talked about. Most people think it was this big Kumbaya where the Holy Spirit moved, and there was all of this great preaching and singing, and there was communion and foot washings, and people were saved and they were healed and other miracles were observed.

But the fact of the matter is the gospel played very little role in any of this. Again, this started with an errant application of Acts 2:4. Throughout the revival, there were surely preachers who shared the gospel and perhaps people even got saved. But when you get below the surface, you see that the Azusa Street Revival was filled with so much spiritism, errant doctrine, and rivalry, you would have to say that any work the Holy Spirit did was contrary to the revival, not through it.

And it's not just skeptics of Azusa who say that. This is according to the same people who started it. William Seymore was troubled by what was going on. He at one point sought Parham's counsel in dealing with the mediums and necromancers and the seances that were being conducted during the revival. There were all manner of strange doctrines being taught, so much so that Parham tried to distance himself from taking any credit.

Earnest S. Williams was one of the attendees, a future leader in what would become the Assemblies of God. He came from Denver to see the Azusa Street revivals (in those days, you traveled that kind of distance by train). And even he was put off by just the extreme level of fanaticism, spiritism, and false teaching. Still there was a genuine spirit in it, he thought.

And when I was in charismatic churches, I saw this constantly. There was just a flood of fakery. Even someone like Mike Bickle, the now disgraced pastor who founded the International House of Prayer, said that only 20% of it that you see in charismaticism is ever genuine. Listen to this:

BICKLE
"In the last 20 years I have concluded in manifestation meetings all over the world—again I've been to several thousand of them, a couple thousand at least—that 80% of them are not real but 20% of them are. Some people go, "What? Eighty percent? That's horrifying! If you say that people will be afraid of opening themselves to the Holy Spirit!"

"I go, 'No, what happens when people hear that I've said that in different countries around the world, I get applauses for it because people go, 'Wow, if somebody's got enough discernment to see what's really happening, maybe there's hope to keep pressing in. But if I have to believe all this, I can't believe any of it.'' I go, 'You don't have to believe it all. You can enjoy it without believing all of it because you see some of it.'"

Now, I think he's being way too generous with that number. I haven't been to thousands of manifestation meetings as he's claimed, but I have seen dozens, if not well over a hundred, and well less than 20% of it is real. But that aside, this is one of their own admitting the vast majority of it, at least 4 out of every 5 manifestations of the Holy Spirit, are completely fake.

But no matter how fake it is, they still defend it, just as Bickle was defending it here: "There's just this energy here," they might say. "Can't you feel it? The Holy Spirit is really doing something here."

Though Parham had tried to distance himself from the Azusa Street revivals, there's no question that his teaching launched it, and he is today considered to be the founder and most prominent leader of Pentecostalism, or what we might also call modern charismaticism.

Was it ever authentically verified that what Parham taught about the gift of speaking in tongues actually manifested itself in fervent Christians able to speak in the tongues of men—languages that they were not previously learned or studied in? Even Parham himself had to admit that any genine manifestation of this gift, to speak in another language, was extremely rare. But still, he was invested in the rare. He put all of himself behind however rare those occasions may be.

So what Buzenitz said was true: "The Pentecostal movement had to change its understanding of Scripture to fit its experience rather than acknowledging that its experience did not fit the clear teaching of Scripture." Now that doesn't mean that they organized and had a meeting and said something like, "Guys, this tongues thing that Parham taught ain't working. So going forward, maybe tongues aren't real human languages. Maybe it's speaking in ecsatitc utterances."

This is a change that came about organically, not organizationally. The fact that you cannot easily find anyone speaking a real human language that they did not previously know empowered by the Holy Spirit is proof of cessationism. Praying in gibberish is not supernatural. The Montanists did it, the Shakers did it—there are people of all kinds of religions and spiritual practices who do that all the time. I could do it right now if I wanted. Anyone could do it whenever they want to do it.

But for the genuine gift of speaking in tongues, speaking in another human language, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:30, not every Christian can or will do it, nor is it one of the higher gifts. Verse 31: "Earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way," the way of love. Because what's the reason for the spiritual gifts? They're for building up the church. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:6, the gift of tongues does not build up the church. Verse 22: "Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers."

That's a point I'm going to come back to next time, because when the Remnant Radio guys explain what the gift of tongues was for, they miss that. Miller will actually make the argument that the gift of tongues was for prayer. Here's a teaser of him saying that:

"I think the, and I've said this already, but I think if you just look at 1 Corinthians 14, it's pretty clear that tongues is about prayer. Predominantly, it's about praying to God. And that to me seems like a really obvious thing because prayer is important to God, and He's helping us to pray when we're not really good at it."

Yeah, he helped us to pray by teaching us how to pray—by giving us a whole book of prayers and praise songs called the Psalms. How does Miller's explanation fit with 1 Corinthians 14:22, that tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers? A private blathering prayer language that no one can understand is a sign for unbelievers? We'll flesh that argument out next time.

Why the Charismatic Movement is so Popular

Back to something else Miller said, he responded to Buzenitz, "One of the things I think they failed to mention is how the Pentecostal movement became the fastest growing worldwide denomination on the earth, largely because they felt like they were empowered for ministry."

It's true that Pentecostalism grew immensely after Azusa Street. There are estimates today that put the number of Pentecostals between 200 and 600 million people who practice it—and that means they have adopted charismatic practices, not necessarily that they attend Pentecostal churches. As I said earlier, you could be Roman Catholic and be Pentecostal.

Roman Catholicism is filled with mystic practices we might call charismatic—dreams and visions and voices from God and prophecy and miraculous manifestations and casing out demons, statues that cry blood, appearances of Mary or angels or other saints. This not just a Protestant thing.

The largest Pentecostal denomination is the Assemblies of God, and while there are only 3 million people attending Assemblies of God churches in the U.S., there are over 90 million worldwide. That's 6 or 7 times larger than the Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

So yes, Pentecostalism is huge. But I disagree with Miller when he says Pentecostalism is the fastest growing denomination on earth "largely because they felt like they were empowered for ministry." I did not get that sense when I was a charismatic. I never even heard that when I was charismatic. I was doing more ministry, and especially more effective ministry, after I left charismaticism than when I was a charismatic.

The number one reason why someone is a charismatic is for an experience. That is the reason—to experience God, to experience the Holy Spirit.

Now, let me clarify what I'm not saying. I'm not saying this is the reason everyone who is charismatic is charismatic. Michael Miller says he's charismatic because he was convinced by the Scriptures—who am I to sit here and say that's not the reason.

I'm also not saying they don't have a desire to be empowered for ministry, as Miller said. I'm not saying they don't want to be biblical—Charles Parham thought he was being biblical. He rooted his teaching in Scripture. But he attracted so many people to his movement because he promised them an experience—a real, felt move of the divine.

This is the reason why charismaticism today is so large—perhaps the largest movement within Christianity. Just think about it on a common sense, practical level. If someone were to ask you: "Which would you rather have: a real, felt experience of God, especially if you could be given some miraculous ability or prophecy or another spiritual gift, or would you rather not experience that?" What would you say? Who in the world would say, "Nah, I'd rather not experience God." Sure, we all would love to have some tangible experience of the divine that way.

That's a really powerful thing to be able to promise something like that—as all charismatic churches believe they can promise. That is what continues to attract people to the charismatic movement today. They can be totally solid everywhere else in their doctrine and theology. But there's that yearning for something just a little bit more. I understand that desire. I've been there.

When I was 18 years old, I begged God for that kind of experience. I wanted something to affirm to me that He was there, and I chased after a charismatic experience for years. I was convinced I had experienced such things. I wrote songs about it; songs I still sing to this day.

My ah ha moment came when I was reading Exodus. I wanted a burning bush type of sign like Moses had. And I was reading about all these incredible miraculous signs the Israelites saw—the miracles Moses did with his staff and his hand, turning the Nile to blood, all the other plagues of Egypt, the Red Sea part, manna and quail from heaven, the voice of God Himself speaking from a mountain.

And what did Israel do? Did it cause them to believe in God? Were they advanced to some kind of higher spiritual level? No, they grumbled and complained. They disobeyed. They rebelled. And then they turned around and worshiped a golden calf. The experience doesn't make you believe more. In fact, it will probably make you less of a believer, because you pin the reality of your faith on your experiences rather than trusting in God and His word.

Listen to 2 Peter 1 beginning in verse 3: 

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us into His own glory and excellence, 4 by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

"5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practices these qualities, you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Tell me, brethren, where in there did Peter say to go out and confirm your calling and election by miraculous healing, speaking in tongues, casting out demons? What did he say it meant to become partakers in the divine nature? He said to love.

Paul said the same thing: "But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way." The more excellent way is the way of love, chapter 13. The higher gifts are those gifts that benefit the church. And speaking in tongues does not benefit the church. Even if you speak in tongues the Acts 2 way, it does not benefit the church—how much less then to be babbling to yourself.

Conclusion

Bretheren, let me conclude with this frankness. I tell you this with all the love of my heart because I've been there—if you believe that the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues means an ecstatic utterance of praying gibberish, you are acting out of a desire, a want to experience something, and then you impose that desire onto the text, just like I did. You did not draw that from the text. It is not a supernatural move of God.

Desire the higher gifts which build up the body, and pursue the more excellent way of love. We will come back to this debate about speaking in tongues next time.