CONTENTS

9 Lies People Believe About Speaking in Tongues

Disclaimer

Free Gifts

Acknowledgments

Preface

Section One - My Personal Story

Introduction

Those Crazy Charismatics!

September 9th, 2001

More By The Author

About The Author

Notes

9 LIES PEOPLE BELIEVE ABOUT SPEAKING IN TONGUES

CRUSHING myths and fallacies about the wonderful gift God gives freely

Steve Bremner

SteveBremner.com

Copyright 2014

All Rights Reserved

DISCLAIMER

NO portion of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any way by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder – the author. However, this book can be quoted from at lengths of up to 500 words freely only if a link is provided back to the page where this book is sold and the author’s name must be mentioned with the quote.

If you wish to use an excerpt that is longer than 500 words for the purposes of review in a blog or website, please contact the author for personal permission explaining your intent. The only reason for this is that Amazon.com has a very strict copyright policy about portions of publications enrolled in their Kindle Direct Publishing Select program appearing freely on the Internet. The author wishes to avoid any hassle.

Thank you for your understanding.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked Amplified or AMP are from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

It is rare to find a perfect book, but in this day and age of digital books, we can correct our mistakes rather quickly. If you find a typo or error in this book, we’d be extremely grateful if you would drop us an email to let us know. Contact us at feedback@fireonyourhead.org.

FREE GIFTS

"SO faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17, ESV).

There's something about hearing the Word of God rightly divided that helps stir up our faith. It's for this reason I'm constantly listening to Bible mp3s and preaching on my cell phone and iPod. Maybe you don't have time to read all the Kindle books you collect and something to listen to on your commute would suit you much better than reading.

If so, then visit http://SteveBremner.com/freeaudiobook and sign up to receive my newsletter updates and get your audio book version of this book absolutely free.

In addition to receiving the audio version, you'll receive access to free preview copies and sample chapters of future Kindle books of mine absolutely free, weeks before they're released on Amazon.

Plus, as I release new audio versions of my books you'll continue to receive FREE access to those as well as other newsletter exclusives.

Enjoy the book!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I felt it would be inappropriate not to include a moment to give thanks to the many friends and volunteers who helped make this book what it is today. As such, I will not be able to thank every single individual who could be thanked for this project coming together, and I hope I don’t offend anybody I left out who expected to be mentioned. There are too many to list and thank personally.

In writing a book on speaking in tongues, it would be criminal of me not to personally thank Brian Parkman for all the seeds he planted in my spirit on this subject in both Bible college and in personal Skype calls over the years. Much of what I’ve taught others and what I’ve written in this book would never have come about if not for your influence. Thank you for being available over Skype at random times of the day to let me pick your brain about this subject. I am especially thankful for your contribution in the form of co-writing a chapter and letting me use your class handout as an appendix to this book.

I also thank Joel Crumpton, not only for teaching me a lot of this subject as well, but for answering my questions and giving me your opinions when I’ve wanted to pick your brain, as well as the ways you’ve been willing to teach through hands-on training on the streets of Charlotte, N.C. I owe much of what I believe and live out to you and Brian, two great men of God. Only the Lord knows how many people have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoken in tongues through my ministry in a way that is directly attributable to you both.

To Dr. Stephen Crosby, for not only being willing to come on my podcast many times and share your expertise and tweetable quotes, but for being willing to take a look at my mess of a manuscript and provide invaluable insights that ultimately have strengthened this work and given it more depth and breadth. The result is more theological oomph when and where that was most needed.

I certainly don’t want to forget to thank Roy Farias for the tremendous editing. You have helped take this book to another level I only dreamed possible, and every author needs a Roy Farias!

I also want to thank those of you who’ve encouraged my writing gift and made me think “why not?” when it comes to publishing a work such as this.

Of course, I’ve had many volunteers and personal friends proofread and review the manuscript in various stages and to each of you I’m eternally grateful. I want to thank Royce Tyler for being the first to respond and get back to me with constructive feedback when I announced on social media that I was looking for proofreaders. I told you I’d mention you in my next book.

Special thanks to Jose Aljovin for the cover, and all the artwork related to the book and promotional images. You’ve got great taste and insight, and I’m glad you ignored me when I have given you terrible ideas.

And I want to thank my wife, Lili, for not only being willing to be my wife, but for giving me space on some occasions when the anointing just “came on me” in writing this and I needed to be left to work. God has given you a lot of patience and encouragement, and I’m extremely happy to have you along for the journey!

Finally, I obviously don’t want to leave out my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I owe you everything.

PREFACE

WHEN I started writing this book, I believed there were not very many “fresh revelation” books on the power of speaking in tongues out there besides Dave Roberson’s The Walk of the Spirit, The Walk of Power. Although I could develop this book to fill that void, I don’t presume to think of myself in the same league as men like my friend Brian Parkman who introduced me to Roberson, both of whom have spent decades praying in tongues daily — men who have been doing this longer than I’ve even been alive. I’ve read many books that have come my way and I’ve received a few powerful nuggets here and there, but I’m convinced there’s very little else out there like Roberson’s book which at the time he wrote it was born out of 25 years of daily praying in tongues. I realize I could write a much better book in my fifties or sixties than I could now, and maybe I’ll revisit many of these titles in the “Lies People Believe” series, but I’m burning to stir as many people up as possible to this wonderful gift and not waste any time.

Every time I would sit down to write this book and spend days or afternoons working on it, I’d get hung up and procrastinate since I felt like in order to make one of my points more effectively I’d have to go into more of a theological angle. That was not preferable to me because this book is intended to be conversational and accessible, and about half the length it turned out to be. This is not intended to be a high level academic book, though I’ve consulted some such books to get my facts straight as best as I could. I’ve written some men of God who are more knowledgeable with New Testament Greek than I am and asked their critical feedback to help me keep this book accurate to the Scriptures while not betraying the conversational approach I wanted it to have.

This book stayed on hiatus for a number of months while I kept finding myself stuck in a bit of a writer’s block. That was until there was an evangelical conference that took place in late 2013 called Strange Fire, basically attacking charismatics with broad strokes of the brush and insisting any form of the charismatic gifts are not for today. This book is not going to be about all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as I think there other better works I can point you to for that. However, one of the things I’ve noticed in reading internet forum debates about this, as well as comments on my blog, personal emails I’ve received, and conversations I’ve had, is that people are convinced they’re right on certain aspects of the gift of speaking in tongues, including many misconceptions I had already written down in a first draft of this book. The Strange Fire conference and all the internet activity that followed it at the time of writing this preface has helped light a fire in me to finally finish this project and present it to the Body of Christ for encouragement. That and the fact that one of the number one Google searches leading people to my personal blog is for the phrase “tongues is the least of the gifts”. In fact, the top blog posts on all of my sites deal with something related to speaking in tongues. Which leads me to conclude this book is badly needed. It is my hope that people who are looking for answers to their questions about glossolalia and charismata will come in contact with this book.

Depending on whom you ask, you can find groups of Christians who believe you’re not saved if you don’t speak in tongues. At least, that’s what I’ve heard people say but I’ve honestly never encountered them for myself as I elaborate on in a chapter devoted specifically to this charge. You can find others who say that yes the gifts are for today but they are not for everybody. Others say no, they’re not for today and if you encounter someone speaking in tongues today they’re demon-possessed. I wish I could say I was joking and never heard that last one.

Jesus said at the end of Mark’s Gospel,

And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-18, ESV)

I notice there is not much more said here other than the obvious. If you’re a believer, these things will happen in your life and witness. If you are newly saved, and have never read the Bible before, would you not take verses like this at face value and assume they mean what they say? Jesus didn’t say these signs will accompany only the disciples. Jesus didn’t place a time limit on them or any qualifier other than “those who believe”. It really is quite simple.

Among these signs that will follow believers are speaking in other tongues. Among them are physical healing miracles, with people recovering when a Christian prays for them. Yet, we have managed to still not quite get this simple concept right and have complicated it. We have a division in the Body of Christ, made up of believers, who don’t agree on these very signs Jesus said would accompany His followers. To this the cessationist might say “yes, that does seem to be what Jesus said here, but earlier manuscripts of the New Testament don’t include these last verses of Mark’s Gospel, so we shouldn’t take them too seriously or place a pin there and hang our theological hats on it.” And that’s a good point. Fortunately, we only need to look at Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and Luke’s account of the Acts of the early apostles to glean more information.

R.T. Kendall states in his recent book on the Holy Spirit,

I don’t mean to be unfair, but I have long suspected that, were it not for the gift of tongues, many evangelicals (many of whom are not cessationists) would have no objection to the gifts of the Spirit. The stigma (offense) is not with regard to wisdom; who doesn’t want and need wisdom? It is not with regard to having words of knowledge, the gift of faith, prophecy, discerning of spirits, the miraculous, or healing. The offense is invariably speaking in tongues. Why? As my friend Charles Carrin has put it, tongues is the only gift of the Spirit that challenges our pride. There is no stigma attached to any of the other gifts. Only tongues.[1]

And that is why I feel my book is needed. On the one hand I want to help remove the stigma surrounding the gift of tongues, but I also want to help clarify the unfortunate misconceptions that prevent people from walking in the fulness of the dimensions this gift unlocks.

Many of the lies we’re going to dismantle in this book are actually things that have been said to me me, written to me in emails or commented on social media in response to things I have posted publicly. Oh, and more importantly, they also include things that I have actually believed myself prior to receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I believe spending a few years as a Christian without the gift of tongues followed by years of using the gift for personal edification has helped give me some insight that can make this book valuable to readers looking for a deeper spiritual life. It has also given me patience and understanding with seekers who don’t understand why they have not received yet or who don’t know “what the hindrance is.”

Since the majority of the lies and misconceptions in which I’m referring to in this book are things many evangelicals believe and teach, the reader could be easily misled into thinking this is a “charismatic” or “Pentecostal” book. It would be easy to see my perspective that way since it’s usually those groups and denominations who have a favorable stance regarding tongues and spiritual gifts. However, charismatics and Pentecostals are not off the hook as there are some rather silly and unbiblical things people in those camps believe too which we will cover in this book.

This book is divided into three sections. The first section contains my personal testimony — or at least the parts of it that are relevant for you to understand why this book is ready to burst out of me. In the second and larger main portion of this book, I will cover most of these lies. The third part will cover some of the benefits of regular tongue praying and some insights I feel would be beneficial to those who want to walk deeper in this. All three sections have my own personal stories interspersed and my humour, which I hope you won’t mind. I didn’t use a lot of humor in the healing book I wrote since I felt that topic could be life or death for some readers. But, let’s face it, there’s a lot of humor to speaking in tongues and people’s experiences.

So, without any further backdrop, let’s get started!

Steve Bremner,

Feb 12th, 2014

SECTION ONE

My Personal Story

INTRODUCTION

AROUND the age of five, my family moved to the city of Peterborough, Ontario, home of music legend Stomping Tom Connors and breeding ground for many future NHL hockey players like Mike Fisher. There was a family around the corner who introduced themselves to us right away. They were Christians and very nice people of whom I don’t recall anything negative. Sometime when I began the first grade of public school and my little brother was old enough to walk, my mom hired a babysitter for us, named Irene, who lived further up the street. Irene, her husband and daughter were also Christians. Both of these families attended the same church, which happened to be walking distance from our house and theirs.

The family who babysat my brother and me would have these weekly Bible lessons in their basement recreation room, and Doreen, the mother of the first family, would sometimes lead them, but most often it was a third lady named Diane. Every week, beginning sometime in the winter of that year, I’d go over to my babysitter’s house along with other neighborhood kids also in attendance, and I was exposed to the straightforward Gospel from then onward.

I went through Sunday school for each grade all the way up into high school. In junior high and into high school I attended youth group on most Friday nights and didn’t really read the Bible, but I owned a nice one. I would simply bring it to Sunday school and turn to passages that the Sunday school teachers would have us read. Other than that, it got little to no use and stayed brand new looking for the next ten years.

I go into more detail on my blog in a series based on my testimony on a drop-down tab on my blog’s homepage for those readers it would interest. Suffice it to say, around age fifteen during the late 1990s I got serious about following God, thanks to the influence of new youth pastors who started serving at our church fellowship. It could be said that because I “prayed a prayer” one day on the way to the Bible teachings at my babysitter’s house that I had accepted Christ at a younger age. But I know before the Lord that I truly surrendered to Him at age fifteen at which time the adventure truly began.

This youth pastor couple had a tremendous impact on me at that time even if I lost touch in the next decade and remained connected mostly through social media sites. By that time in my life, I had been attending the same evangelical church for nearly a decade with no real commitment to Christ. I was merely dragged to church every Sunday by my parents but didn’t resist too much. I had not had very much exposure or influence by other outside churches to even realize there was any difference between our church and any other stream of evangelicalism.

What’s a “Pentecostal”?

In the eleventh grade, six months after having committed my life fully to Christ, I was actively involved in my high school’s campus Christian group, which had about 40-50 Christ followers in it. Its leadership consisted of six senior students who were about to graduate and who invited me to be one of the people to take over the group’s leadership the next year. Each of the six seniors represented different denominations and church backgrounds and I’m pretty certain this was the first time I had ever heard the word “pentecostal.” However, at this point in time that word didn’t yet mean anything to me.

By age seventeen I started participating in more interdenominational events, and time and again I’d hear things about those Pentecostals, but didn’t think much of it. Then one night we were having a slumber party at my youth pastor’s house. The guys were on one floor with him, while the girls were all upstairs with his wife. I remember we somehow ended up having an informal question and answer time with him where someone asked him what was the difference between us — whatever we were —  and Pentecostals. He gave examples of what distinguished us, such as faith healing and worship styles, but one thing he also said struck me: that Pentecostals don’t believe you’re saved unless you speak in tongues.

Speak in tongues? I’d noticed that phrase in the Bible a few times now that I was reading it, such as in the book of Acts, and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Since it wasn’t something I’d seen happen on any level in my church or with other Christians, I just kind of did a mental tune-out whenever I read it in my Bible. But this other teenager’s question led to a discussion and now a seed was planted in me that night: Why would those other “Pentecostal” people so arrogantly believe other Christians like me aren’t saved? I know I’m saved, I thought. I have Jesus in my life, but I don’t speak in tongues or really even know what it is. Those jerks!

Without having even talked to a Pentecostal or so called Spirit-filled Christian myself yet, I was already offended with them because of the words my youth pastor had spoken. I was now open to believing lies based on hearsay, and as a result, I’d go on to learn various straw man arguments about the subject of speaking in tongues, many of which we will dismantle in the next section of this book.

At this phase of life in my late teens I had also developed questions on other doctrines from my Bible reading. One of those topics was eternal security and the idea of whether or not a true Christian could lose their salvation. I had these questions as I started to highlight passages in my Bible using a certain pen color every time I found warnings about staying strong to the end, or warnings to backsliders to repent. I then proceeded to use another color pen to underline passages in my Bible that dealt with speaking in tongues as this became the next topic I was curious about and couldn’t figure out how to ignore Scripture passages that I read.

In the months to come, every time I read something about speaking in tongues, I had this nagging doubt in my mind: Why is it here in the Bible that the believers in the book of Acts did this if it’s not actually a big deal, or we’re not supposed to be doing it anymore, or whatever other reason people had told me for why not to speak in tongues? Why is it in the Bible then? It seemed like an honest question for a teenager starting to take the Bible seriously.

I was not nearly as smart at the age of seventeen as I am now as a grown adult (which still isn’t necessarily very smart), but I had enough sense to know that if something was in the Bible, I couldn’t figure out why people who claimed to believe the Bible would ignore or excuse it. Speaking in tongues seemed to emerge as such a thing that I didn’t really understand people’s explanations for why not to do it. It ranked right up there with the rapture — another topic people seemed to blindly accept as factual, but couldn’t really do a good job showing me why they believed a certain way about it, but that’s for another book.

Self-hypnosis?

One more event happened to me as a teenager that tipped me off into not being able to fully buy into those previous explanations anymore. On a certain Friday of the month, there was some kind of city-wide worship event going on in a rented performing arts center named Market Hall in downtown Peterborough. It was boring and LAME as heck. Not just with a capital L but each letter of lame needs to be capitalized. On this one particular night my friend Charles and I decided to walk down to street level and into the Peterborough Square, which was a type of mini-mall in those days beneath Market Hall. I immediately saw a friend of mine from school who I knew was a Jewish atheist, arguing and having some kind of shouting match with a man I recognized and knew was a student at the Plymouth Brethren Bible college in my hometown.

From a distance I could tell this was not going well for the student. I knew my Jewish friend had a good deal of ammunition he knew to use against the Gospel since I had tried witnessing to him before. When they stopped and parted ways, I said hi to my friend and then introduced myself to the Bible college student, who I had just watched lose a shouting match with my friend. We didn’t know each other’s name, but we recognized each other from events in our denomination that we had both attended. We knew each other enough that he was relieved to see me. At least I would imagine so after the encounter he had just had.

I learned that he had been handing out tracts, which are basically small pamphlets that have the Gospel presented in them, and he and his friends had been hitting the streets looking for people to hand these out to and share the Gospel with. That’s when he had run into my friend Dave and had gotten into an argument. Throughout the course of talking to him, I decided to ask him his perspective about speaking in tongues. I knew if he was studying the Bible in college he might have an educated answer to the questions I had.

Unfortunately I was wrong. In his theological answer he insisted that tongues only served a purpose for the early church when the Gospel was spreading from outside of Jerusalem and to Samaria. He told me that if you look at the instances when people got baptized in the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, it followed the pattern given by Jesus where He told His disciples to go with the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Then after that, those signs that accompanied the spreading of the Gospel in Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth no longer needed to follow the Gospel. I didn’t follow the logic at all, but I’m sure he sincerely believed what he told me made sense.

He then began to parrot things he’d clearly been taught but had not learned for himself, since his answer then started to revolve around how another really known Pentecostal/charismatic church on the edge of town supposedly hypnotized people into thinking they were speaking in tongues when they did this. He proceeded to tell me that they have long services and worship for such a long time so that people are more impressionable to be led astray. He said that when you hear those people speaking in tongues it’s not from the Spirit of God but it’s just gibberish and babble. He also used the words “self-hypnosis” several more times in his explanation.

The more he talked the less I believed he had come to this conclusion on his own, but was repeating maybe what one of his professors or pastors had told him. So I asked him if he had ever attended one of these church’s services and he admitted he had not, but one of his professors had. Of course! That was the first tip that he might not be worth taking too seriously if the crux of his beliefs on this matter were hearsay from his professors.

The Brownsville Revival Videos

I didn’t give much thought to speaking in tongues ever again until about a year later, when a friend of mine got back from attending the Brownsville Revival in the summer of 1999. In August, prior to my senior year, this friend, I’ll refer to as Hank (not his real name), came back from having spent the summer in Pensacola, Florida, and a bunch of us all got together at his at-the-time girlfriend’s house the next Saturday night for what I was under the impression would be a Bible study. It turned out that Hank had a video of Ken Gott from England preaching at the church he was just attending in Florida. I had never heard preaching like this before. I had also noticed a difference in the preaching style of Pentecostals and Charismatics I had heard so far. But even that was nothing like what I heard in this video that night.

“The ‘power’ of God? You mean the stuff in the Bible happens today, not just back then in Bible days? That’s not what I’d been taught to believe!” I thought to myself.

Ken Gott had all these wild testimonies he shared as he preached. We also watched another even more hard hitting video that night by Michael Rowan, which left many of us in tears in the living room and in the stadium on the video filled with thousands of youth who were hearing the message live.

I had never heard such powerful preaching before, and after it was over we spent considerable time in prayer, and Hank patiently and Scripturally explained some things to me about the revival in Pensacola and just what a “revival” was while he drove me home afterward. It sounded awesome, and made me wonder how come we don’t have something like that everywhere that there are Christians (I still wonder, actually). What is different about down there with those Christians that God is doing this down there and not up here in my hometown, Peterborough? And of course, I had questions for him about speaking in tongues since I saw the speakers in those videos and some people in the living room that night practice it. My theology at the time was of cessationism —  that the gifts of the Spirit don’t happen today, so of course speaking in tongues would be something that cessationists don’t expect to happen today.

This night would be the night the dam started to burst open for me.

THOSE CRAZY CHARISMATICS!

DURING my last year of high school, my close buddy named Trevor, who was also a leader in our Christian high school group mentioned in the last chapter, started “youth group hopping” with me on Friday nights. After a few visits he started accompanying me — or I should say driving me, since I didn’t have a car and he had a nice jeep and his driver’s license —  to the Selwyn Outreach Centre on Friday nights where Hank went. This was also the same church the Bible college student in the previous chapter had told me hypnotized people into thinking they were truly speaking in tongues. Anyway, I was convinced if that’s where Hank went, I wanted to see what they’ve got that I’m missing, because he was of a different spirit and character than the other Christians I knew. Without knowing exactly what it was, I knew it had everything to do with the whole Pentecostal/Charismatic distinction.

I shared my heart with my youth pastor at my home fellowship, and he basically tried talking me out of it, putting an emphasis on the idea I was jeopardizing my spiritual maturity by going to another youth group instead of “growing where I was planted”. I know him well enough to know he was sincere and looking out for my interests. He may or may not have been right, since as I’ve matured over the years I can see his point more clearly, but on the other hand I’m glad I didn’t listen to him because I never would have experienced things I went on to experience. I never would have met some of the people I met or wound up down the awesome adventurous path on the mission field where I now write this from.

My first night attending this youth service at Selwyn was marked by amazing worship. I felt so much freer to express myself than I ever did in any other church setting besides Acquire The Fire conference weekends. There was this one moment where those leading worship and many, if not all present, began singing in tongues. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard, and I thought to myself “Wow, so that is what it sounds like.”

I immediately dismissed what different people had told me about this church, which made me realize most of the Bible college students I’d talked to had probably not even visited this church, or likely any charismatic church in their entire lives for that matter. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to slander that congregation to me like the Bible college student I mentioned earlier. It was clearly not a “hypnotic” atmosphere where they “brainwashed me.” I didn’t know how to describe what I was experiencing other than to say the presence of God was “thicker” here than I had ever sensed. The speaking and singing in tongues all around me wasn’t causing it to feel that way, but I somehow knew the tongue signing was the fruit or a result of the presence of God. It was clearly evident these people had something I didn’t.

At this point in my life, I started going through my New Living Translation and looking for everything in the New Testament I could find that dealt with some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I underlined passages and circled words with neon colored gel pens for things related to the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. I also didn’t know anybody else who used these gel pens for any other reason than marking up their Bibles. Hank didn’t like my N.L.T. Bible so he bought me a New King James Version, which I then read through and marked up as well, but using some other color for all the things related to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and charismatic stuff. In about six months total, I had read through the Bible three times. You need to remember I was only 18 years old, and still in high school, where much of my studies suffered and my grades were low, but I soaked in the Word of God unlike any other season of my life except for Bible college a few years later. I’ve always had an advanced reading level during all my public schooling, so this helped me read the Bible at a pace I considered normal. To my friends however, I was a reading machine.

Hunger For God

I was hungry for more of God unlike anything since the time I got saved and was initially reading the Bible. I started seeing how a lot of what I had been taught was clearly biased and plain unbiblical. Like everyone else who wants to be honest with themselves, I was interpreting the Bible according to my experience instead of changing my experience to match the Word of God — that’s what it all boils down to. It didn’t help that most Christians I was surrounded by didn’t even believe in the supernatural aspect of God’s character, or they had relegated it to a thing in the past that God “doesn’t do anymore”.

After this I’d consistently go to the Selwyn church on Friday nights with either Hank or Trevor. I also got addicted to watching borrowed videos of Hank’s or another local family who had also attended the Brownsville Revival. By the time I had finished high school I intended on enrolling in the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry. However, some friends who attended or wanted to attend the Pentecostal Bible college in Peterborough gave me cause for concern that on the application, prospective students are asked if they speak in tongues or if they’ve ever been baptized in the Holy Spirit. At that point in time I was open to the charismatic gifts and believed that speaking in tongues was indeed a valid experience Christians could engage in, but I was very worried about the possibility of getting denied entry into this school if I didn’t speak in tongues. I’d later realize this fear was quite silly.

I didn’t wind up going right away but took a year off after high school to work at a local Subway franchise and saved up money for tuition. During this time the BRSM split into two, and an offshoot was formed called FIRE School of Ministry. I applied to both schools, and their applications were virtually identical. Since almost the entire faculty went to FIRE after the split, I had made up my mind that I’d rather attend that school since its teachers were in the numerous revival videos I had watched. After all, it was because of them that I had decided I wanted to attend and be taught under them for two years of my early adulthood. Neither school’s application asked anything about speaking in tongues other than to gauge whether or not the student practiced this in their personal life.

“You Don’t Speak in Tongues?!”

A high school classmate of mine was also going to attend FIRE so we became close friends for awhile. When he found out I didn’t speak in tongues, it seemed he went all out to try to convert me to a deeper spiritual life. It was quite suffocating, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him I felt this way at the time. I knew he was right, but he overwhelmed me, and many times when we’d get together just to pray or to have fellowship, it seemed speaking in tongues would always come up. I wasn’t the one to bring it up, either, if you know what I mean.

From the time that I had started attending Hank’s charismatic youth group with my friend Trevor, to the time I started classes at FIRE School of Ministry, approximately two years of my life had passed. During this period of time, I had been prayed for at least half a dozen times by people to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit and nothing seemed to have happened — much to the disappointment and frustration of some of my overzealous Pentecostal friends. I never once spoke in tongues. My fellow classmate’s pushiness was worrying me. I was worried that I might have a difficult time attending a charismatic Bible college in Florida for two years without speaking in tongues if everybody was going to be like this with me. I still had all sorts of misconceptions about charismatics and I worried this would be a problem for me if I attended a college in a “revival” atmosphere. All the charismatics I’d met so far seemed to think I was missing out on something, and part of me knew it was true. However, the aggressive nature of some of my friends to get me to receive the gift of tongues almost smothered me. I no longer knew if I even wanted to speak in tongues or receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit by this point!

In August of 2001 I carpooled from Peterborough down to Pensacola, Florida for a more than 24 hour car ride with two other guys — one in his third year internship with FIRE and the other a classmate I’d enrolled with. I was going the farthest away from home I’d ever gone. After a couple of days I moved into what would be the house I lived in during my first semester, and right away word spread that “I wasn’t filled with the Holy Spirit”. It’s like everybody was in the same chatroom or something about non-tongue speakers, because everybody seemed to know that I was the Canadian who didn’t speak in tongues. I even had one roommate in particular who felt like it was his personal mission to get me filled with the Holy Spirit. His exact words to me were “How could you attend FIRE and not speak in tongues?” Again, this type of stuff, from the perspective of someone who didn’t, is the very reason why I could have been turned off from ever accepting and receiving this gift.

In the weeks to come, there were a few moments when “the Holy Spirit broke out” in some of our classes and we interceded or people prophesied things for the benefit of the whole class. During such moments when people all around me were praying in the Spirit (in other tongues), I didn’t get too embarrassed or uncomfortable as I had in previous times. However, I was a little worn out by the zeal of roommates, new classmates, and previous charismatic friends that I remember hoping nobody looked at me during those times and noticed that my lips weren’t moving like theirs. I didn’t want any more people to take me on as their special project to get filled with the Spirit. But that all changed after a few weeks.

SEPTEMBER 9TH, 2001

ONE night it all came out in front of over 600 people. Dr. Josh Peters was preaching something out of the second chapter of the book of Acts. Of course he was, because that’s all charismatics preach, right? My memory doesn’t serve me at this point as to what his message was about or all the points he made, just that at one point he joked that if we really wanted to live out the book of Acts there’d be blood and smoke flowing out of our meetings (see Acts 2:17-21). That would sure make people talk about charismatic churches then, wouldn’t it!?

Towards the end he gave an altar call, asking if there was anybody present who wanted to give their lives to Jesus Christ for the first time. If I remember correctly, there were a couple of people present and they went forward toward the platform. Then, he asked another question; if there was anybody present who wanted to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. I immediately knew the question applied to me, but I looked down and started thinking to myself, “I’m in a new place, with a clean start. Nobody knows very much about me yet. I don’t have to let anybody know I’m not ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ which really only meant I didn’t need to let anybody know I didn’t speak in tongues.” Part of me wanted to receive it, but…not tonight. Maybe later after I’ve had time to process this. If he asks another night, then on that occasion I’ll come forward. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

I pondered it for a split second, and my major hindrance was how I’d been prayed for several times in other Pentecostal churches and nothing seemed to have happened and how frustrated the people who prayed over me seemed to get about it. Did I really want to get prayed for again and still not “receive”? Did I really want to go through this ordeal and frustrate a new group of Pentecostals again? On other occasions people prayed for me for a REALLY long time until they got tired that I wasn’t speaking in tongues yet. Did I want to put myself through such a frustration again?

Before I could make up my mind, it seemed it was already made up for me as I turned my head and noticed there were arms all around pointed at me! I couldn’t hide, and Dr. Peters invited me to come down to the front area in front of the stage while he encouraged others to come lay hands on me.

Just great. Now everybody in the sanctuary saw me get singled out. Who were all those people pointing at me anyway? I’m sure it was just one or a few people who pointed at me and the rest in that wing of the auditorium also started pointing in the same direction. At any rate, now I was in for it!

I was convinced I’d get prayer, that nothing would happen, and then I’d go on my merry way and be an “undercover” charismatic who didn’t speak in tongues.

To make matters worse, there had to have been what seemed like about 30 people come down to the altar area to gather around and suffocate me. Okay, they probably didn’t want to suffocate me, but when I saw that many people ready to gather around and lay hands on me, I was very nervous, more than I had ever been before regarding receiving prayer! This is an awful lot of people to let down when I don’t wind up speaking in tongues, just like all the other times.

Did I really want to be here for like an hour while people “pressed in” to try getting me to speak? How do I make it up if it takes too long and I want to go out afterward to eat at Denny’s or go straight home? I had all sorts of thoughts run through my head like this, as I was convinced the same thing that had always happened before was going to happen now.

These people began laying hands on me — or at least as many out of that group as could reach me in the multitude — and I felt something flow through my belly that I’d never experienced before or since. It was kind of like a fire, but more like a bubbling up feeling. I don’t know how to describe it. It was like indigestion, but not painful or uncomfortable. Instead of coming from my esophagus area, it was lower, as though it was in my abdomen. Then there was this type of surge that would go from my abdomen area up to my throat and I’d want to let it out but didn’t know how.

Every time I had that sensation — which by the way was subtle, but still comfortable and not in any way painful or alarming — one of the ladies said “that’s it, that’s it, that’s it there”. I have no idea if I was showing any outward sign of what was going on inside me, but every time I felt that surge pop upward inside me, she would say “that’s it” as though she knew exactly what was going on inside me.

The whole situation lasted only a few moments and many of the people who had gathered around me to pray were now making their way back to their seats. I had a few weird syllables I could now speak out that I couldn’t before. It was so simple, and felt like it was coming from my stomach instead of from my head. This lady stuck around to encourage me along with a second year student close to my age who encouraged me just to keep saying the few syllables that would come up. He told me the more I said them the more the Holy Spirit would provide other words and what sounded like phrases. Part of me felt ripped off that I didn’t experience a more spectacular scene. I really thought some kind of glory ball was supposed to hit me and knock me to the ground and I’d get up speaking in tongues. I can’t remember all the misconceptions and false expectations I had initially had prior to that night, but this blew me away.

That’s it? That’s all there is to it? I can speak in tongues now? The Holy Spirit doesn’t just come down and shake my tongue with His hand and make sounds come out of my mouth? I am in control of whether to speak what’s coming up from inside me or not?

When I got home I emailed about ten of my friends back in Canada to tell them what had happened. One of them wrote back saying I was already baptized in the Spirit, so I was essentially saying I just got saved that night. Another wrote back and encouraged me to use the gift more and I’d see God develop it more in me. So that’s what I started to do.

When I prayed the next day during my Monday off, I felt like I was finished praying for everything I could think of in 15 minutes or so. If I was going to pray for any prolonged amount of time, then yes, this gift of praying in tongues was going to come in quite handy since I didn’t know what else to pray for!

I had this pesky little problem going on in my mind; I had only a few syllables that would come out, and even though I was doing this privately in my room, I was still inhibited and thought that maybe this was a joke. Maybe charismatics are just idiots after all and my evangelical friends were right. Maybe I was hypnotizing myself. Oh my goodness, how embarrassing! Tongues can’t be this easy! It’s supposed to be more spectacular than this!

Then, the next day after that was a Tuesday. On Tuesday we had chapel before classes. We would have gone to chapel before classes start like usual, but this was September 11th, 2001 and the Twin Trade Towers in New York City had been attacked. I carpooled with two of my roommates that morning to school, and when we arrived there was already a lot of people in the auditorium praying and interceding for what was going on. The details at that hour of the morning were that America was under attack, but it was not known by who or why yet. I found a corner of the auditorium where I could go pray privately since I didn’t really know what to do. I almost didn’t even believe this had happened, since I didn’t own a TV and I am one of the few people I know who didn’t watch those towers fall live on TV or the internet.

I can tell you one thing that I’ll never forget about that morning; the prayer language just flowed out of me like a river dam had been destroyed. I no longer just had a few syllables coming out of my mouth. There was no longer just a trickle like the previous 24 hours when I tried, but now a mighty flowing river of a new prayer language was coming out of me. Romans 8:26 says “we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”  This verse suddenly made sense to me in a much deeper way than ever before since, after all, I really quite literally did not know what to pray on the morning of 9/11.

The Walk of the Spirit, The Walk of Power

Later in the fall, months after receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues for my first time, I had another launching pad experience with this gift. I had been regularly speaking in tongues in my worship to God and private prayer times, but I didn’t truly understand the value of it until I had my first class with Brian Parkman. He was filling in for two weeks during another class I was taking, and he talked about regularly praying in tongues every day. “Every day, every day, every day”, as he’d say. He told us about a book that would change our lives called The Walk of the Spirit, The Walk of Power by Dave Roberson. I had never heard of the author before, and although I knew there was a lot of depth we could plunge into regarding this gift, I couldn’t seriously believe anybody could teach enough on it to come up with a 400 page book on just this subject. And yet, all these years later I’m going to cover more stuff in my book that Roberson didn’t cover in his!

I was intrigued but it wouldn’t be until my second semester when we had a full class with Brian called Principles of Faith and Prayer where we’d get a copy of it. When it came weeks later into that semester I read my copy in an entire Saturday. Not just read it, but I took notes in my notepad and highlighted content in the book. It had some good stuff in it, and praying in tongues for prolonged amounts of time became easier and easier to me than it ever had before. This was because I now had a much better understanding of what was going on in my spirit.

I highly encourage you to get your hands on a copy. This is not some kind of affiliate commission on my part if you do, since Dave Roberson’s ministry freely gives copies of this book away if you call them, or you can go get a PDF or mobi (Kindle) version of it on his website at www.daveroberson.org. I’m going to cover ground in my book that’s not covered in his book, but once you’ve read it, you’ll understand the foundation the Lord laid in my life with the practice of speaking in tongues.

Over the years, I’ve lent my copy of the book to many friends and I have re-read it at least once per year. In the last decade it has been worn out and I’ve noticed it still doesn’t necessarily answer everybody’s objections as much as it helps stir people up to pray more. You are encouraged to read Dave Roberson’s book to build yourself up and put into practice what you learn in it and transform your life. You are encouraged to keep reading my book if you want to answer your friends who get on your case and tell you different misconceptions about speaking in tongues. Read that book alongside this one if you’d wish.

And now, let’s tackle the objections.

HOW TO GET THE FULL BOOK

This concludes the free sample of this book.

If you like what you’ve been reading so far and would like to buy a copy, you can get one here:

Kindle version for $9.99  (click here)

Paper back version for $13.99 (click here)

Audiobook for $12.99 (click here for our Audiobook store)

For a limited time, you can get the ePub version of the book at our online store (link here). If you know someone who would like to read it but doesn’t have a Kindle but they use a Kobo or a Nook, they can read this version on their device.

Enjoy!

MORE BY THE AUTHOR

IF you liked this book, you’ll also like

Increase Your Faith

Practical Steps To Help You Believe For The Impossible

Have you ever wondered what Jesus was talking about when he told us we could cast mountains into the sea? Have you ever wondered the point of having faith like a mustard seed?

Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to please God, but yet so many of us have little idea what this means exactly. Jesus said if we had faith as a mustard seed, we could speak to our mountainous problems and cast them into the sea.

Loaded with Scripture, this quick read contains practical tips that you can immediately apply to your personal life, and start casting your mountains into the sea!

Increase Your Faith was written to provide you with spiritual guidance and usable insights to help you see the impossible come about in your life.

Get your Kindle version on Amazon.com for only $2.99 (click here)

Or your audio version for only $7.99 (click here)

Six Lies People Believe About Divine Healing

The Truth About God’s Will to Heal the Sick

Have you ever believed God had made you sick to teach you a lesson?

Do you believe God wants some to be sick but others to be well for a divine purpose known only to Himself?

Have you struggled with a healing in your body or spirit but it seemed as though God just doesn't want to answer your prayers for healing

Do you believe you've got a thorn in the flesh God is using to refine your character?

These are lies, and Steve Bremner Scripturally and carefully answers these objections to healing along with other misconceptions that many Christians believe when it comes to divine healing.

This quick read will help you destroy the traditions of man and lies of religion that nullify the power of God in your life!

What we believe about God and how He works can have a dramatic impact on how we approach Him and what we expect of Him.  Many Christians believe lies about The Father that keep them bound and prevent healing in their bodies and in their lives.

In his conversational style, Steve helps you learn what some of the top lies are that hold Christians and unbelievers back when it comes to divine healing. You too can receive healing and heal the sick.

Quit believing lies today.  God is not just "able" to heal, He is willing!

If you’d like to give a copy to a Spanish-speaking friend, give them a copy of 6 Mentiras Que Las Personas Creen Sobre La Sanidad Divina.

Buy either digital version for only $3.99 on Amazon (Click here for English, click here for Spanish

Get your audio version for only $7.99 (click here)

The Imperishable Seed of Christ

Understanding the Believer’s Spiritual DNA

"Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God." 1 Peter 1:22-23

What is this imperishable seed with which we've been born again? All flesh is like grass and the things of this world will fade away. In this short but rich book Steve Bremner challenges you to live a life that is "imperishable" and will survive the transition into the age to come while the things of this world, pass away.

This book is also an exploration of the parable of the sower and the principles of reproduction in the Kingdom of God, focusing primarily on Christ's imagery and language about the seed in the parable of the sower, as well as Paul's construction metaphors in his first letter to the Corinthians.

Buy it now on Amazon for only $2.99

Get the Audio version free on NoiseTrade

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Bremner is a missionary to Peru and a FIRE School of Ministry graduate. He has a burden for grounding people in the Word of God and seeing believers from all sorts of backgrounds live out and experience the power of the Holy Spirit, and the love of God in their lives and ministries.

Steve also thinks it’s pretentious when authors and bloggers write their own bio pages but refer to themselves in the third person.

I — I mean he — served in the Netherlands for almost 2 years before moving to South America. The gift of teaching and a pastoral heart are what characterize Steve’s calling, and in Peru so far he’s had opportunities to teach in a local seminary, share the love of Christ to some of the underprivileged, and traveled to shanty towns outside of Lima, the nation’s capital, to teach with and serve alongside other established ministries. He is now living in Chorrillos, and is part of a missional community called Oikos, and teaches full time in its school of ministry.

Steve is Canadian (and is not ashamed of it), and considers himself a part of River Run Fellowship, located in Peterborough, Ontario. That’s in Canada, for those who need it clarified. If it weren’t for his home fellowship, and his pastor Stephen Best, he would never have gone to Peru where he is beginning to see God do things he once only imagined and daydreamed about.

He is the author of several forthcoming books similar to this one you’re currently reading, and plans to one day soon open a healing rooms ministry in a densely populated area of Lima. If the Internet had been available to the Apostle Paul, he’d have used it make the Word of God available to as many people as he could. For this reason, Steve co-hosts and produces the Fire On Your Head podcast, with other contributors to Fire Press (www.fireonyourhead.org) — an online Christian magazine he founded in 2008 and serves as senior editor for, and where he has spent years sharpening his writing skills.

The Fire On Your Head podcast can be subscribed to in iTunes and other popular podcatcher programs such as Stitcher Radio, or you can visit the site directly at www.fireonyourhead.com.

To be notified when Steve’s other projects are released, follow him on social media at the following links:

Facebook.com/StephenGeorgeBremner

Twitter.com/StephenGBremner

plus.google.com/+SteveBremner

Or join Steve’s newsletter e-mailing list and receive other stuff, such as personal newsletters and weekly blog digests from his personal website, SteveBremner.com and Kindle recommendations and promotions, as well as podcast interview notifications (lots of updates).

On a final note, like any other author, Steve is trying to earn a living with the sales of his Kindle books on Amazon. Your purchase of this book is greatly appreciated, and you are invited to visit Amazon and purchase his other titles if you enjoyed this book.

One way you can support him that doesn’t require any of your money is by going to Amazon and writing a review of this book, which you can do at this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDZZIM0/. If you liked this book, please review it on Amazon and share the link to your social networking sites.

If you were touched by this book and would like to make a donation to sow directly into Steve and Lili Bremner on the mission field in Peru, please follow these instructions:

In Canada:

Make cheques payable to:

CALVARY INTERNATIONAL CANADA

149 Westmount Dr. N, P.O. Box 20081,

Orillia, Ontario L3V 6C7.

Please write “805C” in the memo line. Do NOT write Steve or Missionary anywhere on the check as it will not be received!

Visit their site to donate online: http://calvaryintcanada.com/, or go specifically to this link if you’d like to set up recurring monthly donations for Steve and Lili.

In the USA:

Make checks payable to:

ONE HEART INTERNATIONAL MISSION

3284 #F Heathstead Place

Charlotte, NC 28210

Indicate it’s for Steve/Peru

Visit their site to donate online: oneheartmission.org

Thank you for your encouragement and support.

Notes

1. Kendall, R.T. Holy Fire: A Balanced, Biblical Look at the Holy Spirit's Work in Our Lives, Charisma House, Location 927, Kindle File