01.08. The Upper Room and Tongues

Chapter 8 THE UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES.

There are several features connected with the gathering and waiting of a certain company in the famous Upper Room in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago, that is well worthy of study and imitation in these days of religious instability and false doctrine.

One fact about them was that they were the most faithful followers that Christ had upon the earth. It was not a collection of sinners praying for pardon, but a band of disciples supplicating for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost.

It must be evident to any one who has even a slight knowledge of unregenerate human nature, that it would be impossible to get one hundred and twenty unconverted people to be in a continuous prayer meeting of ten days. Even if penned up in such a room, they could not be kept in.

They would break through the windows, or tear down the ceiling or dig through the floor before they would endure the spiritual torment of such a place and service. But what sinners would not do, and could not be compelled to endure, regenerated souls with the love of God, and hungering for the fullness of salvation, could easily and naturally be seen doing. This single fact alone is sufficient to reveal the character and spiritual status of the Upper Room Assembly prior to the morning of Pentecost. A second fact is that they were gathered at this time for one object. The Scripture states that they were told to tarry, and did tarry for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. This remarkable lack of division as to other points of doctrine and experience; this wonderful unity and agreement as to the one crowning work of grace which Christ had told them about, reveals one of the reasons for the amazing, overwhelming descent of the Holy Spirit upon them.

We do not doubt a single instant that if God’s people in church, camp ground and revival service, would leave out of their "programs" everything but this; if they would quit trying to cover all creation with their multiplied diversified services and meetings; if they would give Missions, Missionaries, Education, Church Extension, Colleges, Introduction and Showing Off of Prominent Men, and even Testimony Meetings, a rest for a while, and put the ten days in with a continuous, fervent, humble, importunate waiting on God for the Baptism, and outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the church and camp, we would have scenes rivaling Pentecost and results that would bring millions of souls to God, and send shocks of consternation and horror to the very center of the black heart of Hell. A third fact about this marvellous meeting of other days, was that up to the time the Spirit fell on the tenth day, not a single effort had been made to get a sinner into the meeting, or anything done to secure the salvation of any one of the many lost souls in Jerusalem.

Multitudes of unsaved men were on the streets of that city, but not one of the number was invited or brought to the meeting in the Upper Room. As we see spiritual things today, we recognize plainly that had this been done, and a mixed crowd gathered, Pentecost would not and could not have occurred. It required the unity and fixedness of purpose, and the patient, humble waiting in prayer of the best regenerated people in all that country, to make possible the marvellous happenings of Pentecost and the days which followed.

All this sounds wonderfully in harmony with Christ’s prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John, where He declares that He prayed not for the world, but for them from the Father had given Him out of the world. That they were now not of the world. and He prayed that they might be sanctified. And He wanted them sanctified, that the nations might believe and know what God had done for the world through His Son.

Everywhere we hear preachers and laymen, who have not studied out the divine way to a real, sweeping revival where hundreds and thousands of souls would be saved, insisting that we preach to sinners. They think that we do not care for the salvation of the unconverted unless we do as they say; and yet their method is not the true, effective Bible way of bringing souls to God. The proper study of the ten days in the Upper Room, and of the Saviour’s Prayer, shows that if the population in the state, and if the world itself is to be saved. it will have to be through a wholly sanctified and fire-baptized church. A fourth fact about this company in the Upper Room was that they did not pray for a gift of the Holy Spirit, but for the Holy Ghost Himself, who is greater than all his gifts.

It was the culminating blessing, the crowning work of divine grace, that was to usher in and finish most gloriously and triumphantly the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost, which they sought, plead for and obtained.

Inspiration had declared that He, the Holy Ghost, was for all believers who met the conditions of His coming, but that His gifts were distributed as God saw fit in His sovereign pleasure and infinite wisdom, to one this, and to another that.

Again, the Scripture declares that the gifts are variable and not perpetual, but that the Spirit Himself would come to abide forever. In view of these statements of God, we see the Upper Room company showing true wisdom in seeking that which was culminating, crowning, superior and abiding; and in making no effort for that which was less, which not every child of God can have, and that even when possessed will in time "vanish away."

It is true that they obtained the Gift of Tongues that morning, but it is most noticeable that they did not seek the "gift." It was thrown in that day. Nor is there any account that this company ever had it again. It departed as a certain exigency and need passed away. While the Holy Ghost who had filled them, abided in them continually and to the end of their joyous, useful, powerful lives.

Hence it is that when we hear today of God’s people seeking for the Gift of Tongues, we behold a perfect contrast to the spirit, conduct and object of the One Hundred and Twenty in the Upper Room. We also see people confessedly sanctified seeking something that God has placed far below Sanctification or the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. We mark them striving for that which is ranked as low down as seventh in the gifts of the Spirit, and one also that Paul emphatically declares "vanishes away," while Holiness or Perfect Love, which comes with the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, he affirms is never to pass away. Nor is this all. Even if we had the real Gift of Tongues in our midst, and it is certain that we have not, the same God-inspired man said, "I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an (unknown) tongue."

(The word in brackets is not in the original.) Still again, this wonderful mouthpiece of God said, that even where the genuine Gift of Tongues should be possessed, that such a gift should not be exercised unless there was an Interpreter present. Hear his words, "If there be no interpreter, let him keep silence."

People claiming this gift today are quick to quote the Apostle, "Forbid not to speak with tongues." But behold here is another "forbid," which they have overlooked. If no interpreter is present, "keep silence," Paul says.

Moreover, there was all this care when the genuine gift was present! What shall be said of the "gibberish" that is called Tongues today? It would be well for the people who have discounted the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and put a gift above the Giver, to remember several things: First,that the word "unknown " which they quote so much, is not God’s word. It is a human interpolation and not the Scripture.

Second, that the "tongues" with which the disciples spoke at Pentecost were not "unknown" tongues or "Gibberish." Luke says, "That every man heard them speak in his own language." And again we read in the eighth verse of the second chapter of Acts, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born." Here was no unintelligible jargon; but languages of earth recognized distinctly by people coming from these different countries and nations.

Third,if the Gift of Tongues is as they put it, higher in value and importance than the Blessing of Sanctification, or the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, then should there be commensurate results in their meetings and labors when it is received.

We notice that when the disciples were baptized with the Holy Ghost there was a great revival and many souls were saved. Where is the sweeping revival and salvation of men in what is called "The Tongue Movement" today? Fourth, it is noteworthy that the church in which the Gift of Tongues broke out in Paul’s time, gave that Apostle more trouble than all the other churches put together. He told them plainly that they were "carnal." He also said to them that jabbering together as they did, they not only did not edify anybody, but people hearing you, -- "will they not say that ye are mad!" In view of all these things; and in recognition of the fact that even after "coveting the best gifts" there remains a "more excellent way;" the way of Holiness and Perfect Love all laid down in Christ’s Prayer, and the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, we propose not to run after a thing which is not even among the "best gifts ;" that God ranks as Number Seven in the list; that unaccompanied with love Paul says is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal and which, according to the Bible, is certain at last to "cease" and "vanish away."

We prefer the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, purifying the heart, filling with Perfect Love and enduing the soul with power. And in the strength and grace of this crowning culminating work of God, would "rather speak five words with the understanding, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue."

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