If you look up the term “Pentecostalism” in Merriam-Webster’s “Encyclopedia of World Religions,” it’s defined as a charismatic religious movement “characterized by the belief that all Christians should seek a post-conversion religious experience called the baptism with the Holy Spirit.”

“This experience,” Webster’s says, “corresponds to the first outpouring or descent of the Holy Spirit upon the 12 disciples of Christ assembled in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 1:12-2:4, and it is accompanied by the same sign: the gift of glossolalia, or ‘speaking in tongues.’

“Pentecostals also hold that a Spirit-baptized believer may receive at least one of the other supernatural gifts that were known to have been in existence in the early church—the ability to prophesy, to heal, or to interpret what is said when someone speaks in unknown tongues.”

Notice how these are all things that can easily be faked? Plus, you get to feel like a real big-shot.

In a sermon just the other week, my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill. (www.graceimpact.org) , informed, “I get this stuff in the mail all the time about ‘church growth’ and Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Bob Schuller, and all this stuff about how you can have a mega-church, and all of it constantly talks about, ‘Let’s go back to Pentecost and get the Pentecostal power and the Pentecostal program.’

“But nobody goes back there and does what the passages say. They take the easy stuff. Well, any yo-yo can tongue-talk. I mean all you got to do is, ‘Abba-dabba-eeba-deeba-obscot-lalagoblam,’ and who are you to say that’s not God?”

As Jordan went on, “You want to go back to Pentecost and really do Pentecost? Let me show you the verses to do. Look down at Acts 2:44. Now, you start doing this and I’m going to start believing you’re serious. I’m still going believe you’re in the wrong program, but at least I’ll believe you’re serious. Until you start practicing this verse, preacher, I think you’re just a four-flusher.”

Specifically, Acts 2: 44-46 reads, “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.”

In Acts 4: 34-35, when it says Believers were once again filled with the Spirit, it confirms, “Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”

Jordan explains, “They laid their money at the apostles’ feet and the apostle didn’t then go buy a Rolls Royce or a Beemer with it; he took it and gave it to the people who had needs. . . Now where do you see that being done today? The answer is you don’t. Nobody’s following that passage.”

The reason the apostles gave all to the poor was because Jesus Christ had told them, in essence, “Hey, the kingdom’s coming; sell the stuff now. You’re going to get your lot of inheritance in the kingdom.”

Jesus Christ told them in Luke 14: 33, for example, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”

“He’s saying, ‘If you don’t forsake all that you have—every possession you have—

you can’t be my disciple,’ and they’re doing exactly what He told them to do,” explains Jordan. “It was a serious issue back then about selling what you possessed and obeying that. If these people sold their possessions, anticipating the kingdom coming, and then the kingdom’s postponed, what do you think might happen? Maybe they’d be broke?!”

What Pentecostals don’t want to acknowledge is the simple fact that the Book of Acts is the record of Jesus Christ’s temporary post-resurrection ministry and the signs and wonders of Pentecost were wrought by Him as part of God’s final, last-chance offer to Israel to bring in the kingdom if they repented and turned to Him.

“The purpose of Acts is not to give the history of the founding of the Christian church so much as it is to be a bridge between the kingdom ministry of the Twelve and the Body ministry of Paul,” writes Bible scholar Charles F. Baker in his book, “A Dispensational Synopsis of the New Testament.” “The first half explains how God offered the kingdom to Israel and how Israel rejected it. The latter half explains how God, instead of bringing judgment upon the world for rejecting His Son both in incarnation and in resurrection, turned to the Gentiles in grace and ushered in the new dispensation under the apostleship of Paul. The book concludes with the end of the transition period and God’s final witness to Israel.”

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he couldn’t make it clearer that the miraculous gifts of prophecy, tongues and healing were being done away.

He writes in I Cor. 13:8, “Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”

Here’s a great passage from Jordan on the unmistakable fakery of tongue-talking:

One time I had a lady get mad at me and say, “I want you to know I can talk in tongues,” and she blurted it all out, you know. Then she looked at me and said, ‘Well? What do you think that is?!”, and I just backed up and quoted John 1:1 in Greek.

And she looked at me and said, “That’s just book-learning.” I said, “Well, that’s how you learned to do what you just did. God didn’t give you any special gift.”

What happens is people like her forget they learned it.

I had someone give me a book one time, written by (Charismatic TV preacher) Kenneth Hagen, about how to learn to talk in tongues. Now, if you’ve got to learn to talk in tongues, or you’ve got to seek a gift of tongues, it isn’t a gift, folks!

If I had to learn to do it, it’s not a gift. A gift is something somebody gave me without me doing anything. You don’t get a gift because you request it. You get a gift because the giver wants you to have it.