http://users.bigpond.net.au/joeflorence/tongues.htmlHere is another good quote from the article:
“Pharaoh also
Experiences! Pharaoh had all he could want of them. His magicians changed water to blood, multiplied frogs, and changed staffs into snakes (Exodus 7). It was true. It was genuine. True also were the experience and testimony of the women in Jeremiah 44:17,18 who claimed, "When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven, we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine..." Who can beat that? But what determines if something is true or false, our personal testimony or the Word of God? When God declares that he who speaks in tongues does not address men, must we renounce this part of God's Word or the testimony contradicting this Word? I was forced to make a choice between "experience" and the Bible. It was not easy, but I finally chose to side with the Scriptures and against these pseudo-testimonies. It is up to you who are reading these lines to make your own choice.
Not to Men but to God (I Cor 14:2)
From there it was relatively easy to pass from doctrine to verification. With my mania to check out everything with the Scriptures, the opportunity was soon to be found. The guinea pig turned out to be one of my best friends, an enthusiastic pastor who invited me to preach several messages in his church. He told me about a woman in the church who, in a private conversation with him, had spoken in tongues. "In what she said," he explained, "I discerned a message for myself." The opportunity was ideal. I simply asked him, "How do you reconcile the idea of a message addressed to you personally with the biblical statement that 'For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God'? (I Cor 14:2) You are not God." It was like hitting him over the head. He was without a reply. He had just discovered a text that he had never seen before, or that he had never taken time to examine. I was embarrassed and felt sorry for him. I didn't tell him that these tongues addressed to men smelled of sulfur. I didn't tell him either that it was a trick or a hoax. I let him find out for himself that he was up against an obvious counterfeit. Everyone knows that, counterfeiting in other areas is liable to punishment. Is it less serious in spiritual things?
What should we think of all these experiences of tongues which express a prophecy or an exhortation or a revelation-that is to say, a message to men, and which are, therefore, in open contradiction to the teaching of the Holy Spirit? How can we fail to recognize that they are counterfeits? Another friend, also pastor of an Assembly of God church, understood this truth and asked his church to apply it. He and his church were expelled from the denomination to which they belonged. When I mentioned this to another pastor friend, he did not seem very surprised. He was aware of the problem. He told me, "When this teaching of Paul began to circulate in our assemblies it was a veritable bomb. We could not accept it because we would have had to admit that all that happened in our Assemblies was FALSE." In other words, in order to make error seem as true as possible it should not be stopped! Tradition often takes priority over the Word of God. The history of the Church through the centuries demonstrates this in a humiliating and painful way.”
Pilgrim
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