In the Friday Church News Notes for February 8, 2013, we published the following report from the Fundamentalist Digest edited by Don Jasmin:

TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH’S CHARISMATIC “GUEST WORSHIP LEADER” (Friday Church News Notes, February 8, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Prominent Independent Baptist Church Invites Worship Leader from Charismatic-Pentecostal Based Church,” The Fundamentalist Digest, February-March 2013: “Under the leadership of its pastor, Dr. Tom Messer, Trinity Baptist Church [TBC] Jacksonville, FL, a well-known independent Baptist Church, has been rapidly moving in the last few years in a New-Evangelical, pro-Charismatic and CCM rock music direction. TBC recently participated in the national New-Evangelical ‘Back to Church’ [BTC] Sunday in Sept. 2012. On the BTC Sunday, TBC featured as the ‘Guest Worship Leader’ Regi Stone, the ‘worship leader’ at the Christ Church, Nashville, TN. According to its official website, Christ Church unashamedly identifies its ‘roots’ as being ‘in the Pentecostal/ Charismatic renewal.’ ... Christ Church is ecumenically slanted. The church has as one of its goals ‘to encourage outreach and involvement with other congregations in an effort to mend denominational divisiveness and serve Nashville as the unified body of Christ.’ That TBC has completely sold out to the contemporizing worldly religious rock craze is evidenced by the fact TBC’s official church calendar notes that ‘Sandy Patti & Friends’ was scheduled for a concert on Jan. 27, 2013.”

We were contacted by Daniel Riddick, Director of Communications at Trinity, and he said that Regi Stone was at Trinity in 2011 rather than 2012, and that Sandi Patti & Friends were not scheduled for a concert this January.

The Bible says that God has placed Jerusalem at the center of the nations to be a light to the world (Ezekiel 5:5). It is Israel’s failure to live up to this calling that has brought such great trouble upon her and upon the city that lies at the center of her hopes and aspirations.

Jewish tradition says that Adam and Eve were created on Mt. Moriah, but the Bible does not confirm this. In fact, the biblical description of the location of the Garden of Eden places it farther north in association with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The biblical history of the Temple Mount begins in 1870 B.C. when Abraham was instructed to offer his son Isaac, the inheritor of God’s promise, on Mt. Moriah (Genesis 22:2). God provided a ram in the place of Isaac to signify the coming of the Messiah to make the perfect atonement for man’s sin (Gen. 22:11-14). Abraham named the place Jehovah-jireh, the Lord will provide, and there God reaffirmed the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 22:15-18), the covenant that passed to Jacob or Israel, and through his 12 sons to the tribes of Israel.

In 957 B.C. the First Temple was built by King Solomon on Mt. Moriah (2 Chron. 3:1). It was built according to the divine plans given to his father David (1 Chronicles 22:5-6; 28:11-12, 19), and the glory of God filled it (1 Kings 8:10-11).

In 586 B.C., the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian armies under Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:9). The reason was Israel’s sin against God (2 Chron. 26:15-21). Before the destruction the glory of God had departed from the Temple according to Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek. 10:18; 11:23).

In 572 B.C., while living in Babylon fourteen years after the destruction of the First Temple, Ezekiel delivered a lengthy prophecy that looked beyond the Second and Third Temples and described the Millennial Temple that will be built when the Messiah rules in His kingdom (Ezekiel 40-48).

In 534 B.C., Daniel prophesied from the Babylonian captivity that a “vile person” would flatter the Jews, desecrate the temple (obviously the Second Temple that was yet to be built), cause the Jewish sacrifice to cease, and persecute the Jewish people (Dan. 11:30-35). Daniel also prophesied that some of the Jews would “be strong, and do exploits” but they would eventually fall.

The Second Temple was built by Ezra in 516 B.C. after the Jews returned from the 70-year captivity. There is no record that divine plans were given for its construction, and the glory of God never filled it.

In 168 B.C. the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, an incredibly proud man who struck a coin with his image inscribed with “Antiochus, God Manifest,” having won the Jews’ affections through flattery, plundered and desecrated the Temple. He sacrificed a pig on the altar and erected a statue of Zeus (Jupiter) in the Holy Place. Antiochus outlawed sabbath-keeping and circumcision, burned the Jewish Scriptures, and forced the Jews to sacrifice to Saturn and Bacchus, the god of debauchery. He killed over 80,000 Jews and sold 40,000 into slavery. He committed horrible atrocities such as forcing a mother to watch as her seven sons were roasted on a flat iron. Mothers who circumcised their sons were thrown off the walls of Jerusalem with their infants. The ensuing Maccabean revolt led by brave Jews was successful for awhile, but eventually failed and great numbers were slaughtered. These events are mere shadows of the coming Antichrist.

A foundational truth about biblical tongues is that it was chiefly a sign to Israel that God was extending the gospel to all nations. Paul made this clear in his instructions to the church at Corinth:

“Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe” (1 Cor. 14:20-22).

The Corinthians were abusing the spiritual gifts and were particularly enamored with tongues. As spiritual infants (1 Cor. 3:1), they were “showing off” to one another. Paul tells them to stop being children and to be men, by understanding the true purpose of tongues. It was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 28:11-12 that was directed to the Jews.

“For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to THIS PEOPLE. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear” (Isa. 28:11-12).

The miraculous tongues or languages was a sign to the unbelieving Jews that God was speaking to all nations and calling all men into one new spiritual body composed of both Jews and Gentiles. “This people” refers to the Jewish nation to whom the prophet Isaiah was speaking.

Each time we see the gift of tongues exercised in the book of Acts Jews were present (Acts 2:6-11; 10:46; 19:6). On the day of Pentecost and in Acts 19 it was the Jews themselves that spoke in tongues.

Fernand Legrand, a former Pentecostal, makes the following important observation:

“It is worth noting that wherever the sign appears, it is always in the presence of JEWS, and where we do not find Jews, as in Athens or in Malta, neither do we find the sign. ... It is in the very nature of the sign that we find the nature of their unbelief. ... The sign denounced or corrected their lack of faith concerning the salvation of those who spoke languages that were foreign to their own, that is, the Gentiles. .... But this was precisely what the Jews did not want to believe. In fact, they were ‘contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved’ (1 Thess. 2:15-16). ... The idea of now being made one with foreigners was more than the first-century Jews could stand. The thought alone was enough to fire up their Hebrew atavism. Yet that was the first thing they had to understand and finally admit. So God gave them the best sign possible to make them understand what they could not or would not believe; HE MIRACULOUSLY MADE JEWS SPEAK IN THE LANGUAGES OF FOREIGNERS. IN SO DOING, GOD PUT JEWISH PRAISE INTO THESE PAGAN TONGUES. ...