Hello Rowan M. Sorry for the delay in response.
No problem at all, but thank you for your response now.
Grief and Godly sorrow of wrong doing . What lead up to it. I struggled in my so called christian walk back and forth never having peace or fulfilment. I was tired of who I was. The church I was involved in had philosophy after the world. Always bettering the building and materials but never going outside the building walls. I heard the same sermons preach over and over throughout the years. Most of them copied and pasted from online Christian websites. After being a member for some years they pushed me into the leadership position of a deacon. The first thing the pastor asked me was have I received the holy spirit and do I speak in tongues. I told him no but I would like to. So we had a special prayer meeting where a group of 4 men 2 women prayed over me to receive the gift of tongues. It lasted a few hours resulting in me not speaking in the so called tongues and being told I need to believe more and practice tongues. After serving on the board for 6 years and still not having the holy spirit I started spend time researching the supernatural gift of tongues or what they liked to call the heavenly language. Which eventually lead me to corinthians.
If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
1 Corinthians 14:27-28
I questioned the pastor on this verse, why we pray in tongues with no interpretation he replied the holy spirit hasn't gifted anyone with that yet but hopefully it you since you don't speak in tongues. This was the moment my eyes opened and realized it was all for show. I spent the next few months distancing myself from the church.
Thank you very much for these additional details. It seems like your church had a focus on outward appearance. "Always bettering the building" - they wanted to make the building look good so that people would be impressed by it and thus more likely to want to join. Essentially, they wanted to win people to the church rather than to Christ. Which again is a thing that cults do. The more members, the more money in the coffers. That love of money is often at the heart of what they do.
When you say that the sermons were "copied and pasted from Christian websites", it sounds as though they don't do much study of the Bible themselves. They're relying on the words of men, rather than searching the Scriptures and doing their own learning. But if they were not saved (pretty much a certainty), then they would not be able to understand the things of God anyway.
Speaking in tongues seems to be almost a foundational principle of Pentecostal churches. However, their "tongues" are actually gibberish. If you look at Acts 2, when tongues were first used, they were speaking REAL HUMAN LANGUAGES. Not meaningless gibberish. Real languages.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? (Acts 2:5-8) Verse 11 adds,
we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. So devout Jews heard the wonderful works of God being preached in their own languages (their original nations are listed in Verses 9-11). The Pentecostal churches today do nothing like this, however. They quite literally speak a bunch of gibberish and falsely call that a gift of the Holy Spirit. Nowadays the gift of tongues has ceased, but if it WAS in operation at all, it would look something like it does in Acts 2, with real human languages being spoken, and nothing like the way modern Pentecostals and Charismatics carry on. As you say, they're really doing it for show. It's about impressing others - "Look at how holy and virtuous we are, speaking in tongues!" - rather than preaching Christ. I could go on, but I just wanted to make that point anyway, because it's a particularly important difference between what happened in the Bible and was goes on today.
I'm a seasonal workers so I had some time off to study the bible. Just a couple days into my time off I got down on my knees to pray I cried for hours not being able to get words out. I'm not sure but I think it was 3-4 days no appetite and laying flat on the ground sobbing because I realized the sinner I was. I do believe I was born again at this moment.
It certainly sounds like you were grieving over your sin. However, there are two kinds of sorrow: godly and worldly. Both can entail grieving over sin. Both could involve prolonged periods of weeping. Now, I could easily elaborate further on the difference between the two, but I'd like to hear your understanding of it. That is, how do you understand godly sorrow, and how do you understand worldly sorrow? Also, did you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ at the time you believed you were born again? I've noticed that you have never actually mentioned Him in either of your posts.
Something else I've noticed about your posts is that you talk quite a lot about your former church and how wrong it was. Which is fine and I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. After all, it was a big part of your life and as such, an important part of your testimony. But you seem to focus on how your church has wronged you rather than how you have wronged God. You're judging your church (although I do agree with what you say about it), but not judging yourself so much. People who have repented and been born again tend to focus on their sins against God rather than the sins of others against them. Which is not to say they never talk about the wrongs others have done, or how they were deceived by certain churches or organisations. But they now judge themselves first and foremost.
But that said, thank you again for talking more about your experiences. I appreciate you taking the time to do that.
