Direct and Indirect Guidance

The Bible is a completed book, and THE FAITH has been once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). There are no new revelations of the Christian faith, yet the Holy Spirit continues to illuminate what the Bible says and apply the Bible's message to our everyday lives.

This sermon explores the difference between the immediate, direct revelation by which the Holy Spirit caused the authors of Scripture to impart God's own infallible and inerrant Word, and the Spirit's indirect work of guiding us as we pray and search the Scriptures.

While the authors of Scripture never erred when they wrote Scripture, a person may be full of the Holy Spirit, be a diligent student of Scripture, devoted to prayer and profoundly sincere, and yet misunderstand what the Holy Spirit is impressing on him because of human frailty.

The differences between the tongues of Acts 2 and the tongues of 1 Corinthians 12-14 may find reconciliation in the analogy of a more direct and more indirect means of the Holy Spirit's guidance.

The last part of the message looks at the what 1 Corinthians 14 states regarding uninterpreted Tongues.