It is also a matter of credibility. Almost no one before the birth of the Pentecostal movement about 100 years ago believed that tongues, prophecy, etc… should be a regular part of the ministry of the church. R. C. Sproul notes, “Though some have bent over backwards trying to prove that there has been a steady stream of speaking in tongues and other evidence of a subsequent Spirit baptism throughout church history, the overwhelming testimony of church history is to the discontinuity of speaking in tongues as an evidence of Spirit baptism.”
Therefore, according to the charismatic, for nearly nineteen centuries the church was doing it all wrong missing out on one of the most important things the church ought to have- revelatory gifts. Is the historic Christian church credible? Sproul reasons, “If the purpose of Pentecost was to pour out a continuous gift of tongues, then the historical discontinuity indicates that the objective was not obtained, and Pentecost was a failure”.
Did nearly the entire Christian church err on something as major as whether or not Christians should be doing the works of the Apostles all over the world and in every age? Have hundreds and hundreds of millions of Christians spanning nearly two thousand years of history been totally without the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Were the outstanding figures and heroes of Christian history severely lacking in spiritual experience since they did not speak in tongues?
Was St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, John Wycliffe, John Huss, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley, William Carey, Charles Spurgeon- all men who never spoke in tongues- were they all severely lacking in the power of the Holy Spirit? Are the vast majority and millions of Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians and other non-charasmatic denominations today completely missing out on one of the most important parts of the Christian experience?
These are questions with very serious implications that demand sound, biblical answers.