All right, first of all, in Acts
chapter 1, Look at verse 4 and verse 5. And being assembled
together with them, commanded them that they should not depart
from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which
ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, or Spirit,
not many days hence. Then look at verse 8. But ye
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you,
ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea,
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Chapter 2 and verse 4. and they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with
other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance or enabled them. Now today's message, as I've
already hinted, may be a bit out of the ordinary for us because
it is usually our custom to light up on a passage of scripture
or a subject in the scripture and open it up and mine it for
its doctrinal content and our profit, to seek to rightly divide
and rightly interpret and apply some portion of the Word of God,
to study it simply for the sake of truth that is there and to
get sound doctrine and stand upon good ground. Today, however,
we want to look at and measure and consider a movement in the
light of these texts that we have been studying recently on
Pentecost. And that movement is what is
commonly answering to the name of Pentecostalism. And it seems
to be evident from the name that it has taken that it is drawn
from these scriptures and this event that we have been studying. and in Acts 2 and in Acts chapter
1. And when the Holy Spirit was
poured out, chapter 2 and verse 4, there were approximately 120
disciples that were gathered together in a certain place. And scripture says and teaches
us that they were all filled with the Spirit, yea, they were
baptized in the Holy Spirit as the Lord had taught and had promised
them, and they spake in languages which they knew not formerly. Miraculously, the Lord enabled
them to speak in other tongues. And one of the reasons that we
want to spend some time and make the comparison is because, first
of all, Pentecostals insist insists that what the 120 experienced
in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is the right and the duty of
every Christian down through the history of the church. That every Christian ought to
seek and desire and pray for the baptism of the Spirit and
to speak in tongues as an evidence that one has been or has received
the baptizing of the Spirit and as an evidence of that feeling. And they also hold, I won't say
all but most or many of them, that the working of miracles
and signs and wonders and divine healing, all of those things
done by the Lord and by the first disciple still ought to be a
common staple in the churches. Some even lay claim today that
they are apostles, apostles of Jesus Christ. And then lately,
in our lifetime, maybe in the last 50 years or so, there has
been born out of this movement not only healing and tongues,
and signs and miracles, but also the prosperity doctrine that
we hear from them so often today. This doctrine says that God not
only wants you to be filled with the Spirit and to seek that gift
and to speak in tongues and be a super-Christian, but He also
wants you to prosper. He wants you to increase in material
blessing He wants to bless you if you let him and ask him with
many things in the world. Then consider it is a mainstay
of Pentecostal theology that the baptism of the Holy Spirit
is a distinct and a subsequent work of regeneration or of conversion
or of the new birth. It is their doctrine. that one
may be born again and have the Spirit in a measure and yet be
without this baptism of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost. Though
it is available to every Christian, so they say, upon the fulfilling
of certain prescribed condition that the Father requires of them. We'll say more about this later,
but first let us consider the influence and the phenomenon
that is Pentecostalism in our day, in our lifetime, in our
generation. We do not deny, nor could we,
that it has been one of the fastest growing movements that we could
put our finger on in the last century without question. They are greatly increasing their
numbers and in some cases their churches have hundreds and hundreds
of members and in other cases There are literally thousands
and thousands of members that are gathered together in a Pentecostal
assembly. And it just may be, I've heard
that it is true, that Houston has the largest Pentecostal church
in the entire world. No doubt they will claim. This
is a sign of the blessing of God. No doubt they will claim
this is evident, that the movement is of God and that the Holy Spirit
is behind it. They will argue to us, because
of their number and because of their seeming success, God is
blessing. Because of His blessing, we are
growing. We are growing because the Spirit
is moving In a supernatural way, saints by the thousand are being
filled with the Holy Spirit. We're in the midst of the greatest
revival that the world has ever seen. And such arguments like
that might be made. We also know that not a few from
their main line denomination have left their churches to embrace
Pentecostalism and the Pentecost experience and report that they
are happier than they have ever been, that they are more successful
and spiritual than they have ever been in their life. We do
not challenge that they are growing by leaps and bounds in our time
and generation. But the question for us then,
what shall we make of this? We who because of our belief
are gathered together in small assembly. What shall we make
then of this growth and of these numbers that have fastened themselves
to the Pentecostal movement? Well, first of all, we would
say just this, that truth and error, are not determined solely
by the number that espouse them. Truth is not necessarily proved
by the number of people that one can gather into a particular
movement. It probably has never been so. It will never be so that there
are more that hold to the truth of God absolutely than hold unto
error. or that more love God than love
the world and love sin. The biggest church does not mean
that they have the greatest amount of truth or that they're preaching
the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For example, and
as proof of this, study the Scripture. And when you run across the many
and the few, pay particular attention to who is on each side. Now, we need to do a little history
with regard to this movement, otherwise I don't think that
we'd be able to correctly understand it. One factor in the early beginnings
of Pentecostalism, when it got up, so to speak, upon its legs
in the United States of America. And I, from reading and studying
and researching, think that this occurred in the early 1900s.
1901, 1905, 6 and 10, along in there, was the result of a reaction, historians say,
against what many regarded as creeping modernism coming into
their mainline churches. Dead, dry formalism as they expressed
it. And when sectarianism and when
rationalism was espoused by many churches, even in that early
time, and by many pastors, when Scripture became less emphasized
and less prominent. And churches began to espouse
what we call today social issues. And preachers, even then, began
to preach not the gospel, not the word of God, but upon social
issues and matters rather than exalt the Christ of God. And I think you might be able
to see that this condition was indeed fertile ground in which
Pentecostalism might flourish, as many in the established churches
which were drifting into modernism and drifting into secularism,
many of them began to feel that something was, quote, missing,
unquote. Something was missing in their
church and in their life. And so they found the, quote,
missing element, unquote, in the Pentecostal movement. Many
of them did. Oh yes, in the lively singing,
in the hand clapping, and the foot stomping, and the pew jumping,
and the waving of arms, and the animated preaching on whatever
subject came, and the altar calls whereby many came, a great wave
of emotionalism would sweep over the congregation and the hope
and the expectation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit that would
carry them into another dimension and give them a euphoric elation
as promised to them by the Pentecostal movement. Now granted, I said
many fled their dead and formalistic churches, but not all fled when
the tsunami of modernism and secularism struck their churches. No, all did not flee. Many were like that proverbial
frog that we hear about. Put him in a pan of cold water,
light the fire, he'll stay there until he's boiled to death. Throw
him in the hot water and he'll jump right out exactly. No, they stayed even when leaders. And even when their seminaries
became liberal and progressive, they stayed even when their preachers
quit preaching the Word of God. They stayed even when their leaders
questioned the inspiration and the authority of the scripture. They stayed even when churches
began to look upon the false religions of the world as good
and equal with Christianity. And they stayed when their denomination
endorsed homosexuality and ordained women preachers. They stayed
when their churches joined the National Council of Churches
and began to send their money. They stayed when their offerings
went to support the enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And all I say to you is, these
are the facts, ma'am. These are the facts indeed. several
denominations developed a liberal and a conservative part yet staying
together but being divided under the surface. Let's go back to
our subject today concerning Pentecostalism, as to its rise
and as to it becoming a major factor in Christendom. The truth is it is not as ancient
as its adherents might claim. You ask them, when did it begin?
And they'll say 33 A.D. But not so early were they in
existence. It had not been around since
Pentecost. It is, in fact, a Johnny-come-lately
with regard to the Christian movement and as with all movements
of that sort, it sprang up, not outside of Christianity or Christendom,
but out of some of the existing segment in Christendom. By the
way, when I use the word Christendom instead of Christianity, Christendom,
I mean all that goes under the umbrella of being Christian. When we go back in history to
find the springing up of Pentecostalism, one name and one movement not
to be ignored is that of Methodism. The Methodist Church, we must
keep our eye up on them. And such names as John Wesley,
Charles G. Finney, and their teaching and
their emphasis on the doctrine of entire sanctification. And then they're striving after
an instantaneous and an entire sanctification that would carry
them from being just a nominal Christian to being a super-duper
one. And as one said, to get an understanding
of the beginnings of Pentecostalism, the most important point or place
for us to focus is in the Methodist Church. As it seems that Methodism
provided the embryonic beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement. In fact, some who trace the origin
to this point trace it to the city of Los Angeles in California. The first decade in the 1900s. There was a meeting, there was
a gathering there that was called the Azusa Street Services, where
a Negro preacher named William Seymour, by the way from the
city of Houston, began to espouse and preach the Pentecostal doctrine,
and as they say, it caught on fire. Now one good book on the
subject, I think, is one written by Frederick Dale Bruner. He called it a theology of the
Holy Spirit. And it's written from the standpoint
of sovereign grace or from what we call the reformed position
in Christianity. Reissued by the Trinity Foundation
a few years ago. Now I'm quoting now from page
37 a section on the influence of John Wesley and Methodism
upon Pentecostalism. Here is the quote from Brother
Bruner. You have to listen kind of carefully
lest it become a tone twister, but quote. 18th century Methodism
is the mother of the 19th century American holiness movement, which
in turn bore 20th century Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism is primitive Methodism
extended incarnation, unquote. Pretty good assessment of it
historically. Then another put it this way,
quote, Pentecostalism is Methodism brought to its ultimate consequences,
unquote. Others who were sort of forerunners
or fathers or beginners of the Pentecostal movement, in addition
to John Wesley, were Charles Finney, the ardent revivalist
in early America. who did not hold to justification
as being a divine sentence passed by God, but taught that sanctification
was the ground of one's standing before Almighty God. There's a lesser known man earlier
than that. His name is Edward Irving. His father, as you may have heard,
called it Irvingites. He was a Presbyterian of Scottish
descent, a minister who sought to revive, yes, to revive the
charismatic into Pentecostalism. who as the evangelical dictionary
theology wrote, and I'm quoting, he held to the imminent second
coming of the Christ and that the world must be evangelized
in preparation for it. He also put a heavy emphasis
on prophecy and was among the very first to popularize premillennialism."
There's another name that might come up if you made a study of
this. That would be R. A. Torrey, one-time
president of Moody Bible Institute, who also, though, embraced the
distinction between being born of the Spirit and being baptized
or filled with the Spirit. He was a very fervent preacher
that there was available to all and should be sought by all a
work above and beyond conversion, which is the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. Torrey emphasized that the dual
purpose of the spiritual baptism was service to God and witnessing
of Christ and the Gospel unto others. Heavy emphasis upon Acts
1.8, you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is
come upon you and shall be witnessed unto me. Now, here we make a
slight transition and consider Pentecostalism as a whole, looking
at the whole movement. When we do, we then find that
it, like almost all religious movements and denominations,
everyone without exception, has splintered and fractured and
split into numerous factions. There are several varieties of
Pentecostalism, many different hats you may find it wearing
as you meet it in our world. One of the largest from the beginning
seem to be the Assemblies of God. The movement of the church
is the Assemblies of God. Then there's the Church of God,
the Church of God in Christ. the Apostolic Church, the Pentecostal
Church, the Four Square Gospel Movement, the United Pentecostal,
also called Oneness, and you hear them talking about Jesus'
name only. Full gospel, some like to refer
to themselves, and then some even call themselves non-denominational. There's the full, let's see,
the full Gospel Businessmen Association formed sometime around the 50. There are all kinds of things
being taught in different places. They are by no means in agreement
on every single point of doctrine. You might find one doctrine in
this movement of Pentecostalism, another here and another there,
and so forth. However, let me make a point,
there is one doctrine that they have in common. On one thing
they are agreed, no matter their differences on various particulars,
in one thing they are agreed, one simple belief trumps all
other differences and upon this I think you'll find them in agreement. That is they are all come together
on Acts chapter 2 and verse 4 and they were all filled with the
Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongue as the Spirit
gave them utterance. This baptism or this filling
of the Spirit seems to be the common denominator with them
all. Now, just as an example, just
to have something to compare and just to have something to
contrast with it, compare this example by way of whatever you
want to call it, a digression or a comparison concerning Arminianism. Think about Arminianism as a
whole, that there are many kinds, there are many degrees of Arminianism
that are abounding in the world. And there are doctrinal differences
among them in general overall Arminianism. And yet, for all
of these differences, there yet is within also one common denominator. In that they agree, they all
rally around it, and that common denominator is free will. Free will is the common denominator
of Arminianism. In some form, concerning Pentecostalism
and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as Bruner did write, quote, Pentecostalism
finds its theological center here, unquote. This baptism is
the center, the core of it. All revolves around it. This
is the core basis of Pentecostalism. So let's consider a couple of
issues that are bound to be found in Pentecostalism as regards
their teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and consider
some of their proof texts. I guess we could reduce their
main proof text down to five passages from the Book of Acts. Chapter 2, Chapter 8, Chapter
9, Chapter 10, and Chapter 19. In all of these chapters there
are for them proof texts. Now, the two points to consider
are these. Number one, whether the coming
of the Spirit in Acts 2 and 10 and 19 were individual baptisms
or group baptisms of the Holy Spirit. Consider that. Secondly,
whether the baptism of the Holy Spirit is dependent upon conditions
to be fulfilled by the recipient or by the individual or Are they
sovereign acts of God poured out unexpectedly and unasked
for? Now, on both points there is
no question that the view and the teaching of Pentecostalism
is each individual should seek this baptism. and also certain
conditions and certain preparations in life must be made and must
be met in order to experience this baptism of the Holy Spirit. And yet when their main proof
texts are studied, studied carefully in their context, particularly
Acts 2, Pentecost, and Acts chapter 10, the Gentile Pentecost at
the house of Cornelius, I think it will have to be admitted that
the Spirit came in the same way to a group of people and all
at once. And came not because they sought
or because they met condition. And not because they prayed for
it, not because they paid a price, not because they prayed as fervently
as they could for a filling. For the Spirit came suddenly. And the speaking in tongues was
a surprise unto them that did it and unto them that saw. Instead of saying, we got it,
we prayed through, they were amazed. Acts 2 and verse 7. And they asked, what is the meaning
of this? Acts 2 and 12. They could or
would not have done that if they hadn't been specifically praying
they would have said this is it. If they were asking and praying
for this baptism, why did they not know what had just happened
to them and in their midst? Why did they not know? They lacked
the discernment of the Apostle Peter, who in Acts 2 and verse
16 said, This is that spoken by the prophet Joel. I think
it bears repeating. The facts are against the Pentecostal
view that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was a sought for,
asked for, desired for, and prayed for blessing. As it is clear
in Acts 2 and in Acts 10, when on both occasions, on the Jew
and on the Gentile, the Spirit was given, without being sought,
without being expected, without being asked for, and without
being prayed for. And we quickly hasten to say,
nor is there any fulfilled condition that was required or met. that did not result in the Spirit
being given, at least not on the part of the recipients. We will find nearly as many suggested
conditions as there are factions in Pentecostalism. Go here, you'll
find one set. Go there, you'll find another
set. Here are some I took from their
main writers. Here are some of the conditions
to be met to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Unconditional
obedience. prayer, faith, a right attitude,
repentance, confession, forsaking of sin, some even baptism, some
intense desire, some unity, and on and on we might go. Now, because of that, let's make
us another point or Another analogy, that is a similarity, we might
have something to compare and to get our idea. The same people
who insist on conditions for the baptism of the Holy Spirit
do also the same thing in regard to the new birth or regeneration. That is, in concerning spiritual
regeneration or the working of the new birth, Pentecostals join
with other Arminians in teaching that regeneration is not a sovereign
work of the Almighty God, that the sinner can actually resist
being born of God or born above, and that certain conditions must
be met and certain preparations must be made that the sinner
must put himself in a proper frame of mind and position before
God in order to be born again. This is in honor. of their dagon-like
idol of free will that they all bear about upon their shoulder. This is to preserve the idol
of free will that there are certain things the sinner must do to
be regenerated. Then let us revisit another Pentecostal
stable doctrine. That is that the baptism with
the Holy Spirit is for those who are already Christians. It is for those who are already
regenerate. And that it is to be sought in
order to carry them over into another dimension of the Christian
life. It is, in other words, as some
have called it, a second or additional work of grace. So let's test
this against the experience of Carnelius and the Gentiles in
Acts 10. Were they already Christian? Were they already converted? Had they already for some time
been believers in Jesus Christ? And were they then seeking or
trying to be baptized with the Holy Spirit? And the answer to
all these questions is no. Nor had they been baptized in
water previous to that. And you see this in Acts 10,
47 and 48. They were not what might be called
baptized believers at the time that the Spirit of God was poured
out upon them. Now remember, back to a former
study, we used an assessment from John Gill that the belief
of Cornelius that he was at the point in his life before God
was the same kind as the saints before the coming of the Lord. That with a faithful Jew, he
believed in Messiah that was to come, but not yet knowing
that he had come and that he was Jesus of Nazareth. Listen to the Apostle Peter.
rehearse what was said to Carnelius. It's found in Acts 11, verse
13, the last part, and verse 14, that Carnelius told Peter,
send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. Now for what purpose? What purpose
were they sending for Peter? Look at verse 14, Acts 11. He
shall bring the glad tidings of salvation. He will tell you
words. whereby you and your house might
be saved. Now, as Gil said, he would preach
the doctrine concerning Christ, how he was crucified, how he
rose again, how he was, according to Acts 5.31, exalted to the
right hand of God, a prince and a savior, for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sin. Through him, all the Gentiles
have access and acceptance to salvation and are granted repentance
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the experience of Cornelius
and the Gentiles was not a second work of grace. It was their complete
conversion unto the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit did not
come upon them because of their acts or because of their attitude
or preparation, but because it was God's time to visit them
and take out of them a people for His name. Think of what Paul
reminded the Galatians. In Galatians chapter 3 and verse
2, that the Spirit came upon them in conjunction with the
gospel or the word of faith. Now, let's make some practical
application and observation concerning Pentecostalism in the end of
our study. First of all, I think you might
agree or you will find that it is hard to engage a Pentecostal
in doctrine. They pretty much live in the
book of Acts. Almost all of their preaching
leads to acts and ends up with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That and prosperity, that and
the victorious overcoming life. I have found that doctrine and
theology are reckoned as dull and boring unto them. They crave
excitement. Far too many put their experience
over or above the doctrine of the Word of God, even when experience
clashes with scripture. They instead make scripture to
fit their experience. As the Catholic is apt to put
tradition equal with or above the Holy Scripture. It's in their
catechism. They do it all the time. So the
Pentecostal will cling to his experience. And when you begin
to quote scripture to them, sometimes or oftentimes, they will say,
don't talk to me about that. Don't talk to me about that doctrine. I know what happened to me. I know what I experienced. And that, for them, is the end. Some of them, on the other hand,
hold... Now listen to this contradiction.
Some of them hold to the possibility of sinless perfection. There is that doctrine among
some of them that it is possible to become free of sin and to
live above sin. You know I have a saying, it's
possible to live above sin if you're in a room above a honky-tonk.
You will be living above sin. but they will argue that their
experience trumps the scripture. Then they argue that perfectionism
might be possible and on the other hand say that it is possible
to fall completely out of the grace of God and be lost again. That one may come to perfectionism
and yet lose that and fall out of the grace of God. Pentecostalism
is one road, and it's certainly true, perhaps has had the greatest
impact, I didn't say for good, but the greatest impact on Christendom
since the Great Reformation in that Pentecostalism has grown
unusually large and has caused breaches in all kinds of churches. You go nearly any denomination
you want. Not many, but have had an outbreak
of the charismatic in their churches, which they take as an evidence,
by the way, the Pentecostal do, that this is of God, that God
is moving and stirring and calling out his people. Then, if you
talk to them, most of them see a great end-time revival. They see a great revival. They say, the world's in the
greatest revival that it's ever seen. They see revival, we see
advanced apostasy. They believe in free will. We
believe in God's sovereign and absolute will. They believe in
universal atonement. Christ died for many that will
never be saved. We believe in a special, particular
redemption that actually saves those for whom it was made by
our Savior. They are Arminian. We are sovereign grace. And there is a great guff, therefore,
that is fixed between the two. So wang them. In the experience
of Pentecost, I fear that they are found wanting, and their
doctrine is found wanting and not in accordance to Scripture.
They do not understand the transition period in the book of Acts that
is so important. For a while, the two economies
overlapped one another. Judaism faded out. Christianity
took wings. And they do not understand this
and errors are made because of a misunderstanding of the meaning
and the essence of the transition period.