HAVE YOU BEEN FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT?
I posed a question on FB yesterday:
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH CELEBRATES NEXT SUNDAY?
I was quickly flooded with answers and “likes” and of course the answer is PENTECOST SUNDAY, virtually all the respondents knew the answer, some also decided to make some comments like:
It is not always even celebrated in Pentecostal churches any more. SO SAD!!!
Many Pentecostal churches, don’t practice their Pentecostal beliefs anymore.
It is great to live in the 21st century and be able to look back to the days of the Reformation and see how God has restored truth to His Church, that had been lost for hundreds of years.
After the initial thrust of Restoration, it wasn’t long before other men of God were used to be a channel to restore truth to the Church. I have written before that when this happens normally three reactions took place when a truth was restored.
- It was embraced
- It was rejected
- It was take to extremes even into heresy
In 1906 thousands of people began to speak in tongues as the Holy Spirit enabled them, just like the Believers on the Day of Pentecost two thousand years ago. Acts 2:4 NKJV And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
As had happened previously with all the other restored truths many had embraced in the past , ,so many more were excommunicated from their churches this time, or felt they had no choice but to withdraw. So Pentecostal churches sprung up all around the world, thus starting the Pentecostal Movement.
There was mass excommunication because Calvin had taught that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit all ceased when the last Apostle died, he especially highlighted TONGUES, PROPHECY & HEALING. so if a Believer appeared to speak in tongues it had to be counterfeit, or demonic, or a psychosomatic experience, so the teaching and practice was rejected by virtually every denomination in the world.
In the 1700’s there had come a restored emphasis on the person and work of the Holy Spirit in Entire Sanctification, which many Holiness people called the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, a second subsequent experience to Salvation, with the awesome emphasis on living a holy life. Others also began to see it as a PROGRESSIVE EXPERIENCE, NOT NECESSARILY A CRISIS SECOND EXPERIENCE. Many of the churches that are or were part of this movement are called Pentecostal Holiness churches.
Sadly, like other groups when truth was restored some Pentecostals took the teaching to extremes and taught unless you spoke in tongues (and were water baptised) you were not born again, Once again SO SAD.
The rejection of a truth is more often because the rejecters looked at the extremes, not the truth, but threw out the baby (truth) with all the dirty bathwater.
It would seem to me in the last 100+ years the Pentecostal movement has spawned more extreme teaching and even heresy than any other movement that was born as a result of a truth being restored to the Church.
The early Pentecostals seemed to major more on CHARISMA (POWER) and often not enough on CHARACTER & HOLINESS.
In hindsight I think the early Pentecostals over-emphasised the public use of tongues, and generally under emphasised the private daily use of our “prayer language”.
Sadly, academic ability was frowned upon by early Pentecostals, and so much Scripture was mis-interpreted. So not only teaching was taken to extremes, but many practices have often developed that were not Biblical nor God glorifying. DESPITE ALL THAT:
THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT IS THE FASTEST GROWING MOVEMENT WITHIN THE BODY OF CHRIST.
Their influence caused the Charismatic Movement to be birthed, that has impacted literally every part of the Christian Church around the world.
Church History has shown us that by about the third generation of a movement so much of the dynamic of the restored truth can be lost, that may be why some Pentecostal churches do not even celebrate the day and simply want to be “contemporary”!!!!.
I have written the above out of personal experience and understanding having been involved with the Pentecostal Movement for around 60+ years. The Lord has helped me to KEEP TRUTH IN BALANCE for which I am very thankful, and believe with all my heart that God continues to fill Believers with the Holy Spirit as they surrender their lives to Him, and the Lord takes evert part of us (including our tongue) and gives us a “prayer language”
May I highlight some aspects of this truth that need to be re-emphasised. I will simply make some statements in this blog.
- The Holy Spirit has come to make us HOLY
- We must learn to daily live the SURRENDERED/SPIRIT FILLED LIFE.
- We have been filled with the Holy Spirit to give us POWER TO WITNESS Acts 1:8
- We should use our prayer language EVERY DAY
To Edify ourselves
For Intercession
For Praise and Worship
I am sure there are many more reasons but let us use our prayer language daily to glorify the Lord.
