CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Pentecostal Church

The Decline of the Church

A CHURCH is a local Body of Christ to enable Him to continue His former earthly ministry. That ministry was miraculous by the power of the Spirit: and so, in order that He might still do His same works, He sent the Holy Spirit into His brethren, that in every place He might be free to confirm their words by His works. After a few years, however, the Church had backslidden and become the tool of the Roman Empire without any supernatural power. This decay increased into the profound gloom of the Middle Ages. Then through Martin Luther and many others the Lord revealed truth after truth to His Church, from justification by faith and sanctification to His return to earth and divine healing. Last of all the baptism in the Spirit was re-discovered. In the beginning it was largely an individual matter: then churches were formed, and finally denominations. Today the danger is that, as with the Early Church, the natural side of Christianity may grow at the expense of the supernatural. It was this danger of creeping death to which our late chairman, John Wallace, drew such urgent notice, even to the point of ending up "Repent, or else;" and our Executive

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Council has printed his addresses lest these last words should be forgotten.

The Danger of Substitutes

       These articles on Spiritual Gifts have been written not so much to present correct definitions—that is a matter of opinion—as to place before the readers the glorious possibilities offered to them in the word, and to set brethren and sisters seeking for them. It cannot be questioned that today our movement has brought in many things that the fathers of it would never have countenanced. There has been a steady drift to the natural; choirs, soloists, musical instruments, etc., which, however delightful, give only harmless pleasure and not spiritual power; and in our homes, radio, television and the like, which inject worldly poison into our minds, and turn us away from the continuous daily life in the Spirit, such as the pioneers of our experience enjoyed. It cannot, I think, be questioned that those who habitually use such pleasures are never those who "covet earnestly the greater gifts". The statement is sometimes made that youth requires such things to hold them: but nothing holds youth like the supernatural in action in their lives. The difficulty is to hold youth without it. Where it is present they don't need holding, they cling on with both hands! Fresh young minds are more able to appreciate the possibilities of the Spirit than those which are more sophisticated and critical.

       Here it is good to remind ourselves that the future of our movement does not depend upon our efforts or desires, but upon our Lord's will. If He is not pleased with our ways we may do what

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we will, but we shall fail. If the Spirit is grieved by our neglect or unbelief, He will move to more congenial quarters, where His will and powers are eagerly sought. We are dealing not with theology but with living persons! However correct our definitions of the gifts may be, the Spirit will have no pleasure in them unless we are also in active possession of the gifts. Otherwise He is fretted by continuous frustration and inability to do what He wants, and will turn to seek others who will be more usable.

The Dynamic of the Spirit

       We have already mentioned the case of Clara Villanueva, the demon-attacked girl in Manila, whose remarkable case was in all the newspapers throughout the Philippines, and that for weeks. Everybody from ministers to psychologists, from spiritists to doctors, tried to deal with her condition or explain it: everyone was absorbed or frightened by its strangeness: but no one could understand or help, till the Lord sent His servant Lester Sumrall to pray for her with the utmost publicity. Then her complete deliverance laid the foundation throughout the whole country for the campaigns of Valdez and Ericson, with the result that today the Pentecostals in the Philippines very far outnumber those in Great Britain. Again, when Brother Scothern began his campaign in West Africa, his claims were challenged by the Mohammedan leaders, who wrote to leading persons, pastors and editors of newspapers stating that Christianity must stand the test of the supernatural before it could be accepted. This challenge was taken up, and there followed a scene reminiscent of that on Mount Carmel, when Elijah faced the

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prophets of Baal. Brother Scothern prayed for the sick in the name of Mohammed, and then asked for those who had been healed to come forward. None came! He then prayed in the name of Christ, and God witnessed from Heaven by wholesale healings and testimonies, thus proving that though Mohammed was dead, His Son was alive! As a result a leader of the Moslems was converted and thousands were saved. Yet neither Brother Sumrall nor Brother Scothern had had any idea of staging such a scene or facing such an ordeal, nor any ability to carry it through. In both cases, the whole thing sprang from the mind of the Holy Spirit, who knew the best way to get into the hearts of those particular people. In just such a way the Holy Spirit picked out Saul of Tarsus in mid-career and changed the face of the early worldwide church, and, again, sent Philip to convert the Ethiopian eunuch in the desert, and thus turned his queen and country to the Christian way of life.

       In all real works of God the initiative and its consequences are planned by God and not by man: for the Spirit is acquainted with all the possibilities of the situation and knows just how to turn them into actualities: it is, in other words, the difference between working for God or with God. There is no guarantee of the success of the former: the latter can never fail. The rot has set in in the Christian Church whenever human planning, however wise, has taken command. For men do not think like God and cannot command the miraculous. But what men cannot do with their limited resources and outlook the Holy Spirit can achieve in ways unthought of by us, and at the correct moment. The modern leaders of great missions

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such as Burton, Studd, or Hudson Taylor have found the ideas of men to be a hindrance to their efforts, and have preferred to throw themselves wholeheartedly upon a Living God, and see His miraculous guidance, provision and powers at their head. As the Scripture saith, "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord" (Jer. 17:5). Too often the clash arises between the votes of a limited committee and the desires of an unlimited God!

The Desire of the Lord for His Church

       It is just at this point that we may turn to that which is most dear to the heart of God, a Pentecostal Church in which the Spirit can plant all His powers without the danger of exalting individuals. There can be no more beautiful sight than a company of people knit together in love and wisdom and depending upon the powers of God to bring to pass His purpose to which He has called them. This is His aim in all His Churches, but how difficult of accomplishment it has proved to be! The first requisite is, of course, love, the absence of personal ambition, and a desire to satisfy the longing of our Lord even at our own expense: next to that comes wisdom, which can only be found in the Bible, a thorough knowledge of the ways of divine life. Only then will the Spirit be at rest in adding His Divine Power, in the knowledge that it will not be used to forward personal aims. Power, when divided amongst the members of a body, is far less liable to misuse than when it is concentrated in a single individual. It is this which is the desire of the Spirit, to replace the tapers which

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once shone so brightly, but must always go out, by lamps which can continually be renewed.

       This book has been written with the one great desire to set every Pentecostal church turning away from the harmless and powerless toys of the flesh and seeking for the gifts of the Spirit as outlined in 1 Cor. 12, and illustrated from Genesis to Revelation. It would then be unnecessary for people to take long journeys to find a special servant of God: the nearest Pentecostal church would be able to meet their need! And, as T. L. Osborn says, the Evangelists would find themselves more free to devote themselves to the service of the dying multitudes in all the continents of the world.

       Without these gifts a depressing sense of inadequacy settles down upon an Assembly, they become accustomed to the impotent ordinary, and their minds turn away from the great hopes of divine intervention to the far smaller ambitions of men and women. Yet the finest things that the greatest men can do fall far short of the power of God, and prove to be of little avail in reaching the unbelieving masses outside. Years ago one man with the power of God moved the Potteries to such an extent that Brother Squire drove away a 1-ton lorry of leg-irons, etc., from his meetings. Today in the same place good preaching and very fine singing have proved helpless to attract a new generation. But let every Pentecostal church give itself to knocking at the door of Heaven, even at midnight, till its hands are full of divine loaves for the starving, and the whole situation would soon be changed. The Holy Spirit knows just what to do to attract the men of today. He knew how to

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put God's men at the head of the heathen empires of Egypt, Babylon and Persia, and that although they were captives! There is a book, lately published, with an arresting title, "Your God is too small!" Let us measure our hopes for a Pentecostal revival not by our own size, but by the omnipotence of God.

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