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