PENTECOSTAL PREACHING PRODUCES
PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES
The 1965 LIFE Bible College Alumni Lectureship on the theme of
PENTECOSTAL PREACHING
By Dr Raymond L Cox, Th.D.

Reprinted by the Pentecostal-Fire Evangelistic Association
with permission from LIFE Bible College and Dr Raymond L Cox (1989)

DEDICATED
to the memory of
AIMEE SEMPLE McPHERSON
She introduced me to Pentecost

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Preface
Pentecostal Preaching Produces Pentecostal Churches
Pentecostal Preaching Produces Pentecostal Manifestations
Pentecostal Preaching Precipitates Divine Glory
Pentecostal Preaching Exalts Jesus Christ
The Preacher's Personal Pentecost
Bibliography



FOREWORD

The winds of Pentecost are blowing. Jesus Christ is the same yester- day and today and forever! As the dawn of a new century approaches, Pentecos- tals have great reason to rejoice. Souls are being saved all over the globe in record numbers. Our world is being turned upside down with the Gospel of Jesus. Today we are seeing God "Pentecostalize" His Church in a way unseen since the early years of the Church. God is restoring "the years eaten away" (Joel 2:25). David Barrett, in his World Christian Encyclopedia, provides evidence that by the year 2000 AD, there will be as many Pentecostals in our world as all other Protestants combined together. The possibility of reaching the world in our generation with the Full Gospel seems all the more within our grasp.

There are, however, some dangers facing our Movement. In recent stud- ies, it has been found that between 50 and 60 percent of those who are members of Pentecostal churches say that they have never spoken in other tongues. Pentecostal manifestations and demonstrations are waning in many churches and in some, totally unheard of and discouraged. Bible knowledge is quickly declining. Some churches have gone for years without making any impact on the community around them, and in the lives of its members. I have furthermore heard of a church board member who publicly stated that Pentecostalism was a cult. This board member was serving in a so-called "Pentecostal" church in the Foursquare denomination!

Pastors must take the reigns of leadership in the return of Pentecost to Pentecostalism. This can be accomplished by Pentecostal preaching from the pulpit and Bible classes. With proper preaching and teaching, the problems in our Movement can be turned into blessings.

This book by my colleague, mentor, and friend, the Dr Raymond L Cox, is more appropriate today than when written in 1965. If pastors, evangelists, Bible teachers, and Bible students will read this book, and apply its princi- ples, the Kingdom of God will be built up and strengthened, souls will be saved, lives changed, and most importantly -- Jesus will be glorified above all else.

It is my prayer, that this volume will bring revival to your heart and ministry. May our message of Jesus as Saviour, Baptizer, Healer and Coming King, only become all the more glorious as the years advance.

Dr Richard L. Rice, Jr
Founder and President,
Pentecostal Fire Evangelistic Association
Hillsboro, Oregon
April 29, 1989


PREFACE

Some authorities insist that the most important feature of any disser- tation is the bibliography. In the respect to the lectureship on this subject the bibliography presents somewhat of a problem.

So far as books are concerned the literature on the specific subject of Pentecostal Preaching is limited almost exclusively to the titles of previ- ous published lectures in the LIFE Alumni Association sponsored series. I have found most helpful the volumes by Duffield, Allen, Dorrance, and Gee, and

I read with profit the manuscript by Mussen.

Of course there are hundreds of books about preaching and many volumes plus countless pamphlets about Pentecost. Lack of specialized works on the subject of Pentecostal Preaching, however, makes it expedient for the re- searcher to peruse almost the whole gamut of Pentecostal literature, including periodicals. One needs to consult the published lives and sermons of Pente- costal preachers and the reports of Pentecostal meetings both inside and outside the Pentecostal Movement. In addition, I have ransacked my memory for details of the glorious revival which swept Angelus Temple almost continuously during the pastorate of our Founder, Aimee Semple McPherson; besides plowing through reams of notes taken during messages preached by Pentecostal ministers of the last three decades. Enlightening indeed have proved the publications of sermons preached at Pentecostal World Conferences I attended in Toronto, Canada and Jerusalem, Israel, and at the PFNA Convention at Portland, Oregon in 1960. These furnish a broad vista of the versatile variety of Pentecostal preaching as it persists throughout America and around the world.

Convinced that Pentecostal preaching builds Pentecostal churches, I pray that God will use these lectures to encourage us to keep constantly stirred and blazing the fire of God which is in us. In too many -- albeit isolated -- Full Gospel circles -- and Foursquaredom is not totally immune from this tendency -- there appears a growing trend to regard efforts to re- kindle or keep kindled the fire of Pentecost to be almost tantamount to the offering of strange fire on the altar of the church. May God preserve Four- squaredom from ever becoming a mere museum to the memory of the moving of the Holy Spirit. The revival we have known need not be institutionalized and dissipated, as has been the case of previous waves of revival in church his- tory. There is nothing inevitable about a revival receding. It need never recede. It need never ebb. If it does, it can be reclaimed -- by exactly the same methods and hungers which precipitated it in the first place. We are entitled by God's grace to experience and enjoy greater visitations than we have hitherto witnessed and more mighty and marvelous movings of God than we can imagine. And Pentecostal preaching must be in the vanguard of causes which contribute to this desired effect. Pentecostal preaching means more than preaching by Pentecostal-affiliated clergymen. At its best it means even more than preaching by people baptized with the Holy Ghost according to Acts 2:4. Pentecostal preaching is that ministry which promotes the fullness of the Holy Spirit with attending Pentecostal results! To settle for anything less is to compromise the reason for our existence as a movement.

I. PENTECOSTAL PREACHING PRODUCES PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES

What better way could there be to begin a series on Pentecostal Preaching than to present a Pentecostal sermon by a Pentecostal preacher? But whose sermon shall we hear?

The present generation is affluent with a multitude of powerful and distinctively Pentecostal preachers. Who has not heard, for example, of Oral Roberts, who since 1960 even more than in preceding years, has been emphasiz- ing his personal Pentecostal persuasion and affiliation? Our Foursquare movement boasts men who are in frequent demand to minister to conventions and conclaves of other Pentecostal bodies around the world, men like -- and again I limit the reference to one example -- Dr Howard P Courtney.

If we look into the past one name stands out above all Pentecostal preachers of preceding generations of this movement, the name of our Founder, Aimee Semple McPherson. I personally believe she wielded the most versatile Holy Ghost ministry the world has seen since the apostles. Contemporary with her, however, were a host of other Pentecostal powerhouses, including Smith Wig- glesworth and Dr Charles Price, to name but two.

However, the Pentecostal preacher whose sermon I propose to read to you today -- and perhaps here I ought to break in with the remark that ordi- narily I do not recommend reading sermons. I never criticize those who do. Some of the finest sermons the world has heard since the Reformation were read to the congregations. I have heard Foursquare ministers read outstanding messages which have moved the congregations mightily. Dr Vincent Bird, a few years ago when addressing the International Foursquare Convention, observed, "You may not think I am anointed to stand up here and read this to you, but I assure you that I was anointed when I wrote it."

Sometimes audiences remain unaware that the speaker is reading the message. Such however was not the case when Jonathan Edwards read, almost in a whisper, the message many hail as "the greatest sermon ever preached on the North American continent, namely, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.'" Because of the flickering lamp which illuminated the platform but dimly that night, the colonial Congregationalist clergyman held his manuscript so close that his hearers could hardly see his face. But that sermon aroused America's first Great Awakening.

I dare not condemn the method of reading sermons. But because I have done it myself on occasions -- because, as it were, I have weighed this method in the balance and found it in most cases wanting -- I cannot say I recommend it.

However, the only way I could get this particular sermon before you is by reading it. The preacher who delivered it is not here -- could not be here. No recording exists to reproduce his thunderous tones. But the Holy Spirit who anointed that preacher indeed who inspired his thoughts and expressions, also moved the evangelist Luke to report the sermon for us in the Acts of the Apostles. The message in question is the very first Pentecostal sermon by the first Pentecostal preacher!

Our Roman Catholic friends have dubbed Peter the first Pope. You won't find any corroboration in Scripture for that idea. If there were a Pope in Jerusalem -- I say, if there were, his name was James, not James, the son of Zebedee, but "James the Lord's brother" (Galatians 1:19). James presided at the first ecumenical council, if you care to call the proceedings reported in Acts 15 by that designation. James declared the decision, "Wherefore my sentence is ..." (Acts 15:19), or "my judgment is," as other translate it. Peter most definitely was not the first Pope. there was no real Pope, as we understand the term today, until centuries after the apostolic age. An Ameri- can Express tourist guide in Rome, in 1961, volunteered that information when conducting me through Catholic basilicas there, and he was an Italian and a Catholic. Peter was not the first Pope. What was he? He was the first Pentecostal preacher.

Let me read his sermon to you now, as recorded in Acts 2:14-39:

"Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Ye men of Is- rael, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy coun- tenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrec- tion of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith him- self, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, who ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."

It took about seven minutes to read that sermon. But do not imagine that the apostle proved so brief on the Day of Pentecost. While we agree with Raymond Becker that "a preacher who can't strike oil in twenty minutes should stop boring," we must also remember that "sermonettes make Christianettes!" Peter preached more than seven minutes, for the very next verse (Acts 2:40) adds, "And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourself from this untoward generation."

Now this sermon by Peter is a typically Pentecostal sermon. Dr Guy P Duffield analyzed in his volume, "Pentecostal Preaching" which represents the first lectureship of this series. I would urge you to procure and peruse that book. Of striking significance is his conclusion that about one-half of the entire sermon is Scripture quotation. I could add nothing to his splendid exposition. My purpose in bringing this sermon before you is to furnish an example -- a typical, and in this case Biblical example -- of preaching dis- tinctively and particularly Pentecostal. Now the baptism with the Holy Spirit is not the subject or theme of this sermon. The baptism with the Holy Spirit, wonderful as it is, is not the best benefit God has lavished upon mankind. The best blessing is Jesus Christ the Saviour and the redemption He purchased, provided, sealed and delivered. Salvation is the crowning achievement of the divine undertakings. Redemption is the supreme glory of God's initiative throughout the ages, eclipsing creation by far. Pentecostal preaching must never evade this major emphasis.

However, next to salvation, we may regard the baptism with the Holy Spirit as preeminent in importance. This is why John the Baptist introduced Jesus Christ not only as the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), but also as the baptizer with the Holy Spirit: "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire" (Matt 3:11).

This baptism complements conversion, supplements salvation with power for service and soul-winning. It is, I say, next to salvation, the best benefit God provides to humanity this side of heaven. That is why Jesus insisted so strenuously that His followers receive the experience. He prom- ised, "They shall speak with new tongues" (Mark 16:17). "Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). His last promises before the ascension were, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts 1:5) and "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8).

And they did. Acts 2 relates how they were baptized, how they re- ceived power, how they used that power. The disciples tarried in the very same upper room, presumably, in which they had barricaded themselves after Christ's crucifixion, where they shut the doors "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19). At that time you couldn't get them out of the Upper Room. But you couldn't keep them in it after their infilling! The 120 spilled out onto Jerusalem's streets to witness.

Oral Roberts testifies concerning the same impelling admonition which must have thrust the 120 out to the populace. He visited the same Upper Room - the Cenacle on Mount Zion which is said to be the spot where the first Christians celebrated not only the birthday of the Church but also what we might call the "birthday of the Holy Ghost." Of course, the Holy Spirit existed eternally before Pentecost, as did the Son before Christmas. But Bethlehem marks Christ's birthday on earth, and in the same sense Pentecost may be said to commemorate the "birthday of the Holy Spirit." At any rate, Oral Roberts and Myron Sackett knelt to pray in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. After a few moments Roberts turned to his associate and excitedly exclaimed, "Dr Sackett, I have to get out of here. I have got to tell it. I have got to preach to someone" ("America's Healing Magazine," March 1954, p 17). And both men hurried downstairs and out in search of someone to win to Christ.

Now that is precisely how the baptism of the Holy Spirit affected Peter. He emerged from that Upper Room to try his wings, so to speak, as a Pentecostal preacher. A Pentecostal preacher, I say, because this was not Peter's first effort as a preacher. He had preached many times before, no doubt. But before he was filled with the Spirit he was just an ordinary denominational preacher! It took the miracle in the Upper Room, when accord- ing to Acts 2:4 he and his colleagues were "all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance", it took that to make Peter a Pentecostal preacher.

Now as it is the Pentecostal experience that makes Pentecostal preach- ers, so also it is the Pentecostal experience that makes Pentecostal people. Moreover, without Pentecostal people we will soon cease to function as Pente- costal churches. Therefore, we need Pentecostal preaching to promote the Pentecostal experience and perpetuate Pentecostal churches!

We must make a distinction, to be sure, between the Pentecostal move- ment and the Pentecostal revival - a distinction between Pentecostal affilia- tion and Pentecostal experience. In Russia, for example, I learned that the Pentecostals have lost their identity, having been swallowed in a merger with the All Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists. They have largely lost their identity, but they have not lost their experience. In America, however, some appear in danger of losing their experience while maintaining their identity.

Thank God for everyone who embraces "Pentecost outside Pentecost." Thank God for every person outside the movement who has been filled with the Spirit and initiated into the revival. Thank God for every Episcopalian, United Brethren, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist who has spoken with tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. I am told that in some areas this experience has so swept into Lutheran congregations that their constituencies are dubbed "Luthercostals." But a warning to Pentecostal adherents: Because denominational ministers and members have started emphasizing the baptism is no reason why we should curtail or relax our emphasis. David DuPlessis told the sixth triennial Pentecostal World Conference in Jerusalem, Israel, "I love Pentecostal Presbyterians, but it takes the grace of God to get along with Presbyterian Pentecostals." Unfortunately, this new breed seems to be multi- plying. Dennis Bennett reflects that while Episcopalians are acting more like Pentecostals, many Pentecostals are acting more like Episcopalians. And Spirit-filled Presbyterian James Brown said, "If I as a denominational preach- er have anything to say to you, it is this, 'Don't be less Pentecostal, but the more Pentecostal' " (The Sixth Pentecostal World Conference, published by the Conference Advisory Committee, Toronto, 1961, p 38). We dare never com- promise the conviction that the Pentecostal experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, with the Bible evidence of speaking in other tongues, is the indispensable and decisive factor in determining who is and who is not Pente- costal. Actually, a Spirit-baptized Methodist may actually be more Pentecos- tal than a Foursquare member who has no interest in seeking the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Pentecostal experience makes Pentecostal people. And Pentecostal preaching best promotes the Pentecostal experience.

Now I want to connect up these thoughts which may seem to you to be rather indiscriminate ramblings. And they all coalesce, more or less, in Peter's Pentecostal preaching. As I stated earlier, the theme of that dis- course definitely was not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But that experience nevertheless figures prominently in his preaching. When God launched the Church Age He led the apostle to keynote the redemptive ministry of Jesus. But He also inspired Peter to proclaim prominently four propositions pertain- ing to this Pentecostal experience.

When the apostle commenced his discourse to the multitude whose assem- bling was motivated largely from curiosity and perhaps controversy concerning charismatic utterance, he did not, as some contemporary Pentecostalists do, attempt to divert attention from the spectacular phenomenon. In fact, Peter directed attention to it! In an ingenious manner he established a rapport with even the mockers in the mob by latching onto their suggesting that the disciples were intoxicated!

We rarely are the target of the epithet "Holy Rollers" anymore. But Peter heard its equivalent on the Day of Pentecost. Personally, I am not ashamed to being called a "Holy Roller." I wish the world had more reason to apply the term to our movement. "Holy Rollers?" - well, even the devil has to admit we are holy, and I would much rather roll into Heaven than stagger into Hell! Speaking of Holy Rollers, I remember may years ago how one of our Canadian pastors related how Dr Clarence Hall, your esteemed Dean, effectively squelched a critic who parroted, "Holy Rollers," by eliciting from the man the admission that he prayed in bed, and so was in a sense a Holy Roller too!

At any rate, the wiseacres outside the Upper Room spouted, "Holy Rollers!" - "These men are drunk with new wine" (Acts 2:13). And Peter did not ignore the accusation. Rather he used the reproach to gain the attention of the mob. "These men are not drunken, as ye suppose" (Acts 2:15), he an- nounced authoritatively. Notice that he didn't deny the disciples' drunken- ness. He didn't say, "they are not drunk," but "They are not drunken as ye suppose" - which last three words I to like interpret as meaning - "in the way you think." Pentecost in its fullness is inevitably an inebriating experi- ence, but it is produced not by the fermented potion of the wine god Bacchus but by the new wine of the Holy Spirit of God. Paul later would contrast sensual and spiritual intoxication, exhorting, "Be not drunk with wine . . . but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18).

Peter, meanwhile, proceeded from negative to positive. He told the crowd what the Pentecostal phenomenon was not. Then he proclaimed what it was. Now remember, he addressed an audience which had never before heard of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Yet he did not hesitate to discuss it forthrightly. He didn't apologize for the reference nor suggest that his hearers should learn more elementary gospel truths before being instructed about the Pentecostal experience. His procedure in this respect raises the question whether many of us modern Pentecostals are not too cautious and too apologetic about presenting the Pentecostal fullness to unbelievers and brand new converts. There is something to be said for Oral Roberts' new boldness on this subject. I am told that during a meeting in Yakima, Washington in 1960, at which the governor of the state sat on the platform, the evangelist wheeled to confront the executive and declared, "Governor, what you need is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and speak with tongues!"

Peter was equally bold. His audience was wondering what had been going on in the Upper Room. What explanation could clear away the specula- tions and suspicions that clouded their minds? The apostle began where all preachers should begin - with the Word of God. He related the ecstatic ex- perience to the inspired Scriptures. He proclaimed the phenomenon to repre- sent a fulfillment of prophecy, and of one prophecy in particular, that of Joel 2:28-32. Peter commenced his quotation with "It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh," and he concluded with the promise, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Permit me here to point out incidentally how at once the Holy Spirit commenced to perform the office work Christ assigned to Him in John 16:13-14 when He said, "howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself . . . He shall glorify Me." The Holy Spirit led Peter to understand truth he had not recognized before, namely that the Pentecostal experience commenced the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy, and moreover, the Holy Spirit immediately and unmistakably glorified Jesus by prompting Peter to proclaim the community of essence of Jesus and Jehovah! Comparison of Peter's quotation of the prophet, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved" with the Old Testament passage (Joel 2:32), reveals that the divine name for God Joel used on the occasion was what theologians call the "Tetragrammaton" - the incommunicable name which is rendered into English as Jehovah or Yahweh. The King James Version generally indicates this divine name's appearance in the original Hebrew either by the term LORD or GOD, spelled entirely with capital letters. Joel actually forecast, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Jehovah shall be delivered." Peter quoted, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Now the apostle did not leave his audience long in doubt as to whom he meant when he said "Lord." His hearers who may at first have supposed that Peter was talking about God the Father soon were astonished to hear Peter proclaim that this Jehovah included God's Son. "God hath made that same Jesus . . . both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). Jesus is the Jehovah, Peter proclaimed, upon whose name when suppliants call they shall be saved and delivered. The Holy Spirit in the first sermon preached by a Pentecostal preacher glorified Jesus as Jehovah, commencing an office work which persists to this day in the ministries of anointed spokesmen for God.

But we are emphasizing Peter's proposition that Pentecost fulfills Bible prophecy. In this respect it is important to observe the exact expres- sion the apostle articulated. He avoids the formula prominent elsewhere in Scripture, "This was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet" (Matt 1:22), and voices instead an introduction absolute- ly unique in the Bible: "This is that," he said, "Which was spoken by the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:16). "This is that," not "this fulfills that which Joel predicted" but "this is that." Joel's prophecy commenced to be fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. But it is still in the process of fulfillment now. However, its fulfillment will not be fully and finally exhausted until the last person to be touched by Pentecost experiences the Holy Spirit's fullness, and the Church for whose perfecting the Spirit ministers in the world is raptured to meet her Lord!

How do we know that such is the significance of "This is that"? How do we know that these words do not merely represent a synonymous phrase to "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet"?

Of course, we can point to our contemporary experiences of Pentecost. But a far more authoritative evidence would result from establishing the proposition from the Bible. And this we can do by mentioning the very first promise Peter quoted from the prophet: "In the last days, said God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh" (Acts 2:17). God poured out of His Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, but by no means did He exhaust that effusion, for it cannot be said that in filling the 120 He poured out of His Spirit on all flesh!

Generally, the formula "all flesh" in the Bible signifies all races, all nationalities. But on the Day of Pentecost the only recipients were Palestinian Jews. Joel's prophecy commenced to come to pass on that occasion. It continued with every ensuing Pentecostal experience in Jerusalem. It burst the limits of Hebrew nationality when the half-breed Samaritans were baptized in Acts 8, and made its initial impact upon out-and-out Gentiles at the house of Cornelius in Acts 10. The consummation continued but by no means climaxed at Corinth and at Ephesus and throughout the Roman world. When Peter pro- claimed, "This is that," he meant, "This is the first sample of that, " or "This is a beginning of that" which God promised through Joel. And when I experienced my own personal Pentecost on the carpet beside the organ in Ange- lus Temple on Friday, July 17, 1936, about 2:30 PM, if Peter had been present on that occasion he could have pointed to me and announced, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel."

One wonders what magnificent condition the church would reflect today if the apostasy which inundated Christendom had not substituted Ichabod for Immanuel's manifested glory - if through the ages consecutively God had found the mainstream of Christendom in the Upper Room, as it were, seeking a contin- uous fresh outpouring of His Spirit. Had this been the case, Jesus might already have come, and we could be in the Millennium right now!

But alas, you know the story of the church's decline. Yet the Pente- costal experience seems never, I emphasize that never, to have been altogether absent in any age between the apostolic era and the present. Always God has had some remnant, it appears, who refused to bow the knee to Baal but who did more or less bore underground. However, the world remembers not the remnants but the renegades. And in connection with Peter's proclamation of Joel's prophecy it is pertinent to point out that Joel himself, who may be styled as peculiarly the "prophet of Pentecost," parabolically portrayed Christendom's apostasy and restoration.

In a very real way Joel pictured a double Pentecost, in terms of the former and latter rain (Joel 2:23).

Palestine, that term is now a misnomer; it has disappeared from our atlases, Palestine fell apart in 1948, and Israel, Egypt, and Hashemite Jordan picked up the pieces. But permit me to use the term anyway. Palestine tradi- tionally received two rainy seasons. I live in Oregon where we have only one rainy season, but it lasts the year round. But Palestine had the former rain about October, whose purpose was to prepare the ground for the seed. Then the latter rain fell the following spring, to swell the crop for the harvest. Now Joel forecast a double Pentecost in terms of the former and latter rain. Peter was claiming the commencement of the former rain when he quoted the promise, "In the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh."

It strikes some as odd that Peter could consider his era to be in "the last days," but such certainly was the case. Pentecost marked the dawning of God's last dispensation. It is perfectly proper, as Sister McPherson taught us, to trichotomize time into three dispensations, that of the Father which extended from Creation to Christ's first coming, that of the Son, which em- braced the years of His earthly pilgrimage, and that of the Holy Spirit which continues from Pentecost to the rapture. The Church is God's last organiza- tion on earth before the Millennium. The Holy Spirit voices God's last call to sinful men. Pentecost not only marked what Campbell Morgan called "a new departure in the economy of God" but represents the last departure prior to the consummation of the ages. Perhaps here we might gain insight to an ink- ling at least of the seriousness of the unpardonable sin against the Spirit. Men blasphemed the Father yet could find forgiveness. They blasphemed the Son, but could be forgiven. But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is, Jesus insisted, beyond forgiveness in this world and in the world to come (Matthew 12:31-32). May not one reason for this be that the Holy Spirit in our dispensation represents God's last intervention for redemption in human affairs?

At any rate, Peter could claim to be living in the last days. In a real sense the last days of which Joel prophesied commenced on the Day of Pentecost because that is when God commenced to pour out the Spirit which He promised for the last days. But Joel foresaw, what Church history records, an intervening apostasy.

Actually, the history of revealed religion has ever oscillated between retreat and revival. It was so throughout Old Testament times, and it has been so in the Church Age. The Church commenced with a blaze of glory. We may liken it to a healthy tree with abundant fruit. But it was attacked by an army of insects, and Christians did not resist the invasion with the available spiritual DDT which would have warded off the onslaught. Sister McPherson may have been the first, but she was by no means the last preacher, to see in the prophecies of Joel 1:4 and 2:25 God's preview of Church history from Pentecost to the rapture. About 1910, on her voyage to China with Robert Semple, long before she ever considered herself a preacher, she was forced into a speaking engagement in London before a vast congregation. God gave her, as she faced that convocation, what may be her most famous sermon, "Lost and Restored." You should study it. God has moreover confirmed the same illumination to others, including Dr Charles Price. Now Joel portrays the declension in chapter 1, verse 4: "That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten."

It is not necessary to particularize about trends represented by these specific insects. You know how worldliness and paganism and naturalism and ceremonialism infiltrated the Church and stripped it of its dynamic power and fruitfulness, until the thousand years which history bewails as the "dark ages" came to be called "the devil's Millennium."

But God would permit apostasy to go only so far. He is determined to inaugurate His own Millennium. Thus He initiated the revival we call the Protestant Reformation and thereby commenced the fulfillment of Joel's prophe- cy of restoration: "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm" (Joel 2:25).

Step by step, churches retrieved truths which had been smothered by the accretion of centuries of traditions. Luther proclaimed justification by faith. Wesley emphasized the personal experience of salvation and heart holiness. The mid-nineteenth century witnessed the first real emphasis since apostolic days on the imminent second coming of Christ. Our present century dawned with Azusa Street's outpouring, and the Pentecostal experience came back into prominence in the church. God is restoring. He is pouring out of His Spirit in these the last of the last days. We have received the mercy drops of the latter rain. But God's Word entitles us to expect "the former and the latter rain together in the first month" (Joel 2:23 paraphrase). The New Testament confirms this anticipation of hungry believers, for James wrote, "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain" (James 5:7).

We do not expect the world to be converted before Jesus comes. We presume that an apostate Christendom will flourish and enter the Tribulation to become a tool for the Antichrist. But God will not be destitute of a people in the last of the last days - a people who will welcome the outpouring of His Spirit. The present move among denominational churches proves that no situation must be written off as hopeless. If God can thaw thousand of "God's Frozen People," as "Time" styles Episcopalians (August 15, 1960, p 55), God can move by His Spirit in any situation. The church need not go out with less power than she had when she came in! Someone enthused, "The Christian dispen- sation will be clasped at both ends, like a necklace, in a jewel of miracle."

God says "I will restore" (Joel 2:25). He restored to an apostate Judaism on the Day of Pentecost. He will restore to hungry hearts out of an apostate Christendom in our day, to get the redeemed Church ready for the rapture!

The Pentecostal experience, therefore, as diffused on the Day of Pentecost initially, and as outpoured in our generation progressively, repre- sents a continuous fulfillment of Bible prophecy. "This is that," proclaimed Peter, "which was spoken by the prophet Joel" Peter related the Pentecostal phenomenon to Old Testament promises. Later Paul would relate the glossolalia to Isaiah 28:11 (cf I Corinthians 14:21).

Now for a sermon highlighting salvation, Peter's message nevertheless voiced an unusual emphasis on the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Not only did the apostle outline its prophetic significance, but he also proclaimed its heavenly source. "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witness- es. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear" (Acts 2:32-33).

In other words, Peter proclaimed that Jesus is the Baptizer with the Holy Spirit - that this ministry is one which He wields from the very throne of God in Heaven. "Jesus, whom ye crucified, whom God raised," the apostle averred, we may paraphrase his proposition, "Caused this phenomenon which whets your curiosity." "Jesus did it," Peter said about 30 AD, and I say, "Jesus is doing the same today." He still sits exalted by the right hand of God. He still receives of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, and He continues to shed it forth today according to the Pentecostal pattern for all to see and hear.

If this is not of God, if Pentecost comes not from Heaven, I would like to know from whence it does come, because all over the world people are receiving the experience, some even before hearing for the first time that the Holy Spirit is so given!

Critics, to be sure, contrive their pat explanations. They presume that Pentecostal preachers work up what in reality believers have prayed down! One of the most common charges is that the experience is induced by hypnotism!

It would be fair to demand, however, who is the hypnotist?

Who hypnotized me? My eyes were closed long before Sister McPherson stood in front of me to lay hands upon me and declare, "Receive the Holy Ghost!" Do you know of a case of hypnotism where the victim had his eyes closed for the treatment?

Who hypnotized Paul Morris, pastor of Hillside Presbyterian Church, Jamaica, New York? He had commenced seeking God to rid him from his briar pipe, and one night in bed he suddenly started speaking in tongues ("Christian Life," January 1959, pp 16-17).

Who hypnotized 17 year old Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy? She was alone in a house in Ingersoll, Ontario, when the Lord baptized her!

If this experience results from hypnotism, we must conclude that the hypnotist must be, I say this reverently, the hypnotist must be the Holy Spirit Himself! And what a "spell", if you permit that term, He casts! It has lasted me for nearly 29 years now and grows more delightful as the days go by. Let the critics carp, "Hypnotism!" But hypnotism cannot explain the baptism with the Spirit.

Some flirt with the unpardonable sin by dismissing Pentecostal phenom- ena as products of the devil. To this rash and reckless remark it suffices to reply that if such were the case, then the devil certainly must have become soundly converted! For the fruit of this experience invariably fosters love and devotion to Jesus and almost always encourages an expectation of the soon coming of Christ, with resultant attention to one's walk and witness.

Neither does the epithet "excitement" adequately explain the experi- ence. In another lecture we shall l explore the extent to which excitement ought to be permitted to affect Christian people; but here it is enough to observe that excitement eventually ebbs and subsides, but the Pentecostal experience ideally endures in far too many cases as to be explicable as mere excitement.

Consequently, we are compelled to accept Peter's explanation of the cause of this effect, and that cause is Christ. He baptizes believers with the Holy Ghost. The phenomenon originates in Heaven at the throne of God!

Peter makes two more points about the baptism with the Spirit in this evangelistic message. He announces its availability to sinners who repent. He emphasizes its extent as universal. These truths appear clearly in verses 38 and 39. We have no time to elaborate on them now.

So we have seen that Peter's salvation sermon on the Day of Pentecost represents the very first Pentecostal preaching the world ever heard. The apostle's Pentecostal preaching proved to be God's method of inaugurating the apostolic church.

Critics of preaching might suggest that more could have been accom- plished if each of the 120 had buttonholed for personal evangelism a few of the prospective converts who had been attracted to the scene by the curious phenomena of glossolalia. But God raised up a preacher to instigate the revival. Doubtless personal work followed, even on the Day of Pentecost. But primarily it was preaching that produced the church membership of 3,000 speci- fied at the close of chapter two. And that preaching, while its primary aim was to win souls to Christ, proclaimed prominently the baptism with the Holy Spirit, emphasizing that phenomenon as fulfillment of specific prophecy, as an experience from Heaven, as obtainable upon repentance, and as available to all.

These points must be proclaimed by Pentecostal preachers today, both implicitly. It would be well for every veteran Pentecostal preacher to inven- tory his "sermon barrel", as some call it, to ascertain whether his preaching prominently proclaims these truths.

It is not enough that these facts be believed. They must be pro- claimed, and proclaimed over and over again. We must stir up our own pure minds by way of remembrance before we can stir up the minds of our hearers.

Pentecostal preaching produces Pentecostal churches. Pentecostal churches are not such because of the name they sport on their signs, but because of the experience their constituencies share as a result of the out- pouring of God's Spirit. We must preach Pentecost as well as believe Pente- cost if we are to receive Pentecost. You'd soon stop seeing souls saved if you ceased preaching Jesus Christ the Saviour. How can we expect to have people hunger to be baptized with the Holy Ghost if we neglect proclaiming Jesus Christ the Baptizer? Pentecostal preaching produces Pentecostal church- es. Peter preached Pentecost in the first of the last days. Let us preach Pentecost in the last of the last days. Wesley told his preachers, "Preach faith until you have faith." Let us preach Pentecost until we have Pentecost in fullness, till our dry and parched land is drenched with the downpour of "the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month" (Joel 2:23), as God pours out of His Spirit, as He promised to do in our day, upon all flesh!

II. PENTECOSTAL PREACHING PROMOTES PENTECOSTAL MANIFESTATIONS

If you knew of a church which did not count a single convert in years, would you consider it an evangelistic church?

Then how can we call a congregation Pentecostal which has been barren of Pentecostal experiences for a prolonged period?

Howard Carter, presently the leader of the Pentecostal Free Will Baptist movement, laments that many churches, including some Full Gospel ranks, are becoming "icebergs with polar bears in the pulpits" ("Pentecostal Preachers Preach Pentecost," 1960 PFNA Convention sermons, p 37).

I have heard of Foursquare churches which have not witnessed a single baptism with the Holy Spirit in years. I have heard of Pentecostal assemblies which have not heard a single utterance in tongues interpreted or prophecy in years. I know of Pentecostal congregations where the prevailing mood mirrors that of a mausoleum.

Who is to blame? I say, shame on the preacher! The situation prob- ably is not entirely his fault, but he certainly could do something to remedy it! For Pentecostal preaching builds Pentecostal churches. But can a congre- gation call itself Pentecostal if it excludes the palpable demonstration and manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

"If the church of Jesus Christ," Sister McPherson used to say, "re- turns to Pentecost, Pentecost will return to the church (sermon booklet, "Tarry Until", p 37). Pentecostal preaching will promote that return and further will prompt proper Pentecostal expression. The old cliche postulates "Fire in the pulpit" before there can arise "steam in the pew".

Amazing manifestations have characterized the pristine Pentecost. The eruption of ecstatic utterance could hardly have been a quiet event, for it apparently disturbed the whole neighborhood. News of the proceedings spread like wildfire that Sunday morning in Jerusalem. The Upper Room was situation on what is now called Mount Zion (the original Zion, hill of the City of David, today is called Ophel) on a rather remote location at the southwest extremities of Jerusalem's walls, as they stood in New Testament times. But how often has the wildest Pentecostal orgy -- and I use that expression to designate excesses of the lunatic fringe which we must deplore -- how often has the wildest demonstration attracted thousands of outsiders to the streets adjacent even to a city center church? I know of no such modern incident. However, the Heaven-sent cloudburst of God's Spirit at Pentecost evidently produced a result spectacular beyond our imagination in order to attract so many thousands so quickly to its site!

Of course, it is possible, as some interpreters surmise, that the outpouring occurred within Jerusalem's Temple. But that Temple too stood on a square in a corner of Jerusalem and would hardly have been thronged with as many people as Peter addressed so early in the morning - the third hour of the day, 9:00 AM (Acts 2:15). If the miracle of glossolalia occurred in the Temple, it waxed loud enough to be heard far beyond those sacred precincts. However, the consensus of scholarship places it in the Upper Room of the Last Supper, today called the Cenacle.

The historian Luke records of the Pentecostal phenomena, "Now when this was noised abroad" (Acts 2:6, AV) - a better translation would read, "When this sound was heard -- the multitudes came together, and were confound- ed." Evidently most of those who assembled heard the actual utterances of the newly baptized believers. And that was before the days of public address systems!

Some question whether noise is necessary. "God isn't deaf," carp critics. Kelso Glover has a ready answer: "God isn't deaf," he conceded, "but He isn't nervous either." Cline Halsey comments, "There is more Bible for a noisy religion than for a quiet one." Certainly there can be no doubt that the church had a far from quiet commencement! Dignity and formality were ignored as the rushing mighty wind wafted believers into heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Those who do not appreciate Pentecostal freedom of expression sometimes seek to smother our enthusiasm by denouncing our demonstrations as mere "emotion" or "excitement." And their tones tinge those indictments with scorn.

We must concede that in certain circles unbridled emotion does indeed get out of hand on occasions! But this happens at ball games too! I remember a contest at Wrigley Field when a near riot erupted. Bottles were tossed onto the field by overwrought fans. The demonstration delayed the game consider- ably. But do you think for one minute that the management of the Los Angeles Angels prohibited all cheering at subsequent ball games? There are authori- ties present to quell any demonstrations that get out of hand. Likewise we have the 14th chapter of First Corinthians and other passages with which to police, if you will permit that term, to police Pentecostal manifestations sanely and scripturally. As David DuPlessis puts it, "What Robert's 'Rules of Order' is to a business meeting, I Corinthians 14 is to a Pentecostal meeting."

That excesses erupt occasionally we dare not deny. But the excesses merely emphasize, although grotesquely, the value of our enthusiasm. If what we experienced were not so glorious, none would go too far in expressing it!

Right here I want to grapple with that old bugaboo called "fanaticism." Fear of fanaticism has paralyzed far more than have ever been hurt or burnt by fanaticism itself. If fanaticism has slain its thousands, fear of fanaticism has slain its ten thousands and more!

You may wonder, "Brother Cox, aren't you afraid of fanaticism?"

I would answer, better a little overheating than the chilling frost of spiritual impotence! Beter the problems of too much life than the marble dignity of a tomb! Dr Courtney has exclaimed, "I would rather be a fanatic ten thousand times ten thousand than to be dead, twice dead and plucked out by the roots!"

I recall an ancient fable about a hitch-hiker. A carriage stopped and the driver invited the old lady to ride beside him. 'What is your name?" the driver inquired. "Cholera!" replied the rider. "Where are you going?" de- manded the driver, drawing his robes closely about him and moving as far away from the woman as possible. "I go to Constantinople" confessed Cholera. "But do not fear, I will not infect you." "But you will surely slay scores in the city!" complained the driver. "No," promised Cholera. "I will smite only five."

According to the tale the old woman thereupon handed the driver, as pledge or security for her promise, "the only weapon that can kill me." She said, "You may strike me with this dagger if I slay more than five."

Two days later the driver spied the old woman trudging away from the city. He stopped the carriage and reproached her. "You broke your promise," he charged. He drew the dagger and thrust it toward her heart. "Wait!" she cried. "I kept my promise. I killed only five."

"One hundred twenty died!" contradicted the citizen.

"Yes," conceded Cholera, "But I killed only five. Fear killed the others."

Likewise, fear of fanaticism has hindered revival among Pentecostal people far more than fanaticism itself at its worst had discredited our ef- forts.

Dr W.J. Ern Baxter, in the commencement address to the June graduating class of L.I.F.E. Bible College in 1955, put this point dramatically when he said: "Because a man dies of overeating, am I blest if I am going to die of starvation; and, because there has been, and I use the word advisably, down through the years, fanaticism, I have not, in my own experience, found occa- sion to regret my affiliation with the Pentecostal Movement" (Foursquare Magazine," August 1955, p 7).

Let's bury our fear of fanaticism, at least until we are exposed first hand to definite and excessive eruptions of it. Nothing appears so ludicrous as preachers inveigling against fanaticism to congregations who haven't had a glimpse of any fire, let alone wild-fire, in years. I'll tell you what you ought to fear, and that is not wild-fire but no fire at all! I'm not nearly so afraid of fanaticism as I am of coldness or even lukewarmness. Lukewarm- ness makes Christ sick to His stomach! "Because thou art lukewarm," He warns, "I will spew you out of My mouth" (Rev 3:16). It seems proper to suggest that Christ prefers the coldness of sacerdotal ceremonialism to the lukewarmness some Pentecostals radiate. Let's abominate coldness. Let's get red hot for God! Too much heat is preferable to too much cold, at least spiritually speaking. Only one thing can stop Niagara. It can freeze. I'd rather be a radiator than a refrigerator!

John Wesley used to pray in great earnestness, "O God, send us a revival without fanaticism if You can, but if not, in any case send us a revival." Are you willing to pray that prayer and mean it?

In order not to restrain real revival in the lest the early Methodists put up with a lot of manifestations which the most enthusiastic Pentecostal today would deplore. I tell you, the mainstream of Methodism on the American frontier in the first half of the nineteenth century would make present Pente- cost's lunatic fringe look respectable in comparison! Scoffers even coined an epithet to describe one of the features: "Methodist fit" (Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, p 89).

The Presbyterians had their problems with fanaticism too. They more or less spearheaded America's first famous camp meeting, the historic pro- tracted revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in the early 1800's. I quote from a volume entitled, The Old Time Religion, authored by Archibald Robertson, son of the late great Greek scholar, Dr AT Robertson of Louisville Theological Seminary:

"At no time," writes this investigator, "Witnesses have reported, was the ground at Cane Ridge less than half covered with the victims of religious experience. 'Some lay quiet, unable to move or speak.' For these, rescue squads, known as 'bearers of the slain,' were organized, to move them out of the way, where they would not be hurt, until they came to. 'Some talked but could not move. Some beat the floor with their heels. Some, shrieking in agony, bounded about like a live fish out of water. Many lay down and rolled over for hours at a time. Others rushed wildly about over stumps and benches, and then plunged, shouting, "Lost! Lost!" into the forest.' Many 'talked in tongues,' as at Pentecost. Upon some the 'holy laugh' descended. In the 'barks' the votaries fell upon all fours, forming groups which loped and gathered at the foot of a tree, yelping, barking and snapping like dogs; this exercise was called treeing the devil!" (pages 50-51).

No responsible Pentecostal leader today would endorse many of those reactions, but the moving of the Spirit of God was mightily present at Cane Ridge, in spite of the excesses. And perhaps it will boost our morale to be advised of these Presbyterian precedents for Pentecostal practises! Our Movement is not the first to be plagued with excesses. Archie Robertson gives an objective appraisal of the commotion at Cane Ridge which we might well ponder: "The mass hysteria which swept the great crowd in the forest was the wild foam on the surface of the old-time religion -- not the essence of the thing itself" (op cit p 52).

Now you may disagree with me, but I would rather put up with some fanaticism, if accompanied by a genuine moving of God, than compromise with coldness in order to preserve propriety and dignity; especially since what man calls dignity is often a misnomer for spiritual rigor mortis! I have found that it is almost always easier to restrain a fanatic than to resurrect a corpse. And it is an indisputable fact of church history that there have been very few, if any, mighty soul saving revivals without some streak of wild-fire in them somewhere along the line. I would rather live with a little wild-fire than quench the real fire. But actually, Pentecostal preaching proves an invaluable opportunity to impart intelligence to Pentecostal people and enable them to govern their demonstrations according to Scripture patterns. I hold no brief for fanaticism, but I was bold to declare it a lesser evil certainly than coldness or lukewarmness. According to Revelation 3:16, Jesus prefers coldness to lukewarmness, but undoubtedly fervency is his first choice!

And fervency has always been a hall-mark of the Pentecostal Movement since its renewal at the commencement of this century. In England for two generations Pentecostals have been nicknamed "Hot Gospellers." Critics coined the epithet in scorn, but I accept it with pride. May God keep our Foursquare Gospel hot in it presentation and practice! We need not be ashamed nor alarmed that the world poles fun or scorn at us, labelling us with nicknames. Did not the glorious term "Christian" originate on scoffers' lips in Antioch as an opprobrious epithet to scorn apostolic believers?

Now the present Pentecostal revival lies under obligation to perpetu- ate the pristine Pentecostal vision which featured the demonstration and manifestation of the Holy Spirit in manners which awakened curiosity! Bibli- cally, Pentecost is not an option but an obligation. Today we have churches which are Pentecostal and churches which are not, but it was different in Bible days. Then all churches were Pentecostal. In fact, the apostles would not even allow people to serve at tables at church gatherings until they had been filled with the Spirit (Acts 6:3).

I invite people who prate patronizingly of us Pentecostals to indicate a single Scripture which would excuse modern Christendom from experiencing a present Pentecost!

The Bible does not leave the choice up to the believer whether to be Pentecostal or not. Pentecost is not an option, I repeat, but an obligation. Everywhere the Holy Spirit manifested Himself in the Apostolic Age, people experienced the particular Pentecostal phenomena -- everywhere! And the Holy Spirit is still in business today. The Holy Spirit shares the name of the unchanging Jehovah. The Holy Spirit makes Himself available this very hour to provide all the power of God to anyone who will draw upon it. The Holy Spirit is as powerful today as He was on the day of creation when He moved upon the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2). The Holy Spirit is as mighty today as He was on the Day of Pentecost. It is unthinkable that His power has dwindled away, leaving little or nothing for us today, so that we may be excused from experiencing Pentecostal fullness.

I dare to say this in spite of the sorry state of both the world and the church at large, for outward circumstances cannot stop the moving of God's Spirit. Dr Charles Price challenged, "The gospel of Jesus Christ has never come up against any worldly force it was unable to move" (Pentecostal Evangel", Nov 11, 1948, p 2).

Satan cannot stop the moving of the Holy Spirit. Yet too often Pente- costals prove more guilty even than other evangelicals in giving credit to the devil for our own seeming failures. I heard of a woman down in Texas who startled a testimony meeting by proclaiming, "The devil's been after me all week, bless his holy name." She didn't mean that the way it sounded. But she shouldn't have testified at all to Satan's persistence. Instead she should have proclaimed her victory in Christ over all the power of the enemy. Does not Isaiah 59:19 promise that "when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him."

If the devil could frustrate the moving of God's Spirit, Satan would have prevented the apostolic Pentecost. But he didn't. He couldn't then, and he can't now. Satan is no more powerful today than in Bible days. And the Holy Spirit is no weaker! The third Person of the Godhead remains more than a match for the devil. Believers should dare to defy the devil. He is vulner- able! He cannot prevent Pentecostal revival.

Neither can the wickedness of the world!

World conditions have nothing to do with a Pentecostal outpouring, for "greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world" (I John 4:4). Nineveh's wickedness did not prevent revival under Jonah. Revival primarily represents a matter between God and His people, not between God and the world.

Again, religious apostasy cannot prevent Pentecostal progress. Relig- ious apostasy did not stop the first Pentecost. There was no greater apostasy in all history than that of the Jerusalem which crucified Christ. Neverthe- less, God poured out His Spirit in a might flood-tide within fifty days and on the very spot of that consummate act of apostasy!

Religious apostasy did not prevent the first Pentecost, nor did it hold back the outpouring which commenced early in this century. Modernism is the major apostasy of our era. It was not until the beginning of this century that modernism began to be entrenched firmly in high ecclesiastical circles. Modernism took the name of our Lord, "Emmanuel," which means "God with us" (Matt 1:23), stripped it of its first syllable and chopped off its last three letters, leaving only man as its estimate of a reduced Christ. Modernism modified what God calls wickedness into weakness. It substituted culture for Calvary and prescribed polish instead of pardon. Modernism endeavored to streamline the Gospel, remodel Heaven, air-condition Hell, and annihilate the devil. Modernism, as one has put it, "denied the blood, defied the Book, and derided the blessed hope." But in spite of rampant modernism, God sent the early years of the century the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit since the days of the apostles. We are foolish if we imagine that times have gotten too hard for God, or that circumstances have become too difficult for God to overcome!

Of course, some sincere believers endeavor to excuse the church from apostolic revival by raising the question, "Is not apostasy prophesied for the last days?"

We dishonor God and do violence to the Scripture contexts when we quote passages predicting apostasy as proof-texts to deny the possibility of mighty movings of God in our generation.

Certainly the Bible prophesies apostasy. But God's Word promises an outpouring also! Paul told Timothy that "in the latter times some shall depart from the faith" (I Tim 4:1). He said that about "some". He didn't say it about everybody! When I hear predictions of apostasy parroted to exclude revival in our time I am reminded of the fellow who preached that people shouldn't polish their automobiles anymore! Oh, he had Bible for the prepos- terous proposition, or at least he though he had. He appealed to Paul's prophecy that in the last days men "shall wax worse and worse" (II Timothy 3:13)! Now his interpretation is no more far fetched than the interpretation some apply to prophecies of apostasy in order to excuse on that ground the church's lack of power and revival!

What do the passages predicting apostasy mean? They signify that the apostate shall go from wickedness to wickedness, but on the other hand the people that do know their God, as they are anointed of His Spirit, can go from strength to strength, from exploit to exploit, and from glory to glory! Neither the devil, nor the world, nor the apostate church can rob hungry believers of Pentecostal fullness. And sincere Pentecost is available, Pente- cost remains an obligation, not an option, if believers today are to reflect the kind of Christianity the early Church possessed.

Now our emphasis in this lecture is on Pentecostal manifestations, as promoted by Pentecostal preaching. And whenever the subject of the manifesta- tion of demonstration of the Holy Spirit arises, there is usually someone to object, "O, but we can get along just as well without any outward manifesta- tion."

St Paul felt differently about this, however. In First Corinthians 12:7 he penned, "T manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." Evidently the Holy Spirit agrees with Paul rather than with critics of Pentecost, for He is Who personally inspired the apostle to enunciate that proposition.

What about it, though? Do we need manifestation or not?

Dr Charles Shreve, once pastor of McKendree Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, and later an associate pastor of Angelus Temple, answered an objector who declared, "I want the power, but I don't want the manifesta- tions of the power." Replied Dr Shreve:

"What is the use of the Holy Ghost power if it doesn't do anything? The manifestation of the Spirit is given to man that he might profit withal. If you don't have any manifestation, how do you know you have any power? If you have a live baby, you want some manifestation of life from that infant. When a baby is born it cries! What is the matter with it? Well, it is not dead and you know it is alive by the noise it makes! I wouldn't want a child if it didn't cry. I would be sending for the undertaker to see if he couldn't bury the poor, little dead thing. I want a baby that shows some noise and manifests the power of the life that is within it. God Almighty wants some manifestation of power if you receive the Spirit" (article, "The Holy Spirit in His Workshop," The Bridal Call Foursquare," June 1926, p 10).

Another godly Methodist minister unfortunately took a different view. Samuel Chadwick wrote a book entitled, On the Way to Pentecost. He titled it honestly. He was on the way all right, but he just never quite arrived. When commenting on Acts 2 he declared that while the wind is gone, the fire is gone, the shaking is gone, and the tongues are gone, "Pentecost remains."

Well, now, what about it? Across the street from Portland, Oregon's Union Station stands a vintage railroad locomotive called the "Oregon Pony." You can admire it there on its pedestal, resplendent with black and gilt paint. It's water is gone. The steam is gone. The fire is gone. The move- ment is gone. But the Oregon Pony remains. But what will it do? It really isn't a locomotive anymore. It can't haul freight. It doesn't transport passengers. It is of no earthly good except as an antique, a museum piece.

Likewise when all manifestation of the Spirit is gone, there isn't any real Pentecost left! May God preserve Foursquaredom from ever becoming a museum piece! Alas! movements can become museums. This is a very real dang- er. Many institutions remain today as mere museums of former revivals. May Foursquaredom always welcome and cultivate and encourage the manifestation of the Holy Spirit! God grant that we never compromise with the spirit of the times, now that the age of "Amen" has given way largely to the era of "so what", even in some Full Gospel circles.

The Pentecostal manifestations were not just a fanfare or a big noise or a side-show which were to cease once the novelty wore off the Gospel. We Pentecostal people must continue to act like Pentecostals! We Spirit-filled believers must continue to keep Spirit-filled.

Now the Pentecostal Movement of this century has recovered the Bible way to worship. A secret of Full Gospel meetings says Harold Horton, is that our services are conducted to accommodate the praises of people God has deliv- ered.

I call your attention to Acts 3:8. The subject is the lame man who had been healed at the Gate Beautiful. Peter helped him to his feet. Sometimes people criticize evangelists for prodding the afflicted to act healed before they feel healed. Yet many times I witnessed Sister McPherson and Dr BF Gurden virtually pull people off stretchers, people who arrived in ambulances and went home on the street car! - People who would not have left their beds without that prodding. Now Peter boldly reached down and hauled the cripple up! And the Bible continues, "And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God."

Jesus told Christians to "leap for joy" (Luke 6:23) in times of perse- cution. How much more may we exult in deliverance! This lame man walked and leaped and shouted the high praises of God. Probably he was not very digni- fied. But he waxed uproariously happy, and who can blame him? Undoubtedly his praises pleased God.

Do you suppose it is a disgrace to be thrilled with Gospel truth to the extent that you cannot contain yourself? This lame man was! He vented a seizure of ecstasy inside the temple at Jerusalem a few days after the initial Pentecost.

Of course, Pentecostal meetings are not the only places things like this happen. In Wales, the people who attended meetings conducted by Christ- mas Evans, a Baptist preacher, often were so wrought upon by his sermons that they got right up while he was preaching and danced for joy. Church history coined a name for those Baptists: "Welsh jumpers!"

One morning a certain Episcopal rector arrived early at his church. Upon entering he beheld the janitor hilariously jumping over pews! When he regained his composure the priest reproached, "William, I am sorry to find you acting this way in God's house."

"I'm sorry too, Sir," mumbled the custodian. "I didn't expect you so soon. Let me explain." The janitor related how a few minutes earlier a poor man entered the edifice to rest. "I learned that he was not a Christian. I told him about the way of life. He made his peace with God. I was overjoyed. I had led my first convert to Christ, Sir, and I couldn't help leaping for joy!"

"Is that so?" responded the rector gravely. Then his manner mellowed. "Have you just led a soul to Jesus? Then let's both of us leap over the pews. I'll leap with you. Over we go! Hallelujah! and again hallelujah!"

That performance wasn't any more sensation than the demonstration by the lame man who had been healed at the GateBeautiful. He entered the temple and turned those precincts into a place of glorious disorder.

It is perfectly proper to have a service organized, but you always ought to be ready for God to reorganize it! God miraculously reorganized that day's ritual in the Jerusalem temple. The lame man interrupted the ceremonies to demonstrate in the power of the Holy Ghost. It may have been the most revolutionary scene ever witnessed in the Jewish temple.

Now I can remember some hair-raising, spine-chilling episodes that have transpired in Angelus Temple so far as Pentecostal manifestations are concerned. I mean in the main auditorium, not just in the 120 Room and the 500 Room.

On the day I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit a pastor was preaching, a man who later became one of Foursquaredom's most distinguished district supervisors. Suddenly, in the middle of his sermon he fell prostate under the power of God. I don't remember exactly what took place in the meantime, but a few minutes later he got up and finished his sermon.

Now if this minister visited your church and this happened, what would be your reaction? I'm sure some of my sermons would be improved if God oper- ated on me in the middle of a message!

I recall the last night of the 1941 International Foursquare Conven- tion. The leaders of our organization sat on tiers of seats rising behind the curtains. The power of God fell mightily, and two of our foremost preachers, one now is retired, but the other is quite active, embraced each other as they stood praising the Lord. The next instant both rolled together out over the platform, right to the foot-lights!

Perhaps you feel that we have outgrown such excitements, and I would be the last to encourage an excess. I do not solicit any demonstration for its own sake. But I wonder how much more we may outgrow? A large denomination for years enjoyed unusual moving of God's Spirit, but now it not only has outgrown the Gospel, outgrown the Bible. It grew up, all right, all the way to radical Modernism! I don't want Foursquaredom to outgrow tongues, healing, salvation, and emphasis on the second coming of Christ. And it is a fact that we had mightier meetings before we commenced to outgrow some of these remark- able phenomena. I will have more to say on this matter in the next lecture.

Manifestations normally accompany mighty movings of God. When the wind blows, the branches and leaves of trees rustle! When fire kindles, the fuel burns. When God moves by His Spirit, the anointed ones may be expected to respond. And then the unsaved "report that God is in you of a truth" (I Cor 14:25).

We had a near-literal example of this during the Pentecostal World Conference, which our own Dr Courtney served as chairman, at Jerusalem in 1961. During the Saturday evening service a missionary to Germany, Ardis McDaniel, thrilled the vast audience with her vocal solo, "Harbored in Jesus." Throughout the singing wave after wave of spontaneous praise at times almost drowned out the soloist's powerful voice. Following her last chorus Mrs McDaniel was tremendously moved upon the by the Spirit of the Lord. After the service a prominent Israeli official, the gentleman in charge of the Binyanei Haumah or "Nation's Building," the hall where the conference convened, ap- proached Dr Courtney and said, "Up to this time I never believed in what you were doing or what you believe, but after witnessing the seizure of ecstasy, I know that you are witnessing and experiencing what David had when he danced before the Lord with all his might." This Jewish leader continued, "You had what David had when you unashamedly gave out your worship and devotion to Jesus Christ." Dr Courtney, in relating the conversation, commented, "Coming from that man, it was a tremendous testimony."

Holy Ghost filled believers are not mummies, they are alive! Pente- costal preaching will stir them, enthuse them, inspire them, sometimes even electrify them! Pentecostal preaching will encourage them to yield to the moving of the Spirit, to covet and use the gifts of God, to exercise their liberty, to be doers of the Word and not hearers only! Pentecostal preaching will inform believers that God blesses them to make them in turn blessing to others. Pentecostal preaching promotes Pentecostal manifestations, not as ends in themselves, but as means to a nobler end, the revelation to the world of the grandeur and glory of our great God, the Creator and Redeemer of man- kind.

III. PENTECOSTAL PREACHING PRECIPITATES DIVINE GLORY

On June 26, 1959, Ingemar Johannsson scaled the loftiest summit of the boxing world, winning the fistic sport's highest crown, the heavyweight title! Less than four years later that handsome Swede announced his retirement from the ring. He offered this explanation for hanging up his gloves: "I have thought it over and there is nothing left that incites me to go on boxing. I like boxing, but I don't have to do it for money anymore, and I am fed up with glory" (Portland Oregonian, May 9, 1963, AP release).

An ex-champ quit the ring because he became fed up with glory. But the Bible describes a man whose death was directly attributable to grief over loss of glory! Eli was the high priest and judge of Israel, having headquar- ters at Shiloh, a settlement a few miles north of the then Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem. There the tabernacle of the congregation was pitched, and within the veil in the holy of holies stood the ark of the covenant.

An invasion of Philistines threatened Israel's territory. Eli's sons rushed to the battlefront with the army. In the initial engagement the Phil- istines achieved a resounding triumph. They felled 4,000 Israelites. Morale of the remnant skidded to rock bottom. Then some soldier suggested, "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies" (I Samuel 4:3).

Reluctantly Eli permitted the ark to leave its sanctuary. Anxiously he awaited tidings of the next encounter. "His heart trembled for the ark" (I Sam 4:13). Eventually a courier raced into Shiloh from the front. The herald communicated three messages to Eli. The first advised that Israel had fled from her from following a severe defeat.

The report of military disaster evoked no serious repercussions from Eli.

The courier conveyed the second message: "Thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead" (I Sam 4:17). Even these terrible tidings, though they severely saddened Eli, provoked no extreme reaction.

But the third message killed Eli! The herald announced, "And the ark of God is taken" (I Sam 4:17). The priest could bear news of defeat. He could survive the death of his sons. But the capture of the ark exceeded his endurance. The record relates, "When he (the messenger) made mention of the ark of God, that he (Eli) fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died (I Sam 4:18).

Eli's daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, memorialized the tragic tidings in the name she conferred on the son she bore shortly after the hos- tilities. "She named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken" (I Sam 4:21).



We thus confront widely divergent estimates of glory. A former world heavyweight boxing champion quit the prize ring because, he said, "I am fed up with glory." On the other hand, a leader of Israel dropped dead when he learned of the loss of glory.

How can we reconcile these contrasting viewpoints?

We cannot. Because they reflect attributes focused on two divergent auras of glory. The boxer became bored with the glory of the world. The priest bewailed the loss of the glory of Heaven. "All the glory of man," wrote Peter, is "as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away" (I Peter 1:24). The glory of God, however, is not ephem- eral but eternal.

Now Pentecostal preaching can precipitate divine glory. And you know we need that! We can sing a chorus occasionally, "Get the Glory!" We want the glory! We need God's glory. What a wonderful term is this word glory. Soak up the symphony of its euphonious syllables: glory, glory, glory, glory.

What is the glory? The glory is the manifested presence of Almighty God turned loose in the midst of His people, the manifested presence of God.

It is one thing to believe that God is present in a meeting. It is quite another thing to experience His presence, to sense and feel Him at work in the midst.

Why did Jacob, whose rocky pillow was stuffed with dreams at Bethel, exclaim, "Surely the Lord is in this place" (Genesis 28:16)? Why?

Because God manifested Himself by the vision of the ladder. Jacob glimpsed the glory.

Why does the New Testament standard for services call for sinners to be impressed upon visiting a church to the extent even of falling prostrate and acknowledging "that God is in you of a truth" (I Corinthians 14:25)? Why? Because the Holy Ghost is manifest in glory.

In Old Testament times God's glory appeared visibly as the holy smoke, if you please, of the Shekinah, the amber cloud of golden glory which hovered over the camp of Israel and permeated the atmosphere with the presence of God (cf Exodus 40:35; II Samuel 6:2; Leviticus 16:2; I Kings 8:10; II Chronicles 5:13; Isaiah 37:16; Ezekiel 9:3). People beheld the glory and experienced the consciousness of God.

We need the same consciousness of God today, and we can have it. We have a better right to receive the glory even than did Israel!

Israel had God manifesting Himself between the cherubim atop the mercy seat which covered the ark of the covenant. But we have God the Holy Spirit in person manifesting Himself in our lives -- indeed in our very bodies, indwelling and infilling us . . . (cf I Cor 3:16, 6:19).

The Shekinah cloud still gleams in our Foursquare flag. But does it glow in our meetings? Does it shine in our experiences? Does it saturate our souls and scintillate in our testimonies? Do people take note of us that we have "been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13)?

We need God's glory! We can have God's glory. We must have that Glory. And no one can outdo us in our confession that we have had God's glory! Foursquaredom has enjoyed the touch of the glory of God to a unique and unusual degree. I thrilled in preparing this series in reading again the account of our early history. I pored over pages of the "Bridal Call" and the "Foursquare Crusader" and "This is That." I remember myself many of the occasions. Truly we have witnessed the glory. I want to share with you some of my reminiscences, but lest you become skeptical concerning my reports, suspecting that my memory or imagination may have invested the occasions with an aura beyond their actual reality, I will read verbatim as the accounts appeared in the "Foursquare Crusader." In each quotation the description was published under the byline of Aimee Semple McPherson.

The issue of July 1, 1936 sported headlines which announced:

"CLOUD OF GLORY FILLS TEMPLE AS SIX SCORE ORDAINED." The reference alluded to the previous Sunday afternoon's service of laying on of hands for licensing and ordaining to the ministry graduates of the Trail- blazers' Class of LIFE. I commence the quotation here:

"From the opening moments of the service, a strange, mystical, heart- aweing cloud of heavenly glory began to settle over the great congregation. With each ensuing song and prayer, message and testimony, the visible Presence deepened, saints laughed, wept, shouted, and danced in the spirit, till as in Israel of yore, it was almost impossible for the priests and the Lord's min- isters to minister.

"Came at last the amazing moment when the clean cut, consecrated candidates rose to wait for 'imposition of hands.'

"Then a strange thing happened: Those gazing upon the transcendent scene from balconies and main floor, trembled and burst into heavenly singing and spake with other tongues as their eyes shone through misty tears.

"The gathering cloud of glory broke! The hovering Shekinah fell upon each and every candidate" (p 1).

In case you wonder whether such goings-on might be "way out," permit me to remind you that our Founder always insisted that Foursquaredom take the middle of the road, between formalism and fanaticism. She called that kind of meeting a "middle of the road" position.

I received the Baptism of the Holy spirit at the third Holy Ghost Rally held on July 17, 1936. These rallies were eighteen hour marathons of prayer, praise, singing and preaching but primarily they featured preaching. Pentecostal preaching at its best! Eighteen different speakers ministered God's Word, scheduled one each hour beginning at 6:00 AM. I shall never forget the third such rally, for God Baptized me, as I said, with the Holy Spirit on that day, about 2:00 PM. In Sister's write-up of the rally, appear- ing in the "Foursquare Crusader" of July 22, 1936, she stated:

"Laughter and song, weeping and prayers, tongues and interpretation, preaching and travail, heavenly singing and altar calls marked the third Holy Ghost Rally at Angelus Temple.

"Never in the annals of its fourteen year history have such sights and sounds rocked the place.

"Frequently it was impossible for the priests and the Lord's ministers to minister by reason of the glory of the Lord, for the people stood blessing and praising God, making one sound to be heard in the Temple.

"The miraculous happenings of that day defy verbal description. Again and again I found myself shaken as with an ague and weeping uncontrollably. The aisles were often choken with the praying saints who lay flat on their faces in travail for the Nation and the Church at large. At one time some 350 lay stretched out under the power seeking the Baptism, and it is estimated that at least one third of that number received a clear Pentecostal experience with Bible evidence of Acts 2:4 in one hour.

"It is a strange, awesome, never-to-be forgotten sight to see a multi- tude dancing in the Spirit at one time. Even our staid Charles Walkem, Radio Manager and Bible Teacher, leaped for joy like King David when the ark was coming up the road" (p 3).

I well remember that incident involving Dr Walkem. It occurred during the final sermon of the rally, preached by the Rev JD Long. His subject was "The Rapture!" And for a moment we thought the preacher was taking off! At one point in the sermon he took a leap straight up, and honestly, his feet cleared the pulpit. Dr Walkem had been sitting near Sister McPherson, just off the platform in the general area the kettle drums occupy today. With a bound he was on the platform, embracing the speaker. It brought down the house! Seldom has such an ovation of praise to God ever erupted from a mighty multitude this side of the throne and the sea of glass!

I could go on and on, reading reports of the glory we have enjoyed in Foursquaredom. The fourth rally took place on August 7, 1936. I read Sis- ter's report from the next Wednesday's "Crusader":

"Flashing visions, flaming messages in tongues and interpretation, signs of billowing smoke, sheets of living fire, and floods of prophecies rocked the Temple . . .

"So heavy was the cloud of glory that it was at times visible to the audience as a great billowing smoke cloud and again as a sheetlike pillar of fire. The final speaker (JD Long), who had been preparing his message in prayer for hours, fell to the floor under the power after he had uttered but a few sentences.

"Springing to their feet, the entire audience lifted hearts, voices, and hands to heaven. The sound rose to a might volume which caused the very clouds in the blue dome to tremble. Never has the Temple witnessed such a divine manifestation. The description thereof beggars words.

"Then the prostrate speaker leaped up and cried out: 'If you want to be saved, filled with the Spirit, and get ready to meet Him -- if you want to make amends for wrongs done, you had better come running.'

"Instantly every aisle was blocked with hundreds who not only ran but raced down every aisle, choked the altar spaces, or fell where they were.

"Till 3 a.m. hundreds still remained praying, praising, and admonish- ing one another" ("Foursquare Crusader", August 12, 1936, p 1).

No one reviewing back issues of our Foursquare periodicals can deny that we have had the glory. We have enjoyed unique visitations. And Pente- costal preaching has precipitated these deluges of blessings. The great Holy ghost Rallies were primarily days of preaching. Ten of the eighteen hours on an average were occupied with preaching! The glory which the ministry of the Word precipitates is more substantial glory than that which men may work up or pump up!

We need the glory. We can have the glory. We must have God's glory. We have had the Glory. But yesterday's possession is no guarantee of today's. Israel lost a battle. That was too bad, but Eli could bear it. Eli lost two sons. That was tragic, but Eli could endure that. When, however, Israel lost the glory, Eli died in disappointment. The most tragic message he could hear was that God's glory was gone.

A greater tragedy threatens present Pentecostals. Many of us greet the ebbing of the glory with shrugged shoulders and a "so what?" attitude. How badly does it bother us? Some people don't lose God, but they lose con- tact with God's glory. It is a tragedy to lose the glory, but it is a greater tragedy to lose the glory and never miss it!

Samson, you remember, "wist not that the Lord was departed from him" (Jud 16:20). He roused himself and went through the same motions, but his strength was gone. There are a lot of former Samsons, as it were, in Pente- cost today with eyes gouged out leaving no vision; and they are harnessed to Philistine mills of routine ministry, going round and around in circles, because they have lost the fresh touch of God, lost the manifestation of God, lost the glory. Once they enjoyed the glory. Once they experienced the glory. But you can't store it up. You can't save it for a dry day. Like manna, the glory must be replenished regularly. I tell you again, it is a tragedy to lose the glory.

The greatest dangers threatening Pentecost in our generation are not the dangers of failure but the dangers inherent in success! Progress and prosperity sometimes promote the perilous tendency for churches to commence depending on other things than the glory of God. Self-sufficiency rears its ugly head, as at Laodicea. Education may become too prominent unless balanced with an up-to-date unction. Edifices become more and more splendid and ap- pointments more refined. This is all very well, but none of these factors can take the place of the glory.

I know this. You know this. Yet we proceed to salt our claims with the fool's-gold of social substitutes for the glory of God. Sometimes these substitutes are the cause, and sometimes they are the effect of the fading of the glory.

When the glory wanes in most churches there immediately follows a restoring to other things to fill the void. Usually there ensues an immediate and tremendous upsurge of emphasis on the social life. Congregations imagine that ambitious social programs are necessary to retain the people, especially the young people. Again and again we hear even evangelicals - even Pentecos- tals -- alas, even Foursquare folks -- ask, "How can we keep our people if we do not involve them deeply in interesting social activities?"

Bless God, I know what kept me as a young man in Angelus Temple! It was the glory of God manifested in the services!

Do you not think it a shame when many church members can go out two, three, or even four nights a week to indulge in social activities, but cannot come to prayer meeting or even the Sunday night evangelistic service?

No one can fill a spiritual void with a social program. What we need is God's glory manifest in the midst. That is how to draw outsiders to the church. That is how to hold the young people. There is still a Holy Ghost Who comes down from Heaven in the visitation of the glory of God. He is God's attraction, God's appeal, God's sustaining power, God's condition for the survival -- no, for the growth of the church. We need the glory. We can have the glory.

My heart goes out for our Crusaders. How I yearn for this present generation to be inundated with a deluge of glory. Foursquare youth need more than our doctrine, Biblical as it is. They need more than our traditions, wonderful as they are. They need to experience what we experienced. They need the glory of a perpetual visitation of the Holy Spirit.

Our Crusaders can inherit our churches. Our Declaration of Faith, our Crusader Covenant, our reputations, but they cannot inherit our experiences. They must experience the glory for themselves. And I am glad to be able to report that in the Northwest District many of our youth are indeed periodical- ly experiencing God's glory. We witness outpourings in our camps, retreats, and conventions. But we must enjoy the glory in our local churches as well!

What can we expect from the glory? How can we recognize God's glory?

God's glory rarely promotes passive worship. Almost always it pro- motes active participation by the people. In the New Testament church where heathen exclaimed, "God is among you of a truth," we read of a spontaneity in the services: "When ye come together, every one of you that a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation" (I Cor 14:26). These features did not substitute for the sermon but rather comple- mented it. The people participated actively. God's glory is marked not by the vicarious intervention of a priesthood, but by an active involvement of worshippers in spontaneous, free expression. And what fervor and zeal the glory promotes in worship! The glory inspires a worship which has at its center a personal contact with God. Pentecostal worship emphasizes the manif- est presence of God, rather than symbolic or ritualistic suggestions of God. The glory transforms the ceremonial into the spiritual and ritual into reali- ty. Christ never meant for His Church to be a monument to the memory of God but a channel for the manifestation of God. Many churches are familiar with fervor and zeal in work but frown on enthusiasm intruding into worship Yet that is exactly what we need, fervor in worship. Enthusiasm! Sanctified excitement! Does not God lavish upon us superlative and exquisite graces? Is not His wisdom manifold, His riches unsearchable. His peace surpassing under- standing, His joy unspeakable? Do not His bounteous bonanzas deserve ovations of acclamation on our parts?

The history of God's dealings with mankind abound with occasions where God has mightily stirred His people to enthusiastic responses. The disposi- tion of humanity is such that it requires such stirrings. Charles G Finney, in his sermon, "What is Revival?", declared:

"God has found it necessary to take advantage of the excitability there is in mankind to produce powerful excitements among them, before He can lead them to obey. Men are so sluggish, there are so many things to lead their minds off from religion and to oppose the influence of the Gospel, that it is necessary to raise an excitement among them, till the tide rises so high as to sweep away opposing obstacles. They must be so aroused that they will break over these counteracting influences, before they will obey God" (sermon reprinted in the "Prairie Overcomer", Nov 1953, p 338).

T DeWitt Talmadge shared the same sentiments and expressed them elo- quently in his famous sermon, "Sensation or Stagnation," insisting that we have far less to fear from sensation than from stagnation. They say, "Still waters run deep." That, however, isn't universally true. Sometimes still waters get stagnant. Fervency of spirit is usually the atmosphere in which God manifests Himself in glory.

Now I will grant you that the visitation of God's manifested presence promotes people to practice peculiar procedures on occasions. We read in Second Samuel 6:14, "and David danced before the Lord . . ."

What does that mean -- "danced before the Lord"? Where was the Lord?

The ark of the covenant represented Jehovah. David danced ahead of the parade which accompanied the ark as it came up the road to Jerusalem! Moreover, Scripture says he danced "with all his might." Shamelessly he stripped off his royal regalia and cavorted in the insignia of inferior class- es. And he did it right in the middle of the road, on the main highway to his country's capital city!

When the ceremony concluded David hastened home to bless his wife, Michal. Can't you picture the king bouncing into the palace, exclaiming, "Well, Michal, hallelujah, we've brought back the ark! The glory is here! Here in Jerusalem!"

You know how thrilled Michal was!

And we have many Michals sulking among Pentecostals!

I wonder what we would do if someone suddenly started to sweep down the aisle of our church, dancing vigorously unto or before the Lord. What would you do, pastors and prospective pastors? What would I do?

Do you say, "Well, it would depend on who did it"?

I say, it's a stark tragedy if the pillars of a congregation sit back with the amused expressions of tolerant connoisseurs and let crack-pots monop- olize most of the blessings!

We all need periodic renewals of the moving of the Spirit on our lives as individuals and in the services of our churches. I remind you again of John Wesley's prayer, "Lord, send us a revival without fanaticism if you can, but at any rate, send us a revival."

Moreover, I believe we should be most careful about criticizing phe- nomena which seem strange to us when God commences to move in our midsts.

I do not suggest that we gullibly swallow every new feature that erupts in the name of Pentecost. The Bible authorizes us to exercise gifts of discerning of spirits, words of knowledge and wisdom. "Try the spirits," admonished John (I John 4:1). "Let the other judge," Paul authorized (I Cor 14:29). We are not to be gullible. Neither, however, dare we peremptorily reject what seems new to us. Suppose the 120 on the Day of Pentecost rejected the visitation because they had never known of a rushing mighty wind or cloven tongues of fire to accompany an outpouring of blessing from Heaven before?

The missionaries of the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade who witnessed the mighty revival which swept the Belgian Congo a decade ago were bewildered by some unusual phenomena. They did not on that account, however, reject the outpouring. "We do not need to be afraid," they wrote, "of any manifestations which are strange to us. Strange things have accompanied every true revival. When the Spirit is given liberty, He will take care of His work. As the enemy seeks to get in, God gives discernment, and we are able to recognize his devices. We have seen manifestations we have never seen before, but we know the work is of the Spirit because of the fruits of salvation in so many lives" ("Herald of His Coming," Nov 1955, p 4).

Beloved, even in this twentieth century God is able to do a new thing. "God does not have to have a precedent upon which to base His actions," ins- ists Loraine B Berry. "God never has to look back into history and say, 'Because I did that, I can do this.' God is sovereign" ("Healing Hope," April 1959, p2).

In some cases when Pentecostals have condemned manifestations which to them have seemed strange, they have condemned some of the same phenomena which prevailed in our own midst in the early days of our revival. Let me cite an example. I have heard many critical comments concerning the phenomenon often described as the "heavenly choir."

Some of the criticisms certainly are well taken. If the expression "heavenly choir" is pressed literally, as meaning the actual sound of celes- tial singing transmitted, as it were, into our sanctuaries, then there is no Biblical basis for the phenomenon. However, if by "heavenly choir" is meant, as usually has been the case, "singing in the Spirit," we have good Biblical grounds, for did not Paul resolve, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also" (I Cor 14:15)?

Yet from time to time we hear the validity of this phenomena scouted, even ridiculed, by Pentecostals. In so doing, they are condemning a manifes- tation which prevailed mightily in our own midst in the early days of our revival. I refer you again to the old "Foursquare Crusader." Again Sister McPherson is writing:

"The 'Heavenly Choir', or 'Heavenly Singing', as it is sometimes called, has visited the Temple.

"I have longed for this for years, ever since the days of the Wm. 'Durham' Mission in Chicago, with its Azusa day aftermath. And now it is here! Here, like a mantle of benediction, rests a Shekinah of glory; a crown- ing manifestation of the presence of the Lord.

"Have you ever heard it? Have you ever been swept up and up, upon its lilting crest? Has your voice ever threaded its intricate, buoyant, enrap- tured, unforgettable, indescribably windings and twistings crescendos and innuendos, risings and fallings? Then you know that it is truly that somg which no man can learn except the Spirit give it to him.

"Old folk whose voice could not possibly be expected to soar to the heights of clean, sweep soprano notes or whose bass could never descend to the depths of melody of yesterday, become sweet and strong and ring with an un- earthly sweetness the arias which one might expect to hear about the Throne.

"Listening to the bewildering loveliness, the soul-tingling quality of it all, one feels that the Song of Moses and the Lamb have already begun, and that one is not sure whether this is earth or whether it be heaven.

Each service at the Temple has lately been graced with the breath-taking loveliness, the haunting melody of this heavenly singing. Many have come through to the baptism in this manner; namely, by just opening their mouths and beginning to sing in other languages as the spirit gives utterance.

"The melody follows no earthly tune, yet is runs the gamut of celes- tial ecstasies and sweeps the aeolian harp strings of spiritual emotion ("Foursquare Crusader," May 6, 1936, pp 6-7).

In another write-up Sister likened the melody to "the strumming of angel fingers upon a harp of a thousand strings" ("Foursquare Crusader," May 13, 1936, p3).

Organized Pentecost understandably has waxed wary of certain manifes- tations because of excesses promoted by ignorant or unscrupulous operators who have endeavored to exploit peculiar phenomena to promote their own persons or programs.

Primarily the problem seems to be this: Men, once exposed to a mighty visitation of God's glory, propose to perpetuate the accompanying unusual phenomena, forgetting that God is a God of variety. He does not always manage the same circumstances in the same manner. He does not manifest phenomena for their own sakes. Only once do we read in Scripture of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit being accompanied by a sound like wind and by tongues resembling flames. When Peter and John went down to Samaria to minister the fullness of the Spirit there, if Peter had been like some modern operators, when he laid one hand on a convert he likely would have cupped his other hand to his ear to listen for the rushing mighty wind! John might have stared at the believers' heads to behold a tongue of fire alighting upon it. But Peter and John did not go to Samaria to perpetuate Pentecost's original visible phenomena, but to minister the Holy Ghost to converts.

Neither are we today to seek to perpetuate a recurrence of passing phenomena, wonderful and divinely-bestowed us they may be. That God manifests Himself on occasions visibly and audibly we dare not deny. But we are not to endeavor to promote a reproduction of a particular phenomena. Rather we preach God's Word and worship the Lord and let Him turn loose His glory in the way He sees fit.

Men sometimes seem to duplicate previous phenomena performed by God, just as Jannes and Jambres mimicked Moses' miracle with his rod-turned serp- ent. But if the manifestation is man-made rather than heaven sent, it holds no attraction for me. We have no business, I repeat, seeking to produce repetitions of unusual palpable manifestations of divine glory.

I have no reasons to doubt -- though you may label me unfavorably for this -- that on rare occasions God has produced the phenomena of oil erupting from believers' bodies. But I do not truck with the ballyhoo which tries to mass produce this phenomenon!

The pastor of one of the largest churches in our Northwest District related to the 1964 fall minister's retreat how this happened during a healing service in his church in another city over twenty years earlier. He called upon a minister's wife who at the time was a member of that congregation to confirm his testimony. But this pastor never made an issue of seeking to reproduce the manifestation in ensuing services.

Likewise, an outstanding Foursquare evangelist who, by the way, sometimes evokes complaints that she quenches the Spirit, told me of witness- ing the same phenomenon on one occasion.

These isolated incidents, however, are not to be regarded as anything other than isolated incidents. Yet these things got so out of hand that preachers I knew -- not Foursquare preachers, fortunately -- would open their eyes and look for oil on their hands several times during seasons of prayer!

I have never heard the rushing mighty wind or seen cloven tongues of fire or felt the building quake. I have never seen the oil. I did not feel a raindrop, as several testified they did on October 30, 1938 during the Latter Rain Rally in Angelus Temple. The Temple staff recognized that phenomenon as a divine visitation, but never encouraged worshippers to expect or even desire a recurrence. Thank God for any way He has worked. He may never work in exactly the same way again, so far as unusual manifestations are concerned. But He will continue working if we seek His face.

Only once did God make iron to swim and the sun to stand still. Only once did He split the Red Sea. However, He rolled back the Jordan River three times. Only once do we read of rushing mighty wind and cloven tongues of flame. But always in the Bible when God Baptized with the Spirit the believ- ers spoke with tongues. This is the recurring phenomena. But we do not even seek to promote tongues as such. Rather we encourage people to be filled with the Holy Spirit. When I buy a pair of shoes I don't ask for tongues in them. They come with the package! And as Pentecostal preachers preach Pentecost and sincerely welcome the moving of the Holy Spirit in the meetings, God will move in and saturate the atmosphere with the glory of His presence. He will manif- est Himself according to His sovereign will. He knows best what manifestation we need. But we desperately need some visitation. And we can have it. Truly Pentecostal preaching will precipitate divine glory!

IV. PENTECOSTAL PREACHING EXALTS JESUS CHRIST

What is the grand theme, the supreme subject of Pentecostal preaching?

Most people would immediately answer, "The Bible."

Thank God for the Bible. Undoubtedly the Bible is one of God's great- est gifts to mankind. Pentecostals are Protestants and as such we heartily confess that the Bible is God's written Word and is the only supreme rule of Christian faith and practice. Pentecostal preachers definitely are not like the clergyman John A Broadus lamented, who looked upon the Scriptures merely as a quotation collection from which to snatch a text to use as a spring board for his weekly dive into the depths of the social problems. The Bible means much more to us than that.

Dr Harold W Jefferies years ago listened to a man complain, "Is it true that Foursquare preachers are restricted in their preaching to the Bible?" Dr Jefferies replied, "Are fish limited to the seas? Are birds limited to the skies?" Such limitations only emphasize enormous freedoms. And we respect the Bible with reverence because it is God's Word. But the Bible is not the grad theme nor supreme subject of Pentecostal preaching!

Lewi Pethrus, foremost Pentecostal leader on the continent of Europe, startled the huge crowd at the 1964 Pentecostal World Conference at Helsinki, Finland with the remark, "Some preach the Bible instead of preaching Christ." Charles Templeton complained that some fundamentalists almost make the Bible a "paper pope." What did these men mean?

I would express it this way: The Bible is our source but Christ is our subject. Christ is our subject. We read in Acts 8:5: "Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them." Pentecostal preaching proclaims Jesus Christ, exalts Jesus Christ, glorifies Jesus Christ as He is portrayed on the pages of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible may be said to be the second greatest objective gift God lavished upon man. What was the greatest? "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16).

A Swede telephoned Lewi Pethrus in Stockholm. "I want to be saved," the man confided. "But I cannot believe in eternal punishment."

How would you have replied? Pethrus answered, "The Bible doesn't say we are saved by believing in eternal punishment but by believing in Jesus Christ." He invited the man to his office where he led him to the Lord. Before long that convert believed in eternal punishment too!

Some preachers would have argued with that prospect about Hell. But that Pentecostal preacher pointed him to Jesus Christ. He is our supreme subject. He is the grand theme of Pentecostal preaching. And the Pentecostal preacher is at his best when he is getting Jesus across to his hearers, when they realize and recognize that he is exalting Jesus, whether they like it or not, and sometimes people don't like it! They don't like to hear Jesus exalt- ed.

When Dr Howard Courtney was a student at LIFE he worked in an estab- lishment side by side with a notorious French atheist. This infidel delighted in tormenting his colleagues with his orneriness. One day the skeptic learned that his co-worker attended Angelus Temple. That discovery brought out the very worst in this man. "You mean you go to that church," he exploded angri- ly, "and hear Aimee Semple McPherson preach?"

"Indeed, I do," the student replied firmly, "And I like it there!"

The infidel waxed increasingly indignant. When his arguments failed to shake the student's faith in the Foursquare Gospel, his face turned livid. His eyes blazed. His fists clenched. His lips went white. And he raved in rage, "All I hear, and all anyone hears at that church is" -- and he spat the next words in venom-tinged tones -- "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"

Unconsciously that atheist may have articulated the most significant compliment ever paid to Foursquaredom. Every Foursquare preacher ought to aspire to the same reputation.

A premier Pentecostal preacher of the present generation articulated an ambition which ought to actuate our endeavors every time we stand behind the pulpit. The quotation is lengthy, but rich in significance. Bishop JA Synan of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, declared:

"I feel that I would like to use all of the powers at my command (only wishing I had a thousand more) to exalt and magnify and worship and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. If I had all the power of fine expression that has been commanded by all of the poets of all the ages, I would like to write a poem setting forth in marked beauty, in measured cadence, the perfections and glories of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"If I had all of the power of all the musicians who have composed all of the great musical structures that have thrilled the hearts of multitudes, I would not rest until I had conveyed to everyone the wonder of the melody of love which Christ has put within me.

"If I had all of the power of all the artists who can make the canvas live with a stroke of the brush, until the flowers are so real that the bees examine them, and the fruit is so rich that the birds pounce upon it - if I had those powers I would like to paint Jesus as I see Him and as I love Him.

"If I had the skill of the sculptor who can evolve from the rough stone the likeness of human beings, until children weep as they look upon the likeness of Jesus Christ -- if I had all that power I would like to carve out of every rough stone a likeness of Him that would make the world look upon Him with greater wonder and admiration.

"If I had all of the powers of all of the orators who have moved multitudes and turned the tide of empire and changed the course of events -- if I had that power I would like to preach all up and down this world of the perfections of our Lord Jesus Christ, His infinite love, His gracious conde- scension, His matchless perfection, until I could melt the hearts of millions into obedience at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"I don't have all of those powers, but I do have a soul that's all on fire with love for Jesus Christ. I feel it to the depths of my soul. Hail to the King of kings! Glory and majesty and honor and worship and adoration to the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords, who lives in splendid array at the right hand of the Majesty on high in the light where no shadow is ever cast, and sin never insinuates itself, and doubt never comes, and sorrow and pain are not known. Thank God for Jesus. I love Him with all my soul, and I want to magnify Him with all my ransomed powers.

"When I get to glory I want to gather with the others of God's saints around the throne on high and sing the song of redemption and give Him glory for ever and ever for the love wherewith He loved us, for the blood wherewith He bought us, for the peace wherewith He blessed us, for the hope wherewith He lifted us, for the joy wherewith He filled us, for the glory wherewith He will crown us bye and bye. Bless His holy name forever" (Pentecostal Evangel," Feb 13,1955, p 14).

That lengthy excerpt furnishes an apt example of how Pentecostal preaching exalts Jesus. And Pentecostal preaching exalts Jesus as no other kind of preaching can. For the preacher who is filled with the Holy Spirit is filled with Him of whom it is written, "He shall glorify Me" (John 16:14). The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus. Pentecostal preaching reflects that glory to the world. We preach Christ. He is our subject. The Bible is our source. Indeed, the Bible proclaims Christ. There would not be much left to the Bible if Christ were not in it! The Bible without Christ would be like the Tower of London without the Crown Jewels, like the Louvre without its treasures, the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, and other fabulous exhibits. Take Christ out of the Scriptures and there would be better books than the Bible!

But you can't take Christ out of the Bible. He permeates its pages from cover to cover. Oral Roberts compiled a far from exhaustive catalog of allusions to Jesus in every book of the Bible. I have taken the liberty of modifying it slightly, thus I do not reproduce it in quotations.

Our Saviour saturates the Scripture. He permeates the Pentateuch. In Genesis He is the Seed of the woman. In Exodus He is the Passover Lamb. In Leviticus He is our Great High Priest. In Numbers He is the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night. In Deuteronomy He is the Prophet like unto Moses.

Christ proves pre-eminent in the historical books. In Joshua He is the Captain of our Salvation. In Judges He is Judge and Law-Giver. In Ruth He is our Kinsman Redeemer. In Samuel He is our Trusted Prophet. In the books of Kings and Chronicles He is our Reigning Ruler. In Ezra and Nehemiah He is the Rebuilder of the tumbled walls of human life. In Esther He is our Mordecai.

Jesus pervades the poetic books as well. In Job He is our Ever-Living Redeemer who inspires the boast, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (Job 19:25-27). In Psalms Jesus is the Lord our Shepherd. In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes He is our Wis- dom. In Solomon's Song He is our Bridegroom. In Isaiah He is the Prince of Peace, for Christ permeates the prophetic books as well. In Jeremiah He is our Righteous Branch, while in Lamentations He is our Weeping Prophet. In Ezekiel He is the wonderful four-faced man, the inspiration of one of our Foursquare emblems. In Daniel He is the Stone cut out without hands Who will smite the world order of the last day to smithereens and go on to become a great mountain and fill the whole earth in what we might call the "coming stone age" (Daniel 2:34-35)!

Minor prophets as well as the major prophets focus on Christ. In Hosea He is the faithful Husband forever married to the backslider. In Joel He is the Dispenser of the former and latter rain. In Amos He is humanity's Burden Bearer. In Obadiah He is the Lord Mighty to Save. In Jonah He is the Great Foreign Missionary. In Micah He is the Messenger of Beautiful Feet. In Nahum He is the Avenger of God's elect. In Habakkuk He is God's Prophet crying, "Revive Thy work in the midst of the years" (Chapter 3:2). In Zepha- niah He is the Lord in the midst of His people. In Haggai He is the Restorer of God's lost heritage. In Zechariah He is the Fountain opened in the House of David for all sin and uncleanness. And in Malachi He rises as the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings.

Of course, the New Testament outdoes the Old in spotlighting the Saviour. In Matthew Jesus is the Messiah. In Mark He is the Miracle Worker. In Luke He is Son of Man, and in John, Son of God. In Acts He is the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost. In Romans He is the Justifier. In the two Corinthian epistles He is our Sanctifier. In Galatians Christ redeems us from the curse of the law. In Ephesians He shares with us His unsearchable riches. In Philippians He is the Source from which God supplies all our needs. In Colos- sians He is the Fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Thessalonians He is our Soon-Coming King. In Timothy He is the One Mediator between God and man. In Titus He is our Faithful Pastor. In Philemon He is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother. In Hebrews He is the Blood of the Everlasting Coven- ant. In James He is our Great Physician, "For the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord (the Lord Jesus) shall raise him up" (chapter 5:15). In Peter's letters He is our Chief Shepherd. In John's epistles He is Love. In Jude He is the Lord coming with ten thousands of saints. And in Revelation He is the Lamb in the midst of the throne of Heaven.

Often ministers permit their preference of the New Testament to rob their congregations of the rich truths concerning Christ's place in the Old Testament. Pentecostal preaching must un-deceive any who suppose the Saviour more or less confined to the New Testament.

Jesus Himself emphasized His prominence in the Old Testament, thus contradicting those who complain that the recitation of Christ's place therein is farfetched. Christ conscripted the extremities of the Hebrew Bible as testifying concerning His career. When He talked with the travellers on the Emmaus Road Luke records, "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27). "Beginning at Moses" -- Moses wrote Genesis. "And all the prophets" -- the prophets concluded the Hebrew canon. "He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." And a few hours later He told His disciples: "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me" (Luke 24:44).

T DeWitt Talmadge put it pictorially:

"Here is a long lane, overshadowed by fine trees, leading up to a mansion. What is the use of the lane if there were no mansion at the end? There is no use in the Old Testament except as a grand avenue to lead us up to the gospel dispensation. You may go early to a concert. Before the curtain is hoisted, you hear the musicians tuning up the violins, and getting ready all the instruments. After a while the curtain is hoisted, and the concert begins. All the statements, parables, orations, and miracles of the Old Testament were merely preparatory, and when all was ready, in the time of Christ, the curtain hoists, and there pours forth the Oratorio of the Messiah -- the nations joining in the Hallelujah Chorus!

"Moses, in his account of the creation, shows the platform on which Christ was to act. Prophets and apostles took subordinate parts in the trage- dy. The first act was a manger and a babe; the last a cross and its victim. The Bethlehem star in the first scenery, shifted for the crimson upholstery of the crucifixion. Earth and Heaven, and Hell and the spectators. Angels applauding in the galleries; devils hissing in the pit.

"Christ is the Beginning and the End of the Bible." (Sermon, The A and the Z," "Foursquare Magazine," December 1948, p 8).

Now not only does Christ conscript the extremities of the Bible of His day to convey His glory, He also conscripted the extremities of the alphabet of His day to describe His versatile career. He proclaimed, "I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last." Alpha was the 'a' or first letter of the Greek alphabet. Omega was the last letter, standing in the position occupied by our 'z'. Christ proclaimed Himself in Revelation 1:11 to people who under- stood Greek as the alpha and omega. To us who speak English He would say, "I am the 'A' and the 'Z'."

A survey of Scripture and sacred songs suggest that we who proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ may exhaust the alphabet and still fall short of ade- quately expressing His infinite fullness.

A announces that Christ is Adam -- the last Adam, Advocate, the Amen, the Author of Eternal Salvation, the Author and Finisher of our Faith, the Apostle of our Profession. All this and much more is involved in Christ's claim, "I am alpha," "I am 'A'."

B bestows titles such as the Beginning, the Beloved Son, the Bishop of Souls, and the Blessed Hope.

C chimes in that Christ is Creator, the Chosen One, the Consolation of Israel, and the Coming King.

D declares Him the Daystar, the Desire of All Nations, and the Door.

E exclaims that Jesus is the Elect of God and the Everlasting Father.

F designates Him to be the Friend, the Faithful and true Witness, and the Fountain of Life.

G glorifies Jesus as the Good Shepherd, the Great God and our Saviour, God only-begotten, and God over all, blessed forever. A non-Christian reli- gionist conceded, "The sense of the presence of God has come to millions through Jesus Christ as through none other. No Moslem ever sang of Mohammed, 'I Need Thee Every Hour,' nor did any Jew carol, 'Moses, Lover of my Soul'!"

H honors Christ as Help, Hope, Head of the Church, Heir of All Things, and our Hiding Place.

I indicates Him to be the Image of the Invisible God.

J declares that His name is Jesus. He is the Just One.

K catalogues Christ as the King Eternal, the King of Glory, and the King of the Ages.

L lists Jesus as the Lord, the Life, and Lover of our Souls.

M mentions Him as the Mediator, the Man of Sorrows, the Mighty God, and the Messiah. A young Jewish soldier was reprimanded for attending Chris- tian meetings. "Don't you know," his rabbi reproved, "that we Jews still are expecting our Messiah to come, while Christians claim He came in Jesus?"

"I understand," answered the soldier. "But tell me, when our Messiah does come, in what way will He improve on Jesus?"

N names Christ as the Nazarene.

O reveals Him as the Offspring of David.

P points out the Potentate and the Prince of Life. Q lists Jesus as the Quickening Spirit.

R refers to Him as the Righteous One, the Refuge, the Resurrection, and the rock of Ages. William Jennings Bryan used to declare, "I would rather know the Rock of Ages than the ages of the rocks!"

S suggests such titles as Shiloh and Saviour.

T tells that He is the Truth and the Tree of Life.

U underlines that Christ is the Unspeakable Gift.

V vindicates Jesus as the Victor. He is also the Vine.

W choruses that His name shall be called Wonderful. He is the Word, the Witness, and the Wisdom of God.

Which brings us to 'X'. This alone of all the letters of the alphabet is silent. Cruden's Concordance indicates the no word beginning with this letter is found in the Bible. However, Jesus said that the very rocks would rend the silence if His praises ceased, and similarly 'X' in the dictionary exclaims of Christ! The twenty-seventh entry under this letter in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (Fourth Edition of the Merriam Series) lists: "XP (Belongs here in appearance only). The first two letters of the Greek XRIS- TOS, Christ -- an abbreviation, used esp. with the letters in a monogram." And whether we like it or not, it is a fact that 'X' originated in the abbre- viation Xmas not as indication of an unknown quantity, as in algebra, but as designating the known quantity of the infinite Christ, as in religious art and abbreviation.

Y proclaims Christ to be the Yea, the One in Whom all the promises of God are yea and amen!

Z concludes that Jesus is Zion's Great One and Deliverer. He is the 'Z' of the English alphabet, even as He is the omega of the Greek alphabet!

Moreover, the person and work of Christ makes contact with virtually every occupation by way of typology. To the architect Christ says, "I am the Chief Cornerstone." To the baker He can say, "I am the Living Bread." To the banker He is the Hidden Treasure. To the farmer He is the Lord of the har- vest. To the jeweler His is the Pearl of Great Price. To the oculist He says, "I am the Light of the world." To the preacher He is the Word -- the Living Word of God. To servants He is the Good Master. To travellers He is the "New and Living Way." To the toiler He is the Giver of Rest. To the educator He is the Teacher -- the Great Teacher -- indeed, the Greatest Teach- er, for so He is universally hailed.

The greatest teacher -- thus Jesus Christ pervades the departments of education. In zoology He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world and Who is now installed in the midst of the throne of Heaven, the auditor of angelic acclamation and the cause of celestial symphony. In astronomy Jesus is the Bright and Morning Star. In art He is the Fairest among ten thousand, the altogether Lovely One.

In the realm of medicine Jesus is the Great Physician and "the blind receive their sight," the lame leap, the lepers are cleansed, and on resurrec- tion morning the corpses will climb out of their coffins at His call!

Christ is active in mathematics. By subtraction He will take away the sinner's stony heart and give him a heart of flesh in which He will implant His love. In the matter of multiplication, "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord" (II Peter 1:2). By way of addition Jesus promised, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:31). In division, He will divide the sheep from the goats on judgment.

In government Jesus is Heaven's crown prince, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. In history Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Moreover, civilization is racing toward the climactic consummation when history will become His story, Christ's story, for God has decreed His determination in the dispensation of the fullness of times "to gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him" (Ephesians 1:10). Indeed, God has "highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11).

Evangelical preaching aims to convert sinner-rebels to allegiance to Christ voluntarily in this life. But only Pentecostal preaching presents and exalts Jesus Christ to the utmost in the fullness of His ministry and might, "the same yesterday and today and forever."

Theological literature abounds with usage of the expression "a reduced Christ." Usually this phrase is voiced by fundamentalists in denouncing modernists for their denial of Christ's virgin birth, sinless life, pre-exist- ence, eternal deity, miracles, blood atonement, and bodily resurrection. Modernism's Jesus is certainly a reduced Christ. Modernism decries the Bi- ble's supernaturalism and seeks to pursue a quest for a historical Jesus behind what they regard as Scripture's mythological miracle worker. But fundamentalism, if it postulates Christ as a retired miracle worker, is pre- senting a reduced Christ too!

A Jesus who cannot and does not save sinners by application of His atoning blood is a reduced Christ, to be sure.

But a Jesus who cannot or will not heal the sick today is also a reduced Christ. Is Jesus the Great I AM, or the Great I Was?

A Jesus who no longer Baptizes with the Holy Spirit is a reduced Christ!

A Jesus who is not going to keep literally His promise to come again is a reduced Christ!

No preaching exalts Jesus Christ to His Biblical stature which denies or ignores any of these fundamentals of Jesus' current ministry!

You recognize, of course, this "quartet" as the four phases of the Foursquare Gospel, as we call them. Sometimes we hear these phases defined as salvation, Holy Ghost Baptism, Divine healing, and the Second Coming. But that is not the basic confession of our faith. To be sure our message key- notes salvation, healing, the Baptism with the Spirit, and the Second coming; but our emphasis must always be that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour, that Jesus Christ is the Baptizer with the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ is our Healer, that Jesus Christ is our Soon Coming King! That is why Dr Howard P Courtney could say, "When you say 'Foursquare', you say Jesus! He is our message. Our message is Jesus the Son of God, and if you tell the story correctly and dynamically, every illustration you give of what we believe within a sentence brings you to Jesus Christ."

We are called to preach Jesus. We are commissioned to preach Jesus. The Bible from cover to cover furnishes us with source material about Jesus. The first promise in the Bible guaranteed His first advent at Bethlehem: "And I will put enmity," God the Father declared, "between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). The first Bible promise foretells Christ's first coming to Bethlehem. The last promise in the Bible guarantees His coming in the clouds: "Surely I come quickly" (Revelation 22:20). Meanwhile, Christ cautions us, "Occupy till I come" (Luke 19:13). Vance Havner laments that many are so occupied with His coming that they are not occupying till He comes. Let that not be the case in Pentecost.

As never before in church history preachers are getting sidetracked on issues which are mere tangents to the Gospel. Many are majoring in minors. Jesus did not found His Church to be a pressure group politically, socially, or economically. He did not say, "Go ye into the streets and demonstrate against social injustice." He did say, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel" (Mark 16:15), and He is the Gospel.

Pentecostal preachers have a right to do as they please as individuals and as citizens, but they have no business officially as clergymen except minding their own business which is to preach Christ. If he is attempting to preach Christ and Him crucified while marching on a picket-line, I suppose a preacher might be acting scripturally, "instant," as Paul put it, "out of season" (II Timothy 4:2). But otherwise he has no business there in his capacity as a preacher.

A true preacher's emphasis is not even to fight communism or to fight liberalism or to fight modernism.

I am not one who denies utterly the propriety of preaching negatively. There are some things which we are against and we should say so. Negative emphasis is sometimes needed. After all, when you go to a doctor, he pokes around and asks, "Where does it hurt?", not "Where does it feel good?" He is negative but soon shifts to positive by prescribing a remedy. We must be negative sometimes as preachers, but some ministers give the impression that they are negative all the time, or almost all the time. This is not, however, the legitimate emphasis of evangelical preaching, let alone Pentecostal preaching. Pentecostal preaching aims to exalt Jesus Christ. If we could rid the world of every social injustice, the world would be no closer to conver- sion. Jesus did not say, "When the Son of man cometh will He find integration of earth," but "When the Son of man cometh shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).

If He shall find faith, what will have promoted it?

Paul declares, "Now faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 8:17).

What this world needs is Jesus. One day the world will get Jesus. "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Is 11:9). That will be during the Millennium. Meanwhile, God still pursues His purpose in our dispensation as outlined by St Paul: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (I Cor 1:21). That is God's method for communicating knowledge today. Pentecostal preachers chorus with the apostle, "We preach Christ crucified" (I Cor 1:23), anticipating the ultimate reign on earth of our Saviour. Let us redouble our efforts to preach Jesus, exalt Jesus, glorify Jesus till, as the old chorus goes, "Till the Whole World Knows!"

V. THE PREACHER'S PERSONAL PENTECOST

No preacher can properly present Pentecost - that is to say, there can be no such thing as genuine Pentecostal preaching -- unless the preacher in question enjoys his own personal Pentecost, and the perpetuation of that touch of God on his life and ministry, by keeping filled with the Spirit of God.

You might wax as flowery as T DeWitt Talmadge. You might be as logi- cal as Charles G Finney, as theatrical as Henry Ward Beecher, as dedicated as Dwight L Moody, and as acrobatic as Billy Sunday, but oratory and logic and drama, wonderful as they certainly may be as adjuncts to God's anointing -- will not get the job done which Pentecostal preaching is destined to perform. Education is not enough. Know how is not enough. The preacher must experi- ence the divine dynamic. "Ye shall receive dynamite" -- that is how I like to translate Acts 1:8 -- "the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be wit- nesses," Jesus declared. Zechariah learned how it is "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord" (chapter 4:6).

It becomes downright dangerous, on some occasions, to perpetuate the purpose of Pentecost without a personal participation in Pentecost. Do you remember the seven sons of Sceva at Ephesus? These renegades -- second rate Simon the sorcerers -- observed Paul's mighty ministry and aspired, we might say, to become Pentecostal preachers. But they went about achieving the ambition by detouring around the indispensable experiences of salvation and supernatural enduement. They found a demonized victim and parroted the proper phraseology. "In the name of Jesus," they adjured. "We adjure thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth" (Acts 19:13).

Now the demon came out all right, but he victimized the seven. What went wrong?

Contrast these examples. One man, Jesus, by the power of the Spirit of God, for thus it was that Jesus performed His exploits, cast out a legion of demons. One man cast out thousands, while seven men could not cope with one demon. Why couldn't they? The words "whom Paul preacheth" furnish the key. Sceva's seven sons evaded a personal experience with God. Unfortunately many godly preachers either evade or neglect the particularly Pentecostal gifts. Paul had to caution Timothy, "Neglect not the gift that is in thee" (I Timothy 4:14). The Pentecostal preacher must experience an ever up-to-date Pentecost personally. Pentecost can not do for your people what you don't experience Pentecost doing for you.

Now this divine enduement more than makes up for lack of personal genius. Peter and John were fishermen, "unlearned and ignorant men," Jerusa- lem's populace regarded them (Acts 4:13). Paul, on the other hand, was one of the best educated men of antiquity. Yet all three required the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, nor did the educated Paul need less enduement than "unlearned and ignorant" Peter and John! Paul cultivated his personal Pentecost perhaps even more thoroughly than did Peter, for did he not boast in the Holy Spirit, "I speak with tongues more than ye all" (I Cor 14:18)?

Never underestimate what God can do with a common vessel -- what God can do with you, even though you may be the very least in your class! Chem- ists cannot transmute metals. Alchemy's ancient ambition to alter base metals into gold has been frustrated with failure to this day. But God can transm- ute, transform, transfigure, and metamorphose men! Ponder Isaiah 60:17: "For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron." Then Consider Zechariah 12:8: "He that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God." "It is no secret," Stuart Hamblen sings, "What God can do." Do you consider your own personal raw materials to represent the capacity or capability of mere wood? Never mind, God makes wood into brass! Are you like brass? God can make you iron or silver! Are you feeble? The Holy Spirit can make you like David. A perpetuated personal Pentecost will work wonders for the com- monest vessel! But Pentecost must become personal. Percy Brewster says, "Another man's dream is not ours. Another man's experience is not ours. But we can have our own." John Osteen insists, "Pentecost is not a denomination but an experience." We must perpetuate the experience even more than the doctrine.

Now, generally a Pentecostal experience involves emotional reactions. Sometimes, but not nearly as often as in yesteryear, these are exaggerated out of all proportion. Occasionally they are mistaken for the real moving of the Holy Spirit. Noise is not necessarily power. Dr BF Gurden explained, "You know, you get a little lightning before the thunder. A lot of Christians reverse that and have the thunder but not much power. Noise does not count for anything if you have no power with God" ("Foursquare Crusader," July 22, 1936, p 8). This is true. Noise is not power, but power often produces noise. It was so on the day of Pentecost. The phenomenon was "noised abroad" (Acts 2:6 AV) or the "sound was heart" (Williams). Pentecost involves more than the emotions, but it involves the emotions! We dare not permit ourselves to overcorrect previous excesses by eliminating entirely emphasis on the emotional element.

Yet the pendulum in organized Pentecost seems swinging to the opposite extreme from which it swung at the beginning of the Movement when "feelings" were perhaps overemphasized. People say today that too much may be made of feelings and this is certainly true. But the fact does not justify complete renunciation of the importance or place of feelings. Too much can be made of eating too. Shall we fight food on that account? We can strike a happy medium. Feelings definitely occupy a legitimate place in the Pentecostal experience. Does not the Bible promise, "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10)?

Circuit-rider Peter Cartwright once stayed overnight with a skeptical physician. His host insisted that religion was a hoax, claiming firmly that the only reality was what man's senses could discern. Trying to discredit the evangelist, the doctor demanded, "Cartwright, did you ever see religion?"

The circuit-rider conceded that he had not.

"Did you ever hear religion?"

"No."

"Did you ever smell religion?"

"No."

"Did you ever taste religion?"

"No."

"Did you ever feel religion?"

"Yes, Sir," the circuit-rider chirped!

"Now then," purred the physician smugly, "I have proved by four re- spectable witnesses that religion cannot be seen, heard, smelled or tasted. You have only one lone, solitary witness, namely feeling, to testify that religion is an experimental fact. The weight of the evidence is overpowering, Cartwright, and you must give up."

Peter's frustration faded in a moment. With vehemence he bore down, "Doctor, in pretending to relieve pain in the human system you have been playing the hypocrite, and practicing a most wretched fraud on the gullibility of people. You have taken money under false pretenses!"

To the physician's indignant protest Cartwright challenged, "Very well, Sir. Tell me, did you ever see a pain?"

The physician's face flamed as he answered softly, "No."

"Did you ever hear a pain?"

"No."

"Did you ever smell a pain?"

"No."

"Did you ever taste a pain?"

"No."

"Did you ever feel a pain?"

"Of course," barked the doctor.

"Then," proceeded the preacher, "four respectable witnesses have testified that there is no such thing as a pain in the human system. In pretending to relieve pain you, Doctor, are a quack!"

Cartwright pressed his advantage by falling on his knees and praying fervently aloud for God to smite the doctor with conviction of sin and bring him to repentance. The circuit-rider had a reputation that he could "almost make the devil pray," and soon the skeptic was on his knees. He found the Lord with a shout of triumph and eventually entered the ministry.

Feeling has a proper place in Christian experience. Thank God for the Pentecostal feeling. Feeling isn't everything, but it is something.

Really, there is nothing in the world quite like the Pentecostal feeling, when God has overturned His bucket of glory and deluged believers with blessings from Heaven. The world tries to stimulate enjoyment with alcohol, but Paul wrote, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit" (Eph 5:18). I never could understand why anyone would want anything to do with damnable booze. I have no use for something which makes a man see double and think only half. Indeed, many have hiked their way up the ladder of success only to hic their way back down again. Inebriation is a poor substitute for exhilaration in God. Far more thrilling and exciting it is to be filled with the Spirit, really, there is nothing in the world quite like our Pentecostal feeling.

Nature suggests a few parallels, to be sure. CM Ward enthused, "We see it in a puppy that turns over and over for the sheer joy of being alive. We see it in the frolic of a lamb and the gallop of a colt. We see it in healthy children who never walk when they can skip."

Pentecostal feelings find variety of expression in singing, spontane- ous praise, shouting, clapping hands, tapping feet, upraised arms, and even in the ministry of instrumental music. I heard of a critic who cautioned the drummer and French horn player in a gospel band. He told the drummer, "Please don't hit that drum so hard." The musician answered, "Oh, sir, I am so happy in Jesus, I could burst the blessed drum!" The critic didn't have much more success when he tackled the French horn player. The musician held up his instrument, which consisted of miles of narrow tubes, and exclaimed, "But sir, when I think of what Jesus has done for me, I am so full of joy, I want to blow this thing out quite straight."

We must not let wet-blankets dampen our spirits! Years ago a man reproached a colored man for shouting: "Why are you so exuberant? Don't you know Negroes don't have souls?

The colored brother replied, "Maybe not, but I'll tell you this: Religion sure do make my body happy!"

And I tell you, students, there is nothing quite like the Pentecostal feeling which surges in our souls. Don't suppress it. Instead, cultivate it intelligently. Thousands testify how it helps take the sting out of circum- stances. There was a dear old saint who had only two teeth left in her jaws. People would sympathize with her, volunteering how unfortunate was her predi- cament. "It does not bother me so much, " the salty sister would reply. "I am grateful to the Lord that I have two teeth, and bless God, they meet!"

This type of spontaneous joy has ever been a hallmark of Pentecost. Moreover, it is the manifestations and demonstrations that differentiate Pentecostal meetings from the services conducted in other evangelical circles. Of course, we are entitled to distinguish between actual manifestations of the Holy Spirit and human responses or reactions to His mighty movings.

Dr H John Tedder tells of bringing an Indian to town on his first visit off the reservation. The Redskin, alighting from the auto, stabbed a finger at the car and grunted, "Ugh! What make it go?" Dr Tedder's explana- tion failed to enlighten the Indian. A streetcar rumbled past as the two men walked down a boulevard. "Ugh! What make it go?" demanded the bewildered aborigine. Again he failed to understand Dr Tedder's explanation. The same process was repeated concerning a radio blaring outside a store and the eleva- tor which whisked the men to the floor on which was situated their hotel room. When the preacher flicked the light switch in the room, the Indian again grunted, "Ugh! What make it go?" Dr Tedder pulled a chair under the fixture, climbed up and unscrewed the socket, making certain not to make contact. Then he climbed down and motioned for the Redskin to try it. The Indian boldly thrust his finger into the fixture. With a bound he was off the chair, jump- ing up and down, exclaiming over and over again, "Ugh! That make it go! That make it go!"

Now the Indian's jig was a reaction to electricity, not a manifesta- tion of it. The manifestation of electricity is for the light to burn, for the machine to run. Reaction to electricity may be quite different. A man may be shocked with a live wire. He may holler. His scream is not the mani- festation of electricity, but his reaction to it. Another man might just grimace, make a face, or grit his teeth, and say nothing. At Camp Crestview I recall an occasion during a work week where one of our ministers got a shock and shouted, "Praise the Lord."

Now we must not demand the same reaction to the moving of the Holy Spirit from all persons. We must never attempt to set ourselves up as a bureau of standards and demand that all react according to our own personal experiences.

Years ago there was a Pentecostal mission near Angelus Temple where, I am told, if you didn't dance, they shook you out into the aisle, because they assumed that worshippers who didn't dance in the meetings weren't spiritual! Some suppose saints who don't shout aren't spiritual. But different believers react differently. Some Christians experience rich anointings of the Holy Spirit while maintaining an emotional equilibrium outwardly. Others enjoy an emotional cataclysm, a blessed buoyancy mood. This latter reaction often promotes contemptuous comment which we must refute. And we may refute it by appealing to men like Moody and Finney for their views and testimonies.

DL Moody, for example, commented, "A great many people are afraid of enthusiasm. If a man is enthusiastic they raise the cry, 'Zeal without knowl- edge.' I would rather have zeal without knowledge than knowledge without zeal!" (quoted in "Herald of His Coming," October 1953, p 12).

The Congregationalist Charles G Finney personally related his own unusual experience:

"Without any expectation of it, without ever having thought in my mind there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned, the Holy Spirit descended on me in a manner that seemed to go through my body and soul. I could feel the impression like a wave of electricity going through and through me. Indeed, it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love, and I do not know but I should say, I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart. These waves came over me and over me, one after another, until I cried out, 'I shall die, if these waves continue to pass over me.' I said, 'Lord, I cannot bear any more.' Yet I had no fear of death" ("Herald of His Coming," September 1953, p 6).

To be sure, we do not experience the sweep of such mighty blessings perpetually. But believers are scripturally entitled to experience radiating persistent and supernatural fullness of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, our souls cry out for such visitations. James W VanMeter put it thus: "There is an abyss of spiritual emptiness and chaos which, like a vast medieval moat, surrounds human lives at the present time" ("Pentecostal Evangel," November 10, 1957, p 4). David almost bellowed, "As the hart panteth after the brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God" (Psalm 42:1). Jesus promised, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). If we are not keeping filled, may it not indicate a lack of appetite? Jesus told the woman at the well, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:13-14).

Why is it difficult to convince Christians that Jesus meant what He said?

James Hudson Taylor was once wondering, "What's the use?" He had labored diligently in an inland Chinese community, but he was defeated and discouraged, mainly concerning himself. "How can I keep telling the Chinese that Christ is a perfect saviour who can help at all times when I know that hardly a day ever goes by that I am not betrayed into irritability of temper. Everyday I displease God," he muttered. "I have known a good many floodtides, but the ebb tides have come too, and the ebb is often greater than the flood." The pioneer missionary stood on the verge of giving up when his Bible reading betook him to John 4. He read Christ's promise to the woman at the well and saw the light! "Jesus meant that," he exclaimed! "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst!"

The missionary sprang out of his chair declaring, "Shall means shall. Never means never. And thirst means thirst! Praise the Lord, my thirsty days are over. They will never come again. Jesus means for me never to thirst again! I accept His Word that 'shall never thirst' means 'shall never thirst.'"

Taylor's experience in future years did not disappoint him. He appro- priated personally Christ's promise and his life was revolutionized.

What God did for Hudson Taylor He will do for any believer, for not only does "shall never thirst" mean shall never thirst, but "whosoever" means you! A camel carries a reservoir across the desert, but Jesus would install a well within the soul of the believer!

This is a better blessing even than Samuel Rutherford aspired to when he declared, "I have been sinking my bucket down into the well full often, but now my thirst after Christ has become so insatiable that I long to put the well itself to my lips and drain it all!" But Jesus does not put the well to our lips. Instead, He offers to put the well within us.

Now this source of spiritual refreshing within is specifically con-

nected with the Pentecostal experience in a later enlargement on the subject delivered by Jesus. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying 'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink, He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' (But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given)" (John 7:37-39). The Holy Spirit, however, was given on the Day of Pentecost and has been given ever since. The well is within. The spring is within. The river flows not in but out. "From within him," as the Revised Version renders it "Shall flow rivers of living water." The Pentecostal preacher is scripturally entitled to persistent fullness of the Spirit which will bless him and make him a blessing to others.

Now the preacher's personal Pentecost must be cultivated as an up-to- date experience. Too many people feel that when they get through to the Baptism they are all through. They imagine they have arrived, when actually they have just begun. Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost in Acts 2:4. He was filled again in Acts 4:8 and Acts 4:31. Too many Pentecostal preachers and laymen do not get beyond Acts 2:4. The book of Acts ends there, so far as their personal experience is concerned. We need to emulate the example of Bishop Samual Crouch who told the 1964 Pentecostal World Conference, "I've moved out of Acts 2 and moved into Acts 4. I've been on my knees again. And I've received more. There are many fillings."

When the apostle Paul commenced a Pentecostal revival, in a Baptist church as it were, the church of Ephesus, he questioned the congregation, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" (Acts 19:2). Critics advise that Paul's inquiry ought to be translated, "Did you receive when ye believed?" But the significance is the same either way. They didn't and they hadn't. Why split hairs over synonymous terminology? Paul challenged, "Have ye received . . . since ye believed?" A current Pentecostal evangelist, Oral Roberts, has asked, "have ye been refilled since ye leaked out?" Now I con- cede that the expression "refilling" does not appear in the Bible. Neither does the term "trinity" or "rapture" or "Lord's Supper" or even "missionary." But the sense of Scripture is Scripture. And when Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit subsequent to Pentecost in Acts 4:8 and Acts 4:31, he was in effect re-filled! Paul was filled in Acts 9 and filled again in Acts 13:9. In order to keep filled with the Spirit, thereby perpetuating his personal Pentecost, the Pentecostal preacher must be refilled from time to time. And observe that the periods between the fillings, in the cases of apostolic believers, were quite short -- just a matter of days; and in the narrative of Acts 4, twice in the same day! As we use the power God bestows upon us in the fullness of the Holy Ghost we are to expect replenishment, refilling!

Now we have a part to pursue in perpetuating our personal Pentecosts. CR Shuss puts it thus, "God kindles the fire, but it is up to us to keep the wood on it." We must not neglect the gift of God which is within (I Tim 4:14). Yet some truly dedicated ministers do neglect it. Evidently even Timothy lapsed in this respect, for in the second epistle Paul strengthened his exhortation to read. "Stir up the gift of God which is in thee" (II Tim 1:6). The neglected gift is still there. Its dormant embers need to be stirred into fresh flame.

Gypsy Smith and his son Albany took tea one afternoon in England. Albany complained to the hostess, "There is no sugar in my tea." "Yes there is," she replied. "Put in your spoon and stir it up."

This stirring on our own part is Scriptural. God complains when we wait for Him to stir us. "There is none," reads Isaiah 64:7, "that stirreth up himself to take hold of Me." God would have us stir ourselves in this direction. Moreover, this stirring should not be just an occasional perfor- mance but a continuous process.

Smith Wigglesworth understood this. His meetings, messages, and ministry were almost always unusually touched of God. Often envious imitators inquired, "How does he do it? What is his secret?" One day a delegation buttonholed Wigglesworth after a meeting. "How do you always have an anoint- ing? Please tell us your secret." They were somewhat astounded at his blunt reply. "You see, its like this," Wigglesworth explained. "If the Spirit doesn't move me, I move the Spirit" (Frodsham, Standley, Smith Wigglesworth, Apostle of Faith, p 124).

What did he mean? Here are his own words, "As I start out in the natural, in faith, the Spirit of God always meets me and anoints me, so that although I start in the natural I continue in the Spirit" (Ibid).

The apostle Paul suggests a spiritual exercise which contributes dramatically to the believers' edification. "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself" (I Cor 14:4). Paul personally practiced this devo- tional exercise, for he advises that he avoided charismatic utterances in public while testifying, "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all" (I Cor 14:18).

Here is an avenue of inspiration available to us at all times. If we pursue it prayerfully we will never experience difficulty keeping filled with the Spirit. Harold Horton eloquently explains this edification:

"Every consecrated believer must have felt at times a consuming desire to open his heart to God in unspeakable communication and adoration inexpress- ibly. There is a deep in the spirit of the redeemed that is never plumbed by the mind or thought. That deep finds expression at last in the Baptism of the Spirit, as unaccustomed words of heavenly coherence sweep up to the Beloved from the newly opened well of the human spirit -- flooded as it is with the torrential stream of the divine Spirit. Only deep can call unto deep at the noise of God's full flowing cataracts. 'He that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh divine secrets' (I Cor 14:2). The Gift of Tongues sinks a well into the dumb profundities of the rejoicing sprit, liberating a jet of long- pent ecstasy that gladdens the heart of God and man. Blessed fountain of ineffable coherence, of inexpressible eloquence! Have you never in the pres- ence of Jesus felt inarticulate on the very verge of eloquence? This heavenly Gift will loose the spirit's tongue and burst upon the speechless heart with utterance transcending sages' imaginings or angel rhapsodies. Have you never wept to think how helpless your words are to express emotion in the presence of Him whom your soul loveth? Other tongues will give you Names for Jesus that even revelation has not vouchsafed. Other tongues will capture the escaping thought, the elusive expression, the inarticulate longing, lending worthy and soul-satisfying utterance to profoundest gratitude and worship . . .

"And what a rest to weary mind and nerve, to relax from mental concen- tration in praying and praising, and break forth in effortless utterance in the Spirit. Notice the blessed connection in the Spirit. Notice the blessed connection in Isaiah xxviii, 11, 12: "With stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people . . . This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing!" What heavenly rest in spiritual exercise has the Lord designed in these heavenly tongues! Hallelujah!" (Horton, Harold, The Gifts of the Spirit, 1953 edition, pp 152-153, 156).

We are now nearing the end of this week of lectures dedicated to the proposition that Pentecostal preaching builds truly Pentecostal churches by promoting Pentecostal manifestations, by precipitating the divine glory, and by exalting Jesus Christ. In order to achieve these goals the preacher's personal Pentecost is indispensable. It is the moving of the Holy Spirit in the pulpit and the pew which makes us Pentecostals. We dare not revert to the lukewarmness and coldness from which Pentecost emerged. We must not forget that we have by no means even begun as a movement to touch the possibilities there are in God. There are still vast and unexplored territories in God which await our occupation. Let us go in and on and possess the land. I care not how God works in our midst on individuals and on congregations. Let us not be left behind by others who are going on with God!

Sister McPherson used to tell about a farmer who had an old nag (a horse, not his wife). He couldn't get any work out of that horse. He hitched it to a wagon, but it wouldn't move. Once he built a fire under the horse. The nag marched forward just far enough so the fire ignited the wagon.

Then one day a huckster happened by, peddling bottles of tonic priced at 50 each. "This is just the thing to make your horse get up and go," the salesman professed, uncorking a bottle. "I guarantee results. If it doesn't work, you don't have to pay."

The farmer accepted the bottle and started pouring it down the horse's throat. When the bottle was empty the horse raised its head, snorted, and took off lickety split down the road.

Anxiously the peddler inquired, "You surely will pay me the 50, won't you? The tonic worked."

The farmer pulled out his billfold, extracted a greenback, and handed it to the salesman. "Here's a dollar," he said. "Give me another bottle. I'll have to drink one too if I'm going to catch that horse!"

Denominational churches which have made little progress for decades are today experiencing rejuvenation as the current charismatic revival has swept into virtually every movement you might name. We Pentecostalists must not be left behind by denominationalists. We need a fresh enduement and filling of Pentecostal power and fervor so we can "roll the old chariot along," and "we ain't got started yet."

Nor must we ever lose sight of our ultimate destiny, to join our worship with the saints of all ages in the glory world. And I firmly believe that Pentecostal worship here is a sample of Heaven's worship on earth. Every saint will act like a Pentecostal in Heaven! Just wait and watch our hitherto silent, sober brethren then and there. Just wait and hear them shout a mil- lion years from now as they promenade the streets of Paradise. No one will be able to silence their ovations then, and no one will want to! There will be no wet blankets in glory! We'll all demonstrate up there. We might as well get used to the excitement down here.

Indeed, Revelation 7 pictures a procession which somewhat resembles a Pentecostal "glory march!" Blood-washed pilgrims repatriated from earth will parade down golden streets, turn into the palace of God, march through its courts and corridors to the throne room, form in position before the sea of glass. They will strike harps, wave palms, and lift voices -- loud voices, the Bible says, crying, "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb" (Revelation 7:10).

But until then, let us pursue our Pentecostal privilege, welcome Pentecostal manifestation, enjoy God's gracious glory, exalt and honor our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ, and keep the gift of God within us well stirred. Thereby the preaching we deliver will indeed be Pentecostal, and that Pente- costal preaching will build Pentecostal churches.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Books and Pamphlets

Broadus, John A, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. New York, 1944.

Brumback, Carl, What Meaneth This?. Springfield, MO, 1947.

Buffum, Forest E, Rev Killmer's Service in the Five Hundred Room. Los An-

geles, 1945.

Cartwright, Peter, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright. New York, 1956.

Courtney, Howard and Veneda, The Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Los Angeles,

1963.

Courtney, Howard P, The Vocal Gifts of the Spirit. Los Angeles, 1956.

Dalton, Robert Chandler, Tongues Like as of Fire. Springfield, MO, 1945.

Dorrance, Edyth Guerin, Operation Pentecost. 1962 LIFE Alumni Lectureship, Los

Angeles, 1962.

Dow, Lorenzo, The Dealings of God, Man and the Devil: As Exemplified in the

Life, Experiences, and Travels of Lorenzo Dow. New York, 1944.

Duffield, Guy P, Pentecostal Preaching. 1956 LIFE Alumni Lectureship, New

York, 1957.

DuPlessis, David J, The Spirit Bade Me Go. Oakland, CA, 1961.

Frodsham, Stanley H, Smith Wigglesworth: Apostle of Faith. Springfield, MO,

1951.

Gee, Donald, After Pentecost. Springfield, MO, 1945.

_, Concerning Spiritual Gifts. Springfield, MO, 1937.

_, Pentecost. Springfield, MO, 1932.

_, The Pentecostal Movement. London, 1949.

_, Spiritual Gifts in the Work of the Ministry Today. 1963 LIFE Alumni Lec-

tureship, Los Angeles, 1963.

Glover, Kelso R, God is in Pentecost. Los Angeles, 1946.

Gurden, BF, Highlights in Healing. two volumes, Hollywood, CA, 1934.

Horton, Harold, The Gifts of the Spirit. Bedfordshire, England, 1954.

Holy Bible. Authorized Version, Revised Standard Version, Revised Version, The

Moffatt Bible, Williams' New Testament.

Kuyper, Abraham, The Work of the Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids, MI, 1941.

Loud, Grover, Evangelized America. 1928.

McPherson, Aimee Semple, Divine Healing Sermons. Los Angeles, Nd.

_, In the Service of the King. New York, 1927.

_, Lesson in Homiletics. syllabus used in LIFE Bible College, Los Angeles, Nd.

_, Lost and Restored. Los Angeles, Nd.

_, The Holy Spirit. Los Angeles, 1931.

_, The Second Coming of Christ. Los Angeles, 1921.

_, This is That. Los Angeles, 1924.

_, What's the Matter?. Los Angeles, 1925.

Perkins, Jonathan E, The Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Los Angeles, 1945.

Roberts, Oral, The Fourth Man, and Other Famous Sermons. Tulsa, OK, 1951.

Robertson, Archibald T, That Old Time Religion. Boston, 1950.

Van Cleave, NM, Homiletics. Syllabus used at LIFE Bible College, Nd.

Weisberger, Bernard A, They Gathered at the River: The Story of the Great

Revivalists and their Impact upon Religion in America. Boston, 1958.

Wigglesworth, Smith, Ever Increasing Faith. Springfield, MO, 1924.

_, Faith That Prevails. Springfield, MO, 1938.

The Fifth Pentecostal Conference. Toronto, Canada, 1958.

Pentecostal Preachers Preach Pentecost. Sermons at the 1960

Pentecostal Fellowship of North America Convention at Portland, Ore-

gon, 1960.

The Sixth Pentecostal World Conference -- Jerusalem, Israel.

Toronto, Canada, 1961.

II. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

"Abundant Life Magazine," Tulsa, OK (including its predecessors "Healing

Water," "America's Healing Magazine," and "Healing.").

"Bridal Call Foursquare," Los Angeles (including its predecessor, "The Bridal

Call").

"Bridal Call-Crusader," Los Angeles.

"Christian Herald," New York.

"Christian Life," Chicago, IL.

"Christianity Today," Washington DC.

"Eternity," Philadelphia, PA.

"Evangelistic Time," Milwaukee, WI.

"Foursquare Crusader," Los Angeles.

"Foursquare Magazine," Los Angeles.

"Healing Hope," Los Angeles.

"Herald of His Coming," Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Examiner.

Los Angeles Herald-Express.

Los Angles Times.

"Pentecost," London, England.

"Pentecostal Evangel," Springfield, MO.

"Pentecostal Testimony," Toronto, Canada.

Portland Oregon-Journal.

Portland Oregonian.

"Prairie Overcome," Three Hills, Alberta, Canada.

"Time," New York.

"Trinity," Los Angeles.

"The Voice of Healing," Dallas, TX.

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