CPC Sunday School | Pentacostalism (9-3-2023 Nate Seekamp)

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TitleCPC Sunday School | Pentacostalism (9-3-2023 Nate Seekamp)

AuthorCornerstone Presbyterian Church

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Uploaded5 Sep 2023

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Pentecostalism, a movement within Christianity, originated from the holiness movement and the Third Great Awakening. It began with figures like John Alexander Dowie, who claimed to be a faith healer and lived luxuriously off the money of his followers. Frank Sanford created a cult-like compound called Shiloh, where he forced his followers to give up their possessions and engage in extended fasts. Charles Parham, known as the "father of Pentecostalism," founded the Bethel Healing School and claimed to be the first person to speak in tongues with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostalism was further developed through the Azusa Street revival led by William J. Seymour. The movement emphasized the power of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. So, Pentecostalism, we're going to start with that today, and it's going to feed into some of the charismatic movement as well, so we'll get into some of that. As far as questions, feel free to ask questions. I do have a lot of content to get through, so I do want to get to the end, so we'll have an opportunity to kind of see how we can better evangelize the Pentecostal movement. But getting started, I want to take a look at our overview real quickly. So we're going to cover some of the history of Pentecostalism, where it started, why it started, who it started with, we're going to cover some of their specific beliefs, what does Scripture say, so we're going to be looking at specifically what areas of error that they are drawn to, what they believe, and how does Scripture attest to that. We're going to look at our beliefs, so we're going to compare some of our beliefs with their beliefs, looking at Scripture to back up what our beliefs are built on. We're going to look at some statistics of the Pentecostal charismatic movement, and then we're also going to, at the end, just look at some ways, some tips, some specific things that we can do to better evangelize them. So if we take a look back at history, the holiness movement is really kind of where things started to stem, or started to get started. Phoebe Palmer was the original start of not the Pentecostal movement, but of this holiness movement. This holiness movement stems from kind of the Methodist ideology. So John Wesley is kind of the one who influenced Phoebe Palmer's perspectives on holiness. Her perspective on holiness came from this idea of entire sanctification. So it wasn't that you were being sanctified slowly, but that you were entirely or immediately sanctified. So in that movement or that thought, the reason that she was led to that was actually through a perspective that she was drawn to when she at a young age, being married, actually lost two infant children. So those two infant children died, and her perspective coming out of that, in listening to John Wesley and his perspective on holiness, was she was drawn to this idea that she just was not holy enough, and that's why God took away these two children. So that led to this idea of this holiness movement, which then led to the Third Great Awakening. The Third Great Awakening, an easy way to think of that would be that you have this religious activism that's going on. You have this rapid growth of the Protestant mainline churches, specifically churches like the Church of the Nazarene, the Pentecostals, which we'll talk about, and the Jehovah's Witness. And they all stem from this holiness movement during the Third Great Awakening. So from Phoebe Palmer, we can see this map or this view of kind of the holiness movement, and what you'll see is that a lot of the holiness movement stems from the Methodist Church, which comes from that John Wesley view. But then you come down here, and you'll come down to the Third Great Awakening, which is the 1880 to 1920, and then we're going to step in and see how that holiness movement then translates to the Pentecostal movement. So at the top, you're going to have three specific people who call themselves God's generals. The first person is named John Alexander Dowie. He was proclaimed or attested to being a faith healer. He believed that he could heal people with the touch of his hand. He was adamant about convincing people into this cult or movement that he was able to heal people. He formed this International Divine Healing Association in San Francisco so he could further proclaim his name and draw people more into this movement. He prayed specifically for the healing of paid members. So he would only allow healing for people that would pay to receive that healing, which obviously is the sign of a cult. But it was also the sign or the first stem of what we would think of today as the prosperity gospel. He founded the city of Zion, which banned all practices of medicine, because he believed that if you were to use medicine, that you were going against what God had called you to do, which was to be healed by these prophets. He spoke directly against doctors, adamantly was preaching to rely upon faith, the faith that you need to have in these prescribed men, such as himself. He also frowned upon medicine, because he believed that you must believe God, have faith to be able to heal you. So medicine was absolutely something that was detested by him. He also specifically created these healing rooms, and you might have heard of these healing rooms as they still exist today, because Bill Johnson is also adamant about the healing rooms, which stems from Mr. Dowie here. He also specifically wanted to live in luxury, so he used the money that he received as part of these faith healing movements and lived off of it, even though a lot of his people that were in his cult were poor, and he was still demanding their money and taking their money to give these healings. So you could think of him as the forerunner to Pentecostalism, because there are some things in here that specifically drive towards Pentecostalism. But the biggest thing is that he claimed that he was the reincarnation of Elijah. So he's not only saying that he's a faith healer, but he's really pushing this idea that he is a prophet, that he has been gifted by God, and that he is spiritually set apart by being God's general. So this is a quote that he said. He said, Don't be stingy with your money. If you do, the Lord will be stingy with his cures. No better today, sir, Dowie, with thunder, at a debilitated cancer subject or a person with epilepsy. Well, sir, if you are not better, it is your own fault. Either don't trust in the Lord or you're concealing some infamous crime. So God's general number two leads to a guy named Frank Sanford. Frank Sanford performed this well-known exorcism, or as people would describe as this well-known miracle. And then he was walking through this woods and he heard God say the word Armageddon. And so he then from that moved on and started thinking, well, God gave me this experience for a reason. So he created this movement or this compound called Shiloh, which is also referred to as the kingdom or the legion of God. He got a thousand followers and he forced them to give them all their possessions and then didn't allow them to leave. So, again, cultish like activities. He forced extended fasts, including fasts towards children. Sickness was a sign to him that the soul was sick and sick kids were forced to fast further to get right with God or they were beaten. So, again, cultish like attributes. Several of them, several of these children in this camp died. And so he was later arrested for manslaughter. But it was his movement that led to other churches following this. And so the Church of Shiloh was established. Six of those churches still exist today and are known as Kingdom Christian Ministries. I don't think that they still hold to the same facts in regards to starving people, but they definitely still hold to the same facts of belief that you are weak if you're relying you are weak if you're relying upon medicine, you're weak if you're not relying upon your faith to heal you and so forth. Believe it or not, he also claimed to be the reincarnation of Elijah. God's general number three, this is going to be your guy that is going to be the head honcho to start Pentecostalism or as known as the the the father of Pentecostalism. So this is Charles Parham. He earns the title of founder of Pentecostalism. He was fascinated by Frank Stanford, the last guy we just talked about. He was interested in that same idea of faith healing. But he actually went another direction and tried to use scripture to prove his point through the story of Job and said that Job suffered because he was living in sin and it had nothing to do with the sovereignty of God. So he's trying to play God in a sense and say, even though God tells us in scriptures that it was his sovereignty that he had control over Satan, he wants to attest to, no, it was just that he didn't have enough faith. So then he created this Bethel Healing School, which was a school of prophecy, that same healing school, if it sounds familiar, Bethel, Bethel Church. Bethel Church was a stem of the movement of Charles Parham. And then he claimed to be the person, the first person to speak in tongues with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So here comes this idea, not just of faith healing, but now we've taken another step into this idea of basically being able to speak in tongues with this baptism of the Holy Spirit. And this is really what stems the Pentecostal movement, because the Pentecostal movement is going to build and expound upon this idea of being baptized in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. So thirdly, third general, he also claimed to be the reincarnation of Elijah. Yes. I would agree with that. Yeah, it sounds like Elijah is becoming very popular. All right. So this is a quote before we move into Pentecostalism, we're going to read this quote by the father of Pentecostalism, as he would say, as Christ at Christ's second coming, the church will be found with the same power that the apostles in the early church possessed. The power of Pentecost is manifest in us. The Christian religion must be demonstrated. The world wants to be shown. Then let God's power be manifest through us. So we're going to move now into what started Pentecostalism as him being the father of the forerunner. This is the actual movement that started Pentecostalism. We have this Azusa Street revival. So you have this guy named William J. Seymour. He was a former student of Parham. But a quick story on William J. Seymour is that he wanted to study and learn more from Parham. But because he was black or African-American, he was not allowed to be next to Parham. Parham saw himself as elevated, above status. And so in order for Seymour to learn from Parham, he actually had to stay outside of the service and be in this other room with the window open so that he could listen to the teachings of Parham. So Seymour took this same idea that Parham was pushing, this idea of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, being able to speak in tongues. And then he takes this movement to this place called Azusa Street. He leads this revival, which people are continuing to hear about this building that is set apart or set aside. And that's in Los Angeles. And this building is being known and widely being heard through the newspapers as this place where there's this ruckus going on. There's a lot of people doing weird things. There's people falling down on the ground. They're speaking in weird languages. There's just a curiosity factor to what it is that's happening here that has a lot of people drawing interest to this Azusa Street. So because they're hearing of all this, they then gravitate or want to go and experience it. And as they go and experience it, they're fascinated by it. They're drawn into it. This idea of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, this idea of being recognized, being identified, all these things that they're wanting to hear, that's self-uplifting to them. They're drawn into it. And so they gravitate to this place. And what ends up happening is, is that this building by Seymour ends up growing so vastly that you have a mixed combination of blacks, of whites, of Asians, and all of these different types of demographics of people. But not just that, you also have rich and poor as well. And so Azusa Street is known because it's the first place that people are going to go And so what he does from there is, as it continues to grow, is he decides he's going to plant other churches. So there are 26 different dominations that can trace their origins back to this movement from the Pentecostalism. So this is really where things stemmed from and really where crowds became larger and began to embrace this idea. So now we move back and we move into the specific idea or word of Pentecostalism and where it stems from, its meaning. So Pentecostalism stems from Acts 2, 1 through 4, which we'll read here in a second. But the actual word Pentecost means 50th, which refers to the Jewish festival Shavuot. It's observed in the 50th day after Passover, which is 50 days after the death of Jesus. So in Acts 2, 1 through 4, it talks about how, I'll read the passage here, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And so they would take that Acts chapter to be like their foundation of their movement. And what they would say there is that this is the first time people are speaking in a different human language. But what makes it unique is that this is actually the first time that God is showing us that people are able to now speak in a heavenly language. And the way that they validate that is that they take this verse from Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 that says, if I speak in tongues of men and of angels. And so they start making this association that, yes, we could speak in tongues before, as we saw at the Tower of Babel, but now we have the ability to speak in a heavenly language. And so it's this movement that really starts them in a direction of now becoming set apart, being set different than anyone else. Because if I'm baptized in the Holy Spirit, I can do something that nobody else can. So we talked about the holiness movement and now we've talked in, we've gone into the history of early Pentecostalism. What I want to do is quickly just look at an overview of the works of grace and how they would describe those works of grace. So the Pentecostal movement, you could think of that as what we just discussed with the fathers. And they have these three works of grace. So the first work of grace is justification. The second work of grace would be the entire sanctification idea. And then the third work of grace, which we talked about just recently, is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So all three of those works of grace, which we're going to dive into a little bit more in depth here in a minute, but all three of those works of grace are essential for the Christian. And then if you look at the holiness movement, we just talked about how they believe in entire sanctification and then also in justification as well. So this now stems a divide. OK, so you have this idea of the holiness movement. You have this idea of the Pentecostals. They differ on their views. So it causes this split. And what happens is that there is a lot of different ideas going around through this Azusa street revival. One of the ideas is that not only do we believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but now the Holy Spirit is, yes, it's important for us, but it's not Trinitarian. OK, so you have this oneness movement, the oneness Pentecostal church. And they separate from what's called the Assemblies of God, which you would think about as the Pentecostals, the largest movement. They separate because the Assemblies of God ultimately believe only in two works of grace, which is the initial conversion and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The entire sanctification is, yes, it's important to have sanctification, but we're not quite sure whether it's immediate. We're not quite sure whether it's something that you receive all at one time. So they're going to separate and say, OK, we still believe in the initial conversion being justified. We still believe in entire sanctification, but more loosely. And then you have the oneness Pentecostals, which are still relying upon the three works of grace, but then they have this idea of belief in modalism. So they only would recognize and see Jesus Christ as the one person that is spoken of in the Bible. They believe that the Holy Spirit, yes, is important, but he's not a person of the Godhead. He's a spirit. How they would describe it. So then moving forward, we have another split, another divide. We have this four square church, which is started by this woman named Amy Semple McPherson. So Amy Semple McPherson came up with this idea that stems from Dowie, this faith healer idea. And she describes and says, well, if he can be a faith healer, so can I. So she decides that she's going to start this movement of continuing his idea of being a faith healer. And she decides that she's going to take it to another level by saying, well, why can't worship be fun? Why can't worship be more exciting, more, more impactful and emotional to the audience? So she created this idea of let's bring a band into worship. Let's create let's create more of an emotional experience. So she opened what's called the Angelus Temple, and it was the largest church in the United States. She was known as the female version of a Hollywood movie star. As a preacher. So she became extremely popular and her movement became so popular that she continued to push forth this idea of faith healing, which took off to many, many other churches. The other thing is, is that if you were looking at this sign or symbol that identifies their church, you could see at the top that that represents Jesus as savior. The one over would be representing of him as baptizer with the Holy Spirit. You have the bottom one. The other one would represent him as healer. And then the bottom one would represent him as king. And that would be how they would describe their four square church. So now we're taking another look at now how we've moved from the holiness movement and we've moved to the Pentecostal movement. We see a lot of different divides of churches. You have the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, which would be the Oneness Pentecostals, the Assemblies of God, which would be the largest group of Pentecostals. And then you have these other movements. Most of these split over here besides the four square church. Most of these other ones split over here due to wanting to have segregation of blacks and whites. And then you have the four square church, which we talked about with Amy Semple McPherson. And the reason why her movement is so important is because that's what actually stems the movement of the Charismatics with this faith healing idea. All right, so we want to talk about how Pentecostalism is really broken up into three waves. So you have the early Pentecostals, which we talked about with Dowie and we talked about with Parson. And so now we're looking at the 1960s and how there's this separation now of Pentecostals and Charismatics as they're being brought in through Amy Semple McPherson. So this idea of Charismatics coming into the picture, it's not just a coming into the picture. There are a lot less cultish. They are ultimately more about God is love, that he loves you, that ultimately, yes, the being baptized in the Holy Spirit, we believe that it's possible, but it's not necessary for salvation. And so they come into this idea of saying that basically that the most important thing is that your belief in the Holy Spirit, we do find it helpful. We do think that you should embrace this doctrine, but it's not pressed upon you like it is with the early Pentecostals. So what happens with this also this 1960s movement is now you start to see a branching out into other denominations, this charismatic idea. So you have the charismatic movement now being embraced by Catholics, by Methodists and by the Anglican churches. So that's why you see today you would see Catholics that would identify themselves as charismatic Catholics or charismatic Methodists or charismatic Anglicans and stemming to lots of other churches as well. This idea of charismatic. So then you have this next wave, which goes into the 1980s, and this is really where the prosperity gospel starts to flourish. So you have this idea of health, wealth that is promised through the Holy Spirit. You have this gift of prophecy, which now comes back into play and this restoration of the office of prophet or apostle. So here's a wide view of charismatic and Pentecostals. There's some overlap in some areas that they agree. There's also some distinctions in areas that they disagree. So there is the top speaking in tongues like we kind of talked about earlier. It can happen. It's not a requirement or evidence that you have the Holy Spirit. They focus on other gifts such as healings, prophecy and wealth. They do still do affirm the two baptisms, so being baptized salvifically and then being baptized in the Holy Spirit. They have this idea of being more slain in the spirit, and that's something we'll talk about a little bit later. Instead of speaking in tongues, it's more being slain in the spirit. And then the worship service is an experience is how they would describe it. And it's always spontaneous. So you're going to always receive every time you go to a worship service. It's always going to be different. You're always going to see something that excites you. Then if you look at the Pentecostals, we talked about the three works of grace. There are two baptisms. One thing I want to touch on with the two baptisms, though, is their emphasis specifically on being baptized in the Holy Spirit. There is a high emphasis for the Pentecostals of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. They feel like it's something that is to be strived for. It's something that you if you've reached it, that you have you have become the greatest Christian. So they have. Yes. Once. Yeah. So as soon as you speak in tongues, you have exemplified that you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. And that's that once you've reached that point, now you've you've jumped into another round than the other ones that have claimed to be Christian. So they strive for this and they ultimately have been told, do not be content with ordinary salvation. You must not be content with just salvation. You have to continue looking to the next phase, the next step of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. So the idea of modalism. What you talked about that only exists more on the Pentecostal side, but not on the charismatic side. This idea of spiritual gifts, which there's an there is an overlap there between the charismatics and the Pentecostals and then their worship service. They would attest to and put emphasis on that they are also spontaneous and that you will have an emotional experience in each service. So I want to talk quickly now. I want to dive in a little bit more to their finished work document as they would describe it. So this kind of breaks out this idea, three works of grace, and I want to look more in depth at what it is that they believe in regards to justification, entire sanctification and baptism of the Holy Spirit. So in their three works of grace, they assume the gracious activities are sequential. OK, so they happen one at a time. So if you were to be justified, it doesn't mean that you've been sanctified yet. It doesn't mean that you've received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but there are steps that you must take. Then the next piece is, is that they see the works as separate from each other. So separate manifestations of God's grace or individual events. OK, so then if we were to talk about justification and how they see justification, they believe that it happens at the point of conversion. They believe, though, that the sinner comes to God and makes a decision because they are a minion. And then God reacts to that decision that they've made and justifies them based upon their own decision. And then they would take their next step of entire sanctification, and they would say that it happens at the moment of belief. But yes, it's at the moment of belief. It's at the moment of your belief. So you're waiting for God, God reacts, and then when God reacts to your belief, then you receive entire sanctification and you're seen as fully righteous in the sight of God. And then the last piece for their entire sanctification is that they obviously have to be baptized, but then it also puts the believer in perfect relationship with God. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, this is their biggest one. This is what they strive for, what they attest to. This would be the fullness of the Holy Spirit has now been made alive. So what they would say is that, yes, you've received the Holy Spirit in baptism, but he's not yet been fully made alive. He's not yet has he's serving more as a complementary role than as full in fullness in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. So when you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that's when you're getting him in his fullness. The speaking in tongues, falling on the floor, barking or singing, that's all part of signs that you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. One guy even said that whenever he got gold teeth, that was his sign that he's been baptized in the Holy Spirit. So it's very subjective. They believe in the anointment and empowerment for special service once they've been baptized into the Holy Spirit. So this is their way of distinguishing that now that I've been baptized in the Holy Spirit, I now have the ability to go and proclaim the gospel, whereas before I did not because I have not received my final destination as far as my works of grace. Yes. Yes. You can have this perfection, but you would still need in addition to that baptism of the Holy Spirit. Correct. They just get you these these so-called gifts. Yes. Right. So you're living basically essentially you're living a perfect life, but you haven't been equipped yet with the Holy Spirit. So you don't have the ability to they would describe it as if you were to come to me and say, I've been fully sanctified. Well, they would say, well, that's great. But have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit because you don't have the evidence yet that I can believe that you're living a perfect life. And then they would also say until you've been baptized with the Holy Spirit, you don't have the ability to go and proclaim the gospel. You don't have the ability to live in the fullness of the spirit, so to speak. So we talked about how it's physical evidence that they have been saved. And then it also creates an openness to other spiritual manifestations. So this would bring in the idea of spiritual gifts. So if you are a faith healer or claimed you are a faith healer, that you really couldn't be a faith healer. You wouldn't have access to those gifts until you have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So if you claimed you were a faith healer, I would need to see signs in you that you're speaking in tongues before I can believe that you are truly a faith healer. I need to see the evidence. OK, so I want to jump now into our view scripturally of biblical justification. So I think before we go into our view, we have to set the stage of who we are coming in to justification. So we are as scripture defines us for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, as Ephesians 2 says, that we have hardened hearts towards God. We would never choose God because we're dead. So if we come into justification knowing that we have no choice in the matter, we have no ability within our being to even make a decision to believe in God, then that's where we can firmly acclaim, according to the gospel, that it is 100 percent God's work and we have no part in and we have no part in it. And so the benefits of redemption, according to our view of justification, the benefits of redemption is that Christ secured the elect. He secured the elect. He imputes his righteousness to the elect. He declares the sinner as righteous in his sight. And it's by nothing that we do. It's only by faith alone, through Christ alone, that we are justified. And it's through God's predestined plan. I think that's really important to think about is when we think about Romans 8 and how he talks about how we are. There's so much going on before we are justified. God has planned this for the beginning of the world. It's not something in an instantaneous moment that he's just decided to do. He's planned it and he has molded us and called us and then justified us. And so there's this working throughout redemptive history about how God justifies us through that process. So I wanted to jump to our Westminster Confessions view of justification in the way that they describe it. And justification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardons all of our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. So our view of biblical sanctification would be that God is sanctifying us, which is to call it being separated or set apart uniquely for God's exclusive use. It's not for our good. It's not for our use. It's for his good. It's for his use, for his glory. And the action of God is, yes, he's setting his people apart. And in that process, he's drawing them to himself. He's causing them to act in accordance with his predestined will, which we talked about in Romans 8, that he's predestined that he would sanctify us. And then we want to look at the process of sanctification is that it's a great struggle. It's not something that's immediate. It's not something where we are perfected immediately. But as Paul describes in Romans 7, he says, I do things that I don't want to do. And I I'm not doing things that I should want to do. And so he attests to the fact that it's a constant working by the spirit. It's a process that the Lord is sanctifying us and making us more and more holy. And it's not something that's immediate because we're struggling against the flesh. And so I put down a couple of texts there that showcase that it's the continual struggle against the flesh and the continual struggle against the flesh. And that the Lord's process through sanctification is that he's slowly chastening us and causing us to slowly be more aware of our sin, to be able to measure that with the gospel, to be able to look to the commandments and know this is where I fall short. This is where I am in need of repentance. And that I would ask that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow me in holiness so that I may die to that sin. So the Heidelberg Catechism describes sanctification as in these two pieces of questions. First question number one says, but can these can those converted to God obey these commandments perfectly? And it says, no. In this life, even the holiest have only a small beginning of disobedience. Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some of God's commandments. So since no one in this life can obey the 10 commandments perfectly, why does God want them preached so pointedly? First, so that the longer we live, the more we can come to know our sinfulness and the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sin and righteousness. Second, so that we may never stop striving and never stop praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit to be renewed more and more after our death. For the grace of the Holy Spirit to be renewed more and more after God's image until after this life, we reach our goal, which is perfection. So the biblical view of the Holy Spirit, I want to dive into some text here where we can see how the Holy Spirit is our helper, how the Holy Spirit specifically is described in scriptures. And so what kind of combats their view of the Holy Spirit is the first point here, which says we can do nothing without the Holy Spirit. So he is the one who makes us alive, moving a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. And the Holy Spirit is like I described here in Romans 8, 26 is our helper. He's our comforter in times of need, in times of trials and tribulation. He's there to comfort us, to remind us of the Lord's goodness, of the Lord's grace through those circumstances. He's our assurance of salvation in 1 John 5, reminding us of where we find our assurance. Our insurance is built on the Lord, that the Lord does not turn his back on the elect, but that he has through this process of predestination, he has determined before the beginning of the world that he would send us through this process of justifying us, redeeming us to be his own. And then lastly, he confirms our adoption as children of God in Romans 8, reminds us that we have been adopted as his sons. John Owen had this to say about the Holy Spirit, however brilliant the mind may be and however brilliant the preaching and presentation of the gospel might be, yet without the Holy Spirit first creating this light in them, they cannot receive, they cannot receive, understand and agree with the truth preached and so will not be led to salvation. So thinking now through our view of describing each of the three works of grace and then how they would describe them, I wanted to draw this analogy so we could see it and how we differ in so many different areas. The Pentecostal view would say sinners come to God and make the decision. But the Bible says, for apart from me, you can do nothing. Instantaneously, the Pentecostals would say instantaneously perfect at the moment of belief, as the Bible says, a continual battle and struggle against the flesh. The Holy Spirit, the Pentecostals would say the Holy Spirit is given at conversion, but you get the fullness of the Holy Spirit when you speak in tongues. But the scripture says we receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit that makes us alive. So as we can see here, that one thing I wanted to call out about the Pentecostal view is that their orders of grace are opposite of the biblical order, because we believe that the spirit is required in order to make us alive, that we are dead in our sins and that we do nothing as part from receiving our salvation. So in their view, it doesn't make sense that the Holy Spirit would come last. But you can't because you can't be made alive without the Holy Spirit. And so the order of theirs is opposite to what the scriptures teach us. And so you can't come to saving faith without the power of the Holy Spirit doing it within you. So speaking in tongues, this is kind of an overview of how they would see speaking in tongues. OK, so one Pentecostal source acknowledges that speaking in tongues is a human phenomenon, not limited to Christianity or even to religious behavior. The impulse for speaking in tongues may rise from the speakers themselves, from a demonic spirit or from the Holy Spirit. They would say that the spirit should be honored and sought after for his own sake. So they elevate the person or work of the Holy Spirit above anything else. You train individuals how to articulate a new word. So they would say, just say it. It's right there. You have it on the tip of your tongue. Just work on it each week. Work on it. You're going to get there. You'll be able to say it. You'll be able to be included with everybody else. Just something you need to work on. And then they would put a high emphasis or an important emphasis on their relationship with the spirit to speak in tongue. Kind of what we talked about at the beginning, that that is their final stage. Their final stage, the emphasis and pressure that they put on their people to speak in tongues is very high. Mealings and healing, miracles and healings. So they want to evangelize by miracles and healings, but their evangelism is centered on love. It's not centered on the gospel. So they want to accept you for the way that you are, and they want to promise you success. So when they evangelize to somebody, they would say, God loves you. God cares for you. Nothing of the gospel. Nothing that you are a sinner in need of grace. Nothing that that causes them to identify with your human nature, your human depravity, but more as if they know you to say that God loves you to be the voice of God and to be the determiner in one's salvation through their words of evangelism. They want to be seen. They want to be noticed, and they want to be followed. So they are elevating themselves and their status above God, and they expect your money in return. The one thing I want to say in regards to, you know, our view of miracles, and we'll get there in a little bit. But the one thing I want to say in our view of miracles is, I mean, I think miracles happen more often than we would think because when we think about it, God sovereignly operates through the preached gospel. By making dead sinners alive, by giving them faith, and by uniting them to Christ. And then he, every Lord's Day, he validates that in giving them faith, like we talked about, in strengthening that union through the Lord's Supper, the Holy Sacrament. And so when we think about the holiness that has been given to us or being set apart for us in the Holy Spirit, that's the power of the Spirit. That is the miracle that happens through the gospel being preached. And that is what we ought to put emphasis on when we think about miracles, is the gospel being preached. So gifts of the Holy Spirit, this is something I wanted to put on here and talk about. Like, you could think of this as the cessationist versus continuationist view. So we talked about their idea of the Holy Spirit. We've talked about the importance of the Holy Spirit to them. And we've talked about how they see miracles and gifts, okay? But we want to talk about what is our idea when we think about why the gifts of the Spirit were originally given. What was the purpose for why they even were in Scriptures? And I think when we think about that, we can look back to historical history and seeing that the gospel was proclaimed or the truth of God was proclaimed through His prophets and apostles. But ultimately, I think they put so much emphasis on this idea of spiritual gifts that they want to elevate it. And when they do that, they elevate it above the Word of God. And the Word of God is ultimate. The Word of God is supreme. And there's nothing more important than the Word of God. So when you put an emphasis on spiritual gifts and that being what you want to attain, then you devalue the Word of God. And when we think about the Word of God and what we've been given, we think about how the apostles and prophets laid that foundation. If we look here in Ephesians 2.20, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And so it would be as if if we were trying to look at the spiritual gifts, it would be as if we were trying to go back to the foundation. How many times when you build a house, do you build the foundation? One time. That foundation has been laid and not only has it been laid, but according to what we see in Revelation 22, it's a closed canon. The Word of God is sufficient. We don't need anything else. And when we ask for or we desire something else, we devalue the Word of God. And we see here in 1 Peter 1.19. So think back with me in this chapter here. Peter obviously has been part of many miracles. He's been part of seeing the Lord's work. Yet he says we have a prophetic word more fully confirmed. And so when we think about that, like we can't deny that Peter, who saw much more than we did. How would he say that we have something that is even more confirmed than everything that he's seen? And in this chapter, he's talking about the transfiguration. He's talking about the moment in when Jesus said this is when God said, this is my beloved son and whom I am well pleased. One of the most biggest moments throughout Scripture, and he's been a part of it. Yet he says the more we have, the more prophetic word more fully confirmed. And so one thing I want to point out, too, is that with the apostles and prophets, I just think it's so important to remember. See if I put it in here. There was another verse that I thought was really good. Um, I think the ultimate takeaway from this, though, is that we cannot allow the word of God to be devalued to to to think about and want these extra gifts. And I think what ultimately the gifts were pointing to was they were pointing to the word of God. They were pointing to God revealed in his word. And we have that. We have the gift of the gospel being preached. And when we we we want something in addition to that, we we lose sight of the purpose of the gifts. The purpose of the gifts was was ultimately to come secondary to the word. And it was only to through God's prophets and apostles. It was to proclaim the truth of God. And we have that. And then lastly, I would say when Jesus says here in Luke 1631, he says, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. And it's just I think it's Jesus foreseeing and knowing that this gift of healing or these gifts of of of the spirit that they so prominently want to make as an emphasis. He can see here that that that they will not listen. They will not listen to the word of God. And that that even if someone was raised from the dead, that they still wouldn't be convinced of the word of God. John Calvin had this to say in regards to the spiritual gifts to designate the Holy Spirit and his gifts by oil is trite and common. But the gift of healing disappeared with the other miraculous powers which the Lord was pleased to give for a time that it might render the new preaching of the gospel forever. Wonderful. Therefore, even were we to grant that anointing with the sacrament of those powers which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, it pertains not to us to whom no such power has been committed. So this is kind of a view of how we could better identify the Pentecostal church, the Pentecostal church and the charismatic movement all has a man centered view versus a Christ centered view. The desire for the emotional experience. But the gospel says it is Christ in me. The desire to be popular or be known. But the gospel says suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Desire to feel good about yourself. We are depraved in mind and deprived of truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. Desire to be rich and prosperous. And the gospel says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. We desire to be perfect and the desire to love yourself. And then ultimately, the gospel says the heart is deceitful above all things. So I want to move into some statistics about the Pentecostal church. This one shows some estimates of Pentecostal church. The movement is converting 35,000 new followers each day. At present, the number of Pentecostals are estimated to be 600 million. This shows the specific breakdown of those numbers by their origin. This is a question specifically talking about the poor. So it says income distribution among Pentecostals in the evangelical tradition. 51% are less than 30,000 income. So they're specifically targeting poor. The standard for truth, belief in absolute standards for right and wrong among Pentecostals in the evangelical tradition. 47% say there are clear standards for what is right and wrong. But 49% say right or wrong depends upon the situation. So what is their standard of truth? So this is where I think we can have humility through grace when we think about the Pentecostal movement and the lostness that is there. We're reminded of the grace of God in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Paul's example of calling himself the very least of all the saints. Our sufficiency ultimately is from God. And then in 1 Peter, it says, making a defense of the hope that you have, but with gentleness and respect. The reason why I want to set this tone is like, we have to remember our roots and where we came from. We would be in the Pentecostal movement, we would be agnostic if it weren't for the grace of God. And so we need to be reminded of the humility that we see in Paul and the humility that we see in Peter. That is the Lord that has predestined us. It is the Lord that justifies us and nothing of our own. Next, I want to look at how we can be better equipped to evangelize them. So I think it starts with prayer. We need to actively be praying for repentance, for true faith and a humble resting upon the perfect work of Jesus Christ as he is given in the gospel. Secondly, we need to be praying for the Spirit to equip us with boldness and to lead us to increased opportunities to evangelize to them. And then I think we need to challenge them. We need to challenge them on what appeals to their flesh and the dangers of appealing to the flesh and then ultimately confronting the lies because they're believing a lot of lies that are not scriptural. And we need to be bold to confront those lies. And then lastly, it would be to warn them. Preachers that will not listen or that will tell them what they want to hear. There's a warning of that in 2 Timothy 4.3 that we would be tickled in the ear and that we would want to hear, like the prosperity gospel, we would want to hear things that make us feel good. But there's a warning of that in scriptures of where it leads. And then the other warning would be that man being the measure of all things based on his... Sorry, man being the measure of all things based on how much faith he has. So we are to measure ourselves based upon what the Word of God says and not based upon how much faith you have. Our measure and how we look at things is based upon what God gives us in his Word. And then lastly, it would be to not allow experiences to have the authority to determine their beliefs. That the authority ultimately comes from God. And they would even say that, yes, that the Word of God is the inspired Word of God. It is truth, but they don't live it. They elevate their experiences more than the Word of God. Their experiences mean more to them than the Word of God. Than what the gospel preaches. And so we must give them that warning of where that can lead. Everything must be measured by the Word of God. Yes. That's right. Armenian. Yep. Have enough faith. That's right. Yep. Any questions? Yes, Paul. Really, really bad understanding of scripture. They replace it with their experiences. And it just so happens that then they're enriching themselves, you know, as they're making this up as they go, you know, looking at that map and the stats, you know, the number one continent for Pentecostalism, we have Africa, then we had South America. Yep. And, you know, we were talking with friends from Brazil, talking about that, this wave of Pentecostalism that comes in and then is replaced, you know, as people find that inadequate and just, you know, exploiting the poor people, as you said. So I was wondering if, you know, not to put Kennedy on the spot, but if you could talk to briefly, you know, Pentecostalism in Africa and that exploitation. Absolutely. Incidentally, I didn't know what you were going to share, but I bear witness that we talked about this while we were coming just shortly before the Sunday school began. We talked to Pastor Evans. He was asking, how can we pray for you? And we said the Pentecostal movement. Yeah. And there are two things that assure poverty. If people are poor and desperate and sick and malnourished, and you say, if you just believe God is going to suddenly make you rich, it's going to be very appealing to the ear. Right. But then there's a second one, spiritism, the belief in the spiritual. When the gospel first came to us, and I was explaining, Africans had a spiritual understanding of everything. If there's a big tree, there's a spirit behind that big tree. If there's water gushing, that is a spirit. So when the gospel came, it was rational. It was pragmatic. Yeah. And now the Pentecostal movement comes and is saying, hey, you can experience a spiritual. It's something if you only believed and all that. So it is like a magnet. It comes and just embraces people. And that's why we have to be very strategic in helping people know what the truth is. And what we've seen by the grace of God and by the working of the spirit, when we speak the truth, there are people who say, we've never heard of this. And I'm testimony to that, that many Christians in Africa probably have come to know the gospel through the Pentecostal movement, but no grounding. And that's why we need a reformation movement to help people understand what the gospel is. Thank you. Amen. Tyree? Yeah. Yeah, and I would just add one anecdote. No doubt, like you said, they target the poor people in certain countries. But just one anecdote to realize what can happen in America. I had a very good friend, extremely intelligent, very, very intelligent, very, very wealthy, upper middle class right here, right? Our very familiar area. And for him, had two children born with disabilities. And he goes to a Bible-believing church. I'm very good friends with them. And so when he heard sovereignty, God's sovereignty over this, over the situation, over the fact that your children have disability, what he heard was no chance of them ever getting better. That's how he internalized it. In comes Pentecostalism, and now he hears my kids could be healed. And that was enough allurement for him to be seriously drawn off sides into that movement. So we should be aware of it at every level, certainly for the poor who maybe have the hope of riches, but as well as for those of any class that hear the enticements that are deceptive for whatever it is they're longing for. Right. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and interestingly enough, they don't want to accept people with disabilities that they know that they can't heal. So they'll have people in their churches that are lined up with, you know, whether they can't walk, have disabilities that are very obvious, but they don't want to do anything with them because they know that they can't truly heal. So there's a deception involved as well of just recognizing that if there's something that they have that isn't visible to the naked eye, well, they'll take them because those they can, you know, in a in a moment, push them down. And there's an adrenaline rush, which then causes them to feel like whatever it is that they were transcribing is healed. Right. But all the rest of the people that are coming and giving money, thinking that I'm lame and I'm going to be healed, they won't. They won't take them. And would they also then maybe blame the people say, hey, you don't have enough faith to be healed and guilt trip and make them. But they'll take your money and they'll live off of it. Of course. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's in our backyard. Yeah, when we when I was in high school, good friends of ours outspoken in their faith. My mom is deaf. Well, she's deaf because she didn't have enough faith. And these kids are good friends of ours would tell us your mom just doesn't have enough faith. Right. Well, I mean, come on. Yeah. So it's it's it's a this is a brilliant class, man. Thank you very much. Yeah. One of the things that I learned that I was never would have imagined is that, according to studies done as recently as last year, the Pentecostal movement is the second largest movement in Christianity in the United States. Roman Catholic number one, Pentecostal number two. So that's how much they've reached all these countries and told them what they want to hear and convince them of this ideology. But it's not gospel centered. And so I had no way. But yeah, let's pray for us and and we'll end. Well, we just thank you for bringing us together today, how we're able to be uplifted, being reminded of your your grace, Lord, and how you continually work through your church, how you have laid the foundation through your apostles and prophets, Lord, and that your word and your gospel is sufficient. Lord, we just pray, Lord, that we would rest upon that, that we would be reminded of the Holy Spirit's work, that he is our comforter, that he is reminding us that we are your sons. And Lord, we just pray that you would give us boldness, that we would be able to share and evangelize. Give your truth, Lord, as you have so delicately given us. Pray this in Jesus name. Amen.