Church History - Part 9

You are listening to David Porson podcasts. This is a series of 11 talks covering church history. Part 9, 1900 to 1968. Effects of Two World Wars. Tonight I want to speak on the story of the church from 1900 to 1968. And then next Sunday evening I want to speak on the history of the church from 1968 onwards. In other words, the future of the church. What the Bible tells us to expect, what we can look forward to, what is likely to happen between now and the end of history to the church of Jesus Christ. I thought a great deal about what passage of Scripture to read from sending the 20th century church. And I have decided to read chapter 3 of the Book of Revelation. Let us, three letters written to three churches by the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 3 of the Book of Revelation. And to the angel of the church in saddest right. The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have the name of being alive and you are dead. A wake and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death. For I have not found your works perfect in the sight of God. Remember then what you received and heard. Keep that and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief and you will not know. At what hour I will come upon you. Yet you have still a few names in saddest people who have not sold their garments. And they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy. He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments and I will not blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He who has an ear. Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia right. The words of the holy one, the true one who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut. Who shuts and no one opens. I know your works. Behold I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but lie. Behold I will make them come and bow down before your feet and learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word of patient endurance I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell upon the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have so that no one may seize your crown. He who conquers I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and I will write on him never shall he go out of it and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God. The new Jerusalem which comes down from God out of heaven and my own new name. He who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches and to the angel of the church and Leo to see a right. The words of the army the faithful and true witness the beginning of God's creation. I know your works. You are neither code nor hot so because you are lukewarm. Another code nor hot I will spew you out of my mouth. In modern English lukewarm people make me sick. For you say I am rich. I have prospered and I leave nothing. Not knowing that you are rich, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from meath gold refined by fire that you may be rich and white garments to cloth you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen and starve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Those who my love I approve and chasten so be zealous and repent behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. He who conquers I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. This nation entered the 20th century with unbounded confidence. The capitalist was still thoroughly secure in their wealth. The proletariat was benefiting from the struggles of trade unionism. The British Empire ruled the world or so they thought and the navy kept that power. And that optimism was shared generally in the Western world. The 20th century is going to be utopia. This century of ours was going to be an unparalleled period of peace and prosperity for all. We were on a moving escalator going as one English Prime Minister put it up and up and up and up and on and on. Charles Darwin's doctrine of evolution had now been applied to society and it was believed that evolution would sweep us up into the brave new world. Now that was the optimism with which the 20th century dawned. It was very quickly shattered by two world wars the like of which the human race had never seen before. And the untold suffering and the cruelty and almost the barbarian madness of those two great events has shaken that confidence. The church itself shared that optimism and there were many Christians who believed that within the 20th century the church would spread through the whole globe. And would dominate the world and certainly the figures were encouraging in the year 1800 Christians nominal Christians numbered about 19% or a fifth of the world's population. Entering the 20th century the figure had gone up to 29.5% nearly a third. And it looked as if the goal of spreading the church in the whole world was within the grasp of the Christian church. But what was thought to be an easy century of progress, spiritual, physical, material, moral became an era of terrible conflict. Here are some of the factors that entered into the world of the 20th century which made the work of the church much more difficult. Quite obviously the growing secularism, they're all isms by the way the growing secularism of society is a new feature. Here the two Christians were battling with other religions. Now they were battling with people who had no religion. Society was becoming secular, people were living without even religion, never mind the Christian God. And this growing secularism was one of the things that made the conflict of this 20th century. The spread of communism was another ism that is one of the biggest factors in our day. It is now spread over a third of the human race. And by and large where communism has spread the daughter missionary work has closed. China being the outstanding example in China covers a quarter of the world's population and there were hundreds of Christian missionaries in China. When the 20th century began there is not one now. Another factor was the rise of what we call nationalism. Another ism in which new nations were being born at a fantastic rate. And we're beginning to regard missionaries as foreigners. Western imperialist was the tag that was sometimes hung around their neck. But the idea that a foreigner could come and teach us this new nation what religion we ought to have was becoming increasingly repugnant. There is the disintegration of Western civilization. I'm quoting here Professor Gilbert Murray. The breakdown of Western society which had been the main spring of the spread of missionary work. And the moral and spiritual breakdown in the West was a factor that the church had to cope with. Yet another factor is the revival of ancient religions until the 20th century other religions seem to be dying out. Now in our century they're springing to life again. Buddhism in salon is one example of this. Islam in Africa is another. And in Pakistan and there are many others that one could give. Furthermore there is in this 20th century the growth of cults presenting a perverted kind of religion. of Christianity. In fact, not a Christianity at all when carefully examined the growth of cults as a factor that needs to be recognized. There are now thousands of towns and villages in the world where no Christian missionary has been but who have had a Jehovah's Witness visit or who have had a Mormon visit. These and many other factors meant that this century was a battleground for the church and many thought that Christianity was going to have to fight for its life. Some even went so far as to predict that by the middle of the 20th century, the church would be well and I finished. At the end of tonight's address I want to tell you what the real state is in the church but let me anticipate that by saying the church has never been bigger than it is tonight. It has never been more widespread geographically than it is tonight. There have never been more Christians in the world than there are tonight so that helps us to keep the thing in balance. Now I want to speak about the 20th century and the church tonight but my difficulty is first that I'm living in it and that makes two problems. First of all I know too much about it and I could keep you hit all tomorrow morning talking about the 20th century because I know far more about it than the 19th and certainly any other century. Secondly when you're living in a situation it's very difficult to see it objectively and to realize what is important and what is not. When you're right in it up to your elbows it's awfully difficult to judge what will last and what will not. When one thinks for example just of the work of this church it's very difficult to predict now what will be a blasting value in what we're doing and what will be forgotten almost as soon as it's finished. When you're living in a situation it's difficult to get a perspective on it. However I'm going to be bold and risk my neck in a number of directions I know that tonight by singling out three things which have happened in the 20th century within the church which to my mind are significant. One way or another three things with which we all have to come to terms and which we all have to think through and there are three isms which occurred within the church of Jesus Christ. In the last analysis I believe the significant things of history are what happened within the church. In the last analysis I believe that God is writing the history of the world and that God's people are the key to it. That's why it has astonished me to pick up the first issue of a new weekly magazine which came out this this very week on Thursday. Penells history of the 20th century. It included a complete survey of all the 96 parts that are going to be produced and I went right through that survey word for word and I only caught one mention of religion at the end of one volume out of 96 volumes. That's one way to write history and it may be an interesting way and the significant way for men but when God writes up history of the human race I believe that in cyclopedia will have missed out the most important things. The things that will last long after some of the world's great men have gone and been forgotten. Well now the three things that I'm going to talk about and as soon as I say this I hope you'll cringe for me and pray hard for me but the three things I want to mention are three isms liberalism ecumenism and pentacostalism. To my mind these are the three significant factors of the church life in the 20th century which for better or worse are affecting our Christian life and are having an impact and influence upon it and I want to summarize what has happened in these three directions and give some kind of assessment of them. Next Sunday God willing I want to speak about the future of the church and where the church will go and what will happen to it in the years to come and be even either in my eyes bolder or in your eyes more brash next Sunday evening. Well now the first ism that is undoubtedly one of the three big infants as on Christianity in the 20th century is liberalism and though the seeds of this was sown in the 19th century the flower came out in the 20th and indeed it is the 20th century movement. Like many other things its source was Germany and Germany has produced some of the greatest thinkers philosophers and theologians of the world and we do wrong if we underestimate the influence of Germany particularly German thought on the whole western world. By and large there is a pattern what the German philosophers think today the British philosophers will think tomorrow the American philosophers will think the day after and the rest of the world will consider after that there's a kind of pattern here which is a very significant move. Now what was the heart of what we call liberalism what do we mean by this? Well I can say it in a sentence I was given a book this morning by Leslie Paul a penetrating assessment entitled the death and resurrection of the church. Leslie Paul is an Anglican who is looking at the church of England and trying to say what it needs to do in the 20th century and he finishes the book like this. No faith can live on the denial of its past and the rejection of its found foundations. The new and pace making theology is often asking just that. The final crisis for the churches is this. What does Christianity assert as the ultimate and inevitable foundation of its faith? Now that means going right to the heart of it. The crisis facing the church is this what in the last analysis is the foundation for what you believe and it is the answer to that question which divides professing Christians into three camps liberal Catholic and evangelical. All three would speak of the church the Bible and experience as part of the facets of truth but when these three things church Bible and experience say contradictory things the ultimate foundation is the one of those three which you choose to test the other two. The Catholic would say the church is the ultimate foundation and the church will both interpret the Bible and experience. The evangelical says the Bible is the ultimate foundation and by it you must test the church and your experience and the liberal would say your experience is the final foundation and by your experience you must test the Bible and the church. Now that's an oversimplification but basically that's what it means and the term liberal which was used by miscrokshank means those who use the Bible who believe in the church but who ultimately use their own experience to test truth whether it is their mental experience or their moral experience or their spiritual experience. Now it's quite obvious that if experience decides what is true there are certain things which the church has taught over the centuries about which you will become less sure. Heaven is one. I have had no experience whatever of the place called heaven. How do I know it exists the Bible says it does but how do I know it's outside my experience. Even more important hell is something that no one has ever yet experienced. Don't ever believe those who say that you make your own hell on earth. You do nothing of the sort. Hell is something right outside my experience and if I judge truth by experience I will not be very sure of it. Miracles are another. The Bible is full of miracles but there are many people today who have had no experience of miracles and therefore they question supernatural events. The wrath of God is something that none of us has experienced in its fullness yet none of us. One day God is going to reveal his wrath against the sin of the world but he hasn't done so yet not since the days of Noah has he done it and therefore it's outside our experience and therefore one can begin to question the wrath of God if experience is the test of truth. I have given you enough to indicate the kind of direction that this moved in. Question the miracles, question heaven and above all hell, question the wrath of God and above all question the sin of man because surely my experience is that people are very nice. Oh they have their faults but my experience surely is not that they are sinners destined for hell those nice people living next to daughter me. If experience is the test I could find it very difficult to believe that and so is a great theologian of America, Professor Reinhold Nehborah said, liberals preached a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the administrations of a Christ without a cross. That's a very good summary and that was the kind of devastating idea that came into the church. What then is left of the gospel? What is the good news if you cut hell out, if you cut sin out, if you cut God's wrath out, what is the gospel? And the answer is you'd have to find another kind of gospel and find it they did. On the one hand were those who found what they called the social gospel, which was far different from the social application of the gospel as you find it in the great Keahadi. But was a new gospel which was the good news is Christianized the social order. There were others on the other hand who had a psychological gospel who said that Jesus saves you from your neurosis. Jesus saves you from your guilt complex rather than your moral guilt. Jesus saves you from your frustrations and repressions and conversion is simply a psychological integration. And so whether it were the social gospel or the psychological, the belief basically was that man was not as bad as the old fashioned preachers made out and hell was not his destination. Now two world wars put a stop to that kind of liberalism and you don't hear it so much now. And two world wars showed two young Swiss men by name Carbatt and Emil Bruner that man was not getting better and better, that sin was a reality and that the wrath of God on it was a reality and that war is an example of the kind of consequence that fallen human nature produces. And so Carbatt and Emil Bruner between them the most famous names in the 20th century thinking you'll find their books and every minister shelves, swung the pendulum back and they began again to preach sin, to preach atonement by the cross, to preach the wrath of God and the mercy of God. And it looked for a time as if the gospel was going to be preached again as once it was preached by our forefathers, unless that did not happen. Why did it not? Because though they swung back in so many things to sin, to atonement, to everything else, there was one thing they didn't swing back to and it was the crucial thing, they didn't swing back to believing that the Bible was the word of God. They remained with the liberal idea that the Bible was a book of human experience exactly the same as any other book and must be treated that way. It must be examined in exactly the same way as you'd examine the Doomsday book. As you'd examine the Magnacart, the laws of Moses are to be treated as exactly the same. And this was the difficulty. They tried to swing back to a biblical gospel without going back to the view of the Bible as the word of God. And the result was you can't hold people there without the Bible. You can't preach what's in the Bible unless you believe it to be true. You can't convince people of the truth of Bible teaching unless you yourself are convinced that it is a true book. And they could not swing right back there. And so they couldn't hold the pendulum and it began to swing back again. To a new form of liberalism which doesn't go by that name, it's called radicalism now, but it's the same old thing in a new dress. I mentioned a Sunday to a go, the very people that are mentioned here, but I mention them again. People like Boltman, Tillock, both of them Germans incidentally. Once again, they start the fashion in philosophy and in theology. Until through the popularizers in this country, Bishop of Warlich and others in America, it's one so far back that theologians training men for the ministry announced a few years ago, God is dead. Now what did they mean by that? They didn't mean they'd stop believing in God. They meant that the God of the old fashioned preacher is dead. That's what they meant. We've got a poster ready to go on this church outside of Easter. Our God is not dead. Sorry about yours. And we're going to put that out at Easter. But this was God is dead, meaning that the God my grandfather believed in his dead is mutton. The God who is angry with sinners and sends them to hell is dead. That's what they mean. And if you've heard the phrase God is dead, that's what it means. And it's a 20th century idea. A professor of church history in Yale University was recently asked to comment on the chaos. The chaos of belief in the Protestant churches. And he said this. He said, none of us is sure what we believe, but let's unbelieve together. I ask you, if that's the only unity we can have, it will make not that much impact on the world outside. Let's unbelieve together. Unity must be based on truth. We must agree on what we believe. Then we'll make an impact. Now there were two groups who resisted liberalism, two groups who've resisted it. It's very strongly. On the one hand, the Roman Catholics resisted it because they felt that experience was not the test, but the church was. And in 1950, the Pope promulgated a new belief that the assumption of the Virgin Mary's body after her death, the ascension of her body to heaven was now part of the Christian faith. It was in this way that he asserted that for Rome at least the church is the final arbiter of truth. The other group that resisted this movement and thank God the majority of Protestants are in this group, though not in this country, where the evangelicals who said for us the Bible is the arbiter of truth about Christ, not the church, not my experience, both of which must be examined by the word of God which we believe is contained in Holy Scripture. And I suppose the evangelicals found at least one spokesman in the most famous preacher of this century about his pastor called Billy Graham, whose catch where the Bible says became a very real popular expression of the evangelical position. Well now that's the first is a may I move then onto the second because we've almost touched it. The second is the big factor today is ecumenism. Archbishop Tempel said this was the great new fact of our era. Now I have spoken about an ism which I believe is holy bed. I now speak about an ism which is very complex because it is so mixed and I want to try and be absolutely fair. Let's first of all get the word ecumenical clear. It's a word that everybody's using but very few people understand. The word ecumenical comes from a Greek word ecumenical which means the whole inhabited world. And this word has been taken up to mean a movement for the unity of Christians in the whole inhabited world. The ecumenical sphere. Now let's look at how it developed. I want to give you certain dates. 1910, 1948, 1961. These are the key dates to remember. First of all let me tell you about the movement for unity before 1910. Every book I've read on the ecumenical movement says it began in 1910. That's not true. It began years earlier. It really began in the 19th century. It could have been said to have been begun when William Carey suggested that Christians from all over the world met at the Cape of Good Hope for fellowship. That was the first suggestion of a meeting for unity and it was at the end of the 18th century that that was said. But it was in the 19th century that Christians felt the need for unity. But I want you to notice it was the evangelicals who felt the need for this unity and who first began to establish it. 1845 the evangelical alliance was formed and began to jump the gulfs between denominations. Movements like the student Christian movement and the YMCA in their early days which were thoroughly evangelical were aimed at creating unity between Christians of different denominations. Casi 1875 began to meet together under a banner all run in Christ Jesus and brought Christians of all denominations together. At the beginning of this century there were such movements as the federal council of evangelical churches in this country. Later the evangelical was crossed out and free was put in and became the free church federal council. At the same time the denominations of the world were beginning to form world denominational fellowships, the Baptist world alliance, the Methodist world council, all these came into being in the first ten years of this century. So that on the one hand you had even evangelical unity across the denominations and denominational world fellowships forming. That's the pattern until 1910. Now in 1910 the missioners of the world came together in Edinburgh and they came together because they had a burden and I can put the burden so simply. A friend of mine went to India and met an Indian Christian and said to this Indian I'm so glad to meet an Indian Christian and the Indian Christian replied but I'm a Canadian Baptist. Now it is that kind of silly thing that caused the burden. We had taken our ideas, our organizations, our labels and we'd taken them all over the world and instead of leading people to Christ we'd made them this or that or the other. Now you've heard already tonight that that mistake is not being made in Latin America, but it was made by Missionary Society all over the world in the 19th century. And there was the realization that we had locked Christians up in their own little compartment, separated from others in the compartment of a different label. And it was out of that burden, which was a real burden that Missionary came together in 1910 and said, "This is ridiculous. What's the answer?" The tragedy is that there were two possible answers and they didn't discuss both. One answer is to do away with denominational labels and indeed to do away with denominations. The other answer is to unite the denominations in one denomination and label it one. Now there are two possible ways of dealing with this and they only consider the second. And out of that conference came a number of things. You've heard what happened as far as Latin America was concerned. It stimulated evangelicals to unite and go in as a mission field through the evangelical union of South America. I never knew that until tonight from his Crookshame. But from it came various movements, one to examine beliefs called faith and order and one to examine behavior, called life and work. And these two movements gradually coalesced until in 1938, the World Council of Churches was formed. The war prevented it from ever acting as such and it was not until 10 years later in 1948 that the World Council of Churches was actually able to meet in its own name in Amsterdam, but it was formed in 1938. Now during this period, 1910 to 1948, numerous unions had taken place in Canada 1925 Methodist congregations and Presbyterians became the United Church of Canada. In South India 1947 Methodist congregations, Presbyterians and Anglicans became the Church of South India. In 1929, three different groups in Scotland became the Church of Scotland. In 1932, three different groups of Methodists became the Methodist Church. And during that period, 1910 to 1948, union had been going on in many ways. In 1948, the World Council of Churches came together. 147 denominations from 44 countries said we intend to stay together. Now that's a very impressive number, but I want to tell you because I think you need to know that the majority of Christians today are still outside the World Council of Churches. We hear a lot about it and assume it's the only union of Christians. It is not. It is one, and it's one that we hear most about in this country, but it's only one among others. It now includes the Orthodox Christians or many Orthodox from the Eastern part of Europe. It has never included the Roman Catholics who maintain a discrete distance, but are friendly towards it. It has never included the vast majority of Baptists or of evangelicals generally. But it has included the four mainline, the Piscoblary Anglican Methodist Presbyterian Congregational. Now, 1961 is the next date I give you. And that was in New Delhi, 1961 World Council of Churches. And the shift in emphasis at that council was this, from unity to union. And there was now a plea to the Churches not just to have unity with one another, but to go all out for union and unity locally was defined in terms of union organically. 1964 or '5' was it? Nottingham Facing Daughter Conference in Britain took this up. And with a ringing and imaginative plea, asked the Churches in Britain to arrange for organic union of the denominations in England by Easter Day 1980. And that date has caught the imagination of many denominations in this country. Anglicans and Methodists are engaged in negotiations. I think the present negotiations will fall through, but some new ones will begin a few years after, and I think those will go through. Presbyterians and congregations are talking, and I think that will go through much more easily within the next five to ten years. This is the situation in which we are. And undoubtedly it's one of the biggest factors we have to cope with. Now why do the Romans stay out precisely because they believe the Church is in the last analysis the Arbitr of Truth? Why do the evangelicals stay out for the most part the answer is precisely the same? And yet different because they believe the Bible is the final Arbitr of Truth. And since 1910 the ecumenical movement has largely been a partner of the liberal thinking. There have been many wonderful Christians in it, men of the caliber and stature of John A. Mott, J. H. Odom, Bishop Bell and many others that I've mentioned, and evangelicals in staying out are not saying those who are in and not Christians. They are saying this. They say we do not believe the Church of Christ is made up of all the denominations. We believe it's made up of all those who are born again of the Holy Spirit. We do not believe that unity is to be a thing of visible organization. We believe that Christ the night before he died prayed that his disciples would be one as he and his father were one, which was not a visible unity, but was a unity of mind, of heart and of will. And evangelicals feel that until there is a unity of heart, mind and will, organizational unity is a mockery of the real thing. It is for these and many other reasons that the majority of evangelicals in the world have stayed outside. Nevertheless, many evangelicals desire to talk and desire to have fellowship with those sincere Christians who belong to the Lord and who are struggling within the movement to see that it produces the real thing. The biggest question over the whole thing which to my mind needs to be answered is the question I tried to answer in that debate with the Bishop of Bristol, a week or two back. It is this, what is the primary inspiration of this? Is it satanic? Is it human? Or is it divine? That may sound an incredibly blasphemous question to you, but I believe a very good case can be made out for all three possibilities. And it is because it is such a mixture of all three that one has not a red light or a green light, but a yellow light saying caution. Go steadily. If this is of God as Gamelio said it will last, if it is not, it will come to nothing. One of the things I want to say next Sunday evening is this, I don't believe the Church of Jesus Christ will ever be visibly one this side of heaven. And I think if you got everybody into an organization, one organization tomorrow morning, someone would have broken away from it by next Sunday and started another fellowship. But the real unity, the real unity is the unity of the Holy Spirit which is to be found in all Christians of all denominations who have been born again of the Spirit who know and love the Lord Jesus. You'll find some of those, more of those less of those as you move from church to church, but wherever you find them, you'll find that within minutes you can have fellowship with them. That is the basic unity. The one good thing to my mind that this has done is to stimulate evangelicals to closer unity, both in the world evangelical fellowship and in local national evangelical groups. And this is quite thrilling. There is a coming together of those who love the Lord and His Word in this country as well as in others that is going to be more and more powerful in the future. Now the third is a my come to his pentecostalism. It is a 20th century movement. It was born just at the turn of the century. And it's about this that I want to speak now. Funnily enough, I was presented for getting a first in some exams, a church history volume, great thick thing which is by the great Baptist scholar in America, Kenneth Scott, Latin red. And it's a wonderful history of 2,000 years of the church. And I'm indebted to it for the series I've been giving you. It's a wonderful compendium effect. And if you want to read about 1500 pages, that's the book to get. It's wonderful book. But I looked in vain for any mention of the fastest growing and now the largest Protestant group in the world, the pentecostals, not a mention. And it goes right up to 1950. I find that an incredible blind spot. I know it's the youngest of all the groups, but it's now the fastest growing without any shadow of it out. Particularly in Latin America, but also in North America and in Africa and later in parts of Asia. Well, now this movement like Christianity itself was born in a stable in a stable in a zoo's a street in Los Angeles in the Negro quarter in the year 1906. And it came because some people were praying hard for a revival of the spirit of God, feeling that as they came into the 20th century, unless the Holy Spirit did something new, things would go terribly wrong. And things began to happen there, which at first they did not understand themselves, but which later they were able to understand. There was a Methodist minister in Norway in Oslo, the Reverend TV Barrett, who went to New York inquiring about this. He'd been helped by the Welsh revival of 1904, but he realized there was something more here, and he went to New York. He never got to Los Angeles except by correspondence from New York. But he came back to Norway with a remarkable experience of the Holy Ghost. The Reverend Alexander Body in all saints, Anglican Church, Sonland, heard of the Reverend TB Barrett and asked him to come to Sonland to all saints. And a revival broke out in Sonland in the year 1907. And from that small beginning in Los Angeles, in Oslo, in Sonland County, Durham, what is now the largest Protestant group has emerged. Numbering some 30 million members and many more adherents, in fact Baptism Pentecostals are like this at the moment as the two largest Protestant groups. Now, without going through all the history, except to tell you that in Latin America their growth is absolutely astonishing. One church has produced 430 other churches in seven years and is rebuilding its own auditorium to see some 25,000 people in Sao Paulo. And there are many other numbers like this. A Methodist minister who was a missionary in Latin America with a group of American Methodists was asked to leave that group because of his Pentecostal leanings. It then numbered 4,000 members. Ten years later he had led to a revival which had 25,000 members. And the Methodist missionary left still had its 4,000. That figure came out in the British weekly about three weeks ago. Well, now this is made people ask questions. And particularly since 1960 what is wrongly called the new Pentecostalism has appeared within the Orthodox churches or rather within the mainline denominations beginning with the Episcopals of America but spreading rapidly through others. Now without giving the history, may I go straight to the doctrine. What is the heart of the movement we call Pentecostalism which covers the last 60 years? What is the heart of it? May I say this that after a lot of reading and a bit of experience and a lot of fellowship in discussion with Pentecostals, I've come to the conclusion that whatever they would say is at the heart of it, this is what I say it's. It is a real belief in supernatural experience. That I would say is the heart of it. A real belief in supernatural experience. This is expressed in two fundamental teachings. And the Onus is on all those who are not Pentecostal to examine the scriptures as the disciples at Maria did and see whether these things be so. Number one, that there is a baptism in the Holy Spirit which is a conscious experience for all Christians to seek and which is neither automatic nor unconscious at the time of conversion. An experience which may take place at the time of conversion and may not and if not will need to be sought later. That's point number one. Point number two, that a baptism in the Spirit will make possible the exercise of supernatural abilities called in the Scripture, gifts of the Spirit, gifts of healing, gifts of praising God in unknown languages, gifts of interpreting those languages, gifts of miracle working, gifts of extraordinary knowledge, gifts of supernatural wisdom, gifts of special faith and so on. Now, until the Pentecostals said this, it was widely believed in the other churches that the things you read about in the Bible ceased with the apostles. And that the power of the Holy Spirit as it was made manifest in the book of Acts was a kind of booster stage of a rocket and once the rocket was in orbit the booster stage fell off. And once the church was going, these things were no longer needed. That was the general view and still is, I would think, among most Christians. But we need to go back and say is there anything in the Scripture that says that these things are not for us today. To be quite frank and to be very personal, I've set the scriptures and I can find nothing that says that. Which means, as the Pentecostals would say that one Corinthians 12 to 14 need to be taken very seriously indeed by the church today. And that such things are possible today and that Pentecost is not just an anniversary in the church calendar, but is an experience for every believer who seeks for such power. Well now, let me say straight away that there are great dangers with this. There are dangers with all power. Of course there are. And the abuses and excesses and the division and the emotionalism and the fanaticism that have resulted from this are well known. And indeed, if you look into the correspondence of Paul with the Corinthians, you'll find that the gifts were accompanied by those very abuses there. But what Paul does not say is scrap the gifts because of the abuses. Any more than the fact that because they were getting drunk at Holy Communion, he said scrap the communion. The answer to people getting drunk at Communion is not to stop Communion, but to stop them getting drunk. And Paul would have said the answer to abuse of spiritual gifts is not to stop them, but to use them rightly and properly. And there is a right way to use them. This is why one of the greatest legs of the Pentecostal movement has been sound, biblical teaching that would keep everything decent and in order and would keep it where God wanted it to be. That to my mind is the answer. I think other churches had the light. I think Pentecostals had the heat and heat without light or light without heat is inadequate to fulfill God's will. But heat plus light is a pretty combustible combination. And I think this is what they rediscovered. There are four safeguards needed to abuse and excess. One, the word of God tells you how to use the gifts for the good of others. Two, the reason of men, not such an emphasis on the emotion that the reason departs. Third, the discipline of the church and fourth, the holiness of the believer. Given those four things, then I think these things could add a great deal to the church. But quite frankly, most of the older churches are like old bottles having new wine poured in when this begins to happen. Let me summarize this by saying four things I have learned from the Pentecostal movement, which I believe every church needs to learn. Number one, it is a movement of the common people. Now I mean no disrespect to taught here, I'm speaking very plainly. Abraham Lincoln said the Lord must love common people, he made so many of them. And I'm sure that's true. But what I mean is this, churches that depend upon natural gifts become thoroughly bourgeoisie and middle class. But Pentecostalism has shown us that supernatural gifts have no regard for persons. And that anybody who loves the Lord in his field of the spirit can lead the church. And therefore to put it in blunt terms, I think there is something in the criticism that was made in this rather crude phrase, the ecclesiastical bourgeoisie and the Pentecostal proletariat. But it's the one movement this century that has broken out of the middle class straight jacket of the church. And I rejoice in that. I think we can learn for that. When God gives spiritual gifts, he doesn't look at the degrees after a man's name. He doesn't look at his educational diplomas. He doesn't look at the size of his house. He distributes them as he wills. Now the second thing I've learned is this. That if people have their tongues loosened in praise, they will have their tongues loosened for witness. And one of the reasons why Christians don't speak about Christ outside the church more is that they don't speak to Christ inside the church more. And I'm sure that worship benefits when the spirit prompts anyone to lead in worship and enables anyone to do so. Thirdly, I've already mentioned this congregational worship and fourthly, and this is the biggest thing I have learned. Faith to expect to see God work. The ultimate answer to the God is dead movement is to see the work of the Holy Spirit. That's the ultimate answer. And it's an unanswerable answer. It is because it is so easy to look at a church and say God must be dead for all that happens in that church. That these people get away with it. But I do believe that a movement of the Holy Spirit would answer the God is dead movement and say this God, this old fashioned God in whom we believe is still alive and is still able to save and to change lives and is still able to perform miracles. It's to believe in a living God and a miraculous God and a supernatural God. I've learned that. Well, now that was the third ism. May I then close this rather long sermon. The 20th century has been a very difficult one for the church, but not impossible with God. All things are possible. Some doors of clothes China has closed. Salana is closing. India is closing. Our mission is to have a place. having difficulty getting back in, getting visas now. Doors are closing. Other doors are opening wide. Latin America is wide open as you've heard. It was in 1915, that Peru finally said officially that religious toleration was the order of the day and other faiths could be preached. Doors are opening as well as closing and we need to remember that. The church is growing fast. Make no mistake. You may not see it in this country, but make no mistake over the world it's growing fast. Now just let me repeat this figure for you. It's an accurate figure. Every minute I have spoken, there are 15 more Christians in the world than there were the minute before, even allowing for the deaths of Christians. There are 15 more, every minute I speak. That's a tremendous rate of growth. On the encouraging side, I tell you that the Bible is still the best seller. I tell you that the Wikliffe Bible translators who started in 1933 have tackled hundreds of languages. There are 4,600 languages in the world, as you probably know. And there were some 1600 done by 1933 and the Wikliffe Bible translators under the title 2000 tons to go said, we're gonna tackle the rest and make sure that everybody can read the word of God in their own language. And Mary Smith, who was here in this church before she went out to Central America, is coming back on Friday night to tell us of her first work in this field. Radio literature, I wish that radio and television in this country were as available to us as they are in Latin America. It's a tragedy that mass media are not as available. And this is one of the findings of our commission on evangelism that here is a door that's closed to us. And we're going to make some suggestions as to how we might get it pushed open a little. But in Africa, LWAR, radio LWAR and literature, African challenge, mass evangelism, that's a feature of our day, evangelism and depth. Above all, mission-rezeal, now we've come to think that the United States is the front-man in this now. And in a sense, this is true. Britain is no longer the leader of the world in sending out mail and money. America is. But one of the most exciting facts to me of the 20th century is this. The younger churches of Africa and Asia and Latin America are mission-reminder churches. And now they are sending out missionaries. It's changed the whole pattern of the China inland mission, which has now moved its headquarters from Britain to Singapore so that it may send out nationals from their churches to other nations. And it's no longer west to east and north to south. It will soon be vice versa. And the day is coming when people will come from these places to our country to tell the pagans of Britain who've never heard about the Lord Jesus Christ. I can see that coming. But will the church win the battle? Or will it die out? By the year 2000, will the church have survived? What will happen in the future? I can only say come next Sunday and hear the next thrilling installment of the church of Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Oh gracious God, our loving Heavenly Father, we do thank you that the Lord Jesus is building his church and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it. And we thank you for every encouragement we have from any part of the world where the Holy Spirit is at work. Help us we pray to learn from each other. Help us to discern what is true and what is significant in the world around us. Help us to try the spirits and see whether they be of God. And help us above all, so to preach that old old story in new languages, in new ways, but a message that still saves, that we may have the joy of knowing that we are part of a church that is growing every day, a church to which you are adding those who are being saved. And this we ask in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. You have been listening to David Porson. Other talks by David Porson can be found and downloaded free of charge by visiting www.DavidPorson.co.uk.