Is This Still That?: Defending the Pentecostal Faith

By Jonathan Sargent

The Advent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost caused quite a commotion: 120 believers speaking in tongues, every foreigner hearing the wonderful works of God in their native language, and 3,000 people saved! The Church was birthed, and the Holy Ghost was poured into the followers of Christ.

On that day, there were those who were amazed and questioned, "What does this mean?" Likewise, there were those who mocked them, saying, "These men are full of new wine."

But Simon Peter, in his inaugural address to the Church, silenced the critics with the words of the Old Testament prophet, "But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh."

Peter proclaims, "This is that!" This is what Joel prophesied was coming nine hundred years ago.

The question we face is this: "Is this still that?" The Church was birthed with signs and miracles following them. Was that for only them? Has there really been a cessation of gifts? Is it still for us two thousand years later?

This book, Is This Still That? Defending the Pentecostal Faith, attempts to answer the following questions:

Is there a continuation of signs and wonders?

Where did the Church begin moving away from the supernatural power of the Spirit, and how did they get it back?

How does one receive the baptism in the Holy Ghost?

What is it that the Pentecostal/Charismatic Church is guilty of that makes people doubt our message?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885406727

Book preview

cover.jpg

Is This Still That?

Defending the Pentecostal Faith

Jonathan Sargent

ISBN 979-8-88540-671-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88540-672-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Jonathan Sargent

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

All Bible references in this paper come from the King James Version of the Bible, except where clearly noted.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Why It Took So Long for the Pentecostal Movement

The Reformers Cessationist View

The Lead Up to the Pentecostal Movement

John Wesley

A Brief History of the Beginning of Pentecostalism

William J. Seymour

Azusa Street revival

Now What?

Arguments Against Cessationism

Countering the Arguments for Cessation

Speaking in Tongues

Baptism in the Holy Ghost Explained

How to Receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost

Must Be Born Again

Be a Receiver

Sanctification

Obedience

Desire

Faith

Stop Resisting

Ask

How Not to Receive

A Few Issues that the Pentecostal Church Needs to Address

Issues over Wealth and Materialism

Worldliness

Religious Self-Righteousness

Religious Emotionalism

Ministers

It is an Offensive Message

Conclusion

About the Author

In perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen…in perils among false brethren.

—2 Corinthians 11:26

We've been called trash, tongue-talkers, holy rollers, demon-possessed—you name it, we have been called it. People do not understand us. Yet we thrive. Today, there are more than a half billion of us. Of course, I am taking about the Pentecostal Church.

But what are we? What is the true Pentecostal Church but a group of radicals who long to get back to the Bible? Preachers all over the world from every denomination believe in the immutability of God. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever, the book of Hebrews says. For I am the Lord, I change not, says Malachi 3:6. Preachers quote it but then spend the rest of their sermon trying to prove why it's wrong. Well, that was for back then, they say. God doesn't speak to people like that anymore and The gifts and signs were done away with when the apostles died. On and on, I have heard it all. Is it true? Or is it an excuse for the lukewarm to explain away what they lack?

And what about the other side of the coin. What about the ones who will readily claim to be filled with the baptism in the Holy Ghost without one shred of evidence of sanctification or zeal for God? Or the self-righteous hypocrite who looks down their noses at everyone that does not measure up to their holier-than-thou attitude?

The Pentecostal Church has allowed tares to grow among the wheat so long that we cannot even discern the spirit that operates in our churches anymore. Churches that once longed to have an experience with God now are satisfied with just an experience, whether it be of God or not. They have sought tongues and been satisfied with a counterfeit that the devil has gladly gave them (yes, I do believe the devil can counterfeit the real). They taught people how to speak in tongues and repeat some gibberish and then yell, You got it! It! It? The Holy Ghost is not an it. He is the third person of the Trinity. God the Holy Ghost infilling a vessel! But who needs that, right? No, we have got plenty that do not want to be the temple of the Holy Ghost. They are perfectly content to talk in tongues and live like the devil just so they can fit in in the Pentecostal Church.

So now what? In this book, I would like to defend the true Pentecostal faith. There are extremes on either side, but there is a right way. I believe in the Pentecostal experience with every fiber of my being, but I can understand why the world has a hard time accepting us. I believe we need a Reformation in the Pentecostal/Charismatic Church. Just like when Martin Luther walked up to the door of Wittenberg and nailed his famous theses to it, I believe we need a discussion within the Pentecostal Church again. Luther began with the words, Out of love for the truth and from the desire to elucidate it. He challenged those in the Church to debate his arguments. I can imagine Luther trembling as he drove the nail in the door, knowing he was dealing with the holy. I also approach this subject with fear and trembling, knowing that every idle word will be given an account for on the Day of Judgment.

My question is this: how did the Church of the book of Acts become the Church of today? How could the Church go from Spirit infilling accompanied by an earthquake, like in Acts 4, to the without fruit, twice dead (Jude 12) services of the modern era? With this question, I have spent the last twelve years studying to understand what happened throughout Church history to bring about this transformation. I have earned a bachelor's and master's degree in church history as well as a doctorate in theology and a doctorate of philosophy in biblical studies trying to answer that question. My whole pursuit brings me to the issue of Pentecostalism.

Having retained my belief in the soundness of Pentecostal theology, I can see where some things need to be reformed and other things need to be solidified. So let us look at the arguments against us concerning gifts. Are they for today? Or had they ceased long ago? And then let us deal with a few issues that I feel are killing the Pentecostal Church from within.

Can we at least reason together?

Leonard Ravenhill once said in his book, Sodom had no Bible, that the book of Acts describes the Church of Jesus Christ before it became fat and out of breath by prosperity, and muscle bound by over-organization. He continues that the people did not sign articles of faith; they acted in faith. They did not say prayers, they prayed in the Holy Ghost!¹

Oh, what a time that would have been to see a man at the Gate Beautiful who had been lame from his mother's womb now leaping and praising God as we read in Acts 3? Or how would it have been to see Dorcas raised from the dead by Peter in the town of Joppa as recorded in Acts 9? What about the church service where Eutychus was raised from the dead by the Apostle Paul like Acts 20 tells us?

But no! Now we have dead mausoleums for churches. Rituals have replaced the supernatural. Forms of godliness take the place of what was once the Shekinah, the glory of divine presence. Repeat after me has replaced old-time salvation. Tears that should stain the altar rails of our churches have fallen out of favor with the Laodicean age we now live in. We want to make the Church seeker-friendly, while we forget that there is only one seeker—the Holy Ghost.

What is wrong with the Church of the Living God? I'll tell you what. We have grown at ease in Zion. We have become like Eli, the priest in 1 Samuel 4. We have grown old and fat and let every abomination under the sun come into the Church and then are dumbfounded because the glory has departed from Israel. Many of the churches should have Ichabod written over their doors. We have become the Church of the Laodiceans, all right. You ever notice that the other churches of Asia were churches either of or in the first six cities? But the seventh church is not of Laodicea or in Laodicea; rather, it is the Church of the Laodiceans. It is a church geared toward people. The biting words of Jesus to that backslid church was that they were neither hot nor cold but lukewarm. He continues to tell them that they think they are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

What an indictment! To call a church something that would make Jesus vomit them out of His mouth! Tell me why the modern church is so much different? Five of the seven churches of Asia were commanded to repent, and the Church was not seventy years old yet! Repent, he said. To turn! Churches who had been founded by the apostles were told to turn around. I am telling you that the modern church, and that includes many of the Pentecostal churches, had better turn around before it is too late. But why should they? After all, they have their big megachurches. The pastors are treated like rock stars. The bank account is full! What of it?

F. F. Bruce told the story of how Thomas Aquinas once called on Pope Innocent II when the latter was counting out a large sum of money. You see, Thomas, said the pope, the Church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.'

True, Holy Father, was the reply, neither can she now say, ‘Rise and walk.'²

How true that is! We can throw money at the problems, but why do we not go back to when men walked with the power of God resting upon them? Oh, I know weak men have explained away the gifts of God. They're not for today, they scream from the pulpits, trying to convince themselves of that as much as they want others to believe it. That was for back then, they say while simultaneously saying they believe every word of that Bible. They condemn anyone who speaks in tongues even though the Apostle Paul commanded them to not forbid anyone from speaking in tongues. They claim the gifts of healings are gone while the Bible says it is one of the signs of the believers (Mark 16:18 KJV). My fear is that the Church has lost its power at a time when it needs it more than ever.

But my purpose here is to discuss some issues on both sides concerning the Pentecostal Church. As a pastor in the Pentecostal Church, I fully believe in the foundational truths of our message. We know the power of God. We have prayed until heaven has invaded our very souls. We know what it is like to be hooked up to the jumper cables from heaven! We have stood in the cloud like Moses and have been invited into the presence of a holy God. It would be blasphemy for any of us who have tasted of the heavenly gift (Hebrews 6:4 KJV) to deny what we have experienced.

Well, you can't go on feelings, some would sneer. That is true. But tell Moses that when he walks off Sinai, glowing with the power of God. Tell the 120 at Pentecost that when the rushing mighty wind infiltrated that Upper Room.

What I am getting at is that we have been there. We have tarried and sought God until He, God, the Holy Ghost, commandeered this vessel. There are not enough devils in hell that will convince someone who has been baptized in the Holy Ghost that this is not real. So what does the devil do? He then tries to make tares grow among the wheat. He tries to make the Pentecostal Church into a circus of emotionalism without a trace of God in the midst. He changes the message of Pentecost into that of this modern humanistic nonsense that the Church has become ensnared with. It's time we get back to the roots of Pentecostalism and Christianity itself.

Why It Took So Long for the Pentecostal Movement

T he world is against you, Athanasius!

St. Athanasius responds, Then I am against the world.

The Pentecostal movement as we know it began on January 1, 1901, in Topeka, Kansas, at Bethel Bible School. Charles Parham had been preaching that the scriptural evidence for the baptism of the Holy Ghost was speaking in tongues. In a watch service on the first day of the twentieth century, Agnes Ozman began speaking in tongues.³ For three days, she could not speak English. She was speaking in Chinese and could only write in Chinese characters. Not only that, but thirty-four other students followed suit and began speaking in tongues. Pentecost had come. What Christians had longed after for centuries was now being poured out upon God's people! Every Christian should have been ecstatic! Right?

Wrong! The birth of the Pentecostal Church was ushered in just like every other church movement before it. Some loved it. Some despised it. And some could not understand it. Just like the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, there were many that were asking the question, What meaneth this? (Acts 2:12 KJV). And, naturally, there were those who mocked them too. But had it really occurred in a vacuum? Was this latter rain such an unexpected event?

To understand the birth of the Pentecostal Church, one needs to look back through Church history. After all, the Church was born speaking in tongues at Pentecost. Why should it have ever ceased? Paul had warned believers from forbidding anyone from speaking in tongues and had encouraged all to speak in tongues at Corinth (1 Corinthians 14 KJV). Every person in Scripture that received the Holy Ghost baptism was recorded as speaking in tongues. Then why would that become taboo? How could anyone who had ever picked up a Bible and read the New Testament argue against speaking in tongues? It is one thing to not understand, but to condemn anyone for longing for a biblical experience of Holy Ghost baptism seems odd. So why was it so strange when it happened?

The answer, I believe, lies in nearly two millennia of human intervention. Any Protestant with any knowledge of Church history knows how the Catholic Church had led people away from Jesus Christ. Martin Luther and the Reformers would have never faced the threat of persecution if that had not been the case. The struggle for power over bishoprics and politics among bishops had created a monster within the Church. The supernatural was replaced with liturgy. The lust for power and wealth had transformed the Church from a spiritual entity into a hierarchy. Still, the question remains, why did people ever allow it to happen?

To understand this, I believe we must begin with Montanus. Montanus was a man who appeared on the scene late in the second century in the area of modern-day Turkey. Montanus had most likely been a priest of the Oriental cult of Cybele before his conversion to Christianity. According to the fourth-century historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, Montanus, in about AD 172 or 173, entered an ecstatic state and began prophesying.⁴ Montanus then became the leader of a group of the illuminati or the enlightened. He had two women who accompanied him who considered themselves prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla. They preached about the Second Coming of Christ being at hand and emphasized everyone seek after a deeper experience with Christ. This movement, by now known as Montanism, called for a reliance on the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit while also emphasizing a more conservative personal ethic.⁵ Montanus and his two prophetesses, or the Three, as they were known, urged people to prayer and fasting. The movement was one that obviously was promoting the work of the Holy Ghost in the Church. Soon, his teachings spread throughout the Christian world to Africa and Gaul.

This is the part I want to be careful with. To read about Montanus means you will hear all kinds of opinions on him and the movement. It reminds me of Constantine, the Roman Emperor who allowed Christianity to become a legal religion. To some, he was the savior of Christianity, and to others, he nearly destroyed true Christianity. The same applies to Montanus. To most, he is viewed as a heretic, but to others, he was a misunderstood prophet that the Church condemned out of fear of his influence. The reason I say I am careful here is because only God will judge Montanus, and I do not want 1,900 years of biased opinion to cloud my view.

What does appear to happen is that the Three prophesied the Second Coming of Christ to a plain between the two villages of Pepuza and Tyrion in Phrygia on a certain day. Apparently, many of the followers went there to await this event, and many Christian communities were almost abandoned. To the disappointment of the followers of Montanus, the event did not occur.

Did all this happen as many have reported, only God knows. But what did occur, which is the point that is of significance to us, is that the Church condemned Montanism as a heresy. The condemnation of Montanism by the orthodox Church put a virtual end to the tradition of Christian prophecy and ecstatic worship.⁶ The Church that was threatened by this movement may have very well been justified in condemning the movement. Maybe. Or it could have been a trick of Satan to slow the supernatural manifestation of God in the Church.

The most famous supporter of Montanism was the Church father and theologian, Quintus Florens Tertullian. When the pope, probably Eleuterus, condemned the movement, Tertullian lamented the decision. He wrote:

For after the Bishop of Rome had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and, in consequence of the acknowledgment, had bestowed his peace on the Churches of Asia and Phrygia, he [Praxeas], by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their Churches…compelled him to recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: He drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father.⁷

To Tertullian, the Church had been moved away from the gifts and signs because of false accusations. His words, put to flight the Paraclete, means he believes they had run off the Holy Spirit. What a terrible thing to tell the Holy Ghost you do not need Him! Whatever the case, I am convinced that they threw the baby out with the bath. The Church had always spoken with tongues and believed in the miracles and signs. Justin Martyr, who died in AD 165, in his Dialogue with Trypho, makes the comment: For the prophetical gifts remain with us, even to the present time.⁸

Now let us go back and look at what the Church had done. They had not condemned all signs and miracles. They had not forbidden the speaking of tongues. What they had started was moving the Church toward a more liturgical form of worship. Their push against the ecstatic worship would do great damage to the Church, however. The manifestation of the Spirit, as any person who believes in the charismatic gifts would tell you, occurs when you are in fellowship with God. To take away the freedom to worship God in Spirit and in truth quenches the Holy Ghost. But does that mean that, all of a sudden, the power that had been in the early Church simply fell off the map until the twentieth century? Of course not. But it does give us an insight as to why the Church began operating in the more formal type of worship and moved away from the experiences of the book of Acts.

A simple examination of recorded Church history would show us how the Church had moved so far away from the example of the New Testament to bring it to the monstrosity it had become by the time Luther posted his theses. In Matthew 13:32, Jesus tells the parable of the kingdom being like a grain of a mustard seed. He tells of how it is the least of the seeds, but something happens to it to where it becomes a tree and the birds of the air come and lodge thereof.

One interpretation is that the seed is the word, the tree is the Church that grows out