Pentecost, Its Scope, Power and Perpetuation By
W. G. Bennett
I presume there could be no controversy when I say that the mission of Jesus, as a Teacher, on the Cross, and in His glorified state, was and is to bring a lost world back to God. In view of this statement, we ask what was the purpose for which all these Heavenly Hosts were placed at His disposal? "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" I suppose there are some little creatures whom the weight of a tenpenny nail would crush, who are always worrying about their poor little selves, who find great comfort for their mean religious selfishness in this Scripture; but did Jesus ever promise His followers immunity from suffering and trial It is true Angels ministered to Him when He had been pressed by temptation, and was weak in body from a forty day fast; and we have other incidents where Angels ministered to saints when pressed by temptation and trial beyond human endurance; but we are not called to be sniffling, whining babies, but soldiers, ready for long marches, short rations, and hard fighting, with no complaints.
Going back into the preceding chapter on Satan and his kingdom, we find that the great barrier in getting men to God is due to the fact that they are under the control of Satan and his demons. This being the case, and the Scriptures clearly teach it, what could be more reasonable than that Jesus in answer to the importunate pleadings of a unified Church, should pitch the mighty Angelic hosts against Satan's hosts, beat back these black-winged demons, and give men a look at their own sinfulness and the justice of their doom in the light of rationality. I believe this to be not only reasonable, but positively Scriptural.
Satan and demons are exclusively spirit beings. They inhabit the atmosphere of our world. They move with great ease, and with lightning swiftness through the air. They are powerful, militant and alert. They are never off guard. If we are left the helpless victim of their chicanery and power, our cause is already lost, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Relative to this very matter, and with the war in heaven where Angels prevailed against Satan and His Angels clearly in view, Jesus said: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven," "Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Jesus said, as He approached the Cross: "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out," and in connection with that marvelous statement given in the sixteenth chapter of John relative to the matter of conviction for sin, He said:
"Of judgment because the prince of this world is judged." Turn and read the first chapter of the Hebrew letter, for a clear vision of an Omnipotent and All-conquering Christ marshaling His Angelic Hosts for the conquest of this world. All this is in perfect harmony with His final statement and commission, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son of the Holy Ghost."
Satan is supernatural but not omnipotent; like other finite beings he is capable of development in his evil plans. I am perfectly frank to admit that we are living in an age, the most difficult in all history, to get men to God. Jesus was both Omnipotent and Omniscient; He has all power and perfect knowledge; He surveyed with unerring vision all emergencies that could possible arise, and made provision for them; His plans and programs never change, they are perfect. When He said the gates of Hell should not prevail against His Church, that statement holds good for all times: Pentecost was a verification of that statement, and every Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit since that time has
confirmed it. "Ye are come . . . to an innumerable company of Angels." "Who through faith subdued kingdoms."
A Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit rids communities and places of worship of Satanic influences, creating an atmosphere in which men become as rational relative to things that pertain to the soul, as they are to temporalities. This present generation of Christians is correct in their estimate of forces against us, but woefully wanting in their estimate of resources at our disposal. Like Elisha's servant, we need our vision clarified until we can see that "they that be with us are more than they that be with them." Every truly Pentecostal revival has purified the moral atmosphere of communities and commonwealths, and strangely affected multitudes who had not attended the meetings, or been solicited to yield to Christ by individuals. The Church holds the keys of the Kingdom, "For unto the angels hath he not put into subjection the world to come, whereof we speak." The Kingdom is to be won back from Satan, by the race who turned it over to him in the beginning, but Angelic hosts can be called to our assistance when we have reached our utmost limit.
POWER IN PERSONALITY Samuel Chadwick
The gift of the Spirit is a gift of personality. It turns ordinary persons into extraordinary personalities. That is the miracle of Pentecost.
Personality is the discovery of the age. It is not easy to define, but there is a certain currency of ideas and words that give it high rank in all modern thinking. It is meant to imply more than a person. It is a person of distinctive quality. Remarkably enough, the New Testament never uses it.
God asks for persons, and turns them into personalities. It is a quality that counts. "For Shamgar slew six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, and saved Israel; but the men of Ephraim, being, armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." The reason was not in the weapons, but in the men.
Personality is the supreme power. Superior to heredity, stronger than environment, higher than prestige, mightier than adversity, a man's personality conquers, compels, commands. It gives distinction in art, effectiveness to energy, and character to life. In all the work of the world it is personality that counts, and everywhere it is held that the qualities of powerful personality courage, strength, sympathy, and sanity. Not one of them can be spared, and I do not know that the order can be changed.
Now "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love and of a sound mind."
The gift of the Spirit is a gift of personality that possesses man's spirit, quickens man's faculties, sanctifies man's powers, and empowers him for all the will of God."
Pentecost, Its Scope, Power and Perpetuation By
W. G. Bennett