Pentecost, Its Scope, Power and Perpetuation By
W. G. Bennett
when men learn the secret of concentration in prayer, as the great masters of this world have learned the secret of concentrating on their objective.
Mr. Gladstone said that of the thirty great men he had known, less than twelve were mentally capable of true prayer. This great statesman did not have in mind what we ordinarily mean by praying. Almost any of us can do that. What he evidently had in mind, is that Art that can only be learned by long practice and intense desire after a given objective; that effort by which we gain audience with God and secure the thing desired. Abraham pleading for Lot; Moses pleading for Israel, when God had said, "Let me alone that I may destroy them," notwithstanding, Moses prevailed. These are sublime examples of prevailing prayer. You need not be an intellectual giant to learn this Art, but if you become proficient here, it will wonderfully help your mentality, although no educational institution will be likely to confer a degree upon you.
Henry Ford has preserved the old depot where a conductor put Thomas A. Edison out of the baggage car and off the train, because he set the car on fire with his experimentation while working as a baggage boy on the train. Thomas A. Edison was genius possessed. He became the world's greatest inventor and will be known in history as the wizard of Menlo. He would work for periods of several days without sleep, and with very little to eat.
Rev. Thos. McClarey is very little known in history, but when Charles G. Finney went to Rochester, N. Y., to begin that great revival that Lyman Beecher, Finney's enemy ecclesiastically, says was the greatest revival in the history of the Christian Church, McClarey was already on the field. He was prayer enamored, prayer possessed. Those who entertained him thought him almost insane. He prayed all hours of the night and day. He would frequently leave the table, sobbing like a heart-broken child. It is recorded that a hundred thousand were converted in and around Rochester in one year's time. Lawyers, doctors, statesmen, business men, fashionable, cultured women, so many of this class, that the city was noted for righteousness, and Mr. Finney declared that the higher intelligence men possessed, the more susceptible they were to the Gospel. There were also multitudes of the rabble, drunkards, harlots, dope fiends, old men and little children. Mr. Finney declares that much of the success of this meeting was due to McClarey's praying. Converts in Finney's meetings born in an atmosphere of prayer were possessed by it. They prayed alone and in companies, many of them spending all night in prayer.
Pentecost was a demonstration of the increase of power, with the increase of those converted, and engaged in the activity. Three thousand the first day, then five thousand men, then multitudes of both men and women. Who knows what could be accomplished with a hundred such men, as Thos.
McClarey, banded together to pray for another Pentecost? I may or may not live to see it (that is immaterial) but I want to record my faith and expectancy for the greatest revival of all history.
There is in music what is called crescendo. At the first Pentecost, the sound of the trumpet waxed louder and louder. Our God does not grow weary with the flight of years. "I, the Lord, change not."
There is no hint in Scripture that the Pentecostal Dispensation was to close in defeat; the contrary of that is clearly indicated and implied. Pentecost was an example of what can be accomplished in spiritual dynamics by united, protracted, cheerful, determined concentration in prayer for the outpourings of the Holy Ghost. See Luke 11:5-13; 24:53; Acts 1:13-14; 2:1; 4:23-33. We are not
quite certain as to the time the hundred and twenty tarried, whether it was seven or ten days, but they tarried until. The time they tarried in the united prayer recorded in Acts, fourth chapter, is not stated, but it did not seem to be long. However, it was until. We are not told how long the twelve brethren who received their personal baptism with the Holy Ghost at Ephesus tarried, but evidently it was until; for the whole city was stirred — shrine making was decreasing and even the great temple of Diana was in danger of being despised. And the restless traveler Paul, was detained there two years.
So that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus. Neither was the exact number of a hundred twenty necessary to secure a repetition of Pentecost, for here at Ephesus apparently there were but twelve. Jesus took the lowest possible number of a unified effort when He said.
"Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father, which is in heaven." This "anything" certainly could not exclude Pentecost.
In the great revival of 1858 in the north of Ireland, they had sent a Committee to investigate the great revival then in progress in America. These men returned with a glowing account that inspired hope and faith for a real revival. Companies were formed to pray with that objective, but as the days and weeks went by, these praying ones dwindled until there were but two that held on. Then after some weeks the number increased until there were two bands. Then, occasionally, someone would be powerfully converted. One day in the day school the unusual happened. The master noticed a lad become restless, and lose all interest in his studies. Thinking the child was sick, he sent another boy who had recently been converted, to accompany him home. These boys crawled into some bushes by the roadside, and the lad prayed through. Together they returned, just at the time of recess. Soon the master heard unusual sounds of voices. He peaked out the window to see the entire school in prayer. He soon recalled them to their studies, but to no avail. In spite of all he could do the revival had broken out in his school room, and he dismissed school. Then during the afternoon, evening, night and until sun-up and on through days and weeks on the streets, in the homes, around places of business, the attention of the people was occupied with one question, "What must I do to be saved?"
This movement spread from city to city, from county to county, in churches, in homes, in parks, and at public gatherings, until ten thousand were added to the Presbyterian Church and multitudes converted who were already members. The narrator says, like numbers were received by other denominations — Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalians and various dissenters.
An Angel spoke to Gideon and said, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." But Gideon said, "If the Lord be with me, why then is all this befallen us, and where be all the miracles which our fathers told us of?" Elisha said, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" Is our God asleep or gone on a journey, or are we too indifferent, unbelieving and dilatory to set ourselves at the job of securing His presence upon the scene? Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the Heavens and come down that the mountains might flow down at Thy presence!
Rev. John Fletcher declared that Pentecost was the opening of the Dispensation of the Spirit, and that the latter day glory which he believed was near at hand, should far exceed the first effusion of the Spirit.
Jonathan Edwards said: "Pentecost was not even the pattern day, but simply the start of Christianity." The ministry of Fletcher and Edwards was a demonstration that they were not unfamiliar with Pentecost.
Pentecost, Its Scope, Power and Perpetuation By
W. G. Bennett