The Positive Signs of the Times

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you (John 16:7).

One of the questions that people ask and wonder about, concerning the last days, is this: Will things get better or worse as we approach the coming of Christ? It’s a good question. There are two different camps that divide around this issue.

There are those who would tell us that there will be a great revival of the church in the last days. They quote God’s promise through Joel to “pour out of His Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28) in the last days as proof positive that these days will be the church’s finest hour. They can likewise point to the progressive nature of the kingdom as evidence that the church should be stronger and holier than ever, as we reach the climax of history. The mustard seed which grows into the largest of garden plants, the yeast which works its way through three measures of dough, and Daniel’s stone cut out of a mountain without hands which grows until it fills the whole earth, all point to the expanding, increasing, irresistible nature of the kingdom of God. Should not the church manifest these qualities? Do not the Scriptures promise that Christ will return for a glorious church without spot or blemish?

Yet if there are verses which seem to indicate a revival in the last days, there are at least as many that point the other direction. Those who would paint a last days scenario in dark and gloomy colors can point to such Scriptures as:

• But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come… (2 Timothy 3:1).
• knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts… (2 Peter 3:3).
• And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12).
• Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons… (1 Timothy 4:1).

So which is it? Apostasy or revival? A world transformed by the church and the gospel, or a world rotting from within, demonized, decaying, and depraved?

I believe that the answer to this riddle is found in Matthew 13, in the parable Jesus gave about the wheat and the tares. Most of you will recall the story: Jesus tells of a farmer who planted a crop of wheat in his field. After a while his laborers came to him quite upset. They had just been out to check the field and had found a mixed crop. The wheat was coming up all right, but it was mixed with a generous portion of tares (a worthless weed that resembles wheat).

They asked their boss, “Didn’t you plant good seed in the field? What are all these tares doing, growing up in the midst of the wheat?” The farmer declared that this was the work of a man who was his enemy. The laborers wondered what they should do. Should they try to go into the field and pull out all the tares? The owner said, “No, lest you uproot the wheat with the tares. Let them both grow together until the time of harvest…” At harvest he would deal with separating the wheat from the tares, gathering the wheat and burning the tares.”

As I read that passage quite a few years ago a few words seemed to jump up at me – “Let both grow together…” The wheat, Jesus tells us are the “sons of the kingdom” and the tares are the “sons of the wicked one.” “Both good and evil will be growing together until the end of the age – maturing, ripening, growing ever stronger, more visible, more potent, more capable of reproduction, and so forth. Will things get better or worse as we reach the end of the age? The answer is yes! The wheat will grow larger and stronger than ever, and so will the tares.

It is not difficult to see the negative side. Divorce, illegitimate births, crime rates, the slaughter of the unborn, and world wars have risen to epidemic proportions in the last hundred years. Many denominations that were born in the hotbed of revival are now as cold as ice, with unconverted pastors preaching to unconverted congregations. What were once cardinal doctrines of the church are now rejected wholesale in many quarters. Liberalism has eaten its way like a cancer into many churches and denominations. And where liberalism goes, decline in church membership is sure to follow.

In the speeded up climate of the last days, a bountiful crop of tares is growing and spreading, strong and vibrant in all its lethal influence. But what about the wheat? It seems so easy to point to what’s wrong with the church and the world, and so difficult to find anything that is right. What evidence is there that the wheat harvest is going to amount to anything?

The evidence is indeed there, if you have eyes to see it. When most people think of the church’s finest days, they almost always look backwards. “If only we could get back to the days of Charles Finney, or the days of John Wesley. Now that was real revival back then!”

Testimony of Church History

Let us take a historical look at the church. You just may be surprised to find that we really are making some progress. The harvest may not be as skimpy as you think!

In the book of Acts we see a church that is everything you could want a church to be. We find frequent references to the Holy Spirit’s mighty workings. Church growth in those days was phenomenal. 3,000 people were added to the church on its inauguration day. Thousands more came in during the following weeks. Miracles abounded, apostles preached mighty, Spirit-filled sermons, churches were springing up everywhere. God was working so powerfully that even the most pagan of the pagans were fully aware of this new group known as The Way. Critics accused the apostles of filling Jerusalem with their doctrine, and they were not far wrong. Christ was being preached everywhere, both in the temple, and “from house to house.” If ever there was an exciting, dynamic church, this was surely it.

In a generation Christianity was a force to be reckoned with. In four hundred years, the church had conquered mighty Rome, and all persecution ceased. As generations came and went, the church grew more formal and liturgical, and less lively and dynamic. The power of the Holy Spirit was replaced with pomp and ceremony, and the new birth was turned into infant baptism and church attendance. The church gradually sank into a dark pit of spiritual ignorance and impotence.

By the Middle Ages nearly all was lost. Every trace of life and power was long gone, and even the most rudimentary knowledge of spiritual things had disappeared. An apostate Roman Catholic church stood as a virtual monopoly upon the truth, neither entering into the doors of eternal life, nor permitting anyone else to. Wealthy church leaders encouraged peasants to give what little money they had to the church and buy their relatives and loved ones out of purgatory. By Luther’s day one could buy certificates, signed by the Pope, offering the absolution of all sins, and guaranteeing a free pass from Purgatory. The people were told, “as soon as your coins clink in the chest the souls of your friends will rise out of Purgatory into Heaven.”

Just as Israel experienced desolation in the physical realm, the church experienced it in the spiritual. Christianity, which had been born in the flames of the Holy Spirit’s fire, was now reduced to the ashes of the memories of what had been. The prospect of restoration for either seemed highly unlikely. It appeared that God had abandoned both Israel and the church.

Israel’s restoration has been covered in a previous chapter. The church’s restoration began with a round, strong-willed monk named Martin Luther. Conscientious to a fault, Luther was obsessed with righteousness, and his lack thereof. He poured himself into earning a ticket to heaven. He prayed for hours at a time, and sometimes days at a time, allowing himself only a few hours sleep each night. He confessed his sins so thoroughly that the priests would dread to see him headed for the confessional booth. He lived according to the strictest standards, and still could find no peace with God.

With all his obsessions Martin Luther did one thing very, very right. He read the Scriptures. And as he read he began to suspect that the church had missed a most vital point, in its teachings about salvation. Although it was hazy in those early days, Luther was beginning to see that salvation was not a prize to be earned by our efforts or a multitude of good works, but was a free gift given by God to those who would believe in Jesus.

It took a while for this radical idea to work its way into Luther’s heart. The process culminated as he was on his first trip to Rome. Luther was filled with expectation as he first laid his eyes on this city of such significance to the Catholic church. But he wasn’t there long before becoming totally disillusioned. The city was a nest of vice and immorality. The priests he met there seemed far more carnal than the parish priests from the countryside. Some of them boasted that they were more virtuous than others because they limited their sex to women!

At the Lateran church Luther approached one of the church’s most holy treasures – the holy stairs supposed to have been the very stairs upon which Christ had stood as He was presented before Pilate after His flogging. Climbing the steps on his knees, Luther kissed each stair, reciting his rosary and looking for some sign of divine acceptance. But as he was mounting the stairs, he began to hear a quiet voice in his heart, reciting a Scripture which he had never fully grasped: “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). As he went higher the voice seemed to get louder: “The just shall live by faith.” Finally Luther saw the truth behind that simple statement. Our acceptance with God can never be earned by any righteous deeds we do or ceremonial acts in which we participate. We are accepted in God’s sight through faith in Jesus Christ.

Luther rose from his knees and quickly made his way down the stairs. He realized that he wasn’t going to find salvation in holy stairs, but in a holy Savior. After returning to Wittenberg and further study of the Scriptures, he began to proclaim salvation through faith in Christ alone. His message became like a spark of fire in a bone-dry forest. Before long all of Europe was shaken to its foundations. The Catholic church, which had held sway for over a thousand years, began to lose its iron grip upon the minds of men and women. A revolution had begun!

In those days truth had been so far buried that the simplest and most basic of all Christian doctrines, justification by faith, was considered a radical concept. One of the arguments that the priests used against Luther was that the church had been teaching their doctrine of salvation by works for a thousand years. Who was he to say a thousand years of church teaching was in error?

Today, in evangelical churches across the world, small children in Sunday school are being taught salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. This doctrine is no longer considered radical; in fact even many Catholic theologians are admitting that Luther’s main premise was both right and needed. (not the majority, unfortunately) The church has come a long way since Luther’s day.

Another Truth Restored

Almost everybody has heard of the Methodist church, but few know how they got their name. The Methodist church owes its name to the personal traits of its founder, John Wesley (a most “methodical” man). Wesley knew of the doctrine of justification by faith, but had not, in his early years experienced the new birth. Wesley was determined to do all he could do to make spiritual progress in his life, and hoped to eventually arrive at a right state with God. He kept a diligent record of his time, being careful to not let a precious minute slip by that wasn’t used productively. He fasted frequently, visited prisoners in the prisons, studied the Scriptures constantly, and gave himself entirely to a life of religious works.

Like Luther, he was in earnest about God, but somehow had not tasted His grace. Finally in a Bible study Wesley heard a man reading one of Luther’s notes of explanation concerning the book of Romans and the grace of God. Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed” and history was changed. Wesley took to preaching, and his message was “You must be born again.” At this time England was dominated by the Anglican church, which was doctrinally sound, but spiritually lifeless. They had embraced Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith, but most of them, including the priests, had never been born again. As a result the English clergy were as carnal as their unconverted members.

Wesley shook up the status quo by railing against the carnality of the priests, and preaching the necessity of a new birth experience that actually changed your life. Along with George Whitefield these two men shook all England, and the powerful movement was born in the fires of revival. Wesley and Whitefield were so effective in their preaching that they would just show up in an English town and begin preaching outdoors, and have crowds in the hundreds or even thousands within a short time.

The Wesley-Whitefield revivals jumped the Atlantic ocean and swept colonial America, forever shaping our nation’s destiny. It is estimated that George Whitefield personally preached to half the population of America during his lifetime. The predominant doctrine that fueled this incredible awakening was one that we take for granted today: “You must be born again.” To our generation, the idea of being born again has been promulgated so widely almost no one has not heard it. Little children in Sunday schools all across the nation are taught this from their earliest days. This is not only true in the United States, but throughout the world.

While it may not seem that we are making much progress, the truth is that the church has gained much in the last several hundred years. We have come from a place where nearly every important truth was lost, to our current situation where nearly all the major doctrines of Scripture have been, or are being put in place. The “apostles’ doctrine,” lost for many centuries, has been found.

The Invitation

Another major truth that has been restored is the concept of immediate salvation. In the early 1800’s much of the church was so steeped in hyper-Calvinism that they never invited anyone to come to Christ as an immediate act. Evangelists like Whitefield would preach fiery evangelistic sermons, and then leave people to come to Christ in God’s own good time. Whitefield was convinced that if you were one of the elect God would draw you into the fold when and as He pleased, and that there was nothing you could do about it.

When a young Charles Finney began to preach in a small town in New York, he was frustrated by the way this doctrine was preventing anyone from giving their life to Jesus. People, having been taught to wait upon the sovereign timing of God, would hear Finney’s powerful sermons, complement him on his messages, and then leave the church as lost as they were when they came. They wouldn’t dare make a “commitment” to Christ; they would passively wait for God to zap them and change their hearts when He so pleased.

Finally in desperation, Finney challenged the friendly, but unconverted community. At the end of his message, he told them that all who would receive Christ, and make Him their Savior, should make their intentions known by standing to their feet. All who would reject Christ were to remain seated. Finney declared that by staying in their seats they would be making a commitment before God, his angels, and one another that they had no intention of receiving Christ, and were taking a public stand against Him.

The crowd was dumbfounded. Who ever heard of standing up and simply receiving Christ by an act of your will? Such a thing was impossible. When Finney gave the charge to stand up and receive Christ, no one stood. Finney told the shocked audience, “Very well, then. You have publicly rejected the Lord and have made plain before one another that you will not have Jesus Christ to be your Lord!” Finney told the people that he was leaving town, but that he would preach one more night to them before he left.

As they left the building that night, the congregation’s mood turned very ugly. They were incensed that this young lawyer/preacher actually expected them to do something about their spiritual condition. In all their years of solid Calvinistic sermons they had never been challenged to do anything other than wait for God’s timing and hope that they might prove to be one of God’s elect.

Their curiosity got the best of them. The next evening they were all back in church to hear what else this impudent young preacher might have to say. Not only they, but the nearly the whole of the town showed up, drawn by the novelty of a preacher who demanded instant obedience and faith of his audience. When Finney began to preach, the Holy Spirit came mightily upon him, and he preached for an hour and a half like a mighty battering ram, demolishing their excuses and rationalizations for failing to come immediately to Christ. By the time he was done the Holy Spirit had done His work. Conviction was written on the faces of all. The work of repentance had begun, and many gave themselves to Christ that very night.

From such a small beginning the idea of the “altar call” or “invitation” was re-discovered. Of course the apostles were using such tactics long ago. Acts records Peter commanding his audience: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

The idea of a preacher giving his audience an invitation to receive Christ immediately is no longer considered revolutionary. It is done routinely by preachers in nearly every evangelical denomination. The form may be different but the idea remains the same: you can receive Christ today by faith.

Step by step and insight by insight God’s people are finding their way back to the fundamental truths that were once part and parcel of the early church. Why we lost them so long, and why it has been such an effort to get back to them is a mystery that only heaven will reveal, but at least we are going the right direction. Theological truths long hidden in the darkness of ignorance have made their way into the light of day once again. The church of Jesus is moving forward!

Restoration Today

The restoration continues. Today we are seeing restoration on several different fronts. One of those areas involves praise and worship. In the last few decades there has been a tremendous renaissance of praise and worship in the church. This restoration is so significant in the eyes of God that He prophesied of it long ago:

After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, Says the Lord who does all these things (Acts 15:16,17).

Too many Christians read this verse and never think about what it is saying. What is the tabernacle of David? What does it mean to have it restored? And why will its restoration lead to the “rest of mankind” seeking the Lord?

A Worshiping King

To understand this rather mysterious prophecy, we need to keep this in mind: David was a worshiper. Perhaps more than any character in the Old Testament, David loved to spend time in the presence of the Lord, worshipping His God. No doubt this was no small part of the reason God called him a man after His own heart.

When David became king of Israel, the ark of the covenant had been kept on a farm for many years. Saul had had little interest in it, and made no attempt to bring it to its rightful place in Jerusalem. David wasn’t king for long before he determined to bring the ark to Jerusalem. After a first failed attempt, (using a cart rather than placing it on poles and having it carried by Levites), he finally got it right, and brought the ark to Israel’s capital city. He then did something very unorthodox. He erected a tent and had the ark placed inside it. This became David’s favorite place. He visited it often, delighting himself in the presence of the Lord that he found there. He not only visited it himself, but arranged for others to worship there.

In the Psalms we read:

One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple (Psalms 27:4).

Most people read that verse and assume David was talking about going to the temple to worship God. But there was no temple at that time! David’s son, Solomon, would build the temple much later. No, the “house of the Lord” that David wanted to dwell in all the days of his life was a simple tent with a wood box in it – the ark of the Lord, who dwelt between the two cherubim who graced the top. Under the strict ceremonial Mosaic law, David would have had no right to go anywhere near the ark. That privilege was limited to high priests, and even they had access but once a year, on the Day of Atonement.

And here was David, boldly marching right into the presence of God, praying, singing, and worshiping his God freely with no condemnation. When David was told by the prophet Nathan that God was going to establish his house forever and place one of His descendants on a throne for eternity, he was overwhelmed. The Scriptures tell us:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: “Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me this far? (1 Chronicles 17:16).

Notice that David “went in” and he “sat before the Lord.” Where did he go into? He went into the tent that held the ark of the covenant. Thus, as he sat before the ark, the Scriptures record that he “sat before the Lord.” Under Moses’ regime, David should have been stoned, but under the realm of grace that David’s worshipful heart prefigured, the ark was his greatest delight, and brought no reproach.

We also read of others who went into this amazing tent:

Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests regularly blew the trumpets before the ark of the covenant of God … (1 Chronicles 16:6).

So he left Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of the covenant of the Lord to minister before the ark regularly, as every day’s work required … (1 Chronicles 16:37).

The formal, ceremonial, liturgical worship instituted under Moses was not enough for King David. His heart burned with a love for His God, and he must express it through worship “in spirit and in truth.” David seemed to love to rest beside the ark, delighting in the sweet presence of God that he experienced there, much as Joshua had lingered in the tabernacle of meeting long before. As you read the Psalms, you get a glimpse of some of the worship practices David instituted during his reign. These include, dancing, clapping the hands, singing, and the use of musical instruments of all kinds.

It is this “tabernacle of David” that is being restored today, according to prophecy. Worship and praise are being rediscovered. We see this restoration in many areas:

1. The priority of worship. In days gone by worship in most churches was an afterthought. Song leaders announced which page the particular hymn to be sung was found, and then led off. Three or four songs were sung, from the same book that had been used for the past fifty years, and then the real business of the church was begun: the preaching of the sermon. Little thought was given to the selection of songs, and rarely were new songs introduced. Nearly all song leaders were laymen, chosen either because they were willing, or because they had slightly more musical skill than average.

In the late sixties and early seventies a worship revolution began. A number churches began to take this business of worship seriously. Worship times more than doubled in length. New songs began to pour forth in great numbers. And many of these churches did a radical thing: they actually hired gifted musicians full time to serve as worship leaders. The worship service began to be looked upon as absolutely vital. These full time worship leaders labored in prayer for God to show up in the services, and spent hours choosing just the right songs for each service, and carefully choosing new songs to introduce to the congregation.

The results were spectacular! Walking into these churches was like tasting a little bit of heaven on earth. The presence of the Lord permeated the church. Attendance exploded. Gone were the dry, formal, Mosaic forms of past generations. The church had come alive. The theology wasn’t much different, but the atmosphere had changed dramatically as God inhabited the praises of His people.

2. Singing unto the Lord – One of the aspects of this worship revolution has to do with the kinds of songs that are embraced by the church. Until a generation ago, most hymns were songs about God or heaven or salvation. They were generally theologically sound and had somewhat catchy tunes (for their day). We sang about the “blessed assurance” or how it will be “when we all get to heaven” or what a “mighty fortress is our God.” These songs were encouraging, Scriptural and sound. But they lacked one thing.

They were nearly all songs about God. We weren’t singing to God; we were singing about God. For this reason we sang with our eyes open, our hands firmly grasping our aged songbooks. It wasn’t bad. The Holy Spirit was often pleased to honor such singing with His presence. But it wasn’t the ideal.

As you read the book of Psalms you discover how often David and the other psalmists addressed their poetry directly to God:

• But You, O LORD, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head (Psalm 3:3).
• Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! (Psalm 4:1).
• O LORD my God, in You I put my trust (Psalm 7:1).
• I will praise you, O LORD, with my whole heart (Psalm 9:1).

David wasn’t just talking about the Lord in his poetry; He was talking to God. Somehow, starting in the late sixties and early seventies, the church began to discover this powerful aspect of worship. We began to sing, “I exalt You,” and “Thy lovingkindness is better than life,” and “Open my eyes, Lord, I want to see Jesus.”

3. The lifting up of the hands in worship – Along with this new, God-directed music, a practice that had been a part of David’s worship began to be revived in the church. The idea of lifting your hands in prayer or worship was not an invention of the Pentecostals or Charismatics. It is found several times in the Bible and appears to be a common feature of Jewish worship:

• Hear the voice of my supplications When I cry to You, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary (Psalms 28:2) .
• Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name (Psalms 63:4) .
• Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, And bless the Lord (Psalms 134:2) .
• Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven (Lamentations 3:41) .
• Therefore I desire that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting (1 Timothy 2:8).

While it was limited almost exclusively to the Pentecostals in the 50’s and the Charismatics in the 60’s, by the 70’s a few brave churches that were not Pentecostal or Charismatic in their doctrine, but wanted fresh and dynamic praise and worship began to adopt this Biblical practice. Today evangelical churches of nearly every stripe can be found where their members lift their hands unreservedly to the Lord as they sing unto Him. As God’s people learn to sing to Him, and not merely about Him, it becomes natural to raise one hands as an expression of devotion and adoration.

4. Singing Scripture – Another element of the restoration of worship has to do with the singing of the Scriptures. When we read the Psalms we are reading the lyrics of worship songs. This was the Hebrews’ songbook. And because these Psalms were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is the worship book above all worship books. Paul writes:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16).

We are commanded to sing the word of God! It is one thing to sing about Bible truths, but it better still to sing the inspired words of God. With the worship renewal, God’s people have rediscovered the power of singing “God-breathed” words. The singing of Scripture has released a new power in the worship service.

5. Enthusiasm – One of the marks of Davidic worship was enthusiasm. In fact David was so downright enthusiastic about his worship, that his wife, Michael, mocked him. She felt his reckless, abandoned dancing “before the Lord” was simply not befitting a king. David put Michael in her place and assured her that she hadn’t seen anything yet: “And I will be even more undignified than this…” (2 Samuel 6:22).

Enthusiasm in worship is both a cause and effect of the Holy Spirit’s active presence among the people of God. The more completely we give of ourselves in worship, the greater the measure of the power of the Spirit that is manifest, and the more of the Spirit’s power made manifest, the more enthusiastically we will worship. In the days of singing three hymns from a centuries old hymnbook, it was difficult to get too enthusiastic. All the singing was done reverently perhaps, but it was too perfunctory, predictable, and flat. No one was moved; no one ever expected to be moved. It was singing but was hardly worship.

In numerous churches all over the world today, such is no longer the case. God’s people are learning that music doesn’t have to be dull to be reverent. Whole-hearted worship is the worship that honors God, and those who honor God, He will honor. God has honored those churches that delight to worship by giving them a large measure of His manifested presence. In such an environment, lives are changed, people are attracted, and churches nearly always grow.

It has been amusing for me to see how many churches, which in earlier times rejected every aspect of Charismatic worship and practice, have gradually moved closer and closer to a more contemporary style of worship. I have to admit that I think in many cases it was more a matter of pragmatism than spiritual revelation. These pastors recognized that the churches that were growing the most were the ones with vibrant, dynamic worship. Risking a little (or a lot of) grumbling among some of their more staid parishioners, they began taking a few small, daring steps toward a livelier worship. God honored these steps, and led them into higher levels of praise. This has been repeated countless times in churches all over the world. The tabernacle of David is being restored!

“I believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

There is a second great restoration that has been taking place in our generation. The knowledge of the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, has been restored to the church. Like all true restorations, we have not discovered some new thing; we have simply rediscovered what was common knowledge in the early church. For many centuries the Holy Spirit meant little more than the affirmation of a doctrine or a creed to most Christians. He was missing from the pastors’ sermons, He was missing from most Christian literature, and He was missing from the lives of most of God’s people.

While God raised up a few extraordinary men and women throughout these ages that were truly filled with the Holy Spirit, most Christians had little or no conscious awareness of the mighty Third Person of the Trinity. In the 1800’s God began to raise up voices in the church who eloquently declared and powerfully demonstrated the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.

D. L. Moody

One of these voices was the unlikely American evangelist D. L. Moody. Starting out as a Sunday school teacher, Moody showed an unusual love for the Lord and zeal for His work. He wasn’t especially effective as a speaker in his early days, but Moody persisted and gradually rose to a place of effective service. Overweight and an elementary school dropout, Moody butchered the English language and was not impressive to look at. Yet his unquenchable zeal and winsome personality enabled him to win many souls to Christ, from his earliest days as a Christian.

Eventually Moody became the pastor of a large and growing church in Chicago. During his tenure as pastor, he noticed a couple of women who would often pray quietly during his sermons. After ignoring them for a while, his curiosity got the best of him, and he called for them, to ask the reason for their continual prayers.

The women told him plainly that they were praying for him, because he needed the power of the Holy Spirit.

Here are Moody’s own words in describing his life-changing experience:

I need the power! Why, I thought I had power. I had the largest congregations in Chicago, and there were many conversions. I was in a sense satisfied. But right along those two godly women kept praying for me, and their earnest talk about anointing for special service set me to thinking. I asked them to come and talk with me, and they poured out their hearts in prayer that I might receive the filling of the Holy Spirit. There came a great hunger into my soul. I did not know what it was. I began to cry out as I never did before. I really felt that I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service.

It was during a trip to New York that D. L. Moody’s prayers, and the two women’s prayers were powerfully answered. Moody was in New York to raise funds to rebuild their church, which had been destroyed in the great Chicago fire. He continued:

My heart was not in the work of begging. I could not appeal. I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York -- oh, what a day! -- I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world -- it would be as the small dust of the balance.

Starting quietly, but gathering momentum in the second half of the nineteenth century, a doctrine began to emerge that insisted that Christians must actively seek an anointing of the Spirit upon their lives which would equip them for service. This was the doctrine that these two women had espoused, and this was what Moody sought and found. His overweight body and his broken grammar notwithstanding, Moody went on to become one of the world’s greatest evangelists. Revivals broke out under his ministry which resulted in tens of thousands of people coming to Christ. And wherever Moody had the opportunity to address the people of God, he made sure to exhort them to “be filled with the Spirit.”

Moody bemoaned the general lack of appreciation for the Holy Spirit in the church of his day:

How much we have dishonored Him in the past! How ignorant of His grace, love, and presence we have been … We have had little intelligent knowledge of His attributes, His offices, and His relations to us. I fear He has not been to many professed Christians an actual existence, nor is He known to them as a personality of the Godhead.

Charles Grandison Finney

Another American evangelist, Charles G. Finney, was also a pioneer in the church’s rediscovery of the Holy Spirit. Finney was about as different from Moody as a man could get. (It’s amazing how creative God can be in making use of widely varying instruments!) Where Moody was uneducated, Finney had a law degree. Moody was stumpy, and Finney was tall and slender. Moody was folksy and emotional, whereas Finney was more intellectual and logical. Both were mightily filled with the Holy Spirit.

Finney’s experience occurred almost immediately after his salvation experience. As a young lawyer, he had read the Bible and attended church, but saw little among the mostly uneducated Christians that attracted him. After spending time reading the Scriptures, Finney at last began to feel the pressure of the Holy Spirit upon his soul, urging him to repent, humble himself, and come to Christ. Finally he set his legal work aside and took a walk into the nearby woods. Pouring his heart out to God, he surrendered his life, received Christ, and was born again.

That night Finney had an experience that took him by surprise. Here’s how he tells it:

But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without my recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Ghost descended on me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.

No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love; and I do not know but I should say, I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart. The waves came over me, and over me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, "I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me." I said, "Lord, I cannot bear any more"; yet I had no fear of death.

How long I continued in this state, with this baptism continuing to roll over me and go through me, I do not know. But I know it was late in the evening when a member of my choir--for I was the leader of the choir--came into the office to see me in this state of loud weeping, and said to me, "Mr. Finney, what ails you?" I could make him no answer for some time. He then said, "Are you in pain?" I gathered myself up as best I could, and replied, "No, but so happy that I cannot live."

Finney’s unusual experience seemed to act as a powerful catalyst to make him a power in the pulpit as few men have ever been before or since. In his attempts to try to express what was happening he simply says, “the Holy Ghost descended on me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul…” No one had told him to seek this experience, indeed he had never heard of any such a thing as a baptism in the Spirit, yet he was clearly experiencing the Holy Spirit coming “upon him.”

Finney became a preacher of extraordinary power. During the course of one of his extended meetings, he was invited to tour a large sewing factory, owned by a Christian businessman sympathetic to Finney’s revival meetings. As he walked into the factory, he was noticed by two seamstresses who had heard of the tall evangelist and the strange scenes that often accompanied his meetings. They began to snicker at Finney, having little use for his fundamentalist views. Finney, observing their flippant attitudes, set his gaze upon them and before long the women ceased their mocking and became extremely nervous. God’s Spirit touched them and, being suddenly aware of their sinfulness and callousness, they began to cry. This crying caught on among others, and before long there were the sounds of quiet sobbing throughout the entire factory. Finney had not spoken a word!

The owner, seeing the state of things, called for everyone to meet together and hear Finney preach. After Finney’s hearty, extemporaneous sermon, very nearly the entire factory surrendered to Christ that day. Such was the razor sharp effectiveness of Finney’s anointed ministry.

Charles Finney spoke much of the power and Person of the Holy Spirit. He complained that the great need of preachers was to be “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” Speaking of a minister who had once tried to be his mentor in his early days, Finney remarked:

But there was another defect in Brother Gale’s education which I regarded as fundamental. If he had ever been converted to Christ, he had failed to receive that divine anointing of the Holy Spirit that would make him a power in the pulpit and in society for the conversion of souls. He had fallen short of receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is indispensable to ministerial success … This is an indispensable qualification of a successful ministry, and I have often been surprised and pained that to this day so little stress is laid upon this qualification for preaching Christ to a sinful world.

This kind of language was new and revolutionary to most of the church of Finney’s day. Finney never tired of encouraging Christians to seek for and receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and to honor this precious Third Person of the Trinity. He wrote:

I want you to have high ideas of the Holy Spirit and to feel that nothing good will be done without His influences. No praying or preaching will be of any avail without Him … Be careful, then, not to grieve Him away, by slighting or neglecting His heavenly influences when He invites you to pray.

Surely it was no coincidence that the two most effective American evangelists of the nineteenth century talked and wrote more about the Holy Spirit than almost anyone else! These two men, whose personalities and gifts were so radically different, had something in common: they both had a revelation of the Holy Spirit that made them highly effective instruments in the Master’s hands. Through them God was preparing the body of Christ for a rediscovery of the simple truth of Jesus’ words: “You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). The Welsh revival, the Pentecostal experience at Azusa Street, and the later charismatic movement would build on foundations laid by these and other pioneers of the Spirit in the nineteenth century. The body of Christ was receiving an education in “Pneumatology” as the winds of the Spirit began to blow.

The Pentecostals

Time does not permit me to go into much detail in tracing the restoration of the knowledge of the Holy Spirit, but I would be remiss (and cowardly) if I didn’t say a few things about the Pentecostal movement. Most church historians would date the Pentecostal movement as beginning in 1906 at the famous “Azusa Street Revival.” Its leading figure in those early days was a black preacher named William Seymour who had a passion for God and a humility among men. When conversions and supernatural gifts began breaking out under his ministry, the city of Los Angeles was set ablaze. At first a city-wide phenomenon, it was one of the first religious events to smash the color barrier that was strongly established in those days. Whites and blacks worshiped God together without even considering that they were social pioneers. They were simply hungry for the presence of God, and filled with love for all Christians. They quickly outgrew their original building, and Seymour purchased an abandoned warehouse which they immediately filled.

From those simple beginnings a movement began which shows no signs of letting up to this day. Indeed the Pentecostal faith, and its daughter, the Charismatic movement, have grown more rapidly than any other branch of Christianity. By 1955 there were 27 million Pentecostal believers worldwide. Ten years later there were 50 million. In twenty more years their numbers had multiplied to 247 million. And today there are around 450 million Pentecostal / Charismatic Christians in the world (that’s nearly half a billion!). Some researchers predict that Pentecostalism will surpass Roman Catholicism in Central and South America within the next century.

Pentecostalism is not without its flaws. Their official theology nearly always insists that one cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit unless he or she has spoken in tongues (a position I do not hold). At times they have been extremely legalistic, turning holiness into a dress code and maintaining an “I don’t have any fun and I don’t want you to, either” philosophy of life. They have often based churches and movements on powerful personalities without any forms of checks and balances. As a result many of these individuals have fallen into scandals and brought reproach upon all of Christianity.

Despite all of this, I am convinced that the church at large owes a great debt to the Pentecostals. With all their extremist views and ways, they have forced the rest of the body of Christ to take a good look at the Holy Spirit. Who is He? What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? How can I relate to the Holy Spirit? Are His gifts available to Christians today? (and I agree with them here, that His gifts are indeed available today – He has not gone into retirement!)

Today

It is still happening today. After 2000 years of church history, Christians are still struggling to get back to the insights and revelations that were a vital part of the church we read about in the book of Acts. It is interesting that in this amazing narrative of the early church, we find more references to the Holy Spirit than in all the rest of the Bible combined! We read such things as:

• But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me ... (Acts 1:8).
• And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit ... (Acts 2:4).
• Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them… (Acts 4:8).
• Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:17).

If ever there was a “Spirit-filled” church (a term some use too loosely today) this was it. They were not a perfect church, as Paul’s epistles reveal pretty clearly. They had their problems and their controversies, but they had no shortage of power, and they were effective. They multiplied so fast they conquered mighty Rome in a few generations.

The great restoration process goes on. It will only be interrupted by the sound of a trumpet, and the snatching away of the church. In spite of great darkness in our world today, the church of Jesus will not turn tail and run from the challenge. Let the tares grow as they will; the wheat will also flourish in these end time conditions. As Mr. Churchill said of England, so shall it be true of the church of God - when history is recorded and the last days are spoken of, all must acknowledge that this was her finest hour.