‘Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.’ (Acts
8:4)
‘In this way the word of the Lord spread
widely and grew in power.’ (Acts 19:20)
God’s
basic, foundational purpose at Pentecost was not merely to spiritually empower
the early believers. It was to empower them so that they could then co-operate
with him in his much wider and deeper purpose of reaching an unsaved world dwelling
in spiritual darkness with the living message of his kingdom, through the
gospel of Christ. Pentecost was never intended
to be simply about personal experience, and it never will be. It is about God himself working to effectively
apply the completed work of Christ’s redemption to a lost world, to
overcome and break down the dominion of Satan in people’s lives and to free and
release them into new life in God’s kingdom. The Holy Spirit fills believers not so that they
can have some kind of self-satisfying spiritual experience, but so that he can
anoint and equip them to become partakers with him in this purpose:
‘But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts
1:8)
This central, underlying purpose should never be
missed: the Holy Spirit fills and possesses us in order to then use us in this
mission of God:
‘All authority in heaven and
on earth has been given to me. Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations… And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matt.
28:18-20)
Effectiveness and fruitfulness in God’s intended
purpose always flows out of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire, and the kingdom
ministry of Jesus provides us with the best example of this. In this ministry, Satan’s power was overcome and
broken down, and the lives of countless people were released from his grip and transformed
as the Holy Spirit worked powerfully through Jesus.
The picture we see in the book of Acts is very similar,
as the early believers continued in this kingdom purpose that Jesus had begun (1:1). These empowered and equipped believers
surrendered and consecrated themselves to the dual purpose of building up the
body of Christ into spiritual maturity, and reaching out effectively as living
witnesses to people who as yet did not know Christ. Believers who were previously living in human
weakness and fear, were transformed at Pentecost into empowered, fire-filled
messengers who were inwardly compelled to go out boldly and fearlessly, preaching
and witnessing to everyone they encountered. New ministries emerged, such as those of Stephen,
Philip, Barnabas and Saul/Paul, as the Holy Spirit came upon and filled them.
The working of God through this empowered and
fire-filled early Christian community was irresistible. As a dynamic, freely moving and networked missional
movement, it planted new outposts of the kingdom of God on earth in every province
of the Roman Empire between Jerusalem and Rome in less than one generation, as
God worked with and through them. The
outward expansion of the Christian movement through mission is always at the
heart of the purpose of Pentecost, much as waves inevitably move outward on the
surface of the water when a pebble is thrown into a pond.
The narrative of Acts is filled with dynamic movement
as the apostles and believers moved out and went from place to place, freely preaching
the word of God. Indeed, these early Christians
knew a depth of heart surrender and abandonment to the things of God that is foreign
to most Christians today. There
is not, and there can never be such a thing as remaining static, or simply maintaining
the status quo, when believers are filled with the Holy Spirit. That would be the very antithesis of its purpose. Luke’s use of phrases such as ‘they preached
the word everywhere they went,’ ‘he travelled from place to place,’ ‘all who lived
in the province heard the word of the Lord,’ and ‘the word of the Lord spread widely’
emphasises the practical outworking of this purpose of God through these believers
(cf. 8:4,40; 9:42; 11:19; 13:49; 18:23; 19:10,20).
This is always what we see happening as a consequence
of revival. Believers are empowered and
inwardly compelled to rise up in surrender and obedience, and to reach out to people
who do not yet know Christ. They are gripped by a burning
passion to reach out to those around them who are held captive by sin and darkness.
The wider work of Christian mission is always refreshed
and gains new momentum in times of revival, and new missional movements invariably
spring up and come into being as a result of God-given vision. The setting apart of Saul and Barnabas for the
missional purpose of God by the elders of the church in Antioch, in obedience to
the Holy Spirit’s prompting, and their subsequent very fruitful apostolic ministry,
provides us with a good example of this:
‘While they were worshipping
the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul
for the work to which I have called them.”’ (Acts 13:2)
The
Moravian missionary movement
One of the most outstanding historical examples of the
evangelistic missionary expansion of the Church as a fruit of revival is that of
the Moravian community. The Moravians were
a community of refugees from Bohemia who were fleeing persecution and were offered
refuge in 1722 on the estates of Count Nicholas Zinzendorf in Herrnhut, Saxony. There were various groups among them, including
Moravian Brethren, Lutherans, Reformed and Baptist believers. So almost inevitably they became divided, and
theological controversies and criticism threatened to disrupt their community.
Count
Zinzendorf had been a man steeped in prayer from his youth upwards, establishing
prayer groups even as a teenager. He was
deeply concerned about this disunity and pleaded for repentance, unity, love
amongst them. So he drew up a covenant
calling upon them ‘to seek out and emphasize the points on which they agreed,’
rather than stressing their differences.
On 12th May 1727, they all signed this covenant and dedicated their lives,
as he too dedicated his, to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This
covenanted unity led to a revival breaking out in their community just a few
months later, in August 1727. This revival
was preceded and then sustained by much prayer. Many of the believers began to meet often together
to sing and pour out their hearts to God.
On 5th August, Zinzendorf spent the whole night in prayer with
about a dozen other people. On Sunday 10th
August, the whole congregation was overwhelmed by the power of God at around
noon, and they continued their meeting until midnight, singing, weeping and praying. Then, on Wednesday 13th August, the
Holy Spirit was poured out on them all and the revival began. Great signs and wonders began to take place
among them.
On
26th August, twenty-four men and twenty-four women covenanted together
to continue praying for periods of one hour each, day and night, with each hour
being allocated to different people. The
next day they began to faithfully pray and keep this hourly commitment to prayer
and intercession. Other people joined them,
with both children and adults taking part, and so the numbers involved in this
committed, 24-7 community prayer began to grow. This prayer covenant launched 100 years of
continuous, unbroken prayer among the Moravians.
This
revival and the ensuing 24-7 prayer covenant birthed a vision for missions among
them and, within 25 years, as a community they had sent out 100 missionaries to
various parts of the globe, all of them supported by the constant praying in Herrnhut. This evangelistic missionary zeal continued to
grow and expand, until their missionary movement became worldwide in scope. The Moravians won thousands of souls worldwide
to Jesus, and they became by far the greatest missionary-sending community of the
eighteenth century.
The
worldwide charismatic / Pentecostal movement
The Pentecostal movement traces its
modern-day roots to the revival at Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906 – 1909. Under the leadership of men such as William
Seymour and Charles Parham, this revival movement emphasised the baptism in the
Holy Spirit as a post-conversion experience for all believers, and it brought
about a renewed emphasis on the gift of tongues in Christian experience.
This movement quickly spread throughout the
USA and further afield around the world, bringing into being many powerful ministries
and, as a result, many different Pentecostal denominations and mission agencies.
For example, through the ministry of T.B.
Barratt the Pentecostal movement was birthed in Norway and then brought into
the UK through his contacts with Rev. Alexander Boddy of Sunderland. This nascent stream of Pentecostalism joined up
with the widening influences of the 1904 – 1906 Welsh Revival within UK, leading
to the emergence of the ministries of many Pentecostal evangelists and leaders,
and the establishment of the UK’s three main Pentecostal denominations and their
ongoing missionary endeavours.
The later influence of the charismatic renewal
in the 1960s brought the emphasis of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit into
the wider Christian denominations, bringing much-needed spiritual refreshing,
new life and growth.
Over the last hundred years or so, this
charismatic / Pentecostal revival movement has spread throughout the world and
affected virtually every Christian denomination. Conservative estimates put the combined number
of charismatic and Pentecostal believers in the world at around 600 million. This makes it the fastest growing movement in
the history of Christianity, and its emphasis on the necessity of spiritual empowerment
for both life and ministry has consistently sustained the inward life and
growth of this movement and its missional endeavours, through the generations
since it began. The baptism in the Holy Spirit and
thereafter learning to walk consistently in the presence and power of the Spirit
are the essence of ongoing personal revival.
In fact, it would be true to say
that, through this emphasis on spiritual empowerment and the related one of the
present-day operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christians everywhere have
been educated spiritually to believe that normative biblical Christian teaching
and experience necessarily includes these emphases. Charismatic theology in particular has brought
about a much needed and widespread emphasis on holistic ministry to the whole person:
spirit, soul and body. Nowadays and by
many Christians, these areas routinely receive emphasis in church life, because
anything less than this in Christian experience leads to either powerlessness
and relative fruitlessness, or to ineffectiveness in certain areas of ministry,
leading ultimately to stagnation and a waning of spiritual life.
