From where did the Pentecostals get their name?
Hi, and welcome to today's Little Lesson. Thank you very much for joining once again.
We are currently in a series of lessons all about speaking in other tongues. And I covered
five lessons so far. This will be the sixth. And I ask at the beginning of this Little Lesson,
where did the Pentecostals get their name? Well, if you didn't know the answer to that,
we're about to find out the answer today as we read in Acts chapter two about the day of
Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent to fall on the apostles as well as scores of other
early believers as they were waiting for him to come according to the promise of Jesus Christ.
And that's where the Pentecostals got their name. Because on the day of Pentecost is the day
the Holy Spirit fell on those early disciples and we could say in one sense that the church
was born. And what characterizes the Pentecostals as being distinct amongst everyone else in the
body of Christ who are non-Pentecostals, is that the Pentecostals would hold to the idea,
the biblical idea, that there's an experience with the Holy Spirit that is subsequent
to being born again, called either being baptized in the Holy Spirit or being
filled with the Holy Spirit. And both of those phrases are biblical phrases.
And it was on that Pentecostal day when everybody in the early church was a Pentecostal
because they were all speaking in tongues. And if you would have asked
any of them that day, on the day of Pentecost, any of those 120 people,
"Is there an experience that is subsequent to salvation?" they would have said, "Absolutely,
yes. We've just experienced it. We're all speaking in other tongues of the mighty deeds of God."
Now some theologians, of course, will say, "Well, that was a one-time experience just
to mark the beginning of the church. And we shouldn't expect that afterwards." Well, that's
an interesting thought, but it doesn't hold any water because you have the same thing happening
in other places in the book of Acts. And again, theologians are always trying to come up with
reasons why you and I shouldn't expect God to do for us what he did for the apostles,
bless their hearts. These guys who are peddling unbelief and robbing people of blessing and
robbing the whole world of blessing, really. Because, clearly, this event
is what catalyzed the church to then explode in the spreading of the gospel all over the world.
And the Pentecostal movement, which began in California on Azusa Street in the early 1900s,
had a similar effect. It spread all over the world. And you can find Pentecostals
everywhere these days. I mean, it just birthed missionaries and apostles,
and they went everywhere. And it's still happening today, still happening today,
because those Pentecostals continue to preach the gospel. And then after people are born again,
they lay hands upon them and pray that the Holy Spirit would come upon them. And they expect that
those people will have the confirming evidence of speaking in tongues. And millions, tens of
millions of people have had that experience. And not just in Africa and Asia. Here in the
United States. I don't know if there has been millions, but goodness, you take the Pentecostal
dominations that would hold to this. Like for example, the Assemblies of God, or the Foursquare
denomination, or all the charismatic churches that are kind of like a subbranch of Pentecostalism.
And so when people say to me that speaking in tongues ceased with the apostles, I always tell
them, "You got to me a little bit too late." Because I spoke in tongues for the first time
in 1976 when some Pentecostals laid their hands upon me and prayed for me. And I found myself
speaking a million miles a minute in some Asian language. I thought
at the time it was Vietnamese because I had heard some Vietnamese people talking and chattering
one time and what I was saying sounded a lot like what they were saying, but I didn't know for sure.
And so speaking in tongues has not ceased. There are millions of people, Christian believers, who
would tell you it's not ceased. We're experiencing the exact same thing they experienced in the
book of Acts. Now, but of course, if you believe those theologians instead of believing the Bible,
well, you'll be robbed of the blessing because you have to have faith. That's
very obvious. You have to believe. The disciples believed Jesus. So they waited in Jerusalem until
they were clothed with power from on high. And at Pentecost, the Pentecostals were born.
So let's get back to our specific biblical study of Acts chapter two. So they're waiting, as Jesus
commanded them, for power from the Holy Spirit. And then they're going to be his witnesses in
Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to those parts of the earth. So Acts chapter two, verse number
one. "When the day of Pentecost had come..." That was the Jewish feast of Pentecost, seven
weeks after Passover, "... they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven
a noise, like a violent rushing wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues as a fire, distributing themselves. And they rested on each
one of them." So this was super-duper natural. "And they were all..." Here's the phrase,
"...filled with the Holy Spirit..." And then what's the next thing? "... and began
to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."
So if you're opposed to speaking in tongues, then you're opposed to what we just read here
in the book of Acts. You say, "Well, I'm not opposed to the book of Acts. I'm just opposed to
do it today." On what basis? On what basis are you opposed today? Because tens of millions of
Christians have experienced this. How are you going to explain that? You think they're all
just making it up? You think like some people say they're all demon possessed? Well, you better be
very, very careful when you start attributing the work of the Holy Spirit, people supernaturally
praising God in other languages, and you're saying that's the work of the devil.
You're borderline blasphemy of the Holy Spirit when your heart is that hard. I pray
that your heart is not that hard. But there have been some whose hearts are that hard.
They the attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil. Not a good idea.
I have spoken in Japanese on three occasions in tongues. Didn't know what I was saying. Other
people translated it who understood some Japanese. And in every case, I was thanking or praising God.
And you're going to say that's the devil in me? I'm possessed by a demon? Now, I've experienced
exactly what they experienced. Speaking in tongues. I've been filled with the Holy Spirit and
I began to speak in tongues. I spoke in tongues. I spoke in tongues. See, I did the speaking, using
my mouth, and it's by my volition, but the Holy Spirit gives the utterance, but I do the speaking.
And I'll stop and pause right there. And I want to talk about this more in our next Little Lesson.
But that's a key element in understanding what's important about being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
When we pray for people, I have prayed for hundreds and hundreds of people over
the years and watched them be baptized in the Holy Spirit and speak in other tongues.
Hundreds, maybe more than a thousand. But I haven't been actually counting with a clicker.
And the only thing that hinders them, sometimes, temporarily, is if they wait for the Holy Spirit
to force them by uncontrollably... They can't control it. They think uncontrollably the
Holy Spirit's going to force me, make my mouth move, make my tongue move, use my vocal chords,
and I will not be able to control it because it will be the Holy Spirit. And that's a stumbling
block because that's what people mistakenly think. But that's not biblical at all. It's not biblical
at all here in Acts. And we'll read later on in First Corinthians 14, it's not biblical at all.
You have a part to play in speaking in tongues. You are the one who does
the speaking. It's your mouth, your lips, your tongue, your vocal chords,
and your willingness to yield to the Holy Spirit. And as soon as we can get people to see that,
that you shouldn't be waiting around for the Holy Spirit to force you to speak in tongues,
you need to have faith, believing that you receive when you pray. That's what Christ said. Whatever
you desire, you desire to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, believe you receive. When? When you feel
it? No. Believe you receive when you pray. So you pray and you ask God. And then you have faith.
And by faith, you begin to speak. And as you speak, the Holy Spirit gives you the utterance.
He provides the language. He provides the language. But you have to be the one who speaks.
And don't let that hinder you. Many times, I've found if I can just get people to see that, then
poof, like a light bulb goes off in their mind. They go, "Oh my goodness. I've been waiting around
for the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit's been waiting around for me." Which I think is probably true on
a lot of levels for us followers of Jesus who are stumbling along so many times. You must speak. And
so if you prayed, and most everyone who is against what I'm saying has prayed, and they've asked
God. They'll say something like, "God, if it's your will, please let me speak in tongues."
And then they wait. And of course they prayed in unbelief because they said, "If it's your will,"
when clearly we have the word of God on it. And then secondly, they're expecting the Holy Spirit
to do what the Holy Spirit's expecting them to do. "You speak. I'll..." the Holy Spirit, "... will
provide the utterance." And that's why you didn't speak in tongues. That's the primary reason I've
seen. Because people, they expect the Holy Spirit to do what the Holy Spirit expects them to do.
When I spoke in tongues for you in that fourth video that I made,
you notice I started and I stopped when I wanted to. I was fully conscious of speaking those
syllables, just like I'm conscious right now of speaking the syllables that I'm speaking to you
in English. But in this case, I know what I'm saying when I speak to you in English.
When I spoke in tongues during that fourth video that I made on this subject, on this series,
I didn't know what I was saying. So if you didn't see that one, go back and watch all of them.
All right, we'll pick up right here in our next Little Lesson. Don't miss it. If you've
never been to Heaven's Family, that's the word heaven, the letter S, the word family, .org,
please, by all means, as fast as you can, get to HeavensFamily.org, and then
let the Lord lead you in getting involved in doing what Jesus said. Every true Christian
should be involved in, and actually is involved in he actually said, caring for the least of these.
And that's why Heaven's Family exists, is to give you an opportunity to care for the least of these
that we're connected with all around the world. Suffering saints who need your
compassion and your help. Until next time, may the Lord richly bless you.