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#Post#: 13070--------------------------------------------------
A Pentecostal Sermon
By: Billy Evmur Date: May 18, 2020, 6:02 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Extracts of a se[font=times new roman]rmon preached in
Philedelphia USA 1976.[/font]
[font=times new roman]In the early days after being saved I
committed to memory several sermons preached by some leading
evangelists of the Pentecostal old school and more than 40 years
later can relate them word for word. The sermon I have related
here was 1 and 1 half hour long, here is the first half of
it.[/font]
[font=times new roman]It's a great privilege for God's servant
to be in the city of brotherly love, to walk into this building
tonight and to sense the marvellous presence of the Holy Spirit.
And tonight we are going to preach on "How to take the limits
off of God." [/font]
[font=times new roman]In the 8th chapter of the gospel of
Matthew we are reading from the 5th verse.[/font]
[font=times new roman]And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum
there came unto Him a centurian beseeching Him and saying "Lord
my servant lyeth at home sick with the palsy and greviously
tormented" and Jesus saith unto him "I will come and heal
him"[/font]
[font=times new roman]Before I read the rest of this scripture
it is very important that I stop and tell you this tonight, you
cannot change the will of a person after that individual has
already died, you might try, you might go to court and try to
break a will but it is a very difficult thing to do in the
natural world, to break a will of somebody after they have
died.[/font]
[font=times new roman]2,000 years ago Jesus Christ gave us His
will, He sealed His will and He sealed the testament of that
will with His own precious blood, included in that will that
Jesus left us was the healing of our physical bodies in the
atonement of Jesus Christ.[/font]
[font=times new roman]The bible said that Jesus Christ came into
the world to destroy the works of the devil.[/font]
[font=times new roman]There's a marvellous thing about God, He
is not finnicky, He does not change. Men change, church
doctrines change, denominational structures change but ladies
and gentlemen the God who created this world, the Lord Jesus
Christ who thought it not robbery to be equal with God but
humbled Himself and came into this world for the purpose of
defeating and destroying the works of the devil and the works of
the devil are first sin, second sickness and thirdly death.
Three things God never intended for man to ever possess[/font]
[font=times new roman]God never intended that man should have an
evil mind and a bitter tongue that cursed and swore, God never
intended that man would become sick, sickness came as a result
of man's disobedience through sin and God never intended that
man should ever die ... that's right, when you look at this
little Jew preacher I want you to know that God never intended
for your hair to get bald, your eyes to grow dim or your ears to
wax heavy. God intended that man should always live forever and
never die.[/font]
[font=times new roman]He was created perfect, in the image of
God. Now I can't help it if you have been brought up Baptist, or
if you are in a backslidden Pentecostal church where your
preacher doesn't know how to pray, I can't help it. But that
doesn't alter the will of God. There is no doctrine of the
Catholic church, no doctrine of the Pentecostal church, no
doctrine of the Baptists, the Methodists, the Episcopalians, the
Presbyterian church that can alter the word of God.[/font]
[font=times new roman]And God's will is that we be in health and
prosper.[/font]
[font=times new roman]And God didn't say to put an "if" in
there, somebody said "well I don't understand it how sometimes
good, well intentioned people who have faith in God get sick and
die," well there are a lot of things in this world that we don't
understand and we have to just be honest about it and say "Lord
we don't have all the answers" and there's nothing wrong with
being honest.[/font]
[font=times new roman]But it is God's will and do you know why I
can look at you and pray the prayer of faith in this building
tonight nothing wavering? because I know it is God's will, you
say "how do you know it is God will, did God tell you?" yes He
did ... He told me right here in this book that I'm holding in
my hand.[/font]
[font=times new roman]Jesus said "I will come and heal him" His
will hasn't changed, men have changed, the church that used to
believe in certain doctrines 100 or 200 or 300 years ago which
have become modernised, those churches have changed but God
hasn't changed. If you are ever going to pray the prayer of
faith you are going to have to take the "if" out because there
is no way you can ever pray the prayer of faith as long as you
keep that "if" in there, "if it be Thy will God heal me, if it
be Thy will provide, if it be Thy will God tells us exactly what
His will is and Jesus came into this world to fulfil the exact
will of God.[/font]
[font=times new roman]That's what it's all about.[/font]
[font=times new roman]Now let's stop putting an "if" where God
doesn't put an "if".
[/font]
[font=times new roman] He says "I WILL come and heal him ... He
says I WILL ... He says I WILL ... He says I WILL ... not "IF"
... I WILL.[/font]
[font=times new roman]The centurian answered and said "Lord I am
not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof but speak the
word only and my servant shall be healed" and when Jesus heard
it He marvelled and said to them that followed "verily I have
not found so great faith, no not in Israel ..."[/font]
[font=times new roman]And I want you to know that I know what I
am talking about, He said, when God created this world I was
with Him in the beginning, I made the beginning, when God led
the Israelites out of the land of Egypt He said I was the great
I am, I was the one in the pillar of cloud, I was the one in the
pillar of fire, I was the one who was in the rod that opened up
the Red sea, I was the one who fed the Jews in the wilderness, I
was the one who rolled back the river Jordan for Joshua, I was
the one who quenched the violence of fire for Shadrach, Meshack
and Abednego, I was the one who stopped the mouths of the lions
for Daniel. If you have any doubts, don't ever doubt. I know
what I am talking about because I am the great I am that I am
that I am and I'll tell you, nobody ever had faith like this
man.[/font]
[font=times new roman]And Jesu said to the centurian "go thy way
as thou hast believed so shall it be done unto thee." And his
servant was healed in that self same hour.[/font]
[font=times new roman]This miracle concerns a centurian an army
captain in the army of Rome who had authority over 100 men, he
had a servant who the bible describes as having a palsy, now
when we think of palsy we think of it as being a shaking
sickness, but the actual condition this man had was not a
shaking sickness but a paralytic sickness, the man was home on
his bed, paralysed, immovable. His situation was helpless,
hopeless, impossible so far as man was concerned but not
impossible with God because with God all things are
possible.[/font]
[font=times new roman]I have no argument with my backslidden
theological friends, you say "why do you always pick on the
theologians?" because they pick on the people, and we have blind
leaders of the blind, and Jesus said "ye shall know the truth
and the truth shall set you free"[/font]
[font=times new roman]And the real basis of their unbelief is
not in the fact that they do not believe in miracles, the real
basis of their unbelief is not the fact they don't believe the
power of the blood, the real basis of their unbelief is the fact
they don't believe in the divine authority of the scriptures or
that Jesus Christ was indeed born of a virgin, the Son of the
Living God ... [/font]
[font=times new roman]that's the whole crux.[/font]
[font=times new roman]It's like my Baptist friend who came to me
and said "don't you know that 2,000 years ago the gifts of the
Holy Spirit were withdrawn from the church, that the day of
miracles are over, that they aren't for us today?"[/font]
[font=times new roman]Now if I never could prove, theologically
prove, the doctrine of healing in the atonement, if I could
never prove it, I would still believe, not in a day of miracles
but I would believe in a God of miracle working power, you say
"why?" because there are too many scriptures in the bible that
tell us call and I'll answer, seek and ye shall find, knock and
the door shall be opened unto you. One little scripture in
Ephesians alone would be enough for me to believe God that He
could split the heavens and give me anything I asked Him
for[/font]
[font=times new roman]Ephesians 3.20[/font]
[font=times new roman]Our God is able, to do what? our God is
able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all we are
able to ask or think.[/font]
[font=times new roman]He is able, let them heat the furnace 10
times hotter, little Shadrach Meshack and Abednego said "we just
want you to know while you are putting these chains on us that
our God is able" huh talk about a day of miracles there's no
such thing as a day of miracles, only a God of miracle working
power. You see Daniel in the lions den saying to the King "don't
you fret" you'd think the king was going into the lion's den not
Daniel. he said "don't you fret, my God is able"[/font]
[font=times new roman]Not a day of miracles, not a hang up on
some denominational doctrine a Living God, a Living God, a
Living God.[/font]
#Post#: 13762--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: May 31, 2020, 12:14 am
---------------------------------------------------------
More than a quarter of the global church falls under new and
debated label: “Spirit-empowered Christianity.”
Are you Pentecostal?”
Todd Johnson, co-director of the Center for the Study of Global
Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, couldn’t
quite place the Chinese Christians he met at a conference in
South Africa. Theologically, they seemed Pentecostal, so he
asked.
They responded: “Absolutely not.”
“Do you speak in tongues?” Johnson said.
“Of course.”
“Do you believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit?”
“Of course.”
“Do you practice gifts of the Spirit, like healing and
prophecy?”
“Of course.”
Johnson said that in the United States, those were some of the
distinctive marks of Pentecostals. But maybe it was different in
China. Why not use the term?
“Oh, there’s an American preacher on the radio who is beamed
into China,” the Chinese Christians explained. “He’s a
Pentecostal, and we’re not like him.”
Names can be tricky. What do you call a Pentecostal who isn’t
called a Pentecostal? The question sounds like a riddle, but
it’s a real challenge for scholars. They have struggled for
years to settle on the best term for the broad and diverse
movement of Christians who emphasize the individual believer’s
relationship to the Holy Spirit and talk about being
Spirit-filled, Spirit-baptized, or Spirit-empowered.
Globally, the movement includes 644 million people, about 26
percent of all Christians, according to a new report from the
Center for the Study of Global Christianity. The study was done
in collaboration with Oral Roberts University, named for one of
the most famous Pentecostal evangelists in the 20th century, to
be shared at the Empowered21 conference, featuring 70 speakers
such at Bethel’s Bill Johnson and Assemblies of God leader
George Wood. The conference, which was originally going to be in
Jerusalem, will be held online starting Sunday.
[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/117509.png?h=540&w=600[/img]
The report represents the first attempt at a comprehensive
demographic analysis of this group of Christians in almost 20
years. These findings will be widely cited by scholars and
journalists seeking to understand these Christians, especially
as they impact places like Qatar, Cambodia, and Burkina Faso,
where their numbers are growing fastest, and places like
Zimbabwe, Brazil, and Guatemala, where they now account for more
than half of all Christians.
In the debate over what to call the movement—which has been
dubbed “global Pentecostalism,” “Pentecostal/Charismatic,” and
“renewalist”— Todd Johnson and his co-author and co-director
Gina Zurlo propose another option: Spirit-empowered
Christianity.
“The name has been a perennial problem,” Johnson told
Christianity Today. “One of the first things we asked is what is
it that is common with all these groups. It turned out to be the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. People talk about being filled with
the Holy Spirit and an older term is ‘Spirit-filled.’ But a lot
of groups have emphasized being empowered.”
Like the Chinese Christians noted, “Pentecostal” is associated
with American churches, Johnson said, such as the Assemblies of
God and the Church of God in Christ. The term indicates a
connection to the multiracial Azusa Street revival in Los
Angeles in 1906, where the Los Angeles Times reported a “new
sect of fanatics is breaking loose” with a “weird babel of
tongues.” The term “Charismatic” is connected to a renewal
movement starting in the 1960s and ’70s, where Christians
received the baptism of the Holy Spirit but mostly stayed in
their own denominations—especially Anglican and Catholic
churches.
But there are lots of other groups that are independent of major
denominations and disconnected from the American history of
Azusa Street. They also emphasize the empowerment of the Holy
Spirit and the importance of the experience of Spirit baptism,
but they’re not really “Charismatic” or “Pentecostal” in the
same way.
[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/117512.png?h=529&w=600[/img]
“Asking groups, ‘Do you believe or practice the baptism of the
Holy Spirit?’ that was a really good question to ask,” Johnson
said. “What we found in the end is that the baptism question
gets at the commonality.”
Not all scholars are convinced by this new term. Some don’t even
think a single name can work for a movement so diverse.
“It’s tough to nail Jell-O to the wall,” said Daniel Ramírez,
professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University and
author of Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States
and Mexico in the Twentieth Century.
Ramírez said that part of the power of Pentecostalism has always
been that people can take it and make it their own. It is
endlessly adaptable, portable, and regenerative. An indigenous
Mexican man, for example, received the gift of the Holy Spirit
at the Azusa Street revival and was recorded through a
translator thanking the people at that church. But then he left,
Ramírez said, and no one at Azusa Street had any control over
his theology or authority over how he shared that religious
experience with others.
“That’s part of what makes it interesting,” said Arlene
Sánchez-Walsh, professor of religious studies at Azusa Pacific
University and author of Pentecostals in America. “It’s been
diverse from the beginning. You look for a catchall term that’s
vague and broad, and I use ‘Pentecostal’ to glue it back to the
origins, but then I want people to think twice about the origins
of the movement. Pentecostalism didn’t start in one place,
whether it’s Azusa Street or a revival in Wales or in India, and
so it’s always diverse.”
A single name can also imply that different Christians are more
closely associated than they really are, argues Anthea Butler, a
professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania
and author of Women in the Church of God in Christ.
Lumping people together across traditions and cultures, you risk
obscuring the historical and theological differences between a
Catholic group that speaks in tongues, a Vineyard Church that
practices holy laughter, and a Celestial Church of Christ that
emphasizes purity and prophecy.
[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/117511.png?h=529&w=600[/img]
“You say ‘Spirit-empowered’ and an old-time Pentecostal would
say ‘Well that Spirit could be a demon,’” Butler said. “And
nobody’s going to invite a Catholic priest over to a Charismatic
church in Nigeria unless it’s for an exorcism. You can’t just
compress the theological differences and flatten out the
history.”
The Empowered21 conference, which begins this Sunday on
Pentecost, has adopted the “Spirit-empowered” label. Some of the
breadth of the movement is reflected in the conference lineup
alone: American evangelicals like megachurch pastor Chris Hodges
and Hobby Lobby board chair Mart Green are sharing a virtual
stage with Cindy Jacobs, part of the New Apostolic Reformation,
and Todd White, a Word of Faith preacher, in addition to leaders
from Asia and Africa.
Any term is going to bring some people together and drive a
wedge between others, according to Cecil M. Robeck, professor of
church history at Fuller Theological Seminary. Robeck has been a
part of ecumenical dialogues since 1984 and thinks the term
“Spirit-empowered Christian” could help some believers see what
they have in common. But it also might throw up walls where they
don’t need to exist.
“I worry about line-drawing,” Robeck said. “I want to know: Do
we have an ecumenical future together? I want people to
experience the Holy Spirit, but I don’t want to say they have to
jump another hurdle to talk to me.”
Johnson is unfazed by the criticism. He doesn’t think
“Spirit-empowered Christian” is a perfect term, but he will
argue “it’s as good as any.”
“We used ‘renewalist’ for a while,” Johnson said, “but we
decided that’s a neologism, and we thought, ‘Well, we want to
use something more natural.’ … If you’re trying to get at what
all these groups have in common, ‘empowerment’ isn’t a bad
choice, but it’s also not the only one.”
The new study, Introducing Spirit-Empowered Christianity, will
be widely available in September. It predicts that by 2050, the
numbers of Spirit-empowered Christians will grow to over 1
billion, which will be about 30 percent of all Christians. But
when nearly one out of every three Christians practices Spirit
baptism, scholars will likely still debate what to call them.
“This argument is always going on,” said Nimi Wariboko, a
Pentecostal theologian at Boston University. “What they are
trying to capture is the move of the Spirit. Americans often
want a term that reminds people of the umbilical cord to the
West. But the essence is not geographical origin. The essence is
not history and the essence is not doctrine and the essence is
not the numbers. It’s the Spirit. And the Spirit moves.”
#Post#: 16091--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: August 12, 2020, 7:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Billy Rocks
#Post#: 16673--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: August 26, 2020, 5:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16091#msg16091
date=1597234841]
Billy Rocks
[/quote]Billy Rolls
#Post#: 17583--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: September 14, 2020, 6:09 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16673#msg16673
date=1598479400]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16091#msg16091
date=1597234841]
Billy Rocks
[/quote]Billy Rolls
[/quote]Billy Knows
#Post#: 17684--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: September 17, 2020, 6:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg17583#msg17583
date=1600124984]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16673#msg16673
date=1598479400]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16091#msg16091
date=1597234841]
Billy Rocks
[/quote]Billy Rolls
[/quote]Billy Knows
[/quote]He tries real hard
#Post#: 18907--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: October 15, 2020, 10:22 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg17684#msg17684
date=1600384445]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg17583#msg17583
date=1600124984]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16673#msg16673
date=1598479400]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16091#msg16091
date=1597234841]
Billy Rocks
[/quote]Billy Rolls
[/quote]Billy Knows
[/quote]He tries real hard
[/quote]He really does
#Post#: 19488--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: October 24, 2020, 7:33 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg18907#msg18907
date=1602818532]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg17684#msg17684
date=1600384445]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg17583#msg17583
date=1600124984]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16673#msg16673
date=1598479400]
[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=928.msg16091#msg16091
date=1597234841]
Billy Rocks
[/quote]Billy Rolls
[/quote]Billy Knows
[/quote]He tries real hard
[/quote]He really does
[/quote] ;D
#Post#: 34599--------------------------------------------------
Re: A Pentecostal Sermon
By: patrick jane Date: August 16, 2021, 3:31 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/125002.jpg?w=700[/img]
HTML https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/august/assemblies-of-god-grow-us-council-denomination-decline-poli.html
Assemblies of God Growing with Pentecostal Persistence
ow has the 3.2-million-member denomination avoided decline?
At most denominational conferences these days, leaders have to
recognize and reckon with the challenge of continued declines in
membership. But for the US Assemblies of God (AG), which drew
18,000 registered attendees to its General Council meeting in
Orlando last week, it’s a different story.
The largest Pentecostal denomination, the Assemblies of God has
been quietly growing for decades, bucking the trend of
denominational decline seen by most other Protestant traditions.
At three million members, the Assemblies of God is far outsized
in the US by groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, which
is more than four times as large. But in many ways, the
Assemblies of God provide can a case study for what many
Southern Baptists—and really, all Christians—want to see: steady
and sustainable growth.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why the Assemblies of God has
continued to increase over the past 15 years. Research shows
that membership of the Assemblies of God has become more
politically conservative and more religiously active today than
just a decade ago, but its own numbers indicate that it has
achieved incredible racial diversity—44 percent of members in
the United States are ethnic minorities. A confluence of these
trends may be factors in its ability to keep its numbers up.
As it has grown over the decades, the Assemblies of God has
maintained its Pentecostal theological distinctives, like
believing in divine healing, practicing spiritual gifts like
speaking in tongues, and anticipating a premillennial second
coming of Christ.
When analyzing survey data on the church attendance patterns
among traditions, it’s clear that the Assemblies of God is not
growing by adding lukewarm worshipers to its ranks and church
roles. Instead, the data point to a denomination that is
incredibly active in congregational life. On average, about a
third of US Christians attend church weekly. In 2020, the
Cooperative Election Study reported that 57 percent of AG
members attend church at least once a week, compared to 49
percent of Southern Baptists.
When the analytical lens turns to political partisanship, a more
nuanced story emerges of how the AG has shifted compared to the
Southern Baptists.
During the 2008 presidential election, about 22 percent of AG
members identified as Democrats compared to 68 percent who
affiliated with the Republican Party. Among Southern Baptists,
the differences weren’t as stark. About a third of Southern
Baptists were Democrats and 60 percent were Republicans.
Over the past 12 years, both traditions have drifted toward the
right. In 2020, nearly three-quarters of all AG members said
that they were Republicans, up about 5 percentage points. Among
Southern Baptists, 67 percent claimed to be a Republican, an
increase of 7 percentage points. But the share of AG members who
are Democrats remained basically unchanged during that time,
while declining nearly 7 percentage points among Southern
Baptists.
Pastors, denominational leaders, and those in the pews are
always interested in what leads to a denomination’s growth,
particularly when the group is growing year after year while
others around it experience decline. The Assemblies of God
currently has around 13,000 congregations, more than a quarter
of which were formed in the past decade.
It’s difficult to pinpoint just one reason for the increase in
membership, but the data do paint a portrait of a membership
that is very involved in the life of the church. When half of
all members report weekly attendance, this goes a long way in
warding off defections to other denominations. Research shows
that such involvement makes it more likely that young people
raised in the tradition will not leave it as they move into
adulthood. More than half (53%) of AG adherents are under 35.
The fact that its churches are so politically homogeneous may
work in its favor as well. Research has increasingly shown that
more and more Americans are choosing their churches based on
political considerations. If this is the case, then AG churches
portray a clear message to potential converts about their
political orientation, making it easy for newcomers to know what
the church is about.
Finally, it may be helpful that the Assemblies of God, though
growing, is small enough to lay low in the national media,
largely avoiding the controversy and attention toward infighting
in other denominations.
As the nones continue to rise and more and more
nondenominational churches are planted in the United States, it
will likely become more difficult for the Assemblies of God to
sustain its growth.
As I describe in my forthcoming book on surveys—20 Myths about
Religion and Politics in America—almost no traditional
denomination has seen any growth in the past 12 years, so the
Assemblies of God is a true outlier. It seems to have found a
combination of factors that has succeeded even in these
difficult times.
Compared to the two largest Protestant denominations in the
United States—the Southern Baptist Convention and the United
Methodist Church—the Assemblies of God has always been
outnumbered. In 2005, there were about 16.3 million Southern
Baptists in the US, by the denomination’s own tally, and nearly
8 million United Methodists. At the time, the Assemblies of God
reported 2.8 million members.
However, between 2005 and 2019, both the Southern Baptists and
the United Methodists reported a membership decline. In 2019,
there were 14.5 million Southern Baptists, down 11 percent. The
United Methodists reported a total of 6.5 million members in
2019, down 19 percent. Meanwhile, the Assemblies of God grew
over 16 percent to nearly 3.3 million members.
While other denominations have been dropping year-over-year for
more than a decade, there have only been three years in the past
40 when the Assemblies of God did not report annual growth in
adherents. Just one of those came this century. As a result, the
Assemblies of God has managed to add nearly half a million
members since 2005.
Ryan P. Burge is an assistant professor of political science at
Eastern Illinois University. His research appears on the site
Religion in Public, and he tweets at @ryanburge.
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