Taken from a site by Steve and Leslie Barta. God bless!

Pentecost in Church History

"So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ: 8 Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye

may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ 1 Cor.1:7,8

As you see in the above verse, all the charismata and dorea gifts

are meant to be here until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is an

argument that Pentecost died out with the early church. Following are some

quotes taken from church history that will dispel that argument and bless you

in the process.

"That this phenomenon is by no means restricted to early Christianity

is universally recognized. It was common in the Christian movement as

late as Tertullian and Irenaeus. In later years it appeared again,

and has been the seemingly inevitable consequence of all extended

seasons of 'revivals.'" 1

"It has been (and is) a feature of religious, especially revivalist,

activities at many periods of church history." 2

"Tongues recur in Christian revivals in every age, e.g., among...the

early Quakers, the converts of Wesley and Whitefield, the

persecuted Protestants of the Cevennes, the Irvingites, and the

revivalists of Wales and America." 3

Justin Martyr (died 165) "For the PROPHETICAL gifts remain with us,

even to the present time." 4

Irenaeus (died 202) "In like manner we do also hear many brethren in

the Church, who possess PROPHETIC gifts, and who through the Spirit

speak all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the general

benefit the hidden things of men, and declare the mysteries of God."

5

Tertullian (died 220), replying to Marcion, a Gnostic: "Let Marcion

then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some PROPHETS, such as have not

spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both

predicted things to come, and have made manifest the secrets of the

heart; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer - only let it be by

the Spirit, in an ecstasy; that is, in a rapture, whenever an

interpretation of tongues has occurred to him...Now all these signs

are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree,

too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of

the Creator..." 6

Novatian (died 257) "This is He who places PROPHETS in the Church,

instructs teachers, directs tongues, gives powers and

healings, does wonderful works, offers discrimination of spirits,

affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders

and arranges whatever other gifts there are of charismata; and thus

makes the Lord's Church everywhere, and in all, perfected

and completed." 7

Pachomius (died 346) was reported to have spoken "the language of

angels...[and] after seasons of prayer, under the power of the Spirit,

was able to speak languages which he had never learned." 8

Bishop Hilary of Poitiers (died 367) mentioned, among other things,

"gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of

tongues." He concluded, "Clearly these are the Church's agents of

ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and

God has ordained them." 9

Theodore of Mopsueste (died 428) "Many heathen amongst us are being

healed by Christians from whatever sickness they

have, so abundant are miracles in our midst." 10

Augustine (430) experienced a revival that swept North Africa where he

was bishop. He wrote of miraculous healings from breast cancer,

paralysis, hernia - even raising of the dead after the funeral was

arranged. In his own church, two epileptics were instantly healed

after they had fallen to the floor in convulsions. "Praise to God was

shouted so loud that my ears could scarcely stand the din." 11

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) "sang in unknown words with such

facility and winsomeness that her utterances were

known as 'concerts in the Spirit'." 12

Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) spoke in other tongues according to some

editions of the Catholic Encyclopedia. 13

Clare of Montefalco (c. 1193-1253) spoke ecstatically in French,

although her native tongue was Italian. 14

The Waldenses (c. 1217) These followers of Peter Waldo believed in

visions and PROPHECIES.15 Both healing and speaking in

tongues were manifested among these heavily persecuted Christians. 16

Bridget of Sweden (1302-1373) Concerning this daughter of Birger,

Prince of Sweden, Butler records, "To speak the language of angels was

the happy privilege of Saint Bridget," 17

Louis Bertrand (1526-1581), Catholic missionary to South America,

spoke in tongues according to Butler: "The gifts of tongues, of

PROPHECY, and of miracles, were favors conferred by heaven on this new

apostle, as the authentic history of his life...assures us." 18

Martin Luther (c 1540), According to the German church historian

Theodor Sauer, Luther spoke in tongues: "Luther was easily the

greatest evangelical man after the apostles, full of inner love to the

Lord like John, hasty in deed like Peter, deep in thinking like Paul,

cunning and powerful in speech like Elijah, uncompromising against

God's enemies like David; PROPHET and evangelist, speaker-in-tongues

and interpreter in one person, equipped with all the gifts of grace, a

light and pillar of the church..."19 Whether this refers to the actual

gift of tongues (I Cor 12) or the romance languages (i.e. Latin,

French, etc.) is not certain. That Luther believed in miracles is

certain. In 1541 when Myconius lay speechless in the final stages of

consumption, Luther prayed and he was restored to health. He also

prayed for Melanchthon who was near death and God healed him also.

Melanchthon said: "I should have been a dead man, had I not been

recalled from death itself by the coming of Luther." 20

Early Quakers: "We received often the pouring down of the Spirit upon

us, and our hearts were made glad and our tongues loosed and our

mouths opened, and we spake with new tongues as the Lord gave

utterance, and as His Spirit led us." 21

John Wesley: Wesley's journal record over 200 cases of Divine

healing; including once when he prayed for his horse which had gone

lame while he was on a preaching circuit, and the horse recovered.22

People in Wesley's meetings would be Spirit filled while he preached.

"What so impressed and encouraged John Wesley and his followers, what

so shocked, startled, and bewildered his contemporaries, is no mystery

to the modern psychologist, to whom it is known as glossolalia, or

"speaking with tongues"...After Paul laid his hands upon them "they

spoke with tongues and PROPHESIED," and such displays...had

accompanied all the revivals of the faith and all the persecution of

the martyrs. It is no wonder then, that John Wesley refused to listen

to the skepticism of Charles (Wesley) or to the reproaches of his

opponents, and continued to note down with interest...the

extraordinary effects that he was able to produce in those who came to

listen to him preach." 23

Thomas Walsh (one of Wesley's foremost preachers) made this entry in

his diary; "This morning the Lord gave me a language that I knew not

of, raising my soul to Him in a wonderful manner." 24

England (1830) There was a revival under Edward Irving where gifts of

the Spirit were manifested. One member of the congregations writes:

"The moment I am visited with the Spirit, and carried out to God in a

tongue which I know not... I am more conscious than ever of the

presence of God. He and He alone is in my soul. I am filled with

some form of the mind of God, be it joy or grief, desire, love, pity,

compassion, or indignation; and I am made to utter it in words which

are full of power over my spirit, but not being accessible to my

understanding, my devotion is not interrupted by association of

suggestions from the visible or intellectual world: I feel myself, as

it were, shut in with God in His pavilion, and hidden close from the

invasions of the world, the devil, and the flesh." 25

Charles G. Finney: "I received a mighty baptism in the Holy Ghost...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." 26

About D.L. Moody: "On the following Sunday night, when I got to the rooms

of the Y.M.C.A. I found the meetings on fire. The young men were

speaking in tongues and PROPHESYING. What on earth did it all mean?

Only that Moody had been addressing them that afternoon."27 At a

meeting in Los Angeles, Dr. R.A. Torrey told of a service in London

where Moody took the pulpit to preach and instead broke into another

language. He tried again, with similar results. The third time,

after prayer and praise, he was able to preach his message.28

About Charles H. Spurgeon: A British preacher told how Spurgeon once asked

his audience to forgive him that when he got especially happy in the Lord,

"I break forth into a kind of gibberish which I do not myself understand."29

Conclusion:

Elijah felt all alone against Ahab and Jezebel, but Obadiah had hid

100 other PROPHETS by 50 in a cave (I Ki 18:4). Sometimes it has

seemed that those with the Pentecostal experience were outside of the

main stream of Christianity and alone. However we are surrounded by a

great cloud of witnesses (He 12:1) and as you can see from the quotes

above Pentecost is not just a recent (i.e. 20th century) fad.

Here is one last quote from John Wesley. "Oh, Lord, send us the old

revival, without the defects; but if this cannot be, send it -

with all its defects. We must have the revival."30

Footnotes:

1 Madeleine S and J. Lane Miller, Harpers Bible Dictionary, p. 768 2

Watson E. Mills, article "Glossolalia", p. 415 3 The Encyclopaedia

Britannica, 1949 ed, vol 22, p. 283 4 Dialogue with Trypho, LXXXII,

in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. by Roberts and Donaldson, vol. 1, p.

240 5 Against Heresies, V,6,1, Ibid., vol 1, p. 531 6 Against

Marcion, V,8, Ibid., vol.3, pp. 446,447 7 Novatian, Treatise

Concerning the Trinity, XXIX, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. by

Roberts and Donaldson, vol. 5, p. 641 8 Alban Butler, The Lives of

the Fathers, Martyrs, and other Principal Saints (1889 ed.), vol. 2,

p. 218 9 Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, VIII,33, in The Nicene

and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. by Schaff and Wace, 2nd series, vol. 9,

p. 147 10 A.J. Gordon, The Ministry of Healing, p. 62, quoting

Christlieb's Modern Doubt, p. 32 11 Spencer Gear, "St. Augustine:

The Skeptic Who Believed," Charisma, Sept. 1984, p.45 12 George H.

Williams and Edith Waldvogel, "A History of Speaking in Tongues and

Related Gifts," in The Charismatic Movement, ed. by Michael P.

Hamilton, p. 70 13 Bernard L. Bresson, Studies in Ecstasy, p. 38 14

Williams and Waldvogel in The Charismatic Movement, ed. by Hamilton,

p. 70 15 R. Kissack, "Waldenses," The New International Dictionary

of the Christian Church, ed. by J.D. Douglas, revised edition, p.

1026 16 Gordon F. Atter, The Third Force, p. 13 17 Butler, The Lives

of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints (1895 ed.), vol.

4, p. 67. 18 Ibid, 1889 ed., vol. 4, p. 73 19 Translated from the

German work, Geschichte der Chrislichen Kirche fur Schule und Haus

(Dresden; R. Kuntzes, 1859), 3rd book, p. 400 20 A.J. Gordon, The

Ministry of Healing, pp. 93-95 21 Bresson, Studies in Ecstacy, pp.

48-52 22 Journal, 11/1/50, cited by R.A. Knox in Enthusiasm. 23

Bowen, Marjorie, Wrestling Jacob, p.184ff 24 Entry of March 8, 1750,

quoted by Frodsham, With Signs following, p. 232 25 A.L. Drummond,

Edward Irving and His Circle, pp. 161-162 26 Charles G. Finney,

Autobiography, p. 20 27 Boyd, Robert, The Lives and Labours of Moody

and Sankey, p. 47 28 Lennard Darbee, Tongues: The Dynamite of God, p.

24. 29 Ibid., p. 24 30 Quoted by Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street, p.45

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