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The Wind Blows Where It Wishes

John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Exodus 1:8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

Regarding the manifestations of the Spirit, from Genesis to our present age, we are in many ways like the new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Often we behave as children scooping up the oceans sand in a pail hoping to bring an ocean home, or as Bobby Conner once stated, “We are too familiar with an unfamiliar God” – (“God in a box” theology void of experiential reality). We become champions of our intelligence missing the glaring fact that it was this very “mountain” that Jesus chose to drive His Cross through.

Jeff Oliver, in Pentecost To The Present, Book One: Early Prophetic and Spiritual Gifts Movements states: So this question begs an answer: If these supernatural gifts never left the Church and if the Holy Spirit has been active throughout Church history, working through each generation to build Christ’s Church since the day of Pentecost, why haven’t we heard more about such activity?

Certainly, nothing in the Gospels or Acts indicated that signs and wonders would cease or that the Spirit of God would become passive or dormant. Indeed, the very notion of an inactive Holy Spirit contradicts everything the Bible teaches about His nature and character. This is like saying the wind hasn’t blown in over two thousand years!….The reasons for the relative historical silence are many, but a few are cited below:

  1. Sometimes historical records can be sketchy at best. Objects close in proximity – whether of space or time – are more easily discerned than objects far off….Today modern archaeology and the Information Age are rewriting history every day. Have you ever heard the term “Dark Ages”? This term was once used to describe a period of alleged intellectual and cultural darkness between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance (AD 500 – 1300), but starting in the nineteenth century an increased recognition of the accomplishments of that period led to a more restrictive use of the term. By the twentieth century, the term had been further narrowed until most modern scholars finally stopped using it altogether, finding the term false and misleading. In other words, there never really was a “Dark Ages.”
  2. It is not possible to record every miracle or event as it occurs, especially in times of spiritual fervor. Journalists are familiar with the inverted pyramid. Essentially, all important information is placed at the top of a story to capture readers’ interest while all remaining information, for the sake of time and space, is reported in descending order of importance. Likewise when the Spirit of God moved throughout history, it was not always practical or even possible to record every event as it happened.
  3. Until the twentieth century, many of the firsthand participants in spiritual revivals were largely illiterate….Even most early accounts of the twentieth-century Pentecostal movement were written by non-Pentecostals since many early Pentecostals could neither read nor write. Similarly, most information coming from Early and Middle Ages came from church fathers who were among the relatively few who could read and write….Likewise, many early accounts of the Spirit’s activities in the Church are secondhand and often from hostile witnesses. Consider this expose’ written about an historical Christian sect from a previous century: Devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal….Night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howling of worshippers, who spend hours swaying back and forth in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the gift of tongues and to be able to comprehend the babel. – This excerpt was printed in the Los Angeles Times on April 18, 1906, regarding a “tumble-down shack on Azusa Street” – essentially, the foundation of modern Pentecostalism. 
  4. It is simply human nature to take what we hear at face value, relying on conventional wisdom and prevailing thought for correctness. Few follow the Berean practice of searching the Scriptures daily to verify whether what is said is so….Horace Bushnell, a graduate of Yale during America’s Second Great Awakening, in one of the earliest known works on Continuationism (1858), provided an impetus for this series: It is very commonly assumed and has been since the days of Chrysostom, that miracles and all similar externalities of divine power have been discontinued….The Christian world has been gravitating, visibly, more and more, toward this vanishing point of faith, for whole centuries, and especially since the modern era of science began to shape the thoughts of men by only scientific methods. Religion has fallen into the domain of the mere understanding, and so it has become a kind of wisdom not to believe much, therefore to expect little. 

Strange Fire

Leviticus 10:1-2 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange and unholy fire before the Lord, as He had not commanded them.And there came forth fire from before the Lord and killed them, and they died before the Lord.

In 2013, Pastor John MacArthur, popular, national Christian radio and television teacher, promoted a conference entitled, Strange Fire. It’s purpose? Strange Fire, part of Grace to You’s Truth Matters conference series, evaluates the doctrines, claims, and practices of the modern charismatic movement, and affirms the true Person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. 

In 1833, the Church of Scotland excommunicated Pastor Edward Irving. His crime? He acknowledged that supernatural gifts, especially the gift of tongues, and any other miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit were available to every born-again follower of Jesus. What connection does this have with John MacArthurs’ Strange Fire Conference? In 1882 American Baptist pastor A.J. Gordon described Irving as a man of wonderful endowments” who “was accused of offering STRANGE FIRE upon the altar of his church because he thought to relight the fire of Pentecost.” Several old adages sum up the ironic coincidence: there’s nothing new under the sun, or those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.

Interwoven between my blog excerpts from author Frank Di Pietro I want to bring you up to speed regarding the FIRE of God that manifests in strange ways to those who do not know His History. Obviously God’s Ways are not our ways, and when He draws near He is truly a consuming FIRE. What we consider abnormal and strange is actually normal when it comes to the Presence of God manifested throughout Church history. Through this series of blogs I will introduce you to the writings of Christian historian Jeff Oliver who has written a series of books titled: Pentecost To The Present.

Book One: Early Prophetic and Spiritual Gifts Movements: “Continuationism is a theological term for the belief that gifts of the Holy Spirit like miracles, prophecy, and speaking in tongues, as recorded in Acts, have continued throughout Christian history until this present age. A continuationist or continualist is one who believes the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are still distributed, still in use, and still needed, and that the same Holy Spirit who came on men and women of the Old Testament and on the apostles in the New Testament empowers Christians today with supernatural abilities. The teaching stands in contrast with cessationism, the belief that supernatural gifts ceased with, or sometime after, the original twelve apostles….others acknowledged that miracles continued past the apostolic age, ceasing sometime around the fourth century when the Canon (Bible) was finalized. This idea is based on an erroneous interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. Though “when the perfect comes” clearly points to the Return of Christ, some, over the centuries, believed this phrase pointed to the (Canonization) of the Bible.

So this question begs an answer: If these supernatural gifts never left the Church and if the Holy Spirit has been active throughout Church history, working through each generation to build Christ’s Church since the day of Pentecost, why haven’t we heard more about such activity?

John Wesley argued that, “with the creation of the institutionalized Church, the love of many grew cold. Many practicing heathens became “Christians” and many Christians acted like heathens, thus grieving the Holy Spirit.”

Hebrews 12:25-29 warns of refusing the FIRE of God: See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

As everything in the world has been shaking you can rest assured that the Consuming God of FIRE – the ONE WHO is still speaking and hasn’t lost His Voice – is about to appear and before that event we will see some strange things indeed.