The Betrayal of Pentecost - by Michael Edds
Acts 1:8 declares, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."
The fulfillment of that prophetic word is recorded in Acts 2:4 when a rag-tag group of refugees met in an upstairs room in Jerusalem. It states, "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. I guess these could be called "the first Pentecostals."
The First Century Church was given this supernatural power in order to evangelize the world, and evangelize the world they most certainly did! From tiny Israel to Asia, Europe and around the world, this revival company became a channel through which the message of salvation was given to a lost and helpless humanity. The Book of Acts records the massive revival that swept the known world by those whose souls the Holy Spirit had set on fire. Millions were swept into the kingdom of Heaven because of their powerful witness.
This Holy Spirit - endued group aroused the fury of Hell. All-out-war was savagely waged against them. The Hebrews 11 records, "....(They) were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, and, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tried by temptation, they were killed with the sword. They went from place to place in sheepskins or goatskins, enduring want, oppression and cruelty ... of whom the world was not worthy; in deserts wandering, and in mountains, and in caves, and in the holes of the earth..." The more the dark forces of Hell killed, the more the Early Church grew. What a legacy drenched in their blood they have left for the church of the 21st Century!
What have the Pentecostals of the 21st Century done with this legacy? For many of their televangelists, the message is PROSPERITY! The message of self-sacrifice, of giving all for the salvation of others has been replaced with "seed faith," a self-centered creed that encourages people to give to God (or their ministries) in order to get back even more. It is an appeal to one of the baser elements of the fallen nature of man......greed.
Michael Scott Horton, teacher at a seminary in California, made this observation:
"Some of these people are charlatans. Others are honestly dedicated to one of the most abhorrent errors in religious theology."
Quite a spectacle on television today! On our tv screens, we see miracle water being offered that will cure all, books, tapes, dvds for sale full of secret scriptural codes on how to get rich and prosper, and televangelists' appealing to give to their "ministry" with a certainty to receive much more financial gain in return. While "speaking in tongues," a female televangelist "prophetically" stated that God had given her the number 777. She told the people who were viewing that "God told her" that
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