The members of this committee were chosen from a broad-based spectrum of varied geography, experience, and vocation within the Assemblies of God. We represent pastors, college presidents, evangelists, authors, national and district executives, home and foreign missionaries, in cultural and ethnic diversity. Though we brought to this committee an extensive range of thought and personal interest, it became apparent in our first prayer gathering that we could indeed come to solid agreement on one critical issue: Our beloved Fellowship of the Assemblies of God needs a sovereign move of the Holy Spirit. Do we, however, desire such a move of the Spirit sufficiently to subject ourselves to the spiritual disciplines necessary to enter into this blessing?
This committee did not see its assignment as paternalistic or corrective, but rather sought to reflect the desire of our Fellowship for fresh revival and to seek God for a pathway to fulfillment of the hope that lies within us. To this end, we met each time with open and seeking hearts and without premeditated agenda. We studied the "stats" and charts reflecting numerical strength or weakness of our Fellowship; we even walked the pathway of the Asuza Street revival in Los Angeles. What dominated our hearts, however, was the sense that all the analysis of statistics and the revisitation of history will not bring about the desired result. They may serve to heighten awareness of the need, and they may even produce a database for correct answers, but, in the end, this pursuit may only dull our hunger for God with massive doses of nostalgia, or inoculate our awareness with the pride of having "already done it", or a worse presumption, "knowing how to do it." We as a committee have concluded that we need what only God can offer. We will be fulfilled by what only the Holy Spirit can accomplish. We will not find our true Pentecostal identity in the programs of people, the philosophies of the day, the fads of religion, or the strategies of wise men. We need God, and we need Him now.
Ours is a movement based upon the sovereign move of the Holy Spirit. At the turn of the century, there was not a single Pentecostal denomination in America, and any Pentecostal evidence around the world was but a flickering shadow of the early church. Today, with estimates as high as 150 million Spirit-baptized believers in the world, who can deny the evidence of the sweeping hand of God in the midst of His people? By His grace, the Assemblies of God has been at the crest of the wave in this glorious revival. "From Hos Springs, Arkansas, to the uttermost parts of the world" ...that was our vision. Truly God has given great empowerment through the Holy Spirit to fulfill his Divine Commission, and to this day we see glorious signs of revival around the world, largely due to Pentecostal endeavors. The best church analysts say that there are 28,000 conversions to Christ per day in the People's Republic of China; in portions of Africa, 20,000 per day; 10,000 per day in South America with a corresponding 50,000 new churches opening there each year.
What about here in North America? It has given us great concern in the Assemblies of God that we are not seeing the growth of our earlier years. In the most recent statistics, from 1993 to 1994, we saw a net gain of only 2 churches added to the 11,762 we recorded in 1993. While those statistics are alarming, it should concern us even more that, in American Christendom, there is a combined total of 50-60 churches of all denominations that close their doors every week. George Barna, the church statistician, estimates that if nothing stops this trend, 100,000 churches out of 375,000 in this country will close within the next ten years. It would seem as if the Spirit of God is sweeping across the world, while passing by North America. If this is true, why? Can the trend be reversed? This committee is convinced that there is an answer and that we as Pentecostals have a unique part to play in restoring America to the heart of God.
We in the Assemblies of God are well aware of what one sovereign move of God can accomplish. One season of harvest can "restore the years that the locust have eaten" (Joel 2:25). One marvelous, earth-shaking revival will provide a well-spring of blessing and hope to wearied laborers in the harvest. At the local level, revival could resolve the frustrations of pastors over flat or declining attendance patterns by the influx of new converts, or the return of backslidden believers who no longer are in the ranks of workers. Crushing financial needs are lifted on the wings of God's blessing. Revival resolves divisive problems, purifies the ranks, cleanses the motives, and ends the weariness of work in the flesh. At the national level, a mighty revival would send an army of workers into a whitened harvest. It would swell the ranks of ministry applicants, and the enrollment in our colleges and seminary would increase proportionately. One sweep of God's holiness during revival can purify the motives for ministry and raise the standards of lifestyle among our leaders. One touch of God's life will silence the "accuser of the brethren" and drown criticism in the praise of God's people.
Surely we all want the blessings of a sovereign move of God. Yet we may not all be aware of the desperate nature of our plight, or how truly great is our need. We may be insensitive to the pathway to revival that lies before us, or the dangers we face in getting there. We may not be aware of the powerful distractions or of the hindering forces. We may not even see how much God desires to bless us and to move upon His people.
It became the growing conviction of this committee that the dangers faced by our Fellowship are the same as those revealed by the writer of the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 2:1-4, he warns them about drifting from God. Perhaps the greatest danger to our Pentecostal movement is that of drifting from our doctrine and dedication to God. The Holy Spirit warns us through the writer to "pay much closer attention to what we have heard" (He. 2:1). The ship that drifts will find itself going nowhere by direction and drifting anywhere by default. If we fail to value our moorings, we will find ourselves neglecting or even making light of things that were once precious to us: the salvation of the lost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural giftings that accompany it, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the character it produces, the cardinal doctrines of our faith, or the altar as a holy place of total surrender.
The second symptom is describe, in Hebrews 3:6 - 4:11, as disbelief in God. God desires that His people rest in His finished work. Busying ourselves in the works of the flesh is a sign that we are no longer entering into that rest, and will leave us discouraged, dismayed, disillusioned, and defeated. Unrest is everywhere in our society, but should it find its way into the ranks of the redeemed? Should ministers and wives be so harassed or on the edge of "burn out"? Is it possible that we are not ministering out of the anointing, but out of the flesh? Is it possible that we are not living out our spiritual lives in the true rest of God? One touch of God's hand will bring more life to ministry than all our efforts at the graveside of Lazarus. One word from God is more powerful than 10,000 words of rhetoric. One revelation of the Spirit will give more direction than a host of committee or board meetings.
The third symptom described by the writer to the Hebrews, in chapter 5:13 - 6:8, is departure from God. Our Fellowship was born in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the providence of God. Our greatest numerical growth took place when we emphasized the "born again" experience, Bible exposition, and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as the enduement of power for evangelism. Are we now content to trade soul-winning for sensationalism, the meat of the Word for the milk of the Word, weeping "between the porch and the altar" for laughing within the courts, purity for popularity? The neglect of the presence of God and of the sound doctrine of the Word may lead to outright rejection of them both.
Symptom number four about which we are warned, in Hebrews 10:21-34, is decline before God. The Word of God demonstrates, and our experience tells us, that the fourth generation is the most crucial to the continuation of a movement. The Assemblies of God is now eighty years old and our future depends upon what this generation will do with the inheritance given it. Furthermore, what we, of this generation, do with the inheritance will determine whether or not our spiritual progeny will "rise up and call us blessed."
The last and most serious warning is that of discipline by God, in Hebrews 12:5-29. We must not regard lightly the chastening of the Lord, or fail to recognize it as a sign of God's love. His desire is to renew relationship with Him and to cultivate holiness. His discipline is never exercised to destroy, but to bring the repentant into the fullness of His grace. Elijah's prayers, in James 5:17-18, illustrate this very clearly. Before the man of God could pray for rain and its blessing of fruitfulness, he prayed for a chastening, three and one-half year drought. Would the church's leadership of this 20th century dare to pray this kind of prayer in order to prepare for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
Having identified these points of danger, what is the spiritual condition of our Fellowship? The answer to that question may be pretty well summed up by the aggregate answer of the constituents in this room. We, the ministers, leaders, and delegates of our churches, are the representative answer of our Fellowship. Is there any drifting, disbelief, departure, or decline in us personally? Do we see evidence of it in our churches, or in the church institutions we represent? If this is our condition, or the condition of those we represent, then be assured that the loving but chastening hand of our dear Lord is upon us. There is only one correct response: repentance that is both personal and specific. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, we read God's response toward His repentant people: "If My people, who are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (KJV).
Repentance implies profound and immediate change and cannot tolerate "business as usual". In the harmony of the gospels, we read twice of the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem by our Lord. It was such a strange scene to see Jesus braid a whip and banish the money-changers and animal merchants from the premises of God's house. It seems such a stark contrast from that of the Good Shepherd Who searches for the sheep, the loving Savior Who delivers the world from its sinfulness and heals the world of its woundedness. Yet Jesus does it both times with such intensity that one cannot escape the importance of the moment. The key to understanding is found in the verse following the incident (Mt. 21:13), "And He said to them, 'It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a robbers' den.'" The provision of animals for sacrifice was not in contradiction with God's Word, especially since the Jews had long since become a nation of city dwellers who needed to buy their sacrifices. Nor was the exchange of money the issue, since many had traveled from foreign cities to be in Jerusalem for the Day of Atonement. The issue was that service in the temple had become "big business" for personal gain. Beyond the price-gouging of the people was the offense to God that he was no longer noticed. Those in charge were not only prayerless, but they were using the ministry as a means for personal benefit and were stealing God's glory. The place of ministry had, in fact, become "business as usual" in the hearts of those in the service of the temple. The result was that people were not being delivered or healed, but instead remained in the squalor of their sickened condition. This is what angered our Lord. What pleases God is when His house is restored in its priority to prayer and in the recognition of His presence so that shackles of bondage are broken and the healing streams flow with life once again. It is no coincidence that the next verse reads (Mt. 21:14), "and the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and he healed them."
We must remain unshakable in our focus: We must be people of prayer. The altar must not give way to "seeker-sensitive" appeasement or tightly packaged services that allow no time for the birthing of new converts or the tarrying of the saints. Nor should the altar become a showcase for the sensational rather than drawing attention to Christ. Our altars need to be bathed in the prayers of God's people and set on fire with the visitation of the Holy Spirit. If the altar in the church is neglected, beware the altar at home will be neglected as well. If the priority of prayer is not modeled in the church by its leadership, prayer will not likely be modeled before children in the home. If the private prayer closet of the minister's personal devotional life is shabby, how, from a shallow pulpit, will the spiritual formation of those whom he disciples be shaped? Prayer is critical to our future and must be kept in sharp focus.
Secondly, we must be people of the Word. There has never been an age of greater uncertainty than today. There is a quest for rock-solid answers in a world of nebulous, relative values. There is a need for unshakable convictions in a world where "easy-believism" has been promoted as the religion of the day. There is a need for a strong, Bible-centered pulpit where God's Word is uncompromised. There has never been a more critical time for sound Pentecostal theology, practice, and experience than today. Every great movement and ministry in Christendom has been fueled by sound theology, not by the latest technology or Madison Avenue techniques. The Apostles filled all Jerusalem with their doctrine. During the Reformation, reformers were martyred because they would not let loose their grip upon solid theological conviction. The Puritans tenaciously embraced and preached the doctrines of prayer and holy living. It was the great theological truths about the authority of God's Word, the devastation of sin, the wonder of God's grace, the work of the Spirit, and the judgement of heaven and hell that propelled great missionaries like Hudson Taylor, Adoniram Judson, Mark Buntain, and Victor Plymire to the ends of the earth. Our movement began in a Bible school study group in Topeka, Kansas. In fact this was the earliest root system of many of our churches. When it is declared that "time shall be no more", may we still be known as people of the timeless, unchanging, everlasting, eternal Word of God.
Thirdly, we must be people of relationship. It was our awareness of 1) relationship to God, 2) relationship to the world, and 3) relationship to one another that fostered our need to form this Fellowship called The Assemblies of God. All ministry flows out of relationship. Pastors must cultivate intimacy with God and closeness with the people they serve. Church life must foster a level of fellowship that will draw people together in meaningful ways. Unity must characterize the quality of life together in the Body. Furthermore, our firm personal convictions and denominational loyalties must not prevent us from reaching out to other Christian groups who stand solidly with us in the confession that Jesus is Lord. And, in terms of our mission, how will we evangelize the world apart from relating to the lost? How can we reach them without touching them? And how will we disciple them as new converts without loving them as our spiritual children? The Asuza Street revival may well serve as a guiding star for our quest for renewal of spiritual life and purpose. There it was that, through the Holy Spirit, people found relationship with the Father and the Son in previously unknown dimensions. There, also, God's passion for the salvation of all men was generated in the hearts of the renewed to a degree not known since the first Pentecostal outpouring.
Finally, we must be people of the Holy Spirit. There is a grave temptation for us to now rely upon our growing body of experience and the momentum of our previous successes to carry us through to our mission. The Kingdom of God is not a matter of sitting around the campfire patting ourselves on the back, spinning yarns about yesterday's victories. As 1 Corinthians 4:20 says, "...the Kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power". Neither is the Kingdom merely eating and drinking, but "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Ro. 14:17). While the Kingdom may be seen in righteousness and peace and joy, it will always find expression in the Holy Spirit. The Assemblies does not need a revival of religious activity. We have had enough of the ebb and flow, the rise and fall, and the pendulum swings from extreme to extreme. We need the constancy of the Kingdom of God in the Holy Spirit, as Jesus proclaimed it. Jesus gave us the keys to the Kingdom of the Spirit. It is in this Kingdom where the will of God is done, by the Holy Spirit, and not just contemplated. It is in this Kingdom where we, by the Spirit, run from temptation and do not toy with it; where we know that our King has dealt the fatal blow to the "evil one" and we are delivered by the power of the Spirit from Satan's snare. It is this Kingdom where we rely solely upon the Spirit for our resources and where God can never become obsolete. Oh Church, having begun in the Spirit, will we now rely upon the flesh to bring us to the end of our mission (Ga. 3:3)? We will always cherish the roots of our historical past, whether they reach to Topeka, Kansas, Asuza Street, or Hot Springs, Arkansas. A tree must grow up from its roots, and never apart from them. Nevertheless, the root system from which we have drawn our life down through the years is much greater than our historical past. It is a root system which transcends time and will sustain us through all eternity. Our roots are the Kingdom of God in the Holy Spirit. We will praise God for the glories of our past, and weep with God for our failures in the past, but, by the grace of God, we will get our heads and hearts wrapped up in Him who has triumphed and gone on to His glory throne from which He pours out upon His church an unlimited and unending fresh supply of His blessed Holy Spirit. It is the Kingdom of the Spirit which transforms us from glory to glory until we, in a burst of spiritual transformation that will thrust us forever into the presence of God, finally become what He has destined us to be.
It is this committee's observation that, while we as a Fellowship may do good things and ask God to bless them, it behooves us with greater wisdom to know and do what God is blessing. Is it possible that God has for His people, and in particular His people in North America, another wave of great revival on the horizon? Yes! Can we hear the sound of a sovereign Wind blowing? Yes! Then how do we enter into the blessing? Dare we ask the great Wind of God to "blow upon us" when the Bible clearly tells us "the wind blows where it wishes" (Jn. 3:8)?
There are indeed signs of revival that should encourage us:
The pathway to the revival pictured in Ezekiel 37 is found in the preceding chapter (Ezekiel 36) where, 48 times, God declares His sovereign intention to bring about this revival of His people.
Nevertheless, we find in Ezekiel 36:37 the pathway to the promise. It is an invitation from God to become partners with Him. He says, "...This also I will let the house of Israel as Me to do for them...." In the KJV it reads, "...I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them...." In the NIV it says, "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Once again I will yield to the plea of the house of Israel and do this for them...."
Our intercessions and our prayer petitions before the throne release the fulfillment of God's promise. How foolish it would be to sit back in ease waiting for the promise of God when He clearly declares that we are to seek Him earnestly for that sovereign act. Why would He desire us to partner with Him in something that only He can do? It seems that the timing of God may be hastened so that His name may be glorified. Lest we think that God will squander revival to glorify the name of the Assemblies of God, listen to God's clear statement of purpose no less than five times in Ezekiel 36: "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy Name...." (22); "I will vindicate the holiness of My great Name...." (23a); "...the nations will know that I am the Lord...." (23b); "...you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt... and planted...." (36a); "...then they will know that I am the Lord" (38d).
The Spiritual Life Committee urges that we focus singularly on one great priority: seeking God. In every place where God is at work, His people are focused on prayer and waiting in His presence. We urge that all of us, regardless of station or status, set ourselves to seek God by prayer and fasting, by confession of sin and departure from it, and by total surrender to Him until there is a breakthrough from heaven to earth. PRAY... PRAY... PRAY!
