The Missing Factor

bishop oh let's praise the lord we've got to respond to what we've heard tonight oh let's worship him let's give him total praise hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah oh we praise your name lord we glorify your name hallelujah we magnify your name hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah praise the lord praise the lord you may be seated i sure hope brother jeff arnold is here tonight i need him if you weren't here wednesday night you missed it i appreciate him and love him and in fact we had an emergency meeting of our general board and we voted to give him local license with united pentecostal church international so brother arnold welcome we're glad you're part of us we're taking applications for bunch and breeze too i think a christian worker's license would would be in order a scholarship perhaps yes the 21st century challenges our identity as apostolic pentecostal christians no doubt about it a survey was done a few years ago of pentecostal leaders classical pentecostals mostly ministers and one of the key questions was this are you a pentecostal the most important result of the survey was the pause that almost everyone gave before answering

the question these are preachers raised in a movement that preaches the holy ghost speaking in tongues the most important result of the survey was are you a pentecostal and there was no answer until they could think about it the survey uh administrators classified three responses first were the loyalists who said yes second were what they called the post-distinctives might have said yes or maybe but ended up saying there's really not much difference between us and other groups we don't want to focus on the differences but what on what unites us with everybody else the third group the survey administrators called the post-denominationalists who did not want to claim any identification with pentecostalism even though they were members of a local pentecostal church and in most cases had licensed with a pentecostal denomination or organization this is the state of our world every generation faces the test one of our former general superintendents s w chambers his first general conference message as general superintendent 1968 he preached can the church survive the onslaught of history i believe we're faced in our generation with that same question are we pentecostal we know it's not an organization or

a denomination or a label that saves us or makes us effective but that question strikes at the heart of our identity do we believe in the experience that was poured out on the day of pentecost do we believe in an apostolic ministry do we believe the book of acts is not only available but essential for us today is this the apostolic norm are we pentecostals can the church survive the onslaught of history in 2012 we must face this question in you we find direction in revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 which gives seven letters to seven churches they were historical churches and perhaps indicative of churches throughout the ages but i believe they're inspired and recorded in scripture because they are relevant to us today and i want to look at the letter to the first church to the angel which seems to be not the spirit messenger but the human messenger and so it seems that this message is for people like us who are attending general conference who in some sense are messengers to the churches today and so if you allow me to read from i'll read a passage i won't ask

you to stand but i'd ask you to listen carefully revelation chapter 2 beginning at verse 1 through verse 7. i believe this message is for us today unto the angel of the church of ephesus right these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks i know thy works i want you to pay careful attention to these important factors i know thy works and i labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil and has tried them which say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars and has borne and has patience and for my name's sake has labors and has not fainted nevertheless i have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else i will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent but this thou hast that thou hatest the deeds of the nicolaitans which i also hate he that hath an ear let him hear

what the spirits say of unto the churches to him that overcometh will i give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of god a promise that i believe we can claim but if we claim the promise we need to heed the instruction and the warning now i will take perhaps a little different tack here at the outset because i want to focus not on the obvious flaw but on six commendable factors of this church notice carefully number one they had good works if you read verse two they had good works they worked hard and they got results if you're pragmatic the ephesus church is the church for you they got results number two they labored in fact the lord mentions this in verse two and verse 3 he underscores their labor that means effort and notice in the second reference they labored particularly for the name of jesus if you're a jesus name church you will like the ephesus church they were definitely jesus name they labored they not only worked but they worked hard number three they had patience again the lord mentions this two times

to underscore the significant efforts and patience verse two and verse three not only did they work not only did they work hard but they worked long they had no tolerance for evil that's the fourth commendable factor and two times this is mentioned in verse two they hated evildoers in verse six they hated evil deeds and with the reference of the nicolaitans it was an organized group identifiably probably because they had a specific doctrinal view the implication is the ephesus church hated false deeds and hated false doctrines if you are doctrinally strong you can identify with the ephesus church they hated evil deeds they hated evil doctrines number five they had discernment of false leadership claims they were not so easily slit led by fly-by-night preachers they were not so easily impressed by those with charisma and talent with the latest fads and fashions just because someone claimed to be an apostle just because someone claimed to be a prophet just someone claimed to be an expert in church growth they did not follow them but they prayed and compared them to scripture and discerned whether they really were a spiritual leader or not number six

they persevered they had perseverance this is mentioned twice in different words in verse 3 the positive word they have born and the opposite description or the negative side they did not faint two phrases both indicating the same perseverance the ephesus church worked they worked hard they worked long and they did not give up six commendable factors when you look at these factors we're clearly not dealing with a church that's generic or charismatic or emerging in in the kind of terms that we would use you are dealing with an apostolic church a church that in many ways we would love to be identified with but obviously there's only one problem they had six commendable factors but the seventh factor was missing and this is what i'm preaching about tonight my message is entitled the missing factor one factor was missing we've heard tremendous preaching all throughout this conference i have been amazed to note it seems that god has been speaking clearly to the church god has been speaking clearly to preachers not just to feel good conference not just wonderful message to rejoice over although we love to do that there's nothing wrong with that

a certain amount of entertainment and fun and excitement and fellowship and camaraderie oh that's good but we've heard a clear sound if you go back to sister angela harwood the young minister who took 10 minutes to preach about our apostolic foundation it's great to hear a minister in their 20s talking about the importance of apostolic foundation amen and then to hear our general secretary brother jones calling us to preaching there are a lot of things we can do there are a lot of methods and techniques that can be advantageous but somehow we've got to get back to the preaching of the word of god nothing replaces the preaching there is a miracle of the preached word of god brother jeff arnold in his own unique way emphasized we've got to get back to the miraculous nothing else is a substitute oratorical ability is not what we're talking about when we're talking about preaching but we're talking about preaching until you get results we're talking about preaching jesus we're talking about preaching the word we're talking about confirming the word with signs following we must have the power of god or we haven't done our job

we're talking about the miraculous what a clear sound raymond woodson we've got to go back to the first generation experience we can't live on a second or third generation experience back to the first generation experience brother jimmy tony reminded us what we need is apostolic revival we cannot be content with our existing churches we cannot be in maintenance mode the apostolic church was not in maintenance mode the apostolic church was in revival mode if we're going to be apostolic we've got to go back to revival brother wayne huntley preached faithfulness you've got to be there and you got to be faithful all this other stuff cannot be hit and miss it's got to be day in and day out week in and week out results are noticed results if there are no miracles don't stop preaching miracles keep preaching miracles if nothing seems to happen keep preaching the word keep believing the word keep standing on the word brother aaron soto reminded us of our calling our gifts and talents are great but they're only meant to be used in exercise of our calling and we heard a few minutes ago brother akiel thompson our

mission back to the mission back to souls back to reaching our cities each message has been a clear sound i commend each of them they're excellent in their own way and exactly what the conference needs and ordained of the holy ghost one thing i appreciate about general conference there are many wonderful conferences but nowhere else will you get a clear sound to the messengers of the church in a sense of the whole church is calling us to preach the whole church is calling us to miracles the whole church is calling us the first generation experience the whole church one god one church one mission praise god hallelujah i feel the anointing of the holy ghost but without taking away anything from all the others somebody besided besides me some committee decided to put me last this is my eighth event today my fifth speaking event today i didn't choose this and i feel rather inadequate to wrap this all up but since it's my job tonight i'm gonna do it and hopefully the lord's in charge as if he's not doesn't matter anyway but with all the call to go back to the original one

factor could be missing all the other doesn't work without the missing factor so i'm trying to put that last piece of the puzzle in place to give us a complete picture of what god wants to do in the general conference of the united pentecostal church international this one missing factor in the ephesian church outweighed all the others put together because despite all the other characteristics if the general board had examined the ephesus church we would have said this is a good apostolic church we would be glad to add you to the list but jesus said you've fallen because you're lacking one factor you're not really an apostolic church after all one factor he said in fact if you don't repent judgment is coming and it's going to come speedily so it wasn't like he was saying you're almost there you're 90 there just a little more effort and you'll be 100 hey he didn't say well you know you're not the best church but your second best and so hey that's much better than those that are 50 and 40 percent i mean we're not going to disfellowship you by any means but that's what

not what jesus said he said because you're lacking one thing you're going to lose everything if you don't repent and do it right now you're going to lose it all now what was the one factor well it was love and we understand according to first corinthians 13 if you have all the gifts of the spirit put together all wisdom and knowledge and you don't have love you have nothing if you do all kinds of good works even to give all of your money to missions and even sacrifice and die a martyr's death for truth but without love it profits you nothing so we need to get back to love loving god and loving people but i want you to know more specifically jesus said you've lost your first love what does that signify first love well let me take a little detour if i could for a few minutes tell you a story from 1978 i was 21 years of age and the young woman that i'm speaking of connie was 17.

now for those of you that are frantically trying to figure out how old i am i'm 55 so you don't have to add i won't tell you how old my wife is i was a freshman in law school she was a senior in high school only four years apart but at that particular time it was a pretty drastic gap i moved to town austin texas there were some large churches but i chose a small church 40 people in attendance because i felt i could be do something for god a little bit be more useful more helpful i walked in the church they they had three praise singers immediately as a young single man my attention was drawn that is absolutely beautiful fair-skinned blue-eyed blond-haired vibrant vivacious feisty young woman who sincerely loved god and so of course being a fairly self-assured i graduated from college i was in law school fairly self-assured of course i invited her out on a date and of course she turned me down that wasn't according to plan she didn't like me she didn't like my personality to give an example our first fight was this we uh we were

both involved in outreach we our church wasn't big enough to have a bus ministry we had a van ministry so several of us went to uh knocking on doors we went to a trailer park and we started inviting people to church tried to meet every family every child she was taking notes and scribbling them down as we met people their ages and and with if they were commit to church their address and so on as we got finished i took the list from her went home and i saw that as we had met people she'd scribbled a name here and named there as we connected family she would put arrows and and she had boxes and she had dates and places and it was all over what you have to understand is i'm a linear thinker i go one two three and then under that abc and 4 5 to 10 she goes 1 7 6 8 20 and she gets there fast but it's non-linear so i thought you know wouldn't it be nice to have all of these addresses in order of the address of the order that you would approach them wouldn't

it be nice to have all the families grouped together and the same address the the kids names their ages all that in order and so i prepared this beautifully comprehensive list and when i saw her i presented to her in all honesty and innocence as a law student having accomplished my task she said where is my list i said well i threw it away that was our first fight i later found out the only fight that she and her mom had in her life was my mom thought she shouldn't have treated me like she treated me and she thought she was perfectly justified and treated me like she treated me so of course i was a law student right so i didn't give up so easily the pastor had found out that i taught lots of bible studies in my former church and so he asked me if i would teach the church on wednesday nights through search for truth to train them to teach bible studies so for 10 weeks i taught on wednesday nights well i developed notes and connie was a volunteer worker for the church so she typed up all the

notes at the end of the 10 weeks i said you know i don't have lots of money but i've got to repay you in some way i can't let you do all this work for the church and there being no nothing to reward you the least i could do was take you out for dinner see i won you've probably seen some of my operations at headquarters by the jones there's more than one way so i picked her up brought her a flower took her to a fancy restaurant that i couldn't afford steak dinner i had to save lots of money as a student i won though at least i thought i did but until she announced in the middle of the dinner that she was sick she couldn't eat i needed to take her home right away so i took her home she won that was our first date for a year and a half but let's let's fast forward the story now i'm telling it my way she's probably not happy right now and so if you want to hear her version she's not licensed to preach so she can't tell her version you

can check with her later but this is this is my version so to make a long story short for a year and a half i pursued other interests but you know i felt like i knew the will of god but i did not have a lot of confidence that she knew the will of god she graduated from high school got a full-time job made lots of money bought a new car when we did get married i i certainly married up i mirror i i had an old ford pinto lime green and i married up into a brand new black pontiac grand prix but anyway i digress i'm talking about first love so after a year and a half her job moved her to odessa and i certainly love and appreciate brother pew and the wonderful church and the wonderful city of odessa i will say west texas is not quite like austin it doesn't have trees and so forth so i don't know if that was a factor or what but when she came back after six weeks of working in odessa i said of course i'm always trying to keep some connection anyway i

missed you but the shocking thing was she answered well i missed you and the way she said it something has changed something happened in odessa i don't know there's a lack of water lack of trees so to make a long story shirt we started dating in a couple months i asked her to marry me she said yes although she said don't tell anybody it took another three months and by this time i felt called to preach and i said look i'm getting ready to graduate from law school god is calling me i don't know where i'm going i don't have a job but i know for sure i'm supposed to leave town i'm supposed to go full time in the ministry and it's coming up quick i'm either have to go with you or without you so she finally decided it's okay in march we got officially publicly engaged in april 30th i did get the ministry job offer may 13th i graduated june 6 we got married went on our honeymoon and then a week later we moved to jackson mississippi for full-time ministry and we've been married ever since now i said all

that to say three kids later and the third grandkid just came a few days ago since i've been here at conference praise god tomorrow we're gonna go see her but when i think of first love you know when i think of my wife today it shocks me every once in a while i'm married to a grandmother how can that be i realized i have to be real careful here but the reason is when i think of connie i think of 17 year old blond-haired blue-eyed young woman singing a beautiful song who loves god who's the life of the party who makes me laugh who will uh who will oppose me if she thinks i'm getting out of you know i'm getting too largely uh or or too superior that she's gonna fight back and she's gonna maneuver that's what i think of to me that's first love that first appreciation respect friendship romance love i have a couple pictures i saw one i don't know if i saw the other she i have the beautiful one in the feisty one the the single one the engaged one and the married one so you can show

them any time you want maybe you've done both there's there's the other example but it's love that's still fresh still renews still real still gross and so i thought what is first love as opposed to simply love and let me give you three characteristics that i believe are associated with first love the first thing is love and especially first love is a relationship you cannot have love without relationship and of course in the context of scripture we're talking about a relationship with a person who is the one true god whom we know is apostolics revealed in flesh as the lord jesus christ when one of the scribes came to jesus and asked him the question mark chapter 12 what's the first commandment of all jesus said quoting deuteronomy 6 4 hear o israel the lord our god is one lord we still believe there's only one god there's only one lord we know his name is jesus that's our foundation but it's not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge it's knowledge for the sake of relationship because he said you are to love the lord your god with all your heart with all your

soul with all your mind with all your strength it's an intellectual knowledge it's an emotional knowledge it's a spiritual knowledge it's your whole being that's why we get excited in our worship because he's the only true god we've got to get excited it's time to worship with all of our strength with all of our soul with all our might it's more than knowledge it's more than intellect it's more than just a fly-by-night emotion but it includes the joy of the lord we've got to love him with all our heart with all our mind with all of our soul and with all of our strength hallelujah it's okay to jump it's okay to run it's all of our strength all of our strength all of our strength hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah first love first love first love first love relationship but second not only relationship but commitment lots of people are in relationships at least facebook says they are but you need more than just a relationship there's got to be commitment jesus said john 14 15 if you love me and you're thinking show some joy so show some you know some emotion

but he said if you love me keep my commandments we believe in that first love involves commitment i could preach a message on each of these but i'm just planting the seed here tonight and then the third thing that first love signifies to me is a freshness an eagerness a zeal the wonder of a newborn babe that can excite the hardened heart or the wonder of that child that three-year-old that four-year-old as you go to the park for the first time with that child as you go swimming in the pool for the first time with that child you see life through the eyes of that child you may walk in the park a billion times but when you walk with that toddler it's first love you see it as if you never saw it before or the wonder of a bride and groom you may have fixed i lived alone for three years i fixed my own food such as it was uh i did a lot of things but when you do it together all of a sudden it's different you you know you've come to church a million times and you bring that

that visitor all of a sudden every aspect of that surface has meaning when you have a new convert every time you go out after church you're seeing it as if you never saw it before the word i've chosen is desire and of course in relationship to god we must have that awe that appreciation that purity of motive that sincerity of response that consecration that devotion to summarize what i'm saying simply first love means go back to your first relationship go back to your first commitment go back to your first desire and the experience that flows from that first desire it doesn't leave out works those six commendable factors of the ephesian church are not scratched because if you read verse 5 when the ephesian church gets their first love they're supposed to go back and do their first works there's an implication that for all their works all the working hard long and not giving up even their works were lacking and they wouldn't have their first works until they had their first love but if they recovered their first love they would recover their first works the missing factor now there could be many

applications but i want to go back to what i started with our pentecostal identity obviously from what i've said our pentecostal identity must be focused on jesus he's the alpha and omega he's the author and the finisher he's the beginning and the ending he's the first and the last its relationship with jesus its commitment to jesus its freshness of desire for the presence of the lord jesus christ the purpose of the lord jesus christ but a good way to see this practically is in acts chapter 2 and the example of the early church throughout the new testament even go back to our pentecostal history the early 20th century what was that first love when they were first coming into truth when they first received the holy ghost when they first understood the beautiful revelation of baptism in jesus name what was it like i'm not saying they were perfect they were flawed just like us even the apostles had flaws just like us if you don't believe it read acts 15 they got angry and argue each other at general conference we haven't done that at least not this conference at least not in public

maybe in the halls i don't know but what was it like with those apostles what was it like with those pentecostal pioneers the early 20th century and i just want to mention four things again just touch them we've got to recapture and i wrote this part long time ago so you applied we've got to recapture the work of the holy spirit if we're going to be pentecostal it can only be by the work of the holy spirit we must preach the baptism of the holy ghost we must preach tongues is the initial evidence we must have the expectation that when people receive the holy ghost they will speak in tongues we must encourage them and pray with them until the work is accomplished until god confirms it we must have the holy ghost with evidence we must have miracles we must have sides we must have wonders we cannot have first love without the evidence of the miraculous in our midst we cannot have the first works unless god moves in the midst of the church we must have the work of the holy spirit number two communion with god read acts 2 after they

were filled with the spirit what you find is prayer what you find is fellowship you find worship you find giving you find participation you find life in the spirit it's not just an initial experience it's not just speaking in tongues for one minute but it's a new way of life it's walking in the spirit living in the spirit breathing in the spirit you know sometimes i think we live our daily mundane routine lives and every once in a while we rise into the spirit a particularly good sunday night service we rise to the lovely spirit or we're on the job or at school or at home and somehow there's an urgent need and we pray more than usual and we have an experience that we rise in the spirit i wonder what it would be like if we lived in the spirit and every once in a while we kind of touched down to pay our bills every once in a while we touch down to take care of the necessary things of earthly life after all somebody's got to cook dinner somebody's got to clean up the dishes somebody's got to fix the car

somebody's got to do this but what if we could live in the spirit and every once in a while just kind of descend to take care of the things of the flesh and the world what would it be like to pursue life in the spirit communion with god relationship commitment desire the third thing it's all connected i'm just arbitrarily giving different points but the life of holiness that word holiness sometimes is shortchanged the world doesn't like the word holiness in any form now when it talks about other gifts or fruit of the spirit when it talks about christian virtues the world will applaud you when you say we need more love we need more peace we need more joy even we need more patience the world will applaud you but when does the world ever say we need more holiness the world never says that when's the last time you heard a secular person use the word holy unless it was in a joking fashion holy joe holy cow or maybe some remote exp a remote event the holy father you know the holy nuns and priests but holiness is that one virtue that the

very pursuit separates us from the world i'm not primarily talking about dress i'm talking about a way of life the way we think our attitudes the way we respond to people the way we talk the way we use electronic media it's shocking to me that it's okay to gossip if you use electronic media it's okay to slander it's okay to sow discord among brethren as long as you don't write a letter or catch somebody in the hall but if you just post it on facebook then it's okay oh that's just a pet peeve of mine but i'm talking about the life of holiness the way of holiness spiritual fruit a heart given to god and yes of course it affects our use of media electronic devices yes of course it affects our dress of course it does that's how we intersect with the world if we're holy how can it not involve the way we intersect with the world around us now you say well that's just getting off on a tangent no after the acts 2 38 message if you believe acts 2 38 that's the plan of salvation acts 2 39 is the

promise acts 2 40 is holiness because after they responded he said you've got to save yourself from this untoward generation this generation is perverse and wicked it's going the opposite direction of god so if you want to embrace what god has you have to withdraw yourself preserve yourself save yourself that's separation that's holiness that's a new way of life that's pentecostal identity that's first love that's not afterthought that's not ps that's not footnote that's right in there in the middle of acts chapter 2. pentecostal identity and then fourth this is my my final thought about our identity if you study the new testament and if you study the 20th century church historians say that what characterized the early pentecostals two things one was the baptism of the holy spirit speaking in tongues the second thing was the anticipation of the coming of the lord the bible talks about the blessing and reward that comes to those who are looking for his appearing and loving his appearing it seems like the coming of the lord is part of first love you see when i was a missionary kid growing up in korea at that time a

very poor poverty stricken third world country i remember my father first brought some korean ministers to the u.s when they went to a department store their minds were overwhelmed at the choices when they loved to go to a cafeteria they love to go to a salad bar because they could not believe you could have anything imaginable that you would want the kings of the middle ages didn't have the choices that we have at the salad bar anything you want fruit vegetables in season out of season all kinds of meat you could actually have five kinds of meat at the same meal instead of going out and killing it once a year and having a special feast you could just have it all right there and one of those ministers asked my father in all sincerity how do you americans preach about heaven why would any american want to go to heaven they have it all right here how do you get people to consecrate to serve god i think he had a point you know the old songs were always about heaven the rapture the coming of the lord the meeting in the air we

shall see the king a lot of our songs are about me in my great experience and i love worship courses don't get me wrong but sometimes it's almost like we're worshiping our worship or we're loving our worship but the the remote object is not in view how would it change our thinking going back to holiness and miracle signs and wonders if we would walk out of here and look at the stars and say what if suddenly one of those stars just brilliantly exploded and it was actually the coming of the lord or what if we get up in the morning and say what if that cloud formation is a little unusual what if suddenly that cloud parted and the lord came i wonder if we just started thinking that way a little bit more often would it change our conversation would it change our choices if we loved the coming of the lord like we used to if we really anticipated the coming of the lord if when we got lost in worship we might think you know what with this atmosphere of worship i could envision the lord coming back right now you know

i'm coming to a close but i'm going to slow you down just a little bit let's put all this together i did some reading and there's reference here there's a book that's written several years ago by trinitarian pentecostals and i'm not disparaging them please understand i'm just giving you research and so bear with me i put it on the screen so i could go through it rapidly but here are quotations not from us but from recognized scholars i know most of the scholars personally that i'm quoting right here from the book i didn't put all their names but i put the reference maybe they have it back in the publishing house i told them about it but listen to what they're saying as of the 21st century this is 21st century research the experience and this is pentecostal churches trinitarian pentecostal churches classical not charismatic not you know generic spirit-filled but classical historic organizations their people received the holy ghost and the same revivals that our people received the holy ghost to start the movement the experience of spirit baptism has become optional and not for all believers this reconfiguring results in a nearly uncritical

acceptance of a view of salvation which reduces salvation to a decision for christ this reduction too easily leads to a doctrine wherein there is nothing else beyond that simple first step of mental assent this definition has led to a salvation in which there is no real conversion survey of trinitarian pentecostal pastors they asked if they agree with this statement there has been a loss of spiritual gifts 70 percent agree or strongly agree there has been a loss of pentecostal identity 60 percent agree or strongly agree the church needs revitalization 84 agree or strongly agree supernatural experiences are less and less likely to happen in pentecostal churches they have moved the practice of divine healing as well as conversion expense and other experiences out of the sunday morning service it is rare today to hear pastoral preaching on the baptism of the holy spirit from classical pentecostal pulpits and even rarer to witness glossily in congregational settings one of my friends told me it said it's been 20 years since he heard someone his denomination preach on the baptism of the holy ghost there seems to be a crisis among many pastors credentialed with pentecostal denominations

about the very essence of their doctrine as well as its applicability in their congregations it is unlikely for pentecostal pastors to preach about spiritual phenomena as they are increasingly concerned about scaring off seekers on sunday morning i would say that's what seekers need to feel and see i'm all for being seeker sensitive if you give them the goods when they come what made pentecostalism distinctive in the 20th century was its welcome of the supernatural in its churches an interest that has largely waned in contrast american pop culture is obsessed with the supernatural from harry potter to television series and movies about the occult in the end there will not be a 21st century pentecostalism in the united states at least not in classical pentecostal churches unless that expectation is rekindled we hear a lot of talk about relevance let me tell you something the world is hungry for the supernatural if we don't give them the supernatural they'll find it in something else the most relevant thing you can do is preach healing preach deliverance preach baptism of the holy ghost preach life transformation by the power of god that's what's relevant if we're going

to be pentecostals go back to first love first love first love how about this i didn't write this i just picked it out of the book around 1950 all pentecostals