Pentecostalism

Tonight, we're covering Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism, so the Pentecostal church. We're continuing our series, Denominations, Doctrines, and the Deceived.

And this is a big denomination to cover in one night. There's a lot of variation, a lot of differences between us and them.

And there are a lot of differences even within Pentecostalism itself. But as always, I'll try to do my best to give you an accurate representation of what they think. You've got kind of your run-of-the-mill Pentecostals, people that love Jesus and are into the spiritual gifts that they think continue today.

Within this movement, you've also got some crazy false teachers we'll look at as well. And then you've also got complete heretics in this movement also. So again, I want to do my best to accurately represent them, but also just know this is a broad group of people we're talking about.

The name Pentecostal comes from Acts chapter 2. You can go ahead and turn there in your Bible. Acts chapter 2 comes from the day of Pentecost.

And the day of Pentecost covered in Acts chapter 2 is significant because it marks the time when Jesus' disciples received the Holy Spirit. And so Pentecostals are very into the Holy Spirit, as we'll see tonight.

And their name itself comes from the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. And so in broad sweep, Pentecostals think that the spiritual gifts listed in the New Testament all continue to this day.

So any gift you see working in the New Testament should operate in our church today. Whether that's apostleship, whether that's prophecy, or healing, or miracles, any spiritual gift listed, any miraculous power listed in the New Testament should continue on in our churches today.

And so Pentecostals are known for giving and receiving prophecies. These kind of in-the-moment revelations from God. They're known for speaking in tongues. They're known for interpreting those tongues during the service.

And because of this, they're also known as charismatics. Charismatics. So you may also hear them referred to as charismatics as well. But Pentecostalism has some of its roots in the Wesleyan holiness tradition.

We looked at that a little bit last week because that eventually turned into the Church of the Nazarene. So there's a little bit of common heritage there in the way they view the Spirit's operation in the life of believers.

But it was based in Methodism, essentially. And Pentecostalism is actually the most ethnically diverse denomination that exists in the Church today.

So the most ethnically diverse denomination today. And it really dominates the global South. So you think about the Southern Hemisphere. Pretty much any country there, if there's a church in the Southern Hemisphere, it's most likely going to be a Pentecostal church.

Whether it's in South America or Africa or parts of Asia, very much dominated by the Pentecostal church. I was just talking to one of our missionaries this morning who serves in Southeast Asia.

And he said, if there's a church in a village we're visiting, it's most likely going to be a Pentecostal church. And so it's very ethnically diverse. It has very much spread throughout the ends of the earth.

And Pentecostal theology has also worked its way across denominational lines into non-Pentecostal churches. And the way it's done this is primarily through music.

Music's kind of become a Trojan horse for Pentecostal theology. And so most of your big heavy hitters in contemporary Christian music come from this kind of background. So you think of your Hillsongs, your Elevations, your Bethels, guys like Brandon Lake.

Most of them come out of this kind of theology. As we think about Pentecostals, this topic does hit close to home for me. I've got family who is still in this movement.

My dad was raised in this theology and around this kind of teaching. So this is very much a part of my life even today in our family. So it hits close to home as we consider some of these things and look at them.

So thinking about the background of Pentecostalism. I've already mentioned a little bit of where it came from, but let's get into the origins of it. It goes back to two revivals that took place in the early 1900s.

One is called the Topeka Outpouring. Happened in Topeka, Kansas in 1901 at Bethel Bible College. And another one is the Azusa Street Revival, which that's in LA and it happened in 1906.

The Topeka Outpouring is where it all began in 1901. There was a man there by the name of Charles Parham who was a professor at this college. And he had been teaching his students over Christmas break that he was thinking that the church needed to begin speaking in tongues again.

He was thinking we needed a new gift of the Spirit, a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And that would be manifested by this kind of ecstatic experience that would lead to speaking in tongues.

And so on New Year's Eve of 1900, so the day before 1901 began, there was a college girl there by the name of Agnes Osmond. And she's been being taught this by this professor, by this mentor.

And during a service that night, she begins to speak in tongues. She begins to receive this ecstatic kind of experience and speech that they could not understand.

Allegedly, there was a halo around her head. And other people began speaking in tongues shortly thereafter during that same service. And they believed that she was speaking Chinese.

They thought she was speaking the Chinese language. And after this, she couldn't speak English for three days. She could not speak intelligible English for three days. And so she began to write things down.

And she even started to write in tongues. And they thought what she's writing is actually Chinese. And I have a picture of what she wrote.

There it is. Chinese. I'm not very familiar with Chinese literature, but that ain't it. So they thought this was Chinese.

I'm sure they were really sad to find out it was not. But once I saw this, I recognized my daughter, who's five, has an amazing gift. And she actually wrote in Russian, I think.

Next picture, Hudson. There it is. There it is. I've yet to figure out what it means, but I think it's Russian.

Haters will say it's fake. But all right, you can go back to the title slide. Thank you, Hudson. So they're under the impression that she is speaking Chinese and that she is writing in Chinese for these days.

And so what they do is, like, we've got to share this gift with the world. And so as more people start speaking in tongues, Chinese evidently, they start sending mission teams over to these countries that they think the language they're speaking.

And these mission teams get there to China and to other places in Africa, and no one can understand them. Because they're not speaking an actual language.

And so it's a shocking revelation to them. They think they're speaking the biblical gift of tongues. They think they're actually speaking other languages. And they get to these language groups, and they can't communicate.

And so they come back, probably embarrassed and ashamed. And instead of changing their ways, they think, okay, the gift of tongues itself has actually changed. We're not speaking actual languages.

This is an angelic language. We were confused about it because God has changed the way this gift operates from New Testament times. And so they assumed it was an angelic tongue, an angelic language.

They speak in heaven. And this phenomenon caught on. More and more people started speaking in tongues, and they had to start their own church. This is how Pentecostalism started.

None of the major denominations accepted their gift of tongues as valid. And so they had to start their own church called, came to be called Pentecostalism, the Pentecostal church.

And so just a pro tip, if you're doing something that every major denomination rejects as unbiblical, you're probably unbiblical. All right, just in case that ever happens to you.

You're probably wrong. But the name Pentecostal comes from Acts chapter 2. Hopefully you've turned there by now. And I want to read for us verses 1 through 4. Jesus has died, was buried, rose again, was with them for 40 days, ascended to the Father's right hand and said, I'm sending the Holy Spirit to you.

And Acts chapter 2 verse 1 says, When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. That's the disciples of Christ. Verse 2, And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And so it's from this event that the name Pentecostal comes from, and it's this event from which they get their theology and their emphasis on these miraculous sign gifts, speaking in tongues in particular.

So there are a couple of Pentecostal churches in Mustang. The most famous one, I guess you could say, is the Bridge. It's an Assemblies of God church. Assemblies of God is a branch of Pentecostalism.

There's also Empowered Church, which is Oneness Pentecostal Church. And so that's actually a heretical church. And so they deny the Trinity. They would say that God has appeared as a Father, as a Son, and as the Holy Spirit.

But they would not say there are three persons in the Godhead. They would say there's one person in God who appears in different modes. So that's Oneness Pentecostalism. Those are the only two in Mustang that I know of, but anywhere you go where you see like a Church of God, a Church of God in Christ, United Pentecostal, Assembly of God, a four-square gospel church, those are Pentecostal churches, and they're pretty much everywhere around the planet.

So that's the background of Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism, let's go to number two, the positives of Pentecostalism. The positives. We've got five things that I think are praiseworthy about this group.

Number one, they believe that the Bible is God's Word and that every single word can be trusted. They believe that the Bible is God's Word and that every single word can be trusted.

And this is something we can't say about a lot of denominations. We looked at the Nazarenes last week. They're a little squishy on that. They say most of it, the things that apply to our salvation are without error.

Pentecostals would go the whole way and say every word is trustworthy and from the Lord. Number two, they believe that salvation is only through Christ.

salvation is only through Christ. And so in other words, they proclaim a true gospel and praise God for that.

And it's just like what we sang about tonight. If you're ever in a baptism meeting with me, I will ask you, can you share the gospel with me in 60 seconds or less? I want to hear your understanding of what the good news is.

And it is that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification. And so that by faith in him, we can be forgiven and be with him for eternity.

And the Pentecostal church historically has preached that. Number three, urgent evangelism. Urgent evangelism. They're very passionate about sharing the gospel.

They're very dedicated to sending out missionaries. I was talking to our missionary this morning, as I mentioned, and he said they're very zealous about sending out missionaries, planting churches across the world.

And I think they should be commended for that. I think it's a noble venture that they've embarked on. And that's one of their core beliefs. If you look up Pentecostalism's core beliefs, there's like 14 or 16 of them.

One of them is urgently evangelizing to the ends of the earth. And they're faithful to do that. Number four, they're faithful in prayer.

Faithful in prayer. They may pray some crazy things sometimes, but they do pray. R.C. Sproul was a theologian. He died a few years ago. But he said that if you want someone to pray for you, ask a charismatic.

They will for sure pray for you. So they're very faithful in prayer. And number five, they have an accurate view of baptism. Accurate view of baptism.

Kind of similar to understanding of God's word, there aren't very many denominations we can look at and say they understand baptism the same way we do. With Pentecostalism, that is the case.

They think it's for believers by immersion, immersion. So going all the way underwater. And it comes after salvation. It's a declaration of your faith in Christ.

So those are five things I think we can be thankful for regarding this denomination. Five things they do well. And so we should praise God for those things. Now, thirdly, let's get into specific beliefs they have.

Specific beliefs they have. And while we can look at those five things and praise God for them and be thankful for them, there are some major differences between us and Pentecostals.

There are major things between us theologically in terms of what we believe and practically in terms of how the church functions and what we should do when we come to church. And I've tried to narrow these differences down to the few most serious ones that I could.

And as we'll see tonight, we're going to be talking a lot about the Holy Spirit. Who he is, what he does, what his purpose is, because Pentecostals are very big on emphasizing the Holy Spirit.

And so most of our differences will come down to belief about who the Spirit is and what he's supposed to do. There are some extreme examples of Pentecostalism.

We'll look at a couple of those tonight. There are some teachers in this movement who are complete false teachers and they're deceiving people. But I do think it's possible, for some of the reasons we mentioned above, the positive things, I think it's possible to be Pentecostal and Christian.

The people in my family, I believe, are true believers. I think they're confused about a lot of things. I think they're confused about some important things, but I do think they're true believers. So I think you can be a Christian and a Pentecostal, but I do think in a lot of ways it's a very dangerous denomination to be involved with.

And we'll see some of those things tonight. So first specific belief I want to get into is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And kind of a sub-point under this I want to look at that they teach is something called baptism of the Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit. And so Pentecostals believe it's called the second blessing of the Holy Spirit.

And those words may sound familiar to you because Nazarenes also believe in a second blessing of the Holy Spirit. But there's a difference between Nazarenes and Pentecostals on this point. So the Nazarenes think that this second blessing leads to perfectionism.

That the Spirit blesses you a second time, visits you, fills you, and boom, you're perfect. You won't struggle with sin like you did. In Pentecostalism, this second blessing comes and instead of leading to perfectionism, it leads to what they call spirit baptism.

And the sign of spirit baptism, the evidence of spirit baptism is speaking in tongues. When you're baptized by the Spirit, you will speak in tongues is what they would teach.

That's the evidence, the proof that you've been filled with the Holy Spirit. And so they would teach that the Spirit's work of regeneration is making a new creature, making a new person, removing the sin, the consequences of sin from them, giving them new life.

They believe that baptism in the Spirit comes after that and could happen at the same time as conversion, could happen years later after someone's conversion. But basically what this does is it creates two classes of Christians within the church.

Those who've been saved, you know, just normal Christians, and Christians who've been filled with the Spirit. Christians who've been baptized in the Spirit. And I've had family members in the past, I don't think they would say this now, but they've made fun of us for being Baptist because we're just kind of basic Christians.

Oh yeah, you're just Baptist, I forgot. We used to think that way too. But now they've received the Spirit and so they're enlightened. They know more than us. They're more mature than we are.

And so this second blessing of the Spirit should be sought for, sought after, and prayed for by all believers. And they would teach it's God's will for believers to experience this second blessing.

So another sub-point under the ministry of the Spirit would be the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues. So as I mentioned, the proof that you've been baptized by the Spirit, received this second blessing, is that you speak in tongues.

And they would point to places like Acts 2, 1 through 4. These were true believers. These were disciples of Christ. But when they were filled with the Spirit, they began to speak in tongues. But let's look at verses 5 and 6.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. All these Jews from really across the known world had come into Jerusalem for Pentecost and for the Passover a month and a half before.

Verse 6. And at this sound, so the sound of the mighty rushing wind, the multitude came together. And they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

Here is the only description the New Testament gives about tongues. It's mentioned in a couple of other books besides Acts.

This is the only description the Bible gives about what it is. And here we clearly see these men are speaking known languages that they had not studied before.

They're filled with the Spirit and the tongues that they speak are actual languages that other people can understand. According to Pentecostalism today, tongues could be an angelic language they're speaking.

So they're speaking the language of heaven. So this is the language that angels speak. Or it could be some encoded message that needs to be interpreted by someone who understands. But either way, speaking in tongues is the manifestation of baptism in the Spirit.

So if you do this, if you speak in tongues, you're a mature, enlightened Christian. If you don't, maybe something's wrong with your faith. Maybe you haven't prayed hard enough. But if you go to a Pentecostal church today, you will hear tongues.

Notice my air quotes. You will hear tongues, but what it really sounds like is just ecstatic gibberish. Because that's what it is. It's not languages. But they would say it's either angelic languages or it's an encoded message.

And so then an interpreter will stand up to speak what this message is. Someone just spoke in tongues, but no one can understand what it means. And so an interpreter stands up and just makes something up.

Because they're not saying anything when they speak in tongues. So they just make something up. The Spirit's telling him that we should all go to McDonald's today or whatever. Just making something up. Because the tongues they're speaking aren't real languages.

But in verses five and six, we get the definition of what tongues is according to the Bible. Someone's speaking a language that can be understood. And it's a language they haven't previously studied.

And Pentecostals would say that the gift of tongues has changed a little bit. They would say it's the exact same. No, no, no.

The tongues we're experiencing today are the exact same as what the apostles did in Acts chapter two. It's just changed in purpose and in use.

So it's the same but not really at all. And this second blessing of the Spirit brings with it other gifts too. Not just tongues. Tongues is the sign that you've received it but it also gives other gifts like healing and prophecy and other miracles.

And so they believe that there are still prophets in the church today who can predict the future and can give fresh words from the Lord that are outside of what he's spoken in the Bible.

These are current present tense words the Lord is speaking to us currently. And so they would say that any gift we read about in the New Testament is still active today in the church.

We would say at our church some of those gifts have stopped. Some of those gifts no longer are functioning. Now there's no verse in the Bible that says these things are going to stop.

Why would we say that? Well one just practically throughout church history these things did stop. And even in the Pentecostal church they're not really going on because they've changed the meaning and definition of these terms.

But also in the New Testament God's word is not complete yet and the church is still being established. And so there is a necessity for apostles to be able to authenticate themselves.

To be able to show that they truly are preaching the word of God but now that we have the completed word of God now that the church is established those things have passed away. They were necessary for a time but they're no longer necessary for the health of the church.

So they believe that there are modern day prophets in the church today. They'll usually call their pastors prophets or apostles because they think they've been anointed by the Lord and gifted and sent for this purpose.

And one example of these modern day prophets is a guy by the name of Kenneth Copeland. Maybe you're familiar with him or seen him and we're going to watch a video of a prophecy he made in April of 2020.

Okay, so that was COVID came March of 2020. My daughter was born March of 2020. Sixth graders, how old were you guys when COVID came? Six, seven.

Like actually, yeah. How old were you? You were five? Okay. Seniors, how old were you when COVID happened? Seventh grade? Sixth grade? Sixth or seventh grade.

All right, all right. You guys are funny. You guys are funny. Okay, so as you know, COVID kind of came in March, the world shut down and then COVID kind of continued to linger like through the summer through the fall kept affecting our lives and stuff.

Kenneth Copeland had this to say on April 5th, 2020. April 5th. Go ahead and play the video, honey. Win! Win! Almighty!

Almighty! Strong! Strong! South wind! South wind! Heat! Heat! Heat! Burn this thing!

Burn this thing! In the name of Jesus! In the name of Jesus! Say can you bow your knees! Say can you bow your knees! You fall on your face!

You fall on your face! COVID-19! COVID-19! I blow!

I blow! I blow! I blow! The wind of God! The wind of God! On you! On you!

You are destroyed forever! You are destroyed forever! And you will never be back! And you'll never be back! All right!

So, a word from the Lord we have just heard. Obviously ended up being really wrong. He was not correct. Those were, I don't know if those were like his hype guys or what they were doing, repeating him.

But, so he was obviously wrong. The Bible tells us what to do if people are wrong. So, the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 18, says that if a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the word that he speaks does not come to pass or come true, that is a word the Lord has not spoken.

Very clearly. He made a projection. He made a prophecy that did not come to pass. According to what the Old Testament says about evaluating prophets, he is a false prophet.

Someone with a good sense of humor actually remixed to this video, though. So, we're also going to watch that just for fun. So, oh yeah.

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord. COVID-19!

COVID-19! COVID-19! COVID-19! I'm broke! COVID-19! COVID-19! The wind of God! From the state of Washington to the state of Maine to Brownsville, Texas and the Temple Fork.

Today, we speak of this atmosphere to today. Burn this thing. This virus hates heat. You just burn this thing.

Burn! Burn! I call for a supernatural heat wave straight out of hell. Burn! Burn! Burn! COVID-19! All right.

That's good. That's good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, pretty wild stuff. That was good editing they did. Also, side note, that guy just creeps me out.

He looks... The boy ain't right. So, that's one example of modern-day prophets in the Pentecostal church.

They will claim things are new revelations from God, just like you saw. They will claim this is the Spirit speaking to his church today. And they'll say things that are blatantly wrong or blatantly heretical even.

But they'll claim that these are words from the Spirit. So, they'll say these are words from the Spirit. And they'll sometimes say things that completely contradict Scripture.

And so, what they do in this is they separate the Holy Spirit from the Word of God. The Spirit is speaking to me this Word. And this Word may go against something that's written in Scripture.

But they separate the Holy Spirit from the Word of God. Well, here's the problem with that. One, the Holy Spirit's never wrong. But number two, the Holy Spirit is the one who inspired Scripture in the first place.

And so, he will never contradict himself. And so, if someone is claiming to be speaking from the Holy Spirit and contradicts Scripture, they're lying to you.

And they may be influenced by a Spirit, but it's not the Holy Spirit. Because we have God's Word that the Spirit inspired. And we can know God's truth through his Word.

And so, a true teacher who's filled with the Spirit will always lead you to God's Word and never away from it. A true teacher who's filled with the Spirit will always lead you to God's Word and never away from it.

Now, some Pentecostals would also laugh at what we just watched. They would also agree that that's terrible, that that's not good. But anytime you see something like that, it's always in a Pentecostal church.

So, not all Pentecostals are crazy Christians. But pretty much all crazy Christians are Pentecostals, okay? That's not like scientific. But anytime you see something like that, you know what kind of church it is.

There are also some crazy Baptists, too, but that's for different reasons. Okay, another thing about ministry of the Holy Spirit, or another specific belief, I'm sorry, that's done with the ministry of the Spirit. Another specific belief would be faith healings.

Faith healings. Something else that's common in Pentecostal churches are what we'd call faith healings. And this is the idea that if you have enough faith, you will always overcome your illness, or your sickness, or your disease, or your setbacks in life.

If you have enough faith, you won't have trouble in your life. This is sometimes called the word of faith movement, or the prosperity gospel, or name it, claim it.

But this manifests itself within faith healings in particular. And so many Pentecostal churches will have healing services, or deliverance services, where you can come in, and you'll be prayed over by a pastor, or a prophet, or an apostle.

And if you have any sickness, or disease, or any poverty, or any struggle in your life, you can come in and be healed of those, or delivered from those through the prayer of someone who's more righteous than you, or has better access to God than you do.

And so they believe that sickness, suffering, oppression, these are all manifestations of either sin in your life, or spiritual warfare.

So they think it's sin in your life, or satanic attack on your life. So like I said, this is sometimes called the word of faith movement. And the word of faith, we can describe it as, they believe that words spoken in faith create the realities that they speak about.

And so if you're sick, and someone with faith says, sickness be gone, in the name of Jesus, they believe that those words spoken over you create the reality that's being communicated.

And so you notice with Kenneth Copeland, he would say, in the name of Jesus. That's their kind of catchphrase for delivering this healing, delivering from this oppression. And this is the kind of thing my dad was raised in, a pretty extreme form of it, when he was younger.

And this may not seem that big of a deal if you're just talking about finances, or just talking about temporary sicknesses, but what about when you talk about someone who's paralyzed? Someone who's blind?

Someone who is deaf? They have no power over actual sickness. They have no power over these things, and they deceive thousands and thousands of people through their fake theology and through their made-up beliefs.

And so where does this come from? Why do they believe in faith healings? Well, they believe that physical healing is an essential part of the gospel message. They think that physical healing is critical to the message of the gospel.

They think it's provided for by the death of Christ. And so they'll look at places like Isaiah 53, verse 5, which says, with his wounds, we are healed.

And so they'll say, Christ died for your health. Christ died for your wealth. Christ died for your flourishing in this life. And so this is where their idea of healing comes from.

If you have enough faith, the blood of Jesus will come to you. It will overcome you in your sickness and your poverty and your difficulty. And so if you don't experience this healing, there must be hidden sin in your life.

There must be something wrong with your faith because this is part of the gospel. Or there must be some satanic opposition happening in your life to prevent you from receiving this.

Now, I'm not saying that God doesn't heal people. He definitely does. And he will continue to do so as he sees fit. What I am saying is that God nowhere promises to heal us in this life.

God nowhere promises to heal us in this life. Now, in a sense, this is so deceptive because in a sense they are right. Christ did die so that we would not be sick, so that we would not be sinful, so that we would not have any problems in heaven.

Christ died for us so that we could be with him for eternity with no more sickness, no more pain, no more tears, no more difficulty, just living with him for all eternity. And what they would want to do is they would want to reach forward into the future and bring those things back into the present and say, you shouldn't be sick here in this life because Christ died for that.

And so they misapply the timing of some of these promises that God has made. And so they would even go so far as to say that if you're having trouble in this life, it's just because your faith is inadequate.

If you're suffering, it's because your lack of faith or a flaw in your faith. But I wonder what they would say to Christ. I wonder what they would say to Paul or Peter.

These were men marked by difficulty, men marked by suffering. And they were all three men who were incredibly faithful. Obviously, Christ was perfect. He was supreme in that.

All three, though, faced immense suffering and ultimately death for their obedience to God. Now, a third thing I want to look at is the purpose of the Spirit.

So we've seen the ministry of the Spirit. What they say he does, why would they say he was sent? Why would they say he's here ministering at all?

Why did God send to the Holy Spirit? What is his purpose? And you can go with me to John 16. Back to your left one book, John 16. John 16. Pentecostals love to emphasize and talk about the Holy Spirit.

And Pentecostals would say that the Holy Spirit's job, the Holy Spirit's purpose, is to do signs and wonders and miracles. That's his function here on this planet right now in the church, is to do signs and wonders and miracles.

But what does the Bible say about the Spirit's purpose? Look with me in John 16, verse 8. Jesus is about to die.

It's his last night with the disciples. He's preparing them for his departure. But he's saying, I won't leave you alone. I'll send you another helper, the Holy Spirit. And this is what he'll do.

John 16, verse 8. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer. Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. If you skip down to verse 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. Verse 14, he will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

And so according to Jesus, the Holy Spirit's job is to bring conviction to people's hearts and to point them to Christ. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to hearts and points people to Christ.

Pentecostals would say that his function is to do signs and wonders and miracles, but this is what Jesus says about the Spirit. This is what Jesus, who sent the Holy Spirit to us, says the Spirit will do.

He will convict hearts and he will point people to Christ. Christ. And so Pentecostals would say, is that a Spirit-filled church? Are you a Spirit-filled Christian?

Is this a Spirit-filled ministry? And what they mean by that is, are there miracles? Are you able to speak in tongues? Are there miraculous signs and wonders being done in that place or in that ministry?

ministry? But how would we answer those questions? Are we filled with the Spirit? Do you have the Holy Spirit? Is our church filled with the Spirit?

Is the Spirit involved in what our church is doing? How do we know? How can we test it? How can we know for sure one way or the other? Look with me again at verse 14. Jesus says, the Spirit will glorify me.

Is this a Spirit-filled church? Another way we could ask that is, is Christ being exalted and glorified? Is Christ being made much of?

That's what the Spirit does. He glorifies Christ. He exalts Christ. The Spirit does not seek his own glory. The Spirit does not exalt the pastor. The Spirit does not exalt himself.

The Spirit glorifies Christ. And so where the Spirit is active, Christ is exalted. And in so many Pentecostal churches, the Holy Spirit is the one who's glorified.

The Holy Spirit is the one who's exalted even over Christ himself. And then one last thing, we'll look at their views on ministry.

So many of these churches view their pastors as prophets, as apostles, regardless of how many times they've said wrong things or crazy things or ludicrous things.

They view them as prophets anointed by the Lord. And so really, what they say is God's word. And that can lead to some very dangerous places. Women can serve in all levels of church leadership.

And so 25%, roughly, it's about, it's closer to 30%, but about 25% of Assembly of God pastors are women. And they released this statement in 2010.

They said, after examining the various translations and interpretations of biblical passages relating to the role of women in the first century church and desiring to apply biblical principles to contemporary church practice, we conclude that we cannot find convincing evidence that the ministry of women is restricted according to some sacred or immutable principle.

people. And so they allow women into all levels of ministry, even being themselves pastors or apostles or prophets. And as we've looked at before, the Bible speaks very clearly about who the role of pastor is reserved for.

So to wrap this thing up on Pentecostalism, it's obvious we have some major differences with them. It's obvious they get in some dangerous practices with what they believe.

But is it possible to be Pentecostal and a Christian? I would say yes. Now obviously on the extreme crazy ends, their view of the Holy Spirit can be heretical.

Kenneth Copeland is not a Christian. He's an unbeliever. He's a false teacher. Stay away from him. God is dishonored by many of the things he does and says in God's name.

And there are a lot of Pentecostal pastors that are just like him. There are also false teachers. There are also Pentecostal Christians and pastors who faithfully preach the gospel.

We would disagree with them on the role of the Holy Spirit and what that looks like in the life of the church. But there are Pentecostals who have not bought into some of the crazier end of this false teaching, some of which we saw tonight.

And even though the videos and pictures I showed tonight make us laugh because they're so ridiculous, I think they should also bring us pain. People are being deceived by this.

People are thinking they're going to go to heaven by participating in these churches and if they die before they repent we'll wind up in hell because of some of these things that are being taught falsely in these churches.

We need to pray for a lot of these people to be saved. And many Pentecostals have a false sense of security. They think, I'm a Christian because I spoke in tongues, I'm a Christian because I associate with this spirit-filled church or I'm a Christian because I give to this guy's ministry and he clearly seems to be a prophet from the Lord.

And again, my concern is that they have been persuaded by a spirit but not the Holy Spirit. And my concern is also that many of them are seeking confidence in their salvation based on things they do or things that they've experienced.

I'm a Christian because I go to church here. I'm a Christian because this has happened to me. I'm a Christian because I've spoken in tongues. And that's not what the gospel is.

And maybe you're here tonight in a very non-Pentecostal church. If you haven't figured that out yet, we're not Pentecostal. But maybe you're also trusting in things that you've done or trusting in things that you're associated with.

I'm a Christian because I've done this. I'm a Christian because I go to this church. I'm a Christian because I hang out with the right people. That's also not the gospel. The gospel is that we are filthy sinners.

We've rebelled against God and cannot expect anything from him besides wrath but he's shown us mercy. That's why I'm saved. That's how I know I'm a Christian is because God has had mercy on me not because of what I've done.

And so if you're here tonight and you haven't believed the gospel, I'd encourage you to turn from your sins because God's wrath will be poured out on the ungodly at the end of time. Believe the good news that Christ was sent to the earth to die for his people.

I'd encourage you to turn from your sins and believe the message of the gospel that the Bible holds out to us as our only hope. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we thank you for the message of the gospel.

we thank you for your gospel going out and we thank you for faithful Pentecostal brothers and sisters who believe the gospel have not been deceived by false teaching and are passionate and zealous for your gospel going to the ends of the earth.

I pray also for the Pentecostals who have been deceived by the false teachers and the wolves that are leading some areas of that denomination. I pray that you'd open their eyes to the truth that you would change their hearts that they would hear the true gospel and they would turn from their sins and leave those dangerous places and go to a local church that preaches your word faithfully.

I pray for students here tonight who though they may not be deceived by false teachers or led astray in certain avenues of Pentecostalism but are also trusting in their own works or trusting in something they feel.

I pray that you would open their eyes and open their hearts to the true gospel and that you would save them Lord that you would have mercy on them. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.