AN AMAZING group experience is written with letters of fire in the first chapter of Acts! One hundred and twenty ordinary men and women prayed that they might shake the world—and they turned it upside down!
Their charismatic Commander had been cruelly crucified forty days before, bringing into legal force a will that promised a fabulous future to every man of every nation who would meet certain reasonable conditions. These 120 were the chief executors of that testament.
They must persuade the world to believe the promise and accept the conditions. They had meager funds, little influence, few friends, and a complete lack of formal education, nothing to accomplish their task, but a promise—the promise of a dead Man—a dead Man who had come to life again—whom they had seen alive for forty days. They had touched Him and heard Him speak. This thrilling experience they now desired to share with the world, but they knew men would not believe unless some power outside of themselves, some divine agency greater than they, would convince where they could not.
This, they had been promised. "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
For this promised power the 120 now pleaded. Conscious of their sins against God, their wrongs to their fellows, and the utter filthiness of their own natures, they realized that nothing they could say or do would make them worthy of receiving this power. They confessed their sins to God, their faults to one another, and pleaded their unworthiness as proof of their great need. They experienced a spirit of oneness and fellowship such as they had never known—of deep love for one another, of joy for sins forgiven, and intense longing to save the lost. All barriers were broken down, self was crucified, and selfish ambition forsaken.
One desire filled their minds and one ambition their hearts—to reflect the character of Christ and to labor for the enlargement of His kingdom. In ten days the miracle we call Pentecost occurred. That miracle lay not so much in the tongues of fire as in the fact that 120 proud, selfish sinners became one in pursuit of the promise of God. What fol lowed will happen again when that oneness of purpose again unites God's people in seeking God with all their hearts.
"The Spirit came upon the waiting, praying disciples with a fullness that reached every heart. . . . They grasped the imparted gift. And what followed? The sword of the Spirit, newly edged with power and bathed in the lightnings of heaven, cut its way through unbelief. Thousands were converted in a day."—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 38. (Italics supplied.)
"And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women" (chap. 5:14).
"And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith" (chap. 6:7).
"And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following" (Mark 16:20).
What happened then is going to happen again! Soon!
What we have seen God do in India in the past five years gives us confidence that God is ready whenever His church is ready. That land has resisted the gospel of Christ for 150 years. The Adventist message has been preached there for 65 years with usu ally discouraging results. But by the grace of God, a great change has taken place. In South India we worked for 45 years to get 5,600 members. In 1969 the Holy Spirit added 5,700 converts to the church, accomplishing in one year what previously took 45! Five years ago we were happy to get 25 converts from an effort. In 1969 one of our men baptized 421 people. In 1970 he is expecting more than 1,000. Before, it was difficult to imagine any of our men reaching the century in souls. God did it for a layman, a colporteur, and ten evangelists in 1969.
In 1962 our average baptisms were five per field worker per year. In 1969 the average was 33 for every pastor and evangelist in the field. In 1962 we baptized one person for every 13.6 members; in 1969, one for every 4.5 members. Our entire field membership has doubled in four and a half years.
Villages where Christianity was refused entrance for a hundred years, where every attempt to preach the gospel was met with scorn, spittle, and stones, are now sending delegations pleading with us to tell what they must do to be saved. Whole churches are accepting the third angel's message. Other ministers are uniting with us to proclaim the binding claims of God's law. Sick are healed in answer to prayer, devils are cast out, drunkards are converted and backsliders reclaimed.We know this is just a beginning. We have tasted a little of His goodness and we are hungering and thirsting for the fullness.
Now, if God can do this work in India He can do it anywhere. And He is going to do it everywhere, only in a far greater measure than we have yet seen.
For what the Holy Spirit did in the days of the apostles in carrying the gospel to a world of 100 million people is only a preview of what He is going to do in these last days in a world of 3.5 billion. And it is going to happen when we do three things: FIRST: "Ask, and it shall be given you.
. . . How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke 11:9-13).
The blessing is ours, but we must ask for it.
Let this not be an ordinary asking! "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God" (Joel 2:12, 13).
"Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people. . . . Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar." "And it shall come to pass after ward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all" (verses 15-17, 28).
"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up" (James 4:8-10).
We have proclaimed that this is the true church because we teach what the apostles taught. God grant that we may soon be able to preach that this is the true church be cause we have the spiritual experience of the apostolic church.
If fasting, weeping, and mourning over sin are out of date, then so is the Holy Spirit, and so is our hope for a finished work. Let us appoint days of fasting and prayer in all our churches. Let this include true repentance for sin, laying aside every wrong habit and every evil practice. Let it involve believers in confessing their faults one to another, wrestling with God in prayer for the revival He has promised, and we will see it!
In the beginning of the year 1969 our evangelists in South India set their hearts on doubling the rate of conversions of the previous year. We appointed a day of fasting and prayer in all our churches to plead for the Holy Spirit. A second day was ob served at the beginning of our second evangelistic period in October. A complete change in the success of our evangelism came. Three of our local missions baptized more people in the fourth quarter than they had ever baptized in any one year previously. Our baptisms for the year showed an increase of 110 per cent, leaping from 2,700 to 5,700. All of us know that the blessing came when God's people sought Him by repentance, fasting, and prayer.
This year, before we started our evangelistic program anywhere, almost our entire working force in four local missions spent an entire night together in prayer, pleading for the Holy Spirit. Then our churches united in fasting and prayer. We firmly believe that God is going to give us more than 10,000 souls this year!
One church had a serious problem of open sin among the members. Led by the local elder, this church spent three days in fasting and prayer until the victory was won.
In some places prayer meetings continued past midnight, the members enjoying a sweetness of experience never before known.
The principal of our high school in Secunderabad had a heavy burden for the more than 500 Hindu and Moslem children in his school. In 18 years of operation, not one had accepted Christ and been baptized. One day his church pastor said, "I am spending every Sabbath in fasting and prayer for revival in this church." Brother Kelly decided to devote every Sabbath to fasting and prayer for the con version of his students. Within a few weeks three accepted Christ as their Saviour and asked for baptism. One Moslem boy testified, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. He is coming soon. I want to be baptized."
A policeman in the city of Cuddapah, Andhra Pradesh, fasted and asked the Lord for one hundred souls. For three months his church was without a pastor. In those three months he prepared seven people for baptism and stirred up an interest where the new pastor held meetings later and baptized 28 people.
On Sabbath, March 28, almost the entire membership of a Protestant church in a village 20 miles from his home—90 men and women, including all the elders and deacons of that church—were baptized. Eleven other villages are pleading with him to come and preach.
THE SECOND STEP: Plan an evangelistic outreach that requires the Holy Spirit for success. Make a plan for the Holy Spirit, you, and your church to work together as a powerful team to enter every city and village and raise up memorials to God.
Make the salvation of souls the one interest of your life and of your church. God is not going to give the Spirit while other interests occupy our time, while other projects consume our funds, and the one great purpose of our existence is carried forth in a halfhearted manner with half-hearted results.
When the late President Kennedy announced in 1961 that America was going to put a man on the moon before 1970, many doubted. But America put all the resources necessary into Project Apollo— the best men, the finest minds, enough funds—and the dream became an unprecedented accomplishment. If a nation can direct and focus its interest and resources in such a manner, for such ends, with such success, cannot the Seventh-day Adventist Church direct all of its resources—its best minds, its best men, its most money—to the one great task that God has given us to do? Will it not meet with similar success?
Let that plan involve every worker and every member—the whole church giving the whole gospel to the world.
Let it be a practical, workable plan. Out line a program you know you can follow. Set goals you believe you can reach. But let it be a plan of faith, a plan that expects God to do what He has promised, that requires Him to pour out His Spirit upon His church.
Let us begin by planning to baptize at least 1,000 truly converted, fully instructed candidates, throughout the world field, for every day in 1971. It is well within our reach. But it will require the Holy Spirit to work in a way we have never before witnessed.
THIRD STEP: Trusting in God to fulfill His promise, launch out into the deep and let down your nets.
Jesus did not countenance hovering over the ninety and nine with one lost sheep left to die. How does He feel to see us hovering over the one safe in the fold when ninety and nine are perishing in darkness?
Some pastors so "mother" their churches that they smother their churches, making a lot of spiritual weaklings who need a priest to say their prayers, while all around are cities and towns where the message has never been preached! We go over the same ground year after year with little practical results when multitudes sit in the region and shadow of death, having never heard.
Launch out into the deep, and never rest content until every city and village has been lighted with a memorial for God. No, don't make the mistake of doing it all yourself, for then your church may die. Lay the burden on the whole church and get everyone praying, working, giving, to enter that city, that town, that county where there is no church.
Don't wait for some miraculous manifestation and then go forth. Waiting for Pentecost to happen again is like waiting for the Messiah to be born again! The Holy Spirit has already come—Pentecost has already occurred! God is ready and waiting to give the same power to His witnesses today. But that power will be given when we go forth; when we place ourselves where we require it. Pentecost is an authentic historical fact. It needs to become a practical experience.
"If all were willing, all would be filled with the Spirit."—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 50.
Waiting for some marvelous manifestation in the future places us in the category of the unbelieving Jews. I'm not talking about a future latter rain, I'm talking about the promise God has given to empower us TODAY!
How long must God wait? He did not wait for the unbelieving priests in Jerusalem. Humble shepherds of Bethlehem were called upon to give the message. If we fail now, God will raise up others. No, He will not use angels. He will use men, but men who are surrendered, fully, completely, unreservedly, to the working of His Spirit. By God's grace, let us be those men! Now!
