A Pentecost Every Hour

CBN.com -- In his vital book, "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry Church," Dean Merrill tells us that Paul's words to the Romans are being fulfilled in this generation. "Where sin increased, grace increased all the more."

Merrill shines the light on the Christian movement in China. That nation had a mere one million known believers in 1949 when the Communists took power. Under what you and I would call unendurable conditions, that church has grown to between 50 and 80 million.

Leith Anderson writes that we read of 3,000 persons coming to Christ on the Day of Pentecost. Yet, in mainland China, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, there is now a Pentecost every hour! Meanwhile, in the United States, 60 churches shut down every week.

The growth rate among white churches in this country is absolutely flat. Why? Perhaps it is because the American church has forgotten its reason for being. Exodus 13 reminds us that when Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, he took the bones of Joseph with him.

In "Soul Tsunami," Leonard Sweet said, "Postmoderns who are Christian must not go anywhere without carrying the bones and stones of memory with them, the memory of our past, the memory of our ancestors, and the memory of our holy places. To abandon the past is to forget what we know."

We need to once again unearth the skeletal structure of what the church is: It is the embassy of Christ on this earth, taking His glorious message to everyone, not only in other lands but in America, too. Does your church have an altar? Do you witness to the lost? Has the spiritual fire gone out in your own soul? We jeopardize our future by forgetting our past.

Used with permission by author, Dan Betzer. Previously published on ByLine OnLine, copyright © 2005 Media Ministries of the Assemblies of God.