This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Holy Spirit” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 8, 1995.

We read tonight from Acts 2, beginning with verse 1. Let’s give our full attention to God’s infallible word. Acts 2, verse 1. And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men. from every nation under heaven. And when the sound occurred, the multitude came together and were bewildered because they were each one hearing them speak in his own language.

And they were amazed and marveled, saying, Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pothos in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and Thessalonians, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God.” And they continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, What does this mean? But others were mocking and saying, they are full of sweet wine.

But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them, Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day. But it is what was spoken through the prophet Joel.

And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth my spirit upon all mankind. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth beneath, blood and fire and vaporous smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come.

And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let’s pray together. Dear Lord, we cannot estimate the value of your word to us. And Father, it is true that we become dull at times. And we ask, Lord, that you will help us we will shake ourselves free of this dullness of spirit, and that your spirit, in all of his strength and might, would be evident in us and to us. So then, O God, may we hear your word and receive it, and may it profit us, Lord, immensely. We ask this for the sake of Christ. the One who gives the Spirit to us. Amen. Now, I want you to know that I was inspired to preach this message to you tonight. As proof, I offer that in my excitement while writing this message out, I broke my pencil at least 43 times.

It has been said that the 20th century is unique in church history. Our century, so it is claimed, has brought to the fore the person and the work of the Holy Spirit as never before in the history of the Church. The fourth and fifth centuries may have had their debates about the Trinity, about the relationship of the persons of the Trinity to one another. particularly the relationship of the natures of Christ in his one person, the 16th century can lay claim to a Christian revolution over the question of the nature of saving faith and the question of how sinners are made right before God. But the 20th century, so we are told, and yes, to a degree this is accurate, has witnessed an explosion.

According to some, this is an explosion brought about by the rediscovery of the individuality of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit’s direct workings in the lives of believers. Not since Pentecost, not since the days of the early Church, has the Holy Spirit received His due.

The specific beginnings of this explosion, if you will, if you can have the beginning of an explosion, occurred at least, say, some, when in early January 1901, under the tutelage of Charles F. Parham, students of his at his Topeka, Kansas Bible College, along with Parham himself, the gift of the Spirit, at least in their estimation, that is what they perceived, they were enabled by their claim to speak in tongues. Agnes Osmond was reportedly the first to receive this dissertation on January 1, 1901. The beginnings of this distinctive century in Christian history. But the little tongue of fire in Topeka in 1901 became a wildfire by 1906, and that specifically at Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California.

This was the great groundswell of interest in and for the so-called Pentecostal movement. By the mid-1960s, the explosion of religious zeal could claim, according to some estimates, more than 10 million adherents worldwide. What could the Orthodox Presbyterian Church say before such a throng? over 10 million adherents. And by the 60s, this movement came to claim the support of many Protestant mainliners. No, not just those humble, fundamentalist type, holiness type, that had attached themselves to Parham that had been present at Azusa Street in Los Angeles, by the 1960s, many prominent figures in mainline Protestantism had lent their support to the movement.

In the 50s and early 60s, the movement had gained greater credibility then, and its support was coming from a diverse group of people. including John McCaw, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, including Henry Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, but also notably the Episcopalian Samuel Shoemaker, famous for his contributions right here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as Anglican’s Leslie Newbigin, and of all people, Philip Edgecombe Hughes, who later came to teach at Westminster Theological Seminary. Van Dusen is of particular interest. Remember, he is the president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He said in an article for Life magazine, the Pentecostal movement is a revolution. It is a revolution comparable in importance with the original apostolic church and with the Protestant Reformation.

Now, not that these mainline leaders of Protestantism had experienced the Pentecostal visitation themselves, not that they had spoken in tongues or received other charismatic endowments. At the same time, their openness toward and their acceptance and promotion of the new Holy Spirit hysteria worked its own miracles in the respectable corridors of Christendom. 1967 brought what some would judge an official involvement of the Roman Catholic Church here in the United States, and that through the organization of the Holy Spirit conferences, beginning in no other place but at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. fueled by a great desire on the part of the laity within the Roman Church for direct involvement in their faith, and a wave of interest in folk religion on the part of the religious, that is, those who had received orders in the Church, nuns, priests, monks, the charismatic movement swept through the Roman Church in some places like a mighty rushing As Vatican II ended, many in Mother Church were exchanging one unknown tongue, Latin, for another, Rossellalia. Out of this, a whole new vision for ecumenicity was emerging. A favorite even among evangelicals had already announced in 1957 the addition of another chair at the ecumenical table. He said that there are three principal streams of life in the Christian Church. First, the Catholic, then the Protestant, and now the Pentecostal.

20th century has indeed witnessed a remarkable phenomenon. A movement claiming biblistically New Testament roots—here’s the republication of the exact phenomenon that you see occurring on the pages of the Book of Acts and at other places in the New Testament—a movement then claiming New Testament roots, beginning among poorer class Protestants of a fundamentalist and holiness stripe, but by mid-century gaining the applause of Roman Catholicism and of the Protestant establishment elite, particularly the applause of even those of a neo-Orthodox Barthian stripe, as in the case of Newbigin and Mackay, but also the applause of an out-and-out liberal, such as Henry Van Dusen. But this is only a third of the story. We have a ways to go.

For the Pentecostal movement has received both direct and indirect support through other developments in the religious scene during this century. Now, by way of introduction to this second third, I turn once more to the 60s. At the end of that decade, the youth fetish had grabbed hold of the throat of the evangelical church. By the end of the sixties, the youth fetish, the worship of youth, had grabbed hold of the throat of the evangelical church.

A subculture already in deep distrust of the establishment, including the establishment church, clued into its own music, its own meaning, its own world, discovered Jesus. I’ll repeat that, lest at the beginning of that sentence you didn’t know where I was going. A subculture already into deep distrust of the establishment, including the organized clued into its own music, its own meaning, its own world, discovered Jesus. Now, what was born, generated out of that, was a complex sociological phenomenon, generally impatient with structure and theological precision, but heavily into feelings, so-called Christian music and relevance.

Above all, relevance. Because you see, the only sin worth worrying about is the sin of being boring. You wouldn’t want to be boring. And you wouldn’t want to live a boring life. What we need is youthful excitement. I said this is a complex sociological phenomenon. And I say that because of four things. First, the Jesus movement. You knew what I was talking about, didn’t you?

The Jesus movement proved, in the end, to be thoroughly establishmentarian itself, and that in a very clever way. That is, it proved to be just as interested in popularity, power, and control as the establishment to which it objected. And in this regard, the Jesus movement proved itself to be fairly commercial in the end. This movement is now mainstream. Have you not noticed? It is now mainstream and quite profitable, having successfully replaced the Word of God with its music and God’s ordained ministers and office-bearers with entertainers, or ministers and office-bearers who are entertainers.

It has displaced solid biblical theology and orthodoxy. together with decent, solid Christian nurture, with religious mush, noxious sentimentality, adolescent banality, and hormonal theology. Now, maybe you don’t know what hormonal theology is. Think about it. Have you noticed the covers on Christian music CDs? And I ask you, for many of those covers to those CDs, is it not obvious to you that the intent is to sell Christ with Seth? That’s what I mean by hormonal theology. Well, here’s good news for everybody. Christianity is not only fun, it’s sexy. Now, the next reason that this phenomenon is so complex is because Protestantism already had in place its own subculture, ready to set up to the new Jesus counterculture.

Here was my experience. with Campus Crusade, I remember 1965. The only people they had in their magazines were young men with crew cuts, young ladies smartly dressed, campus leaders to be sure. By 1969, Campus Crusades periodicals were filled with pictures of people with long hair, males, and females without any shoes. How easy it was. How easy it was.

Constantism already had in place a subculture ready to side up to the new Jesus counterculture. I have specifically in mind the evangelical paraplegiastical network. Outside of the church, making a lot of points, scoring a lot of points at the expense of the church. Hey, hey fella, your parents don’t understand you, but we do. Yes, sir, they don’t understand you, but we are your friends.” Here was a paraplesiastical network, a subculture already in existence, that had perfected had perfected its ability to rob the Church of the support that the Church owed to its own proper ministries.

This network had already subordinated doctrine to pragmatics. It had already subordinated its doctrine to access to the masses. It had already bought a theological position that saw in humanity a common emotional link. Those of you who went through it, I ask you to go back and review. The appeal was always to the emotions. This network had already bought a theological position that saw in humanity a common emotional link to which it could appeal, in terms of which it could bring pressure upon an audience.

The evangelical para-ecclesiastical network never did have any problems with the Pentecostal movement. And why would it? The final reason why this phenomenon is such a complex sociological reality is the reaction of the church generally to it. What churches, as churches, have had the courage to stand up against it. I’m not talking here about individual congregations. I’m talking about denominations.

Terrified. Terrified by the threat of their own irrelevance. Frightened to death that they would lose their chance. feeling guilty that they had failed to show their emotions adequately, or adequately develop a social conscience, especially where the youth were concerned.

The Church virtually has handed over title to building land, copyrights, standards, and bank accounts, and transformed the Church of Christ into a perpetual summer camp. This lunacy has now worked to grant support to the Pentecostal takeover of our time. And that from those that we would never have expected it.

The appeal is to informality, spontaneity, subjectivism. Get in touch with your feelings. Don’t be afraid of expressing your feelings. Break through those old inhibitions. Dance a little bit in the aisle. Wave your hands. Warm the spirit. Laugh! By the Holy Spirit.

Informality, spontaneity, subjectivism run rampant now, as assault is brought to bear upon even those citadels of strength within orthodoxy. Now, as it is, we have only covered two-thirds of the picture this evening. And we don’t have time to go into adequately the third piece of the puzzle. But I will mention it to you and say a word about it. And I want to do that because, you see, it is the one that is most ordinarily overlooked.

In addition to Pentecostalism proper and its roots, in addition to the youth cult and the para-ecclesiastical subculture of evangelicalism, is the power of a residual Victorian Romantic religion.

Victorian Romantic You see, we ordinarily think of the latter days of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, as exhibiting some marks of strength within orthodoxy, as if there were a virulent orthodoxy still at work in some meaningful way, even within the mainline churches, committed to the objective truth of the biblical gospel. and this gospel, the biblical gospel, as the sure and certain ground for Christian confidence, specifically a faith that has the ability to take you out of yourself, even out of your time, and place you in another, and specifically place you in relationship to events that happened 1900 years ago, with a conviction that it was the events that took place then in Christ’s life, in his death, in his resurrection and ascension, the event that takes place at Pentecost in the gift of the Spirit, and that definitively, that these events are determinative for Christian life and that they always have the priority, and that my experience by itself means nothing. Means nothing. But what we find instead claiming the churches and the pulpits in this Victorian Romantic religion is not some sort of commitment to a biblical orthodoxy that has at its center the exposition of biblical text and doctrine, to the end that the hearer will be brought into a whole new world and in that new world have their emotions and their intellect subordinated to the glory, the absolute glory and sovereignty of God.

Instead, the purpose of Victorian Romantic religion was to exalt your own personal experience, and to produce in you through an appeal to your emotions and your sensitivities, a spiritual swoon. The greatest goal of the Victorian preacher was to have you weeping in the pew before you wept.

And not necessarily because of your sins, but because he had told you a sweet story that broke your heart. I used to listen to Bruce Teelman. Bruce Teelman Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, now departed, was one of the great masters of Victorian Romantic religion. And I can tell you, if I had to listen one more time to the story about his friend dying from leukemia, you conjure up stories for the purpose of breaking your hearer’s hearts. You break their hearts because you know if you can make them cry, they’ll love you.

I used to preach like that. I learned to preach like that. That’s how I was taught to preach, even when I was in high school. I shouldn’t have been preaching when I was in high school, but I did. I was a product of that parenthesiastical network amongst evangelicals. That’s how I used to preach at Geneva College. Westminster Seminary ruined me. I don’t think I can construct a sermon like that anymore.

The purpose of Victorian Romantic religion is to exalt you and your story and to appeal to you through the means of other stories, the telling of religious tales, the sharing of evangelical folklore. You can’t even verify whether the stories are true. It doesn’t matter. They make you cry, don’t they? They have their impact, they have their effect. What difference does it make whether they’re true? For that matter, what difference does it make whether the gospel stories are true? If I can relate them to you in some way so as to break your heart, that’s all that matters.

So it is, you see, that preaching is reduced to pulpiteering. That proclamation is reduced to theatrics. That’s the heritage with which we enter. We Protestants in America enter the 20th century. And not even J. Gresson Machen was immune. All of these strains then, in this very complex constellation of things, contribute to Pentecostalism’s triumph, as if it were a great conspiracy. each aspect reinforcing the other. So.

Subtle is it in its complexity that it makes its assault upon those institutions and churches that have formally stood unwavering for the truth of biblical orthodoxy. The OTC has fought during her history against all of this. It hasn’t done it at all times intelligently. It hasn’t done it, at all times, well. But the bottom line is that the OPC is one of the few churches that has done it at all. And it has pursued this course, ironically enough, and I do not hesitate to add this, in the true interest of the original Pentecost.

My concern in the weeks ahead is to deal then with the Holy Spirit, his person, and his ministry. Yes, as we reflect upon scripture and its proclamation, but also as we reflect upon our church’s stand in this centering and are reminded of our need to resist all of the temptations that come at us from whatever source. Our Father in Heaven, help us, O God, to give you that which is your rightful due. May we ascribe glory to you and all of your perfections, your righteousness, your holiness, your power. and your beauty. May we stand, O God, in amazement of you. And, Lord, guard our hearts and minds, even as you guard our church, lest we profane you. And that, by wrongly reading your word, and even wrongly reading our experiences. This we pray, that you may be glorified, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.