Home truths are usually disquieting, which may explain why “to whom much is given, much shall be required” makes us feel uneasy. (Luke 12:48) We like to think we’ve done our best, but could we have done better? Well, compared to what others would have done had they known what we knew, the answer is yes.
The City of Brisbane was founded less than 200 years ago, but during the closing decade of the past century, it was home to Australia’s most powerful Pentecostal churches. The new century has brought change, the greatest being a switch of emphasis from reaching people through “the power anointing” to attracting techno-savvy singles and success-oriented couples. I may be old, but I get that.
If you’re waiting for me to add “But” to this, I’m not about to. The former emphasis on the anointing ended with the close of the century. Older Christians didn’t like that, but over time they’ve come to accept it.
I am qualified to comment on this because I either worked for or with, or knew personally, Brisbane’s best-known Pentecostal ministers over three decades. Some of them no longer lead the churches they founded, some are struggling elsewhere, others have retired, and still others are with the Lord. Their names were synonymous with powerful evangelistic-healing ministries, international missionary evangelism, and the spectacular growth of the city’s largest churches.
The church in which I held the position of assistant pastor grew from 800 to 1600 that year, and personal decisions for Christ averaged 100 weekly. Most were then baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit. Miracles of healing were frequent and often spectacular.
My point is that Jesus will judge cities that enjoyed the spectacular more harshly than those that did not – and by spectacular, I mean years of meetings in which the presence and power of the Spirit of God were not just prayed for but were accepted as normal. It’s painful to hear some say, “You had to be there”, but it’s true, you did. Christians said, “Church was never like this!” and came out four or five nights a week. Christians travelled long distances to be a part of what God was doing, fearing they might miss “the meeting to end all meetings” – one in which a sovereign outpouring of the Spirit of God might well usher in a long-expected revival that would spread throughout Australia and up into Southeast Asia.
After instructing the Seventy as to what they should do after he sent them out, Jesus said, “Heal the sick that are [in the houses you enter] and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But into whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, “Even the very dust of your city that clings to us we brush off [as a witness] against you. Nevertheless be sure of this: the kingdom of God came near to you.” (Luke 10:9-11)
In Matthew’s account, Jesus then begins to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works were done, because they did not repent. “Woe to Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Tyre and Sidon than for you.” Jesus contrasted the lack of response from the Galilean towns with that the two pagan cities outside Israel would have shown, had they been privileged to see such mighty miracles.
Jesus marked one town for even harsher judgement. “And you, Capernaum, which are exalted to heaven, shall be thrust down to hell: for if the mighty works have been done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgement than for you.” (Matthew 11:20-24)
The town of Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galilee had seen some of the Lord’s mightiest miracles, among them the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, and many exorcisms. It was in Capernaum that an unnamed woman touched the hem of the Lord’s robe and was healed, and where Jesus restored to life the 12-year-old daughter of Jairus. The nobleman’s son had been healed in Capernaum when Jesus ordered it from a distance; and it was where Jesus healed the paralyzed man lowered through the roof, who was then able to walk away carrying his bed.
Capernaum had been “exalted to heaven” through these mighty miracles. Jesus had walked its streets and had made his home there in Peter’s house. It was there that he told Peter to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth and pay their tax. Those who sought miracles headed for Capernaum, the town everyone talked about, the town which in England would have been calledMiracles-by-Sea!
Capernaum and Sodom – what a contrast! Yet both names are Hebrew and relate to bitumen. The first means “to cover with bitumen” (as Noah covered the ark with tar inside and out); the second to bitumen itself, which fell on Sodom when God judged it). The first sealed the righteous within the ark from God’s judgement through the Flood; the second sealed those God had judged as unrighteous by entombing them in it.
Ezekiel prophesied scathingly of the once-holy but in his time filthy city of Jerusalem, saying that its sins exceeded those of “your sister Sodom” (Ezekiel 16:48-50) Sodom’s sins had been pride, self-sufficiency, idleness, neglect of the poor and needy, haughtiness, and “abomination”. (Ezekiel 16:48-50) Yet Jesus also said that had Sodom witnessed his miracles, it would have repented, whereas Capernaum had seen them in abundance but had not. It would be “thrown down to hell” – a judgement uncannily like that of Sodom. Yet Sodom’s judgement would be more tolerable than Capernaum’s.
It is recorded that Jerusalem and Capernaum shared a similar fate historically, in that the armies of Rome destroyed both; and certainly it is clear from the Lord’s parable in Matthew 22:7 that the king who “sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city” was none other than God Himself.
But Jesus was prophesying of a future spiritual judgment on both Capernaum and Sodom, and in so doing made it clear that judgement on a town that had not seen the miracles that bore witness to his right to rule would be less severe than on a town that had seen more miracles than most.
It is a tragic fact that many Pentecostals do not attend church, despite the undeniable fact that most of them have personally known the Lord Jesus and experienced the power of God’s Spirit in ways unknown to evangelicals and nonconformist groups. They have received much, and much will be required of them. Better not to have known the power and presence of God than to have become blasé about it and substituted worldly activities for the pursuit of God’s holiness – “without which no man shall see the Lord.”
I believe that God is yet to visit our city with an awakening that has been prophesied by great men and women of God. I remember the late Jim Spillman’s account of such an awakening, in a vision God gave him while his aircraft was about to land on his first visit. I met with the demonstrative US evangelist, and can still repeat, verbatim, a prophecy that he spoke over my life on March 9th, 1978 (maybe because it was Lorraine’s and my 15th Wedding anniversary).
As for those ministers who did what they could when they could, I’m sure that they, like me, are watching the new generation of pastors, mission leaders and evangelists, and praying that God will not delay in granting Australians the nationwide awakening for which they and everyone who cares for the lost is asking.
One thing I do know is that when Jesus returns, I would rather be where the Lord is unknown than be spiritually asleep in a privileged city where he is known but largely ignored. One of the greatest of sins, surely, is to know but not to care.