I write this for the diminishing number of Pentecostals who don’t think of themselves better than but do see themselves as distinct from those who are Pentecostals in name only (PINOs). I pray that the latter will return to the Gold Standard, for the good is the enemy of the best.
In 2 Kings, chapter 7, four lepers, in a luminous display of logic, (1) consider the four options available, (2) decide that only one of the four is viable, and (3) take a twilight walk into the camp of the enemy. Their act expresses more fatalism than faith; twilight is halfway between good light and none at all.
The names of the four lepers who distinguished themselves and then disappeared are not recorded but they left a happy city behind them! I’m sure that many wished them well.
But God amplifies their feeble but determined footsteps, and the result is that not only do they save themselves from starvation but also the starving population of a city that has been long under siege.
Not a bad effort and all things considered a good result from a tiny band of untouchables. So, take heart, all you who still hold fast to the faith that was once delivered to God’s people, and experience the same power and presence of the Lord as those who have served the Lord down through the ages! None of whom have been Pentecostals in Name Only but in power as well.
The writer of Hebrews encourages us to “go to Jesus outside the camp”, i.e. the moribund religious system. There are times when social outcasts with nothing to lose get there before those who are wary of “giving up that which they cannot keep to gain that which they cannot lose”.
Or as another poet put it: “Only one life, t’will soon be past, and only what’s done for Christ will last.” Those who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus in terrible times are worthy of note (Revelation 14:12, 13). They “rest” in death from their labours; and “their works do follow them”.
Many old tombstones are engraved with the words: “His [or her] works follow them”. Those things that continue after we have gone — “the things that last” — might well excel those things we are now doing. “Time will tell” they say, but the judgement seat of Christ will not only reveal but also reward.
The British term for second rate is “bog standard”. I’ve been in a few bogs in my time. I once baptised 19 Filipinos in a dirty carabao (water buffalo) bog and was warned beforehand of the danger of small worms creeping up into (you don’t want to know). “The former things shall not be remembered” — and happily that will be one of them.