Hey, Intercessors! One thing we have the privilege to do around MorningStar is pray through the prophetic preaching and other prophetic words that come out of this house. Here are my personal notes from Jeff Oliver’s 9am sermon on 1/28/24 on lessons from the Azusa Revival from his upcoming book. The points on humility as a prerequisite to Holy Spirit outpouring are worth applying personally and interceding into!! MS 1/28/24 Jeff Oliver Keys to Experiencing Azusa Fire: Lessons from the revival that changed the landscape of global Christianity. I had just finished Pentecost to Present Trilogy. Rick asked me to speak here, and he told me “You need to take one of your chapters of your books and write more about it.” I knew immediately that the Azusa Street Revival was the section that needed a fuller treatment. That was 7 years ago. I just finished it. Rick wrote a chapter in the book about the prophetic implications of Azusa for what God is going to be doing in the future. This is a joint venture with Destiny Image and MorningStar. When William Seymore arrived in Los Angeles in 1906, I found images of what he would have seen. I have pictures of the train station, and the trolley Seymore rode to get the funding for renting the building. The first time I studied it I studied it in a linear timeline way. This time, I looked panoramically. Joseph Smale, a British Baptist pastor, trained at Spurgeon’s College in London, and brought the Welsh revival to the city. Dr. Finis Yoakum, was founder of the nationwide Pisgah Home Movement. He was in LA too. He was healed when a Missionary Alliance person prayed for him. There were Holiness groups who had left Methodism, doing Tarrying Meetings. The Full Gospel Businessmen’s group had an Armenian group singing, speaking in tongues, dancing, etc. The whole city was ripe. Why did God choose Azusa? Because they were the humblest. All who went there remarked at the humility. That building had been a stable. The first black congregation in LA had been at that building with their horses parked on the main level, and the people meeting in the top level. Before that it had been a tombstone shop, and a lumber yard. Mrs Carney says she was glad that she got to clean the goat droppings, while Seymore did the horse and cow stuff. It stunk. There were flies. No one cared. God was there. Florence Crawford was a white middle class lady who went there. She looked around to see if anyone saw her go in, but she didn’t care who saw her come out. She met God there. The ceiling rafters were so low, you had to lower your head and humble yourself, or you’d wish you had. You’d hit your head on them if you didn’t duck. There was a modern integrated church reality as long as there was the presence of God making it happen. It lasted 3 yrs. GB Cashwell from Dunn NC was offended by the fact that it was led by black men. He wouldn’t let them lay hands on him. The Lord dealt with him back at his hotel room, and he said he was crucified, and he went back. He let them lay hands on him, and days later was filled with the Spirit. They took up a collection to buy him a new suit when he planned to return. It was money well spent. He came back to NC and started what was referred to as Azusa East. The Pentecostal Holiness, and 4 other denominations were founded out of that movement in Dunn NC. Ps 34:18 The Lord is nearest to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Contrite = Crushed, broken, shattered, sorrowful, penitent, repentant God gives grace to the humble Prov 3:34, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5 Grace - charis - Charismata God resists the proud Opposes Sets one in battle array against James 4:10 God exalts the humble. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. When LIFE Magazine made it’s list of events with the greatest impact in the millennium, 1001-2000, they included Azusa Revival, along with Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, Gutenberg’s press, and the Protestant Reformation. 2 Chron 7:14 If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will heal their land. Gideon’s army had to become small to defeat the Mideanites. David had to be small to defeat Goliath. John had to decrease to be exalted by Jesus. Paul had to become weak for God’s strength to become perfect. Want to hear some stories? Heroes will arise from the dust of obscure and despised circumstances, whose names will be emblazoned on heaven’s eternal page of fame - Frank Bartleman "On March 26, I went to a cottage meeting on Bonnie Brae Street. Both white and black believers were meeting there for prayer. I had attended another cottage meeting shortly before this, where I first met a Brother Seymour. He had just come from Texas. He was a black man, blind in one eye, very plain, spiritual, and humble. He attended [to] the meetings at Bonnie Brae Street." - Frank Bartleman "Many churches have been praying for Pentecost and Pentecost has come. The question is, will they accept it? God has answered in a way they did not look for. He came in a humble way as of old, born in a manger. The secular papers have been stirred and published reports against the movement, but it has only resulted in drawing hungry souls who understand that the devil would not fight a thing unless God was in it." —The Apostolic Faith, June 1906 They have come and found it was indeed the power of God. Jesus was too large for the synagogue. He preached outside because there was not room for Him inside. The Pentecostal movement is too large o be confined in any denomination or sect. It work outside, drawing all together in one bond of love, one church, and one body of Christ." — The Apostolic Faith, June 1906 "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach." (Hebrews 13:12-13) "There was a general spirit of humility manifested in the meeting. They were taken up with God. Evidently the Lord had found the little company at last, outside as always, through whom He could have His way. God had not chosen an established mission where this could be done. They were in the hands of men; the Spirit could not work. Others who were more pretentious had failed. That which man esteems had been passed by once more, and the Spirit was born again in a humble 'stable' outside ecclesiastical establishment." -Frank Bartleman He compared it often to Bethlehem, but also Luther’s Whittenberg. It was a wretched enclosure where he had nailed the 95 theses. But what happened there had changed the world. There was no pride there. The services ran almost continuously. They did not depend on the human leader. His presence was enough. "In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors, God broke strong men and women to pieces, and put them together again for His glory. It was a tremendous overhauling process. Pride and self-assertion, self-importance, and self-esteem could not survive there. The religious ego preached its own funeral sermon quickly." - Frank Bartleman "A message that was given in tongues for God's people was this, "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God." He is now about to move on the world in a mighty wave of Pentecostal power and salvation. A sister had a vision of God's people as vessels that were full, and the Lord said, "The vessels must be emptied, and I will fill them." —The Apostolic Faith, June 1906 "It was such a humble place with its low ceilings and rough floor. Cobwebs were hanging in the windows and joists. As I looked around I thought of Jesus when He came to earth and was born in a manger. There was no place for Him in the inn. I thought of the fine church houses in Los Angeles, but the Lord had chosen this humble spot to gather all nationalities, to baptize them with the Holy Ghost." - Rachel Sizelove Warning: Many quotes from those who were firsthand witnesses to what happened will sound to our ears as racist. It was a different age, and what Hod was doing was outside of many people’s understanding or experience. "Very many of this company were Negroes, poor, lowly, ignorant, and despised. Less than 50 years ago Negroes were owned by white people in the United States as slaves. No one but an American can rightly understand how despised the Negro is. The twentieth century Pentecostal movement had its birth in a despised place amongst a despised people because there was no room for it in the modern church." —Max Wood Morehead We keep building great temples and cathedrals with lavish decorations and furnishings, and He keeps showing up in the most humble of dwellings. Perhaps there is a lesson here as we watch for the outpouring of His Spirit and the return of His Shekinah Glory to fall upon us once again." —Sister Dundee "This work began with some poor ignorant, colored people (what more appropriate instruments could God choose?)" —Etta Auringer Huff "We went down to old Azusa Street. But why should I go down there? Was not my grandfather a Virginian and my grandmother from Kentucky and my very own mother raised with black slaves? Why should I go down to the black folks to get the Baptism of the Holy Ghost? But they had it and I wanted it. I went." — Kelso R. Grover I received the Holy Spirit a similar way. I saw that others had what I wanted. "I am so glad the Lord God has raised up a people right in Los Angeles, and San Francisco. They seem like Sodom and Gomorrah, but out of these cities the Lord God has raised up a people for His holy name. He has cleansed them from sin, He has sanctified them, and has baptized them with the Holy Ghost and sealed them until the day of Redemption. Glory to His holy name!" —William J. Seymour "We must give God all the glory in this work. We must keep very humble at His feet. He recognizes no flesh, no color, no names. We must not glory in Azusa Mission, nor in anything but the Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world." —William J. Seymour "Keep your eyes on Jesus and not on the manifestations, not seeking to get some great thing more than somebody else. The Lord God wants you just as humble as a baby, looking for Him to fill you with more of God and power." —William J. Seymour "Though there be counterfeits.... Let us all bow down before God, and be as humble and simpl as little children, that we may miss nothing of the blessing God wants to pour upon His children in these last days." —Carrie Judd Montgomery "Can any unbiased man doubt as to the source of this strange power, when these humble children of God were waiting only upon Him, seeking for Himself?" —A.H. Post "God was searching for a people sufficiently humble, sufficiently consecrated, and of 'one accord' as were the hundred and twenty at the first Pentecostal outpouring. —A.G. Osterberg "A band of humble people in Los Angeles had seen praying for a year or more for more power with God for the salvation of the lost and suffering humanity... They continued to hold cottage prayer meetings for several months.... We are all little children knowing only Jesus and Him crucified.... Brother Seymour is simply a humble pastor of the flock." —Anonymous God has always sought a humble people.... The depth of any revival will be determined exactly by the spirit of repentance that is obtained. In fact, this is the key to every true revival born of God." - Frank Bartleman Those were Holy Spirit meetings, led by the Lord. It had to start in poor surroundings to keep out the selfish, human element. All came down in humility together at His feet. They all looked alike and had all things in common, in that sense at least. The rafters were low, the tall must come down. By the time they got to Azusa, they were humbled, ready for the blessing." — Frank Bartleman "Shortly after God filled me, His Spirit rested mightily upon me one morning, and He said to me, 'If you were only small enough, I could do anything with you'" —Frank Bartleman We need to meditate on this reality. This is the secret of revival. "What was the one outstanding spiritual phenomena of the Azusa Revival? It can be answered in one word: Tears. The Azusa Revival began, where every revival should rightly begin, in repentant tears. It began in tears, it lived in tears, and when the tears ended, the Azusa revival ended!" -A.G. Osterberg "Tears of guilt confession; tears of fault confession; tears in humble contrition; tears in humble reverence; tears of self-denial and abnegation, in expression of soul humility, until high mindedness was brought low, and the natural supreme ego minded topmost, became the selfless last.... High or low, rich or poor, minister, laymen, surgeon, professor, carpenter or bricklayer, all appeared humble and contrite now." -A.G. Osterberg How was revival lost? When the humility ended. When the tears ended. There was more control. There was a waning of racial plurality. They organized it. They started seeing themselves as a spiritual aristocracy. They became the Pilgrims of Revival. Tongues ceased. When the power of God would wane, jumping was attempted to keep the spectacle. Maddie Cummings was 10 when it started, and she said this: “Because men became proud. They thought they could do things instead of the Holy Spirit doing things, and any time that men become proud, like they did at that particular time, it just breaks something up." —Mattie Cummings The revival "stopped when Brother Seymour stopped putting that box over his head." —Sister Carney They had no resources when they started. The pulpit was two wooden shoe crates on top of each other, with a cloth draped over it, and at times Seymore would put the top box over his head and pray. That act of humility brought the greatest miracles. "As the movement began to wane, platforms were built higher, coattails were worn longer, choirs were organized, and string bands came into existence to ‘jazz' the people. The kings came back once more to their thrones, restored to sovereignty. We were no longer brethren. Then the divisions multiplied. While Brother Seymour kept his head inside the old empt box in Azusa, all was well. They later built a throne for him also. Now we have not one hierarchy, but many." —Frank Bartleman "If ever men shall seek to control, corner, or own this work of God, either for their own glory or for that of an organization, we shall find the Spirit refusing to work. The glory will depart." -Frank Bartleman "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves." (2 Corinthians 13:5) Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick except the one who has it. One way to test yourself is to ask those around you “Do I come across as proud?” The reason rivers receive the homage of the mountains around them, is that they stay low. Never forget the rock from whence you came. 'And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder." (Matthew 21:44)

Posted by Robert Rummage at 2024-01-29 01:17:26 UTC