As we did in Teaching E-mail 47,
we’ll be presenting excerpts from the book Azusa Street by
Frank Bartleman. Our God is calling His own to evangelize the
world — but not through contemporary evangelism techniques or
crusades, nor without spiritual power. As with those who
were changed through authentic
revival at Azusa Street, our
Father is making clear the foundations needed in order for
people today to respond to the movement of His Spirit.
At the diagram to the right you’ll
see the key relational priorities that our Father is restoring to those who
follow Jesus as their Lord. At the center you’ll find the
highest priority: our Covenant union with Him which our Lord
Jesus made possible by His atoning sacrifice on our behalf.
That covenant relationship influences every other relationship
you have! The testimony that validates that you are truly in
Covenant with our Father is that people see the Spirit of Christ at work in and through you (John 14:9).
As we discussed in our Hebraic Article, The Gospel of the Covenant is the Pilgrimage to
Salvation, when our Father sees
that we wholeheartedly embrace the scriptural stipulations for
entering His Covenant, He seals us with the Holy Spirit.
You can’t miss the outworking of the
Spirit in the Book of Acts! When people are indwelt by the Holy
Spirit, noticeable things take place. People begin to speak in
tongues, prophesy, heal others, teach and admonish people
— all those 54 “one anothers” in the Newer
Testament that confirm His presence. If your relationship with
the Father and His Son Jesus is your highest priority, then
manifestations of the Holy Spirit at work in and through you
should be evident in your life. If His Spirit does not dwell in
you, then don’t go on pretending you belong to Jesus
(Romans 8:9). All the other relationships in the diagram flow
from your relationship with the Father and Son made possible by
the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Spirit’s
presence is what the people at
Azusa Street experienced. The excerpts we include so clearly
express the point that we don’t need to make any
comments. As you read, seriously ask yourself:
Do you want to experience our Lord’s
relationship with you no matter what it costs you? Are you
willing to fulfill His will no matter where He leads you? If
this is so, read on...
Azusa Street: Chapter 3
p.73 - God wanted a revival company, a
channel through whom He could evangelize the world, blessing
all peoples and believers. He could naturally not accomplish
this with a sectarian party. That spirit has been the curse and
death of every revival sooner or later.
p.75 - For some days we could do little
but lie before the Lord in prayer. The atmosphere was almost
too sacred and holy to attempt to minister.
p.76 - We had the greatest trouble with
strange preachers who wanted to preach. Of all people, they
seemed to have the least sense and did not know enough to keep
still before Him. They liked to hear themselves.
p.77 - The enemy is moving hell to break
up our fellowship through doctrinal differences, but we must
preserve the unity of the Spirit by all means... God will never
give this work into the hands of men. If it ever gets under
man’s control, it is done.
pp. 79-80 - Oh, the thrill of being fully
yielded to Him! My mind had always been very active. Its
natural workings had caused me most of my trouble in my
Christian experience... Nothing
hinders faith and the operation of the Spirit so much as the
self-assertiveness of the human soul,
the wisdom, strength and self-sufficiency of the human mind.
This must all be crucified, and here is where the fight comes
in. We must become utterly undone, insufficient, and helpless
in our own consciousness, thoroughly humbled, before we can
receive full possession of the Holy Spirit. We want the Holy Spirit,
but the fact is that He is wanting possession of us... The full Pentecostal baptism spells complete
abandonment, or possession by the Holy Spirit, of the whole man
with a spirit of instant obedience... I found I had often charged God with seeming
lack of interest or tardiness of action, when I should have yielded to Him, in faith, that He
might be able to work through me His sovereign will.
p.81 - He was asking me simply to go with Him to help in that which He alone had
purposed and desired... He had
existed, and had been working out His eternal purpose, long
before I had ever been thought of—and will be long after
I am gone.
p.82 - I had been shut up largely to a
ministry of intercession and prophecy before I reached this
condition of utter abandonment to the Spirit. I was now to go
forth again in the service... The door of my service sprang
open at the touch of the hand of a sovereign God. The Spirit
began to operate within me in a new and mightier way.
p.83 - But we have made another step back
on the way to the restoration of the Church as in the
beginning. We are completing the circle. Jesus will return for
a perfect Church, “without spot or wrinkle.” He is
coming for “one body”, not a dozen. He is the Head,
and as such He is no monstrosity, with a hundred bodies... The
natural reason must be yielded in the matter. There is a gulf to cross between reason and
revelation, and it is this
principle in experience which leads to the Pentecostal baptism.
It is the underlying principle of this baptism. This is why the
simple people usually get in first.
p.84 - The early Church lived in this as
its normal atmosphere. Hence its abandonment to the working of
the Spirit, its supernatural gifts, and its power..., to know nothing in ourselves that we might
receive the mind of Christ.
p.85 - The experience left behind it the
consciousness of a state of utter abandonment to the Lord, a
place of perfect rest from my own works and activity of mind.
It left me with a consciousness of utter God-control... Many
have trifled foolishly with this principle and possession. They
have failed to continue in the
Spirit and have caused others to
stumble. This has brought about great harm... The greater part of most Christians’
knowledge of God is and always has been, since the loss of the
Spirit by the early Church, an intellectual knowledge. Their knowledge of the Word and the principles
of God is an intellectual one, through natural reasoning and understanding
largely. They have little revelation, illumination, or
inspiration directly from the Spirit of God.
p.88 - Past services now became a complete
blank to me, and with the greatest relief on my part. I began
again for God, as though I had never accomplished anything. I
felt that I stood before Him empty-handed. The fire of testing seemed to sweep away all of my
religious doings. God did not want me to rest in these. For the future I was to forget all that I
might ever do for God as quickly as it was accomplished, so
that it might not prove a further snare to me, and go on as
though I had never done a thing for God. This was my safety.
p.90 - What we need is more of God to
control the meetings. He must be left free to come forth at all
costs. The saints themselves are too largely in confusion and
rebellion. Through prayer and self-abasement, God will
undertake for the meetings. This was the secret in the
beginning. We held together in prayer, love, and unity, and no
power could break this. But self must be burned out. Meetings
must be controlled by way of the throne. A spiritual atmosphere must be created, through
humility and prayer, that Satan cannot live in.
p.91 - The workers were not novices. They
were largely called and prepared for years from the Holiness
ranks and from the mission field, etc. They had been burnt out,
tried, and proven. They were
seasoned veterans. They had walked with God and learned deeply
of His Spirit. These were pioneers,
“shock troops”, the Gideon's three hundred, to
spread the fire around the world, just as the disciples had
been prepared by Jesus.
p.92 - We die out to self by coming into
His presence. And this requires great quietness of spirit.
p.93 - Multitudes
are shut up in ecclesiastical systems, within sectarian
boundaries, while God’s great, free pasture lies out
before them, only limited by the encircling Word of God. “There shall be one flock, and one
Shepherd” (John 10:16). Tradi-tional
theology, partial truth and revelation soon become law. The conscience is utterly bound, like Chinese
foot-binding, shut up against further progress.
p.95 - The work
of Calvary, the atonement, must be the center of our
consideration. The Holy Spirit
never draws our attention from Christ to Himself, but rather
reveals Christ in a fuller way. We are in the same danger
today. There is nothing deeper nor higher than to know Christ.
Everything is given by God to that
end... Christ is our salvation and
our all. That we might know “the
breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of
Christ” (Ephesians 3:
18,19).
pp.99-100 - It is a fact that in the
beginning platforms and pulpits were as far as possible removed
out of the way. We had no conscious need of them. Priest class and ecclesiastical abuse were
entirely swept away. We were all brethren. All were free to
obey God. He might speak through whom He would... We honored men for their God-given
“gifts” and offices only. 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.
CHAPTER 4
pp.105-106 - A
real Christian means a martyr, unavoidably, in one way or
another. Few people are willing to pay the price to become a
real Christian to accept the ostracism, false accusation, and
condemnation of others... “Except a man forsake all,” said Jesus, “he
cannot be My disciple.”.. The
Church, since her fall in the early centuries, has had an
altogether mistaken conception of her calling and salvation.
All believers are called to one
hundred per cent consecration. God
doesn’t have two standards of consecration—one for
the foreign missionary, and another for the Christian at
home... God has had but one purpose
and interest since the fall. That has been to bring man back to
Himself.
p.107-108 - All their [the
Jews’] worship pointed to that one end—to bring the nations to the true knowledge of God
and to bring in the Messiah of the world. Jesus Christ had but one interest in coming to this
earth. His second coming waits for
this one thing also. When this
Gospel shall have been preached in all the world “then shall the end come,” the “curse” be lifted. Is the
Church working, with all her resources, for this one purpose
and to this one end? That certainly does not mean the selfish
heaping up of property and riches, more than we really need. It
does not mean getting all we want for ourselves and then
tossing the Lord a dollar we do not need. We have had the order
totally reversed since the early Church’s fall. God
requires of everyone the same consecration... Is the Church
moving normally, in divine order? The
politico-religious system, since the early Church, and today,
is largely a hybrid, mongrel institution. It is full of
selfishness, disobedience, and corruption. Its kingdom has become “of this world,”
rather than a “heavenly citizenship,” with
spiritual weapons.
p.108 - God usually withdraws His servants
from the field of battle only to bring them back stronger and
better armed.
p.109 - That moment... in which
[God’s heroes] first recognize their helplessness and
nothingness. From that hour they receive the strength of God
from on high. A great work of God is never accomplished by the
natural strength of man... Men must
come to know their own weakness before they can hope to know
God’s strength. The natural
strength and ability of man are always the greatest hindrance
to the work of God.
p. 110 - In those days the power and
presence of God among us often converted sinners in their
seats. We did not have to drag them to the altar and fight with
them to get them saved.
p.111 - The leader who had written
inviting me [to Ohio] had not the slightest ideas what
Pentecost meant, just as I had feared. He wanted a big time,
with a big increase in the mission, to build up the work in
numbers... He was fleshly, proud, and self-important, and would
not let the meetings go deeper... God showed me I had to deal
with him. I had to obey or quit... God, however, brought him
down. The Spirit convinced him, and he fell in a heap.
pp.113-114 - God was so near that no one
felt tired or sleepy... Much prayer characterized the services. The
Spirit was waited upon for every move, and He took complete
control. No two services were alike... Another night we were
all broken up by the love of God. We could do nothing but weep
for a whole hour. Every meeting was different, and each seemed
to go deeper. Two or three whole nights were spent in prayer.
One night the Spirit fell upon us like an electric shower... But again our battle was with the leader. He was
not right with God and would not yield...The devil often gets into a preacher’s coat.
Satan used him persistently in the beginning of the meetings,
but God finally got the victory, in spite of him. He did not
yield. It is amazing the hold the devil has on some preachers.
p.115 - We were “brethren,”
baptized in “one
Spirit,” into “one body”... In honor we preferred one another. No organ or
hymn books were used. The Spirit conducted the services, and
there seemed to be no place for them... The rapid evangelism of
the world, on real apostolic lines, was the goal set. The present generation must be reached by the
present generation.
p.119 - The Lord showed me my place of
hiding. I determined to follow Him. That is the place of power. Fear nothing but God, and obey Him.
CHAPTER 5
p.122 - The Lord will spare any man or
mission if there is repentance. We cannot
persistently abuse our privilege, destroy the prophets of God,
and finally get away with it.
p.124 - [A] revelation and reformation are
needed in the churches today almost as badly as in
Luther’s day. “Learn from me,” said Luther,
“how difficult a thing it is
to throw off errors which have been confirmed by the example of
all the world, and which, through
long habit, have become second nature to us.”.. Man always adds to the message God has given. This is Satan’s chief way to
discredit and destroy it... Men are creatures of extremes. The
message generally suffers more from its friends than from its
foes.
p.126 - We feared nothing more in those
days than to seek our own glory, or that the Pentecostal
experience should become a matter of past history... But we
drift back into the old ecclesiastical concepts, forms, and
ceremonies... In the early Azusa days, you could hardly keep
the saints off their knees. Whenever two saints met, they
invariably went to prayer.
p.127 - A great crisis is now on. Men do
not see the plan of God in the present Pentecostal movement.
Such a complete revolution is necessary that it staggers them.
They are unwilling to see that which they have labored so hard
to build up thrown down; but before
God’s plans can be carried out, man’s plans must be
set aside. They fail to see that God, having set aside all the
plans of man, is beginning to work after His own plan. He is
revealing His real plan to so many that they will never consent
to having the present work turned into a sect. God’s
people are simply not going to be led into the snare of human organization again.
pp.128,129 - Many have run ahead of God... God is not trying to build up
something else, or to do something for men that will make them
great and mighty, but rather to bring all men to naught, and do
the work through the power of the Holy Ghost. The call of God to His people now is to humble themselves, to recognize their weakness
and lack of power, to get down before Him, and wait till His
power is restored. The great
question is, will men see the plan of God and yield to it? Will
men get down in humility at Jesus’ feet and pray and wait
till He restores His full Pentecostal power? Or will they
continue to run ahead of Him and fail in the end? Let God’s people everywhere begin to seek
in deep, true humility. Then He
will reveal Himself and His plan to them. One man with the real power of God upon Him can do more
than a thousand who go on their own account. Only those who are true and loyal to God and His
present day message all share in this great victory. The people who really humble themselves, and
stand the test, God will use to do His work. The fact is, when a man gets to the place where he
really loves obscurity, where he does not care to preach, and
where he would rather sit in the back seat than on the
platform, then God can lift him up and use him, and not very
much before.
p.131,132 - The editor of The Friend of Russia writes: “God’s people can never get together on
human creeds and disciplines. They are too narrow and
changeable. We have a foundation that is broad enough to hold
all. Christ Himself is this foundation. In Christ, all God’s people are one,
irrespective of race, color, social standing, or creed.”
... As we look upon the Church divided, upon the sect-ridden
multitude, none of whom can see alike, how our tried souls cry
out for that original love. And we will never win the world on
any other plane. It was said of the early Christians, by the
heathen themselves, “Behold how these Christians love one
another!” While we are
breaking up into sects, creeds, isms, and doctrines, our love
is dying. Our churches will be
empty and our people lost. Your beautiful Pentecostal work, so
full of promise, where God has designed to come in and fill
souls and wonderfully baptize them in the Holy Spirit, is
broken and peeled and ruined for lack of love. It is said of
the mighty evangelist, Charles G. Finney, that he “forged
his theology on the anvil of prayer in his own heart.”
p.133 - “One is your Master, even
Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matthew 23:8). We have
too many who have a “leadership” spirit. These
divide the “body,” separate the saints.
CHAPTER 6
p.135 - Ever since the early Church fell
from New Testament purity and life, she has been a backslider,
fallen from the summit of apostolic days... I refer to the
true, mystical Body of Christ. It is a “prodigal
son,” wandered from the Father’s house, but since
the Reformation gradually returning... But steadily, relentlessly, the mighty Spirit of God
has been moving on, restoring that which was lost and heading things up toward that great
prophetic revelation of the Body of Christ in unity and
fullness—even one Body, fully matured “unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ!”
p.135-136 - Most Christians have failed to
move on with God and to accept His cumulative unfoldings in
their restoration of revelation, light and experience, once
lost, but now being restored to the true Church...
THE HEART OF OUR TROUBLE
p.136 - The human soul is ever lazy toward
God... It is true that human error or conceit continually
satisfies itself with a part instead of the whole, but the real
fact is that men are not willing to
pay the full price to come back fully to God’s standard,
to be all the Lord’s.
p.136-137 - When the prodigal gets home,
and the Church becomes one hundred per cent for God again, we will have the same power, the same
life—and the same persecution
from the world... “Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today, and forever!” God never changes. We have changed. We are not waiting for God. God
is waiting for us... But God can
only work when we are willing, yielded and obedient. We tie God’s hands.The history of the
Church has been the same. Each company that has come forth in
the line of restoration has run the same course. That is human,
fallen nature. It is human failure, not God’s. When
everything dried up and dies out, we call upon God. This alone
makes it possible for God to come. He must have some place to put His Spirit, and only empty
vessels can be filled. When we are
filled with our own ways, think ourselves rich and increased in
good spiritually, God can give us nothing.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
p.138 - The early Church ran well for a
season. Everything went down before it. But by the third or
fourth century, they had compromised
to escape the cross. They sold out to
the devil, backslid, and went down into the “Dark
Ages.” They lost the Holy Spirit anointing, the gifts,
the life, the power, the joy, everything. The Church became a
prodigal, left the Father’s house, and went to feeding
swine. The devil found he could not
stamp out the early Church by killing them. For every one he
killed, two sprang up. Like the children of Israel, “the more they afflicted them, the more
they multiplied and grew.” The early Christians vied with one another for a martyr’s
crown. They exposed themselves purposely, recklessly, for this
reward. Someone has said the greatest call that ever came to
man is the call to suffer in a noble cause. Heaven was real to the early Church—far more real
than earth. In fact, they seem to
have lived only for the next age. That was their longing, their
goal, to be delivered from this present evil world.
p.139,140 - Without question, it was
God’s desire to restore the backslidden, prodigal Church
at once, when she fell, just as He must have desired at once to
restore the human race in the beginning, when they fell...
Beloved, when we stop going forward, we go to “milling
around.” When an individual stops going forward for God,
he begins to go in a circle... So it was with the early Church.
When they ceased to go forward, they started wandering in a
circle and became lost in the Dark Ages. The devil had found he could not destroy them or stop
their march by persecuting or killing them; so he removed the
cross, offering them titles, positions, honor, salaries,
profits of every kind—and they fell for it. They no longer needed to look to God for their
protection and support. They
were “like the nations round about them,” just as
the children of Israel when they rejected God as their King.
As He has done throughout history, our
Father continues to revive those who earnestly and without any
reservation seek Him. He is pleased when we trust Him! “And
without faith it is impossible to please God, because he who
comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He is a
rewarder of those who diligently
seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Does this goal meet your heart? Then start
learning and applying the Hebraic foundations which undergird
both testaments of the Bible. In particular, make sure that you
are living in Covenant union with our Father and His Son, our
Lord Jesus. Cry out to Him until He breaks through to you!
