Session 9:

A Fuse Is Lit
Leader Presentation
At this point, we have covered the main terrain of this course. We have filled in the missing centuries. (The 20th century is, of course, a huge topic all its own. Dr. Vinson Synans book on the 1900s is entitled The Century of the Holy Spirit,1 and others have written extensively as well.) But let me, in this final session, take you across the bridge into the 20th century. Notes

EVAN ROBERTS (1878 1951) and the WELSH REVIVAL

Across the hills and valleys of Wales there was a growing hunger for spiritual renewal. Prayer meetings became more common. Attention eventually focused on an unlikely leader: Evan John Roberts, a coal miners son with reddish hair, the ninth of fourteen children. He had dropped out of school at age 12 to work in the mines like his father. But deep in his heart was a yearning for God. He wouldnt joke around with the others his age; he showed no interest in girls. He much preferred to be praying and talking about spiritual things. His local church encouraged him to study for the
1

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Vinson Synan, The Century of the Holy Spirit (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001)

ministry. He enrolled in a course but gave more attention to leading youth meetings in various churches. They werent highly programmed or humorous events; they instead called young people to get down on their knees and seek the Lord. In November 1904, when Evan Roberts was 26 years old, He returned home to Loughor and began to hold prayer meetings at his home church, Moriah [Chapel]. On successive nights these meetings drew ever larger crowds, and within a matter of weeks the revival had swept across [the county of] Glamorganshire with tremendous power. The most significant feature of the revival was its concentration on the gift of the Holy Spirit: the meetings, even when Evan Roberts was present, were conducted with complete spontaneity. People were urged to pray, testify, confess, or sing as the Spirit moved them. 2 Roberts usually was not even up in the pulpit. He could be found more often bent down on the floor in prayer. In fact, that was a common plea of his: Bend us, O Lord! Bend us! As the revival picked up momentum, news reporters started showing up, as well as prominent clergy from London and elsewhere. Often the church would be so packed that they couldnt get inside; they would be out on the sidewalk craning their necks over the crowds to get a glimpse through the open door. Wheres Evan Roberts? they would ask one another in vain. Critics had their say, of course. They sneered that this young man was far too young and unprepared to be leading anything. One biographer tells about a moment of high drama when a man who belonged to a local circle of agnostics tried to interrupt Evanss exhortations. He wanted to ask a question, he said, and he pushed forward towards the pulpit, but never got there. The Holy Spirit overpowered the man; he collapsed and had to be helped;
2

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R. Tudur Jones, Roberts, Evan John, in The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1978) p. 851

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he cried out for mercy and pardon. Soon there was a great outburst of joyful singing over a repentant rebel. 3 DISCUSSION What do you think Evan Roberts meant by his unusual prayer Bend us, O Lord!? What was he trying to say? How would you put this in your own words? The Welsh meetings were short-lived; by early 1906 young Evan Roberts was feeling the pressure of public expectations, and some of his statements became erratic. Nevertheless, it is estimated that some 100,000 people gave themselves to Christ during this awakening. As one American visitor remarked, Some people think this revival is like the fizz of a bottle of pop. No! It is the fizz of a fuse, and the dynamite is at the end of it.4

CHARLES PARHAM (1873 1928)

That fuse was already sizzling in middle America, where back in the fall of 1900 this former Methodist preacher had started a small training institute in Topeka, Kansas, called Bethel Bible School. The 40-some students studied and also lived in an odd-looking 15-room house known locally as Stones Folly. Right after Christmas, Parham had to leave for a three-day speaking engagement. He gave the students an assignment regarding the baptism of the Holy Spirit,
3

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Brynmore Pierce Jones, An Instrument of Revival: The Complete Life of Evan Roberts (South Plainfield, N.J.: Bridge, 1995) p. 46 4 Jones, p. 61

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which was (as weve already seen) widely preached about and desired throughout Christian circles. While Im away, he said to the students, search to see if you can find a Bible evidence of this baptism. They did. They noticed in the Book of Acts that at least three (and probably four) times, the infilling of the Spirit was accompanied by speaking in tongues (Acts 2:4; 10:44-46; 19:6; plus the case of 8:17-19, when something happened that was visible enough to impress Simon the sorcerer). Upon Parhams return, they reported their findings. He then called for an all-night prayer meeting on New Years Eve. Sometime after midnight (thus on January 1, 1901, technically the first day of the new century), a young student named Agnes Ozman asked him to lay hands on her and pray that she might receive this baptism. Parham later wrote:

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PowerPoint: I laid my hands upon her and prayed. I had scarcely repeated three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face, and she began speaking the Chinese language and was unable to speak English for three days. When she tried to write in English to tell us her experience, she wrote in Chinese, copies of which we still have in newspapers printed at the time. Other students received a similar infilling in days to comeand eventually, Parham as well. His school lasted only one year, however, and he became an itinerant evangelist throughout Kansas and western Missouri. By the fall of 1905, he had opened another school in Houston, Texas: The Bible Training School, with about 25 students. A short, stocky man in his mid-30s wanted to enroll.

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He was poor, humble, and blind in one eye (due to smallpox). He said hed done some preaching and was ordained by the Baptists. Parham was glad to accept him. There was only one problem: The man was blackson of former slaves in Louisianaand Texas law decreed that no coloreds were allowed to attend a white school. But Charles Parham found a way around the racist rule. He invited the would-be student to listen to his lectures by sitting out in the hall. The name of that eager student was

WILLIAM J. SEYMOUR (1870 1922)

Seymour gladly embraced the Bible teaching he heard, at least in theory. When a black woman visiting from Los Angeles was baptized in the Spirit in a Parham meeting, she soon afterward invited Seymour to come out to her little group. He had no money for this, but Parham raised an offering to pay his way. He headed west in February 1906. His first sermon in a small black Nazarene church in L.A. was on Acts 2:4even though he himself had not yet spoken in tongues. The message did not go over well at all. When he returned to preach in the evening service, he found that the pastor, a woman, had locked him out that afternoon. Not knowing what else to do, William Seymour found a room in a home at 214 Bonnie Brae Street, where he started home prayer meetings. On April 9, 1906, eight people (including Seymour) fell to the floor speaking in tongues. This drew a crowd of blacks and whites, too. One who was present was Emma Cotton, who reported: People came from everywhere. By the next morning there was no getting near the house. As the people came they would fall under the power, and the whole city was stirred. The sick were healed and sinners saved just as they came in. In fact, the front porch floor collapsed! They obviously needed more space for the gatherings. Soon they found an abandoned Methodist church building at 312 Azusa Street. It measured only 40 x 60, but it would have to do. It had most recently been a

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tenement house and a livery stable it was pretty much a shambles. They set up planks of wood on top of empty nail kegs to seat maybe 30 people, arranged in a square. As they looked around the neighborhood, they saw only a tombstone shop, some stables, and a lumber yard. Well, at least no one would complain about loud meetings. The Show this picture.

poor would feel right at home here. Revival broke out right away. Listen to eyewitness Frank Bartleman: Soon the meetings were running day and night. The place was packed out nightly. There were far more white people than colored coming. The color line was washed away in the blood [of Christ]. The Spirit was very sensitive, tender as a dove. We knew the moment we had grieved the Spirit, by an unkind thought or word. The Lord fought our battles for us in those days. We had a tarrying room upstairs, for those especially seeking God for the baptism, though many got it in the main assembly room also. On the wall of the tarrying room was hung a placard with the words, No talking above a whisper. We knew nothing of jazzing them through at that time. The Spirit wrought very deeply. An unquiet spirit, or a thoughtless talker, was immediately reproved by the Spirit. We were on holy ground.5 Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoe boxes [actually, crates], one on top of the
5

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Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street (South Plainfield, N.J.: Bridge, 1980) pp. 54-55

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other. He usually kept his head inside the top one during the meeting, in prayer. There was no pride there. The services ran almost continuously. Seeking souls could be found under the power almost any hour, night and day. The place was never closed or empty. The people came to meet God.6 A reporter from the Los Angeles Daily Times, however, was not nearly so impressed. His front-page story on April 18 ran as follows: Show this newspaper.

WEIRD BABEL OF TONGUES Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand, the newest sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, near San Pedro Street, and the devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal. Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers, who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nervewracking attitude of prayer and supplication. The article went on to scorn Seymour as an old colored exhorter, blind in one eye who acted as majordomo of the company, causing colored mammys to gurgle wordless talk in a frenzy of religious zeal. Well believe it or not, that very day (April 18, 1906),
6

Bartleman, p. 58

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the West Coast was shaken by the great San Francisco earthquake. People felt its tremors even in Los Angeles, and those at the Azusa Street Mission wondered if God wasnt trying to get the worlds attention. Perhaps just as amazing is that these daily meetings on Azusa Street went on nonstop for 3 years! The worlds hunger for the power of the Spirit was catapulted to a whole new level. Heres a picture of the leadership team. As you can see, it crossed both racial and gender lines. Show this picture.

Yes, there were some excesses in the meetings. Spiritists dropped by from time to time and tried to take over. If Seymour happened to be upstairs at the moment, where he lived with a number of the other workers, he would have to intervene. His footsteps would be heard coming down the stairs when correction was needed. But in time, the wheat was sorted from the chaff. To William Seymour, tongues was not the main thing that many critics tried to portray. One day he reproved the meeting by saying, in essence, I see too many folks coming in here just seeking the tongues. When you go to the shoe store to buy a pair of shoes, you dont say to the clerk, Id like to buy a pair of tongues. You buy the shoes, and the tongues come with them! So dont go out of here talking about tongues; talk about Jesus. Charles Fox Parham, his mentor, eventually came to visit Azusa Street and was displeased. He found it too emotional. Sadly, he was also put off by the multi-racial nature of the congregation. His ministry seemed to decline thereafter.
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Other visitors, however, came with open hearts and minds to receive all that God might have for them. They included: Ernest S. Williams and Stanley Frodsham eventual leaders in the Assemblies of God Charles H. Mason, who returned to Memphis and founded the Church of God in Christ (the fourth largest U.S. denomination today, largely African-American) Gaston B. Cashwell, who took the message back to North Carolina to form the Church of God (now headquartered in Cleveland, Tenn.) William Durham, a Baptist who returned to Chicago to articulate Spirit baptism at his North Avenue Mission R. E. McAllister and A. H. Argue, who became founding fathers of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada T. B. Barratt, a Norwegian pastor who returned to greatly influence revival in northern Europe William Seymour pastored the mission until his death 1922. His widow then took his place, until she died in 1936. The building was eventually razed, after the Assemblies of God turned down an offer to buy it, saying they were not interested in relics. Today, if you go to that address, theres only a small plaque.7 The effect of the Azusa awakening is seen rather in the spiritual quickening that has since infused many branches of the church around the world. Granted, not everything has always been done in a fitting and orderly way, as the apostle Paul directed (1 Cor. 14:40). But his other instruction is just as relevant: Do not put out the Spirits fire (1 Thess. 5:19). What should we learn from Azusa Street? One study committee8 listed these five marks:

This location312 Azusa Streetis less than a mile from downtown Los Angeles and not to be confused with the suburb of Azusa, Calif., some 25 miles northeast, which is the home of the well-known Christian liberalarts school Azusa Pacific University. 8 Assemblies of God Spiritual Life Committee report, 1991

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PowerPoint: 1. A great hunger for God 2. A love across barriers of race and class 3. A commitment to Gods Word As William Seymour wrote in the September 1907 issue of The Apostolic Faith newspaper: We are measuring everything by the Word, every experience must measure up with the Bible. Some say that is going too far [i.e., being too restrictive], but if we have lived too close to the Word, we will settle that with the Lord when we meet Him in the air. 4. A dedication to evangelism and missions 5. A commitment to restoring the New Testament church

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Now this may seem like an awkward point at which to end our review of the Great Cloud of Witnesses. However, the fact is that the Spirits activity since the early 1900s would require another whole course. Maybe it is better for us, at this point, to embrace what we have learned so farand to seek the empowerment of the Spirit for ourselves. After all, we all need itand continually. As D. L. Moody said, were leaky vessels. We need the Holy Spirit to fill us again and again. To the leader: This session has deliberately been built to be shorter. This allows you, at this point, to guide the rest of the time into a season of prayer and waiting upon God. Dont be in a rush. Invite the Holy Spirit to breathe upon your group and do whatever he wishes. At the end of the meeting, theres one final Whispers of the Divine Wind for you to distribute.

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