In this sermon, the pastor recounts his experience attending a prayer meeting in Los Angeles to protect his congregation from fanaticism. Despite his initial skepticism, he was convinced of the sincerity and spirituality of the people at the meeting. He encouraged his congregation to be open to the idea of speaking in tongues and to seek God's guidance. Eventually, the pastor himself was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. This experience led to the growth of a Bible study group that had a profound impact on the lives of its members.

Welcome to From the Forfeit. Each week we bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers too. This week we have Matt Gibson with his message, The Azusa Street Revival of 1906. The world had just entered the 20th century. The United States was under the leadership of its 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. And Los Angeles was about to experience something it could never have imagined. A sharing of beauty, a most remarkable speech, the story of real events, real people. It was a warm April day in the spring of 1906, when a group of African American Christians gathered in a simple home on Bonnie Brake Street in downtown Los Angeles, where they prayed and waited on God's spirit. A pastor teacher named William Seymour was with them that night. The son of a slave who fought in the Civil War for the Union Army, Seymour left his home in Louisiana at an early age and became a committed Christian after smallpox blinded him in one eye. The night of April 9th, Seymour met with a small gathering of people. He preached from the Bible, Acts 2-4. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them. A man named Edward S. Lee was baptized in the spirit and began to speak in tongues. Soon after, a woman named Jenny Moore was also baptized in the spirit. It seemed as if a vessel broke within me and water surged up through my being, which, when it reached my mouth, came out in a torrent of speech and languages God had given me. Jenny Moore. What happened inside that house sat on a hill, separated fathers from sons and mothers from daughters. It invited ridicule from the press and divided congregations in Los Angeles and all over the United States. At the same time, it changed lives forever and forged friendships that crossed racial and economic barriers that endured until death. By the end of April, the Bible study on Barney Bray had grown so rapidly that it moved to new quarters on Azusa Street. Within a year, as many as 1,300 people crowded into the hall and gathered out on the 3rd Street to attend meetings. Upstairs, walls were full of crutches and canes left behind by those who had been healed. It spawned a dozen denominations, and today, roughly 600 million people worldwide trace their spiritual roots to its dirt floors and plain wooden altar. History refers to what happened inside the whitewashed wood structure at 312 Azusa Street as the Azusa Street Revival. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, America had one foot in its pioneer past and another in the Industrial Age. Sugar was four cents a pound, and eggs were a penny apiece. But a three-minute phone call from Denver to New York cost $11, more than a week's wages. Only one in ten Americans had a high school education. Yet, by 1903, the Wright brothers had lifted off from Kitty Hawk in a contraption they called a lighter-than-air plane. Thousands of miniature movie theaters known as Nickelodeons were offering Americans a five-cent peak at moving pictures, and Thomas Edison had already produced a feature film. The nation had one foot in the past, and the other tentatively placed in the future. And so did the church. Things began to change before the turn of the century when the Wesleyan Holiness Movement that sprang up after the Civil War claimed sanctification was a second work of grace and abandoned its attempts to convince the Methodist Church of the doctrine. New denominations sprang up around the country and gravitated toward a third work of grace. They called the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The first people in the world, the first time they heard about Pentecost was from Azusa Street. In Europe, they always said it started at Azusa Street. So as far as I'd say American Pentecostalism started in Topeka, worldwide Pentecostalism started at Azusa Street. Well, Azusa Street is, of course, a point which historically the contemporary Pentecostal charismatic movement points back to as perhaps the awakening that spawned so much of what is taking place globally today. Not just the remarkable nature of speaking with tongues, but the ongoing flow of the supernatural that is characterized by the gifts or the charismata of the Holy Spirit. Among those men and women who sought a closer walk with God was a young William J. Seymour. If you would have to say who was the Luther or the Calvin or the Wesley of the Pentecostal movement, you just about have to say Seymour. And that the movement really originated in a little black church that became integrated in Los Angeles. As near as we can tell, he was the child of individuals who had been, I think, formerly slaves. He spent some time trying to find, after the end of slavery, his relatives, his family, had some degree of success. Somewhere along the way he lost the sight, as near as we can tell, in one of his eyes. He became associated with religious circles and ultimately started to associate with individuals who were the precursors of modern-day Pentecostals. Seymour and those who were with him knew that the revival wasn't about them. They walked in great humility. They were people that were from the wrong side of town for the most part. And yet their humility was visited by God. It allowed for what many have considered some of the greatest harmony in the history of Christianity. Seymour's father, Simone Simone, was a slave and a brick-worker by trade, who fought in the Civil War with the Corps Africain. Simone died from diseases he contracted in the Louisiana swamps while serving with the Union Army, and his passing left his family destitute. His son, William, left behind his home in Centerville, where he straddled the fence between Baptist and Catholic traditions and migrated north to Indianapolis. There he joined an all-black congregation and worked as a waiter to support himself. From Indianapolis, Seymour moved to Cincinnati, where he experienced the second work of grace, known as sanctification to the people in the holiness movement. Sanctified means getting certain things out of your life that are destructive, that are sinful, and that's sanctifying oneself. I think sanctification is the second work, is a process, because once you're born again, you are set apart, and God begins to deal with you. You hate the things you once loved. You love new things. You know, you love things you never thought you would love. I think that's the process of sanctification. During that time, Seymour associated himself with the Evening Light Saints, also known as the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana. Daniel Warner's small denomination was known for its teachings on sanctification and on Christian unity. Members lived austere lives, patterned after the first century saints. They did not drink coffee, nor did they wear jewelry or attend popular entertainment. By 1904, Seymour had traveled south and west to Jackson, Mississippi, where he was discipled by Charles P. Jones, a co-founder of the Church of God in Christ. In 1905, Seymour moved to Houston, where a holiness preacher named Lucy Farrell introduced him to Charles F. Parham. Parham was the leader of the Topeka outpouring of 1901 and was a recognized full gospel preacher. There's been a lot of discussion between historians as to where the Pentecostal movement started. You have to say that the doctrine and the experience was pioneered by Charles Fox Parham in 1901 in Topeka, Kansas. That's the beginning of the movement as a distinct theological movement with a distinct experience. They called it the touch felt around the world. And then his disciple, Seymour, comes to Los Angeles and the great Azusa Street revival takes place. But it didn't become a worldwide movement until Azusa Street. So what I see is that you had two major founders of the movement, Parham and Seymour. And you had to have both. Seymour studied under the apostolic faith evangelist who taught three separate works of the Holy Spirit, salvation, sanctification, and the baptism in the spirit. Based on the second work of grace, the sanctifying aspect is quite key because it was in the aspect of being sanctified that the group in Topeka, Kansas and other parts of the country seriously sought God. They sought God because now when you start talking about living a certain life, ordering your life a certain way, now you understand that your energies aren't sufficient for that. Salvation. When a person receives Jesus Christ into their heart, the power of God is now living within them. Sanctification is the cleansing up of the old person into this new person because of the power of God operating in their life. Curiously, Parham's Bryan Hall Bible School was racially segregated, and Seymour was obliged to listen to Parham's lessons from the hallway. He was not allowed to sit with his white brothers and sisters in class, nor was he allowed to tarry with them at the altar. Those humbling circumstances did not make William Seymour bitter. Instead, they focused his attention on God. Years later, Parham would call Seymour, the most humble man I ever met. While God humbled Seymour in Houston, the prayers of thousands and the work of many hands prepared Los Angeles for revival. It would be a great mistake to attribute the Pentecostal beginning in Los Angeles to any one man, either in prayer or preaching. Pentecost did not drop suddenly out of heaven. Frank Bartleman. This was especially true during 1905, when a physically infirmed Bartleman worked the streets of Los Angeles and called for revival wherever he went. Like a modern-day John the Baptist, Bartleman, an itinerant pastor, spent most of his nights in prayer. His days preaching, distributing tracts, and promising Los Angeles that revival was coming. Frank Bartleman is a funny guy. He has an odd pedigree, in a sense. He's reared in Pennsylvania. His father's a Roman Catholic. His mother is a Quaker. It's an odd mix. He is converted as a young man, I think, through Temple Baptist Church in Philadelphia. And it feels like he's called into ministry. Frank Bartleman was not involved with the Topeka revival. He had come to Los Angeles from the east, but there was no connection between him and Charles Palm before he came and met William Seymour. Bartleman used to come and see my father. And I remember he was kind of a tall, stiff man and carried a little black bag. Oh, I was probably seven or eight or nine. Bartleman wasn't alone. Joseph Smale, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, sought more of God and traveled to Wales to meet Evan Roberts, leader of the Great Welsh Revival of 1904. That revival so changed the complexion of Welsh society that mules pulling coal loads out of the mines had to be retrained because the teamsters who urged them on now did so without anger or cursing. When Smale returned to Los Angeles, energized by the experience in Wales, he was instrumental in the birth of a revival that went on for four months. Smale promised his congregation, Pentecost has not come, but it is coming. After 15 weeks of nonstop revival meetings, detached his congregation's patience and tested their commitment, and then the pastoral committee of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles voted to dismiss Smale. A disappointed Frank Bartleman commented, What an awful position for a church to take. To throw God out. While attending Bible school in Houston in 1905, William Seymour pastored Lucy Farrell's Small Holiness Church while she traveled to Kansas with the Palms. A visitor from Los Angeles named Neely Terry attended services and came away impressed with Seymour. When she returned to Los Angeles, she recommended Seymour to a small group of believers pastored by Julia Hutchins. They sent Seymour train fare and invited him to come west. Although Palm did not feel Seymour was ready, Seymour felt differently. It was divine call that brought me from Houston, Texas to Los Angeles. The Lord put it in the heart of one of the saints in Los Angeles to write to me that she felt the Lord would have me come over there and do her work when I came. For I felt it was the leading of the Lord. The Lord sent the means, and I came to take charge of a mission on Santa Fe Street. Seymour crossed an America in which two out of three citizens lived rurally. There were 8,000 cars in the United States, but only 144 miles of paved roads. There were no skyscrapers in the Los Angeles of that day, even though the traffic was quite modern. Los Angeles had 256 churches, or one church for every 1,000 people. By February 1906, the hearts of many believers in those churches were on fire, stirred up by the Holy Spirit. They felt that God himself was standing in the doorway. The Pentecostal manifestation did not come like a huge prairie fire. For years there had been a necessary time of preparation as God readied the hearts of his people. At Reverend Smale's New Testament Church, believers joined hands one afternoon in February after a service and prayed that God would pour out his Spirit speedily with signs following. Frank Bartlett. As Smale's congregation prayed, Julia Hutchins and the eight families that had sent Seymour train fare left the Bonny Bray home of Richard and Ruth Asbury and leased a building on Santa Fe. There they waited for the arrival of William Joseph Seymour. As Seymour's train chugged westward across the Arizona desert, there were 46 states in the Union and $46 million in the Treasury. Construction on the Titanic had not yet begun, and the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower. Babe Ruth was 11. Seymour arrived at the Santa Fe Railway's Legram Station on February 22. On that platform a traveler was just as likely to hear Spanish, German, Chinese or Russian as he was English. Even though some claim Hutchins wanted to turn over her small flock to Seymour, his emphasis on tongues and his pre-millennialist views alarmed her. After Seymour preached enough sermons to clarify his doctrinal position, she locked him out of the facility. After only a week in Los Angeles, the holiness man from Houston had worn out his welcome. Unemployed and discouraged, Seymour accepted an invitation to break bread at the home of Edward S. Lee of the Peniel Mission. The gracious Lee knew his guest had nowhere to go, so he invited Seymour to remain at his home. Except to offer him hospitality, Lee did not know what to do with Seymour, and Seymour did not know where to turn next. Together, the two men turned to prayer. Sometimes they prayed all night, and in the morning, Lee would get off his knees and leave for his job at a local bank while Seymour remained behind, praying and reading God's word. As the days went by, other believers heard of Seymour's devotion to prayer and came to the Lee home and joined him. Soon, Seymour increased his daily prayer time from five hours to seven hours a day. Richard and Ruth Asbury invited him to hold a prayer meeting at their home. After their invitation, Seymour sent to Houston for two helpers, Joseph A. Warren and Lucy F. Farrell, and entered into a season of prayer at the home on Bonnie Brae. On April 6th, the humble pastor proposed a ten-day fast to his small band of believers. Edward S. Lee and his wife signed on, as did Emma Cotton, the Asburys, and a woman who later became Seymour's wife, Jenny Moore. Lee and Seymour walked to the Asbury home. After singing and lots of prayer, Seymour preached on Acts 2-4. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the infilling of God. God is operating in such a way, there are manifestations. Speaking in tongues is when we aren't able to articulate the way we are accustomed to, because it's not cognitive, it becomes a spiritual experience. Speaking in tongues is a spiritual communication connecting us directly with God. The infill of the Holy Spirit, we believe, is the initial physical evidence, and the proof of that is down through the years, those who have received this experience have spoken and do speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gives the enablement. So not only is it biblical and Bible-based, but it is historical because of the subsequent experiences by those who have received the infill of the Holy Spirit. Your spirit joins in with the Holy Spirit as you pray in tongues, so that you're brought into the presence of God in a new way. I think a lot of people have lack of knowledge, and they don't bother to study and to learn about the gifts of the Spirit. So I would really encourage anyone that doesn't know much about the gifts of the Spirit, or has been taught against speaking in tongues, doesn't speak in tongues, but would like to speak in tongues, don't know if they want to speak in tongues, I encourage them to be open, and to study, and to read, and to pray about it, and to ask God to do a full work in their life, with everything that He wants them to have. Around 6 p.m., Seymour prayed for Lee, and his friend began speaking in tongues. At the same time, Jenny Moore fell from her stool. The power of God fell, and I was baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire, with the evidence of speaking in tongues. As I looked to God, it seemed as if a vessel broke within me, and water surged up through my being, which, when it reached my mouth, came out in a torrent of speech in the languages God had given me. The message came with power, so quick that but few words would have been recognized. Interpretation of each message followed in English. I sang under the power of the Spirit in many languages, and in the home where the meeting was held, the Spirit led me to the piano, where I played and sang under inspiration, although I had not learned to play. Acts 2-4 said that they were all filled with the Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. I think you have to do some things in faith. You begin, you open your mouth, you move your lips, you move your tongue, but He gives the shape of that beautiful sound, and He knows what He's praying through you. And this goes beyond your mind. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful, that means my mind. Now listen to this carefully. For if I pray, that's if I do this, if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth. 1 Corinthians 14, I think it's the first verse, says He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God. For no man understandeth Him, howbeit in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. So that means God's going to let me speak to Him in the Spirit, and He's not going to let you. God is not a respecter of persons. Everybody should want to speak directly to God. So that's one of the few scriptures that tell you you can speak directly to God. And then Jude 20 says build up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Everybody should want to do that. Several other believers were knocked to the ground by the power of the Spirit. Their shouts of joy could be heard throughout the neighborhood. Curious neighbors gathered, and when the faithful moved to the front porch, they spoke in tongues and praised God. And the word spread rapidly. By the next morning, the crowd of witnesses had grown so great that it was difficult to approach the house. Standing on a slight rise, the structure's placement made the porch a natural pulpit. For three days and nights, the prayer group worshiped God continually. Hundreds came to Christ. And at four in the morning on the third day, Brother Seymour was baptized in the Holy Ghost. You see, if I am not desirous of the infilling of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is not going to force Himself upon a person. It's a result of desire. They that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. Then in February of 1976, I was crying out to God, and I'll never forget it. And I was on my way to work, and I just said, God, there's got to be more than this. Something's wrong in my life. You have to do something. I can't go on like this anymore. And that day, in my automobile, I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I just had a phenomenal touch from God. You know, different people experience a touch from God and express it in different ways. For me, I felt like someone took my head off, filled me full of liquid love, and put my head back on and turned me loose. And I know in the book of Acts, the early disciples were accused of being drunk because they were acting very unusual. Well, I felt like I was drunk, but in a different way. I felt like for about three weeks I was drunk on the love of God. Many strange things had happened in Los Angeles in the name of religion. And A.G. Osterberg, pastor of the Full Gospel Assembly, felt it was his duty to protect his flock from fanaticism and to lead them in the paths of righteousness. He decided to secretly attend the Bonnie Braid prayer meeting. My idea of going alone was a lost cause. When three of my deacons, Brothers Worthington, Weaver, and Dodd, announced they were going to the prayer meeting, that meeting on Bonnie Braid convinced me, not because of the speaking in tongues or the pattern of the meeting, but because I could sense they were spiritual people. There was no nonsense going on. Although I didn't quite understand the matter of speaking in tongues, I was convinced these people were sincere. That night, as I drove home, I asked myself, Arthur, what are you going to do? A.G. Osterberg, Full Gospel Businessman's Voice, May 1966. Osterberg's response was to gather his church together and study the book of Acts. Some persons attending the meeting in those early days of revival were not seekers of truth, but came to mock them and find fault, and they do so presently. But this is true of every mighty work of the Spirit. It would be unlike Satan not to stir up opposition, indiscretions, and counterfeiting, because he is an expert at such things. Yes, he has as many counterfeits among the Pentecostals as he does among the Methodists. A.W. Oregon. If, for example, in one of our services, someone, which is common in a lot of charismatic Pentecostal churches, but if someone just started running up and down the aisles, you know, I feel the Lord. I always feel a little bit conflicted, because on the one hand, if that's the Lord, I don't want to turn that down. On the other hand, I wonder, but is that just that person responding to the Holy Spirit and kind of getting a little bit out of order? The balance between the move of the Spirit and what Paul says, doing things decently and in order, which you wrote to a charismatic church, that's always a tough balance. On the other hand, I believe sometimes God can give us even eccentric people, and God gave them to us, not so much for us to settle them down. Maybe they need to learn to be more mature, but he also gives us people like that to raise our spiritual temperature. So even when I correct things, when something to me gets a little bit out of whack, I always ask myself, but is God still saying something through this? Three times a day, seven days a week, for three years the services went on, led by the Spirit, not by the will of men. One of the brothers would open in prayer and commit the meeting to God to keep us from emotionalism and crooked spirits. Apostolic Faith, 1908. If someone would pound the seat with their hand, Brother Seymour would go to them gently and tap them on the shoulder and say, Brother, that is the flesh. And a holy hush and quietness would settle down upon those tarrying there. At times, someone or some teacher would get up in the audience to read a scripture or preach a sermon, or give a long testimony, and Brother Seymour would say, Dear loved one, these meetings are different from any you have ever seen. These are holy ghost meetings, and no flesh can glory in the presence of our God. Rachel Sizelove. A word concerning Brother Seymour, who is the leader of the movement under God. He is the meekest man I have ever met. He walks and talks with God. His power is in his weakness. He seems to maintain a helpless dependence on God, and is as simple-hearted as a little child, and at the same time so filled with God that you feel the love and power every time you get near him. Apostolic Faith. February, March, 1907. Testimony of William Durham, pastor of the North Avenue Mission in Chicago. Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoeboxes, one on top of the other. He usually kept his head inside the top one during the meeting and prayer. There was no pride there. The services ran almost continuously, and the place was never closed, and it was never empty. The meetings did not depend on a human leader, but God's presence became more and more wonderful. In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors, God broke strong men and women and then put them together again for his glory. Pride and self-assertion, self-importance and self-esteem did not survive for long in that place. Frank Bartolin. No collections were taken. No bills were posted to advertise the meetings. No church or organization was back of it. All who are in touch with God realized as soon as they entered the meetings that the Holy Ghost led us. Apostolic Faith. November, 1906. No subjects or sermons were announced ahead of time, and there were no special speakers. All was spontaneous, ordered of the Spirit. We wanted to hear from God through whomever he might choose to have speak. Frank Bartolin. Don't leave this meeting and talk about tongues. Instead, try to get people saved. But when you go, remember apostolic power will bring apostolic persecution. If God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven your sins, you know it. And if you do not know it better than you know anything in this world, you are still in your sins. If he has given you a clean heart and sanctified your soul, you know it. If you do not know it, the work is not done. When you are sanctified, people can see it in your life. But when he baptizes you in the Holy Ghost, it brings a holy boldness to stand up before the world without fear. Men may say it is of the devil and you are drunk, but glory to God, there is a power behind you that men and women cannot deny. The enchanting strains of the heavenly choir that sang hymns under the evident direction of the Holy Spirit, both as to words and tune, thrilled my whole being. It was not something that could be repeated at will, but was supernaturally given for each special occasion and was one of the most indisputable evidences of the presence of God's power. The singing inspired a holy awe, a feeling of indescribable wonder in hearers with a devout attitude. March 18th, April 8th, 1916 No instruments of music are used, none are needed, no choir, but bands of angels have been heard by some in the Spirit, and there is a heavenly singing that is inspired by the Holy Ghost. Apostolic Faith, November 1906 Twenty persons joined in singing the heavenly chorus. It was the most ravishing and unearthly music that ever fell on mortal ears. It seemed to me then, and still does, that I did not belong in that chorus, for it came directly from heaven. I was a boy and had accompanied my mother, a devout Catholic woman, before she came to Asusa. As we moved to an open spot on a near bench, I suddenly felt a chill, and the hair on my arms, legs, and head stood on end. It felt as if I was surrounded by God. I was trembling, and so was my mother and everybody else. In most churches, children would be twisting in their seats and running up and down the aisles, but not at Asusa. Everyone was quiet, even babies in their mothers' arms. It was not their parents who kept them quiet, because nobody said a word, not even a whisper. As my hands shook and the hair on my arms stood up, people suddenly rose to their feet and their hands shot towards heaven. My hands went up with theirs, though I hadn't tried to raise them. Even the hands of babes in arms shot towards heaven. Strong men began to cry out loudly, and then the women followed. As I looked over the congregation, another chill ran down my spine. It was as if ocean waves moved from one end of the congregation to the other. Wave after wave of the Spirit rippled through the hall like a breeze passing over a cornfield. When the hair on my arms settled down, so did the people. They settled back into their seats and prayers, buzzed through the hall. Then tongues of fire suddenly appeared over the heads of some of them, and a black man with a shiny face began to speak in tongues. As he spoke, a blind white woman came off the bench like a jack-in-the-box, and she cried out, Oh my blessed Jesus, I can see! I can see! Praise for the precious blood of Jesus sprang to our mouths. The crowd seemed to have forgotten how to sing in English, and out of their mouths came new languages, in a heavenly harmony that no human being could have learned. I cannot describe it, and no human being could ever duplicate it. We sang heavenly choruses, and in between each chorus our eyes filled with tears. A.C. Valdez, Fire at Azusa. Lives were changed at Azusa Street, and through them, thousands came to experience the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And through those thousands, tens of thousands, and then millions more. You've been listening to From the Pulpit. This week you heard Matt Gibson with his message, The Azusa Street Revival of 1906. Tune in next week for another powerful message from God's Word on From the Pulpit.