THE COMFORTER HAS COME

In 1905, while visiting her family in Houston, a woman from Los Angeles attended a service at the small church of William Seymour. The visitor subsequently invited Seymour to come to Los Angeles and preach about the Holy Spirit baptism. Even though Seymour had not personally experienced this yet, he agreed and in February of 1906 began to preach at a small holiness church in L.A. After the first Sunday the church leadership responded by locking the doors and telling Seymour he could not preach there anymore. A rather inauspicious start to his preaching mission in Los Angeles!

 While the church leadership rejected Seymour, not all the church members did so. Seymour was invited to stay in the home of one of the members, where he began holding prayer and preaching services. Soon the meetings were moved to a larger home on North Bonnie Brae Street and members of other churches began to attend. For five weeks the meetings consisted mostly of prayer and preaching but on April 9, 1906, the Holy Spirit baptized a man named Edward Lee and he began to speak in an unknown language. A few days later William Seymour and six others were similarly baptized in the Spirit and the revival was on.

The news spread like wildfire throughout Los Angeles. In order to accommodate the crowds that began to gather, the meetings were moved to an abandoned and rundown Methodist church on Azusa Street in a ghetto-like section of the city. The Los Angeles press reacted in horror and reviled the meetings as out of control and weird. What an unlikely beginning to a worldwide revival. A partially blind, African-American preacher holding meetings in a building described as a rundown shack, in an unlikely part of the city, the meeting rejected by the mainstream religious establishment, and the media calling the services "weird and out of control." Sounds to me like something where Jesus would feel very comfortable.

In one of its very derogatory articles about the Azusa Street revival, The Los Angeles Times made the following comments: “They have a one-eyed, illiterate Negro as their preacher who stays on his knees much of the time with his head hidden between wooden milk crates. He doesn't talk very much but at times he can be heard shouting, ‘Repent,’ and he's supposed to be running the thing. . . . They repeatedly sing the same song, ‘The Comforter Has Come.’”

The Azusa Street revival continued for a total of nine years and during the first three years, the services went on 24 hours a day. Visitors came from all over the world and carried the fire of revival back to their cities and towns. Now 106 years later, the revival that began at Azusa Street has spread to over 600 million people worldwide. What had such an unlikely beginning is now the largest and fastest growing segment of Protestant Christianity.

Unlike some of my friends, I am not embarrassed to say that I am a part of this stream of the Holy Spirit.

The message of the song "The Comforter Has Come" became the anthem of the early-day Pentecostal revival that can be traced back to the Upper Room — not the Upper Room at the time of Pentecost but during the Last Supper where Jesus first introduced the ministry of the Holy Spirit and called Him “The Comforter.” In the days just before Calvary, the disciples were bewildered. They were confused because their expectations were far different from what was actually happening. In this time of confusion, Jesus introduced the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He spoke to the disciples, "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper [Comforter]" (John 14:16, NKJV).

The word “Helper or Comforter” used here is parakletos in the Greek. By definition the word paraclete is the transliteration of a Greek word meaning “one who is called to someone’s aid” or “one who advocates for another.” Technically, the word can be used for a lawyer. More generally, the word denotes one who acts in another’s behalf as a mediator, intercessor, advocate or encourager.

Jesus told the confused and bewildered disciples that He was requesting the Father to send “another comforter.” The word "another" means "another of the same kind." So we see that the ministry of the Holy Spirit would be a continuation of the ministry of Jesus.

If you want to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit and understand how He brings comfort to the people of God, look at the life of Christ and see how He brought comfort. Observe as Jesus heals the sick and compassionately ministers to the outcasts of society. Listen as He speaks to the brokenhearted sisters whose brother, Lazarus, was dead.

Study the life of Christ and see how He loved and gave Himself that we might have the comfort of knowing that we are in right standing with God. Understand just a little about the ministry of Jesus to bring comfort to the brokenhearted and you will just begin to understand the ministry of comfort the Holy Spirit is empowered to bring. Study the life of Christ and see how the fruits of the Spirit are manifest every day in His life; study His life and see the gifts of the Spirit that He moved in with such ease and which were so much a part of His daily life.

The Comforter has come! Have you made Him welcome?

The anthem of Azusa Street is still ringing in the heavens. Below is a YouTube video of the song "The Comforter Has Come." There is nothing sophisticated about this music — it is just congregational singing attended to by the Holy Spirit. This is the way it was sung at Azusa Street. Be blessed!