In 1905 a woman from Los Angeles visiting
family in Houston attended a service at the small church of William Seymour.
The visitor invited Seymour to come to Los Angeles and preach about the Holy Spirit
baptism, even though Seymour had not yet personally experienced this. Seymour agreed and in February of 1906, he began
to preach at a small holiness church in Los Angeles. 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 that city!
While the church leadership rejected
Seymour, not all the church members did and he began holding prayer and
preaching services in the home of one of them. Soon the meetings were moved to
a larger home on North Bonnie Brae Street where members of other churches joined
in. For five weeks it was mostly prayer and preaching but on April 9, 1906, the
Holy Spirit baptized 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!
News of the revival spread like
wildfire throughout Los Angeles. 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 one-eyed, 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 meeting “weird and out of control.” Sounds to me like
something that Jesus would feel very comfortable showing up at.
The
Los Angeles Times,
in one of its very derogatory articles about the Azusa Street revival, 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 nine years. During the early years, 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. It’s now 109 years later and the revival that began at Azusa
Street has spread to over 600 million people world-wide. What had such an
unlikely beginning is now the largest and fastest-growing segment of Protestant
Christianity.
The message of the song “The
Comforter Has Come” that became the anthem of the early Pentecostal revival has
a message that can be traced back to the Upper Room. But this was the Upper
Room prior to Pentecost and prior to Calvary—the scene of the Last Supper. It
was in the Upper Room that Jesus first introduced the ministry of the Holy Spirit
and called Him “the Comforter.”
In the days just before Calvary the
disciples were bewildered as they did not yet understand fully what was going
on. Their expectations were far different from what was actually happening and
they were confused. 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” that is 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.” 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 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 were manifest every day in His
life; study His life and see the gifts of the Spirit that He moved in with such
ease.
The Comforter has come! Have you
made Him welcome?
The anthem of Azusa Street is still
ringing in the heavens! Below is a link to a YouTube video of the song “The
Comforter Has Come.” There is nothing sophisticated about this music; it is
congregational singing attended to by the Holy Spirit. This is the way it was
sung at Azusa Street. Be blessed!
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