♪♪ ♪
Genesis 26:18 tells us ♪
"Isaac dug again the
wells of Abraham." ♪♪ ♪
In every generation, there
have been revivals, ♪
massive moves
of the Spirit ♪
that changed the
course of history. ♪♪ ♪
In every revival, there
were believers like you ♪
who chose to answer the call ♪
to become the one in
their generation. ♪
Discover your call ♪
to be the one in your
generation. ♪♪ ♪
We are about to take you ♪
face to face with history. ♪♪ Welcome to Revival
Radio TV, I'm your host,
Doctor Gene Bailey. Listen, guys! This is one of my favorite
things to talk about. You know, of course--of
course, it's a revival but how we got
there... This story is just one
of my favorites and we're talking
about this guy and today, we're
gonna focus on this man, William Seymour. Those of you that follow
it all with us, you know who I'm talking about when I hold up this
picture of an-- one-eyed black pastor. Now, I want to kind of dive into
the story of William Seymour. So let's talk about who
William Seymour really was. So, pre-Azusa Street,
how did he get to that place? - You know, in high
school, we have the most likely to
succeed. He would had been the most likely not to succeed. - True. - Yes, he was a son
of a slave... - Grew up in Louisiana which was very harsh conditions
for African-Americans, - Very harsh, very harsh... And he got smallpox and he lost the sight
in one eye. - Like George Whitefield, like
Christmas Evans, one-eyed... - So he had a lot
against him but he escaped up to
Cincinnati really and he got born again
there. Awesome. - He's my hero, really
because he surmounted all these challenges that should
had just made it impossible. I mean, think about, you
can't have almost more than what he had and yet, he ended up being a person that transformed the entire
world with his ministry. - He was so hungry. He
visited church after church. He went to this
city, went to that city seeking out truth. He was hungry. - He was in Cincinnati
when he got saved so I mean, he wasn't even
born again when he started and then he went over and was
part of that "integrated" Bible school but who can even find
integrated Bible school... - Well, all the country was
segregated, wasn't it, Gene? - Yes, absolutely... - And there were laws. You
couldn't meet together. The "Jim Crow" laws. - That's right. - Well, he was in the North and it was a
Church of God and they had
this awesome
school and I think it
was what set
him up for
Azusa to have that vision that you
could possibly have. No race, no economic
things holding you up. - That school so impacted
him that he was segregated... now being not segregated
and everybody together. It became so part of him,
he wanted to see it to take it to other places... - But Joe, and I agree with
what you're saying but the issue here...I'm
still trying to think. Okay, the Civil War is just--
it's not far in the past. - No. - And we know than when you made
your cultural changes like that, it may had changed but it takes a while for
it to change. - True. - It may be legal
and whatever but the end of slavery was a
rocking of everyone's world in the South especially like, "What do you mean this
is wrong now and we don't do this"? And so I mean, can you imagine, if you want to talk about
racism or perceived racism... whether at some point, sometimes
it wasn't even intentional, it's because now you are trying
to change a generation that doesn't know how
to--how to interact and how to not think that way. - Right. - So he's overcoming, just
traveling was a big deal. - He was a trained porter. He worked at a restaurant
and he actually, he accepted Christ in
Indianapolis and... but the thing is is that he
found the place, the chink that was that exception. He was always looking
for something that was so amazingly clever and
that was one of the things... He heard about Charles Parham and what happened with the
baptism of the Holy Spirit and so he went from being saved, he went from being in
this Bible school learning about all
these awesome things and he recognized
the next level of what he needed to move into. But by that point, Charles
Parham wasn't in Topeka Kansas. He had moved down to
Houston, Texas and had set up a Bible
school there. And Lucy got
him going to that. - Lucy Farrow, yea. But it's still a
segregated school. - Yea, he had to sit
outside and listen. - Okay, I have a beef with that. I have a total
beef for that. In China, if they have
had a problem with following those laws, they would never
had home-churches. In Russia, they would never have
had the move of the Spirit where over a million of
people accepted Christ. If they had said, "Okay,
everybody makes laws". Somebody should had
been out there obviously changing the laws
but to just put him out in an alley, I mean, Houston is a land of
humidity and temperature and I have a
real problem with that. - But you know, he was... - You can't change history,
Linda, but that's what happened and you know, the thing
there again shows... The proof here is that it shows
Seymour's commitment, what you've talked
about, his drive, his desire to absolutely
get whatever it takes. He went beyond cultural
inequalities, - He did... - racism and said, "I don't
care, I'll sit out here and I'm gonna listen and
I'm gonna hear". Now he is raised a Baptist and
yet, he's still searching. And you know, I wonder if
he knew what... He didn't know what it was. You
know, Parham's revelation with the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. It just happened so I mean, this is like
an amazing... This is very transitional time
and he's trying to understand so he doesn't even know what
all he's trying to understand but he knows that there
is something more. - It's in the Bible too.
It's all there. - And Parham had kind of
pinpoint it and said, "Oh, this guy would be a
great pastor to this black congregation
in Houston". So you know, I mean, he
kind of like, you know, I think he mentored him
a little bit, along those lines and
he also said, you know, "We've got
your future figured out". - But the call came
from... He was only there
for 6 weeks and a call came from
Los Angeles, "Come to us and
come to my church. We want you here", because
he had heard what was going on at that time. - But Parham said, "You
can't leave. I've got your place
figured out". - Yea. - And so there was a big back
and forth... This is where Seymour shines is he was humble, he was
seeking God, and here is this mentor that
he honored so much and yet, he feels "God is
telling me to go to California". Finally, Parham says,
"Yes" and he goes and then what happens
in California? - He preached like for 2 weeks
and then he comes back and they padlocked the church.
They locked him out. - Now let's go back...Let's
go back for a minute before we get too far
down in the story. Let's go back to Charles
Parham in Topeka. Just you know, if you
haven't heard or seen that program we
did on Parham. You know, the
reality is, he
got this group
of people in Stone's
Folly, there
in Topeka and
you know, I was able to
go to Stone's
Folly, found it and went to where
it was at and there is a Catholic rectory built
where the house was, using some of the same
foundation stones so and he had a Bible school so I'm just still amazed of
what happened there but when I went there, the
most surprising thing to me was not that we found this place, was the number of churches
all touching... Their properties
touched each other. You know, you've got the
Catholics right there, you had the
Baptists over here. I mean, they were all
within a block or so. There were 5 churches, 5
different denominational
churches that were bordering what had
happened at Stone's Folly. And so that's where we talked
about and who was the lady? - Agnes Ozman, - the first person filled with
the Holy Spirit. - That we have on record, that
knew what was going on. - But she asked, "Would you lay
hands on and pray"? I mean, how cool is that? And he
didn't even have it himself so he prayed in faith for
her and she got it and he didn't have it. - So you know, with Charles
Parham, now he sees, he's seeing something. He's had a great--his eyes
had been opened. This is his great revelation so
he's thinking in his own mind, how does this apply,
how do we work with this? How does this happen and I
don't know, I wasn't there... Ha ha! But speaking to everything
that happened with him with Seymour, you know, I'm sure
he's trying to figure out how to get this out so
it's not a bad thing necessarily to have thought,
even though culturally, it would be like, "Oh okay, you
go over here with the-- You can minister to
the black church" and that would had been great,
but God had bigger plans so now, again, I think we
gloss over some of these facts and these details
that are so massive and that's like travel again.
Here is a black man, post-Civil War, it's only in
the 1900's, it hasn't been
that long, early 1900's and he's going by
train across country. - Into the South now. - From the South, yea and so, I'm sure he met with some
stuff on the train... - Yea. - Because you know, things
of the Spirit have a way-- always challenge the flesh. Whenever you are moving
into something, the Holy Spirit never, you know. You have a decision to make. It's like, "Am I gonna follow
after what the Holy Spirit
tells me or follow after
what logic, reason, political, doctrinal"...
[Laughs] You know, all these things [All agreeing] and it's usually, they
are not together. They are usually going opposite
direction, you know and I've been in those
situations where you go, "I really feel like the Holy
Spirit is saying this but I know, this is gonna do
this over here and not be necessary accepted" and you know, you've got that
little moment of battle. "Which do I follow"? So you've got...This is a
big deal to do this. I think they were enticed, they
wanted to know more about it, but I mean, my goodness,
they are sitting here and what it must had been like
when they see this one-eyed
black man, some of the slaves from Houston,
who gets off the train and they are trying to
"Oh, oh", you know... I can see them going "Oh boy,
we made a mistake here". - And the
other thing is is that you don't come into this, having done it before. You are inventing the wheel
as you go. I mean, baptism in the Holy Spirit was
new for this generation and having a black man who was
experiencing this... This was all potentially
something that was never done before and so
there's gonna be challenges. How do you surmount this?
How do you surmount that? Because you are
finding your fit. You're finding, what it is that
God has for you to do and the place is for you
to be in. - And they don't know
where it's gonna go or end up, but they're hungry,
aren't they, Gene? - Yea. - They want to see more. - We know there's gonna be Azusa
Street revival but they didn't. - They didn't know, exactly. - All they knew is that they
got shout out by Julia Hutchin, they went over to Liz's house, they took a month of
fasting and praying. They went over to
Bonnie Brae Street... - Yea, and Bonnie--it's so
interesting, you know... Let's back up a
little bit with Lee. Seymour was praying like
3 hours a day
- Yea, and he got Lee to pray for him
and the Lord says, "You need to pray more". He upped his prayer life
to 5 hours or more a day. - This guy is hungry. - I mean, him and Lee
are going after and then you
throw in Frank Bartleman and now that's like
gasoline on a fire. - So, talk a little bit about
Frank Bartleman because I mean, he's... - Frank is a very
interesting person. He was there. He would
pass out these tracks like thousands of them all
out, calling for revival. He had heard
about the Welsh Revival. - He was a writer, wasn't he?
- Right, he was a writer, a
newspaperman and so he's passing out--calling
for revival, calling for people to repent. - He'd go back to his
house and pray. He did not have the baptism
of the Holy Spirit so he'd pray and you'd hear
these moans and these groans and the people that lived around
him heard through the thin walls and they got scared.
They'd say, "What's wrong with
this guy"? - They thought he was nuts. [Laughs] - When he got the baptism
of the Holy Spirit, it totally transformed... - And you know, this is
an amazing truth here. Now, like you
said Linda, we know the Azusa Revival and
right now, they are saying over 600 million souls
attributed to that one way or another in
all the details. Of course, just like we talked
about with Goodell and Bird. Those guys never meant to
do that. I mean, Seymour wasn't trying to have a
worldwide revival, you know, he's hungry for God,
hungry to see... - Hungry for God, for sure... - So he gets shut down out
of his church and if I remember right, is Lee a
custodian?
- Yes. - They are not very
well-off people. They gave
them a place to stay
- Right. - and so he's there... - and he goes to Richard Asberry
over 214 Bonnie Brae Street. - Right. - But what's amazing about
that is, you know, you get a setback and what is
going to be your response to it? Do you get bitter? Because
he totally could of. - Sure, he could of.
- Or do you seek God. And he spent time in prayer. He
spent time in fasting and by seeking God and letting
God guide them, they had this intense
time with the Lord for literally a month. - Well, they started out as
a Bible study and he had many weeks of Bible
studies and the Lord said, "Okay, we will have 10 days
of prayer" and so they started praying.
- Uh huh - And they started praying. - So what was the
Bible study on? - It was pretty much on the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. [All laughing]
- Which he didn't have! - Wow, that's faith! - It's started out as an
all-black Bible study and finally the whites were
allowed to come in. - Which is in itself,
another huge thing. - So people started coming
and they started coming and they had so many people they
didn't know what to do. - Okay, the porch, all the
front deck collapsed, - It did. - Too many people for the house. - Something had already
happened. Remember, the
power of God hit. Jennie Moore...And Jennie
Moore hit the floor, she came up speaking in tongues. She went over to the piano
and she started playing and she did not know how to
play the piano. - Yes, well
just like Parham... I know that's huge...Just like
Parham had put his hands on
Agnes and he didn't have it and she
got filled with the baptism, Seymour did the
same thing to Lee and he got filled with
the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 3 days later, finally-- finally William Seymour gets his
baptism of the Holy Spirit. - Yea.
- And then word got out. [Laughs] - And it was fire and people
didn't care what color they were and they were outside that house
and they were just hungry. There was just this passion
for more of that experience. But they maxed out their
own space now. - The people were outside
and inside and then the
porch collapsed. - So they went looking for?... - Another building. - And on what street was that
building, Gene? - I'm thinking. [Laughs] So they found Azusa
Street now. - A barn, yes. - The barn in Azusa street which
wasn't a barn originally. - It had been an Episcopal
Methodist church. - It was blessed. - So it made sense, you
know, a lot of us kind of leave that
part of the story out that you hear in history classes
about Azusa Street was a barn but it was a church but
it was--and can you imagine what the church might of
smell like? - Well, they had problems
with flies all the time. - Yea, so now you know, they're
in this barn and they are
doing this and there are people
starting to come. Now interesting side-note. It was not labeled, there
was no sign, nothing on the side of
the church. And here is why. William Seymour had felt and
shared many times. The moment we put a sign
on the door, or a sign on the building is
when the power of God had left. Years later, guess what happens?
- Um... - It becomes the
Apostolic Mission
- Yea, - and that marked the end - That's amazing... - of what we know as Azusa
Street revival. But let's don't get past--too
far past that. Now, when we talk about Asuza Street
and we have so many things to show and now, we've got
the baptism of the Holy Spirit and people are speaking in
tongues but it's not... Now, it's not just
people speaking in tongues and playing the piano when
they never could play the
piano before. We've got other stuff happening. What else was going on? - Well, Azusa street. You know,
people would come in. It only seated 200 people. It
was those plank seats, you know, the pulpit was built
out of crates... - You had more people outside
than you had inside. - Here is a great quote by
Ernest S. Williams. A whole lot of the pioneers of
the Pentecostal denominations. They went through that place.
Here is what he said. He said, "I wish I could
describe what I saw. Prayer and worship
were everywhere. The altar area was filled with
seekers, some were kneeling, others were prone on the floor.
Some were speaking in tongues. Everyone was doing something;
all seemingly lost in God. I simply stood and looked, I had never seen anything like
this before". Amazing! - Well, people were coming
in for a night or 2 nights or 3 nights. I mean, John G. Lake came
through. You had in North
Carolina, Gaston B. Cashwell who then
revival went through the South. You had Ivan Voronaev, you know and we know what happened with
him in the Soviet Union. We had the Church of God,
Charles Mason and the Assemblies of
God, William Durham. Demos Shakarian's parents you
know, and grand-parents. They are walking down
the street and they hear their
own language. - Oh yea, yea. - You had entire churches...Just
pick up the entire church, the
entire pastor and they went in and you've got
to realize, 200 seats. So if the church
was bigger than that... They had to take turns. - And it wasn't the awesome
preaching or teaching. Here is a great quote by
Ernest S. again. "Azusa Street was a
very humble place. There was no raised
platform for the speaker, no musical instruments
strengthened the singing. The benches were poor and not
sufficient to fill the building but people came. And the preaching here"...This
is so interesting. "It was so simple it could
hardly be called preaching, but the power of God was there". - Well, they had Holy Ghost
meetings. - They did. There was that
fog that went-- and there was that girl with
third degree burns, okay. She was gone... - Well, before we get into
the miracles, - Sure, - let's back up a little bit
about Seymour because it's important to see how he managed what was
going on, here. No one was probably as
surprised as he was, first of all with
what was happening. - True. - So, now he's got this thing and it's growing and
people are coming. There is
obviously a move of God but along with the
move of God, there were some flakes
that showed up. I'm talking about people that
showed up to the meeting
that tried to take over. - Here is a great quote. This is a quote from Seymour. He
wrote in his journal. He says, "In a short time, God
began to manifest His power and soon the building could
not contain the people. Now the meetings continue all
day and night and the fire is kindling all
over the city and
surrounding towns. Proud, well-dressed preachers
came in to investigate". - Yes. - "Soon their high looks are
replaced with wonder, then conviction comes. Very often you will find them
in a short time wallowing on the dirty floor, asking God to forgive them and
make them as little children". - At first, he
would confront and talk and try to come to some sort of
compromise or mutual ground and he realized that it
was eliminating the flow of
the Spirit, that anointing and so he decided that
rather than do that, he would put a crate
over his head and when the problems happen, he would pray and
basically at that point, they said that sometimes
the crate turned blue, that everyone was afraid
to touch it because they were afraid that they would
be electrocuted. There were so much power of
the Holy Spirit. There was at least 3 different
pastors that came in doing this that were struck deaf,
they couldn't speak, they were just cut off. Well, that's what I wanted--I'm
wanting to explore that because here is what he did. Yea, he put the
crate or the box over his head and when he took the box off,
some people were like, "Okay, stuff are about to
happen", you know... - Uh huh... - Yea, so that was their
clue but upstairs, - Yes. - was the prayer room. - Yes. Always open. - Back to Frank Bartleman,
- The upper room. - The prayer room and if things
were going on downstairs that Seymour didn't feel were right,
you'd hear the... [Dr. Gene stomping] He'd stomp on the floor to
get them to stop. I read he was asleep and the
Lord and Holy Spirit would
wake him up. There was something going
on downstairs and he went
down and took care of it. I mean, out of a deep sleep... - Yea, that's amazing.
- That's amazing. - So here he is. He's praying... but let me go
back to my "flakes" comment. There were people that would
come in and try to do things. Some would never
make it to the platform, - True,
- front of the room. Some were struck dumb,
some just were like, the quote, you just read
obviously is from Seymour
himself. They were found themselves
on the floor, wallowing in the dirt
and seeing what was happening. You know, this was such a
holy place and I think that's important
that we see, it wasn't just a-- an utopia experience. You
know, when anytime you get low like that in a barn with
flies and dirt. - What was so awesome too was
in the structure of it, he had opportunity to give
leadership to blacks. He had opportunity to give
leadership to any culture and nationality he wanted to
and he often embraced... Basically, he was known to
embrace all of them and so he was not afraid to give
leadership to a white person. He was not afraid to give it to
a black person. - And Los Angeles was a
big melting pot with people all over the world. - And there was the miracle
because people were there
from every language. It was like the Acts and
people were there from all kinds of tribes and
nations and they'd heard their
own language. People would come up to him. One guy was a Jewish guy. He
spoke to a lady and the lady comes up to him
and speaks his language. She says, "You man, you're a Jew
and you must be seated and you must repent" in
his own language.
- Yes. - That happened many
times like that. - Well, the Armenians, when they
heard their own language being
spoken, obviously they were ministered
but then they became
interpreters and so there were entire
Armenians churches that
couldn't speak English and so they would take
the message back to them and they had this back
and forth. Seymour would go and visit
them in their church location and they would
translate for him. So I mean, there was
just this... He had this heart of love that
just didn't see color, didn't see economic, limits.
I mean, the very wealthiest... Well, there was one family that
brought their son in and he was broken. He had
fallen off of this staircase. He was in pieces. He was
gonna be horribly deformed for his entire life and
they brought him in and he was put back
together supernaturally and he ended up becoming a
well-known Hollywood movie actor and his daughter, if you ever
saw the TV show "Bewitched", Elizabeth
Montgomery, that was her daddy and it just
transformed his life. - One big thing was the media,
all the newspapers, - Oh yes, - They thought this
was hilarious. These people, you know, with
babbling on the floor. - Babbling in tongues. - They discovered Azusa Street
on the day of the earthquake. - Yes. And so that caused all
these people, "Let's go to the show". - Yes, 1906, San Francisco
earthquake. - Oh yes, sorry sorry,
yea, that's right. So it was just a huge draw
for people who came in and of course the Holy
Spirit would come on them and they would change. - But think about it. They went
to prayer and God met them and there is a story of Frank
Bartleman who is going to a service and he had a
problem with his wife and so he goes to--
going to the service and the Holy Spirit says, "Go
home, get it cleaned up. You can't continue on".
- Yes. - And so he goes back and he
sets things right with his wife and he comes back. There was
a purification process they
went through. And then there was a
natural disaster, you know, the earthquake... - which is still one of the
worst earthquakes on record. Many people were
killed. What about?... What was Parham doing
during this time? - He didn't do that well. He was a seed but he didn't
find the flames. - He didn't know that Azusa
was integrated. And so he showed up there and he
challenged Seymour. He had to be put out
of the building. It must had been so
hard for him. - Put your mentor out of
the building? - Oh, my word. So
Parham had his place and he was deceived, really. And I'm just thinking as you're
talking about that and it's really easy for us to
jump on the Parham wagon here and kind of give him
a hard time. But sometimes, we have a
tendency to want to be who we are not and I think Charles Parham
may have wanted to be what William Seymour had and
that was not his to have. - No. - It doesn't mean God didn't
have a great calling for him. Obviously, He did. But and Parham did go on
do other things. - He went to Zion right
after Dowie got sick and had one of the
biggest revival you ever saw. - That's tremendous. - He gave the same 100 Year
Prophecy that William Seymour did. He
was on the East coast. William Seymour was on
the West coast. So I mean, there was still a
moving of the Lord through
his life. - Right. And what Joe is
saying here, is the important thing we need
to leave about Charles Parham. Whatever happened there in
the middle, you know, it was what it was
but he got it right and he became Charles Parham. - And out of that revival became
all the leadership of the Pentecostal movement
came out of that... - Yea, that's right. Alright. So
how about, eventually Seymour get married.
What's that story? - Well, that. We've got Jenny
who learns to play the piano under the supernatural unction
of the Holy Spirit. She was a beautiful lady. Well,
there was also another lady that really liked
him a lot and she kind of... She wasn't black. She
was white but the thing is is that God had in mind
for him to marry Jenny and the sad thing is when
he did that, our other lady... - She took the mailing list
and took everything and went to
Portland Oregon... - And that shut things
down because he didn't have any way
to contact... - Anybody.
- Yea. Because he was sending the Azusa
Street papers out to everybody that was on the mailing
list and now, the communication broke down. - I mean, that's where we gather
so much of our information from. - It's from the
Azusa Street paper.
- Yes. - So, he lives another 13 years before he passes away but my! what a legacy that we got today
by William Seymour and listen, we didn't
touch the surface. There is so many, nor did we
really dived into the miracles and the stories that have
come through--through that but listen, it's coming again and the final awakening--this
Great Awakening, I mean. The other day, we did that
special with Billye Brim and she helped us understand
the difference between revival and awakening.
We've been in revival but now we're gonna have an
awakening that's gonna affect just our nation and
eventually the world to come back to who Jesus is. Well, I know you enjoyed
this today. Thanks for joining us, we'll see you next time. ♪♪
