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The Seeds of Revival
(Conclusion)
By Frank Bartlemen

"It is very easy to choose second best. The prayer life is needed much more than even buildings or organizations. These are often a substitute for the other. Souls are born into the Kingdom only through prayer. I feared the New Testament Church might develop a party, sectarian spirit. A rich lady offered them the money to build a church edifice with. The devil was bidding high. But she soon withdrew her offer. I confess I was glad she did. They would soon have had no time for anything but building then. It would have been the end of their revival. We had been called out to evangelize Los Angeles, not to build up another sect or party spirit. We needed no more organization nor machinery than what was really necessary for the speedy evangelizing of the city.

Surely we had enough separate rival church organizations already on our hands. Each working largely for its own interest, advancement, and glory. The New Testament Church seemed to be drifting toward intellectualism. I became much burdened for it. I felt the New Testament Church was failing God, and I was looking to see where the Spirit might come forth. The curse everywhere was spiritual pride. Hiding their nakedness from God. The oil (The Holy Ghost) ceases to flow, as in Elijah's time when there are no more empty vessels to be filled . People do not sense their need of God. But wherever there is a hungry heart, God will fill it. 'The rich or (full) He has sent away empty.'"

"They did not break through at Pastor Smale's assembly (The First New Testament Church). There was too much reserve there. God had taken them as far as He could." Yet God was still determined to find a people whom He could use to bring revival. He now moved in among a small group of humble and praying people at 214 N. Bonnie Brae Street. Bartleman found himself among them just as the revival fires started to burn. He writes, "March 26, I went to a cottage meeting on Bonnie Brae Street. Both white and colored saints were meeting there for prayer. I had attended a cottage meeting shortly before this, at another place, where I first met Brother Seymour. He had just come from Texas. He was a colored man, very plain, spiritual, and humble. He attended the meetings at Bonnie Brae Street. He was blind in one eye. There was a general spirit of humility manifested in the meeting. They were taken up with God.

Evidently the Lord had found the little company at last, outside as always, through whom he could have right of way. There was not a mission in the country where this could be done. All were in the hands of men. The Spirit could not work. Others far more pretentious had failed. That which man esteems had been passed by once more and the Spirit born again in a humble stable, outside ecclesiastical establishments as usual. A body must be prepared, in repentance and humility, for every outpouring of the Spirit. They decided to wait on God in a ten-days special petitioning of God and in yielding themselves to Him. The time had come. God had found the right company at last."

Soon the meeting at Bonnie Brae became dangerously crowded and another place had to be found for the prayer services. The meeting was moved to 312 Azusa Street under the leadership of William Seymour. Discerning as usual, Bartleman describes the spiritual atmosphere in and around the new meeting place; " They opened public meetings in old Azusa St. in an old Methodist Church that had been for a long time in disuse, except as a receptacle for old lumber, plaster, etc. It was very dirty. A space was cleared large enough to seat a score or two of persons. We sat on planks resting on old nail kegs, if I remember correctly. But God was there. The work began in earnest. The fire had fallen. It was on the 9th of April 1906, that the Spirit was first poured out on Bonnie Brae.

On April 18th we had the terrible San Francisco earthquake. It had a very close connection with the Pentecostal outpouring... This shook the whole state, as well as the nation. Men began to fear God... Their conscience needed to be knocked at. This paved the way for the revival. Otherwise they would have mocked us.... God suddenly shut up many little Holiness Missions, Tent meetings, etc., that had been striving with one another a long time for the preeminence. It would not work any more. They had to come together. God only could tame them. There was little going on anywhere else, but at Azusa St.

All the people were coming. Even Pastor Smale finally came to Azusa Mission to hunt his people up. Then he invited them back to let God have His way. The fire broke out at his own Assembly also. When God dries a place up, it is dry. This, many churches which opposed the Azusa work soon found out to their sorrow. And many are yet sorrowing over it. They would not take God's way. They were also among the prophets, but when the Lord came He did not come through them. This killed them. They would not go to Azusa, nor let Azusa come to them. Azusa was despised in their eyes." Bartleman continues, "The present Pentecostal manifestation did not break out in a moment, like a huge prairie fire, and set the world on fire. In fact no work of God ever appears that way.

There is a necessary time for preparation. The finished article is not realized at the beginning. Men may wonder where it came from, not being conscious of the preparation, but there is always such. Every movement of the Spirit of God must also run the gauntlet of the devil's forces. The Dragon stands before the bearing mother, ready to swallow up her child.-(Rev. 12:4.) And so with the present Pentecostal work in its beginning. The enemy did much counterfeiting. God kept the young child well hid for a season from the Herods, until it could gain strength and discernment to resist them."

Frank Bartleman's writings are a prophetic reminder that there are distinct seasons of revival that require our preparation and cooperation. Revivals don't just mysteriously happen, they are born through a cooperative effort between the Church and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit begins this process by filling us with a holy discontentment over our own impotence and spiritual barrenness. Next, in response to our hunger, He imparts a divine seed vision for revival deep within us.

God then requires us to become broken and willing to cooperate with this vision in an ongoing process of faith, humility, repentance and prayer. Truly, God is the only one who can open the womb of revival, yet no revival is ever born without much costly travail and cooperation by the Church. In the Kingdom of God there is no such thing as the luxury of a surrogate mother or a cesarean. We must become willing to be painfully stretched and disfigured, as we carry and nurture the growing sparks of revival within us. Sleepless nights, a change of appetite and unusual pains are all part of carrying a developing child.

Are you willing for your life to be radically changed and inconvenienced in your pursuit of revival? God longs for a help-meet, a co-laborer, a bride through which He can father a revival of His presence. In God's love and wisdom He has sovereignly chosen to use frail human beings in this birthing process. Therefore it is possible for us to hinder or even completely abort the work of revival within us. Let us BEWARE lest we quench or miscarry the work of the Holy Spirit through our own unbelief and neglect. Like the young virgin Mary, it's time for us to totally yield to the Father's desire, saying " Let it be done unto me according to your word." Luke 1:38.

I believe the opportunity for a lasting revival stands before us today. We need to recognize the time of our visitation. The Holy Spirit is imparting the vision for revival within many hearts. This is no time to be experimenting with untested church growth theories, borrowed from books. Clever human schemes will never substitute for a lack of true heart preparation and travailing prayer. By neglecting these, I fear many are needlessly squandering away their last opportunity for true revival. "Opportunity once passed, said Frank Bartleman, is lost forever. There is a time when the tide is sweeping by our door.

We may plunge in and be carried to glorious success and blessing and victory. To stand on the bank shivering from timidity, or paralyzed by stupor at such a time is to miss all, and most miserably and eternally fail. Oh, our responsibility! The mighty tide of God's grace and favor even now is sweeping by us, in its prayer directed course." Opportunity is pounding at our door. The Father is searching for a people who will yield to His revival birthing process. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and from throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is LOYAL to Him." (2 Chronicles 16:9)

The Father has already begun this process among some of His praying people. Still if such a remnant of revival pioneers are to succeed where so many others have failed, they must avoid the mistakes of their forefathers. Within nine years of the Azusa Street Revival, Frank Bartleman was expressing deep concern for the future of the Pentecostal movement. He recognized that many of the revival participants had become distracted by the effects of the revival and thus lost sight of God's primary purposes for revival. By neglecting the roots of the revival, Bartleman believed they had inadvertently cursed the spiritual fruit they so dearly desired.

Our modern churches must take heed and learn that there are no shortcuts to lasting revival. " Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. (John 12:24)" There will be no true and lasting revival until we die to our own pride and selfish ambition. We must let God the Holy Spirit have control of His Church again. We need to repent and let the knocking Bridegroom back into His house. In early 1905 Frank Bartleman wrote, "I received from God the following keynote to revival: The depth of a revival will be determined exactly by the depth of the spirit of repentance..." Again he writes, "A body must be prepared, in repentance and humility for every outpouring of the Spirit."

This is one of God's great unchanging laws of true revival. It applies to all people and for all times. We can not afford to ignore these clear warnings from our spiritual forefathers any longer. There will be no glorious, end-time harvest until God finds a people who will embrace and nurture the fruitful seeds of revival; FAITH, HUMILITY, REPENTANCE and PRAYER.