The
Baptism of the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit - Part IV
The Baptism of the Holy Ghost
The Baptism of the Holy Ghost
Jesus baptizes with the Holy
Ghost
Key Scriptures:
“Matthew 3:11-12, John 14:15-17; 26” and “Acts 2:38-39*”.
Many people today think the out pouring of the Holy Ghost
is a thing of the pass. It’s not. Receiving the Holy Ghost is for today just as
it was in the Book of Acts. Jesus made
the promise of the Comforter for all of those who will believe on him and obey
him.
This lesson is a History lesson of the outpouring of the
Holy Ghost in the United States. The
Holy Ghost, which is the comforter, is still given today. We want our focus to be on Jesus, his promise
of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirits purpose (an upcoming detailed bible
study) in our lives and the lives of our love ones.
Remember this bible study is not simply about speaking in
tongues, it’s about repenting and receiving the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit: the
Comforter, Spirit of Truth to lead and guide us into all truth, the power to
become Sons and Daughters of God.
How do you know
someone has received the Holy Ghost, the evidence is tongues. In our next lesson, we will see this more clearly. Now, let’s take a look at the outpouring of
the Holy Ghost in the United States.
Acts 2:38-39 King James Version (KJV)
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Christian History Issue 65: Ten Influential Christians of the 20th
Century
“Pentecostalism: William Seymour
What scoffers viewed as a weird babble of tongues became a world
phenomenon after his Los Angeles
revival.
Vinson Synan
Of all the outstanding black American religious leaders in the
twentieth century, one of the least recognized
is William
Seymour, the unsung pastor of the Azusa Street
Mission in Los Angeles, CA and catalyst of the
worldwide
Pentecostal movement. Only in the last few decades have scholars become aware of his importance,
beginning perhaps with Yale University historian Sidney Ahlstrom, who said Seymour personified a black piety
"which exerted its greatest direct influence on American religious
history"—placing Seymour's impact ahead of figures like W. E. B. Dubois
and Martin Luther King, Jr.
William Joseph Seymour was born in Centerville, Louisiana, on May
2, 1870 to former slaves Simon and
Phyllis Seymour. Raised as a Baptist, Seymour was given to dreams
and visions as a youth. At age 25, he
moved to Indianapolis, where he worked as a railroad porter and
then waited on tables in a fashionable
restaurant. Around this time, he contracted smallpox and went blind
in his left eye.
In 1900 he relocated to Cincinnati, where he joined the
"reformation" Church of God (headquartered in
Anderson, Indiana), also known as "the Evening Light
Saints." Here he became steeped in radical Holiness
theology, which taught second blessing entire sanctification
(i.e., sanctification is a post conversion
experience that results in complete holiness), divine healing,
premillennialism, and the promise
of a worldwide Holy Spirit revival before the rapture.
In 1903 Seymour moved to Houston, Texas, in search of his family.
There he joined a small Holiness
church pastored by a black woman, Lucy Farrow, who soon put him
touch with Charles Fox Parham.
Parham was a Holiness teacher under whose ministry a student had
spoken in tongues (glossolalia) two
years earlier. For Parham, this was the "Bible evidence" of the baptism in the
Holy Spirit. When he
established a Bible school to train disciples in his
"Apostolic Faith" in Houston, Farrow urged Seymour to
attend.
Since Texas law forbade blacks to sit in classrooms with whites,
Parham encouraged Seymour to remain in
a hallway and listen to his lectures through the doorway. Here
Seymour accepted Parham's premise of a
"third blessing" baptism in the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues. Though
Seymour had not yet
personally experienced tongues, he sometimes preached this message
with Parham in Houston churches.
In early 1906, Seymour was invited to help Julia Hutchins pastor a
Holiness church in Los Angeles. With
Parham's support, Seymour journeyed to California, where he
preached the new Pentecostal doctrine using
Acts 2:4 as his text. Hutchins, however, rejected Seymour's
teaching on tongues and padlocked the door to
him and his message.
Seymour was then invited to stay in the home of Richard Asberry at
214 Bonnie Brae Street, where on April
9, after a month of intense
prayer and fasting, Seymour and several others spoke in tongues. Word
spread
quickly about the strange events on Bonnie Brae Street and drew so
much attention that Seymour was
forced to preach on the front porch to crowds gathered in the
street. At one point, the jostling crowd grew
so large the porch floor caved in.
Seymour searched Los Angeles for a suitable building. What he
found was an old abandoned African
Methodist Episcopal church on Azusa Street that had recently been
used as a warehouse and stable.
Although it was a shambles, Seymour and his small band of black
washerwomen, maids, and laborers
cleaned the building, set up board plank seats, and made a pulpit
out of old shoebox shipping crates.
Services began in mid-April in the church, which
was named the "Apostolic Faith Mission."
What happened at Azusa Street during the next three years was to
change the course of church history.
Although the little frame building measured only 40 by 60 feet, as
many as 600 persons jammed inside
while hundreds more looked in through the windows. The
central attraction was tongues, with the addition
of traditional black worship styles that included shouting,
trances, and the holy dance. There was no order
of service, since "the Holy Ghost was in control." No
offerings were taken, although a box hung on the wall
proclaimed, "Settle with the Lord." Altar workers enthusiastically prayed
seekers through to the coveted
tongues
experience. It was a noisy place, and services lasted into the night.
Though local newspaper coverage spoke cynically about the "weird
babble of tongues" of "colored
mammys," on street corners and trolley cars, the news
intrigued the city. Whole congregations came en
masse to Azusa Street and stayed while their former churches
disappeared. Other Pentecostal centers soon
sprang up around town.
Reporting on all this was Frank Bartleman, an itinerant Holiness
preacher and rescue mission worker, who
wrote to the Way of Faith in South Carolina that "Pentecost has come to Los Angeles,
the American
Jerusalem." His
reports, which were printed and reprinted in the Holiness press, spread a
contagious fever
of curiosity about the Azusa Street meetings all across the
country.
In September, Seymour began publishing his own paper titled The
Apostolic Faith. At its height, it went
free to some 50,000 subscribers around the world.
Though many came to mock and scorn, many others heard
messages in known earthly languages uttered
by uneducated blacks and whites that convinced them of the
reality of the revival. Soon whites made up
the majority of members and visitors, and black hands were laid on
white heads to receive the new
tongues experience. Soon an avalanche of "Azusa Pilgrims" descended
on the mission to receive what were
thought to be "missionary tongues," which would enable
preachers to go to the far corners of the world
proclaiming the gospel in languages they had never learned.
on't
A list of Azusa pilgrims reads like a hall of fame for the new
order of Pentecostal priests. From North
Carolina came Gaston B. Cashwell, who later spread the Pentecostal message to
the southern Holiness churches. From Memphis came Charles Mason who returned to
lead the Church of God in Christ into the Pentecostal fold (now the largest
black
Pentecostal denomination in America). From Chicago came William
Durham, who later formulated the "Finished Work" theology that gave
birth to the Assemblies of God in 1914.
To
Seymour, tongues was not the only message of Azusa Street: "Don't go out
of here talking about tongues: talk about Jesus," he admonished.
Another message was that of racial reconciliation. Blacks and whites worked
together in apparent harmony under the direction of a black pastor, a marvel in
the days of Jim Crow segregation. This led Bartleman to exult, "At Azusa Street, the color line was washed away in the Blood."
Seymour
dreamed that Azusa Street was creating a new kind of church, one where a common
experience in the Holy Spirit tore down old walls of racial, ethnic, and denominational
differences.
Azusa Street
Reveival (1906): William Seymour, a Black Holiness preacher, founded a mission
on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. There, many people began to speak in “unknown
tongues.” “The Pentecostal movement is still growing today.”
As you
read this history article, “Did you
recognize the fulfillment of Acts chapters 1 and 2?” Review Acts 1 and 2.
Christian
History is a subject I recommend Christians to study. There is so much that has not been
taught. Many people have lost their
lives for us to have the freedom to believe on our Savior Jesus Christ. Christian History tells us of the spread of
the gospel and the challenges after the Apostles deceased. How did Christianity spread throughout the
world? Christian History can give you the answers.
In our
next lesson, we will look at scriptures in more detail on receiving the Holy
Ghost with the evidence of speaking on tongues.
Our emphasis is repentance and receiving the Holy Ghost which is
evidenced by the speaking of tongues.
This bible study has
been prepared by:
Minister Mary Waters
Pure Gold Evangelistic
Ministries ©2014
An ordained Minister
of Jesus Christ operating in the Offices of:
Teacher and Evangelist
Assignment:
Schedule:
Tuesday:
Luke 24:46-49
Wednesday:
Mark 16: 14-20
Thursday:
Matthew 28:16-20
Friday:
Acts 5:33-42
Saturday:
Acts 10
Sunday:
Reflect and Meditate on the your reading assignment
Monday:
Review passages that ministered to you, pray for understanding of passages you
did not understand, this should be done daily.
Churches,
Bible Study groups, etc., that would like Evangelist Waters to speak at your:
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ministry, special program, etc.,
Contact
Evangelist Waters:
www.PureGoldEvangelisticMinistries.com
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