Can we have Azusa again?

Can we have Azusa again?

Can we have Azusa again? 700 393 Keir Tayler
The beginning of the Pentecostal Movement is usually marked from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Azusa Street in 1906.
AZUSA: It is interesting to note that the very name Azusa was derived from an Indian word that means “blessed miracle.” This was first noted by Father Juan Crespi in 1769, while on the Portola expedition to explore California. At that time Azusa referred to the site of an old Indian village south of present day Los Angeles in the San Gabriel canyon. There a young Indian girl named Coma Lee used to pray and fast for the healing of her people. She was gifted with healing power as she laid hands on the sick. After she prayed for a chief who was wonderfully healed, he gave her the name Azusa to commemorate his miracle of healing. For many years., Azusa continue her healing ministry while her fame spread all over southern California. During that time whenever there was suffering, people said, “Go to Azusa and be healed…go to Azusa.” Maybe it is time for us to again go to Azusa and be healed of the many wounds that we have inflicted upon one another.
Charles Parham: (Founder of Pentecostalism) As he was keeping a prayer vigil on New Year’s Eve, he experienced the spiritual gift of “speaking in tongues,” or “glossolalia” in the early hours of January 1, 1901, the precise dawning of the Twentieth Century.
William J. Seymour and Frank Bartleman are the two names that are most often recognized as those who were used to start the Azusa Street Revival.
Seymour was the unquestioned leader of the revival, and he had the authority on earth, but Bartleman was the intercessor who had authority with God.
Word spread “like fire in a dry wood” about what had happened at Seymour’s little prayer group.
Revivals have sparked great spiritual advances, but they are sustained only by the day to day devotion of the saints. “Revival is like a sale at the department store. It is more dramatic, and gets more press, but the normal business of the store is the day to day merchandising of products.”
At the height of the Azusa Street revival Seymour prophesied, “We are on the verge of the greatest miracle the world has ever seen.”
The miracle he was referring to was a true love and unity between races and creeds that he considered to be fundamental Christianity.
Prominent churchmen and high government officials sat next to hobos. No one seemed to care. They all had one thing in common – they came to receive the Holy Spirit of God.
Our goal should be to have such a manifest presence of the Lord in all of our meetings.
In times of revival, there is also a dynamic, manifest presence of the Holy Spirit that makes deviations apparent to almost everyone, including those who make them. Needed corrections are therefore usually automatic. However, when we do not have this dynamic presence of the Lord that is found in revival, almost every vacuum of leadership will be quickly filled with the immature, the prideful, or the rebellious. The result of this will not be revival, but confusion, or worse.
The key is to be ready to step aside when the presence of the Lord does come.
The New Testament epistles are basically the apostles’ exhortations to leaders who were serving in times that were not dynamic revivals. They did not expect the spirit to come every day like He did on the Day of Pentecost, so they went about doing the day to day work of the ministry. However, when He does decide to come in a dramatic way that ignites a revival, it’s time to drop what we’re doing and ride the wave for as far as it will take us … on our knees.