Frank Bartleman was born in eastern Pennsylvania, was converted in 1892, and was licensed to preach by a local Baptist church shortly after that. Although he attended a year at a night school run by his church, and briefly attended Moody Bible Institute, and read many books by religious writers, it appears most of his knowledge and doctrine came directly by personal study of the Bible, as interpreted through the leading of the Spirit and personal experience.

His extensive reports are some of the most important sources for understanding the dynamics of what happened at the little mission church on Azusa Street. Bartleman had long desired to be part of some momentous revival movement. He was a man on a mission, in such of the holy grail of revival. His search would eventually lead him to Los Angeles just in time to be part of the Azusa Street revival.

It was Frank Bartleman’s diary and reports in the holiness press that constituted the most complete and reliable record of what happened at Azusa Street. The revival reports of Azusa Street that you are now reading were extracted from Bartleman’s diary entries and articles which he had written to various periodicals and published them in a book form around 1925, under the title: How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles. It was because of his reporting of the revival at 312 Azusa Street that Frank Bartleman became one of the key players in the Azusa Street Revival.

Here is his firsthand account of what happened during the Azusa Street Revival:

The false was sifted out from the real by the Spirit of God. The Word of God itself decided absolutely all issues.

The hearts of the people, both in act and motive were searched to the very bottom. It was no joke to become one of that company. No man “durst join himself to them” unless he meant business. It meant a dying out and cleaning up process in those days to receive the baptism. We had a “tarrying” room upstairs for those especially seeking God for the Holy Spirit baptism, though many got in the main assembly room also.

In fact, they often got it in their seats in those days. The Spirit wrought very deeply in the “tarrying” room. An unquiet spirit or a thoughtless talker was immediately reproved by the Spirit. We were on “holy ground.” This atmosphere was unbearable to the carnal spirit. They generally gave this room a wide berth unless they had been thoroughly subdued and burned out. Only honest seekers sought it, those who really meant business with God. It was no place to throw fits or blow off steam. Men did not “fly to their lungs” in those days. They flew to the mercy seat. They took their shoes off, figuratively speaking. They were on “holy ground.”

The New Testament Church

Bartleman noted that the Azusa Street Revival did not occur in a vacuum. The immediate catalyst for the revival happened in the summer of 1905, when Joseph Smale, pastor of First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, returned from a visit to Wales. He had attended meetings during the great Welsh Revival, during which entire towns experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Smale witnessed countless people repent of sin and turn toward God, and he prayed for God to do a similar work in Los Angeles.

However, the New Testament Church, begun by Brother Smale, seemed to be losing the spirit of prayer as they increased their organisation. They now tried to shift this ministry on a few of us. I knew God was not pleased with that and became much burdened for them. They had taken on too many secondary interests. It began to look as though the Lord would have to find another body.

My hopes had been high for this particular company of people, but the enemy seemed to be sidetracking them, or at least leading them to miss God’s best. They were now even attempting to organize prayer—an impossible thing. Prayer is spontaneous. I felt it were better not to have organized than to lose the ministry of prayer and spirit of revival as a body. It was for this they had been called in the beginning.

They had become ambitious for a church and organisation. It seemed hard to them not to be “like the other nations (churches) around them.” And right here they began to fail. As church work increased, they lost sight of the real issue. Human organization and human programs leave very little room for the free Spirit of God. It means much to be willing to be considered a failure, while we seek to build up a purely spiritual Kingdom. God’s Kingdom cometh not “by observation.” It is very easy to choose second best. The prayer life is needed much more than 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. The devil was bidding high. However, she soon withdrew her offer, and I confess I was glad she did. They would soon have no time for anything but building. It would have been the end of the revival. We had been called out to evangelize Los Angeles, not to build up another sect or party spirit. We needed no more machinery than what was really necessary for the speedy evangelizing of the city.

Surely we already had enough separate, rival church organizations 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. During one meeting—it was so painful after what we had seen—I groaned aloud in prayer. One of the elders rebuked me severely for this. “How the mighty fallen” kept ringing in my ears. A few of the most spiritual had the same burden with me. After this incident, prayer again seemed to prevail in a measure. We had a great meeting in the church one Sunday night, and 100 knelt at the altar.

In Pasadena, before moving to Los Angeles, I would lie on my bed in the daytime and roll and groan under the burden. At night I could scarcely sleep for the spirit of prayer. I fasted much, not caring for food while burdened. At one time I was in soul travail for nearly 24 hours without intermission. It nearly used me up. Prayer literally consumed me. Sometimes I would groan all night in my sleep.

Prayer was not formal in those days. It was God-breathed. It came upon us and overwhelmed us. We did not work it up. We were gripped with soul travail by the Spirit that could no more be shaken off than could the birth pangs of a woman in travail without doing absolute violence to the Spirit of God. It was real intercession by the Holy Spirit.

The Fire Falls at Azusa

In the beginning at Azusa, we had no musical instruments. In fact, we felt no need for them. There was no place for them in our worship—all was spontaneous. We did not even sing from hymnbooks. All the old, well-known hymns were sung from memory, quickened by the Spirit.  “The Comforter Has Come.” was possibly the one most sung. We sang it from a fresh, powerful heart experience. Oh, how the power of God filled and thrilled us. Then the songs of Christ’s blood were very popular. “The life is in blood.” Sinai, Calvary, and Pentecost, all had altogether different, not of human composition. It cannot be successfully counterfeited. The crow cannot imitate the dove.

But they finally began to despise this gift, when the human spirit asserted itself again. They drove it out by hymn books and selected songs by readers. It was like murdering the Spirit, and was most painful to some of us, but the tide was too strong against us. Hymnbooks today are too largely a commercial proposition, and we would not lose much without most of them. Even the old tunes are often violated by change, and new styles must be gotten out of every season for added profit.

There is very little real spirit of worship in them. They move the toes, but not the hearts of men. The spirit of song given from God in the beginning was like the Aeolian harp in its spontaneity and sweetness. In fact, it was the breath of God, playing on human heartstrings, or human cords. The notes were wonderful in sweetness, volume, and duration. In fact, they were humanly impossible. It was indeed “singing in the Spirit.”

In the revival in Wales, the great expounders of England had to come and sit at the feet of crude, hard-working miners, and see the wonderful work of God. I wrote for the Way of Faith at this time:

The real thing is happening among us. The Almighty will again measure swords with Pharaoh’s magicians. But many will reject Him and blaspheme. Many will fail to recognize Him, even among His professed followers. We have been praying and believing for a “Pentecost.” Will we receive it when it comes?” The present worldwide 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 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 (Revelation 12:4).

The Counterfeit of the Enemy

So it was with the present Pentecostal work in its beginnings. The enemy did much counterfeiting. God kept the young child well hidden for a season from the Herods, until it could gain strength and discernment to resist them. The fame was guarded jealously by the hand of the Lord from the criticism, jealousy, unbelief, etc. It went through about the same experiences that all revivals have.

Its foes were both inside and out. Both Luther and Wesley experienced the same difficulties in their time. We have this treasure in “earthen vessels.” Every natural birth is surrounded by circumstances not entirely pleasant. God’s perfect work is wrought in human imperfection. We are creatures of the “fall.” Then why expect a perfect manifestation in this case? We are coming back to God.

John Wesley writes of his time:

Almost as soon as I was gone, two or three began to take their imaginations for impressions from God. Meantime, a flood of reproach came upon me from almost every quarter. Be not alarmed that Satan sows tares among the wheat of Christ. It has ever been so, especially on any remarkable outpouring of the Spirit, and ever will be, until the devil is chained for a thousand years. Till then he will always ape and endeavour to counteract the work of the Spirit of Christ.”

John Wesley himself once prayed, after the revival had about died out for the time: “Oh Lord, send us the old revival, without the defects; but if this cannot be, send it with all its defects; but if this cannot be, send it with all its defects. We must have the revival!

Adam Clarke, in his Bible commentary, said:

Nature, along with Satan, will always mingle themselves, as far as they can, in the genuine work of the Spirit in order to discredit and destroy it. In great revivals of religion, it is almost impossible to prevent wild-fire room getting in among the true fire.

Dr. Seiss says:

Never, indeed, has there been a sowing of God on earth but it has been oversown by Satan; or a growth for Christ, which the plantings of the wicked one did not mingle with and hinder. He who sets out to find a perfect church, in which there are no unworthy elements and no disfigurations, proposes to himself a hopeless task.

Still another writer says:

In the various crises that have occurred in the history of the Church, men have come to the front who have manifested a holy recklessness that astonished their fellows. When Luther nailed his theses to the door of the cathedral at Wittenberg, cautious men were astonished at his audacity. When John Wesley ignored all church restrictions and religious propriety and preached in the fields and byways, men declared his reputation was ruined. So it has been in all ages.

When the religious condition of the times called for men who were willing to sacrifice all for Christ, the demand created the supply, and there have always been found a few who were willing to be regarded reckless for the Lord. An utter recklessness concerning men’s opinions and other consequences is the only attitude that can meet the needs of the present times.

For the Azusa Street part of this study, I borrowed heavily from Frank Bartleman’s own account of the revival in his classic work, Frank Bartleman’s Azusa  Street, First Hand Account of the Revival, compiled by Roberts Liardon, and now published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book contains important insights on the nature of the revival and can be found in many Christain bookstores or anywhere books are sold. 

 

As we’ve already covered in Part 1 of this study, Frank Bartleman was one of the men God used at Azusa Street Revival. His eyewitness account captured fascinating details about the revival, which give insight into the great chasm between today’s biblical Christianity and the then-present state of the church.

Bartleman offered some cautionary advice regarding the history surrounding Azusa Street. He stressed that the early Pentecostal revival was a sovereign move of God that had developed over time. He wrote:

It would be a great mistake to attempt to attribute the Pentecostal beginning in Los Angeles to any one man….Pentecost did not drop down suddenly out of heaven. God was with us in a large measure for a long time before the final outpouring.

After the Flesh no more

We were delivered right there from ecclesiastical hierarchism and abuse. We wanted God. When we first reached the meeting, we avoided human contact and greeting as much as possible. We wanted to meet God first. We got our head under some bench in the corner in prayer, and met men only in the Spirit, knowing them “after the flesh” no more. The meeting started themselves, spontaneously, in testimony, praise, and worship.

The testimonies were never hurried by a call for “popcorn.”  We had no prearranged program to be jammed through on time. Our time was the Lord’s. We had real testimonies from fresh heart –experience. Otherwise, the shorter the testimonies, the better. A dozen might be on their feet at one time, trembling under the mighty power of God. We did not have to get our cue from some leader; yet we were free from lawlessness. We were shut up to God in prayer in the meetings, our minds on Him.

All obeyed God, in meekness and humility. In honor we “preferred one another.” The Lord was liable to burst through anyone. We prayed for this continually. Someone would finally get up, anointed for the message. All seemed to recognize this and gave way. It might be a child, a woman, or a man. It might be from the back seat or from the front. It made no difference. We rejoiced that God was working. No one wished to show himself. We thought only of obeying God.

In fact, there was an atmosphere of God there that forbade anyone but a fool from attempting to put himself forward without the real anointing—and such did not last long. The meetings were controlled by the Spirit, from the throne. Those were truly wonderful days. I often said that I would rather live 6 months at that time than 50 years of ordinary life. But God is just the same today. Only we have changed.

Someone might be speaking. Suddenly the Spirit would fall upon the congregation. God Himself would give the altar call. Men would fall all over the house, like the slain in battle. Or rush for the altar en masse to seek God. The scene often resembled a forest of fallen trees. Such a scene cannot be imitated. I never saw an altar call given in those early days.

God Himself would call them. And the preacher knew when to quit. When He spoke, we all obeyed. It seemed a fearful thing to hinder or grieve the Spirit. The whole place was steeped in prayer. God was in His holy temple. It was for man to keep silent. The Shekinah glory rested there. In fact some claim to have seen the glory by night over the building. I do not doubt it. I have stopped more than once within two blocks of the place and prayed for strength before I dared go on. The presence of the Lord was so real.

Presumptuous men would sometimes come among us, especially preachers who would try to spread themselves in self-opinionation. But their effort was short lived. The breath would be taken from. Their minds would wander, their brains reel. Things would turn black before their eyes. They could not go on. I never saw one get by with it in those days. They were up against God. No one cut them off; we simply prayed—the Holy Spirit did the rest.

We wanted the Spirit to control. He would them in short order. They were carried out dead, spiritually speaking. They generally bit the dust in humility, going through the process we had all gone through the process. In other words, they died out, and came to see themselves in all their weaknesses. Then, in childlike humility and confession, they were taken up of God and transformed through the mighty baptism in the Spirit.

The “old man” died with all his pride, arrogance, and good works. In my own case, I came to abhor myself. I begged the Lord to drop a curtain so close behind me on my past that it would hit my heels. He told me to forget every good deed as though it had never occurred, as soon as it was accomplished, and go forward again as though I had never accomplished anything for Him, lest my good works become a snare to me.

We saw some wonderful things in those days. Even good men came to abhor themselves in the clearer light of God. Often, it was hardest for preachers to die to self. They had so much to die to. So much reputation and good works. But when God got through with them, they gladly turned a new page and chapter. That was one reason they fought so hard. Death to self is not at all a pleasant experience. And strong men die hard.

Burden of Prayer

I found most Christians did not want to take on a burden of prayer. It was too hard on the flesh. I was carrying this burden now in ever increasing volume, night and day. The ministry was intense. It was “the fellowship of His sufferings,” a “travail” of soul, with “groanings that could not be uttered” (see Romans 8:26-27) Most believers find it easier to criticize than to pray.

One day I was much burdened in prayer. I went to Brother Manley’s tent and fell at the altar, thee unburdening my soul. A worker ran in from a side tent and begged me to pray for him.

I attended another meeting that night and there found a young brother, Edward Boehmer, who had come forth in the Peniel meetings in the spring, with the same burden of prayer on him. We were wonderfully united in the Spirit from that time on. He was destined to become my prayer helper in the future. We prayed together at the little Peniel Mission until 2 A.M. God wonderfully met and assured us as we wrestled with Him for outpouring of His Spirit upon the people. My life was by this time literally swallowed up in prayer. I was praying day and night.

I wrote more articles for the religious press, exhorting the saints to prayer, and went to Smale’s again in Los Angeles. Here I found people waiting for the preacher again. I was greatly burdened for the situation and tried to show them they must expect from God. Some resented this, being bound by age-old custom, but others responded to it. They were praying for revival like they had in Wales. This was one of the outstanding features there. In Wales they expected from God. The meetings went on whether the preacher was present or absent. They came to meet God. He met them.

Lost in His Presence

One evening, July 3, I felt strongly impressed to go to the little Peniel Hall in Pasadena to pray. There I found Brother Boehmer ahead of me. He had also been led of God to the hall. We prayed for a spirit of revival for Pasadena until the burden became well nigh unbearable. I cried out like a woman in birth pangs.

The Spirit was interceding through us. Finally, the burden left us. After a little time of quite waiting, a great calm settled down upon us. He seemed to stand directly between us, so close we could have reached out our hand and touched Him. But we did not dare to move. I could not even look. In fact, I seemed all spirit. His presence seemed more real, if possible, than if I could have seen and touched Him naturally. I forgot I had eyes or ears; my spirit recognized Him.

A heaven of divine love filled and thrilled my soul. Burning fire went through me. In fact, my whole being seemed to flow down before Him, like wax before the fire. I lost all consciousness of time or space, being conscious only of His wonderful presence. I worshipped at His feet. It seemed a veritable “Mount of transfiguration.” I was lost in the pure Spirit.

For some time He remained with us. Then, slowly, He withdrew His presence. We would have been there yet had He not withdrawn. I could not doubt His reality after that experience. Brother Boehmer experienced largely the same thing. We had lost all consciousness of each other presence while He remained with us. We were almost afraid to speak or breathe when we came back to surroundings.

The Lord had said nothing to us, but only overwhelmed our spirits by His presence. He had come to strengthen and assure us for His service. We knew now we were workers with Him, fellowshippers of His sufferings, in the ministry of “soul travail.” Real soul travail is just as definite in the spirit as natural human birth pangs. The simile is almost perfect in its sameness. No soul is ever born without this all true revivals of salvation come this way.

The Opportunity of a Lifetime

I wrote a little tract in June 1906, of which the following is an extract:

Opportunity once passed is lost forever. There is a time when the tide is sweeping by our door. We may then plunge in and be carried to glorious blessing, success, and victory. To stand shivering on the bank, timid or paralyzed with stupor at such a time, is to miss all, and most miserably fail, both for tome and for eternity. Oh, our responsibility!

The mighty tide of God’s grace and favor is even now sweeping by us in its prayer-directed course. “There is a river (of salvation), the streams whereof make glad the city of God (Psalm 46:4). It is time to “get together” and plunge in, individually and collectively. We are baptized “by one Spirit, into one body.” The opportunity of a life-time—of centuries—is at our door, to be eternally gained or lost. There is no time to hesitate. Act quickly, lest another take thy crown. Oh, Church of Christ, awake! Be baptized with power. Then fly to rescue others, and to meet your Lord.

A.J. Gordon, in his book, The Ministry of Healing (1882), said: “If the anti-Christ is about to make his mightiest and most malignant demonstration, ought not the Church to confront him with might displays of the Spirit’s saving power?”

Arthur T. Pierson has said:

The most alarming peril of today is naturalism- the denial of direct divine agency and control. Science is uniting with unbelief, wickedness and worldliness, skepticism and materialism, to rule a personal God out of the universe. This drift toward materialism and naturalism demands the supernatural as it’s only corrective. In Enoch’s time human sin was fast making atheists, and God “took him,” spirit soul, and body, that men might be startled with a proof of a Divine Being and invisible world. In Elijah’s day, general apostasy was rebuked by the descent of horses and chariots of fire. And if ever men needed to be confronted with the fruits of power above nature —a living God back of all the forces and machinery He controls, who does answer prayer, guide by His providences, and convert by His grace—it is now.

Oh, our weakness! Oh, our unbelief! May the Lord help us get back to Pentecostal experiences. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)

Hear Spurgeon’s dying appeal:

The presence of God in the Church will put an end to infidelity. Men will not doubt His Word when they feel His Spirit. For a thousand reasons, we need that Jehovah should come into the camp, as aforetimes He visited and delivered His people from bondage in Egypt.

For the Azusa Street part of this study, I borrowed heavily from Frank Bartleman’s own account of the revival in his classic work, Frank Bartleman’s Azusa  Street, First Hand Account of the Revival, compiled by Roberts Liardon, and now published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book contains important insights on the nature of the revival and can be found in many Christain bookstores or anywhere books are sold.