This is a time to realize the vision of service, we can not afford to miss the blessing and reward He desires for us. It may be our last great chance to win souls for heaven. Oh what a privilege! What a responsibility!" Bartleman later recorded in his autobiography (My Story: The Latter Rain) how many Christians missed The Azusa outpouring because of their own unwillingness to seek revival on God's terms.

He writes, "During those months preceding the Pentecost, the Spirit was constantly seeking a company through which He could manifest Himself, and gather the people. He used various agencies and instruments just as far as He could. After the Spirit had made several desperate efforts, and a number had failed Him, He finally succeeded with a crude, weak body. There was little to commend itself even in this, aside from a desperate abandonment and childlike faith. But these were the prerequisites for the beginning of the work."

On December 22, 1904, Frank Bartleman and his wife and two daughters moved to Los Angeles. He had a unexplainable impression that God was getting ready to do something wonderful in the Los Angeles area. For months he moved around the city visiting and preaching at various Holiness missions. During this time he also came into a deeper dimension of prayer and intercession. He had been corresponding with Evan Roberts and had received encouragement from him to pray for a mighty awakening in California.

Soon Bartleman began to increasingly experience seasons of intense travailing prayer. After visiting Joseph's Smale's First Baptist church, Mr. Bartleman was greatly encouraged to find some tokens of what he had been praying for. Bartleman writes, "June 17, 1905 I went to Los Angeles to attend a meeting at the First Baptist Church. They were waiting on God for an outpouring of the Spirit there. Their pastor, Joseph Smale, had just returned from Wales. He had been in touch with the revival and Evan Roberts and was on fire to have the same visitation and blessing come to his own church in Los Angeles..."

Upon Joseph Smale's return to Los Angeles, he quickly organized his church into small home prayer groups. He also encouraged his people to look for the return of the apostolic gifts to the church. The prayer meetings lasted fifteen weeks and almost immediately produced a deep sense of need and expectation for revival. Bartleman describes the meetings as follows, "(Pastor Smale) started prayer meetings in his church to wait on God for an outpouring of the Spirit similar to that which they were having in Wales. God wonderfully anointed him to exhort the people. He was full of faith for mighty things.

These prayer meetings ran for a number of weeks, and there was much spontaneous worship and some very wonderful healings. Faith increased rapidly for extraordinary things. God made Pastor Smale a regular Moses to lead us toward the promised land. But soon the church dignitaries could tolerate the new, spontaneous order no longer. They ordered it to cease, or the Pastor to resign. The consequence was the Pastor wisely decided to go on with God, and the Lord and the people went with him. The cloud moved. A New Testament Church was formed. Here God wonderfully led and blessed, up to the Spring of 1906."

Sadly, the freedom in prayer and worship that Joseph Smale had encouraged was ultimately not accepted by some of his fellow Baptists. One of the first signs of this was seen in their open attack on the Spirit of prayer. Bartleman describes one such occasion, "At Smale's church one day I was groaning in prayer at the altar. The spirit of intercession was upon me. A brother rebuked me severely. He did not understand it. The flesh naturally shrinks from such ordeals. The groans are no more popular in most churches than is a woman in birth-pangs in the home. Soul-travail does not make pleasant company for selfish worldlings. But we cannot have souls born without it.

Child bearing is anything but a popular exercise these days. And so with a real revival of new born souls in the churches. Modern society has little place for a child-bearing mother, and so with the church's regarding soul-travail. There is little burden for souls. Men run from the groans of a woman in travail of birth, and so the church desires no groans today. She is too busy enjoying herself." Again Bartleman comments on the Baptist leader's unwillingness to go on with God. "I went to Smale's church that night, and he resigned. The meetings had run daily in the First Baptist Church for fifteen weeks.

It was now September. The officials of the church were tired of the innovations and wanted to return to the old order. He was told to either stop the revival, or get out. He wisely chose the latter. But what an awful position for a church to take, to throw God out. In this same way they later drove the Spirit of God out of the churches in Wales. They were tired of His presence, desiring to return to the old, cold, ecclesiastical order. How blind men are! The most spiritual of Pastor Smale's members naturally followed him, with a nucleus of other workers who had gathered to him from other sources, during the revival. They immediately contemplated organizing a New Testament church..."

Pastor Smale established the First New Testament Church in Burbank Hall at 542 South Main Street, Los Angeles, in early 1906. For months the newly organized church experienced great freedom and blessing. However, before long they too were struggling to keep in step with the Spirit of revival. Bartleman became very concerned for this little fellowship which once looked so promising. "The New Testament Church seemed to be losing the spirit of prayer as they increased their organization. They now tried to shift this ministry on a few of us. I knew God was not pleased with that, and I 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 now, leading them to miss God's best for them. They were now even attempting to organize prayer, a thing impossible. 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 organization. It seemed hard to them not to be like the other nations (churches) round about them. And right here they surely began to fail. As church work increased the real issue was lost sight of. Human organization and human programs leave very little room for the free Spirit of God."

Conclusion >>

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