The Power Of Spiritual Demonstration
The Power Of Spiritual Demonstration • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 38:10
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The testimony of the Holy Spirit is a powerful thing....
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
for, rather than telling someone about something that happened 2000 years ago (not minimizing that or the word of God) but rather, telling someone a story of a personal experience that happened today (so to speak)
A person could deny the bible all they want…but one thing is for sure, they cannot discount a personal testimony that happened in this life.
We have an awesome heritage in this apostolic message....
Our Twentieth-Century Pentecostal Heritage:
Understanding our heritage gives us a new perspective on what God wants to do today as well.
A man named Charles Parham began to teach in 1900 that you should expect to speak in tongues when you receive the Holy Ghost. On January 1, 1901, in Topeka, Kansas, a student of his, Agnes Ozman, asked for prayer to receive the Holy Ghost. She was the first person in modern times to receive the Holy Ghost with the expectation of tongues. Parham himself hadn’t even received this experience yet.
That’s the power of this message. Even if you have not experienced some things that you want to experience in your church, preach it anyway, believe it anyway, and it will come to pass.
It’s not about you; it’s about the Word of God. It’s not what you can do; it’s what God can do.
If we expect it, we will receive it. If we’ll preach it, we’ll receive it. If we’ll wait until we understand it all, we’ll never receive it, but amongst it all, God wants to give us a demonstration of the Holy Spirit! God desires for his power to be shown and seen through us.
Parham had revival, but it was slow at first. Our first general superintendent, Howard Goss, was converted under Parham’s ministry in 1902. He was an atheist, but he was convinced of the truth when he saw people speaking in tongues. He came straight from atheism into the Pentecostal movement.
Goss did not receive the Holy Ghost at first. Parham came down to Houston and opened a little Bible school. Goss had gone to a meeting in Alvin and was headed back to Houston on a train. Some of the people hadn’t received the Holy Ghost, so they asked Parham to pray for them. Goss and eleven others were filled with the Holy Ghost on the train from Alvin, Texas.
Parham had a student named William J. Seymour. He was born in south Louisiana in Cajun country, and he had a Cajun accent. He was African-American, the son of slaves. He was born only five years after the end of slavery. He was African-American, Roman Catholic, and Cajun—what a combination!
He went to Indianapolis for work and joined a group called Evening Light Saints. They were a strict holiness movement. They are now known as the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana, but they are not quite as strict as they were back then. Seymour had been smitten with smallpox and consequently was blind in one eye.
Seymour came to Parham’s school in Houston. To our nation’s shame, it was a time of segregation, but Parham at least let him sit outside the open door to hear the lesson. Seymour became convinced that the baptism of the Holy Ghost, evidenced by speaking in tongues, was the Bible plan. He hadn’t received this experience yet, but he received an invitation to go to Los Angeles to pastor a small church. The woman pastor was going on the mission field, and she needed a replacement.
Seymour took the train to Los Angeles, went to the little church, and started preaching his doctrine. After the pastor, Julia Hutchins, listened to it, she decided that she didn’t believe this doctrine, so she locked the doors when he came back to preach again.
He didn’t have any place to go; he was stranded in Los Angeles. A couple in the church, also African-American, took pity on him. The Lee family let him stay in their home, and he started prayer meetings and Bible studies there. He began teaching about the Holy Ghost, and a little group gathered together. They were mostly African-American, but there were some visitors from other churches, mostly white, who came.
These meetings were on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles. The people were hungry for God, but nothing happened. Seymour contacted Lucy Farrow, the woman who had introduced him to Parham. She had received the Holy Ghost, and she came from Houston to Los Angeles to pray with these people to receive the Holy Ghost. But still no one had received the Spirit yet.
Seymour called for ten days of prayer and fasting for God to fill them with the Holy Ghost. On the third day, Edward Lee came home from a full day of work, and he was sick. The group was supposed to have service that night in the Asberry home on Bonnie Brae Street, so Lee said, “You’re going to have to pray for me. I’m too sick to go to the service tonight.”
Lucy Farrow and William Seymour laid hands on him to pray for his healing. The Spirit of God began moving, and Lucy Farrow said, “You can receive the Holy Ghost right here.” Right there in his home, Edward Lee began speaking in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance. He was also healed.
Seymour, Farrow, and the Lees went over to the Asberry home on Bonnie Brae Street, where they were having their meetings, and Seymour told the people what had just happened. Lee began giving his testimony. While he was doing this, the Holy Spirit fell, and some of the people received the Spirit right there. A young woman named Jennie Moore began singing in the Spirit even though she had never sung publicly before. Even though she had never had piano lessons before, she went over to the piano and began playing it, singing in tongues, and praising God. Three days later William Seymour received the Holy Ghost.
This is our heritage! It’s the demonstration of the Spirit!
The service started growing at the Bonnie Brae house. People would gather on the porch, in the front yard, in the street, in vacant lots, and in the street. The porch fell in under the weight of the people, so they decided they needed to find a bigger place.
They found a little building on Azusa Street, and within one week they had their first service. The Holy Ghost fell on Bonnie Brae on April 9, 1906. On April 15, they started the Azusa Street revival, which lasted for three years. People were praying almost twenty-four hours a day. They had services morning, noon, and night. For three years nonstop, people would come in and get converted. After a few weeks and months, people began to get the word across the country. Even overseas, they received reports in religious newspapers. Missionaries came home to see what was going on, and they received the Holy Ghost. Kenneth Haney’s grandmother was a missionary in Japan. She read about the Azusa Street Revival and came home specifically to receive the Holy Ghost. She received the Holy Ghost, got married, and went back as a missionary to Japan.
For three years, thousands of people gathered at the great Azusa Street Revival. The Los Angeles newspapers also spread the news. Three days after the revival started, here was the headline of the Los Angeles Times: “Weird Babel of Tongues.” The subtitles were: “New Sect of Fanatics Is Breaking Loose. Wild Scene Last Night on Azusa Street. Gurgle of Wordless Talk by a Sister.”
Here are some other early headlines about the Pentecostal revival: “Holy Jumpers Are Again Noisy.” Yes, they had the demonstration of the Spirit! How about this? “Holy Kickers Baptize 138.” One of the journalists tried to make fun of speaking in tongues: “Summer Solstice Sees Strenuous Sect Sashaying.” When the revival came to Indianapolis, the paper said, “The Giggly Blucks Are at It.”
A Holiness preacher named Glenn Cook visited Azusa Street. He was known for his demonstrative, wild worship, and he later became one of the pioneers of the Jesus Name message. He became the business manager at Azusa Street, serving as Seymour’s right-hand man.
When Cook first heard about Azusa Street, he did not believe in speaking in tongues, so he came over to straighten the people out. Seymour was a humble, kind man, and in the services he would wait on the Holy Ghost. If people said they had a word from God, he would let them preach or testify. Sometimes people would line up for one hour, standing and waiting for their turn to testify.
When Cook came, he waited for his turn to testify and then announced, “You can receive the Holy Ghost, but you won’t speak in tongues. God will sanctify you, but you don’t need to speak in tongues.” He proceeded to explain that the Pentecostals were all wrong.
While Cook was talking, Seymour just sat there smiling and praying. He didn’t say a word, but the more Cook began to rant against them, the more he became convicted as he watched Seymour. In the middle of his harangue against the Azusa Street Mission, he broke down and started crying. He confessed, “Please forgive me; I’m wrong. God is convicting me right now.” He fell on his face and asked, “Pray for me that I might receive the Holy Ghost.” He repented that night, and some days later God filled him with the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues. What a demonstration of the Spirit! In the middle of his fighting against it, God convicted him and turned him around.
In the leadership at Azusa Street, there were blacks, whites, men, and women. Mexican laborers came into the Azusa Street Revival and received the Holy Ghost. It was a multiracial, multiethnic group. Some Armenians and Russians attended a church with demonstrative worship, and when they heard what was happening at Azusa Street, it sounded familiar. They came over and received the Holy Ghost.
It wasn’t long until the Jesus Name message was revealed to people like Frank Ewart, Glenn Cook, and G. T. Haywood. When Haywood first heard the message in Indianapolis, he wasn’t sure about it. As he was riding in a streetcar the voice of God spoke to him, “Walk in the light, lest darkness come upon you.” He received a warning from J. R. Flower, the general secretary of the Assemblies of God, who wrote to him that Glenn Cook was coming his way with heresy and not to listen to his message. By the time Haywood received the letter, Cook had already come.
In the meantime, Haywood had accepted Cook’s message, and a total of 465 people of his congregation were baptized in Jesus’ name at that time. Haywood was African-American, and his church was about forty percent white and sixty percent black. He wrote back to Flower that his letter was too late; he had already accepted the Jesus Name message.
That’s our heritage! It’s the work of the Holy Spirit! It’s a revival of the name of Jesus! It’s not a white revival. It’s not a black revival. It’s not an English revival. It’s a worldwide revival! It’s a multicultural revival! It’s a global revival! It is the Holy Ghost revival! The demonstration of the Spirit! This is our heritage, and this is our destiny!
I chose to mention these things to you to show you what God wants to do. We know about the miracles of the Book of Acts. We know what it says about baptism in Jesus’ name and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. We know about miracles, signs, and wonders of the first century.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the same manifestations took place. If people could receive these things in the first century, and if people could receive these things in the twentieth century, why can’t we receive them in the twenty-first century? We can! The Apostolic, Holy Ghost, Jesus Name revival is for all races and people in the twenty-first century. If the first century could have it and the twentieth century could have it, then the twenty-first century can have it—just as much and even more. I claim it in the name of Jesus! A demonstration of the Spirit is what we need!
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
In other words, “I didn’t come to you with excellency of oratory” though we know that Paul certainly could have, but rather....
Decided, “My way of preaching will not be with oratory or rhetoric, not with human wisdom, not with philosophy, even though I know those things, because that is not going to get the job done. But I declare to you the testimony of God.”
I have come to declare a personal experience....a testimony
Though this world may try to intimidate us they cannot refute or take away a personal experience....the actual power of God manifested.
Don’t be intimidated by the world outside. You’ve got a testimony. You’ve got an experience. You’ve got a demonstration of the Holy Spirit. You know it’s true. Somebody who has a testimony is not at the mercy of someone who merely has a doctrine.
Let’s look at the testimony of a blind man in the book of John
And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
By simple obedience, this man was healed....a personal testimony, not merely a story of someone else some time ago....
The religious leaders of the time heard about the healing, but instead of glorifying God, their righteous indignation rose up and clouded their judgement.
They had become so side tracked with the fact that a genuine miracle had happened and potentially by an unauthorized person and that it was done on a sabbath day....they actually asked the man to deny what happened....
Consequently, they missed the work of God. They missed that God supremely wants to deliver people on the Sabbath day. It’s a day of rest. What better way to celebrate it than to give rest to a blind man and give sight to a blind man! They couldn’t see that. All they could see was their little position in their synagogue. It was threatened, so they brought the formerly blind man to them and began to interrogate and challenge him.
This story is reminiscent of a testimony of a man called Oliver Fauss
When he was seventeen years old, he went to the Elton Bible Conference in Elton, Louisiana, in December 1915. This is the conference where, for the first time in Louisiana, people taught about the oneness of God and were rebaptized in Jesus’ name. When he came back to Houston, he told his pastor about what had happened. His pastor was a staunch trinitarian. He had this seventeen-year-old to meet with the elders and ministers of the church, and they began to ask him questions about the trinity. He got so confused that he wrote in his biography that at the end of the meeting he didn’t know if there was one person in the Godhead or ten persons in the Godhead. But he went back in the field where he usually prayed, opened his Bible to Acts 2:38, put his finger on the verse, and said, “Lord, I don’t know the answers to those questions, but as long as this verse is in the Bible, I’m going to preach it.”
If you have an experience with God, then you have a testimony.
I’m not talking about something that’s not scriptural. I’m talking about something you can put your finger on and say, “The apostles preached it. The apostles received it. It happened for them. I’m just going to stand on it. It might seem simplistic; theologians might explain why I’m wrong. The theologians might explain why it can’t happen, but as long as it’s there, I’m going to believe it. I’m going to preach it. I’m going to practice it.”
The people asked the former blind man to explain?
He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.
They asked the man where he is that healed him
Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.
Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
These men where so bent on coming up with a logical reason for this event that they went back and forth several times even telling the man to give God the praise (not a man, not Jesus)............eventually even asking the mans parents.
Every time he was questioned, he kept going back to the same answer: “Here’s my testimony. You’re the theologians; you’re the experts. You know all about doctrine, but let me give you my testimony. Let me tell you what happened to me.”
They tried to convince the man that Jesus was a sinner and this was his reply:
He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.
The man couldn’t tell them much about Jesus or about what or why this happened but was in essence telling them “once he was blind and now he see’s....he was telling them “look at the evidence”
We can’t help but to read and to feel the humor in the man’s response
He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?
At the conclusion of the story, the pharisees finally gave up..not able to deny the evidence of what had happened
The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.
Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.
Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.
They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.
Similarly, It is like Glenn Cook, when he came to the Azusa Street Revival. “Tongues are false, tongues are not necessary, tongues are not of God.” The more he talked, the more the Spirit of God said, “You’re wrong. There’s something in here you haven’t received before. There’s something about that preacher who is sitting there smiling. He’s African-American. He’s blind in one eye. He’s a son of slaves. You might not think he knows much, but he’s got a Spirit that you don’t have. There’s something wrong with your doctrine, because he has an experience that’s bigger than your doctrine.
These stories where awesome stories of the past....but we need as well, testimonies and experiences in the 22nd century...
We must still continue to believe God for a miraculous experience, the demonstration of the Holy Spirit in our day!
After they expelled this man, Jesus came up to him and said, “Do you believe on the Son of God?”
The correct answer would have been, “Yes, Lord.” But this man didn’t understand everything. He answered in all honesty, “Who is He that I might believe on Him? I might believe on Him, if I know who He is.” Jesus explained, “The one you’ve seen, the one you’re talking to, He is the Son of God.” Then the man said, “Yes, Lord, I believe.”
He did come to faith in Christ, but it started with an experience. It started with a testimony. He did not have everything correct theologically, but the Lord led him to an understanding of truth.
We may not know everything at this point but if we continue in Christ, He will lead us to a deeper understanding in time....If we continue in him
As an example, the Azusa Street Mission did not officially teach and practice Jesus Name baptism as a doctrine. There’s a lot of the story that we don’t know about, but even though the Trinitarian Pentecostal histories are glossing over it, some people were baptized in Jesus’ name right from the beginning.
For instance, Charles Parham was baptizing in Jesus’ name at the beginning, before the Azusa Street Revival in 1906-1909.
A man named Dr. Joshua Sikes came out of Azusa Street and started a Jesus Name church in Los Angeles in 1907.
In 1909, some Mexicans were baptized in Jesus’ name at Azusa Street, went back to Mexico, and started the Apostolic Church across the border. They baptized in Jesus’ name.
These events took place before Frank Ewart and Glenn Cook rebaptized each other in 1914 to begin the Oneness movement.
The point of this is, even though all the participants of the Azusa Street Revival did not have everything correct, they received a genuine experience with God, and many continued to follow truth as they were faithful to their experience.
They began to understand where that experience came from and what that experience meant. They were able to develop a true understanding of water baptism in Jesus’ name, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and the oneness of God. In other words, we need both doctrine and experience.
The blind man had an experience, but he needed a doctrinal understanding in order to be saved.
That’s why Jesus came to him the second time. Jesus came the first time to deliver him out of his dilemma. He came the second time to give him enough knowledge to respond properly.
We ultimately need both doctrinal teaching and experience or demonstration of the spirit.
In short, we shouldn’t emphasize doctrine over experience or experience over doctrine;
we should have both. We should have Word and Spirit. We should have Acts 2:38, one-God, holiness preaching, and then we should expect miracles, signs, and wonders.
We must not be doctrinally right and spiritually dead.
We must not be spiritually enthusiastic and doctrinally illiterate.
We need the truth of God’s Word in our heart and in our preaching and teaching, and then expect the Lord to confirm the Word with signs following (Mark 16:20). We need an experience to match our doctrine.
And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.