(Singing) I know my God has made the way for
me. I know my God has made the way for me.
ANNOUNCER: When the fire of God comes as an answer to prayer,
get ready to see a mighty move of the Holy Spirit. Join
Gloria Copeland and her special guest Billye Brim for.
More on prayer, next on the Believer's Voice of Victory.
GLORIA: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Believer's
Voice of Victory. Billye Brim's with us today, and
she's going to be talking about the fire of God.
BILLYE: Mm-hmm. GLORIA: Whoo-oo. BILLYE: The fire
of God, the fire that was on the altar. You
know, yesterday, we were reading on this book, "Fire
on the Altar: And Those Who Carried the Flame." From
the Old Testament, there's a type of prayer on the altar,
the altar of God, and we'll just start with this Old
Testament scripture, II Chronicles 7:1. "Now when
Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from
heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices."
GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: "And the glory of the Lord filled the
house." GLORIA: Mm-mm. BILLYE: "And the priests could not enter
into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord
had filled the Lord's house. And when all the children of Israel
saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the
house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground
upon the pavement, and worshiped, and praised the Lord,
saying, for he is good." GLORIA: Yes, amen. BILLYE: "For his
mercy endures forever. Then the king and all the people offered
sacrifices before the Lord." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE:
And so we see this, the fire, this shekinah glory, the prayer,
"When Solomon had made an end of praying." And we see all of
that. God never changes. We see that in the temple, but we also
saw it at Azusa Street. GLORIA: That's right. BILLYE: And most
of you have heard of the Azusa Street Revival. I was just
thinking, before I came on here, the Lord told me, one time, to
go to as close to Azusa Street as we could get and have a
prayer meeting and bring out the old-time pray-ers-- GLORIA:
Mm-hmm. BILLYE: --Brother and Sister Halverson-- GLORIA: Yeah.
BILLYE: --John G. Lake's daughter. And I was standing
where Azusa Street was, and they were actually taking it away.
They were taking away the curbs. And there was a sign
there--where this exactly happened. And there was a sign
there kind of leaned over. And it said, "Azusa Street." And
then the Lord spoke to me, and He said, "A to Z, USA. Alpha to
Omega, USA. From beginning to ending, USA. From this street
that goes nowhere--" It was a little pie-shaped street.
"--through a people the world thought little of--" GLORIA:
Mm-hmm. BILLYE: "--I took this Pentecostal message around the
world." GLORIA: Oh, my, Jesus, that's true. BILLYE: And He did
it. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: But like every other move of God, it
didn't come in without prayer. Now, we're going to read a
little bit about some things that happened there. This is a
great book by Tommy Welchel. I met Tommy, know him very well.
And he--he was a--he was a rebellious guy, a kid in
Oklahoma, actually, running from the law. And he went out to
California. And two little ladies dressed in little flowery
dresses with buns on their hair, they saw him on the streets, and
they were kind and loving to him and invited him to come home.
And they give him a meal. So he went home with them, and he came
to a place called Pisgah, P-i-s-g-a-h. And it was a
ministry, had a--had a church and a ministry to street people,
but it also had little houses and little places where people
lived that had been on Azusa Street. And they were--they had
been children at the time of Azusa Street. And when Tommy
Welchel met them, they were older. You know, they were up in
years. And so Tommy changed, of course, under their ministry,
and he became very enamored with the stories of Azusa Street and
all what happened there. And so he would go to their houses. And
he wrote in here--the title of the book is, "They Told Me Their
Stories: The Youth and Children of Azusa Street." Now, one of
the things that happened on Azusa Street was the shekinah
glory was there. It would appear like a mist and sometimes like
flames of fire-- GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: --up on the rooftops.
GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: So I'm going to read you a couple of
those happenings. GLORIA: Good. BILLYE: And he would go to their
houses, and he would sit there at their feet. They'd give him
milk and cookies, and they'd tell him their stories. And
they--they decided that he was the one that God had ordained to
write their stories. And so he has--it's a wonderful, wonderful
read. And so here he goes to Sister Carney. Now, we're going
to read more about her. But Sister Carney, she's now up in
years, but she was just a young girl when Azusa started. We'll
read more about her later. But he goes to her, and he says, "Of
course, any discussion about Azusa turned to the shekinah
glory. When I ask about her experience with the presence of
God's Spirit, Sister Carney's face would light up. She
described it as being a part of heaven. To her, it was like
breathing pure oxygen. And to her wonderment, it was always
present, always present at Azusa Street." GLORIA: Praise God.
BILLYE: "When I asked her to describe the shekinah glory--"
GLORIA: The glory was always present. BILLYE: Always present,
like a cloud. GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: "When I asked her to
describe the shekinah glory, fire--" And sometimes like a
fire it came. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: "--she told this story.
She recalled that the fire department came out because of
a call that the building was on fire. When they arrived, they
didn't smell any smoke or see any evidence of fire. She didn't
go outside to talk to the firemen, but she remembered that
Brother Seymour, Brother Bosworth--" You remember
Bosworth-- GLORIA: Yes. BILLYE: He wrote, "Christ the Healer."
"--John G. Lake," you remember him, "and Smith and Sines, they
ran out and talked to the firemen. But Sister Carney did
go out one time and saw the flames for herself. The fire
department had--was called on several different occasions as
passersby would--" GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: "--report
seeing flames leaping up from the roof of the building.
Finally, Sister Carney asked John G. Lake why the fire
department kept coming back and looking for a fire. He explained
what he saw was that fire was coming down from heaven into the
building, and fire was going up from the building and meeting
the fire that was coming down." GLORIA: Oh, from two directions?
BILLYE: Yeah, two directions. GLORIA: Oh, I don't remember
ever hearing that. BILLYE: "Fascinated, Sister Carney went
out, walked about half a block, and saw the awesome sight for
herself." GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: "To her, this divine connection
of fire coming down from heaven and going up to heaven was just
further evidence of God's mighty presence in that place." GLORIA:
That's big. BILLYE: And remember, they prayed. Remember
Seymour and how he prayed and how he had the box he put on his
head. "Sister Carney noted that, although the shekinah glory was
present all the time within the building, but this divine
connection, when they could see the fire from heaven coming
down, the fire going up, it wasn't an every day occurrence.
And whenever this connection was present, the power of God was
more intense than even in the other meetings." This is full of
amazing things, but I chose to read some accounts of the fire--
GLORIA: That is so exciting. BILLYE: --because of the fire.
We've been talking about man and woman, ish and ishah and how
their very essence is fire. And with God in them, what a great
fire we kindle. And so there was this Brother David Garcia. He's
another one that he sits at his feet and asks him his stories.
And so he asked Brother David, "Did you ever see the flame?"
"He told me that there were times when he was coming to the
meeting late, and he would see the fire--flames as far away as
Grand Central Station. Brother Garcia would think, 'Whoo, God's
moving again,' and he would run to Azusa because he knew that
when the fire was falling, there was more power at the meeting,
and he wanted to be a part of it. He explained that the
experience was greater than breathing pure oxygen. There
were times the shekinah glory was only a foot high, and he
would lie down in it to breathe God's glory." GLORIA: Wow.
BILLYE: Others did that as well. GLORIA: A foot high. BILLYE: It
would be about a foot high off the floor, and they'd lie down
in it. One of them is a little girl--she was a little girl at
the time. She would play--run around and play in that. GLORIA:
Mm-mm. BILLYE: "He often stressed that the greater the
shekinah glory, the greater the power. He would note that the
flames were there when God, through Seymour--" Remember
Brother Seymour-- GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: --the one-eyed black
man, "--performed the miracle where a leg regrew and another
where the arm regrew." GLORIA: Parts. BILLYE: Now, these
absolutely grew from having been cut off. And it would happen on
those days when they could see the fire going up and the fire
coming down. "Garcia was there when the arm grew out. He said,
'Brother Tommy, he didn't have a ball joint in his shoulder. It
had been ripped out of there. I was close enough to be looking
right at the shoulder, and all of a sudden, I saw the bones
start to come out, and then flesh started coming out around
them. His arm just shot out in what seemed mere seconds as I
watched.' For Garcia, it seemed like he was watching in slow
motion as he was awed at what God was doing. Brother Garcia
was the first to tell me of Seymour's prophecy, that in
about 100 years, there would be a return of the shekinah glory
and a revival that would surpass the works of God--" GLORIA: How
long has it been? BILLYE: "--at Azusa." That was 1906 that it
began, and it lasted three and a half years. So we might even say
1910, so 100 years would be 2010, and now we're at 2017.
We're overdue. GLORIA: We're overdue, Billye. BILLYE: Mm-hmm.
Now, I'm going to go back and read you and talk to you--
GLORIA: That's so exciting. BILLYE: --about what brought
that Azusa Street Revival. GLORIA: Oh, good. BILLYE: You
remember that there had been the dark ages, and many of the
truths of the Bible had been locked up. And God had to
restore what the cankerworm had eaten. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: And
we talked about Sister Woodworth-Etter and how He
restored divine healing to the Church. And through the Azusa
Street Revival, He restored the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
and speaking with other tongues. And it started with Brother
Parham, Charles Parham, in Topeka, Kansas. He had a Bible
school with a question. The Lord showed him a big mansion that
was overgrown, grass growing all around it, but he had--it had
turrets that they used later for prayer towers. And the Lord
showed him, "That place is--I'm going to give you for a Bible
school." And so God supernaturally got it into his
hands. And 40 students appeared kind of, almost, supernaturally.
And one of them was a little Quaker missionary lady, and she
came into town on a train. She said, "The Lord showed me
there's going to be a Bible school in this town--" GLORIA:
Praise God. BILLYE: "--where I can find out what the baptism
with the Holy Spirit is." So it came New Year's, going from 1900
to 1901. And Parham went off on a speaking engagement, and he
left the students with this question: "All of you--" It was
a huge mansion. "All of you go to separate rooms and pray, and
see if you can find out what the Bible means when it talks about
the baptism with the Holy Spirit." So they all did that.
GLORIA: They didn't know, did they? BILLYE: They didn't know,
but they knew the Bible speaked of it--spoke of it. So they went
and studied, and they all came up with the same conclusion: The
evidence--the Bible evidence was speaking in tongues. And so one
minute past midnight--they had a watch night service. Parham
wasn't there, but the students were. And, oh, I forgot what her
name is. I used to know her name. She prayed--she prayed to
receive tongues, and she received, one minute past
midnight. And she spoke in tongues for days. Charles
Parham's granddaughter told me that she even wrote in tongues.
And they called in a linguist. GLORIA: How do you do that?
BILLYE: Yeah. When Charles--well, here's how she
did it: In an unknown tongue. When Charles Parham came back,
he called in a linguist, and what she was writing was
Mandarin Chinese. GLORIA: My. BILLYE: And she was speaking
Mandarin Chinese. GLORIA: Wow. BILLYE: And then they all got
baptized in the Holy Ghost and-- GLORIA: Doesn't that make you
feel like Ned in the First Reader? BILLYE: Yes. Yes, it
does. And Brother Parham got baptized in the Holy Ghost. And
then that room couldn't hold them, and they went out
preaching it. They went out to Galena, Kansas, and Baxter
Springs, Kansas, and all around there, and then they headed
south. And when they came through Oklahoma, my
great-grandparents got in on it. But they headed down to Houston.
GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And they went to Houston. And they
were preaching the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And there was a
black man there, and he asked if he could come in. You know, they
had segregation back in those days. And, of course, Parham
said, "Yes." And his name was Seymour. GLORIA: Seymour,
mm-hmm. BILLYE: Yep, Brother Seymour, one-eyed. He was blind.
And he believed that message. And so then he went out to
California, and he preached for this lady preacher in the
morning that the baptism with the Holy Spirit evidence was
speaking in tongues. When he got back that night, she had boarded
up the place and told him, "We're closing down this
meeting." GLORIA: Wouldn't let him back in? Oh, no. BILLYE: So
then he--there was a group there of people from her church, and
they said, "Come over to our house." This was April 6th,
1906. And they had a house on Bonnie Brae Street. GLORIA:
Yeah, I've heard of that. BILLYE: And they started
praying, and preaching and praying. And on the 9th, the
fire of God took them over, those same flames, that same
spirit of prayer took them over. And it grew and grew, and the
porch filled up and the yard filled up. And, actually, the
porch collapsed with the people on it. And-- GLORIA: And that
was in 1906? BILLYE: 1906, April the 9th. So then this is a few
days after that, and I'm going to start reading to you
from--this is--he heard this from Sister Carney again, and
she was 17 when this happened. "The police officers were polite
yet firm, and they said to Brother Seymour, 'Either shut
this down or rent a place like a regular church or auditorium.
You've gotten too big to meet at this home.'" And the porch was
falling for one thing. "So this revival meeting began as a small
gathering led by William Seymour in a home on Bonnie Brae Street.
It now flowed out to the front yard, the neighbors' yards, and
onto the street as Brother Seymour preached from the porch
of this small home in the Los Angeles area. Seymour had been
warned several times before and realized he needed a much larger
gathering place. The power of God was evident as the crowd
grew larger and larger every day. He was--he was looking for
a place to meet, and he found an abandoned warehouse that, at one
time, had been used as a Methodist church. It had also
been used as a stable, and animals had been in there. It
was perfect. But the only thing that kept him from renting it
was money." He had no money. GLORIA: Money. BILLYE: "So he
prayed to God what to do. That night, the need to move was
heavy on Seymour's heart. He prayed to God for direction, and
before the evening was over, he received his answer. God
instructed him to get on a trolley car as soon as the
service ended and go to Pasadena. True to God's
leadership, Seymour didn't argue, but rather headed for
Pasadena where it was illegal, at that time, for blacks to be
after dark." So it was late. "He rode the trolley until God
instructed him to get off, and then he followed, as God
directed him, to an apartment nearby. Sister Carney was just a
teenager of 17, but she was married. And she had arrived in
Pasadena earlier that day. She was to meet with several of her
friends who had been members of the First Baptist Church until
they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit." GLORIA: Ha-ha.
BILLYE: Somehow that didn't fit there, and so they had come
together to pray for revival. They were in this apartment--
GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: --and they were praying for a
revival. GLORIA: As God would have it. BILLYE: Now, "She had
come under the influence of some people back in Kansas, and so
they had received. And they were there praying in this apartment,
and they're praying for a move of God, and they're praying for
a revival. Just after 10:00, God brought together two elements of
a force that when joined together would usher in one of
the greatest manifestations of God ever experienced by man
since the birth of Christ, the Azusa Street Revival. Seymour
walked up to the apartment that God led him to and knocked on
the door. Sister Carney remembers the time to have been
about 10:30 p.m. The ladies went to the door together, and when
they opened the door, they found a black man, blind in one eye,
standing before them. For many people in that day, that might
have frightened them--" GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: "--but God was in
charge. And the owner of the apartment said, 'Can I help
you?' The answers to this simple and somewhat fretful question
would startle and astonish those gathered for prayer. They had
been praying for months in fervent prayer, and God
responded in this unusual manner. Seymour replied, when
they asked, 'Can I help you?' 'You're praying for revival,
right?' When the ladies responded with a unanimous
'yes,' Seymour made a bold statement, 'I'm the man God has
sent to preach that revival.'" GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE:
"Without hesitation, the ladies invited Seymour in. After some
exciting chatter, he preached to them and took up an offering
that was more than enough to rent the Azusa Street
warehouse." GLORIA: Wow. Isn't that something? BILLYE: "And so
the ladies--these ladies, they became a part of that Azusa
Street meeting, and they went down to help clean it out. And
Sister Carney said she was glad that she got to clean up after
the small droppings of the goats rather than cleaning up after
the droppings of the horses and the cattle." GLORIA: Ha-ha.
BILLYE: And, you know, he--he pointed out, there were lots of
beautiful cathedrals in that city. But, just like Jesus was
born in a stable, that Azusa Street Revival came in a stable,
a former stable, you might say. But it came in answer to prayer,
extreme prayer. They were praying when that baptism with
the Holy Spirit came in 1901. They were praying. They were
praying when this move of God came there. And so we're--I'm
reminded of Elijah and the fire. The fire of God is always there.
GLORIA: Yep. BILLYE: It goes up as the prayers. The people pray,
and they've got their fire on the altar. There's incenses
going up to God, and He's sending down fire from heaven.
And you remember the story of Elijah that's told in I Kings
18, Verse 30, it starts. And he had challenged the prophets of
Baal, you remember? GLORIA: Yeah. Fire came down. BILLYE:
"Whose God is God? Who's bringing this rain?" And the
fire came down. He had built--he restored the altar. It says he
restored the Lord's altar. And he took stones--the altar had
fallen down. He took the stones, and he built an altar to the
Lord. And then he said--he prayed to God, "Show Yourself
strong." GLORIA: Mm. BILLYE: And he had the--he put the--he put
the offering there. He put the bullock up on the altar. He had
to dig a moat, and he put water in that moat, probably from the
nearby sea. GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: And the fire answered
his prayer and came down from heaven and licked up the water
in the moat and licked up the fire. And he is given--in the
New Testament, in James 5:16-18, he is given as an example of
prayer. And it says, "The effectual fervent prayer--"
GLORIA: Yeah. BILLYE: "--of a righteous man avails much.
Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he
prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on
the face of the earth for three years and six months. He prayed
again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her
fruit." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: So this is given as an
example of how to pray for the rain, how to pray for the fire
like Elijah did. And it follows a verse right there in the 5th
chapter of James which says, "Be patient therefore, my brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth
for the precious fruit of the earth," the husbandman, the
farmer, is God. The earth is the field. And it says, "Be patient
for the coming of the Lord. The husbandman waits for the
precious fruit of the earth, and he has long patience for it,
until the earth receives the early and latter rain. Be you
also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the
Lord draweth nigh." GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: So God is
waiting for this outpouring of the former and latter rain
together. GLORIA: Yes, that's right. BILLYE: The former rain
was on Acts 2, the latter rain was Azusa Street. But he says,
just before the coming of the Lord, the former and latter rain
is going to come together, and it's going to ripen that crop,
that great harvest. GLORIA: Praise God. BILLYE: And then he
gives us Elijah as an example of praying. You should read that
passage in Elijah, how he put his head--he prophesied the rain
was coming, but he put his head between his knees, and he
prayed. He sent his--he sent his servant. "Is there any--see any
sign?" "No. No sign of rain." Seven times he sent his servant,
and finally, the servant said, "I see a cloud the size of a
man's hand." GLORIA: Yeah, yeah. BILLYE: He said, "King Ahab, you
better get out of here. Rain's a coming." The rains, the fires
are coming, but they're going to come in answer to the prayers of
the saints, the fire that goes on the altar of prayer will draw
down the fire from heaven, draw down the rains, and we'll know
those great final moves of God. But we have to be people in
passion to pray. GLORIA: Let me--let me share this before we
go. This is James 5. This is what's necessary for that to
happen in the Body of Christ. "So you must also--so you also
must be patient. Establish your hearts, strengthen and confirm
them--" BILLYE: Uh-huh. GLORIA: "--in the final--in
final certainty, for the coming of the Lord is very near." Here
it is, Billye. "Do not complain, brethren." This is the
Amplified. This is Verse 9. BILLYE: Oh, that's good. GLORIA:
"Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you
yourselves may not be judged. Look! The Judge is already
standing at the very door." So we're going to have to walk in
love-- BILLYE: We have to walk in love. GLORIA: --to open the
door for it, and watch the tongue and don't complain
against one another. That's just it. If you want the
manifestation of the power of God, we're going to have to walk
in love. BILLYE: We're going to have to walk in love and prayer.
And that's what happened with the Moravians. They had to be
bonded into that place of love-- GLORIA: Mm-hmm. BILLYE: --and
then they began to pray and fire fell. GLORIA: Praise God.
If you want it, we can have it-- BILLYE: But we have
to do what they did. GLORIA: --but we have to
walk in love. Billye and I'll be right back.
ANNOUNCER: We hope you enjoyed today's teaching from Kenneth
Copeland Ministries. And remember Jesus is Lord.
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