Sid: I have the Director of Morning Star Ministries Rick Joyner on the telephone. I’m interviewing him on one of the most powerful books that I have read in a long long time. It’s one of these books that will get you hungrier for God than you are. And the truth of the matter is your mind says you want to but you’re not doing anything about it so you need a good kick in the pants by the Holy Spirit. Rick Joyner I think that if this book doesn’t do it nothing will what do you think?
Rick: Well, the stories included there you know a lot of that I’m just quoting the history; it’s facts straight from the newspapers, straight from the accounts of those revivals from personal witnesses and…
Sid: But it makes me so hungry for God when I read this but you have a prophetic edge to what you’re writing you’re not just writing history you’re writing what’s about ready to happen.
Rick: Well, I do believe it is a prophetic history that is many ways are outlines or guidelines for, I believe revivals that are going to come upon America, Europe many other places in these times and that’s why I wrote them. But the accounts themself have got to make you jealous; I mean they should provoke us to jealousy.
Sid: Well this revival, the Welsh revival, 10,000 miles away there were some people by the name of Frank Bartleman, and William Seymour, and Pastor I don’t know how to pronounce it Smiley.
Rick: Uh ha.
Sid: And Bartleman wrote to the human agency that God used for the Welsh revival. How in the world did Evan Roberts have time to even answer his letter?
Rick: Well, I think he was so sensitive to the Lord because he was inundated with mail, I’m sure he had far more mail than he could even read much less answer. And he would get this one and take the time and communicate with Bartleman like that; it was one of the two major sparks of the Azusa Street revival; it is truly remarkable. Just another demonstration of his discernment.
Sid: But if he had no communicated with him who knows if the revival would have…because he gave him advice on what was necessary to get the revival going. You can see God’s hand on that and you’re right it had to be God for him to take the time and write a how to manual if you will. And tell me about this fellow Charles Parham.
Rick: Charles Parham you know was I think rightly credited by many of being the grandfather of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Azusa Street and whole Pentecostal movement. And you know he too had a remarkable hunger for God and when he read the accounts of the way God moved in the early church he just became jealous. And why can’t God move that way here now; and he started praying the Baptism in the Holy Spirit like the early church apostles and…
Sid: Well, it seems to me in reading your book he was constantly challenged by the great divide between what he read in the Bible and what was going on in the churches.
Rick: Oh yeah he was, and he became desperate. He didn’t turn his back on the church though he turned to God for the answers you know. And I think that’s a big difference, a lot of people just become disgruntled and discouraged and this way and he didn’t. He exercised his faith and said “God can do it again and God will do it again.” And he pursued God for years before he experienced what he was seeking. But you know I think there’s a basic spiritual principal that anything that comes to easy or too fast is usually insignificant. And some of these like Evan Roberts, and Parham, and you know William Seymour, Bartleman these guys went through literally years of desperate search for God. It’s because of the significance of what He wanted to pour out through them they never got discouraged.
Sid: But now there was a prayer meeting on January 1, 1901 that you and many others say was a defining moment of Christianity for the 20th century; tell me about that.
Rick: Well, that was the first time that it’s recorded in modern history in that and you know or in a way I guess it had to impact of someone speaking in tongues again. And the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was evidence of speaking in tongues and it sent shock waves, you know it started with the single girl. And it just sent shock waves throughout the Body of Christ for some reason and got peoples’ attention why don’t we do that, “Why don’t we have the same gifts that they had in the first century.” And many many became challenged with just “Why don’t we see the same things today that they saw in the scriptures.”
Sid: Now Parham had a Bible School, and segregation was big time at that time, but there was son of a slave; a one eyed black man by the name of William Seymour. Is it true that he would go to Parham’s meeting sit outside the door because he wasn’t allowed in?
Rick: That’s true Parham would leave the door cracked for Seymour to just sit outside, but he was so hungry and I think Parham really loved William Seymour but he was just captured in the old south segregationist mentality. And he had what he thought was theological basis for it. And you know he kept it until the end of his life sadly you know; I think that’s what would cause Parham to actually later even reject the great move of God that he had helped prepare the way for which too often happens.
Sid: The human problem.
Rick: It is and it’s repeated throughout history, but Parham I think he still deserving of honor and it’s a tragic shame that this one thing kept him from really entering; it was kind of like Moses he could get to the edge but God wouldn’t let him go in the promise land.
Sid: It’s almost like Martin Luther; look at all the wonderful things Martin Luther did and then later in life he wrote all this stuff that Hitler used to inflame people against Jewish people
Rick: Yeah, it’s a tragedy you know the real fly in the ointment. You’re right I believe we still need to learn from and honor but there are many things we want to discern and not copy, not take from others.
Sid: Okay, but I’ll tell you of all the people in the revival the one that intrigues me the most is that black man by the name of William Seymour; tell me about him.
Rick: He is one of the great men of God of all time I think that there is no question about that; you know for his hunger, for his faith, his devotion against all opposition; humiliations everything else he just would not give up in his pursuit of God. And even you know, he spent years in pursuit of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It poured out Azusa Street until almost all the other members of the prayer meeting except for him.
Sid: And he’s the leader.
Rick: He’s the leader, everybody else gets it and he didn’t give up he was thankful for them happy and kept on his own pursuit until…
Sid: I’ll tell you what I don’t think I could have handled that Rick. (Laughing)
Rick: Great soul and he was truly one of the great souls of Christian history. You know I was asked to speak at a Divinity School over at Wake Forest University and I was carried over there. And you know this was on old Southern Baptist School, not a Pentecostal; it was a Baptist University and they had this Hall of Faith that they had erected. The Dean of the school took me around. He wanted to show me the only member that they had put in the Hall of Faith from the 20th Century was William Seymour; who had the Pentecostal Revival. They considered him one of the greatest, possibly the greatest man of God of the 20th Century, remarkable.
Sid: What would happen at one of his meetings?
Rick: Well, anything could happen you know, there were stories…
Sid: That’s my kind of meeting but go ahead. (Laughing)
Rick: They could not have been boring that’s for sure, I mean they attracted every kind of person, the super wealthy would sit next to washerwoman, and I mean they were on a…they finally rented the stable at Azusa Street with a dirt floor. It wasn’t dirt it was actually a dung floors like the stable the Lord was born in you know.
Sid: Oh my goodness.
Rick: And I mean they would be on their knees on their faces you know, they would and just anything could happen. God could use anybody in any of the meetings and sometimes William Seymour the leader would be seen sitting in a corner with a box over his head because he didn’t want to be distracted by people he just wanted to seek the Lord.
Sid: My goodness what would happen if in every city in the United States the Pastor of the First Baptist Church would on a Sunday morning put a box over his head and let anything happen that wants to happen? I think we would have another major revival.
Rick: Yeah, there’s and that’s the kind of a it seems like one true basic characteristic of faith of these great revivalist who sparked these great revivals or moves of God in history was they wanted God more than they cared about anybody on this earth thought. And that’s what Paul the apostle said, “If I were still seeking to please man I would not be a bond servant of Christ.” And I think we’ve got to be delivered of that fear of man and even the desire and getting our encouragement by how many people come to our meetings or how many people buy our books or anything else. But are we pleasing God, is He coming to our meetings. You know when He comes I don’t believe even the best preachers are going to get the attention when He REALLY comes. And that’s in his manifest presence and that’s what Moses was talking about. You know he’s always with us, he abides in us; we have His Holy Spirit. But there’s something entirely different about the manifest presence of the Lord where He really manifest Himself in His presence. And one touch of that you don’t want anything else you know, I think that everyone who loves the truth loves good preaching, loves good books, and things like that where you’re hungry for it. But more than everything else we signed up to get God, we signed up for him. You know when He comes I think a lot of the things that we really built our ministries on and even our churches and everything else we’re going to see them as not being that important and maybe even insignificant.
Sid: Rick we’re out of time.
