Sparks From the Anvil

Frank Bartleman was an instrument of God in the early Pentecostal movement, first in the United States and then around the world.  The following soul-stirring words are from his history How "Pentecost" Came to Los Angeles:  As It Was in the Beginning.  The entire book deserves reading but these are a few "sparks from the anvil."  One of his favorite phases--which he used often--is "history repeats itself" as he made various critical observations about the time in which he lived.  His words are as pertinent today as they were when he wrote them:

"Millions are shut up in fixed systems of finality, both doctrinally and experimentally.  They are bound, and frightened to move out with God in His great, green pasture.  Tied to a stake, the pasture is all gone.  The stream is moving beneath them, but they fear to let go the bank, separate from past attachments, and trust themselves to the current of God's onward move in restoration of truth once lost.  Heathen, not indoctrinated, realize God's sovereignty of operation.  They get the most.

"Both Jonah and Balaam had the 'gift of prophecy,' but were largely graceless men.  We need holiness of heart.  It is a vital error to substitute light for heat.  'Knowledge puffeth up, but charity (love), edifieth.'  Read 1 Cor. 13, once more.  Be not drawn away from 'the simplicity that is in Christ.'  Faith gets the most, love works the most, humility keeps the most.  God's vision comes to humble men.  He who seeks to make foot-prints and do sublime things is a failure.  A self-conscious poser is a loser.  Let self intrude and the whole is spoiled.  Excellency is proportioned to the oblivion of self.  A fisher for compliments has lost God.  Self-consciousness must go.  We are too conscious of the other fellow also.  We need God-consciousness.

"Humility, not infallibility, becomes fallen creatures.  Water seeks the low places.  Infallibility is the apex of Satan's proposition to man.  The deepest repentance and humility, our own frailty and weakness, must be realized before we can know God's strength.  Receding guns vanish out of sight after firing.  And so must we, for safety.  We need to be 'broken.'

"Zealous religionists care only for the triumph of their particular doctrine or party.  Any one can have a standing and prestige if they will but work for some party's selfish interest.  To stand for principle alone is another thing.  Such are little understood.  A selfish person can never understand unselfishness.

"Most people need to carry a burden to keep steady.  Waiting is God's common instrument of providential discipline.  He tries acceptable men in the furnace of affliction.  Most great men accomplish their life work in a short time.  It burns them up.  No man creates his own times.  The times create the man.

"The devil has no conscience, the 'flesh' has no sense.  Then why expect them to behave themselves in meeting?  We should act and speak as in the immediate, conscious presence of God.  Settle all differences before His throne also.  Protect others' good name and they will speak well of you.  Our influence, for good or evil, sets waves in motion only to break on the shores of eternity.  A little push just at the right time, may hurl a soul to hell, or lift it to Heaven.

"Priest-craft is passing away.  Men think for themselves today, not one man for thousands.  The Holy Spirit will not resign His authority to any man or party.  We have too much dogmatic controversy.  To analyze Christ is to destroy Him.  Terms mean little, except for conscious realization."