Nothing new under the sun!
Listen there’s nothing new under the sun!
The last several days I have been reading a book by the famous Frank Bartleman called Azusa Street. Of course it’s his eye-witness account of what happened during the 1906 Los Angeles outpouring of the Holy Spirit and one of the most famous revivals that have ever occurred. He chronicled more about Azusa Street than any other writer, but was also so touched by what happened that his personal bias shows through on every page.
I not only encourage you to read it, but I think you will get a number of chuckles out of it as well. Last night as I was reading I couldn’t help but laugh when I read the part about how they were all singing in the Spirit (a brand new thing by the way that had broken out in those meetings) and some of the people insisted on going back to the Hymnal – (also a brand new thing) and how the hymnal and all that “new music” from Bartleman’s perspective was ruining the meetings. Catch of few of his insights (pg. 55) “The people drove out the Spirit by the use of the hymnals and selected songs of the readers. It was like murdering the Spirit and was most painful to some of us, but the tide was too strong against us! These hymnals today are too largely a commercial proposition and we wouldn’t lose much without most of them!”
Now does that crack you up or what? It hasn’t been all that long ago when so many were up in arms when the new songs and choruses were beginning to be sung and so many people were screaming about not using the hymnal anymore!
And yet just 100 years ago – here are the people of the Azusa Street revival complaining that these new things called “hymnals” were “murdering” their meetings. I guess things don’t change much do they? No wonder Solomon wrote that a glimpse of life always leaves you saying, “there’s nothing new under the sun!”. Just a thought.
