This article was originally written as a ‘Special Introduction’ to a reprint of Frank Bartleman’s ‘What Really Happened At Azusa Street?’ renamed ‘Another Wave Rolls In’ published by Voice Publications (USA) in 1962. It is included here as one of the earliest documents we have found that shows the seminal vision of a ‘restored church’ enjoying both recovered truth and the power of the Holy Spirit before Jesus returns.
Arthur Wallis, of Exeter, England, is a son of the late Captain Reginald Wallis and author of the well-known books, In the Day of Thy Power and God’s Chosen Fast. This article is taken from a booklet entitled, “Revival and Reformation of the Church” which in cooperation with the author we have adapted and expanded.
I deem the principles set forth in this article and Kokichi Kurosaki’s book, One Body in Christ, the most important and strategic message we have published. It is one thing to be right with God and enjoy a real measure of personal communion with Him. It is quite another to understand His greater purposes and let our personal experience be properly related to that all-inclusive end.
John Myers, President
Voice Publications
The story of the Church by Arthur Wallis………….
“Remember not the former things nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:18,19 RSV
In relation to this theme of revival and spiritual recovery, let us first survey the past, then view some of the significant trends of the present, and finally say a word about the prospects of the future.
THE PAST
If we are to understand what God is doing in these days—if we are to perceive His “new thing” for our day—we need to study the past. Not merely from history books, with their limited human viewpoint, but we must study history as we have light cast upon it by the Spirit through God’s Holy Word.
Let us take a brief panoramic survey of the work of God’s Spirit in the years that are past. As we scan the centuries let us try to discover the principles on which God has been operating. What has He really been after during the years of the Church’s history? This is important, for what God is doing today can only be rightly understood as we grasp the pattern of what He has been doing down through the centuries.
Obviously this is a large subject which could occupy volumes, but here we wish simply to point out what has been the master-strategy behind the successive quickenings of the Spirit that have blessed the Church in the past. In a word, we want to show that every wave of spiritual blessing has not only had in view the immediate renewal of spiritual life in that generation, but also the recovery of spiritual truth. That is, that in all the great spiritual movements through the years, the Lord has been seeking to recover lost truth and bring His people back to original Apostolic Christianity.
This reformation, or “recovery,” aspect of God’s moving through the centuries is unmistakable—and usually has been a balancing thrust in one or the other of two directions. Since truth and experience are inseparable and must be in balance if either is to reach its divine objective, we see the Lord moving either to emphasize doctrine and principle, or and fullness of life and power.
But whatever may be the emphasis or particular truth or phase of experience involved, in the mind and purpose of God there has always been but one final objective in view. That objective is a Church—washed by the water of the Word of God—which shall fully experience and fully express Christ, not only in the earth but in the whole universe.
But let us go back and trace through history this principle in action.
A Call To The Remnant 