THINGS THEY DARE NOT TELL YOU
THIS year is the centennial anniversary of the Azusa Street outpouring in 1906 and to mark this occasion there have been a plethora of books, television programmes and celebrations to remind us of this glorious intervention by the Almighty in the affairs of men. There can be no doubt that in the early years of the last century there was a definite pouring out of the Holy Ghost – almost as if the Holiness and Divine Healing Movements that began in the late 19th century reached such a level of intensity that it elicited a response from Heaven.
The glory days of Pentecost followed. Pentecostalism exploded in the USA and in all the corners of the globe. Here in the Covenant Nation, churches such as the Apostolic Church and the Elim Movement began to multiply assemblies throughout the United Kingdom. The significance of this Holy Spirit deluge should indeed be celebrated but there is a glaring omission in most of the celebrations, books etc in honour of Azusa Street and the Pentecostal movement that flowed from it. That omission is deliberate and will be rectified in this article.
It is this: many of the principals involved in the Pentecostal movement at its inception and the Divine Healing movement that both preceded and merged with it -were believers in British-Israel. And to these mighty generals, Pentecostal blessings were confirmation of their British-Israel faith. Indeed, it is well-documented that Azusa Street was not the actual fount of the 20th century Pentecost. The learned among my readers will know that the Pentecostal out pouring can actually be traced to the ministry of Charles Parham and that speaking in tongues as evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit was being experienced by saints in Topeka, Kansas under Charles Parham’s ministry in 1900. Among the first to receive was a woman called Agnes Ozman, who spoke in a Chinese tongue and was unable to speak in English for three days.
Charles Parham is widely regarded as the “Father of Pentecost” and it was under his ministry that the man credited with being the catalyst of the Azusa Street outpouring, William Seymour, received the teaching of Holy Spirit baptism. Parham’s role in Pentecost is not disputed by any serious scholar on the subject. Many books and articles credit him with being the man responsible for bringing this great truth – and experience – to the world. What is not widely known about Charles Parham, however, and what is deliberately left out of many sources, is that he was a fervent believer and teacher of British-Israel truth. To Charles Parham, and others like him, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was proof of what he believed and preached – that God intended to bless His Israel peoples in those lands they had settled, namely Great Britain, the USA, Canada and other British dominions, as well as the Scandinavian nations. It wasn’t that he believed the blessing was only for these peoples (after all, Seymour was a black man and Parham welcomed him at his Bible School), but that the blessing was because of the Israelite ancestry of these peoples and was to come through them. To Parham and others like him, the Holy Spirit being poured out was Divine Testimony to the coming Kingdom Age, when through God’s Servant People, the Gospel would be preached to bring healing to the nations.
A contemporary of Charles Parham was the famous healing evangelist, F.F.Bosworth, author of the classic book Christ The Healer. Again, it is not generally known that Bosworth was a firm believer in British-Israel. Bosworth preached a sermon which became a classic – The Bible Distinction Between The House Of Israel And The House Of Judah. Bosworth believed that lack of understanding of this distinction seriously hampered the church doctrinally and experientially. Sadly, he has been proven right. Bosworth was a disciple of one of the true giants of the church, John Alexander Dowie, the man singularly responsible for bringing the message of Divine Healing back into Christianity. Dowie, originally from Edinburgh, was also a staunch exponent of British-Israel truth, a fact that is obscured from many accounts of his life and ministry.
Here in Britain, George Jeffreys, the man who founded the Elim Foursquare Alliance, also preached the British-Israel message. Principal Jeffreys regularly packed the Albert Hall and other venues throughout Britain and Europe and had many outstanding healings take place in his ministry. As well as the Elim Alliance, many of the leaders involved in the Apostolic Church in its early days were British-Israel believers.
The involvement of these great giants of Pentecost with the Israel Identity message has been shamefully excluded from many histories and biographies. It has been swept under the carpet as an inconvenient detail but for these men, knowing that the people they were ministering to were, broadly speaking, racial Israelites, was a great motivation and confirmation to them. We celebrate their lives and their achievements and we stand in awe of the great anointings on their lives. Yet if we do not take stock of what to them was a massive part of what they believed and stood for, is it any wonder we cannot replicate the impact they had in their day in our
generation?
Many truths have been lost to the church but then restored: justification by faith, Divine Healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, prosperity, the Word of Faith and so on. And the time is coming when this great truth will sweep the world, that the peoples of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian ethnicity are descended from ancient Israelites exiled for their disobedience and led into captivity. In the Christian era, these peoples have done more to spread the Christian Gospel than any other people, just as Scripture foretold they would.
Central to the message of British-Israel is the truth that the Royal House of Britain is descended from King David. These giants of early Pentecost and the Divine Healing movement faithfully and fervently preached this truth.
In this centenary year of the Azusa Street outpouring, it would be fitting to remember the real story of the early Pentecostal movement. Uncomfortable though it may be to many in 2006, the simple truth is that to the pioneers of Pentecost a century ago, omitting the Israel Identity dimension to the story is to defraud people – and the Lord Himself – of great glory.
An interesting footnote; Two of the most powerful and successful evangelists in modern church history have an undeniable link to British-Israel. Reinhard Bonnke, the German evangelist who has led millions to Christ, believes strongly that he received his mighty anointing when an aged George Jeffreys laid hands on him in London in the 1960s. Also, Billy Graham, another who has led millions to Christ, was himself converted under the ministry of Mordecai Ham, a famous proponent of the Israel Identity message. Please see Charles Jennings’ excellent web resource on British-Israelite influences in early Pentecost and the Healing & Holiness Movements; http://www.truthinhistory.org. §
Courtesy: The Preacher
