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Shortly after this time Will Sowders
was fishing in Olmstead, Illinois. Though he describes himself as a rough
fellow, he must have been something of an idealist. He joined the police
force of his home town of Louisville, Kentucky. One day Will and another
officer got news of a gambling party. Without checking with their superiors,
they readied their horse-drawn paddy wagon and proceeded to raid the party.
To their surprise and everyone's embarrassment they found both the mayor and
the police chief were in attendance. This was a time when the Puritan ethic
in America was breaking down through the combined forces of prosperity and
the huge numbers of Catholic immigrants who were flooding the country. The
Catholics did not inherit the Puritan tradition. Disillusioned with this
hypocrisy, Will Sowders resigned from the police force, and decided to become
a hermit, fishing and hunting along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. He was
in his early thirties when he met this group at Olmstead. Sowders had
ambivalent feelings about the Pentecostals. He didn't like their speaking in
tongues. This made him mad. But he did like their music; and he noted that
they treated one another better than did the other Christians. As he got to
know them better he would offer to ferry people across the Ohio so they could
attend the meeting at Olmstead. Eventually, he was talked into attending the
services, and he was converted under the preaching of Frank Knight. The freedom of the early
Pentecostal Movement Too frequently, those who write about
the great Pentecostal revival at the beginning of the century project the
later situation back into that movement. They give the impression that the
Pentecostal revival was confined to certain churches and movements. Remember,
there weren't any Pentecostal churches then. The Pentecostal revival was a broad-based
movement that really did sweep the country; at least, every place where the
people were hungry for the things of God. One of the significance of the
outbreak of tongues was that no one knew what to do with, or what to make of,
or how to deal with this new revival. At first, they were not generally
inclined to oppose a new work of God, which was manifestly a work of God.
This revival broke out especially among those churches most open to a new
work of God. Because so many of the Pentecostals
were forced out of the established churches, there was much freedom. They had
to have church in their homes. They had no platforms, no special seats, no
routine order of service to follow. All the people could and were expected to
participate in the services. They found innovative ways to spread the gospel.
Brother Aubrey had a boat large enough to hold meetings. After Brother
Sowders got saved, he and Brother Aubrey would travel up and down the Ohio
River preaching the gospel. They would pull into every little town or
settlement and begin preaching. The people would hear about it; and they
would come. Often they were invited to preach in some home or church. Sister
Mary Snyder remembers when Brother Sowders pulled his boat into Louisville.
She was then a little girl, standing beside her mother. She thought Brother
Sowders was just like Jesus, preaching from the boat. Another option available to them was
the tent. The tent was an improvement on the brush arbors of earlier days.
When Brother Sowders got a tent, he was no longer limited to preaching along
the Rivers. He could travel anyplace and hold a meeting. That is how he got
his church started in Louisville. He pitched his tent in Louisville. It
really shook up the Pentecostals in Louisville. When he had a lot of people
gathered, he got a building. The tents were also used for camp meetings,
which the Methodists had abandoned in favor of retreats. One was expected to
hold a revival at a camp meeting. Brother Sowders did something different,
probably a first in the history of religion. He held schools in the tents and
at the camp meetings. At first the camp meeting school was at Olmstead, then
it was moved to Elco Hill. Because Brother Sowders allowed the "colored
folks" to attend the citizens at Elco gave him trouble. He then move the
school back to Olmstead. In 1934, he got the site at Shepherdsville. That Little Church After his conversion Sowders would
attend the breakfast meetings at the Shelton's home. Every morning at 9:00
the church would gather for prayer and worship. Sometimes they would get so
caught up in the Spirit they would let the breakfast burn. These prayer
breakfasts became the prototype for the form at our camp meeting. The order
at that little church would be the order which Brother Sowders would preach
as the order of the restored church. As the Pentecostals started to introduce
formalites, to organize, and to quench the Spirit out of their churches,
Brother Sowders would resist all the new formalities, eventually separating
himself from the other Pentecostals. This is the truth, which a deep study of
William Sowders is proving more and more. So in order to understand Brother
Sowder's message, it is important to understand what they had back there in
that little church. This doesn't mean that the movement didn't advance, but
part of the advance was recognizing how Babylon creeps into new movements
which try to perfect with the flesh what was begun in the Spirit. One thing
they did was to challenge one another. Their worship was not controlled by a
pastor. In fact, in that church they didn't even have a pastor. This does not
mean that they did not recognize the elders in the Lord, but there was no one
then who lorded themselves over the church. The assembly I was raised in was a home where we
worshipped, with about 20 saints. And we would go in there with no pastor. A
pastor that doesn't get in God's way is a dandy. Brother Knight was there and
Brother Shelton. No one was head over it as a pastor. We saw some wonderful
things happen in the meetings. God revealed things right there. When the
light of heaven is shining you can't hide. If you had a quarrel with your
wife someone would say, "You did so and so ... and so...." it was
rich. I'll tell you we were so anxious to come to church and see the manifestations
of God. There was no preacher to say "Alright we are going to start the
meeting; or, "Now, we will have testimony service." We started
testifying when we came in. But later things changed. I was reared in that little assembly in Illinois. For
two years I remained there after I was called to preach the gospel and
received the Holy Ghost. But in a short time after I left there was an
unsaved man promised to build a church house for them. He went around
soliciting money, and helped build the church. I went down there and did some
work on the platform, and built a Bible stand. I told them myself, "God
has always been in this little assembly, and there's no richer little
assembly." And I was right about that. But I said, "From now on you
are going to see a vast change in the worship in this place. This little
assembly isn't going to be blessed anymore like it was." The first thing they had to do was have a pastor.
They got a church, and a platform, and a Bible stand, and a chair for the
preacher; but they didn't have a preacher. They said, "We have to have a
preacher, and they got a preacher. The first thing you know they were as dead
as any formal church in the world. Brother Sowders never cared to be in
a separate class from the people. Anything I despise is for someone to say"Meet
Rev. Sowders." If there is a name I despise for them to call me it is
"Rev." Another thing that I despise is that I "preach". I
"preach" ? -- I "preach" ? -- I never did preach! The role of the pastor, and the role
Brother Sowders intended for the Moderator he appointed to succeed him, was
to keep the meeting open. He wasn't to dominate the service, but he was to
use his position to unblock anything which would get in the way of the free
flow of the Spirit. He was to allow anyone and everyone to speak and to
participate in the service, and he certainly wasn't to try to divide the
people, to discover enemies. Brother Sowders let his enemies speak. He
wouldn't set someone down for being opposed to him; but he would occasionally
intervene if someone was dragging the service down, or if someone was talking
on and on in a carnal mind. The type of people who he would let speak were
the type of people who, in the next dispensation, would be thrown out by the
Moderator; and the type of people who he would set down were the type of
people who would later come to dominate the meetings as featured speakers:
those who "killed" the Spirit by the spirit in which they were
talking, and by talking on and on. But, of course, we are learning to do
better. The way of the body of Christ is that we learn by our mistakes. Brother Sowders' first church was at
Evansville, Indiana. He was called to be the pastor there. The church was
already in existence. It seems to have been one of Parham's group. They
believed in being sanctified. The previous pastor was an attorney, possibly,
W. Faye Carothers, who is mentioned in Brother Patton's book. That group was
then teaching that any physical manifestations were of the flesh. This was
due to Brother Parham's reaction to the "excesses" at Azuza Street. The sanctity of the early
Pentecostal movement Again, because we tend to project
later problems back to the beginnings of the movement, these things have
obscured the beauty and the innocence of that first Pentecostal revival.
There was another revival, or rather the same revival, was going on in Wales
over in Great Britain, about the same time. I bring up the revival over in
Wales because it has gotten better press than the revival in the United
States, especially through the writings of Jessica Penn Lewis. She and others
tried to separate that revival from the one going on at the same time in the
United States. It is true that they weren't focusing on tongues evidence in
that revival though there was plenty of speaking in tongues over there. The
Welsh revival actually caused the stores to close down business. It reduced
the crime rate so much that the police were left with nothing to do. This is
well documented. You have heard Brother Giffin preach about the revivals of
Mary Woodworth-Etter, and the changes she would bring to the city where she
was preaching. In the United States the revival was scattered all over the
country, but it was mostly in the poor areas of the cities, and the rural
areas of the United States, where the people and churches were more open to
the new revival. There was a tremendous outpouring just as was prophesied in
the book of Joel. The revival planted the Pentecostals all over the world. I remember 35 years or more ago, that is, referring
to men like this for I saw Pentecostal people before I was converted. I saw
manifestations in their midst, and I saw them do what nobody else did. I told
my wife, "That people are more precious to each other than anybody I
ever saw. They carry flour, milk, potatoes to each other. In their houses
every day and night, and stayed almost all night." Of course, I had bad
thoughts about that; but I had to stay two nights until daylight to get the
baptism myself. But it was precious. Then when I got it, I saw meetings in
that little assembly of 25; and those meetings were rich and glorious, and
grand. It was nothing for me to be on the floor, and not able to stand up. If
I did not fall under the power of God, I was getting nowhere. Yes, indeed, I
would fall under the power of God. Women and men were falling and those who
had presence of mind were grabbing people out of the way to keep them from
others falling on them. In the earliest days people were
attracted to the Pentecostal movement simply because light was shining from
the people. Opposition and Persecution One might think that the whole world
would have rejoiced at the latter day Pentecostal outpouring. Such was not
the case. There was considerable opposition to the revival; and, ironically,
the greatest opposition came from those who were suppose to be the most
religious. This was also the case in the First Great Awakening, and the
Second Great Awakening. Those blessed possessors of the faith will be the greatest
opponents of all new works of God. They had forged weapons from earlier
revivals which they used against the Pentecostals; but these weren't enough
so they had to forge new ones. They wouldn't be much effective against those
who really had the experience; but they could influence those who were
willing to take the judgments of others about the Pentecostals. By the time
that most people got to see the revival, the Pentecostals and their
"Holy Roller" ways had already been described to them. The opposition was mostly on
theological grounds, but to understand these arguments, you need to know a
little bit of the modern history of theological development. Jonathan
Edwards, John Wesley, and the success of the revivals, had done much to
dilute the effectiveness of the antinomian argument, which was so effectively
used against the Quakers and others in the Seventeenth Century. This is an
argument against an interior experience, or against the notion that an
individual today could have a direct revelation or leading from God. You see
this even in the New Testament with the Pharisees, and others asking Jesus by
what authority he had for the things he was saying and doing. Jesus used
Scripture, but he also claimed a direct knowledge of God. He even dared to declare
the provisional aspect of much Scripture, or to add to it: "You have
heard it said, '....'; but I say to you, '...'". The Jews of that day,
for several centuries, had been influence by the Greeks and the Romans. The
most popular pagan philosophy was actually a religion: Stoicism, which was
worship of law. Under their influence some Jews began to call the books of
Moses, "the Law". They began effectively to worship the written
Scriptures; and that is how Paul was trained. The Bible, combined with the doctrine
of sola scripture, was certainly an effective weapon to use against
the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholics were manufacturing
Holy relics, sending pilgrims to sites where saints had been martyred or
where they had performed miracles in order that they would get some of the
merit of these saints; and teaching the miracle of transubstantiation, by
which only an authorized priest could turn the bread and wine into the body
and blood of Christ. Against all this magic and sham, the Protestants
asserted Scripture. In those days it was dangerous enough to quote Scripture,
but if you asserted the Spirit, you would certainly be burned by the
Catholics or drowned by the Protestants. The Anabaptists and George Fox, who
were victims of antinomian charges, knew more Scripture, and quoted more
Scripture, and with this knowledge of Scripture greatly intimidated those who
were persecuting them. The Catholics and Protestants had to say that the
gifts of the Spirit, miracles, and direct communication from God were only
for the apostolic church. They were needed only to plant the church, or to
establish the church; and after that was done, like scaffolding, they were to
be torn down and thrown away. This is the reverse of the idea of the church
falling into apostasy, or going into the wilderness. It is the idea of the
Church becoming victorious when it became the official religion of the Roman
Empire. To them it was victorious when there was no more Spirit of God left.
Let's be careful that we don't rationalize, as some have done, the movement
away from the spiritual freedom of Brother Sowders day. Some of the Protestants argued
against any presence of the supernatural in the modern world. They even
eliminated the idea that there was such a thing as spirits. This was a
logical development of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. God had
determined everything in the beginning, and all of history was merely the
unfolding of that plan. Of course, they couldn't and didn't deny the Bible
with all the supernatural and miracles which it contained. But all these
miracles in the Bible were predestined in the beginning. All things were
subject to God's laws of nature, which he established in the beginning. Being
predestined, everything could be explained by mechanical principles. Even
human beings were subject to mechanical laws. This view became known as
Deism, and it wasn't just the view of radicals, but of most of the Divines,
that is, the bishops of the Anglican Church. They said there were two books
you could read -- the Bible or the book of Nature, and it didn't matter which
you read, you would come to the same truths as are in the Bible. Since it
doesn't matter, the enlightened man will prefer the book of Nature, the Bible
having been written for the masses, who had no understanding. Here, of
course, was developing modern scientific naturalism and unbelief associated
with that. They eventually did try to explain everything in the Bible from
natural causes -- credulous ancient people, fortuitous coincidences of
comets, earthquakes, etc., historical fiction which the authors of the Bible
used to rationalize their own aims. One could go on and on. These modernist
have not been the main opponents of the Pentecostals. They have generally
ignored us; but, more recently, they have studied Pentecostals from a
sociological and a psychological perspective, and some of their ways of
thinking were used by the mainline churches in their opposition to the
Pentecostals. If you are secure in your experience, you will really be amused
by their analysis and conclusions. The more they view us as subjects of
study, the more sympathetic they can be; but they believe too much in the
modern world to experience what we experience. So, they will never be able to
understand someone who knows the Lord. During the Great Awakening, the Old
School, or Old Light Puritans challenged the idea that anyone could have an experience
of God. In this they were more extreme even than the Catholics, who would
allow that more recent dead people -- it was important that they be dead --
who had not seriously challenged the authority of the church, could have done
miracles, but only if these miracles were substantiated by Church
authorities. The Catholics allow inward mysticism, which affects only the individual,
and doesn't result in anything that would threaten the Church. More recently,
the Catholics have even accepted a revival of the charisma of the
early church, so long as the Charismatics fall all over themselves proving
that they are good Catholics, absolutely obedient to the Pope and the
teachings of the Catholic Church. The churches of the Old School Puritans
dried up, and almost all the new churches were either Baptist, Methodist, or
of the New School Presbyterian or Congregationalists. The Old School
eventually were forced to accept the New Lights and the New Light Ministers
who were trained in the log cabin schools of the prophets. A born-again
experience became the staple of American religion. |
