As I have stated this week, all of our DSM staff work remotely, with the exception of the product department, and do so from 4 states. This has worked well, both for them and the ministry. Since we are rarely together, we have a week-long retreat each year to build camaraderie and necessary team dynamics. This is that week.
I have asked five leaders, all of whom carry God’s heart for America, to do this week’s GH15 posts for me. They have been tremendous, and today’s, by my friend Larry Sparks, is superb. Larry serves as publisher for Destiny Image. His book, Pentecostal Fire (available at Amazon), is, without question, one of the best I’ve read on revival. His contact info is included at the end of today’s post.
Larry encourages us that revival has already begun and challenges us not to despise small beginnings; acorns become oak trees! This post will light a fire in you. Here’s Larry.
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Next Stop: The Shekinah Glory - Prophetic Word from Azusa Street
“Tell My Church I am reintroducing her to Pentecostal Fire.” Since Holy Spirit gave me this mandate in early 2021, I wrote the book Pentecostal Fire to provoke readers to cry out for the fullness of revival in their lives and in their generation. “Pentecost” is an old-time word, but if we want to move in Book of Acts-level power, we must return to Pentecost to advance into the future.
Back to the Future
I recently made my own prophetic visit to “Pentecost past.” Like any good Spirit-filled believer, I journeyed to the Bonnie Brae House, which is where the 1906 Azusa Street Revival was ignited. Since I didn’t have an appointment, I wandered outside, praying for any insight Holy Spirit wanted to release. I laid my hands on the outside gate, praying, “Lord, do it again. We need that kind of landscape-changing move of God today.” Good news: it’s stirring and brewing.
Then, Holy Spirit spoke an unusual phrase to my heart. It brought much clarity to what I had been prayerfully processing in this season. He said, “Don’t Stop Short of the Shekinah Glory.” Let me provide some context.
Don’t Criticize the Acorn Because It’s Not Yet an Oak Tree
When God is moving, we can fall into one of two extremes if we’re not careful: Criticism or complacency. Criticism rejects present revival stirrings because the move of God is still in its infancy. Complacency occurs when genuinely enthusiastic Christ-followers claim that what is currently happening is the fullness of the great end-time revival.
What’s happening right now–Asbury and the campus outpourings, the Jesus Revolution movie, and all the prayer, worship and repentance gatherings–is the great revival in acorn size. Pastor Bill Johnson of Bethel Church speaks of revival beginning as an acorn which ultimately grows into a mighty oak tree. It would be foolish to look at an acorn and treat this seed like it was already the mighty oak; it would be equally foolish to completely dismiss the acorn, rejecting it as false because it had not matured into adulthood yet. We don’t reject an infant because he or she is not grown-up yet; we celebrate every step of the child’s development. This should be how we steward revival in every phase.
How Will You Respond to the Trickle?
We don’t reject an acorn because it’s not an oak tree; likewise, we don’t reject a trickle because it’s not yet a mighty rushing river. Ezekiel’s River encounter started with a trickle. The prophet recounts: “Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side” (Ezekial 47:2). How we steward the ‘acorn’ and the ‘trickle’ is essential, as it reveals to Heaven if we are fit to venture into deeper depths. Heaven does not seek the flawless; simply those who refuse to graduate from being hungry for more.
What caused Ezekiel to move from a trickle to ankle-deep to being fully immersed in the river? A desire to keep moving into deeper waters. After he experiences the river in “trickle” form, we see how Ezekiel decides to move forward: “Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep.” He didn’t criticize the trickle because it was small, nor did he camp out at the trickle, claiming it to be the full River–Ezekiel simply went onward because he was convinced that there was more.
“Don’t Stop Short of the Shekinah Glory”
Back to the Bonnie Brae House prophetic word: “Don’t stop short of the Shekinah glory.”
Shekinah is a Talmudic Hebrew term that describes a Biblical reality. God’s Shekinah Glory is His majestic, manifest presence that visibly dwells among humankind. God manifested His presence in the Old Testament as a pillar of fire and cloud. When He descended upon Mount Sinai, He came with thick smoke, lightning, and all manner of activity that human senses could experience.
The Shekinah was the holy Presence of God that dwelt behind the tabernacle curtain, beyond the veil. It was widely inaccessible to everyday people. One had to navigate appropriate Old Covenant protocol just to be represented before God’s holy Presence by the high priest. Then the cross changed everything.
How do I know the Shekinah glory is accessible to believers today? The New Covenant in Jesus’ blood grants us access to experience in fullness what those in the Old Testament could only taste and see in part. Pentecost was not a theological concept; it was a release of divine glory. Tongues of fire appeared visibly over the heads of the Upper Room company. The sound of a mighty rushing wind brought multitudes to see and hear what was going on. The atoning work of Jesus dealt permanently with the veil of separation that kept mankind at a distance from the Shekinah; now, this glory lives in you, and you have access to drink deep of its endless riches.
We might be witnessing a “trickle” of that Shekinah Glory right now, but I believe Scripture and revival history provokes us to keep crying out and moving forward.
God is Not a Concept or a Theology; He’s a Person.
I have a strange “life Scripture.” It’s not “I can do all things through Christ” or Jeremiah 29:11. Mine is Isaiah 64:1 because it represents everything my heart burns for: “Oh, that You would tear open the heavens and come down, that the mountains would quake at Your presence” (NASB).
A landscape-changing Holy Spirit outpouring is a theological availability–but what makes an available blessing become an accessible reality for us today? An Isaiah 64:1 cry of desperate, constant prayer. Our intercession builds a bridge between theological availabilities and living realities. Isaiah 64:1 exposes a heart that is dissatisfied with head knowledge and theological concepts; it reveals one who knows that God’s Shekinah glory is available and that we cannot settle for anything less.
Isaiah 64:1 is the appropriate response of a Biblically literate follower of Jesus and student of revival history. I pray that you consume enough Bible information and revival testimony to reach a breaking point—where you can no longer live satisfied with good theology without longing for the living God to tear open the Heavens and break into real-time and space with His Shekinah glory. Oh, that the response would be as it was on the Day of Pentecost–the onlooking masses would witness in awe asking, “What must we do?”
Pray with me:
Lord, tear open the Heavens and come down. I’ve read too much to be satisfied with status quo. Everything I see in Scripture and history reveals that You are the God who manifests Himself. For the sake of a world under the influence of darkness, manifest Yourself. And Lord, here I am – use me to move through!
Any area of my life that is not compatible with hosting greater measures of Your Presence, Holy Spirit, release the gift of conviction. Make more space for me to host Your Shekinah glory. I’m so grateful to be born again and that Holy Spirit lives in me. But Lord, I ask that Your Spirit would rest upon me as He did Peter and Paul, as He did Smith Wigglesworth, John G. Lake, and DL Moody, as He did upon the 120 gathered in the upper room at Pentecost.
Father God, show us what it looks like to see an open Heaven over a household, a city, a region, yes, over a nation. We celebrate the trickle – but we will contend for the glory deluge.
Our decree:
We decree that the God Who moved in revival, fire and glory in times past will do it again!
We decree that the God of the Great Awakening, Who swept America with conviction, mass repentance, and societal transformation, will sweep America again. The God Whose Presence descended upon the tens of thousands gathered in the Kentucky frontier during the Cane Ridge camp meetings will descend again. The Holy Spirit, Who fell like Pentecostal fire upon the Azusa Street saints, manifesting His glory as a physical cloud, where limbs grew back because of the thickness of His presence, will fall again.
We pray these hymn lyrics from William Booth:
Look down and see this waiting host,
Give us the promised Holy Ghost,
We need another Pentecost,
Send the fire today!
Click on the link below to watch the full video.
Today’s post was written and recorded by our friend Larry Sparks. Larry has been in ministry for more than two decades. He serves as publisher for Destiny Image and travels internationally, teaching on revival, strategy for sustained spiritual awakening, and Pentecostal Fire. Larry holds a Master of Divinity from Regent University in Church History and Renewal and hosts regular programs on God TV and the It’s Supernatural Network.
Portions of today’s post were taken from Larry’s book Pentecostal Fire which is available at Amazon.
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