Embracing the Holy Spirit’s Power Today | Larry Sparks @DestinyImage

We do not want to condone or celebrate disorder or weirdness for the sake of being weird, but at the same time, I do not want to stifle or quench the Holy Spirit. I believe God is and is ready to pour out His Spirit without measure. My question is, are we trying to give God terms to work with? Often cessationism is birthed out of experiential theology mixed with offense.

Lord gave me a word.

If you want to step into revival, if the church wants to experience the full move of the Spirit, then you actually need to be willing to pay the price for what, you know, in the 1900s with the advent of Pentecostalism, 1906, you had the Azusa Street Revival. We have seen unfortunately in the last 20 years, even charismatic Pentecostal churches get a little bit light about the Holy Spirit.

Right.

Or even apologetic about the Holy Spirit. And the Lord said, I wanna reintroduce my church to Pentecostal fire. And that was the genesis behind that book.

So is it a lot of teaching, stories, combination of both?

It's a bit of an interesting hybrid. It is teaching, it is stories, it's revival history. I even have a whole chapter called Who Unplugged the Power about the lie of cessationism.

That's good.

Because the bottom line is nobody unplugged, like God did not unplug his power. It's what we ended up believing about the Holy Spirit that disconnected us from a flow of His presence and power that's been with us since the day of Pentecost. So—

So like when you write something like that, obviously to me, I look at a book, okay, here's the book. All right, here's the outline of the book. You're touching on what, 3 or 4 different topics in one book? How are you able to kind of like hone in on each piece and give it enough attention to fit in the book?

And to make it actually make sense and keep it organized. Well, the great grand theme of it was Pentecostal fire restoring the church really to the model that we see in the book of Acts. So everything falls under that. So all the stories, all of the history, even the chapter on cessationism and this belief that the Holy Spirit doesn't move or demonstrate Himself with that power anymore, it all falls under that headline that, hey, when did God ever change the blueprint for the church?

Hmm.

When did God ever say, you know what, you need to actually improve upon what we saw the day of Pentecost and in the book of Acts. So everything kind of flowed under that headline of, going back to that Pentecostal fire that marked the early church.

Yeah. So you were saying that cessationism, how did you word that again? 'Cause I wanted to just touch on that a tad. You were talking about—

Oh goodness.

You were saying that cessationism—

I'm surely good.

No, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was that the working definition you used in the book is what I'm asking for cessationism?

Most likely, most likely. Because again, there is this even concept and people, maybe your everyday believer would not use the word cessationism, but there's this erroneous idea as if God, unplugged His power from the church to where it's like, well, you know what? There's power to save and to redeem people. Praise God for that. And there's a measure of power that people will see in prayer. And we were talking about this earlier, David, to where there is even a concept where if I pray a desperate, maybe frantic prayer for healing, God, maybe if He's feeling good that day—

Might answer.

Will heal somebody. Yeah, yeah. But The doctrine— I wouldn't even call it doctrine. The erroneous teaching of cessationism basically says, God does not continue to move through unusual signs, wonders, miracles. That which was standard in the Book of Acts should no longer be expected or anticipated as standard today. And my theologically robust response to that is, where does Scripture tell us that we should change our expectation? That's my question. Where does Jesus— obviously Jesus doesn't say anything. Apostle Paul, New Testament epistles, none of them tell us to change our perspective. If anything, they tell us the opposite.

It's funny because the reason I wanted to ask about the definition is whenever you try to define cessationism, typically, not all the time, you'll probably be accused of misrepresenting what the belief actually says.

Sure.

So if you say, well, you don't believe in healing anymore, they'll say, well, we believe in healing, We just don't believe that men can wield it as they did in the New Testament or in the Old Testament, right? There's kind of this moving of the goalposts. And what's interesting is, for example, on the topic of healing, we don't believe that men ever wielded it on their own anyway.

No, right.

We truly believe that the sovereignty of God applies to the miraculous as well. What I think it actually comes down to, and most who claim cessationism would disagree, and by the way, like We're not against cessationists, the believer. I'm against cessationism, the doctrine.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, I'm not gonna demonize someone. I'm not gonna say, oh, you're not a Christian or—

Oh my goodness, no.

I have friends who are cessationists. They love Jesus and they're born again. I think they're wrong on that doctrine, but we still get along just fine.

Believe it or not.

Believe it or not.

I do. But this is important to note, 'cause I would say that there are hard cessationists and there are soft cessationists. Hard cessationists would actually create cessationism and use it as a barrier for fellowship. So you're talking about how you have friends who are cessationists.

Very good friends.

Yeah, yeah. And you know what? I'll be honest. There are theologians and pastors and teachers who are cessationists that I actually drink very deeply from their teaching. So we honor them. But so there's soft cessationists where it's like, well, we believe God still heals and God still— but it's not expected as a common occurrence. But hard cessationism, that creates a little bit of even a spirit or an attitude on those people to where they would renounce or denounce us as hellbound heretics.

Wow. Yeah.

And that's concerning.

That's a bit emotional for me.

Like almost like it's our way, right? Or the highway. Like you're done, whatever. If you're not believing how we believe in cessationism, you got it wrong.

Yeah.

And I think ironically, the people who claim that we're emotional react very emotionally to the topic. I mean, it's not really a rational approach. It's a very angry and Anger is an emotion. It's a very angry, reactive, defensive response.

Can I say this? This is fun. This is because, you know, we're trying to do— we're trying to process this because often cessationism is birthed out of experiential theology mixed with offense.

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We're trying to do— we're trying to process this because often cessationism is birthed out of experiential theology mixed with offense.

Wow.

Experiential theology. What does that mean? It means I prayed for somebody to get healed. Usually it's a family member. Usually it's somebody very close. Prayed for them to be healed and they died. or this perception, God let me down. I understand that like God doesn't want us to run up to people like that and be like, oh brother, that person didn't get healed because they didn't have enough faith. Like those responses have been very shoddy responses coming from the charismatic stream to people like that. So I get it but we cannot create a theology based on our experience.

Yeah.

I.e., I prayed for somebody, they didn't get healed, that means God Is not the healer. Can I say it this way? I don't have a theology that God heals. I don't believe that God heals because of my experience being healed or seeing other people healed. I don't believe that He is the healer because I have seen or experienced a healing. I believe He is the healer, that there are gifts of the Spirit available today, and that there are demonstrations of power that He wants to release, not because of experience, but because of the Word of God.

Have you ever heard of the objective believer?

No.

You would love his channel. Okay, so good channel. Desi, you know who he is, right?

Right, right, right.

Desi and I have watched him. You've watched some of his clips.

No, he's real good.

He's brilliant. And he has a channel and he's a charismatic Christian who approaches the topics very philosophically and logically.

Oh, come on.

So he presents these very robust arguments and I find his theology, his doctrine, very grounded, very level-headed.

Yes.

And then I contrast that with this kind of like, you're mocking God and you're a blasphemer. And you know, It's almost like the more dramatic they are, they think the more believable they are. But it's like, it's interesting because he brought up that very point in one of his videos where, and again, this is not to say that that is necessarily always an accurate representation of how a cessationist thinks, but very often, though they wouldn't verbalize it that way, and though they're not probably consciously aware of it, it is in fact based on experience rather than what the word actually teaches.

Yeah.

And so I think that that was interesting. So he pointed that out about healing, about the prophetic. And even when he was talking about some of the modern-day prophets, how, you know, yeah, there's prophets today who, you know, they absolutely miss it. And that needs to be dealt with.

We need to confront it.

We gotta make sure we're confronting what needs to be confronted. That's not something that you just, you know, wink your eye and say, it's okay, no problem. That's a big deal. But, you know, he was talking about the fact that if I'm even quoting him correctly, that just because we're not necessarily seeing it the way we want to doesn't mean that it's not available because we look at the Word. What does the Word say? And then you work out from there. But on that point of cessationism, I found that there's this common thread, whether they are, as you would say, a soft cessationist or a hard cessationist.

Yeah.

I think there's this common thread of believing in God's power in theory, but never practice. And so however you wanna define cessationism, however extreme you wanna be about it, whatever side of it you're on, hard, soft, or somewhere in between, it always comes down to, yeah, in theory, 'cause that's the defense, right? Well, we do believe in healing, but we do believe God speaks, you know, and they'll talk about the sufficiency of scripture as if the scripture wasn't sufficient enough to connect me with the God who still speaks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know, then there are other issues like prophecy and so forth. And so that basically is a criticism now against any practice of it. If it's not absolute— absolutely perfect, at least in their minds, the practice of it in any way, that gets criticized. It has to be. And I've never seen like an example of where they bring up a healing and say, now this is an example of what I think is proper healing, or this is an example of what I believe is a proper deliverance.

Right, right.

Anything that is actually in practice is criticized. It's only ever acceptable in theory.

Well, what's interesting as you're talking about that in terms of even what God is doing right now in the earth, and I believe his activity is only increasing, there is something about the practice. There's something about the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Why does it bring out critics and controversy? Because the practice, the demonstration is messy. It is messy. And it does confront their theological ideals. Often what happens, it's almost like this ivory tower perspective. It's like, well, in my mind, this is what it's supposed to look like. Oh, and it's violating my idea of what I expect God should do. Ultimately, we're putting God in a box. I think, and we'll talk about this more, in order for us to step into the fullness of what God wants to do in the days ahead, He is ready to pour out His Spirit without measure. I believe that. I believe God is and is ready to pour out His Spirit. without measure. My question is, are we trying to give God terms to work with?

Yeah. And the pushback on that though would be, well, there has to be order. It has to be according to scripture.

Decently and in order.

Yeah. 1 Corinthians 14:40, let all things be done decently in order. That would be the pushback. But you're not saying, hey, we're all for the disorder. Hey, we're all for the mess. You're saying that God working through humans who are fallible, who make mistakes, That's not always going to look like you imagine it to look.

Well, I was gonna say, actually, I'm all for disorder. Like, it's just like people accuse me of swinging from the chandelier. Hey, if there's a chandelier— no, no, I'm kidding. It's interesting. 1 Corinthians 14:40. We gotta laugh about this stuff. You know, I spent 5 years getting my degree, my Master's of Divinity, Church History and Renewal at Regent University. I did that 'cause I felt like the Lord said, I want you to be like the Apostle Peter for the days ahead. I'm like, well, what does that mean? And he's like, I want you to be what he was on the day of Pentecost where when the Holy Spirit came with such unusual power and manifestation and it looked disorderly from a natural eye because what did you have on Acts chapter 2, day of Pentecost? Mighty rushing wind, tongues of fire appearing over the people. You had them speaking in unusual languages. You had 3,000 people coming to see and hear this sight. You had unusual manifestations of the Holy Spirit happening. And what Peter did is in the middle of the in the middle of what people would probably perceive to be crazy, Peter got up and biblically said, hey, this is that which was spoken about by the prophet Joel. Which you're speaking of, yeah. He gave a biblical basis for what the Spirit of God was doing. I'm so grateful, let me just say it this way, that Peter was not like the modern Pharisee of the 21st century because what happens often is the Holy Spirit will move, he'll move in power, it'll get messy, Unusual things will start happening. We can just go right there. People will experience the presence of God. They'll shake, they'll tremble, they'll fall, they'll laugh, they'll cry. That kind of thing will happen. And then you'll have a few vocal critics. I say a few—

Right.

Because the majority of people, David, you see it in your meetings, are hungry for God. The majority of people who don't even know Jesus, there's this lie, well, we don't want to have the Holy Spirit doing all that unusual stuff in our meeting because we don't want to offend people. I can tell you this. If people are coming into our meetings who do not know the Lord, they do not know Jesus, and they're actually coming and they're crossing the threshold of our churches, they're coming into those meetings hungry for something supernatural. They are hungry to see, is this God real? And we have a responsibility—

Yeah.

To introduce them to Holy Spirit, who is the demonstration, the confirmation that Jesus died, rose again, Seated at the Father's right hand. And Jesus got everything He paid for and everything He prayed for. And He prayed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So my bottom line is there, I feel an assignment that in the days ahead, as the Spirit moves unusually, which we will see Him do, I want to be able to get up and say, hey, actually, this is that which was prophesied by Joel. We are stepping into the last days revival. Will it be unusual? Yes, but it will be God.

Well, the supernatural by definition is unusual. It's weird, man. Anytime God interacts with humanity, it's going to be unusual, that is outside of the realm of what you've imagined it to be, or inconsistent with what you've limited it to be. On that note, you know, it's interesting because you're talking about this strangeness.

Yeah.

Now I know I'm a little strange. It's just something I've accepted. And, you know, I used to tell people, I still do, you know, you're so worried when you start praying in tongues that everyone's going to think you're strange. Well, I have news for you. They absolutely will think you're strange.

Right.

But who cares? And that's it. You know, this idea, it's such a— that idea itself is strange that because of the strangeness of the supernatural, that we are somehow bringing, quote, reproach, another dramatic word. You know, the more dramatic, the more right you are. Remember, you know, reproach upon the name of Christ or shame to the gospel, right? That's kind of the way it's framed. And you look at the New Testament and you see the exact opposite of that type of mindset. You know, when you say things like that, you're being inconsistent with what even Jesus said. Jesus told us why the world doesn't believe.

Right.

Look, I understand. We don't want to add strangeness for the sake of strangeness itself.

Absolutely.

We don't want to be weird just to be weird. But we do want to embrace what God has given to us. And in so embracing what God has given to us, that's gonna appear strange to the world.

Yes. Yes.

In John 3, Jesus talks about the fact that this is the verdict. Light has come into this dark world. The people rejected it.

Why?

Because they love darkness.

Because they love darkness.

Yeah, they love darkness.

Are we really supposed to believe that a world that believes all the strange things that it does, and this is by no means a justification of the strange things they believe, But all of those strange things that are absolutely blatantly unbiblical, are we really supposed to believe that they're rejecting God because somebody cries when I pray for them?

I don't know.

Or because someone lies down on the floor in worship to God?

Yeah.

Or because they heard a moving worship song or because somebody clapped because they were excited for the Lord. I mean, you see the criticism all the time, like, okay, you're singing too loud, you're dancing, you look like a fool. Well, no one thinks that's disorderly or out of place. Say for example, when someone's celebrating like a family member coming home, we go, oh, look how sweet that moment is. when I'm so moved by the goodness of God that I clap or I cry or I lift my hands, is that to be so strange to you? That, I mean, how can you stand in the presence of God and not be moved?

And not react. When people talk about disorderliness, especially in this day and age, I actually often look back to Acts chapter 2 and I'm all for order, you know, excellence, but It happened in such a way that the outsiders had to say, they're drunk.

Right.

And I had to imagine how, how, what was actually happening, because being drunk is not just in what you say, but also in how you act. So there was something the outsiders saw that made them believe these guys are actually drunk. And people fall here and there into this church and, and people, you know, think there's disorder. And I go back to Acts chapter 2 again, like, There was such a powerful move that thousands of people had to say, these guys are drunk. Not just because of what they said, but because of how they acted, because of what they did. And when, to me, we haven't even gotten to that point yet, and there is this pushback. I always look back to Acts chapter 2, like something really happened there.

Desi, that's a great point. And think about this. when that scripture is quoted, let all things be done decently and in order, you know, or you'll see somebody crying and they'll say, that can't be God because he gives us self-control. I'm thinking the fruit of self-control is a character trait that helps you to have mastery over self in terms of temptation and selfishness. It has nothing to do with reaction to something that is very real. Like nobody says, oh, you know, he accidentally touched an open socket, got electrocuted, moved his body, lost self-control. No, that is a reaction to something.

That's a reaction.

And we're not saying that we're celebrating actual disorder. And we're not saying that, again, I wanna emphasize that, not embracing weird for the sake of weird, but you have to question what they mean by order or what they think the scripture means by order. I think what they think when they say, let it be done in order, what they're actually saying is, let it be done according to my order.

My standard.

But sometimes God's order is disruptive to your order. And so if you're talking about, let it be done decently and in order, But that's according to God's standard. And he decides when and how that order, how that order should look.

I often think of Jesus's life and everything he's done and how strange some of these miracles were, right? I was literally reading right now in John 9:6, then he spit on the ground, made mud with saliva and spread the mud all over the blind man's eyes. That's the blind man's eyes. We know the story.

Is that prescriptive or descriptive?

Right.

And that's what they'll do. They'll really want— okay, wait a minute.

Did it really happen? I think of his life and I think, my goodness, how strange are some of these things in the Bible? But this is our foundation. This is our root. And I was watching a— I grew up watching a movie, The Prince of Egypt. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of it. Great movie. Cool movie. As a child, it really gave me wonder. And I thought, okay, how odd is it that a bush would burn and would tell him to go out and save his people? If you've never seen the movie, go check it out. It's cool.

But it's one of the best secular takes on biblical texts. Not completely accurate, like we said before, but it's pretty good.

Yeah, it's great.

On the topic of revival, I think, you know, as this upcoming generation, we're very hungry, on fire. I think what I have seen quite often is there is a pushback. You know, we're disruptive, we're chaotic, disorder. And I've seen ministers and some people try to start to succumb to that.

Yeah.

Okay, maybe we need to add a little bit more rules on this end, on that end, in turn stifling the power of God, which we were reading Isaiah today as we were driving down from Houston. And the prophet Isaiah was prophesying about what would happen. And I said to my wife, it took years for the Holy Spirit, or at least I think for the Holy Spirit to finally find someone to partner with Him. How long will it take us to stop saying, okay, the world is pushing back, this is happening, and finally say, you know what, regardless of how it looks to us or to you, we will partner with the Holy Spirit. You call it disruptive.

Hmm.

We don't see it as disruptive. This is according to the pattern of the Holy Spirit. This is according to the pattern of the Scriptures. And I'm not, like you said, Pastor David, in no words promoting disorderliness, but I think that there is this, you know, we don't like it. Okay, maybe we could adjust our rule to fit yours. That is really starting to happen.

Well, you know, 3 things I find happen when God shows up in unusual power. Number one, people get touched by the Holy Spirit because again, we do not want to condone or celebrate disorder or weirdness for the sake of being weird. But at the same time, I do not want to stifle or quench the Holy Spirit. I want him to be able to do whatever he wants, which is a scary thought, by the way, where Paul communicates to the church in Thessalonica, do not quench the Spirit. That tells me it's possible. So that's a little bit unsettling. But number one, people get touched by God. Number two, people will act in the flesh. What does that mean?

Yeah.

Often I find, not always, but often people who have been acting in the flesh or manufacturing a certain response to the Holy Spirit, often it is a genuine desire to connect with God and they don't quite know how to, and therefore they're trying to work themselves up into a frenzy. They need to be pastored. They need to be led. We don't need to shut down the activity of the Holy Spirit in the atmosphere because you have people who are being disruptive in the flesh. Discern. I actually feel right now like the Lord is encouraging us, discern the disruption. Number one, maybe it's somebody who's operating in the flesh because they are desperate to connect with God. Let's have some prayer people ready to minister to them. Maybe they're just— maybe they are a disruptive person and they need to be taken out of the service. Let's do that. Or third, maybe it's a demon. And people get really shocked.

Yeah, right.

They're like, well, brother, we gotta shut that meeting down because there'll be a demon manifesting there. And you know what I do?

I celebrate.

I celebrate if a demon is manifesting. Do you know what that tells me truly? If you're having meetings and demons are manifesting, the level of Holy Spirit presence in that atmosphere is so intense that demonic spirits are uncomfortable.

They have to go.

And they have to go and you know what? Have a capable, competent prayer deliverance team ready to minister to those people, not to bring shame and not to bring focus but to get them into a place where they can be ministered to. Why am I saying this? Because we have all of these concerns, what happens if the Holy Spirit shows up? That really is the question. What? Okay, we believe in Him in theory, but what happens in practice if He shows up? Well, here's the reality. If He shows up, I want us to do everything possible to accommodate Him because David, at the end of the day, it's not about my preference. There are certain things, I'll be honest, that when God moves certain ways, it's not my favorite thing. I think of my pastor, Pastor Norman, who saw an 8-year sustained visitation of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit at his church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Brilliant man, got his doctorate of ministry and he said, Larry, the laughing stuff. When people get touched by Holy Spirit joy and they start laughing and he's like, the laughing stuff bothers me sometimes.

Some people think it's creepy.

Yes, you know what he's— but this demonstrates maturity. He's like, I don't like the laugh but I know it's God. What maturity because— but I'll tell you this like because sometimes it's a little bit bizarre. I remember being— I was in Blue Eye, Missouri with my friend Tommy Evans ministering to people who were all over 70. It was a very interesting, one of the most interesting meetings we were ever in and the Holy Spirit manifested with what we call holy laughter, joy where all these people just started laughing.

Yeah.

And you know what happens though? They get touched by God and when you get the microphone out to get the testimonies, your heart breaks and it's filled with joy because you start hearing these testimonies Larry, I have not laughed since I lost my son. I have not had joy since I got divorced and my husband ran out on me. I have not experienced that. So I believe one touch of the joy of the Lord like that, we've seen it in meetings, can bring healing to anxiety, depression, that type of thing. But again, it doesn't come down to my preference. Like, is it a little bit strange, weird, different? Sure. But if it's God, if it's God, I don't want to stifle what the Holy Spirit is doing.

A couple of things there. Somebody listening to that might say, or even observing that situation might say, what's the purpose of this? This is fruitless. There's no point. But I often thought that that was such an arrogant position to take. It's a big assumption on the part of an individual saying something like that, to look at a move of God like that and say, it's pointless what's happening. There's no need for it. Well, sometimes it is just the overflow, or if you will, and I don't mean this in the negative sense, but the symptom of what's actually happening, not the focus.

Sure.

And secondly, I wanna really ground and define what we're talking about. We're kind of speaking in generalizations, you know, a little bit strange, a little bit disruptive to man's order, not God's order. A little bit, maybe some people are offended, a little bit outside the box. Okay, let's add actual descriptive language to this. We're talking about reactions to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that are often misperceived.

Yes, sir.

So as an example, My daughter walks into the kitchen the other day.

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Let's add actual descriptive language to this. We're talking about reactions to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that are often misperceived. So as an example, my daughter walks into the kitchen the other day and I'm looking at her and Steve, you got 3 boys. So, you know, it doesn't, and this is just like, I'm looking at her and I just, I start laughing. I just was so, I was just, I just laughed. It wasn't like, I wasn't like, haha, you know, like screaming my head off. But I was looking at her like a little chuckle came out. And then the more I looked at her, just the more I laughed.

Yeah.

And she looked at me, she's like, dad, why are you laughing?

She's 5, but she's 16.

She goes, Dad, why are you laughing? I go, you just, you, you, you make— I go, you— I told her, you make my heart smile. And she goes, okay. And she just walks away, you know? So, but, but then I realized in that moment, you know, it wasn't something I was trying to conjure. It wasn't something that I was working up. You know, you get into the presence of the Holy Spirit. And I say, get into the presence of the Holy Spirit. I don't mean that we can never leave. Psalm 139:7, where can I escape from your presence? I'm talking about when you come into an awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence.

Yes.

And there's that manifestation. I like to say that the omnipresence of God God's awareness of everything. The manifested presence of God is your awareness of Him.

That's good.

And so in those moments, you become aware of Him and everything in you was designed to respond to God. So my spirit responds to God, my emotions respond to God, my physical being responds to God. You look all throughout the Old and New Testament and you see in many instances that there was a temporary physical reaction in the physical body whenever the presence of God was manifested. Now again, this isn't to say that it's always gonna happen exactly like that, or that if you don't feel something, you're not experiencing God. This is simply to say that when we invite the Holy Spirit to move as He moves, He does what He wants to do. I've prayed for total strangers on the street who get slain in the Spirit and cuss at me. What the blank was that?

Yeah. I'm serious.

I'm serious. You know this. I've seen it. He's seen it and they're going, what is this? I'm saying, that's the power of God. I've prayed for people who've grown up in church, never saw anything like that, never experienced anything like that. They don't know I'm what you would call a charismatic Christian, pray for them and suddenly they feel, they go, they're like, they start shaking. They're going, why am I shaking? I said, that's the power of God.

Yeah.

Now it doesn't always happen that way, but sometimes it does. And so now take things like the emotions. I mean, on the opposite end of the spectrum, certain individuals would be perfectly happy to say that God ignites the intellect. He illuminates the mind to receive revelation of the Word and rightly divide the Scripture. Okay, yes.

Yes.

Yes, and amen to that. But the same God who gave us intellect also gave us emotion.

Right.

Yeah.

So what if I am so moved by the presence of God that tears begin to stream down my face? So what if I'm so happy to be in His presence, just thinking about Him, that there's great joy? And I think that some people are afraid of those kinds of emotions because A, they're not experiencing them themselves. And then B, we also understand, as you said, that some people can take those a little bit It's possible that somebody's having a genuine encounter with God.

Yes.

Wherein they're being moved emotionally and then they allow themselves to become overhyped beyond what God intended. And so it can very well be fundamentally a genuine move of the Holy Spirit and then superficially they kind of ruin the testimony of it by the overreaction. But that doesn't mean that we reject the premise in the first place that the presence of God can cause something to happen. Yeah.

No, it's true. And I think what's absolutely vital is I always say, you know, Peter did not shut down the day of Pentecost. I mean, this is funny, but because in Acts chapter 2, we see that there were those who mocked. It says some were amazed, some were confused, some were perplexed, and then at the end, some mocked them, accusing them of being drunk. I am grateful again that Peter did not shut down the outpouring of the Holy Spirit because you had a few vocal people who mocked them. Doesn't mean everybody Nobody completely understood what was happening. But I am very grateful that he stood up in the midst of it, gave a biblical context and welcomed obviously what the Spirit of God was doing in that environment. So I believe, but I believe that's so necessary for the days that we're entering into.

Okay, Larry, I went onto my YouTube community page.

Yes.

And before the interview, I posted some of these. So, or I posted a question and then I received some of these responses. This is for everyone at the table, okay?

Okay.

Well, this first one will go to Larry 'cause he's probably the only one of us. I don't even know how to answer this one, but you're gonna probably be the only one of us who knows how to answer this one.

Holy smokes, help me.

So you ready? So Fly Honey Bree says, I heard about a revival in a small town somewhere in Europe where the Spirit of God fell so strongly on that town that people had to pull over on the freeway kneeling and weeping in repentance. And all the bars went out of business. Can we talk about that kind of prayer community? Do you know that revival?

Well, now number one, I don't know every single revival.

Or maybe she's thinking of another one.

But there are some where that phenomenon took place. For example, the late 1940s, you had the Hebrides Revival and that was actually an evangelical revival. A lot of these revivals were not charismatic Pentecostal but when you study the Hebrides Revival with Minister Duncan Campbell, this whole area, these islands off the coast of Scotland experienced such a visitation of God that literally the whole territory was saturated with an awareness of the presence of God, so much so people would come out of their homes at night gathering together. The church would have services until like 1 and 2 in the morning.

Wow.

Not because we need to have additional services to fill up our schedule, out of demand. They actually talked about how people would literally line up at the jail under conviction of the Holy Spirit. Now the bars being shut down, that speaks of what God did in the Welsh Revival, 1904 with Evan Roberts. 100,000 were brought into the kingdom in a year, more or less. 100,000 people got gloriously born again. And some of the things that happened societally in terms of transformation, you had bars being closed down, you had sinful entertainment being completely shut down. They even had to retrain the animals, interestingly enough, because the animals understood profanity.

Wow.

Get that? The animals responded to curse words because the people who had the mules and stuff would yell at them and use all sorts of foul language. The animals did not know what to do because the people literally, as a result of that revival, their language changed. Society was so impacted. So I think she is pointing to that kind of a move of God.

That's incredible.

That's crazy.

Okay, this one's for the whole table. You ready? Emily Duncan- Toll HN asks a very simple question. What is What is revival? And I'll add to that in terms of biblical description.

Yes. Wow. Okay.

You wanna go first?

Well, I'll go back to Acts chapter 2. I think we can try to define revival in different ways, but to me it's the move of the Spirit that causes massive salvation of souls.

Hmm.

I think God's heart beats for souls every single day. So if there is anything He wants to use us for, it's for that. So when there is that mighty outpouring, it's to empower, enable us to bring souls into the Kingdom of God. That's my biblical definition of revival because we see it in Acts chapter 2. Yes, the Holy Spirit came, but it wasn't healing that came first. It wasn't the deliverance that came first. It was the 3,000 that had to come first and everything else followed.

You know, I'll read a scripture that for me sums it up in Matthew 15:29. Jesus heals many. Jesus returned to the Sea of Galilee and climbed a hill and sat down. A vast crowd brought to Him people who were lame, blind, crippled, those who couldn't speak, and many others. They laid them before Jesus, and He healed them all.

Oh wow.

The crowd was amazed. Those who hadn't been able to speak were talking. The crippled were made well. The lame were walking, and the blind could see again, and they praised the God of Israel. Revival to me is when you have an encounter personally, and you take part in something like this where the masses see the glory of God and people are healed, there's faith, there's joy. I mean, you can't deny that these people definitely in the crowd doubted.

Yeah.

But I think, you know, when they look to Jesus and when He did all these things, I mean, my goodness, that just screams victory for us. And so revival to me, scripturally speaking, I mean, look at this right here. This is— they're in revival. Blind eyes, literal blind eyes. People that couldn't walk are walking. I mean, I would be in an uproar. I'd be weeping and jumping just like these guys. So yeah, incredible.

I struggle with the term because we know the term itself is not in scripture.

Correct.

But the principle behind the term is And then because so many define it so many different ways, it's hard to lock down and say, this is the biblical example of it. You know, it's not like we have this one working definition where we all agree. To me, it's almost like this gradient as opposed to a distinct line. And then I start asking myself questions, and this could be an over-analysis, but I start asking myself questions like, okay, is 10 getting saved? I mean, that's people getting saved. That's wonderful. But is it as modern Pentecostalism or the charismatic movement might define it as actual revival? At what point do you get to that? So if I were to break it down simply for the individual level, it would be simply when you come into this place of renewed passion for the Lord.

Yeah.

Now again, there's many different working definitions because the term is not found in Scripture, but the principles that are often used as descriptives of that term are.

Yeah, I would agree. I would actually agree with all of the different descriptions here. This is what I would share, kind of putting on my theological hat, is we need to be very careful about how we define terminology because I think if everything is revival, then nothing is revival.

Yeah, that's very good.

And I think one of the disadvantages of the 1900s is the beginning of the century, we had 1904 with the Welsh Revival, 1906, the Azusa Street Revival, But then what happened in church culture is we started to call 2-week evangelistic campaigns revival meetings. And we still have a little bit of that lingering left over. It's like, well, brother, we're going to have a revival. And I'm not against that. You know why? People got saved.

Right.

That's salvation, not revival.

Yeah.

I would dare say, well, I went to this meeting and I got touched by the Holy Spirit and He just did a wonderful, powerful work in my heart. I would say that might be a refreshing or renewal, maybe not revival. So let me give you my very clear analysis on this. You've got number one, a renewal where I believe somebody who already is hungry for God, already burning for Jesus goes and they get touched radically by the Holy Spirit and they become a Heidi Baker who's sent off to Mozambique or Leif Hetland who's sent off to like Middle East. Like that was taking place when the Toronto Blessing of 1994 was, I believe, in a renewal stage where people were going and that refreshing touch of the Holy Spirit Spirit changed their lives, okay. So that's a renewal. We see that often in our meetings where a believer, I'll say it one more time, a believer in Jesus who already is burning for Him gets a significant touch of the Holy Spirit. But revival to me implies something was dead. Revival implies something was dry. It implies either individually or for a corporate local church. It's like, man, we were just dead in religion. We were going through the motions. There was no zeal. There was no hunger. There was no thirst.

Passion.

Yes, there's no passion for Jesus. We were dead and then God stepped in. Like to me, that speaks of revival personally in your own life or even again, Brownsville 1995, they called it the Brownsville Revival because of a local church that was kind of like— John Kilpatrick was the pastor and said, listen, we were successful. I had a lot of people who liked me. They were a megachurch at the time but he's like, I would feel so dry and dead.

Wow.

And he would go in the church at like 1, 2 in the morning, lay out on the pew and cry out, God, there's got to be more. That was a revival, the Brownsville Revival. But then I think where we're moving into prophetically is awakening.

Wow.

So you've got renewal, revival, awakening. I sense, David, even right now in the nations, we are seeing the stirrings of awakening. And people might ask, Larry, what's the difference? Revival is an individual or a local church. But when I think of awakening, I do think of what happened in Wales because notice it was called the Welsh Revival. It wasn't called the Moriah Chapel Revival. Moriah Chapel is really where that Welsh Revival started. It was named after a territory and I like to say awakening is when revival goes territorial.

Wow.

When we actually start seeing regions of the earth impacted by the move of God. I mean, the New England awakenings of Jonathan Edwards and Finney and all those people. They experienced true awakening where it was not restrained or confined to one local church. We saw territories and geographies impacted by a move of God.

So is it safe to say, at least in terms of the modern technology— not technology, the modern— is it safe to say that in terms of how we define it as a movement, that we start with the very basic working definition of A move of the Holy Spirit, people getting saved, healed, delivered. That is biblical.

Yes.

And the terms that we use are just a description of how many people are being affected by this at once.

Yes.

So whereas revival, you say that's a little more personal or local.

Yes.

And then there's renewal, which kind of expands a little more.

Which is definitely personal, but that again—

Oh, we started on renewal.

We started with renewal.

Okay, renewal.

who are already burning for Jesus get a real fresh touch of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, so it starts with renewal, which is more of the personal experience of what is described in Scripture. Then it goes to a little bit more of a localized but corporate experience of what is being described in Scripture. We call that revival, and then as it begins to affect the larger geographies, we would call that awakening.

Yeah, let me just read one verse here because as you were sharing just about What Jesus saw in the Gospels. There's a verse that I have overlooked in the Bible a bazillion times and the Lord highlighted it and it has burned into my spirit. Acts chapter 9 where a guy gets healed, Aeneas and verse 34, Peter says to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed. Sounds like what I say to my daughter sometimes. Get up and make your bed and immediately Immediately he got up. Now typically I stop there because that's pretty impressive. That kind of miracle, that kind of decree that releases a miracle. I usually stop there and just move on to the next section but it was the next verse, David, that got me. We're right after this miracle, verse 35, it says this. So all who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

Wow.

If that's in the book, that's in the Scripture, that tells me I believe it's possible today because of a notable miracle. Just imagine it, David, in one of your meetings where somebody gets healed in a notable way because that's happening. And as a result of that, this is what I'm contending for, territories, territories turn to the Lord because of a notable miracle like that. Why not?

And we are seeing growth in the church. This is what I'm so encouraged by. I mean, we're seeing it in our ministry. And a lot of the people I'm friends with, a lot of my friends who are pastors and evangelists, yourself included.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm getting reports from all around the world that there is just, as we would describe, this groundswell of people being A, swept into the kingdom and B, Christians coming into the realization of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, big time.

And you know, I understand we have to address to some degree, it's necessary to address some of the remnants of these leftovers of what we would call cessationism. But cessationism, for all intents and purposes, at least the doctrine itself, the movement itself, it's a dying movement. It's on its way out. And again, that's not an attack on fellow believers. That's—

No.

That's talking about a doctrine. I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about the doctrine, that belief system. So, you know, there's not much work that has to be done there anymore. Maybe, as I said, deal with some of the remnants. So it kind of stays on trend in the way it's trending now. But in terms of what we're seeing, I'm so encouraged because nothing is going to stop this. Nothing can stop this, which is why I'll direct this. We'll take one more question from the community. And this one I'm going to direct right at you, Larry. This is coming from Reshmi Lorduraj-KV7IE. And they ask, can you explain The end-time revival.

I can. I can. So we have this wonderful end-time promise. I mean, Acts chapter 2, Joel 2, we've been citing that portion of Scripture quite a bit, right? I would say the quote-unquote end-time revival is what God Himself said for us to expect about the last days because as we all know, there's a lot of interest and intrigue, curiosity and confusion about this thing called the last days, the end times. And as a publisher, I can tell you this. If I do a book, The 21 Signs That Jesus Is Coming Back Next Year, or if I do something about The 30 Signals of Apocalyptic Doom, those will be bestsellers. I am being slightly facetious but not entirely because people are very curious about the apocalyptic darkness side of the end times, the Antichrist, one world government, meant, all that kind of stuff. Now here's the interesting thing. When it comes to what God declared about the last days, I tell people go back to Joel 2 and then read Peter's sermon in Acts 2 because Peter says in Acts 2:17, I'd never quite read it this way, speaking of the end-time revival. Peter said, listen, spoken about by the prophet Joel that in the last days God declares. So stop right there. It doesn't say in the last days the latest YouTube prophet declares.

Right.

It doesn't say in the last days the latest prognosticator or or New York Times bestselling author or a guy with charts and graphs, all that, and that's fine. Like, let's preach and let's talk and debate about the charts and graphs of the end times events and all that. Totally fine. But I want to know, what does God Himself say about the last days, the end times? So it says, in the last days, God declares. All right, pay attention. God declares what? I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.

Hmm.

Amen.

And your sons and your daughters will prophesy. That's a whole other message because there's so many parents right now who are crying out and believing for a son or daughter who's gone far from God. I actually believe their son and daughter is literally written right into God's end-time prophecy because what does it say about sons and daughters? They'll prophesy and what do we see right now happening? God is going after the sons and daughters. We see in an unstoppable move of the Spirit even right now as we record this podcast, in these secular universities where thousands are showing up and they're not preaching some watered-down gospel. These students, Gen Z, are being radically impacted. They're getting saved. They're rededicating their lives to Jesus. They're getting water baptized in troughs, horse troughs outside of the universities.

Come on.

Or university fountains like at FSU, the number 2 party school in America, they actually were getting the students baptized, water baptized in the fountain. So it tells me God is coming after the sons and daughters in a glorious way but I believe when it comes to end-time revival, yes, there are going to be days of darkness. Yes, there's going to be chaos, crisis, calamity. I don't want us to be ignorant of that. In fact, I'm not saying don't listen to people who have charts and graphs and teaching about that kind of stuff but when it comes to what we build our lives on, when it comes to how we pray, when it comes to even what we're looking for. I want to be darkness aware. I don't want to be darkness preoccupied.

Wow.

I want to be aware of darkness. I want to be aware of what the devil is doing because Paul made it very clear. He didn't want us to be outwitted or outsmarted by the devices of the enemy. I want to be aware of what the enemy is doing. But I'll tell you this, guys, I want to be a watchman of revival. I want to watch where the Holy Spirit is moving and do whatever I can to throw myself into that. So end times revival is right there in Joel 2, Acts 2, in the last days. I believe, I'll say this, leading up to the second coming of Jesus, I believe He is coming back for a church in revival. He is coming back for a church maybe that would even outshine the book of Acts, outshine the church there.

Wow.

I remember John Bevere saying this, that the Lord spoke to him and said that church, the church that would be be Jesus's end-time church would make the book of Acts look like child's play and wouldn't that be like Jesus though? He's coming back for a church that is truly glorious, demonstrating His glory.

With that, I'll leave you with a question for conversation. How would you define revival? Tell me in the comment section and until next time, remember nothing is impossible with God.