We are all so familiar with Acts Chapter 2, we know what happened on the Day of Pentecost. We know Peter described it very clearly, saying, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, And it shall come to pass in the last days, God says, I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Acts 2:16-17. We are all so familiar with this and with its fulfilment.
But I want to deal with something which I believe is becoming something of a controversy. I expect these things in Acts 2, spoken of by the prophet Joel, to happen in my life and ministry. That’s what the Scripture says! But there are many from a more conservative, traditional background who reject this and do not see its importance. It came as a revelation to many in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches when they saw the Charismatic Outpouring. But we still have divisions, denominational barriers. When I was working under communism, there was a serious barrier between the Pentecostals and the Baptists (I love Baptists , my best friend in Ukraine is a Baptist). But even today in our National Days of Prayer for Ukraine, we have to accommodate the fact that some do not believe in speaking in tongues. I accept that some don’t, but I do speak in tongues and believe it is for today.
But what we are facing now in the Church is that so much of the Acts of the Apostles, so much of the New Testament, is relegated into the past: that happened at the beginning of the Church, it was necessary then. The Christian Church did not commence before the death and resurrection of Christ, not even immediately after. But the consensus is that the Church really began on the Day of Pentecost, when 150 disciples were meeting secretly, in fear of persecution, behind closed doors!
The disciples had been meeting together, continuing in prayer since the day the Lord was taken up from their sight. But what happened on the Day of Pentecost was an explosive start to the Church! Too many say, “That was in the past, it’s over, we can’t expect that to happen today.” Well, I’m sorry, I believe it CAN, MUST happen. I have seen most of the things outlined in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles HAPPEN, and I EXPECT to see them happen in my life, in my ministry – NOW!
If this experience is just confined to the past, let’s have a look at the original prophecy in Joel 2 whom Peter is quoting. What happens in the New Testament is always the fulfilment of the Old. Jesus was always quoting the Old Testament as justification of what was happening and of what He was called to do. Now Joel says in 2:28-29, “It shall come to pass…” Remember, this is what Peter was quoting in Acts 2, so let’s look at what Joel actually said: “It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” At this point I always like to challenge people, because the prophecy is that the young men will have the visions, and the old men will dream. The tragedy so often today is that it is exactly the opposite. It’s the young men who are dreaming, and the old men like me are seeing the visions and acting on them. I can tell you, whatever visions I had as a young man, I have a much stronger and more powerful vision NOW – and I am DRIVEN by that vision!
Joel continues the prophecy, God is speaking, vv30-32, “I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it will come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.” These are the Scriptures that Peter is quoting on the Day of Pentecost!
Now let’s look earlier, in vv21-23, where Joel prophesies, “Fear not, O land, for the Lord will do great things. Be not afraid… Be glad, you children of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.” And, following that latter rain, “The floors will be full of wheat… And I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten.” Here is a double experience. If you understand Israel, when they sowed the crops in the biblical days, the ‘first rain’, the ‘former rain’ fell and germinated the seed. This tended to be followed by a hot dry summer. But before the harvest, you had in Israel the last, the ‘latter rain’. What happened on the Day of Pentecost was that FIRST outpouring of the Holy Spirit!
From my earliest days of seeking the Holy Spirit, I always believed that there would come in the ‘last days’ a further and even GREATER outpouring of the Holy Spirit before the Lord returns. We have not come to the end of Joel’s prophecy yet, because it says, “I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” This prophecy is absolutely, clearly, a prophecy of what is still to happen, right up to the time immediately preceding the return of Christ. I believe we are now literally living in the days of the latter rain, and that we should experience those same things Joel and Peter describe – but with an even greater anointing now, than happened originally with Peter and the disciples in the Acts of the Apostles! I have always believed this.
In my teenage I had received years a very powerful baptism of the Holy Spirit, but I was conscious I was not actually seeing all the things that I believed I ought to see in my ministry. Yes, I saw incredible miracles. In 1959 I planted a church here in Dewsbury where I still live; I have the newspaper cuttings where the local press reported on the miracles that happened in those crusade meetings – blind eyes were opened, deaf ears opened, cripples were healed and walked. The church in Dewsbury was born out of a miraculous ministry. But despite the fact that I was seeing these miracles, I myself was dissatisfied, because the more I read the Scripture, the more I prayed into it, the more I believed we should see the same and GREATER signs and evidences today following the ministry. I needed, wanted to see an increasing power, an increasing anointing, something NEW coming, something GREATER!
So when I heard that, for the first time since the days of the early Church, there was to be in 1961 a World Pentecostal Conference in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, I was amazed! Pentecostal people from all over the world, coming together! And we could be in that same Upper Room – on the Day of Pentecost! I believed in my heart we would see this phenomenal explosion of Power I longed for, and out of this would come the final great revival! Unfortunately, it didn’t happen as I thought. I was discouraged and disappointed. But forty years later, almost to the day, in 2001 I was to hold a major crusade in that same auditorium in Jerusalem we had used in 1961! I was praying, and – as I like to do – walking around the building, calling the people to come in, calling the Power of God to come down, and I stopped in my tracks, I was quite angry…
…I said, “Lord, I’m so disappointed, because I came here 40 years ago expecting to see a major revival – but nothing happened!” The Lord stopped me, “No! Forty years ago, your whole life changed!” It’s true, between 1961 and 2001 which was forty years later, I had seen revival sweep across all those East European communist countries, across all Russia and Ukraine, in POWER – a PHENOMENAL REVIVAL! I had to apologise to the Lord! I realised that, in that conference in Jerusalem in 1961, I HAD received a new power, a new anointing that changed and transformed my ministry from that point on, even until this present day! That’s 60 years now!
I’ve seen the most incredible miracles. But I’m still not satisfied. In John 14:12 Jesus said to His disciples, these things, the miracles, that you have seen Me do, you will also do, and GREATER, because I go to My Father. He was referring to the sending of the Holy Spirit. So many people today just cannot accept this, and I get criticised when I say that we should expect to see GREATER miracles than Jesus did. But that is what Jesus actually said! In my own ministry, I’m always looking for the increasing, GREATER miracles. I have seen phenomenal things, but I don’t want to say that they have been greater than the miracles Jesus did – but they ought to be, they HAVE to be! Come on! If Jesus was right in what He said, “YOU will do GREATER miracles than I do”, then we MUST…
If we are looking for revival, for the Power of God, for the Holy Spirit, we’ve got to realise that this will come in a MASSIVE demonstration of the Power of the Holy Spirit. Although at the time of writing I have just reached my 89th birthday, I am still expecting in my life to see the fulfilment of prophecy! We are going shortly to see these incredible signs Joel spoke of, the sun, the moon, pillars of smoke and so on. I believe we are living in a period when this is about to happen, because we are living in the age immediately preceding the return of Christ. That’s another topic, but I am believing that there is still coming a great and massive and powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I’m living in this, I’m experiencing this. I’m not just talking and preaching about it. I’m seeing it. I HAVE seen it happen. In 1917 I was in Moscow to join a celebration of the 500 years since Luther’s Reformation. One of the advisers to President Putin said, “David, we had 70 years under communism. When communism collapsed in 1991, Russia was in total chaos. The only thing that saved Russia was the preaching of the Gospel at that time!” And he thanked me for my part in those years when revival came to the whole former Soviet bloc. It was the simple Gospel with apostolic signs and wonders – and this has been recognised and acknowledged at the highest level in Russia.
But to me, this is not the end, it’s only a beginning. I believe the Power will increase. But we also have to deal with the fact that Jesus questions, concerning His return, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith?” Luke 18:8. There will come a falling away! 2 Thessalonians 2:3. But if we believe that there is a falling away, we also believe that there will be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, an explosion of the miraculous – WE HAVE TO SEE IT, NOW! Time is short, we are coming into the End Times. I know I am going to live and to see the End Time. But before Christ comes, we have to take the prophecy of Scripture, of Jesus Himself when He said, “These things you will do and GREATER!” We have to take Peter when he quotes the prophet Joel, and take Joel when he says that, before the harvest, the latter rain will come down, and the floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with wine and oil, and God will restore to us the years the locust has eaten! We HAVE to seek God that all this will happen!
However much we celebrate Pentecost year by year, as long as you think of it as something that happened two thousand years ago that cannot be repeated – YOU ARE WRONG. The prophecies, the Words of Jesus are quite clear, a GREATER outpouring MUST happen in the last days before He comes back. Do you see the URGENCY?! I have believed and lived in this experience of a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit since 1961, when I was in that Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost. Look at my ministry – the phenomenal numbers of healings, tens of thousands of healings, incredible miracles that have happened – it’s not me, it’s only what Peter, Joel and Jesus all prophesied would happen. But what I have seen is only a beginning. I am yet believing that this next phase of my ministry will be greater and more powerful than anything that has happened in the past.
Don’t rest and say that we cannot see GREATER miracles than Jesus. I am challenging you. If we are to expect to see and do GREATER things than Jesus did (and we MUST expect this), then come on, we at least need to be doing the things that He did – preach the Gospel, heal the sick, with signs following! God bless you.