I believe the Third Great Awakening is now launching in America and in the nations. We are in the Army of the Lord Movement of Jesus’ Church and an army is arising!
Many Christians are looking for the “Day of the Lord” – the return of Christ for His Church. They believe in the imminent return of Christ regardless of the condition of the Church. Their criteria for the coming of the Lord are world events and the state of Israel. I contend that the foremost criteria for the second coming of Jesus is that which is taking place in the Church directed by the Holy Spirit.
I am really looking forward to Christ returning for His Church and I hope you are also. But I also know that Scripture indicates that many things will happen concerning the Church coming to full restoration before the return of the Lord in God’s timetable and prophetic agenda.
The twenty-first century Church has a destiny to fulfill prophetic Scriptures. There are Old and New Testament prophetic scriptures yet to be fulfilled by the Church. The mortal Church must fulfill these Scriptures pertaining to God’s purposes for the last generation before Jesus can return.
Let me provide two areas (there are more areas identified my book) that still need to be fulfilled.
First, the Church must be complete in maturity as well as in number of members before Christ returns.
The Church will not go up (the Rapture) until it has grown up (Eph. 5:25-27) into the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). It is interesting that there are ten times more scriptures concerning growing up than there are about going up. The church has not yet become a “mature man” in Christ. There is not “unity in the faith” yet. But the Holy Spirit has begun this work.
Second, the gospel of the Kingdom must be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matt. 24:14). The Gospel of the Kingdom is the demonstration of the Lordship of Christ over sin (gospel of salvation), sickness, demons, people, and nations. God loves the idea of nations, and nations are designed to reveal His glory. They are of special interest to Him. The Church will continue demonstrating the Kingdom, bringing transformation to the nations until every nation on earth becomes either a sheep or goat nation so that when Jesus returns He can fulfill His commission of separating the sheep nations from the goat nations (Matt. 25:31-34). This is in process and is accelerating.
In order for these and other prophetic scriptures to be fulfilled before Jesus come, I believe that another great outpouring of the Holy Spirit will occur. In addition to what many prophets and intercessors who are declaring about a Third Great Awakening, let me share other voices that are saying a Third Great Awakening era is upon us.
There was a ten-year-old boy, A.C. Valdez, who went to the Azusa Street Mission. He spent years at the Mission until he began to preach miracle tent revivals up and down California. But for all the glory Valdez witnessed at Azusa Street, he kept insisting something bigger was coming. This prediction burned in him the rest of his life. Here’s how he once described it:
All the electrifying adjectives in the dictionary shaken together, pressed down and running over will not begin to describe the soon-to-come, greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit of all times – what the Bible calls “the latter rain.” You are going to see lay members carry out an amazing ministry through gifts of the Holy Spirit. There will be wholesale cures of “incurable” conditions, healings of the blind, deaf, dumb, and handicapped, and creative miracles that will strain the imagination. For those born without eyes, ears, fingers, arms, or legs – God will make new ones. Many astonishing miracles will happen to bring on an international Christian breakthrough.
Just think of the conversions, signs, wonders, and miracles that A.C. Valdez saw and experienced at the Azusa Street Mission. And yet he predicted the “greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit of all times” was still in the future. I believe that now is that time!
A new breed of Christian is coming to turn America away from destruction. They are bold, creative, compelling, and express the deep love of God like a light shining in the darkness.
Mario Murillo in Vessels of Fire & Glory in 2020 observed:
There is a growing number among us who are grieved and yet full of expectancy. They say the Holy Spirit is amassing an army. They claim that nothing we are seeing in churches today approaches what we will see. They say it’s coming, and no one can stop it. The locomotive of destiny is barreling toward us. It carries precious cargo: a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
They see millions of lost souls swept into the Kingdom of God in one righteous tidal wave. A vast army of youth full of love, power, and the Holy Spirit will form virtually overnight. Satan will suffer at the hands of armor-piercing Christianity – Christianity that will penetrate culture and reform it.
Awakenings do not begin in times of enlightened morality, prosperity, and peace. They come when humanity writhes in the depths of depravity. They arrive in the shadow of wars and convulsions in nature.
Soon an army will emerge that is entrenched in every area of our culture – a few will be in pulpits, but most of them will be in politics, business, science, law, entertainment, music, and a thousand other fields of endeavor. This army is self-emptying, full of compassion, and has a hatred for sickness and evil.
No one can buy them off as they will operate on a plane of holiness and consecration. They see their destiny. It’s big and dangerous. They see themselves rebuking kings, tyrants, and warmongers. They see themselves commanding the wealth of the wicked be handed over to the just. They see themselves speaking miracles over the hopeless and tormented. They see themselves being fitted for war.
And this Third Great Awakening will include young saints are as warriors:
H.A. Baker, in Visions of Heaven, reported:
Children in the Addulum Orphanage got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit as a sovereign move of God swept in their midst. Those from six to nine years old were used the most. They had numerous angelic visitations, visions of Heaven and hell, and detailed dreams about people, places, and things happening. Their eyes were enabled to see into the spirit world of demons. It was so real that they chased the demons out of their midst and cast them out of people. The children would prophesy with great authority and vividly describe events from the Bible about which they had never been taught.
Jesus is still saying today that we should allow the children to come unto Him, for He is going to use them mightily (Matt. 19:14). Jesus is excited about this age group, for they will be the ones to bring Him back as King. Even now God is going to sovereignly visit the teenage and junior-high saints, moving them into the Holy Spirit realm of visions and supernatural visitations. They will prophesy very specific things and heal the sick. They will receive such a revelation of Jesus that they will lose all fear of the devil and evil spirits.
What an exciting time to be alive! Let us be about our Father’s business and not have an escapism mentality as some do. Let the Third Great Awakening commence!
Excerpts from my new book, Activating the Present-Day Ministry of the Holy Spirit. Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.