Today I feel like the man who dropped the first atomic bomb. It is said that the bombardier who released the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 put his head in his hand and said, “My God, what have I done?”
When I first conceived the thought that the Pentecostal – Charismatic Movement is Ishmael and that the greatest outpouring to come is Isaac, I had no idea that one day I would be saying this to some of the most important leaders of this movement. Today I addressed the Board of Oral Roberts University. This board is made up of some of the most influential and highest profile people of the Pentecostal – Charismatic Movement, including the leading historian of this movement. It is the nearest equivalent I can think of to a “Pentecostal-Charismatic Sanhedrin”! Imagine facing these powerful men and women and calling their precious tradition Ishmael.
When I finished my talk I had the exact same feeling as I had when I first unveiled my thoughts along this line at the Wembley Conference Centre in London in 1992. I feared I had offended some of the best people on earth. In a similar way, some twenty-two years later, on the plane back to Nashville I kept asking, “What have I done?”
Some readers of this blog will recognize that the final chapter of my book Holy Fire is called “Isaac”. The idea is this: for thirteen years Abraham sincerely believed that the promised child was Ishmael. But one day God said to him, “Ishmael is not the promised child. Isaac is coming”. This did not please Abraham. At first.
I once asked a Charismatic leader in England, “If you were to decide whether the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement is Ishmael or Isaac, which would you say it is?” He replied: “Isaac”. I then said to him, “What if I told you it is Ishmael?” He said, “I hope not”. In 1992 I gave my talk at the first Word and Spirit Conference at Wembley Conference Centre in London in which I purported that what we have experienced up to now is Ishmael – but Isaac is coming! As the promise to Abraham concerning Isaac was a hundred times greater than the promise to Ishmael, so what is coming down the road will be a hundred times greater than anything we have seen in the historic Pentecostal-Charismatic movement. Many Pentecostals and Charismatics have understandably assumed that the power and success of this vast movement is as good as it gets before the Second Coming. After all, over six hundred million – some say it is a lot more than that – believers scattered throughout the world could be called Pentecostals or Charismatics. This to many is proof that the greatest outpouring of the Spirit has already happened. “We are it”, many might well say.
I believe many have underestimated what God is going to do next. It is my view that the next thing on God’s calendar is the Word and the Spirit coming together as seen in the book of Acts. Smith Wigglesworth prophesied three months before he died in 1947 that the next great move of God would be the coming together of the Word and the Spirit. That is what I am saying. I have given it the name Isaac. I plan to write an entire book on this.
The members of the Board of ORU had no way of being prepared for what I shared with them today. They knew of many of my books but had no time to read Holy Fire. I was honored to be asked to address them. They responded with a polite applause. But I could not help but wonder what they really thought!
I do not think it will be long before it will be seen objectively whether my word is truly from God. There is not much more I can say at this stage. Only wait. I only know it is a perspective I have held for some forty years, reaching back to the days when I talked about this with Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
Many Charismatics were initially offended when I first gave this position in 1992. But afterwards some have embraced my position. There is a widespread feeling that “We need something – desperately”. The world has no respect for the Church of God. They laugh at us. The church is in a deep sleep. It is my view that when the Word and Spirit come together – resulting in the awakening in the middle of the night (Matt.25:6) – the simultaneous combination will result in spontaneous combustion. It will mean Isaac. Isaac means “laughter” or “he laughs”. But as the old saying goes, “He who laughs last laughs best”.
RT Kendall