James 5:7:

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

God expects a harvest from the earth. But before there was harvest, there was rain. The early rain got the seed going; the latter rain prepared the crop for harvest.

The Church Age started with a great outpouring of the Spirit. We should expect in these last days to see another great outpouring of the Spirit that will produce a final harvest of souls before Jesus returns.

Although the former rain and the latter rain take place at different times, they have one thing in common -- they both consist of water. In other words, the former rain and latter rain are the same thing. So when we wonder what kinds of things should be happening today, we need only look at what happened in the book of Acts. We should be expecting more of the same today -- whole cities turning to the Lord because of healing miracles! Lame people healed by the dozens! Judgment miracles against people who attempt to stop the work of God and lie to the Church! People raised from the dead!


God's healing mercy has always been available to all. God is not more willing to heal the sick in these last days. However, we should expect that there will be more signs and wonders that will confound the intellectuals and force men to recognize the resurrection of Jesus Christ. More miracles should arrest the attention of sinners. We should expect Jesus to return for a triumphant church that knows its rights in Christ and exercises them in this world.

These will not happen automatically just because it is time for the "latter rain." If we ask not, we will have not. "Ask ye of the L
ORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field" (Zechariah 10:1).


You may wonder: Is this trying to establish a new "dispensationalist" theory that the early Church was in an Early Rain dispensation, which was followed by a No Rain dispensation, which has been succeeded by a Latter Rain dispensation? Would this not prove that there is a time for miracles and a time not to have miracles?

I believe that given what God said about his glory in the last days (see Healing and God's glory), we can conclude that as the coming of Christ approaches there will be more manifestations of God's glory on the earth. This is consistent with being in the time of the Latter Rain. Of course, if we are in the time of the Latter Rain, it is time to expect great miracles in abundance and to pray for them to be done in our midst!

However, we are not under a separate covenant or in a separate "age" from the early Church. The same healing scriptures apply to both. Anyone could receive by faith then, now, and any time in between. Special manifestations do not indicate a greater willingness for God to heal, but a sign for sinners on the earth to notice. We desperately need such signs in our day to wake up the sinners.


Consider the following. In the 1950's, there was a great healing revival. It was no more God's will to heal then, but there were more manifestations of spiritual gifts along those lines. Later, there was a teaching revival where faith was emphasized and taught more than before. Those faith concepts were true all along. A long time ago, meetings where people got "drunk in the Spirit" were fairly common, and they even wrote songs about it. This almost disappeared for a while, only to come back more recently. In earlier centuries, people being "slain in the Spirit" was a common occurrence when evangelists preached to the masses. People thought it was a new thing when it came back in our day.

The point is that there are different moves of God at different times. We did not have a "healing dispensation" or a "faith dispensation" in which healing and faith work when they didn't before. They were just different things that the Holy Spirit was emphasizing at the time. There are different "flows" of the Spirit within the same dispensation. The early and latter rain are "flows" as opposed to "dispensations."


Judgment is coming. Read Revelation if you don't believe that. But God always gives men space to repent and shows them mercy before judgment falls. We should expect a great wave of God's mercy in the earth before the Church is taken out of here and judgment falls.