Shekinah Glory, Holy Fire and Miraculous Healing

The Azusa Street Revival (1906-1910) is pretty well known in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles for the revival of the gift of tongues. But reading through They Told Me Their Stories: The Youth and Children of Azusa Street Tell Their Stories, I am learning that there were other marvelous manifestations of the Holy Spirit, including numerous healings, the unusual appearance of flame above the meetinghouse, and the experience of what those in attendance called the "Shekinah Glory."

This book is composed of testimonies often repeated to Tommy Welchel back in the 1960s by men and women who were children and teenagers during the Azusa revival. Now they were residents of Old Pisgah Home, in Los Angeles, and Welchel, being a new believer, would literally sit at their feet, eager to hear their stories over and over.

They gave account of many of the miraculous healings they had personally witnessed, and often even participated in, though they were only children and teenagers at the time. Some were themselves healed. Blind eyes were made to see, deaf ears heard, tumors vanished, cleft palates joined together, new teeth appeared, broken bones were made whole, amputated limbs were restored, and those bound in wheelchairs received strength to walk, run and dance for joy.

Many of these witnesses also told about the unusual flame that would often appear above the meetinghouse. It was described as a fire coming down from heaven to meet a fire that was going up from the building.

There were also many who experienced the "Shekinah Glory," an unusual cloud of mist that regularly settled in the meetinghouse. It was believed to be a visible manifestation of the glory of the Lord. At times it was thick enough that children could play "hide and seek" in it. Sometimes it settled love to the ground and people would lay down in to breathe in the glory. A few tried to capture it in a jar, only to find that it would soon evaporate. Many simply breathed it in, some describing it as an experience of heaven or as breathing pure oxygen.

A hundred years ago, the revival at Azusa Street signaled a fresh and powerful move of God. About a hundred years ago, Charles Parham, who had witnessed a stirring of the gift of tongues in Topeka, KS, just a few years prior, prophesied that in a hundred years, another revival would come that would be even greater. William Seymour, who led the Azusa revival, similarly prophesied about a greater revival that would come in another hundred years.