God’s people need a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a supernatural touch even greater than the one at Pentecost. Jesus’ followers at Pentecost didn’t have to fear nuclear weapons. They didn’t tremble as the entire world economy hovered on the brink of collapse.

It is clear we need Holy Ghost power to face these last days. Indeed, the cry that’s called for today was heard in Isaiah’s day: “Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down … to make Your name known” (Isaiah 64:1-2).

“Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:19-20). We are now living in “that day” Jesus speaks of; in short, we are to understand our heavenly position in Christ. Of course, most of us know our position in him — that we are seated with him in heavenly places — but only as a theological fact. We know it as an experience.

Jesus loved to speak to the crowds in parables. “These things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, ‘I will open My mouth ins parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world’” (Matthew 13:34-35).

In John 2, Jesus enters the temple for an act that would signal the beginning of his public ministry. What takes place next is quite dramatic: