A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

The Healing Revival and the Latter Rain
movement had lost momentum, had gotten somewhat dry,
and perhaps even had stagnated. Many people longed for
a fresh move of the Spirit. William Branham tapped into
this desire with his healing ministry in 1946, sparking
renewed faith and spiritual hunger among many people.
Another man who inspired great expectations was
Franklin Hall, a teacher who particularly emphasized fasting
and healing. He went to extremes in both areas, proclaiming,
in essence, that a person could receive
whatever he wanted from God if he would invest enough
time in fasting. Moreover, a truly spiritual person could be
delivered from the potential for sickness, tiredness, and
even body odor.
In this atmosphere of desire for a new move of God,
some people appealed to the prophecy of Joel 2:23,
which speaks of the former rain and the latter rain. Most
early Pentecostals had interpreted the former rain to be
the first-century outpouring of the Holy Spirit (as Peter
indicated in Acts 2:16) and the latter rain to be the endtime
outpouring from 1901 onward. Now, some people
considered that the latter rain was yet to come. They also
appealed to Isaiah 43:19, where God promised to do a
new thing, and applied these words to their day.
Another biblical source for the new movement was
the Old Testament typology of the three major feasts—
Passover, Pentecost (Weeks), and Tabernacles. Some said
that Passover was fulfilled by the Atonement, and
Pentecost by the outpouring of the Spirit, but the Feast of
Tabernacles had not yet been fulfilled. There would soon
come a new work of God in addition to the Pentecostal
revival that would fulfill the Feast of Tabernacles.
As a distinct movement, the New Order of the Latter
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