The Echoes of Fire: From Pentecost to the Present

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
It’s been a few days since I’ve sat down to write.
Not because there hasn’t been anything happening—but because something deeper has been unfolding beneath the surface. I’ve found myself going down what I can only describe as a spiritual rabbit hole, and it has been difficult to step away from it.
And it all began—or at least deepened—as I continued restoring Holy Ghost Sermons by Maria Woodworth-Etter 
What started as a restoration project has slowly become something else.
It’s no longer just about correcting text, fixing errors, or preserving structure.
It’s become an encounter.
Because as I’ve been sitting with her words, I’ve found myself asking a question that hasn’t left me:
Where did this kind of fire come from?
And that question didn’t just take me back a few years.
It took me all the way back to the beginning.
Pentecost — Where It All Began
Before there was revival history, before movements had names, before there were books or testimonies being recorded—
There was a room.
A group of ordinary people.
Waiting.
Praying.
Not striving.
Not building.
Just waiting on God.
And then, suddenly, everything changed.
The Spirit of God was poured out.
Not in theory.
Not in symbolism.
But in power.
Fear turned into boldness.
Silence turned into proclamation.
Ordinary men became witnesses who would carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Pentecost was not just an event.
It was the beginning of a pattern.
A divine pattern that would echo through history.
God pours out His Spirit..and everything changes.
The First Great Awakening — When Conviction Returned
As I traced that pattern forward, I found myself sitting in the history of the First Great Awakening.
Through voices like and , something began to stir across entire regions.
But what marked this movement wasn’t hype.
It was weight.
Conviction of sin.
A deep awareness of God’s holiness.
People didn’t just attend sermons—they were undone by them.
There are accounts of people gripping onto pews, overcome by the reality of standing before a holy God.
Not emotion for the sake of emotion.
But truth cutting deep into the heart.
And once again, the pattern holds:
God moves.
People respond.
Lives are transformed.
Maria Woodworth-Etter — A Forerunner of Fire
Then I found myself back where this journey began.
With Maria.
But now, I was seeing her differently.
Not just as a historical figure.
Not just as a woman preacher.
But as a forerunner.
Long before Azusa Street became known across the world, Maria Woodworth-Etter was already walking in the power of God.
Ministering in the late 1800s into the early 1900s, her meetings were marked by something that can’t be explained naturally.
People falling under the power of God.
Moments of deep stillness.
Conviction.
Healing.
Encounters.
And what makes this even more profound is the life she carried behind the pulpit.
She lost five of her six children.
A level of grief that most people could never fully comprehend.
And yet, she stood and preached with what can only be described as an unquenchable dependence on God.
This was not performance.
This was not theory.
This was a life refined by suffering… carrying the presence of God.
She wasn’t trying to start revival.
She was walking in it.
The Welsh Revival — When a Nation Was Shaken
As I continued digging, I found myself in Wales.
And again, something familiar appeared.
Not structure.
Not systems.
But surrender.
The Welsh Revival was marked by repentance.
Deep, raw, undeniable repentance.
Communities changed.
Workplaces shifted.
The atmosphere of entire towns was altered.
People didn’t just attend gatherings.
They encountered God in a way that reshaped their lives.
And again, no one could take credit.
Because this kind of movement doesn’t come from human effort.
It comes from God.
Azusa Street — When the Fire Spread
Then came Azusa Street.
A small, humble gathering in Los Angeles led by .
No platform.
No global strategy.
No polished system.
Just people gathering in prayer.
And once again… God moved.
The Spirit was poured out in a way that spread far beyond that small room.
Nations were impacted.
The Pentecostal movement was ignited globally.
But what struck me the most is this:
Azusa didn’t create the fire.
It revealed it.
It became a global spark of something that had already been burning.
The Pattern I Can’t Ignore
As I’ve been sitting in all of this—Pentecost, the Great Awakening, Maria, Wales, Azusa—
I can’t ignore what keeps surfacing.
There is a pattern.
Not a formula.
But a pattern.
It always begins the same way:
Hunger.
Surrender.
Prayer.
Not performance.
Not control.
Not striving.
When It Stops Being History
Somewhere along the way this week, something shifted in me.
This stopped being about history.
And it became personal.
Because I found myself asking a question that I can’t easily answer:
Do I actually want this?
Not the idea of revival.
Not the concept.
But the reality of it.
Because revival is not convenient.
It disrupts.
It exposes.
It rearranges everything.
And that’s where the tension sits.
Because it’s easy to admire revival from a distance.
It’s something else entirely to desire it in your own life.
The Modern Noise
We live in a world filled with noise.
Constant content.
Constant movement.
Constant distraction.
And none of it is inherently wrong.
But it can slowly replace something essential.
Dependence.
We can build so much that we forget how to wait.
Produce so much that we forget how to receive.
Move so fast that we forget how to sit still.
But revival does not come from noise.
It comes from surrender.
The Quiet Invitation
And that’s where I find myself now.
Not with answers.
Not with a clear roadmap.
But with an awareness.
A quiet, weighty awareness that something matters here.
Something deeper than information.
Something that calls for more than curiosity.
This restoration project started as a way to preserve something from the past.
But it has become something else.
An invitation.
Not to study revival.
But to be shaped by it.

Final Reflection

I can’t unsee what I’ve seen.
I can’t unknow what I’ve learned.
And I can’t pretend that this is just history anymore.
Because it’s not.
The same God who moved at Pentecost…
Who stirred the Great Awakening…
Who carried Maria through unimaginable loss…
Who shook Wales…
Who ignited Azusa Street…
Has not changed.
The fire is not gone.
The question is not whether it’s real.
The question is whether I am willing to respond.
And right now…
I’m learning what that response even looks like.

About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.2M views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the "light in the mundane."

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