Down here in South Louisiana a standard table item is the bottle of hot sauce. Several years back while applying this to some of my wife's home cooking, the Lord showed me a parallel between it and the church. This seemed good to share at this time, as I believe we are about to see it come to pass.
Hot sauce has three ingredients. Water, cayenne pepper and vinegar. And in these we can see a picture of the Church
Water represents the people of the Church. The pepper is the fire of God, or the anointing, and vinegar speaks of purging or cleansing. The vinegar is needed to keep the pepper mixed in the water.
The problem with this product is that if you let a bottle of hot sauce sit for a long time without using it the pepper separates out and floats to the top. There it forms a crust. Since the neck of the bottle is very narrow, it doesn't take much time before it is completely clogged. No hot sauce will flow if the neck is clogged.
This is like a church that has sat inside its four walls and did little or nothing to reach the outside world. It has become useless.
God is desiring to use his Church to bring in a great harvest of souls in these end times, but the church has become like that bottle of hot sauce; clogged up and useless.
Now imagine that the harvest is like a big plate of jambalaya. That’s a rice dish with chicken, shrimp, ham, pork or sausage; seasonings and spices all mixed in. And before you eat this jambalaya you want to spice it up a bit with some hot sauce!
Well before God can bring in His harvest, he has to pour out his fire on the world and get some people saved.
But the instrument intended for this, his Church, has become of little or no use! What will he do?
The same as I would do with a bottle of hot sauce which was clogged up. Shake it!
One shaking is never enough either; it takes repeated shaking to clear up the stoppage. And after each time you shake it you bring it very close to your face so you can see if you have cleared up the blockage. If it's not ready, you shake it again.
God is about to shake his Church. And with each shaking, we will draw it closer to Himself, examine it and judge it. And then shake it again till its composition is restored to usability. And all the little fragments have been put back into the mixture where they belong.
Then when he is ready, watch out world. His people will pour out of the old dead churches and astonish the world by showing them what Jesus is really like. They will be on fire for God and used mightily for His kingdom. Just like the burning bush, afire with the presence of God and not consumed.