“The Christian world is in a deep sleep. Nothing but a loud voice can waken them out of it!” George Whitefield, 1739 during the Great Awakening. The Church today is in desperate need of a revival, no doubt. I long for a revival of The Church. Unfortunately, the truth of Scripture is too often set aside in pursuit of the emotional high of a mystical experience.
The Great Awakening was a dramatic revival that began in New England as early as 1726. As observed by Jonathan Edwards, the number of conversions showed a remarkable increase. Edwards published his first book on the revival in 1736. He could not know that what he was witnessing were the first hints of the greatest revival in American history that continued to 1740. By the time it was over, virtually every community in the colonies had been effected by the revival. It was marked by strong preaching, a resurgence of sound doctrine, emphasis on justification by faith, powerful conviction of sin, conversions, and dramatically transformed lives. The Great Awakening as it was known lasted not fourteen days, but about fourteen years. In Timothy and Titus, God is clear about how men can judge the sanctification of men by patiently observing them over time before enlisting them in an office of the church. Time is one solid tool that God has given us to judge what we don’t know. By this measure, Asbury was hardly a blip.
When you heard of Asbury, were you revived? Not just inspired, given a good feeling, or warmed in your heart, but REVIVED? If you knew the Holy Spirit was acting upon His people in a miraculous way, how would it effect you? What in your life changed as a result of Asbury? Maybe you didn’t need reviving, or maybe this wasn’t a revival.
Traditionally though a revival is something that is almost dead that is brought back to life and health. Thus a revival of the church is a revival of an almost dead church, brought back to the source of life (Christ) by the Holy Spirit. Revival can be personal. A backslidden Christian can experience the working of the Holy Spirit through the reading, study, hearing and conviction of God’s word. A church (as opposed to The Church) can move from preaching that exemplifies a life coach to handling God’s word as a sword that lifts up faithful believers to be accountable, discipline and disciplined by elders faithful submission to, study, preaching and exposure of the word of God.
Yet some churches don’t need a revival. John MacArthur once said in a sermon, ‘People sometimes say to me, “Have you ever had a revival in your church?” and I say, “Well, no, we’ve never been dead.” So, what’s to revive?’ Which leads me to ask, was Asbury dead? If it needed reviving, why was it allowed to die in the first place?
Many people measure a revival by it’s trappings. It went on many hours, hundreds or thousands of people attended, there was singing, there was prayer, tongues, healings, miracles, conversions, baptisms, visiting preachers, and on and on. If this is the earmarks of a revival, then revivals happen every Sunday at charismatic churches all over the world. While a revival may have some of these things, I challenge the premise that these things are indicative of a revival. There are many examples of fake TV evangelists who can gin up all of the above using trickery, emotional manipulation, and fakery by actors in the audience — without any need of the Holy Spirit. In fact, I myself have experience being “slain in the spirit” on more than one occasion. I can testify that I don’t think it had anything to do with the Holy Spirit but another spirit. It seems that the church today follows feelings and emotional euphoria to be the final arbiter of any legitimate move of God.
I’ve seen fliers promoting an event where a visiting evangelist is coming for a revival in town. It’s amazing how the Holy Spirit is in obedient submission to the evangelist. After all, the evangelist can schedule a time when the Holy Spirit will show up and perform on queue like a circus bear, pack up, and head off to the next revival. Is that really how the bible describes the working of the Holy Spirit? If the revival was generated by THE Holy Spirit, why doesn’t the excitement of the church that promoted it infect everyone and every church in the area like a forest fire? Instead, the evangelistic efforts of the group peter out before the checks are cashed.
What if I said “I went to a revival and there were people praying, singing, reading the bible, preaching and levitating.” Hopefully something in that statement brought into question the entirety of the statement. Yet when people say Asbury has all the earmarks of a revival and there was also heretical behavior, people set aside their skepticism, discernment, biblical knowledge and praise God for the revival. People who are skeptical by nature simply believe that the Holy Spirit performed a miracle by stepping into the course of humanity and generated a revival of God’s people that spread out for 4 city blocks, 100,000 people attended over time, prayers were prayed, a dozen songs (some written by non-Christians) were sung over and over, the bible was preached a few times and even by women, people spoke in tongues without interpreters, a woman was psychosomatically healed of a sprained ankle, there were news stories of how long this lasted, in interviews people spoke of the Holy Spirit moving in the church, endorsements came from at least two known heretical preachers, many people felt the love of Jesus, and when this movement couldn’t be contained any longer and was about to explode on the world… the president of the college scheduled the shutting down of the Holy Spirit so they could get back to the activities of their Christian college. Hopefully some things in that statement brought into question the entirety of the statement. I think as a whole, this was not a revival. I believe though that some people, in spite of all the nonsense, were moved by the Holy Spirit and experience true revival in their spiritual lives that will go on to effect the lives of many others. At least I hope so.
I’m confident that when the Holy Spirit causes a revival, God’s word will be preached in Spirit and in truth, the entirety of The Church will be held up by the Holy Spirit and never tire or wain in faith, and there won’t be room for skepticism, even by people like me. Does anyone expect anything less from the God of the universe?