February 20, 2023 Show with Jerry Dorris & Austin Keeler on “The Asbury Revival”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensirenradio .com. This is

Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 20th day of February 2023.

I am thrilled to have on the program today both a returning guest and a first -time guest, and they are both pastors of Reformation Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky.

I have returning to us on the program who hasn't been on the show since February 25th of 2021 when

I interviewed him and Ryan Denton on key elements of true evangelism.

I'm speaking of Jerry Doris, who is one of the pastors of Reformation Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and we are also going to be joined by a first -time guest,

Austin Keeler, also pastor of Reformation Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky. They're both going to be addressing the

Asbury revival, observations, biblical and historical comparisons, and responses from concerned local pastors and eyewitnesses.

First of all, let me welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jerry Doris. It's good to be here, thanks for having me back, sir.

It's great to have you back, and welcome for the first time, Austin Keeler. Thanks Chris, thanks for having me.

First of all, Jerry, why don't you give our listeners a description of Reformation Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky?

Sure, we are a 1689 Reformed Baptist fellowship in Shelbyville, and we started our church on the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation in 2017, and so we named ourselves Reformation Church. Across all the windows of our church, we have the five solas.

The Lord is greatly blessing us. We have six elders in our church. We are known for being out in our community doing evangelism.

In fact, just this last Saturday night, we were out proclaiming the gospel at a pride event that was happening in our little town here.

And then Austin, just here a little bit ago, returned from the University of Louisville. He and another brother from church were proclaiming the gospel out there.

Amen, and I'm assuming that we should clarify that you're speaking about an event that was there to celebrate the damnable and unnatural sin of homosexuality, and that you were not there to support it, but you were there to proclaim the gospel in the midst of it.

Yeah, let's clarify that for certain. If you can imagine, Shelbyville is

Mayberry. That's what it's supposed to be, and there's a local bar that has had a drag show, and we felt compelled that we needed to go and proclaim the

Lord Jesus Christ, His authority over that place, that He should be honored in our city. Amen.

Well, now, Austin, since you are a first -time guest, unlike Jerry Doris, Austin, we have a tradition here at Iron Trip and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first -time guest on the program, that guest gives a summary of their salvation testimony, including any kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, and any kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you. So, let's hear a summary of your story.

Yeah, well, I grew up going to church. I was involved in youth groups and things of that nature, but I never knew the

Lord, and from an early age, though I was put in church by my parents, my other life was pursuing sin with much zeal.

And so that escalated until I had left church altogether, and through high school and through some of college, just pursuing my sin, pursuing my selfishness, and living a very depraved lifestyle, really questioning whether or not what the

Bible said was true. I think I knew that Jesus was Lord. I just loved my sin.

And it wasn't until the summer of 2013, when

I was 20 years old, that the Lord began to convict me of my sin through the preaching of His Word, and that happened this way.

I would often not be able to sleep unless I was intoxicated by some kind of substance, and during one night when

I was not sober, I happened upon some sermons on YouTube, and I heard something.

And so I kept listening night after night, and the Lord is faithful to bring me under conviction of my sin, and that lasted for a few months until September 1, 2013.

The Lord met me around midnight. He made the gospel clear to me. He made my own depravity clear to me.

He made me a new creation that night, and yeah, that's the day that He saved me.

Praise God. And how did you come to discover and embrace Reformed theology? Well, after I was converted,

I went back to the last church that I had been at, and that was a Christian and Missionary Alliance church, and it's a good church.

But my process of Reforming began pretty immediately. It wasn't long before I realized that I was a

Calvinist. I didn't study Calvinism and choose Calvinism. I read the

Bible, and then I learned what Calvinism was, and I realized this is what I believe. And so Calvinism was the first step to my

Reforming, and then topics such as ecclesiology and things like that began to slowly be further

Reforming over time, and I'm still Reforming today. And we all should be.

And it might please you to know, in fact, I know it will please you to know that the local

Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I'm sitting, he is thoroughly theologically

Reformed, and I know that that is a rarity in that denomination, but it does exist from time to time.

Yeah. And David Monreal is his name. He's a dear friend and a wonderful brother.

I met him at a Banner of Truth conference, and I'm continuing to enjoy a lot of wonderful fellowship with him.

Since you mentioned something about your testimony that involves addiction, something that I myself also have been delivered from by the praise, honor, and glory, and mercy, and grace of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I was addicted very seriously to alcohol in a scandalous degree, and was on the margin of being excommunicated, but I followed the principles that my elders insisted upon, and I admitted myself into Hebron Colony in Boone, North Carolina.

I always look for opportunities to praise this wonderful ministry, Hebron Colony, which is the oldest continually running addiction recovery ministry for men in the

United States. It started after World War II when a Presbyterian minister began witnessing many

G .I .s coming back from overseas as drunkards, and he started the ministry for them, and it continues today.

It's absolutely free of charge, which is unusual even for a Christian addiction recovery ministry, and I'm not saying that this is going to happen to everyone who submits to their program, but I have left there not even for a minute craving alcohol again.

So I praise God for this wonderful organization, and yes,

I know there are many of our Reformed brethren who recognize that drinking alcohol in moderation and responsibly is a liberty, at least most of us who are

Reformed believe that, but I cannot touch the stuff ever again. I know myself too well, and I would never put myself at risk again, nor bring into question my testimony again by touching the stuff, but anyway,

I just thought I'd mention that. Well, I'm going to give our listeners the email address right away if they have questions for you.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are in a church that has a particular view of the so -called

Asbury Revival that you vociferously disagree with, and you'd rather not bring up your identity in public because of this disagreement you have.

You might even be a pastor who disagrees with his own elders, or his congregation in the majority, or his denomination.

Well, we understand those would be reasons to remain anonymous, but if it's a general question, please give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

I think a good place to start would be if you could each, and I'll start with Jerry this time, give a definition of what a revival is, because there's so much confusion over what that means.

Many average people, perhaps outside of the church, but even

I think many if not most people within the body of Christ, have a misunderstanding about what that word even means.

And some churches, whether they be fundamentalists or even Charismatic and Pentecostal, will even advertise there will be a revival meeting next week,

Wednesday night at seven, or what have you. And they can think, or they often think,

I should say, that in the midst of having a gathering where they are hoping for and praying for a revival, that this is definitely going to happen.

And they'll even call the gathering itself a revival that they have manufactured and scheduled and so on.

But Jerry, what is a revival in reality according to the Bible, and even perhaps give some of the examples from history?

Yeah, brothers, a revival, it happens when the gospel is being preached, and there is conviction of sin and brokenness over sin, and people are turning from their sins, and they are turning to Christ.

You see a couple, there's a couple of examples of that that we see in the Scriptures. Obviously, before the clarity that we have in Christ, you see it in the book of Jonah, when

Jonah is sent to Nineveh to proclaim God's pending judgment against them, and the entire city responds in repentance and brokenness before God and calling out to Him.

And then I also, you know, you look at Acts 19, it has a couple of them, and specifically the one that stands out to me is you have the preaching of the gospel happening, and then people are burning their books of witchcraft and things like that.

There's just this brokenness over sin, and of course, that is because the Holy Spirit Himself, as Jesus promised, would come and convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come.

And so that's principally what we would look for in a biblical revival.

And so when you look in history, that's the kind of responses. The bars are emptied. There's people that are turning away from sin, and people coming off the streets in repentance and brokenness because of the heavy weight of sin.

And Austin, you have anything to add to that description? No, I just add that the revival's the vivification of that which was dead.

What revival isn't is excitement. Revival isn't emotionalism, and revival isn't something that can be scheduled.

When we start equating revival with our activity and guaranteeing that there is a time and a place that it will happen, then we do equate it with our activity, and we'll claim, no matter what the outcome of our activity is, that revival happened because our event happened.

And of course, I'm assuming you would agree with me that there is a difference between emotionalism, which you mentioned in a negative fashion, and genuine, regenerate people demonstrating emotionally the joy in the

Lord that may be occurring in a revival, that should be actually occurring in a revival if it was genuine.

I would be skeptical of a revival or so -called revival if there was no emotional response to it.

Right. Absolutely. Emotions are good, and they are expressed in worship to our

God. How can you not be emotional when you think about the gospel of our

Lord? Amen. And I am reminded of the Welsh revival in the early 20th century.

Not that I was alive during that period, but I learned of it, I believe, for the first time from my friend

Peter Jeffery, who is now in eternity with Christ. When he first came to the

United States to preach at the church where I am a member, Grace Reformed Baptist—where I should say where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania—Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, Peter described what occurred at the

Welsh revival of the early 20th century. And one of the hallmarks that accompanied it was that Wales was known for the mining industry.

And during this revival, the mines began being filled with tools that were stolen previously by people who later were overcome by guilt during the revival, and that they had stolen these and then they had returned them.

So you have there an evidence of repentance taking place. But let's now enter into the actual so -called revival that we are examining today.

And by the way, I want to recommend to all of you—and please wait until this live radio show is over—but there is a video that you can see on YouTube.

I think they're still calling them videos these days. But on YouTube, you can see a discussion that John Harris had with both of my guests.

John Harris has been on this program before, and he did an excellent job interviewing

Jerry Doris and Austin Keeler on this very subject.

And I was very impressed by the demeanor all three of you demonstrated.

This was not a time of arrogant dismissal of anything that was occurring outside of your own ministries or outside of the

Reformed community, if you will. And perhaps, Jerry, you can mention to our listeners your thoughts on a danger that many of us may be guilty of succumbing to, where because of perhaps pride or just a recognition that we believe—and

I don't think there's anything wrong with us believing—that our theological understanding—that means the

Reformed community— that our theological understanding is a superior understanding than other views of the

Scripture, but we can never allow that to lift us up, puff us up in pride, where we dismiss things that are going on for the glory of God in other communions, if you will.

But if you could just say a few words about that. Yeah. Well, I would just to put in context why we even went to this is because our church is only an hour away from Asbury, and we have quite a few people within our own fellowship that were graduates from Asbury or are connected through that, through our students as well, and so when we talk about this, we also want to recognize that and be gentle with it because these are brothers and sisters in Christ that are affected by this.

They have to give answers to their families, and if we come across in an arrogant way about this topic, we set them on edge unnecessarily, and that's not our heart, either.

Our experience—my experience—and Austin would echo this, I think, is that the people that were going to this are genuine believers.

They're genuinely seeking after the Lord for the most part. I mean, there's—I think we can identify some charlatans in the midst and some different churches that we would have great objection to being there, but for the most part, these are people that are wanting to experience a fresh outpouring of the

Spirit, I guess, and so in innocence, they go to these things they don't understand, and so they sing songs that they don't understand the source of the song who wrote them, the theology behind the church that wrote a particular song, and so they can sing that with a good conscience and not feel like they're doing anything wrong, and so we want to honor that and recognize that good people that love the

Lord are going to this place, and some of them—I would even add this—may, in fact, have a new understanding of repentance or confess a sin or have some sort of an experience, so in that way, praise

God. Let there be revival in those ways. Let God use this to whatever glory

He wants, so if that's as generous of a statement as I can make on that.

Now, obviously, I have a lot of objections to the things that I have seen and heard and personally experienced in this, but I want to preface it with that, and I think that's the spirit of which you're asking me to say that.

Yes, in fact, I want to remind our listeners that my guests are eyewitnesses, not that they've been there every hour for everything that is occurring in Asbury, but they have been there for multiple hours observing this, and maybe

I will clarify something I said, and perhaps Jerry and Austin can either agree with me or disagree, but while I believe it is very proper if you believe your theological system is the most accurate reflection of what the

Bible teaches, there's nothing wrong with believing that and saying that, but there is a big difference between that and thinking that you're a superior

Christian. There may be many people outside of the

Reformed camp who are superior to the three of us in their humility, into their obedience to Christ, into the way they obey

Christ in their marriages and in their parenting and in their compassion to the world around us, so we have to be careful when we say that we believe our theology is superior to saying that, and contrasting that with saying we are superior.

I'm sure neither of you are making that bold assertion. No. And Austin, I was very also impressed that you had a spirit that was somewhat optimistic, at least hopeful that what you were about to witness before you attended these services or this ongoing service, you were hoping that this may be a long -awaited revival, and it's in reality, but well, first of all, isn't that true that you were not just immediately dismissing it because of the location of this revival and the general theological positions of those who were personally involved in it?

No, looking on from afar before we went there ourselves, I was certainly hopeful and wanting to go and give the best report

I could possibly give to the people of our local church.

I was hoping absolutely for the best. I fully believe that God can do a mighty work through people who theologically disagree with me.

Amen. And before we go to our first commercial break, perhaps

I'll start with you, Jerry. Why is this discussion we're having important?

There are some who will just call us cosmic killjoys.

Why are you concerning yourself over something that has borne some good fruit amongst people of a different theological position than any of you?

Why don't you just allow the blessings that those who are involved in it to continue uncriticized and let these people have—reap the benefits from whatever is occurring that seems to be positive?

Why do you have to be such nitpickers and examine these things with a microscope to the point of sucking the joy and life out of them?

How do you respond to that kind of criticism, which I know I will hear from some people that I even call friends, not necessarily the

Reformed people, but I will hear that. But if you could, Jerry, and then we'll have you,

Austin, before we go to the break. Wherever the gospel is distorted, I think those that understand with clarity the gospel need to speak up.

And that is the primary concern that I have coming out of this, is that the gospel being presented is distorted.

And so when the gospel is distorted, then we have the reality of false conversion, people thinking that they're okay with God because they've had an experience with God.

But when they've not understood the gospel, they have not come to genuine faith, and emotional experience is not salvation.

Now, that doesn't mean salvation isn't accompanied with that. That's why there is the reality of true and false conversion.

When we look in Matthew chapter 7 and 21 and around in that area, and it talks about people standing before the

Lord Jesus Christ on the day of judgment and saying, Lord, Lord, and then they list all the things that they did.

Guess what? Those things are the very things that are being said are happening here at this event.

And so he says, I never knew you. So this is imperative that the gospel is right in the midst of a supposed revival.

Any added thoughts, Austin? I'd just say that's absolutely right.

If the gospel isn't being clearly unfolded to these people who have gathered to worship

God, they may end up worshiping a Jesus that they don't know very well or at all.

And so that's part of our concern. Amen, as well as it should be.

And we are going to our first commercial break. I'd like to remind my guests to mute themselves as we go to this break.

And I'd like to remind all of you that if you have questions, we already have people waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

But if you want to get in line, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As I said earlier, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back with more of our examination on the

Asbury Revival after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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We are now back with our guests, Jerry Doris and Austin Keeler. They're both pastors of Reformation Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky, which is a confessional reformed

Baptist church. We are addressing the Asbury Revival observations, biblical and historical comparisons and responses from concerned local pastors and eyewitnesses.

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

Before I go to any of our listener questions, perhaps we'll start with Austin this time.

I would like you to list at least some of the positive things that you have witnessed that is going on in Asbury before we get into a more critical examination.

And even before you do that, this has some kind of historic significance as far as the location.

Isn't this where the birthplace of Pentecostalism took place in the early 20th century?

Well, I'm not familiar with the birthplace of Pentecostalism. Maybe Jerry can help out with that, but I do know that there have been several revivals, quote -unquote, like this that's happening now throughout the history of Asbury University.

Positive things that we've seen, as was alluded to earlier, there are genuine believers and there are sincere people who are gathering to sing the praises of God, and that is a good thing.

I've been an eyewitness to that, and another thing I've seen is Christians praying for one another.

That's a good thing that I have seen. You know, being a

Methodist school, they have a rich musical history to draw from, and so while not every song was theologically rich or even biblical, there were many songs that contained solid gospel elements within, so those are some positive things that we have observed.

And Jerry, you care to add anything? No, I just echo those things.

I mean, anytime people are worshiping Christ, I think that's a good thing. I saw a lot of fellowship.

We actually saw people that we knew there. We've heard of other people going there, so there's, you know, there's that sense.

I've seen some things that have shown up. There was people being generous to a foreign student anytime they can meet the needs, the physical needs of people.

I mean, who would not celebrate something good like that? So I was encouraged by those kind of things as well.

The people that we sat next to, they seemed to be, you know, just genuine believers wanting to see what was going on.

And also, when we get involved in a critical examination of something like this that happens, have there not been a mixture in history when true biblical revivals have taken place?

When I say biblical, I don't mean revivals in the scriptures, but I'm saying revivals that most

Christians generally agree were from heaven. They were reflective of biblical truth, such as when one of our heroes of the faith,

Jonathan Edwards, was ministering. Has there not been a mixture of biblical orthodoxy and sound things going on with aberrant and even heretical things or bizarre things that have taken place?

Jerry, maybe we'll start with you. Sure, yeah, absolutely. You see that there's always fringe people, even in this event that we just saw.

I mean, you have people like Kenneth Copeland trying to come into this. Todd Bentley tried to glean off of these things.

So you have the sideshows, as it were, that we would all agree are aberrant and wrong.

When we evaluate it, we want to look at it in its general message.

It's, you know, what's happening there, not necessarily the peripheral things that are surrounding it.

Well, I guess let's have you continue your train of thought, Jerry.

Now it's time to reveal some of the things that you are most concerned about that you have witnessed at this so -called revival, when you open up your

Bible and you compare what is happening with what you learn from the God -bereaved inerrant scripture.

Well, the first thing that I was immediately concerned with was just the rhythmic music that was going.

It just reminded me, I come from a charismatic background. When I first came to Christ, I was saved in a church that was very much like this.

And so it's very driven by emotion. And so that was what I noticed right away, is everybody having an emotional experience.

And not that, you know, when we sing rich theological songs, because of truth, we should be moved by those things.

But when you're just moved by repeating the Hebrew name of Jesus, for example,

Yeshua, that's one of the songs that they would sing, and it just drums on and on. It really becomes a mantra.

And so I just had a check, I guess, mentally about that. I was concerned about that.

And there were three elements that we saw. There was the worship, there was the testimony, and then there was any type of teaching that would happen.

Those are the three things that you're examining. And during that time, we did sing some songs that were good, that were helpful.

So that's probably the least of my concerns. The second portion was the testimonies.

That when testimonies were given, I was expecting that these were people that would stand up and say,

I am turning from this sin, I'm confessing sin, I'm breaking this, you know, I'm going to stop doing this, and I'm following the

Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus has set me free from these kind of things. During the time that I was there,

I heard six testimonies, and of those six testimonies, none of them were current. They were things that had happened perhaps years before.

None of them were centered on Christ. In fact, I would say only one of them actually mentioned

Jesus. There was one particular girl that we watched talk about her sexual identity.

She said she had been believing lies about her sexual identity, and she went to a counselor and prayed, and at a camp that she went to, and then she no longer has those things.

Never once mentioned Jesus. Never once mentioned that she was in sin and broken over her sin.

And those kind of things really concerned me, and it concerned me more because one of the professors who was superintending this, he stood up, and the first thing he said was, make sure your testimony is about Jesus.

Make sure your testimony is current. Make sure your testimony is brief, and don't preach to us. That was the three or four categories he gave, and none of that happened.

I mean, it was the opposite of that. And then just further, in the time that we were there, the word gospel was mentioned, but the gospel itself was wholly absent.

It was what I would call a trauma gospel, and that is, you've had a really bad life.

A lot of bad things have happened to you, and you need to know that Jesus loves you. That was the extent of the gospel that we heard during the time that I was there.

And so I can only speak for the time I was there for two and a half hours in the actual meeting. We were there for probably,

I'd say, five or six hours just standing in line, you know, just in the general vicinity, but two and a half hours actually, and during the first day, that was

Tuesday, right, Austin? And then I think you went back on Wednesday for an additional eight hours to try to listen for more.

Yeah, tell us about some of those specific things that you witnessed. You've already talked about things that you appreciated.

Tell us, Austin, about some of the things that concern you most. Well, again, the first day, among the concerning testimonies and rhythmic hyper -emotional music that was present, there was also just the general idea that sin is something that I am victimized by.

And that was present in my second day there as well, that if I'm dealing with anxiety, it's because there is a spirit of anxiety somewhere,

I don't know, in me or around me. Either way, it's got to be cast out. If I'm dealing with depression, it's a spirit of depression.

If I'm too embarrassed to stand at the invitation of the speaker, the spirit of embarrassment must be cast out so that I can stand.

And so there is just this general idea that sin is something that happens to me. It's not a crime that I commit against God that I'm solely and wholly responsible for.

And so that sort of theme ran through not only the first two and a half hours that we were both in the chapel, but my entire eight hours there the second day.

And to address this victimhood mentality that seems to be so prevalent in these young people, the gospel that I heard presented was

Jesus loves you and has a plan for you. It wasn't repent and turn from your sin.

And we mentioned Jonathan Edwards in the Great Awakening. I can guarantee you that Jonathan Edwards' sermon,

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, is quite different than the sermon that supposedly kicked off this revival.

In the sermon, the initial sermon that it said sparked this thing that words hell, sin, repentance, atonement were not mentioned in the sermon, and apparently tacos were mentioned more than heaven.

And so it begs the question, and you know, I'm not going to say

God can't do anything, but will a message like that bring revival?

That's a very serious question that I have. And lest anyone complain, well, you were only there eight hours, which may be a long time, but you didn't hear everything, so maybe those things like repentance and faith in Christ were mentioned.

Well, an event like this that is being deemed as a revival, that should dominate and saturate the event.

It shouldn't be something that you would miss, especially during an eight -hour period of time, am

I correct? You are, and I will be fair. It was a long time.

I wanted, I mean, it felt like a long time. I didn't want to leave, but I decided to stay until I heard something of the

Gospel, and I stayed until I heard at least sin mentioned, and the blood of Jesus mentioned, and a call for faith alone in Christ alone, whose blood covers sin.

Now, that was preceded by a confusing Gospel illustration about the table and two chairs.

Sin wasn't explained in any depth. How the blood of Christ atones for sin wasn't elaborated upon.

The imputed righteousness of Christ wasn't preached, but sin was mentioned, the blood of Christ was mentioned, and a call for faith in Jesus was submitted to the people.

So I do want to be fair that he got there, but it was not robustly a part of the day.

Well, we have to go to our midway break right now, folks. Please be patient with us. This is a little longer than the other breaks in the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, again for the

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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Italy in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Clemming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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As host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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Let me read a couple of our listener questions. First of all, we have

Bobby in Horsedale, New York, who says, Chris previously was asking one of the guests today if Asbury, Kentucky was the location of the birth of Pentecostalism, and he says,

Chris, I think you are thinking of Azusa Street. Yes, you are absolutely right.

I guess the as threw me off. Asbury and Azusa. Yes, it was the

Azusa Street Revival. Thank you for that correction. We have

Andrew in Brooklyn, New York. And Andrew says, one thing we have heard much about during this reported revival is the apparently endless amount of singing the participants have engaged in.

It made me think about our hymn books. The vast majority of the great hymns we sing every

Saturday, or for you guys, Sunday. Obviously, this listener is a Saturday observer, were composed back before the mid -19th century.

In other words, they were written back when preaching and not singing was at the center of the weekly worship experience.

In the modern evangelical world, where worship is described as just singing, the evangelical sermon has become the afterthought the

Catholic homily has long been. Well, actually, that was just a comment, or a series of comments.

Andrew has no question, but if you want to comment on Andrew's comments, let's start with you, Jerry. Well, I think that's absolutely correct.

Preaching of the Gospel or preaching is not the central thing of this. Honestly, experiencing

God's love is the center of this. Experiencing His presence is that.

The concept of worship is that worship is music -based, and so you're going to experience the presence of God through music.

You don't experience the presence of God through preaching. Preaching is something you must endure before you can experience the presence of God again.

I don't know, Austin, if you agree with that, but that's my takeaway. Yeah, I agree with that.

What I am hearing from many people who are interacting with me online on this issue is that they are going to receive something, receive a touch from the

Holy Spirit that results from getting into His presence there.

Now, it's a little confusing because at the same time, it's being affirmed that you don't have to be at Asbury to experience

His presence, but yet it's all about flocking to this place to experience

His presence there, and it is about receiving something from that, receiving a deeper infusion of love, things along those lines.

Of acceptance would be another word. It's love and acceptance of who you are. Now, I have a question for both of you in regard to our singing.

Isn't it very important that the songs we sing when we worship

God, that they fill our minds with truth, not only when we read what we are singing and sing it, but when we hear others around us singing it.

It is filling our minds with truth rather than emptying our minds, like mantras where just a couple of words are repeated over and over and over again, almost bringing us into some kind of hypnotic state or something.

Those kinds of songs can be dangerous, can they not, as far as the state that they place us in mentally and emotionally, where we might be more prone to accept things as being from God in our midst when they are not at all, because we're not thinking critically.

Perhaps, Austin, you'll start this time. Yeah, absolutely, and we witnessed that.

I don't know if it's a new song or not, but Jerry alluded to it earlier. Slowly chanting the

Hebrew name of Jesus over and over again for a dozen minutes at a time,

I was eyewitness to many people, and again, I'm sure that many of these people are genuine believers and are there sincerely to worship

God, but as a result of this kind of music, having what is an emotional experience to what is mindless.

So that's one thing that's dangerous, and the other kind of music that's dangerous is music that simply contains heresy, music that contains theology that is untrue and unbiblical, and so I also saw this.

One example would be a song written by Corey Asbury, no connection, I think, to Asbury University, that just happens to be his name, called

Reckless Love, that God's love is reckless, and for starters, the attribute of recklessness is never used of God in Scripture, and so that's, you could say that that's a blasphemous song, but that attribute of recklessness in Scripture is only attributed to wicked men, to the enemies of God, and now we have all these gullible or perhaps

Christians singing a heretical song totally distorting their conception of who

God is, that God somehow took a risk when he sent his son and became vulnerable and put himself out there and risked rejection, so there's not only the mindless music, but there's also the unbiblical music as well.

Yes, Jerry. Chris, I'll add this. In the charismatic movement, you're seeing new trends, and one of them is this idea of soaking prayer or soaking in the presence of God, and let me read to you, this is from CBN, they have this definition, so soaking in the presence of God is simply positioning yourself to express your love to God, it's not intercession, it's not coming to God with a list of needs, it is the act of entering into the presence of God to experience his love, and then allow the love of God through the

Holy Spirit to revolutionize your love for him, and so that song that we were talking about,

Yeshua is the name of the song, that is a soaking, it's meant for this, so that's why it goes on for, the longest video of this is 19 minutes long, and it's just repeating that name, there's a couple other phrases, and we shouldn't be afraid of repetition,

I mean we have holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, we sing repetitiously, but just the way that it's done in order to be rhythmic, empty the mind, and all you're doing is experiencing the love of God, that's what's happening, and that's actually a really emotionally high moment, and so people identify that, what they're experiencing, they identify that with the presence of God, but the reality is you can go to the

Running Man festival, or if you, Woodstock had the same type of experiences where people are singing and having straight, great emotional highs, and they could have just easily attributed that to God.

And of course, holy, holy, holy, that's one phrase where a word is repeated, there's a lot of other rich content in that hymn.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It's not just a mantra like when

Christians unconsciously are just imitating Hindus and other false religions by repeating words and sounds over and over and over again, to the point where it's really juvenile.

And in fact, I remember being invited to a Pentecostal church years ago, a friend of mine is a member at this church, and I visited, and I was angry at the very first song that went on,

I think for at least five minutes, maybe longer, where the only line that they were singing, and they actually put it up on a large screen,

I don't know why they did that, because there's only one line, this is how we worship

Him, clap your hands. This is how we worship Him, clap your hands.

And if I had gone into, if I had a child, I don't have any children, but if I had a child, if I had gone into a child's church service that might be conducted at a church, even if they were singing that to four -year -old children,

I'd be upset if that's all they were saying in their song. And yet this was in the regular general population of the church during the regular worship service.

But that also shows the importance of biblically orthodox hymns that we are singing, because singing hymns should actually be preaching to us as well as us offering worship to God.

The words should be preaching to us, shouldn't they? Absolutely. That's the history of the church.

The church has such a rich pool of songs to bring us knowledge and wisdom and to teach us.

That's principally how we would learn is through memorizing these songs and just singing them again and again, not in that mantra way by any stretch.

So yes, to the original question, the worship of God should fill the mind of the believer with the knowledge of God, with the truths that have been proclaimed and delivered to us.

We have a question. I usually don't give the full name of listeners who submit questions, but in this case it is a pastor that I have known for decades, who

I love and look forward to any opportunity to promote this congregation. His name is

Gary George, and he is the pastor at Sovereign Grace Chapel in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

And Pastor Gary says, I listened online to the opening sermon that was preached prior to the outbreak.

I thought it was a decent message and not fiery fueled with emotional appeal. Would it be correct to think that it was the musical, rhythmic, and repetitive lines sung and words spoken during the worship that launched the revival into orbit?

If so, isn't it significant that it was not specifically the word that erupted into a revivalistic atmosphere, but a hyped up charismatic music similar to the

Brownsville revival back over 20 years ago? Is there any comparison between the two revivals?

Well, some of your answers, I'm sure, are going to be overlapping with what you already said, because Pastor Gary submitted this question before we began speaking about music.

But any thoughts on that? He is saying that the opening sermon was a decent message, and Gary's a discerning guy.

So I'm assuming he is correct. I don't know if you share his opinion on that, but perhaps,

Austin, you could start. I'll pass that to Jerry.

So here, he saw me raising my hand in the video, that's why. And you need to understand some things that happened.

So this coming Thursday, the 23rd, Francis Chan will be speaking at Asbury for the

Collegiate Day of Prayer. And about a week before this revival, they sent out their promo video for this

Collegiate Day of Prayer. And lo and behold, this video shows, it hearkens back to this revival of 70.

Would it be wonderful if this repeated? It was, the idea of this was planted in the minds of those students prior to that message happening.

You need to be aware of that. The other thing you need to be aware of now, we know this because we have so many that go to our church that were former students of Asbury.

I know a lot of students that go to Asbury. There's a culture of revival happening in the month of February there.

So they say that it goes back to 1970. Let's repeat this. Well, they have been doing this every couple years or so.

They'll go for a couple days at a time. And so is it this message that sparked this?

It could be. Is it the worship that sparked this? It could be. Is it that video that implanted this idea?

It could be. Is it the culture of this? It could be. It could be all of that together, like a perfect storm to just, let's just continue to sing and worship.

Now, I should have asked this earlier, but what were the original circumstances that drew the attention of even the media?

Even Tucker Carlson was favorably addressing this. Of course, Tucker is not theologically grounded in a solid church.

He often refers to himself as an Episcopalian and routinely trashes Episcopalianism at the same time.

But what was catching people's attention that drew many to conclude, hey, could this be a revival?

But what was happening? And social media was happening.

Yeah, go ahead. What did you say, Jerry? I said social media was happening. It was a buzz.

But what were they informing the public about this social media? Specifically, what was happening?

Well, what was blasted on social media, it seems almost immediately, was that revival was happening.

And this is because people were staying in that building for long, many, many long hours and maybe even days.

Is that what specifically what was happening that led some to the conclusion that this was a revival?

Yeah, and I don't know how much time passed between the moment when people decided to stay a little longer after chapel that day and the first video went out that revival is happening.

What I do know is that as whatever this is, these long worship services have spread to other schools like Lee University, it's happening there as well.

They stay up late a few hours and make a video and announce on their social media that revival has come to this school as well.

Yes, and for those unfamiliar with Lee University, I'm assuming you're referring to the same university that is run by the

Pentecostal denomination, the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. Is that the same school?

Yes. And just quickly, Pastor Gary says, do they have any comments about the

Brownsville revival comparison to this one? I don't think there is a comparison.

The Brownsville revival was full of way more shenanigans. The only comparison there is this what

I call the territory view. If you're familiar with, I think his name is Jim Osmond, he wrote a book called

Truth or Territory. I think he's Justin Peter's pastor. He was,

Justin moved out of that area, but they are still on very good terms. They're still connected.

But that territory view in that there are spirits that are at work and you've got to fight them, as opposed to the biblical view, which is we are in a battle for the truth in the minds and hearts of people.

And so there's a lot of words that you hear from the

Word of Faith, the NAR groups, the Kansas City Prophet groups,

IHOP, Mike Bickle, those places where you're talking about impartations of the spirit, digging wells of revival, casting out this demon or that demon or this spirit or that spirit.

So that type of wording is there, and I think that that's similar to what you saw in the

Browns Revival and in other places. But stuff like you see in Toronto where you have barking dogs, you know, people barking like dogs, all that, that's not happening in Asbury.

It's not that far. What do you mean by that?

Oh, you mean it hasn't gone that far? Yeah, I don't think it ever was that far, but the people that are leading it definitely hold to the territory view, and so they're casting and binding

Satan and doing all the kind of stuff that you might hear from that type of ministry.

And I just want to give Gary's church a plug, because I have considered him a faithful brother for so many years.

Go to SovereignGraceMA, M -A the abbreviation for Massachusetts, dot org,

SovereignGraceMA .org. Thanks for the question, Gary. We have Cindy in Findley, Ohio.

While listening to Chris Rosebro, and by the way, for our listeners, he is a Missouri Synod Lutheran, or at least a conservative

Lutheran. I don't know if he's in the Missouri Synod. But while listening to Chris Rosebro, fighting for the faith, he mentioned that the first sermon recited out of Romans 12 was sufficient in presenting the law which would convict sinners.

But then after listening to three days of sermons or presentations, he noted that the gospel was never preached.

I have heard it said that if we don't preach Jesus as presented in the scripture, meaning present, meaning present the gospel of grace, we are just preaching legalism, as any other church may do, such as Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons or any other denomination.

If we don't preach Christ, it's just legalism and of no benefit.

What are your thoughts? Well, let's start with Jerry this time. Forgive me,

Austin, will you take that one? I'm searching for something right now. Sure.

Yeah, I, you know, honestly, I haven't heard much law preaching in any of the messages, any of the follow -up messages that I have heard during the week, but absolutely law without grace is hopeless.

And so that's why it's important when presenting the gospel that we understand.

And when those teaching moments come, like one of the leading female faculty got up and stood, got up and said to everyone at one point, let's take a moment and preach the gospel to each other.

Turn to your neighbor and say, Jesus loves you and has a plan for you. Well, Jesus loves you is, that may be true, but it's not the gospel.

And it doesn't answer my position before God as a transgressor of the law.

What answers that problem for me is not the base or the vague fact that Jesus loves me just as I am or anything like that, but that he became a sacrifice for sin and not only fulfilled the law that I have broken, but bore the penalty and condemnation that I deserve on the cross and by his meritorious blood accomplished atonement on my behalf so that God can look on him and pardon me because in my place condemned, he stood.

So that definitely needs to be addressed after we've preached the law and offer hope.

Now, in fairness to what our listener said that Chris Roseborough reported, it was only the initial sermon that was preaching the law.

And it's actually quite strange for modern evangelicalism, including charismatic and Pentecostalism today, not,

I mean, the old school Pentecostals who were hammering the law and were noted for legalism, it's unusual to hear sermons that are addressing the law of God today.

So that's kind of an interesting observation. And by the way, there is a listener, a

Christian in western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who just wants me to clarify something. He said the church where Chris Roseborough is a pastor,

Kahnzinger Lutheran Church is a member of the American Association of Lutheran Churches.

And that is very close theologically and doctrinally to the

Missouri Synod. I just wanted to clarify that. We're going to go to our final break.

It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks. And if you have a question, please submit it as soon as you can so that we can read it on the air and get your answers from our guests.

The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Always give your first name, at least your city and state and your country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question is a personal and private one.

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That's G3ISIR. And I just want to read a very brief email from Pastor Gary George who submitted questions earlier.

He said, what I meant by decent message, I meant that it was low -key, and I am assuming what he means by that in comparison to something crazy and zany and bizarre that he was expecting.

What I'd like now, we'll start with Pastor Jerry, I'd like you to let our listeners know what they should be looking for if they are hearing about something that is being described as a revival somewhere, especially in their own community, what they should be looking for as litmus tests and so on, how they should be responding to these things.

I would encourage you to be looking for a brokenness and repentance over sin because of the preaching of the gospel.

Preaching should be the primary thing that you're seeing and hearing and experiencing.

You are under the conviction of the Holy Spirit because of the preaching of the law and the elevation of the gospel.

If it is predominantly something that's worship, and I'm using worship as they use it.

As a Reformed Baptist, we know that worship is all of life that we do.

It is the preaching of the word, it is the reading of the scriptures, it's all of those things, as well as singing.

But if it's just predominantly singing, that just raises a flag for me personally.

And if you'll permit me, Chris, one thing I was researching earlier, I just wanted to quickly say,

I was trying to find when was the first time on Twitter that this event was called a revival, and I found it.

It was within about three hours of the end of the chapel service. They were already on Twitter talking about a revival had broken out yet as Gary.

And Austin, if you could, very briefly in about 90 seconds, give your final words. Yeah, I would agree with Jerry there.

I would say you would want to look for that the word of God being preached with reverence and with power.

That's what you'd want to see initially. And then, you know, there's a lot that you can't speak on initially, and so you'd want to look for lasting fruits of revival.

If there's a revival happening at Asbury, we should expect to see like a renewed urgency for the equal protection of our newborn or of our pre -born neighbors.

We should see lasting fruits. We should see repentance, not only on the personal and individual level perhaps, but we should expect, not that God has to meet all our expectations, but we should expect renewal and revival even where theological and doctrinal wishy -washiness has been existent in the denomination that is experiencing revival.

Amen. So in other words, one of the most gruesome and satanic plagues of the world is infanticide, and if there's a revival in some specific region, you would expect that to either diminish or disappear.

Yes. Well, we are out of time. I want to repeat the website for the church where our guests today are pastoring.

That's refchurch .com. That's a abbreviation for Reformation Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky.

I thank both of you for being such extraordinary guests. I look forward to you both returning frequently.

In fact, Jerry Doris, I would love to have you back on to give a full two hours to your transformation from Pentecostalism to Reform Baptist cessationism, if you'd like to do that.

And Austin, of course, we'd love to have you back as well. I want to thank everybody who listened. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater