F4F | Is the Asbury Revival a True Revival?

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. So you've probably seen it on social media.

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There's a big hubbub. This thing called the Asbury Revival 2023. And so what we're going to do is we're going to actually kind of examine the claims regarding the fact that this is a special visitation of the

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Holy Spirit. And you say they're going, well, why are you saying that? Because that's how the charismatics, they define revival.

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And what we're going to do is we're also going to spend a little time in the biblical text looking at legitimate moves of the

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Holy Spirit. Or legitimate revivals, if you would, and kind of ask some tough questions related to this.

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Now, I want to make something clear up front. I am not against youths, you know, college students repenting of their sins.

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Nor am I against college students worshiping God. Far be it for me to complain about something like that.

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However, the issue here is not about repentance. It's not about worship. It's about the claim that this is a special visitation of God, the

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Holy Spirit. That's the issue. And we're going to check a few things out here. So grab a

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Bible. If you like to take notes, you can do so. And before we get started, I want to give a shout out and thanks to all of our crew members.

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Because without you, we could not be possibly bringing Fighting for the Faith to you. If you'd like to join the fight and join our crew, the information on how you can join our crew is down in the description of this video.

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So let me whirl up the desktop. And let me start here.

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We're going to just take a look at the news coverage as it relates to the

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Asbury revival. And this thing is, you know, what, maybe a week old, just about a week old, or maybe a little more than.

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And let's take a look at the news coverage and see if we can figure out what's going on here.

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Because, you know, this is one of those things that I've been through a few revivals before.

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I remember the Pensacola revival. I remember the

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Toronto blessing. I remember those things. And I remember the

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Lakeland revival and what a mess that was. Now, I want to make something clear. I am not comparing this to the

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Lakeland revival. I think there's some notable differences between Lakeland and what's going on here.

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But however, it's not a shock to me that as soon as Todd Bentley heard about it, he was on a plane and off to Kentucky to participate.

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But not on the stage. Let's take a listen to how the news is covering this event.

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For over 100 hours, people have filled the rows of Hughes Auditorium at Asbury University to worship.

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It's referred to now as a revival, but began on Wednesday spontaneously when students felt the urge to stay after the mandatory chapel service.

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Now, again, they're using the term revival. And on my social media today, I put out a question.

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How do you define the word revival? What is it? Explain it to me.

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And I mean, hundreds, almost a thousand comments later between my

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Twitter account and my Facebook account. One thing's for sure is that people don't have a way of defining it and definitions matter.

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That's legitimately the truth. We are unique because three times a week we stop everything that we're doing and gather for a chapel service together.

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Now, important to note, Asbury University, they're kind of on the left end of the spectrum.

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And so they are egalitarian. They're Wesleyan. So, you know, already we've got some issues.

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And I do mean issues. This is just a service that hasn't ended. Since Wednesday, the phenomenon has spread all throughout.

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So we're at a week. I'm recording this on a Wednesday, by the way, one week since the beginning of the Asbury revival.

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with churches and other campuses bringing busloads of people to the chapel.

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Lloyd Nenneber had never heard of Asbury before. Now, pay attention to this fellow, because this is interesting.

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This has everything to do with how the charismatics define revival. But after seeing the social media posts, he drove seven hours from North Carolina to see the revival in Wilmore for himself.

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He drove seven hours. In other words, without saying it, he believes that he cannot have the

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Holy Spirit with the same degree of encounter, whatever that is, in his own home church than at this revival.

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So he's got to get in his car and drive seven hours so that he can ride the wave.

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Now, one of the things that I relate, let's see here, I'm getting ahead of myself over there.

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Here we are. I used to be in the charismatic Pentecostal latter rain movement.

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And the one thing I can tell you is that the people in the charismatic movement remind me of surfers.

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Now, when I first went off to university, I lived in San Clemente, California.

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I ended up raising my kids for a few years in San Clemente, California. And so I know a few things about how surf culture works.

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And I can tell you, surfers, they're constantly checking their surfing apps to catch what's the swells coming in.

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How high are the peaks? Are they three to five? Are they five to eight? Are they above that?

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And are they coming in from, which direction are they coming in? Are they coming in from the south? Are they coming in from the southwest?

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What direction are they coming in? Because that'll tell you which beach to go to. And then when they get on their surfboards at five in the morning before the sun even comes up, what do they do?

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They sit on their surfboards looking. They're looking for the next swell to come in because as soon as the next set comes in, they're paddling and then they're going to catch the wave.

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And that's what charismatics are like when it comes to revival. They're constantly having to catch the wave.

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And so they're looking on the horizon. When is the next revival swell going to come in because we've got to ride this wave?

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See, this is problematic already. And again, I want to make something clear.

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This may not even be how the folks in Asbury Seminary are viewing this.

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This is how the charismatics in the greater United States and around the world are viewing this.

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Keep that in mind. So let's come back here. With what's going on in the world and all the darkness, this was like light, like light coming through.

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And so I wanted to see what was going on, see God moving. A revival like this is not uncommon for the university.

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Back in 1970, a similar revival lasted for two weeks. Hundreds of people from Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan attended a testimony service on the campus of Asbury College in Wilmore.

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But since then, there has not been an active worship of this length. Students and community members continue to find peace in dwelling and worshiping in the chapel.

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Now, a little bit of a note. I haven't been to this revival. The best

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I could do was to watch hours, and I watched hours of the revival because people were attending, recording it, uploading it on YouTube.

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So I have a pretty good feel for after watching nearly 16 hours of this revival as to what this thing is all about, including the preaching.

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I've been listening to the preaching, including the sermon that initially kind of kicked this thing off. And we'll have something to say about that as well.

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So, yeah, I haven't been there, but I don't need to go there to know what's going on.

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And say they don't see signs of stopping anytime soon. Like we're just sitting with him.

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Now, listen to what Allison says here, how she is trying to describe what it is that she's experiencing.

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They don't see signs of stopping anytime soon. Like we're just sitting with him. And it's just deeply gentle and deeply loving.

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And it's just a glimpse of what I think heaven will be like. So she's working with this idea that there's some special presence here.

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And when you look at the people who've been there, they'll talk about, the people who are positive about it, they'll sit there and say, yeah, there was a sweetness to this.

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I appreciate the video that Alyssa Childers put out because she went and she said, you know what though?

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Yes, there was a sweetness to it, but it wasn't anything different than what I've experienced when

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I've spoken at other churches or attended other churches around the country. Keep that in mind.

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Allison Perfater and many other students and faculty encourage people to come out to Asbury and see the revival for themselves.

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Now, I've heard through the grapevine that they're putting a limit, an age cap.

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Now, because so many people from the outside are coming, that they're trying to limit it now to college age students.

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If you're above the age of 25, as ancient as dirt like I am, you're not going to be allowed to get in.

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If it's for 20 minutes, if it's for a couple of hours, if it's for the week, you can't lose anything.

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But you can gain everything. In Wilmore, Hallie DeVore, WKYT. All right, so we got an idea about what that's all about.

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Now, this, by the way, and I'll put a link to this down in the description of this video.

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This is the sermon that kicked it off. So, this was preached a week ago. And by Reverend Zach Mierkrebs, I probably butchered his name.

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My apologies, Zach. If I did that, I do not mean you any disrespect. I listened to the sermon in its entirety.

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And the one thing I can say about this particular sermon is that based on the comments he made in the sermon, that this was not the normal kind of sermon that he normally gives when he gives a chapel sermon at Asbury Seminary.

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In fact, this was markedly kind of in your face with the law of God, which might actually have some explanation as to what's going on here.

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Let me explain. So, I'm going to hit the play button here and listen to this portion of what he's going to do.

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This is the text that he's going to preach from. But I'm glad you're here. Let love be without hypocrisy.

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We could just stop there, right? So, this is from Romans chapter 12.

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For what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in the spirit, serving the

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Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

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Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

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Be of the same mind towards one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.

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Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men, if possible, so far as it depends on you.

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Be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, but leave room for the wrath of God.

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For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, what do you do?

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Feed him. And if he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will keep burning coals on his head.

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the word of God.

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We believe it. Awesome. That's it. All right. Now, I'm going to note here, as sermons go,

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I will give absolute commendations to Zach here for preaching from an actual biblical text.

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You'll note that he didn't use one sentence out of context and then use this to then talk about how you can have better behaved kids and have power and influence and discover your purpose and all this kind of stuff.

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This was very different than the kind of preaching you get at your garden variety evangelical mildly charismatic megachurch.

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And he legitimately uses then these commands in this text to drive

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God's law fairly hard to which I do not have a problem.

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That is not the problem. My only bone of contention is that he didn't preach the gospel at the end.

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And so, this was a law heavy sermon where he was going after ways in which they have broken these commands, which are given to Christians.

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And as a result of it, I think it's legitimate to say that the reason why the praise folks kind of stayed on and kept singing and the worship continued is because they were convicted, rightly so, of their sins.

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So, that's a positive thing, not a negative thing. Now, the negative issue is that they did not hear that Jesus Christ bled and died for these transgressions of God's commands given to Christians.

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So, you'll note that God's law is given in order to convict us of our sin.

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And so, if there was ever true revival, and again, I'm using the word in a way that's not defined at the moment.

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If there were ever true revival, then those who are sinning and comfortable with their sin, the preaching would make them uncomfortable with their sin.

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But it should never end there. What has to happen then is that those who are now uncomfortable and lament and have sorrow for their sin, they ought to be hearing that Christ has bled and died specifically for those sins and specifically for them, so that those who are no longer comfortable with their sin and convicted could then be comforted by the good news that they are forgiven in Christ.

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And I would note, one of the things I saw as I was watching the coverage, you know, hours long coverage, is that there were times when students would get up and give testimony and confess that they had to repent and they needed to repent of specific sins, and they named them.

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And, you know, might even be somebody struggling with pornography, another person struggling with anger issues or, you know, resentment, things like this.

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And the response from those in attendance was, the blood of Jesus forgives you of these sins.

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Something to that effect. The blood of Jesus forgives you. The blood of Jesus forgives you.

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And so, that's the closest thing to the gospel I heard in all of the stuff that I heard, was, you know, at least in their minds, there was some concept that Christ's blood shed on the cross had something to do with the forgiveness of their sins.

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But it was never... I can legitimately say in all the coverage I've looked at, I haven't heard the gospel rightly preached once.

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And that's a problem. I didn't hear it in this sermon. I definitely didn't hear it in the sermon that came two days later.

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Definitely haven't heard it in the extended coverage. And that's a problem.

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And it's a huge problem, because at this point, we have to ask ourselves, what is this other thing that's going on?

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So, we're going to do a little bit of work here. We're going to do a little bit of work. We're going to try to, first of all, take a look at how revival is being defined, but then we're going to go into the scriptures.

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And you're going to see then, when we go into the scriptures, why I think it's absolutely vital that the gospel be preached, because it's not being meaningfully preached at all.

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The emphasis is totally on the wrong syllable as far as the solution to the sin issues that are being rightly addressed in the preaching there.

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And so, again, I give absolute kudos to Reverend Zach for preaching

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God's law lawfully. My only criticism is that he did not preach the gospel.

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He did mention the fact that we are loved by God and that we should love others, but that's law still.

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That's not the gospel. The gospel is laid out in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and on the third day rose again from the grave, according to the scriptures.

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That's the gospel. But we didn't hear, I legitimately have not heard the gospel in all of the video coverage

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I've scoured through and sat through in preparing this episode of Fighting for the

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Faith. You know, maybe I missed it. And that's, I mean, granted, I have not looked at the entirety of it.

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But in the stuff that I've looked at, I haven't heard it yet. And that's a problem.

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It should be front and center if this is a true revival. So, the question now is, how is the term revival defined?

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Now, we're going to take a listen to Dr. Michael Brown. He just did a, it's going to be a radio program.

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He's not in the studio. He's in Hawaii, suffering for the Lord in Hawaii. That's where you go to suffer for Jesus is

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Hawaii. So, he did a radio broadcast from Hawaii just a couple of days ago asking the question, has revival broken out in America?

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And let's listen in as he gives us what he thinks is the definition of revival.

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Let me give some background here. Revival, which I define as a season of unusual divine visitation.

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Revival. A season of unusual divine visitation.

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That is a problematic definition at best. The reason

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I say that, okay? Whirling up my Bible here. Let me go to a text here.

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So, if I were to go to Matthew chapter 18, okay? And we're going to note here that in Matthew chapter 18, it gives us instructions about what to do when your brother sins against you.

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So, this is a church discipline text. But there is a portion of this that applies even outside of a disciplinary action by the church.

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And that is verse 20. Jesus says, You'll note that the minimum number of people needed in order to have a church service is two.

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Two. That's all you need. You need a pastor and you need a congregant.

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That's it. And we know then from this text that wherever two or more are gathered in Christ's name, he is present among them.

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Legitimately. And so, that being the case, if you are attending a small, you know,

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Nowheresville church in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota, you know, and you only have a few people in the congregation that are present, you know, maybe attendance has been flagging because people have been dying, you know, or maybe there was a blizzard or something like that, right?

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Should we assume by the fact that there's only two or three people present that Christ isn't present?

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Nope. We should never assume that. Jesus says, And I would note that I have yet to be in a single church service where Christ has not been.

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Yeah, that church service doesn't exist. And so, the issue is that the definition that people are giving for revival, it's not biblical.

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And what it ends up doing is causing people to, well, you know, have the surfer mentality.

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And that's the problem. So, here you are, you know, I'm in my church, but I'm looking, well, where's the next wave of the

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Spirit going to crest? And what you are doing is you're despising the fact that Christ is present for you in every single validly convened church service.

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He's there for you. And there for you to convict you of your sin, to comfort you that you are forgiven in Christ, to build your faith up, to feed you with His Word.

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And you'll note then that wherever two or three are gathered and the

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Word is rightly taught and the baptism and the Lord's Supper are administered according to the gospel,

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Christ is present. And He's not less present in a small church than a big church.

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He's not less present in a church that isn't having a revival than a church that is.

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And see, the problem is the definition. And you can kind of see this bear out. So, CBN, you know,

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Pat Robertson's outfit, they were interviewing a fellow who had attended the first few days of the

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Asbury revival. And I want you to listen to how he's defining revival. Yeah, you know, one of my friends and mentors would often say that revival is

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God's arrival. A revival is God's arrival. But isn't

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Christ present wherever two or more are gathered in His name?

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So there's these moments in history where God just manifests.

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It's almost like Jesus sets up a chair in a room and people just encounter His presence.

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Where in Scripture does it say that God, that Christ is going to do this, that He's going to set up a chair in a room and you can walk into the room and blammo, you can have an encounter with Jesus?

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There ain't no biblical text that teaches this. Very tangible way. It's happened throughout the history of the church.

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It's happened throughout American history. Where is it taught in the Bible? Several revivals and great awakenings.

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And so a revival is an encounter with God for the bride. It's an encounter with God.

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When we see what the Bible has to say regarding revival, you're not going to have this definition anymore because that's an extra biblical definition, not based upon what the scriptures teach.

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And he goes on, and there was a little bit more he said, I want you to listen to this. But the goal of all of it, the goal of every encounter with Jesus is that it doesn't stay with us, but it goes to people that need and that are lost and hurting.

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And so that's, you know, that's the prayer here. There's commissioning every night. There's a commissioning every night.

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People are going, people are coming from places and then bringing the fire back. You mentioned. All right. So notice there are people who are going and being commissioned to take this, whatever fire that is there burning at Asbury and then take it to other places, to other college campuses and stuff.

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Where are we taught that you can do that in the Bible? Answer? Nowhere.

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So this is a theology and a definition that is not grounded in any biblical text.

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In fact, this is the same operating principle that Todd Bentley had regarding this.

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So Todd Bentley from his social media. So this is where he was sitting when he was there at the

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Asbury revival. Can I ask for prayer guys that I would meet

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God powerfully at this move of God? Why should we not expect

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God to be there for us powerfully in our home churches?

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Wherever two or more gathered, Christ is present. I am going all week to Wilmore, Kentucky.

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I know I'm being drawn. I want to catch this fire and be changed by the glory.

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Pray for me this week in an amazing, in this amazing outpouring. If there were true revival going on,

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Todd Bentley would to publicly repent of all of his sexual sins. Just saying.

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And then Todd Bentley retweeted this. Bob, Bob Jones, false prophet

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Bob Jones. Bob said in mid nineties that when the chiefs won the

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Super Bowl, it would be a sign that the apostolic chiefs would begin to be released. And your statement about the revival, this happened

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SB live in 2020. Now in 2023, it looks like God's moving in Asbury University in Kentucky.

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OK, Sean Bowles is the one who was pointing all of this out. Bob Jones, sexual pervert, false prophet is given more false prophecies than true prophecies.

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And it's just an absolute mess when you consider it. And while in the office of the prophet had women take their clothes off in his presence.

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And now he was disciplined for this, you know, but that's what we call bad fruit.

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And I would note that the the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl back in 2020.

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And yeah, they won it on Sunday. Whoop -dee -doo. But this, you know, so this has nothing to do with revival.

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Bob Jones is a false prophet. I wouldn't even set my clock if he told me what the time was.

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All right, based on what he said. Then you got this one, Todd Bentley. I have two words to describe my experience in Asbury revival and its love and holiness.

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And the Holy Spirit lingers and you feel tangible waves of his presence. You need experience it.

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You need to experience it for yourselves. The entire time I was in the service, I would just wanted to get to the altar.

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And again, here's a problem. The definition being used for revival here is that it's a special, special, unique, powerful, outpouring visitation of the

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Holy Spirit. And the issue is, is that, yeah, some big problems here because that definition is not found in the

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Bible. We'll talk more about this in a minute. In fact, I kind of have a question to ask. How is this different than the way the new age thinks about like spiritual portals and things like this?

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You know, if you were to visit certain parts of Arizona, you think of Sedona, Arizona.

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All right. You know, there's certain places that are just where, you know, apparently the spiritual portal thingy is just off the chain.

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Right. Or how is this different than the Roman Catholic concepts of Marian apparitions?

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How many people have done pilgrimages to Fatima? Right. I would note there's something really, really off here.

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Really, really off. It's in the definition. So, let's do a little biblical work here.

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I'm going to do a little biblical work. And we're going to note something here. If you're going to talk about revival, revival only applies to Christians because you're talking about revitalizing, re -enlivening something that is there.

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So, non -Christians cannot be revivaled. They have to be regenerated.

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And yes, these biblical terms and their narrow definitions matter.

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In fact, if the church is in need of revival, then the church has not only slipped into lukewarmness or tepidness regarding God and things related to God.

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No, the church itself has slipped into rank apostasy. Let me explain.

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We're going to use two examples from the Old Testament to kind of bear this out because revival really at its core is an

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Old Testament concept. So, in 2 Chronicles 29, we hear about King Hezekiah.

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Now, the king who preceded him, Ahaz, wicked, absolutely wicked.

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What this guy did is he came up with his own reforms for the worship in God's temple.

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And his reforms were legitimately apostasy. He flat out rebelled against what

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God's word requires and what God's word permits and what God's word forbids.

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And as a result of it, the worship in Israel had become polluted.

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And that's just a kind way of putting it. It had become polluted. And the believers, you know, the believers at that time, you know, if you want to liken them to the church, they had become apostate.

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And there was absolutely need for there to be revival. And revival means the putting away of the apostasy, the repenting of the apostate practices and beliefs, and a return to the pure worship of the word of God.

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So, here's what it says. So, in 2 Chronicles 29, Hezekiah began to reign when he was 25 years old.

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He reigned for 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abishah, of the daughter of Zechariah.

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And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done. In the first year of his reign, first year, first month, he opened the doors of the house of Yahweh and he repaired them.

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He brought in the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the square on the east. And he said to them, hear me,

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Levites. Now, consecrate yourselves and consecrate the house of Yahweh, the

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God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the holy place. Now, we don't know what the filth was.

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We do know the consecration would have taken 16 days. But note here, this is a revival.

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Hezekiah returning things back to the way they should be. So, take out the filth from the holy place for our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of Yahweh our

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God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh and turned their backs.

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They also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the

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God of Israel. Therefore, the wrath of Yahweh came on Judah and Jerusalem and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing as you see with your own eyes.

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For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.

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Now, it is in my heart to make a covenant with Yahweh, the God of Israel, in order that his fierce anger might turn away from us.

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My sons, do not now be negligent for Yahweh has chosen you to stand in his presence to minister to him and to be his ministers and to make offerings to him.

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So, he begins with the priests and revival began with them. And what was revival?

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A returning to what the Bible teaches and a turning away from apostasy and idolatry and a return to the pure worship laid out in scripture.

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So, then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amasai, Joel the son of Azariah, and the sons of the

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Kohathites, and the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, Azariah the son of Jehalel, and of the

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Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimah, and Eden the son of Joah. You're going to note here, when you see a section like this in the

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Bible with names like this, this isn't legend, this is history. Now, they gathered,

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I'll start, go back to verse 15, they gathered their brothers, consecrated themselves, went in as the king commanded by the words of Yahweh to cleanse the house of Yahweh.

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The priests went into the inner part of the house of Yahweh to cleanse it. And they brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of Yahweh into the court of the house of Yahweh, and the

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Levites took it and carried it out to the brook Kidron. One has to wonder, this is very guarded language, were there actual idols in the temple at this point that were being taken to the brook

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Kidron? They were taken to the Kidron Valley and disposed of, right? They began to consecrate on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month, they came to the vestibule of Yahweh, and then for eight days, they consecrated the house of Yahweh, and on the sixth day of the first month, they finished.

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Then they went into Hezekiah, the king, and said, we have cleansed all of the house of Yahweh, the altar of burnt offerings, and all of its utensils, and the table for the showbread, and all of its utensils, and all the utensils the king

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Ahaz discarded in his reign when he was faithless.

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Note, the need for revival was brought on by the faithlessness, the apostasy, the rebellion, the idolatry of Ahaz and those who participated with him in it.

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We have made ready and consecrated, and behold, they are before the altar of Yahweh.

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Then Hezekiah, the king, rose early and gathered the officials of the city and went up to the house of Yahweh, and they brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah, and he commanded the priests and the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of Yahweh.

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So, they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests received the blood, threw it against the altar.

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They slaughtered the rams, and their blood was thrown against the altar. They slaughtered the lambs, and their blood was thrown against the altar.

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This is where the gospel comes in, by the way, because prior to Christ's death and resurrection, these sacrifices prefigured the sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.

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So, there's repentance, turning away from sin and apostasy, and receiving from God forgiveness through sacrifice.

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Now, here in the New Covenant, we don't slaughter lambs and bulls and rams.

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Christ is our once -for -all sacrifice, and if you read the book of Hebrews, it's clear that these animal sacrifices all prefigured the once -for -all sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.

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The priests slaughtered them, made a sin offering with their blood on the altar to make atonement for all of Israel.

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Then the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all of Israel. You'll note, true repentance is going to have both the law and the gospel.

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It's going to have confrontation, confronting you regarding your apostasy, regarding your idolatry, regarding your immorality, confronting you and finding you guilty.

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And then, through the shed blood of Christ, giving you forgiveness, mercy, grace, and then peace and reconciliation with the

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God whom you have offended by your sin and your faithlessness. So, then he stationed the

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Levites in the house of Yahweh with cymbals, harps, and lyres. And note, having been restored and reconciled to God, what's the right thing that you do next?

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Worship and praise him for his mercy, his forgiveness, and his faithfulness.

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And so, you'll note, that's how this is working out. So, he stationed the Levites in the house of Yahweh with cymbals, harps, lyres, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad, and the king's seers, and of Nathan the prophet, for the commandment was from Yahweh through his prophets.

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The Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests, and the trumpets, and then Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar.

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And when the burnt offering began, the song of Yahweh began also in the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David, the king of Israel.

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The whole assembly worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded.

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All this continued until the burnt offering was finished. And when the offering was finished, the king and all who were present with him bowed themselves and worshipped.

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And Hezekiah the king and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to Yahweh with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer.

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These are the Psalms. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed down, and they worshipped.

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This is what true revival looks like. It doesn't have anything to do, and I mean this, with some special portal opening up, and then this particular place where you can have an encounter with the

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Holy Spirit who's there in visitation in a powerful way that isn't anywhere else.

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That's not what we're talking about here. Hezekiah read his Bible and saw that the worship of Israel was apostate because of King Ahaz.

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And that what he did was wicked and faithless, and as soon as he became king, first thing he did was get rid of all of that nonsense and bring everything back.

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That's what revival is. And then there was the forgiveness of their sins and true worship that came from it.

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If you were to go on, you can see that then he reestablished the Passover, which hadn't been celebrated in who knows how long.

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This is an example of bonafide revival. Let me give you another one.

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So, later Hezekiah is long dead and Manasseh has come in and done even worse than Ahaz did in rebelling against God, in idolatry, in apostasy, and completely,

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I mean, just absolutely desecrated King Solomon's temple.

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And the details are terrifying, but I'm going to let the Bible tell us how this went down.

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Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned for 31 years in Jerusalem. He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh.

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And by the way, I'm in 2 Chronicles 34. And he walked in the ways of David, his father, and did not turn aside from the right or to the left.

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For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David, his father.

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And in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the asherim, the carved and metal images.

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This is what revival looks like, getting rid of the things that God forbids.

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He chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence. He cut down the incense altars that stood above them.

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He broke in pieces the asherim and the carved and metal images, and he made dust of them.

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And so, here's how the story goes. In the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and the house, he sent

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Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, and Maasaiah, the governor of the city, and Joah, the son of Jehoaz, the recorder, to repair the house of Yahweh, his

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God. They came to Hilkiah, the high priest, and gave him the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the

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Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim, and from the remnant of Israel, and from all of Judah and Benjamin, and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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And they gave it to the workmen who were working in the house of Yahweh, and the workmen who were working in the house of Yahweh gave it for repairing and restoring the house.

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They gave it to the carpenters and the builders to buy quarried stone and timber, for binders and beams for the buildings that the king of Judah had let go to ruin.

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And the men did the work faithfully. Over them were set Johath, Obadiah, the

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Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah, and Meshulam, and the sons of the

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Kohathites had oversight. The Levites, all who were skillful with instrument of music, were over the burden bearers and directed all who did work in every kind of service.

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And some of the Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers. And while they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of Yahweh, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the

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Torah and of Yahweh given through Moses. Then Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the secretary,

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I have found the book of the Torah in the house of Yahweh. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan.

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Shaphan brought the book to the king and further reported to the king, all that was committed to your servants they are doing.

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Now here's the thing. What went missing in the years before Josiah?

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The Bible. And so there they are. They're renovating the temple and they find a book.

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Did you know there was a book? I didn't know there was a book. And they read the book and they go, oh boy, we're in trouble.

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The word of God is the thing that drives revival, not a so -called encounter with the

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Holy Spirit. It's the word of God. So they emptied out the money that was found in the house of Yahweh and had given it to the hand of the overseers and the workmen.

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Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book and Shaphan read from it before the king.

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And when the king heard the words of the Torah, notice I'm using the Hebrew here because that's the right way of looking at this, the

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Torah, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Abdon the son of Micah, Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the king's servant saying, you go and inquire of Yahweh for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book that has been found.

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For great is the wrath of Yahweh that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of Yahweh.

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And that's the issue. True revival is coming to grips with the fact that you have abandoned what

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God has commanded. And when you see how far they have, how far

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Judah has strayed from the commandments of God, it's shocking. Okay.

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But I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay. Because our fathers have not kept the word of Yahweh to do according to all that is written in this book.

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So Hilkiah and those whom the king had sent went to Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tokath, the son of Hasra, the keeper of the wardrobe.

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Now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter and spoke to her, to that effect that she said to them, thus says

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Yahweh, the God of Israel, tell the man who sent you to me, thus says Yahweh, behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah, because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods and that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands.

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Therefore, my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched. But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, thus you shall say to him, thus says

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Yahweh, the God of Israel regarding the words that you have heard because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me.

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I also have heard you declares Yahweh behold, I will gather you to your fathers and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.

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And then they brought back word to the king. Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and the king went up to the house of Yahweh with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the

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Levites and all the people, both great and small. And he read in their hearing, all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh.

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None of them had heard these words because the Bible had practically gone missing.

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And the king stood in his place and made a covenant before Yahweh to walk, halach, to conduct his life after Yahweh and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all of his heart and with all of his soul to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.

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Then he made, let's see here. Let's let's see. Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin join in it.

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And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God and the God of their fathers and Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel made all who were president in Israel serve

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Yahweh, their God, all this, all his days. They did not turn away from following Yahweh, the

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God of their fathers. Josiah kept a Passover to Yahweh in Jerusalem. They slaughtered the

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Passover lamb. So we got him keeping the Passover. Then, then we, let's see.

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He, then he contributed to the lay people of Passover offering and he makes an offering there. And when the service had been prepared for the priest, they stood in their place, but there's more to it.

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Let's go here. You know what? I have to go now to my cross reference because in second

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Kings, we're going to get a little bit more detail. Hang on a second here. Josiah and I am going to look, hang on a second here.

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I want to go all text and I want to find it where it's, let's see here.

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He was buried and Josiah's son reigned in this place. Second Kings 22. All right. So two

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Kings 22 is where we're going to get the, the other part of this part of the revival, if you would.

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Two Kings 22. So he repaired the temple. We got that part. He found the book.

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We got that part. He talked to Huldah. We got to that part. Chapter 23. Here's his reforms.

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Let's pay attention to how far Judah had apostatized and rebelled against God.

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Okay? So then the King, this is Josiah and all the elders of Judah. And Jerusalem were gathered to him.

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The King went up to the house of Yahweh with him. And all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priest and the prophets and all the people, both small and great.

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He read in their hearing, all the words of the book of the covenant. Note, the word of God is front and center in true revival, front and center that had been found in the house.

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And the King stood by the pillar, made a covenant before Yahweh to walk after Yahweh and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with his heart and with all his soul to perform the words of his covenant that were written in the book and all the people joined in the covenant.

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And then the King commanded Hilkiah, the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of Yahweh, all the vessels made for Baal inside of Solomon, Solomon's temple.

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There were vessels for the false God, Baal for Asherah and for all the host of heaven.

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Those were inside the temple. But that's not the worst of it. He burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields and the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

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He deposed the priests whom the Kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places.

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That's right. He had to get rid of the false priests, the ones who said,

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Oh yeah, you can worship Yahweh and Baal and Asherah and the starry host of heaven.

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You can worship all of that. And so, he got rid of all of the false priests and the city of Judah and Jerusalem and all who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon and the constellations and all the host of heavens.

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And then he brought out the Asherah from the house of Yahweh. When you read the

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Gnostics on this, the Gnostics claim that Yahweh had a wife.

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And the way they tell the story, this Asherah pole was put into the Holy of Holies so that Yahweh can have a bride.

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Uh -huh. It gets worse. They burned that outside at the

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Brook Kidron, beat it to dust, cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. And then he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove hangings for Asherah.

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That's right. It was so bad and so apostate that they had turned

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Solomon's temple into a brothel. And the prostitutes who were turning tricks were men, were males, male cult prostitutes.

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Uh -huh. Let that one sink in. So, then he brought all the priests out of the cities and he defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings from Geba to Badesheba.

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And he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate to, of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on one's left and at the gate of the city.

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You get the idea here, right? That's what revival looks like. And it's only for Christians.

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So, if revival were to break out today, what would happen? And I'm not talking about a special encounter with the

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Holy Spirit. What I'm talking about is a return to the word of God and a repudiation and an abandoning of the false and idolatrous and apostate practices and doctrines that have crept into the church.

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There's, if you were to think of it this way, the Protestant Reformation was a revival.

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Mm -hmm. The word of God had gotten locked up in Latin. People weren't hearing the word of God.

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And as a result of it, during the middle ages, all kinds of crazy, weird apostate doctrines and bizarre beliefs were brought whole hog into the, into the, into this church, doctrine of purgatory, doctrine of, you know, of indulgences, prayers to saints, prayers to the

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Virgin Mary, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Right? Uh -huh.

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None of those are taught in the scriptures. And what happened? God permitted there to be a revival, a return to the word of God and a repudiation and an abandoning of all of those false and apostate practices.

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That was a true revival, a return and a repudiation of everything that was false and the restoration of pure biblical worship.

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Right? Had nothing to do with baking in the glory or riding the next wave of love or going into a place and feeling peace.

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In fact, uh, going into churches at that time, you wouldn't have felt peace. You would have felt convicted for donating money to the

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Roman Catholic church, you know, you know, for indulgences and, and going and visiting, you know, relics of the dead saints and things like this.

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Right? That's, that's the right way of looking at it. Now there is a difference then between revival.

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Again, revival is really only for the church and it's a return to scripture.

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The gospel is front and center and the law is preached hard to convict people of their sin. And the gospel is proclaimed to comfort them, assure them of the forgiveness of their sins.

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And then right, true Christian worship is reestablished. That's what revival is. But when it comes to unbelievers, they can't be revived.

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They have to be regenerated. They're dead in trespasses and sins. So if you were to take just a, you know, some of the highlights from Paul in the city of Ephesus, you can kind of see how this works.

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In Acts 19, it says it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.

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Verse eight says he entered the synagogue for three months. He spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

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But when some became stubborn, he continued and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way, that's

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Christianity. Before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

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This continued for two years. So what did Paul do? Preach the gospel, preach the word, preach, preach, preach, preach, preach, preach, preach, preach,

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Constantly grounding them in the good news of the forgiveness of sins. Christ uncrucified, calling them to repent and to trust in Jesus.

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And so when he was thrown out of the synagogue, he went to the hall of Tyrannus and they sat there and he taught for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the

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Lord noticed. Again, the scriptures are always front and center.

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They're at the heart of true revival. of, well, not in this case, it's not even revival.

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This is evangelism. The Word of God is there at the center of everything the Christian should be doing.

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It's the heart of our worship, heart of revival, heart of evangelism. It's the center of everything, okay?

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So, they all heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Also, many of those who were now believers came, they were confessing and divulging their practices.

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And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted the value of them and found it came to 50 ,000 pieces of silver.

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So, the Word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

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The what? The Word of the Lord. And if you were to think back to the Reformation, what got restored?

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It was the Word of God, and it was the Word of God that was the heart of all of this. People were, for the first time in their lives, able to hear

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God's Word in their own languages. And they were studying it wholesale and devoting themselves to a proper understanding of it.

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And exegetical sermons made a comeback, right? And people's lives were completely changed by what?

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The Word of God. Here is an example of evangelism, the unbelievers now being regenerated, and then revival would be the preaching of God's law and the gospel to bring people to repentance regarding apostasy.

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So, if revival were to break out today, in the truest sense,

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I'm not talking about an encounter, a special visitation of the Holy Spirit where we can bake in His glory and feel bliss or whatever.

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Real revival, like the kind we saw with Hezekiah, like the kind we saw with Josiah.

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What would go? What would be totally repudiated? I would note the nonsense going on in so -called woke churches.

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Those churches will be called to account to repent of their affirming of perversion of sexual practices that are contrary to Scripture.

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There would be a return to the pure teaching of God's Word and a repudiation of sermons that are designed to feel good.

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The Word of Faith movement would be cast aside. Hillsong, Bethel, elevation worship wouldn't be sung by anybody.

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The false manifestations of the Holy Spirit with people lengthening legs and all the nonsense that goes on in the name of prophecy and stuff like that, that would all be wholesale abandoned.

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You'll note that leftist Marxism would be abandoned. So would alt -right fascism.

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Those would all be abandoned. So, you get rid of the whole SJW woke thing and also get rid of Christian, so -called

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Christian nationalism. Nobody would be buying books, you know, promoted by Sid Roth.

01:00:05

In fact, his operation would go bankrupt. And people would no longer listen to men like Michael Brown because they recognize that God's Word clearly teaches that when you give a false prophecy, you are a false prophet, right?

01:00:20

Bethel would go out of business. Saddleback would go out of business. Small churches where men are faithfully proclaiming

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Christ and Him crucified for our sins, and they are doing the hard work of actually teaching

01:00:34

God's people God's Word. Those small churches would be packed.

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The mega churches would be emptied out, and they would go bankrupt in months.

01:00:47

If there was true revival that broke out. You see what I'm saying here? So, it all depends on how you define it.

01:00:54

But I would note that the definition given by Michael Brown and by Charismatics, that it's some kind of special, powerful visitation of the

01:01:03

Holy Spirit, that's not what a revival is at all. And I would assure you, you don't need to travel to Asbury.

01:01:11

You don't need to travel anywhere. Travel to your church, to your local congregation, to a church where a pastor faithfully preaches the

01:01:21

Word, where the service, two or three are gathered in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christ will be present there for you.

01:01:32

He's not going to bless you with goosebumps. He's going to bless you with a conviction of your sin and the comfort that comes from the good news that He has bled and died for your sins.

01:01:43

Your worship will be centered on the gratitude that you have in being reconciled to God by the mighty hand of Christ.

01:01:51

And this will then result in you living a life of repentance in love for God and in true love for your neighbor.

01:01:59

It will result in you being generous to those who are down and out financially.

01:02:04

You will care for today's version of the widow, which are what? Single mothers. You will do justice to the poor and you will care for the needy.

01:02:14

You will do, your whole life will not be centered on you anymore. Instead, your life will be an offering.

01:02:25

Your body itself will be an offering, holy and acceptable to God for the purpose of serving your neighbor in the good works that God has called you to.

01:02:34

And you'll note then that true revival is always happening in those places where God's Word is rightly taught and Christ and Him crucified for our sins is the thing that is the center and front and everything that has to do with any preaching, teaching.

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It is at the heart of everything that that congregation does and says. That's what true revival is.

01:03:01

And that's been happening all over the place for a long time. But we shouldn't be looking for like the next wave of the

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Holy Spirit to come crashing in so that we can surf on it and ride it out. Dude, no, that ain't revival.

01:03:15

That's an idol. And one of the things that true revival would show it to be, an idol that needs to be repented of.

01:03:24

So, hopefully you found this helpful. And if so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

01:03:30

If you'd like to join the fight by joining our crew, information on how you can join the crew is in the description of this video.

01:03:37

And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.