April 10, 2025 Show with Claude Ramsey on “The Significance of Revival in the Church”

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

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

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors and Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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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.

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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.

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 10th day of April 2025.

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I am thrilled to have a returning guest today who has become a very dear friend of mine.

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I have said in all honesty without fear of being guilty of sinful flattery, exaggeration, or hyperbole that he is one of the most humble servants of Christ I have ever met.

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He's also one of the most powerful preachers of the gospel I've ever heard, and I really look forward to our conversation today.

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And this brother in Christ's name is Claude Ramsey. He is the pastor of Reformation Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and he is a highly sought -after conference speaker, and he is the host of the

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Here I Stand Theology Podcast, and today we are going to be discussing the significance of revival in the church, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Claude Ramsey.

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Mr. Arnzen, it's my privilege to be here with you. Thank you again for letting me be back.

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Well, why don't you let our listeners know something about Reformata Baptist Church of Knoxville, Tennessee.

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All right, so we are a Reformed Baptist Church here in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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South Knoxville area would be the actual direct location. We planted the church back in 2009, so I think we're coming up on year 16.

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We'll be celebrating year 16 in May of this year, and it has been a blessing.

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Not to say that it's not been without its ups and downs and many nights and tears and being broke down, but it has been certainly worth it to see

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God's people grow and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Amen, and as I said, Pastor Claude is one of the most powerful preachers

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I've ever heard, so I highly recommend if you ever find yourself traveling through Knoxville or South Knoxville or live in that area to pay a visit to this fine congregation, and the website is

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ReformataBaptistChurch .org. That's R -E -F -O -R -M -A -T -A

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BaptistChurch .org. Now tell us about the two upcoming conferences that you have that you are participating in, one of them being the

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Laborers Conference and the other being the Grace and Truth Conference. Absolutely, so the

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Laborers Conference is actually coming up the 24th through the 27th of this month.

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It's going to be in Newton, North Carolina. You can go to LaborersConference .org, I think, and still register.

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It's an absolutely free conference in what the laborers are, who the laborers are, basically.

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Robert Connaught kind of founded and heads up the Truth and Love Network, of which the laborers are a part of, but the laborers are a

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Thursday night kind of a podcast get together of folks from Miami, from North Carolina.

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There's actually a gentleman now that Rob has recruited to be a part of the Truth and Love Network in Austria, so the reach is expanding to a great deal.

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But it's basically just a bunch of brothers in Christ from different denominations.

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I mean, we've got, I don't know if there's any Methodists in the group, but there are

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Presbyterians, there are Pentecostals, you know, there are Reformed folks, there are non -denominational folks.

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There's all kinds of folks, and really the goal is every other week now when the laborers are on, it's on Facebook at 8 o 'clock every

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Thursday, and on YouTube as well. But we just kind of get together to demonstrate to the world that you can have agreements with your brothers in Christ, or disagreements with your brothers in Christ, and you don't have to go away from the table hating them when it's all said and done.

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Yeah, and that goes on a lot, and sometimes the hatred burns the hottest when it's people who are very close in many areas, but they disagree on one thing.

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That seems to be when the disagreements are more heated than any other time. Absolutely.

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And then, of course, there is the Grace and Truth Conference. That, again, is in,

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I think it's Longview, Texas. If you could look at the dates there,

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I think August 27th through the 30th, is that right? I think. I see

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August 27th as being the first day, at least.

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It's the one that's right there on the, oh, here it is, yeah, August 27th through the 30th, you're right.

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Yeah, and I just got the privilege to actually, just to be completely transparent,

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I mean, there's some, as you can, as you're looking at it there, if anybody goes to the Grace and Truth Conference site at Eventbrite .com,

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I think is where it is, but there are some good preachers and some good men of God there, and when

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Mark Goodson contacted me last year and asked me, did I want to come and be a part of this and preach at this,

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I was like, I literally said, he texted me, and I said, are you kidding me?

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Because I thought, there's no way that I need to be in with these men. These men are smart, are bright, are intelligent, are good preachers of the gospel, and certainly,

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I'll just be like the third wheel there, but nonetheless, I was invited, and I counted a great privilege in any opportunity that we get to stand and proclaim the gospel,

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I'm gonna take that, so. Yes, well, I see that men that I have had on this program are on the roster with you.

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Brian Gunter has been on the show, Greg Mooring Jr. has been on the show, Kevin Hay has been on the show,

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Jacob Tanner, John Speed, Kofi Adubohan, Brandon Scalf, I've made several attempts to invite on the show, and something always came up, and there may be others, but I can't see this entire list of the speakers, but that sounds like a great event, and I have an even bright website.

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Do you have anything more direct that isn't as complicated for people to remember? I don't.

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I don't. If you just Google Truth and Grace, or Grace and Truth Conference 2025, there's going to be actually,

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I think there's two going on in 2025 with that title, but this is the one that we're part of, the one on the eventbrite .com

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page. Okay, great. Well, I hope that many of you attend either or both of these events, and I just got word, one of the reasons

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I started to get distracted here, just this very second, got an email from my dear friend and sponsor,

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Christian scientists, and I don't mean Christian scientists as in the cult,

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I mean scientists who are Christians. There seems to be very few that are young earth creationists, and he is a thoroughgoing, literal six -day young earth creationist, and he is our speaker 11 a .m.

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to 2 p .m., and not only is the admission free and your lunch free, but every man who is attending will receive free brand -new books personally selected by me and donated by Christian publishers all over the

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So if you'd like to register, if you're a man in ministry leadership, just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line, and give me your full name, the name of the church you represent, and its location, and the number of men who will be joining you.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Well, we are discussing an issue that is a very important issue today.

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We try to always discuss important issues on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, but this is certainly one of those that is extremely important, and it's actually an issue over which men in the body of Christ have disagreed for centuries.

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It is the issue of revival, and today we are going to be specifically addressing the significance of revival in the church, and if you'd like to join the conversation with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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

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Let's say you have a disagreement with your own church, you have a disagreement on their approach to revival, and that would be an obvious reason you'd want to remain anonymous.

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You might even be the pastor of a church, and you disagree with your fellow elders or your denomination on the subject of revival.

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Well, those would be areas, and I'm sure there's others, where you would be compelled to remain anonymous.

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But if it's a general question from the Scriptures and from history, please give us your first name, at least, city and state and country of residence.

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Well, it would probably be very wise for us to start with a definition of revival. All right, so for that,

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I would like to actually, before the story, share, or before the definition, if I could, to share a preacher's story.

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Now, a preacher's story is a story, just to preface this, it's a story that isn't necessarily factual, but it conveys a point.

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So this story, really, I wanted to kind of start with concerning revival was, you know, the story is told about a young man just newly called in the ministry.

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He's on fire for God. He gets called to this little bitty country church.

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You know, there probably ain't but like 10 members at the church, and it's way out in the country.

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And there was a gentleman from the church that passes away, and he's required to preach this man's funeral.

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Of course, he don't know him. He don't really know his surroundings real well yet either. And he gets directions to this little cemetery way out in the country.

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And he goes, he shows up to the graveside. The folks in the backhoe are still sitting there.

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They've just dug the hole, and they're sitting there eating their lunch, but nobody else is there.

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And this young man gets out, and he just kind of looks around wondering, you know, if anybody else is going to come.

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He knows he's supposed to start at a specific time. And the time comes, and he just determines, well, there's two souls here for me to preach the gospel to, so I'm just gonna rear back and give them what the

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Lord's put on my heart. And he rears back, and he preaches for an hour. He preaches from Genesis to Revelation.

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I mean, he lays it all out on the line. Proclaims the gospel full force.

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When he gets finished preaching the gospel, he says the prayers.

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The amen is said. He looks over to those two fellows sitting on the backhoe. He says, now, what do you all think about that?

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The two fellows look at him, and they just shake their head. And the one man looks to him, and he says, sir, he said,

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I got to tell you something. He said, we've been putting in septic tanks for 25 years. I've never seen nothing like that.

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Well, let me, since you've told the joke about a burial, let me tell you one. All right, go right ahead.

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A groundskeeper in a cemetery notices this man who has been coming into the cemetery every day at the same time, five o 'clock sharp, every day.

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And he is kneeling in front of a tombstone, and he is crying his guts out.

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And he keeps crying out at the top of his lungs, why did you have to die?

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Why, why, why, why did you have to die? And then finally, after days of witnessing this, the groundskeeper works up the courage to approach the man, and he gently puts his hand on the man's shoulder and says, sir, please forgive me for intruding on this very private and intimate moment of deep grief.

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But I've been working in this cemetery for 35 years, and I've never seen anyone mourn as deeply as you are mourning.

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May I ask, is this the grave of your wife? And the man says, no, it's the grave of her first husband.

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Why did you have to die? By the way, for those of you who can't hear,

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Mr. Claude is laughing hysterically. It's one of those silent laughs.

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I'm actually laughing. I laughed out loud. But anyway, continue with our definition of revival.

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Oh, goodness. So time and circumstance are important when it to revival, and I'd like to make it known, too, that what we're talking about, since you kind of our layout, we're going to look at what is revival, why we need revival, what revival is not.

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So more improperly, maybe what revival ain't. Number four, why the church needs revival.

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And basically, going through those four to five points to really get our head around what revival is.

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And I would say, in short, revival is truly a move of the Spirit of God when

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God chooses to move and to change hearts and change minds.

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And I know that you had mentioned earlier, Chris, that revival is a highly debated topic in Christian circles.

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And I think a lot of times that tends to lean toward the challenge of the idea of revivalism, maybe versus actual revival.

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But by the way, have you read that wonderful book by Ian Murray, Revival and Revivalism?

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I haven't. I've read the Puritan Hope, but I haven't read that book yet. Oh, you've got to get it.

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It's been out for probably at least 20 years or more. I'll put that on my list.

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That's a banner of truth book. And he, in fact, I had the very great honor and privilege of hearing

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Dr. Murray speak on the subject of his book years ago at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, where I used to be a member before moving to Pennsylvania.

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And he conducted a three -day conference on revival and revivalism, and he was comparing in the book and at the conference the evangelistic ministries of two men from history who were very, very different.

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One was Asahel Nettleton, who was biblically orthodox and was on the side of the issue that was the true and genuine side of revival, and a false teacher,

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Charles Finney, who was a false teacher and a heretic.

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And yet, Finney, unfortunately and tragically, is far more well -known today in the body of Christ and is usually, outside of Reformed circles especially, exalted as a great hero of the

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Church. Yeah, isn't he referred to as the father of revivalism? He could be.

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I haven't heard that specific phrase, but who knows? Maybe Ian has it in his book, and it's been so many years since I read it.

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I don't remember that. But it's amazing how even independent fundamentalist

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Baptists who rightly despise Roman Catholicism exalt

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Charles Finney as one of their heroes when Finney was more of a Pelagian than the

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Roman Catholics are. Yes, sir. It makes no sense. It must be because most of them have never read a word of Finney.

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Absolutely, or not read anything else about him. They just read the name and they go on with it.

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Yes, and that reminds me, for those of you listening who want to find out a lot about Charles Finney, you can go to my website, ironsharpensironradio .com,

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type in Finney, F -I -N -N -E -Y, in the search engine, and at least one interview will come up.

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And the one I'm speaking of specifically is my interview with Jerry Johnson, an apologist and documentarian, and we are discussing a documentary that he created about Charles Finney, exposing the heresies of Finney.

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So I think that you will be highly educated by that. But if you could continue, sorry,

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I keep interrupting you, brother. No, that's OK. I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying this. And again,

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I appreciate the book recommendation. I'll get on Amazon when we're done and order that and go to the site and bookmark that.

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Do me a favor, order it from cvbbs .com since they're sponsoring the show. Cumberland Valley.

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Wonderful. So concerning revival, I know revival isn't a

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New Testament word for sure, but I would say this, like the doctrine of the Trinity, it is a revival is a conceptual truth found in the

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Bible. I mean, for example, if we were just to skim through just a few texts very briefly in Ezra chapter nine, we find it when the children of Israel had returned from Babylon and after they finally get the temple rebuilt, it's like 60 years

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Ezra shows up after that. And, you know, some some things really begin to go down.

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And in Ezra chapter nine, verse eight, nine, the Bible says, but now for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the

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Lord our God to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within his holy place.

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Now, I know the King James says a nail in his holy place, but but he goes on to say this, that our

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God may brighten our eyes and that he may grant us a little reviving in our slavery, for we are slaves, yet our

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God is not forsaken us in our slavery. But he's extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our

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God and to repair its ruins. So in the Old Testament, we see that word reviving used and we understand the concept of that.

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And it's a restoration of strength. And and really, we're just coming off a maybe a little over about a year and a half series at the church through the book of Ezra and in which we looked at the book of Haggai and Zechariah as well, because this reviving that God brings about to the children of Israel during the time of rebuilding the temple is brought about by the preaching of God's word to them.

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It's a proclamation of God's word. Another place we find in Psalm 19, 7, the law of the

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Lord is perfect, reviving the soul or converting the soul, bringing life to the soul.

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So conceptually, we see revival in the New Testament, we see it in the

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New Testament in Paul's communications with Timothy, in one of Paul's letters to Timothy, he actually says,

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You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are

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Phagellus and Hermogenes. And Paul says, May the Lord grant mercy to the household that loathes us, for he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.

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But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and he found me. And Paul says,

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May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you well know all the service that he rendered to us at Ephesus.

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So Paul is speaking about a refreshing, a reviving, if you would, a restoration, a renewal within the spirit and within the heart and the minds of God's people.

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So if I were to just make a plain statement,

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I'm just talking about a plain Bolognaese statement, it would be this, that I would define revival as a stirring of God's people by God's Holy Spirit.

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And that stirring of God's people by God's Holy Spirit would be to a deeper love for him and a greater desire for sanctification and holiness.

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I think that's important when we consider revival, that we understand that, of course, revival is for the church.

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And the purpose of revival is to increase our conscious awareness of the person, the character and the nature of God, the fact that he is holy.

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And when we consider that, and when we consider his holiness and just the magnitude of who he is, to think this, that God loves me,

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I mean, that is an incredible thought when we think about it, Mr. Aronson, I mean, amazing. So revival is

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God's Spirit working in the Christian man, in the Christian woman, in the

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Christian boy, and in the Christian girl to compel us, to drive us to a greater love for God, and that produces,

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I think, a greater sanctification in the lives of believers.

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Well, we have to go to our first commercial break, and if you have a question, send an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. We're now back with Pastor Claude Ramsey of Reformata Baptist Church in South Knoxville, Tennessee, and we are discussing the significance of revival in the church, and we do have some questions, but I wanted you to give an overview of what you said earlier about a definition of revival, and then move on to why we need revival today, and then we'll take some questions.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. So, again, I would succinctly summarize it, as I mentioned earlier, maybe just to tweak the phrase a little bit, but it is a stirring, it is a moving of the

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Holy Spirit of God in the hearts and the minds of His people, and as I was thinking about this, this is just how

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I think, but I think a lot of times when I consider revival in my heart, in my mind, to consider what it is and what it looks like and so on and so forth,

38:38

I think about the power of the Spirit in revival as being like watching kind of like a time -lapse, if you're listening and you've ever watched a time -lapse video of anything, of the sun going down or the sun coming up or of flowers blooming particularly.

38:53

I mean, I see revival in that way, in that, I guess, in that mode of visualization where the leaves and the petals of sin are shed from the believer and the beauty of the flower of the gospel is made manifest in our lives.

39:13

Speaking of stirring, I think it was Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon, who said, there is such thing as good stirs, stirs for the better, stirs which help us to remove the evil consequences of stagnation, and there are certain times, as Spurgeon said, there are certain times, blessed blowings, and I love how

39:37

Mr. Arnds and how he puts this, there are blessed blowings of the sacred wind from heaven through the garden of mankind.

39:46

Edwards, I think, referred to revival as being a surprising work of God, or we might refer to him again in another way, as Edwards said, a special work of the

39:58

Spirit of God, and one more important note on this point is that revival,

40:03

I think it's very significant that we say this, revival is a secondary event in the life of the

40:10

Christian, revival is not to be confused with regeneration, so what

40:17

I mean and what I intend to say is that everyone needs to understand that revival doesn't happen first, but regeneration happens first.

40:27

You must be born again, that's what the scriptures tell us, because with the new birth comes new life, and revival, just by function of the word and the prefix, means to do again, so before you can be revived, you must first be vived, so to speak, if you get what

40:48

I mean there, and revival is a renewing or a restoring, if you would have it, of the life that has been given to us by God.

40:57

Another term that we could use here would be refreshed. All right, let me ask you a question in relation to what you've said.

41:08

We have many Pentecostal and Charismatic brethren who would not disagree with a single word you said, and yet there can be, not always, but there can be a very serious distinction between what you and I and our fellow

41:32

Reformed brethren would expect to see in genuine revival and what they would expect to see and claim to have seen.

41:42

There have been things called revivals, even within our lifetime, that have been driven by Charismatics and Pentecostals, where some very bizarre and even heretical and even blasphemous things have occurred, and yet the advocates of these events, sometimes the advocates are surprisingly from among us in the

42:13

Reformed faith, who are looking at those things from the outside and still giving them a seal of approval, which amazes me.

42:21

But in spite of these very bizarre events, they will be claimed as genuine revival because people's lives have changed, at least according to the reports of many people, whether they're truthful or exaggerated or false,

42:44

I don't know. But I have heard, you know, there have been people who have come to repentance and faith during these seasons of so -called revival, people who have radically changed in their lifestyles, people who just seem like a night and day change, where it really seems that the people, according to the accounts of advocates, are new creations or recommitted believers who are more on fire in a genuine sense of on fire than ever before.

43:33

So how do you respond to that? So to what you were talking about there, even revivals of our day,

43:42

I think probably the most recent and most publicly talked about quote unquote revival in the recent years would be maybe the

43:52

Asbury revival that went on and that, you know, they had, you know, everybody coming in from out of state, people were lining up to get in the chapel and doing all these things.

44:03

Are you talking about the recent one? Because there was obviously an Asbury revival so -called a century or so ago.

44:11

Oh, no, I'm talking about the recent one. Yeah, and I can't remember exactly what state it was in exactly, but in any case, there was, you know, it was because of media, it was highly publicized and people were literally going there and waiting,

44:27

I mean, lined out the doors into parking lots, so on and so forth. It's a college, but they were touting revival.

44:37

Now, the thing is, as you were talking about, I think concerning revival, revival, genuine biblical revival has a true and a lasting effect.

44:50

And what I mean by true and lasting means, I mean, it's more than just, which would go down to that third bullet point that we have to talk about what revival is not.

45:01

Emotionalism is not revival. Would you agree? Oh, yeah, of course.

45:06

And that's why we have to be careful and be clearly precise and explanatory when using words like stirring, that's a very popular word amongst charismatics and Pentecostals, and it's based on how you feel.

45:33

You know, you'll have people who feel the presence of the Holy Ghost just because they and everybody in the church are excited and they start dancing around and clapping their hands and they just got the goose bumps and they, you know, it's contagious when you see people just filled with joy.

45:56

Now, keep in mind, I'm not completely condemnatory of revival. I'm not condemnatory of that expression of faith and worship, because I think very often

46:09

Reformed churches could learn from that. And we, more than anybody else, should be praising

46:17

God with enthusiasm and excitement because we understand just how depraved humans are prior to their regeneration.

46:29

And we, more than anybody, believe that God deserves 100 percent of the praise, honor and glory for our salvation.

46:41

And we don't contribute an ounce to it other than our sin that's being repented from. So I just wanted to make sure

46:49

I say that because I think there is a legitimate criticism of Reformed people acting as if they are at a funeral during every worship service.

47:02

I just wanted to throw that out there. I agree. And I actually refer to that as having a disconnect between the heart and the head, that they ought to be connected.

47:14

Some folks are all emotion and other folks are all knowledge. But there needs to be a balance.

47:20

There needs to be a connecting up of those two things, which is very important. And to what

47:26

I was saying there, revival is not just emotionalism. And I'm glad you brought that up because if we're going to talk about a topic that is and can be misunderstood or words be miscommunicated, that's why it's so important for us to to accurately represent both sides of the coin, so to speak.

47:51

So in that, I would say this, that it's important to remember that even though revival isn't just emotionalism, but it does bring with emotions because emotions are a part of us as human beings, right?

48:05

And emotions reveal very often. I mean, sometimes emotions give people, including ourselves, false impressions about what's actually occurring.

48:18

But on the other hand, emotions do reveal just how deeply you care about a certain thing.

48:28

And, you know, if you are contemplating just how evil your soul was prior to your regeneration and you are contemplating the glory and mercy and grace of Christ for rescuing you, if you are emotionless about that, you've got to wonder, is this really something that has occurred in your life?

49:01

Amen. Amen. Amen. And you brought up sometimes, you know, we talk about, you know, it's easy for Reformed folks to talk about everybody else.

49:11

But I mean, I think about this. Strangely enough, I would say this, in some cases that it's the very people who disdain or those who insist on suppressing emotion in the life of the believer, who are the very ones who will, how do

49:28

I put this, are the very ones who will paint themselves up head to toe on game day.

49:34

Whether they're going to the stadium or just going to their living room, they'll paint themselves up and they'll yell and scream at the

49:41

TV. Now, I'm an Alabama football fan, so let me just say, roll tide.

49:47

Let me say this, this is why it's so important, because that's like it's a double standard.

49:53

It's hypocrisy a lot of times. So concerning revival, it does seem like that there are those folks who would give themselves over, if you'd have it, to passions of their heart and the worldly things.

50:06

But when it comes to worship of the Almighty, they draw back and become very stoic.

50:12

So there needs to be a balance. Now, I'm not saying, again, just to bring clarity here,

50:18

I'm not saying that we need to be running the pews. You know what I'm talking about when I say that, right?

50:24

Folks get happy and run on the back of the pews. Yes. Well, I'm not saying we need to be running the pews, but what

50:30

I am saying is that we should be worshiping God with fervor. I mean, we should worship

50:35

God with passion and with zeal. And it should, the passion and the fervor and the zeal that we worship

50:42

God with should be greater than any worldly endeavor that we set out to take.

50:48

So, again, revival isn't just, isn't emotionalism. And I would say this, it's important that we know this concerning revival, that revival is not reproducible in the sense that it's like a recipe in a cookbook that folks can just turn to the page and add the ingredients and then magically, you know, revival will happen.

51:10

Not all revival is the work of the Spirit of God, right? Right. Or what we call revival.

51:19

By the way, Ted from Moundville, Alabama, echoed your jubilant cry of roll tide for the

51:28

University of Alabama, the football team. But let's see if we could take one quick question before we go to a break.

51:43

It has to be a quick answer. We have, let's see,

51:51

Cheryl in American Falls, Idaho, who says, should we call worship services and events revival meetings?

52:08

Honestly, I'm assuming that she's asking the question about the series of meetings that are called as being revival.

52:16

And I would say, again, going back to my first statement today, conceptually, yes.

52:24

But I think there's a challenge in communicating the full meaning of those things, right?

52:30

Now, again, it's not the course for everyone to be well -versed in etymology and things of that nature, but it is good.

52:44

It would be good at least for when you, if you've got the sign up that says revival meetings now happening, that when folks come in, that it's communicated to them that we can't produce revival and this isn't going to happen just because we got to sign up or called for the meetings.

53:00

Yeah. When you say, if you want to summarize that, that it's one thing to have a series of meetings where you're praying for revival and another thing altogether, if you're claiming you are producing it.

53:16

Yes. That's a big problem. Right. And that really undermines the mind blowing miracle of what a revival is when you just call a meeting a revival, because there's a bunch of people under a tent dancing around, but we have to go to our midway break right now.

53:38

And if you'd like to join us on the air, the question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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01:08:23

gives your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Before we go on to any other listener questions, why don't you continue on with your segment that tells us why we need revival today?

01:08:42

Absolutely. Absolutely. So we need, as Christians, bottom line is this, we need revival today because we live in a fallen world.

01:08:52

And I would give the example or maybe the illustration of Olympic swimmers, right?

01:08:58

We look at Olympic swimmers. They can swim seems like for days because of their conditioning and because of their training.

01:09:05

However, they are not able to swim without one key element.

01:09:11

And that element is air. The natural man is limited to the amount of air that we have to breathe, right?

01:09:19

Or that we can take in, so to speak. And the spiritual man, similar to the natural man, gets winded or we get out of breath, so to speak.

01:09:28

So what do we need? We need, and again, I'm just using old, like old dead guy language here.

01:09:37

We need the breath of God. We need revival. There's an old evangelist and he's not real popular amongst reformed folks, but Billy Sunday, when

01:09:48

Billy Sunday, when somebody told him one time, they told Billy Sunday that revivals weren't necessary because they didn't last.

01:09:57

His response to them was this, well, a bath doesn't last either, but it's good to have one occasionally.

01:10:05

And how true that is. We constantly stand in need.

01:10:10

And I think particularly as talking about revival, as we're talking about it in this context, this is so important because Christians think that they can just get into a routine, to get into a pattern, and they can go along and go along and go along until all of a sudden they found out or they figure out because they've fallen flat on their face with exhaustion and spiritual exhaustion.

01:10:37

That they truly need God. And what do they do? Like most folks, they turn, they cry out to God, much like the children of Israel, right?

01:10:47

They kind of like the cycle. We fall into sin or we fall into disrepair. We get out of spiritual breath, so to speak.

01:10:54

And what do we do? We don't do it until we absolutely have to, seemingly.

01:11:00

Then we cry out to God. But crying out to God should be our first response.

01:11:05

I think reading through the Psalms, we see this pretty, pretty regular. E .M.

01:11:11

Bounds, just real quick. And I'll say this. And if you want to ask a question, we can do that. But E .M.

01:11:16

Bounds said this, he said, an old fashioned revival is the medicine for these times.

01:11:22

Now he wasn't alive in the 2000s, by the way. He said, such a revival is not a momentary outburst of excitement.

01:11:30

It's not a temporary manipulated stir and there's that word.

01:11:37

It's not a mere reformation, but it is a real awakening. It is a profound and awful conviction of sin by the eternal spirit of God.

01:11:48

And it is for such a revival, E .M. Bounds said that we ought to pray with our whole souls.

01:11:55

We ought to pray like Jacob, he said. I love this. Pray like Jacob till the day dawns and the blessing comes.

01:12:01

We ought to pray like Elijah till the fire comes. We ought to pray till the heavens are unlocked and it pours out its treasures upon us as God's people.

01:12:11

So we need revival. We can't we can't live without reviving the revival of the spirit of God in our day to day lives.

01:12:20

Amen, amen. Let's see here. We have.

01:12:29

Philippi and Philippi is in Utica, New York, and Philippi asks, wouldn't you say that one of the greatest examples and proofs that we need a revival today is how impotent and ineffective the church is in regard to this world we live in.

01:12:56

And people today do not go to ministers for the answers to life's toughest problems like the culture once did.

01:13:09

First of all, I would say, amen. That's a very accurate observation there, because it isn't like that anymore.

01:13:18

And I think largely and I'll, you know, it's like hitting ourselves.

01:13:24

We got to we got to point the finger at ourselves as the church, as as a pastor and as men who pastor

01:13:31

God's flock wherever they may be. A lot, I think of what has happened throughout the years and particularly

01:13:39

I can see it in. So I'll be 52 this year. I can see it in my generation and from back in being able to be around two and three generations of people that have come up into this generation and to hear them talk and to hear them, the way that they carry themselves, the way that they they talk, the way that they walk.

01:14:04

It's and it's it is sad that many churches, pastors. Aren't pastoring.

01:14:13

They're they're in it for a paycheck, everybody's looking for popularity, but God has not called any man into the ministry to be popular.

01:14:24

If anybody is going to be popular in a ministry, it ought to be Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ ought to be exalted.

01:14:32

He ought to be magnified. He ought to be lifted up high. And that means that we have to base ourselves, which is biblical teaching there.

01:14:42

So what Philippi said there, I would I would say I'm going to agree with. I'm in agreement with there.

01:14:48

And the issue and the problem is that that. People, I'm sorry, pastors aren't proclaiming the whole counsel of God anymore.

01:14:59

Right. And what what is degraded and looked down upon by many in the world.

01:15:07

The world actually, even though they won't admit it. I think they actually admire that that holiness and that willingness to be brave and to stand strong in the face of spiritual opposition and persecution.

01:15:25

Amen. And let's see here, we have Bryant. That's Bryant with a

01:15:33

Y and a T at the end. In Hoboken, New Jersey. And Bryant says, how do we determine whether a church or group of churches or ministry is manufacturing a false revival?

01:15:53

The thing about revival is only time will tell. Again, the the the kind of immediate measuring of revival is how much excitement is produced.

01:16:05

But I'll give I'll give the audience a countryism here. And the countryism is this.

01:16:10

It don't matter how loud you shout and it don't matter how high you jump.

01:16:16

What matters is when your feet hit the ground. Are you walking straight? Right.

01:16:21

Because that's what the spirit of God does. The spirit of God convicts us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment causes us to love

01:16:29

God, to reach out to God, to understand and to know that God is our source of strength.

01:16:36

So time is the great teller of tales. That's that's really about the only way that you can tell if a church is, you know, producing or trying to reproduce or simulate a revival.

01:16:50

Fergie in East Mauritius, Long Island, New York. Fergie says.

01:17:00

That I have heard some of what you're saying about the distrusting of Pentecostal and charismatic.

01:17:09

Events that they are describing as revival. But can we go too far in ignoring or or disclaiming these events?

01:17:24

Because even in Jonathan Edwards Day, there were bizarre manifestations occurring during what was rightly called a revival, even for the standards of reformed

01:17:38

Christians. The answer would be my answer there would be, yes, we can't go too far in disclaiming that or minimizing these things.

01:17:52

So that is actually one of the has been one of the big deals in in the reformed world over the past several years, the argument between the cessationist and the continuationist.

01:18:05

And, you know, just to be completely honest, I think I think if you try to draw to to.

01:18:13

Dark of a line between cessationism and continuationism, you find yourself disclaiming the work of the

01:18:22

Holy Spirit to some degree, because the truth of the matter is this, that God still works, that his

01:18:30

Holy Spirit does still does still move, that he still is saving people.

01:18:37

The fact that God is still saving people, despite all of these other things that we see, what do you what do you want to call the manifestations or whatever you want to call them, that God, that the gospel is going forth and the gospel is taking effect, despite many of our wrong approaches in our misapplications.

01:18:59

So that's the good thing about the gospel, is that the gospel saves despite us and our methods and our ways.

01:19:07

When you say that one of the things that determines whether a revival is true.

01:19:16

Is the the the message of the gospel that dominates any event that is occurring, because.

01:19:31

You can have. An event where there's a lot of excitement and enthusiasm.

01:19:41

And, you know, accounts of repentance in large numbers occurring.

01:19:49

And as you said before, time will tell whether this repentance is genuine, because it might be people who are just caught up in the enthusiasm.

01:19:59

But they could have a blatantly false gospel that is dominant in these events or seasons, whatever you want to call them.

01:20:12

And shouldn't that be a large determining factor of whether it's a true or false revival?

01:20:21

So could you could you expand just a little bit more on that as to it as to your question of it being a true and false revival?

01:20:29

Well, let's go back to even Charles Finney. Charles Finney, for those of you who don't know who he was or have heard the name and perhaps he's heard nothing but wonderful things about Charles Finney, but Charles Finney.

01:20:48

And in fact, it's interesting, my friend Jerry Johnson, who. Created the documentary on Charles Finney and did the interview with me on him.

01:20:58

He said. Charles Finney was not.

01:21:04

A synergist, as reformed people call Armenians and all non -reformed people who profess to be

01:21:14

Christian, we call them synergists because they believe in the cooperation of because they believe in the cooperation of man to produce.

01:21:26

Salvation in the hearts and minds of the of the sinners. And he said

01:21:34

Finney was not a synergist. He was a monergist, but a bad kind of monergist.

01:21:41

He didn't believe the Holy Spirit was necessary to regenerate the soul. So when you have a revival going on, where you have a lot of enthusiasm, excitement over Finney's preaching occurring in the 19th century.

01:21:58

And you have people flocking to hear him preach. And in fact, I've heard that there were many pastors of the day who were upset because people were leaving their churches.

01:22:11

But the the accompanying message to this occurrence was a false gospel.

01:22:21

So so isn't that a way of determining that, like in this case,

01:22:27

Finney's so -called revival was nothing more than revivalism and a false revival?

01:22:35

I would agree with you, sir. I would say absolutely yes, that that would be that would be an immediate indicator.

01:22:42

If if, for example, you mentioned him about denying the necessity of the work of the

01:22:48

Holy Spirit, that in itself puts a big X across his name.

01:22:54

Right. It puts a big no -no on the thought of his of of following his teachings, because in fact, if you deny one person of the

01:23:06

Godhead, you're denying the whole Godhead because they do not come apart.

01:23:12

They are united, right, as one co -eternal, co -existent, co -authoritative.

01:23:19

The Godhead is complete, right, in its triunity.

01:23:25

So if, like in Finney's case, and this is where it would come down to concerning the revival to to the the

01:23:33

Christian man or the Christian woman being at least somewhat learned in the scriptures so that they can so they can literally test what is being said, right?

01:23:49

I mean, that this one of the things that that we have taught the congregation here at Reformation for years is this, don't trust me just for the sake of trusting me, because I'm a man and I will fail, but we teach, test everything that you hear, teach what you hear from our one of the elders teaching in the classroom, test what you hear, everything that you hear taught, preached and proclaimed from the pulpit, test what you hear according to the word of God.

01:24:20

And so in that case, if Finney said that verbally, oh my goodness, I cannot believe, or I cannot imagine a learned

01:24:29

Christian sitting under that and not getting up and calling him to repentance.

01:24:37

Now there are certainly slips of tongue that take place and happen, but this was not, like you said, it's not a slip of the tongue.

01:24:45

It's an ideology. It's a mindset. It's a philosophy. And there's a big problem with that.

01:24:52

So just because there's action, just because there's intrigue, just because there's excitement doesn't mean it's, and again, to use a term, holy ghost revival, right, because holy ghost revival stems from and comes from the preaching and the proclamation of God's word.

01:25:13

A gentleman, real quick, a gentleman at the church, on Tuesday nights, we have men's

01:25:18

Bible study and prayer meeting. But I asked the men this past week to just kind of brainstorm with me about being on with you, because they need to be aware of everything

01:25:29

I'm going to say and they need to be aware of what I'm doing. But one of the gentlemen, one of our deacons, he said in an autobiography by Jonathan Edwards, there was something that was noted in his journal entries, he said, where he made a comment about just how the preaching of the doctrine of justification itself is so important and how in his journal,

01:25:55

Jonathan Edwards made a statement, something to the effect of how the Holy Spirit seemed to prick the conscience of a young lady at one of their meetings, where she actually stood up in the congregation with her chin quivering and proclaiming,

01:26:09

I have been justified because it was like a veil had been taken off of her eyes and her ears, where she understood what it means to be counted, to have the righteousness of Christ counted to us when we deserve nothing but the wrath of God in hell.

01:26:30

So that would be an example of a, I think, a good example of a positive recognition of the work of the

01:26:40

Spirit in the life of believers in the process of revival. Well, another book

01:26:45

I want to highly recommend, I don't know if you've read this one, but it is another

01:26:51

Banner of Truth book, The Power of Prayer, The New York Revival of 1858 by Samuel Prime.

01:27:01

And just to read to you the description of what occurred in New York City, of all places, a lot of people don't know that there was actually a bonafide

01:27:14

Christian revival in New York City, but as it says in the description, the autumn of 1857 saw

01:27:22

New York in the midst of financial failure, which ruined many of its 1 million people.

01:27:29

J .W. Alexander, returning there from Europe, found a hall of mourning over every house.

01:27:37

But unlike other times of national disaster, this era was accompanied by a renewal, or I'm sorry, by a renewed spirit of prayer to be followed by a manifestation of the marvelous loving kindness of God, as thousands were brought from worldly sorrow to the possession of lasting riches.

01:28:00

Samuel Prime's work, written with the aid of other ministers, gives a firsthand record of the year which saw

01:28:08

America's last national awakening, a revival which, noiseless and unexpected, was in striking contrast with the idea that evangelism is primarily a case of human effort.

01:28:23

In 1858, the great truths made exceedingly prominent were the influence of the

01:28:29

Holy Spirit and free salvation through the righteousness of the

01:28:34

Lord Jesus Christ. This is largely the human story of people into whose lives

01:28:40

God came, but the main blessing is abiding. The Spirit of God, Prime believed, intended the revival to be a lasting example to the

01:28:49

Church of the relationship between His work and believing prayer. This rare title was the last which

01:28:58

Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones urged for republication before his death. Few books can be more relevant for the

01:29:06

Church today. And you saw these businessmen in the middle of the day having prayer meetings that started with just a tiny gathering, a handful of people, and it turned into hundreds of people gathering in many different locations all over Manhattan and other parts of New York City.

01:29:30

So I just wanted to highly recommend that. And once again, a reminder to order that through cvbbs .com.

01:29:40

That's The Power of Prayer by Samuel Prime, and it's a

01:29:46

Banner of Truth title. And by the way, we want to thank Banner of Truth for just donating books, free books, in large quantities to give away to the pastors at the upcoming

01:30:03

Iron Sheriff and Zion Radio Pastors Luncheon on May 1st. I want to thank them for their generosity and benevolence in doing that.

01:30:13

Why don't we move on to your next point that you wanted to make about revival?

01:30:20

All right. All right. So, and I would like to add that it is super easy to order from cvbbs .com.

01:30:29

I actually, during the break, I just went to there and I ordered Revival and Revivalism.

01:30:35

Did you mention Iron Sheriff and Zion Radio? I did. I did. I put, I saw the,

01:30:41

I heard about you all from an ad on Iron Sheriff and Zion Radio. Praise God. Very good.

01:30:48

All right. So, so what you were just, what you were saying there really just points, points me toward the, toward the last part of what

01:30:56

I was going to talk about. Where does revival come from? I mean, if we, if we just go there, you know, where does revival come from?

01:31:04

Number one, it does not come by the planning, clever planning of men. What the testimony that you just read tells us that.

01:31:11

Revival does not come because of the personality of men, no matter how likable they may be.

01:31:18

The term, and again, to summarize the term revivalist itself, that's a bad term because it places the emphasis on the man himself instead of making

01:31:28

God the focus. So it really, when, when it comes to topics like this or referring to, and referring to those who we, who history calls revivalists,

01:31:39

I think it might be better to refer to preachers who preach revival meetings just to call them, if they're, if they're gospel preachers, preachers of holiness, right, rather than, than revival, because again, what the spirit of God does, it doesn't cause us to focus, he doesn't cause us to focus on the necessarily the external activity.

01:32:02

But what happens is the inner man is changed. The inner man is made new and the inner man is called the cause to love and desire

01:32:09

God all the more. Amen. Well, we're going to go to our final break.

01:32:15

And if anybody wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away.

01:32:21

We'll be right back. I'm pastor

01:32:38

Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist church, a Christ -centered gospel driven church, looking to spread the gospel in the

01:32:45

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01:41:54

Welcome back. Pastor Claude Ramsey of Reformation Baptist Church in South Knoxville, Tennessee, just reminded me that I am going to be featured on Pastor Ramsey's podcast, the

01:42:16

Here I Stand Theology Podcast, at some time, at some point in May.

01:42:25

We don't know the exact date yet, but I'll be on there with James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and together we are going to be talking about the importance of godly friendships, and Claude knows that James and I have been very close friends since 1996, and our friendship has endured a very long span of time, and he wanted us to do this program together, and the reason we don't know the date is because, as always,

01:43:00

James drags these decisions out endlessly until you're just asking him once a week at least for months and months for a date, and he just really annoys the living daylights out of me and takes forever to allow you to put something like this on a calendar, but anyway, we will keep you updated as to when

01:43:29

James actually picks a date that we can conduct this program.

01:43:37

And how do people listen to the Here I Stand Theology Podcast? They can go to YouTube.

01:43:47

Actually, I have not been very good about converting just to audio, but you can get the audio on anywhere you get your pods at—on

01:43:57

Apple, on Google, on Spotify, on all those. You can get those. Maybe one day

01:44:03

I'll have a chance to go back through some of them and just make the audio version, but a little busy from time to time, but YouTube is where you can go get them and where the folks will be able to see it once the podcast happens.

01:44:21

Well, since this is the final segment of our program today—we have about 14 minutes or so—why don't you do a recap of everything you said and move on to any other significant points about revival that you wanted to describe?

01:44:38

Absolutely, absolutely. So, the first thing that we tackled was what revival is—just a brief, basic, biblical, conceptual understanding of what revival is.

01:44:50

And then we kind of jumped to what revival is not, and we talked about why we need revival today.

01:45:00

And really, in this last section, it's really just why the church needs revival.

01:45:10

And again, I'm going to say something that's very close to home to me personally, because it's something that I deal with from time to time, but the church needs revival because at times, every one of us go through a spiritual lethargy or a kind of a downturn, if you would have it.

01:45:35

And as individual believers, with us all going through these seasons and these times of spiritual sadness—I mean, this is a reality—that we go through times of spiritual sadness.

01:45:47

The old -timers, the old dead guys might call this—you might see it in a lot of old literature—the dark night of the soul, where we just battle natural depression and spiritual depression of sorts.

01:46:04

And I think this is dismissed, but depression is real.

01:46:09

It's real in the natural man. It's real in the spiritual man. And the only remedy for depression, spiritual or natural, is revival in the soul of man.

01:46:23

Now, it's obvious, as long as we're on this side of heaven, we're going to battle depression.

01:46:30

We're going to battle it naturally. We're going to battle it spiritually. So, without a doubt, we need revival.

01:46:38

And we need the revival. We need the Spirit of God to so work in our hearts and our minds through the

01:46:44

Word and through His Spirit that it will cause—or actually going to the Word—will cause us to be the opposite of malnourished, spiritually speaking.

01:46:56

That's one of the great disservices that many a pastor does to their congregations to lessen the emphasis of the importance of the

01:47:05

Word of God in our lives. The Word of God is what we live by.

01:47:10

The Word of God is what we die by. I mean, naturally speaking, if someone is thirsty, what do we tell them to do?

01:47:19

Get a drink, right? Drink some water. If they're hungry, what do we tell them? Go get a sandwich, right?

01:47:28

The church is full of people who are hungry and who are thirsty, and they're not being told to go to the water of life.

01:47:40

They are not being told, go to the bread of life. Instead, they're being fed self -help techniques and breathing exercises that's not going to profit them anything eternally.

01:47:53

There's a preacher named Sammy Tippett. He said this, throughout the ages, the great revivals of Christianity have been directly related to the ministry of the

01:48:05

Word. As wonderful as music is, it's good, but it will not produce great spiritual or moral revival, either of the two.

01:48:17

It's pleasant to have creative means of worship, Tippett said, in our churches and in our personal lives.

01:48:23

However, there is no substitute for the ministry of the

01:48:29

Word of God because the scriptures, the scriptures alone have the ability to shine forth the glory of God in a place where His light has grown so dim.

01:48:41

So we can see throughout history in some of the more well -known revivals and what we can see in books, like you recommended to us earlier there, that even in the great evangelical missionary movements themselves, if we go back and we look at the ones that have stuck, so to speak, right, they are rooted and they are grounded in the

01:49:07

Word of God, and they have their foundations in the Word of God because it's the

01:49:13

Word of God that's going to point us to holiness.

01:49:19

A few folks talk about holiness. It's still unpopular. A few folks talk about integrity, but it's still a reality.

01:49:28

And that holiness and integrity is something that the Holy Spirit has to work in our lives. Spiritual renewal, that would be basically a definition of revival, right?

01:49:38

What that does when we're revived, when we're renewed up, as the country folks would say, when you get renewed up, it rekindles a passion for God.

01:49:49

It rekindles your faith in God. And what it does is, and this is what

01:49:55

I so loved about what you shared about that book last, about that revival in New York that few folks know about, what revival does is it reawakens our understanding and our need for prayer, realizing that we can't go without prayer.

01:50:12

We can't go without worshiping God. We can't go without the Word of God.

01:50:19

And then maybe one other thing that revival brings to the Christian and to the church, it brings true unity.

01:50:27

I mean, true unity. I'm not talking about ecumenism for the sake of ecumenism.

01:50:33

I'm talking about genuine unity in the body of Christ, because it brings repentance and it brings reconciliation within the church, and it causes those relationships that have been broken to be restored.

01:50:51

So if you were to ask me, where does revival come from? I would say this.

01:50:58

If we're going to ask that question, then we should also ask the question, where does revival not come from? It doesn't come by clever planning, right?

01:51:06

It does not come because of personality. I stated this earlier, but I want to restate this because no matter how likable or how well known the person may be, they can't bring revival.

01:51:18

It's a work of the Spirit of God. And just to close, my last statement will be this.

01:51:25

I want to just quote John Popper here. John Popper said that revival happens when we see

01:51:31

God's majestic holiness. Revival happens when we see ourselves as disobedient dust.

01:51:42

Brokenness, repentance, unspeakable joy of forgiveness, and a taste for the magnificence of God, and a hunger for holiness is what revival brings.

01:51:55

So to see it more and to live it more, that's revival, and it comes from seeing

01:52:03

God. So where does revival come from? It comes from heaven, and it's sent to us just when we need it the most by the gracious hand of our good

01:52:14

God. Amen. We have a question from Alex in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I love your city,

01:52:30

Alex. I've been there. I have friends there. And Alex wants to know, what is your counsel and advice on approaching people who you believe are trying to manufacture a false revival or promoting false revivals?

01:52:51

Start with the Word. Go to the Word and see what, number one, regeneration produces in the heart of man, in the heart and life of man.

01:53:05

And then number two, consider as you're reading the text of Scripture to understand what the

01:53:12

Holy Spirit produces in the believer, that it causes us to slowly but surely—and here's the thing about revival—is that,

01:53:22

I mean, again, because it's a sudden work of God, and it's not something that can be planned.

01:53:28

It's something that we should certainly seek, like those men in New York. However, understand that it got to be on God's time and in God's way.

01:53:41

So I would go to the individuals. If you're concerned about going to them, I would go to them, and I would ask them, what is the fruit that the

01:53:52

Holy Spirit has produced in these revivals? And sometimes just those simple questions can and will spur maybe the pastor or the elders of that church to really do a deep dive and really begin to study and think about what's going on.

01:54:10

Yeah, and I'm sure you would agree with me. Just as your God -given manner is, as I've said,

01:54:21

I think, even at the outset of this program, you're one of the most humble servants of Christ I ever met.

01:54:28

If you're going to, out of concern and love for someone promoting or participating in a false revival, we're not supposed to just throw a bucket of ice -cold water on them and be mean -spirited about it, and that would go for anything.

01:54:51

We're to seek to warn them about what they're promoting or involved in, in humility and giving them the reasons why you're even doing it, that you don't want to see them harmed mentally, emotionally, and spiritually by giving in to and being duped by something that may be very dangerous.

01:55:24

Amen. Dangerous theologically, anyway. And let's see here, we have time for at least one more question.

01:55:39

Let's see, I just was looking at it. Oh, would you say that the great revivals of history that were genuine were all predominantly, if not exclusively, made up of Reformed Christians?

01:56:02

Oh, and that is Trudy in New Hyde Park, Long Island, New York.

01:56:13

I don't know if I would say that the majority of them were from Reformed Christians, because,

01:56:22

I mean, there's the revival in Wales, there's all kinds of others that you can look up and look at historically, and they weren't necessarily...

01:56:31

Go ahead. I was just going to say, it's interesting that you brought up the revival in Wales, because I've only heard about that from Reformed Christians, so I don't know.

01:56:40

And I remember here, like for Peter Jeffery, for instance, the late Peter Jeffery, who was a friend of mine, he was a pastor in Port Talbot, Wales, and I remember

01:56:50

I first heard about the Welsh revival when one of the evidences that occurred was that,

01:56:59

I believe this was either in the 19th century or early 20th century, I can't remember right now, but miners in droves were returning all the tools that they stole.

01:57:12

Praise the Lord! But I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

01:57:18

No, that's okay, that's okay. I just, personally, I just don't,

01:57:23

I couldn't say that I think that it's Reformed theology that produced these revivals predominantly, but I can say that it was the

01:57:35

Spirit of God, and we have the evidence because time has passed, right? We have the time that has passed, and we see fruit, and you see fruit that lasts, and you can see fruit that has died seemingly before it even falls from the vine of those revivals and those meetings.

01:57:56

So we just have to be very objective when we consider revival in the work of God.

01:58:05

All right, well, I want to repeat for the sake of our listeners who are living in the

01:58:12

Knoxville, Tennessee area or traveling through it or visiting there, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones there, go to the website of Reformata Baptist Church, which is reformatabaptistchurch .org,

01:58:25

R -E -F -O -R -M -A -T -A baptistchurch .org, and we hope that you will also attend the upcoming conferences where Pastor Claude is speaking.

01:58:38

Can you quickly give those websites? Yes, sir, laborsconference .com and graceandtruth .com

01:58:47

on Eventbrite. All right, great. Well, thank you so much for doing such a superb job, Pastor Claude.

01:58:52

I look forward to your return. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater