How can I recognize a true revival according to the Bible? - Podcast Episode 147

Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. Over the past 10 days to two weeks, started getting a lot of questions about something going on here in the

United States, specifically at Asbury University in Kentucky. I'll let

Jeff kind of fill in some of the details, but there is a quote -unquote revival occurring there. So a lot of people are wondering what's going on.

Is this a legitimate or genuine move of God? And some questions of how can

I get a piece of that sort of topic to them? And so we just want to kind of revisit what does the

Bible say about revival? How can you recognize it? And ultimately, if it's a true revival empowered by the

Holy Spirit, what would be the results of it, whether short -term or long -term?

So we're not gonna be talking too much about Asbury because there are plenty of people who've already done excellent jobs, people who've been there, experienced it, and neither

Jeff or I have done that. So we don't want to talk too much about Asbury specifically, but more just here's some biblical tools, concepts that you can use to help you to discern whether something like this is a genuine move of God.

Joining me today is Jeff, the managing editor of BibleRef .com. So Jeff, what have you learned about specifically what's going on at Asbury?

Well, it's interesting because you brought up the idea that there are people who have reported on it who have been there.

And I'm really careful about this sort of stuff where if you're not physically present at what's going on, it is sometimes hard to know what is or is not happening.

As it happens with the Asbury, as far as I know, there's been a lot of live streaming, a lot of videos and stuff that's come out of that.

Even with that, I've been sort of careful because I don't want to just try to make some sort of reaction based on 30 seconds or 20 minutes of watching.

But in general, what happened at Asbury was a group of college students got together for a required weekly chapel that they were there for.

And when the service was over, a few of them decided to just stay and play some music and pray together.

And more people sort of showed up and then they stuck around. And then as it went later into the night and then even into the next morning with people still there singing and praying, it started to catch fire on social media.

And that turned it into an even bigger thing. Now that started on February 8th, today is the 20th.

And as of today, it's a little bit fuzzy right now exactly what's happening there, in part because they've put some restrictions on what sort of social media people can use.

My understanding is that as of now, it is still in process, but the college is looking to not necessarily close it down, but to separate it out from a public thing into a student thing, move it to a different location and so on and so forth.

So at least for the last, what is that? 11, 12 days, this has gone on. And it's attracted a lot of attention because it is arguably spontaneous.

There's no set list of songs or anything else that's going on. People are reporting that the atmosphere is pretty calm from the videos that I've seen, from the accounts that I've read of what's going on there.

This is not people flailing around or wailing or something like that, that it's a very low key worshipful kind of environment.

And that's inspired a lot of people to wonder what exactly is happening. Is this some sort of major revival?

Is this some sort of big spiritual awakening that's happening there? And that's where the real questions come in is we can kind of look and see what's going on, but knowing exactly what it means is a different story.

Yeah, for sure. And I read a statement from, I think, the president of the university saying, look, we're all for people worshiping

God and giving testimonies of repentance and life change and so forth. But this is a university.

You all need to get back to class. So that's a difficult spot for,

I do not envy him having to, in a sense, put a stop or at least limits on what seems to be a great work of God.

But no, these are the type of questions we've been receiving is kind of what's going on there.

I've always found it fascinating with this revival concept that sometimes it'll happen kind of spontaneously at a specific location.

And other people from around the country, around the world will want to go there to then get like,

I want some of this. I want to experience what they're experiencing. And if you look at what the

Bible says about revival, I mean, the word revival means like bringing something back to life, reviving someone.

Picture someone who's had a heart attack and they're laying there dead. You get out the, I almost said jumper cables.

I know that's not the right term, but the panels that shocked the heart and the person is revived, they're back to life.

That sort of things is happening at Asbury. You do not have to be there at that specific location to experience it.

If you pour out your heart in worship, that if you repent from any sins that you are currently engaged in, if you truly seek the

Lord, he will perform a work in your heart, on your mind, in your life, no matter where you are.

So this idea that there's like a special anointing right now at Asbury and I've got to go there in order to get it and then bring it with me so I can have the same thing at my campus.

It's like, maybe you can go there and learn just by observing, seeing what's doing, but it's not like a move of God like this can't just be replicated just by having your presence there and then transferring your presence to somewhere else.

So it's always been kind of a weird thing every time there's a quote unquote revival in the

United States, everyone wanting to go there. I know people who've traveled across the country, around the world to try to experience this.

And I don't see anything like that really in the Bible that everyone has to go to this specific location in order to get this specific blessing that doesn't not seem to be how

God works at least in my study of the scriptures. Yeah, and it raises that question of exactly what is happening at Asbury.

And I think we're allowed to discern between saying the things about it that are good and the things that we just don't know or the things that we're sure about without trying to cram it into some specific label.

These things aren't always gonna look exactly the same. That particular college claims that they've had revivals many, many times in the 1900s.

And then I think they said the 50s, 58, 1970 and so on and so forth. So we've seen a lot of things that people refer to as revivals.

And I agree with what you're saying that sometimes part of what can make these things catch on is sort of they become a little bit of a fad.

So that's one of the things that makes it hard to gauge with Asbury because it caught fire on social media. And understandably, a lot of people wanna be involved.

And I don't think that that's necessarily a bad impulse. I think if something's going on and you find that it's worshipful and it's meaningful and it's important and you say, hey,

I wanna go be a part of that. I think that can be a very positive thing but there is a difference between something that's really popular or something that's really engaging or really fulfilling as opposed to something that's an actual revival.

Now you mentioned the idea of repentance. That's something that's really critical when we look at scripture and what it says because the core idea of revival in the

Bible always revolves around that idea of the people en masse repenting and turning back to God.

It's not necessarily about the emotional experience but repentance is a key part of it. Yeah, looking at scripture,

I mean, in the Old Testament the two closest examples to revival I could think of would be in the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah in the

Old Testament where for generations or for at least a generation, the people had completely abandoned the

Lord. Like no one was seeking after the Lord and God raises up a king with the heart to follow him in Hezekiah and then three generations in Josiah and results in people repenting, people turning back to submission to God's word, observing the

Passover and other feasts and doing the things that the law commands. So the people went from being dead in terms of their following the

Lord to being alive. And it impacted that entire generation of people.

Like an entire generation went from no interest in the things of God to closely following God.

Sadly, following the storyline that didn't continue beyond those generations, but for at least a time, those revivals had a huge impact.

And New Testament, maybe I'd go to some of the seven churches in Revelation where Laodicea, basically you're dead,

I want you to come back to life. Or maybe that's not the right church, but one of the seven churches, that specific language is used where Christ is like, you're not doing what

I've called you to do. You're not fulfilling the calling I have on your life. Stop doing the things you're doing.

Instead, follow me. That sort of an attitude is a powerful example of a revival.

So to me, I have no interest in judging what's going on at Asbury. But it's like, neither one of us have been there.

I have a, someone I'd consider a friend who did travel there, but she is currently at college nearby.

And she, her feeling from it was, I came away wanting to follow

God more closely than I currently am. And if that's what's going on there, then I am 100 % all for it.

So no criticism at all heading towards Asbury in this conversation. But ultimately, the only way you can judge whether a quote -unquote revival was of God would be the impact it has on people.

Is it like sending your kids to a Christian camp for a week while they're on a big spiritual high, and then two days after they get home, they're back to living exactly how they were before?

Or for adults, a bunch of men go to a men's retreat, or women go to a women's retreat, or even a conference, and you come back and, oh, that was so powerful, life -changing.

Then a little bit later, made no noticeable difference in your life.

So is that what's happening here? Or is this, are people's lives truly being transformed? Is people turning from being disinterested in the things of God to dedicated to them?

So in a lot of things, it's always wise to withhold judgment, like not buying into something.

Oh, wow, God is really moving in Asbury. This is clearly the work of the Holy Spirit. You don't want to go that far, but you also don't want to, this can't be of God, because it very well could be.

But the only way to ultimately to discern, to evaluate, is to see the effects the

Holy Spirit produces long -term in the people who are involved at Asbury. Yeah, that's really the key, is we need to just admit that we really don't know what this signifies, if it signifies anything, for a couple of reasons.

One is because this type of thing, where a group of people get enthusiastic and a lot of people join together, and there's some type of an event or a spontaneous thing, that happens pretty often.

That's not a super, super uncommon thing to have going on. What's more rare and what's much more powerful is when that does turn into very broad, lasting social change.

And there have been times where that has happened. There have been times in Christian history and even in American history, where what we refer to as revivals have turned into something bigger.

There's sort of a difference in that terminology, even, that when I was growing up, I remember hearing people talking about, we're gonna have a revival at this and that church this weekend.

In other words, it's being used as a term to say, we're gonna meet outside, we're gonna invite the public in, we're gonna get all fired up and we're gonna kind of get re -energized for the faith, which is fine.

And in that sort of a sense, I would say what's happening at Asbury is a revival of sorts in that context.

But a revival that actually goes through and has social consequences is something different. So like in the 1740s, we had the great awakening, where there was a revival, where there was a surge of interest that started with these small groups and then spread beyond that.

And it led to people who were much more engaged with faith and much more involved with what was going on.

Then we had the second great awakening, which was late 1700s, early 1800s, that wound up resulting in a tremendous number of new churches and influence.

More recently for us, probably the last time that we had something happen that you could really say was a revival with long lasting consequences was the

Jesus Movement. And that was in the 60s and 70s. And there's where the concept of revival even gets complicated, because the

Jesus Movement was not a, let's say brilliantly theologically astute approach, but it definitely had a huge impact.

It changed a lot of the way American culture responds to church and reacts to church. And at the time that all of those were going on, you wouldn't have really been able to say, yes, absolutely, this is going to be a really big deal.

You couldn't know that until later, you weren't gonna be able to see those effects. So with what's happening with Asbury and any other revivals,

I've heard there's other colleges that are, I don't wanna use the term imitating, but I guess that's just the closest way to put it.

They're doing something, experiencing something similar. We're not really gonna know until later what this is about.

In the meantime, it's okay for us to look at what they're actually doing, what they're actually saying, what sort of people are there, what people are saying about it, what's the atmosphere like.

You can still gauge the doctrines and everything else like that in the meantime, but you're not really gonna know, is this a truly from God revival until quite a bit of time has passed.

Yeah. And what to me is refreshing in a sense about what

I've heard at Asbury is it's not gone the route to some of the more recent claims of revival.

If you look at, I'm not even gonna try to remember the dates, but in Toronto and Brownsville and Lakeland, there were these revivals that almost entirely revolved around things that were ecstatic, that people were screaming, falling down and claims of healing and gold dust and oil and all sorts of crazy things that the

Bible doesn't even talk about. These are not things, biblically speaking, happen when God is reviving someone's hearts.

Not to deny that God does miracles and can do those things, but when the entire movement completely revolves around the miraculous with very questionable teaching, but I remember people

I know were traveling to these places because they wanted to get a sampling of the anointing.

I don't see, at least at Asbury and some of the other break -off groups, might be a right way to say it, but I don't see that sort of happening.

It seems to truly be people worshiping, people confessing their sins to one another, people truly seeking to be on fire for God.

And so for that, I have nothing but gratitude for what seems to be happening there.

And I truly hope that lives are changed for the long -term, because if a movement among young people were to happen in this country, that is tremendously needed.

When you hear the statistics of the number of people who are claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ, every generation, the number gets lower and amongst people who are now teenagers and 20s, it is frighteningly low.

So a revival among young people would be amazing. I would love to see the

Lord do something like that. And I truly hope that that's what is occurring here. I would love to see it spread throughout the country and around the world, but far too early to make a claim like that.

I've just noticed in the last few days, people asking a lot of questions about, is there going to be a worldwide revival before the end times get here?

I'm like, well, one, the Bible seems to describe things getting progressively worse and worse and worse before the end, not better.

But okay, right now we've got essentially, potentially, hopefully, a legitimate work of God occurring in one university in the

United States. Let's not jump to this is a worldwide revival that's going to usher in the end times sort of thing.

So let's thank God for what he's doing. Let's pray that he continues to do it, changing people's hearts, minds, transforming people's lives.

Let's seek to accomplish some of the same things we see at Asbury in our churches, in our lives, in our families, in terms of worshiping the

Lord together, praying together, confessing our sins to one another, helping one another, those sorts of things.

But let's not take something that just looks exciting for a time and blow way out of proportion, definitely far beyond we can, there's enough information out there that we can truly evaluate it.

Yeah, I like the idea of saying, let's just take what's good from this and be willing to accept it.

I mean, the idea that people in that generation are seemingly organically and naturally attracted to this particular expression of faith, okay, that is a positive thing.

And if it's not exactly perfect, then it's not exactly perfect. And we don't need to necessarily crush everything about it because we can find some criticism.

We do wanna be careful that we don't endorse something that might be going on that is sort of a concern.

And there are things that you hear from what's going on at Asbury that do give you reason to pause and to be concerned.

There's questions about the lifestyles, doctrinal stances, theological views of a lot of the people who are major players in keeping this going.

Okay, that's reasonable. There's questions about whether this is just, and I'll say just with the air quotes,

I'm not diminishing worship in any sense of the imagination. But as we talked about with revival, biblical revival involves repentance and turning towards God.

A long running worship service is a positive thing. That's a good thing.

Generally speaking, but that doesn't necessarily mean it involves repentance. The fruit that we're looking for from a true revival is a widespread movement of people turning away from sin, evil, selfishness, violence, all those other things and turning towards God and towards Christ.

If the result of this current revival or movement or whatever we wanna call it is that people are just more interested and enthusiastic about getting together to worship, we don't wanna say that's a bad thing, but that's clearly not an actual revival.

And to what you were saying before that you're looking for some sort of longer term effects.

My go -to for revival, probably because I'm a little more cynical, is the book of Judges.

And you see what we would think of as revival. There's times in the book of Judges where Israel says, you're right.

We collectively recognize that we've done wrong. We're emotionally invested in what's going on. We're gonna make a change.

We're gonna follow. We're gonna do the things that we're supposed to do. And for a time, they really do turn in that direction.

There is an actual measurable change in the people and in the culture. And then eventually that fades away and then there's a need for it to happen again.

So a revival doesn't have to be permanent, but it does have to have some sort of lasting effect. So I think we can keep a cautious eye, approve of the good aspects of what we see, be cautious about the negative.

One thing I have seen people do that I do think we need to be very careful of is we need to be careful not to condemn something because of who approves of it.

And I'm not necessarily saying that that's always a bad thing. But what I am saying is, you even have the stopped clocks principle is

Satan is not in the habit of taking and making his agents always these drooling demons.

So most false teachers hold beliefs that if you just line them up on some sort of a graph, 85, 90, 95 % of what they say would be biblical.

So I've seen some people, they've referred to some of the folks who've caught this social media vibe and are now going to Asbury and I guess kind of glomming themselves on to what's going on.

And they've pointed to some of these voices and said, well, if that person thinks this is good, then it's got to be from the devil.

And I think we need to be really careful not to take that approach. It's entirely possible for somebody who is a non -believer, even a false teacher to see something that's going on and have a positive response.

I'm not gonna condemn what's going on at Asbury because a flaming heretic looks at it and says, yes, I think this is a good thing.

Now, if the people who are there versus the people who are not there, that's another thing.

If the people who are there, all the people who say that they like it are all flaming heretics and all the people whose judgment and discernment and wisdom

I trust who go there and say, no, this doesn't look good. Okay, well now we have reasons to be a little more cautious but I think we can wait and see what sort of fruit comes out of this.

We don't need to try to judge every little bit of it right here and right now.

I like what Gamaliel says in Acts chapter five. He's a Jewish leader. He's responding to the apostles as they're promoting the faith.

And he basically recommends a very hands -off approach and I'm not necessarily in favor of us being careless about these things.

We do need to sort of stay in front of what happens in spiritual movements so we know what's right and wrong.

But Gamaliel's basic approach was to say, look, when you're looking at these people, if what they're doing is from God, you're not gonna be able to stop it anyway.

And if it's from God and you try to stop it, then you're guilty of interfering with what God wants to do.

Now, again, we are called to be watchmen and to defend and so on and so forth.

So if there's something blatantly false that we see, we should talk about it. We should say something about it.

We should bring it up. But I think we're in a phase right now with this where all we know is people seem to be very interested in participating in worship and it's very organic.

I don't see any reason to discourage anybody from that or to be upset about it until or unless we have some sort of a reason to think, yeah, this is really a bad thing.

Because if this really is something that God wants to do, I don't wanna stamp on it. And if it's something that God's not up for, then eventually it's not gonna mean anything anyway.

Yeah. Excellent point, Jeff. And I've seen some of that same attitude, like, oh, well, this person is for it, therefore

I must be against it. It's like, that's really not a good way to live your life and to evaluate different movements.

But maybe in summary, neither Jeff or I have been to Asbury.

So we have no firsthand knowledge. I've got a little bit of secondhand knowledge. Some people that we, generally speaking, trust and respect have been there and have given evaluations.

And when this episode goes live, we'll include some links to some of their evaluations so you can maybe get a little bit more of a firsthand touch on it.

But ultimately, if it's a biblical revival, it's a revival that matches what scripture says, it's gonna result in changed lives for the long term.

And ultimately, that's what we should hope for. I mean, when we see something like this happening, we should truly hope that this is a work of God, that these people are going to be permanently changed by what they experienced there, that God is truly, through the

Holy Spirit, doing a mighty work. And we should want that more. If I, I don't know, from the very first time

I heard of it, and the first thing that came to my mind is, I've never been a fan of the,

I'm gonna travel to this location in order to get a piece of this blessing. I mean, to me, if what's happening in Asbury, worship, repentance, confession, if that's what you need, if that's what you want, you can do that anywhere.

I mean, God is omnipresent. The Holy Spirit is with you.

If you're a believer in Christ, He is in you. You don't need to travel somewhere to experience those things.

You don't need to experience the, you don't need to go somewhere to feel the overwhelming joy of having a restored relationship with God.

That can happen wherever you are, whenever you're ready to submit to Him in that.

So a few little correctives, not necessarily about Asbury, but how other people are looking at it.

So with anything like this, always go back to scripture, compare what you see, what you experience with God's word.

God's word will never lead you astray. So Jeff, any other closing thoughts?

I think that that's a good summary for how we wanna approach this. If it's really something that God wants, we're gonna see lasting change.

And over time, we'll learn more about the details of exactly what this either was or is, depending on how long it continues.

And for me, the things that I'm really looking for is change. I'm looking for the idea that is the primary thing that's going on is preaching of the gospel, of turning towards God.

Again, not because there's something wrong with worship, but just singing worship songs is not revival.

It's not a revival of any meaningful kind unless people are actually being led to the truth.

And I wouldn't wanna interfere with that until or unless I have a good reason. So for me, at least right now, I haven't seen or heard anything about Asbury that makes me say, no, this is dangerous or this is a bad thing.

I'm excited by the idea. It's at least a good thing. I could use some good news with all the baloney that I got to see.

So I'll be happy for the positive stuff that we see in this for right now, but I'll be ready if it turns in the wrong direction to be one of those people who'll stand there and say, no, now we're kind of moving in the wrong direction.

But until then, I'm gonna take the good when I can get it. Absolutely, I agree with you 100%.

So it's been the Got Questions podcast and sort of like, what is revival? Kind of inspired by all the questions we've been receiving about what's taking place at Asbury University.

So hope this conversation has been encouraging and helpful to you. Got Questions, Revival Has Answers, and we'll help you find them.