November 16, 2016 Show with Bob Smart on “Pentecostal Outpourings: Revival and the Reformed Tradition”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with 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 hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 16th day of November 2016.

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I'm delighted to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens today, Pastor Bob Smart, who is the senior minister of Christ Church in Normal, Illinois, which is a congregation within the

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Presbyterian Church in America denomination, very commonly known as the

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PCA. He's also a part -time teacher in evangelical seminaries, a conference speaker, an active worker in world missions.

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He's also the author of a number of books, and we're going to be discussing a book he co -authored with a number of other authors titled,

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Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the Reformed Tradition. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Bob Smart.

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Thank you, Chris. Good to be here, and I've listened to a few of your episodes, and especially one with Rosaria Butterfield that I thought was very interesting.

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Oh yeah, Rosaria Butterfield. I'm looking forward to meeting her face -to -face in January at the

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G3 conference, which I'll be announcing more about during this program, the

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G3 conference January 19th through the 21st, where there's 19 conference speakers.

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I've never been at a conference with that many speakers, and she is one of them. She is going to be giving her testimony of transformation, having been a former leftist lesbian tenured professor at Syracuse University and was rescued by the mercy and blood of Christ, transformed by his grace.

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She is not only a heterosexual now, but infinitely more importantly than that, she's a born -again believer in Christ, and she is the wife of a very conservative

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Presbyterian pastor, and I'm looking forward eagerly to meeting her face -to -face after having interviewed her at least twice already on the program.

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But before we go into the topic at hand, Pentecostal outpourings, revival and the

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Reformed tradition, I want to know something about your personal background, what kind of family you were raised in, what the religious atmosphere was, and how the

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Lord led you to Himself. Yeah, well,

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I'm the youngest of six. There was one girl in the middle and all brothers, and we were brought up in a

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Roman Catholic family in the Midwest. I was born in Missouri, but we quickly moved up near Chicago on the

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Indiana Dunes along Lake Michigan and my father commuted to Chicago.

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We were, actually, when I was in Missouri as a baby, my heart stopped.

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I had a pyloric stenosis, a valve that wouldn't allow milk to come into my body, and the doctors made some bad calls, but eventually they discovered it, and they were doing surgery, and I turned blue, and a nurse hit a panic button, and a doctor rushed in, split open my side, and to get to my heart, put his hand in there and massaged it and got my heart going again.

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So, I always think that's part of my testimony because I have such a heart for revival.

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In a real providential way, he revived my heart. Well, praise

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God for that. Yeah, but we went to church through the 60s.

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There were a lot of changes in the Roman Catholic worship and liturgy with music and English services and so forth.

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I went to a school there, wore the blue pants, a powder blue shirt, and a tie, and was an athlete.

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I was an All -American runner long distance and played basketball in Indiana, but I really went from...

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I kept going to church, but I moved from a sincere young Catholic boy that wanted to be a priest or a basketball coach to a hedonist, and tried to maximize pleasure, minimize pain, and then began to really question, what is this all for?

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What's the purpose in life? And while I was at Purdue University, I ran cross -country and was on the track, but was injured, and I was in a fraternity house, and I really didn't see any purpose in the early 80s for why suddenly everyone cut their hair short.

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I was kind of moving towards, oh,

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I guess, more of a moralistic response to swing out of the 70s to,

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I think, a little more conservative 80s style, and I was just really questioning, what, why, what is school for, and what am

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I going to do? And there was a dear man, and I thank

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God for him, his name was Bill Coffin. He had been involved with the

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Navigators. I don't know if you're aware of them, Chris. Oh yeah, I interviewed Jerry Bridges a few times before his going home to the

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Lord, and I know Nav Press published, I think, all of his books. Yes, and I knew him as well, but at that point

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I only knew this guy named Bill, who came to the fraternity house there, and we had the famous quarterbacks come out of there and so forth, but I was lost, and he shared the

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Gospel with me after leading me through a discussion on the Gospel of John, and he shared what's called the

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Bridge Illustration. I had been out at sororities doing a drunken serenade.

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I came back. There he was. He wanted to share the Gospel then.

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I was so angry at him. Now I know why, but I told him

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I'm already a Christian, but I was under conviction, and he used the

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Bible, and about 3 a .m. that night, we were all up in the cold dorms where all the bunks were up on the top floor, and I couldn't sleep

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I had a close friend named Dave, who is a Christian and read the Bible, and he came up late after talking to his girlfriend, and I said,

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Dave, and he said, shh, and I said, Dave, how can Bill say

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I'm not a Christian? That means all these guys are probably going to hell, and he said,

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Bob, really your argument's against the Bible, and he literally went to sleep in like 15 seconds.

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So I was so angry at Bill, and then at God, and I walked down to our library, which had all these pictures of famous people like Bob Griefe, and people that did real well in engineering and so forth, and I just thought, boy,

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I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. But I got on my knees, and my first prayer,

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Chris, was, God, if this is a cult, please save me.

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And then in my mind, I just thought, really? He just shared the

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Bible, and I just confessed how lost

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I was, and I wanted to be cleansed. I wanted to repent.

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That time, I thought I was repenting of major sins.

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Now, I realize sin is so, so deep and stained in us.

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So, but I confessed. I did not want to get drunk anymore.

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I didn't want sexual immorality. I wanted to quit smoking pot, and I just wanted a new life and have purpose.

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So, I just remember repenting and then putting my trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and I had this tremendous peace, which is experientially,

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I don't know. It's too much for words, and I just laid on that couch in the library and went to sleep.

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I probably only had four hours sleep, but it was the best sleep I had had in years.

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Yeah, and the next morning, I saw the two

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Christians, Bill and Dave, and they said, well, did the same thing happen last night?

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And I thought, well, I repented, and I prayed to the

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Lord and trusted Him, and they were so happy and congratulated me, and I thought, well, what did

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I do? But that began discipleship. We prayed for all the guys in the house, and Bill would wake me up early on one morning at 6 a .m.,

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and we'd pray for them. He would come over and train me how to give a three -minute testimony, how to share the gospel.

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I memorized a lot of scripture and reviewed that and just couldn't put the

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Bible down. I was so hungry, and I could share more about the progress there, the rise and decline of the ups and downs, but that's how it began for me.

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And what were the circumstances in your life that led you to believe that you were being called to the pastoral ministry?

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Well, I asked God for whatever reason, what was on my heart, and I said,

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Lord, this is your world. You made everything. I prayed, You used me mightily, and I didn't know how that would look.

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And as I shared the gospel with all those guys in that house and then went to other fraternities and had a relational style of evangelism and this sort of thing, and I saw a lot of people come to know the

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Lord, and I invested in faithful men, and they led others to the

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Lord. I went to churches, and wherever I would go, the leaders said,

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You should really consider full -time ministry. But I didn't think

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I was adequate for that. So, I did have a longing for two things, and that was,

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I longed to shout for all I knew about the glory of Jesus, and I longed for an outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit, because to me, the churches seemed,

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I don't want to say dead, but they didn't seem to have the same passion that I had.

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And I'm sure it was mixed with self -righteousness and so forth, but it just seemed like something was missing.

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Well, eventually you became the pastor of the church where you are now a senior minister, and that is

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Christ Church in Normal, Illinois. Tell us about that, and tell us about the congregation as well.

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Well, I had initially responded to an invitation to go full -time with the

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Navigators at Purdue University in Ball State. When I was at Ball State University in Indiana, I went to a

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PCA church, and I watched them carry Bibles and so forth, and it said

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Presbyterian, and I thought they were just out to save the whales. I couldn't believe it, and I went there, and I had been reading the

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Puritans on the Great Awakening, and I was kind of a loner on Calvinism and this sort of thing.

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And here was a preacher doing expository sermons, and from there

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I went to Covenant Seminary in St. Louis and interned at a church for those three years and then came here.

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I really didn't want to come here geographically or anything for any other casual longing.

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I just asked the Lord, Lord, is this going to be the place where you're going to pour out your

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Spirit? And just sensed somewhat of a green light and went for it.

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I've been here 23 years and came to a little church.

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It was a church plant that kind of went...kind of fell apart, and we met in a rec center.

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The nursery was a woman's locker room, and the place where we had worship, corporate worship, had all mirrors.

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It was an exercise room. And it was awful, Chris, trying to learn how to preach.

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Well, the mirrors made the congregation look bigger, though, didn't they?

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We really looked amazing. It just kept growing.

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We just did the basics, praying, preaching, discipleship, focusing on loving well and getting a solid base.

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We had no bylaws. People really weren't Reformed. And so, in good time, the

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Holy Spirit made elders and deacons and just kept plugging along.

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We never really had super growth at any point. We still keep growing and changing, clarifying vision, raising up labors, and we've just had a great time.

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Now, we've paid off our land and facility and so forth, and I have staff.

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I'm always changing and adjusting and stewarding my place and gifts and others and working as a team with others.

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Well, I'm glad that the Lord is still using this congregation and that it is flourishing and that the

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Lord is blessing your labors for the kingdom there. And this book that we are discussing today, which is only going to be the first interview on it,

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I am planning on doing more. In fact, I already, as you know, have

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Ian Campbell, one of the co -authors of this book, scheduled for Monday the 21st of November.

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Oh, good. I'll have to listen to that. And the book, again, is Pentecostal Outbourings, Revival and the

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Reformed Tradition. The authors or the co -authors of this book include

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Eiffen Evans, and I hope I didn't butcher his first name. What did you say, Avian?

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Avian, okay. It looks nothing like that in spelling. It's Welsh. Right, which explains why it looks nothing like what it sounds.

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The Power of Heaven and the Word of Life, Welsh Calvinistic Methodism and Revival is his chapter.

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And then, as I just mentioned, Ian Clary, who's going to be on the program, God Willing, November 21st.

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He is speaking, or should I say, he wrote the chapter on Melting the

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Ice of a Long Winter, Revival and Irish Descent. Then, Dr.

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Michael Haken, who's been a guest on this program several times. He has written,

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The Lord is Doing Great Things and Answering Prayer Everywhere, The Revival of the Calvinistic Baptists in the

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Long 18th Century. Ian Campbell, who I would love to have on the program,

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I have not yet met him. Yeah, I hope you do. He wrote the chapter, Revival, a

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Scottish Presbyterian Perspective. Our guest today, who I should say more formally is known as Robert Davis Smart, which is interesting because I had a boss for about 10 years named

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Robert Davis. His chapter is on Edward's Revival, Instinctive and Apologetic in American Presbyterianism, Planted, Grown and Faded.

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Peter Beck wrote the chapter on the Glorious Work of God, Revival Among Congregationalists in the 18th and 19th

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Centuries. I would love to get him on as well, I have not yet interviewed him. And two men that I have interviewed many times,

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Tom Nettles, who wrote on Baptist Revivals in America in the 18th

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Century, and Joel Beakey, who wrote the chapter on Dutch Reformed Church in America in the 18th

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Century. So this is quite an in -depth book, Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the

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Reformed Tradition. Since you wrote your specific chapter on Jonathan Edwards, why don't you start by explaining to our listeners, because not everybody that listens to I Am Sharpened Iron, although I think most of our listeners are

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Reformed Christians who have had some years of experience behind them in the faith.

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There are new believers that listen to my program, who report to me by email that they have just discovered

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Christ and so on, and they find the program to be very educational in their nurturing as a young believer.

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So there are people, and there are even people who are non -Christians. We have Muslims who listen to this program, we have

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Roman Catholics who listen to this program, and people of other religions. So there may be folks who have never heard of the name

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Jonathan Edwards, and there are also Christians who have heard of him, but perhaps don't know a lot about him.

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So if you could explain who Jonathan Edwards was. Yes. Well, he was born on October 5th, 1703, so he comes at the end of the

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Puritan movement. He died 55 years old about March 22nd, 1758, and he died in the

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College of New Jersey, which becomes Princeton. However, his father and his grandfather,

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Solomon's daughter, were Congregationalists. And at that time, the

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Congregationalist church, mainly in New England, was vibrant with the

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Puritans and so forth, and influential. Jonathan Edwards comes to Christ, or is born of the

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Holy Spirit, actually in college, and went to see his father and talked about his conversion.

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But his conversion really shaped the way he thinks about the necessity of the

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Holy Spirit to transform us, and in an experiential way, to make us delight in the doctrines of grace and in God.

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Edwards is a genius. He was recognized that way and as having great intellectual capability as a young man at Yale.

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But after his conversion, he has a desire to pastor, and after a short pastorate in New York, he heads to his grandfather's church,

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Solomon's daughter, who takes him on and then ends up passing away.

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So Edwards, at a young age, is left to that parish in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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Solomon's father had about six revivals under his ministry, called

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Harvest, and had many things in common with Jonathan, except for Jonathan Edwards will change and pass through proper means at his church, that the ordinance of the

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Lord's Supper should only be for believers. And his grandfather bought into and actually argued in one of the debates that was all about the halfway covenant, allowing children and grandchildren who weren't saved to participate in the

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Lord's Supper, because Stoddard believed it was a saving ordinance. And so a controversy brewed prior to Edwards, and Edwards ends up changing on that in his congregation.

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With that and some other circumstances, ends up voting him out. Now was that view, did that view that Edwards opposed, did that incorporate infant communion or paedo -communion as we know it now?

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Were some of those sects within Presbyterianism have adopted?

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Yeah, not so much put like that. More at a later age, and each congregation had more autonomy than we might think, so it depended on the local church.

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But I don't believe it was paedo -communion as put forth.

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You're talking about children who had a nominal affiliation with Christianity, who were just raised in a

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Christian home, but really did not demonstrate any fruits of genuine faith or repentance.

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Yeah, so say age 10, 12, somewhere in there they would begin to take communion.

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And yeah, so that was that. So we will return from our first break now, and we will get into the heart of the book at hand, and especially in reference to Jonathan Edwards, your chapter.

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If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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

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Please 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. And if you choose to remain anonymous because of some personal, private, intimate, sensitive question you're asking, we will grant your request.

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But if it is not necessary, we would prefer that you at least give your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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So don't go away. We're going to be right back with Bob Smart right after these messages. I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

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Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,

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Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

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Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

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It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

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Protestant Reformation, with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.

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We hope to see you there. Learn more at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

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Thanks, Todd, I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

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I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

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We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how

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God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things. That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the

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Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either. We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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32:51

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. Our guest today is Pastor Bob Smart, who is senior minister of Christ Church in Normal, Illinois, a congregation within the

33:04

Presbyterian Church in America denomination. He's a part -time teacher in evangelical seminaries, conference speaker, and active worker in world missions.

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He's the author of a number of books, including one he co -authored, Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the

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Reformed Tradition. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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chrisarnzen at gmail .com. We do have a question from Greensboro, North Carolina, from Sterling.

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Sterling asks, Why should we expect for Pentecostal phenomenal extra -biblical post -apostolic gifting or revelation today?

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I think it must be, what should we expect? Or why should we expect

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Pentecostal gifting for revelation today? Seems to me that the subjective nature of the proposition makes it very questionable.

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As a matter of fact, we, Pastor Bob and I, have similar backgrounds in recreational drug use.

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I'm assuming he's talking about your past. And he says,

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This is the secondary reason that I cannot trust extra -biblical revelation or urging.

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Psychotic drug abuse makes me very reluctant to accept the proposition.

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So I guess that is a good question. In what sense is

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Pentecostalism actually a part of this book? Because obviously many of the chapters that are dealing with revival in the book precede the

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Pentecostal movement, which is really a 20th century phenomenon, other than perhaps you had

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Edward Irving and some people prior to the 20th century that were really the great -grandfathers of the movement.

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But if you could... Yes. Well, in the book, in the intro that I wrote and in the conclusion, and then throughout each of the authors, you'll see a common shared understanding of our theology of revival, which is biblically based.

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The end of the book, in the conclusion, gives the reason why we use the language of Pentecostal outpouring.

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Namely, that the language of Scripture, outpouring of the

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Spirit and so forth, was sort of owned or taken and used, we believe, often in an unbiblical way by the

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Pentecostal movement. And we wanted to restore the language, this biblical language, back to what our

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Reformed forefathers found very comfortable to use. So we wanted to restore it.

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And throughout the book also, you'll see that revival is a mixed work, as everything is in the

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Christian life. There's difficulties all the way through to discern what is real and what is not.

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The three primary views on revival have been, one, the view that states

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Pentecost was a one -time event. It was historical.

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It was one time and not repeated. There's no more outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit. And that view is good in the sense that Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, was a one -time historical event, a very significant, chaotic, redemptive event.

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However, it's weak in that the rest of the book of Acts shows outpourings of the

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Holy Spirit, as does in the history of the Church, which we put forth in primarily 18th and 19th centuries in this book.

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The second view, Chris and listeners, is that revival is conditional.

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The verse often used is 2 Chronicles 7 .14, that if God's people would humble themselves, repent, fast, seek

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His face, and so forth and so on, then God will hear from heaven and revive

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His people. And that view is good in the sense that it calls for obedience and for a desire to seek

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God for revival that only He can do. But, on the other hand, it's weak because the conditions were all met by the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So no one could ever be righteous enough or meet conditions for these outpourings of the

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Holy Spirit. And that leads to the third view, which is our view, and that is mentioned in the introduction, is that when

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Jesus lived the righteous life we could not live, He fulfilled all righteousness.

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And He died and rose again. He ascended at the right hand of the

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Father, highest place, and received the promise of the Father, which, biblically, we would look to the end of Luke's Gospel for Jesus saying the promise of the

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Father is coming, or His second volume, so to speak, the

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Book of Acts, where it mentions the promise of the Father again. And Jesus ascended at the right hand, received the promise of the

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Father, the Holy Spirit. Based on His own righteousness and meeting all the conditions,

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He pours out the Holy Spirit upon all peoples, upon all flesh.

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And the success of outpourings, though they're not as extreme as Pentecost in Acts 2, they are significant, and they've continued throughout the history of the

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Church. Well, Sterling, we thank you for your question.

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And guess what? You have won a free copy of this book we are discussing today,

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Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the Reformed Tradition, Complements of Reformation Heritage Books.

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And you will be shipped that free copy by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

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cvbbs .com. So please make sure that we have your full mailing address so we can have that shipped out to you.

40:31

Thank you so much for contributing to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio today with your question. And we have another listener from Slovenia.

40:41

We have Joe in Slovenia who asks, Please ask your smart guest to help me understand how it is that we

40:52

Christians have a tendency to be either stuffy with head knowledge and systematize theology or loose with biblical truth in favor of emotive experiences.

41:05

Why do we as churches, denominations, individual believers typically so poorly hold to the normative

41:12

Christianity of Scripture that it holds true doctrine and true spiritual expression together in a holistic unity?

41:22

Yes. Well, we don't hold it together well because we aren't perfect yet.

41:32

And the moment we think we do, we probably are establishing a righteousness of our own.

41:40

But it's a great question. I once wrote on this in an old journal called

41:48

Revival and Reformation Journal. John Armstrong used to do. Oh yeah,

41:54

I know John. Yeah. But here's a short answer. All word and we dry up.

42:03

All spirit and we blow up. Word and spirit and we grow up.

42:11

Oh, that's a great line. Yeah. It's just a tendency to constantly move away from, move one direction or the other and almost with denial that theology is sufficient, intellectual understanding of theology is sufficient when we don't love well, when we don't have a sense of delight in the things we know.

42:46

This drove Edwards crazy to talk about honey, that it's sweet and so forth is one thing, but to actually taste the honey and delight in it is the complete fullness that God would have for us.

43:08

And it's interesting, Edwards did not like the doctrines of grace prior to his conversion, but when he was born of the

43:20

Spirit, he had experiential delight in what he knew and believed as he wrote religious affections, that it's the duty of the preacher and leader to raise our affections according to the heights of truth.

43:42

And the knowledge that we have. Well, Joe from Slovenia has a follow -up question.

43:52

Why is it that typically when revival comes to a church that is more or less theologically well -grounded and conservative, there is a diminishing of theological orthodoxy accompanied by an emphasis on questionable emotionalism?

44:08

Why is it that what is often called revival results in a weakening of the church after a period of fervent emotiveness that undermines orthodox doctrine?

44:22

Yeah, that's a great question, Joe. I'm so glad you called.

44:30

This very issue happens with Jonathan Edwards, which is why he ended up being called the theologian of revival, because he recognized that this tendency was there, and even himself admits that those whom he thought were converted in the revival ended up being false conversions.

45:02

And he writes in his apologetics for genuine awakening, really arguing that in the main, the

45:13

Great Awakening was a work of the Holy Spirit, although it was a mixed work and there were counterfeits.

45:21

One of the issues is that we tend to exalt our experience above Scripture.

45:29

Secondly, we are not without the attacks, if you will, or the harassing of the

45:40

Holy Spirit. And Edwards said that Satan can mimic the experiences or work of the

45:49

Holy Spirit in some way, and so we become unawares of the evil one.

45:56

And also, too, it's often the leaders who are most into promoting the revival that Edwards argued, and I agree, that become the greatest enemy of revival.

46:19

Strangely, the very ones who are so pro -revival in the midst of revival often become the greatest enemy, and leading people away from their focus on the supremacy of Christ, from Scripture, and more towards the leaders themselves or the experiences or the phenomena, etc.

46:47

Well, thank you, Sterling, for providing that... I'm sorry, that was Joe. Thank you,

46:55

Joe, in Slovenia, for providing those two excellent questions, and thank you also for providing an

47:02

American address that makes it a lot more affordable for Iron Sharpens Iron to have your free book shipped to you, and we'll have that shipped to your daughter, as you requested, your daughter in the

47:15

United States. It's in Georgia, and we appreciate you contributing to the program today with your questions.

47:23

And we do have a North Carolinian again. This time we have

47:29

Casey, and Casey is in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and Casey asks,

47:41

Why are some people in church history that are known and respected in the Reformed community that are continualists or continuists or continuationists?

47:52

There's a lot of different ways people describe that group. Non -cessationists, charismatic ministers who were not cessationists, and yet they are sound in theology and gospel ministry.

48:07

One group that would be under that description would be the

48:13

Sovereign Grace Ministries Movement, and of course you have independent, theologically

48:19

Reformed and Calvinistic churches that are charismatic or non -cessationists. John Piper is a

48:27

Reformed Christian who is a Baptist, and although he, I don't believe, believes he has any gifts for the signs in the scriptures, such as tongues and so on, he believes they are possible.

48:45

And D .A. Carson, a Calvinistic Baptist scholar and theologian, is also a non -cessationist.

48:52

So perhaps you could, and of course there are many others, but if you could, C. Samuel Storms is another that pops into my head.

49:01

Yeah, but it's a good question again, Chris, and the questioner's name. Excuse me,

49:10

I'm sorry, did you want me to repeat the question? Yeah, what was the name? The question was, who are some people in church history that are known and respected in the

49:21

Reformed community that were continuationists? Okay, yeah. And I guess he's...

49:27

Actually... Go ahead. Actually, should

49:33

I go ahead? Yes, I'm sorry. Okay, all right. Well, the truth is, there wasn't as much of a delineation between a continuationist and a cessationist until the

49:49

Pentecostal movement, and so this becomes more of an issue in the 20th century than it was.

49:56

However, the sphere and at the time of the Puritans, the general rule was no, no, no, no continuationists are really acceptable, and you have the antinomian controversy in about 1638 with Ann Hutchinson, and I think it was

50:20

Scott Mather, but I forget who her leader was. But Edwards and others were careful to stay away from claiming a continuationist view.

50:37

John Owen in Sinclair Ferguson's book on the Holy Spirit, who

50:43

I feel wisely delineates between the views, but mentions a quote from John Owen, who, if my memory serves me correct, said that though the gifts don't continue, there's something analogous to them in our

51:05

Christian experience. And I think most who are in the

51:12

Reformed tradition that our caller is asking about really aren't that divided on the essentials or even experience, but might have different taxonomy or different ways of naming what their experience is.

51:34

And when they do claim to be a continuationist, and I am myself,

51:42

I don't believe any of us are saying that there is any new revelation, but rather there's something muddied or something less than pure revelation communicated to somebody in the context of taking in the

52:04

Word of God that someone might call a word of knowledge or this or that and the other thing.

52:14

And so in our congregation, and in our denomination, we have a minority view of continuationists, but the majority view is cessationists.

52:30

So the PCA actually permits continuationists to...

52:38

Very rarely. It's usually a controversy in the

52:43

Presbytery level, and the decisions that have been made in the past have allowed for a minority view on that.

52:53

But it's very rare. Now, as far as history is concerned,

53:00

I mentioned Edward Irving earlier. Yeah. He was born in the late 18th century, but his ministry would have been in the earlier part of the 19th century.

53:11

And was he... Were there other people known at that time for manifesting what they would claim would be some kind of supernatural revelation and divine revelation and sign gifts and so on?

53:26

Or was the 20th century really the first time we are seeing this in mass being a professed experience?

53:34

I think it's more later here that it's more a mass of shared movement.

53:44

I think early on, Irving was very controversial. Of course, his eschatological views really,

53:51

I think, were his prominent influence.

53:58

But James Davenport, we might say he was

54:04

Reformed, he was fanatical during the Great Awakening. He claimed all kinds of things.

54:12

Prophecies and this sort of thing. Ended up making a fool out of himself.

54:19

The Quakers were really the 18th century continuationists.

54:27

Yeah. And even more, you might say. And the tradition that the authors are in this book would have shied away, in fact, of the

54:39

Quakers. In fact, Edwards, in Faithful Narrative, if you read it, it's short, and Banner of Truth puts out a nice little paperback.

54:49

But one of his reasons or apologetics for the mini -revival that occurred in his parish prior to the

55:01

Great Awakening was that the Quakers came to see what was happening and turned away disappointed.

55:09

So it was an extraordinary outpouring, but because Edwards led it well and kept the focus on Christ, I think the

55:19

Quakers were disappointed. We have in Luther's time the Zikwa prophet, which he said of them, concerning the

55:30

Holy Spirit, they swallowed the dove, feathers, and all, meaning too much.

55:43

So they were, by the Reformers, looked at as outside orthodoxy, at least in terms of experience and claim.

55:57

Now, going more to the heart of Casey's question, other than some of the names that I've mentioned,

56:03

I mentioned John Piper, D .A. Carson, C. Samuel Storms, the

56:10

C .J. Mahaney of the Sovereign Grace Ministries movement and that movement as a whole.

56:17

Do you know of any other Reformed Christians of note from history that were also non -cessationist or charismatic?

56:28

From history or contemporary today? I guess, when would you say that that even began the harmonizing of Reformed theology and the charismatic movement?

56:38

Because I know, for instance, a lot of people credit Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones with this, although I don't think he was personally a charismatic.

56:48

But when would you think that this started? I think, I think, I hope the whole controversy kind of ties out, because I think

57:00

Lloyd -Jones said the key year was 1860. There was a divide.

57:07

Something happened where no longer were the

57:12

Reformed folks speaking of outpourings of the Spirit and revival. And at that time, you had the

57:21

Second Blessing Movement, the Keswick Convention begins, the

57:26

Keswick Movement and so forth begins, and then it goes further into the

57:32

Pentecostalism that we know today. And I believe that it was during that time, somewhere between 1860 and the early 1900s, the

57:52

Welsh revival didn't seem to have too much of it, although its leader,

57:58

Evan Roberts, did make some extraordinary claims that I would say were questionable, although God used him mightily.

58:08

The Zuzu Street Revival is a break away from the

58:14

Reformed tradition and much more experiential, and the whole tongues movement comes out of that, and we can go on.

58:26

It's an international thing now because of the influence of the

58:37

Pentecostal movement on Reformed believers and so forth. I don't know, it's an interesting discussion.

58:46

I don't know how much time we have and what names come to mind. I can't think right now.

58:52

Well, when all is said and done, do you think a lot of these things are reactions to other errors?

58:59

Like, for instance, unfortunately, you and I would have to admit, both being Calvinists, that dead, dry, dusty orthodoxy is a reality that exists amongst some of us and historically has existed, and then you have these overreactions to it, like people embracing charismatic phenomena.

59:21

Well, Chris, I really believe this. This is how I would answer this question and contribute to this conversation.

59:31

When there was, I think, around 1860, an aversion or a shyness to cry out to the

59:41

Lord for the promise of the Father and genuine revival, there was two things, the

59:49

Pentecostal movement, as well as then, as Wells brings out in his chapter, the emphasis on methods and evangelistic crusades, which is also in my chapter, that about the 1857 revival, again around 1860, there was the introduction of celebrities giving testimonies more and more, the

01:00:21

Crusades, Billy Sunday, Wilbur Chapman, and all the way to Billy Graham.

01:00:26

There was more and more an emphasis on methods to get people saved.

01:00:33

Yeah, Billy Sunday was a baseball player, wasn't he? Yeah, Sunday was a baseball player, a colorful, witty character.

01:00:42

And what happened is, there was no longer an understanding that regeneration with an individual is an outpouring of the

01:00:55

Holy Spirit. Right, amen. It is a case in which we are absolutely dependent upon the sovereign

01:01:04

God to save us. Amen. No methods in the world are going to create that, although, because we're not hyper -Calvinists, the ordinary means of grace are the way in which

01:01:20

God works normatively, namely, expository preaching of the gospel, and so forth and so on.

01:01:31

Well, we have to go to our next break right now, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:01:41

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And by the way, Casey, you have also won a free copy of the book we are discussing today,

01:01:50

Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the Reformed Tradition, Complements of Reformation Heritage Books.

01:01:55

And by the way, for those of you who want to investigate Reformation Heritage Books and order not only that book, but many other books that they provide, that they not only publish, but they also offer other

01:02:10

Reformed publishers' works, that website is heritagebooks .org.

01:02:17

heritagebooks .org. And we thank them for providing us with free copies today. Also, that will be shipped to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:02:29

cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for BibleBookService .com. And we thank

01:02:34

Todd and Patty Jennings for being faithful supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron and shipping out all of our winners in our audience their free

01:02:42

Bibles, books, CDs, DVDs, and whatever else they win by submitting questions to our guests.

01:02:48

So we're going to a break right now, and don't go away because we're going to be right back after these messages with Bob Smart and more of our discussion on Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival, and the

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Reformed Tradition. Contact me,

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Mike Gallagher, Financial Consultant, at 717 -254 -6433.

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01:06:59

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is

01:07:05

Pastor Bob Smart, Senior Minister of Christ Church in Normal, Illinois, a congregation within the

01:07:12

Presbyterian Church in America, PCA as it's commonly called. We are discussing

01:07:18

Pentecostal outpourings, revival, and the Reformed tradition. Our email address is

01:07:23

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. If you could,

01:07:28

Pastor Smart, one thing that we have to address is the fact that many of those even involved in some of the most extreme of charismatic movements, like the

01:07:41

Laughing Revival that was begun by Rodney Howard Brown, the

01:07:47

Pensacola Revival in Florida, and some of these other things that have occurred with really bizarre and even frightening demonstrations of what have been professed to be modern -day gifts or outpourings of the

01:08:06

Holy Spirit. They will very often point to Jonathan Edwards and the revival that occurred during his ministry, and they will say that people were experiencing similar things.

01:08:18

If you could respond to that. Yes. Well, I think all these questions are related to Satan's strategy.

01:08:29

Satan's strategy is to hold us back as long as he can from true revival and asking

01:08:39

God for the outpouring of the Spirit. And then when he can hold us back no longer, he pushes us way too far forward.

01:08:50

So, as Edwards says, those friends of revival end up becoming the worst enemies of revival.

01:09:01

And what was normative, as Packer and others have said, for the

01:09:06

Reformed faith is the Reformers, for example, Knox's communications with Calvin concerning how the

01:09:17

Reformation took place so fast in Scotland and so forth. And Knox answers,

01:09:25

God gave his Spirit in great abundance. That's what happened. And so what happens is when, as I show in Chapter 5 of the book with Presbyterian, the mess comes in the camp -meeting revivals, we might say, in the 1800s because the phenomenon there was so extraordinary that it becomes an occasion for the leader,

01:10:02

James McGrady and others, to use Edwards to defend what was happening.

01:10:10

And soon Edwards' apologetic sort of state and people move away from completely any notion that God actually could revive and change the church from its lethargic state in which he's in.

01:10:35

And at the same time, we have this crazy stuff going on in the name of revival, which is not genuine.

01:10:43

And so all these discussions today would be foreign to the time of Edwards in a way because now the very people who once prayed for revival, wrote on it, and interpreted it, were these

01:11:02

Reformed leaders, are now the Reformed leaders are rarely praying for revival, rarely leading in any way towards it, except for,

01:11:14

I'd say, Piper and Keller, the authors in the book and so forth. But in the main, a lot of Reformed leaders don't even pray for revival.

01:11:25

It's all about just, I don't know, sort of like hyper -Calvinism.

01:11:33

If God wants us to send a revival, He'll do it. And at the same time, this reaction against Pentecostalism, the so -called revivals that you mentioned are serious, and there was so much, so many...

01:11:51

An easy critique would be he used Edwards' five points of revival or his nine signs that don't prove that a revival is even a revival.

01:12:10

And this is brought out in Beck's chapter, as well as my former book,

01:12:20

Jonathan Edwards' Apologetic for the Great Awakening by the same publisher, Reformation Heritage Books.

01:12:27

But Edwards, if we actually read Edwards, they use Edwards, but Edwards said of the nine signs that don't prove anything, like these phenomenons, although they may accompany a revival, he said, they don't prove anything.

01:12:51

Yeah, experiences with God can be easily manufactured. Indeed. And do you want to go through some of those other nine reasons that do not...

01:13:01

I'd like to do that. I'm going to make sure... And while you're looking,

01:13:09

I'm going to have... I'm going to repeat our email address if you'd like to join us on the air. Okay. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:13:17

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the good old

01:13:26

USA. So are you at the point where you could list some of those other nine reasons that do not...

01:13:33

Okay. So Edwards comes in 1741. He had preached sinners in the hands of an angry god to a congregation that refused to...

01:13:46

They were resisting the work of the Holy Spirit, and he and a team went there, and so he preached sinners in the hands of an angry god.

01:13:55

The Holy Spirit was poured out. It was extraordinary. We read his letters and the accounts of Williams and others.

01:14:03

But he shows up at Yale and preaches the distinguishing marks of a work of the

01:14:11

Spirit of God. And he has nine common objections that he believed did not necessarily prove that the awakening was not a true work of God.

01:14:26

So first he says the unusual occurrences often accompanied the revivals prove nothing.

01:14:35

Secondly, the presence of bodily manifestation does not mean the revival is false.

01:14:42

Thirdly, though there is heightened excitement that might challenge the staid religion of many, he says, it proves nothing to the contrary, and so forth.

01:15:00

So this kind of thing. And then he jumps and he says, but what are the certain marks that distinguish true revival?

01:15:08

And Chris, this is what we would all agree with. True revival always makes much of Jesus.

01:15:15

True revival always, secondly, operates against the interests of Satan and his kingdom.

01:15:22

Thirdly, increased regard for Scripture. Fourthly, the spirit of truth arises that convinces all of the revival validity.

01:15:35

And fifthly, there must be, there's a producing of a change of heart that evidences itself in love to God and love to man.

01:15:49

Edward's final apologetic really, and with religious sections, was the fruit of love that we love well.

01:16:00

And so much of that is lacking in these controversial claims of revival.

01:16:11

And one of the elements that is crucial is in regard to the truth accompanying it, because, for instance, you had

01:16:19

Charles Finney that perhaps had a lot of people radically change their lives for a time as a result of his revival ministries, quote, quote.

01:16:33

But he was a heretic of an extreme kind. I mean, he was not only semi -Pelagian, he was a full -blown

01:16:43

Pelagian. In fact, even more Pelagian than the official dogma of the

01:16:48

Roman Catholic Church. Yeah. Denying original sin. Teaching perfectionism when he moved to Oberlin, Ohio and started

01:16:57

Oberlin College. And Ian Murray has written and spoken, taught well about the truth of what he really taught and what he really experienced.

01:17:12

And I think at the end of his life, he admitted that not much really worked.

01:17:20

Yeah, that would probably be Reformation and Revival, the book that Ian Murray wrote.

01:17:26

Or Revival and Revivalism. Revival and Revivalism. Yeah, the making and marring of American Christianity.

01:17:34

Right, right. And he compared and contrasted Finney with Asahel Nettleton.

01:17:40

Asahel Nettleton. And Asahel Nettleton is brought up with Jonathan Edwards in Beck's chapter,

01:17:48

Revival Among Congregationalists. Yeah. And if anybody listening, if you want to hear a really extraordinary conversation

01:17:59

I had, I think, with Jerry Johnson, who produced a

01:18:05

DVD on Charles Finney, I think that you might find this absolutely eye -opening, especially if you had previous affections for Finney or even upheld him as a hero, because your pastor did or other of your favorite authors or speakers or preachers uphold

01:18:28

Finney as a hero. This will be a real eye -opener for you. And you could just Google, or not

01:18:37

Google, but look up on the search engine of the Iron Sharpens Iron website, Jerry Johnson or Charles Finney, and it should come up.

01:18:47

And you could listen to that pretty fascinating interview. Yeah, that's so good.

01:18:52

I think so often, Chris, there were books published in the 20th century, how

01:18:58

Charles Finney started the Second Great Awakening and so forth, and he didn't even show up until 30 years after there were powerful reformation and revival in the colleges and other places.

01:19:15

So F. L. Middleton is usually ignored or not even mentioned. We have

01:19:24

Christopher from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says,

01:19:31

I have heard that John Huss, before being burned alive by the

01:19:37

Roman Catholic Church, declared a prophecy that Martin Luther would arrive on the scene centuries later and be used of God to bring about reformation in the church.

01:19:51

Of course, not naming Martin Luther by name, but making a prophecy that sounded very similar to what had occurred during the 16th century

01:20:03

Protestant Reformation. Do you think that this was some kind of divine revelation that John Huss was given, or was it just something that you believe he was convinced would happen just because of his optimistic view of Christ protecting his church from destruction?

01:20:24

Yes. I believe, I remember reading and studying that and actually hearing it in my

01:20:33

Christian Church History class in seminary, and the professor believing that Martin Luther was the fulfillment of that.

01:20:44

And I think what we can say in agreement, in the

01:20:52

Reformed tradition, is that we do believe God impresses upon his people's hearts and minds his promises in Scripture.

01:21:03

And his promises in Scripture, for example, in our book,

01:21:10

I think it's Lawson in the opening quotes, a long quote from John Calvin, and from the prophets throughout to the

01:21:24

New Testament, there is so much hope for God's church.

01:21:31

Regardless of one's eschatological views, that he will make her beautiful.

01:21:42

He will continue to revive her. He will sustain her. And the gates of hell won't be able to withstand this triumphant march, though it's with weakness, though it's with persecution, though with many mistakes along the way.

01:22:02

She triumphed. And I believe any believer could have said something like that.

01:22:11

I don't think it was an extraordinary revelation of God. We have

01:22:18

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, one of your previous guests from months ago believed that Jonathan Edwards, although he is truly a hero of the faith and was theologically

01:22:36

Reformed and biblically sound in most ways, had an aberrant view on the will of man.

01:22:43

Does your current guest agree with that? Yes, if we got into the fine details of that.

01:22:55

There's more PhDs on Jonathan Edwards than anyone else, and a number of them are on this very issue.

01:23:05

And it's quite extraordinary the amount of books that came out.

01:23:13

The Princeton Companion of Jonathan Edwards, the

01:23:19

Jonathan Edwards at Home and Abroad by Kling and Sweeney. So many of these came out.

01:23:29

I would recommend reading a big book if possible.

01:23:37

Maybe you could get it in an interlibrary loan. But The Theology of Jonathan Edwards by Michael McClymon and Gerald McDermott.

01:23:47

It's published by Oxford. And it might point you at least in some good directions to look into that debate.

01:24:00

I'm not going to say that I understand it fully right now on the phone.

01:24:08

I think I would have to restudy it. I do believe I read he had an aberrant view on free will.

01:24:16

I know he did on some other areas, but it's not really pertinent to our discussion here.

01:24:25

Yes, I think it had to do with the ability of man, the natural ability in spite of his total depravity or something like that.

01:24:34

Yes, I think Gerstner said he was off on that as well,

01:24:40

John Gerstner. He was certainly a devotee of Jonathan Edwards for sure.

01:24:48

I had the privilege of going to a

01:24:54

Bible conference on Jonathan Edwards that Dr. Gerstner was speaking at many years ago in Westchester, New York.

01:25:02

But anyway, I'm sorry. No, I would just say the sad thing is on that one area, the followers of Edwards, really, there's many.

01:25:15

He discipled some five or so pastors, but these pastors, one,

01:25:23

David Kling and others have traced this, had discipled with Edwards Theology some 60 pastors.

01:25:31

And back then, not sort of like a post -Yale training, they would meet in a barn or something at the pastor's home.

01:25:42

But they trained them on Edwardsian theology. But that movement, that Edwardsian movement ends up splitting, and wonderful people end up going further off on the area of free will.

01:25:59

Yeah, that's something that Walt Chantry brought up during our interview a number of months ago.

01:26:08

Walt Chantry, who is a globally known Reformed Baptist pioneer.

01:26:15

Yeah, great expositor too. Very first, actually not the very first, but one of the earlier pastors of the church that I am now a member of,

01:26:25

Grace Baptist Church in Colorado. And he had lamented that you just brought up the successors of Edwards really spreading

01:26:38

Arminianism in a damaging way to the church at large. Yeah, I think

01:26:45

Doug Sweeney at Ted's, David Kling, I think he teaches at Florida.

01:26:51

Those two have really majored on the second generation of Edwards among the

01:26:56

Congregationalists, including Asahel Nettleton and others on those issues.

01:27:02

I think I would point them, the listener to those scholars.

01:27:10

Well, we are going to our final break right now. And if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question for our guest, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:27:22

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

01:27:33

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01:27:40

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01:27:46

Well, we would obviously rather that you didn't identify the name of your church, etc. So we will grant your request, but otherwise please at least give us your first name and place of residence.

01:27:58

And we'll be right back after these messages. Chris Arnzen here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia.

01:28:09

And here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:28:15

I hope you join me at the G3 Conference, hosted by Pastor Josh Baez and Praise Mill Baptist Church at the

01:28:21

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01:28:29

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Vody Balcom, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

01:28:44

G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to G3conference .com.

01:28:51

That's G3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

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01:32:23

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and this is our final half hour of today's interview with Bob Smart, Senior Minister of Christ Church in Normal, Illinois.

01:32:34

We are discussing his book that he co -authored, Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the

01:32:41

Reform Tradition. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail dot com.

01:32:50

chrisarnzen at gmail dot com. And we do have a couple of people waiting to have their questions asked, but before I go to them,

01:32:56

I would like to basically get from you, Bob. We had some of the things that accompany true revival that you mentioned from Edwards, that he listed.

01:33:09

What is revival? Because you have people who actually will say, every

01:33:17

Wednesday night of the month, we have a revival meeting. Come gather with us for revival.

01:33:24

And they basically are saying that it gets them stirred up and excited about the things of God, which obviously there's nothing wrong with that.

01:33:33

But is that revival? I mean, can men determine when a revival happens and actually schedule it on their calendar?

01:33:40

Yeah. Here's a little bit of how this book came about.

01:33:49

I went down to visit Michael Hagen at Southern Baptist Theological Center and proposed the book.

01:34:00

We ate at, I forget the restaurant, we ate and talked about who we'd invite to participate, because we believe that true revival is really so much a part of our

01:34:16

Reformed heritage and yet so little is known. And what people's immediate reference is is to these sort of things, like a sign put up, revival

01:34:30

Wednesday night or this week, beginning this date and ending this date.

01:34:36

And it is our understanding that nothing puts forth the Reformed faith better than revival, because it is a sovereign work of God.

01:34:49

He pours out the Holy Spirit where He will, on whom He will, how long it will last is up to Him, and He brings the true effect.

01:35:01

And He is glorified in revival because it's normal Christianity sped up and more is done in a short period of time than what would be accomplished in decades.

01:35:23

And so we don't really know in America how true revivals really shaped us and saved us from really having no

01:35:34

Christian influence and Edward's influence into the colleges in the

01:35:39

North, like Yale and Princeton, the ones in the

01:35:45

South, like Wake Forest Institute of North Carolina, 1834,

01:35:51

Randolph Mason, Hampden, Sydney, and so forth.

01:35:59

The massive influence of facts, I should say, of true revival in the

01:36:07

Great and Second Great Awakening are so much... The effects and fruit of that, they lift us today.

01:36:17

And so much of it was true revival because the Holy Spirit works by and with His Word.

01:36:27

He doesn't work outside of the true gospel. So He recognizes and owns the gospel.

01:36:40

So this book has been a delight to put forth because we know people are going to think things like that,

01:36:49

Chris, that it's just this crazy hyped -up effort in a local church that schedules it and calls it a revival.

01:37:02

Now, there was a revival that you probably are aware of that took place in the 19th century in New York City.

01:37:13

It started in Dutch Reformed congregations and many folks have identified

01:37:21

Jeremy Lanphier as the one who... Jeremiah. Yes, the one who the

01:37:27

Lord used to spark this revival. And it had a lot to do with prayer and what started out as a small gathering of Christians praying became like a massive movement throughout

01:37:42

New York City where businessmen by the hundreds were meeting for prayer in the middle of the day and that kind of thing.

01:37:51

Now, some will say that it was the prayer that God honored to bring about the revival.

01:37:58

Others would say that the prayer was a fruit that the revival was being brought about by God.

01:38:05

How would you look at that? Yeah, I think simply put, even prayer is a gift from God.

01:38:13

Matthew Henry, I think you quoted in the opening of the radio program,

01:38:19

Matthew Henry, so you know of him. He said, when God intends great mercy for his people, he first sets them praying and pours out a spirit of supplication and prayer.

01:38:35

So we never can claim anything meriting or earning or causing in a first cause sense.

01:38:48

We can't really claim anything. It's all grace from first to last.

01:38:56

And so in that case, Jeremiah Lamphere, Dutch Reformed, he did have a remarkable influence on his businessmen and there was a lot of true effects of revival.

01:39:10

There was repentance and so forth and so on. And that actually spread to cities all over the

01:39:16

U .S. But again, I wrote in my chapter how it starts to shift at that time away from a

01:39:31

Reformed perspective to more of testimonies of celebrities and more of an emphasis on, hey, if you want revival, just start a prayer meeting like this.

01:39:49

And that's sort of a change point right there.

01:39:54

Of course, we had the Civil War right after. Praise God in his goodness, he did bring revival because of the number of deaths in the

01:40:04

North and the South during the Civil War. Many of them had been converted in that revival prior to the

01:40:13

Civil War. And there was revival in the Civil War, which

01:40:18

Bennett's book and others have written on. I think even in this book there's mention of revival among the

01:40:26

Baptists in the Civil War and that would be the chapter by Tom Nettles.

01:40:37

Yeah, I've had Tom on my program many times. I look forward to having him back.

01:40:43

He has an extraordinary book, By His Grace and For His Glory, that identifies many of the

01:40:50

Baptists through history who were thoroughgoing Calvinists, much to the shock of Arminian Baptist friends who very rarely call themselves

01:41:02

Arminian. But many of these men whom are non -Calvinist friends uphold as heroes, they don't even realize that these men were thoroughgoing

01:41:10

Calvinists. I think the other thing, too, we don't realize they were thoroughgoing

01:41:16

Calvinists. And we also don't realize that they were involved in these wonderful revivals.

01:41:26

Yes. And they may have been more local and so forth. Tom brings that out in his chapter and it's so foreign to us that they're

01:41:39

Calvinists and they're cessationists and they were engaged in asking

01:41:46

God for and often leading in revivals. It's just, it's like, like I said,

01:41:56

I think it's Satan's strategy to keep us from knowing these things.

01:42:03

Yeah, in reality, the Calvinist Christians of history have really been more

01:42:11

Pentecostal than the Pentecostals in that we even believe that the

01:42:17

Holy Spirit is responsible for the faith that we have. I mean, nothing comes from within the dead lifeless soul of a lost sinner.

01:42:26

It's all from God, even the faith. It's not summoned up from the sinful clay from which we are made.

01:42:37

It is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, the Reformed faith best exalts the

01:42:47

Trinity, the three persons of God. And here

01:42:54

I am on what would be called prejudice. I mean,

01:43:00

I am a Calvinist, so of course I believe it's the best. But on the glory of God, the

01:43:10

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, on the glory of God, nothing puts forth the glory of God clearer than the

01:43:18

Reformed faith. Yes, and also nothing puts clearer all three persons of the

01:43:25

Godhead working in harmony and having the same goal and the same will as if, you know, sometimes the way

01:43:36

Christians explain theology, you almost think that there is some kind of an argument between Father and Son going on about the lost and whether or not they should be saved and so on.

01:43:49

Yeah, Chris, I got one good quote I want to read, but also to say, you know, the

01:43:57

Reformed faith holds together these things, the three persons of the one true

01:44:04

God and in His work of creation, redemption, providence. Also, and we talked about in this time together, the emotions or the affection, the experience side of true

01:44:20

Christianity, which it is experiential, with truth. So holding together truth and the

01:44:28

Holy Spirit, holding together theology and experience, nothing puts it all together better than Reformed theology.

01:44:39

Here's a quote that highlights from Jonathan Edwards' revival, the three persons of the one true

01:44:47

God, all in this one glorious quote.

01:44:52

He says, You know, we have just experienced as a nation one of the ugliest, nastiest political races, presidential races in our nation's history and certainly within the lifetimes of those who voted this or abstained from voting during this election cycle for President of the

01:46:07

United States. And I think that revival and true revival comes very much into play here when it comes to a

01:46:16

Christian's notion or expectation of our nation being transformed and the murder of the unborn coming to an end and marriage, the way that God has ordained it being the only thing that is viewed as marriage, even legally in this country.

01:46:44

All of these things we cannot really expect ever for humans, no matter how much earthly authority they have been granted even by God himself, we can never expect humans to bring about these fervent wishes of those who are

01:47:04

God's elect in this nation. I mean, who knows how many things will actually come to pass that were promised during political races and so on.

01:47:17

We really have to be driven to our knees. This is like just another reminder of how we need to be driven to our knees to cry out to the

01:47:27

Lord that he transforms the hearts of the citizens in this nation. Yes, and of his people because so many

01:47:37

Christians really don't love their enemies, really don't pray for the salvation of those who differ from them in political view.

01:47:48

And one of the things Schaeffer said prior to his death and homegoing,

01:47:54

Francis Schaeffer, someone asked him, a

01:47:59

Reformed leader, and I forget his name, he said, what do you think is the greatest danger in the

01:48:06

United States? And this was around 1980, I believe.

01:48:12

And Schaeffer said, the greatest danger, in my opinion, is statism. That is, that Christians would begin to put their hope in government and in politics to bring about even what we call revival.

01:48:30

And I think the sad thing about that is Romans 13 talks about government as God's instrument of justice and so forth, but it's his church that ought to put forth the gospel and ought to have the marks of true discipleship like abiding in Christ and loving one another.

01:48:58

So I'm hoping for revival, and my hope is not in politics or a party, but that God himself would manifest his glorious presence in such a way that we all say, we won't say this revival, we'll say

01:49:18

God has come. And we're aware of his presence in a way we have not before.

01:49:28

And so forth. Yes, and we who,

01:49:34

I don't know your eschatological views, I don't know if you're a post -millennial or a -millennial or historic pre -millennial, but...

01:49:44

Do you want five years to go or tomorrow? No, I have a view and I've become convinced of it, but I don't know.

01:49:56

I might budge a little more. But whatever sphere of the eschatological arena that we find ourselves rallying in, we should never give up optimism in our faith because of the fact that a

01:50:24

Christian should really not be a pessimist. Because he knows that God is in control, and he knows that Romans 8 .28

01:50:35

is not only an individual promise, it's a promise for his church, and that we should look to the future with great enthusiasm that God's will will be done.

01:50:50

And I think that we should also be very careful about not avoiding things because we don't want to be lumped together with those whom we disagree.

01:51:05

For instance, we don't want to look Pentecostal, so we avoid discussion of revival.

01:51:12

I've even had the same conversations when we've talked about the demonic realm.

01:51:18

Sometimes I think that Reformed people avoid discussions on realities like that because the demons do exist.

01:51:26

We just don't bring them up because we don't want to look like we're Pentecostals. We don't want to look like we're fanatics or something.

01:51:34

So what word do you have of advice in that regard? Oh, I think of Habakkuk.

01:51:40

Maybe you do too. When he was told Babylonians are going to come and they're going to destroy their social...

01:51:49

Their whole social system was going to collapse. They were going to starve to death.

01:51:56

And he was told that just shall live by faith. He was given the gospel.

01:52:02

Paul picks up on that. And Habakkuk says,

01:52:08

Will you not revive us? Oh, Lord, will you not do it again?

01:52:14

And he wrestles with God. But in the end, he says,

01:52:19

Though there's no food on the vine, no food in the fridge, no money in the bank, yet I will rejoice in God.

01:52:30

And he says in verse 16, I'm going to sit quietly because God is the gospel, because God is our portion, and because he is sovereign, and his providence will bring everything he's decreed to pass.

01:52:48

And we know more than Habakkuk. And so we're going to rejoice in God and can no matter what is happening.

01:53:01

And we can look forward to salvation, we can look forward to so much future grace which he's purchased on the cross, and look forward to being with him.

01:53:20

But we should never lose heart. We have so much to look forward to.

01:53:29

So we just walk by faith, not by sight, and we're not going to quit.

01:53:35

We have a listener in Indianapolis, Indiana, Aaron, who says warm Hoosier greetings to Mr.

01:53:44

Smart. And you've already touched on this, but perhaps you could at least repeat some of what you said.

01:53:50

Perhaps you missed the earlier part of the program. But she asks, Are there any particular circumstances to look for historically where God has brought revival?

01:54:01

Oh, my. Yes. Well, even though...

01:54:09

I mean, if you just go on YouTube, you could hear testimony, forget your name,

01:54:18

I think it's the Peckhams, on the 1950s in the Hebrides, and a wonderful revival there.

01:54:27

And one of our authors, one of my favorites, Ian Campbell, writes a chapter about some of the revivals in Scotland.

01:54:39

But the... George Washington said in 1792 he was more concerned for the future of the

01:54:50

U .S. than he was at Valley Forge. And it was about that time when, boy,

01:54:59

Christians hid in their rooms in the universities and colleges, in their dorm rooms, to worship, because Voltaire and atheism was on the rise.

01:55:14

And it was Edward's grandson, Timothy Dwight, who was used to defend the

01:55:23

Bible. You know, chapel lectures were defending the Bible at the school that was

01:55:28

Christian in heritage. And God poured out His Spirit. 1790 through the 1840s, we call the

01:55:37

Second Great Awakening. The 1857 revival, which Chris referred to, often called the layman's prayer revival.

01:55:46

The 1904 Welsh revival, 1905, the effects of that were still here.

01:55:56

But there was a glorious revival in South Korea, 1906, amongst

01:56:03

Presbyterians, which I'm not overly denominational, but it happened to be them. And Korea, as you know, became the major missionary, church -sending missionary movement for, gosh, it's been a century.

01:56:26

So there's plenty that way. There are occasional shorter mercy drops.

01:56:34

I've been in some of those. And very genuine, none of the bodily manifestations, shaking and all that stuff, wasn't

01:56:48

Pentecostal in any sense of the word. But it was just glorious, short periods of time, few days where the effects of evangelism, the effects of speeding up sanctification or whatever happens in those times, took place.

01:57:12

And Christ was exalted. People were saved. Scripture was honored and so forth.

01:57:18

So I think there are probably more than we're aware of.

01:57:23

And I think, Chris, because of the Christian celebrityism today, we tend to look to books or famous people for what's happening in the

01:57:35

Christian world. But more and more, because of the priesthood of all believers, we're definitely going to hopefully see more revivals that are genuine in conjunction,

01:57:55

I think, with the Reformed faith spreading as it is so rapidly with Gospel Coalition, G3, et cetera.

01:58:04

There's so much hope, I think, at this time. I'll be quiet.

01:58:11

It sounds like I'm post -millennial. Well, it has really been such an honor to have you on the program today,

01:58:22

Bob. And I really hope that the Lord provides us with many more opportunities to have you return as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:58:31

And I look forward to many more interviews with you. I want to make sure that our listeners have all of your contact information.

01:58:39

For the church, the website is ChristChurchPCA .org. That's ChristChurchPCA, for PresbyterianChurchInAmerica .org.

01:58:50

And then for the book that we have been giving away today, Pentecostal Outpourings, Revival and the

01:58:57

Reformed Tradition, by a number of co -authors, including our guest,

01:59:02

Pastor Bob Smart. For more information about the publisher of that work, go to HeritageBooks .org,

01:59:11

HeritageBooks .org. And by the way, Aaron in Indianapolis, you won our final copy of that book.

01:59:21

And we thank those at Reformation Heritage Books for providing those free copies.

01:59:29

And it was such a pleasure to see Dr. Joel Beeky again over last weekend at a Bible conference in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

01:59:37

And I just want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in with a question for Pastor Bob Smart.

01:59:45

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