Revival Q&A

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00:00
Well welcome back to our spring conference and we are finishing up the conference today by doing a podcast style Q&A.
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We have two of our speakers from the concert or from the concert from the conference.
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We have two of our speakers from the conference brother Pastor Andy Montoro, Pastor Mike Collier from here at Sovereign Grace.
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Unfortunately Aaron Bell has to attend a wedding.
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He's participating in a wedding this afternoon so he wasn't able to stay with us.
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So I'll be participating as the third man in the Q&A as well as the Q&A moderator and host.
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And as you all know we do have a podcast here at Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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We put out a podcast every week called Conversations with a Calvinist.
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So as I always begin the show I say thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
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I am contractually obligated to say that every time.
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But so today we're going to do this just like we would a podcast and I want to begin by just sort of talking to you gentlemen before we begin the Q&A.
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I want to ask a question from my own heart sort of have you guys answer this.
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As we know you guys have both mentioned that there are good revivals and that there are revivals that are not good.
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We talked about the tents and we talked about how scheduling revival is not necessarily the way that we see biblically.
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It's something that sort of came out of the the Phineas and Second Great Awakening things like that.
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So with that in mind very recently there was a revival in or what was called a revival in Asbury Kentucky.
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And we created this conference way before that ever happened.
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So just in case people think that this conference was somehow a response to Asbury.
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It wasn't.
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But I do want to get you guys to both sort of give your thoughts.
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I know you both looked into it.
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I know you both had thoughts that you've shared with me.
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And I thought a good way to sort of get the ball rolling is what were your thoughts about it? What did you see from an outsider looking in? I know none of us got to go.
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So everything that we're going to say is purely opinion and and I want to say this to the commenters on YouTube.
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We're allowed to have opinions and that's what we're sharing.
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This is just our thoughts and that we weren't there.
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And we can't speak with authority.
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All we can do is say this is what we saw what we think.
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And whoever wants to go first.
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Well first and foremost time will tell if it was an actual revival.
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Time will always look back to say whether the Great Awakening or the Second Great Awakening was an actual revival.
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Because a true revival has changed that last.
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As those things were transpiring you could get on their live stream and you could watch it.
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So that's what I would do about every evening when I would get home to see what was new or what was going on.
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And the absence from the chapel service was a clear consistent pattern of the Word of God being preached.
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I'm not saying that somebody didn't get up there and read the Bible.
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I'm not saying that somebody didn't mention the name of Jesus.
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But the consistent pattern of the proclamation and the exposition of God's Word was not consistently done in the auditorium in which was being live streamed.
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Lots of singing.
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Lots of raising hands.
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Lots of emotionalism.
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There was many testimonials that would come on there and say there's been large amounts of people wanting to be closer to God.
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Wanting to be have a better relationship with God.
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But with all this God talk they seemed to drown out the Christ-centeredness of it.
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That was what I had seen.
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Was I there? No.
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And I told Keith if something like this happens be ready within the day of it continuing to hop on a flight and we will go.
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And we will check it out in person.
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So next time look out here we come.
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The three of us on the horses.
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And things that were that were taking place on the side you could hear well we can't control the amount of people coming.
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We need to do something to maybe move people to another venue.
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I'm sorry if that broke out here we're not moving and we're not stopping.
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We're gonna continue.
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We'll figure out a way to get people that are wanting to come to continue hear the preaching of the Word.
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We're gonna figure out how to do that.
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If it means pop up a tent outside so people have somewhere to go.
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Call in portalettes.
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That's what we would do.
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But if any of y'all know this they that two weeks later they said hey we want to ask people to quit coming.
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If that was true revival they just hindered the work of the Spirit.
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And that was bothersome to me.
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Let's don't send it to another place.
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If this is where the Spirit of God is working and people are really flocking there then why wouldn't we continue it? And I would have asked that question.
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No I mean you've answered most of my thoughts.
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And I have not been able to get all the facts as you said.
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And all I saw was really the reports and so many interviews that were done by the news organizations.
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But the thing that did strike me was what was twofold.
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One was the lack of the preaching.
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And you know the revivals were going 24 hours a day.
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But it didn't seem to be a real emphasis on in that sense messages being given to different groups coming in at different times into different things.
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It just was seemed like almost had a party atmosphere to it.
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That was the other part was the experiential part when they interviewed some of the people who were supposed to be the ones who kind of were logistically handling it.
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It was all experience-based.
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It wasn't there wasn't as much emphasis on the word and conversion as it was people are really enjoying themselves.
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And again to me that was somewhat of a sign not knowing all the facts that it was perhaps not really a true worker revival.
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But other than that I think what you said brother is are the main things that to be considered about anything that calls itself a revival.
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Yeah yeah absolutely.
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And I would only add this thought is I'm always concerned with what cannot be criticized.
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If you're not allowed to criticize something because you it's it's how dare you say this might not be a work of God.
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Anytime I see that that that rings in my heart of not being the the the biblical discerners that we're supposed to be.
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We're supposed to discern.
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We're supposed you know even when Paul preached the the Berean said let us look at the scriptures to see whether or not these things are so.
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And if we can't criticize something that I mean think about the I heard recently it was a good quote it said it said the people who have the control in a society are the people who can't be criticized.
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The people who are the true people who are in charge are the people you can't say anything about.
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And think about who those groups are in our society.
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They're the groups that can't be challenged for anything whether it's the letter people or whatever you know and you know what I mean by that.
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You know the people who go by they're defining themselves by their letters types can't can't criticize them because if you do you're going to be doxxed.
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You're going to be marginalized.
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You're going to be put off of Twitter and Facebook and all these things because you're not allowed to criticize that.
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Well the same thing I saw happen at Asbury because I posted one small tweet simply to say shouldn't we be able to question what's going on here especially when it's being visited and attended by false teachers.
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And I mentioned that Todd Bentley went if you don't know who Todd Bentley is.
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Todd Bentley is a maniac.
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He's an absolute maniac and his teachings are far afield from scripture.
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In fact I'm gonna be talking about him tomorrow because in our text tomorrow in Colossians it talks about the worship of angels and Todd Bentley believes that he receives his revelation through an angel.
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He talks about seeing the angel in his in his revivals quote-unquote revivals.
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Now some people challenged me and they said well just because he went doesn't mean they endorsed him and that's true.
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On Asbury's favor they didn't endorse him.
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They didn't put him on stage.
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They didn't ask him to speak and I get that but I did They should have asked him to leave.
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Amen.
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And I don't know that I don't know what happened with him but ultimately if we can't criticize if we can't ask questions maybe the word criticize is wrong if we can't ask a question could this be pure emotionalism as we talked about.
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John says don't believe every spirit but what test the spirits.
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That's right.
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See whether they be of God or not.
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So I mean I think it's even stronger that not only do you question but test and the test would have to be the Word of God and and the fruit that would the Word of God says is to proceed out of it granted with a time built into it.
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Now I'm thankful that there wasn't people falling on the ground flopping like fish out of water hysterical laughing or someone walking around touching people like a Holy Ghost bartender giving him shots of the Holy Spirit.
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I'm glad that was not what we saw so that does give some encouragement that maybe the work of the spirit could have actually been doing something could have.
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Time will tell.
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We'll look back on this time and you know what maybe in this time next year we may not even remember Asbury.
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Yeah.
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Or we may look back and go oh wow we we maybe wrongly criticized them.
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It was a true work of God.
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Yeah but time but time will tell.
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And any one of us would be willing to say that.
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Sure.
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To say that God can do this.
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Yeah.
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And as much as we believed in the first Great Awakening and and in parts of the second Great Awakening that you know the things that were good then you know we can say God can do it again and and and certainly we're not saying that's impossible.
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Sure the young man that preached the sermon or the message it was nothing erroneous about it.
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It was nothing heretical.
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It was a speech about loving the loving God and loving the community.
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So could God have used that.
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Well of course he could have.
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He didn't he did speak of the holiness of God and the and the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of man.
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Those things he did speak of.
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So I'm not saying that that God can't use that.
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He certainly could because what he said was true.
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God uses truth.
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He does not use falsehood.
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Yeah.
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Well Brother Jerry you have the microphone and I'm hoping that there is going to be some interaction praying for interaction from some of our folks that maybe have a question and you're welcome to ask all three of us or if you want to pinpoint on one of us maybe from a specific message that was preached.
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And one thing I would just preface by saying that even though as elders we always seek to speak with one voice we do have differing opinions and there may be a time where one of us has a little different answer than the other and we're willing to all of us to say that none of us have arrived at pure perfection.
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If you don't believe that come to one of our elders meetings.
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So when you ask your question just know that you know we'll answer as best we can.
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Brother Jerry.
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However, my question is for all three of you, because you do have to construct or respond to somebody who came to you individually or even as a group and said, I was saved at Asbury.
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I was saved at this revival or that revival.
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How would you lead them? I'll go first.
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Okay.
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I would I would counsel in the same way I would counsel anyone.
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I wouldn't discourage and I would probably seek to carefully encourage and counsel to see how you know what Jesus said he said it's it's he that preserves that perseveres to the end shall be saved.
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And I think I would handle it that way not trying to limit God that God can only save in a reformed orthodox church but God can save anywhere and he does save anywhere and he does save by his means and not our means.
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But I would I would be cautiously seeking to encourage them to press on and to see where they are and where their purpose is.
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Are they going to church? Are they reading the Bible? Are they are they pressing on in those things that we know to be the marks of a true convert? So I think I would handle it that way.
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Not be two on one side or two on the other side.
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Certainly would encourage that person to continue on.
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First-hand experience.
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I have a worker that's worked for me for almost 18 years.
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He supposedly had gotten converted at a Billy Graham crusade.
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This is no bash on Billy Graham.
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So when I say this massive evangelism and he would tell you today that he's not.
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The Finneyism that comes out of those type of things the aisle walk was all from Charles Finney.
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Charles Finney believed in what we would call decisional regeneration which means you regenerate yourself by the Spirit.
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I mean by your decision that activates the Spirit of God in the heart of the believer and that is what we see in mass evangelism and if you think that what I'm saying is misrepresenting Finney I would I just have you read his book or read his sermon where the sinner changes his heart to God.
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But how does a sinner change his own heart? He can't.
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That's the power of God but in that mass evangelism having people come forward and pray in those massive crusades are just erroneous because they don't save.
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The coming forward and all of that does not save.
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Emotionalism does not save.
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When someone's saved is there an emotion attached to it? Well of course there is but we filter that emotion through the scriptures to see if that conversion was genuine and has it sustained as he said it would continue on.
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And just to clarify you wouldn't say people can't get saved.
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You say the method isn't what saved.
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The method hey and I mean I could go off on Finney.
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You got an itch? You got an allergic reaction? During the second Great Awakening Finney's methods were attacked.
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That's not what should have been attacked on Charles Finney from Azahel Nettleton, Lyman Beecher, those other men that looked at what he was doing was like hey this is erroneous.
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You have to look at his theology and if you look at his theology his theology is what drove his methodology and because his theology was wrong his methodology was wrong.
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And if you don't want to take my word for it read his systematic theology which is neither systematic nor theological but if you would read it you would see that what I am saying is true.
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Don't take my word for it.
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That's gonna be a great quote just to clip that moment.
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It's neither systematic nor is it theological.
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I would only add I would agree with both what brothers have said.
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I would add one thought.
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If somebody comes to me and says I got saved at X and whatever X is, this church, this revival, this you know Bible study, I want to know if they know what the gospel is and so if they were at that revival and didn't get saved through the gospel then they didn't get saved.
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So that's my first thing.
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Do you understand the gospel? That's my you know my basic question for everyone and if they heard the gospel and it was preached and they responded to it then as Brother Andy said we would look for the fruit of repentance and a life that was changed that would be the result of that.
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Now again we can't always see everything we want at the beginning because people do grow in sanctification but understanding the gospel would be primary.
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If a person has understood the gospel then I don't know how they could have gotten saved.
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They could have had an emotional experience but salvation comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ so that would be my first thing I'd want to know from them.
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Let me clarify something.
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Billy Graham Crusade does preach the gospel so I want you to be clear.
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Oh sure.
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Okay they're not preaching a false gospel but their methodology creates false conversions and that's even in their own records.
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They're aware that 95 to 90 percent of the people that come forward are illegitimate conversions.
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Yeah and they say that.
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They say that.
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What's wild is that they'll tell you that.
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They'll say we know that a lot of this is just people responding in emotion.
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Yeah just throw a wide net and hope they get some good fish.
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Yeah.
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Yeah throw the drag net.
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Throw the drag net and see what you get.
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All right brother let's see if there's anyone else.
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I know we have at least a couple.
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Someone raise your hand if you have a question.
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We got one right here.
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Well you're the yeah you're the you're probably the Finney expert on the panel but go ahead.
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It appears by his writings he was very Pelagian.
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He did not first of all if if you deny original sin everything collapses because if you deny original sin and that Adam's sin was not imputated to you and I then that means man then has the ability to save himself.
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Finney did not believe that men's will was bound to his sinfulness because he denied original sin and I said this last night I'll say it again he denied the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the sinner.
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If you or you or you or anybody in this room does not get the righteousness of Christ imputated on our behalf there's no gospel and not only did he he deny imputation he denied obviously justification.
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So he he drew these things out of his own mind and I can't remember the exact page number I know it's in his memoir I think it's page 58 I think no in his systematic theology page 370 to 373 he calls justification and the imputation of Christ's righteousness theological fiction.
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So he is not taking 2nd Corinthians 5 where it says he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might have the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
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You understand that? So where was he drawing it? From his own figment of his own imagination from his own devising of his own interpretations.
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Why do you think he then immediately went from being a revival preacher to moving quickly into the holiness movement to where men could be sanctity perfectly sanctified that's where he that's where most of his efforts then were moved to.
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So that's where he was he was a scoundrel he was moving from one place to the next.
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You know I would say just and again I can't quote the exact page like photographic memory over here but from what I know of Finney and that host time Finney was sincere at least in the beginning but I would caution because being sincere you could be sincerely wrong.
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And I think in part that's what Finney was.
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He was sincere at least before I would say he fell into the ditch but sincerity in and of itself and I think sincerity will drive us to do a lot of things but sincerity has to be tested again by the true standard which is going back to word of God because there is a great danger for all of us especially when you really want to believe something again you could be sincere and sincerely wrong.
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So I would say that was part of what happened in that whole time frame with and that led to the camp meetings and then the camp meetings seemed to be successful so now they extended it and then they had more larger camp meetings and and on and on and on so I would add that into it.
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Even his own biography was frustrated that he would go back where mass conversions had taken place and there was nothing that had remained.
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So then you had men like Ozahel Nettleton who actually confronted him on his methodology kindly did that and he was unwilling to change course.
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So when a person is corrected by the scripture and then is unwilling to submit to the authority of the scripture that should be suspect.
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That's me included.
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You come to me and I'm on a course that it's taking me down a path that is error and falsehood that could lead to false teaching and you come to me and lovingly or I wouldn't even care if it was lovingly you openly with hostility rebuke me and I am unwilling to turn course and get back to orthodoxy.
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You should be suspect of the words that come out of my mouth from that way forward and that should it be with any.
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And ladies if anyone's looking for a great name for a baby Ozahel it would be the that's my recommendation.
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Ozzy.
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I do want to speak one last quick thing about Finney in this regard.
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Finney is you asked about his the biblical question and I think because I've been dealing a lot lately with people who are obviously anti-reformed and I've had a lot of conversations with people who oppose our view of man's deadness and sin and things like that.
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And here are the two ditches.
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Andy talks about these two ditches all the time but when it comes to this question the two ditches are on one side you have people who believe because man is responsible he must be able and the other side and that's what we call the Arminian or maybe even the Pelagian view.
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And the other side is the Hyper-Calvinist that says because man is not able he must not be responsible and therefore you end up with people who don't believe in evangelism and things like that.
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And the biblical balance and Andy mentioned this in his message is sometimes hard to grasp that man is fully responsible yet God is fully sovereign and how we justify those two things is difficult but that is what the Bible teaches that we're fully responsible.
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We're responsible for our sin, we're responsible for these things and yet God is sovereign.
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And the ditch that it seems that Finney was in was the ditch of because man is responsible he must be able therefore I must use whatever methods necessary to make this responsible man respond.
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And there is no wrong method when it's about this thing so I can use whatever method works and there is the birth of pragmatism.
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When it becomes whatever works must be right.
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And so at the end of the day it's a denial of biblical categories of man's nature, it's a denial of those things, but it's also the birthplace of the pragmatic movement.
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And liberalism.
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And you can see how people would want to jump on that train because that train appears successful.
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Oh yeah, nobody's ever garnered the crowds that the revivalist movement has.
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There's another one going on right now and I hesitate to even mention his name but Greg Locke is courting thousands and thousands of people to his church which is not a building it's in a tent.
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They intentionally have it in a tent but they have nightly services and these things.
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They just made a feature film about it because of the people that are supposedly being delivered.
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I think the film is called Come Out in Jesus Name because they're doing all these demon exorcisms and stuff.
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Hey you want to go that's the one we can go to let's get on a plane brothers.
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Here we come.
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He even put out a $25,000 reward for anybody that could prove cessationism which is a fool's errand because nobody who puts out a reward like that is going to accept any evidence you place before him anyway.
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And whatever we might feel about the position of cessationism continuationism the same thing could be said by a person who disagrees with the Trinity.
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I give a $25,000 reward for anybody who can prove the Trinity.
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Well if you've already determined that the Trinity isn't true I can't show you anything that's going to solve the problem anyway.
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So your $25,000 offer is a joke.
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It's not real because you're not going to accept correction because you've decided you're already above it.
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And that again is because why? Because I got thousands of people.
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Hey man Foxkey you've only got 80 people in your church.
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I've got thousands of people in my church.
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That means I must be right.
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Well then we go over to Dallas and we see Joel Osteen who's got a basketball stadium full of people and you say well does that mean he's right? It's not about counting noses it's about the truth.
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All right who else? Come on now.
27:45
Who we got? Oh you again.
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Okay, all right.
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During that? Okay I'll let you guys go first.
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I have a thought.
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Age before beauty.
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Again I think what we've said in the messages in different ways and at different times in the messages is that in order to remain encouraged and not become discouraged we need to stay where God has called us to stay.
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And again preaching of the word, the word itself, and prayerful meditation on the word because those are the things that you know what Isaiah says he said Isaiah 26 says you will keep them in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.
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And so when you think about that the only real encouragement in the midst of discouragement is what David said.
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He encouraged himself in the Lord and I think there's a great danger because we are many times emotional and and looking for something to charge our spiritual batteries kind of that we miss the forest for the trees because our real encouragement and our real hope in the midst of trouble as the psalmist said is in the Lord and so I would say stayed upon Jehovah like we sing that our hearts are fully resting there and so I would encourage us to to look at that rather than looking with the eyes.
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Your wife wants me to slap your hand because you keep it in the table.
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I looked at her and she goes.
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You want to know someone who encourages me when I'm doing wrong? That was great there brother.
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I'm sorry I didn't interrupt you.
30:29
Your thoughts? Can you clarify are you asking like was it how did Ezra not get discouraged, Nehemiah not get discouraged or are you asking how? Go ahead.
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Basically I'm asking for you guys.
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If you're at a point where you're not seeing what you're doing bearing fruit, how do you stay encouraged? My encouragement comes first and foremost that God's remaining faithful to his people.
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Then my encouragement also then comes from serving with two other men that I know are faithful to the Lord.
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This is the first time I've served with three men that I can explicitly trust and know that they are faithful men of God that love the Lord.
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There is no there is no inkling in my mind that these men do not love the Lord.
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They do not love his word and that they do not love God's people.
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They love all of those.
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And we love you.
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Well you're God's people.
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I'm part of God's flock and that I'm thankful for.
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But what how I stay encouraged is just as Ezra knew his role okay and as Nehemiah knew his role and as those other Levites that came alongside Ezra and knew their role is to stay in my lane.
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My job as an elder and pastor of this church is it to never at any time try to usurp any of when I say the authority the the unique position that Keith has.
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Nor am I tried to think that I could usurp any type of gifting that Andy has.
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Andy's been gifted in such a way that I have been not.
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Keith's certainly gifted in a way that both me and Andy have not in the unique position that he has okay.
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So I'm encouraged that God's going to continue to use all of us as a unit.
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I'm gonna say this and if I need to clarify it I will.
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Keith's position is very unique even though we're three elders okay three pastors but his position is very unique in the sense that he's the vocational person.
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Me and Andy are not that person.
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Our ministry to the body is much different than the ministry that Keith gives to the body because his is week in week out as the voice that God has put him to be to this group.
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If we were to lose Keith in any shape form or fashion me and Andy would be in an ecclesiastical crisis would we not? Okay now I'm not saying that me and Andy are easily replaced but we could raise up other men within the body quickly to take my role to help lead the body to shepherd the people with the unit.
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Andy could get somebody to replace me if he needed to if something happened to me.
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It would be very difficult for us to replace Keith that quickly.
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Can me and Andy hold hold down the bat and hold the fort down till we found somebody? Most certainly but that would be very difficult.
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So to answer your question I stay encouraged that God is going to continue to use us as a unit to lead God's people and my first and foremost is to remain faithful to God faithful to his word and faithful to his people and whatever God does to his people here that he's entrusted us as God's business and I stay encouraged that God's faithful that his word will not return void.
34:17
If anyone wants to correct or need me to clarify something I'll be willing to do that.
34:26
Well I'll answer with a little different than how the brothers answered because it is easy to get discouraged.
34:37
Mike and I have talked some about this and Andy and I as well.
34:45
Andy and Mike both have different experiences.
34:52
Both of them have served in other churches.
34:54
I never have but I do have battles with sadness and discouragement that I have shared with them and that I've shared openly here.
35:10
I try to be an open book to be honest about things that I struggle with but there's a story and I won't make it I won't tell it the long way.
35:22
There's a short way and a long way to tell this story.
35:23
I'll tell the short way.