TRUE Revivals? The Jesus Revolution & Asbury | My Reaction

I wasn't going to do this. I was not going to say a word. I was going to keep my mouth shut.

But I think there's some very valid questions that people are asking, that I'm asking as well.

I would say excitement and then a jealous concern to steward. Well, whatever it is that the Lord is doing.

I have heard it said many times now, you know, Lonnie Frisbee was a homosexual. Could it be? That's why we see LGBT folks at Asbury. Could it be? That's why we saw drugged out hippies getting saved by the thousands in the Jesus movement because Christians.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I wasn't going to do this. I was not going to say a word. I was going to keep my mouth shut. I mean, I feel like so many people had already spoken about this. What do I need to say about this?

And then, gosh, I changed my mind. My name is Nate, and if this is your first time here, welcome to Wise Disciple, where we are helping you to become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

The Jesus Revolution, Revival Questions, and the Need for Discernment

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So, what is going on with the Asbury Revival, as it's being called in the media? What is going on with the Jesus Revolution that happened all the way back in the 1970s? And then, of course, the movie that just came out starring Kelsey Grammer and Jonathan Rumi.

Are these really examples of the Spirit of God moving in the lives of Christians? True revival? Or is this nothing but weird emotionalism? I'm sure a lot of you have been thinking through this, and you have either drawn a conclusion yourself or you have Christian brothers and sisters around you who have drawn their own conclusions and then, of course, told you about them, and so you're trying to wrestle with how to think through these particular things, which, by the way, I see a connection between the Jesus movement and how to think through that and determine whether that's a move of the work of the Spirit of God in revival and the Asbury Revival that, as far as I understand, is still happening all the way over there in Kentucky.

I want to offer maybe something that you haven't heard before. That's why I wanted to make this video. That's really all I'm doing here. It's funny because you do this for a little while. You do content creation, right?

And there's this weird thing that happens to you, and it happens to me, right? Something big and major happens, and you feel the urge to get involved and start throwing in your two cents because that's just the regular routine of what it means to make videos on YouTube and be a content creator, you know?

Especially when it has to do with Christians and Christianity, content creators like myself, we immediately think, oh, man, I've got to make a video on that, you know? And I had that initial thought, but then I stopped, and I decided, you know what, I was going to stay silent up until now.

And I'm going to explain all of this, but first, let's talk about the movie Jesus.

Why Jesus Revolution Resonated With the Speaker’s Background

This house has a very good vibe. There is an entire generation searching. Just in all the wrong places. If you want to reach my people, you need to speak to them in a language they understand.

If I bring them in, I'm going to lose my job.

We can only walk through doors open to us. In your church, that's a door that's shut.

I saw this movie opening night. I took my family and a friend of mine, a brother in Christ, we all went and sat in the theater, and we watched Jesus Revolution. Now, you have to understand, I grew up in a family that was a product of the Jesus Revolution, you know, the Jesus movement.

My mother got saved during that time in the early 70s, and I grew up in Calvary chapels all throughout my childhood. Now, my family moved around a lot in the early 80s. My parents were chasing jobs, but we always ended up wherever we were at a Calvary chapel.

That was our church. So, we knew Chuck Smith, we knew about the history of the story of the beginning of the Calvary chapel movement, how it came to be out of the 70s, the Jesus movement was attached to that.

That's kind of the Christian cultural milieu that I grew up in, all right? So, of course, when they make a movie about the beginning of Calvary chapel and the pivotal figures that were at the forefront of that movement, I was very intrigued, and so I wanted to see the movie, and so I took my family.

Now, I thought the movie was great, and I'm not going to spoil anything, okay? I might talk about one thing specifically that's on my mind, but I don't think that is a spoiler. I think it's actually in the trailer that we played, okay?

But other than that, I'm not going to spoil anything. I really encourage all Christians to go see the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, definitely see it on an aesthetic level, on a production quality level.

I just think we're seeing a great upswell in terms of quality when it comes to Christian movies these days, and I think we should all be excited about that, and I think that we should support that. I think Jesus Revolution was a well-made movie.

Is it perfect? No, but what I do appreciate is the writers and the director, they try to be as real as possible with these characters and take their flaws seriously. One of the things that I've said in the past about Calvary chapels, from my experience growing up and being a part of the Church, is that the leadership at Calvary's have a very relatable way to speak to the lost.

Just underneath the things that they say about God and about the Bible, about the gospel, it's very relatable to those who are lost. As a matter of fact, the typical testimony of someone who is at a Calvary chapel, whether they're part of the congregation or they're in the leadership, involves very often a dramatic lifestyle of sin and then deliverance from that dramatic lifestyle.

And I've always really appreciated that because there are a subset of Christians who do not experience this. They have no context for this. They were born and raised in the Church, they never went into the world, they never experienced the things of the world, which I praise God for, but it creates a kind of Christianity that cannot relate easily to folks who are in the world and completely overtaken and overwhelmed by sin.

Lonnie Frisbee, Moral Failure, and the Question of Revival

Now, the question comes up, well, what about Lonnie Frisbee, right? Here is a horrifically flawed individual who claims to be sent by God, to be speaking for God, but then, in history, we know this, goes away, falls away from the Church, slips into sexual sin, and essentially dies of AIDS because of his sin.

Doesn't that provide evidence against the Jesus Revolution being a work of the Spirit of God in true revival? But hold on a second. I'm hearing a similar thing going on when it comes to people commenting on the Asbury Revival.

Take a look at this clip of Elisa Childers talking to Gavin Ortland about the Asbury Revival. I thought this was very illuminating and a great discussion overall.

I am concerned theologically that it seems that the response to what's happening from the world at large has been, you know, people are making pilgrimages to go there as if there's maybe something that they are going to miss out on if they don't go.

And that's why one thing I've just been kind of saying to people is if you're a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit, you have the power of the Holy Spirit in you, you have the Word of God, you don't actually have to go somewhere to receive something that you don't already have access to.

In fact, if you look at Jesus' Great Commission, the call was to go and make disciples, to go out into the world and to the ends of the earth. And so I don't think we need to be doing that. I've also been a little concerned about some of the social media hype surrounding this.

And like many others, I've had questions about the gospel message that's being preached. And again, that doesn't mean it's not being preached. It doesn't mean that people aren't sharing those messages.

But I think there's some very valid questions that people are asking, that I'm asking as well.

Now, Elisa goes on to say that she has some concerns about the messaging of people who are allowed to speak at Asbury and whether or not the LGBTQ ideology is being affirmed amongst those people there, or whether a biblical view of gender is being affirmed, okay?

And again, she just is voicing some concerns. I love, though, how her heart is in this, right? The spirit of what she's saying is, it could absolutely be the case that these things are taking place. I just want to go ahead and pose these questions, because I think they should be asked.

I love that spirit. Here's how Gavin Ortland responds to Elisa's comment. Yes, yeah. I haven't been personally, but just.

From gathering the sense you get from hearing testimonies, my general feeling would just be one of excitement. And I think a couple of things go into that. I would say excitement and then a jealous concern to steward well whatever it is that the Lord is doing.

A couple of things go into that. One is just, we need revival right now. We're in a state, our church has been earnestly praying for revival for the past year and a half. We're in a tough time and we need the Lord to pour out his spirit afresh.

I think that is something we could see that in many ways. The other thing would be, as you brought up church history, the fact is that Christianity comes to us in so many ways through the fruit of revivals.

So much of how the Lord has built his church is through not just this even rate at which his kingdom is expanding, but this cyclical pattern of declension and then revival and renewal. And this just seems to be something God does throughout church history.

Just this morning I was reading through Jonathan Edwards' distinguishing marks of a work of the Spirit of God. Okay, this is why I wanted to make the video,.

Okay? I'm going to read to you from Edwards' own writings on revivals and the issues and the criticisms that he was dealing with and sort of attending to in the face of the revival of what's called the Great Awakening in history.

That's why I'm making this video. I love that Gavin Ortlin brought this up, and so we're going to talk about that in a moment.

He wrote this in 1741, right in the midst of the first Great Awakening, and he was responding to criticisms because there were excesses, there were errors that became intermixed into the good thing God was doing.

And one of the great points he's making, and we might get into this later, is that the errors don't necessarily mean that there's not a good work the Holy Spirit is doing in general. And so he—the basic inference he makes at the end of the book, the whole conclusion, is that basically this is a work of the Spirit of God, speaking of the first Great Awakening, and that we should do everything we can to support it.

Jonathan Edwards on the Marks of a True Work of the Spirit

Yeah, and so, look, I know a lot of you are split, right? Some of you are on the side of Elisa and her concerns, and some of you are on the side of Gavin and his hope for Asbury. And certainly, when Elisa brings up some of, you know, the observations that other Christians have made, maybe that she saw as well, that there are what appears to be some in the LGBTQ community that are a part of the Asbury revival, we get concerned, you know?

And I totally get these concerns. But here's where I'm at with all of this. Here's my take on this. With regard to the Jesus movement and the Asbury revival, I do not doubt that both of these events are a work of Spirit of God in true revival.

I personally think it's a little too soon to say one way or the other with regard to Asbury. You know, whether or not this is actually a revival, I think that we need to let some time pass, and we need to see the fruits that come out of this major event.

It's only been a few weeks as of the recording of this video. But I don't doubt that the Spirit of God is moving at Asbury. So, I'm in total agreement with Gavin Ortlund on this. I almost called him Gavin Portland.

That's how I'm so excited about this topic. It's funny because he mentions Jonathan Edwards, and Jonathan Edwards advanced and supported the First Great Awakening, which was a revival in the 18th century.

And I take it no one on any side of this Asbury issue challenges whether the First Great Awakening was a true revival and a work of the Spirit of God. I think all of us recognize that it was. And Jonathan Edwards steps into this, writes about this.

He was concerned, by the way, just like Elisa is. He was concerned about emotionalism. He was concerned about passionate excess and about Christian leaders and pastors putting way too much emphasis on those things.

But even Jonathan Edwards' friends recognize that folks who are caught up in emotionalism and passionate excess and all those other things, even folks who are caught up in obvious sins in their lives that everyone can see and recognize, even with all of those things taking place, it does not mean that what is going on is not a true revival.

That's not evidence against. That's not disproving true revival. So, this is what he said, and this comes from Jonathan Edwards on revival. So, this is Edwards' own words on the subject, We are to consider that the end for which God pours out His Spirit is to make men holy and not to make them politicians.

Is it no wonder that in a mixed multitude of all sorts, wise and unwise, young and old, of weak and strong natural abilities, under strong impressions of mind, there are many who behave themselves imprudently?

There are but few that know how to conduct them under vehement affections of any kind, whether of a temporal or spiritual nature. To do so requires a great deal of discretion, strength, and steadiness of mind.

A thousand imprudences will not prove a work to be not of the Spirit of God. Yea, if there be not only imprudences, but many things prevailing that are irregular and really contrary to the rules of God's holy word.

Guys, this is what he's saying. Just because we can obviously see that folks connected to revival, and by application for us today, folks connected to Asbury, folks connected to the Jesus movement in the 1970s, that they are caught up in sin, that they live contrary to the rules of God's holy word, this does not mean that it's not a true revival.

That cannot be evidence disproving revival. We have a remarkable instance in the New Testament of a people that partook largely of that great effusion of the Spirit in the apostles' days, among whom there nevertheless abounded imprudences and great irregularities vis-a-vis the church at Corinth.

Exactly! Why is Paul writing to the church at Corinth? Have you ever thought about that? D. Martin Lloyd-Jones points this out, that he's writing the apostle Paul because they have experienced the overwhelming work of the Holy Spirit.

It's clear. That's what's going on at the church in Corinth. Why is Paul writing and setting rules about speaking in tongues if the Spirit is not actively giving some of the Corinthians the ability to speak in tongues?

And so, here comes Paul appealing not to stop speaking in tongues because, you know what, that's just fake and emotionalism and passionate excess and all that stuff. No! But to order. This is what Edwards is saying.

The Corinthians were still experiencing the effects of the day of Pentecost, which we should all agree, as Christians, that was the true work of the Spirit of God. Amen? But look at what some of the Corinthians did in light of that true work.

They got drunk during communion, some of them. 1 Corinthians 11, 17. I do not praise you because you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. Verse 20. When you meet together in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is drunk.

Some of the Corinthians are abusing the wine given in communion. But wait, it gets worse than that. 1 Corinthians 5, 1. Paul says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind as does not even exist among the Gentiles.

That someone has his father's wife. This should make all Christians, especially coming from a Jewish background, take note. You guys are worse than the Gentiles, for crying out loud. Paul goes on to say this in verse 5.

Deliver such a person, the one who has his father's wife, deliver this person to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. These are the effects of the true work of God that took place at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.

It's what Paul is having to deal with in 1 Corinthians. And think about that for a second. If there was YouTube in the first century, would some Christians make videos and suggest that because of what's going on in Corinth, that Pentecost was not a true work of the Spirit of God?

I hope not. Edwards goes on to say this. There is scarcely any church more celebrated in the New Testament for being blessed with large measures of the Spirit of God, both in his ordinary influences in convincing and converting sinners, and also in his extraordinary and miraculous gifts.

He's talking about the Corinthian church. This is all taking place. Yet, what manifold imprudences, great and sinful irregularities, and strange confusion did they run into at the Lord's Supper and in the exercise of church discipline?

So those are the two examples that I just pointed out to you from 1 Corinthians. To which may be added their indecent manner of attending other parts of public worship, their jarring and contention about their teachers, and even the exercise of their extraordinary gifts of prophecy, speaking with tongues and the like, wherein they spake and acted by the immediate inspiration of the Spirit of God.

Jonathan Edwards does not doubt what is going on in the Corinthian church. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, like I said, is the one who actually helped me to sort of make that connection there. Why do you think the Apostle Paul was writing to the Corinthian church unless they were seeing the manifest presence of the Spirit of God as an after-effect of the revival that happened in Acts chapter 2?

And here's the rest. And if we see great imprudences and even sinful irregularities in some who are great instruments to carry on the work, it will not prove it not to be the work of God. Edwards then brings up the example of Peter, the Apostle Peter, and how the Apostle Peter separated and withdrew himself from the Gentiles, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

And Paul rebuked Peter to his face. But wait a second. This is the same Peter who had the fire of the Holy Spirit come upon him as he proclaimed the gospel to thousands on the day of Pentecost. Thousands got saved.

This is that same man that now Paul has to rebuke. So here's Edwards' final comment on this. If a great pillar of the Christian church, one of the chief of those who are the very foundations on which next to Christ the whole church is said to be built—he's talking about Peter—if this person was guilty of such an irregularity as to remove himself from the Gentiles and be chastised by Paul, is it any wonder if other lesser instruments who have not that extraordinary conduct of the divine spirit he had should be also guilty of many irregularities?

Lonnie Frisbee, LGBT Questions, and the Case for Gospel Fruit

I have heard it said many times now, you know, Lonnie Frisbee was a homosexual. And then it's almost like the conversation just stops right there, short of saying anything else, because the implicit suggestion is that because Lonnie Frisbee was a homosexual, then therefore what happened in the Jesus movement in the 1970s was not a true revival.

My response to this is, no, friends, I think that Lonnie Frisbee is a great example of what Jonathan Edwards was just talking about. Lonnie Frisbee was a lesser instrument who was guilty of many irregularities, sinful irregularities, and yet God and his Holy Spirit used him mightily to spark a true work of the Spirit.

It's the same thing with Asbury. I've heard it said, well, you know, and people are pointing this out, you know, there's LGBT people down at Asbury. So as long as the gospel is being preached, which by all accounts on the ground that I'm aware of, the gospel is and has been preached, as long as repentance is taking place, which again, by all accounts on the ground that I'm aware of, so many are openly confessing their sins and repenting in front of everyone else, right, which is commensurate with what I see at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 with regard to the work of the Holy Spirit on men's lives.

That was their response to Peter. Brothers, what shall we do? That's the kind of response that you're looking for, you know? Repent, be baptized, and be saved, right? That's what Peter says. I don't doubt that what is going on is a true work of the Spirit at Asbury.

Do these people need to walk away from this event at Asbury and get plugged into church and become discipled by brothers and sisters in the faith? Absolutely they should, and that's where I agree with Gavin Ortland.

Hopefully this is happening for many people who are experiencing the Spirit of God in Asbury, but is it also the case that there are people who are steeped in sin, obvious sins that we can all see clearly and don't have their theology all worked out, right, are not following the rules of God's Holy Word completely, right?

Especially not, perhaps, with regard to gender and sexuality from a biblical perspective. They're not following those rules. Can these folks also experience the Spirit of God at Asbury? I see no reason to say no to that.

Why the Spirit May Move Among the Lost and the Unlikely

See, here's what I think that we should all be considering as Christians viewing what's going on, particularly at Asbury, but even going all the way back to the Jesus movement, and this is reflected in probably the biggest moment, one of them, that stuck out to me in the movie Jesus Revolution, which again, I encourage you guys to go see.

Lonnie Frisbee is talking to Chuck Smith at his house. He's trying to explain what the heck is going on with hippies in the late 1960s. These people are drugged out. They're just so lost, right? And on top of everything else, they stink.

Lonnie is explaining what's going on with these hippies. He's saying something to the effect of, you know what? These teenagers, these hippies, are looking for the right thing in all the wrong places.

When I was a public high school teacher, before I retired and became a pastor, I noticed an upswell of students who are identifying as transgendered. As a matter of fact, in my last year as a teacher, I saw the largest number of students identifying as trans in all my classes.

Pay attention, friends. It's because these teenagers today are looking for the right thing in all the wrong places. They seek to find identity and meaning in their lives, right? That's the right thing to be thinking about and searching for, but they find it in a lie that leads to their eternal destruction.

All right, now come in close. This is what bothers me. When someone says, well, you know, there's some LGBT folks singing songs and praying at Asbury. Did you see their Twitter feed? Did you see what kinds of things they're talking about on Twitter?

Could it be, ladies and gentlemen, that the Spirit of God has decided to step in because we, the people of God, have largely stayed away from LGBT folks? We failed to share the gospel with them and get into their lives in order for them to be not only converted but discipled.

Could it be that because we as Christians have largely decided to lock ourselves inside our church communities because we refuse to use incorrect pronouns instead of going to those in the LGBT community, meeting them where they are, and proclaiming the gospel to them in love?

The Spirit of God steps in because we're not doing our job. That's what we're supposed to be doing. We should be speaking the truth in love. We should be proclaiming the gospel to the LGBT folks. Could it be that's why we see LGBT folks at Asbury?

Could it be that's why we saw drugged-out hippies getting saved by the thousands in the Jesus movement? Because Christians acted like Pharisees. Can true revivals happen today? Yes, they can. Can a true work of the Spirit of God in revival challenge Christians' comfortability?

Yes, they can. I'm uncomfortable by some of the things that I know happened in the 70s and some of the things that I'm hearing is happening at Asbury. Okay, so I'm with you. I'm not immune to the things that I'm saying right now, but I believe that the Jesus movement was a true revival in this country.

I am waiting to see the fruits of what is happening at Asbury in order to, you know, sort of speak more knowledgeably and make up my mind about it being a true revival, but the reports that I'm hearing make me hopeful, friends, and I certainly am not surprised to see that flawed and sinful people are involved with the work of the Spirit of God, both before, during, and after the move of the Spirit.

That doesn't surprise me. It didn't surprise Jonathan Edwards in the Great Awakening. I certainly don't think it surprises God, and it should not surprise you when it happens today. I ask you to join me in praying for revival in this country, and I know that makes some of you uncomfortable, but the fact remains revival has taken place in our history, and so therefore, I don't think there's anything wrong with asking the Lord for it to take place again.

Closing Thoughts and a Call to Pray for Revival

Well, anyway, those are my thoughts. What do you think about this? What's your take on the Let me know in the comments below. So currently this week, I'm in Orlando for a conference. I'll be gone all the rest of this week, but I will return soon with more videos.

I actually have some exciting news to share with you very soon, but in the meantime, I will say bye for now.