Romans 15:17-18 - How to Judge a True Revival (02/26/2023)

Morning, everybody. Don't worry, Dad's still coming up. I'm not going to be taking too much time here.

I just wanted to share something kind of cool with you guys before we got started. First of all,

I definitely think we need to continue to just reign the Paul Davis has made it to the big leagues for now into eternity.

He's such a humble guy. I don't care what anyone else says. He brought the governor to town.

So we'll keep we should keep that going for as long as possible.

You want to turn to Psalm 127 for a sec. Gosh, there's so much to share, really.

I mean, it's kind of crazy. The Lord in my very short time here on Earth has given me a number of kind of incomprehensible blessings.

And I you know, I could start, of course, with my parents, my grandparents, just the family

I had the privilege of growing up with my siblings, obviously, getting to come to this school that, again, has just reached the big leagues.

And, you know, just one after the other. And in hindsight, it gets more and more obvious as I get older, just kind of how peculiar the blessings that I've received have been.

And of course, I'm more grateful for him every time it comes. Of course, you could say

I reached peak blessing when I met Ashton about a little over 10 years ago. And you think, well,

Ben, what about the kids? Well, without her, there's no kids. So she was kind of the pinnacle of all of it.

But of course, with her, there have been so many more over the last 10 years.

Of course, our kids is at the top of that list. On Thursday of this week, we're going to be moving into a house that we've been working on building for the last four years.

And it's been quite the journey there. So you'll be praying for us in that regard, because we'll be doing a big move here in just a few days.

But there's another very specific measure of blessing that the Lord has, you know, given me, or has given me as a way to measure my blessings that I never anticipated, certainly not in my, you know, teen years leading up to marriage, even into marriage, you know, perceptions are a weird thing, because you see, you know, people around you, and you maybe you have an idea of what the future may hold, but you really never know, because of course, his plan is always way better than yours.

So in every regard, it turns out being different in a better way. And in this regard, this is actually something that, you know, we were, we have always been extremely confident about.

And yet the Lord still has done it in a way that is just so much better than than I could have ever done.

And this passage here actually speaks to it. Psalm 127. And if this is coming from Solomon, so this is the wisdom of Solomon, we're talking about here,

Solomon. And go on down to verse three, it says, low, children are an heritage of the

Lord. That's that word heritage literally means inheritance. This is a portion of the inheritance from the

Lord himself, getting to be a steward over his children is an unbelievable thing.

Low children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward is arrow arrows are in the hand of a mighty man.

So are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.

They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. This has certainly been true for me for the past seven plus years, coming up on eight with little

Gemma back there, Gemma, and then Parker, Fern, and then Ada. And just a couple of weeks before we move into this, again, this home that we've been building, we've been, you know, getting ready, cultivating for our family to just, you know, live in bliss out next to mom and dad for the rest of our lives.

We found out we're going to be welcoming our fifth into the family in just a few months.

And we do know, we already know it will be a son.

And so Parker will be had his prayers answered because he's been praying for a baby brother since about the time

Ada was born, go figure. It was quite the homecoming because we didn't find out with Fern or with Ada, which was a blast.

We, we loved, you know, being surprised. But he was really counting on Ada being a baby brother.

And so we brought her home the first couple of minutes. He was a little upset.

Now it was all better the second we said he got to be the first one to hold her and he couldn't be the best big brother to his two little sisters.

And of course, little brother to Gemma, but baby brother is coming. And let's see, it'll be sometime around the end of September, maybe even the beginning of October, dad, you never know.

We might have another convergence of birthdays, but come around that time, we'll be welcoming

Jack Fisher Mitchell to Park Meadows Church. And Jack, of course, will be a new name that we're introducing the family, but Fisher being after the late great brother

Otis. So we couldn't be more excited. And I just want to share that with everyone. Are you sure you don't want to change that to middle name

Davis? Oh man, congratulations

Ben and Ashton. We are so happy.

I'm going to be a grandpa. That'll be number 13, which means we have to have another one because that's not a good number.

So we have to have another one. So I'm just putting the word out. So it'll need to be a girl actually.

A very good number, 13 is. What now? Well, in that sense, it's a good birthday.

It's a good birthday number. We're not superstitious anyway, are we? We don't care what number it is.

Well, that's great news. We were so excited to get it, and Parker got his prayers answered, and that's awesome.

Paul, you're, yes? Oh, that's awesome.

Yes, it is. Well, good for him. He learns the Lord is hearing his prayers at a young age.

That's important. Well, we got Paul in anguish back there because they've asked me to pray to start the thing with the governor off, and I told

Paul I didn't think the Lord wanted me to, so he's going to have to do it. He said, I don't think the

Lord wants me to. He wants you to, and I said, I think he wants you to.

So while I was sitting up here, I think I'll do it for you, but you're going to have to pray.

Charlotte's going to have a cat back there, but you're going to have to pray for me because my fear was

I don't pray. I don't like to pray public prayers that are scripted or statements or sermons, but they need to be actual prayer, and I'm afraid

I'll be politically incorrect accidentally or on purpose or whatever, and so I was struggling with how to make that be a real prayer and not get in trouble because we're going to have a mixed crowd.

There's going to be a lot of public school teachers in there to protest. There's going to be a lot of the enemy in there, and I tend to preach and pray against the enemy, so it could be a problem, but if I do, you can just come up, take my coattails, pull me off, and finish the prayer.

How about that? Is that a deal? Will you do that? Yes, sir. Okay, all right, all right.

Well, I didn't think the Lord wanted me to, but I'm not sure about it, but I felt a little bit more peace about it while I was sitting down there when

I saw that you really were not interested in doing it for whatever reason, but anyway, so how many students were here when you guys came?

So four or five? Four? See, I've said six, but it's four, and what is it now?

Wow. Wow. Oh, I know. I know. It's a

Lord blessing us when we met you. That's what that is, but anyway,

I've never seen anybody that's both good with parents and kids like he is, and that's what's, and listen,

I don't know how you do it, but you're able to make friends with the community, and your pastor is not good at that, so God used you to do that, and you know, they don't think we're a cult group anymore, and uh, got them fooled, don't we?

No, I'm kidding. Anyway, so you've done an awful lot for the whole community and for the church here in our school, obviously, so it's gonna, it's gonna be awesome

Monday, and so if I get to pray, then I'll be praying for Paul Davis a lot in front of everybody, governor, and I'll tell your whole life story in my prayer, and so you can reconsider.

If you don't want me to do it, just let me know. Anyway, we're happy about this. We know it's a miraculous thing that he's coming here to, and that he asked our school to host this meeting, so be there if you can be.

We need all of us there, and it's going to be a great night. All right, pray for Katie and Dave as they help coordinate some of it, a lot of it.

We thought the governor's team would do most of it, and they're doing a lot of it, but they came to the right person,

Katie. You can hit that up just great. Thank you for doing that. I know it's a lot of hard work.

All right, so let's pray, and we'll get started this morning. We're gonna actually be moving on out into new territory in the book of Romans.

That's awesome, isn't it? Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word, and we ask your spirit to teach us your word today.

In Jesus' name, amen. We're actually, we'll be starting somewhere around Romans 15, verse 17, because verse 16 was our launching pad that took us off into everything the

Bible teaches about the believer, priest, and the tabernacle, and the temple, and all that, and what it pictured, and so we're done with that study now, but let me, it's been a while since we were actually in Romans.

Let me just hit the high point so you remember the context that we're in, because it's never good to preach anything out of context.

So the first thing that I'd like to mention about chapter 15 that we've already covered is it talks a lot, there's this theme that goes throughout the chapter.

It actually goes through the whole Bible, especially the New Testament, Old Testament as well, about the importance of two things for salvation and for growth, and that is the word of God and the spirit of God, the

Holy Spirit, right? Those two things. So that, in Romans chapter 15, verse 4, it says, for whatsoever things were written aforetime, that means

Old Testament, were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

So it talks about how the Old Testament is important for those of us who live in the end times, which is us, because it brings light to the

New Testament doctrines and gives many colors of meaning, and you've heard me say it a million times, but where would we be without the

Old Testament? We wouldn't know much detail at all. It brings all the detail to everything we know and believe and everything we're taught from scripture.

So that starts off talking about the word of God, and then Romans 10, 17 says, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

So obviously this book is important in salvation. We cannot be saved without faith, and faith cometh by the hearing of the word of God, right?

And so even the Old Testament, Romans 10, 17, is Old and New Testament.

And then the second important thing we saw in this chapter is the importance of the Holy Spirit in salvation and growth.

And so verse 13 in Romans chapter 15, verse 13 says, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

So it all has to do with how faith comes around, right? That you may abound in hope.

That's another word that's very similar, like a synonym of faith, that you may abound in hope through the power of the

Holy Spirit. So now you have the second ingredient. So you have the word of God and you have the

Holy Spirit. And those are mentioned by even Jesus Christ himself in John 3, 5.

He says, truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, that's the word of God, and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

Ephesians 5, 26 talks about the washing of the water of the word. So we know when

Jesus says the water, he's talking about the word of God. So unless you have the word of God and the spirit of God, Jesus says you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

And so we see these things and the third important point, and that little theme of the water and the spirit goes throughout this chapter, but throughout really the whole

Bible. So it's a hugely important thing. A lot of people don't know how salvation even works.

And I've got some interesting information if I can get to it today, later, it'll surprise you, I think. But some people do know how it works and a lot of people don't.

The third major point that I see in this is around verse 5, it starts talking about it, chapter 15 of Romans, verse 5, it says, be like -minded.

Now you have to understand the context. Paul is talking to Jew and Gentile and telling that crowd to be like -minded.

Well, it's hard for a Jew and a Gentile to be like -minded. You can think of other racial problems in the world and it's hard for people to be like -minded for whatever reason.

I think it's because Satan loves division, right? So anything he can think of to make us be divided, he'll use it.

Race is big in that, not among Christians, but in the world, it's huge. So Paul is trying to let the

Jews know, hey, God will save a Gentile, right? And that's right here in this, it's everywhere in Paul's writings, but it's certainly right here.

It starts with chapter 15, verse 5, where he tells them to be like -minded one toward another, according to Jesus Christ.

All right. So now verse chapter 6,

I'm sorry, chapter 15, verse 6 says that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify

God. That's the reason he wants them to be like -minded, that you may glorify

God by being in unity, one mouth, one mind, glorify God, the Jew and the

Gentile. That's the context. So see, people pull these verses out of context all the time and use them to prove stuff they want to prove.

And they seldom put it in the context of Jew versus Gentile, which is always the context of these in Paul's writings.

So now we see that these purposes, that the Father may be glorified, lead us to another exhortation, especially important if we understand the context of the

Jew and the Gentile and the Jew thinking God won't save a Gentile and Paul correcting them again and again.

So the fourth thing that I see, and it falls in line with this being one -minded, he says, receive one another.

Well, now what does that mean? See, if you don't understand the context, he's telling the Jews, hey, you need to receive the

Gentiles. They're sitting among you here and they're one with us. They're actually part of the

Abrahamic covenant Paul later taught them. The Jew had no idea that God would save a

Gentile. And so here he's telling them once again, receive one another in verse seven, wherefore receive you one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God.

And Galatians 3, 28 says, there's neither Jew nor Gentile. That's what Paul means, but he's telling that to the

Jews. The Gentiles were a clueless. They don't care. They love everybody, love the Jew, love each other. They didn't know about this, but the

Jews knew about it. They called the Gentiles dogs, you know? And so Paul's having to correct them.

This is not how it is now. We're one. We are one in Christ. And Paul reinforces this point by showing that Christ was a minister to the circumcision and to the

Gentile. And that happens in chapter 15, verses eight through 12. And we've already covered all that.

So we won't cover it again, but he quotes Isaiah chapter 11 in the book of Romans there, as he talks about how it predicted, it prophesied that Jesus would come and save the

Gentiles. And he quotes that to the Jews to remind them, hey, your book is the one that says this is going to happen.

And then he says, I'm the apostle to the Gentiles and God's using me to make this happen. Had to be a very powerful argument that he gave to these

Jews. And of course, in the power of the Holy spirit and holding up the book of Isaiah in front of them and reading their own book to them and saying, here it is, it's happening in front of your eyes right now.

So welcome these Gentile brothers. They're your brothers. So this is kind of what the chapter starts out being about.

And when we get down to, um, you know, about verse 15, he starts telling them that he is the apostle to the

Gentiles. He says, nevertheless, brethren now there, he kind of talking to his Jewish brothers, nevertheless, brethren,

I have written the more boldly into you in some sort as putting you in mind because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the

Gentiles. Now, how can his Jewish brothers have already accepted the fact that he's an apostle?

How can they bad mouth the Gentiles when he just tells them in front of everybody, I am the apostle to the

Gentiles. They, they pretty much have to accept the Gentiles now. And they did in the port parts of the world where Paul was able to speak.

The fifth thing I see is that Paul taught us how to judge a church movement. And this is,

I want to spend a little time with that, uh, today, how to judge a church or a church movement or perhaps say something that claims to be a revival.

That's kind of important because we've been hearing whispers of a revival going on in the United States, in the state of Kentucky.

Have you heard about it? You hear about it everywhere, uh, on the internet. And, um, so verse 14 of chapter 15 is important with regard to this.

He says, and I, myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren. So he's talking about the church at Rome and Paul saying,

I'm persuaded that you are real. You're not fake. You're not, uh, just faking things.

You're actually real Christians. I'm persuaded of you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness.

These are symptoms of true Christianity and true revival. You're full of goodness.

You're filled with all knowledge. You can't have that if you're not in the word, right? And that's a hard thing for fake

Christians to do is to be in the word, unless they're studying it academically and they get it all wrong when they do that.

So you're full of knowledge, able also to admonish one another and the scripture makes it clear that the only way you can admonish another

Christian is with scripture. So the Roman church at that time was in the word and strong in the word.

And he said, so, you know, I'm persuaded of you brethren. So that little passage teaches us to look for goodness, knowledge, wisdom, and a group of people that are in the word.

The word of God is really important component of that formula that Paul looked at to be persuaded that they were real.

So what about the Asbury revival in Kentucky? Let's talk about that for a minute.

Everyone is, some people are calling it the third great awakening in the United States. So now we're comparing it to Whitefield, uh, and Moody, uh, later on and, and even

Spurgeon and people like that in history. And even Billy Sunday in more modern times, when

Billy Sunday would come through a town, he was a, he was an alcoholic, professional baseball player in the early 1900s, uh, who was so drunk one day, he was sitting on the curb, totally drunk and across the street just happened to be a door was open.

And inside that door was, um, uh, preaching meeting going on.

And, uh, it was probably salvation army. If I remember right meeting going on and he was listening and he stumbled in there and he got saved and he not only got saved, he became an evangelist and he was an athlete.

So he would get up on the stage. He would go city to city in this country. And he would run across that stage and slide like sliding to the base.

So he's not thrown out, you know, where he slides while he's got the microphone, if they had them back then, but while he was making a point.

So he was all over the platform. Imagine Myron Golden. He was a, he was a Caucasian Myron Golden.

That's what he was. Uh, Billy Sunday was like that, but you know what would happen? He would stay in a place for anywhere from seven to 14 days.

And when he would leave, the bars would close down. The houses of prostitution would be closed.

People on the streets would be singing hymns going down the street from store to store. It totally changed the community after he was gone for long periods of time, sometimes for years, the community would be changed.

That is the sign of true revival. That is not what's happening in this so -called third awakening.

So, uh, let me read you a part of an article that I clipped as I was studying this thing this week to try to find out the truth about it.

And I clipped this out of the New York times and it quotes, I'm just going to quote here.

Part of this story quote, Elijah Drake, a student at the seminary.

Now this, this revival started in a Bible college there. And that's why they're calling it the

Asbury revival. It's the name of the school. And that's where it started. A young man who is in charge of preaching to the kids every week when they have to come to chapel.

I saw his sermon that they say started it. And I told you about that a little bit last Sunday. I saw,

I was able to watch that. But, um, so Elijah Drake is a student at this seminary and it's talking about, this is, they, they interviewed him for this article.

They went around asking the students, you know, what's happening. Tell me how to change your life so forth. So here's, here's just one example.

Elijah Drake, a student at the seminary stopped by the first afternoon when he heard that a group had gathered there, he stayed until two in the morning and returned the next day.

So after the preacher preached this very standard operating procedure sermon, it was a sermon on love out of Roman chapter.

What'd I say last week? 12 or 13. Yeah. 12 or 13. And he leaves and the music group leaves only trio of people.

They leave to go to lunch. And I think seven students stayed in this Elijah Drake, Drake walked in at that moment, seven students stayed and prayed.

And that's how this started. Okay. So he walks in early on on this thing. And, uh, he stayed till two that morning and, and, uh,

Elijah Drake says this, he says, it's been a very sacred space. He said, and then the article continues.

Drake is gay. You hear what I said? Drake is gay.

So he's a homosexual or as the Bible would call it a sodomite, right? So Drake is gay and said he had reconciled at the revival with a fellow seminarian.

He had once clashed with over politics. He described as right wing homophobia.

So this revival calls the right wing seminary student, uh, to realize he was homophobic and that he should make up and get along with a homosexual.

Who's there to learn, to be a preacher at this seminary. All right.

So where did the goodness go that Paul talked about when he saw the Roman church? I'm persuaded because I see number one, goodness.

That's not what we see here. Now that's not the case. They're not all homosexuals at this revival meeting, but my point is they are received as just part of the group and a normal part and, and no rebuke of it in, in the preaching, no rebuke of it, no cleansing of sin.

Listen, if you don't think it's a sin, read Romans chapter one, it listed with 20 other sins. There are 20 sins listed in Roman chapter one, homosexuality is one of them.

So one thing we know from history is revival is all about repentance from sin.

Just as I described the Billy Sunday meetings, whole groups of people would be changed.

Uh, when it's real genuine revival, not persuaded that it's okay to stay the same.

You see the difference? I think you do. I'm preaching to the choir here. I'm sure someone got awfully quiet in here though.

It's interesting. I think that there's a chance that some, that some folks, even among our church have been thinking this was genuine revival.

It's not, it's not genuine revival at all. If you study the history of revival.

So Drake, who is pursuing ordination as a pastor in the free

Methodist denomination said the first days of the revival were a period of real healing and unity between homosexuals and straight people.

I added the last phrase, but that's what he meant. Healing and unity. That is not what happens in true revival.

Healing, healing happens and unity happens, but not between sin and getting rid of sin.

It's a whole different story. Now that is, that article is called Woodstock for Christians.

Revival draws thousands to Kentucky town by Ruth Graham and Jesse Barber of the

New York Times, February 24th, 23. And I've got the URL for it.

Now I found something even more interesting. I found on YouTube, uh, a talk about this by a person who studied it, who went and interviewed students, um, went to the place to, to, and talk to people that were all involved with it and so forth.

And the title of this was the Asbury revival, eight crucial questions we need to ask.

And this is by a group. Uh, some of you may have heard of evangelist Ray comfort. How many of you've heard of him?

Pretty good, isn't he? Uh, we may not agree with every single thing about him, but we probably would agree with at least four points that he believes if you know what

I'm talking about. Uh, Kirk Cameron, who was a child movie star who, uh,

Ray comfort talked into becoming an evangelist and he became an evangelist. And then this interesting person who probably never heard of a radio host called

Todd. And I hope I pronounce it right. Frail, F R I E L. Freel?

Freel. All right. So, uh, it was Freel who was doing this talk. Now, if you've never heard this gentleman speak the first 10 seconds, you're been going, whoa, he's really interesting.

He's just an unusual speaker. Very, very unusual. He definitely, you, you never, he never loses your attention just because he's such an unusual speaker.

But so he starts to speak about the eight crucial questions that we ought to be asking.

Now, before I read those eight questions, I want to read something about this gentleman. Cause I went and looked into these three men to see if they're somebody we should even listen to.

So, um, I go out and I find on the internet that there are

Christian people all over the country, uh, condemning Todd Freel and the condemnation for him again.

And again, as I see people, you know, chatting about it, is that he teaches that when you pray the

Lord's prayer, it doesn't save you. Isn't that interesting? I don't mean the

Lord's prayer. I mean, the, the little, dear Jesus come in my heart and save me. Amen. That prayer that that doesn't save you.

And I thought, well, I hope he's learned to add. It doesn't unsave you, but I don't know if he's learned that yet, but here's interesting.

I read a little excerpt from something he taught. It says, brace yourself for this one with very few, if any exceptions, anyone who asked

Jesus into their hearts to be saved is not. If you ask

Jesus into your heart, because you were told that that is what you have to do to become a

Christian, you were misinformed. And then he goes on and talk about the true gospel and how it really works and how

God has to call you. And he's a five point Calvinist and a great teacher of the word.

I think he hasn't had the experience I did where he needs to add to that, but doesn't unsave you if you pray that prayer, because it's, it's the calling.

I mean, you probably got saved before you left the pew and came down to pray the prayer. That's the point he needs to add that, but he doesn't know it yet.

Maybe I'll give him a phone call. Well, here are the eight points.

Oh, he wrote, oh, that little quote I gave you is in something he wrote called 10 reasons not to ask

Jesus into your heart. And I'm sure he explains what he means by that.

It doesn't mean it's wrong to ask Jesus into your heart, but he's explaining what the true gospel is and how it actually works.

But anyway, I thought, wow, that's, I didn't know anybody talk like that around the country, but that's pretty cool.

10 reasons. Okay. So here's the eight questions he wants us to ask about this revival. First of all, the school itself claims that eight revivals have occurred there since 1890.

His question is, why isn't this happening at other universities? Why is it always this university where the revivals start and happen?

Is this a favored university of the Holy Spirit? Why does it happen so regularly here?

Could it be manipulated? Why not anywhere else? I think that's a great question. I've asked that question many times to charismatics about, well, why doesn't

God give us this gift of tongues in our church? Why is it, do you have to have the sign out front?

It has to say charismatic or Pentecostal on it. And then God will bless with that gift because that's the only place

I see it. Why is that? I've asked that question many times. So he asked the question about why is revival only always starting here?

Number two, part of the Wesleyan holiness movement, which is what this group is, the

Wesleyan movement means Methodist. And there are many good Methodists in the country, but they're just like Baptists.

There are some bad groups too, but this is a group called the holiness, Wesleyan holiness movement.

They don't have a practice of preaching against sin, such as homosexuality. They don't practice against judgment or talk about the judgment of God much.

They don't talk about the need for repentance, all of which have been present in historical revivals in this country and in England and in the world.

Not present with this group, he points out. Some have reported that the gospel was not the centerpiece of this revival.

There weren't people giving the gospel and seeing scores and scores of people saved. Charlotte and I were, well, we weren't part of it because we'd just gotten saved.

We hadn't moved back to Mahea, but my mentor, Dr. Freeman was in a revival meeting in Mahea in the spring that I was saved, but I wasn't at the meeting.

I wish I had been, but over a hundred people were saved at it. And it was supposed to be a four -day meeting.

And as he left town, God made his brand new Cadillac stop. It just died on the road and wouldn't start.

And he said, Lord, if you want me to go back, I will. And he turned it and it starts. So he turned around and went back and told the pastor, and the pastor said, we'll stay then.

We'll invite everybody to come back tonight. Turned into a 14 -day meeting with over a hundred people saved. And that is the hallmark of revival.

As you have people in the community, not in the church, the church people are supposed to already be saved, right? But as God begins to come down on the place and people hear about it and their friends and family come that are lost, they get saved.

That's not what's happening at this revival. And I knew it wasn't as I watched it. It was, if you think about it, well,

I don't want to steal his thunder. He'll get to this point in a minute. So some have reported that the gospel was not the centerpiece of this movement.

Number three, Todd Bentley. And I don't know if you know him. I don't tend to know the false preachers because I don't listen to them.

Sean, I can't pronounce his last name, fought, but it's pronounced, I mean, it's spelled

F -E -U -C -H -T of Bethel church. And Shane Claiborne have supported this movement.

And he showed pictures of these guys in this video where they were preaching in their faith healers that do really weird things on the stage.

I mean, really weird things. And these guys are supportive of this meeting that tells you something about it right there.

And then number four, he says other Bible colleges report similar outbreaks, but why not any secular colleges or why not any more conservative

Bible colleges that are not charismatic or Pentecostal?

What is revival anyways? The fifth point he makes, what's the proper definition of revival? Well, one thing you sometimes see is people are fired up to walk in holiness, which means if they have sin in their life, they lay that at the altar, so to speak, and walk away from it.

They don't embrace it and cause others to get right with them and act like their sin is okay. So that's not a part of revival.

Big outpourings of the Holy Spirit with a lot of people being saved is a second aspect of genuine historic revival in this country and other places in Europe.

But in this so -called revival, students were encouraged, but you didn't see a lot of people being saved.

So this was not an outward move where it started with the church and moved out into the streets of the community and changed the town or the country like historic revivals have done, like the

Great Awakening did, by the way, changed the whole nation. But it really was an inward movement where people were driving in to experience the feeling of it.

Maybe individual revival did happen, but that's not what should be called a third

Great Awakening. And he pointed out the difference between individual revival and a revival.

People could be in this thing that are genuine, that actually are having revival, but it doesn't mean that the whole thing was actually a revival.

There's a difference. The sixth point he made is what is happening here? Much worship, a lot of music, very little, if any, expository preaching.

Now, what do we see in our passage in Romans that we just reviewed is that when Paul said,

I'm convinced of you, it's because they could admonish one another with the word of God, that none of that was not happening at this meeting.

It was a lot of music and a lot of hands in the air praising and good feelings, but not a lot of scripture being read.

And this gentleman, like I've done so many times, he pointed out that if you look at revivals in the

Bible, like when Jonah went to Nineveh, he didn't even want them to get saved. He certainly didn't break out the music, did he?

Nice music to get them in the mood. He didn't do any of that stuff. He just said, accept

God or you're going to die and he walks away. But there was preaching. I mean, he did give them, he did give them

God's word. And so that's important. And that's not, that is not what was happening here.

So if you think about Peter's sermons on the streets of Jerusalem, where 5 ,000 people saved in one moment of time.

If you read that lately, if you go read his sermon, it's almost dry because it's just like, he's just rehearsing old

Testament scripture. It's just really dry. There was no music. There was no good feelings, no praising of the

Lord going on. 5 ,000 people got saved because of the word of God he preached. And that was absent in this meeting for the most part.

And then the seventh point is there was bizarre behavior going on. And I saw this as well, a clip of it on YouTube.

There were women who were coming up to people and demanding demons to come out of them.

Well, you cannot demand a demon to come out of someone unless you're an apostle. And there are no more apostles because the

Bible defines what an apostle is. And part of the definition is you had to have walked with Jesus Christ on the planet earth.

And no one today can do that physically. So they're not apostles. They're not authorized.

In fact, people in the book of Acts tried to do it who weren't authorized. And the demons came out and jumped on them and tore them to shreds and almost killed them.

And they said, Peter, and I think it was Paul, wasn't it? Peter and Paul, we know, but you, we don't know. And they jumped on this person and almost killed him.

You don't demand demons to come out of people. It is okay to ask Jesus to command them to come out.

But I heard this with my own ears as I watched this on YouTube and I could hear it from the front. This woman was commanding that demon to come out.

And eventually this black woman that she was praying over screamed real loud and everybody assumed that's what had just happened.

So you had this kind of stuff going on throughout that room. That could happen at a genuine revival, but the leaders like brother

Paul or brother Dave should stop it. They should stop the service. Would you escort the woman out please?

And the woman that's trying to help her escort them out and instruct them in scripture. And that's what we would do. I've seen that done in churches.

It's not like you're mean to them, but you just to escort them out of the service and you instruct them in the right way.

You don't let them just do that in your service, not in a real revival. You don't. So you had bizarre things going on.

You had demons that were demanded to be cast out of women by women. You had female preachers that were preaching and speaking in tongues.

And then the eighth thing was that in people that were interviewed, young people, mostly, they were interviewed that were at the revival again and again and again.

And I saw this, listened to it myself again and again and again. They were talking about the

Holy Spirit and how they got more of the Holy Spirit. Not one time did they mention Jesus. So let me read you a scripture from John 16, verse 13,

Jesus talking here. He says, how be it when he that is the spirit of truth, that's the

Holy Spirit. When he is come, he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come.

He will glorify me. That's Jesus talking. The Holy Spirit will talk about me.

He will glorify me for he will receive things that are mine and will show it to you.

So they should have been talking about Jesus Christ and they're talking about the Holy Spirit all the time. So that tells you that there's a counterfeit movement going on there.

Those are the eight points this gentleman brought out and more power to him. He had the guts to do it and I'm glad he did.

And a lot of people hate him for it and that's okay because he's telling the truth. So now the last point that I see here in Romans chapter 15 was in verse 16, the last one that we covered where it talks about the offering of the

Gentiles were acceptable unto the Lord being sanctified by the gospel, which is what the word of God and by the

Holy Spirit. So here you have the water and you have the word again and the two acting together always.

You don't see that in this revival. You just see the Holy Spirit, so -called Holy Spirit, but not the Bible is lacking.

So that's a major problem. But to me, that is the modern church. I mean, that's where it's all going.

So easily deceived when you leave the Bible out. So the offering of the Gentiles is acceptable because of the word of God, which

Paul preached to them. And secondly, the Holy Spirit who called them and saved them and so forth.

So if I got like we're out of time, I'll give you verse 17 because I said that's where we were going.

Romans 15, 17 says this, I have therefore whereof

I may glory through Jesus Christ and those things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things, which

Christ has not wrought in me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed.

What is his point? The apostle Paul is saying, I'm not going to preach with poems.

I'm not going to preach with beautiful language. I'm not going to preach with vain stories to try to captivate the audience, but I'm going to preach with the word of God and the power of the

Holy Spirit. And that's how he preached. And so that is a mark of genuine working of God and genuine revival.

And we don't see that, but anyway. So now we've launched into verse 17. We're on the way through chapter 15.

Cool thing is I could cover the whole rest of the chapter in like three minutes because there's no major doctrinal things, just some interesting points, but we'll do it next time.

So let's stand and have prayer together. Thought I would use up all this material today, but we'll talk about the rest of the verses in the chapter next time.

Lord, thank you so much for your word. We ask you to bless it. Thank you that you've given us the word of God is that which is not subjective, but it is objective and the laws of grammar and the laws of definitions and the laws of proper

Bible interpretation, make it objective. And thank you that you've given it to us to show us the truth.

Lord, allow our church and other churches like this one around the world that are still in the world to be the pillars of the truth and to not allow people to pervert scripture, to point it out, to call it out when it's done and help us to be bold in that, but also loving and meek and to instruct people in the word of God, help us to go forth and do that as you call us to do it this week.

And Lord, as we have this meeting coming up Monday night, watch over us, help us to be meek, but instructors of those who you put us in front of to instruct and help us to be a blessing to the community and to the governor of Texas.

And Lord, we ask you to bless our meal. We're about to have and the fellowship we're about to have in Jesus name.