I started work on this series a while back when the “revival” at Asbury started making the news. I’d initially intended it to just be one piece, but there’s so much information that I decided to break it up into several parts. In part one, we’ll look at the event itself and what people are saying about it; what constitutes a “revival” among various groups; and then I’ll start looking at the “great revivals” of the past. So, let’s start with what people are saying about the “revival” at Asbury.
Mormon – Glenn Beck called the ecumenical “revival” at Asbury “a miracle” adding that it is giving him more hope than any other ‘good news’ and that “this may be the biggest story of this time” – glennbeck.com.
Roman Catholic – Father Norman Fischer of St. Peter Claver Church in Lexington, Kentucky is recorded in an article in The Record; ‘Jesus was right next to me’: Asbury revival sets Catholics on fire with Holy Spirit as saying, “It’s almost like a wellspring. You just know right away that God is there.”
(Ecumenical) National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) Board Member – Nick Hall (NAE is a member of the globalist World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) also reported the familiar miracles marking christian revival events.
“I am forever undone by this week. I will never be the same… There were so many miracles. A man came in a wheelchair who hadn’t walked in two years and danced on the platform. I don’t even have a paradigm for what the heck is happening!” CBN
While the Asbury “revival” doesn’t classify as an “evangelistic meeting” in that it had few to no speakers, Christian evangelist Nick Hall told CBN that “so many people were saved!” My immediate question was “Saved by what gospel? How can there be a gospel presentation when attendees don’t even have a common understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ much less His Gospel?”
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Rom 10:17)
One Asbury professor said that “outpouring” would be a better term for the phenomenon than “revival.” But where is the scriptural support for an “outpouring” of the Holy Spirit to “revive” believers once they are born in spirit?
“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.” (Matt 24:24)
Stan Key, Minister at Large with OneWay Ministries, told Mission Network News,
“Pray, not just for young people, but for the United States to seek the face of the Lord in obedience and reverence to His will. Pray for this movement of the Holy Spirit to spread out from Asbury University and ignite a new generation passionate for the Gospel [again – what gospel?]. That’s what many of us are praying and longing for: That this is not a campus event. That God would move across our nation.”
Where is the New Testament scriptural support for nations to corporately pray or repent?
NAR false prophet Dutch Sheets told Flashpoint’s Gene Bailey that he’d seen the event with its few speakers and ecumenical gathering of attendees in a 2001 dream.
“I saw incredible power, incredible fire, a fire of revival, incredible signs and wonders, incredible passion, love for God, worship, spontaneous outbreakings of Holy Spirit until the entire nation was on fire with the … fires of revival.” – Flashpoint
Bailey said it sounded like the Jesus Movement of the 1970s, except at “a higher level.” I’ll be getting to the Jesus Movement later on.
The vague concept of “revival” has always eluded me. I went to one of Billy Graham’s “revival”/crusade meetings years ago and found myself somehow lacking the fervor that was overtaking those around me. I wondered if the people who were walking forward were being led by the Holy Spirit or if they’d been emotionally manipulated. I attended a couple other evangelistic revivals and was equally disillusioned. But the term “revival” tends to lump evangelism outreach events with “christian renewal” events, making it hard to form a clear definition.
Believers of varying denominations have different ideas on what constitutes a “revival.” So, in scrutinizing this alleged great move of God in America, the first thing we need to do is get a clear definition of what we’re talking about. Here’s what Wikipedia has on Christian Revivalism.
“Christian Revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal [the collective term for charismatic, Pentecostal and neo-charismatic churches] in the life of a church congregation or society, with a local, national or global effect…
Proponents view revivals as the restoration of the church itself to a vital and fervent relationship with God after a period of moral decline… The concept of revival is derived from [Old Testament!] biblical narratives of national decline and restoration during the history of the Israelites…
This should be distinguished from the use of the term “revival” to refer to an evangelistic [In Christianity, evangelism or witnessing is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.] meeting or series of meetings.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_revival
With its blend of faiths and lack of preaching, if we base our understanding of revival on those descriptions, it’s hard to define just what the Asbury event was.
In searching for a scriptural definition, the first thing we find is that the word “revival” isn’t actually found in the Bible. The closest thing are prayers to be “revived” in the Old Testament.
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? – (Psalm 85:6)
O Lord, I have heard the report of You, and Your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” (Hab 3:2)
The Old Testament contains several stories where believers heard God’s Law, were convicted of sin, repented (turned around) and returned to keeping the Law (ie. II Kings 22-23).
But we are living in the days of the New Testament/Covenant, not the Old. The New Testament book of Acts also records great moves of God, but they served the singular purpose of drawing men to salvation through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to unbelievers. (Matt 5:17)
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. (Acts 2:41)
[T]he Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)
But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. (Acts 4:4)
Also Acts 5:14,16, 42; 8:4;11:21; 13:44; 14:1,21
Evangelicals tend to point to the great moves of God in the book of Acts for revival, but in reality combine Old and New Testament examples. They describe revival as more of a renewal or special move of God that draws people to a certain place to worship, weep and experience the powerful “sweet presence,” a “tangible wave of the Spirit,” or the “fire” or “anointing” of God. Not only does this have more in common with the Old Testament than the New, but it brings to my mind anyway, the ecumenical “Tres Dias” or “Cursillo” three-day weekends, the cathartic feelings they generate fading through time and leaving believers to return again and again for the next experiential “move of the Holy Spirit.”
The “revival” that started in Asbury and spread to other communities has sparked its share of controversy. On the one hand we’ve got Evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons praising it as a longed-for backlash against the increasing evil in our country, and on the other, we have Christians calling for discernment.
Until these last several weeks, I hadn’t taken the time to really dig into the phenomenon of these high-profile Christian events. But when the Asbury revival started taking a prominent place in the headlines, I knew I needed to get to the bottom of it. I was amazed to discover not only a systematic convoluting and weakening of the gospel message through each of the “Great Revivals,” but a clear agenda behind it all.
The First Great Revival occurred shortly after the Reformation, when God’s written Word was returned to the common man and the beautifully simple New Covenant of Grace through Christ and His Gospel was once again preached after having been buried under Law and Catholic Authority for centuries.
The Reformers were split into two camps; there were those like Martin Luther who hoped to bring Reform to the Catholic church, and the Separatists who wanted to break away from the church altogether. Significant to our topic is that the Roman Church made concessions to the Reformers at the Council of Trent on all but Article 9, which stated that the Pope was to be the ultimate interpreter of scripture – and that the Bible and the Church Tradition were equally authoritative.
The Reformation was infiltrated and controlled by the Jesuits and their Protestant counterpart, the Freemasons from day one, as stated in the Oath of the Jesuits:
“My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the dissembler: among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to be a spy even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. Among the Reformers, to be a Reformer; among the Huguenots, to be a Huguenot; among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among other Protestants, generally to be a Protestant; and obtaining their confidence, to seek even to preach from their pulpits, and to denounce with all the vehemence in your nature our Holy Religion and the Pope; and even to descend so low as to become a Jew among Jews, that you might be enabled to gather together all information for the benefit of your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope.”
The distinctly Talmudic spirit is evident in the oath:
“I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants’ heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honour, rank, dignity or authority of the persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agents of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus.”
But in order to get the big picture we need to back up a bit. Until the time of Christ, the Mystery Schools ruled through the various great world religions, including infiltrated, apostate Judaism. With Jesus’ death and resurrection, He dealt the prince of this world/leader of the Mystery School Religions a fatal blow. (Jn 16:11) After giving Israel 40 years to repent, God pronounced His judgment on them, destroying the temple and scattering the Jews. But the beast continued to make war with the offspring of the woman (the church).
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. (Rev 17:17)
The great religions of Judaism and Mohammedanism were both open enemies of Christianity. But after years of intense persecution of Christianity, in A.D. 313 the enemy changed his tactics, and the Roman Catholic Church was formed, combining Christianity with Mystery School teachings and forming the official state Religion.
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.. (Rev 17:15-16)
Matthew Henry explains in his Bible commentary that “water as a flood” refers to great deception. That deception is evident in the Roman Catholic Church, but also the Reformation.
The great revivals boasted large numbers of people converting to faith in Christ, but the authenticity of those “conversions” is questionable as the same brought many unscriptural doctrines of man, all of which represent a return to Law and Mysticism; a return to Rome.
In attempting to understand what happened at Asbury, I did some reading about the changes that came to Protestantism through the revivals beginning in the 1600s.
Volumes have been written about the Great Revivals. But what I was looking for were the significant changes in Christian worldview and church doctrines that were accomplished through them.
The Great Revivals are generally grouped into four (arguably five) “Great Awakenings.”
The first Great Awakening (1730s and 1750s) brought Enlightenment thought and (Catholic) Perfectionism via Jonathan Edwards & a (Mystical) Second Experience of salvation via John Wesley
The Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) brought more Legalism (Law) and psychologically manipulated Decisionism via Charles Finney & the Dispensational End Times script / pro-National Israel (and with it a return of Old Testament Nationalism) of John Nelson Darby.
The Third Great Awakening (1873 –1929) saw the birth of Pentecostalism, which viewed speaking in tongues and divine healing as outward evidence of new birth, and an experiential gospel via Charles Parham and William Seymour.
The Fourth Great Awakening (1960-1980) saw the Jesus People led by ecumenical Chuck Smith and LSD user, practicing homosexual (Lonnie Frisbee) bring Ecumenism, the church adapting itself to fit the culture; cultural Christianity.
The Fifth Great Awakening (current) what we’re seeing today. Its chief purpose appears to be Ecumenism preparing reformers to be reunified with the Roman Catholic church and Nationalism.
In part two we’ll look at the Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution and the First Great Awakening.
God bless you, and stay watchful!
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pet 5:8)
Revivals Pt1 – Asbury: Let’s Talk About Revivals
Revivals Pt 2 – Enlightenment in the Land of the Plumed Serpent
Revivals Pt3 – Mystery Schools, The RCC and the Reformation
Revivals Pt4 – The First Great Awakening & The Enigmatic George Whitefield
Revivals Pt5 – The Brimstone and Mysticism of Jonathan Edwards
Revivals Pt 6 – John Wesley (1 of 2) – The Mystery School Dialectic and Christian Mysticism
Revivals Pt 7 – John Wesley (2 of 2) More Mystics & Papal Doctrines of Men
Revivals Pt8 – From Wesley to Finney By Way of Count Zinzendorf
Revivals Pt9 – Charles Grandison Finney, Freemasonic Moralism and Modern Evangelicalism
Revivals Pt10 – The Pagan “Virus“
Revivals Pt11 – The Third Great Awakening: Pentecostalism!
Revivals Pt12 – Pentecostalism Pt2: The Founders of Pentecostalism
