I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe July 4th! Let us pray for the United States of America to experience revival, see millions saved by God's grace, and turn the tide of sin in our nation through the faithfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This is my heart these past few days. I have been falling in love with the goodness, faithfulness, and grace of God. That He would send His Son to die for my sins (John 3:16; Romans 5:8-9) amazes me. I have never known a love like this (1 John 4:7-10). I have never found one so faithful, so full of grace, so longing to meet me where I am and transform me. I stand in awe of my awesome God!
Here are a couple of definitions I found on Dr. Michael Brown's site. The first is from Dr. Brown and the second is from Charles Finney. I am aware of some of the problems associated with Finney's theology so I am not advocating his theology by posting his comments. I simply want to allow you to see two definitions of what a true revival looks like. With the rise of the recent Lakeland revival, many have been trying to nail down what a true revival is. I have no answer since the Bible is silent on the term revival (it is not there) and we can only gleam points from the Scriptures about what the Church looks like totally committed to Christ in the book of Acts. I do think, however, that both Dr. Brown's and Finney's definitions are good definitions of revival.
Revival is a season of unusual divine visitation resulting in deep repentance, supernatural renewal, and sweeping reformation in the Church, along with the radical conversion of sinners in the world, often producing moral, social, and even economic change in the local or national communities.
- Dr. Michael Brown, Director of FIRE Ministries
[A revival] presupposes that the Church is sunk down in a backslidden state, and a revival consists in the return of the Church from her backslidings, and in the conversion of sinners.
1. A revival always includes conviction of sin on the part of the Church. Backslidden professors cannot wake up and begin right away in the service of God, without deep searchings of heart. The fountains of sin need to be broken up. In a true revival, Christians are always brought under such conviction; they see their sins in such a light that often they find it impossible to maintain a hope of their acceptance with God. It does not always go that extent, but there are always, in a genuine revival, deep convictions of sin, and often cases of abandoning all hope.
2. Backslidden Christians will be brought to repentance. A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God. Just as in the case of a converted sinner, the first step is a deep repentance, a breaking down of heart, a getting down into the dust before God, with deep humility, and a forsaking of sin.
3. Christians will have their faith renewed. While they are in a backslidden state they are blind to the state of sinners. Their hearts as hard as marble. The truths of the Bible appear as a dream. They admit it to be all true; their conscience and their judgment assent to it; but their faith does not see it standing out in bold relief, in all the burning realities of eternity. But when they enter into a revival, they no longer see “men as trees, walking,” but they see things in that strong light which will renew the love of God in their hearts. . . .
4. A revival breaks the power of the world and of sin over Christians. It brings them to such vantage-ground that they get a fresh impulse towards heaven; they have a new foretaste of heaven, and new desires after union with God; thus the charm of the world is broken, and the power of sin overcome.
5. When the churches are thus awakened and reformed, the reformation and salvation of sinners will follow. . . The worst of human beings are softened and reclaimed, and made to appear as lovely specimens of the beauty of holiness.
- Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revival
Todd Friel has a great new show called Wretched. It is much like Ray Comfort's The Way of the Master with much needed emphasis on evangelism but also Friel focuses on other issues and how they reveal our sinfulness in light of the holiness of God. Friel wants to focus not on teaching wretched theology but on showing how we are so wicked in ourselves that we need Jesus for life. His podcast is probably the best on the Internet and one that I listen to nearly everyday.
It seems the Internet lately has become a source of discouragement for me. I enjoy reading various evangelical blogs especially from my fellow Arminian brethren but I often get so discouraged from reading emergent blogs or various headlines from sites concerning the nature of Christianity in the United States today. A recent Pew poll found that 57% of "evangelicals" do not believe that Christ is the only way. While I am sure that this made a few emergents jump with joy, this broke my heart.
This further demonstrates that the Church is failing to truly disciple people into true disciples of Jesus who have counted the cost (Luke 14:25-35), repented of their sins (Luke 13:5; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; Romans 2:4; 2 Cor. 7:10) and embraced Jesus as Lord of all their lives (Luke 6:46-49; Romans 10:9-13; 1 John 2:3-6). Furthermore, the Church has not stood firm for the truth that the Bible alone is the Word of God and that it is the final authority for faith and practice, complete and without error (Psalm 19:7-11; John 8:31-32; 17:17; Romans 15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21). Too many "evangelicals" are not truly saved from sin (John 3:3-7; Romans 6:11-15; 1 John 3:6-9) and have not be born again of the Spirit (1 Peter 1:13-25).
Now is the time that we need to pray for a J. Gresham Machen to rise up. While I know that many godly Arminians and Calvinist are standing firm for the gospel of Christ and are not bowing their knees to popular culture and postmodernism, we need a man of God such as Machen who can defeat the enemy with sound biblical teaching. I recently have been reading a book written by J. Gresham Machen entitled, Christianity & Liberalism in which Machen defended the truth of Christianity against the tide of liberal theology at the turn of the 20th century. Machen was instrumental in many believers breaking off from Princeton Theological Seminary to create Westminster Seminary and helped start the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. While Machen was a thorough Calvinist, his defense of the faith lines up perfectly with Arminianism.
I would encourage you to do three things. First, pray for God to turn the tide of liberalism in the Church. Pray for Him to send a move of His Spirit that breaks the influence of the emergent church, awakens us to His Word in not only teaching but obedience (James 2:14-26). Secondly, pray for God to use Bible teachers in the local church to train disciples (Matthew 28:19-20; 2 Timothy 2:2). Pray that these teachers will not compromise the Word of God despite the culture around them even to the death (2 Timothy 3:12). Third, pray for God to raise up radical reformers such as another Martin Luther, John Wesley, James Arminius, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and J. Gresham Machen who will stand for Jesus, defend His cause to the death, and preach salvation by grace through faith to a wicked generation.
We can win the war if we pray and fight with the Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). How can we lose if Jesus, the strong Son of God, is on our side (Romans 8:31-39)?
Recently someone e-mailed me and said, "Abortion is not the only issue involved with the 2008 Presidential race and yet you evangelicals want to make abortion the entire issue when it comes to politics." Allow me briefly to respond.
