The NXR Podcast - BONUS EPISODE - Not A Good Sign At Asbury： When Todd Bentley And Queer Students Like Your Revival

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00:00:40.440 All right, let's talk a little bit about the Asbury revival. I kind of want to put revival

00:00:45.640 in quotes. I'll go ahead and do that just in case hedge my bets here. The Asbury revival. I want to

00:00:50.700 read. All right, I'm going to give you my thoughts. I'm not saying that there's no move of God at all.

00:00:55.240 I'm not saying nothing positive has happened.

00:00:57.800 These things are typically a mixed bag.

00:01:00.060 It's not so simplistic to say it's all bad or it's all good.

00:01:04.060 Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry, he had Judas as one of his disciples, right?

00:01:10.100 So even the ministry of Jesus, you know, you've got some nefarious figures who are in close

00:01:15.800 proximity to Christ, Jesus Christ incarnate himself.

00:01:19.060 Okay, so there's always going to be a mixed bag.

00:01:21.320 you study, you know, bona fide revivals of the past. And of course there were abuses and there

00:01:27.480 were certain, you know, malicious angles that people were playing and people who were there

00:01:32.820 that weren't really there because they wanted to seek after God, but rather they were trying to

00:01:36.520 exploit something, this and that and the other. So revivals have a long history of being a

00:01:42.080 complicated thing. There's never been a revival without sin. And, you know, the worst fake

00:01:48.660 revivals that aren't actually revivals, even in those cases, it's not to say that God in his

00:01:55.360 sovereignty doesn't do at least one good thing, right? I mean, I have been a part of heretical 0.98

00:02:02.100 services, church services, that the Lord has in his mercy, in his sovereignty, if God's sovereign

00:02:10.640 over all things, that the Lord, even in the midst of that heretical church service, he used it in a

00:02:15.400 positive way, not because they were preaching the truth, um, but to reveal something that was true

00:02:19.840 about him to me, to be able to say, uh, that I'm sitting there with discernment, knowing the

00:02:24.360 scripture and, and the Lord is using that in a moment to teach me about the dangers of false

00:02:29.120 doctrine, um, this, that, and the other. Okay. So, um, I don't have a blanket statement of,

00:02:35.300 you know, bad or good. Um, that said, uh, I lean towards this not being a true revival.

00:02:42.040 I'll just say that right up front. I don't have a whole lot of points. I'll just, I'll keep it nice

00:02:46.800 and clear and simple, short and sweet. Here you go. First, I'm going to lead with this point.

00:02:51.320 This is from Asbury's own website. Okay. So I'm just going to read you their words. Okay.

00:02:56.920 Asbury University has been known through the years for its history of great revivals.

00:03:03.720 That's not inherently evil or nefarious or bad, but you just need to be aware of that.

00:03:10.520 the school prides itself. This isn't somebody else writing about the school. This is on the

00:03:15.160 school's website. This is what they say about themselves. One of their points of pride is that

00:03:20.100 they're a place of revivals, that revivals happen in this place. So Asbury University has been known

00:03:27.820 through the years for its history of great revivals. There have been several occasions

00:03:32.180 when significant moves of the Holy Spirit have swept the campus and reached across the nation.

00:03:38.160 Now, this is interesting.

00:03:39.880 They start to list the history of these revivals.

00:03:42.780 I'll go back and I'll read about a couple of these.

00:03:44.840 They list the date and then a brief synopsis of the revival that happened at that date,

00:03:49.620 at that time.

00:03:50.580 But first, I just want to look at the dates.

00:03:52.300 I find this interesting.

00:03:53.260 I'm not even making a point about this really, but it's just, it's interesting.

00:03:56.540 All right, so here you go.

00:03:57.200 Here's the first one they list in February of 1905.

00:04:00.280 The next one in February of 1908.

00:04:03.380 The next one in February of 1921.

00:04:06.220 the next one in february of 1950 the next one in march well you didn't see that coming right

00:04:13.120 there's a curveball in march still not that far from february of 1958 the next one here we go

00:04:19.640 back to our roots on february 3rd 1970 um after that in march 1992 next one in february of 2006

00:04:28.580 and here we are in February of 2023. I don't think that's a coincidence. All right, now let me read

00:04:37.160 you a little bit of a description and I'll kind of flesh out why I don't think that's a coincidence

00:04:40.540 and what that means a little bit. So here's the first one. We'll just read a couple. In February

00:04:45.800 1905, that's the first one that they have listed on the website. During a blizzard, a prayer meeting

00:04:50.300 in the men's dormitory spilled out onto the rest of the campus and the town of Wilmore. Okay,

00:04:56.980 In February 1908, revival broke out while someone prayed in chapel.

00:05:01.800 The revival lasted two weeks and was signified by prevailing prayer and intercession.

00:05:07.060 Great.

00:05:07.840 In February 1921, the last service of a planned revival lasted until 6 a.m.

00:05:15.500 and services were extended for the next three days.

00:05:18.180 Let me read that again in case you missed it.

00:05:20.360 In February of 1921, the last service, the final service of a planned revival lasted until 6 a.m.

00:05:29.580 and services were extended for three days.

00:05:32.860 Let me stop there for a moment, okay?

00:05:35.980 First and foremost, revivals aren't planned.

00:05:38.420 That said, though, let me give a couple disclaimers.

00:05:41.520 That's old-timey language that people just use.

00:05:43.940 Now, it's not that old.

00:05:44.800 It's not like centuries old.

00:05:45.980 But in the last, you know, 100 years, 150 years, that was just, that was a thing.

00:05:50.220 Southern Baptist, for instance, were notorious about this, right?

00:05:53.680 We're having our revival meetings.

00:05:56.160 And typically what that meant was it was a Monday through Friday or maybe a Monday through

00:05:59.940 Thursday.

00:06:00.260 It was going to be weeknights and it was going to be, it was going to be in sequence, right?

00:06:05.040 So it was going to be back to back to back instead of just a, you know, you have your

00:06:07.980 typical, you know, Sunday morning, right?

00:06:09.660 Southern Baptist, you got Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, which I would say,

00:06:14.060 praise God, full Lord's day.

00:06:15.400 That's great.

00:06:16.280 And then you typically had a Wednesday night also.

00:06:18.160 But sometime, usually a lot of Southern Baptists, it was typically during the summer and sometime

00:06:23.060 during the summer, a lot of Southern Baptist churches, not just Southern Baptist, general

00:06:26.780 Baptist.

00:06:27.140 And it was, it was a Baptist thing.

00:06:29.640 And then a lot of, you know, Baptists, you know, it's still in the Baptist vein, but

00:06:33.260 of the, you know, the Wesleyan, you know, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, the holiness

00:06:38.200 kind of that side of the theological, you know, scale, same thing there planned revivals.

00:06:44.640 And it would typically be like 6 p.m. usually, you know, 6 p.m. evening services, weeknights,

00:06:51.200 instead of just your midweek touchpoint with a Wednesday night service, we're going to

00:06:54.520 do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

00:06:56.600 And usually what you would have happen is you would have the pastor, the local pastor

00:07:01.360 of that church that's hosting these revival meetings.

00:07:03.900 That's what they would call them, revival meetings.

00:07:05.960 And they would invite a guest speaker, an evangelist usually, you know, somebody who's,

00:07:12.380 maybe he's a local pastor somewhere else in another region. But a lot of times it would

00:07:16.920 be somebody who's more like an evangelist. And if you're wondering, well, you know,

00:07:19.880 what is an evangelist? Obviously, you know, you know, most of you listening to this show

00:07:23.740 understand, you know, the work of evangelism and sharing the gospel with others. But in terms of

00:07:28.100 the office of an evangelist, that's legitimate. That's not bad. That's not a, you know, a word

00:07:33.120 of faith kind of thing. That's not a heretical, you know, thing. That's a biblical word. Ephesians

00:07:36.740 four talks about how Christ has given different leaders. Christ who is head of the church has

00:07:41.440 given gifts to the church, namely leaders, offices to the church for the purpose of training and

00:07:46.460 equipping the saints that the body may build itself up in love to the fullness of manhood,

00:07:52.920 a full stature of spiritual maturity so that they would be grown up and no longer like children

00:07:58.140 tossed to and fro by every wind and wave of darkness. So this is a good thing. And the

00:08:02.160 things that are listed that, you know, a lot of people say the fivefold ministry, which I would

00:08:05.700 reject. I would hold to a fourfold ministry. The four offices is apostles and prophets and then

00:08:11.640 evangelists and pastors. And you might say, no, it doesn't say pastors. It says shepherd teachers

00:08:16.260 or teacher shepherds. Well, yeah, but in the Greek, it's like hyphenated. So it's not just

00:08:21.320 a comma listing. And here's a fifth thing. There's shepherds and then there's, that's number four.

00:08:26.180 And then there's teachers and that's number five. No, it's apostles, prophets, apostles,

00:08:32.000 number one, prophets number two, evangelists number three, and then shepherd hyphen teachers.

00:08:36.900 And what is, you know, it's like two roles, two sides of the same coin. What office has those

00:08:44.780 roles, responsibilities given to shepherd and to teach a pastor? So the way that I would read

00:08:50.720 1 Corinthians, or I'm sorry, Ephesians chapter four is that Christ is head of the church and

00:08:55.420 as head of the church, who washes the church and nourishes the church and loves the church and

00:08:59.620 gives himself, lays down his life for the church. Christ wants good for the church because he loves

00:09:04.080 the church and he's the head of the church. And one of the ways that Christ accomplishes good for

00:09:08.280 the church is by giving the church gifts. And these gifts are leaders. Leaders, so long as they are

00:09:14.100 faithful, are a gift to Christ's bride. They're a gift to the church and Christ gives for particular

00:09:19.260 gifts or types of leaders to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors. And then I,

00:09:25.220 as somebody who would hold to cessationism, I would say that Christ has given all four of these

00:09:30.720 roles to the church and there is an end date in sight, right? There is a certain goal that we're

00:09:37.260 seeking to attain. And the goal is the fullness of the stature of Christ himself. The church has

00:09:41.280 not attained that yet. The church is not perfectly mature. The church, sadly, there are many

00:09:45.520 Christians still tossed to and fro by every wind and wave of doctrine. So the end goal that's set 1.00

00:09:52.040 in Ephesians chapter four has not yet been attained. However, with a careful reading of

00:09:57.540 Ephesians four, because the continuation, this is always going to use as, as an argument and say

00:10:01.360 all four of these or five, you know, the fivefold ministry, all five of them, including apostles

00:10:05.460 and prophets are going to be in the church until the church reaches its perfect maturity. Joel has

00:10:10.440 the church reached perfect maturity. Are you going to say, is that where you want to be when Jesus

00:10:14.020 comes back claiming that the church is perfectly mature? Of course it hasn't reached perfect

00:10:17.660 maturity. I'm not, that's not my argument. And they'll say, well, then apostles and prophets

00:10:21.040 are still here. And I would say, no, it would be like a general contractor saying, um, agreeing

00:10:27.160 and giving his word and a binding oath saying, I'm going to build a house from start to finish.

00:10:32.400 And, and I will not stop, um, until the job is done until the whole thing is done. Um, but then

00:10:37.980 he's hiring out subcontractors and each subcontractor, each wave of workers is not going

00:10:44.980 to be on the job site simultaneously the entire time, right? The first thing that we got to do

00:10:50.140 is we've got to lay a foundation and we're going to do some plumbing. We're going to do some

00:10:52.900 electric. We're going to do this and that. And so there's a certain wave of subcontractors,

00:10:56.640 apostles and prophets, right? To put this analogy back to the text of Ephesians 4,

00:11:01.940 they're going to come and they're going to lay a foundation. They're going to do foundational

00:11:05.360 work. And that's in light of Ephesians. So Ephesians 4 cross-references with Ephesians

00:11:09.640 chapter 2, verse 20. The foundation is on the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the

00:11:14.600 cornerstone. We have that foundation. It's the Old and New Testament, right? The foundation of

00:11:18.720 the apostles and prophets has been canonized for us, scripturized. We have that foundation,

00:11:24.100 and that's the foundation that evangelists and pastors are now building on. So the job is not

00:11:29.060 done. Christ has given gifts to the church, namely leaders, different types of leaders to the church

00:11:33.660 until this task is finished, until the church reaches maturity. That hasn't happened yet. So

00:11:40.700 there are still leaders given by Christ to the church to train and equip the saints for the work

00:11:45.500 of ministry that's still happening but nothing in ephesians 4 says that every single one of these

00:11:49.840 leaders will simultaneously be on the job from the beginning to the end the whole time so i would say

00:11:55.760 what first wave apostles and prophets second wave now building on the foundation going back to my

00:12:00.460 analogy like now you're talking about like guys who are throwing up frame and and sheetrock and

00:12:05.880 things like that and roofing that's your evangelist and pastor so evangelist is a legitimate biblical

00:12:11.480 role. Paul Washer would be an example. He would call himself an evangelist. Justin Peters right

00:12:17.100 now, I don't believe Justin Peters is currently serving in the office of elder. He has a local

00:12:21.980 church that he's involved in, all those kinds of things as a faithful member, but I don't think

00:12:25.300 that he's currently serving as an elder in that church. And he would introduce himself every time

00:12:31.320 I've had him on the show or you see Justin Peters, he would say, I'm an evangelist. So evangelist is

00:12:35.720 a bona fide office. And back to revival meetings, especially within the Baptist world, but also

00:12:40.980 with the Wesleyan world, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, these guys, um, they would have good

00:12:46.420 old time religion, right? Um, old timey revivals. They would plan it. They would schedule it. And

00:12:52.200 I'm not saying that's wrong. Now, technically I prefer not to use the word revival for something

00:12:56.540 that's planned, but I'm not saying that, Oh, well, in that case, that means it's heresy and

00:13:00.940 false stock. That's not my point. Um, but I'm just giving you kind of a brief little history.

00:13:05.760 One, the exegesis Ephesians for evangelists, and typically what would happen history. And this is

00:13:10.800 a recent history. This isn't, you know, something that happened over 2000 years of church history.

00:13:14.960 This isn't something necessarily that, you know, St. Augustine was doing. But in recent history,

00:13:19.480 the last 150 years, especially with Baptists and with Wesleyan folk, having an annual planned

00:13:26.500 revival meeting is kind of like your bread and butter for the church. And it usually was a

00:13:32.740 dynamic duo of the pastor, teacher shepherd or shepherd teacher, Ephesians four, and the

00:13:38.660 evangelist. So you got the local pastor, he's going to host the revival at his church. Sometimes

00:13:43.580 they would, instead of the church building, they would go ahead and rent some land and put up a

00:13:49.280 big tent, right? And that tent revival, because they're hoping to have greater attendance and

00:13:54.620 they're going to schedule these. It's not going to be a Sunday. Maybe it kicks off with the Lord's

00:13:58.200 Day, but then it's going to be Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night,

00:14:01.640 Friday night, right? And this is our planned annual revival. And we invite an evangelist,

00:14:07.220 the pastor's hosting, he's going to do some stuff. Maybe he'll speak a couple nights. And then the

00:14:10.940 evangelist is the guest speaker. And he's a guy who's kind of on the speaking circuit. And he goes

00:14:16.280 around speaking at all these different revivals. And this, you know, this evangelist, he's coming

00:14:20.500 here to our hometown and to our church and blah, blah, blah. And we're going to have a good old

00:14:24.540 fashioned revival. And that revival could be good or bad, but it's not really a revival. And that

00:14:32.060 doesn't mean, again, that doesn't mean it's heresy. I'm saying it could be good in the sense

00:14:35.740 that um if there's good preaching it's biblical it's sound the doctrine is true then then sure

00:14:41.300 worshiping god every night of the week not a bad idea right i'm not saying that we should do that

00:14:47.500 you know 365 days a year because we need to lead family worship in our homes we have marriages we

00:14:52.860 have jobs we have you know so i'm not saying you should always do that but to have one week a year

00:14:56.960 where we're going to gather as a church every evening at 6 p.m to 8 p.m or whatever uh to hear

00:15:02.620 the word of God preached and to sing to God and worship and address one another with psalms and

00:15:08.420 hymns and spiritual songs. And we're going to have a guest speaker who is credible and biblically

00:15:14.340 qualified in the office of an evangelist to come and preach afresh and anew to us the basic truths

00:15:20.200 of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the setting of a local church with our pastor who's overseeing

00:15:25.700 these things, and he's a biblically qualified elder. Great, right? That's not a revival in

00:15:31.780 the sense that it's a sovereign outpouring of the spirit of god it's a it's just a planned

00:15:37.520 week of church meetings and there's nothing wrong with that it's a planned week of church meetings

00:15:42.200 uh revival i don't think is the best label uh to call it that but it's not necessarily you know

00:15:48.140 immoral or heretical that's that's asbury university that is they're wesleyan they're

00:15:55.840 wesleyan that that's their roots that's their heritage that's their background that's their

00:15:59.720 language, right? Every theological camp has a lingo. It has jargon. It has, that's their

00:16:04.800 language, right? I mean, you can find it right on their website, Asbury University. This is them

00:16:09.940 talking about themselves. And I'm not even saying this is immoral. I haven't even made my point

00:16:13.540 about it being bad yet. I'll get there. But this is just, I'm just giving you the facts.

00:16:18.620 This is their language. This is their theological tradition. This is their history, at least recent

00:16:22.940 history in the last, you know, 20, a little bit over 20 years of, you know, starting in 19,

00:16:28.220 what was it 1905 was the first one 1905 right so this would be right before azusa street revival

00:16:34.980 that would be 1906 that would be a bad revival i'm not a fan of azusa street uh this is right

00:16:40.040 before that in february 1905 i don't know about this revival at asbury in february 1905 so i'm

00:16:45.680 not going to say it was bad i'm not going to say it was good but the point is um these are planned

00:16:50.360 not all of them but some of them they even expressly say right in the case of february 1921

00:16:55.560 the last service of a planned revival so asbury university in the wesleyan holiness that's

00:17:03.860 arminian i'm not saying it's heretical i'm a calvinist but i'm not saying it's heretical but

00:17:08.560 you know but in that arminian wesleyan holiness theological tradition

00:17:14.340 um there's very much a pattern of planned revivals and to be fair it's in the baptist

00:17:21.920 traditions. Well, all that being said, that's not inherently wrong. Asbury prides itself as being

00:17:29.460 a place that has had historically over the last hundred plus years, lots of really great revivals.

00:17:36.600 Okay, great. And some of them may have actually been good by biblical criteria, sound doctrine,

00:17:42.760 people repenting of sin, those kinds of things. But I just want you to know that

00:17:47.880 it's not that unusual. I guess that's my first point. My first point is that I don't think the

00:17:55.120 reaction should be, oh my goodness, something spectacular is happening that's never happened

00:17:59.860 before. This is literally the university's MO. They plan revivals and you read it and virtually

00:18:07.920 every single one of them happens in the month of February. Lo and behold, it's February. That

00:18:14.280 probably has something to do with the student's schedule and what speakers they schedule for

00:18:18.340 chapels during that time and different things with the itinerary for the school and its syllabus

00:18:24.360 and what happens in the month of February. I don't think that's a coincidence. It's following

00:18:28.160 the calendar of the university. It's the beginning of a new year. Students are back coming after the

00:18:34.480 holidays. They've been back for a few weeks now. We're into the month of February and maybe we

00:18:38.720 tend to schedule a highly gifted evangelist for the month of February, hoping that maybe it'll

00:18:44.660 kickstart, you know, some kind of, so my point is, I don't, I don't think that what's going on

00:18:48.960 should be interpreted as this is an incredibly unique, miraculous thing that never happens

00:18:55.160 by the school's own website. This is a thing that happens in the month of February, almost

00:19:01.520 exclusively, um, just about every few years for the last 100 years. And some of it, they even

00:19:07.840 admit was planned. And again, not saying that's malicious or evil to plan. Again, I think there

00:19:13.200 are better words than calling it a revival, but that's just a difference of opinion and difference

00:19:16.500 of jargon, different church history, theological camps. So all that being said, that's the first

00:19:23.040 thing. All that being said, the last thing that I want to address is this. Todd Bentley was on the

00:19:27.440 scene, a famous heretic. He was a part of, what was that revival even called? I can't remember. 0.73

00:19:34.000 it wasn't john uh kilpatrick and uh steve hill that was the brownsville thing uh

00:19:40.520 i can't even remember but todd bentley one of the one of the things that i do remember is there was

00:19:47.120 a revival going on and here so okay so in terms of markers of revival how do you how do you test a

00:19:51.940 revival how do you you know measure revival to see if it you know is genuine to see if it's a

00:19:56.460 real move of god what kind of criteria should you look for well traditionally throughout church

00:20:01.500 history, you think of like the first great awakening, second great awakening, not a fan,

00:20:04.860 Charles Finney. If you want to read the worst theology you'll ever read in your life, aside

00:20:08.900 from, you know, maybe reading a Bill Johnson book, then read a systematic theology by Charles

00:20:14.320 Finney, not Finney, but Finney, Charles Finney, his systematic is some of the worst. Basically,

00:20:22.640 he took everything from the first great awakening, Jonathan Edwards, that John Wesley was a part of

00:20:27.940 that, but then also you've got George Whitefield. He took all the reform doctrine, and I understand

00:20:33.120 Wesley wasn't reformed, but Whitefield was, Edwards was, and he took this idea of God

00:20:38.060 sovereignly outpouring, an outpouring of his spirit, and he made it something that revival

00:20:43.460 was basically, Finney was one of the first guys who said revival is basically a formula,

00:20:48.300 and it can be manufactured by man. If you put this and you put that, so altar calls,

00:20:54.120 right? A lot of people, you know, like come down to the altar Asbury, you know, that's one of the

00:20:58.080 things that they're doing. You come up front, right? And, and you confess your sins and you,

00:21:02.020 and you're praying, students are praying for one another at the altar. Todd Bentley, you know,

00:21:05.680 he did a post on Twitter where he said, I just, the whole time I was there, I could feel tangible

00:21:09.740 waves of God's presence. I just wanted to get down to the altar. Where does that come from?

00:21:13.780 That's Finney. That's not the Bible. That's not Edwards. That's not, you know, George Whitfield.

00:21:19.240 That's not Augustine. That's not Calvin. That's it. You know, and it's not Jesus. It's not Paul,

00:21:23.420 more importantly. That's Finney. Finney came up with the concept of what he called, what now is

00:21:29.400 an altar call, but what he called the anxious bench, the anxious bench. Some of you have heard

00:21:34.100 of this. It would be on the front row typically, and he'd be doing one of his revival meetings.

00:21:38.960 And his whole thing was with the right cadence of speaking and the right emotion and the right

00:21:43.760 this and the right timing. Mega churches, if you don't like mega churches, and I mean the typical

00:21:49.380 megachurch, right? Not just a large church that's biblically faithful, but your typical megachurch

00:21:53.480 with, you know, Hillsong worship and fog machines and lights. And it feels like a concert. The

00:21:58.140 lights are turned down low. The music is super loud. The preaching is an 18 minute Ted talk.

00:22:03.140 That's fluffy. And it's, it's not expositional preaching. If you don't like that kind of machine

00:22:08.180 business, the brand megachurch, um, then, you know, you have Charles Finney to thank for that.

00:22:13.880 Um, he is the, the father of his ideas birthed, uh, later on, it was the fruition of his ideas

00:22:21.860 that birthed, uh, the mega church 100%. And so, um, you know, making, uh, a, a, a business out

00:22:30.260 of, out of this idea of, of gathering together, um, is an event, right? The Sunday big revival

00:22:36.840 event. And so he had the anxious bench and basically in the middle of his preaching,

00:22:40.320 he would call out to people who were there and he said, some of you are underneath, you know,

00:22:43.560 the conviction of the Holy spirit, you need to come up and sit on the anxious bench, this front

00:22:47.680 row. And I'm going to preach the rest of the sermon or for the next 15 minutes directly to you.

00:22:51.860 And then for the next 15 minutes, he would look at those individuals and be preaching to them,

00:22:55.920 you know, and ignore everybody else. And so, and that's kind of where we've gotten the altar call

00:22:59.980 from, which my church doesn't practice. A lot of reform traditions don't do, but there are a lot

00:23:04.400 of Christians today who still, you know, practice an altar call kind of thing. So first great 0.97

00:23:08.880 awakening great right that's that's got wesley that's got whitfield that's got edwards the second

00:23:13.640 great awakening with charles finney was manufactured and since that point on basically

00:23:18.760 from finney on um there's been good and bad but the bad is that i think a lot of people think well

00:23:24.460 we can there's uh there are certain having a revival is like baking a cake right you just

00:23:29.560 you get some flour you get some water you get some eggs you get some sugar um and if you have

00:23:33.560 the right ingredients in the right measure, um, and you mix them in the right way and you put them

00:23:38.880 in the oven, then, you know, revival is what pops out. Um, now here's the deal. All that being said,

00:23:46.700 um, Todd Bentley's there, right. And you know, like Judas was hanging out with Jesus. So, so a

00:23:53.460 bad guy showing up doesn't write that, that would be a logical fallacy to say that that's, you know,

00:23:58.280 definitive proof that something is bad and not a move of God. Um, but it's not a good sign.

00:24:03.560 It's not a good sign. That doesn't discredit everything that's happening. That's not to say

00:24:07.220 that none of the students are actually confessing real sin and there's not real prayer and there's

00:24:11.380 not real worship. I'm not saying that. I don't know. I'm not on the scene. I'm sure there's

00:24:15.020 some things that are in line with the scripture that are pleasing to the Lord that have been

00:24:19.220 beneficial for God's people. I believe that. But it's not a good sign when Todd Bentley's there.

00:24:25.040 And what I was going to say in terms of criteria for genuine revivals, one of the things that you

00:24:29.200 can see with genuine revivals throughout church history as it's been measured in hindsight is that

00:24:35.200 they tend to be at least somewhat ecumenical, right? So the first great awakening, going back

00:24:39.540 to that as an example, you've got Wesley and you've also got Whitefield and there's a friendship.

00:24:45.540 And these are guys who dynamically disagree. Neither one is a heretic. They're both well

00:24:49.600 within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy, but you've got a staunch Arminian and you've got a

00:24:54.640 staunch Calvinist and they're working together. And so ecumenical, this ecumenical spirit, now not

00:25:00.780 to the point where you're partnering with false teachers, right? So Billy Graham got too ecumenical,

00:25:06.140 especially towards the end of his life. So I'm not talking about partnering with people who deny

00:25:10.920 the gospel itself, but partnering with guys of different theological persuasions, but within the

00:25:17.920 realm of Christian orthodoxy. That does tend to be a criteria, a marker for genuine revivals. However,

00:25:24.640 Here's the deal.

00:25:25.400 There's a difference between Whitfield and Wesley versus Asbury and Todd Bentley.

00:25:31.460 Todd Bentley is not within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.

00:25:35.780 So again, that doesn't, that's not definitive proof that this is not a move of God.

00:25:40.440 Nefarious characters can show up on the scene and it could be a real move of God.

00:25:44.760 That said though, right?

00:25:46.040 I mean, Simon, the sorcerer showed up with the apostles ministry and tried to buy, right?

00:25:50.280 So Todd Bentley could have been there because he wants to, you know, I just want to get

00:25:53.700 the power of god so i can use it and get back on the big stage again get back to my calling you

00:25:58.200 know well i mean simon the sorcerer was trying to buy the apostle's ability to impart the holy

00:26:03.400 spirit the baptism of the holy spirit and peter says may your may your riches perish with you

00:26:07.860 right you're you're a wicked man um so so nefarious characters showing up doesn't definitively

00:26:13.920 discredit something but an ecumenical movement is only good insofar as all the characters the 0.96

00:26:21.740 leaders who are representing this movement who are giving their credence to the movement being

00:26:26.120 genuine they have to fall within the boundaries of christian orthodoxy that's first second in 1.00

00:26:32.800 addition to that um one of the things that i've noticed is you know that there are some queer

00:26:39.640 students who are publicly they publicly identify as being lgbt at asbury um and they're on the

00:26:49.000 scene in the revival and they're saying, we're for it. We like what's going on. Now that actually

00:26:57.780 gives me more pause, more hesitation than even Todd Bentley being there. So Todd Bentley being

00:27:04.480 there and saying, I can feel God's presence. This is awesome. I'm like, Ooh, that's not great,

00:27:09.100 but that doesn't, you know, definitively discredit it. That's not a deal breaker for

00:27:13.620 this revival being genuine or not. But when you've got outspoken gay students at a Christian 0.98

00:27:19.820 university and, and they identify as sodomites or queer or lesbian or transgender or whatever, 0.99

00:27:28.940 and they're on the scene and they're saying, we like this. Uh, we're hopeful that the seeds of 0.99

00:27:34.380 this revival, um, like one of the things that I read was a student, you know, saying, um, you know,

00:27:40.360 we've made a lot of progress on campus over the last four years, meaning we've made a lot of

00:27:47.120 compromise, biblical compromise on the campus over the last four years. We're making strides

00:27:52.120 to get this Christian university to affirm sodomy and to forsake a biblical stance on sexual ethics. 1.00

00:28:00.360 That's what they're saying. And so this student is saying the last four years has been a lot of 0.73

00:28:04.060 progress um in this particular arena of sin namely perversion and lgbt lm nop um there's

00:28:11.600 been progress in this and we're hopeful that student who said that says and i i feel like

00:28:17.560 um there's you know there's some bad things coming out of this revival but more good than harm

00:28:22.200 well that's not encouraging if if a person who affirms homosexuality is saying uh that the

00:28:32.420 school has, there's been progress on campus towards that end of getting the school to be

00:28:36.460 affirming. Not that they are, but working towards that. They're saying we're making strides,

00:28:42.840 we're making progress, and we're on the scene. I've been to these revival meetings, the Asbury

00:28:47.820 revival, and I like it. And I'm hopeful that this is going to have a good fruit. And what they mean

00:28:55.000 is the good fruit of, of more people affirming what God says is an abomination, namely sodomy.

00:29:03.840 Yeah, that's not a good sign. And, and this is the last thing. Okay. The very last thing in terms

00:29:08.660 of criteria. Okay. Ecumenical confession of sin, all that, but the last thing with revivals

00:29:14.140 throughout history is preaching, preaching. And, and I think that's to me, the biggest hangup that

00:29:23.540 i have the biggest hesitancy that i have is um preaching the word of god that it's not just

00:29:32.100 worship through song it's not just confession and prayer um but it's preaching because because if

00:29:38.160 you keep saying this must be a move of god because there's confession of sin and repentance and

00:29:43.900 prayer for me one of the things that i want to ask is um confession of sin great um sin according

00:29:50.740 to what standard by what standard is something because because you can have people confessing

00:29:57.060 right where i'm confessing but then who knows what they're confessing right the person is like i'm

00:30:01.620 confessing the sin of how i've been bigoted and harsh and haven't been affirming enough and loving

00:30:07.400 enough towards my gay brothers and sisters in christ well that's not confession of sin that's

00:30:12.540 affirmation of sin that's compromise um you know so so the the the kind of if you're bowling right

00:30:19.360 And you don't want to get any gutter balls, right?

00:30:21.520 You put up the bumpers, you know, and the bumpers to make sure that the revival bowling

00:30:28.200 ball doesn't go into the gutter.

00:30:30.340 One of the chief bumpers is preaching and preaching, not topical preaching, not just

00:30:36.240 preaching the devices and inventions of men, but preaching the Bible, expositional preaching.

00:30:42.260 When there's claims of a revival and you show up on the scene and there is singing and there

00:30:47.940 is confession and there is prayer, but the bulk of it, it's all the confession and the prayer and

00:30:53.520 the singing is all being guided and facilitated out of the doctrine of the preaching. And the

00:30:59.140 preaching is sound expositional preaching night after night after night. So that when someone's

00:31:04.720 confessing sin, they're confessing sin as defined by the sermon. And the sermon was preached from

00:31:11.240 the Bible and what the Bible calls sin and what the Bible calls holiness is actually called

00:31:18.040 holiness. And what the Bible calls sin is actually called sin. That gives me a lot more peace,

00:31:24.160 right? A lot more peace of mind when there's sound biblical preaching. But when preaching

00:31:29.940 is kind of absent and it's a free for all, which is singing and songs and any random person is

00:31:35.160 getting up and grabbing the mic and confessing something that may be a sin, but maybe isn't.

00:31:40.440 And even if it is a sin, I've been a part of those meetings too.

00:31:43.720 For those of you who don't know, I have a charismatic background.

00:31:45.900 And I remember being on campus at Christ for the Nation.

00:31:49.840 Some of you, most of you don't even know what that is.

00:31:51.840 Some of you might.

00:31:52.700 That came out of the 1950s healing revivals with Jack Cole and Gordon Lindsay and these

00:31:59.760 kinds of things.

00:32:00.700 And Christ for the Nation, for the most part, I would argue, is a word of faith heretical 0.82

00:32:04.380 school.

00:32:05.000 Not just Pentecostal, but even further than that, word of faith, Benny Hinn kind of thing.

00:32:10.100 And at Christ for the Nations, I remember when I was there, there was one day where

00:32:14.160 we called it a revival and it actually wasn't planned.

00:32:17.160 It was during the morning chapel, during worship through song.

00:32:20.260 And one of the girls on stage, right?

00:32:23.220 So you already got a problem. 0.97

00:32:24.060 But one of the girls on stage who was singing in the middle of the song, she started, you 0.83

00:32:28.080 know, confessing her sin.

00:32:30.080 And then another student, a band member, I think, grabbed a microphone and confessed

00:32:35.760 their sin.

00:32:36.240 And then a line started to form from the students in the audience to go up and confess their

00:32:40.840 sin.

00:32:41.200 And it went from morning chapel, which was supposed to be 8 a.m.

00:32:44.260 to about 845.

00:32:45.580 It went from 8 a.m.

00:32:47.120 all the way till 3 p.m.

00:32:48.860 Classes were canceled.

00:32:49.980 All this very similar.

00:32:51.100 It reminds me of what's going on at Asbury.

00:32:53.780 Now, here's the problem.

00:32:54.760 First, because it wasn't preaching and the school had bad theology.

00:32:59.960 I'm not saying this for Asbury, but for Christ from the Nations, it certainly did.

00:33:03.860 Some people in hindsight now, knowing what I know about the word of God, having matured

00:33:08.200 in my doctrine, I look back, some people were confessing as sin, something that actually

00:33:12.020 wasn't a sin.

00:33:12.940 Number two, number two, this was happening prevalent in a prevalent degree was that people

00:33:21.140 were confessing things like, like sexual sin that really was sin.

00:33:25.100 But you had girls, not just guys.

00:33:27.980 And that was a problem too, but you had a line of, of guys and girls.

00:33:31.800 And so you had young women, 19 years old, going up in front of the whole student body,

00:33:37.140 a thousand people and the school faculty and confessing their personal struggles with 0.93

00:33:43.880 masturbation, their sin of sexually engaging, committing sexual immorality and promiscuity 0.83

00:33:49.800 with other students on campus.

00:33:51.900 And I remember looking around, even at the time, I knew there was something wrong with

00:33:55.060 this and my theology wasn't very good.

00:33:56.560 This was 20 years ago.

00:33:57.780 But I remember looking around and, and, and seeing some of the male students as females

00:34:04.060 were confessing their struggles with, with lust.

00:34:09.500 The attractive females who were confessing, I have a voracious libido, especially for 1.00

00:34:16.800 a girl and you're looking at her and she's attractive.

00:34:19.900 Some of the guys you could just tell they, they looked like, like drooling wolves.

00:34:25.520 they were taking mental notes like they might as well had busted out a you know a notebook and

00:34:31.980 writing down that person's name and sketching uh you know a description of their face and what

00:34:36.880 they look like so that they know who who's easy prey and there were stories after the fact of

00:34:44.380 of some of these individuals who confessed sin and it actually got worse because here's the deal

00:34:50.240 It's first, to confess sin properly, there has to be a biblical standard for what's actually

00:34:55.880 sin.

00:34:56.520 Number two, number two, even if we're confessing sin as the Bible actually defines sin, the

00:35:03.420 question is, how are we confessing sin?

00:35:06.440 So first, what are we confessing?

00:35:08.120 Is it actually sin?

00:35:09.060 But then also the methods and manner.

00:35:11.140 How are we confessing sin?

00:35:12.620 And one of the questions we should ask when coming to the methods of confession, who we

00:35:17.680 confess to is who we confess to. Not how we confess, meaning who do we confess out loud

00:35:25.260 publicly to a thousand people? Intimate, private sins. Now the Bible does say, confess your sins

00:35:33.000 one to another that you might pray for one another that you might be healed. So one, all sin should

00:35:37.040 be confessed to God. Some sin, I would argue, should be confessed to fellow brothers and sisters

00:35:41.340 in Christ. But in that category of confessing sin, not only to God, but to one another,

00:35:46.680 the question should be who are the one another's that we should confess that sin to and i would

00:35:52.460 argue that as a rule of thumb as a rule of thumb this is my rule of thumb for confessing sins to

00:35:57.140 fellow brothers and sisters in christ the rule of thumb is this um confess a lot of sin to a few

00:36:04.800 people not a little bit of sin to a lot of people what i mean by that is if i'm going to confess my

00:36:12.840 sin to brothers and sisters in Christ, which I do. I want to not use ambiguous language,

00:36:19.000 not be vague, not be general, not minimize my sin, not blame shift with my sin, not defend against

00:36:24.680 my sin. Well, I kind of, sort of, you know, had some, not using that general ambiguous kind of

00:36:29.660 language that makes it sound like, well, did you even sin at all? Or are you just a victim? You

00:36:33.180 know, and sin just grabbed you and pounced upon you and you know, and it's not, you know, it was

00:36:37.300 outside of your control, right? You hear some confessions and the language is so ambiguous

00:36:41.100 and so defensive. It's like, was that even a confession? So the rule of thumb is this.

00:36:45.700 If you're going to confess, let the confession be deep. Let the confession be real. Don't minimize

00:36:51.940 the sin. Confess it. Confess the details of the sin. Don't be overly detailed, but also don't

00:36:57.560 hide things to where you're not confessing at all. Confess the sin in truthfulness. Be honest about

00:37:03.020 the sin. Be honest about the details of the sin. So in terms of the sin itself, big confession

00:37:09.520 of sin. But in terms of the audience of who you're confessing to, narrow. Be very careful

00:37:16.260 with that. Very careful. Better to confess 10 sins to two people than to confess two sins

00:37:24.140 to 10 people. And in the case of the revival at Christ for the Nations that I was a part of

00:37:30.520 and the Asbury revival currently going on right now, you have individuals confessing sin to one

00:37:35.860 another privately, but you also have some stage confessions and things like that, that I think

00:37:42.060 that that's concerning. So the biggest factor is, yeah, there's some nefarious characters there,

00:37:48.080 Todd Bentley, queer students on campus that are saying, we like this revival. That's 0.99

00:37:51.820 incredibly concerning, but that alone, both of those doesn't definitively discredit the revival

00:37:58.420 and say that it's not a revival at all. I do think it's a little suspect that Asbury has a history

00:38:03.380 revivals and they all happen in february so you know take that for what you will i think i find

00:38:08.760 that interesting is probably the most charitable way that i can put it but the last thing is um

00:38:13.280 that i would say is where's the preaching preach preach preach um and not and not just getting up

00:38:18.840 for five minutes not soap boxes from this student and soapbox from that faculty and soapbox from

00:38:23.480 this person in the audience who traveled from tennessee to be there whatever no i'm talking

00:38:27.420 about um i'm talking about i have a text i'm going to exegete the text and apply the text in a

00:38:32.780 biblical manner to all of life. And we're going to do that for an hour. And then we will accompany

00:38:37.980 that with worship through song and confession and prayer. The preaching, expositional preaching of

00:38:44.740 sound doctrine is the guardrails for everything else. The confession is protected by sound

00:38:50.680 preaching. The worship through song is protected by sound preaching. The prayers even are protected

00:38:56.460 by sound preaching. And without sound preaching, there could be some genuine things that God is

00:39:03.040 doing, some bona fide movements of God, but even the good stuff is vulnerable for Satan to come in

00:39:10.760 and twist and pervert and deceive. Because preaching is a way, by preaching sound doctrine,

00:39:17.120 that's the way we guard people's minds in Christ Jesus. All right, those are my thoughts. Thanks

00:39:21.860 for tuning in. Can I be frank with you for just a second right here at the end? Look,

00:39:26.460 Some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry, and from the bottom of my heart,

00:39:31.160 I say thank you.

00:39:32.580 I cannot thank you enough.

00:39:35.160 However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it.

00:39:38.880 In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it.

00:39:41.980 Let's be honest. 0.91

00:39:43.280 I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. 0.96

00:39:46.780 Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three 0.91

00:39:54.440 years due to COVID.

00:39:56.460 We have written checks that we simply cannot cash.

00:40:00.120 It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession.

00:40:04.300 We are living in a recession right now, regardless.

00:40:08.760 Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.

00:40:13.720 You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you.

00:40:19.560 But you could still help us tremendously.

00:40:21.720 I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your time.

00:40:28.300 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever

00:40:34.440 that might be.

00:40:35.700 This is the way the system works.

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00:40:41.900 We need to be strategic.

00:40:43.800 You leave us a five-star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.

00:40:48.340 and the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of life

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The NXR Podcast - February 17, 2023

BONUS EPISODE - Not A Good Sign At Asbury： When Todd Bentley And Queer Students Like Your Revival

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