BONUS EPISODE - Not A Good Sign At Asbury： When Todd Bentley And Queer Students Like Your Revival
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
3
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Toxicity
8
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Hate speech
12
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Summary
Revival has a long history at Asbury, and it s no secret that it s had its fair share of scandals. In this episode, we take a look at the history of Asbury revivals, and whether or not they re really revivals at all.
Transcript
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All right, let's talk a little bit about the Asbury revival. I kind of want to put revival
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in quotes. I'll go ahead and do that just in case hedge my bets here. The Asbury revival. I want to
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read. All right, I'm going to give you my thoughts. I'm not saying that there's no move of God at all.
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It's not so simplistic to say it's all bad or it's all good.
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Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry, he had Judas as one of his disciples, right?
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So even the ministry of Jesus, you know, you've got some nefarious figures who are in close
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proximity to Christ, Jesus Christ incarnate himself.
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Okay, so there's always going to be a mixed bag.
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you study, you know, bona fide revivals of the past. And of course there were abuses and there
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were certain, you know, malicious angles that people were playing and people who were there
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that weren't really there because they wanted to seek after God, but rather they were trying to
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exploit something, this and that and the other. So revivals have a long history of being a
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complicated thing. There's never been a revival without sin. And, you know, the worst fake
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revivals that aren't actually revivals, even in those cases, it's not to say that God in his
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sovereignty doesn't do at least one good thing, right? I mean, I have been a part of heretical
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services, church services, that the Lord has in his mercy, in his sovereignty, if God's sovereign
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over all things, that the Lord, even in the midst of that heretical church service, he used it in a
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positive way, not because they were preaching the truth, um, but to reveal something that was true
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about him to me, to be able to say, uh, that I'm sitting there with discernment, knowing the
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scripture and, and the Lord is using that in a moment to teach me about the dangers of false
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doctrine, um, this, that, and the other. Okay. So, um, I don't have a blanket statement of,
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you know, bad or good. Um, that said, uh, I lean towards this not being a true revival.
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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
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and clear and simple, short and sweet. Here you go. First, I'm going to lead with this point.
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This is from Asbury's own website. Okay. So I'm just going to read you their words. Okay.
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Asbury University has been known through the years for its history of great revivals.
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That's not inherently evil or nefarious or bad, but you just need to be aware of that.
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the school prides itself. This isn't somebody else writing about the school. This is on the
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school's website. This is what they say about themselves. One of their points of pride is that
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they're a place of revivals, that revivals happen in this place. So Asbury University has been known
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through the years for its history of great revivals. There have been several occasions
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when significant moves of the Holy Spirit have swept the campus and reached across the nation.
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They start to list the history of these revivals.
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I'll go back and I'll read about a couple of these.
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They list the date and then a brief synopsis of the revival that happened at that date,
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I'm not even making a point about this really, but it's just, it's interesting.
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Here's the first one they list in February of 1905.
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the next one in february of 1950 the next one in march well you didn't see that coming right
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there's a curveball in march still not that far from february of 1958 the next one here we go
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back to our roots on february 3rd 1970 um after that in march 1992 next one in february of 2006
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and here we are in February of 2023. I don't think that's a coincidence. All right, now let me read
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you a little bit of a description and I'll kind of flesh out why I don't think that's a coincidence
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and what that means a little bit. So here's the first one. We'll just read a couple. In February
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1905, that's the first one that they have listed on the website. During a blizzard, a prayer meeting
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in the men's dormitory spilled out onto the rest of the campus and the town of Wilmore. Okay,
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In February 1908, revival broke out while someone prayed in chapel.
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The revival lasted two weeks and was signified by prevailing prayer and intercession.
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In February 1921, the last service of a planned revival lasted until 6 a.m.
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and services were extended for the next three days.
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In February of 1921, the last service, the final service of a planned revival lasted until 6 a.m.
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That said, though, let me give a couple disclaimers.
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That's old-timey language that people just use.
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But in the last, you know, 100 years, 150 years, that was just, that was a thing.
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Southern Baptist, for instance, were notorious about this, right?
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And typically what that meant was it was a Monday through Friday or maybe a Monday through
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It was going to be weeknights and it was going to be, it was going to be in sequence, right?
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So it was going to be back to back to back instead of just a, you know, you have your
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Southern Baptist, you got Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, which I would say,
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And then you typically had a Wednesday night also.
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But sometime, usually a lot of Southern Baptists, it was typically during the summer and sometime
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during the summer, a lot of Southern Baptist churches, not just Southern Baptist, general
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And then a lot of, you know, Baptists, you know, it's still in the Baptist vein, but
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of the, you know, the Wesleyan, you know, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, the holiness
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kind of that side of the theological, you know, scale, same thing there planned revivals.
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And it would typically be like 6 p.m. usually, you know, 6 p.m. evening services, weeknights,
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instead of just your midweek touchpoint with a Wednesday night service, we're going to
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And usually what you would have happen is you would have the pastor, the local pastor
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of that church that's hosting these revival meetings.
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That's what they would call them, revival meetings.
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And they would invite a guest speaker, an evangelist usually, you know, somebody who's,
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maybe he's a local pastor somewhere else in another region. But a lot of times it would
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be somebody who's more like an evangelist. And if you're wondering, well, you know,
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what is an evangelist? Obviously, you know, you know, most of you listening to this show
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understand, you know, the work of evangelism and sharing the gospel with others. But in terms of
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the office of an evangelist, that's legitimate. That's not bad. That's not a, you know, a word
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of faith kind of thing. That's not a heretical, you know, thing. That's a biblical word. Ephesians
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four talks about how Christ has given different leaders. Christ who is head of the church has
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given gifts to the church, namely leaders, offices to the church for the purpose of training and
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equipping the saints that the body may build itself up in love to the fullness of manhood,
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a full stature of spiritual maturity so that they would be grown up and no longer like children
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tossed to and fro by every wind and wave of darkness. So this is a good thing. And the
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things that are listed that, you know, a lot of people say the fivefold ministry, which I would
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reject. I would hold to a fourfold ministry. The four offices is apostles and prophets and then
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evangelists and pastors. And you might say, no, it doesn't say pastors. It says shepherd teachers
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or teacher shepherds. Well, yeah, but in the Greek, it's like hyphenated. So it's not just
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a comma listing. And here's a fifth thing. There's shepherds and then there's, that's number four.
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And then there's teachers and that's number five. No, it's apostles, prophets, apostles,
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number one, prophets number two, evangelists number three, and then shepherd hyphen teachers.
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And what is, you know, it's like two roles, two sides of the same coin. What office has those
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roles, responsibilities given to shepherd and to teach a pastor? So the way that I would read
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1 Corinthians, or I'm sorry, Ephesians chapter four is that Christ is head of the church and
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as head of the church, who washes the church and nourishes the church and loves the church and
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gives himself, lays down his life for the church. Christ wants good for the church because he loves
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the church and he's the head of the church. And one of the ways that Christ accomplishes good for
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the church is by giving the church gifts. And these gifts are leaders. Leaders, so long as they are
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faithful, are a gift to Christ's bride. They're a gift to the church and Christ gives for particular
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gifts or types of leaders to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors. And then I,
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as somebody who would hold to cessationism, I would say that Christ has given all four of these
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roles to the church and there is an end date in sight, right? There is a certain goal that we're
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seeking to attain. And the goal is the fullness of the stature of Christ himself. The church has
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not attained that yet. The church is not perfectly mature. The church, sadly, there are many
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Christians still tossed to and fro by every wind and wave of doctrine. So the end goal that's set
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in Ephesians chapter four has not yet been attained. However, with a careful reading of
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Ephesians four, because the continuation, this is always going to use as, as an argument and say
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all four of these or five, you know, the fivefold ministry, all five of them, including apostles
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and prophets are going to be in the church until the church reaches its perfect maturity. Joel has
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the church reached perfect maturity. Are you going to say, is that where you want to be when Jesus
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comes back claiming that the church is perfectly mature? Of course it hasn't reached perfect
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maturity. I'm not, that's not my argument. And they'll say, well, then apostles and prophets
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are still here. And I would say, no, it would be like a general contractor saying, um, agreeing
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and giving his word and a binding oath saying, I'm going to build a house from start to finish.
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And, and I will not stop, um, until the job is done until the whole thing is done. Um, but then
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he's hiring out subcontractors and each subcontractor, each wave of workers is not going
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to be on the job site simultaneously the entire time, right? The first thing that we got to do
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is we've got to lay a foundation and we're going to do some plumbing. We're going to do some
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electric. We're going to do this and that. And so there's a certain wave of subcontractors,
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apostles and prophets, right? To put this analogy back to the text of Ephesians 4,
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they're going to come and they're going to lay a foundation. They're going to do foundational
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work. And that's in light of Ephesians. So Ephesians 4 cross-references with Ephesians
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chapter 2, verse 20. The foundation is on the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the
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cornerstone. We have that foundation. It's the Old and New Testament, right? The foundation of
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the apostles and prophets has been canonized for us, scripturized. We have that foundation,
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and that's the foundation that evangelists and pastors are now building on. So the job is not
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done. Christ has given gifts to the church, namely leaders, different types of leaders to the church
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until this task is finished, until the church reaches maturity. That hasn't happened yet. So
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there are still leaders given by Christ to the church to train and equip the saints for the work
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of ministry that's still happening but nothing in ephesians 4 says that every single one of these
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leaders will simultaneously be on the job from the beginning to the end the whole time so i would say
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what first wave apostles and prophets second wave now building on the foundation going back to my
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analogy like now you're talking about like guys who are throwing up frame and and sheetrock and
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things like that and roofing that's your evangelist and pastor so evangelist is a legitimate biblical
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role. Paul Washer would be an example. He would call himself an evangelist. Justin Peters right
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now, I don't believe Justin Peters is currently serving in the office of elder. He has a local
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church that he's involved in, all those kinds of things as a faithful member, but I don't think
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that he's currently serving as an elder in that church. And he would introduce himself every time
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I've had him on the show or you see Justin Peters, he would say, I'm an evangelist. So evangelist is
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a bona fide office. And back to revival meetings, especially within the Baptist world, but also
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with the Wesleyan world, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, these guys, um, they would have good
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old time religion, right? Um, old timey revivals. They would plan it. They would schedule it. And
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I'm not saying that's wrong. Now, technically I prefer not to use the word revival for something
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that's planned, but I'm not saying that, Oh, well, in that case, that means it's heresy and
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false stock. That's not my point. Um, but I'm just giving you kind of a brief little history.
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One, the exegesis Ephesians for evangelists, and typically what would happen history. And this is
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a recent history. This isn't, you know, something that happened over 2000 years of church history.
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This isn't something necessarily that, you know, St. Augustine was doing. But in recent history,
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the last 150 years, especially with Baptists and with Wesleyan folk, having an annual planned
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revival meeting is kind of like your bread and butter for the church. And it usually was a
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dynamic duo of the pastor, teacher shepherd or shepherd teacher, Ephesians four, and the
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evangelist. So you got the local pastor, he's going to host the revival at his church. Sometimes
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they would, instead of the church building, they would go ahead and rent some land and put up a
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big tent, right? And that tent revival, because they're hoping to have greater attendance and
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they're going to schedule these. It's not going to be a Sunday. Maybe it kicks off with the Lord's
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Day, but then it's going to be Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night,
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Friday night, right? And this is our planned annual revival. And we invite an evangelist,
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the pastor's hosting, he's going to do some stuff. Maybe he'll speak a couple nights. And then the
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evangelist is the guest speaker. And he's a guy who's kind of on the speaking circuit. And he goes
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around speaking at all these different revivals. And this, you know, this evangelist, he's coming
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here to our hometown and to our church and blah, blah, blah. And we're going to have a good old
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fashioned revival. And that revival could be good or bad, but it's not really a revival. And that
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doesn't mean, again, that doesn't mean it's heresy. I'm saying it could be good in the sense
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that um if there's good preaching it's biblical it's sound the doctrine is true then then sure
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worshiping god every night of the week not a bad idea right i'm not saying that we should do that
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you know 365 days a year because we need to lead family worship in our homes we have marriages we
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have jobs we have you know so i'm not saying you should always do that but to have one week a year
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where we're going to gather as a church every evening at 6 p.m to 8 p.m or whatever uh to hear
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the word of God preached and to sing to God and worship and address one another with psalms and
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hymns and spiritual songs. And we're going to have a guest speaker who is credible and biblically
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qualified in the office of an evangelist to come and preach afresh and anew to us the basic truths
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of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the setting of a local church with our pastor who's overseeing
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these things, and he's a biblically qualified elder. Great, right? That's not a revival in
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the sense that it's a sovereign outpouring of the spirit of god it's a it's just a planned
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week of church meetings and there's nothing wrong with that it's a planned week of church meetings
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uh revival i don't think is the best label uh to call it that but it's not necessarily you know
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immoral or heretical that's that's asbury university that is they're wesleyan they're
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wesleyan that that's their roots that's their heritage that's their background that's their
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language, right? Every theological camp has a lingo. It has jargon. It has, that's their
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language, right? I mean, you can find it right on their website, Asbury University. This is them
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talking about themselves. And I'm not even saying this is immoral. I haven't even made my point
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about it being bad yet. I'll get there. But this is just, I'm just giving you the facts.
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This is their language. This is their theological tradition. This is their history, at least recent
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history in the last, you know, 20, a little bit over 20 years of, you know, starting in 19,
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what was it 1905 was the first one 1905 right so this would be right before azusa street revival
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that would be 1906 that would be a bad revival i'm not a fan of azusa street uh this is right
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before that in february 1905 i don't know about this revival at asbury in february 1905 so i'm
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not going to say it was bad i'm not going to say it was good but the point is um these are planned
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not all of them but some of them they even expressly say right in the case of february 1921
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the last service of a planned revival so asbury university in the wesleyan holiness that's
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arminian i'm not saying it's heretical i'm a calvinist but i'm not saying it's heretical but
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you know but in that arminian wesleyan holiness theological tradition
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um there's very much a pattern of planned revivals and to be fair it's in the baptist
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traditions. Well, all that being said, that's not inherently wrong. Asbury prides itself as being
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a place that has had historically over the last hundred plus years, lots of really great revivals.
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Okay, great. And some of them may have actually been good by biblical criteria, sound doctrine,
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people repenting of sin, those kinds of things. But I just want you to know that
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it's not that unusual. I guess that's my first point. My first point is that I don't think the
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reaction should be, oh my goodness, something spectacular is happening that's never happened
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before. This is literally the university's MO. They plan revivals and you read it and virtually
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every single one of them happens in the month of February. Lo and behold, it's February. That
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probably has something to do with the student's schedule and what speakers they schedule for
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chapels during that time and different things with the itinerary for the school and its syllabus
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and what happens in the month of February. I don't think that's a coincidence. It's following
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the calendar of the university. It's the beginning of a new year. Students are back coming after the
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holidays. They've been back for a few weeks now. We're into the month of February and maybe we
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tend to schedule a highly gifted evangelist for the month of February, hoping that maybe it'll
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kickstart, you know, some kind of, so my point is, I don't, I don't think that what's going on
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should be interpreted as this is an incredibly unique, miraculous thing that never happens
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by the school's own website. This is a thing that happens in the month of February, almost
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exclusively, um, just about every few years for the last 100 years. And some of it, they even
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admit was planned. And again, not saying that's malicious or evil to plan. Again, I think there
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are better words than calling it a revival, but that's just a difference of opinion and difference
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of jargon, different church history, theological camps. So all that being said, that's the first
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thing. All that being said, the last thing that I want to address is this. Todd Bentley was on the
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scene, a famous heretic. He was a part of, what was that revival even called? I can't remember.
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it wasn't john uh kilpatrick and uh steve hill that was the brownsville thing uh
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i can't even remember but todd bentley one of the one of the things that i do remember is there was
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a revival going on and here so okay so in terms of markers of revival how do you how do you test a
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revival how do you you know measure revival to see if it you know is genuine to see if it's a
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real move of god what kind of criteria should you look for well traditionally throughout church
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history, you think of like the first great awakening, second great awakening, not a fan,
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Charles Finney. If you want to read the worst theology you'll ever read in your life, aside
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from, you know, maybe reading a Bill Johnson book, then read a systematic theology by Charles
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Finney, not Finney, but Finney, Charles Finney, his systematic is some of the worst. Basically,
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he took everything from the first great awakening, Jonathan Edwards, that John Wesley was a part of
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that, but then also you've got George Whitefield. He took all the reform doctrine, and I understand
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Wesley wasn't reformed, but Whitefield was, Edwards was, and he took this idea of God
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sovereignly outpouring, an outpouring of his spirit, and he made it something that revival
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was basically, Finney was one of the first guys who said revival is basically a formula,
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and it can be manufactured by man. If you put this and you put that, so altar calls,
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right? A lot of people, you know, like come down to the altar Asbury, you know, that's one of the
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things that they're doing. You come up front, right? And, and you confess your sins and you,
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and you're praying, students are praying for one another at the altar. Todd Bentley, you know,
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he did a post on Twitter where he said, I just, the whole time I was there, I could feel tangible
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waves of God's presence. I just wanted to get down to the altar. Where does that come from?
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That's Finney. That's not the Bible. That's not Edwards. That's not, you know, George Whitfield.
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That's not Augustine. That's not Calvin. That's it. You know, and it's not Jesus. It's not Paul,
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more importantly. That's Finney. Finney came up with the concept of what he called, what now is
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an altar call, but what he called the anxious bench, the anxious bench. Some of you have heard
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of this. It would be on the front row typically, and he'd be doing one of his revival meetings.
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And his whole thing was with the right cadence of speaking and the right emotion and the right
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this and the right timing. Mega churches, if you don't like mega churches, and I mean the typical
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megachurch, right? Not just a large church that's biblically faithful, but your typical megachurch
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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
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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,
00:25:25.400
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.
00:25:46.040
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
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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
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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
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university and, and they identify as sodomites or queer or lesbian or transgender or whatever,
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and they're on the scene and they're saying, we like this. Uh, we're hopeful that the seeds of
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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.
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That's what they're saying. And so this student is saying the last four years has been a lot of
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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
00:30:30.340
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.
00:31:52.700
That came out of the 1950s healing revivals with Jack Cole and Gordon Lindsay and these
00:32:00.700
And Christ for the Nation, for the most part, I would argue, is a word of faith heretical
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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.
00:32:24.060
But one of the girls on stage who was singing in the middle of the song, she started, you
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And then another student, a band member, I think, grabbed a microphone and confessed
00:32:36.240
And then a line started to form from the students in the audience to go up and confess their
00:32:41.200
And it went from morning chapel, which was supposed to be 8 a.m.
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
00:33:12.940
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.
00:33:27.980
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
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masturbation, their sin of sexually engaging, committing sexual immorality and promiscuity
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And I remember looking around, even at the time, I knew there was something wrong with
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
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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
00:34:56.520
Number two, number two, even if we're confessing sin as the Bible actually defines sin, the
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
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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,
00:39:35.160
However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it.
00:39:43.280
I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy.
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Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three
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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.
00:40:21.720
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00:40:28.300
Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever
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