Modern Revivals Part 1; Are We Fooling Ourselves?

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

1 Corinthians 1:18 NIV

Many years ago I was attending a church in South Florida. Every Tuesday morning they had a men's prayer meeting that I tried to attend whenever my work schedule allowed. The church was about 6 miles from my house. Along the road to the church I would pass at least half a dozen churches. 

One morning it hit me. With all the churches around why is our country in the mess it is in? It seems that there is a church on every corner and yet the slide toward everything immoral and ungodly seems to be continuing unabated and the 'church' doesn't seem to be making any real impact at all. Today it is far worse than it was 25 years ago when I was driving to the prayer meeting. Abortion on demand, biological males competing in women's sports because they 'identify' as women, and the list goes on. Not only does it seem that the church is not making any impact on the culture, it seems that the laity in the church is as confused about many of these issues as the outside world is. Some believe the problem is that in our discipleship we are not teaching new believers to have a proper Christian worldview. 

I believe the problem is much worse.

In the following paragraphs I am going to do a brief comparison of modern evangelical methods and the first Great Awakening and perhaps we will be able to see where the problems lie.

In the last 50 years or so we have had a number of 'revivals' or apparent moves of the Holy Spirit. You may remember the Jesus Movement of the 70's, the Pensacola revival and the Toronto revival. They all had something in common. While a good number of people did come to saving faith in Jesus Christ they eventually fizzled and made very little impact on society in general. By contrast, the Great Awakening of the early/mid 18th century, while it only lasted for about 3 years, made an incredible impact that lasted into the next century.

What was the differrence?

The main players were very deep theologians

The three main players in the Great Awakening were Jonathon Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley. They all understood the doctrine of total depravity. They understood that unless the Holy Spirit moved in resurrection power in a person's heart that it was impossible for them to be saved. When they preached the gospel to a group of unbelievers they were just like the prophet in Ezekiel 37. They were preaching to the residents of an old cemetary and apart from God performing a miracle nothing was going to happen. 

Music style didn't matter. Preaching style didn't matter. There was no church growth strategy or technique that they could employ to cause the dead to rise. 

DEAD PEOPLE CAN'T HEAR!!

As such these men knew that because they could do nothing to get dead people to hear the gospel they had to depend completely on God for there to be any spiritual harvest. They understood that preaching the gospel and making disciples was simply what God commanded them to do. Nowhere does it tell us to save people. That is strictly the job of the Holy Spirit.

So these men simply did what they had been doing all along, preached sound doctrine:

"You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine." Titus 2:1 NIV

Perhaps the most famous sermon ever preached in America was Jonathon Edwards', Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God. In it, Pastor Edwards painted a vivid picture of how detestable our sin is to a perfect, holy God. Let's imagine that 2 people walked into a colonial church one morning where he happened to be preaching that sermon. And let's imagine that God is saving one of them but not the other. To the person not being saved this sermon was simply the mad ravings of a lunatic. To the person being saved it had the deep convicting power of sin and their desperate need for a savior. As it says in 1 Corinthians 1:18:

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Here is an excerpt from an evangelical sermon by George Whitefield entitled, The Holy Spirit Convincing The World of Sin, Righteousness and Judgment:

"And did the Comforter, my dear friends ever come with such convincing power as this into your hearts? Were you ever made to see and feel that in your flesh dwelleth no good thing; that you are conceived and born in sin; that you are by nature children of wrath; that God would be just if he damned you, though you never committed an actual sin in your lives? So often as you have been at church and sacrement, did you ever confess that there was no health in you; that the remembrance of your original sin and actual sins was grievous to you, and the burden intolerable? If not, you have been offering to God vain oblations; you have never yet prayed in your lives; the Comforter never yet came effectually into your souls: consequently you are not in the faith properly so called; No, you are at present in a state of death and damnation."

We don't hear such statements from the pulpits today. Is it possible that we have entered the time spoken of by Paul in 2 Timothy 4:3:

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

Compare Pastor Whitefield's message to the following 'gospel invitation' from Rick Warren's best seller, The Purpose Driven Life (pp. 58-59):

"Right now, God is inviting you to live for his glory by fulfilling the purposes he made you for. It's really the only way to live. Everything else is just existing. Real life begins by committing yourself completely to Jesus Christ. If you are not sure you have done this, all you need to do is receive and believe. The Bible promises, 'To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.' Will you accept his offer?

First, believe. Believe God loves you and made you for his purposes. Believe you are not an accident. Believe you were made to last forever. Believe God has chosen you to have a relationship with Jesus, who died on the cross for you. Believe that no matter what you have done, God wants to forgive you.

Second, receive. Receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Receive his forgiveness for your sins. Receive his Spirit, who will give you the power to fulfill your life purpose. The Bible says, 'Whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever!' Wherever you are reading this, I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity: 'Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you." Go ahead.

If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the family of God! You are now ready to discover and start living God's purpose for your life."

Notice that there is nothing about the condemned state of the unsaved. There is nothing about the coming judgment for the unrepentant sinner. While sin and forgiveness are mentioned, they are not defined. There is no conviction of one's inherent sinfulness and there is no call to repent. The fact is, the gospel call in Pastor Warren's book has absolutely no resemblance to what Jesus Christ and the apostles preached. Therefore it is NOT the gospel and it logically follows that if an individual responded to this call it is most likely that they are no more saved than they were before. 

The majority of the church has embraced this type of evengelical message.Often the message focuses on the 'benefits' of accepting Jesus as your personal savior; "Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." "He wants to heal your brokenness, your health, your marriages, your finances, etc."  Sin, if it is mentioned at all, is treated as something unfortunate, a mistake, or something that keeps you from finding your true destiny. 

The problem is that this message is very appealing to carnal people, not just those who are being saved. And because of this it only follows logically that a lot of people who are responding to these 'gospel calls' are not truly saved but are pronounced saved because they repeated a prayer and are being welcomed into the body. 

And now there are more goats than sheep in the fold.

That is why the church is making so little of an impact on the culture. It's not that we aren't doing a good job of discipleship, although that is a problem. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT DISCIPLE A GOAT INTO A SHEEP!!

Now some of you may be saying, 'But I got saved at a crusade or revival meeting when I prayed a similar prayer.' That is possible because God is sovereign and he saves those who he has elected regardless of the circumstances. But I would also implore you to follow the admonition in 2 Corinthians 13:5:

"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"

Look at Pastor Whitefield's message again as if it were a mirror. Is that what you see when you look into it? This is not just for those who may have responded to an unbiblical gospel invitation. This is an imperative for all believers. We are to regularly examine ourselves. As it says in 1 Corinthians 10:12:

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!"

 In Part 2 we will look at how salt loses it's flavor.

May God bless each and every one of you and may you all "make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble." (2 Peter 1:10)