(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Man, the title of my sermon this evening is, What Does Revival Look Like? What does revival look like? And we're looking, first of all, at this passage in 2 Kings chapter 18 about a great revival in the nation of Israel, specifically the southern kingdom of Judah, that took place in the days of King Hezekiah. Of course, we talked about him briefly when we just kind of touched on Proverbs 25 verse 1 on Wednesday night and talked about how the men of Hezekiah had copied out those proverbs of Solomon. And it makes sense that that happened during this time of revival. But what does revival look like? You know, you hear this word, a lot of buzzword of praying for revival or revival broke out over the like it's like it's a forest fire that just kind of breaks out and, you know, all the stars align a certain way and all of a sudden, boom, we have revival. The old IFB is kind of fixated on praying for revival. Well, let's look at this in the Bible and see what it looks like. Obviously, the word revival literally means coming back from the dead, right? Because if you revive, it means basically you're living again, re-vive. You speak Spanish, vivir means to live, right? So Jesus Christ died on the cross and was buried and then three days later, he revived in a sense, right? He came back from the dead. And so this idea of revival is that God's people become alive again as far as maybe the church has gotten dead or Christianity's got a little bit dead and dry and people have gotten away from the Lord and they're, you know, now they're firing things up again, getting excited. This is the terminology that we hear in our day, revival, right? Pray for revival. There's a revival happening or sometimes a specific meeting will just get labeled as like this is a revival meeting at seven o'clock on this date or whatever. But let's see what a biblical revival actually looks like. It says in 2 Kings 18 verse 3 about King Hezekiah when he began to reign, he's 25 years old. Look at verse 3. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father did. He's ready to bring revival. Verse 4, he removed the high places and break down the, he break the images, cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made for unto these days the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called it Nehushtan. Now point number one, breaking things. Okay, what does revival look like? The first thing that he does is he's breaking idols, he's cutting down the groves, he's breaking in pieces the brazen serpent. You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like Hezekiah is kind of a stickler for worshiping the Lord the right way. It doesn't seem like he's just like, hey everybody, let's just deepen our feelings about the Lord right now. It seems more like, hey, let's get rid of some wrong things here. Let's get rid of some idolatry that's crept in. Let's get rid of false teaching that's crept in. Let's not allow this violation of scripture where God says not to worship Him in the high places. It's going on. Let's follow the Bible more closely and not go to the high places and that brazen serpent, hey, it was great in the wilderness, book of Numbers, but you know what? Now people are using it as an idol, destroy it, get rid of it. Now everyone would agree that this is Hezekiah bringing revival to a backslidden nation. The Bible says in verse 5, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah nor any that were before him. Even though David is the guy that's always looked to as the man after God's own heart, the great king of Israel, Israel in its heyday and so forth, you know, Hezekiah was special in his own way too. Even though David's a great man of God, even though Josiah who's coming in a few chapters a great man of God, we're going to look at that tonight as well as another example of revival. Hezekiah was special, Hezekiah was unique. God is really using him in a big way to bring revival. It says in verse 6, the secret to his greatness, he claved to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. Notice how Bible based this is, does everybody notice that? He kept God's commandments and then the Bible says what's almost redundant, which the Lord commanded Moses. Hey, I'm talking about the stuff that's actually written in the written word of God, the Bible. I'm talking about the books of the Bible here that Moses wrote. That's what this guy's doing. And the Lord was with him, verse 7, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not. He smote the Philistines even unto Gaza and the borders thereof from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city. So we have breaking down of idolatry, tightening up of the practice of their faith to match the word of God. We have smiting and rebelling against wickedness and evil that surrounds them. This is what revival looked like in the days of Hezekiah. Let's look at the revival with Josiah. Let's flip forward a few pages in our Bible to chapter 23 and let's look at a revival in the days of Josiah. Let's get a biblical view of what revival looks like according to scripture. The rest of chapter 18, we just read it before the service, but of course there's opposition that comes and the enemies come to fight and Hezekiah has to stand up to those enemies and so forth. That's another sermon, but look at chapter 23. This is Josiah, another godly king who's coming after some wicked kings and so he has to bring some revival, he has to fix things. It says in verse number one, and the king sent and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem and the king went up into the house of the Lord and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him and the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great, and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. What is it that we're reading here? We're pulling out the Bible, whether it's Exodus or Deuteronomy or Leviticus or Numbers, whatever is being pulled out, probably the book of Deuteronomy, but whatever. It's the Bible. It's God's word and they're basically doing a reading that's going to take a few hours, reading through whatever particular portion of scripture they're reading here, maybe all of the above, but they're reading the book of the covenant, the book of the law of God, and they're reading it in the ears of all the people both small and great. So again, notice the focus on the written word of God, let's get back to the Bible, let's get back to what God has told us to do in his word. And the king stood by a pillar, verse 3, and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes. This all sounds way too legalistic for me, man. Somebody needs to explain to Hezekiah and Josiah that it's just about the relationship. It's not about the dos and the don'ts. But yet when we see revival among God's people in the Old Testament, what do we see? Hey, let's get back to the Bible. Let's see what God has commanded. Let's do things God's way. Let's get right with God. Let's fix things and line them up with scripture, okay? And so he's interested in the commandments, the testimonies, the statutes, and he wants to keep those things with all his heart and soul. So is there an emotional component? Absolutely. Getting excited about the Bible, getting excited about good doctrine, getting excited about following what the Bible says, getting your heart and your soul into the word of God and following the word of God and doing the word of God, not just being a hearer of the word but a doer. To perform, it says at the end of verse 3, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. Again notice the emphasis on written, book, Moses, law, word. It's about the Bible, my friend. The king commanded Hilkiah the priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the door to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made to get this Baal trash out of the house of God, right? All the vessels that were made for Baal and for the grove and for all the hosts of heaven and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel. Does that sound to you a lot like the Hezekiah revival? Breaking idols, breaking down images, even images that are being worshiped in the name of the Lord like that brazen serpent. Destroy it. Get rid of idolatry. Burn all this junk that has been allowed to creep into the house of God over the years that has to do with Baal or the groves or the hosts of heaven. Verse five, he put down the idolatrous priests. You know these priests that are into idolatry? Get rid of them. Whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places right about Jerusalem, them also that burned incense unto Baal to the sun and to the moon and to the planets and to all the hosts of heaven and he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord without Jerusalem unto the brook Kidron and burned it at the brook Kidron and stamped it small to powder and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. And he break down the, oh man this is about to get good, woo hoo hoo hoo hoo, and he break down the houses of the Sodomites that were by the house of the Lord where the fag hags wove hangings for the grove. That's in the original Hebrew. But anyway, where the women wove hangings for the grove and he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Beersheba and break down the high places of the gates that were in the entering out of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city. Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of their unleavened bread among their brethren and he defiled Tophet which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech and he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the son at the entering in of the house of the Lord by the chamber of Nathan Melech the chamberlain which was in the suburbs and burned the chariots of the son with fire and the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz. More breaking stuff is what we're going to see here. Beating down, break them down, cast the dust of them if you see that in verse 12 right? Verse 13 the high places that were before Jerusalem which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon did the king defile and he break in pieces the images and cut down the groves and filled their places with the bones of men and folks this goes on and on I'm not going to read it for sake of time but rest assured more graves of false prophets are going to be desecrated, things will be broken, destroyed, burned, ground up and they find the false prophets and they desecrate their graves. They dishonor their graves. They spit on their grave. They defile their graves and they destroy idolatry. They get rid of idolatrous priests, false prophets and then of course if we jump forward, let's see here if we want to touch on any of this before we move on, how about verse 24? Remember the workers with familiar spirits were in chapter 23 verse 24? The workers with familiar spirits, the wizards, the images and the idols and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem did Josiah put away that he might perform the words of the law which were written and just in case you're still not getting the idea, they were written in the book, okay we're talking about the Bible here that he'll kiah the priest found in the house of the Lord and like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. Let me ask you this, does this guy love God or not? Because he's not just going through the motions here. All his heart, all his soul, all his might, he feels this deeply doesn't he? But it's all about following the Bible, cleaning house, getting things right, fighting against the wickedness and idolatry, false teachings, false doctrines, things that don't jive with the words of the law which are written in the book, okay? And it says that he turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the law of Moses, just in case we didn't get the idea that it's all based on the Bible. Neither after him arose there any like him and on and on the story goes and of course we know that he's going to have Passover and Hezekiah of course had a Passover and so forth and these guys are doing great things for God and they are bringing revival to God's people and anyone would agree and call this Hezekiah's revival, Josiah's revival, right? So this is what revival looks like. Now some people would look at this picture that I'm painting of revival here and say, well, you know, Pastor Anderson, you know, you're kind of a little bit stuck in the Old Testament with your view of revival, you know, we need a New Testament view of revival, okay? Well, we're going to look at the New Testament of course and get a New Testament take on this but we don't ever want to forget that all scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine and in fact that the New Testament specifically says of Old Testament scriptures that all these things were written for our admonition, those of us who are in the New Testament, right, that they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come and so we in the New Testament are supposed to look to the Old Testament for examples of how God works, for examples of how to live our lives. The Old Testament is still profitable for doctrine today. It hasn't become expired or obsolete. Basically there are differences between Old and New Testament but still the Old Testament is still the Word of God, it's still profitable for doctrine, it's still a great truth and we can still learn about revival from studying the Old Testament of course, okay? But let's go to the New Testament, let's go to the Book of Acts because here's the thing, we end up using a lot of Old Testament stories to make these biblical points because of the fact that the New Testament is shorter than the Old Testament and it contains a lot less historical books. I mean we've got the four gospels which are about the life of Christ so everything's about the life of Jesus in the first four books and then we really only have one historical book about Christians living in the New Testament after Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. We have this one book, the Acts of the Apostles and so there's not really a whole lot to go on and everything's new, it's more about churches being founded and so forth so there isn't really necessarily a lot of revival going on where hundreds of years have gone by or decades have gone by and things have gotten dead and they need to be fired up again or something. So we look to Hezekiah, we look to Josiah and we can get some examples of what that looks like but you know, let's go to the New Testament though because obviously the New Testament does have some relevant things to say that we could of course apply to revival in a New Testament sense, okay? Now when we think of revival from a book of Acts perspective, we're probably going to be thinking a lot about the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the pouring out of God's Spirit upon the early Christians, right? In chapter 2, in chapter 4, all throughout these early chapters of Acts, we see God's Spirit moving in a powerful way. What does that look like? You know, we talked about what an Old Testament revival looks like. What does it look like when we see this pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2? Not necessarily a revival per se but yet a great outpouring of the Spirit of God. Well what we see in Acts chapter 2 is that we have God's people, the early church, 120 people in number, they're all filled with the Holy Spirit and they are actually preaching the Gospel to people that are hearing them speak in their own language. And people are surprised by this, they're shocked by this saying, you know, aren't these guys all Galileans? How are we hearing the wonderful works of God in our own language? And so they're hearing the Word of God in their own language. The Word of God is being preached and Peter gets up and he preaches also to the Jews that are dwelling at Jerusalem and explains to them what's going on with the speaking in foreign languages and how God did this miracle where they're speaking to all these people from all these different countries and they're hearing the Gospel. And when all's said and done, what's the result of all of this activity of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2? Look at verse 41, then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day they were added unto them about 3,000 souls. Now here what we see is 3,000 people who had previously not trusted Christ, right? I mean these people that are being added, these aren't Christians, they're a little backslidden and now they're getting excited. These are unsaved people getting saved, right? These are people gladly receiving the Word of God and if you read Peter's sermon of course he's telling them, hey you crucified Jesus and God raised him from the dead and you need to receive Christ, believe on Christ, okay? And so yeah, 3,000 souls are added. Go to chapter 4 verse 31. It says, and when they had prayed, here's another outpouring of the Spirit in the book of Acts, the early church has gathered together, they're being persecuted, they're praying together, and when they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the Word of God with boldness. They spake the Word of God with boldness because they're filled with the Holy Ghost. I wonder if that's why in chapter 5 verse 42 we read this, and daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Plus they're boldly preaching the Gospel in the temple and from house to house. In chapter 2 they're evangelizing in a bunch of different languages, a bunch of people are being saved when they hear the Word of God in their own language, 3,000 people get baptized, you've got people being added like crazy, again 5,000 more added in chapter 3 and then in chapter 4 they pray, the place is shaken, and the evidence of them being filled with the Holy Spirit is that they spoke the Word of God with boldness according to Acts chapter 4 verse 31 and then in chapter 5 verse 41, if you back up one verse, it says they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name because they're being punished for preaching the Word of God, but that didn't stop them because they had that boldness from being filled with the Holy Spirit. Daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Now is there any connection between what we're reading here in Acts, what we're seeing here in Acts, mass amounts of people getting saved in chapter 2, getting saved in chapter 3, bold preaching in chapter 2 by Peter, bold preaching in chapter 3, bold preaching in chapters 4 and 5, God's Word being boldly preached, that's the theme, multitudes getting saved, multitudes getting baptized, daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Well you know there's an evangelistic component even in the revivals of Hezekiah and Josiah because we read about how during that period not only are they breaking down all the images and Baal and all the false doctrine and false worship, but you know they also send ambassadors into the neighboring northern kingdom of Israel in the days of Hezekiah trying to get people to come down to Judah and celebrate the Passover, right? And trying to reach out to people and say hey come back to the Lord here, you guys are worshiping a false god up there, you know come down here, quit worshiping those golden calves and worship the Lord. So you know that's evangelism in a sense because they're reaching out and trying to get people to follow the Lord and actually worship Him instead of worshiping false gods. Okay now this is what I've just shown you is a little different than the view that many people today have of revival because you know we're taking a biblical view of revival, but what is the typical view of revival? Well it's funny because over the past few days what I've been seeing on social media is that there's a revival going on at this place that I'd never heard of, this place called Asbury University in Kentucky, this Christian college with 1600 students and there's this big revival going on and everybody's so excited about, oh revival is breaking out. Revival has struck! You know because you have to put yourself in these people's mindset because we often don't understand what are you even talking about, why? You want to know why we don't know what they're talking about? Because we live in a constant state of revival here for the last 17 years. We already have the right Bible, we already have the right gospel, we already got rid of Baal worship and all the false idols and false junk, we already got rid of it years ago and we're out evangelizing every single week! And so if our church is out en masse, knocking doors, preaching the gospel every single week, we don't need revival because we're not dead. And we're not praying like, oh God send us revival because it's like, so what would that look like? Getting rid of all the false corrupt Bibles in our auditorium? We would take all the corrupt Bibles and burn them, we already did that. We'd get rid of all the idolatry around the auditorium, done! Maybe we'd send out messengers throughout all the land of Arizona and California and we'd go out and just preach the gospel to every creature, I don't know, maybe we'd knock on like a couple thousand doors this week, maybe we'd just knock on like thousands of doors this week. Oh yeah, we did that this week. And the week before, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that, somebody tell me when I get to 52 times 17. And the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that. Meanwhile, there are churches in America that literally have no soul winning program, they're never knocking on a door and giving a stranger the gospel, they're never walking up and down the street just stopping random people and preaching the gospel to them, but they're praying for revival. They do have their church filled with a bunch of corruptions and idols and false corrupt Bibles, perversions of scripture, all kinds of things, but they're waiting for revival to come. I've heard this my whole life, like you never know where it's going to hit, you don't know when it's going to hit, it's like some kind of a triple rainbow that hits a four leaf clover and the sun, moon, and star, and it's just like God's just kind of like up in heaven and every hundred years or so, or every 20 years or so, he's just like, all right, time to just dump out some Holy Spirit revival. And it's just like, oh, please pour it out in Arizona. Please dump it over here. Please dump it in my lifetime. You know, folks know Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And you know what revival is when a guy like has a Kaya or a guy like Josiah or a guy like you or a gal like you decides to get rid of junk to go to the word of God to spend a few hours reading the Bible, to read the Bible out loud to groups of people, to read the Bible to yourself, to pray, to do what the Bible has said to evangelize. This is revival. What kind of a spooky, mystical, wild thing are you looking for to happen? Because last time I checked revival is when we're obeying God, serving Christ, winning souls, baptizing converts and preaching against sin, preaching against people who are worshiping that brazen serpent, preaching against the grove churches and the bail churches and the high place churches and the idolatrous priests, preaching against them, fighting against them, smiting them, breaking down all of these false wrong things and going out and evangelizing and digging into the word of God like never before and doing what we've seen God has told us in the word of God. Do what we've been told to do in the Bible. Not just all of a sudden we're in a particularly emotional service and everybody gets excited or whatever. So here's how long it took me to research this revival. Here's the first thing I did. Oh, you're going to hate what I did, how cynical I am. The first thing I did was figure out like what denomination are we even talking about here? Because, I don't know, am I supposed to get excited about a revival down at the Roman Catholic Church? Maybe we can get excited about a revival down at the Mormon temple. Maybe we can get excited about a revival amongst the Muslims. I don't know. Maybe we can get excited about the Jehovah's Witnesses experiencing revival. You say, well Pastor Anderson, that's crazy. You're listing all these people that are not even real Christians. You know, you're talking about all these cults of the Mormons and the JWs. I don't know, maybe the Seventh-day Adventists are having a revival. Maybe we can get excited about an outpouring down there. The first thing I did was just, I just checked like what is this college where this revival is supposedly taking place? Asbury College? You know, so I just went to their website about us and they said, we're in the Wesleyan holiness tradition. And, wrong answer! Because you know what? John Wesley wrote a whole book about how you can lose your salvation. My friend, that's not the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins when he died on the cross for our sins and was buried and rose again three days later according to the Scriptures. That's the Gospel, is that salvation is paid for by the blood of Jesus and that anyone who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is saved and has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life. Not the Wesleyan holiness crowd, the crowd that says, well if I just keep repenting of my sins enough, maybe I can stay saved. They think you get saved by repenting of your sins and then you have to stay saved by repenting of your sins. They believe that if you don't live right, you're going to lose your salvation. Oh, you know why? You're such a stickler for doctrine. And I heard, I saw people posting about this revival and they said, hey, you should be excited about this whether you're Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, or Methodist. And I'm thinking to myself, why would a Baptist or even a Presbyterian get excited about revival amongst Pentecostals and Methodists? Guess what? Pentecostals and Methodists don't believe the Gospel. And you know what? You think that's a harsh statement? Then why don't you go out with us knocking doors and let's go talk to a hundred Pentecostals and a hundred Methodists. Right? I mean, look, I've been out knocking doors every week for the last 17 years. Many of you have knocked thousands of doors. I've knocked thousands of doors. I've spent thousands of hours knocking doors. Many of you have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours knocking doors. We've talked to hundreds of Methodists. We talked to hundreds of Pentecostals. And you know what they say? Well, I mean, you can't just live however you want. You've got to follow the commandments. Do you know for sure if you die today you're going to heaven? Well, I think so. I'm a pretty good person. Do you believe you're going to heaven? Do you know for sure you're going to heaven? Yeah. I know. How do you know you're going to heaven? Oh, because of the fact that I'm a really good person. I follow the commandments. I'm following Christ. What do you think a person has to do in heaven? Oh, just live like Jesus. Oh, is that all? That's always the funniest answer when I ask someone, what do I have to do to go to heaven? They say, live like Christ. I'm like, wow, that's a tall order. Because last time I checked, no one has ever lived up to Jesus. Well, just live like Jesus. Oh, well, why didn't you say so? Why didn't you tell me it was so easy to be saved? Just live like Jesus. Perfect. Outstanding. Except, guess what? None of us could even begin to live a life that would even come close to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ's righteousness is so far above us. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And look, my friend, if you want, you can pretend, if it makes you feel good, you can live in a fantasy world where Methodists and Pentecostals actually believe that Jesus is their savior and that they're going to heaven because of him, or you could actually come with me and go talk to them and find out that they are trusting in themselves and that they say I'm going because I'm living a good life, I follow the commandments, and they say, if you get backslidden, you'll lose your salvation. If you don't go to church, if you don't live right, if you don't follow Christ, you're not going because they're teaching a works-based salvation. Now look, you say, well, okay, but I still think they're saved anyway. Okay, well then let's just acknowledge then that if you think that works-based Pentecostals who believe you can lose your salvation and the works-based Methodist Church, which teaches that you can lose your salvation, the founder wrote an entire book about losing your salvation, then why don't you just, then we're going to have to agree that all the Roman Catholics are going to heaven, too. Why not? If you're saying like, well, how dare you say that Methodists and Pentecostals aren't saved? Well, okay, then I guess Catholics are saved. In fact, why don't we just say that the Mormons are saved while we're at it? I mean, the Mormons say that they believe in Jesus. They got Jesus on the name of the sign. Is his name on the sign or not? Well, that's different. You know what? Let me tell you something. The Charismaniacs, the Methodists, the Pentecostals have as much damnable heresy as the Roman Catholic Church. And you know what? There's not a hell number one and a hell number two for these people, okay? And you know what? Any of them can get saved whenever they want by trusting in Jesus and not believing in their own works for salvation, okay? We are not saved by our works. If we're saved by our works, then Christ died in vain. Jesus Christ's death on the cross is meaningless if we're saved by works. I don't frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. So right away, you know, oh, revival is taking place. As soon as I see that it's Wesleyan holiness tradition, folks, let me tell you something. I've been out there. I've talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these people. I've never met anyone who was a Wesleyan holiness person that said, actually, I'm saved because I believe in Jesus and I'm eternally saved by grace. Not by anything I've done and there's nothing I can do to lose my salvation. Because that's not what they believe. That's not what that denomination believes. Now I'm sure that there are people who go to Pentecostal churches that are saved because they just don't know what they believe and they in their heart believe that it's by faith. But guess what? Because some of these churches, they're not really teaching any doctrine. So it's just like, it's just kind of woo, you know, and then you go home. And I've met people who gave me a really firm view on salvation and I said, why are you going to that Pentecostal church? And they're like, no, my church doesn't believe you can lose your salvation. I said, okay, why don't we pull up your church's statement of faith right now? And I pulled it up and showed her and she said, well, I guess you're right. I'm like, yeah, I guess so. But the point is that, you know, yeah, there could be people who go to these churches, but the church's official doctrine and what the leadership is teaching and therefore what the vast majority of them believe is damnable heresy. And that's why when we go out door to door, these people typically don't even tell us that you know, it's, you know, it's, this is what's so funny. People get mad at me as a fundamentalist Baptist for acting like Pentecostals and Methodists aren't safe, but we go talk to them. They don't even act like they're saved. Like I'm supposed to declare them all safe. They won't even declare themselves saved. If I knock on their door half the time, they're like, I hope so. But I'm supposed to be sure they're not even sure. That when they are sure it's because they, it's because they lived a good life. It's because they kept the commandments. It's because they go to church and it's because they got baptized and sanctified and, and, and spake in tongues or whatever it is that they do. And I'm telling you, my friend, doctrine matters. Let's go back earlier part of the sermon. If doctrine doesn't matter, if we're supposed to just get excited, Hey, it doesn't matter if you're a baby baptizer or if you're immersing. It doesn't matter if you believe that salvation is eternal or that it's now I'm saved. Now I'm not. Now I'm saved. Now I'm not. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you believe it's, you must be born again or you must be born again and again and again and again and again. Nope. Doesn't matter. You're supposed to get excited about this. Just shut up and get excited about the revival that's going on in Kentucky. Why should the denomination matter? Doesn't matter if it's Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal or Methodist. Get excited about it. Who cares if they're sprinkling or Duncan or salvation by faith, salvation by works. Who cares? It's revival. Is that, is that the Hezekiah attitude? Hey, who cares? You know what? Look man, I don't care if your particular worship of the Lord is the kind that takes place at Jerusalem or the kind that takes place at the groves or the kind that takes place at the high places or the kind that takes place in Bethel at the golden calf, as long as you're worshiping the Lord, shut up, it's revival. Was that Hezekiah's attitude? Was that Josiah's attitude or was it all about, hey, let's go to the Bible and purge out false doctrine, purge out idols, get rid of the false teachings and let's be actually conformed to what God has told us to do in his word. Let's get to the Bible. In fact, let's read the Bible out loud for hours. Let's just get everybody together and read the Bible out loud for hours and do what it says. Revival. That's what I see in the Bible. You know what else I see? I see evangelism. I see every house daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. So you know, the first thing I did was just try to figure out what denomination. Of course they tried to, you know, it's hard to find that page. I couldn't find any kind of a statement of faith. All I found was we're Wesleyan holiness. And again, I'm not saying that all of the students are not saved because of course it's a non-denom school that's probably just taking any students whose money is green who are halfway Christian and so I'm sure it has people from other, I'm sure there are Baptists going there. It's probably just a mix of just people who are going there. But the school itself is part of a heretical tradition of false Christianity called the Wesleyan holiness movement. And if you go out so many you'll find that holiness Pentecostals are some of the worst heretics that are the most hardcore about their workspace salvation. That's just the reality of going out there in the mean streets of Phoenix actually getting your hands dirty and actually doing some of the work of the Lord as opposed to just sitting around saying Pastor Anderson's mean and he's strict and he doesn't, you know, he's too narrow and he doesn't know. And he just thinks that only Baptists are right. Hey, my friend, what would I be if I weren't Baptist? You say, well, what denomination would you, you know, what would you be if you weren't Baptist? I'd be ashamed of myself is what I would be if I weren't Baptist. But here's the thing about that is that, and that's a joke, but obviously there are churches out there that are not Baptists that are still preaching the right Gospel. You'll find non-denominational churches. We'll go to a certain area and knock all the doors in that area and there'll be a certain non-denominational church or even like maybe a Calvary Chapel or something where all the people who go there actually give us a clear testimony of salvation and it's like, okay, yeah, all right. You know, but then we'll get around another Calvary Chapel where they're all giving us the wrong answer. And then over here we'll get around so-and-so the Bible church and everybody's given us the right answer. And then we get over here and they don't, you know, obviously, you know, there's difference, but never do we get around a Pentecostal church or a Methodist church and just get a bunch of right answers. It just doesn't happen out there in the field. Okay. Why don't you do a little science experiment and go soul winning for the next few years and log your data and see what you come up with. Okay. Uh, you know, and look, I do believe that there are some saved Presbyterians, but the vast majority of Presbyterians are not even close to being saved. Okay. The vast majority of them are way out there. The big Presbyterian denominations in America are supporting sodomites. They're not breaking down the house of the sodomites. They're flying a rainbow flag in front of their church building. Okay. So anyway, so that was the first, the first thing I did, you know, I just, I went to this college's website and I saw Wesleyan Holiness. Ah, you lost me right there. I'm out. Bye. Done here. See ya. Okay. But then I'm reading about it more and basically this is what revival, because I want to know like what is it that, that people think of when they think of revival? Because all these Baptists are excited about this revival. I mean, what I was seeing was Baptist newsletters, Baptist preachers, Baptists on Facebook getting excited about this and saying how wonderful it is and hey, we should be excited about it even if we're Baptist, yada, yada, yada. This is what the revival consists of. They went to chapel. They showed up at chapel because you know, if you go to Bible college, they have chapel every day. Or if you went to, who went to Christian school as a kid or you've been to Bible college or something. Wow. So we have a couple of hundred people here and there's like six of us or seven of us who went to Christian school or Bible college. All right. Well, okay, you six or seven. You know, you go to chapel every day and it's basically like a little miniature church service, am I right? It's like a church service in miniature five days a week. You know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you sing some hymns, you have a sermon, you sing another song, you go to your next class and sometimes it's every day, sometimes it's once a week. When I went to a Bible college at Hiles Anderson college, chapel was every day. So every day at 11 o'clock, you know, you, you, you finished your classes and then at 11 or 12 o'clock, I forget which one it was. We'd go to chapel and have a little church service that lasted for an hour. Sometimes in Christian school, it would only happen once a week. Some places happen twice a week, whatever. So this college, they had a chapel service and what happened was when the chapel service ended, this is how the revival broke out. And by the way, this is like breaking news right now. Like it's, this thing is still happening right now. Like this is like an up to the minute report right here that I'm giving you. Okay. Cause this just happened a couple of days ago. This started a couple of days ago and it's happening right now in Kentucky. Okay. I mean, forget the super bowl. I mean, this is happening now. Okay. No, really forget the super bowl. But anyway, that's another, I digress. But anyway, so here's the, here's the thing. Hey, I'm just glad you guys are here instead of watching the super bowl. Amen. Is it, isn't it like happening? Doesn't it conflict with church? It's not right now. It's not right now. Are you checking it during the start? People are kind of like, oh, I'm just using the Bible app on my phone. I didn't even know the super bowl was even happening until like two or three days ago. So I don't even know who's playing. And then I thought like a Phoenix team must be playing, but then it seemed like the teams were teams that are not Arizona teams, but then I guess they need like a neutral turf. Is that what it is? Not even. Yeah, I don't even, I don't know. But yeah. Blah. Anyway, I'm not into it. Sorry. Sorry for you football fans out there, but I'm glad you're here. You made the right choice. So what were we talking about? Oh, the big news. Forget the super bowl, Asbury, the revival that's going on. So what happened is they had chapel a couple of days ago and the service ended and some students stayed after and they just, they just, they just kept praying and they just kept singing and they just, it's like they wanted more. And so it just kind of kept going. And so it just became like a 24 hour singing testimonies, praying, and they're like, what's happening? This isn't on the schedule. Whoa, whoa. This is, it was like a, it was like a spontaneous movement where just everybody just decided to say it was like nobody planned it. Nobody. It was just like, all of a sudden just, it's just like, what are we doing? It's supposed to be over. Why isn't anyone leaving? I'm trying to go to class, but it seems like it's, whoa, whoa, why am I going back? I'm going back. You're right. Whoa, I'm back. And they're basically there and just all day, all night, people are kind of coming and going, but it's kind of just like this ongoing church service that just doesn't stop. And it's just a lot of praying and hugging and, and singing and, and all these different things. I don't think they've broken anything like I can't find because, because here's the thing I'm clicking, I clicked on a, you know, I just literally during the singing just now, cause I wanted to be up to the minute, you know, cause people are like live streaming from this thing. I just clicked on it randomly, you know, live February 11th, Asbury revival. I click on it randomly and it was like a guy was up there praying. And then the guy who's like holding the phone is like, habla, bla, bla, bla, bla blood, blood, blood, blood. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. And I was like, ah, I understand that part. It's like when I was watching Spanish TV as a kid and it's like, pampers, you know, it's like when you go to Disneyland and it's like a Chinese person, like, ching chong chong chong chong chong, goofy, choo choo choo choo choo, you're like, ah, I heard that, I got that, you know. Yeah, I was with Brother Mejia, soul winning in San Francisco and some Asians were talking in some language you couldn't understand. It was like, and Kam demons turns it is like, I understood that. It's like, I'm so glad that the Spirit led that guy to do the Amen in English, but what was all that other ma ma bla bla bla bla, and you know what's so funny is that, you You know, whenever these people do this fake tongue speaking, because that's what it is, it's fake. Because in the Bible, 100%, when they're speaking in an unknown tongue, it's a foreign, here's another word for unknown tongue, foreign language. That's why in Acts chapter two, it literally lists 17 languages. Creeds, Arabians, Parthians, Medes, it wasn't a bunch of mumbo jumbo, it was literal foreign languages that they were speaking. And they weren't amazed at the mumbo jumbo, they were amazed because they heard them speak in their own language. They're hearing an actual foreign language that they understand. They weren't amazed that they didn't understand, they were amazed that they did understand. Nobody's ever speaking gibberish in the Bible. But here's what's so funny is that like, whenever you hear these people speaking in tongues, like there's way too many like M's, B's and P's. It's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, like it'll be like one, and then you'll listen to another guy and he's more into like a different letter, like, you know, like one guy's into like, you know, one guy's into like the dental letters, one guy's into the labial letters, you know, some of them like it voiced, some of them like it unvoiced. But it's like, it's like you could tell they just kind of, it's like a, they're literally saying something that sounds kind of like blah, blah, blah. Like you can tell that's not a real language, because it's true when we listen to a foreign language it sounds like gibberish to us, but it isn't really just repeating the same bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, you know, in no language is it like, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, you know, it's never just the same, like it's too much, okay? So you know, that was like, like I click on it and that was the first thing I heard was the, the, the fake tongue talking, okay? Then I'm just, you know, just kind of jumping around in the video and it was just, it was just a lot of, it was just basically just a lot of music being performed. It was just kind of like this never-ending Christian concert, you know? And I remember I went to, I went to some of these Christian concerts as a teenager where it's like sing some songs for a while, band members come up and say some inspirational things, do a few more songs, say some stuff, do more stuff. This is just like, this is like basically, let me put it to you this way, the modern view of revival, it's not what the Bible teaches, it's more like a, a, a Christian version of Woodstock is what they really want. Because Woodstock was kind of a spontaneous outpouring of hippies, if you think about it. Stop and think about it. If you know the story of Woodstock, okay, yeah, yeah, this is your generation, alright? Can I, you know? All of a sudden you're, yeah, all of a sudden you're paying attention, no I'm just kidding. But here's the thing, you know, Woodstock, if you think about the story of Woodstock, here's the thing about it. It was not planned to be that big at all. The organizers planned for, I don't know, maybe, don't quote me on these exact numbers, but let's say they planned on like 10 or 20,000 people or something, you know, they planned on a certain size and it ended up being like a couple hundred thousand people that showed up or something like that. I don't know, do you remember the numbers? How many times have you seen that documentary? I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. You weren't there, man. Well, you know, if you remember it, you weren't there, you know what I'm saying? And if you were there and you remembered it, you weren't really there, you know what I mean? So anyway, here's the thing, you know, I might have the numbers wrong, but it's, it's something along the lines of like they planned for like 10 or 20,000 people and ended up being like 200,000 people or 300,000 people, some huge, because it was in like rural New York, like out in the boonies and just all these people showed up and they didn't have enough bathrooms. They didn't even begin to have enough bathrooms because they had planned for one tenth of the number, okay? And they had like this one hot dog stand that's supposed to just like do concessions for, you know, it was, they're trying to feed the 5,000 here with five loaves and two fishes. And basically what happened was they had to start jacking up the prices because of supply and demand. So it got towards like 20 bucks for a hot dog or something because it was just, it was such a commodity. So then a bunch of hippies came and just like tipped over the hot dog stand. They just pushed it over on its side. There was a lot of LSD, there were a lot of drugs. I'm sure there were a lot of ecstatic utterances. And you know I bet you there was a lot of crying, a lot of music, it was a lot of excitement, a lot of emotion, and you know some people decided to take LSD and then stare directly into the sun and they burned their eyes and had to go to the hospital and yeah. So the thing, and it went too long, it ended up spilling, it was supposed to be over on Sunday and up spilling into Monday and you know it was a disaster. And the organizers lost money, they didn't make any money. They're trying to like sell tickets, ended up just being free and there were just 300,000 hippies and yeah it was bad. And Brother Madison was not there for the record. Was anybody there? All right. So here's the thing about that and you say well that's pretty disrespectful for you to compare this to Woodstock. But I feel like basically what Christians are looking for with Revival is like a Christian version of Woodstock, a spontaneous concert like where it's just all of a sudden there's just ten times the result, ten times the impact, the music's playing, and everybody's feeling the love and it's the summer of love and it's just like so much outpouring of gratitude and joy and sharing and it's just, you just had to be there man. Folks I don't see any parallels between Woodstock and Josiah, Hezekiah, Acts but I can see parallels between what the modern conception is of Revival and Woodstock. A spontaneous outpouring of love, summer of love, music, you know just let's just be there day and night and overwhelm the bathrooms and whatever. So you know I mean for all I know the bathrooms at Asbury College are as clean as a whistle okay so I'm not saying anything about that. But the point is that you know they just stayed after and just kept singing, kept praying, kept worshiping, but have they gotten rid of their corrupt false Bible verses? It's like the Holy Spirit's leading them to sing and hold hands and do all this stuff but has the Holy Spirit led them to understand that the traditional text of God's word is the only real Bible and that these modern version of the month club Bibles are false? So have they been emptying the shelves of the NIV and the New American Standard and the ESV? Because you know that's the modern day false Trojan horse idolatry garbage that has come into the house of God, wrong Bibles, corrupt scriptures, corrupt doctrine. That's what we need to get rid of. That's the equivalent of the high places and the groves that we need to be getting rid of. Have they decided to actually get saved by placing all of their faith and trust in Christ instead of in their own works? And you know what's funny is that these articles that I read they kept emphasizing how they're doing so much repenting. They're just repenting. They said here's a photograph of students repenting and I was like how can I see that in this picture? Because I'm looking at a picture and I'm like what does repentance look like in a still photo? Can somebody come up here and just demonstrate the pose of what it looks like to repent? I mean what does that look like? Is it kind of like, you know what I mean? I'm trying to do like, this is a guy, you know, a man repenting circa 2023. You know like I'm kind of like turning around, get it? But it's just like an auditorium of students and some of them are kneeling and praying. It's like this is a picture of them repenting. I'll take your word for it, okay? But here's what's funny, you know, I'm a hundred percent for people repenting of their sins. Hey, who here would admit that you're a sinner tonight? Say you know what, I'm sorry I sin. I'm not perfect. I sin from time to time. Okay, so who thinks that we should all be repenting of our sins and whatever sins are life we should repent of them. Amen. I mean we all believe that, right? Okay, but you know what I'm not excited about? I'm not excited about somebody repenting of their sins because they think that that's going to get them into heaven. Like oh I have to get this sin out of my life so I can go to heaven because faith isn't enough. Because Jesus' blood on the cross isn't enough. His death, burial, and resurrection is not enough so I need to repent of my sins. That doesn't excite me at all because you know what, that is false. You know we can find people that stay up all night praying in a monastery. And you know what, they'll even beat themselves and stay up all night praying and chant and repeat the same thing for hours. You know, you want to know who holds the world record for singing non-stop the longest as a group? The Hindus. Yeah. I looked it up. I saw in the Guinness Book of World Records the Hare Krishnas spent like 11 days straight non-stop singing. Okay, so I don't know how that works if they're, you know I'm assuming they're allowed to do substitutions and they're swapping people out, sort of like a relay race, right? And I was thinking you know what, I'd like to give them a run for their money. I feel like Faithful Word could smash that, 11 days, because we could get people flying in from all over the country and just sing hymns and just, we'll just sing for like, and I just want to beat their record by just like 30 seconds. You know, and just we're going to be better singing athletes. It's like a singing athleticism where we can just keep the singing going long. You can do 11 days. If I see that 11 days, I'll do 12 days. Or you know what, we'll go 16, 17 days, we'll set a record that will stand for 100 years and then we'll make a t-shirt about it. Faithful Word Baptist versus the Hindus. Better luck next life. Hare Krishnas, better luck next life. Because we've taken away your one claim to fame. This is our town. This is our record. We hold the Guinness World, you know, but you know what, the thing that's, I mean it's funny. It sounds kind of fun, you know, but here's the thing about that is that that's not revival though, okay? It's not just this, yeah, let's just keep it going, keep it going, keep it going. You know, I mean, why don't we just keep this church service tonight going? And then maybe we could attract media attention from all over the world if we just don't go home tonight and everybody has to just call in work tomorrow and you know, we'll just take turns getting people up here to lead the singing. I mean, we'll take on the Hindus right now. Guinness, are you watching? Let's do it right now. I'm ready to take you on right now. Let's go. Who's ready? Chloe, you think I'm joking right now? But you know, she's getting excited because here's the thing, if I literally said, God's Spirit is moving me right now to have an all-night church service, you know what? All my teenagers would be like, yes. Miriam, are you for an all-night service right now? Let's party, right? Let's go. And look, in this revival I saw there's this one woman, this one woman had like an easel and she's just like standing there painting and they're just like, this woman's painting at the revival. I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't know, what do you guys like to do? I mean, we could have some prayer going on over here, we could have some singing going on over here, we could be reading our Bible over here. Well actually, I don't know, I didn't read about any Bible reading. So maybe we better stay in the genre here. Over here we'll be smashing idols and burning false scriptures. Oh wait, I didn't read about that either. Sorry, see, I'm thinking like a Baptist. But why not get some arts and crafts going? I don't know, maybe in the back over there we could have like an interpretive dance going on. Anybody here like to dance? You know, let's praise the Lord with the Timberland dance over here and we'll have music and you know what, we'll go all night. We got more bathrooms than Woodstock here and there's only a couple hundred of us, I think we can make this work. Okay? And yeah, but does everybody see what I'm saying tonight? You know, it's a college that's a false denomination, there's no talk of doctrine, there's no talk of purging a false doctrine. Hey, let's read the Bible out loud and let's get to the bottom of this, of salvation doctrine, baptism doctrine, let's read the book of John cover to cover and let's clean up the doctrine of this college. We got a lot of false doctrine in this college, let's read the whole New Testament. I mean if you're going to be there for 85 hours, folks, you could read the whole Bible cover to cover in 85 hours. I mean why not just set aside like maybe 19 hours to just a nonstop reading of the New Testament. You got 1600 students, you know, get 260 of them to volunteer to come up and read a chapter out loud, right? And then after each chapter you can talk about what false doctrine we're going to address from that chapter. Hey did you hear how they went bound both of them into the water and he baptized them? So let's get rid of the sprinkling, let's do baptism by immersion. That would be revival. I mean when a Methodist college starts teaching salvation by faith and starts dunking converts underwater, that's revival. Who would declare that a revival? I'll call that revival all day long. But you know, a bunch of, I guess a four day CCM concert with a lot of praise. And look folks, I grew up in Christian school, I've been to these revival services, I've been to these emotional chapel services where afterward everybody's hugging each other and crying and dedicating their lives to Christ and the next day they live the exact same life that they lived in the past and they're still not evangelizing, still not serious about serving God. But the truth, and I'm out of time, I'm kind of going on and on, but let me just kind of land the plane here, okay? The way the Christian life is actually lived is week by week, day by day. What revival is going to look like in a church is the church getting their doctrine right and starting up an evangelism program. We can't do that, we can't revive because we haven't died. As soon as we die we'll revive, but we haven't died yet. So you can't, it's like we're basically, we're totally alive and they're like coming to us with paddles like, all right man, I'm going to revive you. How would you like somebody coming at you with those electric paddles when you're fine? All right, I'm evangelist so and so, I'm here to bring revival and it's like clear. I don't need revival, I'm not dead. As soon as our church needs revival we'll let you know. But so far our pulse is beating and that pulse is going soul winning, soul winning, soul winning, Bible, Bible, Bible, preaching, preaching, preaching, go, go, go, missions, missions, missions. Okay, but here's the thing, let's say you need personal revival. Let's say you need revival in your personal life. Here's what that's going to look like. You getting up in the morning tomorrow and reading your Bible. You getting sin out of your life. You being a better husband, a better wife, a better child, a better parent. You getting right with God, being faithful to church, you going out soul winning. You know, I know you'd rather have a Christian style Woodstock, but what you really need is to read the Bible and do what it says. That's not what this revival over there is about. I wish it were. And people are just like, folks, I know it's easy to be skeptical, but let's just keep an open mind. Let's pray that it's real. Oh God, please let it be real. Oh dear Lord, please let it be real. Please let the Easter bunny be real, Lord. Please let the tooth fairy be real. Oh please, please let the moon be made of Swiss cheese, it would be so wonderful. Folks, it isn't real. I'm not going to pray that it's real. It's not real. You want to know why it's not real? Because it's not actually the gospel of salvation by faith alone. That's what the Baptists are preaching. You know why it's not real? It's not real because it doesn't resemble anything in the Bible. It doesn't resemble Hezekiah, it doesn't resemble Josiah, and it doesn't resemble the book of Acts because let me ask you this, are they knocking every door in their community right now? Why don't they leave that auditorium and go out and knock every door in the community and actually preach that salvation is a free gift, that it's by faith alone, but they can't do that because they don't even believe that themselves, most of them. Some of them probably do, but that's not what the college believes. I mean, Wesleyan holiness, please, my friend, I've been exposed to this and anybody who goes soul winning has been exposed to it and knows this is not a gospel preaching denomination. And so we need to get this, okay, let me close by saying this. We need to, as Baptists, we need to stop looking to the Methodist to show us what revival looks like. Let's not look to the Pentecostals to show us what revival looks like. Let's look to other Baptists to show us what revival looks like. And let's look to the Bible to show us what revival looks like, right? I mean, why don't we look to other Baptists that actually believe what we believe and see them getting excited, winning souls, getting right with God, lives change, people being baptized, getting rid of error and false doctrine. Let's get excited about that. But the problem is that the old IFB for years has been praising these Methodist revivals from 150 years ago for years and talk about, oh, Charles G. Finney and all these great preachers from the great awakening and everything. But when you actually go back and research those things, you'll find that these are a lot of them, a bunch of just holy rollers that don't believe in salvation by faith alone. We need a biblical view of revival. Actually, we don't need revival because we're not dead. But maybe you're personally dead, well, then get revived. Do that on your own time because we're going home tonight and sleeping in our own beds tonight. But we'll be back on Wednesday night. Seven o'clock. See you there. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for great men of God like Hezekiah and Josiah, Lord. Help us to learn from their godly example and understand that revival comes from getting back to the Bible, not just hearing the Bible, but doing the Bible. And Lord, help us to learn from the book of Acts that revival is about boldly preaching the Bible and going out and reaching the lost with the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.