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Revivalism or Fake Revival, Jesus Revolution, and Asbury, pt. 3
Religious or Spiritual Ecstasy, Soft Continuationism
Again and again through the years, I wrote on religious ecstasy, a perversion of true spirituality experienced in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12:1-3) [see here, here, here, here, here, and here]. In 1 Corinthians 1, when Paul said that the Jews seek after signs (1 Cor 1:22), they were seeking for some experiential means of authenticating their spirituality. God settled the faith once and for all (Jude 1:3) with the completion of scripture. God chooses to use the oracles of God and that glorifies Him (1 Peter 4:11).
With true signs not available, except for something demonically manufactured to impersonate them, men use cheap, superficial counterfeits. Usually these are a form of what some termed, “soft continuationism.” What Paul confronted in Corinth was ecstatic experience. Ecstasy means: “an emotional or religious frenzy or trance-like state, originally one involving an experience of mystic self-transcendence” More than any other way, to give this mystical feeling that the Holy Spirit is working, what is religious ecstasy, comes through music.
Asbury “Revival”
A Description
Someone seeking to justify the recent Asbury, Kentucky experience as revival, challenged what I wrote in part one in the comment section, to which I wrote on March 2:
I watched the earliest posted meeting at Asbury and zoomed through a very long period of Charismatic style emotionalism, repetitious, rock rhythmed, sentimental, superficial, doctrinally ambiguous, led by women, ecstatic music before getting to the “sermon,” which was nothing like Edwards or Whitefield. Maybe the aesthetic and spirit of the so-called worship means nothing to you, but it clashed with the biblical nature of God. It more reminded me of a Corinthian style revival.
If Charles Finney were alive, he would likely be proud of it. Everyone appeared in the egalitarian, postmodern casual, sloppy, and disordered dress (ripped blue jeans, etc.), giving no indication of anyone in authority. The man I heard used a few verses from a modern version, but at best you would be unsure what salvation was. It sounded more like Jesus as therapist. His list of sins that you put into your makeshift cup to give to Jesus included racism and terrorism. No one would even know who Jesus was, why or what it meant to believe in Him.
In Contrast
I continued.
I heard no biblical exposition. This is an updated kind of revival for today’s generation, like one of those Bibles with a hippie cover, to show how relevant the Bible could become. All of what I saw and heard conformed to the spirit of the age, would not dare distinguish itself, probably could not do that and be acceptable to that crowd.
It seemed that people in the audience were stirred to a certain degree. They were affected. I saw some emotion. Is that indications of the Holy Spirit? I have seen the same spirit, aroused by music in Charismatic settings, giving the impression that something spiritual is going on, but it choreographed by the feelings led by the music.
Similar Comments at the Shepherd’s Conference on March 8-10
After I wrote that on March 2, in the Q and A at his Shepherd’s Conference (the conference was March 8-10), someone asked John MacArthur about the Asbury so-called “revival.” The host referenced Jonathan Edwards and his historic and biblical teaching on the marks of revival. If it is revival, Edwards would say it must bear certain marks, or else it is fraudulent, a kind of impersonation like I said above. He said one assesses a true work of God based upon the Word of God and not emotion or feelings.
John MacArthur and Scott Aniol
MacArthur commented then on the Asbury Revival:
For most of those kids, it was not about Christ, but about the chords. It was about singing the same words for twenty minutes in a row in some kind of mesmerizing pseudo-spiritual experience that had no relationship to sound doctrine, to the depth of the gospel. I would like to know if that same revival would have occurred without the music. Shut the music down and find out what God is really doing.
I’m glad to hear MacArthur say essentially the same thing I said. Scott Aniol also picked up on this with an excellent article, you all should read, written on March 13, entitled, “Christ or Chords? The Manipulated Emotionalism of Hillsong, Asbury, and Pentecostalized Evangelical Worship.” He picked up on the comment by MacArthur, “not about Christ, but about the chords.” This is such an important theme for today.
Strange Fire?
MacArthur in the past gave a pass to contemporary style worship, using it in his own conference again and again. If anyone, like myself, criticized it, the MacArthur allies came out of the woodwork to attack me vehemently. In his now renowned Strange Fire Conference, MacArthur said the following, actually in contradiction of much of his own historic practice:
The contemporary evangelical church has very little interest in theology and doctrine, so you’re going to have a tough sell. It’s about style. And style is the Trojan Horse that lets Charismatics in the church. Because once you let the music in, the movement follows. It all of a sudden becomes common.
We sound like the Charismatics, sing like they do, have the same emotional feelings that they have. It’s a small step from doing the same music to buying into the movement. So the tough thing is you’re going back to a church that is thinking like that. It’s hard to make sound doctrine the issue when style is much more the interest of the leaders of the church.
Later he said:
I don’t think it has to do with what the teachers are saying. I think it’s the music. It’s like getting drunk so you don’t have to think about the issues of life. If you shut down the music, turn on the lights, and have someone get up there and try to sell that with just words, it’s not going to work. You’ve got to have some way to manipulate their minds.
Consistency and Discernment
The people MacArthur used in the Shepherd’s Conference in the past use a Charismatic style of worship, led by women very often, and giving the same kind of trance-like ecstatic experience. I believe he’s changing on this, and Scott Aniol latches on to that in his article.
Independent and even unaffiliated Baptists regularly produce their ecstasy in a kind of soft continuationism. It is a huge lack of discernment and it is very often ignored completely as a matter of fellowship. In other words, they encourage false worship through these forms of strange fire. Let this be a serious warning to us all and for the glory of God.
Eras of Miracles and Divine Interventionism
Where my wife and I are staying, we have waited at one spot four different times for someone to pick us up and every time there on the top of a short brick wall sat a tiny toy figure. Three different days and four rides the same toy person was there. I guessed it was a Star Wars figure. Looking more closely, it seemed a young woman in a Star Wars-like outfit. In what I know of the Star Wars story, it was probably a jedi and maybe the one the story calls “the last jedi.”
If you don’t know the Star Wars story, because you’ve seen none of it, good for you, but let me explain. In a fictional cosmos, the jedi are warriors with supernatural power, who fight for what is called the light side of the force as opposed to the dark side. This fiction hearkens to God on the light side and Satan on the dark side. According to the fiction, the force connotes to something like a pantheistic view of God in which he is not a person, but some kind of mystical power. The fiction speaks of an existence of God, albeit a false one. This supernaturalism is crucial to the explanation of everything that happens in Star Wars fiction.
In the Star Wars story, only a few characters possess supernatural power to use either for evil or for good. Those without that power find themselves often in need of the abilities or gifts of those special individuals. Over aeons of time, certain ones through the story uniquely, even more greatly tap into the light side or the dark side of this supernatural force. These individuals come along once in a very long time with very special significance and they are usually prophesied. The needy natural ones place their hope in the coming of those to deliver them.
Fictional prophet-like characters predict the coming of the few supernatural characters, very often just one, with very special power. These prophets receive revelations from the same supernatural power, which is apparently God, and they know what will happen in the future. The spread of these prophesies over a fictional cosmos results in its people looking for the coming of these superior, supernatural figures, which will change the course of history.
I write all this to say that in general people who know the Star Wars story accept eras of supernatural intervention in their fictional cosmos. It makes sense to them. They agree both with the existence of supernatural power that works through men and that once in a great while this same supernatural power raises up a prophesied person who can use the power. In other words, they accept eras of miracles. They recognize the continuity of a natural world accompanied by rare times, moments, periods, or ages of supernatural intervention.
In a fictional Star Wars world, the divine always works to maintain and sustain, but also intervenes in a unique way. An unprecedented person comes along, who is not normal. He is far from normal and no one has been seen like him in ages. The maintaining and sustaining are continuity. They are normative. The rare one, however, is not. This is discontinuity.
Scripture gives (see especially 2 Peter) as a major reason for apostasy, a departure from the faith and the truth, the scarcity of evidence of divine intervention. God gives every good thing. He always intervenes in a providential manner, His good graces seen everywhere and at all times. God also though intervenes at times in unique ways. Men say because of the sparsity of the latter, they can’t receive the Lord. He must show Himself more to their liking. I call these showings, crown performances. If God doesn’t bring them a crown performance, they have their excuse for not believing.
God has intervened in a special, unique, and miraculous way throughout history. However, this kind of dealing is far less frequent. The word “miracle” is most often the same Greek word translated “sign.” Something isn’t a sign if it is the same as anything else that occurs on an everyday basis.
Through scripture, you can see eras of miracles. They mark extraordinary times and people, and these occasions, which are very rare through history, make a unique point, one that stands out very much. Certain names are associated in the Bible with these eras, including Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles.
One figure stands out above all of those functioning with supernatural power in an era of miracles: the Lord Jesus Christ. If these operations were normal occurrences, they would not stand out, and neither would Jesus. Jesus must stand out and He does stand out. He will show Himself in even greater glory when He comes the second time and in fulfillment of further prophecy. He is the greatest figure in all of world history.
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