We Need Revival...But Do We Want It?

Welcome back viewers to another episode, this time as we talk about revival! What is revival, why do we want it, and will it ever happen? We talk about the church's role in revival, the issue with disillusionment as we pray for it, and understanding what the Lord asks of us when we do pray for it. Tune in to find out more!

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A few resources and quotes used in this episode for your interest:
Joe Rogan's Interview with Apologist Wes Huff

Sam Gibson from Church of the City, NY

Duncan Campbell's Book on the Revival in the Hebrides (Ruth's Sikh Quote)

More Fun Reading on the Revival in the Hebrides

Ruth's Quote on the Fear of God

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Transcript

0:07

Welcome everyone to Time for the Soul, the podcast where we talk about life, the universe, and our Lord Jesus Christ. And I have here with me Ruth and Liano. Hey guys, same as always, us three. And how's it going? How are you guys doing? We're good. It's been a long day, but it's been good. It's winter. That's all I'm gonna say. It's winter for us here and it's just different. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you guys, I mean, you guys did, you experienced that polar vortex or whatever that thing was this past week. It's been insanely cold. Well, Ruth experienced it in Destin, Florida, so that was... yeah, did you get Snow and Destin? the next day it snowed so... So you're telling me you flew down for sunshine and you got snow instead? I mean, got snow and the snow I got sunshine like three days and then the last day was colder. Like one and a half days was colder. I heard that the panhandle got like seven to eight inches of snow, which is insane. Such a beautiful area that I feel like, I don't know, I feel like the snow is just gonna enhance it. That's true. That is true. Yeah. meanwhile, I, all of my jackets failed me in the sense that nothing could keep me warm. So I made this last ditch effort to get a new jacket. got a jacket on clearance. Praise the Lord. We love clearance, but it's called the super puff and it looks like a sleeping bag because it's as long as a sleeping bag. I love it. I look like the Michelin man, but praise the Lord. At least I am warm. So. You are, listen, the sleeping bag jacket thing is totally in fashion right now, so you're just. yeah, yeah. You know, when it first came out, I laughed at people. And here I am wearing it. how the mighty have fallen. It's all about being warm in the winter. That's all you want. Yep. Yep. So jumping into the topic that we're going to talk about today is just revival. We're going to talk about revival. from cold to warm. Hallelujah, that Holy Spirit fire. Sorry, I had to. It was just there. Yeah. So we wanted to talk about revival and kind of touch on the subject because, again, it's beginning of the year. a lot of churches are doing, you know, 21 days of prayer or fasting or some sort of variation on that. And, lot of times because of that, that, you know, the topic of revival comes up and, I think it's important to cover because first of all, I feel like it's such a catchall. It just doesn't really mean much anymore. mean, do we have an idea of what it means? Do we really know what it means? So I kind of want to go into that and dig around a little bit and see what we can learn. What do you guys think? Yeah, it's great. Honestly, the first thought I had when we kind of were going over the subject was, do we really want revival? Because if we're gonna desire revival from God, it's gonna be uncomfortable. And it's gonna be uncomfortable for all of us, like personally, but also corporately, I think as a church. I randomly, it was so funny this week, I randomly opened to Acts 2 and I'm just like, put my eyes down and it was Peter talking. to the people after the Holy Spirit had poured out and the Gifts of Tongues came. And I said, wow, this is actually it seems like this was the first revival in the New Testament. So then obviously I Google it. I was like, was Acts to the first revival? And it turns out, yeah, that's what most scholars say, that it was the first revival in the like in the New Testament. And it was interesting because there was something weird that happened. Like they were they were so surprised that the tongues that came down where they were saying people are drunk, things are what's going on, like why are they speaking in our language and we're hearing them like something weird happened over there. And I loved like that Peter, he just turned it around into saying this is the prophecy that Joel prophesied and he just brings it back to the word of God and he brings it back to saying Jesus is the fulfillment of everything. So anyways, I just. That to me, was like, okay, this is the first revival. Like, how did this happen? And it happened with something that was out of the ordinary at that time. But then I think, I don't know if you guys, I think it proceeded with. the people realizing that they needed a savior and once they accepted Jesus as their savior, happened. So I don't think that we can, you know, I don't know, I don't wanna go too deep into it yet, but I think revival has to do with our awareness of who God is. Yeah. because I genuinely, I think there's a difference between revival and awakening. Personally speaking, I feel like we should kind of separate those two words out. So I'm going to take, I think I went, I was looking at kind of different definitions for what revival is and, you know, I don't know if you guys know got questions.org. It's genuinely such a wonderful resource. Every time I have questions about anything, I just like look it up really quick. You don't, you. What's lovely about it is I have a seminary degree and it's still the easiest thing to look up and to find answers for. So I love it. But, GodQuestion says, revival refers to spiritual reawakening from a state of dormancy or stagnation in the life of believer. Okay. So it encompasses a resurfacing of a love for God and appreciation of God's holiness, a passion for his word in this church, a convicting awareness of personal and corporate sin. a spirit of humility and a desire for repentance and growth and righteousness. I know that's kind of like a lot, but do you guys feel like that kind of tracks? It's a move of the Holy Spirit in the sense that it reawakens in you a desire for the Lord. Yeah, 100%. That's a great, it's a very all encompassing definition, that's for sure. Well, I think like when we see the Old Testament revivals, like we see like second Chronicles, God comes when people humble themselves, you know, when people pray, when people seek after the Lord. I think like humbling means that we seek after the Lord. we it's like a dry ground that finally gets water. You know, we realize we're dry and we're looking for water. You know, we have like the Valley of Dry Bones where like the Spirit of God comes and he revives, like he brings the dead to life. And those people were once alive, but now they're dead and now they're coming back to life. I think sometimes like when you're dead, you don't realize that you're dead. But so there's a mixture of the sovereignty of God in a move of revival and like the part that man plays in seeking for it and praying for it and being hungry for it but man's part is to be to humble themselves before the Lord and think and obey him I think I mean I have some thoughts on obedience but Yeah. Well, I love that you love your definition of it because it does center around humility. And it also starts when a person realizes that they've been dead, but some of the thing had to be awakened first in the first place in order to become dormant and then be reawakened. Does that make sense? Like the word revival clearly means it was once awake and now I'm not anymore. And it's, it awakens again, right? So what I'm leading to is I think revival is more for the church. I think revival is more of like something in the church that happens, but I think kind of like out in the world for people who have never known Christ, who never heard the gospel, I honestly think a move of the Spirit would probably be a better way to define that would be an awakening, right? Or maybe, I don't know, what's a nicer word? awakening comes after revival. If you think about it, if the church is revived, wouldn't the awakening come in the sense of if we are revived, then the awakening, we would be helpful in spurring on an awakening if we're doing what we were supposed to do to begin with, which is preach the gospel. I mean, an awakening is somebody who's been asleep that's waking up to life, to being conscious again. I think definitions are not as important in terms of revival, awakening. I think the core message is something's coming back to life. They're coming to a consciousness of who God is. They're not coming to a consciousness of a movement or something. that's happening, they're coming to consciousness of who God is. And like I was reading in a book and So a while ago, I was reading it in Duncan Campbell's book, a quote by somebody who was talking to Sandu Sudar Singh. And he asked them, Sandu Sudar Singh, A professor of comparative religions at the University of Cambridge was asking him, tell me, said the professor, what have you found in Christianity that you did not find in your old religion? The Sadhu replied, Professor, I found the dear Lord Jesus. yes, I quite understand. But what particular principle or doctrine? Tell me what new philosophy have you found in Christianity that you did not find in your old religion? And again, the Sikh replied. Professor, I have found the dear Lord Jesus. You see, his witness was to a person and not to a principle, to a life and not to a philosophy. Christ was real. So many times people come and they want, they like the Christian philosophy, the principles that undergird your way of life. They look at you and you're like, how do you live your life? I want that. And many times people want the principles, but they don't want the person. But in Christianity, the principles don't work without the person. If I don't know Christ, can't even, it's not. those principles cannot work apart from Christ. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We can't have the morals without, Jesus at the end of the day. And actually I appreciate that you went into this because it's a quick digression, but I don't know if you guys know of Wes Huff. I think that's his name. He had, he was recently on Joe Rogan. Yeah. So he had a great discussion with Joe Rogan and towards the end, he made this comment about Jordan Peterson actually that I've been saying for ages. We're basically, you know, cause Jordan Peterson, lot of people love him and appreciate him and he has good things to say, but my like sticking point with him this entire time, and I went to see him live and you know, I've seen him speak and stuff, but I was just like, this guy preaches a morality without Jesus. What is the point of this? You know, this is literally you picking yourself up by your bootstraps. But the problem is, that, morality when it's done by one, leads to self-righteousness and leads in the end nowhere. We need Jesus first before we ever try to implement some sort of morality. Like it all hinges on the Lord. He said it way better, but I was like, yeah, I agree. That's what I've been saying. Anyways, that's a digression. I honestly do think though this ties into a topic of revival because we somebody said it because I think anyways, I'm going to tie it into repentance like we can't repent without the Lord giving us the grace to repent. Right? So you can't do it on your own. You can't have a contrite heart on your own. I think it's the Spirit of God that reveals that to you. And when you repent, what does repentance mean? It's saying, God, I can't do it. Like I can't do it without you, right? So I think repentance proceeds revival in the sense that when we repent, we realize that we are nothing without God and that we can't do anything on our own. And I was listening to Sam Gibson from like Church of the City. Surprisingly, I'm not quoting John Tyson, but he was saying something that I really like the way he said it's like it's he said it's a divine grace to seek God. Like it's not something that comes from us. The desire doesn't come from us. and he was saying in repenting, he's like, you're not always just letting go of some sin or something that you did wrong. Cause that's like the most, that's what we think of when we think of repentance. We're like, we must be sinning. We must be doing something wrong. But he said, sometimes we need to come to God with the repentance of God. I don't want you and I need you to make me want you like, It's not just letting go of something. It's about like repenting for the fact that I don't desire the things that God wants me to desire. And I thought that was so interesting because I'm like, that's such a different way to look at repentance and to look at coming to the Lord in the sense of, I can't do it on my own. Like I need God to seek God. And I know this might be a little bit like Calvinistic thinking, whatever, it's fine. I agree with it. vote no. It's biblical. I'm like, can't do it on our own. I think that's the biggest thing with, you know, when we think of do we want revival or not? If we want revival, we're showing God that we can't live this life on our own. And if we don't want revival, and if we don't want the things that come with revival, that means we're too comfortable in how we're living our lives and, and revival would disrupt our comfortable, whatever, whatever we're living in at the moment, revival would disrupt that. And I'm not sure. I don't know, I'd think of it for myself. I'm not preaching to you guys. I'm preaching to myself, like, what would revival do to me? Like, what would it do in my life? And what would it require of me? If it came? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So you're touching on two things, because the first thing I want to say is revival is preceded by prayer and consecration, right? Like we see that all over Second Chronicles 7-14. If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from the wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land, right? We see this over and over. In order for revival to happen, there needs to be consecration, a repentance of sins. But I think Holy Spirit is ultimately the one who brings revival, but I think he does it in tandems with our prayers asking for it. Does that make sense? Like, he will do it when we seek him for it. I'm sure he could spark it somewhere absolutely out of nowhere, but usually he likes to work in tandem with our own prayers, right? It's kind like the secret to prayer that I still to this day don't understand. Like, why does God need us to pray? Or why does God want us to pray for him to move, right? But for whatever reason, that is what he wants to use in order to spark that revival. Yeah, and I mean, history shows that that's what it took. the, you know, some of the great revivals, the Hebrides revival or the whales. It was two little old ladies calling out for revival for I don't know how many years or whatnot. It's the thing is, I think it's perseverance prayer that would bring revival. And I think we lack in the perseverance aspect of prayer. And even the New York revival, the, know, when Jeremiah Lanfear, the businessman, he started the prayer with four people. First it was by himself, a lunch prayer meeting. And then four people came and then the next week 20 people came and then the next week 40 people came. But it was something that they like kept sowing into. And then until a year later they say, quotes are that about a million people came to the Lord in that year. So it was a persevering thing. And I don't know if it's the culture that we're in or what it is, but we we lack the perseverance part. We lack the perseverance in prayer where we're truly like calling out to God even if he doesn't answer the first month, the second month, the third month, the next year, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, think about it for ourselves. Like, do we lose that perseverance once we don't get an answer? And I think, I mean, I know myself, I definitely do. Like, I'm lacking in that perseverance aspect. I mean, a lot of us are, I mean, personal story, we had a group at our church where for an entire year and a half, we gathered every Monday in an upper room and we interceded and prayed and asked the Lord to move and for a spirit of, know, for a move of the spirit in our church, right? we prayed for a very long time. Can I say that we saw a move of the spirit in the way we were praying for and up happening? No, like it, it didn't. That being said, were there amazing and wonderful things that came out of prayer. Absolutely. I remember it was a holy time. was like, we never knew who'd come up the stairs. It'd always be just the most random people would walk up the stairs. like we had a Ukrainian pastor walk up right at, after the start of the Ukrainian war. And we're like, what are you doing in the States? How we were able to bless him and pray for him. just story after story of like, yes, our original intention was to come together to pray for a revival. a move of the Spirit, and we didn't quite see it happen in the way that we had imagined it, but God still used that prayer for his good and he still used it to build us up. And I'm sure behind the scenes, he was setting the groundwork for a lot of different things that we weren't, and probably to this day, are still not aware of. I think, I think a, I don't know, maybe it's the fault of our age because we're, we live in an age that's very, we're very like self-focused. I think even when we asked for revival many times, it's because we, and we, we saw this happen with a lot of movements who are calling for revival. You know, it's like, we're calling for revival and because we're calling for revival, God's going to do it, you know? and the focus is that we are calling for revival because our prayers are calling for revival God's gonna do it and like I think that's what's I probably said this before but that's the reason why God came to Asbury he didn't come to IHOP he didn't come to Upper Room He didn't come to all these movements. I'm not saying he never came because he came there too. I'm just saying he didn't come in such power. It's because it was more about the movement and the ministry than it was about the glory of God. And I think like many times like we have these and I'm not against it. Like, you know, there's I think there's a big gathering, world gathering happening like if 25 or something, Jenny Allen. I don't know when it's happening, sometime in the spring. And I don't have nothing against it. I'm just... does a name have to be connected to... Why do we have to be the ones that are calling for revival? You know what I mean? Why does the human ingredient have to be there? You know what I mean? Why doesn't God come? God comes because it's not about him. He doesn't come because it's not about him. He doesn't come when it's not about him. He doesn't come when it's about us. And you can have, you can say the right things, you can have all the right language, but like, if it's not about God, it's not about Jesus. If it's about, ultimately about you, your ministry, what you're doing, God is not gonna come because he will come. I'm not saying he won't come at all, but like. he won't come in like a glorious manifestation of power and of like the great revivals that we've seen. That's my- want to push back a little bit because I don't want to say all of these big gatherings are not made with, you know, oh, it's completely selfish and completely man serving, know, self-serving. I do think there's a lot of people out there with genuine and sincere desires to worship the Lord and bring glory to God who are putting together these sort of conferences and these sort of events. But I guess maybe to your point, what do we expect revival to look like? I think that's the question. And perhaps maybe we just have this framework where we're like, yeah, it's Billy Graham, stadiums filled, it's Reinhard Bonnke, know, again, stadium is filled. Maybe that's what we keep imagining in our head that that's what revival is supposed to look like. But is it possible that God might actually have something completely else in mind? That revival might not look like stadiums filled anymore, but perhaps it's going to look like, you know, the underground church in Iran or the underground church in China, little pockets of fire springing up everywhere. Yeah, I agree. I just think I'm pushing against the American Christianity that's very like very person focused. It's very ministry focused. It's very person focused. And I think there has to be a repentance that comes to the American church and I'm To every every nation every nation has to repent for something We just maybe we live in you know in the place where we're more influenced by that than we are by underground churches in iran or china or whatever god's moving in powerful ways I I I do think that god god wants god god wants to come and I think I don't know who was saying I think one of you was saying liana I think you were saying like we have to have enduring prayer for God to come. And what keeps you enduring? I think what would keep me enduring is knowing that God will fulfill it. If I don't believe that God will fulfill what he said, if I don't believe that God will actually come through, then I'm not going to endure. And we were talking to a friend a year or two ago, I can't remember. And he was saying, he's studying at a very prestigious seminary and he was saying the biggest problem of our age, Christians, Christianity, is the problem of is God good? That's the answer that every heart wants. And many times, like I think even in our circles, even in our churches, it's like. Have we established that God is good, that he wants good, that God wants, that revival is good, that revival is God's will for us? And I'm remembering what, you know, when Moses was talking to God and he was telling, Moses was telling God, God, please don't smite the people for the honor of your name. And in the Hebrides revival, there's a man who prayed, it was right at the beginning when the ministers were praying and he said, God, Please come down for the honor and sake of your name. And it's in it was like a heartfelt prayer and it's like Do we hold God to account for like what he said? He's gonna do for the honor and sake of your name God come down for the honor and sake of your name God like make like bring healing for the honor and sake of your name bring many nations to you, you know, I just I don't know I just We want everybody wants everybody's looking for recognition in the worldly level and it's like we're gonna be so surprised in heaven we're gonna be so massively surprised in heaven i like the people we're gonna meet that god holds in such high esteem and it might not be anybody that is like very visible like right now whatever in whatever nation i don't know i just We have to, think, Lord help us to aim to be big in front of the Lord, you know? Because the world is looking, because if we're looking for the same thing as the world, what makes us different? Then we play by those rules. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. So to that question, I mean, to what you've been saying, I guess my question would be, you what does revival look like? You know, um, when we see it, how can we like spot it? You know, um, personally for me, uh, I know we, we were talking about like the Billy Graham stadium type revivals and Ruth, to your point, you're like, yeah, you know, is the man with the power for the hour. would come and preach and then everybody else would, I don't know, get slain in the spirit. I don't know. But what does revival truly look like? Do you guys feel like you've ever seen that happen or even maybe not in a corporate level, but like in a more individual way? I mean, at our church, like at our old church, like we were much younger, like we were in our teen years and God moved powerfully for like a time in our church where like even church services from a song, went to two hours of prayer, you know, and it was a time of like, you know, where we saw God move in powerful ways. People were filled with the Holy Spirit. like those nights of prayer where like the service just took its own, you know, and that was, I believe that was revival, you know, it lasted for I don't know how many weeks or for a period of time, but we saw people changed. saw people having experiences with God that were Like one of the, I remember one of the guys, was saying, he's like, I felt myself like leave my body. And I was like on top of the church and I saw this car coming and driving to the church and like God, like people were having incredible experiences with God. the crazy part about that is that there was a guy that literally walked into our church after that. Like he saw the guy like walking into our church and then like joined the prayer meeting and like ended up praying with us. So there was, yeah, those things were, it was a time of awakening, definitely. I can't say, I guess COVID in a sense was a time a little bit. I don't know if we fully cashed in on that quote unquote. I don't know if we fully. entered into exactly what the Lord wanted to do. But I feel like there was a time of maybe more individual revivals at that time, because maybe we were more secluded. I know for me, I mean, just having three months off work was gave me so much time to just be with the Lord and just set up those, you know, the devotional times that were so different than they were before. So that to me, like was a time of in a way personal revival, because it just brought back that like desire to just be in the presence of the Lord with the word, with the music in the background, just those kinds of things where it just like, you're like, that is my space with Jesus and like, that's where I want to go to all the time. And then of course work starts again and then your time is different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I completely agree. think COVID for a lot of people was awful, but then for a lot of people actually was a moment of personal revival and it sparked something in there. I know like in our, you know, extended friend group, we definitely saw that happen because God pulled all of us who were from different parts of the country together, you know, to worship the Lord and kind of come together in that same United spirit and heart. And that was wonderful. actually, I even saw, I saw a small, it wasn't, I can't say it was like a huge revival moment, but there was, we were at a conference. those people who are listening, who are aware of Winterfest, not the American Winterfest, the Romanian Winterfest. there was this, I think it was about two years ago after one of the services, people just wanted to pray. They just wanted to keep praying. So, we went off. all big group of us went off to a side room while everyone else kind of went to socialize. There was just this lovely group of people who gathered together and we just kept interceding and seeking the Lord's hand. And what was so cool is there was a youth group from a Baptist church that had come and they were touched by the spirit in a powerful way. You know, they started speaking in tongues, they were baptized. Like it was so awesome to see that. I, to this day, I still have a video on my phone from them like standing up. and kind of testifying to how God had moved and how God had touched them and like how they were before and what had happened. And that to me, it was small. Like I don't think there were more than like 30, 40 of us in that room, but it was just such a special moment. And that's why I wanted to keep going back to this, like revival doesn't have to be stadiums. Revival can be a revival in a Bible study. It can be at your, you know, at your youth group where it could be. at your home group. I don't know. Like it could be in your family. It doesn't have to be necessarily what we used to think it was. I think God is moving a lot more democratically. No, that's not the word. I don't know how I'm, I don't know the word that I want to use for this, but I'm just saying God is moving. He's like this grassroots kind of, yes, yes, he's, he's going out. He doesn't need like, Billy Graham to do it again. Like Holy Spirit can take care of revival all on his own. And I think we in and of ourselves can spark that with us consecrating ourselves, seeking the Lord in prayer. I think if each and every single one of us decided that today, okay, from today on, I'm not genuinely prayed that I see revival in the nations, that I see it with my own eyes, that I see it around the people around me. I guarantee you that like if you pray for this and you intercede for this, that the Lord's gonna start moving in ways that you just did not expect. Like Ruth had said, God is good. This is in the will of the Lord. I think he's gonna answer. But yeah. to say that I think it starts with like a return to the fear of the Lord and not, not in the sense of, you know, you know what I mean? The fear of the Lord in the, in the sense of the, the awe of God and the way that in Exodus 20, after the Lord gave Moses the 20, like the 10 commandments, there was like thunder and there was lightning and all of this, but it was The people were so awestruck and so fearful that they were like, we can't stand in the presence of God. We will fall in the presence of God. And I think more than anything, we can't take the presence of God lightly. We have to take it with a spirit of reverence, a spirit of the fear of the Lord. And I read this article today and I thought it explained things so properly. It said something. It says God's nearness can be a terrifying thing for sinners. Like when when we know ourselves that we are fall short, it's like his nearness is, it's a mirror of how, like how short we fall. But then obviously, the whole concept of Moses being their intercessor and the whole concept of Jesus being our intercessor that gets translated onto Jesus in the New Testament. But it was this, I don't know how to explain it and it's There's this quote that I have to read because I didn't I couldn't memorize it but it says the fear of God always knows on the one hand that we have no business being in his presence and yet on the other hand that he made us to be in his presence and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in him. I love this like dichotomy of like no we are not worthy but we're supposed to be there like and that's like the whole concept of us knowing our relationship and our position in Jesus Christ and knowing who he is. I think the fear of God, the fear and awe of God needs to return to the church. It needs to return to the legalistic churches. It needs to return to the charismatic churches. It needs to just return and to allow the Lord to reveal himself truly to us as his people because I think we've gotten so far from who God is that we've kind of made up our own God and we don't even realize it. We've made up something that is, if we go to the scripture, that's not who he is anymore. Like not anymore, like that's just not who he is. And we've gotten so far from it that we don't realize it. to me, think revival is just like returning to the fear of the Lord in the sense of the greatness, the majesty of God and the way that if we expect him to work in that way, in him showing us who he is, I think he will show up. If we expect him to just come and what? fulfilled whatever some desire that I have some whatever that I have and I think revival is supposed to bring you know I'm not saying I would love revival to bring healing to everyone or to bring you know restoration to every family yes amen praise God for that but I think if revival comes in it brings an awareness of God's presence that is enough like that is beautiful Well, that's enough because that's the type of revival that lasts. You know what I mean? And I guess that would be my next question is, do you guys think revival can be sustained long run in a person's heart? I would love to say yes, but I just, I think the ultimate revival will be in heaven when we are in the presence of the Lord 24 seven. But I don't know. just feel like because we're in this fallen world, sometimes there's just, we get caught up in it and the mercy of God is so great that he keeps calling us back to himself and he never leaves us there. But I don't know if I can say that there is going to be a 100 % revival until Jesus comes. Like, and there's going to be just there like, fullness of revival until Jesus comes. I mean, in the sense like, okay, let's say, you know, your church had a revival that hit, you know, the church and you guys spent a few weeks in it. Is it possible and you've come out of it now, is it possible for you to stay in that state, you know, for forever almost, or do you think it like waxes and wanes? Well, I think it depends how hungry you are in terms of how fast you get satisfied. know, I think like sometimes like I don't know, sometimes you're very hungry or you think you're hungry, but maybe you're not hungry enough because you're, if you're very hungry, you keep, you eat a lot. Like you're, you're just, want a lot. If you're not hungry enough, you're just going to take a little bit and that's enough for you. You know, and, and I think about like, the widow with the sons As long as there were pots there, as many pots as were there to be filled, the oil flowed when the pots were being filled. you know, you're asking, can revival be sustained? I think as long as there's vessels who want to be filled by the Lord, the oil will flow. The oil is going to stop flowing once there's no empty vessels. Mm. oil go down? I mean, okay, we're going to theorize now here. You know, as you use the oil, you should want to be filled again. The issue is though, what if you don't use the oil? You know, what if like what the Lord poured into you, you're not, you're not, you're not like spending yourself for the Lord, you know, you're and I mean, it's just the theory then like That's a great point because I think if it's true, a true revival of your heart should leave you hungry for more of the Lord in the long run, right? I think it has to leave you off better than you were at first. And I'm thinking of like kind of the second Corinthians, I think it's chapter 317 where it says, you know, we're being transformed from one. image to another from one degree of glory to another, right? So, you know after that revival hits I should be, you know, one degree higher closer to the Lord in my progressive sanctification, right? I should be being transformed higher and higher. It shouldn't leave me worse off than I was before but if it leaves you the same as it was before perhaps that maybe you were just getting wrapped up in the hype and you weren't actually letting your heart be transformed in it because we also have to be careful of that. with revival this is such a 2025 word for it, but like with revival comes hype, right and But hype doesn't last True discipleship as well. Sorry. I don't know else to phrase it. Yeah mean, you see, like, and it's good, like, there's nothing I do, we want people of influence to come to the Lord, we want models and actors and, you know, and educators and, you know, influential people to come to the Lord. But I feel like sometimes the following that follows them is maybe not so much as is... I don't want to say not. Maybe the f- Maybe it's more cultural, maybe it's more environment, like because of that's the environment that they're in, they start sounding like that, but maybe it's not true heart transformation. Is that maybe more of what you're getting at? Yeah. it's just like, this person seems like they got fulfillment by doing this. And I feel like I will get fulfillment by this too. And sometimes, we, God does fulfill us. Like we, when I'm thinking about like being satisfied with little, I think when we're satisfied with little, that means that maybe we... we experience the benefits of the kingdom of God. It's joy, peace, righteousness. You know, we like the environment, you we know going to church community and it's like people love us and like there's good families there and you know, but maybe like maybe we missed God, maybe we missed the person because we're only looking for like those things that we're looking for. Okay, I think you were going one way and it went another way because I thought you were going to go more along the side, the idea of, you know, the farmer who sows the good seed and then. Okay, yeah, because that's where where I thought you were going in the sense that like during revival, the seed gets spread everywhere, right? The seed goes everywhere, but some of it doesn't fall on fertile soil. Some of it might fall on rocky ground where. It shoots up, it immediately is received with joy, but because there's no root, it endures for a while and then it falls away, right? Is that maybe more of what you were thinking of too? what I wanted to say. But I think like when it falls on bad soil, like people don't encounter Jesus like Liana was saying, they encounter just the benefits of the kingdom, but not, they don't recognize the king, you know, and they don't encounter the king or maybe they don't, they're, they're more interested in the benefits of Christianity of like what that has to offer, but not in the person and we see this in the gospels though, right? We see in the gospels that Jesus attracted many crowds and they came to him, but they came to him because they wanted to be fed. They wanted to see all the miracles happen. And at one point Jesus just gets fed up with them and he's like, you keep seeking the signs and wonders, but the only miracle that I'm going to show you is the sign of Jonah, right? Then there's the other example where I think it's the lepers where Jesus heals this group of lepers, but only one actually comes back to Jesus to give him thanks. The others just walk away. So it's very possible that in a moment of revival, people can get touched, people could possibly even get healed, but they might not actually receive Jesus in their hearts and have this end up being something that truly transforms their life. And I mean, we saw that when we went on a mission trip to Cuba, I think I told you guys where we met these these three guys on like the street. We were just like, we, you know, we approached them, just started talking to them. And then we started sharing about Christ. And we asked them, like, do you know who Christ is? And they're like, well, we did go to a meeting. I don't know, it was a year or two ago and actually it was a revival meeting and actually got healed us. Like one guy got healed, his leg was healed. Another guy, like something with his heart, his heart was healed. They all had healing stories. And we asked them, did you like, do you know who Jesus is? Cause we could tell that Jesus did something for them, but like they, do you know who Jesus is? So we started talking to them about Christ and they were very moved. Like we saw that they started getting emotional. So then we, We went into like a more shaded place like in the middle of the street But it was interesting to see how they couldn't deny that God did a miracle for them They were healed but they never received Christ as their Lord and Savior in that moment They received Christ as their Lord and Savior and he was genuine like they were genuinely moved and he wasn't because It wasn't because we did anything. It was because we presented who Christ was. Sometimes we present what Christ can do for you. But I think the most powerful message is who Christ is. Bye bye. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess that leads to the last question then is, do you guys think, you know, that we're gonna end up seeing revival, like another big great awakening, another big, you know, mass revival again? think so because... world systems are crumbling. And when things are in disarray, and when people are completely disillusioned, that is a time when the Holy Spirit actually can reach them in a different way. When you've realized that you can't count on your systems, you can't count on the things that you've been doing, you can't count on your money because it disappears, you can't count on the house because it can burn. Like just things that are happening, you know what I mean? Just things that are happening. To me, it's like ripe for revival. Everything is in place for it. People are disillusioned with leadership with their presidents with their government leaders disillusioned with The thought of I'm my own God and I can do whatever I want that hasn't turned out great. Everybody is depressed You know highly like mental health is horrible right now. So all these things are happening and Obviously, we know as people of Christ that he is our only hope and he is the only Salvation that we have and I think more and more people are going to realize the same thing They're gonna realize that everything we've tried to do Everything we've attempted to do all our knowledge has gotten us nowhere. We're we're still just as hopeless just as unhappy and We have nothing else what and that's and that's why I think it's such a time for the Church to step up and truly be the light that we're supposed to be where we're actually showing love well And we're actually living on our faith where our faith can't just be complacent anymore. We can't be lukewarm anymore. We actually have to show people that what we have is the real thing. You're not just, okay, I go to church on a Sunday, like my life is about church. No, you can be devoted to church and not be devoted to Christ. Those are two separate things. And I think that we need to get back to our devotion to Jesus Christ so that people can actually see us as the church and see us as the hands and feet of Jesus in a way that they don't see anywhere else, you know? Like, I don't think the world can show mercy, but they can't show mercy in the way that a Christ follower can show mercy. Mm. Yeah, and I, that was very good points. I think this illusionment will bring revival, but I also think the church has a role to play in it in terms of... Many times we don't have clean hands. know, as Psalm 24 says, who can approach the throne of the Lord? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart. Those who don't lift their hands to another. You know, we pray, we talked about, there's churches, there's movements that pray for revival. like revival demands purity. You can't come before the Lord to ask for revival if your hands are, if your hands are tainted. know, like if you if you if you seek someone else to there's you have other gods beside the Lord. You know, the first commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and then love everybody. And I think like we've put love everybody over love God, I think that we need we need a recalibration of our devotion and like a purity in how we ask the Lord, like Lord help us to be pure. When we raise up our hands, no other motives. There's a holiness that goes into like seeking the Lord, right? We want all these things, but we don't want to pay the price. There's a price to be paid for sacrifice. When the sacrifices were brought, blood was shed. In prayer, prayer demands purity. It demands obedience. I need God has to have my obedience. If God tells me to do something, I will do it. If God tells me to pray a certain way, will pray that way. I I think the church needs to start praying properly. need, it needs to start being like Liena was saying before, like we need to, we need consecration. We need repentance. We need, like we can't pray for revival just any way. Like. Yeah, yeah, I don't disagree. I guess to the question of like, are we going to see revival in this world? I think in the last few little while, I've kind of struggled with that question because, you know, of course, like, I don't know if people have heard of, you know, Bob Jones's billion soul harvest and prophecy that, we're going to see a harvest of a billion souls before Jesus comes back again and so on and so forth. And I remember when I first heard that prophetic word, was like, I mean, granted, that word has been out since the eighties. It's not new. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. We're gonna see that, you But then, you know, especially in the last few years, as we're just seeing, I don't know, as we're seeing things just shift in such a way that, first of all, like we're seeing all these like prayer leaders. kind of fall, we're seeing all these Christian leaders, know, their, their sin is getting put out and rightly so it should, it should be, brought to light and they should all step down, but it's kind of like, okay, I'm seeing that the prayer of movements that we're trying to really strive after this stuff. and a lot of them, there was maybe some rotten stuff that needed to be cleaned out. Right. Then what I see is, I think I'm seeing people tying their religious identity. I either their Christian identity to things like nationalism. I'm seeing them tie God to country. I'm seeing people kind of put and elevate these things that are not of the Lord and elevate in the church. And I'm saying specifically in the Western American church, I'm seeing them elevate them to things, to heights that they shouldn't be. It just like, I've started to get a little, I started getting kind of jaded and skeptical that we would see it. you know, perhaps just, I don't know, this can't be true. And then I came to come across like, you know, Matthew 24 says, at the end of days, the love of many is going to grow cold, right? So how do I square the love of many growing cold with, you know, just this idea that we should continue to pray for revival and continue to pray for the gospel being preached. But I guess kind of the way The thing that I settled on at the end of the day is that first of all, think if we read clearly, if we read through Matthew 24 and we kind of go, you know, verse by verse, it says that in verse nine, they'll deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. So I think what's going to happen is at the end of days, the church is going to go under persecution. And I think what happens is when the church goes into persecution and into tribulation, cultural Christianity burns away. And I think that's what's going to happen. I think that's why the love of many is going to grow cold because people who up until now is very easy to be a Christian, you know, you could show up Easter and Christmas and call yourself a Christian and, know, but you live your life or however you want it. It's going to cost you something in those times. to be a Christian and that's probably why the love of many will grow cold. But at the same time, that is going to be paired with, you know, verse 14, the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come, right? So it's gonna be interesting where that persecution and tribulation that's gonna lead to people's love growing cold, it's going to be paired with gospel proclamation. How is the gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth? Well, it can't be proclaimed unless there's people who are on fire for the Lord, you know, and are willing to take risks, are willing to endure persecution, are willing to endure tribulation, who are literally going to go out and preach the gospel, right? So in that, I actually see revival. I think what the Lord ended up telling me, he was like, just you worry about your own self and pray. for what my heart is. And I think the Lord's heart is that everybody would be saved. think the, you know, it says in Peter, the farmer waits patiently. I mean, he's like the farmer that waits patiently. He wants everybody to be saved. I think at the end of the day, I have faith that if I pray for revival, I will see it with my own eyes because first and foremost, it's changing my own heart. And therefore, as it changes my own heart, it ends up having ramifications and effects to those around me. And then I think it'll be people like that who, who have a heart on fire for the Lord, who are going to be the ones who are going to carry the gospel to the very ends of this earth and are going to bring about, you know, the second coming are going to bring about glory when Jesus comes again. I will say though, I don't know. think I read this. This might be a John Tyson thing. I'm not sure it might be in one of the emails that we get from him. But he said something about that verse where it's like the love of many will grow cold. And he was saying he's like, I'm praying that it won't be my love. Like I'm praying that my love of God will not grow cold. So like, may God help us to not be the people whose love will grow cold. And then we love his church. We love him more than anything. Yeah. Amen. And I think what comes to mind, what came to mind when you were speaking is like the parable of the 10 virgins. know, like all of them fell asleep, but some had like, they had extra oil, you know, and it's like, it's a time of gathering, right? We're in a time of, we have freedom. You know, you can pray as much as you want. You can read your Bible as much as you want. It's like, Lord help us to, it says count the days, count so that you will be wise. Like let's gather in the time that we have now and I want to be I want to be a wise virgin who still has oil like who doesn't run out who's able to meet the king you know and Lord help us in that like Lord help us to be people that When the Lord pours we receive and we receive a lot Like I don't want to receive little and I realized so many times in my life. I was satisfied with the touch from the Lord and he was Little and there's so much more, you know Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's generous. He's so generous. And I think he does pour out and he wants to show us the massive expanse of his love. And you're right, we shouldn't settle for, well, I was touched by the Lord once. And then, and I'm satisfied. I'm good for the rest of my life. Like, no, I want the fullness of all that he is, like personal relationship with him in the best way possible. I don't want to just be satisfied that, you know, about that one thing that happened 10 years ago. want, you know, I can't just be living off the fumes of that. We, know, we, we have to ask the Lord to revive us internally. and you know what? I'm going to bring it to closing thoughts because it's about time for us to do that anyways. My closing thought on the subject is, I heard this at the, at a conference we were at a few years ago. I was trying to find out who. came up with this quote, because I don't, you I wanna give credit where credit is due. They think it's an evangelist who named Gypsy Smith, whatever, but maybe it might be not, regardless. It was a really great illustration where it was like, when you are on your knees and praying, you know, draw a circle around yourself, get into that circle and don't leave that circle until revival has touched you. If you are praying for revival and wanting it out there, make sure that you and of yourself, you and yourself are being touched by the Lord first and foremost. I butchered that, but anyways, ladies closing thoughts. closing thoughts, persevere in prayer, and the Lord will come. We just have to have the patience and we just, we just have to sit still long enough for the presence of God to come. Because I think sometimes we're so in a hurry and we're like, well, we got our tidbit, we got our tidbit of revelation or insight in the word while we're praying. And that's enough. Like I know I want to get better at just sitting in the presence of God and allowing him to speak and allowing him to to give, you know, whatever he wants to give in the sense of whatever, how much of himself he wants to reveal. And Lord help us to be patient in our prayers with him and in our walk with him, not to hurry, not to hurry our time with the Lord. Yeah. Amen. Amen. I have two different thoughts. I think one of them has to do with, it's something I didn't mention before, but I think we need messages that are not milk and honey in the church, in our circles. In terms of, I think we need hard messages. I want to read a quote, actually. I'm going to read a quote. We must seek power even at the expense of influence. Think again of the great apostle Paul. What an opportunity he had of gaining influence with Felix. Had he but flattered him a little in his sin, he could have made a great impression. And I believe he could have received a handsome donation for his missionary effort by being tolerant, by accommodating the situation. Paul chose power before influence and he reasoned of sin. of righteousness and of judgment. Let Felix say what he will, let Drusilla say what she chooses to think. I must be true to my conscience and to my inner conviction and declare the whole council of God and take my stand on the solid ground of separation unto God. Here I would quote from the saintly Finney, away with your milk and water preaching of the love of Christ. that has no holiness or moral discrimination in it, away with the preaching of Christ not crucified for sin. Such a collapse of conscience in this land could never have existed if the Puritan element of our preaching had not in great measure fallen out. So, I think Who said the quote by the way? Who wrote this? This is in Duncan Campbell's book, Revival in the Hebrides. I would highly recommend the book. It like you feel God's presence when you read it. So I think that I don't know, we need we need preachers and maybe this is happening and I'm sure it is, but that just preach, preach a gospel message that will convict. You know, it's not. The Lord does want to bless you. He wants to bless us. He's so good. He wants to give you so much. But there's also an element of self-denial. And I think we need to preach self-denial. And I think when that... And it's not a popular message, but this is what's going to bring revival is when we speak against the self and we point towards Christ. Amen. Agreed. And then on that note, I want to thank everyone for tuning in and listening and watching. Thank you guys so much for all the support and encouragement you guys have given for this move to the YouTubes. Yeah, it's definitely a fun new way to do the podcast. We are not used to it. I don't think any of us are used to it yet, but we appreciate you all. Excuse us. I said, give us time. Yeah, exactly. But if you like this episode, feel free to share it with a friend. Please like and subscribe to us on YouTube. There's a bell icon where you click on it. You get all sorts of notifications for when we post. if you have any questions, concerns, comments, you can write in the YouTube comments now. We will see them or you can email them contact at timeforthesoul.co. We have a newsletter if you want to see stay subscribed to any updates we might have But yeah past that I don't think I have anything else to say. What about you ladies? Nope, that is it. Get in your secret place. Lord, help us get in our secret place. And feast with the king. Amen. All right, until next time. Bye bye.