09 November 2024
Some of you are aware of the so-called Asbury Revival, a series of evangelical worship meetings in an auditorium at Asbury University in Wilmore, KY. It was kicked off 08 February 2023. After the mandatory chapel attendance, several students took seriously the challenge to confess their sins and seek redemption in a private gathering. The response was overwhelming as an apparent outpouring of the Spirit prompted an informal revival. Praying, singing and related worship activities continued almost round the clock for several weeks in or around the building. This is a Methodist school, so having emotional revivals is a major part of their heritage. After a few weeks, the university management declared they were no longer supporting it specifically, but also not going to stop it. The emotional momentum is still going and there are meetings in the same building that claim to be a continuation of the first few weeks.
This thing has been analyzed to death in the mainstream press, not to mention a lot of religious news services. As you might expect, it has drawn some scandalous people looking to take advantage of the opportunity for fame. This is the nature of things in our world. Indeed, there is a natural conflict going on here, and too many people are blind to that. The instinct in western church folks is to view this like the Burning Bush scene in the Old Testament, where you cannot walk anywhere near without treating the whole thing as holy.
Paul said what happened in the Exodus has become symbolism for how God works in the New Covenant in Christ. We need to distinguish a move of the Spirit in the Spirit Realm from human activity in the Flesh Realm that may arise from such work in the Spirit Realm. The latter will always be impure, just as it was at Mount Sinai. The Tabernacle was not God's House; it symbolized His residence in Heaven. A revival of God in the Spirit always provokes manifestations on the earth, but those are two different things.
This is not really about the Asbury Revival itself. Rather, this movement is a symptom of something that needs our attention and understanding. We need to de-mythologize what's happening. There is no doubt that God is at work here, but it's not even like Moses and the Exodus. God no longer works that way; it died on the Cross. You can find plenty of parallels between the Old Testament and the New, but I don't see mass numbers of people hoping to escape slavery and become a new nation to claim some promised land. By no means do I deny that God calls to us in those symbols, but I deny that people are getting very far along that path. They aren't even seizing a small portion of what God is willing to do on the human level.
There's no exodus. Whatever God is doing, people aren't taking the whole package. I'm not referring to the individual students or anyone else involved in this thing; God alone knows what is happening in their souls. Unless you are there observing the changes in the lives of the people involved, there's no way you can discern that part of it. You won't find any kind of reliable and accurate reporting of that. What you will find is a lot of reporting that sluices all this energy into existing safe channels. The people who publicly claim to be involved in this revival are the ones who typically end up making it something that God doesn't do.
In other words, the Asbury Revival is a thing unto itself. There is surely a real change on some level, but the manifestation is not the thing itself. When it involves enough people doing the same thing together at the same time in some organized fashion, it gets human attention. The human attention becomes a creature in itself, and typically detaches from the actual move of the Spirit. It is this manifestation and attention that takes over and obscures the underlying work of God.
The spiritual danger is trying to see God in the public event. It's taming God by ensuring He does not lead a horde of slaves away from their comfortable slavery. To the degree those experiencing a move of God are sucked into the human events side of things, we know that they will simply change the colors of the chains, but not much else. The human leadership will substitute one slavery for another.
That's why I'm saying that, sadly, there is no exodus here. There is no mass movement away from the bondage of what they've been doing all along. I've been praying that there would be individuals escaping here and there, because I've seen first hand too many revivals that did nothing in the long run. Isn't it amazing how extravagant our God is? He pours out an ocean of cleansing power, and the results are scattered across isolated individuals who represent a small portion.
I'll be honest: This is what has put me off the language and imagery of sweeping revivals. The people aren't joining the Covenant and they aren't claiming the Promised Land in any mass change. Everything we might be told to expect from reading the Scripture is being actively squelched by the system of human existence across the board. I'm not saying God is hindered, but people are. The meaning and expectation of what "revival" should do has been defined out of existence. It has become an emotional mass hypnosis.
I'm certain the Lord has called a few folks farther into faith, but I've seen too many in situations like this who lose the fire. They don't carry it within them. They won't act until someone else builds a fire for them. They get warm and start obeying the Lord, but the fire isn't a part of them. I'm hoping one day to see something different from this established pattern, but I've been disappointed so far. God will do what He does; His hand is not hindered. But somehow the Covenant testimony is still squelched.
How long, O Lord?
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