Index To Articles on   Revival

Also See Section Counterfeit Revivals

INTRODUCTION

Our main purpose today is to express our concern for the name of God and for the good progress of his people. Mighty events are rocking the church at this present time. The torch of truth has been trampled in the dirt where once it shone brightly. Organisations and groups who once held that torch with zeal have cast it aside in favour of some new spiritual discovery. One-by-one, words which once had a meaning have been neutralised. We all recognise the shifting meaning of words, such as “Christian” or “Catholic”, and their long-standing deviations. But today even the word “evangelical” no longer means what it originally was intended to describe.

Chambers dictionary, for instance, under the word “evangelical” gives this definition; “The school that insists especially on the total depravity of unregenerate human nature, the justification of the sinner by faith alone, the free offer of the gospel to all, and the plenary inspiration and exclusive authority of the bible”. That is what it used to mean. Even a secular dictionary such as Chambers knows that. But now, today, I read in the newspapers that “evangelicals” have been rolling around on the floor and laughing hysterically in services of the worship of Almighty God. Whatever else that may be, it is NOT evangelicalism. To be evangelical means, from the Greek, “to have a good message to proclaim”. Nowadays many evangelicals don’t have a message of any kind to proclaim. They only have an experience, and not even a Christian one at that!

In the newspapers in 1994 it was reported that a revival of Christianity had begun in the U.K. It allegedly originated in an insignificant church in Toronto and had burst forth in the establishment churches of the UK. “Holy Spirit Fever Hits London!” said the headline in the parish magazine of Holy Trinity Brompton in Knightsbridge. On June the 18th 1994, the Times newspaper carried a report headed:

“Spread of Hysteria Fad worries Church” in which it was stated that “a religious craze that originated in Canada and involves mass fainting and hysterical laughter has crossed the Atlantic to cause growing concern in the church of England”.

In this article it was reported that the vicar of a large church in London, was forced to cancel an evening service of Holy Communion because so many in his congregation “were lying on the floor”. Apparently the service “had ended in chaos as dozens of people burst into spontaneous laughter or tears, trembled and shook or fell to the floor”. Now you might have got the impression that just a few churches have succumbed to this wave of so-called revival. In fact it involves all the Vineyard churches, originally started by John Wimber, Ichthus fellowship in which Roger Fosters name is associated, the Oasis Trust, set up by the well known evangelist Steve Chalke, a large number of Church of England churches -- the most famous being Holy Trinity Brompton in Knightsbridge, Saint Michael-le-Belfry in York -- Queens Road Baptist in Wimbledon, and many more charismatic and Pentecostal churches. I had a phone call from the religious affairs correspondent of the BBC in Leeds, who told me that many things were happening in churches in Leeds and Bradford. And today when I spoke to her she said it was even more widespread then she at first believed. And I’ve personally received many reports of other churches up and down the country.
 

InPlainSite.org Note: Holy Trinity Brompton was also responsible for starting The Alpha course
 

What are we to make of this? We are not speaking here about differences of opinion concerning whether or not we put our arms in the air during our worship, or whether we sing from Spring Harvest Songbook or the Redemption Hymnal. The things we’re considering here today go far beyond those comparatively superficial elements. What we’re really concerned with here is the discernment of spirits. The purveyors of this Toronto Blessing, so-called, claim that what is happening in their churches is akin to the huge revivals that took place in the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain and the United States; the "Great Awakenings", as they were known. Now I’ve not come here to pour cold water on the flames of genuine revival. Far from it. If there’s one aim that I would like to see fulfilled today, it is to fill our hearts with an understanding of what genuine revival is really all about and to give us a great thirst to see it all happen.

Now we are going to explore a considerable amount of ground during our time together. And we are going to read through a great many examples. There is so much that I want to share with you on this subject. I’ve had to cram a great deal of material into one session. But I believe it is vital information, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

I’m going to have to say a number of things which some may find very negative. Especially about some professing Christian Leaders. But you know, our Lord was sometimes very negative in the way he addressed the religious leaders of His day, who should have known better... But I’ll also be saying a lot of positive things too, for example, about what a genuine revival is. It is a wonderful subject, but so very open to distortion and excessiveness if one is not grounded in the truth of the Word of God or if one does not have an overall understanding of the flow of church-history.

We’ve got three main headings that we will be exploring together: First of all; we’ll examine “The Hallmarks of Genuine Revival”; Secondly we’ll see “How People Handled Physical and Emotional Phenomena during the History of Revivals”; Thirdly we’ll look at “The True Origins of the Toronto Blessing”.

So let's look first of all at
 

I. THE HALLMARKS OF GENUINE REVIVALS

Well I have seven hallmarks here. I felt that was a round number; but you can probably think of many more yourselves. First, the first thing to note about genuine revivals is that

1) They Always Involve an Overwhelming Success of the Gospel

Now although I’ve used the word revival so far in our session, because we all have a certain common assumption about what that means, I am not at all convinced that it is the best word to use to describe the situation that we are speaking about. You will only have to look at the way that the word has been used this century (and especially in our own day) to refer to all kind of spurious goings on to realise that this word “revival” is a nose of wax, which can be made to point in whatever direction the user wants it to go.

In 1754 the Scottish Minister John Gilles wrote a massive work which has been reprinted recently with the title; “Historical Collections of Accounts of Revival”. But that is not its original title. The original title is “Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel”. Ultimately that is what revival is really all about; the success of the Gospel. In fact you can actually apply this as a litmus test to any claim of revival to discover whether it is genuine or false. Can what is happening be held up as a wonderful example of a remarkable success for the Gospel?

In the Book of Acts, if you trace through the revivals which took place during the first years of the church, you’ll find that the same two terms are used repeatedly. The first term is the “word of the Lord” or the “word of God” or the “teaching of the Lord”. Basically the same thing is meant there. It’s referring to the Gospel going out. And the second term is “believed”. So on the one hand, there are those who are spreading the Word of the Lord, preaching the Gospel, and on the other hand there are those who are receiving it, who believe. I’ll give you some examples.

“Then those who gladly received His Word were baptized. Many of those who heard the word believed. And the number of the man came to be about 5000”. Again; “but the word of God grew and multiplied”. And again:

“and the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region”. And again; “so the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed”.

And again; “and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord”.

Again; “and the proconsul believed when he saw what had been done, he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord”.

Again; “therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks prominent women as well as men. Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many had been appointed to eternal life, believed and the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region”.

There was a twofold activity taking place here: there was the gospel going out by the spoken word, and then the soundwaves of that verbal message were received by the hearers resulting in belief. Faith comes by HEARING! This is a rational activity involving the mind. And that process has been the solid starting point for all genuine revivals from the very inception of the church of Jesus Christ on this earth.

Now in all the accounts I’ve read or in all the eyewitness reports I have received concerning this so-called Toronto Blessing, I have never heard of any powerful preaching of the biblical gospel. The most you get is some homily of sorts or a few bible verses taken out of context. And it has always been the same with all the meetings that I have personally attended where these kind of phenomena that we are reading about today have been encouraged. You do not hear the gospel preached in all its power. There’s no presentation of the great gospel truths of Christianity, as there was in the old style revivals. Reference to the Fall of Man, universal depravity, the fact the everyone is by nature deserving only of the wrath of God. The incarnation of the Son of God. The atonement on the Cross where Christ took upon himself the wrath of God as the punishment for our sins. The resurrection from the grave and ascension into heaven. The reconciliation of His people to God so that there is no longer any condemnation toward them. That is the true source of our joy. The coming day of judgement, the everlasting outer darkness for those who refused to obey the Gospel and who do not know God. Eternal life for those who have humbled themselves to the will of God and sought forgiveness through Christ Jesus. It is the preaching of these timeless gospel truths that sparked off the genuine revivals throughout the history of the church.

When 3000 souls were saved at that Pentecost birthday of the church, what was the prime factor which led to that happening? Had they been subjected to some kind of mystical experience? Is there any record of all these new converts undergoing hysterical laughter en masse like you see today? Not at all! What was the response of these people to the preached word? The only sign which the Word of God has been pleased to record is this: “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the apostles; brothers, what shall we do?” Now that’s what every evangelist would love to see and hear. The people cut to the heart, asking what shall we do? And what did Peter say? Did he say "Come over here brother and I’ll just zap you on the forehead with spirit-power"? Did he say "Lets sing loaded choruses for 45 minutes, and then you’ll be so intoxicated that I won’t have to tell you what to do"? People don’t need mystical experiences. They need to know the truth, the truth that will set them free! The gospel involves verbal propositions, requiring an intelligent response involving the mind. So when these people said: "What shall we do?" Peter replied: "Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit". Now THAT’S the stuff which brings about a revival of the soul.

When we read through the histories of the ancient old-style revivals, the genuine revivals, we see this everywhere. The success of the Gospel. For example, when we read about the revival at Lowestoft in Suffolk in 1921, we discover that; and I quote: “The outstanding feature of this spiritual movement was the preaching of the Gospel”. And then referring to Douglas Brown, who was the main preacher there:

“He spoke simply on the basic truths of the Christian faith from scripture, with the cross central to every message”. “Douglas Brown preaches the truth with no uncertain sound” said Hugh Ferguson, “Ruin by the fall, redemption by the atoning blood, regeneration and renewal by the Holy Ghost. Anointing by the Holy Ghost for service. Godly living, waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven. You get old Bible doctrines and apostolic preaching and, thank God, apostolic results!”

Now there’s the account of what happened at Lowestoft.

So the first hallmark of genuine revival is that it always involves a remarkable success for the Gospel. It’s the preached word that goes out. Multitudes received the word and believed. So instead of saying: "Is it revival?", it would be far better to ask: “Does it represent a success for the Gospel; did people really believe?”

So that’s the first hallmark of a genuine revival. An overwhelming success for the gospel.

The second hallmark of genuine revivals is this:

2) They Always Produce a Heightened Awareness of Sin

This has always been the very first sign in any revival! An overwhelming conviction of sin. Every reliable eyewitness account you read on historical revivals proves that the first response to the moving of the Holy Spirit was a heightened awareness of one’s sin before an infinitely Holy God! Jim Packer in an article on the theology of revival says;

“In revival, God is said to arise and come to His people in the sense of making His Holy presence felt among them so that his reality becomes inescapable. And the infinite ugliness, guilt, ill-desert and pollution of sin are clearly seen”.

Just listen to this account of the revival in Korea in 1907. This is the account by Mr Lee:

“Man after man would rise to his feet, confess his sins and break down and weep, and then throw himself to the floor and then beat the floor with his fists, in perfect agony of conviction. My own cook tried to make a confession, broke down in the midst of it and cried to me across the room; 'Pastor tell me, is there any hope for me? Can I be forgiven?' And then he threw himself to the floor, and wept and wept! And almost screamed in agony. Sometimes after a confession, the whole audience would break out in audible prayer and the effect of that audience of hundreds of men, praying together in audible prayer, was something indescribable. Again, after another confession, they would break out in uncontrollable weeping and we would all weep, we couldn’t help it and so the meeting went on till 2am, with confession and weeping and praying. Each was face to face with God. I can hear yet that fearful sound of hundreds of men, pleading with God for life and for mercy. The cry went out over the city till the heathen were in consternation”.

Now that’s real revival. Hundreds of men, pleading with God for life and for mercy. And again, a little account here of the revival at Tregaron in Wales in 1859. It says in this particular church that by the end of March, about 400 members had been added to the church. Two of these were notorious for their riotous living. I quote here:

“While captain Williams of the Peggy was praying one evening in a service in a school room, one of the vilest reprobates of the town rushed in under the influence of drink. The reverent solemnity pervading the meeting checked his insolence. He listened and scanned the scene for a few minutes, then suddenly dropped on his knees shouting with an exceeding bitter cry; ‘Oh God! Be merciful unto Dave the Bully!’ Then he moved to the front, mingling his supplication with those of the captain and making his wife the subject of his prayers. 'Betty is in the house thou knowest Oh Lord, Go there Lord, and if the door is locked, un-ship it off its hinges and save Betty Oh Lord!' In a short time, Betty too came in with a wild look and cried immediately: 'Lord, have mercy on me, the biggest sinner in Tregaron'. Their reformation was lasting”.

Do you see the difference between these descriptions of revival and what we are hearing and seeing today? The reverent solemnity pervading the meeting checked his insolence. Where is the reverent solemnity in these churches that we are hearing about today? And again, in a letter here to the Scotch church in Rotterdam in Holland, dated May 1754:

“On that very same Lord’s day [when the awakening work began], there was not only a more than ordinary concourse of people in the house of God, so that I stood amazed and behold the multitude, but there was likewise a marvellous sedateness and attention. And in the afternoon, there was a great melting and many tears. At that time I believed surely that the Lord would work but how or in what manner, I knew not. The commotion began for the first time in the school, where the exercise was held for more than 25 persons old and young. Their bodily distresses were very great, yet they all had presence of mind and did nothing but weep and cry and pray because of their lost states, their sin and their want of Christ. This lasted from 8 to 12 o'clock at night in the minister's house and in the school and thus it continued to work within the whole week, enquiring in great distress what to do to be saved! That was their cry. The next Sabbath day the work began amongst seven in the church and it seized on some in a terrible manner who a little before had ridiculed and mocked it, so that they cried aloud with strong cries for their sin and approaching destruction which they greatly feared!”

Now it is in connection with this spiritual process of the conviction of sin, grievous conviction of sin, that various physical phenomena occurred during the historic revivals. I will be looking at these now just for a moment. It’s a convenient place to do so. Because we are looking at the fact that a second hallmark of genuine revival is that it always produces a heightened awareness of sin. And many physical phenomena did occur in relation to this experience. Now the Toronto revival people of today say that what is happening in their churches can be favourably compared to the great awakenings of old because they also have physical phenomena. But those we see today are very, very different to those which happened under the guiding hand of godly ministers in the "Great Awakenings" and the other genuine revivals of yesteryear. For example, in the same account of a revival in Holland, listen to this:

“When they got a view of a Holy and Just God and of approaching death and eternity, they immediately fell into fearful distress of mind and thus into these bodily distresses and disorders. So that the bodily troubles were caused by the discovery and conviction of their sin and unconverted state. These discoveries were various, some were in general arrested by their sinful life and conversion, and were made to believe that if they died in this state, they had nothing to expect but Hell and everlasting damnation! Others again were arrested by some particular sins of their life, some by their cursing, drinking, gaming and the like, some by their irreligiousness both in public and in private. Some by their enmity against God, His ways and His people, some by their disobedience and unbelief of the Word and admonition. Some by their dissimulation and hypocritical dealings. Some by their opposing and sinning away. And so forth.. And these were not only arrested by their actual and daily sins, but especially by their original sin. And were convinced that by that alone, they were worthy of death and damnation!”

And it speaks here about some of these people swooning away with wonder:

“When it pleased the Lord to discover himself unto them, as a reconciled God in Christ in His promise, they swooned away at their own unworthiness and God’s sovereignty, saying "Had the Lord been pleased to look upon me, such a miserable blind and sinful creature". And when they came to themselves again, they quite sunk away in their sense of their nothingness, their sinfulness, their unworthiness and that the Lord had been pleased to look down upon such as they were. Their panting desiring and longing to be part and to be with Christ. They were afraid of self-deceit continually crying, “Search me! Try me!” And would rather have the discovery of their state if it were false, than to deceive themselves”.

Friends, when the Holy Spirit opens up your heart, and exposes your true depravity and uncleanness before God, is it any wonder that some cannot stand? Even the believer can be smitten in this way and will be; Ezekiel, John the evangelist, Peter and others, fell down as though dead, under great horror of soul. “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man,” said Peter in his agony when confronted with the naked reality of Christ's divine power. Similarly, at the revival at Camberslane in Scotland, we read;

 “Accordingly, solemnly conscious of the presence of God, sorely awakened to the guilt of sin and bitterly aware of their own helplessness, men and women trembled and wept and some sank down as though dead”. McFarlane rightly states: “Is there anything unnatural in the tears or even in strong bodily agitation on his part who has just been brought to see that his soul as well as his body is in a lost and, as it appears to him, a hopeless condition”.

That is the true “slain in the spirit” experience. Not this mass swooning away at nothing at all that we see today, which just happens automatically whenever a service is held or a lot of intoxicating music is played, or you yield up your mind. Listen to this account of a service at South West London Vineyard church:

“As the band began to play and our service rolled into action, the first to raise her hand in the air and to begin swaying was the wife of the pastor. By the second number people were dancing in the isles and the back of the young man in front of me had begun vibrating as a beginning of progression to spiritual drunkenness that was to end in rigid on-the-spot shaking and leaping. Nearly everyone else fell over, stood rigid or shaking, sobbing, clutching at their faces or waving their hands before them. I looked back, beyond the empty chairs and bodies strewn over the floor to see many who were not affected chatting calmly over coffee as if nothing was happening, while bodies lay splayed at their feet baring beatific smiles and looks of tremendous peace”.

Now I ask you, my friends, was all that in response to a flesh-withering Gospel sermon from the pastor? Not at all! For there had been no such thing. What brought all this about was a combination of intoxicating music, a suggestible situation and a giving up of one’s mind to an ecstatic experience. And yet we are told that the wave of phenomena at this church (quote) “is taking on the characteristics of a centennial revival akin to that of the late 18th century”. To say such a thing, shows a total ignorance of the history of genuine revivals. When George Whitfield preached at Camberslane, he wrote this afterwards:

“On the Monday morning I preached to near as many as before, but such a universal stir I never saw before, the motion fled as swift as lightning from one end of the auditory to the other. You might have seen thousands bathed in tears, some at the same time ringing their hands. Others almost swooning and others crying out and mourning over a pierced Saviour!”

“Mourning over a pierced Saviour”…they were weeping in this way, because they realised that it was their sins which had necessitated Jesus Christ experiencing all the pangs of hell on the Cross. Nowadays, vast quantities of professing evangelicals don’t even believe in the Biblical idea of Hell, eternal punishment. Why should they tremble at it when they don’t even believe it? In these historic revivals, people underwent bodily phenomena because they were overwhelmingly convicted of their sin. Some went through the most dreadful bodily agonies; and this was hardly surprising, when you consider that sin is not just a question of doing bad things... it is deeply ingrained in the human structure from the time of conception. “In sin my mother conceived me”, says the psalmist. And under the ministry of the evangelist Asahel Nettleton, one woman almost died of the convictions and bodily agonies. This was in the 19th century. A contemporary account says that when Nettleton arrived,

"her agony was such that she could not remain in one position -- now she sat, now she kneeled, all the while piteously saying “Young people, take warning from me”. It was felt by those present that her constitution could not endure this torment much longer. A doctor was summoned, but he could only stand by watching hopelessly. Recognising that the illness was out of his field, the physician looked at Asahel and asked if he thought she would die. After three days, the nightmare ended. She received the assurance of complete salvation in Christ and was rejoicing in her Saviour".

These pre-conversion experiences, says this writer, were referred to by the Nettleton school of evangelists as "law-work" or "Holy Spirit conviction". While varying greatly in intensity and duration, virtually all of those saved in the Second Great Awakening had some such heart-wounds before being cured by the Gospel balm. Asahel cites the cases of Paul in Romans 7 (who speaks of being "slain by the law"), the converts on the day of Pentecost and the Philippian jailor as biblical precedence for these experiences. Slain by the law. Now that is the REAL thing, the real 'slainness'. In the genuine historic revivals, people fell down at the preaching because they were slain by the law! That is the first work of the Holy Spirit in a person. Convicting the world of sin. God’s law pronounces every man and woman as guilty law-breakers, deserving only of eternal death.

There is a vast difference between the so-called “Slain in the Spirit” experience, which has been generated in a great many churches during the past century, and this sin-conviction-phenomenon of being slain by the law. The main reason that any swooning took place in the genuine revivals was out of people's horror at the realisation that without salvation their fate would be total separation from God forever. They suddenly had a glimpse of that eternal death, and THAT was why they swooned away.

There’s a graphic account of a sermon preached by John Flavel at his church at Dartmouth in Devon. I don’t know if you know the works of John Flavel. It is published in 6 volumes. They have been reprinted today. They really are very heart-warming, and I can thoroughly recommend them, especially to pastors. And in one of his sermons -- just listen to this -- this was his introduction to a sermon, he begins by saying to his people:

“I rejoice that some among you have been persuaded to love and embrace Christ. But alas!, I have sufficient reason to fear that there are those among you who have never yielded to all my alluring representations of him nor all the cogent arguments and motives. After all I can say or do, you will not love Him. And now Alas, I must change my note, I must deliver a message to you that I am loathe to deliver, but my Lord and Master requires it of me in order to deliver the whole council of God. It is that dreadful message in 1 Corinthians 16:22: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let Him be anathema nor anathema let him be a cursed of God' till God shall come and judge him".

And then the account says: “Upon which the whole assembly was struck into a very great and visible consternation and amongst them was a gentleman of wealth and figure who fell down as though dead in his pew in great distress of soul”. Well, he revived and was later saved. But that is what it really means to be "slain by the Spirit". The Holy Spirit first slays you with the law of God, before which every mouth is stopped and all the world becomes guilty before God. However by no means all were affected in this way with these bodily phenomena; but if you go into a Toronto blessing style church, everyone is at it, virtually. There’s hardly anyone left standing, not that they are under the agonies of conviction of sin, but they have just gone into trance mode, or tremble mode. They seem to think that the old revivals just involved everyone falling down like in their phoney "revivals". But in the well-managed and genuine revivals, comparatively few actually fell down.

Listen to this account given by a minister called Kuipers in Holland. This is dated 16th of November 1749 and he speaks of a time when the Lord began to work in a powerful manner as he preached on Psalm 72, verse 16. He says:

“Then it was that the most part of the hearers melted into tears which as floods gushed out of their eyes near the close of the exercise, there was a general outcry and lamentation heard. And when the blessing was about to begin several fell trembling and were so put to it through astonishment that they fell down upon the earth by reason of the agony of their spirits, arising from the strong and lively impressions made upon them of the trying necessities of their souls. I took some of these troubled souls home to my own house, heard them speak and by examining of and conversing with them, soon discovered that the Lord had given them a sight of their utterly lost state”.

They saw themselves to be the greatest and vilest sinners, and that’s why they fell down, friends. They didn’t just fall down because they were in an ecstasy or they had worked themselves up, throwing their arms in the air and their minds into the air with them. These people in the old style revivals fell down because of the agony of their souls, when they saw themselves as God saw them. And he adds here, and this is most interesting, he says:

“I was sent forth from all corners, and my own house was continually full of such as came anxiously enquiring for counsel and direction in their miserable state”. But not to lengthen out this account needlessly he says “It is enough to tell you that the number of those who were desirous of salvation increased daily, among which was some kinds of ages, some boys and girls, a great many youths, men and women in the flower of their age and also persons far advanced in years. Meanwhile this work was attended with a great mixture of moving affection, which by sedate admonition and direction were in some kept within proper bounds, but in others they were followed with strong bodily distresses which I looked on as consequent of their heavy soul-distress. Some had fits, fainting and even strong convulsive motions”.

And then he says here, and this is most important:

“But yet the number of those who continued in a composed frame was by far the greatest, for of ten in whom to my judgement the Lord had begun to work, there are nine who never had these moving affections, and those who went too far, I endeavoured gently to restrain. And as soon as the hearts of these people began to work in a more Gospel way, they ceased by themselves”.

Now is that not a very different account to the ones that we are hearing about today? Nine out of ten people never had those bodily agitations, bodily distresses, reflecting their agony of soul.

We are going to be going into how leaders handled bodily manifestations and another phenomena, when we finish looking at these hallmarks, because that had a very great bearing on how the revival progressed. But let’s just say a word or two about these phenomena. When we compare the old genuine revivals and the new-style circuses which claim to be revivals, we’ll see that we are moving in two completely different worlds in which the cause and the effect are inexcusably reversed. In the old style revivals when people fell down, it was a mere effect, a by-product which was caused by their agonies of soul in standing as sinners before a just and holy God. The process of being confronted by the Spirit of God was the cause, and it brought about the effect of falling down. The falling down was an effect, a by-product of their agony. However, in the new style of "revivals", the process is reversed, so that the falling down becomes a causal experience which can then be induced in people and which itself can generate other effects. In other words, the thing that was formerly just an effect, becomes elevated to a cause, so that instead of it being the process of conversion, which might make you fall down, it becomes the process. Falling down then makes you into a convert! Do you see what I am saying here friends? There is a total inversion of reality. It’s subtle at first, but that’s what’s happening, and when you look at it, you can really see it. The process of conversion might make you fall down, but what happens now is, it’s inverted in these new-style revivals, so that the process of falling down can make you into a convert. And the moment that happens, we move right out of the realms of Christianity into a Pagan ritual; and one might even say an occult initiation.

When you desire to fall down into a trance, so you can be bathed in the Spirit, what spirit do you think it is? Well, I leave the answer to that question till later.
So the second hallmark of genuine revival is an overwhelming conviction of sin and an awareness of it that can be so heightened in some that it can knock you flat on your face. Slain by the law!

The third hallmark of genuine revivals is that

3) They Always Glorify Jesus Christ

When Jesus said he would send another Comforter, Advocate, Helper, Paraklete, whatever you want to call Him, he said that one of the principal works that this other Comforter would do is to bear witness of the Lord Jesus. He said, these are the words:

“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me”.

Now it wouldn’t be at all irreverent to say that the Holy Spirit is actually a very self-effacing person of the Trinity. He doesn’t set about drawing attention to himself. His purpose in the scheme of redemption is to magnify the name of Jesus. To point the sinner to Christ by applying the Word of God to their hearts. And in the old style genuine revivals the name of Christ was glorified. All that he had accomplished on the cross, his perfect finished work of salvation, all that was a great source of joy and wonder. But in the new Toronto style revivals, all we hear about is: the spirit, the spirit, the spirit. It is as if the Holy Spirit is some kind of laughing gas which descends in an invisible cloud on any congregation which tunes in intently enough.

Let us ensure that the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the main focus of all our evangelistic work. And that He is glorified in any success we may have with the Gospel. So that’s the third characteristic of a genuine revival. It always glorifies Jesus Christ as the name above all names.

The fourth characteristic that one notices about genuine revival is that

4) They Grew Serious-Minded Christians

One thing that is very noticeable about the old-style genuine revival is that they never involved the hysterical laughter that we read so much about today. In fact if there is one facet which characterises the Toronto style revival it is this so called “Holy laughter”. One testimony from a man who was concerned at the turn of events at a recent conference in London states (and this is his personal testimony):

“At every meeting, people experienced this laughing in the spirit. This was not just a giggling fit, but full blown guffawing, with people stamping their feet, banging walls and even shouting. I questioned some of these people afterwards about their experience and with one exception, they all said that they were unable to stop. Very few experienced any feelings of love or peace, only exhaustion”.

And this is contagious, folks! That’s why I prefer to call it the Toronto sickness, rather than blessing. It gets passed on from person to person. They can even get unbelievers to do it too… even children! The wife of the pastor at the South-West London vineyard church, writing in the July issue of "Renewal" magazine about this new revival, says: “It’s contagious!” She continues:

“I went to a Christian school in Clapham the other day and talked to them about the Lord, and I prayed for them. The Lord fell upon those five-year-olds and they were laughing and weeping and crying out to the Lord. The teachers were affected and the parents were rolling around. I thought 'God this is a glorious thing you are doing. This is fantastic!'”

Well I just think about those poor little five-year-olds. Probably attending a church with their parents where they think all this kind of stuff is normal... and then performing for the grown-ups. What chance have they got?

In the London Times, on July 2nd 1994, Ruth Gledhill, the religious affairs correspondent and presumably an unbeliever, attended the South-West London Vineyard church and she says this:

“I clambered over a couple of prostrate bodies for tea and coffee and found myself giggling uncontrollably. I felt dizzy and grasped a chair, in order not to collapse”.

Fortunately for her, she managed to regain her composure. But why was she giggling uncontrollably? Was she under conviction of sin? Had she suddenly discovered joy in the Lord? In what way had the spirit touched her? Or... rather, more to the point: what spirit (with a small s) was it that had touched her?

Reporting in an article in the Sunday telegraph recently, entitled; “Congregation Rolling in the Aisles”, a journalist goes along to Holy Trinity Brompton and writes that a grinning girl sat almost in a trance with both her hands shaking out in front of her. By this time he says: “a curate was at Claire’s side praying” (Claire was his companion). Apparently, the curate touched her and she started to giggle. Giggle at what, one may ask?

This man then stood in the midst of the bedlam in that church and he said:

“I felt like one of those hunted characters in an episode of the twilight zone, where everyone else in town has been taken over by aliens while you alone are evading them. But for how long?”

He may well ask that question. For how long can one evade this bizarre religious experience? I tell you, friends, unless you have got protection from the Lord, you are going to be in trouble if you go anywhere near these meetings.

You know, Solomon really gets us thinking in Ecclesiastes. He says this: “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. But the heart of fool is in the house of mirth”. What does he mean by that? Is he saying that we should all go around with long faces and having a “miserable worm” theology twenty-four hours a day? Not at all. He means that the godly person is a serious-minded person, not given to the kind of mindless mirth that is passing itself of as revival today. To spend hours in hysterical uncontrollable laughter is an utterly unedifying spiritual experience. You can go out and find any group of people who have been smoking dope, grass, marihuana, cannabis, go around and find them and see what they are doing. You will see that most people smoking dope in groups spend a lot of their time laughing in just that same way, laughing at nothing. Just a kind of cathartic laughing.

When I look at the Gadarene demoniac, I see a man who had been exhibiting some very strange phenomena before his encounter with Christ. Cavorting around a graveyard. Cutting himself up with sharp stones. But after his encounter with Jesus Christ, how was he found? Sitting, clothed, and in his right mind. That is the model of the converted person. A person who has arrived, not having to go around perpetually seeking these phenomenal experiences. A person whose life is conducted decently and in order, a person who is stable and who has a sound mind.

But isn’t there any joy in the Christian life you might say? You may say that these people are simply laughing like this because their joy of being in the Lord is bubbling out of them. Oh yes! There is a profound inner joy in the Christian life, but it is so very obvious that the laughter is being hyped up in these meetings, which can simply work as an irrational contagion from one person to another. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the deep joy experienced by true Christians. Knowing that you have been saved from eternal damnation by the sheer grace of God. That through no merit of your own He has taken you out of the power of Satan into His spiritual kingdom to be with Him forever! THAT is not an occasion for raucous laughter! But it is the cause of the greatest joy imaginable. It is no laughing matter the mighty fact that you have been saved from eternal damnation... it is no laughing matter, but it is the cause and the source of the greatest joy imaginable. But how that joy should translate itself into rolling around the floor in stitches for hours on end with a whole pile of other folk is beyond me to understand.

I’m not saying that there’s no humour, no joy, no weeping... perish the thought! We’re not bags of bones! The Lord has given us emotions and we will feel those emotions when we are involved in spiritual experience. There will be emotional spin-offs. But believers are self-controlled people, stable and with sound minds. One of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control, under the guiding hand of God. When the revival happened under Asahel Nettleton in Farmington in Connecticut in the USA, in the early 1800s. It was reported... and here is an account... listen to this:

“The state of feeling which pervaded the town at this time was interesting beyond description. There was no commotion, no boisterous excitement attending the revival, but serenity and solemnity everywhere. A stillness in the streets. There was a general conviction that God was in this place”.

Now that is the kind of serious-mindedness I’m speaking about. Serenity and solemnity everywhere. It sounds wonderful. As Iain Murray says in his book “Revival and Revivalism” -- which is a very interesting book, comparing the difference between the old style revival, genuine revival and how that changed into revivalism which was a work of the flesh rather then a work of God -- he says this:

“It is reverence, humility and stillness rather then noise and excitement which marks the nearness of God to a people. When people are conscious of God, like Moses, they bow their heads and worship. Nettleton encouraged in his meetings a hushed mysterious stillness. Such an effect had to come from heaven”.

Now all that is a million miles away from the hysterical and uncontrollable laughter that one sees and hears so much about today. But just where does this so-called “holy laughter” originate in professing Christian circles? The earliest point that I can find any reference to this phenomena, the “Holy Laugh”, is amongst the so-called Holiness movement in the mid to late 19th century which eventually gave birth to the Pentecostal movement at the beginning of the 20th century. Now the Holiness Movement has a very interesting and significant ancestry. We won’t go into that just now, but we will be coming to the historical lineage of this very shortly. So we will leave this point here and just remind ourselves that the fourth characteristic that one notices about all genuine revivals is that they always build up a generation of serious minded Christians.

The fifth hallmark of genuine revivals is this:

5) They Always Lead to an Increased Thirst for the Hearing of the Word of God

In churches where there has been a remarkable success of the Gospel, we find without exception that there is an extraordinary desire to learn more about the truths of God’s revelation. Just listen to this extract from a letter written by a minister in Lyme, Connecticut in the USA, dated April the 14th 1744. It is the latter end of the first Great Awakening. Just listen to this, friends, it will really warm your hearts:

“The effects of that sermon I spoke of, preached on the 23rd of March, were surprising. Indeed, there were no outcries, but a deep and general concern upon the minds of the assembly, which discovered itself at that time in plentiful weeping, sighs and sobs. And what appeared hopeful then, I found upon conversing with many afterwards to be true as far as I could judge. Many told me that they never had such an awakened sense of the danger of putting off the ground concern of their souls to a future season before, as God gave them under that sermon. They were surprised at their own past carelessness and astonished that God had borne with them so long. Several told me that although they had lived 30, 40 or 50 years under the preaching of the Gospel they had never felt the power of the Word upon their hearts, so as to be long effected thereby any time as they did then. Before it was the cry of their hearts: when will the sermon be over and the Sabbath be ended? But now the minister always left off too soon! And the time between sermons was too long. They longed for frequently returning opportunities to hear. Before they did not love soul-searching discourses, but now, never could hear too much of that nature, together with many other things of like import”.

And he goes on to say:

“After this, I observed that our assemblies were greater and more attentive at times of public worship than ever before. Sabbaths alone would not suffice for hearing sermons, but greater numbers still urged for frequent lectures. I was well pleased to observe such a flocking to the windows and a hearing to become general. And therefore I readily consented upon the request of the people to preach as often as I could, besides the stated exercises of the Sabbath. Once every week I carried on a public lecture besides several private ones in various parts of the parish. And I could not but observe, about this time, that an evening lecture that I had set up the winter before in a private house for the sake of a young man that was a cripple, although at first exceedingly thinly attended, about seven persons as I remember, was now greatly increased and in about a month grew-up to several hundreds. So that I was obliged to turn it into a public evening lecture. And he says, while I was preaching from Psalm 109, I observed many of the assembly in tears, and heard many crying out in very great bitterness of soul, as it seemed then by the sound of voices. When the sermon was over, I could better take notice of the callers, and the language was to this purpose: “Alas! I am undone, I am undone! Oh my sins, how they prey upon my vitals, what will become of me, how shall I escape the damnation of Hell?”

What do we see here? We see that in this revival there is a greatly increased thirst for hearing the Word of the Lord. But in the churches where the Toronto-sickness takes control, we find an elevation of subjective experience at the expense of objective truth. Personal prophecies and revelations become the anchor for the soul. And the Bible becomes downgraded to something which is simply used as an out-of-context tool to back-up one's fancies. This approach is typified by this statement of the Charismatic teacher Kenneth Hagin, who says in his magazine; “First decide what you want from God, and then find Scriptures that cover your case”. What a way to use the word of God! A genuine revival creates in people a holy awe for the word of God and an ardent desire to hear it brought to life in preaching. That is our fifth hallmark of a genuine revival: An increased thirst for the hearing of the word of God.

A sixth hallmark of a genuine revival is that

6) It Cannot be Humanly Reproduced

Only the Lord himself can make a revival happen. We can pray for it, we can plead for it, but we cannot generate it or manufacture it. Not a genuine revival. Looking at revival history, one reads of people meeting to pray for revival and having to wait years before seeing any fruit from their prayer. At other times, one reads of people praying for a revival in their own village, only to discover that it came in another one nearby. What do you think the Lord was telling them through this? Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts. It was all happening so that no flesh should glory in his presence. He obviously knew something about those people that they didn’t know about themselves. He was showing them: I work in my own way. He was showing them that the Spirit moves where He wills, not necessarily where we will.

And that is precisely what we find in all genuine revivals. But when we come to examine the present wave of the Toronto sickness, we discover a completely different spirit at work. Now the advocates of this new "revival" would say that it is all of the Spirit, that they don’t need to do anything, that the spirit just does the whole thing. But that is simply not true. Sample this account of a recent service at Holy trinity Brompton in London:

“First there was a singer on, next a reading from Corinthians and then up stood the vicar, the Reverend Sandy Miller. He reminded us of the strange things that had happened the previous Sunday, and requested witnesses to step forward to recount their experiences. A young man came forward and told of the ecstatic sensations he’d had after Mr Miller had touched him and he had fallen to the floor the previous week. It was like being held in the arms of an adoring father, he said. "I was overwhelmed with a sensation of love". "Shall we try it again" asked Mr Miller? The man assented, Mr Miller prayed, we held our breath… Mr Miller touched the mans forehead and then… BAMMM… right on queue, his eyelids fluttered, his knees buckled, and he was lowered to the floor where he started to gibber. Soon there were four bodies on the floor, two giggling and one gibbering and one silent. And then curates passing down the isles, praying and touching the congregation which was now falling about me. To my right, a young man in shorts was in hysterics rolling about the floor, holding the hand of another who joined him in the fit of spiritual merriment”.

Is this reproduction of revival the work of the Holy Spirit? Or the work of the suggestions of a man?

In the old style genuine revivals, the people responded to the preaching of the word of God and the presentation of the great truths of the Gospel. But here in this account, we have no preaching! Just music, a bit of scripture from Corinthians (where else?) and a lot of powerful suggestive techniques from the presiding minister. In fact, there is nothing in that account which could not easily be reproduced by a hypnotist in a night-club in Batley, Yorkshire. It is “mesmerism”, pure and simple. Anton Mesmer was an 18th century pseudo-scientist who ran faith-healing clinics in Paris. He too discovered that it was possible to have a powerful effect on others through suggestion techniques. Listen to this description of a session in his clinic:

“Mesmer marched about majestically, passing his hands over the patient bodies or touching them with a long iron wand. The results vary. Some patients felt nothing at all. Some felt as if insects were crawling over them. Others were seized with hysterical laughter, convulsions or fits of hiccups. Some went into raving delirium, which was called 'the crisis', and was considered extremely helpful”.

Mesmer was really a master hypnotist, and so are a great deal of the major teachers in the charismatic scene today. They know all about power and how to use it. And there is an infinite number of gullible people who will allow them to wield that power over them. So our sixth hallmark of genuine revival is that it cannot be humanly reproduced. If you can reproduce it by just zapping someone on the forehead, or giving them crude instructions, then it is not genuine revival. Yet in the modern revivals we find this reproach again and again. In fact it has been going on like this for years in these Pentecostal and charismatic meetings. All this falling down through hypnotic suggestion is nothing new. I have personally attended meetings where people actually queue up to be touched, so that they can be zapped in this way. Now is that humanly reproduced revival? Or is it a genuine work of the Holy Spirit? [See Modern Day Mesmerists]

But there is a difference in what’s been happening this year in the sense that whole hallfuls of people can fall about without anyone necessarily touching them. They point to this as proof that this is not humanly reproduced but must be the work of the Holy Spirit. Some people find that very difficult to argue with. But when you really examine what’s been going on for years, then you can come to a very different conclusion.

All this becomes much easier to argue with when you’ve got a bit knowledge under your belt, firstly about how suggestion works and secondly how demons operate. And then the claim that all this is of the flesh can be seen to still hold true. When you understand these things, you’ll know that the present Toronto-style so-called revival cannot possibly be of the Holy Spirit.

For years, in countless thousands of churches, there has been a huge build-up to this present outbreak of this so-called revival. Numerous alleged prophecies have been given. You find that the present revival has really been hyped up during the last few years. Today you only have to mention the very word ‘revival’ - which to these folk means falling about on mass with all kinds of weird phenomena - and you can create one instantly. The trigger word only has to go out and things start to happen. The people in these circles have for years been systematically trained up to turn off their minds in order to get into this experience. Now I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the moment you switch off your mind so that you can yield to hysterical and uncontrollable laughter, rolling around the floor, speaking gibberish or even plain old-fashioned religious swooning... the moment you switch your mind off so you can yield to these things, you are rendering yourself very vulnerable to demonic forces. People today just do not realise what they are getting into. We are in the midst of a mighty spiritual battle, friends. There is nothing Satan wants us to do more than make our minds a complete blank, imagining that we are swooning into the arms of a loving father.

When that happens it is at best a hypnotic phenomenon, at worst it can easily turn into a case of spirit possession. Now I am not speaking here of full blown possession by a demon, demonic possession, but a temporary, mediumistic possession as that which happens to mediums. They give themselves up to a spirit, their spirit guide or whatever, who takes them over for a brief period of time, during which they go into a trance - and whatever happens, happens - and then the spirit leaves them. I am speaking here about possession trance... about spirit possession. That which has been practised by shamans for thousands of years. I’ve read of a number of former charismatics who now realise that the supernatural powers which they developed during their years in the charismatic movement - prophesying, seeing visions, hearing voices and other phenomena - well they weren’t just the exercise of their imagination, they were really the exercise of ESP, clairvoyance and clairaudience, divination and could be directly attributed to the influence of evil spirits. How else can you account for the multitude of false prophesies and false words of knowledge that have been given in this movement during the last quarter of a century?

Whether things happened just through suggestion or through spirit possession, it is all ultimately a humanly reproduced work, a work of the flesh rather then a work of the Holy Spirit.

So our sixth hallmark of genuine revival is that it cannot be humanly reproduced.

The seventh and final hallmark of genuine revival is this:

7) Genuine Revivals are Not Uniform

The advocates of the new Toronto style of revival think that the phenomena that they are experiencing are proof, the very proof, that it is a genuine revival. This is because they imagine that all instances of revival have produced bodily phenomena uniformly. But this is simply not true. There was a great variation in the effects of the preaching at genuine revivals. Some would be accompanied by some physical effects and certainly not hysterical laughter, the true revivals that is. Whereas others would be remarkably silent. Listen to this account in “Robes Monthly History”, Number 5: 1745, speaking about a revival in Golsby in Sutherland in Scotland:

“From the beginning of November last to the date hereof there were upwards of 70 persons came to me under various exercises of soul. They told among other things that they had been for several months bowed down in spirit under a sense of their aggravated guilt. This work was advanced in some by a quicker and in some by slower degrees. Yet in both, a descent, grave and solemn deportment or shading abundance of tears, which they concealed as long as they were able were all the visible signs we had in time appearing of the inward concern of their minds. And by reason of the silence and calmness that accompanied this work in its beginning or progress hitherto, we heard of none that ventured to reproach it”.

Here we see that there was silence and calmness. And what bubbly effects there were took place - as we would have seen as we read on with that report - in the privacy of their own bedchambers. Rather then in front of thousands of people or in front of the television cameras.

If you embark in the study of the history of revivals, as I hope you will, you’ll discover that one of their hallmarks is a lack of uniformity. Yet when it comes to the new style of humanly-reproduced revivals, you’ll find that the very word “revival” is synonymous with the same physical manifestations. “If it don’t happen, there ain’t been no revival” - well that’s the way of thinking.

So that is the seventh hallmark of old genuine revivals, they are not uniform.

So that was our first major heading, “the main hallmarks of genuine revival” or, let’s say it, remarkable successes of the gospel, because that is what we are looking for. We have seen that there were sometimes phenomena occurring; and we have seen why they occurred. How very different those are to the so-called phenomena that are happening today.

Let’s press on now to the second main heading:

II. THE HANDLING OF PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL PHENOMENA DURING THE HISTORY OF REVIVALS

Now it is really important for us to grapple with this one. We will discover that the manner in which the so-called ‘Great Awakenings’ in the United States were handled, and especially the Second Great Awakening, has had a trickle down effect on the situation which we see around us today. And here is where a well-rounded understanding of church history is so important. People just look at these old revivals, they see that there were some bodily phenomena and they say: “Right!... what we need are bodily phenomena, then we’ve got a revival”. But godly men were very concerned about these things. They went to great lengths to understand them. On the one hand they didn’t want to just jump to the conclusion that if phenomena occurred, it must all be of the devil. We must be very careful of that one also. On the other hand, they were aware of how much damage could be done to a revival if these things took on an inflated importance or even took precedence, as they did come to do on an increasing basis.

There are two principal things to notice in answer to this question of “How were physical and emotional phenomena handled during the history of revivals?” Two things: First, How revivals progress is very much influenced by those leading them. And secondly; Revivals should be overseen by godly, discerning elders.

So let’s have a look at this first head:

1) Revivals Were very much Influenced by those Leading them

One important principal which godly ministers realised is that the presence of these phenomena and the progress that they took and the degree to which they happened was very much dependent on the way that the leaders conducted services and meetings. Indeed, the extent to which they flourished was directly associated with the way that they were handled. John Wesley, for instance, encouraged such phenomena and thought that they were proofs, very proofs, of the divine presence. But his brother Charles was more cautious and often discouraging. George Whitfield, there again, was very critical of Wesley’s allowing of these phenomena to run rampant. Here’s an extract from a letter that he wrote to John Wesley. This is George Whitfield. He says:

“I cannot think it right in you to give so much encouragement to those convulsions to which people have been thrown into under your ministry. Were I to do so, how many would cry out every night? I think it is tempting God to require such signs. That there is something of God in it, I doubt not. But the devil I believe does interpose. I think it will encourage the French prophets. It will take people from the written Word and make them depend on visions, convulsions, etc. more than on the promises and precepts of the Gospel”.

Wasn’t that a wise saying? When you read that, you realise how much people need to hear it today. He thinks that to encourage these sort of phenomena to take off will encourage people to move away from the written Word of God, that it will make them depend on visions and on the convulsions themselves, more then on the promises and precepts of the Gospel. Remember, revival is comparable to the success of the gospel. That is what we are talking about here. We know that when people come away from these meetings today, they are not filled with thoughts of the success of the gospel, of the atoning sacrifice of Christ for sin. They’re concerned with the phenomena.

Now apparently, when eventually some did fall down as a result of Whitfield's preaching, John Wesley was over the moon, thinking that it would win Whitfield around. But no such thing! When Whitfield saw the same manifestations under his preaching in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, in 1740, he ascribed them to diabolic influence. In a letter from Reedy Island on May 19th, he wrote; “Satan now begins to throw many into fits”. And on one occasion, when a congregation had gone out of hand, he rushed into the hall, stamped his foot on the floor and shouted: “What means all this tumult and disorder!?!” The audience then went immediately quiet, the whole congregation quietened down. And he said to them: “My dear children, you are like little partridges just hatched from the egg”, and he told them how they still had the shells still over their eyes and they couldn’t see what they were doing, they were blinded by them. All this you can find in Whitfield's biography.

Asahel Nettleton was also very controlling concerning the outbreaking of bodily and emotional phenomena. Listen to this quote:

“Asahel did all he could to keep the movement of his day pure and put down anything that bordered on the fanatical in the meetings he conducted. Although occasionally some fainted under the tension of conviction, he never tolerated the kind of violent bodily movements which characterised many o the frontier tent meetings. Such demonstrations as shrieking, groaning, rolling on the floor, clapping hands, jerking or leaping were unknown under his preaching. Also he discountenanced visions, trances and immediate impressions of one kind or another as being fanatical and delusive”.

And that is one of the major preachers in the Second Great Awakening, Asahel Nettleton. Joseph Tracy deals very ably with this whole subject about how people handled these sort of bodily manifestations in his book “The Great Awakening”, which I can heartily recommend. A very interesting book, the definitive history of the Great Awakenings in the United States. And it has been reprinted now; it was originally written at the beginning of the last century. And he writes, listen to this:

“Still, such outwards manifestations are exceedingly to be deprecated [belittled], they imply a state of the nerves, in which the mind does not operate safely, it acts with increased vigour and may do more and better than at other times, but its liability to error is increased. Strong hopes or fears may give an apparent conclusiveness to false reasonings. Vivid impressions on the fancy may be mistaken for clear perceptions of truth. And among the more ignorant, the bodily agitations themselves may come to be counted valuable, and then man will trust in them and seek after them and learn to produce them voluntarily. And thus religion may be degraded into a mere system of nervous excitement. These manifestations therefore, though they do not prove the work in which they commence to be spurious, are a fearful sign that it will soon become so. And as they prevail, false conversions will be sure to multiply”.

And he carries on:

“Occasional instances of this kind will occur wherever religion appeals with sufficient force to the heart. Persons sometimes involuntarily cry out, fall down, faint or go into convulsions on occasions of unexpected joy or grief, as the arrival or death of a friend. And whenever a religious consideration moves a person, susceptible of such influences, with equal force and especially with equal suddenness, the same effect naturally follows. Where they are understood and treated as the result of human or individual weakness, they amount to little more then an inconvenience to the persons afflicted and to a few immediate around them. But where they are valued and cultivated, another principal comes in, that of sympathy or involuntary imitation and they grow into what maybe called, with the strictest propriety; an epidemic disease”.

And Tracy goes on:

“There have been many instances, more or less extensive of such epidemics, on this principal. Mesmer, the author of animal magnetism, produced many of these phenomena that appeared in great companies of patients”.

You see that even at this time, Joseph Tracy was very much wisely aware of the influence of Mesmer. He was writing not very many years after Mesmer had actually been practising in his clinics, his faith healing clinics. And he was aware that Mesmer produced many of these same phenomena. And he says;

 “Toward the close of the great awakening of 1740, these manifestations began to assume the character of an epidemic. And he says the leniency with which these manifestations were treated, although natural, was too great. And the ignorant took occasion to consider them as parts of the revival, of that process by which their souls were to be saved”. And he adds, “A more decided discouragement of them would have saved a vast amount of evil”.

With that sentiment we could not agree more!

Another major problem in the Great Awakening in the 1740s was the leniency which Jonathan Edwards showed towards these things. And this unfortunately has provided the advocates of the Toronto-style revivals with an excuse for what’s happening in the present day. Last week I had the editor of a well-known Christian magazine on the telephone trying to convince me that what is happening today is acceptable because people of the calibre of Jonathan Edwards never properly discouraged such phenomena. Well, how true is that? It may well be that Edwards displayed some misjudgement in this area. Joseph Tracy says about Jonathan Edwards, and I quote: “It must be admitted that in the practical application of his own principals, he was too indulgent to these bodily agitations”. Now Tracy reasons that Edwards' own personal emotional experience of the spiritual was quite intense and, being a mature man, he would understand those things. None of us is a bag of just flesh and bones. We are emotional creatures. And when things happen to us, when we come under conviction of sin, we may well suffer physical phenomena. And Edwards did. But this was not all. For there was also the fact, and Tracy reasons this very closely, there was also the fact that his wife Sarah, with whom he was very much in love, underwent these phenomena to quite an extent. And Tracy feels, and I think it is a probably true, that this must have profoundly influenced Jonathan Edwards’ attitude.

Now it has to be said that Edwards never credited these phenomena with being a sure evidence of the Spirit’s work. And in fact, he once said in a sermon in Newhaven about 1741: “People should endeavour to refrain from such outward manifestations to their uttermost at the time of their worship”. Now how does that square up with these meetings today, where the Lord’s supper even has to be abandoned because so many have collapsed on the floor - not, I might add. out of conviction of sin, but in a humanly produced trance or swoon. So he did say that people endeavour to refrain from such outward manifestations to their uttermost at the time of their worship.

However, Edwards did go off the rails when, to quote Tracy again, he said that these phenomena were “probable tokens of God’s presence and arguments of the success of preaching”. And Tracy’s overall conclusion on this is that “such opinions coming from such a man could not fail to produce a vast increase of these bodily effects. They made preachers more willing to see them and people more willingly to suffer them. They promoted a state of mind in which unintelligent excitement produced a fearful harvest of mistake, extravagance and false conversions”. So we can see how the way that leaders approached revivals has a very great effect over their progress and particularly over the way that any phenomena might progress. As Iain Murray says in his book “Revivals and Revivalism: “Once the idea gains acceptance that the degree of the Spirit’s work is to be measured by the strength of emotion, or that physical effects of any kind are proofs of Gods action, then what is rightly called fanaticism is bound to follow”.

In the Second Great Awakening, when things began to get out of hand, people started to speak out openly against these outbursts of ‘enthusiasm’ as they were called. That was the derogatory name which was given to this approach. This sort of revivalism where all these phenomena occurred... it was called ‘enthusiasm’. John Lyle at a service in Lexington, Kentucky in 1801, said:

“I prayed against enthusiasm and in my sermon gave the marks of true illumination and of true faith. I mentioned the parable of the tares, exhorted them to guard against enthusiasm, etc., that it like a worm destroyed the beauty of the revival and what ere long would discredit the word of God. I said that people like the ministers might go wrong, referring to the history of Whitfield's day, etc, etc…”

And when the fanatical element had really taken off during the First Great Awakening, we find people such as Eleazer Wheelock writing in 1741:

 “There is a great work in this town, but more of the footsteps of Satan than in any place I have yet been in. The zeal of some too furious, they tell of many visions, revelations and many strong impressions upon the imaginations”.

It seems that these Great Awakenings usually began well, the only bodily signs being those connected with conviction of sin. But Satan soon stepped in with disorderly commotions, trances, visions, revelations and all the rest of that palaver. And the Toronto style revivals of today are the spiritual children of these excesses in the Great Awakenings, rather than the sedate beginnings. These people want to trace their roots back to the Great Awakenings. Well their roots can be traced back to them alright -- not to the genuine part of the Great Awakenings, but the excesses and fanaticism of the Great Awakenings. That’s where their true roots lie!

Which brings us to the second point under this second main heading. We are asking how leaders dealt with bodily and emotional phenomena. The second point we say is:

2) An Outbreak of Revival Should be Overseen by Godly and Discerning Elders

This cannot be overstressed. In view of the influence which leaders can have, we think that Asahel Nettleton’s approach in the Second Great Awakening is a model one. Listen to this quote. This is a description of his evangelistic “enquiry” meeting:

“The atmosphere in the enquiry meeting was one of hushed stillness and subdued reverence. Normally the quiet was only broken by an occasional sob, sigh, or groan. The birth pangs of souls in travail. Now and then the pent up emotions of the awakening would burst forth into a torrent of anguish, and some would fall like the slain in battle. Asahel did not encourage such demonstrations however and he insisted on order and quiet as he dealt with the heart wounds of the many who were pressing onto the kingdom”.

And if you look at a checklist of things that were advocated by Nettleton, and think of the application of these things today, what do we discover?

Firstly, Nettleton advocated an orderly and quiet type of evangelism. Why was that? Well it’s so easy to hype these things up isn’t it? It is so easy to bring about a false sort of revival, to generate revivalism by hyping it up with a lot of razzmatazz. So he was very careful to advocate an orderly and quiet type of evangelism.

Secondly, Nettleton advocated a tactful rather then a bombastic way of dealing with the unconverted. We can easily see that there are a great many evangelists, in particular from the United States of America, who have been more than bombastic in their approach to evangelism, in their approach toward the unconverted. We need to handle people tactfully and carefully and lovingly, not beat them around the brains. So he advocated a tactful rather than a bombastic way of dealing with the unconverted. We can’t bully people into the kingdom by forcing a "decision" on them.

Thirdly, Nettleton advocated modesty and reverence in the pulpit. Now how does that square up with the so-called revivalism that we are seeing today. Modesty and reverence in the pulpit.

Fourthly, Nettleton advocated the enforcement of biblical restrictions on women. Sad to say, very often women have been the prime movers in encouraging and influencing excesses in revivalism. This is particularly the case as things developed in the last century into the Holiness Movement. There are a great many women preachers who were raised up, preaching all kinds of nonsense and teaching the most dreadful supernatural ideas that had more to do with the occult, than with Christianity. So enforcing biblical restrictions on women in terms of evangelism is very important indeed.

Fifthly, Nettleton advocated stillness in revivals. The Holy Spirit does not need violent agitations, commotions and razzmatazz in order to do his sovereign work in conversion. When you encourage stillness in revivals, you encourage a work of the heart. That is the responsible approach of revival. And those are the things that Asahel Nettleton advocated. And of the changes that he observed in evangelistic techniques during his time, he said: “Seven years ago, about two thousand souls were hopefully born into the kingdom in this vicinity, with comparative stillness. But the times have altered, for the kingdom of God now cometh with great observation”. And I am sure you know exactly what he means by that. You go along to these meetings today where it is all hyped up and razzmatazz and commotion and disorder and people falling about all over the place and those are the things that are upheld over and above the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can say then that the kingdom of God now cometh with great observation rather then being a silent work of the heart as the spirit moves in sovereign power and regenerates a person.

But the discerning oversight of godly elders could have a very salutary effect. In 1801, one minister in Kentucky, known affectionately as Father Rice, asserted his authority on the issue of phenomena. On one occasion when Rice was preaching, a great crowd was in total disorder. They were praying, singing and manifesting bodily phenomena but in a great commotion and total disorder. And what did he do? Well here’s the description:

“Father Rice rose in the pulpit with his commanding form and silver locks and the most solemn manner began to repeat those words of scripture ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty’. Never was anything more impressive. There was an instantaneous hush throughout the house. The venerable old patriarch, having thus secured their attention proceeded to express his sentiments on the bodily exercises and to dissuade them from encouraging them”.

And this was very frequently the case. All it took was an authoritative stand from a godly and discerning elder to bring the shenanigans to a halt. If the people really were godly and being "revived", they would listen to godly counsel. Yet in many revivals -- notably that in Wales in 1900 -- the people refused to listen to those presiding and simply drowned them out with repetitive singing and carryings-on. One has to doubt to the uttermost whether a work of the Spirit is truly taking place in those circumstances. However, Asahel Nettleton instructed people in the proper manner of dealing with sinners under convictions. It says here, and I am quoting here from a book about him entitled “God Sent Revival”:

“This was necessary for the emotions of some had gone out of hand. In one particular village some began to groan and scream, spreading alarm throughout the village. Asahel rushed to the place and with kindness but severity called them to order. His method seemed rough and daring to some, but he felt that such excesses would hinder the revival”.

Now there is a consciousness of the sort of damage that can be done to a genuine revival when these phenomena break through and are allowed to flourish in a major way. And such damage is what we see in these so-called revivals today, where these phenomena are upheld as being the major element of revival. And whereas the godly ministers of old were very concerned for the course of the revival, and that God’s name should be honoured and that the revival should not be wrecked by these things, today there seems very little concern for that at all.

Unfortunately, even in the times of the Great Awakenings, the discerning ones did not always prevail. In Shakespeare’s play, Mark Anthony said in his eulogy to Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones”. And perhaps that has also been the case with the Great Awakenings. They have been remembered by far too many for the excesses which they produced and which have therefore been interpreted by them as normative to any situation of revival. The Second Great Awakening, which began around 1800, eventually degenerated into a welter of fanaticism and false doctrine, as increasingly inexperienced and undiscerning people became involved in organising evangelistic events. And it was out of the errors and fanaticism of the Second Great Awakening that a whole movement would be born. This movement has lasted even to our own day.

And that brings us neatly to our third and final main heading:

III. THE TRUE ORIGINS OF THE ‘TORONTO BLESSING’ STYLE OF 'REVIVAL'

In order to discover these origins, we need to understand first how phenomena came to flourish in revival history. And secondly how the present revival has been generated.

1) How Phenomena Came to Flourish in Revival History

As the first half of the 19th century progressed, the old fashioned idea of revival gradually turned even more into revival-ism, in which man-centred emotional experience in conversion became the vogue. All this came out of the excesses especially of the Second Great Awakening in the U.S.A. Revivalist camp-meetings reflected this emphasis and it became widespread. As one researcher of this period has put it:

“Those who attended such camp-meetings generally expected their religious experience to be as vivid as the frontier life around them. Accustomed to braining bears and battling Indians, they received their religion with great colour and excitement. Often these meetings would involve a number of physical and emotional phenomena such as hysteria, falling, jerking, so-called holy laughter, barking like dogs and such like”.

But what we discover during this period is that in place of the biblical conversion progress of seeking to be declared acceptable to God through faith in a righteousness which is NOT our own, the emphasis began to fall on finding God through a powerful emotional experience. And by the mid 19th century there had been a huge resurgence of interest in Wesley’s sanctification teachings on the so-called “Second Blessing”. Wesley had referred to this experience as, and I quote “a still higher salvation...immensely greater than that wrought when he was justified”. This, of course, is a Gnostic statement, and one which was vitally to infect the whole of Christendom with a new form of gnosticism. Wesley, and those who followed him, urged all to seek this second blessing experience. And as this experience infected other Protestant groups, the body which resulted came to be known as the “Holiness Movement”. People such as AB Simpson, R.A. Torrey (who was the first principal of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago) and Andrew Murray were among some of the more famous names in this movement.

Here in the U.K. this movement found its counterpart in the so-called “Higher Life Movement”. Now although there was clearly a very devotional spirituality in this movement, its main problem for the progress of the church was that -- like its predecessors, the German Pietists -- it emphasised subjective experience over objective truth. And that also was the main problem for the progress of revivals. Revivals changed to revivalism as subjective experience was emphasised over and above objective truth.

During the 1890s, the Methodist church took a stand against the Holiness Movement and this resulted in 23 separate Holiness denominations by 1900. In some of these sects it was very common for people to be shouting, screaming, falling into trances, and speaking gibberish (which they mistook for the original spiritual gift of languages, mentioned in 1 Corinthians, chapters 12 to 14). At the beginning of the 20th century, the Holiness Movement gave birth to the Pentecostal Movement which emphasized not only the idea of a Second Blessing or Baptism in the Spirit subsequent to conversion, but also the evidence of speaking in tongues as proof of it. That was one of the major bones of contention between the Holiness Movement and Pentecostalism.

Until the 1960s Pentecostalism operated in a number of different sects across the world, each with their own individual emphasis. But then in 1960, something happened which was to change the face of Christianity in the world. The teachings of Pentecostalism, which formerly had been confined to Pentecostal sects in the world, spilled over into the mainline denominations. And thus “Neo-Pentecostalism” was born. Then in the 1970s and the 1980s a third wave of Pentecostalism came in the form of the Charismatic Movement, whose accent was very much on signs and wonders, power encounters and so forth.

But subjective religion had not yet reached its peak in the Christian scene. Today we have this fourth wave of Pentecostalism - what they call the second wave of the Charismatic Movement - and it is this movement which we see manifest in the Toronto style of revivalism. In other words, the hysterical laughers of today, are the direct descendants of the fanatical excesses of the Great Awakenings two centuries and more ago. John Wesley - who encouraged phenomena in his evangelistic meetings and devised the erroneous teaching of a Second Blessing - unwittingly fathered the wayward Charismatic Movement of today. As the Roman Catholic writer, Killian McDonnell, said in an article in New Covenant magazine in 1972, “John Wesley was father to much of the 19th century American religious fervour. One of his children was the Holiness Movement which gave rise to the Pentecostalism of the 20th century”. And the modern Charismatic movement came out of that. You can trace it all right back. It shows the mighty importance in church history of the fact that if a little error occurs at one point in history, it can have cataclysmic effects on later generations. And this should give us all pause for thought when we think about the doctrine over which we are stewards.

People say today: “Experience is what counts, doctrine is irrelevant”. Not at all. It is doctrine which determines experience. And if you produce false doctrine in the course of church history, it will inevitably issue in false experience. You have to have true doctrine to have a true experience of Christianity. The excesses of today and this laughter business is just one aspect, I can share umpteen far crazier things than this ‘holy laughter’. The excesses of today have their origins in the error of yesterday. There is nothing new under the sun. [Also See Section The Christian and Knowledge]

And so we come to our second subheading as we are looking at the true origins of the Toronto Blessing style of revival.

2) How has this Present "Revival " (1994) Been Generated?

We’ve got a situation today in which millions of professing Christians have been primed to have these experiences, to exhibit these phenomena at a drop of a hat. Why? Because they have attended numerous meetings where it has been induced in them, where they have been encouraged to feel that these things are normative for every believer, and without which you are somehow a second class Christian. They go for a “top-up” at a huge meeting every so often. A meeting led by a Morris Cerullo or a Reinhardt Bonke, or a Rodney Howard-Browne and others, where they come forward in front of a whole crowd for a top-up, as they put it. They go through the process of falling down and all that sort of thing. And then they go back to their churches and bring it all back there. And in the churches where it is not happening, life seems very dull. People go off to these meetings and then they come back, the church seems dull, so they make things happen in the church. That’s how it spreads.

So it is hardly surprising that when the word goes out that some kind of revival is happening - which in their thinking means the exhibition of all these physical and emotional phenomena - hey presto!.. there’s a massive outbreak. How to generate a revival. There’s been a preparation for this for some while now, it is not all just happened spontaneously, as it has been made out to us in the various reports. Let’s have a brief look at how it works.

In the September 1st 1992 edition of the Morning Star - that’s not the communist party newspaper, that’s a so-called prophetic bulletin! - there was a major prophecy given by Paul Cain, one of the so-called Kansas city prophets (who now enjoys some notoriety as a member, prophet and spiritual advisor in Martyn Lloyd Jones’s former church, the Westminster Chapel, London). And this prophecy was headed “The Post Charismatic Era”. Paul Cain has been very involved with Vineyard Ministries and he was a personal associate of John Wimber. Now in this alleged prophecy, Cain builds a case as follows, he says “in the Bible every one of the leaders sent by God was rejected by the people the first time, but accepted the second time”. According to Cain, the charismatic movement was one of these things that was sent by God the first time, but was rejected that first time for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons he gives are, firstly, “the pride of jealous church leaders who weren’t involved with it”. Secondly, he says that it was rejected because of “the foolishness of some of the things that happened in it”. [Incidentally Cain excuses this foolishness by quoting 1 Corinthians 1:21, “God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wordily wise”! And he uses this text to excuse the foolishness of the charismatic movement. Saying that God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the worldly wise. And Cain says some foolishness has accompanied every move of God. But when the apostle speaks of foolishness in this text, he is referring to the preaching of a crucified Christ. Nothing whatsoever to do with the folly of the untaught and unstable people in the Charismatic Movement]. The third reason Paul Cain gives for the rejection of the first wave of the Charismatic Movement is that many sincere and godly leaders weren’t convinced that it represented the real thing. And quite right too! Who can blame them? But, says Cain “The Lord is going to give us another opportunity to do it right, we will again very soon” he says “see multitudes being converted and being empowered with the Holy Spirit. We are nearing a second harvest that is about to sweep even some of the most dry and barren institutional churches”. That was back in 1992. All this so-called revival has been hyped up for years as being "just round the corner".

But there is also a major threat in this prophecy. Paul Cain says that those who reject this second wave of the Charismatic Movement will, and I quote “have a more severe judgement”. He goes on to say “the Lord is offering the church another chance for renewal. We are now entering a post-charismatic era of the Holy Spirit. There’s now a wave emerging and gaining momentum”. So you can see that "revival" that people today claim was a spontaneous event had actually been suggestively “prophesied” by a very "authoritative" man some years previously.

So Paul Cain says that the church is about to be judged. But he doesn’t say that it is about to be judged because of the corruption of the Vatican or the apostasy of the Church of England bishops and archbishops or the vile ministries of the numerous corrupt tele-evangelists or the millions of false prophecies and bogus words of knowledge which have emerged from the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements in the past century. No... according to Paul Cain, God’s judgement on the church is to be poured out on all those who dare to resist this second wave of Charismatic Renewal!

[Also See Section on Dominion Theology]

But those who resisted the first wave did so, not because of its foolishness - although that was bad enough - but because they discerned that it had its origins in a spirit which is not the Holy Spirit of God. And we resist the second wave for precisely the same reasons. The underlined problems that were associated with the first wave, have not in the least bit changed in the second, in spite of all its claims. There is still the same reliance on extra-biblical prophecy, the same inducement to speak gibberish, which masquerades as the biblical gift of languages, the same unbalanced emphasis on healing, the same tricks and techniques being used to make people fall down in meetings. The main difference between the first and second waves, is that the second is presenting itself as something different from the first. As far as we can discern, the only real difference is that there is a lot more laughter being induced in meetings in the second wave than in the first. That is the only difference: the so-called “Holy Laughter”. But there is nothing for them to laugh about. A whole century of leading gullible young believers astray requires a great deal of repentance and a total change of spiritual life and emphasis. Yet all Paul Cain can say in his prophecy of the post-charismatic era is this:

 “It is time to lay aside the disappointments and failures and the injuries that may have come from being blown about by so many winds of doctrine”. He admits that. But he says; “The past no longer exists. If we try to live in it, we will cease to be a part of what God is doing today. Today is a new day and it is going to be different”.

But you can’t just say “let’s forget the past and move on”. To say that the past doesn’t exist is a New-Age idea, or straight out of Orwell's "1984". You cannot just say “let’s forget the past and move on” if that past has been sinfully erroneous, humanly injurious and dishonouring to God! Repentance is not only about saying ‘sorry’. It is not only about being ‘sorry’, it is about changing from the bottom up. But this new wave of the charismatic movement doesn’t represent any kind of real change. And isn’t this precisely how Satan works? Both on a personal level and in history. On a personal level he tries out some new strategy on you to tempt you into sin, to lead you into false teaching or to undermine your joy and assurance in Christ. But when that fails, what does he do? Does he just fade into obscurity, licking his wounds? Not at all! Do you remember what happened when he finished his temptations of Jesus in the wilderness? Did he vanish? No! The scripture says; “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him UNTIL an opportune time”. He keeps coming back again and again and again to grind you down... one wave after another. But each successive wave that he comes on, he tries the same old thing only dressed up in new clothing. And it is the same concerning his work in history. He tries his hand with a particular movement or heresy, and when the people of God stand firm and resist his evil strategies, he tries again, only in different clothing. The tactics may be different, but the aim is always the same. And this is what he has done with this second wave, so-called. The first was a manifest failure. It never generated the total delusion which Satan was out to create, although it has certainly taken millions for a ride.

I have been told lately that there is a condition which exists called “post-charismatic trauma”. Apparently a great number of leaders in the charismatic movement are suffering from this condition. They have seen that the first plans for world revival have come to nothing. They have seen that their dreams of taking the world by storm have not yet been achieved. They have seen that there have been many excesses which have brought their movement into disrepute among the influential people they wanted to impress. And so this post-charismatic trauma has set in. “We haven’t done the job that we wanted to do, and now we are feeling the effects of this, we are beginning to feel a bit depressed, a bit washed out”. I read of one charismatic leader, a woman, wife of a pastor in a Vineyard church, who described herself as feeling “spiritually bankrupt”. And in this state of post-charismatic trauma, she went off to Toronto to receive the blessing from there.

But what happened now is that, in the wake of this abject failure of the first wave of the charismatic movement, it has now regrouped with a vengeance. When you have gained an understanding of prestigious people who were called prophets in the charismatic movement... I am speaking of their “authority” as great spokesmen and men and women from God.... when you realise also the gullibility and suggestibility of masses of people who have been primed by these prophets to expect a world-wide revival in charismatic mode, then you can see what a powerful effect this is going to have on the course of religious events in history.

The churches where this so-called Toronto blessing has been happening are not the parish churches which use the book of common prayer and quietly come before the Lord. They are not the little groups of believers in isolated chapels and churches up and down the country who have faithfully upheld the torch of truth. Neither are they the dry and barren institutional churches which Paul Cain claims will be swept into the second wave. The churches where this bogus revival is happening are precisely those churches which have long been primed to expect a world-wide revival, the great restoration, which they imagine is going to usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ. And this time it seems as if a great many churches on the fringes who hedged their bets on the Charismatic Movement in the first wave, while being mildly sympathetic to it, could well be sucked into its subjective maelstrom. Satan didn’t get them the first time - perhaps he’ll get them the second. He comes again and again, but in a new disguise.

And where does all this leave us? Well, I draw to a close now, and I want to thank you for bearing with me throughout this, we had to cover a lot of ground, and it's taken a long time, but I believe that this is necessary information, my friends. I thank you for bearing with me.

I want to remind you here, by way of conclusion, that there is an eschatological dimension to all this. What do I mean by that? Well if you are a diligent student of the scripture, and especially of scripture prophecy, you will know that the time leading up to the end of this age, the end time, the time of the end, is characterised by certain signs.

Numbered among those signs is NOT the conversion of the world. Nor even the conversion of the greater part of the world. That is a delusion. Jesus clearly said: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man”. Will he really find faith on earth? Oh we will certainly see the outpouring of Gods’ blessing on the success of his everlasting Gospel right through to the end of the age! And the gates of hell shall never prevail against His true church. But the TRUE church is ever despised in the world and the more so as the end of the age approaches. I want to remind you of something very grave here which should be exercising us at this present time. The beginning of this age was characterised by the one true Messiah who promised a new heavens and a new earth. It was characterised by genuine prophets empowered by Him and by genuine signs and wonders. And how is the end of the age characterised in Scripture? By counterfeit ‘messiahs’ promising the kingdom of God on earth. By pseudo prophets foretelling peace when there is no peace. By false signs and wonders performed in all the lying power of Satan. By widespread apostasy from the Christian faith. By the most tremendous world-wide religious delusion.

The Charismatic Movement, and more particularly the latest wave of it, fulfills perfectly all those descriptions. For years now there has been talk from the Vineyard churches and other Neo-Charismatic groups about the Holy Spirit presenting Jesus with a year 2000 birthday present of a largely converted world. They imagine that they are preparing the world for Christ’s return through victorious ‘power ministry’, clearing the demons out of territory and reclaiming the world for Christ at His coming. But if you study the Scriptures, you will realise that the next item on the prophetic agenda is NOT the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. But rather the revealing of the Antichrist. “Ho Anthropos tes Hamartias”. The Man of Sin. That “great world teacher” that comes according to the working of Satan and who deceives the entire unbelieving world.

We should not at all be surprised if this Antichrist, when he is finally revealed, is mistaken for the real Christ. And I don’t mean by hardened unbelievers, I mean by professing believers. And the spirit which is preparing them for this event, is the same one which is causing them to fall about with unholy laughter in the face of an infinitely Holy God.

Brothers and sisters, there are momentous events happening in the world and amongst the churches today. We are in the midst of a furious spiritual battle. Is it any wonder that in the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, we are told that the saints will need patient endurance and perseverance in the great tribulation. So let us inoculate ourselves against this new strain of spiritual virus “the Toronto sickness”. Let us inoculate ourselves with the Holy Spirit of God. Let us take refuge in Him. But not only that... we have a God given duty to publicly proclaim this so-called “revival” as a heresy. We owe it to the millions of poor sheep who are being deluded by it. And the best way we can do that is by praying for the Lord to bring true revival on the church.

By TRUE revival, I mean “the success of the Gospel, where he will be honoured and His name raised high above all!”

Amen.

The contents of all the writings on this website are copyright. However, because we wish them to be disseminated as widely as possible, they can be freely downloaded and circulated on condition that nothing is added or taken away, and that this information about the source of the material, and its copyright nature -- as outlined in this paragraph -- is also included.

Index to Articles On ‘Revival’

www.inplainsite.org