True vs False Revival

It saddens me to bring this up but the antichrist in the scriptures can call fire down from heaven.

When you study the Scottish Revival or the Welsh Revival or things such as the Great Awakening under Johnathan Edwards.

I would class all these revivals as true compared to things such as the Toronto Blessing, Pensicola, Brownsville and Todd Bentley and other things.

I grew up in a church with the Toronto Blessing movement and when non christians saw the laughing and other things happen it scared people away and alot of people who grew up with me it scared then from coming to know Jesus.

It is like the crazy things that go on at Bethel.

To me a true revival is in a place like Iran where people are prepared to give up there lives for the Gospel sake and there is a love of the Bible and Gods word.

When I first came on to this site that was one of the reasons I came looking as I heard about revivals in the past and I grew up with people laughing like crazy and a circus in both Church and School.

When you compare the Revivals of say the Irish hebrides or J Edwin Orrs history of Revivals.

or when you read the John Wesley Journals or George whitfield sermons or the sermons of Charles Spurgeon or even the writings of the puritans.

The church has gone so far astray.

It is sad when you have to compare modern preachers with the eloquence of the puritans or someone like William Tyndale.

I mean even someone like R A Torrey or D L Moody.

Will we go to a revival without persecution, will it take perseuction to purify the church.

As this is what the early church fathers meant about purifying his bride.

This seems to come up a lot in various groups.

Persecution absolutely CAN NOT and DOES NOT in ANY WAY purify the church.

The blood of Christ purifies the church. It alone cleanses and makes righteous.

Do we think that persecution makes a person right with God? Absolutely not!

Do we think that persecution supplies something that the blood of Christ was impotent to do?!?! Absolutely not!

If it is persecution that produces righteousness then the blood of Christ was poured out for no reason. In fact there would be no need for the cross if mere attacks by humans produced cleansing of the soul from sin.

The blood makes us righteous before Him. Nothing more and nothing else.

I agree that the blood purifies us from sin I was not meaning in the aspect of redemption I was meaning in a more eschatological way that

Revelation 19:7
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

Revelation 21:2
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Irenaus
"In a still clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord's disciples what shall happen in the last times, and concerning the ten kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire which now rules [the earth] shall be partitioned.... It is manifest, therefore, that of these [potentates], he who is to come [that is the antichrist] shall slay three, and subject the remainder to his power, and that he shall be himself the eighth among them. And they shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast, and put the church to flight. After that they shall be destroyed by the coming of our Lord" (Against Heresies, 5,26,1).

What I mean is that like the early church fathers have stated that the Great Tribulation will purge the christian church of its many heresies.

We have such a different view of the church in todays culture than our forefathers.

I believe in the blood of the messiah to clense us from sin

Hebrews 9:22 King James Version (KJV)

22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

I think this seeming difference is only a misunderstanding, talking about different aspects of the purification of the church. There is only one way for an individual to be purified from your sin, and that is by the blood of the Lamb of God, even for those in great tribulation, for example in Rev 7:14 "… These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

But the Lord does use persecution and tribulation to purify his church in two ways. In the first place those who become Christians for selfish reasons like financial gain or enjoying the entertainment of modern worship services either quickly get out or become real Christians when pressured by persecution, and thus the church is purified of all this dead weight that we carry along in most of the western world. While the genuineness of the true believer’s faith is tested by the persecution or other trials (1 Pet 1:7), the church is purified because the one that is not a true believer falls away.

Secondly I think the discipline of our heavenly Father through which He trains His children (Heb 12:10-11) can also be through persecution, although there may be different opinions about that. I was blessed by the sermons of Joseph Tson (https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=516), where he told his interrogaters in communist Romania, that this interrogation is not a matter between him and them but between him and his heavely Father, Who is in control. If in future we would land in such a situation, that will be the best attitude: "Father, why do You allow this? What do You want to say to me in this situation?” If He then show me some sinful attitude in my life, purification will still be only by the blood of the Lamb when I confess my sin, but then the persecution will have caused my life and the church to be purified.

I am also reminded of this scripture:
Zec 13:8 In the whole land, declares the LORD, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. 9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.”’

There are so many false revivals today

Dom:

I am reminded of the parable of the wheat and the tares. Jesus said that in the kingdom of God the two grow up together and in the end, at the harvest, they will be separated. To try to sort them out before the harvest will destroy much fruit that is in the process of ripening. It is only at the end that men will say Lord, Lord and the Lord will say I never knew you.

I can name several groups in the body right now that I have some very deep concerns about, groups that I think are off in a very fundamental way. However, I can also name people that are involved in those groups that I know to be very solid men and women of God.

As I have grown in the Lord, I have come across a truth that has been transforming my life. It is this. Singleness of focus and intimacy with God, allowing Him to radically transform my life, solves every single problem in my life. For example, I do not even try to consider how I might keep myself from sin anymore. I consider how I might run after Him with more of my life and I am learning how to spend very intimate time with Him in His presence. I fellowship with Him as He instructed me to in John 15. I seek to abide in Him all the time. As a result, I find myself being less and less concerned with sin. I also notice sin having less and less power in my life. I find myself walking in a greater degree of holiness than I ever would have otherwise.

The same can be said of moves of God. We can so often label them as false or true. Unfortunately we cannot see inside the hearts of the people that are involved in those moves. And, tragically, we often judge the veracity of the move based upon our own doctrinal bias. Sure there is such thing as true and universally recognizable error. But often I see different streams of the body standing in their own ditch, shouting that the other is false. It is, sadly, all over the internet. Just google "So-and-So is false" and you will find tons of it.

I know a man who was called by God to minister to a pastor that had been castigated by his community. He had gotten into the "hyper-grace movement" and all of the churches in his community rejected him and spoke about how false he had become. The man I speak of is a very mature man and God told him to meet with this pastor. The pastor at first did not trust this man, but soon the trust was gained. At one point, the pastor in error asked, "Since you have been meeting with me, you must agree with me right?" The man said, "Not at all. I think you are wrong in some important areas, but I love you." It changed everything. The man now had a place to minster to a pastor who had run into the hyper grace ditch as a result of being hurt badly by those in the ultra-legalistic ditch. I believe this pastor is born again and loves the Lord with his whole heart. He does not need to be called out as false, rather he needs to be loved and entreated by men who are mature and that can speak into his life.

Sure, there are those who are just way out there and teaching blatant falsehood, but I believe we must exercise great discernment in naming them lest we kill the wheat with the tares.

Just my perspective.

By the way, on a bit different note. I remember the day that God revealed to me in Peter that there are those who suffer persecution according to the will of God. He does use it for our training and good at times.