Revivals and Seismographs

Introduction

One word that keeps coming up again and again in reference to the impact of Charlie Kirk’s death is the word revival. I don’t want to disagree with this, for reasons that will become obvious, but agreeing with it is just a little bit premature—and more than a little bit understated. Everything we are witnessing is very much connected to revival, but we are not quite there yet.

The volcano has not yet erupted, but all the scientists bending over their seismographs are doing nothing but worrying about how much those needles are quivering and bouncing. The whole thing has riveted their attention, as it ought to. They have never seen anything like it in their lives, and neither have any of the rest of us.

The memorial service for Charlie Kirk was not a revival, but if you know what you are looking at, you could certainly see it from there. And you also need to see something else, something that will be a force multiplier.

That Memorial

Jesus Christ was truly honored at that memorial service. Over and over again His name was lifted up. This was done by many who clearly know and love Him, but also done in the presence of others who were bewildered at what was happening all around them. It was like a church service in that there was worship music, Scripture reading, and gospel proclamation. It was not like a worship service in that there were people speaking that you would never ask to bring the Word to the assembled faithful. It was more like a family funeral, where the departed was a true saint, and two thirds of the eulogies were spoken by fellow believers, but also with comments added by an atheist uncle and a New Age cousin, family members who loved the deceased and who also didn’t know where they were.

So the memorial service was a really good event . . . but not a revival. Yet.

Defining Some Terms

Let me talk about three words that begin with r for a moment—renewal, revival, and reformation.

Renewal movements are those times when people are being exhorted to get their heads back in the game. Things have gotten a little raggedy, and folks have gotten lazy, and so someone comes along and inspires a number of people to step it up. Good things can happen as a result of this, and sometimes such “New Year’s resolutions” take. This happens on a personal level and it can happen on a cultural level as well.

Revival should be defined by its etymology—it means coming to life again. Where once there was a valley of dry bones, the Spirit of God brings life back to them, and the whole thing is glorious. But the bones that are raised up were usually a collection of orthobones, every doctrine in place, and nothing heretical anywhere. Still dead, but every bone in place, just like the skeleton hanging from the rack in your high school science classroom. So as a historical matter, revivals usually happen among believers—ostensible believers, nominal believers, or moribund believers, but still believers. They are coming to life again.

Reformation is something that happens at the foundational worldview level. All the false assumptions of a people are jack-hammered up, and dump trucks haul off the fragments. There is complete transformation at the level of the footings and foundation walls.

The monastic movements of the middle ages were renewal movements. Promise Keepers back in the 90s was a renewal movement. One common mistake is to call a renewal movement a revival, thereby over-promising what the long-term impact will be. But however valuable and however helpful such a renewal might be, it is not necessarily a revival. And this has been a common evangelical temptation in North America—we have gone through a succession of renewal movements, a number of them having their own decent effect, as far as it goes. We then organize them and call them revivals . . . which then morph into 501(c)3 ministries.

We must also remember the problem of counterfeits. A.W. Tozer put his finger on this aspect of the problem when he said that if revival means more of what we are doing now, we most certainly do not need revival. We need to keep that challenge in mind also.

What about revivals? There was a great Welsh revival in 1905. There was a true revival in the Confederate armies during the War Between the States. There was a Great Awakening in the eighteenth century under the preaching of men like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. With such revivals, there was not a great doctrinal shift. It was not as though the people came to a completely different way of thinking. They were Christian before and Christian after. Rather, it was that their old way of thinking came alive for them, and they came to know what it was really to mean it. The old evangelical saying is that the distance between Heaven and Hell is eighteen inches—the distance between the head and the heart. Revivals come down and close that gap.

But the great Reformation of the 16th century was a reformation and a revival both, and it was that hot combination that made it such a world-transforming series of events. With one modification, Paul’s ministry in Ephesus was the same sort of thing—reformation and revival both. Everyone in Asia Minor heard the Word of the Lord, the trade in idols was disrupted, and churches were planted everywhere. But because they were pagans coming to Christ, it wasn’t revival, but rather simply vival. But their old doctrinal world was undone, and that paradigmatic earthquake was combined with new life in the Spirit.

What we saw at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service was a nation standing on the threshold of that kind of thing,

What Needs to be Hauled Off

I wrote earlier about the foundational assumptions of the older order being hauled off in dump trucks. If God showers us with His mercy, and this is actually starting to happen to us, I want to describe for you what needs to be jettisoned. If this simply results in an upsurge of church attendance, then it will simply be renewal, and maybe some revival mixed in. Okay, but . . .

Charlie, by unashamedly mixing “conservative politics” with his “faith in Christ,” broke a black enchantment by which millions of evangelicals voluntarily withdrew from their responsibility to be salt and light, outside in the actual world.

He brought in his jack-hammer and backed up the dump trucks. This work is essential and must continue. It is what will make this a reformation and revival.

So what must be hauled off?

First, every form of compromise with Darwinism must be rejected. This is the font of most modern errors, and you must have no patience with it. More nonsense has cascaded from this impudence than can scarcely be credited. Darwinism has made such a mess. Friends, the world is here because God put it here, blammo, having fashioned it from nothing. We are creatures with responsibilities to Him, not end-products of blind chance grinding away.

Second, every vestige of feminism needs to be dug up and thrown away. Keep in mind that lots of conservative Christian girls are one third feminist without knowing it. And as feminism is just one aspect of the broader sexual revolution, while you are at it, we need to repudiate that entire project. This means having no patience with porn, or same sex mirage, or with the tranny travesty, or steamy sex scenes in mainstream movies, or girl-boss fantasies, or remaining unmarried for no good reason, or the widespread aversion to fertility. Find a cute girl who loves Jesus, marry her, and have lots of fat babies.

And third, there needs to be no compromise with secularism, which will necessarily veer into leftist communism. Without a God over society, society seeks to become that God, and that drags us into the total state of necessity. So it is not just true that individuals need Jesus. Nations also need Jesus. No society can be governed justly without a transcendent reference point, and that transcendent reference point cannot be a place-holder god that we just made up. It cannot be an idol. And because Jesus rose from the dead, He must be given that place of preeminence. Because Jesus rose from the dead, every form of collectivism or communism is wicked.

A Young Person’s Starter Kit

Charlie Kirk made a huge difference in multiple areas. But one of his most important contributions was convincing a generation of young people that there were certain truths out there that made life worth living. And you cannot have a life worth living without having a life worth loving. That truth was Jesus Christ Himself, and the message is that if any person comes to Him, he will find forgiveness for his heart and answers for his head.

Many have responded to this call, but they still need to be instructed. “I gave my life to Jesus. Now what?” The church generally is not prepared for the influx that is coming, and so I want to give such new converts a few pointers.

On the assumption that you know very little, I am going to make my pointers very specific. Consider it a bit of hand-holding. I am not trying to bind your conscience in details, but I am going to be very specific. I want to give you a series of concrete things to do. Once you have done them, you will be oriented, and you will be in a better position to take charge over your own specifics.

First, find a Protestant church that has two characteristics. In the first place, it needs to be a church that teaches and preaches directly from a believed Bible. That is essential. Secondly, it needs to be a church that rejects the three false doctrines that I outlined in the previous section. It needs to be an anti-Darwin church, an anti-feminist church, and an anti-secularist, anti-progressive church. Visit the church and walk through it. If you see any rainbow anywhere that does not have an accompanying picture of an ark and a giraffe, then go on to the next church. If you see Rev. Suzie, time to head out. If the church is solid, and you are not baptized, then go to the minister and request baptism. What you need to be willing to affirm in order to be baptized would be the contents of the Apostles Creed. That is basic Christianity. That is the gospel you must embrace. When you find that good church, join it. Plug into it.

Second, get a Bible. Use the King James, or if you need a modern version, the New King James. If you are starting from scratch, then dedicate yourself to reading through the New Testament three times. Spend a few months doing that. After that, move on to the Old Testament. I would recommend that you start with the four books that are quoted most frequently in the New Testament. This will give you a great start in understanding the complete Old Testament. Those four books are Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah. Read through those four books three times. When you are done, then look up a good Bible reading program, like this one, and make it part of your ongoing regimen for the rest of your life.

And last, if you are married, throw yourself into your married life. If you are not married, then fix that. Men, find out her name and throw yourself into married life. Mark Driscoll once said that men are like trucks. They drive straighter and better with a heavy load.

Use Your Imagination

I would encourage everyone to put yourself back precisely one year ago. Remember where your head was last October. The election was uncertain. We were facing the prospect of seeing our beloved country circle the drain for the last time. Whatever direction you might look, you could only see nonsense and perversion stretching out over the horizon. Yeah, there were red pills around, but not a few black pills. And depending on the day, and how things were going, quite a few dark gray pills.

Now go stand in that “last-October head space,” and try to imagine the Charlie Kirk memorial service. Charlie was a hard-working and very talented man, but he worked hard at what? He was a campus evangelist and a podcaster. He had thrown himself into the mission of talking about doctrine and comprehensive worldview with nineteen-year-olds. Doing that, he became such a cultural force that he was shot and killed by the darkness we are up against. And at the memorial service for this campus evangelist, you had the president’s cabinet sitting in the front row, the secretary of state declaring the gospel, the vice-president of the United States walking us through the Nicene Creed, numerous faithful Christians pointing the way to Jesus Christ, the president himself present and speaking, a beautiful widow speaking her beautiful words, and with thousands upon thousands in the stadium, and a hundred million people watching around the globe.

Now remember last October, and then hold this event up right next to it. Reflect on how much mercy God is pouring out.

That was the October when Kamala Harris had a teleprompter that glitched, and she kept saying “32 days, 32 days” like they were a koan and she was an inept Buddhist initiate seeking enlightenment. And you switched your television off, and muttered to yourself that millions of people were going to vote for that, and she was a commie to boot.

I used the phrase how much mercy a moment ago. But we have to realize that our sinful apostasy has been great, and we still need a lot more mercy than that.

And so now I want you to prayerfully imagine next October. Reformation and revival should really be at the top of your prayer list now.