Do It Again

 Feb 3, 1970, on a cold wintry morning students dutifully gathered for a required chapel service. Dean Reynolds was scheduled to preach that morning. He sensed God had something else in mind and opened the service for people to testify. Nobody could have predicted what happened next. One student confessed sin publicly. A hush fell over Hughes Auditorium on the campus of Asbury College. God moved in and took over. A wave of His mighty presence fell over the auditorium and students rushed to the altar to pray, repent, confess sins, and some to get saved. They sang, prayed, and knelt in tears well past the allotted time for the service. 

People were not leaving the auditorium. Few people showed up in the cafeteria at lunch. Classes were cancelled. The meeting lasted well into the night. Past midnight. Into the next day and for the next 150 plus hours straight. For seven days people stayed in the auditorium to get right with God. Some even slept there not wanting to miss out on what God was doing. Then the move of God spread all over town and to other campuses. That move eventually touched the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. 

I shared that story Monday morning when I preached to a group of students. Last night I was sent a text that God is doing the same thing again at Asbury College. Starting on Wednesday Feb 8, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. God did it again. That service is still going three days later. People are driving from all over the nation to the small campus in Wilmore, KY to get a taste of revival. Students are singing, publicly testifying of salvation, repenting of sin. It all started when the worship band refused to quit playing at the prescribed hour to dismiss the service. They sensed God was not through. They were right. A few dozen people stayed behind to join in with them. Others followed. God has been working ever since. God is stirring me as I have read about this move of His Spirit and watched several videos. This appears to be genuine. 

I witnessed something very similar on Thursday night with a group of students in much the same fashion. It appears that God is moving. Are the young people the only ones hungry and open to God moving. I sure am. I hope we are not so dignified in our worship gatherings, so religious, so programmed, so predictable, and so prideful that we are not open to God moving in our midst too. 

It starts with some honesty about our sin. It starts with truly getting clean before God. He sees past the pretense and right through our hypocrisy. He sees the near extinction of holiness among the bride of Christ in His church. He is offended by our lukewarmness. In fact, it nauseates Him. He is weary of our religious gatherings void of passion and a hunger for more of Him. He is often not welcome in our worship gatherings as we program Him right off the agenda and out of the room. How many even notice He is not pleased nor present. It is time for the church to take an honest look in the mirror under the gaze of God. 

Sins must be repented of and cast away. Like pornography, fornication, adultery, substance abuse, filthy mouths, lying, gossip, hypocrisy, apathy, leaving our first love, and not abstaining from evil. Such an honest look at us church may not present a pretty picture. If we ever want God to do it again in our midst, we had better get serious about getting right before God. Or He will pass us older ones by to keep doing His fresh work among the young people. 

Why the young people. They are open. They are willing to be vulnerable and obedient when He leads them out of their comfort zones. They are willing to scrap the program and go with God. They are bold. They are unashamed to give themselves with reckless abandon to prayer, worship, and gospel witness. They are hungrier for real more than religion. 

Surely there are some adults who hunger, yearn, crave, desire, thirst, for God to move across this land like He is doing at Asbury, like He did with some TCA high school students, like He did at Asbury College back in 1970, like He did in Wales in 1904, like He did in the First and Second Great Awakenings. Do it again God we plead. 

1 Peter 1:14-16 (NASB)
¹⁴  As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,
¹⁵  but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
¹⁶  because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."

  1 John 1:7-10 (NASB)

⁷  but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
⁸  If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
⁹  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
¹⁰  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.