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"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already." 1 John 4:1-3 ESV

From the time I was born, churches have hosted revivals. There have been independent evangelists that would also go, independent of a specific church, and host revival (camp) meetings. A few years ago, in Asbury College, there was a great movement of spiritual awakening among college students - people drove from near and far to take part in it! 

There is always talk of revival. We made a point of it at the end of the message last Sunday (hint: it begins with dependence on God through prayer). But how do you know if a revival is real, or just hollow emotionalism? Worse yet, how do you know whether it is a trick of the devil to distract Christians away from true worship?

Jonothan Edwards (1703-1758) gave us a good litmus test, based on 1 John 4:1-7, to biblically determine -- in the heat of the revival moment -- whether it is genuine. Of the awakening in his time, he wrote: 

“There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world. Those who were wont to be the vainest and loosest, and those who had been disposed to think and speak lightly of vital and experimental religion, were now generally subject to great awakenings. And the work of conversion was carried on in a most astonishing manner, and increased more and more; souls did as it were come by flocks to Jesus Christ.”

Here are the five signs he urges the church to use as our test:

(1)  Jesus is exalted.  This is Jesus in all he has said, in all that he did, as revealed in Scripture!  Not just a part of Jesus, but the whole. 

(2) Satan's kingdom is opposed. The things of this earth will grow "strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace." Sin is not only opposed, it is mortified. The view of the things of the flesh fade away as Jesus is exalted in the lives of individuals.

(3) God's Word is venerated. There is a genuine hunger for the very words of God, because there is an awakining to the Creator, himself. If a revival gets mired in things that overshadow the proclamation of God's Word, then warning bells should begin to peale. 

(4) Truth is revealed. The conclusions being made from the Word of God are faithful to the text of Scripture as the font of ultimate truth.

(5) Loving God and others. If revival results in anger, bitterness, pride, and triumphalism instead of lovingkindness for each other and this lost world, the care for the hurting people around us, and a genuine burden for the lost, then the movement has the wrong kind of fruit. A tree is judged by its fruit. (Luke 6:43-45)

You can read more about Jonothan Edwards' five points by --> here <--