The Decline of Biblical Evangelism/Revival in the United States

The Decline of Biblical Evangelism/Revival in the United States: 

Here's the hard reality, but it is the truth -- for over 200 years in this nation, and more and more in recent generations, those in the church have had increasingly itching ears, and many have been greedy for "numbers" of souls saved, which is not much different than being greedy for the "gain" of tithes and offerings that comes with getting "souls saved" and keeping them coming to your church.

We have had the downgrade, the descent into easy believe-ism and revivalism that can be traced back almost exactly to the year 1800, if you follow Iain Murray's account in Revival and Revivalism. At that time, Calvinism began to increasingly be switched out for Arminianism. Prior to that time, virtually all denominations were Calvinistic. In essence, Calvinism proclaims from Scripture that one must be born again by the power of the Holy Spirit in order to repent and believe in Christ for salvation. Arminianism denies this, and says that one does not need to be born again by the Holy Spirit in order to repent and believe. Our sinfulness is only as deep as our wills our bent in the wrong direction, says the Arminian. No, the Calvinist says, we are not merely sick with sin, but dead in sin, and must be born again by the Spirit before we will ever break off from sin and turn to Christ as Lord and Savior in true faith and repentance.

As said above, prior to 1800 most all denominations and preachers upheld the Calvinist understanding of the Gospel and the need for the new birth. But after 1800, the need for the new birth worked by God the Holy Spirit was preached less and less, the anxious bench and altar call were born, and the justification was that these "new measures worked". Charles Finney even said you can have a revival anytime you want, if you use the new measures. Thus was born our deformed American Evangelicalism, and it is getting more deformed by the day.

Instead of preaching the need to be born again, or at least preaching knowing that the Spirit must cause one to be born again if any will come to Christ for salvation, all that is preached is to "make a decision for Christ" and the "new measures" are used. Say the sinner's prayer, walk an aisle. Rather than seeing sinners dead in trespasses and sins, sinners are told they are just sick with sin (if they are told they are sinners at all), and have enough in themselves to just bend their will in the right direction. Of course, this bending of the will is not done primarily through faithful preaching and prayer depending and asking the Holy Spirit to work, but rather is nudged with a little help from emotional manipulation by revivalist preachers, soft piano music, etc. Thus mood music, dimmed lighting, "every head bowed and eye closed," and often today fog machines, worldly entertainment, etc., are all mixed together to try to do what only the Holy Spirit can do -- bring a sinner to Christ in true faith and repentance through the pure proclamation of the Gospel. Now, today the aim is at getting a decision, whatever it takes to get a decision. Man can cause himself to be born again if he just "picks" Jesus. This, at root, is the false teaching that is dominant in churches today.

That ungodly, wicked fruit has seen iteration after iteration, generation over generation, including the much beloved Billy Graham and his crusades. While some have been well-meaning (as I am sure Billy Graham was), not all have been, and even those who are do not have an excuse. Few should become teachers, Scripture says (James 3:1), and pastors/teachers are held to a stricter judgment for good reason.

I have known people to be baptized many times, and Iain Murray points out in his book one lady (from the 1800's) who said she had been baptized 10 times, and not one of them "took". Yet churches keep using the "new measures" over and over, ignoring the bad fruit and claiming salvation when no work of the Spirit actually occurred to save sinners. Another hinge point around 1800 -- before then, no one was automatically added to the church and insta-baptized, they still believed what John the Baptist and Jesus taught, that you must bear fruits of repentance. So, they catechized/taught the persons who felt conviction for sin, and if they continued to learn, showed genuine faith and repentance, then some months down the road they'd be baptized and added to the membership rolls; after 1800 that began to change, and the "new measures" were so crass that at times, these "new school" men with their new measures would even refuse letting people leave until they "decided" for Jesus, in order to count them as a soul saved from hell! That practice is still alive and well, I've sat through it before (and yes, I remained seated, thankfully God assured me through His Word that I was saved, and no sham Evangelist was going to convince me otherwise with manipulative tactics and emotional appeals).

This all happens because many churches do not believe in the sovereignty of God in salvation. If one must be born again in order to repent and believe, then God truly saves, and man has no goodness, no willpower because of his or her sinfulness, to come to faith in Him apart from God first choosing them for salvation and working faith into their hearts by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

So it is believed by most churches today that the sinner's deepest issue is only his willing, not his very being. Again, before 1800, virtually all churches of all denominations would reject this, and affirmed that regeneration preceded faith, that the new birth was necessary for faith and repentance, that man was dead in sin, not merely sick with sin. The only notable exception was John Wesley and some of the Methodists, though George Whitefield, also a Methodist, was firm on this issue that the new birth was necessary for faith and repentance. And even Wesley's error on this was nowhere near as extensive as those who came after 1800. Asbury was also a Methodist, whose namesake is given to the school where the so-called revivals have been taking place in this year, 2023. It is curious that many there are claiming a work of the Spirit, which praise God the focus is placed upon the Spirit having to work for sinner's to be saved. But one cannot know the Spirit has worked until the evidence of the Spirit's work, the fruit of the Spirit, has been seen. That will take some days, weeks, and months to manifest. Remember the parable of the 4 soils in Scripture. Some respond in faith instantly, but have no root in them, or the thorns choke them out. The cares of the world or fears of persecution show that this was not a saving work of the Spirit, but an emotional "high" in the moment of sinful man, and nothing more. There may have been a taste of the heavenly powers (Hebrews 6), but it was not a saving taste. Such a person who falls away was never born again by the Spirit through the Gospel to begin with. Those who are born again are born of the "imperishable word" the living and abiding word of God, I Pet. 1:23.

Friends in Christ, doctrine matters, because the Gospel is a proclamation of doctrine! Whether man is dead in sin, needing the new birth, or merely sick with sin, able to change his own will in his own strength, is a huge difference. When the Gospel in its purity is proclaimed again, the cry of Christ will be heard in pulpits and among Evangelists and street preachers: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17). " Jesus answered them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom He has sent,'" (John 6:29), "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out...no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:37, 44), "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63).

But today, churches are seeker sensitive, which can only be a model of church growth if you have a faulty understanding of doctrine and the Gospel. So many churches cater to the sinner because they think unbelievers can actually seek God. But note Romans 3:10-12, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God...no one does good, not even one."

When you reject the sovereignty of God over all things, His glory as the greatest good, and the necessity of the new birth by the Spirit, being born of God's will and power rather than your will and power (John 1:12-13), you get seeker sensitive Christianity, with revivalism, emotionalism, and entertainment. You get a lot of decisions, but few actual conversions, though all is counted as the same and there are instant declarations of salvation, works of the Spirit (though everything was structured to deny the need of the Spirit with the use of the "new measures"), and thus instant baptisms. People eventually become treated more as victims, less as sinners. This all seeds the soil for the woke world that we have reaped, and it only took 200 years of this nonsense.

As God through His prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel said, the false prophets of Israel/the Church today prophesy "peace, peace" when there is no peace, and they heal the wounds/sins of the people only lightly, not truly.

Faithful ministers of the Gospel, and I myself as a minister, plead with the American Church to repent of her wicked and false teaching, even if done with good intentions. Return to your biblical, Calvinistic roots that the churches of this nation were founded upon; return to proclaiming the sovereign grace of God and the deadness of sinners in their sin, the absolute necessity of the new birth, and the call to repentance and receiving Christ not merely as Savior, but as Lord. Repent of chasing charismatic experiences that were never purposed or meant for the Church past the apostolic age, but proclaim the full Christ from the completed, Spirit-inspired Scriptures. Proclaim the full counsel of God, preach through His word exegetically, expositionally, and do it all with the zeal and determination that Paul urges Timothy to do so in 2 Tim. 3:16-4:5.

Indeed, the Church has been "turned aside to fables" because they have turned their "ears away from the truth" (2 Tim. 4:4). But by God's grace, may all true ministers of God's Word "be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" by "Preaching the word in season and out of season". And may God by His Spirit grant the new birth through the pure preaching of His Word to many sinners, who will then come to true faith and repentance in Jesus Christ, giving credit and glory for doing so to God alone, that His name may be hallowed in all the Earth.