Truth Unites - Revival on College Campuses?

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Gavin Ortlund discusses whether revival is happening on college campuses. Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

On September 19th, 2004, over 10,000 students gathered at the University of Arkansas for a time of worship. The ministry sponsoring this event said, Jesus met us there. We were blown away by his presence in the room and how it carried over into baptisms. It found this really exciting. And there's been a lot of these events lately on college campuses, several thousand at the University of South Carolina, another gathering at the Corpus Christi campus of Texas A&M, again, resulting in baptisms and professions of faith. and then at Ohio State University, members of the football team shared testimonies of what God had been doing in them and among their teammates, and this also resulted in a crowd gathering and baptisms.

More anecdotally, I just keep, that's all within the last month for my recording this video, those four episodes on campus universities, the university campuses, I'm tired today. anecdotally, though, I also just keep feeling this and seeing this and hearing from churches, from campus ministries, the sense of among Gen Z, the word I will use is openness, and it's so refreshing to see. David Kinneman, CEO of Barner Research, did a study on teenagers, and he concluded that the younger generation should give us hope for the church. The study that he conducted said, young people may be fueling this rise in spiritual hunger.

overwhelmingly Christian teens today say that Jesus still matters to them, teens remain refreshingly open to Jesus. There's that word refreshingly. I've decided to make praying for revival, and especially for revival among the younger generation, a major focus in my own life. And I just want to make a very simple and short video here, inviting others to join me and praying for that and thinking about that. I can't think of anything more worthy of giving my life and prayers and labors to than trying to serve, especially young people, through praying for this and then just whatever we can do to try to seek a new wave of God's work. And so I'm going to make a theology of revival, a major focus of Truth Unites in 2025. I'm going to take December to study

and then lots of videos in 2025 because I think thinking theologically about what revival is is helpful and studying church history can really help us. It's amazing some of the things God has done. The other day when I was praying for revival, I was actually writing my monthly newsletter for Truth Unites. You can sign it for that on the website, by the way. And I was praying for revival, and I just felt this, I don't know how to describe it, just this tremendous surge of peace in my heart. And I guess, it seems to me, like we're in a political season right now. There's so much anxiety and anger. It's really easy to focus on all the problems of the world. And I know for myself, but I think probably for all of us, we need to be reminded to keep our eyes upon Christ and try to keep

the focus where it needs to be. Those of us who are following, of Jesus, and I can't think of a better thing to focus on than praying for a new work of God. So in this video, this is extremely simple. This is sort of almost just like a, hey, flagging this, look into this more, look into what God is doing. I don't even know exactly what he's doing, but look into it. And let's talk more about this. I'll just mention two thoughts, though, to kind of spur interest in this and explain why I want to make this more of a focus. Revival is powerful. Revival is precarious. revival is powerful.

Jonathan Edwards argued that the advance of the kingdom of God consists much in revival. The advance of the kingdom of God throughout over the last 2,000 years hasn't been like the same amount every year. A lot of times it's these seasons of renewal where God pours out his spirit and the kingdom of God sort of surges forward. And then there's these periods of darkness and declension. And not that God isn't working at all, but there's a lot more stagnant. nation. And in his own ministry, he said, I can look back and see many years where God was not

doing a lot that I could tell, but then all of a sudden, in 1737, God just poured out his spirit. He said, when God in so remarkable a manner took the work in his own hands, there was as much done in a day or two as at ordinary times is done in a year. Now, I love that idea. You know, one day does as much as a year when God sort of steps in in this more decisive way. It reminds me of the verse in Joel, where it says God can restore the years that the locusts have eaten, that's what God can do. And, you know, I'm not a cynic about revival. I've seen these times where God just does something, and it's hard to explain. It's amazing. And so I just think, particularly right now, with all the instability, this is a wonderful thing to focus upon. What more would I like to give my life to?

Nothing. It's really, honestly, it's pretty simple for me. I want to walk with Christ myself. I want to take care of my family, but then I want to be an agent of renewal and so forth. That's really what I want to spend my life on. But the other thing, and the reason I think it helps to think theologically about revival is that revival is precarious. And all I mean by that is, revival can be misused. It's very easy. God does something genuine. He pours out his spirit and, you know, people are responding to Christ. And then people can come along and sensationalize it or commercialize it or copy it and try to reproduce it. And so revival is this kind of special, precious, valuable thing that we have a responsibility to try to steward. And one of the ways we do that is to

keep the focus on Christ at all times. I love my dad's definition of revival. Revival is a season in the life of the church when God causes the normal ministry of the gospel to surge forward with extraordinary spiritual power. I like that because it's highlighting revival is not a distraction from the normal ministry of the gospel. But it's when the ministry of the gospel surges forward. And so we want to keep the focused upon Christ at all times. And whatever else happens, we don't, you know, revivals can be noisy or they can be very quiet. But, and that both are fine.

It can have a lot of emotional exuberance, or it can be relatively calm. Both are fine. Neither of those really tells you what's genuine. What tells you, if a revival is genuine, is the spiritual fruit that is born. Is it making us love Jesus more? know Jesus more, serve Jesus more, walk with Jesus more, et cetera. So more to come on all this on Truth Unites. But in the meantime, what do we do about revival? I'll just say two things. Number one is we pray, and the second is I think we try to stop fighting so much, at least in nasty ways.

Christians are, we are often in Galatians 515 mode, tearing each other, devouring each other right now, especially on social media. I think unity helps us prepare for revival. So to what, I know sometimes we have to disagree and talk, but to whatever extent we can try to not allow the enemy, Satan, to have a foothold by anger and division and rancor and so forth. I think that prepares us well for revival. The other thing I'd say is we can do is we can hope. Don't give way to despair. There's so much despair in the world right now. Here's a final image. I'll leave you just because I like it, and it makes me happy. When they, in the line, the witch, in the wardrobe, there's talk of Aslan, the Christ figure coming. And listen to how C.S. Lewis describes this. A very

curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do. But the moment the beaver had spoken these words, everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand, but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning, either a terrifying one, which turns the whole dream into a nightmare, or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing that you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan, each one of the children felt something jump in its inside.

When we think of Jesus, we think of a movement of Jesus, it's tremendously exciting to think, without giving way to sensationalism, but to have a healthy focus to say, let's not be cynics. You know, because I think sometimes some Christians are so wanting to clamp down and give warnings about don't misunderstand revival. But the other danger is that we're cynical or sluggish in responding. Because we, you know, this is the other thing that we can do is just drive. drop off all control that we feel we have over God's kingdom and let go and say, okay, Lord, you're on the throne.

What are you doing? What is your will for your church in 2024 and 25 and 26 and so forth? And how do I just let go of everything else but the will of God and focus on what you want to do? Revival also has this loosening effect on us that's good. It helps us fight about our little, you know, when revival comes, we often learn, oh, this was my own pet little thing. It wasn't about the kingdom, whether it be theology or. or even ministry or other things in our lives,

and it invites us into something larger. And you have this sense of, wow, there's something bigger that God is doing, and the excitement and the other sensations that the children feel there about the coming of Aslan. Can I just be honest? I feel something of that in my own heart, and I pray, God, send your Holy Spirit

to do a new work in our day. You know, I love theology, I love complicated things, but sometimes it's pretty simple. You just pray that God would pour out his spirit and move in a new way. And that's what I want to make. So more to come on all of this in two,

And in the meantime, let's be praying.