May 24, 2023
Growing In God Podcast
During this very special podcast, Bill Hart gives us a firsthand account of the 2023 Asbury Revival. Bill is a close friend and a faithful servant of God with a prophetic insight into the Church and the coming Kingdom of God. I urge you to listen to this important message and share it with others, as Bill imparts his tremendous faith for the outpourings of God's Spirit that will be so necessary if we want to see our society return to the Lord.
Show Notes: On February 8, 2023, Asbury University had their regularly scheduled chapel service in the campus auditorium. After a sermon described as “unspectacular,” the service was dismissed and all the students left except for a dozen or so young people who stayed in the auditorium and continued praying. Soon students began to hear rumors that something special was happening there, and it was not long before there was a buzz throughout the whole university about it. By this time, students were going back to the auditorium and then by the afternoon the university canceled classes so that students could feel free to go there and seek the Lord.
The meeting in the auditorium continued nonstop after that as students were confessing their sins and opening their hearts to God. News of this event spread overnight, and people began flooding the small town of Wilmore, Kentucky, where the university is located, to experience the revival that was taking place there. As you walked into the auditorium during this ongoing service, the feeling was almost indescribable. Above the altar was a sign that read, “Holiness unto the Lord.” And that is truly what was happening there. The presence of God was so pronounced that it brought you to an instant place of repentance and humility.
This service was not anything that was driven from the platform. There were many leaders in attendance, even famous ministers from around the world, but they stayed in the background while the students led the service. It was so encouraging to see this happening among young people in light of all that has happened in our nation and throughout the world. During the last two decades, it seems like there has been an acceleration of degeneration in our young people as satan has been trying to destroy them. It was a revival at Asbury University in 1970 that helped fuel the Jesus Revolution in that decade. Let us have faith that this revival will spark an outpouring of God’s Spirit that will transform our nation.
Key Verses:
• Isaiah 44:3–4. “I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring.”
• Ezekiel 44:4. “The glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD, and I fell on my face.”
• Psalm 51:10. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
• Acts 3:19–20. “Repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
Quotes:
• “Give me a clean heart, Lord. Give me that union with You that only can happen when there's a willingness on my part to allow the Holy Spirit to examine me.”
• “When God does it, man cannot control it. When man controls it, God cannot be a part of it.”
• “You can have all the doctrine in the world. You can have all the principles and precepts. You can have all the teachings. You can have all those things, but the letter of the law does not produce life. It's when we encounter the living Christ by hungering and thirsting after Him and His righteousness through faith that God begins to meet us.”
Takeaways:
1. Revivals or outpourings happen at times when the world is spinning out of control because those are times when people cry out to God for Him to step in. Since human nature is so reluctant to get into God, it often takes a crisis to bring us to a place where we are desperate enough to seek the Lord. The world is in such a crisis today and many in the Body of Christ are starting to cry out to Him.
2. We have to be willing to humble ourselves to receive something fresh from God. If we think it is going to be the way we want it, it probably will not happen for us. So we start beseeching the Lord for His will to be done in our lives. In our worship we must come into a deep repentance that allows the Lord to move without any preconditions.
3. The Holy Spirit is the most capable Leader of the Church, but most of the time He cannot lead the Church the way He wants because we are busy trying to lead it the way we think He wants. Our church services can literally be transformed by becoming Spirit led encounters whenever we meet together. But it is very difficult for leaders to allow this to happen because it disrupts their programs. It requires a willingness to utterly fail because we are putting all the responsibility back on God for the success.