Why did Asbury University stop hosting the revival?
Authors: Johnson and Pearl, Bible teachers and founders of:
The Pure Gospel and Revival website
www.repent-pray-revival.org
2023/3/26
“Is it not true, too often our very best moments of yielding and consecration are mingled with the destructive element of self-preservation? A full and complete surrender is the price of blessing, but that also is the price of revival.” －Duncan Campbell
What is true revival?
https://repent-pray-revival.org/2020/06/15/what-is-true-revival-2/
Revival is the highest kind of Christianity
https://repent-pray-revival.org/2022/01/21/revival-is-the-highest-kind-of-christianity-2/
Dear readers, before you read this article on “Why did Asbury University stop hosting the revival?“, please make sure you first understand what a true revival is. Charles Finney, Frank Bartleman, Evan Roberts, Maria Woodworth Etter, Marie Monsen, John Sung, J. Edwin Orr, and Leonard Ravenhill have some of the best books on revival. (For those of you serious about praying down revival in your nation.)
Second, understand that we do believe that the 2023 Asbury Revival is a real move of Holy Spirit, though it lasted only about 2 weeks. Job 7 verse 18 tells us that God “tests us humans every morning and every moment". I guess somebody failed God’s test at Asbury. I guess they haven’t learned the lesson of why the 1970 Asbury revival ended only after 6 days!
2023 Asbury Revival testimonies
Third, we also believe the 1970 Asbury Revival was also a real move of Holy Spirit, though it lasted on 6 days, and it is most likely the shortest revival in world history.
Fourth, sadly, we do not see any current evidence of the 2023 Asbury Revival continuing, though we sincerely hope that the revival spreads and continues.
We can say from God’s word and our 20-year study of revival history, every revival that ended were because of either sin, disobedience, or unwillingness to keep praying to sustain the revival.
We must surrender the Lordship of the church back to the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit! And we must turn the focus of the church from the pastor back to the Lord Jesus, the Chief Shepherd of the church. (1 Peter 5:4)
Listen to this from the Asbury University website:
After Thursday, February 23, Asbury University will not be hosting or sponsoring further Outpouring events at this time. For more information, please visit
asbury.edu/outpouring
From our perspective, this is just a more subtle way of saying: “we will no longer be hosting the revival. We prefer going back to our classes, academics, sports, normal programs and activities."
You see, there is always a conflict of interests when a revival comes to a church or a seminary.
It is a pathetic fact today that most carnal churches today are after “church members and offerings"; they are not really after revival. If they are really revival, they would NOT be diluting sin and using worldly programs and activities to get people to come to church. Rather, they would be praying for revival at least 3 times a week!
If a church really loves Jesus and is on fire for God, its goal would be to pray and get “God’s fire and revival" to come, instead of being money-minded and going after “members and offerings" while diluting the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“The main purpose of the “church" is to get God to walk into church instead of getting people to walk into church. Just because people come to church, that doesn’t mean God comes to church; but if God comes to church(as in revivals), so will the sinners!" (Acts 2-4) -Johnson and Pearl
As for seminaries their main goal is getting students and tuition, NOT getting “God and revival" to come. To them, without enough students, they don’t get enough tuition (money) to run the seminary, and no professor or seminary president would like a pay-cut.
Thus, their main goal is NOT trying to get “God and revival" to come to seminary. If that were the case, they would never have stopped hosting the revival. They would not have shut it down after only 2 weeks. (I guess they still didn’t learn the lesson from the 1970 Asbury revival, which lasted only 6 days.) History repeats itself here. Somebody once again failed God’s test.
Here is further proof that the Asbury University president and staff really did not want to continue the revival, as they would rather let a veteran journalist and author Cal Thomas speak at the Hughes Auditorium, then allow the students to continue to pray and sustain the revival.
In partnership with the Media, Journalism & Digital Storytelling department, veteran journalist and author Cal Thomas will speak at Asbury on Friday, March 24 at 7 p.m. for a public lecture in Hughes Auditorium. Watch the livestream.
So, what does the above statement mean? That means that the Asbury University president and staff would rather let a journalist speak than allow the Holy Spirit to continue the revival at Asbury. (What a blatant disrespect to God! Do they even know who God is? Would you kick a president or a king out of the Hughes Auditorium in favor of a journalist? If not, why would anyone dare to do that with God? What a fool!)
It seems that the Asbury University president and staff never hungered for revival in the first place. After all, they were NOT the ones to hunger for revival and prayed down the revival in the first place. It was the students that had the hunger and passion to pray down the Asbury revival, not the president or professors.
As of now, it seems that the Asbury Revival has faded for the same reason that caused the 2006 Shillong Revival to fade.
After the 2006 Shillong Revival happened in India, children and youth were discouraged from going to these revival meetings because their studies were being neglected. It seems their parents favor academics more than the revival power of God. How foolish!
Who needs academics when you are experiencing God face-to-face with revival power? Did Peter, John, or Paul needed academic degrees to preach the gospel?
Revivalist Evan Roberts, the recognized starter of the Wales Revival that got 5 million worldwide saved in 2 years, was praying and speaking to God 8 hours a day before going to seminary. After a few months in seminary, God told him to go back to his home church and start a revival, then after the revival took off, he never went back to seminary for a degree after the Great Welsh Revival happened. God gave him a job, revival power, gifts of the Spirit, and provided all things he needed for the revival.
“The Lord is my Shepherd. I fear no want.” All things necessary He has provided, and will provide. I wish no personal following, only the world for Christ.” －Evan Roberts
How Evan Roberts hungered and prayed down the Welsh Revival
I guess that the Asbury University president and staff also did NOT want the students to neglect their studies or skip classes in order to continue prayer, worship, and the revival. Maybe the president and the professors would rather go back to “normal" powerless theology, or money-making major curriculums, academics, and athletics. Perhaps they feared that if the students keep skipping classes, the parents might not continue to pay tuition to the university. Perhaps they feared if the students discovered that revival is more real and powerful than powerless theology, they might not come back to the seminary next year. Perhaps they feared the spotlight would be on the Presence of Jesus instead of on the university president and the professors.
After all, Asbury University has 150+ areas of study(undergraduate majors and minors). That’s is alot of income from tuitions, not to mention most universities also make money from the school basketball or football teams.
Let do some simple math here to prove that, to the Asbury University president and staff, student attendance and tuition is way more important than revival. We have already looked at the Asbury president’s own statements. Now lets look at the math very quickly. From what I know, Asbury has about 1,639 students. Annual tuition is $45,462 for all students regardless of their residency. Sources below:
source: https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/kentucky/asbury-university/price/
Now you do the math by multiply the number of students with annual tuition. And you get about a whopping 74 million in yearly revenue!
Some of you might be too naïve to figure this out on your own.
Now, with all the money, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Asbury president and the professors would rather prefer the student to go back to classes and their “normal life" than keep hosting the revival. After all, visitors or lost souls don’t pay tuition. It’s the students that pay the tuition and other fees.
Like I said before, there is always a conflict of interests when a revival comes to a church or a seminary.
What Asbury should have done, in my opinion, is to continue to allow prayer, worship, and revival to go on. They have a baseball field, basketball indoor arena, and lots of grass field. They should have established a church and appointed a pastor to preach the gospel to the lost in their neighborhood or surrounding cities or state.
Take up offerings if you need to hire personnel, staff, outdoor sound equipments and peripheral stuff to handle the crowds. Tell the students to go back to the classes and get good grades in order to glorify Christ. Preach deep repentance and encourage students to quit TV, cable TV, movies, porn, video games, internet, meaningless sports, or sins like premarital sex or cohabitation. Then, students should have lots of spare time to continue to pray for revival to come to all over Kentucky, America, and America’s campuses, then onward to pray for worldwide revivals.
Anyways, that is just my passion and what I would have done. I believe if the Asbury Revival continues, at least 50,000 to 100,000 sinners would be saved in Kentucky state alone. Kentucky has a population of 4.5 million.
– Asbury President Kevin Brown
Asbury President Kevin Brown announced on Feb. 19 that “outpouring” services would move off campus. The school later decided to no longer have a role in those services.
Pardon me, but where is the Bible scriptural reference for ending the revival, or no longer willing to host the revival?
In my opinion Kevin Brown would go down in history or God’s Book of Records as the genius that stopped the 2023 Asbury Revival. If a seminary president doesn’t love Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit more than 74 million USD in tuition revenue, then he has no business leading a seminary in the first place. He should be demoted to be the president of a “cemetery" instead!
I believe that all theologies that stays in the head and doesn’t go deep into the heart are dead and powerless theologies.
If a Christian loves a billion dollars more than you love Jesus, then you are just like Judas!
And if you don’t repent of the love of money, you will surely loose your salvation like the Apostle Judas did.
“If a person isn’t hungry for God’s glory and revival that’s because he’s hungry for sins like coveting money, lust, sex, power, pride of life, or some shallow and worldly accomplishments.” －Johnson and Pearl
“If you are not hungry for God’s glory and revival, that’s because you don’t love God and lost souls, AND because you are full of yourself and your own plans.” －Johnson and Pearl
“A man that hungers for God will stop hungering for sin!” －Johnson and Pearl
Here is how the 2006 Shillong Revival in India faded:
In July 2009, Pastor Reuben Pradhan was asked what led to the revival’s decline. He replied that
…although the revival made a huge impact in the churches, it wasn’t visible enough in the various strata of the society. Towards the end of the revival man-made traditions, rules, and regulations began to creep in and children and youth were discouraged from going to these revival meetings because their studies were being neglected. Eventually, I believe the Holy Spirit was quenched and the move of God came to a stop although some embers still seem to spark here and there.
Lastly, listen closely to what Charles Finney, the Father of American revivals, said about seminaries and revivals.
“A theological seminary that aims mainly at cultivating the intellect and sends out learned men who lack this infusion of (revival) power from on high is a snare and a stumbling block to the church."
“Most seminaries are furnished with learned men, but often not with men of spiritual power; hence, they do not insist upon this infusion of (Holy Spirit revival) power as indispensable to the work of the ministry."
Finney, Charles. Experiencing The Presence Of God (4 In 1 Anthology) . Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
“May we all love God and hate sin, seek God’s face and glory everyday with cleans hands and a pure heart, and persistently pray for revival in order to glorify Christ to the maximum degree in our generation." -Johnson and Pearl
“The main purpose of the “church" is to get God to walk into church instead of getting people to walk into church. Just because people comes to church, that doesn’t mean God comes to church; but if God comes to church(as in revivals), so will the sinners!" (Acts 2-4) -Johnson and Pearl
What is true revival?
https://repent-pray-revival.org/2020/06/15/what-is-true-revival-2/
What is the pure gospel of Jesus Christ?
https://repent-pray-revival.org/2020/06/09/what-is-the-pure-gospel-of-jesus-christ-2/
The Pure Gospel and Revival website 