I listened to Voddie Bauchaum summarize what is wrong at Asbury recently. The video title is (Wow) The Asbury Revival is NOT of God. His summary is similar to other skeptical takes I have heard, so I will summarize his summary here. (You can also watch the video and hear what he says for yourself.)
Bauchaum said he listened to four testimonies of students who attended the “revival”, and they “confirmed exactly what I figured was going on.” It’s a small sampling size, but I have no reason to believe he didn’t hear what he heard.
His conclusions were more in number than his sampling size. First, he said, “This event is nothing more than strange fire.” (The whole event.) For proof, he offered what the students said in their testimonies: One student admitted said he experienced a “fit of laughter”; another student claimed his mother began speaking in “unknown tongues”. (If Bauchaum supplied a summary of the other two testimonies he heard, I missed it.)
The phrase, “strange fire”, is a reference to Leviticus 10:1-3 an incident in which two priests put incense into censors and offered “strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.” (KJV) Those men were consumed by fire from the Lord, the passage says. Therefore, Bauchaum is comparing the people at Asbury to the two rogue priests who presented offerings to God they were not instructed to give and were killed for it.
Clearly, Bauchaum is suggesting that “this event” is not of God; it is “unauthorized” worship; and God views it like He viewed the priests who offered strange fire and were killed for it.
As further proof that this event could not be from God, he said, “A lot of this took place out of the church!” He added that “the university ordains women for ministry, so there is a lot wrong here.”
He went on to explain to say that he was looking for a man of God taking the pulpit to open the Bible and preach the word of God, “and it never happened.” Though he didn’t say it, I am left to assume that revivals must happen only inside church buildings, and then only when a man of God preaches the word of God from a proper pulpit.
I note that he didn’t do much research if he only heard four testimonies, as I found testimonies all over the Internet, including many statements by professors and school administrators. The happenings at Asbury took place over roughly a two-week period, so there was a lot of footage to see and many people who were there talking about it.
I also note that the chapel service began with someone preaching, but, then, I don’t know if he was “a men of God”, and I don’t recall whether he used a pulpit. (Sarcasm alert.)
Bauchaum warned that Satan tricks people with music. As anecdotal proof, he recounted his own experience attending a Pentecostal church a few times when he was a new believer. He recalled feeling emotional, on the verge of tears, because he felt like God was moving, but he determined it was “nonsense” after reading the Bible for himself for several weeks.
To his credit, he said that he “matured really fast” during during those few weeks. (I am not being sarcastic now. These were his words, not mine.) He said he desired to hear someone preach the Word of God because he was hungry for preaching.
To be fair, I can appreciate. I have been in his shoes before when all I wanted was to hear a meaty sermon that dug deep into God’s word.
Bauchaum recalled an old Paul Washer sermon in which people were moved by the preaching of the word, not by the music. As proof that this is the way it should be done, he quoted Romans 10:17: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (No issue there.)
I don’t know if Bauchaum is a cessationist (someone who believes the “gifts of the Holy spirit” have ceased), so I don’t want to make any assumptions. If he is a cessationist, then it would not matter if people had limbs grow back: a cessationist has already determined God doesn’t do those things anymore.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, I can admit that his concerns might be just as validly expressed by someone who is not a cessationist. His concerns do suggest a need for some circumspection, but I have greater concern over his conclusions than any of the spectacle he described that took place on the Asbury University campus for over two weeks in February of 2023.
Continue reading “Of the Holy Spirit, Truth, Tares, and Wheat at the Asbury Revival”
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