♪ In every generation there have been revivals, massive moves of the Spirit that changed the course of history. In every revival, there were believers like you who chose to answer the call to become the one in their generation. Discover your call to be the one in your generation. ♪ Welcome to Revival Radio TV, I'm Gene Bailey and today back with me again is Greg Stephens. Greg, thanks for coming. - Good to see you, thank you.
- Yeah, we're going to talk about, you know, during... here on Victory Channel you do the news, we do FlashPoint and here we are on Revival Radio TV and so we're going to kind of dive into, these things really aren't separated, they're really together, culture, government, the church, revival, how does that all fit?
So we're going to dive into that today on Revival Radio TV and we're going to follow how throughout history, the church has driven politics and we're responsible for shaping American politics around biblical ideas. I know this has been something, Greg, that people don't really, it's like a whole generation has forgotten this. It's factual history though and people haven't been taught history and that's our problem or worse, they've been indoctrinated by the left in false history.
So we're going to take the time today to address the biblical perspective on the core differences between the political platforms of the Democrat and Republican parties. Now, the differences here are not just... I'm for lower taxes and he's for higher taxes. It's not just that. There's much deeper issues here so that you need to know about the differences. Well, there's three key areas where the parties defer and we're going to talk about that.
We'll explore their views on social justice, health care, environmental protection, economic growth, law and order, and traditional values, of course. So let's get started. In the mid-19th century, liberal theology took over the mainline seminaries and we can see that by what we see today and then began producing liberal preachers who didn't even believe in personal salvation.
It infected the great denomination like the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans and that theology, that liberal theology that was focused not on personal salvation from a fallen nature through Jesus, but a collective salvation of society, of good humans who can be elevated through social justice. Do you see the danger yet? Problems like poverty, alcoholism, and crime. It was the birth of progressivism in America.
There were fellow travelers with the rise of Marxism in the beginning of the 20th century. We all see that today. Deeply affected the core principles of the American Democratic Party roots. This can be seen more clearly today than any other time in history. So Greg, almost every issue can be traced back to ideas of this question. Is man basically good or is he just shaped by his surroundings? Or does he have a fallen nature that needs to be saved from their sin and policed?
- I think our founding fathers understood this biblical principle. Here's the deal. It was their worldview. Everyone has a worldview. And you say, every school teaches a worldview. Every newscast, editorial show like FlashPoint is, teaches a worldview. So you can't separate certain worldviews because that is being taught. So the question is, what worldview do I want my children, what do I want my society to have?
And that's what the people who signed this document right here, this is the Declaration of Independence, they saw an opportunity to change the worldview just like the pilgrims did when they came here. And when they planted that cross in Virginia, they're pronouncing a different worldview. In other words, let's say it this way, values. It's what you value. Do you value life? And so these platforms, they list what the values of that party goes.
I want you to listen to this quote from Federalist No. 51 by James Madison. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, no external, nor internal controls on government would be necessary. But in a government which is to be administered by men over men... you must first enable the government to control itself. We are from bottom up, not top down. And what they faced with the king was not that. - It was exactly the opposite. - It was exactly the opposite.
We the people, a government of the people by the people. That's the whole experiment with this nation of America. And we've gotten away from it. - Well, how did we get away from it, Greg? Let's kind of back up here. Because I'm shocked when I look at the news and I see the protests and the people rioting and they don't even know why they're rioting or what they're protesting about.
And then when you do push them, they have some erroneous view of what really happened to get America started, whether it's the 1619 Project or slavery and it's like, no, you don't know your history. We somehow dropped the ball with teaching how America was really- - I could go to Woodrow Wilson during that time. I could go to the Frankfurt Conferences where the elite of America and the universities took a form of Marxism. And that was years and years ago.
We weren't paying attention and the church largely wasn't paying attention. - Well, do you think it's because the church bought the lie? It's funny. The church is probably the biggest proponent of the separation of church and state idea that this is what... we're really the ones responsible for keeping that out there. - You know this and you've done a great job of exposing or re-exposing, re-digging the well, I'll use your word, of revival.
Anytime a true revival happened in a community, a nation, the nation changed. The community changed. I mean, all of them, from the circuit writing preachers to Wesley, to any of them, that community changed. The greatest example of this is the greatest persecutor of the early church was Rome. Today, Rome is where the Vatican sits. So it changed. And what we've not realized is that as the church, we're supposed to influence society.
We're supposed to influence the world around us with values that are biblical, Judeo-Christian values. So where did it get off track though? I mean, because this, to me, this sounds very, very obvious. Well, of course... because there's not like some weird thought or belief in Christianity that like, you know, we don't sacrifice children. You know, the reasoning why you go, oh no, let's don't do that. You know, the reality is everything about the Christian life is good.
I mean, and history has proven it over and over again, yet we still run head into, oh, you're trying to be a Christian nationalist or you're trying to make this, you know, you're going to... you're going to control everybody. You're going to be an... and that's not, that's not what this is about. When self took over, men will be lovers of themselves, Paul wrote. So when self becomes, now I'm inwardly focused, I'm concerned about my needs.
And so we get a governmental nanny state, for lack of a better word, that takes care of the individual. Takes care of them. We want the government to take care of us. Government is our source. I think Jesus, speaking of the last days, in Matthew 24, he talks a lot about it, but Matthew 25, he says something directly, I think, to us. And I'll just show it, share it with you real fast.
Verse 1, "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took the lamps and took no oil with them, but they that were wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps." Now we can look at that as a type of the Holy Spirit. So we have a difference already happening in the bride, okay? Let's look at this.
"While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight..." that's what we've been doing for 2,000 years. The bridegroom has tarried, his return. And some of us have slumbered and slept. Here we go. "And at midnight there was a cry made, behold, the bridegroom cometh, go out and meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps. Ours has gone out.
But while the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest there not be enough for all of us, go rather and sell and buy for yourselves. And while they were gone, the bridegroom came and they were left out. I think it's a picture of what happened with the church. Some stayed ready, stayed alert, kept their garments. You see the instructions of Jesus in the book of Revelation. This one little thing, you've lost your first love. This one little thing with you, you've done this.
And I think some denominations have failed to do that. They failed, if that is the Holy Spirit, they have failed to allow the Holy Spirit to move. And I'll go back to that Revelation thing again. Jesus said, after all the instructions to the church, he said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man open, I will enter and sup with him." He wasn't writing that to unbelievers, Gene. He wrote that to the churches.
- Yeah. - In other words, you've gotten so busy doing your church that I'm not even in there. I'm not there. And those are those virgins that didn't have their lamps ready. I think Jesus has given this example of how that happened and how it was going to happen. - It didn't happen all at once. - No, it was gradual. - All right. So let's talk about, you know, the social side of this. I mean, we've got such an emphasis now on LGBTQ rights and gender equality and criminal justice reform.
Defund the police. I mean, we've got some crazy ideas out there that even, you know, let's talk about defunding the police. We're even seeing places like Portland and some of the upper, upper Northwest. They're already changing. They're defunding like, oh, we need to fund it now. I mean, I'm like, well, it took you this long to figure that out.
How is it that scripturally, because I want people to understand this isn't a discussion about we're Republican, you need to be a Republican, stop being a Democrat. Get that out of your head, because this is not a partisan conversation. This is a biblical conversation about why we're supposed to be citizens of this world, citizens of this nation, and how we affect that is to be a blessing, is to be prosperous. The Word tells us to be prosperous. - And you don't want to see anybody suffer.
The pilgrims, I've heard it told that the pilgrims actually considered some kind of a form of communalism or socialism, and it didn't work. And there were some people that wouldn't work. And so the scripture is very clear on that. I mean, they realize now we've got to be a different kind of system. I think it goes back to another example for us with Rome. Why did Rome fall? They didn't fall because there were bad architects. That's not what we're talking about, the literal here.
They fell because they had no absolute by which to base their society upon anymore. When Caesar made himself a deity, and then they could all see Caesar's flaws, then there was no absolutes anymore. And so when the church has allowed there not to be an absolute in society anymore, then it's moral relativism, what your absolute is and what your truth is and what your truth is. No, we've got to get back to here. This is truth. And the guys who signed this document realized this is truth.
- Well, that was their baseline. - It's exactly right. And so unless we get back to that, what I quoted a moment ago, unless we get back to that, we'll never have a revival of America. We'll never restore America. There has to be a place where we lay aside Republican, Democrat. We lay aside the denomination we are, that we're separate streams in certain things, but we all coalesce around that Jesus is Lord.
We all coalesce around that America is great and stop trying to score points on one another, punish one another. - I agree. And so how do we get, how do we get Americans back on the baseline of scripture? The baseline of that? Is it just simply a revival that does it? - I think that's part of it, but I think there has to be a revival of what it means to be an American. Listen, we don't... I don't begrudge people.
I remember being, I pastored in San Diego, California, and I went across the border. We were in Tijuana. I'm with my family and we'd had dinner there and I'm sitting on a hill looking at the city of San Diego and I looked at all the lights and all the things that were going on that evening, the ocean, the bay, and I looked around me and I looked over there and I thought, if I was a father here, I would do everything I could to get my children there, just looking at it.
And we were that "city sitting on a hill", that shining light. And until we get people to realize that we are not the enemy, yes, we have flaws. Yes, we may have mistakes, but until we get people in Congress that will coalesce with one another and agree with one another, I may disagree with you concerning this bill or this aspect of it, but we're still Republicans. I don't need to destroy you.
We've got Congressmen, I'm sorry, I'm just going to be blunt, like the squad that are more pro-Palestinian than they are pro-American. - It's true. - And until we recognize that and do something about it, it's our government. - Well, and I think, truth be told, the conservative party is supposedly the Republicans. I have more issues with them than I do with the Democrat party. Aside from all of that, let's go back to revival. That is what this program is.
Without reformation, revival has no purpose. And the greatest example that comes to mind is what happened with Wales. They had the Welsh revival. They were in the middle of an election season. Things were bad. The crime was at an all-time high. Corruption was at an all-time high. The economy was in the tank, and people were desperate. This sounds like today, yet a revival comes, what happens? They quit the elections because nobody cared, because they were all at the revival service.
The economy boomed, crime stopped, because everybody got saved. Even the pit horses and the mines didn't respond anymore to cuss words, because they weren't using them anymore. But if we don't have that side of revival, we just had a good meeting. - That's all you had. - And I think we've become, you know, it's an indictment on us, but I think we've become satisfied with that. And that's where we've missed it. - Because we schedule them now. - Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
In the summer, when everybody's off. - We schedule them. And you go, you do a meeting in the south during the wintertime, and you do a meeting in the north in the summertime. And I get that. A lot of that is marketing. But maybe that's the problem. We've marketed things. We've marketed the Spirit out of things. Anyway, I digress.
What happens as a pastor if a move of God happens in a brother of mine's church, another pastor friend of mine's church, and it's affecting the community, and everybody's going to it? How do I react if my people are wanting to go to that? - Yeah, it's a tough one. - So I have a great example of that in my childhood. My father was a pastor of a church, and this great revival meeting, it went for weeks. I don't even remember how many, 13 some odd weeks this thing was going.
It was going so much, and healings and miracles happening, that news media was attending, Oklahoma City, the news was attending the revival meeting, reporting regularly on the meeting that is still going. My dad dismissed. Now, we had Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. He dismissed Sunday night and some Wednesday nights and told everybody in our church, "Go, you need to be there. You need to sit under this.
You need to see this", knowing that some of those people might start attending that church. But here's what happened. That whole thing, when it was all over, they had all caught that hunger and that anointing and wanting the Spirit. It changed my dad's church. - Really? - I mean, my dad's church then became more like that one after that meeting shut down. And that's the key to the whole thing. They brought bread from house to house in the Book of Acts, and the message went from place to place.
And the deal is, we've got to... here's the deal, we've got to stop the competition between churches, Gene. I'm sorry. I'm going to be real blunt. I must decrease so that He can increase. It's not about me. - How did we get to that place of competition? - I don't know how we got there. But it's awful. I almost said demonic, and I just then did. It's awful. It's like trying to play golf with a brother in the Lord.
We used to play these golf tournaments, you know, and there was a whole bunch of ministers. And that's the most competitive thing you've ever seen. It might have been more competitive than the PGA. And I thought, look at all of us trying to beat the other guy. And I got in my spirit one time, you need to learn how to golf by the Holy Spirit. And I went, what? You got to learn how to golf by the Holy Spirit. I thought, what does that mean? It means I don't care if you beat me.
It means I don't care what the score is. It means that I rejoice when you make a hole in one, and I hit five shots on that one. You know what I mean? - Sure. - But we've got to get that attitude about us. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We always taught that at funerals. No, no, no. I'm to live for my spirit man, right? The thing that's in the way is my body. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That means in my church service.
That means in my relationship with other ministers. I got to get Greg out of the way. - So you have to be more aware of your spirit- - Absolutely. - --than the flesh. - Absolutely. I believe that was what was happening here. They had long grinding sessions to get the Constitution done and the Bill of Rights, and they had to literally wear down their flesh. Their flesh had to decrease so that God could get his plans through. They made compromises between states. That's what we don't see anymore.
We want to score political points in Congress. They're more interested in hearings and press conferences than they are governing. That's our fault. - We've let pride get in there. Pride has gotten in and we're building something unto ourselves. It's happened obviously in politics, it happened in the church, but we're going to have to repent from that. I think what you described with your dad's church going to that revival service. - It changed our church. - It changed your church.
But that wasn't, he didn't go to change the church. He didn't tell anybody to go because he wanted to change the church. - He saw something that even made him go, wow, - I want to be there. - And so he brought us there. The things he'd heard from his father in Oral Roberts meetings and stuff when he was a kid, the things, it was back and he saw it and he's like, I got to get, he said, "I need my son Greg there. I need my daughter there. We need to be there."
And he made sure we went every single night to that meeting. It greatly impacted my life. I know that now, but we saw it. I saw the miraculous. I felt that anointing. Today, nothing wrong with this, but we put, we put children with puppets in another room. They're not in that miracle service. - And we know from history, uh, we talk- - They usually start with the young people. - Tommy Welchel's book on the Azusa street revival talked about the kids.
He interviewed the people that were kids during the Azusa street revival. They played in the anointing and they each had, someone would come in and they would, you know, almost race to see who could, who could pray for them first to get them healed or whole. You know, they don't get that in the other room. - And there's nothing wrong with ministry to children or to youth. - Oh, absolutely not. - But we experienced it.
People ask me, I have young people today ask me, what was it like with Brother Hagin? What was it like when you saw the things that you saw? Like it was ancient history. - How old are you? - Yeah. Well, there you go.
But, you know, Brother Hagin's meetings were always a couple of weeks and it would take that first week sometimes of just teaching and praying and teaching and praying and nothing happening until all of a sudden there would be a spark, whatever that spark was into that second week, then it was on. And that's what we don't see anymore. I'm not saying you have to have long meetings. The Holy Spirit can do things quick.
It's not, it's not predicated on it being a long thing, but there's something those old timers knew about holding on and hanging with it, you pray till you get the answer. And then once you get the answer that you don't need to pray about it anymore, you don't touch it again in your thought life. - And it's not, and let's talk about that praying to get the answer. You weren't bombarding the gates. - No. - You were getting yourself in line to receive the answer. The answer was already there.
You just couldn't get to that point. - That's right. - And I think that's where we've missed. We've taught amiss. We've taught a generation. - James says that your prayers aren't doing well because you pray amiss. It's absolutely right. A lot of people, Gene, they pray out of fear. - Well, I believe a lot of, a lot of church- - And they're trying to get God to do something. - Yeah. If I do this enough times or the right formula, God's going to do something. - It's an insult.
- He's going to sit up there and go, well, look at him. - Okay. So to that point, I'm about to get the preacher on me. I apologize. - I can tell. - The very first thing Jesus said about prayer to the Jewish people was not thank you for praying for the past 3000 years. I really appreciate it. The very first thing he said was don't do it like that. They think for their much praying that they're heard.
They think that the way they're dressed, the way they do this, the way they do that, your Father in heaven, it's not like that. And we have adopted that in our churches today. And if we really want, if we really want this, we got to root that out. - We want to see this change back to what it was found. - It's only going to change because of the people in the country, - The people have to change and the baseline has to align with Scripture. - Absolutely true.
- All right, Greg. So look at the camera and pray for the people. They're listening. How do they go from here? Lead them. - It starts with you and then it starts with your family. It starts with your church. Will you be the one that'll do this? So Lord, I pray right now we humble ourselves before You and Your mighty hand and Lord, the Scripture says that I must decrease, John said, that he can increase. So Lord, we have to decrease. Greg's ambition, Greg's desire, Greg's plans have to decrease.
Your plans have to decrease so that he can increase. So Jesus, I pray that if You be lifted up, You'll draw all men. I ask You to allow me, I want to lift You up so that everybody I come in contact with sees You and doesn't see me. Let them see you and not see me. Let my hands be Your hands and laying on the hands on the sick. Let my mouth be Your mouth. I ask You, Father, for us to decrease so that You can increase and heal this land till You return in Jesus' name.
Amen. - Amen. You know, one of the core scriptures that we founded this program on was Genesis 26:18 about Isaac re-dug the wells of Abraham. And when we re-dig a well, it's what we've been doing for the last half hour. We've been re-digging this well of understanding your nation, how it was founded, why it was founded, and how if we don't careful, not only are our wells got dirty water, our wells have been filled in and where you won't even know there was a well there.
- This came out of an awakening. - It sure did. And that's why we cannot, we must not let this go to pass. And it's up to us. And I think that's probably what we've experienced the most recently is the understanding if we don't stand up now for America, if we don't stand up now for who Jesus is, for the nation, for what we were founded on, we'll lose it. And it won't be like Ronald Reagan said, no more than one generation away. It could be lost.
We've seen what happens to nations where things are lost. And then we don't want to be there. We don't want to be that part. We don't be Marxist communists. We don't want to do that. We want to see God move. So exactly what Greg said, be the one where you are. Start investing in yourself. You need to re-read the scripture on some of these things that you thought you already knew. Re-read it. Get your baseline solidified that you know why do you believe what you believe. It's very important.
I think a lot of people, Greg, don't know why they believe what they do. We'll never get there until we understand that on our own, ourselves first. Thank you for watching Revival Radio today. We're going to dive into more in the coming programs. Thank you. Share this program on your social media. Feel free to share it far and wide as we see Jesus return. If you would like to be a part, with your financial donation, it's very, very simple.
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