Many, I haven't heard how many but many, people inspired by Charlie Kirk and moved by his murder, went to church the weeked afer. It does seem like a revival and I hope it is but it's hard to tell at this point. They would have been moved by an appreciation of Charlie's life and talks and sadness and anger at hjis death. That's impressive because there were so many who were touched in that way, nearly a hundred thousand showing up for the memorial and some say a hundred million who tuned in to it in one way or another. That's a lot of people affected by this one young man. He had quite a reach. In death it turns out he was a lot bigger a person than a lot of us had any idea. A good man, a true Christian and a dedicated worker for the good of America.
But as I said in my first post on the memorial, that isn't enough for a true revival. Emotionas and intellectual understanding and appreciation aren't Christian conversion.
Many may continue anyway. I hope so. Eventually they may become converted and be true Christians. But moved only by iind or emotion they aren't yet that. Unfortuately I think many who spoke about their friendship with Charlie and they own appreciation of CHristian values as if they themselves were also Christians just aren;t. So often people think Christian conversion is a merely mental thing, and if you stick with it that is evidence enough that it is real. But often it's just like belonging to a clugb where you feel at home and no real conversion has taken place.
Revival would make true converts. Christian conversion is a supernatural thing, it is the new birth by which we become indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This comes about when we believe what wwe are taught to believe about Jewsus' death for us on the cross, to pay for our sincs so that we don't have to go to Hell for them. And believe that He rose from the dead. These must be firmly embraced beliefs. And while there isn't always a clear sign that someone has been born again a change in the life is the usual way it is recognized. I instantly lost my foul mouth for instance. Oh it's coe back now and then much later on under the influence of bad copany, but I've lost it again and it never took hold as it once had hold of me. And I was enraptured with the things of God, the Bible, Christian books and so on. Most of my worldly interests just dropped away. And most of those are still gone and never came back, though I've gone too far into worldly things of a different sort from time to time and had to give those ustp too. I'm actually regretting all the years I spent pursuing the creation evolution debate. I think by getting so involved in that I lost a lot of early connectio with God and all those lovely spiritual experiences I had in the early days may never retrun. It made me terribly sad just last night as I was listening again to Tozer's the Pursuit of God to realize how long it has been since I felt His presence the way I used to.
Speaking of presence, His presence that is, some said they felt it at the memorial. Humming like a tuning fok fork someone said. Harir stood on eand another said. Could feel the prayers being said, actually feel them.
It was that sort of remark that reminded me of Watchman Nee's book The Latent Power of the Soul, because I don't think those things are how the HOly SPirit is felt. I may be srong but I think usually those things are how what Nee calls soul power is felt, how a gigantic crowed of people all vfocusing their attention in one way projejhcts a pwoer not of the Spirit ofbut of the human soul or personality that can actually be fewlt and actually have effects on people at the receievinbg receiving end of it. Concentrated emotion, repeated musical phrases and so on, are not the Spirit but of the soul and can project a lot of power that can be felt.
I can't be absolutely sure there wasn't some of the HOly Spirit there in power , all I can say is it doesn't seem likely to me. The conditions weren't present for Him to come. The conditions that were present were for the manifestation of a lot of emotion and that is a completely different thing.
But Christian conversion is supernatural, it is spiritual. Emotion may cewrtainly be a big part of it but the change itself is spiritualand it wouldn't be expressed by the sort of emotion that was felt for Charlie Kirk, perfectly appropriate in that memorital service, what everyone was there for, God would be the subject of it all and the diifference should have been obvious.
In saying these things I'm not criticizing the memorial serive. I think it was excellent as a memorial service. I'm suust saying that if we cwant revival to come out of all this something more needs to happen and it hasn't happened yet.
I would love to see that more come about but I don't see where it is ging to come from yet.
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