Revive Indiana Really Does Jump the Shark. But That is not All. There's More, So Much More.

A thousand days after launching what was originally to be a one-week revival, Kyle Lance Martin returned to his homeland of Elkhart County, Indiana to "Fan the Flame" with another week of meetings at Maple City Chapel and Clinton Frame Mennonite Church. In this video you can watch what happened at the tail end of "Day 1005." After Kyle had spent the previous hour laying out his vision for what "more" might look like, and the closing song had been sung, Kyle came back up and announced that a "sister" named April felt led to "release tongues" over the audience, and he asked a man named Adam to "interpret" so that all would be "in biblical order," using "a safe, biblical model." You can see Kyle tell the backstory here.

So, a woman comes forward, stands silently for a minute, and then begins babbling through her sobs the same staccato syllables, over and over. More silence. Then she ends by saying in English, "We just want more of You God." After another interlude, Adam takes over. "Oh my children (2x) How much I love you (2x) Oh, children, I paint the day every morning for you, and every evening I paint the sky for you. I love you so. I have things for you each new day--new things. Oh my children, what I have in store for you. Oh, how much I love you my children."

Kyle then came back up and encouraged the audience to "ask the Lord for the interpretation of what you just heard . . . Everything you heard pointed to the Lord. Nothing you heard contradicted Scripture."

But it just ain't so, bro. Scripture says, "women are to be silent in the assemblies." In fact, it's right there in the very same passage that encourages members of the assembly to speak orderly in tongues. I think it's highly significant that it was a woman who felt "led by the Spirit" to "release tongues" on the assembly.  And that it was a woman who told Kyle, "Let's do it." And I would almost be willing to bet that just about every interpretation Adam ever comes up with has "My children" in it several times.

Now, the reader may recall that I devoted several weeks, nine years ago, to examining this passage right here on the pages of this blog, and I'm not advocating the muzzling of women in the assembly. But to say that something doesn't contradict Scripture, when it in fact does so to its face, raises red flags. To say that justification is by faith alone, without works, contradicts Scripture to its face. To claim the blessing of heaven on that which contradicts Scripture isn't going to work for eternity.

I have to say one thing for Adam, he did a good job of attempting to match his interpretation to the message: lots of repetition. But linguistically speaking, there simply wasn't any correlation between "the tongue" and "the interpretation." Yes, they represented different "gifts:" the tongue, a gift for producing a meaningless message; the interpretation, a gift for producing a meaningful platitude. But what's the point? We could have completely skipped April's contribution and gone directly to Adam's. The church was no more edified with the tongue than it had been without it.

Here's a test. Have three people watch the video of April's "tongue" and give their inspired "interpretation" of it. What do you think are the odds that all three will be identical?  To the thinking person, this is all a lot of nonsense. Sure, Paul encouraged tongues; but at the end of the very same chapter, he banned women from speaking in church. If the one still applies today, why not the other? Kyle had no answer to that question; he didn't even bother raising it.

Now shift the scene. It's three weeks later, and just across the state line into Michigan. Riverside Christian Fellowship is a church that, like Maple City Chapel, was founded by conservative Mennonites, but doesn't carry on their name. A church that tries to hold on to what was important of that which has been passed down to them, and let go of what wasn't. It's a half-week of revival meetings, and the pews are packed. Even Amish have come in from the surrounding area. But it's not Kyle Lance Martin from Time to Revive speaking--it's Israel Wayne from Family Renewal, preaching sermons based on his books Questions God Asks and Questions Jesus Asks. And his message strikes a decided contrast to that of Kyle Martin. When Israel talks about salvation and works, he doesn't see any need to warn against mixing the latter in with the former. In fact, he speaks of salvation as a coin with two sides: on one, faith, and on the other, works. To claim one to the exclusion of the other is like a quarter with two heads or two tails: it's fake. A faith that does not produce works is of no saving value; Works that spring not from faith are no redeeming worth. Israel says, "Jesus didn't have a problem with his disciples obeying him too much; he had a problem with them obeying him too little."

After four days, Israel packed up and headed home with his family of twelve. There was no extending the revival, no taking the church out into the streets. No meetings in businesses and at Amish league football games. No baptism truck. But neither was there rushing people through a marked Bible, reading Ephesians 2:8-9 but skipping over verse 10 (which says we were created to do good works). No printing off an instant Birth Certificate and assuring people that because they had prayed a prayer, they were now in the kingdom of God.

Interestingly enough, both Kyle and Israel talked a lot about the way they were raised in the churches they went to, and how there seemed to be something lacking, something not right about it. Bear with me here, I'm going to try not to be too simplistic. But for Kyle, the solution was basically to get a woman to teach him how to babble, and a man to transpose that babble into English. For Israel, it was getting Dietrich Bonhoeffer to teach him the cost of discipleship. Both preached "more;" but only one submitted his preaching to the what the Word actually says. And there is certainly nothing of the cost of discipleship in "I make the sun to rise and set for you, and I have more in store--oh, so much more."

Preaching about the costs of discipleship probably won't get kids to leave their schools to hear you. It won't bring thousands of people out to march around downtown Goshen behind you. It won't get you wall-to-wall coverage on a local Christian rock station. But it may just result in actual disciples.

Israel had a message for the Riverside Church. It combined two letters to the leadership of the church in Ephesus: Paul's, and that of the risen Christ. Paul told the Ephesian pastor to "Remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." --ESV

Jesus told the Ephesian pastor, "I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent."  --ESV

The Ephesians passed down the right doctrine, and proved those who taught it. But in the process they missed the whole point, which was love. Yes, it's important not to mishandle Scripture. Yes, it's important to teach the whole counsel of God, not just the parts that make us feel good. It's important to stand for the truth, and not compromise. But the whole point is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Lose that, and you've lost it all.