Can Revival Return to America?

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Today I'm excited because we're having a dear friend, a man that I respect so much. Pastor Stoney Benfield is going to be our guest today. But before we start talking to Pastor Stoney, I just want to encourage you to take a look at our sponsors. Our main sponsor is Citizens for America Foundation. You can learn about Citizens for America at citizensforamericafoundation.com.

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Well, I don't know. Probably two or three years ago, I had the privilege of serving on the board of directors of the Baptist State Convention for about six years. I finished—somebody else was not able to complete their term, and I came on and then got selected to have my own term of office, and usually people don't stay on the board of directors that long, but through my work at the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, I had the privilege to meet our guest today, who is Pastor Stoney Benfield. Pastor Stoney is just a great man of God, and I've watched him from a distance, and he's set such a great impact on me, because unlike— y'all know that all the time I talk about pastors who don't take a stand on the Word of God, who don't believe in the errancy and sufficiency of Scripture, who don't believe in the importance of teaching their people to have evangelism and reach the laws for Jesus Christ. Pastor Stoney's not like that. He takes a strong stand on the Word of God, and I've been hoping to have him on the show for quite a while, because he's been traveling across the country leading revivals, which is something that we just don't have too much of these days.

I miss the days of old-fashioned revivals back in America. Pastor Stoney, you are the pastor of Prospect Baptist Church, which is in North Carolina. Thank you so much for being with us today on The Christian Perspective.

It's my privilege and pleasure to be with you, Chris. I'm so excited to be able to share my story a little bit, and I've been pastoring here at Prospect since 2005. I was at Tri-City Baptist Church.

I got saved there in 93 and served there for seven years, and I've been here going on 18 years now. But you know, coming to Jesus Christ is really the message. And you know, Chris, I grew up in a Christian home, a traditional Southern Baptist church. I was at church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. But I tell people that the church got me before Christ did, and I became a member of the church, and you know, this and that. But you know, one Sunday night, Chris, God just radically convicted me and drew me by his Spirit.

I responded to him that night. I repented of my sins and received Christ by faith, not only as my Savior, but as the Lord of my life. And everything has been different since that day.

I mean, everything. The Bible says that if any man be in Christ, he becomes a new creature, a new creation. The old passes away, and everything becomes new. Then God called me to the ministry in 1996. I was saved in 93 and called in 96. I never will forget, Chris, telling the Lord that when I surrendered to the call to ministry that morning, God, if you want me to be a run-of-the-mill, status quo preacher, pastor, I really don't want to do that because I've seen so many come and stand before church and announce their call to ministry and just never make an impact or influence. And I just believe in radical Christianity, lordship, salvation. I believe if you're saved, you're different, and you're just, it's just a total difference. It's a new lifestyle that we live. I'm thankful, number one, today to be a Christian, that Christ lives in me and I live in him. And really the message, Chris, of revival is the needed message of today. I mean, we drifted so far, and I know you probably have several questions.

I am an heiress. I believe the Bible is without error, and I believe it is literal in this interpretation. I believe the Bible is the standard, and if the Bible says it, we do it.

If it says not do it, we don't do it. I want to back up just for a minute because you said you got saved, I believe, in 1993. Were you an adult already at that time, Pastor? I was, Chris. I was in my 20s, and you know, I went to a Christian school all of my education years from pre-k to 12th grade, you know, and nobody ever told me, ever shared with me that Christ wanted to be my best friend.

And so when I got out of high school, man, I just went crazy in the world with alcohol and drugs and all that, all that the world does. Miss Yanom were married in 1990 and began to have marriage trouble, and I've told this publicly, so I don't mind telling it on your radio show. I watched my wife pull out of our driveway one afternoon and say, you know what, I don't want to be married anymore. And my wife left for a period of time. We were both, you know, we were non-Christians at that time. She left, and it's just by the grace of God that the church in town there began to reach out to us and minister to us, and we finally decided that we would go to church together. We were separated, and we went to church, and my wife was actually converted first, and then I was converted later. And I'm telling you, God has put together a marriage that honors Him, and Missy and I, we have six children, and we have one grandchild now and two on the way, and so we are blessed by God immensely. Well, thank you for sharing that, Pastor.

The reason I ask is, you know, so few people come to the Lord as adults anymore, and I just want our listeners to understand that it's never too late. You are so blessed that you have a church that loved on y'all and reached out to you and didn't give up on you. I love for people to hear how different people come to Jesus, because Jesus approaches all of us from a different manner. You know, sometimes like you, the situation where you had marriage problems and drugs and sinful ways in your life, but God can touch each of us, and He will meet us where we are if we just be open to hearing about His saving grace. The gospel that's being preached today, this modern gospel, approach to the gospel, is so deceptive, and it's false. I mean, repentance is a missing message, and you can believe all you want to, but until you're willing to repent and allow Christ to be your life, I don't believe you can be saved.

I agree with you 100 percent, and so few pastors today or preachers talk about heaven and hell and the need for repentance, and folks, if you're listening and you're like, what in the world is this word repentance? Well, when we come to know Jesus, we have to have a change in our lives. It's like, I travel a lot, like I know you do, Pastor Stoney, and sometimes I get lost.

I hate using those GPS things. I don't want to just try to do what I'm on sometimes. Sometimes I realize that I've been going the wrong direction, and that's how we are as human beings in life. Without Jesus, we're going in the wrong direction. When I realize I'm going the wrong direction, I have to do a U-turn and go the other way, and folks, that's what repentance is. We can't just say, you know, Jesus, forgive me of my sins and keep doing what we're doing. Pastor, you said you were on drugs and doing other things, and God wasn't going to be okay with you saying on that Sunday night when you heard that sermon, okay, well, God, please forgive me for the drugs, and you walk out the door in the car and pop some more pills. That's not what repentance is. Repentance is being heartbroken over the sin that we've had in our lives.

The Bible tells us that sin separates from God. Well, I wanted to back up, but I do want to get into the revival stuff, but you said something a while ago about your pastor who believes in the inerrancy of Scripture. Can you explain to our listeners, because that's a big issue. You know, you and I recently visited the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, and that's a big issue within the convention.

When you say inerrancy, what do you mean? And Pastor Stoney, why is it that so few pastors today seem to hold to the inerrancy of the Word of God? Is it important that we believe the Bible is inerrant and sufficient for our needs?

Absolutely. I mean, the Word of God is without error. It's infallible. It's fully inspired by God. I mean, we don't have to question who God is or what God expects through the Scriptures, and some are just getting away from the literal interpretation of the Scriptures.

You know, the buzzwords of our culture today is tolerance and relevance. You know, a lot of guys are trying to build a crowd instead of allowing God to build a church. I've said for years, you can have a big crowd and not have a church. And Jesus said that He would build His church, and He builds His church on His inerrant, sufficient Word. And the Bible, the Word of God, the psalmist says, it's a lamp to my feet, and it's a lamp into my path. So you know, the Bible, what we have as Christians are the Scriptures and the Spirit, and each other is the church. And that's really enough. I take a strong stand on the Word of God.

I've had people tell me, since I've been here at Prospect, I'm working on my 18th year. If you just calm down a little bit and lighten up the message a little bit, a lot more people would come to this church. Well, Jesus said, Chris, that the road to destruction is broad, but that the road to eternal life is narrow and difficult. And so, I just believe that staying with the Scriptures, interpreting it for what it says in context, grammatically, historically, theologically, and then applying that, I believe Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and then the truth will set you free. God is the Word, and the Word is God.

That's what John said. Amen. I just, I wish that more pastors understood that. I know you're familiar with George Barnum, he's a Christian pollster, and he says that less than 10 percent of pastors who profess to be evangelical pastors ever address the issues in the culture.

It's because they don't believe in the air it's the air of Scripture, and they don't preach the whole Word of God. What is the spiritual culture in our country? Chris, I'd say today that the spiritual culture in our country is really anti-God.

I know that's hard to say. You know, everything, the culture is trying to do everything possible, the secular culture, everything possible to take God and His Word out of the culture so that every man can be right in his own eyes. And so, we're living in, you know, I think we need to understand what dispensation we're living in. We're living in the great falling away dispensation. Some would call it the lay odyssey in church age, where people are neither cold nor hot. And so, the culture now is really against God, against morality.

And you know, this is hard for me to say, Chris, but I'm just a truthful factual guy. This lies at the feet of the church. The church's responsibility is to preach the Word in every community and city that the moral climate of that community stays godly. And one of the reasons that revival, in my opinion, is the only answer is because where the moral climate is. And so, our culture community in the world, it's ungodliness, and we see all these movements, we see all the crime, we see, you know, we see all of these things, and people are scratching their heads and what's the problem? Well, it lies in the local church.

That's really the main issue. And if you want to drill down even deeper, really the problem lies in the popular church. You just stepped on a lot of toes right there. That's a good place. Let's take a quick break and we'll get back on a little bit deeper. This show is brought to you by Generous Joe's, the coffee company with the Christian perspective. This is the answer that Christians and conservatives have been looking for. A coffee company that gives back to causes you care about.

Order your coffee today at shopgenerousjoes.org and even subscribe to a subscription coffee plan and never forget the coffee you love or the causes you care about. Walk in the footsteps of Jesus and see the Bible come to life. This December, join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes, on a life-changing trip to Israel. It's one of the world's oldest and most fascinating travel destinations, luring the faithful from all over the world for thousands of years. Visit Jerusalem's religious quarters and explore Christianity's most treasured religious sites like the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Via Dolorosa. Walk with Chris through the winding alleyways of Nazareth's old city and visit ancient Bethlehem, the place of our Savior's birth. Float in the Dead Sea, visit the Sea of Galilee and the Jewish fortress of Masada. See firsthand where the events of the Bible took place. Touring Israel with Dr. Chris Hughes is a travel odyssey like no other.

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Stay tuned for an American Minute with Bill Federer. What was the first settlement in North America? Was it Jamestown or Plymouth? Actually, it was Fort Caroline near St. John's River in Florida. It was founded this day, June 30th, 1564, by the French Protestants known as Huguenots and was the first attempt at religious toleration in America. A settler recorded, We sang a psalm of thanksgiving unto God, beseeching him to continue his accustomed goodness toward us. Unfortunately, the French colony was short-lived.

The Spanish, whose treasure ships passed that route, destroyed it, butchering hundreds of men and taking captive the women and children. This has been an American Minute with Bill Federer. For a free transcript, call American Minute at 1-888-USA-WORD. Welcome back to Christian Perspective. I'm Chris Hughes. My guest today is my dear friend, Pastor Stoney Benfield. Pastor Stoney is a revivalist, something we don't have much in America today. Very few pastors believe in the need and the urgency of having revival. We're going to talk about revival in a few minutes. But before the break, Pastor Stoney, you were talking about the spiritual culture of our country and how we really have an anti-God. And boy, you are right. We have an anti-God culture in our country today.

And unfortunately, as America goes, the world goes. So Pastor, I think it's not just a matter of in our country, but in our churches as well. What do you think the spiritual culture is in churches in America today? You know, the church, if you study church history, I'm doing a detailed study of revival, which I have been for two or three months. I'm teaching my adults in Vacation Bible School here at Prospect.

We have Vacation Bible School for everybody, for children, students, and I have the adults for five nights. And I'm teaching on revival. When you really study church history, you can see how far we've drifted. You know, some people say drifted left.

I just want to say drifted away from the Bible. I mean, years ago, the men of God would preach against sin. And listen, I don't want to be against stuff all the time.

I want to be for something. Well, I'm for righteousness. I'm for holiness. But in the study of revival, you come to understand that the culture in the church in those days, it was one of prayer. It was one of holiness.

It was one of a burden for the lost. And the church culture today, we're in a culture now of entertainment. I try to remind our folks, not every time I preach, because you have to have a balance. But the church, we're not an entertainment club.

I'll even go as far as to say this, Christian, we're not a social club. We are the church of the living God that's been mandated by God and his word to take the gospel to every person possible. And I personally don't believe the gospel will go to the world until the tribulation period.

That's going to be the largest harvest of souls in history, according to the book of the Revelation. But we are to take the gospel and preach the gospel to as many as possible. But unfortunately, Chris, the culture in the church is much like the culture of the world. I mean, I'm not a legalist, but the church the church today in methodology has adopted methods of the world to attempt to do spiritual work.

I don't know, you were at the meeting last Sunday night with John MacArthur, and MacArthur said it well, that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world does not mix whatsoever, has nothing in common. And so we've got to get our churches back to the Bible, back to exactly what the scripture says that if you're really a Christian, that you're a new creation. And I have an opinion that many people, Chris, that are members of churches were much like I was when I first began to go to church. I wasn't really immoral, I joined the church, I was baptized, but have people really been regenerated? I'm talking about, see, I see salvation not as a person giving their life to God. I see salvation as God giving his life to a person. In other words, when you repent and believe, God gets out of heaven, invades your human body, takes up residence in your spirit. And I think we have an unregenerate church membership today in America. But people are deceived, they don't know it. And so the reason revival is so essential, when there is a move or a wind of the Spirit in revival, people will come under conviction and they will realize that they are deceived and that they have just been a good person and they have just been a good church member.

But until God does something, I don't see the culture in the church changing. So what do you think the answer is? Is there hope for us?

Absolutely. There's hope. You know, the book of Acts says there in, I think it's chapter 4, verse 19, verse 3, 19, Repent therefore that your sins may be blotted out, that you may receive times of refreshing. I've heard all my life that the term revival is not in the New Testament, it's the Old Testament.

Well, if you study that phrase, times of refreshing, you'll find out it is to be revived. So I think that there is hope. As long as Jesus Christ is alive and on his throne there's hope, he's alive in us as believers, he's alive in heaven, he's alive in us as believers, he's alive in heaven in bodily form. But the hope that we've got to get to a point of desperation. There is no hope unless the church is desperate. I mean, we go through so much pointless religious activity week after week after week. It's as if you could probably take the Spirit of God away from the church and nobody would even know that he's gone.

And so we've got to get to desperation. We've got to bring the prayer meeting back to the church. I was, you know, I'm studying revival right now and I was so convicted, I listened to Leonard Ravenhill.

It's a 58-minute video and I showed this video at our church on Wednesday night. And the book he says, and I agree with him, that the book of Jeremiah says that the people of God has forsaken him in two evils. They have forsaken God and they have dug their own cisterns that will not hold water. And Ravenhill said when he was living that the number one reason that we can't have revival is because of prayerlessness.

Let me just ask you a question. How many churches do you know that has a weekly prayer meeting for God to move in a mighty way? You know, most churches today, Pastor, have even canceled. You know, when you and I were growing up, they had the Wednesday night prayer meeting. Most have canceled. Those don't have them. Or if they even have it, it's not really a prayer meeting anymore.

You're right. Very few churches have times of prayer. And you know, I've taken our church back to the old school prayer meeting. I could just, maybe I could rephrase it better and just say the Bible prayer, a Bible prayer meeting, because when you study the book of Acts, they didn't go to a prayer meeting. They were a constant prayer meeting.

And so what we do on Wednesday night, we come in, I have my music person to do one song. I get up, Ravenhill says if you're going to have a prayer meeting, you need to have a targeted prayer meeting. And so I pray and ask the Lord what our direction for that night is. I exhort the folks from scripture for about, I don't know, six or eight minutes. And then we pray for whatever we're praying for that night.

And so many people have come to me and said, man, it's just refreshing. Again, so we don't know how to pray because we don't pray. And so we've got to learn together as the body of Christ to pray. Study the book of Acts, man. They prayed about everything. When Peter and John were in jail, the church was praying. And you know, we've gotten to such a performance-based Christianity that we have forgotten that we're nothing and that Jesus is everything. And unless, and he said, if you'll abide in me in John 15, and my words will abide in you, you can ask what you will and I'll do it. So I believe the prayer meeting has to be brought back to the church.

And you're right. Many churches don't meet at all. They have maybe their children or students on Wednesday night. We bought into the to the, I call it a lie, that we can meet less and have more. No, the Church of the New Testament, I read it this morning, they met daily at the temple and for times of prayer. But anyway, I don't want to preach you a sermon this morning.

I just shared my burden. I believe that we do have hope, but the church has to get desperate. The church has to get urgent and that starts in individuals. And that prayer is so key, Pastor. The Bible tells us that prayerlessness is sin.

It's not an option. We're commanded prayer. And, you know, with my kids, I've had to teach them that, you know, prayer is not like rubbing, you know, a vessel like to get a genie to do things for you.

No, no. Prayer is getting us ready for God to do things in and through us. It's not a big request time where we just, you know, give me, give me, give me. No, it's a spiritual time.

Yeah, I teach people. We don't need to have a man-centered prayer meeting where we, there's a time to pray for sickness and all that, all that. But that's not the major focus of prayer. The major focus of prayer, Jesus says, was that, was what was that the Father's will in heaven get on earth. And so prayer really originates in heaven. And the burden comes to us by the Spirit and we cooperate by faith with the Spirit. And then we pray that God's will in heaven be on earth. And so prayer is not to get my will done in heaven, it's to get God's will done on earth. Amen.

What great advice. Folks, we're talking to Pastor Stony Benfield. He's from the foothills of North Carolina and he's currently the pastor of Cross Stake Baptist Church.

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I'm Chris Hughes. My guest today is Pastor Stoney Bencell. Pastor Stoney is a revivalist. He believes in revival. We're going to talk about what revival means, but I know when I was a kid, Pastor Stoney, I used to love and look forward to times where at least two times a year our churches would have revival meetings, weeklong revival meetings, and for some reason that has disappeared in churches today. You don't see revival much anymore.

What do you think happened? Why don't we have revival meetings in America? And I know revival is not just about meetings, but I did want to touch on the meeting part because I missed that.

What do you think happened? Well, I think we were in a different day, and I think, again, it's just the drift that we've had in the church. Revival is really not a meeting. We do meet when we have revival. A lot of people, a lot of pastors tell me, well, I'd have a revival meeting, but I'm just afraid my people won't come. Well, that ought to be a huge alarm to us that the people of God will not come to a meeting. But, you know, revival is probably one of the most misunderstood terms that we have in Christianity. Some folks see it as a meeting. Some folks see it as people being saved, you know, people being saved as a result of revival.

You know the name Bertha Smith. One of my friends asked Bertha Smith years ago, and this was before my time, I never did know her, he asked her, or she asked him, who do you think revival is for? And he'd say, well, it's for those people that are members of my church that never come. She said, oh no, no, those people are lost. He said, well, it's for those that come and, you know, they're not connected, they're not serving in the local church.

She said, no, those people are lost. She said, son, revival is for the best in the church. It's for that person that's there, that's involved, because revival, re-life, Bible life, revival is when God gives us a conscious awareness of who we have in Christ.

I've got a sermon that I preach about revival. It's when I become aware of Jesus Christ, and then I become alive to Him. I mean, if Christ lives in me, the Bible says Christ in you, the hope of glory. Jesus said, I've come that you can have life and have it more abundantly. So I've become consciously aware of the Christ that lives in me. I've become alive to Him. In other words, I've become spirit-filled.

He gets out of my spirit, gets access to my soul, my mind, my will, my emotion. That only comes through prayer and brokenness and surrender and humility so that I can get active with God. And that's when the believer becomes aware and alive and gets active with God. Chris, that's when we come out of the church house on our jobs, at the grocery store, wherever we are. Corinthians says that we're a fragrance of God in every place. To some, we're the fragrance of death for those that are perishing, but to those that are saved, we're the fragrance of life.

And that's when the moral climate in a community will change. When God moves in power and in the believer first, in a local church where those believers in that church become aware of what they have in Christ, they become alive of Christ living in them, living in them, and then we get active with Him for Him to live out through us. And see, that's what faith is.

I was taught by Manley Beasley and Ron Dunn and my mentor, Dr. Ron Lynch, that faith is me responding to what God is revealing, that I can become active with God. And so wherever I go, if I'm filled with the Spirit, God is using that person, living the life of Christ out of that person to influence people. I mean, if we're in revival, if we're really a revived person, when I get around somebody that's not a Christian, they ought to come under conviction just because of the fragrance that I'm putting off, which is Christ. And when I get around people like you, Christa, that are Christians, our spirit bears witness with one another, and that's a fragrance of life.

And it's encouraging, it's exhorting. So, you know, revival is just Jesus, man. It's just Jesus in me, Jesus for me, and Jesus through me for the glory of God.

Wow, I'm going to write that down. In me, through me, and what was the last part? He's in me, for me, and through me.

So here's the way I define revival. Jesus living in me, Jesus living for me. Nowhere in the Bible does it say live for Jesus. It says he lives for you, and then Jesus living through me.

And that's what revival is, but it seems like that we've got it backwards. We want to live for him, and then when we can't pull life off, we want him to intervene and do something for us. That's not Christianity at all. No, Jesus is my life. I mean, it's not me living for him, it's him living for me and through me so that he can present himself to those that I come in contact. Remember, we're just a vessel. We're the branch, we're the branch, and he's the vine. Yeah, I think so many Christians and so many pastors have it backwards, because what you're saying is that Jesus is doing it through us, and somebody will run around saying out there that we need to be doing it in him, and that's not what you're saying.

No, no, not at all. I think for the church to understand. Yeah, and you know, it's just because in America we are programmed to perform. I mean, from grade school to high school to college to seminary, and I'm not against education, man, I'm for education, but we're programmed.

The better you do, the more you do, the more you receive. Well, for God to live in somebody, you've got to be weak. I mean, that's where when you've got to realize you're nothing and he's everything, because Christianity totally opposes the world system.

I mean, it's in contradiction to the world system. Well, I wish some of our pastors wouldn't break up to that and start preaching that, because they just don't get it all across America today. What can a Bible-believing Christian do to bring about this change?

Say that one more time, I didn't understand that. What can a Bible-believing Christian do to bring about change? Well, I'd say number one, make sure you're in a church that preaches and teaches the merits of the scriptures. Don't be in a church just because your grandparents or parents or whoever are buried in the cemetery. Don't be in a church just because it's close to your home. Be in a church that's closest to the Bible, one that believes in prayer. Be in a place where the church preaches the Bible, and I'm even going to be a little more narrow than that.

In this faith, if I cross the line, you tell me. I think you ought to preach expositionally. I think there's only one kind of preaching.

That's taking a passage of the Bible in context, grammatically, theologically, historically, what it means and what it says, and preaching what the Bible says, not trying to get a subject and tracing all over the Bible to try to prove your point, but preaching the passage and then give application to that. So be in a Bible-believing church, and listen, be active in your church. I mean, I want you to think about it. They tell us that the average Christian now that's considered active attends church less than two times a month.

I hope you heard what I said. Two times a month. So if that's the case, and I think that's probably high, and then on top of that, how many people really spend time in their Bible on a daily basis being intimate with God?

So I think there's several things. Number one, be intimate with God on a personal level. Have an open Bible and an open heart every day.

Do you remember the term quiet time? I mean, that seems like a foreign word in our culture today in the church. I believe your quiet time with God is most important than you do. Have a quiet time with God, and then be a part of the church that believes the Bible. Listen, be a part of the church that has church. I mean, again, I'm a radical guy, Chris.

I'm just cut out of a different cloth. I preach Sunday morning, I preach Sunday night, and we pray on Wednesday night. But we've abandoned in this culture today the PM service in the name of family. What better place can I have my family on the Lord's Day than at church investing in their spiritual life?

That is so good. I mean, you remember, you said they had training union on Sunday night, getting in God's word, and almost no churches have that anymore. Most churches don't even meet on Sunday nights, like you say, in honor of family time, and I wonder how many are even spending time with family. Yeah, and we're reaping the results of the church not meeting together around the word.

I mean, the family is at an all-time low, divorce rates high, and I think it's two-thirds of the children in America live in a home without a father. And again, I take it back to the church. As the church goes, goes to culture and the country. And so we've got to have revival.

We've got to call people to repentance. And what I'm doing here in North Carolina is any church in North Carolina that would allow us to come just for one night, and I don't believe you can have revival in one night, I believe you can just spark the flame in one night, possibly. We will go to any church in North Carolina free of charge, myself and one of my associates, and we will bring music if we need to.

We've got some people that's underwritten some travel expenses. We do it on a Monday or Tuesday night. We don't get involved.

We don't hinder the normal church schedule, if there is such a thing today. But just go and just preach a revival message and how people can be involved in the conservative movement across our state. And you can probably tell from talking to me, I believe revival is our only answer. It's either revival or ruin. And we've got to decide, and I pray we don't decide to be ruined. Folks, we're talking to Pastor Stoney Benfield.

We're talking about revival today. I want you to stick around. We're going to have our last segment with him coming up.

You don't want to miss it. And this will be released as a podcast later today. Get a copy of this and share it with your pastor. Find out how you can bring Pastor Stoney to your church, and we can spark revival across the nation. Stick around and be right back.

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About the faith of the founding fathers and how Christian principles were used to establish this form of government. Visit citizensforamericafoundation.com today and secure your spot to join Chris Hughes in Washington, D.C. this June. Welcome back to The Christian Perspective.

I'm Chris Hughes. My guest today is Pastor Stoney Bentham. We're talking about revival in America. Revival or ruin as he put it right before the commercial break. And if you missed the last segment when we talked about revival, Pastor Stoney says when God gives us a continuous awareness of who we have in Jesus Christ, at that point we reap revival. We have revival when Jesus is in me, Jesus is for me, and Jesus is through me. Pastor Stoney, how can we do this in our churches today? You've talked about the need for pastors to preach the word of God, to be expository preachers.

And I love how you push that because that is so important. So if you pastors today, do what you're talking about, expository preaching is where they give the context and the application. And so many today just pick a topic and go searching through the Bible to find something, but they don't get the context of scripture.

Like you, I talk to a lot of young people today and they'll ask me questions about scripture, but they don't understand the context when you just take a phrase out of context and you're not looking at God's word expository to come to what was really meant when the Holy Spirit revealed to those men at the time to write the Bible. So we need to have preaching. We need to return to being, as you said, to you said we needed to be intentional with our time with Jesus to have a quiet time every day.

What do you recommend if somebody doesn't have that intentional time? You said that was probably the most important thing that we can do in our revival is to have a quiet time with God. Do you think there's a place that we should start?

I know, and so I want to be careful here. I know a lot of people write a lot of great books about different things going on in the Bible. I think those are great supplemental material. But one thing that breaks my heart is when I see people turning to those books more than turning to God's book, I don't think that should be a substitute, and I don't know if you agree with me on that, but in this quiet time you need to be in God's word. Those other things are just supplemental to that but should never, in my opinion, substitute the time in God's word itself. Do you think there's a place we should start if we don't have a quiet time? What would you recommend we do for quiet time? Yeah, I think there's some, I mean I've called our church and continue to teach our church how to have a quiet time.

Yeah, I think there is a place to start. I don't know if you're familiar with the one-year Bible that's been put out. I've used the one-year, I'm not using it right now, but I've used it for years and years and years. And basically what it is, it's an Old Testament reading of Psalms and a Proverb, and then it's a New Testament reading. And it's called the one-year Bible because if you read it every day then you can read the Bible in a year. Now the goal of a quiet time is not to read the Bible through every year. The goal of a quiet time is to really have God speak to you. We need to pray and get ourselves prepared for God to speak to us, and then read His word and then meditate. You know the Puritans had, they really focused on meditation. I'm not sure we meditate. I preached from Joshua Sunday morning and about staying the course. And the Lord said to Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, talking about the law that Moses gave, but you are to meditate in it day and night. In other words, what you read in the morning, if you do it in the morning, I think the best time is the morning so that you can meditate. And it's like the cow chewing the cud. You chew it and swallow it and bring it back up, chew it and swallow it, you know what that is. But that's what meditation is.

But just have that on your mind all day long. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you. So there's the one year Bible you can use. There's also a resource called the Daily Light.

It's not any commentary. It's all scripture put together in certain headings or whatever, and it's dated. The one year Bible is dated, June 21st or whatever it is, and the daily light is dated. So I just think the scriptures, I believe that the Bible is powerful and sharper. It's alive and powerful. And I believe that if we get in the habit of spending time with God in His word, that then God gives us His desires and His plans for our personal lives. And if you attend church and never spend time with God, there's no way you can worship. I mean, worship is the overflow of my relationship with God privately. I would say praise.

Praise is the public overflow of my personal time with God privately. And so those two resources are good resources. Or then just read the book of the Bible. I was in Acts this morning reading. So there's several ways that you can do a quiet time. I'd say whatever fits a person's personality, just do it. That's great advice.

So I'm going to review these. If y'all are listening or taking notes, how can we have revival? Pastor Stoney said, while ago he said we need to have a pastor who preaches the word of God and looks at the context and application of the word of God. He said that we need to have a quiet time where we really give God's word and listen to Him. He said that we need to be a part of a local church and not just show up once or twice a month, but be involved in that church. That we need to meditate on the word of God day and night. And when that happens, God will give us His desires and His plans. So Pastor Stoney, if that's how we can have revival, what are the results of revival if we do those things?

That's a great question. Let me tell you about something we're doing here locally and then I'll answer your question. You know, I've got a burden for revival about four or five hours a week. I got a burden for revival about four or five months ago and began to study it, you know, find books to read and other than the Bible was the Bible's the main source.

I got a burden for just our community here. So we've gathered about 30 churches, 30 pastors, and we're having a two-week tent meeting. We're having an old throwback tent meeting and we're bringing in Ralph Sexton Jr. from Asheville, North Carolina, and he's got a tent that seats 3,000 people. And the local American Legion here has a large piece of property and they've donated the property. So we've been organizing meeting with these 30 pastors and organizing this meeting.

But one thing that we have done, we have weekly Saturday night prayer meetings at 6 30 at a different church every week. Saturday night, we're in our 20th week, we're coming together and we'll say, folks, we're just here playing for revival. You know, one of the prerequisites of revival is that, see, I think the time is ripe.

I think the timing is perfect. Our country's going off the rails, economically we're going off the rails, politically we're going off the rails, and that produces desperation. One of the prerequisites of revival for my study is that the times have to be really dark spiritually. And I'd say we're in dark spiritual times, but then the people of God have to come together in desperation and pray. And so I think we are in the midst of revival now, and our tent meeting is the first two weeks in September. We start Labor Day night. Monday night, we'll go Monday through Friday of that first week in September.

We will not meet together Saturday and Sunday, and then we'll come back the following Monday and meet Monday through Friday. And if the Lord really moves, we'll extend the meeting. But these weekly prayer meetings, we're praying for—there's never been a revival without people gathering to pray. And you said, what would be the results of revival?

I'll tell you what, I believe the results are revival. I believe the results of revival would be evangelism. People will—when Christ comes alive in somebody, you don't have to prompt them to share the gospel, you don't have to prompt them to serve in the church, you don't have to prompt them to come to church.

I believe if we have real heaven-sent Holy Ghost revival, you'll see evangelism across the community, wherever it takes place. You'll see people born into the family of God. You'll see the churches grow. You'll see the churches get very healthy. Listen, you may even see a denomination change. And so if we want to see change, we're not going to see change just by good intentions. We're going to see change by praying and joining a group of believers that believe that God can do it. Chris, I believe that God's the same today, yesterday, and forever.

Yesterday, today, and forever. And I believe what God did in the revival of 1904, or what God did in the revival of 1857-59, I believe God will do today if the believers will meet on God's terms, trusting God to do what He said He would do. Amen.

Amen. So pastor, a lot of our listeners are in the state of North Carolina, and you mentioned you're going to have these meetings starting in September. Can you tell them where you are and how can, is there a way that, is there a website or email somebody? Sure. How can they find out how to go to these and how do we, maybe specific prayers across the country, even if people can't go, they can be praying for you.

Sure. We have a website, it's called UARI Revival, uarevival.com, and you can get on there and you can just hit a link, more info. My cell phone number would be on there if people hit that, they can call me and I can give them the information. It's, I think it's September the 5th is Labor Day. It starts Labor Day night at the American Legion post 76 in Albemarle, North Carolina. You can look that up, it's off highway 52 is the, is the fiscal location. You can email me, my email is very simple, stoney, s-t-o-n-e-y at prospectbaptist.com, and we're believing that God will send people within 100, 150 by radius of this, and anybody and everybody is welcome. Matter of fact, there's 300 churches in Stanley and Montgomery County, the two counties of the pastors that's involved, and we're sending letters and flyers, we're going to have billboards up around the community, and anybody can come and be involved, and we believe in God for a movement of His Spirit, and we would love for people to come. And if there's any pastor that his church wants to be involved, please contact me privately, cell phone, or I'm on Facebook, Twitter, all that, and we'll, we can, we can get you connected. Our next pastors meeting is July the 28th, so we're getting right up here next to this thing, but, but again, that's my burden, Chris, is that we have revival, and it's not about one particular church, it's about the kingdom of God and our communities coming alive to Jesus Christ. Folks, if you're listening today, I want to encourage you to be, when you have your quiet time every day, go ahead and add this to your prayer list, pray for Pastor Stoney and his leadership team, pray that God will move in a mighty way as this revival is coming up, and maybe anywhere in the country, you can all pray for it, but some of you might even want to fly in and come, because I believe that God is going to use this as a spark to reignite revival across America today, and if you were listening earlier, you know that Pastor Stoney said that he is willing to go absolutely free to any church in North Carolina to do a one day revival at your church, so you can reach out to him at Stoney, that's S-T-O-N-E-Y, at ProspectBaptist.com, Stoney at ProspectBaptist.com. Pastor Stoney, thank you for listening to God's call to bring revival back to America, and thank you for joining us on the Christian Perspective today. God bless you, Chris, it was my privilege to be your guest today. Folks, thank you for listening, please get a copy of this as it's released as a podcast later today, thank you for listening on your favorite radio station, join us each and every day, and be praying for Pastor Stoney as he's leading revival across America, as his revival grows, we can work together to impact the culture for Jesus. Thank you for listening, The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes. Learn more about impacting the culture for Jesus. Visit CitizensForAmericaFoundation.com. This is the Truth Network.