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JESUS REVOLUTION OR JESUS DELUSION?
By George Lujack

It’s the year 2023 on the Gregorian calendar and there is a lot of talk of a Christian revival in the air. This article will discuss the 2023 Asbury Christian revival, the He Gets Us ad campaign, the Jesus Revolution movie, and the Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 70s. This article will explain why such revivals, for the most part, are fruitless, meaningless lovefests that ultimately fail.

A Christian revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky began on February 8, 2023, and has been dubbed “The 2023 Asbury Revival.” In an email, Asbury University’s President Kevin Brown wrote, “There’s worship happening in Hughes. You’re welcome to join.” Through social media and Christian online publications, the message spread. Students and other young adults were encouraged to come to Hughes Auditorium at Asbury University for fellowship. The 2023 Asbury Revival brought a reported 50,000-70,000 visitors to Wilmore, KY, representing over 200 academic institutions and people from many foreign countries.

HE GETS US?

The He Gets Us ad campaign has spent a reported 100 million dollars on commercials during the 2023 Super Bowl and other various billboard ads.

On the He Gets Us website they plainly state that they have an agenda. It reads, “He Gets Us has an agenda. How did the story of a man who taught and practiced unconditional love become associated with hatred and oppression for so many people? How did the story of a man who taught and practiced unconditional love, peace, and kindness; who spent his life defending the poor and the marginalized; a man who even forgave his killers while they executed him unjustly – whose life inspired a radical movement that is still impacting the world thousands of years later – how did this man’s story become associated with hatred and oppression for so many people? And how might we all rediscover the promise of the love his story represents? Those are the questions at the heart of He Gets Us.”

The answers to the questions that He Gets Us asks can be simply answered. However, the He Gets Us campaign makes an incorrect presumptuous statement and thus asks an illegitimate question.

“How did the story of a man who taught and practiced unconditional love …”
STOP RIGHT THERE! Yeshua (Jesus) NEVER taught and practiced unconditional love. The phrase “unconditional love” does not appear in the Old Testament or New Testament Scriptures.

Unconditional love is known as love without conditions.

People who proclaim that Jesus loves us unconditionally will often cite verses such as:

ROMANS 5:8 (NKJV):
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Messiah (Christ) died for us.

Romans 5:8 does not state that God or Jesus loves us unconditionally, but that He died for us while we were still sinners, implying in the verse the hope that we would someday repent and not remain sinners.

When Yeshua (Jesus) began preaching the gospel in Galilee, He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” – Mark 1:15 (NKJV).

Yeshua (Jesus) also said the following, “I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” – Luke 13:3,5 (NKJV).

Jesus became associated with hatred and oppression because the world is in a state of rebellion and sin against God. He is the Light of the world and evil hates the Light. Furthermore, historically, Christianity in various ways has committed atrocities in the name of Yeshua (Jesus).

JOHN 3:19-21 (NLV):
“The Light has come into the world. And the Light is the test by which men are guilty or not. People love darkness more than the Light because the things they do are sinful. Everyone who sins hates the Light. He stays away from the Light because his sin would be found out. The man who does what is right comes to the Light. What he does will be seen because he has done what God wanted him to do.”

JOHN 8:12 (NKJV):
Yeshua (Jesus) spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

JOHN 15:18 (NKJV):
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”

He Gets Us asks, “How might we all rediscover the promise of the love his story represents?”

The promise of His love story, the gospel, is inheriting the kingdom of heaven, which is conditional on two factors: that we, as believers, accept Yeshua (Jesus) as our Savior, who died in our place to atone for our sins, the just for the unjust, and that we repent of our sins, strive to live righteously, and obey His commands.

1 PETER 3:18 (NKJV):
For Messiah (Christ) also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.

REVELATION 22:14-15 (NKJV):
Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

Yeshua (Jesus) taught that obedience to His commandments is loving Him, saying, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” – John 14:15.

Yeshua (Jesus) said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” – John 14:6.

He Gets Us claims that Jesus was a homeless man who lived in poverty and experienced hunger. “As we studied the life of Jesus, we noticed a trend — Jesus displayed immense empathy for the poor and the needy. But why? Then it struck us. Jesus was homeless himself. He noted that birds had nests and foxes had holes, but he didn’t have a place to rest his head each night. His life was one of simplicity and deprivation.

The man who prayed to God, “Give us this day our daily bread,” experienced hunger. The man who offered “living water,” ironically, knew thirst.

 His life was not luxurious or easy. He labored with his hands. He didn’t have a closet full of clothes or a pantry filled with food. He was a nomad relying on the kindness and generosity of others.

This was the Jesus that we knew so many could relate to. People struggling to pay the rent. Parents facing the dilemma of either going to an hourly wage job or staying home with a sick child. Hard workers holding two and three jobs just to fill gas tanks and refrigerators.

The exhaustion, the uncertainty, and the struggle are all things we today and the Jesus of 2,000 years ago have in common.”

Yeshua (Jesus) did not have empathy for the poor and needy because He Himself was allegedly homeless and poor. He had empathy for the poor and needy because of His love for humanity (John 15:13). Yeshua (Jesus) voluntarily experienced hunger through fasting when He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan (Luke 4:1-13). According to the Scripture accounts, Yeshua (Jesus) was living in the home of His parents, Joseph and Mary, in Nazareth until the age of 30 when He began His Messianic mission to proclaim the gospel (Luke 3:23). Yeshua (Jesus) first began to show the miraculous signs of who He was at a wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-11).

Yeshua (Jesus) was not considered poor by His critics who observed Him, but was considered to be living lavishly as one who came “eating and drinking” (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34). Yeshua (Jesus) was only recorded to have experienced thirst, as He was dying on the cross when He said, “I thirst” – John 19:28 and at the time when He asked for water from a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well after a long journey by foot (John 4:5-7).  

Yeshua (Jesus) was not without resources as He was able to perform the miraculous, including the supernatural manifestation of food (Matthew 14:15-21, 15:32-38; Mark 6:35-44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:4-14) and money (Matthew 17:27).

YESHUA  (JESUS) WAS NOT HOMELESS!

To compare Yeshua (Jesus) to a common impoverished homeless person without means or resources who experienced unwanted hunger and thirst is an extreme twisting of Scripture in order to try to connect Yeshua (Jesus) to the common struggling working family or homeless person. Yeshua (Jesus) and His apostles were travelers proclaiming a message. It would be more appropriate to compare Yeshua (Jesus) and His apostles to a musical band on tour, the Yeshua (Jesus) Israeli Messianic Good News Tour 30-33 AD.

Yeshua (Jesus) never proclaimed that “He Gets Us.” He instructed that We Need to Get Him!

JESUS REVOLUTION – THE MOVIE

The movie Jesus Revolution was released in theatres on February 24, 2023. The synopsis of the movie, according to the jesusrevolution.movie official website About tab reads, “In the 1970s, young Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney) is searching for all the right things in all the wrong places: until he meets Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), a charismatic hippie-street-preacher. Together with Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer), they open the doors of Smith’s languishing church to an unexpected revival of radical and newfound love, leading to what TIME Magazine dubbed a JESUS REVOLUTION.”

The movie begins with Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer) preaching a standard, boring Christian sermon with many of his churchgoers falling asleep in the pews. Then his daughter, while driving, picks up a hippie Lonnie Frisbee, (Jonathan Roumie), wearing a “Jesus Loves You” hippie vest. When he expresses his intentions to spread the gospel message of Jesus to whoever will hear it, she decides it was a good opportunity to introduce him to her stiff, preacher father.

When her father Chuck Smith initially meets Lonnie Frisbee, Chuck was initially put off by him, but Lonnie’s charm and Scripture knowledge win Chuck over. With the help of Lonnie, Chuck begins filling his church with Jesus-seeking hippies.

The movie continues with Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney) meeting and falling in love with his girlfriend and future wife. Then the drama and quasi-sensationalism continue with Greg being afraid to get baptized, wondering if this was just another thing that was going to hurt him, like his father who abandoned him in childhood. Greg’s mother, afterward, informs him that the man he thought was his father was not his actual father and he was acting as a step-father during the time they were together.

Urged on and encouraged by the love of his girlfriend, Greg gets baptized and his baptism was portrayed as an extended spiritual moment, almost as if the Holy Spirit descended upon him through the waters and after as he emerged out of the water to breathe air. The movie proclaims a mystical Christian false premise: that regret and doubt are washed away by baptism. We are not ‘born again’ at baptism. The true purpose of water emersion baptism is symbolic, representing a person’s washing away of sins through the atonement sacrifice of Yeshua (Jesus) and a commitment to following the Way of Yeshua (Jesus), which is by being obedient to all His commandments (Acts 24:14).

Baptism is a ceremony commanded by Yeshua (Jesus) in which believers make a public confession that they are in the process of repenting of their sins and have committed themselves in faith to Yeshua (Jesus) as their Savior and Lord. As Lord, Yeshua (Jesus) is our Master and baptized persons have agreed to accept Yeshua (Jesus) as the One who has authority, influence, and power over them.

Yet many baptized Christians only accept Yeshua (Jesus) as Savior and not Lord.

Yeshua (Jesus) asked, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” – Luke 6:46

A question asked by Greg Laurie to his girlfriend, which represented a theme of the movie, was, “What we found: Jesus, love, is it real?”

The Jesus that the Jesus Revolution proclaims is primarily an all-accepting, non-judgmental, unconditionally loving Jesus who does not require much from those who believe in Him. The Jesus of the Jesus Revolution is not the real, full Jesus.

The question can be further confirmed by Scripture.

MATTHEW 7:15-20 (NKJV – CONDENSED):
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

What are the fruits of the Jesus Revolution of the 1960 and 70s? Primarily, as a society, what followed was the sexual revolution which included pre-marital sex, fornication, abortion, adultery, homosexuality, easy divorce, and ‘remarriage.’

Is America a more spiritually righteous nation today as a result of the Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 70s? The answer is a resounding NO.

One of the main characters of the Jesus Revolution movie, Lonnie Frisbee, near the end of the movie was shown moving to Florida and working on his strained relationship with his wife, Connie. The story of Lonnie Frisbee in the movie ends on that note. In real life, what followed Lonnie’s move to Florida was the following… His wife Connie, whom he had married in 1967, had an affair with another minister, divorced Lonnie in 1973, and remarried herself to another man. As for Lonnie himself, he was known to be sexually immoral, engaging in homosexuality on Saturday nights and then preaching on Sunday mornings. Lonnie Frisbee died of AIDS in 1993. Frisbee is remembered well by those who knew him, and they consider him a Samson figure who was weak and flawed, but in the end, saved. In actuality, only God knows if Frisbee will be saved.

The irony of the Jesus Revolution movie is that it showed there was no meaningful revolution. The Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 70s was, by and large, a failure. In fairness to the Jesus Revolution, it did make many people aware of the gospel, and that was a good thing. 65 When a believer comes to the faith, it becomes incumbent upon the individual to study the Scriptures on his or her own to test all things, so as to not be misled by any person or movement.

A far better movie about the Jesus Revolution, which is available to view for free on YouTube, is The Revolutionary.

ISAIAH 8:20 (NKJV):
To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

JESUS REVOLUTION, CAN IT HAPPEN AGAIN?

Will there be another Jesus Revolution in the 2020s? If it is the same kind of Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, an all-inclusive, LGBTQ+, come-as-you-are, non-judgmental, no repentance, lawless lovefest revival, which by all indications it will be, it will certainly not produce anything but empty spiritual emotionalism, increased acceptability of sin, and rich coffers for the preacher-hustlers who stage the revival events.

Faith without works is dead. – James 2:14-26.

The recent calls for Christian revivals indicate that the Christian faith, in all its various forms, is on life support or is dead faith. People who possess the truth and follow the way, that is, people who believe in Yeshua as their Lord and Savior and obey His commandments, do not need revivals. The reason that the Christian faith constantly needs to be ginned up by emotionally-driven, song-filled lovefest revivals is that Christianity rejects and/or twists many of God’s laws and festivals. People living a life of faith without works, faith without law, have dead faith and the dead need to be revived.

THE COUNTERCULTURE JESUS MOVEMENT

It was good and right for the Christian churches of the 1960s and 70s to welcome in the younger generation of hippies to the churches, but because the various Christian faiths themselves do not follow the law (Torah) and cling to many unbiblical falsehoods that are part of the Christian faith, the faith that the hippies received did not change them. It is not enough to hold up a Bible in church and not open it, then, when directed, open the Bible to preselected verses that a Christian pastor or minister chooses. ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. – 2 Timothy 3:16 (NKJV).

Yeshua (Jesus) said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” – Matthew 9:12-13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31-32 (NKJV).

The hippies of the Jesus Revolution, for the most part, never repented of many of the sinful activities that they were engaged in, nor learned how to live the way Yeshua (Jesus) commands us to live. Many of these hippies were sick and in need of a physician, but did not find one in the Christian churches. All they received was fluffy love from a Jesus Messiah figure who unconditionally loved them.

The Christian faith itself needs total revising. Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation only produced Protesting Catholics, daughter churches of the Roman Catholic faith. Mainstream Christianity continues on with many of these thousands of years of false doctrines and practices including the Sunday Sabbath, celebrating pagan holidays such as Christmas and Easter, eating all manner of unclean creatures, and the general consensus that many of God’s laws were abolished.

The Christian theology that some or all of God’s laws are bad and needed to be abolished, leads many into thinking all of God’s laws are bad and need to be abolished.

Many conservative Christians will point out that homosexuality is an abomination in the Scriptures (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13), but refuse to acknowledge the dietary commands and that eating unclean creatures is also considered an abomination by God in the very same book of Leviticus (Leviticus 11:10-13,20,23,41-42).

There is another fast-growing movement spreading today among people who are seeking God in spirit and truth: the Messianic-Hebrew Roots movement. This movement is not perfect, just as all organized churches and fellowships are imperfect. Non-traditional, Torah-observant believers are often branded as cultists by traditional Christian denominations, but the movement rightly recognizes God’s words and laws as being eternal (Acts 24:14). Christian believers should go a little further in faith than where the Protestant Reformation and mainstream Christianity has taken them.

There is a proverb penned by Mark Twain that goes, “It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.”

Independent Christian ministers, sincere about preaching the truth of God’s word, learn this proverb and wisely apply it to your church fellowship attendance: It is not the size of the congregation that matters, but the fruit that is produced from a congregation that matters. Substance is more important than size.

MATTHEW 7:13-14 (NKJV):
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because

LUKE 12:32 (NKJV):
“Do not fear, LITTLE FLOCK, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

It will not be large groups of millions of revived Christians who will inherit the kingdom of God, but a smaller flock of believers who obey Yeshua (Jesus) in spirit and in truth, which means believing in Him and obeying His commandments.

MATTHEW 7:21-23 (NKJV) [WITH INTERPRETATION]:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will [OBEYS THE COMMANDMENTS] of My Father in heaven. Many [CHRISTIANS] will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we [CHRISTIANS] not prophesied in Your [JESUS’] name, cast out demons in Your [JESUS’] name, and done many wonders in Your [JESUS’] name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you [CHRISTIANS]; depart from Me, you [CHRISTIANS] who practice lawlessness!’”

Sin is lawlessness. -1 John 3:4

Law-is-done-away-with, openly sinning Christians or anyone who does not follow Yeshua (Jesus) in spirit and truth are not prepared to enter His kingdom and will need to receive correction before being allowed to enter, if permitted to at all.

The Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 70s was overall a failure for society.

Christianity did not change the counterculture sex, drugs, ‘n’ rock hippies of that time; the hippies changed Christianity. But God’s word does not change.

THE RETURN OF YESHUA (JESUS)

A true Jesus Revolution is coming when Yeshua (Jesus) returns.

ROMANS 14:11 (NKJV):
For it is written: “As I live, says the Lord, Every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

HEBREWS 8:10 (NKJV):
“I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

YESHUA (JESUS) WILL RULE THE NATIONS WITH A ROD OF IRON
-Psalm 2:9, Revelation 2:27, 12:5, 19:15

The rod of Yeshua (Jesus) is not for the obedient, but for the disobedient. The rod is for people who need correction, and not for believers who obey God’s commandments, need no correction, are deemed righteous, and inherit the kingdom of God. Believers who inherit the kingdom of God will rule the nations with Yeshua (Jesus) (Revelation 2:26).

REVELATION 2:26 (NLT) [WITH INTERPRETATION]:
To all who are victorious [OVER SIN], who obey Me [MY COMMANDMENTS] to the very end, to them I will give authority over all the nations.

Any Jesus Revolution that does not proclaim obedience to God’s commandments as a requirement for salvation, is not a revolution, but a delusion.