Is America Experiencing Revival Or Surface Spirituality
Americans are asking if what looks like spiritual stirring is true revival or just noise, and Frank Turek pushes the conversation toward what matters most: making disciples, not just converts.
He warns that a flash of emotion without life change leaves people with a ticket to heaven but not a changed heart ready to follow Jesus daily.
The Priority: Discipleship Over Decision
When revival talk heats up, Turek cuts straight to the core question: spiritual renewal is not enough unless it produces genuine followers who pick up their cross.
“How do you make disciples? How do you make people that actually follow Jesus — not just people that say, ‘I got fire insurance, I’m going to heaven?’” he said. “Jesus didn’t say, ‘Come make believers.’ He said, ‘Come make disciples.’ And that means carrying your cross, and doing things that you might not normally want to do. It means denying yourself and following Him, and that’s hard.”
That message is blunt and biblical: the Gospel calls people to a transformed life, not a safety net for the afterlife.
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Why Timing And Mystery Matter
People often try to fit current chaos into end-times checklists, but Turek points back to Jesus’ own warning about timing and certainty.
“I would venture to say that no one knows when Jesus is coming back, and my source on that is Jesus,” he said. “When people keep saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I know He’s coming back. Oh, things are getting worse. It’s going to happen’ … I say, ‘Hold, hold, hold on. Jesus said no one knows the day, the hour, the times, nor the season. I’m coming like a thief in the night.’”
That restraint is not timidity but wisdom: the New Testament keeps the return veiled so the church does not miscalculate or rest on last-minute repentance.
“Just like Jesus’ first coming, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that if these things were known, that the forces of this world never would have crucified the Lord of glory,” he said. “When you look back on Old Testament prophecy in the light of the New Testament, you go, ‘Oh, now I see how all these passages fit together. But looking forward, if you’re in the Old Testament, you don’t really know this is going to happen.”
“And if Satan knew that murdering Jesus was actually Satan’s defeat, he never would have instigated it. And so the Lord kept that message coming veiled for a reason.”
Turek stresses that this veil protects the Gospel plan and prevents people from treating salvation like an insurance policy they can buy at the last second.
“You know your life’s going to end here on earth,” Turek said. “You better deal with that … instead of worrying about when He’s going to come to end the whole show.”
He pushes believers away from spectator Christianity and toward active evangelism, insisting we must equip people with truth, not emotion alone.
“I mean, why should you be a Christian and not an atheist, or a Muslim, or Hindu, or a Buddhist, or make up your own world religion or your own personal religion like so many people do today?” Turek said. “The reason you ought to be a Christian is because it’s true, because there’s evidence that God exists, that Jesus rose from the dead, that the Bible is telling the truth, that you’re a fallen human being.”
He calls for clear apologetics alongside compassion, showing why Christianity stands up to questions so faith isn’t just felt but also understood.
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