Christian Leaders: This Time It's Going to Take More Than Revival to Save America
A central message coming out of evangelist Mario Murillo’s “Living Proof” tent meeting in Hanford, California, last week is that the United States needs more than a revival; it needs a reformation.
One of the highlights of the four-day event, which took place from Feb. 20-23, was the live filming of the popular Christian commentary show “Flashpoint,” during which the subject of reformation took center stage.
Murillo argued that a large number of souls must not only be saved, bringing many into relation with God in the church, but Christians must work outside the church walls to influence the culture as a whole.
“There are two things that God is doing,” Murillo told “Flashpoint” host Gene Bailey.
“One is in the body of Christ [the church] and another is in the community of the mountains of influence…the political, the business community, education, entertainment — the Christians that are in that world,” the evangelist said.
They represent two streams, one inside and one outside the church, Murillo explained.
“In 1776, it was George Washington and … the black robe regiment,” he said, referring to the Christian clergy of that era.
“The two streams must come together” once again in our time, Murillo contended. “We must have a uniting of those who are patriots that love God. And those who love God, that are patriots.”
“We are in the midst of revival,” Flashpoint host Gene Bailey told @WestJournalism at @MarioMurilloMin #Hanford, CA Living Proof event. @GoVictoryTV pic.twitter.com/VyWqF6CObI
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) February 28, 2022
“This is what revival looks like,” Bailey responded, as he looked out over the crowd of thousands on hand. “When revival affects more than just what happens in a church or in a tent. It affects what happens in our society and our culture.”
“This is very important … [to] understand the difference between a revival and a reformation,” he added, before asking “Flashpoint” regular Lance Wallnau to do delve further into the topic.
Wallnau first pointed out that more Americans becoming Christians does not necessarily lead to a changed society.
(The discussion about the importance of revival and reformation begins at about 9:30 in the video below.)
“America won’t change because of a move of God that gets more Christians in the population, because we already outnumber the radical left 10-to-1,” he said.
Based on his research, Wallnau believes the radical left elites make up about 3 to 4 percent of the population, while evangelical, born-again Christians are about 30 percent.
“How is it that 30 percent are dominated by 3 percent?” Wallnau asked.
The answer is that Christians are, by and large, not occupying the mountains of cultural influence: academia, media, government, business, arts and family.
@lancewallnau told @WestJournalism last time Pluto was in same position in relation to earth was July 4, 1776. Calling for patriotic Americans in our time is to ensure, as Ben Franklin said, the US has a rising sun on its horizon. Living Proof Hanford 2/22/22 @MarioMurilloMin pic.twitter.com/arwnpKtejs
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) February 23, 2022
Even within the church, leftists have taken over parts of it.
“They have a worldview for bringing their kingdom here, now,” Wallnau said of liberals.
The commentator argued that Christians should want that too.
Jesus instructed his followers to pray to God the Father, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but “we put it off until [Christ’s] second coming.”
“They are organized, and we are not,” Wallnau said.
Even if the United States experiences a revival that takes the percentage of evangelical Christians in the U.S. from 30 to 50 percent, there must be a reformation or there will be no change.
“It doesn’t matter,” Wallnau said, “because the guards in the prison control what goes on with the inmates. You could have 75 percent, and if they control those high places, you still are in suppression because that’s the story of history.”
However, when Christians hear the call to begin impacting the mountains of cultural influence, that’s when change occurs.
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“When the revival starts moving and changing these mountains – hitting government, hitting media, hitting business – that’s called a reformation,” Wallnau said.
“They call this process a great awakening,” he added, pointing as an example to the period before the American revolution, which saw pockets of revival break out in the English colonies up and down the Atlantic seaboard beginning in the 1740s.
“An awakening is a revival that impacts a country to the point it reforms and reshapes its institutions,” Wallnau said, causing people to rise to their feet and cheer.
On Tuesday’s “Flashpoint” Murillo gave an after-action review of last week’s meetings, saying, “It was the greatest move of God that I saw in my ministry, and I was in the Jesus movement.”
The Jesus movement occurred in the late 1960s and 1970s, when tens of thousands came to faith in Jesus Christ.
“We saw amazing things inside the tent, outside the tent. The Lord emptied wheelchairs, growths vanished. People were set free. There were some very startling miracles that happened and I will never forget them,” he related.
Murillo called one woman out of the audience named PJ, and he said, the Lord had told him she was in a near-fatal car crash, and her life had not been the same since, due to the effects from multiple injuries.
She began to cry as he described injuries to the head and spine she experienced.
PJ nodded when Murillo said her car had rolled.
“How do I know all that?” he asked. “The power of the Holy Spirit.”
Wallnau mentioned this particular testimony of a healing on Tuesday’s “Flashpoint,” saying he later ran into the woman at the airport after the meeting, and she confirmed what Murillo said was true.
Wallnau verified by text to The Western Journal that PJ shown in the video above was the woman.
Several people testified to receiving or witnessing healing at the event, as well as being inspired by the prospect of revival and reformation in America.
Johnny Emmerson — who was part of a team sent from the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California — told The Western Journal the people of Hanford were very receptive to being prayed for as they went out into the community.
Murillo had called for 1,000 volunteers to come and form ministry teams to go out into the city during the day.
“Hanford is just pregnant with receptiveness to the kingdom,” Emmerson said. “People are getting healed. People are getting saved. It’s powerful.”
Joan Wangari recounted her team prayed for a woman who had bad ankles and feet.
“Her pain was nine when we started praying. It went all the way to zero,” Wangari said. “She has no more pain. She was crying.”
On the subject of reformation, Emmerson said the founders “were not sure if they were virtuous enough to actually sustain democracy with ‘We the People.’
“Only a virtuous people could sustain a republic as they were structuring it. And they were trying to structure it with as much checks and balances as possible,” he said.
“They did not want the clergy to have state power, as they had in Europe, but they had every expectation that clergy was going to be influencing the virtue of society.”
Wangari agreed on the importance of Christian virtues being restored to America.
God is “returning us back to where we belong. We belong in society. We are not separate from society. Jesus came and died for the world,” she said. “It’s never too late to go back and release the virtues of God. To tell people, ‘Listen, this is the system that God created us under and we cannot do without it.”
“The law of God is what sustains humanity and when we take away God from the equation we have a society that is falling under,” Wangari added.
Turning to God and his ways, she said, “will bring back unity and wholeness.”
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