God Can Change America
We hosted The Response last Saturday in Cleveland, a fasting and prayer event to Jesus. No book sales, no DVD sales, and no concession stand sales: simply fasting and prayer, asking God for mercy for what we, Christians, have allowed in America, a once Christian nation.
“We’re here [in Cleveland], this is not political, there’s no politics at all going on, it’s strictly fasting and prayer, asking God for mercy. He says, ‘If My people, called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will heal their land.'”
“And a nation founded—the Mayflower Compact—’for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith,’ by Christians, not agnostics, not atheists, not secularists, but by Christians. We have now lost that. We’ve lost our Judeo-Christian heritage, and the by-product, a biblically-based culture. So we’re asking that the living God do what only He can do. Like He said to Lazarus, ‘Lazarus, come forth’, He can say to revival in America, ‘Come forth.'”
During The Response, Dr. Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego, spoke about movements of God in America. Garlow told about the First Great Awakening and the preaching of George Whitefield in the 18th century:
“So many people were coming to Christ where there weren’t any churches established. So they built a little log building. They called it Log College and began to train the pastors to try and go out and plant churches to keep up with the revival. You know that school today as Princeton University.
“There were 300,000 people on the Eastern seaboard at that time. One hundred and fifty churches existed, they were filled to capacity. They built another one hundred and fifty churches and they were filled to capacity. Fifty-one Christian colleges were founded during that time.”
Don’t tell me that God cannot change America—He can! It’s just that we have become too timid and prayer-less. There have been intervals in American history when prayer became the first concern of Christians and the church. My guess is that we are entering another stretch when prayer is going to be placed front and center. Why? Because “The nipping frosts of trial and affliction are often needed, if God’s larches (50-foot evergreen trees) are to grow” – J. W. Bardsley.
On June 6, 1944, word reached America at 3:32 AM (EST) that the Allied troops had stormed the beaches of Normandy while most Americans slept. Churches began to fill through the morning asking the living God for safety for our boys and deliverance from the Axis powers. There was a time in America when Christians knew by experience, both pastors and those in the pew, that “Prayer and tears are the weapons of heaven.”
The type of Christianity now in vogue for the last half to three-quarters century in America seems to be a non-biblical piety that separates the secular from the holy. Thus, it fails to stress the biblical truth that God leaves His covenant people here, each succeeding generation, to teach them to war against untruth (Judges 3:2).
The last two to three generations of Christians have seemingly been instilled with an outlook, “We are not to polish brass on a sinking ship.” This sounds pious, but it surrenders the public square to radical secularists. This heretical worldview has produced an ignoble contentment that stifles the place for spiritual warriors, men and women of Issachar, who possess a burning zeal, a “calling,” to represent the living God in the public arena and war for truth.
This reprehensible teaching is a blight on the church. It is satisfied to allow Western Civilization to collapse by refusing to confront the false gods of political correctness, multiculturalism and secularism (godless totalitarianism).”What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” (1 Sam. 17:26).
The reality is that it’s easier to hide, isolated and sheltered, behind the four walls of the church than it is to engage the battle in the public square. The present confusion and damage to America can be traced directly to the lack of men and women of Issachar that are missing from the town square, battling against untruth.
In Jamestown 1607 the Pilgrims erected a cross with the covenant:
“We do hereby Dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this earth remains, and may this Land, along with England, be Evangelist to the World.”
If America is to survive, we have to resurrect the mission of the Founders.
We need a Gideon or Rahab to stand.
