Here we are in 2016, the year of a Presidential Election. Our pursuit of a new President has turned from seeking a man of integrity and character to watching grown men who act like spoiled brats slinging mud at each other. Same sex marriage and marijuana have been legalized in many states. Crime and murder are running rampant. Terrorism attacks are an every day occurrence. Our country has moved so far away from God’s intent. We are seeing 2 Tim 3:1-5 being lived out in front of us. The scripture says, “. . . this know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” If there was ever a “prime time” for change to come to our country it is now.
Vance Havner in his book entitled, The Secret of Christian Joy stated that “the greatest need of America is an old-fashioned, heaven-sent God-ordained revival. Throughout the history of the Church, when the clouds have hung the lowest, when sin has seemed the blackest and faith has been at its weakest, there have always been a faithful few who have not sold out to the devil nor bowed the knee to Baal, who feared the Lord and thought upon His Name and have not forsaken the assembling of themselves together. These have besought the Lord to revive His work in the midst of the years, and in the midst of the fears and tears, and in wrath to remember mercy. God has always answered such supplication, filling each heart with His love, rekindling each soul with fire from above.
Certainly it is high time that we prayed once more: “Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?” America has been a land of revivals. It was conceived in revival. Its foundations were laid by men who came out of the Puritan and Pietist revivals in England and on the continent. In those early days, when hardship gave way to prosperity and men drifted away from God, the faithful few besought heaven and God sent the Great Awakening through the terrific preaching of Jonathan Edwards and the evangelism of George Whitfield. Spirituality flourished, the churches filled, and there was a preacher for every two thousand of our three million people.”
It is time for God’s people to get back to what works and to step up and begin to do what God intended for us to do. He says in His word in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” We must begin to seek him for a mighty moving of His Spirit. A revival is a work of God not a work of man; however, every great moving of God can always be traced back to a kneeling figure. God has always had a remnant that saw the need to be a seeker of His face. Vance Havner added, “Revival is a supernatural work, but the fact that men have prayed for revival and received it proves that God will turn to His people in answer to fervent, effectual prayer.”
We need to go from small sentence prayers to times of prevailing in prayer as we pray according to Lamentations 5:21, “Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.”
Bro. Terry