Evangelism Every Day

God Revive America

“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.”

~Psalm 85:6-7

 I want to share with you an URGENT PRAYER REQUEST.

We need to pray for God to revive America.

Usually when we read the phrase “Urgent Prayer Request” it is followed up by a physical problem. It is followed by the details of a car accident or medical diagnosis where someone’s life is on the line. Well, it is time for us to see that the lukewarmness of the church in America has left our country in critical spiritual condition. We need to pray with urgency because the situation is an emergency: GOD REVIVE AMERICA.

This weekend our little church here in Huntington Beach had the privilege of participating in the city’s 4^th of July parade. “The biggest 4^th of July celebration of America this side of the Mississippi.” This was the 111^th parade and it was a great tradition to be a part of. There were tens of thousands of people in attendance and the parade was televised live on ABC. Our ice cream truck pulled a float with our worship band on top of it. Our worship director, Ryan Pierce, had come up with new arrangements of classic patriotic songs like “You’re A Grand Old Flag” and “This Land Is Your Land.” We were hoping the parade crowd would sing along and we were shocked when we actually won an award for our float. I mean, the trophy was bigger than my 3 year old son Jack!

As a church, we think it is very important to get out into our community. We have been praying for over a year to be a part of our city’s big 4^th of July event and are so happy it actually happened. We don’t want what happens at our church to stay at our church, but for it to spread to the people around us and to effect the city of Huntington Beach. During the parade, we were able to hand out 1,000 small America flags to people who might want to wave them as they cheered for veterans and marching bands. Attached to the flags were flyers inviting them to come to our church the next day Sunday July 5^th. We were starting a new series on the book of Jonah with a special sermon: God Revive America. Once again, God answered our prayers by blessing our church with a record attendance. It is so exciting to see him working but we are praying for more than parade floats and church attendance, we need to see a revival of souls turning away from their sins and back to God in America today.

There have been great times of revival in the history of our nation. The first and foremost was the Great Awakening, a well documented time of God working in our land in the 1740’s. With men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield spreading the gospel, whole communities would come to hear them preach. The knowledge of God and the sinfulness of men were well known to the founding fathers of our nation, even those who were not Christians, like Thomas Jefferson. He wrote about God in the Declaration of Independence on July 4^th, 1776 which we just celebrated:

 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We are still about “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” here in America today, but unfortunately the “self-evident” fact God is our Creator has been lost in our country. We have declared ourselves independent from God. How long does this need to go on before the church is going to take it seriously? How much sin do we need to see before God’s people will get serious about praying for a revival among us once again?

Let us pray to our God who is in heaven and let us see how he answers us here on the earth:

Show us your steadfast love in the salvation of many souls!

Turn many souls back to you in repentance of their sins!

Lift high the name of Jesus so many people will put their faith in him!

Open their eyes to see the glory of the gospel that Jesus is the Christ who died for our sins and rose again and in him our souls can find salvation for all of eternity!

Stir up the heart of your people in the church so your word is preached and all of the lukewarmness turns to fire in our souls to love Jesus and live for him!

In the book of Jonah there is a great revival in the city of Nineveh where many people repent of their sins and God decides not to judge them. We are hoping to learn some things from this revival in the past as we pray for another revival in America today!

Many people think of Jonah as the story of a great fish swallowing up a man, but it is actually the story of a great God saving a city! Even the mysterious prophet Jonah who gets on a boat going in the opposite direction of Nineveh is not the main character of the story. The book of Jonah is not really about him, but the God who spoke to him and saved those people. There is so much speculation among Christians about why Jonah fled to Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh. Is it because Jonah was ashamed of God and we should be bold evangelists? Is it because Jonah was racist against the Ninevites and we should be missionaries to all nations? While those might be biblical principles they are speculations as to Jonah’s motives. The truth is Jonah tells us why he didn’t go to Nineveh in Jonah 4:2:

“And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That I why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disasters.”

Jonah knew God would save the Ninevites! Do we have this same understanding of God in our churches today? Are we so convinced in the abundance of his steadfast love to save sinners we are out there pleading with our fellow Americans to turn back to God? Are we pleading with God in prayer to be merciful and withhold his judgment upon us and graciously save many souls? Does a runaway prophet going the wrong direction know more about God’s desire to save sinners than us?

We used to say “God Bless America.” But this assumes that America acknowledges we are “one nation under God” or “in God we trust.” Unfortunately, our nation is turning away from God. How can we ask him to bless our disobedience against him? Today we need to say: GOD REVIVE AMERICA!

When we receive an urgent prayer request, the goal is so we can pray before the person dies.

How much worse does it have to get here in America before you will start praying for revival every day?