Western civilization has become pluralistic, secularized, and biblically illiterate. Today many people in the West have little sense of how their lives have benefited from Christianity’s influence, the revivals and the Great Awakenings. The church is now often viewed with hostility or resentment. England is spiritually at its lowest state for over 250 years (probably worse than before the revivals of the Wesleys and others).
We need to see that our God who revived Britain and America under the preaching of John Wesley, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, Evan Roberts, William Wilberforce, Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards and many others, changing the character of Britain and America respectively can do it again, if we humble ourselves, and pray, and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways.
The promise of this verse is applied to most nations though it was originally given to King Solomon during the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. When Solomon had finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as His palace. The Lord appeared to him in the night and said:
I have heard your prayer and have chosen this Temple as the place for making sacrifices. At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or command grasshoppers to devour your crops, or send plagues among you. Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. (2 Chronicles 7:11-14 NLT)
God promises that when the Israelites are under divine chastisement for their disobedience and they humbly call upon the Lord, He promises to forgive them and heal their land. From this context there are clear principles in this verse and other revival verses that we can apply to our own lives and nations today.
God desires obedience and humility in His people and when we humble ourselves, God has obligated Himself to hear our prayer and heal our respective lands. We also have to seek to know Him from a personal experience and live in obedience to His Word. One of the saddest things is that many of us believe in God, but only a few attempt to live by His Word.
It is very hard to be hundred percent sure that the picture we see, or the voice we hear or the prophecy we speak is from God. That is why listening and speaking out in the name of God is costly and leaves us feeling vulnerable.
But having said that, I believe we as Christians can agree that we need the Lord to revive us. It is an age of violence, sexual permissiveness, moral disorder, natural disasters, re-defining marriage, abortion, fatherless children, humanism, secularism, false prophets, apostasy, debt, possibility of economic collapse, inflation, low productivity, unemployment and job outsourcing, these and many others are all happening at the same time. It seems like an endless cycle.
There is a possibility that immigrants that came to the West during prosperous times will be blamed for the economic chaos, stealing of jobs and the rising crime, yet wealth is never destroyed, but it is just transferred to the most powerful.
We’ve been told the idea that thinking globally and acting locally is the best way. Christianity is being marginalized at every turn so that people can indulge in their canal lifestyles without any conviction of sin or guilt.
Wars and so called “Arab Springs” are the order of the day. Most of the education sector, the media, and the workplace are all secularized; you hardly find justice and morality anymore. Revivalist Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) passed this judgment on the moral decline of the nations when he observed in his time that:
Preachers and politicians are flinging sobering words around to describe the peril of this hour which is so dark morally, spiritually, and politically. No longer is Communism merely creeping over the earth, but rather it is leaping over it. This black cancer of Communism has spread until it covers almost three quarters of the earth’s surface. It is estimated that in some way or other communism taints nearly two out of every three persons.
If the Lord tarries and there is no revival of pure Christianity, then the next span of years will be the worst that history has ever recorded. There will be a growth of militant godlessness in the world today, until the world is swarming with human beings no longer human but just “beings.”
After Communist brainwashing and indoctrination (“correct “indoctrination), we shall have a nation or generation of robots. Communism can create millions of zombies, after having spared only a few thousands of people who would be needed as the ruling class. Communism is versatile and devastating. Its leaders have declared that they can take America without firing a shot, and top-line politicians seem to agree with them.
One preacher has noted that we are the most prayer less Church since Pentecost. I don’t know whether we are the most prayer less Church since Pentecost, but one thing I know is that if we are willing to answer the call of the Holy Spirit to weep, fast and pray for our nations. Then the Lord will have mercy upon us and heal our lands.
Many of our prayer meetings need to change from just meetings to wailing, weeping, and groaning meetings for a revival. Many have drawn analogies from the nation of Israel through prophet Jeremiah how the West has allowed itself to drift from under God’s protection, provision, and guidance. We are now reaping tragic and ominous results, just like the people of Israel. The weeping prophet Jeremiah is calling us to weep:
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come. Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us and for us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water.For a sound of wailing is heard [coming] out of Zion: How we are plundered and ruined! We are greatly confounded and utterly put to shame, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings [our dwellings that have cast us out]. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O you women, and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge. (Jeremiah 9:17-20 AMP)
God is calling young and older women who know how to travail and weep for souls like they did during the Hebrides Revival. The women bring children in the flesh so they can understand what it means to give birth in the spirit.
Too many leaders in the church discourage this kind of revival praying because they don’t understand it. They say “you are trying to bring revival in your own strength. Watch out-God in His sovereignty will bring revival; God gives revival when He thinks best, it is wrong for you to try to promote revival just because you think we need revival.” This is the preaching the enemy wants more than anything else.
We need to cry out to God for a revival first in our own respective homes, families, and churches. We do know that God answers the prayers of His people. If we first humble ourselves first, then God will answer the fervent petitions of His people to spare their land.
It is time to weep and pray for God’s mercy and grace to prevail. It is time to weep because the most of the Church is backslidden and has drifted far away from the Lord throughout the world.
We need to pray for God to raise a new generation of intercessors who will hold the horns of the altar and who will cry out in agony to God for Him to intervene.
It is only prayer and intercession that can change a nation. You cannot make laws for holiness and righteousness. It will take only the mercy and grace of Christ to save us.
