THE NEXT GREAT AWAKENING!

Arise, shine: For your light has come!

And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,

And deep darkness will rise over the people;

But the Lord will arise over you,

And his glory will be seen upon you.

Isaiah 60:1

Awake, you who sleep,

Arise from the dead,

And Christ will give you light.

Ephesians 5:14

 The nation and the world is overdue for a great spiritual awakening.  A Great Awakening is a movement of God in response to human participation.  The first Great Awakening in America took place in the early 1700’s setting the stage spiritually for the founding of a new nation, “One nation under God,” whose moto is “In God We Trust.”  The first Great Awakening energized the colonial colleges: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, William and Mary, Princeton, and the U of Pennsylvania.  The second Great Awakening in the 1800’s occasioned the exponential, explosive growth in churches and founding of colleges across the nation especially by the Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, and others:  Boston, Syracuse, Duke, Emory, Samford, Baylor, USC, and hundreds more.  Following World War II, the evangelical initiative of Billy Graham and others in the 1950’s and ‘60’s grabbed the nation’s interest and renewed the life of faith for millions.

Following every flow of faith, every movement of the Spirit of God, every spiritual awakening over the past four hundred years (since the founding of Harvard in 1634), there’s been predictable spiritual ebbs.  With each Great Awakening the rising tide of sincere faith and spiritual vitality dissipated.  The gradual drift of committed Christians into a spiritual desert a malaise, a fog of faith, and a tepid spiritual temperature suggest once again a shift in the culture away from a steadfast pursuit of God’s presence, providence, and provision.  As in the past, the great awakenings of the nation, with their missional waves of faith, land on the shore and with time wash back into secularism.  This is the oldest story of mankind’s disobedience, infidelity, and recidivism. The result is a national rise in people’s sin and degradation evident especially in the media, in societal divisions, in human trafficking, in corruption in high places, and in unjustified war and oppression.  Spiritually it occasions the loss of generations to the redemptive, reconciling, restorative love of God.  This is exactly where we are today, not only in the USA, but in Canada, the UK and continental Europe.  The West especially is in a spiritual funk, a sad state of disconnect from God, and therefore in a spiritual desert in need of the Water of Life.  The obvious consequences are numerous.  The burning question is “What can we do about it?”

Every great awakening in history was preceded by the holy discontent and fervent prayer of a faithful remnant.  Often this small remnant was young people who understood the spiritual desert in which humanity landed. They saw God’s the bigger picture, the need for humanity’s salvation, and healing through the Living Water of Jesus Christ.  In seeing they responded to God’s stirring of their hearts to pray for revival.  They burned in their hearts for change.  They saw God’s bigger plan.  They realigned their faith, acted on a holy discontent, re-arranged their priorities, re-calibrated their lives to God’s golden standard of holiness and mission, and then prayed.  The world, especially the USA, desperately needs a wake-up call.  We need a remnant who will fervently pray.  God is faithful.  He is steadfast in his love.  He never fails in his fidelity to his promises.  He once again can raise up a remnant of faithful who will pray in another Great Awakening and call for national and global repentance.

This is a call to the remnant, to those in whose hearts God places a holy discontent.  It is a call to active prayer to those who see the sorry state of humanity today and who’s hearts burn with a desire to see holiness and righteousness prevail.  It is a call to those who desire to act with a sanctified sanity for the salvation of a world.  This world that God love’s will see another Great Awakening if a faithful remnant will fervently and passionate pray in faith for a new day of Awakening to the redemptive, reconciling, restoring love of God.

“Prepare the way of the Lord;

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.”

Isa. 40:3