Friday, September 4, 2020

David Reagan: Revival vs Revolution (1-4)


Revival Versus Revolution (Part 1 of 4)

Dr. David Reagan



Our beloved nation is in the midst of what appears to be “The Perfect Storm.” First came the pandemic, then the stock market crash followed by the collapse of our economy. And now, violence and looting in our streets. Radicals of all types and colors are calling for revolution.
The Judeo-Christian values this nation was founded upon have been rejected. We are waving our collective fist at God and His Word, saying, “We will do as we please.” It appears that God has turned us over to what theologians call “abandonment wrath.” That’s when God steps back, lowers His hedge of protection around a nation and allows sins to multiply.
One thing I have noticed in the midst of all the chaos is that several Evangelical leaders whom I greatly respect have proclaimed their belief that the frightening events all around us will drive people to their knees seeking God, and the result will be a great spiritual revival that will bring our nation back to God. I hope they are right, but I personally believe it is a false hope.


The problem with this argument is that our nation has not simply grown cold in the Lord. During the past 60 years, we have become militantly hostile to God and His Word. Today, we are aggressively mocking and blaspheming God, and we are jettisoning our Christian heritage.
The number of people in our nation claiming to be Christian is at an all-time low (65%). And half of those could most likely be classified as “Cultural Christians,” meaning they are Christians in name only. Recent polls by the Pew Research Center have revealed that only 17% of those who claim to be Christian can be classified as “Bible-believing.” Meanwhile, weekly church attendance has plummeted to its lowest point ever (23%).
Our nation has clearly become a secular, pagan nation that has rejected God. What a tragic development this is! We have cast aside the very One who blessed us with unparalleled freedom and prosperity. And the Scriptures clearly reveal what our future will be because the history of Judah shows how God deals with a rebellious nation which He has so richly blessed:
1. He raises up prophetic voices to call the nation to repentance. And, if there is no repentance,
2. He places remedial judgments upon the nation.
3. If the nation repents, He forgives and blesses. But if there is no repentance,
4. God destroys the nation when its rebellion becomes entrenched, reaching a point of no return.
Yes, the Bible teaches that there is a point of no return when a nation turns its back on God, particularly a nation that God has richly blessed. That point is referred to in the Scriptures as the stage in a nation’s revolt when “the wound becomes incurable.”

Jeremiah declared that Judah had “an incurable wound” (Jeremiah 30:12). Jeremiah was even told to stop praying for Judah. (Jeremiah 7:16). Ezekiel was told the same thing, but in even stronger terms. Ezekiel was told that if the most righteous men who have ever lived — Noah, Daniel and Job — were to intervene for Judah, it would be of no avail, except for themselves and their families, because the nation had reached the point of no return and was going to be destroyed (Ezekiel 14:12-21).

People laughed at the warnings Jeremiah gave. Their response was to chant, “The temple, the temple, the temple.” This chant meant that they did not believe that God would ever allow anyone to destroy His temple, regardless of how sinful the nation might become. But God sent the Babylonians and used them as His hammer to destroy the nation of Judah, its capital city of Jerusalem, and the temple.
Two of the saddest verses in the Bible describe Judah’s destruction. They are found in 2 Chronicles 36:
15) The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place;
16) but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy.
Even when dealing with the evil Assyrian Empire, God sent Jonah to warn of His impending wrath. When the king and his people repented, God withheld His wrath. But 150 years later, when God sent a second prophet, Nahum, the message was, “Your wound is incurable.” That time there was no repentance, and the empire was overthrown by the Babylonians.

All of which reminds me of some words of the prophet Nahum that should be sobering to our nation (Nahum 1):
2) A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies.
3) The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
In the second part of this series determining what the Bible has to say about a future revival or revolution in America, we will apply God’s lessons to Israel to the United States.





Application To America

Now that we have looked at Part 1, let’s apply these principles to the United States. As I have pointed out many times before, I believe God raised up this nation with the purpose of using our great natural resources and technical ingenuity to spread the Gospel all over the world.
As we fulfilled His purpose, He poured out blessings upon us — blessings like unparalleled freedom and prosperity and immense power and worldwide influence. He even gave us the blessing of serving as the key nation in the rebirthing and nurturing of the nation of Israel.
But, like ancient Judah, we became enamored with our wealth and power, and we began turning our back on God.
– The Almighty Dollar became our god.
– Greed became our motivator.
– Gambling became a national pastime.
– Sex became our obsession.
– We became the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs.
– We kicked God out of our schools.
– We legalized abortion.
– We endorsed homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
– And we became the moral polluter of planet earth through our violent, immoral and blasphemous movies and television programs.

God’s Response

As we wallowed in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, God began raising up prophetic voices like Dave Wilkerson, calling this nation to repentance. And in the years since that time, he has raised up many more prophetic voices, 13 of which I identify in my book, God’s Prophetic Voices to America. When we refused to repent, the remedial judgments began to fall:
– The Vietnam War which occurred on the heels of the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
– The 9/11 Attacks (2001) — God allowed the terrorists to be successful in attacking the two symbols of our pride: the Twin Towers in New York, which represented our wealth; and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, which represented our power.
– Hurricane Katrina (2005) — Undoubtedly God’s response to our immorality and our forcing Israel to abandon the Gaza Strip. The storm formed in the Gulf on the last day of the Gaza Strip withdrawal and hit New Orleans as it was getting ready to host its annual homosexual festival.
– The September 2008 Stock Market Crash — Again, a response to our attempts to strong-arm Israel into surrendering its heartland. It occurred on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the market fell by 777 points — indicating the signature of God.
– The Election of Barack Obama (2008) — God gave us the kind of leader we deserved — a man who was the most pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-Capitalist, anti-Israel leader in the entire history of our nation.
– “The Perfect Storm” of 2020 — A pandemic combined with a stock market crash, the collapse of our economy and pandemonium in the streets.

Let me take a moment to emphasize to you how serious the decay of our society has become. Only a person my age can appreciate how radically and how quickly our society has disintegrated.
I was born in 1938 when autos still had running boards and gasoline was 20 cents a gallon. When I was born…
– Abortionists were sent to prison.
– Pregnancy out of wedlock was thought of as scandalous.
– Homosexuality was considered unnatural and immoral.
– Pornography was despised as a sexual perversion.
– Drugs were something you bought at a drug store.
– Marriage was sacred.
– Living together was taboo.
– Divorce was a disgrace.
– Same-sex marriage was beyond even the wildest and most depraved imagination.
– Homemaking was honored, and daycare was provided by mothers in their homes.
– Child abuse was almost unheard of.
– Ladies did not curse or smoke.
– The word, “damn,” was considered flagrant language in a movie.

The first major motion picture to use a curse word was Gone with the Wind in 1939. The movie ended with the phrase, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” In 2013 a film called The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, had the “f-word” in it 544 times in 180 minutes!
In 1997, the veteran television star, Steve Allen, denounced the growing filth in movies and television by saying, “We have become a society where vulgarians entertain barbarians.” And that was over 20 years ago!
In the third part of this series determining what the Bible has to say about a future revival or revolution in America, we will realize Humanism has indeed won the cultural battle.















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