HISTORY Of REVIVALS – God Answering Prayer for Nations

A BRIEF HISTORY OF REVIVALS

Though it is very easy to become discouraged by our current state of affairs.  There is hope.  It has often been as bad or worse than it is now, and God has rescued His people   The following should give hope, and reason to dedicate yourself to prayer to see God’s hand at work in restoration again.  NOTE:  This is not meant to be a precise and comprehensive view of history but an overview of some of the cycles of God’s people: straying from God, God allowing discipline and judgment to fall on them, God’s people humbling themselves and praying for deliverance, and God providing restoration and healing their lands.

God is both a righteous and Holy God who cannot tolerate sin:

 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You cannot look on wickedness with favor.  Habkkuk 1:13

And a Loving and merciful God.

 But God, being rich in mercy,  Ephesians 2:4

 The Lord is gracious and merciful; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.  Psalm 145:8

 “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more.”  Hebrews 8:12

God’s people and other nations have many times in the past have strayed from His ways and will discipline them to drive them to follow Him.

For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews  12:6

So when people turn from God as discipline and punishment He allows the Evil One (Satan) to ravage their land through famine, sickness, and war.  But when his people do humble themselves, seek His face, pray, and repent of their sins He not only restores blessing to them but to their land and others in their land as well.

ANCIENT ISRAEL

In the books of Judges and Kings we constantly see Israel straying from God’s ways and worshipping idols and God then bringing enemy nations or disease or famine against them to get them to turn back to Him.  And yet God promises that if they turn back to Him, He will restore them:

So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.  The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies… Then…  the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. . Judges 2:13-18

 

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”  II Chronicles 7:13-14

God even showed compassion to nations other than Israel, warning them of coming judgment and urging the to repent.   The book of Jonah tells where God sends the prophet Jonah to the very wicked city of Nineveh to warn them to repent or He will destroy them.  Nineveh was an exceedingly wicked where they violated gender boundaries, flayed their enemies alive, dismembered their enemies bodies and paraded them in the streets, and it seemed there was no act of cruelty they would not use.  Yet God gave them a chance to repent.

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them   When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. ⁷ He issued a proclamation and it said,…”let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.  Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.  Jonah 3:4-10

 

And when the nation of Israel forsook the Lord He took the ten Northern tribes into captivity in Assyria and the two southern tribes into captivity in Babylon for seventy years for neglecting for 490 years to give the land of Israel a sabbath rest (once every seven years).  Hence 70 years in captivity.

Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.  II Chronicles 36:20-21

But when Jeremiah and Nehemiah and others prayed for God to restore Israel God heard their prayers and over a century returned Israel from Babylon to the Holy Land.

For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your^]fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’  Jeremiah 29:10-14

 

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I said, “I beseech You, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, let Your ear now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father’s house have sinned.  We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember the word which You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.’ ^…   I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to revere Your name, Nehemiah 1:4-10

And after the exile into Babylon Israel rarely ever ventured into worshipping other gods again.  Their worship at times was nominal but they did not turn to the Baals.  And even though Israel was under domination by Persia, Greece, and Rome from that time on, God protected and prospered Israel as a nation.

It is only when they rejected their Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, about 30-33 AD and crucified Him did God destroy Jerusalem in 70 AD and scatter the Israelites to the nations.   But there is a prophecy of Zechariah that one day Israel will once again seek God’s face and recognize their Messiah and God will remember His promises to them.

“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.  Zechariah 12:10

 

THE EARLY CHURCH

The early church was born out of persecution of the early believers.   Those who professed Christianity were set alight as human torches in the Roman streets.   So, there weren’t many believers who professed Jesus as Lord who dabbled with worshipping other Gods.   But the book of Revelation in chapters 2-3 does speak of a risen Jesus giving messages to some first century churches which were straying from the truth and warnings of God’s judgment on them.  And the Apostle Paul constantly warned the early churches of being seduced by pagan religions of men.  And God disciplined those churches which strayed.

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?  These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.  Colossians 2:20-23

And Paul’s rejoicing when his pleas for churches to repent of sins where followed.

 For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it—for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while—  I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.  For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.  II Corinthians 7:8-10

 

THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH

Although during this period we do not have the inspired Word of God to give us a clear understanding the exact moments of this cycle of:  the sinning by God’s people –  the discipline of God –  the repentance by believers –  God’s restoration of fortunes —  we can still see general patterns in world history.

As the church became legal under Constantine it became rich and strayed from God and God did not bless.  As a result the Barbarians sacked Rome and as a result the church was subject to discipline.  As the undisciplined church again strayed from Jesus’ teachings, the Muslims conquered most of Northern Africa and wiped out the churches there.  What followed was the church split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.   The ten centuries that followed are recognized by History as the Dark Ages, when not much human progress was made.  But there was some revival under the Holy Roman Empire through the Frankish (German) King Charles Martel and Charlemagne where God’s protection stopped the Islamic invasion of Europe at the Battle of Tours, and allowed most of Europe to stay Christian.

But in general the Roman Catholic church which was the most prominent sunk into many of the same sins as Ancient Israel.  Chaucer’s Canterbury tales tells of the sexual debauchery and immorality that monks and nuns in the church fell into.   Popes were having children out of wedlock, two popes arose, one in France and one in Rome casting anathemas on each other, the church sold “indulgences” which allowed people to sin at will.   The Crusades did recapture Jerusalem briefly from Islam, but there were many atrocities committed during the Crusades which are still a black mark on the church to this day.   Of course as a result wars like the hundred years war were commonplace in Europe and then there were diseases like the Bubonic Plague which killed as many as 1/3 on the continent and indicated the judgment of God on His people

Then came Martin Luther, John Calvin and others calling the church back to a Reformation of the true Gospel and Christian value instead of all the other added religion of men and a corrupt church (Solo Scriptura (by Scripture alone), Solo Fide (by faith alone), Solo Gratia (by Gods’ grace alone), Solo Christus (by Christ Alone) and Solo Deo Gloria (to God’s glory alone)).  Those who protested against the corruption of the Roman Catholic church at the time were called “Protest-tants” and the split away from the Roman Catholic church to  reform churches and turn back to seeking God’s face not merely religion.  And this Reformation even spurred a cleansing response in the Roman Catholic Church as they were losing members and they began to clean out the corruption and immorality in the church.

And as a result God’s blessing allowed for a period of Renaissance (or rebirth) of human achievement.  Some of the greatest art in history came out of this period.  To be sure not all of it was Christian, but the blessing of God caused an environment where not just believers but all in the land benefited.  It is not a coincidence the Renaissance happened about the same time as the Reformation.

This is not to say that all was perfect, the Spanish Inquisition is another dark mark on the church, but in general  once again true believers were seeking God more earnestly.

MODERN TIMES

There were several great awakenings in the 1700’s and 1800’s in England and the United States.   Most secular history books don’t report any of this because it doesn’t suit their naturalistic agenda to consider that spiritual aspects of history.

THE PURITANS AND PURIFICATION OF THE CHURCH

The “Enlightenment” had come and the intellectuals on the European continent believed philosophy could replace Christianity.  Rene Descartes proclaimed “I think therefore I am.” Man had become independent of God.   Meanwhile God brought upon them the thirty years war and other conflicts.   When the Church of England split from the Roman Catholic church it retained much of the compromised doctrine of the church because all King Henry the Eighth wanted was a divorce from his wife and a separate church to allow that.

And future kings retained those flawed doctrines, but as true Christians prayed a revolt by Oliver Cromwell instituted a new parliament and reforms were also made in the doctrine of the Church of England to conform with Protestant Reformation doctrines that had taken place in the rest of Europe.  For a short while The Church of England began to follow Christ, great books like “Pilgrims Progress” were written.  And groups of Puritans (to purify behavior and Doctrine) began to arise even amid persecution by again enthroned Kings who promoted Catholic doctrines or a compromised “Middle Way”.  But because of the prayers of revived puritan believers in England God’s blessed the entire land and allowed England began an ascendancy to be one of the greatest financial and military powers in the world at the time.  And it was during this time that the King James Bible was translated and made widely available by a new invention, the printing press.

THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL (ENGLAND) – THE FIRST GREAT AWAKENING (UNITED STATES)

However, by the late 1600’s and early 1700’s England had sunk into a spiritual slump.  Gambling was the national pastime, cockfighting and bull baiting was legal, boxing without gloves allowed contestant to punch others’ eyes out, drunkenness was rampant, in London one in every six houses was a drinking establishment, theater was lewd and filthy, sexual indulgence of that period was the inspiration for today’s pornography, chained women on hands and knees dragged coal carts, slaves were packed like sardines in slaving ships, hanging was a Sunday sport, the church was very decadent, and corrupt and some clergy were ungodly drunks.   To avoid persecution Puritans and those practicing a protestant faith came to the America for religious freedom.  In the American colonies profanity, drunkenness, brutal games, lawlessness, and compromise in the church also demoralized the land.  Religious sectarianism separated believers.

Meanwhile in the 1720’s in England God rose up great preachers:  John Wesley and George Whitfield and in Germany God rose up a spiritual movement of Moravians.  On the American continent some of the early preachers were Theodorus Frelinghuysen in New Jersey and Jonathan Edwards in Massachusetts.  They all believed in personal conversion and that you could know you God personally.  Because the Spirit of God had put a spiritual hunger into the hearts of these wayward nations, God worked through these men turned around the moribund faith in England and America.

George Whitfield and John Wesley would preach to crowds of 20,000 to 30,000 in both England and the United States.  In England they were not allowed to preach in the church so the preached in open fields.  In London no pastor would allow Whitfield to preach in the churches except one.   So, Whitfield preached in the Kensington Commons to thousands.  Over the course of the revival the Non-conformist churches (those not part of the Church of England) grew from 27 churches 926 churches.

In New England with a population of 300,000 Whitfield would preach to 15,000.  In Philadelphia he preached to 20,000 and 25,000.  This is all the more significant when you consider there were no voice amplification systems back then.  In New England out 30 new congregations were formed in the next 18 months and over the next 20 years 30,000 professed Christ and 150 new congregations were founded.

One result of this revival was that William Tennent, a Presbyterian minister started a log cabin school for preachers.  This school later became the College of New Jersey and later became Princeton University.  One of the presidents of the College of New Jersey, John Witherspoon, later was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Jesus tells the disciples to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the harvest.  Look what happened as people prayed back in the early 1700’s.  Whitfield was an eloquent preacher, but not so Jonathan Edwards.  He would just read his written sermons.  But the Spirit of God moved so mightily though him, particularly in his most well known sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that the congregants were so moved with the truth of the message that they would tightly hold on to the pew in front of them for fear they might drop off into eternity before having a chance to receive Christ at the end of the sermon.

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING – 1792

At that time the spiritual condition of the United States had sunk to such a low ebb that the great church historian Kenneth Scott LaTourette said that “It seemed as if Christianity were to be ushered out of the affairs of men.”  There was a severe decline of morals in the aftermath of the rough and tumble times of the  Revolutionary War and the licentious French revolution.  The French revolution touted such noble things as: Liberty; Equality, Fraternity (does that sound familiar today) but this morality apart from God was followed by a tyrannical government “Reign of Terror”.  The advocates crowned a prostitute as Goddess of Reason in the Church of Notre Dame and practically every church in France was closed.  Voltaire who had a vitriolic hate for the Gospel, claimed that he was living “in the twilight of Christianity”.   The rationalism of David Hume swept England.

One of the most prominent Generals in the United States Revolutionary War was General Charles Lee and he said we should tear down all the churches because they stand in the way of progress.  In the United States U.S. 6% of the entire U.S. population were drunkards, the insurrection of the Whiskey Rebellion struck Pennsylvania to overthrow the government, bank robberies were a daily occurrence, there was not one believer at Harvard, and at Princeton only two admitted to being believers,  they held a mock communion at Williams College, one Congregational church in Massachusetts had not taken in one new member in 16 years, The Episcopal Bishop of New York quit and found another line of work for a lack of any new confirmations, In Boston only one Congregational Church had not abandoned the Gospel to a Unitarian message, and all the major denominations were losing members and spoke of the ungodliness covering the nation.  The Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall wrote that the church “was too far gone to ever be redeemed”.

But in both England and the United States God raised up his faithful remnant to prayer.   In England William Carey, Andrew Fuller, and John Sutcliffe led in starting a Union of prayer on the first Monday of each month to pray.  In New England Isaac Backus, a Baptist pastor, addressed a plea to leaders of every denomination to set aside the first Monday of the month to pray and they responded.  In the worst part of Kentucky, Rogues Harbor, a James McGready promoted the first Monday of each month to pray.  But Kentucky was a lawless, irreligious territory.  They hadn’t held a court of law in five years.  Vigilantes fought a pitched battle against the outlaws and lost.

And in answer to these prayers by the summer of 1800 seventeen thousand gathered to a meet in this unruly part of Kentucky with McGready to take communion.  But since most weren’t believers and ministers were preaching the gospel to bring them to Christ.  And as time went on people came with wagons and tents to camp to these meetings which became as large as 25,000.  This started the campground revival meetings.  The church in Lennox, Massachusetts which hadn’t seen any new members in 16 years in one year took in five times as many members as it had ever had in any previous year of the church.  Churches began overflowing with seekers.  Churches of 200 members would become a church of 800 members.  Young people involved in promiscuous dancing would be so convicted of sin that they would leave the dance floor or the tavern and go to seek spiritual counsel.  The revival swept through Carolinas, Georgia, the frontier and the whole United States.

Results of this revival in England were the abolition of the slave trade, education for the underclasses (which had only been available to the rich), the outlawing of cruel exploitation of women working in coal mines, and the beginning of the Bible Societies.  In America in Boston the Baptists started to see large numbers come to Christ.   At Williams College six revived students had to shelter from the rain one day and met underneath a haystack.  Their commitment was so strong that they vowed to preach the gospel to anywhere in the world that God sent them even though there were no missionary societies in those days to send them.  But this began the first of the American mission societies.  New colleges were formed by those who believed the Gospel.  By 1860 of the 180 colleges in the Midwest, 144 had been started by evangelists and revivalists.  And in an ironic twist of providence less than sixty years after his death, the house where Voltaire wrote his anti-christian plays, was now lived in by the President of the Evangelical Society of Geneva and used to store Bibles and Gospel tracts.  For more listen to https://jedwinorr.com/audio-archive-week-with-jedwinorr/   (Revivals in Early America)

THE FOURTH GREAT AWAKENING – THE 1858 PRAYER REVIVAL

1857 was a time not unlike our own.  People were making money hand over fist and forgetting God, and there was so much surplus in the U.S. Treasury they could have completely paid off the national debt.  Then only a few months later every bank in the country went broke.  The issue of slavery was splitting the country North and South and a civil war followed only a few years later.   There had been a decline spiritually as there was a major movement in 1843 predicting the return of Christ with no return, and many were disillusioned and church attendance had hit the skids.  Academia was attacking religion in the age of rationalism, empiricism, evolution, and higher criticism of the Bible.  To them the Bible was little more than a myth like those of the Greek gods on Mount Olympus.  It seemed that the forces of secularism would never be reversed.

A British Methodist, William Arthur wrote of book “Tongues of Fire” from a series of sermons he gave  appealing for the Holy Spirit to fall upon the moribund church of the day as He did at Pentecost.  “Descend upon all the churches.  Renew Pentecost in this our age.  Baptize they people again generally with tongues of fire.  Crown this century with a revival of pure religion greater than that of the last century, greater than that of the first, and greater than any demonstration of the Spirit ever yet vouchsafed to man.”

Many evangelicals read the book and there was a concert of prayer before the banks failed by Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians.   Out of this in 1858 emerged small prayer groups across the country that began to emerge as God put on the hearts of his people to prayer.  One such group was in the spiritual icebox of New York City in a Dutch Reformed church in downtown Manhattan.  A man named Jeremiah Lamphiere put up posters around town advertising a prayer meeting at the church from Noon to 1 during lunch hour.  Out of a city of one million at noon, the only person there was Jeremiah.  But by 12:30 another person came, and by 12:35 there were six people praying.  It wasn’t anything spectacular.  No miracles or visions, just people praying for revival in their country, and at 1 they left.  The next week the attendance went to 14 people praying for one hour.  The next week 43. Then they began praying every day from noon to 1.

Within a short while, the word was out that people all over New York City were praying every day for the country.  A newspaper editor, Horace Greely (“Go West Young Man, Go West”) sent a reporter out on horse back to race from church to church over the noon hour to see how many people were praying.  He only got to twelve churches but counted 6,000 men in prayer.  When this was published, the attendance at these prayer meetings exploded so that churches all over New York city were packed every day with people praying.

One pastor who felt overwhelmed announced at a meeting that he had been counseling and leading people to Christ but had run of time in the one hour allotted and said the church would be open indefinitely all day for preaching the gospel to those who wanted to come to Christ.  There were as many as 10,000 people a week professing Christ in New York and across the country.   Prayer meetings came up everywhere.  In Park Street Church in Boston Charles Finney said it was impossible to keep track of all the converts.  In some cities in New England church bells would ring three times a day calling people in the town to prayer.   In Portland, Maine church bells rang at noon, and all the town left their work, came to pray, and put signs on their doors of business, “Closed for the hour of prayer”.

A professor of religion at Harvard, a Unitarian, Fredrick Dan Huntington, thought it would be in keeping with the national trend to start a midweek prayer meeting… and he became a Christian as a result, and later became an Episcopal Bishop.  In upstate New York, so many people were coming to Christ that they didn’t have room in the church to baptize them all, so they went down to the Mohawk River, broke the ice and baptized them there.   And as one church historian said “When Baptists do that, they really are on fire spiritually.”

There was a town in Vermont were it was said that everyone there had come to Christ. In Cincinnati Ohio 2,000 out of a city of 40,000 were in prayer meetings every single day.  In Kalamazoo, Michigan a pastor read a anonymous prayer request where a praying woman asked for prayer for her husband whom she said was far from God.   Right then a man stood up and said “My wife prays for me, I’m far from God.”  Soon another man stood up and said the same thing.  And within a few minutes six men were brought to Christ.

Thousands of letters from new Christians started to reach California where many came to the Lord there.  In one town East of San Jose, almost everyone came to Jesus.  In San Francisco there were daily prayer meetings.   In Newark, N.J. 2,800 of a city of 70,000 became followers of Christ in just a few months.  In Philadelphia 12 men gathered in prayer and in a few months there were 3,000 men were meeting over lunch hour every day in prayer.  In Washington, D.C.  5,000 people attended a prayer meeting in the Academy of Music.

And this also extended to the South where huge numbers of black slaves were coming to Christ.  In Beaufort South Carolina one church of blacks and whites saw 428 people baptized in the course of 15 weeks, 422 of them were black.  This made it the world’s largest Baptist church.  In Charlottesville, S.C. the pastor began prayer meetings for revival of a church with 48 blacks and 12 whites soon was preaching night and day to 1,500 to 2,000 people for eight weeks solid.

In the period of two years one million people (out of about 30 million) in the United States were added to the church roles.  At Yale and most college campuses over half of all the students had made professions of faith.   At the same time there was a revival in Ireland, and one in Scotland where 300,000 came to the Lord, and 100,000 in Wales.   In London, all the commoners churches were packed, so they had to take over the theater houses to accommodate the numbers for preaching and prayer.  In Canada a revival broke out starting in Ontario.

Back in Chicago, out of a population of 100,000 there were 2,000 men meeting in prayer every week.  And churches were meeting two to four times a day.  The Trinity Episcopal church had a membership of 121 in 1857 and built a new church to hold 1,400 in 1860.   One shoe salesman wanted to lead a Sunday School class but they already had too many teachers, so the man gathered boys off the streets, took them out to open fields and taught them the Bible and how to behave in church and they became his Sunday School class.  That man was Dwight L. Moody and that was the start of his ministry which blossomed as a result of the 1858 prayer revival.  In looking back on his 40 year ministry, he claimed he had never seen such a movement of the Spirit of God as that during that 1858 revival.

We never learned this is our high school history classes.   The world doesn’t want us to know about the great movements of God.  To them all is determined by political party victories, massive monetary policy, and socio-economic reforms.   But we know it is God working in men’s hearts that can change the world, one life at a time.  The revival did not stop the Civil War which was a part of God’s plan to end the sin of slavery, but perhaps it allowed the country to survive the War and once again reunite it again afterwards.

Isaiah said to the Israelites “The Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save, neither is His ear so dull that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.”  James said “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”   Our country is not beyond repair.  As we humble ourselves before God, confess and repent of our sins, He can and will heal our land.    God has done it before and He can do it again in our generation.

For more on the 1858 Prayer Revival see:  https://jedwinorr.com/video-archives-history-of-revival/  “The Awakening of 1858 in America.   See also “The Awakening of 1859 in Britain and Elsewhere”.

(MANY EXCITING WORKS OF GOD MORE TO COME, The Azuza Street Revival, the Jesus Movement, The Evangelists like Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, the underground church movements in Communist Countries.   The lies of a nation can never extinguish the truth.