When a Nation Forgets God

By Bobby Blakey on July 5, 2016

Nahum 1:1

AUDIO

When a Nation Forgets God

By Bobby Blakey on July 5, 2016

Nahum 1:1

This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:02] If you are just joining us tonight at Compass Bible Church, welcome to Great Awakening, we here. We're very excited to have you here with us. And we try to take the Bible as seriously as possible here at the church whenever we gather together. We want to open God's word and preach it and explain it and apply it to our lives. And so a verse that we know and love here at our church is second, Timothy, chapter three versus 16 and 17. Hopefully a verse you're familiar with, maybe got memorized. If this is your church, it says the second Timothy, three, 16 to 17. It says all scripture is breathed out by God. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness at the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work that this book right here that you may be hold is a God Brede book. And so God inspired it in the Holy Spirit, moved men to write it. And every single thing that we've got in all 66 books here is straight from God to us. And it'll teach us it'll correct us from the wrong way to live. It'll show us the right way to live. Everything we need to live for God is here in this book. I believe that you believe that you're a CompassHB Bible church, that that's what we believe. That's why we we preach the word. Now, one thing that we are passionate about is passionate about preach in the parts of the book that maybe have been overlooked, maybe other people haven't really been preaching it. And so we have a goal that during the summers, one thing we want to do during the year, we're usually going through a New Testament book because we're the New Testament Church of Jesus Christ here. But we want to go through maybe the most overlooked books in all of the Bible, the minor prophets. That's our goal. OK. Sometimes they're referred to as the clean pages of the Bible because they're still stuck together. You know what I'm saying? So tonight we're gonna do a series. We're gonna start a three night series in the Book of Mayhem. So I'm gonna ask everybody to grab their Bible and open it up to the book of name page seven hundred and eighty two. If you got one of our Bibles and I've talked to some people who've been going to church for 30, 40 years who are here with us fellowshipping and they've never heard a sermon from the book and home. And I just think that's not right. If this is really inspired by God, then we should be reading it. We should be getting into it. We should be trying to learn from it. So that's our goal here in the Book of Nahum. And one thing that's been fascinating for me is I study these minor prophets as I often find that they involve nations of the world, primarily Israel, but sometimes other nations. And there are so many similarities between those nations and what is going on in our nation of America. So I know these are ancient books about the nations that existed before the time of Jesus Christ, but what God is saying to these nations and how it parallels what's going on in the nations of the world today. I mean, it's so relevant. Like, I can't think of anything better for us to be studying than the book of name. It's like right out of the headlines, I feel like, of America. And so hopefully tonight we can help you make the connection from mayhem to what's going on here in America. So Amen I ask everybody to stand out of respect for God's word and we're gonna read name chapter one, that words. That's all we're gonna be able to do on our three nights is name chapter 115 verses. So please just follow along with me.

[00:03:40] As I read this chapter, we're going to devote our time to study Nayim, Chapter one in Oracle concerning Minova, the book of the Vision of Nahum of El Coche. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and Raffael, the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps the wrath for his enemies.

[00:04:03] The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear that guilty his way, as in whirlwind and storm and the clouds or the dust of his feet, he rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bouchon in Carmel, wither the bloom of Lebanon, withers the mountains quake before him. The hills melt, the earth heaves before him. The world and all who dwell in it, who can stand before his indignation, who can endure the heat of his anger. His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overall flowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversary's and will pursue his enemies into darkness. What do you. Plot against the Lord. He will make a complete end. Trouble will not rise up a second time, for they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards. As they drink, they are consumed like stubble, fully dried from you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor. Thus, says the Lord, though they are at full strength and many they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart. The Lord is given commandment about you. No more. Shall your name be perpetuated from the house of your gods. I will cut off the carved image and the mental image. I will make your grave. For you are vile. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him. Who brings good news? Who publishes peace. Keep your fee. So, Judah, fulfill your vows. For never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off.

[00:06:03] Please go ahead and have a seat. Now, I don't know what you think about when you read that chapter. It's pretty intense. And maybe that's a reason a lot of people like to keep these pages closed in their Bible because it says some things about God that may not be our favorite things to think about. Clearly, if you look back at verse two, three times in one verse, it mentions that the Lord is avenging, avenging. He takes vengeance. So clearly, this is a book that is prophesying judgment, that is coming upon the people and the people that the judgment is coming upon. Go back to verse one. It says in Oracle concerning who who is this book to who?

[00:06:44] Minova. Minova. Now, I don't know what comes to your mind when you think about Minova, but Minova eventually became the capital city of what nation shouted out of, you know, a Syria at any of our young people who went to camp last week? They definitely know that. All right, Syria. So Minova. Hopefully that sounds a little bit familiar to you.

[00:07:08] Syria. Here's one of the reasons people have a hard time with Old Testament books, particularly the minor prophets. They don't understand the context. You just start reading that stock about some places you've never heard of. Sounds like a bunch of judgment and vengeance.

[00:07:22] Sounds like people are having feast and fulfilling vows. You don't know what's going on. Doesn't mean a lot to you. You move right along. Right. That's why when we understand the bigger context, we got to know what's going on, what's the context? What who who is named and why did you write this book? Who is it written to? That's why we recommend people have things like study bibles and commentaries, things that can help you kind of see what's going on around here. Why? What? Help me get the bigger picture. Okay, so we want to build a chart and it's gonna be both on the front and the back. If you've got a handout and the goal tonight is to help you get the bigger context of what's going on so you could be able to understand the book of name and not only understand it, but really benefit from it and love it and apply it to your life and see it as the word of God just as much as your most famous memorized verses. So in our first blank there, let's just write down a Syria. That's who we're talking about. All right. We're gonna build a chart throughout the evening and we're gonna start with the nation of Syria. And at this point, even in our churches little study of the minor prophets, we can begin to get the big picture up the story of this nation of Syria. If you were here last year when we on our first summer where we did our first minor profit, what was the first minor profit we did anybody remember? Shout it out. Jonah was what we did. And we did a series called God Revive America because Jonah was sent to go to Nova and to tell them that they were gonna be judged. And there was a great turn that took place in that city. An amazing movement of repentance, perhaps unlike the world has ever seen. But Jonah, he didn't want to go there and talk to those people. No, he went the opposite direction. And so here we have the map of what Jonah did. He was in Joppa over here in Israel, and he was supposed to go to nine of us.

[00:09:12] So you can see JOP where Israel is right there on the on the coast kind of near Tel Aviv these days. And then Minova is out there where we might think of as kind of the area of Syria. We're back in the day known as US Syria. There it is. He's supposed to go five hundred and fifty miles that way.

[00:09:31] And he goes to Tarshish. He goes as far as he can in the opposite direction of the known world at that time. Two thousand five hundred miles the wrong direction. Now, if you know the rest of the story, God turns Jonah around and he gives him a second chance to go to Nineveh. And he goes this time and we see this amazing work of repentance. So this is a part of what we know about the nation of Syria. Let's get this down for. Second little box here. There is a revival in Geneva. This we know and we know this from the book of Jonah. OK. And you can write down if you want to. Next to the name Jonah there, that this is the late 708 B.C.. So sometime around 750 or before then B.C., there is a mighty movement of God to turn the city of Minova around in a kind of revival. We might call it awakening. We just a movement that is not normal at all. In fact, turn over to Jonah, Chapter three and let's just review in case anybody wasn't here last summer, in case this is new to you or even if you haven't read Jonah for a while. Jonah finally makes it to Minova. And look what happens here in Chapter three. It's an amazing thing. The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Hnin of that great city. And we think it was the largest city in the world at the time. We think that for some reason, God really cared about this city, probably because of the number of souls that were there. And he says, call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Minova, according to the word of the Lord. Now, Minova was an exceedingly great city. Three days journey and breadth. And so Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey. And he called out. Here's a simple message that he's shouting out down the streets of Nineveh, it seems. Yet forty days and none of us shall be overthrown. And in Hebrew, it's only five words, 40 days overthrown. That's his message. And the people of Minova, they believed God. They believed the word of the Lord that came to them through the Prophet Jonah. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. Now watch. The king is going to declare here a national day of repentance. It says in verse six, the word reached the king of Minova and he arose from his throne. He removed his robe.

[00:12:01] He covered himself with sackcloth and satin ashes, and he issued a proclamation. Can you imagine a president or a governor or somebody, a mayor doing this today in America? He issued a proclamation and published through an Innova. By the decree of the King and his nobles. Let neither man nor beast hurt nor flock taste anything. Nobody eats. Let them not feed or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. The symbol of mourning. And let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Denovo was known as an exceedingly violent and aggressive city that would just destroy their enemies and in brutal ways. And it says, who knows?

[00:12:46] If we turn from the evil who make, God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

[00:12:54] And when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them. And he did not do it. So this is this is absolutely amazing. You've got a prophet who doesn't even want to go. And he eventually gets to the city. He says a very kind of basic message, 40 days and you'll be overthrown. And it seems like the entire city. Estimates range from like 600000 to a million people. The entire city, it seems, from the king on down to the animals. We got to turn from our evil because if we repent of our evil, maybe God will relent of his judgment. And that's exactly what happened. That's an amazing work of God to use a prophet who doesn't even want to be there and turn an entire city of people around from their sin to him. An amazing thing that has happened. This Minova that we're reading about here. And Jonah. Chapter three is this same Minova that name is now being written to. OK, so we've got to understand the bigger picture. And this is really fascinating. When you read about a turn like that, like we're going the wrong way, we're headed towards judgment. And from the king down, we say we need to go the opposite way. We need to beg the forgiveness of God. Maybe he will change his mind about us if we change our mind about our sin. I mean, that's personally something that gets me excited. That's what I would love to see happen in America today. Anybody else want to say amen to that? I assume that's part of the reason you're here on a Tuesday night while we're talking about this. Right, as we want to see some kind of work of God like this, a massive movement of repentance. And here's often a verse that people bring up when we think about a city, a state, a country turning to God. We bring up a verse like this.

[00:14:45] This is Second Chronicles. Chapter seven, verse 14. And it says, If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then. And I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. OK, so here's another Old Testament passage. This is something that God says to Solomon, the king, in response to the building and dedication of the temple. If my people pray and there is a turning away all come in. All, forgive and I'll heal their land. Can we now? Usually when we talk about a nation, when we think about a nation in the Old Testament, the main nation that we're talking about in the Old Testament is what nation shouted out God, Israel, God's chosen people. OK, now here's the problem. Israel is a unique nation in the history of the world. So we look at a verse like this, a very encouraging verse about people praying to God, turning humbling themselves, the kind of movement we want to see happen in America. And there's a lot of debate. Maybe you've heard about it. There's a lot of debate about can we claim a verse like this for us here in America? OK. And so sometimes when we compare Israel, which has a specific promise from God that he will always be with them as a nation, they will always be his people. There's covenant between God and the nation of Israel. And then we've got America over here who seems to have been a nation favored by God, but we don't have necessarily the same covenants and guarantee that the nation of Israel does. So can we really apply a verse like this to us here in America?

[00:16:34] Sometimes maybe you've heard people just using this verse and saying, if we pray, God will heal our land here in America.

[00:16:40] And then maybe you've heard people or maybe you've even been one of those people where somebody quote Second Chronicles seven 14. And like the context, police come in and they say, oh, that's not talking about America. You can't use that verse. What do you know about the Bible? You know, to me, that's not very friendly, right?

[00:16:55] Well, it's what we want to understand here is the hermeneutical distinction between a promise and a principle. Could you just write that down? Their promise and a principle? Do we have a promise that God is going to heal the land of America, that there will always be a nation of America, that we are God's people and he will always be good to us? Do we have that promise in America?

[00:17:20] No, we don't. We do not have that promise.

[00:17:23] I don't think I don't see anywhere in the scripture where it talks about the United States of America always being there and God protecting us, preserving us no matter what. I don't see that in the scripture.

[00:17:37] The only nation that I see having that kind of promise, that kind of covenant with it, is God's chosen nation of Israel. Now, a principle throughout the scripture, if that if a nation does turn from their sins, if they do pray to God that God will come in, he will forgive them. He will bless them. He will use them. OK. That's a principle that we have that if we as a nation, if we do what this first says and we do get serious about praying and humbling ourselves and turning from sin and seeking after the Lord, there is a principle that God would bless our nation and that we would see a great work of God in our nation. It's not a promise.

[00:18:19] The future of America is not guaranteed to always be some great nation on planet Earth. Many of the great nations who were at one time the superpower of planet Earth no longer exist today are greatly reduced and compared to who they used to be.

[00:18:37] There's no guarantee, not a promise for America. But we do have the principle of how God works among nations, in fact. Go to Jeremiah, Chapter 18, a little further to the left here in the Old Testament. And I don't know if you caught this a couple of weeks ago when Pastor Pete was here preaching on this passage in JEREMI 18. But I just want to make sure everybody understands that there is a principle that God gives in this passage about how he's going to treat the nations of planet Earth. Nations like the one you and I are living in here in 2016. Look at the the versus here of Jeremiah, 18 versus seven to 10. OK. And two different pattern stew, different principles that that could apply to our nation or to any nation. Got the nation of Israel is kind of a unique exception.

[00:19:27] But here's a rule, a principle for all the nations. If at any time God says and Jeremiah 18, verse seven, if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up, break down and destroy it. I'm going to 40 days overthrown. I'm going to come and destroy. If that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, repents of their sin, I will then relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. Is that is that what we saw happen to Jonah three? They turned from their evil to God when they repented to. God relent of the disaster. That's exactly what we saw in John Chapter three. We've seen that work it out. Now look at verse nine. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it. And if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice. Okay, years a nation that looks like God's gonna be good to and bless. But now they turn the wrong way. They turn away from God. They turn into evil. If it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. So this seems pretty straightforward how God's principle is that he's going to interact with the nations of the Earth. If you're headed down the wrong way and God's going to judge you, well, he gives you an opportunity to turn away from your evil. And then he won't. He won't treat you with that same judgment over your sin. But if you're going the right way and you turn from the right way into evil, well, then judgment is going to come upon a nation. So that's the principle that applies to America. So you to ask yourself right now as we start to kind of think compare a Syria to America, what are we doing there? Do we get off to a good start? And now we're going the wrong way. What does it say is going to happen to a nation like that? Now, another thing we know about a Syria. Let's get to our our next little box here on our chart, our next little arrow. Another thing we know about Syria is they end up invading Israel. So, God, after there's a revival in Geneva and as Geneva is kind of becoming the capital city of a of the whole nation of Syria, maybe because of the revival there, I don't know. One thing that God uses this strong and and numerous nation to do is he uses them actually to come in and judge his own people. That's what we've been talking about in the Book of Hosie on Sunday mornings. And we're gonna get back to our study of Hozier this Sunday. If you come to church and they're God's people, instead of worshiping God and having their hearts in love with God. They were cheating on God. They were worshiping idols. Their hearts were pursuing sin. And so God said, hey, because you guys are committing adultery in your heart, spiritual adultery. You're not loving me faithfully. You're not being my people. Well, you're going to be wiped out. Who does God use to wipe out the northern kingdom of Israel? He uses the nation of Syria. That, too. And here's our little map that we've been working with. As we've been going through Hosoya, we're trying to teach everybody that Israel after King Solomon. It breaks into the northern kingdom, which was then referred to as Israel and the southern kingdom, which is referred to as anybody. Remember this? There's going to be a quiz on this someday. You're just going to show up at church. There will be a pop quiz in your seat on that. I'm not even sure. So we want everybody to know that there's two different kingdoms, two different capital cities. And so in seven hundred and twenty two B.C., this is sometime after the time of Jonah. Syria comes in. And God now uses this strong and mighty nation to judge his own people. And you could write down Hosoya, chapter one, verse four as a reference where God says he's going to make an end to the northern kingdom of Israel that we've been looking at. And Syria is the nation that he does to do it. So we've only gotten into three minor prophets so far. We did. Jonah, last summer we started Hosoya. Now we're hitting up a special series this week on Mayhem. But already we've started to see the picture of what's going to happen with Syria. We start with the revival in Geneva. Just reviewing our chart, what we've got so far here in the nation of Syria. There's a great revival. They even invade God's own people. They're clearly doing well. But now we get to the Book of Mayhem and we see clearly that judgment is coming upon Syria. So this is not the nation of Israel. This is not a nation that has a unique promise from God that even if you get judged in the near history, in the long term, I have a plan for you. You're my you're my people. I'm never gonna leave you or forsake you. You will always be my people. That's the kind of unique promise that God makes to Israel. So sometimes it's hard to compare Israel to America because they have a special promise from God that we don't necessarily have. But now we've see a different nation clearly revealed to us in the Old Testament, a time of great revival, a time of great strength and prosperity. And then suddenly, if you go back to name Chapter one, look at when it says the judgment is coming, the vengeance of God that is going to come upon them. God is going to not let the guilty get away with it. It says here he's like a whirlwind. He's like a storm. He's like a fire. He's like a flood. All kinds of natural disaster analogies of how God is going to come and wipe these people out. And when are they going to get wiped out? Look at verse twelve. Thus, says the Lord, though they are at full strength and. Many they will be cut down and pass away. There's a great revival. There's great prosperity now among the nation. But now the people have done the worst thing that a nation can ever do.

[00:25:13] They have forgotten God in Innova, the capital city of a Sierra. And when you forget God. God always remembers. And he says, now you are my enemies. Now you are my adversaries and you will not cause me trouble a second time. God says to them, this is the story of a Syria. The story of what happens when a nation forgets God. Its gets judged is what happens.

[00:25:43] Look. Look at these versus we'll just put them up here on the screen. This is Psalm 33, verse twelve. This was a verse we talked about on our National Day of Prayer says, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. Man, you want to be a blessed nation. Make sure you acknowledge God as the God, the Lord of your nation. But then you've got a different song here. Psalm Chapter nine, verse 17. The wicked shall return to Sheol. All the nations that forget God. Now, where is she old? You know. You know that she all is the Old Testament place of the white dead.

[00:26:26] So we just went from, hey, you want to be a blessed nation? Well, if you're if if God is the Lord, if the Lord is your God, I mean, if you're acknowledging him and acting like he's the one that's over, you will you will be blessed. But when you forget him, it's like you're the whip, the wicked. And it's like you're going to the place of death. So in the seven hundreds, Jonah shows up unwillingly. And there's an amazing revival in 722 B.C., they invade Israel. God uses them to bring judgment to his own people by the six hundreds when name is written. They've forgotten God and they're going to be judged. Six hundred and twelve B.C. a Syria is wiped out by the means. And the Persians as Babylon comes in.

[00:27:15] So within like 100 years, maybe a little over 100 years. They went from a nation that was revived and turning from its evil and gods, turning from its judgment to a nation that God says vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, too. And he comes after them. And he says, your name is no longer going to be perpetuated on the earth. I'm going to wipe you out. This is the tragic story of what happens when a nation forgets God. So now we've set up a really striking parallel to what has happened in the history of our nation. And let's start talking about America. You want to turn your hand out over here. We've got now a second layer of the chart and we want to talk about America.

[00:28:03] Land that I love. Right. Anybody else here love America? I love America. I was I share a birthday with Ronald Reagan, everybody. That's how America I am. I was actually born on the year he took office. So that tells you how old I am right there. But Ronald Reagan and I, we've had a tight connection since the day of my birth. That's how American I am. All right. I love things like the Fourth of July has quickly become my favorite day of the year. And it's not just because we're winning trophies. I mean, that parade down there is a great time. Anybody have a good time down there at that at that parade? It was a great time. Great time to spend together. Great time to spread the word. I mean, here's you you saw the video. So these are kind of these are kind of redundant, but I hope you could see everything that was going on in our flow. We had the Boston Tea Party going on with the kids throwing tea overboard. Then we had the American soldiers going off to war. The one with the five. They're in the middle is especially cute.

[00:28:58] And then we had Thomas Jefferson himself signing the Declaration of Independence. And and and and we read a quote from it. So, I mean, we understand when we think about America, I hope that we know the basic history. I mean, it seemed like yesterday was a bunch of red, white and boom is what it sounded like at my house, you know? I mean, at some point, you really you really realize I must live in a very affluent neighborhood because we have all kinds of money to spend just blowing it up. I mean, we're literally just exploding money in the neighborhood all night long. I mean, I'm talking about one, two, three o'clock. I don't need to go to Disneyland ever again. I don't need to go to an Angels game. I mean, literally, the chair that I sit in my like my recliner chair at my house. I sat there and I watched Disneyland level quality stuff going on all night. I mean, stuff that was so loud. My kids are crying, screaming out like we're in a battle zone, you know? No, this is just America. This is what we do.

[00:30:06] We blow stuff up. Yeah. Pound it. Pass me some more of that red, white and blue jello. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's what we do. Give me that burger with a little flag in it. You know, saying all that stuff. That's. But I think that's really all it's become. I mean, I think it's like a party and it's a red, white and blue themed party. And there's explosions at the party. I really don't think there's a lot of thought as to what happened two hundred and forty years ago in our nation. I think there's a radical disconnect between the history of how America got started and what America has become today. And I think it's a massive problem. And this is one of the reasons we wanted to do that, Flo. We wanted to bring up at least put it in front of everybody. The Declaration of Independence, I mean, that's what happened on July 4th, 1776. And it was written, we know primarily by Thomas Jefferson. But there was a there was a whole crew of guys, including Benjamin Franklin, who were advisors.

[00:31:05] And kind of the most famous line from the declaration is 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. Do you realize that Thomas Jefferson, a man who was clearly never claimed to be a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, he is saying that the reason he thinks our nation should be independent from the nation of Great Britain is a creator, has given us rights here in these colonies. He is using the fact that there is a creator as his argument, as his case for our independence as a nation. He is not arguing for independence from our creator. He is saying that because we have a creator, we should be able to be an independent, self-governing people.

[00:32:05] That's what he's saying. Can you imagine our government today using the fact that we have a creator as an argument for what it is doing?

[00:32:16] That's how America began by people who were not Christians, but they all had a common understanding. They all acknowledged something. God. That's what they acknowledged. That's that's how this nation began. I think a lot of people just celebrated the Fourth of July without any acknowledging of God being over our nation. In fact, I read this infuriating article. Thank you, Facebook once again for showing me something that I then click on. And then I asked myself, why did I read this? Right. Because it was this article by some guy who's upset that at every Major League Baseball game yesterday across America on the Fourth of July, during the seventh inning stretch. They didn't just sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. What other song did they sing? God Bless America. A singing at baseball games. And here's this guy ripping on why we should not be singing God Bless America in this nation. How offensive to all of the people who don't believe in God. Well, I wish somebody had given that spiel to Thomas Jefferson back in the day and it wasn't just him. Let's talk about another founding father that we know. Let's talk about this guy. You ever heard of this guy right here before, J.W.? Right, G.W..

[00:33:30] I mean, sorry not to Jehovah's Witnesses. No. George Washington. George Washington. Right.

[00:33:38] G.W., this guy was such a boss. We made him the boss of our nation. Right now, I don't know if you have ever read George Washington, as far as I know, never claimed to be a Christian. But I don't know if you ever read. Have you ever read the first inaugural address of the first president of the United States? Have you ever saw it? What did this guy have to say about winning the Revolutionary War, about being named first president of these states? Like what was his thought about it as anybody consulted George Washington? One of the things that he says is he says no, people can be bound to acknowledge and didor the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States.

[00:34:25] No people, he says. And I think he's referring to world history here. No people should acknowledge or adore the invisible hand that controls the affairs of men. Who's he talking about in the next line? He refers to the Providence Divine Providence. No one should acknowledge the divine hand of God like the people in America. Basically, I think what he's saying is the only way we ever want to warm became an independent nation was God did it. We should acknowledge him and we should adore him. That's the first president. Do you see see how when people are running around today saying whether there should be separation between church and state, can we just make sure we all know what that means? Right. Separation between the pilgrims are leaving England. They're coming over here for the purpose of religious freedom because they're tired of the church of anger. England. They're tired of a government run church. They're their principle is that the government shouldn't be running the church and the church shouldn't be running the government. They should be two separate institutions. That's what the separation of church and state means right there. OK. It does not mean that God and the government should have nothing to do with each other. Like people are trying to make it mean today in America, because I wish somebody could have explained that to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington so they wouldn't put these quotes out there. So it wouldn't be really awkward. Two hundred and forty years later, when a guy is trying to say, we shouldn't sing God Bless America. Have you consulted the Declaration of Independence on that body? Have you ever seen what our first president said?

[00:35:59] Now, there's a history before the history of America. I don't even you know, if we know, like, how our nation began with the founding fathers. But one thing we've completely forgotten is what happened before. And that's the Great Awakening. That's what we're here to kind of make sure everybody knows about. And I have never seen in my lifetime that since the days of Ronald Reagan, I have never seen. So, yeah, we're going to the Great Awakening here. That's your next little box there. That's what we had. We had a revival in Denver. We had a great awakening. This was like seventeen, thirty nine to 1742. So a couple of decades before we declared our independence, there was a an amazing revival that happened in the American colonies. And I don't know how many people know about it, but I've I'm so excited we're talking about this right now because I have never seen the level of interest that there is in America in what's going to happen in our nation as there is right now in America.

[00:36:57] All right. I mean, every time we have an election, it's a big deal. But this year, 2016 is like all time craziness. Anybody want to say amen to that? I mean, here I mean, it's I've never seen this level of interest for the first time in our history as a nation. We have a woman running for president, everybody. And that would be big enough news if it wasn't for the man who is running for president this time. All right. And he says a lot of very interesting things. But one thing that everybody knows that he says is that we need to make America great again. He says that over here we need to make America great again. As in, we used to be great. And now we're not that great. And we need to get great again. And if you vote for him, he's the guy who can make it great again. And then her response to this is that America is already great. And she has said this many times. America is already great. And if you would like to see it continue on its current path of greatness, I am the one who can keep it on that path. OK. So we have two people who are claiming that they are the key to the future of American greatness. We are in trouble, my friends. We are in trouble. Right? Nobody's like, hey, how about we change it up a little bit? How about some humility that clearly nobody's thinking about that. You know what I mean? Now we are going to be the greatest because we are the greatest. And anybody who kind of acts like we're not the greatest. How dare they? And if we say we're not great, well, we'll be great again tomorrow. Don't you worry. Right. I mean, it's all about that.

[00:38:34] We've completely forgotten what. Here's a question I want you to think about when you drive home today. What made America great nation? I want to go even beyond the general idea of God. I want to I want to go and say that I think America was a great nation because we had a great awakening.

[00:38:51] I think what happened was so pervasive. It was like the city of Menerba. It was like the whole place turned. Like what happened in the American colonies in the 17th 40s was so pervasive. It was like even if you didn't believe in Jesus Christ, you still knew there was a God, because how could there not be? Because look what he's doing around here. Like, that's the kind of revival that was going on. Like like people might not have believed specifically in the lordship of Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection, but they weren't trying to get around creation or God or the or the sin, an evil that lurks within men's hearts.

[00:39:26] So they had a basic understanding cause it was everywhere. It was pervasive. See, along with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Every American needs to know the names of people like this, like Jonathan Edwards. Everybody write that name down if you don't if you're not familiar with Jonathan Edwards. And we need to we need to make sure we understand who this guy was. And I mean, he was you could write down next to that name.

[00:39:49] He was the pastor of the Great Awakening. He was the guy. And he was a pastor in North Hampton, Massachusetts. And his grandfather, Solomon, starred was the pastor there before him. And then he became the pastor. And he saw a revival in his town. He writes in a faithful narrative of a revival that happened in his town. He says, I think something like there were 300 families in his town. And during the time in the seventeen thirties, he thinks that every single family in his town had someone who turned from their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ. So just a town that where the whole thing, it feels like got flipped upside down and it started with the young people and then it just spread through all of the families in the town. And so then the idea was to see that happen on a larger scale and the reason it it spread kind of beyond that to a larger scale was this man right here, George Whitfield. He's another name that you need to write down. George Whitfield. George Whitfield. He was actually English and he was a preacher.

[00:40:56] Excuse me. He was.

[00:40:59] He was actually more of an evangelist, really, than than a pastor. He didn't have his own church. In fact, a lot of the churches of England didn't even want George Whitfield preaching at their church because he was a little too intense. He was often confronting pastors on the fact that they were not saved and shouldn't be pastors. So he wasn't getting a lot of invitations to preach at different churches. And so he started preaching in the open air there and in London, England, and as in so great crowds started to come and started to hear him preach.

[00:41:29] And so he came and he took a tour to America and he started an orphanage in Georgia. And so seven different times, he came from England to America and he would start traveling around and preaching and thousands of people. I mean, people would drop whatever they were doing and they would go and find where George Whitfield was in some park or some common area.

[00:41:52] And I mean, the whole town would shut down and they would go hear this guy preach. And he had Edwards became friends and they started kind of even going around together for a little bit. And that's when Jonathan Edwards preached the most famous sermon that's ever been preached in America that we're going to talk about tomorrow night. If you come back, sinners in the hands of an angry God.

[00:42:11] And George Whitfield had said that when he came to Boston in not an 1739, when he was in Boston, when he's kept showed up, about 18000 people gathered together to hear him preach. And he actually struck up this really interesting friendship with Benjamin Franklin, who printed some of George Whitfield's sermons, even though Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian. The two man, two men became friends.

[00:42:35] And Benjamin Franklin estimated that because of the kind of acoustics and because of this powerful voice that George Whitfield had, that thirty thousand people could gather together and hear the man preach. But when he left, Boston is somewhere between 23000 and I've heard estimates higher, but somewhere around 23000 people came to hear him preach the last sermon that he preached in Boston before he left the town for a while. At that time in 1739, the population of the city of Boston was 20000 people. And 23000 came to hear him preach.

[00:43:13] So everybody was being impacted.

[00:43:16] And these guys, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, they're not preaching a soft message that's easy on the ears. They are going after people's hearts in powerful ways, ways. When I read their sermons, I have never heard live. Anybody preach that way in my entire life.

[00:43:35] And God is doing something.

[00:43:37] And it's like the whole colonies are turning around, so that here's what Benjamin Franklin, a man who's not a Christian. Here's the quote of what he said after he saw the impact of Whitfield on Boston. He said, It was wonderful to see the change suit made in the manners of our inhabitants. It seemed as if all the world were growing religious so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing Psalms sung in different families of every street he sang. I'm walking down the city of Boston. And it's like everywhere. It's like families are singing psalms in the evening. It's like everybody is all in on religion right now. That's Benjamin Franklin's perspective on the effect of George Whitfield in the town of Boston.

[00:44:24] I mean, it's it's very similar when you read the accounts of what happened in Geneva, where it's like the whole city turned around. It felt like the 13 American colonies made a great turn towards not only acknowledging God, not only confessing their sin, but believing that the only way a man could ever be righteous was by faith in Jesus Christ.

[00:44:46] It's an awakening that I think shaped the entire foundation of our nation. It's the reason we're always acknowledging God in our founding documents. Because you couldn't deny the reality of God moving among the colonies. That's the Great Awakening. That's that's what shaped us. And now what have we done since then?

[00:45:07] OK, well, clearly what's happened since then is we've had your third little arrow here for America. Turning away from God is what's happened to now. Well, well, you better not even sing God Bless America. How dare you offend all the people who don't want religion brought into baseball? Let's go to the let us go to the church of baseball. You can keep that for your own church was basically the conclusion of the infuriating Facebook article that I read.

[00:45:35] Right.

[00:45:36] I mean, we have turned away from God and it's pretty bad. Good to go to the New Testament. Let's see how the New Testament describes it in Romans Chapter one. And hopefully that history helps you see where we were, where we've come from as a nation, and then you can compare that to our president today, our presidential candidates today, to the general sense that, no, we're not the nation that was turning away from evil anymore. We seem like the nation where God was being good, God was blessing us and maybe even used us to judge other nations in the world. We've even had times of strength, times of increased growth in America, times of great prosperity. People would say even today, we're the one superpower on the earth. It seems like things are going well, but maybe we're that nation that seems like we're being blessed. But then we turn into evil. Romans Chapter one puts it like this. And I want you to see the connection between how it describes people turning away from God and the direct connection to American history says for the wrath of God. This is Romans chapter one, verse 18. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all on godliness and unrighteousness of men who by their own righteousness, suppressed the truth for what can be known about God. It's plain or as it says in the Declaration of Independence, self evident because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. There it is. It's obvious that we have a creator. We should be acknowledging him in the things that have been made. So they that's us in America right now are without excuse for although they knew God read our history, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were dark and claiming to be wise. They became fools. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God, the creator, for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Instead of acknowledging God as our creator, we now worship and acknowledge the creatures over the creator. Now, what what does that sound like in American history? Well, how about we'll just give a date to it and a trial to it? How about the Scopes trial? How about the rise of evolution? You know, there was a great debate in 1925. You could write down the Scopes trial. 1925 is win this these pictures from about people. That's when the idea of evolution started to become commonplace. And there was a trial about this substitute teacher. Why is he preached evolution in the schools? I love what it says, the anti evolution league. Can you imagine that league in America today? And look at this. This is my favorite. The conflict hell and the high school. Right. I mean, they realized what was going on. I mean, you're taking out the very foundation of everything. If God's no longer the creator and now creatures somehow came into existence on their own and now we don't have to acknowledge God and he doesn't have authority over us and we can just kind of live however we want survival of the fittest. Hey, that's hell. And high school there teach in that.

[00:48:56] Well, good luck finding a high school now or they're not teaching that right.

[00:49:01] I mean, that's become now common place that's just in the last 100 years that that has really taken over. Then let's keep reading here in Romans chapter one, look at verse 24, because we would not acknowledge God and we turned away from seeing him as the creator.

[00:49:17] It says, therefore, here's part of the judgment. Here's part of the consequences. Therefore, God gave them up in the loss of their hearts to impurity. So God gives us over to follow our own loss to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator whose blessed forever a man.

[00:49:41] So we don't follow Edwards and Whitfield, we're not even following Jefferson and Washington anymore. No, we charted a new path now where we don't even acknowledge a creator. And it says here's the consequences. When a nation when a people stops acknowledging God is the creator, they get given over to various loss to the hearts of impurity. What does that sound like in American history? How about how about something like this? How bout Rovi? Not this one. We want one in between those two. Thank you. Roe v. Wade, 1973. All right. I mean, we're no longer all of a sudden now, we don't have certain unalienable rights to life. Say now the woman has the right to decide what she's going to do, even if it means the murder, the termination of somebody else's life, because sexual freedom starts to become more important than the freedom of individuals or any kind of religious freedom to worship a creator. And we begin to see that in the nineteen sixties and seventies. I mean, it's a time in American history that we refer to as the what revolution, what do we call the sexual revolution. It's what we call it. It's a time period in the history of our nation and it's clearly become because we haven't acknowledged the creator. Right. And really how it's snuck in and all of these other whenever we're changing these laws. Right. When we're making abortion legal, you kind of saw where we're going next. What do we always sneak in on? We sneak in on the back of the 14th Amendment on the United States, which was really about civil liberties and about us not mistreating slaves. And now all of a sudden we've made those those issues about civil liberties. We've made them really now about our sexual liberties.

[00:51:29] That's what we've done.

[00:51:31] And so then it says, what's going to happen next, verse 26, you know this part because you're living in it. It says for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Well, what does that mean? There are women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women. And we're consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. While we know about this. This was June 26, 2015. This was just a little over a year ago where now same sex marriage, no state has the right to keep people of the same gender from marrying each other. Now in America. Here's God as creator. We were acknowledging him back in the day. He was blessing us as a nation. But now we're not acknowledging him. He's giving us over to loss. Now he's giving us over even to a kind of lust where we even exchanging the natural loss. And now men are trying to be with men and women are trying to be with women. This is straight out of the pages of scripture and the American history book. They're going hand in hand. Here it is. And here's where we're live in today, verse 28. Since they did not see fit, could you underline this? Could you circle this? This is what we need to do in America again, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God. We need to acknowledge God again, but we're not. So God gave them up. That's us to a debased mind, a useless mind, a worthless mind, a mind that can't now, oh, acknowledge God or do any good works to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of and righteousness. You tell me if this sounds like your local grocery store. Evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanders, haters of God, insulin, hardy, boastful inventors of evil disobedience to parents. You seen that on aisle six lately? Foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree. We know about God blessing America. We just don't want anything to do with it. They know God's righteous decree. Those who practice such things deserve to die. When there is sin, there will be judgment.

[00:53:47] They not only do this sin, they give approval to those who practice their.

[00:53:55] We're in a tough spot in America. And if you're not really concerned for the future of our nation, I'm hoping that tonight will alert you to the dire condition of the country that you and I know and love. I mean, if we're going to look back at the chart, let's just review the whole chart so far as Syria. They had an amazing revival in the capital city of Knin, of a God uses them in world history, even to victorious over other nations. And then at their strength, when they are many boom, they are struck down in their name. No longer continues. Well, today we're living in America and we had a great revival, a great awakening. And God has used our nation to do great things. But yet we are turning clearly away from him. And so just following the pattern, what is coming next for America?

[00:54:46] What is coming next?

[00:54:48] I mean, there's two options that I see in front of us based on what we learned from JEREMI 18. Seven to 10, because we're now the nation that is clearly being given over. We're already in the process of being judged as God gives us sober to our sense. We are clearly now the evil nation, whatever kind of foundation we had of acknowledging God, we are trying a lot of our inhabitants are trying to leave that behind and to move forward down the path of evil. So as I see it, we've got two options. We either have another great awakening in this nation or we get judged just like a Syria. I mean, if God wrote a book to America today, it would probably sound and read a lot like the Book of Nahum, my friends.

[00:55:36] Vengeance is coming.

[00:55:39] You can't worship creatures rather than the creator, you can't kill babies because of your sexual freedom. You can't just do whatever you want with your body and not the way that God created you to be. And think it's all going to be okay in the end. That's the American dream that we're living in, the dream that a nation can do whatever it wants and God won't take vengeance.

[00:56:03] And it's a dangerous place that we're live in.

[00:56:07] And so if if we're not if our heart isn't breaking for our nation, if we're not concerned every day now a lot of Christians, they just get real negative at this point. That's not what I want to do against Hillary. Great. Against Trump. We're just basically against everybody. Let's withdraw. Let's isolate. Let's go. Why two ks? Come on. Let's go hide somewhere in a shelter.

[00:56:28] You know, I mean, that's a lot of Christians just have this high and mighty better than look at all these.

[00:56:35] They're not our fellow Americans. They're these kind of Americans. Look at all these people. And like, we're somebody like we don't live in this country. Like we live somewhere else. That's better than all our neighbors around here.

[00:56:47] I hate that. I don't want anything to do with that. No, I, I my heart.

[00:56:51] I want my heart to break with my fellow Americans. I want to wish that I could trade places with my countrymen that I wish they could know. God. The way that I do so they could see that's a better way to live. That's the principles that our nation was founded on.

[00:57:07] That there is life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and only through a creator. Do you find those rights that he gives to you? That's what I wish America could know. This land is my land. This land is your land.

[00:57:21] And if we, the Church of Jesus Christ, don't do something about what's happening in America, we're going to be judged. All right. Is not going to save us. Trump's not going to save us. No. The only one who could turn this nation back around is God Almighty. And the ruler, his son, the king of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. So we don't need people to cast their votes this year.

[00:57:46] That's not good. Yeah. There we go. Praise the Lord.

[00:57:49] We don't want to cast our votes. We want to cast up our prayers. Now, I'm not saying don't vote. I am not one of those Christians who's being like everybody's evil. Don't vote. I'm not saying that if you don't want to vote, that that's up to you. Here's what I am saying you need to do as a Christian person who's a part of this country. You need to get serious about praying for this nation. And you need to get serious about publicly finding ways to acknowledge that God is still the God of America, whether we like it or not. And we're going to either turn to him or he is going to come after us. Those are our options. And we need the church to start being that church again in America. That's who I blame. I don't blame the government. I blame us. That's who the problem is. We don't have enough Jonathan Edwards. We don't have enough George Whitfield. If we are preaching the truth, we're doing it in our small little holy huddles. We're not going out like Whitfield. Out into the streets, out into the communities. We're not letting every single person know that they, too, can be righteous by Jesus Christ.

[00:58:50] We got it. We got to change our whole thing. So I hope you'll come back tomorrow night as we learn how to pray for America. And I hope you come back on Thursday night as we learn how to spread the word in America. And we're going to learn it from the Book of Mayhem, which was written to a nation, a sinner. The names even sounds similar. It's crazy, right? Assyria. What was going on with them? Revival. Prosperity. Death. Seems like we're on the same track in America and we're going to learn from mayhem. What we need to do. But if we're going to do anything before we start saying what we need to do, we got to make sure that everybody here has acknowledged that God is your God, that you have to obey what he says, that even though America is living, however they want to live. That's not the way you're living. If you are just born in America and raised in America and you just do what Americans do, you will become an enemy of God.

[00:59:44] That's what you'll be.

[00:59:46] You're going to have to say no. God is my God. And I'm not going to fall the way everybody else is, fall when I'm going to turn away from that and I'm going to acknowledge him. I'm gonna acknowledge him every single day of my life. And if God he has authority over me, he created me. And if he tells me to do something, I'm going to do what God tells me to do. So you have to before we can start talking about our city turning or our church turning or our nation turning, we have to talk about ourselves. Have we taken the U-turn to follow Jesus Christ because we don't need more hypocrites. That's the whole problem. We need people who are sincere, who are real. We don't need people saying, hey, man at church, and then go on and live in like the rest of America, in their televisions, in their cars.

[01:00:29] We need people who are distinctly God's people in America. They have said in their heart. I'm not going down. Not on my watch. Not with the rest of my nation. I'm going to be maybe one of the few who maybe just there's only a few of us out there. But I'm going to turn from my sin and I'm going to follow Jesus Christ with my life. Are you one of those people?

[01:00:49] Have you turned?

[01:00:52] So we don't realize that the destruction is so deceptive. It seems like we we just had our president say in the State of the Union address this year that we are the greatest nation on earth. I mean, how do you fact check something like that? You know what I mean? I mean, we can just throw around the word great all we want. What does it mean to be great? See, I think God is the only one who is great. He's the one who is greatly to be praised. He is the one who does great things. And we know we need to acknowledge that. He it's so deceptive because right now it looks like what we're doing in America on the Fourth of July, everybody downtown, everybody having a great day. It looks like we can just all shooby dooby down to Ruby's. You guys ever hear me say that before? I mean, that's so appropriate here in Huntington Beach. I used to go to Ruby's, where I used to live before I moved here. And it was in the middle of a parking lot. Ruby's here in Huntington Beach, is in the middle of the ocean. You guys, I mean, we've way upgraded our rubies. And my family and I, we love to shooby dooby down to Ruby's, especially when people give us gift cards. Just throwing it out there. We love to shooby dooby down to rubies. All right. We walk down that pier. We look it. Have you ever seen surfers from behind? It's awesome. It's like what's going on on the other side of the mirror. It's like, wow, this the backside of water. You know what I'm saying? Like this. This is awesome back here. And we have burgers and we have milkshakes and we have a great time. That's what it feels like in America right now. Just shooby dooby down.

[01:02:18] We got this old tradition, we got these diners, we got burgers, we got fries, we got this we got this very comfortable kind of fat, kind of rich life here in America. You just shooby do beyond down that. That's what it looks like at the Huntington Beach Pier. Here it is on one of its surf competitions. It's packed. People are excited. You. I've been there. Maybe you've been there. This is what people think America looks like. All right. They think it looks like we're comfortable where it is. We're strong. We're many. We're the greatest nation on Earth right now. This is what I think America actually looks like, not the Huntington Beach Pier, my friends. The SEAL Beach Pier.

[01:02:55] All right. That's what I think it looks like the one that just burnt down recently. You know what I'm saying? That nobody has been fixing. That's closed down. Anybody from SEAL Beach. Anybody know what I'm talking about right now? All right. Little bit different over there. All right. And I'm not trying to diss anybody from SEAL Beach right now. I'm just making an illustration. All right. And you know what? You know what? Here's here's where I really like this point right here. Should be Dougie down to Ruby's. It's fun to say. Do you know what the Hebrew word to turn is?

[01:03:24] To repent Shoeb. As the Hebrew word to turn in repent.

[01:03:30] If we don't, shooby dooby here in America. If we don't turn from our sin, we're not going to be looking like the H.B Pier, my friends. That's your picture of America.

[01:03:41] I would encourage you to get that thought out of your head to night. That's not a helpful way to think about it anymore. Now, when you see America, this is us. This is what we really look like to the Lord right now. OK, we have stopped acknowledging him. We are doing whatever we want and now we are going beyond what the creator has designed and we're doing it and that we call it pride.

[01:04:05] That's our boast about it. Like, let's go celebrate our pride.

[01:04:10] As if there's never going to be any consequences if we can just wave a flag and do whatever we want. And there's no one ruling or reigning or over us. That's America right now. And it's and it's going to look like this any day if we don't see another great awakening, if God doesn't hear the prayers of a fit. Effective prayers of the righteous and turn our nation around. If the church doesn't start being the church and spreading the real gospel of Jesus around I, it may be even in our lifetime we're gonna see a peer that looks a lot like this.

[01:04:43] If we don't turn Shoeb, repent, God is going to judge us. And the only way he will relent of his judgment on America is if we repent of our sin. So I hope your heart is broken as mine is, because I love this country. I love my neighbors. The guy blowing up fireworks all night long. I want him to acknowledge God with me. See? And that's what we need to be. We need to be the people that are on a path, on a crusade for another great awakening. Pray with me. God, we do. Can come to you on behalf of America right now. And God, our hearts are are very concerned for what is taking place in our nation and God if our hearts haven't been concerned. I pray that they would be after hearing this tonight, as we see the parallel between Syria and the context of the Book of Mayhem. And then what's happening in our nation today, a nation of great revival, of great blessing, a great a nation that was useful and you used us. And now we're turning away from you almost blatantly, almost like in your face, almost like we're trying to provoke you and aggravate you to come and get jealous and have wrath and take vengeance upon us. But yet the churches don't even act like you have those attributes. Got it's so messed up what's happening here in our nation. And I pray to open our eyes to see it. And God, I pray that we will not be a part of the problem here in our nation, but that we will be a part of your solution, Lord, and that we will make sure. Checking our hearts here tonight. Have I turned from my sins? Am I walking as if God is my creator? And he has the right to tell me how to live my life, how to pursue happiness. And I pray that that would be true of us, of the church that you're uniting here at CompassHB, Scott, and that you would do something here among us. God, that it would be like the days of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield back on the East Coast. God, that it would be like you're right here among us and people are can being convicted of sin and they're crying out to you for forgiveness and their lives are changing and that people who don't even believe in Jesus must admit that God is working among his people. God, show us your glory like that again. Send out your light and your truth like that again. Let people see your salvation in America once again. God, we know that you could show us your judgment, but God, we pray that you will be patient and you will show us your mercy. God, we know that. Second Peter, chapter three, verse nine says that you are long suffering, that you're patient because you don't want to judge. You are a saving God. You want people to turn from their sins so they don't perish, but they have everlasting life. And so, God, we're asking you to do what we know you want to do and to save people in America, to save somebody in every single house in Huntington Beach, to save people in such a powerful way that the world has to stop it with their pride and be forced to admit there is a God among us again. Now, we know that the only way America will ever continue to be a great nation is if you do a great work among us and we ask you tonight here together right now, God hear our hearts pleading with you to turn us before it is too late. Well, can I just pray if there's anybody here who's convicted, that they are America in the sense that they are still walking in their own heart of sin? Tonight would be the night that you turn them God. It's going to be nights like this. It's gonna be individuals saying, I'm going to acknowledge God in my life and I'm tired of acting like I'm my own boss and I can do whatever I want. And I turn from my sin to God. God, it's people who are gonna do that. And those stories spreading and other people seeing the change in their life. That's how you're gonna bring the revival. Do that tonight here among us. God, let the person who is convicted in sin find your forgiveness tonight. Let them turn. Let them shoot from their sin so that you will relent of your judgment upon them. God. Do your saving work. We pray in Jesus name. Aymen. Hey.

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