I still believe America is the greatest nation on earth today. Why is it? Because of our natural resources? Other nations have great natural resources. Our entrepreneurial spirit? Are Americans brighter than other people? No, every nation has people with skills and brainpower. There’s just one reason: God blessed America. Psalm 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” But today we’re in danger of losing our freedom and our nation. What can we do to save America?

God tells us in Psalm 85 and 2 Chronicles 7. But first we should ask: Why has God especially blessed this nation? Answer: Because it began as no other nation since Israel: America was founded by God.

God placed in the hearts of the pilgrims a burning desire to worship Him freely without government restraints—so much so that they braved the dangerous journey from Europe on a little ship, the Mayflower, to start from scratch and establish a new land for His glory. The Mayflower Compact begins: “In the name of God, Amen.” It continues, “Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith….”

America began with one goal: give glory to God and advance the Gospel!

Many years ago, a great American economist, Roger Babson, was talking with the president of a South American country. They discussed the productivity, wealth—all the advancements of life in the U.S., wondering why the difference because South America has so much in natural resources. The president said to Babson, “The difference between our two bodies of earth and land is this: those who came to our shores came seeking gold; those who came to your shores came seeking God.” That’s the difference. Our American government is rooted in faith in Almighty God.

Our Declaration of Independence from England was also a declaration of our dependence on God. It begins with the belief held by our founding fathers and mothers: “We hold these truths to be self-evident”—in other words, there’s no argument about this—that all are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Our founders believed in God and creation, not evolution. It was “self-evident.” Of course, it is. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1).

Fifty of the fifty-five men who framed the Constitution of the United States were professing Christians. In 1778 James Madison, architect of the Constitution, fourth President of the United States, said

We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government but upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.

Today, we can’t even post those Ten Commandments on classroom walls. Revisionists try to rewrite history to erase our Christian heritage.

On July 4th, 1821, John Quincy Adams, our 6^th President, said:

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. From the day of the declaration they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they nearly all acknowledge as the rules of their conduct.

In March 1931, Congress adopted “The Star-Spangled Banner” as our national anthem. The fourth stanza says:

Blessed with victory and peace, may this Heaven-rescued land praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must when our cause it is just. And this be our motto, “In God is our trust.”

No nation ever had such a Christian beginning as America.

In 1956 Congress adopted as our national motto “In God we trust.” In 1954 Congress added “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1952 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said: “We are a religious people, and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” It’s in the fabric of our nation.

But our national heritage lies in decay. Our Christian values are in retreat. Sexual promiscuity, the open parading of perversion, the disposal of unwanted, unborn children, the breakup of the family, the obsession with self and materialism—all speak of a society on its last legs.

Every day in America, thousands of pre-born babies are put to death, a blood sacrifice to the demon god of lust. Most of these abortions are for convenience, a form of birth control. You can be fined $5,000 and put in jail for a year for crushing a bald eagle’s egg, yet a doctor can make a handsome living by killing babies in the mother’s womb.

We live in a sick society. If America is not born again, we will join the graveyard of failed nations. America needs a miracle. We must have a national revival. If we don’t, we’re on a collision course with judgment as surely as there’s a God in Heaven.

A Prayer for Revival

Restore us, O God of our salvation,
And cause Your anger toward us to cease.
Will You be angry with us forever?
Will You prolong Your anger to all generations?
Will You not revive us again,
That Your people may rejoice in You? (Psalm 85:4-6)

I want you to see three things from this prayer for revival.

1. Revival’s Source—God

Some say it’s too late. Don’t be one of them. Don’t say revival is impossible. God’s power, His grace, are sufficient.

“But, pastor, sin is pandemic.”

Yes, but Romans 5:20 says, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” God is omnipotent, and He is our hope. Conversely, God is our biggest threat if we don’t repent. I’m not nearly as afraid of what terrorists will do as I am of what God Himself will do.

Don’t look to some political party to save us. Tell both parties, “Repent and get right with God.” We’re in a mess because we have wicked people who elect wicked people, who will make wicked laws apart from God. We must have revival, and its source is Almighty God. Get your eyes on Him.

2. Revival’s Subjects—God’s People

Psalm 85:6 says “Your people”—God’s people. It’s not the unsaved who need reviving. They’ve never been “vived” in the first place. Revival brings God’s people back, invigorating what was once there. The only hope for America lies in her churches, in godly people.

The Pride God Hates

Pride stalks through America. We talk about our vaunted ingenuity. Most people in America are egomaniacs strutting to hell, thinking they’re too good to be damned. We’re trying to save face when we need to be on our face before Almighty God in brokenness. James 4:6 says: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

God won’t help us—He will oppose us if we’re arrogant. Guard against pride in your own life. Nothing puts a person so far out of the reach of Satan as genuine humility.

Don’t pray, “Lord, humble me.” You won’t like the way He does it. God wants this nation to humble ourselves. If we won’t, He has other ways to humble us, but we won’t like it.

The Prayer God Hears

As Christians, we’ve just about worn out 2 Chronicles 7:14. You’ve probably memorized it by now. It begins “If My people…” MY people—God’s people. It doesn’t say, “If Hollywood,” “If the drug pushers,” “If the Supreme Court,” “If Congress.” No, God is talking to His people. The future of America is in our hands. We’re told to seek His face and turn from our wickedness.

The prayer God hears is the prayer that seeks His face. Most of us are busy seeking His hand instead: “O God, do something!” If there’s unconfessed, unrepentant sin, God’s hand will judge us, but God’s face will save us. In Scripture, believers prayed, “Make Thy countenance to shine upon us” (Numbers 6:24-26; Psalm 67:1). The face of God, the smile of God—that’s revival.

God will not hear the prayer of unrepentant people. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18). If you want God’s face, you must turn from your sin. God cannot smile upon, put up with, or fellowship with sin.

You say, “I hope America repents.” No, friend, I hope you do. America is but the sum of its people. There is no national repentance without individual repentance, one by one, as we pray.

The Promise God Honors

Second Chronicles 7:14 ends, “Then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” When we deal with our sin, God is fully able to send revival. He’s sent revival in dark days before and He can do it again. When we repent and are humble, we will be heard.

3. The Sign of Revival

What is true revival? Not rejoicing in possessions, privileges, or pride, but rejoicing in God. Revival comes in three stages.

• A time of weeping

We have plenty to weep about: the coldness of our hearts, the ineptitude of our churches, the weakness of our prayers, the lostness of our neighbors and children.

• A time of reaping

In genuine revival, souls come to Jesus by the thousands. Don’t you want to see an end-time harvest, millions swept into the kingdom?

• A time of rejoicing

…that Your people might rejoice in You. Psalm 85:6

I long to see believers in America with a burning, passionate love for the Lord Jesus Christ, rejoicing in God. There’s no greater, higher joy.

Weeping, reaping, rejoicing—together, the sign of revival.

As we celebrate the Fourth of July, will we watch our freedom recede over the horizon? Or as churches and individuals, are we going to pray for God to send revival? There’s hope as long as there’s God. Stop looking around. Start saying, “O, God, get my heart right. Let it begin in me.”

Pray God will do whatever is necessary to awaken this nation, to stir us, that we might see the prayer in Psalm 85 reproduced in us today. “Wilt You not revive us again, O Lord, that Your people may rejoice in You?”