Revival In America, What Will It Take? Building on the American Heritage Series!

Revival In America, What Will It Take? Building on the American Heritage Series:Â In this episode, you”ll learn about revival in America, how it came about, and what it will take to bring the next one.

Air Date:Â 06/19/2018

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note: Â As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Â However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Â Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. Â We apologize in advance.

Welcome

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and politics WallBuilders Live with David Barton and Rick Green also found on WallBuildersLive.com, and WallBuilders.com, and also on Facebook you can follow us there as well.

We also encourage you to let your local station know if you’d like to hear us locally and we”re not on the station close to you. If you’re not familiar with which station we’re on close to you then go check it out at WallBuildersLive.com. Here we go to Building on the American Heritage Series with David Barton.

What Is The Common Denominator Among All Revivals

Rick:

David, revival is something that pastors talk about, we as Christians all say we want it. What exactly is it, how do you know when you’re in one, and what should we be praying for?

David:

I’ll tell you that that is a big focus in America right now is revival. I have never seen the type of prayer I’m seeing now. We have the National Day of Prayer, we’ve had that for decades, days of prayer go back hundreds of years.

In the past several national days of prayer, there have been over 50,000 prayer groups on each National Day of Prayer.

Rick:

Not 50,000 people, you’re saying 50,000 different groups.

David:

Groups in civic arenas. They’re meeting at the courthouse, meeting at police stations, and fire stations, they’re meeting at school, 50,000 groups praying and praying for revival.

We’re praying for revival. What does it look like? The best answer to that is to go back and look at some previous ones to see what’s common to them. The first thing that’s common to all revivals- and you have several Biblical revivals.

You have several American historical revivals, you have the first great awakening, the second and third great awakening kind of run into each other, you have the turn of the century revivals, you have all these revivals in American history. What’s characteristic is they’re always last for decades.

Rick:

I thought revival was something that happens that quickly? You”ve got a move of the spirit, the nation was in revival, and that”s it.

David:

People think if God answers our first revival he’s going to swoop in and fix every problem in the nation. No.

Rick:

Weekend revivals, that”s not what you”re talking about?

The History Of Revivals

David:

There is no such thing in a historical sense, it’s not a revival. The first Great Awakening went from 1730 to 1770, that”s 40 years. The second Great Awakening bumps up against the third Great Awakening, but I that goes from 1801 to 1878, that”s 77 years. You could have been born in 1802 you could have lived a full 75-year happy life, died in 1877Â and never known you were in a revival because it was your whole life.

Rick:

Your whole life was part of that revival.

David:

Let’s go back to the first Great Awakening because historians agree that without that, there was no United States of America. It took that revival to lay the political landscape, to lay the spiritual landscape, that allowed America to become an independent nation, to create a form of government, to create a bill of rights, etc.

Rick:

So help me get this in the timeline, the first great awakening is before the Revolution?

David:

1730 to 1770 is the first great awakening. In 1776 is the Declaration of Independence, 1787 constitution is written. In 1789 the Bill of Rights is written.

Rick:

This revival we are talking about, this is where all the seeds were planted?

David:

This is where all for 40 years, all this thinking was changed and then it manifested itself politically in the next several years after that. Because all the stuff that’s been talked about over here it’s like, “Wow, now we’ve got a chance to do this in policy.” We’ve never been able to do this before, we’ve always been under the British Monarch. We can do it ourselves.” It”s a whole different approach.

How Did Revival Start

Rick:

If there is such a good result, meaning our nation being born, and all the great things that happen with our document, how did we get the revival itself then? And that’s what people want now. We want to have a revival like that.

David:

You go back to someone like George Whitfield, there’s a lot of preachers in the first Great Awakening, Gilbert Tennent was a big preacher, Jonathan Edward”s famous sermon on Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, you”ve got Samuel Davies, you got Samuel Cooper, you’ve got Jonathan Mahe, you’ve got all these famous preachers but probably the best known is George Whitfield.

And by the way, here’s some of Whitfield’s original writings from the first Great Awakening, and here’s some sermons from Matthew who was also part of the first Great Awakening, and here’s Wesley sermons, and all of these different sermons, Davies, a bunch of sermons by Samuel Davies, all these guys and the Great Awakening.

What’s significant is George Whitfield was 34 years of the 40 in the Great Awakening. He made seven missionary journeys to America. He traveled from Maine to Georgia and back preaching as he went.

Now, in that 34-year period, he preached eighteen thousand sermons.

Rick:

Wait, that”s almost a thousand a year.

David:

Quick math, that”s 3 a day.

Rick:

Three a day.

David:

That’s not an easy thing to do.

Rick:

I get worn out if I speak a couple of times a day. He does that every day.

Rick:

He averages three sermons a day for thirty-fourÂ years.

Rick:

And I’m guessing he’s not doing this flying American Airline.

David:

Oh no. He’s on horseback. Matter of fact, one of the neat things is he had a portable pulpit he carried with him. They still have that pulpit. But he would stick that pulpit on the back of his carriage and he would go to the next place, unfold that pulpit, crawl up in it, preach a sermon, fold it up, and head to the next place.

Rick:

How do you physically do it?

David:

Did this on horseback. What do you do when weather is tough. What you do when you come to a tornado or hail storm, this is not inspirational work he’s doing here, this is hard work.

Rick:

That level of commitment does that take on his part for him to be-

David:

I’ll tell you, revival killed him. He didn’t think revival is all that fun. The last two years of his preaching he would get up in that pulpit and preach, he’d get out of the pulpit go over a spit up his guts, and cough up a bunch of blood, get on his horse ride to the next place, set up the pulpit and go preach, get out of the pulpit, and go cough a bunch blood. It was not easy work. But if he hadn’t done that, we don’t have a revival, then we don’t have a country.

Rick:

It was his sacrifice, his investment, that was an investment of his life.

David:

Do you know how effective he was in that revival? Eighty percent of everyone that lived in America heard him physically preach a sermon. No broadcast back then, that means you’ve got to be on the spot.

You know how many communities he had to go into? For 80 percent of America. Anybody that thinks it’s a great spiritual inspiration, God’s going to sweep in and fix all the stuff, look at him.

Persevering Through Opposition

This is the other “fun” thing about revivals. Revivals are always characterized by lots of opposition. But not from the secular folks, from the spiritual folks.

Rick:

You’d think the spiritual folks saying, “Hey, isn”t this guy great? We’re so glad he”s doing this.”

David:

It was the preachers that attacked him.

Rick:

It was the opposite.

David:

Revival is nearly always involved old wineskins and new wineskins. Jesus told them that story, “You don’t pour new wine into old wineskins because it will bust and you lose all of it.”

They say, “We’ve never done it this way before. We’re used to doing it this way over here.” And so Whitfield comes up with a whole new way, open air meetings, not just in one denomination he was messing with all of the denominations.

He had what was called his “Father Abraham sermon” which brought people together rather than divided them. “Whitfield is wicked. He’s evil!”

Rick:

Because he is messing with their old wineskin.

David:

He is messing with their old tradition. And that’s always the characters of revival. Charles Finney comes along in the Second Great Awakening. “What do you mean an altar call We don’t do altar calls. We don’t have open air brush arbor meetings. We do it inside of churches.”

He’s out in the middle the community doing stuff. “Woah, Finney is wicked. Look at him.” It’s always a transition of doing something new. God works in a different way. And a lot of people can’t get on board with that. What happens today is we remember Whitfield but we don’t remember his critics. Back then they were alive and they ate his lunch. They chewed him up.

Revival Is Not Just A Spiritual thing

The other thing about a revival is it’s not just a spiritual thing. Whitfield is really the father of the American military. He’s the guy who designed the first American military flag, came up with the military motto, and military banner.

Whitfield died in 1770 up in Newburyport, Massachusetts. They buried him below the church there down in the basement sarcophagus. The first Massachusetts Regiment that went out to fight in the American Revolution all stopped by that church and had a sermon about what was happening as soldiers going out into war.

They all went downstairs opened sarcophagus and cut off a little piece of his robe to take with him because he was the inspirational father of the military.

Rick:

We wouldn”t think of a preacher doing that.

David:

It”s not just that. In 1765 we had the Stamp Act in America. That’s an economic thing. America sent two people to Great Britain to argue against the Stamp Act. One is Ben Franklin and one was George Whitfield.

Rick:

No kidding.

David:

What’s he doing in Parliament? What is he doing in politics? What is he doing with taxation issues? Because revival covers all aspects of life. It’s not just spiritual stuff. It affects the way you live, the way you think, the way you act. That’s the characteristic.

Rick:

So everybody is praying for revival. Now you’re talking hard, you”re talking it”s going to take a lot of time, and it’s going to take a lot of opposition.

David:

A lot of the last decades, it’s not fast. And the other thing that’s really significant is it”s always transgenerational. There’s a revival recorded back in Judges 13 where that God’s people were under the oppression of the Philistines and they prayed and prayed, “God deliver us from Philistines. We need a revival.”

God answered the revival. Verse 5 Chapter 13, God so answered revival He sent an angel to earth to tell people, “I’ve heard your prayers, I”ve answered. You’re going to have a revival.”

The way he did it was the angel went to Manoah and said, “Manoah, God’s heard the prayers of his people, he’s going to deliver you. You’re going to be free a people and you are going to have a revival. Here’s how it works, your wife is going to get pregnant.

And when that kid grows up he’s going to be the national deliverer.”

Time out, it”s going to take 20 years for that kid to grow up. “I thought you said you answered our prayers.” God often answers prayers of revival by sending a new generation that does it differently.

Raising Up A New Generation

Great example, Samuel Davies, he’s considered the greatest pulpit preacher in the Great Awakening. He had a little kid running around with him when he was doing all this preaching.

As a matter of fact, Samuel Cooper is another great preacher in the Great Awakening and he had a kid running around him all the time. Gilbert Tennent is another great preacher with kid running around with him and–

It’s interesting, do you know who the kid was running around Samuel Davies? A little guy named Patrick Henry. I wonder where he learned to be such a good speaker. He heard the greatest pulpit orator in American history preach and preach and preach.

Rick:

And then he became the greatest political-

David:

The greatest orator. And you have a little kid running around Samuel, who’s that? Oh, it”s John Quincy Adams, that’s who it is. And this guy named * the president of Congress who signed the peace treaty in the Revolution, “Oh, you mean he was baptized by George Whitfield in the Great Awakening?

Benjamin Rush who is one of the three most notable Founding Fathers. He ran around these preachers named Gilbert Tennent and William Tennent. See, what happens is you have a new generation and I think we’re there now. Â

For example, America has finally become 51% pro-life. It’s taken us decades, we’re now a majority pro-life nation. Isn’t that really cool? When you look at the stats for our teenagers, teenagers are 72% pro-life.

Only 19% of teenagers believe that abortion on demand should remain. How did our teenagers get 20 points more pro-life than anybody that teaches them? How did they get more pro-life than the culture – how did they get more pro-life than the teachers? Than the parents? Because God says, “I”ve been hearing your prayers. Let me send you a new generation that will do some things differently.”

What It Takes To Have Revival

Rick:

In the examples used in the Bible days or even the Founding Era, they seem to be a little more patient than we are. We’re more immediate gratification.

David:

We’re a microwave generation. We watch the news all the time. We got a crisis going in simulation and in 30 minutes they’ll get the experts and tell us how to fix. We’ve had these two nations fighting for 400 years. But we’ve got a 30-minute program to tell us how to fix the problem.

Rick:

So how much harder is it for us to say that it’s generational.

David:

It’s generational. This is the question, we pray for revival but how serious are we about revival? Are we willing to expend the work, and the time, and the effort, and the discipleship, and the mentorship of the next generation that is going to take to do this? Because that’s what a real revival looks like.

Rick:

David, how about some questions from the audience about revival?

David:

Sounds good.

Guest:

What is it going to take to get revival in America?

Rick:

Well, we’re praying for it, we’re asking for it, how do you get there?

David:

That’s the starting place, you have to ask for it. You have not because you ask not. You have to start by asking which means prayer. I love what Founding Father John Hancock said about this, “I urge you, by all that’s honorable, by all that’s dear, and by all that’s holy, not only that you pray but also that you act.”

Rick:

So it takes both.

Rick:

Faith without works is dead. It’s an interesting thing. If we start praying, and the Lord tells us a number of persons in scripture. You pray for laborers to go out in the harvest. If you get really dead serious about praying for God to send out workers in the harvest your heart gets turned in that direction and all of a sudden, “I’ll go do it.”

Praying For Your Leaders

So what happens is the more you pray for something, the more your heart gets in it, the more you’re likely to start taking action on it. So I think it’s significant that we’re told in first Timothy to pray, first of all- by the way, there’s nothing else in the Bible where we’re told to pray “first of all.” We are told to pray first of all, leaders, those in authority.

Rick:

Regardless of which leaders and who is elected you pray for the ones you agree with and the ones you don’t.

David:

If you pray for leaders and those in authority before you pray for yourself, or your church, or your job, or your kids, that’s the only first of all in the Bible related to prayer. Pray for leaders and those in authority.

If you start praying diligently for leaders you are going to start saying, “Look what’s happened in the country!” Your heart will start taking you in that direction.

Rick:

How do you pray for your leaders if you don’t know who they are? I guess you could pray and in general. But you almost have to start doing some homework.

David:

If you start praying for your leaders you’ll have desired to know, “Who are my leaders?” There are a number of prayer networks out there that now provide guides. There’s a great prayer calendar out there. For example, Heritage Alliance.

Rick:

In Texas, you get a daily-

David:

They have a national calendar too. You get to pray on this day for your senator, on this day for your state rep, on this day for you for your U.S. congressman, and the day for your governor, and on this day for the secretary of state, and so on.

Rick:

It gives you a summary so you know something about them, pray for their family.

David:

That’s right. And every day it gives you a leader and someone in authority to pray for. So Heritage Alliance is a good place. But there’s a lot of prayer groups that do that.

Rick:

Is it ok for me to pray not only for that person but pray that God will send advisers to them if they’re not from a Biblical point of view? That he’ll send advisors, it’ll influence them, that he’ll change their heart. To actually pray for that leader and the policy they implement.

David:

And you pray for the staff as well. Even if you have a rotten scoundrel like Ahab, he had a righteous guy named Obadiah working for him. Obadiah, despite having Ahab and Jezebel trying to kill all of God’s Prophets Obadiah was able to get 100 prophets of God and save them put them in a cave and take care of them. So you can even have really good people and a really wicked administration.

Rick:

That sounds like too that when you’re praying for those kinds of things with your leaders you recognize that revival does come through the hands and the feet of the people. God does do it through these people in these positions.

David:

You can pray for all you want, but if you’re not willing to do something with your prayers it’s not going to happen.

Rick:

Staying with the subject of revival, let’s get another question from the audience.

Guest:

How do we measure revival?

Rick:

I have to admit, I have no idea. How do you measure it? We’re praying for it, we want it to happen, but how do you know if you’re in it, if it’s happened, and whether it’s a good one?

David:

Well, revival is little different when you”re praying. If we pray for rain, we know that prayer is answered. If somebody is sick and you pray God heal them you”ll know when that prayer is answered.

It’s a little different with revival but the Bible does give us a lot of indicators and so does history. And one of the things you’ll find that happens with revivals is you have changes in individuals and you have changes in culture as well.

You look at the Second Great Awakening, part of the reason we knew it was a revival was because all of a sudden you can get, hundreds and thousands to show up to pray. Ten years before, “Who wants to pray? It”s a waste of time. I”m too busy to go.”

But suddenly there’s an interest in spiritual activities and there is an interest in doing something spiritual. It doesn’t stop there. You can’t say we have a revival because we get so many baptized or so many join the church that’s not it.

It’s not just what you say spiritually it’s how that works out through your life. If you have a real conversion experience with the Lord, your lifestyle is going to change. And if your lifestyle changes what you will tolerate around you and what you allow to be around you will also change.

So it’s not just your spirit, not just your heart, it”s how you act after that, and what you’re willing to put up with around you in the culture.

David:

That’s a great way of saying, “What you’re willing to put up with.” Because if God has really hit you, you think lying is an abomination and you’re not going to let all these people that used to be your employees that are liars, so you say, “Guys, you’ve got to cut that out.” Or you”re going to say, “No, wait a minute, Â I can’t have liars in office either. These guys made all these promises. We’ve got to get these guys out. We need somebody with character and integrity.”

You”ll start wanting and demanding different things around you. You”ll demand more from the places where you go and what you patronize in the way of dining establishments. There are certain things you won’t tolerate. You start working that up to the culture. You can always measure revival by what it does to change the culture.

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Revival Affects Culture

Rick:

The Wesley’s had a revival in England back in the early 17 hundreds and it was measurable because suddenly nobody wanted to go to bars anymore. They’d rather go to church than go to bars. Or they’d rather be with their family then go to bars.

I love what happened in New York in the second Great Awakening. One of the Founding Fathers James Kent talks about it. They were appalled that in the entire state of New York, over a 16 year period, they had eight murders in New York.

Rick:

In sixteen years and only eight, in New York.

David:

Chicago’s got a murder every eight hours. So you can measure the statistical results and say, “Wait a minute, God”s got to change people’s heart.” They’re not wanting to kill each other anymore. They are different.

So anytime you have a revival it’s not just spiritual measurements. It will affect the culture. If it doesn’t affect the culture it’s not a revival. There have been revivals going on all over America and people say, “Oh, come see this great revival at this church.” It’s not a revival unless it gets outside the church and affects the culture.

What About A Revival In Government

Rick:

I’ve got another question from the audience.

Guest:

Would a national revival really make a difference in our government?

Rick:

We’re back to this question, if it’s a revival, spiritually there’s a change but then how does it work its way up to where we see that reflection in government?

David:

Let’s take policy for a minute, because as you look in the Bible there are several revivals that occur in the Bible. You have a revival of the Nation Under Jehoshaphat, you have a revival of the Nation Under Josiah, and you have a revival under the Nation Under Aissa.

That’s just three revivals, but let’s take those. They’d been away from God, they came back to God, you take those three revivals, they are recorded in two parallel books, they’re recorded in the Kings and they’re recorded in the chronicles.

There’s a difference in these two books. Kings compiled by Jeremiah the Chronicles are compiled by Ezra. Jeremiah is a prophet and in Bible times a prophet was part of the king’s staff.

Remember, even Ahab said, “Hey, we can”t go out to war unless we get a prophet in here. So they bring prophet, and he says, “I hate this prophet he always tells me bad things.” But they still got a prophet in.

The prophet spoke directly into policy, directly into the King. So, you”ve got Jeremih, he’s got a very political view. If you read the book of Jeremiah you see that he’s interfacing with the Kings all the time. The throw him down in pit.

He sends word to the King and King says, “I want to meet with you in private. Don’t let anybody know we met.” There’s always the stuff where the prophets are working with the civil leaders.

Rick:

And have no hesitation in speaking out even when the civil leaders were wrong.

David:

Very clearly it”s president of God’s minister speaking in the civil arena. Now, on the other hand, you have Esra who is the scribe, the priest. He’s the guy who is back at the temple doing all those hours of prayer and fasting.

It’s interesting that when you read the same incident in Kings that you have in the Chronicles, in Kings you get a political viewpoint of it and in Chroniclers you get a spiritual viewpoint.

Here’s an example, in KingsÂ – it will say that the king so and so died and was buried with his fathers. In Chronicles, it will say King so-and-so sinned against God and God struck him down and he died and was buried at his father’s.

You”ve got a special perspective over here that you didn’t get in the political. So, when you look at a revival you can read the Chronicles and get the spiritual perspective. What’s really cool is, read Kings and get the political perspective.

David:

This is the striking stuff, every time there was a revival in the Bible, you know what changed with every revival? Their attitude towards homosexuality.

Rick:

Really? In the Old Testament?

David:

They had been tolerating it, they allowed it, and it said that when the revival came that they chased the Sodomites out of the temple.

Rick:

So revival brought moral clarity and they acted upon it.

David:

And it brought policy. Suddenly, the church is not tolerated, homosexuals are in the temple. With a revival, they say, “That’s a political position.” But it’s a result of a spiritual change.

As you go through and read revivals in the Bible, yes, there is a spiritual component to them. There’s always a political component that goes with it as well. So if we have a revival in America then we should see changes not only in our attitudes but in the policy on issues like abortion and marriage.

That’s why, historically, these are what were called common law offenses. Because it was common to nations, this was common throughout history, this behavior is not acceptable. That’s why in common law offenses it listed everything from burglary, from arson, from murder, to kidnapping, to theft, to rape, to homosexuality, and to prostitution.

That’s why it was always in the common law offenses and that was incorporated in the Constitution through Amendment 7 of the Constitution. But I would say that because common law goes back hundreds of years before the Constitution.

They just took that body and put it into the Constitution. And that’s why it was part of the statutory laws for all the states.

Rick:

Time for one more question on revival.

David:

Sounds good.

Guest:

America is so far gone it seems we have only a few years left. How can we get revival in such a short time?

Rick:

Well, you do hear this quite a bit. Some people are out there saying, “It’s all over, grab your guns, your can food, go hide out at the ranch.” They want to give up on America and they don”t believe a revival would work.

David:

What happens is those people are not very familiar with history. There is nothing new under the sun. But this also gets somewhat into eschatology. And as we get to eschatology, we see the end times.

I believe the Bible is inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. Because I believed that, Peter said he was living in the last days. Timothy said that Paul told him that this is the last days. John said twice, I”m in the last days. What does that mean?

It means the last days must last at least 2,000 years because we’re still there. See, every single generation since Christ was here thought that Christ would return in their generation. Eschatology is divided in a lot of ways in the church.

You have the pre-trib, the post-trib, the mid-trib, the Sutra, the Pantera, the pre millennial, or postmillennial. You”ve got all these positions.

The simple way to look at this is exactly what Jesus told His disciples when they were thinking about this, “When is the master coming back?” Luke 19:13 he said, “Occupy until I come.”

If we think it’s time to pick up get out of here because it’s just too hard, just too rough, then we don’t have Christian character yet. That’s when you dig in your heels and say, “I’m going to be the last one standing.”

I love the Old Testament, it talked about the three chief warriors for David. You look at what those Chief Warriors did you crawl down in the snowy pit with a lion on a snowy day.

But the guy I really enjoy is the guy who went out there and defended a bean patch. He stayed there and kept the enemy out of the bean patch so long they had to pry his fingers off it. Who cares about a bean patch? “Give it up!” “No. I was told to stay here and defend the bean patch.”

Rick:

“This is my place on the wall.”

David:

“And I’m not moving. My commander put me here to do this bean patch and you ain’t getting me out of here.” So he stayed to defend that silly bean patch until they had to pry his fingers, he was one of David’s mighty men.

Those are the kind of people God wants. I will tell you historically, as you look back into the diary of Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus says, “I’ve talked to every major theologian across Europe. They all agree. Every prophecy necessary for Christ to return has been fulfilled. They all think Christ will be here in the next 70 years.”

Rick:

And that’s in the 14 hundreds.

David:

That’s why he wrote in his diary, “That’s why I’m compelled. God has shown me out of Isaiah that there are isles of the sea that haven’t heard the gospel. I’ve got to get the gospel there because there are only 70 years left.” Five hundred years later.

Rick:

500 years off, there.

David:

As you move into the Founding Era, the Founding Fathers like Sam Adams said, “We”ve talked to all the theologians, they all agree. There’s not a prophecy left to be fulfilled before Christ returns. They think he’ll be here by 18 hundred.”

And Sam Adams said, “Maybe, but I’ve still got stuff to do.” But they were believing by 18 hundred. We’ve had that cross every single generation. Every prophecy has been fulfilled since a long time ago. Every single one. There’s nothing left for him to return except the Father to say, “Ok, return.” And that’s all we’re waiting on. Who knows how long it’s going to be. That’s not our business. It doesn’t matter when he returns. We”ve got to be occupying until he comes.

Rick:

Because isn’t it much easier to give up on the culture if you are saying, “Look, God is going to be back in two weeks or two years. Why should I worry about trying to change the culture.” Â

David:

And the other thing is it creates a pessimism. “This the last days, there’s nothing we can do to turn it around.” Yeah? What makes you think so? I love Isaiah 59 where God says, “You think my arms are too short to save?” And even with Moses, he told Moses, “Get out of the way Moses. I’m going to destroy these people.”

When God says he can destroy people, he didn’t do it. Moses went and prayed. And God said, “Ok, I won”t destroy them.” How do you know what can be changed through prayer?

Do you think this is the last time you think it’s all written? God responds to prayer. He has changed so many times what he intended to do because somebody got involved in prayer.

We can’t check out on this. We absolutely cannot check out on this. You look in the Bible, how many times did Israel sink to the bottom of the barrel and God still brought them back? Still, I’ve got great hope for the country.

Rick:

I was going ask you about America. We’ve had our downtown times, we’ve had our revivals, so why couldn’t it happen again?