Clearly Seeing a Difference

“On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me, for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain.  But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly.  They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord, those who are left in Israel; they shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue.  For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.” – Zephaniah 3:11-13 (ESV).

It has often been said that history repeats itself.  We could wish for this to come to pass in America as it did for a remnant of the nation of Israel—that our nation would be forgiven and restored as was Israel.  The prophecy of change came in Zephaniah 3:12:  “But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly.  They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord.”  Oh, that this current extensive call to repentance and prayer might make the difference in America that a call for the same action wrought among a remnant of Israel!  We can also pray that America might turn as it did in the days of two Great Awakenings in our nation’s history.

The First Great Awakening occurred in colonial America beginning about 1730 and lasting for about four decades.  The Tennent family in Pennsylvania, Rev. William Tennent, the father, and his four sons, all Presbyterian ministers, began preaching in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  The famous “Log Cabin College” they established grew into the prestigious Princeton University. Add to their voices the warnings given by a preacher named Rev. Jonathan Edwards with his famous sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  Then from England came the fiery Methodist preacher, the Rev. George Whitefield who was known as “The Great Itinerant.”  He held camp meetings in a broad area from New England  to the South.  The Great Awakening was a concerted effort to stir churches and society in general from the influences of the Great Enlightenment.  Personal experience with the Lord was emphasized over merely having membership in a church.  New denominations arose that were more evangelical in nature than the old, established churches.

Then came the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement in the early nineteenth century, beginning about 1800 and extending for forty years.  It is said that an estimated 20,000 people gathered in Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801 to hear the Rev. Barton W. Stone, one of many evangelists, expound the Word of God.  The second Great Awakening became an organizing process to lead people to moral and spiritual awareness.  It quickly spread to frontier settlements.  The American Bible Society was established in 1816 for the publication and distribution of the scriptures.  Other results were the establishment of schools and colleges, the organization of the Temperance Society, and widespread talk of the abolition of slavery.  Other noted preachers of the second Great Awakening were the Rev. James Finley and the Rev. Charles G. Finney.  The good these two movements of spiritual renewal brought to America are a part of the fabric of America’s history.

Prayer:  Lord, may our current day see a Great Awakening among our people when we turn to You for guidance.  May we clearly see a difference in America’s spiritual climate. Amen.