A National Emergency and Spiritual Urgency - History Talks

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

And I believe that the election Tuesday week.

And I and I've read enough documentation to see that you've heard this before if you're over 50.

Um, because we always say that this election is the most important election in the history of our country.

But I've never said that.

I'll just say that.

I've never said that in my time, but I'm gonna say it right now.

That this coming election is on the level of the election of 1860.

It might be on the level of the crossroads that England found herself in in the 1930s, as it related to Stanley Baldwin being prime minister, Neville Chamberlain being prime minister, and then the unraveling that occurred in the government because of what was happening in Europe, and the inauguration then of Winston Churchill.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Father, in the name and the blood of Jesus, we receive these words as your inerrant, infallible word for us today.

It's a command to us today to follow you and to seek your face and to love you with all of our heart.

And so, Father, I pray that as we now enter into this last hour of worship and prayer, as we take the war room to the whole church together, God, would your eyes be upon us?

May your ears be attentive to us.

And Father, may your heart be our heart when we pray, when we worship.

In your name.

Amen.

If you have your Bible with you, 2 Chronicles 7, if you guys are looking on the app, I want to just share a few words here this morning before we go into some prayer.

Does anybody know that there's an election coming up?

No.

I just want to share a little bit about that, and I don't want to be polemic on any particular party.

But if I was to give this a title, this brief remarks before we go into prayer, is a national emergency and spiritual urgency.

National emergency spiritual urgency.

Throughout the Bible, there have been national emergencies that have resulted in spiritual urgency.

In prayer, in seeking God, in repentance.

I think of David, sons of Issachar, Josiah, Zechariah, Nehemiah, Joel.

Throughout historical and biblical precedent in America with spiritual emergencies, it's really dark.

Can we turn up the lights?

I think we've got like some of the lights on and some of the lights off.

That'll be great.

What a lot of people don't realize is that the first Great Awakening that was, if we were to kind of have an author of that, we might point to Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, was followed a number of years later by the Great Revolutionary War.

That was a national emergency.

The second Great Awakening was, in my opinion, in the 1840s, 1830s up into the 1850s, which then led to, was a part of the unraveling that occurred with the Civil War.

So when I talk about a spiritual urgency and a national emergency, I'm speaking of the fact that God often moves in response in ways that lead to unraveling and even turmoil.

But our nation was always stronger as a result of what we went through.

And I believe that the election Tuesday week, and I and I've read enough documentation to see that you've heard this before if you're over 50.

Because we always say that this election is the most important election in the history of our country.

But I've never said that.

I'll just say that.

I've never said that in my time, but I'm going to say it right now.

That this coming election is on the level of the election of 1860.

It might be on the level of the crossroads that England found herself in in the 1930s as it related to Stanley Baldwin being prime minister, Neville Chamberlain being prime minister, and then the unraveling that occurred in the government because of what was happening in Europe and the inauguration then of Winston Churchill.

The most significant issue, in my opinion, and it's only my opinion, but as your pastor, I believe, is not the economy, but rather the Supreme Court.

As many as four Supreme Court justices could retire in the next four to eight years.

Now, for you that don't understand the Supreme Court, you're young and you're just kind of learning about government, a Supreme Court justice is for life.

So the entire complexion of the Supreme Court, which has already changed significantly in the last few years, could be altered in a massive way for the next 30 years, based on who the president nominates, which means the presidential election takes on that much more significance.

Now I don't know how many of you watched the three debates.

I watched the first two, and I just couldn't find it in me to watch the third.

But I do know from quotes that I read that Hillary Clinton did make a statement about keeping abortion legal.

There have been 40 million abortions.

Forty million plus just in this country, probably a billion worldwide.

That's an entire generation snuffed out.

Do you know how huge that is?

Do you realize that when Herod realized that he had been tricked by the three magi, that what he did is he went into Bethlehem?

And he remembered he slew the kids.

This is demonic activity, men and women.

And then we know from other statements that there is a desire for increased legalization of partial birth abortion.

You could literally take a child out of the womb with the head still in the womb and you can cut it open to kill it.

And the fact that there's so little outrage anymore in the church really is astounding, isn't it?

And I think it's because we feel, I know for me and for others, we feel so shut down that it feels like a lost cause.

So in my mind, who you vote for is a vote for potentially four Supreme Court justices.

And on one side you have a progressive liberal agenda which takes life very lightly.

On the other side is a constitutional view.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.

That all men are created equal, men and women, even in the mother's womb, that they are endowed by their creator even in their mother's womb with certain inalienable rights.

Here's what the rights are according to our Constitution: life, life, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So we are headed into troubles either way.

If Donald Trump is elected president, we're headed into troubles, folks.

If Hillary Clinton is elected president, we're headed into troubles.

So you need to just realize that's the lay of the land.

Gridlock is the next four years, whoever's president.

I promise you.

The Republican Party can't even agree on its candidate yet.

Political gridlock, economic gridlock, social gridlock, racial gridlock, spiritual troubles.

The troubles are bigger than Donald Trump, and the troubles are bigger than Hillary Clinton.

It is the discipline of the Lord on the church that we have these two candidates.

Don't forget that.

And here's the deal: Hillary Clinton is a mirror of you and me.

Donald Trump is a mirror of you and me.

What we so hate or despise about either candidate is a reflection of the church and us.

God is disciplining America.

But God's not done with the church.

And I believe revival's coming.

And I believe awakening's coming, and that's why we prayed for 24 hours.

And some of you in this room gave up time, energy, sleep, food, convenience, because you believed in praying for revival and awakening.

And until the church comes to terms with that, the awakening and revival still wanes.

Because the church is being awakened.

It is being awakened.

And here's what's cool.

Remember a guy named Abraham?

Remember God sent angels to warn him of what he was going to do to Sodom because his brother Lot was there?

And Abraham, out of the compassion of his heart, said, Well, Lord, what if we can just find 50 people, righteous people?

Will you absolve to change your mind about Sodom?

And God said, Yes.

And all through the scriptures, God changes his mind.

Isn't that amazing?

Don't ask me why or how, but God sometimes changes his mind on things because he waits for the people, the church, to come alive.

He said, okay.

And then Abraham started thinking, there's no way there's 50 in Sodom.

So then he goes, 45.

Wait, 40.

Well, hold on.

30?

20?

10?

And what did the Lord say?

He said, absolutely.

I will not judge the land if there's 10 believers, 10 righteous people in Sodom.

And men and women, there's tens of thousands in America praying.

I think every I did four of the 24 hours, and every time I was in there, there was more than 10.

There were 15 or 20 people in most cases in there praying.

So God is full of mercy, and I don't believe he's done with America yet.

And I want us to come into our time today to fast and to pray and to seek the Lord for him to bring revival and awakening to our nation.

Turn in your Bibles to Jeremiah 29 if you have your Bibles.

And I think there's two revival passages in the Bible that mean the most to me personally.

There's hundreds of them.

But I love Jeremiah 29 from the perspective of God responding to people who search and seek after him.

Jeremiah 29, 11.

Many of us have read and maybe even memorized this because of verse 11, but let's read all of it to verse 14.

The Lord speaking through Jeremiah, for I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil.

I would say we're saying that over our city, we're saying that over the nation of the United States of America, to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart.

I will be found by you, says the Lord.

And I will bring you back from your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations and from the places where I've driven you, says the Lord.

So the Lord speaking to Israel is speaking to us today that if we'll seek him with all of our heart, he's just waiting to throw down compassion and mercy and a work of his spirit because God's eyes are on the church.

Remember, I talked about the message I gave Dare to be a Daniel?

Here's what I said to them.

I said, look, look, young people, your life is insignificant.

I say that to you here at the road.

Your life is insignificant.

It is not epic.

But God's work and his mission is significant and it's epic.

And when we line ourselves up with the bigger story of what God's doing, we enter into the great drama of the ages is with the adventure of the kingdom of God.

And your life becomes epic.

And guess what?

It's amazing who becomes epic and who becomes a footnote.

The only reason we know about Nebuchadnezzar and Darius and Belshazzar and Cyrus is because of Daniel.

Because when Daniel made a choice to not defile himself in Daniel 1, verse 8, he entered into this great drama of what God wanted to do even in Babylon.

Daniel 1:8

And so, men and women, you're taking on epic proportions in the significance of your life today by being here and entering into prayer.

Because God's got a great drama, a bigger story happening in our country than just our own personal lives.

Now turn to 2 Chronicles 7.

2 Chronicles 7, and then we're going to go into worship and prayer.

And this is what's significant about 2 Chronicles 7 is that it appears at the beginning that God is actually shutting up heaven.

He actually has brassy heavens here at the beginning.

And then he gives a conditional clause if my people who are called by my name.

He says, When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people.

Do you realize, men and women, that a famine in the time of this writing meant death?

It meant that kids died in their homes.

There was no food.

He said, When I send it, God sends a famine over land, locusts, over the fields, would be economic devastation, stock market crash, banks going bankrupt, out of control inflation, pestilence, that's pandemics, that's disease, outbreaks of infections upon a land.

But if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.

A national emergency resulting in spiritual urgency, resulting in revival and an awakening.

And then he gives these incredible promises to us.

Now my eyes, verse 15, will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer made in this place.

So first of all, God sees you.

You are receiving a blessing today by being here.

By being a part of the road, there is a covering over you as a praying church.

God sees you, He notices you, He loves you.

His eyes are upon this church.

His eyes are upon the church in America.

That's the great drama of the ages.

Actually, the great drama of the ages is what's happening in the church, not what's happening in Washington, D.C.

Isn't that amazing?

Yet, we, because of the democracy that we have, have the opportunity to actually set the agenda for the future by being able to vote.

And historically, that in and of itself is unprecedented.

For now I have chosen and sanctified this house that my name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually.

As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked and do according to all that I've commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom as I covened with David your father, saying, You shall not fail to have a man as a ruler in Israel.

Guess what?

When the church is being the church, God raises up leaders who lead.

That's why I said our current candidates are a reflection of ourselves.

So I, as a pastor, obviously have an investment in this because I've been called into this role.

But even as a layman, or if I was a businessman, or if I was a doctor, a lawyer, or a mechanic, or whatever, I would say to you that what happens in the church affects everything here.

It does not mean that every leader in each one of these particular areas, either in our city, our county, or our nation, have to be Christians.

I've read all the major works on Winston Churchill.

And I'm convinced to this day, probably Winston Churchill didn't know the Lord.

But was Winston Churchill raised up by God in a mighty way to take on Hitler?

Stanley Baldwin considered himself a believer.

Neville Chamberlain considered himself a believer, and they could not get the job done.

God used a chain smoking, cigar smoking, rum drinking.

He wasn't a womanizer.

Man who hated Hitler, hated fascism, hated communism, and believed in his Christian nation of England.

And if he hadn't done his job the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasn't doing his, we'd all be speaking German right now.

So God raises up secular leaders in a mighty and powerful way because the church prays for them to be raised up.

You know, in Luke 4 and Matthew 4, when Jesus was taken up into the temptations, and Satan came to him, Lucifer came to him and said, Look, he took him up on the precipice of the temple.

He said, Look, I've been given all the powers of the nations of the world.

It's been given to me, and I can give it to whomever I wish.

Satan, the God of this age, is looking for people who will guard these areas of the mountains of society because these are the gates of hell.

And we read, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

So let's go to God now in prayer.

Let's intercede.

And what we have here is a table with a black cloth on it.

And here's what I'd invite you to do as we start to pray.

If God has laid a particular sin on your heart, it could be personal, it could be corporate, it could be national, would you write it down on the piece of paper?

Paper, write it here on a piece of paper.

I'm gonna put the sin of abortion, for example, right here.

And then let's take it and let's nail it to the cross.

Let's put it on the cross and give it to God and say, Lord, with the blood of Jesus, would you change this?

Would you raise up Christian or secular leaders who would be a part of affecting the justice system, the court system, the government system, that these types of things could be overturned.

You hear what I'm saying?

Everybody get it.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.