HOW I KNOW GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH AMERICA

On July 4, 2019, America will celebrate her 243^rd birthday. She is the oldest constitutional republic in the world and many Christians, for various reasons, believe her best days are behind her and that she will now decline into insignificance. I too once believed that God was through with America, but that all quickly changed on a hot summer day in 2010.

Ever since my commitment to Christ I have been a student and proponent of revival. By 2010, however, I had given up hope of America ever seeing another great, national spiritual awakening. The revivals of the 1990s, it seemed, had turned inward, becoming self-serving, and were powerless to stem the cultural and moral decline of the nation.

Although I believed there could still be individual and local revivals, I had reluctantly succumbed to the popular eschatological idea that there would not be another great revival and that America’s time in the sun was over and done.

Surprised by the Holy Spirit

That all changed, however, in the summer of 2010 when I experienced an eight-hour visitation of God that completely upended my thinking in this regard. It began on a hot summer day in Tulsa, OK when I began a two-hour drive to Kingfisher, OK where I would be preaching the following day in a Sunday morning service.

Without any warning or anticipation of such a thing happening, the Holy Spirit seemed to fill my car and I suddenly felt enveloped in God’s presence. At the same time my mind and heart began to be flooded with thoughts of hope and faith that America “could” see another great, national spiritual awakening that would impact the culture and alter the course of the nation.

As I drove along the highway, I was hardly aware of my surroundings. By the time I arrived at my hotel, my heart was so full I could hardly contain myself. I could hardly wait to open my notebook PC and began writing down the thoughts that continued to flood my mind. That experience lasted far into the night as I sat on the hotel bed and prayed and praised God and wrote.

The Fruit of That Experience

Two significant changes came out of that experience. Firstly, my hope was renewed for another national, spiritual awakening in America that would impact the culture and stem the tide of immorality and false religion that is flooding the land. Secondly, I saw for the first time that there was a direct bearing of the First Great Awakening on the founding of this nation. I saw that America had had a spiritual birth.

Out of that experience came my book America’s Revival Heritage and then The Faith and Vision of Benjamin Franklin. More than once I was amazed at how I was providentially led to resources to confirm the vision I had seen and to fill out the historical narrative to document America’s spiritual birth. This was important for as George Orwell said in his classic, 1984, “Whoever controls the past, controls the future.”

When America’s Revival Heritage sold out, and I began an edit for republication, there was so much new material that it soon became obvious that a new book was emerging. As a result, I published Pilgrims and Patriots, which expanded the historical narrative of America’s spiritual birth and showed, in even more detail, the role of prayer and the Great Awakening in her founding. Then came a small 38-page volume entitled 5 Pillars of the American Republic.

This research and writing has solidified in me the truth that was revealed to me that summer day in 2010. God brought forth America for a special purpose, and that purpose is not yet fulfilled.

God is Ready to Do it Again

Jonathan Edwards once said that when God determines to do a thing in the earth, He first sets His people to praying for the very thing that He has determined to give. One thing obvious is that there is a new hunger stirring across the body of Christ for a Divine awakening from heaven. Not something skillfully worked up by a religious maestro, but a Divine visitation that is prayed down from heaven.

Just a few days ago, I was providentially led to Zechariah 10:1, which reads, Ask the LORD for rain in the time of the latter rain. The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone. It was a fresh prod from the Lord to ask for the rain of the Holy Spirit in these days of the latter rain when God is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh as prophesied in Acts 2:17-18.

Yes, I am convinced that God is not through with America and that a fresh wind from heaven is about to blow across the land. 

Dr. Eddie Hyatt is a historian, Bible teacher and ordained minister. He has a passion to see America reconnect with her Christian roots and experience another great, national spiritual awakening. To contact him about sharing his "America's Reawakening" presentation to your church or group, send him an email at dreddiehyatt@gmail.com. Check out his books on Amazon and visit his website at www.eddiehyatt.com.