THE BIG LESSON GOD WOULD HAVE US LEARN THROUGH THE CURRENT CRISIS

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in Asia. We were under pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead (II Corinthians 1:8-9).

Self-reliance rooted in pride is the essence of the original sin. Our first parents declared their independence from God and chose to go their own way, relying on mere human strength and wisdom. This same flaw has been passed down through their posterity and continues to plague and hamper the world and the church.

The temptation to self-reliance can be very subtle. Even Paul the Apostle had to learn not to trust in his own human wisdom and strength. In the above passage, he mentions an excruciating time he and his team experienced while ministering in the Roman province of Asia. It was a situation, he said, Far beyond our ability to endure.

Although God did not send the trouble to Paul, He taught him this vital lesson in the midst of the trial. Paul learned the lesson of not relying on his own human ability and later wrote, Not that we are sufficient of ouselves to think of anything as of ouselves, but our sufficiency is of God (II Corinthians 3:5).

America Founded on “Humiliation” and Prayer

America’s founders understood this truth for they and their parents and grandparents had suffered much for their faith and had learned to renounce self-trust for complete trust in God. A common word they used for corporate and national times of prayer was “humiliation.” By this they did not mean a groveling or self-flagellation, but rather an admission of their own human frailty and their utter and complete dependence on God.

For example, during the fall of 1776, when the morale of the American army and populace had sunk to an all-time low because of a poor harvest and hardship on the battlefield, Congress proclaimed December 11, 1776, as a day of “solemn fasting and humiliation.” The proclamation called on all Americans,

To implore of Almighty God the forgiveness of the many sins prevailing among all ranks, and to beg the assistance of his Providence in the prosecution of the present just and necessary war (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that Defined America, 117).

After this day of “humiliation and prayer,” there was an amazing change in circumstances with successes on the battlefield and the reaping of abundant harvests. There was, in fact, such a turnaround that Congress issued a proclamation for a national Day of Thanksgiving for October 20, 1779 because, “It hath pleased Almighty God, the father of mercies, remarkably to assist and support the United States of America in their important struggle for liberty” (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that Defined America, 117).

America Saved by “Humiliation” and Prayer

“Humiliation” as a necessary ingredient for successful prayer was not lost on succeeding generations. When Abraham Lincoln called the nation to prayer during the midst of the horrible Civil War, he listed pride and self-sufficiency as sins for which the nation must repent. In his Prayer Proclamation for April 30, 1863, the President said,

We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that Defined America, 185).

There was tremendous response to this call for a day of humiliation and prayer. Lincoln himself later said,

I went to my room and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed. Soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had taken the whole business into His own hands (Hyatt  1726: The Year that Defined America, 187).

After this day of prayer, repentance and humiliation, there was an immediate change in the war in favor of the North. Whereas the North had suffered one defeat after another, just two months later they won a resounding victory at Gettysburg, and this proved to be the beginning of the end of the Civil War and the preservation of the American Union.

God Will Do It Again

God will do it again if we will meet His conditions. His conditions are found in II Chronicles 7:14, which reads,

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 and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

The very first condition for seeing a national healing is for God’s people to humble themselves. As mentioned above, this is not a groveling or a self-flagellation. It is not a cringing, fawning fear. It is, instead, an honest admission of our own human inadequacy and our desperate need for God in our lives.

The Greatest Threat to America

Matthew 5:3 in the NKJV says, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The phrase, the poor in spirit, may also be expressed as, those who realize how much they need God. It is those who realize their own human frailty and their desperate need for God’s mercy and grace in their lives who will see His kingdom power at work in their midst.

That being said, the greatest threat to America at this time is not the coronavirus. The greatest threat to America is a proud, self-sufficient church that has no sense of her own need. This was the case of the Laodicean church whom Jesus sharply rebuked, saying,

So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked . . . (Revelation 3:16-17).

What will save America is not pontificating declarations and prayers. What will save America is a realization of how poor and needy we are apart from His mercy and grace. As we turn to Him in humiliation and prayer, we can expect to see displays of His power that will change the course of history.

We will also see the great, national spiritual awakening for which so many long, for the promise of a national healing in II Chronicles 7:14 begins with the condition, If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray . . ..

Another Day of Humiliation and Prayer would do wonders for us as a people and nation.

This article was derived in part from Dr. Eddie Hyatt's latest book, 1726: The Year that Defined America, available from Amazon and his website at www.eddiehyatt.com. He is also the founder of the "1726 Project" that is dedicated to helping America reconnect with her Christian roots in Spiritual Awakening.