The Refreshing Power of Revival | Sunday Message

Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here. You're listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast and my objective is to deliver, hopefully, compelling practical insights in faith, culture, and current events from a biblical perspective. To find out more about our ministry, just go to our website, harvest.org.

So thanks for joining me for this podcast. Let's pray together. Father, we ask your blessing on this time as we open your Word.

We ask your blessing on our nation, the United States of America, on this 4th of July weekend. We pray, Lord, that you will send a spiritual awakening to America again because we need it more than ever. So speak to us through your Word now. We pray. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

Hey, grab your Bible and turn to Jonah chapter 2. Let me start with a question. Have you ever been sound asleep and around 3 o'clock your phone rings and a person actually asks you this question.

This is a phone by the way. They ask you a question, did I wake you? And for some unknown reason, our natural response is, no, I was already awake.

No you weren't. Why is it that we deny it when we're sleeping? Sometimes I'll watch television with my wife and she'll pick something that I don't find all that interesting like some British baking show and I'll fall asleep and she'll say, you were sleeping. I'll say, no I wasn't, but I was because it was actually snoring. Have you ever fallen asleep and woken yourself up with your own snoring? What does it deal with us denying that we're actually asleep?

I don't know, but I know this one thing. You can be spiritually asleep. You can be spiritually asleep as a follower of Christ and a nation can be asleep as well. This is the 4th of July weekend and I have some thoughts about our nation because I believe America needs to wake up spiritually. No question, God has blessed our nation in so many ways.

We sing about it, America, America, God shed his grace on thee. And this 4th of July weekend, I'm praying that God will send another spiritual awakening to our nation. Listen, we don't need to be woke, we need to be awake.

Let me say that again. We don't need to be woke, we need to be awake. Romans chapter 13 says, it's all the more urgent.

You know how late it is. Time is running out so wake up because our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. That's what I want to talk about in this message that I'm calling the refreshing power of revival. Now we hear that word revival thrown around a lot and you might wonder what is revival exactly?

I think we overly mystify this word and don't necessarily understand its actual meaning. Revival is just another word for refreshment or restoration or simply returning something to its original condition. The psalmist says in Psalm 85, 6, will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?

And then Psalm 80 verse 19 says, restore us oh Lord, let your face shine upon us that we may be saved. Revival is refreshment. Revival is being restored to original condition. You see a beatable car maybe lying around in a junkyard. Someone buys it. They do body work on it. They repaint it.

They drop a new engine in it, put new tires and wheels on it and you see it rolling down the road, you can't believe it's the same car. That is called a restoration. You see a plant that's beginning to wither. You put some water on it and get it out in the sunshine and it comes back to life again.

Or maybe you see someone that's just out working in the sun and you're exhausted and you come and have a nice meal and drink some cool water and you're refreshed. That is what I'm talking about, being refreshed or restored again. A revival is when God's people come back to life again because they've been refreshed, they've been refilled and they've been restored to their original condition. The church needs a revival. We need to be restored to original condition.

You might ask, what is original condition? It's the church of the first century. It's the church of the book of Acts. It's the church that turned their world upside down.

We need to be more like that. The church needs a revival but our nation? Our nation needs a spiritual awakening. Revival is for believers.

Awakening is for non-believers. Revival for a believer is getting back to that first bloom of a love relationship with Jesus Christ. Sometimes when we've been walking with the Lord for a while, that passion begins to fade. That zeal begins to erode and we don't have that excitement in walking with the Lord as we had before.

What we want to have is longevity but we don't want to sacrifice our passion as we walk with Christ. We've been married 47 and a half years now. There's a secret to a long and happy marriage. Kathy and I go back to our honeymoon. We decided to ride on pack mules in the Grand Canyon. Neither one of us had done this before so we get on our little pack mules. It's a very narrow little path with a sharp decline.

You don't want to fall off this little path. Kathy was ahead of me in her pack mule. As she was riding along, her pack mule stumbled a little bit. She leaned down and whispered into the ear of the mule, that's once.

I thought that was kind of weird actually. We went a little bit further. Her mule stumbled again. She leans forward and says into the ear of the mule, that's twice. That's twice?

What is this all about? Then finally, the mule stumbled again and she pulled a pistol out of her purse. I didn't know she was packing a pistol. She held it up to the head of the mule and fired.

The mule dropped to the ground. I was shocked. I was outraged.

I couldn't believe she just shot this poor mule in the head. Then I said, Kathy, why did you do that? That was wrong. She looked at me and said, that's once. Okay, this is a joke. This never happened. I just wanted to throw it in there.

Don't be traumatized by my story. Listen, we want to maintain that love relationship with Jesus Christ and sometimes we walk away from it and revival is getting back to it again. Will God send a spiritual awakening to our country?

I don't know the answer. I hope he does. I hope he sends one or two or three more. I was speaking once with Chuck Smith who is regarded as the father of the last great spiritual awakening that was known as the Jesus movement. I asked him, Chuck, do you think we'll ever see another Jesus movement?

His answer was, I don't know, Greg. I don't know if we're desperate enough. How desperate are we for God to send a spiritual awakening? I think if we're desperate, we'll start praying about it.

If you're taking notes, here's point number one. Revival is like the spark that starts the engine. Revival is like the spark that starts the engine.

Evangelist Billy Sunday once said, quote, they tell me a revival is only temporary, so is a bath, but it does you some good, end quote. You know, periodically we need that reboot. Periodically we need that refresh. Periodically we need that bath. We need God to intervene and we need to keep that fire burning. We need to keep fuel on that fire.

Years ago I was in Virginia staying at a friend's cabin. And he told me, okay, now this cabin is heated by this little stove here and fireplace, so you have to always keep these flames going. And I said, okay, there's not central heating?

No. The whole cabin is heated by this fireplace and this stove, so you have to keep wood on the fire and you just start with some kindling. I said, great, where do I buy kindling?

He goes, what's wrong with you? You don't buy kindling. You just go and pick it up off the ground. I said, I don't know what kindling is. Can you show me? I'm from California.

He's from North Carolina. So we're walking along the ground and kindling is just little bits of branches and other things to start a fire with. And so he showed me and I got the fire going and the fire was working just fine. But the problem was it would fill with ash and then you would pour the ash into a metal bucket that was kept on a concrete surface. And then when the embers died down, you threw out the ash and then you started filling it up again. And that bucket filled up quickly. I'd get up in the middle of the night and put more wood on the fire and keep it going. And the bucket was filled to the top with ash. I thought, I've got to get rid of this. But I'm sure the embers are cool now.

It's been quite a long time. So I went outside. It's very dark.

It's very cold. I'm standing on the porch of this cabin and I throw the ash out. And along with the ash comes these little burning embers.

It's like everything went into slow motion. And one burning ember goes over into the grass area and it starts a fire. Another ember goes over here among dried leaves. Another fire starts. Another ember goes over there. Another fire starts.

I just about had a heart attack. I run out and I'm picking these embers up with my hands and throwing them up on the gravel driveway. And I go to look for a bucket near the smallest bucket. It was like the size of an ice bucket you have in a hotel.

I'm filling it with water. Running out trying to put out all these little fires. I was terrified. I was convinced that I would wake up the next morning and the whole area would have been burned down.

But thankfully that didn't happen. But that's when a fire gets out of control. But see here's what you want to do. You want to keep feeding a fire. And you need to feed the fire of revival.

And you need to keep refueling yourself spiritually over and over again. Revival. It's like the spark that starts the engine. It's like the spark that starts the fire that we feed.

Number two. Our nation, the United States of America was born in revival. And we need another revival. Against all odds America came to be. A group of colonists decided they did not want to be ruled over by England anymore. They decided that they wanted to have the freedom to worship as they chose. They decided they did not want to be under the power of the king. And so they decided to break away. They tried to do so peacefully.

England would have none of that. And so the conflict began. And our nation was actually founded by two men named George.

You might say well I know one. What do you mean two? Two Georges really played a key role in the establishment of the United States of America. First there was our spiritual founding father.

His name is George Whitfield. He was a British evangelist who came to our shores and preached the gospel. And thousands of colonists came to Christ. It was the first great spiritual awakening in what would become to be known as the United States of America. Between 1740 and 1742 before we were even a nation some 25 to 50,000 people came to Christ.

This is out of a population of only 300,000 people. And it was in this soil of revival that lives were changed. And now as followers of Jesus people had a morality. They had moral absolutes to live by.

They were living by what the scripture said. And so our nation was born out of the flame of revival. It was our second president John Adams who made this statement and I quote, the United States Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any others end quote. See it was assumed by our founding fathers that our nation had this soil that we built our nation out of. These absolutes that we hold on to. I mean look at the great buildings in Washington D.C. You have the Ten Commandments there and the U.S. Supreme Court building.

I mean this is something that was at the very foundation of our country. That brings us to the next George. A George you've probably heard of, George Washington. A General Washington led the continental forces to victory against all odds and was quick to give the glory to God and acknowledge it was providence that brought it to be. In fact Washington directed that a special flag would be made that would be flown over our navy ships and the message of the flag as you can see was appeal to heaven.

It's a tree with branches going upwards and the idea was we need to call on God. We need God's intervention for this all to work and God did hear our prayers. And we had spiritual awakenings after Whitfield.

Three in total. The last of which was the Jesus Movement. And we need another one right now. I think it's really important that we pray that God will put people that believe in positions of authority in our nation.

You know the scripture tells us that when the righteous rule the people rejoice. Just last week I was contacted by two men that served in the former administration. Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. So I met with each individually. We had a great time talking about our nation.

Talking about the needs of our nation. And I was able to pray for both of them. And you know when I'm around people like this I'm not there as a political pundit.

I'm not there to give any kind of political advice. I'm there as a pastor to help them. To pray for them.

To perhaps remind them of what scripture says. But in both instances we had wonderful discussions about the word of God. And when I talked to former Vice President Mike Pence about the need for another spiritual awakening he was so interested and acknowledged that is exactly what we need.

And both men spoke of their dependence on God to do the job that God has called them to do in the past and whatever that job is going to be in the future. So what needs to take place for us to have a spiritual awakening. A revival in America.

One writer put it this way and I quote. If all the sleeping people will wake up. If all the lukewarm people will fire up. If all the dishonest people will confess up. If all the disgruntled people will cheer up. If all of the estranged people will make up. If all of the gossipers will shut up. If all the true soldiers will stand up. If all the dry bones will shake up. If all the church people will pray up. Then we can have a revival. End quote. Wow.

Well said. So I want to look for a few moments with you at the greatest revival in human history. And it took place in the city of Nineveh. And of course the man that God used to bring this revival about was named Jonah.

Now let me ask you a question. When you hear the name Jonah what do you think of next? Jonah and what? The whale of course. We always think of the whale.

It's a funny thing when you read the book of Jonah. There's only a few verses about this whale. By the way the Bible never says whale. The Bible says it was swallowed by a great fish. The root word could be translated sea monster. It could have been a whale. It could have been some creature that has come to exist and no longer is out there. It could have been a one off custom designed creature God made just for Jonah.

I don't know. But some would say well a man could never be swallowed by a whale and live to tell the story. Oh really? Well tell that to Michael Packard of Cape Cod.

This happened this year. At eight o'clock in the morning Michael Packard who is a veteran lobster diver entered the water. And an article written about it puts it this way quote. In something truly biblical Packard was swallowed whole by a humpback whale. Packard recalled all of a sudden I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black and I was in there for about 40 seconds end quote.

Incredible. And then the whale, he got out of the whale. I don't know if the whale regurgitated him but he rejected Michael. And so he was in there about 40 seconds but the man we're talking about Jonah well he was in the belly of the beast for three days and three nights.

How did he end up there? Well it all started when he was running from God. You see God came to Jonah and he said I want you to go to the city of Nineveh and I want you to preach the message that I give you to them and Jonah flat out refused.

Why? Nineveh was a wicked city. Nineveh was known for their atrocities and their intense cruelty that they would demonstrate toward their enemies.

And Nineveh the capital of Assyria they were the about enemies of Israel. Therefore Jonah wanted nothing to do with them. He had no concern for their souls. It didn't concern him that God would judge this nation.

In fact it was his hope that God would judge this nation. Let me ask you a question. Are you willing to leave your comfort zone to reach people that need Jesus? Are you willing to build bridges to people that are of a different political persuasion than you? Are you willing to build bridges to people who are of a different race than you? Are you willing to build bridges to people who are just different than you?

How are you going to reach them if you won't communicate with them? But here was Jonah's real reason for not wanting to go to Nineveh. His fear was that God would forgive them. He knew the loving nature of God.

He knew that God extended mercy and he did not want the people of Nineveh to hear a message of forgiveness and turn from their sin and be spared. By the way, so much for the angry God of the Old Testament concept. Sometimes people say, well you know the God of the Old Testament is angry and harsh and judgmental and the God of the New Testament is merciful and loving.

Nonsense. The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament. He's merciful.

He's loving. He's forgiving. He's also just, holy, and righteous. But Jonah knew that God would forgive them if they turned to him.

So the Bible says Jonah found a ship and he paid the fare and he went down to Tarshish. Any step away from God is a step down and you will pay the fare when you run away from God. Remember this, sin will take you further than you want to go.

It'll keep you longer than you want to stay and it will cost you more than you want to spend. But also know this, God will always have the last word. The Lord could have just said, okay that's it Jonah.

I'm done with you. I'm going to get somebody else but the Lord loved Jonah. He had a plan for him and he was going to give him a second chance just like God loves you and has a plan for you. So the Lord sent a storm and by a storm I mean a storm in his case but we have storms in life as well. A storm can be a metaphor for a hardship, a difficulty. In fact there are three kinds of storms we face as Christians. There are perfecting storms, there are protecting storms and there are correcting storms. First there are perfecting storms. That's a storm that God allows you to go through so you will grow up spiritually.

Job talked about the difficulty he was facing, how he would come through it and be like gold. That was a correcting storm. Joseph of course was thrown into prison. He had done nothing wrong but God used him to help many other people. So that was a perfecting storm.

Then there are protecting storms. Remember when Jesus and the disciples were with the people in Galilee and Jesus performed his most popular miracle to date, the feeding of the 5,000. People were very excited. In fact we read that they wanted to make Jesus king and the disciples would be ruling with them. And Jesus said to his disciples, get in the boat, we're going to the other side. And as they were crossing the Sea of Galilee a great storm came. That was a protecting storm.

Jesus was protecting them from something that would have been very destructive in their life. But finally there are correcting storms. These are storms we effectively bring upon ourselves.

But here's the good news. Even if it's your fault, God will not abandon you in your storm. Because by sending this storm it's a reminder that you're loved by God and you're being chastened by God.

Hebrews 12 says the Lord disciplines the one he loves and he chastens everyone that accepts his son. So this chastening happened in the life of Jonah because he was loved by God. And the Ninevites that God wanted to reach through Jonah were also loved by God. So inside of the belly of this sea monster, maybe a whale, a great fish of some kind, Jonah had a personal revival.

Bringing me to point number three, revival begins with you. So if you're in deep waters right now, if you're in a storm right now, take it as a sign that God loves you and he's not done with you. God set a big storm and then a big fish and he gave Jonah a big spanking. And there in the belly of the fish Jonah called out to the Lord.

He said in Jonah 2 and 9, I'll offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise and I'll fulfill all of my vows for salvation comes from the Lord alone. What an amazing place to pray. Think of all the places people prayed in the Bible. We know that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego prayed in a fiery furnace. We know Daniel prayed in a den of lions. We know Peter prayed on top of the water then under the water. And Jonah prayed from the belly of this beast and he called out to God.

And what I find especially interesting is what he prayed. Again Jonah 2 and 9, I'll offer sacrifices to you Lord with songs of praise and I'll fulfill all of my vows. So he's saying, Lord I know what you've called me to do. I know I wasn't doing it.

I know I was going the opposite direction and I'll do what you have called me to do. Again Jonah had a revival in the belly of the fish. And then God gave him a second chance. Jonah 2, 10 says, The Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah unto dry land.

And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to them the message that I give to you. So here was Jonah now, repentant and regurgitated, believing and barfed, righteous and roughed. He was bleached and beached. He was victorious and vomited.

And one more, he was regurgitated and revived. Imagine if you were laying around at the beach in Nineveh and you saw this sight. In comes this massive beast cruising through the water. It comes right to the shore. It opens up his mouth, makes a retching sound and out rolls Jonah. Ta-da!

His skin was probably bleached from the gastric juices in the whale's belly. And here's this message. In 40 days Nineveh is going to be overthrown. Look at Jonah chapter 3.

He preaches this message that God gave him. And he says 40 more days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown. Now you might think that's a pretty hopeless message.

But actually it's more hopeful than you may realize. They had 40 days to repent. They had 40 days to get right with God. Fact of the matter is God sent no warning to Sodom and Gomorrah. Judgment fell on them.

But in the case of Nineveh, though they were wicked, the Lord gave them a second chance. I wonder what we would do in America if we were given a 40 day warning. Would we turn to God?

Because in this story it starts with the king who turns to God. And then all of the people do it as well. Would that happen in our nation as well? You know God has given two secret weapons to the church today. They are not boycotting and protesting.

They are not even registering and voting. The two secret weapons God has given to the church are prayer and preaching. So Jonah has prayed in the belly of the beast. Now he's preached to the city of Nineveh walking through their streets.

What happens next? You need to go now to Jonah chapter 3 verse 5 and we read this amazing story. The people of Nineveh believed God's message from the greatest to the least and declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.

When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes and dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. And everyone prayed earnestly to God. And when God saw what they had done, how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.

This is a stunning turnaround. An entire city filled with thousands of people turn to God in mass and a revival takes place and the judgment of God is turned away. It just shows us that no one is beyond the reach of God. I want you for a moment to think of someone you know that you can't even imagine being a Christian. It's hard for you to even picture them holding a Bible and saying something like, praise the Lord.

But listen to this, no one is beyond the reach of God. Maybe it's your father or your mother. Maybe it's your son or your daughter. Maybe it's someone you know that gives you a hard time at work. Maybe it's an angry, contentious neighbor.

Maybe it's a public figure. They could never come to believe in Jesus. Oh, they could. And you need to start praying for them that God will reach them. Again, this was a revival. God told these people 40 days judgment was coming and they repented.

God tells us in 2 Chronicles 7, 14, If My people which are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and churn from their wicked ways, then it will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. Listen, if you want to see a revival, just do revival like things. Don't overly mystify this.

Just do those things that you know you should be doing as a follower of Jesus Christ. Let me go back to comparing this to maybe the romance between a man and a woman. You know, when you're first taking a girl out as a guy, you want to make a good impression on her. So you actually shower.

And your shirt is clean. And you show her great respect. And maybe as you pick her up, you open the door of the car for her. And then you go to the restaurant, you pull out the chair for her. You take her to a nice French restaurant. Then you get married.

And things change a little bit. You still open the door for the car, but you just close it before she's all the way in. You pull the chair out in the restaurant, but you let her fall and then you point at her and laugh. And you take her to French restaurants. The last one you took her to was, I think it was Jochen's Box or Le Golden Arches. I don't know, but something's happened.

You've sort of slipped away. Go back and do those romantic things again, so to speak. If you want your marriage to be strong. I heard a story about a woman that wanted to divorce her husband in the worst way. She went to an attorney and said, I want to divorce my husband, but I want this to hurt him. I want him to feel a lot of pain.

And the attorney said, oh really? Well okay, I have a plan for you. He says, for the next three months, I want you to smother your husband with affection. Compliment him constantly.

Tell him what a great guy he is, how much you care for him. And then when that time has come to an end, you'll drop the divorce papers on him. He won't know what happened. He won't see it coming.

It'll even be more painful. She says, I'll do it. And so for the next three months, she complimented her husband, affirmed her husband, told her husband how much she loved, and appreciated him. And when the three months came to a close, the attorney called her and said, alright, let's get this divorce started. She said, divorce?

We're going on our second honeymoon. You see, the point is, she did what she probably should have been doing all along. And in the same way in our life as Christians, when we're doing the things we should always be doing every day, getting up and reading the Bible, having a prayer life, being involved in our church, sharing our faith, when we do these things, it fuels the fire of revival and keeps that fire burning.

But when we neglect those things, we begin to fade. Is there somebody that God has called you to reach that you don't want to reach because you have a discomfort talking to a person like that? I've told you before that my mother was married and divorced seven times, right? And after I became a Christian and a pastor, the Lord spoke to my heart to go back to these husbands of my mother and share the gospel with them.

It didn't always go so well. There was one guy who was especially cruel to my mom. He lived in Hawaii.

I'll call him Eddie. And he beat my mother and almost killed her. In fact, one night he knocked her unconscious with a wooden statue. And as I saw her laying on the floor bleeding, I thought my mother had died.

She left him after that. And I had a very hard heart toward this man, even after I was an adult. And I was over in Hawaii preaching at the Waikiki Shell. And someone said, Greg, you remember your old dad, Eddie?

Yes. He lives right across from the Waikiki Shell. And you know what? He's not doing well. His health is failing. If you'd like to say something to him, I said, I'm good. I don't want to say anything to him. And I felt directed by the Lord to go meet with him. So I took my wife, Kathy, over there and we sat in his tiny little apartment.

He used to live in a beautiful palatial home. And there he was in great pain, obviously, not doing well in life. And I told him what Christ had done for me and how he had changed me. And I said, I would like to invite you to come over here, just across the street, basically, and hear me speak. And he said, no, no, I can drive you over if you like it. No, he wanted nothing to do with it.

See, that's why I don't even try to reach these guys. But then there was another guy my mom married named Oscar Laurie. He adopted me.

And I always loved this man because he treated me as a father should treat a son. But my mom left him. She left him and we flew over to Hawaii when she married Eddie. So I was getting out of school in New Jersey and the car was packed up with our suitcases. And I said, where are we going? She said, Hawaii. I said, where's dad?

She said, he's not coming. And I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood. But after I was a young pastor, I sought him out, found him living in New Jersey. And I said, let's get some lunch together.

He said, oh, no, come to my home. We'd like to, you know, get to see you and know you again. And I'll introduce you to my new wife, Barbara. So I took the train out with Kathy and our oldest son Christopher to New Jersey there, Red Bank, New Jersey. And he was waiting at the station. And I remembered him immediately. And before I knew it, I was calling him dad again. And one night we were sitting at the table and his wife made us a beautiful Italian meal. And she said to me, Greg, tell me how you became a Christian. And then how did you become a minister? And as I shared my story, my dad was just staring at me, not really responding.

Oh, by the way, I left out something. He used to be an attorney. So I felt like I was standing before a judge giving my testimony. And I didn't seem like it was going very well. Another thing I left out was my father had just had a heart attack only a short time before and was having serious heart problems and even blacked out at the wheel of his car.

And so he was on a restricted diet and he was exercising a lot. So he's listening. I tell my story of how I came to Christ. And then the dinner was done. And Oscar, my father who adopted me, said, Greg, let's walk in the morning. And I said, OK. He knocked on the door of my room at 6 o'clock in the morning New Jersey time, 3 o'clock in the morning California time. I was still pretty groggy.

And as we're walking along in the park, he says, Greg, I was listening very carefully to what you said last night. And I said, yeah. And he said, I would like to give my life to Jesus Christ. Boy, did I wake up fast.

It was like a double espresso. I said, well, dad, maybe you don't understand what I said. Let me go over it again.

And I went over it again. He says, yes, I want Jesus to come into my life. And I said, well, what we need to do is pray. And he drops to his knees.

We're in the middle of a park. We're just walking at this point. He drops to his knees. I wasn't going to get on my knees. But since he was on his knees, I got on my knees. And I let him in this prayer. And Christ came into his life. And he lived 15 more years, got involved in the church, was a leader in his church.

An amazing, amazing story. But I didn't really want to reach these men that my mother was married to. But I had to leave my comfort zone and go to them.

Maybe there's someone like that that you're thinking of right now that you need to reach. We're bringing this message to a close. God gave a second chance to Nineveh. And God loves to give second chances.

The Lord does not want to bring judgment. But we know this. Every nation's days are numbered.

Every great world empire that has been on this planet, they had a beginning, a middle, and an end. And the same will happen to the United States of America in God's timing. But here's what we're praying for. One more great spiritual awakening. Maybe two more.

Maybe three or four more. That's up to the Lord. But our job, our mission, is similar to Jonah. We are to proclaim the good news and tell people that there is a God who loves them. It's a message of mercy. But it is also a message that says there's judgment if we reject that mercy.

Classic example. John 3.16 offers both the forgiveness and the ramifications of not accepting that forgiveness. Jesus says, for God so loved the world, He gave us only begotten Son, and whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

So here's the message of love. For God so loved the world that He gave, here's the message of judgment. Whoever believes in Him should not perish. So if I don't believe in Him, I'll perish. If I don't believe in Him, I'll face the judgment of God. Romans 6.23 is similar. First, there's the message of judgment. The wages of sin is death. But then the loving offer of forgiveness. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Years ago, another Hawaii story.

I was walking down the street in Hawaii. I was a young pastor at this point. The guy was holding the sign. It said the wages of sin is death. And he was yelling to the people, God hates you and God will judge you. And I watched this guy for a few minutes and I thought, he's misrepresenting the Lord.

So I walked up to him and I said, excuse me. And he's still yelling, God hates you and God will judge you. Excuse me, God hates you and He'll judge you.

Excuse me, yeah, what, what do you want? You know, why don't you put the rest of that verse. It is true that it says the wages of sin is death. But the rest of it says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Then he told me God was gonna judge me.

Well, he was misrepresenting God. Yes, it is true judgment can come. But it's also true that Jesus Christ took the judgment of God on the cross of Calvary in our place.

So we don't have to face it. God spared Nineveh. God extended mercy to Nineveh.

A spiritual awakening happened in Nineveh. One person put it this way, quote, if God could bring a mighty revival in Nineveh with no better representative than Jonah and no more gospel than he preached in their streets, he can surely do the same thing for America, end quote. Jesus actually validated the story of Jonah. Jesus said as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Here's what Christ was saying. Just as Jonah was in the belly of that beast, so I, the Son of God, will be crucified on a cross and I'll rise again from the dead. He validated the story and used it as a picture of his own death and resurrection. Listen, Jesus died for you. Jesus absorbed God's judgment that you should have absorbed and that I should have absorbed and he died in my place. Again, God loved you so much, he gave his only begotten Son and whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

On this fourth of July weekend, here's my question for you. Have you asked Christ to come into your life? Have you asked him to forgive you of your sin? Do you have the hope right now that you will go to heaven when you die?

If not, wouldn't you like to have it right now? I love how our nation was built upon the premise that we are to pursue life and liberty and happiness. Yes, you can have happiness, but you'll never have happiness from anything this culture offers. Even a relationship, even a possession or a career or some other thing will not give you happiness in and of itself.

There'll be moments of happiness of sorts but the ultimate happiness you're looking for, the true joy you want, comes from a relationship with the Lord who will come and live inside of you and that can happen for you right now. I said earlier in my message, God gives second chances and God can give a second chance to you. Have you been running from God like Jonah?

That needs to stop. Stop running from him and run to him. In a moment, we're gonna have a word of prayer and I'm going to extend an invitation for you to believe in Jesus, an opportunity for you to be forgiven of all of your sin and of Christ come and live inside of you. If you've never asked Jesus into your life, you can do it right here, right now. So if you want your sin forgiven, if you wanna know that you'll go to heaven when you die, if you want Jesus Christ to be your Savior and your Lord and your friend, why don't you just pray this prayer after me right now. Again, pray this prayer. Pray these words. Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner.

I'm sorry for that sin. I turn from it now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer and answering this prayer. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here. Thanks for listening to our podcast and to learn more about Harvest Ministries, please subscribe and consider supporting this show. Just go to Harvest.org and by the way, if you wanna find out how to come into a personal relationship with God, go to KnowGod.org. That's K-N-O-W-G-O-D.org.