Billy Graham announced a 40 day fast and prayer program that starts before the 2012 election and that ends on November 7th with a special TV crusade. This is billed as a final warning to America<\/strong> with the hope that it might start a third awakening in America. Graham and other astute Christian leaders see that judgment is coming if America does not repent but now neo-evangelicals, Word of Faith, New Apostolic Reformation and Mormons are piling on this final warning to America bandwagon.<\/p>\n I have to admit that I have to wonder if God is in all the wind when I see Bible believing evangelicals yoking up with heretics and cults in their calling of America to repentance. It very well could be that God is using the greatest evangelist of our era one last time to give America its final warning. That seems very appropriate, but if this becomes a big tent circus, the barkers for the side shows will divert and deceive many from what should be the main focus of any revival and that is the gospel of salvation.<\/p>\n There is no doubt that the people of America need to repent of their evil ways or America is going to reap judgment. Few true Christians would dispute that. The question is how do Christians help make that happen? Billy Graham thinks that it might be achieved if he can get Christians to fast and pray for 40 days before the election and then have a national TV show after the election where everyone invites their neighbors to watch and hear his message.<\/p>\n I think Graham giving the final warning message is appropriate, but I have my doubts about the rest. I just do not think unbelievers will come over to believers houses to hear Billy Graham\u2019s message when they are asked. That is like asking liberals to attend your tea party rally, and if you get deceptive and claim it is not what it is, they hardly will be receptive to you anymore.<\/p>\n Needless to say, most of those that will respond to invites to watch Billy Graham already believe. Sometimes I think some Christians live in a bubble. There is a real world out there that is hostile toward real Christians. Billy\u2019s final warning broadcast is not going to be heard or believed by most in America. That does not mean that a third awakening is impossible, but if it comes, I think it will come after judgment and not before.<\/strong> I certainly am not saying that Billy should not warn America either. The whole Church should be warning unbelievers in America.<\/p>\n From what I read no political position is advertised in this movement, but It obviously is designed to change the national election, and there is only one party that might slow the slide into national moral decay.<\/p>\n I think that the nation gets the leaders that they deserve, so if the third awakening gets going after the final Billy Graham Crusade, will we continue to have the Marxist or do we deserve the liberal Mormon Bishop? I guess through earnest intercessory prayer, our President could actually come to see the error of his ways, or there could be an act of God that removes him from office. But if our leaders reflect the nation, I would think most in the nation would also need to repent of their evil ways.<\/p>\n Contrary to what some believe, there is a huge difference between the two parties especially at the national level. The Republicans have some corrupted people, but the Democratic Party has been totally taken over by evil demonic people. That is quite a difference. You should notice that almost all Republicans are on one side on an issue and the Democrats are on the other side. Guess which side is usually the biblical position? Hint, it is not the party represented by the Jackass.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s face the facts, the Democratic party has been taken over by Marxists with a demonic worldview. What else does Obama have to do to prove that? Some like Pelosi and Clinton even claim to have talked to dead spirits in the White House. Harry Reed apparently has one whispering in his ear about Romney\u2019s income taxes.<\/p>\n The fasting and praying that Graham asks for might produce some good results if Christians actually really did that. However, real fasting and praying seems to fall on the cutting room floor in modern Christendumb productions. I generally cannot even get most Christians to talk about Christian issues once they stepped out of their church building. How is anyone going to get them to stop eating and start praying?<\/p>\n American fasts are a joke anyway. American Christian fasts are something like giving up a morning Danish to add an extra milkshake at lunch. I can\u2019t wait for the ground rules for this 40 day fast. I suppose it will be something like Lent when I was a Catholic. I always gave up something for Lent but I can\u2019t recall missing anything that I ever gave up. That is about the extent of fasting in America.<\/p>\n It is amazing to me that so many Christians can claim a verse like 2 Ch 7:14 out of context and wrongly apply it to Christians but then they won\u2019t also apply the Old Testament definition of fasting and praying found in the Old Testament that would satisfy the requirement of 2 Ch 7:14. Sackcloth and ashes anyone? I thought not!<\/p>\n Everyone loves to use 2 Ch 7:14 totally out of context lately. They think that if Christians in America would just humble themselves and pray that God would heal this increasingly heathen America. Never mind, that the passage in context is talking about the people in Israel who agreed to keep a blessing and curse covenant relationship with God. They got graded on their obedience and disobedience to that covenant. Disobedience produced a curse on the land of Israel. Then, if the Israelites truly repented with fasting and praying the curse was lifted on the land of Israel. Is that what Christian Americans want for America? If so, we are in big trouble. I will take unmerited grace and mercy any day.<\/p>\n Therefore, before you fast and pray and agree that you and other Christians in this nation brought a curse upon the land, let me explain to you that America is not Israel and God never entered into a covenant relationship with America or any other Gentile nation (in spite of what Mormons claim). I already wrote an article on the 2 Ch 7:14 false presumption that is going around like some computer virus in our churches and tea parties. Read the argument<\/a><\/strong> if your own hermeneutics and discernment spam filter remains dysfunctional.<\/p>\n The polls are very clear that almost all people who call themselves Christians in this country do not even have a Christian worldview. So should I believe that these are going to fast and pray for a change in America? A change to which worldview?<\/p>\n Another virus going around is a book called \u201cThe Harbinger\u201d with its Isaiah 9 absurd application for America. Making that passage about Israel have a dual fulfillment to America is simply not properly discerning the scriptures. It just shows how some Christian leaders love to build elaborate presumptions around a cherry picked verse taken totally out of context. I mention it, because if people knew sound doctrine, this book would not be all over the Christian talk circuits as if it were some special revelation and message from God.<\/p>\n I am not even going to waste my time discussing the details because the book is fiction and the prophetic claims and similitudes are largely fabrications. If you want to know more, here is a link to a book that refutes \u201cThe Harbinger\u201d <\/strong><\/a>and in that link you can also find other statements by leaders in the apologetics and discernment ministry about \u201cThe Harbinger\u201d book. Sure, there is some truth in the book, and that truth is that America does need to repent of its evils if it wants to remain a great nation.<\/p>\n Even so, any astute Christian already knows that. We do not need a fairy tale to make claims that the Bible does not make. The end (a call to repentance) does not justify the means (misapplying what God said and making factual fabrications in the name of a warning from God). Claims are made by some that this book should be accepted because it is a warning for America to repent. I doubt that preaching to the choir using false presumptions brings about real national repentance.<\/p>\n I know there are Christian people out their that think some \u201canointed\u201d Christian leaders are receiving prophetic words from God about America’s future. However, that presumption is their big problem. God is not giving out new private revelations to Christians anymore. That is because the truth that believers need for faith and practice has already been written down within the collection of books that we call the Bible. Anyone can claim anything, and that is why God\u2019s words had to be recorded in a reliable book for all time. Having been in the Charismatic Movement for years, I can personally verify that claims of special revelation from God\u2019s \u201canointed\u201d have not proven to be reliable, and that is putting it mildly.<\/p>\n If there were new revelation, how would you know the difference between a word from God and a word from a huckster or wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing? Indeed, the old Gnostics proved that point and that is why we have an accepted Canon. Now the neo-Gnostics continue to prove that point by adding their false prophecy and false teaching to what God said in His written word. Yet, many Christians are still deceived by those claiming direct revelation.<\/p>\n What is recorded in the scriptures is totally reliable. The teachings were verified by eye witnesses and written down. If the words were disputed by these witnesses, the books would not have been accepted as scripture. Sound doctrine does not come from listening to people blowing wind about new revelations from God, it comes from studying and understanding the reliable scriptures that we were given.<\/p>\n With that said,\u00a0 I am not saying that God is not warning America to repent of her evil. That message has been given by Christians to Americans since the Revolutionary War. Sometimes Americans listened and there was a time of peace, and sometimes they did not listen and there was a time of correction. Sometimes God gave Americans over to their own ways even after their leaders called for national repentance. Abraham Lincoln and FDR both called for fasting and prayer but it did not stop the two worst wars in our nation\u2019s history. We are probably at that point again.<\/p>\n People like Billy Graham and many national Christian leaders tend to have big tent Christianity. They seem to include everyone that identifies with Christianity as being Christians. In big tent Christianity, 70 percent of Americans are Christian. However, even the blind should see that most claiming to be Christians in America are not in the faith. True Christians are a small fraction of what is identified as Christendom.<\/p>\n Sure, I would agree that if the 70 percent of people in America that called themselves Christians humbled themselves and prayed for 40 days, things in this nation would radically change. However, the problem is that you are not going to get more than a few percent of these \u201cChristians\u201d to even give lip service to the idea of fasting and praying for this nation, and only a small percent of those, would even take such a call to repent from their own sins seriously. Even most of those that actually followed the 40 day program would just revert back to their old ways in short order.<\/p>\n The premises in calling for this repentance is that America is like Nineveh and that we can repent like Nineveh. It really is not quite that simple. Certainly if we would repent like Nineveh God would stay His judgment, but there is more to the story. Did God\u2019s people fast and pray for Nineveh? Actually, Israel hated Nineveh. In fact, Jonah hated Nineveh so much that he would not even go preach the message that judgment was coming on them. He feared they might believe his message and repent and God would relent. That was the last thing Jonah wanted. He wanted Nineveh destroyed and he even sulked when God spared them.<\/p>\n Today there are no prophets in Israel, and none are being sent to America with a message of judgment from God, but I guess one could make the case that the collective Church has the Spirit of God and can be God\u2019s spokesperson. So, if the true Church is a Jonah type, how do Christians get America\u2019s attention so that she will repent? It only can be done through proclaiming the gospel. In Nineveh the greatest to the least in the nation repented in sackcloth and ashes because they understood that Jonah was raised from the deep. Does anyone really think that is going to happen here when the sign of Jonah was fully fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ but most people here in America reject the message?<\/p>\n Sure, Graham\u2019s suggestion could be a start of a third awakening, if believers actually got unbelievers to listen and they actually believed the salvation message. However, in big tent Christianity what is the Christian message anyway? It certainly is not found in the works theology and demonic deceptions of Roman Catholicism. It certainly is not found in mainline protestant Christendom, that thinks the Christian message is a Sunday ritual or a social program. It certainly is not found in the Word Faith movement, that thinks the Christian message is speaking reality into existence. It certainly is not found in the New Apostolic Reformation and ilk, that thinks the Christian message to America is Dominion Theology. It certainly is not found in the gospel light churches, that think that the Christian message is 10 steps to prosperity or a better life now. It certainly is not found in the emergent and contemplative movement, that thinks God\u2019s message can be found inside yourself. It certainly is not found in the Mormons, who think that the Christian message is evolving to become Gods with the aid of secret temple rituals and markings on holy underwear.<\/p>\n So yes, I am kind of concerned about what message is going to be delivered during this 40 day period by big tent Christianity. All the jokers, circus clowns and side-show freaks are already arriving for the big awakening show and who in evangelical Christianity has the biblical discernment to show them the back door to keep those in the tent focused on Billy\u2019s salvation message?<\/p>\n If we give the message that America should become a more moral nation, how do they get there without true Christian conversion and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?<\/strong> True repentance is dying to self and sin and putting on Christ. Are we talking about a great awakening to convert Americans to true Christianity, or a great awaking to take America back to a time when sin was not so socially acceptable?<\/p>\n If we could actually get most Americans to believe the gospel, America would not be at the point of judgment now. On the other hand, if enough Americans decide that living by the moral law is better, but a spiritual rebirth is not part of that program, then how is that moral Christian society achieved without forcing Christian dominionism on all Americans? I guess we could take lessons from Islam and call our moral system the \u201cclear way to water\u201d (Sharia Law). Or if we want to include Islam in the big tent we can make them very happy by just using their own language and putting everyone under Sharia Law.<\/p>\n You might wonder about my reason for questioning where the big tent wagon train will be going with this? It is my concern that big tent Christianity eventually puts all under the Harlot of Revelation 17.<\/p>\n It is possible that the Harlot theocracy is the next system that controls the world after the present world order fails. The next world order might be a system of social justice controlled by a big tent theocracy and it just might get legs under the name of social morality and social justice.<\/p>\n Protestantism already has those pushing us toward big tent Harlot rule. Roman Catholics believe that they will lead a Roman Catholic theocracy on earth. Islam expects an Islamic theocracy will rule the world. Even Eastern religions, New Age, and Mormons expect the more spiritually evolved to rule the world.<\/p>\n The point is that most of the people in the world already expect a theocracy to rule the world. Now there has to be a way to unite them. Repentance into morality under the law could be that unifier especially after the next world war. Nevertheless, man cannot achieve morality through trying to keep the law. Without being born spiritually into the body of Christ, sin still reigns in the flesh.<\/p>\n I agree that Billy Graham should be calling America to repentance. If not America\u2019s best known evangelist of our times, then who? Even so, any true third awakening means that a whole lot of Americans would need to get ears to hear the true gospel and get saved. Trying to restore America to the days America lived under moral law which still brought us to what we see in America today, will probably only bring a revolution followed by the Dominion Theology Harlot theocracy that I suggested. Then when the Antichrist arrives, there will be a counter-revolution against the theocracy and lawlessness will again prevail.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that the ten kings that give their power to the Beast hate the Harlot and burn her with fire. It does not have to happen this way, but it certainly could if Christians take the big tent path to be inclusive.<\/p>\n I certainly do not think that any biblical third awakening can be achieved by Bible believers yoking up with heretics to present some hybrid Christianity that is nowhere to be found in scriptures. So, if Billy Graham and other evangelicals want a third great awakening, they should start by not allowing all the workers of iniquity into their big tent great awakening party. Of course some might then have to exclude themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editor Note. This is a slight modification of an article I wrote on Aug 11, 2012 on my old blog. With no repentance and the reelection of Obama there obviously was no third awakening in our nation. The third awakening … Continue reading