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Habakkuk 1:1-4
How long, O LORD, will I call for help,
And you will not hear?
I cry out to You, "Violence!"
Yet you did not save.
Why do you make me see inequity,
And cause me to look on wickedness?
Yes destruction and violence are before me;
Strife exist and contentions arises.
Therefore the law is ignored
And Justice is never upheld,
For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore Justice comes out perverted.
Habakkuh was a prophet who prophesied to Judah after the death of King Josiah. Josiah had instituted reforms in Judah after discovering the book of the forgotten law. When it was read in his presence he repented. And then he called for the nation to repent and undo the evil deeds of his father and grandfather. Thus for a time Judah remembered their God under the reign of King Josiah.
But after the the death of King Josiah Judah reverted back to her sinful ways. And the prophet Habakkuk is lamenting the sin of Judah before God. In essence he is pleading to God for a revival, a purging of God's covenant people in Judah. But the answer God gives Habakkuk is not what the prophet wants to hear. Consider what follows in Habakkuh 1:6-7,
For behold I am raising up the Chaldeans,
The fierce and impetuous people
Who march throughout the earth
To sieze dwelling places which are not theirs.
They are dreaded and feared;
There justice and authority originate with themselves.
In other words God was racing up to Chaldean Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar to invade Judah. Again this is not the answer the prophet was hoping for. But he had to learn in the next two chapters this was God's Sovereign plan to bring a remnant to Himself.
Like Habakkuk, there are those saints who see perversion and sin in American society and in the American evangelical church. Like Habakkuk they cry out for God to do something. They cry out for revival. They cry out for a righteous Republican President. They cry out for a righteous Congress and a righteous Supreme Court. They cry out for God to fill the churches with sinners. They want to see a return to the Bible. They want to see a return to morality. Thus they cry out for revival. But like Habakkuk, God is giving an answer that the American evangelicals don't want to hear.
As the last presidential election was said to be between a Muslim and a Mormon. This presidential election is between the Republican candidate who is a billionaire. And has no governmental experience. And between a secular humanist who despises everything Christ stands for. There is no righteous Evangelical leader for Christians to choose and vote for.
The Supreme Court far from being righteous is shifting more and more to the left. Coming out of the Supreme Court has been the legalization of same-sex marriages. And the uoholding of abortion laws.
Christians are crying for revival in the church in America. Yet we see many Evangelical pastors are embracing same-sex marriage. Preaching very little on the cross and holiness. And some just outright deny the word of God all together. The American church is prayerless. Quite materialistic. And a good many of the pastors are addicted to pornography. And the American church is rampant with divorce. And this is a church that believes are wanting to see revived.
But I believe like Habakkuk. God will raise up His own purging of the American Church to bring forth a remnant. And I believe it will come in the form of persecution. God is not going to revive a church that is filled with sin period Revival will not take place in a vacuum of perversion.
There must be a refiner's fire. And the refiner's fire must be the persecution of the American church. Once the American church has come through the fires of persecution than a revised faith remnant will step forth. But I believe persecution must preceed revival to root the sin out of the American Church.
We are very arrogant if we believe that we will be the only church on the face of this planet that will not endure the fires of persecution. That while brothers and sisters are laying down their lives for the Lord Jesus Christ in places like North Korea, Eritrea, Somalia, and other places. Nowhere. Again I say nowhere. Do I read in my New Testament that the American church will be exempt from the fires of persecution.
If we want the crown of revival, then we will need to suffer the cross of persecution. We must repent of this arrogant thinking up believing we are going to be spared the fires of persecution and a cross. We must come back to the cross and die to ourselves. So that the Risen Christ may live in us. Then as we endure the fires of persecution comma perhaps we will see that long-awaited revival that we are praying for.
These are my thoughts from the foot of His cross.