At the beginning of Acts when Jesus was resurrected and found the disciples, do you remember what they asked him when they saw him? “So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority’” (Acts 1:6-7, ESV). They wanted a type of Christian nationalism for Israel.
We have to be careful when we start asking God questions like “When will you heal the sick? When will you take my prodigal children and bring them back to the cross? When will you cause churches to be holy and righteous?”
When we ask these questions, are we asking deep down, “When will you come and let the glory of your name be known?” Or are we asking, “Will you at this time restore the nation of America to its former glory?”
If we are invested more in changing the morals of our nation than we are in people’s hearts turning to God, we are living under a theology of man’s glory rather than a theology of the cross. We used to be ‘moral’ in America. In the 1950s, our culture was very ‘moral’, but so many people were still lost. People down in the South almost all went to church. If you were a real estate agent or salesman of some sort, the best place to make contacts and build a better business was in church. So many people back then were no more Christian than they are, or aren’t, today. That’s why my father had the ministry that he did; people desperately needed a theology of the cross that didn’t depend on their hard work to perfect themselves or earn God’s blessing.
This is why Paul wrote, “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). We should be like him and say, “I don't preach personal glory that comes through prosperity and materialism and God doing what I want for my life. Nor do I preach national glory that says my nation is better than yours. I don't preach anything but the cross of Jesus Christ. Through him and him alone will people be saved and lives transformed!”