Can we be ready for revival if we believe that all hope is gone, that we have sinned away our day of grace and nothing is left but judgment? We cannot have faith for a revival until we are convinced that God still wants to pour out his Spirit upon us.
People ask, “Why hasn’t America been judged? Why hasn’t Jesus come yet?” It is because there is still a great harvest ahead and God is “. . . not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NKJV)?
We see the Lord’s great mercy in Isaiah where God instructed the prophet to tell Judah, “Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? For your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgressions your mother has been put away. Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?” (Isaiah 50:1-2).
God had already turned from Israel, giving them “. . . a certificate of divorce” (Jeremiah 3:8). His attention was now on Judah, a people who had cheated on him and walked away. God was still reaching out, though; he went to Judah to see the certificate of divorce (see Isaiah 50:1). He was saying, “Show me your divorce papers! Prove that I ever put you away. You walked away from me. I did nothing to grieve or hurt you. I have loved you the entire time.”
This is what I see God doing with us. He is saying, “Show me that I walked away from you. I haven’t yet removed my Holy Spirit. Rather, I am still at work in every nation, still wooing, calling and coming to you!”
The Lord is speaking this in pulpits across America and indeed throughout the world. He is speaking it through godly men and women who spend precious time seeking him. He is calling us back to repentance, back to his own heart. We must understand that there is still time, still hope, and that while we are praying, the Spirit is at work in all levels of society, calling and wooing people to himself.