Have you noticed?  We’re experiencing extreme disasters:  500-year  hurricanes; huge month-long forest fires; ghastly shootings from terrorists;  devastating floods of “Biblical proportions. ”  

Speaking into TV cameras the first knee-jerk response of local and national leaders is: “We will rebuild.”

It’s as if the only actions required are “rescue” or “rebuild.”

That comment plays well to locals and to voters but it misses God’s signals.  There’s a Living God Who is Sovereign over all and Who speaks to us, even using disasters, to get us to return to Him. 

 Yes, rescue and/or rebuild (if necessary) are both part of the process.  But He’s seeking to have us rescue (show Mercy), but then we need to reflect on His message, and follow up with repentance, and only then, with His Wisdom and His healing, look for restoration.  In fact, God HIMSELF will restore us:

  Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the Lord of hosts.

~Malachi 3:11

 
Our ancestors in this nation understood this spiritual principle.    When the Pilgrims faced a severe drought, they set aside a day of prayer, fasting and repentance.  At the end of that day the rains came, blessing their crops.  And in the dire stages of the Revolutionary War and Civil War national leaders set aside days of prayer, fasting and repentance.  In confirmation of Scripture, (2 Chronicles 7: 13-15), repentance by those believing in the Living God then triggered God’s supernatural miracles, blessing this nation.
Current leaders either don’t know our history or don’t know the Bible or are hiding under political correctness, afraid to offend voters by proposing a Biblical solution.
Story after story in the Bible recounts God’s use of disasters to attempt to awaken His People to reflect on their standing with Him, to repent of their ways, to return to His Divine Protection.   When in our human arrogance we vow to rebuild out of our own strength, it mocks God and spells disaster.  Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s best-selling book , The Harbinger, clearly shows how repentance now is the only way to avoid the same disaster ancient Israel experienced when they vowed to rebuild out of their own strength instead of repenting and returning to their Lord.

 

But The Harbinger message is not reaching key leaders. For example, recently disaster again struck New Jersey, burning down the “FunTown” boardwalk.   Clearly it was a sign of the Lord’s displeasure:  only weeks earlier, instead of following God’s Word and encouraging persons to come out of and reject the same sex lifestyle, New Jersey politicians passed a law prohibiting a parent from seeking  professional  counsel for any child confused about their gender.
When sin is called righteousness and darkness is called light then the righteous will be called evil. Light will be called darkness.  Those standing up for Biblical principles will be adjudged as harmful to society and persecuted.   Persecution of Christians will seem to be the right thing to do.

 
This was also the conclusion of Justice Kennedy in the recent Defense of Marriage decision.  He declared that the drawing of distinctions between traditional marriage and “gay” unions is to “demean,” “humiliate” and “injure” gays.   Bible-believing Christians are now defined as those harming society!

 
“FunTown” is now in ruins on the New Jersey Boardwalk.  Yes, we need to help businesses rebuild.  But individually and as a nation will we stop to reflect upon what the Creator named in the Declaration of Independence is saying to us?  Having reflected, having sought the spiritual meaning of the disaster, will we sincerely repent for our apathy? …For our apostasy for not standing up for Biblical Truths? …For  fearing what others will say instead of fearing Him?  

 

So, like “Reading, Riting’ and Rithmatic”—we need to get back to the basic fundamentals.  We’re missing two of the three spiritual “Rs.”  Instead of rushing from rescue or rebuild, it’s time to add the critical elements of reflection and repentance, personally and nationally.

 

If we fail to do that, the beacon of Light and Liberty that once was the United States of America, now dramatically dimming as we watch with alarm, will be rightfully extinguished by the One Who is always sovereign.  That Living God is the One Who first placed that Light and Liberty beacon in our midst. It was His Divine gift for us to cherish and pass on.  Only sincere repentance will cause Him to relight it.
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“Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.   And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said: “ O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments….all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.”             Daniel 9: 3-5, 13.

 
PRAYER:  Dear Heavenly Father, Most High and Holy God…We’re good at Rescue and Rebuild but, unlike our ancestors, we’ve omitted reflection and repentance before rebuild.

Lord, it is clear that we are living in turbulent times and if we do not stick to what You have said to us directly, we will be like the waves of the sea, tossed back and forth to drown in doubt and fear. We can not expect anything from You then, except painful discipline.  You have repeatedly told us (through Your prophets) that Your judgment on our nation has started, and in these first stages it is disciplining Your Church that we repent and return to You and Your Word; to Your purpose, principles and promises. Father, we cannot say that You haven’t been fair or patient; for You have been, more than we deserve.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.    

~JAMES 1: 2-8

. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”  Hebrews 11:5-9

~by Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly

Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly is the author of Repentance—God’s Strategy to Bless a Nation and Zeal to Repent!—A Key to Personal and National Restoration

–Both are available for FREE at The National Day of Repentance website:  www.dayofrepentance.org

or by emailing him at