BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The Spirit of God came on me with power I have known only a few times, and forcibly spoke these words through my lips: 'One thing will save America; and it is not the election. It is an awakening to God. One thing will help Israel and the world. It is an awakening to God.' We were silenced. Shaken. Rebuked. Then Spirit-inspired thoughts raced through my mind. The best person in the world could be elected president of the United States and it wouldn’t do one bit of good if the people did not awaken to God. American history. The Great Awakening. The Lord told us to prepare ourselves and the people who would gather for our annual prayer meeting. We host an Autumn Assembly of Prayer at the end of October every year in Branson, Mo. From June 29 on, I knew the autumn prayer meeting would not have the anointing to pray about the U.S. elections that we’d known in previous meetings just before elections. Indeed as it came to pass, the Lord’s Anointing to pray in that meeting rested on prayer for His breathing upon the embers within His Body until they burn with new fire, for the awakening of all that is preserved in us as nature preserves things in amber, and for a manifestation of His presence that will awaken the spiritually dead unto Himself. More to Know About Awakenings I vaguely knew about The Great Awakening, and other “awakenings” of times past. But He led me in an intense study of those moves of God that history labels as awakenings. I was and am amazed at their impact. In one resource, I found a comparison between revival and awakening that resonated with my soul: “A revival can be described as ‘a visitation of God’s Spirit on God’s people.’ But an awakening is ‘a time of such intense visitation by God that both the Christian and non-Christian communities are affected.’ An awakening is considered to be the effect of a revival on the community at large, including those who are outside the Christian faith. While revivals alter the lives of individuals, awakenings alter the worldview of a whole people or culture.” That is what happened in The Great Awakening that resulted in the birth of the United States of America. A Harvard professor said that one cannot understand the Colonial society that brought forth the Declaration of Independence and the United States of America without a study of The Great Awakening. God used preachers. Jonathan Edwards was a pastor who read his sermons in a monotone as he stared at the back wall. George Whitefield was a golden-voiced itinerant preacher who traversed the separated Colonies by horseback and canoe, preaching the new birth, and his dream of one nation under God. Through the ministry of these preachers and others, multitudes of individuals were changed, the Colonists were united in an awakening to God and a nation was born out of it! Not only was this nation born out of The Great Awakening, but also it has been preserved in times of crisis by awakenings to God. I am convinced the awakening from 1857-1859 preserved the nation through the Civil War. I have studied the awakenings in many books and resources, both Christian and secular, and a few in particular have impacted me. For those who would like to know more about these historical moves of God, and understand how the awakenings have affected the nations of the world, I recommend you read "Ireland’s Lost Heritage" by David Carnduff, Th.M.; "Revival Fire" by Wesley L. Duewel; "2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity" by Eddie L. Hyatt; and "The Light and the Glory" by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. "George Whitefield and the Great Awakening" by John Pollock is out of print, but you can find it online. **article continues on next page** BVOV : 13

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