One of the reasons I believe the Bible is the Word of God is because it always tells the truth, even if it isn’t flattering.
Take the Old Testament book of Jonah, for example. We read about God calling Jonah to go to Nineveh, in Assyria. But Jonah ran from him instead. Jonah was swallowed by a large fish, or a whale, and then he repented and finally obeyed God. Then a great awakening broke out in Nineveh, and thousands of lives were spared.
We’ve had four great awakenings in our nation’s history. The first took place in the 1700s, led by people such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield while the United States was still in formation.
In just two years, from 1740 to 1742, between 25,000 and 50,000 people were added to New England’s churches. That may not sound like a lot, but let’s consider the fact that the population was only around 300,000 people at that time.
The Second Great Awakening was underway between 1790 and 1840. Crowds of people, as many as 15,000 at a time, gathered for several days at camp meetings, and thousands came to faith. A lanky young lawyer was known to attend some of the meetings, which impacted his life. We know him as Abraham Lincoln.
The Third Great Awakening, from 1857 to 1859, began in a unique way in New York City. Jeremiah Lanphier, a 48-year-old businessman, began a prayer meeting in September on New York City’s Fulton Street. It grew slowly, but it rapidly gained momentum after the stock market crashed in October.
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Prayer meetings were taking place everywhere in New York, even filling theaters on Broadway. Within six months, 10,000 people were gathering daily for prayer throughout New York City. Reported conversions reached an average of 50,000 per week for a few years.
More than 1 million people came to Christ during this brief period, and one of the men who came out of this revival was the evangelist D.L. Moody. What had started with a prayer meeting turned into a wave that rolled across the nation.
The Fourth Great Awakening, in my opinion, was the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I think we should classify it as a genuine American revival. Our country was in turmoil. The Vietnam War was raging, with no end in sight. Meanwhile, kids were rebelling against society, and their mantra was “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.” One of the slogans of the time was, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
For the most part, the church was ineffective in reaching this youth culture. Then, inexplicably and supernaturally, God began to work. The youth were coming to Christ by the hundreds and then by the thousands. They were showing up in churches, and the churches that welcomed them experienced revival.
One church that opened its doors to these kids, known as hippies, was Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California. At first Pastor Chuck Smith didn’t like the hippies. He thought they all needed to get a haircut and go to work.
His wife, Kay, on the other hand, had a heart for them. She had been praying for these kids as well as the opportunity to meet a genuine, living, breathing hippie. And then one showed up at their house one day. His name was Lonnie Frisbee, and he had come to Christ in San Francisco. Chuck Smith let him begin preaching at Calvary Chapel, and soon the place was exploding with kids who were coming to Christ.
Although the Jesus Movement didn’t start at Calvary Chapel, it blew through Calvary Chapel, just as it did in many other places. I watched it all happen because I came to Christ in 1970. That was more than 50 years ago. It’s a glorious history, but it’s history nonetheless. And I look back and thank God that I was allowed to be around for it.
Jonah, too, witnessed a revival in his day. But he wasn’t happy about what had been taking place in Nineveh. In fact, he was hopping mad.
Jonah complained to God, saying, “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord!” (Jonah 4:2–3 NLT)
The prophet was angry because God hadn’t wiped out the notoriously wicked Ninevites, the enemies of Israel. He should have been rejoicing, but instead he was fuming. Why? Because Jonah was preoccupied with himself.
Here was a man who had survived three days and three nights in a fish’s stomach, a man who repented, prayed and preached to the people of Nineveh, a man whom God had used to bring one of the greatest revivals in human history.
Yet Jonah, who knew better, was having a relapse. He was angry with God. Have you ever felt like that? Have you felt, in your mind, that God somehow let you down? Maybe he didn’t answer your prayers as you wanted him to. Or maybe things didn’t turn out in life the way you hoped they would.
Sometimes we wonder why a good God would allow bad things. Jonah was wondering why a good God would allow good things. He wanted God to be bad instead of good. He was still hoping against hope that God would not be predictably merciful but would instead judge the Ninevites.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Jonah’s story should serve as a warning for us. Jonah became more concerned with his own comfort than with the souls of others. The same can happen to us. And it can happen more easily than we may think. All too often we want to be more comfortable than available for God to use.
Though we can’t live in the past, we can learn from it. We need to pray that God will send another Great Awakening. We need another Jesus Movement. There’s a new generation now that needs their own spiritual awakening. We need another revival in America today.
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