American Repentance Revolution

 

I wrote this article in 2015. It fits like a glove now. It was ahead of its time. I republished it in May 2020 with a couple of comments on the COVID 19 mess that began to unfold February/March of 2020. Here it is again, now in hindsight. 

It is time for an American Repentance Revolution!

Repentance is a prerequisite of the Christian life. Jesus commanded repentance from the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Look at the verses.

Therefore, remember from what high state you have fallen and repent! Do the deeds you did at the first; if not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—that is, if you do not repent (2:5) … Therefore, repent! If not, I will come against you quickly and make war against those people with the sword of my mouth (2:16) … I have given her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her sexual immorality. Look! I am throwing her onto a bed of violent illness, and those who commit adultery with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds (2:21, 22) … Therefore, remember what you received and heard, and obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will never know at what hour I will come against you (3:3) … All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent! (3:19) (Revelation 2:5, 16, 21, 22, 3:3, 19 NET)

Jesus brought up repentance eight times when dealing with five of the seven churches! None of these churches were told to repent as a suggestion. Jesus demanded repentance! He has never changed! (Hebrews 13:8)

Paul clearly required Christians to repent of their sins. He taught that to the Church at Corinth.

I shed tears over those who keep sinning without repenting of their impurity, sexual immorality, and perversion. (2 Corinthians 12:21- The Passion Translation)

9 Now I rejoice, not because you were made sad, but because you were made sad to the point of repentance. For you were made sad as God intended, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. 10 For sadness as intended by God produces a repentance that leads to salvation, leaving no regret, but worldly sadness brings about death. (2 Cor. 7:9, 10 NET)

A true Christian will feel sad if they sin, ask God for forgiveness, and receive cleansing from unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Repentance is a glorious gift from God. Peter stated in Acts 5:32, “to GIVE repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” (See also 2 Timothy 2:25.) To GIVE repentance means God will always give it to you IF you want it. It should be highly valued and precious because it is God’s mighty gift. You can't know Jesus without repentance, and we would be on a sure course for hell without it!  

Sometimes people lose their opportunities to repent because they harden their hearts by continually refusing to repent. What happens to them? Those that harden themselves against the gift of repentance will be like Pharaoh that refused to repent and hardened himself (Exodus 8:15, 32), and then God obliged by removing the ability to repent. The Scripture records it when it says that God “hardened his (Pharaoh’s) heart” (Ex. 11:10). God agreed with Pharaoh’s hardening his own heart, and the time for repentance came to an end. A hard heart is a consistently unrepentant heart. It is a heart full of pride. Once a person insists on being unrepentant, the track is set for their destruction.

God gave Jezebel and her followers time to repent, but they refused. They hardened their hearts against the Lord. Finally, the time for repentance was over, they were cast into a bed of violent illness. They were turned over to their enemies for destruction. (Rev. 2:20-23 NET)

God will always give people a time to repent, but once that time is over, people are turned over to their enemies. The wicked city of Nineveh got 40 days to repent after the announcement of impending doom was delivered by the prophet Jonah. They did repent and the destruction planned for the city was cancelled!

Sodom and Gomorrah may have had the time to repent while Lot was living there. The Scripture says that Lot’s righteous soul was grieved by all the lawlessness and wickedness in those cities. (2 Peter 2:6-8 NET) He may have been warning them to repent of their wickedness, but they refused and even got worse. When the two angels came to get Lot and his family out of those wicked cities, the men of the city wanted to have sex with the angels! Finally, the chapter on those cities was closed, and fire and brimstone came down from the sky and destroyed both cities. (See Genesis 19:1-29.)

How much time does America have left?

America seems to be rushing at break-neck speed to that point in time where God finally says to a country, “Your time for repentance as a nation is over, and you will be turned over to your enemies for destruction.” How can we know that to be true? Is it in the Scripture? Let's remember what God spoke to Jeremiah about how He sees and judges a nation. 

7 There are times, …when I threaten to uproot, tear down, and destroy a nation or kingdom. 8 But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended to do to it. 9 And there are times when I promise to build up and establish a nation or kingdom. 10 But if that nation does what displeases me and does not obey me, then I will cancel the good I promised to do to it. 11 …The LORD says, ‘I am preparing to bring disaster on you! I am making plans to punish you. So, every one of you, stop the evil things you have been doing. Correct the way you have been living and do what is right.’ 12 But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’” (Jeremiah 18:7-12 NET)

Do you think God sees our nation differently? Are we an exception to all other nations because we are America? No, God is always righteous in His judgment. God deals with ALL nations as spoken to Jeremiah, and that includes our beloved America. We are not exempt from His goodness, but neither are we exempt from His judgement. It depends on our nation and its overall behavior. Righteous behavior gets good things from God. Practicing evil ways will eventually bring disaster. Could the above verses be any clearer? I don't think so. As my dear Puerto Rican dad Israel used to say, "¡Mas claro no canta un gallo!" That means, in my loose translation, a rooster doesn't give a clearer 'cockle-doodle-doo' in the morning! 

How much time does America have left until it enters that uproot, tear down, and destruction phase? I don't know, but we could be seeing the beginning of these stages right now. Many are praying for a reprieve and for mercy upon America. Yes Lord, have mercy on America! Give us a little more time! There are millions of believers in this nation, and their prayers can make a difference, but there are also millions of unbelievers reveling in their wicked ways. They flaunt their unrepentant hearts relentlessly, and they are a huge problem! They hate God, Christians, the Bible, and Bible-centered morality. Truthfully, and without sugarcoating it, it’s starting to smell (spiritually) more and more like smoke. As you know, usually where there is smoke, there is fire. I am speaking about judgement. A divided kingdom cannot stand, and America is divided more now than it has ever been. (Mark 3:24)

For now, I believe repentance is still abundant in America, but time for national repentance is running out. Don't kid yourself into thinking we have many years left for America to repent. We don't. My God, I hope we wake up as a nation and as the church! We are living in the time the possibility of great disaster for America, UNLESS a massive repentance revolution takes place. It must happen or America could be done as a nation. Let the repentance revolution begin! 

Folks, these are sobering and striking thoughts. I never had any personal desire to write them, but I feel like Jeremiah because they are not just my thoughts.

His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not. (Jeremiah 20:9 NKJV)

I trust that this warning enters many hearts and stirs us up so much that we drop to our knees in prayer and repentance. Also, I pray that MANY come to repentance in America so this mess can be turned around before it's too late.

I added this next paragraphin April of 2020 and republished it then, and again, it was seeing some things coming over the horizon. Don’t need much revelation now do we?

We should not be shocked at plagues coming upon the earth. Covid-19 is one of many that have already plagued the USA. Recently, the 2017-2018 flu season killed between 60 and 80 thousand in the USA alone! I wonder why the government didn’t freak out then and shut everything down. Frankly, this shutdown of EVERYTHING makes little sense except that something else is lurking in the shadows. In the USA, in 2009 almost 12 thousand died from H1N1 virus, and again, the federal and local governments didn’t shut down anything. What is going on here? Totalitarianism, authoritarianism, or just, flat-out communism? Is this a trial run for something much worse on the horizon of time? Could this be a precursor to the control and one-world government of the future antichrist? We, the church, by the power of the Holy Spirit are what is standing between the antichrist (man of sin or lawlessness) and his drive to establish a one world government that opposes God and all righteousness. (See 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Revelation 13:1-18.)

In America, because of our godly founding fathers, we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights that guarantees certain freedoms. We are not communist China, or some other country ruled by totalitarianism! Watch this shutdown VERY closely. We cannot not allow our rights and liberties to be suppressed and infringed! We need to reopen our churches! The economy must not be shut down! We must reopen our businesses! It’s time to resist on many levels local government’s oppressive measures that infringe on our rights. 

I remind you of the prophetic message of Jesus about our days.

And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; and upon the earth [there will be] distress (trouble and anguish) of nations in bewilderment and perplexity [without resources, left wanting, embarrassed, in doubt, not knowing which way to turn] at the roaring (the echo) of the tossing of the sea, men swooning away or expiring with fear and dread and apprehension and expectation of the things that are coming on the world; for the [very] powers of the heavens will be shaken and caused to totter. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great (transcendent and overwhelming) power and [all His kingly] glory (majesty and splendor). (Luke 21:25-28 Amplified Bible)

You can see this coming to pass all over the planet. Jesus was prophesying about the condition of the world without God, His protection, or His power and anointing. Followers of Jesus are to lift their heads because their redemption is drawing near! Jesus is coming!

In the last of the last days PLAGUES will come. Jesus said they would.

There will be great earthquakes, and famines and plagues in various places, and there will be terrifying sights and great signs from heaven. (Luke 21:11 NET)

There will be an increase until the coming of the Lord to rule and reign upon the earth, but I warn you. The world will get progressively worse, and it will be very easy to slide into their panic, especially if you feed on their fears. We need to resist fear and take a stand against the MSM attempt to strike fear and panic in the hearts of people.

Those that refuse the Lord Jesus will blaspheme God and REFUSE to REPENT of their wickedness. Some of that has already popped up its ugly head during the Covid-19 pandemic. I wrote “pandemic” before I knew it was a plandemic and that the Coronavirus was 99.97% survivable for most people on the planet!

What will happen in the future? It will get progressively worse for the unbelievers. The world without Christ that has no faith in God for protection will be without His help and without hope.

The rest of humanity, who had not been killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they did not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk about. Furthermore, they did not repent of their murders, of their magic spells, of their sexual immorality, or of their stealing. (Revelation 9:20, 21 NET)

People were scorched by the terrible heat, yet they blasphemed the name of God, who has ruling authority over these plagues, and they would not repent and give him glory… They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their sufferings and because of their sores, but nevertheless they still refused to repent of their deeds. (Revelation 16:9, 11 NET)

What are we to do in a plague?

When I close up the sky so that it doesn’t rain, or command locusts to devour the land’s vegetation, or send a plague among my people, if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:13, 14 NET)

That’s what we do or should do in a plague! We humble ourselves, pray, seek to please God, we repudiate sinful practices (turn away from wickedness, or repent from sinful practices). We receive help from Heaven, forgiveness of sin, and healing for our land, or should I say, healing for our neck of the woods. We have divine help and healing to keep us healthy and strong in the middle of any plague! Glory to God!

Why is repentance so important to God? God does not want anyone to perish or die and go to a devil’s hell. He desires that all be saved and come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 NET)

“And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God” (Luke 13:3, 5-New Living Translation).

Jesus taught repentance, turning away from devilish lifestyles, and serving and loving God. Yet, to hear some fools in Hollywood, among pop-singers, or even some politicians, they insist that Jesus taught “coexistence” with idolatrous and perverse religions and ideologies, and love and acceptance of people’s perverted lifestyles. No, He did not! He preached repentance! Jesus did not preach and teach us to accept murderous, adulterous, fornicating, lying, cheating, stealing, homosexual, transvestite, and lesbian lifestyles. No way!

He (Jesus) said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel!” (Mark 1:15 New English Translation)

That’s what He taught! To repent is not "acceptance" of evil or "coexistence" with devil-inspired lifestyles. Repentance means to turn away from your sins, change from the sinful way you think and act, stop your wrong ways, change your heart and lives by being against sin and for God, and even to turn to God from your sins. Those are all definitions given in other New Testament translations. The Amplified Bible tells us that to repent means to “change your inner self—your old way of thinking, regret past sins, live your life in a way that proves repentance; seek God’s purpose for your life, accept and follow Jesus the Messiah.”

Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38 NET)

Repentance is the door into God’s great gift of forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit, and even immersion (baptism) in the name of Jesus the anointed One. Repentance opens the spiritual door into an immersion of the Holy Spirit into Christ unavailable any other way. Physical baptism (immersion into water) is the outward symbol of that reality.

…Repent and turn to God, performing deeds consistent with repentance. (Acts 26:20 NET)

After we repent and turn to God, we are required to perform good deeds (works) that are consistent with our repentance. One can't repent, turn to God, and then go back to the world and loose living and think there will be no consequences. A Christian that refuses to repent and does not want to quit living an immoral lifestyle will be disqualified because they are not in the faith. (2 Corinthians 13:5) We study this in today’s podcast. Don’t miss it.

It is time for an American Repentance Revolution! A radical repentance revolution must shake the church! Be blessed!