A National Awakening

A National Awakening: God's Heart for Revival

One of the greatest spiritual awakenings recorded in Scripture took place among one of the vilest cultures humanity has ever produced. This account reminds us that no one is beyond the reach of a God who wants to save. The message of Jonah challenges us to understand what's involved in a genuine national spiritual awakening—and our role in it.

The Context: A Prophet's Journey

Jonah's story is one of radical disobedience followed by divine restoration. His lips claimed to fear God, yet his legs ran from Him. His life didn't bear testimony to what he sang in church. But God, in His compassion, would not be mocked. Through a great storm and a great fish, God brought Jonah back to his spiritual senses. From inside the belly of the fish, Jonah penned a thank you card to God, recognizing that salvation belongs to the God who is eager to offer it to those who don't deserve it—to people like him, like us, and like the Ninevites.

Jonah was recommissioned and given a second chance to obey.

The Path to National Awakening

What does a genuine spiritual awakening require? Three key observations emerge from Jonah 3:

1. God's Word Is Proclaimed by God's Servant

For any society to have the opportunity to turn to God, God's truth must enter that society. This is God's way—then and now.

"The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.' So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord." (Jonah 3:1-3)

This wasn't easy. Nineveh was an exceedingly great city—a three-day walk across—filled with hard hearts, violent people, and arrogant oppressors. Yet ease level is never a determiner of obedience. Jonah went anyway. For 40 days, he walked those streets proclaiming a simple, piercing message: "40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

The number 40 in Scripture often marks a period of testing. God tests, watches, and waits to see how people will respond. The Israelites wandered 40 years in the wilderness. King Saul faced 40 days of taunting from Goliath. Jesus was tested 40 days in the wilderness. And now Nineveh has 40 days—not merely to face judgment, but to respond and avert it.

Built into the message of judgment is an implied invitation: There is time to turn around.

This reflects God's heart as He told Jeremiah:

"When I threaten to uproot, tear down, and destroy a nation or kingdom, but that nation stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended. And when I promise to build up a nation, but it does what displeases me and does not obey me, then I will cancel the good I promised." (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

Our role, like Jonah's, is to ensure society knows God's truth. Without God's word being proclaimed in our neighborhoods, cities, and states, there is no pathway to national awakening.

2. A Nation Is Convicted by Truth and Can Fully Repent

Conviction must come. A nation cannot bypass it. You cannot be saved unless you recognize you're lost. When God's servants speak His truth—raw, unedited, even uncomfortable truth—the Holy Spirit uses it to convict people of their need.

America's most famous sermon, Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, was a "turn or burn" message. People shrieked and cried out for God to save them—not because Edwards was cruel, but because he was kind, offering an invitation to repent.

The Ninevites' response was remarkable:

"Then the people of Nineveh believed in God. They called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them." (Jonah 3:5)

They believed—that's faith. Then they behaved—that's obedience flowing from faith. The king personally expressed his turning to God by tearing his robes and sitting in sackcloth and ashes. He then issued a decree calling for national repentance:

"Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink water. Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call on God earnestly, that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish." (Jonah 3:7-9)

This is every preacher's dream—a spiritually awake people who genuinely repent.

3. God Relents from Deserved National Judgment

God is willing to do what He said He would not do if He sees genuine repentance:

"When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it." (Jonah 3:10)

God watched those 40 days. He observed their behavior and interpreted it rightly as an expression of their hearts. Your behavior always reveals your heart. Show me your living, and I'll tell you what you truly believe.

God is always looking for an opportunity to be kind and compassionate, to extend the salvation that belongs to Him to anyone who would turn to Him in faith. When Jonah was first called, God said the Ninevites' wickedness had "come up before me"—the stench of their evil reached His nostrils. Now, the beautiful sound of repentance reaches His ears—people crying out to God in genuine faith.

God relented. The vilest of people received salvation when they truly turned to God.

Two Truths for Today

We don't have a formula that guarantees revival will occur—that is up to God. But Scripture lays out two foundational truths:

First: Spiritual Revival Is of God, and God Desires to Revive

Too many Christians live as though revival is something God used to do. But He still desires it. He still wants to save. Salvation is His, and He wants to grant it to those who believe.

God wants to awaken America again. He wants to save your neighborhood. He wants to see the 469 kids at VBS come to Christ, along with their cousins, parents, and neighbors. America's best days with God can still be ahead—if America walks with God.

Don't read Jonah 3 as merely historical record. Read it as God's statement of future intent.

Second: In the Revival of a Nation, God Involves You in Your Neighborhood

This is the profound paradox:

"Without God, we cannot. But without us, He will not." — St. Augustine

Revival doesn't depend on us—it's God's work. Yet God has chosen to reach your neighborhood through the believers in that neighborhood. God involves you.

We live in a time of secularism and spiritual darkness. But these are no match for God. When His people—you—humble yourselves, pray, seek Him, and turn from your wicked ways, God will move.

Local churches across this land, serving together, reaching out together, proclaiming truth together—this is how God works. When a local church is healthy in a community, that community flourishes under God. It has happened many times before. It will happen again.

What This Means for You This Week

Here are two practical truths to sit with:

1. Spiritual revival is God's desire. He wants to save your neighborhood. He wants to do it again in America. Don't live as though revival is a thing of the past.

2. God involves you. As one revivalist pastor said, "It is the Holy Spirit who convicts, but He allows us to rub Him in." God wants your participation in what He's doing. Be salt in your neighborhood. Be light. Proclaim truth. Extend kindness. Live as a witness to the grace of Jesus Christ.

A Prayer and an Aspiration

Jonah 3 is the Old Testament version of John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

Let's update Jonah 3:5 to our aspiration for today:

And the people of the USA in its 250th year believed God.

Aim at that. What a great target to hit.