Habakkuk was a prophet of God in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It was a time when great evil was afoot. War and destruction were being heaped on God’s people. Habakkuk asks God “are you actually going to allow this?” And then he repaired to the watchtower to pray and wait for God’s answer to appear over the horizon. Habakkuk 2:1

God’s answer to Habakkuk: Have faith. Everything will be OK in the end. If it is not OK, it’s not the end.

History repeats itself. As in Habakkuk’s time, we have turned our collective backs on God. Having rejected God, we are beginning to reap the whirlwind consequences. What will happen next? There is no telling. The downward entropy spiral of The Second Law of Thermodynamics is in full cry (see here). Some look to the coming election as the solution. Know this: the result of the election will not make one iota (Note 1) of difference to the trajectory the United States is on.

There is nothing to be done at this moment but to man the watchtower. No gnashing of teeth, no wringing of hands, no amount of fretting. Climb the watchtower and pray without ceasing. The election result will arrive on November 5th. Which lesser evil will an Electoral College plurality of our fellow Americans deliver? We may get a reprieve. But not the peace of restoration. Only a Nineveh turning, a revival, can save us from the consequence of our sin.

Revival comes first to the Church, the backslidden Body of Christ. And it does not start with some euphonic entity somewhere. Or even in our local Bodies of Christ, or with the shepherds we currently have. The turning starts with you. And me. A turning leading to a new alignment within each of our hearts and in our relationship with God. And then in our family, our community, and our church. But it starts with you. Today. This morning.

And then. And then. What is impossible with man is possible with God. The ensuing witness of the revived Church will spur a broader revival. It goes like this:

1. Conviction of our sin, arising from a holy desperation and a loss of all hope;
2. Repentance, a turning back to God, accompanied by a complete redirection of our path and face-down continuous confessional prayer acknowledging our failure;
3. Reformation, God’s acceptance of our repentance and a restoration of our relationship with Him; and
4. The renewed Body of Christ becomes a witness igniting a turning of the unrepentant to God.

So let us man the watchtower. And pray.

Is that a trumpet I hear? Everything will be OK in the end. If it is not OK, it’s not the end.

Note 1: Iota: an infinitesimal amount; a jot; a Greek letter so small that it is not worth knowing.