2012 - 50 Years Later

It's another year! 2012 is here! Already I've been to several prayer meetings on school campuses and have prayed with the students about what they want to accomplish this year. A new year is here, but walking onto the campus, I couldn't help but be reminded that we still have a lot of work ahead of us. 2012 marks 50 years since prayer was removed from school and the multitudes are trapped in a culture of sin and death.

I have committed to laboring on school campuses until we see a shift in the culture and see Jesus exalted in this generation, but in the corner of my eye I fear our window of opportunity may be closing. Is it too little too late? 50 years after the Supreme Court decision of Engel v. Vitale, the effects of removing God from our culture are realized now more than ever. On one hand we long to see masses of students turn to God and receive salvation, but on the other hand the grip of wickedness seems stronger than ever among our youth.

Once again I am reminded of Isaiah 59 (if you haven't read it, give it a read). Here Israel was in national sin, and listen to the descriptions of Scripture:

See, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save, and His ear is not closed that it cannot hear. But your wrong-doings have kept you away from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. . . No one wants what is right and fair in court. And no one argues his cause with the truth. They trust in what is false, and speak lies. They plan to make trouble and do what is sinful. . . We hope for light, but see darkness. . . We hope to be saved, but it is far from us. For we have done much wrong before You, and our sins speak against us. . . Justice is turned back. Righteousness stands far away. Truth has fallen in the street, and what is right cannot come in. Yes, truth is not there. And he who turns away from sin comes under the anger of sinners.

Sound familiar? But hear this...

Now the Lord saw this, and it did not please Him to see that what is right and fair was not being done. He saw and wondered that there was no man to speak up for what is right. Then His own arm brought saving power, and what is right with Him gave Him strength.

I think we are in an Isaiah 59 moment in America. We are at the tipping point of judgement, but what if we called on his name as in Joel 2 and He sent revival instead of judgement. In this 11th hour, we have to take this call seriously. I want it to be said of my generation that we gave everything for God and saw breakthrough in our cities and nation. I don't want it to be said that we gave too little too late and that hundreds of millions of souls fell away into judgement. We need a great shaking, but let the shaking be that of our prayers rather than that of judgement.

So this is my proposal for 2012. We need to take a stand as the church for our youth and our nation. We have to become a church that prays. So many of our churched youth don't know how to pray! How can we expect them to survive this culture if they can't even pray? It is time to mobilize our 'social clubs' into prayer furnaces with lifestyles of holiness.

Where are the Davids who said, 

"I will not set before my eyes 
   anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
   it shall not cling to me. 

A perverse heart shall be far from me;
   I will know nothing of evil." - Psalm 101:3-4

"Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; 

   and give me life in your ways." - Psalm 119:37

It's time to take our faith seriously.