Message Title: America Bless God
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” Psalm 33:12
Awakening – a period when multitudes of people experience new birth to spiritual life in a short span of time, often sparked by a God-sent revival.
Revival –a divinely initiated work where God’s people pray, repent of sin, and return to an obedient, Spirit-filled love relationship with Him. Rather than an event for non-believers, it is a restoration of the church to God’s agenda
- The First Great Awakening (c. 1730s–1740s)
- The First Great Awakening was primarily driven by a core problem:
- declining religious piety (people stop caring about the things of God)
- A rise in Enlightenment rationalism, (we are too smart for God now) and churches relying on formal, dead traditions. (how we do church is more important than who we worship)
- Churches were fighting among each other. (They became prideful and controlling.)
- The Second Great Awakening (c. 1790s–1840s)
The Rise of Rationalism: Elite intellectuals increasingly favored Deism (the belief that God created the universe but does not intervene), causing traditional church attendance to plummet. As science advanced, many began questioning traditional biblical teachings (such as Darwin’s theory of evolution).
- The Businessmen’s Revival / Third Great Awakening (1857–1859)
- Key Figures: Jeremiah Lanphier, a lay missionary in New York City.
What were the common themes?
- Brokenness (Desperation)
- Humility
- Prayer
- Seeking God
- Repentance