Joel 2:12-13 “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Rend your heart, and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God.”

“The assassin’s bullet came within ¼-inch of taking my life. I stand before you only by the grace of Almighty God.” This is Donald Trump on July 15th at the Republican National Convention, confessing what everyone who witnessed the July 13th assassination attempt already knew: this was God intervening. But why?

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, CA on biblical truth: “We must get back to God, and the time is expiring. God is sending a message. He is warning us.” Pastor Hibbs words echo through history, from Moses to Abraham Lincoln. God calls both nations and individuals to humble ourselves and repent. As he said, the time is short, and the time is now. Will we take the Lord Jesus Christ seriously?

Moses – Exodus 2:23-25 (1400 BC) – A Call to Nationally Humble Ourselves
“It happened in the process of time, that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out. And their cry came up to God because of their bondage. God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.”

David – Psalm 32:3-7 (1000 BC) – A Call to Personally Humble Myself
“When I kept silent, my bones grew old through the groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You in a time when You may be found. Surely in a flood of great waters they shall come near him. You are my hiding place. You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.”

Joel – 2:12-17 (800 BC) – A Call to Nationally Repent of Our Sins
“Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So, rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. And He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him? Blow the trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Call a sacred assembly.

Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them.’ Then the Lord will be zealous for His land and pity His people. The Lord will say to His people, “I will send you grain and new wine and oil. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.”

Ezekiel – 18:21-23 (580 BC) – A Call to Personally Repent of My Sins
“If a wicked man turns from his sins he has committed, keeps My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live – he shall not die. No transgression he has committed shall be remembered against him. Because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?”

JESUS – Luke 11:32 (30AD) – A Call to Personal Repentance
“The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.”

George Washington (1789 AD) – A Call to National Thanksgiving
“A day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, that we may unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions.”

Abraham Lincoln (1863 AD) – A Call to National Humiliation, Fasting & Prayer
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
“The Evidence of Faith’s Substance” _ Article #614