CBN founder Pat Robertson says Americans need to pay attention to what God is doing in this hour. In an exclusive interview with Robertson for my new podcast, “In Depth With Stephen Strang,” I asked him what he sees happening spiritually in our culture. He told me the Lord is giving the nation a respite with Trump in office, but that doesn’t mean we can relax. Instead, we have to humble ourselves and seek Him now more than ever. If we don’t, we can expect swift judgment.
“Steve, I think we’re on the precipice of something that could be not good, but bad,” he says. “The Bible talks about ‘They broke the eternal covenant,’ and I think worldwide, people have broken the covenant with God. And there’s a wrath of God that’s kind of impending. But right now in America, God is giving us a respite. I think that what’s happening in the election we’re looking at—God’s going to give the Supreme Court, the lower courts, the United States Senate, the House of Representatives and the presidency into the hands of Donald Trump and the Republicans.”
This opportunity may be the greatest one this generation has ever seen, Robertson explains, but there’s one catch: It’s conditional.
“So God is opening up one more time for America,” he says. “This is going to be an open window, that’s to say, ‘If you will take that opportunity, it’s the uplands. … If you reject it and turn back to breaking My covenant and widespread abortion and all of the evil of your pornography and all the rest of it, judgment is going to fall on [you].’ Right now is God’s opportunity for this great nation—and one I don’t think we’ve ever had in my lifetime.”
What Robertson sees is a massive trend that many other Spirit-filled believers also sense. And yet many feel they can’t do anything to turn the tide of sin and see revival spread across America. Robertson disagrees with this fatalistic mentality.
“We’ve got to pray,” Robertson says. “We’ve really got to pray. God … said, ‘If My people, which are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, … then I’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.’ But that’s got to be a national turning. I think, in measure, you can have a revival like King Josiah at the top, but at the same time, judgment will come because of what Manasseh’s sins were.”
Yet Robertson knows movements of God can start as small sparks. He told me an intriguing story about how the charismatic movement sprang from a prophetic word the late Harald Bredesen received on Robertson’s birthday.
It all started when Robertson started praying regularly with Bredesen, who was well-known for his passionate, Spirit-filled preaching. They would pray from 9 or 10 a.m. till midnight many days. But on March 22, Robertson walked into an old church in Mt. Vernon, New York, to see Bredesen dancing under the power of the Spirit.
“And the message was, ‘Why will you be afraid of those who are the servants of Satan?'” Robertson tells me. “And the word was, ‘Go and tell, go and tell.’ … And [Harald] said, ‘I think I’ve got to share this with Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale.'”
Robertson chided Bredesen for what he called “delusions of grandeur,” but the very next morning, the two men had the opportunity to have dinner with Mrs. Peale—co-founder of the popular Christian Guideposts magazine—and pray with her. During that prayer, someone gave a message in tongues and an interpretation, which intrigued the minister’s wife.
“Mrs. Peale then went from that meeting with us to Guideposts … and they had a meeting,” Robertson says. “So there was a fellow named John Sherrill, who was one of their editors, and [he] was commissioned by Guideposts after that meeting to write on this thing, so he wrote a book called They Speak With Other Tongues.”
Bredesen introduced Sherrill to David Wilkerson. Later, Sherrill and his wife, Elizabeth, collaborated with Wilkerson on his classic book, The Cross and the Switchblade. Those two books inspired a group of Catholics to cry out for the baptism of the Holy Spirit—thus sparking the Catholic charismatic renewal.
If God can use a small prophetic word to ignite a movement that would result in millions being baptized in the Spirit, imagine what He could do if American Christians started joining in passionate prayer! Robertson says the opportunity is here, but it won’t last forever.
Yet he offers hope, saying, “I think that we’ll see here that if indeed at the grassroots of their country, people will turn from their wicked ways, God will heal this land, and it will be a beautiful future.”
I think you’ll find my exclusive interview with Robertson both informative and inspiring, so click on the podcast below to hear the entire conversation! For my new podcast format, “In Depth With Stephen Strang,” I plan to interview more faith leaders and influencers like Robertson and ask the questions others won’t. Be sure to tune in each week by downloading “In Depth With Stephen Strang” on iTunes or visiting cpnshows.com. If you like the interviews you hear, feel free to rate the show on iTunes and leave a review.
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