Would I rather have full-out revival and massive harvest of souls in America or would I rather have a government that respects my beliefs and my faith and makes life smooth for me?

If revival and harvest have to come under an oppressive government, would I still desire them as I do now?

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This challenge was laid before me during the opening sessions of IFA’s 50th anniversary celebration last November by Dr. Richard Blackaby.

I’ve mused on it since, and it has truly exposed my heart. The Lord was using this challenge to ask me a simpler but critical question:

Where do I place my hope? 

Do I hope in a good government? You betcha.

Do I hope in revival and the great harvest? Oh yes, please, Lord.

Or is my hope in the Lord only?

The Lord showed me if my hope is in anything other than Him — even in very good things like good governance and revival — I’m in danger of idolatry.

Idolatry is and was a danger for God’s people in every era.

In fact, some 500 years before Christ was born, the people in the land of Judah seemed to major in idolatry. Their culture was filled with sexual immorality. They mixed the worship of God with rituals and practices that honored false gods — better known as demons. Leadership was corrupt and greedy.

God’s commands — and God’s prophets — were ignored. Instead, religious and political leaders cultivated false prophets who would invent prophecies to suit their leadership’s plans. They failed to call out the people’s sin.

Does this sound familiar?

Modern America is very like Judah during the prophet Jeremiah’s time.

Jeremiah — and other true prophets of God — had been warning the leaders and people in Judah that the Lord was going to bring judgment upon them. This judgment would be a punishment for sin — because sin will always need to be judged — and a wake-up call for the people to repent and return to the Lord.

Judgment came.

The Babylonians invaded Judah and began to carry away people, starting with upper and middle class craftsmen, business people, religious leaders, and royalty.

God was making the course correction of which Jeremiah and others had warned. But most of the leadership and false prophets continued to preach that the exile would be of short duration — a couple years at the most.

Well, a short time was not what the Lord had in mind. In fact, the Lord instructed Jeremiah to disabuse the exiles of any notion their detention would be short-lived. It would take a lifetime or two.

Jeremiah writes in Chapter 29:5-6, “Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished.” 

The Hebrews were not called simply to tolerate their exile, but to embrace it. Jeremiah continued:

And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace (Jer. 29:7).

The exiles’ fate was linked to that of Babylon and its people.

So where’s the hope, you might be wondering? Hang on,  it’s coming!

In verse 10, Jeremiah writes,

For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 

The exile would be long — 70 years. This could be a literal span of time or symbolic for a complete period of time. Bottom line: Nothing short of a long stay in the foreign land would knock the idolatry out of the people of Judah.

But after that judgment is fully served, the Lord will gather His people back to Himself. In the oft-cited and much beloved verses 11-14, Jeremiah writes,

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

The people experienced the natural result of the spiritual exile in which they had been living.

But the hope and the promise was that as they submitted to the judgment, they would return out of spiritual exile to the Lord. They would begin to pray to Him again, and they would find Him again. Therefore, they would be gathered back into the Lord and become His people again. To prove this to them and the world, the Lord would restore them to their land.

But the hope for the people of Judah was not in an end of exile. It was not even in the land.

Their hope was in their return to the Lord.

Over these last several months, I have come to know that my hope must be in Him. Nothing less will survive the days to come.

If the civil riots of 2020, the Covid-19 quarantines, and the pro-Hamas protests were turbulent, we had better buckle up because much more chaos is coming.

True biblical hope in the Lord will get us through.

Lord, show us where we are hoping in anything or anyone other than You. Help us repent if You reveal idolatries and lead us to rejoice in the repentance. Help us keep our hope in You in the tough times. In Jesus’ Name.

Share your testimony of hope below.

New York City–based Joyce Swingle is an intercessor and a contributing writer for IFA. With her husband, Rich, also a contributing writer for IFA, Joyce shares the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world through theater, speaking, writing, and film. Prior to going into full-time ministry, Joyce worked for about 20 major magazines and now works in pastoral ministry and Christian counseling. www.Richdrama.com. Photo by ABEL MARQUEZ on Unsplash.