An Urgent Message from the founder of ChristNow.com

We’re Already in an Emergency!

David Bryant

I awoke last Monday morning to the news of our president’s most recent meme from the White House (posted during the night), picturing himself as Jesus Christ bringing healing to the sick. Seeing a meme so sacrilegious makes me take more seriously the warnings of Jesus, who told us that before he returns and as the gospel advances, “many will come in my name and claim to be the Christ” (Matthew 24).

A few minutes later, I was taken aback when I read online that the Times of India (the largest English-language newspaper in the world) had already reported on it. By then, this demeaning of God’s Son was being seen by billions around the globe.

Later that day, I recalled that on multiple recent occasions, our Secretary of War has erroneously  claimed our battle with Iran is “for Jesus” and that our armed forces personnel are soldiers for Jesus, suggesting that if they die in battle, they will go straight to heaven.

Then on Tuesday came the uproar (including from many of his most ardent followers) over the shocking “war of words” that the “leader of the free world” decided to unleash toward the shepherd of 1.3 billion Christians, Pope Leo XIV.

That was followed on Wednesday by another meme from the President depicting himself cradled in the arms of a Jesus, who is smiling admiringly at him.

That’s when I knew: The time has come for me to speak up!

For the name and fame of my Savior, I am constrained to share the following urgent message with all our Christ Now followers.

Above all, at the end, I make a decisive pledge to you. I want you to hold me accountable to it in the coming years. In fact, I invite you to join me.

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Let me start with this: Not all Americans—certainly not any true Jesus followers—want to wipe out an entire civilization in two hours, despite such a threat last week toward Iran from our Commander in Chief.

Instead, there are many of us Americans—but especially Christ-exalting, Christ-focused, Christ-driven, Christ-loving Americans—who sense and understand the suffocating darkness descending upon our nation, enveloping many arenas of our lives and our society.

Above all, it is becoming increasingly evident to many of us that the growing gloom we feel is, at its core, a moral, relational, and spiritual bleakness deep in our national soul.

Therefore, I stand with the handful of respected Christian leaders who are rising at this moment to bravely confront the follies of the idolatries that have deceived, overtaken, and darkened the hearts of far too many Americans, and especially multitudes of Christians in our land.

Yes, we’re already in an emergency!

What does this look like? Late last night, this helpful image came to my mind:

Robyne and I live within 15-20 miles of quite a few huge mansions that cost many millions of dollars. When I drive by some of these castles, I often enjoy counting the number of chimneys they have. There can be as many as eight to twelve chimneys reaching up to the skies! That means many fireplaces were placed in various rooms—including every major bedroom with its own fireplace for use at night, which occupants can tend as desired.

BUT WHAT IF suddenly the entire mansion caught on fire? Then, everyone inside would quickly leave their rooms and their personal fireplaces to run outside to come together to help tackle the much larger, all-consuming, life-threatening conflagration impacting their long-term personal fates, including the fates of all the fireplaces.

That’s what you do when faced with an emergency that affects everybody equally and profoundly.

APPLIED: From where I stand, I see our whole “house”—America—ablaze.

The strife and division that have unfolded in our nation these past few years have increasingly become like a consuming fire. It is proving to be bigger than the sum of all the parts. In other words, it is bigger than the combined flames of our individual “hearths” that we try to keep burning.

These specific hearths are found everywhere. For example, we have fireplaces with fires of conflicting political agendas; with fires of struggles for cultural dominance; with fires of millions in hot pursuit of comfort and financial security; with fires of the hundreds of lawsuits leveled against our government, and vice versa; with fires of anger toward and abuse of foreign outsiders; with fires of reemerging racial prejudice and strife; with fires of costly international conflicts; with fires of a growing resistance movement in the streets of cities from coast to coast.

And don’t get me started on the social media firestorms—with each handheld device serving as one’s individual fireplace (and fire starter!).

My point is this: All these individual fireplaces, with their unique fires, put together are now being consumed by a moral, relational, and spiritual inferno that’s larger than all of our fireplaces combined. The entire “mansion” is going up in flames.

And let’s not forget the other kinds of “fireplaces,” the ones burning in the hundreds of thousands of local churches and thousands of Christian ministries (including Proclaim Hope and Christ Now). Of course, to be sure, it is right for God’s people to seek to be “hot” for the glory of God.

Yet, despite our beautifully constructed “holy hearths”—and as blessed as we may be by the life-changing warmth projected out from them as God blesses his children—there’s one unavoidable reality: What is consuming America as a whole right now is, at the same time, massively consuming strategic opportunities to advance the cause of Christ throughout our land. The whole nation—including the Body of Christ in our nation—is already on fire.

In fact, we’re already in the fire, caught up in an unrelenting conflagration, whether we know it or not, or like it or not. The alarms are ringing. The flames are around us and rising higher and more threatening with every passing day. The time to act to save the “structure”—America and the cause of Christ in America—is here.

This emergency requires a “backburning.”

The only hope for extinguishing this fire is the strategy used by forest fire fighters on the West Coast: They build ANOTHER FIRE, one coming from the opposite direction that outpaces the original fire and eliminates its fuel before the first fire gets there.

Firefighters call it “backburning.”

Even so, America must seek a backburning, and we must experience this other kind of fire soon.

Our only hope is for America—beginning with the Church in America—to be rescued from our emergency by an intensive, God-given intervention—by a Kairos moment full of heaven’s redeeming initiatives. It’s the combustion of a Spirit-ignited reintroduction—a “great awakening”—to the wonder, glory, greatness, and saving power of the risen, reigning Christ.

We need this second fire coming from the opposite direction—coming from the throne of heaven, in fact. It must outpace the incendiary, destructive, demonic bonfire with which our nation already is fiercely burning.

We need a “backburning” on a nearly apocalyptic scale.

We need an American (nationwide) CHRIST Awakening—
and we need it now.

From where I sit, the emergency that’s upon us carries cosmic implications in terms of its ramifications for the impact of the glory of Christ, the gospel, and the purposes of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, there must be no more delay!

ALL Christians who “understand the times” need to refocus—with urgency—from simply blowing on the hot coals in our churches. We need to come together to counter all that is consuming the moral, relational, and spiritual soul of America, ending our national emergency in a pile of ashes. We can do so by spreading the hope found in the person and saving power of our risen, redeeming, reigning Lord Jesus Christ.

At the same time, this kind of determined, strategic collaboration for Christ is the only way to preserve the blessings we enjoy from our individual fireplaces—our congregations, our ministries, our work of the gospel where we live—so all of it can serve the cause of Christ in this land with renewed energy and vision, as the smoke clears.

Of course, that includes Christ Now with our own fireplace—which we are convinced has been constructed in readiness to serve the Body of Christ in America in that coming new day when God effectively extinguishes the emergency with a much greater, divinely supplied, Spirit-fueled, life and light conflagration of a nationwide Christward revival.

Next up for me?
Help fuel the backburning
of an American CHRIST Awakening

Last week, Robyne and I went to see the movie A GREAT AWAKENING. It was superb in production and acting. It was historically accurate in its portrayal of how George Whitefield’s preaching of Christ, which saturated multitudes of colonial Americans with the glories of Christ, laid the foundation for the American Revolution. (A friend of mine who teaches early American history at New York University endorsed its accuracy.) The movie tagline says it all:

“Before the Revolution, there was a Revelation.”

The hour has come for us to experience the same dynamic. Today, the Church and the nation need a fresh “revelation” of the spectacular, saving supremacy of the ascended Son of God that will lead us into a NEW American Revolution—a revolution where the WHOLE Church becomes WHOLLY ALIVE to the WHOLE vision of the WHOLE person of our reigning Redeemer.

What does this mean for me? I was stirred to write a new book, just published. It’s titled THE HOUR HAS COME: How a Christ Awakening WINS the Battle for the Soul of America. (It’s free as a download HERE.)

Essentially, the book doubles as my new MINISTRY MANIFESTO for the years ahead as we serve Jesus, working with others who are determined to rescue our nation through the gifts that come with the gospel of Christ.

At the same time, the emergency has motivated us to create 90 brief, creative video clips for our readers, providing an audio/video version of the book (in progress). Also, using a seminar format, we’re repackaging THE HOUR HAS COME into six dynamic, PowerPoint-strong, 90-minute sessions that can be presented live or as an online course. (Session 1 begins locally in New Providence, NJ, this week!)

But beyond that, I am compelled to come full circle,
back to the reason for launching Proclaim Hope!

Some may recall that in 2000, we created Proclaim Hope! as a dba of Concerts of Prayer International. That was because back then, we became aware of something even more important than mobilizing concerted prayer for renewal. Everywhere I went in my travels, I had uncovered a desperate need in the Church for the proclamation of a larger vision of Christ.

The Church (in America and globally) has been and continues to experience a crisis of Christology. This “crisis of Christology”—a significant shrinkage of our vision of the supremacy of Christ—remains the greatest emergency of all.

At that time, therefore, we defined the Proclaim Hope! mission by using three phrases that were embedded in our new logo:

Proclaim Christ’s Supremacy
Awaken Hope Fully
Empower the Church

These three goals are inseparable—they work in tandem. And their three-fold impact remains what is most needed in the Church today—more than ever! Here lies the fuel for the new fire! Here lies the solution for the emergency!

AND SO, I MAKE THIS COMMITMENT TO YOU,
BY GOD’S GRACE AND UNDER GOD’S CALLING:

I will become much more single-minded and intentional about those original three main goals. In whatever form that takes, I must be about the business of:

Proclaiming to God’s people
MORE about Christ and our hope in him,
encouraging them to experience
MORE of Christ and our hope in him

How will this unfold? I do not know. It is totally in God’s hands. I serve at the pleasure of my King.

I realize at age 81 that my time on earth is short. However, as long as the Father gives me breath, I recommit myself to sustain my journey to the culmination of the calling and vision that’s drawn me since I was 12 years old.

It’s a long obedience in the same direction that DOES have a purpose under the Lordship of Jesus.  I press toward its finish line with my eyes fixed on Jesus, who started this mission and will bring it to completion (Hebrews 12).

Hallelujah!! The current emergency need not end in the disintegration of our democracy or a curtailing of the cause of Christ in America. The fact is that the “backburning” of an American CHRIST Awakening is already lit.

Come with me, and let’s inflame it together—as we help God’s people enter into more and more of the glory and greatness of God’s Son. Let’s join hands as we walk out the mandate of this passage from Colossians 1—a Scripture passage meant for all of us and the one set of verses that has shaped my own efforts in this mission for decades.

Colossians 1:27-29

And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you, bringing with him the hope of all glorious things to come. So, naturally, we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ. This is what I am working at all the time, with all the strength that God gives me (Phillips Translation).

About the Author

Over the past 50 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to Proclaim Hope! and ChristNow.com, whose mission is to inspire, equip, and serve an American CHRIST Awakening. Download his widely read ebooks at ChristNow.com. Enjoy hundreds of his podcast episodes. Meet with David through Zoom or by in-person events through David Bryant LIVE! Learn much more about David and his mission here.