For the fourth year in a row, the federal government has racked up an annual deficit of more than $1 trillion. Unbelievable. We already have a $16 trillion national debt. As I note in Implosion, we’re heading towards $57 trillion in unfunded liabilities — promises Washington has made concerning Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that the government has no idea how to pay for. This is why economists and policy experts on both sides of the aisle — liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans — are saying on the record that the path we are on is “unsustainable” and could be “catastrophic” and “cataclysmic.”

Recently, I participated in the “Implosion Radio Special,” a two-hour radio program to explain the danger we’re in. Yesterday, I did four more hours of radio interviews discussing how much economic and fiscal danger we’re in, and the possibility that we will not only go further into decline but that our economy could actually collapse. The U.S. is currently heading towards what Washington insiders are calling the “fiscal cliff.” Early next year, we will see the automatic imposition of the largest tax increases in American history, combined with the largest spending cuts — including draconian cuts in defense spending — in American history, unless the President and Congress make wise decisions soon, or unless new leaders are sent to Washington who are serious about fiscal discipline and turning the Titanic away from the debt icebergs ahead of us. Going over the fiscal cliff could drive the already fragile U.S. economy back into recession and cause a global economic slowdown.

If this weren’t sobering enough, we also continue to see evidence of moral, spiritual and cultural implosion. Americans have murdered more than 53 million babies through abortion since 1973. If this doesn’t change soon, we will soon have taken the lives of 60 million souls — ten times more than the Nazis murdered during the Holocaust. We know how God judged Germany and the Nazi regime for their barbarism. Do we deserve less? Then there’s the rampant plague of pornography, massive increases in murder and violent crime since 1960, the explosion of adultery and affairs and divorce, the explosion of teen pregnancies and teen suicide and widespread depression. What’s more, much of the American Church is weak or asleep or drifting from the truth and life-changing power of the Gospel and the Bible.

These problems are far too large for the next President to solve. Your vote matters, as does mine, and not just at the presidential level but at the House, Senate and state levels, too. So we need to register to vote, and mobilize other Christians to register to vote, and then get to the polls. We are not slaves of an empire. We are free people living in the world’s greatest democracy. We need to be good stewards of the political freedom God has given us.

But let’s be clear: While our nation needs a fresh infusion of wise leaders, we need far more than that. We need Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to lead us. We need a game-changing Third Great Awakening in which God in His sovereignty chooses to pour out His Holy Spirit and revive and awaken the Church and draw the lost to saving faith in Jesus Christ. We need a wholesale return to the Bible — to studying it, meditating on it, and then living by it. We need need to get down on our knees and plead with the Lord to give us revival. Nothing less will do. The good news is that at least twice before in American history the Lord has shown us precisely this kind of mercy and given us the first Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening in the 1700s and the 1800s respectively. I talk about this in the “Implosion Radio Special,” as well.

Is there hope? Yes, there is. Christ is our hope. But we need to turn to Him now. At the moment, I’m in the midst of 40 days of prayer and pleading for revival in America. I’ve joined with pastors and ministry leaders all over the country to call people to prayer and fasting, as well. Will you join us? You can learn more — including watching (and signing up to receive) daily prayer videos — at http://www.ifmypeople2012.org/. Please start praying today, and encourage your family, friends and neighbors to start praying as well. I don’t know if God will give us a Third Great Awakening, but why should He if we don’t set everything else aside and implore Him from the bottom of our hearts?

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)