NATIONAL PRAYER

Date: Sun Jun 14 20:07:14 2009

May 7th, 2009, is the designated day for people of all faiths to pray. It was enacted by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Now we know that all faiths do not lead to God. In fact, only faith in Jesus Christ and praying in his name is the slightest effective. All other prayers are futile, unless they are prayers of repentance by the sinner asking to come into the Kingdom of God. All prayer is permitted because we espouse freedom of religion, and in fact I prefer all people to pray than not even if they are praying amiss. I have a video of an Islamic girl who turned to Christ because her earnest but unanswered prayers to Allah led her to seek something better. If you seek and knock, the door shall be opened. If people are not seeking and not knocking, they don't care about the door. If they keep at it, when they hear about Jesus, they will respond.

That said, we must never fall into the trap of universalism that it sweeping the evangelical church. Prayer in itself unless it is through Christ does not accomplish the righteousness of God. The prophets of Baal prayed to Baal. When he didn't answer (because he couldn't answer), and they started cutting themselves, Elijah taunted them and his audacious prayer at Mt. Carmel resulted in the other gods being totally defrocked and made to look powerless which of course they were. Jesus Christ made it possible to communicate freely with the Father. He is the door. We cannot approach God any other way.

I often have wondered how we could ever think that one day a year to concentrate on prayer for our country is pretty good. My friends, we need to PRAY, PRAY, PRAY. We need to pray every day for our nation and the rest of the world. We are not a theocracy like Israel, so we must be careful about simply applying II Chronicles 7:14. That verse implores the chosen people of God ruled by his government to come back and pray if they ever stray. They strayed many times and returned to God many times. God looked for national repentance. The United States is not Israel, and we have never been unequivocally ruled by God's ways. At times we have been much closer than others, but many times in our history we did detestable things before God, and we were able to turn around and go a new direction. We are in a detestable period right now, and these days are days more like Sodom and Gomorrah. We need to come as Abraham did on behalf of those cesspools of sin to implore God to save our nation for the sake of the small minority who still serve him. We have to realize that our nation and all nations deserve the full punishment and wrath of God. We have done detestable things before our God and those things are accelerating by the day.

Pray daily on behalf of our country. Pray specifically for leaders, for and against legislation, for the moral climate, for fairness in the media, and for the church to be prophetic toward the nation and not beholden to its whims, values, and excesses. Pray that God will have mercy and extend a lifeline to us once again.

There have been dark times in our nation - before the civil war was surely one of them. We emerged from the great evil of slavery with a missions and church movement that affected the entire world. This doesn't have to be the end. The Lord was on his way to Sodom when Abraham prayed. The Lord has already judged our nation's economy severely. We had better move fast to pray before the other shoe drops. Perhaps if we repent and leave our sin, a new golden age for our nation could occur which would bless the world in even more powerful ways than in the past. This time, however, we would be holding the hands of other nations who did the same thing and we would be a global force for the Kingdom of God. It is easy to believe that dream to be impossible and be so discouraged by what we see that we have no faith for it and simply "hold the fort". As Hitler was ascending, and my Dad was in seminary, some were preaching not to spend money on dental work or other things because Christ was right at the door. We are over 70 years past that time, and the Lord still has not come. Perhaps he will come now, but we have to work as if his patience will last a while longer. If we seek to save our nation and other nations, we will find that to whatever degree people turn to the Lord, they will be used by God to demonstrate what it is to be a true son or daughter of the living God. Whether a major move or scattered victories, we must take the offensive. We must not give up on bringing the light of the gospel of Jesus to all.

I am praying regularly for the world. Our country is not unique. There are many countries where illegitimacy is 50% or even 80%, where people in the church are cold and detached and even consult mediums, and where animism is mixed with the gospel. My encouragement comes from the places where the church has doubled, tripled, or to borrow an Internet term, has gone "viral". I am encouraged by those giving their lives for the gospel. I am thrilled by those who endure hardship as good - no make that EXCELLENT - soldiers of Jesus Christ. I believe that can happen here. I do not know the timetable of God, whether there can be another great revival and move on the earth before the final climatic events occur. Much of what we see seems to indicate we are at the very end, but Paul and Peter both thought they were at the end also. We need to work and pray and cooperate with the Holy Spirit and intercede for our nation and all nations so that people will be saved from destruction and seek the heart of God.

Join us as we pray for our nation and the world. We can share our experiences with each other, share on another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. It may be the end of formal National Prayer for a while, but it can be the beginning of earnest, heartfelt, and frequent prayer all over this nation that will move mountains and change our current condition. People like to talk about school prayer. We did it - we prayed for our school district and things changed - even with a relatively small band of people. We have to stop wanting others to do our job. We don't need big names praying carefully crafted prayers. We need the carefully crafted saints of God to cry out to him day and night. Do you care enough about your country and the world to do that? More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. How about it?

COMMENTS

Name: AZRON

Date: Thu May 7 23:35:10 2009

Comment: amen - prayer times have been designated throughout our state...

Name: JohnTheEvangelist

Date: Fri May 8 09:36:36 2009

Comment:

Thanks so much - I am, so grateful for all the people who are ramping up their prayers. I received an email comment from abroad overnight - they are doing all they can to win the lost in their country as well. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. Where there is a lot of sin, GOd will raise up a standard against it. Our prayers need to be very specific as well. There is so much legislation that fundamentally changes things - that is what happens when absolute truth and the Bible are rejected in favor of making it up as one goes along. We are adrift, and it will take some stout hearted saints to go on the rocky ride to intercede for our nation.