National Day of Prayer ~ May 7, 2009

A reminder from our 16th president had to say:

By the President of the United States of America. (this was taken from Dutch Sheet's website at dutchsheets.org)

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Can we still say we are a Christian nation? It could be that we need to repent of our "independence" and admit our need of the Almighty God before we drift into an abyss of darkness upon going our own way. As it says in Isaiah 53:6 (NASB) (an inditement that we have always drifted from the truth) "all of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way..." But because of the incredible love of the Father for His wayward children, desirous that no man should parish, "...But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." Father protect us from our own wayward desires for apart from you we can do nothing!

God gives a distinct warning to Solomon as he finished the house of the Lord just as God had instructed him to do (Solomon's palace as well), he then visits Solomon in the night with a specific warning and proclamation:

II Chronicles 7:13-15 (NASB)

"If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people.
And My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place."

We love our freedom and the country that provides for that freedom of expression to be lived out but our obligation as His redeemed is to remain faithful and true to the One who gave it to us.

Pressing on toward the goal!