Maybe this is just a fond daydream of my own but I have a vision of the Church as potentially able to be a real powerhouse in the world while as a matter of melancholy fact it's acting like anything but. Could't we exert ourselvs to that level once in a while?
It's our job, isn't it? Or is it? I mean to save America, to prevail with god for whatever is needed to roll back our national sins and get something back of the original Christian nature of America. Yes it was once a Christian nation. Even though the big name framers weren't Christians they were soaked in the culture of Christianity at least and their work drew heavily on it. But the people of America were for the most part genuinely Christian in those early years, and that is what shaped the culture that brought down blessings from God. Yes, slavery but we did away with it and things were getting better, and even those who held slaves often knew it was wrong an d were tryijg to figure out the bst way to end the practice without destroying the fabric of life, whioch yes, could have happened because the salves were not prepared for the kijind of life they d have to adjust to without a lot of preparation and that had to be thought out. But that's another whole subjwect.
What I'm thinking of now is that the Church needs to wake up as Voddie Baucham calls the nation to do, wake up and realize the power we have available to ys if only we seek it with determination and ... and self sacrifice.
There's the rub. Self sacrifice. I think that's what we are called to. Ands down through history there have been Christians who did put their own lives on the cross in order to accomplish sometng for God and for the world. Revivals come out of such a frame of ind. Social movements for the benefit of the disadvantaged come out of that state of mind. Missions across the world come out of that state of mind. And why couldn't a great concerted effot to sae America be our objective this time and move us to the level of self sacrifice necessary to bring it about?
I mean things like fasting yes, whenever and wherever a particular individual is upp to it, and everyone has his own limits for that, but also giving up things like television shows in order to paray for an hour. Learning how to pray for proteracted periods is something we could all try to do, it's ot easy, it does have to be learned. I think of old time Pentecostsals in particular who seemed to be able to prayey for hours on end or until they felt the burden lift from tghem and knew theyir prayers were heard. I've nwevr had that experience but I'v always wished I could have it and I'm in awe of those who have had it. Tbey feel the burden, tjhey have the strength to keep praying about that burden for however long it takes until they are then able to feel it lift. It sounds simple but impossible at the same time. But if there is anyone who could do that for America he should do it now. I'm using the generic masculine by the way because thomas Sowell gave a nice argument in favor of it and I've felt so awkward with all the other solutions, they just sound illiterate and they are confusing. There was never any problem for me back int he saday when I had to read my female self into the masculine and it's a made up problem. Anyway if you dislike it sorry it's correct English and I'm going back to it.
Fervent protracted prayer. Maybe special prayer meetings but frequent ones, none of this once a week stuff, something every day at least needs to be done if we want to prevail with God and actually accomplish something for the saving of America. The only weay we could win the midterm elections ifis if we pray, repent, confess sins and denounce the sins of America, and pray pray pray. Otherwise the elections will just play out as they always do, on the basis of the worst in human endeavor as it has been going fot the last few years.
If whole churches could stay late and pray tohether that would be one way to do it. There are many ways to do it. If every good church in America did something to get God to hear us and act to save the nation, that would be the best of all possible thigs. EVERY church in the nation that has a right to be called a church, that teaches the truth rather than some compromised worldly gobbledygiiok. If they wake up and join in great but otherwise let them die out while the solid churches ower up and cry out to God and neer let Him rest until He saves America.
I daydream about his sort of thing quite a bit even though I miyself don't have the energy for it a oit of the time. I've had my moments but sustained dedication no, but that's why we need a lot of us doing it, to support each other in prayer along with everything else we're prayering for.
I think that's what the Church is for. I think that's why we're here. To do our utmost, to a self sacrificial level, to bring God's righteousness down into this world and like salt stop the spread of corruption and likgke light bring truth into the darkness. It takes commitment, it takes exertion, it takes sacrifice. I wish for it, I pray for it, I wish I myself were better at it.
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Daniel ate "no pleasant food" for three weeks as he was praying for understanding of God's plan for His peopele as the Babylonian capitivity was coming to an end. That was his fast. There are all kinds of ways to fast, cutting out specific foods, or cutting out whole meals, or going a day or more, it's all a matter of what you are able to do. And of course giving up ordinary pastimes and recreations is anogther way to fast.
When David's first son by Bathsheba was born the infant was sickly to the point of death and David prayed every day on his face without eating until the baby finally died. In those days I think a daily fast meant not eating until after sundown and then he'd eat so it wasn't a complete fast for every moment of the week the baby continued to lifve. He was under God's judgmetn for his sin wqith Bathsheba and he prayed that god might spare his son. Sometimes God would, in this case He didn't. David knew everteless that whe would see the child when hehimself went to be with the Lord.
Listen to Voddi Baucham's wonderful sermon on God's judgmetn of America.
Later: I keep wanting to get across that this is a huge task we're facing, not some everyday prayer request or even everyday political problem. America has been accumulating sin against God for decades at least and we are up to our ears in it if not quite over our heads, thouigh maybe we are that too, metaphors like that should probably be avoided. Anyeay, I think of all the sins we've been accumulating since the Sixties, and I don't see that the Church has ever done much if anything about them. We ight them when they are looming , we see them coming and we muster energy to defeat them at the polls, but that's the problem, although we may also pray our main efforts are political. The real job of the Church which is to work with God to defeat the forces of darkness in this worklk is hardly ever exercised to the level it could be if we only recognized that that is our calling and that God would stren gthen us for it if we set ourselves to realize it.
I aLWAYS PICTUR all THE GOOD CHURCHES INVOLVED IN THIS, BUT OF COURSE A QW KNOQ DEOM THE STORY of Gideon if nowehre else in God's word, God can work with small numbers to accomplish great things, and may actually prefer it. But here we are and the wmore the better it seems to me if only the churches would get the message and see the need and work to engage each opther in the project and set ourselves wqith a new passion to be he saly and light we are called to and push out the corruption while establishing God's righteousness in the land. It could be done, yes really it could be done, we have the power of God at our disposal you know, we just have to make the commitment and not give up.
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