DAY 10 - CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

EM Bounds, a foremost authority and author on Prayer, said "Praying is not light and trivial exercise. It engages all the powers of man's moral and spiritual nature.....Prayer draws upon the WHOLE nature of man- body, soul and spirit!"

It is hard to disagree with any part of this statement! At the same time, it is very easy to see why our prayers have failed, as a nation...if we even pray at all! While the small remnant of Christian believers are indeed prayerful, cheerful warriors and we engage both our moral and spiritual nature,  the majority of the church has not and will not bow the knee to the Lord in prayer.

We see it in the lack of prayer services in churches or sacred assemblies or the ability of the modern seminary-trained pastors to be fully engaged in the spiritual warfare abounding at present! Because the church, where the average pastor only prays 10 minutes per week outside of the Sunday morning, has given up its moral authority, the super-equal component of this equation stands weakened. There are a long dissertation to be had as to how and why this happened, but this is not the forum for that. Suffice it to say - the church HAS given up our corporate moral authority, even as most individuals in it, have not.

Therefore, as we started in praise yesterday, let us continue in that Praise and then attempt to regain that which we have ceded to the enemy of our souls, by praying the rest of this week to regain the moral authority of the church, for which Jesus Christ Himself, gave His Life.

Today's Scripture verse meditation is, therefore, "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence....(Hebrews 5:7 ESV)

By focusing on this verse, we return today to the Moral Underpinnings of our Faith, i.e. "reverence" or "obedience" to God, just as The Son had...illustrated fully in this verse!

DAY 9 - CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

Week 1 of 40 Days of Prayer, by the Christian, to the Holy One of Israel, had us looking inwardly at the sorry state of the soul and the war against it. We prayed for the mercy of God and pressed in properly, with Psalm 28 as our platform.

Week 2 begins with a rediscovery of the lost practice of Praise, powerful Praise....the kind which we must live for and acknowledge as sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. Simply put, America will not truly prosper until America learns to bow the knee. This is the focus as we start this week of intercession.

To repeat - America must right now, this day, begin to put on "sackcloth and ashes" and start looking up in Praise. He will accept nothing less:

Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, over many waters.
The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. (Psalm 29:1-4 ESV)

DAY 8 - CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

As we continue praying through a seemingly imprecatory psalm (Psalm 28) in this, the first week of  40 Days of corporate prayer to Jesus, led by America's Christians, we came to a pivotal point. In the past day or two, we have come in agreement with the Spirit of God about the nature of the spiritual warfare - both on the ground and in the air. Specifically, the warfare takes the form of both persecution of the church here and around the world and mind games against those among us, who are not as strong in the Faith as they should be.

Therefore in verses 1-6, we see the believer crying out for not just mercy, but to the All Powerful God Whom we know can send thousands of angels to watch over His people....as He has done the past. We now come to a beautiful part of this prayerful psalm. We have just prayed the enemies of God into His Hands and know that He has already done it. The fate of those who persecute the Lord, unless they repent and ask forgiveness unto Salvation, is sure. So in recognition of that fact and the firm belief in WHO The Living God REALLY is, here is the rest of Psalm 28. (Also, as before, we don't tell you WHAT to pray. That is between the christian and our God.)

What a powerful Truth we are seeing here. 

What an amazing declaration of the Presence and the Power of God. 

What a privilege it is to come to Him in this awesome fashion, knowing that He hears His elect and those who cry out to Him!! WOW!!!

The LORD is my strength and my shield;

in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;

my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

The LORD is the strength of his people;

he is the saving refuge of his anointed.

Oh, save your people and bless your heritage!

Be their shepherd and carry them forever....(Psalm 28:7-9 ESV)

DAY 7 - CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

Today's passage from our chosen Psalm of the first week of corporate intercession may raise some eyebrows. It is not one of the modern feel-good church verses, taken out of context, to just give the flock enough innoculation for the coming week! I will not tell you how to pray this passage of intercession. This is a matter between the Christian and the Lord, Whose Spirit will interpret correctly. He will not allow imprecatory prayers to cause another harm, but will protect the saint whose heart is right with Him. This is not a passage of Hate, but a plea for justice and mercy:


Give to them according to their work
and according to the evil of their deeds;
give to them according to the work of their hands;
render them their due reward.
Because they do not regard the works of the LORD
or the work of his hands,
he will tear them down and build them up no more.
Blessed be the LORD!
For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. (Psalm 28:4-6 ESV)

DAY 6 - CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

Yesterday, we began to pray through Psalm 28. In petitioning the Lord to listen to our cries and prayers, i.e. not turn His back on us - personally and as a people - we set the stage for today's verse and prayer focus. Today, in praying verses 2 and 3 of the Psalm, we beseech Him to give us one more chance!

Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy,

when I cry to you for help,

when I lift up my hands

toward your most holy sanctuary.

Do not drag me off with the wicked,

with the workers of evil,

who speak peace with their neighbors

while evil is in their hearts. (Psalm 28:2-3 ESV)

Time is running out. Time is running out, not just for those who are perishing from their own sin, from which we who being saved, have been personally forgiven. But time is also running out for an entire nation to repent and turn to the Lord.

Therefore, the thought for this day is not just READ the two verses above, but to realize that this is a reality with which we have to come to grips. Then, let us fall on our collective faces and beseech His Majesty Above to spare us and give us Grace....Great Grace,

in Jesus' Holy Name, amen

DAY 5- CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

Man has always rebelled against the Creator Who gave us life. With that life, He gave us freedom, the same freedom we have used to reject Him now as in the past.

There was a period of 400 years from the prophet Malachi where The Lord went silent until He sent John the Baptist to "prepare the way" for the First Coming of Jesus.

The Lord is silent again, as this, the once most Christian of Nations, has set its GPS on a course for hell. But don't let that be said of you and yours. Because God has written His Law on our hearts, we who are redeemed can and DO have the privilege of crying out to Him. Let us now use that privilege to petition Him, in one accord, that some may be saved.

The verse for meditation and prayer today is Psalm 28:1 "To You I will cry O Lord my Rock: do not be silent to me, lest, if you are silent to me, I become like those that go down into the pit."

Amen.

COCA COLA, BIG BANG AND BILL NYE

THE REAL THING - CLASSIC COKE!

Check this out - imagine you have some nice sweet dark and cool liquid out in the atmosphere somewhere. Then 15 yards away, there is a ball of carbonated gases. Then 25 feet away, some red and white paint in separate gobs, just sitting there floating around in a pond of its own, well, red and white paint gobdom. Then 10 inches from that are sheets of soft flat aluminum. Then one day, 65 billions years ago, according to modern legend, a big explosion happened and a can of Classic Coca Cola was born!!!

This is what over-educated (by this world's standards) people like the following atheists- Bill Nye the Science Guy; Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking...and every liberal in America and the western world want normal people to believe, in essence - that this perfect Creation and every cell of every human body, happened out of a "Big Bang"....which violates EVERY LAW OF SCIENCE!!!! For the Law of Science to be valid it is to be OBSERVABLE and repeatable!! Did Carl Sagan and Bill Nye or Ted Koppel see the Big Bang??!!! This is compounded nonsense, is what it is!

Here is what Bill Nye said in a controversy he started a few weeks in September, which still rages on across the Christian family world! Nye ranted in his video "I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution, and live in your.... world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it - because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future", thus sayeth this, yet another one of the self-appointed prophets of secular humanism!


The religious bigotry, from those people is staggering! But even worse than their secular bullying of Christians, is the danger inherent in their mission. These people’s mission – from Dawkins to Hawking and Nye – is not just to denigrate Christians and the Bible, but using their positions of authority in the secular/humanist education establishment to brainwash western children.

They have succeeded to a certain extent both Eastern and Western Europe as well as Canada and at least half of the US. The level of Godlessness in these countries is stunning...and it is so, increasingly here in the US! This is what all is all about - Rebellion against God!

Also, the arrogance of these people knows no bounds. They control the mass media, Hollywood and almost all of the Education system from kindergarten to Post - graduate colleges, so just like the commissars of the old Soviet Union, these people must be taken seriously.  When Nye was criticized for what he said above, he doubled down last weekend (September 24) to the AP. He said to the Associated Press “If we raise a generation of students who don’t believe in the process of science, who think everything that we’ve come to know about nature and the universe can be dismissed by a few sentences translated into English from some ancient text (the BIBLE), you’re not going to continue to innovate,” in a telephone interview with AP.

This is not just a secular evolution perspective but complete disrespect for parents of all stripes of the Majority of Americans (46% after 30 plus years of Evolution indoctrination, who still believe God created this great earth in 1 day, 6000-10000 years ago)! Therefore, whenever our Biblical Worldview is attacked directly and so personally as it was here, we must stand and respond. While Nye and his kind warn that US science is in danger because of people like us who believe in God and Jesus Christ and Creation, he has no clue who the actual CREATOR of TRUE SCIENCE really is!

Therefore, in response to Bill Nye and others like him, I quote the Word of God, which he does not believe in...yet which speaks for itself in Truth, Power and Glory. Here is God Himself, from Job Chapter 38:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
It is changed like clay under the seal,
and its features stand out like a garment.
From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.

“Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?
What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

“Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain
and a way for the thunderbolt,
to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man,
to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground sprout with grass?

“Has the rain a father,
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?
The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go
and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OF CHAPTERS 38-41 ON CREATION

(Job 38:1-38 ESV)

DAY 4-CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much....James 5:16 (NASB)

We see from yesterday's prayer focus that "Holy Praying" is the ONLY way to reach the Heart, Mind, and Throne of God. That is, only the prayer of the consecrated saints is taken by the angels as a sweet incense whose aroma rises out of the bowls before the Father in Heaven.

This verse confirms it for us. The consecrated saint is the man or woman, who has been set apart, by the act of the will (after salvation) from the filthy ways of the world....unto the Holiness, Awe and Righteousness of the Lord. Once we do that...once we confess and repent of our sins...once we then pray for each other....then we are ready and fit for that special heightened and stronger relationship with the Lord Himself.

It is that person whose prayers and intercession will find their way to Him to be considered and answered. This should be our focus this day as we go about asking the Lord to help, protect, bless, guide and redirect America, the world and our own personal families.

Think and act on these things. In Jesus' Name, amen.

DAY 3 - CAN PRAYER SAVE AMERICA?

Most praying Christians are now in the swing of the 40 Days of Prayer for America, which was launched just two days ago (September 28, 2012). The 40 days end on the day of the Presidential elections - November 6. Each day, a nugget from the great E. M. Bounds, ambassador of Prayer or other powerful prayer warriors, will be featured here on this blog, with a Scripture verse. 

DAY 3 - HOLY PRAYING

This is the third (and most crucial) prayer focus we have engaged in for this calendar year. From January 1-31, 2012, we prayed the Names of God, as a ministry to start the year. In mid June, until Independence Day, we joined in with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, as their Protestant Evangelical brothers, to pray for Religious Liberty. Now we are asking the question in prayer - "Can Prayer Save America"?  The answer could be - maybe.

A country can be redeemed, only if its people and leaders together, pursue righteousness. It has always been so, from Bible days, until now, where we have a president of Uganda leading a Christian country there, for the first time in recent memory. For such a time as this, we know that the Body of Christ, in one accord, can change the atmosphere by crying out to Holy God. The fruit of these prayers will not be immediately known. But this should not be our focus. Our calling is to pray regardless and to do so in Holiness.

E.M. Bounds called Holy Praying, the kind of praying which is actually lifted up as a sweet aroma unto the Lord (to paraphrase him). Bounds said that only men and women who are totally surrendered and devoted to Christ and who are without sin, can bring the power and energy behind our prayers up to the Throne.

As we look at this verse, and think about Holy Praying, let us examine our own souls to see if we are in this realm of righteousness, which is required. Also let us inquire of the Lord how to proceed in prayer with fear and trembling, yet boldy approaching the Throne of Grace....for such a time as this! Amen.

Revelation 8:4 "3Then another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. 4And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel. 5Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were rolls of thunder, and rumblings, and flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

(www.biblehub.com)

(image by google)