Greetings,
I have shared with some of you, but I desire for the whole to be made aware and respond to this crucial need of prayer. For decades we have allowed and watched our nation legalize sin. It has been our undoing. In 1933, we legalized and permitted alcohol; in 1963 we allowed one woman to take the Bible out of public school; in 1973 we allowed abortion to become the law of the land; and now drugs use is legalized as okay in some states. In March, 2013 the Supreme Court will begin to hear arguments on Same Sex Marriage in response to Proposition 8 of California and DOMA. This cannot be allowed to become the law of the land. Any nation, empire, kingdom that allowed homosexuality as a 'okay' life has been removed and destroyed from the earth. We are headed there. Politics, petitions, parades, and other things have been embraced by the church to undo these things. NOne of them bear fruit.
You are a prayer leader in your respective place. You are being asked to make your people, churches, area of influence known about this most crucial time coming this year. We are not to wait until after the decision and then belly-ache and mourn. WE are to seek the Lord now. WE are to rally the peopel to respond with humility, prayer, seeking His face and repentance for a nation that has angered and turned away from the Lord.
Please read the attached blog posts which is a rough draft of a prayer guide for this issue. If you have suggestions, considerations please respond. Please pray daily abou this to turn away this from happening.
thank you for your time and response to this plea,
until,
dan biser
rdbiser@live.com
http://danbiser.blogspot.com/2012/12/prayer-for-supreme-courts-ruling-on.html
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Frank S. Page
NASHVILLE (BP) -- In 75 days the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of two laws, one a bipartisan legislative act, the other a citizen-driven initiative. The high court will consider the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 on March 26 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act on March 27.
I call on Southern Baptists and other like-minded followers of Christ to join me in praying for our nine Supreme Court justices and for those who will present oral arguments before them.
How should we pray?
First, we pray that God's will be done. Though our preference is for God to extend mercy to us, the Lord is a Righteous Judge. If He allowed judgment to fall upon His chosen people throughout history, how much more on a nation that forgets God?
Consider: The sword did not depart from David's household. The kingdom divided under Rehoboam. Samaria (the northern kingdom of Israel) fell to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah, including Jerusalem, was conquered and the temple destroyed by the Babylonians. The second temple was utterly destroyed by the Roman emperor Titus.
In each instance, God's will was accomplished -- punishment was permitted against the sinful nation for the purification of the remnant whose hearts were drawn back to the Lord. Habakkuk's words are particularly relevant, "LORD, I stand in awe of Your deeds. Revive Your work in these years; make it known in these years. In Your wrath remember mercy!" (Habakkuk 3:2).
Second, we plea for God's mercy rather than His justice. We pray for the hearts and minds of the justices. We cannot imagine the external pressures being brought to bear on each judge. Their positions are designed as lifetime appointments to help minimize the politicization of their duties. However, they, like us, long to be liked and appreciated by individuals who are often politically connected and considered intellectually sophisticated.
The president has signaled his desires, having instructed the Justice Department not to defend the law of the land enacted by Congress. But God, who is rich in mercy, is able to move the hearts of kings. His Spirit can work in ways we cannot fathom to help guide and sway each justice. It only takes five justices to establish the constitutionality of these laws and rescue our nation from the precipice of moral destruction. We pray for them.
Third, we pray for supernatural wisdom for those who argue for the constitutionality of these two initiatives. The law is a fluid thing. It is always being shaped by a combination of factors, including precedent, logic, the effect of past laws on the human condition, and even personal charisma of the presenters.
Perhaps no idea has more shaped Supreme Court deliberations over the past few decades than the principle of fairness. Truth and justice do not always seem fair to our fallen minds. Morality does not always seem reasonable. Our sinful hearts are frequently darkened so that evil is considered good and good is considered evil.
We pray that the individuals selected to argue for the constitutionality of traditional marriage will have keenness of insight, eloquence and logical consistency in their arguments and in response to each question directed their way. We pray their arguments will be biblically sound, compelling, reasonable and persuasive.
Fourth, the Psalmist frequently asked the Lord to let the wicked be caught in their own schemes (Psalm 10:2). Let us petition the heavenly Father that those who argue against biblical truth will be ensnared in their own pride and be taken captive by their own conceits.
Fifth, the best way for God's people to pray, of course, is to pray His Word back to Him. Isaiah 59 (reprinted below) is a most fitting text for us to pray as we intercede on behalf of our nation. Let me urge you to pray this passage to the Lord, acknowledging His might, His ability and His willingness to rescue our land from imminent moral peril.
--30--
Frank S. Page is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee.
Isaiah 59, Holman Christian Standard Bible
"1Indeed, the LORD's hand is not too short to save, and His ear is not too deaf to hear.
2 But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have made Him hide His face from you so that He does not listen.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers, with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongues mutter injustice.
4 No one makes claims justly; no one pleads honestly. They trust in empty and worthless words; they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity.
5 They hatch viper's eggs and weave spider's webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.
6 Their webs cannot become clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their works are sinful works, and violent acts are in their hands.
7 Their feet run after evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths.
8 They have not known the path of peace, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made their roads crooked; no one who walks on them will know peace.
"9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we live in the night.
10 We grope along a wall like the blind; we grope like those without eyes. We stumble at noon as though it were twilight; we are like the dead among those who are healthy.
11 We all growl like bears and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our transgressions have multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us.
For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities:
13 transgression and deception against the LORD, turning away from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart.
14 Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far off. For truth has stumbled in the public square, and honesty cannot enter.
15 Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil is plundered.
"The LORD saw that there was no justice, and He was offended.
16 He saw that there was no man—He was amazed that there was no one interceding; so His own arm brought salvation, and His own righteousness supported Him.
17 He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and He wrapped Himself in zeal as in a cloak.
18 So He will repay according to their deeds: fury to His enemies, retribution to His foes, and He will repay the coastlands.
19 They will fear the name of Yahweh in the west and His glory in the east; for He will come like a rushing stream driven by the wind of the LORD.
20 'The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression.'
This is the LORD's declaration.
21 'As for Me, this is My covenant with them,' says the LORD: 'My Spirit who is on you, and My words that I have put in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your children, or from the mouth of your children's children, from now on and forever,' says the LORD."
Thank you for this content and prayer guide, Dan!
A DAY OF MOURNING AND PRAYER - JUNE 30, 2013
"And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, v. 42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. v. 43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side. v. 44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." Luke 19: 41 - 44
Greetings,
On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court made rulings in regard to same sex marriage and its impact on our nation and future. Unlike in 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized the death of unborn children; the court held up short of legalizing this sin of same sex marriage across the land. But their rulings have opened the door for the possibility of this sin to become the law of the land. In history, there are moments that change us forever, they are markers of time, and they can be victorious moments or undoing moments. Such moments of our nations history have compelled us to rise to the challenges upon us through calamities, destruction, death and great sorrow. On December 7, 1941, after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt referred to this moment of history as, 'a day of infamy'.
The courts decision has left the church with such a taste as this being 'a day of infamy'. A day when evil is called good and sin is embraced as acceptable. In such moments of history the church is called to respond.
Therefore, let this day, June 30, 2013, be set forth as A Day of Mourning and Prayer. Recognizing that for many followers of Christ this is their first gathering together, after this moment of history; let them come together with an awareness of the state of our nation and the impact of these rulings upon us. That every act of sin legalized and embraced by our culture is a provocation of the Lord God and His holiness and righteousness as declared in His Holy Word. That the Lord God is kind, patient and long suffering, but will never and has never blest a nation or a people that has chosen sin over our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let us therefore cry out to God for mercy, for forgiveness, for a pleading before Him that it is not the desire of our hearts to allow or for our nation to go the way of all the earth. And that as Christ beheld the city and wept over it, so we shall weep and mourn, praying and agonizing for the lostness and wickedness that is prevailing upon the nation that has been blest by the Lord for so long.
Our nation has forgotten the Biblical teachings for many decades now. Our nation has and is removing God, and any and all Christian witness from our society. But our faith is not in men or their means, it is in 'looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith'. And in You, O Father God of heaven and earth, our prayers are lifted up to cleanse us, to revive Your church, to impart Your Holy Spirit to quicken us and to stretch forth Your right hand to help us. Do not stretch forth Your right hand to to consume us in Your wrath at our legalizing sin, but 'in wrath remember mercy.' Unto You, O God, we call and plead, have mercy and help us;.
Let the Lord's people give place to prayer, to anguish, to mourning that true repentance, confession and sorrow might be done. And that as Christ prayed, 'Father, forgive them they know not what they do.' So we pray for the heathen of this land, that they know not that they have provoked Your wrath upon our children, upon our land, and upon our future. But we know, O Lord, as Your people, taught by Your Word, we know what You have declared and what our proper response must be.
"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger." Lamentation 1:12
"Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men." Psalm 12:1
Until,
Dan Biser