A Sense of Urgency * Dutch Sheets * GiveHIM15 * 1/30/2024

[ronscarpa]

• • 5 min read         https://www.givehim15.com/post/january-30-2024

January 30, 2024

 

A Sense of Urgency

 

 

Tomorrow (January 31, 2024) is a very important day, one I believe will be used to heal and save our nation. I would love for you to participate. Before I give the details, let me tell you why it is so important.

 

 

The Scriptures teach that “righteousness exalts a nation, and the nation is blessed whose God is the Lord” (Proverbs 14:34, Psalm 33:12). Secularists and humanists would have us believe America can be great without God, that our greatness is due to our own abilities, determination, and natural resources. This is foolish pride and deception. Abraham Lincoln clearly understood this when he wrote his March 1863 Proclamation of Prayer:

 

 

“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 that 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.”(1)

 

 

These sobering words are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago, perhaps more so. America has again lost her way.

 

 

Centuries ago, the prophet Jeremiah lamented the fallen condition of Israel. Like America today, they had turned away from the Lord and been overtaken by immorality, compromise, and idolatry. God raised up the prophet, Jeremiah, to confront them, and in the sixth chapter of the book bearing his name, Jeremiah said:

 

 

“Everyone’s after the dishonest dollar, little people and big people alike. Prophets and priests and everyone in between twist words and doctor truth. My people are broken—shattered!—and they put on Band-Aids, Saying, ‘It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.’ But things are not ‘just fine’! Do you suppose they are embarrassed over this outrage? No, they have no shame. They don’t even know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:13-15 The Message)

 

 

I ask you, could not these words be written of America today? Israel did not heed the words of the prophet and repent. So, God issued another message through Jeremiah: "Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, the tried-and-true road. Then take it" (Jeremiah 6:16, The Message). The Lord was offering them a recovery. Israel ultimately rejected Jeremiah‘s warnings, however, and went into a prolonged season of great judgment.

 

 

Just as Israel in Jeremiah's day, America has lost her way. Having deviated from "the old road," we are wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of godless humanism and moral relativism. Many of our national leaders are drunk with power and dizzied with deception. They mock God, reject His ways, promote evil, and want a different America than was envisioned by our Founders. Many are working diligently to transform us into a godless nation.

 

 

Far too many spiritual leaders have also lost "the old road." Like a GPS that cannot connect to a satellite, they are now without heaven's direction. Sold a package of unbiblical ideals, many run toward misdefined goals and are fueled by untamed egos, making the rapid growth of their churches and the size of their congregations the standard for success. They’ve forgotten Christ's mission statement: preaching the good news to the poor, releasing captives, opening blind eyes, setting free the oppressed, casting out demons, healing the sick, and discipling nations (Luke 4:18; Mark 16:16-18; Matthew 28:19). They do not preach the Cross or welcome the power of Holy Spirit, preferring instead, the “new” road of entertainment, feel-good messages, and the avoidance of moral and cultural issues.

 

 

Where has the new road led us? Our schools have no prayer, Scripture reading, or moral standards. Without the stabilizing anchor of truth, our kids wander aimlessly through the maze of moral relativism. Life has been cheapened, morality is mocked, and violence is rampant. Schools allow perverts to groom our children, our education system is a joke, and most of our media are liars. Illegal drugs kill hundreds of thousands, terrorists and traffickers are allowed into our nation at will, and our President and his Head of Homeland Security oppose stopping this. The leader of the free world can’t string two sentences together, and many of our leaders are liars and fools.

 

 

Our journey down the path of unbiblical, amoral, and antichrist philosophies has produced these shocking but predictable results. When the slow death began, we had no answers. We had lost our mooring, our moral compass, and our foundation had crumbled. Consequently, we began sinking fast and are now stuck in the mire of a foundationless culture and the quicksand of humanistic, "no absolutes” thinking. Having abandoned the old road, we lost our way and are “flatlining” fast. Please believe me when I say that apart from God‘s supernatural intervention, there is no way out.

 

 

How do we find our way back to the old road? It begins with humility and repentance, which brings me to the reason for this post. Wednesday (tomorrow) is A Day of National Repentance, planned and coordinated by Jim Garlow, Founder and CEO of Well Versed, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Last year’s event was the first year of this Day of Repentance and was blessed by the Lord’s presence and favor.

 

 

The purpose of the day is carefully guarded: there are no speakers or messages, no introductions or applause, and each prayer of repentance is limited to less than a minute. Last year‘s gathering was attended by many leaders, including a couple of dozen members of Congress. Tony Perkins said of last year‘s day of repentance: “It was one of the most powerful events in DC I’ve been involved in, in 20 years.”

 

 

Jim Garlow said, “God showed up.” What more could be said to gauge the success of any gathering? Speaking of those who want to participate, either in person or by Livestream, Garlow said, “Those who have a sense of urgency given to them by the Spirit of God…those who realize exactly where we are as a nation - how far we have fallen, how close we are to going over the cliff to our destruction - these are the people who will be interested in this time of repentance.”

 

 

I will be there offering my short but heartfelt prayer of repentance for our nation. Though no seats are left, I encourage you to join us online. To do so, text the word “prayer” to 67742 or go to NGPR.org. The activities will begin tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7:30 AM Eastern Time and finish around 1:30PM.

 

 

Pray with me:

 

Father, America has lost her way. We left the “old road” of truth, and chose a new path for our journey as a nation. We are now so hopelessly lost that there is no way back without Your help. We repent for the pride and fleshly desires that motivated this wrong turn. As President Lincoln said, “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 [became] too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”(2)

 

Forgive and heal us, we pray. Whatever is required to awaken this nation, please do it. Then send a sweeping revival, an unprecedented outpouring of Your Spirit, one that overwhelms darkness, opens blind eyes by the millions, and turns our nation back to You. You have offered to do this, but we know Your promises are conditional. So we now offer the biblical response required of us: we repent, ask for cleansing, and appeal for the awakening, doing so in the Almighty name of Jesus. Amen.

 

 

 

Our decree:

 

We decree that the mercies of the Lord are new EVERY morning and that they NEVER come to an end. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

 

 

********************************

 

 

Click on the link below to watch the full video.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

1. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-97-appointing-day-national-humiliation-fasting-and-prayer 

2. https://www.loc.gov/static/js/lib/pdf-2.6-es5/web/viewer.html?file=https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/rbc/lprbscsm/scsm0265/scsm0265.pdf 

[Sage449]

Passing it along, thank you.