“Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps Your covenant and lovingkindness for those who love You and keep Your commandments, we, WHO CALL OURSELVES BY YOUR NAME, have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.
Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord. You are holy, pure, and true. You created creation for Your glory! You demand obedience, reverence, and praise from all of creation. From those who have called themselves by Your name, worship is due and payable now! You are the LORD, that is Your name! You will not give Your glory to another, nor Your praise to anything else!
Open shame belongs to us, O LORD, to the Pastors, the Elders, the Deacons, the Teachers, to all parts of the body of Christ—the people who call ourselves by Your name, the ones who are to represent You—because we have sinned against You. We have called ourselves by Your name, yet, we will not walk according to your Word. Indeed, we will not listen to You.
We continue to look more and more like the world everyday, rather than being conformed into the image of Your Son. We no longer have the fear of You because we do not know You. We do not know You because we will not sit at Your feet and listen to You—one book at a time, chapter after chapter, word by word by word.
To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against You; we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in Your teachings which You set before us through Your servants the prophets.
Indeed, the church and the people of this nation have transgressed Your laws and turned aside, not obeying Your voice; so our nation has been cursed. You have given the people over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. You have given them over to degrading passions. And because they did not see fit to acknowledge You as God any longer, You have given them over to a depraved mind.
You have brought disaster upon us, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, fire, pestilence and plagues. You have turned us over to many evil leaders. All because of our unfaithful deeds which we have committed against You.
Our nation is filled with all manner of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, and evil. There is bloodshed in our streets, and wickedness in our land—even in our pews. Pornography, incest, immorality, abortion, and child-trafficking abound among us.
The people outside the church and multitudes inside the visible arena of the so-called church are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil disobedient to parents. They are without understanding untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.
They know Your ordinance, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, and yet, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
You are God. You created us. You own us. And, in addition, You bought us with the precious blood of Your Son. You have all rights over us—and yet we walk in our own ways, abandoning You and Your ways in favor of what seems right to us. We have broken Your laws and we are guilty before You. We deserve judgment.
The choice set before our nation today feels like the choice between life or death—because it is. Will you spare us and let a man govern this nation who has tried these last four years to follow Your ways? Or will you give us over to destruction, to those who continue to shake their fists at Your ways?
Will Your people finally and truly turn to You? Or perhaps You will judge us for our continued rebellion against You? Perhaps You will even give those who shake their fists at You power over us. Perhaps our iniquities have risen too high to spare us any longer. If so, even more than ever, we will need to live by faith.
We are on the brink of destruction and yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to Your truth.
Therefore, You, LORD have kept the calamity in store and brought it on us; for You, LORD God are righteous with respect to all Your deeds which You have done, but we have not obeyed Your voice.
And now, O Lord our God, who has made America free with Your mighty hand, free to follow You, free to obey You, free to praise You, free to worship You. You have used America to glorify Your name—and yet, we have sinned, we have been wicked.
O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from America; for because of our sins and our iniquities, we have foundered, capsized, become swamped, and descended into the deepest part of depravity. The remnant of people who are called by Your name have become a reproach.
So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to our supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on this desolate nation.
Spare us from those who would lead us into irremediable defiance, assiduous corruption, and malignant licentiousness. Have mercy on us, O Lord! Spare us from what we deserve! For Your name’s sake!
O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion.
O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because America, and many of its peoples, are still called by Your name.”
Adapted from Daniel 9
Copyright November 3, 2020, Sharon L Jensen