SBC PRAYER & FASTING - MAY

 Greetings,

"And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt Thou destroy all the residue of Israel in Thy pouring out of Thy fury upon Jerusalem?" Ezekiel 9:8

This is a sobering picture of God taking the prophet Ezekiel through the city of Jerusalem and into the temple, revealing the wicked activities of its men and leaders—their great abominations against the Lord. God commands Ezekiel to witness these earthly events, and then He allows him to observe the heavenly response.

God sends forth an angel with an inkhorn to mark those who are humble and seeking the Lord. Then comes a clear command: another angel is to take a sword and go through the city, slaying all who do not bear the mark on their foreheads. As the angel carries out this judgment, Ezekiel—shaken and filled with holy fear—cries out, “Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel?” (Ezekiel 9:8). Later, in chapter 11, as Ezekiel is prophesying, another man drops dead on the spot. Again, Ezekiel cries out, “Will You make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”

Death and destruction come when God is against a nation, not for it. “The wages of sin is death.”

Our nation is in a great calamity. The same kind of judgment is upon our society, our communities, our homes, and even our churches. Death and dying surround us—signs of divine judgment upon a sinful land. The Church must be crying out to God for mercy and divine intervention.

Those who received the mark in Ezekiel’s vision were the ones who “sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst” (Ezekiel 9:4). That is the kind of heart we must have today—a heart broken over the sins of our nation. This is why we need prayer meetings marked by anguish, tears, and deep lamentation. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Where are our tears? Where is our sighing and crying?

The hour is urgent. It is a crucial time for the Church to pray for what is happening in our cities, on our streets, and in our homes. Our sins have multiplied over the decades. The abominations we now witness are things that, not long ago, we could never have imagined. The next generation is being swept away in a cesspool of evil, perversion, and anti-God ideologies. Too many have compromised and turned a blind eye to the calamity surrounding us.

We are witnessing a massive wave of death in our society—from drug overdoses, homicides, and suicides, to one of the most tragic forms: murder-suicides, often domestic in nature. These numbers, once in the hundreds at the start of this century, have now reached into the hundreds of thousands annually. Yet many remain blind to the truth. Every church, community, and family is being impacted by this epidemic of death. Oh, how we need the Lord!

We are a nation reaping what we have sown for so long against God. Souls are perishing faster than the Church can reach them with the gospel. If there is a plea to be made, it is for God to restrain His wrath and grant us time to respond rightly. Let us seek His face for mercy: “In wrath remember mercy, O Lord.”

The cup of His wrath is full and being poured out on our land. Do you see the vast amount of dying in our society? Do you understand that the vast majority are perishing without Christ, headed for an eternal hell? Is the Lord not the answer to all this? Is He not able to deliver and help us? Christ is all-sufficient. He is the answer. Our greatest need is for His divine presence to meet us in this hour of need.

“Heal us, O God, and we shall be healed.”
“Turn us, O God, and we shall be turned.”
“Revive us, O God, and we shall serve Thee like never before.”

Call upon Him. Seek Him. Wait before Him. In Him is the remedy for this crucial hour in our nation's future.

R.C. Sproul once said—words I’ve placed at the top of the first page in my prayer book—“Right now matters forever.” This National Day of Prayer matters right now, for the sake of eternity.

Let us come together to pray, to fast, and to wait upon the Lord. “Who knows if He will turn and leave a blessing behind Him?”

How do we pray for our nation during this National Day of Prayer?

Each first Thursday of the month, we focus on two key prayer points:

  1. Pray for real revival—for the divine, full, manifest presence of God to fall upon His Church. There is much false fire today, which is why we emphasize real revival.

  2. Pray for the lost—the masses without Christ, who are one breath away from eternity without a Savior. They desperately need the gospel.

In addition to these two main points, each month we also focus on a specific need within our SBC life. Last month, we prayed over our seminaries. This month, as the National Day of Prayer aligns with our first Thursday gathering, we must not neglect to pray fervently for our nation.

Until,
Dan Biser
rdbiser@live.com

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