When I homeschooled my daughter her last two years of high school, one of our greatest memories was studying American history together. I say "together" because I felt like a student all over again. I had always liked history, but this time around, because I wanted to impart a love for American history to her, I got into it more than I ever had in the past. It came alive to me as I put myself in the scenes of the brave men and women who discovered, settled, and established this land.
My daughter and husband and I even went on a field trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to see a replica of the Mayflower, the first boat to bring the Pilgrims to America. As I looked at that little, cramped, fragile boat I tried to figure out how in the world they could sail clear across the Atlantic Ocean safely in it. I decided it was impossible. Another thing that seemed impossible was their surviving in a place where there were no grocery stores, hospitals, doctors, drugstores, or anything at all with which to start a life and a community. I thought they either must have had a death wish or they were lunatics. Or they were led by the Lord to go there. In that moment, looking at that boat, I knew it was the Lord.
That might not seem like a great revelation to some people, but to me it made all of American history make sense. And I saw that there were important key elements about our early history that had been left out of my history books when
I was in school. As I did some research and found a number of great books that told the whole truth about what really happened, I realized that our nation was founded on prayer.
Christopher Columbus, who discovered America in 1492, was a strong believer who wanted God to use him to proclaim the Lord's name on the earth. In the only book Christopher Columbus wrote, called Book of Prophecies, he said he could not have reached the shores of America without prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
In his own words he stated, "It was the Lord who put it into my mind I could feel His hand upon me...the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies.. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me.. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics, or maps… No one should fear to undertake a task in the name of our Savior if it is just and the intention is purely for His service.”
Can you imagine that? Christopher Columbus writes that he didn't use a map or any strategic calculations when he sailed to America. He did it with prayer. He traveled clear across the Atlantic Ocean and arrived on our shores with the leading of the Holy Spirit. Can there be any doubt that God wanted him to come here?
Later on, this nation was settled by people of prayer who followed God to a place where He could be worshiped freely without the cruel and oppressive restrictions of men. The Pilgrims who sailed to America in 1620 had separated themselves from the Church of England because they believed it to be unbiblical. They felt so passionately about this that they left all that was familiar to them to risk their lives traveling to an unknown and unsettled land in order to be free to live and worship God's way. They had great faith that God would help them find this place and build it. And so He did.
The 102 passengers of that tiny boat sailed 66 days before landing at what is now called Cape Cod. Once they landed they still could all have died in the wilderness. And some of them did not survive the brutal winter. But those who lived prayed fervently to God, and He saved them. They knew without a doubt that God called them, guided them, protected them, and established them.
None of these people stepped into their boat without prayer. And the first thing they did when they landed was to offer thanks to God. They survived this wild untamed land because God enabled them to do so.
As they built homes and communities for themselves, they relied entirely on the Scriptures to teach them God's ways. They homeschooled every child with the main purpose being to teach them to read the Scriptures for themselves. Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, was a Christian who acknowledged God as the giver of his talent and source of his ability to accomplish such a monumental task.
Every important event in our nation's early history was founded upon a strong faith in God and fervent prayer. For example:
* The Continental Congress called for a day of fasting and prayer in the colonies in 1775 when it became clear that they would need to fight in order to free themselves from England's rule. God answered their prayers.
* The men who drew up and signed the Declaration of Independence believed they were establishing America as a Christian nation and relied on God to help them draft this document. Because they wanted it to reflect their faith in God, they specifically stated their belief that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights."
* The American Congress declared a Day of Fasting and Prayer during the war with Britain so that they could ask God to help them win. God answered their prayers with many miracles. If God had not acted in favor of the American Army, the British could easily have won the war.
* During the drawing up of the Constitution, all the men involved under George Washington's leadership found themselves disagreeing on some issues. It seemed that they had reached an impasse. Then Benjamin Franklin stepped forward to remind the men of all the miracles God had done on their behalf when they battled for their independence. He said, "The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can not rise without His aid?"* He then called the men to prayer every morning that they were together. After their very first morning of prayer, the air was cleared, and they were able to come to agreement. They created a document that has kept our nation strong for over two hundred years. They were certain they could not have succeeded without guidance from God.
* During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln called for a national day of fasting and prayer in order to confess the nation's sins of slavery and pride, and then repent of them. They then acknowledged God's goodness to them and humbly asked for His forgiveness. Within two days after that day of prayer, everything turned around, and it paved the way for victory, the preservation of the Union, and the freeing of the slaves.
There are countless examples throughout the history of our nation when leaders called people to pray in a hopeless situation and saw God completely reverse everything. The many wonderful blessings we have enjoyed as a country over the years, and have often taken for granted, are the direct results of the power of a praying nation.
God is the same today as He was then. He says if we will humble ourselves through fasting, confession, and repentance for the sins of our nation, and stop doing our own thing and start living His way, then He will hear our prayers and heal our land (2 Chronicles 7:14). These are words we can't afford to ignore. Only God can help us get rid of evil. Only He can protect us from danger and threats to our safety. Only He can unify us and put us on the right path. But we have to do our part.
You may be saying, "How can I repent for the sins of someone else? That doesn't make sense. Why do I have to repent when I have not done the things that I am confessing? How does that work?" I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I know Jesus did it for you and me. Only He went a giant step further. He bore the price of those sins in Himself. God is not asking us to pay the penalty of our nation's sins. He is asking us to repent of them on behalf of those who don't know how, so that His blessings can be poured out upon us. Sin separates us from God. Confession and repentance removes the separation.
God said to the sinful nations, "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it... therefore hear, you nations...I will certainly bring calamity on this people-the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words, nor My law, but rejected it" (Jeremiah 6:16-19).
This is a prediction for any nation who forsakes God and His ways. I know that you and I and millions of believers have not forsaken God and His ways, but others in our nation have. And God gives us a way to eliminate the ramifications of that by confessing the sins of the nation before Him and asking Him to heal our land. He didn't say that all people in a nation must be perfect in their heart and actions in order to receive the blessings of God. If that were the case, there would never be a nation that was blessed. God allows us, who are called by His name, to humble ourselves and repent for the sins of others so that we can receive the blessings He has for us. It's God's gift to us so that we don't have to keep paying the price for the sin of unrepentant people.
In ancient biblical history, time and time again when Israel served the Lord and did what was right in God's sight, the Lord blessed them. But when they became disobedient to God's ways or worshiped idols instead of God, their enemies ran over them, took them captive, killed them, and, brought destruction on their land.
When David was a young boy, he faced the giant Goliath boldly declaring, "the battle is the LORD'S, and He will give you into our hands" (1 Samuel 17:47). And that was exactly what God did. David faced a foe far greater than himself, but God won the battle for him. When David became king, Israel won battles not because of how many soldiers they had nor with the brilliance of their strategists on the battlefield. They won because the Lord went to battle with them.
Even so, King David in his later years, after having won so many battles with the help of God, foolishly decided to take a census to find out exactly how many "valiant men who drew the sword" there were in his army (2 Samuel 24). He wasn't trying to find out the number of soldiers for a particular battle he was facing. He wanted to know exactly how mighty his army was. And he did this just after praising God because "the LORD had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies" (2 Samuel 22:1).
Although David wasn't a perfect man, he did have a heart for God and was immediately convicted about what he had done. He realized that he could not claim strength to win a war on the basis of how many soldiers he had. His victories had always been on God's terms and on the basis of God's 'power. But even though David repented of his transgression, there was still a price to pay. God sent the prophet Gad to David to give him three choices as a punishment. He could choose either seven years of famine, or running from his enemy for three months, or three days of plague in his nation.
David's response was, "Please let us; fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but (do not let me fall into the hand of man" (2 Samuel 24:14). So he chose the three days of plague, and as a result 70,000 of his men died. He ended up losing a large portion of the same army he had so proudly numbered.
Gad then instructed David to erect an altar to God in order to give an offering to Him. David chose to buy the threshing floor where it was to be dome instead of just borrowing it because he said he would not offer to God that which cost him nothing. David then prayed for the people, and God withdrew the plague (2 Samuel24:21 25).
What happened to David happens to a lot of us, especially as we get older. We take for granted the blessings and answers to prayer that we have enjoyed and begin to think we have accomplished these great things ourselves. We begin to believe our country is great because of us, when it's really because of God. We forget that our nation was established by God, and so we neglect to pray. We start thinking that we win wars because of our might when it's really because God goes to battle with us. If our country ever ceases to be great, it will be because we stopped acknowledging God's greatness on our behalf.
Today, as a nation we face a foe that appears enormous. But if we ask God to fight our battle for us, We will win. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance" (Psalm 33:12). A people who worship God and proclaim Him to be their Lord will have His blessings.
A people who choose to do things their own way instead of relying on God and His power will experience disaster.
But God requires a sacrifice on our part. Our prayers are a sacrifice of time and inconvenience. Fasting is a sacrifice of discomfort and self-denial. Repentance is a sacrifice of pride and self-serving. Giving is a sacrifice of something we have. When we make a sacrifice that costs us something, we will see the mighty hand of God move on our behalf.
How do we get an entire nation to pray in unity? We probably can't. That's because there will always be people who oppose God and His ways in our nation. But we don't have to worry about that, because the believers in a nation can join together and repent and pray on behalf of all the people and God will answer. Fortunately, we don't all have to be in the same room at the same time. We can be in our individual prayer closets or houses of prayer and worship. As long as we pray in unity, God's power will be in attendance.
In this great land of ours, prayer is one of the freedoms protected by our Constitution. Our ancestors risked their very lives to secure such freedoms for us. Prayer is our greatest means of defense, and it must go before such assets as our military, intelligence, determination, and might.
We have enjoyed so many blessings as a nation because from the beginning there were believers who prayed. We have no idea how many terrible things we may have avoided because of fervent prayer. If we want a glimpse of what our nation might be like if there were no one praying, all we need to do is look at the conditions in some of the nations who have rejected God.
The power of evil in our land today threatens our safety, peace, and freedom. But God still leads us, and His power is always greater. Our world may be shaken, but the kingdom of God is not. We are moving into a new time and just as when the land was first settled, there are sacrifices that need to be made. But with the leading of the Lord and the prayers of the believers, we can make them.
Let's serve the Lord as soldiers of His praying army. Let's not live in fear of what man can do to us; rather, let us fear what life would be like without God on our side. Now more than ever we need to heed God's call to prayer. We know too much not to do so. Let's rise up in the tradition of our forefathers and once again become a strong praying nation so we can see the power of God released to work on earth in a greater way than ever before.
Pray
Lord, I thank You for the many men and women of God who have gone before us in our nation and paved the way for us in prayer. I know there are countless blessings which we enjoy today because of their faithfulness to You years ago. Thank You that this nation was founded on prayer and faith in You. I pray that we will continue in that tradition and that a revival of faith will break out all across our land. I pray that people everywhere will join together in prayer so that we will become a force for good.
I pray that no evil will befall our nation and no plague will come near us. Make us immune so we will "not be afraid of the terror by night.. .nor the pestilence that walks in the darkness" (Psalm 91:5-6). Protect us from the enemy who would like to destroy us. Render his weapons useless. Be with us to deliver us in our time of trouble, give us long life, and show us Your salvation. Deliver us from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence (Psalm 91:3). Lift us above the things that threaten us. Cover us as we take refuge in You.
Lord, I thank You for all the believers in our nation who serve and glorify You. Thank You for their many prayers and for the answers that You have given. Give us repentant hearts as we humble ourselves before You and turn from our selfish ways. As a nation we confess our pride and our lack of faith. Open our blind eyes to see You and Your truth as we seek Your face.
I know that the power of a praying nation is Your power working on behalf of those who pray. And I
know that when we call upon You, You will answer. I ask this day that You would pour out Your Spirit on every city, town, community, school, government office, business, and church in this country. Reveal Yourself to people everywhere so that their eyes will be opened to Your truth. Help us to become the praying nation You want us to be. In Jesus' name I pray.
