Yes, God Is Holding Us Accountable!

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and from Thy judgments.” Daniel 9:5

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Daniel prayed, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and Thy judgments.” You ask, “Did Daniel do all that?” No, Daniel simply included himself in his prayer for his nation. 

Does God hold me accountable for the abortion in America? Yes! Does God hold me accountable for the pornography? Yes! For the drug addiction, alcoholism, materialism, humanism? Yes, He does. Friend, if the church had done what she ought to have done, and if we would do what we ought to do, then these problems would be healed. And while we may not commit these sins, they are still our sins. Verse 20 of this same chapter makes it so clear: “While I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel….”

Now, people who don’t know God aren’t going to confess the sin of this nation. Like Daniel, we must set our face and pray with reflection and repentance, confessing our sin and the sin of America. Only sin that is confessed is forgiven.

ACTION POINT:

Have you ever set your face to prayer? So much of our prayer, I hate to say, is casual prayer, prayer that comes with almost a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. When are we going to set our face before God with fasting and determination?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Hypocritical Prayer

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession…” Daniel 9:4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The greatest thing we can do for America is to pray for America. I am convinced if there were ever a need for prayer, this is the hour. It’s one thing to criticize that our children cannot pray in school. But I think it is unmitigated hypocrisy to carp and criticize about children not being able to pray in school unless we ourselves are prayer warriors, don’t you? We must teach our children to pray in the home. We are unvarnished hypocrites to criticize, yet not teach our children to pray—by both gentle instruction and by example. Our children are watching us and will model our behavior. 

ACTION POINT:

Teach your children how to pray in the home. Take them beyond “Now I lay me down to sleep.” We rattle off our little prayers. But have you really set your face to pray?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

With Daniel in the School of Prayer

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer, and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.” Daniel 9:3

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Only prayer can hold back the floodtide of sin in our nation and the floodtide of judgment. Only prayer can release the cleansing and healing hand of God. And not just any prayer. It’s not the arithmetic of our prayers; that is, how many they are. It’s not the geometry of our prayer, how long it might be. It’s not the rhetoric of our prayer, how eloquent it may be. It’s not the music of our prayer, how sweet our voice. Not the logic of our prayer, how eloquent we become. It’s not the method of our prayer, how methodical we are. But it’s the faith and the fervency of our prayer that counts with God.

ACTION POINT:

God has said in His Word that we are to confess our faults one to another and pray one for another that we may be healed. And “The effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16) Read Daniel chapter 9 today and see this in action.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

God Has Ordained Human Government

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“And He changeth the times and the seasons; He removeth kings and raiseth up kings….” Daniel 2:21

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

What does the Word of God have to say about government? It teaches that God has ordained human government. The prophet Daniel said that God is the one who removes kings and God is the one who sets up kings. And Romans13 teaches that the powers that be are ordained of God. 

What about wicked governments? Did God set them up? It may surprise you to learn, yes, He did. That does not mean they are God’s will. God would much rather have righteousness. But by and large people get the kind of government they deserve. Wicked leaders are God’s reward for a wicked people. 

ACTION POINT:

What are we to do as a church? What is my responsibility so far as government is concerned? First of all, we are to pray for our government. We need to pray for leaders even if they are wrong “For this is good and acceptable and right in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Timothy 2:3). I am calling upon you to confess your sins personally and our sins nationally. And I am calling upon you to pray for America as Daniel prayed for his people—in the power of the shed blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is prayer time in America.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Turning the Tide

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“I exhort therefore that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable and right in the sight of God our Savior.” I Timothy 2:1-3

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

When I was a boy in Florida, we lived at the seaside. I love the water and one of the things that always intrigued me as a boy was the changing of the tide. As we’d go out fishing, my brother and I would always be cognizant of the tides because we would come and go by the tides. The tides were important to us.

There are tides in nations too. America saw a tide of revival sweep in twice—in the First and Second Great Awakenings. But today we’ve seen a different tide. At this lowest point, when the tide is as low as it can get, may God grant that we see the tide begin to turn, back the other way, back to decency in America, back to standing up for the unborn.

ACTION POINT:

We need to look up. Only God can help us. We need to confess up and turn from our wicked ways. We need to speak up and we need to stand up for what is right. Pray 1Timothy 2:1-3 today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

You Are the Salt

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Matthew 5:13

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Edmund Burke wrote, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” When it comes to the political scene and government, there are some who have dropped out all together. They have the idea that if you get involved in government, somehow that is the “social gospel.” So they’ve just hunkered down, trying to “hold on till Jesus gets here.” They see the political scene as being dirty and worldly. And some have been intimidated by the great debate between church and state. 

We can’t drop out. It’s impossible to think that God would have ordained government and told His people to stay out. Who else does that leave to run things? 

Others with misguided zeal have tried to bring in the kingdom of God by political machinations. That cannot be done either. So where do we get the answers? We’re not going to get the answers today from the politician who may have his personal ax to grind or from the ungodly and the humanists who don’t believe the Word of God, or from finger-bumping philosophers who don’t know the Word of God. The only place we’re going to get the answers, I believe, is from the Word of God.

ACTION POINT:

We need to confess and turn from our wicked ways. We need to speak up and stand up for what is right. Let your speech be seasoned with salt. But stand up, speak up and come out from under the rock. Stand on the rock and speak up for the Lord Jesus Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Filled With Emptiness

6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.7 Therefore do not become partners with them;8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."  - Ephesians 5:6-14

Sin, a moment of delight followed by a never ending empty soul.

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. - Hebrews 3:12-13

18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. - Ephesians 4:18-19

Jesus, being filled with a lasting joy, a soul completely satisfied.

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.  - Isaiah 35:10

15 "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."  - Revelation 7:15-17

3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.  - Isaiah 53:3-12