“They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”
Jeremiah 6:14

I received some feedback from my post yesterday to encourage me that prayer is, indeed, effective. If you recall, I was a bit dumbfounded about what to pray for with regards to our country. There were all sorts of suggestions, from praying for revival to surrounding our president with godly advisors. Yes, these are good prayers and ones that I have prayed many, many times – just like all of you. Yet, I can’t shake this feeling that our country is headed for turmoil like none we have ever seen.

So, we pray for peace, peace. That comes from Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. We’re hoping that things will get better for our country. We hope for peace. Right? “If only everyone would calm down…”

But have we ignored a great, great abomination in our times, a sanctioned act so grizzly that it should be compared to the Holocaust but isn’t? I’m talking about state-endorsed abortion. Sixty-two MILLION have been performed since Roe v. Wade was passed.

How can we, sober-minded and in good conscience, ask God for peace in our nation when we are slaughtering our babies in broad daylight? Let’s not forget the explosion of state-endorsed sexual perversion that is running rampant! Oh, how about the way our government spends money? It’s out of control! I could go on and on.

Yet, we pray for peace?

What about praying for God to stomp his foot saying, “Enough!”?

Why wouldn’t we pray for that? I’ll tell you why. Because we don’t want it. We don’t want what the Lord did to Judah – his hand-picked nation – that we see in the pages of the Old Testament. Yet, who can stop the arm of God when he executes judgment and justice?

I’m reminded about how God had instructed Jeremiah – three times!

Jeremiah 7:16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

What!?!? You read that right. See what else God tells him:

v. 17-20 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”

We are in the end times, my friends. The day of judgment is coming. Be prepared. Stay alert. Keep awake.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

One more passage for your encouragement:

Hebrews 10:32-39 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Father, I pray that you send workers into your harvest. Let those who read this post step forward with great courage to proclaim the Day of the Lord and of the mercy you extend if only people would listen. Raise up your flock, Lord! Amen.

Copyright © 2019 Scott Powers

Photo Credit: https://mwi.usma.edu/urgent-lessons-world-war/