Most Just and Benevolent God of The Lord Jesus Christ.
We confess this morning that you are the God above all gods — The Creator God of all the earth. You are the one who determines the end from the beginning and you hold the hearts of all potentates in your palm to do with as you please.
We come before you as a people you have repeatedly blessed throughout our history, and we confess that we have sinned repeatedly and high highhandedly done violence against thy tender mercies. Though we Americans are not all Christian we understand that just as you threw out the Canaanites of old from the land for their violation against your just standards so you hold all of us today — Christian and non-Christian alike — accountable for our sins — both public and private.
For the sake of thy Crucified, Resurrected and Ruling Son we pray that you might be pleased to send all of us an awareness, born of thy Spirit, to make us conversant with our sin and idolatry. Be pleased, for the sake of Jesus to cause us to see our wickedness that we might be instructed to flee to Christ who alone is the propitiation for sin and who alone can heal us, our families, our Churches, and our Nation.
Be with our President most Excellent Father. Cause him to lead us in repentance. Where he stands in need of humbling himself before you we pray that you might grant it. Be pleased, we beg of you, to make our President a nursing father to thy Holy Church so that all the people of this Nation might be blessed.
As the Prophet prayed of old so we ask in this invocation, “In wrath remember Mercy.”
Do all this we pray that thy name might be magnified, so that thy Royal Son Jesus may be made known and so that thy present full Kingdom might be increased so that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord might cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
In the name of Jesus Christ — the one alone mediator between God and Man — we pray
Amen.
Amen brother Bret, amen.
Well, there goes your guest lecture invitation at Westminster West.
That’s Ok Paul … I typically only guest lecture at Christian institutions.
Bret,
I thought you might enjoy an illustration of the sort of thinking that I encountered during my exams. The following link is to a blog on which my chair participates (he is Jim Aune). In the link he is musing on the differences between Warren’s prayer and Lowery’s prayer. Notice what he chooses to focus upon.
http://rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/2703
Amen!!
Joshua,
I read that link.
Brother I pity you. Those nut cases think that Warren is conservative. LOL ………………
I can understand how people would say that Warren’s prayer was narcissistic. On the other hand Lowery’s Benediction was racist. I’m not sure how any white person could call it inclusive.
Also the phrase above … “… on today of all days.” Who gives a flying flip about this day in relation to all others.
Man, I just didn’t get the gene where one gets patriotic goosebumps.
White secular humanists who are pluralistic have white guilt over their Christian forefathers who were so exclusionary, perhaps?
As for Warren and Lowery. . .these folks pick and choose when to be critical. When they agree they accuse others of being overly negative or critical.
The wanton irrationality of our age knows no bounds, so it seems.
Yes on the first sentence, as long as we understand that Whites were only as exclusionary as an people group who desires to survive. (Granting the obvious extreme and rare examples we can all name.)
Second, the White guilt thing is being stoked by White Liberals who feel superior when they can call another White person a racist and by minorities who understand that the White man has lost the desire to lead and rule.
On your last sentence ….
Irrationality seems to know no bounds but it is wearing itself out looking for the boundaries.
Of course. Although I am finding it more and more the case than when I reflect upon human nature we tend to destroy those who are like us as much as we try to destroy those who are different. Exiles from Christ are bitter with self-loathing because they have forsaken their own hope and joy; their only satisfaction. These men fear men more than God because in their prideful indulgence they hope in vain for an impossible escape from the justice and determination of God.
Yet many even among the elect fear men more than we fear God, for His correction is sometimes deferred, and our prideful indulgence secretly hopes for an impossible escape from His determination.
Yes … sin destroys everything from the bonds that are most un-natural to the bonds that are the most natural. I had a close family member steeped in sin and their hatred knew no boundaries — neither friends, neither family — and in the end his own hatred consumed his disposition towards himself.
Conversely, Grace builds the bonds that are most natural first and then goes on to extend the bonds that would otherwise be un-natural and not pursued in the least.
Sin is a terrible taskmaster.
And it is no wonder why the Bible testifies that Christ’s yoke is light and his burden easy! Better to bear a burden and live than be driven into death and destruction.
Have you ever read the Count of Monte Cristo? I just finished it and found it one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve ever read. Full of the stuff of human nature, sin and justice, and Providence and human freedom.
One of my favorite Novels.
Also love the Three Musketeers.
There is a sense of Nobility about those Novels. I also love the idea of “Honor” that flows through them.
There is something that was lost when we lost the idea of “Honor” and “Duty.”
Noblisse Oblige