Monday, January 4, 2021

Invitation for Day of Prayer and Fasting

From: David Brown



Invitation for Day of Prayer and Fasting

To All Residents of Eastern Jackson County

If you are one of the many who is concerned about the United States of America and the direction of our nation, I would like to ask you to join with the people of all denominations in Eastern Jackson County to test the theory that history can repeat itself.​​

When Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 97, designating April 30, 1863 as a National Day of Prayer, Fasting and Repentance for this nation to return to God, history records that the very next day, May 1, 1863, a series of events took place which affected the strategy of the Civil War. By July 1, 2 & 3, 1863, the North had won major battles at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, turning the tide of the war.

Do you feel we, the people, are in need of unity and a return to God’s Providence? If your answer is yes, mark your calendar for Sunday January 17, 2021, and join us for a Day of Prayer, Fasting and Repentance. Let this be a day for all citizens who love these United States to ask for God’s help in healing our land. (II Chronicles 7:14)

If we truly are to be one nation under God, then we should make every effort to recognize that to be God’s people we have to act like God’s people in promoting unity, love and peace. We, too, struggle with these difficult times in Eastern Jackson County, but we plan to observe Sunday January 17, 2021 as a day of unified prayer, fasting and repentance. Please join us. We need you!

Richard L. Thompson
Buckner, MO  64016

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A Call to Godly Submission and Unity for America

January 17, 2021
A Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer for the establishment of righteousness within the United States of America.

The freedoms and Christian values of the United States of America and its Constitutional Government are under attack. We must stand against this onslaught to remove our freedoms that have been purchased by the blood of too many brave souls who thought more of freedom for their posterity than they did their own lives. Now is the time to stand up. What can we do? This is nothing new to our American experience. There is precedence. We only need to look to our history books to discover how we can successfully address this.

In 1863, the Union forces who were dedicated to keeping the United States unified and to also provide freedoms to all Americans through the abolition of slavery, found themselves locked in an armed conflict that was feeling like a quagmire. The abolition movement had been building for decades and the polarization of politics during the 1850s had created a tense environment. The United States was hoping that this new Republican Party President would be the one individual who could mend the fences between the Union and the Secessionists; to restore some sense of unity. Lincoln’s early speeches expressed the positions he was elected to promote, but he wanted to present these changes in a manner that would allow the South a pathway to unity if they so desired. They did not; the momentum of the division was too great.

When Lincoln was unable to halt the militarization of the political movements, many naively believed that the war would soon end when the righteous and powerful armies of the North finally engaged those ignorant rag-tag armies of the South. But the only thing that ended was peace. From the first shots fired at Fort Sumpter in April of 1861 until the early months of 1863, there was no sense of momentum developed by either the North or the South. The nation had now endured two full years of men dying with a growing population of widows and orphans. The war was at a stalemate and something needed to change. Finally, the wisdom and best efforts of man had been exhausted and the mourning among the public created the realization that there must be intervention from Heaven.

On March 2, 1863, Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced a Resolution in the Senate that asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed on April 30, 1863. (see resolution on Page 3)

After April 30, 1863, the Union forces experienced a remarkable turn of events. The very next day, General Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by friendly fire at Chancellorsville. Over the next two months the Union Army had a series of twelve victories including the surrender of a Confederate Army to General Grant at Vicksburg. The Battle of Gettysburg took place on July 1-3, 1863 and the Union victory there ended General Lee’s advance into the North. The war was finally turning to the advantage of the North. Later that same year came the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves.

While the last battle of the Civil War was not fought until April of 1865, the national day of humiliation, prayer and fasting observed on April 30 of 1863 is clearly a turning point for the United States of America. The North began its march toward victory once it had repented and submitted its fortunes to Almighty God. Theirs was a righteous battle for freedom and unity. They openly acknowledged their sins and called upon their God for His mercy and intervention as they strove to restore national unity and peace.

The battle to suppress freedom and Christian values within our society has been waging for decades. Slowly and subtly the laws and statutes that reflected a Christian perspective have been erased from our governments, and even the enforcement of remaining laws is eroding as elected officials refuse to enforce the laws on the books. How can we reverse this erosion and outright subversion of the public good?

Proverbs 16:3 “Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.”

It is a two-pronged attack. First, “Commit thy works unto the Lord.” We must unify in our submission to God and His purposes for the United States of America. He established this nation and it is He that will see that its righteous destiny is accomplished. But if we want this in our day, then we must submit to Him. We must repent in a unified call for Heaven’s intervention, even as our ancestors of 1863 fell before God in unison to petition His forgiveness and grace. Let us agree to do this on Sunday January 17, 2021. Let us fall before our God in humility, prayer and fasting. Let us acknowledge that all we say and do from this day forward will be committed to His purpose of unity and peace; being of one heart and one mind.

Then, “…and thy thoughts shall be established.” January 18, 2021 must be a new day. As our Civil War ancestors found themselves enlightened and empowered to move out, engage the enemy and win the battle, we must literally engage in a work to shift the momentum of our call for national unity. It starts with us. We must be the change. Let your light shine! We can no longer sit on the sidelines and wait for someone else to run for office, lobby for changes and pass the laws. We must fully engage in our city council, county government, state and national assemblies, local school boards and so on. We need a majority of public servants who will promote integrity, truth and virtue. These characteristics must invade all aspects of our civic and business practices. We must have business men and women who express Godly morals and ethics in all their transactions. Christ must be the focus of our service and the ultimate standard to whom we answer.

Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.


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