Lincoln's Call to Repentance

Saturday, October 31, 2020

In the midst of the Civil War, when the outlook for the Union looked gloomy and filled with years of bloodshed, Abraham Lincoln, issued a proclamation calling for the nation's citizens to humble themselves before God and repent. The proclamation said this: "... It is the duty of nations," he wrote, "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.... It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness." Can you imagine a president issuing such a proclamation today? And yet the burden of repentance rests first with us as believers. As it is written: "If My people... will turn from their evil ways..." Let us pray for our nation - but let us also be the first to turn from our own sins... and trust God to do the rest.

From Message #1285 - The April Mysteries