Tag: prayer for authority

Praying for Those in Authority

In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, the Apostle Paul instructs us to pray for “all men,” but especially for those “that are in authority.” Why does Paul single out “kings and all that are in authority”? Is it because God cares more about the powerful than the populace? Absolutely not! Since God is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), there is no difference in His eyes between potentates and peasants.

The reason the Bible specifically exhorts us to pray for those in authority is because they hold such sway over the quality of life in our society. It is not because they have some special favor with God, but because they have such influence over our way of life.

According to Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” If we will clasp our hands in prayer for those in authority, then, God, who holds their hearts in His hand, will sway them to keep our society “quiet and peaceable.” In such a society, Christians can best practice their faith, publicly worship their Lord, and propagate their land with the gospel. As Paul plainly points out, this is the purpose for praying for those in authority; namely, that our society will be open and free so that all within it will have an opportunity “to come to the knowledge of the truth” and “be saved.”

Where is it easier for sinners to learn of Christ and be saved, in a Muslim land where Christianity is prohibited and Christians are persecuted, in a Communist country where the church is outlawed and the preaching of the gospel criminalized, or in a free society where the church is permitted to practice and proclaim its faith? Obviously, it is in a free society. This explains why it is “good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” for us to pray that God will sway those in authority to keep our society “quiet and peaceable.”

Contrary to popular opinion, God is not concerned with politics, but with the preaching of the gospel. Although God cares for political leaders, He cares just as much for their constituency. God wants all men, from the White House to your house, to have an opportunity to hear the gospel and be saved. Therefore, it is for the salvation of lost souls, not for the blessing of bureaucrats, that the church is instructed to pray for government officials.

Sample Prayer:

I praise you O God our Savior, for you hold the hearts of kings in your hand. I pray that you will keep our society free, quiet, and peaceable by turning the hearts of all in authority whithersoever you will. Use those in authority to keep the gospel from being silenced in our land so that all men will have an opportunity to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Amen.

DAY 26

“The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Hear this, you elders,  And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has anything like this happened in your days, Or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation. What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. Awake, you drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because of the new wine, For it has been cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste My vine, And ruined My fig tree; He has stripped it bare and thrown it away; Its branches are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth For the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering Have been cut off from the house of the LORD; The priests mourn, who minister to the LORD. The field is wasted, The land mourns; For the grain is ruined, The new wine is dried up, The oil fails. Be ashamed, you farmers, Wail, you vinedressers, For the wheat and the barley; Because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, And the fig tree has withered; The pomegranate tree, The palm tree also, And the apple tree—All the trees of the field are withered; Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; Wail, you who minister before the altar;  Come, lie all night in sackcloth, You who minister to my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land Into the house of the LORD your God, And cry out to the LORD. Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.” (Joel 1:1-15 NKJV)

Today and tomorrow we’ll look at the need and purpose of a solemn or sacred assembly. We’ll begin by showing why a solemn assembly is now needed in America.

In Joel 1:1-15, we are given the PREREQUISITES of a solemn assembly, all of which add up to the dire and desperate spiritual straits of a nation facing the impending judgment of God. Unfortunately for us, all of these prerequisites are present-day realities in today’s America, proving to the spiritually astute that divine retribution now hangs over this nation like the sword of Damocles.

The first prerequisite proving the need for a solemn assemble is fruitlessness—“the harvest of the field has perished.” Though the plight of the American farmer is well know in our day, the fruitlessness which speaks more to the dire and desperate spiritual condition of our country is that of the church, which the Scripture identifies as “God’s field” (1 Corinthians 3:9 NIV).

The second prerequisite proving the need of a solemn assembly is defeat—“For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.” Today, the church in America is losing the spiritual battle for the immortal souls of men, being primarily populated by carnal Christians who are overcome and oppressed by their “adversary the devil [who] walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8 NKJV).

The third prerequisite proving the need for a solemn assembly is the fact that there are no sacrifices or offerings at the house of God—“Wail, you who minister before the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth, You who minister to my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.” In America’s contemporary churches there is a lack of “living sacrifices”; that is, of those committing themselves to the Lord (Romans 12:1-2). There is also a lack of spiritual sacrifices, those of true worship and praise (Hebrews 13:15). And who can deny the lack of “incense”—intercessory prayer—being offered up to God from the altars of contemporary churches (Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4).

Finally, the absence of joy—“Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men”—is a prerequisite proving the need for a solemn assembly. If you compare the amount of joy and gladness to the amount of gripping and grumbling in today’s church you’ll have a good idea of just how imminent the judgment of God is upon our nation.

Pray that the church in America will wake up to the signs of God’s impending judgment upon our land and begin crying out to God both day and night.

 

DAY 25

“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” (Romans 13:11)

Praying for our political leaders so that our society will remain open to the public proclamation of the gospel may seem unnecessary to some Christians in America today. They take it for granted that our Constitution guarantees us the right to publicly practice and proclaim our faith. Why then should we bother praying to our Heavenly Father for something already guaranteed us by our Founding Fathers?

Well, just in case you haven’t noticed, strange things are currently abreast in America—things which our Founding Fathers would have never believed. Our Constitution is being reinterpreted by today’s courts and politicians to say things that our Founding Fathers never imagined, much less intended. For instance, the First Amendment, which prohibits our government from interfering with the free exercise of religion, has now been reinterpreted to mean that religious people cannot be involved in government, unless they promise beforehand to disavow their religious beliefs and convictions during the duration of their government service. 

Even more bizarre than the above is the fact that our government, which was founded on an acknowledgement of God, is now being prohibited by its own courts from acknowledging God. Despite the fact that our whole system of government is predicated upon the principle that we were all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, any acknowledgement of such by our government today is deemed by its courts unconstitutional. Furthermore, any semblance of the Christian faith on government property, such as prayer in our public schools, a copy of the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall, or a Nativity scene in the town square, is also forbidden by the Constitution’s current black-robed re-interpreters.  

 When you add to all of this, the ever-increasing denunciations of Christians as bigots for opposing things like same-sex marriage, along with our current president’s stated belief that the only religion acceptable in a democracy is one that is offensive to no faith and compatible with all faiths, you’ll be forced to conclude that it is no longer far-fetched to foresee a day in America when the public proclamation of the gospel will be outlawed. Although such a thing was once unimaginable in these United States, it is now certainly plausible and possibly looming.

In the past, we may have considered praying for those in authority to be of minor importance, since we took for granted our right to publicly practice and proclaim our Christian faith. Unfortunately, we are now learning the fallacy of our past naiveté. Far from being of minor importance, our prayers for America to remain free and open to the public proclamation of the gospel are currently some of the most crucial prayers we can pray. Failing to pray for the leaders of our nation may soon translate into us losing our freedom to preach to the lost of our land.

Pray that the church in America will “awake out of [its] sleep” to its present precarious position, which will result in our praying and preaching with unprecedented urgency.

 

DAY 24

“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 in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

 In Luke 20:25, Jesus said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” As Christians, we hold a dual citizenship. First and foremost, we are citizens of Heaven. Second, we are citizens of the state. As a result of our dual citizenship, we have responsibilities to both God and Caesar, so it is important that we render to both their dues.

One of the things owed to Caesar is our prayers. In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, the Apostle Paul writes: “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 in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

In exhorting us to pray “for all men” Paul singles out “kings and all that are in authority.” Why? Is God more concerned with the powerful than the populace? No, unlike the world, God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). In His eyes, there is no difference between potentates and peasants.

The reason we are exhorted to pray especially for political leaders is because they hold such sway over the quality of life in our society. It is not because they have some special favor with God. Rather, it is because they have such influence over our way of life.

Proverbs 21:1 teaches us: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as rivers of water: he turneth it withersoever he will.” If we clasp our hands in prayer for political leaders, God, who holds their hearts in His hand, can sway them to keep our society “quiet and peaceable.” In such a society, Christians can practice their faith, publicly worship their Lord, and propagate their land with the gospel. According to Paul, “this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

Notice, the reason “God our Saviour” wants a “quiet and peaceable” society is so that men will “be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Where is it easier for sinners to be saved and learn of Christ—in a Muslim land where Christians are arrested for witnessing to others, in a Communist land where the church is prohibited from preaching the gospel, or in a free society where the church is permitted to practice and proclaim its faith? Obviously, the easiest place for sinners to be saved is in a free society. This is why God wants us praying especially for our political leaders.

God is not so much concerned with politics as He is with the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God does cares for our political leaders. He cares just as much, however, for their constituency. God wants all men from the White House to your house to have an opportunity to hear the gospel and be saved. Thus, He instructs us to pray “for all men” but especially “for kings and all of those in authority” so that we will have a “quiet and peaceable” society in which everyone will have an opportunity to hear the gospel and “come to the knowledge of the truth.”

For too long now this biblical admonition to pray for our political leaders has been misinterpreted to mean that Christians are divinely duty bound to pray God’s blessings down on every politician elected to political office. Nowhere, however, does the Bible admonish us to offer up blanket-prayers of unconditional divine blessings upon politicians who promote the most ungodly policies, as well as propose and pass the most ungodly legislation.

When it comes to praying for some present-day politicians, about the only prayer I know to pray for them, apart from any the Spirit specifically burdens me to pray, is a prayer for their personal salvation. Otherwise, I limit myself to praying as the Bible teaches me to pray, that the invisible hand of God will continue to sway our political leaders to act justly and enact godly legislation so that our society will remain free and open to the public proclamation of the gospel.

Pray that those in authority will be used by God to keep our society free and open to the public proclamation of the Gospel so that all Americans will have an opportunity “to come unto the knowledge of the truth” and “be saved.”