When Will We Pray?

     I read in the news today of a ten year old boy who beat a ninety year old woman to death in a fit of rage. This just happened in Pennsylvania.
     This is a shocking reflection of the moral decay that has permeated every area of this nation we live in. We have chaos everywhere we turn nowadays.
     Race riots, injustice, violence, drugs, theft, murder, lack of respect, abortion, pornography, broken marriages, no marriages, and gay marriages, to name a few.
     Tragically this nation is on a collision course with judgment unless someone gets down on their knees in brokenhearted sorrow and cries out to God on it's behalf.
     However, who will do this? Sadly much of the professing Christian church mirrors the world around it. We are accepting the same sinful lifestyles in the church that we see in the world. The church has become a place of blind tolerance, where people are made to feel safe and comfortable in their sins rather than a place where Holy Ghost conviction changes lives. Holiness has been abandoned for happiness. Like the church in Corinth, we too have become arrogant in our refusal to deal with the sin in our midst (1 Cor 5:1-2).
     If we would desire to see this nation brought back from the brink of ruin, if we would desire to see real biblical Christianity lived out in the lives of those who claim to follow Jesus, we must get on our knees in godly sorrow. Judgment begins with us who call ourselves Christians (1 Peter 4:17). The Lord God calls out to His people to humble themselves and pray, to seek His face and repent from their evil ways (2 Chronicles 7:14).
     Church, it is time that we hear the cry of Joel to consecrate a solemn assembly, to call for fasting and weeping as we humbly seek the face of God on behalf of His backslidden people (Joel 1:14-15, 2:1, 12-13, 15-17).
     We must cry out to God like Daniel as He confessed the sins of his people before the God that they had spurned (Daniel 9:2-19).
     God is a merciful God who hears the prayers of His people as they humble themselves before Him. He forgives and heals those who turn from the sins in their own lives. He will hear their cries for their loved ones, their communities, and their nation, but let them deal with their own sins first.
     Church, we must wake up and heed the warnings we see around us before it is too late! When will we humble ourselves and seek the face of God in desperation? What will it take to get us off of our recliners and on our knees on our behalf, and on the behalf of a lost nation?
     It is time to seek the Lord while He may be found (Isaiah 55:6-7), and to call upon Him while He is near.