A Prayer for the 4th of July

5-A-Prayer-for-the-4th-of-July.-pdf  (TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE)

Dear heavenly God, true and triune:

At the approach of the Fourth of July, the day on which our Continental Congress formally signed the Declaration of Independence, make our souls surge upward to you in thanks for your divine mercy in that you used such events to form a new nation!

To be sure, this Declaration was also a declaration of war, in which the peace would be broken, and that death, destruction, and the devil would begin their reign of misery.  Indeed, teach us that this war, as any other, comes down on the unrepentant evils of the people as your punishment of their unbelief, yet as a divine wake up call to repentance and faith!  Remind us also that in this War for Independence, when the end of our new nation was in sight multiple times because the colonies could no longer sustain their war of resistance, you kept your biblical promise to listen to the cries of your people for help, no matter how deep their guilt, and how dark their sin, and, by the miracle of your might, you formed this nation out of the ashes of war!

To this end keep us from a false sense of national security without you, and by the divine power of your almighty Word, assure our hearts of your promised favor after we would confess our national sins, sorrow over them, and apply to you for full pardon and mercy to spare our land from the punishment which it so justly deserves!  Reassure us in praying thusly for the peace of our land (Jeremiah 29:7), that such prayer could and should avert its punishment!

We pray this prayer with confidence and conviction, heavenly Father, because we pray it according to your will, according to your promise, and in the blessed name of Jesus, our Savior.  Therefore, hear us!

Keep your pledges!  Act on them!

Amen!