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In the midst of the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln offered the
following Proclamation for Thanksgiving:
I do, therefore, invite my fellow
citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at
sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and
observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and
praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
And I
recommend to them that, while offering up ascriptions justly due to Him
for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble
penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His
tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or
sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to
heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be
consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace,
harmony, tranquility, and union.
Lincoln
asked for prayers of healing from the consequences of the “national
perverseness.” Our nation, however, continues to struggle with
perverseness and division. If ever our nation and our nation’s leaders
needed our prayers, it is now!
Psalm 33,
attributed to David by the LXX, is a great psalm of praise, perhaps
commemorating a great national deliverance from heathen enemies.
“Rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for
the upright” (1). “For the word of the LORD is right; and all his
works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment:
the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD” (5-6). “The counsel of
the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all
generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD;
and the people whom he hath chosen
for his own inheritance” (11-12). Pray that our nation will be one whose
God is the Lord.
Our
National Perverseness
by Bob Prichard
www.oxfordchurchofchrist.com |
