Pray for God’s Church, Our People, and Our America *

 

Our Father in Heaven, we humble ourselves before You. Forgive us our sins. Cleanse us of all unrighteousness – that we may approach You now with pure Hearts and clean hands.  Please hear the anguished cry of our hearts – for Revival of Your Church in America to Holiness, for another Great Awakening to Your Spirit for all our people, and for Renewal of America to Righteousness.

Your church, our people, and our nation are in desperate need of Your Grace, Your Forgiveness and Your Cleansing Touch.
Help all of us in America See and Repent of our Sins.  We plead with You to remove the apostasy in Your church, and rid our nation of aborticide, drug abuse, materialism, racism, secularism, socialism, and sexual perversion. Expose and

destroy false religions, but in your mercy, save the lost souls. We plead with You to visit us – to Revive all Your churches in America so that not just some, but all will Embrace, Teach and Live Biblical Holiness for the benefit of all in our nation.

Call all your shepherds and the sheep of their flocks to spend more time with You daily – in Your Word and in Worship – through Prayer, Praise and Service.  And we ask: Is it not time to replace all Your under-shepherds who will not bend to Your will?

We ask for Your blessings of Wisdom and Courage for the President and all leaders in his Administration – for Justices and Judges, for Congressmen and Senators, as well as for all Governors, State Legislators, Mayors and

County Commissioners – and for leaders in Business, Education, Law, Media, Medicine and Entertainment.  Help all of us see our need for You and to ask You for Your help.

Protect the President, Vice-President and those called to staff their administration.  Allow no weapon formed against them to prevail.  We ask You to move them to use the teachings of Your Bible as their daily guide to righteous governance.  We ask You to roll back the dark cloud of evil over our nation’s capital by the power of Your Presence.  What we ask here is impossible for us – but not for You. 

You say in Proverbs 21:1 – “The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; He guides it wherever He pleases.”  We ask You to so direct our president. Help him choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong – and to never be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won.  Help him become an inspiring, strong, righteous leader.

Over the last five decades You have sent America many interim judgements in the form of natural and other disasters, but none were acknowledged as such by our leaders.  Please, God, in your abundant mercy, withhold Your Final Judgement upon America; give our leadership more time to bring us back to You.  Cause us all to be ashamed of what we have made of our nation today.

“Help us, O God of our salvation! Help us for the Glory of Your name.  Save us and forgive our sins for the Honor of Your name.” (Ps 79:9, NLT)

Revive us, O Lord!  Save America! 

Now help each of us to gratefully treasure what You have given us and to never take for granted anything from You ever again.  Help us hold to Your standard of Righteousness in all we Think, Say, or Do.

In Jesus’ mighty name we ask that all this be done to the Unending Praise of Your Eternal Glory!   Hallelujah Forever!      and Amen…

*rev 8/28/21 – tbm

 

WATCHFIRE def: “a fire kept burning at night as a signal or
for the use of those staying awake to watch, or guard.”

The darkness of immorality and evil in the world is seen in the
vile deeds of men without conscience.  We see the corruption
in the leaders of nations, congresses, courts and churches.
Some of America’s governments embrace practices specifically
forbidden by God in His Word, the Holy Bible. Then
our highest court calls some of that evil “good”.

Why has God’s Church in America failed to rise up and say,
“Enough of this evil. We demand a return to Righteousness.”?
Because the Church cannot help America get right until it first gets itself,
meaning all its people, back on God’s righteous path.

All who follow the one true God, Adonai-Elohim-El Shaddai, in America,
must wake up!  Pray with Holy Spirit passion for the Revival to Holiness
of His Bride, the Church.  We must become desperate for God to tear out
the darkness in His churches in America, to replace it with the Light
of His Holiness!  We must also pray for the renovation of America
into what God wants us to become.

 Some Christians are lighting Watchfires to stand guard
to pray every week against this spiritual darkness and
for the dawn of His righteousness in all areas of life!

Therefore it’s our view that every Bible-believing,
Christ-following church in America will benefit from a permanent
Watchfire Prayer Team to steadfastly pray for
a Revival in every Christ-follower and Church in America,
a mighty Awakening to the Spirit of God by every American, and
a Restoration to Righteous Governance in all things.
The purpose of Watchfire, then, is to pray fervently for:

1)  A Full-Blown Revival by God’s Presence –
in us, in our homes, in our church, and in each Christian Church in America,
from Coast to Coast and Border to Border.

2)  A Renewal of Righteousness in our National, State, and Local
Governments, with special emphasis on righteous Judges at all levels.

3)  The Awakening of Hearts to God all across America that will transform Government,
Business, Education, Medicine, Industry, Military, Media, Law, Entertainment, etc.

4)  Peace in Jerusalem and for Israel

5) The Salvation of all God’s enemies – or
the complete neutralization of their immoral and evil influences and effects.

“I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land.
I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land,
but I found no one.”  Ezekiel 22:30

 Since the beginning of time God has made His great creative and sustaining power plainly known to all of mankind. Yet many refuse to believe Him as God or even that there is a God. In His inspired Word, Psalm 53 clearly states, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

America was established by our Founding Fathers as a nation whose people were primarily Christian or Deist. There is ample evidence in the Federalist Papers and in their many other writings to support this fact. Yet there has been a steady erosion of the principles and processes of the Holy Bible in the governance of America by persons, organizations, and governments (judicial, executive, and legislative) at the national, state and local levels.  We were never perfect, but we were never in all our checkered past as truly bad as we are today.

Laws in a righteously governed nation are for the purpose of promoting morality or prohibiting immorality and other harmful behavior. Many of our nation’s leaders make not even a pretense of righteously governing this nation. They pass laws or find “strange authority” in our once-hallowed US Constitution (or even in foreign law) to ban prayer in classrooms, to force immorality upon the nation, to ban the symbol of Christianity from our public lands, to allow citizens to sue others frivolously with impunity, and even to ban the display of the Ten Commandments in courts and schools. Such defiance-of-God behavior has emboldened the highest court in our land to legalize same-sex “marriage”.  Our leaders rightly condemn terrible mass killings such as those in Aurora, CO and Newport, CT but wrongly condone the more horrific murder-in-the-womb of a million plus children each year.

Our leaders rightly make it clear that freedom of religion means that all peaceful religions are welcome to practice their faiths here. Yet, as a further assault on our heritage as a moral people, they increasingly hobble the practice of the one and only Faith upon which this nation and its morality were founded – Christianity and the Holy Bible. That hypocrisy has become the handmaiden of evil.

Make no mistake; this is a defiant mocking of God who has made His standards abundantly clear. The Bible says in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.”  Unrepentant evil-doers are punished after death. Nations have no after-life; God punishes them in this life. Such terrible punishment is revealed in His Word for the nation of His special people, the Israelites, as well as for many gentile nations – of which we are now a modern one. Therefore, the root of America’s problem is not absurd economics, corrupt politics, corrupt Judiciary, poor education, aliens, drug-abuse, unnatural disasters, lying officials, incompetent government-run organizations and schools, etc.

It is the disintegration of morality in our culture and, sadly,
in some segments of the Christian church, as well! 

                          Our problem is – SIN…
“that hideous monster we so much dislike hearing about, and
which we are so ready to gloss over and excuse.” (Rev A.W. Pink)

 The proof of this bold assertion is simple!  When most of our people and especially our leaders worshipped, prayed to, and followed the God of the Bible, we became the greatest nation ever on the earth. When we began to chase after other gods (money, power/self, sex, hedonism, alien ideologies, etc.) we tipped over and began our now precipitous fall.

“What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil,
that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is
bitter. What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and
think themselves so clever.” Isaiah 5:20,21 (NLT)

Is it too late for America? Emphatically NO! If we, the people and the leaders of America, confess our sins to God, turn from them in genuine repentance, humbly ask His forgiveness, and ask Him to become our Savior, God, and guide again – He promises He will do all that and more. He will help us become a more righteous people and a Godly nation again – for His Glory, not ours!

We must PRAY for our nation’s wayward churches and our secular leaders to turn around to prosper with God – or continue to wither and die without Him. The choice is that stark!  In the Bible, nations like Nineveh that repented and turned back to God were redeemed. That same God will redeem America – if we repent and return to Him – His Word guarantees it.  God has not and will not lie.

The great problems and evil in America are at their center spiritual issues.  It will take a strong spiritual stand by our President to root them all out. To think that mere man can correct the mess that we created by listening to voices other than God’s, is the kind of self-centered ignorance that got us into this terrible jam in the first place.  Millions of us believe without a doubt that only God can right our ship, our nation.  And our leaders must recognize that fact and act accordingly – quickly.  America has a monstrous spiritual problem and it can be successfully dealt with only in a spiritual manner!

It is instructive to examine how God dealt with nations in the Bible.  Two examples:  A king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, prayed to God before all his people to deliver Judah from certain defeat from an army twice the size of his; God did so in amazing fashion.  King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, knelt and prayed to God before all his people to dedicate the newly completed Temple in Jerusalem to God and to refresh Israel’s pledge to walk with God in wholehearted devotion.  God  appeared to Solomon one night and told him, “… if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”   God blessed King Solomon’s reign with peace, power and wealth because he followed God, if imperfectly, but God was His guiding light.

The God whom King Solomon and all his people worshipped and sought great help from is the same God we claim to Trust; many of us are still His people, called by His name – Christian. Both President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower knew that: when they led the nation and the Normandy Invasion troops, respectively, in public prayer before that great invasion – God gave us the amazing victory in Europe in WWII.  If any of our leaders prayed for victory in subsequent wars, we never heard about it – and we have never won a clear-cut victory again.

Therefore, it seems very reasonable for us now to ask our President to call the nation to pray to God for deliverance from the evil idolatries in America.  We believe our President should:
1) call all like-minded leaders, Congressmen and judges/Justices
in Washington, DC as well as any like-minded Governors
of States to come to the National Cathedral.
2) then stand before all these people, proclaim the solemn purpose of
the gathering to be to confess and repent of all our sins,
3) then turn and kneel humbly before God with all the assembly –
acknowledging Him with much Praise to be the great Creator,
Sustainer and Redeemer of all mankind and all the universe.
4) admit to God our sins of commission and omission, and ask
God Almighty to forgive us, to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness, and to set us on God’s right path again.
5) ask God to help him and all those leaders gathered with him
to rid the nation quickly of all wickedness.
6) ask God to Revive the Christian Church in America to Holiness
so as to become once again the beacon of light to all our people.
7) ask God to Restore America to Righteousness, and to certainly
give him and all the people gathered there with him, the
knowledge to govern with His mercy and wisdom…

“Turn to the Lord now while there is time. Give Him your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping & mourning.  Return to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.  He is eager to relent and not punish.” Joel 2:12,13

We must become a God-fearing and God-following nation again – or we will die a nation gone wrong! “Neither a nation nor a house divided against itself will stand.” (Mark 3:24,25 paraphrase)

 In a letter to believers in the early days of the church, Jesus’ brother, James, wrote, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.”

A Christian is more than a person who believes in God. He is a person who trusts in Jesus Christ for all things including his own future life in heaven. To have life after death with God requires that we be holy and perfect because He is holy and perfect. And we can never do that on our own. We need God’s help.

The Bible teaches that as descendants of Adam, none of us is perfect. As imperfect people, we all sin … even Mother Teresa sinned. There is nothing we can do on our own that could save us from hell because no matter how much we improve, we can never be totally perfect. To live with God after we leave this world, we must be found perfect – that means without any sin, no matter how small, because God is holy and cannot live with any sin.

The “Good News” is that God no longer sees anyone’s sin after they accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Why? Because God sent His Son Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, to shed His blood to save us – a momentous event foreshadowed in Egypt when the Lord passed over each Israelite home that had the blood of an unblemished lamb on the doorway, saving their first-born from death. God the Father had Jesus Christ (God the Son), the perfect Lamb of God, crucified on a cross, one time, for all of our sins, past, present and future so that we may be saved from paying the penalty for any of our sins.

The penalty for unforgiven sin is eternity in hell, which is eternal separation from God. Frankly, eternity in heaven with God is the only rational choice, wouldn’t you say?

God’s plan for our salvation is found throughout the Bible in the Old Testament, by events like the Exodus, as well as in the New Testament, where it is explained in detail by Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and others. Jesus said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6).

God does not save me because I live a good life, or go to confession, or am baptized, or sing in the choir, or teach Sunday school. Instead I am saved by God’s grace through my faith. The Bible’s Book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham was saved only by faith and all who came after him were saved only by God’s grace through their  faith. And we are saved by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8,9), when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. For “without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6). Check out Romans 10:9, 10 and John 3:36, as well. Read His Word; be blessed!

Are you saved? Ask Christ to become your Lord and Savior now – you’ll be glad you did – eternally!

This was written shortly after the 9/11 atrocity in NYC with the Trade Center Towers – on  November 30, 2001

What we write here would have been completely understood fifty years ago. Fifty years ago or so, this nation was a God-fearing-and-worshipping people who would have recognized the meaning in the horrific wake-up call of September 11^th, 2001. Fortunately there remain thousands in this nation who know the Lord God and who do see clearly. But most of America appears to have missed the vital message in the Attack on America; this letter will try to make it crystal clear. We are not prophets but we read and understand history’s lessons.

Since World War II most of our elected and appointed national leaders (especially our mis-guided judges and Justices) have deliberately wiped out all vestiges of the Lord God Almighty ruling in any of our affairs as a nation. We say we are “One Nation Under God”; but our behavior denies it. We sing “God Bless America”, but are unwilling to change our behavior so He may bless us. We say “In God We Trust”, but it’s really the gods of money, technology, science and sensuality that we trust. We perpetuate with vile vigor the lie that the US Constitution separates God from the affairs of this nation, when in fact it says quite the opposite; none shall prohibit the free exercise of religion in any aspect of life. We have deliberately obliterated the basis for understanding God in our lives.

Make no mistake about it, whether you are a religious person or not, the God who created all things is the same God who sovereignly sustains and orders all things in His creation. Do not be duped by the greatest lie of all – there is no God. Ignoring the Truth or deciding to believe some other truth has never, and will never, change the bedrock Truth of all time – God is sovereign. His sovereignty gives Him the right to call all the shots, like it or not. What a person believes or doesn’t believe never changes a fact – including that fact.

For the last decade or so, because of our national sins (sin is doing what God says not to do and not doing what He says to do), God has gradually removed His hand of blessing and protection from us. We believe His messages are in the bombings (USS Cole, Embassies, etc) and in the increasing frequency and severity of damaging natural disasters – fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, drought, pestilence, crop failures, etc. They are also visible in the ruined lives of those caught up in drugs, pornography, gambling, the utter corruption of our public-education system, the so-called “tolerance” and “political correctness” of a permissive society, the reading, viewing and listening to salacious (even vicious) “entertainment”, the increase of lying and cheating in government, business, education and media, remorseless thrill killing in society, and on and on.

We the people, including most of us in the Christian Church, have not stood with a determined vigor against the increasingly wrong-headed, ungodly thinking and actions of our leaders (again, especially in the courts). We should have demanded that they return to the standard of godliness and decency that our Founding Fathers applied when they established this unique and unapologetically Christian nation. Even they said that the form of government they had established was good only for a Godly people and no other.

God is no respecter of persons or of nations, except He has said that those who oppose Israel, His chosen people, will be cursed. He has allowed the evil-doers of the al-Qaida and its harboring Taliban to cause us great and shocking harm, to wake us up – since all the other signs and messages He sent us have been ignored. His love for us all is abundantly evident in His mercy shown through His patience in first sending us low volume messages in natural disasters and bombings, and only when we will not hear and turn to Him, turning up the volume. When the stench of a wicked, morally rotting society reaches the nostrils of our absolutely righteous Holy God in heaven, crushing punishment for that nation can be averted only by genuine, thorough repentance personally and nationally, as was done in ancient Nineveh. The dastardly atrocity of September 11^th and the Anthrax attacks may be the last “shots across our nation’s bow” before God punishes America for her great sin.

Yet we remain deaf. We have become more patriotic and religious, but not more righteous. We have begun to turn from our historic and righteous support of Israel, to favor their arch-enemies, the Palestinians. If we will not heed the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them. God’s next judgment on America may make the recent attacks look mild by comparison.

How does America avert God’s judgment? Our national leader – our President – must call our nation to a halt, and lead us and all our leaders in humbling ourselves before the Lord God Almighty in prayer. We must repent of our national sins that include the horror that is abortion, the approval and promotion of the homosexual lifestyle, the removal of the vital influence of God Almighty in Spirit (through prayer) and Word (through Scripture) from Government, Business, Education, Media, Arts, Letters, Entertainment, even Charity, the approval for ungodly people to seek and attain elected and appointed office in this land, and suggesting Israel give up lands given them by God to be lands for Palestinians. During this time of fasting, prayer and repentance, we must ask God to remind us of our forgotten sins. We’d like to see the President lead, at the National Cathedral, his Cabinet, the Supreme Court Justices, and the Leaders of the US Congress (if not the whole Congress), in a Solemn Assembly of one full day – to humble themselves before Almighty God – on national television, so that all of America may participate – so that we all may know that America has determined to return to righteousness.

Our President must find the courage to do this despite the certain ridicule and vigorous opposition that will come from those who hate God and want to see America continue its moral and spiritual free-fall. Our President must, by Executive Orders and new Laws, return this nation to the standard of righteousness demanded by God in His Holy Word. If not, God will treat us as He has treated all other nations who have disobeyed Him down through the ages. The good news: if we repent and turn ourselves around, God promises to hear our prayers, forgive our sin, and heal our land. That healing could include the defeat of our evil enemies.

Either the nation repents and cleans house – morally and spiritually – or He will. If you agree, send this to our President with a fervent request that he proceed immediately. He led us in mourning and now he must lead us in repentance before leading us to victory.   We must rid our land of our sinful ways, and return God to His rightful place of honor and influence in the public as well as in the private affairs of this nation. We must support Israel without wavering. Then and only then will our President be able to triumph over the unspeakable evil that has fallen and may be poised to fall again upon us. Victory without God is impossible.

In God We Must Trust

PS: One of the more cogent reasons for knowing with certainty that Jesus is the Lord Christ and is God, is that He is the only person Who died, yet rose radiantly alive from the dead, as He said He would, with many witnesses. Only THE GOD can do that. That’s why true Christianity is not a religion. It is a vibrant, joyful ongoing relationship with Jesus, our eternally living Lord, with Whom we’ll live forever, starting now in this mortal life. If you want that eternal relationship with Him now and in heaven, too, just ask Him right now to forgive your sin and be your Savior – and your Lord.

Note:  This is the letter that I sent to each of the nine Justices of the US Supreme Court on 1/20/15.  I offer it for your use in whole or part as you may wish.  This is a serious, watershed moment in the history of our nation.  We all must speak out against the darkness that seems to be pressing in on our nation from all sides.  Do what you must!

Dear Justice so-and-so:

Permit me to get right to the point.

According to the Wall Street Journal, you, as a Justice of the US Supreme Court, have taken on the task of deciding whether the US Constitution gives same-sex couples the right to marry.

I would suggest to you that this is not a matter to be decided by you and your fellow Justices by peering deeply into the Fourteenth Amendment to that Constitution, or into any other portion of that Constitution. Why? Because this is not a matter that can be decided based on administrative law, or on criminal law, or by “common sense”, or by intellectualism, or on habit, or on custom, or by religion, or by politics.

This issue can only be decided upon by moral law. It is first, last and always a matter of morality. And it is of a particular morality. And it has already been decided by a higher authority than yours. The God of creation, the God of the Holy Bible has already decreed what marriage is. It is the combining of one man and one woman into a special, holy state known to all mankind as marriage. A simple review of Genesis, chapter one, verse 27 and chapter 2, verse 24 should reaffirm what you probably already know in your heart. It would not be wise for you to depart from what He has already declared.

It would also be wise for you to observe what that same God, the One who informed our writers of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, has to say about homosexuality. The book of Leviticus gave detailed instructions to the Levite priests on their responsibilities before God and to the Hebrew people on how to live holy lives before God. Those instructions have not been superseded by the New Covenant or Testament, so those requirements of holy or righteous living are still valid today and will always be so. Jesus, the Messiah, Himself said that He did not come to do away with such requirements of the Law, but to fulfill them – and to fulfill them for ALL mankind, not just the Hebrews (Mat 5:17).

God said in Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” To underscore that stern command, He specified the most severe punishment in Leviticus 20:13 “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.” There is no room for error or misunderstanding, is there?

Billy Graham is reported to have said, “If God does not punish America for its sin of homosexuality, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” I ask you to do what’s right, not what’s popular or trendy. Standing against God is never wise – for a person or for a nation…

Earnestly,  Tom McDonald

 

 

Written on 1/12/11

Am I the only one who sees the rank irony in the US Congress (the least respected public entity at 13% approval rating) requiring the US Military (the most respected public entity at over 75% approval rating) to accept homosexuals into their ranks, and the President signed it into Law? I think not!  Now what do Christian, Jewish and Islamic Chaplains (all condemning homosexuality as sin) do about this?  And what do the Military Academies do about this?  Then, too, what do the lawmakers do about the Uniform Code of Military Justice; how do you make an immoral act “legal” after centuries of established law on such reprehensible and debilitating conduct? Many of our laws legislate for or against behaviors. Most legislate for moral behavior, some against immoral behavior. This Law was legislated to promote immoral behavior.

What should we, the People, do about this?  I say we do two things.  One, pray that God will overturn this sin-sick law, and turn out of office all who championed it or voted for it. Two, bombard the President, the Supreme Court Justices and our Senators and Congressman with letters, phone calls, emails, faxes and petitions non-stop until they “get it” that we will not stop until they repeal this abomination, or overturn it, if it gets to the US Supreme Court.

Such treachery at the highest levels is even more stunning in view of the results of many voter referenda around the country, wherein they have, until very recently, overwhelmingly rejected the perverse, deviant, harmful, (and, in God’s words, “abominable”) behavior of homosexual “marriage” in their state. But remember, morality isn’t determined by voting. In some of those states, courts have overturned the voter results because the judges found the results somehow “unconstitutional”. Judges don’t determine morality either; God does. That’s why I suggest we include the US Supreme Court in the onslaught of communication about this sordid issue; we have had enough of judicial tyranny. Wasn’t it Billy Graham who once said, “If God does not destroy America for her great sin [of “official” approval of homosexuality], He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”?

Please join me in this non-stop deluge of the three branches of our elitist, increasingly immoral US Government to repeal the law that forces the military to knowingly accept homosexuals into their ranks. If you do not take your stand here, then where will you take your stand against the onslaught of evil? Perhaps the better question is, “If God does not see us standing with Him on this issue, will He assume we don’t care about morality and righteousness any more? And then will He abandon us to the tyranny that is settling all around us from a government out of control?” If ever there was a time for the People of America to cry out to God for His help in fervent nationwide prayer – and to do what we can to overturn this sin-sick Law – this is it!

Written July of 2014

Back on December 12th of 2012, because there were so many figures (millions/billions of years) floating around about the age of the earth, I decided to use the Creator’s own book, the Holy Bible*, to calculate a more accurate figure. Here’s what I found:

A quick look through the Bible reveals there are:

Ten generations from Adam thru Noah with an average lifespan of 858 years and with an average generation timespan of 155 years. (Genesis 5)

Ten generations from Noah thru Abraham with an average lifespan of 317 years and with an average generation timespan of 49 years. (Genesis 11)

Forty-two generations from Abraham thru Jesus (Matthew 1:17) with an approximate average lifespan of 80 years. **

Totaled there are 62 (10+10+42) generations from Adam to Jesus.

Doing a bit of basic mathematics with those numbers, we find:

We have the total generation timespan from Adam thru Abraham to be 2040 years ([10×155]+[10×49]). We can calculate the total generation timespan from Abraham thru Jesus to be 1134 years (42×27). The total generation timespan from Adam to Jesus then is 3,174 years (2040+1134).

To determine the age of the earth and creation from Adam to today, we must add the figure of earth-age from Adam to Jesus (3174) to the figure for the number of years from Jesus to now, which is 20 centuries plus 14 years, or 2014 years. (I am quite aware of the issues surrounding when the use of Anno Domini began. For our purpose here, such a consideration is well within round-off error).

Therefore, we can conclude, based on God’s Word (His Holy Bible), and by application of basic mathematics, that the earth and therefore, all of creation is about 5,188 years old, which, rounded to the nearest thousand, yields 5,000 years as the approximate age of the earth, and by extension, the age of all creation.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
* The Bible chronicles the creation of the earth and the universe by God in six days – to His Son’s birth, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension – ending with the follow-on work of Jesus’ disciples.

** The lifespan of people from Abraham thru to Jesus’ time was shorter than the early man lifespans. The Bible makes reference to a man’s age being three score and ten and even 80 years for a strong person. I use 80 as the figure for lifespans from Abraham’s time to Jesus’ time. Now, the timespan for a generation is roughly one-third of a lifespan. A man who lives to 80 years of age will produce children starting about age 27. (If any reader wants to rework this calculation with more rigor, I welcome it.)

COMMENTS:
Some may say this is not right. Then bring me a more accurate figure. It is entirely conceivable that as a flawed mortal man, I have made some mistakes in retrieving generational data from the Bible. My figures are based solidly on the one source of Truth in all of creation – God’s Word. You can (and sadly many will) dismiss the Bible with a sweep of the hand – but that won’t change what God’s Word shows us about His created universe.

Look at it this way for a moment, why would God falsify any of the numbers in His book? He doesn’t need to. His very nature as a Holy, Righteous God prevents Him from even thinking about giving us erroneous information. So forget that idea and realize that we are dealing with the Truth of God as revealed in His inspired Word to us. He can be trusted absolutely on this whereas man’s theories cannot be trusted, because such theories all depend on unsupportable assumptions.

God’s Truth stands immutable – whether we believe it or not…

An Essay for Pastors, Church Leaders, and Parents

Before reading this,  view the 16 minute “Fixing A National Crisis Video” on this Blog.  That will give you the larger context for this essay.

We have a huge silent Crisis in our Nation.  Our once Godly nation is no longer seeing the numbers of men and women of integrity and Godly character coming into our workplaces from our families through our high schools and universities as are needed to keep our focus on God and His Glory, and to run the affairs of the nation in a routinely honorable manner, according to the tenets of Scripture and our US Constitution.  We have people who now seem to be more interested in their own glory and not God’s or the Nation’s.  How has this happened?

One of the biggest reasons is that the church universal in America has been trying valiantly to teach and train each person to be a good and Godly person, but it is a blunted teaching in many churches because we have forgotten to teach and train in the context of family.  (Another reason, sad to say, is that some churches have caved in to the ways of the world and have left their first love, the Lord Jesus Christ.  When salt loses its saltiness, as an apostate church has, it is of no more use than to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men [Matt 5:13].)

Family is God’s vehicle for ensuring that the teachings of the church, which ultimately should mean the teachings of Scripture, are made a permanent part of each young person’s life as they mature in a family and then launch out into the deep of their lives as solid, Godly citizens.  So it goes beyond teaching and training – it goes directly to modeling.  This old expression still has it right: ideas, behaviors, concepts are best caught, not taught.  Our children need to see them in action in their parent’s lives before they will consider adopting such principles into their own lives. But today, not only are many parents not modeling, training and teaching their children to become responsible adults, they have, as almost a norm in many churches, “abandoned” their children to the “Youth Sector” of the church. More time is spent by their children with other children than with them. The results are obvious and are cascading in the wrong direction.

So, somehow we need to get the family once again directly involved in the teaching, training and modeling of Godly principles of right thinking, faith, and behavior in the lives of our children.  Why?  So the children will adopt them and become the men and women of integrity and Godly character our nation so desperately needs to have in quantity again throughout the Government, Business, Education, Church, and in every other area of our society.

Dads/Moms must be taught to
teach/train & model righteous living
so their Sons & Daughters
become strong, mature, Men & Women
of Integrity and Godly Character…
so that this internal Family dynamic can be restarted.
Then their children can teach and train
their children…and on and on
to the Glory of God alone!

Let me suggest to you that the first thing you, as the Pastor of your church, do before you tell anyone else in your church about this approach to “doing Church” – is get on your own face before God Almighty and tell him you’re in on this deal – but that you want him to guide you the whole way.

Then and only then, get your elders and other senior staff members together to tell them what you’re up to, by the grace of God alone and for the glory of God alone. 

At that point, you’ll be ready to begin to construct this God-sized thing the right way for your church. Here are some hints…

Knowing in general where you are going, start by reviewing all that you’re doing now. Probably much of what you are doing is okay, but some of it will need to be reoriented – to do it in the context of family.

For example: the youth and children’s pastors will be reorienting their ministry to work with the dads and moms about their young ones about 40-50% of their time, with the rest of their time coordinating with the other church staff leaders (about 10%) and dealing directly with the youth and children (about 40-50%). 

Retaining ministries in other areas, such as Singles and those in Recovery, is necessary, too, most likely.

Done properly, this one process will not only accomplish the rebuilding of your church families, for this generation, and the next, and the next, but it will also accomplish all the other commands that Jesus gave us just before He ascended back to heaven, for example:

Love one another as He loves us…

and Go into all the world and make disciples…

Now – do you think you will need wisdom to mount such an effort correctly?  Of course.

You know where to find this wisdom.  Through both solitary prayer (first) and corporate prayer with your Leadership team (second), searching the bible, seeking much Godly counsel from others who have gone this way, and through the several good book resources, you will find the wisdom you will need – up front and along the way.  A partial resource list is attached.

Probably, one of the first things you will want to do after you and your Leadership team have prayerfully structured your plan – is to call a holy huddle of every man in your Church. At that meeting you will present the plan and its rationale and ask for 100% commitment to it by every man, whether single, married, widowed, a father or not. Every man – because there is a job for every man, no matter his status.  If this looks like I’m suggesting that men be “thrust” back into their God-ordained role of leading in the church and home, your perception is quite accurate.

Later a similar meeting with all the women.

Then the final introductory meeting could be with all the families of the church.  This might be a good time to have dinner on the grounds as part of celebrating your new beginnings.

I wish you success in tackling this grand enterprise.  The future of our nation depends on enough of God’s churches getting back into the holy business of building Godly families which will, in turn, produce enough men and women of integrity and Godly character to enter into the activities of our society and begin to turn us back to the God who made us and sustains us.  That is, He sustains us as long as we are doing things His way…  The alternative is unthinkable – and yet we have been experiencing some of that ugly alternative for the last several decades.

You might also read my blog post entitled “The Truth About America’s Only Hope” as a supporting adjunct to this paper. To God alone be the Glory!                                           

 Family Ministry Resources

American Family Association

Answers in Genesis
Book: Already Gone
Answers Bible Curriculum

Building a Godly Home
by William Gouge

Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes To Raise Sons & Daughters
by Voddie Baucham

Focus on the Family

Perspectives on Family Ministry
Edited by Timothy Paul Jones

Rite of Passage: A Father’s Blessing
by Jim McBride

Sheep to Shepherd – Become a Man of Integrity and Godly Character
by Tom McDonald

Shepherding A Child’s Heart
by Ted Tripp

 Shift
by Bryan Haynes