America I was reading this online and I knew it was appropriate to post at this time because if we ever needed prayer and fasting to seek God for his mercy and grace and to restore America to a place where it can be blessed, it is now! We are seeing evil, shame, disgrace, rebellion, and disrespect for God and each other, as we have never seen it before! God, we need your intervention Now!
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
16th President of the United States: 1861 ‐ 1865
Proclamation 85—Proclaiming a Day of National Humiliation, Prayer, and Fasting
August 12, 1861
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas a joint committee of both Houses of Congress has waited on the President of the United States and requested him to “recommend a day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnities and the offering of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these States, His blessings on their arms, and a speedy restoration of peace;” and
Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action; and
Whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God, united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy–to pray that we may be spared further punishment, though most justly deserved; that our arms may be blessed and made effectual for the re-establishment of law, order, and peace throughout the wide extent of our country; and that the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored in all its original excellence:
Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do appoint the last Thursday in September next as a day of humiliation, prayer, and fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our country.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed, this 12th day of August, A.D. 1861, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-sixth.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation 85—Proclaiming a Day of National Humiliation, Prayer, and Fasting Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
We have just completed a 21 Day Fast seeking the Lord’s guidance and help in our personal lives, our families, our communities as well as our nation. The Lord declares to us in Isaiah 58: 6, “It not the FAST that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” The next scripture emphasizes the desperate need and the power of FASTING to bring great deliverance and freedom to those who the enemy has held captive through self-destructive vices and behaviors. The Lord declares that it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.” I believe that there is a great need for our President to call for our Nation to seek the Lord in humility for his forgiveness, blessings, and protection again as President Abraham did on August 12, 1861, through a Proclamation for the Nation to FAST and PRAY. We are seeing one death after another, especially of younger people. God, please have mercy upon our nation and the world. I further believe that REVELATIONS HAS BEGUN AND that Jesus is RETURNING soon and we are now in Apocalyptic times!
