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Health & Fitness

Abraham Lincoln's National Day of Prayer - An Invitation

Given the times that we live in…. it seems more needful than ever to open up the doors of Elim as we join together in prayer for our nation, communities as well as our own families…

National Day of Prayer

Thursday, May 3 2012

Prayer at Elim 9 a.m. – noon

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5000 S. 60th St. Greenfield, WI, 53220.

(414) 282-1170 / www.elimtabernacle.org

Find out what's happening in Greenfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Abraham Lincoln, National Day of Prayer

“On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the following proclamation declaring April 30th, 1863, to be a day of national fasting, repentance and prayer. It was the middle of the American Civil War, the bloodiest war to date  on American soil. Being a man of great faith himself, President Lincoln recognized that the country would ever be healed and joined together again without the blessing of God. Lincoln went on to proclaim that men must confess their sins and transgressions if the United States would once again be a nation blessed by God. Lincolns proclamation laid the groundwork for the National Day of Prayer that we still celebrate in America today.”

-- The Book of Man by William J. Bennett

Given the times that we live in, it seems more needful than ever to open up the doors of Elim to anybody and everybody to come by and pray with us, as we join together in prayer for our nation, communities as well as our own families

Consider yourself very welcome – the following is the Actual proclamation which is so very beautifully written by one of our GREATEST of PRESEDENTS…

May God’s richest blessings continue upon this GREAT NATION of AMERICA

The Proclamation

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

http://nationaldayofprayer.org/news/honorary-chairman/2012-national-prayer/

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