We worship You, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are the living God of our nation’s founding fathers: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and many others. We pledge our allegiance as one nation under You. Every time we use American money to buy or sell, we make the statement that in You we have placed our trust.
We acknowledge that You are the One who has set us high above all the nations on the earth. You have made us the head and not the tail. We have led the free world. The whole world has known that we are identified with You, and they have respected us.
Again and again, You have given us victory over our enemies.
You have blessed us when we have gone out and when we have come in.
You have blessed us in our bustling cities and in our beautiful countryside.
You have blessed our “fruited plain” so that we have had an abundance for ourselves and for others.
You have opened up the storehouse of Your bounty, and have blessed the work of our hands.
You have given us unprecedented prosperity so that we have lent to many nations but been debtor to none.³ Until now. O Lord God of our Fathers, what has happened to the United States of America, the land that we love?
We acknowledge that You______________
For one hour each day for the past five days, we have worshipped You and confessed our sin before You. Now, Lord God of our Fathers, we turn to You and confess the sin of our beloved nation, United States of America.
We are appalled by the blatant sin that is all around us. We dare not lift up our faces before You. We are covered with shame. How could we, in our arrogance, pride and rebellion, dare to even think, much less discuss and legalize defiance of Your institution of marriage? How could we publicly celebrate relationships that are an affront and a contradiction to Your Creator’s instructions for living the life You have graciously given us? How can we willingly, intentionally exterminate life that You created and that bears Your image…for our own convenience?
Life is still precious…to You. All life. Your rules still apply. Your principles still work. Your instructions are still valid. Your opinion still matters. More than anyone else’s. How could we even imagine that nine Supreme Court Justices could overturn what You have said? How could we have reached the conclusion that …
What we want is so vital,
What we think is so critical,
What we feel is so crucial…
That we elevate ourselves over You?
We are appalled by_______
We are so ashamed that our nation that was founded on faith in You has turned its back on You. And we know better. Our history records the faith of our fathers. If You do not judge us, then You will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. We have had so much more truth then the Sodomites did, and therefore we are more accountable for our sin. We have heard Your warning. The Day of the Lord is near and it’s going to be ugly. In response, we fall at the foot of the Cross and repent of every sin that made the death of Jesus necessary. Every sin that even now is provoking Your judgment.
We confess national addiction to sex. To money. To pleasure. To entertainment. To pornography. To technology. To drugs. To alcohol. To food. To television. To popularity. To ourselves.
We confess we no longer fear You, and thus we have not even the beginning of wisdom with which to handle the vast knowledge we possess.
We confess our foolishness of denying You as the one, true, living God, our Creator to whom we are accountable, living as though our lives are a cosmic accident with no eternal significance, purpose or meaning.
We confess our greed that has run up trillions of dollars of national debt.
We confess our arrogance and pride that has led us to think we are sufficient in ourselves.
We confess to believing that the prosperity of our nation is because we are great while refusing to acknowledge that all blessings come from Your hand.
We confess that we depend upon our military might and our weapons systems to protect us from harm and danger, while denying, defying, and ignoring You.
We confess that we have succumbed to the pressure of pluralism in our desire to be inclusive so that we honor other gods as though You are just one of many.
We confess that we have allowed the material blessings You have given us to deceive us into thinking we don’t need You.
We confess that we feel entitled to what someone else has earned, instead of taking responsibility for ourselves and our families as we trust in You.
We confess that we live as though material wealth and prosperity will bring happiness.
We confess that we have marginalized truth and mainstreamed lies.
We confess that we have become one nation under many gods, divided and polarized, with license to sin and justice that no longer follows the rule of law.⁴
We confess________________
Therefore, we turn to You with tears of shame and a heart of fear for the judgment we are provoking. The Spirit within us witnesses to the truth that the Day of the Lord is soon! You are backing away from us as we tell You to get out of our national life. We are losing Your blessing as a nation. So we turn to You with humility. With sincerity. Out of necessity. With a desperate sense of urgency.
We turn to You with ________
Hear our prayer. Forgive our sin. Heal our land. We are standing in the gap for our nation. In the name of the One who was with You in the beginning,⁵ the One to whom our forefathers looked, and the One who is with us today. JESUS.