President Abraham Lincoln Declared April 30th 1863 A National Day of Prayer, Fasting, and Humility

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LISTEN NOW! It was this day, 152 years ago; that the 16^th President of the United States, President Abraham Lincoln, found himself in the midst of a nation that needed a divine answer to a divided nation. During the chaotic events of the Civil War, President Lincoln concluded that the answer could not be found in none other option than God. His resulting decision was to call a nation to a day of prayer and fasting. The observations that President Lincoln witnessed in the fledgling nation of America, brings a revealing reminder to where we find ourselves today, “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. …….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.”

These humble words came from a President, 152 years ago, that are still applicable today. Any individual desiring to lead a nation with these beliefs and understandings would be expected to uphold and keep this Judeo-Christian Heritage, and not the antithesis of it. As the chaotic and intensifying moments are increasing throughout the land, it is important for us to find our answer in God; to humbly turn to God in praying and fasting, as Abraham Lincoln did, and not to government. Hear the full call to prayer and fasting and the encouraging truths behind this powerful date in our nation’s history, and so much more. Also shared in this segment: humility, call to prayer, Civil War, division, President Abraham Lincoln, polarization, and repentance. John and Greg shared in this segment.

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By the President of the United States of America

A 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 30th day of March, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State .