Fifty Days of Prayer for the National Election 2012 – Day 8

Day 8 September 25th
Focus:  The Voter’s Choice
As the size and scope of government expands, the electorate must be aware of the New World Order: the “God State.” Across the globe, the State is becoming the agent of “social progress and universal caring and compassion.” 
Background:
The pivotal point of the progressive movement in America came after WWI and was largely influenced by Lenin and Mussolini. This international movement was the philosophical novelty of the times, where a fascination of technology, change, and progress sought to replace the “backward” conservative and stifling ideologies of yesteryear. In this movement, the “organic” national community sought to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force, regulation or social pressure. The movement was clearly statist (favoring a big state), totalitarian (regulating everything), and collective (downplaying the rights of the individual). This movement had its roots in the French Revolution and other ideologies that favored the “common good” over individual rights. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most influential work, The Social Contract, opened with, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” He called on reformers to set people free from the chains of institutions, rules, customs, and traditions. Rousseau did not define freedom as the assertion of rights against the state; freedom meant liberation from the forms and institutions of society – family, church, class, and local community. The state would be the liberator. By destroying all social ties, the state would release the individual from loyalty to anything except itself. “Each citizen would then be completely independent of his fellow men and absolutely dependent on the state.” Rousseau postulated that, “the state is the means by which an individual can be freed of the restrictive tyrannies that compose society.” (The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet)   
In America, the progressive movement of the first half of the twentieth century was introduced and expanded through the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who were proponents of such massive programs as the New Deal and the Great Society. The movement promoted an America which was ruled by an enlightened avant garde who would serve as the authentic, organic voice of the “general will.” In these movements, a form of “benign” totalitarianism was imposed ~ “everyone belongs, everyone is taken care of, everything is inside the state, and nothing is outside the state.” No realm of human life was beyond political significance – education, reproduction, health and diet, sexuality, leisure, employment, child rearing, and loyalties. Leaders were considered the experts who know better, who plan, exhort, badger and scold for the collective good. Science was used to discredit traditional notions of religion and faith, and the language of pluralism was spoken to defend “non-traditional” beliefs. Confidence was placed in the perfectibility of man and the authority of experts. With the right amount of tinkering in the laboratory of the state, the utopian dream of creating a better world would be realized.  A second bill of rights for all American citizens was proposed by FDR, which included: a useful and remunerative job; a decent home; adequate medical care; the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; adequate protection against fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; and a good education. These “rights” remain the lodestar of liberal aspirations today. 
The religious character of modern liberalism was never far from the surface. The 1960’s should be seen as another “great awakening” in American history. The difference is that this movement left God behind.  The state became the substitute for God and a form of political religion. The state became the ultimate authority, the source and maintainer of values, and the guarantor of the new order. The belief was that man could create the kingdom of heaven (utopia) on earth. Society was to be rid of the cage of inherited dogma. An aura of sanctity divinized the state (the nation) and took the place of Christianity. This modern movement attempted to bring about a heaven here on earth, a picture of a timeless, unquestionable (and ultimately inevitable) state of perfection. 
LBJ offered his description of the Great Society: resting on abundance and liberty for all; an end to poverty and racial injustice; a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents; where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect. All wants would be fulfilled, all needs satisfied. The state would foster, nurture and guarantee every legitimate happiness. Even leisure would be maximized so that the every citizen would find “meaning” in life.  This subsidized nirvana would require the single-minded loyalty of every American citizen and the talent of a new wave of experts.  Included in this is the belief that the state has a comprehensive duty to protect the citizenry from their own harmful behaviors, and that the state knows best what constitutes harmful behavior.  
Our focus today is to pray against any attempt by the state to usurp God’s sovereignty over our lives, over this nation. We are soul-fully offended by one party’s decision to remove “God” from its platform and then to deny Him three times (three votes) until the word “God” was written back in by the convention chairman who overrode vociferous protestation.  
Righteous and Holy God,
You alone, O LORD, are God. (2 Kings 19: 19b)  We proclaim that You only are our strength and our song; You have become our salvation. You are our God, and we will praise You; we will exalt You.  (Exodus 15: 2)  You alone are our rock, in Whom we take refuge, our shield and the horn of our salvation. You are our stronghold, our refuge and our savior— from violent men You save us. (2 Sam. 22: 3)  Only You have made an everlasting covenant with us; a covenant arranged and secured in every part.  You alone will bring to fruition our salvation and grant us our every desire.   (2 Samuel 23: 5)  We sing to You, Lord. We proclaim Your salvation day after day. (1 Chron. 16: 23) We trust in Your unfailing love; our hearts rejoice in Your salvation.  (Psalm 13: 4-6) You alone, O LORD, are our light and our salvation ~ whom shall we fear? You alone, LORD, are the stronghold of our lives ~ of whom shall we be afraid? (Psalm 27: 1)  The LORD is our rock, our fortress and our deliverer; our God is our rock, in Whom we take refuge. He is our shield and the horn of our salvation, our stronghold.  (Psalm 18: 1-3) We declare Your praises in the gates and rejoice in Your salvation. (Psalm 9: 14)   
Arise, O LORD God, and come to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your might.  May Your priests, O LORD, be clothed with salvation, may Your saints rejoice in Your goodness alone.  (2 Chron. 6: 41)      
Father, Your Word instructs us that it is better to take refuge in You, the Lord, than to trust in princes. (Psalm 118:9)  You warn us not to put our trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. (Psalm 146: 3) We must not put our trust in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he? (Isaiah 2: 22)  Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their own strength, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD.  (Is. 31: 1)  You say that, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.”  (Jer. 17: 5)  What they hope in is easily broken; what they trust is like a spider’s web.  (Job 8: 14)  You made each of us in the body of our mothers to be Your servants, to lead Your people back to You. You will honor us, and we will get our strength from our God. (Isaiah 49: 5)  Our leaders lead Your people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace. When a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash; we warn those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and You will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth.  (Ezekiel 13: 10) Everyone who hears Your truths and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand. The rain comes down, the streams rise, and the winds blow and beat against that house, and it will fall with a great crash. (Matt. 7: 26-27) A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.  (Psalm 33: 17)  Our trust is in You alone, Almighty God. Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.  (Psalm 40: 4)  
Awaken Your might; come and save us. (Ps. 80: 2)  Vindicate us and plead our causeagainst an unfaithful nation. Rescue us from those who are deceitful and wicked. (Ps. 43: 1) We pray in and through Jesus Christ our LORD, Who reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. 
“There is one God, Who made all things. He governs the world by His providence. He ought to be worshiped by adoration, prayer and thanksgiving.”  (Benjamin Franklin, 1731) 
“It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail. The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always observable, that those who are combin’d to destroy the people’s liberties, practice every art to poison their morals.” (Samuel Adams) 
Through Divine goodness, all men have by nature the rights of worshiping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences, of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring and protecting reputation and property, and in general of obtaining objects suitable to their condition, without injury by one to another; and as these rights are essential to their welfare, for due exercise thereof, power is inherent in them; and therefore all just authority in the institutions of political society is derived from the people, and established with their consent, to advance their happiness… (Preamble to the Constitution of Delaware)