FIVE DAYS OF PRAYER (SUNDAY MAY 3- THURSDAY MAY 7, 2015)

“and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens”. Ezra 9:6
Shame is at a premium in this swiftly fading post-modern world. This is absolutely no sense of remorse, regret or urgency to seek reconciliation with the Truth from those in power all the way up to those in the church. It is no wonder, therefore, that a church prayer service/meeting is a rarity and even more rare, is the call to repentance,The greatest Scribe named in the Bible was Ezra.
 
Because his full occupation was transcribing the Word of God, Ezra was a man consumed by the knowledge of the Holy and the powerful Heartbeat of God because of His given word. Because of his complete commitment to God, he knew the Scriptures more than any priest or rabbi.
psalm91_1-4The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen (2 Timothy 4:18 ESV).
The popular cultural and societal notion is “there really is no evil” in this world. Even those in the liberal mainlines churches  refuse to come to terms that there is a devil – Satan – who is the accuser of the saints seeks to kill, steal and destroy. The atheist and the liberal deny the existence of evil for a simple reason. That reason is, to accept the existence of evil, one has to accept the existence of Good….and Who is Good? God is good!Those who are under the oppression of evil know it exists. They know it in the Christian towns of the Islamic Middle Eastern Countries, in Pakistan, throughout Africa where hordes are rampaging through Christian countries. The persecuted know that evil is not just those who suffered under Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Mao and Pol Pot.

To deny the existence of evil, and blame “society, or capitalism or democracy”, is easier than recognizing that our own sin opens us up to be brought down and put in spiritual bondage by evil.  This sort of thinking prevents many from coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and it remains an obstacle to most professing Christians, who accept the defeat of the devil. Both sets of people are outside of the Victory which God, through Christ, provides in the following: