Father in Heaven, You are the one whose mercy endures forever. You have forgiven and restored other nations more guilty than we are, and other nations less guilty have proceeded on to perdition. We know that salvation is from You, and from Your sovereign good pleasure alone. We know that we are dependent upon Your …
Sins of Redefinition
Father in Heaven, we have wanted to deal with sin by redefining it, and we confess to you now, on behalf of a wicked generation, that our redefinitions have been self-serving and absurd. We have wanted to robe our bloodthirst in the sanctity of law, and we have wanted to reduce Your gospel to language …
Loving Smooth Words
Father and God, we confess to You that as a nation we have not wanted the prophets to do anything but prophesy smooth words. We have hired flatterers and liars, and spin doctors, and then when the unavoidable truth comes upon us, we wonder why we were not warned. We chase away any who would …
Going About to Establish Ourselves
Father and God, we confess to You now that we have gone about, as the Jews of old, to establish a righteousness of our own. We confess to You that as a nation, we have not wanted to be clothed in the righteousness of another—we have wanted to stand or fall on our own account, …
Sin is Not Exceptional
Father, we confess that holiness or separation from the mundane is an inescapable concept, and if we don’t accept the gift of Your holiness, we will attempt to manufacture our own. We confess that we have attempted to create our own forms of exceptionalism, and we confess how wrongheaded that is.
Confessing a False Alternative
Father we confess to you that our grudges and resentments are ample proof that we have not loved our enemies as we ought to have done. We have dealt with our enemies in a fleshly and carnal way, and have not sought to deal with them in the way that Your Word requires. We assume …
The Sin of Not Listening
Father we confess to you that when men have been sent to our nation to speak prophetically, we have not listened to your appointed servants. We have stopped our ears. We have reinterpreted your words to suit our own desires. Our Father, the nation has turned far away, and has not listened to those whom …
Our True Condition
Father, our national condition of sin is desperate. We want to be known as virtuous, but still want to keep our sin. We want the accolades that come from righteousness, but do not want the trouble of actually being that way. And so we posture and pretend. We pray, therefore, on behalf of a corrupt …
National Sellf-Deception
Father, Your Word calls us to speak without deceitful lips. And yet our sinful nation, which has so much sin to confess, does not even bother to confess sin falsely. We think that we have no sin, not as sin is defined in Your Word. And it is at just this point that Your Word …
Cut to the Heart
Father, You have established Jesus Christ as both Lord and Christ, and Your Word tells us that the first generation of those who heard the gospel were cut the heart by this message, by this declaration. Father, our nation is not cut to the heart, and so we pray that You would grant a spirit …