Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer captures what Scripture teaches about God's sovereignty over the nations and our calling to intercede for them.
The earth is the Lord's and all it contains, and He reigns as the omnipotent Lord. The nations may seem great in our eyes, but in His sight they are like a drop in a bucket and like dust on the scales. Yet He has determined for every people their appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling, and He directs the heart of kings like a stream of water to accomplish His purpose.
You are right to ask Him to restrain evil. There is a real spiritual conflict behind the turmoil we see, and the enemy is a murderer and liar from the beginning. Scripture shows that God does restrain that evil and frustrate evil plans, and He has given His people authority in prayer to stand against it. At the same time the Bible looks forward to a day when He will gather all nations for judgment. The prophet Joel speaks of bringing the nations down to the valley of Jehoshaphat to plead with them there, and Jesus taught in Matthew 25 that when He returns He will gather the nations and separate them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. A central basis for that judgment will be how the nations treated His people Israel, for God said to Abraham, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. For that reason it is wise and right for any nation to seek to act justly toward Israel.
You are also praying exactly as we are instructed to pray. We are told to offer petitions and intercession for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may live peaceful lives and so that the gospel may go forward, because God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth through Jesus Christ alone. He is our salvation and our strength, and He alone is the visible image of the invisible God who went about doing good and healing those oppressed by the devil.
Prayer in this way is not a means to get our own wishes done. Its purpose is to get God's will done on earth. It begins with worship and confession and with bringing our own needs to Him, and then it widens into intercession for others, for the church, for the community and for the nations. God calls His house to be a house of prayer for all nations, and He invites us to ask Him for the nations as an inheritance, interceding with Christ who Himself lives to intercede for us.
Continue to bring these unruly situations before Him. Ask Him to keep His people and even leaders from the evil one, not to take them out of the world but to guard them, to guide them away from temptation and deliver them from evil, and above all to bring them to salvation. He has not appointed His people to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and while there will be distress among nations with perplexity and shaking before His coming, we can rejoice most that our names are written in heaven and that the knowledge of His glory will one day cover the earth.
May the Lord strengthen you to keep watching and praying, trusting that He hears, that He restrains evil according to His wisdom, and that He will in His time bring perfect justice and righteousness through Christ.
The earth is the Lord's and all it contains, and He reigns as the omnipotent Lord. The nations may seem great in our eyes, but in His sight they are like a drop in a bucket and like dust on the scales. Yet He has determined for every people their appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling, and He directs the heart of kings like a stream of water to accomplish His purpose.
You are right to ask Him to restrain evil. There is a real spiritual conflict behind the turmoil we see, and the enemy is a murderer and liar from the beginning. Scripture shows that God does restrain that evil and frustrate evil plans, and He has given His people authority in prayer to stand against it. At the same time the Bible looks forward to a day when He will gather all nations for judgment. The prophet Joel speaks of bringing the nations down to the valley of Jehoshaphat to plead with them there, and Jesus taught in Matthew 25 that when He returns He will gather the nations and separate them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. A central basis for that judgment will be how the nations treated His people Israel, for God said to Abraham, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. For that reason it is wise and right for any nation to seek to act justly toward Israel.
You are also praying exactly as we are instructed to pray. We are told to offer petitions and intercession for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may live peaceful lives and so that the gospel may go forward, because God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth through Jesus Christ alone. He is our salvation and our strength, and He alone is the visible image of the invisible God who went about doing good and healing those oppressed by the devil.
Prayer in this way is not a means to get our own wishes done. Its purpose is to get God's will done on earth. It begins with worship and confession and with bringing our own needs to Him, and then it widens into intercession for others, for the church, for the community and for the nations. God calls His house to be a house of prayer for all nations, and He invites us to ask Him for the nations as an inheritance, interceding with Christ who Himself lives to intercede for us.
Continue to bring these unruly situations before Him. Ask Him to keep His people and even leaders from the evil one, not to take them out of the world but to guard them, to guide them away from temptation and deliver them from evil, and above all to bring them to salvation. He has not appointed His people to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and while there will be distress among nations with perplexity and shaking before His coming, we can rejoice most that our names are written in heaven and that the knowledge of His glory will one day cover the earth.
May the Lord strengthen you to keep watching and praying, trusting that He hears, that He restrains evil according to His wisdom, and that He will in His time bring perfect justice and righteousness through Christ.
