isaiah

A Call to Honest Humble Prayer for the Church in America

/ JSB / 1 Comment

What If the Covenant People of God Prayed Isaiah 1 for Ourselves?

Today (Wednesday, January 14, 2026) Franklin Graham is calling our nation to a day of humility and prayer. And while I am glad for any call for the Church to pray, most of us won’t. It’s not been our way. Ardent, corporate prayer not our priority. Most of us will not gather. (Most of us won’t really pray by ourselves either.) What we might do is think about prayer – or be glad that one of our kind is giving a nod to something that sounds like stuff in the Bible. We might even do a podcast about prayer… But we won’t really cry out – not us, ourselves. We like the rhetoric of Joel. But the reality of Joel remains distasteful to us.

It has been my observation that when we have national rallies like this, we rarely humble ourselves about our own stuff. We’ll confess, and make moral pronouncements about other people’s stuff – the pagans; and the liberals. And we’ll tell each other that we need to hate the stuff that “they’re” doing, more. We’ll confess that the godless in our nation have turned their backs on God. We’ll encourage each other to be more intolerant of the evil in others. And then we’ll go home, consoling ourselves that we’re good. We’re on God’s side. And He is pleased with us.

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And it’ll never occur to us that God wanted to talk to us about our idolatry. We’ll ignore the fact that He’s purging His Bride of our perverted definition of “greatness”. We won’t abase ourselves to repent of our lust for power. We won’t listen deeply enough to hear how he wants to cleanse us of our pride; our racial animosity; our political carnality and compromise; our hypocrisy; our winking at sin in our camp, and straining at a gnat in our adversaries’ camp. It’ll escape our notice that the Lord is grieved over the way we’re misrepresenting His Kingdom. We’ll not let the Spirit of the Lord trouble us about our malicious conspiracies, or our pro-militaristic narratives, our lack of compassion for the alien, or our deceitful and redacted nationalism, or the viral spiritual and sexual abuse that’s rampaging our own household. We don’t need to seek the Lord for any of those issues. Those are settled. Red ink. In the book.

But what if we DARED to really pray today?

What if we dared to cry out to the Lord for the full weight of our evil, pretentious and unrighteous ways? What if we agreed to the worst of what could be true about us, instead of fighting to prove the best about ourselves? What if we went deeper than the devil wants us to go? What if we made ourselves nothing on His threshing floor?

What if we opened our Bibles to Isaiah 1, shredded our religious spirit, looked into the mirror of the perfect law of liberty, and confessed everything that we see in this picture? How would the Lord view such sackcloth?

What if we prayed from this prophetic scripture with penetrating honesty and no thought of saving self:

O Lord, we humble ourselves before Your glory.

You have nourished us in every conceivable way – and yet we have rebelled against You. (v.2)

The ox and the donkey knows its honor, but we don’t know, and we haven’t even considered how we have spurned You. (v.3)

We are indeed, a sinful people. A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! We have forsaken the Lord. We have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. We have turned away backward. (v.4)

We are filled with revolution. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. (v.5)

From the sole of our foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment. (v.6)

On account of our faithlessness, our nation is desolate, devoured and burned with fire. (v.7)

We are a besieged culture; we’ve neglected the weeds within ourselves; and the vines of the enemy have grown up around us, and ensnared us. (v.8)

Unless You, the Lord of Hosts had been kind to us, our household would have become like the neighbors of Lot, and our country would have become like Gomorrah. (v.9)

Indeed, we have embraced the rulers of Sodom. And we ourselves are a “deeply rebellious people”. (v.10)

Forgive us for bringing You trite, religious platitudes, when You’ve wanted – Yes, “deserved” our very souls. (v.11)

We’ve come before You, time and again, with our assemblies, our conferences, our endeavors, and carelessly, thoughtlessly trampled around Your holy courts. Forgive us holy Father. (v.12)

We have refused to see Your displeasure. We’ve cared little for our great iniquity as we’ve come into Your sacred place. (v.13)

We’ve altogether blinded ourselves from what You hate; what You’re troubled by, and what You’re weary of bearing re: us, and our ways. (v.14)

When we spread out our hands before You, we have pretended that they were not filled with blood. Nor have we considered how You continue to hide Yourself from us, even when we bring our many petitions before you. We’ve not “read the room” – Your courtroom. (v.15)

We have not washed ourselves, and made ourselves clean; We have not put away the evil of our doings from before Your eyes. We’ve not ceased to do evil. (v.16)

We’ve not learned to do good; We’ve not sought Your definition, or manifestation of justice, We’ve not rebuked the oppressor; We have not defended the poor, the historically oppressed, nor have we cried out for the alien when they are unfairly treated. (v.17)

We have not even come to You, to hear the ways of Your heart. We have not reasoned with You. We’ve not let You show us the intense stain of our sins. We’ve not let You cleanse us. We’ve instead covered ourselves in fig-leaves. (v.18)

We have neither been willing, nor obedient to counsel with You. (v.19)

We’ve not considered that You are a God who ultimately brings the sword, and wrath upon those who continue to refuse and rebel. (v.20)

We have not considered how our faith has turned to harlotry. We’ve not acknowledged that our own righteousness, now embraces the ways of murder. (v.21)

We have allowed ourselves to become polluted, and our the power of Your Kingdom we have altogether watered down. (v.22)

We’ve championed thieves, insurrectionists, and extortionists. They do not care a lick for the “have-nots”, nor those broken by the curse in our midst. (v.23)

We’ve not affirmed that You are the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of America; a God Who ultimately takes vengeance upon His enemies. (v.24)

We’ve lived in blithe disconnect that Your fierce wrath may ever be aimed at us, or that Your hand could be turned against us, to remove our own dross. (v.25)

We’ve not wanted Your way of redemption and restoration. We’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted from Your vision of what a righteous, and faithful city looks like. (v.26)

We’ve cut deals with the way in which You establish redemption and justice within a people; How You build all righteousness upon radical penitence and thorough repentance. (v.27)

We have not promoted the fact that You are a God Who destroys transgressors and sinners. We have winked at the reality that You consume all those who forsake the Lord and His ways. (v.28)

We have not been ashamed of our many sins. (v.29)

We have incorrectly plodded along in our convention, believing we didn’t need the water of Your Word; (v.30) the piercing truth about our ways.

We have mocked the Words of Your own prophets who have looked at our adulterous ways and decreed, “The Word of the Lord will come like a spark and shall burn the work of the strong like tinder, and no one shall quench the fire of the Lord.” (v.31)

Father. Let our cry come before You. Humble us. Break us. Have mercy on us. Forgive us. Purge us. Establish us with Your steadfast lovingkindness. And fill us with a contrite spirit of truth, and peace, and holiness. For the glory of Your Son, alone, Father.

And what if some of us, so burdened by the depth of our rebellion, impatience and betrayal of God, stayed before the Lord through the night – trembling before His holiness – shaken by the true image of the wrath we deserve – “undone” like Isaiah. And what if a thousand – one hundred – or even two dozen preachers climbed back into the pulpit next Sunday – disheveled, messed up, tumbled, but touched by the Commander of the Lord’s armies. What would the Lord do with the fear of the Lord that burned in their words? What would He ignite in our family? What if that became the fire that were cast across our nation in this hour?

“Jesus! We’re here by Your mercy; wholly abandoned for Your increase, alone”.

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JSB • January 14, 2026

Download the PDF Copy of the ISAIAH 1 PRAYER here.

The Vital Need for the House of Prayer in the Hour of the Judgments of the Lord

/ JSB / 1 Comment

Beloved. The only way the household of God will stand through this hour of judgment from the Lord re: idolatrous, political nationalism is NOT by becoming people who broadcast endless proof of the evil that fills our hallways of power – an evil our family is readily ingesting, and promoting. We will ONLY OVERCOME the strategies of hell’s stronghold being erected against His Kingdom as we, the church, become a people who are more enthralled with the God of Joshua, Isaiah, John the Baptist and Revelation, Who they meet in the tent of meeting, than the cadaverous god that is being conjured as a mascot by the court prophets, and the false shepherds.

We will neither perceive the nature of the delusion, nor overcome the various issues that are confronting our hearts, our relationships, and our fidelity to Christ, without becoming people of ardent prayer, who see what the angels see, and bow low to the eternal God of 300 trillion galaxies.

If prayer isn’t an integral pattern of your daily life right now, you already are being spun by the god of this age, and will not traverse the fearful way of the Lord through this hour of monumental tribulation.

Hear the Word of the Lord through Isaiah 28
“Therefore, listen to the Lord’s message, you who scorn and boast – For you say, ‘We have made a treaty with death, with Sheol we have made an agreement. When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by it will not reach us. For we have made a lie our refuge, we have hidden ourselves in a deceitful word’.” (Isaiah 28:14-15)

The rest of Isaiah’s message can only be heard and appropriated in our lives, families, churches, and culture by giving ourselves to being the people of the tabernacle of God.

“16 Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord, says: ‘Look, I am laying a stone in Zion, an approved stone, set in place as a precious cornerstone for the foundation. The one who maintains his faith will not panic.” (Isaiah 28:16) 

The judgments of the Lord isn’t merely about Him rebuking a wayward people, He’s setting the order of His Son in place upon the earth so that the peoples of the earth can either agree with this administrative order, or faithlessly disagree with this administrative order. When we agree with this heavenly order – the order of the King – our hearts can be set at peace – though they be greatly constrained by the demands of faithfully heralding the true prophetic Word of the Lord to a deaf, and deluded people. When we surrender to the One Who is bringing His order of stability to our world, we can be filled with the peaceable fruits of righteousness – which is the administrative order of King, Jesus – even though we know that the setting in place of this eternal Kingdom will cause great great disruption on the earth.

“17 I will make justice the measuring line, fairness the plumb line; hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place. 18 Your treaty with death will be dissolved; your agreement with Sheol will not last. When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by, you will be overrun by it. 19 Whenever it sweeps by, it will overtake you; indeed, every morning it will sweep by, it will come through during the day and the night.” (Isaiah 28:17-19)

Again. The Lord’s promise to establish His Son’s order upon the earth, will greatly disrupt the paradigms of men and demons. When God arises, His enemies are about to be scattered – often with alarming tumult, and typhoons of chaos. It’s pure foolishness to think that when the Lord’s storm comes to the earth, (and we are already being tossed by the early winds) we will automatically stand securely, because we have a “theology of security”, though we have never parsed the ways and means, and details of the beautiful roots of that security in the place of much prayer, and dialogue with the Spirit over scripture.

“When this announcement is understood, it will cause nothing but terror. 20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself. 21 For the Lord will rise up, as He did at Mount Perazim; He will rouse himself, as He did in the Valley of Gibeon, to accomplish His work, His peculiar work, to perform His task, His strange task.” (Isaiah 28:19-21) 

Who is able to say, “Lord, bring the fulness of Your Presence, even though it comes with great terror…”??? Only the one who has been terrified by the Lord in the secret place; in the crevice of the Lord, as His glory has passed by, and then discovered that he/she has not been destroyed in the process. This is the necessary strength that can only be cultivated and accumulated in the place of face to Face encounter with the Living God of Mount Sinai, and the transfiguration.

“22 So now, do not mock, or your chains will become heavier! For I have heard a message about decreed destruction, from the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies against the entire land. 23 Pay attention and listen to my message. Be attentive and listen to what I have to say!” (Isaiah 28:22-23) 

There is no place for mockery in the household of God. In the Presence of the Lord, all forms of ridicule and scorn is irreverent “racca”… making one guilty of hell-fire itself. (See Matthew 5:22) The work being done within ourselves in the tabernacle of the Lord will produce a holy sobriety of the spirit, that knows full well the disastrous consequences that will come to those who do not avail themselves of the Lord’s summons to His threshing floor.

“24 Does a farmer just keep on plowing at planting time? Does he keep breaking up and harrowing his ground? 25 Once he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter the seed of the caraway plant, sow the seed of the cumin plant, and plant the wheat, barley, and grain in their designated places? 26 His God instructs him; He teaches him the principles of agriculture. 27 Certainly caraway seed is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin seed. Certainly caraway seed is beaten with a stick, and cumin seed with a flail. 28 Grain is crushed, though one certainly does not thresh it forever. The wheel of one’s wagon rolls over it, but his horses do not crush it.” (Isaiah 28:24-28) 

The one who goes into the tabernacle of the Lord will soon learn there is nothing more necessary, needful, efficacious and life-giving than for the human spirit to seek out, receive, and perceive encounter with the Holy One. This is where the wisdom that is necessary to navigate the hour of tribulation is given. Nowhere else.

“29 This also comes from the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, Who gives supernatural guidance and imparts great wisdom.” (Isaiah 28:29)

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JSB • September, 2025