National Day of Prayer: A National Call to Prayer

spite of God’s prohibition not to eat of it, the woman succumbed to Satan’s temptation. Through a tree in the Garden of Eden, there was paradise lost.

From that time until now, spiritual death and a loss of paradise have continued to be the results of eating from the wrong tree. What the first Adam lost through eating of this tree, the last Adam, Jesus Christ, paid the penalty for on another tree—the cross! God would indeed provide for man the one way back to the “tree of life.” Through a tree in the Garden of Calvary, there was paradise gained!

However, not only did God provide for redemption, He also provided for restoration. The resurrected Jesus announced in Revelation 2:7, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

And when we come to the concluding chapter of this final book of the Bible, we find redeemed man once again enjoying the “tree of life.” In his beatific vision of heaven, John not only saw “the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” he also saw “the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1–2).

There are other trees used to symbolize many very important truths in Scripture. It is not an overstatement to say that trees are literally a parable of the Gospel story! Therefore, it is my sincere prayer that God’s spiritual sap will flow afresh through your mind and spirit as you study the trees in God’s Word!

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National Day of Prayer—First Thursday in May

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. Psalm 33:12

We should always give thanks for the Judeo-Christian foundation on which our nation was clearly and firmly established. Sadly, those foundational principles are being assaulted from without and eroded from within. The negative momentum against anything and everything overtly Christian has gained unimagined strength from the classroom to the courtroom. Our spiritual and political foundations are being dynamited and bulldozed up by an educational and political ideology based on secularism, materialism, relativism, universalism, and so on.

Centuries ago when King David was facing similar political assaults against Israel, he cried out, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). Millions of Americans are asking that same question today. As Americans, the Declaration of Independence assures us that we have certain rights that are self-evident: “All men are created equal, . . . they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Our forefathers clearly understood that there must be a clear and humble recognition that all our rights come from a benevolent God. And when they were speaking about our Creator, they were not referring to Allah, Buddha, Krishna, or any other pagan deity. They were clearly referring to the Jehovah God of the Bible as revealed and incarnated through Jesus Christ. However, from the White House to the courthouse, anything and everything Christian is often being vilified, penalized, and marginalized.

So, when the foundations are being destroyed, what can the

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