Too often Christians don’t recognize and understand their responsibility to pray for our leaders. However, the Bible is clear on the importance of fact. It is the Christian, and no one else, who has the responsibility to pray for the leaders of their nation.

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.  – 1 Timothy 2:1-2

The reason for the responsibility is because it is the Christian who has the authority to pray. The Lord gave authority in the name of Jesus Christ to his church. It is the church who must pray, because the world won’t. The world only prays as a last resort in times of desperation. But prayer should be the Christian’s first response.

The Lord Jesus Christ showed Rev. Kenneth E Hagin the severity of the responsibility to pray for our leaders. In his book, The Art of Prayer, Rev. Hagin tells what the Lord Jesus Christ said to him in a vision, “I told you back in 1970 to pray for the leaders of the nation. What happened [Watergate and so forth] isn’t all the fault of the man who was then President. I am going to hold the Christians of this nation responsible. You are the ones who allowed what happened to your nation. If you had prayed, it never would have happened. I showed you what was about to happen…“Back in 1970, you saw three similar dark objects come up out of the Atlantic and leapfrog all the way across the land. If you and the Christians had done what you should have done, none of those things would have happened to your nation. You would not have had the riots. You would not have had the political disturbances. Your President would not have made the mistakes he made. In fact, I am holding the Church responsible for his mistakes.”

Rev. Hagin continues what Jesus told him, ”When you tell that to some of the Christians, they will laugh. But when they stand before my judgment seat and they receive the condemnation rather than the man who was then President, they won’t laugh. If Christians had done what I told them to do in the Bible – if they had prayed for the leaders of their nation, they would have kept the evil spirits from operating…Similar things — not the same things — but similar things are about to happen again. If you do not pray, they will happen. I am not going to hold the President responsible for the nation; I am going to hold the Christians of the nation responsible.”

Many do not believe that Rev. Hagin had this vision, or many of the other experiences he did. However, the Bible is clear that in the last days spiritual things would increase.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams (Acts 2:17) [This is a direct quote from Joel 2:28]”

Even if one does not believe in people having visions and visitations from any spiritual beings , if you look at what is said, it lines up with scripture. It is the church that has the responsibility to oversee what happens in the nation. It’s the church that has the authority in prayer to make things happen and stop things from happening.

Rev. Hagin was not the only one to have such thoughts about the Christian’s responsibility over the nation  and government. Most people have never heard of Rev. John Mitchell Mason. He has been in heaven for over a hundred years now. Rev. Mason received a doctor of divinity degree from Princeton University in 1794 and was a pastor of two churches in New York City during his lifetime. He founded a seminary, was a University president, trustee, and provost. He was also a close friend of Alexander Hamilton, one of our nation’s Founding Fathers. In his sermon “The Voice of Warning to Christians” in 1800, Rev. Mason opposed the election of Thomas Jefferson on the grounds that he was a non-Christian. The following is an excerpt from that sermon:

Such are the men with whom professors of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ are concerting the election of an infidel to the Presidency of the United States of America. Hear the word of the Lord. “What fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? And what part has he that believes with an infidel?” Yet Christians are uniting with infidels in exalting an infidel to the chief magistracy! If he succeed, Christians must bear the blame. Numerous as the infidels are, they are not yet able, adored be God, to seize up on our “high places.” Christians must help them, or they set not their feet on the threshold of power. If, therefore, an infidel preside over our country, it will be YOUR fault, Christians; and YOUR act; and YOU shall answer it? And for aiding and abetting such a design, I charge upon your consciences the sin of striking hands in a covenant of friendship with the enemies of your master’s glory. Ah, what will be your compunction, when these same infidels, victorious through your assistance, will “tread you down as the mire in the streets,” and exult in their triumph over bigots and bigotry.

Today we are living in a nation where more unbiblical laws are being passed that any other time,  and the church is at fault. We are continually in a recession and have a President that repeatedly tosses the law of the land out the window for his own ungodly desires. Our country is in disarray and is being beaten down by a government that could care less about truth, just, and the rules of law. Repeatedly has the vote of the majority been overruled because something was “unfair”, or not to the liking of one judge or one man.

All of this, the blame for all of this, lays at the feet of the church. Christians have not done their duty and prayed for their nation, for their leaders like they have been commanded to. Yes, I used a curse word – the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Apostle Paul, commanded the church to first pray for our leaders. And it is the church, not the nation, not the government, that will stand in judgment for what has occurred because of such ungodly rulers.

I urge you and encourage you, to take your authority, in the name of Jesus Christ, over the satanic spirits that are influencing the officials of our government, and command them to stop their maneuvers. Take your authority and pray for our nation, our government, our church leaders – in the name of Jesus Christ, that we may live a quite and peaceable life – so that we can take the Gospel to all the world (including our nation).

It is up to us. It is our responsibility. God has given us the task and the power to do so. He has given us the ability to steer the course of our nation on our knees from the throne room of God. Our brightest days are ahead, even though the days may look dark.