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MANSFIELD — People of faith are at their wit’s end over the culture’s fixation with sexual immorality. On Thursday a clergy press conference of faith leaders from sixty-six area congregations was held calling citizens of Richland County to prayer, public repentance, and private fasting.
The press conference took place in the wake of the liberal Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Originating from Ohio, the court case dismissed nearly two hundred-fifty years of Biblical and biological precedent, and redefined marriage to include the union of same sex partners. Additionally, the scheduled day of prayer, repentance and fasting was scheduled to occur one day following the City of Mansfield’s first gay pride event.
(Photo courtesy of Frontlines Ohio)
Chief spokesmen representing the sixty-six congregations were: Reverend Nate Meiers of Berean Baptist, Reverend Harrison Gapter of Mount Zion Lutheran, and Reverend Russell Stanford of All Believers in Christ.
The joint resolution humbly recommended the “July 26th, as a convenient day for all citizens of Richland County to set apart for corporate prayer, public repentance, and private fasting to the Almighty GOD……. Seeking His merciful forgiveness as a people, from our sin of immorality, and His assistance in the great duties of our repentance.”
area Clergy joint statement
“….July 26th, 2015, as a convenient day for all citizens of Richland County to set apart for corporate prayer, public repentance, and private fasting to the Almighty GOD…. Seeking His merciful forgiveness as a people, from our sin of immorality, and His assistance in the great duties of our repentance.”
Pastor Stanford reminded those in attendance that “The Bible explicitly states that ‘it is the will of the Heavenly Father that we should abstain from sexual immorality, and that each of us should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust.’ Furthermore, the following immoral behaviors are considered sin in The Holy One’s eyes: adultery, bestiality, covetousness, homosexuality, incest, pedophilia, pornography, premarital sex, prostitution, and the like.”
Pastor Gapter emphasized to the faith leaders and media in attendance that “We as a people have all committed these heinous acts and that the community must seek the Heavenly Father for His mercies.”
Included in the resolution were historic examples of area citizens and
local civic government opposing immoral behavior. The proclamation also cited two redemptive case studies where documented societal breakthrough occurred when its citizens repented from the sin of immorality.
(Photo courtesy of Frontlines Ohio)
In early 1991, Ugandan officials summoned Kampala area pastors and announced that the government was turning over the AIDS disaster to the church. World Health Organization had indicated that 30 percent of the population would be dead by 2000 and another 30 percent infected.
Instead, with the implementation of Biblical principles incorporated into society, Uganda which had once been known as the “Nursery of AIDS,” saw HIV rates plummet to below six percent against all the odds.
In 2002, Canadian Arctic region of Nunavut overcame sex abuse, teenage pregnancies and suicide rates that were off the charts. When residents of Pond Inlet began disposing of pornography, drugs and illicit materials with the help of Royal Canadian Police, new found hunger for Bible conferences and baptisms ensued.
(Photo courtesy of Frontlines Ohio)
According to Pastor Meiers, “There was a great movement of repentance in that community so that even the Royal Canadian Mounted Police helped them as they disposed of illicit material valued at about $100,000.”
Later the town experienced a powerful supernatural visitation believed to be from GOD which was inadvertently recorded. Ecological turnaround and a voice in the political realm also occurred over the region in the season of repentance.
The press conference took place at Ed Pickens’ Cafe on Main, just several hundred feet away from a nationally-known criminal investigation in 1962 on the Mansfield Square where lewd behavior was taking place around the clock. As a result, the City of Mansfield convicted several men and permanently closed the underground restrooms.
The Bottom Line:
The Bible says in Second Chronicles, “If My people, who are called by Name, will humble themselves, pray, seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”
For more on the supernatural visitation in the Arctic Nunavut profiled in the press conference, view the video link below produced by the Sentinel Group.
