2nd Chronicles 7:14
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.
Many of us know this passage of the Bible by heart. But let's think about it a little in relation to ourselves. We discussed this passage in church Sunday and it brought many things to light for me. I have been thinking about this passage, myself, now for weeks. This sermon, Thanks to Pastor Rob, brought many more things in to focus for me.
We started with this story: According to a biography written by his great nephew in the mid-19th century,. on January 21, 1776 in the Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, Reverend Muhlenberg took his sermon text from the third chapter Ecclesiastes, which starts with "To every thing there is a season..."; after reading the eighth verse, "a time of war, and a time of peace," he declared, "And this is the time of war," removing his clerical robe to reveal his Colonel's uniform. Outside the church door the drums began to roll as men turned to kiss their wives and then walked down the aisle to enlist, and within half an hour, 162 men were enrolled. The next day he led out 300 men from the county to form the nucleus of the 8th Virginia Regiment.
The idea was NOT that we all put on military uniforms and go to war... the idea was that we are fighting a very DIFFERENT kind of battle. One that prayer is the major weapon in.
This story was taken from a time that Israel was very prosperous. Things were going very well, the temple had been built. The economy was great under David and Solomon. They had become a world power for the time. If you go back in the passage, Solomon had just sacrificed twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats to concecrate the temple. They had money, jobs, housing, all the things necessary to prosper. They acknowledged that it come from God. But WAIT>>>>> Back up a couple verses here and check THIS out... After the party that lasted more than a week.... all was done, everyone had gone home, Solomon had gone to sleep and God himself came to Solomon to have a little chat. The LORD appeared to him at night and said: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. Sounds great right??????
But THEN the Lord says: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.
Do you see it? When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people.. NOT IF>> BUT WHEN>>>>> Does God cause challenging things to happen to his people, you bet, He just said so. Why does he do it? To get our attention and bring us back to him..... do you see that???? MY PEOPLE.. so if MY PEOPLE.. not the whole world, not even the whole country, if HIS PEOPLE.. those of us who call ourselves Christians, followers of Christ, Sons and daughters of God... if WE who are called by HIS NAME.... will humble ourselvs and pray and seek his face and turn from our wicked ways..... What does THAT mean????
Ok change directions for a minute: Whats the difference between us here in the United States and those in Solomons kingdom? Not much. We, too, were founded on our belief in Gods Promises. We are different than many other less prosperous countries in our day even because we were in search of God, not Gold... and GOD blessed us for that, but the question is, what are we seeking today?
If you go on to study what happened AFTER this passage in the Bible, you find that they did not heed the warning and return to God. Why did they do this? They thought they were immune despite Gods very personal warnings. They trusted in their OWN GOODNESS.. In their own ability to control things.
Go back now and look at that passage again.. does it say If my people, will sign petitions, march, Rant on facebook, write letters to our Congressmen, persuade others to vote for this or that canidate??????
What is the point in all of this? My belief is that we are at a crossroad in this country as well as world wide. I think that the thing we are being commanded to do in this passage is NOT to wait until our spouse gets it together and stops sinning, or not to wait until that welfare mom gets the message and stops having kids, or not to wait until that gay couple down the street understands what they are doing... over all, not much of that matters. What DOES matter is that I have to humble MYSELF and turn from MY wicked ways.. and if each one of us took this passage personally and took a good look at our inner life and changed that BEFORE we looked at anyone ELSE to repent, and each of us got on our knees and asked forgiveness for that tv show we were watching last night that was wrong for our kids to be seeing, or what ever it might be for each one of us.
OR maybe, just MAYBE.. that thing we need to repent of is even thinking that WE could control anything, especially the election to get OUR canidate elected whom EVER that is at what ever level of government that might be. Maybe we need to repent of NOT using the power that God DID give us. The power of integrity and obedience to God.
2 Corinthians 10:1 says: By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you--I, Paul, who am "timid" when face to face with you, but "bold" when away! 2 I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world.3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
But first, we have to know what the knowledge of God is. So, again I ask, what would happen if, during this trial, We, who SAY we are called by his NAME... Acted like it, and turned from our wicked ways, no matter how small or unnoticed by many..... and humbled ourselves... to pray.
Alone, spouses together, familes together, two co workers over coffee at lunch, a bible study group might even form from such a pair. Who knows how far it could go. And God's eyes will be open and his ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.
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