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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
So as we approach July 4 and are thinking about our country and the things we love about our country, and the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, there is also a tendency to also think about the things that aren’t so great in our country right now.
The immorality that we sometimes see, the violence, the way politicians carry themselves, the decisions they are making that impact us, the rising costs of food, insurance, housing, and on and on and on…there’s so much to kind of be discouraged about right now.
But this is also a presidential election year, and these are the things that are also being talked about in that realm of things as we think about the future of our country…
And during these times, there is a tendency to see one particular Bible verse used a lot. It’s used in speeches, placed on billboards, shared on social media, and even used in our conversations with other people.
And that verse is this…2 Chronicles 7:14
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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
And so let’s look at what we see here…
The 1st thing we see is that this is a conditional statement. It’s an IF/THEN statement.
The verse says, “IF my people” do four things: #1, Humble Themselves; #2, Pray; #3, Seek my face; #4, Turn from their wicked ways…
IF we do those 4 things, THEN God will do 2 things: #1, Forgive our sins; #2, Heal our land.
And when we use this verse today, we try to take those words, “heal their land,” and apply that to our lives today by saying that means that our country will turn around…
Maybe we'll have less natural disasters, less violence, less immorality…
The political landscape will get better, our economy will get better (all of these high prices will go back down), and most importantly we will begin to prosper again!
So in other words, it’s become a verse that we use as our strategy to get moral, political, and economic healing for our country.
IF we do these 4 things, THEN we will be rewarded with prosperity in our country again!
This is what this verse has come to mean in our day and age…
BUT is that really what this verse means?
NO, THAT’S NOT WHAT THAT VERSE MEANS
So, let’s look at this verse in context…
Now, in order to see this verse in its proper context, we have to understand that this verse was written under the Old Covenant.
And so I want to take you all the way back first to Genesis 12 where we see God enter into a covenant with a man named Abram…
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
So we see several things here. First, God is going to make Abrahm into a great nation. Second, He will bless Abram. Third, all people on earth will be blessed through Abraham and this nation God will build through him.
And as you continue to read Genesis, you begin to see that these things start to happen. God blesses him with a son and their family begins to grow, eventually into a great nation…Israel.
Now, eventually the Israelites are forced into slave labor by the Egyptians, but God rescues them through Moses who takes them on this journey to the promised land. This land flowing with milk and honey that will be where this great nation resides.
But as they begin to make their way to this land, God meets with Moses and makes a covenant with Moses and the Israelites. Here’s what he says to Moses in Exodus 19:5…
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.
Notice the conditional statement. It’s another IF/THEN statement.
IF the Israelite nation obeys God, THEN they will be His treasured possession.
So, they both have responsibilities. The Israelites are responsible for obeying, and God is responsible for making them His treasured possession and giving them blessings.
And the people get excited, and here’s how they respond in Exodus 19:7-8…
7 So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak. 8 The people all responded together, “We will do everything the LORD has said.”
Alright, so they are in! They agree to the covenant and declare that they will keep up their end of the bargain…They will obey Him and keep the covenant!
So then God details out all of the things they have to obey…All of their duties and responsibilities.
And it started with things like the 10 Commandments, but it became much more…
As a matter of fact, in Deuteronomy 28, there are a whole list of blessings that they’ll receive if they do obey but also a whole list of curses if they do not obey…
BLESSINGS…
If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God… 4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
8 The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you…11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity…in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 12 The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands.
CURSES…
15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you: 16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country….18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed… 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them… 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.
Okay, so this is the covenant the people are in. God has made the Israelite nation His people, and if they obey Him then they will prosper in their land, but if they do not then they will suffer.
So, let’s go back to our verse in 2 Chronicles 7 now…
The author of this book of the Bible, who is often referred to as the Chronicler, is looking back and summarizing some of the things that have happened throughout the history of the Israelite nation.
And he is telling about the time in the nation’s history when the Israelites had taken over the promised land, King David had great success in moving them forward into a great nation, and now King David’s son, King Solomon had finished building the temple…
So, we’ll start a few verses before our verse and begin in 2 Chronicles 7:11…
11 When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, 12 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.
13 “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,
Okay so let’s stop here for just a second. What does this sound like?
Yeah, it sounds just like the language of Deut. 28! He’s referring to the curses that happen when they disobey His law. God said the curse would be bad for the land…no rain, locusts devouring the land…
So God is saying to Solomon, when you disobey and these curses happen, here’s what you do: (v.14)
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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
So again, God is telling Solomon what to do after the Israelites and their land gets cursed because of their disobedience…
They should turn back to me, I’ll forgive them, and then when they turn from their wicked ways and start obeying me again, then I’ll heal their land just like I said I would in Deuteronomy 28.
So let me ask you a question, When you see this verse now in the context it is written in and with an understanding of the Old Covenant, “Is this verse written to you and I?”
NO! It was written to the Israelite nation… and you and I are not part of that nation.
And not only that, it was written to them under the Mosaic Covenant. Under the Old Covenant.
Are you and I under the Old Covenant or the New Covenant?
Yeah, the New! The author of Hebrews in chapter 8 is talking about the New Covenant as God foretold about in Jeremiah 31, and says this…
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete
We do not live under the Old Covenant any longer. It’s been made obsolete because Jesus fulfilled the law for us. I mean look at what Paul even says in Galatians 3
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
So here we go again with these blessings and curses. If you obey you are blessed, but if not you are cursed…and no one can do everything written in the law. But here’s the good news…
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
In other words, what we see here is that Jesus fulfilled the curses and promises of the Old Covenant.
Jesus has fulfilled the curses and promises of 2 Chronicles 7!
So again, we are not Israel…and that is who 2 Chronicles 7:14 was addressed to. Also, we are not under the Old Covenant any longer, and this verse is a pronouncement of the blessings that were received for obedience and the curses received for disobedience.
So when we try to use 2 Chronicles 7:14 (Slide) to say that if the Christians in our nation would turn from our wicked ways that we would see moral, political, and economic healing in our country, THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS VERSE MEANS! We are using this verse out of context.
So, what does that mean for us today? Does that really mean if we turn from our sin and really begin to seek the face of God that we won’t find healing for our country?
Not necessarily. It’s no guarantee.
I mean let’s take the early church, for example.
I mean, I’d say they had turned from sin, were seeking the face of God as the Spirit had come to indwell them, and yeah people were coming to know Jesus!
I mean, 3,000 people come to know him after Peter preached at Pentecost, and more and more people continued to come to know Jesus…but did they find blessing and healing in their country?
NO, they received persecution. They were threatened. They were thrown in jail.
And they were even scattered from their land! Let me show you what Acts 8 tells us was going on. This is right after a Christian named Stephen shared the gospel in a public setting. And people stoned him to death. They killed him for sharing his faith…and then Luke tells us this…
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
So, it doesn’t sound like the country really began to prosper…they weren’t receiving political and economic healing. And there were still extremely immoral things happening all over!
But at the same time, there were really great things happening during this time of persecution and suffering in their land…people were coming to know Jesus. They were learning that Christ was their life, that life isn’t found in prosperity, political, economic blessings…it’s found in a Person!
My point is that even if we did what 2 Chronicles 7:14 says to do, under the New Covenant, there is no guarantee that things get better. We might just receive more persecution just like the early church did too.
So, does that mean we shouldn’t pray for our country and hope things get better?
Absolutely not!
We can love our country and be so thankful we get to live here. We can be grateful for the men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect our freedoms… And we can pray for our country. And we can certainly pray that things get better…
But above and beyond that, we pray that people will come to know Jesus so that they don’t die and go to hell. We pray that they will begin to experience Him as their life and find everything they need in Him.
And the great news guys is that under the New Covenant, Ephesians 1:3 tells us that we have every spiritual blessing in Christ that there is to have!
Christ is our Life, and no matter what situation or circumstances we find ourselves in as a country, we are blessed in Christ and have all that we need in Him…
And He can still work in us and through us to bring more and more people in our country and around the world to come to know that same life and blessing that can be found in Him.
So, let’s be about that…let’s rally around that as a church and as we pray for our country.