“If My People”… Kevin H
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” – II Chronicles 7:14
What an awesome promise…but you know what… this promise from God was not and never was given to or for America, nor any other modern nation for that matter, not even modern day Israel.
This promise was given to the people of Old Testament Israel, with whom God had made covenant. God has never made another covenant of any kind with America or any other modern nation.
However….. God still makes covenant with people today… He makes covenant by promising those who accept and place their faith in Jesus and what He did on our behalf, that they will forever be with Him and will forever be His people.
So let’s look at that oft proclaimed verse again….. if “my people” – today that would be those who believe in and follow after Jesus – “who are called by my name” – yup, called Christians, after the name of Christ – “humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Maybe it’s about time that we stop butchering the meaning and application of this verse and using it to call “America” to repentance.
Maybe, if there is still application for this verse, we realize that it is directed toward those of us who follow after Christ and not some secularized nation with whom God has never made covenant and includes many unbelievers with whom God has not made covenant.
Maybe we choose to focus our concern for sin within our own Christian camps and communities, rather than on that of “others” and “unbelievers” and “America” and “the world” as we are so apt to do.
Maybe we decide to get serious about facing the rampant abuse, immorality, political idolatry, and self-worship that exists within our own communities and manifestations of Christian faith that we so often choose to ignore, rationalize, or justify.
Maybe, just maybe, we start to take seriously the teachings in the Bible that call us to be far more concerned with the log in our own eye and with wrongdoings in our own churches and faith communities than we are with the speck of dust in others’ eyes or of wrongdoing outside the church.
Or maybe we choose to just keep using this verse as a political weapon to call out the wrongdoing of those in America (especially of those who are unbelievers, liberals, and/or “woke”), ignoring the fact that God is actually speaking to us, not “them”, and to his family of believers and not a collective nation.
Just maybe, if we would “humble ourselves, and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways,” we would then see the healing of our land that we claim to so desire.
Well done, Kevin.
It makes me a little crazy when I see pastora, etc. exploiting a passage in Scripture for some type of political/cultural purpose. That’s eisegesis, not exegesis.
Thanks, bob1. You’re not the only one who is driven a bit crazy by such things. 😉
To use a quote from a movie I watched last night (Forrest Gump), “That’s so right on, man!”
It seems to me that some people are obsessed with gaining political power in God’s name so they can make other people’s sins illegal while keeping their own sins legal.
John in AZ,
Unfortunately, we’ll never know what Forrest was “so right on” about as the speaker equipment was unplugged just as he started to speak. Just like some people like to pull the plug on portions of Scripture that don’t line up with their political views, but will blast the volume on those parts they think support their views (even if it takes some skewing sometimes to make them match up).
2 Chronicles 7:14 has been THE scripture quoted for revival in America at least since the 1960s. I’ve for some time thought the reason our prayers for revival have gone unanswered is because we are praying wrong. We pray for a restoration of 1950s morals and values. Our revival/prayer graphics are always draped in American patriotism. (Above graphic included)
The context of 2 Chronicles 7 is Solomon has just dedicated the Temple, and that night God appears to him with this message:
“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, 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.”
The irony is that Solomon himself becomes like Pharaoh, enslaving his own people for massive empire building projects. He breaks every command in the Torah regarding how their kings should act, including taking on 700 foreign wives and building temples to their idols/gods.
Solomon failed to see that empire building was losing the plot of God’s story, and so do we.