If My People…
2 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.
The sentence, as it continues, forms what is probably the best known and most loved verse in all Chronicles. It expresses, as does no other passage in the Bible, the stipulations that God lays down for a nation to experience his blessing, whether that nation be Solomon’s, Ezra’s, or our own. Those who have been chosen to be his people must cease from their sins, turn from living lives of proud self-centeredness, pray to the Lord, and yield their desires to his Word and his will. Then, and only then, will he grant heaven-sent revival.
Our situation in this nation cannot be solved by human means, we need Divine intervention to bring this country back to being a God-fearing, Christian nation. Jesus told his disciples Apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
God tells the Nation of Israel and us that apart from Him we have No Savior (Is 43:11), No God (Is 44:6), and that there is no God apart from Him (Is 45:5, 21). But this is getting ahead of ourselves.
The sentence starts IF MY PEOPLE. Who are His People? We know that the term Christian means “little Christ”, or “Christ like.” Yet I could not find meaning for the terms Hebrew or Jew. We first see the term used in the Book of Esther, referring to Mordacai. It was used to describe a descendant of Judah. It described the exiles during the time of Persian captivity. But what does the term mean, the best I could come up with is a covenant people.
Therefore this covenant people are called. We are His People. We are called by His Name.
That is another story, what is the name of God. Again looking at Scripture we see that God has many names. The list is just a few.
Elohim (Hebrew for GOD)
I AM (Exodus 3:14)
Jehovah-jireh The God who provides
Jehovah-rapha the God who Heals
Jehovah-Shalom (the Lord our peace)
Jehovah-ra-ah (the Lord my shepherd)
Jehovah Sabaoth (the Lord of hosts)
El- Shaddai the God who always sees
Adonai (our master)
If MY PEOPLE WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME.
What are we called to do?
HUMBLE OURSELVES
Stop being so full of ourselves and realize that whatever we have, we have because of God and not of ourselves. God will visit when his people reach a point of desperation. When we surrender that pride, the idea that we can do pretty good on our own, and we get down on our knees and admit things are not as they should be, then God will come to His people.
It is calling us to come down to earth so to speak. To humble ourselves is to recognize God for who he is. It reminds me of a line I heard in the movie "Rudy." The priest tells Rudy, in all my years I have learned 2 things, there is God, and I am not Him. The blessings we have are not because of us, but because of God. Humble ourselves, bring ourselves low and exalt GOD.
SEEK HIS FACE
That is to come before Him to seek what His Will is in any and every situation. We read His word and do what IT says not what we think it says. To seek His face is to desire an audience with Him.
In 1857 there was a 46 year old man named Jeremiah Lamphere who lived in New York City. Jeremiah loved the Lord tremendously, but he didn’t feel that he could do much for the Lord until he began to feel a burden for the lost and accepted an invitation from his church to be an inner city missionary. So in July of 1857 he started walking up and down the streets of New York passing out tracts and talking to people about Jesus, but he wasn’t having any success. Then God put it on his heart to try prayer. So he printed up a bunch of tracts, and he passed them out to anyone and everyone met. He invited anyone who wanted to to come to the 3rd floor of the Old North Dutch Reform Church on Fulton St. in New York City from 12 to 1 on Wednesday to pray. He passed out hundreds and hundreds of fliers and put up posters everywhere he could. Wednesday day came and at Noon nobody showed up. So Jeremiah got on his knees and started praying. For 30 minutes he prayed by himself when finally five other people walked in. The next week 20 people came. The next week between 30 and 40 people came. They then decided to meet every day from 12:00 to 1:00 to pray for the city. Before long a few ministers started coming and they said, "We need to start this at our churches". Within six months there were over 5000 prayer groups meeting everyday in N.Y. Soon the word spread all over the country. Prayer meetings were started in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington D.C. In fact President Franklin Pierce started going almost every day to a noonday prayer meeting. By 1859 some 15,000 cities in America were having downtown prayer meetings everyday at noon and thousands were brought to Christ. The great thing about this revival is that there is not a famous preacher associated with it. It was all started by one man wanting to pray. See only God can start a revival and God is quite clear about what He expects before He will return to His people.
Are we willing to do His will, not ours? Are we seeking HIS face? Is it all about HIM?
I think most people today are pretty satisfied with the state of the church, and I want to ask you this morning if you are. Do you think that the church in America today is pretty healthy? Does the Church seek His Face?
TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS
Does the Church speak out against sin? Does the Church call sin a sin? It is not that the Bible has to change to society, it is that society must change its ways to conform with the Bible, nothing less will do.
This is Repentance, it is a turning and changing. Some change happens slow, remember some of our habits have taken years to develop, the idea is moving toward that end. It is moving closer to God and His ways. Some of us are still stuck where we were just before coming to Christ. Time to get up and get moving harder, striving more and more to be Christ like, just as the name we wear says.
AND PRAY
This is the most awesome command. We are to pray. We seek His face, we turn from our evil ways and we pray. What is our prayer life like?
Wayne Watson wrote a song “When God’s people pray” he says “we take the pains of earth to the doors of heaven. When we pray things happen, miracles we cannot explain away.
When the Church prayed things happened. (all verses come from Acts)
1. Peter and John had the courage to challenge the Sanhedrin Chapter 4
2. The Church was added to daily Chapter 2, 5
3. Peter was freed from prison (Chapter 12)
In I Thessalonians 5:17 Paul doesn’t say sing with out ceasing, or fellowship without ceasing or even preach without ceasing. He said, "Pray without ceasing." That’s revival praying! In Luke 11:1, the disciples said to Jesus, "Teach us to pray." Notice they did not say, "Lord, teach us what to say." Rather I think they were saying, "Lord teach us how to pray, to pray like you do."
Miracles happened, Revival Happened and the Church grew.
Let me close with a great story. I started by telling you about the great prayer revival of 1857. It moved from New York to Detroit, Buffalo, Washington D.C. and it moved to Philadelphia in a powerful way. One of the leaders in Philadelphia was a young man named Dudley Ting. He started a noonday prayer meeting at the YMCA, and some days 5000 people would come at noon and pray. One day Dudley stood up and he read Exodus 10:11, "Go ye that are men and serve the Lord." He then said, "I had rather my right arm cut off than not give you that word." Later that week Dudley went out into the country to see some friends. While in a barn at his friend’s place he got his arm caught in a corn threshing machine and the main artery in his are was severed. They took him to a bed and tried to save his life but he had lost too much blood. So his friends gathered around him and asked him what he would like to say. He said, " Tell them to stand up for Jesus." So the next Sunday his good friend George Duffield stood up at church and preached in memory of his friend. He said, "I just finished writing a poem in honor of Dudley and I want to read it to you." Stand up, Stand up for Jesus, ye solders of the cross. Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall He lead, till every foe is vanquished, for Christ is Lord in deed. Stand up, Stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey. Forth to the mighty conflict in this His glorious day. Ye that are men now serve Him, against unnumbered foes. Let courage rise with danger and strength to strength oppose. Stand up stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long. This day the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song. To him that overcometh a crown of life shall be, he with the king of glory shall reign eternally. All across America, city after city people would meet for one day and pray for their country, and sing Stand up Stand up for Jesus. It’s time to decide if we want to do business with God. Some of you need to decide if you are going to be baptized today. Pray for revival and courage.
If we want Revival, we need to do all of these. If we do all these God, who keeps His promises, tell us He WILL HEAR from heaven, FORGIVE our sins and HEAL our Land.
