Opening Illustration: During the Revolutionary war, Colonel Rall, A Hessian (German) commander at Trenton, New Jersey, was playing cards when a courier brought a message stating that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware River. It was Christmas Day evening 1776. Rall put the letter in his pocket and didn’t bother to read it until the game was finished. Then, realizing the seriousness of the situation, he hurriedly tried to rally his men to meet the coming attack, but his procrastination was his undoing. Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware and won a victory that was arguably the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Rall and many of his men were killed, and the rest of the regiment was captured. Washington’s troops suffered minimal casualties.
“Tomorrow” is the excuse of the lazy and the refuge of the incompetent. (1) Col Rall was a case of too little, too late.
“Tomorrow, I’ll repent and come back to God. Later when I’m through with the things I want to do.” The fact is, there is no guarantee for tomorrow.
If I were to ask, “Who would like to make an impact on the world around them and help inspire true change for the better,” I believe just about everyone would raise their hand. There will be some who will make a difference and help change their world during their lifetime. Sadly however, most people will never truly make a significant impact on the people around them This is because of one of Satan’s most valuable tools that he uses on people – it’s called procrastination or (I can do it tomorrow).
A prominent man once said about our nation: "We have been the recipients’ of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
That man was Abraham Lincoln in 1863! How much worse off are we today? The fact is, judgement is coming on our Nation. And in many ways, judgment is already falling on us. I believe God is bringing judgment first on His church, because we, as the body of Christ, have failed to hold this country accountable for its actions.
We looked the other way as God and prayer and the Bible were systematically eliminated from our schools and the public forum and replace with the godless religion of secularism, which by definition is atheism. We have functional become an atheistic country and culture and the church has been rendered powerless.
Look around, the statistics do not lie. A recent nationwide poll found that 44 percent of liberal Democrats believes that churches in the United States have a negative impact of society. (2)
Recent polls show more Americans discarding Biblical marriage in favor of same-sex marriages- Plew Research shows by a margin of a nearly two-to-one (62% to 32%). (3) The list goes on.
The church in America is on the decline. Americans involved with anything religious is noticeably down. (4) Church attendance is down, church membership rolls are declining, baptisms are down. Church giving is down. Church influence is down. Churches are closing. (5)
Like Col Rall of the Hessians, We have missed the fact that the enemy is at the gates but we are too busy with our game to pay attention. You can google these statistics. The church as a whole is turning from God. Whole denominations are falling away. God warned us about these things.
2 Chronicles 7:13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, . . .
In King Solomon’s day, an economy based on agriculture, these things are what they were concerned about, no rain, insects, pests, and so forth. Not to speak about enemies and war filling the land. But the Key word in this verse is WHEN
God didn’t say “If” here, He said “When.”
When God said “when”, he knew the hearts of men. God knows there is no “if,” but when man when turn from God. This is the saga of human history, man turning from God. Go back to Genesis. Why did God destroy the earth with a flood?
Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
When Noah got off the Ark, God knew nothing would change with man.
Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
We have a sin nature. We inherited it from Adam.
Jeremiah 17:9–10 (NKJV)
9 “The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10 I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
And God does give us what we deserve. So WHEN I shut up heaven and there is no rain (2 Chron 7:13)
When God comes down on His people. Notice here, God is talking with King Solomon, the leader of HIS PEOPLE.
The Lord loves HIS people and He will correct them.
Proverbs 3:12 For whom the LORD loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
But His people must respond to the correction. Jesus said to the lukewarm church of Laodicea:
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
So what are we, the church to do, in respond to God’s correction?
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 I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
First of all, we have to understand that these words are for the people of God, not the rest of the word. In our case, it means the church. We are called Christians. The word “Christian” or “Christians” is only found 3 times in the New Testament.
Acts 11:26b And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
The meaning or the word in Greek is very clear, those belonging to Christ. We are called by His name. These words are not for non-believer, but for those who are His.
Today the word “Christian has taken on new meanings. It has political cogitations, which many take as bigoted, backwards, and homophobic, and so forth. Many are attempting to change the word to a softer all-inclusive meaning, giving approval to the sins of the world.
This passage, is for those who are truly His, and this passage is not for the world. But, as His people, as Christians, we expect a few things from God. We expect God to HEAR us: (Chron 7:14) FORGIVE us, and to HEAL us.
We know what God ought to do. The problem is clear, We His people forget our part.
In King Solomon’s day, this is presented like a treaty between a big mighty conquering Country to the smaller, weaker, vassal, country, and the lessor that is ruled by the greater. It was generally called a covenant. It is not something that is negotiated. Generally, the covenant had provision that said if you do in accordance to the rules, good things will happen. If not, bad things were to happen. That is whole emphasis of the Tora, the first five books of the Bible which the Jews call the Law, especially the book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, these sections were called “Blessings and Curses.” God did not ask for our inputs. He did not ask us what we thought was right and wrong. And when His people do wrong, bad things can, and often time do happen. Look around, have we done right, consider the condition of the church today?
So God set the condition. If bad things are happening, when we are not being blessed as we think we should, we want God to HEAR us, to FORGIVE us and to HEAL us.
Do we really want those things? Do we really want God to HEAR us, to FORGIVE us and to HEAL us?
If we really want Go to do those things, then here is what we need to do: We need to HUMBLE ourselves (2 Chron 7:14), PRAY and SEEK God’s face and TURN from our wicked ways,
Only then God will HEAR us, FORGIVE us and HEAL us.
The problem is, we are too set in our ways, too use to our sins. We don’t want to upset what we have going on. That is why we first must humble ourselves. The thing is with God corrective measures that we either humble ourselves before Him or He will humble us.
Matthew 23:12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Humbling ourselves before God is realizing just who we are before Him. We need to know that we do not deserve any of the mercies that He has shown us, and we need to look to Him as the source of all we have and all we are.
Humbling ourselves is a prerequisite to prayer. God does not hear the proud but gives ear to the humble. Remember the story of the Pharisee and the tax Collector?
Luke 18:13–14 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
As we humble ourselves, praying to the Father, in all these we are seeking His face. This is something I suspect very few of us do. Do we really seek out the very face of God, do we hunger and thirst for His very presence?
Isaiah 55:6
Seek the LORD while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
We need to be like the Psalmist:
Psalm 63:1
O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
Our problem is we seek weakly, and we give up too easily.
Jeremiah 29:13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
And in the process of humbling, praying, and seeking, we also must be turning from our sins. The word we’re looking for is repenting. We want forgiveness; we just don’t want to repent. Repentance was one of the primary messages that Jesus preached:
Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Forgiveness and repentance goes hand-in-hand. You cannot have one without the other.
Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’
But God earnestly desires that all come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
These are the very formula for revival. God will not bring revival unless we
HUMBLE ourselves
PRAY and
SEEK God’s face and
TURN from our wicked ways,
If we will do this, then God will:
HEAR us from heaven
FORGIVE us of our sins, and to
HEAL our land.
It is putting all into His hands. It is all about trusting Him. We have mouthed the words, but do we honor the these words with our deeds? With our actions?
This message is for the church, for Christians, those who belong to Christ. Do we want to be revived?
For those who do not know Jesus, this is your call to trust Him also. Jesus doesn’t want a piece of your life, He wants it all. Will you trust now?
(1) https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/its-time-jamie-hudson-sermon-on-time-is-short-188340 & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Rall
(2) https://www.onenewsnow.com/church/2017/07/13/44-of-liberal-dems-claim-churches-bad-for-us
(3) http://www.people-press.org/2017/06/26/support-for-same-sex-marriage-grows-even-among-groups-that-had-been-skeptical/
(4) http://religionnews.com/2014/01/27/great-decline-religion-united-states-one-graph/
(5) https://baptistnews.com/article/freefall-continues-in-sbc-membership-baptism-stats/?gclid=CjwKCAjw-qbLBRB7EiwAftBCI3eGpvSQ1ayhmg6o0tguUnGGCPXSnllu4zyJSpJYMinZ27lg8DH2_RoC100QAvD_BwE#.WWqN2YjyuHs
All Bible References are from the NKJV
