Finding The Way Back
2 Chronicles 7:14
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Introduction: The Discovery Channel sometime ago carried the story of a group of spelunkers or cave explorers. When we lived in Rolla years ago, we used to go caving. Ours were short treks into the underground world. We might go for a half hour or so before the cave ended. We did find one three-story cave filled with spectacular rock formations. Our little caves were scary enough—the darkness, dampness, and bats—especially the bats! I can’t imagine crawling on your belly for hours or diving into water to go under a rock wall and hope to emerge on the other side alive. That’s what real cavers do.
The cavers on TV did something else very important that we never found necessary. They marked their trail. The dark underground passages came be confusing at best. In the darkness every passage looks alike. The explorers would leave rocks or markings to show the right path back out. In certain places, they would string a rope or fine line through the passage. To return to the surface, they merely followed the line or the marks back in the direction they had come.
There’s a parable in there some place. It is easy to get lost in the darkness. We drift or wander from God. Finding our way back can be confusing. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone marked the trail back for us? Our text—2 Chronicles 7:14—does just that. It marks the way back for those who have become lost in the darkness.
There’s another important dimension to this text as well that is important for this time of the year. I am sure all of us are concerned about the drift of our nation. The older among us have witnessed lots of changes in our lifetimes, much of it not good.
Several years ago, William Bennett, one time US Secretary of Education, began to compile what he called The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators. Business people had long used economic statistics to track the well-being of our nation. Bennett was convinced that there is more to life than money and possessions. I think I have heard that somewhere else before! Bennett gathered the numbers that track other issues in American life. Here is part of what he discovered. His first studies were done about fifteen years ago. If anything, the darkness has increased.
Since 1960, while the gross domestic product has nearly tripled, violent crime has increased at least 560 percent. Divorces have more than doubled. The percentage of children in single-parent homes has tripled. And by the end of the decade 40 percent of all American births and 80 percent of minority births will occur out of wedlock.
The United States leads the industrialized world in murder, rape and violent crime. At the same time, our elementary-school students rank at or near the bottom in tests of math and science skills. Since 1960, average SAT scores in our high schools have dropped 75 points.
In 1940, teachers identified the top problems in America’s schools as: talking out of turn, chewing gum, making noise and running in the hall. In 1990, teachers listed drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, suicide, rape and assault.
Most of us are all too aware of the reality those statistics describe. The question is—is it too late for our nation to turn around? What is the path back? Our text provides an answer to those questions. It was first addressed to another people in another time, but the principles still apply today.
Note how 2 Chronicles 7:14 divides into three parts—the people, the path, and the promise.
The People: “If my people, who are called by my name, . . .” The immediate reference is to the nation of Judah, the remnant of God’s special people. We can, by application see principles that relate to the church, Christian individuals, and to any group or nation that desires to have a personal relationship with God. But we dare never forget that the first context was to Judah.
To be God’s people is to be in a personal relationship with him. Judah was more than a geographical or political entity. Judah was a nation called and blessed by God. The Living God here promises to make that temple his special place. He wasn’t limited to it. Solomon knew that. God affirms that throughout the Scriptures. But here he would enter into a special relationship with them.
“MY” speaks not so much of ownership and possession as relationship. God knows his people and they know him. To be “called by his name” is to proudly own and affirm that relationship.
But relationship always means responsibility. This principle is often lost in our discussion of faith. Verse 13 makes this clear with the startling warning of divine judgment and punishment. “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, . . " It is not “if” but “when.” God knows his people will stray. He knows he will someday need to send judgment, but he still enters into this special relationship with them.
At first blush this warning sounds dark and foreboding. In reality it is an expression of divine love, ultimate love. When his people stray, God doesn’t immediately “zap” them into oblivion. The drought, the locust, and the plague spoken of are actually divine discipline. Discipline is never welcome, but from the hand of God it always flows from love.
The Path: the trail back home to God involves four steps. These same four steps are illustrated over and over again in the pages of 2 Chronicles. When the good kings of Judah led spiritual revival, personal and national, it was always these steps they took, in one form or another.
The path back starts with an honest appraisal of the situation. Denial, self-righteousness, or arrogance that presumes on the mercy of God never leads home. Only a humble admission that we are sinners who have strayed and need God’s mercy will bring us home.
That is clearly seen in Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son. Lost, broke, hungry, stranded in a pigpen, the son finally “came to himself.” The rationalization and denial stopped. He wasn’t free. He wasn’t having a good time. He wasn’t better off away from his father’s watchful eye. This honest recognition was absolutely necessary before he could ever take the first step home.
This is true of every prodigal son and prodigal people.
The second step was prayer. God is willing to forgive and bless. But we must ask. Until we ask, we do not own our plight. Without asking, we act like God owes us rescue and forgiveness. Honestly asking for his help and his mercy is the natural next step of humility.
“And seek my face.” Many times this expression is a synonym for prayer. But here it adds an important ingredient. It is possible to pray without truly wanting a renewed relationship with God. We can pray for things, for rescue, for blessings and all the time not want to come into the very presence of God. “To seek his face” is to desire God more than God’s gifts.
The Prodigal Son could have sent a letter home asking for a money, or rescue, or even advice. All of that could have been a substitute for the path home and the encounter with the waiting father. Our self-seeking prayers can be substitutes for what we really need—the presence of God.
“Turn from their wicked ways”—This final step is vital. The Prodigal Son could never have truly gone home, if he had insisted on bringing the pigpen with him. Going home and leaving the muck and mire of our plight go hand in hand for any prodigal. To know the father is to know that he won’t live with the mess the prodigal had created for himself.
Turning or repenting is a part of receiving divine forgiveness. Repentance doesn’t earn God’s grace. His grace is already available long before any sinner ever repents. But anyone who wants reconciliation with the father must desire to leave the wickedness that separates him from home. That is just reality.
The Promise: Three promises follow. First God promises to hear such a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation. This promise is the ultimate expression of grace. Without it nothing else could follow.
He promises to forgive. He wipes away the sin. He pledges to not hold it against us. He, like the prodigal’s father, is eager and waiting for our return. The father in Jesus’ story spared no expense in joyously receiving the son back. The welcome was better than anything the son had ever experienced in the all the fun times of the far country.
God pledges to heal the land. This is a reminder that sin has personal and corporate consequences. It is not only the sinner that suffers, but also his family, his friends, and in some way even his land. Whether this is a reference to the impact of sin on the nation or the actual property of the sinner, the point is still the same. Indeed, our neighbors suffer the effects of our sin. They live in a less righteous land. Also, the earth itself exists under the weight of sinful humanity. Wicked, selfish, greedy people pollute the land literally and spiritually! To all of this God’s promises healing.
Conclusion: Our land needs healing just as much as the Old Testament nation needed it. None of us doubt that. Our text promises that the healing we need will not come from political programs or social changes. Some of that may be good. The ultimate healing will come from the hand of God. Our nation and our individual lives will experience the blessed touch of Almighty God only when we follow the trail marked for us in this passage.
Healing and forgiveness comes to those who want, to those who recognize and admit they needed. God resists the proud but gives more grace to the humble. The way back includes prayer—asking for God’s intervention and help. But our goal must be about more than just seeking our own well-being. We must seek God’s face. We must want to know him and love him more and more. The way back involves a turn around. We must turn from wickedness. God can not bless those who persist in walking away from him.
The good news—there is a way back for us individually and for a nation drifting in the darkness. God promises to hear, to forgive, and to heal our land.
May it be so!
“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” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
