Second Chronicles chapter 7. That's in the Old Testament. Second Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14.
Some of you may have heard this verse before. Others of you may not. It's a pretty popular verse.
It's used often and I think for good reason. I think that it's a very powerful verse.
We're going to look at it today. Second Chronicles chapter 7 verses 14 and 15.
I'll be reading from the New International Version this morning.
We'll read through the verses then we'll pray.
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 them from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.
Now my eyes will be opened and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you and we thank you dear Lord for being good to us.
We thank you for the freedom that we have to come today and to hear your word.
I pray God that your Holy Spirit would be among us this morning.
I pray God that you would speak through me to each one of us.
That we would hear what your word has to say to us dear Lord.
That this verse today that we look at is a call to action dear Lord for us.
That we would seek you, that we would call to you and I pray that today this morning in this place God
that your Spirit would be among us and that we would seek you today.
I pray that you'd hide me behind the cross.
Let your Holy Spirit do the work this morning.
In Jesus name I pray it. Amen.
I have come to realize this week, well I guess I've already realized this
and maybe some of you have realized this too, but that is this.
That is Christianity is quite dangerous.
Christianity may very well be the most dangerous thing in this world.
Now this week as I was thinking on that idea and I read I guess you could call it an article
where somebody had wrote 40 reasons why Christianity is the most dangerous thing
and they were all a bunch of hogwash.
But eventually it comes down to this is that our world is full of evil.
Our world is full of hatred. Our world is full of sin.
And the truth of God's Word and the gospel of Jesus Christ speaks against that.
So many people in our world view Christianity as dangerous because Christianity says no to sin.
It's just that simple.
Christianity says no to sin and we live in a world today that says yes to sin.
The world says yes to sin all the time.
The world says yes to sin and the world forces it upon us.
The world mocks Jesus Christ. The world mocks Christianity.
The world mocks the Word of God.
The world mocks you and I who say that God's Word is true.
Who say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And there was a time in our country at least, I believe, probably before I lived,
that to be a Christian was something that people would be proud of
and something that wouldn't be thought anything of.
But nowadays more than ever, and it's getting worse every day,
that if we speak up and we say that we are a Christian and we say we're a follower of Jesus Christ
and we begin to read and we begin to speak and we begin to tell others about God's Word
that we are under attack more now than I have ever been in my life.
And the Christian message used to be accepted amongst folks in this country.
But more and more we see that the message of Christianity is not accepted,
that God's Word is not accepted, that people would rather believe a lie
than they would believe the truth of God's Word.
And so our world is in a bad place, brothers and sisters in Christ.
It's in a bad place. There's no question about that.
Now maybe it's the worst it's ever been, maybe not, I don't know.
There's been bad times before and this is one of them.
But maybe the difference between the bad times that came 500 years ago
and the bad times that come now is that we weren't living in those times,
but we are living in these times.
And we are in a battle. We're in a battle every day,
and not just with the people that we encounter that may want to come against us,
but we are in a battle every day with sin.
Because we hear every day our world say, well, this isn't that bad.
Well, this is okay and that's okay.
And even if we know the Word of God, sometimes we become compromised.
Sometimes we begin to give in to the lives of the world.
Sometimes we begin to believe that maybe some of these things are okay,
and we begin to live for the world and we stop living for God.
The problem that we see in our world, in our country, in our culture
is that we have taken God out of everything.
When God should be what everything is established on and built upon,
we have begun to remove God in every aspect of our country
and in every aspect of our world, and our world is collapsing.
And those in our world that don't know Jesus Christ,
well, they're trying to come up with all these other reasons why the world is collapsing.
Oh, it's this. Oh, it's that.
Oh, the Christians are the reason why our world is collapsing.
Oh, it's global war. Everything is global war. Everything.
Our world comes up with all these reasons why everything is falling apart
and everybody is evil and all these bad things are happening,
but our world fails to realize it's because we have taken God out of everything.
We do not seek God. We do not call on God.
And when you take God out of a situation, things get really bad, really fast.
Now, we see plenty of evidence of this through the Scriptures.
You look at the Old Testament, God's people, God's chosen people called by His name,
and God wanted to bless them and so many times He did,
but it was always the case that they would begin to worship other gods,
that they would begin to live in sin.
And what happened? Everything fell apart.
When God is removed from the equation, when God's blessing is removed,
when God's protection is removed, everything begins to crumble and begins to fall apart.
And we see it time and time again in God's Word,
that God's people get to these places where things are so bad,
where they are so wicked, where things are falling apart,
that they come to their senses and they humble themselves before God.
And God is so good and God is so gracious that God will hear the prayers of those who will come to Him.
This passage we look at today, it comes at a beautiful time in Israel's history.
There are a few beautiful times in their history in the midst of all their sin.
And there was a king by the name of Solomon. You may have heard of him before.
He was the son of David. And before David died,
he had this desire that he was going to build a house for God.
Now, before this time, during the time of David and before,
there was what was called a tabernacle. We've talked about that, I know,
as we talked about the book of Hebrews.
It was this tent that they would build and had these specific measurements.
Everything had to be in a lot of gold and all these particular materials.
And it was in this place that God would come and dwell among His people.
And David, as David became king, said, Look, I need to build a house for God.
And God said, Look, in all the time that I've been with my people,
I've never once asked for a house.
But nonetheless, God said, A house for me will be built,
but you won't be the one who builds it.
It'll be your son who will build the house for me.
And Solomon comes onto the scene.
And as we see in 2 Chronicles, if you begin to read in chapter 5 and chapter 6,
that can be your homework this week,
you begin to see that Solomon and the people have built this magnificent temple.
It is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
And in preparation to using this temple, they begin to lead up to this,
and Solomon and the people begin to celebrate,
and Solomon prays a beautiful prayer to God in chapter 6.
And he begins to call out to God, and he repeatedly says to God,
God, hear our prayers, hear our prayers, God who dwells in heaven,
God, hear our prayers, God have mercy on us, God protect us, God take care of us,
God, even if we sin, God, would you bless us, God, would you be with us,
God, would you forgive us, God, you are great, you are merciful.
We're building this temple, and we're going to use it for you.
And it's a beautiful prayer that Solomon prays.
And then we flip the page to 2 Chronicles chapter 7.
And here we see God's response to Solomon's prayer.
And at the beginning of 2 Chronicles chapter 7,
we see some of the very things that Solomon had prayed for,
that God, even if we're the worst of the worst,
even if we get in the worst of the worst places,
if we're the worst of the worst people, God, would you have mercy on us,
God, would you have grace on us, God, if we sin and we are wicked
and we are horrible and we are disobedient to you,
would you have mercy on us?
To which God responds in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verse 14.
God says, 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 I will heal their land.
Now, let's stop for a second here and realize the context in which this is written.
This is written to God's people Israel.
And they had a specific land that God had given them at that time,
and they were removed from that land because of their disobedience,
but ultimately God returned them to that land.
We see that at the end of the Old Testament.
And certainly this promise in the context is speaking to God and His people Israel.
Now, I'm not for a second saying that the United States is Israel
or that this promise is to the United States
or any other promise in Scripture for that matter.
What I am saying this is God has not changed,
and I believe that any people in any country at any time
who would seek God and call on Him, that God would hear them.
I believe that that is true for us today.
And what does it say in this passage?
He says, If my people...
Now, we look around our world and we say we need to pray for our nation.
We need to pray for our world.
We need to pray for all the evil and wicked people there for things to change.
But where does God start?
He says, If my people...
It must start with you and I.
We must begin to examine our hearts.
We must begin to take the log out of our own eye
before we try to take the speck out of our brothers.
We want to see our world change.
We want to see our world revive.
We want to see the gospel of Jesus Christ preached throughout the land
that people's lives will be changed.
And that's what will change our world.
But where does that start at?
It needs to start with us.
As 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 17 says,
the judgment begins in the house of God.
Perhaps we need to begin to look at our lives.
Perhaps instead of looking out among us today in our world
and saying the world is so bad,
maybe just maybe God's not working in us
and God's not working in the world because we are not living for God.
Maybe today we need to look at our life and we need to say,
God, I'm not living for you the way I should be living for you.
He says, If my people who are called by my name,
if we are here today and we profess to be Christians
and we say we are children of God,
then we cannot live like the devil.
But too many times that's exactly what we do.
We profess to be Christians,
but we don't live like we're God's people called by God's name.
We live like the devil and like the rest of the world.
And how are we going to reach the world
with our message of the truth of the gospel
if we're living like the world
and not living like the word of God calls us to?
And so God says to his people,
If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves.
When is the last time that you've humbled yourself before God?
When is the last time that you have really took some time
to stop looking at everybody else
and pointing the finger at everybody else
and seeing everybody else's problems and everybody else's sin?
When is the last time you've read God's word
and you've sit before God and you've prayed to God
and say, God, help me to see my own sin in my own life.
God, help me to overcome these things.
God, I repent of these things.
God, help me to see the evil that's in my heart.
God, help me not to live for the world,
but to live for you.
And maybe today we need to take a moment
and we need to look at our own lives.
And we need to say maybe it's not just the people in the world
around us who are wicked.
Maybe it is us who claim to be God's children.
Maybe we are living in some wickedness ourselves.
So maybe today we need to listen to God's word.
And maybe you're a brother and sister in Christ today.
Praise God, that's good.
But I suspect even in this room today,
even those of us who are children of God,
maybe there are some times that we're not living like it.
Maybe the Holy Spirit's been convicting us.
Maybe the Holy Spirit's working on you today.
And maybe today is the time that you need to call out to the Lord
and you need to seek him
and you need to humble yourself before him.
If my people who are called by my name
will humble themselves and seek my face,
we need to humble ourselves before the Lord today
and recognize that we are those who need God,
that we are sinners in need of grace,
that we need God every day to give us the strength
and to give us the guidance to help us to be the men
and the women that he wants us to be.
That he would begin to work in our life,
that he would begin to transform our life,
that he would begin to revive our soul.
So then we would be ready to go out into the world
and do his work.
Perhaps today we're not ready.
Maybe there are some of us today
who are not ready to do the work of God.
And it's not because we're not children of God,
but it's because there's too much sin in our life.
And we're living for our sins,
we're living for God,
and today is the day that we need to repent of that
and we need to seek God,
and we need to call out to God,
and we need to humble ourselves before God
and say, God, I am a mess,
and our world is a mess,
but God, you are good, and your word is good.
And God, I want to be faithful to you
so that I can be a light in this world of darkness.
And God says, if my people who are called by my name
will humble themselves and seek my face,
what does he say?
I will heal their land.
I will heal them.
Now, this is not a message for the lost.
This is a message that God says,
this is for my people.
These are for my people who are called by my name.
God says, if you would seek me,
even in the worst of the worst times,
even if you have strayed,
even if you have sinned,
even if you are wicked and rotten and wretched and horrible,
even still, God says, if you would seek me,
if you would call on me,
if you would humble yourself before me,
I will hear your prayers.
We have to decide today
if we are ready to lift our prayers up to God.
God will certainly hear our request.
When our hearts begin to seek him
and we begin to repent of our sins
and we call out to God,
he will hear our prayers,
but we have to be ready to stop living in sin
and to start living for God.
Now, I don't know where your heart is today.
I don't know if your heart's ready to do that or not.
Maybe you're in this building today
and you're not a follower of Jesus Christ.
Maybe you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Well, I want to tell you today
that that is the only way which we will receive salvation
is through Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.
So we need to pray that God would have mercy on our soul today.
We need to pray that God would let the Holy Spirit work in our heart
and work in our life today,
that we would be those who seek God
and put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ,
and that we would be those that once we have done that,
that we would live for him and not live for the world,
because there is only one thing that's going to change our world
if God sees fit to change our world,
and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That is the truth of God's Word.
It is the truth that our world does not want to hear
because our world wants to say that every sin is okay
and we all need to celebrate it,
but God's Word says sin is not okay and we must stand against it,
and that is why Christianity is so dangerous in our world today.
So if we want to stand for God,
then we've got to get ourselves ready.
We've got to get our own hearts ready.
We've got to get revived ourselves.
We have revival coming up. What a beautiful time.
There's no more perfect time than for God's Spirit to begin to work in our life,
than for us to begin to seek God,
for us to begin to let God change our hearts
so that we can see how God may want to use us
and serve us to his kingdom to change the world.
But it's got to start with us.
If we are God's people who are called by God's name,
then we need to humble ourselves before him today and we need to seek him.
He says in verse 15,
Now my eyes will be open and ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.
Perhaps today in this place there are some prayers that need to be offered to the Lord.
Oh, his eyes are always open, praise the Lord.
His ears are always attentive.
But he doesn't always hear our prayers because we don't always lift him up to them.
But we come here today with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We come here today with the truth to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
who gave his life so that our sins could be forgiven.
We come here today with the truth of God's word that says there is sin in this world,
that there is sin in our life, that every one of us is a sinner in need of a Savior.
That is the truth that we want to recognize today.
That is the truth that we want to humble ourselves before God and say, God, I need you.
God, I need you in my life. I need you in this struggle with my sin.
I need you with these things in this world I'm up against.
I need your strength. I need your mercy. I need your grace.
So God, I come before you today and I seek you.
And when we come before God with all of our heart and seek him,
he'll hear those prayers.
But if we want healing in our land, if we want healing in our world,
it may be that this morning that healing needs to begin in your heart.
Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you today, we thank you for this verse that is so powerful, dear Lord.
Such a wonderful reminder, God, of who we are.
God, we are wicked and wretched sinners.
Dear Lord, we are not deserving of your grace.
Dear Lord, we are tempted by the evils of this world and the sins of this world.
And more often than we would care to admit, dear Lord, we give in to it.
And these sins of this world, they grab their claws into us, dear Lord.
But dear Lord, I pray that this morning that we would no longer desire to live in our sin,
to no longer desire to live for the ways of the world,
but dear Lord, that this morning that we would seek Jesus Christ,
that we would seek to live for you.
Dear Lord, I pray that we would never compromise the truth of your word.
God, sometimes we're tempted to do that, and sometimes we do it, dear Lord.
Sometimes we hear what the world would call truth and we compromise what your word says, dear Lord.
But I pray, God, that we would never give in to the lies and the deceit of this world,
that we would never give in to the lies of sin that the world wants to celebrate and call truth.
But God, we would stand by the truth of your word.
God, it's a dangerous word to those who do not know you.
But dear Lord, I pray that they would hear the truth of God's word,
that they would see the beauty and the love and the peace and the joy,
to know that it is not danger, dear Lord, but it is freedom.
God, maybe there are some here today that do not know you.
They do not know you, dear Lord. They don't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Maybe they've been living in sin. Maybe they've been living in a lie.
But maybe today the Holy Spirit has convicted them and they know that they need to repent
and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Dear Lord, maybe there are some in here today and they're yours.
And God, we are called by your name, but dear Lord, we don't always live like it.
So God, I pray today that there are some that are called by your name,
not living by your name, that dear Lord, we'd be better representatives of you, dear Lord.
If we say we're yours, we've got to represent you in your word, dear Lord,
and the way that it's written.
Too many times, dear Lord, we find ourselves caught up in the things of sin and the ways of sin.
And God, I pray that you would just be with us this morning,
that if there are any who are yours who hadn't been living by your name,
that today that they would.
Dear Lord, you just, your Holy Spirit would work on our hearts, God,
that you would help us to be a people that call on you.
Dear Lord, you will hear us.
You will answer us, dear Lord.
You will be with us if, if we call out to you, God, with all of our heart.
So dear Lord, I pray that if there are any in this room today that are struggling in any way,
dear Lord, we all need you, that we would all call out to you, dear Lord,
that we would seek you to transform our life,
that we would be a willing vessel, dear Lord, to be used by you to bring light into the world.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.