God Will Forgive Your Sins and Heal Your Land … “If”

“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.” (2 Chron. 7:14)

According to Dr. George Barna, CRC Director of Research, “Americans have been aggressively redefining the nation’s morality for the past several decades. That shift is still in progress. Our research provides a compelling context for such a moral recalibration,” He said. “The percentage of adults with a biblical worldview has been sliced in half since 1995. The historic foundation of biblical truth and its impacts on family, faith, education, arts and entertainment, and public policy is mostly a distant memory.”

The Bible warned us what would happen if we turned away from God!

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” (Rom. 1:28-32)

The answer to this moral decline according to George Barna 

 “Unless Christian churches return to the basics to restore the foundations of the Christian faith, and parents train their children to embrace those foundations, there is little reason to believe that the coming quarter-century in America will include our historical levels of freedom.”

I believe George Barna is correct, that churches do need to return to their basic Christian foundations and parents do need to train their children to embrace those foundations. But, none of that will happen unless God’s people first do what God says they must do.

God promises He will do something if His people do something 

The promise verse at the top starts with the tiny conjunction word “if”, which means something will happen only if something else happens first. Let’s look at the passage, a small part at a time, to discover what must be done and what you get “if” you do it. 

“if my people, who are called by my name,”

Notice that this is directed only to God’s people who are called by His Name. It’s not directed at anyone else, no matter how worldly important or politically powerful they may be. It’s directed to God’s people, the ones who are called by His Name, period.

“will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,

Notice that God is telling his people to do four things, 1) Humble themselves, 2) Pray, 3) Seek His Face, and 4) Turn from their wicked ways.

That’s it! It really doesn’t seem like a big thing to do in order to get the HUGE results God promises they will get “if” they do it! 

The results

“then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”