Secret of healing the land (2 Chronicles 7: 11 – 14)

Secret of healing the land (2 Chronicles 7: 11 – 14)

 

¹¹ Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house: and all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the Lord, and in his own house, he prosperously effected.

¹² And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.

¹³ If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;

¹⁴ If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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.

Intro)

 After Solomon finished the construction of temple, he held opening ceremony which offers the temple to God. During the ceremony the fire came from the sky burned sacrifices and glory of God filled the inside of the temple. 2 Chronicles 7: 1~5 says,

¹Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.

² And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house.

³ And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.

⁴ Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord.

⁵ And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep: so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.

 

The fire from the sky means that God accepted the sacrifices. The ceremony was huge; sacrifices were 22,000 cows and 120,000 sheep. After the offering ceremony God appeared in Solomon’s dream and promised that God will always forgive Israelis if they repent whenever they commit sins.

Verse 13 shows us three types of problem that can happen on the land.

   First is an environmental problem “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain”= Drought, hunger, tornado, earth quake, and etc…

   Second is financial problem. “f I command the locusts to devour the land”= war, terror, unemployment, etc….
   Third is disease. “If I send pestilence among my people”= New flu, AIDS, and many other twisted diseases.

So how can we solve these problems?

1. We must turn our way from the wicked ways. 
   Verse 14 says “turn from their wicked ways”
 When Israel lost battle against Philistines, Samuel gathered people to repent and pray to God. However, philistines found out that Israelis are gathered in a place and they tried to attack, however the God protected His people with thunder and Philistines lost the battle.

   When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the land was cursed. When Cain killed his brother the land was cursed. Genesis 3:16~19 says,

¹⁶ Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

¹⁷ And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

¹⁸ Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

¹⁹ In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

The land is damned because of the sins. So what do we need? Repent. Specifically we need to repent for three major things.

First we didn’t take God’s word seriously. 
God’s word is our standard of life. We need to repent that we lived our life based on what we want.

Second we need to repent on we the Lord’s days we did not keep. Some Christian pastors in Korea literally did not do anything but the preach.  It could be dangerous to live your life by the Christian laws however we need to recover the mental of back in the days. We have to work hard to keep the Lord’s Day.

Third we need to repent that we did not work hard for God.

Bible said God seeks loyal people, and we need to put kingdom of God before us, however some believers did not seem to care about what bible says.

2. We have to be humble.(14) 
   Verse 14 “shall humble themselves” In the mountain the trees which hit by the lightings are the big ones, not the small ones. Arrogance is a poison that will destroy you. Proverbs 18:12 says “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.”

There is this short story, once upon a time a noble lady and her servant traveled together. While they travel, the noble lady falls in to a river. When servant reach his hand and grab her she said “you lowering how you dare touch me?” then servant replied “sorry my lady” and let his hand off her. Then guess what happened? She died.

Proverbs 22:4 says “By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life” When Abraham prayed he refer himself as “which am but dust and ashes” To be blessed we have to be humble.

 

3. We have to seek his face. 
Verse 14 says “seek my face”
   Brothers and sisters prayer is like a generator of power, love and energy. John Knox said “one person with prayer is stronger than a nation without prayer.” During the Japanese colonial period, Japan planned to kill every Christian in Korea on 1945 August 18^th. What Korean could only do was praying. So what happened? God heard the prayer of Korea and let America to drop few atomic bombs on the land of Japan and on August 15^th Korea became independent country.

When Korean War happened, UN tried to decide whether they should help Korea. To decide this matter they had to vote and should have to be anonymous. There are five countries in Permanent Members of the Security Council. one of them was Russia which supported North Korea. However the Russian ambassador couldn’t make it to the council and the vote was anonymous.  The president of South Korea asked Church leaders to pray for the UN vote on that day. God listened and answered the prayers.

Actually, this world is still in conflicts even though it seems peaceful. We need to pray for the world peace.  Psalm 134:1-3 says “1Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. 2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. 3 The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.” Conclusion) The problems of these land is not just bound on the land. The heaven is the key to solve problem. The places which have problem with God suffer. However today through the script God shows us how to deal with these problems.   1. We have to be humble. 2. We must turn our way from the wicked ways 3. WE have to seek his face.  Actually many problems in our life can be solved with this three solutions. Do not under estimate the power of prayer even though you are the only one who pray. Brothers and sisters I hope you remember today’s script and apply those to your life and work hard to live holy