2 chronicles 7:14, if my people

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 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.” 2 Chr 7:12-14

God is not slow to take credit for the troubles inflicting the land. The grammar of the Lord’s response to Solomon’s prayer, is God in the active voice. He is the doer of the action, that inflicts troubles on the land. Why would He do such a thing to the people He loves?

But in spite of what the doom and gloomers are saying this morning, when you wake up one morning and discover you are on a road you do not want to be on, there is a way back and there is hope. God outlines the way back for a lost nation in 2 Chr 7:14.

The Lord asks three things:

1) That people humble themselves;
2) That people pray and seek His face;
3) That people turn from their wicked ways.

And the people that He is requiring to walk this path of return and restoration to blessing, are not the atheist, evolutionist, God- hating, self- promoting, flesh- and money- loving lost. They can continue in their foolish and destructive path. But, if His people, who are called by His name, will do these three things, then He will also forgive their sin and heal their land. Yes, just as He took credit for the adversity, He will also take credit for the recovery. The compliance and cooperation of atheists and the unrighteous is not required.

Here I must mention, that God obeys His own Word. He watches over His Word to perform it. He will require all three conditions to be met, otherwise if He was willing to do with the best two out of three He would have said so. So this week and perhaps even this month, we are going to look at the biblical and Scriptural definition of God’s three requirements, and discover what it is — from the sourcebook — that He is asking us to do.