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Closer to God, Part 2 - Affliction

2 Chronicles 7v12b-14

13th January 2017

We began to look at this very well-known passage last week, when we considered these words:

2 Chronicles 7v11-12a
When Solomon had finished the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the Lord and in his own palace, the Lord appeared to him

We saw, I hope, the need to turn back to God, to put Him first, to focus on His priorities, His will, His kingdom, more than our own. If you agree with that (and who could argue with it?) if you're becoming more interested in God's kingdom than your own, let's continue our study.

God told Solomon:

2 Chronicles 7v12b
"I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices."

By "This place" God meant the temple. As we saw last time, Solomon had finished building the temple 13 years previously. But Solomon's temple was destroyed by the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar at the time he took the people of Judea into exile. When Cyrus king of Persia allowed the Jews to go back to Judea, they built a new temple, in the time of Haggai the prophet. That second temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. God's temple is now the church (1 Corinthians 3v16-17). It's vitally important that we understand that the church is the place where God presences Himself, where he receives sacrifices of praise and obedience, and of our very selves, and it's the place where he hears our prayer.

The church is the totality of all the people who have believed in Christ's atoning sacrifice, repented of their sins, and been born again as children of God.

God continued to speak to Solomon:

2 Chronicles 7v13
"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..."

These are devastating words for modern Christians. Many of us have been brought up with the completely non-Christian idea that God would never hurt anybody. Some non-Christians claim to believe there is no God, but most non-Christians in the UK have a vague belief in a God who exists but doesn't do very much, and doesn't judge people or nations. They're wrong. It's obvious to anybody who believes the Bible that the Christian God - the true God - is a God of justice as well as mercy. But many Christians have been trapped into believing this image of a God who never disciplines anybody.

We need to accept the clear teaching of scripture: Drought comes from God. Famine comes from God. Sickness comes from God.

We find that horrifying but the Bible says it's true. When God brings hardship, judgement on a land, it's for a reason. It's to bring a nation back to God. It's to bring us to our knees, so we see His face again. Listen: God plus affliction is infinitely better than no God and no affliction.

Whatever hardship comes to our land has come from God, but it comes because we've misbehaved.

If God sends these hardships to us as a nation, or even as an individual (I believe) it's not because he's cruel or capricious. There's always a reason. It's to cause us to come back to God. I know many people (including myself) who have stories to tell about how our afflictions have brought us back to God.

I also know that this can be an extremely hard thing to hear when you're going through significant affliction. And I accept that there are other reasons as well why we suffer, such as other people sinning against us. But everything that happens is part of God's plan. And God's plan is perfect - because it's God's. I know some people, including some Christians cannot or will not accept this. But God is Lord of ALL the earth, of all history, and of all people. He's Lord of all joys and all sorrows, of all blessings and all afflictions, even for Christians. Remember the words of Hebrews 12v7-11:

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined - and everyone undergoes discipline - then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

This is the truth.

Many people are brought back to God - or closer to God - through affliction, and afterwards are able to thank God for the pain they experienced, because they see what good was done through it.

The important question is: how are we going to respond to affliction? We might feel like turning away from God in despair, but a godly response will bring us back to God, and will transform both us and our circumstances:

We can see this by reading the next verse:

2 Chronicles 7v14
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.

Affliction brings us an invitation to turn back to God, in humility and prayer, seeking His face and repenting of our sin. And when we do, God will act.

More on verse 14 next time.