Home Recent Previous Series Phil's background Creation and science Miscellaneous Links Contact Phil

Closer to God, Part 8 - Conclusion

24th February 2017

2 Chronicles 7 is wonderful chapter of holy Scripture, full of teaching, promise and warning. It's sad that only one verse - verse 14 - is well-known, although that particular verse has a very powerful message for us today. In fact, God gave my church this verse as our focus for 2017. Here it is, just one more time:

2 Chronicles 7
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.

The chapter as a whole teaches us that:

  1. God sends trouble on a land to bring the inhabitants back to Himself.
  2. God gives us conditional promises about the blessings He will pour out on us if we live in right relationship with Him.
  3. God gives us warnings - conditional judgement - about the punishments He will send us if we refuse to turn to Him.

Other passages with similar messages include Deuteronomy 28 but perhaps the simplest summary of this doctrine is in:

Galatians 6v7-9
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Will we take these conditional promises and warnings seriously?

Evangelical Christians everywhere focus - rightly - on Justification by Faith alone. We're right to say no-one can make himself acceptable to God by trying to live a good life. But may God grant us full understanding that the Bible goes beyond teaching us how to be saved, to how to live once we are saved.

If there was a moment when you turned from your sins and accepted by faith Christ's atoning sacrifice, dying on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin, then you have been born again, you have been adopted as God's child, and your eternal destiny is secure. But there's so much more to the Christian life than getting your ticket to heaven.

If we will humble ourselves before God, if we will take prayer seriously, if we will earnestly endeavour to live in close relationship with God, and if we will do all we can to put to death the sin that still troubles us, then we will know the fulness of God's blessing, and our country will be healed.

And my country desperately needs to be healed. And God is waiting to help us.