To my shame, I once thought this verse overused. In the 1980-1990’s, it was quoted for every right-wing cause. There was the not-so-veiled equating with “their land,” which in context was Old Testament Israel, with the United States. But this is an invalid equation. If we extract 2 Chronicles 7:14 from political agendas and Dispensational-Zionist radicalism, these precious lines give us a plain path forward in our perilous times.
First, notice the “I’s” that proceed v. 14: “If I shut up heaven, so there is no rain.” “If I send pestilence.” The Lord is sovereign over all trouble and disasters, manmade and directly heaven-sent. The Lord does these things. If there is calamity in the city, he has done it (Amos 3:6). The reason we are confused in times of trouble, but our Puritan forefathers were not, is that they believed in a sovereign God who rules everything: fire, floods, avalanches, hurricanes, disease, death, hunger, judgment, as well as life, health, prosperity, good crops, God-fearing leadership. He is the great I AM who “works everything according to the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).
The prophet tells us that when we experience these calamities, when murderers dominate the political powers, when Sodomites are beating down our national doors, when economic theft through money-printing and monetization of debt is institutionalized as a way of life, when we know that satanic darkness has descended upon our land, the Lord has sent it. The Lord sends the devouring locusts, whether those in my backyard or the socialists gathered in the state house. The Lord has sent them. Unless we believe this, unless we take God’s sovereignty seriously so that HE utterly grips our soul, we shall never heed his call to turn to him.
Because he has sent these things upon us who bear his name, then we must humble ourselves. It is vital to understand this. He does not tell the blind rulers over our land to humble themselves, though they should. They are dead in sin. They know not the Sender of tribulation, and they will not humble themselves. “The wicked, through the pride of his face, will not seek God” (Ps. 10:4). Wicked men will not humble themselves under the worse imaginable judgment. The wicked hate God and are intent upon building their own city to stand against our Savior’s church.
Instead, we must humble ourselves. This does not mean a passive-aggressive, beating yourself up and cutting yourself down mentality, then doing exactly what you were doing before. To humble ourselves before God is to get on our faces, confess our wickedness, bemoan that we deserve these calamities, and quietly wait upon his sentence, his help, his mercy. And, since the humbling is joined with a seeking of his face, it means that we are turning to him and resolve to do what he says – no matter what the consequences.
There is no humility before God unless there is obedience to his word. As God’s people who bear his name, we must turn from our own sins. We take his name in vain, get close to it, and do not utterly reverence his name. We do not honor our parents. Rebellious teenagers in the church are as much responsible for floods and death as disobedient parents who yell at their children or treat them coldly.
When it comes to humbling ourselves under the Lord’s hand and turning to him, there are no safe spaces we reserve for our favorite sins. There are no limits. Broken relationships in which men will not humble themselves and place themselves under God-ordained authority – repent. Repent today. Wives that carry on a private, self-justifying war against their husbands – repent. Repent now. Humble yourself, daughter of the King, now. Robbing God of his time, his money, his energy, his purity, other’s reputation by slander – repent. Repent today. Discontentment with your home, your wife, your job, your husband, your circumstances – this is nothing but spitting in God’s face and a very selfish form of blasphemy – repent now. Sexual lusts, longed for gratification, self-gratification – repent now. Would you bring more darkness into your home, judgment upon our land, death and destruction. “Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6).
This is what it means to turn from our wicked ways. The Lord does not tell us to yell at the wicked for not turning from their wicked ways. He will deal with them. The present judgments will deal with them and his wonderful mercy will deal with them. But if we would not be judged along with the world, we must judge ourselves, as the Spirit said through his apostle (1 Cor. 11:31). Will the American churches repent when many pastors will not preach on repentance? They will hint that “something is wrong” and that we “hope for better days ahead,” but this is a fool’s hope. The sin and evil of baby harvesting for medical experimentation, adult encouragement of child mutilation, supporting Ukraine’s war on Russia and Israel’s on Palestinians, these are positive evils. But these are not the evils, at least not the primary ones, the Lord has in mind. He says an uncomfortable pronoun – their. Their wicked ways – our wicked ways. We have not spoken out prophetically, collectively, against the evils of our times, shared the gospel with everyone, prayed constantly for the glory of Christ to grow in our land. We have not better supported agencies like Obria that provide a real-life alternative to scared mothers who are being lied to by the priestesses of Molech.
Closer to home, we must turn from our sins. God now commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:31). But in times of calamity, the only finger pointing of true Christians is at ourselves. We cannot remove the forest of sin from our fellow-citizen’s eye until the mote of pride, arrogance, lust, self-love, self-satisfaction, self-reliance, cursing, envy, slander, coldness toward fellow-Christians, refusal to work at abiding in Christ’s word through memorization and meditation, neglect, therefore, of the sword of the Spirit, dishonor to authority, disobedience to parents, discontentment, forgetfulness and disrespect to his gracious seasons of Reformation in the church, and neglect of God’s preached word are removed from our own eyes.
Real repentance is visceral – in the gut, so painfully honest that it hurts. It turns us inside out before the holy God. Real repentance is not anger at the government. It is anger at yourself, as Ezekiel said: self-loathing (Ezek. 20:43; 36:31) that we have sinned against God, love our convenience more than his honor, fear men more than Him, take our ease rather than relieving the suffering, refuse to serve, or gather for prayer. Repent. You will not hear this in the blind media, Satan’s reporting agency. You will hear a great deal of blaming, right and left. Let us do what the Lord says: blame ourselves. And blaming ourselves, we shall, by his mercy, humble ourselves. An eternal mark, a bruise of grace, will be left upon our souls, so that we turn to Jesus Christ as our only righteousness and cleansing. Then, being forgiven, one thought, one thought must grip us – how can I please my Lord who loved and gave himself for me.
He promises to hear his people when they humble themselves. He is a far greater Savior than we are sinners, a far greater Light than our present darkness. He promises in 2 Chronicles to heal our land, but his healing is not a different national leader, or better jobs, or all the ways that worldly men look to fill their bellies and their purses. I will not dare tell the Lord what healing our particular land must look like. I can only imagine that it would include the holiness of Christians, bolder proclamation of God’s truth, deeper love within our bodies and for the world of lost men, delight in worship and the preached word, burning hearts for Jesus Christ, and love for God’s holy law. A healed land is about healed men and women. And only Jesus Christ, the Healer, can heal us.
Are you concerned, broken about what is happening around us? Do something. Do this. Really do 2 Chronicles 7:14. Let this be a season in our lives to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand. Please join together in seeking the Lord to these ends. For the month of October, there will be a weekly additional prayer meeting on Wednesday’s at noon to humble ourselves before the Lord. “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32).
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