The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
God’s Promise to Forgive
“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.” (2 Chron. 7:14)
As I watched the movie “Unplanned” the other day, I was reminded of this verse. Years ago Fred Hammond turned it into a song that frequently runs through my head. I first heard it sung by a tenor soloist at Calvary Baptist Church. My husband later directed the choir there in the Jimmy Owens arrangement of the song. In the “Unplanned” movie, the verse was cited regarding the contempt for the lives of the unborn babies leaving an abortion clinic in fifty-gallon drums.
We as a nation are guilty of having killed many more God-given babies in the womb than all the Jews killed in the Holocaust, and in the name of mere convenience. We as a nation are guilty of arrogance towards God’s sovereignty in determining whether we are born male or female. We as a nation are guilty of destroying the sanctity of marriage outside of God’s creation of one man/one woman in the name of sexual “freedom”. We as a nation are guilty of greed, covetousness, lies, and idolatry, all contrary to the original Ten Commandments which continue to be the standard by which God judges us. No, I did not vote to make those things legal, but Scripture is clear that, in terms of consequences, we are all held accountable for national sins.
How we need that forgiveness from God, but it requires a humbled nation on its knees. The 2 Chronicles promise was initially made to Israel, but it demonstrates an unchangeable truth about God regarding all of mankind. When we truly repent, He will honor our desire for cleansing and righteousness that accompanies it with His forgiveness.
That is why Jesus Christ died on the cross to bear our sins, to be our advocate before a Holy and Righteous God. Not one of us can live up to the commandments given in Exodus 20:3-17. Galatians 3:22-26 describes the Ten Commandments in terms of the schoolmaster teaching us the impossibility of following every commandment, thereby turning us to Christ for salvation:
“…the scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
National repentance can only come from individual repentance. And individual repentance, also called revival, can only come as the result of the fervent prayers of God’s people, both praying fervently for a national re-awakening to the Holy Spirit as well as living biblically and entirely to God’s will and holiness.
