Then Will I Heal Their Land

A good friend of mine that used to go from church to church to strengthen churches in the area of small groups. I remember when I was pastoring in Texas in seminary, he talked about how in his house there were pictures crooked and there were cobwebs in certain areas of the house. And he's seen it so many times and walked past it so many times he didn't notice it. But when somebody came in from the outside, they immediately saw it and pointed it out. And there's value in bringing someone in from the outside to your church. And it's been an absolute joy to be with you.

I want to just tell you that coming in as an outsider, what I see, I see a lot of joy. I see a lot of love. I see a lot of unity. I see a lot of service. I see a lot of loyalty and love for Jesus Christ. And it's exciting to me. Brother Jeff and I had a long conversation several days this week. And I was just glorifying God, telling him all that I see the Lord doing here. And I promise you this, it's going to intensify in the next coming years. And every struggle that you've ever had, every pain you've ever been through, every division you guys have ever had, every conflict that you've ever been through, trust me, it's worth it.

And you're going to be glad in the days to come that you didn't cut corners, that you paid the price, that you stood on truth. The unity and the joy and the love and the peace that you will experience as a church is going to be worth every pain that you went through for Christ to bring you to that place. And while I understand we never arrive, a healthy biblical New Testament church is worth it.

It was an absolute joy last night to stay up here for a while after the service was over, speaking to the leaders of the church, and just fellowshipping and talking about the church, talking about the days to come, talking about what they see the Lord doing in this church, and just answering their questions and just telling them where we've been and comparing notes, absolute joy. You guys are in safe hands. God has given you godly, scripturally qualified men to lead you. And I believe that probably the greatest compliment that I could give your leaders, and particularly your pastors, is that I respect them.

And I don't just throw that around loosely. But I deeply respect your pastors. They are men of God. And I believe they're leading you in the direction that God would have you go. And I know they are, because they're following not their own ideas, but the word of the Lord. They're truly patterning this church upon the New Testament, the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. And it's just a joy to be your partner. It's a joy to be your sister church. It's a joy to co-labor with you. God's doing something extra special and letting us be a part of it through anchored in truth.

And it's such a joy after all these years for Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church to give a dollar to missions and see that a dollar goes to missions, and to missions work that we actually agree with, that we support wholeheartedly, that we would allow to come and be a part of our local church. It's just a joy to be on this journey with you guys. And from your sister church back in Tennessee, this week Chris said, man, everybody in Alabama and Tennessee and Mississippi and Georgia, we're all cousins. And we are. And it's just a joy to be pulling in the same direction with you guys. Thank you for letting me come.

Thank you for letting me be a part. I needed it. I have been revived being here this week. I needed the break. I needed to get out of town. I needed the solace. I needed the study time. And I needed to be with you. And it's been a joy to be with you. If you would one more time tonight, open your Bible to 2 Chronicles chapter 7. 2 Chronicles chapter 7. And I would like to conclude the series that we began Sunday night on revival. And I've got to tell you that I've always had a prayer. I've always had a dream. I've always had a desire in my heart of things that I've read about from church history.

What I've read about in the first and second great awakenings, what I've read about in great revivals of days gone past. I don't know if the Lord will let me see that in my lifetime. I've got to tell you that my joy is complete in Christ. And I'm happy with the portion Jesus has allotted to me. But I've got to be honest with you that if I die without seeing the kind of revival I've read about, I'm going to be a little bit disappointed. I believe in revival. I preach revival. I pray for revival. And I long for revival.

And tonight's kind of the conclusion of what it would look like if you and I, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, were to experience genuine revival. And here's the thesis of the last message. Revival is never a work that stays only within the walls of the church. As a matter of fact, I can't really think of any work that the Spirit of God does in the heart and the life of a child of God that doesn't emanate outward through the land, through the world. So God doesn't give us revival, repair, restoration, renewal for us to set on our blessed assurance.

He gives us revival and repair and renewal so that we might have an impact, a greater impact in the land. I read of revivals of days gone by in the awakenings of this country where the church was so alive. And God's spirit, almost like when Solomon dedicated the temple to Jehovah, the fire of God failed. And the presence of God was so strong. It captivated everyone and everything. And Christ was the focus. And God was the center.

And I read about revivals in our own country where the presence and the power of God was so strong that the taverns shut down and the bars shut down and the filthy donkey drivers stopped cursing and whipping their donkeys. And God was on the lips of the people. And God was the discussion in the classroom. And God was the discussion in the city square. Oh, that God would so captivate Grace Life Brookhaven that he would captivate Brookhaven, that this city would take note of your God because he's taken captive you. And that's what this text describes. Let me read it again. If my people-- see, he's beginning with us. But notice how it spreads.

Notice how revival gets beyond us. If my people, which are called by my name-- it's still personal-- shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin? It's still personal. But look now at the shift and heal their land. It's moved beyond them now. They've humbled themselves. The people of God have prayed. They've sought God's face. They've turned from their wicked ways. God has heard them. God has forgiven them. He's moved. And now he moves to heal their land. And tonight we come to the promise of revival. And it's all wrapped up in this one word, heal.

You probably have heard this word before. There's clinics in our country named after this Hebrew word, rafa. And it means what it says. It means to heal. It's the image of stitching and mending up an open wound and closing it up. It means to cure someone. As I've said all week long, this word rafa means to repair. It means to restore. It means to make something whole in a word. It means to revive. And what is it that God here promises to heal? I don't have to make this up. I don't have to pick something from the sky. He tells us what it is when we humble ourselves and pray and seek his face and turn from our wicked ways that he will heal.

God says I will rafa, repair, restore, make whole your land. The emphasis of the text is clear to see. When God's people obey the Lord, humbling themselves, praying, seeking God's face, turning from their sin, the Lord hears us. The Lord forgives us. And the Lord begins to do something in our land. Church, listen to me. Our land desperately needs the Church of Jesus Christ to seek God because our land is sick. And it desperately needs to be healed by God. Here's the whole thesis of this text that has built to this point.

There's a correlation, a direct correlation that cannot be separated between God healing the Church and God's healing the land. And let me just say, this is not a concept foreign to the New Testament at all. You should see this immediately. Do you remember-- and I know you do what Jesus Christ said to us, the Church. Fill in the blank. He said, you are the salt of the earth. You salt earth. Do you see the connection? He goes on. You are the light of the-- what? The world. Do you see the connection? Salt has an effect on the earth. Light has an effect on the world.

And any preacher, if you will, sticking with this text, worth his weight in salt. When he preaches this text would tell you that Christians, the Church, through their saltiness, they are a retarding agent of sin and corruption and disease and perversion in the earth. And if a church is what it's supposed to be, being light-- and Chris started out tonight reminding us of that-- if the church is being light, it's exposing darkness. It's chasing away darkness. This is the church. This is our ministry. God needs to revive us so that our saltiness is restored.

God needs to revive us so that the luminescent light that we have in Jesus Christ shines even brighter and brighter. And the salt affects the earth, and the light affects the world. It'd be real easy this Wednesday evening for you and I to point a finger at the world and call it wicked. But did you notice in this text, it's us that God's called wicked. God's not pointing his finger at the world. The world just does what the world does. The world's lost. The world's in sin. The world's in corruption. It'd be real convenient for us to boast and talk about all the wickedness in the world. But it's us that God calls to turn from our wicked ways.

The problems in America are not economic. Economic problems are but a symptom. The problem in America is not crime. Crime is but a symptom. The problem in America is not immorality. Immorality, again, is a symptom. Our problem chiefly is not drug abuse. That's but a symptom. The problem is not abortion. The problem is not murder. The problem is not homosexuality. The problem is not gay marriage. And the problem is not gender confusion. All of those are certainly sins, but they're symptomatic of a deeper problem. The problem in our land is the church, my people. God's people are sick. America's problems are all spiritual problems.

No elected official can fix it. No president can fix it. Congress, the House, throwing more money at it is not going to fix it. Our land will only be healed when we, God's people, humble ourselves. Pray, seek God's face, and turn from our wicked ways. We must take personal responsibility for the state of our country, of our city. Our nation is sick because the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is weak and compromised. And as so goes the church, so goes the land. And that's always been the case. And as I prayed and meditated for this final message from 2 Chronicles 7, I was gripped by this discovery. I've already pointed it out.

There's a connection between what happens with my people and what happens with the land. The church desperately needs revival. And we have a responsibility before God to seek Him for revival because our land-- now, I know the world doesn't appreciate the church and the world doesn't want the church, but the world needs the church. The world needs the church to be the light and the salt that she was birthed to be. I want you to see four vital connections in this last message tonight between my people and the healing of the land. Four vital connections between the people of God and the healing of the land.

First of all, this text reveals that there's a connection between the house of God and the land. There's a connection between the house of God and the land. Look at verse 12. "I have heard thy prayer," speaking of the house of God, the temple, Solomon's temple. "And I have chosen this place to myself as a house of sacrifice." Look at verse 14. He says at the close, "I will heal their land." That's on the heels of Him talking about the house of God. Verse 15 and 16, "My eyes shall be opened. My ears shall attend to the prayer that's made in this place. I have chosen and sanctified this house that my name may be here forever.

My eyes and my heart shall be here perpetually." I would say this to you. What happens-- or it could be said, what does not happen at the house of God? What happens at the house of God-- or what does not happen at the house of God-- has a direct effect on the land? Listen to how God describes His house. He says, "I've heard your prayer." Verse 12. Do you know that Jesus called the church that? Jesus said, "My house shall be called the house of--" what? Prayer. Jesus said, "My house," Matthew 21, 13, "shall be called the house of prayer." The Lord Jesus tells us what should be going on in His house. It should be prayer.

We're called-- we're not called by God to get on Twitter and lambast public officials. We're not called to get on Twitter and gripe about all the problems in our country. We're not called to get on Facebook and have a tirade about all the things the government did we didn't like. But I can show you solid scripture that commands you to pray for them. I wonder if maybe our country might be moved a little bit more toward righteousness if we stopped griping and started praying, if we got off Twitter and got on our knees. And by the way, Twitter is nothing but a cesspool for just criticism and bombastic language and humiliation.

There's very little profitable that I see there, but there's much profitable that I see in prayer. You and I are called to pray. You may not have voted for our president. You may not like a lot of his policies. I certainly don't. Most of them are not Christian, but you are commanded to pray for him. And let me warn you about something. It can always get worse. It can always get worse. Paul said, "I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all those that are in authority, that we might live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth." And I'm doing this from memory of church history, and I think I'm right. When he wrote that, Nero was king. Wicked, wicked, murderous. And yet Paul called Timothy to lead the church at Ephesus to pray for those officials. There should be a house of prayer here. You and I should be praying for our land, not criticizing, not condemning, praying. I don't know of a single revival that ever took place in this country or any other without some child of God beginning by being broken before God in prayer.

One of the greatest tools our sovereign God has given to us to affect change in this fallen world is what we neglect and its prayer. And I'm telling you, I'm as guilty as you. I'm not sitting up here playing the hypocrite. I don't want to make myself look spiritual and act as if I'm speaking down to you. I'm not speaking down to you. I'm speaking straight with you because I'm right where you are. If we prayed-- are you all listening to me? One half as much time as we spend looking at our cell phones. One half as much as we spent looking at our cell phones. We might just have revival. It is amazing.

John Piper said the cell phone is proof that when we stand before God in judgment, we will be without excuse that we did not have time to pray. It's amazing the amount of time we spend in a real world with real problems and even in our own families with real problems and in our church with real problems and we don't pray. He said, if my people will humble themselves and pray, there's a direct connection between the house of God and the land. We should be praying, pleading, interceding. That's what Christ does before the throne of God on our behalf right now. And it's what the Holy Spirit does with groanings, which cannot be uttered.

Romans chapter 8 right now. If you want to be like Jesus, you've got to pray. There will be no revival without prayer. There will be no revival in Brookhaven, Mississippi without prayer. There's a connection between the house of God and the land. If you see that, would you say amen? Own it. Number two, there's a connection between the people of God and the land, not just the house of God. There's a connection between the people of God and the land. Look at it again. If my people-- and then he closes it by saying, I will heal their-- who is there? My people. I will heal their land. If my people-- I will heal their land. What is a church?

You guys have certainly learned it's not a building. It's not the building. The church is people. My people. It's God's redeemed people. It's God's elect. It's God's chosen people that he is calling to, to turn from their sins, to pray, to effect change in the land. There's a direct correlation between my people and the land. When Israel sinned in the days of Eli and Hopny and Phineas, 1 Samuel 3, 11 through 14, God-- listen, God judged the land around them because of their sins. God said of Eli's sons, their sons of Belial. They know not the Lord, 1 Samuel 2, 12. They were wicked.

And because of the sins of God's people, specifically Hopny and Phineas, the Philistines came, attacked Israel, slew Hopny and Phineas, 1 Samuel 4, 17, and took the literal Ark of the Covenant away into the land of the Philistines out of the temple, out of the tabernacle, 1 Samuel chapter 6, 1, for seven months. When news of this defeat reached the ears of Eli, he was sitting on a stoop, and he fell off backwards and broke his neck and died, 1 Samuel 4, 8. Phineas's wife was at that moment in labor, giving birth to a son. And they came in and told her the Philistines have come. They've slain Hopny and Phineas. They've-- Eli is dead.

The baby was born. And she named him Ichabod, which means God's glory has departed from Israel, 1 Samuel 4, 21. But it's the seven months that the Ark of the Covenant was in Philistia that I want to draw your attention to. In that seven months, because the people of God were not light, because the people of God were not salt, because the people of God were worshiping Baal and worshiping false gods and compromised and weak and sick, in that seven months that the Ark of the Covenant was in Philistia, God just about tore that nation to shreds. Their god, Dagon, kept falling over in the face of the Ark of the Covenant.

And they'd prop him back up, and he'd fall back down. And finally, his trunk broke, and he disintegrated. The people of Philistia may not be the best thing to say in the pulpit, but I got to say it to be true to the word of God. God struck them all with painful hemorrhoids. You can read about it in 1 Samuel 5, 5 through 12. People were slain all over Philistia. There was a deadly destruction throughout the city, the land. And men died and were smitten. And the city wept up to God, 1 Samuel 5, 12. What's the point? Are you listening? Here's the point. There's a direct correlation between the sin of God's people and the misery of the land.

The lost world around Israel, who was supposed to be-- if you read the Old Testament, Israel was given to be a light to the nations. That's what they were supposed to be, just like we're to be the light of the world. But they miserably failed in that task God gave them. And because the light of God wasn't being shown, the world around them suffered and was inflicted greatly. Again, I say there's a direct connection between the house of God and the land. And there's a direct connection between the people of God and the land.

See, it's very convenient, again, and I might add extremely hypocritical for us to point fingers at the world when, in fact, we're the problem. We've got to own this. We pray for revival and sing for revival, but we're not really willing to take that kind of inward look that lets us see, man, we're the problem. Number three, there's not only a connection between the house of God and the land, the people of God and the land-- and I know these overlap-- but there's a connection between the sin of God's people and the sickness of the land. There's a direct connection between the sin of God's people and the sickness of the land.

Look this way for just a second. If you could grasp this, if you could understand this, this would be a great aid and assistance to your sanctification and holiness. No man, no woman, no Christian-- listen to me-- no Christian sins in a vacuum. Your sin always affects other people. There may be a dad in here. He's trying to live a double life. He's got sin that he thinks he's covered. I'm telling you right now, your sin will find you out. And the problem with it is your sin will always affect and hurt the most the people you love the most. We don't sin on an island. Sin has consequences. Sin has wages.

And I think the church forgetting that has given us a promiscuous view towards sin. We think that we can sin. And there's no real effect. There's no real consequences. But I'm telling you, this is why we need the message of revival. The land's in the state it's in because of the perversion and the sin in the church. The compromise, the rot and the ruin in the church. What we do in moderation, the land doesn't excess. We're the ones to retard it. We're the ones to slow the decay. We're the ones given to give the light exposing. And yet we find oftentimes that we're the problem.

God said to his people, I'm going to shut up the heavens that there will be no rain. I'm going to send the locusts to devour the land. I'm going to send the pestilence among my people. Second Chronicles 7.13. Remember that it was Israel's sin with Baal that caused Elijah to pray that it might not rain by the space of 3 and 1/2 years. It was Israel's sin that caused the land to have a drought. Do you see that? He said, I'm going to command the locusts to devour the land. The locusts came and ate the crops because the sin of God's people. Not the nation, not the land. It was my people. If they'll turn from their wicked ways.

God said, I'll send pestilence among my people. Did you hear that? My people. They're the cause of the sickness of the entire nation, of the sickness of the land. I told you, I think, Sunday, I'm doing the read through the Bible this year. And I came to Leviticus 18 just a few weeks ago. And it describes this very phenomenon I'm talking about. It says, and the land is defiled, therefore do I visit the iniquity upon it. And the land itself will vomit out her inhabitants. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, neither any of your own nation nor the stranger which is among you.

For all these abominations have been done in the land, and the land is defiled, and the land will spew you out. It will vomit you out. Again, I would say that it would be real convenient. It would be real easy for you and I to poke our self-righteous chest out and point at our nation and bemoan its wickedness. But the nation got where it is because the church is doing everything under the sun except what Jesus commanded her do, which is why-- look-- which is why I told your pastor this day, Brookhaven, Mississippi needs Grace Life Church. They may not know it, and they may not appreciate it, but man, how your city needs you.

They need-- desperately need you to be Christ Church, to be a biblical church, to be that kind of salt and that kind of light that Jesus describes. And it's not going to go down easy. I know, believe me, but how your town needs that kind of church. And lastly, there's a connection between the house of God and the land. There's a connection between the people of God and the land. There's a connection between the sin of God's people and the sickness of the land. And lastly, thank God, there's a connection between the revival of God's people and the healing of the land. That's the whole point.

There's a connection between the revival of God's people and the healing of the land. I just can't tell you. There's nothing of all the perversions I named in the beginning of my message of all the sins that I mentioned in the beginning of my message. None vex me quite like what I'm about to tell you. And that is the professed church of Jesus Christ doing everything under the sun that it can do to be just like the world. God did not save you and call you to be like the world. He saved you and called you to be like the Lord Jesus, to be light and to be salt and to be the conscience of the state.

Christ called you to prick the conscience of the city that He placed you in, that there is a God, and He's holy and He's just, and He will in no wise acquit the wicked. And there will be a judgment day. And let me say, hell has gone nowhere. And just because men no longer preach on it, doesn't change the fact that it is alive. And the redeemed will go to be with Christ in heaven. And those without Christ will spend eternity in a lake of fire. Read the last book of your Bible. Brothers and sisters, we're not playing games. God placed us here in this world to be His ambassadors, not to play footsies with the world.

And there's a direct connection between the revival of God's people and the healing of the land. I read it one last time. "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 forgive their sins and Raffa," here it is again, "heal their land." There is a direct connection between God's people experiencing revival and the land experiencing Raffa, healing from God when we get right with God. When God heals us, our city, and our nation shares in that healing, we have a responsibility.

We have an obligation before God to take the initiative to pray for healing in our land. And here's why. Lost people can't pray. Lost people can't seek God. Lost people can't call out to the Lord because they're not His people. I want to just say to you, I try to vote as it's getting harder and harder. But like you, I try to vote as righteously as I can if there even is such a thing anymore. I try to vote as morally right in keeping with God's holy word as I can. It's more and more difficult. But I got to just tell you, it really just doesn't even matter who's elected president. Doesn't matter what his policies are.

The next president of the United States is doomed to failure. And here's why. He's going to preside over a sin sick, wicked system of government. The burden's on us. Notice the connection between what we do or don't do and what happens to the land. God's plan to heal our country does not lie in conventional approaches rather on my people, humbling ourselves. You know how our country is going to be changed? By you humbling yourself. Starts with you. What if we believe that? By you praying. You. Don't wait on somebody else. Don't wait on Brother Chris to call some type of a weekend prayer meeting. You pray. You seek God's face.

And you turn from your own wicked ways. Jay Barton Payne once said of 2 Chronicles 714, he was at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis and later was at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. And I quote him, listen to this. This is a reform brother. He says, this great verse, 2 Chronicles 714, the best known of all chronicles, expresses as does no other scripture God's requirement for national blessing, whether in Solomon's land, Ezra's land, or our own land. Those who believe must forsake their sins, turn from a life that is centered in self, yield to God's word and will, then and only then will heaven send revival.

What if we believe that? What if we believed, instead of looking to government to fix our problems, what if we believe that the church house was meant to fix the government's problems, to heal our land? I'm just going to throw this in for measure. Are y'all with me? Obviously, it's a joke. Obviously, it would never happen. And by the way, the scenario I'm about to set up, my opening line says, if I was president of the United States, obviously, I never will be. And let me just say, for the record, obviously, that's an impossibility.

But if there was some cataclysmic event and Washington called me this afternoon and said, John, oh, we need you to fly to Washington and be the president of the United States, I respectfully decline because that would be a step down for me. I'm holding the highest office in the land. I'm a pastor of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a local church. I'm sorry, I can't stoop as low as I would have to stoop to accept that position. That's how I feel about my office. And that's the way the Bible holds it up.

But if I was president of the United States of America, and I say this to our current president, and I say it to the next one after him, I would begin my presidency by letting the American people know that our main problems are spiritual problems, not economic. I would lead this nation to acknowledge our great sins against Almighty God. And I would call upon the people of America to fast, pray, and seek God's forgiveness for our great sins against His holy name. I would issue a charge to the Church of Jesus Christ to rise up and once again be the conscience of the state.

And I would plan on being a one-term president, because I can guarantee you I'd not be reelected. Church, do not look to the government to fix our nation. Look to the Church. Look to yourselves. Humber yourselves. Pray, seek God's face. Turn from your wicked ways, and God says, I will hear you from heaven. I will forgive your sins, and I will heal your land.