“How God Heals Broken Nations”

Pastor Jerry

Psalm 60:1-5, 2 Chronicles 7:14

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Did any of you watch any news this week? The world is facing a uniquely painful time. The earth is literally groaning with moral decay and arrogant hypocrisy! But God is not surprised by what is currently happening in the world. It’s not new!

But Why! What’s wrong? What needs to be done? What would your diagnosis be to solve these problems of our world? It’s crucial that we get a correct diagnosis if we want healing to come.

The current diagnosis in our culture is that man is basically good but he has been damaged through negative influences.

The problem with this diagnosis is that it is flat out wrong. Man is not basically good. This is a spiritual issue. We are self-obsessed individuals who hide the truth about ourselves and blame others for our flaws.

So, today, I’d like to speak to you about how God heals a brokenness. We live in a dark and sad day. But it’s not surprising because of the way we are willing to act and to live. We need personal healing. Our nation and many other nations need healing.

King David cries out to God in a national time of conflict in his day (Psalm 60:2): “You have shaken this nation and split it open. Now, Lord, heal the cracks before it completely collapses.” That is a verse for our time.

God’s word is filled with examples of how God heals hurts, heals brokenness, and heals a broken nation. And there’s a clear pattern and even a specific promise that God gives us. We’re going to look today, at how God heals any brokenness.

Three thousand years ago, God made a promise to Solomon at the dedication of the new temple in Jerusalem. It is a promise to God’s people anywhere. And it gives us a specific path to the healing of any nation. 2 Chronicles 7:14 is the verse I’m talking about. “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 I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land.”

Now, with every promise of God, there’s always conditions, are requirements. And that’s what we’re going to look at today. We need healing everywhere.

And the good news is that the wounds that we can see around us today, are not fatal, and, healing is available. So what’s it going to take? How does God heal a broken nation? Well, in 2 Chronicles 7:14, God gives us four prerequisites or conditions for national healing and for personal healing in your own life, too. So let’s look at them.

(1) Number one, first condition for healing. We must humbly confess our sins. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves… This is a promise for followers of God, followers of Christ. If my people, called by my name will humble themselves.

The number one cause of all our problems is pride, arrogance, self-sufficiency, thinking we don’t need God. James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.” And so we start with the humility of confessing our sins to God. We often try to take the focus off of our failures and our sins and our mistakes by pointing at everybody else.

So the first step to any kind of healing, is humble confession. Do you need to be healed? Confess your sins, pray for each other. We need others to help us change. You can’t change simply by yourself. Why? Because God has wired us in a way that we only change with the help of others. That’s why we need the support of the Boones Mill Church. Ask, “Lord, show me anything in my life, that’s unpleasing to you.” That’s the first step, we must humbly confess our sins.

(2) Number two, we must not only confess humbly. We must pray sincerely.  This is praying from the heart. It’s passionate praying. It’s even desperate praying. God, we need this healing now.

This was a problem back in Hosea’s days. Hosea 7:14 says this: “They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts. Instead they sit on their couches and they wail.” That word in Hebrew, wail, literally means complain loudly. How much has that complaining changed anything?

Ephesians 5:18 says this: “Pray in the spirit at all times, with all kinds of prayers asking for all you need. To do this you must always be ready and never give up.” You’re always doing one of those two things. You’re either praying or you’re giving up. You look at the world right now, you feel like giving up on it. Well, you can pray or you can give up. So if you’re serious about healing, pray; if you are serious about seeing our nation heal, pray for it!

(3) Now we come to the third condition for national healing or for that matter, any other kinds of healing. It says if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves. That’s one: humbly confess; and two: pray sincerely. Then third — seek my face.

It must be a serious pursuit. It has to become your primary focus. Because in Hebrews 11:6 it says this: “God rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Earnestly. So let me ask you, what does God want from you? He wants that you intensely seek him. Not that you seek his blessing, but that you seek him. You have to want to seek God.

Psalm 14:2 says this: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race. And he looks to see if there is even one person with real understanding who seeks for God.” The truth is very few people really seriously make knowing God the goal of their life.

We spend more time seeking everything else. But God gives us a wonderful promise in Deuteronomy 4:29: “If you seek the Lord your God, you’ll find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul and when you’re in distress and all these things have happened to you, you will return to the Lord your God and you will obey him, for he is a merciful God. And he will not abandon or destroy you.” That’s a verse we need now. When you’re in distress, and things have happened to you, seek Him!

How do you seek God with intensity? By making to know him your first priority and daily passion. Reading His Word! Matthew 6:33, Jesus made this promise, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these other things will be given to you as well.” So what do we do? We confess our sins humbly. We pray, sincerely. We seek God intensely.

(4) Now we come to the fourth condition for healing. We must turn back to God completely. “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,” He says, “then I’ll hear from heaven and I’ll forgive their sins and I’ll heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Now, he says, “Turn from their wicked ways.” Now, don’t condemn and criticize others as the wicked people. It is mistake. Listen, it’s a mistake to categorize people as either good or wicked. Why? Because the reality is we all have wicked ways. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all need a savior. We’re all in the same boat on that one there. What sin is keeping you apart from God?

Here’s the problem: We just don’t see our own wicked ways. We can clearly see the wicked ways in other people. Oh, we could point them out quickly, but we don’t see our own wicked ways. In 2 Timothy 3:2 to 5, Paul gives us a laundry list of 19 specific wicked ways and he says people are going to be acting this way in the last days.

It says that in the last days, “People will be self-absorbed loving only themselves. They will be greedy for money. They will be boastful and arrogant, insulting to God, rude and disrespectful even to  parents. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unkind and unforgiving. They will enjoy slandering others. They will have no self-control. They will love violence and there’ll be cruel. They will be cynical, despising anyone and anything that’s good. They will betray those loyal to them. They will be reckless and rash. They will be inflated with self-conceit. They will love pleasure more than God. They’ll claim to be spiritual, but they will reject the true power that could make them godly.”

Honestly, as I look over that list that I just read (written 2,000 years ago), I am amazed at how accurately it describes our culture today, right now. There is only one solution. It’s not a political solution. It’s not an economic solution. It is a spiritual solution. Our hearts must be changed by God.

And God promises that if we do what he tells us to do, then he will do three things.

I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land.

This is a promise for you. It’s a promise to the church. But it has to start right here, it has to start right now. It has to start with me. It has to start with you. So, I ask you, will you join me? Will you join me and that we would confess our sins humbly, that we would pray sincerely, that we would seek God intensely right now. And that we would turn to God completely. Because if we do that, if we come just as we are, if we come and give our brokenness, …we can expect, then God will hear from heaven right here. God will forgive our sins right now, and God will heal our hearts! He will pardon our guilt by His Son, Jesus Christ… Our only hope is in Jesus.