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If My People Will Humble Themselves and Pray
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 states - "If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, pray, seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." In the article National Day of Prayer: Remembering Those Suffering Worldwide for Their Faith we read -
"As we mark yet another National Day of Prayer, our freedoms here at home remind us of the need to pray for those who lack them around the world. In the United States, we can offer a prayer of thanks that religious freedom is not yet obliterated and faith is not yet coerced. As we acknowledge our blessings and lift our supplications to our Creator, this is an opportune moment to look outside ourselves and beyond our borders to pray for the needs of others - including those being persecuted for their faith around the world.
"In the world's most populous country, the Chinese government seeks to suffocate Christianity and other faiths under the burden of a bureaucracy intensely hostile to the threat posed by a higher power. House churches not sanctioned by the state may be harassed by authorities and shut down, their members and pastors arrested. In state-approved churches, the government tears down crosses and removes copies of the Ten Commandments - sometimes replacing them with quotes from President Xi Jinping. Facial recognition cameras are starting to be installed in churches to ensure compliance with government regulations. Beijing's now-infamous oppression of Uyghur Muslims has revealed the brutality with which the Chinese government will treat its religious minorities.
"The secretive regime of North Korea continues to be widely considered the world's worst violator of religious freedom. The only faith allowed in the hermit kingdom is the worship of the Kim family dictators. Any expression of Christianity may land a person in a labor camp, where one is forced to suffer torture and perform hard labor, enduring horrific living conditions. The dire situation in the world's most isolated country requires our urgent prayers."
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Read the rest of the above-linked article: the persecution of Christians worldwide is heartbreaking. For decades, Christians - I among them - in the United States have taken the high moral ground to defend the defenseless, persecuted Christians around the world. But during this same time, we have experienced a moral decline into a cesspool of depravity. We have legally sanctioned no-fault divorce, abortion, cohabitation, and sodomy. Now it seems now we are reaping what we have sown. For nearly FIFTY YEARS - since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 - we have allowed parents and doctors to sacrifice unborn and newborn babies to the gods of lust and pleasure, much like ancient Israel after the reign of King Solomon -
"6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, in Habor, in the river regions of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7 Now this happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God when He brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods.
8 They walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites, which the kings of Israel had introduced.
9 The Israelites secretly did things which were not right, against the Lord their God; they built high places for themselves in all their towns, from the watchtower up to the fortified city.
10 They set up for themselves stone pillars and poles [phallic symbols] of Asherah worship on every high hill and under every green tree.
11 They burned incense there on all the high places, like the nations which the Lord deported before them, and they did evil things to provoke the Lord.
12 They served idols which the Lord had said to them, 'You shall not do this thing!'
13 The Lord warned Israel and Judah by the hand of all His prophets, with every seer saying, 'Turn from all of your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My ordinances, according to all the law which I commanded your ancestors, which I sent to you by the hand of My servants the prophets.'
14 But they did not listen and they stiffened their necks, like the necks of their ancestors who did not believe in the Lord their God.
15 They rejected His statutes, His covenant which He made with their ancestors, and His warnings which He gave to them; and they went after the idols, became vain, and went after all the nations which were all around them, which the Lord had commanded them not to do as they did.
16 They abandoned all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two molten calf-shaped idols; they made a pole of Asherah worship and bowed down to the army of the heavens [astrology] and served Baal.
17 They made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and read omens, and they sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord to provoke Him.
18 So the Lord was very angry with Israel and He removed them from His presence; none remained except the tribe of Judah alone" (2 Kings 17:6-18).
Now we are faced with the worldwide "pestilence" of the Wuhan Virus pandemic. We are starting to see the result of this pandemic and business shutdown: an economic meltdown. Many people are bemoaning the economic disaster that is upon us, yet few are bemoaning the shutdown of our churches, denying our freedom of religious expression. But could this be God's answer to us for abandoning a God-oriented worldview in favor of a money-oriented, economic, secular-materialist, consumerist worldview?
Today is the National Day of Prayer. It is high time for us to repent as we recall these words -
"If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, pray, seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:13-14).
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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