Next Steps When Your Nation Is Suffering:
Be An Elihu!
2 Chronicles 7:11-22 (ESV)
“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land”
God Speaks to Kings, Presidents, and Citizens: It is Quite Simple Really, Listen!
2 Chronicles 7:11–22 & 1 Kings 9:4–9
In General…Obedience Often Leads to Blessing
In General…Disobedience Often Leads to Suffering
Work Hard to Make Your Nation, State, Church, & Family Situation Better
2 Chronicles 7:11 “Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the LORD and in his own house he successfully accomplished.”
Jeremiah 29:4–7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: [5] Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. [6] Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. [7] But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
Keep Praying to the Lord: Prayer is Powerful
2 Chronicles 7:12 Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.”
Jeremiah 29:4–7 “pray to the LORD on its behalf”
1 Timothy 2:1–2 “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”
“A Prayer for Our Nation” - www.jonathancarl.org/2019/12/a-prayer-for-our-nation.html
Please forgive us. We need you. God, heal us as only You can. Jesus, I lift up these leaders to you.
Understand that Sometimes God Sends Suffering as a Just Judgment: Trust His Hand
2 Chronicles 7:13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people”
Matthew 5:44 “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
Obey His Commands: God Gives Conditioned Promises to the Humble
2 Chronicles 7:14-18 “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land [15] Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. [16] For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. [17] And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, [18] then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’”
1 Kings 9:4 “And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules”
1 Peter 5:5 “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Heed His Warnings: Breaking God’s Law Has Earthly & Eternal Consequences
2 Chronicles 7:19-22 “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, [20] then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. [21] And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ [22] Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’” (ESV)
1 Kings 9:6-8 But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, [7] then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. [8] And this house will become a heap of ruins.
In Political Disagreements & Suffering?
Be An Elihu - Confront the Evil of Both Sides, Take the God’s Side and Speak God’s Truth
Job 32:2–3 “Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. [3] He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong.”
Job 38:1–2 “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: [2] “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Job 42:7 “After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”