There’s a
bit of symbolism at the front of our sanctuary that you may have never noticed
before. If you’ll look up here now, you’ll notice that we have flags on either
side of the platform—the Christian flag over on the left side, and the American
flag on the right. These two flags are here to remind us of the “dual
citizenship” that we have (so to speak) as children of God.
On the one
hand, as the New Testament tells us, we are citizens of Heaven and the kingdom
of God, and that kingdom is to receive our greatest allegiance. But on the
other hand, as we live out our lives in this world, we are also citizens of a
particular nation—the United States of America—and we are called to be good
citizens of this nation as well.
Now, we
know the Bible has a lot to say about the kingdom of God, but does it have
anything to say about the United States? There is a statement in 2 Chronicles
7:14 that is frequently treated as a promise from God that can be applied
directly to our nation. That verse says this: “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.”
A Common Interpretation
We hear
this verse frequently around events like the National Day of Prayer and at
other times when people are encouraging us to pray for our nation. It is very
common for people to take this verse to mean that God has promised to bring
spiritual revival to the United States if we, as Christians, will humble
ourselves and ask God for it. But should we interpret the verse this way? Can
we apply it to our nation so directly and say that God is duty-bound to send us
revival if we as Christians will simply humble ourselves enough?
The Correct Interpretation
To answer
those questions, let’s take a closer look at the context of 2 Chronicles 7.
This chapter records some events from the glory days of the ancient nation of
Israel. At the time of those events, Israel was at its absolute peak in terms
of wealth, expansion, peace with its neighbors, and political influence
throughout the Middle East.
In chapter
5, King Solomon had just completed the building of the magnificent Temple in
Jerusalem. The priests brought the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple, and
Solomon entered the Temple courtyard to offer a sacrifice to God. He prayed a
long prayer of dedication for the Temple, and when he finished, God sent fire
from Heaven to consume Solomon’s sacrifice, and God’s glory cloud that had led
Moses through the wilderness came down into the Temple and filled it, and all
the people fell to their knees in worship. What a magnificent moment!
During
Solomon’s prayer, he made one request that I’d like to highlight briefly,
because it pertains to God’s statement in 2 Chronicles 7:14. In 6:26-27,
Solomon prayed, “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have
sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name
and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive
the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way
in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given
to your people as an inheritance.” Remember this request, because it forms an
important background for 7:14.
Chapter 7
then tells us that after some time had passed, God appeared to Solomon one
night with a reply to Solomon’s prayer of dedication. Let’s read about that
announcement from the Lord [READ 7:11-16].
With this
context in mind, let’s think about some observations that we can make about 2
Chronicles 7:14. First of all, notice that God says this promise is given to
“my people who are called by my name.” From the context, we can see that this
phrase clearly refers to the people of Israel.
What we have to ask ourselves, then, is if our relationship with God is
similar enough to their relationship with God to allow us to apply this promise
directly to ourselves. We’ll touch on this thought a bit more in a moment, but
I think the answer is no.
Next, we
need to ask ourselves, “what’s the problem with the land?” At the end of verse
14, God promises to heal their land, but heal it from what exactly? In the
common interpretation, that phrase is often taken to refer to spiritual
revival. It’s understood as a promise that God will heal our country from the
moral and spiritual chaos that we are experiencing.
But in the
context, we learn that the problem with the land is a physical problem, not a
spiritual one. In verse 13, God talks about withholding rain or sending plagues
of insects on the people’s crops as discipline for their sins. So in verse 14,
the healing of the land refers to the end of the drought or the removal of
pests. That statement is not a reference to spiritual revival. In fact, notice
that the spiritual revival comes before the healing of the land. There’s
nothing in the context that would justify interpreting that phrase the way we
often do—namely, that God will reverse the moral and spiritual decline in our
nation.
So what is
the correct interpretation of this verse? It is that God promised Solomon that
if He ever had to discipline the people of Israel for disobedience, He would
remove that discipline if they humbly repented and lived in obedience once
again. There’s really nothing in the context that would justify the way that we
often interpret this verse.
What’s the Danger?
Now you
might be thinking, “Okay, Tim. It might be a bit of a stretch to apply this
verse directly to the United States, but what’s the danger? After all, isn’t it
good for us to humble ourselves and pray for revival in our nation?” Well, yes
it is, but the danger in taking this verse as a promise is that we might end up
living with unnecessary guilt. We might end up thinking that we are to blame
for the continuing problems in our country because we just haven’t humbled
ourselves enough or prayed hard enough for revival.
If you
think I’m joking about that, please understand that some people have already
reached that conclusion. Back in June, I received an e-mail from a Christian
organization just a couple of days before the Supreme Court handed down their
ruling legalizing gay marriage. Here is what it said: “Scripture tells us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that the healing of a land is to
be found in a right relationship between God and His people. God promises that
if His people will humble themselves, pray, seek His face and turn from their
wicked ways, that He will hear their prayers, forgive their sins, and heal
their land. It is evident that America has not yet received God’s healing
promise—could that be because we have not yet met his conditions?”
Notice where they are placing the blame for the problems
in our country. Never mind the people who are actually choosing evil lifestyles
and are choosing to live by their own standards of morality. The problems in
our country are still here because Christians just don’t have our act together!
Now, is the church in America perfect? By no means! But the suggestion that the
blame for our nation’s moral slide lies at our feet is insulting and wrong! As
you can imagine, the rest of this e-mail was a plea for me to make a donation
to this organization. If I would just give them some money, they would get the
church in America whipped into shape, and all of our problems would disappear. Needless
to say, they received nothing from me except an e-mail asking them not to use
Scripture like this ever again!
On a bit of a side note here, let me mention a helpful
way to test an interpretation of Scripture—if the interpretation only seems to
fit in the context of the United States, its probably not a good
interpretation. Would anyone dare to blame Christians in Iraq and Syria for
what’s happening to them right now? Would anyone have the gall to say, “Boy,
I’m sorry that you’re getting murdered and run out of your homes, but you know,
if you had just humbled yourselves a bit more and prayed harder, none of this would
have happened because God would have sent a sweeping revival through your
country!”
Do you see how ill-fitting that interpretation is in
other parts of the world? So again, if an interpretation only seems to fit in
the context of the United States, its probably not a good interpretation.
So how did we get to the
point of twisting this passage in an inappropriate way?
Interpretive Errors
1. Taking a statement out of
context
We mentioned this error last week in our study of
Jeremiah 29:11, but its even more applicable here. Notice that 2 Chronicles
7:14 is not even a complete sentence—its just the second half of a sentence!
So, when we take this verse all by itself, we’re only studying half of a
sentence! Think how badly people would misunderstand you if they only thought
about half of each sentence that you spoke!
To understand the Bible correctly, we have to keep its
statements in context. In order to do that, one thing we have to learn to do is
ignore chapter and verse divisions. It may surprise you to learn this, but the
chapter and verse divisions that you see in your copy of the Bible were not in
the original text. They were added centuries after the Bible was written as a
tool to help people find a specific passage. The chapter divisions were added
in 1227, and the verse divisions were added in 1555.
The chapter and verse numbers are very helpful for
finding a statement in the Bible, but ironically, once we have found the
statement we’re looking for, we need to forget about the chapter and verse
numbers! There are many instances in which a single verse of Scripture does not
contain a complete sentence, so if you look only at that single verse, you’ll
miss the bigger picture.
So here’s one great piece of advice for Bible study—never
read a Bible verse! Don’t do it! Never read a Bible verse! If you want to make
sure that you understand a statement, you need to read at least the whole
paragraph in which the statement is found. Beyond that, the more you read, the
better!
2. Failing to maintain a proper
distinction between Israel and The Church
As I alluded to earlier, there are some differences
between our relationship with God and the kind of relationship that Israel had
with God. These differences are significant enough that they make it illegitimate
to apply promises given to Israel directly to ourselves today. Consider a few
of these differences:
- They were a gathered people—they all lived in the same area, and their worship revolved around a holy site, the Temple in Jerusalem. We are a scattered people—we live all over the world, and our worship does not revolve around a holy site.
- They were an organized nation, with a king, an army, a tax code, and a specific kingdom with boundaries. We are a spiritual fellowship with none of those things.
- They lived under The Law of Moses, with its specific blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. We live under The Law of Liberty, as James calls it (James 2:12), which does not have the same promises of blessing or threats of cursing.
That last
distinction is very relevant for our study today. The reason that God promised
to give the people good farming conditions in 2 Chronicles 7:14 is that when He
first gave them the Law of Moses, that’s exactly what he promised to give them
if they obeyed His laws. Notice these words from Deuteronomy 28:
“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your
God…blessed shall be…the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the
increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your
basket and your kneading bowl…And the Lord will make you abound in
prosperity…in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground,
within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will
open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in
its season and to bless all the work of your hands (Deut 28:1, 4-5, 11-12).”
So when God
told Solomon that He would heal the land when the people left behind wickedness
and obeyed Him, this was really nothing new. It was simply a re-statement of
this promise from centuries before. This particular promise was attached to the
Law of Moses, and so it is no longer directly applicable to us today since we
no longer live under that Law.
My friends,
let me say this clearly—we have no promise from God that the United States will
continue to exist as a nation, or that our moral decline will ever be turned
around. That’s a bit of a jarring statement because so many of us—myself
included—bleed red, white, and blue. We love our country, and we believe our
country was guilt on godly, biblical foundations, and we believe that things
could improve in our country if we could just embrace those foundations once
again.
But we have
no promise that that will ever happen, and that’s important to understand. Does
that mean, then, that we should just say “good riddance” to our country? Should
we NOT pray for revival? Certainly not! There are other passages of Scripture
that give us strong commands to pray for our leaders and our nation. Let me
close by reading one to you—1 Timothy 2:1-4:
“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. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God
our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of
the truth.”
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