Please, America, Repent

All this destruction by the forces of nature, growing economic disaster. We didn't repent at 9/11 and we aren't repenting now. You think it's going to stop?

The news coverage of the flooding in the Midwest highlights the usual community spirit, people coming together to help one another in their shared disaster. People also come from outside to help. America is justly proud of its community spirit. It is always a news item when these things happen.

A 91 year old lady in a shelter had a very upbeat attitude: it's an adventure, she said. Yes, Americans are a hardy and generous lot.

And they ask why would God allow this? They speculate about why bad things happen to good people. They may argue that God doesn't do such things. Disasters are just random phenomena. We all suffer.

I don't want to make too much of this, but there was also the story of Ms. X who is pregnant showing her and her "fiance" returning to their home to find all they had worked for ruined. It's sad no matter who it happens to. But here's an unmarried couple living together and about to have a baby, a situation so commonplace now that it is described matter-of-factly by the media.

But do you ask why God is allowing disaster after disaster on a nation in which this attitude has become the norm? We despise His institution of marriage in SO many ways these days, even to legalizing the marriage of homosexuals. Fornication has become mere recreation. Living together is just as good as marriage and so much less complicated if it doesn't work out. But divorce is also common, though God says specifically in His word that He hates divorce. Adultery is prohibited in the 7th of the 10 commandments. Exodus 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not kill is the previous commandment, but the nation LEGALLY murders millions of its unborn children every year. Their blood cries out to Him from the ground as Abel's did. The nation has the guilt of their blood against it and God will bring vengeance against it for that.

We have a long list of sins by now all crying out for judgment, which has already started and MUST get much worse considering our sins. Will we repent? Will the churches at least seek God on behalf of the nation, that He might grant repentance and cleanse the land?

Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly

What we need in the nation and the world is a genuine revival. Revival comes when God's people repent of their sins and pray for Him to change hearts.

America is a nation under God's judgment and there is no cure for God's judgment but repentance. We know this from the Bible, particularly from the Old Testament, which is given to teach us among other things how God deals with nations. Sometimes He will relent, sometimes He won't, it depends on how far gone the nation is in its rejection of Him and defiance of His law. We can hope that America is not yet that far gone. Even perhaps Europe.

Judgment is surely underway against America and the only thing that might stave it off is repentance. It is the churches that need to repent since we can no longer expect a President to call the nation to fasting and prayer. The most familiar verse calling God's people to this task is 2 Chronicles 7:14:

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 will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

For all its familiarity and occasional practice in the churches, there is reason to suspect that it has never really been obeyed. The occasional prayer doesn't meet the condition. This is calling for a corporate action of some magnitude. "My people" means not just a few of the more zealous getting together to truly obey the requirement, although if even that much happened it would be wonderful. But think of the power we have as Christians that we are not exercising. It is staggering to think of what we COULD do all together if churches all across America set about to obey 2 Chron 7:14.

What does it mean to humble ourselves? Does anybody obey that part of the requirement? The Israelites put on sackcloth and ashes and spent at least a day in fasting. If even a tenth of the people in a tenth of the true churches in America together fasted and prayed for one day a week for the nation, I think we'd see God move. I think we might have revival. If a day a week were set aside for people to gather at the church for this purpose, God would hear. Even at home or at work if Christians deprived themselves of every kind of comfort and luxury and special food or food at all for that day, praying at meal times at least, God would hear. Those who can't fast totally can restrict their food to a minimum and avoid every kind of especially liked food. Those who are able can pray on their knees or prostrate on the floor.

Oh if only the churches of America would agree to seek His face and pray as a corporate body for the nation, confessing the sins of the nation, and especially the sins of the churches.

It's God's people who are to humble ourselves. It's we who are to turn from our wicked ways.

We can make a long list of those sins and spread them before the Lord with pleading for forgiveness.

Joel 2:12 is another passage that calls God's people to repentance, fasting and prayer:

12 Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: 13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. 14 Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God? 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: 16 Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. 17 Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?

18 Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people. 19 Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil,
and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen . . .

Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store

Just read an article in World mag about the rising price of food around the world, hungry people, riots in some places.

Deuteronomy 28:15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: 16 Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. 17 Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.

This is going to be a theme for some time to come, crops destroyed, prices rising until we can't afford to eat even here in the US.

This is God's judgment against a nation that has been increasingly thumbing its nose at His commandments. Abortion, every kind of sexual sin, divorce, gay "rights." Anyone who knows the God of the Bible knows that He doesn't bless a nation for long that ignores his law, but is there a move to repentance, even in the churches?

Even some of our Presidents of the past have called for a day or a time of repentance, of fasting and prayer for the nation. We can't do that any more, can we? It would offend atheists and other religions if a President acted on our Christian heritage to do such a thing. At least the churches should be doing it, however, and I don't see that happening either. Oh a prayer or two from the pulpit asking God for mercy, but not what is really needed. We should be in sackcloth and ashes, fasting and praying for long periods if we are to have any hope of God's having mercy on this nation at this point.