Hearing, Forgiving, and Healing (2 Chronicles 7:14)
Contents
We live in a society where ex-presidents must commit suicide. This suggests that our society is not that healthy. When society is unhealthy, unexpected things happen more often than common sense things.
A man named 'Eric Fromm' described the three characteristics of an unhealthy society as follows:
The first characteristic of an unhealthy society is hostility. A society where hostility prevails is an unhealthy society. They define people as enemies and treat them as enemies. Because we treat our neighbors who should be friendly as our enemies, there are many things that make us hostile. Hostile feelings soon breed hatred and hatred. Hatred and hatred are the formidable demonic weapons of this society. Thousands of people are wounded, wounded, and killed because of this.
The society we live in now runs the risk of being destroyed at any time by the hostile feelings that each of us harbors.
Therefore, you must let go of your hostile feelings. It requires trust and inclusion, not hostile feelings.
The second characteristic of an unhealthy society is distrust. People are happy to live by trusting and relying on each other, but they cannot trust and rely on each other and mistrust prevails. I don't believe in making soybeans from soybeans. If you have good distrust, you will be treated as a smart person. If you are trustworthy and obedient, you will be considered foolish and foolish. That is why people and society become ill.
A distrustful society is a sick society.
The third characteristic of an unhealthy society is instrumentation. In an unhealthy society, things that shouldn't be instrumental become instrumental. Standards, traditions, and order disappear, and everything becomes political means and instruments by touching even the things that should not be touched. A person should not be a tool under any circumstances. God should not be instrumentalized under any circumstances. However, they are trying to use people as twogu. People become the means. Instead of treating people person-to-person, they see and use them as tools for accumulating wealth, as a means of seizing power, and as an instrument of sexual greed.
Even God is instrumentalized.
We are now living in a society where, as Eric Fromm pointed out, the three characteristics of an unhealthy society are distinct. Civilized society lives in a place where it is all over the place, animalistic, primitive, and violent.
So, is it very hopeless? It's not like that. Today's verse says, "If my people, who are called by my name, turn from their evil ways and humble themselves and seek my face, they will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal their land." This is the prescription of the Word for an unhealthy society and a sick society.
We are called Jehovah God's people. We belong to God, and God is our God. Although we live in a society full of unhealthy social characteristics, intertwined with the people of the world, the difference from the world is that we know the voice of God and follow it. And we believe that only God, the church, and the gospel are the only alternatives to this unhealthy society.
1. God's people must turn from that evil way.
Even if we become God's people, we must not falter and not depart from our sinful ways. If you hesitate, you will become like Lot's wife. When Lot's wife, along with her husband and children, left Sodom, where there were no righteous people, she looked back and became a 'pillar of salt'. She could not cast away her regrets in the city of sin. As we well know, Sodom means sodomite, sodomy, lust. I couldn't leave the place I should have left without any regrets.
Saints! If it is judged that it is a sinful seat, please leave your seat without any regrets and stand up. I hope you get your hands dirty. Please take off your shoes and dust them off. Aesthetics If you stay aesthetically, you end up doing things that only the devil likes. Our Jesus also said through the Gospel of Luke, "Remember Lot's wife."
One very cold evening, a duck farmer went looking for ducks when he couldn't see them in the pen. Then he saw them gathered in a small puddle and called for a duck, but he did not budge. Normally, he would hear the owner's voice and come to him right away, but that day he saw the ducks standing still no matter how many times they called, and when the owner approached them, they were all stuck in frozen water.
Ducks do not tolerate the cold very well, so if they sit still and sit still, they do not know that even if the water freezes, they get stuck in the frozen water and eventually die.
A believer who sits down because the worldly seat is good and the seat of sin is good, freezes to death like a duck.
2. God's people must humble themselves.
The humility of God's people is shown not through character cultivation, as with non-believers, but through knowing God. When we come to know God, we realize that we are sinners and realize that we are like earthworms.
?쏶hut your mouth to the dust, and there may be hope??(Lamentations 3:29) ?쏬et us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven??(Lamentations 3:41) ?쏧 forgive myself and repent in dust and ashes??Job 42:6)
One day, Benjamin Franklin was visiting a neighbor's house, and on the way home, the man in the house showed him a shortcut to get out of the house. But there was a low beam in the middle. So the neighbor shouted, "Keep your head down!" but it was too late, and Franklin ended up banging his head.
A neighbor called Franklin and said,
?쏽oung man, the more often you bow your head in this world, the less you will bump into each other.??
It is said that these words were deeply engraved in Benjamin Franklin's mind, and whenever pride came to his mind, he would always remember these words and bow his head.
Saints! Let's bow our heads if we can. Then there will be fewer bumps. It is much more to the glory of God for believers in Jesus to bow their heads to avoid a fight than to fight and cause trouble.
3. God's people must pray and seek God's face.
All living things struggle to find their faces in order to receive the warmth and light of the sun. God's people are from the beginning those who are called to live through the provision of God's grace. We must diligently seek the face of God. The command to seek the face of God is to seek God. Call on God. The word to meet God was given to help us to be deeply planted in our hearts more seriously.
The source of all our life, the source of help, is in God. Therefore, only seeking the face of God is the only way for God's people to receive God's power.
Where God does not dwell, there is no place for human beings to live. Communist society was a place where God did not dwell. Then I became a beggar of the world. But what about now? When God enters there, it is becoming a place for people to live.
Thus, when God's people "turn from the evil way and humble themselves and seek the face of the Lord God," He said, "I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal the land."
Hear, forgive, and heal the land, God, we will turn from our evil ways and humble ourselves and pray and seek Your face. Please heal this sick society