PROPHECY IN CONTEXT
Dr. David A. Rice
2 Chronicles 7:14 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, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
What American Christian has not heard that verse ad nauseum?
Let us here do what almost no one ever does… Let us look at that verse in context.
This is at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple and God says that He has heard their prayer and that He has accepted that place as a place of sacrifice.
12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.
Secondly, God makes a statement that would shock and sicken many American Christians and pastors, should they ever read it… In a religious environment where all good things are credited to God (even if the “good thing” is unscriptural) and everything bad attributed to the Devil, this verse would leave many Christians with their heads under their pillow, trembling…
13 If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people,
Then comes the verse American Christians have claimed as their own…
14 and 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, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
May I note that, with few exceptions, even Christians in America who love to quote this verse have never humbled themselves, or sought Gods Face, or turned from their wicked ways…
Just an observation…
This is followed by a passage in which God makes an acceptance speech…
15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. 17 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, even to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep My statutes and My ordinances, 18 then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’
The American Christian loves this kind of passage… They underline all the “Forevers” and the “Nevers” and never even see the “If” clauses…
How many times have I been emphatically reminded that “God said ‘FOREVER’”, when the very next verse starts with the awesome little word “IF”? Go back in this short passage and note first, the words like “forever” and “perpetually” and then go back and carefully read the “IF” clauses…
Next comes the part that no modern preacher in his right mind would ever read from the pulpit, let alone preach on…
19 “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you, and this house which 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 As for this house, which was exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 22 And they will say, ‘Because they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.’”
Unfortunately, Israel choose the second option and received the curse and not the blessing…
On the 9th of Av in 587 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, whom God referred to as “My servant” destroyed that Temple, killed the priests and flattened Jerusalem.
God told Jeremiah that He was going to destroy Israel. The prophet argued with him saying:
13 But, “Ah, Lord God!” I said, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword nor will you have famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”
God answered:
14 Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.
They had become so evil that when Jeremiah tried to pray for them, God said:
Jeremiah 15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even though Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not be with this people; send them away from My presence and let them go! 2 And it shall be that when they say to you, ‘Where should we go?’ then you are to tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord:
“Those destined for death, to death;
And those destined for the sword, to the sword;
And those destined for famine, to famine;
And those destined for captivity, to captivity.”’
Then, on or about the 10th of Av, 587 BC, Jeremiah walked the Streets of Jerusalem. In Lamentations chapter 2, we read his commentary:
20 See, O Lord, and look!
With whom have You dealt thus?
Should women eat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy?
Should priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 On the ground in the streets
Lie young and old;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, not sparing.
22 You called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those whom I bore and reared,
My enemy annihilated them.
Then the Prophet looks at the survivors and cries:
13 How shall I admonish you?
To what shall I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what shall I liken you as I comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.
15 All who pass along the way
Clap their hands in derision at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem,
“Is this the city of which they said,
‘The perfection of beauty,
A joy to all the earth’?”
Did you get that?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.
This is America today. As I write this, it is Saturday. Tomorrow morning, all across America, Pastors will look out across their congregations and assure their flock that God is in control and everything is going to work out well…
“GOD IS IN CONTROL”
Yes, God is in Control and He will fulfill his Word. He will send “Those destined for death, to death; And those destined for the sword, to the sword; And those destined for famine, to famine; And those destined for captivity, to captivity.”’
David…
End Time Thinker 