“If MY People…” – FBC Morning Ligth (6/6/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Well a good Thursday morning to you. Again today let me begin by asking for your help related to being able to live stream these morning light devotionals to Facebook.

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If you're watching this on Facebook then that means you already have a Facebook account and it's maybe the normal way you watch.

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Well, beginning next Monday, if we don't get a minimum number of followers on the church's

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Facebook page or my personal Facebook page, then we'll not be able to live stream to Facebook at all.

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So you Facebook viewers, let me encourage you if you would please to go to my personal

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Facebook page as well as the Faith Baptist Church Facebook page and choose to follow both of those.

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We need to get that minimum number of followers by next Monday. And even if you're watching this on some other venue,

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YouTube or Sermon Audio or Boxcast, and you have a

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Facebook account, then I would encourage you please to go to those Facebook pages, my personal one as well as the

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Faith Baptist Church Facebook page, and choose to follow us so that we can continue live streaming these devotionals to that particular social media site.

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Well, today we're reading in 1 Kings 9 and then 2 Chronicles 7 and 8, some passages in 7 and 8.

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There's one verse in 2 Chronicles 7 that harkens me back to my senior year of high school.

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I graduated, I'm going to date myself here, in 1976, and of course that was the year of the nation's bicentennial celebration and patriotism was at a fever pitch.

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John W. Peterson, who wrote a bunch of Christian cantatas, he produced one for that year entitled

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I Love America. And our church youth group choir chose to learn that musical and sing it for the church as well as a few other places.

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One of the songs in that musical was a song based on 2

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Chronicles 7 14, and it was the song If My People. And the verse is, If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then

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I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land. And of course the way the song was applying that was to the

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United States of America. If the people of the United States of America would humble themselves, pray, seek

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God's face, turn from their wicked ways, then he would hear, he would forgive, and he would heal the nation, the land of America.

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Well, it's quite a stretch to make the application of this verse to the

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United States. This verse was really given to Solomon by God after Solomon's prayer of dedication at the temple, and it was for the people of Israel and for the land of Israel.

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So verse 13, for example, the Lord says, When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land and send pestilence among my people,

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Israel, the Israelites, because of their departure from the Lord, their sin against the

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Lord, then he gives a promise of verse 14. So it's really not applicable to the

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United States of America. In other words, we as Christians can't claim this promise of 2

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Chronicles 7 -14, that if we would but pray that revival and prosperity will come to the nation, this isn't a promise given to the

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United States of America. That being said, however, we also need to realize the important and the critical role that the

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Church plays, and the so -called Church plays, in the national degradation.

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What I mean by that is this. The liberalism that has overtaken so many of the major denominations, the mainline denominations.

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So for example, recently the United Methodist Church has overwhelmingly voted to allow for same -sex, granting same -sex marriage, having homosexual, practicing homosexual clergy, and so on.

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So that kind of moral degradation in the mainline denominations has certainly eviscerated from the pulpit the moral voice that God's Word would call for the preachers of the

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Gospel to proclaim. Well, if the moral voice is lost from the churches, then it's going to have a negative impact on the nation.

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It is going to further and accelerate the moral degeneration of the land.

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And so there is, therefore, an application of this verse to the

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Church, that if those who are professing Christians would actually humble themselves and truly seek the

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Lord and truly repent of their sin, then the Lord will heal those churches, which will then give those churches the opportunity to provide the moral authority and the moral voice that comes with the accurate proclamation of the

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Gospel. So yes, the Church does play a role in the welfare, the spiritual moral welfare, we should say, of the nation.

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So the Church must not be worldly, the Church must not abandon the truths of God's Word.

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If it has, then here's the verse. If my people, who are called by my name, you call yourself a

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Christian, if you will humble yourselves and pray and seek my face and turn from your wicked ways, then the

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Lord promises to heal the Church, to heal the Church, and that will in turn bless and help the nation.

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So I trust that that's helpful to us and challenges us to be the

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Church that we ought to be. Our Father and our God, I pray, help us,

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O Lord, to turn from our wicked ways, humble ourselves, seek your face, and O Lord, may you bring healing and revival to the professing

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Church, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your