Priorities 02 Subject Studies — William MacDonald

Confession, Brokenness, and National Drought

On what I consider to be the most neglected priority of all, confession. Confession, humiliation, repentance, brokenness. Most of us can live and die in our local fellowships without ever attending a meeting.

God's Promise in 2 Chronicles 7

When God's people gather together in confession and humiliation before him. Please turn in your bibles to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 and I think you'll realize that the two verses that I'm going to read have a very special application to the time in which we're living.

2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verses 13 and 14. Heaven let there be no rain or if I command the locusts to devour the land or if I send pestilence among my people 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.

Those verses should have rather a familiar sound to us today. California is going through the most severe drought that it has known in over 70 years. Livestock losses in Alameda county and losses of crops amount to the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here you've had the lightest snowfall in many years. Who is behind the weather? Well it says in these two verses of scripture that God controls whether if I shut up heaven that there be no rain. But God doesn't leave us without a remedy and there's a promise in verse 14 that God himself can never fail to keep.

If we abide by the conditions God will come in and heal. He'll hear from heaven and forgive our sin and heal. And I'd like to think with you this afternoon about this subject. National drought country.

National drought. Think of our country today and think of the divine institutions and principles that are under attack. Almost everything that is of God that we find in the word of God is being attacked in our country today isn't it?

Absolutely shocking every time you pick up a paper or hear the news. The same thing. Think of the institution of marriage and how it's being dragged in the gutter. How premarital sex and legalizing. A country of people living together without being married.

Think of the rise of adultery and divorce and now the legalization and do Christians read all about this? They hear about this and they think what can we do? Should we become involved socially in the affairs of the country?

Divine Institutions Under Attack

What a punishment. How God instituted capital punishment after the flood. He said whoso shedeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed. There's no more capital punishment in the United States. I know there are still men on the death row but capital punishment as such has fallen into disuse and it's doubtful if anybody will ever die by capital punishment in this country again.

Yet it wasn't man who devised it. It was God who instituted it and now because God did it's under attack. I think of the distinction between the sexes and how God set up this distinction and so what do we have today?

Break it down you know. The unisex movement and every effort being made by men and women to obliterate these moral distinctions that God has set up. I think of the headship of men and the subjection of women that is so clearly taught in the word of God.

Is this popular today? You think of the women's liberation movement and all that seeking to undermine the word of God. Submission of children to their parents taught in the word of God. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 1.

Now we have the children's rights amendment being discussed and pretty soon parents will be hauled into court no doubt if they dare to discipline. I think in the word of God of the prohibition of sexual perversion and how much God has to say about it in the word and now the attitude is let's legalize it as long as it's done between consenting.

Can you think of one divine institution that God has established that that isn't really under attack today? I think of how many times in the word of God I read prohibitions against nudity. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of it.

The refrain that goes over and over in the Pentateuch. So what do we have today? Features set aside of life as it's inculcated all through the word of God and now the great drive with regard to abortion and violence of every kind.

I think of the prohibitions against drunkenness and now I turn on the radio and hear that drunkenness is a sickness and must be treated as such. What does it all mean? Did it ever occur to us that God expects us to force the sin of the nation as our own sin?

Standing in the Gap for the Nation

I believe this is what the word of God teaches. Think of a man like Moses leading his people out of Egypt and through the wilderness and how he stood in the gap before God, confessed the sins of the people as his own sin and pled for his people.

It changed the course of history, didn't it? I think of a man like Ezra who also stood in the breach, came before God and led the people in a great time of confession and prayer. I think of Elijah, the time when God's people had wandered away from him.

He cried to God and God shut up the heavens so there was no rain. Then the people moved toward God and he prayed again and the rain. Say, I know it happened all in the Old Testament, it never happens today.

So I don't believe that's true. I believe the reason it doesn't happen today is because nobody's doing it. Our country was in the depths of the terrible Watergate scandal. Senator Mark Hatfield and some others called for a national day of confession and humiliation.

Some of you remember that. I tried to track down the date of it but I have never been able to do it yet. But I remember that we ourselves set ourselves to pray for this nation and to confess the sins.

Did God work? It wasn't very long after that that some of those most explosive Watergate tapes came to light and the abscess was punctured and the God is still doing it. A time when a little group of people got together in confession and prayer in San Leandro and later prayed for the Chad Republic and got over through the government there.

First of all, that as far as our beloved country is concerned, we can do more on our knees, confession and humiliation and prayer than we can do in all social activism that might come into our minds. A book about him called Reese Howling to track his prayers of confession and humiliation and the changes that took place in the history of the nation.

Traditionally, we shy away from it, from confession. Why is that? Is it because we know we're perfect now? We know that we have enough sin and frailty and infirmity to sink a battleship. But I think that probably it's a reaction against excesses when people gather together to confess in all kinds of things.

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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Confession for the Whole Church

You know, in addition to drought in our nation, we can have drought in the assembly too. God is looking for men and women today who will stand before him and take the sins of the church and confess them as our own.

And when I say that, I don't mean any particular portion of the church. I mean the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as it exists on earth today. Sometimes we hear of some dreadful thing that happened in some segment of the church and we kind of preen our feathers and say, thank God it didn't happen to us.

But really, if we're going to take a scriptural view, we'll have to see those things as affecting the body of Christ. You might turn in that connection to Daniel chapter nine. I think this is one of the most vivid ill of God, Daniel.

Daniel is one of the few men in the Bible, as far as I know, it seems he wore throughout the white flower of a blameless life. We know he wasn't sinless, but no failure is recorded of him. And yet we read in Daniel chapter nine, what I'd like you to notice in these verses that I'm going to read, how Daniel took the sins of his people and they weren't really his sins.

You couldn't say Daniel was guilty of them, but he took the sins of his people and he made them his own. He made them his own. This is known as eating the sin offering. It's very foreign to all of us, but it's scriptural just the same.

I set my faith unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, oh Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, to them that keep his commandments.

We know, I really believe with all my heart that God is waiting for people to confess that today in them committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from my precepts and from my judgment.

Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants, the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Oh Lord righteousness belongs to thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel that are near and that are far off through all the countries with that I was driven and because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.

Oh Lord, to us belong as confusion our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him.

Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets. And so he goes on in this most eloquent prayer of humiliation and brokenness, brought the people back from captivity.

Confronting Immorality and Spiritual Drought

And he always does when men will stand before him and God brings his people back. Situation in the, think of the scam cases of immorality. Think of Christian leaders. When we hear this, what do we feel?

Broken homes today. What an advantage the enemy operating. Think of the children who have become in faith of the drugs and the liquor. And think of the terrible tension that exists in so many homes between the children.

Something that we just want to sweep under the carpet and feel that if we say nothing about it, it will go away. Well, that's not God's way. God's way is to drag it out of the open and confess it before him and humble ourselves in of the Lord's day.

I don't know how you feel about the Lord's day. I'm afraid that to many Christians, it's just another day of the week. But I don't believe that. I really believe that the divine principle, I know that we're not under the law of observers, but I believe that the divine principle there, and I really believe that the Lord's day is a day can dedicate it to him in a special way that he can't the other days of the week.

And so what goes through my mind is not, is it wrong for me to do such a thing on the Lord's day? But how can I give this day to him in a very special way? I really believe if we love the Lord, we'll love his day as well.

But largely today, the Lord's day has become a day of recreation, and most people wouldn't allow the local meetings of the assembly to interfere with a trip to the mountains. They don't like to step on toes very much.

Think of the prayerlessness in the church today. The terrible blight that is over our churches and over our assemblies are occupied with everything else and prayer is the last as it really come to this.

I'd like to suggest to you that in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ today, we have a great deal of ministry without function. You know what I mean? We go through our meetings and the meeting is over and we gather around, we joke, we talk about the baseball scores, and really we don't go home smitten before the Lord, do we?

I'm sorry to say that in all too many cases it's just a rehash of the obvious. Ho-hum meetings is something we have to come before the Lord. I really believe today that we're suffering a famine of the Word of God.

And I think the famine of the Word of God is worse than the drought that the nation's experiencing today. Where will God find men? Where will he find assemblies who will bow before him? I think of some of the dull...

New Testament Power Rather Than Empty Forms

You know, I think there's nothing, nothing more wonderful than New Testament principles when they're carried out in New Testament power, but God help us when we have the forms without the power. Nothing worse than that.

Sometimes I feel that some of the meetings need nothing more than closing down. Really? So taken up. It's very poor preparation for a worship meeting, very poor preparation, and we come there and we're dumb priests.

We have nothing to say, no basket offering to bring. I think of the few that are being saved in the day in which we live and say, it's wonderful how we can become so accustomed to it. We don't think anything of it.

We just be, well, you know, we're living in the last days, a day of small things. Don't despise the day of small things. Really it is a tragedy when you think of how we can be accustomed to seeing souls going down to hell.

I'm not. I think that we should get before the Lord and confess as far as our assemblies are concerned the sin of Sodom. You say, what's the sin of that? The sin of Sodom was pride, fullness of bread.

Isn't that where we are today? Fullness of bread. It's easy to get discouraged and think there isn't any hope, but there is hope and wherever God gets a man or a woman or men and women will really lay hold of him and come before him in confession of these sins, taking the sins of the church and making them our own.

God works. Some years ago on an island off the northwest coast of Scotland, there were two elderly women. You say, what can two elderly women do? Well, I tell you, these women could pray and they were really appalled by the conditions on that island.

The Lewis Revival and Persistent Prayer

In some ways, it's the island of Lewis. It's rather an unusual island. The children learn the word of God in the school. Somebody said they know more about Ezekiel than they know about mathematics. It gives you an idea under the background anyway of the people.

You could find many people on that island that didn't know the gospel, but these women were really consumed with the people and they started to pray. They prayed that God would visit this island with his mighty power and after some time God gave them a promise that he was going to do that.

Sweep that island with his reviving power. It was that subjective knowledge that came to them that God had answered their prayer and God was going to work. They wrote to a man on the mainland named Duncan Campbell.

He's connected with a faith mission there in the mainland. They told him that they had prayed. They confessed to God and vowed in humiliation before him. God had given them assurance that he was going to work.

They said they felt that he was God's man to come over at that time and minister to the people. Duncan Campbell was having a crusade there in the mainland and told them, so sorry you know having a great crusade here in the mainland and I can't come.

Well they dipped their pens in acid and wrote a tart letter back to him and said whether he came or not God was going to work and if he didn't come he'd miss the blessing. When their second letter reached Duncan Campbell, it was berated.

There was nothing left and he got on the next ship. There was a body of water between and when he got there God was already working. Four o 'clock in the morning praying. People were getting saved right and left and he's walking home and nobody talking to him.

He vows by the sun. Out there in the moors the men often they have little huts out there. They call them bohuns and they go out there and drink. They have their great drinking parties out there. While this revival was going on, some of them were going to go out to one of their drinking boats and so they said to one of the fellows now it's your turn to buy the liquor.

You buy the liquor and he said to them how much do you want me to buy and they told him and he said Adam he said I think you better buy more than that. He said I have a feeling this is the last time I'll ever be coming and before the next time he was swept into the kingdom.

A cousin named Norman Morrison. He had come back from the war and he had a plate in his head. He had shrapnel. He had lost the sight of one eye, shrapnel in the other eye and he had a plate in his head.

If he leaned over he lost consciousness. Couldn't get a job to see the fellows come by and take him off at night and she knew that he'd come back tanked. But this revival came along and he didn't want to go to those meetings but he went.

Power of the Spirit of God came upon him and he went to the meetings and he was gloriously converted and afterwards when he'd be walking down the street of the village the people would pull aside the curtain and look and they'd say where sin abounded grace and literally hundreds of people were saved and swept into the kingdom of God at that time and very few of those who were saved at that time have ever gone back into the world.

There was a real moving of the Spirit of God. Even girls from that island that were working down in Glasgow and in London when the revival was going up in the northwest of Scotland and they're working down there and the Spirit of God would come upon them and say you better go back to Lewis and they'd go back to Lewis and they'd get saved.

How do you account for it? Well I'll tell you how I account for it too. We take God at his word. We write down easy for me just to think well here I am and I'm going along and everything is well and nothing to be worried about.

Worldliness, Pleasure, and Television

But really I think if we look at ourselves today that we're a pleasure loving people. Is it true? A pleasure loving people. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers. Whenever the crimes of retreat. Norby mentioned in his prayer think of the gossip and the backbiting that goes on.

Actually cares local church. All the answers given to us in the verses. Come feel about it but I really feel that that TV detrimental value of unspiritual life today that few of us. I don't say there aren't things on TV that are interesting and educational and all the rest but I'm thinking taking it as a whole not edifying.

Days of the early church devotedness to Christ was seen in people willing to die. I think today devotedness is seen in people willing to get up out of an easy chair and go shut off the TV. I think it takes the same kind of spine and the same kind of backbone.

May the Lord deliver us and may the Lord deliver our children from the terrible brainwash. Every magazine secular magazine I pick up today tells about the detrimental effects of TV. Really the secular magazine.

Why Johnny can't write I think and TV is very prominent and why Johnny can't write. Why do we have a nation of crime and violence? Well because we learn it on TV and every magazine you pick up has something like that and yet on we go.

Brokenness and the Prodigal Son

We're really largely a worldly people. What does it mean to be worldly? I think a worldly man is a man who has a lot of the power. This is a blight on the church today. I think of the personal feuds and animosities that come in among the people of God and what's the solution?

Oh the solution is brokenness. Being willing to go to one another and confess and say those words that are so hard to come by. I was wrong. Among us is the people of God today and I really believe that God is waiting to hear us say what Daniel said in Daniel chapter 9.

We in the whole word of God relevant and timely and true to life than the story of the prodigal son. It comes back to me all the time. I can identify with him like I can identify with a few people in the bible.

Goes off everything looks so attractive there in the world and he goes off in the world. Comes to the end of himself. Fain would have filled his belly with the hops that the swine did eat. He thinks of his of the servants in his father's house faring better than he's faring and he says I know what I'll do.

I'll arise and go to my father and say father I have sinned against thee and against heaven in thy sight and no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me I pray thee as one of thy hired servants and off he went.

Off he went to the father goes out to meet him to meet him and pretty soon he knows the father's kiss around his shoulder, the best robe, the ring on his finger, the shoes on his feet, the plaited calf and that's what God is waiting for us to say.

Isaiah's Promise of Spiritual Refreshment

I really believe that if my people who are called by my name if we'll just humble ourselves before the Lord take that low place. There was a promise in the word that was especially meaningful at the time of the Lewis revival and I'd just like to share it with you this afternoon and maybe some of us will take this promise from God's word and lay hold of it make it real in our lives and see God answer it.

Isaiah chapter 44. Isaiah 44 and verse 3. Pour water upon him that is thirsting and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring. What kind of ground does God promise to pour the water?

I wonder are really to humble ourselves before to come in and revive the work in the midst. Shall we just approach and honestly say with Daniel wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from my priesthood.

A Prayer of Confession and Consecration

Lord we would come before you this afternoon and we would think of the terrible scandal and disgrace upon this people and the weakening of the nation in international affairs. We confess it Lord. We think of the bribery on every hand of life and we think of how all of our on the big lie.

We think today Lord of that the absence of that righteousness the nation and father in this have mercy full might of our business line and we think of how often our lips often we use the wisdom of this world instead of the wisdom that comes from above.

How brainwashed we often are. We think Lord of how we give priority to the dollars rather than to spirit. We pray Lord that you will anoint our eyes with divine eyes for the Lord Jesus adhering assembly life today.

Lord we would forgive us for our comfort and ease and forgive us Lord that we're so blissfully unaware of the low state in our midst today. Forgive us Lord that we have a greater interest in the divorces children today and we alter back to a day when in many Christian homes that motto was on the wall.

We pray that it might become and that Christ is the head of this house after every meal the silent listener to every conversation. May our homes Lord be like that house of Lazarus where the Lord Jesus loved to be.

And then Lord we think of our Lord to lay hold of these words that godliness with contentment is great gain. We are a pleasure seeking people. We think in our personal lives how we have neglected and of the gossip and the backbiting.

We pray that as men might go forth from this faith and the way we came. We pray that your spirit will come upon us in power. We pray that men will take knowledge of us. Come this afternoon Lord and we would really eat the sin offering in your presence and we would pray concerning the physical drought that's in our land too.

Lord physical material rain we pray that you'll send the showers of reviving blessings. Rather quickly so that we'll cover them all. The first question is do you see a promise for the giver in 2nd Corinthians chapter 9 verse 10.

2nd Corinthians chapter 9 says now he that ministereth seed to the sower minister bread for your food and multiply your seed sown and increase increase the fruits of your righteousness. Yes well of course it is a prayer and it says that the same God who provides the seed for the farmer to plant his crop is able to provide bread for you and give you seed for sowing that you might have an abundant harvest and so it definitely is a promise for the giver.

I think this is found in the 8th verse don't miss the 8th verse it says God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you having always having all sufficiency and all things may abound to every good work and if I can just paraphrase that God is able to give you the ability to be an investor for him if you really want to be.

The man really has the desire to give to the work of the Lord. The Lord will fulfill that desire. I really believe that's true too God is able to make all grace abound to you that you always having all sufficiency and all things may abound to every good work.

Christian Stewardship and Heavenly Treasure

So let's claim these promises from the word. Question two how do you feel about investments provided the income goes totally toward the Lord's work? Think about that in the light of Matthew chapter 6 verse 19 I have to ask you are those investments laying up treasures on earth?

The answer is put them to work for God not the interest on them. I know these are hard things but what else can I say in the light of verses like Matthew 6 19. It says lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth or moth and rust of corruption where thieves break through and steal.

Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. So send those lovely investments on before you. Do your giving while you're living then you're knowing where it's going. Some brethren say that accepting Christ as one savior and making him Lord of my life are necessary conditions of salvation.

This has caused me a great deal of confusion since I have always thought salvation is by grace alone. Salvation is contingent on making him Lord of my life. Quite a debate goes on in this subject. There are those that say that you're saved by grace through faith plus nothing and others say that really in the act of salvation you must crown him Lord of all.

If he's not Lord of all then you're not then he's not Lord at all. Well I take great comfort in the fact that God is sovereign and he's greater than all our little debates down here and there are problems here.

For instance if you say that in order to be saved Jesus Lord the question comes up how much? How much do you have to crown him Lord? Remembering that nobody at their very best was still unprofitable. If you make the Lordship of Christ a condition of salvation you do run into problems.

On the other hand if you say that you can save you with a mental reservation that you're not going to make him Lord you're running into problems there too. You're running into problems there too. So I take real comfort in this fact that whenever God sees in the Lord Jesus and I am and he can sort out all these things that begins with a process and with a crisis and should go on.

Television and Family Life

Please make suggestions as how a Christian family should handle tv viewing by both parents and children. Well if you really want my honest answer I think the best way to I imagine you do I really think the best way to handle this to get rid of it.

Now that sounds harsh. Oh Mcdonald you know. But seriously I know non-christian families who have got rid of tv and extoll the practice. I think it's the greatest thing that's happened to their families.

Non-christians they got rid of it and they extoll the practice. They recommend the practice to us. As was said earlier may his tribe and I was serving the Lord in Ireland. There's a company in Ireland that sells tv and their motto is brings the world into your home.

An Irishman ordered one. An Irish Christian ordered one and he saw the truck pull up and he looked up and said brings the world into your living room and he said if that's what it does I don't want it.

He sent it back. Well I think that's the simplest answer to the problem. If you do have tv it certainly should be controlled with the children. Sometimes it's difficult to do. I feel a little bit beyond my depth and some of you might be able to help.

Speculation, Wealth, and Trusting God

What is your thought in light of storing say the wheat harvest for sale later in the year for a better price? In other words you hold the wheat off the market for a better price. Well the question that comes to my mind is and I don't know the answer to this.

Is that a form of speculation and some of you wheat farmers can perhaps tell me. Is it definite that the price is going to be better in a few months or is there a risk involved? Can anybody speak to that?

It's usually better. A very definite risk. It can go up or it can go down. It can go up or it can go down. Well you see that affects the answer doesn't it? It all comes into prayer. It comes into prayer.

I'm a farmer and I still have most of my wheat from last harvest. I see. Don't God give us way too much to tell us? Okay that's why I said I'm beyond my depth with this question. I want to hear what you have to say.

Okay does anybody else want to say anything on that? As far as the price is concerned. More truth than poetry I guess. It's very profitable really. You know.

Two years the price of wheat has been the highest in all of history. Right after harvest. Of course there are not only seasonal variations but there's annual variations and year-to-year variations. So there are definitely direct resources to store up money that we have to consider.

It's very helpful to get these differing viewpoints on it.

There's another thing too as far as I'm concerned that this is the value of money and we can't hang on to it eternally. At least we have to. By the time they come here this money.

Can't buy it. We should say that each individual has to be before the Lord about this himself and that we shouldn't judge others in the matter. Would that be helpful? If a person is doing it with the idea of speculating there might be problems that he has a conscience about but generally speaking it's something that he'll be before the Lord about.

And that applies to the next part of this question. What is your thought on a wealthy brother? Should he become poor as he studded and reinvesting for the Lord? What is the balance between wide stewardship and man through faith?

I said that when you come to a verse like Luke, so be he of you that forsaketh not all that he hath. He cannot be my disciple. That's the kind of a verse that each one of us has to go before the Lord on and say Lord what is this verse going to mean in my life?

Now it doesn't mean the same in everybody's life. Some people have a family some don't. And so the thing to do is to have that exercise of soul that goes before the Lord and seeks his will. And when you do God begins working in your life and God begins speaking to you about things.

Maybe things in your life that never bothered you before and yet you've opened the door for him to do it and he begins speaking to you about it. I don't think it's right for me to go around and tell anybody else what it's going to mean in his life what it means to forsake all.

I know what it means in my life. It's so easy to forget or slip back into the old way of thought. How can we avoid this? Well my answer is put yourself in a position where you have to trust God. And I might have told it to some of you before but some years ago a fellow came back from overseas and he came to my apartment and discussed a problem that had arisen on the mission field and he was going from my place to another city there in the Midwest.

And when he got to I said to him you know there's an elder in an assembly in the next city you're going to that should know what you've told me today and I'd like to suggest that in the few hours you're in that city you go to that elder and you share with him.

But before this fellow left I said to him I said I'd like to ask you a question what makes you tick anyway? I just wanted to see how he would react to this. I said here you are you've got a wonderful education in the United States you could you know get any kind of a job you wanted and I said here you go overseas and you throw your life away with a bunch of nobodies there on the mission field.

I said what's it all about anyway? And he said this to me he said Mr. McDonnell I see that it's very hard to live a life of faith in the United States. He said you have to put yourself in a position where you have to if God fails put yourself in a position where you have to trust God where if God fails you you're sunk power in your life and when you trust touch other lives something will happen for good.