How to Heal America

 ...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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land - 2 Chronicles 7:14

I recently heard a commentary by Chuck Missler on this verse.  Very eye opening.  It's very easy to fall into despair when we see society jumping off the cliff into sexual perversion and all sorts of evil.  But look at the verse in 2 Chronicles.   It doesn't say that the culture must change, or evil men must repent, it says "my people, who are called by my name".  Gods blessing is tied to the faithfulness and holiness of His people.  

For example,  the Corinthians were much like modern day Americans - rich, educated, arrogant.  Yet Paul's rebukes cut to the heart of the matter - they were ignoring and tolerating sexual sin in the midst of the church.  

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. 

For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 

 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES - 1 Corinthians 5

The Corinthians had many other problems as well - there were divisions and quarrels (1 Corinthians 1:10-12), arrogance, disrespect for the Lord's Supper, drunkeness, selfishness, etc.  The result was that some of the Corinthians were weak, sick and even died (1 Corinthians 11:30).  

What a mess, the churches in America aren't like that at all you might think.  But a quick search about porn and christians or pastors paints a different picture.  The spiritual rot has gone underground.  If we take 2 Chronicles 7:14 to heart then the issues in American society have much more to do with the sin of believers than society in general.  Hidden sin demotivates and paralyzes God's people.  Revival will have to start with a return to personal holiness among God's people.