II Chronicles 7:12-16
Sometime in the year of 1963, I preached my first sermon. I was still in college and green as grass about what should be in a sermon. A true Christian sermon comes from the power of God’s word. The Bible contains God’s word, and even as a very green, unpolished preacher, I would focus the sermon on the power of the words in His Word. As I prepare this message, it will focus on God’s Word to Solomon in II Chronicles. God uses His Word to tell us what he wants each of us to do with His gift of life. He uses His Word to tell us what will happen to us when we sin and reject him as God.
The words we speak have power for good or evil. They will be good if we are speaking out of the words of faith that are guided by God’s living Holy Spirit. They will be for evil if it comes only from the human mind and human motives.
Words can be used as warnings in many different ways. Abraham Lincoln used words of warning when he said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedom, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev used words to tell us what his goal was for our country. He said, “We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have communism.”
In his infamous shoe-banging incident at the 1960 United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City, Nikita Khrushchev said for the second time as the Soviet leader: “We will bury you.” In our troubles today, his words take on a deep meaning for our nation. As Christians, we had better take seriously this threat to our faith and freedom. Words can produce fear and death when an evil has power to carry out the threat.
In his book, Through the Valley Kwai, Earnest Gordon tells how one Scottish soldier reacted to words of fear and death. “The Japanese commander had the prisoner’s shovels counted and the count came up short. This commander was convinced that the prisoners had confiscated the shovel. He asked who had stolen it, but no one answered the question. Then the commander spoke the words and ordered his men to shoot the prisoners one by one until someone confessed. The Scottish soldier stepped forward and confessed and was shot to death. On a recounting of the shovels it was discovered that they were all there. The guards had miscounted.”
I believe that the soldier who gave his life for his fellow soldiers knew, by faith, the word resurrection. The resurrection is God’s victory over death and sin.
In our scripture, we hear God saying to Solomon that prayer in God’s name has power. “So Solomon finished the temple of the Lord as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do in the construction of the temple and the palace. Then one night the Lord appeared to Solomon and said, ‘I have heard your prayer and chosen this temple as the place for making sacrifice. At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or command grasshoppers to devour your crops or send plagues among you. Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. My eyes will be opened and my ears attentive to every prayer made in this place. For I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to be holy – a place where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it for it is dear to my heart.’”
Our church has been set apart as a place where we can worship, pray, and honor God in our faith. Our nation has been on a godless path for many years. The church and world are blurred until they have become a mirror of each other. God gave us the church as a place of worship and prayer so we could be His family. Our churches are set apart to be a holy place where God’s name is honored for His gift of salvation from sin and death. Now in our land, fewer and fewer people choose to honor God with their presence in His house. We live with fear, stress, guilt, and pain that we have created in our lives by the way we are living. We see the anger and hate spreading in our divided nation because we no longer know God’s plan for our lives. His plan is still the cross and resurrection of Jesus that draws us into the life he desires for His family.
As he told Solomon, God is telling us, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”
The old hymn, There is Power in the Blood, gives us the power of the word in music to find our connection again as God’s people. “Would you be free of the burden of sin? There’s power in the blood….Would you o’er evil a victory win? There’s wonderful power in the blood. Would you be free from your passion and pride? There’s power in the blood….Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide; There’s wonderful power in the blood. Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow? There’s power in the blood….Sin stains are lost in its life-giving flow: there’s wonderful power in the blood. Would you do service for Jesus your King? There’s power in the blood….Would you live daily His praises to sing? There’s wonderful power in the blood.”
If we humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face, we will have new life, for there is power in the blood of our Lord. He spilled it for each of us on the cross. This is the only Word with eternal power that blesses us and gives us life.
