Conditions for Restoration

2 Chronicles 7:11-14
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, September 02, 2001
Copyright © 2001, P. G. Mathew

When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, the LORD appeared to him at night and said: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 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.

2 Chronicles 7:11-14

As we read through the historical books of the Old Testament, we find in 2 Chronicles 7:14 one of the most important statements of this portion of Scripture. After Solomon dedicated the temple, God made a promise to his people, saying, “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 sins and will heal their land.” And when we study the history of the kings of Judah and Israel, we notice that those who fulfilled these conditions received God’s blessing. They were restored, reconciled, and healed. They were saved according to the promise of God.

I do not believe in unconditional salvation. Whenever the question is put in the Bible, “What must I do to be saved?” there is always the answer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will saved.” In other words, without repentance and faith, no one will be saved. However, as a Reformed minister of the gospel, I must hasten to add that no one can repent and believe unless God enables him to do so. That is why we read in the Scriptures statements such as, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return” (Lam. 5:21).

The truth is, no one will be saved unless he repents and believes in Jesus Christ alone and there are certain conditions which God has laid down in the Bible. As we study these conditions, I hope that each of us will pay attention to them and begin to fulfill them. When we do so, we will discover God’s sovereign faithfulness to save us, heal us, restore us, bless us, and forgive our sins.

The Marvel of God’s Mercy

It is God’s nature to show kindness to his people. In Exodus 34:6-7 God introduced himself to Moses, saying he was, “the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” Our God is a faithful God who forgives sin and abounds in love.

After the dedication of the temple, God appeared to Solomon and spoke to him, as we read in 2 Chronicles 7:12-22. In verse 14 God said, in essence, “Solomon, I heard your prayer and intercession. Be assured, I am pleased with you, pleased with the temple, pleased with my people, and pleased with the sacrifices you have offered. Therefore, as you requested, I will hear the prayers that are prayed in this place and heal, deliver, and free those who pray. But there are certain conditions you must fulfill.” What were the conditions God gave Solomon? “If my people who are called by my name, meaning those who are owned by me, will humble themselves, repent, pray, and seek my presence, and turn from their wicked ways, then and only then will I myself (in the Hebrew text “I” is emphasized) hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”

Can God Be Trusted?

This was a wonderful promise God made to Solomon. But some people may want to ask, “Can the God of Israel can be trusted? Can we rely upon his promises? Many are the promises of God; the Bible is filled with them. But can we trust God’s promises?” The resounding answer is “Yes! We can and we must trust God. We must trust God for our healing, for our forgiveness, and for our eternal salvation.”

In John 6:66-67 we read that when a number of people left Jesus Christ, he turned to his disciples and asked them, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” What was the answer of the disciples? “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” They recognized the truth that there is no other God, no other Savior, no other Physician, no other source of help for them. Like them, we must believe in God and trust him.

The Scriptures tell us that God is not a man that he should lie. Let God be true and all men liars! As a pastor, I have listened to the promises of many people, and I have seen a number of people who have turned out to be liars. How many people make affirmations when they get married? They make vows in the presence of witnesses and in the presence of God, yet later they become liars and break those vows! Man is a sinner; thus, he lies. But God is not a man; therefore, we must trust him. In fact, the Bible clearly declares that it is impossible for God to lie. We are told that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. We are told that God is truth and that he is a covenant-keeping God.

We see this truth illustrated in the life of the patriarch Abraham. Abraham wanted some assurance that he would have children and that his children would inherit the land. To assure him, God initiated a covenant ceremony, which we read about in Genesis 15. Abraham was convinced, and in time God fulfilled all the promises he made to Abraham. As God had promised, Abraham’s descendants went to Egypt and became a nation. As God promised, the Israelites were brought out of Egypt by the mighty and powerful hand of God. As God promised, Abraham’s descendants were eventually brought into the land of Canaan which, as God had promised, he gave to the twelve tribes of Jacob. Thus, when Joshua was about to die, he was able to declare, “Not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed” (Joshua 23:14).

Later, God made a covenant with David, saying, “I will build you a house, and your offspring will sit on the throne.” When David’s son Solomon became king, he knew that God’s promise to his father David was fulfilled because he himself was the fulfillment. And as we read in 2 Chronicles 7, after Solomon ascended the throne, he prayed to God.

God alone keeps all his promises. In Genesis 3 we read that God promised to give us a Savior, the seed of the woman. After many centuries, God finally sent a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the seed of the woman-the seed of Abraham, the seed of David-to save us from our sins. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 the apostle Paul speaks about God and his promises, saying, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.”

God must be trusted. Don’t ever trust a human being. This God who keeps covenant-trust him. This God who cannot lie-trust him. This God who did not spare his own Son but gave him up to the shameful death of the cross for us-he alone can be fully trusted. Thus, when we read Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 6, we find the conditions for restoration, forgiveness, reconciliation, and fellowship. Fulfill them!

God Dwells with His People

Additionally, the very existence of the temple proves that God can be trusted. After Solomon built the temple, the priests brought the ark of the covenant and placed it in the Most Holy Place. Then we read in 1 Kings 8:10, “When the priests withdrew, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord.” Just as the cloud, symbolizing the presence of God, had filled the tabernacle when it was set up by Moses in the wilderness, now it was filling the temple. What did this mean? That God was dwelling with his people. No building, no creation of man, can contain God, yet God in his mercy localizes his presence in the midst of his people, symbolized by a cloud filling the temple.

The Bible tells us that God dwells with his people, which means he will defend them, he will teach them, he will fight for them, he will provide for them, and he will forgive them. How do we know these things are true? The shekinah glory is present: God is dwelling with his people.

God Established the Sacrificial System

Not only that, we also know that God can be trusted because of the sacrificial system he established for his people. As the temple was dedicated, sacrifices were made on the altar of burnt offering and God accepted them. Oh, we can make all the sacrifices we want to make, but that is no guarantee God will accept them. But in 2 Chronicles 7:1 we read, “When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.” Isn’t that wonderful? This fire was not from man; God himself came down! The fire from heaven consumed the sacrifices, and all those present praised the Lord because God was pleased to bless his people through a substitutionary sacrificial system.

Without sacrifice no man can be saved. In Romans 6:23 we read that the wages of sin is death, but God himself came up with an arrangement that a substitute could be killed in our place. That is what we see happening in 2 Chronicles 7. The people offered sacrifices and God sent fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices. This meant God would bless and save his people on the basis of a substitutionary sacrifice. The most holy God, who dwells in the temple, can be approached by sinful people through a sacrifice. Whose ideas were these? God’s. God took the initiative to build the temple and give a sacrificial system to his people. It is this God who promises to hear our prayers on the basis of his system of salvation.

God’s Promise to Hear Prayer

Additionally, we can trust God for another reason. After Solomon prayed, we are told that God appeared to him. In 2 Chronicles 7:11 we read, “When Solomon had finished the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the Lord and in his own palace, the Lord appeared to him at night.” After building and dedicating the temple and building the palace and everything else, God appeared to Solomon a second time in the night and told him, “I have heard your prayer.” What was the prayer? It was Solomon’s petition during the dedication of the temple, that when God’s people sinned and when God afflicted them, and when they repented and confessed and turned to God and prayed, that God would forgive their sins.

So God told Solomon, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.” In other words, God was saying, “I will hear the prayer of every person who prays a prayer in this temple or toward this temple on the basis of the sacrificial system. I will hear their prayers, forgive their sins, heal them, and restore them.” What a wonderful promise from the God who does not lie!

God had taken the initiative to build the temple and God accepted the sacrifices during the dedication of the temple. Now God was telling Solomon, “I promise that I will hear every prayer that is prayed in this place on the basis of this sacrificial plan. And if you happen to be in a foreign country because I punished you and threw you out, even from that place, if you pray toward this temple, I will forgive you.” That is why we say our God can be trusted.

The Mountain of Sacrifice

Let me give you another reason based on the temple why we can trust this God who took the initiative to give us the temple. One thousand one hundred years before Solomon built the temple and the altar and offered sacrifices, God told Abraham to take his son, his only son, Isaac, and sacrifice him on a mountain that he would show him. Abraham and Isaac traveled for three days until they reached Mount Moriah, where God showed them the exact location where they were to build an altar to him.

In Genesis 22:9 we read that after Abraham built the altar, he was about to kill Isaac and then God intervened. In place of Isaac, Abraham offered a ram which had been caught in a thicket. Isaac was spared, saved by the death of a God-provided substitute. That is why God is called Jehovah Jireh-the God who provides.

More than a thousand years later David sinned by taking an unauthorized census. As discipline, there was a destructive plague for three days that killed seventy thousand people in Israel. The angel of the Lord himself, with a drawn out sword in his hand, killed seventy thousand people, and we must note that it was Israelites, not pagans, who were killed. As the angel moved southward to Jerusalem to continue the killing, David looked up and saw him standing between heaven and earth with a drawn sword in his hand extending over to Jerusalem to kill David and his men.

But then we read something amazing. Notice how much theology is in this story. God in his mercy spared David and the people of Jerusalem. Yes, the angel’s sword, which must kill, was drawn, but then the prophet Gad came to David and said, “You must build an altar and sacrifice right here.” David did build an altar and killed an animal, which was a substitute for the people, and both David and all the people in Jerusalem were spared.

What was the basis of this mercy shown to David and his people? A sacrifice was offered on the altar, as we read in 1 Chronicles 21:26. This altar, built on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, was in the exact location where Abraham sacrificed eleven hundred years before. After David finished offering the animal, the sacrifice was instantly consumed by fire, signifying that God heard his prayer and he was forgiven and shown mercy. So blood was shed-that is necessary to the sacrificial system-but was the blood of another, not the blood of David.

In 2 Chronicles 3:1 we read that Solomon’s altar was also built on Mount Moriah. This was the mountain where God was, where substitutionary blood was being spilled on a daily basis. Therefore anyone who repented, forsook sin, turned from his sinful ways to God, and prayed to the God of that temple on the basis of the sacrificial system, would be forgiven and restored.

The temple and the altar represent the Lord Jesus Christ. All the blood ever shed on Mount Moriah pointed toward to the blood of Jesus Christ which, in time, was spilled on Calvary’s hill. In fact, Jesus is the temple and the altar, the priest as well as the sacrifice. Remember Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days”? We are told that the temple he spoke of was his own body.

Therefore, we must ask these questions: On what basis was Isaac spared? On what basis was David spared? On what basis are you and I spared from God’s eternal wrath against sin? It is on the basis of this temple and this altar. It is on the basis of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is why we can say with full assurance that our God can be trusted.

In Isaiah 53:5 we read concerning Jesus Christ, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” The drawn sword of the angel who stood between heaven and earth fell on the Lord Jesus Christ for everyone who trusts in him.

Jesus himself spoke about this in Luke 24, beginning with verse 44. After his resurrection, he met two disciples on the road to Emmaus and said to them, “‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.'” Now we can understand why God is able to forgive us our sins, heal us, restore us, reconcile us, break our chains, deliver us, and bring us to himself in holy communion.

The holy God can only be approached through the sacrifice of a perfect victim, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Christ died for sinners. Through him all repenting publicans are justified while all proud Pharisees are condemned; all repenting prodigal sons are forgiven while all self-righteous older sons are condemned. That is why we read in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

God can be trusted. In him there is restoration, forgiveness, healing, reconciliation, and salvation for all who look to the temple in faith. Who is the temple? Jesus Christ. God will forgive us, heal us, restore us, and save us on the basis of the temple and the sacrifices offered there. That is why God told Solomon, “When you pray. . . I will hear your prayer and forgive.”

Recognizing Our Problem

What are the conditions, therefore, for restoration? We find them in 1 Kings 8. However, the first question we must ask is not how we can be restored but why people need to be reconciled, restored, forgiven, and healed in the first place. It is because they have a problem: they have sinned and are under God’s wrath.

In 1 Kings 8:33 we read, “When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you . . .” In verse 35 we read, “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you. . . .” In verse 46 we read, “When they sin against you-for there is no one who does not sin. . . .” What is the problem here? We are born sinners and we can only sin. The problem is the moral inability of man, that man by nature is a sinner.

What is sin? Just look at the history of the kings of Judah and Israel and we will get an idea of what sin is all about. Sin is idolatry. Sin is arrogance. Sin is trusting in the creation rather than in the Creator.

So in 1 Kings 8:33 we read, “When your people Israel have been defeated. . .” Why were they defeated? Was it because God became weak and could not give them victory? No! Was it because the gods of the other nations were more powerful than God and Israel that they defeated Israel? No! God, the God of Israel, handed his own people over to their enemies because of their own sin. Sin has consequences.

In verse 46 Solomon prayed, “When they sin against you-for there is no one who does not sin-and you become angry. . . .” Does the idea of an angry God surprise you? It shouldn’t, but I know many people who believe in a God who is always nice, always sweet, always smiling, always hugging, always embracing-a “God” who doesn’t say one word about sin. I have known people who are like this picture of God; they always hug you, no matter what you’ve done. Oh, I like to hug also, but I will say while hugging, “You have sinned and God is angry at you. PGM You are going to suffer the consequences of sin when you violate God’s moral law.” Don’t ever think there is universal salvation, meaning that God in a sense will hug everyone irrespective of what they have done.

Solomon continued, “. . . and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to his own land, far away or near. . . .” First, then, there is sin; second, God becomes angry; third, he punishes and afflicts us.

In verse 35 we read, “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them. . . .” Consider all the troubles we face in life. There is psychological trauma, physical disease, economic trouble, family problems, marriage problems, anxiety, fear. Where do all these things come from? God afflicts us. God is angry with us. God deals with us according to his nature.

Conditions for Restoration

What, then, are the conditions for restoration?

1. We must repent. Verse 46 tells us God in his anger threw his own people out of their land and placed them in captivity because of their sin. What should they do? In verse 47 we read, “. . . and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their conquerors . . . .” God requires nothing less than a change of heart. That is called repentance. We must change our hearts, which means a change of mind, a change of will, a change of affection. God desires truth in the inward parts, we read in Psalm 51:6.
2. We must turn from sin. In verse 35 we read, “and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin. . . .” You see, before God can heal and restore us and reconcile us, we must make up our minds to turn away from sin. This is what the God of the Bible requires.Oh, we want God to bless us in our sins, don’t we? The reason many people are not blessed, in spite of all the prayers and Bible study and going to church, is that they will not turn from their sins. Such people love their sins and refuse to forsake them. But the condition tells us to turn from sin. In Isaiah 55:6-7 we read, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” No one will be healed, forgiven, saved, and restored as long as he refuses to turn from his sins.
3. We must turn to God. In verse 33 we read, “When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when they turn back to you and confess your name. . . .” Not only must we turn from our sins, but we must also turn to the true God, the God of Israel.
4. We must confess God’s name. In verses 33 and 35 we read the phrase, “when they . . . confess your name.” To confess God’s name means to take a loyalty oath, to confess “Iêsous Kurios,” “Jesus is Lord,” or “God is my God.” It is to tell God, “God, I abandoned you, forsook you, worshiped idols and did my own thing. But I am coming back to you. You alone are my God and I want to come under your sovereign rule.”
5. We must confess sin. Yes, we must repent and plead, pray and have a change of heart. We must turn from our wicked ways and turn to God. But we must also confess our sins to God. We must agree with God’s analysis that we are sinners.In verse 47 God’s people say, “We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly.” We must own our sin. Say to God, “I have sinned. I have acted wickedly. I have abandoned you. I have worshiped idols.”As the prodigal son traveled home from the far country, I am sure he was rehearsing his confession in his head: “As soon as I see my father,” he thought, “I am going to tell him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am unworthy to be called a son.'” That is the type of confession God requires. John speaks of this type of confession in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

   The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all our sins. Hosea tells us in Hosea 14:1-2, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall. Take words with you and return to the Lord.” When we go to the true God, we must always take words with us. Oh, these people thought that Assyria and everyone else could help them, but now they realized by God’s painful dealings in their lives that no one could save them, but God alone. Only God can forgive us, restore us, change us, and heal us.

6. We must pray to the Lord. The temple is called the house of prayer for all the peoples of the world. We must say to this God who dwells in the Most Holy Place, “O God, have mercy upon me. Forgive my sins!” Pray to him-the true God, the living God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. And, even if we are in a far country, that is okay. God told Solomon his people did not have to come to the temple for him to hear their prayers. He said they could just pray toward the temple, to the God of the temple and that sacrificial system, and they would be taken care of.

These are the conditions for restoration. This is why Daniel, even in faraway Babylon, went to his house, opened the window, and prayed toward Jerusalem. He was taking advantage of this promise God gave to Solomon.

God Pardons His People

If we meet these conditions, God will help us and restore us. In Leviticus 26 God told his people, “If you are not going to listen to me, I am going to give you problems. And if you still refuse to listen to me, I am going to intensify the problem degree by degree by degree.” What is the final thing God says he will do? “I will throw you out.”

But in Leviticus 26:27, 40, and 44 we read a wonderful thing. There God tells his people that in spite of all his severe dealings against their terrible sin, even if they are in a faraway place where God himself put them, if they repent and pray, God will forgive them. Isn’t that amazing? Having committed the worst sin, if we repent, God will forgive us. No wonder Paul could say, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20).

Reader, I want to tell you one thing: It doesn’t matter what your sin is. The issue is meeting God’s condition: “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 will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). That is restoration.

Why are so many people not restored and healed? There is only one answer: They have not met the conditions. They want an unconditional salvation, but there is no such thing. God saves only those who will repent and believe in him. To them God says, “I will hear from heaven.” His ears are attentive to the prayers of every repenting and believing sinner in the whole world. His eyes are roaming to and fro, looking for such people who repent.

In 1 Kings 7:50 Solomon prayed, “And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you.” Forgive all their sins! Praise God, this is not selective forgiveness. Study the Bible. There you will read that God will blot out your transgressions and remember them no more; that he will cast our sins into the depths of the sea and drive them away as cloud; that he will cast our sins behind his back and cover our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The Bible speaks about free, full, and forever pardon. Not only that, in 1 Kings 8:34 we read God will “bring them back to the land [he] gave to their fathers.” God will bless his people . He will restore them to the land, send rain, and give them bread. He will take away their diseases and strengthen them. He will defeat their enemies. He will be for them for they are his people. Oh, what wonderful promises for the people of God!

Not only will God restore his people to the land, but 1 Kings 8:36 says he will teach them righteousness. Our God will teach us how to live! He will teach us the right ways. He will give us pastors and teachers who will expound from the Holy Word how we should live.

What, then, is the conclusion of the matter? It is that God is true; he cannot lie; and all his promises are true. He promises to save us, forgive us, to heal us, and to restore us. He promises to restore us, send rain upon us, to defeat our enemies and take away our anxiety and misery.

The Example of Manasseh

In 2 Chronicles 33 we find this truth illustrated in the life of Manasseh, king of Judah. Although Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, who was a good king, Manasseh himself grew up to be a wicked reprobate. Though he was only twelve years of age when he became king, he set his mind to sin. In 2 Chronicles 33 we read about all the sins he committed, including burning his own son in the worship of other gods, just like his wicked grandfather Ahaz had done.

Of all the kings of Judah, Manasseh was the most wicked. But in 2 Chronicles 33:10 we read a most amazing thing: “The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people. . . .” God is gracious, longsuffering, and patient; so we read, “The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people.” In other words, the word of the Lord came to these reprobate people, telling them to repent and how to live. What was the response of the people? In verse 10 we also read “but they paid no attention.”

This is the way God deals with us. We sin, and God speaks to us through his word, as well as through his ministers, through our fathers, through our mothers, and through others who are close to us. This is the grace of God to us. But many pay no attention to the word of God.

What did God do next? He brought affliction to our lives. In verse 11 we read, “So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.” Suppose you sin, and the pastor or your parents or others tell you what to do, but you pay no attention. Then God will say, “All right. I have other tricks in my bag.” What sort of things does God use to get our attention? Trials, affliction, problems, fear, anxiety, economic stress, disease, marriage problems-every type of trouble. God brought all these things against Manasseh, but, in fact, Manasseh still did not repent.

But read verse 12. There we find the most important point of this chapter. Remember, we are talking about the most wicked king in the history of Judah, yet here we see God’s amazing grace at work in Manasseh’s life. In verse 12 we read, “In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.” There in Babylon, while bound in shackles and held captive, Manasseh sought the favor of the God of the temple “and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.” That is repentance.

Now, do you want to know whether or not we can trust God? Observe God’s response to Manasseh. There was immediate restoration, as we read in verse 13: “And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.”

It is amazing to consider that when we meet these conditions, God fulfills his promises to heal us, restore us, forgive us, reconcile us, provide for us, send rain, defeat our enemies, and encourage us. What was the basis for God’s grace shown to Manasseh? A sacrificial system which pointed to Jesus Christ.

May God Have Mercy on Us!

In Luke 18 we read about a publican who came to the temple to pray. He stood at a distance, not daring to look up to heaven, and began to beat upon his breast. He repented greatly, saying, “Have mercy upon me, the sinner.” Notice, he said, “the sinner,” implying, “I am the sinner-the worst sinner in the whole universe.” What happened to this publican? God saved him, and the Bible says he went home justified.

There was a Pharisee named Paul, a vigorous persecutor of the Christian faith, who called himself the worst sinner in 1 Timothy 1:15, saying, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst.” But when Ananias was called to visit this violent prosecutor, God told Ananias that Saul was praying in the house of Judas. God saved Saul.

If God could save Saul the Pharisee, if he could save the publican, if he could save Manasseh, could he not also save you, based on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? I pray that you will open your eyes that you may see the angel of the Lord with a drawn sword standing between heaven and earth. It is stretched toward you, and the sword must fall, either on you or on a substitute. The wages of sin is death. But the Bible tells us there is one now who is greater than Jonah, one who is greater than Solomon, one who is greater than the temple. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. That sword fell on him, and if you repent and believe on him, you shall be saved-saved today, saved now.

Don’t worry about any other enemies that you have. Worry about only one enemy, who is God himself. If you are saying, “Can I trust him?” I just told you everyone else is a liar and God alone is truth. God cannot lie. Therefore, trust him. Confess your sins to him and forsake them. Turn away from sin and turn to God. Pray to him, confessing and saying, “I am a sinner and I confess that I have sinned wickedly. Have mercy upon me, O God! Forgive all my sins.” When you do that, God will forgive your sins. The true and living God, the God of all mercy and abounding love, the God who justifies the wicked, will forgive you and save you because the sword fell on another, even Jesus Christ, our Lord.

May God help us to repent of our sins, forsake our sins and turn to God, believing what he said in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear their prayer from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.”