Exposing a Popular Erroneous Teaching in this Season
““If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14 WEB)
Recently, due to current events in the world, there have been many erroneous teachings based on the passage above.
People are saying that the bush fires in Australia, the locust swarms in Africa, and the COVID-19 pandemic are God’s judgments upon the world for their sins.
Most of them then sincerely ask people to turn from their sins and pray to seek God’s forgiveness so that He would heal their lands.
This is complete nonsense because if the people could turn from their sins by themselves, why was there a need for Jesus to come and die on the cross?
These erroneous teachings are just going to bring people back to bondage under the Law and make them think that God is punishing people with droughts, fires, plagues and pestilences.
“But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19 WEB)
It is not God doing these. They are either effects of the fallen state of the earth, or caused by Satan and his demons.
“in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;” (Ephesians 2:2 WEB)
Don’t forget that the apostle Paul called Satan “the prince of the power of the air”. It means that Satan has some limited power over nature in this world. Causing fires, tornadoes, pestilences and plagues are not beyond his ability.
God is not using all these bad things to threaten the world into repentance. It is not the stopping of their wicked ways that causes God to heal them and their land. God already paid for healing of mankind and the earth through the blood that Jesus shed at the cross.
To suggest that your efforts at turning from wicked ways is the basis for God healing your land is a huge insult to Jesus’ finished work at the cross.
Have you really turned from all your wicked ways in both thought and deed, and can you ensure that your whole nation does that perfectly? Don’t be foolish and go back to bondage under the Law and works-based justification.
God knows that man will continue to sin because of their sinful flesh, and He already poured out His full wrath for sins upon Jesus at the cross. You cannot perfectly stop sinning for the rest of your life because you still have sin in your flesh, but all the condemnation for sin is gone because it has all been exhausted in Jesus who was offered up as your substitute.
Can you pray for God to heal your land? Sure, do that and also pray that God will save the people in your land through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But know this clearly that it is not because of you turning from your wicked ways that God hears and heals. It is because of Jesus’ finished work at the cross—the precious blood that paid for your sins and the death that established the New Covenant of Grace.
“Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1 WEB)
Stand firmly in the freedom of Grace and don’t be again entangled in the Law!
Learn how to properly understand the Four Gospels through the Lens of Grace so that you know what applies to you today, what was for the past, and what will be for new dispensations in the future: https://bit.ly/understandeveryparable
