2Chron 7:13, 14, "When I shut up
heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence
among My people,
14 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 heal their land."
If we don't have revival it's not because of the sins of the
unsaved but because of the sins of God's people; God's people holding on to their own sins
are the cause that God cannot work.
Years ago I preached in Mocambique from our text for today. After
the service, church people came forward to make their lives right with God, but their
pastors stopped them saying that the message was not meant for them but the unsaved.
The next day I preached from the same text and made it clear that the text speaks about
the sins of God's people which they must make right so that God can work in this world.
Jesus made clear what the sins were. If you as a married man
should look lustfully at another woman then you have committed adultery and is as a
divorced man.
Jesus also said to the children of God that if you bring your gift
to the altar (i.e. Working for God, praying etc) and you remember there that your brother
in Christ (not pharisees and slanderers and the people of the world who will always speak
bad of you and hate you, but a true brother) has anything against you then leave your gift
(or work etc) and first be reconciled to your brother and then continue with the offering.
The Cross has a significant meaning. It has both a vertical and
horizontal bar indicating that we must be reconciled both to God and man. If you do not
love your brother whom you can see, how can you claim to love God whom you cannot see.
God will require the blood of the unsaved, sent upon your way whom
you did not warn, from your hands.
The story is told of a boy who wanted to find the true religion. So he decided to work for
6 months for a Muslim family and 6 months for a Christian family. He first worked for the
Muslims and then for the Christians. At the end of his six months with the Christian
family he resigned and when asked for a reason told them his story. He saw so much
friction and fighting between the Christians that he decided to join the Muslims.
God will require the blood of that boy from the hands of that Christian family.
Remember what Mahatma Gandhi said about the Christians of his time
and the reason he never would become a Christian. He said, "I like your Christ, I do
not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
We will still give account to God for every idle word we've
spoken.