A closer look at 2nd Chronicles 7:14, as it applies to Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and the need for it to be applied today in America.
Background: At the end of the 1970s many were speaking of the end of the American age. America was in the midst of an economic recession, inflation had exploded into double digits. Waiting in long lines for gas was very common. To add to the trouble, Russia invaded Afghanistan.
Further, radical Muslims had taken over the United States embassy in Iran and 52 American citizens and diplomats were held, hostage. Americans were glued to their televisions to listen to the multitudes chanting “death to America. “ The crisis dragged on for months. America appeared to be helpless. In the Spring of 1980, the president decided to use military power to free the hostages. Due to mechanical failures and a dust storm, America lost eight servicemen in a helicopter crash.
The Iranians displayed their bodies in the square surrounding the American embassy. Four days following that disaster, something great happened in Washington, DC. Believers gathered at the capital city for an assembly. The event was based on a single scripture — 2nd chronicle 7:14, “If my people … those gathered were seeking God’s face. They saw the need to turn from their wicked ways.
Note: This assembly was planned long before the catastrophe, long before the Americans were taken hostage, but everything came together on that spring day in 1980. The assembly was held on the national mall facing the Western terrace of the capital.
Less than a month after that gathering, Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination. On the eve of the November election Ronald Reagan gave a speech.
He said this: ... For the first time in our memory many Americans are asking does history still have a place for America, for her people, for her great ideals? Some answer no; that our energy is spent, our days of greatness at an end.
Then he spoke again about America’s strength: It’s not bombs and rockets but belief and resolve, it is humility before God that is ultimately the source of America’s strength as a nation. Our people have always held fast to this belief, this vision since our first days as a nation. I know I have told before of the moment in 1630 when the tiny ship Arabella bearing settlers to the New World lay off the Massachusetts coast. To the little bank of settlers gathered on the deck, John Winthrop said: we shall be a city on a hill.
The night before the election he repeated what Winthrop had said, also giving a warning against turning away from God. The eyes of all people are upon us so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.
Then he closed the speech with this: And let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation that we did keep faith with our God, that we did act worthy of ourselves; that we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill.
The day after Reagan gave that speech, a revolution took place in the polls, a landslide that swept Reagan into office, with others that swore to uphold biblical values.
God intervened, the 444 days of captivity for the histages ended on January 20th, 1981. Reagan’s inauguration was the beginning of healing and restoration, prayer was answered.
So now, we reflect April 30th, 1863, and the Spring of 1980 for two examples of prayers lifted to God based on 2nd Chronicles 7:14. On both occasions God intervened and changed history.
Now, as we live in our democracy threatened by “American Marxism”, the spirit of lawlessness rampant, a country divided by the ‘great divider‘ Joe Biden; we see the need to seek God once again and save ourselves from ourselves. Hats off to J. Cahn for inspiration, & his book, The Harbinger 2. Frankie The Earthman.
Frankie The Earthman 