BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

pray, He'll heal this land. He didn't even say if everyone in Texas, or California, or wherever you're living, will seek Him He'll heal it. He said, "If My people…." "I know, but doesn't there at least need to be more people seeking God than rebelling against Him in a nation for Him to preserve it? Doesn't He need His people to be, if not the majority, at least a sizeable percentage of the population?" No, He doesn't. He made that clear in Genesis 18 by what He said to Abraham about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Those cities were as wicked as they come. They were so full of sin that the cry of it had come up before God, and He had decided to destroy them. When He told Abraham what He was about to do, however, Abraham interceded for them. Because his nephew lived in Sodom, he said to The LORD: "Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fi fty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fi fty righteous that are therein?... And the LORD said, If I fi nd in Sodom fi fty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes" (Genesis 18:23-24, 26). After The LORD agreed to spare the city for the sake of 50, Abraham took things even further. Concerned there might not be 50 righteous people left in Sodom, he asked if God would save it for the sake of just 45. God said He would, so Abraham, not certain that number was low enough, whittled it down even further to 40, then 30, and then 20. The LORD agreed each time to the lower number, until fi nally Abraham said, "Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake" (verse 32). Think of it! In this case, "My people" referred to only 10. That's all God needed to fi nd to save the entire city from destruction! I've always been a little disappointed that Abraham didn't go even further. If he had, I think the outcome would have been diœ erent. I think God might have agreed to spare Sodom for the sake of two—or even one. What makes me think that? Ezekiel 22:30. There, God said, "I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none." In other words, if He could have found just one My people—just one person who would pray in faith and intercede—God would have honored that person's prayers, and the nation could have been saved. We Make the First Move and Heaven Backs Us These days, more than one born-again child of God can be found in most any nation. In the United States, particularly, there are millions of us. So, when it comes to praying for the healing of this nation, we have more than enough to get the job done. We just need to stick with it and have faith that God will do what He promised. We just need to believe Jesus meant it when He said: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:18-20). Notice in those verses it's not heaven that makes the fi rst move, it's the people of God here on earth. We take The WORD of God, the blood and the Name of Jesus and bind and loose things on earth; then heaven steps in and backs us. Jesus comes into our midst to carry out whatever we've agreed on in prayer. What does it mean to agree in prayer? It means to believe, instead of just hope. To take a solid stand of faith on God's WORD and say, "This is the way it's going to be and no other!" "But Brother Copeland, sometimes it seems like we pray and agree for God's will to be done in our country and it doesn't look like it makes any diœ erence." So what? We don't go by what things look like in the natural. We go by what God said in the Bible. Every WORD in that Book is blood- backed and blood-bought. The words in the Old Testament were originally backed up by the blood of animals. The words in the New Testament are backed by the blood of Jesus, 6 : B V O V B V O V : 6 2024 Southwest Believers' Convention July 29-Aug. 3 | Fort Worth, Texas For updated event information visit: KCM.ORG/EVENTS Join FlashPoint LIVE Virginia Beach, Va. April 25-26 Columbus, Ohio June 27-28 Omaha, Neb. Sept. 12 New Orleans, La. Oct. 10-11 Learn more and register at 2024flashpoint.live Schedule is subject to change without notice. events Join us!

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