Ep 52 | Christian Podcast - If My People: The Promise

Most Americans are missing a crucial formula for national healing — and it’s right in the Bible. When leaders and citizens alike embrace a specific path of humility, prayer, seeking God’s face, and repentance, real change becomes possible. But will it happen before it’s too late?In this eye-opening episode, Pastor Marc Little reveals how the biblical conditions for healing are already being used by other nations to transform society — and why ignoring these divine principles risks even greater division and despair in America. You’ll discover the powerful story of Uganda’s 2012 Jubilee, where a nation confessed its sins and experienced unprecedented breakthrough. This episode unpacks the timeless biblical blueprint — proven in history and desperately needed today.Why does the church’s response to national moments matter more than ever? Because history shows that when God’s people stand in intercession and humility, real restoration follows. Whether you’re frustrated with politics, skeptical of revival, or hungry for genuine change, this episode challenges you to see how prayer and repentance are the keys God has already provided for America’s most urgent cries.If you believe the future of your nation depends on spiritual leaders, honest repentance, and trusting God’s sovereignty, this is essential listening. Pastor Marc Little weaves scripture, history, and urgent insight into a powerful call to action. Don’t miss this opportunity to understand the biblical path to healing — and what it will take to see it unfold in our lifetime.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

There is a moment happening in America right now that half the church wants to celebrate, and the other half wants to dismiss. And I want to talk about why both of those reactions may be missing the point entirely. President Donald Trump has announced an event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It's scheduled for May 17th. It's called the National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving. The stated purpose is to rededicate the United States of America as one nation under God. Now, before you applaud or before you change the channel, I want you to slow down because this is not fundamentally about Donald Trump. What this is about is whether God has a formula for healing a broken nation, and whether we have the honesty and the faith to recognize it when he is using it. Regardless of who he has chosen to stand in the camp. I'm going to take you to a text most people know, but few have actually sat inside of. I'm going to take you to a nation in Africa that proved the formula. Proved the formula works in the real world, in real time. And then I'm going to speak plainly about the part of the church that's refusing to receive what God is doing right now. Simply because of who he's using to do it through. We need to have this conversation. This is the Mark Little Show. I am Mark Little. I am your host. I'm a pastor, I'm a lawyer, and a political commentator. And we'll be right back. Today we are beginning a two-part series. The series is called If My People. This is part one, and it's called The Promise. Now let's get into it. I want to start with a verse. Not because it's unfamiliar. Most people who spend any time in a church have heard this one. But familiarity has a way of making us think we've received something we've only heard. Let's go to 2 Chronicles. Yes, 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verse 14. I'm reading the NIV version as always, and it says this 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 I'll forgive their sin and will heal their land. That's the text. That verse has been on bumper stickers, church marquees, and political podiums for decades. We quote it, we post it, we put it on graphics, but I want to actually read it today because there's something in this text that most people just skip past. There are four conditions in this promise. Not one. Not a general posture of religiosity. Four specific, identifiable conditions. The first is humility. Humble themselves. That's not an emotion. It's a posture. The Hebrew carries the sense of pressing down, of choosing deliberate smallness. Because you're before a holy God. Now performance, not optics. Genuine lowering of the self in the presence of the Almighty. The second condition is prayer. And I want to be precise here because this prayer in this text is describing not Sunday morning routine. This is desperate, intentional, directed intercession. The context in 2 Chronicles chapters 6 and 7, it's the dedication of Solomon's temple. God is not describing liturgy. He's describing a people who have run out of other options and are turning their faces toward heaven because there's nowhere else to turn. Third condition is seeking his face. Not his hand, his face. There's a difference that matters enormously. Seeking his hand is asking for provision. Seeking his face is asking for his presence. God is saying that the condition for national healing is not that his people get more serious about policy or politics. And the fourth condition is repentance. Turn from their wicked ways. And I want to say this as plainly as I know how. The text does not say turn from the wicked ways of the culture. It does not say turn from the sins of the entertainment industry or the failures of the progressive left. It says their wicked ways, God's people's wicked ways, the church's wicked ways. This is the part the bumper sticker always leaves off. The healing of the land is not contingent on the sinners repenting. It is contingent on the saints repenting. That shifts the weight of this conversation. And there's one more thing before I move on. Look at who God is addressing. He says, if my people who are called by my name, this verse is not directed at Congress. It's not directed at unbelievers or secularists or the media. It is directed at the people who carry his name. The responsibility for national healing, according to this text, rests with the church. Not with any political figure, with the church. That means if this nation does not turn, the first place the church should look for an explanation is in the mirror. Meet those four conditions. And God makes a three-part promise. I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin. I will heal you. The promise is as clear as the conditions. But you cannot access the promise while ignoring the conditions. What Solomon was doing when God spoke these words was not incidental. He had just dedicated the temple. He had organized the priest, arranged the sacrifices, and stood before the Ark of the Covenant on behalf of an entire people. He was not acting as a private citizen with a personal devotional life. He was acting as a leader, making a national declaration before God. And God responded, not vaguely, not after a long delay. In fact, fire came down. The glory filled the house. And then God appeared to Solomon personally in the night and told him, I've heard your prayer, I've heard your prayer, I've chosen this place, and here is the formula for restoration when things go wrong. That pattern, a leader, standing before God on behalf of a nation, runs through the American story in a way that should be familiar to anyone who has looked at this country's history with honest eyes. George Washington at Valley Forge. This is not mythology or religious legend. It's documented. A commanding general. In the middle of a war, he was not certain he was going to win. He went to his knees. He understood that the outcome was not fully within his control, and he acted accordingly. Abraham Lincoln, in the darkest season of the Civil War, he issued a proclamation calling for a national day of prayer, humiliation, and fasting. He used the language of repentance. He acknowledged national sin. He called this country. Lincoln's personal theology was complicated, but he understood that a nation in crisis needed more than military strategy. Benjamin Franklin, he stood on the floor of the Constitutional Convention and moved that they begin each session with prayer. He cited the fact that they had been sustained by God's providence during the revolution. And then he argued that it would be foolish to proceed without his continued guidance. Franklin was not an Orthodox Christian by any evangelical standard, but even he understood the principle. So when President Trump stood at the national prayer breakfast on February 5th of this year and announced that the United States would hold a national rededication event on the National Mall on May 17th, he was not inventing something new. In fact, he was reaching back into the tradition that runs from the founding of this republic to the present moment. He declared 2026, a year of celebration and rededication. He launched the America Praise Initiative, calling one million Americans to dedicate one hour a week to prayer for this country. He called prayer America's superpower. I love it. And the White House explicitly anchored all of it to 2 Chronicles, chapter 7, verse 14. Now, I want to ask a direct question of those who are struggling with this moment. When other presidents called for national days of prayer and fasting, did you celebrate? Did you say amen? Because if the answer is yes, then you owe yourself an honest accounting of why this president doing the same thing does not deserve the same response.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

We're going to come back to that in the next segment. But first, take a break with me.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

This is the Mark Little Show. I am Mark Little and I am your host. We're in part one of our series, If My People, The Promise. Now let's keep going. Let me be direct about something now because we all know what I'm about to say. The reason a portion of the church cannot engage this moment is Donald Trump. They cannot separate the event from the man. They look at the National Jubilee of Prayer and they see a political problem. They look at the America Praise Initiative and they see a calculation. They look at the rededication and they see theater. And I understand that. I'm not dismissing it. Donald Trump has a complicated personal history. He has said things that do not reflect Christian conduct. His life, particularly in the decades before his presidency, includes chapters none of us would hold up as models of godly character. That's not in dispute. But let me introduce you to someone whose story should be very familiar to anyone who knows their Bible. His name is Cyrus. He was the king of Persia. He was a pagan. He worshipped gods that had nothing to do with the God of Israel. He had no covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God used him to end the Babylonian captivity. He used him to release the Jewish people. He funded the rebuilding of the temple. And he used him to restore a displaced nation to their land. Isaiah 45 names Cyrus more than a hundred years before he was even born and calls him God's anointed. Not because Cyrus was righteous, not because Cyrus had a testimony, because God is sovereign. And Cyrus was the instrument he chose for a specific purpose at a specific moment in history. The question the church needs to grapple with is not whether Donald Trump is a perfect vessel. The question is whether God is at work through an imperfect instrument to accomplish something that serves his larger purposes for this nation. At this particular moment, those are not the same question. And the church has been answering the wrong one. I want to go back to an episode I did on Daniel, specifically Daniel chapter 10, on prayer and perseverance. When the answer is delayed, Daniel was not serving a righteous king. Nebuchadnezzar was not a man of biblical faith. Daniel served him anyway. He prayed under his rule anyway. He didn't make the character of the king a precondition for his own obedience. An intercession. The segment of the church that refuses to pray for Donald Trump is not exhibiting discernment. It's exhibiting rebellion. That's a hard word. I mean it precisely. The command to pray for those in authority is not conditional on their theology, their conduct, or their personal history. Romans 13, that's what it says. 1 Timothy 2. These texts do not have footnotes that read unless you find the leaders morally problematic. What I'm watching in some corners of the church is not prophetic independence, it is political capture, dressed in spiritual language. People who would have enthusiastically participated in a national prayer event under a president they preferred are now calling the same event a threat to their integrity. That's not a theological position. That's called tribalism. God does not ask for our approval of the instrument before he picks it up. He asks for our faithfulness while he does. So we have the text. We have the four conditions and the three-part promise. We have the historical pattern from Solomon to Washington to Lincoln. And we have the current, a president calling the nation to prayer and rededication on the National Mall, anchoring it to Scripture, whatever you might think of him personally. That's what he's doing. But here is the question worth sitting with before we close today. Does this formula actually work? Not in theory, not in the pages of ancient text, in the real world, in a modern nation, in our lifetime, has this approach to national repentance and godly leadership produced the fruit God promised? The answer is yes. And the evidence comes from a nation in East Africa that most Americans know very little about. August 2012, during their year of jubilee, marking fifty years of independence, President Ywiri Musevene did something that almost no modern head of state has the courage to do. He stood before his country and confessed its sins. He led a national prayer of repentance. He dedicated Uganda to God. But that ceremony was not the beginning of the story. It was the culmination. Because years before that public moment, Uganda had already demonstrated that when a nation aligns its public policy with biblical principle, the results are real. You can document them. The numbers are not symbolic. We're going to walk through that entire story next week. In part two, that I call the proof. We'll look at what Uganda built, what the United States government did to it, and why that history is directly connected to why this moment of national rededication matters more than most people realize. Come back for part two. It's worth your time. This has been The Mark Little Show, part one of If My People. Next week, part two, The Proof. We're going to look at Uganda, at the role of USAID in the dismantling of what God worked, and at what godly national leadership looks like when a nation is serious about it. See you next week. I am Mark Little. Until next time.