Turn to me with all your Heart

There is a bible verse which gives a rather wonderful promise to nations who are in trouble as ours is; be it from poor leaders, corrupted beyond our comprehension, (and a Chinese fleet lurking offshore for reasons yet to be revealed.. )

“if then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land.” (2 Chron 7:14)

An exorcist, Fr Ripperger, was interviewed recently and asked to talk about the nature of the corruption currently under scrutiny in the Philippines and there was some interesting commentary. Firstly confirming that there is clearly demonic or diabolical influence , not merely greed or dishonesty and that is certainly important in fully identifying the problem and who or what we are up against. His second point is that God uses such things to chasten His people, to call them to repentance, so that they can be worthy of good leaders and the healing of their land.

When we frame it in this way; it becomes clearer as to what will and will not produce the desired result.

For decades the expression “people power” has been used to rouse the crowd, march, campaign, protest, demand, and give vent to understandable anger, nowadays coupled with a good flurry of social media posts. This may briefly give an illusion of power; but it is an illusion and it’s a godless and perhaps even a blasphemous illusion. To explore a little deeper let’s consider the product of the numerous “people power events” over the last few decades:-

Number of Corrupt Senators jailed ?

Amount of Stolen money recovered from them?

Number of Corrupt Congressman Jailed ?

Amount of  Stolen money recovered from them?

Number of other government officials jailed ?

Corrupt Businessmen jailed ?

Amount of  Stolen money recovered from them ?

Any change what-so-ever ?

The truth is that ‘power exhausts those who don’t have it’. The corrupt (and their diabolical masters) merely laugh at the protests because they are untouchable by those means, they can pretend to investigate, chastise each other with speeches, and then go back to business as usual until the next time, decade after decade, generation after generation, century after century.

If the nation wants change; then it must look to God; firstly by seeking purity of heart (or personal holiness) and a purity of intention. The first part involves repentance especially from those seeking to lead; and especially the church in a Catholic country. Is there anything wrong ? Any reason that the only Catholic country in the world is the most corrupt ? Is there any desire or commitment to depart from its own corruption or sin... any cover-ups within that need to be dealt with?

That is the beginning and frankly the only path to change in government is to become worthy of good leaders or a good country is when the church and people want it for themselves too. God listens to hearts that are humbled and are genuine not the noisy or arrogant. We need God’s power and to acknowledge that of ourselves we have none and have a sincere desire to change and surrender it to God. Then the demons will tremble and the nation’s institutions can be exorcised fully. ‘Don’t put your trust in princes.. (Ps 146:3)