Exodus chapter 10

 1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them
2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.

I find it interesting that the plagues, the miraculous signs sent by God, were not just a warning for Pharaoh and the Egyptians, but they were also so that the Israelites would know that He was the Lord, that He was their God and they were his chosen people. They were also to tell their children and their grandchildren about this and I wonder just how often, or how little, I tell my own children about God.
If you don't tell others about God, is you don't pass on what God has done I your life, what you have seen, how He has been at work, then how will others know? If we all kept God to ourselves, the fact that He is the one true living God, the maker of all that we see, of all that there is, for whom nothing is impossible, then pretty soon, people will forget about Him. Going to church on Sunday will be something a few strange people do more from habit than anything else, and the world will be full of those who are seeking to find God without having a clue where to look, or even what or who they are looking for.

The Israelites were continually told in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and so on to tell their children and grandchildren, to teach others, remind them of what God had done, who He is and all that He is capable of. And time and time again, when the people forgot about God, the country fell apart. People turned to idolatry, the worship of false gods, they sacrificed their children to Molech, there were temple prostitutes and all sorts. God was at the very back of their minds, if He was there at all. Just like it is today in the western world. People have done their best to remove God from public life in the name of political correctness and to avoid giving offence to others. There is evil in the world, and we helped to bring it in by not telling others, reminding them continually, about God, about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit.

2 chronicles 7:14 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land

I have been continually being reminded of this verse over the past few weeks, and I am sure it is a message from God, a cry from the heart and that we do need to humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways, seek his face and pray. We are responsible for the mess our countries are in, whether it is because we did something, or because we stood by and did nothing. Each one of us has to bear part of the burden.
It involves repentance, humbling ourselves, just as Pharaoh did after the plague of locusts, when he told Moses that he had sinned against God and against Moses. But it has to be real, genuine, not false repentance like Pharaoh's to get out of a tricky situation. There are dreadful times coming, you can feel it in the air, read it in the newspapers, and the only one we can turn to is Jesus, the Saviour of the world, the Son of the one true Living God. He is the one we need to accept into our lives if we are to be saved, for there is no other way to God, despite what Islam, Buddhism, New Age, Wicca and all sorts tell us.