← Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript108 lines
- [00:00]
A
We're in 2nd Chronicles 29. I've probably said that about five times, so I hope that you're there by now. And we're gonna be looking at this man. His name is Hezekiah. And two thumbs up. We've got a good king that we're gonna finally learn from tonight. This is amazing because if you've been here and you've been following our study through second Chronicles, it's been bad king after bad king after bad king. Now listen, don't get me wrong. God has put the bad kings in the Bible. Cause we have an awful lot to learn through the failures of other people. Aren't you so glad? Praise God. Yet my failures, your failures aren't written down in the Bible for people to see. Oh my goodness, that would not be good. And so these, these poor guys, their failures are written down in the Bible for us to learn from. But for tonight, we have someone that did things very, very well. And I want you, as we read from chapter 29, just to capture Hezekiah's heart for the Lord, his zeal for the Lord, his passion for the Lord, his love and desire for holiness in his life personally and in the nation of Israel. Essentially, chapter 29. Because his dad messed things up. And we'll kind of summarize where we were last week. Cause his dad messed things up so bad. Hezekiah is going to have to bring revival in the nation of Judah. And this revival essentially comes in the form of sanctification, sacrifice and song. Sanctification, sacrifice and song. We're going to kind of unpack that as we make our way through. But why is he having to make all of this reform and change in the nation of Judah? It's because his dad, Ahaz was a bad, bad man. And Pastor Tyler did a good job covering his life last week. But Hezekiah, just some. Some context. And we've been throwing up this map over the course of the last several weeks. Again, just to give you the geography. Judah is the kingdom in the south. Israel is the kingdom in the north. That fact should be stamped on your minds by now. Jerusalem is the capital of the southern kingdom. Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom. And King Hezekiah comes onto the throne in the southern kingdom of Judah at the very same time that the Assyrians come and they siege Samaria and take over the northern kingdom of Israel. We're in the 700s B.C. king Hezekiah comes to the throne in about 716 BC and at that same time, the kings of Israel are taken captive. Samaria, their capital city, is being run over again by the Assyrians. Listen, God was very, very patient with Israel and Hezekiah, what he's going to do is he's going to see the ramifications of Israel's sin. And that yes, though God is patient and he was patient for a long time, that his window of patience eventually comes to a close and his patience with Israel came to an end. So he uses the Assyrians as his has, as his really his spirit, the spiritual spanking to Israel and he disciplines the nation of Israel And Hezekiah now comes onto the throne in the southern kingdom of Judah. When all this is going on now remember, eventually in about 200 years, Babylon is going to be the empire that comes against Judah. Destroys Jerusalem, destroys their temple. What Babylon does though is Babylon. Predominantly what they're going to do is they're going to take those from Judah captive, they're going to bring them back to Babylon. Remember Daniel and his three friends, they were a part of that captivity. And the Babylonians, this is how they would take over a land. They would predominantly again take people captive, bring them out of their land and replant them in to Babylon. Beautiful Babylon. That's why when Cyrus the king of Persia sends the, when Medo Persian empire then overthrows the Babylonian empire, Cyrus tells them, go back. God has decreed me to tell you go back and rebuild Jerusalem. But most of them stay in Babylon, beautiful Babylon. That was the Babylonians, that's going to happen to Judah in about 200 years. So God's window of patience for Judah extends his patience though for Israel comes to an end in 700 B.C. and the Assyrians were very different than the Babylonians. They wouldn't take you captive for the most part and bring you back to their land. What they would do is they would assimilate into your culture. So then you have the Israelites, the Israelis assimilating with the Assyrians and they, many of them intermarry and that is when then you get to the New Testament and, and you see the Samaritans, the Samaritans, excuse this derogatory term, the Samaritans, in the minds of the Jews, they were half breeds because they were Assyrian Israeli blood mix. And that's why, when you get to the New Testament, why the Jews had so much prejudice against the Samaritans, because the Assyrians came in, took over the northern kingdom of Israel, they assimilated into their culture. And now you have Israelis and Assyrians having babies together. And then Hundreds of years later in Jesus's day, they still hold this bitterness. And so when Jesus uses the example of the good Samaritan, it's when their
- [06:05]
B
blood starts to boil.
- [06:07]
A
Because Jesus says, your religious, your religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they're going to step over this guy who's injured, but the Samaritan is going to be
- [06:18]
B
the one who extends this hand of mercy. And that's what gets them upset.
- [06:22]
A
All of this is dating back to this historical time period when Assyria takes over Israel and now Hezekiah becomes the king of Judah. This is the historical context here. So Hezekiah comes onto the scene. Now check out verse one, chapter 29. It says, Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. Can I get an amen? Oh, thank you, Hezekiah. Now, we can skip over this real easily, but a little bit of math here, because his dad, his dad, Ahaz. If you just want to flip back to chapter 28, verse 1, it says in chapter 28, verse 1, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. So he became king when he was 20. Reigned 16 years. So how old did that make Ahaz when he died? Wasn't that 36 is not that old. Okay, so. So 20 plus 16. So Ahaz dies when he's 36. Now go back and let's read the first verse of chapter 29. Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old. What are you guys kind of picking up when I'm laying down here? Ahaz was 36 when it. When he died. And his son Hezekiah takes the throne at 25. There's only an 11 year age gap between father and son.
- [08:07]
B
Ahaz was a naughty boy.
- [08:11]
A
He's a dirty boy. He's 11 years old when Hezekiah is born. And Ahaz, you can go back and you can watch Pastor Tyler's message on Ahaz. He was a bad guy. Drove the Lord to so much anger, he encouraged Judah into this moral decline. And in chapter 28, verse 24, it says, so Ahaz gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every single city of Judah, he made high places to burn incense to other gods. And he provoked the Lord to anger.
- [08:53]
B
Right?
- [08:53]
A
This was Ahaz. Just this guy who's just riddled with insecurity, goes crazy. He. It says that he shuts up the doors to the temple and he encourages idolatry. That's Hezekiah's dad. And then in verse two, it says that Hezekiah did what was right in
- [09:13]
B
the sight of the Lord.
- [09:15]
A
Now, this should be encouraging for some of you. Maybe you didn't grow up in a
- [09:20]
B
home with the best mom or the best dad.
- [09:23]
A
Listen, you have your own
- [09:32]
B
freedom to not have to be like your mom or dad.
- [09:38]
A
But you can grow up loving the Lord, knowing the Lord, chasing after the Lord, living and hungering after righteousness.
- [09:48]
B
You don't have to follow in their footsteps.
- [09:51]
A
I know that in a room this large, many of you grew up in homes that were not the best. And don't think like, oh, my mom was this way, or my dad was this way. So I'm doomed to repeat that same behavior.
- [10:03]
B
No, you're not. You're not.
- [10:06]
A
Hezekiah goes against the grain of his dad's immorality. And Hezekiah, the Bible says, did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He's 25 years old, this young adult, and it says, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Now, the book of second Kings parallels the book of second Chronicles. You don't have to turn there. You can if you want to. You can go to 2nd Chronicles 18. Because 2nd. 2nd sorry, 2nd Kings 18, 2nd Kings 18 kind of underscores what 2nd Chronicles means by he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And this is what Second Kings 18 says in Second Kings 18, verses 4 through 7. It says that Hezekiah removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days, the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord, and he did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord had commanded. Moses, the Lord was with Hezekiah. He prospered wherever he went. So when 2 Chronicles 29 says, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Second Kings 18 elaborates a little bit more on what that looked like, and there's a few things I think we can just take from this. It says, he removed the high places. All right. Yeah. Now, you will note, as we're been making our way through Second Chronicles, you'll note that there were some good kings, but there's kind of a little asterisk next to their name. It says they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, although they did not remove the high places. That was descriptive of many of the generally good kings in Israel. But Hezekiah has the cojones to remove the high places. He has the courage here to. To remove the high places. What are the high places really? The high places were hills, sometimes man made hills where there would be pagan worship and idolatry. It started with the Canaanites. God would outlaw this in the Book of Numbers, and he would tell the Israelites as they were making their way into the promised land, listen, you're going to come into this land of Canaan. It's riddled with all this pagan idolatry and sexual immorality. It would set up the. Their idols to BAAL and Asherah, gods and goddesses of fertility. There'd be sexually immoral practices going on on these high places. And he told the Israelites, he said, when you go into the land, you got to remove the high places. Well, guess what? A lot of the kings had. They did a lot of good stuff, but they didn't have the courage to remove the high places. And they were allowing sometimes pagan worship even to take place on the high places. And. And you could just kind of set up your own high place. It was at the discretion of the worshiper. That was never God's intention. God had one high place, Mount Moriah, where Jesus would later be crucified for the sin of the world. That's where the temple would be built. He said, you want to worship me? You want to experience my presence? Come and worship at the temple in Jerusalem. Destroy all these high places. And Hezekiah has the courage to remove these high places, it says. And he broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image. Wooden image, really. Not to be too crude. The wooden image was a phallic symbol. Again, there was a lot of sexual promiscuity and immorality going on on these high places. He removed these wooden images set up to the false goddess Ashera. And check this out. He's. It says he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made.
- [13:58]
B
What in the world is that?
- [14:00]
A
He broke in pieces the bronze serpent. Serpent that Moses had made. For until those days, the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nehushtan. I don't know. I don't know how many of you remember this story in Numbers 21. In Numbers 21, quick history. The Israelites, they're complaining in the wilderness. They've been freed from their slavery in Egypt. They. Moses is bringing these complaining Israelites into the promised land. And God is so fed up with their complaints, he sends snakes into the camp. And the Israelite people, the Hebrews, they start to experience these snake bites. Many of them are dying off. They come to Moses, say, moses, we're done. We surrender. Go on behalf of the Lord for us and make this right. So Moses goes to the Lord and God says, moses, I want you to fashion this bronze serpent. And for as many people who have been bitten by us by these snakes, for as many as would look to this bronze serpent, I will heal them. Now, Jesus in John chapter three, having this private conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus would say, nicodemus, that was a type that was to foreshadow what I would do on the cross. That bronze serpent in the wilderness, a snake or a serpent was a sign of judgment. And Moses, when he lifted up the bronze serpent, bronze was a metal symbolic of judgment. A snake was an animal of judgment, of evil, of wickedness. And when Moses lifted up that snake on the pole, people would look to that snake and be healed. And Jesus in John 3 would apply that to himself. And he would say, I'm going to take on the sin and the judgment of the world. And for as many as would look to me when I am hung up on that pole called the cross, they will be spiritually healed of their sickness called sin. So God would tell Moses to do this, but it would foreshadow what Christ would ultimately come to do. Okay, now, Moses was. Around the time 1400 BC Hezekiah is 700 BC. 700 years later, they've preserved this little bronze serpent. The people call it Nehushtan, which literally just means bronze thing. They weren't very creative. All right, like, what do we call this thing? Nehushtan. Bronze thing. Not very creative, I guess. And they start to worship this thing, Nehushtan. The Israelites in the time of Hezekiah, they're worshiping this bronze snake that Moses set up just for that one time. This was not a pattern, but the people are worshiping this thing. That was never God's intention again. It was the vessel by which God would use to bring healing. And it would Spiritually foreshadow what Christ came to do. But now they're using it as this object of worship. They're idolizing this Nehushtan. What Hezekiah does is he breaks it into pieces, says, what in the world are you doing worshiping this bronze snake? So he gets that out of there lives, and it says, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him none was like him, and there was none like him before him. For he held fast to the Lord.
- [17:22]
B
Tonight, you holding fast to the Lord, hold fast to him. Jesus in John 15 would say, I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So abide in me. The word abide in the Greek is the Greek word meno, and it means to remain in, to abide in, to stay in, to hold fast, to see the life of the Christian.
- [17:47]
A
We don't need to over complicate our,
- [17:49]
B
our walk with Christ. You just abide in the Lord, you hold fast to the Lord, you stay
- [17:55]
A
close to the Lord and the Lord
- [17:56]
B
will do the work in your life necessary. He'll rid us of sin. He'll convict us, he'll purge us, he'll grow us, he'll mature us, he'll shape us, he'll fashion us, he'll mold us, make us more into the image of Jesus as you just abide in Christ.
- [18:10]
A
Don't over complicate it. Sometimes we can have the tendency to over complicate the Christian walk.
- [18:15]
B
Don't you just abide in the Lord, stay close to him, remain in him,
- [18:19]
A
and he will do the work necessary. So this is who Hezekiah is. He's this, this man of courage and he gets the people right with the Lord. All right, let's continue because we got
- [18:32]
B
a lot to go over in just
- [18:33]
A
a little bit of time here.
- [18:34]
B
Verse 3.
- [18:37]
A
Verse 3, it says, in the first year of his reign. So this is the first year. In the first year of his reign. In the first month he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. Then he brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them in the east square and said to them, hear me, Levites, now sanctify yourselves. Sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers and carry out the rubbish. I know that seems very British to me, like Simon Cowell on American Idol. That was absolute rubbish. Carry out the rubbish from the holy place. Verse 6. For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God. They have forsaken him. Have turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord and turned
- [19:19]
B
their backs on him.
- [19:20]
A
They have also shut up the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. Therefore the wrath of the Lord fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to trouble, to desolation and to jeering, as you see with your eyes.
- [19:40]
B
Pause there with me.
- [19:42]
A
Hezekiah goes to work quick, first things first. Says in his first year, he's like, we got to open up the house of the Lord. See, in the previous chapter, at the very end of 28, it says that his dad shut up the house of the Lord. And now Hezekiah reopens the house of the Lord and he says, we gotta. Before we see revival in our nation, we've gotta open God's house.
- [20:12]
B
God's house should always be open. Never going to shut the doors of this church. God's house is always going to be open.
- [20:19]
A
And Hezekiah says, we got to open the doors of the house of the Lord. And when he does that, he brings in the priests and the Levites, he gathers them in the east square and he says, hear me, Levites, sanctify yourselves and let's go to work at sanctifying
- [20:37]
B
the house of the Lord.
- [20:38]
A
He opens the doors of the house and he says, let's go to work and let's clean out this place. Let's clean out all the rubbish, all the trash, all the junk, all the
- [20:45]
B
idolatry that my dad just completely allowed in the temple of God.
- [20:54]
A
We're going to just clean house. And he opens the doors to the house. And it reminds me of a verse
- [20:59]
B
in Revelation, chapter 3, verse 20, where Jesus would say, behold, I stand at the door knocking, and if anyone would hear my voice and open the door,
- [21:09]
A
I will come in and eat with him.
- [21:10]
B
And he with me.
- [21:13]
A
He says, behold, I stand at the
- [21:14]
B
door of your hearts knocking.
- [21:16]
A
If anyone would hear my voice and open the door, I will come in
- [21:21]
B
and eat with him. See, all God requires is that when we hear him calling us that we just open our lives to him.
- [21:29]
A
And when we open our lives to him and we invite Christ in, he will do the cleansing work necessary. You don't have to clean yourself up before you come to God. You open the door of your heart. As Hezekiah opened the doors to the temple and, and he brought in the priests and the Levites to clean house. You open the door of your heart, you say, God I'm a mess. There's a lot of idolatry in my own life. There's wickedness and sin. But I hear you calling my name and knocking on the door of my heart. So I'm gonna open the door of my heart to you. Cause I hear you calling my name. And God, when you do that, he will send His Spirit in and his spirit will do the cleansing work. And some of you tonight, be encouraged by this message. God wants you to open the door
- [22:11]
B
of your life to him tonight.
- [22:14]
A
Don't wait, don't delay. If you hear him calling, the Bible says in Hebrews, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. So if you hear him calling your name tonight, open the door of your life. And he'll come in and he'll cleanse you. He'll do a new work in your life. He'll transform you from the inside out.
- [22:31]
B
That's the work of His Holy Spirit.
- [22:33]
A
So open the door of your life to Him. It's the best thing you'll ever do. Hezekiah opens the door. He gets the Levites and the priests in to clean house, to take out all the trash. It says in verse 8. Now check this out. I just kind of found this funny. In verse 8 it says, Therefore the wrath of the Lord fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and God has given them up to trouble, to desolation and to jeering. As you see with your eyes now, if you have a new King James Version, you'll see that word jeering. The NLT says ridicule. The esv, The KJV uses the word hissing. It's the Hebrew word shiraka, and it means whistling. So when onlookers would pass the temple, and they would just see the mess of the temple, the doors closed and they would just see. Just picture just this dilapidated, old rundown building and you're making your way through. And it just. And literally, these people, they're coming across and they're hissing, they're whistling like. You see this thing?
- [23:36]
B
That's messed up. That doesn't look right.
- [23:39]
A
People were hissing and jeering. They were. It was this place of mockery and ridicule, the temple of God. And verse nine, it says, for indeed, because of this, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our
- [23:52]
B
daughters and our wives are in captivity. Very first principle we see here is shutting out God's presence opens the door for destruction in our lives. He says here that all of this happened. Verse 9. Our fathers have fallen by the sword. Our sons and daughters Our wives being taken captive. All of this has happened because the doors of the temple have been shut. And when you shut out God's presence from your life, you are inviting in destruction.
- [24:23]
A
Verse 10. Hezekiah says, now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that you should minister to him and burn incense. So this is all a part of the sanctification process of the temple, the Levites and the priests. He says, you're chosen to be in charge of this place. I'm going to send you on this mission, this demo project, just to clean house. Verse 12. Then these Levites arose. I'm going to butcher some of these names. Be patient. Follow along. Mahath, the son of Amasai and Joel, the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites, of the sons of Merari, Kish, the son of Abdi and Azariah, the son of Jehalel, of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zima and Eden, the son of Joah, of the sons of Elizaphin, Shimri and Jael, of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mataniah, of the sons of Heman. That's an awesome name. Jehiel and Shimei. And of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uziel.
- [25:34]
B
How did I do?
- [25:36]
A
You guys don't know. You don't know? If Amir Sarfati was here, he'd be like, what in the world are you saying? Verse 15. And they gathered their brethren, sanctified themselves, and went according to the commandment of the king at the words of the Lord to cleanse the house of the Lord. This is important here. Verse 16. Then the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the Lord to the court of the house of the Lord. Now check this out. It says, and the Levites took it out and carried it to the Brook Kidron. The Brook Kidron is also known in scripture as the Kidron Valley. I have a picture of it here on the screen. If you've been on any of our trips to Israel, we see this valley, the Kidron Valley. It was also known as the Brook Kidron because when it would. It was really a wadi. Because when it would rain, during heavy seasons of rain, there would be a little stream that would run through the Kidron Valley. So it was also known as the Brook Kidron. Now, this is important. They clean out the temple and they bring all the trash to the Kidron Valley. The backdrop of the Kidron Valley, this is a place of judgment. This is a place of sorrow. This is a place of death. This is where the common man would be buried. So there are graveyards in the Kidron Valley. The Kidron Kidron in Hebrew literally means dark. It was associated again with sorrow, judgment and death. 2nd Kings 23 says it's a graveyard. Jesus would actually cross the Kidron Valley many times in his ministry. He would cross the Kidron Valley and on the other side there was the Garden of Gethsemane. Josephus, the Jewish historian, would say that Queen Athalia, wicked Queen Athalia, she would be executed in the Kidron Valley. Joel, chapter two, rather three two, would say that this is where in the end times, where God will gather the nations and judge them for how they treated Israel in the last days. It would also be known as the Valley of decision. So this is the backdrop of the Kidron Valley, a place of garbage, debris,
- [27:55]
B
death, sorrow, judgment, execution.
- [27:58]
A
Now, I find this very interesting. The other place we see the Kidron
- [28:03]
B
Valley mentioned is in Jeremiah 31. You can write down Jeremiah 31. It's where God promises the new covenant.
- [28:10]
A
And he says, there will be a day where I will make a new
- [28:13]
B
covenant with my people and I will put my law in their hearts.
- [28:18]
A
And he says that in the last days, he's going to gather the nation
- [28:24]
B
of Israel in the Kidron Valley and there's going to be a restoration. The remnant that trusts in Christ in the end times will be gathered in the Kidron Valley. And in Jeremiah 31, verse 40, Jeremiah
- [28:44]
A
writes, In the whole valley of the
- [28:45]
B
dead bodies and of the ashes and all the fields as far as the Brook Kidron, and to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east shall be holy to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up or thrown down anymore, forever. See, God takes this valley that was associated with death. He's going to breathe life into this valley. He says it's not going to be known as a place of sorrow anymore, but it's going to be a place of restoration. And this could have been a principle for us tonight. But listen, God can take the dead bones of our lives, the graveyards of our lives, so to speak, called sin. And when you open the doors to your heart, what God does is he brings restoration into your life. And he takes what was dead, and he makes it alive. He takes death and destruction that sin brings, and he breathes life into your body, body by his spirit. And he's going to do this to the Kidron Valley right now.
- [29:49]
A
It's a place of trash, and it's a dump heap. And in verse 17, now, they began to sanctify on the first day of the first month. And on the eighth day of the month, they came to the vestibule of the Lord. So they sanctified the house of the Lord in eight days. And on the 16th day of the first month, they finished. Okay, it took 16 days to clean out that temple. That's how bad it was inside. All the idols, all the pagan worship, the debris that was in the temple caused by his dad, it took 16 days. One of my favorite places here in
- [30:23]
B
Loudoun county is the Leesburg dump. I'm just being real with you.
- [30:28]
A
I look for an excuse. I go through my house. I say to my wife, morgan, do we need to throw anything away? Like, anything big, anything heavy? I love going to the dump and just tossing into those big trash cans. Just all this dumpage, excuse my language. All this dumpage, all this garbage. Oh, it just feels good to just, like, take out all the trash of your house. Spring cleaning, fall cleaning. You just throw away all this junk and stuff. You're like, I don't know why we kept this. We've had this for 15 years. I've never even seen this before. Why in the world do we have this? You just throw it over and it just feels so good. Just go to the dump and
- [31:08]
B
let's move on.
- [31:11]
A
It took 16 days to clean out the temple. That was a lot of trash. Verse 18. They went, and then they went into King Hezekiah and said, we have cleansed all the house of the Lord. You didn't think I couldn't pull out
- [31:27]
B
one of my voices tonight?
- [31:29]
A
We have cleansed all the house of the Lord. The altar of burnt offerings with all its articles.
- [31:34]
B
I'll stop doing that.
- [31:35]
A
And the table of the showbread with all its articles. Moreover, all the articles which King Ahaz in his reign had cast aside in his transgression, we have prepared and sanctified. And there they are before the altar of the Lord. So the priests come and they report back to Hezekiah, the work is done.
- [31:49]
B
Verse 20.
- [31:50]
A
Then Hezekiah rose early. So the sanctification of the temple has happened. Now there's going to be this sacrifice and song. Then King Hezekiah rose early, gathered the rulers of the city and went up to the house of the Lord, and they brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering, for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. Then he commanded the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the Lord. So they killed the bulls and. And the priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. Likewise, they killed the rams and sprinkled the blood on the altar. They also killed the lambs and sprinkled the blood on the altar. Verse 23. Then they brought out the male goats for the sin offering before the kings and the assembly. And they laid their hands on them and the priests killed them. And they presented their blood on the altar as a sin offering to make an atonement for all Israel. For the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering be made for all Israel. Principle number two, let your love for God spark speedy obedience. Why do I say that? Because verse 20 it says, Then King Hezekiah rose early as soon as the temple had been cleansed. Very next morning he got up early, rose early again. Glance at verse three. In the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple. Can you catch Hezekiah's eagerness here? His zeal for the Lord? First year of his reign, we're going to open up the temple. Once the temple is cleaned. After 16 days of the priest going in and cleaning house very next morning, it says early in the morning, he rose. His zeal to see God's glory sparked speedy obedience. Let your love do the same thing. Let your love for Christ, your love for the Lord, spark just this speedy obedience. And what happens is he gets all the priests and the Levites and they start making sacrifice to the Lord. Point number three. Principle that I want us to take from this is let Christ's atoning sacrifice motivate you to a life of worship. Because what's going to happen is this their sacrifice of these lambs, these goats, it's going to motivate them to song. And all of the sacrificial system would again foreshadow Christ's atoning work on the cross for you and for me. See the blood of goats and bulls and rams. It was temporary. It was a temporary form of atonement. But the writer of Hebrews would say that the blood of bulls and goats really cannot cleanse and forgive you. It was just God's way of temporarily atoning for the sin of the people. It would ultimately be set in place to foreshadow the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so all of this sacrificial stuff we're reading here, it's really pointing to what Christ would do on the cross for you and for me. He would be the atonement for our sin. He would shed his own blood. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. They laid their hands on the head of the goats as this symbolism of transference. I am transferring my sin onto the sin of these animals. And when you trust in Christ again, He who knew no sin became sin for us. Christ took our sin. There was this transference that happened on the cross. He took our sin upon himself so that we might become the righteousness of God. All this would force be. All of this we're reading would foreshadow Christ's atoning work. And let that be what motivates you to worship, because this is what happens to the people. Notice here in verse 25. And he stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with symbols, with stringed instruments and with harps, according to the commandment of David, of Gad the king's seer, and of Nathan the prophet. For thus was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets. The Levites stood with the instruments of David the and the priests with the trumpets. Then Hezekiah commanded them to offer the burnt offerings on the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord also began with the trumpets and with the instruments of David, king of Israel. So all the assembly worshiped. The singers sang and the trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the burnt offering was finished. And when they had finished offering, the king and all who were present with him bowed and worshiped. Verse 30. Moreover, King Hezekiah and the leaders commanded the Levites to sing praise to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they've got the book of Psalms, their his hymnal, and they're using it to worship. So they sang praises with gladness and they bowed their heads and they worshiped. So this sacrifice that the sacrificial system, it motivated song verse 31. Then Hezekiah answered and said, now that you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord, come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings into the house of the Lord. So the assembly brought in sacrifices and thank offerings, and as many as were
- [37:10]
B
of a willing heart brought burnt offerings. Final principle, principle number four. God loves a cheerful giver, it says.
- [37:19]
A
So all the assembly brought in sacrifices and thank offerings.
- [37:23]
B
Verse 31. And as many as were of a willing heart brought burnt offerings. See, God loves a cheerful giver. This is what Second Corinthians 9, verse 7 says. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. That word cheerful in the Greek is hilaros. It's where we get our English word, hilarious.
- [37:49]
A
God loves a hilarious giver. Just a heart that is just so
- [37:55]
B
willing to come to the house of the Lord and to give to the Lord. It's not about the quantity. God just wants. Your heart says, don't bring me anything under compulsion. I want you to come willingly. God loves a cheerful giver.
- [38:17]
A
And again, notice this. The sacrifices, their song, their worship, it all happens willingly as they brought their hearts to the Lord. FB Meyer said, the music of your
- [38:39]
B
life is still when you are out of accord of the will of God. The music of your life is still when you are out of accord with the will of God. See, when you're not in the will of God, the song of your heart is quieted. But when you're in line with God's
- [39:01]
A
will and you come to him, you
- [39:03]
B
give your life to him, you open the doors of your life, you hand over the reins of your life and you just invite Christ in. He's going to fill you with just this new song. The Bible says you put a new song in my mouth. Let's close here with just the last few verses.
- [39:24]
A
Verse 32. And the number of the burnt offerings which the assembly brought was 70 bulls, 100 rams and 200 lambs. All these were for. All these were for a burnt offering to the Lord. The consecrated things were 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep. But the priests were too few so that they could not skin all the burnt offerings. Therefore their brethren, the Levites, helped them until the work was ended and until the other priests had sanctified themselves. For the Levites were more diligent in sanctifying themselves than the priests.
- [39:53]
B
Verse 35.
- [39:55]
A
Also, the burnt offerings were in abundance with the fat of the peace offerings and with the drink offerings for every burnt offering. So the service of the house of the Lord was set in order. Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that God had prepared the people. Since the events took place so suddenly. You see this, that it says that God had prepared the people. God did the work in their hearts, and then the revival they experienced. The reform that they experienced, it says it happened so quickly.
- [40:29]
B
Why? Because it was God doing the work. In the first place.
- [40:32]
A
When we try to manufacture our Christianity
- [40:37]
B
and we try to, we put on
- [40:40]
A
a mask or we're phony or we're trying too hard to impress God and we bring all of our good works to the Lord, thinking that's going to impress God. And God, you should bless me because of all the things I'm doing for you. No, listen. Anything that we do for the Lord
- [40:55]
B
is because God has first done it in our hearts.
- [40:57]
A
And God prepared the hearts of the people. That's why the work happened so quickly. God was doing the work in their lives. And when you let God take over and do the work that is needed, you, you will see your maturity, your growth just go at rapid speed.
- [41:11]
B
Because it's God by his Spirit doing the work in the first place.
- [41:15]
A
Sanctification, sacrifice and song is how Hezekiah
- [41:19]
B
brought national spiritual revival. May God by his Spirit sanctify our lives. May our lives be this living sacrifice as Paul says. And may you worship the Lord in song because it's God doing the work in the first place. Allow God to to work in your life and he's going to mature you at rapid speed. Let God by his spirit do the work. Give your life over to him. Surrender to him. Let's pray.
- [41:47]
A
Lord, we love you.
- [41:49]
B
We thank you for Hezekiah and his example.
- [41:51]
A
We pray Lord that you would do a work in our hearts tonight. The Bible says that we now are the temple of the Spirit of God. Lord, would you cleanse us?
- [42:03]
B
Would you wash us? Would you sanctify us by your spirit?
- [42:06]
A
You do the work, Lord, and we
- [42:08]
B
give you all the glory and praise. It's in Jesus name we pray and all God's people said amen.