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 2 Chronicles 30:13 – 20

Although there were those who rejected the invitation, a very large crowd accepted (12).  It turned out that there was a tremendous crowd of people…The Message. Today you may experience disappointments and reversals, but refuse to be downcast. Hold on to the hope of a great harvest. Losing the odd skirmish here and there (or appearing to) does not necessarily mean the loss of the war altogether. Take heart and keep moving forward, even though progress may be painfully slow at times; and on other occasions may appear non-existent.

Some Christians seem to think that if a work grows big it must be superficial. But it ain’t necessarily so! This very large crowd who gathered for ‘church’ were serious in their intent (14), and they got to work getting rid of the accumulated pagan junk and dumping it. They didn’t just come together for a jolly service to then return home and be the same old people. They understood that change was necessary and they were fully prepared to roll up their sleeves and be part of it. There were things that needed transporting to the garbage heap and they were going to escort them off the premises.

Having said this, there was a mixed multitude attending the Passover that day. There were priests and Levites present who, up to this point, had been tardy in their duties. It’s interesting to see how the commitment of some can positively affect others: …but now, embarrassed in their laziness, they consecrated themselves… The Message. They finally got on with obeying the Word of God. Well, it is ‘better late than never.’ There are sins of ‘omission’ as well as sins of ‘commission.’ If you have been failing to do something that you know you ought to do, today is ‘the first day of the rest of your life’, and while you have breath it is not too late to get on with it.

Even amongst the great mass of people who came together to do the right thing: to remove the polluting things that God hates and to offer the Passover, there was deficiency and lack in their commitment. They hadn’t got everything right. Perhaps it was because it had been so long since Passover was last celebrated. We read: …so many in the congregation had not properly prepared themselves…they had not prepared themselves adequately… (17, 18). Nevertheless, Hezekiah knew that they were sincere in heart (19). They wanted to seek God. So he prayed for the people, and God had mercy (20).

This passage leaves us with a two pronged challenge:

a.)    Do we prepare ourselves as we ought to for corporate worship? Do we take some time on a Saturday, or on a Sunday morning to pray for the services, for those leading and preaching, and for all who will gather together? Do we examine our hearts, confess our sins, and put things right with God, and with others (where necessary)? Or do you just roll out of bed, down the aisle and into your pew?

b.)    Do we who lead recognise our responsibility to pray earnestly and faithfully for those we lead? There are many things ‘shepherds’ can and should do for the ‘sheep’. In it all – in all the busyness of our lives – let’s not neglect to pray. We have encouragement from today’s reading to believe that God will do good things for his people in response to our prayers.

Prayer: Lord, help me to take seriously the challenge and responsibility and privilege to pray for others. Give me faith to expect that things will be different if I pray.

 2 Chronicles 30:10 – 12

As we saw yesterday, Hezekiah threw the net wide (10a; see 6). The invitation was inclusive. Someone said that we Christians preach an exclusive message: Jesus is the only way to the only God there is. But because it is an exclusive message it is also inclusive: If Jesus is the only way to the only God there is, then all people must hear, regardless of creed, colour or culture.

The couriers went…as far as… How far are we prepared to travel; to what lengths will we go to carry the invites to God’s banquet?

The invitation is to come to the biggest and best party ever! It’s to be part of the Kingdom of God. You’d think it’s an offer that cannot be refused. But it can. The offer of a meaningful relationship with God (6-9) is such a clear one. But we need to understand that not everyone will be pleased to see or hear us (10b). We are ambassadors of Christ. We go as representatives of our King. We too can expect to be treated with scorn by some. Mockery is commonly experienced by professing Christians in the West. This is a form of persecution we are all too familiar with. We must expect to experience difficulty and discouragement as we try to disseminate God’s message.

Nevertheless…(11). Look for the Nevertheless part of the story. It will be there for you also. Yes, there were those who rejected, but there were also those who accepted: who repented, and returned to God (11, 12). In fact, there were many of them (13).

As we act as God’s couriers in this world we can expect trouble. There will be opposition and derision. Jesus never said it would be easy. Some preachers may have told you it would be a smooth path all the way to heaven, but the Lord never said that. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. The Bible could not be clearer.

However, we can also anticipate great blessing. We can look for a big harvest. Our task is to go as we are sent and where we are sent. It is to open our mouths and speak the invitation to come to God’s table. We can be sure that He who sent us will be with us to change people and draw them to Him (12). As we go He will be with us to the end of the age. Let’s use our feet and look for His hand.

As you step into a new day, remember you’ve got an important errand to run. You have invitations to deliver. Make sure they get where they’re meant to go. And having done all, leave the results with God.

Prayer: Lord, I pray you will never have cause to be disappointed with my ‘courier service’.

2 Chronicles 30:6-9

This was a comprehensive invitation. The couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king… (6). God’s arms are thrown wide to embrace all who will come to His party.

At heart, the message was, ‘Get back!’ ‘Get back to where you once belonged!’

People of Israel, return to the LORD…that he may return to you… (6b)…If you return to the LORD… (9a)…He will not turn his face from you if you return to him (9b).

In today’s passage there is this positive invitation along with a promise (9): If you return…then… Coming back to God will have healthy, life-giving consequences.

But there is also a negative warning (7, 8): If we stay away from God there will also be consequences, and these will not be good.

Don’t repeat the sins of your ancestors who turned their backs on GOD, the God of their ancestors who then brought them to ruin – you can see the ruins all around you. Don’t be pigheaded as your ancestors were. Clasp GOD’s outstretched hand. Come to his Temple of holy worship, consecrated for all time. Serve GOD, your God. You’ll no longer be in danger of his hot anger. The Message.

Who was it who said that, ‘The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history’? Throughout the Bible story God’s people repeatedly tripped over the same rock in the road; stumbled into the identical ditch. As we read Scripture let’s look for commands to obey, examples to follow and promises to believe. But also our eyes should be wide open searching for warnings to heed. Here is one of them.

It may be that as you read these words you know that in some sense you need to ‘get back to where you once belonged.’ You have drifted far out to sea; you have moved well away from your moorings in God. Perhaps there is a ‘prodigal’ somewhere, sitting in some ‘pig-sty’. You have tried the ‘pig food’ and you know it doesn’t satisfy. But in your heart you are hearing the call of Father and home. You know that such a welcome will await you there. Why linger any longer?

Your GOD is gracious and kind and won’t snub you – come back and he’ll welcome you with open arms (9b). The Message.

If you genuinely and sincerely return to Him (and He knows whether you mean it or not) He will return to you.

Prayer: Take me back dear Lord to the place where I first met you – to the place where I first believed.

 2 Chronicles 30:1-5

Hezekiah and his officials and the assembly in Jerusalem saw something in the Bible that had been neglected (5). They determined to do something about it.You may see something clearly as you read the Scriptures; re-discover some long lost truth. That’s great. But realise you can’t make any other believer see it with the clarity you have. What you can do however is to ‘invite’ them into your experience (1). Ask them if they would accompany you on a journey deeper and deeper into God’s heart. May God give you the courage to change the things you can change; the serenity to accept the things that cannot be altered, and the wisdom to know the difference. But certainly set the example. Live out the teaching that now burns inside you, and invite others to come and warm themselves with you at the fireside of truth. Hezekiah called the entire nation back to the celebration of the Passover, the feast that anticipated Jesus the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on our behalf (1 Cor.5:7). When you see a truth that can benefit others; that you know is for all God’s people, don’t hesitate to send word. You might even want to put it in letter form. People still love to get a hand – written letter, and even in our technological age we can still write ‘epistles’ that benefit people spiritually. Hezekiah wanted something great and big and significant for God. It wasn’t for his own glory. So he got the word out, and we must do the same. Let’s invite people into what God is doing. The worst that is likely to happen is that they say ‘No’. The good news is an invitation to a party. But not everyone wants a place at God’s table on His terms. There’s the problem.

‘Though none go with me, still will I follow ‘(2). You have to come to a place of decision where you say, ‘This is right and I’m going to do it. No matter what anyone else does, I am going to walk in this truth God has shown me.’ It is a sad fact that spiritual leaders had delayed this important event (which was a matter of obedience after all: verse 3.) You can sometimes feel very let down by people  in the church who should know better. It is also tragic to observe that there were those who mocked at the invitation, and they missed out on something good. (10; see Matt.22:1-14). But there were those who responded positively (12). You can’t control what will happen with the seed you sow. The harvest is in God’s Hands. He is the One who gives the growth. But keep sowing the seed any way. Some of it will land on good soil, and at the right time you will reap a harvest if you don’t give up. I was once given a poster which said, ‘Measure each day not by the harvest but by the seeds sown.’

Discovering the right plan is best done in community (4). God may speak to one individual, but so often we discern God’s will in a group, where our personal thinking can be challenged, corrected, sifted and re-moulded. We want to get to a place where we can honestly say that it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us. Not to us and the Holy Ghost, but the other way around. He, the third Person of the Godhead must be dominant; pre-eminent in our thinking. As someone said, ‘The Holy Spirit must not only be resident, he must  also be President.’ A.W. Tozer commented that if the Holy Spirit had been removed from the early church, ninety five per cent of what they were doing would have ceased. But if the Holy Spirit were removed from today’s church, ninety five per cent of what we are doing would continue. He was probably alarmingly close to the truth.

David Pawson went to speak at a meeting. He had been given the title, ‘The Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.’ He stood up and said, ‘I’ve taken the liberty of changing the title. I’m going to talk about the believer in the life of the Holy Spirit!’

Prayer: Help us, Lord, to set our sails to catch the wind of the Spirit, so that we move with you wherever you want to take us.

 2 Chronicles 29:34: Conscientious Consecration.

Before moving on to look at the next chapter in 2 Chronicles, I want to pause and linger over some words in (34): …the Levites had been more conscientious in consecrating themselves than the priests had been.

For the King’s church in Boston Spa, our overarching theme in 2014 is: ‘Climb higher, go deeper.’ We want to foster spiritual growth in each and all. We desire to see personal growth and growth together as a church. But there always will be those who ‘climb higher’ and ‘go deeper’ than others. There will always be those among us who, like the Levites in today’s passage, seem to be more determined to make progress than others. There are people who really mean business with God. The problem is that we so often admire them when we ought to emulate them. We applaud them when we ought to be following in their steps. We write them rave reviews instead of asking them to be our mentors.

At our family service held last Sunday morning, we had a height chart on the wall. Many different people, of all ages were measured. Of course what we found was that some grow taller than others. There are no surprises there. We all know that where there is life there will be growth and some grow bigger than others. There isn’t a lot we can do about our height. There are a lot of genetic factors involved. But if we are alive, and we take adequate nourishment, we will grow and achieve our biological potential.

Similarly, in our spiritual walk, we too will grow if we feed properly. We need regular interaction with the Scriptures; not only reading but reflecting on the meaning for our own lives and making concrete application. This ‘eating’ and ‘exercising’ will contribute significantly to growth .And, in one sense, we can choose how ‘tall’ we grow. (At this point the parallel breaks down, because here is something we can’t do in natural life.) But we can decide that we are going to get bigger and bigger in God , with His help . As J.Oswald Sanders said, ‘We are at this moment as close to God as we really choose to be.’

How conscientious is your consecration? Some students were talking about a Bible College lecturer. ‘He’s very serious isn’t he?’ one said. Well, it’s not good to be humourless, but when it comes to the Bible, how can we be other than serious in our approach? On television programmes like ‘X Factor’ it’s a bit of a cliché for contestants to be interviewed and you hear them say, ‘I really want this’ or ‘I want this so much.’ If you want to grow spiritually, don’t just talk about it. Get on with it. Be conscientious in your use of the spiritual disciplines and watch where it takes you; see what God will do with that.

Writing about this chapter (and especially verse 27, but his words are pertinent here) F.B. Meyer  said: ‘Cleanse the house of the Lord. Bring out all the uncleanness. By self-examination, confession, and repudiation, be clean of all the filth which has accumulated through months and years of neglect. Resume the position of entire devotion, as a prepared and sanctified soul. Offer the sin-offering for the past, and prepare the burnt-offering of entire consecration for the future. And when that is offered, when you determine to be wholly God’s, lay yourself, with all the interests of your life, at the feet of Jesus, for his disposal; then the song of the Lord will begin again.’ Great verses through the Bible, p.160.

Prayer: Lord, help me to be conscientious about being your disciple.

 2 Chronicles 29: 10-19

Hezekiah was ‘Mister Motivator’. He had credibility as a leader because of what he was. What the leader is in their character is so much more important than what he/she says. Words are not unimportant but they must be backed up by ‘works’. If there is a ‘credibility gap’ between our talk and our walk; if our lips are going one way while our lives are moving another, then lack of authenticity will tell against us. So, verse eleven follows not only numerically, but also logically and spiritually from verse ten. If you’re going to call for great commitment then you need to give it yourself. It’s not good enough to merely bark orders because you’re the leader. You must show yourself prepared to do what you’re asking other people to do.

I’m not surprised to read in (7): Then these Levites set to work… They did exactly what Hezekiah asked of them (5). They started with themselves (always the starting point). From there they got to work on the temple. (So you want to change the church? Begin with your own heart.

• They had heard God’s Word (Presumably from the king: verses 15b, 5);
• They had also heard his call to diligent service (11);
• But they had also seen his example (10)

Emotions do communicate powerfully. A business man wrote that people can smell commitment a mile off. These leaders must have realised that Hezekiah was serious about heading up a thorough-going reformation. To get anywhere near him was to catch a whiff of smoke! The man was so ‘on fire!!’It was no wonder that he was able to motivate good and capable people and hitch their gifts to the chariot of his godly cause. The Message tells us: The priests started from the inside and worked out; they emptied the place of the accumulation of defiling junk – pagan rubbish that had no business in that holy place – and the Levites hauled it off to the Kidron Valley. They began the Temple cleaning on the first day of the first month and by the eighth day they had worked their way out to the porch – eight days it took them to clean and consecrate The Temple itself, and in eight more days they had finished with the entire Temple complex. The Apostle Paul teaches that a Christian’s body is God’s Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19/20) and that, by inference, there are things that do not belong in it. There is a spiritual equivalent to this cleaning project, as we go to work on ourselves, with God’s help, and remove the stuff that really ought not to be there. It may not all be ‘defiling.’ Maybe some of it is just clutter. But it gets in the way.  From the moment of becoming a Christian you have to look at your life through new eyes. It is no longer yours but God’s. Anything incompatible with that must be hurled in the direction of the rubbish heap.

Cleaning up the temple took time. It can be so with us. A thoroughgoing repentance will be painful, and may not be the thing of a moment. Many years ago I had a friend whose Christianity began when he spent a week praying and weeping over the bad and wrong stuff in his life. He just felt terrible about who he was and how he’d been living. At the end of that week he had no categories to describe what had happened to him; no technical theological jargon to explain it. He just knew he felt clean and was right with His Maker. When someone told him he’d been ‘born again’ he accepted it, but he wouldn’t have used that unfamiliar Biblical language himself. What he did know was that he was forgiven and accepted. Life was far from easy for him, but his face lit up like the midday sun and in his eyes were deep pools of peace. Something real had happened. It took time, but there was a massive clean out.  Prayer: Help me Lord to ‘clean house’ and show me where to start.