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 2 Chronicles 32:6-8

We continue today with the wonderful story of Hezekiah and his magnificent leadership. (It certainly was at this point.)

1. What he did (6b): To ‘encourage’ is literally ‘to put courage in.’ It is an indispensable part of leadership. Discouraged people won’t serve to the best of their ability, and some may put a brake on serving altogether. Leaders need to learn how to speak and act in encouraging ways. Yes, we have to challenge people. There is a definite time and place for that. But we need to remember that week by week assembled…before us are people who are often facing great fears and overwhelming odds. Our leadership should exhale the air of encouragement.
2. What he said (7, 8): As noted previously, Hezekiah was a realist. He did not hide from the brutal truth or attempt to shield his people from it. He just told them a greater truth. He acknowledged the presence and power of a contemporary ‘Goliath’. But he told the people that they needed to see him, as David did, in the light of God. The Himalayan peak of trouble is dwarfed before the infinite Almightiness of our God. Perspective is regained. Hezekiah’s approach was simple. He admitted that the army amassing against them was big, but he said ‘our God is bigger.’ In fact, ‘He is much bigger.’ Again and again we preachers have to stand in the pulpit and say, ‘’Yes, it is true that our world is like this. It is, as someone said, ‘going to hell in a hand cart.’ And yes, it is true that our personal problems often loom ominously over our heads. But here’s a larger truth: God is greater than all of this.’ Acknowledge the gloomy truth, by all means, but then ‘check mate’ it with the glorious truth. Play the ‘trump card’ of revealed truth. When we get a vision (and at best it can only be a glimpse) of who God is, it takes our breath away, and we are encouraged. The truth sets people free. Our task; our calling as leaders is to state it and restate it in all its sparkling clarity and simplicity. ‘There is a great enemy against us. How true! But there is a greater power with us.’  Hezekiah rallied the people, saying, ‘’Be strong! Take courage! Don’t be intimidated by the king of Assyria and his troops – there are more on our side than on their side. He only has a bunch of mere men; we have our GOD to help us and fight for us! The Message.
3. 3.       What happened (8b): I had to smile to myself. For a number of years a Bible College student spent around three weeks with us at ‘Bridge Street’ church in Leeds. Every year we had someone different, and they came to get some practical training experience. It was always a joy to have them. But I remember one rather cool young guy asking the senior minister, ‘Did you get a result last night?’ It makes me smile still today when I think about it. He was referring to a visit the senior pastor had made the previous evening, and I knew that my esteemed older colleague would not have used those terms! However, as I recall, I think he did ‘get a result’ on that visit!! There was a good outcome. Hezekiah certainly got his result. And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said. This is how it reads on the Message: Morale surged. Hezekiah’s words put steel in their spines. Result! (With a capital ‘R’)

Prayer: Lord, take my tongue and speak through me words that build and fill others with courage and hope.

2 Chronicles 29:6-11

During last August, just before attending the ‘Global Leadership Summit’ at Willow Creek Church, my wife and I spent approximately twenty four hours in down town Chicago. We managed to fit in a guided tour of both the north and south sides of the city. To my surprise and delight, when we were exploring the south side, the guide pointed out the ‘Moody’ Church and Bible Institute. Not long after this we were shown Hugh Hefner’s former Playboy mansion, then the club where Frank Sinatra and his cronies hung out when they were in town, and also the bullet hole in the façade of a church building left from the Al Capone gangster era! I was struck by the thought that this one humble and simple (in the best sense) man made such an enormous impact on his city, that he is still remembered today. (Of course his influence was even greater than on this one city. He impacted the world as an evangelist: a powerful preacher about Jesus.) It was this same D.L. Moody, I believe, who said, ‘The world is yet to see what God will do with one man who is fully surrendered to Him.’ Then he added, ‘God helping me, I will be that man!’ It appears he was.

I thought about Moody as I was mulling over Hezekiah’s commitment expressed in 2 Chronicles 29:10: Now I intend to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. In my Bible I have highlighted the words: Now I intend…  As the great Anglican pastor, John Stott, observed, no-one drifts into holiness. Hezekiah wasn’t making a ‘new year’s resolution’ type of thing that would be broken in days, or perhaps weeks. He was making a serious commitment, and he was highly intentional about it.

We have seen in recent days how the people of Judah had turned away from God, and from regular worship in the temple. In fact, the ‘church’ in Hezekiah’s day had closed down. This led to very serious consequences, and this comes across well in The Message, which is a modern paraphrase of the Bible: And because of that, GOD’s anger flared up and he turned those people into a public exhibit of disaster, a moral history lesson – look and read! The Bible repeatedly teaches the principle that we reap what we sow. We do so personally and nationally. There is a lesson to be learned that sin (that tendency in all of us to go our own way rather than God’s), if unchecked, will lead to a car wreck at the bottom of the hill. Ultimately it doesn’t lead anywhere good. It takes us in the direction of pain, misery and loss. (But it was to rescue us from the guilt and power of sin that Jesus came into the world: an event the world has apparently been celebrating recently. I have noticed though that Jesus is not always welcome at His own birthday party! But that’s another subject altogether.)

Hezekiah was appalled at the situation he had inherited. He saw the spiritual danger he and his people were facing, and he was determined to do something about it. He drew a line in the sand. Things were going to change if he had anything to do with it, and he was going to have a lot to do with it: I have decided to make a covenant with the GOD of Israel and turn history around… The Message. One with God is a majority, and Hezekiah intended to be a history maker. Was it Wesley who said something like this, ‘Give me a handful of people who love nothing but God and hate nothing but sin, and we’ll change the world’? It doesn’t take large numbers to make a big difference. It just takes a heartfelt commitment; a life fully given over to God. Someone said: ‘Be the difference you want to see in the world.’

Prayer: Lord, It amazes me how you take very ordinary people and use them in your service. Like Hezekiah, I give what I am and have to you. May I be a difference-maker in your purposes.

: 2 Chronicles 29: 6

Hezekiah came to the throne as a young man and sought to reverse a situation of national spiritual decline. It is surely noteworthy that the turning away from God went hand in hand with turning away from the ‘church’: They turned their faces away from the LORD’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him (6) Our ancestors went wrong and lived badly before GOD – they discarded him, turned away from this house where we meet with GOD, and walked off. They boarded up the doors, turned out the lights, and cancelled all the acts of worship of the GOD of Israel in the holy Temple. The Message. I strongly believe that (what I see as) an ever decreasing desire in many professing Christians, to be habitually part of regular fellowship with other believers, is a symptom of a serious and potentially terminal illness. There is something profoundly unhealthy going on. Now let me stress that I don’t consider you can measure spirituality by the number of church meetings attended. That’s not my concern. But through my lifetime I have observed a marked change of attitude towards worship gatherings. I was brought up in an era where we went to meetings three times on a Sunday. I’m not saying there was anything inherently virtuous about this, but it was the reality of our childhood years. There would also be at least one midweek meeting to attend as well. (It seems to me that many Christians of my father’s generation had a sense of ‘churchmanship’ that is not so common today.) About 20/25 years ago, I began to notice a shift in church culture: a significant number of Christians were starting to attend church once a week only. (This was so much the case that when a young couple joined our church in Boston Spa, and turned out twice on a Sunday and again in the week, we spoke of them as having a kind of ‘old-fashioned’ commitment to the life of the church. Needless to say, this was not a disparaging remark. We were delighted with them and their involvement, which was somewhat out of sync with where things were heading in the church generally.) We are a now in a situation where many believers will show up at a meeting once a fortnight, possibly every three weeks, and even monthly.  Although there can be legitimate reasons for this, it seems to me, as a pastor, and as an observer of these trends over a number of years, that domestic and social commitments often take precedence over commitment to the local church.  I repeat that we can’t measure the true health of a person’s spiritual life by the number of meetings they attend. I accept that totally. But commitment to Christ cannot be expressed apart from commitment to His body, the church. I believe many pastors would say that Sunday by Sunday their local expression of ‘the body’ seems like a multiple amputee case! So many ‘body parts’ are missing!! How can you say you are committed to Christ when you are not playing your full part in His church? This is not a healthy trend.  It feels like an attitude of, ‘How little can I get away with?’ in terms of commitment to the church services. Are we gradually heading towards boarding up the doors and turning out the lights and cancelling the acts of worship? Perhaps not. But who would have thought that such change as we have seen could have come about in one generation?

I will return to this tomorrow, but in (10) Hezekiah says: Now I intend… (I have decided…The Message). On this New Year’s Day, I would like to see every Christian re-evaluate their relationship with Christ’s church. Maybe 2014 requires some intentionality towards change?  Perhaps we need to make decisions that will enable us to be like the first Pentecostal church: They devoted themselves…to the fellowship… (Acts 2:42). Such devotion is sadly lacking in large sectors of the church.

Prayer: Lord you tell us not to forsake our gathering together as your people. Forgive us, please, our increasing apathy and lethargy about such meeting, and help us to obey you.

 2 Chronicles 29: 4/5

Often times, in order to solve a problem, you just need to ‘bring in’ the right people (4). Get the key people assembled in the right place; gather them in the same room around the same table, and let them prayerfully tackle the issue. If they come together in an attitude of earnestly seeking God for His answer, whilst applying their minds to the subject, who knows what might happen? God has put such talent in the church, and I guess we’re not drawing on even half of it.

Hezekiah’s first appeal to these leaders was: Consecrate yourselves now… (5). Giving yourself fully to the Lord of the church comes before working for Him in it. (As someone said, ‘God must first do a work in us before He does a work through us.) Also, such dedication should not be delayed. If it’s the right thing to do, why procrastinate?  Do it now.

Hezekiah says: Listen to me Levites! An individual’s full surrender to God has time and again come in the wake of listening to a God inspired messenger/message. In the year ahead, let’s commit to pray more fervently than ever for the preachers and preaching in our churches that it will lead to many lives being fully yielded to God.

Such personal consecration to God will be impossible without genuine repentance. This morning the bin men came and took away a pile of rubbish we had been accumulating. We didn’t want it in the house. We put it out and, thankfully, they took it! There is a spiritual equivalent to this. We need to identify the refuse and get it out and into the bin as soon as possible. …give this much- defiled place a good housecleaning. The Message. Housecleaning, of course, is never done. We are always accumulating dirt and dust and other things we don’t want. So a life of total commitment to God will be one of constant hoovering, dusting, polishing and chucking out. On the eve of a new year, will you commit yourself to such a life?  Hezekiah’s formula for revival was simple: sanctification, sacrifice, and song. He started with the priests and Levites, for if God’s servants are not clean, God cannot bless their work. Then the priests sanctified the temple, offered the sacrifices, and sang the song of the Lord. Warren W. Wiersbe: With the Word, p.249.

Those who have consecrated themselves to the Lord will exhibit this in a commitment to holiness. But it will also be seen in a diligent approach to ministry, whatever the particular ministry may be; public or private, visible or hidden, I will want to give it my best. My sons, do not be negligent now… (11). It is instructive to read this verse in The Message: Children, don’t drag your feet in this! GOD has chosen you to take your place before him to serve in conducting and leading worship –this is your life work; make sure you do it and do it well. There’s a story told about a young man training in a Bible College. One day he preached at sermon class, and the principal wasn’t very happy with his effort. He called the despondent student into his office for a ‘chat’. ‘But it’ll do sir, won’t it?’ protested the lad. ‘It’ll do.’ ‘The problem is,’ replied the principal, ‘What will it do?!!’

God deserves our very best. There is no better time to remember this than at the borders of a brand new year.

Prayer: Lord God, please strengthen me to give myself fully to you that I may be enabled to work effectively for you.

 2 Chronicles 29: 1-3

Hezekiah was a young man and a good example (1). The two things need not be mutually exclusive! He was an example to people older and younger than him, as well as to those who were his contemporaries. Let us pray hard and work expectantly for the cultivation of such young lives in Christ’s church.

The second verse shows his zeal to do right. He didn’t just do what was right in the eyes of the LORD, but he did this just as his father David had done. He did what he did with fervent, large-hearted devotion. He wasn’t just coldly correct but warmly obedient. The ‘pan’ of his goodness had great ‘heat’ beneath it, and it boiled over. (By the way, the key thing in life is to do right in God’s eyes. There are things Christians believe, attitudes and standards we hold and ways we live, that may seem ‘wrong’ in the eyes of many people. But we are living for ‘an audience of one’; for God Himself. It is His approval we seek. In GOD’s opinion he was a good king… The Message. In the final analysis, His is the only opinion that truly matters.)

Hezekiah, as a young man, sought first God’s Kingdom and righteousness. He wasted no time in getting down to business (3) In The Message it reads like this: In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah, having repaired the doors of the Temple of GOD, threw them open to the public. The ‘church’ of his day had been closed down, but Hezekiah went to work with a will and got it repaired in no time at all. The so-called ‘Seeker-sensitive’ churches are, I believe, much misunderstood and misrepresented. As I see it, they have a large concern for the ‘doors’ of the church. They don’t want to shut people out unnecessarily. They understand that there is an ‘offence’ in the gospel itself, and they in no way want to compromise this. But what they are saying is, ‘Let’s remove all the unnecessary barriers to people hearing the gospel in the first place.’ There are ways in which we have traditionally ‘done’ church (and continue to do it) that might cause needless offence, or just get in the way. For the sake of ‘lost’ people, surely we need to dismantle these things? Let’s ensure that the doors of ‘the temple’ are wide open so that those who want to get close to God are able to do so. (As we will see, the state of affairs in Judah at this time was such that people couldn’t approach God in His temple.)

Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthian church that you and I are temples of God (Christian people that is). Your body is His sanctuary; so is mine. Here’s a challenge then: as temples of God, where do we need to be more ‘open’ to people so that they can come close to the God who is everywhere, but who also dwells in our hearts? Are we living relatively closed, self-contained lives? This should not be. Like with our Lord Jesus, we should be open to friendship with people who are far from God. I like to say, ‘If you build a bridge of friendship with someone who doesn’t yet know Christ, you are building something that Jesus can walk across from your life to theirs.’

So, where do I need to be more ‘open to the public’, and also, what needs repairing in this temple that is my life; a life given over to God to fill with His glorious presence?

Finally, I am reminded that Jesus is the door. It is only through Him that we may enter into God’s presence and find our true life and home. Jesus Himself is that door standing open in heaven (Revelation 4:1).

Prayer: Lord God, help me to live a life of complete openness to you and to others.