Chronicles 29

Begin our service. May we just look to you, Lord. Fill us afresh by your Holy Spirit this evening, Lord, and encourage us each in our walk and witness for you.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Be discouraged and wonder, whoa, heavy duty with all that's going on in life, but we thank you that you're good. We can trust you, Lord. You may be seated. He's up and teaches your word, anointing you by the power of your Holy Spirit to bring it forth. Your power and what you have him to say, just bring it out, Lord. Use it for your glory, Lord. I pray for the youth group leaders and all the youth group.

You bless their time as they're having their lesson in their youth group time and that you would bless Tristan and Rachel as they teach and work with the youth group. I pray you'd bless us as we work. The children, the younger ones, the nursery, bless that time. And we just give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. Lord bless you all. Hey, good evening, guys. Well, I'm teaching tonight.

Ryan's not here. He is elsewhere. So let's get after it. We're going to be in 2 Chronicles 29. 2 Chronicles 29. We're going to be reading about King Hezekiah, whose name means Jehovah Israel. Hezekiah is my strength and is a very fitting name for this young man. And he's a, if you know the history of the kings of Judah and Israel, there was very few good kings of Judah.

And there was a whole lot of bad kings in Israel. All of them, right? They batted 100 for bad kings. And here we get to read about this young man who happens to be a good king. And we saw, well, let's go ahead and read. Verse 1 and 2, I'll start. 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word that you speak to us, Lord, that even the Old Testament is relevant to us, Lord. That you have given us the whole counsel of Scripture to learn, to glean from you, Lord. And would you speak to our hearts here today?

In Jesus' name, amen. So Hezekiah, his father was King Ahaz, who was a horrible king. Horrible king. And we see very stark contrast from Hezekiah's first day in office to who his dad was before. During Ahaz's reign. During Ahaz's reign, they were conquered three times by the Edomites, the Israelites, and as well as the Syrians, I believe. Yeah, the Syrians.

They were conquered, and then they were also, a lot of people were taken captive during his reign. You know, Hezekiah was a young man during all of this. He saw his father and the way his father was. Right? He saw the wickedness of his father. He saw the wickedness of the nation, which followed after their leader. Ahaz, King Ahaz. Right? He saw the flaws in his father.

He saw the flaws that came through the nation through him. And I think that's really important for men and mothers and anyone who's a leader in a family. You're setting an example. Your kids are watching. Your family's watching. Everyone, once you proclaim the name Christian, right? You say, hey, I believe in Jesus. I'm different. People are watching. People are looking to see how you are.

And the Old Testament is a very good picture of the life of a carnal believer or a good believer. And you see the example set forth. And here, Hezekiah sees his dad and changes how he goes about living. He doesn't just... As a good... As a spiritual leader that Hezekiah was, he doesn't just change himself, but he changes everyone who is following him. Right?

He enacts reforms. Reformations is in the government. Right? He brings people back to God as they were formerly, like, not following God. One of the other things that Ahaz did while he was in leadership, he closed the doors to the... The temple of the Lord, right? Can you imagine that, right? Israel was called out by Jehovah, right? From Abraham, the beginning of Genesis, he was called out by Jehovah.

They were led out by Jehovah. He was led out by faith. Then the Israelites get into captivity in Egypt. And what happens? Jehovah comes and rescues them. He's the God who brought them through the wilderness for 40 years, right? He sustained them in the middle of a desert, right? I don't know if you guys... If you guys have ever been to a desert, I'm from Arizona, like, all of it's desert.

If you don't have air conditioning, it sucks, right? But God was able to provide food, water, sustain their clothes for 40 years. Everything that is absolutely impossible in and of ourselves, right? Like, I couldn't provide for myself one day in the desert. At all, right? Like, I don't even know where I would begin to, I don't have, I need a gun to hunt any wild game.

And I don't even know what kind of wild game in the desert is edible. And I've been to the desert, it's hard to find wild game. They're all hiding, but yet God was able to protect them and bring them through it. And this God is the God that they turned away from, right? Ahaz. He closed the doors to the temple, to the house of the Lord, where his presence was manifested towards the Israelites, right?

Where they could come and look to and worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He was so far removed from their beliefs that he wanted to stop everyone from following the Lord. It says that Ahaz wanted to follow the kings of Israel, right? The Israel kings were really bad people. They were following after the same gods as the people around them. And so one of the last things he did was he tore up the temple, right?

He put trash in the holy place, the breeze. This man destroyed not just his own relationship with the Lord, but he wanted to destroy everyone else's. And so it says that in verse 19 of 28, that the Lord brought Judah low because, Ahaz, king of Israel, for he encouraged the moral decline in Judah and had continually been unfaithful to the Lord, right? This king led by example and thus pulled the rest of the nation away from Israel, right?

I wasn't going to talk about this, but one of the things that just happened, right? What happened with the vote yesterday? We don't have godly leadership, right? We don't have anyone who is... Following the Lord with their whole heart in leadership. So what's going to happen, right? We're going to make worldly decisions based on our own selfish desires and needs and wants.

And, you know, we can be discouraged for a moment, but we can understand that we are going to... Our God is the king of kings and the Lord of lords. When we enter into eternity, it's going to be perfect reign, perfect judgment. Perfect peace. We're not going to have to worry about bills coming out and trying to get them passed. We're not going to have to worry about abortions or not abortions.

All of these things are a product of sin that has entered into the world through Adam. And so Hezekiah, we can use him as a picture of Christ when he comes back to rule and reign on the earth. I want you to keep that in mind. I don't want you to get discouraged because of what happened. I want you to be... I want you to be encouraged because God is coming back.

Christ is coming back and He is going to reign and He is going to bring all of the people back to the Lord. All of the believers. So Hezekiah was 25 years old when he began reigning. Leave it up to the young guys to bring people back to the Lord, right? Even the apostles, right? They were young men when they were called out by Jesus. It's really awesome to see.

When young men take up the mantle of a believer, right? When they're willing to go against the world. Give me 12 young men who love the Lord and you'll have revival, right? Give me a couple young men who are completely sold out for Christ and you'll have revival. But it also goes to show how bad the nation was, right? That a young man had to do this. It wasn't the old men who were the leaders.

It was the young men of the time that were leading the people back to the Lord. It had to come in the form of this young man, Hezekiah. Once again, his name meant Jehovah is my strength. Is Jehovah your strength or are you your strength? Last thing I have to say about that. And then he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abijah and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David did.

What does that mean? Well, David... David was known as what? A man after God's own heart. That means with all of his heart, he sought God's heart, right? He wanted to be what God wanted him to be, not what David wanted him to be. He had the opportunity to take up, he had a call to, he was anointed king by the Lord, right? He had the opportunity to take that when Saul was relieving himself, right?

He had the opportunity to kill Saul and take the kingdom from his hand. Because... Because... That was his right. But he didn't do that. He waited until the Lord's timing. He waited for the Lord to bring it to pass. And Hezekiah is modeling his life after this man David. Rather than like his father Ahaz who was following after the kings of Israel. Who were worshipping idols.

Who were setting up altars, burning incense to all other gods besides Jehovah. So he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. In verse 3 it says, In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. I love that. He gets anointed king, becomes king, then he gets it done, right? He doesn't wait, okay, well let me put it off for next week.

Like our relationship to God is important, but it can wait until, you know, when I'm three years in office. I've matured, people trust me. People are willing. I'm willing to take my leadership, right? He doesn't wait. He doesn't worry about what people are thinking, right? He's not fearing what man has to say about the decisions he's making. He's accountable to the Lord.

He's accountable to the Lord for the actions that he's taking. And he knows that this is what needed to be done. So he gets started, right? The first month of his first year of reign, he opens the doors. He goes to the house of the Lord and repaired them. The first thing he did was fix his father's actions, right? He opens, reopens the house of the Lord. He knows who, that's right, sorry.

Verse four says, then he brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them in the east square. So the first thing he does is grab the people who are God's anointed to serve in the temple, right? The saints. The sons of Aaron, the priests and the Levites, all from the same tribe. But these were God's chosen people to minister to him specifically. So revival, before it was to be started, had to be done with the spiritual leaders of the community first.

He gathered the right leaders, the right people to get revival started. To get people back to the Lord, back to their first love. So he does this. And then he tells them, in verse five, So he gives them three things to do. Three things to do to get started on. And the first one has to do with their spiritual life. Their personal holiness. He tells them to sanctify yourselves.

What does it mean to sanctify? It means to set apart for the use of the Lord. That means these priests, these leaders, these spiritual leaders, were walking in the same way as the rest of the nation, right? They weren't going against the flow. They were worshiping the same gods as the world around them. But here he's calling them to set yourself apart to Jehovah completely and only.

And before, right? Like if we were to apply this to modern, day, before we can see any move of God, right? Each person, each individual, you, me, we, have to be completely set apart to the Lord, right? He has to be our main priority. He has to be our main force of movement, of action. Not, you know, let me go. Sorry, I attack tracks, Bible tracks. I'm not a big fan of them because I feel like it takes the relationship

out of spreading the gospel, right? I feel like it's a lazy way to spread the gospel, right? It takes the hardship out of it. It is uncomfortable preaching the gospel. I don't know if you guys, when the last time you preached the gospel to someone, but it is completely uncomfortable, scary, humiliating to tell someone, hey. What you're doing, you were born into sin.

You're on your way to hell. But guess what? God made a way for you to go to heaven. And if you want to, you can make a choice to follow him or not. He's not going to force you. I'm not going to force you. I'm not going to force Christ onto you. But if you want to, he'll accept you. All you have to do is say yes, right? It's uncomfortable to do that. I don't know why I got to that.

But sanctifying, they were sanctifying themselves. He first called the priests and Levites. Before you get started on the physical labor, because we'll see, there's two weeks worth of physical labor for them to do. But before you get started on all of that, sanctify yourself, set yourselves apart. So I encourage you all, sanctify yourself, set yourself apart to the Lord.

Get back to the Lord in prayer and getting into the word and set yourself completely apart from any outside of yourself. Get back to the Lord. Get back to the Lord. Get back to the Lord. Get back to the Lord. Get back to the Lord. Get back to the Lord. Or any outside influence that may be pushing you to do things. Then it says to sanctify the house of the Lord,

God of your fathers and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. So now the physical labor to clean up all of the stuff. There's a lot of trash throughout the years. His father rained for quite a long time. He didn't rain for like two days. It was quite a long time. So there was a lot of dust spilled up, right? There was a lot of, it's kind of like, what it probably would, what it looked like here. Not right now, but there was a lot of work that

needed to be done. So after they set themselves apart, he called them to go get started on the work. And then verse six, it says this, for our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord, our God. They have forsaken him. They've turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord and have turned their backs on him. They have also shut up the doors of the

vestibule, put out the lamps and have burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. I'm sorry, I'm reading New King James. So it's probably a little bit different from your translation. I'll work on switching translations next time, but just to let you know, forewarning you, but he recognizes the problem, right? I believe this is God. God has

given him the wisdom to recognize, to see the problem, right? Isn't that just like a man though? Like you see a problem, you're like, ah, I know how to fix it. So God gave him the ability to see what the issue is here in the nation. It started with their fathers trespassing against the Lord and doing evil before the Lord, right? He's like, there's one thing wrong here and it's not God, right? There's one thing wrong and it's definitely not

God. And then it says they've forsaken him. They've turned away from him. They turn their faces away from him. They've turned their back to him. Something's got to give. This is why all of this is happening. And then verse eight, therefore the wrath of the Lord fell upon them, fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to trouble, to desolation and to jeering as you see with your

eyes. For indeed, because of our fathers have fallen by the sword and our sons, our daughters and our wives are in captivity. Now it is in my hands to give them up to the Lord. And he has given my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, God of Israel, and that his wrath may turn away from us. My sons do not neglect 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 he's like, yo, I see the problem. Here's the problem. We're not following the Lord. We're not seeking the Lord. We're not doing anything that the Lord wants. In fact, we have gone in the complete, opposite direction of where the Lord is. We've turned our backs on him. But guess what? I have a solution. Here's the solution, right? Verse 10, sorry. Now it is in

my heart to make a covenant with the Lord that his fierce wrath may turn away from us. He wants them, wants him and them to all turn back to the Lord. And he knows, right? God is a God of wrath. Absolutely. Right? We know that. Sin has to be judged. The wages of sin is death. It has to be paid, but he's also a gracious God. And if they should choose to turn back to him, to follow him, he's going to stop, right? He's going

to bring them back. He's going to bring them peace. He's going to return to them. And then I, that's something for us, right? Like whether you're not, we're an unbeliever or a believer, that's the gospel message, right? Someone, the Lord, the Holy Spirit has revealed to us that we were wrong, but also revealed to us that Christ comes to forgive. And then for the believer,

right? I don't know about you, but I'm not perfect. I sin a lot. I mess up quite a bit. But John writes to us in 1 John 1, 9. If, uh, now I'm going to read it to you before I butcher it. 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's everyone, right? If you're a believer, um, even an unbeliever, when you confess your sins,

he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from, he goes above and beyond, not just cleansing, uh, forgiving us, but to also cleanse us from our sins. He goes above and beyond, not just cleansing, uh, forgiving us, but to also cleanse us from, and so my encouragement to you is, is if you have been in sin, right? You have been in a rough patch of your walk with the Lord. He's right there. And he's willing to forgive you. Should you confess?

It's a, it's a two part confession is, is, is admitting that I was wrong and God was right. I'm the, I'm the problem, not God. Um, God's perfect. I don't know if you know this, but it's kind of good that he's holy. Holy means that there's no darkness in him. He's absolutely light. There's no sin in him. There's no, he's defined in first John as well. God is love, agape love, which is unselfish, sacrificial, right? He

sent his own son. Um, and then I am going to read also, right? The wrath of God, sin has consequences. Believer, unbeliever, like we need to recognize sin has consequences. It brings forth death. A payment has to be made. Um, and believer, if you do fall into sin, we need to recognize that, that the Lord chastens whom he loves, right? All of these things, right?

It says in, in, uh, second, second Chronicles 28, that God allowed this to happen because he wanted to bring Judah low. What does it mean to bring someone low? It means to humble them, to humble them. The Lord will allow things to go on, to happen in order for us to be humbled before him, to be broken once again, before him, just like we were the first day we started following him, right? When, when that, that beautiful worship song came on and you're like, oh no, I'm wrong.

I've been doing this all wrong my whole life. From this point until now, I've been doing it wrong, but God is so gracious and merciful and he has redeemed me. What the heck, right? God wants to bring them and bring us when we have fallen into sin back to that point. But how awesome would it be if we just stayed there, right? Stayed there in that humble state. Um, verse 12. So he, he speaks to him,

tells him, oh, and then fart. Sorry. Last thing. Verse 11. He tells them, do not be negligent now, right? The Lord has chosen you to stand. He's telling them, whatever you have to do, do it absolutely right now. There's urgency, uh, to your relationship to God. He wants them to recognize, yo, your relationship to God is now. It's not tomorrow. It's not in an

hour. It's now. It's not tomorrow. It's not in an hour. It's not in an hour. It's not in an hour. Take it serious. And it was even more to these guys because these were the actual ministers of God, right? The actual servants of God. He's saying, yo, you guys are setting the tone. Don't waste time. Don't put it off. Salvation is of, of the Lord today. Um, and I encourage you, your walk with the Lord. Don't put it off,

right? Like there's days that go by, right? Stuff happens and we get distracted. Because we're dumb, you know, but set your heart to the Lord from the beginning in the morning, set your mind to seek the Lord daily first. Um, and don't be negligent in that, right? A lot of stuff happens and we can get distracted, but don't put it off. Verse 12. I'm going to let you guys read that on your own. It's just a bunch

of names specifically. I'm going to let you guys read that on your own. It's just a bunch of names specifically. The Levites, uh, up until 14, but verse 15, it says, and they gathered their brethren, sanctified themselves, went according to the commandment of the King at the words of the Lord to cleanse the house, right? They took his word as if it was the word from the Lord.

This guy was speaking in the, you know, in the Lord's place, telling them to return to the Lord. And they were, they heard it like that. So they did that. They got to work. I love the fact, like I always love reading in scripture when, God tells someone to do something and then they just do it. They don't waste time. They get it done. And I loved seeing their obedient heart to recognize they didn't take offense, right? Obviously

when someone tells you you're wrong, it's offensive and it hurts and it makes you feel really bad. It makes you feel really small. Like you're a small kid getting in trouble with your mom again, right? Makes you feel that way, but they didn't get angry at him for revealing the problem. They took it and they moved. They went on with it. They got to work. So they went to clean the

house of the Lord in verse 16. The priest went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it and brought out all the debris they found in the temple of the Lord to the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it out and carried it to the brook Kidron. Now they began to sanctify on the first day of the month. And on the first day of the month, they brought

out all the debris they found in the temple of the Lord. 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. Then they went into King Hezekiah and said, we have cleansed all the house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offerings with all its articles 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. So they went into the altar of the house of the Lord and they we have prepared and sanctified. And there they are before the altar of the Lord. So this all happened. Remember in the first month of Hezekiah's reign, the first thing he wanted to do was bring

people back to worshiping the Lord. He didn't want to fix all of the symptoms of sin. He wanted to restore and bring them back. So within 16 days of the very first month of his reign, he gets it done. Right? He knows the right people to get the job finished. So they have sanctified the house of the Lord. They've cleansed the house of the Lord. They cleaned all of the debris out of the holy place

and they took it outside of the camp into the brook Kidron, which is like east of Jerusalem, a little bit east of Jerusalem. They took the trash outside of the city. And then it says in verse 20, then 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, 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 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, sprinkled the blood on the altar. Then they brought out the male goats for the sin offering

before the king and the assembly and they laid their hands on them. And the priest killed them and they presented their blood on the altar as a sin offering to make atonement for all Israel. For the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering be made for all of Israel.

So all of it's done, right? The temple's clean. It's ready for, worship. It's ready for the people to return back to the temple. And Hezekiah, once again, he doesn't sleep in, right? He doesn't do like I do and sleep in a little bit. He got up early and gathered all of what the rulers of the city, the leaders of the city, the people who had followers, right? He gathered the important people first and went to the house of the Lord.

And they brought all of these bulls, these rams, these lambs, goats, and all of these things and sacrificed them as a sin offering.

Remember, right, that sin does have consequences. And there's a blood payment that needs to be met. Here for all of Israel, they used all of these animals. But for us, as New Testament believers, we have one man, the man christ jesus who has paid the price for our sins both past present and future his blood has paid and continually paid the price for our sin i love the song right jesus paid it all the old i think it's a hymn i don't know maybe it's sorry but uh good song but i love the i love the fact but it's also a sobering fact right when we remember that it christ was a real man he really lived on earth for 30 33 so years and he really spilt blood and he really suffered and he really went through the cross and he really was resurrected

he did all of these things so that we can come back to the father so our worship worship we're worship of the lord could be restored he was the sin offering for us these guys needed and also just remember if you put yourself into back and back then that's a lot of blood i'm not a i've been around a few uh um like deers getting skinned and that was kind of a lot of blood at least for me um but i can't imagine all of these bulls seven bulls right seven milgos all of these things getting slaughtered right even for them it's a sobering thought and a sobering sight to see all of this blood flowing it's not for the faint of heart i probably would have passed out or cried or thrown up

it's it's extremely sobering to see that this life had to be lost so that i could be good and i could be good and i could be good and i could be good and i could be good and i could be good with god i could have peace with god because of this life and i think we always must remember that our redemption wasn't free our redemption was paid by the man christ jesus it must always be at the forefront of our hearts and minds because when we lose sight of what christ has done we no longer walk this life and our relationship with him seriously right we're we we will tell everyone yeah i'm a christian yeah i go to church it's cool me me and the big man were like this but we've lost sight of of what christ did we no longer focus on the cross and

what he did we no longer remember that my sin was great but his blood was greater right we no longer remember that he was absolutely necessary so i believe like this this picture of of them restoring the temple and then sacrificing all of these animals as a sin offering is a a reminder to us to take our walk with the lord seriously to to be very sober minded about how we represent the lord and walk with the lord more than represent take scratch that doesn't matter what you how you represent the lord if you're walking with him because if you're walking with him you're going to represent him right but we must be sober minded about how we walk with the lord it's not a joke i'm a i'm i am not

a very serious person but what i do take serious is my walk with the lord and my desire for each one of one of us is that would be this the case as well uh paul writes about it in philippians right when talking to the believers he said work out your own salvation with what fear and trembling seriously soberly don't be negligent in your walk with the lord take it serious before you can be used you must be alone with the lord you must take your relationship to him serious you must be seeking him daily jesus said seek first the kingdom of his righteousness right seek first him i have to tell you be completely honest with you um as i was preparing for this it tore my heart up because

i'm you know i like to think that i'm a pretty holy guy right i like to think i'm a i've got everything together that i'm the the perfect christian example for any person to follow but this word this scripture has revealed to me that that's not the case i don't have it all together and i would you know cast a not a stone but uh if i had to take a guess there's more than one more than just me here struggling with the same thing more than just me who have have set aside my walk with the lord even for a moment right and so i would implore and exhort and encourage to return to the lord to take your walk seriously and to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling

take it serious we don't want to be like nominal christians right christians by name we don't want to live in a christian nation who doesn't have christian values we want to be christians in the truest sense of the word little christs right we want to be like christ here on earth so when we remember that the sin had to be paid by the blood of christ i believe the holy spirit will help us and allow us to live a life that is honoring to him in the way so they see this sin offering all of this blood had to be spilt and i love in verse 24 um that it says that hezekiah wanted this sin offering for all of israel that means not just judah but the the neighboring kingdom israel who had been known to be uh bad right i'll just

completely wicked they've never followed the lord since the breaking of the kingdom but here he wants even this offering to be for them and i love that shows like his uh intercessor heart right that he desires the rest to be restored to the lord do you have that kind of heart for the people that you're surrounded by who are like israel in sin living in sin wicked with their hearts completely away from the lord and the things of him you have that same heart verse 25 it says and he stationed the levites in the house of the lord with symbols and stringed instruments and with harps according to the commandments of the lord of david of gad the king seers of nathan the prophet for thus the commandment of the lord by his prophets

the levite stood with the instruments of david and the priest with the trumpet and hezekiah commanded them to offer the burnt offerings on the altar and when the burnt offering began hezekiah would 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 the trumpeters sounded all this continued until the burnt offering was finished and when they finished offering the king and all who were present with him bowed and worshiped moreover king hezekiah and the leaders commanded the levites to sing praise to the lord with the words of the lord and the priest with the trumpets and with the

words of david and of asaph the seer so they sang praises with gladness and they bowed their heads and worshiped once their sin had been paid right the debt has been paid they have been their sin has been atoned for by the blood of these animals the first thing that hezekiah wanted to do was corporately begin to worship the lord bring everyone back to worshiping the lord um and i love in verse 28 it says that um well first off right verse 27 that he commanded them to offer the burnt offering and then when the burnt offering began that's when the worship started the burnt offering like the free will offering a an offering to the lord it was noted as a sweet smelling sacrifice to the lord i loved the smell of the burnt offerings

but as this offering was being burnt up the burnt offerings began to offer the burnt offerings to the they began to worship the lord they didn't you know they're not like us right we sing two or three songs sit down and we're done it was until it was over and then we'll see it continued far longer than that but they worshiped the lord until the offering was finished and then uh it says that they sang praises with gladness they bowed their hearts with and worshiped right they were happy that their sins had been paid that they were able to worship the lord that he allowed them another day and they were humbled their heads were bowed when you are worshiping what's the state of your

heart right it doesn't matter how good you know the worship team is up here or whatever you think right it doesn't matter but what's the state of your heart when you are following along with the words that are on the screen are you are you thinking more about like well he's playing in the wrong key or are you thinking of man i really wish his or her voice was better or are you reading the words and letting them soak into your heart and singing them out loud to the lord when your heart is humble that's what you're going to be focused on you're gonna be focused on what joker's up here and so as these guys were worshiping they weren't focused like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know

so i kind of imagined sorry this has nothing to do with the message at all but i kind of imagined when because they hadn't worshiped the lord in so long right that they just got grabbed them all instruments they're like what are you supposed to do with these things right they're just standing there with no idea what to do but they began to just play right and play worship the lord with instruments and stuff um so when we worship it's important that we come in with a humble and open heart an open heart to the lord right don't get worried about how bad your voice my voice sucks dude but i'm giving my voice to the lord right i'm giving my my worship to the lord i'm not worshiping what people think about me or how bad my voice is

and i encourage you to worship the lord and i'm giving my worship to the lord and i'm not worshiping you this next time that we enter into worship corporately or individually personally is the best right when you get to jam out in your car alone nothing better but really worship really mean the words that you're reading or know really mean it with from the bottom of your heart i will tell you this right we're not worshiping to feel good but you cannot give to the lord and when you're giving him all of your heart in worship you're not worshiping to feel good but you cannot give to the lord and when you're giving him you're going to feel great so i would encourage you these guys felt it right they they gave it all

they were worshiping in verse 31 it says then hezekiah answered them 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 of were a willing heart brought burnt offerings and the number of the burnt offerings which the assembly brought was 70 bulls 100 rams and 200 lambs 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 not able to skin all the burnt offerings were more diligent and sanctifying themselves than the priests 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 so after they've worshiped right they've given uh the the sin offering they've given uh the burnt offering and started worshiping um hezekiah opens up the floor to anyone who wants to give to the lord a sacrifice sacrifice of thanksgiving right a free will offering a burnt offering

and i love uh that as many as were of a willing heart he didn't force anyone right and say all right we're back to the lord now go get all your bowls bring your bowls up here he didn't hold a gun to anyone's head or a sword to anyone's throat um but these were willing offerings to the lord willing offerings and it begs to bring to remembrance that god doesn't want anything that's forced from us he doesn't want anything that we feel is an obligation to him he wants worship that we do to be of a willing heart he wants us to want to do it right i'm not married but i've heard a lot of uh of you know situations that have arrived where uh the wife wants the husband to wash dishes

and she doesn't just want him to wash the dishes but she wants him to want to wash the dishes right to willing to serve and that's the same kind of desire that god has for us he wants us to want to worship him you don't want to force it he doesn't shove christianity down our throat he offers it and he hopes that we're willing so they brought too many offerings to be sacrificed right so much so that there wasn't enough priest to get it done that's amazing that's awesome so much so that they didn't have enough priests so they grabbed their brothers who weren't priests but they were of the uh the holy line of the levites right to come and help skin all of the burnt offerings how awesome is that when when god has done a work and he brings revival

that often uh the worship that comes from it can't be contained right can't be um numbered and so they offered all of these things and then in verse 36 at the end it says uh that hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that god had prepared the people i love that even here at the end the the glory is given to the lord it's not hezekiah did all the work and everyone worshiped god and it was great it was god who prepared the people god that did the work and that's so much like god he's the one that does the work uh jesus says pretty plainly that without me you can do nothing it has to be him who enacts the work and he does when we let them let him rather and so um what does this story have to do with us obviously there's some application there but

what what does this mean how do we learn from this story of hezekiah bringing about revival in the nation of israel how do we apply that to our day-to-day lives well one uh it comes with personal worship personal worship and devotion to the lord what does that mean right does that mean i have to learn how to play guitar or trumpet absolutely no i'm just kidding um but it starts with living a life of worship to the lord whatever you do wherever you go it should be to the glory of the lord and it starts with prayer and it starts with prayer also practically it starts out with prayer prayer and getting into the word not prayer with no word or the word with no prayer but prayer in

the word have you been in prayer have you been in the word my question to you is are you struggling it's probably a good indication of when struggling comes is when we have separated ourselves from prayer and the word um because we get also like obviously i'm in ministry and we can get caught up in doing a lot of service for the lord um and picking up a lot of things that he didn't necessarily ask me to pick up but because i'm a super spiritual guy right like i'll pick it up um we we should remember you guys know the story of mary and martha right mary's sitting there at the feet of jesus listening to his words and martha's up and serving everyone and she comes to jesus and says hey why don't you get my sister she's being a lazy bum why don't you get

her to to help me serve all of these people i can't do it on my own and jesus is like yo she's doing the better work she's doing the better work so i don't want you to go out and be a good christian or what you think a good christian would do or say or be i want you to spend time with jesus that's the more important work that's the more important work so for the first one it's worship and devotion and then two sin has consequences whether you're a believer or unbeliever sin has consequences it has to be dealt with it will be dealt with also the flip side of that that he will forgive us if we ask he is faithful and just to forgive us of all of our sins and cleanse us from all of our sins and he will forgive us if we ask he is faithful and just to

all of all unrighteousness so if you are in sin confess to the lord and he's faithful to cleanse you of all your unrighteousness and sin and stuff verse three all right the third one rather uh be serious about your walk with the lord be serious about your walk with the lord don't take it for granted don't waste time but be serious about your relationship to the lord right because he was serious about his relationship to you right we don't love god because we choose to love god we love him because he first loved us he first laid down his life for us the only correct response to that is the laying down of our lives for him as well paul writes in in romans 12 1 right it's it's our to be a living sacrifice and that is your reasonable service

it's the only thing that's that makes sense so be serious about your walk our walk and don't neglect it don't get distracted with the things of this world i feel like um uh we can get distracted with a whole lot of things right politics is a very big one right our nation as a whole is a very big one guns i found out here is a very big one too our jobs can be distractions distractions but don't be distracted by what you can see don't be distracted by what's in front of your face put your time and your efforts into the more important thing sitting at the feet of jesus in worship and being serious about that and then also for salvation is not free right it says that we have been bought with a price

it wasn't a free gift it's a free gift to us but it wasn't a free gift to us it wasn't a free gift to us it wasn't a free gift to us it wasn't a free gift to us the life of of god's own son had to be taken and then the last one give him your time right i love uh the fact that they worshiped the lord for a long time right as the whole burnt offering was being spent they were worshiping god they gave them a lot of time right they didn't get distracted oh for me it's ufc fights oh the ufc fights started on tonight let me go watch that that get distracted they kept the main thing the main thing and they spent time with him so i encourage you all to give him your time and spend time in personal personal worship if you don't worship in

your car go take a ride tonight today start now on your way home start now don't put it off for tomorrow um with that being said let me go ahead and uh we'll pray and get out of here also last thing sorry if if you are struggling with any of the areas you have a bunch of brothers and sisters here in this room who can pray with you and pray for you and to come alongside you and love you and help you through it that can point you to christ the only one who can actually do a thing ask for help you you it's okay no one's gonna judge you except for me i'm just gonna let's pray heavenly father you are awesome and mighty you are so worthy to be praised lord and i pray that um you would do a

work in my brothers and sisters here today lord that by the power of your holy spirit you would draw them closer than ever before would you become so real to them that the things of this world don't matter lord i thank you that you are a god of grace and mercy thank you that you uh forgive us thank you that you sustain us thank you for uh the love that you have so beautifully displayed on the cross for us lord would you go before my brothers and sisters here and bless them in jesus name amen