Thank you, Joe. Let's go to the
book of 2 Chronicles. I'm going to begin here this
evening, and I'm going to go back to chapter 29, 2 Chronicles chapter 29, just briefly. I want to point out three great
things that Hezekiah did when he began to be king over Judah. Here are the three things. Number
one, he reopened the house of God. He reopened the house of
God. It says in the third verse of
chapter 29, and I don't want to repeat and I cannot repeat
everything that I said this morning, but I want to remind you of this.
In the first year of his reign, in the first month, He opened
the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. You know that that house of the
Lord, the temple, was the place of worship. It was the grand
gathering point of the people of Judah. This is where God met
men and men met God. First of all, there was the brazen
altar. As soon as they entered into
the outer court of the temple, the house of God, they were met
with the brazen altar, which was a massive, a massive piece
of furniture. There's where the sacrifices
were offered. The brazen altar, that's Christ
crucified. That's Christ who was offered
He offered himself unto God, a sweet savor, and the sin offering
that put away the sins of all of his people. Further into the
court of the temple, past the brazen altar, was the laver,
and that's where the priests washed their hands and their
feet. Our Lord Jesus is the one who
cleanseth us from all sins by the shedding of his own blood. He washed us. He purified us. And he made us fit to enter in
to the holy place. See, that's the significance
of these things. The priest couldn't enter into
the holy place apart from a blood sacrifice and then apart from
being washed. And you see, we can't enter into
the presence of God apart from the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We know that and we rejoice in
that. And we also recognize the fact
we have to be in our innermost being, we have to be cleansed
of our filthiness, of our sins, so that we can enter into the
holy place, so that we can pray and worship and have fellowship
with the triune God. Then inside the holy place was
a table of showbread. That's Christ who is our bread.
We feed on Him. God has given us appetite for
the gospel of His grace, and nothing else will satisfy us.
So we feed on Christ, who is the bread come down from heaven.
And then there were the golden lampstands, the lights within
the holy place. Christ is the one who enlightened
us and keeps us enlightened. He's the one who gives us an
understanding of the things of God, and we walk in the light
as he's in the light, and we have fellowship with God. And
then there was the altar of incense, that's Christ our mediator. He's the one who offered to God
the sacrifice that put our sins away and he's the one who presents
all of our efforts to worship God to the Father bathed in his
own precious blood. So these pieces of furniture
in the temple were very significant. And then there was the Holy of
Holies, and there was the Ark of the Covenant covered over
with a pure slab of gold, the mercy seat, and only the high
priest could go in there once a year, but not without blood. He sprinkled the mercy seat.
Christ is our mercy seat, you see. So everything about the
temple, everything about the house of God, pictured and symbolized
in one way or another, our Lord Jesus Christ. And the father
of Hezekiah, Ahaz, he had closed the doors to the temple. And
when he closed the doors to the temple, that meant no Christ.
That meant no gospel. And when Hezekiah took the reins
over Judah, it's the first thing he did. He said, I'm going to
open up the temple. And it was a blessed day. When access was
made, once again, to honor God, to worship God. Hezekiah did
that. It's a very important thing.
It meant so much to him. It meant so much to the people.
to the saints of God. This was his priority, open up
the house of God. Remember, the glory of God was
in the temple. It filled the temple. There's
where God made known his, what we call, what the Bible calls,
his Shekinah glory. And the Israelites at first when
the temple opened up and before that the tabernacle, they saw
the brilliance of the very presence of God. His glory filled this
house. And the glory of God fills the
Lord Jesus Christ. We see His glory in the face
of Christ. So the reopening of this temple
was very important. The temple was where God was
worshiped, and the temple was set up on high so it could be
seen. 1 Kings 8 says it could see it
from miles away because it was lifted up high, built on a high
hill so people could see it, even so Christ is high and lifted
up. You remember in Isaiah 6? Isaiah wrote, in the year that
King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, where it is him, ha, and lifted
up. And in the book of Philippians
chapter two, our Lord Jesus was faithful to lay down his life
for his people, and God has therefore, Paul wrote, highly exalted him. Where is the Savior? He's in
glory. Where is he? He's seated upon
the throne of righteousness, the throne of grace, ultimately
the throne of judgment. You see, there was but one temple.
That's the only temple there was, right here in Jerusalem. And there's only one savior,
our Lord Jesus Christ. There aren't multiple saviors,
there's just one. And he's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And anybody who wanted to worship God during the reign of Hezekiah,
they knew the temple was open. But you know, a little later,
a little later, the people of Israel and Judah were taken into
captivity. And they couldn't get to Jerusalem.
So you know what they did? They did like Daniel did. When the king, Darius, ordered
everybody to worship him, this was at the urging of some of
the enemies of Daniel. And the penalty was if you worshiped
anybody over a period of time other than the king, gonna put
you in the lion's den. Because those enemies of Daniel,
they knew three times a day, he went up to his room and prayed.
Read the scripture, it says, and he opened his windows and
he faced Jerusalem. He looked toward the temple.
He couldn't get to the temple, but he looked toward the temple.
And I'm telling you, if you're ever in a situation where the
gospel of Christ Jesus is not being preached, I'm sorry you're
ever in that situation. And it may even be a sovereign
grace preacher who misses the mark, and he doesn't, as it were,
open up the temple for you, for you to enter into the presence
of God. Look to Christ anyway. Look to
Him who is the very temple of God. Hezekiah said about, his
first great priority, open up the temple again. But he did
something else too. Now turn to 2 Chronicles chapter
30. Turn a page or two over. Here's the second great thing
he did. He didn't waste any time doing this either. He resurrected,
he resurrected the keeping of the Passover, chapter 30. And I'm just gonna read a few
verses here. Look at verse one. And Hezekiah sent to all Israel
and Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh that
they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep
the Passover under the Lord God of Israel. Now, he's only the
king of Judah, right? He's not the king of Israel.
but he wanted everybody to come. You see the temple had been opened
up and now they could once again observe the Passover. So look
the second verse, for the king had taken counsel and his princes
and all the congregation in Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the second
month. Remember in the first month,
That's when he opened the temple. In the second month, now he's
going to lead them in observing the Passover. It says in verse
3, For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests
had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the
people gathered themselves together in Jerusalem. And the thing pleased
the king and all the congregation, so they established a decree.
to make proclamation throughout all Israel. And remember, the
northern kingdom, those people had seceded from the southern
kingdom. The kingdom had been divided.
And there was a lot of hard feelings toward the people of the northern
kingdom from the folks in the southern kingdom and the same
thing vice versa. But Hezekiah sent out this decree
to everybody, to everybody. He made this proclamation from
Beersheba to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover under
the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem, for they had not done it of a
long time in such a sort as it was written. And you remember
about the Passover. This is when God delivered them
from Egyptian oppression, from the captivity. And God instructed
Moses to tell the heads of every family, take a lamb and kill
it. It's got to be a male of the
first year. It's gotta be without spot, without
blemish. Kill the lamb, put the blood
out on the doorposts and over the doorposts, and eat the roasted
lamb. And that lamb was Christ. It says in the book of 1 Corinthians,
Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. They hadn't kept the
Passover in a long time. And Hezekiah says, it's been
too long. We got the temple open now and
got the doors repaired. The priests are going in and
out and offering the sacrifices and people went and presented
sacrifices to God for the putting away or the covering of their
sins, all of them pointing to the death of Christ Jesus. Now
Hezekiah says, now the second thing I'm going to do, I'm going
to reinstitute the Passover. It's been much too long since
we've done that. And he said, I'm sending these
letters out. So look at verse six. So the
posts, the postman, the postman, they went with the letters from
the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah. You see,
Hezekiah had a soft heart. He loved the people. And he had himself experienced
the grace of God in his soul. He knew about the mercy of God
firsthand. And he wanted all of Judah and
all of Israel to worship the Lord at the Passover. So he sent
letters from the king and his princes throughout all of Israel,
the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom. And according
to the commandment of the king, saying, ye children of Israel,
turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
and he will return to the remnant of you that are escaped out of
the land of the king of Assyria. He said, now don't be like your
fathers and like your brethren which trespassed against the
Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation,
as you see. He said, don't you be stiff-necked
now. Don't be rebellious on this.
Oh, may God break our rebellion, break our arrogance, to where
we fall down in submission to King Jesus. He's the Lord of
glory. Worship Him. Worship Him. He said, don't be stiff-necked.
as your fathers were, but yield yourself to the Lord. Come before
him the way you ought to, with a humble heart, with a broken
heart, with a submissive heart, with a repentant heart over your
sins, and come and worship God by means of the blood sacrifice,
and enter into his sanctuary. Come into the temple, the outer
court of the temple. which he hath sanctified forever,
and he said that serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness
of his wrath may turn away from you. For if you turn again unto
the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion
before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again
into this land. For the Lord your God is gracious. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord
your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face
from you if you return unto him. And so the post passed from city
to city throughout the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even
unto Zebulun. They're like preachers. They're
like preachers. going out, honor Christ Jesus,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the savior of sinners. And we're offering this Passover
sacrifice. We're killing a lamb and feasting
on the lamb, all picturing the substitutionary sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And Hezekiah said, you post,
go out and spread the news to come to Jerusalem and worship
God through Christ. But, verse 10, last statement,
but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. What an awful
attitude. To have the gospel preached to
you in picture, in great symbolism, to have the Lamb of God set before
you, God's darling Son and His work of redemption that He came
and accomplished. He died and was buried and rose
again the third day because everything God required of Him to do, He
did it to the satisfaction of God. He said, it's finished. And people mocked the gospel. They turned up their nose at
the gospel of Christ. That's what unbelief does. And
I'll guarantee you this, God does not take unbelief lightly. This is all about honoring his
son. And if you don't honor Christ,
you're not honoring God. They laugh them to scorn. But
look at verse 11, and not everybody Nevertheless, divers or many
of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to
Jerusalem. They said, we want to worship
God. Also in Judah, the hand of God
was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king
and of the princes by the word of the Lord. and they're assembled
at Jerusalem. Much people. Much people. Let me tell you something. God
has much people. John said he saw them there in
the book of Revelation chapter 7. He says, a multitude which
no man could number. And I know there are a lot of
people who refuse to believe. There are a lot of people who
mock. But there are a lot of people who are going to believe
because God chose them unto salvation before the world began. And our
Lord Jesus has redeemed them. And the Spirit of God is using
the preaching of the gospel down through the years to effectually
draw them to Christ. So that in verse 13, they're
assembled at Jerusalem, much people to keep the feast of unleavened
bread. In the second month, a very great
congregation. And when they celebrated the
Passover, then they arose and took away the altars that were
in Jerusalem. And all the altars for incense
took their way and cast them into the brook Kidron. And you
see the brook Kidron, that's where they threw all the filth
of the temple. All the guts, if I put it that
way, and gore and blood of the sacrifices, that was all dumped
in the brook. And the people, after worshiping
God by means of Christ crucified, they said, we're gonna tear these
altars down. Remember I told you this morning,
in the four corners out of the city of Jerusalem? And the people
commenced to tearing the altars down and threw them down into
Brook Kedron because they're just rubbish, that's all they
are. They're absolutely worthless. They killed the Passover. Verse
15, they killed the Passover on 14th day of the second month,
and the priests and the Levites were ashamed and sanctified themselves
and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of God. They stood
in their place after their manner. According to the law of Moses,
the man of God, the priests sprinkled the blood which they received
of the hand of the Levites, for there were many in the congregation
that were not sanctified. They hadn't been cleansed ritually. Therefore, the Levites had the
charge of the killing of the Passovers for everyone that was
not clean to sanctify them under the Lord. And they worshiped
God. First great thing Hezekiah did. open up the temple. The second
great thing that he did was he started the Passover again. Now
here's the third thing. Go to that passage Joe read to
us in 2 Kings chapter 18. 2 Kings chapter 18. In verse
1, It says, And it came to pass
in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel,
which means this is six years before Israel was carried away
into captivity. Six years before Israel, the
northern kingdom, was carried away into captivity. That's when
Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. Twenty-five
years old was he when he began to reign. and he reigned 29 years
in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abihai,
the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord according to all that David, his father,
did. David was like his spiritual
father because these men followed in the steps of David. David
wasn't his biological father, but David was like a spiritual
father to them. And here's what he commenced
to do. Number one, he removed the high places. What were the
high places? Those were the locations up on
top of the hills and the mountains where the people built altars
to worship Jupiter, to worship the sun, to worship the moon,
to worship the stars and other heavenly bodies. They were sacred
to most people. And in Hezekiah, removing the
high places, he did that which no other good king ever attempted
to do. Go back to 1 Kings, if you would. 1 Kings chapter 15. Let me show
you this. The third king of Judah, 1 Kings chapter 15. The third king
of Judah was Asa. And he was the very first good
king of Judah. 1 Kings chapter 15, verse 9. And in the 20th year of Jeroboam,
king of Israel, reigned Asa over Judah. He's actually the third
king, over Judah, but he's the first good king. And forty and one years reigned
he in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Maicah,
the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did that which was right
in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. And he took away the sodomites
out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had
made. And also Maica, his mother, even
her he removed from being queen because she had made an idol
in a grove. And Asa destroyed his mama's
idol and burnt it by the brook Kedron. throwing the ashes in
the brook Kedron, which I said, that's where all the filthy things
went. But look at this, verse 14. But
the high places were not removed. They were not
removed. Nevertheless, Asa's heart was
perfect with the Lord all his days. And all these good kings that
lived before Hezekiah, they didn't touch the idols and the altars
in the high places. But Hezekiah rolled up his sleeves. He said, I'm done with this junk.
I just admire him so much. God gave him so much grace. God
gave him strength. Nor the good king attempted to
do what he did to remove the high places where idolatry was
practiced, but Hezekiah did. And this is exactly where his
own daddy worshiped. Look back in 2 Kings now, chapter
16. 2 Kings chapter 16. And now we're talking about Ahaz,
the father of Hezekiah. 2 Kings chapter 16, verse 4. And he sacrificed and burned
incense in the high places and on the hills and under every
green tree. And I'll bet you when Hezekiah
came to that, people said, now wait a minute, this is where
your daddy worshiped. He said, well, I'm going to tear
it down. You got to admire a man like, a man who'll stand fast
for the truth. Oh God, give us backbone to stand
for the truth and to identify idolatry where we see it. and to warn people to avoid that. God has already said, and I've
read this to you, that the reason the people of Judah had been
taken into captivity, many of them, was because of their idolatry. God despises that. And that's
the reason Israel was taken into idolatry, was because that whole
nation was given to idols, And all of their kings were ungodly.
Nobody would correct the wrongs that were done. And the Northern
kingdom would not listen to the prophets of God that he sent
them. They killed the prophets. God
said, I'm done with you. And the Assyrians took them into
captivity. The first thing Hezekiah did
was to remove the high places. He sent his priests up there
and no doubt he went up there himself. They started knocking
rocks over and destroying the idols. And the next thing, go back now
to chapter 18. So he removed the high places.
Good for him. And then he break the images.
All the idols that had been erected. And they had a bunch of them.
He broke them in pieces. And then he cut down the groves. He cut down the groves. The groves
were like rest stops along the highways so that people could
get a little breather from their trip, their caravan or whatever
they were traveling in. And there were altars there so
you could worship your God. Whatever your God of choice was,
you could worship at what I call the rest stop. We'll make it
convenient for you. Convenience to worship their
false gods. Here's a guy that said those
are going too. And he just cut down all the
trees. You're not gonna stay there anymore. You're not gonna
spend any time there anymore. We're gonna destroy the altars. And he did something else. It says that he break in pieces
the brazen serpent that Moses had made. For unto those days
the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called it
Nahushton. A worthless piece of brass. As
one translation says, a worthless and filthy piece of brass. It's useless. Now mind you, this
has been almost a thousand years since Moses made the brazen serpent. Almost a thousand years. And
at first the people didn't worship it, but they saved that. God
didn't tell him to save it. Because you see, it was only
of use one time. Because that brazen serpent was
a picture of, a symbol of, our Lord Jesus Christ who would be
lifted up to die. And the Savior made reference
to that in John chapter 3 and verse 14. As Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, lifted up to die. That whosoever believeth on Him
should not perish, but have eternal life. It was a picture of Christ
crucified, and He was crucified one time. So the brazen serpent had a value
one time. When the Israelites were bitten
with fiery serpents and Moses lifted it up on a pole and he
said, look and live. And that image of the brazen
serpent was made in the likeness of that which bit the people. And our Lord Jesus was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and he condemned
sin in the flesh. And when the people had looked
and lived, the brazen serpent had no more value. It served its purpose, but it
got put away, not in a closet, but in the back of somebody's
carriage or something, I reckon, in the back of a wagon. They
carried it on into the land of Canaan, and it hung around. And the longer it hung around,
the more valuable it became to a lot of the people. They finally
revered it. And they honored it, it became
an object of worship. Very special. It's like they felt like it brought
them good luck. And Hezekiah, he come upon that,
he said, this has gotta go. And I bet you some people said,
oh no, don't touch the brazen serpent. He said it's a worthless
thing. Doesn't mean anything. He saw it as being an idol then. It wasn't an idol to begin with.
It had a good purpose to begin with, but it was no good now. People honored it as a religious
relic to be reverenced and adored, and he destroyed it. You see, God is spirit, and they
that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We
do not worship God by visible religious relics or figures or
symbols. I asked Phyllis about this before
the service began, and she acknowledged that this is a pretty accurate
rendering of what Charlie said years ago, and I'm pretty sure
it's when he was preaching at Fairmont. Well, Charlie Payne,
who was an excellent preacher in his own right, he told the
story up there that he had a picture of Jesus. And the Lord saved
him and convicted him. He needed to get rid of that.
Because the Bible does forbid making a religious likeness of
anything in heaven or on earth or under the earth. Now that's
in the law of God. That means pictures of Jesus
are no good. First of all, don't know what
he looked like anyhow. But he took a picture down and
he put it out on top of his garbage can. And his neighbor saw him
and said, what are you doing? He said, I'm throwing this picture
away. He said, you can't throw Jesus away. And I remember Charlie is saying,
that's not Jesus. And the person said, well, I
know it's not Jesus, but it's a representation of Jesus. And
Charlie said, it's an idol and I'm getting rid of it. You know, if you have any of
these religious relics, and maybe before you didn't know better,
but now you know. Those things are not good, because
here's what happens. They become superstitious to
us, and they become an idol. You see, our God is unseen. Our
Lord Jesus, we see him by faith, But we can't see them with these
eyes. See, let's put it this way. If they were to find, if
somebody were to find the cross of Christ, let's just say they
did, you know what should be done
with it? Burn it. Throw it in the book, Brooke
Kendram. because it had a use one time,
that's all. The cross isn't to be worn, it's
not to be worshipped. I was looking at a baseball game,
the highlights of a baseball game, and this fella got up to
bat and he pulled out his cross and he kissed it, put it back,
and then he crossed himself. That's a good luck charm to him,
that's all, that's superstition. God hates it. I'm sure the fellow
meant well. He thought he was doing good.
That's dishonoring to Christ Jesus. When we were in Michigan,
went down to Traverse City, and Nancy had got a good piece of
cherry pie at this restaurant, and so the folks we were with,
Jim and Barb Bruin, just dear friends of ours, and Nancy, Nancy
wanted the pie, and they did too, so they sent me in to get
the peach, I keep wanting to say peach, I guess I wouldn't
mind. Anybody got any peach pie? Cherry pie. So I went in, ordered
the cherry pie, and there was a fellow behind the counter,
a young guy, had a big cross around his neck. Well, I just
said, what does that cross mean? He said, well, it shows I'm a
Christian. I said, how does it do that? Well, he said, everybody
knows that Jesus died on the cross. And he said, so it shows
that I'm a Christian. And I said, you know, in Galatians
chapter six, Paul said, God forbid that I should glory, save in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I said, but he wasn't talking
about that wooden beam upon which Christ died. He's talking about
the doctrine of the cross. He's talking about salvation
by crucified, buried, risen Savior. He said, really? I said, yeah. I said, that's what that's about.
I said, you're not supposed to wear a cross. But he said, I
want everybody to know I believe Jesus. And I said, well. I admire you for wanting people
to know that you believe Jesus, but I said, that's idolatry.
Well, he said, my church doesn't think so. He said, I like this. He kind
of rubbed. He said, I like this. I said,
well, I'm sorry. That was it. That was it. The cross of Christ is not a
good luck charm. I told somebody one time, they
was wearing a cross, and they said, well, it's because Jesus
died on a cross. I said, if you'd been killed with a knife, would
you put a knife around your neck? Hezekiah saw this and he said,
it's a worthless piece of brass. It's no good. If they found Noah's
ark, In fact, somebody the other day tried to tell me, well, they
think they found Noah's Ark. Well, what if they did? I'd say
burn that, too. Because you see, we are all,
by nature, idolaters. That comes natural. And anything that we render reverence
to or respect to, it's an idol. Put it away. Put it away. You see, it's wrong to have any
kind of representation of God or of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Hezekiah, he just ground it to powder. Well, what did he do? How did
he live, then, if he didn't have these good-luck charms? Well,
look at verse 5. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel. That's what he did. He believed
the Lord, though he couldn't see Him with his eyes, so that
after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any
that were before him, for he claimed to the Lord. And he departed
not from following him, but kept his commandment, which the Lord
commanded Moses. Well, I tell you, God used him
in a mighty way. Opened the temple, said, we're
gonna start keeping the Passover again, and I'm getting rid of
these idols. And he did, he did. God used him. Well, I hope that'll
be helpful to you. We don't need physical images
of anything religious. God's given us two symbols of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Those are the symbols that he's
left us. And they remind us of Christ
and him crucified. I'm not quite finished with Hezekiah. We're going to talk about him
again Wednesday night, the Lord willing.