[0:00] Take your Bibles if you would and turn with me to 2 Chronicles, and we'll be in chapter 30. 2 Chronicles chapter 30. I hope you are excited.
[0:11] I'll say it that way. I am excited. I hope you're excited. You know what's going on in chapter 30 here? In chapter 30, finally, after a long time, God's people are going to come back and worship him.
[0:23] God's people have wandered far off. Twelve tribes, ten in the northern tribe, they have totally gone away from God. And the two in the south had done fairly well, and they've really gone away from God.
[0:35] We've had some wicked kings that were not so wicked and some more wicked. And then a guy named Hezekiah is born, and he grows up and becomes the king of Judah. And when he becomes the king of Judah, he's like, we've got to get back to God.
[0:50] We've got to get things back on the road. And sometimes it takes one of these young men who will just stand up and say, you old people, let it happen. Somebody's got to rock the boat and shake things up, and let's bring it back. And that's what Hezekiah does.
[1:02] And in the last chapter, boy, he just went to town. They cleaned the house. They cleaned the priest up. They didn't finish doing everything, but they just got a good start on it. And then he gets to chapter 30, and he's like, man, we need to have a worship service.
[1:15] We need to get together and love on God, love on Jesus. We need to experience what it's like to be the people of God. We've been around these idols long enough. We've been around these demons long enough in time to get back to God.
[1:27] Look at 2 Chronicles 30, verse 26. And I want to take you through a wonderful story, and we'll look at how it applies to us. In 2 Chronicles 30, verse 26. So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, that hadn't been like that since then back in Jerusalem.
[1:46] In other words, way back before the two kingdoms divided, way back before the two golden calves were set up in the northern kingdom, way back before everybody started following after these wicked kings, that's the last time the kind of joy that you're going to see in chapter 30.
[2:01] It's like a mountain peak. It's like, buddy, we're on the top of the mountain. We are enjoying what God's done in our lives, and we are excited about it. And so at the beginning of this chapter, I'll just run it through with you real quickly.
[2:13] At the very beginning of this chapter, Hezekiah gets to the people. He says, man, we got the place cleaned up. We've opened the doors of the house of God again. We got all the filth out. We've thrown out the altars.
[2:25] We've got the priest pretty much ready. We can go back and worship God like you're supposed to worship God. They all got to talking, and they said, It's like the deacons and the pastors and the Sunday school teachers and the music people, and everybody's in a room, and the teachers and workers are meeting.
[2:39] They said, man, it's time to do it. Let's do this thing. And they said, let's invite everybody. And so they wrote a bunch of letters that said, we cleaned up the temple. We got everything ready. We're ready to worship.
[2:49] And if you love God, we want you to come on down here and worship God with us. They sent those letters all the way up to the top ten tribes that hated God. And they sent them up there, and they said, y'all, come on down. We're going to have a blast here.
[3:01] We're going to go up. We're going to worship God. We're going to go back to the way things are supposed to be and the way they were before our dads and our moms did wrong. And they said, don't you dare act like your mama and your daddy who were hard-headed and stiff-necked, wouldn't bow their head, and they wouldn't worship God.
[3:17] You listen, and you yield yourself, and you surrender to God, and you come into his temple, and you worship him, and you serve him, and he will love you, and he will show you compassion, and he'll be good to you.
[3:31] So y'all come on down here and get to doing that. And so they came, and they had a worship service, and they are giving big offerings. They're having feast after feast.
[3:43] I mean, they're down at the church, and the church used to be a little dry building. Nobody's gone. The doors are locked up. Animals were in the building. I was in a church building a few years ago, and I walked into the church.
[3:53] There was a tractor sitting in the middle of the auditorium. There were hay bales all around it. And they did tell me there was a couple of churches now meeting, but they met in the side wings of that church building, and that was literally in this county.
[4:05] And it was an independent Baptist church. But Hezekiah came along. He said, get that tractor out and clean up this place. We're fixing to have preaching. We're going to get people to come.
[4:15] And I don't know how you could get any more excited than that. It ought to be that you know Jesus. How many of you know Jesus say amen? It ought to be you love Him. You love Him. You love His book.
[4:25] You love serving Him. You love what He's done in your life. And it ought to be that you want other people to get involved. So go with me if you would. Start in verse 30. Let's go to chapter 30 and verse 1. And He commissions them to take the truth to the nations.
[4:39] He said, you've got to go tell everybody about it. So in verse 1, they wrote about your letters. And they said in the letters, y'all come up to the house of the Lord God, and we will keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel.
[4:52] They had made a whole plan. It's like they sat down with the deacons, and they sat down with the leadership of the church. And they said, how in the world can we get so many missionaries in the mission field? How can we get the letters out? How can we handle this worship?
[5:04] We've got to work together, and we've got to have a plan. So in verse 2, the king took counsel. They agreed to have the Passover later than it was supposed to be, but they're going to do it. They're letting everybody get ready.
[5:14] Because you ought not just come to church like you are. You ought to come to church. Because this isn't for lost people right here. This is God's people ought to know. You don't come to God still playing with your sin. If you've still got an idol at the house, get it out of the house before you come down here.
[5:28] Don't come down here and act like you're worshiping the God of heaven while you've still got one of those Baal poles in your house. Get rid of it before you come down here. And when he got through telling them all that, look at verse 4. It pleased the congregation and the king.
[5:40] Everybody's like, you're right. That's the way it ought to be. We ought to serve God, and we ought to worship him. So they invited everybody. Look at verse 5. If you would, they established a decree to make a proclamation that everybody should come to keep the Passover to the Lord God of Israel.
[5:54] Let's invite everybody. He is God, and he is worthy to be worshiped. And so in verse 6, they wrote a bunch of letters, and they got a bunch of messengers. And so they wrote the message out, and they got a bunch of messengers.
[6:06] And they sent them, and look at verse 6. Underline, throughout all Israel and Judah. And they said, you go tell them all, time to turn back to God. Time to turn away from your idols. Time to turn away from your sin.
[6:18] And it's time to come back to God. This first part of this chapter is like a world evangelism summit. It's like the king is like, guys, we got a message.
[6:29] We got a God. We got a plan to worship. And we got to get everybody we can to come and participate in it. That's what's happening to us as a church, isn't it? I don't know if you realize it, because sometimes when you live it every day, you know, you can't have like revival all the time.
[6:44] You can't be always excited and always happy. So, you know, you kind of live life and up and down. And you hang around the Bible all the time. And you hang around the world evangelism all the time. And it kind of gets to be routine.
[6:55] But we got to work at not letting it be routine. We got to work at just not letting it be ho-hum, the dry stuff. It's what we do. And so in this chapter, it was pretty easy for them to get excited. You got to understand it was pretty easy for them to get excited.
[7:08] So can I just real quickly set the stage so you get excited? I want you to imagine there's been no preachers here. I want you to imagine you love God. How many of you love God? If there was no church, no church, none.
[7:19] You couldn't go across the street and find another church. Every church that worshiped God's closed down. That's what happened. They nailed the doors shut. That's last chapters. They nailed the doors shut.
[7:31] They stripped all the things to worship God out of the place. They took the pulpit and made firewood, took the piano, and took it down to a bar so they could have a place to play the piano. There's a place downtown called the tab or the tabernacle.
[7:44] Well, I went there when I was a kid to hear a great preacher. Now it's a music hall. So they've taken it all away. There's no place you can go. If you want to worship, you can go to the Mormon temple.
[7:56] If you want to worship, you can go to a place where there's idols. If you want to worship, you can go to a place where there's sexual immorality. But in your heart, you love Jesus. And, man, you just wish you could be around other Christians.
[8:07] You just wish you could be around other people and lift your voice and song and sing about how much you love Jesus. But you can't because if you do, you'll get in trouble. And so when Hezekiah came out and said, it's time to come back to God, they're all like, finally, finally there's a man of God around.
[8:24] Finally there's somebody who's willing to take a stand. And so He took the stand. But they required something of Him, a commitment. Look, if you would, 2 Chronicles 30 and verse 7. If we're going to worship God, we're going to get the joy back in our worship.
[8:39] Look at what it says. Be not like your fathers and like your brothers which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation as you see.
[8:50] Now look at the verse. He said, look, when you go talk to them, here's what you're going to tell them. Your daddy walked out on God. Underline up there in your Bible it says, therefore gave them up to desolation.
[9:00] God said, I'll just pull back and I won't bless you. You can't be like your daddy because your daddy went to worship the golden calves. You can't be like your daddy because your daddy went to that grove of trees and sexual orgies and demon worship was going on.
[9:13] That's where your daddy was. Can't be like that. If we're going to worship God, you're going to worship God. You cannot be like your fathers. You're going to need to repent. Look at verse 8. And then there's some steps you've got to take.
[9:25] Verse 8. You ought to underline this in your Bible. You ought to underline this in your Bible. Be not stiff-necked. There's a part of us that's like, I mean, on occasion one of my grandchildren does something wrong.
[9:37] It's very seldom. You know, grandchildren don't do wrong. You know that. I mean, my kids used to do wrong quite regularly. But my grandkids, you know, they're perfect, you know, near perfect. You understand if you're a grandparent.
[9:47] But you can say something to one of your grandkids. You know they did it. You can see them do it. They're stiff-necked. You say, did you do that? And they go, nope. Well, why is there candy on your mouth? I didn't take the candy.
[9:58] Nope. Didn't do it. And they're stiff-necked. Can I get an amen right there? It's kind of like you are about admitting you hadn't been doing what you ought to do. It's kind of like you when you don't want to say, I hadn't been worshiping God.
[10:09] I hadn't been reading the Bible. I hadn't been praying. I have been playing with sin. And he said, well, you tell them they can't be stiff-necked. But look what he told them to do. This is Romans chapter 6 if I've ever seen it.
[10:19] Look at this. Yield. Underline that. Yield. Yield. Now, what is yield? Did anybody in this room ever play mercy when you was a kid? You see people don't even know what that is.
[10:30] You know, you used to grab a guy with the fingers like this. You both got your hands like this. And you bend it down. And it's either mercy or uncle. And, you know, my uncles used to play uncle with me.
[10:41] And I'd be hollering uncle because they're about to kill me. And then when I was a little scrawny guy, when I got big, I loved mercy. Because my chance to make them say mercy. Amen. Well, that's yield. It's give up.
[10:51] Quit fighting. Quit being angry. Quit holding on to your sin. Quit saying, hey, I did wrong, but I'm not admitting it. But yield, he said. And then he said, if you read the verse, he said, enter into his sanctuary.
[11:02] Sanctuary. Now, you've got to understand, we don't even have a sanctuary here. Because you are the sanctuary. And you're going to take it home in a minute.
[11:14] You know, the first holy ground today and the first holy of holies, you know where it is, don't you? When you look in the mirror, you're looking at it. Say, man, he lives in you. But this was a place where they were going to get to go into God's house and God was going to let them in the house.
[11:29] And he said, you quit being stiff-necked and you yield and you go into the sanctuary because he has sanctified forever and served the Lord. Underline the word serve. So you quit being rebellious and then you yield and then you enter and then you serve.
[11:44] And God won't be so angry. They need to get where they're supposed to be. By the way, God's at work in our lives today. He calls on us to take these very same steps regularly. Can I just remind you, I want to ask you to please think about this.
[11:57] We've got to continue to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. We've got to continue to say when we read the Bible, we need to be reading the Bible. It becomes an academic exercise if we're not careful.
[12:09] It's like I'm supposed to read the Bible. So here it is. Read. Yep, read. Yep, read. Okay, got her done. Let's go to the house. And it's like we're finished. Now we can go to work or now we can go to bed.
[12:20] We've done our Bible reading. We didn't read, say, God, speak to me. We didn't read, say, God, whatever you got for me, I want to hear that. Are we willing to give up whatever it is that he wants us to give up? Are we willing to offer ourselves to yield, to present our bodies for his service?
[12:36] It's an amazing thing. The vast majority of people, even in our church that would be here on a Sunday morning and a Sunday night, would the vast majority of our church would be like, God, you need to do something about the world, but not me.
[12:47] God, you need money for the missions program, but not my money. God, you need your people to be sacrificial and are given. But rarely are we saying, I'm going to bow my neck. I'm going to humble myself.
[12:59] I'm going to offer myself. I'm going to yield up where God can do it. The commission will never take place. The great commission will never take place without great commitment. It's going to take that. Now go with me, if you would, to 2 Chronicles 30 and verse 9.
[13:12] 2 Chronicles 30 and verse 9. I'm just going to tell you this is one of my favorite parts, but the whole chapter is like one of my favorites. But anyway, look at this verse, if you would. For if you turn again unto the Lord, you'll find compassion.
[13:25] Would you put a circle around the word compassion in that verse? Now, see, they tend to think he's a mean God. He's a God who wants to take away their joy. He's a God that wants to, I mean, when you're worshiping those false gods, you can prosper and you can have fun and you can party and you can play and you can be involved in sexual orgies.
[13:43] That's what was going on with all that junk. But he said, you can have compassion. And I want you to take just a second. I want you to underline in verse 9 the character of your God. I want you to write the word character.
[13:54] Mark a place in your Bible. Write a note in front of your Bible so you can know to look here. You want to know what kind of God he is? You want to know what kind of God he is? It says, the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn his face from you if you return unto him.
[14:11] He's gracious. You know what that means? He's full of grace. He's full of gentleness. He's full of sweetness. The picture is beautiful here. He said, when you go in, he's going to be like the father of the prodigal son.
[14:26] He's going to jump up and run towards you. And instead of giving you what you deserve, he's going to hug you and kiss you and be merciful to you. Not punish you, but give you what you don't deserve. I love this.
[14:37] You'd have to be. It happens in America, but it's not as obvious in America. But it says here, he said, he won't turn his face away from you. And one of the things that if a Peruvian really wants to insult you, he makes you.
[14:51] It's called leaving you with your hand hanging. And so he literally comes to you or you go by him. And when you go to shake hands, he walks away. I walked up to Pablo Coa one night at church.
[15:03] I knew he was mad at me, but I wasn't going to hide from him just because he's mad at me. So I walked up to Brother Pablo and I went to give my hand out to him. And he looked at me, looked straight at me as I got closer, closer. And when I got right to him, he went and walked away.
[15:14] But you know, when you come walking up to God, when you've been sinning, when you've been wrong, when you've been a long ways from God, you know what he said? He won't turn his face away. You come in, there'll be a smile on his face.
[15:25] He'll be saying, come unto me. All you that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. I won't turn my back. I'm a sweet God. There was compassion. This is compassion, by the way, in a wicked, wicked society.
[15:38] Please don't think that these are people that got their feelings hurt at the last church they went to and somebody was a little mean to them. They've been worshiping demons. They've been worshiping golden calves.
[15:48] They've been having sexual orgies at a religious ceremony and claiming it was for God. And the man says, y'all just come on down here. He'll have compassion. He's a good God. He forgives sin.
[16:00] Can I get an amen there? And then it says, and they shall come into the land. We'll look at that later. God is merciful and kind. He will bless again.
[16:11] We can have the joy we used to have. He wants you. And he won't reject you. What a great God we serve. There'll be 2 Chronicles chapter 30 and verse 10.
[16:24] But we need to understand, if we're going to take the commission, if we're going to spread the gospel, if we're going to invite people to come worship God, and we ought to do that, and we're going to call on them to commit because we're not going out there to be a Joel Osteen preacher.
[16:37] We're not going out there to say, you come and we give you your best life. Now, we're going out there to say, you have sinned against the Holy God. You do deserve to go to hell. But Jesus died for you. And if you'll repent of your sin, you can be saved. We're going to go to them.
[16:48] We're going to say, but God commended his love toward us. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We're going to say then the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life. We're going to tell them the truth. But it will mean they've got to turn from their self and their holiness and their sinfulness and turn to God.
[17:04] What happens, there's always conflict. Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 13 verse 10. I mean, this is a great chapter. So you've got to be thinking. When Hezekiah gets everybody together and he says, we're going to go tell everybody they can come worship God.
[17:18] Won't everybody be excited about this? The temple's open again. God wants you to come. God's going to have compassion on you. If you do come, this is going to be great. Y'all come. Now you're here.
[17:29] And guess what happened? Conflict. Look at verse 10. So the post, that's the missionaries. That's the witnesses. That's inviters. They pass from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, which is that northern place.
[17:43] Those two guys, they got the calves. They went up to even Zebulun. Look what they did to them. They laughed them to scorn and they mocked them. If they'd have stayed in Judah and Benjamin, it might not have been so bad.
[18:00] But the gospel, but even there it was bad. But the gospel message is never for people of your color, your language, your social scale. It's for everybody. It's for Muslims.
[18:12] It's for Muslims. It's for atheists. It's for Hindus. It's for Buddhists. It's for everybody. And when you go out and tell them, hey, you can be saved. And there's a God who became man who died on a cross.
[18:23] They may mock us and laugh at us, but we ought not be surprised because that happened in Hezekiah's day. Conflict. People don't want to hear the truth. People laughed at them. I think they laugh at you.
[18:35] I don't know how many times I've had people laugh because we give away so much of our money, because we give up so much of our time, because the church is just leeching off of us, because we don't get to do what other people do.
[18:46] They're just mocking us for believing Jesus. You can't turn on the television without getting laughed at. And by the way, if a Muslim had decided not to make a cake for somebody, it would have been okay. But if a Christian does it, we're going to be in trouble. They're going to mock us.
[18:57] They're going to pick on us. It's just the way it goes. Should we be shocked? It happened when Hezekiah was telling them what to do. If no one thinks poorly of you for being a Christian, maybe you're too quiet.
[19:07] If no one knows you're saved and you're different and you know Jesus, if they just think you're a nice guy, if they just think you're an honest person, you probably haven't talked about Jesus enough.
[19:19] If you've taken all the credit for the good character you have and not given the character credit to the God who made you, maybe that's why you've had no conflict. The book of Peter says, I'll take that back.
[19:30] I'm not sure. My mind just slipped. Yea, all that live godly shall suffer persecution. I think it's Timothy now. Go with me to 2 Chronicles 30, verse 11. God gave them consolation.
[19:42] So in verse 10, there was conflict. I was going to tell you that today, I just got a text just a few minutes ago, and Brendan has now made it to Tunisia. He has a phone number.
[19:53] He's staying in the house, got a car rented for a month, but he's not getting back in there. We can imagine we're going to have some problems. A few years ago, John Walls and Jake Tauby were kicked out of China. We can imagine we're going to have some problems.
[20:04] And there may be some people in Peru that are stealing property and trying to cheat people, but we're going to have some problems. God always gives some consolation. Look at verse 11. Nevertheless, divers, or you could write diverse there, or several of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.
[20:25] They went up there, and some of these people were ugly and mean as they could be, but some of them accepted Christ. I was getting ready to leave Mexico, and I'd been in Mexico, and I was terrified when I got to Mexico.
[20:41] You have absolutely no idea. You probably today think, hey, he's not afraid to fly. He's not afraid to do anything. But when I drove my Suburban and turned towards Mexico, you have never met anybody as afraid as I was. I was terrified of what the Mexicans might do to me, the dumbest stuff in the world.
[20:55] You would mock me, but it was 1987, and I'd been taught a bunch of junk. I thought they could steal my windshield while I was running down the road at 80 miles an hour. I was afraid if I drank a Coca-Cola, I'd die of amoebas. I watched every missionary.
[21:07] Man, they'd take a Coca-Cola bottle, and they'd wipe the word Coca-Cola off of it just about before they drank it. I was scared. But after I got to Mexico, I found out they were people, and they treated me right, and it was good.
[21:18] And I enjoyed being there, and we got ready to leave. And I told the man that taught me the language, I said, man, I don't think I'm going to go to Peru. I don't want to go to Peru. I mean, I think I can do it here, but I'm afraid of Peru.
[21:31] You know what he told me? He said, when you get to Peru, there's going to be some people that don't like you. He said, that's always going to be the way it is. He said, there's going to be some people that like you.
[21:42] He said, God, I said, well, what if I want nobody to listen? He said, well, nobody listens. Keep going. There'll be somebody to listen. That's what goes on in the verse. There'll be somebody to listen. And you've gotten tired of telling people to come to Jesus.
[21:52] You got tired of inviting people to church. You got tired of inviting your own family because they said no so many times you've given up. But the question here would be, well, there was some people that got right.
[22:03] And they humbled themselves. Would you like that? They humbled themselves. You know what it means to humble yourself? It meant not to have that stiff neck. It meant to look at Hezekiah and the priests and the leaders and say, I've been wrong.
[22:17] It's very hard, isn't it? I mean, children can do that pretty well. But you've got a grown man. He's had any time, any education, any experience, any money. And the more experience he's got and the more money he's got and the higher education he's got and the bigger he thinks he is, the harder it is for him to bow his neck.
[22:34] But they did. We go knowing that many will not hear and believe. But we go knowing that God can and will save people. God can and will make a difference.
[22:45] It was their job to deliver the message, not change lives. That's what your job is. When you step out of our church and you invite somebody to come to church, when you talk to your family members, you know this. You can't make them come to church.
[22:58] You can't make them trust Christ. You can't make them read the Bible. You can't. But that's not your job. It is our job to invite people. It is our job to share the gospel. It is our job to love Jesus. The next thing is we see their consecration.
[23:10] Look at chapter 30, verse 12. They had a heart to do the things of God. God gave them one heart to do the commandment of the king. If we're going to get it done, we need to ask God to help our hearts change our hearts so that we're giving our children, we're giving our money, we're giving our time, we're giving our talents because he is worthy to be worshiped.
[23:31] And we need to worship back. And we need to ask God to help us have the right heart. While they were doing it, the way that happened in verse 14, they cleaned the sin out of their lives. See, we just cleaned all the sin out last chapter.
[23:45] Did you notice that? In the last chapter, we cleaned up the tabernacle. It took them eight days on the inside, eight days on the outside, 16 days they cleaned everything up. They threw it all into Brook Kedron and other places all over the city.
[23:55] They were throwing all the idols away. But the truth is when you get rid of the big stuff, there's always some stuff you're still hanging on to. And so look what they did in verse 14. They arose and took away the altars.
[24:06] And all the altars, for instance, took them away and they cast them into the Brook Kedron. They said, we got to get the sin out. That's how you really get a heart to do the work of God. You hold on to sin, you're not going to hold on to loving God.
[24:20] They worshiped. Verse 15, they killed the Passover on the 14th day. They killed the Passover. I need you to understand that when you're in the middle of worship, you can be embarrassed and ashamed.
[24:34] Maybe a modern way of putting that is convicted. You can go, I thought I got everything right. But I'm at church, I'm studying the Bible, I'm listening, I'm singing the songs and the preaching is happening.
[24:45] And look what happened with the Levites. Verse 15, and they killed the Passover on the 14th day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites were ashamed, were ashamed and sanctified themselves and brought in the burnt offerings.
[24:57] And what happened? They were like, didn't quite get right. Didn't quite clean up. They were embarrassed. By the way, there's no reason for you to stay embarrassed. And when you take the Lord's Supper, it's a time to say, it's a public time when we say, hey, clean up before you take the supper.
[25:12] Wash your hands before you take the supper. Wash your feet before you come in the room. Get ready. We're going to take the Lord's Supper. I used to teach the Peruvians that. And more than one time, I'd have Peruvians say, I'm going to take the Lord's Supper tonight.
[25:23] And I said, why not? They said, they're sinning my life. I said, get it out. They said, not ready. Not ready. That defeats the whole purpose. You ought to confess your sin, leave your sin, and say, well, serve Jesus.
[25:36] Verse 16. I just want you to underline it. I'm giving you stuff. I've spent hours in this, but I just need you to underline this. The priest sprinkled the blood. Would you underline that?
[25:47] You know how they really got clean. You can buy the best soap in the country, and you can take a shower every day and all day long, and you can soak in milk, and you can soak in bleach if you want, but you're not going to clean you up.
[25:59] The only thing that cleans us up is the blood of Jesus. It's not how many sins I walked away from. It's not how many times I prayed a certain prayer. It's not how many times I read my Bible. It's not how much money I gave.
[26:10] It's how I come to the Lord and let Jesus forgive me and cleanse me. The way we're clean is the blood of Jesus. And so you can know that you are clean from the blood of Jesus.
[26:22] In verse 18, Hezekiah prays. This is a wonderful picture to me. In verse 18, it said, Would you underline that?
[26:38] Just underline this. Hezekiah prayed. And this is what he prayed. The good Lord pardoned everyone that prepares his heart to seek God. And the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.
[26:51] He said, God, some of the people didn't get right with you. But we're fixing to have a Lord's Supper. We're fixing to celebrate the Passover. We're fixing to celebrate that Jesus is going to die on the cross someday.
[27:03] And we're going to take a few moments to think about that. And he said, And they didn't do all the ritual cleansings they should have done. But God, I'd like to ask you to just forgive them and let them take the supper tonight. What I like about the verse.
[27:15] What just really I like about the verse. In verse 18, Hezekiah prayed. And in verse 20, the Lord heard. Underline it. Hezekiah prayed and the Lord heard. If you study the Bible, you have to believe that God hears and answers prayer.
[27:31] You have to believe that God hears and answers prayer that sometimes seems inconsequential and too small to pray about. You have to understand that God is so merciful that in this passage of Scripture, He shouldn't have forgiven them by His own rules.
[27:46] By His own rules, He shouldn't have forgiven them. And Hezekiah said, God, I know you wanted them to clean up. But God, I'm trying to get these people back to you. And they're not all exactly where they ought to be. Is there any way tonight you just let them worship?
[27:57] We'll keep working on it. And God said, yeah, go for it. I love that. What a God. What a God we serve. Go with me if you would to verse 22. I love this.
[28:09] Now Hezekiah is a king. He's not a preacher. But look at what Hezekiah does. And underline this, he speaks comfortably. He speaks comfortably. I think that means he encouraged. I think it means he wasn't ripping face and kicking.
[28:25] I think he was sweet. To the guys who taught, just underline this, the good knowledge of the Lord. They taught the good knowledge of the Lord. He goes to the guys, Levites are really mostly just workers and singers.
[28:40] They're guys that pick up the tabernacle and move the tabernacle. They had to retire when they were 50 because their workload would get too heavy for them after 50. They worked from 30 to 50. And here they are.
[28:51] And all of a sudden, they're killing all these animals and taking all these animals in. They're doing all this hard work. And Hezekiah, when he comes, he's like, man, y'all are teaching the most wonderful stuff in the world. Can I speak to the Sunday school teachers in here?
[29:02] God bless you. Let me give you some comfortable speech. God's pleased that you're teaching the Bible. You're working in a Sunday school class. God's pleased. You're teaching a children's church.
[29:13] God's pleased. God's pleased when you're inviting people. God's pleased. And that's what he did. He said, man, I'm just so excited about seeing you love God and teach the good knowledge.
[29:23] I love the good knowledge of the Lord. Isn't it good? You know God and you get to teach it. Please don't get discouraged teaching the same old thing. Somebody wrote a song we used to sing in the old days.
[29:34] I love to tell the old, old story because that's what we do. Every time you walk in a room, you're telling the same old story we've been telling all my life. You know what that story is? You sinned.
[29:45] God loved you. Jesus died for you. And you can be saved. We're like a broken record. We don't even have anything else. That's all we have, the good knowledge of the Lord. And they made confession.
[29:57] If you want to underline it in that verse just a tad further down, they made confession. But they're getting right with God. So the next thing you know, they're going to break out the offerings. Anytime you worship God, just to be blunt and honest, it's going to cost you.
[30:10] Did you hear that? If you love God, it costs. Check out chapter 30, verse 24. Hezekiah, king of Judah, did give to the congregation a thousand bullocks.
[30:24] Seven thousand sheep. He brought in a thousand steers and seven thousand sheep. And the princes, the other leaders, they brought another thousand and ten thousand more sheep.
[30:39] It's amazing. When you're in love, you don't even think about spending money on the person you love. You get a new kid. You get a new baby. You don't even have enough money to buy what you do, but they got to have this good stuff here, don't they?
[30:54] Because you're in love with that little baby. You get married and newlyweds. You're going to do what you can, and I'm glad you do. Will you love Jesus? It ought never be, I got to give.
[31:06] No church ever take an offering. They might receive an offering, but you want to give because you're in love with Jesus. And your worship and your giving shows your heart attitude.
[31:18] It shows up in your heart attitude. Go to verse 21 if you would. Now there's a great celebration. We're finished with it. Chapter's a great celebration. I want you to align in verse 21, great gladness.
[31:30] Would you align that? By the way, that's what we ought to feel here at the church. Great gladness. Man, we're going to talk about Jesus. I'm sorry.
[31:40] Most of you have been to a church whose goal was to make you feel bad so you go home feeling real bad. They're kicking you and stomping you and making you feel bad.
[31:51] But in verse 21, they were all so happy. And the Levites and the priests, underline this, praised the Lord day by day. And they sang with loud instruments unto the Lord.
[32:05] I'm pretty sure the old pastor was sitting back in the back going, man, y'all about to kill me. Cut down the volume on that. But they're like, man, we're so happy. Used to be we were worshiping demons.
[32:16] Used to be I wasn't loyal to my wife. Used to be I'd lose all my money to sin and degradation. And now I'm with Jesus. Glory to God. I'm going to have a good time tonight. Because he made a difference in my life.
[32:29] In the chapter, they couldn't get enough of it. So it's basically like them old country churches I went to when I was a kid. They'd get a revivalist. They'd call a guy to come preach a revival. And they'd say, well, we're going to go for a two-week revival unless the Lord moves.
[32:42] And after you got there for two weeks, they might just go ahead and extend it. So look at verse 23. The whole assembly got together and said, well, let's do it for seven days. And then they said, let's go for another seven while we're at it. Now, in verse 25, they even got the foreigners involved in their worship service.
[32:57] I want you to underline in verse 25, all the congregation of Judah, priests, Levites, strangers. Circle strangers. You know what they did? They said, bring him illegal aliens in here.
[33:08] You know what a stranger is in the King James Bible? It's a guy who doesn't belong here. You know who doesn't belong here? He wasn't born here. He didn't have papers for me in this country. He's a stranger. Guess what was going on down at the Church of God?
[33:19] They were so excited about seeing God do a work. Verse 26, there was great joy in Jerusalem for since the time of Solomon, they had not seen anything like that.
[33:31] And then that brought about them praying together. Verse 27, the priests, the Levites arose and blessed the people. You know, when they blessed the people, we know exactly what they said because it's in the book of Numbers.
[33:41] But they stood up and said, God bless you. God let his face shine on you. God be good to you. God take care of you. God watch over you. They blessed them. And God heard their voice.
[33:53] Their prayer came all the way up to his holy dwelling place in heaven. God heard and blessed. It wasn't Hezekiah that made them happy. It wasn't his leadership.
[34:04] It was their getting right, their surrender, their being yielded, that God gave victory. There ought to be some joy amongst us. There ought to be some happiness.
[34:15] Man, God saved me. God's saving people in my family. God's doing a work in us. There ought to be some joy. You know how we're going to get the joy back when we really get involved in this thing? You know how we're going to get the joy back when we're not a spectator, but we're asking God to do a work?
[34:28] God bless you.