King Hezekiah, Part 1

Going through the book, the books which are a fiction based on fact story of the kings of Judah, starting with Hezekiah, brought me back into a very fascinating story in the Bible that I've spoken on before and studied and preached on in various ways. And it reminded me of a number of things that helped us to prepare for the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread when you go through the story of Hezekiah. So I thought this morning that I would take some time to go through that story and in a quick overview and draw some lessons that all of us can learn. And those of you ladies reading those books, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you because you already know the end of the story. Hezekiah dies, okay? And Judah goes into captivity eventually and so it's some of the details that this author tries to flesh out, putting some more meat on the bones in a fictionalized way. But I found it to be honest and for those of you that perhaps worry about taking a Bible story and putting things in characters and dialogue that aren't in the Bible, I can understand that and I read through it and I say, well, that's interesting. That's plausible and maybe probably not. But I think that the imagination that you can put into some of these things does help to make the people more real. And I haven't found anything objectionable myself. I find her accounts culturally correct.

When she describes the city of Jerusalem, she is spot-on. I've walked those streets and I know exactly where the palace would have been and those buildings of the city of David and she's got that part down. She's got the geography and the culture and the history correct. She may bend an event here and kind of take it out of one context and put it here and okay, you just know what's going on. If you know your Bible, you're not going to be tripped up and you're not going to be worrying about that and it does help a lot of things to come alive and I think make things very real to you and if you focus on the story and just go right to the Bible, you're going to have a fascinating Bible study and I think come away with a better understanding and application of the story that is there. If it puts you into the Bible, so where then you can read something and put all the scriptures together, especially in this account, then you have, I think, I think it's accomplished something and I think that the author has done a very good job in many ways and you and I can, all of us should be able to filter out what is imagination and what's biblical, what's cultural, what's fact and then see the differences there. But it is a fascinating story and it ties into this time of year because when you look at the story of Hezekiah and you understand what took place with him, you understand the connection to the Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, especially in the beginning of his reign. Let's turn over to 2 Chronicles, chapter 29. 2 Chronicles chapters 29, 30, 31 and 32 tell the story along with 2 Kings, what is the 2 Kings 18?

and 19 and then Isaiah 22 and Isaiah 37, 8, 39 also bring into the story of Hezekiah. You have the connection with Isaiah being the contemporary prophet who lived during the time of Hezekiah and as well as Micah from the Bible. So when you go into the prophecies of Isaiah, many of them are specifically to Hezekiah, some of the characters that were contemporary with him, talking the story of Sennacherib and the Assyrian invasion of Judah, are also told by Isaiah. So you have a number of passages from the Bible to draw from to put together the story and understand many of the details of what took place. But in 2 Chronicles chapter 29 is where the story begins with Hezekiah.

Remember Hezekiah was 25 years old, it tells us, when he became the king of Judah. By this time, over 200 years had taken place between the time of the death of, after the death of Solomon, a division of the nation of Israel into two separate nations, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. 200 years had gone by with these two nations existing side by side, cousins, brothers, if you will, but two monarchies, the house of David existing, the descendants of David in Judah and Jerusalem, and Hezekiah was a descendant of David through his father Ahaz, who was one of the wicked kings of Judah, who actually brought into the city the god Molech and sacrificed even his own children, we're told from the Bible, into this god Molech and Molech was one of the many different types of gods of the ancient world, but he was particularly odious, one is he was one in which children were sacrificed and the depictions that I've read not only in this series of books, but in other depictions, it would have been a very fearsome thing to have come up into a ceremony honoring Molech and to watch that to take place and to imagine a set of parents giving over their children into a fiery furnace and throwing them into a fiery furnace of a god to appease a god in that sense and Ahaz did that and Hezekiah became the king in the wake of that. Now, when you look at Verse 1 here, his mother's name is given as that of Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. The book paints Zechariah as one of the priests and that can certainly be accurate, but it lends the teaching of Hezekiah that he had from these two individuals and I think that that is significant that her name is mentioned here, the daughter of Zechariah in that sense.

We're told in verse 2 that Hezekiah did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. He did not do according to his father Ahaz. When a righteous king did according to what David did, as we're told when you read that in the scriptures, Josiah would be another one, then you know that this is a righteous king and he did what was right. Now, he came to the throne at a very early age, just 25, and it's hard to imagine that today in that sense.

Somebody taking over the reigns of state at such an early age, and yet he was thrust into that role and as prepared or whatever he may have been, there was one thing about his preparation that the scriptures are clear about and that is that Hezekiah was ready to make changes in the religious worship and practices of the nation.

Whatever he had seen, whatever he had watched as a young boy going on around him of the sacrifices to Molech or the other gods and what he had observed, there was one thing obvious that is obvious and that he was ready to change the course of the ship just like that overnight. Because it tells us in verse 3 here of 2 Chronicles that in the first year of his reign, in the first month of his reign, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. So he didn't wait for a year. He didn't wait for six months. He did this within 30 days.

He instituted major, major reforms and you have to realize that indeed this was turning things around on a dime as we say, with four people and you have to appreciate. You don't turn companies around. You don't turn churches around. You don't turn cities around that quickly because people are entrenched in the way they're doing things. There's resistance. There are special interests. You think about it, whether it's in a business, whether it's in whatever institution.

People are going along one way. They have, you know, certain cells of power and influence and things the way things are done and things are not changed. And Hezekiah began to make changes, but understand that no matter how adept He was, there was resistance. And that's where you do read between the lines and you have to understand human nature and the way systems and institutions work, that people don't always follow the leader and they will hold to their opinion, especially in this area of religion where it may be more fun to go up on a high place and worship the goddess Ashira or some other deity, Baal, and the others, it's more fun to do that and to get caught up in music and dance and frenetic activity and sexual activities that are connected with the religious worship. That's more fun.

Just like it's more fun to go out on Friday night to break the Sabbath, to get real close to whatever cultural activity and interest is there rather than obey the Word of God and love God with all of our heart and our might. Human nature was the same in the 7th century BC as it is today in the 21st century AD. People don't change that quickly. So when Hezekiah made these changes, he started at the top, but understand that it took a long time, if at all, to work its way down to every aspect of society in Judah as we go through this. But he started very quickly and he was ready and he knew what had to be done. And so he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and he repaired them.

It's hard to imagine that there was a time when that temple was not used as it should have been, but it was.

There's another story that runs through the Bible that, in my imagination, I'd kind of like to write a series on, and that's the temple of God.

When you understand that small parcel of real estate in Jerusalem and what took place there through the ages and the temple being there and what is prophesied for there, that is the most fascinating piece of real estate on the face of the earth. If you ever read James Mishner's novels, he would go to Texas or Poland or Colorado or someplace and he would take a spot of land, Hawaii, and he would write a whole history of the area based on what he knew and but center it in a town or in a region.

This particular piece of real estate would be a fascinating study to draw out a whole age-long story of what took place there where the temple of the house of God stood and on that particular piece of ground. But he brought the priests and the Levites and he gathered them in the east square and he said to them in verse 5, Hear me, Levi, sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. Years of neglect and abuse had rendered this beautiful structure Solomon had built into a neglected, tired, old building.

When you pass a building sometimes in parts of town, whether it's a home or whether it's a office building or a factory or you know something and you see that it's the older part of city and it's been neglected and it's been turned over umpteen times and businesses have been in and out of it, whether it's a strip mall or whatever it might be. And you realize at one time that was a brand new building and people kept the paint on it and they kept the windows clean and it was manicured around it. But now it's been neglected and maybe the whole neighborhood has been neglected. That was what had taken place here. What had been the centerpiece had been neglected for a number of years during the time of Ahaz and other kings even before him. And the leadership, the priests and the Levites had corrupted themselves. They had had to fend for themselves and go off in different ways and directions.

Some of them had held on. There's no question that there was a core of priests and Levites who remained faithful. That's another principle they'll always understand. But others had had to, because tithes were not coming in, the economic system was not keeping it up and running, they had to make a living. They went off and did other things. And so when you read through here and you find that it took a while for these Levites to come back and to have enough priests, you read through chapter 29 and you find that the Levites had to kind of fill in and do some of the jobs of the priests because there were not enough priests. But there were many of them and there's a listing of the names.

As you go down through here, down in verse 15, they gathered their brethren, sanctified themselves and went according to the commandment of the king at the words of the Lord to cleanse the house of the Lord.

And they went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to clean it up. Big garage sale going on and to bring out the debris that they had found. And all that had just accumulated because of the neglect. They carried it out into the brook of Kidron in verse 16. And the work began on the first day of the first month and on the eighth day of the month, they came to the vestibule of the Lord. So just to show the immediacy of the reforms and the project Hezekiah did. He did not wait for a study group, for approval, for advertising or whatever else. He got it done. He understood there was an urgency about this project that needed to be done. And they eventually came to Hezekiah in verse 18. They said, We've cleansed the house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offerings, the table of the showbread with its articles.

And all the articles which Ahaz in his reign, Hezekiah's father, had cast aside in his transgression. We've prepared and sanctified. And there they are before the altar of the Lord. And so they were abled into worship. And so they began to sacrifice. And beginning in verse 20, lists what the lambs and the rams and the bulls and all the very sacrifices that were coming in to reinstitute this system and to start it up again.

And they stood with their singers down in verse 25, the Levites of the house with cymbals and stringed instruments and harps. And the whole precinct of the temple came alive, not just with the activity and the offerings, but also with the ceremonies of music that all were a part of that and what had been instituted as part of the ritual of the worship by David during his time with the priests and with the trumpets and the offerings. And so there was a great deal going on here. And singing that took place, again, verse 30, mentions they sang praises with gladness and they bowed their heads and they worshiped.

Hezekiah answered in verse 31 and said, Now that we 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 as were of a willing heart brought burnt offerings. The burnt offerings were more expensive and some of the other sacrifices and thank offerings were not that expensive. You have to understand that the sacrificial system had a graduated scale by what people could give. You know, sometimes you go and get some type of a medical service or whatever and they will have a graduated scale according to what you can pay your income. Well, the temple sacrifices were like that. There was kind of a graduated scale. If you're very poor, you could only afford a dove. That's a whole lot less money than a full-size cow.

All right. Have you priced cows lately?

You know, bringing a small handful or a small basket of grain was cheaper than a ram.

At least then. Now, prices have really jumped lately. Have you priced wheat or corn lately? It might be about the price of a burnt offering today, but I'm serious. Food prices are rising and we're going to be paying a whole lot more than we are now for a lot of things. All these ethanol plants that Indiana is trying to get in town has caused the price of corn to go through the roof, which means the price of pork, which doesn't mean anything to us, is rising. But chickens are going up and other things. So, bread and whatever else. Anyway, they brought these in. In verse 31, it's important to note that what they brought, as many as were of a willing heart, brought burnt offerings. They were willing to bring all of these in and to bring it before God with a heart that wanted a change. And their sacrifices and the amount that they gave toward those sacrifices indicated that willingness. And that too is part of a sacrifice. But they all pitched in. Verse 34 tells us that there were not enough priests to skim the offerings. So, the Levites did that. That was normally not a Levitical job. The Levites had a lot of the other things like the keeping the fires going, the lamps, the oil of the temple services, temple rituals. The priests were the ones that would pray over, lay their hands on a sacrifice, cut the throat, and flail it. So, you had to be a pretty strong guy to be a priest or a Levite in this period of time. It was not, you know, you start wrestling around an animal and you're going to start cutting it up. That's, first of all, you've got to have a strong stomach for that. And then it wasn't a very physically demanding job.

Down through verse 35, it talks about all that they did for the service of the house of God, and they're setting that in order. And then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that God had prepared the people since the events took place so suddenly. Just again to emphasize in verse chapter 29 the quickness, the urgency with which Hezekiah moved. It's a very important point to remember and to realize and to learn from what he did here and what happened. If there was any opposition that was out there that could have come against Hezekiah, they didn't even have time to act.

You know, you've heard the term possession is nine-tenths of the law, which has an application in many different ways. But, you know, if you're on the scene, if you've got, if you've possessed the property, if you possess the knowledge, if you possess the money, if you possess the will, you will have a better chance of prevailing over someone who doesn't have the money, doesn't have the energy, doesn't have the plan, doesn't have the will. And Hezekiah had the plan, and he moved very, very quickly. Chapter 30 talks about the Passover, the keeping of the Passover. He sent to Israel and to Judah, and he also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to the Lord God.

For the King and his leaders in all the assembly had agreed to keep the Passover in the second month. They learned and realized that the book of Numbers gives provision for keeping a Passover thirty days after the first Passover. Now, next month, when we come together to keep the Passover, which will be on the fourteenth day of God's month, and I don't have the exact day of our month in my head right now, but that will be the fourteenth day on God's calendar for the people of God to come together for the Passover.

The book of Numbers, I think, is Numbers 9, without double-checking that, makes allowance that if a person was unclean or on a journey, that they could keep the second Passover. And we apply that that if a person is sick or through circumstances beyond their control, they miss the first Passover, we make allowance for them to keep the second Passover thirty days later.

So what Hezekiah and the people here are keeping is the second Passover. They realize that all these reforms had put them through the first, and again realizing that the nation hadn't been keeping the holy days.

And so it wasn't marked on their calendars that pop up a reminder on the fourteenth day Passover. And sometimes you might wonder, how would that be? How would that be? And you really don't need to think any further than our own experience. How quickly people forgot and neglected and literally forgot the holy days in our own time when they drank the Kool-Aid of heresy. And stopped keeping God's laws, stopped keeping the Sabbath, and certainly stopped keeping the holy days. I've run across over the years people who say, now what were those days that you're keeping?

They don't even remember them. And I think, I don't think they're trying to pull the wool over or to, you know, pose. I think they truly have forgotten. And I've marveled at that over the years. You can forget the nation here that had this whole symbol right in front of them. They forgot. And so they began to make preparations. Now what's interesting to note in the story is that Hezekiah, he was just the king of Judah, but verse 1 tells us that he sent to Israel as well, to Ephraim and to Manasseh, he sent out letters of invitation telling them to come to Jerusalem to keep the Passover.

I realize that remember the story of Israel when Jeroboam, the son of Nebat at the time of the after the death of Solomon, when he rebelled and split off the northern ten tribes into the nation of Israel, the one thing that he did remember, what did he do? What did Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, do immediately to keep the people from going to Jerusalem? He changed the feast. He changed the holy days. He set up altars in Dan at the very northern tip of the nation and at Beth-El, which was only a few miles north of Jerusalem.

You have to understand the geography, maybe 20 miles, 25 miles north of Jerusalem. He set up these alternative locations on an alternative date. Why didn't he have to go down there on the seventh month? Wait another month. All the work's done.

It's more convenient. Go on the eighth month. And they did. So these people, for 200 years, they hadn't been going to Jerusalem. They didn't even know why to go to Jerusalem and certainly to keep a holy day. So Hezekiah, extending the olive branch, extending an invitation was a remarkable thing to their cousins in the north who after and realized this is an interesting event. Let's go through here because they were going to keep the holy days and verse 5 tells us, they resolved to make a proclamation throughout all Israel from Beersheba to Dan that they should come to keep the Passover to the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem since they had not done it for a long time in a prescribed manner.

Beersheba to Dan, that encompasses what were both nations of Israel and Judah. Understand that verse 5 is quite a statement to say that all of Israel encompasses that land. It ignores the political division that had been there for 200 years and they were to come to Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the prescribed way.

And so in verse 6, runners went through all Israel and Judah with the letters from the king and his leaders and spoke according to the commandment of the king. Children of Israel return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, then he will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.

At this point in time, the northern nation of Israel was on the verge of annihilation. Assyria was the big bully on the block. And I think this author of these books does a very good job of painting the ferocity of the Assyrian armies and the Assyrian people. You can go just as close as the... you don't have to go to any of these big museums in the Middle East. If you ever go to Chicago and the University of Chicago has what's called the Oriental Institute, which has huge displays of archaeological findings from Babylon, Assyria, Israel, Persia.

And they have a lot from Assyria there, and it's quite interesting. We took some of our kids there a few years ago. I think Jeff and Joel went on that trip, and I'm sure they remembered every minute of walking through that museum.

And everything that we taught, correct? Right? But you can go there and you can see the illustrations that the king of Assyria made after his conquests, including that of Israel.

And essentially the tabloid broadsheets that he made in these huge stone reliefs that archaeologists have found over the years that describe as exploits. And they were vicious.

They were vicious. And they will show on these huge stone slabs the cruelty that they did with everyone that they conquered. Some of the pictures will show captives being led away with hooks in their nose and being flayed alive. They were vicious. By comparison, Babylon wasn't that bad when they came along, but the Assyrians were particularly ferocious. Israel was on the verge of being annihilated and taken over by the Assyrian Empire. And it's almost like this was one last opportunity for them to be turned around. They were being given an invitation to come to Jerusalem to worship God and to, in a sense, come under the protective wing of a righteous king, Hezekiah.

And this is something that's not quite as brought out in these books as it probably, you know, you would like to see. The fact that the reaction there, verse 8 tells, they were told, Don't be stiff-necked as your fathers, but yield yourselves to the Lord, and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified, and serve the Lord God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn from you. This was the last opportunity for these families and peoples in the north to repent. For if you return to the Lord your brethren, and your children will be treated with compassion by those who lead them captive, so that they may come back to this land, for Lord your God is gracious, merciful, and will not turn His face from you if you return to them. So the runners went through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun, but they laughed at them, and they mocked them. They were rejected. They said, you know, what days? Those Jewish days? Are we going to keep those Jewish days? Why are you still keeping that, you Jews? Of course, they were Jews. That's why. But the Israelites to the north, they weren't going to keep Jewish days.

Get it? You and I keep Jewish days? No, we keep God's days. But they mocked them, and you can well imagine what they were told. Verse 11 tells us that nevertheless, some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. So not everyone, there's always a remnant that will come. And in verse 12 says, Also the hand of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart, to obey the command of the king and the leaders at the word of the Lord. The Bible is full of times of revival among the people of God. This is one such period of revival. It is the story of God's truth, God's people, God's Word, the gospel of the kingdom, the work of the people of God, whether it's in the very person of Jesus Christ at His coming on this earth, whether it's in the work through the chosen people of God of Israel and Judah during the times of the kings, whether it's the story we read in Revelation 2 and 3 and Revelation 12 about the church of God through time.

It is one of struggle. It is one of constant struggle against the world to hold to the truth, to hold to a righteous standard. And it is a story of apostasy and revival. Apostasy and revival.

One generation will come and be righteous. The next generation will forget.

And this is what you see through the Old Testament, and you see it prophesied by Christ and the apostles in their writings, and you see it encapsulated in the story of the church in Revelation 2, 3, and 12. Don't forget when you start the story of the church in Revelation, do not forget Revelation 12. We tend to just look at Revelation 2 and 3, and we look at Laodicea in Philadelphia, and we think we know the whole story of the church, and we don't, because you look at everything. You want to know the progression of God's church, look at Revelation 12. You get more you get more there than you do out of Revelation 2 and 3 in terms of the historical progression of God's church. But take into account all of the story from all of the Bible about revival, return, apostasy, heresy, the struggle, this tension, this ebb and flow of the truth of God, the kingdom of God, the knowledge of the truth in a hostile world, where Satan, through his agents, whether it's Assyria, Babylon, the Roman Empire, Jezebel, human nature, a dragon, a beast, whatever the opposition may be as it is personified, at any given time there is always this opposing force, which the real opposing force is Satan himself. And the story that you see that we gain here in verses 11 and 12 is that there are there are always even in the midst of a nation, a church, a time where people may be headlong diving into apostasy, there's always there will always be some whose heart can be turned, where the the flame of the truth can be preserved. And here is what verse 11 tells us, some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun assembled themselves and came to Jerusalem. There was a farmer, there was a cobbler, there was a herdsman in these regions of Manasseh and Zebulun. Through their family line they had somehow kept a memory and maybe a practice when everybody else around them had forgotten.

And something sparked. There was a there was an ember that they dusted off the campfire.

And they were able to fan fan it for a little bit, blow on it like you know you do, and you can get a you can see it begin to smoke and then poof it bursts into a flame. They can't and they said we need to go to Jerusalem. This is where God is. This is where the truth is. And they they came.

And the hand of God was was on Judah and on the others. And they gathered in verse 13 at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month. So they went ahead and kept the the entire holy day period. And they continued to clean up among themselves and they they they moved through. It's interesting to see that Hezekiah, Israel hadn't kept this for 200 years. And they were they were just on the verge of being taken captive. Because within three years of Hezekiah coming to the throne, Israel was annihilated by the Assyrian armies. So shortly within two years after this Passover period, Israel was overrun by the Assyrians.

And those of you that have read that book and the depiction of that, that's when that event took place. When the Assyrians came in, they didn't go all the way to Judah. They did leave. But they took captive the northern part of Israel at that time. It is instructive to see that Hezekiah tries to reunite the people through the law of God and the holy days. This is a thread that he that weaves through the whole story. And Hezekiah, as he's moved by God, he's able to pick up on it. And he's trying to reunite the people through the law of God and the holy days.

The holy days are a great time for God's people to come together.

Wonderful time. We who keep them, we who hold to them, know full well what that means.

When we come together, not only on the Passover, but when we go to keep the feast in the fall, we come together and we have a meal, we have many meals, we travel and we keep God's holy days. That is a time for people to come together and to reunite. That is a common bond.

Israel was being given one last chance to repent. They could have escaped the captivity that they went into, but they didn't. Down in verses 13 and on, they kept these days.

The story goes into the fact that there were some who were not sanctified.

They hadn't ritually prepared themselves through various methods. Verse 17 says that they were not clean to sanctify them to the Lord for a multitude of the people from Manasseh and Ephraim and Issachar and Zebulun had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written. I focus on this just to note that they may not have been ritually to the letter of the law at that point, but they were able, they went ahead and did it. And there was not any condemnation because it says Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, may the good Lord provide atonement for everyone. Here you see an example of grace applied by the king through this story. May the good Lord provide atonement for everyone who prepares his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.

And the Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people. That's quite a spiritual statement here in the midst of a lot of blood and gore of offerings and sacrifices and washings and ritual cleanseings and priests and everything that you would normally think, oh, that's all that legalistic Old Testament, Old Covenant story. But here we see that, again, a righteous king moved to obedience was able to realize and to cut through the ritualism and to say, hey, that your heart's right and God will provide an atonement for everyone. And God did here. God is not interested, we're told, in other places, even in the Old Testament. God is not interested in sacrifice and slaughter and ritual. He's interested in a changed heart. He's interested in an attitude that wants to worship him. And so the children of Israel, we're told in verse 21, who were present at Jerusalem, kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness. And the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing to the Lord, accompanied by loud instruments. And Hezekiah gave encouragement to all the Levites who taught the good knowledge of the Lord. And they ate through the feast seven days, offering peace offerings and making confession to the Lord God of their fathers. And so all of this took place as they went through and did the sacrifices and the whole assembly, keeping the feast for actually 14 days, verse 23 tells us, they went on and kept it for another seven days with gladness. And Hezekiah had to give even out of his own supplies, bulls and sheep and for the sacrifices. And the numbers hold up here. That was quite a number and quite an amount that was spent in order to keep the holy days at this particular time and place. The cleansing went on and continued on in chapter 31. The story goes on to give us more of that story and what was taking place.

I want to just pause at this point because I can't go through the whole story here today and there's no need to rush through this and skip over a large amount of instruction. But I have three lessons to learn from this story. I just want to conclude here today by looking at that first lesson and just look at what we have talked about here and reinforce this rather than just rush through it. But lesson number one is this. Hezekiah, we are told, started immediately within the first 30 days to reform, to clean up, to change. Hezekiah's reform was a type of this de-leavening that we kind of go through every year when we clean our homes. We put the leaven out, as Paul tells us to do in 1 Corinthians 5, and to de-leaven. Eat unleavened bread for seven days. We don't eat any leavened bread period. We understand that that is a type of putting sin out. It teaches us some very important lessons. We do that. We don't need to spend an excessive amount of time and get legalistic about it. I think we should clean our homes, put the leaven out to the degree you clean or are able to clean. That's between you and God. But put the leaven out, and if brethren comes down to no more than on the last day before the sun goes down on the first day of unleavened bread, you're going through the home and you're scooping up the baking soda and a loaf of white bread and whatever, and you get it in the box and you toss it out over the backyard into the neighbors. Don't do that. I'm just saying, you know, using that as an example, if that's all you get done and you go through seven days and you don't eat leavened bread, you're okay. You don't have to go through every nook and cranny of your home and spend days and hours doing it. Clean, be reasonable, but get it out. Get the big stuff out. But spend more time spiritually examining yourself than you do physically examining your home. All right? Let whatever physical ritual you put yourself through teach you more spiritually than wearing you out and wearing you down with guilt or excessive worry, because you may not get every last crumb out. Now, if you're normally, you know, you use that as a cleaning period, that's fine. That's fine. But if other circumstances you don't get it done, you know you may not get it done, get the big stuff out. Get the big rocks done, as one management guru says. Be sure you focus on the big rocks and get that done. But it is a type of, it is to teach us a very important lesson. And when we look at what Hezekiah did with the speed with which he did it, the lesson I draw is this. We must attack life with urgency, not just sin.

We must attack life with urgency. Life needs to be lived fully. Don't wait to overcome. Don't wait to do a good deed. Don't wait to help, to serve, to encourage. Don't wait to obey God. Do it now.

Be urgent in our approach toward God. Understand that we are in a battle.

There is a spiritual war around us. We are dropped into the middle of a story with our calling, with our life, and with the knowledge of the Kingdom of God. We are dropped into the middle of a story and we are battered about on every side. And as Paul said, our warfare is spiritual. Every day there is a spiritual battle that we have to fight. If we're not aware of that, then we will lose to the enemy. But we have to have an urgency and we have to stand on guard in our daily life. And a complacent, half-hearted approach to life, to our calling, to the Kingdom of God will not help us be vigilant, overcoming, and obedient. We have to start from day one. Hezekiah seemed to understand that, that when he had the reign of power, he had to move decisively. And any effective leader of any size group will realize that, especially if they're changes that have to be made, if there's movement that's got to be made, you've got to be sometimes ruthless. You cannot be always Mr. Nice Guy at that level. And certainly when it comes to obedience to God's law, sometimes we can't be Mr. Nice Man or Woman. We do have to be ruthless when it comes to obedience to God and His law. We can't enable sin. We can't enable bad behavior. We cannot enable it's one of the things you're learning in the growing kids God's way, which you're finishing up today. You don't enable bad behavior in a child. You have to be vigilant as a parent to teach and to train them in a godly way. We have to take that approach all the way through our life as adults when it comes to our spiritual lives and our spiritual house. We have to be vigilant. We can't enable anything. We have to be on guard and moving forward or the weeds are going to grow, the dust and the debris are going to accumulate in our own spiritual house, and we will neglect our calling. We will neglect that relationship with God. That is the number one first lesson to learn here from the story of Hezekiah, that we cannot be complacent and take a half-hearted approach. We have to attack life and our calling with urgency. I'm going to, I'll pick this up in two weeks and carry this forward. This has been a good preparation for for me and I think for you, for those of you ladies reading those books, I encourage you to keep going and you men might want to pick them up when they're done and read them yourself.

And in the meantime, put your nose in the Bible and read the story right there. That's where you'll get your the core and the meat of it. But it's a fascinating story and it will help us prepare for the upcoming holy days because it focuses itself right there and gives us many, many lessons which we can consider. I'll pick this up and we'll look at the other two lessons to learn from the story of Hezekiah when I'm next here in a couple of weeks.