Passovers In History

First of all, the title Passovers in History, which I gave to Mrs. Herridge for the bulletin, I changed. Not some other totally different thing, but I have actually given this series of sermons, and I started to give it here 13 years ago or 18 or something, and it was too big, so I gave part of it. And as I reviewed my notes last night, because I was planning on it and had mine, I went back and I remembered why I didn't try to give the whole thing. So I'm going to give one part of it, and so it's going to be Passovers in History as the series, and this will be one of them. There are about 10 or 12 Passovers that are described pretty well from mentioning a few facts, and oh great, thank you. I'm kind of worried about this paper cup here, and thanks for my hardest working man in show business right there. He's the prop man, I think.

At any rate, there are two Passovers every year that we study every year, and of course, they are the Old Testament Passover, the Exodus, and the New Testament Passover, when Christ instituted the disciples on the 14th of the month, same day of the Old Testament Passover, but he was the Lamb of God that was well prophesied. So we study those two all the time. There are about 10 others, depending on how you would count major Passovers. We know a little bit about some, and some we know an awful lot. In each of these Passovers that are described in the Bible, including the first two, there is tremendous teaching about how to keep the Passover, and therefore tremendous teaching, very important spiritual lessons, about the foundation of our faith, that is, Christ, the Lamb of God who was slain for our sins, and the night that we commemorate the worst day in history, the murder of God. That just has to be the absolute worst day in looking at it from that point of view. So, I'll go all the way back to Genesis and forward to Exodus, and then through the wisdom books and the prophecies, and you find these Passovers. So this particular one is going to be about the great Reform Passover in the time of Hezekiah, and it's labeled with the Passover of Isaiah, Hezekiah, and Judah, the nation Judah. One previous one had to do a great deal with just the whole nation, Israel, and this is just about Judah. Because a few years before, in about five to six years, there's some small question about that.

Israel, a major happening in Israel occurred and is recorded. It is the fall of Israel. You can read about the reasons for it, and shortly after that, 2 Kings 17, and that whole chapter, and then following, why Israel fell. And this was in 721 to 718. That's the date of that fall.

The story here in this Reform Passover happens just after that by about five years, apparently, a little wiggle room, about five years. And that's when the great and powerful King Ahaz died.

And left his son Hezekiah in charge. So we have a little bit of the story in 2 Kings, and this is in 2 Kings, and I think I put the marker in the wrong page, so I just read the notes.

This story is in 2 Kings 18 verses 1 through 7. It just gives a general summary, and I don't need to read it, but it talks about the fact that Ahaz was a horrible king. That's in the previous chapter, and he did great damage to the country. He worshipped one god and then another because he asked for God's blessing, or actually didn't really pay much attention to him, but since God wasn't blessed, he decided to try other gods. And that didn't work. It had more trouble, and then he tried other gods, and so he shopped around and failed and was done great damage himself to himself. Did great damage to himself, if that way. So the chapter changes, and we go into chapter 18. I'm not going to spend time there and read that.

And the first seven verses give a summary, and then it goes for three more chapters, three old chapters, about the great king Hezekiah and the way he did serve God. He made some mistakes for sure, but his whole heart was in worshiping God, and he did not turn aside to other gods, and how he was blessed. And great things happened in his reign. One of them is the famous story of when God corrected him rather severely. The prophet Isaiah came in to his deathbed and said, God says to you, you're going to die because of your sins. And went, the prophet said to him, he was distraught. What would you do? Cry, complain, please, please come back.

He demonstrated where his heart was. He said he turned to the wall, and he cried out to God for mercy. He didn't want to die then. He would have been, let's see now, 49, I think. And God said to the prophet, as Isaiah was walking out of the courtyard, turn around, go back and tell Hezekiah that he would live 15 more years because I have heard your plea. Now, this fits right into the other some of the story we're coming to. It was like a harbinger of what would happen in the rest of the story, although he was quite a bit into it at that point. But Hezekiah was very happy. But it's like, I believe it helped thou mine unbelief. And when the prophet told him, God says he will give you 15 more years. And the destruction won't happen in your lifetime, the destruction of the nation, because he had accepted Hezekiah's repentance and his life story and what he had done, but he did not accept the nation in general.

And I'm quite sure that God knew before this started, before he got sick, what he was going to do, because he had to fit into the whole plan. But that's what happened. He did have 15 more years, but it's like the man that said, I believe, helped thou mine unbelief to Christ.

And he asked for a sign, and that's when the clock, which would have been a sundial, went back by, I think it was 14 degrees, 12 degrees, one of those numbers, it went back, very discernible. And a great miracle, it's the only time I'm aware of that that ever happened.

There was a long day. Joshua's long day. So this was a major king, and God revealed much through him, and he's given us a tremendous example in many different subjects through the king Hezekiah and what happened in that wonderful time. So we're going to start out here and read quite a bit, but not in 2 Kings 18 or in Isaiah 36-39, because that's Isaiah's side of the story, where he wrote all this. It's parallel. Isaiah 36, 37, 38, 39, those four chapters, talk about the same thing. And so it's 2 Kings 18, 19, 20, those three, and then four in Isaiah. But we're going to go in a third rendition of the same story today, and that's in 2 Chronicles 29-30. Those two chapters, however, let us start in chapter 28 and verse 19. That's the only chapter we'll read in this chapter. This is about King Ahaz, who, as I mentioned, just almost wrecked Israel. And so verse 19, For the Lord brought Judah low, because of Ahaz king of Israel, and he made Judah naked and transgressed very much against the Lord, just spiritually naked, where he just was standing there with no clothes of righteousness whatsoever, and Israel just had no resources. They were just about to be snuffed out. This harks back to a time in Samuels—you call it a reign in his time—when Israel was about—they were going out to war against Philistia, the Philistines, and they were heading to their death. They were going to be beaten soundly by the powerful nation of Philistia.

And Samuel offered a very, very simple prayer. He said, I pray that you will stop them and give us this battle. I'm sure he said more, but that's the official prayer that went out as troops, because they begged him, pray for us. We're in trouble. And of course, God answered with Deborah. He created upriver, huge storm, and water came down and flooded this flat plain.

The Canaanites had chariots, and they had great—it's a chariot of iron. What they had was great big wings on the chariots that stuck out, and they were made of iron, and they were sharp. I don't think you could get iron sharp as a razor, but very sharp. And they would just drive their four- or six-horse chariots right through the troops and just cut them up. And Israel knew what was about to happen. They called out, pardon me, that was in Deborah's time. And what God did was just send Deluge to rain upriver. They didn't know it was going to rain there. And it flooded the river and spread out on the plain, made mud, and the chariots were grounded, and Israel won the war.

In this case—and this was beforehand, before that, with—no, it came after. In the time of Samuel, he prayed that prayer, and God sent noise, thunder so loud it was way, way more than they'd ever heard. Thunder that just, you know, loud noise can just upset you and just drive you crazy. There'd been experiments with that. And that's what God did to the Philistines. The Israelites won the day, and that was absolutely critical, because if the Philistines had won then, Israel had no defense. They would have just taken over everything. The Philistines hated Israel, and their enemies from the south and the east also would have come in and the north. And just, Israel just would have ceased to be a nation, and God would have had to—and he could have, of course—just raised it up again. But he didn't have to, because they came to the place where they were on their backs about to be destroyed, and God saved them. And so we fast-forward to this here with Hezekiah, having passed a few other major battles. And so Tiglath, Pileser, and Assyria was about ready to come down with the greatest army in the world and just make mincemeat of the Israelites. And that's what he means. They had no spiritual clothes and no armor to protect, no armaments. They couldn't have remained as an independent nation. That is Judah. Now, this was very important to Judah. They were thinking about this anyway because the Assyrians had already invaded up north and were occupying, and they had sent down other people. They took away the Israelites from the north, north country, and they brought in what became later called the Samaritans. And they put them in there, and they lived there. Fascinating story. You don't have time to go through it, that one. But anyway, so that's the backdrop of this. And verse 19 says it clearly, they were just naked. They had no way, no protection at all to their enemies. And because Ahaz had transgressed very much against the Lord. And so then Tiglath, Pilate, verse 20 was on his way. Okay, now let's go to chapter 29, where we want to spend most of the time here. Yeah, I'll have to keep my eye on that time. That's the backdrop. So many times the backdrop, the background is so important to set the story. So chapter 29, and a lot of this is said in 2 Kings, but we're reading just this particular one for this particular lesson. Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old. He reigned nine and twenty years, making him fifty-four when he died in Jerusalem. He ruled in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah and the daughter of Zechariah. There are many Zechariahs. But this is interesting, and I think it's only six times, it may be more than that, where the mother is named. And normally it just said, and so and so, you know, died and his son, so and so number two, took over, you know, and goes on. But when it mentions the mother, it's either she was very righteous and accepted by God, or else she was a real doozy. She was very bad. And so, just an interesting thing in passing.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. This will be summarized later. It's, of course, said in 1 Kings and Isaiah as well. He made some pretty big mistakes, but he did his overall, his attitude. And, you know, one man said, boy, you know, I'd hate to be judged for something I thought, everything I've thought and decided not to do. He said that in my presence a long time ago. I remember that. That's a true thing. So Hezekiah had his problems, but he repented when he did go wrong and he made it right. And he really made it right because he went to God. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David, his father, had done. And through here in this place and one other, I think he's compared to David and to Moses. And right through here, he's compared to David. And it points out that he went back and repented to the extent that he got the priest going and doing exactly the way Moses had started. And then David reorganized the services for the temple. And so he's compared. And the reason is, 2 Chronicles was written from the priest's point of view, whereas Kings, the books of Kings, were written just from the point of view of what happened in the nation, the history of the Kings of Israel. But this is about the priesthood and the relationship with God specifically in Chronicles. And this points out that he went back to the beginning that he was faithful to the original covenant, which was given at Moses' time, which David renewed. There are several renewings of them. So he, in this first year of his reign, in the first month, so right after he was put into king, and was that his first year or the first month? Later it talks about the first month, and it kept the Passover. So this is the first month of the year, that next year.

He did something symbolic. He opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. Why did he have to open them? Well, they were boarded up, basically. They hadn't been used in years because of his evil father. And there was the story of Hilkiah, the priest, where he, they were digging through the rubble in the basement or wherever in the time. I always thought it was the basement, but it's probably just the temple. I don't think they had a basement. But digging through the rubble, and he found the scroll and dug it out and dusted it off and started reading it. I was amazed.

He was reading from Deuteronomy and just was devastated. So he took it to the king. I think took the high priest. I think he was, that was Hilkiah. And they took it to the king and said, look what is prophesied. Now remember, Hezekiah had a righteous mother. And he was knowledgeable of, if not, I don't know if he had his own copy, but he was knowledgeable of the covenant and of the scrolls. And they had just been ignored. But he knew, and the priest did, and so on. So they dug that up. Hezekiah had the natural reaction that you and I would say, you break this covenant, and I will break your nation. I will bring curses on it. They had just five years before seen the Assyrian armies rumble into the northern country, which was just north of Jerusalem for about 150 miles or so, a small country, and just wipe out that country. So they were very sensitive about keeping the covenant and not being destroyed. They had seen it. They knew it could happen. And Tiglath-Pileser had come right up to just north of Jerusalem and stopped and done other things. God just stopped him. And he would come back and attack again and be unsuccessful. It wasn't yet time. It was going to be about a century before God allowed the southern kingdom to be taken over and wiped out. Isaiah's time was what we're talking about about 100 years later, Jeremiah's time. And so it wasn't time for the end of the kingdom of Judah in the south. Well, anyway, then in the first year, in the first month, they opened the doors and they started cleaning them out. There is a symbolism here. Not too much study on it, just to notice, and then think about it. The symbol of having the temple boarded up through disuse is really a good one for someone who has been converted and who has been kind of wandering away and needs to repent and come back to God. So the opening the doors is a matter of it matches opening your eyes, which God will do. He won't let you go easily. He'll open your eyes, give you reminders. So he was opening the doors of the nation to bring back that covenant. They had stopped cold.

And so it opens the door of our minds to change. He does that. God does this with us and whenever it's needed with all people. He brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them together in the East Street. Quite a gathering. And he said unto them, Hear me, you Levites, sanctify yourselves now and sanctify the house of the Lord, the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of this place. We could say the filthy trash or the mess. Get this place cleaned up. And for our fathers have trespassed. Now this is a this actually is also a symbolic of when you repent. You have to carry out the trash first. You have to repent and get the see where you've been wrong and get out the wrong attitudes and whatever else is rattling around. And in this case you're spiritually empty head. The analogy is when you have forgotten and don't have much in there of God's thoughts. And there's a trash, trash thoughts and ideas, etc. That's the comparison.

Or the analogy. For our fathers have trespassed and done that which is evil. In the eyes of the Lord our God and have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord. The habitation or the house or the dwelling or the temple. And turn their backs. It's not just a matter of inattention for a little bit. It was a matter of really turning their backs on God as a nation. And there are plenty of analogies for today's modern nations of Israel where Congress or diet or parliament or whatever the particular legislative body is. Votes out just portions of God's law or whole principles of God's law and sometimes the Bible itself. That's happened. It's happening. That's kind of going back and forth in the modern Israelite nations now. At any rate, they have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord. His house. And turned their backs on him. The whole direction and attitude. And that's far worse than mistakes or even serious bad mistakes. Also, they have shut up the doors of the porch and put out the lamps. The porch was supposed to be open. The lamps were never supposed to go out and have not burned incense. And that was supposed to go twice a day forever. No matter what else happened. And so they have just stopped doing everything that would keep them close to God. And of course, you can go into the analogies. The lamps symbolize using the Holy Spirit. The porch. And what I'm thinking of is the showbread, the table inside. They'd quit that with everything else. And they weren't eating from or feeding off of the Spirit of God. And so the whole the the analogy is complete because the temple is complete.

And it's furniture. Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was of on Judah and Jerusalem. And he has delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing as you see in your faces.

And he refers to the disrespect. And there have been threatenings toward Jerusalem because the Assyrians had come right down to just a few miles north. And he stopped at that point and they had seen with their faces. And notice this next verse, which is really telling, it says, and he's talking to the people there, the priests. He had had convening this meeting for, for though our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, and our daughters, and our wives are in captivity for this. He's talking to the priests. There were a lot of priests up north in Israel. They weren't very popular, but they were there. And there was enough of a crossover and they came down close enough that some of their families had gone into captivity for the people that he was talking to. So this was so real and such a clear and present danger it scared everybody to death. So now, verse 11, no, verse 10, and this has to do with the covenant. Now it is in my heart, the king says, to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us.

And so the covenant is brought up. Hezekiah saw that that was the foundation of it.

And he says, my sons, now here's a 25-year-old man, the king, telling all the priests of different ages, including the old ones, my sons, he's talking as the king. And he was the father of the country. They use that term with George Washington and a lot of other kings throughout history. There was a fatherhood relationship with the king personally. That was true, by the way, not to get too far off here. That was true in the colonies in America. There was a personal relationship. It was just in the culture. There was a personal relationship between you and your king. And that's why the book Common Sense by Thomas Paine was written. He tried to destroy that personal relationship, which he did. And people then were, felt free to just disobey the king. They paid for it dearly. It was God's will that the nations would separate. That was prophesied. But that gets into another subject. But just to note that, there's this personal relationship, and that's what Christ wants with us. It was there as a part of man's culture, even in the Gentile nations, because that's the way it's supposed to be between the king and every subject. And it will be. It's coming to be now. My sons, be not now negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him. It's a personal calling.

Ever heard that? We say that all the time. It's a personal calling. And that you should minister unto Him and burn incense. Now, He had to call them because they wouldn't have moved from where they were. We'll see the reason for that. And come in to serve if they hadn't been told this, and call it specifically, and one other factor. So, verse 12 then, Levites arose, and they got busy. They got organized and started. Verse 15, they sanctified. They got their brethren all together. Apparently, all of them didn't even attend the meeting. And came according to the commandment of the king by the words of the Lord to cleanse the house of the Lord. And this has to do with conversion and cleaning oneself up in terms of repentance and that type of thing. Just a minute.

Just a minute. I'll find my place again here.

I had turned over to kings because this bookmark was falling out and looked down. It was different. Okay, now verses 15 to 17 gives us a real... it sets up the main lesson of this chapter.

I'd say the biggest lesson of this particular chapter besides the overall of Passover. And so, verse 15, they're sanctifying and everything. And then verse 16, beginning. Verse 16.

I wish I could go there because I really don't have a feel for it, but you go across the plateau that was built by leveling a couple of hills and filling in the middle and making a nice plateau there. And where the temple was. And then went down the side of it, out the city, out one of the gates. And that was the dump. It was where the brook kidron was. And that's the continual or the fire that never goes out that Christ was talking about. He's talking about the dump. It was always burning. That wasn't like forever fire, but it was just... the fire was always going, burning up the refuse. They took it down there, although this was at an earlier period, and dumped it there. And there's something really important about that dump being there because on the facing hill, there was this enormous high. I can't remember how many feet. Just very high. You could see it all over Jerusalem is so high. And I think his name was Tofut, and it was made by Solomon for one of his wives very early on in the kingdom. Solomon and this huge leering idol that threw all the ups and downs of Jerusalem all those years. That had been there and never been taken out. And that's where the dump was, I guess, on the other side of the brook.

Or at least in that... not right in front of it, but in that same... it's just a kind of a sharp valley there, or defile in the land. So they went... they cleaned it out and they took it to the dump.

And we'll find a little bit later, there's something else that goes on the dump. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify. And then on the eighth day of the month, took them eight days, they came to the porch. They got the temple cleaned out. Then they had to work on the porch and, you know, the surrounding area. But the big thing was getting the temple cleaned out. And they sanctified the house of the Lord in eight days. And the sixteenth of the first month, they finished. But just a minute. This is the first month. It's Nysen or Abib. First... okay. Anybody notice a problem here?

They went day one, day eight, and they kept working to clean around the temple. And they got done on the sixteenth. Charles is... I know some of you already are ahead of me here. The Passover is on the fourteenth. They didn't start cleaning early enough. They missed the Passover. That was the whole foundation of the whole covenant. But this guy had an ace in the hole because of Numbers 9, which talks about second Passover. So that's the first thing.

You read by that quickly. So they cleaned it up on day 16. You go right by the house. That was the second day of unleavened bread. They finally finished. Missed the appointment with God.

Okay, so then they went into Hezekiah the king and said... and the keys were where it was aware of all this, you know. We have cleansed all the house of the Lord and the altar of the bird offerings and the showbread and this, that, and the other thing and even the vessels. Verse 19. So then we have the story of Hezekiah restoring the temple worship.

So I don't want to read all this just for a lack of time here. Try to get through quickly. The priests... verse 24... killed the offerings and they made reconciliation, the sin offerings, and then after that the fellowship offerings or and then after that sin offerings and fellowship offerings were eaten by the offerors and after that then they had the burnt offering. The burnt offerings, they didn't eat them. The priests or anybody, they burnt the whole animal symbolizing when you give to God you just give everything that was the holy day offering in this case.

And of course, I guess, in many other cases to follow. So they set the Levites in the house of the Lord with symbols, sultries, harps according to the commandment of David, going back to David, and Gad, the king's seer, his personal prophet, and Nathan, also the prophet, who warned him. For so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets. And the Levites stood with the instruments of David emphasizing not just the music, but they were doing it like it was given to David who organized the temple worship because before that, before the temple, of course, they were in the tabernacle.

And a lot of the offerings were... the order of services was different. It was renewed at the time of the temple. And so, verse 27, the burnt offerings began, the songs of the Lord began with also the trumpets and with the instruments ordained by David, king of Israel, and all the congregation worshiped, and the singers sang, which is worship, and the trumpeters shouted, and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. And when they had finished that, then the king brought them out, and the king and all and everybody bowed down and worshiped.

Moreover, verse 30, Hezekiah the king, and the... more of Hezekiah the king, and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David, so we're singing what we sing, different music tunes, I imagine, but they were singing the same hymns. And of Asaph the seer, we also sing his music, and they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped. We had to read this or think of this every time we have hymns.

We don't have the voices, you know, the operatic voices of the Asaphites, of the singers, maybe, but we can at least make the joyful noise. You've heard that plenty of times, and so we should give it our best. Hezekiah then answered, and he said, Now you have consecrated yourselves and the house of the Lord, and he brought in sacrifice and thank offerings as many, and then he calls for a general holy day offering.

And this is during the feast. They had offerings, by the way, every day of the feast. We just take offerings first day of Tabernacles and last-grade day, or the eighth day these days, but the offerings went on. If you're doing animals, they go on all seven days. So this is a holy offering. He calls for that. Notice what it says. As many as were of a free heart burned offerings. Not everybody did. Presumably, it's not all bad because some people didn't have them. Families would bring them, and so on. But anyway, that's the comment that's made.

It gives the numbers of the offerings. Verse 34, For the Levites were made upright, pardon me, were more upright, and to sanctify themselves and the priests, they had to go through a certain ritual, and the priests were kind of lazy.

And so the Levites had to come in and assist them with what the priests were doing. Certain things only priests could do. And I guess they had a few priests that could do, or enough to do, some of that. And the Levites had to come and help them. So that was kind of an exception to the rule there. This is real important, this little exception. And actually, several others here, because we'll come to that as quickly as possible. So we come down to the burned offerings.

So the service of the house of the Lord was set in order, and that's the first major thing that Hezekiah did in his term as king. He set the order that went on in the house of God up. He set it with schedules, gave the assignments, and there's something other really big. We're still coming to that one.

So it was set in order. Verse 36 finishes the chapter, and Hezekiah rejoiced in all the people that God had prepared his people. Pardon me. I read that wrong. He rejoiced, and all the people that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly.

So this was of God. He said, Get busy and work. And God knew they wouldn't get done until after. You know, I think the third day of 11 red, the first and second had, no, it was the second day of 11 red, the 16th. So He knew that. But there's still more to the story. That was done.

Now we finally get to where the sermon kicks in about the Passover that was kept. This is all that had to go on to get prepared. You have to repent and get your life in order and get clean yourself out and repent before God and start doing what you know.

Whether it's the first time you're coming to repentance or when you're renewing the repentance like we are doing now, getting ready to this year for Passover, you have to really examine yourself and revisit the day of Atonement where you search for what you're doing wrong.

And you always have that Atonement, and you're always asking for new territory. What more can I do? Trouble is we don't do that a lot of times because we're so discouraged because we haven't come up to par in the last six months before since it between Atonement and Passover. But it's the same thing. So it's the Atonement and then renewing for a Passover.

So, Hezekiah sent out now to all Israel and Judah and wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh because, remember, Assyrians were up there, but there were a few and far between. The main army didn't stay there. They had organized a lot and carried them away. There were a few Assyrians. And as a matter of fact, the Assyrians had to send some back because of a plague of lions. I wish we could go with that. So interesting. And God required the Assyrians, or the Assyrians gave the order, to send priests back to tell them how to deal with the lions. So that's some of the time. That's in Kings.

So we have second Passover now in chapter 30. They wrote letters up there, just a minute, sent to Israel. And for the king had taken counsel and his princes in the congregation in Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the second month. How do they know? Well, the priests by that time were knowledgeable and had read Numbers 9. Probably knew it anyway. Had been studied, had studied as growing up as priests. And that says when you're on a cot on a long journey, you didn't get back as soon as you thought, or somebody has died and you have had to bury them, and you have touched a dead body and were not clean for either a day. In some cases, there was an unclean that took a week, but there would be certain ceremonial reasons.

But these are all things that would happen when you weren't expecting it. You didn't plan for that. You planned to keep the first, or maybe you got sick. That's all sort. I know one man. I baptized him. They were joyous. He and his wife, an elderly couple, and they didn't show up for Passover.

And he called me the next day. He just felt horribly. He had missed Passover. He had a flat tire on the way down, so it was dark and they couldn't make it. So I explained to him with great pleasure. Number nine, if something comes up all of a sudden, harking back to verse 36 of the previous chapter, this thing was done suddenly, or all of a sudden something came up. I just think how perfect. It just perfectly fits how we think of it. This is something that came up, and it surely did. And God was responsible, because he didn't inspire them and open their eyes to this until the last minute, right before Passover. And he caused them to miss the first Passover.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have this glorious story we're about to read. Okay, for they couldn't keep it before they couldn't keep it the first time, because the priest hadn't sanctified themselves sufficiently. Neither had the people gathered themselves together. What's more, sanctifying themselves had to do with that command of getting the temple ready. And so it was the same thing. So the thing pleased the king, and all the congregation... Oh, and by the way, on the 16th, they reported they had done the work of cleaning the temple, but they still hadn't done themselves. There were ceremonies, and I don't know why. They just hadn't gotten around to it. It hadn't been a priority in the whole last king's administration. So the thing pleased the king, and so they sent letters for Beersheva in the south, all the way up to Dan in the north.

And to the whole land, the people from the king to the northern, the Manassites and the others that were there, sent the post, verse 6, with letters of the king and his princes. And then it quotes the letter and says, straighten up and fly right, you guys, and come and join us. We need to be keeping this covenant. And verse 10, they laughed him to scorn, they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. Verse 10, when they received letters, nevertheless, verse 11, sons of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came down to Jerusalem. So three of the tribes, a few people, but remember the place had been cleaned out. They were devastated. You can hardly expect them, but in their misery and grief, they're told to repent, and they just show there's nothing there. They're just angry and destroyed, emotionally and spiritually. Also in Judah, verse 12, the hand of God, okay, here's a big lesson, so we'll just stop reading just a minute here for a moment. Yeah, verse 12. Also in Judah, spoiler alert, that doesn't quite fit, but here's a big break, big important thing.

This has to do with the principle of unity. This always has to do with people of God. It has to do with the church, and we talk about unity, and sometimes there's a crisis, and we have to work on unity. We always are reminded, we come to the study and remember that God says, unity comes from being with me. That's how it comes to us. Okay, here it is. And also in Judah, the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and the princes by the word of the Lord. Take a round at the political scene now. How much unity is there? You know, one side is definitely one, as both sides have won in past elections. And so now the election's over, and we have perfect unity, right? Okay, point. You can want to, with all your heart, and you can strive and struggle, and you're not going to get unity unless God gives His Spirit to you. Even in nations, you'll send like the Ninevites. They were sorry, and they repented, but not spiritually, didn't even know the laws of God. But God gave them, like He gave Pharaoh and the Egyptians, a soft heart to let the Israelites go. And it changed when He took that presence of His Spirit away from Pharaoh after each plague and away from the nation. But it comes from God, and we just really need to know that one. So these things, as far as unity and peace in a nation, they are spiritually driven. And it's a matter of how much God allows Satan to do and control, and how much He stops them from controlling. And when He wants to give a nation peace, He said that to Israel several times, He's given other nations that we know of peace, for a good long while. Costa Rica was one good example that's been used. And I guess I brought that up, but I don't have time to finish that. So I'll just move on from that. But it comes from God.

And they're assembled in Jerusalem, verse 15, many people to keep the feast in love and bread in the second month, a very great time. They did the Passover, they killed the Passover.

They took it...now, interesting, verse 14, they took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, in altars for incense to false gods, and cast them down in Kidron. That was the ones in Jerusalem, but outside of Jerusalem, they're all over the land, all these altars to false gods. So they will get there, come up and see it real soon. Keep reading. Then they killed the Passover in the 14th day of the second month. So we have a major example of God's use of the second Passover by one of the kings and the whole nation of Judah, one of the greatest kings. And the priests and Levites were ashamed, and they sanctified themselves and brought themselves in there and got back to work where they're supposed to, just like verse 16, Moses, the law of Moses, not referring to the whole law, but his regulations, in this case, referring to how he said, set it up, and this is how you do it. Verse 17, another really big verse. For there were many in the congregation who were not sanctified, therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing and they had to take over for the priests in doing part of their duties. For a multitude of the people, many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulon, they got down there, they got on the ball and hustled down there. It was all of a sudden, their hearts were right, deciding to follow God and obey, but they didn't have time and maybe didn't even know. They were in Israel after all, a different kingdom than Judah. They might not have even known about the ceremonies. They did not eat the Passover otherwise than it was written. That's not well done in King James here. It says, they took the Passover improperly.

One translation said, they were allowed to take the Passover improperly. They hadn't prepared for it. They needed to prepare like we need to prepare. They had physical things. We had spiritual things to do. But Hezekiah now, there's a problem that went over the priest's head.

He's the one that solved this. He was the one that God was using the prophets to advise him. But he prayed for them, saying, I think this is just very touching. This is so much like us praying for each other and God's reaction. They're in the wrong. And there are laws on the books. If you attempt to take the Passover wrong, you have the death penalty. Like the priests, the two sons of Aaron in the first place. That's not that big of a deal. We can drink more than we need to before the offering starts, etc. Anyway, Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, the good Lord, pardon everyone, everyone who prepared his heart to seek the Lord. So you can look this phrase up. It means you are repentant, but you have determined you are going to get to the bottom of this, and you're going to find God and take all the barriers away with His help. So they set their heart to seek God. I think Daniel did that. There are a few other cases. And the Lord God of His fathers, everyone who prepared his heart to seek God, the Lord God of His fathers, though he was not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary, and the Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people. Were they all amisals? Were they sick physically? No. It's talking about healing as a... it says healing, talking about what healing is, a symbol of conversion. And that breach that needed to be broken, pardon me, that was broken, that needed to be fixed. That's the breach between the way we think and the way God thinks, the difference between our minds.

It has to be healed, the ministry of reconciliation. So that's what He was talking about, and God gave them that healing. So He hearkened Hezekiah and healed the people. He healed their attitudes, and everybody, including those from the northern tribes who had come down, they were completely down, they were comparatively few, quite a few. When they got there, they knew they were healed. I don't know if they went home, some of them did, some of them may have stayed, but anyway, at this point, God became a part of their lives and watched over them. Okay, so so the children of Israel who were present in Jerusalem kept the feast of and living bread seven days with great gladness, and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord. Now this was the Passover and the days of unleavened bread, and of course, I think I referred to the eighth day a while ago. That was tabernacles. It was the seventh day here, 98. And it emphasizes the music, and it always talks about the loud instruments. So Hezekiah spoke encouraging, it says comforting, encouraging words unto all the Levites who taught the good knowledge of the Lord, and they did eat throughout the feast, seven days offering peace offerings and making confessions to the Lord God of their fathers. Now this is the piece I was talking about a while ago. Something added, they were really happy to serve in more than one way, but they couldn't afford to come down and do the temple service, and they hadn't been able to for years because the tithes were not being taken and they weren't being paid.

So the way God set it up, His servants always had sustenance, so they could do the work, and Satan always tried, and he still does, chip away at the idea of the whole idea of tithing.

Well, it's God's law, not ours, and I don't think I know of any ministers that wouldn't serve anyway and do the best they could on their own salary, but if you want a professional, a church with professional leaders who are dedicated to it, you have to provide the sustenance so that they have the time to do that. That's one of the big things here, and the Levites, so they were very happy for more than one reason. You get your job back, you know you recall, you're born for it, and now you can do it. It must, I mean, there's another aspect that you might just read right over. So it talks about the rest of that. We don't need to cover that.

And then another seven days are kept. It doesn't say they were holy days, but they were dedicated to God and holy in that sense, not as a command in holy days, but God allowed quite a few exceptions. Notice then in verse 26, so there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel, there was not like this, nothing like this in Jerusalem. It went all that time, about 300 years, and I think it's a little bit more, but all that time, and they had had any celebration that great, there's a couple more things to clean up, which the text does here. Then the priests and Levites arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even unto heaven. So here you have when mankind really repents, and we go through this Passover every year when it is sincere. God hears that, and our prayers go up. They do all the time based on our attitudes. Sleepy time prayer, not really interested.

Take your chances, I guess, but God hears and answers fervent prayers. Chapter 31, and we don't have to read all this, of course, but no, when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke the images. Pardon me. Did you catch that? They had already cleaned up all the images and false worship places in Jerusalem. Now they went outside, and after all those years since Solomon's time, maybe it was more like 250 since Solomon's time, that wretched, filthy image of Tophet facing Jerusalem that the whole city could see standing up on the hill there was knocked down. They went through the cities and took all of them out. So Hezekiah did some pretty great things, and he wasn't afraid. There was opposition, I'm sure, but he wasn't afraid.

God had given him the job, and He took it. If you take your job and you do it, God will be with you. Well, it's a godly job, of course. And He threw down the high places, the altars out of all of Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim, and also Manasseh. That's north of Jerusalem into their territories until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children were returned to remand to this position into their own cities. So then, as a summary, verse 2, chapter 31, Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and Levites and the courses of every man according to the service, and so on. Reorganized that. It resets that. And set orders to keep the Holy Days, the set feasts, and the Mo'ed, that is the gatherings together, the new moon, and so on, in verse 3. And verse 5 talks about the tithes. That's very important. That's pretty important to us in general, money. And God recognized that. He set it up that way. It's very powerful, and so He got that straightened out. And it's like us just repenting and then going forth to change the things that we will find in our lives that God has given to us. Now, verse 29, verse 20, here's a summary. And this is basically what you would read at the first of 1 Kings 18, first seven verses. This is a summary. And so it says, And then, and thus, in this manner did Hezekiah, throughout all Judah, and accomplished that which was good and right and truth, before the Lord is God, and in every work that he began, in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and the commandments to seek His God, not leave some area. Well, I'll get to that later. We need to seek our God and be diligent. He did it with all His heart and He prospered, period. That's one of the greatest lessons. So you know how this just says, rolling cascades of more and more lessons about the Passover. Let's take a very brief review here. Finish up. We just read the summary therein, verse 20 and 21. So the main lesson of Passover is turn with your whole heart to God, and God will give you success. When we don't have success, look back and check. There's some reservation you're dragging your feet, or you're just, you know, God wants you to go back and check. Mention this at home. You always go back and check and see, what else do I need to do? And it's a bad attitude to say, well, I know so much. I don't have to check. And I did that for years. I said, well, I know so much. I really pay attention to it, but I don't have to ask for anything. Oh, yes, you do. Yep. There's stuff that we don't see.

So just with your whole heart. That's the main lesson of a Passover. Hezekiah reformed God's people from a spiritually naked state to, and that talks about naked in defense from foreign armies. So it has to do, it's a prophecy to the church. When it looked like the nation was just about to perish, just like in Samuel's time, there was no saving of this nation. Tiglath Pileser was on the door. He just knocked off Israel. A huge nation just mowed through them, and he was coming. And when it looked like it was curtains, God did save his people.

This is very useful to know when your family, your church, your nation, your situation, when you personally look like, man, this is curtains. There's no hope. God can do anything, including move the sun and the earth so they can't be figured out by humans, but the sundial goes back.

It's an easy thing for God. He can do everything. He rules the physical world and runs it.

So, when, important Passover lesson, when Hezekiah reformed God's people, God did it using him, how did he do it? He reestablished the Passover, which is the covenant, identifying the true God.

It's foundational. Passover is important, not, you know, the night to be lightly esteemed or casually forgotten, as one person told me, who didn't believe it.

Passover lesson, another Passover lesson, it's in the heart. It's the heart. God wants you, not yours. And we already went by the exceptions where they were really guilty. They weren't clean.

Now, have you ever come to Passover and said, you know, I prayed, I'm not really ready, I'm not clean, I haven't overcome all this, but I've been praying, I've been trying, and please forgive me and accept my attitude? Ever done that? I presume everybody has. Well, that's what happens at Passover. So, we have this example. We don't come to God clean. We come to God on the Passover with confidence that He will clean us and He will continue us, cleaning us until He has the job done.

So, God, once again, you know, tells us it's in the heart. It's our affections He wants. Where is your right attitude? Fix the attitude instantaneously. You have unity with God, and you have God's help and His smiling blessing. So, Passover should have a major effect on everybody who keeps it, every time they keep it. It really has to do with God showing us, and all seven of these Passover stories, all ten of these Passover stories, He's showing us how He feels. And we have some specific examples of how God feels here toward us when we come to Passover. It was ancient Israel. It was Hezekiah. But it's us. This is how God feels. His attitude toward us. We're in really good shape when we're repentant. I have one other example. It's 13 minutes after. It's a good one, but I'm going to wait. It'll fit with others. And so, I'll just say, the historical stories of Passover in the Bible have major lessons for us as far as the history of the church, the New Testament church, and our conversion. The big thing is the keeping of the Passover. That's what starts it every year. And Hezekiah's great Reformed Passover does that very same thing. It has lessons, major lessons, spiritually for the true Church of God.