Preparing Your Heart

Well, I know, and I'll speak for everyone, because I'm assuming if I were to talk to all of you, you'd tell me you had a wonderful feast. It was an inspiring feast. And that you came back on a high, if you will. Very committed to God's Word. I hope that you feel inspired. I hope that you feel a fire burning in you to please God even more and to go closer to Him and to live His way more closely.

And I hope wherever you went, it's the one time a year we have a chance for all of us to be together for eight days, eight straight days, at the Feast of Tabernacles, nine if you're there for the opening night ceremonies, a service at the feast wherever you are. And I hope you felt. I hope you felt God's Spirit. I hope you felt the joy that was there. I hope you felt and saw the fruits of God's Spirit as you enjoyed the harmony and the peace that was there. I know, speaking for Jekyll Island, I thought it was a very good feast.

We had almost 700 people there. It was just a very nice feast. And you feel the oneness with people. I had a few people mention to me that it was a feeling of family this year. And I felt that as well. People that you've never met before, you just feel an instantaneous bond with them. And that's God's Spirit at work. So we keep God's Holy Days in the way that He wants us to keep them, exactly how we want to keep them.

We feel the gladness and we feel the joy that we can't ever experience without it. But you know, Jesus Christ, now that we've had this fire lit, it's our job to keep it burning and to not allow the lessons of the Feast of Tabernacle, the interest that we've had now in God, a renewed commitment to God, to getting a more enhanced view of His Kingdom, to not let that fade here as the weeks go by and as we get back into the world and back in our everyday lives, whether it's work, school, or just the things that we do around us.

So let's start off in Revelation 1. I always find this series of verses to be very inspiring to know that Jesus Christ is with His Church. He's with all of us. And He is the one who, you know, God the Father is the one who's called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. But Jesus Christ is there with all of His servants and His Church from the time that He began it, as we read in Matthew 16, right until the time of His return.

So let's pick it up in Revelation 1 and verse 12. It says, and of course this is John under inspiration as he sees the vision, he writes, And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the son of man, clothed with the garment down to the feet, and girded about the chest with the golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice is the sound of many waters.

He had in his right hand seven stars, out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was like the sun, shining in his strength. Now when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead, but he laid his right hand on me, saying, Don't be afraid, I am the first and the last, I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Jesus Christ is a magnificent picture to know that he walks among the churches, that he walks among us. When we were at the Feast of Tabernacles, he was there in the midst. As we're gathered here today, he sees what we're doing, how we're observing his holy times. And he has the keys to Hades and death. You know, only Jesus Christ has that.

He won the victory over Hades and death and Satan. And when he returns, and when he returns, all the world that was living at that time, and later in the second resurrection, all mankind will understand what he had. He brings light and salvation to everyone. And as you look down at verse 20, you see that those lampstands that he walks among, those are the churches. The churches that have existed from the time that he began the church, up until today, and that will continue until the time he returns.

The lampstands. The lampstands that should continue to be lit. Back in the Old Testament time, when God was dwelling among his people in the Tabernacles of the temples that he built, there were so many commands and detailed instructions that he gave the people on how to build the instruments, how to build a temple, what furniture should be in it. And one of the things that he commissioned to do was be building these lampstands, these lamps that would be continually lit.

And one of his commissions and one of his commands was, those lights should never, ever, ever go out. Let's look back in Exodus 27. Exodus 27. God gives the commands to those who maintained and led the temple, but it was everyone, everyone in the congregation of Israel that had the responsibility of keeping those fires burning.

Let's look at, we're in Exodus, Exodus 27 and verse 20. Again, God, as he's giving the instructions, he says, And in verse 21, we find out that as Aaron and his sons, the priests who were supposed to be attending it day and night in the Tabernacle meeting outside the veil, which is before the testimony, So as Aaron's job, the priest to tend that fire, to make sure it was being lit, but it was the people's job to bring the oil that would keep those lamps burning. Everyone had a part, everyone had a responsibility in keeping the fires brightly lit, forever burning, not allowing them to fade, not allowing them to go out, even for a moment.

And as we read that in Exodus, probably your mind has gone to Matthew 25, where we have the parable of the ten virgins. And of those virgins, five let their lights go out. They forgot to keep the oil handy to have their lights lit. And we'll read about them in a little bit.

I hope we've come home with a commitment and a desire to please God more. How do we keep that going? How do we keep that going when we get back into the mundane of what we do every day of life? Because all of us, whether we work outside or go to school outside, we have the world and its influence all around us. And it can bring us down, and it can douse those lights, it can make them fade if we don't watch out what we're doing, because it is a job that God has given all of us. Keep those lights burning. I'm going to just recount a few things to you, because you know some of the answers to that. You know that in order to stay close to God, we have to study the Bible. It's His Word. We have to have our minds in it. We can read it, but there's a difference between reading and studying. We need to study the Bible, too. And when we study the Bible, we begin to see God's way come alive to us. We begin to see where we're not measuring up to the standard that's set before us. And we have to take those messages, and we have to take those words and apply them into our lives, and continually keep our light burning by changing the way we live, changing the way we react, watching what our tone of voice is, watching how we think about things, how close are we getting to the world? Are we letting thoughts that aren't in the Bible into our minds? Are we doing the things that God said? Because it takes effort, and it takes choice to do those things. So we have to read. We have to study. We know that. We have to pray. Without prayer, there's no relationship with God. We have to come before Him. And before the feast, we talked about when Jesus Christ gave that model prayer in Matthew 6, in this manner of prayer, and what that means, and what He wanted us to do, and how we relate to God, and how we can talk to Him. We have to take the time to meditate, to allow ourselves to understand the things that are going on, that God can kind of reach us and put into our hearts the things that we read, and what we're learning from life. And of course, there's the fellowship. We can't neglect the fellowship. It's an important part of our calling. You know, God commanded assemblies. You read about the Sabbath day. It's a commanded assembly. You read about the Holy Days. They are commanded assemblies. You read in Hebrews 10 and New Testament. Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

I was going through my notes, and I don't know if I ever read this little story here. I pulled it off of the internet, I guess years ago. I remember it, but it was back seven or eight years ago. And I just want to read that just to highlight the importance of fellowship, because every single holy day, every single holy season, has fellowship built into it. God designed it that way because it's an important part of what we do. This is a story about embers, and we, I don't know if in Florida, you have fireplaces and whatever we do, but you know embers and how they kind of ignite each other, and they keep burning and everything. But this is an interesting story. It says, the story is told of a man who stopped coming to church. He figured he could be just as faithful, worshiping God on his own. Now we know that today. Some people say, oh, it's just good enough to sit home and watch a webcast. That's the same as going to church. If I just put a sermon DVD, and that's as good as being a church. And we have, you know, whole Sunday boarding things that, you know, the world looks at and says, hey, that's the TV church of God. I'll just go to church, and that's all I have to do. Why get in the car? Why go talk to people? Why not just do that? So this man had fallen into the same trap here. He says he figured he could be just as faithful, worshiping God on his own, apart from the church. A few weeks went by, and the minister came to visit. It was a cold and blustery day. They sat in the living room by the fireplace and made small talk. Then the minister took the fire tongs, picked up a glowing ember, and placed it to one side of the hearth, separate from the other glowing embers. The two men watched without saying a word.

In no time, that ember began to cool. A few minutes later, the minister picked up the dead ember with his fingers and pitched it back into the fire. Immediately, it sparked back to life.

Without a word, the minister put on his coat and started to leave. The man looked at him and said, that was one of your best sermons. I'll see you in church next week. So don't neglect it. God has built it into our calling. He's built it into our training. When we neglect it, we're dousing the fire. In order to keep the fire burning, we have to do all those things we talk about and you know to do. Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together. So we often will have a potluck later on in November. We'll have Bible studies. We'll have opportunities to be together. Don't neglect that. And I know as you're sitting there thinking, you know what? Probably you're saying, I won't. From here on out, I'm going to do this and that. And you came back from the feast saying, you know, I'm going to do this from here on out. I'm going to do that from here on out. I understand what I need to do. And that's a good thing to say.

But words that aren't backed up don't really mean much, do they? They have to be backed up with action. But before they can ever take lasting action, because it's not the fire that we keep lit for a day or two, or a week or two, or a month or two, that fire is supposed to be lit from now until the time we die. An ever-burning fire that ignites us and directs us to God.

What do we do? What do we do? Well, Christ gave us some ideas. Before we can actually keep that fire lit, there are some things we have to do in our minds and with ourselves. Let's go back to Luke 21, because Christ tells us the things, gives us a clue of what we do, and other places in the Bible it tells us as well. In Luke 21, Christ is speaking of the end time.

And he's speaking of the things that will befall the world and the people of God at that time. And he speaks of a time when we may be called, or the people back then may be called before magistrates and kings. And that can be a worrisome thing if we were hauled off someplace because of what we believed and we were made to explain what we were doing in front of presidents and congresses or whatever it is and the equivalent of what they had that time. It could be a daunting thing. And Luke 21 will pick it up in verse 12. He says, But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. It's God's will that this would happen, but it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Maybe daunting, maybe kind of scary, maybe kind of something we don't even look forward to doing, but God says, this is what will happen. Look at it as an occasion for testimony. And in verse 14, he says, Therefore, settle it in your hearts, settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer. For I will give you a mouth in wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. Settle it in your hearts. Be thinking about what your calling is. Be thinking about what God's plan is. Be thinking about what it is. When God opens our minds, gives us the truth, what we need to do, and he says to this group of people he's talking to, settle it in your hearts. Think about it. Purpose it in your hearts. Make yourself think. Don't just say the words, of course, of course I'll do it, of course I'll do that. You know, Peter did that, right? He said, Christ, I'll never deny you. And yet, that very same night, he denied him three times. The words were there, the will was there, but he hadn't settled it in his heart that he wouldn't deny Christ. And when he was faced with it, he immediately did it. Peter learned his lesson. Peter settled in his heart what he was going to do the rest of time. Let's go back to Proverbs. Proverbs 24.

You can always pick up wisdom for everyday life, even in this 21st century in the Proverbs. In Proverbs 24 and verse 27, it says, prepare, prepare your outside work. Make it fit for yourself in the field and afterward build your house. Prepare. Get this stuff done. Do some stuff before you start building that house. The incentive is, let me just start building the house. Yes, I'm going to do it.

Christ talks about that same thing, right? Back in Luke 14, where he talks about, you know, count the cost. Count the cost before you build your tower. Make sure you know what you're doing.

Settle it in your hearts. Prepare yourself for what you're doing. Think about it. Commit to it. Put it in your mind and then start doing it. Know what you need to do and start training your mind and preparing yourself for what it is that you're called to and what it is you will do and how you will keep how you will keep your fire lit because we all know the things that we do that will douse that fire if we don't watch what we're doing. Let's go forward. This time to Daniel. Daniel 1.

Daniel, a young man, taken out of his home in Judea, taken to Babylon, the premier city of the world at that time, brought into Nebuchadnezzar, the world rulers, you know, court. At that time, he, a young man, was faced with a daunting, daunting situation. He was going to be cast into a society that didn't obey God, didn't know God, didn't understand the things of God.

But he purposed in his heart, we'll see, that when he got there, he wasn't going to be caught by surprise, that he knew what he was going to do, and he had trained his mind on what he was going to do going forward. Let's look at verse 8 here. Daniel 1 verse 8. Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank, and so forth. He purposed in his heart before he ever got to Babylon. He said, I'm not going to be defiled, not going to be defiled by that society. And he even took it down to the level of food. I won't be defiled with that society's food. I will eat what I've been trained to eat, but I won't allow myself to be in Babylon. And he wasn't talking just about unclean meats, which were given with him, the whole society. And you know, Daniel never did become defiled. He never did when he was there. Through it all, right at through the end of his life, he never let Babylon sink into him. He purposed in his heart, I'm not even going to let the physical things, I'm not even going to touch the physical things of Babylon. And he remained spiritually strong right through to the end of his life in the midst of a society where he didn't have a whole lot of support, and yet he was in the face of kings, and yet he did some marvelous things in that society. But he purposed in his heart, I won't do this. And when he was confronted with, eat this, he was able to say, no, not do it. Finally, back in 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel 7.

1 Samuel 7 and verse 3.

Samuel's there before Saul is appointed king. They're wanting to bring the ark back from the Philistines. And in verse 3 Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying, if, if you return to the eternal with all your hearts, with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you. Got to do some work. Got to clear the landscapes. Get these things out of your mind. Understand that life the way it was is not the way it's going to be going forward if, if you are going to follow God. There are things you have to put out of your life and things you have to put into your life to follow God. Then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve him only. And he will deliver you from the hands of the Philistines. Prepare your hearts. Yes, they wanted to bring the ark back. They wanted to do it. But Saul said, you have to do something before that first. You need to have your hearts prepared to serve God and determine that you will serve him only. As Israel, as Israel went about that, and as they followed what Samuel said, you look down in verse 6, it says, they gathered together, they drew water, they poured it out before the eternal, and they fasted. When they did that, when they were preparing their hearts, when they were looking at it, okay, we're going to commit to God, we're going to do these things, we're going to follow it, look what they realized. We've sinned. There are things that we haven't done the way that God said to do it. Maybe they had fooled themselves thinking, well, what more can we want? We want to bring the ark back. We kind of want these things. Isn't that all God wants? But when they looked at themselves, they realized, I'm not doing it the way God said. When we prepare our hearts, when we prepare our hearts, when God calls us initially, we realize all the things that we have to put away out of our lives. The old things that we've been taught, they're not in the Bible. We don't do those anymore. We have to start doing what the Bible says to do if we really are committed to following God, obeying Him, and living His way of life. And that can be difficult, and we can run into all sorts of, you know, all sorts of confrontations, all sorts of resistance from our families. We do it anyway. We do it anyway if we please God. And the people of Israel, they learned, you know, the way we've been doing things, we were wrong. We were wrong. We've sinned. And when we begin to prepare our hearts, no matter how long we've been in the church, whether it's right now or whether it's been 50 or 60 years, we find that preparing our hearts isn't something we do just once at the time of our calling. It's something we do throughout, throughout our lives. So let's look at a king here. That's a very good example for us today. Let's go back to our go forward to Second Chronicles.

We can learn a lot from the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. And this one in particular, we haven't talked about him for a while, but he is a king that here in the 21st century we can learn a lot from because he lived a life that's similar to the lives that we live today in relative peace and prosperity in a time where we're not being hauled off to magistrates or hauled off or imprisoned for what we believe. In Second Chronicles 14, we find King Abijah of Judah. And you see in verse 1 that, for the first 10 years of his reign, everything was quiet.

Everything was peaceful. It was a good time to be alive, kind of similar to where we are today. You know, we're in a time of quiet for the people of God. We're free to worship, assemble as we want. We have plenty of things. In verse 2 of Second Chronicles 14, it says, Abijah was the king Asa, as I'm talking about. Verse 2, it's Asa. Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. For he removed the altars of the foreign gods in the high places. He broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images. He went to work. He got rid of those things. He cleared the land. Although all those foreign and pagan images that were there, he commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandment. He also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and the kingdom was quiet under him. It was a time of peace. They could get these things done. During that time, he built fortified cities. Notice he cleared the landscape first. He took care of all the field around him. Then he began building. He built fortified cities in Judah. For the land had rest. He had no war in those years because the Lord had given him rest. Verse 7. Therefore, he said to Judah, Let's build these cities and make walls around them in towers, gates, and bars while the land is yet before us because we have sought the Lord our God. We've sought him, and he has given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered. And they built those cities, and they had walls around them. And they could have been tempted to begin putting their trust in those walls and those fortified cities. But for 10 years, they had peace in the land. They had peace in the land. But Asa did what was right. He took the time to take the things out of his life and out of Judah that weren't of God and start building the things of God. He commanded Judah, just like we would command our homes today, our houses today, our families today, follow what God said. Let's go to work. We live in a world. Let's do the things we have to do, but let's get the foundation laid first and put God first. And so for 10 years, they had peace. But then in verse 8, we find all of a sudden a trial comes. A real trial. Asa says, had an army of 300,000 from Judah, who carried shields and spears, and from Benjamin, 280,000 men who carried shields and drew bows. All these were mighty men of valor. So there's an army of 580,000 people that he had at his disposal. But they came up with a trial they didn't expect. Something really big.

Zera, verse 9, the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots. And he came to Marisha. So we got a two-to-one thing here. Wow, we've got 580,000 men. That's good, but he's got a million, a million people. And Asa could have started thinking, well, what about this and what about that? How do we handle this? But he had settled it in his heart ahead of time that when these trials came, he didn't know when, he didn't know how, he didn't know the extent of it, but he wasn't going to rely on himself or the things that they had done. You notice in verse 10, it says, Asa went out against him. You know, Asa could have said, I'm just going to hide it here in the city. She's going to hide behind these walls that we built all these years. No, Asa went out to face the foe. Asa went out against him, and they set the troops in battle array in the valley of Zephathah at Marisha. And notice what Asa did in the face of these overwhelming odds, this overwhelming, if we compare it to a trial in our lives, something that confronts us, something that we didn't expect, something that's daunting, whether it's financial, whether it's health, whether it's anything at all that we didn't see coming. Look what Asa did. It says, Asa cried out to the Lord as God and said, Lord, it's nothing for you to help, whether with many or with those who have no power. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on you, and in your name we go against this multitude, O Lord. You are our God. Don't let man prevail against you.

Do you think that took courage? Do you think that that came out of his mouth at just that moment?

Or was he prepared that when a trial came, no matter what it was, he was going to look to God and rely on him only? No counting for what else I could do, no accounting for my fortified cities, no counting and comparing numbers and whatever else. It's like, I'm relying on you and you only, God. You and you only. He had prepared his heart for that, and when the trial came, that's where his mind was. And God responded. Verse 12, The Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and they fled. And they could never recover.

They could never recover. Look what God did when it was him and him only, Asa turned to, with all his heart. How he had prepared his mind that all I need, or all Judah needs, or all we need is God. And to have faith in him, he is more powerful than anything that will ever confront us. The odds can be two to one as it was in this. It can be three to one, ten to one.

God is more powerful than anything that confronts us. But in order to have the faith that Asa demonstrated here, our hearts have to be prepared in that way. We have to trust him. We have to cultivate that in our hearts. It doesn't come instantaneously if we've all our lives just aren't doing the things of tending our hearts, guarding our hearts, feeding our minds with God, praying to him, and doing all those things that we need to do. It only comes with preparation.

So when the trial comes, whatever it is, you know, we can have the same response that Asa did, and God is pleased. If we go on to chapter 15 here, we see that the whole entire country of Judah came before God. You know, if we look at verse 8 here, you know, Oded comes. And well, in verse 2 there in chapter 15, this prophet comes and he says, The Lord is with you while you're with him. If you seek him, he'll be found by you.

But a warning, if you forsake him, if you forsake him, he'll forsake you.

Down to verse 8, Asa heard these words in the prophecy of Oded, the prophet, and he took courage, and he continued to clean. He began to see other places that needed to be cleaned in Judah, just like as we go through our lives, not just at year one, but through our lives, the things that have to be purged from our minds, purged from our hearts. We are none of us are perfect, they're even close to it. There are always things that God will do throughout the rest of our life, and when Asa heard these words, he wanted to draw closer to God. And he realized some of the things that he was doing and that Judah was doing that shouldn't be there. So it says, he removed the abominable idols from the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had taken in the mountains of Ephraim. And he restored the altar of the Lord that was before the vestibule of the Lord. And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin and those who dwelt with them from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon. And notice those lands, those lands, those tribes that had gone off someplace else with Israel. For they came over to him in great numbers from Israel, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

We remain loyal to God. We preach his truth and every word of the Bible and strive to live with it. And even the people from Israel that never had a righteous king saw what was going on in Judah and they came over. When the people were doing the same, they were doing the right thing. So they gathered together at Jerusalem in the third month in the fifteenth year of the reign of Aesha. And you can see that in verse 11 they offered some offerings. Verse 12, then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul. Okay, we've seen what God has done. Now this is even five years after that battle, right? This is the fifteenth year of Aesha's reign. We are going to commit to God. We're going to enter into a covenant with him that we will seek him with all our hearts and all our minds. And whoever wouldn't seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death whether small or great, whether man or woman. And they took an oath before the Lord with a loud voice with shouting and trumpets and rams, horns, and all Judah rejoiced. For they had sworn with all their heart and sought him with all their soul, and he was found by them, and God gave them rest all around.

What were they doing? Even in a time of peace. Five years after that, they committed to God again. As a nation, they were preparing themselves. We will seek God first. We will seek him, and we will find him, and we will commit to him with all our hearts and all our souls. We will put him first.

We won't seek other treaties with other people. We're not going to trust in our fortified cities or the things that we've built. We will trust in God because he provides everything. So even five years after that, there was Judah and they were committing to God. You know, when we prepare our hearts, there has to be some conscious thought about it. We have to understand what God wants, and we have to tell ourselves and remind ourselves often, this is what we are going to do.

And it takes training of our minds to get to that point. You know, we can say at one time, one time is not enough, that we have to remind ourselves this is a lifetime commitment for the rest of my life physically, for the rest of my life eternally. I follow God. I put him first. I keep the lamp burning brightly all through my life. You know, we have some among us who have gardens and whatever, and we learn a lot, I often say, from the physical things that we do in life. You know, we tend to garden. You know, when we go out in the, well, not so much the spring here, I guess in the winter still, in February here, what do you have to do in order to prepare that garden? You can't just go out into your yard and just dig a little hole and start planting seeds and expect to have a good garden, right? You have to prepare the land. You have to till the land. You have to get it ready. You have to clear the stones away from it, clear the weeds from it. It's got to be a fertile ground, a fertile ground that can grow the good crops. If you just go out there and start spreading seeds in your backyard, you're not going to have much of it. You've got to prepare the soil. You've got to have it turned over. You've got to have it right so that when you plant the seed, it can grow. It can become everything it needs to become. You plant one thing in a section. You don't plant the corn with the tomatoes and the cucumbers and the lettuce. I mean, you have sections that you plant those things. It's one thing. It's kind of a single- a single- plot garden, if you will, and that things are in order in the way that they should be. But even when you do all that, you- you till it in the spring, you get it all ready. What do you have to do throughout the year?

You have to tend it. You have to go out. You have to get the weeds out of it. You have to kind of watch what's going on. You cannot just let it go and then think, you know, if I do nothing else for three months, then I'm going to have this wonderful garden. It takes work. We have to tend it. We have to keep it. It's just part of how it is. It's the same thing. The next year, you have to go and do the whole thing all over again. You got to prepare the soil for what is going on. You don't just do it once, and then it lasts the rest of the time you live there. It's something you do over and over and over again. And so it is with preparing our hearts and cultivating our hearts. We continually are preparing our hearts, continually tending it, continually guarding our hearts, continually getting rid of the weeds that may come in and crowd out the growth that God would want us to see, that keeps the fruit of the Spirit from becoming all that it should be. We can't just plant it once, and then for the rest of our lives think that we're okay. It's something we continually do. And just like in our gardens, if we let it go after a year or two, it can become overgrown with weeds. And if we don't watch what we're doing, it can become overgrown with weeds as well. Let's go to... we'll come back to Asa here in a little bit, but let's go forward to chapter 30 here in 2 Chronicles.

2 Chronicles 30, we have King Hezekiah, who has come to power, and he is restoring. He's restoring the Word of the Lord, the Word of God to Judah. And they haven't kept the holy days of God for some time when he takes office, but they realize they need to and they want to. And as we pick it up in 2 Chronicles 30, we find that they're just not ready to keep the Passover in the first month when God designed it for be. They just... the priests weren't ready. They weren't cleansed. They weren't purified. They weren't ready to do the things that they needed to do. So they delayed the Passover until the second month, as God provides also for those who cannot keep it at the first month. In verse 12, I'm in the wrong chapter, 2 Corinthians 30, it says, the hand of God was on Judah. As God was watching what was going on and seeing how they were working, how they were preparing themselves, how they were getting ready for the feast, and the discernances that they made. We're not just going to rush into it. Whoops, the Passover is next week. I haven't done anything about it. Should I keep it? You know, what they didn't know. When they came to realize, it's like, no, we have to prepare ahead of time. We don't just come up to a holy day and the plan of God and just say, whoops, I haven't done anything at all. There's preparation that goes on for every single holy day of the year. God tells us that as He says it. For the days of Unleavened Bread, we prepare ahead of time. For the Passover, we prepare ahead of time. For the Feast of Tabernacles, we prepare all year long. If we've waited until a week or two weeks before the Feast of Tabernacles and we think where we're going to go and how we'll get there, we're not keeping the feast right. We're wasting our time because God says there has to be preparation, there has to be planning. You need to prepare your hearts for what you're going to be if you're going to understand what is going on in this feast and what you're going to be observing. But here in chapter 30, Israel, or not Israel, Judah was going through this. It says, the Gant of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart. They had one thing in mind. How do we please God? It wasn't about them. It was about how do we please God. And as you read through the chapter, and I'm not going to take the time to read through of this. You can read through it and see what they did. It was about God. We'll serve him with singleness of heart. Not mixing it with anything else, but with singleness of heart. How does he say to do it? When does he say to do it? That's what we will do. Exactly how? Exactly when? And if we want to please God, if he's first, then that's what we do. That's what we do. And then the joy and gladness results. As you read through chapter 30, you see that the people of Israel or the people of Judah did it. And there was gladness. There was gladness. They had extended the feast for another seven days of unleavened bread because there was gladness whenever we do things the way God says.

Exactly the way he says. Forgetting self, forgetting all the other things in life. When we do things the way God says, there's gladness. There's gladness and there's joy. Read about it in Nehemiah 8 when they kept the Feast of Tabernacles back after they hadn't kept it for many years as well. Let's go down to verse 19.

You know, as Hezekiah—I'll pick it up in verse 18. Verse 18 says, The multitude of the people, many from these places, hadn't cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah the king prayed for them, saying, May the good Lord provide atonement for everyone who prepares his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers. God, will you bless these people who have prepared their heart?

We need to do this now. They have tried. They may not be perfectly cleansed. The priests are, but the people may not be. Provide atonement for those who prepare their hearts. Because when we prepare our hearts and then do, when we lay the foundation and then we do it, God is pleased.

So we prepare our hearts. We've talked about how with prayer, with study, with fellowship, with commitment, with determination, reminding ourselves daily who we are, what it is that God has called us to, realizing it's a life-long process, not something we do once, and then we're good for the rest of our lives, but something we continually do the rest of our lives.

Well, let's go back. Let's go back to Asa, because we learn from Asa that we must keep that fire burning and that there's a danger in all of our lives that we could let that fire go out. Asa, tremendous example that Asa gives us. Ten years of peace stands up for God, relies only on God. Five years later, they commit to God wholly and with all their minds. We come to 2 Chronicles 16, and we find the same man, Asa, who was so loyal, so committed, so everything to God. And here we are 25 years, 25 years after that incident with the Ethiopians, where God showed doesn't make any difference what the odds are, physically. In the 36th year of the reign of Asa, Beisha, Beisha, king of Israel, came up against Judah and built Rama, that he might let none go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah. 25 years of peace, 25 years of prosperity, things are going well on the land. But Asa's response is a little different this time. Here they have another challenge coming their way, this time from the king of Israel, who's going to pretty much put a siege on them. And Asa, who the last time, all he did was call on God. Look what he did this time in verse 2. Then Asa brought silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the king's house, and he sent to Ben Hadad, king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus saying, Let there be a treaty between you and me, as there was between my father and your father. See, I've sent you silver and gold. Come, break your treaty with Beishah, king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me. And so Ben Hadad did, and Beishah withdrew.

Look at the difference in what Asa did this time. In 25 years of peace, in 25 years of calm, and found 25 years of prosperity, when a trial came this time, he looked to the world.

How can you, Ben Hadad? We don't see God mentioned at all in these verses. No record that he ever went to God and said, We know you can deliver us. You've done it before. We trust in you and you alone. Now, this time, he went back to the way his dad did things, the way that he saw, went back to the world and said, Okay, I'm going to look to you. I'm going to look to you. Ben Hadad, I'm going to have you. I'm going to have you come and fix this problem for us.

The danger for us is we live in a time of peace. We live in, for the people of God, we live in a time of prosperity. We've been around, many of us, for 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

The same thing can happen to us that happened to Asa. We can begin looking back, losing the fire, letting the fire grow out and beginning to look to the world for the answers to our problems, rather than looking to God. Compromising and showing God we may even have the words for you, but we don't really trust you with all our heart and with all our mind. We will look for other answers, just as Asa did here. Down to verse 7, it's brought to Asa's attention what happened here. At that time, Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, Because you've relied on the king of Syria, and you haven't relied on the eternal your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand. God had something in mind, but you know what? You relied on them rather than me, and you're missing something you didn't even know that God had in mind for you. And he goes on to say, Were the Ethiopians and the Lubim, not a huge army with many chariots and horsemen, yet because you relied on God, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the eternal run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him. In this Asa, you have done foolishly. Therefore, from now on, you shall have wars.

You trusted the wrong person. You looked the wrong way, and you know what? From here on out, that's what's going to plague you the rest of your time as king. You've had 35 years of peace, except for one incident. One incident with the Ethiopians way back 25 years before this. But now, because you relied on someone other than God for the rest of your life, this is what you will be plagued with.

Now we can look at our lives and we can say, you know, Asa, what happened? Asa, somewhere along the line, he became a little weary. He became a little too comfortable with life. He came, he allowed, he wasn't preparing his heart like he did those 10 years and in the 15th year, and when that Ethiopian army came, he looked around and thought, everything is fine. And when it came to a trial, he didn't look to God first. He didn't look to God at all. And God said, because you didn't, this is what happens the rest of your life. The same thing, the same thing can happen to us if we fail to continually prepare our hearts, continually to continue to keep that fire burning, bright and well, and doing the things that we have to do year after year, month after month, reminding ourselves every day who we are, what God has called us to, that we have to have faith in him, that we rely on him and purpose in our minds and our hearts. We won't stray for him. We won't become part of the world. We'll follow 2 Corinthians 6, 14, where God said, come out of her, my people. Don't be part of her. Don't even touch the things.

And we rely on him. Well, Asa, Asa heard something, and you would hope that Asa would have heard those words and thought, I've sinned. I've sinned. I've forgotten God. I have forsaked him. Exactly what Oded said is what I let happen to me. But that isn't the reaction that Asa had. Look how far down he had come. In verse 10, it says, Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison, for he was enraged at him because of what he said. How many times, when we are brought things, maybe that people say to us? Do we get mad? I don't want to hear that. That's the other person's fault. I don't do anything wrong. They do everything wrong. That is no longer the attitude of God at all.

We look at ourselves. We look at ourselves. We purify our hearts. We look at the attitudes that are there. When we see them, we get rid of them. We clear those fields. We continually have our fields tilled for God. And when we see those attitudes, the people of God don't get angry. They might momentarily be. It smarts a little bit when someone brings something to our attention.

But it isn't something that we would say, I don't even want to hear you. I'm going to throw you in prison like Asa did. Look! He let his fire go out. He let his fire go out. And Asa was so mad, he oppressed some of the people at that time. Not only will I make this seer pay, I'm going to make the people pay too. Because you know what? I don't like the fact that someone came and said something that I didn't want to hear. And it wasn't the last thing that happened to Asa. Three years later, in the 39th year of his reign, verse 12, Asa became diseased in his feet. And his malady was severe. Yet in his disease, he didn't see God. But he sought the physicians. That was where my thought went first. What can the doctors do for me? What can they do for me? And that's where his thoughts were. He didn't see God. And two years later, two years later, he died. You know, the story of Asa is sad. The story of many of the kings, when you read them, are sad. They start off sometimes just like Solomon with such good intentions, with such good words. And then they allow time. And they allow good times. And they allow prosperity. They allow the things of the world to creep back in, and the things that they never thought they would do. Back in year one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, they do later on. If you had asked Asa in year ten, would you ever? And Asa would say, I will never, I will never, ever, ever not rely on God. Now I've seen his hand, and I will follow him implicitly. It never entered his mind, but he didn't keep doing the things that he needed to do. We can't even say that Asa was double-minded at the end, right? I mean, he just simply left God behind. He just simply didn't even look to God anymore. A couple chapters back in chapter 12, we find one of his predecessors, Rehoboam, Rehoboam, who under whom the kingdom of Israel was split into two houses, Israel and Judah.

And Rehoboam, I say Rehoboam kind of like to play games, play games with God. Let's look at him here in chapter 12 of 2 Chronicles. And verse 1, it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself, notice those words, had strengthened himself, that he forsook the law of the Lord and all Israel along with him. We can do things our own way. We know what the answer is. We'll just kind of do it, kind of just do it. And it happened to the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed against the Lord. Notice that. God saw what they were doing and he brought them against Israel with a huge number of people. Drop down to verse 4, and the Ethiopians, or the Egyptians here, took the fortified cities of Judah and they came to Jerusalem.

Shemea, the prophet, came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who were gathered together in Jerusalem and said to them, Thus says the eternal, you have forsaken me and therefore I have left you in the hands of Shishak. So when they heard that, oh, okay, that's why we're losing this battle. That's why we have this problem. God says, You forsaken me and as I said, I forsaken you. So the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and they said words, the Lord is righteous. Okay, that's what we've been told. God is righteous. That's who we look to.

Now when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemea saying, they've humbled themselves, therefore I won't destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance. My wrath won't be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.

And so God relented when they said these words, but those words were empty, we see with Rehoboam. They were just words, okay? I've been caught. I see what's happening. I'm going to follow you. They said the right words. We drop down to verse 12.

It says of Rehoboam, when he humbled himself, the wrath of God turned from him, so as not to destroy him completely. And things also went well in Judah.

Thus King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king and he reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the sin which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. Dada, verse 14. And look what God said about him. He did evil. He did evil. Why? Because he didn't prepare his heart to seek the Lord.

He said the right words when it came to his attention that you should follow God. Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay, yes, yes, yes. We follow God. We believe in him. He's righteous. We look to God. And God relented, okay? But you don't see anything about Rehoboam that he actually thought about what he had done, what his actions meant, what they told God, and that he committed in his mind, I'm going to follow you, God, from here on out. I recognize my mistake. I see what I've done. I've gotten too used to just relying on myself, relying on my own ideas, doing things my own way, and I've forgotten what you have said. You don't see any of that. He just said words. He just said words. Now, when God relented and didn't completely destroy them, he got into a habit of just playing games with God. Okay, I'll seek you. I get it. Whatever. But God's edict on Rehoboam was he did evil. He did evil because he didn't prepare his heart to speak the Lord. If we're just people who do the lip service, if we just think of God when we need something, if we're the last-minute people who, oh, that's right, I didn't do that, better do that today, boom, boom, boom, and we're not preparing ourselves for what God has called us to. If we're not consciously thinking about that every day, preparing our hearts to see God, preparing our hearts to do his will, preparing our hearts so that when a time of trial comes or a time that we have to rely on God comes, that we, like Daniel, could say, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. I am committed to this. It's in my heart, and it's who I am, and no matter what befalls me, whatever befalls me is okay. I will serve God first. If we are not doing that, you know, maybe we are just playing games with God, just playing games with God. I'll kind of do what you say. I'll say the right words, but my heart's really not in the words that I say.

If we go over to James 1, we find what Rhea Bohem was doing, that maybe we can be guilty of at times, too, if we don't really examine ourselves and see what we're doing, the choices we make, and everything. And James 1, we're going to go down to verse 8 to pick up the point that I wanted to make here. James 1, verse 5, he writes, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it'll be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. When you ask God, have your faith completely and totally in him, not just going through the motions and saying, I've got to ask God, but, verse 7, for let that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

You know, Rhea Bohem, he was double-minded. Okay, okay, I'll say the words God wants me to say, but I'm kind of really going to do things my way. When I get caught, then I'll go back and I'll do it, and you know, I'll do the little things that need to be done. I'll say the right things, but I'm not going to rely on God totally. I'm going to do things my own way. I've got my back-up plan.

Preparing your heart. Preparing your heart, doing the things that God said to do, not being double-minded. Over in chapter 4, you know, when you read things and two things in the same book, you realize God means for us to understand something. In chapter 4, verse 8, we see the same thing. James is a short book, but here in chapter 4, verse 8, it says, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

What does that mean? It means look into your hearts, and the idols that you have there, the reliance on others that you have there. Clear them out. Let God be your only God. Look to Him. Follow Him. Live by every word that He speaks. Follow Him implicitly. Do it how He says. Do it when He says. Live by the words that produce life.

I'm not going to take the time to turn to Revelation 3, but you know the Laodicean church, the attitude that's in Laodicea.

It's a double-minded. It's a double-minded church.

They live in the world. They believe in God. They have the truth of God they've been called. But you see as you read through the Laodicean church, they're very involved in the world. They look to hear for this. They look to that for that. And what does God say in the final say to them? Purify your hearts. Refine yourselves with gold refined in the fire.

Get rid of all these things that are weighing you down, that are the dross, that are keeping you from what you are being. On the other hand, the Philadelphia church, that attitude that we also see in Revelation 3 is a church that keeps their fires lit.

They're single-minded on the purpose of God. They know what they've been called for, and they follow God implicitly, regardless of cost to self, regardless of what it means to them personally. They just follow God.

I guess the question to us is, do we want to be Philadelphians?

With that attitude that we see in the first part of Revelation 3, or the Laodiceans who God counsels, this isn't my way. This isn't the way to do things.

So let's just, for a moment, think about the Feast of Tabernacles that we just completed. You know, every year when we keep the Feast, I begin to realize that how we keep the Feasts of God is a good indication of our spiritual condition. Good indication of our spiritual condition.

You know, we keep the Passover. God says, examine yourselves ahead of time.

Look and see where you are. Prepare yourself for it. Don't come to Passover in the day before. Think, oh, I've got to kind of go through it. Yeah, yeah, I've judged myself okay and whatever.

Prepare yourself for it. When the days of unleavened bread come, get rid of that stuff in your house. Get rid of those things that symbolize the sin in your life that you're supposed to be doing year round and start eating the things, the unleavened bread of truth that is the Word of God.

The Feast of Tabernacles. When it comes, God says how He wants us to keep it, where He wants us to keep it, when He wants us to keep it. And it's something we prepare for year round. And God built that into the keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles. He said, keep this tithe so that you can go to the feast every year. It's not something we think of a month before we go. All year long, He said, you be looking forward to that Feast of Tabernacles so you can go where I place my mind. You get away from your homes. You go there where you have the fellowship. You go there and keep it the way I said, leaving the things behind. You prepare for it all year long. Every time you get a paycheck, you set something aside. It should always be in your mind.

And when you're there, enjoy. Be glad. Understand the fellowship. Understand the importance of being together with people of like mind during that time. It's a picture of God's kingdom.

It should be something we look forward to. If indeed we want what God wants, we do what He says. And when we do what He says, He says there will be great gladness.

So do we keep our second tithe all year?

Well, maybe now is the time to be thinking about next year's feast. Not waiting until April, when some announcements start coming out, but right now planning for next year's feast. Now beginning to plan, I will be there. If this year we waited until a month before and thought, where am I going to stay? What am I going to do? We didn't keep the feast, right? That's not the way God said do it. You know ahead of time. You prepare. You prepare. You keep that light burning. You keep it alive in your mind and be able to be there. Do we let the things of the world choke out what it is that God would have us do? Let's go back to Matthew 25. Matthew 25. Because again, the way we keep God's feast, His plan of salvation, the way we observe them, don't minimize it. It's a good indication of our spiritual condition. And it takes effort. It takes effort and commitment and preparing our hearts to do the things that God says to do. Chapter 25 verse 1, right on the after Christ talks about all the things that are going to happen between, you know, before the time of His coming. And in verse 1 and here in chapter 25, he gives a couple of parallels. The first one are about the 10 virgins. Chapter 25 verse 1, the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now we know the virgins. Those are the ones, those are the people who were called. Those are the people who were in the church. Okay? Those are the people who weren't defiled by women. They know the truth. They took their lamps, their lamps, right? They got their lights going. They took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. What does God say? Keep those lamps burning all the time. You've got to have the oil for the lamps. Not enough just to have the lamp. You've got to have the oil to keep it burning. That means you've got to be doing some things. You've got to be preparing your heart. You've got to think ahead. You've got to have God's way always in your mind. That you're doing the things that He said to do. Not letting it go away. Not letting the ways of the things of the world choke out what we're supposed to be doing. Those who were foolish took their lives, their lamps, but they took no oil with them. They let the oil go. Remember, as the congregation of Israel, they had to provide the oil for the lamps in the Old Testament time. We all have our part in this. But the wise did take oil in their vessels with their lamps. They were doing some things. They were sleeping. Things had gotten a little bit easy during this time of ease and peace. But the wise did take oil in their vessels with their lamps. They were still conscious of it. They were still preparing. They were still doing the things that they needed to do. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard. Behold, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet Him.

Then all of them woke up. Oh, this is what we've been waiting for. The bridegroom is coming. All the virgins arose. They heard those words and they trimmed their lamps.

But the foolish ones didn't have any oil. We haven't been doing the things of God. We've just kind of been letting life slip by. We got kind of lazy. We got kind of used to things not having any pressure on us. The foolish said to the wise, Well, give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out. Hey, I didn't prepare. You do it for me.

That's not the way of God. He says you prepare. You get ready. You do the things of God.

There's always assistance, but there's a difference between assistance and you do it all for me.

All the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, No. No, there should not be enough for us and you. But you go to those who sell, and you get that oil for yourselves.

We can't do it for each other. We can try, but the attitude has to come from within each of us. That we're preparing our hearts. We're committed to God. We're reminding ourselves daily who we are and what we need to be doing and living God's way, not just once in a while, not just when the cry comes, but day in and day out. That's preparing your heart. That's getting ready. That's getting ready for the return of Jesus Christ. He concludes. He concludes. You can read down. You know the rest of the verses. You can read later. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour, in which the Son of Man is coming. So as we are back from the Feast of Tabernacles, as we begin another year before the Feast of Tabernacles occurs again, six months until Passover in the days of Unleavened Bread, I would suggest that don't wait. Don't wait for three or four months to start examining yourselves. Don't let the experience of the Feast of Tabernacles escape you. Think about what you did and how you did it. Compare it to the words of God. If it doesn't compare, begin preparing the field that next year you're going to do it exactly the way God said.

Start now. Don't start six months from now. Start now and prepare your heart, seek God, and keep those fires continually burning.