King Hezekiah: A Call to Reform

Welcome this morning. I am so happy that we are able to join together for another Sunday of worship together. I spoke last week about a couple of sermon ideas that I had working and I am excited because we are going to start digging into one that I had been working on and was actually very intrigued by this study of one of the Kings of Judah from the Old Testament. This morning and for the next couple weeks we will be looking at King Hezekiah and his reign as a King of Judah.

Who was King Hezekiah?

So who was King Hezekiah. I think this is an important question we must ask ourselves if we are to begin looking at his life as a leader of the Kingdom of Judah.

Some Basic History

Hezekiah was 25 years old when he took the throne.

He was the first King to be compared to King David

He reigned for 29 years

He was the Son of a King Ahaz

His Father Closed up the temple and worshiped Idols

These are some key points that help us to begin to look at the character of King Hezekiah. I can’t imagine leading a country at that age let alone taking over after your father has turned against God. He was in for some challenging times and some tough choices even in his first couple years. Let’s look this morning at the first choices of Hezekiah as he took over the leadership of the Kingdom of Judah.

2 Chronicles 29:1–11 NIV

Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them. He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.”

Hezekiah’s Changes

One the first things that Hezekiah did was he started to correct the wrongs of his Father. To give some some background King Ahaz decided to walk in ways of the Kings of Israel who had been casting idols and worshiping the Baals. Because of this God handed him over to other Kings and rulers and he suffered because of his unfaithfulness to God.

Even in his unfaithfulness and struggles he continued to be even more unfaithful to God.

2 Chronicles 28:22–25 NIV

In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.” But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel. Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the temple of God and cut them in pieces. He shut the doors of the Lord’s temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and aroused the anger of the Lord, the God of his ancestors.

This was the kingdom that Hezekiah inherited. This is the Kingdom that Hezekiah had to change. From the very beginning Hezekiah enacted change.

2 Chronicles 29:3 NIV

In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them.

Verse three shows us that he was quick to enact change. To help give some time frame. The wording of this verse allows us to know that he made these changes on the first month of His first official year. That year would have been at passover is a fitting time to call the people back to change and to honoring God.

This change is still remarkably quick and is powerful in helping us understand that Hezekiah knew that errors that his Father had been making and he did not want to repeat them. He was not the same man his Father was. He was going to be a king that was different.

His First Act of Reformation: Open the Doors

Hezekiah knew that his first act had to be to restore access to the center of worship for the Kingdom. He knew that it was essential to return to honoring God. This isn’t possible if the doors remain closed. This first act returns the people to connect with God and was the first step into a new status as a Kingdom.

He Assembled the People

He gathered together the priests and the Levites to begin the work of reclaiming and restoring the Kingdom back to what it was supposed to be. Hezekiah knew that this was not a task that he alone could do.

The significance in V. 4 to the fact that he gathered them into the east square is that it was probably the front of the temple and from there the Levites and the Priests could see the temple’s uncleanness for themselves. Imagine for a moment standing there in front of the temple and looking in and seeing the state off the place that was supposed to honor God. It is dirty, defiled, and far removed from being the Holy place that it was supposed to be. Knowing all this and seeing this that you as a priest or Levite were charged as a people to keep and maintain this place in Honor of God. I imagine the truth landed home hard and it was a time to be challenged to step up.

Hezekiah’s speech

2 Chronicles 29:5–11 NIV

and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.”

Hezekiah was making some bold and powerful statements in this passage of Scripture. He was calling for a total transformation of the kingdom and the people. He does this through three main ideas.

The Priests and Levites are to consecrate themselves and the Temple

The People had been unfaithful, turning their backs instead of their faces to God

He acknowledges to reject God is to arouse his Anger

The Consecration

Hezekiah knew that the first step of moving forward was to restore not only the temple but the leaders of the temple. He knew that these men had to be commited to following after God if any of this was to work. He called on them to change and restore the temple and to change and restore themselves. He called on them to make themselves Holy again set apart for God’s service. This is an absolutely essential step in returning to worship of God.

Unfaithful People

This was an example of the King calling out the people not only of the current generation but the previous as well. They were guilty of not keeping their focus on God. They were complacent in accepting the practices and rejection of God. This has to stop. While the Priests need to be consecrated the people must also turn from their ways and their past and recommit themselves to God.

Can’t reject God

This last point we look to from Hezekiah is that the Anger of God does not have to come down on us despite past decisions if we correct the path we are currently on. Hezekiah knows the path of the continued rejection of God will lead to further punishment and is not a road he wants to go down. He knows that they must turn from it because we have to always remember that God is still a God of justice and that punishment will happen for those who reject him.

This also lines up with our NT principles that we can received salvation.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 NIV

For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:9 NIV

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

1 Thessalonians 1:10 NIV

and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

This truths tht we know that we do not need to suffer the punishment from God if we show true repentance from our sins and turn our lives toward God.

Final Insights

When we look at this story and the final three points that Hezekiah is making we see a profound statement and movement to changing the direction of the Kingdom of Judah. Hezekiah was committed to making this change and that is seen in his covenant that he plans to make with God. He knew that the people had to change.

I was thinking about this a lot as i pondered what this passage had for us today. I think about the church today and where we are at. In many ways we see that the church in some ways has closed the doors and we have denied access to the house of God. This has happned in our attitude toward people who may not know Jesus or may not be who we expect or want in our gathering of believers. Too often we hear of stories of the Church pushing people away. Too often we hear stories of how the church has failed and fallen short. This falls on the Pastors and leaders of the church. This is where we must take a calling from Hezekiah and be called to reconsecrate and commit the church to be a Holy place and fling the doors open and clean up our houses. This is the start this is where we must begin.

Now connected to this idea of the church falling short of being what the church needs to be we also have many people especially in my generation who are leaving the church because the church is falling short. The church doesn’t match up with what Jesus was teaching. In many ways that is an accurate criticism. At times the church doesn’t always seem to be living up to what it should be. I find this criticism interesting though because the response to leave also does not line up with Jesus’ ministry. Jesus would be instead calling for change. Challenging and working to correct those that are wrong. Jesus regularly spent time challenging the pharisees, trying to teach the pharisees. He didn’t just leave he pushed people to be better. He also gave grace to others. Even in their sin he provided opportunity to repent and turn from what they were doing. This rejection of the church needs to stop because what we are often seeing is Christianity without the fellowship of believers. I would challenge many of you that this is an incomplete understanding of what it is to be a Christ follower.

We are called to be working together with the rest of the body because without the other parts of the body we are incomplete. We may not always agree we may not always see things from the perspective of others, but we must learn to work together to better serve the Kingdom of God. This movement to reject everything is contrary to love Jesus Christ. We need this more than ever to remember that Jesus sought to maintain the role and importance of the temple (the church) that in his death the doors were flung wide open and we were called to welcome others.

Let’s pray