Episode Transcript
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Well, let's turn in God's word. Now to second chronicles, second chronicles
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chapter thirty. Here we are continuing
in Longish section, at least compared to
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some of the other accounts of the
Kings, about Hezekiah, the reforms that
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he was enacting and the things that
were going on in Israel during this time.
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Second Chronicles, Chapter Thirty, let
us hear the word of the Lord.
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Hezekias sent to all Israel and Judah
and wrote letters also to Ephra him
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and Manassa, that they should come
to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem
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to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel. For the
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king and his princes and all the
assembly assembly in Jerusalem had taken counsel to
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keep the Passover in the second month, for they could not keep it at
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that time because the priests had not
consecrated themselves in sufficient number, nor had
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the people ascendled assembled in Jerusalem,
and the planned seemed right to the king
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and all the assembly. So they
decided to make a proclamation throughout all Israel,
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from Beersheba to Dan, that the
people should come and keep the Passover
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to the Lord, the God of
Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had
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not kept it as often as prescribed. So couriers went throughout all Israel and
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Judah with letters from the king and
his princes, as the king had commanded,
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saying o people of Israel, return
to the Lord, the God of
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Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that
he may turn again to the remnant of
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you who have escaped from the hand
of the Kings of Assyria. Do not
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be like your father's and your brothers, who were faithless to the Lord,
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a god of their fathers, so
that he made them a desolation. As
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you see. Do not now be
stiff necked as your fathers were, but
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yield yourselves to the Lord and come
to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated
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forever, and serve the Lord,
your God, that his fierce anger may
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turn away from you. For if
you return to the Lord, your brothers
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and your children will find compassion with
their captors and return to this land,
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for the Lord, your God,
is gracious and merciful and will not turn
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away his face from you if you
return to him. So the couriers went
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from city to city, through the
country of Ephraim and Manassa and as far
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as Zebulum, but they laughed them
but they laughed them to scorn and mocked
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them. However, some men of
Asher and of Manassa and of zebulen humbled
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themselves and came to Jerusalem. The
hand of God was also on Judah to
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give them one heart to do what
the king and the princes commanded by the
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word of the Lord, and many
people came together in Jerusalem to keep the
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feast of the unloven bread in the
second month, a very great assembly.
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They set to work and removed the
altars that were in Jerusalem, and all
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the altars for burning incense they took
away and threw into the Kidron valley,
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and they slaughtered the Passover lamb on
the fourteenth day of the second month,
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and the priests and the Levites were
ashamed so that they consecrated themselves and brought
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burnt offerings into the House of the
Lord. They took their accustomed posts according
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to the law of Moses, the
man of God. The priests through the
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blood that Ray received from the hands
of the Levites, for there were many
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in the assembly who had not consecrated
themselves. Therefore, the Levites had to
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slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who
was not clean to consecrate it to the
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Lord. For a majority of the
people, many of them from Ephraim,
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Manassa, Isakar and Zebulen, had
not cleansed themselves yet. They ate the
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Passover otherwise than prescribed, for Hezekaiah
had prayed for them, saying may the
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good Lord to part in every one
who sets his heart to seek God,
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the Lord, the God of his
fathers, even though not according to the
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sanctuaries, rules of cle of cleanness, cleanness. And the Lord Heard Hezekiah
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and healed the people. And the
people of Israel who were present at Jerusalem
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kept the Feast of unlove and bread
seven days with great gladness, and the
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Levites and the priests played it praised
the Lord Day by day, singing with
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all their might to the Lord,
and Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites
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who showed good skill in the service
of the Lord. So they ate the
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food of the festival for seven days, sacrificing peace offerings and giving thanks to
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the Lord, the God of their
fathers. Then the whole assembly agreed together
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to keep the feast for another seven
days. So they kept it for another
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seven days with gladness for Hezekiah,
King of Judah, gave the Assembly a
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thousand Bulls and seven thousand sheep for
offerings, and the princes gave the Assembly
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a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep, and the priests consecrated themselves in great
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numbers. The whole Assembly of Judah
and the priests and the Levites and the
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whole Assembly that came out of Israel
and the sojourners who came out of the
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land of Israel and the sojourners who
lived in Israel or in Judah rejoiced.
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So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon,
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the son of David, King of
Israel, there had been nothing like this
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since Jerusalem. Then the priests and
the Levites arose and blessed the people and
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their voice was heard and their prayer
came to his holy habitation in heaven.
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May God bless his word to us. When we think about the reformation,
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the reformation of the sixteen and seventeen
centuries, as we do during this anniversary,
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the five hundred anniversary of the reformation, we often think about doctrinal reform,
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but just as central to the concerns
of the reformers was the reform of
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worship, because these two things,
doctrine and worship, or faith and practice,
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they are always linked. We learn
our doctrine through our liturgy just as
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much as we learn our liturgy through
our doctrine. And now it's also true
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that when one becomes polluted, so
also the other. Tonight we think about
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another reformation that was happening in Israel
under King Hezekiah, doctrine and life coming
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together, worship and theology in one. We see this reformation happening in the
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people of Israel. We see it
an action and in particular, we see
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in this chapter what happens when God's
people come together for true, God centered,
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God directed worship. I want to
look at this in three parts tonight.
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First, thinking about what it was
they were coming together for. A
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second, how they came together and
then, finally, the effects of their
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coming together. So first, what
they came together for. We read in
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the very first verse that Hezekiah called
all of Israel to come to Jerusalem to
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celebrate two things, two things which
overlap, that is, the Passover and
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the Feast of unleavened bread. As
we read in the chapter and as we
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know from other places in scripture.
The feast of Unblood, of unleavened bread,
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was a week long festival. Now, normally it would happen in the
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first month of the year, and
here it's happening in the second. Well,
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I'll come back to that in a
moment. But what we see here
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is this, this festival. It
was a festival in which people would remove
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all the leaven from their home and
eat and celebrate using only unlovend bread.
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Now, the reason for this,
we know, is not agricultural and there's
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nothing about farming that demanded this feast. In particular, it was a historic
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feast, based on history, of
Feast based on theology. Eating unloven bread
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was about symbolizing the eating quickly and
getting out of dodge that Israel had to
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do when they left Egypt. You
remember that when God brought them out of
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Egypt, he told them to leave
in a hurry, they had to gather
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their things, they had to be
ready, and he told them to eat
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that night with unloven bread. And
this began, or this feast of the
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unloven bread begins, with the Passover, which was also, I'm celebrated that
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night, the night when Israel was
saved from death and Egypt was judged in
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order that God's people might be freed
and Egypt might be condemned. The continual
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presence of this and other feast served
than as a reminder. In Israel,
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these things a continual reminder of their
origins, their beginnings, their story.
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In the Feast of the unloven bread, they were reminded, and in Passover
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they were reminded that they were constituted
as a people of God, not by
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their own might, but only by
the electing and saving and powerful love of
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God. A celebration of the Passover
was a celebration of God's work in their
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lives. They didn't come out of
Egypt because they rose up conquered at Pharaoh
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and left. They were under slavery
ever, every single moment until God finally
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opened up the gates and let them
go through his pressure on Pharaoh that night
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when they were when all of Egypt
was mourning. Is the firstborn child of
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every home that was not covered by
the blood, the sacrificial blood of the
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lamb is. All of these sons
died and as all of Israel sons were
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saved, people were minded of God's
salvation for them. They came out of
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Egypt with joy and with plunder and
with with energy because of what God had
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done. The pass over then and
the Feast of the uneleven bread, this
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breaking of time to rest and celebrate
was a celebration of his forgiveness, of
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his salvation in the feast of the
unloven bread. They came together not to
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celebrate their achievements, their unity or
their strength, but his. They were
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a great people because God is a
great God. That's what they were coming
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together for. Now let's consider how
they came together. One of the things
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that's emphasized very strongly in this chapter
is the unity that they have here.
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Since the time of Solomon, the
kingdom had been divided for many, many
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chapters. I'm not sure how many
months it's been since we were back at
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Solomon M I have no idea.
A long time, in the chroniclers chronicling
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of this, Israel has been a
by word for evil. Israel has been
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the the word that describes the wicked, even Pagan nation to the north that
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Judah should have nothing to do with. Over and over and over again we've
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seen that, as the kings of
Judah and the people of Judah have mixed
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with the people of Israel. Tragedy
has happened, destruction, poverty, exile
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and worse. But now Hezekiah is
sending letters to Israel and saying come home,
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let's be reunited as one people.
What's the difference? Why? Is
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Israel all of a sudden a good
thing, an important thing, in part
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of the plan again? Well,
in the call to Israel we have a
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very different Callan we've seen in the
other kings. As the other kings allied
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themselves with Israel, they were allowing
themselves with allying themselves or creating allegiances with
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Israel in their paganism and their worship
of false gods and their idolatry and their
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hope of other kings and Princes to
save them. not this time. This
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time Israel is Judah's being united them
through the worship of Jehova, of Yahway,
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they are calling Israel not so that
they can go and join them in
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Israel strength, but so that Israel
can reunite with Judah in God's strength.
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They don't want to meet together to
form some kind of alliance that they might
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be strong over some pagan king or
another. No, they want an alliance
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so that they can be unified under
the king of Kings, under the Lord
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of Lords, Hezekiah. We read
in verse one sent to all Israel and
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Judah. He even wrote letters to
Efre him and Manassa and that they should
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come to the house of the Lord
at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to the
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Lord, the God of Israel.
This here, in verse one, and
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in many other places we see this
unity emphasized. So, for example,
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in the next verse we see that
the King and his princes and all the
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assembly and Jerusalem had taken counsel together
to keep the Passover in the second month.
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Then we have in verse five,
for example, this is emphasized.
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So they decreed to make a proclamation
throughout all Israel, from the south to
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the north, from Bersheba to Dan, that the people should come and keep
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the pass over to the Lord.
Then again in verse ten. So the
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couriers went from these a city throughout
the country of Efreman Manassa as far as
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zebulen. That over and over at
the emphasis is on the extent of this.
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If you went back and looked at
these phrases, how they're used in
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other times. They're often taught,
they're often used for these geographic terms are
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often used in a strit of expansive
way to show the unity of the kingdom,
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the strength of the Kingdom. A
similar thing is going on here as
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well. Again, read in Verse
Twenty Three that after the worship of these
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seven days, the whole Assembly agrees
to keep the fast for another seven days,
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keep the party going. This is
great. And notice that they don't
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do it because the king is being
burdensome to them. Right, one of
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the frustrations that people had under Rome
in the Middle Ages was that there are
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all these feasts and festivals constantly going
on, sort of when am I supposed
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to work? Right, you're constantly
telling me I have to be a church,
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be a church, be a church, and when am I supposed to
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do my job? How can I
earn my money? But here we don't
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see that sort of problem in the
people know it's not the king imposing this
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or commanding something above and beyond scripture
which all of a sudden everyone's obligated to
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know. The whole Assembly agrees together. Let's keep worshiping. This is great,
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and they do it. We even
see the way that the rulers are
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not imposing this, but encouraging it
and blessing it. In Verse Twenty Four,
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has a Kayah, King of Judah, gave the Assembly a thousand bulls
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seven thousand sheep for offerings, and
the princes gave a thousand bulls and tenzero
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sheep. They're keeping it going,
they're keeping the lights on, they're allowing
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the celebration to continue. But back
to the point about unity. Now Notice
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Verse Twenty Five. This verse is
so remarkable. The whole Assembly of Judah
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and the priests and the Levites and
the whole Assembly that came out of Israel,
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and get this, and the sojourners
who came out of the land of
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Israel and the sojourners who came are
sorry, who lived in Judah, rejoiced.
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Not only do you have the people
of Judah celebrating and the people of
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Israel celebrating and also the Levites and
the priests and the princes and and King
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has a Kai himself, but even
the sojourners in the land, people that
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had decided, hey, I'm a
canaanite, I am a from some other
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country, but, you know what, I'd like to live in Israel.
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People would have had all kinds of
reasons for that. But here we see
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them, the strangers, the people
that lived among them, they also are
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rejoicing and celebrating, in the midst
of all this amazing thing going on here,
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the unity that is expressed here verse
twelve, with One Heart, we
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read. With one heart they were
coming together. The hand of God was
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also on Judah to give them one
heart to do with the king and the
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princes had commanded by the word of
the Lord. So that's how they were
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coming together, in this amazing unified
way, a unity that they had not
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seen for a long time, a
unity that extended even to the Non Jews,
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even to the gentiles that were living
among them. The second way we
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see them coming together is, as
I just read, under the word of
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God. They did this because of
God, because of his commands. We
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read that had been a long time
since they'd had done what they ought to
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do. It had been a long
time since they'd celebrated the Passover, since
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they'd celebrated the Feast of the unloven
bread. Now there seems to be some
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sort of problem with keeping it on
the day that was prescribed, on the
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first day of the month. But
notice how there's this application of God's word
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in the in the Pentituch, in
the Old Testament, there are there's a
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prescription and says if you for those
who come into contact with a dead body
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and are unclean and unable to keep
the feast during the first month, well
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you could keep it in the second
month. This is this sort of gracious
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provision so that those who perhaps were
not able, maybe your father or your
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mother had just died, you wouldn't
have to wait a whole another year to
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celebrate the Passover. You could observe
it in the second month. King has
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a Kaiah takes this rule and applies
it in a in a good and and
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broader way. He recognizes this situation, that a lot of people are unclean,
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that this feast needs to happen and
yet they're not ready for it,
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they can't do it, and so
they decide to help hold it in the
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second month as an application of this
principle. It's a good reminder that God's
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Word is not meant to be read
in an overly rigid way, but to
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requires wisdom in its application. Well, here that's what they do. They
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even recognize a to an extent,
and not only that, but that there's
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a problem with the priests and other
people that were taking it even then in
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the second month, who were unclean
we read this in the eight verse eighteen.
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A majority of the people had not
cleansed themselves. Yet they ate the
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Passover otherwise than prescribed. Notice that
there's this very special attention that worship here
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is done according to the word of
God and they're seeing that there is a
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problem here and that people are eating
the Passover in a way that is not
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prescribed. However, Hez a Kiah
recognizes a basic principle that sometimes some things
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over rule others, and he goes
to the Lord and he prays for them,
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saying, may the good Lord Pardon
everyone who sets his heart to seek
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God, the Lord, the God
of his fathers, even though not according
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to the sanctuaries rule of cleanness.
This is fascinating. Hezekiah recognizes that they're
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breaking the rules, they're breaking the
ceremonial requirements of the law, and yet
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at the same time he recognizes that
God is good and gracious and what he
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ultimately desires is not a bunch of
rule keeping, though of course that's important
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and that's why Hez a Kiah praise, but what he desires is people to
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set his heart, to set their
hearts on seeking the Lord, and that's
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what they've done. These are not
people have said Ah, whatever, with
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the rules, I'm going to do
what I want. They're saying, I
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want to worship the Lord, but
there is a problem and I don't know
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what to do. Sometimes in life
we find ourselves in these difficult ethical circumstances
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or we have to seemingly competing rules
and it's difficult to figure out what to
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do. Here has a KIA rightly
seize them and says that they ought to
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still worship the lord, but he
also goes to the Lord and asks for
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pardon. He asked that the God, that God, would pardon them.
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I'm even though they are breaking this
rule. Why? Because their heart is
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in the right place. They're wanting
to do the right thing, and God
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answers this prayer. The Lord heard
has a Kiah and healed his people.
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He he forgives them, and that
reminds us of the third thing. Not
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only are they coming together, and
I'm coming together very precisely and carefully and
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thoughtfully, under the word of the
Lord, as he has prescribed, but
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they're also coming under his grace.
They're coming under his grace. Even as
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they're trying to get the logistics of
all working out. We see them praying
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for grace, praying for forgiveness.
What worship service have you ever been to
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that was perfect? What worship service
have you ever been to where your heart
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was totally given over to the Lord, where there wasn't any coldness or sleepiness
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or distr actedness? None. We
all have problems in the logistics of our
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worship, in the heart of our
worship, where our minds are at.
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We don't come to God and prove
ourselves or the greatness of following his rules.
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Now we come to God because of
His grace. We come under the
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banner of His grace, under his
forgiveness, still seeking to do everything he
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has called us to do, but
knowing that that's not the basis, or
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there are are the reason why we
do things or our justification for being able
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to do them. No, we
come under the grace of God. We
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see this not only in Hezekiah's prayer, but we also see it in the
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celebration of the Passover itself, of
the Feast of the unloven bread. They
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are celebrating the grace of God in
constituting them as a people and bringing them
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out of slavery and bondage into freedom
and new life and joy and celebration.
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Even as Hezekiah commands them, he
is commanding a kind of turning. You
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remember that language, turning, turning, turning, he says. He says,
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do not now be a stiff necked
people, as your father's were.
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I don't know for sure if these
are meant exactly to be connected. This
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idea, this language of turning or
returning to the Lord and being stiffed next.
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So I don't want to be overly, don't press this point too much,
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but it seems to me at least
that at least it's very difficult to
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turn if your neck is stiff,
that there's a kind of overlap in this
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imagery. Here he's calling them to
turn and to return, to turn around,
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to move yourself in another direction,
but this imagery of stiff neckedness shows
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the difficulty of turning. You know, and your neckers. What do you
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do? You can let's awkward and
weird when you try and move around.
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Don't be stiff necked, he says. Turn to the Lord, that God's
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fears anger may turn to you.
How are they to turn to the Lord?
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Do they turn to him in their
great confidence? And Wow, isn't
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an impressive that we're all worshiping together? Isn't it impressive that we're worshiping at
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Jerusalem? Is it impressive how we
have followed all your rules and commandments?
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No, they turn and they return
to the Lord, not being stiff necked
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under his grace, celebrating his Passover, celebrating the Feast of unloven bread,
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covering everything that they do in prayer. Listen to what he says in verse
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nine. He says, for if
you return to the Lord, your brothers
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and your children will find not justice
but compassion with their captors and return to
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this land that compassion that they are
hoping will have, that their captors will
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have, people who are still in
exile, still who are not in Israel.
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That's based on the compassion of God, for, as he goes on
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to say, for the Lord,
your God, is gracious and merciful and
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will not turn away his face from
you if you return to him. Notice
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also the order of this. It's
not saying that God will turn his face
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to you if you turn your face
to him. It says, God will
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not turn away his face from you
when you or if you return to him.
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God has already acted, God is
already set up. King has a
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Kiah, who is working strongly,
who's calling for reform, who's sending out
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the word of God, to come
home, to return both literally to Jerusalem,
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but also into something more than that, to a place that is greater,
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for that, greater than that,
as we read at the end of
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this chapter, than the priests and
the Levite the Rose and bless the people
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in their voice was heard and their
prayer came to his holy Habitation in heaven.
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They come to the House of the
Lord. They come to Jerusalem because
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this is the place where God has
said to especially dwell in his people.
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And yet just as solemn and recognized
at the dedication of the temple, that
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the Lord is not contained in this
house, unlike all of their pagan idols
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and pagan and false gods, the
Lord sits far above the earth and the
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heavenly places. He rules supreme,
and this is how they were coming to
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God, to that God, to
their covenant Lord and King, and coming
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to Jerusalem. They were recognizing his
grace, they're recognizing his strength they were
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remembering his promises to them as a
unified people under Abraham, under Isaac,
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under it doesn't say Jacob, Israel, because they were this people and consecrated
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people from constituted by his covenant promises. That's why they came and that's why
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the effect of all of these things
was so wonderful. This is my third
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point. What was the effect of
their coming together, under his forgiveness,
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under God's salvation, to worship and
celebrate? Well, two things. One
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is joy, as we read in
twenty three, when they decided to extend
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the festival for another seven days,
they did it with gladness. They did
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it with joy. We read in
Verse Twenty Six. There was so there
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was great joy in Jerusalem, for
since the time of Solomon, the son
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of David, King of Israel,
there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.
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They're standing around looking at the thousands
of people there, looking at the
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thousands of sacrifices that are being offered, the smoke going up from the temple,
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and they're going wow, God hasn't
done anything like this in a long
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time. Blessed be the name of
the Lord, Praise Him, have joy
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in him. The Levites and the
priest leading this whole Assembly with joy and
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rejoicing, we read in Verse Twenty
Five. The other thing that we see
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happening is not only were their hearts
filled with joy as they were coming together
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under the grace of God, but
their hearts were also filled with zeal.
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With zeal we see it first in
this chapter, is the preparations are being
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made for all of this. They
go out and as they come together,
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they decide. In verse fourteen,
we read that they set to work and
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remove the altars that were in Jerusalem
and all the altars for burning incense they
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took away and throw them into the
valley. Kid drawn. Be Embarrassing,
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right to come on it to the
worship of the Lord and see all the
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idols kind of sitting around and the
false altars and the places where you used
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to be burning incense. We better
get rid of those, they think,
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and rightly so. See a similar
thing when the Ephesians came to Christ they
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went and burned all their magic books. They said this is we've nothing to
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do with this anymore. They were
turned to the Lord and it manifested in
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this kind of zeal. This will
happen again in the next chapter. Verse
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One of Chapter Thirty One. Now, when all this was finished, all
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Israel who were present went out to
the cities of Judas. So they move
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now outward from Jerusalem, where this
work had been done, and now they
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break in pieces the pillars, cut
down the ashtream and broke down the high
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places and the altars throughout all Judah
and Benjamin and Efre him and Manassa,
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until they had destroyed them all.
Then all the people of Israel returned to
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their cities, every man to his
possession. Under this King, God is
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placed on his throne. We see
a great picture of Christ. We see
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a king who was established by God
in accord with the promises that he had
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made to David. But one day
a king would sit on the throne and
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would rule over the people in Glory, in victory, in true worship.
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Has a Chi would not ultimately be
that king, as we will come to
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see, but all of the rejoicing, all of this zeal, all of
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the true worship the banner of God's
grace. If this is amazing to you,
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then stand in awe and wonder at
Jesus Christ, the son of David,
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who has come and established something even
greater God has called, just as
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one example, not only to places
as far as Bearsheba and Dan, but
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even two places, as far as
Tucson. He sent his word out into
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the world and has people coming home
to him. Even greater than that,
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we need not go to all the
way to Jerusalem to come and worship him,
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but he pours out his spirit everywhere
into the world. In this great
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manifestation and work of God. He
makes us the temple and fills US and
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dwells in us so that when we
come to Jesus, we are established in
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him. We worship with we worship
him in one heart, rejoicing and filled
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with joy with the proclamation of Jesus
Christ, who is the new Israel,
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who is the new temple? Who
is, Paul says, our Passover lamb,
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the one whose blood was shed so
that God would pass over our sins,
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so that we would be rescued out
of the sin and bondage, not
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just of the world, the tyrants
of this world, which one day we
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will be fully but over sin itself
and death and slavery forever. God is
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establishing a kingdom here and now that
reaches into all the kingdoms of this world,
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and one day will be manifest in
perfect glory, where every tongue and
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tribe and nation worships under King Jesus
forever and ever. And that's all accomplished
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because Jesus is not just a great
ruler, like Hezekiah was, but he
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is God himself, who saves us
by his mighty hand and as outstretched harm
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as he died for us on the
Cross and rose again in victory. I
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hope the applications for this are obvious
to you. We two ought to join
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together to worship God, not false
idols, not the things of our own
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making, not the princes and leaders
and rulers and powers of this world,
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but God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God
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of Israel, the God of our
fathers. And, like Israel, we
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ought to join together not to celebrate
our own accomplishments, but God's. Think
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about this. Isn't it true that
even our act of coming together on just
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a week by week basis, just
the fact that we all make it here
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in one piece, is an act
of God's grace? How many things might
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have prevented you from being here today, not just on the drive here,
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but over the course of your whole
life. Who of us cannot point to
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event after event after event where we
say Christ was my Passover and he has
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rescued me and brought me here?
We think about how many times these events
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and second chronicles. Thirty did not
happen in his reel. How did this
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happen? Didn't happen because they were
great, because God was great. Likewise,
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we ought to recognize that, just
as our arriving here as an act
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of God's mercy and grace, so
also our existence as a people, as
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a family of God, our salvation, our forgiveness, our unity of Christ,
402
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all of it exists because he does, because he does, he acts,
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he works. In light of that, let our response not be any
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less than theirs. Let us be
filled with joy, let us be filled
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00:37:08.360 --> 00:37:14.639
with zeal, let's cut down the
Ashream in our lives. Let's walk into
406
00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:20.829
the world with holiness and a desire
to please and serve God alone. Let's
407
00:37:20.909 --> 00:37:25.190
not be stiff necked, but when
our hearts prick us and our consciences prick
408
00:37:25.230 --> 00:37:30.780
us and we see things in our
lives that ought not to be let's turn
409
00:37:30.820 --> 00:37:36.860
away from them again and again and
again. Let's always turn away from them
410
00:37:37.739 --> 00:37:45.929
and Unto Jehovah, the God of
our fathers, our savior. Let us
411
00:37:45.929 -->
pray
