Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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He may be seated. Well,
let's continue our reading in second chronicles.
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Were in second chronicles twenty nine,
coming to a high point in the book
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and also coming to the end.
Second Chronicles Twenty nine begins several chapters on
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King Hezekiah's reign. Let's hear God's
word now and believe. Hezekiah began to
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reign when he was twenty five years
old and he reigned twenty nine years in
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Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah, and he
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did what was right in the eyes
of the Lord, according to all that
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David, his father had done.
In the first year of his reign,
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in the first month, he opened
the doors of the House of the Lord
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and repaired them. He brought in
the priests and the Levites and assembled them
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in the square on the east and
said to them, hear me, Levites,
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now consecrate yourselves and consecrate the House
of the Lord, the God of
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your father's and carry out the filth
from this holy place, for our fathers
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have been unfaithful and have done what
is evil. Were what was evil in
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the side of the Lord, our
God. They have forsaken him and have
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turned away their faces from the habitation
of the Lord and turned their backs.
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They also shut the doors of the
vestibule and put out the lamps and have
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not burned incense or offered burnt offerings
in the holy place to the God of
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Israel. Therefore, the wrath of
God came upon Judah and Jerusalem and he
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has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, of hissing, as
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you see with your own eyes.
For behold, our fathers have fallen by
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the sword, and our sons and
our daughters and our wives are in captivity.
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For this. Now it is in
my heart to make a covenant with
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the Lord, the God of Israel, in order that his fierce anger may
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turn away from us. My sons
do not know. Do not now be
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negligent, for the Lord has chosen
you to stand in his presence, to
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Minister to him and to be his
ministers and make offerings to him. Then
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the Levites arose, Maha Ma F, the son of Amasai, and Joel,
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the son of Azariah, and the
sons of the Koothites and the sons
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of Mayor Mirari Kiss, the son
of Abdi, and Azariah, the son
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of Jalahillel, and the Gershenots,
Gershenites, Joah, the son of Zimma
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and Eden, the son of Joah, and the sons of Ellis, Fawn,
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Shimri and Jetouel, and the sons
of Asath Zechariah and Matania, and
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the sons of Heman, Jehuel and
Shemai and the sons of Jedathan and Sheemi,
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Shemiah and Uziel. They gathered their
brothers and consecrated themselves and went in,
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as the king had commanded by the
words of the Lord, to cleanse
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the House of the Lord. The
priests went into the Inter inner part of
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the House of the Lord to cleanse
it, and they brought out all the
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uncleanliness that they found in the temple
of the Lord into the Court of the
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House of the Lord and the Levites
took it and carried it out to the
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Brook Kidron. They began to consecrate
on the first month, day of the
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first month, and on the eighth
day of the month they came to the
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vestibule of the Lord. Then for
eight days they consecrated the House of the
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Lord and on the Sixteen Day of
the first month they finished. Then they
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went into Hezekiah, the king,
and said we have cleansed all the house
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of the Lord, the altar of
burnt offering and all its utensils, and
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the table for the showbread and all
its utensils, all the utensils the king
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a has discarded in his reign when
he was faithless, we have made ready
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and consecrated and behold they are before
the altar of the Lord. Then Hezekiah,
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the king, rose early and gathered
the officials of the city and went
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up to the House of the Lord
and they brought seven bulls, seven rams,
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seven lambs and seven male Gos for
a sin offering for the kingdom and
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for the sanctuary and for Judah.
And he commanded the priests, the sons
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of Aaron, to offer them on
the altar of the Lord. So they
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slaughtered the Bulls and the priests received
the blood and threw it against the altar,
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and they slatted the rams and their
blood was thrown against the altar,
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and they slaughtered the lambs and their
blood was thrown against the altar. Then
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the goats for the sin offering were
brought to the king and the assembly and
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they laid their hands on them and
the priest slaughtered them and made a sin
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offering with their blood on the altar
to make atonement for all Israel. For
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the king commanded that the burnt offering
and the sin offering should be made for
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all Israel, and he stationed the
Levites in the House of the Lord with
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Symbols Harps and liars, according to
the commandment of David and of Gad,
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the king's Sear, and of Nathan, the Prophet, for the commandment was
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from the Lord through his prophets.
The Levites stood with the instruments of David
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and the priests with the trumpets.
Then has a Kaiah commanded that the burnt
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offerings be offered on the altar.
And when the all and when the burnt
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offering began, the song to the
Lord began also, and the trumpets,
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accompanied by the instruments of David,
King of Israel. The whole assembly worshiped
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and all the singers sang and the
trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the
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burnt offering was finished. When the
offering was finished, the king and all
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who were present with him bowed themselves
and worshiped and has a high of the
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king and the officials commanded the Levites
to sing praises to the Lord with the
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words of David and of Asaf the
seer, and they saying praises with gladness
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and they bowed down and worshiped.
Then Hezekiah said, you have now consecrated
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yourselves to the Lord. Come near, bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the
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House of the Lord. And the
assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and
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all who were of a willing heart
brought burnt offerings. The number of the
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burnt offerings that the assembly brought was
seventy bulls, a hundred rams and two
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hundred lambs. All these were for
a burnt offering to the Lord. And
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the consecrated offerings were six hundred bulls
and three thousand sheep. But the priests
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were too few and could not flay
all the burnt offerings. So until other
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priests had consecrated themselves, their brothers, the levites, helped them until the
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work was finished, for the Levites
were more upright in heart than the priests
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in consecrating themselves. Besides the great
number of burnt offerings, there was the
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fat of the peace offerings and there
were the drink offerings for the burnt offerings.
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Thus the service of the House of
God, or how the House of
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the Lord was restored and Hezekiah and
all the people rejoiced because God had provided
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for the people, for the thing
came about. Suddenly, my God,
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plesses were to us. Well,
has a kioh certainly a remarkable young man.
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By his age, today he would
be a millennial. What chiefly characterizes
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him, though, is not his
age, but his actions. They are
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summarized in verse two, where it
says that he did what was right in
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the eyes of the Lord, according
to all that David, his father,
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had done. Hezekiah lived his life
not for the sake of power, the
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sake of honor or for his flesh. Well, he did, he did
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for the Lord, and if you
want to understand that, just consider the
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actions of his father, David.
In many ways, the work of David
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and also of Solomon to come here
together in second chronicles twenty nine, in
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this son of their's, a grandson
of several generations King Hezekiah, we see
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many, many details in which he
is a leading the way. Notice how
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often David's name comes up, not
only here in verse two, but when
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it mentions David songs, David's instruments, of the preparations David made according to
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David's instructions. Here we are perhaps
gaining a little bit of hope, and
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as we read in the story,
that God is going to provide a son
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of David after all to sit on
the throne and establish rule in Israel.
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This was a very good thing,
because after this is following a very evil
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king. I'm it says here that
David was his father, has a Kai
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did according to all that David his
father had done, but this is used
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in the broad or general way that
genealogy sometimes use this language. His most
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direct father was a has, and
they has was most recently the part of
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all of Israel's troubles. Hez A
KIAH was very different, though. Where
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his father, a has had destroyed
the temple, closed the doors, dismissed
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the priests and set up altars for
other gods, has a Kiah was undoing
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all of that. He was returning
back to the fear of the Lord.
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He was hoping that God would relent
in his as we read in verse ten,
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fierce anger turned from us because of
the rejection of God that had happened
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in Israel under a has. There
was tragedy, has a Kaiah explains that.
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He says in verse nine, for
behold, our fathers have fallen by
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the sword, our sons and our
daughters and our wives are in captivity.
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For this now a has when he
and other kings that had come for has
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a Kai, when they faced similar
situations, oppression, captivity, war.
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Many times the choice they made was
to turn to other gods for help,
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to turn to other kings and alliances. This is not what Hezekiah does.
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His heart is for the Lord.
So what does Haze Kaiah do? Well,
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he does many things, and we
start just here in this chapter.
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The first thing that we read is
in verse three. In the first year
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of his reign, in the first
month, he opened the doors of the
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House of the Lord and repaired him, prepared them. This is a man
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on a mission. He knows what
he's supposed to do and he is on
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task. As he responds here to
all the work the A has had a
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done, he desires now to come
before Yahweh to bow low and repentance and
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humility and trust that the Lord will
bless them. And indeed that is what
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the Lord does. He opens the
temple up. The second thing he does
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is he calls to him the priests
and the Levites, he assembles them in
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the square and essentially says, brothers, we have a job to do.
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He even commands them with this interesting
language later on where he says my son's
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he's speaks to these levites and these
priests and he says we have a massive
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problem on our hands. The temple
is a mess. And that was true
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in two senses. In just a
messy, cluttered sense, likely it had
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been abandoned, it had been wasted
and misused, but in a moral sense,
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the sense in which Jesus was referring
to when we were talking in Matthew
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Fifteen, the temple had been defiled
by the king, by the priests,
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by the Levites and others. No
more. It's time to re establish the
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worship of God in Israel, it's
time to come close to the Lord,
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it's time to renew the covenant.
And so he tells these priests and Levites
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get in there and clean it up, and they go in and that's what
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they do, and that this isn't
just a matter of sweeping, as I
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say, not just a matter of
putting things in place and getting things back
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in order, but it's a matter
of holiness and in the various ways in
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which the story is tell they won't
pull up, put out or point out
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all the details, but the author, or this chroniclers historian, is very
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precise and giving us details to help
us understand that they were very precise in
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the way that they went about this. So, for example, I'll give
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you just one. The priests are
the one that go into the holy place.
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The Levites don't enter in after they
set everything up there and they bring
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it out, then the Levites are
allowed to handle it. Later on when
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we read about the sacrifices being offered, it's the same kind of things.
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These descriptions, these intimate descriptions about
certain animals and blood being splattered on the
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altar and and various procedures. It
does add drama to the story in a
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way by adding detail, but it's
more than that. It's communicating something theologically
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as well. It's telling them,
that telling us that they were doing things
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as God had commanded. They weren't
establishing new worship. They weren't saying,
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you know what, we need to
get back to God, let's invent some
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things to do that. No,
they said, let's go back back to
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what God has said. Let's do
what he has commanded us to do.
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As it says in Verse Twenty,
this was Hezeki as heart, Hez a
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Kia, you might put it this
way, gets the Covenant Calculus Right.
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Rejection of the Lord means rejection by
the Lord. When you turn away from
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him, you face his wrath and
you're his anger. But it also means
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that turning to the Lord can bring
life and hope, and that's what he's
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calling Israel to do. Even this
word is real is significant. For a
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long time we haven't really heard about
Israel in a positive sense. Israel has
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been the wicked neighbor to the north, but now has a KI is calling
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all Israel to come and to join
and to worship has a Chi, or
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the the people have been rejected by
the Lord Death, wrath, poverty.
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Has A KAI wants to turn that
around. He calls the priests to turn
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that around, and then they offer
these sacrifices, so many sacrifices. It
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begins with a smallish number, but
it's very complete. Not only is the
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temple consecrated, but we read in
verse fifteen the brothers themselves had to be
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consecrated and then they go and they
offer to the Lord in Verse Twenty One,
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Seven Bulls, seven rams, seven
lambs, seven male goats for a
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sin offering for the kingdom and for
the sanctuary and for Judah. He commanded
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the priests the sons of Errand to
offer them on the altar to the Lord.
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If you've read much of scripture at
all, you recognize that these number
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sevens are not just random numbers but
their way of showing completeness and of commitment
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and and wholeness. They are bringing
not a small portion but a complete number
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as they go and they offer a
sin offering to the Lord. Later on
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in the chapter we do read about
other kinds of offerings, a thank offering
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particularly particularly, but not until this
happens, not until they first go before
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the Lord and they show their repentance. Notice a few things about this.
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First, notice how many offerings there
were, not just the seven, but
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the many that followed. Three thousand
sheep. We read many people streaming in,
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people not just the the the king
and the princes and other leadership,
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but people throughout Judah. This is
a sign of renewal, of starting over,
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of commitment and repentance. King Hezekiah
Praises God. At the end of
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the chapter, we read that Hezekai
and all the people rejoiced because God had
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provided for the people, for the
thing came about very suddenly. Can you
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imagine the risks that would have to
be taken if you were King Hezekiah?
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He's not coming into a situation that's
sort of sat up well for him.
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He comes into a situation where there's
captivity in war, there's pressures on all
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sides. Hezek Hezekiah comes into a
situation where there has been death and idolatry
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and the anger of the Lord.
No doubt there were a political problems and
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challenges internally and externally, but he
takes a stand for the Lord and the
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Lord blesses him, and not just
him but all the people. He provides
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all of these sacrifices and, more
importantly, he provides this repentance. The
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second thing to notice is how personal
all this was. This wasn't just a
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show. The king wasn't just establishing
himself on the throne or doing some kind
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of political thing as a way to
increase his power. Everything that he does,
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everything that he's focused on, is
focused on bringing the people back to
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the Lord. Its foe. He's
focused not on kingly renewal but on theocratic
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renewal. He's focused on Yahwa,
whom he loves. And finally, third,
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notice how they do not try to
appease God by coming up with some
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new kind of piety, as I
mentioned before. They worship him according to
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his commands, where other kings have
gone to other gods in times of trouble,
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other kinds of political manipulation. Hezekiah
leads the people to God. But
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how does he do that? He
does it through repentance. Just a practical
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comment on this. Sometimes people think
that there can be grace without repentance,
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that they can go to God on
their own terms and that he has to
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accept them no matter what. They
think of God kind of like a needy,
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codependent gift giver. They think of
God as though he means us,
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he has to take us back,
that we can just sort of waltz in
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and not have to apologize or own
up to anything we do, because God
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is loving and God is forgiving.
God is loving. God's more loving than
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you and I will ever know.
God is forgiving when he cleanses us of
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our sins, as he promises to
do, when we confess our sins,
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he cleanses us of all in righteousness. He makes us as wide as the
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snow. But waltzing into the Throne
Room of God and demanding something that is
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owed to us is not repentance,
thinking that we don't have to be accountable
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for our sins, that we can
do what we want and God just has
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to deliver. Because, well,
you said, God is love. That's
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not who God is. And Heze
Kai understands that God promises to forgive the
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sin of those who seek him in
faith and in repentance. Heze Kai understands
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the Great Holiness and supremacy of his
king. He understands that they must come
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not with a list of demands,
but in lowliness for their sins, but
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also in faith that God will forgive. How does this apply to us to
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day? I'll point out three things, though of course we could say a
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lot more. First, we can
start with the fact that sin is still
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a reality in our lives as much
as it was for them. Sin Stares
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at us in the face every day
like a terminal disease, taking more and
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more and more. And if it
weren't for the death of our Savior,
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who took the curse and the disease
on for us, we would die from
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that disease. Sin For you,
maybe is an addiction, maybe it's anger.
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Maybe you find that you're caught in
a web of lies. Maybe you
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find that your pride or your greed
is insatiable. Maybe your heart for God
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lacks the zeal it ought. Maybe
you know you're just going through the motions.
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None of us are without sin.
Any of us who truly wants to
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be freed of this disease must start, however, with a diagnosis, with
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open eyes and honesty about what it
is that we have in us, what
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it is the things that we have
done. Sin Was a reality for them
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and it's a reality for us.
The second thing to note here is that
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through repentance, God does provide the
forgiveness of sins. As the people go
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to the Lord in this way,
as we'll see in the coming chapters,
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he blesses them greatly. Hezekiah did
what was right in the eyes of the
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Lord. He followed after his father
David, not only in these acts of
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righteousness, but also in responding to
unrighteousness, which is to say in repenting.
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David, you remember, is the
one who said blessed is the one
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who's forgiven. Blessed is the one
who against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.
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For David, these were not platitudes, they were things that he personally
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experienced, just as many of you
have personally experienced. The forgiveness of sins,
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sinfulness, the sinfulness of sin,
but also the grace of forgiveness,
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were David's and they were for Hezekiah
his as well, and they can be
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for us too. This is what
Jesus promises when we go to him in
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confession and repentance. And that brings
us to the third and final thing.
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Will Sin and the promise of forgiveness
of sins are still the same? There
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is something that has changed between Hezekiah's
time and the theocracy and our time and
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the sojourner pilgrim lives that we live
in, nonthoocratic kingdoms. The outward means
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of repentance has changed and the old
covenant, the forgiveness of Sins, was
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promised through these various offerings, and
that's why Hezekiah goes this way. That's
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why they offer these offerings. We
have, however. We however, have
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none of these. For example,
this morning we together as a congregation,
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publicly confessed our sins, we asked
forgiveness of God as a church, and
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not a single animal lost its life. Isn't that fascinating? Why? Why
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didn't you all show up here today
with bowls and goats and rams and doves,
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piling them in the back of your
minivans and whatnot? Why, just
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because we don't do it anymore,
has a KAIA did it? There must
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be a reason, and there is. We are not being halfhearted in our
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repentance by not offering animal sacrifices.
The reason is is that in the fullness
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of time, God sent his son
Jesus to be the fulfillment of all of
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these things that are mentioned here in
this chapter, the king, the temple,
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the priesthood and the sacrifices. As
to the temple, Jesus, you
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remember, was God incarnate, the
spirit, says in Colossians to nine,
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for in him the whole fullness of
Deity dwells bodily. In second chronicles,
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the temple is referred to as the
House of the Lord. It is where
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the Lord dwells. Chronicles are Collossians
to nine says of Jesus. In him
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the fullness of Deity dwells bodily,
not in a house made of stones,
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but in a body made of flesh. John says it in his Gospel this
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way. When the word became flesh, he dwelt among us. Jesus is
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the new temple. That's why we
go to him and not to a temple.
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As to the priesthood, Jesus was
a better priest and of a better
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order. Hebrews says this, and
Hebrews Eight, we have such a high
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priest, one who is seated at
the right hand of the throne of the
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Majesty in Heaven. Christ has obtained
a ministry that is much more excellent than
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the old as the covenant he mediates
is better. Jesus comes as a new
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priest, as a better priest.
He supersedes these priests that we read in
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Second Chronicles, twenty nine. And
then there's the sacrifices. Listen to Hebrews
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Nine, eleven through fourteen. But
when Christ appeared as a high priest,
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of the good things that have come
then through the greater and more perfect tent,
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which is a reference to the Tabernacle
and therefore to the temple not made
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with hands, that is not of
this creation. He entered once for all
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into the holy places, not by
means of the blood of goats and calves,
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but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
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For if the blood of goats and
Bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with
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the ashes of a heifer sanctify for
the purification of the flesh, how much
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more will the blood of Christ,
who, through the eternal spirit, offered
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himself without blemish to God, purify
our conscience from dead works to serve the
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Living God? How can we come
to God through Jesus, just as Hez
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a Kiah did? In a way
we're doing something very different, but in
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another way we're doing everything exactly the
same, because Jesus is the fulfillment of
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these things, because he is the
sacrifice, and a better one, because
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blood was offered, but once and
for all, we come in the same
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faith and in the same hope as
Hez a Kiah did, but we have
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not the shadow of the things that
were, but the substance of the things
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that are now, the things that
has a Kiah and the people of Israel
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did. We're not bad, but
they were pointing towards something in the future.
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That's why I say when we come
in confession of our sins in the
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name of Jesus, in the blood
of Jesus, we are not offering a
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half hearted repentance. We come in
the name of blood and of the name
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of the king of Kings, of
which there is nothing higher, no blood
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that is more precious. Or could
atone more greatly for our sins in this
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way, though outwardly, I suspect
it would be a much bigger spectacle if
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we had animals every where and I
was up here cutting and, you know,
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flying animals and sprinkling blood. They
would be perhaps a lot more glorious
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in a way, but ultimately it's
not. When we think about how big
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a seem this would have been and
what it means that Jesus has superseded all
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of that, we can stand in
truth before the eyes of God and know
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that we stand in something that's even
more weighty and more permanent than what they
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had. Then the humble means through
which we come are not less humble,
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but more humble. We don't come
through the death of animals pointing to Christ,
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but through the death of the son
of God himself and the means by
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which we are raised is not less, but more. We worship not in
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the splendor of an earthly temple,
but of a heavenly one, a kingdom
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that cannot be shaken. Sadly,
Hezekiah's reign will come to an end,
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but that's not true of Jesus's reign. Jesus's reign will never come to an
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end, as it says in Hebrews, it's an eternal redemption, an eternal
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kingdom, and as we come together, we do so not only as the
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citizens of one nation, but as
citizens of many nations throughout all the world,
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together constituting the Kingdom of God.
Much more, of course, a
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could be added. The Lessons of
this chapter are many, but I want
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to leave you to night to just
reflect on this. Hezekiah was a great
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king who led his people back to
God by leading them in the repentance of
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the old covenant, a good repentance, a holy repentance, one that trusted
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in God and his promises for forgiveness, and was effective. But this work
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was only a foreshadow of what would
come in Christ. We learn best from
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this chapter when we see what he
did as just the beginning of what Jesus
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would finally accomplish. Jesus not only
leads us back to God, he came,
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He who came to us, was
God and is God, and because
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of that you can know that whenever
you offer repentance in his name, you
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will be forgiven, you will be
blessed and you may rejoice. Let us
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pray
