Colin Badger - Thematic Study of Isaiah - Class 2 - Hekiziah the Great

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1. 0:00

   This is day two of the 1988 Idyllwild Bible School. Our third period speaker is Brother Colin Badger, and his general subject is Thematic Study of Isaiah. His subtopic for today’s class is Hezekiah, the Great Father Colin. They’ve either had them unintentionally picked up, or if you need others, they’re here. You can take them at the end of the class.

2. 0:26

   We will be referring to those sheets periodically during the week, so if they’re kept perhaps folded or in your Bible or books, it’ll be helpful. Yesterday we ended by taking a look at some references in the Kings and Chronicles which show the extent to which King A has. Hebekiah father had polluted the worship of Israel, and when we use the word Israel there we mean in general terms North and South, for the effects of his apostasy had far reaching effects all over the land.

3. 1:08

   I’d like just to recap some of those thoughts from yesterday as we lead into a particular study of Hezekiah. We were looking at Second Chronicles chapter 28 as we ended yesterday, where we read that A has had sacrificed verse 23 of Second Chronicles 28. He had sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus because he had said the gods of the kings of Syria help them. Therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel. Now notice how the word Israel is being used there. Ahab really was reigning in Jerusalem in the South over the two tribes, but he had far reaching effects over not just Judah and Benjamin, but all Israel. We noticed yesterday how the King’s account, Second King 16, gives very detailed descriptions of how he introduced a new altar for burnt offering, a copy of which he had received while visiting a Pagan country.

4. 2:24

   We noticed how he had displaced the position of the burnt offering altar as it had been under the law of Moses. We noticed how he had gone to the great brazen labor constructed under Solomon, how he had taken the legs from off of it. He was constantly busying himself with the process of paganizing God’s people.

5. 2:50

   He set in motion a process of apostasy that was to eventually be almost the rock of the whole land, North and South, but especially in the South. He was literally rearranging God’s plan and purpose in every way that he could. And here in verse 24, as we saw yesterday, chapter 28, he gathered together the vessels of the House of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the House of God.

6. 3:23

   He was a madman, this man, a rampage for paganism and every respect. Then he shut up the doors of the House of the Lord, and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem and in every several city of Judah. He made high places to burn incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers.

7. 3:49

   All of that created a gigantic problem for Hezekiah when he was about to come to the throne. This was the inheritance a father left his son. Isaiah chapter 28, when read in light of what we’ve just seen in the days of Ahab, helped to be understood a little more clearly. Isaiah chapter 28 Keep in mind that phrase in Chronicles that we just met that he polluted and had effects on all Israel North and South. And remember he was a king in the South and yet he had effects in the north.

8. 4:31

   Isaiah chapter 28 verse one, woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Iphraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine. Now Isaiah 1 verses 1 and 2 tell us that Isaiah was sent really to minister to Judah and Jerusalem. So then why is he issuing this prophecy and warning to Iphraim to possibilities?

9. 5:04

   They’re not necessarily exclusive. 1 is because Ahaz had had such far reaching effects in his apostasy, centering himself in Judah but having these ripple effects throughout the nation. Isaiah here appeals to those who have been affected by his apostasy beyond even those of his immediate parameters as a prophet. Or it’s possible that he is actually talking to Judah as though Judah has fallen the way of Ibrahim. And he may here be using a kind of ironic address. But regardless, look at what it says. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ibrahim, the condition of the land.

10. 5:47

    Just look at it. Verse 7. This is what Hezekiah inherited. Verse 7 But they also have erred through wine and through strong drink and are out of the way. The priests and the prophets have erred through strong drink. They are swallowed up of wine. They are out of the way through strong drinks. They err in vision, they stumble in judgement, for all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean, strong language, brothers and sisters, to describe the condition of his people.

11. 6:24

    It’s a land that is filled with bonnets. Verse 14 Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, says Isaiah E scornful men that rule this people, which is in Jerusalem, because ye have said we have made a covenant with death and with hell. And are we at agreement when the overflowing scourge shall pass through?

12. 6:49

    Now in our introductory remarks yesterday we suggested that you be alert to that figure of speech overflowing waters overflowing. A word that refers to the onslaught of Assyria time and again. So now Assyria is threatened with the overflowing scourge. Shall pass through it shall not come unto us. For we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. Now that language doesn’t make too much sense, unless you bear in mind the background of Ahab, where he had apostasized the nation, changed the arrangements in the temple. Indeed, they had made lies their refuge, and under falsehood they were hiding themselves, ignorant, wilfully ignorant of the truth.

13. 7:38

    Rebels, wayward children, a thick nation. We looked yesterday, didn’t we, at Isaiah chapter 1, which uses the language of leprosy and weeping sores to describe the sick body of Israel inherited from this faithless king?

14. 7:58

    Like just to look again at some of these details and notice how they are linked with something later on in Isaiah’s prophecy, which is very useful to bear in mind. In Isaiah chapter 1, the word stricken in verse 5, if you were to check it in a concordance, you’d find it’s the same word to describe Job’s boils in Job 2 verse 7, which are understood generally to be leprous boils. The word stricken there is also the same word to describe the condition elsewhere in scripture of the leper in Leviticus. It seems to relate also to words used to describe Aziah’s leprosy in Second Chronicles 26.

15. 8:46

    Here, then, is a thick and leprous nation. Now something else to notice. This opens up a lot of fruitful thought. The word stricken here in verse 5. If you’ve got a pencil, you might want to jot these down, because I’m going to go through this rather quickly. The word stricken in verse 5 is the same word as the word smitten in Isaiah 53, verse 4.

16. 9:13

    That’s the suffering servant prophecy. That’s the servant of Jesus Christ, the one who would take take our sins and our sorrows, our griefs. The word sick in verse 5 of Isaiah 1 also occurs in Isaiah 53 verse four, and there it’s translated griefs verse 6. Here in Isaiah 1 the word bruises found here towards the middle of verse 6 is translated same word in Isaiah 53 verse 5 the word stripes. Now isn’t that curious?

17. 9:56

    Why would it be, brothers and sisters, that the Lord Jesus Christ as the suffering Servant should be described in the very terms used to describe the sick nation? We can understand why the nation would be described as leprous and thick, being smitten, having grief, having strife, but why would those terms be carried over and applied to the Lord Jesus Christ? Think about it brothers and sisters, we won’t consider it all of it right now in detail, but one thing is certain from those 3 keyword links.

18. 10:32

    The thick nation and the thin bearer. Jesus Christ has taken upon him the wounds and the sickness of the nation, and that’s why He’s described in those terms. It’s not that the Lord Jesus Christ was afflicted, for He was the sinless servant. He was indeed tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin.

19. 11:00

    When Peter in the New Testament quotes Isaiah 53 in his epistle, he renders part of Isaiah 53 as in His mouth was no guile, in his mouth was no guile, He was sinless. And yet the sins of the nation, their wounds, their grief, their putrefying swords, as it were, are transferred in Isaiah 53 to the burden bearer. You see the extent to which He takes upon Him our burdens, the extent to which God wishes us to understand how He takes our sins and our sicknesses.

20. 11:39

    It makes better sense of why it is in Matthew chapter 8 verse 16 that Matthew says when He healed the demoniacs, it fulfilled Isaiah 53. That said He took upon Him the infirmities and the sicknesses of us all. Yes, Isaiah 53 is not talking about him taking literal sickness. It’s showing him to be a burden bearer of sins. His the our sins and our iniquities were laid upon him. Obviously, then, there’s an ascent in which physical sickness, especially leprosy, is but a parable of the sinners. And insofar as the nation could figuratively to be described as a sick body, a leprous community, it was appropriate in describing Jesus as the burden bearer of sin, to describe him as having carried to himself the sicknesses and the wounds of the nation.

21. 12:42

    I wish we could explore that a bit more. Hopefully we’ll come back to the game later this week. But perhaps you could pursue that in your own studies and see the force of what’s being said there in both passages. Now, I’d like you to turn to Second Chronicles.

22. 12:57

    This is jumping a step ahead. We will be dealing with it momentarily, though, as we look at Hezekiah’s reform. But now on this theme of sickness, Second Chronicles chapter 30. Second Chronicles chapter 30 is a detailed chapter describing the Passover which Hezekiah called for in the midst of his reform program. We’re going to work through these sections fairly chronological in a moment, but just notice this.

23. 13:31

    When Hezekiah brought about his reforms and when he admonished the people to the Levites especially to reform the land. Once that had been done and Hezekiah appealed in his little Passover, we say little because it was not celebrated at their regular time. Provision under the Law of Moses allowed for it to be celebrated in the second month, which was when Hezekiah celebrated it. The priests and the Levites and most of the nation had not yet been prepared when all that was done, and the Passover was at its climatic point.

24. 14:10

    Here in Second Chronicles 30, verse 18, going to verse 20, notice this progression of thought for it says verse 18. A multitude of the people, even many of Iphraim and Manasseh is the current Zebulun had not cleansed themselves, hadn’t cleansed themselves. Indeed they hadn’t Look at the conditions that had been left to them from Ahab wasn’t just that they all hadn’t taken a bath or hadn’t washed their hands.

25. 14:41

    They were spiritually unclean, yet did they eat the Passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying the good Lord, pardon everyone, a nation that’s not clean, a man who prays for those unclean and relates in his prayer the thought of pardoning. You see the sense of being unclean, Then it’s in a sense of having sinned.

26. 15:13

    Verse 19 that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And what was the Father’s response to this faithful prayer for cleansing, pardoning? Verse 20 and the Lord hearkened to Hebekiah and heal the people, heal them. Why use that kind of language, brothers and sisters? It hearkens back to Isaiah chapter 1. It would make very little sense to us unless we had first considered that in Isaiah 1.

27. 15:52

    The nation is sick. It needs healing, and what kind of healing does it need? It needs to be pardoned for their sins and their apostasy. Thus, in Isaiah 53, when the Suffering Servant is described as one who looks like the nation as it were, being described as though he has the sickness transferred to him from a sick nation, Isaiah 53 shows us to have him as the pardoner, the one who will bear our iniquities. For to pardon sin is to cure a sickness. To cleanse iniquity and transgression is to make spiritually a body sound.

28. 16:38

    Once again. All of that background in Isaiah 1 then shines its light upon the force of verse 20 as Hezekiah tried to undo what A has his father had left to him. Hezekiah had spread the disease. Excuse me? Isaiah had spread the disease. No, we’ll get it yet. We’ll go through all the names before we get them.

29. 17:02

    A has had spread the disease. He had initiated it and he had been the carrier, and through the work of Isaiah and Hezekiah, the nation at the time of this small Passover was able to come before God and under imperfect conditions, according to the law of Moses, be cleansed. Another passage at the end of Judah’s history as a monarchy at the end of Chronicles.

30. 17:33

    One of the very last things that is said to describe the nation in her last hours. Now this is going ahead to the time of the Babylonians. This is at the time of Jeremiah, some years later after Hezekiah and Isaiah. This is when Nebuchadnezzar comes down as the second Great Northern invader. And when Nebuchadnezzar comes down with his Babylonians, what’s the condition of the nation at that time? Well, verse 13 of our Second Chronicles 36 Speaking of Zedekiah, like Ahaz Second Chronicles 36, verse 13, he Zedekiah also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God, but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much.

31. 18:39

    Yesterday we were talking with someone about Joel’s prophecy and we were trying to come to an agreement as to when it might have been dated. It’s a curious thing that in Joel’s prophecy there is nothing that is really said negatively of the priests. But at the fall of Babylon, look at the condition of the priesthood in those last hours.

32. 18:58

    The chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the host of the Lord, just like Ahab had, which he had hollowed in Jerusalem, and the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers. People like Isaiah rising up the times and sending because he had compassion on his people.

33. 19:22

    You know, that’s an echo of a New Testament statement when Jesus turns to the people and had compassion on them and saw them as sheep having no shepherd, that in passing he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling plate. But they they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

34. 19:52

    Remedy sounds like medicine, doesn’t it? Might that be harkening to the kind of condition we’ve just been considering in Isaiah 1 and Second Chronicles where Hezekiah prayed and they were healed? Now look at your margin. The word for remedy in your margin if you have one, Hebrew healing. So we’re right. At the very end of the nation’s history, when Babylon comes down, the nation is sick. So we read that again.

35. 20:26

    Until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no healing, they were so sick, there was no remedy, no healing of that body. And thus, because there was no healing, no one who would be receptive to the great physicians words, no one who would turn back in the last hours before another northern invader comes down.

36. 20:52

    God says it’s a nation stick. It’s a standard picture from both Old and New Testament. And it helps to provide a master key to an understanding as to why so much attention in the New Testament is given to those miracles of healing that we mentioned on Sunday. Well, that brings us to Hezekiah and his great reforms. When does Isaiah’s prophecy he in to the reign of Hezekiah? That’s an important question.

37. 21:27

    Go back, if you will, to Isaiah, for it’s in the 1st chapter that we’re told he prophesied during the days of Hezekiah. Let’s see if we can discover where in our Bibles in Isaiah Hezekiah plugs in. Well, starting from Isaiah 1 verse one, we travel over to Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 6 has a time clue. Remember, chapter one has told us that Isaiah ministered during the days of Uziah.

38. 22:02

    Here in the Isaiah 6 verse one Uziah has died. Isaiah 6, verse one, in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. Now that’s the kind of verse you want to grab a hold of, because now you know this, that from Isaiah 1 to Isaiah chapter 6, you’re working in Isaiah’s ministry during the years of Uzziah. By the way, it’s interesting that Uzziah died of leprosy. In other words, look at this.

39. 22:38

    It’s on one of those blunt, undesigned coincidences here. Isaiah 6 has told us that up to the 6th chapter, Uzziah was king on the throne. In other words, when Isaiah 1 and verse 1 was heralded by Isaiah, and when Isaiah showed the nation that they were leprous and sick, who was on the throne? Uziah.

40. 23:01

    And you know what? He died of leprosy. See the point? It’s an incredible coincidence, is it not, that when Isaiah portrays the nation as a leprous nation, they’ve got a king who’s a leper on the throne, who was a rebellious man who thought that he could, in his arrogance, go in and burn incense. We’ve referred to him a number of times as we’ve looked at several studies in the valley in the past week. He’s the man that leprosy broke out over his forehead in a very place where the priest mitre was, where it said holiness unto Yahweh.

41. 23:36

    There’s where leprosy broke out. Now another clue from Isaiah 7. We travel during the days of Ahaz. So from Chapter 7 till the end of chapter 14, you’re working in the years of Ahaz. Some act to follow. Wasn’t it from Uziah the leper to Ahaz the apostate? Now, how do we know it’s just those chapters?

42. 24:05

    Isaiah 14 deserves a lot of attention. It’s one of those chapters we use when we’re dealing with first principles. It’s the Lucifer passage. And often we miss a little tiny detail at the end of Isaiah 14. Look at it in verse 28 in the year. No, in the year that King Ahab died was this burden.

43. 24:33

    Ah, that’s interesting. If we know that chapter 6 was given in the year that Uziah died, then chapter 78910111213 and 14 must be given during the years of Ahaz. For by the time you get to verse 28 he has died also. That means Isaiah 15 to the end covers the reign of Hezekiah, the last of the three kings of Judah that Isaiah said in chapter 1 he worked with. So by looking carefully at a few little details in the prophecy, we can now kind of divide it up in terms of time periods all the way from Isaiah 15 to the end.

44. 25:19

    Anything that’s said by Isaiah is said during the reign of Hezekiah. And does that ever help to know? Bear in mind the Life and Times of Hezekiah as you read from chapter 15 to the end of chapter 66, verse 24.

45. 25:38

    While Hezekiah deserves a great deal of attention, we could devote a Bible school to Hezekiah very easily. That green sheet that we gave you a few days back, which outlines the structure, or at least the suggested structure of Isaiah might find it useful to look at that now. And as you do, take a look at Isaiah 36, Isaiah 36.

46. 26:10

    This is what could be called the hinge or the axis of the prophecy. For from chapter 36, 36373839, you’re in the middle of the prophecy and you’re dealing with historical chapters dealing with the invasion of Sennacherib, chapters that are repeated in part in Kings and Chronicles. Now we come back to a question that we raised earlier.

47. 26:39

    Why, if these chapters occur in Kings and Chronicles, are they repeated mostly in the middle of this prophecy? Can’t we go back to Kings and Chronicles and read them there? Well, of course we can. But God seems to be showing us that in this prophecy of Isaiah. He wants us to meet somebody in the middle of the book. And although he’s already gone to great pains to put it in Kings and in Chronicles, it’s not enough. He puts it again in the middle of this prophecy. And who do we meet as we go and look from chapter 1 to the middle of the book?

48. 27:16

    Who do we see ahead of it? Hezekiah And as you travel past chapter 40 and look back at the prophecies before you, who do you see behind you? Hezekiah. He’s meant to be a kind of double mirror, we would suggest in the middle of this prophecy. All that was said and done in the beginning of Isaiah pointed towards Hezekiah’s work and from Hezekiah’s monumental work in chapter 36373839, really God’s work through Hezekiah, the defeat of the Assyrians, the victory over the great enemy. From that section on the second part of Isaiah is a springboard from that great victory.

49. 28:03

    And you’ll find in the second-half of Isaiah a number of references that hearken back in past tense to the fact that the enemy has been destroyed, to the fact that there is now liberty. Past tense to the fact that now somebody has been, has been restored. Passages that refer in the past tense or present as though there already is a remnant. Not just that there will be a remnant. Not just that there will be some people redeemed. Sometimes the tenses in the past and in the present tenses in Old and New Testament are tricky.

50. 28:40

    Sometimes God calls those things which be not. As though they were. But there is meaning to Hezekiah’s contemporaries. When we passed, passed into chapter 40 and beyond, there has been a great jubilee, the words of Isaiah chapter 36 and into chapter 37 describing the Assyrian invasion and the victory over them. 37 just for a quick peek, 37 verse 30 and 31 and 32 all speak in terms of the liberation from the Assyrian in the language of jubilee.

51. 29:31

    That’s Leviticus 25, the year of Jubilee, the year of liberation, verse 30. That refers to a sign that would be given crops growing to the third year, sowing and reaping land of fruitfulness, a remnant that would be escaping roots downward and bearing fruit upward. All that language is pulling out of Leviticus 25.

52. 29:55

    So there was a contemporary Jubilee experience. There were a group of people that came out of Jerusalem that next day that were free and liberated. There was an enemy that had in contemporary experience been destroyed. There were people, verse 32, Isaiah 37, that had escaped from Jerusalem as a remnant. You see, in the Life and Times of Hezekiah and Isaiah, they had a foretaste of a greater jubilee to come in their days.

53. 30:29

    There was a remnant that had come out of that great victory. There were some that would regard themselves as redeemed in the temporal sense, purchased their life having previously hung in doubt. And as they walked out and saw those dead Assyrian corpses scattered around the hills of Jerusalem, they saw the salvation of Yahweh, the meaning of Isaiah’s name and the meaning of Hezekiah’s name.

54. 30:56

    Yahweh is strength, for there was proof that Yahweh is strength, and there was proof as they walked out free that Yahweh is salvation. Now, that’s why we say that in the middle of Isaiah you have these records of history. It’s all focused on Hezekiah and the experience of delivery from the greatest Syrian enemy. Keeping that in mind, the second part of Isaiah opens up in a way that perhaps you might not have considered, and it explains why at times restoration and redemption is spoken of as a spoken of as a real experience.

55. 31:35

    It was to them in a very limited way. Now, our friend Hezekiah, we can’t do complete justice to him. Our study is Isaiah, not Hezekiah. But let’s just glean some exhortations from his life which help us to understand why his experience with the Assyrian was so important to be put in the middle of the prophecy. So we go back to the Old Testament Chronicles, Second Chronicles, chapter 29.

56. 32:09

    And we’re going to stay here within these chapters for the last part of our study this morning. Hezekiah the Great, whose name meant Yahweh, is strength, and so in his lifetime it was proven to be so. Why was he so great? Well, let’s just notice Second Chronicles chapter 29, first one. Hezekiah began to reign when he was 5 and 20 years old.

57. 32:40

    Young man, then 25, but as old as Bob Lloyd. That’s what Bob tells me. He reigned 9 and 20 years in Jerusalem, and his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. Did you notice the omission? No mention of Ahaz here as an introduction In the Chronicle’s account, his father is forgotten as though he never existed, and all we’re told is, importantly, what his mother’s name was.

58. 33:15

    Abijah in the Hebrew her name means My father is Yahweh. Notice that it was as though the scriptural record was disowning Ahaz as the father of Hezekiah. The attention is given to his mum and her name meant My father is Yahweh whose father was Hezekiah. It was more Yahweh in the real sense than it was Ahaz. Very subtle point, but it’s important as striking the keynote for the life of Hezekiah and sisters. Don’t gloss over that too quickly. Consider the import a lousy, no good for nothing husband. Was Ahaz an apostate?

59. 34:03

    Thoroughly all the way. A poor role model for the son. But consider the work of this woman. Scripture wants us to know who the mother was, and her name speaks something of both her character and the relation her son had to our Heavenly Father. It was no doubt her mother that had the his mother that had the critical influence in the formative years on Hezekiah in the midst of the most horrid conditions in a household that had a poor, poor father who not only was not in the truth, in a certain sense, he had apostasized the truth not only for himself, but had apostasized the whole nation. Sisters, I don’t think there’s one of you in this room, whether you have your husband in the truth or not, that has a husband like a has.

60. 34:54

    But I’m glad to hear you say that. And the nods are encouraging. But consider, brothers and sisters, consider the power of that exhortation. We concern ourselves, and rightly so, about raising our children in the truth. And there’s not too many of us that have a perfect home that could say that there’s perfect domestic bliss in our walls. There are always times when our homes are imperfect, and some of us have a harder job of it than others. And some of us do not have our husbands in the truth for one reason or another.

61. 35:29

    That’s no reason to subtract the importance of your role, although you may feel Hanford Hezekiahs can sometimes come from the households that are imperfect. A word of encouragement. Verse two he did that was yours right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father had done. Now look at the force of how this man’s presented. He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them. Why did he have to open them?

62. 36:08

    Because Ahaz had shut them at the very beginning of his reign, in the first year, in the first month. The very thing that he begins with is something that reverses the acts of his father, as though the first thing he wants the nation to know is that he disowns his dad. He opens the doors which his father had shut, and look at how quickly he gets about his father’s business.

63. 36:35

    Like Jesus said, I must be about my father’s business. And he said that as a very young lad. Hezekiah, as young as he is, throws himself into the work of reform, tries immediately to reverse the sordid conditions left to him from his father. I want you to slip down to verse 17. Now this is looking back on what was started in verse 3, something worth penciling in at verse three. Now looking back to verse 3, verse 17. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify and on the 8th day of the month came they to the porch of the Lord.

64. 37:19

    Now that tells you that Hezekiah not only began the work of cleansing in the first month of the first year, he began on the first day of the first month of the first year of his work, of his reign. Now you can see, brothers and sisters, the exhortation in that it’s not just that he took 30 days of the first month of the first year.

65. 37:44

    He began setting this whole reform in motion on the first day of his reign, in the very first month of the first year. Hezekiah was a man of action. Would it be, brothers and sisters, that in Christadelphia today we had more Hezekiahs? People who will turn off the television and the radio and get down to this kind of work. People who will put aside the women’s magazines and the soap operas, Who will think more of this kind of contribution to the Christadelphian body than spending hours and hours indulging in their own pleasures and desires. We speak strongly, brothers and sisters, but it applies as much to me as it does to you.

66. 38:26

    How much action is there in your house? Are the doors open and who opens them, or are they shut to the ecclesia? Do they just open a crack on Sunday morning or when you go trotting off to Bible class? Or are the doors of your house open? What about your ecclesia? Are doors those doors open?

67. 38:46

    Are they open to a complete infusion of God’s influence? They ought to be look at also as we progress through verse four. He brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the East St. And he said unto them, Now he’s talking to the arranging brethren. He said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the House of the Lord God of your Father’s. Responsibility begins at home, doesn’t it? First and foremost, they had to see that they themselves were on the right wavelength before they try to help the nation. Jesus understood that principle when he said in the Gospels, Physician, heal thyself, physician, heal thyself. And this is a physician’s work.

68. 39:40

    Remember a few moments ago we read that when God responded to Hezekiah’s prayer, he healed them. So the whole reform and the Passover work was targeting towards that climax that finally when a when Hezekiah prayed to God, God would pardon the nation and heal them. That’s the objective. So everything we read here, everything that he’s about and doing has that objective that the nation might be pardoned and healed.

69. 40:12

    So. It began first with those who were in positions of responsibility. Secondly, verse 5, let’s go on. He, he tells the priests and Levites, carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. What filthiness in the holy place? That was the present left by Ahaz. That was the condition of the sanctuary of God. Do you think you got problems in your Ecclesia? Perhaps you do.

70. 40:44

    Do you think we as a body have our problems worldwide? Indeed we do. Let’s not minimize them. Do you think the problems are insurmountable? As we go through these details, consider how potentially insurmountable were these problems. There’s not one of us in this room that has to fight against a condition like this in the ecclesia.

71. 41:06

    And concerning that filthiness, just slip over here in the same chapter to verse 15, when the work is done. Verse 15 And they gathered their brethren and sanctified themselves, and came according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the House of the Lord. And the priests went into the inner part of the House of the Lord, the inner part of the house, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord, into the court of the House of the Lord.

72. 41:44

    And the Levites took it out to carry it out abroad into the brook, Kidron, barrels, wagon loads, it would seem, of some kind of filthiness, whatever that was. Can you imagine what A has had done and what he had tolerated or encouraged so that in the very inner parts of the house there was filthiness, not figurative.

73. 42:10

    There was some literal filthiness that needed to be shipped out and dumped over into the valley down below. That was the condition of the times in which Isaiah and Hezekiah worked. Now can you see why the prophet described the nation as sick and leprous? That passage we read in Isaiah 28 that described the priests and the people as both being polluters, sick, drunk, blind, deaf. Such was the condition.

74. 42:40

    Then verse 7, following on the orders of great Hezekiah. Also, says Hezekiah, they have shut up the doors of the porch, put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel. Problem after problem stacks up, the doors have been shut, the lamps extinguished, no incense to heaven, no burnt offerings of dedication and commitment. Every one of those pieces of furniture which Hezekiah picks on were highly symbolic of the wretched condition that had been going on.

75. 43:26

    The doors needed to be opened. The lamps needed to be filled with oil and burning incense. The symbol of prayer need to be once more offered to God. And the symbol of commitment and dedication, the principle of sacrifice, brought into being once again. Now do you know, brothers and sisters, every one of those terms in verse 7 is worth almost circling as a kind of package. That is Hezekiah’s reform program. If you were to say to Hezekiah, how would you reform an ecclesia, how would you reform a community, he would no doubt say, first open the doors to heaven, open the doors to heaven, get those doors open in your ecclesia and in your own home and in particular in your own mind and heart. Open the doors, open the doors.

76. 44:22

    Secondly, he would tell us, put in some oil and ignite the lamps. What about the lamp in your house? Is it burning bright? What do the children think, if you were to ask them? Do we just go to meeting once or twice a week? Are the readings in our family circle done haphazardly and with disinterest? Does father come home after spending some 8 or 9 hours at work, plunk himself in the living room, pick up the newspaper, turn on the stereo and wait for dinner? And then after dinner, go back to the same posture. Is that the role model of our fathers at home? Does mum spend most of most of her day getting about in the malls and spending money?

77. 45:02

    Or is she pouring over that book so that she can train up her children in the way that they should go? Do we have the mothers that Hezekiah had in our homes? Because if we don’t, we won’t have the effects in the ecclesia. Hezekiah would also tell us that as a program for reform there needs to be a burnt offering that hearkens to Paul’s words in in Romans chapter 12.

78. 45:29

    Therefore he says to the Romans, this is your reasonable sacrifice. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. So open the doors, ignite the lamps, prayer, incense, communication to God, and finally put into process the principles and examples of offering ourselves as burnt offerings in His service. It’s not a matter of saying no, we can’t do this. No, we can’t do that.

79. 46:03

    It’s a matter of doing the positive. And when you do the positive like Hezekiah in the first day of the first month of the first year and age 25, when you have that kind of commitment, you don’t need to worry about talking about where you shouldn’t go and what you shouldn’t read because it’s a full time occupation.

80. 46:25

    Now the mind of Hezekiah, look at this verse 9 and 10:00 and 11:00 of the 29th chapter here. What an insight into Hezekiah’s mentality. Verse 9, he says a continuing exhortation from the lips of a 25 year old man. For lo, he says, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this now. He says it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel.

81. 47:03

    It was a consuming concern for him. It’s in my heart, he says, to make a covenant that his fierce wrath may turn away from us. What wrath? What had to be turned away? What do you think he was worrying about? Well, if you had nothing in background about the Assyrians and you didn’t know that by now Tiglath Pleaser had already proven himself to be the new architect of the Assyrian Empire.

82. 47:30

    And if you didn’t know, brothers and sisters, that the Assyrians were already on the March by the time these words were put out, you wouldn’t appreciate the need for urgency. That’s the wrath he’s referring to. Hezekiah knew it was on the doorsteps, and he knew of the filthiness of his nation. Verse 11.

83. 47:51

    A 25 year old says this to the fathers and the arranging members of his ecclesia. He says as a 25 year old, My sons, my sons, how many were there that were probably old enough to be his grandfather as priests and Levites? But see how he addresses them. My sons, be not now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him and burn incense.

84. 48:26

    Be in prayerful communication. He’s talking to the Levites and the priests. Keep in mind, they had that precious privilege. How is it that he would call them? My sons, do you see how he viewed his family in Christ? How he viewed his relationship. As. King over the land. It’s not the language that’s typical of a monarch.

85. 48:51

    Can you see one of our monarchs today? Now I’m talking as a Canadian for the Queen still is over my land in one way or another. Teka smiling. We look to a monarch, let’s say like Queen Elizabeth. Can you imagine her standing in front of all of the representatives of her nations as a 25 year old girl and saying my sons and daughters? Can you imagine?

86. 49:17

    That wouldn’t be very suitable, would it? He views himself as a father, doesn’t he? And he’s only 25 years old. He took his job seriously as a reformer in the ecclesia. It wasn’t a position of arrogance. In fact, he doesn’t think of himself so much as a monarch as he thinks of himself as a father. And that implies that he sees the ecclesia as a family. My sons, My sons.

87. 49:47

    He’s speaking from the heart here. Brothers and sisters, these are words you just can’t trip over quickly. Every phrase deserves careful weighing in our minds. It shows us by the words he speaks and the method of his appeal. It shows us why. Hezekiah was a man after God’s own heart, like David. And so as a response, verse 12, look at the reaction. Then the Levites arose, and from that section on, you see the way in which they respond to Hezekiah’s appeal, right? The king has told us we’ve got to clean the temple, and they do it.

88. 50:27

    He’s told us that we’ve got to reform the people, and they do it. Now. Verse 20 having got all of that done, Hezekiah the king rose early. Well now how much time took place up to verse 20 from the beginning of the reform? How long did it take for Hezekiah to busy this group of people into reform action? Well, verse 17 says so, for by the 16th day it was done. End of verse 17, you can see it.

89. 51:04

    By the 16th day they had made an end. Why do you think it tells us 16th day? Well, it certainly stresses how quickly it was done, but I think there’s another reason. Go back to chapter 28, if you will, and verse one, one of those golden threads. Verse one, Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years, 16 years to pollute the land, and Hezekiah in 16 days reversed it. And it was done.

90. 51:49

    So quickly was it done that if you go to the end of chapter 29 here in verse 36, here’s the last word, the very last word of this chapter. What is it suddenly? And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people that God had prepared the people for the thing was done. Suddenly, not enough time, you say, to change the ecclesia.

91. 52:20

    Now Christadelphian body has gone too far over the Cliff. 16 days to reverse 16 years of pollution. Now a man of action. Back to verse 20 of chapter 29 on the day in which this reform was celebrated. Just look at the character of the man. It’s so much in keeping with everything we’ve now seen about him on that day at the end of the 16 days of cleansing, the day he’d been waiting for, for it was in his heart to make a covenant, and this is the day the covenant can be made.

92. 53:03

    Verse 20, Hezekiah, the king rose early and gathered the rumors of the city and went to the House of the Lord. You can just see him jumping out of bed that morning, perhaps even before the sun rose. This is the day he said to himself, that we have been waiting for. In his heart it was to make a covenant.

93. 53:21

    Here’s the day, 16 days of turning back history. He bounds out of bed early in the morning and he calls for an arranging meeting. And he gets the elders together, and down they go to the temple, to the House of God in anticipation of the crowd. And from verse 21 down, brothers and sisters, you see Hezekiah, the priests and the Levites offering the sacrifices, for it was in his heart to make a covenant with God. Brothers and sisters, chapter 30 is a study in itself as well. We’ll take a quick look at that tomorrow. But let us end, brothers and sisters, on this note once again, verse 36 of chapter 29.

94. 54:11

    Here was the character of the man, the great reformer, the one who came from a has the terrible Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people that God had prepared the people. When we have success in the ecclesia, through some effort of ours in quotation marks, when we’ve gone about and done what was right, do we sit back and silently pat ourselves on the back? Has anyone in Christadelphia ever affected a reform like that 16 years, reversed in 16 days, on such a scale, with such great success?

95. 54:55

    None of us have. But this man came to the realization immediately that success came from God. It was all given to God in credit. He rejoiced. Not that Hezekiah, son of A has had done a great thing. He rejoiced that Hezekiah son of Ahaz had been blessed by Almighty God, that God had blessed the labor of his hands, responded to his prayers, and that God had prepared the ecclesia.

96. 55:31

    May it be, brothers and sisters, that we capture some of Hezekiah’s spirit, no matter how bleak the ecclesial or the community seen may may appear. May it be that we have fire in our bones to rise up early. And may it be in our hearts that we work for the Ecclesia in their cleansing and healing.