“King Hezekiah: Intercession” (continued) - part 3

2 Chronicles 30:6-8, 18-20, 26-27

Last week, in the preceding chapter, we saw Hezekiah calling the people to prayer and praise before Yahweh,
their God.

It was after the cleansing of the temple, that the people were gathered together and ‘...all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded’ - a service blended with the prayer of thanksgiving unto the Lord.

And - with this, ‘...the service of the house of the Lord was set in order.’ (29:35)

Tonight, I would like to lift out the thought of ‘setting of 
the house of the Lord in order’, which, in a single word, can be ‘Godward’ - just everything ‘Godward’ - everything
centered in ‘His House’.

For this, I would like to first read and then comment on the scene set before us.

We will start with chapter 30 of 2 Chronicles and read vs 6-8, 18-20, and 26-27, if you would like to read along in your Bibles. 

Starting with the last part of v 6, it reads: ‘...O people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that He may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.

v 7: Do not now be like your fathers and your brethren, who were faithless to the Lord God of your fathers...

v 8: Do not be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord, and come to His sanctuary, which He has sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord your God...’

And, then, parts of vs 18-20: ‘...Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, ‘The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God...and the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.’

vs 26-27: ‘So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon...there was not the like in Jerusalem...then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, even unto heaven.’

Since the temple had been set in order for the true worship of the living God, Hezekiah sent out a letter of invitation for all the people to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread in the newly-restored sanctuary there.

It was an invitation that meant first - yielding to the Lord - the preparation of the heart.

Then - it was coming to His sanctified sanctuary.

The service unto Him was to follow.

Some thought the invitation was a joke - even laughed and scoffed at Hezekiah when they received it - you can see that at the end of v 10.

But there were many who did respond favorably - many of the priests, Levites, and families came to celebrate. 

And, of course, there were the usual careful and myriad  preparations for the cleansing and sanctification process. 

But, in vs 17-20, you will note that Hezekiah had realized that - for one reason or another - some of the Levites had not been able to comply with all of the ceremonial cleansing laws, yet ‘they did eat the passover’.

He presumed that everyone who had come had come to seek Yahweh - had fixed their hearts to seek Yahweh’s blessing.

So - he prayed for them - prayed that the Lord would pardon every single one of those who had prepared his heart to meet with the Lord. 

And, as we read earlier, in v 20, ‘The Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.’

The Lord kept the promise Hezekiah gave them in v 9 and did not ‘...turn away His face’ from them.

So, it was clear that this was an important move on Hezekiah’s part. 

It made plain what it was that the Lord was considering - He was looking at the acceptable preparations of their hearts. 

‘Godward-ness’ - ‘Godward-ness’ lay deep in the king’s heart - and it spilled out in intercession for all God’s people to be like-minded. 

It is in v 22 that he taught them ‘the good knowledge of the Lord’ during this celebration time, as well.

They needed to understand the sacred nature of this gathering, be conscious of how evil their past history had been, how merited the calamity that had affected their homes and their families by the hands of their enemies was. (v 5)

The sense, then, was that the people were not to just give some intellectual assent to God.

But they were to lay their capacities, their vigour, their everything before Him, in service to Him - they, too, were to become people who also were consistently ‘Godward’ in heart and life.

And - this was to be for all the people - not just for the priests and the Levites, not just for King Hezekiah and his family, not just for the women, not just for the men, not just for the children.

No - it was for every one of them, all together.

The Lord’s message has never been, and never will be, for a particular king or people - it is for all ages, for all time,  for all occasions, and it is for all to participate in it.

They were all called to ‘Godward-ness’ since ‘the house of the Lord had now been set in order’. 

And this called for being so sure of Him, of His Person that there was no need to try to muster up arguments to convince others of His being and of His purpose in the world.

There ought to be a certainty of the heart that has been stirred toward a spiritual consciousness of Him and of His Son, Jesus Christ in all of us, as well.

Hezekiah made his call to the people of the Lord: Do not be like your forefathers and your kinsmen who were unfaithful to the Lord the God of their fathers...but yield to the Lord...attend - come - to His sanctuary that He has hallowed for all time...’

‘Yield yourselves to the Lord’ - ‘yield to the Lord’ - and then ‘come’, come to His sanctuary that He has sanctified for all of time - ‘come’.

His prayer on their behalf communicated this sure  consciousness of God.

He had learned God’s mind - he began to think His thoughts, he was one with Him in Spirit.

And the tide of God’s fulness in him swept out to the people as he became a minister of their reconciliation to God.

Mark the result of his prayer.

There was no question about it: Hezekiah touched God’s heart - his prayer opened heaven for all of them.

The ‘Godward-ness’ of his heart moved the Lord’s heart.

And the Lord met them all, filled them with ‘great gladness’, where they ‘praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord’. (v 21) 

They were all blessed with this divine encounter - an encounter so very, very sanctified and holy.

They all rejoiced together - in fact, it is specifically recorded that there was loud, great joy in Jerusalem. (v 26)

Never before, since Solomon’s days, had there been such a time of jubilation, triumph, and glory in the city.

And v 27 concludes with the announcement:
‘heaven’s holy dwelling-place echoed to their prayer.’ - their voices resounded to heaven! 

Ultimately, we all must recognize that preparation is the key to the service of prayer and praise in the house of the Lord that is set in order.’ (29:36)

And ultimately, too, we must see that intercessory prayer   turns the key so that the prayer, praises, worship, and ministry of the Word are unleashed in the Lord’s power and Presence.

Let me ask you, ‘What is your view of the prayer, praise, worship, and the ‘receiving the Word of the good knowledge of the Lord our God’?

How are you seeing it today - now?

Are you able to look through Hezekiah’s summons to worship to the new, fresh revelation of freedom in Christ Who invites us to the true worship of God?

He is the Mediator between us and God His Father, you know, and - thankfully - it is because of Him, that we can come to God freely, with willingness, and with joy.

He is the One Who prepares our spirits to seek Him. 

He tills the soil of our hearts so that the Spirit of God can plant and cause to grow all that He has prepared for each one of us participating in this divine encounter.

He is altogether deserving of a people’s total committment.

On this groundwork, we all can stand assured, for which we can thank the Lord.

So now, I would like to ask some questions that each of us needs to take to the Lord in our own individual hearts this week.

Consider it seriously before Him as you think about it - and this may shock you a bit - but do not be discouraged.

And the question is this: why are we here tonight?

This is not to sound like a challenge - just a question for some earnest soul-searching before the Lord.

Why do we come to worship Sunday morning? - Why?

Is it because we like to sing songs? - songs of praises to the Lord are important. 

Is it because we want to be with friends - enjoy seeing them? - Fellowship with the Lord’s people is a good reason to get together. 

Is it because we are trying to impress someone? - What do any of us have that is so impressive, we could ask. 

Is it because we are ‘worship critics’ and are here to grade the performance - A, B, C, D, or F? - We are all adept at that - as sinful and displeasing to the Lord as that is, yet we have that tendency, do we not?
 
Why? Why? Why are we here?

I hope - no, I pray - it is for none of these reasons.

I pray, as Hezekiah prayed and assumed, it is because your heart is and has been thoroughly prepared this week - to seek the Lord - to know of His presence here.

The Psalmist wrote: ‘My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.’ (Ps 84:2)

The Psalmist cried out with a thirst, for a touch from the living God - his heart looked ‘Godward’.

He is crying out with the prayer of a longing heart - is making His way to the ‘house of God’ to appear before Him - with Him in spirit.

Do we hunger and thirst for the touch of the living God?

We know it cannot come of ourselves - it cannot be manufactured - it cannot be drummed up.

We cannot conjure up God - we cannot make Him do anything, but we can take Him at His Word.

It is so easy to forget, when we are in worship and prayer before the Lord, that our hearts are to be Godward.

We have the tendency to become slaves to the mechanics - to look at style rather than substance - to depend on others, concerned about what others are saying or thinking or doing - to be ‘spectator sportsmen’ - to come, to watch, to listen, and - most of all - to critique.

Little attention has often been given to heart preparation - to what we are actually doing.

The worshippers of Hezekiah’s time had to properly prepare themselves, but it was the superabundant, meticulous preparation that symbolized the uttermost sacredness in approaching the Lord.

But, Hezekiah, thankfully, saw the sincerity of the people in their coming - and their doing, or their not doing - and he petitioned the Lord. 

This was no joke to him. 

Oh, no - prayer did not come from an empty, idle breath - it came from a force that acted on the mind and will of God.

They had come to seek Him - to meet God face to face.

He knew this - he knew this was the pleasing posture to the divine mind, so he prayed.

And the Lord heard, answered, sanctified - cleansed - and hallowed them - through their worship, their prayer, their praise, and their receiving of God’s Word. 

That is the impact of it all - a touch from God’s heart directly into theirs - in response to the ‘Godward-ness’ of all their hearts.

The Lord promised that, you know, under the Levitical law: ‘I will be hallowed among you...and I...will hallow you’. 
(Lev 22:32)

Hezekiah prayed - he prayed in line with God’s inner purpose to hallow - and he prevailed with God.

When the heart of a once noble people had become gross and their ears deaf to every appeal God had ever made to them, he still prayed - and God rained His loving kindness upon the people.

The Lord Jesus said in Lu 18:1: ‘Men ought always to pray, and not faint’.

What did He mean by ‘ought always to pray’?

If this is taken in the simplest sense, it means ‘to wish forward, to desire toward the ultimate’.

Paul put it this way in Col 3:1 - it means the ‘seeking of things which are above’.

In other words, it means a heart of ‘Godward-ness’.

That is not to suggest that a Christian is to be always wishing himself off to heaven as of right now, or is always unhappy about living and wanting to escape his present problems.

Oh, no! It just means the setting of the mind, the engaging of the mind and heart toward the ultimate that is to be found in God through Jesus Christ - this - this is what prayer develops.

It sets the life in its inspiration toward ‘rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God’.

What did Hezekiah desire for the people?

It was for them to be engaged in this ‘seeking-the-things- above-prayer’, as his heart indicated in his prayer of petition. 

He desired to inspire a new vision of God - to see Him and  His ways anew. 

He desired to bring them to the place of being overwhelmingly convinced of God’s perfection. 

And they did respond to that with a profound and tremendous conviction by corporate prayer, praise, song, and the hearing of God’s Word.

From that point, there was no other way for the congregation to go than what we see in v 27: ‘...and 
their voice was heard...their prayer came up to God’s 
holy dwelling place, even unto heaven.’

When we pray with a ‘Godward heart’, a heart sanctified and prepared in Christ’s cleansing blood, we can fully expect the Lord to hear and to respond in His mercy and loving kindness.

For as Heb 3:6 reveals, Christ, God’s Son, was set over the House of God, Whose House we are, a House He has already set in order.

The invitation now is ‘come’ - come to the One Whose place is hallowed for all of time.

‘Come’ - ‘yield yourselves to Him’ - be hallowed in Him - set your heart and mind on the ultimate found in God through Jesus Christ.

And then - it is the Church’s service unto Him, with the same heart that Hezekiah had, to pray - to pray for the ‘good knowledge of the Lord’ - to go forth for all ages, and for all time, to pray for the time of jubilation, triumph, and glory of God in Christ to be universally manifested - to pray for everything centered in ‘His House’ to prosper.

Oh - for that praying heart of ‘Godward-ness’ in us all! 

SONG: # 63     (1)   “Let’s all go up to Zion...

                (2)   “We’ll sing and praise in Zion...

Now go forth this week in the Lord’s strength - in His peace - and walk victoriously in the power of prayer that prevails before Him!