This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1. 800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I’m really pleased to be able to bring to you the Bible study this morning in Sunday school and we’re gonna look at Hezekiah. So anybody know where the book of Hezekiah is? Good, neither do I. Ha ha ha ha ha. I don’t know where that book is either, but Hezekiah, wonderful, wonderful king, a very sharp change to the kings that had been going on. And you know, it’s interesting as you look at the life of Hezekiah, as you look at the times that he was in, of what he took, it’s eerily similar to what we’re in right now.

It really is. And there’s something that we can take away from this in terms of what a godly leader should be. Now, I need to preface by saying, I do not believe that America is Israel in the sense that God ordained America to be a country. No, not at all. America, regardless of what our president said, is a Christian country. It was founded on Christian principles. These were godly Christian men that set it up. History bears that out. It bears it out.

The first book that Congress ever printed was what? A Bible. Well that kind of ruins the argument for the separation of church Veteration State, right? They just didn’t want the city, the states, running the church. That wasn’t it at all. But they recognized that a government founded on the foundations of godly principles in the Bible. This God, God Jehovah would have a better chance of standing. And of course the Bible proves that out. So preface by saying when I make references to the times that we’re in, the leaders that we have, I’m not trying to make the argument that America has been ordained in the same way that Israel has.

But the Bible says that we can learn. We can learn. Paul says in Galatians that these stories were examples for us to learn by. And Hezekiah is one of those leaders that we can absolutely take a look at and we’ll start by looking at what he came into. Hezekiah didn’t just come in on a quiet note where everything was peaceful and nice and he just happened to be a good guy. You know a lot of times when we read the Old Testament we go through kings and we go through chronicles and we read that this person did right in the eyes of the Lord and he followed after his father David and blah blah blah and he did this and then we read the next guy and it’s kind of like okay well he didn’t do right and he didn’t walk in the ways of his fathers.

You know this guy kept the groves, this guy cut him down, this guy cut this down. You know and it’s all the little details just kind of get washed away and we don’t really see the whole picture of what was going on. And so I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the period of A has, the king that he took over. Now who did you guys study last Last week. Oh, Elisha. Okay. So you really didn’t look too much at kings, although you probably had, you know, Ahab in there that you talked about a little bit, and maybe a little bit further.

But Ahas, not Ahab. Ahas was the king and his son was Hezekiah. But Ahas was a wicked ruler. And if we open our Bibles and we look at 2 Chronicles 8, 2 Chronicles 8, if you have an Old Scholfield reference Bible, turn to page 516. Page 516. And let’s just read the first four verses of 2 Chronicles chapter 28. We’ll look at verses 1 through 4. A has was 20 years old when he began to reign. Isn’t that a scary thought?

A 20-year-old in charge of a nation. That’s nothing. Josiah that comes in later on, he was eight years old. Well, that’s really scary. But of course, this was the fruit. God said, listen, you know, if your older, wiser kings are not going to follow me, then I’m going to put kids in there. And that’s precisely what ended up happening. But A has, 20 years old when he began to reign, he rained 16 years in Jerusalem. And he did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord, like his father David.

For he walked in the ways of the king of Israel, remember now there was a split, you had the northern kingdom, you had the southern kingdom, the northern kingdom being Israel, the southern kingdom being Judah. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, he made molten images for Balaam. So this is just one thing. He made all these little icons, he made all these little idols and put them around in the city of Jerusalem and all the different little provinces around it for the people to worship, including himself.

We’ll look at the reasons behind that in just a moment. Moreover, verse 3, he burnt incense in the valley of the Son of Hinnam and burnt his children in the fire. That is not metaphorical. That is literal. What he’s talking about is the God, false God, little G, Moloch. And the worship of Moloch required this brass kind of image where the hands would be laid out like this over a fire and you would take your child and your infant child and you would put it in the hands of this false idol and the fire would be lit and this child would be burnt alive.

Wicked, wicked. And where did they get this practice from? From the group of people that God said, from the Canaanites, that God said, I’m going to judge them in the process of having you go in and take over the land. So very, very wicked. And here we see the kings of Israel doing the very same things of the people that were there that God said I’m going to judge them. How sad it was. When we look at Ezekiel, we can see God’s broken heart when God picks Israel up by the hair and sets him down in the temple back in time and says, look what they did.

Look what they did. Wanting Ezekiel to see, listen, this is the reason why I’m judging the people, the way I’m judging them. Look what they did in my temple. And that was one of the things. Absolutely wicked. And it says, continuing in verse 3, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. He sacrificed also and burnt in incenses in the high places, on the hills and other every green tree. A has built a society and a culture of the time that was anything but friendly to the Lord who had established them.

All of the leaders, all of the rulers, they were all heavily invested in all of this false worship of the gods, And that’s why they wanted all these things out there. But when we look at history and we see some of the reasons behind YA as did some of the things he did, instead of going to the Lord as God had commanded all of the kings of Israel to do, he did the opposite. So if there was an invading army coming in, which when we read in history, we find out there were.

Syria of course was about to come in and make some invasions into Judah. And they did do that. And so what A has would do, instead of going to the Lord and saying, Lord, please protect us, please help us, he would actually make sacrifices to the gods of the threatening army. And so that’s why he would go out into the different areas in Judah and he would set up these icons out there so that all of the people, all of Israel would be conditioned to recognize, Oh, here comes this invading army.

Let’s appease these gods that are about to come after us by making sacrifices to them. And that was his practice. There’s one such occasion where he even took some of the utensils out of the temple and sent them to the different kings and a way to appease them in hoping that they wouldn’t come. One of them was the king of Assyria, and he sent some things out to them. And then in the process, he boarded up the temple. He said, Nope, no more worshiping here in Jerusalem.

No more in the temple. We’re going to start worshiping all of these different gods. And so that was the culture. That was what the leaders wanted. That’s what the rulers wanted. That was what this king wanted. And some of the people followed through with it. But we’ll also find out when we get to Hezekiah, there was a group of people that that’s not what they wanted. That wasn’t what they wanted at all. So we can see that Hezekiah is coming into this very, very pagan system.

He’s coming into this pagan culture. It’s one that the people have been conditioned to not look towards God for a solution, but look towards the gods of the invading armies for a solution. And this pattern was established and the people were split on worshiping the different false gods. If this fact they were even worshiping the brazen serpent. Remember the brass serpent in the wilderness that Moses had made? Well, they were even worshiping that. Oh, they just for anything at all.

So this is the environment that Hezekiah comes into. Syria had just come in and they actually made league. They were in league with Israel, the northern part. So you have some civil wars going on. You have invading threats on the outside. You have the Philistines who are looking to come in and invade Judah. You have the Edomites, you have the Assyrians, the king of Assyria wanting to come in, and this is what Hezekiah comes into. So let’s read now about Hezekiah.

A has dies, and let’s look at chapter 29, and we see Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty-five years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Abigah, the daughter of Zechariah. Now I want to take a quick departure here. Come back a couple of pages. Does anybody, does the name Zechariah ring a bell? And I’m not talking about the prophet that wrote later on. Skip back to chapter 24, page 513, and we’re going to read about a priest here in verse 20, verse 20 of chapter 24.

In the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoidah the priest which stood above the people and said unto them, Thus saith God, why transgress you the commandments of the Lord that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He hath forsaken you. And they, meaning all of the rulers, the leaders and the king that was there, they conspired against Him and stoned Him with stones at the commandment of the king and the court of the house of the Lord.

In fact, Jesus makes a reference to this very incident in Luke, chapter 11, verse 51. Jesus is talking to that generation and says, listen, the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zechariah are placed upon you guys for being responsible for knowing the truth because it was the same error. Zechariah was telling the people listen you need to turn back to the Lord or you’re going to face a punishment. We can also gain a little bit of a clue into what happened back there with Cain and Abel.

It wasn’t just okay Abel was going about his business. Abel was telling Cain listen if you just do it right you know you’ll be fine that was the Lord telling him, but also Abel was obviously telling them too. So that’s what stirred him to anger and Cain of course in rebellion slew his brother in the same way that these rulers and the king got against Zachariah and killed him. Why? Because Zachariah was speaking against him. So we find out now in chapter 32 here, that Hezekiah is the son of the daughter of Zechariah.

So we can see 25 years worth even though the reign of A has is wicked and terrible. We can see that a mother who knew all of the things of the law knew how things should be run, knew that God should be the one in control is teaching her son this and Hezekiah comes into power and this is what he has behind him and this is what is in front of him. And I want to show you something of Hezekiah.

He starts to initiate some reforms. And for this, let’s skip over to 2 Kings chapter 18. I’m sure there’s a book that has kind of combined kings and chronicles together to make it one because some have some great points and some have other great points and some don’t. So we have to kind of skip back and forth. But in verse 4 of chapter 18, page 444, it’s talking about Hezekiah and he says, and he removed the high places and break the images and cut down the groves and break the pieces of the brazen serpent that Moses had made for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it and And he called it Nehistun.

But this is what I want you to see. This is the attitude and mindset of Hezekiah as he comes into this situation. He says in verse 5, and he trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. And I love this verse, for he claved to the Lord. He didn’t just trust in him. It was what his entire makeup and being was.

He claved to him. He hung on to him as though this was his only hope for anything. And he knew that. He knew that the only way that he could be prosperous, going into all of this culture, going into this society, being the king, is if he claved to the Lord and he did. And he departed not from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commended Moses. And the Lord was with him, and he prospered with her soever he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not.

So Hezekiah comes in, he’s got the right mindset, he says, you know what, the only way we’re going to be able to survive here is if we trust in the Lord. And think about our current situation. Here we are in America and the circumstances seem to be the same. We have ISIS, this terrorist organization that I believe is already in here, already planning, already executing many types of terrorist acts going on right now. You have the person in, who was the one?

Isn’t it sad that you have to try to remember which one of the shootings it is? Oh my gosh. No, the Muslim that just shot, was that in a movie theater? No, it was in the military. Right. Oh my gosh, what kind of a state are we in? Where we can’t even recall the facts of people being killed and gunned down. Oh my gosh. So, you know, we have all of this terrorism going on. We have wars, we have these gangs down in Mexico that are waging wars against America.

It’s not being reported. But there are ranchers, if you do any research and you look down at the border of what’s going on there, they’re at war. They are at war. These Mexican drug lords are coming in and they are terrorizing and killing the people in all of those areas so that they can get their trafficking, sex trafficking back and forth, drug trafficking back and forth. We’re in the same situation that Hezekiah was in. We have a culture that does not fear God anymore.

Their culture did not fear God. Why? Well, because as soon as the threats came in, what was the first thing they ran to? They ran to the idols of the things. And our society, when we look at the threats that are coming in, what do we look towards? Do we look towards the Lord? No. Think about our politicians right now. How many of them have stood up and said, listen, gay marriage is wrong because it’s sin. Have you heard any politicians say that?

No. But you know, there should be an overwhelming sense to go towards the source of the problem and recognize because we were founded on godly principles, we’ve moved away from them and so has a chaius, this is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to do it and notice that the rulers and the leaders of the people did not want to do this but he made them do it anyway because he knew what the right thing to do was.

So he went through and he says, listen, he says, first thing we got to do is you priests, you’ve not been doing what God has commanded you to do. Now we don’t know the mindset of them today, just follow along with the king because they were afraid that they not stand up. You know, we could speculate back and forth on what their motivation was. But the bottom line is when we read, we see that Hezekiah said, nope, he gave a command to the priest.

He said, listen, you go in there, you clean out the temple. He says, you take off those things that have been locked up, you open it up, you clean it out, you clean yourselves out. And that’s precisely what he did. And so he had this whole process. He knew about the law. He knew that the priests could not in whatever rebellious stage they were present themselves before the Lord. They had to be sanctified. Sanctified, we do that to ourselves.

We cleanse ourselves by confessing our sins to the Lord and by looking for ways to stop doing those things. It’s not just simply the confession and we go out and continue to do the things. We look for changes and we try to make changes in our life after we confess them. And that’s a way of sanctifying ourselves. before we take the Lord’s Supper, we are to be introspective and look and see and go to Lord. That’s a way of sanctifying ourselves.

So Hezekiah being the king knew that the Levites in the temple were not clean. Then he knew that the temple was not clean. So he tells them, gives them a command, go through, clean everything up, and he goes ahead and does that. Interestingly, in the process of doing this, in the time that it takes to get done, it’s also around the time period that it was Passover. Passover was to be celebrated by God’s decree in the first month. But by the time they got done with all of the consecrating of all of the utensils, cleaning up all of the instruments that was in the temple, cleaning themselves up, doing all of these things, tearing down all the idols, all the false things, it had gone past the first month and they were into the second month.

So, you know, some people might have looked at this and thought, well, okay, you know, God said that we’re to do it on this day, and since we’ve already passed it, well, we’ll just look forward to doing it next year. But that’s not what Hezekiah did. And again, I think it goes back to the very thing, talking about what was in His heart, what was in his heart. He said, you know what, no matter what, I think the purpose of the Passover is for a remembrance.

And because we have not had a Passover celebration and so long, we’re going to do it. And I recall, I think to my mind about other occasions where things that were set aside according to the orders of the temple, certain things that God overlooked because there was a right motivation behind it. Anybody think of one right off the bat? Maybe David? Remember when David was running from Saul and he was hungry? And he went to the priest and he said, listen, we’re hungry.

You’ve got five loaves, whatever you got in there, can I have it? And the priest looks at him and says, well, these are hollowed bread. This has been sanctified, set apart. This is for the temple. This is the shoe bread that goes to the Lord. And yet, because he was hungry, because there was a need, the priest said, okay, here you go and gave it to David. It’s interesting, again, the Lord uses that precise example when talking to the Pharisees later on about their desire to be so meticulous about following every jot and tittle of the law, even though they’re missing the whole point, and not really understanding the spirit of it behind it.

And so in the same way God honors Hezekiah who says, listen, this is for a remembrance of us. What our nation needs now is to remember God and who brought them there. That God is the one that took them out of Egypt brought them into the Promised Land. And he did it by blood and he did it through all of these things. That’s what the Passover was for. And so Hezekiah being the godly leader that he is against all of the friction that he’s getting from all.

He declares, you know what, I know it’s a month later but we’re going to have the Passover celebration. And so in a way to reunite some of the tribes in the North he sends out some letters. And he sends these letters out, he sends them to Ephraim, he sends them to Manasseh, he sends them out to several tribes out there and says, listen, we need to get back to this. Even though, yes, we’re split into a different kingdom, there’s no reason why we can’t come back and get back together.

And so he drafts some letters and he has people send them out. And sadly, we read, let’s look at 2 Chronicles chapter 30, and let’s look at verses 1 through 10. In Hezekiah sent to all Israel and to Judah and wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord of Jerusalem to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel. And the King had taken counsel and his princes and all the congregation of Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the second month, for they could not keep it at that time because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently.

Neither had the people gathered themselves together in Jerusalem and the thing pleased the king and the congregation so they establish a decree and made proclamation throughout all Israel from Beersheba to Dan. That’s from one end to the other all the way there to make proclamation and in verse six so the post went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah and according to the commandment of the king saying, ye children of Israel turn again into the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.

And He will return to the remnant of you that you are escaped out of the hands of the king of Assyria. And He says, Be not like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespass against the Lord. And in verse 9, for if you turn again to the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them. And so in verse 10 we see what the results are. So the posts pass from city to city throughout the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them.

Many of the other tribes that were there, they laughed. How discouraging for this young king trying to do the right thing in an absolutely corrupt area, but it didn’t discourage him. It didn’t discourage him. He kept faithful. He did all these things and they went forward with the Passover and I want you to skip down to verse 18 and Hezekiah rather than being bitter towards all of these other people all of these other tribes his brethren He does something amazing something that were commanded to do He says for the multitude of people even many of Ephraim and Manasseh and Izakar and Zebulun had not cleans themselves yet they did eat the Passover, otherwise when it was written, but Hezekiah prayed for them, saying the good Lord pardon everyone.

You see, even though those letters went out into the different tribes and there were different rulers and there were different leaders out there that laughed at it, some of the people that knew about them said, no, let’s go to Jerusalem because we want to follow what the Lord wants. We want to do these things and they hadn’t cleaned themselves, they hadn’t sanctified themselves, but Hezekiah being the godly king, recognizing these people were coming there with the right heart, the right intention, the right motive, praise God, even though they’re not sanctified, they’re not cleansed, except what their offerings are.

And God honored that. He absolutely did. Look at verse 19, that prepare his heart to seek God. He’s talking about those that came. the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary, and the Lord God hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people. So Hezekiah has a great start. He’s got some great reforms and he’s got some followings coming on. He’s got some people behind him and now he faces a major, major test.

He has Sennacherib who was coming And let’s go to chapter 32 and let’s look at verse 1 through 4. After these things and the establishment thereof, Senacchreb, king of Assyria, came and entered into Judah and encamped against the fenced cities and thought to win for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Senacchreb was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes, his mighty men, to stop the waters of the the fountains that were without the city, and they did help him.

So there was gathered much people together who stopped all the fountains and the brooks that ran through the midst of the land saying, why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? So it was a little bit of strategy. Hello, this is Peter Amato with Bibleline, and we hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We’re so thankful you’re supportive Bibleline, and we would like to offer you a free gift. During this month, for a gift in any amount, We’re going to send you Dr.

Arnold’s teaching series on the book of Colossians. Paul writes to a concerned pastor about false teachings that are entering his church. Some were teaching that one could find additional and greater knowledge outside of Jesus Christ, which is not true. Paul teaches that Christ is the head and we are complete in him. This teaching series is certain to help you in your spiritual growth. So email, call or write to us today to receive your CD series on the book of Colossians.

Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you, and thank you again for supporting Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.

Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.