When Hezekiah came to power he renewed the worship of the one true God at the Temple, as well as the celebration of the Passover (2 Chronicles 29). This was a monumental task that brought the blessing of God back to His people (29:10). As a result, spiritual renewal spread across the land as the people began to honor the Lord again.
General order of events:
- Hezekiah comes to sole power as King of Judah and opens the doors of the temple that had been shut during the reign of his father (28:24).
- He gathers the priests/Levites together to charge them with their duties before the Lord.
- The priest/Levites begin the process of sanctifying themselves and cleansing the Temple (28:24).
- It takes a total of sixteen days (29:16,17) to completely remove all the debris/rubbish from the Temple and to sanctify it according to the Law of Moses.
- Hezekiah and the priests/Levites go to the Temple to restart the sacrificial system and worship God (29:29, 30).
- Sin offering (29:21)
- Burnt offering (29:24)
- Thank offering (29:31)
- Peace offering (29:35)
- Drink offering (29:35)
- The offerings are accompanied by loud music, singing and worship (29:25-26, 29-30).
- The Temple and offerings are completely set in order according to the Law of Moses (29:35).
- A decree is issued by Hezekiah and sent throughout the land for all the men to come to Jerusalem to observe the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (30:1, 6-9).
- Many participate, but some haven’t been fully consecrated to celebrate the Passover and Hezekiah prays for God to pardon them under these circumstances (30:18-20).
- God is pleased with all that is done and a great celebration is experienced in Jerusalem (29:36; 30:26).
- The people that had travelled to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Passover return to their homes and destroy all the sacred places of idol worship (31:1).
There are also two New Testament examples of the Temple being cleansed by Jesus. The first was at the beginning of his ministry (John 2:13-17) and the second was just before His crucifixion (Matthew 21:10-17; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-46).
There is no Temple today where Christians must gather for special festivals/feast days as was true under the Old Testament Law. But, the New Testament still uses the idea of the temple in two specific ways: 1. Wherever the people of God gather together they (the people) are His Temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). 2. Each individual believer is called the Temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and should not defile His temple with immoral living.
Using the example of the cleansing of the Temple in Hezekiah’s day and the idea today of each believer being the temple of God, I want to focus on authentic Christianity.
Authenticity doesn’t begin with conforming the outer deeds of our lives to righteousness, but rather with the transformation of our hearts before God.
For the Temple in Hezekiah’s day to be again a place of worship and honor to God, the first thing that had to happen was to open the doors and remove the rubbish/debris from the inside (29:5, 15, 16, 18-19). The glory of the Lord will not reside in a dirty/defiled Temple, nor will His glory be revealed in the life of a believer that is closed to His inner working and left cluttered with the debris/rubbish of this world.
The Psalmist prayer should be on the lips of every follower of Jesus: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24)
One of the main things that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees was that they were supposedly clean on the outside (righteous works), but dirty on the inside (cf. Matthew 23:25-28). They had not been willing to allow God to cleanse the inside and their religious practice became mere formalism/ritualism.
Authenticity occurs when our inner lives (motivations/attitudes) and our daily works (activities/actions) are consistent with each other. To the degree that there is inconsistency there will be a lack of authenticity and hypocrisy will be present.
What is of concern today is the degree to which we are willing to allow our hearts (God’s Temple) to be filled with the love of the world (debris/rubbish) while acting publicly like devoted followers of Jesus.
cf. 1 John 2:15
Loving the world has to do with adopting the values, ambitions, philosophies, arguments, and attitudes of the world. It’s not about loving life on this planet, but it is about loving this planet’s “system” of values and ideals. This shuts our “temple doors” to the power of God and our lives become increasingly filled with the rubbish/debris of our culture, thus preventing deep worship of God and the light of His Gospel being seen through us.
This all came home to me recently when I was talking with a group of people and I mentioned to them what the scripture says about an issue currently confronting the American church. I’m not surprised when unbelievers push back against biblical truth, but I am always disappointed when the resistance comes primarily from those who profess faith in Jesus Christ. When we allow the thinking and values of the world to infiltrate our minds to the degree that we begin making the same philosophical arguments as the world...we have fallen in love with this “world system.”
We cannot just conform certain parts of our lives to the ways/will of God. Our hearts must be transformed because it is there that the real defilement is found. (cf. Matthew 15:7-9, 17-20) As God changes our hearts, He changes everything else too. It’s an inside-out proposition. The outside-in approach turns people into hypocrites and/or legalists.
If we’re going to be authentic followers of Jesus we have to be willing to ask ourselves questions like...
- Have I so compartmentalized my life that my Christianity isn’t allowed to influence/infiltrate all my other compartments?
- Do I seek to think biblically about every aspect of life and not just about those that concern my religious practices?
- Do I value biblical wisdom instead of worldly wisdom or have I bought into the lie that man knows best?
- Are there areas of my life that I don’t allow God to control because I like those areas the way they are and don’t want them changed?
- Does my religious life resemble a formalistic/ritualistic duty or do I really encounter Christ in my daily life and in my corporate worship?
- Am I seeking Christ with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, or am I basically indifferent about my walk with Him?
- Is it really my desire to honor God with my whole being or am I only giving Him “lip service”?
- Am I willing to invite God to evaluate my motivations and not just my performances?
- Am I ready to suffer the reproach of Christ in order to be true to the principles/precepts of Christ?
- Do I seek God’s direction in every decision or just assume that He will bless whatever I decide to do?
- Is it my desire to glorify God in all areas of my life or am I satisfied that He’s glorified in some of the areas of my life?
Being a Christian isn’t just about getting out of hell! It’s also about becoming an authentic follower of Jesus so that He is glorified in every area of my life!
Closing:
He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the Almighty and the Christian confessions which would become the pillars of his new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a man sent from God. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was a master of outward religiosity--with no inward reality! (Today in the Word, June 3, 1989.)
Adolf Hitler is an extreme example of what happens when outward appearances become more important than inner transformation!
