In 1972 an axe wielding maniac attacked the famous Michelangelo’s beautiful sculpture The Pieta in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. He smashed the nose and breaking the hand of Madonna. In 1975 a Dutch schoolmaster claiming to be on a divine mission made several deep slashes in the world famous painting of Rembrandt called “The Night watch.” He was never tried but committed to a mental asylum, where he later committed suicide. Two cherished works of art were severely damaged. But what did officials do? Throw them out and forget about them? Absolutely not! Using the best experts, who worked with the utmost care and precision, they made every effort to restore these treasures to their original form. It took four years to restore Rembrandt’s painting and The Pieta was also eventually restored. Similarly, you and I are the most precious and priceless creation of God. But the devil has vandalized the image of God in us through sin. God’s original purpose in creating us has been distorted. But God in his great love for us sent his son Jesus Christ to restore us back to Himself.
In recent years there has been a lot of talk about “Taking our country back” but what no one seems to be asking is back to where or back to what? Long ago there was a king named Hezekiah was disturbed by the sad state of the nation of Judah especially the temple or the house of worship. How disturbed are we by the decaying morals of our nation and the lukewarm state of churches in our time? As we know both, nations and churches are made up of people; if we want to see them restored then people must be restored first back to God’s design, order and purpose. We read A model of Church restoration in 2 Chronicles 29-31.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
When we closely look into the history of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament we will discover a pattern. There were good as well as bad kings that ruled the nation at different times. Under a good king the nation thrived but under a bad king it went bankrupt. When another good king came into power he had to undo all the bad things the previous administration had done. Bad kings brought disgrace to God’s name through their idolatry therefore subjected the nation to God’s wrath and punishment. On the contrary good kings honored God’s name by walking righteously, in humility before God as a result God not only blessed them but the nation as well.
Some time during 735 B.C a king named Ahaz ruled Judah. He was a bad king. He did certain unspeakable things. He burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree (2 Chro 28:4). He made ungodly alliances with the nations that were prohibited by God. In addition to all these abominations he “closed the doors of the house of the LORD, and made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem. In other words he became a god in his own eyes. What Ahaz did indeed provoked God to anger and the wrath of the LORD was against Judah and Jerusalem. God made them an object of terror of horror.
Let me bring this into our context. Can you imagine what our country would look like, if all of a sudden the government has decided to shut down all the churches, synagogues, including house churches, and passed a bill that curbs our freedom to worship and practice our faith? Do you think that would provoke God to anger? Of course it would! In recent times we’ve become a target for terror of horror. Could it be that we have turned our backs on God, driven God out of our schools and public life and began to offer sacrifices to other gods? Whenever a nation turns its back against God; He may tolerate it for a while but not forever; He will certainly brings his wrath and vengeance upon that nation because he does not share his glory with others.
Coming back to our text; after Ahaz died, his son Hezekiah became king at age twenty five and ruled for twenty nine years. He did right in the sight of God. It was recorded that “after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, or among those who were before him.”(2 Kings 18: 5-6) What a contrast? What distinguished king Hezekiah from the other Kings? It is said, that “He trusted in the LORD the God of Israel, and he clung to the LORD and did not depart from following Him while keeping His commandments. We will be looking into five areas of restoration that King Hezekiah under took and how we can apply them to our personal as well as Church Restoration. The five areas are: The temple; the temple worship, the Passover, the tithes & offerings and the vision. Today our focus is on: “The Temple Restoration”
I. TEMPLE RESTORATION: (2 Chro 29:1-19)
Before we look into temple restoration let me explain what restoration means. It means the act of restoring; renewal, revival or reestablishment. It means a return of something to a former, original, normal or unimpaired condition. So, temple restoration here means, rediscovering or reinstituting God’s original intent, design and purpose for that temple. What applies here for God’s temple also applies for the individual believers.
Keeping this in mind let’s look at the restoration that Hezekiah brought about in a time when the nations of Israel and Judah were in crisis. This is the election season, we often hear the presidential candidates rhetoric which goes somewhat like this, “from day one in the office I will repeal or reform the bill that was passed by the previous administration” But little do they know how hard it is to bring reforms about in the white house. Hezekiah, from the time he became the king undertook the restoration of the temple. If you remember; the last thing his father Ahaz did was to shut down the doors to the temple in Jerusalem. One of the first things Hezekiah did was to open the doors of the temple so that the restoration of the temple could begin.
Though he had opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them, there was a problem, who could be bold enough to go into the temple and carry on the work of cleansing? If you remember only the priests and the Levites were eligible to perform various services in the temple. So Hezekiah called them and told them to consecrate themselves before they would go in and clean the temple. Accordingly the Levites took up the job, went in and cleansed every unclean thing that was found in the temple. They came back to King Hezekiah and said, “we have cleansed the whole house of the LORD, the altar of burnt offering with all of its utensils, and the table of show bread with all of its utensils.” It was a total cleansing which took sixteen days to bring the temple back to its original shape. In the end the temple was fully restored.
Hundreds of years later we see another type of cleansing in the temple in Jerusalem, this time it was Jesus who took up the job of cleansing. Do you remember how upset Jesus was when he saw men selling cattle, sheep, and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money? Why was he so angry at them for selling? He was not angry at them because they were selling those items; but because they were selling them in the outer courts of the temple itself, the one place where Gentiles could come to pray. So he took a whip and drove all from the temple area, both cattle and sheep and scattered the coins of the money changers and over turned their tables and he said, “Get those out of here! How dare you turn my father’s house into a market?
What does Hezekiah’s restoring the temple and years later Jesus’ cleansing the temple in Jerusalem got to do with us today? I believe it’s got a lot to do with us. These two symbolic cleansing represent the much needed cleansing of individual believers as well as Churches at large. God wants to restore His divine image back to man order back to our churches. He wants to drive out every form of evil from our churches.
How is God cleansing the Church; which is his bride today? We read in I Cor 3:16, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. Listen carefully, when Paul wrote, he was addressing the believers as the temple of the Holy Spirit and not the un-generated people. It is us who gave our lives to the LORD and accepted his forgiveness who are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
If you are a child of God but for some reason you are still continuing to live in sin before it is too late you must repent and ask God to forgive and cleanse you. The church of Jesus Christ is not a building but a community of believers. God is passionate about you as He was with his temple in Jerusalem. He doesn't want you to destroy yourself by indulging in sin. He wants to restore you and give you back the worth and dignity the enemy had stolen.
As the call went forth from king Hezekiah to the Levites to consecrate themselves, for the past three and half years I’ve been calling the people in this Church to come back to God and follow the basic teachings of Christianity. All my preaching and service reflects that call.
As King Hezekiah made a covenant in his heart to follow God and began to restore the temple, my prayer is that you too will open up your closed heart once again to the LORD by asking him to come into your heart to cleanse you. I sincerely believe, when we return to God in repentance and in humility God will restore his image back in us and the glory of God will fill not only our lives but this Church once again, and then truly this place will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
The world and our community is yet to see what a church full of restored, and transformed people can do by the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells in them. Let the power of God come in and change you from the inside out. Amen!
Rome By Inc. Let's Go, Matthew W. Mahan, Vedran Lekic, Michael Squire, Elizabeth Thrall
