the joy of celebrating salvation

So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. Then the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came to his holy habitation in heaven.
2 Chronicles 30:26-27

It is good to see a true renewal of spiritual life. That is what Hezekiah led Judah to experience. He had priests and Levites working with him to motivate this spiritual momentum. There was also a growing sense of purpose among the people of the nation. A kind of national movement was encouraged... a movement back to the worship of God. Out of it came a desire to celebrate Passover, the feast that remembered the salvation of God when He brought His people out of slavery in Egypt.

But there was a problem. Normally Passover would be celebrated during the first month of the Jewish calendar. But at that time there simply were not enough consecrated priests and Levites to perform the temple duties of the feast. There was a provision in the Law for "late passover" for those who were ceremonially unclean. They chose to interpret the "spirit of the Law" and set the date for the second month in allowance for this. Couriers were dispatched among the people inviting all who could come to be in Jerusalem for the feast.

And it was quite the worship celebration! It was scheduled for seven days. At the end of the week it was proclaimed to celebrate for an additional seven days. And so the Passover was celebrated for two weeks straight. And nothing like it stood in living memory. This was a watershed for a generation. it was a time of rejoicing, worship, and real blessing. And God was very pleased with the worship He received! Significant obedience led to restoration and substantive blessing.

leading by repentance

Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, in order that his fierce anger may turn away from us.
2 Chronicles 29:10

Hezekiah's commitment to true reformation in Judah was breathtakingly fast. He realized that his father's rampant idolatry had led the nation in an out of control plunge to ruin and captivity. Hezekiah no longer wanted to shutter up the temple. He moved quickly from the first days of his reign to correct this.

The king assembled the priests and the Levites in the temple courts. He repented of the nation's unfaithfulness and encouraged them to cleanse themselves and the temple in order to initiate the worship of Yahweh in His house again. They went rapidly to work, cleansing the temple of the idolatrous images set up therein and preparing themselves to perform full levitical duties once again.

Once this was done, the priests reported back to Hezekiah. The king rose early the very next morning and offered many sacrifices, including a sin offering participated in by the government officials. This was the way it was supposed to be. And it is great to see Hezekiah waste no time in doing it. He meant what he said when he expressed his will to covenant with God again.

God blessed Hezekiah with a long reign. Judah had been in spiritual darkness for a generation. God used the spiritual leadership of a king broken by Judah's sin to bring them back. And the earnest nature of Hezekiah's leadership in repentance was a big part of that restoration. The most powerful leadership move Hezekiah ever made was public repentance and commitment to God.

twisted logic

In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the LORD-this same King Ahaz. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, "Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me." But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel.
2 Chronicles 28:22-23

Ahaz had an idolatry-driven heart. One of his very first actions as king was to construct statues of the Baals (2 Chronicles 28:2). And his abandonment of the Lord went downhill from there. He seemed to have been on a personal campaign to worship every false god of the nations around Judah, sacrificing his own sons in pagan ritual (2 Chronicles 28:3-4). This quest for idolatry eventually led him to shutter up the temple of God (2 Chronicles 28:24) after he rid it of its treasure to appease foreign oppressors (2 Chronicles 28:20-21).

But the worst part of his unfaithfulness was the reasoning he gave for continuing after God disciplined him. He adopted the gods of his foes who defeated him in battle. His pagan gods did not help him, so he sought out even more pagan gods in his desperation. He assumed Syria's idols were superior since Judah was now subject to Syria. And he adopted the gods of Damascus as his own. It may have been fashionable, but it was a big mistake.

When we run from God, our logic twists in really weird ways. We don't even realize how stupid we are until it is too late. And by then, the damage is done. Ahaz was ruined (and all Israel with him) by his twisted religious thinking. Without God, our world will warp.

contrasting generations & the lies of success

So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the LORD his God.
2 Chronicles 27:6

This is the contrast between a son and his father. Both of them became successful and were powerful leaders through obedience to God's commands. But the son ultimately succeeded where his father had failed. Jotham stayed true to God and finished well. When he grew strong with riches and political power, he ordered his ways in obedience to God. His father, Uzziah, grew proud in his success and ultimately sinned against God and endured judgment (2 Chronicles 26:16). When both men arrived at the same juncture they took different paths.

Sinful patterns can be broken. Jotham did not have to repeat his father's sinful actions. He seems to have learned from his dad's mistakes. Perhaps seeing his dad succumb to leprosy had a sobering effect on his view of success and how to handle it. When God blessed him with success he did not let it get the better of him. He stayed humble. And that led to a good end. He was blessed with a life that pleased God from start to finish.

The more I read the stories of kings and leaders in the Old Testament, the more impressed I am with the need to finish well. It is not a given that I will do so. The odds are against me. The difference between the shame of Uzziah and the fame of Jotham comes down to the issue of personal pride. Uzziah's own self-centered thinking caused him to end poorly. Jotham's God-centered commitments led to blessing.

As I grow older I see the crossroads loom before me in vivid detail. Following hard after God is clearer, but it is fraught with more hardships personally than I anticipated as an eager Bible College student in my teens! It would be easy to slip into selfish desires now, after a quarter century of ministry. And the American Dream fed by retirement planners is an alluring temptation. In a strange way, I am actually kind of glad that circumstances have turned out that my retirement nest egg tanked... I realize now I will work in ministry until I die. But I want to finish well and must do so. To go all self-centered in my thinking now is a waste of my life.

In a couple of weeks I am blessed with a month long sabbatical. It can't come quick enough! I am ready to slow down and seek God earnestly. I am asking God for clarity for that time so that I can see a very fruitful decade ahead of me. I want to see God give me direction for the next five years. I think the decade of my 50's could be my most productive years in life and ministry... especially if I don't let myself get in the way and ruin it!

Leadership can siphon character

He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.
2 Chronicles 26:5

Uzziah was a good king who faithfully sought God. His reign was long (52 years) and marked with prosperity. Threats to Judah were eliminated in Philistia and Arabia. It was looking well. Defenses were strong. The wall of Jerusalem were well defended with the newest technologies (catapults and arrow machines). It was a good time to be in Judah.

Uzziah worshiped God. His sin was never idolatry. But his reign still did not end well. For some reason toward the end of his reign he felt compelled to usurp a priestly role. The text says nothing about circumstantial motivation. It just says he was proud. And in his pride he challenged God and the priests by entering the temple to burn incense on the altar. That was a job solely for the priests. Uzziah crossed a line.

Azariah and the priests confronted Uzziah and immediately God struck the king with leprosy. He was rushed out of the temple and was excluded from temple worship by health law the rest of his days (2 Chronicles 26:19-21). He lived out his days an isolated leper with limited contact, his pride demolished as God turned the tables on him. He died like one of the lowest members of the social scale of his day.

So many of these leaders in Judah start well, but end so very poorly. Leadership puts a drain on character evidently. And that is a lesson I want to pay attention to as I probably have less ministry ahead of me as I do behind me now.

idolatry is a dumb idea

Therefore the LORD was angry with Amaziah and sent to him a prophet, who said to him, "Why have you sought the gods of a people who did not deliver their own people from your hand?"
2 Chronicles 15:15

Seeking anyone or anything other than God is where idolatry leads us. And the way in which our hearts will worship almost anything is very distressing. The story of Amaziah lets us in on just how crazy our idolatrous hearts can be.

Amaziah sought the Lord as he went to battle against the Edomites. God assured him the victory if he would dismiss 100,000 Israeli mercenaries from his assembled army. He did so, went to battle, and Judah handily defeated the Edomites as God had promised. You'd think that Amaziah would be filled with profound thankfulness to God. But instead he does a really, really stupid thing. He takes the idols of the Edomites that he captured in battle, sets them up in Jerusalem, and worships them.

God sent a prophet to confront the king and even God is seemingly baffled by Amaziah's motivation. He asked the question about the incredulous behavior: "Why are you worshiping the gods of a people I gave to you in battle? What possible reason would there be to worship impotent gods of a defeated nation?" And at this point God warns that Judah will suffer punishment for disobedience.

Israel still has a bone to pick with Amaziah in Jerusalem. They were angry about being dismissed from the battle with Edom. Eventually relations sour to the point that an army from Israel marches to Judah, attacks Jerusalem, tears down a large portion of the city wall, and ransacks the temple. Amaziah is eventually deposed and killed in a palace conspiracy after this humiliation. It's really a testament to the stupidity of idolatry. It's dumb to replace God.

swift justice

And they abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.
2 Chronicles 24:18

It is sad to watch a good man go bad. That is exactly what happened with Joash. As long as his mentor, Jehoida the priest was alive, king Joash faithfully followed the Lord. In fact, he was so concerned for the glory of God that he spent decades of time and oodles of cash to restore God's temple in Jerusalem.

But after Jehoida's death, Joash was easily influenced by the royal family and other idolatrous elements in Jerusalem. And the result was a very quick return of Judah to idolatry. It may have began with tolerance, but it ended with Joash himself killing the son of Jehoida when God gave the priest's son a prophecy against the king. The young king who had been so faithfully concerned about the Word of god and following it became a tyrant bent on wiping out the very message that God directly gave to him.

God's judgment on Judah was swift. A small force of Syrians came against Jerusalem. Judah should have easily wiped them out, but God let them prevail and ransack the city. Joash himself was wounded in the fight. By the time the Syrians return to Damascus with Judah's spoils, Joash is wounded and bed-ridden in the palace.

At that moment other elements of the royal line (probably his own sons) conspire against him and kill him in his weakness. God's judgment brought an end to Joash's own rebellion before it could worsen. The consequences of his cavalier disregard for God's Word were severe and serious. And they came swiftly!