KING HEZEKIAH, REVIVAL, AND LOVING GOD

 

 

The Law of Moses had been both a source of blessings and of curses if it wasn’t obeyed. It was also the way to test the Israelite love of God:

 

·       “You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always…You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess… you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.” (Deuteronomy 11:1, 8, 32)

 

But what would happen when the Israelites overlooked a command? They could offer a sacrifice to the Lord who would mercifully pass over their sins.

 

However, what would happen if they purposely disobeyed a command but with a right motive and heart. This happened during a great revival of King Hezekiah who reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years.

 

It had been a time of great suffering for Judah under his father, King Ahaz, who had led the nation into idolatry, remodeling the Temple to serve Assyrian idols. Judah knew that they had sinned and had endured its horrific consequences. They were ready to return to their God, and King Hezekiah was the one to lead the revival. He rallied his broken nation for this return.

 

They sought to reinstate the Passover and sent emissaries throughout Judah and also into the now dispersed vassal state of Israel to invite the remaining remnants of the Israelite tribes to attend:

 

·       So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his princes, as the king had commanded, saying, “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.” (2 Chronicles 30:6)

 

However, the couriers to Israel were scorned and mocked. Nevertheless, the hearts of some were touched, and they journeyed to celebrate the Passover:

 

·       The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the Lord. (2 Chronicles 30:12)

 

Meanwhile, they were busy cleansing Jerusalem for this great return. However, they had a problem it was already too late to celebrate the Passover, which had been designated for the first month of the year, but it was now the second month and there weren’t enough priests to officiate. Besides, they and the other Levites didn’t have time enough to purify themselves. Nor did the returnees have the time to cleanse themselves. Therefore, Hezekiah prayed:

 

·       …“May the good Lord pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness.” And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people. And the people of Israel who were present at Jerusalem kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with great gladness, and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with all their might to the Lord. (2 Chronicles 30:18-21)

 

 

What should this teach us? Proper priorities! It reminds me of the Pharisees who had criticized Jesus disciples for eating the standing grain in the field on the Sabbath:

 

·       [Jesus] said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.” (Matthew 12:3-6)

 

Perhaps something greater than the specific specifications for Passover worship was here too - something that would have made the angels rejoice.

 

Right afterwards, they entered a synagogue where Jesus healed a man with a shriveled hand. Again, the leaders sought accuse Him of working on the Sabbath:

 

·       He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:11-12)

 

Some things are more important than others. But which things should head our priority list? Certainly not those things that had been the shadows or representations of the reality that was to come:

·       Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16–17)

 

How then can we distinguish the shadows from the substance? Jesus gave us the ultimate rule:

·       And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

 

For King Hezekiah and the people of Judah, the answer had become clear. They had to remove all pagan worship and replace it with the God of Israel. Under King Ahaz, Judah had taken the wrong turn, and now they had to backtrack.

 

Fortunately, many Christians are awakening to the fact that we too have taken the wrong turn into compromise and must reassess what it means to love God with all our being. This can prove costly. Judah had to pay dearly for revolting against Assyria. However, eventually the Lord delivered them when He, by His own hand, struck down 200,000 Assyrian soldiers, ending their siege of Jerusalem.

 

Ashamed of the Gospel: The Charge of “Fundamentalism”

Shame is an excellent tool to silence opposition, and Pope Francis knows how to use it, charging “fundamentalism” to silence theological consideration.

On September 16, 2015, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) wrote:

·       Religious fundamentalism keeps God at a distance, and keeps believers from building bridges with others, Pope Francis reflected on Sunday during a radio interview.

That’s odd! I thought that God wanted us to believe certain fundamentals of the faith like:

·       "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)

Aren’t we supposed to be assured by the fundamental truth that Christ died for our sins and, on the basis of this, to know that we have peace with God? However, it seems that, according to Francis, this fundamental truth would “divert [our] minds from him”:

·       “Our God is a God who is close, who accompanies. Fundamentalists keep God away from accompanying his people, they divert their minds from him and transform him into an ideology. So in the name of this ideological god, they kill, they attack, destroy, slander. Practically speaking, they transform that God into a Baal, an idol.”

I had no idea that this fundamental truth would “keep God away!” However, it is this truth coupled with the truth of my utter unworthiness that draws me lovingly to those I would ordinarily hate. (Okay, I have much more growing to do in the area of love.)

I am therefore mystified that, according to the CNA:

·       The Pope said that no religion is immune from the possibility of fundamentalism. He said fundamentalism, instead of creating a bridge, creates a wall that blocks encounter with another person. It seeks ways to disagree. With fundamentalism, he said, “you can’t have friendship between peoples.”

Instead, it is these Christian fundamentals that shoot down my arrogance, belief in my entitlement, and humble me to follow Jesus. It is these truths that have motivated me to reach out in friendship and to forgive those who hurt me. Why? Because of another fundamental – I must forgive as I have been forgiven.

Instead, it matters what fundamentals are embraced. If “world conquest” is the fundamental, this will have a stifling effect upon friendship. Also, if “violent socialistic revolution” is the fundamental or ideal, then chaos and destruction is guaranteed.

However, if love and justice are our fundamentals, we can expect better fruit and the blessings of God.

It is worthy of note that Francis has his own fundamentals. Here are some of his sayings:

·       "You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity."

·       "A Christian who does not protect creation, who does not let it grow, is a Christian who does not care about the work of God; that work that was born from the love of God for us. And this is the first response to the first creation: protect creation, make it grow."

·       "God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life. Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve."

·       "The 'big bang,' that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it."

·       "This is playing with life. Beware, because this is a sin against the creator," he said, denouncing euthanasia as a "false sense of compassion" in November. The comments came on the heels of Brittany Maynard's advocacy efforts to die with dignity, but he did not address her death specifically.

·       As bishops ended a two-week conference in October by rejecting landmark wording that would soften the church's stance toward homosexuality and divorce, Pope Francis said: "God is not afraid of new things" and called on the church to adapt to "changing conditions in society."

Clearly, Francis has his own fundamental beliefs, and he is entitled to them. However, it does not seem that he extends this same courtesy to others. This disguised intolerance for the theology or fundamentals of others is also apparent in certain New Age thinkers.

Eckhart Tolle, Oprah Winfrey’s New Age guru, raises Francis’ objection:

• “If you go deep enough in your religion, then you all get to the same place It’s a question of going deeper, so there’s no conflict here. The important thing is that religion doesn’t become an ideology…the moment you say 'only my belief' or 'our belief' is true, and you deny other people’s beliefs, then you’ve adopted an ideology [theology or fundamental]. And then religion becomes a closed door.”

Everyone has their ideology, even Tolle. He too is a fundamentalist! His ideology is mystical and experiential as opposed to rational. His ideology excludes no less than the ideology of the Ayatollah. He even obliquely appeals to his own ideology to defend his fundamentals.

We are all fundamentalists. Instead, the question should be, “Do I have a theology or fundamentals that accords with reality, justice, and love?” Francis has been pushing an anti-capitalistic, pro-socialistic fundamental and castigates the church for not following suit.

However, the church has many reasons to question the implementation of more entitlement programs in the place of biblical interventions.

Charles White, professor of Christian Thought and History at Spring Arbor University, writes about one biblical intervention:

• The Methodists made such an impact on their nation that in 1962 historian Elie Halevy theorized that the Wesleyan revival created England’s middle class and saved England from the kind of bloody revolution that crippled France. Other historians, building on his work, go further to suggest that God used Methodism to show all the oppressed peoples of the world that feeding their souls on the heavenly bread of the lordship of Christ is the path to providing the daily bread their bodies also need. (Mission Frontiers, Sept-Oct 2011, 6)

• Coming to Christ through the Methodist movement changed the loves of a million people in Britain and North American in the eighteenth century….most of these people and their children moved from the desperation of hand-to mouth poverty to the security of middle-class life as they made Christ their Lord and experienced the impact of His power on their economic lives. As these people moved up the social ladder, they began to influence the political life of their nation. They helped to transform Britain from an eighteenth-century kleptocracy – where the powerful fueled their lives of indulgence by exploiting the poor into a nineteenth century democracy – which abolished slavery and used its empire to enrich the lives of every subject of the crown. (9)

Before this glorious movement of the Spirit, England had been in turmoil. White explains:

• The police were also overwhelmed by the fighting and killing of the mob. The law executed people for 169 capital crimes, but the regular march to the gallows did nothing to make the streets safe at night. Sexual immorality was common at all levels of society, and the nation was overwhelmed with illegitimate children. (7)

What made the difference? Wesley formed people into small groups where they would pray, confess their sins, and pledge to follow Christ in all His teachings or fundamentals (Matthew 28:19-20)! No mention was ever made of entitlement programs.

According to God’s revelation to the Prophet Jeremiah, the fundamentals of biblical instruction are essential – the one thing that is worthy of boasting:

• This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

According to the Apostle Peter, the knowledge of the fundamentals is the basis for all forms of blessing:

• Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:2-3)

Let us therefore not be ashamed when others attempt to shame us as “fundamentalists.”

James, the “Prayer of Faith,” Elijah, and Revival

 

There is a “theology of blame” that has hurt many. One woman stated that after her mother had died, a friend told her that if she had prayed with more faith, she wouldn’t have died. The woman was devastated!

Where did this “theology of blame” come from? James is often cited:

• Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14-15)

Through James, the Lord has promised to heal the sick through this “prayer offered in faith.” What happens if he is not healed? Well, God cannot be at fault. This means that the fault lies with us! The culprit is often understood as a lack of faith.

Are we interpreting James correctly? Does he give us a guarantee that, by following this this procedure, every disease will be healed? I don’t think so.

A few verses down, James issues another one of God’s promises:

• My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)

While it is clear that we have a responsibility to correct those who “wander from the truth,” we do not have the power to save anyone “from death.” This power resides only with the Savior!

Is James mistaken? No! He clearly believes that it is God who saves us “from death”:

• He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. (James 1:18)

• Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:21)

Does he not believe in what Jesus had accomplished for us on the Cross? Of course, he does (James 2:1)! Then how can he claim that we can save the wanderer “from death, and cover a multitude of sins?”

We need to learn to correctly interpret (2 Tim. 2:15). We should not expect that whenever a law or principle is mentioned, every exception must be mentioned along with it.

Let’s take an easy example from the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill!” Are there exceptions to this rule within the Hebrew Scriptures? Many! These same Scriptures also authorized capital punishment, self-defense, and even warfare.

Do these exceptions contradict the principle of not killing? No! These are merely refinements, and all laws require refinements or qualifications. Any lawyer who wants to do a thorough job will not look merely at the law as stated in the Criminal Codebook. He also must examine the many interpretations, exceptions, and applications of the law, and they are not all found in one place.

This also holds true for anyone who wants to rightly interpret Scripture (or any book). To do this, it is not enough to merely examine the one verse in question. Instead, all of the verses touching on the subject in question must be examined. It starts with the immediate context and then to the context and purpose of the book itself. However, even this doesn’t exhaust the task of interpretation. The entirety of the Bible is relevant.

When we understand this, we also understand that we cannot conclude from these two final verses in the Book of James that we have the power of salvation. Instead, James is telling us that our responsibility is one important element in salvation – proclaiming the truth - and not the entire story.

Now to apply this understanding to the “prayer of faith” for the sick (James 5:15)! While prayer alone can heal no one, prayer is one important element in the healing chain. However, there are also other agents involved in this chain. Of course, the chief Link is God, and we have to believe that He is able to heal. However, in the same context, James mentions another critical aspect of healing – the confession of sins.

• Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

The elders can pray with all the fervency in the world, but if there is a refusal to confess sins, healing might not take place. We also have to confess our sins to “each other.”

There are also other conditions that are not contained in this immediate context. According to James, the sick could not be a friend of the world. This would make them an enemy of God (James 4:4). They would also have to be humble, because the proud will be abased and not healed (James 4:6). They would have to come near to God so that God would healingly come near to them (James 4:8).

Most importantly, healing depends on the will of God, and no amount of faith, positive assertions, or faith confessions can impact this:

• Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Our words and prayers have to conform to the will of God. Claiming otherwise is arrogance and self-deception. Instead, our lives carry no more authority or power than the “mist.” Therefore, we must acknowledge God’s power and authority: "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." To go beyond what God has explicitly promised is to boast, and this is evil!

Meanwhile, faith preachers teach that we have the same authority as God. In order to prove this unbiblical claim, they invoke a verse that only applies to God:

• As it is written: "I have made you [Abraham] a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed-- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. (Romans 4:17)

God can call things into existence. However, this verse does not say that we have this ability, as the faith preacher claims. Instead, we are a mist. We can do nothing without Him (John 15:5) and to claim otherwise is nothing short of evil boasting.

Now let’s apply this to the “prayer of faith.” Do we have the authority to claim that a sick man will be healed? No! It might be the will of God to take him now (Psalm 139). Instead, James cautions us to say, “If it is the Lord’s will” instead of, “This man will be healed.”

Besides, it is even illogical to claim that a certain man will be healed. After all, we all die, and this might be our time. Why then does James claim that “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well?” If we are to understand this promise in the context of the rest of the book, we understand the promise this way: “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well if it is the Lord’s will!”

But doesn’t James also say “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective,” (James 5:16)? James then uses Elijah as an example of this:

• Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. (James 5:17) 

From this, the faith preacher teaches that God’s answer depends upon the fervency and forcefulness of our praying. If we are fervent or earnest, our prayers will be answered; if not, our prayers will not be answered.

But from where did Elijah’s fervency come? From the will of God as directly expressed to him through the Word of God:

• Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word." (1 Kings 17:1) 

This boldness and confidence did not come from the will of Elijah but the will of God. God had revealed it to Elijah, who was merely communicating the Word of God.

From the account, we find that the Lord was directing Elijah throughout. According to the Lord’s will and timing, He sent Elijah back to King Ahab:

• After a long time, in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah: "Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land." So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 18:1-2)

The Lord now had the attention of Israel. Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to call upon Baal to consume with fire an offering, if he could:

• “Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire--he is God… Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire." So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:24-29)

Yet when Elijah prayed, the bull was immediately incinerated. Why was Elijah bold? He knew that he was operating according to the will and Word of his God and not his own:

• At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. (1 Kings 18:36)

His confidence did not stem from his faith in prayer or faith in his own faith but rather a faith in the God whom he served. He knew God’s Word, and that was what he banked on. He did not accomplish the destruction of the priests of Baal through a formless “prayer of faith” but through a belief in the very words and will of God.

Consequently, when I pray that He will make me more Christ-like or that He will build His church, I pray with confidence, because this is what He promised to do. However, when I pray for a healing, I am confident that He is able, but I am not confident that He will heal in this particular circumstance.

Elijah too was only confident when he had a clear command from his God. Ironically, following this great victory, he fled in fear from Jezebel.

Please don’t think that I wish to minimize prayer. Instead, I want to restore it to its proper glory alongside the will of God. In 1976, the Christian historian, J. Edwin Orr, preached about the importance of prayer:

Dr A. T. Pierson once said, ‘There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.’ Let me recount what God has done through concerted, united, sustained prayer.

Not many people realize that in the wake of the American Revolution there was a moral slump. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of a population of five million, 300,000 were confirmed drunkards; they were burying fifteen thousand of them each year. Profanity was of the most shocking kind. For the first time in the history of the American settlement, women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.

What about the churches? The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most wintry season. The Presbyterians in general assembly deplored the nation’s ungodliness. In a typical Congregational church, the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennos, Massachusetts, in sixteen years had not taken one young person into fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost, quit functioning; he had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment.

The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church ‘was too far gone ever to be redeemed.’ Voltaire averred and Tom Paine echoed, ‘Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.

Take the liberal arts colleges at that time. A poll taken at Harvard had discovered not one believer in the whole student body. They took a poll at Princeton, a much more evangelical place, where they discovered only two believers in the student body, and only five that did not belong to the filthy speech movement of that day. Students rioted. They held a mock communion at Williams College, and they put on antiChristian plays at Dartmouth. They burned down the Nassau Hall at Princeton. They forced the resignation of the president of Harvard. They took a Bible out of a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey, and they burnt it in a public bonfire. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790’s that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.

How did the situation change? It came through a concert of prayer. 

What came? The Second Great Revival that transformed this nation! Orr concluded that these prayers were only effectual because they were consistent with the will and providence of God. Let us pray accordingly!