O morning of 3/11/17 after my Q-time I wrote this letter to my son and my son-in-law.
I was visiting with my Old Testament characters again this morning in my time with the Lord. The man of the day was Hezekiah (II Chronicles 29-33). It is somewhat surprising that five full chapters are given to this “late-in-the-game” king of Judah. There are some great lessons on leadership in these passages. There are some great lessons on persistence. There are some great lessons on trusting God. And there is one big lesson on the consequences of pride (32:22-31). But the lesson that really struck me was in verses one and two of chapter 33.
Being a great spiritual public leader is dangerous for your family. Whatever God calls you do, whatever your leadership opportunities remember to lead your family first. I sometimes paraphrase a question posed by Jesus, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark8:36) to read, “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own family?”
“Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.”
But, first, four lessons for leaders from the life of Hezekiah. Lesson number one. When you are given a role as leader (whether the teacher at the three-year old Sunday School, elected to the edldership of your church or the United States Senate), begin with the revitalization of your spiritual life. This is what Hezekiah did. Here is what we read. “In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them (29:3).
Lesson number one:
Call together all those under your leadership and challenge them to “consecrate” themselves and to “consecrate the house of the LORD” by cleaning out the filth (1:4-5). For you and me and all those under our leadership, the LORD house is our individual bodies and the collective corporate body in our gathered local church. In some cases, it may also include cleaning out the junk from the church building to facilitate worship and the work of the Lord.
Unfortunately, the evangelical church today is cluttered with a lot of junk—superfluous feel-good nonsense that at best keeps some folks attending and at worse becomes idols that replace the living God. Then there are the immoral sexual practices so prevalent. If the statistics are accurate one in five men sitting in the pew on Sunday morning are engaging in pornography. Many of the college and career crowd are not kissing on the third date but sleeping together. Many divorcees have tasted sexual satisfaction and carry on life as usual.
Challenge those around you as well as leading an exemplary life before them. As leaders you cannot sit quietly back and ignore the condition of the church. You need to be part of the clarion call to repentance (cleaning out the filth) of those practicing these things and encouraging all to consecrate themselves to as the “house of the LORD”, the body of Christ.
Lesson number two:
Lesson number three follows logically from lesson two. It is this, repentance! Hear what Chronicler records, “For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord our God” (1:6-7). Unfaithfulness, that is not engaging in regular private and public worship, had become the rule, not the exception. They were a nation of professing believers who were living pagan lives. Any pastor called to a city or suburban church will quickly realize this malady in his congregation. As a pastor friend observed one day in my hearing, “On any given Lord’s Day I can count on two thirds of my people being present, but on most of those days it is seldom the same two thirds. They rotate between the mountains, the shore and the pew.”
“They also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel” is second evil to which Hezekiah draws attention that requires repentance. When I was church planting (1970’s) it was expected that as the Pastor/leader I would provide a substantial Bible study on Wednesday evenings and preach twice on Sundays. Those expectations are gone. In most, even solid evangelical churches today, if there is a mid-week offering and a Sunday evening service it is at the initiation of the Pastor and measured by absence of many, and not the expectation of the congregation. As a leader, in whatever role, in our current cultural context, it is important to call people to repentance for their neglect of worship.
Lesson number three:
Fearless prophetic proclamation regarding judgment is the fourth lesson observed from the leadership of Hezekiah. He points to the culture and notes the judgment of God in process. Here are his words, “Therefore the wrath of the Lord came on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes. 9 For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this” (1:8-9).
What he did was not politically correct! In his case, he had the absolute power of kingship, but it does not mean that what he did, said, or called for was popular with the establishment. If he hadbeen the President rather than the King, no doubt he would have suffered public abuse like that suffered by an American president who calls the establishment to change. The reading of these chapters that cover his reign demonstrates, on a very practical level, the benefits of leadership that steps-up-to-the-plate and calls professing believers to spiritual renewal. Regardless of the level of leadership, this principle is essential. Every organization and every individual life is subject to the spiritual law of thermodynamics—energy tends to migrate into entropy.
Hezekiah was practicing that to which both Paul and James call us in their New Testament writings. Listen: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). There can be no question that James is on the same page: “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth . . . someone should bring that person back” (James 5:19). Israel, people and leadership had wandered from where they should have been and were stuck in their sin. Hezekiah is practicing spiritual leadership. He is working to restore them and set themback on the path of righteousness and blessing.
Lesson number four:
There is another very important lesson from the life of Hezekiah that leaders cannot afford to miss. It is this. Here is the fifth lesson. Our cultivation of revival among our followers does not ensure that we are not vulnerable to sin. Hezekiah embraced the sin of pride. In chapter thirty-two the account of his pride is recorded. His spiritual faithfulness led to multiple blessings. His leadership generated a strong nation and a healthy economy as God’s hand, “And many brought gifts to the Lord to Jerusalem and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from that time onward” (32:23). Then Hezekiah became sick. He pleaded with the LORD for healing. God granted him more years.
It is interesting that his pride seems to emanate initially from the fact that God healed him. It is reminiscent of the boy who is prouder of the fact that he has been a good boy than of his new bicycle his parents gave him because he had been humble and obedient. “In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death, and he prayed to the Lord, and he answered him and gave him a sign. 25 But Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud” (32:24-25). Hezekiah’s healing drew the attention of foreign emissaries bearing congratulatory gifts. His response was a prideful display of the great riches implying that he took credit for his accumulation of his wealth.
Lesson number five:
Since God invested so much of His word in presenting the life of Hezekiah, it is worth our time to consider each of the lessons and how they might impact us today. My sons considered a fifth lesson.
When we read about the wonderful revivals under Hezekiah, we cannot but be struck by these two verses. How is it that a king about whom it is written, “And every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered” should end up with a successor son of whom it is written, “he did evil in the sight of the Lord…” (33:2)? While it is not all the answer, I think here is much of the answer.
Hezekiah failed to recognize that a child’s natural bent is towards evil! Godly men are often so occupied with serving God and creating wealth (felt responsibility to provide for their families at best, or selfish gain for themselves at worst) that they neglect to forge a son’s heart. Bertram Russell, atheistic British philosophy of the 20th century I have heard observed, “Every generation is only one generation from barbarianism so that every generation must civilize the next generation.” He came close. That fact is that every generation is evil so that every generation must be converted and discipled into humble submission to the living God.
My dear sons don’t miss this reality! Between you there are nine precious lives to be discipled. Pam and I can help as can the other grandparents, but you are the leaders. I would desire success for both of you. I would desire reasonable wealth for both of you. But, in the pursuit of success (in ministry or business) be careful that you neglect not the greater task of discipleship. Hezekiah, I believe, failed Manasseh on two fronts. There is no record of his investing in discipling his son as he did the Priests and Levities, and secondly, he was preoccupied with amassing wealth (which probably also spoiled his son and led to arrogance). Both these activities left him precious little time and energy for discipling his son. The discipleship of our children is a matter of intentionality. It is teaching and living out Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
This passage is the clearest most concise instruction found anywhere in the Bible regarding transferring the faith from one generation to the next. Discipleship of children flows through nurture. Nurturing takes time, energy, forethought, prayerfulness, playfulness, affection and as seen in the Deuteronomy passage, both formal and informal instruction.
Unfortunately, the generations of life are littered with the broken lives of children whom parents loved but did not parent. I urge you to emulate Hezekiah’s spiritual commitments but apply them first to your own families.
Love,
Dad