"Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook Him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on Him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary of the God of Israel." (2 Chronicles 29:5-7) This happened during the reign of his father, Ahaz, when Ahaz set up a pagan altar in the temple and ordered all offerings to be made on it.
"Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; He has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity." (2 Chronicles 29:8-9) In 2 Chronicles 28 we were told that during Ahaz's reign the king of Israel and the king of Aram banded together to attack Judah. The king of Aram won at least one battle against Ahaz's forces and took many women and children back to Damascus with him as captives. The king of Israel also defeated Ahaz in a battle, killing 120,000 soldiers of Judah and taking 200,000 women and children captive. Hezekiah makes it clear that these calamities came upon Judah because so many people of his father's generation forsook the Lord.
In yesterday's study we talked about how Hezekiah is breaking the cycle and that he is asking these men to do the same. They don't have to perpetuate generational sin. Hezekiah was raised by one of the most evil men in the Bible but he is going to be nothing like his father. The priests and Levites don't have to be like their fathers either. They can turn away from what their fathers did (and they can turn away from what they may have done themselves) and give their hearts fully to the Lord. Hezekiah states his intention to give his heart fully to the Lord: "Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that His fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him and serve Him, to minister before Him and to burn incense." (2 Chronicles 29:10-11)
These men haven't sinned too much to be forgiven by the Lord. We don't know how many of them may have engaged in idolatry. At the very least they have allowed idolatry to take place in the Lord's house, for we found no mention of any of them protesting the modifications Ahaz made to the temple and we found none of them trying to prevent him from making offerings on a pagan altar in the temple. It was even a priest (Uriah) who fashioned the pagan altar for the king. Hezekiah reminds these men that the Lord called the tribe of Levi to minister before Him in the temple and that they can still answer this calling. The Lord will hear their prayers of repentance. As He said through the prophet Malachi: "Return to Me, and I will return to you." (Malachi 3:7)
The current distresses in the nation of Judah have been caused by the people's unfaithfulness to the Lord. The Lord clearly outlined in Deuteronomy 28 the curses that would befall them if they turned away from Him to idols. But the Lord also clearly outlined in Deuteronomy 28 the blessings He would pour out on them if they would be faithful to Him. Hezekiah loves his people and his nation. He wants to see blessings---not curses---given to them. He doesn't want his soldiers defeated by enemy armies or the women and children taken captive to foreign lands. He seeks the Lord's blessing upon Judah and upon every individual in the land. Obtaining the Lord's blessing begins with repentance: repenting for personal sins and repenting for national sins and deciding to follow the Lord with all their hearts.
The Lord calls everyone into fellowship with Him. It's up to us how we answer. But even if we've said no to Him many times in the past we can still make the choice to repent of our sins and turn to Him for salvation. Even if we are already saved but have drifted away from the former closeness we had with Him, we can repent of that and begin spending daily time with Him. He will not reject anyone who wants to know Him, for "God's gifts and His call are irrevocable". (Romans 11:29) The Lord's calling was upon the lives of the men King Hezekiah is speaking to in today's text. These men may not have been obedient to that calling in the past but the Lord hasn't taken back His invitation to know Him. They can still accept the invitation and fulfill His calling upon their lives. You and I can too! That doesn't mean we won't have to deal with any of the natural consequences of the mistakes we've made. Sometimes our mistakes are easily fixable with the Lord's help and we can soon extricate ourselves from situations we should never have gotten into in the first place. There are other mistakes that are so big that they may cause some lifelong consequences but this doesn't mean the Lord can't use us. Our future is going to be far brighter with Him than without Him.
He calls every human being on the face of the earth to know Him. You have not sinned too much to take Him up on His invitation. His calling is irrevocable! It's up to you and to me whether we answer that calling but He has not rescinded it. He will not reject the prayer of repentance and He will not reject our desire to know Him and to follow Him.
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