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Episode 655: In this episode, we focus on the biblical narrative from 2 Chronicles chapter 30, where King Hezekiah invites the people of Israel and Judah to celebrate Passover. Hezekiah's compassion shines through as he reaches out to the northern tribes, despite their past conflicts. We discuss how he sends runners to invite them to return to the Lord, emphasizing the importance of community and worship.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody eats the bubble, guys. Yess what what it's a big day is a big y. Yes, we're gonna sing a Happy birthday to Chris. What Happy birthday to Chris? Me? See there you go, Well, you do the whole thing. I didn't say. I was saying the whole thing to you. I said I was going to sing Happy birthday to Chris, which is what I did. Oh, be thankful, dude. It's like have you ever seen the Big Bang Theory? Sheldon? Sheldon would have to have you complete it? Right? Yeah? I did. I did complete it. I did everything else going to say I said I was going to do. Well, Hey, I thank you, Jeff, didn't I. I just want to not complain but rather just embrace what you did. It is your happy, happy birthday. Well technically it's not today, it's the day that is airs. Yes, yes, April fourth, nineteen seventy one. So for the people listening, they're celebrating your birthday today. People, yes, so, uh do you know the birthday song? This is your birthday song. No, it isn't very long. That's it. That's funny. You know I sang your two birthday songs. That's awesome, right hey, And that's what the people want. Yeah, I know the people want sing it. So there's two. Songs for you. Give the people. There more songs for you right there. That's so great. So how old are you? I'm fifty four, which is the age that you will turn in just a month. Yes, yes, so much older than me? Yes, yes, So I looked up some obscure and interesting facts about being fifty four. Oh interesting? Did you know you've lived one billion, seven hundred million seconds. I actually I did know that. I did the math while I was in the restroom. Just now. Yeah, yeah, so, which translates to about twenty eight point three million minutes. Wow, which translates to four hundred and seventy two thousand hours. Wow. Wow. Isn't that neat? Did you know you're in a rare presidential club? Nope? Abraham Lincoln was elected president at fifty four. He is the only one. Wow, only one? Wow? You and Lincoln? Man, Yes, right there. I've done just as much as Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, not since Lincoln so there's a bunch of studies shown about happiness and you're at the perfect happiness age. Is that true? This what says? Studies show that happiness follows a U shaped curve like this, Yeah, with a dip in midlife, but an increase after fifty people start getting happier, and at fifty four you're on the upward climb with more peace, clarity in condemment. Wow, So on average, people at fifty four are substantially happier than people at forty four. Yeah, because they have more money. Generally they're wiser. Yeah, you've lived more life and you understand things aren't stressing stress you out as much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, your heart has beaten over two point two billion times and. Mine, mine's probably two point four billion because they have a high heart rate. Yeah yeah. And then it says you've moved somewhere around fifty million gallons of blood through your body, which is enough to fill seventy five Olympic sized swimming pools. Wow, the sun has seen you through twenty thousand sunrises. Interesting? And then nice, I mean, have you seen uh twenty. At least at least a couple of dozens? Yeah? Yeah, So funny. That's so great. Twenty thousand, I caught a couple of them. M you sort of share your age with the speed of light, So light travels fifty four thousand miles in a quarter of a second, meaning every time you blink, light has traveled circled to Earth twice. Yeah. I'm not going to buy that one. That's fifty four years old. There's nothing to do with that. Okay, you've spent about eighteen years sleeping. Ooh, I believe that a sixty five hundred nights of dreaming. This says you're at your peak brain power. Oh, so you understand it's not getting any better than this, Chris, this is no. You had been. You've peaked. You've peaked at this point. Research suggests that in your early fifties, verbal intelligence, problem solving, and wisdom air at their highest. So at fifty four, your brain is sharper than ever, even if you sometimes forget where your keys are. That is so funny, amazing, it's great. I'm glad they added that caveat at the end there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that's really cool. Fifty four you start experiencing a cognitive shift known as time perspective, where you start focusing more on meaningful experiences rather than chasing accomplishments. And that's one of the reasons why the happiness factor tends to go up. It's because you shift from trying to accomplish things to enjoying who you are, what you have, and who you have around you. Yeah, isn't that nice? That's great? Also, And here's then amazing one. You've seen more than half of modern history. Wow, because you were born in nineteen seventy one, you've lived over fifty four percent of US history since seventeen seventy six, meaning you've witnessed more than half of everything America has been through. Oh look, could be yeah, which isn't true that that's a false number. From seventeen seventy six till now. It's just modern history. That's where it messed up. It's not from seventeen seventy six. Oh yeah, right, the lawyer right, because the modern part. Yeah, not seventeen seventy six, but modern times. Right, you've seen a lot of it there. Yeah. So anyways, that's pretty cool. I thought, thank you. Yeah, I'm happy for you, Chris, thank. You, and I'll be happy for you in about six weeks after this. Yeah, well, I'm excited. Do you like big birthdays? I do? I do. Our families are very big on birthdays. I mean, do you like celebrating your next birthday like being fifty four? Oh? Good, I'm fifty four? Oh no, I don't. I'm not sure I've ever been depressed when I've had a birthday. But I'm not sure I've ever looked forward to being one year older, other than you know, before twenty one. After twenty one, I didn't look forward to. Don't care about anymore. Well, I thought it was better to be the younger. I'm always amazed. I'm always amazed I made it another year. Right, soah, that's good. Hey, we haven't even worked into our segment yet. That's what you were trying to do. That's what you're trying to do. Well, we got to do it. Yeah, okay, let's do it all right. It says happy birthday, Chris, well maybe Friday today it's also Chris's birthday outfitting. For today's segment, Chris gets to pick what's variation of what made Chris slash Jeff mad slash happy this week. We do so, so here's what I choose, because it's my choice. Okay, I'm gonna choose what made Jeff mad, and it can't be anything related to driving, because that's really common for everybody. Okay, no driving. So what made Jeff mad this week? Yes, and it has to be universal, well, mad for the world, mad for the world. I have to be mad for the world. Okay. What makes me mad is that you're making me do this instead of celebrating your birthday. Because it's not about me, Chris, it's about you. So that's very Jeff specific. I'm not sure that the world can. The world is too. The world is too because they'd rather celebrate you. Think of all the text and emails we get about how they love our podcast segments. Total, they don't write about Jeff segments. They read about your restroom. And I said, think about it, and instead, this is what I came up with, ask chat GPT. I did not take them up with a bunch of already I had already done that before you left the room. Did you? Yes? Okay, all right? So so so what's making you mad as I'm asking you to do this? Yeah, that we're wasting time on Jeff when we should be celebrating Chris. Oh my God, it makes me mad. It makes me mad when people bring focus to somebody, to me when it should be on you. That's what makes me and and our listeners are upset about it. To the listeners are like, let's talk more about Chris. That's what I. Was, all right, you know what? You know what's making me mad? Your answer to the segment, that's amazing mad. It's my answer my birthday, and I gave it to you. I had the right to choose, says Desiree. I gotta give. What's the guy I gotta give? I sang to you twice, not once, twice, wow twice, and then I shared amazingly encouraging things. Some you are on the upswing unhappiness. Somehow, I'm so you are the everything, your mental acuity. It was very nice, but it's I really clerated your shadow mission. And now I'm trying to agenda. I'm bringing focus to you and. It's all about you. Yes, it's it's abording what you just don't want to do. It is not that's what it is. You disguised all the nice things to avoid the. Thing that I'm bringing focus to you, which somehow you makes me mad. I'm mad it makes me mad when the focus is supposed to be on me. I see, I see. So everything's about you. No, it's not about me. This what I'm saying. I don't want to be about me. Everybody tries to make it about me and it's not That's what I've learned. Trying to make it about me, and it's not about me. That's what I'm saying. That's what I've learned. It's not true. You try to make it about me to avoid you. That's about you. Didn't want to It's about you. Okay, all right, thank you, Jeff, thank you happy birthday and me happy birthday. And amazing that I did not get what I really wanted. Amazing, Okay, all right, okay, don't be thankful all. Speaking of not getting what you wanted, Hezekaya doesn't get everything he wants, and neither does a portion of the population who didn't like what he said. Which I just don't understands with you, Well, some people care, some people I don't get it. I don't. I don't understand this. Yep. It's like Hezekaiah can see it, a few of the key leaders can see it, and the people just don't. So let's read it in Second Chronicles, chapter thirty. We'll just read the whole chapter. I think it just. Says King haze KaiA Enough sent word to all Israel and Judah, and he wrote letters of invitation to the people of Fraim and Manassa, so they are in northern Israel. So he's sending out to his own kingdom, and then he's also sending some to northern Israel. He asked everyone to come to the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem to celebrate the passover the Lord, the God of Israel. The King, his officials, and all the community of Jerusalem decided to celebrate pass Over a month later than usual. They were unable to celebrate it at the prescribed time because not enough priests could be purified by then and the people had not yet assembled at Jerusalem. His plan for keeping the passover seemed right to the king and all the people, so they sent a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Birsheba in the south to Dan in the north, inviting everyone to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover of the Lord, the God of Israel. The people had not been celebrating it in great numbers as required in the law. At the king's command, runners were sent throughout Israel and Judah, and they carried letters that said, Oh, people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, so that he will return to the few of us who have survived the conquest of the Assyrian kings. Do not be like your ancestors and relatives, who abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and became an object of derision. As you yourselves concede. Do not be stubborn as they were, but submit yourselves to the Lord. Come to his temple, which he has set apart as holy forever. Worship the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. For if you return to the Lord, your relatives and your children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they will be able to return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful. If you return to him, you will not continue to turn his face from you. The runners went from town to town, through Ephraim and Manassa, and as far as the territory of Zebulon, but most of the people just laughed at the runners and made fun of them. However, some people from asher Manassa and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem. At the same time, God's hand was on the people in the land of Judah, giving them all one heart to obey the orders of the king and his officials, who were following the word of the Lord. So a huge crowd assembled at Jerusalem in mid spring to celebrate the festival of unleavened Bread. And they set to work and remove the pagan altars from Jerusalem. And they took away all the incense and threw them into the Kidron Valley. On the fourteenth day of the second month, one month later than usual, the people slaughtered the Passover lamb, and this shamed the priests and the Levites, so they purified themselves and brought burnt offerings to the Temple of the Lord. Then they took their places at the temple as prescribed in the law of Moses, the Man of God. The Leevites brought the sacrificial blood to the priests, who then sprinkled it on the altar. Since many of the people had not purified themselves, the Levites had to slaughter their Passover lamb for them to set them apart for the Lord. Most of those who came from Ephraim, Manassa, and Issachar and Zebulon had not purified themselves, but the King Hazekiah prayed for them, and they were allowed to eat the passover meal anyway, even though this was contrary to the requirements of the law or. Hezekiah said, may the Lord, who has good pardon those who decided to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors, even though they are not properly cleansed for the ceremony. The Lord listened to Hezekiah's prayer and healed the people. So the people of Israel who were present in Jerusalem joyously celebrated the festival of unleavened Bread for seven days. Each day, the levites and priests sang to the Lord accompanied by loud instruments. As Akai encouraged all the Levites regarding the skill they displayed as they served the Lord. The celebration continued for seven days. Peace offerings were sacrificed, and the people gave thanks to the Lord, the God of their ancestors. The entire assembly then decided to continue the festival another seven days, so they celebrated joyfully for another week. King has A KaiA gave the people a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheeps and goats for offerings, and the officials donated a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. Meanwhile, many more priests purified themselves. The entire assembly of Judah rejoiced, including the priests, the Levites, and all who came from the land of Israel, the foreigners who came to the festival, and all those who lived in Judah. There was great joy in the city, for Jerusalem had not seen a celebration like this once since the days of Salomon, King David's son. Then the priests and Levites stood and blessed the people, and God heard their prayer from his holy dwelling in heaven. I love that. That's a lot. That's a lot of passage right there. I love it. Yeah, me too. And so what stands out to you Just a bunch of everything, right I mean. Well, I think the thing that jumps out of me is he has compassion not only for his own people. He wants to lead his own people, the people of Judah and Benjamin to follow the Lord and celebrate and they seem to be enjoying it. But he also reaches out to his people to the north. To the north, these people that have they've chosen another king. They've decided at times to even fight against the southern or to ally themselves against you know, Judah and all these things. And he has compassion. He found the truth and he wants them to know the truth too, And so he sends these runners to go and say, hey, if you would just turn from your sins, God will bless you. This doesn't have to keep going, just come. And most ridiculed, even in their sin, even in their judgment, they're being persecuted. Most of the people have been hauled off to captivity in Assyria. It's just a few people let in the land and they mock you. Some they'll respond. And I think that this is one of those moments where you know, you share the gospel with everybody, understanding that some are not going to follow the Lord, and then you move at the movers. And that's what he did. So the ones who were willing to do the right thing. He didn't cancel it. He didn't go, oh, well, we can't get anybody come. He just did what he could with the ones he showed up from the north, and then of course the people in the south. He was a good leader and they were more inclined to follow the Lord, and so they did. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I, you know, just preached a message last Sunday and then wrote a message for this Sunday. And in both of those we talked about the series that we're currently in is called Silence Killers, and we talked about gossip and anger. Right, so both gossip and anger, and in both of those messages there is an element of having compassion of those who are again, right, like the gossip people wants to gossip, and then the ones you know that you're angry against. So both of those have this element of what you just described, which was, you know, here he is looking at his uh, you know, adversaries in the north, like you said, oftentimes pitted against each other, once a great nation but now very different, you know, and and oftentimes scoffed at and all these different things. And and what does he do He has compassion? Why because you just said it loud, You said he has the news, he has the answer, the good news, and he wants them to know it. And uh, there's something to be said about that, you know, to look at your enemies, Uh, those perhaps who you not necessarily you don't necessarily run with, or you like, or you don't spend time with, and have enough compassion because guess what, he didn't have to there's no skin off his back, there's no obligation to do it right, there's no expectation, there's no anything right. He does it because he's compelled my compassion and that there's something to be said there about the heart of Hezekiah. And and by the way, that is an overflow of Hezekiah's desire to serve God. Because you know whose heart that really is. It's God's heart. Yeah, It's God's heart. So the closer you get to God, the closer that your heart is going to beat and care for and love the things that God, you know, loves and cares for, and his heart beats for. It's it's a really it demonstrates his emotional maturity, it demonstrates his character. This is a good many right, that these blessings aren't just for me. And then, by the way, God's blessings are unlimited. So it's not like if I give some of these blessings away. I'm not going to have enough blessing for me, right, right, it's all man, just come and bathe and all the just the overflow of God's blessing. Come and enjoy this, right, And some people get it, others didn't. But he wanted everybody to be able to be a part of it. And then it's interesting again it comes there verse seventeen. A lot of the people hadn't purified themselves yet. But still a lot of the priests hadn't purified themselves yet, right, And so even some of the people you would expect to be on board are they're late joiners, they're joining late. But then the people had not yet, especially as it mentions, because you weren't supposed to come, and there was this whole purification process in order to be able to celebrate the passover. Now they put the passover a month off a month. It's they missed it by a month, but it was because they were getting started late. He was brand new as a king and they had missed the deadline. But he wanted to honor God with the concept and the idea of we're going to pure fi ourselves and we're going to acknowledge fact that God's the one that set us free and God's the one that has carried us through all the difficulties. And so he decided that that celebration was important, and he wanted to invite everybody and give them time to come. And so. One of the requirements was there was this big purification process that the family had to go through. But you got these people from Ephraim and Manassa and Issachar and zebulon. These are all Northern Kingdom regions, and they came and they didn't They weren't purified yet. And I think about it, I wonder why. Probably they didn't know, you know, they they had God's words, but their people hadn't been following God for generations, you know. With with Hezekiah, it was just as his father. But his grandfather was a good man, right right, was a godly man. But so for Hezekiah it was just a I remember when grandpa was a good man, and I'm going to be following God like my grandpa did. But for the people in the Northern Kingdoms, it was generations of wicked kings and so they probably had no concept. So God's not mad at them for what they don't know. You know, Hezekiah intervenes or interced on their behalf. He goes, God forgive them, you know, would you overlook this part? Their heart is they came all the way from up there in this wicked place, and their heart is that they came to worship you. And so the Bible says that God hurt his prayer. Right, the Lord listened to Hezekiah's prayer, and he healed the people. Even though they they're coming to worship you God, they just don't know how. And I think sometimes, you know, I think this week you mentioned some of the frustrations of previous generations in church, and one of the things I think that many of many young people got turned off by was older generations making demands on their worship style or on their you know, hey, you shouldn't be looking like that, or why are we letting sinners come into our church? Right? And instead of Hezekiah being mad at them that they didn't know or weren't following the rules because they I don't think they knew the rules, instead he interceded on their behalf. He was less concerned about their perfection of their behavior and more concerned about their heart was heading towards God, and so he just saw an opportunity here because God said don't. God had already said don't do it. You know, you come purified. Hezekia jumps, says, God, Hey, would you would would would you overlook this one thing for them? They don't know what they're doing yet. Now we don't see Hezekia do this next passover. He does it this one time, right, so that they can get educated, they can catch up. I think we just have to be patient with those young Christians that show up that they surprise us because they have no knowledge or no understanding what they should do. Their heart is for the Lord, but they're still learning how to do the right thing, you know. And that you see it even here in the context of the law and not in the context of grace, and God extends mercy because a godly leader intervened on their behalf. Yeah, I love it. So you just mentioned that Hezekiah's grandfather was a good man, and yet his father was So there's a lot of verses here that talk about worship too. So I was somehow my brain connected all those pieces of information about our church is having worship night this Friday, and so we have like a thousand people, you know, signed up to go to this worship event, which is interesting to see if there's gonna be enough seats, right, depending on who shows and who doesn't. But then I'm realizing that our families are going to be somewhere else, right, So you're you're should not say this. Sure, Yeah, so your father passed away, right, So he just he just passed away. And so so this, of course this podcast won't be released in two weeks from now, but but today or today, this week, this, this Friday is going to be your father's funeral. And so I was connecting the pieces about worship. I thought about Friday, I thought about your dad's funeral. I thought about going to that, and then you talked about grandfather of faith, and so my mind just pieced all of that together, and I thought it'd be cool for you to maybe perhaps just say, let's think the listeners don't know your dad, Yeah right, maybe maybe a few sentences about what a great guy he was in terms of modeling faith. Oh yeah, yeah, because yeah, so my dad had grown up in a Christian home but didn't honor the Lord as a young man. But my grandmother prayed for him every day for forty years, and just after his fortieth birthday, he gave his left to Christ and God changed everything in him. And he married my mom about that time, just just a little bit before then, and she was also not a Christian. They became a Christian about the same time. And then later on my dad adopted me, and my name changed, my future changed, everything in my life changed. I wound up following the Lord. And all I know is from the day my dad became a Christian, he was one hundred percent in all in. If the Word of God said it, he did it right. And he didn't really view Christianity as kind of an ale the heart thing. I'm going to do the things I like and not do the things I don't like. He just was a man of character. Faced a lot of difficulties, but faced them with grace and did the best he could with it. And you know, we had devotions every day. I spent time in the Word every single day. He worked hard to teach us God's words. When bad things would happen, he would remind us, say, we follow God, we follow Christ, not men. And you know, God's words can be trusted, and God keeps his promises, and as we live holy lives, God promises to bless us, and you know, God's grace is enough. And that was a life he lived. And so I can remember just a couple of years ago, we were sitting at Christmas talking and he said he was in his eighties and he said, man, it's amazing that I've now lived longer for the Lord than I did against the Lord. And he found a lot of joint satisfaction in that. And then towards the end, you know, we would talk last year or two, and I remember Christmas ago, so two Christmases ago from here, we were talking about that. He said, you know, I don't know how many more Christmases I have And he said, you know, I think I always thought i'd be sad about that. He said, I'm not in a hurry to go. But the devil can't threaten me with heaven. Yeah, and I've used that phrase a lot. You know, devil can't threaten me with heaven. That's how he viewed it. And so now he fell asleep. My mom was holding his hand and went to heaven. It's not a bad way to go, right. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. So he's more alive today than he's ever been. That's right. And you know the four all my my brothers are all in ministry too, and so we're all coming back celebrating. We're all going to participate in the funeral together. I'm sharing the message and yeah. That's great, that's great. Well, hey, cool, thanks for that, and uh, it's gonna be it's gonna be a great time of life celebration. That's that's that's the kind of funeral you walk away from and you go, wow, right, what a celebration. Well, every one of our listeners has the same decision my dad does. My dad did, and that is you can changed the direction of future generations. That's what Hezekiah was trying to do here, right, you can change the direction the direction that I should have gone versus the direction I showed up in two totally different things. And it was because of his all in commitment he didn't go halfway. Finally, in Hezekiah's generation, you know what it is say it said there. It was the people that went out and they tore down a share of polls, and they cut down the groves and they did all those things. Finally, after all the other kings never did it. David didn't get it done, Solomon didn't get it done. Hezekiah's father didn't get it done. All the other good kings didn't get it done. But Hezekiah's life when he went all in in the face of opposition, all the people went were all into, and they went and finally cut down all those groves and got rid of all those idols and stuff. And I think you can do the same thing in your family. My dad, my dad didn't get start till he's forty. Well maybe he had a forty seven year run. That was pretty amazing. Hey, that's what a great way to end. So that's awesome. So hopefully we will see you Monday on the Bible guys,