Time To Cleanse the Temple

A Sermon Preached at
Johnson Bayou Baptist Church
Sunday, August 21, 2011

Text: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11,16-30


If you have ever studied or read much in the area of psychology, you know that one of the most popular figures is a guy named Sigmund Freud. Over the years he has come to be known as one of the fathers of the modern-day psychiatric practice, primarily from the development of what he called psychoanalysis.  Even today, well over a hundred years after Freud, psycho-analysis is considered the primary form of psychiatric treatment. Every year, people spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars sitting in an office somewhere being psycho-analyzed.

Now, at the risk of being over-simplistic, as I have studied psychoanalysis, I find that it can basically be boiled down to one key thought: if we look long enough and hard enough, we will eventually be able to find someone whom we can blame for the situation that we are in. It is not our fault that we are the way we are, but is the result of something that happened to us, something that someone else did to us, at some time in our past.

Have you ever noticed how, when problems arise, one of our first responses is to make sure that everyone knows that we are not responsible for what has happened?  Just think back to what happened in the garden of Eden when God confronted everyone about what they had just done:
·    He confronted the man, and he blamed the woman.
·    He confronted the woman, and she blamed the serpent.
·    If he would have confronted the serpent, I’m sure he would also have found someone to place the blame on.
And this practice of passing the buck, and failing to assume personal responsibility, is something that is still alive and well today.

When I worked in corrections, I never ceased to be amazed by how it was never these guys’s fault that they were in prison. There was always someone that they tried to blame with their being in prison (usually the police officers that put them there, claiming that they didn’ t do what they had been convicted of). I cannot remember ever hearing an inmate saying to me, “I am in prison because the things that I have done put me here. I alone am responsible for my being here.”

But here is the humbling, pride-shattering truth that many of us have never taken the time to consider: more often than not, if we are really honest about it, we have to admit that it just might be our fault. Usually we have to admit that it probably is our fault, and that we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Now, when Hezekiah assumed the leadership of the nation of Judah, he determined that the first priority of his administration needed to be the restoral of worship.  Under the leadership of his father Ahaz, temple-worship had been virtually eliminated.

But now Ahaz was dead, and Hezekiah had come into power. And Hezekiah, unlike his father, was a man committed to being faithful and obedient to the Lord. Our text gives us a hint as to the reason for this when it lists his mother, something not that common in the listing of the kings. Apparently, Hezekiah had a mother who loved the Lord, and that love passed down to her son. And within his heart there was this deep desire for the people of Israel to once again come to worship the true and living god.

But notice what had to take place: before the worship could be restored, the temple had to be cleansed. And so the first thing that he does after assuming office is to gather together all the priests and the Levites, and to give them one simple message: it is time to cleanse the temple of the Lord so that we might restore the worship of the Lord.

Perhaps the greatest passage on revival to be found in the Bible (at least the one we are best familiar with) is 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked way, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

Do you see the sequence of events that had to take place in order for the blessings of God to be manifested?
·    There was something the people had to do” “shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways"·    As the people did what they were supposed to do, God would then fulfill His part of the covenant: “I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

Now, do you see the significance of this in light of what we find today, and what we would like to see happen. We are a people who have not known the revival power of God for a long time. That is because we do not want revival. Yet even though we would like it, we have not known it. And one of the things as I look at these passages this morning is that we are expecting God to give us the results of revival without our first of all fulfilling the requirements of revival.

I like something that D.M Lloyd –Jones wrote many years ago. He said that he was convinced that much of that which we call “worship” is little more than emotional excitement.  He felt that, when the church comes together in worship, they needed to center around the teaching and preaching of the word, and not the songs that they sing. First we need to hear the Word of the Lord. Then we need to obey the Word of the Lord. Then and only then can we truly worship God.

Until we as members of the body of Christ become burdened and broken over our own lives, convicted by the sin that dwells in us, and go through the process of cleansing that God has prescribed for us in His word, we will not be able to do what we have been called to do.

     1. We are going to fail to be light.
     2. We are going to fail to be salt.

In short, we are going to be absolutely worthless, totally ineffective in our lives.

In the Old Testament, we find a tragic example of this in the life of Lot. When the angels had told him that they had been sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their sin, and that he needed to get out now before they destroyed it, he went to his sons in laws and pleaded with them to leave. But the Bible says that Lot appeared to them as one who mocked. In other words, there was nothing that they had ever seen in Lot’s life that caused him to believe that they had anything to worry about with his words.

Could this be one of the reason why we have done so poorly in evangelism over the years? It is not because of our lack of programs and plans and schemes and gimmicks, but because we have not been able to let the light of Christ to shine out of our lives into the lives of those around us. We have allowed sin to so contaminate our lives that there is little about us that would cause anyone to want to have anything to do with us. A baby is cute, but a baby with a messy diaper is to be avoided at all costs, and leaves the residue of its presence wher-ever it goes.

Now, everything that I have said up to this point is leading to this one statement: the greatest need in the church today is for spiritual cleansing. The greatest need in your life and my life as followers of Christ is for spiritual cleansing. Until that cleaning takes place, nothing else matters. First we must be cleansed, then we will find ourselves being effective in that work God has called us to do.

And so the question that I have to ask myself, that you have to ask yourself is: in what areas have I failed to be who God wants me to be? In what areas have I failed to do what God wants me to do? In what areas have I rebelliously, stubbornly determined that I am going to do what I want to do, even though I knew it was in opposition to the will and word of God for my life?

And then, having asked that question, I need to ask another: What am I going to do about it?
·    Nothing. That is an option. I can choose to just do absolutely nothing. I can just keep on doing what I am doing now. And I will still be saved, and I will still go to heaven. But I will miss out on so much that God desired for me to have. And when I get to heaven, I will be judged, not only for what I did that I should not have done, but also for what I did not do that I should have done.
·    Deal with it. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The word “confess” carries with it the idea of two people seeing something in the same way. It means that we see our sin the way God sees our sin, that we quit making excuses for our sins, that we quit trying to rationalize why we are the way we are, and that we begin to deal with the root of our problem.

Psalm 51:1-13 “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.  Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.  For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.  Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.  Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.  Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.  Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.”

May this prayer of David become the burden of our hearts, and let us not rest until that burden has been transformed into blessing through dealing with everything in our hearts, in our lives, that is not what God wants.