Thank you. Being a teacher, I'm flexible Peter, so I can come up any time. I'm actually going to attempt reading a chapter. So could you please turn to 2nd Chronicles, chapter 30 please. We're going to read the entire chapter. There's too much good stuff in here to only pick out a few verses. 2 Chronicles 30 And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the Passover in the second month. For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation. So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem. but they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written. So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah. And according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever. And serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion, before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if you return unto Him. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun. But they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. Also in Judah the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes by the word of the Lord. And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation. And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense took they away and cast them into the brook of Kidron. Then they killed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the second month, and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of the Lord. And they stood in their place after their manner, according to the law of Moses the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood, which they received at the hand of the Levites, For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified. Therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing of the Passovers for every one that was not clean, to sanctify them unto the Lord. For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the Passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people. And the children of Israel that 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 loud instruments, unto the Lord, and Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord. And they did eat throughout the feast seven days, offering peace offerings, and making confession to the Lord God of their fathers. And the whole assembly took counsel to keep other seven days, and they kept other seven days with gladness. For Hezekiah, king of Judah, did give to the congregation a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep, and the princes gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep, and a great number of priests sanctified themselves. And all the congregation of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced. So there was great joy in Jerusalem. For since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like in Jerusalem. Then the priests, the Levites, arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even unto heaven." And just one more verse. Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, unto their own cities. May the Lord bless the reading of his words. I've titled this message Breaking Habitual Sin. There are two elements that I'd like to emphasise from the passage that we just read. The two points that I'll be going through is the need to return under God's Word, and again not just being able to read it, but to obviously obey what it says. And the second part, which hopefully you've seen in that passage, is the immediacy, dealing with sin quickly, not allowing it to linger. So let's look at these two points in some more detail. Hezekiah was the 13th king to rule over the southern kingdom of Judah. He is labelled at the beginning of his rule in 2 Chronicles 29 verse 2 as doing right in the sight of the Lord, which comes as quite a surprise considering his upbringing. We see a glimpse of his early childhood in 2 Chronicles 28, if we can just flip back over a couple of pages, at least in my Bible. And if we just read from verse 1 to 4, Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. But he did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord, like David his father. For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Balaam. Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire. after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills, and under every green tree." We can see from the account in scripture that the impact of his father's perverse lifestyle and pagan practices would have made it extremely difficult for Hezekiah to have served the Lord. In fact, not only was his environment stooped and idolatry with his father passing him through the fire, dedicating him to Baal, as we just read, at a young age, but his father destroyed all the vessels contained within the house of God and even bolted the temple doors shut. They certainly would have been dark days in his younger years. Yet even amidst all of this, when we read of Hezekiah's reign, he is in direct contrast to his father. While scripture is silent on how Hezekiah learned of the Lord, and we certainly don't want to spend too much time reading into it, he most likely received his instruction about the Lord from either his godly grandparents, at least up until the age of nine, and his mother. Abijah, whose scripture tells us was the daughter of Zechariah, Abijah meaning Jehovah is my father. The impact of these parents would have helped Hezekiah as a child, raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, who when as a man did not depart from it. Knowing the little background regarding Hezekiah, it is remarkable at how much of an impact he had on Israel at the beginning of his reign. In fact, in scripture, 2nd Kings 18.5 wraps up quite succinctly in the statement, he, referring to Hezekiah, trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. And as we read from our passage, his first duty when arriving to the throne was to restore the collective feasts that were to be observed by Israel as commanded by the Lord in Exodus. Chapter 34 verse 23 which says, Thrice in the year shall all your men appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. The first of these collective feasts was that of the Passover, which we saw in our passage, soon followed by seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The first aspect we notice about Hezekiah is the invitations he sent to all of Israel to participate. No doubt Hezekiah had seen the deterioration of society under his father's rule and wanted to restore the nation back to what God had intended it to be. Doing so, Hezekiah had to break a deep cultural habit that had infiltrated their society, something which had its roots ever since the beginning of man, and something which we even continue to observe today, and this was man forming his own way of worship. We read back in the book of Genesis in the fourth chapter of how the first son Cain presented his own form of offering to God. Cain perhaps didn't feel like slaying an animal to offer to God. He may have thought it was probably cruel or unkind, and decided to instead replace God's requirement with his own. But God had not respect under Cain's offering. As we follow through the biblical record, we see man doing likewise, subverting and perverting the worship due to God. taking on many different forms but all with the same result of worshipping anything but God's way. From the Tower of Babel to the Golden Calf, nothing changes and then by the time we arrive at the Book of Kings we come across what may from all intents and purposes look like a logical, practical and innocent means of how Israel worshipped God. Let's turn to 1 Kings 3, please. 1 Kings 3, and we'll just read the first three verses. And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house and the house of the Lord, and the wall of Jerusalem round about. Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built under the name of the Lord until those days. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father. Only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places. So we can see from this passage that the practice by the nation of Israel worshipping God in high places started during the reign of King Solomon, at least nationwide. We also see from this passage that the practice began due to two reasons. One, there was no temple. Solomon was busy constructing this and the process was to take seven years. So a common complaint may have been How are we going to worship God during this interim period? The solution seemed highly practical and highly convenient. The second one was King Solomon was doing likewise. And hey, if it's good enough for the king, it's good enough for me. Who wants to argue with the king? Unfortunately though, these were the very elements that started the deterioration of godly worship and what propelled Israel's downward progression into paganism. By allowing the people to establish their own place of worship, Israel now had wonderful excuses for no longer participating in God's requirement to worship at Jerusalem during the three appointed feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. As the generations passed, the high places from Solomon's time were never removed. Scripture continually informs the reader of this fact even on kings who did right in the eyes of the Lord. Some examples being Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham, etc. The routine of worship had now been set and the epidemic was hard to reverse. From the beginning of Genesis through to Moses at Mount Sinai and now to the Israelites in their promised land, worship had once again moved away from God. Sadly, the pattern continued throughout even the early church. Hebrews 10.23-25 says, Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Even back in the early church, Jewish Christians were creating their own means of worship. Fellowshiping with the Gentiles may have been very difficult. So by separating, just as they did in Galatia, they worshipped God in their own cultural way. And yet this pattern continues even today. In fact, some good American pastors in their media ministries often make it clear that their messages aren't to be used as a substitute for attending your local church. Some Christians often replace their attendance in church with either television on Sundays or downloading messages off the internet. This was never God's intention. We are to fellowship together. We are not to be the mockers and scoffers of Hezekiah's day who refuse to meet. We are meant to be under the authority of our pastor and the responsibility and accountability of the church. Those who create their own form of worship generally don't desire to be accountable to anybody. How could you possibly be a follower of Christ if you do not do what he says? Unfortunately, there is a growing trend of Christians who drop in and out of churches because they come with the view that church is meant to serve them. I'd hate to break this to anyone within this church, especially if anyone's arrived here tonight for the first time, but church wasn't meant for you, it's not about you. Jesus himself states in John 4.23 that the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship you. No, Him. It's not about you. It's about God who has done so much for you, for us. He's the audience. One of the great joys about being involved in a local church is that it provides you with the opportunities to serve, to fellowship and to worship God, to be ministered unto, to minister others through your testimony and possibly your knowledge. Just look at the blessings Israel received from the involvement back in our original passage in verses 25 and 26. If you want to flick back to 2 Chronicles 30, In verses 25 and 26, look at the blessings Israel received. And all the congregation of Judah with the priests and the Levites and all the congregation that came out of Israel and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel and that dwelt in Judah rejoiced. So there was great joy in Jerusalem. For since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like in Jerusalem. The other noted benefit we also read in verses 18-20, for a multitude of people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the Passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed, according to the purification of the sanctuary. And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people." Notice how in this passage Hezekiah sought the Lord's mercy because he knew the intent of the multitude's hearts by their participation, which was a good start in the right direction. Hezekiah didn't go about complaining. He set about applying a solution and this was appealing to the Lord's mercy and pardon. In fact, if you find yourself complaining about something within the church, instead of complaining about it and exacerbating the problem by hoping somebody else will fix it, see it for what God could be doing in you, and look at how God can use you to be a part of the solution. It may even be just as simple as a prayer. One other point I'd also like to mention regarding this passage is that by being involved in a collective group, we can help each other by prayer. We see this in the book of James chapter 5 verse 16 which says, Confess your faults one to another and pray for yourself. Pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Our greatest need is spiritual healing and the best means of accomplishing this is by having brothers and sisters in Christ pray for us. How will they know your needs if you never come? The second point, dealing with sin quickly. The next point I'd like to emphasise from this passage is the immediacy of dealing with sin. We see a variety of responses to sin throughout this passage, yet all have a common aspect, dealing with it quickly. First, we read of the priests and the Levites in chapter 30 verse 15. In the second part of verse 15 it says, and the priests and the Levites were ashamed and sanctified themselves and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of the Lord. The priests and the Levites were required to undertake the service of offering the sacrifices and yet they themselves were ashamed, unsanctified. No wonder they were ashamed and their shame would have been publicly known. who would have been very humiliating for them. The Bible explains that Christians are called a royal priesthood and we similarly can shame the name of Christ and other Christians for our testimony and our conduct. It's important for us not to be of the world, to be a peculiar people set apart from the world and this is why we should welcome conviction by the Holy Spirit for our sins. One of my favourite verses in scripture is 1 Peter 3.15 which speaks of the importance of sanctification. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Notice how this verse speaks of our sanctification toward every man. We may certainly be ridiculed by what we believe in our preaching of the Gospel, but hopefully an unsafe person would say of you, your life speaks so loud, I can't hear what you say. Your testimony should speak volumes of your belief. Everybody knows the saying, actions speak louder than words. I hope your actions are very loud. And how will we know how to be sanctified? We need to cleanse ourselves with the washing of the Word daily. Secondly, we also read of the people's reaction. And that was the reason why I went the extra verse in chapter 31. Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah. and break the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, and Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities." This was a remarkable change. Knowing how stooped idolatry had been in Israel and the many generations that had persisted this cultural lifestyle without fellowshipping for some time in Jerusalem, their repentance brought about dramatic changes. And this is what should happen. When we allow the Word of God with the help of the Holy Spirit to perform the necessary surgery on our desperately wicked and deceitful hearts, We grow and continue to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Just as Israel got serious with their sin, we likewise need to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. And the best time to do this is now. Notice the blessings received back in verse Verse 36, just prior to our readings in 2nd Chronicles chapter 30. Chapter 29 verse 36 says, And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly. Hezekiah didn't waste any time. The problem we have in dealing with our sin is that we linger with it. Oh sure, we may have one day or maybe a couple of days where we get serious with our sin, but it always seems to continue to creep back. Israel got serious with their sin that they took offensive action. They no longer were content with being passive about it. And some of you need to treat sin in the same way. Get on the attack. Make war with your sin. 2 Timothy 2 verse 4 states, No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. Remove those things that cause you to stumble, give none occasion to the adversary, and do not be ignorant of Satan's devices. The last point that I'd like to mention is actually for the unsaved. So the last two points were for the Christians among us. I hope we seriously do get serious with sin. Don't allow it to linger. One of the things I actually learned the other day was, we know in scripture we hear about how that Satan is like a roaring lion. And I'm certainly not a person that knows much about animals, but I wanted to find out when does a lion roar? And there were two occasions when I found out when a lion roars. One is usually to let other lions know that, hey, this is my territory. So they'll usually let out a roar, making sure you don't encroach on my territory. But the second one was probably the most interesting. And the second definition was, a lion generally roars when it's so close to its prey, but it wants to stun it. Because obviously the prey doesn't realise that there's a lion right behind it. And if it gets scared with a sudden roar, it panics and all of a sudden it stuns the prey. So therefore the prey really has no sense of escape because it's just going to be stunned by the roar of the lion. So it's interesting that scripture should actually mention that Satan goes about as a roaring lion. Some of you probably have that roaring lion right next to you because you're so entranced and stooped in sin. Get serious with it guys. Get on the offensive. As we now wrap up we can see from this account that there were two main groups of people. Those who came to worship God at Jerusalem and those who didn't. The Moccas and the Scoffers. It's interesting that the Moccas and the Scoffers of Hezekiah's time continue even to the present as prophesied by the passages in the New Testament. 2 Peter 3.3 states, knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts. Jude 17 and 18 says, But beloved, remember ye the words which we were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. The reason why the world does not come to Christ is that they see no need for him. Their lusts meet their felt needs. Paul shows the need for sinners in Romans 7.7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except that the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Examine yourself according to God's law and see that you are a sinner in desperate need of a saviour. Galatians 6, 9-20 puts it succinctly by detailing the consequences. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like. Of the witch I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Friends, if you don't inherit the kingdom of God, The only other place for you is eternity in hell. Sin may certainly feel pleasurable, and if you remain in your sin and die, it will bring eternal pain. Confess and forsake your sins to God and believe in Christ Jesus now, before it's too late. The closing hymn that I had actually was not the one that was there but we are going to sing that one there. The one that I actually had was Obedience, the Sunday School song. There's a lot in that song that I really loved and it was resounding through my head as I was going through this. Could I just read this out to you because it's wonderful. Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. Doing exactly what the Lord commands, doing it happily. Action is the key. Do it immediately, joy you will receive. Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. We want to live pure, we want to live clean, we want to do our best. Sweetly submitting to authority, leaving to God the rest. Walking in the light, keep our attitudes right, on the narrow way. For if you believe the word you receive, you always will obey. Beautiful. But we're going to actually sing Trust and Obey, 414.