Sacred Spaces:

2 Chronicles 29:1-11

Summary: God set apart his temple as a special place where he could connect with his people despite their sin. The system was special because it brought the people back to a resemblance of the fellowship of God that he intended. Ahaz broke, shut-down, and put out what was sacred. Misery became his motto.

Set your life apart. Make a sacred space. 

OPENING:

I believe everyone has fears, but different people have different fears.

There are some strange fears out there:

• Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth

• Phobophobia: Fear of having a phobia

• Sesquipedalophobia: Fear of long words

• Dextrophobia: Fear of having objects to your right

• Siderophobia: Fear of stars

• Arithmophobia: Fear of numbers

TRANSITION: Fears do teach us something about ourselves. 

Fear has a way of revealing what we trust the most.

CHALLENGE

What happens in our faith when we are afraid? 

BIG IDEA: Set apart things for God and never compromise those. 

The Big Idea: Hezekiah shows us how to kindle our spiritual fire again for the Lord. We return to his ways, and we recognize and restore what is sacred.  

• Before Hezekiah was a king named Ahaz.

• 2 Chronicles 28:1- “Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem”

• Very wicked

• 2 Chronicles 28:2- “He even made metal images for the Baals”

1. 2 Chronicles 28:3- “He made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering…”
1. Valley of Hinnom
2. The Greek word for “hell” used in the New Testament. A transliteration of “Valley of Hinnom” (גֵּי הִנֹּם, gey hinnom), a boundary marker between Judah and Benjamin
1. 2 Kings 16- cross reference
2. Isaiah 7- Ahaz lets fear determine his faith.
1. God speaks through Isaiah and tells Ahaz not to fear, and he will protect him.
2. Then Ahaz makes a choice to trust Assyria above God.
3.  
1. Judah is defeated
1. Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Syria, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus — 2 Chronicles 28:5
2. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel — 2 Chronicles 28:5
3. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.
4. Hundreds of thousands were captured.
5. Oded, the prophet of the Lord, brings some relief to the people of Judah from the Lord. (2 Chronicles 28:9-15)
2. Ahaz makes another devastating decision

• And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and he shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. 25 In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the LORD, the God of his fathers — 2 Chronicles 28: 24-25

1. MAJOR POINT: Ahaz takes everything that connects to God and severs it. 
1. No vessels
2. No temple
3. No altars
2. MAJOR POINT: What was once sacred in Judah, has become sacrilegious.  

• Hezekiah’s Reign

1. A son of Ahaz who was not sacrificed
2. One of Israel’s greatest kings
3. He honored God
4. Hezekiah’s name means “God has strengthened.”

1. Hezekiah’s Action
1. Revival often begins when there is moral collapse.
2. BIG IDEA: Hezekiah, in the first month, restores what is sacred, and he removes what is “filth.”
3. Revival in our hearts takes place when we restore what is sacred and remove what wicked.
2. Application: If you feel like God is distant, you need Hezekiah’s action plan. 
1. “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God;” — 2 Corinthians 6:16
2. Sometimes we need restoration.