So we're reading it this evening from a number of places, beginning in 2 Chronicles 29. And if you're quick, you can follow the reading. 2 Chronicles 29. And we shall also be jumping over into Kings for a short time. But 2 Chronicles 29, beginning at the first verse. Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and 20 years old, and he reigned nine and 20 years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street, and said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. For our fathers have trespassed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs. Verse 15. And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord. And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron. and Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets and with the instruments ordained by David, King of Israel. And all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded, and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. And when they had made an end of offering, the king and all that were present with him bowed themselves and worshipped. Moreover, Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshipped. Chapter 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 their Passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem, for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written. Verse 25. 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. We're now in 2 Kings chapter 18. So 2 Kings chapter 18 and verse 3. And it says, and he, that's Hezekiah, did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and break the images, and cut down the groves, and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nahushtan. He 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. For he claimed to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and saved him not. And now we're in 2 Chronicles again and chapter 32. 2 Chronicles 32 and verse 32. Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchers of the sons of David. And all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death. and Manasseh, his son, reigned in his stead. Amen. We have concluded so far that true reformation requires, firstly, that the hearts of the people are consecrated wholly to God, that we seek out and value, preachers of righteousness. And this evening we will see hopefully that reformation also requires a serious attitude to worship. Worship, as you well know, is to do with glorifying God And so we worship God when we praise him in song, for example. We worship God when we testify to his grace to those who are outside of the kingdom. We worship God when we pray to him. We worship when we read his revealed word to the end that we might obey it. We worship when we simply listen to those preachers of righteousness. We worship God when we give him of our time and our money. We worship him when we show hospitality. And we can say further that we worship him really in all that we do in life, even secular employment. But today, I'd like us to focus on worship in the setting of the church, the corporate worship in other words. And in worship, in doing all those things, what are we doing but acknowledging the attributes of God and the mighty works of God And so it is that he deserves to be glorified. Don't know whether anyone knows, remembers R.C. Sproul. He said, the single most important thing to understand about worship is that the only worship that is acceptable to God is worship that proceeds from a heart that is trusting in God. and in God alone. Just as we noted Ace's heart, his godly heart, and we also understood the understanding that Jehoshaphat had that he should seek out genuine prophets and preachers of righteousness and listen to them. And so, this evening we'll see in this Hezekiah Reformation, a revolution take place, a determination by him to reinstitute proper worship as was directed by God. And we shall look at that from three angles. We shall consider first the preparation for worship. The preparation. Because we can see that Hezekiah, as it were, cleared the ground first. That was his first move. You might say he dug up the weeds and burned them. He decided that we need a clear out first. What did he do? He went after those high places. Yes, the ones that have been demolished, dismantled, numerous occasions rebuilt. And so he goes at them again and in the name of God dismantles them. We noted in the King's reference, of course, that a detail that's not in the chronicle account, which was the destruction of this serpent, which the Israelites had been worshiping. Now, although I'm confident most of you will remember where this originated, but I will just mention as a recap that a plague if you like of snakes had come upon the Hebrew people at one point and so it was directed that a pole should be made with a serpent on the top and it was said that All the people had to do was to look. They just had to look up at this serpent to focus on this. And well, if I were to speak on that subject tonight, I would be making the case to you that that surprisingly is an image of Christ. And although it's a serpent, the people were looking at a cursed, a cursed creature on this pole. And it was just said to them, look and live. Just look and live. And so people were cured. And of course they kept this thing. And as is always the case, even with the Lord's people, They come to imagine that the object itself has some inherent properties that make it valuable. Not just a souvenir, something to go in a museum, that's okay. But they began, can you believe it, to carry out acts of worship around this pole. And so this important object which God had commanded to be made, which pictured the forgiveness that is in Christ to those who merely look at him as a crucified saviour. That thing was destroyed, quite rightly too, it was destroyed as a hindrance to the people. We keep saying that when we look at these actions of Old Testament kings, there may be times when we can emulate their behavior, but more often than not, we are to rethink what they have done and, well, think how it can be carried out in a spiritual manner. And so it's not our business to go out into the highways and byways with hammers and look for statues or high places and smash them to pieces. That's not our job. Far more important than bothering about what the world does is what's going on in our own house, our own hearts, if you like. And so the message that we can take from here is that we need to identify idols in our own souls and destroy them and destroy them without mercy. And so of course there's no statues but do I need to remind you that there are many, many things that can become idols. We can covet things. There's not a man who has not coveted something. And Ephesians 5 and verse 5 says this, For this you know that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. So we see there the covetousness is idolatry because the heart's affections are set on this object of desire. Think about how a notable group of people can become an idol. Think about football teams. If you support football, if you follow football, and you wear a football shirt, and you go to the match, and you cheer, That's fine, there's no sin there. But those things can be done in a sinful fashion. And so we find some people with all their pictures, they dress a certain way, and they even have songs of adoration towards their team or individual players. There's no limit to how highly these footballers have been praised. They've been called saviour, the almighty, and all kinds of blasphemous things. Our friend Eddie, not far from us in Liverpool, probably because when I was there we designed some tracts and gave them out to the Everton supporters. telling them, you know, if Everton's your religion, you need to repent. And not long after that, Everton Football Club put up a huge gable-end photograph, an advert, if you like, with some well-known players from the past in Everton. Underneath it, it says, The Holy Trinity. You might think that was not intentional. I think it probably was intentional. But regardless of where it's sited, it's awful to call these men the Holy Trinity, but there's no limit to how highly they will worship these people. Maybe just one more example, an individual person, say a pop star, a Hollywood actor, you know how much they can be worshipped. Maybe one that's likely to affect us more is the worship of family. The worship of our children, of our grandchildren, of our spouses and so on. That's a more subtle one. But I mention it for you to keep an eye on. And not fall into the traps perhaps that I have fallen into. With not putting God first. Because he comes first. family are a second best and a very low second best if I can say that. So what we get from Hezekiah's example today is that we should have a clean out, we should do some self-examination and do that regularly as a Christian habit and do a spring clean of our own souls, perhaps dig up the weeds from within if you like. So we've looked at Hezekiah's preparation for the reinstitution of worship. And when all things are ready, we come to this, the call to worship. A great call to worship the God of heaven went out. And just as we Those of us who are able can go and urge people in the world, urge them towards repentance and faith, so that, not so they can stay at home, so that they can come and worship. That's the, if you like, one of the ends of the repentance and faith, so they can come and worship God acceptably now. And it's interesting, Hezekiah, that he included the northern peoples as well as the locals. He extended this call out to whatever was left of the northern house of Israel because so many had been carried away into Syria. All instituted by God as a judgment. And the reaction, Not sure whether we covered this in the reading, but the reaction was mixed. The reaction to this call of worship was mixed. It says that some mocked. It says that some people mocked the idea, the idea of worshipping God. These were God's covenant people. You would not believe it, would you? You'd expect it off the people down the road here. but off God's covenant people after all he's done for them. It's surprising. But so it has always been that when the call to repentance and faith, when the great call to worship goes out to this world, then we see this mixed reaction. I imagine that Now it was a long time ago when I was not one of the lords but those who are outside the kingdom see the outside as better, more colourful, more interesting, more thrilling. than inside the kingdom. Inside the kingdom is dull. To them it's dull. There is what? Praise? Worship? Reading God's word? Talking about Jesus? It's so dull to them in comparison with all the wonders and the spectacles of this world. And I found in my own transition into God's kingdom that the whole thing went in reverse. And I'm unable to explain to people outside just why I feel this way. But when the Spirit of God comes in our lives, it reverses. And so we love being in the kingdom of God. We enjoy being together, don't we? We enjoy praising God. We love to pray to Him. We love to read his word and learn from it and grow in grace and knowledge. We love this. And now the things outside seem dull. So now, for me, it's the sorry if you're into football again, but to me I'm no longer interested in football or concerts and stuff like this. I still listen to some of the world's music and appreciate their art, I appreciate their architecture, even if it's all made by sinful people who don't know God. But, compared to the things of God's kingdom, they are dull. John Owen, the Puritan, said, unless men see a beauty and delight in the worship of God, they will not do it willingly. They will not want to worship God. They will not want to accompany you here because it's just, they cannot see the beauty and the delight of the lovely Lord Jesus Christ and the worship of him. But I said there was a mixed reaction and it turns out that others came. Others did come. Others answered the call to worship. I was, Well, I'm in the middle of reading a book at the moment by Rudyard Kipling called Kim. It's set in colonial India, or post-colonial India, I think. Anyway, there's obviously a lot of religious expression and different types of worship from a number of different religions. And it struck me that how, from the dawn of time, men have just felt instinctively that they should worship, that they should worship. Now, they may not know the Lord God, Jehovah. They may know him and choose not to worship him. But there's this strange instinct in the heart of those who are made in the image of God, this strange instinct to worship. And we find people need to worship. And if they don't have God, they'll worship a tree or anything else? Well, friends, our job, if you like, is to say, yes, you should worship deity, but we will show you who that person is. It's the Lord God Almighty and his Christ. We worship a Trinitarian God, in fact. We see, We see in this activity of Hezekiah that there was a lot of activity, like I said, that we are not able to, we're not meant to try to reproduce. And back then, there was importance attached to details of worship, very, very precise details. And the law, the law which governed their lives became a burden, actually. given by God, but it was a burden and exposed them for being their sinners. But what we learn now in this, if you like, the better covenant, if you want to call it that, is summed up here in John 4, 23. And Jesus says to this lady, but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him. We worship him in spirit and in truth. Which means now, friends, that we can, if we needed to, and this has happened, we can meet in a garden shed. We can find a large garden shed and we can worship God happily and God will hear us. And there's no longer a requirement for the detailed trappings that used to be the case. We worship him in spirit and in truth, which means that when we come here like this evening or on a weekend, we have to prepare ourselves for right worship by preparing our hearts. Now that's easy to say but what does that look like in practice? Preparing our hearts. Does that mean saying a prayer on the way? Well I would recommend that you maintain a healthy life with God throughout the week. So I'm not suggesting you place religious burdens on yourself and then kick yourselves if you don't keep to this target every day or something. Friends if you If you want to read just a few verses of scripture a day and pray for 10 minutes, then do it. If you want to read numerous chapters and pray for hours, then do it. But, I would recommend maintaining some form of habit and not fall out of the habit. I would also, I think I've mentioned this before, but I would also Watch particularly as the weekend approaches because, as I said to you several months ago, that I believe perhaps Satan focuses his efforts on us more at the weekends, perhaps Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings. So be careful. And also friends, I would say, don't turn up cold. Don't turn up to the worship of God cold. Now, it's the easiest thing in the world because we get up, we have to have our breakfast, we have to get ready, make sure everyone's ready perhaps. We have to get out and we have to get there on time. And if you have a family like, you know, I had and many of you had, you had children, it's a miracle. that you make it through the doors. But the risk with that is that we turn up cold, we plonk ourselves down right. We're here to worship now, let's get into the worship zone. And the problem with that is that you're not ready to receive the word of God. Now if you can Set some time on the Saturday evening, but especially on the morning of the worship. If you can make some time, you can find some time to pray and ask God to make you ready. I believe the worship would be better for you and obviously better for whoever's preaching because, you know, there'll be fewer people asleep. There'll be people who actually, you know, take most of the message in rather than just a few odd lines. And so turning up warm, if you like, by having communion with God is a good thing. It says here, I like this, 1 Chronicles 16 and 29. It says, give unto the Lord the glory due to his name. Bring an offering and come before him. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The beauty of holiness. We come in here with our hearts ready. So we've seen this preparation for worship, we've seen the great call to worship and some ignore it, some respond and there is some advice in these pages for our own worship today. And I just want to say a few things about the end of worship and I thought I should explain what I mean seeing that there's more than one meaning for the word end. So the end of worship obviously is not sometime in the future when we shall stop worshipping God. The end is the point of it, the target and the purpose of worship. It's all God's glory. It's all about God's glory. It's that thing which he said he will not give to another. He will not share it with anyone. God will not allow anyone or anything to receive the glory due to him. That's strange because I know a man who was glorified by God, glorified by men, and who received worship willingly. And that was the man, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was worshiped and accepted it. Now you might remember saying, John's vision, for example, in Revelation, how even the mightiest angel will refuse to be worshipped because they fear God. They know that that worship is due to God alone. And this, friends, is one of those powerful Arguments, if you like, you can use to those who don't believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. We can use this. It's good evidence that he is divine. This means that Jesus Christ is to be glorified. If we often say that we glorify God, that's theologically correct. But it is in the purpose of God. that Jesus Christ should have the preeminence in God's overall economy. He is to have the preeminence and therefore praise ultimately comes back to him, to Jesus Christ. I love the way it said in our reading there that God heard Hezekiah and the people. Did you spot that one? God heard them. The worship went up, the worship went up to heaven. And so what I'd like to know is, has he accepted our worship this evening? Is he now, even now, happily accepting the adoration that we send his way by either speaking or listening to the word of God read and expounded as he heard us. And the answer lies in the state of our hearts. If our hearts are right with God, if we are accepted because of Christ, and if we are walking with Him, then God is even now happy to receive our worship. So, when we consider these kings so far, this is number three, when we consider them we can see that Reformation needs men's hearts of stone replaced with hearts of flesh and wholly given to Him. We've seen that Reformation needs us to pray to God that He will raise up true prophetic voices to preach the gospel and then to teach the disciples who God brings in to teach them how to love God and how to obey Him. And then hopefully we've seen here from this example that reformation also needs worship after a godly sort. It is serious and joyful. It is reverent and it is happy. It is consecrated and it is Christ-centered. To Him be the glory through our worship both now and forever. Amen.