Cleansing the Temple — David Ravenhill

As the old country preacher said, it's good to see a packed out house, or a packed out house. That's wonderful to be in the presence of God, isn't it? Let's look to the Lord in prayer before we do anything else, shall we?

Father, once again we recognize You as the Head, the Lord, the Master. You're the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Lord, we ask that You would come tonight, Lord, just brood over this flock. Father, bring healing with us, a need of healing, encouragement with us, a need of encouragement, conviction with us, a need of conviction.

Change, Lord, with us, a need of change. Lord, You know our needs individually, corporately. And so, Lord, we ask that You would do what only You can do, touch our lives tonight, Lord, by the power of Your Spirit, in Jesus' name.

Hezekiah Restores the Temple

Amen. If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, turn with me to the Book of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, chapter 29. And I want to look into the life of a man by the name of Hezekiah. Hezekiah is one of those individuals I've come to appreciate.

He was a king. His father was a king over the nation of Israel. His father was one of those kings that did everything wrong. Turned his back on God. He caused his sons and daughters to go through the fire, which was a ritual to the heathen gods.

He burned incense on all the high places. He tore down the things of God. His last terrible act was to go into the temple and board it up, close it down, turn the nation of Israel to idolatry and immorality and all the other things that go with idolatry.

Basically, just to turn the nation away from God. And then his son Hezekiah becomes king. And we're introduced to Hezekiah's life here in chapter 29 and verse 1. Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years of age.

And he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did right in the sight of the Lord. That's a good beginning. I don't care if you do right. If it's not in the sight of God, it doesn't count.

We do right sometimes because we want to please the eldership or please the church or please our parents or please this person. We're only doing it because we want the recognition that comes from doing it.

We sort of told the line. A little boy that was told to sit down and finally he did. But he says, Mommy, I'm standing up on the inside. And I think a lot of us are like that. We're doing that which is right outwardly.

But inwardly, we're craving for the things of the world and so on. It's only that which is done right in the sight of the Lord. That really makes any brownie points, if I can put it that way, with God himself.

But here is a man that has a longing to do that which is right in the sight of God. And it says in verse 3, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and he repaired them.

If you go over to verse 17, it says, they began the consecration on the first day of the first month. So let me add those two verses together. In the first year of his reign, in the first month, on the first day, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and he repaired them.

That's what I call priority. Here he becomes king before he passes any sort of legislature, before he signs anything into law, before he makes any sort of rules or regulations or anything else. The first year of his reign, the first month of his reign, the first day of his reign, he goes to the house of God which has been boarded up by his father.

And he opens up the house of God and he begins to bring about restoration and repair and cleansing in the house of God. Now, I believe that one of the things that God is doing today in a very real sense is bringing cleansing back into the house of God.

Holiness, Repentance, and the Spiritual Temple

Holiness for many, many years was, if I can use it, it's not intended to be a pun, was almost a dirty word. You know, we were afraid of holiness. We were afraid of walking uprightly in righteousness and integrity and purity before God.

And we don't like preachers that sort of, you know, have that hard line message on holiness. The way we get out of that, we stone them with words like this, legalism, legalism, legalism. In other words, we don't want to hear this message of holiness.

We want to live our own selfish, carnal, fleshly lives. We don't want preachers telling us how to live. And if they do touch on this area of walking in integrity before God and walking in that which is pleasing to Lord, then the only way we can sort of, you know, get even, so to speak, is say, oh, that church is legalistic.

What a tragedy, isn't it? God said, be holy, not as your pastor is holy, not as the Apostle Paul is holy, be holy as I am holy. That's a pretty high standard. But God wants a holy people. Prior to the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there was one message that came from the wonderful messenger John the Baptist, prepare you the way of the Lord.

What was that preparation? Repentance. I believe prior to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is another message that is coming, or I should say the same message, but it's coming again, repentance.

God is getting his church cleansed. And so as we look at this, and I realize this is in an Old Testament setting, and I realize we're talking about a literal building, but I want you to look at it in the spiritual sense that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

We now are the house of God. This is a nice building, but it is not the church. I always get upset with people who say, isn't it good to be in the house of the Lord this morning? I say, no, it's good to be the house of the Lord this morning.

This is not the house of God. The Bible says in Acts 17, God does not dwell in temples made with hands. I don't care how many stained glass windows or how many millions of dollars you spend on them, God is not impressed.

He's impressed with the condition of this house and this house alone. And so here is a man that is determined to get the house of God right again. And that should be our priority like Hezekiah on the very first day of the very first year, the very first month of the year before he does anything else, he gets right with God.

And we need to have that priority in our own lives. Before we recarpet the house and before we fix up this and that, we get involved in all the carnal things of life. We need to make sure that our spiritual relationship with God is right.

And so he begins then and it says, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Notice if we go back to the previous chapter, verse 24, it says, he has gathered together the utensils of the house of God.

He cut the utensils of the house of God in pieces and he closed the doors to the house of the Lord, made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem. So the doors of the house of God had already been closed.

And the first thing Hezekiah does then, he opens the doors of the house of the Lord and he repairs them. Now let me say something as we go through this chapter. And that is this, that Hezekiah did nothing to the outside of the temple.

There isn't any record of him sort of cleaning the outside, putting a new roof on, you know, repairing anything else other than getting access into the inside. In order to get access into the inside, he had to open the doors.

You see, God is not interested in the outward appearance. He's not concerned about how good you look outwardly. I have pastored for 35 years, my wife and I, and I have seen some beautiful temples, so to speak, dressed up on a Sunday morning in their finest and knowing, you know, when to bow and when to raise their hands and when to do this and when to do that and so on and so forth.

And they look the epitome of spirituality. As Steve Hill would say, they know how to sort of tilt their head at that consecrated angle when they're singing and they look extra spiritual. But then I found that the internal condition is not the same as what appears externally.

And God is not interested in the externals. He is interested in the internal condition of your life. Jesus reprimanded the scribes and the Pharisees because outwardly they look clean. He said, you guys look like whitewashed sepulchres.

Everything about you is immaculate. There's not a, you know, there's not a thing that's wrong with you outwardly. But Philip's translation says, inwardly you're like an open sewer. It's a little tough translation, but Jesus said, inwardly you're full of dead men's bones and rottenness, just like any tomb.

And we need to ask ourselves, what is the condition of my life internally like when the thing that other people don't see about me, the secret lust that I have, the bondages that are in my life, the things I've never shared with my wife, never shared with my husband, the things that the kids don't know about, those things that the psalmist talks about as the secret sins in the light of your presence.

A lot of secret sins. A lot of things that we keep hidden. And so the first thing he does then, he opens the doors. Now I find that there's a lot of people that live behind closed doors. In other words, you can only get so far in your relationship when you run into a closed door.

They're not open. They're not transparent. They want to tell you what's going on inside. And you'll say to a brother or a sister, you know, how's it going brother? Fine. You know, what's God doing in your life these days?

Not much. You know, things are okay. You know, and that's about it. They don't let you inside. And the enemy is a master at getting us to keep those doors closed. Not being open. Not being transparent.

In the parable of the sower, when the seed was sown, it fell into different types of soil. Those different types of soil represented different heart conditions. And the heart that brought forth 30, 60 and 100 fold, the Bible says was not a pure heart or righteous heart.

It was an honest heart. It was an honest heart. Nothing wrong with a pure heart, obviously. Nothing wrong with a righteous heart. But God's looking for honesty. You see, and it's the honest heart that says, listen, God, I need you.

I've got things in my life that I know are not right. And I want to open those doors. And yet the enemy says, listen, don't open the doors, whatever you do. Don't let people really know who you are. If they do, maybe they'll not like you or maybe this will happen or whatever.

And so we live behind closed doors. I'll give you an illustration. We had a young lady, my wife and I, on our team when we looked after a youth with a mission base many, many years ago, back in the early 70s, 71 and 72 in New Guinea.

And she had come up from one of the Australasian countries. I won't mention which one, just to protect her. We'll call her name Susie. It wasn't her real name. But Susie joined us on the team there. And she was a girl that used to love to pray.

And after a number of months, we noticed that she became a little more and more withdrawn. And she wasn't sort of fellowshipping. We lived all together in a big house. My wife and I had a little tiny apartment underneath.

And then we had, you know, a married couple and then some single girls and single guys and some national people living with us. And maybe about 16 of us all together, something like that in this house.

And she just wasn't sort of fitting in like she did when she originally arrived. And so the co-worker and myself, we called her in one day. And we said, Susie, you know, we're just concerned. We've noticed you seem to be a little withdrawn these days.

And we were very gentle in trying to help her. And, you know, she had a closed door. She said, no, I'm fine. You know, I said, well, you know, you just don't seem to be yourself. Well, no, no, no, you don't understand.

Things are OK. They're fine. And we weren't able to get through. There was something there. That door was closed. And finally, my co-worker who moved in the realm of the Spirit, God spoke to him and gave him a word.

And he looked at this girl. He said, Susie, God's just told me something about you. And all of a sudden, of course, she sort of looked. And he said, he said, God told me that you've been involved in an incestuous relationship with your father.

And all of a sudden the doors opened. And she sobbed and she sobbed and she sobbed and she sobbed and she sobbed. And she just cried uncontrollably. And then she told her story. How as a little girl, her father began to interfere with her sexually.

And her father was part of a Pentecostal church. And he was a deacon or an elder. I can't remember which now. And when this began to happen, of course, here she knew that if she went to her mother, maybe her mother wouldn't believe her.

And maybe it would cause a breakup of the family. And so she was afraid to say something. She was also afraid to go and tell her pastor. Because here her father had a position in the church. And it might mean that he would, you know, get thrown out of the church or whatever.

And then she would get the blame, whatever happened. They either wouldn't believe her or she would get the blame and so on. And so she kept all of this bottled up inside her. And the years went by and she became a young woman.

And she wasn't able to share. And no doubt the enemy says, listen, this is so embarrassing. Don't ever open that door. You know, let people know you just the way you are. And she struggled with all of this stuff that was going on inside.

It wasn't her fault, obviously. But all the uncleanness and all the garbage and all the memories of that. And she was all sort of bound up inside. And all of a sudden God just opened the door for her.

And it just tumbled out. All of, again, the tears. But you see, we live behind closed doors. Oh, I could tell you story after story, keep you here all night of confessions that I've in my own office many, many, many times.

Horrible things. Things you would never dream that went on in the house of God. But you know, we're all people, aren't we? And we're all sinners. We're no different in the world. Jesus said, I've come again to be the physician of the sick, not those that are well.

That's what brought us to Christ in the first place. We had a need. Our marriage was breaking up. But this was going wrong and that was going wrong. You know, we were looking for peace or something rather.

And it was out of the fact that we were sick that brought us to the great physician and we found healing and cleansing. But many times there are areas of our life we just don't want people to know about.

Things that we struggle with, that we think, you know, I shouldn't be struggling with these. I've been a Christian for six months or six years or 60 years for that matter. You know, and I've never been able to share because if I share, what's, you know, people are going to think, they're not going to think that, you know, I'm as spiritual as I've made out all these years.

And, you know, I've let the years go by and I've never really opened up in this area. If I start opening up now, you know, and we've got all sorts of reasons. Fears. Fears of what people will think. Pride that keeps us from opening the doors and so on.

But you see, before the uncleanness can be carried out, the doors had to be opened. You see, we will never get rid of all the stuff that goes on inside until we become transparent, until we become honest.

And we've got all sorts of doors, don't we? Just as a natural building has got doors. You've got a door here and a door back there and so on. And we've got doors. We've got the eyes are a door. They let in all sorts of pollution, don't they?

The psalmist says, you know, I will set a watch over the door of my lips. He said, this is a door. It can let things out and so on. You see, what Hezekiah does now, he repairs the doors. He doesn't take them off.

He repairs them. Doors need to open at certain times and doors need to close at certain times. Doors prevent access, but doors also permit access. You go home tonight and your door permits you access into your house.

But once you get in your house, you close the door. Why? To prevent access. After all, it's night. You never know who's in the neighborhood and so on. So we don't want somebody coming into our house. So we need to let certain things in, but we need to keep certain things out.

The same thing is true spiritually. The Bible says, lift up your heads or your gates. Be lifted up, you everlasting doors. But what? The King of glory may come in. Now, that's a good thing to let in. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man open the door, you know, I will come in. Thank God we need to allow certain things to come in. But also we need to stop certain things from coming in. So we need to permit things in. We need to prevent things.

From coming in. Job, in my devotions, I'm just sort of, you know, methodically reading through the Word of God. I'm now in the book of Job. Not especially looking forward to getting through the book. Well, looking forward to getting through the book of Job.

But, you know, Job isn't one of those exciting books, especially, you know. Trying to figure out, you know, all that's going on there. But, you know, Job says, I have made a covenant with mine eyes not to gaze upon a virgin.

The book of Job begins with this wonderful description of this man of God. A man of righteousness. A man that eschewed evil. A man that turned away from evil. A man that feared God. And so on. I mean, he's, you know, you put him up on a pedestal.

I mean, after all, he was God's sort of pride and joy when the devil came roaming around. You know, God couldn't help but say, Devil, have you ever considered my servant Job? You know, I bet you can't make him sin.

I bet you can't make him fall. You know, test him all you want. You know, just spare his life. I mean, God was so proud of him. You know, he literally just said, Hey, devil, have a go at him. But, you know, Job says, I made a covenant with my eyes not to gaze upon a virgin.

See, here was a man like any other man. A man of subject to like passions as we are. Who found himself in the house of God looking at the young women. Until, obviously, the Spirit of God convicted him one day.

And he says, I made a covenant now with my eyes. I'm not going to gaze anymore. I'm not going to lust anymore in the house of God. And so, we need to make sure the doors of God's house are repaired. They open at certain times.

They close at certain times. We let certain things in. We don't let certain things in. We're enjoying being with Kim. And her husband, hopefully, is coming tonight. She's been a little lonely. But we've been keeping her, you know, amused here.

Because we're there with Gary and his precious wife. And we're all, you know, it's like the Brady Bunch. We're having a good time. Anyway, we're all in the same house. But I notice on top of the television there is a little sign there.

WWJD. What would Jesus do? What a good place to have it. Right over the television. Why? Because there is a door, isn't it? Something that can come in and totally defile everything that God is trying to do.

Undermine what God is trying to do. Fill this temple full of uncleanness. And we've got to ask ourselves, Lord, I don't want to open the door and allow things to come in. So that's the first thing that he does.

Carrying Uncleanness Out of the House of God

And then he gathers us together in verse 5 with all the leadership. And he says, consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers. And carry the uncleanness out from the holy place.

He says, listen, this house is full of uncleanness. God's house. I mean, that's terrible, isn't it? To imagine that God's house. This holy God. This righteous God. His house that was supposed to be a place that was typified by holiness.

After all, the holy place. The holy of holies. This holy place and holy of holies. The dwelling place of God where God says, I will dwell with you. I will dwell among you. And so on. This place is full of uncleanness.

And likewise, this house can be full of uncleanness. And what God is wanting us to do is carry out the uncleanness. Get rid of the uncleanness. The only way we can do that again is to be honest. To be transparent.

To allow those doors to open. To get over our pride. To get over our fears. To get over... Oh, I'm not suggesting you stand up publicly and tell every Tom, Dick and Harry, you know, all your dirty linen.

Don't get me wrong. I'm talking about whatever it takes. Going to a brother. Going to a sister. Coming to the altar. Opening your heart before God and say, God, you know everything that's going on inside me anyway.

You see my down sittings, the Bible says. You see my uprisings. You know my frame. You know that I'm dust. You know everything that's going on. The New Testament says everything is naked before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do it.

In other words, we can't cover things up. God knows. He sees right through us. And so the uncleanness had to be carried out from the holy place. Verse 6, we find out what caused all of this in the first place.

Unfaithfulness and the Loss of First Love

Now, what we're looking at in this chapter tonight is the process that took place before revival came. There is going to be a move of God. The people are getting right. They're getting revived. They've spent years, again, away from God.

Neglecting the house of God. Neglecting the things of God. They've been involved in idolatry and immorality and all sorts of other things. And a revival is going to happen. And thank God that's the thing that you and I are looking for, I trust.

Is a real revival. It may not happen corporately, but it can happen individually. You know, there's a sovereign thing sometimes about the corporate visitation of God in revival. But we can have a personal visitation with God.

And so we have to, again, be willing to open the doors. Carry the uncleanness out. And this is how it all begins in verse 6. For our fathers have been unfaithful. It begins with unfaithfulness. I sat down, I guess, maybe a year ago now with a friend in Pensacola.

And we were having a cup of coffee or tea or something together. And he said to me, he said, do you know about my situation? He says, has your wife told you? And I said, well, she's told me a little bit.

And his wife had been unfaithful to him. And they were a Christian couple. And this woman, and I don't know all the details, but anyway, had gone through a period of unfaithfulness. And it happened a number of years ago.

And we had developed a relationship with this couple. And he wanted me to know, you know, he wanted to know that I knew about it. You know, how sometimes if you're going to have a relationship, you know, you don't want to keep things hidden because you think, does he know?

Or doesn't he? You know, his wife told him or whatever. And so he wanted to be open and transparent. And he said, you know, do you know about, you know, my wife and I? And as he told me about the unfaithfulness, the tears just wound up, even though it was many years ago, the fact that he'd been betrayed.

You know, there's a greater faithfulness than the physical. It's the spiritual. So many times we're unfaithful. You see, the Bible says that we're in a marriage relationship, at least a courtship. We have a wonderful bridegroom.

We're the bride. It's a love relationship. It's a passionate, or it should be a passionate relationship, an exciting relationship. I've never seen people that are in love miserable. You know, they're just sort of starry-eyed.

They can't wait to, you know, be with the one that they love and so on and so forth. And, you know, I've never seen a bride walk down the aisle sort of sobbing her eyes out. Do I have to do this? Do I have to, you know?

I mean, she's excited. She can't wait, you know. And she's doing her best to walk, you know, nice and neatly, you know. But really, she's, you know, longing to sort of stride down there, get over and get away with her beloved, you know.

But God says, listen, you've been unfaithful to me. And in the New Testament, the Bible says, you adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? He that is a friend of the world is no friend of mine.

You see, that's unfaithfulness. And sometimes we do. We love the things of the world more than the house of God, don't we? We love all that the world has to give us and so on. We can spend all our time and our money and everything else, you know, on that sort of love relationship.

And God says, listen, it's adultery. Now, I didn't say that. Don't be, you know, be hard on me. That's what the Lord says. You adulterers and adulteresses, know you're not. The friendship with the world is enmity against me.

And so often we're unfaithful to God. Oh, you know, I'll be hard on you for a little while because I'm only here for a couple of days and I'll let Gary mop up after I leave. But, you know, I go to churches all over the nation and around the nations for that matter.

And I see churches on a Sunday morning where you have to have two, you know, two different meetings in order to get everybody in, you know, a nine to ten thirty meeting and then eleven to one o 'clock meeting or whatever it is.

And, you know, those churches are just jammed to the gills. Two services, sometimes three services on a Sunday morning. And then Sunday night you can put everybody, you know, on the first third of the first part of the church.

And, you see, we do our sort of religious thing, don't we? But, you know, the same lover waits on Sunday night that waits on Sunday morning. But we sort of, well, you know, after I don't want to spend too much time with this guy, you know.

I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of unfaithfulness. And what would we rather do? We'd rather sit at home and enjoy the world. You see, I don't think we'll ever really have revival until we say, God, you've got to do something in my life.

You've got to put back the passion. You've got to put back the desire. You've got to change me. I don't want to be religion, religious. You know, the one thing that God was harder on, Jesus was harder on than any other group of individuals was the religious community.

He even stood up one occasion. He says, you know, prostitutes and tax gatherers will make it into the kingdom of God before you guys. I mean, that's not exactly seeker sensitive. That's not the way to start a pastor's conference when you're addressing the scribes and the Pharisees.

But that's what Jesus did. Why? Because he said, listen, I hate just the religion, you know, where you stand on the street corner, not because you have any fellowship with me. You stand on the street corner and pray to be seen of men, you know.

And God is looking for a heart relationship, a love relationship. And he says, listen, you've been unfaithful. And then the second thing he says, not only that, but you've done evil in the sight of Lord your God.

Once we're unfaithful, we lose our love relationship. Then we drift off and, of course, open ourselves up to all sorts of things. And we do evil in the sight of God. And it says we have forsaken him. They forsook him.

Again, the Christian life, more than anything else, is a relationship. Eternal life is not a place. We think of eternal life as, you know, when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.

And eternal life and heaven are one and the same. No. Eternal life. This is eternal life, Jesus said, that you may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Eternal life is a relationship.

That where I am, there you may be also. And we've got to realize that God is looking for something deeper. And just as sort of a Sunday morning, you know, put in an hour or two, drop in a few cents into the box and sort of do out a good deed.

We'll never have revival until we get honest before God. We open the doors and say, God, I don't have that desire. I'll be honest with you. See, that's where it begins. God doesn't say, listen, I expect you to be here.

He says, listen, start with honesty. Open the doors and say, God, you need to put a new passion in me, a new desire, a new love. A relationship. And so it says they've forsaken him and then they've turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord and they've turned their backs.

You see, once we've forsaken him, then of course we begin to forsake the dwelling place. The reason we don't come on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night or especially to the prayer meeting is what? Because we've forsaken him really.

We really have. My father used to say, if you want to know how popular the church is, you go on Sunday morning. If you want to know how popular the preacher is, you go on Sunday evening. If you want to know how popular the Lord is, you go to the prayer meeting.

It's true, isn't it? I mean, we really don't want to hang around him too much, you know. An hour or two a week at max. Lovers don't do that. Lovers love to be with each other. Verse 7, it says, they have also shut the doors of the porch and they've put out the lamps.

Now, if you know anything about the tabernacle, you know that there was an outer court and then the holy place. And in the holy place, there was a lampstand. And when Moses was told to make that lampstand, God says, I want you to put that lampstand so it sheds light on that which is in front of it.

And the lampstand, of course, is symbolic of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It was the oil, of course, and the fire, the flame. The lamp has gone out. And I find that in a lot of temples, again, the light has gone out.

The lamp has gone out. The Holy Spirit is no longer speaking. The Holy Spirit is no longer active. There's no awareness of the Spirit of God's activity in your life. You say, well, you know, it's been years since I've ever really felt anything.

And I'm not saying that feelings are everything, but we are emotional people. You know, the lamp has gone out. And when the lamp goes out, of course, it is to shed light on that which is in front of it.

And the thing that was in front of the lampstand was the table of showbread that represents the Word of God. And it is the light shining on the Word of God. After all, He is the one to teach us and guide us and inspire us and bring the Word of God to life.

The letter kills. The Spirit brings life. And when the Holy Spirit is not actively working in our lives, then the Word of God has no meaning to us. It's a book that we sort of pick up once in a blue moon.

We sort of thumb through it. We can't sort of really make head or tail of it because we're not really that interested in it. Why? Because the lamp has gone out. And we need a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

You see, again, we need to be honest. We need to open the door and say, God, everything that's being said tonight is true. I don't like it, but it's true. I don't really enjoy sitting down. I'd far rather watch an evening of television than get alone with you.

Far rather read some novel than I would to just go into my bedroom or sit down and allow you to speak to me. See, the lamp has gone out. We need to rekindle the fire once again. And then it says, not only have they shut the doors and put out the lamps, but they've not burned incense.

And, of course, the incense typify two things. Incense typifies our prayer life and our praises, our worship, our thanksgiving, our adoration. And a good way to know what you're like spiritually, again, if we're being honest, is to say, you know, how much do I really enjoy the place of prayer?