Out with the New, In with the Old
Pastor Erickson preaches from 2 Kings 16 and 2 Chronicles 29, where King Ahaz shuts up the temple and replaces God's altar while his son Hezekiah opens the doors and cleanses the house of the Lord. He teaches that we only keep what we love and calls people to daily repentance, casting out the idols in their own temple and coming back to the altar.
The message in 6 points
Ahaz pushes the altar into the corner
He reads how wicked King Ahaz moved the bronze altar aside and shut the doors of the house of the Lord, and how his son Hezekiah opened them again and had the priests carry the uncleanness out of the temple.
1:05:08Abandoned buildings and Solomon's Temple
He shows pictures of famous abandoned buildings around the world and says none compares with Solomon's Temple. It took about 180,000 workers seven years to build, yet Ahaz barred its doors.
1:08:51We only conserve what we love
Using a forester's saying his family saw on a fall trip, he teaches that we conserve only what we love, love what we understand, and understand what we are taught. Ahaz stripped the temple's gold to bribe a pagan king because God's house meant nothing to him, while Pastor Erickson says he has tied his life and family to the house of God on purpose.
1:14:17A new altar from Damascus
Ahaz copied a pagan altar he saw in Damascus and pushed God's plain, charred altar aside. He says the altar of sacrifice was meant to be a place of death, that new tools are not the problem, and that the church must never trade the anointing for sensationalism or talent.
1:25:06Hezekiah cleanses the temple
Hezekiah opens the temple in his first month, and the priests throw the pagan things into the Kidron Valley, a place of death. He teaches that repentance is the first step of salvation, a daily turning that must come before the washing of baptism and the filling of the Holy Ghost.
1:37:22Praise returns and the call to repent
With the right altar back in place, Hezekiah brings back David's instruments, praise and sacrifice. Pastor Erickson calls each person to the altar to clean out the little idols in their own temple and to rededicate themselves to prayer, fasting and the Word.
1:58:55
In his words
“If we don't love the house of God, if we don't love having the spirit of God dwelling inside of us, let me tell you something, we're going to trade it for whatever is most convenient at the moment.”
“Oh friend, I don't know about you, but I never want to trade anointing for anything. I don't want to trade it for talent. I don't want to trade it for better singers, better musicians.”
“It's not the Holy Ghost that makes you walk right, talk right, give right, live right. Oh no, it might help you do those things, but God doesn't make you do anything. It's repentance that causes you to do those four things.”
Taken word for word from the video, with punctuation added.
Scripture
He reads
2 Kings 16:14
14And he brought also the brasen altar, which was before the LORD, from the forefront of the house, from between the altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of the altar.
King James Version.
2 Chronicles 28:24-25
24And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem. 25And in every several city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the LORD God of his fathers.
King James Version.
2 Chronicles 29:1-7
1Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. 2And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. 3He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them. 4And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street, 5And 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. 6For 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. 7Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel.
King James Version.
2 Chronicles 29:15-16
15And 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. 16And 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.
King James Version.
2 Chronicles 29:18
18Then they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the LORD, and the altar of burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the shewbread table, with all the vessels thereof.
King James Version.
Acts 3:19
19Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
King James Version.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
King James Version.
Acts 2:38-40
38Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call. 40And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
King James Version.
Related messages
Also about repentance, holiness, salvation
Also about repentance, holiness, salvation
Also about repentance, holiness, worship