When you're sharing Christ, you're not trying to impress the other person with your knowledge of history or whatever other facts you may come up with. You're trying to introduce them to Christ. You're trying to. Be a witness of what you've seen as far as your salvation goes and what could be theirs too. When a pastor goes into the pulpit, he has to remember he's not the star.
He has to be himself. But he's not the star. Christ is in. And that's what Hezekiah is telling them. that you should minister to him.
This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastorik is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay tuned with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick as he continues his message: How to Overcome Through Christ.
We're continuing. The question was: the fifth question, and this is 5b: how to overcome through Christ, i.e., this is how the question was submitted, Asa. Hezekiah Josiah.
Well, I think it would be remiss Of me. To just answer that with Asa, as we covered last session, and bypass Hezekiah and Josiah.
So I hope a character study is beneficial to you, and we're going to have one more after this evening. Tonight, it will be Hezekiah.
Now as to the question How to overcome. Overcome what?
Well life. Anything it throws at you. The Bible claims to be capable of addressing anything that comes through those doors. And that's going to call for a fight, a conflict, and there's no way around it.
So In contrast to the world who has not Christ, we make, at least we endeavor, to make ours count. For Christ, the glory of God. Every Christian should have a burden for lost souls. That does not mean every Christian should feel guilty for not winning everybody to Christ or anybody to Christ. A burden for lost souls means you are a minute man.
In a minute. Any minute you're ready to preach Christ. I think a good Picture of that. Are those vessels that Christ turned? He told them to fill them to the brim and when you fill it to the brim, jest a little bump, and it spills out.
And that to me pictures the Christian's heart ready to spill out out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks the things of Christ. As a joke, you know, someone will ask you for a glass of juice, and if you fill it all the way up to the brim, Now they're trying out how they're gonna get it up without spilling it. In certain circumstances.
Okay, I made those points. Let's get to King Hood.
Well, actually, I have a little introduction. on top of the preface. We want to learn how to slay the flesh. That's the question. How do we overcome through Christ?
At least that's how I see the question. And, you know, making hardship and unfairness do something against hell. That's overcoming. And if not, In our life, someone we know, someone we even love. Maybe overcome themselves by something.
And we then fall into a support role. which is very meaningful. That's why one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is exhortation. That is to be able to encourage without falsity. Revelation thirteen.
This is the beast coming up out of the sea. John said, I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. See, there's this seven-headed beast coming out of the sea, and one of those heads are struck. Dead. But it was healed.
Well, other than it actually speaks about the coming of Antichrist and how he's going to be assassinated and miraculously survive and then gain all this. This cult following behind him. It also pictures the persistence. of evil in life, in our flesh. Drive out one form of evil from ourselves, and another one pops up.
Well, if you kill it, it gets comes back again. The death stroke did not finalize its Did not end it. There's no silver bullet. And but just, you know, This is something that The mature Christians should understand And follow orders based on that understanding. We improve how we serve Christ by learning these lessons, by looking at the life of someone like King Hezekiah.
or ASA And two things I took away from Asa is: yeah, he was warned by the prophet. that if you have a great victory, Be careful. The enemy's going to come looking for a weak spot for you to relax. Be careful of that. Asa did fail in that area, but also that God overlooked.
Ace's shortcomings in the end. When he brought Aesar up, centuries later, God opted to leave out. the part about The failures. of that king. And of course, we like that.
So, not oversimplifying my response to the question. But there's no silver bullets. Two verses from Paul's life sum up. the lifetime walk of the believer. Acts 24, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.
It's personal. I myself strive. That should be us, every one of us. to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.
So here's your Christian. You have the burden for lost souls. You want to preach the gospel to whoever you're going to preach it to. You go to church, you do all these things, and yet at home, You have these dogs in your backyard who you don't clean up behind. And your neighbor's property is house is right next to yours.
You're killing your witness. and also breathing air.
So, you know, to strive to always have a good conscience.
Now, there are limits to that.
Someone may be offended by you going to church.
Well, then, you know, he just had to be offended.
Well, you should understand that. One more, 2 Timothy 4:7. I fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. There's a picture of someone overcoming.
And then he says, Next breath. Finally, we There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness finally. The great Apostle Paul. Who cannot, and we all sympathize with that.
So let's go back to King Hezekiah and his remarkable beginning. The text is 2 Chronicles 29, verse 2. And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh according to all that his father David had done. That's the final commentary on the life of this king. And it was a busy life.
He comes some 200 years after King Asa, who we covered last week.
some seven hundred years before the virgin birth. Judah had several good kings, Asa, Jehoshaphat. Uzziah? Joe Tham? Hezekiah?
and Josiah. That's the southern kingdom of Judah. The Northern kingdom had nobody. They all failed.
Some of them made a kind of effort and then they Pit it out. These kings strive to purge Judah of idols that their own fathers and countrymen kept bringing back in. Like bailing. water out of a canoe with a hole in it. You bail it out, it fills right back up.
They are known as the Reformers. But they were really revivalists. They were reviving that which was dead, they were bringing back to life. As yen, Whereas in the northern kingdoms the kings made no such attempt. Jesus said that we one day would rule as kings and priests.
So there's benefit to observing the lives of these godly men and the ungodly men. The kings of the north had little interest in overcoming anything For Yahweh, It was all about them.
some more extreme than others. And as a result, God sent Elijah. and Elisha And Hosea is and Amos and unnamed prophets to rescue the Northern Kingdom. And they were only able to rescue individuals. But the kingdom itself perished.
And the people that took that northern kingdom away are coming for Hezekiah. They're a big part of the story. The Assyrians. And Judas' kings, the good kings, they all stumbled somewhere. but none of them worshiped idols.
They all knew who Yahweh was. They were very clear about that. Maybe you know a Christian and They've just got some wacky theology and Very emotionally driven. But they know who Christ is. They know what He has done.
They know that they themselves are sinners saved by grace. And that means the grace is undeserved. It is a gift from God. through no strength of their own.
So Don't think for a moment That overcoming was easy for Hezekiah. Being king only added to His troubles, as with all the righteous kings being righteous invited Satan's retaliation. Still. They ultimately overcame. and we're not overcome.
And there's where the lessons are.
Well, okay, how'd these guys finish? That's what Paul was saying, I finished the race. It's a hard race. He could appreciate crossing the line. And then he had two more years probably after he wrote that.
So among all the reforming kings, Hezekiah was perhaps the most remarkable.
Now I'm leaving out King David. He was not a reformer. He had the whole kingdom to himself. You know, he had to recover from Saul's leadership, but it wasn't as it was. Once the nations split.
Second Chronicles thirty-one twenty-one. In every work that he began, speaking of Hezekiah, in the service of the house of God, in the law, and in the commandment to seek his God, he did it with all his heart.
So he prospered. God blessed him.
So that's a lesson. I want to be that guy. I want to be the guy that is serving the Lord, His commandments. With all my heart. Don't leave out the love part.
The difference between the legalist And the Jesus lover. As the legalist lives by the letter of the law, they will shoot their own wounded. Whereas the one that loves understands, if I have not love, I am nothing. Big point. Bypassed by a lot of self-righteous Christians.
And self-righteousness.
Sometimes it just busts right in the door of the heart and people make it comfortable. Other times it tiptoes in. Except for David and Solomon, no Judean king is given more attention than Hezekiah. or commendation in Scripture. Eleven chapters are devoted to him.
Between 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, Isaiah devotes four chapters to him. Isaiah was his buddy. I mean, he was a prophet, too. Isaiah never confused. That part of the relationship, but they were close.
He also is mentioned in the Proverbs, how he preserved the Proverbs. He got involved with that. I'll come back to that a little bit. 2 Kings 18, verse 5. Speaking of Hezekiah, he trusted in Yahweh, God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings, nor.
Who were before him amongst the reformers, they're not Davidson, another category. He became king when he was 25 years old and reigned for 29 years. As I mentioned before, the chronicles should be called something else because they're chronological. They are not. And there could be, you know, you could add five years to that very easily, and you wouldn't lose a debate because some of the things that are hidden.
And scholars scratch their heads over it. But it's a safe, conservative approach to that. And it won't affect your theology. But it helps the story to understand. that for twenty nine years he was an overcomer.
He wasted no time revising. or reviving This is father's. Ruin Ahaz was his father. He was blasphemous. He was an apostate.
He was an obnoxious individual. And Isaiah tried reaching Ahaz. Ahaz was just too bullheaded in the flesh, it's sinful. 2 Chronicles 28:19, for Yahweh brought Judah low because of Ahaz, king of Israel. And pause there.
Here's a good Bible study point for context.
So the northern kingdom is known as Israel, the southern kingdom is Judah. But sometimes they refer to even the southern kingdom as Israel, as they're doing right here in 2 Chronicles 28.
So the context will help you out with that. Historian says, probably saying to himself, no, we're all Israel. And he's right. He says, Coming back to this. For he encouraged moral decline in Judah and had been continually unfaithful to the Lord.
There's a case of somebody who's not overcoming, who's being overcome.
So does it matter? How do I overcome in Christ?
Well, you look at these lives. Or you listen to the explicit statements, or you listen to the parabolic illustrations. They're all over the scripture. Again, 2 Chronicles twenty eight, twenty four, Ahaz gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of Yahweh, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem.
So it's an understatement to say he was a creep. No name-calling.
Well It's a descriptive name. When his son Hezekiah comes to the throne, He immediately immediately starts erasing that junk. We're seeing this with our President now. You know, I don't know. Maybe you grew up to think that Lyndon Beans Johnson was good.
That man was a monster. You just creep in and out. And they hid that from society. Yeah, it comes out now, but Closed the barn door. The horse is gone.
Anyway, Johnson had said that, you know, he didn't like what the pastors were saying about him in his state of Texas, where he was a senator. He worked for a law. to stop pastors. From endorsing political candidates.
Well, there's a new sheriff in town. And he just reversed that the other day. The pastors have had it. And so now Without losing your IRS, your Tax exempt status. That was the consequence.
Never been enforced that I know of. But anyway, that's not looming over the head of the pastor now. If he says, I think. When you start espousing those, you know, murdering the unborn and sexual immorality, just the things, I can say that now. I said it before.
Let him come get me. Yeah.
Well Anyway. God is now going to be invited back into Israel. Because he is opening the doors of the house of the Lord that his father closed. Closed, this is the kind of man he was or became. This is why he is in the list.
Whoever submitted the question and said, Tell me about the overcomers and listed those three kings.
Well, That was good. Anyway, then he went on to assemble the priests, the Levites. Whoever submitted the correction probably doesn't even remember that I submitted something. I don't know what it was.
Alright, anyway, that's how I do it. He gets the priests and Levites together. He goes right at the clergy. 'Cause he understands the problem of man is spiritual. It is always spiritual.
Lose sight of man's spiritual need and all is lost. And a lost soul is gone while it's present. It's there, but you can't find it. It's lost.
So 2 Chronicles 29, my sons, Hezekiah speaking to the priests and Levites, do not be. Negligent now, for Yahweh has chosen you. Stand before him, serve him. That you should minister to him. Remember who is the star.
When you're sharing Christ, you're not trying to impress the other person with your knowledge of history or whatever other facts you may come up with. You're trying to introduce them to Christ. You're trying to be a witness of what you've seen as far as your salvation goes and what could be theirs too. When a pastor goes into the pulpit, he has to remember he's not the star. He has to be himself.
But he's not the star. Christ is in. And that's what Hezekiah is telling them. that you should minister to him. 2 Chronicles 29, 25, and he stationed.
the Levites in the house of Yahweh. He brings music back into the house of the God with cymbals, stringed instruments, and harps. He prohibited ukulelees.
Okay, it doesn't say that. But he should say that. No, he doesn't say that. But he brings in the harps. According to the commandment.
Now look. This is all connected. They're looking back. It's not nostalgia. It's this is holiness.
This is our heritage. According to the command of Commandment of David. and Gad the king seer, and of Nathan the prophet, for thus was the commandment of Yahweh by his prophets. That's magnificent. He said David had around him Good and bad people, but he had Gad and Nathan, and with all that David had, they brought a stabilizing influence.
into his life and he brought it back to them. That's friendship. That's mutual. Friendship future the friendship at its highest level is mutual. You both when you see each other you both are happy to see each other Having watched the apostasy of his father Ahaz, and he had a good mom.
Not much mentioned about her, but for him to come out of that household and love the Lord like he did. His mom's name is mentioned in 2 Chronicles, Abijah, what's her name? and her predigory is mentioned. She was a good godly woman. And he got to see how his father Ahaz Was living as one who was overcome by Satan, and he also could compare that life to David's life.
And he had Isaiah when he became king as a friend, and he did something with it. How many Christians have a good church and do nothing with it? They would be just the same way if they found a bad church and went there. I'm not questioning your salvation. But what do you do with what you have?
trying to live in the moment you're in to recognize this is what I have.
Now, I have to bring glory to Christ, not because I have to, because I want to.
Now, therefore, I have to.
So he determined early on that he would stand against his own father's sin and the idolaters nesting in high places in the kingdom, and he did it. The question was about overcoming like Hezekiah. And here's what it looks like. and a twenty five year old. It's not legalism.
It's obedience. Legalism again, unlike obedience, will shoot the wounded. You need to do better. The letter of the law, not the spirit. The spirit of the law is love, because if I haven't.
Got that. Then I what do I have? And the love will cause you to look for solutions. At least find a tourniquet. to stop the bleeding.
That's Christian love. Second Chronicles twenty nine That the legalists are so afraid they're going to sin by showing love that they've just. I'm not going to lie. I don't know. I don't get into ideas.
Anyway, 2 Chronicles 29:16. Then the priests went into the inner part of the house of Yahweh to cleanse it. and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of Yahweh. To the court of the house of the Lord, and the Levites took it out and carried it to the brook Kidron, and took that stuff to the dump. They went in the house of God, or Ahad put all his filthy stuff piled in, and they cleaned it out.
Took him 16 days to do it. 2 Chronicles 30, verse 14, the chronicler says, They arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and they took away all the incense altars and cast them into the brook Kidron. And I'm just taking out excerpts. That's overcoming. purging that which you can get rid of it.
We all have. purging to do in our personal kingdom. And I so I repeat. Lose sight of man's spiritual need and all is lost. The need of all humanity is personal, the personal kingdom.
Submitted to the King of Kings.
So it overcame by observing what God said. What sinners did And then he sided with God. That's fantastic. He can look and say, you know what? That is mean what that person did.
I'm not doing that. God says that's me. I'm siding with God, and the consequences are going to be the consequences. And if you learn it as a teenager, you have a much better chance. of developing it Into your adult years.
And die, not just a person that would be missed, but also one that has a testimony for Christ. But then his faith was tested.
So he comes to the throne, he starts cleaning house, he's just knocking bowling pins down. Conduct under fire. determines overcoming. 2 Chronicles 32:1. After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherab, king of Assyria, came and entered.
Judah, he came against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself. What? No good deed goes unpunished. That's what he could have said. And got bitter.
I've been doing all of this. The chronicler says after the deeds of faithfulness.
Some of you have not lived long enough, or you've not been in the fight long enough to have this happen to you. If you stay in the fight, It will happen to you. And you will prevail As long as you abide in Christ.
So he faced And endured hard. Hard experiences. And that gives us transferable lessons. We can look at him and say, I'm going to do some of this, I can get some of this. He understood obedience.
Now Samaria, the kingdom in the north, They, you know, it's hard to say some area because it sounds like you're saying some area. And it just hounds me. There's a lot of those words that are just, you know, in our language, they just have. Other meanings. I'm still struggling why why you can't say sooth.
They drove the soothsayers out of the land. Anyway, uh Coming back to this. He understood obedience, as I mentioned, and he saw the northern kingdom fall. when he was 31 years old. He saw what the Assyrians did to them.
how they completely just dismantled the kingdom and took everybody out and brought foreigners in. Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast. Just go to your favorite podcast app and look for Cross Reference Radio.
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