Urgency

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This morning, while reading 2Chronicles 29:3 in the Old Testament portion of the Bible, I was struck by the urgency young King Hezekiah felt about reinstating temple worship. Hezekiah's father, King Ahaz, had shut the temple doors and set up altars to pagan deities throughout Jerusalem around 725 BC.  

      "In the first month of the first year of his reign, he (Hezekiah) opened the doors of the 

       temple of the Lord and repaired them."  2 Chronicles 29:3

 The temple in Jerusalem was the only place where God is recorded to have put his name.  God did not sanction numerous altars throughout Jerusalem, dedicated to various deities, as equivalent to worshipping him in his holy temple. 

      

       ""The Lord said to him (King Solomon): "I have heard the prayer and plea you have        

        made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built by putting my 

        Name there forever.  My eyes and my heart will always be there."" 1 Kings 9: 3  

           

Logic mandates that by choosing one place, he did not choose other places.  Similarly, young King Hezekiah, understood the significance and importance of having the one true temple open for public worship.  The closed temple and the numerous, functioning pagan altars throughout the city, confused the populace about who to really worship and how to properly worship.   A parallel situation today is that by virtue of having so many religious options ranging from atheism to witchcraft, the doors to God's temple are obfuscated and may as well be shut.  

The Levites and assistants worked feverishly and completed consecrating the temple within the first 16 days of the first month of King Hezekiah's reign.  On the 17th day, early in the morning (2 Chronicles 29:20) Hezekiah gathered the city officials and reinstated temple worship.

His sense of urgency about honoring God in the way God himself prescribed  (Leviticus) and in the place in which God placed his Name, sends a reverberating message to our world today.  Our global society boasts of practically as many deities, -ics, -isms, and spasms as there are people.  Our world has camouflaged the way to the God, who revealed himself as  "I AM who I AM" to  Moses in Exodus 3:14.  Many people who are seeking "something spiritual", I think, are finding that the "doors to the temple are shut" by virtue of "I AM" being culturally de-legitimized.  God has revealed himself to us and he wants to be known and he wants us to know him.  

In this blog, I propose to read through the Bible in the course of a year.  Everyday, I will post 

what I read.  As much as possible, I will post my reflections on what I read.  As with any book one reads properly, I will start in the beginning, in Genesis 1 and read straight through the last book of the Bible,  the Book of Revelation.

I would like all who read this blog to see that the "doors to the temple" are open.