Hezekiah the King

1. Hezekiah the King

2. Strengthen your house Lesson 30 2 Chronicles 29-30; 32; 34 Purpose Define a plan to strengthen your house

4. See John 17:15 Make them one, Father, as thou and I are one. In the world, but not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."

5. In The World Of The World How do we know where that line is?

6. New King Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29:2-10.) Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street, 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, Wherefore the wrath of the LORD was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes. For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the LORD God of Israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us.

7. Hezekiah’s Three Step Plan of Happiness Step #1 Repent and clear out the idols

8. 2 Kings 18 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

9. President Kimball Sadly, however, we find that to be shown the way is not necessarily to walk in it, and many have not been able to continue in faith. These have submitted themselves in one degree or another to the enticings of Satan and his servants and joined with those of "the world" in lives of ever-deepening idolatry… An older couple retired from the world of work and also, in effect, from the Church. They purchased a pickup truck and camper and, separating themselves from all obligations, set out to see the world and simply enjoy what little they had accumulated the rest of their days. They had no time for the temple, were too busy for genealogical research and for missionary service. He lost contact with his high priests quorum and was not home enough to work on his personal history. Their experience and leadership were sorely needed in their branch, but, unable to "endure to the end," they were not available.

10. Question Some Idols are out “in the world” The idols Hezekiah removed were in and on the Temple Mount. Are there some “inside” idols, inside the church or culture we must beware of? Can WE be our own idol?

11. Hezekiah’s Three Step Plan of Happiness …he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall without Step #2 Build a wall around the righteous

12. "In Jewish tradition, the personal application of the laws is called the "fence" around the law that protects one from accidentally or inadvertently breaking any commandment.  As one applies a commandment in his own life, he establishes for himself how he will interpret the Lord's law and put it into practice.  If he is unsure of his capacity to fully obey the law, he may also need to put a fence around the law to protect himself." Victor L. Ludlow, 1982, Isaiah Prophet, Seer, and Poet, p. 261 Written Law Oral Law (More Important)

13. Building A Fence Around Our Family Endure to the end Service in Church Callings Baptism and Gift of the Holy Baptism and Gift of the Holy Receive Temple Ordinances Keep the Commandments Baptism and Gift of the Holy Ghost

14. Torah Talmud

15. Old Testament = Tanakh (hebrew) Tanakh is an anagram Ta Torah Na Nevi'im (prophets) KhKetuv'im (writings)

16. Talmud Gemara Commentaries on the Mishneh Mishneh (Oral Torah)

17. Hezekiah’s Three Step Plan of Happiness Step #3 Bring In Living Waters 2 Chron 32:30 This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works.

18. According to the legend, when Moses first received the torah, he received the written torah (torahshebikhtav) as well as oral torah commentary (torahshe’balpeh). Further, this oral commentary did not remain simply in oral recitation from God, but the giving of oral law transferred the authority of interpretation over to Israel, as we see in the image of Moses reciting God’s instructions to the elders and in the appointment of judges to “interpret” law (Ex. 18:20, Deut 16:18, Deut. 17:8-11). With these two distinctions, the written legal codes of the Hebrew Bible (d’oraita) as well as the documented sayings of the rabbinic community (d’rabbanan) are held in equal status, expressing what Safrai calls “a sophisticated consciousness of the dialectics involved in the creative interpretation of a fixed, written text” (56-57).

20. Hezekiah’s Tunnel

21. Michael Wilcox The wilderness of Judaea is a dead, sun- baked land where almost nothing grows, but Ezekiel saw that wherever the river flowed, life came to the barren desert… Ezekiel describes the river's impact on all it touches with these words: "And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live . . . because these waters shall come thither; for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh." (V. 9; emphasis added.) As we read these words, the Spirit seems to whisper, "What will literally be true, one day, of the Lord's temple in Jerusalem, is true now, spiritually, of all the Lord's temples. From the doors of each one a healing, life-giving river flows.“ Latter-day temples are the source of a powerful, deeply refreshing river. It is a river of peace, revelation, truth, light, and priesthood power. But above all else, it is a river of love [that] flows from the doors of the temples. S. Michael Wilcox, House of Glory: Finding Personal Meaning in the Temple [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1995], 40.)

22. Abraham LincolnAfter Gettysburg Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch…when everybody seemed panic-stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this war was His, and our cause His cause, but we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. Then and there I made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him, and He did stand by [the] boys and I will stand by Him. And after that, I don’t know how it was, and I cannot explain it, soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands and things would go right at Gettysburg, and that is why I had no fears about [it]

23. Your Plan to match Hezekiah’s Plan • Throw out the idols __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • Build a wall __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • Pipe in the living water __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Your Plan to match Hezekiah’s Plan • Throw out the idols __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • Build a wall __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • Pipe in the living water __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

24. In his hasty preparations for Sennacherib’s arrival he perceived a serious weakness in the city’s defenses: the Gihon spring, a vital water supply, lay outside the wall of the city. So Hezekiah built a new reservoir, the pool of Siloam, in the southern part of Jerusalem within the wall, carved out a tunnel underneath the city connecting the reservoir with the Gihon spring, and then covered the spring so that it could not be found from the outside. Thus the precious water would benefit the city’s defenders, and not their enemies. (2 Chr. 32:3–4; 2 Kgs. 20:20.) To cut the tunnel, workmen started simultaneously from both ends and chiseled through nearly 1800 feet of solid rock. At one point the tunnel was 150 feet below the city. The water supply of the city thus was preserved for its inhabitants and the enemy did not conquer Jerusalem. Today, nearly 2,700 years later, the water still flows from Gihon to Siloam along Hezekiah’s tunnel and still supplies modern Jerusalem with much of its water. In 1880 some boys playing at the pool found the inscription that was carved to commemorate the finishing of the tunnel. While the two crews were still some five feet apart, the inscription reports, they could hear each other’s voices, which guided them to complete the union of the two halves of the tunnel. The inscription, carved in letters of the Old Hebrew alphabet, is now in the Imperial Ottoman Museum at Istanbul.

25. Originally, there were two Torahs. The Torah as we know it today is the first 5 books of the Jewish Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy--in no particular order). The Jewish Bible is called the TaNaKh. It is an anagram for Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuv'im (Writings). The Torah, the first five books of the Tanakh, is the Written Torah. When G-d gave the Torah to Moses at Sinai, He gave both a Written and Oral Torah. The Oral Torah was taught by word of mouth for centuries until it was finally written down in a book called the Mishneh. Commentaries on the Mishneh were written down in a book called the Gemara. Together, these books are called the Talmud. The Talmud is both the Word of G-d (Oral Torah written down) and the rabbis commentary on it. Each in its own way, they are equally holy. But, the Torah seems to be more so, for if a Torah ever falls to the ground, you must fast. If a Talmud does, you don't have to. So to recap: -Torah is first five books of the Tanakh -Talmud is Oral Torah and commentaries put together -Both are equally holy in certain situations but if you had to choose right now, it would probably be Torah.