Hope for Parents of Prodigals
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2 Chronicles 29:3–5 (ESV) In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. 4 He brought in the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the square on the east 5 and said to them, “Hear me, Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place.
The text mentions the first month of his first year in which all this took place. It was as if Hezekiah could not wait to get busy bringing the nation back to God. He had a passion to return to the Lord and didn't waste time getting the house of God cleansed from it's "filth."
We tend to think, "like father, like son" but Hezekiah breaks the mold and offers hope to the parents of prodigals who think they did something wrong. It's not always the parents' faith that forms the child's faith (for good or for bad).
Perhaps Hezekiah saw what the Assyrians were about to do to the nation and how his father's weak-willed foreign policy subjugated the nation to foreigners in ways that cost them. He speaks much of the current situation:
2 Chronicles 29:6–8 (ESV) For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs. 7 They also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel. 8 Therefore the wrath of the LORD came on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes.
Hezekiah was not ignorant of the current state of his military either:
2 Chronicles 29:9 (ESV) For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.
Hezekiah must have read of the glories of Israel under David and Solomon and realized that whatever was happening was not as it should have been. The better news is: he decided to do something about it.
I offer parents of prodigals a suggestion. Perhaps instead of constantly helping out your prodigals and seeing if you can spare them hurt and pain, rather let them suffer the consequences of sin. Let them experience the "famine" of godlessness and wake up to the opportunity for wholeness in the Father's house.
The horrendous state of affairs the nation was left in by Ahaz seemed to wake up Hezekiah and he went speedily to work bringing Israel back to the Lord. Sometimes we only wake up when things are at their worst. And I fear there are too many parents of prodigals who subsidize their children's immorality in the name of love when maybe letting them fall would be the best (albeit painful) option.
What I also see in 2 Chronicles 29 is a repeated reference to David's original instructions for Temple worship. David's name is mentioned 5 times in this chapter as opposed to Ahaz's ONCE. The point is clear. Hezekiah saw the signs and woke up to the hope that was available through the Davidic covenant. He shed his sonship to Ahaz and embraced an identity rooted in David.
We too have that hope and we can turn to it at any moment. In Christ Jesus, the son of David we are cleansed within and restored to right relationship with the Father, made holy for His purposes and use. Let us awake to our spiritual bankruptcy apart from Him and surrender our identity and being to His call.
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