II Chronicles 29

There are some historical books in the Old Testament that tell the story of the people of Israel, all the different kings that were in Israel, beginning with King Saul, and that tell the whole story of the Jewish people until they were taken captive by the Babylonians. and carried out of the land of Israel, and were exiled. And these books are the books of First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles. Many of the stories in these books are repeated in some of them always complementary, some provide details about certain events that others do not. And you have to concatenate them one with the other, but they are very interesting books.

Now, why do God's people use these books for their meditations and sermons? Well, because we believe that what God did was to provide, through the history of a people, and the characters that appear in that history, life models for us and ways in which we can understand how God works through of all history with all men on earth. That is, Israel is simply, among other things, a model, so that when we study God's relationship with Israel and his dealings, we can understand how we also relate to God and how we should behave before the Lord. It is like in law schools, or in business administration schools, the case method is used. The theory of law or business administration is taught a lot by studying cases of specific companies and then by studying how a company undertook a certain financial strategy or what led to the failure of a company, law students or in the case of administration of companies, or in the case of laws, how a certain case was resolved before the Supreme Court and what legal implications that case had for the future of law in the US. By studying specific cases from there, general principles are extracted that can then be used for the conduct of the law or of companies.

Well, the Bible is something similar where cases are studied and from there principles are extracted for the life of men, be it in the 21st century, in the 15th century, in the 10th century or in the 1st century. The principles spiritual are the same. So that's why the church studies these cases, because from them we can extract spiritual biblical teachings for our lives.

There is a story that is the story of King Hezekiah in Second Chronicles Chapter 29, and I want us to go there for a moment. Hezekiah is a very interesting king and for years I have wanted to study him with you and I am going to tell you later why I chose Hezekiah today. His life and his trajectory are very instructive, it is very illustrative of very beautiful spiritual principles. So in Chapter 29 it is quite a long story, I am going to skip here and there because obviously I am not going to read all the 36 verses of this long Chapter, but it says, verse 1 of Chapter 29: "... Hezekiah began to reign being 25 years old and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zacharias, and he did what was right in the eyes of Jehovah according to all that David his father had done."

Evidently Hezekiah was an upright man, a man who behaved in a pleasing manner before God, one of those kings, because there were also kings who behaved tremendously incorrectly before God. He was one of the righteous kings at that time in the history of Jerusalem.

“In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them, and he called the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the eastern plaza, and said to them: “Listen to me. Levites, sanctify yourselves now, and sanctify the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and bring filth out of the sanctuary, for our fathers have rebelled and have done evil in the eyes of the LORD, our God, because they forsook him and turned their faces away. from the tabernacle of Jehovah and turned their backs on him.”

Let's go to verse 10. He continues, he says: “...now therefore, I have determined to make a covenant with Jehovah, the God of Israel, so that he may turn away from us the fierceness of his anger. My children, do not be deceived now, for Jehovah has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, and be his ministers, and burn incense for him."

So what follows is an account of how the Levites and the priests got up and did what the king asked them to do regarding the house of the Lord. Let's go to verse 20, it says: ".... and rising early in the morning, after these reforms in the temple, King Hezekiah gathered the principals of the city and went up to the house of the Lord and presented 7 bulls, 7 rams, 7 lambs and 7 goats for an atonement for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah, and he told the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the LORD.”

End of verse 24: “....to reconcile all Israel because for all Israel the king commanded to make a burnt offering and atonement.”

And here is another phase of this revival, of this renewal, in verse 25: “...he also set Levites in the house of Jehovah with cymbals, psalteries and harps”, these were musical instruments. “...according to the commandment of David, of Gad, the king's seer, and of Nathan, because that commandment came from Jehovah through his prophets.

Verse 27: “....then Hezekiah commanded to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar and when the burnt offering began, the song of Jehovah also began with the trumpets and the instruments of David, king of Israel and all the multitude worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters blew the trumpets. All this lasted until the holocaust was consumed. And when they had finished offering, the king and all who were with him bowed down and worshiped. Then King Hezekiah and the princes told the Levites to praise the LORD with the words of David, and of the living Asaph, and they praised with great joy and bowed down and worshipped.” May the Lord bless his holy word.

Now, Father, revive your word in us, Lord. Give us understanding to expose it, revive our spirit, our minds, Father, may your name be glorified through the exposure of your word. In the name of Jesus we ask it. Amen. Amen.

Recently, as you know, we finished a series on Chapter 15 of the Gospel according to Saint John, we talked about that powerful word of the Lord, "abide in me and I in you", to abide in Jesus Christ, of God that he prunes us, of bearing fruit, of the benefits of bearing fruit. We talked about the prayer that God answers and how it is necessary to flow in affinity with the holy spirit, with the spirit of God so that God answers our prayers. It was a series that I quite enjoyed. Well, now we're out of business and we're going to start another series.

The Lord has put it on my heart a long time ago to discuss with you what I call “prosperity principles”, principles to be prosperous, to be blessed on earth, to live successful lives. We could say principles for success too, and I started to make some notes about this and I hope to share with you simple tips about how to be prosperous in the things we undertake, our businesses, our families, our personal and physical lives, our emotions. , our human relationships and how to live successful lives.

There are practical principles that God wants us to learn, and I started making a list of things on there, writing random thoughts and one of the things that came to mind is that I want to use characters from Scripture to illustrate any of these principles and immediately began to make a list of people who seemed important to me in this regard. It came to mind, for example Josué. Jose came to mind that the Bible says that everything he touched was prosperous and blessed. Ruth came to mind that she was a woman who experienced great loss in her life and that there came a day when she was at zero, bankrupt, without a husband, without children, alone in the world, a widow in the middle of Israel 3000 years ago. and yet God blessed her and prospered her and led her on her way.

Well, I started thinking about different people like that and also looking for the word prosperity and prosper in Scripture and there I found, I stumbled upon the character of Hezekiah as well. And then when I started to read something, I remembered that Hezekiah has been a very interesting character for me when I have studied him in the past, and as I told you, I wanted to share something about his life and his biography with you. So I decided: let's take it, there's no rush in this, we're going to take the scenic road and we're going to see the flowers and the lakes and we're going to take our time. I'm going to drop the agenda I had of how I originally wanted to do it and we're just going to look in the Bible to see what comes out, and what God teaches us.

So I'm going to start with Hezekiah, rather directly with a biography of Hezekiah. We are going to study the biography of Hezekiah, and I am going to try to always remember these ideas of prosperity, and blessing, and success, and how they relate to our lives and our conduct. You already see what kind of heart Hezekiah had, it was a noble heart towards God, a man who had passion towards God.

But, look at the first passage that actually stumbled upon Hezekiah's life is further back in the Book of Second Kings and there in Chapter 18, it also deals with Hezekiah's reign and talks in a way tighter of these reforms than he did. Chronicles goes into much more detail. But there is something very nice there. Look in Chapter 18, verse 3, it says: ".... he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all the things that David, his father, had done." It is the same advice of Hezekiah, a straight man, it pleased the Lord, he did the will of God. But then look at what he says in verse 7, as a consequence of that uprightness of heart and behavior, he says: "... and the Lord was with him and wherever he went, what happened? He prospered. Wherever he went he prospered.”

You see the connection there between a right life before the Lord, which pleases God, a heart that loves the Lord and seeks to do God's will. what's happening? That everything he did, wherever he went out, God prospered him. What does this mean that wherever he went out? Well, a king would go out to war, he would go out to trade, he would go out to visit nations around Israel, he would go out on construction and renovation projects for the nation, he would go out, I imagine, to meetings with officials of his nation, the word would get out. to say that everything he undertook in his capacity as king was prosperous and God blessed him. Again, where did the secret of Hezekiah's prosperity come from? From that heart that loved the Lord, that heart that honored God, that passionate heart for God. It reminds us of David, that's why the connection there, it says: "he did what was according to David's heart", because David was another man who loved the Lord passionately.

Brothers, there is a mysterious connection and I have seen it throughout my life, I have observed it, that when a woman, a man passionately loves God and his heart desires the honor of God and that person cares because May God be honored and pleased and may God's businesses and affairs prosper, and may God's church not suffer, that person, brothers, is blessed and prosperous in everything he undertakes. Christians do not know how they deceive themselves and what they lose when they are mediocre and lukewarm towards the Lord. When they are worrying only about their own need and their belongings, and about their time, their money, their sleep, their privacy, their personal agenda, instead of putting God's agenda and God's interests in their lives first.

Brothers, God loves man, the woman who is passionate towards Him. The man or woman who loves God above all things, is a person who will be prosperous and blessed every day of his life, everything he undertakes, the Lord will bless him, he will have the touch of King Midas, that everything he touched turned into gold.

Brothers, that's what I believe. I can tell you that in my life I have verified it and I can tell you that all the people that I have observed who love the Lord with that passion, you see that they are blessed in what they undertake. God honors their efforts and everything they undertake God prospers. Do you want to be prosperous in your financial life? Do you want to be prosperous in your married life? Do you want to be prosperous with your family and with your children? Love the Lord above all things. Love the Lord passionately. Put Him in the first place of your life. And I assure you that God will bless you. God will prosper you. God will not get tired of pouring grace on your life. Oh yes Lord, I can tell you, brothers, that is a reality. The lives of the great heroes of the Bible show this connection between passion and prosperity.

Hezekiah was a man who exemplified this. Look, it says that when he, going back to the Second Chronicles text, when Hezekiah ascended the throne, that he finally had control of the nation, what was the first thing he did? First, he didn't say: well, I have to enlarge my palace, because a bigger and more luxurious house would be better for a man of my dignity. Hezekiah did not say: well, let's first give attention to the economy of the nation and we are going to make sure that all the financial and economic affairs of the nation are in order. Hezekiah did not first undertake a reform of the political system. What was the first thing Hezekiah looked for? Repair and put in order the house of God. Look at it there, if you don't believe me, if you were sleeping when I read it, go back to the Bible now. It says: “..... in the first year of his reign, in the first month, notice that, in the first month of his reign he opened the doors of the house of Jehovah and repaired them.

Brothers, that is what consumes me with respect to..., a nation, listen to me, a nation in which spiritual matters are not in order, no matter how hard it tries in any other area, it will fail . If the house of the Lord is not in order. If God's business is not being attended to, if God is upset with a nation, do you think God is going to bless that nation? No matter how hard the leaders try to make economic reforms, to establish justice, to make any kind of political or structural reform, if God's blessing is not on the nation, the earth is cursed. Listen to that. The word of the Lord says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. If Jehovah does not keep watch over the city, the watch keeps watch in vain.” Listen to me. The first thing is the spiritual foundation. I wish the leaders of this nation understood that. I wish we understood, brothers, that the foundation of the life of a man, of a woman is first the spiritual. You cannot go further until the spiritual has not been resolved in our lives, or in the life of a nation or a city. People are always putting the cart before the horse. It's crazy. The foundation, that is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: “seek first the Kingdom of God and his justice”. God's justice, not justice as defined by men, God's justice, and all the other things that men kill each other, can bring will come. You know what? For good measure. They won't have to kill each other, they won't have to squeeze each other.

Brothers, I tell you something, when you worry about the things of God first, the things that others kill themselves to achieve, God gets them without effort. Her deliveries are painless. That is the most beautiful secret of life. Forget yourself, and be passionate about God and his business, and his affairs and God will bless you over and over and over again. That is the most powerful prosperity secret that I can share with you.

Be whole with the Lord, first of all. Take care of God's affairs because God is a being that if he is in your favor, who will be against you? Look brother, there could be the biggest depression in the nation and your house will not lack food. That's what I think. It could, the whole world will be suffering from anything, but the word says that the Lord will keep us, the Lord will protect us. “A thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come to you. Because he has placed his love on me, says the Lord, I will also deliver him, I will set him on high because he has known my name, he will call on me and I will answer him, because he has known my name, because he has placed his love on me. love." Do you understand that? Because he has placed his love in me.

How many of us have placed our love in God? Love. When I see that image in my mind, I see someone taking a bunch of flowers and placing them at the feet of the Lord, this is my love, Father. Here are my affections, here are my aspirations, here are my desires, here is everything that I appreciate and enjoy. I put it at your feet. Do what you want of them, Father. When a man or a woman comes to love God in this way, brothers, God does not tire of pouring out blessings on his life, even when he falls and when he makes a mistake, the Lord forgives him and heals him, and lifts him up. "I will be with him in anguish, he says, I will free him and glorify him, I will satisfy him with long life and I will show him my salvation," says the Lord.

David was a man with many flaws, he made serious mistakes in his life, but you know what? David's passion for God was so great that his love was like a fire that ate all his imperfections. And that is why the norm through all the centuries of kings in Israel was that they were according, the good ones, were according to David's heart. They did according to David. God did not look at his defects, he did not look at his mistakes, he looked at his passion for him, his love, which David always had for the Lord.

And that is what you and I have to understand in our life, or that our church was composed of men and women full of passion for the Lord. Not mediocre people, not religious people, not bourgeois people, not people of the spiritual middle class, people exalted towards God, passionate towards the Lord, because lukewarm people, God vomits them out of his mouth. Listen to me. In Revelation, that is why we have the odyssey there in the church, the Lord told him “because you are neither cold nor hot, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth”. You have tried to drink a glass of warm water. How many have had a glass of warm water? What's happening? You don't have to tell me. The body rejects it, naturally. And there are so many people who call themselves Christians, brothers, who are lukewarm, so many lukewarm churches. Brothers, the only thing that touches the heart of God is red hot passion. There is no other temperature for God, but red hot, passionate. All or nothing. The Lord is a passionate being and he likes passionate people. If you do not love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, all your soul, you are not pleasing to the Lord. Now, love God passionately and God will be your most faithful ally throughout your life. And God will support you and bless you and be with you in your battles, give you advice in your needs, get you out of trouble, bless you even as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The Lord will be faithful to you because God loves passionate people. And where there is a man, a woman who is on fire for the Lord, there the eyes of the Lord are directed.

That is why the word of God says that "the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth to find those with a perfect heart towards Him, to show themselves in His favor." When a person's heart is in favor of God's affairs, God is going to bless him, he is going to prosper him, he is going to open doors for him, he is going to get him out of blind alleys, he is going to make water flow from the rock , he will make the ravens give him food, because the Lord is faithful to those who love him.

Hezekiah was a faithful man, that's why when he began his reign the first thing he did was, he saw the house of the Lord that was destroyed. Imagine that, decades had passed. Imagine that this nation, the comparison would be that 50, 100 years go by, the Christian church stops looking for God, Christians little by little lose energy, passion, the church becomes irrelevant, as it is happening at this time. , the churches are dying, as is happening at this time, the people are falling asleep, and for the moment the churches are closing. Brethren, do you know how many churches are closing today? Is incredible. Here in the US the Catholic Church, for example, unfortunately, has had to close dozens of churches, and there are North American evangelical churches, with precious temples that are also closing their doors, and who is inheriting them? The poor of the earth, the Latinos, the Haitians, are taking over these churches, because the fire of the Lord is still there, at least a little. We, you will remember, 20-odd years ago we inherited a temple from a church that died in Cambridge, and we stayed there for 15 years until the Lord brought us here, because that church died. What would happen if little by little the churches were dying, they were closing and the grass began to grow and the places filled with dust? That happened with the temple in Jerusalem, a beautiful temple but since there was no love for God the temple was closed, it was filled with filth, animals and rats ran throughout the temple, the priests and the Levites and the shepherds of that time They went home to work because they had no money, they could not receive their salaries, and worship and service to the Lord remained at zero. There was no worship. And you know what? That when there is no care for the grass, the grass grows and what happened in Israel was that it was filled with idolatry. People no longer went to the temple to adore the Lord, but went to the high places to worship idols, and to worship demons, and to worship the gods of the region, and the worship of Jehovah was totally neglected.

When Hezekiah arrived in the kingdom, he said this cannot go on, I am not going to take a step economically, politically or structurally, until I have made sure that there is spiritual renewal, that the house of the Lord is not clean and healed and worked as it should be. So Hezekiah then opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. The doors are like the symbol of the essence of a place, and those doors were neglected, they were fallen. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said that I will put my church on the rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against them, because the doors are like symbols of authority in a building. The doors are what symbolizes the strength of a building, and then Hezekiah said, first repair those doors for me, they are rotten, the locks have expired, repair them and put them back as they are, and open the house of the Lord and repair it completely. Not only that, but he called the priests and the Levites who were there in their towns, they had gone there, and he gathered them together, called them all, made a great meeting and told them: listen to me Levites, "sanctify yourselves now and sanctify the house of the Lord, the God of our fathers, and remove filth from the sanctuary”, verse 5. he called the priests and said to them: priests, prepare to exercise your calling.

Brothers, as a pastor I know the burden that rests with us, we cannot call the people to revival, if there has not been revival in our own lives, we cannot call the people to holiness if there is no holiness in our own lives . That is a heavy load that the spiritual leaders of the Lord carry, but we have to receive it and we receive the weight of that call. When the pastors, when the spiritual leaders of the church get their lives in order, and we have the love of God and the fire of God in our hearts and there has been an awakening in our own lives, and there is conduct pleasing to the Lord, then God's blessing can come upon others. We understand that and accept that responsibility. We do not shy away from it. And the first thing he did was, he said bring holiness to the house of the Lord.

Now this also extends to the people of God, each of you as members of the house of the Lord are also called to holiness, to sanctify yourselves. There has to be sanctification, there has to be cleansing, there has to be conduct that pleases the Lord. There has to be a straight walk before God. That physical cleanliness was a symbol of the spiritual cleanliness that must be in the house of the Lord. We have been called to a life of integrity before God, a life that is in accordance with the commandments of the Lord.

I believe that if revival is going to come to the US it has to start with the house of God. We cannot ask the world to get right with God if we are not right with God first. There is a call for integrity. Hezekiah called the priests, the Levites, told them: purify yourselves, sanctify yourselves, consecrate yourselves, activate yourselves again, prepare to perform your duties again. Then he called them to a time of consecration, of retirement, of fasting perhaps, and of prayer and consecration to the Lord, to wash their garments, and to prepare to once again exercise the office of the priesthood. And the priests did as the king had commanded them. It says: "... and remove filth from the sanctuary." I believe that revival begins with a move of God in a man, in a being chosen by God to be a prophetic person. I believe that this is how God has always worked, but after that it spreads to the leaders and after that it spreads to the church, and after that it falls on the nation. We see that pattern here, concentric circles, from the smallest to the largest, to the largest. That is the way in which the call of God spreads to the life of a nation or a time.

So we see here, first the king, the spiritual and political leader of the nation experiences revival. Then, the priests are called to perform their functions and prepare themselves. After that, brothers, I believe that for there to be a true visitation of God in the church and in the nation, there must be something that we see here, it is confession of sin. There is recognition of sin. Look how, verse 6, "he called the priests, met them and said, 'because our fathers have rebelled and have done evil in the sight of Jehovah our God, because they forsook him.' He could have stopped there, and simply said our fathers have rebelled and have done evil in the sight of Jehovah our God. But you know what? Confession is something specific. We have to specifically acknowledge our faults before the Lord. It is not enough that you say to the Lord: Father, forgive me for my sins. You have to go to the bottom and take that knife and put it exactly where the need is and there is what God's blessing is grabbing.

It says: “.... they left him, turned their faces away from the tabernacle of Jehovah, turned their backs on him and still closed the doors of the portico and put out the lamps, did not burn incense or sacrifice holocaust in the sanctuary to the God of Israel." You see. Brothers, we have to confess our sins before the Lord. God does not require you to be perfect, although He wants you to be perfect, but He does require that when you sin and dishonor the Lord, that you go and confess your sins. The Bible says that whoever covers up his sin will not prosper. The Bible also says that God does not despise the contrite and humiliated heart. If you and I come before the Lord, we humble ourselves, we admit our mistakes, He is faithful to forgive him, says the word of the Lord. But there has to be that. If what we do is a sinful practice, if there is a pattern of continually sinning, continually doing the same thing, without experiencing repentance, without experiencing a change in behavior, then the Lord will not be pleased with us and the consequences of our bad behavior will come. . The Lord says when you have sinned, you have erred before me, come, repent, let us be accountable, says the Lord. You see, you have to settle accounts with God. You can't hide your sin, you can't cover it up, you can't hide it, you can't justify it. You have to name him by first and last name and then say: Father, now I repent and I promise to be different. And you know what? The Lord immediately says: son, be calm, I forgive you, you are clean. Come and let us be aware, "if your sins were red as scarlet, they will become white as white wool", says the Lord. But you have to have recognition, do not cover up, do not practice, do not make a system of sinful life, but keep short accounts. If you owe the Lord, pay him immediately, your vow of sacrifice, of confession of sin.

Hezekiah did that, asking for forgiveness for the sins of the fathers and the nation and specifically acknowledging where they had failed. We neglect your temple, we neglect your house, Lord. We closed the porches of your house, we did not light lamps for you, we did not offer holocausts to you.

Look then in verse 10, we have then, brothers, a call to consecration, a confession of sin and in verse 10 it says: "...now therefore, I have determined to make a pact with Jehovah, the God of Israel, that he may turn away his fierce anger from us." Here is another step so that the blessing of God can flow in your life, so that a powerful visitation of God can come in your life, or so that the visitation that God wants to bring to this nation and this country and to this state can come. of Massachusetts, there has to be a determination from here on out to go the other way. You see, we've talked about sanctifying ourselves, removing filth, confessing our sins, those are all things like settling accounts, catching things up, but what happens when you've paid your bills and paid the interest you owed and all that? So there has to be something positive, you have to say: okay, now I'm going to work, now I'm going to do this, now I'm going to do that to have a normal life. That was what Hezekiah did. Hezekiah said: well, we already settled accounts with God, now I have determined to make a pact with the Lord, a new pact. I like the word of this man, he said: I have determined. This was a serious man, he was an upright man, he was a man of his word and he was a man of firm decisions. He said I have made a determination, I sat at my desk, I thought about things as they are and I made a firm decision and I publicly commit myself, as a part of the policy of my reign, I have determined to make a pact with God. And that making a pact meant renewing the pact that had already been established before.

Brothers, God's blessing comes into our lives when we make a firm determination to follow the Lord no matter what, to please the Lord in all aspects of our lives, to walk with the Lord. Many people, more like sliding into the spiritual life, more like entering the Gospel painlessly and without crisis and get there and sit on a pew and then start a Christian life of going to church on Sundays, but I see them and I notice that months and months go by and they come from time to time, they don't come, sometimes they don't even sing in worship. Brethren, forgive me, you know I'm not usually that specific about things, I like to be a little more courteous, but I want to encourage you in the name of the Lord. Look, praise the Lord, open your mouth. Men, I know that sometimes men find it difficult to sing, we are not used to it, what a thing brothers, huh? There are men who don't sing because when we were children we were taught that it was for women, or for effeminate and irresponsible men to sing. We are not, we are strong and ugly and formal, but no singing because that is not from a man who respects himself. Open your mouth, dare, in the name of the Lord, forget about your wife who is there who will be surprised when you open your mouth and sing, but do it for the Lord.

Brothers, what I want to say is that one cannot help but slip so gradually and so informally into the life of the Gospel. There has to be a decision. There has to be a pact. There has to be a firm determination. Erase and new account. I am going to serve the Lord, I am going to change, I am going to make a U turn in the middle of my life and I am going to make a man and a woman who am going to serve the Lord and I am going to walk seriously before God. And whoever doesn't want to follow me is their problem, me and my house will serve the Lord. There has to be a change. There has to be a determination. There has to be a crisis experience in which one says: I am not going to continue as I was before, I am going to change my life, for people to say: is that so and so? Yes, that is so-and-so, renewed, touched by the holy spirit and having made a determination with God, a pact with the Lord to live in a certain way. Until the man or the woman does not do that, brothers, until we go through that crisis experience, there is no change in our life truly.

I remember, I grew up in the Gospel when I was 5 years old, my mother converted, not her, when I was 5 years old, and she was many years older than that, she converted to the Lord in the Dominican Republic. I grew up in the Gospel but when I entered a boarding school right here in Massachusetts, at Philips Academy, in the year 72, from 72 to 82 my life changed, I did not really behave like a Christian, although I loved the Lord, I served the Lord I knew that God had a call for my life, but they were years of spiritual desert in many ways. In the year 82 God had a call on my life, I went into a crisis, that's the only way I can describe it, so much so that I had to take a year out of college, when I was at Harvard. In my third year I dropped out of school, because God was making renovations in my life, and he told me that you have to change things. And I couldn't continue studying, actually I went to the desert for a year, because when God calls you and there are changes in your life... one can say: I am a Christian. I was a Christian, I loved the Lord, I would have given my life for the Lord in those 10 years, but I was not living as the Lord wanted. But when God touched me, I entered a crisis experience and from that year on God completely changed my life. He got me the church that I pastor today twenty-some years later. The woman I'm married to got me, she changed my way of being and thinking and doing things, brothers, because when a man... there has to be that experience, there have to be changes.

And I remember that I went to visit a few months later a young man whom I had, I was an adviser to him in his first year at Harvard, he was dying, a young Chinese man, and in his bed of agony almost dying, already almost I did not see, when I went to visit him after months of not having seen him because he asked me to visit him, and he told me: I don't see you well, but there is something about you that is different; Because in that meantime, in the months between the last time I saw him and because of and what God had done in my life, the energy that was in me was different, and he could feel it in his agony. Because when a man changes, repents and orders his life with God, that can be felt.

Most people enter the Gospel and what they do is change their ID, instead of being Catholic, they say now I am an Evangelical Catholic. They understand? But they do not change their way of thinking, of acting, of being, of being with God, their relationship with God, their way of behaving, their way of feeling in their hearts, and then what they simply did was change their card, but there is no a change of heart and mind. God wants a firm determination, a pact with Him. By splits, Lord, you and I are going to walk through life together and I am going to be your puppet. I am going to love you and I am going to serve you with all my heart and I am going to give you what you ask of me, what you ask of me, take it and I will give it to you with pleasure, and I am not going to look at men and Even if they don't see me, I'm going to honor you. And when a person walks like this, God blesses him, prospers him, he never tires of showering his grace on him or her. There has to be integrity before God. There has to be passion for the Lord, it's the only way, brothers.

And that is why Hezekiah said: "or I have determined to make a covenant with Jehovah, the God of Israel so that he may turn away from us his fierce anger" When the spiritual leaders of a nation, the political leaders of a nation make a firm pact with the Lord, when the leaders of a house, the father, the mother, decide to make a pact with God, their children are blessed, their finances are blessed, their marriage is blessed, their relationships are blessed, everything is blessed because there has been a firm determination to make a pact with God, then the connection is well established, the wires are tightened well, and divine electricity runs uninterrupted through the family. The blessing comes. That is the key, firmly determine to make a pact with the Lord.

Lastly, he says: "... my children, do not be deceived, for Jehovah has chosen you to stand before Him and serve Him and be His ministers and burn incense for Him." That is what the Lord says to this congregation; Don't be fooled, don't think that by simply coming to church and sitting in a pew, that is what pleases the Lord. That is a lie, the Lord demands much more than that. Let's not fool ourselves, let's not fool ourselves into believing that if we hide and pretend that we are not seeing what is happening out there, that the demons are going to leave and leave us alone. That is what so many pastors are preaching today. Don't confront, don't annoy, just speak the Gospel and that's it. That is not enough, you have to live passionately. You have to confront the devil, you have to make war. They are going to hurt you, you are going to suffer a few frights, but the Lord will get you through. Are we willing to pay the price to truly be the church of Jesus Christ and live as priests of the Lord? Because it says here: "God has chosen you to stand before him and serve him and be his ministers and burn incense." The Bible says that each one of us is a king and a priest before God. The times when there was only a specialized group of priests, that no longer exists. Today every believer is a priest before the kingdom of the Lord and God has chosen us to stand before Him and burn incense for Him and be His ministers. Hallelujah! That is what the Lord wants from each one of us. Let us be his ministers. God needs you, God needs each one of us.

Brothers, this is how revival is going to come to our lives. Do you want to be blessed, do you want to be prosperous? Be passionate about God, love him above all things. Make a firm pact with Him, fix your life with Him. Let's fix our life with the Lord.

Let's put our heads down. Thank my Lord. Thank you, God we adore you, we bless you, Father. To you glory and honor, Lord Jesus. Father we understand the weight of what we are preaching and I myself am scared Lord of how terrible, how serious what I just said is but it is your word, Father, we cannot dilute it, we cannot run from it, we just have to submit to it. her, we have no choice. Forgive us for not loving you as you deserve to be loved. We repent Lord this morning. And we want to live a life that pleases you, Father, a life that honors your name. Forgive us for the warmth of heart and for the indifference with which we sometimes serve you, Lord. Look at this church, purify it, remove the filth from it, remove everything that does not please you, Lord, remove everything that is not yours, Lord. Help us to live in a way that is pleasing to you, Father. We need you, we need the touch of your spirit this morning, Lord. We want to have Hezekiah's triumphs but we know we also have to have his attitude, his heart, his passion for you, his willingness to sacrifice everything for you, Lord. Holy Spirit visit us, visit your people throughout this nation. Lord your people need revival. Father, send your fire, send your rain, Lord, and make the desert bloom, Father. Thank you, we rest in you, Lord this morning. We rest in you, Jehovah. We need you, Lord. We need your grace.