God Inhabits Our Praises

This evening I want to talk about the importance of praising God. Just how important is it that the Lord receives praise from His people? Allow me to open with a Biblical example. In Luke 19:37-38, the Scripture tells us: “Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’” So, we see here how the disciples began to praise the Lord, offering up thanksgiving and blessing unto the holy King of Kings.

The Scripture continues to tell us in Luke 19:39-40, “And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out’.” Jesus stated that if His disciples, or His followers, refused to praise Him, then the very rocks would cry out His name! Therefore, if the stones will cry out to Jesus in praise if we fail to do so, then I would say that praising the Lord is something that’s expected from all creation, and something we should take seriously!

This evening, as we examine how King Hezekiah worshipped the Lord, we are going to discover the significance of praise, and we are going to find out that praising God is necessary in order for us to experience the Lord’s power and presence in our lives!

A Sacrifice is Required for Worship (vv. 20-24)

20 Then King Hezekiah rose early, gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the Lord. 21 And they brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. Then he commanded the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the Lord. 22 So they killed the bulls, and the priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. Likewise they killed the rams and sprinkled the blood on the altar. They also killed the lambs and sprinkled the blood on the altar. 23 Then they brought out the male goats for the sin offering before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. 24 And the priests killed them; and they presented their blood on the altar as a sin offering to make an atonement for all Israel, for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering be made for all Israel.

We read of how King Hezekiah rose early and went into the house of the Lord, together with the rulers of the city. This action happened directly after the cleansing of the temple, seen in verses 1-19. Hezekiah was one of Judah’s greatest kings. The account of his life presented in 2 Chronicles covers his twenty-nine year reign after 715 B.C. Israel, which was the Northern Kingdom, had already fallen into the hands of the Assyrians in 722 B.C., and its people had been deported in large numbers. Hezekiah realized the reason for this event was because of Israel’s disobedience and the people’s spiritual harlotry; therefore, in order to please the Lord he intended to renew the ancient Mosaic Covenant with God so that He might once again bless the nation. In performing this action Hezekiah was following the word of the Lord given in Deuteronomy 12:2-4, which commands the tearing down of the altars and worship places of foreign gods.(1)

In verse 20, immediately after the temple had been cleansed, we find King Hezekiah entering the temple for the very first worship service that had taken place in decades;(2) and then, in verses 20-24, we see where numerous animals were brought into the temple as sacrifices to cover the sins of the kingdom, the sins of the sanctuary, and the sins of the country of Judah (v. 21). Verse 20 tells us that, “They presented their blood on the altar as a sin offering to make atonement for all Israel.”

If you will recall, God’s presence hovered in the tabernacle among His people Israel only because the high priest made atonement for the sins of the people through animal sacrifices. These sacrifices cleansed the people and made them able to abide in the presence of a holy God; at least within the vicinity of the tabernacle, but not directly before the Lord. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies once a year in order to stand directly before the presence of God.

We live in a new era now, which is a time of grace. There is no more need to “continually” offer up sacrifices in order to cover each and every sin we commit, because the final, once-and-for-all sacrifice was paid through Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Because of what Jesus did on the cross, we are now seen as “the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21), holy and blameless in the sight of God. The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:4 and 8, “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus . . . that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord.”