What Hezekiah can teach us on Restoring Clinton

One of my favorite chapters in my favorite book (LOTR) is called “The Scouring of the Shire.” And recently I’ve been reading through the story of 1 Kings through 2 Chronicles. In both the Scouring of the Shire and the historical account of Israel’s kings, there is the theme of restoring the homeland. And more specifically, both stories show that the work of restoration follows a similar pattern, beginning with a good scrubbing. 

When the Hobbits come home after their long journey of saving Middle-earth, they find that their homeland, The Shire, is “gloomy and un-Shirelike.” It has become overrun with evil ruffians who are at the command of the defeated but still dangerous “Saruman.” Saruman, who in many ways typifies the biblical Satan, knows he is defeated and his days are numbered, and therefore causes as much damage to the Hobbits’ homeland as he can. So the entire story of the LOTR culminates with the Hobbits having to restore their desecrated and devastated homeland. 

We are like the Hobbits in a way. In the end, as the book of Revelation teaches, we will join Jesus as he scours the earth, restoring it to be our forever home. But in the meantime, in the here and now, we are faced with a similar kind of work. We are called to take dominion in the present, making this place as ‘Shirelike’ or as ‘New Jerusalemlike’ as we can make it. And like the hobbits, we have our own evil to banish and its stains to scour. 

And what I notice is that the biblical story of the kings gives us a basic pattern of restoration. One thing you will notice as you read Kings and Chronicles is that the main reason the promised land gets gloomy is that God’s people disobey the Lord. The idolatry of the people provokes the Lord to judge and discipline God’s people. Here’s how 1 Kings 9 puts it:

[6] But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, [7] then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. [8] And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ [9] Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.’” (ESV)

So this is what happens over and over again in the story of Israel and Judah. Because God deals with his people covenantally, he blesses obedience and curses disobedience. And so the ruin of the homeland is directly tied to he disobedience of the inhabitants. 

And there is a ton of disobedience in Kings and Chronicles. Most kings disobeyed the law of God. But every now and again, you’ll bump into a king who really loved the Lord and was eager to obey the law of God. And it’s those kings that demonstrate the pattern of restoration. 

Let’s take Hezekiah as an example. He was a king who “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Chron 29:2). One of the first things Hezekiah did when he became king was to “carry out the filth from the Holy Place.” Jerusalem, and the temple specifically, was infested with idol worship. Previous kings had built other altars to the gods of the surrounding nations. And so the worship of the One True God was perverted. And as a result, the homeland of God’s people had become an abomination. So the first thing Hezekiah did in order to achieve restoration at home was to scour his home of idolatry. 

The next thing Hezekiah did was rededicate the temple to the right worship of God. So not only did Hezekiah remove the filth, but he brought in what was clean. Multiple chapters of the book of 2 Chronicles are devoted to showing how much attention Hezekiah devoted to restoring the right worship of God. 

And then just before Hezekiah dies and the narrative turns to the other kings that came after him, there is a little blurb about Hezekiah having other achievements, such as filling the storehouses of Jerusalem with more food and building a new supply of water to a portion of the city. What is clear is that Hezekiah’s reign was prosperous. He did work for the common good of the people by giving them greater material prosperity. But that is not what he focused his efforts on first, nor was it what he directed the majority of his energy toward. Rather, the work of turning the heart of he people toward God seems to have been his greatest focus, and certainly his greatest contribution. 

So here’s the pattern of restoration I think we can learn from. First, remove idolatry. Second, worship God correctly. Third, work to lift the everyday prosperity of the people.

I think living in a place like Clinton often provokes thoughts and desires toward seeking its restoration. We all wish that this place was a little less gloomy and a little less un-Shirelike. But in seeking Clinton’s restoration, we can’t think and act like unbelievers. We don’t start with the brick and mortar. We don’t start with job creation. We don’t focus on the economy. Those things are important. But what Hezekiah teaches us is that we must remove the spiritual filth first. That is the work we must throw our best effort toward. First, we must repent of our idolatry, then we must embrace the right worship of God through obeying his word, and then as our worship of God becomes straightened out, it will give us clear eyes and hearts to engage in the work of straightening out roads, vocations, schools, and the rest of the work we are called to do at home.