According to Breaking Israel News:

“Israel Antiquities Authority recently excavated an administrative storage center from the days of King Hezekiah and Manasseh in the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem.  Excavation of the site revealed an unusually large structure built of concentric ashlar walls.  Of particular interest, 120 jar handles were found bearing seal impressions containing ancient Hebrew script.  Many of the handles bare the inscription “LMLK,”  belonging to the King with the name of the ancient city, while others feature the names of senior officials or wealthy individuals from the First Temple period.  This is one of the largest and most important collections of seal impressions ever uncovered in archaeological excavations in Israel.”

“At the site we excavated, there are signs that governmental activity managed and distributed food supplies not only for a shortage but administered agricultural surplus amassing commodities and wealth.  Evidence shows that at this site, taxes were collected in an orderly manner for agricultural products such as wine and olive oil.”

I share this article because the Holy Spirit reminded me of how reading about King Hezekiah led me to learn about the significance of the Hebrew calendar and the principles of the blueprint God established in His word for a nation to experience healing.  And today, this discovery is a sign to me that the story of Hezekiah’s reign is a key to helping us through these difficult times.

In 2012, God had me study King Hezekiah’s reign, and how he got a revelation that the kings before him had established a wrong governmental platform for the nation. These iniquitous choices were causing God’s people to crumble under the weight of the enemy invading the land.  The Assyrian army had already defeated the House of Israel and part of the House of Judah at the time Hezekiah came into kingship.  Hezekiah was raised in an hour that stopped the demise completely…at least bought the House of Judah time and allowed them to prosper under his reign.  Unfortunately, subsequent kings didn’t do as Hezekiah did, and the demise of the nation came through the Babylonians approximately 100 years later.

Prior to King Hezekiah’s reign, the kings had forsaken what God wrote in His law and began adopting their “own ways.”  They also stopped honoring God’s “holy days” and adopted pagan practices and idolatry.  God then raised up an adversary, the king of Assyria to invade the land and displace many of God’s people.

But Hezekiah removed all the things that were outside of God’s laws and understood this was the wrath of God that had come upon them for turning away from the Lord:

“Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place.  For our fathers have tresspassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God; they have forsaken Him, have turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him” (2 Chron. 29:5,6).

He sent out messengers to all the tribes to come and celebrate the Passover: 

“Then the runners went throughout all Israel and Judah with the letters from the king and his leaders, and spoke according to the command of the king.  ‘Children of Israel, RETURN to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel; then He will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria…Now do not be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord; and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever; and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children will be treated with compassion by those who lead them captive, so that they may come back to this land; for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn His face from you if you return to Him'” (2 Chron. 30:1-9).

Many mocked the invitation, but some did come:  

“So the runners passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but they laughed at them and mocked them.  Nevertheless, some from Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.  Also the hand of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart to obey the command of the king and the leaders, at the word of the Lord” (2 Chron. 39:10,11).

And while they chose to follow God’s law and return to God’s covenant calendar, God healed the people:

“And the Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people” (2 Chron. 30:20).

There was great joy in Jerusalem, and God also opened His ears to hear the prayers of the priests:

“Then the priests, the Levites, arose and blessed the people, and their voice was HEARD; and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place to heaven” (2 Chron. 30:27).

Hezekiah did what was good and right and true before God.  And God prospered him:

“And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandment, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart.  So he prospered” (2 Chron. 31:21).

God also gave King Hezekiah victory over the Assyrian king’s army, even though they were outnumbered in men and resources:

“Now because of this:  King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz, prayed and cried out to heaven,  Then the Lord sent an angel who cut down every mighty man of valor, leader, and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria.  So he returned shamefaced to his own land.  And when he had gone into the temple of his god, some of his own offspring struck him down with the sword there” (2 Chron. 32:20,21).

This year, because of COVID-19, the nations came together to honor Passover.  This was a “Hezekiah” moment.  When Hezekiah called to restore the honoring of Passover, it was the first time it had been honored like that since the time King Solomon reigned.  And it led to a healing of the people.

COVID-19 also forced the churches to close their doors.  It has been a “divine pause” that God is trying to wake up the church too.  We should be examining how we are doing church.  How effective is the church in the nation?  What needs to change?  How can we get back into the places of influence and authority?  These questions demmand answers because the church has lost her influence and positioning of authority in this nation.   The “house” that man has built versus the house God wants to be built must be examined.  We are in a Hezekiah moment to stop and pause as he did and discover why the nation has grown so weak and yet the enemy gaining power.  But God’s word tells us why:

“For so it was the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared other gods, and had walked in the statutes of the nations who the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel, which they had made.  Also, the children of Israel SECRETLY did against the Lord their God things that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city” ( 2 Kings 17:7-9).

There is nothing new under the sun.  This pattern of “turning away” from the Lord and His ways exists today.  God is first after the church and things done in “secret” as well as the doctrines that man created.  He is trying to get us to follow His blueprint in being the body of Christ under His headship.  This “divine pause” is a wake-up call for the church to get into alignment with His truth.

Repentance is required first as we see in the story of Hezekiah.  But repentance isn’t just the answer.  In the story of Hezekiah, the king shifted and asked the people to TURN from their wicked ways. They then took action to restore what God commanded and removed all idols.

Restoring the “Holy Days” is also one of the keys to bridging the body of Christ back into one voice and heartbeat.  We saw the coming together across denominational divides, continental divides, and political divides as we celebrated Passover this year.

Hezekiah shows us that government done rightly will cause ALL to prosper and defeat the enemy.  The excavation and discovery of King Hezekiah’s “governmental activity” that handled the distribution of supplies is a sign for us to wake up and learn from Hezekiah in this hour.  There were 120 handles found.  120 is the biblical number that symbolizes a divinely appointed time of waiting.  It was 120 years that God gave before the flood of judgment came (Gen. 6:1-3).  Yet in the New Testament, it was 120 that the Holy Spirit poured out His fire upon, baptizing them with God’s truth and grace (Acts 2).  It is God’s time to judge, and it is His time to pour out His Spirit of truth.  In this time of shaking, King Hezekiah holds a key to the healing of this nation, and the nations who call upon the Lord.

Praying we all shift through the shaking, learn from the example of Hezekiah, and we enter into the commandment and promises of 2 Chron 7:14:

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN  I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal their land.”

 

On Monday evening, July 20th, we enter into the fifth month of the Hebrew calendar known as “AV.” AV is translated “to will or to desire; as well as “father.” The month of AV is linked to the tribe of Simeon, whose name means “to hear and obey.” If we put all those Hebrew clues together, this month has the significance of remembering to  “hear and obey the will/desire of the Father.”

Cyclically, the summer months are typically associated with the tribes who were great warriors. The scriptures share that our weapons of war are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds.  We are called to use the “sword of the spirit” as we battle against the flesh and the principalities that oppose Christ, praying with all prayer and supplication.  This isn’t easy to do in the summer when the sun and fun are grabbing our attention.  Don’t get me wrong.  The summer is a time to enjoy the outdoors and family vacations.  But summer is also a time to “work” the word and to go into action as God instructs.

Spring is for sowing seeds, but summer is “working” the seed so it will produce a harvest.   Therefore, it takes hard work that wars against the flesh.  In the summer, it is easy to get distracted from spending time with the Lord.  We can easily get anesthetized with the pleasure and fun that pull us away from prayer that helps us through life’s challenges.

The summer months are tied to seeing, listening, and then obeying, which produces a unified troop armed for the Lord. Last month the focus was on sight. This month it is on hearing. If Satan can get our vision and our hearing impaired from what God has said, he has us hooked us into his web of deceit and lies that produce actions that veer us off course, resulting in consequences.

Last month, the significance of the story of the twelve spies who went out was that they SAW all the giants. 40 days later, they returned to the people of Israel who HEARD two reports (Numbers 13,14). Ten spies shared all the problems and obstacles they SAW. Two shared the promise God had given them. On the 9^th of AV, the people decided to take wrongful action and choose the negative report they HEARD and to not believe what God had shared about the Promised Land.

“So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!” (Numbers 14:1,2).

In their unbelief, the children of Israel proceeded to make bad decisions that led to severe consequences because of what they chose to HEAR. First, they complained and cried. Then they had the idea to dethrone Moses as their leader, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.” Finally, when hearing Joshua speaking the truth about God’s promise, they came up with the idea of stoning Joshua. None of these actions were pleasing to God (Numbers 14:4-10).

If it was not for Moses and Aaron interceding for the children of Israel despite their plot to dethrone their leader, the children of Israel could have been wiped out because of God’s anger.

How Moses responded is what God is calling Christians to do as we see the destruction happening in our nation:  We must intercede and pray for God’s mercy!

God’s judgment didn’t stop coming to the Israelites when Moses and Aaron prayed. The Israelites were not able to go into the Promised Land, and all those spies who brought the wrong report died of a plague.  America is going through the judgment of our choices of eliminating God from our national foundation.  The Lord hears the prayers of the saints.  It may not look like He is answering, but He is.   It’s His heart to redeem America from destruction, and the shaking is a part of the process.

As a side note, it is interesting that America is paralleling a similar test that the Israelites faced when hearing the report from the twelve spies:  Are we hearing and responding to the voice of the enemy, joining the forces that are destroying and dividing as a consequence of being fear-driven?  Or are we hearing God’s promise for America and being moved by faith at this greatest hour of shaking?  Our mouth will decree life and death; fear or faith; hope or hopelessness.  Through the words that come out of our mouth, the report we are choosing to believe will become self-evident.

When God speaks, it is important we listen. Our disobedience and lack of faith can affect a whole community.  However, our obedience can also bring us (and others) into the “Promised Land” as we learn from Joshua and Caleb.  Their faith was tested and later at God’s appointed time, they were used mightily in God’s redemption story.

While AV was a month of judgment during the time of the story of the twelve spies, it is recorded in history that the 9^th of AV has continued to be a day of judgment. In 587 BC, the armies of Babylon destroyed Solomon’s temple. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed the 2^ndtemple. In 135 AD, the Romans defeated the Jews. In 1095 AD, the 1^st crusade was launched, killing thousands of Jews. In 1290 AD, the Jews were expelled from England. In 1492 AD, the Jews were expelled from Spain. In 1942 AD, the Jews were deported from Warsaw ghetto to the death camps. In 2005, the Jews were removed from Gaza.

The 9^th of AV incidences are NO coincidence. Cyclically, the window of destruction has opened up during this month and judgment has been released. This cycle started when the children of Israel said after the spies report, “The enemy is too strong of us. We will die!”

One may ask why does this curse still exist today?  And it could be answered as simply as this:  When the Jews rejected Jesus, they remain under the debt of the law. According to laws written in Leviticus 17 and Deuteronomy 29, the Jews refusal to accept the New Covenant left them subject to the law which they breached. This cyclical destruction has only one remedy: the atoning blood of Christ.  The Bible says, “I will give You (Jesus) as a covenant to the people (Is. 42:6).  There is power in the blood of the Lamb!

Simeon, the tribe associated with this month, was one of two tribes that Jacob cursed in his final prophetic blessing to his sons. This was because Simeon and Levi decided to murder the men of Shechem for the rape of their sister Dinah. This vengeance was evil, and Jacob called them on it:

“Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council; let not my honor be united to their assembly; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self will they hamstrung an ox; cursed be their anger for it is fierce; and their wrath, for it, is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (Gen. 49:5-7).

Simeon was made to be a warrior and one called a weapon of justice in the hand of God.  But when his own hand ruled Simeon, as he did so in Shechem, his passion and temper produce a work of destruction against God rather than for God.   This can be true for all of us. We can think we are going to help God out by executing justice out of “righteous anger.” But when we do that, our character is one that kills, steals, and destroys in the name of righteousness, and we appear to be sons of the enemy of God.

Av is a month that presents to us a choice to hear God’s word and have faith and believe in the promises of God. It is also a month to remind us to keep our passions under His command by taking the time to HEAR what God has to say about the matter. We are not under the curse any longer.

Today, we are seeing and hearing a lot going on in this world. But what is God saying? Can we see all that is going on through His eyes? I encourage all of you to take time to do some listening prayer this month. God has a lot to tell us IF we stop and listen. Our history proves this month to be a month that the children of Israel heard the wrong voice because of what they saw. So, guard your ears and declare His Word out loud so your ears hear what God is saying. And expect this month to ENTER into the Promises and celebrate His goodness as God had intended!