There is something about considering the temple of God that evokes a certain awe-factor . . . as, I think, is intended. To imagine the magnificent structure conceived in the heart of David and built by the hands of Solomon, is to be reminded that though the earth cannot contain Him, yet God has delighted to reside near His people . . . to allow His glory to settle in their midst. I think of the holy place with the ever burning lampstand . . . the sweet aroma of ascending incense . . . the provision of the show bread . . . all arrayed in a pristine precision which cries out, “Holy ground!” And then to form a picture in the mind’s eye of what it would have been like to enter into the Holy of Holies . . . to look upon the towering cherubim that filled the room with their wings . . . to look upon the ark and be reminded of the presence of God . . . what glory! . . . what incredible glory! Oh, to have been able to witness the cloud of heaven descend upon the place . . . I can only imagine . . .

But as I read 2Chronicles 29, I’m reminded that such was not always the condition of the temple during the time it stood on Zion’s hill. Here, in chapter 29, a twenty-five year old named Hezekiah takes the throne. He succeeds Ahaz who, for the past 16 years of his reign, had been “continually unfaithful to the LORD” and “had encouraged moral decline in Judah” as he “became increasingly unfaithful to the LORD” (2Chron 28:19, 22). And as Ahaz pursued the “molded images of Baal” (28:2) and then “sacrificed to the gods of Damascus” (28:23), he desecrated the holy of house of God. He used its treasures to buy military alliances . . . he cut up its materials to build “altars in every corner of Jerusalem” and he closed the doors (28:24) . . . ichabod . . . the glory had departed.

And then his son, Hezekiah takes the throne and “in the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them” (29:3). Like father . . . not like son. God, in His sovereign grace, takes the son of Ahaz and places within him the heart of David . . . and the first thing the new king does is open up the temple . . . and cleans house.

I don’t normally think about the temple needing to be cleaned . . . it’s not on my radar that the holy place has junk to be removed . . . or that the holy of holies is defiled with debris. But such was the case when Hezekiah came to power. And, after having consecrated the Levites again to God’s service, Hezekiah sends in a troop of sanctified housecleaners and, for 8 days that’s what they do . . . they clean house. The Levites clean up the outer courts and “public areas” and “the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the LORD” (29:16). How sad is that? To consider the holy place and the place where God’s glory once dwelt filled with junk and debris. Not the picture of the temple I usually carry with me . . . but perhaps one to be reminded of every once in awhile.

I’m led to consider another temple of God . . . ” Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1Cor. 3:16) . . . “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God . . . in [Christ] the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22)

And I’m wondering if, through neglect, this temple also doesn’t get “junked up” from time to time and needs some cleaning. It shouldn’t, but I fear that too often and too easily it can. And the glory kind of departs . . . the Spirit is grieved and quenched . . . and so it’s time to do a deep cleaning . . . to go in and throw out the debris . . . to consecrate the temple afresh to God and Him alone . . . to recognize that because I’ve run after other gods, I’ve allowed the temple of God to collect dust and gather up junk. Time to chuck out the junk . . . time to refocus on the glory of the One who desires to reside within the temple . . . time, by His grace, to take back the ground which His Son died for and longs to sanctify. Time to clean house perhaps . . .