OPERATION SWEEP

​Wednesday, 14th September 2016

2 Chronicles 29 (NKJV)

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Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. 2And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. 3In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. 4Then he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them in the East Square,5and said to them: “Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of theLord God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. 6For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of theLord our God; they have forsaken Him, have turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him.7They have also shut up the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. 8Therefore the wrath of the Lord fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has given them up to trouble, to desolation, and to jeering, as you see with your eyes. 9For indeed, because of this our fathers have fallen by the sword; and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity.10“Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us. 11My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense.”</blockquote>

Many years ago during the military regime of Late General Sanni Abacha, the Lagos State Military Administrator, General Marwa adopted the police operational slogan “Operation Sweep” which was aimed at “sweeping” criminal activities and criminals out of Lagos State. The operation worked very well and similar slogans were adopted by other states. Yesterday we read that Ahaz the predecessor of Hezekiah committed terrible apostasy in the land. He became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord, sacrificed to the idols of Damascus, cut in pieces the articles of the house of the Lord, shut up the doors of the Lord’s house and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. Today, we witness a dramatic U-turn by Hezekiah from the idolatrous practices of his father. In the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord which his father shut and repaired them and gathered the Levites into the house of the Lord and instructed them to carry out the rubbish from the temple. The priests and Levites did as they were instructed and totally cleansed the temple.

Let us ask ourselves if we can faithfully love and trust God to the extent of being so zealous for Him. Many of us see a lot of evils, crimes, immorality, corruption, partiality, wickedness etc. going on in various churches and places of work, but out of fear, we keep quiet and condone these evils. Sometimes we rationalize by saying that “it is the way I met things here.” We should not condone evil; but rather, we should expose and eradicate them as Hezekiah did. Do not join the multitude to do evil in your village, work place, association etc. Christians are certainly the light of the world; therefore, we must let our light shine. Make up your mind today to use every righteous means within your disposal to eradicate evil around you

Prayer: God, please revive me and give me the grace and courage to flush out evils in my way and to shine as light.