Chapter 35, verse 5 and verse 10—a couple of statements are made that we want to look at.  Moses says, “Take from among them an offering unto the Lord: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the Lord; gold, and silver, and brass.”  I want you to put a note there and hear very clearly: those that are of a willing heart; amen?  Those that are of a willing heart.

We’ll go on, and we’ll look at a couple of other specifics.  We’re going to see the common denominator between the building of the tabernacle, the restoring of the wall and the temple in Ezra and Nehemiah’s time, and in the day of Joash, when after the tabernacle, the temple had been trashed.  What a tragic, tragic thing that happened.  Athaliah, you remember—the queen was evil, and her sons just plundered the temple and took the gold and different aspects of it, and the temple was absolutely trashed at that particular time.  When young Joash came along, having a heart for God, and saw the temple, he went back to this very statement here in the book of Exodus.  The specific guidance that Moses had given toward giving to the tabernacle, he enacted that in his day for the restoration of the temple.  The people were giving of a willing heart.  They were giving of a willing heart that half shekel that Moses had required for the tabernacle building.  That’s basically the one percent that we’re giving, in case some of you wonder what that is.  It’s just, basically, the maintenance above the tithes and offering.  The tithe and offerings are for the priesthood, and the operation of the tabernacle, the temple, the different aspects of it, were offerings that we’re giving willingly.

Moses had set a specific amount, and it was kind of cool that Joash went back to that, and the offerings were doing pretty well.  Then the Spirit of God moved upon him and said, “You know what?  Why don’t you just take this big box, this chest [the "Joash Chest," we call it], cut a hole in it, and people can give as they’re being blessed by God.”  It was not just a specific giving—he didn’t cut that out—but it was a giving of gratification, of thankfulness.  Things had been going a little slowly.  They put the Joash chest out there, and the money began to come in from free, willing hearts; amen?  A willing heart, and the task was reached and finished because of a will, a thankfulness, an acknowledging of God in the giving.

As we’ve given here, and we’ve been taught that, most of us already move in that spirit.  We’re going through the Scriptures tonight, not to try to bring about some new, fresh understanding, but just to go back and remember what God’s done in our hearts and that these are things that are from the very beginning of a covenant people with God, of which we are, a new and better covenant, that God has always made that provision for His house, and the honoring of His house.  A people—that we would look at it for what it is, that which has been consecrated to God, (amen?) and how willing our hearts are to be.  So that’s what’s taking place there in Second Chronicles, Chapter 24, with Joash and the repairing of building.