Surprised By Revival

There's a reason we might not be impacting the world as we should.

Here's Steven Davey. Here's what they did. They first worshipped and then they worked. They first cleaned up their own act and then they set about to clean up their cities. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the reasons I don't think we're pulling down many altars today of evil or unbelief is because the church isn't clean. We haven't cleaned up our act here. We are not worshipping. We are in a state of need of revival.

Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today we go back to our vintage Wisdom Library to bring you a series entitled, We Three Kings. They were rich, they were powerful, they had it all. These three kings of Israel, Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah held lofty positions.

In this series, Steven takes an in-depth look at those men. You'll be challenged to invest your life in what really matters. Just like these kings of Israel, you're not defined by the positions you hold and the power you have.

At the end of the day, what really matters is your relationship with the God of heaven. In the summer of 1787, representatives met in Philadelphia to write the Constitution of the United States. You probably remember maybe that day or certainly recorded events that occurred then, but probably in your history books you didn't read this occurring. After they had struggled for several weeks and had made little or no progress, this troubled and rather disagreeable combination of strong personalities was about to adjourn in confusion. At that point in time, 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin rose and addressed the men, and history has recorded his words, quote, In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers were heard and they were graciously answered. Have we now forgotten this powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need his assistance?

I have lived a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? I therefore move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning. Israel had simply forgotten their all-powerful friend. They had done everything to that point but pray, and even as they fell, they refused to pray to the true God. The northern kingdom collapsed, and as it fell, prayed to the Assyrian kingdom. Our attention now this morning as we continue through the books of Kings and Chronicles is attention drawn to Judah, that is the southern kingdom. And you may remember that Jerusalem is the capital city of the southern kingdom. Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom has fallen.

Now all that's left is the southern kingdom. I invite your attention to the book of 2 Chronicles, and let's pick our story up there with Ezra as he writes under divine inspiration the story of what occurred for our benefit and instruction. In chapter 28, I want to begin reading in verse 1. Chapter 28 verse 1, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem, and he did not do right in the sight of the Lord. How would you like that as your epitaph? He did not do right in the sight of the Lord. When you see that on your tombstone, he did not that which was right. This is what is on his tombstone for all of us to read. He did not do right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.

He also made molten images for the bales. Now at the very time that Judah needed a godly king, they saw an evil 20-year-old man ascend the throne and take the power in the land. As I read this, for some reason it hadn't occurred to me as we studied king after king, but when we got to this one, the thought came to my mind, if you were 20 years old, and you ascended the throne in the kingdom of your land, and you could have anything you wanted to have, you could do anything without restraint or accountability, your life could be the epitome of your own desires and pleasures and pursuits. The thought occurred to me, what kind of king would I be?

What kind of king or queen would you be? Well, this 20-year-old took advantage of his power and he became evil. The text will tell us because of Ahaz's rebellion and sin, God will kind of make war his middle name.

He will be plagued for his entire 16 years with war. His way out of war rather than turn to God is to make an unholy alliance with the kingdom of Assyria, which is all the more despicable when you consider the fact that Assyria has just taken his brothers into captivity. He signs an unholy alliance with them hoping that Assyria will protect Judah. Notice verse 19, look there. The Lord had humbled Judah because of Ahaz, king of Israel, for he had brought about a lack of restraint in Judah.

That tells us about this 20-year-old man. He brought about a lack of restraint and was very unfaithful to the Lord, verse 20. So Tilgath-Pilnezer, king of Assyria, came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him. Although Ahaz took a portion out of the house of the Lord and out of the palace of the king and of the princes and gave it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

Imagine that he's paying this ransom price. But verse 21, that they still marched against him after pocketing the jewels and the treasures he gave them. Now look at verse 22. Now in the time of his distress, this same king Ahaz became humble before the Lord is God.

That's what you'd think you'd read. Doesn't distress and trouble drive people to God? No, no, not really. You can drive people away. It says here, in the time of his distress, the same king Ahaz became yet more unfaithful to the Lord. By the way, that is true of every Christian. It's possible, as Hudson Taylor once wrote, for pressure that's brought into our lives to pull us away from that sweet fellowship that we at that moment need more desperately than at any other time, or that pressure can press us to him. You've probably seen that happen in your life.

I know I have in mind. Verse 23, here's what he did. He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him, and said, well, because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me. And they became the downfall of him and all Israel. Moreover, when Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, it gets worse here, he cut the utensils of the house of God in pieces, and he closed the doors of the house of the Lord, and he made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem.

Can you imagine this? How wicked this man was, even as he learned of the fall of the northern kingdom. Now, at this moment, or about this time, Ezra doesn't record for us this occurring, but Isaiah does. Isaiah tells us that it's about this time in the reign of Ahaz that the prophet Isaiah comes to Ahaz, and he delivers to him a rather stunning prophecy, hoping to grasp his attention toward the sovereign power of the God of Israel. The prophecy basically says to him that even though it looks like your throne is about to be overthrown and your kingdom to be lost, God will not allow the throne of David to be wiped out forever. And the sign of that prophecy is this, Isaiah tells him, a virgin will conceive and bring forth a son. Now, Ahaz could have cared less about the prophecy, and we know now centuries later that that prophecy would be fulfilled later. It was the prophecy fulfilled when the virgin Mary, conceived by the superintending miraculous oversight of the Holy Spirit, and delivered this boy who would be in the line of David, who would be the God-man who will one day sit on the throne of David.

That was intended to arrest the attention of Ahaz, to draw him back. If God is powerful enough at this moment to tell me that the throne of David will last, he needs my attention. But he ignored him and refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. The text tells us he later will die.

So unfaithful was he that they refused to bury him with the other kings of the land. After reading what we've just read of the account of this evil king and his sixteen years reign, it's kind of like the last step toward collapse. You can almost hear the slumberings of God's justice begin to awaken, but instead something incredible happens, something you would never expect to occur. Notice chapter 29 verse 1. Hezekiah, that's the son of Ahaz, became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. Skip to verse 3. In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them, and he brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them into the square on the east.

Now, if you were a citizen of the southern kingdom, you wouldn't believe this would be true. The son of wicked King Ahaz ascends the throne. It should be business as usual. This twenty-five year old should be no more moral than his immoral father, no more respectful of the God of Israel than his father was, and yet you read here in his, as it were, first one hundred days in office, he begins to restore what his father had destroyed over the process of his sixteen years. His first declaration is, open the doors of the temple, and while you're at it, repair them. Oil the hinges. Let's have house cleaning.

Why? There's about to be a revival in the land, and who would have ever guessed that this could happen? And we'll start by cleaning out the house of worship, which I think is rather analogous to the need of our own nation. Did you know that the priests took at least eight days to clean out all the trash in the temple? This temple had become sort of the storage shed of the nation, and any junk that they wanted to hang onto but didn't quite want to throw away, they stuck it in there, and it took eight days for the priests to take out the rubbish and then eight more days to ceremonially cleanse it with the blood of animals who died to bring atonement. So there's going to be revival. Now look at verse 20.

Let's take a look at what happened. Then King Hezekiah arose early and assembled the princes of the city and went up to the house of the Lord. Now what happens next are offerings or sacrifices. First the burnt offering, and then the sin offerings, and we don't have time to go into all of the detail, but what is happening is they are recognizing they have sinned before God, and they will do what God has commanded in the book of Leviticus to propitiate or to atone for their sins. They will deal with their sin in the way God said to deal with sin.

That's the beginning. Now I want you to notice at least just one illustration from verse 23. Then they brought the male goats of the sin offering before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. And the priests slaughtered them and purged the altar with their blood to atone for all Israel. This is fascinating because the words translated in my text laid their hands on them.

It's not as forceful or as dynamic as that Hebrew verb suggests. The word could be rendered, they pressed upon. Literally they leaned with their weight on those animals. It was a symbolic gesture. If you could see those priests putting their hands on the heads, it wasn't just kind of a pat. It wasn't just a brief laying.

This was a leaning with their weight. It was a pictorial way of suggesting that we are putting on you who are about to die all of the sins of the nation. We recognize we have deeply erred against God and we are pressing those, as it were, into those who will give their lives to pay for the sacrifice. You notice the key word in verse 24 is the word atones, Hebrew word kapeh, to be translated to pay the ransom price. This sacrificial animal will pay the ransom that was demanded by sin. And we know even in the New Testament the verse that says the wages of sin, the ransom price for sin is death. What an unbelievable foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that Lamb who will have pressed into his body, as it were, the sin of the world. 1 John 2. Interesting also in the New Testament as you see Jesus Christ fulfilling all of the pictures given to us in the Old Testament of the sacrifices. Mark chapter 10 tells us that Jesus came to give his life a ransom for many. 1 Peter chapter 1, Peter refers to the Christians as those who have been ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ. What's happening here is the King and the Congress and the congregation are basically saying, oh God we have sinned against you and we recognize we must do what you've prescribed to deal with sin and so we will offer these sacrifices.

For us today in this dispensation of grace we simply place our faith in the substitutionary work, the atoning work of the Lamb of God who paid the final once and for all sacrifice for sin. Now what do you do when you've been forgiven? You cry?

Maybe you have. Do you laugh with relief perhaps? How about sing?

Well that's what they did here. Look at verse 25. He then stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with symbols and with harps and with liars according to the command of David and of Gad the king's seer and of Nathan the prophet. For the command was from the Lord to his prophets and the Levites, notice this, stood with the musical instruments of David and the priests with the trumpets.

Now skip to verse 28. While the whole assembly worshiped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded and all of this continued until the burnt offerings were finished. Now at the completion of the burnt offerings the king and all who were present with him bowed down and worshiped.

Can you imagine this sight? I've read that Handel when he first conducted his great work, the Messiah, before the royalty of Great Britain that when he got to that part where the orchestra swelled and the choir sang, King of kings and Lord of lords, that the Queen of England took off her crown and put it at her feet and she stood in obedience to the King of kings and Lord of lords. You know that's happening here, the choir singing, atonement is made and the king and his cabinet and the people bow and worship. And if you had been there and had waited 30 some years to see a king bow before God, you would have been amazed that revival could happen in the land. What was happening here?

Now let's continue our survey. Look at chapter 30. Hezekiah decides to do something fairly unusual.

It was risky. I think God motivated his heart to do it. He invites both kingdoms together to celebrate the Passover, that is those who were remaining in the northern kingdom, who'd been left behind, who would intermarry, creating the Samaritan race. He invites them to come to Jerusalem and he dispatches runners, we'll look in just a moment, to run throughout all of the land with a message. The message was basically pretty simple. It was this, God is doing the work in the heart of the king and the leadership and the people.

We want you to come to Jerusalem and celebrate once again the Passover. It must have been a stunning message. Look at the middle part of verse 9.

Here it is. They are to say, the Lord God is gracious and compassionate and will not turn his face away from you if you return to him. So the couriers, the runners passed from city to city throughout the country of Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as Zebulun and they laughed them to scorn, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. You have to imagine how foolish their message seemed. God's at work?

In the nation? Revival? The king bowing? It's a sham.

It won't last. Besides, I don't care about the God of Israel anyhow, so I'm not coming. Look at verse 11. Nevertheless, some men humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. Can you imagine being one of these couriers, one of these runners, running through the city, shouting this message? You're invited to Jerusalem for the Passover. We're worshiping God. Come on down to Jerusalem.

And having people mock you and laugh at you, to ride you? Fanatic! You're out of your mind! But did some respond and receive the message? Can you imagine being one of these couriers? Has it ever occurred to you? You are. And you can expect the same response that they received.

Here, don't let it slow you down. Now, the nation will gather at verse 21. Look there, chapter 30. The sons of Israel present in Jerusalem, they all gathered. What a moment this must have been. They celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great joy. And the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day after day with loud instruments to the Lord. Now, I don't know if Ezra's complaining here or not about the loud instruments. I don't know if he's saying, oh my, those instruments were sure loud, but that's what we did. Or, oh, you should have heard it. Oh, it just swept up every sound, those loud instruments playing music to God.

I suspect that's how he felt. Verse 22, then Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites who showed good insight in the things of the Lord, so they ate for the appointed seven days, sacrificing peace offerings and giving thanks to the Lord God of their fathers. This is nothing less than a revival in the land of God's people.

But notice verse 23. Then the whole assembly decided to celebrate the feast another seven days, so they celebrated the seven days with joy. They had extended meetings. This is too good to quit. Let's take a vote. Anybody here want to keep going seven more days?

And it was unanimous. Okay, let's go seven more. Look at the first thing that follows the revival, chapter 31, verse 1. Now when all this was finished, what was finished?

Stop. All the offerings, the worship, the praise, the sacrifice, the union of God's people, those who would believe, gathered together when all was finished. And they're putting up the folding chairs and the tables and taking out the trash and cleaning up.

All of it's finished. All Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah. They broke the pillars in pieces. They cut down the Asherim, the wooden statutes of Baal's mistress, and pulled down the high places and the altars throughout all Judah and Benjamin as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh.

Here's what they did. They first worshiped and then they worked. They first cleaned up their own act and then they set about to clean up their cities. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the reasons I don't think we're pulling down many altars today of evil or unbelief is because the church isn't clean. We haven't cleaned up our act here. We wonder why God can't use us to clean up the act outside these walls. We are not worshiping.

We are in a state of need of revival. Then one of the greatest proofs of revival reveals itself in the last part of the chapter. Look at verse 11. Then Hezekiah, chapter 31, commanded them to prepare rooms in the house of the Lord and they prepared them. And they, that is the people, faithfully brought in the contributions and the tithes and the consecrated things. And Conaniah the Levite was the officer in charge of them. That is, he's the pastor of administration.

His brother Shammai was the assistant. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the greatest evidences of God working in my life and in your life is the way we give rather than hoard, the way we share for the work of God rather than keep. One of the first things that happens in the life of a revived believer is that he's able to let go instead of hang on. It happened just a few minutes ago, one of the toughest parts of the service. Here come the plates. There are some who would say, well, you know, they don't need me. Just pass it by. Others who say, oh, here it comes. I've got to do something.

Somebody might be looking. And so we pull out some pocket change and we give God a tip. Oh, what we need to have in a revived state is the attitude of, Lord, this is your work and here comes my portfolio and I'm going to now make another investment in eternity. That's a little too convicting.

Let's go on. Look at verse 20. Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah and he did what was good, right, and true before the Lord his God.

And every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandments seeking his God he did with all his heart and he prospered. Who would have ever believed that? The northern kingdom falls in a deep, dark idolatry. The southern kingdom experiences in a matter of weeks revival and this powerful impact on their nation.

Who would have ever guessed? Could it happen in this nation in the way that would be prescribed? Can it happen here? Well, if you're a student of history, you've read of it happening, probably with some amazement. I can take you to this century, 90 years ago, and tell you about the famous Welsh revival that took place. 100,000 people were converted to Christianity in five months.

But listen to this. The social impact of the Wales movement was astounding. Judges were presented with white gloves. They had no cases to try. No rapes, robberies, murders, burglaries, embezzlements, nothing.

The district councils held an emergency meeting to discuss what to do with the police now that they were inactive. Can you believe that? It's as hard for us to believe that as it was for the people here of God to believe that something was happening in Jerusalem. By the way, that Welsh revival spread into America. Listen to an article in the Denver Post dated January 20th, 1905. This was actually in a newspaper somewhere at one time. For two hours at midday, all Denver was held in a spell.

The marks of trade were deserted between noon and two o'clock this afternoon and all worldly affairs were forgotten. Going to and coming from this great prayer meeting, the thousands of men and women around the city who prayed radiated the spirit which filled them. Seldom has such a remarkable sight been witnessed an entire city in the middle of a busy weekday bowing before the throne of heaven and asking and receiving the blessing of the king of the universe.

Can you imagine just one sentence of that being in a newspaper today without people screaming and hollering? Well, it will occur when God grasps the heart of his people and revives them. I want you to go back to an interesting insight. Would you turn to chapter 29 and look at verse 36. Can it happen again?

Could it happen here? Look at this interesting verse. Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over what God had prepared for the people because the thing had been thoroughly planned. Because the revival meetings had been called.

No. Because the thing came about suddenly. You know what? This surprise has Hezekiah. It surprised the people. God moved. People repented and worshiped and served.

And we hear them thanking God and saying, Lord, this took us by surprise. It happened so quick. We didn't even get our revival posters printed.

It just happened. G. Campbell Morgan, the great British expositor, pastor, once said this, we cannot organize revival, but we can set our sails to catch the wind from heaven when God chooses to blow upon his people once again. You know what I want us to do? You know what we need to do?

We need to set our sails to get all twisted. We head in the wrong direction. For God to move in this nation, He must move first in His church. That means He must move first in our hearts. And we can't plan it, but we can pray for it.

We can't organize it. We can't say, okay, Holy Spirit, between these dates, we want you to come. We just ask Him to move in our hearts and revive our hearts so that when He moves in our hearts, we will do what these people did. We will send runners to invite those to the work of God. We will give, we will repent, and we will move into our city and beyond.

And in the might of His power, not with weapons made of hands, but in His power, we will see Him move in this city as well. God delights in doing the unlikely, and He wants to do that with you. I'm glad you joined us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Today's lesson was the first in a series entitled We Three Kings. It comes from our Vintage Wisdom Library as Stephen looks at three influential kings from ancient Israel. We'll be back with the next lesson in this series on our next broadcast. If you'd like to send Stephen a note, address your email to info at wisdomonline.org. Join us again for more Wisdom for the Heart.