King Hezekiah Leads a Revival

Let’s Have a Revival!

I know that across this room this morning, the term ‘revival’ would receive many different responses. For some, you’ve never attended a revival so you would imagine someone screaming and crazy things going on. For others, it brings back wonderful memories of special moments when you were impacted by the nearness of the Spirit of God. You may have been saved, water baptized, filled with the Holy Spirit, or saw the gifts of the Spirit like healing or prophecy.

I grew up with revivals. I vaguely remember the camp meetings, but certainly remember revivals that went late into the nights during the week. We’ve had “brush arbor” revivals (apparently a southern thing). I attended a couple tent meetings over the years. Most recently, we’ve termed them ‘conferences’ with speakers like Ty Buckingham and Joe Oden. Many have been saved, touched at the altar, and filled with the Spirit.

Leonard Ravenhill’s most famous book, Why Revival Tarries, was an early read for me and certainly many other people.

You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there's a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.

The only reason we don't have revival is because we are willing to live without it!

Any true revival can be proven by the fact that it changed the moral climate of an area or nation.

Our lesson from the kings today points out the necessity, the elements, and the outcomes of revival through the leadership of King Hezekiah.

The Great Revivalist, King Hezekiah

[Slide 63]

King Hezekiah is remembered as a very good king. He was an example of devotion, faithfulness, and zeal for God. He was sandwiched between 2 wicked kings – his father and his son, but he left an example for other kings to follow.

If you’ve ever felt at a disadvantage because you weren’t raised in a Christian home, you can respect Hezekiah. He did not have the benefit of faithful parents. His parents were wicked. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs of God. They actually shut the doors to the temple. They put out the ceremonial lamps and refused to burn incense or offer burnt offerings. They were intentionally opposed to worshipping Jehovah. According to verse 9, this is why Judah had so many problems.

2 Chronicles 29:9 NIV

This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity.

Despite having a godless father Hezekiah led an aggressive religious revival. He removed the Canaanite idols and destroyed the Nehushtan (the bronze serpent from the days of Moses). He then set out to restore appropriate worship in the nation. While Israel was being carried off to Assyria, Judah was enjoying a revival!

Essentials of a Great Revival

Open the Doors!

2 Chronicles 29:3 NIV

In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them.

Back to Basics

In the neighboring countries of Syria and Mesopotamia, the temple was the center of the culture. The god(s) resided in the temples. The king and his priests would attend to the care and feeding of the statue of the deity. The statue was bathed, clothed, and fed daily. Just as important was the upkeep of the ‘house’. Of course, their gods were wood, stone, and metal.

Imagine how neglected Solomon’s temple must have been for the doors to have been closed. King Ahaz must have been strongly opposed to the God of David, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What a sorry sight!

Hezekiah realized that revival started very simply. Open up the doors!

A Simple Gospel

We tend to make things more complicated than they ought to be. I was watching some of the recent General Council conference and Dr. Alan Tennison began to speak. He serves on the Theological Council for the A/G. I love theology and everyone has a theology. Theology is simply the collection of beliefs that you have about God and that you hold so closely that if they were to change, it would change who you are as a person.

We often don’t realize that the Gospel is theology. Okay, so, it doesn’t really matter that you call the Gospel theology just as long as you know what the Gospel is. We are talking about simplicity. The Gospel can be simplified to this:

The Gospel

God – Father, Son, Holy Spirit

Saves – Sin, Salvation, Last Things

Us – Creation, Church, Religions

The Gospel is as simple as opening the doors. Notice that you and I are learning about the Gospel. In our community groups over the past 20 lessons, we have covered the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Church. Next month we will begin with “Last Things” with a sermon series called Heaven Matters.

So, Hezekiah realized that to have a revival it begins practically and with simplicity. So what is next?

Start at the Top

2 Chronicles 29:4–5 NIV

He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary.

Revival Demands Consecration

After King Hezekiah reopens the doors to the temple, he realizes that both the priests and the items within the temple need to be ‘consecrated’. Consecration is a process of ritual purification to prepare someone for association with that which is holy.[1]

From verse 10 through 17, Hezekiah and the priests begin the purification process for both the priests and the objects of the temple. Hezekiah strongly places his foot in the ground and says, “NOW I intend to make a covenant….and do not be negligent NOW”. It doesn’t seem to be a big deal but listen to how one Bible scholar emphasizes it:

The instructions are introduced in Hebrew by the well-known term “now.” Two different tasks of consecration (qadaŝ, “be holy”) are involved. In both cases the thought of making holy is prominent. The Levites needed to be holy themselves before they could undertake the task of making the temple holy. As J. G. McConville has stated: “It was one thing to be a priest or Levite, but quite another to be fit, at any given time, to actas such.”[2]

That is certainly the case, when talking about the priests it is one thing to be a priest, it is another thing to act as a priest.

There are three persons living in each of us: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one God knows we are! - Leonard Ravenhill

Consecration demands that we match ourselves up with one that God intends us to be!

Revival Starts with You and Me

Let me remind you…

1 Peter 2:9–10 NIV

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

It is a good thing to be a Christian but it is much better to act like a Christian. The difference is consecration, or a term that we use more in the Church Age is sanctification, “making something or someone clean or holy to God…[3]”

You will begin to hear us talk about a time of spiritual emphasis here at the church that we call Recalibrate. It is exactly what is happening under King Hezekiah’s revival but, more importantly, what ought to be an ongoing activity in our lives. What will we focus on during Recalibrate?

Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines, and Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, have compiled a list of spiritual disciplines and practices they believe were modeled in the life of Christ. These disciplines are typically organized into two categories: the disciplines of abstinence (or “letting go”) and the disciplines of activity.

· Prayer —Talking to and listening to God about your relationship with Him and about the concerns of others. Find time to pray to God without the distraction of people or things. Combine your prayer time with meditation on the Scriptures in order to focus on Christ. (Aug 25)

· Study—Spending time reading the Scriptures and meditating on its meaning and importance to our lives. We are nourished by the Word because it is our source of spiritual strength. Choose a time and a place to feed from the Word of God regularly. (Sept 1)

· Solitude—Spending time alone to be with God. Find a quiet place to be alone with God for a period of time. Use the Bible as a source of companionship with God. Listen to Him. Remain alone and still. (Sept 8)

· Fasting—Skipping a meal(s) to find greater nourishment from God. Choose a period of time to go without food. Drink water and, if necessary, take vitamin supplements. Feel the pain of having an empty stomach and depend on God to fill you with His grace. (Sept 15)

I don’t think that prayer can be emphasized enough. I mentioned Leonard Ravenhill and his book, Why Revival Tarries earlier. The truth is a large part of his book is a call to prayer.

The law of prayer is the law of harvest: sow sparingly in prayer, reap sparingly; sow bountifully in prayer, reap bountifully. The trouble is we are trying to get from our efforts what we never put into them.

The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known.

Revival Reestablishes the Purposes of the Temple

2 Chronicles 29:27–30 NIV

Hezekiah gave the order to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar. As the offering began, singing to the Lord began also, accompanied by trumpets and the instruments of David king of Israel. The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the musicians played and the trumpets sounded. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed. When the offerings were finished, the king and everyone present with him knelt down and worshiped. King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed down and worshiped.

2 Chronicles begins with a lengthy description of Solomon’s temple. It was elaborate and contained the best of the best. Gold, precious stones, fine wood, and fine linen decorated the temple. A large bronze altar, a mirrored basin, golden lampstands, and a golden altar of incense were included. All the tools and utensils were made of gold or polished bronze. The place sparkled! In the Holy of Holies resided the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat.

The temple was the place of repentance, worship, petition, consecration, and obedience. When Solomon’s temple was complete, 2 Chronicles records:

2 Chronicles 7:1–3 NIV

When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, “He is good; his love endures forever.”

There is no record of a similar thing happening once Hezekiah set the temple back to order but we do learn the outcome of his obedience a couple chapters later:

2 Chronicles 31:20–21 NIV

This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

We Need Revival!

King Hezekiah would go on to reestablish the Passover and unite the people of Judah to a corporate worship of the God of Israel.

I think there are some really big concepts that the actions of King Hezekiah demonstrated. Let’s account for a few of them:

#1 – Revival Begins Simply

The temple doors were opened. Today the Gospel must be preached – GOD/SAVES/US

#2 – Revival Starts at the Top

The priests and Levites had to get right before God. This is certainly true today for church leaders but each of us are a part of the priesthood of the believer. Each of us need a personal revival.

#3 – Revival Demands Consecration

Both the leaders and items of the temple needed to be dedicated to God. Charles Finney said, “A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.[4]Consecration demands that we are just like the items and objects of the temple – ready, polished, and sharpened for God’s purposes.

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.” ― Leonard Ravenhill

#4 – Revival Comes When We Understand and Execute Our Purpose

The revival of King Hezekiah returned the nation to a heart of repentance and worship. We have expressed our purposes this way at our church:

A Lifestyle of Worship

Connect to God and Others

A Place to Grow

Saved People Serve Others

His Message, Our Mission – Go

These statements reflect the activities of the church as we worship, pray, learn, reach out, and serve one another. The temptation is to ignore our purpose or not participate in our purpose. That is when the things of God (the temple) begin to be neglected. DO NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN!

[1]Victor Harold Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, and John H. Walton, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 2 Ch 29:15. [2] J. A. Thompson, 1, 2 Chronicles, vol. 9, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 344. [3]Gordon D. Fee and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., eds., The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible(Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), 752. [4]Elliot Ritzema, ed., 300 Quotations for Preachers (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).