Sermon Tone Analysis

*2 Chronicles 29 & 30  Hezekiah “A Reign of Revival”     *

If all the sleeping folk will wake up—and all the lukewarm folk will fire up—and all the dishonest folk will confess up—and all the disgruntled folk will sweeten up—and the discouraged folk will look up—and all the estranged folk will make up—and all the gossipers will shut up—and all the dry bones will shake up—and all the true soldiers will stand up—and all the church members will pray up—then you will have a revival.

John Wesley: “Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world.”

When worship is wrong, when worship of God is neglected, Revival is needed.

*Re-opening & Repair*

*Repentance-*

*Revival-*

*Restoration-*

*Renewal-    *

*Worship-                                                                                                                                 Re-opening & Repair-Recognizing the problem*

*/1/**/ /**//**/Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old; and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem.

And his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.

2 /**//**/He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.

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.

/*There had been no worship.

Ahaz, his father had shut the Temple.

He had closed the place where the people were to come and worship God.

The nation had instead worshiped false Gods.

Hezekiah gets down to business, he doesn’t waste anytime getting things headed in the right direction.

In the first year, in the first month he opens the doors of the Temple and has them repaired.

The Temple is re-opened and repair is begun.

Hezekiah starts right at the most important place, the Temple.

This is important for the whole nation.

Hezekiah starts here at the very place of worship.

The Temple in Jerusalem was to be the focal point of worship of the One True God. 

*/ 4 He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them into the square on the east.

5 Then he said to them, “Listen to me, O Levites.

/**//**/Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out from the holy place.

6 “For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him and /**//**/turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and have /**//**/turned their backs.

7 “They have also /**//**/shut the doors of the porch and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.

8 “Therefore /**//**/the wrath of the Lord was against Judah and Jerusalem, and He has made them an object of terror, of horror, and of /**//**/hissing, as you see with your own eyes.

9 “For behold, /**//**/our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. 10 “Now it is in my heart /**//**/to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His burning anger may turn away from us.

11 “My sons, do not be negligent now, for /**//**/the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to minister to Him, and to be His ministers and burn incense.”

/*

Hezekiah doesn’t start out with the political leaders, he begins with the spiritual leaders.

The priests and levites were to lead the people in the worhip of God.

They had failed horribly during the reign of Ahaz, they had even erected a false alter in the Temple once upon a time for worship of one of the false Gods Ahaz idolized.

They have gone far astray.

They are now to prepare themselves.

Great prepartation for service, they are to consecrate themselves,

*con•se•crate** \ˈkän(t)-sə-ˌkrāt\ adj *

*14c : dedicated to a sacred purpose*

This is serious business here.

They are first to consecrate themselves to The Lord, then they are to consecrate the Temple.

It is an obvious order, each needed to cosecrate himself, confess and repent of his sin, and set  himself apart for the work of The work of  The Lord.

(Basically all the families of the Levites)

*/12/**/ Then the Levites arose: /**//**/Mahath, the son of Amasai and Joel the son of Azariah, from the sons of /**//**/the Kohathites; and from the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi and Azariah the son of Jehallelel; and from the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimmah and Eden the son of Joah; 13  and from the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and /**//**/Jeiel; and from the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah;  14 and from the sons of Heman, /**//**/Jehiel and Shimei; and from the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.

/*

*/     15 They assembled their brothers, /**//**/consecrated themselves,/*

They do just as the king had commanded, they get right with God.

They turn from their sin and uncleaness, they separate themselves unto The Lord and His service.

They prepared themselves for service.

*/ and went in /**//**/to cleanse the house of the Lord, according to the commandment of the king /**//**/by the words of the Lord.

16  So the priests went in to the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and every unclean thing which they found in the temple of the Lord they brought out to the court of the house of the Lord.

Then the Levites received it to carry out to /**//**/the Kidron /**//**/valley.

17 Now they began /**//**/the consecration /**//**/on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the porch of the Lord.

Then they consecrated the house of the Lord in eight days, and finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.

18 Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the whole house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all of its utensils, and the table of showbread with all of its utensils.

19 “Moreover, /**//**/all the utensils which King Ahaz had discarded during his reign in his unfaithfulness, we have prepared and consecrated; and behold, they are before the altar of the Lord.”

/*

They do a thorough house cleaning.

Or Temple cleaning.

The Temple had been so neglected it is  hard to imagine that it has fallen into such bad shape.

But now as we think on this, we know that today we don’t need to go to a Temple.

We have become The Temple.

*16** Do you not know that you are a temple of God and /that /the Spirit of God dwells in you? 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

*

 What kind of shape is your Temple in?

Is God being worshiped and reverenced?

Are things in order in your temple?

Does it need some repair?

Does it need to be addressed so The Lord can be worhiped properly?

The lack or neglect of worship can and should be a warning to us.

Something is wrong.

Something in our lives.

*/The Restoration of Worship in the Temple /*

*/ 20 Then King Hezekiah arose early and assembled the princes of the city and went up to the house of the Lord.

21 They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs and seven male goats /**//**/for a sin offering for the kingdom, the sanctuary, and Judah.

And he ordered the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.

22  So they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar.

They also slaughtered the rams and sprinkled the blood on the altar; they slaughtered the lambs also and /**//**/sprinkled the blood on the altar.

23 Then they brought the male goats of the sin offering before the king and the assembly, and /**//**/they laid their hands on them.

24 The priests slaughtered them and purged the altar with their blood /**//**/to atone for all Israel, for the king ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel.

25 /**//**/He then stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with harps and with lyres, /**//**/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 through His prophets.

26 The Levites stood with /**//**/the musical instruments of David, and /**//**/the priests with the trumpets.

/**(Set up just as the Word of God prescribed)/ /*

*/     27 Then Hezekiah gave the order to offer the burnt offering on the altar.

When the burnt offering began, /**//**/the song to the Lord also began with the trumpets, /**//**/accompanied /**/by the instruments of David, king of Israel.

28 While the whole assembly worshiped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished.

29  Now at the completion of the burnt offerings, the king and all who were present with him bowed down and worshiped.

30  Moreover, King Hezekiah and the officials ordered the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the seer.

/**//**/So they sang praises with joy, and bowed down and worshiped.

31 Then Hezekiah said, “/**//**/Now that you have /**//**/consecrated yourselves to the Lord, come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.”

And the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and /**//**/all those who were /**//**/willing brought burnt offerings.

/*

The people  now had been consecrated to The Lord.

What a worship service this would have been.

The people come and they worship almighty God again.

This had not happened in quite some time, there is great renewal among the people.

Look at the preparation for worship here.

I wonders sometimes in this age that we live in if we sometimes fail terribly to prepare our hearts and minds to worship God properly.

We can be so casual in our worship, but when we gather together corporately on a Sunday morning to worship our Great God, are you prepared to worship; have we spent time in preparation, having our hearts and minds right?

We are to worship in Spirit and in Truth.

2 Chronicles 7 :14  */if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land./*

This passage spoken to Solomon would certainly be applicable to these folks and  we see Hezekiah leading the people forward.