Revival Begins with Leadership
2 Chronicles 29
Revival is one of the main things we hear and pray for today. If I could, it is the one true desire of the church. Books have been written about revival: books on the history of revivals, the leaders of revivals, the laws and methods of revival, the messages before, during, and after revivals, and about praying for revivals. You name it, a book has been written about it.
Yet, when we read the Scriptures about revivals that happened, there is one truth than cannot be overlooked, and that is, “Revival will not come to the church until its leadership is revived.”
To illustrate, I’d like to look at the reign of King Hezekiah, when a true revival took place at the beginning of his reign. And I am specifically going to be looking at the godly leaders who facilitated such a revival. And what we see are three calls that Hezekiah makes to the leaders, specifically the Levites, and how it started with them, and their own revival or renewal.
Hezekiah’s father, King Ahaz, was wicked and followed in the ways of the kings of Israel, rather than in the ways of King David. He worshiped the gods of these nations surrounding Judea, and not only desecrated the Holy Temple by cutting up all the article s of worship, but literally had the doors of the temple shut. Of Ahaz, the biblical record says that he “became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord” (2 Chronicles 28:22). That is, he not only started off that way, but he became worse as time wore on. And isn’t that the way of all sin?
When Hezekiah took over, he recognized not only his own need, but the need of the leaders as well, to get themselves right before God.
“Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place.” (2 Chronicles 29:5 NKJV)
“For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God; they have forsaken Him, have turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him … Therefore 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.” (2 Chronicles 29:6, 8 NKJV)
The word, “sanctify,” used in verse 5 is the Hebrew word, “gadash,” which is the root word meaning “holy.” The word means to consecrate, to make holy, and hence to purify.
And so, the first call of Hezekiah was for leadership was A Call to Purity.
First to purify themselves, and then the temple.
If revival is ever going to happen in the church, it must first begin in the hearts of its leaders. We need to get down to business with God concerning ourselves before we ever start to criticize or condemn someone else. Jesus brought out this principle saying that we need to take the beam out of our own eye before we try to take the speck out of someone else’s eye.
This is probably why there is so much stagnation in the church and in our own lives and ministries. And so, Hezekiah basically is saying that it’s time to get down to business with our own sins.
And so, Hezekiah is challenging his leadership, and the Holy Spirit is challenging us as leaders today to purify ourselves. And this then begins with our humbling ourselves before God, pray, confess our sins, and then turn away from them and unto the Lord. And God’s promise is that when we do, He’ll hear, forgive, and heal our land.
A Call to Worship
This is seen in verses 20-30, but specifically verses 27-29, which encapsulates this calling.
“Then Hezekiah commanded them to offer the burnt offering on the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord also began, with the trumpets and with the instruments of David king of Israel. So all the assembly worshiped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. And when they had finished offering, the king and all who were present with him bowed and worshiped.” (2 Chronicles 29:27-29 NKJV)
To worship in the Hebrew means to bow oneself to the ground to show homage and loyalty. In Hezekiah’s call to worship, what we see is that their worship consisted of their offerings and lifting up praises unto God.
What we find in times of spiritual dryness is that the worship of God falls by the wayside. Now, I’m not talking about singing songs, but rather as it is described within the Scriptures as one’s overall response to God, including our service to the Lord and the giving of the tithe, in other words, we are to worship the Lord in everything we do.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1 NKJV)
Worship, if I can define it in a phrase is not so much a lifestyle as it is a way of life. And within the Scriptures, not only here in our passage, but elsewhere, there is a call to real worship, which is worshiping the Lord in Spirit and in truth.
And so, how is our worship. And here’s the point of this calling to leaders, because if we’re not worshiping the Lord in our own personal time, then we will never lead others in their worship of the Lord.
Further, just knowing about how to worship is not the same as doing it, because worship of the Lord doesn’t come from the mind, but rather it comes from the heart.
A Call to Service
I see this vividly what it says in verse 34.
“But the priests were too few, so that they could not skin all the burnt offerings; therefore their brethren the Levites helped them until the work was ended and until the other priests had sanctified themselves, for the Levites were more diligent in sanctifying themselves than the priests.” (2 Chronicles 29:34 NKJV)
What we see on the part of the Levites is a zealousness in their return to temple service, where they literally take the place of the priest who were slow in taking up the call to purity.
You see, the priesthood took quite a beating during the reign of Ahaz, especially when he shut the doors to the temple and prohibited their service, and so instead of keeping ready, they neglected to keep themselves at the ready.
What this tells us is that we better be careful not to neglect the responsibilities that God has given to us, not only in our gits and talents, but also in the responsibilities we accepted when we became leaders, whether that is as a deacon or an elder.
Now, God may have shut the door on a ministry, and we end up feeling like we’ve been put on a shelf. Yet, this is not a reason to neglect the responsibilities of being a leader. We need to keep ourselves at the ready by serving the body of Christ, because we always have to remember, it isn’t about us, rather it is about the people God has called us to minister to.
And please know that we may come to church and participate in services and events, and still be negligent in our responsibilities, because, if we are not giving our very best in our service to the Lord, then we are negligent.
So, we are serving God with the best of our ability or are we serving with what we have left after everything else has received our attention. Are we doing only enough to get by feeling like we’ve done or are doing our religious duty?
The challenge of leadership is that of rededication to God and to His calling to be those leaders, and to make a genuine change within ourselves so that there can be a genuine change within our ministries and within the church.
And so, as we are in this time of transition, God is first calling us to rededicate ourselves. We need to follow these three calls, to purify ourselves, to begin to worship the Lord truly from our hearts in Spirit and truth, and our call to serve the people that God has made us responsible for.
In the end, I believe God is raising the bar here at Living Waters, and so, will we meet the challenge.
“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much.” (Luke 16:10a NKJV)
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