REFINING FIRES IN TIMES OF REVIVAL – 2 Chronicles 32:1-23
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on February 11, 2018 under 2018 |
Preached Sunday, February 11, 2018: Hezekiah—Ruler in The Revival; 2 Chronicles 32:1-23
Theme: In times of revival and spiritual renewal, God often permits intense tests to come along for the further refinement of His people.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
And this new lesson is—quite frankly—a surprising one. But we wont rightly understand what true, biblical revival looks like unless we grasp it.
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Now; to appreciate this new lesson, we need to go back just a bit to Chapter 31. At the end of so many of the great reforms that King Hezekiah had made to restore his people to a faithful and obedient worship of God, we read these high words of commendation about him:
Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah, and he did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandment, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart. So he prospered (2 Chronicles 31:20-21).
Clearly Hezekiah was a godly leader. He had acted with remarkable faithfulness toward God, and had led his people on a godly path in God’s good way. Worship was restored. The temple was being honored. The priesthood was back to work. The people were turning from idolatry and back to faithfulness toward God. The dark cloud of spiritual unfaithfulness had lifted. It was truly a new day. And you would naturally expect that there would be nothing but blessing and happiness and an end to trials and troubles from then on.
But it was then—at the time when things seemed to be going their best—at a time of remarkable spiritual revival—that the greatest challenges of King Hezekiah’s entire reign came upon him. And I’m going to go ahead and give you a ‘spoiler-alert’. The end of the story—as we find it told to us in 2 Chronicles 32:22-23—is very good. God brought about a great victory; and granted to Hezekiah and his people even more blessedness than before. But it had to come through this difficult challenge that came at a time when things seemed to be going so well.
And that, I believe, teaches us another very important, rarely-talked-about lesson regarding revival. I believe that it’s a lesson that the writer of 2 Chronicles is specifically meaning to call to our attention by the unusual way he begins this chapter. It’s that, in times of revival and spiritual renewal, God often allows powerful tests to come upon His people specifically in order to refine them and strengthen them for even more faithfulness and blessedness.
Perhaps you’ve found this to have been an experience in your own personal life. You have humbled yourself before God and sought him with a renewed heart. You began to experience personal reforms in your obedience and devotion to Him. You were going to church once again, and with more faithfulness. You were reading your Bible more regularly, and were sincerely seeking to apply it to your life. You were deepening in your love for Jesus Christ and your devotion to Him. Things seemed to be going so very well. And yet—at a time when you would expect that the troubles are over and that it should just be ‘blessings’ from here on out—you were suddenly faced with a trial or a test that challenged your faith in a way that you never experienced before.
That’s not an accident. It’s actually a part of God’s program of growth for us. It’s the way that He seeks to deepen our faithfulness to Him, and to improve the gains that He has made in our lives, and to refine us in our renewed walk with Him. And if we will trust Him through it, we will come out of the other side with even greater blessedness than we could imagine.
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This isn’t exactly the kind of a lesson that we want to learn. And that is exactly why we must heed what this chapter is telling us—and learn this lesson well.
Let’s begin by noticing what the writer of 2 Chronicles 32 tells us about …
1. THE TIMING.
You see it in verse 1. For the moment, just ignore the fact that there’s a chapter division in your Bible. Just assume that you have read what we’re told about Hezekiah in Chapter 28:20-21; and go right on to verse one where it tells us about the introduction of this new, horribly difficult challenge with these words: “After these deeds of faithfulness …” (32:1).
Those unusual words of introduction should really impress themselves on our hearts. Did you know that the story that we’re about to be told is the story of such an important and remarkable trial that it is told to us three times in the Old Testament?—and in three very large sections? It’s told to us in great detail in 2 Kings 18-19 and also in Isaiah 36-37 and also here in 2 Chronicles 32. The ‘chronicler’ only tells us about it in 23 verses—leaving out a lot of the details—giving us a much shorter telling of the story than the other two passages. And I believe it’s because he wants to cause us to think about how this great trial came “after these deeds of faithfulness” on Hezekiah’s part—leading to even greater blessing afterward. The trial did not come when Hezekiah was being disobedient or unfaithful; but rather at the time when he was truly remarkable in his faithfulness and obedience to God.
When I think about this, I think of what the apostle Peter once wrote to his Christian brothers and sisters—faithful believers who were seeking to walk in obedient devotion to Jesus Christ, and who were suffering profound persecution as a result. Peter told them;
Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. (1 Peter 4:12-13).
Times of testing and challenge are not unusual to the Christian faith. What’s ‘unusual’ is that we think it’s ‘unusual’ when they come. We should never assume that such tests only come as a result of disobedience or unfaithfulness. Far from it! They come upon faithful and obedient Christians—even at times of revival and renewal—as God’s way of refining the faith of His people. They have a good purpose in our Father’s good hand. As Peter later wrote to his fellow suffering Christians;
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you (1 Peter 5:10).
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So; that’s the ‘timing’ of when this very purposeful test came—at a time of great faithfulness. And now let’s consider …
2. THE TEST.
And what a test it was! Verse 1 tells us;
After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered Judah; he encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself (v. 1).
To appreciate why this was a very serious test, you need to understand that the Assyrian empire—the ruling world empire at the time—was dreadful, brutal, and fearsome. They caused horror to every nation that they threatened; and they were profoundly merciless in their conquests. And when it came to the Jewish people, the trouble with Assyria really started with Hezekiah’s father King Ahaz. 2 Chronicles 28:19-21 tells us;
For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had encouraged moral decline in Judah and had been continually unfaithful to the Lord. Also Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, came to him and distressed him, and did not assist him. For Ahaz took part of the treasures from the house of the Lord, from the house of the king, and from the leaders, and he gave it to the king of Assyria; but he did not help him (2 Chronicles 28:19-21).
Ahaz had tried to make a deal with this brutal and ungodly empire. He tried to buy them off with the treasuries of the temple of God. That deal didn’t work; and now the consequences of it came back to haunt King Hezekiah.
And there’s something else you need to know. Reading the other accounts of this story in other portions of the Bible, we find that Hezekiah fell to temptation himself. When Assyria first became a threat—out of fear—he tried to buy them off too. And it didn’t work for him any better than it had worked for his father. Hezekiah had a temporary lapse of faith in the face of this great test. And that’s what makes it such a test! Having lapsed, what would he then do?
And that’s also, by the way, what makes it such a great lesson for you and me. In the face of such sudden tests and trials—and especially at times when we were making good progress in the faith—we may stumble too. We may lose our sense of God’s sufficiency; and we may turn, in our frailty and fear, to the wrong things. But God shows us His work in us by how—in such times—we repent and restore our trust in Him. That, it seems to me, is what happened to Hezekiah.
When I think of this, I am reminded of Paul’s good words to us in Ephesians 6:13;
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:13).
May it be that in such times, even if we have dropped the armor and suffer for having done so, we pick it back up again—and so stand.
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And so; even though Hezekiah fell temporarily, we nevertheless see …
3. THE TRUST.
After hearing of the approach of the Assyrians, Hezekiah took wise measures as a ruler of his people. Verses 2-6 tell us of the defensive and military preparations he immediately made. But it’s clear that his trust wasn’t in those preparations. Verses 7-8 tell us that he gathered his forces together in the open square of the city, and encouraged them in the Lord, and told them;
“Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah king of Judah (vv. 7-8).
That’s where his true trust was. And this trial was meant to show it. His words of prevailing faith show that he and his people were experiencing a genuine revival. His words remind me of what Elisha once said to his assistant when enemy armies surrounded him;
“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).
God opened his assistant’s eyes; and he saw that the surrounding mountain was filled with horses and chariots of fire! Truly God had the enemies of His servant outnumbered! This is like what the apostle John once told his brothers and sisters in Christ—
He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4);
or like what the writer of Hebrews quoted to his suffering fellow Christians;
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6).
When we’re in the midst of spiritual renewal, and a sudden test like this comes along and challenges our faith, it shows us where our trust truly is. May that trust prove to be in the God who is greater than our test!
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Now; in such times, the test can truly be intense. As we read on in this chapter, we find that the test was expressed in …
4. THE TAUNTS.
Verse 9 tells us;
After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem (but he and all the forces with him laid siege against Lachish), to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were in Jerusalem … (v. 9).
It must have been a fearsome scene as the might army of the Assyrians drew near—right to the very edge of God’s holy city—right to the place where great revival was happening. And it was then that the servant of the king of Assyria began to engage in ‘psychological warfare’. (That, by the way, is what the devil himself often uses against us.)
As we read the taunts that the Assyrian official threw at God’s people, I wonder if you can recognize them. I certainly do. I believe these kinds of things are often thrown at people who are seeking to renew their trust in God. First, the official tried to convince the Jewish people that it is foolish and ineffective to trust in God. He said;
“Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria: ‘In what do you trust, that you remain under siege in Jerusalem? Does not Hezekiah persuade you to give yourselves over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, ‘The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria’”? (vv. 10-11).
How often that vile weapon gets used against us when we try to walk rightly with God! It almost sounds like the devil’s old tactic with Eve; telling her, “Has God indeed said …?” (Genesis 3:1).
Then, another taunt was thrown out; and it too is a very familiar one. It’s that the facts are not what God’s people know them to be. The official said in verse 12;
“Has not the same Hezekiah taken away His high places and His altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall worship before one altar and burn incense on it’”? (v. 12).
What a distortion of the facts that was! The people of God knew that the altars and high places that Hezekiah tore down were not God’s at all! They were pagan altars and high places to false gods that were set up by Hezekiah’s father! How often the taunts of the ungodly are nothing more than lies and distortions of the facts of history and of experience and of the teachings of Scripture! How often the success of those taunts depends on God’s people forgetting what they already know to be true!
And along comes another familiar taunt. It’s that the God of the Bible is no more real than the false gods of the nations. Look at what blasphemy the Assyrian official resorts to in verses 13-14, when he shouts out;
“Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their lands out of my hand? Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand?” (vv. 13-14).
None of those other gods were able to prevent the Assyrians, because none of those other gods were real. But here, the Assyrian official tries to get the people to believe that the God of Israel is no more real than the phony gods men make up for themselves. How often have we all heard that one!
And finally, in verse 15, he sinks to a very deep level. He tries to persuade the people to believe that those who call others to trust in God are deceivers. He says;
“Now therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or persuade you like this, and do not believe him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand?” (v. 15).
Now; if we were to read on in verse 16-19, we’d find that the Assyrian official turned this into a whole campaign. We’re told;
Furthermore, his servants spoke against the Lord God and against His servant Hezekiah. He also wrote letters to revile the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against Him, saying, “As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver His people from my hand.” Then they called out with a loud voice in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten them and trouble them, that they might take the city. And they spoke against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth—the work of men’s hands” (vv. 16-19).
Psychological warfare from hell itself! What a dreadful test this was! And I believe we should learn to expect it from the devil every time we seek to recommit ourselves to a faithful walk with God—every time there is a spiritual revival. He can do no more than God permits him to do. But he will, as much as he can, taunt us hard!
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But even these taunts are in the providential hand of God. He uses them to strengthen a revival—whether in a person or in a nation; and to increase our devotion and trust to Him. And if we turn to Him in the midst of the trial and the taunts, our faithful Lord leads us to victory—and even to greater blessing than before.
As we read on, we find that this is shown to us in …
5. THE TRIUMPH.
Other passages in the Bible tell us how truly agonizing and fearsome this test was. But in those other passages, Hezekiah told his people not to answer these accusations and blasphemies. Instead, he took the matter to the prophet Isaiah (who was ministering in Hezekiah’s day); and together they brought the matter to the Lord. Verse 20 tells us;
Now because of this King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried out to heaven (v. 20).
Hezekiah and his people passed the test! They did what they should to! They brought it to God. And God responded. We’re told;
Then the Lord sent an angel who cut down every mighty man of valor, leader, and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned shamefaced to his own land. And when he had gone into the temple of his god, some of his own offspring struck him down with the sword there (v. 21).
In other places in Scripture, we’re told that this angel of the Lord—just one angel—went out into the camp of the Assyrian army at night, and slew a staggering 185,000 soldiers! We’re told that when the people of Jerusalem woke up and looked in the morning, “there were the corpses—all dead” (2 Kings 19:35); which is quite a way to put it! After all, what other kind of corpses are there? The Bible was telling us that they weren’t just dead. They were VERY dead! And then, the Bible goes on to tell us elsewhere that—in poetic justice—the Assyrian king Sennacherib went off in shame to his own homeland; where he was shortly thereafter killed by his own sons while he was worshiping in the temple of his own false god!
When the test that God allows to come upon us is over, and when He sees that we have passed and have kept our devotion to Him, then He really brings it to an end! And you can’t miss it!
And then, note especially how the blessedness on the other side of the test was greater than before! We’re told in verses 22-23;
Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. And many brought gifts to the Lord at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations thereafter (vv. 22-23).
It was in the plan of God to bless Hezekiah and his revived people greatly. But that greater blessedness could only come by a strengthening of what had been brought about in the revival. And that strengthening could only come about by the testing of their faith.
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Dear brothers and sisters; let’s always remember that this is normal—and to be expected—when we experience a true spiritual awakening. Trying and challenging circumstances will come. We will encounter troubles and threats to our faith. But let’s always keep those tests in perspective.
They come as God’s instruments of refinement; so that in times of true revival, His people’s faith in Him becomes even stronger—to His glory and their increased blessedness.
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