This is a story about revival and a guy named Hezekiah. There isn’t really a spiritual truth so to speak here as much as a picture of what incredible revival looks like. This guy Hezekiah is twenty five and right when he becomes king he decides to set Israel back on the right path. So he repairs the temple and brings in all the priests and tells them to make everything holy. He says he wants to renew the covenant with God. So these priests go and carry everything unholy from the temple and destroy it. Then they consecrate everything, all the tools, walls, everything (and themselves of course) When they’re finished Hezekiah takes the priests and city officials into the temple and they offer sacrifices and consecrate the altar. They spend a long time just praising God before they even begin. They offer so much that there’s not enough priests to handle it all and they have to wait until they can consecrate more priests. That’s amazing enough considering the history of Israel and Judah, but it gets better. Hezekiah sends letters all around Israel and Judah telling them to come celebrate Passover (it’s a month late, but who cares they weren’t ready the first time and a year is too long to wait). Most Israelites laugh at him, but some come and ALL of Judah attends. All of them, that in itself should be a pretty awesome picture. So many people show up that the priests have to consecrate the people with the Passover lamb. The people are so eager (but have been out of practice for so long) that they eat the Passover feast without consecrating themselves. Hezekiah asks forgiveness of God for this and God forgives them and blesses the ceremony. They spend the next seven days singing, praising, and hearing encouragement from Hezekiah. Then, they get to the end of the festival and they’re having so much fun they extend it another seven days. Hezekiah brings in 8,000 animals and the princes bring in 11,000 animals for sacrifices. They praise and sing and the Bible says that there wasn’t a time like this since David and Solomon.

Christians, if you want revival, this is what you want. This is more radical than anything I ever pictured when I heard the word revival. I can only pray that I live to see something like this, and if not well I’m sure the party in heaven will beat this one.