And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers.
The covenant renewed
“Entering into a covenant” is what we name “a revival”; they made it a national act, we separate it entirely from political affairs.
I. The preparations for revival.
1. The persons who led. A faithful prophet and an obedient king. Of Azariah we know nothing beyond the short record of this chapter. This suggests that a man is important to the world only for the work he does. The king was ready to learn from this obscure prophet and to lead the people to consecration. Happy the pastor who finds the wealth, authority, and zeal of his Church willing to receive the sacred message humbly from his lips and faithfully lead where he points the way.
2. The truths they used. The same that inspire every true revival (verse 2). Divine faithfulness, human responsibility, mercy for the penitent, punishment for the hardened.
II. The revival. In this blessed work there was--
1. Repentance.
2. Atonement (verse 11).
3. Consecration.
III. The joy of reconciliation (verse 15). Lessons:
1. The reformer must begin at his own house.
2. Service for God may cost pain.
3. The true leader is called of God.
4. Every true leader is a rallying-point for others (verse 9). (Monday Club Sermons.)
A revival
I. We see here that the heart of a revival lies in a renewal of the covenant of the Church with God. An awakened Church is the pioneer of an awakened world,
2. A second feature in this ancient revival of religion was a public proclamtion of a revived faith before the world. Religious men are too much in earnest to be still about it. They are moved by a great power. It will express itself as becomes a great power. It is the instinct of religious faith to bear its witness to the world.
III. The old Jewish revival was attended with a great influx of converts from without. So commonly works a pure revival upon the world. Very rare is the exception in which the heart of the world does not respond to the heart of the Church.
IV. A fourth feature of a true revival of religion is a thorough reformation of public and private morals. To put away idolatrous worship was what we should call a reformation in morals. Idolatry was immorality concentrated in its most hideous forms. No religious zeal could have been genuine in a monarch which did not sweep the land clean of them.
V. Such awakenings are often followed by periods of temporal prosperity. “The Lord gave them rest round about.” No other civilising power equals that of true religion. It never hurts a man for any of the right uses of this world to make a Christian of him. (A. Phelps.)
A revival: an imperious necessity
The text gives an account of the ancient revival of religion under King Asa. Other revivals are portrayed by the sacred writers. From these we learn--
I. That revivals are by no means new things. Nor are they things of modern invention.
II. That the progress of religion is not in a uniform steady line.
III. That revivals of religion ordinarily commence in humble and obscure ways, and are ordinarily helped on by the humblest instrumentality.
IV. That they are ordinarily accompanied by a great deal of what people are pleased to term excitement.
V. That true revival of religion are marked by marvellous transformations of character and reformations in the life. (G. E. Reed.)
And all Judah rejoiced at the oath.
Judah’s solemn engagement
I.The solemn engagement into which they entered, and the temper they manifested therein.
1. They bound themselves to nothing new. It was to seek the Lord God of their fathers.
2. They swore to do this.
3. They entered into this engagement with great sincerity and with great cheerfulness.
II. The happy consequence of judah’s solemn engagement.“The Lord was found of them.” (Job Orton.)
And He was found of them.--The search that always finds:--
I. The seeking. The highest bliss is to find God, the next highest is to seek Him.
1. Our text lays emphasis on the whole-heartedness of the people’s seeking after God. One reason why the great mass of professing Christians make so little of their religion is because they are only half-hearted in it. If you divide a river into two streams the force of each is less than half the power of the original current; and the chances are that you will make a stagnant marsh where there used to be a flowing stream. “All in all or not at all” is the rule for life in all departments.
2. “They sought; Him with all their heart.” That does not mean that there are to be no other desires, for it is a great mistake to pit religion against other things which are meant to be its instruments and its helps.
3. The one token of seeking God is casting out idols. There must be detachment if there is to be attachment. If some climbing plant, for instance, has twisted itself round the unprofitable thorns in the hedge, the gardener, before he can get it to go up the support that it is meant to encircle, has carefully to detach it from the stays to which it has wantonly clung, taking care that in the process he does not break its tendrils and destroy its power of growth. The heart must be emptied of base liquors if the new wine of the kingdom is to be poured into it.
II. The finding which crowns such seeking.
1. Anything is possible rather than that awhole-hearted search after God should be a vain search. For there are in that search two seekers--God is seeking for us more truly than we are seeking for Him.
2. This is the only direction for a man’s desires and aims in which disappointment is an impossibility.
3. Our wisdom is to make this search. What would you think of a company of gold-seekers, hunting about in some exhausted claim for hypothetical grains--ragged, starving--and all the while in the next gully were lying lumps of gold for the picking up? And that figure fairly represents what people do and suffer who seek for good and do not seek after God.
II. The rest which ensues on finding God. We have no immunity from toil and conflict, but disturbance around is a very small matter if there be a better thing--rest within. A vessel with an outer casing and a layer of air between may be kept at a temperature above that of the external atmosphere. So we may have conflict and strife, and yet a better rest than that of my text may be ours. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Happy earnestness
This verse represents well the happy combination of sacrament and life. It brings before us whole-heartedness for God, with special regard to two of its features.
I. Joy. “And all Judah rejoiced at the oath,” etc. A wholeness of devotedness to God is consistent with every department of activity and every form of interest which is notin itself sinful. It is as a soul to the body of all secular occupation, however absorbing. The wide onward lift of the tidal wave in mid-ocean does not more interfere with the commerce of the countries, the heightening sun of the springtime does not more embarrass the progress of the land over which it smiles, than the full-hearted service of God breaks in upon the lawful interests of a man among the engagements of his every-day existence. This joy implies--
1. Enthusiasm. This may be reckoned the atmosphere which surrounds the joy of whole-heartedness for God.
2. Willingness. A wide compliance with a competent and kindly force that presses on us from without. Predominant willingness contributes largely to a Christian man’s joy.
3. Rightness. The approval of conscience.
4. Undividedness of affection.
II. Prosperousness. “And He was found of them: and Jehovah gave them rest round about.” This signifies--
1. That we find what we seek. There are neighbourhoods where the mists lie so often and so long upon the grand outlines of the landscape, that a clear day is in some sense a day of discovery, of “finding,” though nothing is there then which was not there always. There have been those who for years have looked through a filmy dimness of eyesight upon those they loved, whose movements were to them like the movements of featureless shades; when the films were one day purged from the eyes was it not almost more than a figure of speech they spoke when they said they had “found” those loved faces and forms again? So this energising of the heart for God restores vision, and vision restores reality. God in Christ becomes near.
2. That we miss much that we had hitherto found. Hostile movements from around are comparatively allayed, and the hush that has fallen upon these reflects itself upon the soul in restfulness. (J. A. Kerr Bain, M.A.)
