Believers sometimes drift away from the Lord. When that is the case, they need to be restored to fellowship and service. Such a response could be called restoration, renewal, or even revival. Whatever its name, the question is, how is it done? The recipe for restoration is recorded in 2 Chronicles 15. Join me as we look at that chapter of Scripture, 2 Chronicles 15. In the first part of this chapter, there is a revelation. In the second part, there is a response to that revelation. And finally, the third part of this passage is the result of that response. So let's start with the revelation itself. Verse one says, now the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Odin. The Spirit of God came upon a prophet who is only mentioned here in all of the scripture. Verse two says, this prophet went to meet Ahaz and said to him, hear me Ahaz and all of Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you." The message from the prophet was that that message sparked, ignited a revival in Asa's day, as the rest of the passage will reveal. For verse three says, for a long time, Israel had been without the true God, without a teaching priest and without the law. Now, this is the explanation that the prophet is given, that for a long time, the Southern kingdom had been without the Lord, a teaching priest or the Mosaic law. Without the Lord meant without his presence and his blessing. And without the law means without knowledge or obedience to it. So he goes on to say in verse four, but when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel and sought him, he was found by them. And in those times there was no peace to one who went out nor to one who came in. but a great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the land. So the nation was destroyed by nation and city by city for God troubled them with every adversity." Asa, and his men were jubilant over the recent success against overwhelming odds. As they returned to Jerusalem, the Lord had a lesson for them. First, the prophet reminds them that the Lord was with them because they had sought him, but he would forsake them if they forsook him. And history proved more times than not that Israel had forsaken the Lord, and consequently they had no peace, but were continually beaten by their enemies. But when the nation sought the Lord, they sought Him always ready to forgive and to restore. So the prophet is reminding Asa of the lessons of a bygone day, primarily during the period of the judges. So he concludes by saying in verse seven, but you be strong and do not let your hands be weak for your work shall be rewarded. This is the revelation. That's what I'm calling the revelation. In verses one to seven, the prophet speaks to the king Asa and simply says, remember, when you're with the Lord, the Lord is with you. When you're not with the Lord, there's trouble and adversity. So be strong and do not let your hands be weak for your work shall be rewarded if you are strong and if you seek the Lord. That's the revelation the prophet gave to the king. As I mentioned a moment ago, the second part of the passage is the response. And when Asa heard these words, verse 8, and prophesied the prophet and the prophecy of the prophet, He took courage and removed the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin, from the cities which he had taken in the mountains of Ephraim. And he restored the altar of the Lord that was before the vestibule of the Lord." In other words, the king responded to the word of the prophet with enthusiasm. He stepped up his reformation program, immediately removing more idols, not only from his own land of Judah, but from the cities of Ephraim, which he had taken in battle. Asa responded to this message from the prophet by intensifying his destruction of the idols and repairing the great bronze altar of the Lord's temple, which for some unspecified reason had suffered damage. The word courage, the Hebrew word, means to be strengthened, to be courageous, to be resolved. Asa was resolved to remove the abominable idols. So the formula for renewal, revival, or restoration, and removal, and restoration. Let me repeat that. The formula for revival is resolution, removal, and restoration. Asa's response included both a renewal of the attack on idolatry and a promotion of worship of the Lord. The next verse tells us, Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those who dwelt with them, from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon. And they came over to him in great numbers from Israel, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him. The writer counted Simeon among the northern tribes because many of the Semonites altogether lived within the tribe of Judah, but they aligned themselves, I should say, with their northern brethren. So many of the Semonites had apparently moved north into Israel, but they gathered together. So we're told in verse 10, so they gathered together at Jerusalem. in the third month of the 15th year of the reign of Asa. The people mentioned in verse nine gathered together at Jerusalem. And the dates that are given indicate that this would have been similar to our May or June during the year. And the specific year was 896 BC. So what did they do when they get? Verse 11 says, they offered to the Lord at that time 700 bulls, 7,000 sheep from the spoils that they had brought. Asa restored the altar in the temple and consecrated it with sacrifices. He called for a solemn assembly at Jerusalem, offered parts of the spoils that he had taken in war, and he bound the people with an oath to seek the Lord. As one author says, using some of the livestock that they seized from the villages they conquered, the priest offered up sacrifices of 700 cattle and 7,000 sheep and goats. Then they entered into a covenant, verse 12, to seek the Lord. of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul, whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." This is an incredible statement. Asa responds to the prophet's challenge by rededicating the temple, himself, and his people to the Lord and to the Mosaic covenant. He left no room for dissenters. All who did not obey the covenant were executed. The verse goes on to say, the chapter goes on to say in verse 14, then they took an oath before the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting and trumpets and ran horns. The oath was not given unwillingly. They took it with the utmost cheerfulness and they demonstrated their joy and their gladness with loud music. Now, what we've seen in this chapter so far is that Asa is king and a prophet comes along, tells them they've been without the Lord and they've been without the law. So Asa institutes, pick a word, restoration, renewal, revival, whatever word you want to use, they decided to come back to the Lord. So we've seen the revelation, they were out without the Lord, and the response, they got rid of the idols and they came back to the Lord. Now, what happens next, I'm calling the result. Remember at the beginning I said there's three parts to this chapter, the revelation, the response, and now the result of that response. Look at verse 15. And all Judah rejoiced at the oath that they had sworn with all their heart and sought him with all their soul. And he found them and the Lord gave them rest all around. This verse is telling us that all of the Southern Kingdom rejoiced at the oath that they had made, and the Lord gave them peace. That's the result. They rejoiced at the oath, verse 15 says, and the Lord gave them rest all around. That's the result of their coming back to the Lord. Verse 16 says, he also renewed Micah, the mother of Asa the king, from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image to Asherah and Asa cut down her obscene image and crushed and buried it in the brook Kidron. This is an interesting turn of events. His own mother had been involved in idolatry, and so he removed it, that image, which means a horrible thing in Hebrew, a repulsive thing, a detestable thing. He removed the queen to show that he put spiritual purity above family loyalty. So she was no longer the queen. Perhaps the most striking evidence of his reformation is his removal of her. And by the way, it says that she was the queen mother, but some have pointed out that technically she was probably his grandmother. At any rate, she got removed. Verse 17, but the high places were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was loyal all his days. Now remember, the high places were where they stationed idols. After all that he did in removing idols, including the idols of his grandmother, then verse 17 says, but the high places were not removed from Israel. meaning they were not removed from the Northern Kingdom. Israel here stands for the Northern Kingdom. His revival did not result in the removal of higher places in Israel, even though he restored them in the Southern Kingdom. So Asa eradicated foreign worship from the Southern Kingdom, except some of the higher places still remained in the Northern Kingdom. He was loyal to the Lord, though. Look at verse 17. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was loyal all his days. The Hebrew word translated loyal means complete, perfect, full, at peace, blameless, it has been translated. Fully committed, it's been translated. Wholly true, it has been translated. So Asa's heart was not sinless. it was blameless all of his days. God considered a person blameless when he or she deals with his or her sin appropriately rather than ignoring them. So it's important. The latter part of verse 17 says, his heart was loyal all of his days. It wasn't perfect, but when sin came up, he dealt with it and he was loyal to the Lord. Then verse 18 goes on to say, he also brought into the house of God the things of his father had dedicated and that he himself had dedicated silver and gold and utensils. The zeal for the house and worship of the Lord marked Asa as a true son of David. Treasures were brought into the temple instead of taken out. He also enriched the temple with silver and gold. presumably to help replace some of that had been plundered in his grandfather's day by the king of Egypt. One last verse. Verse 19 says, and there was no war until the 35th year of the reign of Asa. Apparently, this is a reference to the 35th year after the division of the kingdom, not the 35th year of Asa's reign. The same is true of the 36th year referred to in chapter 16 verse 1. His work was rewarded as the Lord had promised through the prophet, and he had peace all the days of his reign. Now. Let's talk about all of this. This chapter is simply saying, when Asa heard the message from the prophet of the Lord, he and the people wholeheartedly responded to the Lord. As a result, the Lord blessed them. Now, it can't get any simpler than that. The prophet comes along and reveals there's people had drifted away from the Lord and the law. and they respond by restoring true worship of the Lord, and the Lord bless them. So the formula for restoration, or if you want, call it renewal. Some prefer the word revival. But the formula is resolution. We're going to do this. removal of the sin, in this case, idolatry, and the restoration of properly following the Lord. Real simple. Make a choice. We're gonna serve the Lord. Remove the problem, the sin, and start serving the Lord as he says in his word. Someone has said there are two types of revival. Some revivals are occasioned when God's people obtain new heights of godliness never achieved before. Other revivals are occasioned when God's people return to a level of godliness that is God's will from which they had departed. It is the second type that was more characteristics of the revivals in the Southern Kingdom. Every revival in Israel's history involved returning to the law of Moses. Kenneth Yates wrote an article entitled Seeking God, Hebrews 11.6 and 2 Chronicles 15.2. In it, he said, and I quote, in Hebrews 11.6, we're told that God rewards those who seek Him. In this context, the author is talking about eternal rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. God does not hide from us as his children. He wants us to seek him. We will find him if we do. We will be greatly rewarded in the process. He goes on to write, recently I was reading through the book of 2 Chronicles and found a great Old Testament example of what Hebrews 11.6 teaches. Asa, the king of Judah. Idolatry was a constant problem with the Jews, both in the northern kingdom and in the southern. We're told that Asa was a good king and did right in the sight of God. In 2 Chronicles 15-2, we're told that God sent a prophet to Asa and told him that if he sought the Lord, he would find them. God would reward him if he did so. Clearly, this is a great parallel to Hebrews 11-6. In the verses that follow in 2 Chronicles, we see how the promise of God worked its ways out in the life of Asa. In chapter 15, we saw how Asa sought God. He removed idols from Judah. He restored the altar in the temple. He made sacrifices to the Lord. He convinced his people to seek the Lord. He even removed his own mother from the position of authority because she was an idol worshiper. And how did God reward Asa for seeking after him? God gave him peace from all his enemies, 1519. He had a successful reign as king over his people. God wants to reward his people in whatever age they live. He wants us to seek him, and he is seeking the people who do so. When we look for him, he is looking for us. Asa experienced that. And so can we. If we seek the rewards that come from being faithful to the Lord, both in this life and the one to come, we can rest assured that God will ensure that our quest is successful. But in chapter 16, everything changes. Asa quit seeking the Lord. When he found himself in a bind, he sought the help of a pagan king instead of the Lord. Even the Lord had brought him victory in battle before," 16, 8, he had forgotten what God had done. As a result of his lack of trust in the Lord, Asa experienced wars for the rest of his time as king, which is mentioned in chapter 16, verse 9. They also impart other areas or impacted other areas of Asa's life He became angry at God's prophet. He oppressed his people. When he became sick to the point of death, he would not go to the Lord for help, 1612. When Asa sought the Lord, he was rewarded by the Lord. When he did not seek the Lord, he experienced the opposite. In the midst of the account of Asa's rebellion against God, the author of 2 Chronicles adds an additional theological point. A prophet reminded Asa that God looks for those who are committed to Him. In other words, God seeks those who seek Him. End of quote. a well-stated lesson from this chapter. If you seek the Lord, the Lord will bless you. In Asa's case, it was peace. And frankly, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. So if we seek the Lord, he will bless us. And if we don't, we will not have his blessing. Father, thank you for giving us this reminder that if we seek you wholeheartedly, you will bless us. Thank you for that. And thank you for this reminder that those who don't don't receive your blessing. So, Lord, grant us your grace to seek you so that we can find your blessing. In Jesus' name, amen.