Let's turn in our Bibles to 2 Chronicles chapter 29. We're going to read from the first verse of the chapter, 2 Chronicles chapter 29, and we're going to read from verse 1 of the chapter. 2 Chronicles 29, verse 1. Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old. And he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them together into the East Street, and said unto them here, Ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense, nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel. Wherefore, the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes. For though our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this, Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel that his fierce wrath may turn away from us. My sons, be not now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, that ye should minister unto him and burn incense. Then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amassi, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites, and of the sons of Merari, Kish, the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehalelel, and of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zima, and Eden the son of Joah, of the sons of Elisaphon, Shemri, and Jehiel, and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah, and Mattaniah, and of the sons of Heman, Jehiel, and Shimei, and of the sons of Jaduthun, Shemiah, and Uzziah. And they gathered their brethren and sanctified themselves, and came according to the commandment of the king. by the words of the Lord to cleanse the house of the Lord. And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the lay bites took it to carry it out abroad into the brook he drawn. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify And on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of the Lord. So they sanctified the house of the Lord in eight days. And in the 16th day of the first month, they made an end. I will end our reading there. For sake of time, the Lord will add His blessing to the reading of His precious Word to all of our hearts. Let's just bow in a wee word of prayer. Our gracious God and our loving Father, We thank thee for thy precious word to our hearts. We rejoice in it to our souls. We thank thee for these times of awakening, for these times when there's been a turning. And our God, we rejoice in all that God has done for our souls and for our land in days gone by. Oh, God, just do it again. We pray that thou would minister to our needs today. And I would speak through Thy precious Word, for it is in Jesus' precious name I would ask these things. Amen. Amen. This year we mark the 150th anniversary of the 1859 revival in Ulster. In 1859 there was a glorious move of God such as had not been seen in our land for centuries. There had been revivals down through the years before, and we think of the Six Mile Water revival and other awakenings. But as far as Ulster as a whole was concerned, this was a mighty move that had not been seen in years. The whole of Ulster was caught up in a movement of God, starting out in the parish of Connor in County Antrim. It began amongst the Presbyterians and was largely through the zeal and devotion of the ministers of the Presbyterian Church that Christ's kingdom was advanced at the time, but not just through them. There were ministers of the Church of Ireland and also ministers from the smaller denominations that played no small part in that great movement. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 32 and 7, remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations, ask thy father and he will show thee thy elders and they will tell thee. There are two mistakes that people are prone to make when thinking about the past. The first is to be caught up, so caught up in the past and so caught up with what God has done in generations gone by that we lose the sense of the fact that God can do it again, that he is still the same as he ever was. On the other hand, there are some Christians who can be dismissive of the great things that God has done in the past. Such an attitude is not scriptural. We have seen how the Lord made his people remember the blessings of days gone by to give thanksgiving to God for what he has done in the past. So I think it would be fitting for us in this 150th year, anniversary year, to take a few Lord's Days. This is about the time, the month of February or March, when the 1859 revival started or traced to, many people would trace it to, And we want to take a few weeks just to think about what God has done in the past. And I want to think about the blessings and legacies of the 1859 revival. And I want to start today by thinking about the beginnings of the 1859 revival, the beginnings of revival as a whole. And we've read this passage of scripture here about the revival in the days of Hezekiah, the king of Judah. And we can see, as we look at it, a very much a parallel between what happened in Hezekiah's day and the revival there and the revival that took place in Ulster in 1859. And I want us to take the parallels today Not only so we can see what God has done in our own land and what God has done in days gone by amongst his people, but so we can see the scriptural nature of what took place even in 1859, so many years ago. And so that God would give us a burden, that God would step in in mighty power. and that we might have a bird to pray that God would do it again, or that God would stir our hearts, that we might have a longing for God's revival blessings in this day in which we live. We need our land changed, we need men and women brought to Christ, and we need a great transforming power to be seen in our midst. So what we want to look at today is the beginnings of revival. We're looking at the beginnings of Hezekiah's revival, and we're going to look at the parallels with what happened here in 1859. And the first thing I want you to see as we look at the beginnings of revival is the background of revival, particularly here in 2 Chronicles 29. You'll notice in verse 3 how the revival started. It says of Hezekiah, he in the first year of his reign in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. Now, you will see that the beginnings of revival starts in the opening of the house of God, the getting back to the true worship of God and that desire to worship him in spirit and in truth. And you look here at this desire of this man. This is a man with a burden. But I want you to see how that In speaking about opening the house of the Lord and opening the temple doors again, it obviously implies that the temple doors had been shut. And indeed we can see that, it says in verse 6, how that the people had turned their backs upon God. In verse 7 it says, also they have shut up the doors of the porch and put out the lamps and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel. And you can see that there, and you can look at the history that is recorded for us in the Bible, and you will find that they were very dark days indeed. Hezekiah's father, Ahaz, had been a very wicked man. If you look in 2 Kings chapter 16, you'll read about Ahaz, his father, We read that he came to the throne when he was twenty years of age, and he died when he was thirty-six, so he reigned for sixteen years. And if you look in 2 Kings 16, verse 3, you have God's divine summary of the life of Ahaz, and it says there, in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made a son to pass through the fire according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. And if you look in the previous verse, it says, He did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord his God, like David his father. And you'll notice how If you read the account, he went through the land, he shut up the temple, he put up idols, he wanted the people to turn to the heathen gods. Indeed, as you read there, he caused his sons to pass through the fire, that is, he offered his son as a burnt sacrifice to Moloch. the God of fire and he put his son to death as an offering to a heathen God. So you can see how the land had sunk down to the very lowest. And as a result of Ahaz's sin, God's anger was kindled against the land and they began to lose battles. It says here, In verse 8 of 2 Chronicles 29, where for the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he had delivered them to trouble and to astonishment. And it goes on to say how their daughters and their sons were in captivity and so on and so forth. They began to lose battles to their enemies. The land began to suffer as a result of what was taking place. It was sinking down in every way and was a day of darkness. And when I look at the background in our own land to the 1859 revival, it was exactly the same. It was a day of darkness. William Gibson, in his history of the 1859 revival, said the cause of evangelical religion stood very low in Ulster. He spoke about an indifference. He spoke about a general deadness that was throughout the professing Protestant churches. Professor John Edgar, right in the same time, spoke about the testimonies of three ministers that he knew. And he said that one of them said that he'd been preaching the gospel as best he could for 11 years without seeing one person profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Another one said that he was alarmed that the people in his church, he said they had what he called, he was the He says that there was a determination among them not to have prayer meetings. He says there was an indifference, a resistance to God. Indeed, he says, he said that he was in despair right before the revival broke out. He says he felt alone. He says he was appalled at the real antagonism that there seemed to be to prayer meetings. You know, in many ways we can look and we see the same among so many of God's people. The prayer meeting is certainly not the most popular meeting in the church. The prayer meeting is certainly not one that God's people run to. But we see that God sent this revival in the midst of everything. Thank God the Lord sent the light in the midst of the darkness. And that's what he did in Hezekiah's day. He broke through in a dramatic fashion. And we shouldn't limit God and put restrictions on God in any way. God can break in in the midst of darkness. Not only do we think of the spiritual conditions here, but I want you to think about the economic conditions, because as we said, Judah had gone through a sharp political downturn. They had lost a lot of their empire. Their land had been taken. It speaks about their sons and their daughters being in captivity. Some of their land was taken. They had lost a number of battles to their enemies who now were over them. And they had lost out economically. It was the same in 1859. In 1857, before the revival broke out, there was a panic and a loss of confidence in the Ohio Bank. And that spread amongst the banks and there was a recession. And more than 5,000 American businesses failed that year. Protest meetings were organized because of the unemployment. People began to protest and began to strike because they were suffering unemployment or it was a danger for them. Now, I don't want to sound as if I'm suggesting that revival has anything to do with economic circumstances. Revival is the sovereign act of a sovereign God. But sometimes God has to bring us up short. Sometimes God has to cause us to think, because in times of economic prosperity, people do not think. They just rely upon themselves. They go on from one thing to another and everything's going so well. Thank you very much. And we have no time for God. We don't need to think about God because everything is going well. Sometimes God just has to put a wee tug on the reins to make us realize that we just don't sail on and everything in the garden is always Rosie. It was a time when the banks began to fail and when economic circumstances were not just what they were before. Not only do we think of the spiritual conditions and the economic conditions, but we think of the moral conditions here. There's a very interesting phrase actually in Second Chronicles, chapter 28 and verse 13 about the times of Ahaz, It speaks of the deaths of Ahaz, and it speaks about the trespass that he made against him. And it also, in the Bible, it says, for the Lord brought Judah low because Ahaz, king of Israel, for he made Judah naked and transgressed sore against the Lord. Isn't that a wee interesting phrase? It says he made Judah naked. In other words, there's indications of a lack of moral restraint. It was the same in 1859. The moderator of the General Assembly in 1859, Dr. William Gibson, said about the evil in existence in the community, and he said, and I quote, foremost among all these and parent of most of them was intemperance. At fairs and markets, sometimes even at funerals, the Whiskey Demon held his horrid carnival, while party brawls and battles mingled with fearful yells and imprecations often closed the scene. In the mid-1850s, it was said of the villages of Kales and Connor that they were rough, godless places. There were fights and brawls in the street. It was a wild place. But in the midst of all that immorality and that sin, God was able to break in. Isn't it interesting that sometimes in the midst of the darkness and in the midst of all that, God is able to change and transform the situation? Oh, it was a dark day, but nothing then, women, is too hard for our God. No heart is too hard for Him. You know, you might have withstood Him many days on saved person. But there's nothing too hard for our God. We notice the background of revival. It was a day of awful situation. It was a day of darkness. But then I want you to think about the burden for revival. Because Hezekiah here is a man with an obvious burden that God would restore his nation afresh. You'll notice that in the very first month of the first year of his reign, he stepped in to do this. And that would indicate that this was a top priority for this man. It's one of the first things he does. He wants to restore the blessing in Judah. He wants to restore the worship of God. It is the thing that he puts top of his agenda. And you'll notice in 2 Chronicles 29, verse 2 and 3, it tells us, he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. According to all that David his father had done, he in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. He wasted no time. This was a top priority. That's a sure mark of a man with a burden. He wanted God to bless the land. And of course, we trace the beginnings, humanly speaking, of the 1859 revival here in Ulster to four men who had a burden. Men who wanted to pray and who prayed in the old schoolhouse in Kells starting in 1857. We can trace it back to 1856, November 1856. There was a lady, an English lady by the name of Mrs Colville. from Gateshead who came over to Ballymena. She was a representative of the Baptist Missionary Society and she was on door to door work. She was knocking doors and she was going around the town of Ballymena witnessing to people on the doorsteps and bringing the gospel to the doors. And she was one day in Mill Street in Ballymena and she came to a house and there was a lady there and Two ladies, actually, they were involved in a conversation with James McQuilkin. And she came to the house, began to speak to the people. And whatever she said about salvation and conversion, it made an impact upon James McQuilkin. And he was a strong kind of an individual. He wasn't willing to give way then and then, but the arrows of conviction were in his heart. It wasn't long. After that, to James McQuilkin came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his saviour. And after he was saved, there was a dramatic change in his life. And a short time after that, there was a meeting in the schoolhouse, the old schoolhouse in Kells, and the schoolmaster and a man named Jeremiah Malili were walking home afterwards. And they began to, and a man called Robert Carlyle as well, the three men were walking home, began to discuss about James McQuilkin. He was from Conor. And they began to think about the change that was in his life. He was a well-known cock fighter at that time, James McQuilkin. He'd given all that up. And they realized there was a change in his life. And they began to debate about this and wondered what had happened to him. And they said, there's certainly something real there. And Manili, he in the midst of it all, he said, you know, I would give my right arm to know God's forgiveness. And God began to speak to Jeremiah Manili. And he wanted to get right with God. And one day in the kitchen of his own home in Jerry's town, Furniske in Kales, He was reading John chapter six and verse thirty seven, all that the Father giveth shall come to me and him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. And he slapped his knee and he jumped up and he said, that's it, I see it now. And God had spoken, and that day he was wondrously saved by the grace of God. Soon, Robert Carlyle and another man by the name of John Wallace, they got saved. And they were encouraged by the Reverend Moore, the Reverend J.H. Moore in Connor Presbyterian Church, to form a prayer meeting, to do something, to gather children together for a Sunday school class and to pray that God would do something. And so at a place called Tanny Break, they had a little Sunday school set up and they began to pray. And then because It was more convenient, there was a more central location in the old schoolhouse at Kells. They moved the prayer meeting to the old schoolhouse at Kells in 1857. And throughout the winter of 1857 and 1858 they continued to pray. Every man brought a harnful of peat with him. of turf with them. And in the other hand, they carried a Bible and they gathered together and they began to pray that God would step in, in mighty revival. One of them, or most of them, had read George Muller's account, his book, The Life of Trust. And they realized that George Muller had obtained mighty answers to prayer. And they said, can God not do it for us? And they began to really pray And they began to really ask God for revival. And from that flame, the flame of revival began to blaze out from their hundred thousand souls. It's estimated they were saved in that 1859 revival. And the cornerstone of their theology was simple. It was faithful. They believed in the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. They believed in the sufficiency of the Holy Scripture and the secret of holy supplication. And isn't it interesting that God moved because here were men with a bird. And isn't it interesting also that in 1857, in the very same month as they started, September 1857, they started the prayer meetings there. Away across in New York, there was a man by the name of Jeremiah Lamphere. And he had a burden to pray as well. And in the old Dutch Reformed Church, in the consistory rooms in the old Dutch Reformed Church, he started a prayer meeting. And he had the prayer meeting and he went up into the room and he waited there for about half an hour. He had the prayer meeting announced. Nobody came. And then after about half an hour, one came and then a few. And there was a few that first. And from that, the prayer meetings there grew. And revival fires began to burn throughout America. The very same month. Surely that's of God. Surely God was doing something. God had given the people a burden to pray. And God, when he begins to move, will send his people a praying. E. M. Bownes, the great prophet of prayer, said every revival of which we have record has been bathed in prayer. The great commentator, Matthew Henry, he declared those words, when God intends great mercy for his people, the first thing he does is set them praying. Before the great awakening of Whitfield and Wesley, there was a Scottish Presbyterian, his name was John Erskine, and he wrote a memorial, as he called it, a little pamphlet pleading with the people of Scotland to unite together in prayer. And a copy was sent to Jonathan Edwards in New England in America. And the great theologian was so moved by what he read that he wrote a response agreeing with it all. And as a result of that response, prayer meetings or prayer unions were set up throughout the country. And God began moving then. The Bible says, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their lands." Brethren, sisters, we need to have a burden to pray. Oh, that God would put that burden in our hearts. Yes, God can answer prayer. It's not just something from the past. This is something that we can have today. But first of all, the first indication of it is when God's people, we, us, you and me, begin to have a burden to pray. So we see the background of revival and the burden for revival. But I want you to see the blossoming of revival. Here in 2 Chronicles 29, we read about the filthiness carried out of the temple. We read about the burnt offerings being re-established. And we read about the gathering of the people to worship. Hezekiah started off this. He had a burden. He wanted the temple to be cleared out, and the doors to be opened, and the worship of God to be started afresh. Of course, the very centre of that is the shed blood, the burnt offerings. We always come to the very centre of every revival. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as Calvary. It's always the Saviour. But look what the Bible says in 2 Chronicles 29 and verse 36. It says, and Hezekiah rejoiced and all the people, that God prepared the people for the thing was done suddenly. So not only was it now Hezekiah, but it says all the people and God here says broke in suddenly. And it is the same with the revival that happened in 1859, 1858. New Year's Day, 1858, the first conversion that could be directly attributed to the prayer meeting took place. And after that, there were conversions every night. At the end of 1858, there were some 50 men taking part in the prayer meeting. And soon the prayer meetings became thronged. So many, indeed, were converted that by the spring of 1859, There were an average of 16 prayer meetings every night of the week in the parish of Connor. And not only that, but soon the spirit of God began, the wind that blew down the Kaleswater to Hochel, Drumal, Portlanone, Ballymena, Broughtshane, Ballyclare and so on. Before long, the flame fanned out through the whole of the province. Jeremiah Meneely was undoubtedly the preacher of the revival amongst the Those that were in the prayer meetings, Reverend J.H. Moore of Conner, Presbyterian, also labored amongst the people, encouraged them to pray. There was a real moving of God. Now, many would start to trace the real start of the moving. God began to move in Conner, but in February or March 1859, the revival spread over to Ahochill. It was within days of the revival taking place in Conner. The Reverend Frederick Buick was the minister's second Presbyterian and the Reverend David Adams, first Presbyterian church in O'Hogill. Now, there was a young man in O'Hogill from O'Hogill named Samuel Campbell, who worked in Kells and Connor. And he attended one of the revival prayer meetings. Now, he wasn't saved, but he went to the prayer meeting. Isn't it amazing that an unsaved person would want to go to the prayer meeting? But he did. And he went along to the prayer meetings and he began to see what God was doing. And you couldn't stay very long in one of those prayer meetings without God beginning to speak. And before long, God in his grace and his mercy had transformed Samuel Campbell. And he realized that God had worked in his life. And not only had God worked in his life, but he had a burden to tell others, particularly his family. He went across to Hoth. One of the weekends he journeyed across to Hoth. And he wanted to see his mother and he began to speak to his mother about the things of God and told her what God had done in his life. Told her about the conviction of sin that God had brought him under and how God had transformed him and given him peace in his heart. And he was particularly concerned about his brother John because his brother John was immoral. He was wicked. And after he'd spoken to his mother, he had such a burden for his brother John that he decided he couldn't go home again or he couldn't go back to Conor and to Kells without speaking to his brother. So he went down to a well-known house of wickedness in the middle of the town of O'Hogill. He knew where his brother John would be there. And he brought John out of that house and began to tell him what God had done and how God had saved him. And he says, In his own testament, his brother was stunned. He didn't know what to say. But you know, God began to work in John's heart. John was known for his wickedness, for his drinking, for his fighting. But God began to work in John's heart. And there was that conviction in his heart. He realized that he could only find peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And John got saved. And John was a wee bit more forward than Samuel. And he wanted to tell others in a more public fashion. So he went to the minister of his church, the Reverend Buick, and he said to him, you know, I want to tell others about what God has done in my heart. He says, I could do it at home, but he says there's not much room in our house. He says it wouldn't all fit in. So the Reverend Buick says, well, why don't you use the church? And so there was a meeting arranged in the church. And he was able to bring his friends and his loved ones in. And there was a big meeting. And all it was, was John getting up to tell others about what God had done in his life. Now, of course, it went through the whole district what had happened. And when the people began to hear what had happened to John, he was well known for his wickedness and his sin. They wanted another meeting. And so there was another meeting arranged. And this time they had the first Presbyterian Church, because it was bigger. It was a new church. It was just built at that time. And it was a lot bigger. And they thought there's so many people want to come to this that we need the bigger church. So they got the bigger church and the meeting was arranged. And some of the people from the prayer meeting, Jeremiah and Eli and James McQualkin and so on, were across. And they had this meeting in the first Presbyterian Church in a huddle. And lo and behold, when they had the meeting, the meeting was so bombed that every room in the place and the stairways and the gallery were absolutely bombed. So full was the church that they began to be concerned about the gallery, the new gallery only just built. They thought it was going to crack. It was going to fall. So in order for the safety of the meeting, they said we'll have to go outside. Now, it was a wet day and a wet evening. And that day had been the fair day in Oaxaca and the cattle had been there and the muck of the cattle, of course, was all over the street. But they went out into the rain and into the muck of the street. And a man, they stood on the steps of the square and they began to preach to the people. And it wasn't long until the people began to cry out for mercy and some of them knelt down in the midst of the muck and the cow dirt in the street and the wet of the street. And they cried out for God to have mercy upon their souls and to save them. And hundreds and many were saved in that place. It's estimated there was a crowd of 3,000 there that day. And men, women, God began to break in in a huffle. And meetings of praise and prayer were arranged. Meetings for praise and prayer and reading of the Scripture and preaching began to be held every night, frequently in the middle of the day. And what a change was wrought of the Spirit of God in that little town. It's not a big place, a hopper even today. But God transformed that town by His grace and mercy. Suddenly, people had no interest in the things of God, came under conviction of sin, and wanted meetings, and wanted meetings every night, and wanted to worship God. Men and women, don't we need a move like that in our land today? God is still the same. That's the challenge. Have we a burden for revival? Have we a burden for God to work? Oh, we think of our loved ones, our friends, our neighbours, those around us, and they're going down to a Christless eternity. Oh, that God would break in and cause that hardness of heart to be broken down and a heart of flesh to be given, so that conviction of sin floods in and men and women realize, like the people of Ahachal, that they need to be saved. That's what happened here. That's what happened in Hezekiah's day. It says the thing was done suddenly. Oh, one month, the people of Ahachal were engaged in their fights, in their immorality, in their drunkenness. And just the next month, God stepped in. And the town was a different town, a different district, a different people, because God had done something. Oh, that men, oh, that God would do it again. And I see God's mighty power in manifest in these days. May the Lord write His Word upon our hearts for His name's sake. Let's just bow in a wee word of prayer.