Don Graham Revival Ministries

"The Tender Heart"

I Kings 22

The greatest single personal burden I carry daily is the desire to be a man with a tender heart. As a very young boy I bought into the philosophy of my parents and peers about macho manhood and was led to believe that tenderness was tantamount to weakness. How foolish! Yet these early impressions were so profound I struggle to this day finding it easy to be tough yet hard to be tender.

The burdens over this issue accelerated over the last years as I’ve come to realize that the only heart that God can revive is a tender heart. This realization has been brought home to me from a study of the life of Josiah and the revival/reform experienced in his day. Josiah had a tender heart which provided fertile soil in which God could work.

NOTE: A man with a tender heart—

I. REFUSES ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO HOLINESS (V. 2)

Providentially coming to the throne when he was eight years old (v.1) Josiah, from the beginning, set out to do what was right in the sight of God refusing to deviate by turning aside to the right hand or the left. And this, in spite of the fact that he followed the lengthy and grossly iniquitous reign of his father and grandfather, Amon and Manasseh. Seeing through the folly of his ancestors Josiah rejected any alternative plan offered, any lifestyle suggested, that would offer success other than doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord.

II. RESTORES THE HOUSE OF GOD (VS. 3-7)

Seeing the disgraceful condition of the house of God, desecrated by his father and grandfather and neglected by the people of God for years, Josiah sets out to repair, renovate and restore the temple to its rightful place among the people of God. It took a strong man to do this. Josiah was no weakling, but rather a man with a tender heart that produced incredible strength within him. A man with a tender heart will ever be burdened with the state of the house of God. He will grieve over and stand against all that will disgrace the house of God and the people of God.

III. RESPONDS IN HUMILITY TO THE WORD OF GOD (VS. 8-11)

When the Scriptures were found in the temple and read to Josiah he immediately rent his clothes (v.11) and repented before God for his own sin and the sin of his people and fathers. Driven by a tender heart to restore the temple, the lost Scriptures were found.

A building program results in revival! Wow! The Scriptures are lost in many a house of God and in the lives of many professing Christians. Josiah had led the people to fund the work that led to the finding of the Word that led him to flee the wrath. That is the response of a tender heart to God—when the Word speaks, God speaks and men with tender hearts are broken over their sin and turn promptly to obey the Word.

IV. RECOGNIZES THE CLEAR INDICTMENT OF THE WORD (VS. 12-18)

As he hears the Word of God read to him, Josiah promptly sees that the people have grievously defied God and thus the handwriting is on the wall.He quickly turns to seek the godly counsel of Huldah the prophetess. Men with tender hearts are ever open to the wise counsel of Godly people around them and will seek their help.

V. RETAINS THE ABILITY TO WEEP (VS. 19-20)

A man with a tender heart is not locked down with fake images of manhood. Instead he can weep readily and profusely. Because you...wept before Me (v. 19), God is moved by the sincere and natural hot tears of repentance and earnest tears of a desperate man crying out for the mercy of God upon his people.

Josiah's display was all public, unashamed to let his people see him in sackcloth, humbling himself before God, crying out to God in the wail and anguish of his soul. With such a sacrifice God is well pleased! (Psalm 51:17) With such a broken man God is pleased to dwell (Isaiah 57:15) and to such a man God will bring revival! Amen and Amen!!

When George Whitefield, in February 1739, was preaching to the Kingswood coal miners in the open air, the power of God fell upon the twenty thousand assembled. The first evidence of the Spirit working on the rude uncouth listeners was the deep silence; the next and still more convincing was the preacher’s observation of the white gutters the tears made which fell profusely down their cheeks, black and unwashed from the coal pits. Oh, do it again, Lord!!

Following the delivery of four sermons at the King of Kings Baptist Church in Capetown, South Africa, a middle-aged man came up to me weeping and thanked me saying, Something happened to me today for the first time in over twenty-five years. He explained that during that twenty-five years he had buried his father, mother and own son, and never shed a tear. He walked away wiping tears away! Oh, thank God!

Yes, yes, yes Lord-Do it again!