One Victory Does Not Make One Invincible - Isaiah 38:1-6; 39:1-8 38:1-3: In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. 4-6: Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city. 39:1-2: At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. 3-4: Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them. 5-7: Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 8: Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days. There are a lot of “everyday lessons” that can be gleaned from the Holy Scriptures, lessons that don’t necessarily deal with some particular sin, or class of sins, as according to the law, but lessons that teach those who will listen and learn how to avoid a lot of trouble in their lives. Lessons that can be summed up in the childhood proverb we used to hear, “Look before you leap”, and lessons that when ignored elicit the line that we have quoted so many times in this venue, “Should have read that detour sign.” This is one of them. (This message has become too long for just one posting. This paragraph will be dealt with in the second posting, next week. A lot of us complacently rest in what we might call “a clean slate” because we have not violated a specific “thou shalt not” (at least since we were saved or our last “confession session”), or we have not violated a specific “thou shalt”. We ride high on the last phrase of Romans 6:14: “…for ye are not under the law, but under grace”, and the liberty that we have in Christ, becoming casual and careless in worship, appreciation of the “Lord’s day, and careless about those things that we considered sinful as little as 50 years ago. Therefore we easily become complacent in our self-styled manner of “Christian living”; self-assured in our “self-styled” spirituality and blunder through even our “acts of ministry” like the proverbial “bull in a china closet”, so assured that because we have a “proper and worthy cause” in mind, that we don’t consider the “collateral damage”. We have all heard about the man who used a 12-gauge shotgun to kill the spider on the floor. WE DON’T THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS. It would be an exercise in futility to try to illustrate. Usually the inciting but well hidden – even hidden to the acting individual - is pride, i.e. getting another feather in his cap or preventing embarrassment. King Saul had this attitude very early in his reign when he wanted to kill his own son - despite the great victory his son had just won - just because Jonathan had violated one of Saul’s foolish, not thought out decrees – and did so ignorantly at that. Hezekiah is about to fall into that trap. Let us look back at Hezekiah’s “indiscretion” and see what we can learn, I say “indiscretion” because that is just what it was! It was not a violation of any negative or positive command. In was an un-thought-out act, which if he had thought out, he probably would not have done. “Indiscretion” is being kind. In deeper reality, it was, as we shall see, an “attitude” sin, the sin of pride. The background (38:1-8) reveals 4 points worth considering. 1, Hezekiah was “sick unto death”. None of the parallel accounts shed any light on the nature of his illness, although in a later comment we will observe Josephus’ comment. We would be wasting time and effort speculating. Neither should we try to use the “fig poultice” as a twenty-first century cure. 2. Hezekiah was graciously given advance warning that his sickness was terminal. We have no insight into the Lord’s reasons other than His grace bestowed it, for reasons known only to Himself. Oh but dear reader, you have no guarantee of getting that much warning! The “rich fool” of Luke 12:20: “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” had no such warning! We do not intend to imply, as some commentators do, that Hezekiah was yet unsaved, and feared hell. Given Hezekiah’s history, such an implication would border on blaspheme. But other than the sure and immediate death inherent in the message, “thou shalt die” with the added emphasis “and not live”, the message is clear to the astute reader that you and I must take whatever steps we can to have our house in order and be ready to meet our maker. That is the theme of any good Bible message! (See footnote 4.) However, without impugning Hezekiah’s fine testimony, we dare not pass this scriptural picture without seeing the spiritual implications, implications that are applicable to all of us, whether a faithful, behind the scenes church member, a long serving leader in the church, or somewhere in between. Titus 3:5 says it all, again to the well intentioned, fine moraled humanistic, “high-moraled”, altruistic person seeking to “please God” - or to the highly reputed, successful church leader. It matters not how good a “Christian service” resume you may have! It is “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;” Hear, again, that thundering passage from the lips of our Lord and Savior! “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:21-23) It is into this bracket that I fear so many professing Christians, in all levels of “Christian service” fall; having been blinded by so much “good and proper” teaching of “doctrine and ethics”, but yet void of a straight forward gospel conviction or invitation. We cannot - and may not - judge one another, but no matter where you stand, 2 Corinthians 13:5 is a good exercise. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” These things are not said to shake your assurance of salvation, but to make sure your assurance is not wrongly based - or academic, because you signed a decision card or embraced a doctrine. Amos said it well! “…prepare to meet thy God…” (Amos 4:12) “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” (Acts 16:31) As usual, this writer stands ready to pray for and with any who seek that assurance with sincere intentions. 3. “Hezekiah wept sore.” Considering the relative insecurity for Old Testament believers, which depended so much on the daily and annual “sin offerings”, and the “keeping of the Law”, was he afraid to die, fearing Hell? We cannot see into his heart, but personally, I doubt it, even though v.3 seems to indicate that he was trusting in his own merit. Hezekiah’s prayer was common and acceptable in the Old Testament economy, and Jehovah (The LORD) rewarded men for their “good deeds”, even men such as Jehu (2 Kings chapters 9 & 10), saying “Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” (2 Kings 10:30-31) Commenting on this passage, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown writes, “It was not the mere act, but the spirit of it, which provoked God (2Ch 32:25), “Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted up”; also compare 2Ch 32:31. God “tries” His people at different times by different ways, bringing out “all that is in their heart,” to show them its varied corruptions. Compare David in a similar case (1Ch 21:1–8). Josephus and Calvin also commented: “And besides the distemper itself, there was a very melancholy circumstance that disordered the king, which was the consideration that he was childless, and was going to die, and leave his house and his government without a successor of his own body” Calvin also mentions this: “Besides, at that time he had no children; and there was reason to believe that his death would be followed by a great disorder of public affairs. (2 Kings 21:1.)” Josephus and Calvin also comment on Hezekiah’s swift and sudden grief. Hezekiah was only 39 years old - still young enough to have children, but Manasseh was not born for another 3 years when Hezekiah would have been 41. We are given no indication the Hezekiah had any other wives, as so many of the Jewish kings did. Maybe the later kings learned from Solomon’s sad example. Given Josephus’ comments, it may be that Hezekiah was inclined to pamper Manasseh, who seems to be his first and only child. But we can see that evidently Manasseh was either not well trained or he flat out rebelled at his father’s teaching - and Judah suffered greatly because of it. It is significant to notice that, in spite of Hezekiah’s great faith, and the revival under his reign, unlike his great grandson Josiah and like the “almost” revival in Israel under Jehu,, he did not destroy the “altars” that “made Israel to sin”. This may be what cast the subtle doubt on Hezekiah’s heart that Jamieson, Fausset and Brown expressed above. And it casts doubt on the sincerity of your of my conversion! When I got saved,- by the sovereign grace of God - I threw my last pack of cigarettes in the drop behind the cows. I didn’t keep one pack around in case I might want to go back to smoking. I destroyed my book on how to tell fortunes by the cards, tealeaves, etc. I didn’t give it away for someone else to use. When the people in Ephesus got saved, they destroyed all the books of the occult (Acts 19:19: “Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver”) despite the financial loss. They didn’t leave them around for others to be deceived! Israel suffered an ignominious defeat (Joshua chapter 7) just because one little bit of what God said to destroy had been saved, and hidden - supposedly out of sight. Oh what lessons we should glean! Psalm 76:10: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” Surely, if God tolerates and winks at the sins of the wicked, and uses it for His own glory, He will not slay the righteous for an indiscretion, but just as surely, those hidden sins grief Him - whether those sins are sins a person has not yet become aware of, or sins that a person has tried to hid or justify. We have already seen Hezekiah list his accomplishments as reason for God to prolong his life. As we shall see later, evidently Hezekiah was a proud man, proud enough of his glory and accomplishments to show them off and empress the envoys from this rising kingdom, a kingdom that in a little over 100 years would destroy all the glory of Hezekiah’s kingdom and take all his riches for their own. It should make Psalm 139:23: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:” a little more meaningful to us. May this verse be the prayer of our hearts - and may it keep us from complacently coming to our prayer time, confident in our “doctrinal correctness” (whether assumed or actual), or our assumed high moral practices. Let us never abuse the blessed boldness of Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” by invading the throne room of God with unclean hands and unprepared hearts. (To be continued) Pastor Ray 271 Gray Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850-8761 607-272-6240 / 607-351-6666 ray4be@hotmail
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 18:35:00 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015