2nd Chronicles chapter 32 and
verse 24. In those days Hezekiah was sick
to the death and prayed unto the Lord and he spake unto him
and he gave him a sign. But Hezekiah rendered not again
according to the benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted
up. Therefore there was wrath upon
him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding, Hezekiah humbled
himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them
in the days of Hezekiah. and Hezekiah had exceeding much
riches and honour and he made himself treasuries for silver
and for gold and for precious stones and for spices and for
shields and for all the manner of pleasant jewels. Storehouses
also for the increase of corn and wine and oil and stalls for
all manner of beasts and coats for flocks. Moreover, he provided
him cities and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance,
for God had given him substance very much. This same Hezekiah
also stopped the upper water course of Gihon and brought it
straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah
prospered in all his works. Howbeit, in the business of the
ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to
inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him
to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. Now
the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness, behold, they
are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of
Amos, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. And
Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest
of the sepulchres of the sons of David. And all Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death, and Manasseh
his son reigned in his stead. Amen, may God bless to us this
reading from his word. The Lord Jesus Christ's blessings are not material. They are spiritual. And perhaps
this lesson of properly being able to understand and discern
the blessings of the Lord is one of the least understood in
all our Christian experiences. We are all guilty of this, I
believe. We naively correlate material
blessing with God's goodness towards us. And I believe that such an assumption
exposes how little about the Saviour, about His ways, and
about our own hearts that we truly understand. Is it not the case that we look
around and we regard those who have much as being prosperous
in this world and blessed? and those who are troubled as
being those who struggle most in their life's experience. But
what if the Lord is pleased to be blessing those who struggle
and rejecting those who have much? We're not alone in that general
perception. In Matthew chapter 19, we encounter
an account, a narrative there about a rich young ruler. Those are three descriptions
that are given of that man. Rich, young, and a man of authority. A man of prestige, a man of honor
in his community. He had everything going for him.
Who wouldn't want to be such a man? And surely this was indicative
of the blessings of God upon him. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke
these words. He said to his disciples, I say
unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. I'm
not going to spiritualize that. The Lord meant what he said.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Listen to
the reaction of his apostles, his disciples. When his disciples
heard this, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can
be saved? Now, why were they amazed? Because their whole preconception,
their whole understanding based on an Old Testament narrative,
was that if people were good, and if people were obedient,
then they would be blessed. If people followed the ways of
God, then they would prosper. So if a man prospered, it was
indicative of the fact that he was being blessed. Who then can
be saved if the people that are being blessed can't be saved? If a rich man can't enter into
the kingdom of heaven, who then can? Jesus beheld them and said unto
them, with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. The rich young ruler went away
sorrowful, But here is a woman with an issue of blood and a
blind man wrapped in rags at the wayside begging. Here is
a centurion and he carries in his arms a dying child and a
lame man that lay for decades at the side of a pool. Here is
a demoniacal self-abuser. What do these people have in
common? A troubling, physical, immediate
need that drove them to the Lord Jesus Christ. that caused them
to come to him for help. You see, the contrast that is
being made is that those who prosper, those who have everything
going for them, they have no need of help from the Lord. But those who are weary, who
are downtrodden, downcast, who are beaten up, who are impoverished,
those who are sick, those who can't help themselves. They are the ones who find the
Saviour to be a willing and a ready helper. So where is the blessing? Who is most blessed? Those who
in their well-being have little need for the Lord, or those who
in their struggles feel that they cannot cope for themselves. Were the troubles of these people
a curse or a blessing? Anything that brings us to the
Lord Jesus Christ is a blessing. Anything that brings us to our
knees before Him is a blessing. And sad to say, it often takes
the Lord to take something away from us in order to bring us
to our knees. And so the things that are taken
prove to be the blessing, and they drive us and bring us to
the Lord. No one here this morning, no
one here this morning is without a trouble of one kind or another. Employ it. Employ your troubles. Take them to the Lord. See if
he is ready to hear your prayers. Take those things which lie upon
your heart, those things that burden you, those things that
beat you down, those things that cause you anxiety, those things
that make you wonder whether life's worth living and whether
you can go on. Take them to the Lord. Hear me,
take them to the Lord. And see if there's not a blessing
in those very things for you. at the foot of his throne. God grant that all our troubles
in this world be a gate, a gateway and a door to greater communion
and familiarity with the Lord Jesus, our Saviour. And they
will be blessings to us and our weaknesses will be a source of
spiritual strength. And the opposite is true as well,
because anything that separates us from the Lord, anything that
makes us less aware of His presence, anything that dilutes and lessens
our spiritual dependence upon Him, is dangerous to our souls. And today we have before us a
case study from the life of Hezekiah. And the first thing I want to
point out in his life was the danger he encountered in prosperity. the danger in prosperity, because
what happened here in this man's life, and we have, I trust, in
some way, appreciated and benefited from reflection upon various
episodes in this man's experience over recent weeks. But here as
he gets towards his later years, when the Lord has proved to him
that he is a delivering saviour, We find that self-dependence
and pride of heart rises up in Hezekiah. Following the destruction
of Sennacherib's army, Hezekiah's currency, Hezekiah's reputation
soared. Suddenly, from being simply the
next nation on the Assyrian catalogue of countries to be destroyed,
Hezekiah was the king in whose country the Assyrian army had
been completely destroyed. and the nations around about,
realising that Sennacherib was a man upon whom the blessing
of God obviously rested, were eager to come to him and make
friends with him and honour him and build him up and enrich him
and speak kindly to him. We always must be careful not
to be people who regard people for their wealth or their status. We have a poet back in the United
Kingdom, in Scotland, and he used to say, the stamp is but
the guinea's mark, the man's the goud for all that. And what
he's saying is this, a stamp on a coin, bump, tells you what
that's worth. But it's the man that's the gold. It's the man that's the material
upon which that stamp is marked. And so it is that we should regard
men and women, not because of their position, as these did
to Hezekiah, but for the individual that they are, for the soul created
in the image of God. And let us not despise the poor,
or the weak, or the needy. And let us not be running to
those who are important and wise. The Lord grant us such an attitude. He gained wealth from the nations
around about. He had given everything that
he had to Sennacherib. We learned that in the early
part of his experience. He gave everything that he had
to try and deflect the oncoming army. But he gained wealth, no
doubt from the dead army that was outside Jerusalem. An army
in those days would have been raping and pillaging as it went. Whatever it found in the cities
that it destroyed, it would simply pack up in its bags and carry
with it on to the next place until they had destroyed everything
they wanted and they would go back enriched to their own lands.
That's how it worked. And so he was able to take the
armor and he was able to take the spoil from the army of the
Assyrians that was dead and all the plunder that they possessed.
And we are told in 2 Chronicles 32 verse 23, many brought gifts
unto the Lord to Jerusalem and presents to Hezekiah, king of
Judah, so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from
thenceforth. The Lord Jesus Christ says, Luke
6, 26, There's a lesson there perhaps. But the consequence
of Hezekiah's deliverance and the subsequent prosperity that
he enjoyed was that pride rose in his heart. His heart was lifted
up, not to God in gratitude for what he now experienced, but
for himself. And in 25, verse 25, we read,
Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him,
for his heart was lifted up. Therefore there was wrath upon
him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. But before we get too critical
of Hezekiah, before we become critical of this man, let us
pause and reflect upon our own hearts. If the Lord chastens his own
dear people, to recover and to restore them. Is this not a blessing
too? If the Lord sends trials and
difficulties into our life in order to bring us to our knees,
is this not a blessing too? Do we only thank God for the
good things that we get? Our nature, our flesh, it always
runs to its own things. It always runs to the essential. It always runs to fleshy things.
And that is why we constantly need the correction of God. We need to be reminded of grace. We need to be reminded of mercy. We need to be brought again and
again before the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he has done and
all that he has suffered for our spiritual well-being. Because
if we don't, we think too highly of ourselves. We imagine ourselves
to be in some way righteous enough to have earned and deserved and
merited the goodness of God. And the things that we possess
and the things that we enjoy, we allow pride to rise in our
hearts. I'm not so sure that I want to
say of Hezekiah's situation that here was a man who was being
disobedient. I think I want to say rather
here was a man in whom the Spirit of God was moving to teach him
more about his own heart and cause him to grow closer to his
Saviour. It may be comforting for us to
note three applications, three quick applications here with
respect to the church and to our own hearts in the case of
Hezekiah. The first one is this, that despite
Hezekiah's pride of heart, the Lord did not let the king continue
long in his waywardness. Like a patient father, the Lord
Jesus Christ leads and guides and teaches his children to follow
him, to learn of him, to depend upon him for all spiritual good. And it's the case that the means,
the way in which those lessons are learned are very often because
things happen to us that we would rather didn't happen to us. That
troubles come and troubles shake us and they cause us to reflect
upon what the Lord is saying to us. as if to shake us out
of a slumber or to waken us up from our thoughtlessness. Let us therefore be careful not
to kick against the pricks of his correcting providences, but
to see them as the gracious hand of a loving father, who is patient
with his children and whose mercy endures. Secondly, as a true
child of God, which Hezekiah was, he understood the workings of
the Spirit of God in his life. He understood the message that
Isaiah brought him. So we could sit and be critical
of Hezekiah and we could say, ah, we wouldn't be like that,
but we would. And we are. And Hezekiah understood. Do we understand? Hezekiah realized
what the Lord was doing here. And we are told that he humbled
himself for the pride of his heart. Just as a little aside, note
with me please that discipline was not Isaiah's job, and nor
is it the church's job. The voice of the Lord will be
heard by all those that are his, supposing he has to shake them
to the core in order to bring them before him. And third, by
way of application, let us guard our own hearts in remembering
that Hezekiah needed to have these lessons repeated, repeated. You see, you don't learn your
lessons, do you? You just don't. The reason why
we have to come back week after week after week into the presence
of the Lord to hear the gospel, to hear these things said, is
because the natural man, the pride of heart, that which is
our flesh, is rising every morning. Every morning. It gets out of
bed with us. Hezekiah was a sinner just like
us and he needed these lessons to be repeated in his own heart. Second Chronicles 32 verse 31
we read, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of
Babylon, listen, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes
of Babylon, God left him to try him that he might know all that
was in his heart. That wasn't God knowing all that
was in Hezekiah's heart. That was Hezekiah knowing all
that was in Hezekiah's heart. The Lord will bring us into experiences,
bring us into difficulties, bring us into places where we feel
as if the Lord has left us. Despite his promise to the contrary,
in order for us to learn the state of our own hearts. The next thing I want to point
out from this passage is that Hezekiah's sickness is said to
be unto death. Now, the narrative, I think,
is pretty straightforward, so I'm not going to rehearse simply
the story. If you are not familiar with
the story of Hezekiah in these matters here about the Dial of
Ahaz, as it is called, then, by all means, read it again.
But I want to simply make one or two points about the way in
which Hezekiah approached the Lord in these chapters or in
these verses. And particularly in verses one
to three, where we're told that Hezekiah's sickness was unto
death, the prophet Isaiah comes to him and he says, get your
house in order, Hezekiah, because you're a dead man. And we're told there in verse
2, then Hezekiah turned, oh sorry, I'm now, right, I'm now reading
back in the original chapter in 2 Kings chapter 20. The problem, I shouldn't say
the problem, they, The thing about the story of Hezekiah is
that it is repeated in three different places. It's in Isaiah,
it's in 2 Kings, and it's in Chronicles. And in order to endeavor
to do justice to the narrative, I've had to pull in verses from
each of the locations. I'm now referring to 2 Kings
chapter 20 and verse 2. And we're told there that he
turned his face to the wall and prayed unto the Lord, saying,
I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now 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. Now remember, this man has just
been told that he's about to die. Now Hezekiah's prayer is sometimes
criticised because it is said he seems to think too highly
of himself. Some very significant commentators
have made that point, Martin Luther amongst them. But I say this, I disagree I
think there is much to be admired in that prayer, and I'll tell
you why. First, it was a secret prayer. Now, you and I have got to know
about this prayer, but that's only because the Holy Spirit
has recorded it in the pages of our scriptures. This was a
secret, no one heard this prayer. We're told that Hezekiah turned
his face to the wall. This was done in secret. This
was done quietly. It was a private prayer. It was
his personal speaking to God. And therefore we have to recognize
the way in which this prayer was given and the thoughts that
were in his heart as he made this prayer. His pleadings were
the prayer of a dying believer to his Lord. And I think that we don't read
this verse in the context of Hezekiah's imagined own self-worth,
but we read it in the context of his knowledge as a believer
where his righteousness truly lay. He was pleading the merits of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Christ can any sinner
walk before God in truth. That's what he says. I have walked
before thee in truth and with a perfect heart. Now, we've been
told repeatedly that this man Hezekiah humbled himself. You
don't humble yourself if you don't know you've got sin. You
don't repent if you don't know that you've got sin. And so here
is a man who is saying, I've walked before you in truth and
righteousness of heart. Where? Not his own, but another's. He is speaking here about the
fact that there is a righteousness that he possesses that is not
his own. And he is coming before God at
the very moment when he expects to die in the very experience
of extreme pain with the sickness unto death. And he is coming
as a broken man before the Lord. He comes with a perfect heart.
And what is it to do good in the sight of God but to trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ? Show me any good that a man has
in his life beyond trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for all
his acceptance with God. The third thing is this, that
I believe that the cause of Hezekiah's sore weeping is not the prospect
of death. He never once asks not to die. That's not his prayer. It wasn't the fact that he was
dying or that he feared death or that he didn't want to die
that causes this weeping. No, this man is a believer who
trusts in God. This man is the heir of the promises
of God. This man has seen the covenant
of God at work in his whole life. He has, from being a young man,
placed his faith and his trust upon the promises of God. And
now, upon his deathbed, he's confused. Now upon his deathbed,
he's distressed because he is dying without an heir. What are the covenants that were
given to David? What are the covenants that he
has spoken about all through these years? But that David's
line would produce the Messiah. Hezekiah was that line. Hezekiah knew that from his own
loins, from his own seed, the Messiah would come. That was
the line. And he wept bitterly because
in his confusion and his distress, he's suddenly thinking to himself,
have I got this all wrong? Have I made a mistake? Is God
not going to honour his promises? Is this covenant to David going
to end here in this line? Might it be possible that my
life is going to jeopardise the whole of the plan of salvation? Had Hezekiah's faith in God all
these years been misplaced? Was his Lord not, after all,
the God that he had trusted? I do not doubt that Satan attacks
men and women in the last minutes of their life with such a ferocity
that we probably won't have experienced that any other time through the
years of our ages. I have known men who have looked
forward, looked forward to the day of their death for years
before it happened, as their bodies became weaker and they
became frailer and anticipated their own demise. And at the
end, they struggled. They struggled. And here's a
man who is struggling in the face of death. Here is a man
who is beginning to have doubts about all the promises that God
had given. Here is a man who is beginning
to say, have I made a mistake? His assurance is being assaulted
by doubt and by Satan. We must thank the Lord that it
is not our faith as a cause that saves us. It is not our faith
as a cause that saves us, but the precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I support this opinion that
these were the things that were weighing upon Hezekiah's mind
by this simple fact that if this was such a poor prayer, as some
have suggested, then would the Lord have answered it so speedily,
and given him these blessings so readily? The Lord heard his
prayer as soon as it was uttered, and the covenant God responded. Now listen to this, you don't
need to look it up. It's here in, well, it's verse
five, look it up if you like. He speaks to Isaiah, right before
Isaiah is out of the palace. He has just walked out of Hezekiah's
sick room where he's lying in his bed dying. Hezekiah has turned
his face to the wall. He has made this prayer before
Isaiah is out of the palace. He is told to turn again and
to speak to Hezekiah. And these are the words that
he is to speak. Thus saith the Lord. Listen, this is great.
The God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer. Thus saith the Lord, the God
of David thy father. What is that? That is a reinforcement,
that is a reminding of the fact that this is the same covenant
God. The same covenant God that Hezekiah
had suddenly had cause to question was reminding him of the promises
that he had made. I have heard thy prayer, I have
seen thy tears. Behold, I will heal thee. On
the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. James 5 verse 16 says, the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And Hezekiah was given 15 more
years. Let's come back to that in a
moment. I want to mention something else
about the sign that was given, the shadow on the dial of Ahaz,
the sign of the shadow returning 10 degrees upon the dial. Again, read the narrative for
yourself again if you will, but let us note that Hezekiah was
given a choice. Now that speaks in itself of
the miraculous. He had a choice. Let's call it
free will. He could choose whether he wanted
the shadow to go forward or the shadow to go back. Whichever
one he chose there, that was what the Lord was going to give
him for a sign. He said it's an easy thing for
the shadow to go forward. Let's see it going back. Make
the shadow go back 10 degrees. Now, the implications of that,
the natural science behind this event, is truly astonishing. I don't know whether you can
begin to think about what this means, but this means that the
world stopped and started to spin in the opposite direction.
Now, people will just mock that and say that's impossible, that
the crust would break up, the core would rip the globe apart. Well, you know, Let's not forget
that it was the Lord God who made it in the first place. And
he made it by simply saying, let it be. And he controls it. And he has made the earth and
the fullness thereof. Genesis 18 verse 14 says, is
anything too hard for the Lord? So let me say that if you've
got a problem about the implications of this shadow going back 10
degrees, don't take it up with me, take it up with the maker. Because I don't have the answers
as to how this miracle was possible. But even to the extending of
the hours of a day, the miracle was God's working. We have precedent,
we speak about Joshua's long day when he was in a battle and
the day lasted almost double the length of time. But here
we're speaking about something different. Hezekiah's request
extended the day by 10 degrees, whatever those 10 degrees were,
and the Lord extended his life. So this was the parallel, this
was the picture that we were being given here. As the day
was extended, so 15 years were added to the king's life. And
upon the third day after his sickness, he was able to worship
again in the house of the Lord. I wonder if there was anything
laid upon Hezekiah's heart in these hours. about the picture
of a dead man rising after three days. And I wonder if it was
applied with any spiritual meaningfulness to the soul of this child of
God in the coming years before he finally entered into his spiritual
rest. 15 more years in this world. Have you ever wondered what difference
it would make to your life if you knew the day you would die? Have you ever wondered how you
would live if you knew the day that you would die? What might
you do differently? If you knew that you were going
to die on a certain date, what might you do differently? The Bible says that the day and
date of our death is appointed. And it also says that just as
surely as that appointment will be met, so judgment will follow. Perhaps one might say if they
had 15 years, 15 years, what am I going to do? 15 years until
I know that I'm going to pass from this life into eternity. What am I going to do with those
15 years? Well, I'll live my life my way. For 14 years and 364 days, I
will do whatever I want to do. And then right at the end, I'll
make sure that I've made my peace with God. I wonder if that would
be the reaction of anyone who knew the length of their days. Well, what, I ask you, would
you do if you knew that you had only one day left? And this was the day. Now is the appointed time. Now
is the day of grace. Now is the day of God's salvation. Men should not be presumptuous
to assume that they will have opportunity in days that lie
ahead. Maybe you have 15 years or 50
years. But life is short. Ask some of
the old folk around. Life is short. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. for thou knowest not what a day
may bring. Paul could say he was willing
rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the
Lord. And I do not doubt that Hezekiah
felt the same way as Paul. I don't imagine that Hezekiah
was weeping here because he didn't want to die. I don't think that
at all. I think the explanation that I've given before is the
true one. But for the sake of the church, for the sake of the
promises, Hezekiah knew that it wasn't yet time. He and Paul
both understood that for the sake of the church, their work
was not yet done. So what about you? If the Lord
gives us extended days, what is it for? It is because our
work is not yet done. It is because still we have labours
in this life, still we have a service to perform. And yet, even in
these extra days, we see the weakness of Hezekiah's flesh. Let us not criticise this dear
man. His foolishness in the business
of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon reminds us that pride
is a constant enemy of the Lord's people and it resides in every
one of our hearts. And yet even here, there is promise
and there is covenant blessing. Because the Lord said to him,
even in the midst of the judgment that was being given, listen,
this is the words of the Lord to him. Of thy sons that shall
issue from thee, a son would be given. Of thy sons which will
issue from thee, a son would be given. Therefore the covenant
was sure The purpose of God would have its way. God's promises
to David that a redeemer and a king would come from his line
would be fulfilled. And so Hezekiah, even in the
weight of this discipline that he was given, had cause to rejoice
in his heart. Do you understand that? Do you appreciate the significance
of that? That even in the disciplines
that the Lord gives, the true believer, the humbled believer
has cause to say, thank you, Lord. Thank you for bringing
me through this experience because this is a way in which I've been
brought closer to you. This is the way in which I've
understood something of my own heart and my own nature. I think in the final words that
we encounter here from Hezekiah's lips, we see something of the
calm, we can discover something of the calm, humble assurance
of an elect child of God, one who has been made wise unto salvation. And I wondered, as I was thinking
about this, if perhaps I didn't even discern a tear in the king's
eye as he spoke about these things towards the end of his life.
Hezekiah had another visit from Isaiah. Isaiah said that 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. Well all that unfolded. That
was the history of the exile into Babylon, the young men,
Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel, this was all yet to come. And this was the fulfillment
of these words that Isaiah had spoken. And here's what Hezekiah
has to say about that. Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah,
listen, good is the word of the Lord. This is what's going to
happen to your children, Hezekiah. This is what's going to happen
to your city. This is what's going to happen to your people.
This is what's going to happen to your land, Hezekiah. Good
is the word of the Lord. Oh, to be able to be in that
place where we recognise the good word of the Lord, even when
it runs against our natural desires. Good is the word of the Lord.
which thou hast spoken. And he said, is it not good if
peace and truth be in my days? What does the future hold? What
does the future hold for us? As a congregation, as individuals,
what does the future hold? We cannot tell, we do not know. But there is nothing of lasting
good in this world. Nothing for the church that we
will want to hold on to and take with us. But if Christ, who is
peace and truth, Hezekiah said, is it not good if peace and truth
be in my days? Christ is peace. He is peace
with God because he has reconciled between God and man. Because
he has laid down his life as our substitute. He has shed his
precious blood to cleanse us from our sins. He is peace. and
he is truth. This is the way. Walk ye in it.
This is the way of approaching God. This is the way that men
and women, boys and girls, this is the way that their souls are
changed, equipped, prepared for the presence of God. Their hearts
are touched. If peace and truth be in our
day, if the Lord Jesus Christ be in our day, in our life, then
that is the greatest blessing that we could ever have, no matter
what the future holds. be it for our sons and daughters,
our land, our nation, or whatever, it is good that we have peace
and we have truth today. Here is a prayer. Almighty God,
we thank thee for the witness of Hezekiah, this chosen vessel
of grace, and the testimony he has left to the church and people. Teach us, like him, to number
our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Bless us with
peace and truth in the providences of our lives, and may the grace
of God the Father, the love of Christ the Son, and the fellowship
of God the Holy Spirit be our daily experience. until thou
call us into thy presence and then forevermore. Amen.