Alright brethren, Isaiah 38.
Isaiah 38. Verse 1 says, In those days was
Hezekiah sick unto death. Now, we've looked at three messages
on how the Lord has sent a trial to Hezekiah. And how He taught
him through it. The Lord taught him to turn to
the Lord, laid on the Lord in faith, in prayer, casting all
his care on the Lord. The Lord taught him that Christ
is the covert from the storm, to rest in Christ, trust His
faithfulness. The Lord taught him the importance
of hearing the Gospel. Isaiah kept coming saying, thus
saith the Lord, and he taught him. Because that's how the Lord
strengthened Hezekiah's faith, and taught him what he would
have him to learn in the trial. But before the Lord delivered
Hezekiah out of the last trial, we saw that the Assyrians had
come up, the whole nation, and the king of Assyria is threatening
to take out Judah now. He's gonna come up against Judah. And the Lord told him he would
deliver him out of the hand of the Assyrian. But before the
Lord delivers him out of that trial, the Lord sent him another
trial. The Lord sent him another trial. In those days, Hezekiah was sick
unto death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, came unto him and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord,
set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live. I remind you again, brethren,
like we saw last time, the Lord sent these trials to Hezekiah. Whenever Hezekiah was doing a
good work of faith, he was restoring true worship to Judah. That's
what he was doing. And that's when the Lord sent
these trials to Hezekiah. Now the first thing to learn
from that is this right here. Here's the first thing. There
are some vain things that preachers have preached through the years
that we need to forget. Believers need to forget. One,
forget this vain notion. Forget this vain notion that
every trial that the Lord sends is due to his child being unfaithful
toward the Lord. That's what preachers will say.
You know, if the Lord sends you a trial, that's what Job's friends
came saying to Job. When he suffered that severe
trial, you did something wrong. But in both these trials that
came, with the Syrians coming against him and now he's sick
unto death, Hezekiah was obeying the Lord. He was restoring true
worship to Judah. Number two, forget this vain
notion that a faithful believer will not face many trials in
our life. Forget that notion. Hezekiah was a faithful believer.
When he got this news, Hezekiah asked the Lord to remember his
faithfulness to the Lord. He said there in verse 2, Then
Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed unto the
Lord. And he said, Remember now, O
Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and
with a perfect heart. That means with a sincere heart.
and have done that which is good in thy sight.' And Hezekiah wept
sore." He's not exalting himself here. He knew his faith and his
walk was only by the grace of God. Hezekiah knew that. Hezekiah knew he was a sinner. He's simply saying, remember
that however imperfect my faith and my service to God is, Lord,
remember that I truly believe you and I've truly tried to walk
before you with a sincere heart." That's what he's saying. Remember
that, Lord. I trust you. I believe you. The
Lord Himself declared this of Hezekiah. In 2 Kings 18.5, the
Lord said, He trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after
Him was none like Him among all the kings of Judah nor any that
were before Him. That's what the Lord said about
this man. And yet, back to back, even without one trial being
over yet. The Lord sent another trial to
Hezekiah. A whole nation of the Assyrians
come up against him, and then the Lord has told him, I'm going
to deliver you. But then before it happens, Isaiah
comes to him and says, Thus saith the Lord, set your house in order,
Hezekiah, because you shall die and not live. You know, not only forget this
notion that a faithful believer will not face trials, the fact
of the matter is, if you look at Moses, and you look at David,
and you look at the Apostle Paul, and you look at Hezekiah here,
these are some of the most blessed, most faithful, most used of the
Lord of all in the scriptures. And they suffered more than any
others in the scriptures. So forget this notion that a
faithful believer will not face trials. The Lord said, this is
what the Lord Jesus said. He said, I've spoken this word
to you that night when he was betrayed. He said, I've spoken
these things to you that in me you shall have peace. In me,
in the world, you shall have tribulation. In the world, you
shall have trouble. But be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world. This is what he said in Revelation
2.10. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold,
the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may
be tried, and you shall have tribulation ten days. That means
a set number of days. That means God set the time.
And he said, but be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee
a crown of life. So he's saying, just trust me.
Just trust me. And three, forget this vain notion
that the trial proves you're not God's child. That's a vain
notion. Every sinner faces trouble. Every
sinner faces trouble. But here's the difference. For
God's child, God teaches you more of Christ through the trial. And that makes you know you're
God's child. Listen to this now. Whom the
Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Whom he loveth, he chasteneth.
He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening,
And endure means if he gives you the grace to pass through
it in faith and increases you in faith and teaches you through
the trial. God's dealing with you as with
sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not, but
if you be without chastisement. Now this is what the devil's
preachers preach. If you're really a faithful son
of God, you won't bear trouble. If you've got enough faith, you
won't bear trouble. That's exactly opposite to what
God says. God says if you don't bear chastening,
whereof all his people are partakers, he said, then are you bastards
and not sons. Now secondly, learn this. This
is so vital right here. This is so vital. Let me say this before I make
this point. I'm trying to learn to stay out
of the way of what the Lord gives me to preach. I know I've preached
a lot on trials. And usually after I've preached
on a passage, I just look at the next chapter or two to see,
you know, if it's moving my heart, stirring my heart, is this what
the Lord had me to preach, to just go further with it. And
I did that. And it did. This was on my heart
strongly, that preach this. And I thought, I don't need to
preach this. They've heard me preach on trials
so much. But here's the thing, I don't
preach a message because I've preached it before or I haven't
preached the passage before. I don't preach it because I've
preached the subject before or I haven't preached the subject
before. I'm preaching a message based on what the Lord lays on
my heart to preach to you. Because I take that as being,
that's what you need. The Lord's laying it on my heart
because that's what His people need. And that's all I want.
I want the Lord to give me the message. This is my prayer constantly. Lord, give me the message that
you have for your people. And this is the message the Lord
laid on my heart. And the reason this is so important
to give. The second point right here is,
please get this. The reason God sends every single
trial, if we could just get this. Men want to hear practical preaching.
Men want to teach me something about works. You don't get more
practical than this. Every trial God sends a child
of God. has this end purpose right here. It is to turn us from ourselves
and from this world and turn us to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. That is the purpose. And until
we've come to that end, we haven't reached the end of the trial.
Now, after this trial, Hezekiah wrote down what he was thinking,
what he was praying during this time that he was sick. He wrote
it down for us. And so he gives us his true assessment
of what he said, what he was thinking, everything. He wrote
it down for us right here. And here's what he said. This
is what he was thinking when the Lord sent this word that
you're going to die, Hezekiah. Put your house in order. Number
one, he tells us He realized his attachment to this life.
He said in verse 10, I said, in the cutting off of my days,
I shall go to the gates of the grave. I am deprived of the residue
of my years. Hezekiah is about 40 years old
when this happened. And he felt like that Lord was
depriving him of the rest of the time he had that he was expecting
that he would live. And he felt like he was getting,
for lack of a better word, he was getting shortchanged. The
Lord's cutting off his days. He's attached to this world.
And then his concern was that he wouldn't worship the Lord
anymore in this life. He wouldn't come to the church
house anymore and worship the Lord like we're doing here today. That was his concern. And he
wouldn't behold his brethren anymore and his friends anymore.
He said in verse 11, I said, I shall not see the Lord, even
the Lord, in the land of the living. I shall behold man no
more with inhabitants of the world. Something Hezekiah is
saying here that he was saying and cutting me off, I won't see
Christ coming to the world. But if the Lord did take his
life, he would be with the Lord Jesus Christ. He would be with
Christ that day. He'd be with his brethren forever. This right here that we're doing,
brethren, is so vital. It's so important what we're
doing. But there's something better even than this we're doing.
That is being with the Lord and worshiping him in person, in
heaven, in glory. And Hezekiah, he didn't want
to leave this to go there. And then he attributed his death
to his own sin. He said, God is cutting me down
because of my sin. Verse 12, he said, my age is
departed and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. I have
cut off like a weaver my life. He said, I've done this. It's
my fault. He will cut me off with pining
sickness. From day even to night will thou
make an end of me. I reckon to mourning that as
a lion, so will he break all my bones. From day even to night
will thou make an end of me. Like a crane or swallow, so did
I chatter. I didn't mourn as a dove. Mine
eyes fell with looking upward. Brethren, Aren't we so attached
to this world? Aren't we just attached to this
world? That's what Hezekiah learned.
If God took Hezekiah, took his life, he was going to enter into
glory with his Redeemer and be perfectly conformed to his image. Just like that. And be with him
forever. And yet, all he could think about
All he could think about was being cut off from this life. And the things of this life.
And we're not condemning Hezekiah because me and you are just like
him. This is exactly what we think. And it's like he forgot all about
the Lord. and the Lord having put away
his sins. He said, the Lord's cutting,
I've cut my life off. The Lord's breaking my bones
because of my sins. That's what he's saying. Brethren, God's trials are to
wean us from this world. To wean us from ourselves, to
wean us from this world. They are to teach us to set our
house in order. When God said, set thine house
in order, if you have a marginal reading there, it says, give
charge concerning thy house. Give somebody else the charge
of your house, because thou shalt die and not live. Brethren, that statement has
more to do with these things that Hezekiah was being taught
in this trial than anything else, than anything else. You see,
Hezekiah's priorities were all out of order. He was attached
to this world, and the cares of this life, and His friends,
and His brethren, and the worship in this world, and the things
of this world, rather than being ready at any
time to depart and be with the Lord. His heart and His affections
was taken up with this life. But through these trials, through
these trials. God blesses us to set our house
in order. You know what that means? Give
charge concerning your house. We think that means I need to
go home, make sure my bills are paid, make sure I got some money
in the bank for my children, make sure I got, you know, all
these different things arranged and affairs in my house arranged.
That's not what it means. It means you give the entire
charge of your house to Christ because you're going to die and
you're not going to live. That's when your house is set
in order. That's when your house is set in order. And that's what the Lord's doing
in these trials. He's turning us from the things below to Christ
alone. And here's what the Lord... Here's
right here. This is where the Lord brought
Hezekiah. He's turning us from self. He's
turning us from this attachment. And He's winning us. And He's
turning us to trust Christ alone. To commit all the charge of our
house to Christ. That's how you're going to set
it in order. And here's where Hezekiah set his house in order. Right here. Isaiah 38 verse 14
at the end, he said, Oh Lord, I am oppressed. Undertake for
me. He set his house in order right
there. He gave the charge of himself to the Lord. Lord, I'm oppressed. I don't
have the ability to bear up under this weight. I don't have the
ability to save myself. I don't have the ability. Lord,
undertake for me. Be my surety. Be my savior. Be my salvation. He was looking
to the Lord alone. Brethren, that right there is
the end purpose of every trial God brings into our life. Right
there. right there, is to turn us from
ourselves and to turn us from this world and bring us right
down to the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, just like Mary
sat there and hung on every word He said. Lord, I'm oppressed. Undertake for me. Undertake for
me. And we know that's the end purpose
of the trial because of what the Lord did when Hezekiah was
brought to that place. What did the Lord do when he
cried that out? Back up there in Isaiah 38 verse 4, it says,
Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying... You know,
it said there that Hezekiah turned and he began to pray to the Lord
and he wept sore. And Hezekiah told us there all
the things he went through, what his thoughts were, what he was
hanging on to, what he was praying. And then he was brought to the
place where he said, Lord, I'm oppressed, undertake for me. Verse 4 says, Then came the word
of the Lord to Isaiah. Over in 2 Kings 20, in verse
4, let me tell you what it says over there. It says, It came
to pass before Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that
the word of the Lord came to him. Now the margin says before
he made it to the middle part of the city of Jerusalem. Whichever
one it was, it probably was more that before he made it to the
middle part of the city, this was probably several hours, that
Hezekiah was chattering like a crane, thinking the Lord's
fixing to break my bones, I might make it through the night, and
I'm gonna die. But when he was brought to cry and say, Lord,
I'm oppressed, undertake for me. 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've heard thy prayer. I've seen
thy tears. Behold, I'll add unto thy days
fifteen years, and I'll deliver thee and this city out of the
hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city.
And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that the
Lord will do this thing that he has spoken. Behold, I'll bring
again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sundial
of Ahaz ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees
by which degrees it was gone down. Verse 21 says, For Isaiah
had said, Let him take a lump of figs and lay it for a plaster
upon the boil, and he shall recover. And Hezekiah also had said, What's
the sign? I shall go up to the house of
the Lord. The Lord had said, In three days you're going to
go up to the house of the Lord, Hezekiah. And Hezekiah asked
for a sign and the Lord gave him a choice. He said, Do you
want to make the sun go forward or do you want to make it go
backward? And Hezekiah said, make it go backwards. So we know this is the purpose
of the trial. We know the purpose of the trial
is to bring you to the end of yourself, to give the charge
of your house into the hand of Christ. That's when your house
is in order. To say, Lord, I'm oppressed,
undertake for me. Trust it all into His hand. Because
we know that's the end because that's when the Lord sent the
word to him and said, I've heard your prayer and I'm going to
save you. I'm going to give you 15 more
years. Now let's hear Hezekiah tell us what the Lord taught
him through this trial. He also wrote down what he learned
through this trial. One, the Lord taught him to pass
through this life with a very loose grip on everything. on everything, being ready to
depart at any time. He said in verse 15, what shall
I say? He hath both spoken unto me,
and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years
in the bitterness of my soul." He acknowledged God did all of
this. He had done it. He sent the trial,
He taught me, and He saved me out of it. He undertook for me.
He said, I'll go softly all my years in the bitterness of my
soul. I'm going to remember this bitterness of my soul. My hastiness,
I'm going to remember my inordinate affection that I had for this
world. I'm going to remember Christ
is my life, not this world. Not this world. Christ is. That's the first thing he was
taught. I'm going to go softly. I'm going
to have a loose grip on everything, ready to depart. Number two,
he learned his need for the Lord to send these trials. He said in verse 16, O Lord,
by these things men live, and in all these things is the life
of my spirit. So wilt thou recover me and make
me to live. Hezekiah praised God for sending
him this bitter trial. He praised God. He said, by it
the Lord had recovered him from the cares of this world. He recovered
him from being taken up with the world. He recovered him from
having his heart set too much on the world and on the things
of this life. God recovered him from that.
And he praised God for that. You see, the trials... You remember
in, I believe it's... In Hebrews 12, the Lord talks
about how He's going to shake the world once more. And He said
the only thing that's not going to be shaken are those things
that can't be shaken. You see, everything Christ has
created in you, in that new heart He's created, in the new spirit
He's made in you, that's everlasting. That's Christ's creation. What
can be shaken is only the things that can be shaken. And when
the trials come, they only sweep away what can be swept away.
They only sweep away the chaff. That's what they're for. They're
to separate the precious from the vile in you, make you to
know what's precious and what you need to let go of. That's
what the trial's for. It's by the Word of the Lord
that we live. Not these other things. That's
what he learned. It's by the Word of the Lord
that we live. It's by God's precious promises
to us in Christ. It's by Christ Himself who is
our life, who is our bread, that we have life. It's His grace
and His mercy to us. It's God's power and His providence
to keep us and save us from ourselves by sending bitter trials just
like what Hezekiah suffered. He said, so wilt thou recover
me and make me live. You see the need? See the need? Did your children like it? You
mothers, did your children like it when you started weaning them?
When you started weaning your child, did they like it? It wasn't
a pleasant experience, was it? But it was a needful thing. And
it's just what the trials are. They're not pleasant, but they're
needful to wean us from this world. You've heard me say how
that when you've gone through a trial, you'll look back on
the trial and you'll say, I wouldn't change it. as bitter as it was,
as sorrowful as it was, and it made me lose and everything.
I'm thankful the Lord sent it because how He recovered me and
what He taught me through it. That's what Hezekiah is saying.
That's exactly what he's saying. You know, I marvel at God's providence. I do marvel at His providence,
and I'm going to tell you why. The first time I preached from
this, I went, when I read this passage, it was obvious to me
right away, this is what I need to preach. And I went back and
looked at my notes from the first time I ever preached from here.
And the first time I ever preached from this passage was in 2011.
2011. Here's how I marvel at God's providence. I used an illustration when I
preached that message in 2011, how that we need the trials to
strip us of these things of this world and how that it's not going
to kill us, it's going to make us live. That's what he said
there, Lord you've recovered me and made me live by what you've
done to me here. killed my flesh, but you've healed
my inner man. You've made my old man perish,
but you've made my new man be revived and renewed. And the
illustration I used in 2011 was I talked about how my grandmother
had this ivy growing on the back of her house and how that ivy
had covered one of the trees and how I stripped all that ivy
off of that tree and it didn't kill that tree, it made that
tree thrive. And this is why I marvel at God's
providence. Here we are, we went through
two or three passages here and look at these messages. And here
we come to this passage here. And you know what I did when
I was home just a few weeks ago? I stripped that ivy off that
tree again. I just did it just two or three
weeks ago. And why that struck me is just
like I had to go strip that ivy again. We're going to need to be stripped
again. We're going to need another trial. God sent as a guy one,
then he sent him another one, and I'm going to tell you something.
We're probably going to look at the next one, because this
is not the last trial. There's another one after this
one. Back to back to back to back. But it's not killing him,
it's recovering his life. Here's the third thing he learned.
Hezekiah was renewed to remember that God in Christ had put away
all his sin and given him eternal life. He said in verse 17, Behold,
for peace I had great bitterness. In the place of the peace I was
having, bitterness came in. He said, But thou hast in love
to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. for thou
hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For the grave cannot
praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down into
the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall
praise thee as I do this day. The father to the children shall
make known thy truth. Let me stop right there for a
minute. I want you to just look away
from Hezekiah for a minute and look to Christ. Look to Christ. Think how Hezekiah pictures Christ. Okay, the king of Assyria has
come. He's a wicked king who thinks
just because he has destroyed all these other nations and all
their idol gods that now he can come and destroy God's elect
people. And he's come up against Hezekiah
who is the king of Judah. Christ is the Lion of the tribe
of Judah. He's the King of Judah. God's
elect Judah. His true spiritual people. Christ
is the King. And God had told Hezekiah, I'm
going to defeat the king of Assyria. I'm going to destroy him. I'm
going to defend this city. I'm going to do it for my own
sake and for David, my servant's sake. Well, you know what Christ
did? Christ Jesus defeated the devil. He conquered the devil. And you
know how he did it? In the process of conquering
the devil. Remember? The Lord said, He's
going to bruise your heel. Just like Hezekiah, God's delivering
Hezekiah from the king of Assyria, but in the midst of it, he bears
this sickness. What brother Greg read. Christ
destroyed the devil and delivered his people from the devil, crushed
his head by bearing the sickness of his people, by permitting
the devil to put him on the cross, and by him bearing the sins of
his people and the sickness and the sorrow, just like Hezekiah
was bearing the sickness. And God broke his bones in place
of the bones of his people. God poured out wrath on him instead
of pouring out wrath on his people. Christ took all the sin of all
His people away. And He delivered us from the
pit of corruption. And because He did that, brethren,
He crushed the devil's head. He took all his power and his
ammunition away from him so he can't accuse us anymore. Who
should lay anything to the charge of God's elect? He's got to justify
it. It's Christ that died. And so, when He When Hezekiah
began to experience this, he began to say, I've cut myself
off. It's my sin. The Lord is going
to kill me because of my sin. Have you ever felt like that?
Have you ever suffered a trial and you felt the Lord has rejected
me because of my sin? Brethren, when He first called
you, do you remember what He did when He first called you?
He made you experience the bitterness of your sin. He made you experience
what a sinner you are. And you experienced the bitterness
of it. And you saw the bitterness of it. And He made you to see
that we are the pit of corruption. And He delivered you from the
pit of corruption when He delivered you from trusting in yourself.
That's how He delivered us from the pit of corruption. And that's
what He did for Hezekiah here. And the Lord works that same
work in us through every trial because that's how He keeps saving
us. That's how He keeps making us
turn from ourselves and look only to Christ alone. And we're
so, oh, we're so backwards and so ignorant. When he sends a
trial to our brother and we start condemning like Joe's friends
did, and we don't even know this is the great physician healing
his child. This is the sovereign God of
glory saving his child. I'm going to get in the way of
that and I'm going to try to get in and interject myself.
This is God saving His child by turning us from ourselves
to Him. Get out of the way. Let patience
have a perfect way on the nerve that you might get the full benefit
out of the trial. God's not going to fail. God's
not going to fail to work in His child and teach His child.
Trust Him. He'll make His servant stand. And it's so needful, this is
how He's going to recover our life. He's teaching His child
over and over, renewing us that His love's everlasting, that
He's put away all our sins, that God's cast all our sins behind
His back. That's what Hezekiah said, Lord,
now I see. You wouldn't cut me off because
of my sin. You've cast all my sins behind
Your back. That's what the Lord was teaching
Hezekiah again. Brethren, we converted over and
over and over and over and over through this life. I know it's
regenerations one time and I'm just saying this for the doctrinal
legal eagles that will jump on you for saying you converted
over and over. But He's teaching you over and over and over and
over through your life. It's like He's saving you over
and over and over. And so He brings you to clear this
good news to the children. Christ said, when I've arisen,
I'm gonna declare this to the great congregation. I'm gonna
declare it to the children. And he's preaching this to us
right now, Christ is. And Hezekiah said, the father
to the children shall make known thy truth, Lord. I'm gonna tell
your children and the children that come after me, I'm gonna
tell them what you've done for me. That's what Hezekiah's doing.
He wrote all this down to declare to me and you what God taught
him through the trial and what God's teaching you through the
trial. And so God keeps us giving all
the glory to Him alone and praising Him alone. He said there in verse
20, the Lord was ready to save me. Therefore will we sing my
songs to the string instruments all the days of our life in the
house of the Lord. Brethren, I'm sitting here declaring this
to you today for the same reason Hezekiah declared that to us. Because that's what the Lord
did. The Lord did that for him. The Lord did that for me. The
Lord's done that for you. And it won't be the last time. He's going to do it again and
again. Why? Why? Why? Because Christ said,
so that you'll never forget in this world you'll have tribulation. You're not going to have peace
in this world. Stop trying to have peace in
this world. You're not going to have it.
You're not going to find a perfect church. You're not going to find
a perfect job. You're not going to find a perfect
household. You are not going to find peace in this world. He said, in me you have paid.
That's what the trial's for, so you don't ever forget that.
I pray the Lord will bless that. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.