I want you to go back to the
Old Testament with me, to the book of 2 Chronicles chapter
29. 2 Chronicles chapter 29. And I
shall read two verses to you and then endeavor to speak to
you on the subject, evil by nature. but good by grace. Evil by nature. Good or, here's another word,
right. Good or right by grace. 2 Chronicles 29, verses one and
two. Hezekiah, you've heard of him,
haven't you? We used to have Bible drills,
and we would confuse people a little bit, and we'd say, turn to Hezekiah
chapter 5 and verse 15. And boy, we'd hear the pages
turning, and then people give up, and they go back to look
at the index and table of contents. Where is the book of Hezekiah?
Well, it isn't in there. There is no book of Hezekiah. But he was a great king in Judah. And this man, Hezekiah, he began
to reign when he was 25 years old. And he reigned 29 years
in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah. the daughter of Zechariah, not
Zechariah the minor prophet by the way. And he did that which
was right or good or perfect in the sight of the Lord according
to all that David his father had done. Just a little bit of
background, and I won't get bogged down with the history here. I
don't have time to do that. But upon the death of Solomon,
and you all know that the Israelites, the people of Israel, they wanted
a king like all the other nations had. So God gave them a king.
His name was King Saul. I came to regret the fact that
Saul was the king and God removed him and then God put over the
kingdom of Israel, the whole nation, a man who was after his
thoughts and mine was after the heart of the Lord David, King
David, who was a good king. And then after King David came
King Solomon, who built the temple. David couldn't build the temple
because he was a man of war. But King Solomon, he's the one
who built the temple. And then upon the death of King
Solomon, his son Rehoboam reigned in Jerusalem. Now without going
into detail here, I'll tell you this. 10 of the 12 tribes rebelled
against the reign of Rehoboam. And so they started their own
nation. And they called it Israel. It
was the northern kingdom. And they had a capital city which
was Samaria. But Rehoboam reigned over two
tribes, and those two tribes were Judah and Benjamin. So there
are the 12 tribes, 12 in the northern kingdom, two in the
southern kingdom, and they're totally different kingdoms now,
having totally different governments, totally different kings. The kingdom of Judah, the capital
city was Jerusalem. Now, the Northern Kingdom, remember
this, they never had a good king, ever, ever. Every king they had
was evil. But in the Southern Kingdom,
the Southern Kingdom had, up until the time that Nebuchadnezzar
took them in captivity, the Southern Kingdom had 20 kings. And of
those 20 kings, a total of seven of them were godly men. Men who
loved the Lord. Men to whom God showered His
grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. The last godly king was a man
by the name of Josiah. Josiah. Well, I'm going to focus
in this message and both messages this coming Lord's Day on one
of the good kings, Hezekiah. And in doing so this evening,
I want to briefly touch on three men who are in the family tree
of Hezekiah. I'll talk about his grandfather,
his great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father, and then Hezekiah
himself. First of all, his great-grandfather. You know who his great-grandfather
was? Uzziah. And you've read about Him in
Isaiah chapter 6 where Isaiah said, In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord also high and lifted up, and Isaiah saw
the glory of our Lord Jesus. Turn back to 2 Chronicles chapter
26. Now follow with me because I'm
laying the foundation for the truth that I want to set before
you this evening. Chapter 26, look at verse 1. Then all the people of Judah
took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king in the
room of his father Amaziah, who, by the way, was also a good king.
Look at verse 4. And of Uzziah we read, and he
did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. according
to all that his father, Amaziah, did. He did that which was right. Now let me define right for you. It means good. It means upright. It means righteous. It means
straightforward. If this is the root word, the
root word in that he did right, it's the root word of righteous.
which we have to be righteous to be accepted by God. So we're
immediately told here of King Uzziah, he was a righteous man. And this word also has a forensic,
forensic tone to it. And by forensic, I mean legality. It's a legal word, as in the
book of Genesis. where Abraham sought that God
would spare Sodom and Gomorrah. He said, Lord, if there are 50
righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, will you spare the
cities? And then Abraham said, for the
God of the earth will do right, that's what he said. He will
do that which is just, He will do that which is perfect. He
will do that which is righteous according to divine standards. So the great grandfather of Hezekiah
is Uzziah. And the Spirit of God tells us
about this man Uzziah, he was always, this is the emphasis
here, He was always upright, straightforward, and the judge
of the earth considered him to be perfect and good. That's a
tremendous statement. Don't read over these things
lightly. Uzziah. And then there's Jotham. This
is the grandfather of Hezekiah, chapter 27. and verses 1 and
2. Jotham was 25 years old when
he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. His mother's
name also was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. And he did that which
was right in the sight of the Lord. And you notice those words,
that which was? The translators just put those
words in. What he's saying is everything
he did was right. Everything he did was straightforward
in God's sight now. In God's sight. Young's translation of this says,
he doeth or he always did that which was right in the eyes of
the Lord. Can that be said of you? File
that question away in your memory. Can it be said of you, you have
always done that which is right in the sight of the Lord? Remember,
nothing is hid from His eyes. And as God sees things, that's
exactly how they are. And as God sees you and as God
sees me, that's the way we really are. And here are Uzziah and then
Jotham. Of both of these men, they were
straightforward. There was no deviation. They
didn't depart from. They didn't move away from. That
which was just and right before God. They were righteous with
God. And then the third man I want
you to consider briefly is Ahaz. Not to be confused with Ahab,
who was the king of the northern kingdom, who was also Ron. This is Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah. Look at chapter 28 in verse 1.
Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. But he did not that which was
right in the sight of the Lord, like David his father. For he walked in the ways of
the kings of Israel." Remember I told you, the kings of Israel
were all wicked. They never had a godly king.
So this king of Judah, Ahaz, he was as rotten as the kings
of the northern kingdoms and made also molten images for Balaam. Ahaz did not do what was right. He was evil in the sight of the
Lord. You see, while the word right
means doing that which is consistent with the will of God. Evil is
always doing that which is contrary to the will of God. And the liberal
meaning of evil is malignant. Malignant. And we have some knowledge
of malignancy. Because it's cancer that's spreading,
right? Malignancy. One of the main definitions of
evil is ill, I-L-L, which is the opposite of healthy. You see, by nature, we're all
ill. We're not healthy toward God.
We're evil. We're born evil. and apart from
the grace of God will stay evil. We're sinners for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. This is an illness of the
heart, the heart which is desperately wicked. Evil is literally the
opposite of God who is good. And then there's Hezekiah. And
I've already read to you what the scripture says about him.
He did that which was right. He was right in the sight of
the Lord. He was straightforward. Always doing those things that
were honoring to God. Now I've mentioned to you these
three men whose lives the Holy Spirit now The Holy Spirit sums
up their lives this way. They did that which was right. They were righteous before God. And make no mistake about it,
as I've already indicated, God sees as no one else does. He sees your thoughts, my thoughts. He sees our hearts, your hearts.
I mean, he reads us like an open book and we all would agree on
that. When he sees that which is right,
you can believe this, it's truly right. And when somebody is right
in the sight of God, they're righteous, they're straightforward,
they're good in everything. And when he sees evil, when he
sees ill, when he sees malignancy, he calls it the way it is. It's
evil. So let me just review just a
little bit. The Holy Spirit summed up the
life of Uzziah as he did that which was right in the sight
of God. So does that mean that everything
Uzziah said, every thought he had, was honoring to God? No,
it does not. And I'll give you one illustration.
He decided on one occasion, King Uzziah was a great king in Judah.
But he decided, he got bigger than his britches. He's too big
for his britches, as we say. He went into the temple, he's
gonna burn incense unto the Lord. He can't do that. Now, the burning
of incense, this is what was required. A priest went out to
the brazen altar where the sacrifice was offered to God. That sacrifice
pictured the Lord Jesus Christ and his cross death. It represents substitution and
satisfaction, the sacrifice that honored God and put away the
sin of His people. In order to burn incense, a priest
went out there and got some of the hot coals off that altar
where the blood had been shed, where a life had been forfeited
for the guilty. And he goes into the holy place
to the altar of incense, puts those hot coals on the altar,
and then puts incense upon it, and it gave a very fragrant smell
throughout the temple. Because you see, the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ was a sweet savor to God. Ephesians chapter
5 and verse 2 says that. It pleased God. It satisfied
God. Isaiah chapter 53 says it pleased
God to bruise Him. What does that mean? It satisfied
God. When the Bible says God has no
pleasure, pleasure in the death of the wicked, it means it doesn't
satisfy God's justice. People who perish in hell will
never satisfy the justice of God. God gets no delight in that. His justice isn't fully honored. The only time the justice of
God was fully honored in punishing somebody for sin was in the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that incense sprinkled upon
the hot coals ascended up. It indicated God was pleased
with that sacrifice. And then all of the mediatorial
work of our Lord Jesus Christ is pleasing to God. Because you
see, his work as our mediator, as our intercessor, is based
upon his sacrifice that he offered upon the cross of Calvary. But King Uzziah decided He wanted
to be a priest. He wants to burn incense. That's
an awful thing. And you know what the priest
said? They saw him come in and said, get out of here. You can't
come in this place. Get yourself out of the holy
place. Who you think you are? He said,
well, I'm the king. Well, you can't burn incense.
He said, yes, I can. God smote him with leprosy. He is a leper the rest of the
days of his life. What an awful thing, but wait. Now hang on a minute. The Holy
Spirit has already summed up his whole life by saying he did
that which was right in the sight of the Lord. He was righteous
in the sight of God. How can that be? That's a gospel
question. How can a man who is a sinner,
as King Uzziah was, and as King Jotham was, because he didn't
destroy the high places, the idolatry in his day, he let that
go. And Hezekiah, he made a mess
of things too. The Bible's already said that
he was right in the sight of God, but you know what Hezekiah
did? And I don't have time to go deep
into these things, but Hezekiah, the Babylonians came to visit
him. He said, let me show you how wealthy I am. He said, look at all my silver.
Look at all my gold. Look at how I've prospered. And
he didn't give God the glory. And Isaiah the prophet of God
came to Hezekiah and said, you're going to have to pay for that. And as a result of you showing
off in your arrogance and in your pride, your offspring will be taken
into captivity in Babylon. And all that gold and all that
silver, the Babylonians are going to take it all. from your offspring. King Uzziah, he proved himself
to be a sinner, saved by grace, but he's a sinner. Jotham proved
himself to be a sinner, saved by grace, but he's a sinner. And Hezekiah's gonna do the same
thing. So here's the question. How can
it be said that of these men and four others of seven kings
of Judah, how can it be said that they did that, they always
did that which was right in the sight of God? How can that be
said about them? Because the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ is imputed to these men as it's imputed
to us and God sees us as perfect. That's amazing. You see, we're evil by nature. King Uzziah proved that. Jotham
proved that. The Lord said, destroy all the
idols. He said, well, I'm going to let
some of them go. I don't want to be too hard on
people. Don't want to be too narrow-minded.
That's a sinful thing in Hezekiah. He showed Himself. But yet the
Spirit of God said of these men, they were straightforward, they
were righteous, they were upright in the sight of God. Let me tell you something. In old eternity, God gave His
people The people he chose in grace, he gave them to the Lord
Jesus Christ to be our representative, to be our substitute. And when our Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world, as a good bit of the people on this earth
acknowledged that he came, The man Christ Jesus lived a
perfect life. He himself. There never entered
into his mind or in his thoughts or entered into his words or
entered into his deeds anything that was less than honoring to
and perfect before a holy God. And we were in Him when He came
and when He lived in obedience to God because God gave us to
Him in covenant grace. So when He lived a life of perfection,
guess what? King Uzziah was in Him. King
Jotham was in Him. King Hezekiah was in Him. King
Josiah was in him. And Jim Byrd was in him. And
Ron Trabant was in him. You were in him. I go all the
way around this congregation to people that I do fully believe
that you know the gospel of Christ and Christ knows you. We were
in him. You see, yes, we're evil by nature. We're ill. We have a disease
of sin. There's a malignancy in us, and
you can't do anything about that. Preachers can preach, make your
decision for Jesus, walk the aisle for Jesus. That won't cure
the malignancy. The only cure is the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we're in Him, by sovereign
electing grace. We know this, despite our sinfulness,
and I would never excuse our sinfulness. Sin is an awful thing. Malignancy, spiritual malignancy
is a terrible thing. But in Christ, in Christ, we're
perfect. Don't you see that? We're straightforward. There's no deviation in us. God examines us. And in the last day, as it says
in Jeremiah, in that day, the people of God will be examined. There shall be no sin found in
us. No sin? That's right. Because our Lord Jesus lived
for us. And God's got his eye on the
life of Christ. And then he died for all of our
sins. All the sins of his people, Christ
died for. Let me tell you something. Every
sin is gonna be punished by the justice of God. That's right,
isn't it? Every sin's gonna be punished. None of them have ever or will
ever escape the attention of God. The Bible says even the thought
of foolishness is sin. Even the plowing of the wicked
is sin. But the sins of all of God's
people have been removed from us as far as the east is from
the west, buried in the depths of the deepest sea. God said,
God said, your sins and iniquities, well, I remember no more. I'll
never remember them, God says. I'm not going to remember them
against you. Let the foolish preacher say, you know, in the
end, when you stand before the judgment, the Lord's going to,
Lord's going to say, oh my, how you, you sure messed up in your
life. No! Because I stand before God,
I shall stand before God then as I stand before God now. Perfect
in Christ Jesus. That's why I want to refer you back
to John again, John chapter five. John chapter five and verse 29. This is in the end when our Lord
empties the graves. They that are in the grave shall
hear his voice. Verse 29 says, and they shall
come forth. They that have done good, Have we done good? In Christ
we have. In the Lord Jesus Christ. See,
He's our perfection. He's our righteousness. He's our straightforwardness.
Everything God demanded, He fulfilled it to dotting the I and crossing
every T. And we were in Him. We've done good. Do you know
what the Lord's gonna say of every one of his children? When
we enter into heaven, he's gonna say, well done, thou good and
faithful servant. You say, Lord, I've been a lousy
servant. Oh, the service that was rendered
to God on your behalf. Oh, it was perfect. Because Christ was your substitute
in life, and he was your substitute in death. And on the other hand,
and they that have done evil, under the resurrection of damnation, God sees everything perfectly. And I'm gonna tell you right
now, in his sight, you're either right, good, perfect, by grace,
due to the faithfulness, the integrity of, the righteous obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ, or you're evil. You say, but I read
my Bible and I pray and I try to do a lot of good things. Well,
let me tell you something. There's some folks who said to
the Savior on one occasion, we've done this, we've done that, we've
done something else. And he says to them, I don't
know who you are. Depart from me, you just workers
of iniquity. That's all you are. I got news for you. Your Bible
reading, your praying, that won't cut it. Those are good things. That's a good thing to do. Don't
misunderstand me, but you doing those things, that's not the
basis for your acceptance with God. The basis of your acceptance
is Jesus Christ and His faithfulness, His obedience in life, and His
obedience in death. because by his death he satisfied
justice and put away the sins of his people. Well, may the
Lord bless the preaching of his word tonight.