So we're going to read Isaiah
chapter 39 and verse one. At that time, Merodach Baladan,
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 showed 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 armor, and all that was found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house,
nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. 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 which I have not showed them. 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 thou shalt
issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away. and they shall be eunuchs in
the palace of the king of Babylon. 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. Amen, may the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Now, I hope that you've had a
little read of that introduction that I sent out yesterday, because
I did speak about some of the historical and some of the significance
of these verses in that little explanation by way of introduction,
and I'm not going to go over too much of that today. I want rather to find some more
practical and perhaps some more gospel applications as we seek
wisdom and blessing from the Lord in these words. And I want to begin by just making
a little bit of a point here concerning the experience of
the Lord's people as we see it in the experience of Hezekiah. There are elements of a believer's
life that are easy. And there are aspects of a believer's
life that are hard. And that is the experience of
us all. Our Lord Jesus said in Matthew
chapter 11, Verse 29 and 30, he said, Take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall
find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. Here are some of the easy things
then that believers might experience in their life. Believers who
rest in Christ are no more under the heavy yoke of the law for
righteousness. We are free from its curse. We are free from the bondage
of sin and Satan. Believers enjoy liberty in Jesus
Christ that is gentle and easy to bear. Believers find it easy
to hear the gospel of God's grace. We enjoy hearing the truths of
sovereign love and divine mercy in Jesus Christ. These truths
are sweet to our taste and melodious to our ear. We take pleasure
in these great spiritual truths. the message that we once mocked,
that we once derided, we now embrace with delight. Grateful
to have eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of the scriptures
concerning our beloved Jesus. Believers die easy. Believers can face their mortality
knowing with Paul that to die is gain. Believers are content
to commit into the hands of King Jesus the timing and the circumstances
and the care of those dear ones that we leave behind. Believers don't fear death as
others do. because we rest in peace with
a glorious hope that to be absent from the body is to be present
with the Lord. And believers have a confidence
of bodily resurrection ahead. However, some aspects of a believer's
life are hard. and let no one come to Christ
for an easy life. While we remain in the flesh,
in this body of sin, a battle rages. There's persecution to
be endured. There is trials to be overcome. No one can read the apostles'
epistles and come away thinking that life was easy either for
them personally or for the early church generally to whom they
were writing. Their letters include Lots of
encouragement to stay the course and to endure hardship and to
press on in faith and to persevere against the opposition that they
encounter. And that was true for the Old
Testament saints as well. We will discover that as we go
through the book of Judges. We will see that as we think
about the ways in which the Lord has dealt with his people. It
has always been thus for believers, and it was so for Hezekiah. In these few chapters from the
old saint's life, we've watched him carry the burden of imminent
destruction of his people and his city by a strong foe. Sennacherib and Rabshake, We've
seen Hezekiah's life ebbing away and the effects and the apprehensions
that he had at that time. We've seen his faith mocked.
We've seen his people terrified. We've seen his God blasphemed. We've heard him. sick unto death,
alone in his room with his fears, mourning and pleading and weeping
sorely. And let us not think that Hezekiah
was above the deepest, darkest thoughts and the fears that any
man or woman might have. He knew what it was to struggle
with mortality, and wrestle with the questions of faith, and to
battle with foes stronger than he was, and to grapple with matters
beyond his knowledge. And indeed, when we've looked
at these chapters, and it's only short, it's only a glimpse of
this man's life, just a few episodes from his experience, but as we've
looked at this testimony about Hezekiah, We see that he has
lived, he has felt the experience of David in Psalm 139, who could
say in verses five and six, thou hast beset me behind and before,
and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto
it. Sometimes we feel very small
and insignificant. Sometimes we feel as if we could
just fade away and we don't have answers and we don't have a sense
of meaning and we don't have a sense of enduring and persevering
and maintaining in the faith. We often feel that we want answers,
maybe even that we deserve answers for the strange providences of
life that the Lord brings upon us. But sometimes, like little
children, we need to just stop and acknowledge I'm glad that
the Lord has got all this in hand and under control because
it's all too much for me. So there are things that are
easy in a believer's life and there are things that are hard.
And today, from these verses in this passage, I want us to
think about some lessons hard learnt by Hezekiah. In doing so, I want us to consider
at the outset the difference between chastisement and punishment. These two things, some people
say chastisement, chastisement or chastisement and punishment. These two things many people
think are the same. but in the context of the Lord's
dealings with his people, they are not. In this life, God chastises
his people for their sin, and he punishes those who are not
his people for their sin. God never chastens the reprobate. and he never punishes the elect. The content of God's dealings
with us, the providences, the experiences of chastening and
punishment may be exactly the same. brought about by the same events,
felt in the same way in our senses and in our experiences, but the
purpose, the purpose is entirely different. Those who are under
the protection of Christ in the covenant of grace are never punished
for sin. because the Lord Jesus Christ
has taken all our punishment on himself and carried it away. However, when we sin, as we will
and do, the Lord chastens us to teach us by our sin, to see
ourselves as we really are, to humble us, and to cause us to
rely and trust more upon the Saviour as our helper and deliverer. Hezekiah sinned when he became
proud and self-important in the presence of his Babylonian guests,
these ambassadors from Babylon. And the Lord chastened the good
king by confronting him with his folly of trusting in the
power of men, and at the same time pointed out his failure
to honour the Lord in all his ways. No believer wants to sin, but
when we do, as we shall, We have an advocate and the Lord chastens
us to show how necessary is that mercy and how precious is forgiveness. Chastening isn't pleasant, it
stings, it hurts, but it isn't punishment. It is not a display
of anger and judgment. but of love and grace. It is
a sign we are truly God's sons and daughters and that the Lord
is working in us to do us good. In these verses that we read
together, I was taken by the little phrase, Hezekiah was glad of them, that
is the Babylonians. He was glad, he was pleased. He was delighted at the prominence
and the prestige that these important visitors from Babylon brought
to him and brought to his city, Jerusalem. He liked it, he liked
it. He was glad of them. And to show
that he was glad of them, He showed them the house of his
precious things. Hezekiah's error, for which the
Lord chastened him, was his failure to properly assess what is precious
and what is not. And for the rest of our time
today, we are going to think about the nature of this house
of precious things. The first point I want to draw
your attention to is Hezekiah's imaginary precious things. Following Hezekiah's illness,
he gathered a lot of wealth. He had a lot of wealth and he
gathered more. And maybe some of it came from
the slain Assyrian army. And these treasures that he accrued
for himself, he laid them up in his house. Silver and gold,
spices and ointment and armour. He perceived these things to
be precious. They gave him status. They gave
him pleasure. They gave him a reason to boast
and to think well of himself, which he happily showed to these
Babylonian ambassadors. These ambassadors, they didn't
come to Hezekiah and hear about the goodness of God, and hear
about the mercy of God in healing him, and hear about how God had
helped and preserved the land. These ambassadors were shown
the trinkets and the trappings of Hezekiah's own self-esteem. He showed them himself and he
didn't in any way endeavour to show them the Lord. Despite all
Hezekiah knew about God's goodness and mercy, especially following
his near-death experience, the temptation overcame him to trust
in something other than the Lord. He knew the Lord, he loved the
Lord, yet still his flesh deceived him into thinking these physical
possessions were precious. And as Hezekiah's prosperity
grew, his faith withered. What he took to be a measure
of God's blessing became a snare to his spiritual well-being.
Instead of trusting in the riches of Christ, he ended up trusting
in his own riches. His assessment of what was precious
became warped and distorted. And Hezekiah's error is a warning
to us to judge wisely what is precious and to hold this world's
treasures loosely, being neither desperate to gain them nor proud
in possessing them. What need had Hezekiah of a house
of precious things? Here's my second point. A wise believer's assessment
of truly precious things. Under this heading, I want us
to think that we are all very much like Hezekiah, too preoccupied
with stuff and with things and not so much with what is of true
lasting value. Moses speaks of the precious
things of heaven, which are those things that originate in heaven. and flow out upon chosen men
and women when the windows of heaven and God's goodness are
opened to us. We're told in Samuel, in 1 Samuel
chapter three and verse one, we're told the word of the Lord
was precious in that day. The word of the Lord was precious
because it was rare. And I would contend that the
word of the Lord is rare today. And the true gospel is rare today. And the preaching of Jesus Christ
as he is revealed in scriptures according to the scriptures,
is rare and precious today, and we should consider it precious
as well. The psalmist says, the redemption
of a man's soul is precious. Psalm 49, it cannot be bought
with money. Learning of Christ is precious. Some of those who are younger
amongst us are blessed by learning these things about the Lord Jesus
Christ from the scriptures. Those of us who are older have
cause to thank the Lord for teaching us about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because no matter what we have accrued in this world, if the
Lord gives us a sense, if the Lord makes us wise in these spiritual
things, then we know what truly is precious. and it's not the
number of rooms that we have in our house. The psalmist, he tells us that
these precious truths are gifts from heaven. Christian fellowship,
unity in truth, worship, Psalm 133. Meditating and thinking
about God's grace and goodness is precious. Spiritual wisdom
and truth is precious. A believer's faith is precious. And more, Paul tells us, the
trial of our faith is much more precious than gold. Even these
very trials We have in Christ exceeding great and precious
promises from God, who is faithful in calling us and will do it. But most of all, for a believer,
Throughout all of Scripture from start to finish, it is Christ
Himself, the God-Man-Mediator, the Messiah, who is precious
to our souls. Christ is precious to God the
Father. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. He is the dearly beloved Son
of God. and He is precious to His people
as their unique, exclusive and only Saviour. We know this to
be so. We know it to be true. Like Hezekiah,
we have learned these truths by experience. Some easy, some
hard. We have come through the chastenings
of the Lord. We have learned in the Gospel
about being saved from the enemies of our soul and delivered from
the sicknesses of sin. We've learned about being supplied
with divine provision for all our needs. And yet, like Hezekiah, we forget. We get distracted. We get overtaken. The world comes to us. and it
tempts us and it puffs us up and we lose sight of the preciousness
of our Saviour and we replace Him with things that are not
precious at all. Let me ask you, think about this. Was not the Lord merciful to
Hezekiah in sending him the prophet Isaiah to rebuke him and chasten
him. Was not the Lord being merciful
in chastening Hezekiah, the king in his error? Well, Hezekiah thought so. And
that is the mark of a true child of God. We don't react aggressively towards
the chastenings of the Lord. Rather, we delight in the smarts
of his chastening rod because we understand the value of being
brought back to see the preciousness of the Lord Jesus. when we have
been dazzled by this world and its glittering pseudo-riches. True believers have the chastening
rod of God to teach them what is truly precious. And here's
my third point. The Lord himself has a valuation
of precious things. In Isaiah chapter 43 in verse
four, we read these words. It's the Lord who's speaking.
Now here the Lord is speaking about his church. the people whom he loves and
had loved from before the foundation of the world. He's speaking about
his covenant people. Now, in scripture, the word house
has several different meanings. Of course, it means the place
where we live. But it's more than just a place
or a residence. And the one usage that I want
to draw to your attention is where God calls his church the
house of the living God. And Peter says that Christ's
people, the people of faith, are built up a spiritual house. And in this sense too, a family
is called a house. So we talk about the house of
David or the house of Israel, meaning the family of David and
the people who are bound together and unified together, who have
been brought into union. So that when we speak about the
house of God, here we are speaking about the spiritual people bound
together, brought together under the family of God. Therefore I suggest to you that
we do no wrong to consider God's church, His elect people, as
being themselves from these two principles. The fact that the
Lord in Isaiah says that we are precious in His sight and that
He calls us His house, the house of the living God, we do no wrong
to consider that the church is God's house of precious things. With the precious Lord Jesus
Christ as head of his own house, head of his body, the church. Brothers and sisters, you and
I are those redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. You and I are valued according
to what God himself was willing to pay for our salvation. He gave his son. he came himself
to ransom and redeem what was precious to him. We are the pearl
of great price that Christ having once found sold all that he had
to purchase and possess forever. Let the thought of how precious
you are to God sink in. Let the truth that you and I
are the house of his precious things, that we are the house
of precious things to our Saviour, let that thought be a cause of
wonder and praise. More than all the wealth and
riches of a thousand worlds in a million galaxies. God thinks
you are precious. Is Christ precious to you? Then
beloved of God, you are precious to him. One more thought that I want
to leave with you today. Not only are our souls precious
to the Lord, our bodies are too. We sometimes, we sometimes, oh,
criticise the way that people go about pampering their bodies
and looking after it and all the cosmetics and all the dietary
things and all the exercise and all of these things that go into
sort of lifting up our bodies almost to the point of being
worshipped. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm simply saying this. God regards our bodies as precious
and that's a wonderful thing. I've had three people write to
me recently about cancer. What a terrible disease that
is. Like sin in a soul, cancer in
a body destroys it. It destroys it from the inside
out. But I want to say this and I
trust I'm not being glib in doing so. God loves your body. God loves your body so much he
has made the bodies of his people the temple of his residents. where his spirit dwells. The Lord Jesus Christ took our
body, took our flesh and the Lord Jesus Christ now in heaven
and eternally will dwell in our body with his people. sinful, corrupt and decaying
as these fleshy bodies are, full of disease and death, they are
being preserved and protected and ultimately will be transformed
into the likeness of His glorious body. when the voice of the archangel
shall be heard with the trump of God, then the dead in Christ
shall rise first and he shall change our vile body that it
may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, this very one
according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all
things unto himself. You are precious. Your soul is
precious. Your body is precious. Your love
and worship is precious to the Lord. And hence David can say,
Psalm 116 verse 15, precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of his saints. May the Lord keep us from wrongly
assessing what is precious in this world. May he teach us to
highly value his gospel, his grace, and himself. May he grant us to apprehend
how much he values us, having made of us the house of precious
things. Amen.