Well, good morning, everybody.
If you want to turn your Bibles, turn to 2 Kings, Chapter 20.
2 Kings, Chapter 20. The story
we're going to look at this morning involves a man named Hezekiah.
Hezekiah, he was a king. If you're not familiar with Hezekiah,
that's okay. I'm going to tell you a little bit about him. Hezekiah was the
king of Judah. He was the 12th king of Judah.
If you remember the The kingdoms are split. You've got Israel
and you've got Judah, two separate countries. They both have a king.
Hezekiah is the king of Judah, the 12th king. The scriptures
record that he is also the greatest king that Judah ever had. That
seems odd. If you'd asked me a couple weeks
ago who was the greatest king, I'd probably say David. That's
where most of the time is devoted. But what we're going to see in
the scriptures here, just a second, the scriptures say there's none
like him. None that came before him and none after him. This
is the greatest king of all the kings of Judah. Interestingly
enough, he is the son of a man who is arguably the worst king
of Judah. That was Ahaz. He's the 11th
king of Judah. And if you read about Ahaz, what
you'll find is he promoted idolatry greatly in his country. That's
the theme of Ahaz. Bad actor. He went in the resurrected
groves, erected groves, and temples and places of false worship to
Baal and other gods. He desecrated the temple. He
went in the temple and rearranged everything and put idols inside
there. He did this. He took the brazen altar. from
the temple where the sacrifices were offered. He had it carried
away, and he brought in another altar from Damascus. This guy
was a bad actor, and his theme was false religion. Bad actor.
But Hezekiah was his son. Hezekiah, this greatest king,
came out of him. And his name means this, Hezekiah. It means
Jehovah is my strength. And in that, Hezekiah is a type
of every believer. I was thinking about this. Jeremiah
said this. This is Jeremiah 16 and 9. He
said, O Lord, my strength and my fortress and my refuge in
the day of affliction. Now, if we are convinced of anything,
believers, it's this. We don't have the strength of
the battle. In this thing of salvation, if I have to wage
war, if I have to do battle, if the victory is based on me
doing something, I know this, I'm going to be lost. We don't
fight, and we have no intentions of it. We flee. We flee to Christ. We hide in that strong high tower. We hide in him. And we trust
him to fight the battle for us. And when he emerges victorious,
we emerge victorious from him. That's our strength. It's not
that Christ strengthens us. Christ is our strength. He's
our high tower. He's our hiding place. Now, let's
read this story. We're going to read verses 1
through 11. We'll read it once through, I'll make a few comments,
and we'll go back and look at some things. Look at verse 1. It says,
in those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah,
the son of Amos, came to him and said unto him, thus saith
the Lord, set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and
not live. Now these are compounding problems
for Hezekiah. At this exact same time, his
country, Judah, is being besieged by the Assyrians. And they've
already taken Israel, and now they're knocking on Judah's door.
And this has Hezekiah very distressed. But in the midst of this great
trial, this siege that's being laid by the Assyrians, now the
Lord comes to him and he says, set your house on fire. You're
going to die. Now if you've been in a situation where things were
bad and you thought, at least I can take comfort in this, things
couldn't possibly get any worse. I've hit rock bottom, things
couldn't possibly get any worse. And then they get worse, that's
where Hezekiah's at right now. He's in a very deep and dark
place. Look at verse two. Then he turned his face to the
wall and prayed unto the Lord. Just think of him turning his
face to the wall has something to do with him being alone with
God. He doesn't ask Isaiah to stay.
Let's talk this out. Let's think of a solution. He
doesn't call his wise men and his counselors to come in and
give him some human wisdom and human instruction. He's past
all that. He's past all that. He's past human wisdom and human
intervention. It is time to be alone with God. It's a precious place to be.
Look at verse 3. Look at his prayer. 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. And it
came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court,
that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Turn again, and
tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people. Thus saith the Lord,
the God of David thy father, 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. Now, what's going on here? Did
the Lord change his mind? They say, I purposed to kill
Hezekiah, but then he made this prayer, and his prayers changed
my mind. I had a purpose, and I changed my purpose because
of what Hezekiah did. No, not in the least. All the
purposes of God are everlasting. Every purpose that he has ever
purposed, and that's everything, he made in eternity past. And
those purposes are unchangeable. They're immutable, because he
is immutable, and he is unchangeable. All the purposes of God from
eternity past must play out in time exactly as they purposed
him, because he never changes. That's why all the promises of
God are yea and amen, because those promises cannot be broken.
So what then? What's going on here? Here's
the evidence of this right here. Hezekiah will have a son. His
name is Manasseh. He will be the 13th king of Judah. And Manasseh was in the line
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's in the genealogy of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But you know what? At this point
in time, Manasseh hadn't even been born yet. The Christ was
always going to come through the line of David, through the
line of Hezekiah, through the line of Manasseh. Manasseh hasn't been
born yet. It was always the Lord's purpose that Hezekiah was going
to live. This isn't a change in purpose. Then why would the
Lord do this? Why would he put him in such
distress that Hezekiah would cry out to the Lord? That's it.
Now, look at verse 6. Look at these blessings. The
Lord says, and I will add unto thy days 15 years. And I will
deliver thee in this city out of the hand of the king of Syria.
And I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant
David's sake. Now look at the blessings that
he had here. He says, Hezekiah, I'm going to heal you. I'm going
to give you 15 more years of life. And by the way, that problem
with the Assyrians you're having, I'm going to take care of that
too. I'm going to fight the battle for you. You're not going to
lift a finger. I'm going to go out. I'm going to defeat your
enemy. You're going to emerge victorious. And here's why I'm going to do
it, Hezekiah, for two reasons. Number one, for my own sake.
Because I'm God and I'm pleased to, and I do what pleases me.
For my own sake, because I want to get glory out of this battle,
I'm going to get glory out of healing you for my own sake and
for David's sake. What happened with David? Long
ago, the Lord made a covenant with David. He said, all your
children, they're going to reign on the throne forever. So he
makes this promise to David, and he's going to hold up his
promise. I'm going to preserve you. I'm going to heal you. Manasseh
is going to come through for David's sake. Why is God the
Father pleased to save the elect? Why was he pleased to save a
people in the beginning? Number one, simply because he
was pleased to. That's why he did it. He wanted to. Two, because
he gets glory from it. But this, for Christ's sake.
Because he made a covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ before
the world ever began. the elect were given to Christ.
Christ agreed to be their surety. The Father said, you'll be their
surety. You'll do everything necessary to save them. You're
going to bring them back to me without a scratch, not one scratch
on them. I'm holding you 100% accountable. And Christ did exactly
what his Father sent him to do. That's why, for God's sake, for
the Father's sake, for Christ's sake, God's people are saved.
Look at verse 7. This is the means of the human.
And Isaiah said, take a lump of figs. And they took and laid
it on the boil, and he recovered. Now, we don't know what Hezekiah's
exact illness was, but it seems that he had an ulcer of some
sort. And this figs, what they would have done is take the figs
and crush it up and make a salve. They would have laid the figs
on Hezekiah. And that was the means of healing.
Look at verse eight. And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah,
what shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me? And that I
shall go up into the house of the Lord, on the third day. Now, this seems wrong, doesn't
it? The Lord had told him in no uncertain terms, I'm going
to heal you. You're going to go to the house of the Lord on
the third day. And here Hezekiah says, I'd like a sign. Give me
a sign that I know that you're going to do exactly what you
said you're going to do. He should have been content.
He should have simply believed God and taken Him at His word.
But here's the problem. Hezekiah was a sinner just like
you and me. The same thing you struggle with? Those same sinful,
wicked things you and I struggle with, Hezekiah struggled with
it all the way up to and including unbelief. And he asked for a
sign. But you see the long-suffering of the Lord in all this with
his people. The Lord doesn't rebuke him. He doesn't start beating
him up and say, why don't you just believe me and take me at
my word? He doesn't. He's long-suffering. He's gracious with his people.
He just grants the request. Look here. Look at verse 9. And
Isaiah said, this sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the
Lord will do the thing that he has spoken. Shall the shadow
go forward 10 degrees or go back 10 degrees? Now, what he's talking
about is a sundial. Most of you are probably familiar
with the concept. You have a table. It has degree marks on the table. That's delineating the units
of time. We don't know how much one degree was worth. We're going
to say it's an hour for the sake of argument. So it's got the
hours marked out on the table, and it's got the pointer. You
point that sundial north, and as the earth rotates and the
relative position of the dial to the sun changes, the shadow
is cast on the dial, and where it strikes tells you what time
it is. And here's what the Lord says.
He says, what do you want, Hezekiah? I'll give you either sign you
want. I'll either move time 10 hours forward, or I'll move time
10 hours back. Which one do you want? In this,
we see just a tiny glimpse of the Lord's absolute omnipotence.
He's the Creator. Everything in this world works
in perfect harmony. The universe works in perfect harmony. The
human body works in perfect harmony. All because He created it. And
as the Creator, He exercises sovereign rule. We're creatures
of time. We're born. We live. We live
second by second, day by day, hour by hour. We come to our
peak, we begin to die, and then we finally die. Creatures of
time. He's without time. He created time. And here's what
he's saying. Any time I want to manipulate time, 10 hours
forward or 10 hours back, I can do it. Not hard. Not the least.
I'm the Lord. Look at verse 10. Look for 20
chooses. And Hezekiah answered, it is
a light thing for the shadow to go down 10 degrees. Nay, but
let the shadow return backward ten degrees. Now, what I assume
here is that he chose the one which he thought was the most
miraculous. So time is always moving forward, right? And we
lose track of time all the time. Heard the expression, time flies
when you're having fun. You're having a good time, several
hours could pass, you wouldn't even notice. Hezekiah says it's
a light thing if we traveled 10 hours forward in time, but
what we don't have an experience of is traveling 10 hours backward
in time. It's never happened. So he picks the one that is most
miraculous, send time back 10 hours. Verse 11, and Isaiah the
prophet cried unto the Lord, And he brought the shadow 10
degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of
Ahaz. The Lord did exactly what he
said he was going to do, just like he always does. Now, this
is a very interesting story, isn't it? It's full of miracles,
very miraculous things. But if that's all we see here
is just miracles to be awestruck by, we've completely missed it.
This is the gospel, very plain and very simply. Three things
I want us to look at here. We're first going to consider
Hezekiah as a type of a believer. We're going to consider Hezekiah
as a type of Christ. And we're going to see here,
what in the world is this sundial all about? So look at this. Go
back to verse 3. Go back to verse 2. Let's read
Hezekiah's prayer, considering Hezekiah as a type of believer.
Then 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. Question,
and I want you to answer it honestly, and I want you to answer it to
yourself. Would you feel comfortable praying this prayer? I've walked before you in truth
and with a perfect heart, and I've always done that which is
right in your sight. Would you feel comfortable praying
that prayer? I would not, not in the least, because that's
not my experience. Here's my experience. Let me see if you
line up with this, because this was David's experience. David
said in Psalm 51 3, my sin is ever before me. Now that's my
experience. I'm a sinful man, full of wickedness,
full of wicked desires, full of wicked thoughts and bleeds
out on me. It comes out my mouth, it comes out in my actions. And
here's the thing, it's ever before me. You know what that means?
I can't stop. It's the same sins over and over and over. I'm the
dog, the child that just can't learn his lessons. That's me
right there. My sin is ever before me. In
reference to my heart, I say with David on his deathbed, my
house is not so with God. And yes, David was talking about
his earthly house. He was talking about his family.
He was talking about his country. But he was talking about this house,
his heart. It's just not so with God. It does not love Christ
as it ought. It does not love his people as
it ought. It is cold. It is hard. It is
broken. It does not believe as it should.
It's a broken heart. It's no good. My house. It's
not so with God. In reference to my walk, David
said this, Psalm 119, 176, I have gone astray like a lost sheep.
Seek thy servant. It is a stagger at best. Constantly
wavering, constantly coming off the path to that straight gate
of Christ and Him crucified alone, constantly looking down, taking
my eyes off of Christ, looking at my walk, looking at myself,
and all I can say is this, I've gone astray like a lost sheep.
Seek thy servant. Come to me, Lord, where I'm at
in that staggering condition. Put me back on the path daily,
hourly. Lift up my head. Point me to
Christ all over again. That's my walk. That's my experience. Is that your experience? That's
the experience of a sinner. Right there. And you know what?
That was Hezekiah's experience, and that's every believer's experience.
All that being said, everything Hezekiah says here is absolutely
true about him. He had walked in truth. He did
have a perfect heart and he had always done that which was right
in the sight of God. And the only way that can be
understood, that's the truth of Hezekiah. That's the truth
of every believer. It can only be understood in
light of union, an eternal union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that was Hezekiah's hope. Now I want to show you that.
Turn over here to 2 Kings chapter 18. Look down at verse 6 there. This
all speaks of Hezekiah, these first seven verses. 2 Kings 18, 6. For he clave to
the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments
which the Lord God commanded Moses. It says it right there,
Hezekiah kept the law. What did he do? He clave to the
Lord his God. Now, where do we first see that
word clave? You want to know? It's Genesis chapter 2. I'll
read this to you. It's when the Lord gave the institution of
marriage. He said this. He said, therefore shall a man
leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife
and they shall be one flesh. The two become one. This thing
of marriage, this institution of marriage, you know what it
symbolizes? Union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Two becoming one.
Here's what happens in a marriage. Whatever the husband has, whatever
he brings in that marriage, it becomes the wife's. Whatever
the wife has, whatever she brings in that marriage, it becomes
the husband's. And truly, it is joint ownership. Everything
they have becomes joint. And we have that at the police
department all the time. We'll have a couple that's married.
They'll be going through a separation. And one will have a bank account
and one of the other ones will take some money out of the account. They'll call
and say, I want a theft report. My wife came in and she took
some money out of her account. First thing we ask, you married? Yeah.
Can't help you, buddy. Joint property. She can do whatever
she wants with that money. That's her money. This is union
with Christ. Everything he has, we have because
we have an eternal union with him. Never to be separated. Always
been in that union. What does he have before his
father? He has real righteousness. Says right there, Hezekiah kept
the law of Moses. That's what it says right there.
He actually kept the law. He kept it in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The very righteousness of Christ was his. What does
Christ have? He has perfect acceptance and
perfect communion with His Father at all times. We have that perfect
acceptance, that perfect communion with God at all times in Christ.
Everything He has is ours. He has perfection. He has holiness,
that unchangeable state. We have that because He has it
and we are in that union with Him. We have all those things.
When, let me read this to you, 1 John 4, 17. Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,
because as he is, so are we, right presently in this world. This is real, folks, right now,
holy, blameless, unapprovable, in the person of Jesus Christ,
because of that eternal union. But the door swings both ways.
Just as everything Christ has, He brought in this marriage,
everything we have, everything we brought in this marriage,
all our baggage, He owned that too. You know, we brought sin.
We brought our curse. He became our sin. He suffered
under the wrath of God. He put that sin away. True union
with Christ. This is the only way Hezekiah
can stand before God and he can say, I've walked in truth and
with a perfect heart. I've always done that which is
right. It was absolutely true, and this is true of every believer,
every sinner looking to Christ. We truly have done that which
is right. We truly do have a perfect heart. We truly have done that
which is right in the sight of God because Christ did. Let's
read some more about Hezekiah. This whole chapter is devoted
to him. Look at verse 1 of 2 Kings 18. Now it came to pass in the third
year of Hosea son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the
son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. Twenty and five years
old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine
years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abbey,
the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father
did. Now what did he do? That's the
question. This is going to describe every believer. Look at verse
four. He removed the high places, and he broke the images, and
cut down the groves, and break in pieces the brazen serpent
that Moses had made. For unto those days the children
of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nehushtan."
Just worthless piece of brass. Now here's the first thing we
see about Hezekiah. He had absolutely no tolerance for anything but
the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified alone. Now his father
Ahaz was an idolater. He promoted idolatry in the land.
And as soon as Hezekiah takes reigns, you know what he does?
He reinstitutes the Passover. They hadn't observed it in years.
He repaired the temple, pulled all the idols out, repaired all
the temple, reinstituted the priesthood, and he went through
like a madman, like a wildfire, and he burned down every grove,
every high place, every idol, anything that was contrary to
Jesus Christ and him crucified, he utterly grounded to powder
and burned it to the ground. He destroyed it. We revel in this. We admire Hezekiah
in this. But you think about it, the country
was probably split at this point, right? You had those who were
overtly worshipping idols. They were Baal worshippers. They
were worshipping false gods. Then you still had some who at least
thought they were worshipping the true and living God of Israel.
And as Hezekiah is going through and he's destroying all those
altars to Baal and all those worship houses, those people
who thought they were worshipping the true and living God, they
were on his side. Get him! burn those altars to the ground,
do it. And then he goes and he gets the serpent of brass. You
remember the serpent of brass from Numbers 21? All the people
had been bitten, the children of Israel. Moses lifted up the
serpent of brass on the pole. Everyone who was bitten, when
they looked, lived. Well, they kept that serpent
of brass. And they started to worship it. All those people
who thought they were worshiping the true and living God, that
was their idol. And they were on Hezekiah's side when he was
burning down the altars to Baal. Get him! And then he took that
serpent of brass and he ground that sucker to powder. All in
front of them. And they thought, you've gone
too far now. Hezekiah said, no I haven't. Everything that is
contrary to Christ and Him crucified, it's out of here. I'm burning
it to the ground. Here's the point. When the Lord does a work
of grace in a man's heart, there is zero toleration for anything
but Jesus Christ and him crucified alone. There is no hope, there
is no confidence, and there is no tolerance of anything but
Christ and him crucified alone. He goes through like a wildfire.
He destroys it all. Two issues here. Here's the first
issue, love. We cannot stand to have our Lord's
name slandered in any way. Anytime he is misrepresented
in any way, we cannot stand it, because we love him. We love
him as he is, as he is depicted in this book. And how is he always
represented by false religion? When he is falsely represented,
how is he represented? As a weakling. As a defeated
weakling, he wants old men to be saved. He's trying to figure
out how to do it, but he's confused. And he needs men to do this,
that, or the other. And if he could just get them to do that,
it would be great. But he wants you to be saved. He just can't
get it done. And when we hear that, we hate that. We have no
tolerance for that, because we love the true, the true and living
God. We can't stand to see his name
slandered, his name misrepresented. But there's another issue at
stake. It's not just love. It's an issue of necessity. You
preach a Christ to me, you preach a Savior to me that does not
line up with this book perfectly, you've taken away my hope. Take
away any one of his attributes, you've taken away all my hope.
Alter him in any way, you've taken away all my hope. You show
me a Christ who's not sovereign. Who can't irresistibly and invincibly
draw me to himself. Who doesn't have the power to
break my will and cause me to bow the knee to him and give
me a new will to where I actually want to do it. One who does not
have the power to save me outside of my experience before the world
ever even began. You show me that Christ, show
you a worthless Christ, I want nothing to do with him. The Christ
I know, the Christ I love, the Christ I must have is in this
book as he's represented. And we won't have him any way,
we won't hear his name represented any other way. Now, look at verse 5. Speaking again of Hezekiah, 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. Now, I told you we'd see this.
Hezekiah is recorded right here as the greatest king. He says
he trusted in the Lord God of Israel. There's none like him,
not before nor after. This is the greatest king. And
no doubt in that, he's a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord
Jesus Christ, there's nobody like Him. But especially in this
thing, there's nobody like Christ. But especially in this thing,
nobody trusted God like He did. Now, folks, I'm thankful for
the faith I have. I'm thankful for the faith that you have.
It's God-given faith. But we just don't know that much about
real faith. This is real faith. This man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was on the cross, when his father
was pouring down his wrath upon him. That's all he had. He had
no smile from his father. He didn't have his father's love.
He didn't have his father's presence. All he had was the wrath of God
falling down upon him. These were his parting words.
Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. Even in this, my darkest
hour, when your wrath is poured down upon me, I still trust you.
I remember the covenant you made with me. You said if I live for
him, I die for him. If I do what you told me to do
and I ransom them back to you without a scratch on it, you
said you'd raise me from the dead. And you know what? You're
always good to your word. All he had was the bare word of God,
the bare promise of God. Nothing else. No signs. All he
had was the wrath of God pouring down upon him. And he believed
God perfectly. That's faith. That's real faith.
But this is also a picture of Hezekiah. This is a picture of
the believer in Hezekiah right here. This was Hezekiah. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel. And I'm thankful for the wording
here. It says he's the Lord God of Israel. He's of a particular
people. Now, he is the Lord God of every
man in the sense that he is the sovereign and he is the king
over every man. Everyone does according to his
will. Everything that happens is according
to his will. But he is the Lord God and Savior of a particular
people. You know who they are? They're
sinners. And I can't get over that. That's the best news a
sinner has ever heard. This is the Lord God Savior of
a particular people. Sinners, if you're a sinner,
if you're a man who has nothing to bring before God, you can't
save yourself. If you are left to yourself,
you're gonna go to hell and you know that. And all you have is
Christ. He's worthy of your trust because
He is your Lord, He is your God, and He is your Savior. Now what
did Hezekiah's faith look like? Turn over to 2 Chronicles chapter
32. This is the Chronicles account of Hezekiah. In this portion
of the story, Judah is being besieged by the Assyrians, and
Hezekiah is going out to bolster his troops. He's going to speak
to his soldiers here, listen to what he has to say. All this
is a beautiful picture of faith. 2 Chronicles 32, verse 7. Hezekiah says, be strong and
courageous. Be not afraid nor dismayed. For
the king of Assyria, know for all the multitude that is with
him, for there be more with us than with him. You know what
he's saying there? If God be for us, who could be against
us? Are you a sinner? That's an easy
question to answer right now. Is there anything in you that
recommends you to God? If you're a sinner, understand this, he's
for you. He truly is for you. He truly
is your Savior. If God be for us, who can be
against us? What could you possibly fear?
What could possibly hurt you? If God be for us, who can be
against us? Look at his faith. Look at verse
eight. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord
our God to help us and to fight our battles. And the people rested
themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. Now,
folks, this is faith. And here's the first thing of
faith. It has no confidence in the flesh. Hezekiah said, with
him, with the Assyrians, he's got an arm of flesh. He has human
strength. That's all he's got. Well, here's
the first part of faith. It has absolutely no confidence
in the flesh whatsoever. It doesn't have confidence in
my works, in my will, in my best thought. There's absolutely no
confidence in the flesh. This was Hezekiah's hope right
here. This is what he was confident
of. that the Lord was going to fight his battle for him. And
he wasn't going to fight alongside the Lord. And the Lord wasn't
going to soften up the enemy. And he was going to finish him
off. Hezekiah was going to sit down. He was going to rest. And
the Lord was going to fight his battle for him. And when the
Lord emerged victorious, Hezekiah was going to emerge victorious
in him as well. It's not a doing. It is a confidence that the Lord
has fought our battle for us. It's over. It's done. Isaiah
40, verse 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. Presently. Done in the past. Presently completed. Future completed. It's all done,
folks. That's faith. No confidence in
the flesh, just resting and trusting to what the Lord Jesus Christ
did. It's done. Now, go back to 2 Kings 18 and
look at verse 7. This is one of the last things
said about Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18 verse 7, and the Lord
was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth,
and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not.
Why did Hezekiah do all these things? Why was it that he went
down and he destroyed all those idols? Why was it that he trusted
the Lord God of Israel? Why was it that he claimed to
the Lord that his hope was in union with Christ? Why was all
those things simply this? Because the Lord was with him.
That was it. Every believer, why do we trust God? Why do we
trust the Lord God of Israel? We actually believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Why do we find our hope in that eternal union
with the Lord Jesus Christ? Why do we have no tolerance and
no confidence in the flesh? Because the Lord's with us, that's
it. 1 Corinthians 4 verse 7, for who maketh thee to differ
from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, what dost thou
glory? And if thou hast not received
it, who maketh thee to differ? Christ. What's the difference
between you and any other sinner out there? Christ. He made the
difference. Every aspect of salvation is
his work. the sin payment, the righteousness, the faith, the
giving of it, the bringing to repentance. And don't discount
this thing of receiving grace. We're so sinful unless the Lord
gave us the ability to, gave us the grace to. We wouldn't
even receive grace. Everything is His work by Him
and for Him and in Him and through Him. Amen? Now we saw Hezekiah as a type
of the believer. Let's look at Hezekiah as a type
of Christ. Go back to 2 Kings chapter 20. Look at verse 1. In those days was Hezekiah sick
unto death. And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos, came to him
and said unto him, thus saith the Lord, set thine house in
order, for thou shalt die. and not live. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ has a house. He has a people. That's his house.
How did he set his house in order? How did he make his people appropriate
before the Father? He had to die. Set your house
in order, you're going to die. That's how he set his house in
order. Under what circumstances? Look at verse 7. And Isaiah said,
take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on
the boil, and he recovered. Now, when you think of figs,
what do you think of? I think in Mark chapter 11, the Lord
Jesus Christ, he saw a fig tree and he was hungry. It was full
of leaves and he walked up to it and there was no fruit on
that fig tree. You know what he did? He cursed that fig tree. That
fig is associated with a curse. The curse associated with our
sin. This is the fig, it's the curse
of God for our sin. The fig was laid on Hezekiah
and that was the means of healing. Our curse, our sin was laid upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. He became our sin and suffered
under the wrath of God for it. That was the means of us being
healed. Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. For
it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on the tree. What
did the law demand? It demanded punishment. We broke the law. Somebody had to die. The curse
was lifted off of us. And the curse of our sin, it
was put in Christ. It became his. He became the
curse. And he suffered under the wrath of God. And he died
under our curse. That's what that means right
there. Under what circumstances? Or forgive me, the effects of
the suffering. Look at verse 6. And I will add unto thy days
15 years, and I will deliver thee in this city out of the
hand of the king of Assyria. This thing of 15 years, what
does this represent? First time it's ever used, stand alone,
it's in Genesis. It's in reference to Noah. It
said the floodwaters, they went 15 cubits above the mountains. It's the first time it's used.
What do those floodwaters represent? It represents the wrath of God.
What are the effects of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ for
us under our curse? It's this, the wrath of God will
never touch us. The wrath of God was poured down upon him.
He put away our sins so much that there is no more wrath left
over. In that ark there was safety. The waters of the flood couldn't
get inside that ark. Why? Because the pitch. It was pitched
within and without. With pitch represents the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those floodwaters, the waters
of God wrath, it will never touch his people for this reason, because
there's no reason for it to. There's nothing for God to be
mad at. All those sins are gone. They're put away as far as the
east is from the west. How do we know this is so? How
can we have confidence in this? If you're a sinner looking to
Christ alone, what I'm telling you is presently, right now,
you have absolutely no sin. The Lord Jesus Christ put it
away. You stand sinless before the Father. How do we know that's
so? What sign do we have? Look at verse 5. Turn again and
tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, thus saith the Lord,
the God of David thy father, 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.
What happened on the third day? The third day after the Lord
Jesus Christ died, what happened? He was risen. Mary Magdalene
and other faithful women went to his tomb. The stone was rolled
away from the door, and they went inside looking for him.
And two angels appeared, and they said, why seek ye the living
among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. The
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, what does that mean?
Romans 425, he was delivered for our offenses and he was raised
again for our justification or rather because of justification. What is the sign? How can every
believer know that they are sinless before God? This really is so.
God raised Christ from the dead. Being content with his work,
being satisfied with his suffering, having done exactly what he set
out to do to put away all the sins of God's elect, He raised
him from the dead exactly like he said he was going to do. Hezekiah
wanted a sign. He said, give me a sign that
it is exactly the way you say it is. This is the one sign you're
going to get. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
risen. That means God's satisfied. God's satisfied with you. You
lack absolutely nothing in Christ. Where is Christ now? He's seated
at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for his people.
If you want to hear what his intercessory prayer sounds like,
go to verse 3. Read these as the word of Christ.
I beseech thee, O Lord. Remember. He appeals to God's
memory. Remember. Do you remember your
covenant? Do you remember when you tasked
me with the salvation of your people? Do you remember when
you said, if you save them, if you redeem them, I'll accept
them? Do you remember? He appeals to God's memory. You
remember? Here's what I've done. I have walked before thee in
truth. I've completed your justice.
And with a perfect heart on the spotless lamb. And have done
that which is good in thy sight. Everything you sent me out to
do, I did. And Hezekiah wept sore. I've
suffered. I died. Look at my scars. That
is his high priestly prayer. That is his intercessory prayer
for his people. And when he says that to the
Father, the Father says, well done, thou good and faithful
servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord. And when he says that
to Christ, he's saying that to everybody in Christ. Now, let's finish with this. What about that sundial? Hezekiah wanted a sign. He wanted
some assurance that the Lord would do what he said he was
going to do. The Lord gave him an option.
You want me to move time 10 hours forward? Or you want me to move
time 10 hours backward? You choose. Either one you want.
Hezekiah chose 10 hours backward. Now, what does that mean? What's
that talking about? Presently, I'm either looking
to the present and to the future or I'm looking to the past. Let
me explain what I mean. If I'm looking to the present
and the future, it sounds something like this. I feel like I'm having
more victory over sin in my life. I seem to be becoming less sinful
and I seem to have more righteous living, seem to be doing better,
completing more good deeds, having much better thoughts. I'm making
progress. And you know what? I've got plans.
I'm going to keep my nose to the grindstone. I'm going to
work this thing out. And if not today, someday, I'm
going to be acceptable before God. Looking to the future is
looking to yourself. Here's what it sounds like when
you're looking to the past. This is my hope. Before the foundation
of the world, God loved me in Christ because I share that eternal
union with him. Before the foundation of the
world, this is my hope, I was a part of that covenant. I was
given to Christ and he agreed to be my surety. Before the foundation
of the world, he's recorded as the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. Before I was born, before I came
to this world, before I committed one sin, there was already a
savior. already a sacrifice, who had already made atonement
for that sin. I came into this world acceptable
before God because everything that was necessarily done was
done in the past and was done by Christ himself. Now, question. You look in the future, are you
looking in the past to what Christ has done? Now, if you are looking
to the past, to what Christ has done, understand this, you have
every reason to have assurance. What the Lord did, he did for
you. You stand holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in Christ this very moment. I'm going to leave
you there. Have a good morning.