Well, we're looking actually
at four chapters of Isaiah this morning, 36 to 39. We're not actually going to look
at all in chapter 39, but the text is in verse 16 of chapter
38 that Peter read for us earlier. 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. So there are four chapters of
Isaiah here, chapters 36, 37, 38, and 39, and it's a narrative. In the middle of Isaiah's prophecy,
there's a historical narrative of Hezekiah's situation and his
experience in those days. And the words echo in many cases,
many places, they actually duplicate exactly the words of the history
books in 2 Kings around chapter 20, 18, 19, 20, and in 2 Chronicles
around chapter 30, 31, and 32. But here in Isaiah 38, in verse
9, down to verse 22, we have something that Hezekiah wrote
to record his experience. There, you see it in verse 9.
The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick
and was recovered of his sickness. This is the writing of Hezekiah. And so he wrote, verse 16, Hezekiah's
writing, and what he had learned, especially that verse, verse
16. He talks about these things. Oh Lord, by these, well, The translators have put in italics
things, but we know that makes the sense right in English. These
things, by these things, what are these things he's talking
about? Well, primarily it's two things.
It's the threat of Assyria that came upon him in his days, and
it's sickness unto death. Sickness unto death. These two
things happened in his life and they had a profound influence
on the life of his spirit. In these things is the life of
my spirit. They had a profound influence
on the life of his spirit. What does he mean by the life
of his spirit? The life of my spirit? Can you
say the life of my spirit? What is it? It's fellowship with
God. That's what it is. It's spiritual
life. We all have natural life by virtue of our birth, from
our parents, from our natural parents. But the child of God
has spiritual life by virtue of the new birth. the new birth
when Jesus said you must be born again to Nicodemus, the new birth
where the Spirit of God comes and where there is no spiritual
life and where there is no perception of the things of the living God,
the Spirit of God comes and gives that deep inner knowledge of
God that deepens with experience. He gives vital godliness. What
do I mean by vital? Vital means living, living, something
that's alive. Vital godliness. I'm not talking
about wandering around in a pious state claiming that you're holier
than everybody else around you. That's not what vital godliness
is. But it's living in a living walk with God. Is that not what
they said about Enoch? They said Enoch walked with God. He had such close fellowship
with the living God in this life of his spirit. He knew God, he
walked with God, so much so that God took him. He didn't die the
death that other men die. He was taken straight to heaven.
And Hezekiah tells us, By things that happen to us, men live. The things that happen, they
influence that spiritual life, the life of my spirit. By the
circumstances of life that God sends our way, for to be sure,
whatever happens, God sends it your way. You don't say, oh gosh,
that was a terrible thing that happened, the devil must have
sent that, and oh then, we got loads of money come our way,
God must have sent that. No, no, God sends everything
that comes our way. All things work together for
good to those who love God, who are called according to his purposes. The experiences of ease, the
experiences of difficulty, they all impact on our spiritual life,
if we have any. Do you have that life which is
hid with God in Christ, that life of the Spirit hid with God
in Christ. The things that come along and
that we experience, they either weaken that life of the Spirit
or they strengthen that life of the Spirit. Let's think a
bit more about this life of the Spirit. Do you have such a life
of the Spirit? Any of you listening to this
or watching it, are you born again? Isn't that what Jesus
said to Nicodemus? You must be born again. Do you
have a life of the Spirit, a consciousness of God within you? You know,
so many people say, claim that they have no consciousness of
God whatsoever. There's just nothing. They're
quite confident and proud and boastful of the fact that they
don't need anything to do with this voodoo that they think God
is. But the child of God with a life of the Spirit has a consciousness
of God, is aware to some degree of the holiness of God, that
our God is a holy being, that he dwells in unapproachable light,
that you cannot breeze casually into the presence of the living
God, for he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. The
child of God with the life of the Spirit has some growing consciousness
of that. And at the same time, an awareness
of that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwells no good thing,
for I know that I am a sinner. I know that everything in this
flesh, in this body, descends from Adam who rebelled against
God in the Garden of Eden. We have that trait of original
sin. And we know about the divine
justice of God, that God cannot tolerate sin and must punish
sin. And we've seen in the gospel of grace, by faith given as the
gift of God, we've seen that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, God come in flesh went to the cross of Calvary to satisfy
the law of God, to the offended justice of God for the sins of
His people. This is what the Word of God
teaches us, to accomplish redemption, that He was made a curse for
us. For cursed is everyone who continues
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
But Christ has redeemed us, paid the price for the curse of the
law. He's redeemed us from the curse of the law. by being made
that curse for us when he died on the cross of Calvary. And
we know this, and this is what the life of the Spirit is. It's
faith in Christ, it's trust in Christ for redemption. It's walking,
living the life in the good of it. If you don't have that, then
you must be born again. What do I do? What do I do? You
say, what do I do? I see people who claim to be
born again, and yet I know I'm not, and yet I want to be. I
want to be able to say, I know that this is me. I know that
I have this life of the Spirit. There's that hymn that I love
that says this, Savior, dear Savior, hear my humble cry. Whilst on others thou art calling,
please do not pass me by. That's the prayer of the one
who longs to be right with God. Whilst on others you are calling,
because you clearly are and have, please do not pass me by. But
then you see, if you have this life of the Spirit, the health
of that life of the Spirit is much affected by life's experiences. The health of your life of the
Spirit, if you are a believer, it may be dented or damaged because
of some of these things. You may have, for example, succumbed
to false teaching. You may have succumbed to false
teaching. You know, Israel had all of the experiences of the
truth of God when they came out of Egypt with Moses and Aaron.
And Moses went up Mount Sinai to commune with God for 40 days
and 40 nights. And they said, we don't know
who he is. Where's he gone? He was here. He's led us this far.
Now we've lost sight of him. And they said to Aaron, make
us a golden image, a calf out of gold, and we'll bow down and
worship that. And in no time, the flesh was
so prone to falling into idolatry. because of false teaching, because
of false ideas. Perhaps there's an element of
that. Perhaps you haven't made a golden calf and bow down to
worship it, but maybe there are some idols in your mind. Maybe
you're wrongly thinking that you're in the right way to knowing
God, when in actual fact you're in false religion, or a brand
of that religion that sounds in so many ways, is very subtle,
sounds so much like the truth, but in actual fact, It's false
teaching. It's wrong teaching. It's idolatry. It's the wrong picture. It's
the wrong idea of what God is and who God is. You might have
been taught, even though all things sound so orthodox and
correct, that your standing with God depends on the things that
you do, on your obeying of the law of Moses as your rule of
life, for example. That's just one example. And
it's an idol. It's an idol. Rightness with
God is only in the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, not in the things
that we do. That will damage the life of
your spirit, possibly fatally. Trusting in doctrinal head knowledge. Perhaps you're in a church, there
are very few these days, but perhaps you're in a situation
that prides itself on squeaky-clean doctrinal correctness. You've
got everything sorted out, you know exactly this, this, this,
but do you have that deep inner experience of God's Spirit? You
might have lots of very correct doctrine that you can tick all
the boxes as you compare it with the Word of God in your head,
but do you have that vital godliness in your heart, that deep inner
experience of God's Spirit. You see, doctrine is essential. Don't think I'm saying it's not.
Correct doctrine is absolutely essential. But do you know something?
I can summarize the whole of the believer's correct doctrine
in the testimony. I haven't mentioned him for a
long time, you know the little story about Happy Jack. What
was his doctrine? I'm a poor sinner, and nothing
at all. What do you know Jack? Shall
we let you into our church? Do you know enough head knowledge
doctrine so that we can let you in? Have you done all the right
things and gone to the right colleges? He just said this,
I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all but Jesus Christ, he's
my all in all. There, that's the profoundest
doctrine you ever need to know but if you know it and feel it
in your heart you've got it in the right place. No, don't trust
in doctrinal head knowledge alone Don't presume in the things of
the flesh when it comes to spiritual life. You might have good family
associations, people in your family who you know know the
truth, and you might have a basic good nature, you're not nasty
to people, and so you might think, well, I'm all right with God,
and you're careless about your lifestyle, and you don't think
it matters, and you slip into antinomian living, which is that
it doesn't matter whether I commit these sins or I don't commit
these sins. It's utterly irrelevant because I'm all right in Christ.
That's antinomianism. And that's an error that you can fall into.
And that can damage your spiritual life. Can, will, definitely.
You can be very materially comfortable. In these days we seem to have
so much material comfort and well-being. Do you know something? Here is a truth. Whatever feeds
the natural man tends to famish faith and spiritual life. Whatever
makes the natural man feel very comfortable tends to famish,
to starve faith and the spiritual life. You know the people at
Laodicea in that letter in Revelation chapter 3 and the risen Lord
Jesus Christ says to them, you say I am rich and filled with
goods and I have need of nothing and you don't realize that you're
poor and blind and naked. You're poverty stricken. You
may be materially prosperous in those days but you're spiritually
poverty stricken. Come to me and buy without money
and price. Come and have your eyes cleansed
with eye salves so that you can see. Come to me for the cleansing
that you need. No, material comfort and well-being,
things that feel good to the flesh can be great damage to
the spirit. So God puts his children, his
true children, through trials and temptations. We've been singing
about chastisement, chastise, however you want to pronounce
it, but God loves his children and as a true parent chastises
their child to bring them up in the right way, to know the
truth and to know what is right and what is wrong, God chastises
his children and brings us through trials and temptations. Why does
he do it? He does it to weaken the flesh,
because in weakening the flesh he invigorates the spirit, he
brings life into the spirit. The circumstances of life and
the health of the body are brought upon us in different ways to
chastise the child of God, so that we are weaned away from
this flesh and from the world. So let's look at Hezekiah to
see how God's providential dealings with him gave true vigor to the
life of his spirit. These things, I've already said
what they were, these things. In these four chapters, well
more than that because the Assyrian thing starts earlier. These things,
the threat from Assyria and secondly in chapter 38, the sentence of
death. In those days Hezekiah was sick
and Isaiah was sent to him and told him, set your house in order
for you will die and not live. When it comes to Assyria, there
was a temptation amongst the people of Judah because Israel
in the north the ten tribes of the north had completely compromised,
they were completely subsumed into the Assyrian Empire for
all practical purposes, the Samaritans, they were the mongrel race, there
were nobody who could truly say he was a pure Jew anymore after
all the years that they'd been intermingled with them. And they
saw what was happening, and in Judah, where the truth was maintained,
in the days of Hezekiah, who was a good king, a rare but good
king, who sought to re-establish and promote the true worship
of the living God, and the temple as the symbol on earth of the
presence of God with his people, a picture of Christ, the body
of Christ with his people. He'd done all that he could to
promote that. And yet when this threat came
along of Assyria coming up to Jerusalem to surround them, to
put ramps up against their walls, to overrun them, there was such
a temptation to seek physical help, where? Down the road to
Egypt. Chapter 31 says, woe to them
that go down to Egypt for help. You know, this is what God said.
They were fearing, the prosperous in Judah were fearing total material
loss. They were fearing being the slaves
of the Assyrians, servile bondage. There was a temptation to trust
the arm of the flesh. Jeremiah 17 verse 5, thus says
the Lord, cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh
his arm. Who thinks that the flesh is
going to help you? and whose heart departs from the Lord.
That was the Assyrians. That's the first of the things.
The second one, the sentence of death. There's a natural tendency
in us all, by nature, in people, by nature, to be terrified of
death. Don't tell me that there isn't.
There's a lot of bravado in these days of people who say, oh, it
doesn't bother me at all. I know it's just going to come
to an end. I'm, you know, it is just bravado when it comes
down to it. Everybody is naturally terrified
of death. Hebrews 2 verses 14 and 15. Through
death, I'm paraphrasing this, through death Christ destroyed
the devil. Through his death, through Christ's
death, he destroyed the devil, the one that had the power of
death. The devil had the power of death by virtue of sin and
the law and the justice of God. And Christ delivered them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Is this not the natural state
of man? God brings these things upon his children to loosen our
grip on the things of the world, to loosen our grip on the things
of the flesh, to cause us to look to eternity, to heaven. these things that come upon us. We all have trials of differing
degrees, and we hear about brethren going through great trials, and
we just pray that God will give us the strength, whatever those
trials are, because God's eternal purpose for his children is their
eternal good in heaven, not their material prosperity now. He might
give you riches now, but don't base your life upon it. the things
of eternity are the things that matter for Hezekiah these things
brought the key issues of life into sharp focus I want to look
at some of these key issues with you now so first of all we have
a key question and you'll find that in chapter 36 chapter 36 and verse 5 in chapter
36 and verse 5 we read these words I say sayest thou but they
are but vain words I have counsel and strength for war. Now on
whom dost thou trust that thou rebellest against me? Now, these
are the words of Rabshaker, who was the spokesman of Sennacherib,
the emperor, the king of Assyria, who was posing such a threat. In verse 4, Rabbi Sheikha said
to them, say to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king
of Assyria, what confidence is this? Where do you get your confidence
from? You seem to be resisting me.
On what basis are you resisting me? He goes on to tell him, nobody
else has been able to withstand me. Wherever I've wanted to go,
I've defeated them. I've gone into their lands. I've
taken over their situation. Now on whom do you trust? You're
trusting something that makes you think you can rebel against
me and get away with it. There's a great threat posed
there. Now what will you do? Will you rely on the arm of the
flesh? Will you go down to Egypt to get an alliance and reinforcements
from them. Will you do that? Will that help
you out of this situation? Bring it up to date. What will
you do? What will I do? What will we
do? Will money and possessions that we've accumulated in life,
will that do us any good, ultimately? Will that do us any good? Oh,
I think I've lived a pretty good life and I've got some good works
behind me. Will your good works do you any
good? You know, all our righteousnesses
in the flesh are as filthy rags. In me, that is, in my flesh,
there dwells no good thing. Will you get on that broad road
down to Egypt for your trust with the majority? The rest of
the world is on that broad road down. Egypt is a picture in Scripture
of the world. And this world is going its own
headlong way in the kingdom of Antichrist, the kingdom of Satan,
away from the justice and righteousness of God. to a lost eternity? Or will you trust God on the
narrow road that leads to eternal life? There is a narrow road
that leads to eternal life. On whom will you trust? Look
at chapter 35. We touched on it last week. But in verse 8,
an highway shall be there. This is the gospel way. A highway
shall be there. And a way, and it shall be called
the way of holiness. The way of holiness. What is
that way? Jesus Christ is that way. The Lord Jesus Christ, he
said, when the disciples asked him, please show us the way,
and he said, I am the, he didn't say over there, he didn't say
that is, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man
comes to the Father but by me. There is a way. How is he the
way alone? He is the God-man. He is the
Messiah set forth, the Christ of God, the promised one, come
to redeem his people from their sins. He is the one sent to accomplish
the salvation of his people, not to make it a possibility,
not to make an offer of salvation, but to save to the uttermost,
to save to the uttermost his people, to accomplish all that
is necessary, so that he's raised from the dead, vindicated in
all that he's done, so that his people are raised in him, crucified
with Christ, but raised to newness of life in him. He is the way. In whom do you trust? The child
of God says, I trust in him. When every other prop is taken
away, when all the props that are so fragile of this life are
taken away, he is the way that I trust. He is the way that I
seek to go. In whom do you trust? Asks Rabshaker
in a very He's despising Hezekiah, and he's despising his religion,
and he's despising all his efforts to resist. On whom do you trust?
Who do you think is going to preserve you from this? Whom
do we trust? Believers are told this in the
scriptures, Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, trust in the Lord with all
your heart. No, not partially. Oh, I'll trust
this, but then I'll trust that as well. No, with all your heart.
Lean not unto your own understanding, because your own understanding
is so weak and frail and prone to error. In all your ways, acknowledge
him. What, you mean all the ways?
Yeah, everything. Everything you do, acknowledge
him and he shall direct your paths. Whom do you trust? Which altar do you worship at? Which altar? Look there in verse
7. You see, this is still Rabshaker
talking, and he's saying, you're saying to me, we trust in the
Lord our God. Don't, he said, don't say that.
You know, you put your trust in Pharaoh, king of Egypt. You
know, he's weak, you'll only end up hurt if you go to him,
that's what verse 6 says. And then he says, but you say,
we trust in the Lord our God. And Rabshaker's saying, don't
you realize the inconsistency of Hezekiah? He's the one who's
taken down all the high places and altars. No, he wasn't actually. That was fundamental error. No,
Hezekiah had taken away all the false. altars, all the false,
the idolatrous groves and the places like that where the people
had fallen into the worship of idolatrous things. And he had
said, ye shall worship before this altar. Which altar? The
one in the temple in Jerusalem is the altar. That's the only
one where you can worship. That was the sins of the people
of the north, of Rehoboam. The sins of Rehoboam was thinking
that you could worship elsewhere. Jerusalem and the temple in Jerusalem
is a picture, a graphic picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is like His body, the temple is His body on earth. His The
temple there in Jerusalem, with all of the sacrifices, pictures
exactly what he in the flesh came to do in that body which
was prepared for him. And in that temple was an altar
where God accepted the pictures of that which the real would
accomplish, which Christ would really accomplish. That's where
we worship. And we have an altar. We now
have an altar. You say, where is it? Oh, they
have lovely altars in the big cathedrals around the country.
They're not altars. They're just symbols of idolatry. They're
just symbols where people bow and touch their heads and cross
their chests and all that sort of thing. We have an altar, the
true people of God, true believers. We have an altar, Hebrews 13
verse 10. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. The priests continuing
their work in what was left of the temple then They think they
have an altar, but no, they don't have any right to eat at the
true altar. What's the true altar? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
him and the cross that he died on. We don't bow in front of
a cross or a symbol of a cross as a symbol of that altar, for
he is our altar. He is the place where we find
mediation between God and man. There is one mediator between
God and man, the man. Christ Jesus. We need a mediator
between us, we who are sinful, and the Holy God. And there is
one mediator, and he is the one. And that is pictured there. This
is the altar that we come before. You see, the trial of these things,
the threat of Assyria, and then the threat of sickness on his
life, this real threat led Hezekiah to forsake all but God. He forsook looking to Egypt.
He trusted God to confirm his trust of the living God. Look
at his prayer in chapter 37 and in verse 14. You see, he goes
to the temple. He calls upon Isaiah, who was
the prophet of God. He seeks the Lord. He puts on
sackcloth symbol of repentance. He doesn't, you know, takes off
his kingly robes. He covers himself in sackcloth
because he knows that before the king of kings and lord of
lords, when he goes into the temple, he might be king of Judah,
but he's so low he's only fit to wear sackcloth. That's the
state of his heart. He seeks the word of the Lord
from Isaiah. He gets this letter from Rav
Sheker on behalf of Sennacherib and the Assyrian Empire, threatening,
saying, more or less laughing at their resistance and saying,
you've got very little time to change your mind, otherwise we're
coming to completely overrun you. And in verse 14, Hezekiah
received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read
it, all the threats, and Hezekiah, what did he do? he went up to
the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. He put it
there as if he needed to, God knew what was in it, but he put
it there symbolically. Here it is, look what they're
saying. He spread it before the Lord and Hezekiah prayed unto
the Lord, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, God of Israel, God
of the people from whom the Messiah will come, the one that dwells
between the cherubims in holiness, Thou art the God, even Thou alone,
and all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made heaven and earth.
Incline your ear. Hear what they're saying. Look
at this. Be glorified. You get the victory. Look in
verse 20. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand,
that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art
the Lord, even Thou only. And the answer comes back to
him. How does the answer come back? From Isaiah, his prophet. God didn't speak to him directly,
and that's the way it is. You know, you'll hear all sorts
of charismatic nonsense in these days. No, no, no. Through his
prophet, through his anointed prophet, through Isaiah, the
Lord God of Israel told him what was going to happen. Sennacherib
is going to be defeated. Don't you worry. He's going to
go away and he'll meet an unpleasant death in his own kingdom. And
so that assurance came. But you see how the threat drove
Hezekiah to a much closer relationship with God. He sought the living
God. And in all these things, well
in this thing, was the life of his spirit. The life of his spirit
was invigorated by this experience of this threat of Sennacherib
and the Assyrians. He prayed and he got the answer
from God. And that's exactly what happened.
and it was a powerful influence on the life of Hezekiah's spirit.
Now let me ask you, do you have, can you think of experiences
like that, where things don't always go swimmingly, where challenges
come along, where things happen that upset your apple cart as
it were, the way you've got things so planned out and they come
along and they completely upset what you had in mind. Do you
know if you're a child of God, It's one of these things that
is for the life of your spirit. It's the chastisement of God
for the life of your spirit. Let's look at the next one, the
final one. Chapter 38 and verse 1. Hezekiah's
sickness unto death. He had a trial of health, a trial
of a great threat and then a trial of health. And many of us at
times go through trials of health of one sort, one intensity or
another. Was it chronological? Did this
come on after that? I'm not absolutely sure. But
let's take it that he did, that this did happen after those things
with the letter, etc. Maybe he had lapsed into complacency. Maybe Hezekiah, having been up
on the mountaintop spiritually, maybe he'd lapsed into complacency.
We read in 2 Chronicles chapter 32, it says that he was magnified
sorry, magnified in the sight of the nations. In other words,
the nations around that were all equally terrified of Assyria,
they saw the way that Assyria had come up and it was just a
matter of time before they overran Judah and Jerusalem and they
saw how thousands of them were slain strangely and how they'd
just gone away they'd woken up one morning and they'd just all
gone that huge great threat had just gone and it was because
God brought that upon them and the nation said hey you did well
there Hezekiah that was a good thing that you did how do you
manage that we thought they were going to completely overrun you
but look they've all gone away he was magnified in the sight
of the nations and it says also in 2nd Chronicles 32 that although
he was a very good king who sought the true worship of God, that
his heart was lifted up. His heart was lifted up within
him. Oh, that's a dangerous place
to be, isn't it? That's a dangerous place to be.
There's an old song, I think we used to sing it years ago.
He that is down need fear no fall. He that is low, no pride. You don't need to fear pride
and exalted in your own eyes and your heart lifted. He that
is down, what brings us down? A true sight of what you are,
as a fallen creature, as an object of grace for which you just give
all the glory to God. Weak flesh, weak flesh. This
was Hezekiah. He was soon, it seems, come down
from the spiritual mountaintops of that time of going up to the
temple, of seeing these things, of knowing who it was he trusted,
of knowing the altar at which he worshipped. And he's down
now into the valley, the low place of natural prosperity. It's not a good place spiritually.
Natural prosperity is not a good place spiritually. And he hears
the words of Isaiah sent from the Lord to him. And it says
he's got this sickness unto death, the sickness from which people
usually died in those days. And it says, Hezekiah, you will
die. And he hears the sentence of
death and he's terrified. He's terrified. He turns his
face toward the wall. In other words, he doesn't want
any man between him and God. He turns his face to the wall
and prays unto the Lord and pleads with God not to pass this sentence
of death upon him, but to give him some relief from it. Do you
know that all of us are under a sentence of physical death?
All of us are, from the oldest of us to the youngest of us.
Our society doesn't like thinking about it, does it? But it's just
a matter of time. It's not a matter of if, it's
a matter of when. All of us are going to die. All
of us are in the process of dying from the moment we're born. All
of us, all of us, bear that in mind, all of us, live every day
as if it might be your last day, because it might be your last
day. How does it feel to you? You know, he had this brought
into sharp focus to him. How does it feel to you? You
might think, oh, it's imminent, it's not far off. There might
be some listening who would think, oh, maybe it's not going to be
long now. Or there are others who are saying, well, it's certainly
too far away to be of concern to me. I'm still a child. It
doesn't bother me, doesn't death, because I know I've got a long
life to live. Do you know you know nothing
for certain? Don't be so foolish as to dismiss
this. Remember sin. Remember the justice
of God. Look in verse 17. One thing that
was brought upon Hezekiah through this sickness was he was aware
of his sin and of the pit to which he was justly condemned
if he was left to himself. He says that he'd found salvation. You have in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption. This is what Job said, Job 33
verse 24, deliver him. from going down to the pit. He
said God says deliver him, deliver this sinner from going down to
the pit. Why? How can you deliver a sinner
who is justly condemned from going down to the pit of hell?
How can you do that? I have found a ransom, says the
Lord. What's the ransom? The Lord Jesus
Christ who shed his blood for the sins of his people. You've
cast all my sins behind your back. How has he cast the sins
of his people behind his back? He's cast the sins there on the
basis of what Christ has done, for those sins are there to be
paid for no more. Those sins have been paid for.
They're not there to be paid for anymore. He's removed them
as far as the East is from the West. Oh yes, there's the issue
of sin. There's the judgment of God,
and we all sit under a a sentence of death. And the soul that sins,
we know, the Scriptures say, the soul that sins, it shall
die. We know that there is an appointment.
It is appointed to man to die once, and then the judgment.
And remember, remember this, Psalm 68 verse 20. He that is
our God is a God of salvation. And unto God, the Lord, belong
the issues from death. If we're talking about death,
thou shalt surely die. If we're talking about death,
unto God, the Lord, belong the issues from death. Hear God's
word that Christ alone is able to save to the uttermost. That's
what Hebrews 7.25 says. He is able to save to the uttermost
those who come to God by him and by him alone. There's such
great salvation, this salvation to the uttermost. Hebrews 2 verse
2 says, how shall we escape if we neglect such great salvation? Always you go through this life,
do not neglect. This book makes it clear, do
not neglect the salvation that God has set forth in his word.
Hear him say this, you say it's only for the elect of God, and
that's absolutely true, but hear him say this, Romans 10, 13,
quoting various other places which say exactly the same thing.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord for salvation,
pass me not, O gracious Saviour. Hear my humble cry, whilst on
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Just look with me at
Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16 and verse
24. Matthew 16 and verse 24, Jesus
said unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For this
is the point, listen to this, whosoever will save his life,
or in other words, grasp and do whatever he can to stay alive
in this world, he shall lose it, by which he means lose it
eternally. And whosoever will lose his life
for my sake, whosoever will give his destiny over to Christ entirely,
to God entirely, he shall find it in eternal life. What is a
man profited if he shall gain the whole world? lose his soul
for eternity? Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul? You see how important these words
are. The sickness that was confirmed
to Hezekiah showed him that he was utterly dependent on God. He could only plead with God.
But look, there's an interesting thing about his prayer. Hezekiah,
although he was such a good king, he was so weak. He was terrified
of dying. He pleaded, I don't know if you
noticed when Peter read it earlier, but the words of his prayer,
he was pleading his own faithfulness, wasn't he? He was pleading what
a good person he'd been in the service of God. And God granted
him 15 more years. But do you know something? The
years that he was granted were years of terrible trouble, terrible
trouble. They weren't good years. He pleaded
for some more years. Oh, don't take me now. Okay.
You know, you heard the expression, beware in case you get what you
wish for. He'd wished not to die. He'd wished to have some
more years. And God granted him that. He wished for that and
God granted him that. But what years of terrible trouble
they were. He formed an alliance with Babylon. I said I wasn't
going to mention chapter 39, but that's all that it's about.
He did some very foolish things. He showed the king of Babylon
all of the treasures of the temple. And do you know something? It
wasn't very long before all those treasures of the temple were
where? In Babylon. He did a foolish thing there.
And he had a son born to him, whose name was Manasseh. And
Manasseh, of all the kings of Judah, was the most evil king
that ever walked that place. He ended up a saved man, did
Manasseh. But you wonder why? It's only
for the grace of God. He's an illustration to us that
there is no sinner so sinful that God cannot save, because
he saved Manasseh, but not before Manasseh committed the most dreadful
acts of wickedness in that land. God granted him 15 years, but
they were years of terrible trouble. Beware in case you get what you
wish for. What's the true prayer of a child
of God out of these things? Thy will be done. What should
we learn from this? We got a message, I don't know
if anybody else saw it this morning, but it's something that Bruce
Crabtree had posted. Bruce Crabtree is a faithful
preacher of the gospel in North America. And they've just discovered
in the last two or three weeks that his wife, Jo, has got terminal
brain cancer. And she's been operated on and
the worst of the tumour has been removed. But the surgeon reckons
she'll have a year to two years at the most. and it's come as
a dreadful shock to them. Bruce is about the same age as
Christine and I, and his wife, as I say, faithful gospel preacher,
so mightily used. I tell you, if you could read
that testimony of Bruce, he's saying exactly this. These things
are for the life of our spirit. It's all in God's hands for our
eternal good. We're heartbroken in the flesh
because we're going to be separated, but we know, we know, that God
has his hand on us, and his hand is on us, people would say, what
a dreadful thing to afflict you with. No, he would say, for our
eternal good. What should we learn? To trust
our God and him alone. That's one thing. To recognize
God's chastening and learn from it. To seek his will for us,
even if that is not what our natural man might want. and to
stick to the narrow way of truth to eternal life whatever others
will do. Amen.