Now we've read this passage here
in 2 Kings chapter 18 verses 1 to 12 because these are the
verses that I want to think about this morning. But the verse that
we will be touching upon actually came from 2 Chronicles. And it was this verse, listen
to what the King Hezekiah said. In 2 Chronicles 29, 11, he said
this, my sons, he was speaking to the Levites, my sons, be not
now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him,
to serve him, and that you should minister unto him and burn incense. The Lord Jesus Christ chose 12
men to be his close friends and disciples when he was here in
this world, when he was fulfilling his own ministry. And these choices
that we have read about in both the Old and the New Testament,
the choice that Christ makes, the choice that God makes of
certain individuals reminds us of the great subject of election. and that election is a divine
act. That election is something that
God does in this world by choosing individuals to serve his purposes. Predestination is much mocked
in our society. People clamour for this idea
of free will. We demand that we have our free
will to choose what we want to do for ourselves. It is the very
essence of freedom. And isn't that what we all desire? And yet predestination is a Bible
doctrine. And it is there on the pages
of Holy Scripture, clear as you like for anyone who has eyes
to see it. and the consequences of predestination,
all of them, we heartily believe because we have learned upon
the testimony of Scripture and upon personal experience that
salvation is of the Lord. God's choices of individuals
is purposeful. It is designed to a predetermined
end which God is effecting in this world. God's in control
and he is bringing to pass those purposes which he has in his
own mind and in his own will. And God's will is free to do
what he wants because he's God. He's all-powerful. He is in control. The Lord Jesus Christ said to
his disciples, ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and
ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit. What a privilege it is when the
Lord Jesus Christ chooses a sinner to salvation. What a privilege
when the Lord Jesus Christ chooses a sinner, a sinner who is dead
in their sins, a sinner who has no desire after holy things,
godly things. And yet that individual is brought
through a variety of circumstances, through challenges, through pressures,
through the preaching of the gospel, to that place of realization
that God has his hand upon him or her and is steering them. and directing them and bringing
them to that place where they are confronted by the claims
of a holy God and brought into a confession of their need and
see in Jesus Christ all the satisfying, effectual power of God in the
provision of that need. The Lord God ordains men and
women in this world to serve him and to bring forth fruit. That's not to make converts. See, the free will churches,
they all preach that we have to make converts of one another. That's nonsense. It is God who
makes converts. I can't change myself, far less
change you. And I'll tell you this, you try
changing me and you'll end up getting the rough end of my tongue,
if not a punch in the nose. How dare we think we can change
one another? It takes God to change a sinful
heart. It takes God to change a man. And when he ordains us to serve
him and to bring forth fruit, it's fruit of praise and thanksgiving
and worship that he calls us to give him for all the great
things that he has done for us. How blessed to know something
of God's choice, something of God's grace in our lives. And he uses means, the Lord uses
means to bring sinners to himself. And I am so pleased that we have
opportunity to gather together this morning and to preach the
gospel and to hear the gospel and to share in these divine
truths. Part of that service that you
do for the Lord, part of that fruit that you bring forth is
facilitating this service this morning. the sheer fabric of
the building around us, the warmth and the light that we're enjoying
here, the contributions that are made. This is our labor.
This is our service. For this reason that the gospel
is preached, that the people of God can gather to hear the
truth, that sinners from around about can come in under the sound
of the word of God and hear the Lord Jesus Christ being lifted
up in our company. What a privilege it is to hear
the gospel preached in these days. And you, who have set this
little congregation in place, maintained it over the years,
are providing for men and women in this town, in this community,
the opportunity to hear the gospel. He has ordained us to bring forth
fruit. And so we are engaged in this
activity of praising him and declaring his word so that he,
in his time, in his way, will gather his people together. I would swap all the spoils of
this world to possess even the weak, doubting, troubled heart
of one of God's chosen people. It is a blessing beyond measure,
beyond comparison, to have the grace of God in our lives. And
we don't need the castles, and we don't need the palaces, and
we don't need the power and the prestige and the money. As long
as we have Christ, we have everything. And I wouldn't swap it for a
moment. Proverbs 23 says, buy the truth
and sell it not, also wisdom and instruction and understanding. Oh, for wisdom in spiritual things. Oh, for understanding in the
ways of the Lord. These are the precious things
in life. Buy it, get everything you can. to be a part of that work, that
work of grace in this world, that work of life in the experiences
of men and women. Buy these things, give it all
you can to be a part of these things and sell it not, says
the wise man. If God shows you grace, if God
smiles upon your soul even once, grasp it tight, lay hold upon
it. If he gives wisdom, if he instructs
you in spiritual things, treasure those things as the most valuable
gift that you will ever be given upon the face of this earth and
trade it for nothing. Give it up for nothing. Hezekiah was a man whom God raised up
to be a new king in Judah. This was a time after the days
of David and Solomon when the nation of Israel, we might call
it the 12 tribes for simplicity, had broken up. The confederacy
of the 12 tribes had fractured. And 10 tribes had an affiliation
and they were called the northern tribes or Israel and two tribes,
the tribe of Benjamin and the much bigger tribe of Judah, they
became known as Judah. So we had During the time of
David, you had the 12 tribes together and Solomon following
Solomon's death. There was this breach and there
was Israel and there was Judah, the 10 tribes and the two tribes.
Hezekiah was king over Judah, the two tribes. We're going to
come back a little bit towards the end to mention the 10 tribes
once again, but just briefly. And Hezekiah was a believer in
God. Blessed are the people who are
given believers for their leaders in a nation. And so Judah was
given after years of wicked kings, Judah was given a man who sought
after the things of the Lord. And then this passage that we
read earlier in Chronicles 29, we're told that Hezekiah began
to reign when he was five and 20 years old. So he was only
25. I was actually going to make
a thing about how young he was when he began to reign. And then
somebody the other day was telling me that they had been watching
a story on the television called The Queen. and that the British
monarch, the Queen, she was 25 years of age when she began to
reign. So young shoulders have had to
carry great responsibility. It's good for us older guys to
remember that sometimes. We think that young people necessarily
are naive and without wisdom. And 25 years old, this man comes
to the throne. He reigned for 29 years. His mother's name was Abidja.
We're told Abbie was the other contraction of that name. kings,
it's the same lady, she was the daughter of Zechariah and he,
Hezekiah, did that which was right in the sight of the Lord
according to all that David his father had done. He, in the first
year of his reign and in the first month, opened the doors
of the house of the Lord and repaired them. Hezekiah's father's
name, although he's said to be the son of David, that's through
the genealogy. David was several generations
before. Hezekiah's father was a man called
Ahaz, and he was a wicked man. idolatrous man. We will not confuse
Ahaz with Ahab, who was also a wicked king. This is Ahaz,
not Ahab. But Israel and Judah had their
share of wicked men at the top. Ahaz had imported idolatry into
the country. He had defiled the temple, he
had debased the people, and he had caused a weakness to come
into the whole nation. As the leaders were wicked, so
that wickedness permeated and percolated down to the people. Hezekiah was a man of a different
kind. His name means strong in the
Lord. And he was characterized by these
things. We read it earlier. 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. For he claimed to the Lord and
departed not from following him. To be strong in the Lord, means
that in yourself, you are weak because your strength comes from
somewhere else. It means that you're dependent
and so Hezekiah was. As we look at his life, we discover
that he constantly went back to the Lord. He went back to
the Lord with his prayers, back to the Lord with his requests,
back to the prophets of God. with those things which were
a challenge to both him as an individual and the people of
Judah as the nation. Paul uses the very name of Hezekiah
when he says in Ephesians 6 10, Be strong in the Lord and in
the power of his might. That means simply that we rest,
we have our confidence, not in our own strength, not in our
own abilities or our power or our smartness or our resources,
but our strength is in the Lord. And if an individual is brought
to that place of realizing that in his own will, In his own strength,
in his own abilities, he has an inherent weakness so that
he resolves to do something and lo and behold he discovers he
can't follow through. Because our power, our strength
is in the Lord. And it's a good thing for us
to remember. You know, I dare say that the
Lord we sang in our hymn, did we not? Thank you for tears as
well as joy. Thank you for sorrow. Thank you
for pain. What kind of man thanks anyone
for pain? But the Lord understands that
His people need to be weaned away from their own self-reliance. They need to be shown what it
is to be weak in order that they might rest and be confident and
be comforted in Him. That's what it is to be strong
in the Lord. He had a wicked father, but it
appears that he had a godly mother. Thank God for godly mothers who
pray and teach their children well. We might well imagine that
there were many problems in that mixed marriage relationship. But as he has pursued his wicked
idolatry, Abbie or Abbie Jah, she was tutoring and teaching
the young Hezekiah. She was preparing him, the new
generation, for the challenge that he would face. She taught
the child well. And perhaps in her own life,
that lady, Abby, little as we know of her, perhaps she had
many occasions to weep and to be sorrowful as she saw wickedness
around about her. Perhaps she had great anxiety
about the well-being of her little son as he grew up into manhood. It's lovely to remind ourselves
that Hezekiah and therefore this lady, Abi, was in the direct
line of the genealogy of Christ. Hezekiah, if we turn to Matthew,
we will find his name there. He's actually called something
slightly different, but it's the same name. And Hezekiah was
in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does that
tell us? Christ was being prophesied by
Isaiah at this very time. Unto you a child is born, unto
you a son is given. Isaiah was writing that at the
very time that Hezekiah was coming to the throne. And there was
the promise of God. It shows us that God is in control. We have our lifetime. We have
our years. We have the span of our life,
hundreds of years, thousands of years. God is ordaining every
event, every action so that his will is accomplished. Isaiah
wrote of Christ's coming and Hezekiah was in the line of the
parenthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's timing is always perfect,
and if we can get a hold of that, it'll save us great sadness in
this life and provide great comfort. He brought Hezekiah to the throne
just at the very time when he was instilling in the hearts
of the people of Judah a spiritual desire and a reformation of grace. There are no accidents with the
Saviour. The Lord Jesus Christ controls
every event for His glory. Just at the time when He was
turning the hearts of the people, He gave them a man after His
own heart. He gave them as their King, Hezekiah. And Hezekiah's reign began with
three distinct actions on his part. He removed the high places. He broke the images and tore
down the groves and he broke up Moses' brazen serpent. These three things characterised
his earliest days in the job. Now I think there was a bravery
on the part of that young man coming to the throne and going
about to do these things. It doesn't give us a warrant
to go around destroying artifacts, as some do, but the lesson that
we are given here in Hezekiah's life is that wicked men can make
an idol of anything, and they will. The high places or the
tree grove, just naturally occurring things. but men made idolatrous
things of them. Man-made things are set up in
some way as being divine and men bow down their knees to them. And that doesn't have to be a
serpent of brass, it can be anything. Man is prone to idolatry because
he will not give God his true place and praise. Would you believe
that even Moses' brass serpent, 700 years old, 700 years old. What is that? Twice the age of
your country. 700 years old, they'd been carrying
this thing around with them for hundreds of years, centuries. And now it had become an idol. They had brought it up through
the wilderness and they bowed down to it. I think these actions on the
part of Hezekiah are to remind the church of Christ's cleansing
work in a sinner's life. The high places The high places
speak of life's fleshy pleasures. Well, there is a pleasure in
sin. Don't think there isn't. We've
all been there. We've all tasted the pleasures. People will say,
Christianity? Jesus Christ? No, not for me. I want to enjoy life. Why would I be pursuing Christianity? Why would I be following some
strict code of conduct and practice? I want to be out there enjoying
life. I want to enjoy all the pleasures that this world has
to give. These are the high places. People
talk about getting high, don't they? the pleasures of life,
the things that they think are going to give them good feelings,
sensual feelings, fulfilment, satisfaction. But what is the
reality that these pleasures of sin are short-lived and soon
they leave a bitterness and a breakdown and a crisis in the lives of
those who follow after them. There are many people who have
lived lives to experience everything they could and they had the money
and the opportunity to do it. and they end their lives as pitiful,
decrepit old men and women with nothing to show for it, but a
littered catastrophe of chaos behind them in the years of their
passage. Oh, men will pursue the high
places of this world, the pleasures of life, the pleasures of sin
for a season, but they will bring you low. They will bring you
down. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
comes into an individual's life, he will make the world's pleasure
bitterness to you. People say, I couldn't become
a Christian because I'd have to give up too many things. Let
me tell you this. Those that the Lord Jesus Christ
brings to himself, they don't want those things. They've changed
their desires because the Lord has taken away the desires after
the old man's sinful passions. And he makes the world's pleasures
a bitterness in the mouths of his people, a pain in their belly. Hezekiah took away the high places
and he broke the images and he ripped up the groves. The groves were trees, tree lines
that were planted in order to allow the idolatrous activity
with the images to go on unseen. They're the places where we hide
our evil. You remember Adam and Eve? Listen
to what it says of Adam and Eve. They hid themselves from the
presence of God among the trees of the garden. Men plant trees to hide their
idols. And they call it privacy. And they call it their secret
lives. But these images will be broken
when Christ comes into someone's life. And these trees will be
ripped out because if they weren't, we would quickly go back to the
broken down images and build them up again. But the Lord,
in his grace to his people, makes such a change, such a conversion,
that he both breaks down the images and he rips up the groves,
the places where we hide our secret sins. Perhaps the greatest
cleansing of a sinner's heart when the Lord Jesus Christ comes
to them is that he takes away our religious heritage and our
self-righteousness. And how Difficult it is for an
individual to come to Christ over that barrier of their own
self-righteousness and religious life. That piece of brass, that cheap
badge of religious reputation, Well, Daddy was an old-time Baptist,
and so was his Daddy before him. All the folk in church think
I'm a good Christian, but what's that worth, your Daddy
being an old-time Baptist? What's that worth that everyone
else in church thinks that you're a good Christian and on your
way to heaven? What is it worth if some minister
stands in a pulpit and gives a eulogy about such a good life
the person lived? and how kind they were and how
considerate and how faithful they were to the church and how
frequently they put their hands in their pockets to make sure
that everything was maintained. It isn't worth a thing when you're
standing before God. Not a thing. And there are thousands
and tens of thousands of people today and they are going to hell
with a lie in their hand because the people round about them are
telling them, you're okay. And you're not. You're not. That religious symbol, that brass
serpent, it had to go. It had to be destroyed. Can you
imagine? All the years that the people
had carried that around with them. The guy's only in his job
for a month. and he's taking a 700 year old
artifact and he's grinding it into dust and he's throwing it
to the wind. Why was that so important? Because
it stood for all the self-righteousness, the false religion that had beset
the children of Judah. Listen, the people can tell you
all you like, But you remember when the Lord went to see that
man who was filled with demons, the Gadarene? The whole herd
of swine ran over the cliff together, and they all encouraged one another
over the edge. Hezekiah restored true spiritual
worship. In Chronicles 29 and 30, It speaks
about the post-Ahaz re-establishment of worship in the temple. And this was Hezekiah's next
step of reformation. He went back to the scriptures.
Now it would have been impressive, no doubt, to have been able to
display Moses' brass serpent, the actual brass serpent, in
the temple. How impressive would that have
been? To give it a place where it could be seen. But it wasn't
part of the divine worship, it wasn't part of those things which
the Lord had established, so it had no place in worship. Men
can bring anything they like into the sanctuary. They can
bring things that have got a long tradition, have got a long acceptance,
but if it isn't part of holy worship, it is no place there. We seek simplicity. We seek sincerity. We speak earnest. We seek earnestness
when we come into the presence of God. Away with these baubles. Away with the trappings. Away
with the sensuality of our worship. Let us get real when it comes
to our experience of God. Woe betide us if we imagine that
we can be religious before God. With light sufficient for his
time, Hezekiah knew that only blood sacrifice would be enough. Only blood sacrifice could bring
the people into the presence of God. Not tradition, not ritual,
not the memory of past deliverances. All who approach God, then and
now, must do so by blood. Does that turn your stomach?
All these animals getting slain, all these animals being killed,
all the blood being put on the altar, does that turn your stomach?
I don't think it could have been a very pleasant sight to behold. I don't think it could have been
a very nice thing to be party to. But of course it speaks of
a greater sacrifice. It speaks of the sacrifice of
God's own Son. It speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ
hanging on the cross. bearing his back, shedding his
blood, being pierced for the sins of his people. For without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. And
if you want your sins taken away, the only place it can be done
is at the cross of Jesus Christ and distasteful as that might
appear, as much as we would want to turn our eyes away from the
suffering and the brutality of that scene, that hour, when Christ
hung there upon the cross. Friend, that is what makes the
difference. And if any of us are going to
stand before the presence of God, it is only by going the
way of the cross. only by coming to Christ, only
by faith in the power and the effectiveness of that death which
he endured. I don't think the significance
of Hezekiah's actions would have been lost on Nicodemus when the
Lord Jesus Christ said to him that true religion is a spiritual
relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be
lifted up. That's what Christ said to him.
And surely, Nicodemus, smart as he was, understood that religion
and the brass serpent wasn't what it was about, but a personal
relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Spiritual life. is learned and
loved through faith in the crucified Son of God. Hezekiah trusted
the Lord God. He trusted Christ, he didn't
trust in those other things that were around about him. And we
must trust in him too. Not money, not might, but in
the Lord. The story of Hezekiah demonstrates
and proves God's power to save his people. Verse seven tells
us in Kings 18, the Lord was with him and he prospered. Is this not the great desire
of men's hearts to prosper? Make America great again. How does a man prosper? How does
a man get greatness? What is true prosperity? It's spiritual. It's not material. It's not what we can build up
around about us. What shall it profit a man if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Judah, the nation, prospered
when Hezekiah followed the way of truth. When the idols were
destroyed, when grace and mercy was sought by blood redemption,
a prosperity came into the lives of the people. By trusting, by
resting, by relying upon God's way of grace and mercy, they
found peace with Him. Proverb says, in all thy ways
acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Assyria was
the dominant force in the region. It was always a threat. to Hezekiah
and his father before him. In fact, it was from Assyria
that Ahaz had imported all the idolatry that characterized his
reign. Hezekiah's father had bowed to
Assyria and he had paid allegiance to the king of Assyria, bringing
in its gods and its idols. But the church of Jesus Christ
and the individual members of that church cannot be conformed
to the powers of this world. It just doesn't work. And Hezekiah,
we are told, that the Lord was with him and he prospered, verse
seven, whithersoever he went forth, and he rebelled against
the king of Assyria and served him not. Listen, Judah wasn't
a big place. Judah was two tribes. The ten
tribes were in the north. Judah was a southern kingdom.
And here is Hezekiah coming to the throne, having a reformation
in the land, and the first thing that he does is he says to the
king of Assyria, oh, and by the way, we're finished with you. We're done with you. All these
gods that my father brought in, we're finished with those too.
Can you imagine what it would be to take a stand like that? He refused to be a servant of
Assyria. He refused to pay tribute. The
Lord Jesus Christ says in Matthew 6, no man can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he
will hold to the one and despise the other. When the Lord Jesus
Christ liberates his people from Satan's service and servitude,
he brings us into his service, whose yoke is light and easy
to bear. It is the purpose of our calling
in Christ Hezekiah told his priests, my sons, be not now negligent
for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him, to serve him
and that you should minister unto him and burn incense. Brethren, this morning, brethren, we are chosen to stand
when others fall away. We are chosen to serve the glory
of God and the good of his people. We have been chosen to minister
in the accomplishments of the purposes of God in this world. And we will burn the incense
of worship, praise, and prayer. to His glory who has chosen us
out of this world. This is the high privilege of
our election and our calling by grace. And the Lord won't
remove us from all the trials and the troubles of this world. Indeed, it is because we have
rebelled against Satan as Hezekiah rebelled against the king of
Assyria. It is because we have been liberated
out from under the domination of Satan, being made free, that
our enemies will rage against us all the more, and we will
be subject to the trials and tribulations of this world. King Shalmaneser, and Sennacherib
of Assyria sent their generals, Tartan, Rabsarus, and Rabshake,
an unholy alliance of military powerful men against Hezekiah
and against Judah. When Salamander moved against
Samaria and the cities of Israel, his power was too much for that
wayward people. They were compromised. They were
estranged, separated from God. And from that point in history,
at this very time when Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria, from
that point in history, we never hear about the Northern Kingdom
again. Those 10 tribes were lost forever. Those 10 tribes were overwhelmed
by the king of Assyria. He sent his generals, it took
them three years to besiege the city of Samaria. But when they
did, those 10 tribes, all of those sons of Israel were
lost forever. Judah and Hezekiah were next
on Assyria's list. In the coming years of Hezekiah's
reign, the might of Assyria would rise against Jerusalem. Would it succumb? Would it fall and be carried
away into captivity as Israel, the 10 tribes were? As the Lord
Jesus Christ gives grace, grace to trust, grace to follow, grace
to hold on to him, the fear of our enemies subsides and the
confidence in our deliverer increases. May he give us grace to trust
him, that we, like Hezekiah, might prove his faithfulness. his strength and his promises. And might he give us that sweet
assurance that he gives to those whom he has loved and chosen
to serve him. Amen.