Tonight we are at Second Kings chapter 20, and this is the
final chapter not of Second Kings, but of Hezekiah story.
And it's been my prayer that Hezekiah has been a source of
great instruction and encouragement to you and your
walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. And my prayer remains the same
as we come now to this chapter and look at what the Holy Spirit
has preserved for us in the final moments of his life.
Now, we won't be completing this chapter tonight.
It is a total of 20 verses or 21, and it's neatly divided
almost in half. And so we're going to be looking
at the first half of this chapter together.
And I believe it is beneficial for us to read it in its
entirety, the section that we'll be focusing on.
And so if you're there, begin with me at verse one.
I will be reading down to verse 11.
Let's just pray, Lord, we ask that you would help us now in
the reading of Your Word, the hearing of Your Word, the
interpretation of Your Word, and the application of Your Word.
We need your guidance Lord, and as we open up the service with,
we pray that this would reach our hearts, the innermost parts
of who we are, so that we can truly know the benefits, the
nutrients of the Scriptures, and that we can help others also
taste and see that the Lord is good.
We commit this time to you, Lord, trusting that you are with
us. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of
death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, came to him and said to him, Thus says the Lord, set
your house in order, for you shall die, and you shall not
recover. Then Hezekiah turned his face to
the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, Now, O Lord, Please
remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and
with a whole heart, and I've done what is good in your sight.
And Hezekiah wept bitterly, and before Isaiah had gone out of
the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him.
Turn back and say to Hezekiah, the leader of my people.
Thus says the Lord, the God of David, your father.
I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears.
Behold, I will heal you on the third day.
You shall go up to the House of the Lord, and I will add 15
years to your life. I will deliver you and the city
out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this
city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.
And Isaiah said, Bring a cake of figs, and let him take and lay
it on the boil, that he may recover.
And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the
Lord will heal me? And then I shall go up to the
House of the Lord on the third day.
And Isaiah said, This shall be the sign to you from the Lord,
that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised.
Shall the shadow go forward 10 steps or go back 10 steps?
And Hezekiah answered, It is an easy thing for the shadow to
lengthen 10 steps. Rather let the shadow go back 10
steps. And Isaiah the prophet called to
the Lord, and he brought the shadow back 10 steps by which it
had gone down on the steps of Ahaz.
The first 3 words of verse one are essential to capture in
order to truly understand the depth of this remarkable
testimony in those days. This tells us that this took
place at a particular time, particular year.
Actually. Now, if we're not careful,
sometimes we can read our Bible. Though it is very much organized
chronologically, it is not strict to depict every event in
that order, and the temptation would be to interpret this as
something that took place after what we studied last week.
What did we study last week? The deliverance of the people of
Jerusalem and the humiliating defeat of Assyria.
But we know that this is not happening after that.
Why? Look back at verse 6.
Notice what the Lord repeats, what He promises.
I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of
Assyria. I thought that already happened.
Well, clearly this is a vow that indicates that deliverance had
not yet taken place. So what do we have here?
We actually have Hezekiah experiencing this while Assyria
was still surrounding Jerusalem. Now, why is understanding this
timeline important? Because it reveals to us the
intensity of the trials that Hezekiah was enduring.
You see, he was not only trying to be the godly leader that the
Lord called them to be by righteously responding to the
vicious threats of a powerful enemy, he was also fighting a
disease that quickly turned deadly all at the same time.
This is meant to remind us that not only are trials inevitable
for the believer, but that at times there is a certain caliber
of tribulations that we can expect.
What am I speaking about? The kind where it feels like
everything is going wrong all at once.
That no matter what direction you look to, seems like
everything is falling apart. And if you and I ever find
ourselves in a tornado of turmoil, here's what you have to
do. This is paramount.
You can never for a moment believe that the Lord has
abandoned you there. Never.
Alternatively, you have to set this anchor in your soul that as
overwhelming as it all may seem, the Lord sometimes permits the
piling of pain for a goal, a righteous reason beyond our
understanding, usually in the moment.
It's often something that we learned after the fact.
You know, Hezekiah, he's known as a righteous ruler.
He's known as a man of prayer, but I think people often forget
that he was also a musician. Hezekiah played instruments.
I'm going to prove that to you in a moment.
And there is actually what many believe to be a song that
Hezekiah wrote or a poem found in Isaiah's writings in chapter
38. It's a song or a poem, a writing
if you will, that he pens after he receives this miracle, after
he is healed. And there is a part there that I
want to bring to your attention for this first point.
It's an Isaiah 38 and verse 17. Notice what he says in this
journal entry. And Isaiah 38, verse 17,
Hezekiah says, behold, in other words, pay attention to this.
You hear us. Behold, the ESB renders it.
It was for my welfare. The word welfare there is
Shalom. You can say it was for my peace,
it was for my well-being. It was for my welfare that I had
great bitterness. So as he's reflecting in
hindsight, he's saying it was good that I was sick while I was
trying to lead a nation, protecting these people from
being swallowed by an enemy. It was from my welfare that I
had. Not just bitterness, great
bitterness, but in love You have delivered my life from the pit
of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your
back. Do you see Hezekiah, as one who
belonged to the Lord, understood that even after great
bitterness, he can look back and trust that there was some good
that came from it? Now Speaking of Isaiah, I want
us to now come back to verse 1 of chapter 27, Kings, and place
ourselves in his shoes at this moment.
The last time that Isaiah spoke in this story was in the
previous chapter, bringing Hezekiah good news.
Good news, the divinely inspired assurance that his enemies would
be defeated. And now he comes with a
different message, and it doesn't seem so good.
It's not an announcement of life, but one of death.
It's very brief, but it's very profound.
I want you to think about how difficult it would be to tell
someone that the rest of their world will go on living, but you
won't. Telling a leader your Kingdom
will survive, but you will not. That's not an easy message to
deliver. And what Isaiah exemplifies is
that you and I have to at times speak.
Not just at times, but all the time, no matter how difficult or
uncomfortable make us or others feel what God says.
It moves me that it moves me that Isaiah was the same person
who partnered with Hezekiah to cry out to the Lord that he
would send help from heaven, and yet he was also the same man who
gave a difficult word from the Lord to this man.
It really proves that he was faithful to God above all.
So we also should emulate that. That when we have to warm, we
warm. When we have to rebuke, we
rebuke When we encourage. Yes, encourage, but take all of
God's word. Don't leave anything out for
those who need to hear what they need to hear.
Hezekiah needed to hear this word from the Lord, and there
are times where, yes, we again, we have to help others with
God's Word. And there are other moments
where we, yes, help them, but in a way that may seem painful or
uncomfortable. Hezekiah, you're going to die.
You're going to die. So here's my instruction to you.
Set your house in order. Set your house in order.
Again, it's a brief message, but so profound.
What does that mean to set your house in order?
It's practical, essentially means get your material affairs
in line before your departure from this earth.
Isn't that something? Who's saying this?
This is coming from Isaiah's head.
No? Thus says the Lord, this is God
saying this. This is God telling one of his
servants, I need you to organize your temporal possessions before
you die. And there are many people,
including Christians, who refuse even talk about death,
especially their own, because they're fearful.
Yeah, I see something about how God thinks that he actually this
is just want us to think about death, talk about death.
He wants us to plan around it, not just spiritually, even here,
as we see with our worldly belongings, because such people
who are fearful to even bring it up, mention it, discuss it with
their spouse or their children, end up believing their loved
ones with needless difficulty with the challenges that come
with what happens when a person passes on.
Set your house in order, think about your death, and you don't
have to be sick for you to contemplate on that reality.
But I like to think that Hezekiah only had to arrange his
material affairs because his heart was already right with
God. Is that possible?
Absolutely. He was a righteous man.
And there are many, including unbelievers, who have set their
house in order. They have planned accordingly.
At the same time, their hearts are not in order.
You see, Hezekiah had the grace. He received a gift from God to
be told when he would die. You're you're going to die very
soon. He received Intel.
He received that kind of heads up.
Not everybody, most people don't have that advantage.
And we can't afford to delay our heart preparation in the same
way we might postpone how we organize our estates.
The former is far more important than the latter.
And so the primary ambition for anybody is that your heart is
first right with God through Jesus Christ, that you are
saved. You put your trust in Him.
But for those who are even saved, this still applies.
We should be even more motivated not knowing when we're going to
die. At any moment we can suddenly be
called home. Here's a righteous man who is
sick. Do you know how old Hezekiah is
at this point? If you do the math in those days
right, the first 3 words. We know that this is taking
place while it's serious surrounding Jerusalem.
That happened at the 14th year of his reign.
Does anyone remember when Hezekiah started to reign his
king? How old was he, 25?
Let's do some basic math. 25 + 1439.
He's 39 years old and he's ready to die, you can say, in the
prime of his life. A righteous man.
So with this in view, we should have the joyous ambition of
remaining in a constant state of faithfulness because at any
point the Lord can call us to graduate in the glory.
Set your house in order. Some of us need to do that, and
others need to get their heart in order.
Even if you're saved, I hope that you have the ambition to
meet the Lord while being faithful.
However, Hezekiah was not ready to accept this update about his
fate. Look at verse 2 again.
And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and pray to the Lord,
saying, Now Lord, Please remember how I've walked before
you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and I've done what
is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
What does Hezekiah do when he receives this bad news?
What we see him do before, whenever you receive bad news,
he turns to God in prayer. But this time it's a little
different because we've observed Hezekiah not just turning to God
in prayer, but he would make his way to the House of God.
He would come as close as possible to the glory of God, to
the throne of God. And he would lay his pain at the
foot stool. But this time he's limited.
His body will not permit him. He is ill.
So he does what he can to access the most privacy he can achieve.
He turns his back towards his attendance and he faces the wall
and he opens his mouth and with his sickly frame he speaks to
his God. This is a thrilling thought to
me. I hope it is to you that we are
able to access the listening ear of God in our beds just as much
as in the courts of God's house. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Isn't it beautiful that the Lord is not so strict about your
bodily posture and where you're physically located?
That even as you have blankets piling on you and medicine all
around you, you're not able to get up from that bed?
You can cry out to Him and He will listen to you.
And this is what makes prayer without ceasing possible.
There is not one place on earth with a weak or lost signal to
God. Not one.
And it's in this very account that we also see how swiftly our
prayers reach the throne of the Holy One.
Look at verse 4 again to get a hint of it.
And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of
the Lord came to him. What does this mean?
That the Lord heard and answered Hezekiah before Isaiah was able
to leave the palace? This is incredible that he
whispers a prayer. He weeps his prayer, at least
most of it, and the Lord hears him and answers him.
Now listen. The speed of this answer may be
unusual, but the reception of it is not.
I want you to think about this. The very moment you and I direct
our hearts to the Lord and intentionally commune with Him,
He hears us the very moment you do.
Some believers have this strange illusion that they first have to
package their prayers perfectly with just the right words and
they have to stamp it with in the name of Jesus and send it
off with a resounding Amen and hope that it will reach the
Lord. And I'm here to tell you that
God doesn't hear your prayer when you say Amen.
He hears it before you even finish saying, Father, do you
believe that about prayer? Perhaps you're reluctant.
So let me give you a couple other examples.
This is what came to mind when I was reflecting on this today.
Go to the book of Daniel. Look at 2 examples in Daniel
Chapter 9 verse 23 and in Daniel chapter 10 verse verse 12 rather
but look at 923 Daniel 9/23. This man was also a man of
prayer. Look at the wording of Daniel
9/23. At least the beginning.
He is told. At the beginning of your pleas
for mercy, a word went out, and I've come to tell it to you, for
you are greatly loved. Therefore, consider the word and
understand the vision. Don't read it too quickly.
But what does he say at the beginning, At the beginning of
your plea for mercy? So Daniel, on many occasions he
would fast and pray for weeks. And here we're told that when he
started he was heard. That should bring comfort to
you. Doesn't mean that you're going
to get an answer the moment you pray, just means that God hears
you. He's taken into account, He's
listening. Look at Daniel 10 verse 12.
We weren't persuaded there. Hopefully we're convinced after
this Daniel 10 verse 12. Then he said to me, fear not
Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to
understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have
been heard and I have come because of your words from the
first day. Not amazing.
Again, there are some Christians who believe that they have to
really convince God or try to get His attention.
And the more you fast, the stronger your chances are.
The louder you pray, the longer you pray, the better opportunity
you will have. That's not the case.
The very moment you utter your words to Him, you have His full
attention. That alone should bring
reprieve. That alone should bring us much
rest and our pursuit of the Lord.
In prayer, Hezekiah turns his face to the wall.
He speaks to the Lord, and before Isaiah can get to the
parking lot, God has an answer for him and tells him, turn
back. I've heard this man's request
and I'm going to give it to him. Let's come back to verse 3.
Let's consider what Hezekiah prayed.
Now, O Lord, Please remember how I've walked before you in
faithfulness and with a whole heart, and I've done what is
good in your sight. I have two questions with this
one verse. Maybe they're the same questions
you have. Number one, is Hezekiah
displaying self righteousness in his supplication?
You might be tempted to believe so I don't think he's doing that
at all. Have you and I seen similar
confessions and some of the petitions we find in the Psalms
where there's this appeal to 1's devotion and consistency as one
is preparing to make a request? Yes, we've seen that.
And that's what we find here. Hezekiah understood, especially
under the Old Covenant, that the law promised, and even in the
new Covenant, the law promises us rewards for obedience.
And it's as though here he is appealing to his consistent
devotion as a way of showing that if healed and granted more
years, he will remain loyal as he has been.
Lord, you can guarantee that I will continue to live for you
and serve you. Look at my record.
Look at how I've been walking with you up to this moment.
This is not just a last minute turn around.
I'm here to say, not that God needs remembrance, but it's just
a way of expressing stuff. Or look at my life and see that
I'm making this request because I want to remain here and
continue in that faithfulness. Second question, why did
Hezekiah weep bitterly? Any ideas?
Actually want to open it up for possible answers.
Any ideas why this man wept bitterly?
Yes, I think that has to do with it that Hezekiah was concerned
about the state of the nation. I think there are many possible
answers. There's many reasons why we can
weep. In fact, sometimes we weep
because we're so overwhelmed by so many thoughts.
One way of answering this is that this is perhaps just a
natural response to the human instinct of self preservation.
Life is precious. Life is a gift.
And remember, he's 39 years old at this time.
There's so much that he can still give an experience,
especially in his service to the Lord.
And so perhaps he's just expressing himself because he
wants to do more and he he's requiring obviously the
intervention from God to, to do that.
But I think there's another idea going on here.
It's difficult not to compare Hezekiah's reaction to what we
see in the New Testament, especially with the apostle
Paul, who taught Christians how we should face death.
Right. To to live is what Christ and to
die is what game. And in that same context, to
depart and be with Christ is what?
Far better, Far better when you come here and you see this man
weeping bitterly and you wonder what's going on here.
And, and I think that is precisely the point.
Hezekiah's understanding of the afterlife lacks the clarity that
the apostle Paul, indeed that every Christian possesses.
You know, you have many Christians innocently wondering
what advantages do we have in the new covenant in comparison
with the old covenant? And some Christians even believe
that it would be more beneficial to actually be under the old
covenant with all that they experience and all that we read
in the Old Testament. Well, here's one that you can
add to the list that what we have in the new covenant is a
revelation of the bliss of the world to come for the righteous,
something that is not widely known for those in the Old
Testament. Yes, there, there has been
moments, hints given by the Spirit to prophets in their
writings as we see that they understood just a murky view of
of what's going to happen. But the expansive hope that the
New Testament describes and that you and I have access to was not
given to those who lived under the Mosaic promise.
Do you understand that? Does that make sense?
We've been given more light and so profound is this like that we
can even interpret impending death differently, differently
than Hezekiah who's seen 185,000 of his enemies slain in one
night. Differently than men like Samson
and other heroes of the faith. Maybe you're not persuaded.
OK, let's go to the New Testament.
I want you to see this and Paul's writing in Second Timothy
110. This is one of those verses that
you want to underline if you're trying to understand what
glories outshine that of the old covenant.
Well, here's one of them and listen to how Paul describes it
in second Timothy chapter one. Look at verse 10.
And which now has been manifested through the appearing
of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life
and immortality to what? What's that word to light?
How, how We've been given greater light with something
such as immortality through the gospel and the gospel as a means
of inaugurating the new covenant.
Through the establishment of the new covenant in the gospel, you
and I have been given greater light with, yes, even death and
immortality. Here's one of the rewards of
being in this covenant. We can view and understand death
much differently than even the greatest Saints of the Old
Testament. So I believe to some degree
Hezekiah here is struggling with the unknown.
There's a greater fear here, a fear that the average Christian
should never experience. Let's come back to Second Kings
20 in verse 4. We read it.
Isaiah, before he even leaves the palace, receives a word from
the Lord, and verse 5 is what I want to focus on.
Turn back, the Lord says, and say to Hezekiah, the leader of
my people. Thus says the Lord, the God of
David, your father. I've heard your prayer, I've
seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you.
On the third day you shall go up to the House of the Lord.
Don't read too quickly. How does the Lord identify
Hezekiah? What does he call him?
The leader of my people. Why is that important?
The Lord could have said many things.
You could have said my servant. You could have said the king,
the leader of my people. Here's what I believe.
It has to do with the Lord's willingness to extend Hezekiah's
life for the sake of God's people, that this answer of
giving Hezekiah health is not just for Hezekiah.
It's for the citizens of Jerusalem.
It's for the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah.
It's for the sake of the shepherding of the people of
God. And here's what we learned.
For this, God takes into account every level of suffering and all
the parties that are involved in a painful situation.
Isn't that wonderful? Realize that he's not just
thinking about Hezekiah. Yes, he sees Hezekiah, his
tears, and he hears his prayer, but he's also considering what
might happen if Hezekiah, this righteous king, dies at the ripe
age of 39. The leader of not his people,
the leader of my people, says the Lord.
And what we take from that is God is very much mindful of all
levels of suffering. Yes, he is concerned about
bruised bodies, and he's even concerned about healing our
emotional wounds. We see this in the New Testament
again with Paul. Paul had a friend and a ministry
partner. Pafforditis.
What a name. More importantly, what a man.
Pafforditis was ill, even to the point of death, but he was
spared. And do you remember what Paul
said to the Philippians? You don't.
It's OK if you didn't. That's the beauty of Bible
study. Philippians 2.
Listen to his words in verse 27 of Philippians 2.
Indeed, he was ill near to death, but God had mercy on him.
He could have stopped there, but he didn't.
He goes on to say, And not only on him, but on me also.
Why were you sick, Paul? No, lest I should have sorrow
upon sorrow. God was not only gracious to my
friend, he was also gracious to me because he understood that if
I lost my friend at this point, I'd be very sorrowful.
It's one of those paradoxes, right?
Many of the paradoxes in the Christian life appear in Bible
study. The same man who said in this
letter to Dias Gain also said, I just, but I don't want to lose
Epaphroditus this early. The humanity right there,
there's still this transparency, but the pain of death, even
though there's so much promise with it.
The Lord is not limited to treating physical pain, but he
looks even at your emotional state and he is equally
concerned. He healed Epaphroditus, but he
also saw the sorrow that would have come upon Paul.
And he does something to bring a remedy to both of them.
And this leads us perfectly to what we see in the next thought.
And Hezekiah, he says, I've heard your prayer, I have seen
your tears. This is God saying this.
Imagine managing the universe. You know, we have many busy
people here in the West. Many of us are busy here too.
We miss a lot of things when we're busy.
We overlook many things, even sometimes important things.
The Lord of glory takes into account the tears of His people.
Now you and I have learned in the New Testament through Jesus
teaching that the Father is so attentive to us that He even
counts the number of our hairs. But that's not the only thing
that He counts. In Psalm 56, verse 8, we learn
that the Lord keeps count of depending on the translation you
have. The ESV says keeps count of my
tossings and other translations are wanderings.
He actually records where you go and why you're going, where
you're going and how much you go back and forth in bed.
All your movements are considered by the Lord.
And the Psalm doesn't end there though.
You have kept count of my tossings.
Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
So he actually counts the amount of tears that stain your face
and create streaks on your cheeks.
Who does that? This is profound because it's a
way of conveying that the Lord is deeply considerate and
compassionate toward us. You know, if he just said I
heard your prayers, that would be enough.
But there'd be the danger of interpreting that, as, you know,
putting an application together, like at a governmental office,
and submitting it with the hope that the person behind that that
desk is merciful enough to consider your case.
That's not how God deals with our request.
He is up close and personal, close enough to see the liquid
streaming down your eyes, and it's impossible to believe that
He is dismissive to our sorrow. With verses like this, how can
you even be tempted to believe that thought?
And if this wasn't deep enough, the Lord's awareness of
Hezekiah's tears reveals something even more glorious.
Because you see, tears often express what words can't.
Was Hezekiah's prayer detailed? Was it elaborate?
Was it profound? Not really.
All he asked was to be remembered.
Remember, He doesn't make specific appeals even.
He just says remember. And here's what I believe that
Hezekiah's tears said a lot more than what his words could say,
and God interpreted it perfectly.
God knew everything that was in Hezekiah's heart and he took it
into consideration. And here's how I know that.
Look at verse 5. At the end of it, the Lord says,
behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up
to the House of the Lord. We kind of are blinded to the
second part of that promise. We just see, behold, I will heal
you. That's not all that the Lord
said. There are things in Hezekiah's
heart that he could not put into words.
He had no language for them. He can only cry them.
Here's what I believe. The Lord knew how much the House
of God meant to Hezekiah, or else why else would he promised
him? On the third day you're going to
be able to go to the courts of my earthly dwelling place.
Why would he mention that? Because he wanted that.
We've seen it in the previous chapters how he would frequently
make his way to the House of the Lord.
And I believe one of the pains, one of the laments of Hezekiah
is that I won't be able to do that anymore.
I won't be able to to enjoy these ordinances and be with
other worshippers and experience the glory of God.
You might be saying, yeah, but if he dies, he can experience
the fullness of it. But remember, he doesn't have
the fullness of that revelation. So here he is longing for the
House of God, and the Lord promises him this.
You are going to go back to the House of God.
And that longing is confirmed in his poem in Isaiah 38.
We'll look at it in a moment, but let's see something else.
This is again evidence to show that there were things in
Hezekiah's art that can only be expressed in tears and and the
Lord knew exactly what he was weeping about.
Look at verse 6, we looked at it earlier, He promises them I will
deliver you and the city out of the hand of the king of Assyria.
Now Hezekiah was already promises in chapter 19, so I
mentioned it again was brother David already answered, I
believe it's because the king desperately wanted to witness
the deliverance of God's people with his own eyes.
So the Lord tells him you're going to see it, you're going to
behold it. You're going to watch me bring
absolute and total victory for my name's sake.
So here's what we have to take comfort in knowing.
God interprets our tears, and all we have to do is come into
his presence. And if you come into his
president, all that you can offer is your tears.
You need not to fear 1 moment that the Lord is confused by
them or that he is unmoved by them.
Now He's drawn to us. In fact, Spurgeon said the tears
of the righteous are the diamonds of heaven.
What a beautiful picture and that's not an exaggeration based
on what the Lord says about our tears.
He bottles them, he records them the diamonds of heaven.
This come back to our main text in verse 6.
Consistent with his character, the Lord goes beyond what we
ask. This is just say that he's going
to heal him. He tells him the amount of years
he's going to add. Look at the first part.
And I will add 15 years to your life.
Be honest. Would you want to know the year
you're going to die? Floor?
Would they grant you that? I can tell you the exact year
that you're going to expire. Who would sign up for that?
I'm not sure if people want to know.
Most people at least. But for Hezekiah, this was a
sort of source of comfort. This was something for him
personally. He didn't ask for the knowledge
of how many years he was going to live, but the Lord gave it to
him anyway, knowing that it would be a source of great
encouragement and motivation. However, I think there is
benefit in pausing and placing ourselves in his position and
wondering what would I do if I knew I had 15 years to live?
What would you do? What would that kind of
information do to your priorities, to your desires?
What kind of strength would it give you over distractions?
How quick would we be to reconcile with people to be
intentional peacemakers? What kind of oomph would it give
you if I can use that word in your service to?
Would you be more consistent in the ministry that God has given
you in the local church? Would you hone in and craft your
gifting? What would it do to know I have
15 years left? I mean, at 15 to 39 doesn't make
Hezekiah very old. He's very grateful for this.
But just think about it. Just you don't see very often
the Lord telling somebody exactly when he's going or she's
going to die. It's very rare occurrence.
Do you know that? Hezekiah answers that very
question about his own life on the other side of this
revelation. On the other side, after
learning that he had 15 years, do you know he tells us in
detail what he will do with those 15 years.
Where do you think we're going to find it?
And Isaiah 38, let's turn that to see what is Hezekiah
determined for the rest of his life.
Look at verse 19 of Isaiah 38. He says the living, the living.
He thanks you as I do this day. The Father makes known to the
children your faithfulness. Number one, I am going to invest
in my family. I am going to unreservedly
declare the glories of God to the next generation and it's
going to begin at home. But look at verse 20.
The Lord will save me and we will play my music on string
instruments. Who's the We?
My family. We will play my music on string
instruments all the days of our lives at the House of the Lord.
You see it? Do you think he's like mildly
excited about God's house? No, no, I'm recruiting my
children. They don't know how to play an
instrument. I'm going to teach them how to
play an instrument and we're going to invest all of our days
to God's service. We're going to declare His
glories by word and even in song.
In other words, to summarize this, I'm going to do what I can
to bring pleasure to the Lord and to declare who He is with
the audience that He has given me.
That's what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.
Now, do you need to know that you have X amount of years to
live to have that same ambition? I hope not.
I think we should be even more motivated because tomorrow's
never promised that every single day you wake up and there is
fresh air in your lungs, you should be excited.
I have another day to live, to serve the Lord, to love my
spouse, to love my kids, to serve my church, to know more of
God's word, to ask for divine appointments, to speak the
gospel. That's what I'm here for.
In fact, that's the very tension Paul felt in that same passive
recess. To depart and be with Christ is
far better. The only thing that kept him,
the only thing that made him wrestle, that was to remain on
the earth on the account of the church.
That I can contribute something to your fruitfulness.
That's the only reason why I want to stay.
It's not because I want to visit that country or I want to buy
that car or I want to finish my my home renovations.
No, no, no, no. The only reason why I want to
stay, so I want to do more for the Lord because there's only a
unique opportunity in this life to glorify God that I can't
repeat in heaven. I will glorify God perfectly in
heaven, but not in a way that I can now with all the temptation
and all the trials. There's a unique opportunity I
have now to serve God. Think about it, You, you, you
might live 70 years, 80 years, and then eternity, eternity
forever and ever. We don't get a redo with his
life. And if you constantly set that
before your mind, it'll be very difficult to become lukewarm.
Very difficult. I only got one shot at this
thing. One shot.
I don't want to waste it. I want to be like Hezekiah all
the days of our lives. I'm going to glorify God the way
He's wired me to glorify him. What an inspiration.
Let's come back and finish this Bible study, the second Kings 20
verse 7. And Isaiah said, bring a cake of
figs and let them take and lay it on the boil that he may
recover. That's interesting, isn't it?
I was expecting a little bit more extravagance, something
more supernatural. Nothing very impressive about
taking a cake of figs and applying them to a boil.
What does this mean? It means that God uses natural
means to perform his will. And it's not a recent idea that
God works that way. You find it in the Old
Testament. You find it in the New
Testament. Non miraculous interventions
providentially provided by God. And if the Lord chooses to
express His grace through common means, you and I must still be
quick to give Him glory for it. Hezekiah still wrote a poem in
Isaiah 38 giving thanks to God for saving him.
Even though Isaiah had to get a prescription from the local
store to help him, he still sang, and he still recognized
God's faithfulness in it. A lot of believers need to be
rescued from this idea that the Lord should only be recognized
and and praise reports should only be given when inexplainable
things happen in our lives. Now you can give Him glory even
for the things that seem to be natural and common and ordinary.
He's still behind them because in God's Providence, He allowed
it. And so this is what we see here,
which should make us wonder why He follows this with a request
for a sign. What is he saying?
Verse 8? Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What
shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I shall go
up to the House of the Lord on the third day, Huh.
Just take take the promise. We should be hesitant to condemn
Hezekiah here. Why?
Because he doesn't receive a rebuke from the prophet for it.
Is he operating in unbelief here?
Is he skeptical of this approach?
I don't think so. I think there's something deeper
going on here. You may disagree with it, but I
think the best explanation is that Hezekiah wanted to be
certain that the Lord was truly behind this healing.
Because again, it's a medicinal thing, figs application, you
know, some kind of recipe was being made to help him.
And I believe he wanted to be. He wanted to be certain God is
the one who's actually prescribing this less.
When people hear about it, they would be tempted to give credit
to figs instead of God. That makes sense when you
remember what kind of people Hezekiah is leading.
A people who had a tendency of admiring and even worshipping
instruments of God's blessing instead of God himself.
Anything come to remembrance? When Hezekiah brought reform to
the Kingdom of Judah, what was the one special thing he had to
destroy? The bronze serpent, a means of
bringing healing to the people of Israel many years ago, but
became an object of worship and God was eclipsed by it.
This is the kind of people that Hezekiah is dealing with.
I wonder if he was afraid that though natural means were being
applied, the glory of God would be missed in it because the
people's failure to understand it.
So he's asking for an autograph, if you will, something that God
can stamp so that people, when they hear about this
intervention, cannot deny that the Lord was behind it.
And Isaiah, he's going to approve.
In fact, this is precisely what happens.
Go to Second Chronicles quickly and we're wrapping things up
here. It's Second Chronicles again in
chapter 32 is another advantage for what we have to Hezekiah's
story, even this one. Notice what happens after
Hezekiah's healing and after the sign was granted for this
healing to take place. Second Chronicles 32, Scroll
down to verse 31. And so in the matter of the
envoys of the Princess of Babylon who had been sent to
him, him being Hezekiah, to inquire about the sign that had
been done in the land, God left him to himself in order to test
them and to know all that was in his heart.
Oh, I'm so tempted to touch on that last part of the verse, but
let's focus. Let's focus on the main thing
here. Notice that whatever sign was
performed, it even reached the inhabitants of Babylon.
Something so remarkable took place that news reached this
Gentile nation, and there was even representatives sent to
inquire Hezekiah about it. So I believe Hezekiah's desire
in the Lord being glorified in his healing was granted and we
see the fruit of it. So all to say, he's coming from
a good place when asking for a sign, he's not operating in
unbelief. He's wanting there to be no
confusion about who's behind his restoration.
What is this sign? Come back to Second Kings 20 and
look at verse 9 with me. And Isaiah said, OK, you want to
sign. This shall be the sign to you
from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that He has
promised. Shall the shadow go forward 10
steps or go back 10 steps? And Hezekiah answered very
wisely. I mean, it's more challenging
for the shadow to retract and to decline here instead of moving
forward. So I want to see it come back 10
steps. Lord says, fine, that's nothing
to me. And there's a lot of debate
about how this miracle happened, as you can imagine, speculation
and I, you know, all these explanations of how this was
able to take place, but the scriptures do not provide us a
detailed answer. And I think that's the point.
It's a miracle. Miracles exceed explanation.
Miracles suspend natural law. Miracles defy and surpass human
logic. So I don't sense the burden to
come and explain how this happened.
All I know is that it happened. And if we're not careful, our
curiosity can sometimes lead us into discussions that completely
missed the point of the passage. What's the main point?
What are we supposed to leave with?
With this section of Scripture, I think it's obvious.
God is sovereign over all things, including time.
So what you're supposed to see with what we studied here in
this portrait, if He so chooses, the Lord can reverse the
rotation of the globe and He can add or subtract years, months,
weeks, days, hours, minutes, even seconds of your life.
He's in control of everything, absolutely everything.
That's what you're supposed to feel from this passage.
He added 15 years to Hezekiah's life, and he made the dial turn
back a few steps. He's that powerful, and if we're
not careful, our preoccupation can be in trying to explain the
extent and the execution of God's omnipotence when the point
is that we're supposed to truly worship Him and live in light of
the power that He has, especially with the time that He
has granted us. Sometimes debates can distract
us from the simplicity of living for God, and I believe that's
what Hezekiah was all about. I believe he was that kind of
servant. How do I know?
Go back to his request for the sign.
In verse 8, Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign
that the Lord will heal me and that I shall go up to the House
of the Lord on the third day. What is he concerned about?
More than anything, I just want to know, I want the Lord to to
show that this is from him and I, I want to just be granted
certainty that I'm going to actually go to the House of the
Lord. I want to worship God.
Can you provide that to me, please?
Isaiah. And Isaiah prayed and the Lord
granted it to him. May may that be true of us,
possessed with a passion to serve the Lord.
If he gives us 15 years, five years, 50 more years, whatever
our days may look like, each of us have an invisible expiration
date. I know that doesn't sound too
encouraging, but it's true. We're all going to die.
What are we going to do with our lives?
And I want to end this way by asking the Lord not to give us
revelation about how much time we have left, but with every day
to make the most of it. For His glory.
Let's pray. Lord, we're amazed by you.
We are so amazed by you. Your power is unmatched,
unparalleled, incomparable. But we also see that your
compassion is the same, that you care with a force that's almost
unbelievable, but it's in your words, so we choose to believe
it. Thank you that in a packed car
on a road trip, we can pray and you hear us on flights as we're
sitting beside a stranger, you can listen to our request.
But Lord, while we're able to come to the House of God, we
want to do what we can while we have life to serve you with our
our strength to have no regrets as we age if you allow us to
age. So Lord, both young and old here
we ask for fresh wind in our sails as we serve you fresh
faith to believe that you can answer prayers speedily.
We just asked Lord that what was shared in this past hour would
melt our hearts, soften us, and that we would be pliable so that
you can mold us to be the men and women of God that you've
called us to be. We love you, we honor you in
this place. What a mighty God you are.
It's a privilege and a joy to serve you.
We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Let's stand.