By John Stallings
A 25 year old man had just ascended to the throne to become Judah’s 13th king. His name was Hezekiah. He was a high-caliber young man, but he lacked experience. Unbelievable challenges loomed large in his path.
To really understand the importance of this young man we must look at the times he lived in. The Assyrians from Nineveh ruled most of the Middle East. There were continual wars between them & the Egyptians for territory.
Israel & Judah were separate & Israel was known as Samaria at this time. They even warred between themselves occasionally. Hezekiah lived & reigned in a time when the very existence of Judah was threatened. The nation was blessed with a dynamic duo; the righteous king Hezekiah & an outstanding Hebrew prophet named Isaiah at this critical point in its history.
But let’s back up a bit. Ahaz, the king before Hezekiah, was a nasty piece of work who left no happy tracks. They don’t come worse than this guy. Mean, wicked & evil are words that come to mind in describing king Ahaz. This added to the seriousness of Hezekiah’s situation.
Ahaz made images of Baals & burned incense to them. He even offered his son up in the fire to these Gods. In him we see the attitude & actions of a man far from the Lord. But better things lie ahead for the people of Judah. You might say Ahaz is the “darkness before the dawn.”
The Bible gets right to the point doesn’t it? In 2 Chronicles 28:1-4 we’re taken straight into the depths of Ahaz’s depravity. If we were using New Testament language, we’d say, “He reaped what he sowed.” God allowed many nations to attack & humble Judah because of Ahaz’ wickedness.
Part of the story is in 2 Kings 16:7-11. With enemies all around him, Ahaz reached out to the King of Assyria & said, “I’m your servant…come & save me!” What Ahaz should have done was to ask this of the Lord, but he didn’t. Do you see any parallels here with our great nation? Are we making God number one or are we leaning on the arm of flesh?
Ahaz even went to Damascus to meet the king of Assyria & started to copy his altars. He made Urijah the priest copy the plans & reconstruct the alter back in the temple in Jerusalem. God had already given instructions as to how He wanted worship to be conducted but this man was following the world & worshipping false gods. The king of Assyria even turned against Ahaz & he now entered his “time of trouble.”
SHUTTING DOWN THE TEMPLE
The ultimate act of rebellion came when Ahaz closed the temple. 2 Chron.28:24;
And Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God & cut the utensils in pieces. He shut the doors of the Lord’s temple & set up alters at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other Gods & provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers to anger.
We see finally the actions of king Ahaz in cutting up the temple utensils & locking the doors so that no one could worship God. I wonder if America hasn’t made the same mistake when we’ve relegated God’s Word & ways to the dust-bin & replaced Him with other gods.
2 Chronicles 28:27says;
Ahaz rested with his fathers & was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but he was not placed in the tombs of the kings of Israel. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.
Ahaz wasn’t buried with the other kings of Israel & he deserved exactly what he got. As dark as this period has been however, again, it’s the ‘dark before dawn.” Change was coming!
TO BE FAIR, AHAZ LEFT ONE THING BEHIND; --- HE GAVE THE WORLD A GREAT SON, --HEZEKIAH.
When we look at Hezekiah’s life & heritage, we see he broke the family mould. We tend to think that sons are always like their fathers but here we see that challenged. It’s a relief to see that the transmission of character doesn’t always operate. We could look at some marital unions & feel the world would be better off if they never multiplied, but thankfully in many cases sons aren’t always like their fathers.
When we look at the long history of Israel we see this dynamic played out often. For instance, Ahab, the wimp married to Jezebel, was the son of a very godly father & the father of a godly son. Hezekiah, a godly man, was the son of an evil father. But he was also the father of an evil son, Manasseh who was probably the worst king on record. But Manasseh was the grandfather of Josiah, one of Judah’s most godly kings. So there you go.
At an age when many young men are eager to gratify their fleshly desires, it’s evident that young Hezekiah wanted to please the Lord. Though his family lineage was unfavorable, he was a righteous man & he called God’s people back to true worship.
God was angry with the people of Judah & Jerusalem & He punished them. They were losing their battles & many of the people had been taken away by the enemy. They had become an object of ridicule. But change is coming.
In the first month of the first year of Hezekiah’s reign, the young monarch opened the doors of the temple & repaired them. For years the House of God had been unused & deserted. He brought in the priests & Levites & gathered them in the courtyard on the east side of the temple. Only the priests were to go into the holy apartments, so for the work to go on, the religious leaders had to participate.
However, the priests had let impurities into their lives & into their temple. They had been unfaithful to God & had done what God said was wrong. Consequently, they had to re-consecrate themselves to be ready to serve the Lord & make the temple a holy place again.
A PRIORITY IN HEZEKIAH’S CHANGES
Notice, Hezekiah didn’t deal first with the civil problems of his kingdom. He had the wisdom to realize if he was going to improve things, he’d have to first deal with Judah’s spiritual condition.
Are you seeing the relevance to us today? America has problems, & our problems are getting worse not better. Our politicians are telling us change is needed. Here’s a new concept that should be old; change must begin within the human heart. When I was just a boy I can remember my parents taking me to hear Billy Graham. I can hear him almost like it was yesterday uttering these words; “America needs revival & it has to start in our hearts.” It’s still true!
The church must be the leader of this change because a nation will only be as strong as its churches.
Judah’s priests responded to Hezekiah & sanctified themselves & went in to clean up the house of God. They brought all the trash into the courtyard & the Levites picked it up & took it out & dumped it by the brook Kidron. For 8 days they worked on cleaning out the temple & for 8 more days they cleaned the rest of the buildings. The various instruments used in the sanctuary services were also cleaned & sanctified.
Hezekiah rose up early, gathered the rulers of the city & went up to the house of the Lord. He had brought 7 bulls, 7 lambs, & 7 male goats for sin offerings for the sanctuary & for Judah. The bulls, rams, & lambs were sacrificed & their blood sprinkled on the alter. Then the male goats were brought out to the congregation & starting with the king, each person confessed their sins over the heads of the goats by laying hands on their heads. Then these goats were killed to make atonement & their blood was presented as a sin offering for all the sins of Judah.
It was a joyous time in Jerusalem. Hezekiah encouraged the people to bring individual sacrifices to the Lord as many as were of a willing heart. There was one sad thing that day; there were too few priests so the Levites had to help until enough priests made themselves ready.
THIS CHANGE HAPPENED QUICKLY
2 Chronicles 29:36 says, --The thing was done suddenly.
It doesn’t take long when people decide to really make a change.
Notice again the sequence of events that happened under the leadership of Hezekiah:
1. The king declares he wants to make a covenant with God.
2. There is an opening of the doors & cleaning of the temple along with the cleansing of the priests & Levites.
3. There was a restoration of worship in the temple.
4. There was a cleansing of a nation & a voluntary spontaneous outpouring of love for the Lord. Gifts & offerings were brought that the temple might be set in order.
So it’s clear that Hezekiah restored worship in Israel on a scale that had never before been seen. The memory of the success of his godly grandfather Jotham & the unmitigated failure of his evil father Ahaz drove him to dedicate his career to instituting a revival of worship among his people. What a sight to see this young man of God at the threshold of his reign, leading a people who’re willing to be led in national revival.
WE SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED BY THIS STORY
This story shows no matter how far the decline has taken a nation, a home, a church, or an individual; nothing is too hard for the Lord. Do you believe that? We might very well be a part of the Laodicean church but I still believe God can revive His people. We’ve seen it in the past & God can do it again in the present. We should never lose hope for our great nation & its people no matter how bad things are.
BUT TROUBLE AGAIN DOGS HEZEKIAH’S STEPS
Hezekiah was a man of courage. He had reinstated spiritual worship in Jerusalem & smashed the pagan alters & images that dotted the rolling hills of Judah. But if you turn to 2 Chronicles 32: 1, you’ll find that after all he’d done for his people & for true worship of God, Sennacherib, king of Assyria came & invaded Judah.
Sometimes when we’ve done all we know to please God, testing will still come our way. Here is a man who has done things right up to this point but God is testing him further. The vicious, barbaric armies are coming to attack & Jerusalem is about to fall. What would you do? How would you face this situation? Well Hezekiah faced it with courage, not only for himself, but he finds the strength to lift up the hearts of God’s people, his own soldiers & warriors.
Hezekiah tells his people to- “be strong & courageous. Be not afraid or dismayed for the king of Assyria nor for all the multitude that is with him.
When you & I are courageous we’ll also be encouraging to others. Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah trying to scare him into surrendering. Do you know what Hezekiah did with the letter?
HE SPREAD THE LETTER OUT BEFORE THE LORD-2 Kings 19:14.
Isn’t that humbling? After Hezekiah prayed, he went to bed & slept the sleep of the righteous. While Hezekiah was sleeping, God visited the Assyrian army & killed 185,000 of them. Hezekiah knew he didn’t have an army large enough to beat these barbarians so he just put it in God’s hands & God killed 185,000 warriors in one night. What a test & what a triumph of this man of prayer.
BUT ANOTHER TEST IS COMING FOR HEZEKIAH
If you turn to 2 Kings Chapter 20, you see that Hezekiah falls desperately ill. After all these victories, God tells him to –Set thine house in order for thou shalt die & not live.
Now Hezekiah finds himself in more hot water, so to speak. At mid-life, in his prime, he finds himself sick, probably the bubonic plague. He’s terminal. He doesn’t know exactly how sick he is but here comes the prophet Isaiah with a bedside manner that would get him a big F in any pastoral care class. His prognosis is from the Great Physician Himself, God. He said in essence, “You’re not going to walk out of here. Don’t buy any green bananas. With what you’ve got your chances are zero! Set your house in order.”
In the last few years we’ve seen so many world-wide tragedies. Multitudes have suddenly & unexpectedly died in earthquakes, storms, fires, floods & war. Were their houses in order? Is your house in order? There are no guarantees of tomorrow.
To put it simply, life had caved in for Hezekiah. He’d been handed nothing less that a death sentence. He was now on death row. But he doesn’t relinquish himself to death. He looks death in the eye & tackles it head-on. In other words, Hezekiah prays. That’s exactly what we need to do when we’re face to face with our own brokenness & the brokenness of this world.
PRAY!!!
Hezekiah turned his face to the wall & prayed for God to give him more time. He poured out his heart for the continuance of his life. He asks God for a second opinion & he gets it.
I heard about a man whose doctor told him he was grossly overweight. The man got agitated & said, “Well, I want a second opinion.” The doctor said, “Alright you’re ugly too.” Another man asked his doctor for a second opinion & he said, “O.k., come back tomorrow.”
GOD DOES A QUICK WORK!
I don’t know what was in Hezekiah’s heart. I do know he was only 39 years old & probably had much unfinished work he wanted to complete. How astonishingly fast his prayer got an answer. Isaiah had just delivered the news of his impending death & hadn’t even gotten out of the palace when Hezekiah’s prayer is heard in the courts of heaven. God told Isaiah to go back & tell the king he had 15 more years to live.
God also gave Hezekiah a sign causing the shadow to go back on the sundial ten degrees. The sun-dial was the instrument by which the king might know the time of day because obviously there were no clocks as we have now. Hezekiah asked that the shadow might go backward so Isaiah prayed & the shadow moved backward ten degrees. God also promised to protect the city of Jerusalem.
We read in Isaiah 38 the great Psalm of thanksgiving that arose from Hezekiah’s heart for this momentous answer to prayer in his life. What a man of prayer!!!
Politician Phil Gramm recently said in essence that we American’s are a nation of whiners, not seeing the great things we have going for us. People jumped down Gramm’s throat including McCain, & he probably faces political exile for saying it, but I tended to agree with him. We are “Whining & dining” enjoying the good things God has blessed us with but not seeing how really blessed we are. [I might be sent to Belarus for saying this. Kidding!]
Don’t misunderstand me here. Yes we have problems, but we should follow this man Hezekiah’s example & instead of going to cry on someone’s shoulder, go straight to God with our petitions. While we’re at it we could also follow the example Jesus set in His prayer life.
WAS HEZEKIAH’S HEALING IN THE PERFECT OR PERMISSIVE WILL OF GOD?
For years I’ve heard Bible students debate whether or not Hezekiah should have prayed for God to heal him. We know that when Israel was in the wilderness, God gave them their request but sent leanness to their souls. Psalm 106:15.
Those who say Hezekiah shouldn’t have lived longer point to the fact that he had children during those extra 15 years & one of them was Manasseh, Judah’s most wicked king; Even though he repented in 2 Chronicles 33. Other scholars believe
That when God said, “set your house in order” that literally meant, “Pick out a man to succeed you on the throne.” God had promised that Judah would always have a descendant of David on the throne therefore Hezekiah was actually holding on to the promise of God & pleading his case that he would live & have a son to fulfill this promise.
Also, though Manasseh was a bad king, he had a grandson named Josiah, one of the greatest kings & reformers Judah ever knew. Also if you turn to Proverbs 25, you’ll read of “the men of Hezekiah.” The men of Hezekiah were a group of scribes, whose job it was to copy Old Testament scriptures & put them in order. The order of some of our Old Testament books & chapters that we actually have in our Bible today goes back to the men of Hezekiah. Some of those Psalms are put together to commemorate Hezekiah’s recovery from sickness.
AS FAR AS I KNOW, BESIDES JESUS, HEZEKIAH IS THE ONLY MAN WHO KNEW HOW MUCH TIME WAS ALLOTTED TO HIM ON THIS EARTH.
If you knew you were going to die in a few days or weeks what would you do. How would you spend that time? That’s an awesome question is it not?
Whatever the answer to the question of whether Hezekiah should have prayed to God for the elongation of his life, the fact of the matter is that he put those years to good use. He made some mistakes, [that’s another message,] but I believe that much of his 15 years were used wisely.
If you were going to die in a short time how would you go about getting ready to go? Would you need to put your house in order regarding your personal salvation? What sort of changes would you be compelled to make?
Ladies & gentlemen, we’re dealing with a God of love & a God who catches our tears in a bottle. He hears our prayers & He cares. As this story underscores, we serve a miracle working, healing God. What a joy & a privilege to serve a God like that.
God not only offers 15 more years, as he did with Hezekiah, He offers us all eternal life if we trust in His word & call on His name. If there’s to be change of any consequence in our nation it must start with a humble position of our hearts before God.
The God who didn’t balk at Hezekiah’s request won’t balk when we pray for ourselves, our families & our beloved nation. He wants to help us but He wants us to turn to Him in faith believing nothing is impossible.
We see in the example of Hezekiah that the key to an honorable life is to humble ourselves before God & obey Him.
Just as God was willing to throw His massive solar system in reverse for Hezekiah, He’ll do it for us when we turn to Him in prayer.
Blessings,
To really understand the importance of this young man we must look at the times he lived in. The Assyrians from Nineveh ruled most of the Middle East. There were continual wars between them & the Egyptians for territory.
Israel & Judah were separate & Israel was known as Samaria at this time. They even warred between themselves occasionally. Hezekiah lived & reigned in a time when the very existence of Judah was threatened. The nation was blessed with a dynamic duo; the righteous king Hezekiah & an outstanding Hebrew prophet named Isaiah at this critical point in its history.
But let’s back up a bit. Ahaz, the king before Hezekiah, was a nasty piece of work who left no happy tracks. They don’t come worse than this guy. Mean, wicked & evil are words that come to mind in describing king Ahaz. This added to the seriousness of Hezekiah’s situation.
Ahaz made images of Baals & burned incense to them. He even offered his son up in the fire to these Gods. In him we see the attitude & actions of a man far from the Lord. But better things lie ahead for the people of Judah. You might say Ahaz is the “darkness before the dawn.”
The Bible gets right to the point doesn’t it? In 2 Chronicles 28:1-4 we’re taken straight into the depths of Ahaz’s depravity. If we were using New Testament language, we’d say, “He reaped what he sowed.” God allowed many nations to attack & humble Judah because of Ahaz’ wickedness.
Part of the story is in 2 Kings 16:7-11. With enemies all around him, Ahaz reached out to the King of Assyria & said, “I’m your servant…come & save me!” What Ahaz should have done was to ask this of the Lord, but he didn’t. Do you see any parallels here with our great nation? Are we making God number one or are we leaning on the arm of flesh?
Ahaz even went to Damascus to meet the king of Assyria & started to copy his altars. He made Urijah the priest copy the plans & reconstruct the alter back in the temple in Jerusalem. God had already given instructions as to how He wanted worship to be conducted but this man was following the world & worshipping false gods. The king of Assyria even turned against Ahaz & he now entered his “time of trouble.”
SHUTTING DOWN THE TEMPLE
The ultimate act of rebellion came when Ahaz closed the temple. 2 Chron.28:24;
And Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God & cut the utensils in pieces. He shut the doors of the Lord’s temple & set up alters at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other Gods & provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers to anger.
We see finally the actions of king Ahaz in cutting up the temple utensils & locking the doors so that no one could worship God. I wonder if America hasn’t made the same mistake when we’ve relegated God’s Word & ways to the dust-bin & replaced Him with other gods.
2 Chronicles 28:27says;
Ahaz rested with his fathers & was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but he was not placed in the tombs of the kings of Israel. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.
Ahaz wasn’t buried with the other kings of Israel & he deserved exactly what he got. As dark as this period has been however, again, it’s the ‘dark before dawn.” Change was coming!
TO BE FAIR, AHAZ LEFT ONE THING BEHIND; --- HE GAVE THE WORLD A GREAT SON, --HEZEKIAH.
When we look at Hezekiah’s life & heritage, we see he broke the family mould. We tend to think that sons are always like their fathers but here we see that challenged. It’s a relief to see that the transmission of character doesn’t always operate. We could look at some marital unions & feel the world would be better off if they never multiplied, but thankfully in many cases sons aren’t always like their fathers.
When we look at the long history of Israel we see this dynamic played out often. For instance, Ahab, the wimp married to Jezebel, was the son of a very godly father & the father of a godly son. Hezekiah, a godly man, was the son of an evil father. But he was also the father of an evil son, Manasseh who was probably the worst king on record. But Manasseh was the grandfather of Josiah, one of Judah’s most godly kings. So there you go.
At an age when many young men are eager to gratify their fleshly desires, it’s evident that young Hezekiah wanted to please the Lord. Though his family lineage was unfavorable, he was a righteous man & he called God’s people back to true worship.
God was angry with the people of Judah & Jerusalem & He punished them. They were losing their battles & many of the people had been taken away by the enemy. They had become an object of ridicule. But change is coming.
In the first month of the first year of Hezekiah’s reign, the young monarch opened the doors of the temple & repaired them. For years the House of God had been unused & deserted. He brought in the priests & Levites & gathered them in the courtyard on the east side of the temple. Only the priests were to go into the holy apartments, so for the work to go on, the religious leaders had to participate.
However, the priests had let impurities into their lives & into their temple. They had been unfaithful to God & had done what God said was wrong. Consequently, they had to re-consecrate themselves to be ready to serve the Lord & make the temple a holy place again.
A PRIORITY IN HEZEKIAH’S CHANGES
Notice, Hezekiah didn’t deal first with the civil problems of his kingdom. He had the wisdom to realize if he was going to improve things, he’d have to first deal with Judah’s spiritual condition.
Are you seeing the relevance to us today? America has problems, & our problems are getting worse not better. Our politicians are telling us change is needed. Here’s a new concept that should be old; change must begin within the human heart. When I was just a boy I can remember my parents taking me to hear Billy Graham. I can hear him almost like it was yesterday uttering these words; “America needs revival & it has to start in our hearts.” It’s still true!
The church must be the leader of this change because a nation will only be as strong as its churches.
Judah’s priests responded to Hezekiah & sanctified themselves & went in to clean up the house of God. They brought all the trash into the courtyard & the Levites picked it up & took it out & dumped it by the brook Kidron. For 8 days they worked on cleaning out the temple & for 8 more days they cleaned the rest of the buildings. The various instruments used in the sanctuary services were also cleaned & sanctified.
Hezekiah rose up early, gathered the rulers of the city & went up to the house of the Lord. He had brought 7 bulls, 7 lambs, & 7 male goats for sin offerings for the sanctuary & for Judah. The bulls, rams, & lambs were sacrificed & their blood sprinkled on the alter. Then the male goats were brought out to the congregation & starting with the king, each person confessed their sins over the heads of the goats by laying hands on their heads. Then these goats were killed to make atonement & their blood was presented as a sin offering for all the sins of Judah.
It was a joyous time in Jerusalem. Hezekiah encouraged the people to bring individual sacrifices to the Lord as many as were of a willing heart. There was one sad thing that day; there were too few priests so the Levites had to help until enough priests made themselves ready.
THIS CHANGE HAPPENED QUICKLY
2 Chronicles 29:36 says, --The thing was done suddenly.
It doesn’t take long when people decide to really make a change.
Notice again the sequence of events that happened under the leadership of Hezekiah:
1. The king declares he wants to make a covenant with God.
2. There is an opening of the doors & cleaning of the temple along with the cleansing of the priests & Levites.
3. There was a restoration of worship in the temple.
4. There was a cleansing of a nation & a voluntary spontaneous outpouring of love for the Lord. Gifts & offerings were brought that the temple might be set in order.
So it’s clear that Hezekiah restored worship in Israel on a scale that had never before been seen. The memory of the success of his godly grandfather Jotham & the unmitigated failure of his evil father Ahaz drove him to dedicate his career to instituting a revival of worship among his people. What a sight to see this young man of God at the threshold of his reign, leading a people who’re willing to be led in national revival.
WE SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED BY THIS STORY
This story shows no matter how far the decline has taken a nation, a home, a church, or an individual; nothing is too hard for the Lord. Do you believe that? We might very well be a part of the Laodicean church but I still believe God can revive His people. We’ve seen it in the past & God can do it again in the present. We should never lose hope for our great nation & its people no matter how bad things are.
BUT TROUBLE AGAIN DOGS HEZEKIAH’S STEPS
Hezekiah was a man of courage. He had reinstated spiritual worship in Jerusalem & smashed the pagan alters & images that dotted the rolling hills of Judah. But if you turn to 2 Chronicles 32: 1, you’ll find that after all he’d done for his people & for true worship of God, Sennacherib, king of Assyria came & invaded Judah.
Sometimes when we’ve done all we know to please God, testing will still come our way. Here is a man who has done things right up to this point but God is testing him further. The vicious, barbaric armies are coming to attack & Jerusalem is about to fall. What would you do? How would you face this situation? Well Hezekiah faced it with courage, not only for himself, but he finds the strength to lift up the hearts of God’s people, his own soldiers & warriors.
Hezekiah tells his people to- “be strong & courageous. Be not afraid or dismayed for the king of Assyria nor for all the multitude that is with him.
When you & I are courageous we’ll also be encouraging to others. Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah trying to scare him into surrendering. Do you know what Hezekiah did with the letter?
HE SPREAD THE LETTER OUT BEFORE THE LORD-2 Kings 19:14.
Isn’t that humbling? After Hezekiah prayed, he went to bed & slept the sleep of the righteous. While Hezekiah was sleeping, God visited the Assyrian army & killed 185,000 of them. Hezekiah knew he didn’t have an army large enough to beat these barbarians so he just put it in God’s hands & God killed 185,000 warriors in one night. What a test & what a triumph of this man of prayer.
BUT ANOTHER TEST IS COMING FOR HEZEKIAH
If you turn to 2 Kings Chapter 20, you see that Hezekiah falls desperately ill. After all these victories, God tells him to –Set thine house in order for thou shalt die & not live.
Now Hezekiah finds himself in more hot water, so to speak. At mid-life, in his prime, he finds himself sick, probably the bubonic plague. He’s terminal. He doesn’t know exactly how sick he is but here comes the prophet Isaiah with a bedside manner that would get him a big F in any pastoral care class. His prognosis is from the Great Physician Himself, God. He said in essence, “You’re not going to walk out of here. Don’t buy any green bananas. With what you’ve got your chances are zero! Set your house in order.”
In the last few years we’ve seen so many world-wide tragedies. Multitudes have suddenly & unexpectedly died in earthquakes, storms, fires, floods & war. Were their houses in order? Is your house in order? There are no guarantees of tomorrow.
To put it simply, life had caved in for Hezekiah. He’d been handed nothing less that a death sentence. He was now on death row. But he doesn’t relinquish himself to death. He looks death in the eye & tackles it head-on. In other words, Hezekiah prays. That’s exactly what we need to do when we’re face to face with our own brokenness & the brokenness of this world.
PRAY!!!
Hezekiah turned his face to the wall & prayed for God to give him more time. He poured out his heart for the continuance of his life. He asks God for a second opinion & he gets it.
I heard about a man whose doctor told him he was grossly overweight. The man got agitated & said, “Well, I want a second opinion.” The doctor said, “Alright you’re ugly too.” Another man asked his doctor for a second opinion & he said, “O.k., come back tomorrow.”
GOD DOES A QUICK WORK!
I don’t know what was in Hezekiah’s heart. I do know he was only 39 years old & probably had much unfinished work he wanted to complete. How astonishingly fast his prayer got an answer. Isaiah had just delivered the news of his impending death & hadn’t even gotten out of the palace when Hezekiah’s prayer is heard in the courts of heaven. God told Isaiah to go back & tell the king he had 15 more years to live.
God also gave Hezekiah a sign causing the shadow to go back on the sundial ten degrees. The sun-dial was the instrument by which the king might know the time of day because obviously there were no clocks as we have now. Hezekiah asked that the shadow might go backward so Isaiah prayed & the shadow moved backward ten degrees. God also promised to protect the city of Jerusalem.
We read in Isaiah 38 the great Psalm of thanksgiving that arose from Hezekiah’s heart for this momentous answer to prayer in his life. What a man of prayer!!!
Politician Phil Gramm recently said in essence that we American’s are a nation of whiners, not seeing the great things we have going for us. People jumped down Gramm’s throat including McCain, & he probably faces political exile for saying it, but I tended to agree with him. We are “Whining & dining” enjoying the good things God has blessed us with but not seeing how really blessed we are. [I might be sent to Belarus for saying this. Kidding!]
Don’t misunderstand me here. Yes we have problems, but we should follow this man Hezekiah’s example & instead of going to cry on someone’s shoulder, go straight to God with our petitions. While we’re at it we could also follow the example Jesus set in His prayer life.
WAS HEZEKIAH’S HEALING IN THE PERFECT OR PERMISSIVE WILL OF GOD?
For years I’ve heard Bible students debate whether or not Hezekiah should have prayed for God to heal him. We know that when Israel was in the wilderness, God gave them their request but sent leanness to their souls. Psalm 106:15.
Those who say Hezekiah shouldn’t have lived longer point to the fact that he had children during those extra 15 years & one of them was Manasseh, Judah’s most wicked king; Even though he repented in 2 Chronicles 33. Other scholars believe
That when God said, “set your house in order” that literally meant, “Pick out a man to succeed you on the throne.” God had promised that Judah would always have a descendant of David on the throne therefore Hezekiah was actually holding on to the promise of God & pleading his case that he would live & have a son to fulfill this promise.
Also, though Manasseh was a bad king, he had a grandson named Josiah, one of the greatest kings & reformers Judah ever knew. Also if you turn to Proverbs 25, you’ll read of “the men of Hezekiah.” The men of Hezekiah were a group of scribes, whose job it was to copy Old Testament scriptures & put them in order. The order of some of our Old Testament books & chapters that we actually have in our Bible today goes back to the men of Hezekiah. Some of those Psalms are put together to commemorate Hezekiah’s recovery from sickness.
AS FAR AS I KNOW, BESIDES JESUS, HEZEKIAH IS THE ONLY MAN WHO KNEW HOW MUCH TIME WAS ALLOTTED TO HIM ON THIS EARTH.
If you knew you were going to die in a few days or weeks what would you do. How would you spend that time? That’s an awesome question is it not?
Whatever the answer to the question of whether Hezekiah should have prayed to God for the elongation of his life, the fact of the matter is that he put those years to good use. He made some mistakes, [that’s another message,] but I believe that much of his 15 years were used wisely.
If you were going to die in a short time how would you go about getting ready to go? Would you need to put your house in order regarding your personal salvation? What sort of changes would you be compelled to make?
Ladies & gentlemen, we’re dealing with a God of love & a God who catches our tears in a bottle. He hears our prayers & He cares. As this story underscores, we serve a miracle working, healing God. What a joy & a privilege to serve a God like that.
God not only offers 15 more years, as he did with Hezekiah, He offers us all eternal life if we trust in His word & call on His name. If there’s to be change of any consequence in our nation it must start with a humble position of our hearts before God.
The God who didn’t balk at Hezekiah’s request won’t balk when we pray for ourselves, our families & our beloved nation. He wants to help us but He wants us to turn to Him in faith believing nothing is impossible.
We see in the example of Hezekiah that the key to an honorable life is to humble ourselves before God & obey Him.
Just as God was willing to throw His massive solar system in reverse for Hezekiah, He’ll do it for us when we turn to Him in prayer.
Blessings,
John
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