Hezekiah's reign exemplifies a life of action, perception, and devotion, demonstrating that true success lies in faithfulness to God. The sermon highlights his decisive actions against idolatry, his courage in calling sin what it is, and his unwavering trust and allegiance to the Lord, contrasting him with the spiritual compromises of his time. The core lesson is that aligning one's life with God's standards, even when unpopular, leads to inner prosperity and God's presence. Ultimately, a life lived in devotion to God is presented as a fulfilling and successful one, not to be relinquished.
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The second book of Kings, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight. Now, while you're finding this, I would just like to mention two things. First of all, being here, after being away for a little while, gives me the opportunity of saying thank you to those of you who have been seeking to have fellowship with us in view of all our expenses running through and from Ocala. and so on. We do appreciate your fellowship and your thought and your loving care of us, and this gives me an opportunity to say thank you in that fashion.
The second thing I want to mention is the fact that if the Lord will tonight, and on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, five nights in all, we're going to look at a few highlights in the life of the Apostle John. Now I know that you all know your Bible so well that you remember there are five references in the Gospel according to John to the disciple whom Jesus loved. Now we're going to take those five mentions of that phrase and we're going to see if we cannot prove them, get insights into the life of the Apostle John. So do be praying about the series and...
Say that we might all, preacher and hearer alike, benefit from looking at the life of a good man. Now to wet our appetites in that direction we're going to look at the life of another good man, this time from the Old Testament. And did I talk to you long enough for you to find that passage without embarrassment? Second Kings chapter eighteen and verse one. Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshiah, son of Elah, king of Israel, but Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. Now notice the name Hoshiah and the name Ahaz, will you?
Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abbi, the daughter of Zachariah, and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and break the images, and cut down the groves, and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made, for unto those days the children of Israel... did burn incense to it, and he called it Nehushtan.
He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him this among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses, And the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not. He smote the Philistines, even unto Giza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchman to the fence city, or to the fences of the city.
That's a very short life story. But like many another in the Old Testament, It carries a lot of lessons. Shall we have just a brief word of prayer as we contemplate these few verses? Our Heavenly Father, we know that the lives of good men are spread before us in thy word so that we might learn from them and follow their example. The lives of bad men likewise are spread upon its pages. so that we might learn solemn lessons from those and be warned not to walk in their footsteps. So, O Lord, today we might learn something from the life of Hezekiah that shall leave its mark upon our own lives, for we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amen. I've been thinking this week about the days the last few months of World War II. Now they say it's a sign of encroaching old age when one begins to look back and sort of get occupied with the past. I was thinking of a particular day when Germany had introduced to our horror the first of the V-bomb. and I was in London for some special meetings, and standing on the platform of the station, the elephant and castle, when I heard the very first bee bomb I'd ever heard coming over.
It sounded like a two-stroke engine, but we had already been warned, and nobody needed to tell me what it was. And even if I had been in doubt as to what it was, the actions of the Londoners around me would have warned me, for every man and every woman, every boy and girl immediately pressed themselves against the wall of the station there. So I followed suit, and then realizing what it was, I began to pray, as all of those were praying, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, because we knew the moment that engine cut out, the thing would dive and it would explode right where it fell.
And because it was so very close to us, we didn't want it to fall where we were. That was very selfish, because it just meant it was going to fall where somebody else was. You know, diabolically, later on they discovered how to cause those engines to cut out, and then to have the thing glide so that it didn't fall straight down, and nobody knew exactly where it was going to fall. But, you know, I stood on that station for a long time after that, because no trains came for three hours. So I went to the bookstore, and I browsed through some of the books.
And among them there was a book on cartoons. I suppose I wanted to cheer myself up a little. I turned to a page, and there was a picture of the globe. And sitting cross-legged on the top of the globe was a little man. And he was labeled the little man. I immediately identified with him. He had a palm outstretched, and in it glowing with all itself in importance was the atom. And he was speaking to it. This is what he was saying. Because, you know, these were the days when the atom had just been split.
And we were wondering what the outcome of it was going to be. And this is what he said to that tiny little atom in his palm. You're mighty when you're split. But we are tremendous when we are united. I thought about that. And I had plenty to think about during the three hours I waited for my train. The little man. when he stands shoulder to shoulder with the other little men, becomes a formidable force. But it's been well said that a train is only as strong as its weakest link. A local church can be extremely powerful for God, when all the believers, little men and women, though they may seem to be, stand shoulder to shoulder with one another and are in touch with God, there is no force.
that can compare with the force that is presented by the people of God when they stand together all as one dependent upon God. Where the brethren dwell together in unity, there the Lord commanded the blessing even life forevermore. But if it is true, and it is, that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, we ought to be asking ourselves constantly, what kind of church Would my church be if all its members were just like me? Now it's because I wanted to do a little bit of self-examination this morning that I turned you to the story of Hezekiah.
We read Hezekiah began to reign. Now there was a prelude to the reign of Hezekiah. There had been the time of the patriarchs from Abraham to Moses. and then the entry into the promised land. Then there was the time of the judges from us, Neil, to Samuel. Then there was introduced the monarchy, and we went from Saul to Solomon. And do you know what happened when Solomon's son came to the throne? He consulted with the old men, and the old men said, because of the burdens that had been laid upon the people through Solomon's vast building project, relieve their load, lift their heavy burdens.
Then he consulted with the young men, and they said, Now is your chance to really throw your weight around. You say to the people, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. If he laid heavy burdens on you, I lay heavier burdens on you. If he scourged you with which, I will scourge you with scorpions, and very, very foolishly, son of Solomon, turned to the young men, turned from the old men, and instead of relieving the burdens of the children of Israel, he laid more grievous ones upon them, and the people rebelled, and the nation was divided into two, and a rebel by the name of Jeroboam led the throng of dissenters, and Israel, instead of being a united kingdom, became a divided kingdom.
Now Hezekiah came to the throne probably two hundred years after that division. So many, many things had happened in Israel. And when he began to reign, this man had had fourteen kings or regents reigning before him, and seven kings who reigned after him. And yet I read to you the words of the living God. There was no king that reigned before him. and no king that followed after him that could compare with him. Obviously, the life of such a man has to be a challenge to those of us who study it.
After him, none like him, nor was there before him. And the question is, why? What was there about Hezekiah? How did he comport himself that God could so commend him? Let me point out four little words to you in these eight verses. In verse three we read he did. Obviously he was a man of action. In verse four we read he called. Obviously he was a man of perception. In verse six we read that he claimed. So just as obviously he was a man of devotion.
And then finally it says in verse seven he prospered so that the story ends with his being a man of success. These are the four things I wanted to ponder this morning. So Hezekiah was a man of action. It says he did and doing. You know there's always something admirable about energy, about doing. As we get older we look a little enviously at the younger folks. And we say with regret, I don't seem able to do what I used to be able to do. And of course it's true. And so we admire the person who's energetic up and doing, getting around and performing.
There's always something admirable about doing, about energy. By going back again, in spite of what it seems to suggest, and thinking about the past, I can remember the very first time when I was at home and the war had really heated up and enemy aircraft would come over the city of Birmingham, which was Blitzkrieg many times because it was a large industrial center and a tremendous amount of damage could be done. I can remember many times hearing those heavily laden bombers coming in. They had a special sound and we knew after the warning had sounded, We knew we were in for trouble when we could hear this heavy sound that had literally vibrated the ground as the bombers came in by the scores to drop their awful loads.
And to begin with, the city in which I lived was totally unprepared. There had been a period called the Fony War when we were reconnoitering over there, and they were reconnoitering over our own country. And when the bombing really began, we were taken... unawares. And after three nights of blitz-squee, during which we crouched in chimney corner, because that seemed to be the safest place in the house, I'll never forget on the fourth night, when they dragged up some big mobile guns, actually naval guns, mounted on mobile carriers, and not very far from the house, when the first one went off, in spite of the risk, I went and stood at the door, and with my neighbors we cheated.
because at last something was being done. Even though the danger was increased for us by standing at the door and watching, we nevertheless felt at last we weren't so frustrated because somebody was doing something to get back at the enemy who was threatening us with, threatening our very lives and bringing peril to our very doorstep. Yet there was something admirable about doing. Now in these days that are written about there was a need for action. There was a need for a man of action because Hezekiah followed a wicked king in Judah.
I pointed his name out to you in the first verse. He was King Ahaz. And Hezekiah, when he began to reign, became a contemporary to a wicked king in Israel. That king Hoshiah. Now these men had been wicked, And one of them reigning in the northern kingdom was a wicked king. If ever there was a need for action, it was in Hezekiah's day. And so he came to the throne at the right time, this man of action. What did he do? He removed the high places. He was immediately going to turn his anger upon the idolatry of Israel.
He removed the high places, he cut down the groves, he shattered the idols, he rebelled against Israel's enemies, and he smoked them hip and thigh. Indeed, he was a man of action. But you know, action is not everything. They were men of action who built the high places that he tore down. They were men of action that planted the groves that he uprooted. They were men of action who fashioned the idols that he shattered. No, it's not enough to be a man of action, to be the kind of king that Hezekiah was. He had to add perception to his action.
He not only did, but the Word of God says he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Now contrast that with the days of the judges when every man did that which was right in his own eyes. He was a man of perception. And that is emphasized for us. in that after we read that he did, we read that he called. Look at that verse four. It says, He break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made, for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nihushdan. Now, you know, he might well cut down, uproot, break down what was foreign.
He might well rebel against them smite that which intruded from the outside. But, you know, he was very, very brave. When he took something that was peculiarly Israel's own, the brazen serpent that Moses had made, and can you imagine how revered that had been down through the many, many years, so that now it had become an object for their idolatry. And that man took it, and he break it in pieces, and he called it Ni Rushtan. Do you know what that means? It means, and this was not an expression of his opinion, it was a statement of facts.
That word, and you have it in your margin if you look for it, it means simply a piece of brass. And that's exactly what it was. And Hezekiah realized that they had been affording it the place of a God, and so in his anger he destroyed it, and then in the faces of the people he heard this word, a piece of brass. All we've got to be sufficiently perceiving as to be able to call brass, brass, a spade, a spade, and sin, sin. In these days, you know, when sin is painted pretty colors, in these days when it is given other typhus, We as Christians are expected by many, many people to lower our flags.
Christendom is becoming more and more corrupt in its attempt to become more and more acceptable to the people. That's the reason why you read about the ordaining of homosexual pastors. Can you imagine that? I am amazed that God tolerates the corruption and vileness that is rife among the people in these days. But you know, even we as Christians sometimes want to be something more than just tolerated. We want to be accepted. Young people, and I would sure labor this point if it was a young people's meeting, it means so much to young people in these days to be accepted by their peers, to be part of the crowd.
We ourselves are tied with the same brush, you know. We haven't outgrown that. And if we are not very, very careful, we shall find ourselves in order to be acceptable, compromising a little here, compromising a little there, giving here and giving there, when the word of God does not lower its standard. Let us remember that sin is sin, and somebody has aptly said, you can hear the hiss of the serpent in it, sin. and God's standards haven't lowered. We've got to watch our own lives. We've got to watch our own expressions.
We've got to watch that we don't get so tolerant with sin around us that we no longer recoil when we come into contact with it. These are days of conditioning here. We are being conditioned by the things that go on around us, even if we're not very, very careful by that little black box in our homes. And such conditioning can take the keen edge of our spirituality if we're not very, very careful. Let's do what Hezekiah did and called grass, grass, and call a spade a spade, and call sin, sin. And let's be aware when something is creeping into our lives to take God's place.
Because as surely as it happens, it is going to destroy our effectiveness for God. and it's going to make us unusable by him and incapable of helping all of those people around us who so much need what we have, the Lord Jesus Christ, in their lives. Yes, Hezekiah was a man of action, but he was also a man of perception, and he had the courage of his convictions, and he was not just prepared to stand up and be counted when things came in from the outside. But when it meant taking and destroying some dear idol that belonged peculiar to the nation, peculiarly to the nation itself, he didn't hesitate.
It had to be done, and he did it. The hymn writer wrote about the idol in the heart, What ere that idol do, help me to tear it from thy throne, and woosh it. Only thee. Easy words to sing, but a very, very difficult thing to do. We need to ask ourselves from time to time whether there are idols in our lives, whether there are things upon which we are fastening our attention, whether our hearts are becoming taken up with earthly treasure, or with the things that are around us. The word of God still exhausts us. Let your affection on things above.
God help us to do that. Let's go a little further with our friend Hezekiah here. He was a man found doing, found discerning, but also found delighting. He was not only a man of action and a man of perception, but he was a man of devotion. Look at verse six. He claved to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandment, which the Lord commanded Moses. Now, there is a word that goes ahead of this. In fact, the word claved is enclosed by two other words. In verse five, it says, he trusted. That comes before the word slave, and in verse six it says, he follows, and that comes after the word slave.
Now you think about those things. He trusts it. I suppose that means that he acknowledged gladly his dependence upon God. Happy is the man of whom it can be said, and the woman, too, that they trust the living God. Now it's not true that we are trusting if we spend our days worrying. And there are lots of Christian folk who do, you know. And as we get older, the temptation becomes stronger because our strength begins to fail and we see things happen to others and we say, is it going to happen to me?
What's going to take place in my life? What does tomorrow hold? What does next week hold? And we begin to tremble unless things don't go right with us. And you know, it's a very human thing to get concerned. It's a very normal thing, humanly speaking, to get a little worried from time to time. When you cannot see too much of the future, or as you look around and you look at your own life with its waning strength, to say, I don't really know what's going to happen to me. I wonder what's going to happen to me. Now, wondering about it is not a sin, but worrying about it is a sin.
Do you remember that other little chorus that's a favorite we sing so often? Why do you let the troubles of tomorrow bring sorrow to your heart and burdens too? For if the Father's eye is on the sparrow, then surely he will care for you. And how many times have I reminded you of that little motto that I saw on the notice board of a church one day, today is that tomorrow I worried about yesterday, and all is well. If you trust, you do not worry. If you worry, you do not trust. Now take your choice. You cannot do both.
This man trusted. And because he trusted, I'm sure that his life was marked by an experience of peace. When a man trusts God, he is ready to take whatever comes, because he knows the word of God is true, for we know that all things work together for good to them that led God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. We know that nothing can come into our lives, but God permits it, and He only permits it, because in its weight it must bring our good and our blessing. That's the kind of beneficent and gracious and wonderful God that we have.
All we do Him, despite when we do not trust. This man trusted in the Lord God of Israel. Maybe there's just a little word for some heart here, because the last few days have been days of wonder, wondering, and concern, and maybe even fretting. A little worry. Everything is under control. God has you and all of your circumstances in his hand, and he isn't going to let a thing touch you. But eventually it must be for your blessings.
It's a precious thought, isn't it? Then thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. And through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shalt a flame kindle upon thee. And notice the word is through. Not into the water, not into the fire, but through it. That is, into it and out of it. Remember that old lady whose favorite text was, when it came to pass? And they said, how can you make that a favorite text when it's only, it isn't even a sentence? You read it in the Bible. There's always something else attached to it. And it came to pass this. And it came to pass that. And it came to pass the other. She looked a little crestfallen for a moment.
And then she said, but you don't read it how I read it. They asked her, how do you read it? She said, like this. And it came to pass. So as surely as it comes, it will pass. And the one in control... is the Lord himself. This man trusted in the Lord God of Israel. But he did more. It says here that he claved to him. He claved to the Lord. Now if trusting him, if acknowledging gladly one's dependence upon him, pleading to him is pledging willingly one's allegiance to him. When you're cleave to the Lord, you say the Lord has the right of say and the right of way in my life.
I'm going to give to the Lord the right to dictate as he will, because I know that he knows the end from the beginning. I'm going to cleave to the Lord. That's what Job did you know. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He not only trusted, but he clave to the Lord, even in the midst of all of this trouble. And then it says, he departed not from following after him. And this means that the one who acknowledged gladly his dependence upon God, and who pledged willingly his allegiance to God, was the man who showed openly his defiance to everything that was opposed to God.
He departed not from following the Lord. And I'll guarantee that brought many a confrontation into his life. I guarantee that that brought many a battle into his experience. If you follow the Lord and you depart not from following the Lord, you're going to find that you're not a soldier on parade. You're a soldier in battle dress and at the front. You're also going to find that you don't have to do the fighting. The Lord's the one who does the fighting. and then we follow in the train of his triumph. But remember the word of God says, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
And it's very, very striking that in the armor it's presented to us in Ephesians six, there's not a peace for the back. When the devil confronts us, we're not meant to turn tail and run away. We are meant to confront him, but to make sure we're clad in the whole armor when we do. Of course, if we can avoid him, like the way of evil and fast not by it, that's the course we are to take. But when the devil confronts us, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. So the man who gave sin no fancy name and gave sin no quarter was the one who found it possible to do that. Because he was, step by step, with a God of heaven, and was not ashamed.
He ceased not from following him. Little wonder then that this man of action and perception and devotion was a man of success. Little wonder that we read, he prospered. I have a friend in England, I don't know whether he still does it, but always when he wrote to anybody, he put a little text at the end, Third John II. Third John II. Do you remember what that is? He begins, Beloved, I wish, above all things, that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospered. Whenever I got a letter from him, and I read that on the bottom, I trembled.
You know, if every believer prospered in body, as he prospered in soul, lots of believers would be suffering from the rickets and malnutrition and lots of other things. If we prosper in body, as we prosper in soul, When John wrote those words, he knew to whom he was writing. It was to a man who walked with God, obviously a person who walked with God, that he wrote, Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prosper. He knew that that person's soul was suffering, and so he wished for that person. Prosperity in body, as there was prosperity in souls.
Hezekiah prospered. First of all, he prospered on the inside because it says the Lord was with him. That's verse seven. That makes for inner prosperity. And then it says he prospered whithersoever he went forth, and that speaks of utter prosperity. This man was certainly a man of success, prospering on the inside and prospering on the outside. It's not a surprise to me, you know, that when Hezekiah came to die, he didn't want to die. It doesn't surprise me. You know, I can understand when our course has almost run out, and we're very ill, very sick, very distressed by our malady, that we cry to the Lord to take us home.
That's so understandable. But, you know, while we still have health and strength, a measure of it, It's not surprising even though we know that heaven is a wonderful place. We're not anxious yet to go there. I don't think that grieves God, you know. If we as Christians are so enjoying our lives here, as we walk day by day with him, Certainly it's not surprising that we don't want to relinquish them. And we who know very certainly, because we believe the Word of God, the things are brighter on before, and it's going to be wonderful to get to heaven, and the joy of reunion lies in front of us. Still there's a little bit of something human inside that says, but in spite of all its problems and pain, this life isn't so bad after all, and so we sort of hope that God will let us hang on to it a little bit longer.
I say again, I don't think that grieves God. God is glad that you're enjoying your life with him, in spite of the things that sometimes take the edge off your pleasure. When a man walks with God, when a man obeys God, when a man pleads to God, his life becomes that enjoyable and thrilling thing. Every day becomes for him not only a new day, but a day of possibility and a day of wonder, a day when he can live to please God, and a day after which he can lay his head upon his pillow and say, Today has been a productive day, today has been a purposeful and wonderful day, because it's been a day when I walked step by step with the Lord himself.
So I say I'm not surprised that Hezekiah, when he came to die, turned his face to the wall and went and didn't want to relinquish such a wonderful life as he should be. And although I know he got into problems in the last fifteen years that God gave to him extra, some have said, you know, Hezekiah made a mistake in asking God to lengthen his life. I wouldn't want to say that. But however, God obviously was not displeased with Hezekiah's prayer. and as it were brought him back from the dead. I hope your life is the kind of life that Antichaius was, so that you're enjoying every day that you live, in spite of the occasional twinges and aches and pains and arthritis and all these other things that come to plague us as we get a little older.
I use that word advisedly. Every day is meant to be a happy day. Now, I wonder whether as we sit here, And we ask ourselves questions about our own life. Are we really happy Christians? Are we really happy Christians? The unhappy Christian is no testimony. You come into contact with a man who glows. If he's ninety-nine and he's glowing, he doesn't look ninety-nine and he doesn't act ninety-nine and you're certainly glad you got to know him. The same with a lady whose face radiates the love of God. Of course I know we can be happy Christians and it might be quite so obvious on our faces.
But you know, people who come into contact with our lives ought to find them of any addiction, they really should. And it's just bound to come about if we walk with the Lord. He'll deliver us from bitternesses. And oftentimes there are bitternesses that come in, you know, and they want to eat away at us and make us unhappy and break our heart. God wants to deliver us from ourselves. And he wants to make our lives the kind of lives that basically, because they are so thrilling day by day, we don't really want to relinquish. Hezekiah was a man of success. My time has gone.
He sat still. You invite me to go on longer, but I'm not telling you so. Shall we bow in prayer? our Heavenly Father we do wrong to know there's not one of us here that longs to know that inner prosperity that is described as having the Lord with him we want to sense thy presence with us because we know that thou art living Lord Jesus in our hearts we want to know what it is to to turn not aside from following thee We want to be successful on the inside, and then for thy glory, in whatever way it may be, to be successful as we move among men.
Bless us to this end, we pray, we for thy glory, and since the Lord Jesus died to make it possible, in his name. Amen.