Address—Mark Allan
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Maybe we could open our meeting this evening by singing #44 in the appendix.
God.
Moved.
September.
Saints.
And right up on the storm.
He's been on the path of the sun.
I've never.
Failing skills.
Immature.
Bright design.
And.
Purchased Sovereign.
I.
'M sorry to hear and stand into working.
Things.
God is his Son.
Interpreter.
And He will make it way. Maybe we can just ask the Lord for His help.
Our God and Father, we come before thee this evening, and Father, we would just ask for Thy help in this hour. With Thy word will be opened. Our Father, let us know the needs of everyone here in this room. Let us know where we are.
Spiritually, Father, thou dost know.
Any brokenness, any pains, any problems, any struggles that we're having. And our Father, we just thank thee that thou descend the Lord Jesus to die so that our sins could be forgiven, that we can have a hope beyond all other hopes. And our Father, we just would pray that as we read the stories this evening, that the needs of each year would be met and that there would be food and there would be water for thy people.
Pray that even the youngest child would be able to glean something and we just would ask this. And thank you for thy many mercies. We just thank you that we could remember thee this morning.
Phrase. There would be something that is precious to each one of us. We just ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
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This evening I would just like to share a few thoughts that I've enjoyed.
On Hezekiah and I have to admit Hezekiah is probably one of my.
Favorite stories in the Word of God and has been for some time now.
And I'll be honest, when I I this time reading through in my personal reading in Chronicles, I went back and.
Reread the stories in the other places that occurred and the Lord just has given me and has given me a number of little things to enjoy and this evening I just want to share a few of those things with you this evening. Now I really appreciated last night Josh putting the book of Song of Solomon in context and.
Last week actually in Rio Ferry and talking to the young people, I asked them I was speaking about Hezekiah.
And I asked them, well, who is Hezekiah and.
There weren't two too many. Who knew? There were a few. And so I asked that question to you this evening, who is Hezekiah? You know why there are a number of things that may come to your mind when we think of this king. You know, I've heard people sort of play a joke and ask somebody to turn to Hezekiah 316 and realize that it's not a book in the Bible and.
You know, as someone who took a lot of science and math courses in university.
I've often wondered in the story of Hezekiah, how on earth?
Did God turn back the shadow of the sundial 10°? It seems like it would be almost impossible to reverse the rotation of the sun. You know, as a child when I was thinking of Hezekiah, I thought.
Some of the strongest language were used in the word of God is in the story of Hezekiah and Isaiah and turn to it and maybe giggle a little bit. You know, there's many things in the story. More recently I've been very encouraged by.
How Hezekiah is one of the first people in the Word of God.
To reverse the destruction of division in Israel in a mighty in a very nice way. And so this evening I just want to go through a few points on Hezekiah. Hopefully it won't take too, too long. I'll have to cover it in fairly quickly because it actually covers quite a quite a bit in the Bible, Hezekiah. And just to give background to those of you who may not be 100% familiar, he was a king in Israel.
And as most of you know.
Saul was the first king, then David, and then Solomon, and then the Kingdom divided. And there was a northern section and a southern section. The 10 tribes were in the north section of Israel. The two tribes were in the South part of Israel. And God had brought them into this land of Israel and had promised them that if they followed him, there would just be tremendous blessing. Well, we know the story very well. And they didn't follow the Lord. And there's a whole.
Succession of kings who in the northern part of Israel didn't follow the Lord hardly at all. And in the southern part of Israel there were, it was sort of spotty and sort of 2/3 of the way through. In the southern part is this king Hezekiah? And I just want to open up by reading what the word of God says.
Specifically about Hezekiah as a king, because I think it's beautiful.
It's in Second Kings 18, so the story of Hezekiah is.
Three books in the Bible. It's in Second Kings, it's in Second Chronicles, and it's in Isaiah.
And it's a little bit different in each one of the cases, but we're going to turn to 2nd Kings.
1St.
Chapter 18.
And verse one.
Now game to pass in the third year of Hoshiya, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 25 years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abby, the daughter of Zechariah. 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.
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That Moses had made for under those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called it Nahustan. And specifically the next two verses are the ones I wanted to note. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel.
So that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he claimed to the Lord, and he 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.
And he smoked the Philistines even to Gaza. And the borders are off from the tower.
Of the Watchmen to the Fence City. So here we have a king, and what does God?
Know him for he trusted God like no other king before him and no other king after him. He kept the Lorde commandments and this was at a very difficult time in Israeli history as a matter of fact, we're going to get into this a little bit it was basically when God said I had enough and he was going to just.
Take them out of the land.
Other thing I want to note here is 25 years old, he reigned for 29 years. There's a lot of people in this room between the age of 25 and 54. There are a lot of children in this room that this also applies to equally. So he wasn't a particularly old man when he became king, 25 years old. There's a beautiful commendation that the Lord gives them. And you know, be nice if it could be said of us in a time when.
Everything around us is crumbling. That it could be said that you trusted God.
Like nobody before or after, you know, that's a very powerful thing to be able to say. Hezekiah trust, you know, he failed in trusting the Lord too. And we're going to see that a little bit. But so I just want to start with that. So now I'd like to go over and look at the book of Chronicles. And in the Book of Kings, we have primarily the attacks of of Hezekiah Chronicles we have a little bit earlier.
In his in his reign. So let's turn to Second Chronicles.
Chapter 29.
In verse one.
As Akaya began to reign when he was 25 years old and he reigned 9 and 20 years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah, he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.
Before we leave that, I just want to note that in both Kings and Chronicles, his mother's mentioned, you know, his father, which was a wicked king.
Ahaz, his mother's not mentioned, you know, His father did not have a good influence on him at all, but his mother did.
And you know.
I can't stress that I'm not, I'm not a mother. I'm a father. But this mother had a tremendous impact on her son, and it reversed the course of Israel in a way that probably would not have happened otherwise. I just want to note that before we move on.
Verse three in the first year of his reign. In the first month he opened.
The doors of the House of the Lord, and repaired them the very first thing he did.
When he became king was he went into the House of God and he opened the doors.
You know, I'm not going to go into the history of this, but his father completely defiled the House of God. He went to Damascus. He saw in Damascus and idly, like he said, oh, I like that. He came back to Jerusalem. He said, let's set it up in Jerusalem, and he just totally defiled Jerusalem with idols. Everywhere in the House of the Lord was defiled and the doors were shut. Here we have Hezekiah. What's the first thing he does is he goes into the House of God.
And he opens the doors. You know, recently I've had.
A number of conversations with young people and older people, my wife, other brothers, you know, something that I realized if the door of our heart is not open to the Lord so that we can enjoy presence, His presence, our life is going to be.
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At best, almost hypocrisy. You know, if there's not reality in our relationship with the Lord. You know if we don't spend time praying and reading our Bibles every day.
And it's a real thing, you know, as soon as the enemy attacks, there's.
We're going to be in trouble. And I just note that, you know, this verse in Revelation 5, I'm not going to turn because there's a lot of verses I'd like to turn to, but I can't. But in Revelation, sorry, it's not five, it says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and will open the door, I will come into him and talk with him and he with me. You know, our bodies, it says in First Corinthians 6 are the temple of the Holy Ghost. So the first thing I'd like to know to everyone here is.
The doors of your heart open to the Lord. You care about the fact if you're a believer, the Holy Spirit dwells inside you.
For those of maybe there's somebody here who's not saved at all, you know, normally on Thursday evening we have a gospel meeting.
Without the Lord you have nothing. And you know I you know that we sing that song. Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock. You know, if you want joy in your life and hope.
Open the doors of your heart to the Lord. He'll come in, he'll wash your sins away. You know, that's where it all starts. As a young person, as an adult, that's where it's going to start. So the first thing he does is the first day. I don't know whether he was just waiting for the Kingdom to be passed to him. And then he decided the day I could become king, I'm going to open the doors. I was God. I don't maybe his. His mom seemed to be of the priestly line her her father was.
Zechariah, and maybe she was just completely disturbed by what had happened in the temple, but nonetheless.
What he does when he first becomes king, as he opens the door, it says there he opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them. The next thing he does is he gives the command to the priests and the Levites to.
Clean out the House of God so that worship can be reestablished. You know, that is a beautiful thing, you know.
If we want to honor the Lord with our life, if there's to be praise coming from our hearts, if there's to be reality, if we're able to be used to the Lord.
You know there can't be garbage in our life.
You know.
I, and I'll just mention this this evening I was talking to my wife earlier and on the way down here we're talking about the necessity of the Internet, but the what a horrible thing it is as well. And she had asked me should I put a question in the box as to how do you control the Internet in such a way that you still can make use of what it's useful for, but not let it to follow you because it is a very difficult thing. You know, I've.
Been shocked and horrified and I realized in my own life I wasted time and.
How easy it is for us to become defiled and so that the Lord can't operate inside us the way that we should be able to operate. And you know, I just mentioned that these first chapters of Second Chronicles.
There's, there's actually like 3 or 4 chapters here about King Hezekiah and he basically is cleaning up the House of Lord. He re establishes worship and prays to the Lord and there's tremendous blessing from that. And I just stress.
Open the doors of your heart to the Lord and get rid of those things that are defiling Lord. You know, I know what's been talked about before and even made fun of. If there's *********** in your life, get rid of it. If you're not reading your Bible, read it every day. If you're not spending time with the Lord, spend time with the Lord. You know, I've been impressed reading George Mueller. He said if he didn't get off at 5:00 in the morning and spend time with the Lord, his day was basically.
Waste one time he got sick and he slept in until six and he felt bad. And just this last week I was feeling a little bit blue. I read a book on why Wham about a couple who went down to South America to start preaching the gospel. Exact same thing. A bunch of teenagers got saved. Things were so hard for them. The only way that they could make their lives effective for the Lord was if they got up early and spent time in his presence. You know, we need to spend time in the presence of the Lord. We can't have defile.
In our life and that's where it's got to start. I'm not going to go into this. I will read a few verses here in this chapter so maybe we could just.
Read.
Two Chronicles 29, verse 3.
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He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the House of the Lord, and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the East St. and said unto them, Hear me, Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the House of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place for our fathers of trespassed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God.
And have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs, And they have shut the doors of the porch.
Put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor burnt offerings in the holy place under the God of Israel. Wherefore the wrath of God was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, to hissing, as you have seen with your eyes for law. Our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel. That is, fierce wrath may turn away from us, my sons.
Be not now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, and to serve him. He should minister unto him and burn incense. We'll stop there, you know.
If you know the Lord is your Savior, the Lord has chosen you to serve Him.
And you know, one of the things that impresses me about Hezekiah, we're not going to be able to get into this, is how much he cared about.
The House of God functioning the way that it should and that everyone was fulfilling the duties that they should. You know, everybody in this room has a function. We had that in the meeting this afternoon. Are you seeking to use it for the Lord? You know, it was done a little bit feebly at times. There weren't enough of.
The priests to do the sacrifices in in this case, and sometimes they weren't sanctified or.
As much as they should be, we're not going to get into that. But you know, it's a wonderful thing when we can use the ability that the Lord has given us for Him.
I'd like to go back. So this what we talked about was in the first year of the reign of Hezekiah. Now Hezekiah reigned for 29 years. I'm going to go back to Kings to the 4th to the 6th year of the reign of Hezekiah. So this is in second Kings 18 verse 9 to 12. Now time is.
Going quickly. So this was a time when Israel was wicked and God had said I had enough.
Hezekiah is the king of the southern part of Israel. The 10 tribes are in the northern part.
While Hezekiah is king, God marches the Assyrian army into the north part of Israel, takes them all captive, and marches them away now.
It's hard to imagine the impact that that would have to you, but let's just read what it says here briefly. This is second Kings 18 verse nine. It came to pass in the fourth year king Hezekiah, which was the 7th year of Hoshiya, son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it and at the end of the three years.
They took it even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the 9th year of Hoshiya, king of Israel.
Samaria was taken, and the king of Assyria did carry away Israel in unto Assyria, and put them Inhala and Hebor by the river goes in in the cities of the Medes, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant and Lord had commanded them would not hear them, nor do them. So we'll just stop there. So this was like the.
Ultimate failure of the 10 tribes and God marches this army in takes everybody captive or not everybody.
Most of them captive and they leave. And here you have this little king in the South, Hezekiah. He's just trying to.
Follow the Lord and turn things around in the temple and He sees this happen. You know, there's a lot of things happening around us today.
I shudder sometimes. And I mean, I'm not that old yet. Getting there.
To think that even when I was in high school, things were significantly different than they are now. More children are being born outside of marriage and inside of marriage. There's less people married than.
Than unmarried. Now morality is gone completely out the window.
The world is wholesaling, accepting sin on a scale that we've never seen before. the United States of America, which was built on the foundation of God and the principles of its word, has largely turned it back on God, you know?
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The implications of that are tremendous. You know, we're looking for the Lord to return.
To take us to be in heaven. But it shouldn't discourage us. Hezekiah. It's nice.
I'm going to flip back and see while all this was going on, and I can't imagine what was going through his mind when it was going on.
He is seeking to follow the Lord in whatever way he can. And so let's just turn back to two chronicles.
Chapter 30.
And I really enjoy this. Hezekiah does something that was never done before.
Israel was fractured into 10 tribes and two tribes. They hardly had anything to do with each other.
The 10 tribes are taking captive. There's a few that remain.
As a matter of fact, and I didn't even realize this till I was just spending some time trying to put everything into context that Hezekiah father. They were so much fighting between the 10 times and the two tribes that his father was so wicked that God allowed the kings of the king of the 10 tribes to come down and take 200,000 of the southern tribes captive and he just puts his hands in and stops them. But there was that much between them. So let's I.
Read. Actually, I'll read the verses quickly.
In Second Chronicles.
See if I can find the verse here. Chapter 28, verse 8.
In the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren 200,000 women, sons and daughters, and also took away much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria. So here, if ever there was a time to hate your northern relatives, if you want to call them that, it was now. And Hezekiah would have been alive at that time and seen all of that happen. But you know what, Hezekiah in this process of opening the doors of the.
Lord, cleaning out the garbage that was in it, re establishing worship and praise and Thanksgiving to the Lord.
He recognizes that God's heart is not just towards the two tribes, that it's towards all 10 tribes.
And he sends out an invitation, and we're not going to have time to get into this. He sends out an invitation to.
The 10 tribes to come down to Israel to celebrate the Passover.
You know, I enjoy that because you know, the Christian testimony in this world is totally fractured and continues to be fractured in God's eyes. There's one church and we know that. And when we sit down on Lord's Day morning and look at that loaf, we're to see every believer in that loaf. But from an outward perspective, it's completely.
Fractured I Even Kendall was telling me that his mom chuckled about the fact that a Brethren group was coming to a Baptist camp because she's a Baptist and you know.
We look at this in the testimony has been fractured and yet.
The Lord cares for every believer. You know, we, maybe we know the ones in this room reasonably well, but you know, it's nice when our heart goes out to all of them. So Hezekiah sends out an invitation.
In chapter two Chronicles chapter 30, I'll just read it quickly. Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim Manasseh that they should come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover.
Unto the Lord God of Israel, for the King had taken counsel, and his Princess.
In all the congregation in Israel to keep the Passover in the second month.
But they could not keep it at that time because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently. Neither of the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. The thing pleased the king and all the congregation. So I'm not going to read these verses, but you know, it's beautiful.
He sends out this invitation and as you might expect.
Some people mocked, but some of them did come.
And if we read down in verse 10, it says so the post passed from city to city.
Through the country of the freeman Manasseh, even under Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. Nevertheless, divers of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. Also in due to the hand of God was given them one heart to do the commandment of the king.
And of the Princess, by the word of the Lord.
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Well, they have the Passover.
And it's one of the most beautiful passovers that ever happened. You know, I was just thinking about the fact that here we have Israel under attack by the king of Assyria, 10 tribes are taken away, and here they are remembering how God rescued them.
In the land of Egypt and brought them into the land of Canaan. You know, it's a good thing for us to remember how the Lord died for us. It puts things so much into context when we do that.
And yet it's so easy for us to forget. It's so easy for it's easy to even be here when the theme maybe is remembrance, and for it not really to have a great deal of meaning in our life.
You know, it's beautiful to see how the Lord was working in Hezekiah and Israel and.
One of the things that I enjoyed, I'm not going to turn to it. You can look it up yourself. But there's a second time when the Lord brings a bit of a revival in Israel under Josiah. And when they go to repair the Lords house, it's actually the people from Manasseh and Ephraim whose money and was used to help repair the the temple. You know, the Lord and we read about in the New Testament, some from those tribes as well. The Lord brought tremendous blessing from what?
Let's just read what the Lord says about the Passover.
Here in verse.
Chapter 30 and verse.
26.
So there was great joy in Jerusalem for since the time of Solomon.
The king, so the son of King David of Israel there was not the like.
In Jerusalem.
And the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even heaven. No, it's beautiful how the Lord did this. And you know, it's nice to see how in touch out wicked time God is able to bring such blessing. You know, we don't have this part of the story very much in kings, and we don't have it in Isaiah either.
But I appreciate just when you consider everything that was happening, how the Lord was able to work and blessing, you know, when everything in this world maybe seems to be falling apart.
If we trust in the Lord like Hezekiah did, if we open our our heart to the Lord, if we get rid of the defilements in our life, if we seek to bring praise and honor to the Lord and that his people would function the way they should, the Lord can bring blessing. You know, I appreciate it. Just somebody's thoughts. Whenever there's a true work of God, it's bringing it back to.
The way God intended it to be, and you know.
God brought it here back to what it was before Israel even divided. When in Josiah's day, when the Lord brings a bit of a revival there, he actually brings it back. And the sin that Solomon had committed that divided the country was dealt with by Josiah. It's beautiful to see that well.
Here we are sometime between the 1St and the 14th year of of Hezekiah's reign, so I'd like to go on and read what happens after that. So in Second Chronicles chapter 32.
So the first year opens the doors. The 4th year 10 tribes are taking captive, Passover's held.
And here we have in 32. The king of Assyria comes back this time.
It's not to get the 10 tribes, it's to get the two tribes.
He was coming to take him away captive and to wipe out Israel entirely. What does what happens? Let's just read it says in Second Chronicles 32. It says after these things and the establishment thoroughf Sennacher of king of hysteria, came and entered into Judah, and camped against the fence cities, and thought to win them for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his Princess and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains.
Which were without the city and they did help them. So there was gathered much people together.
Who stopped all the fountains in the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?
Also he strengthened himself and built up the wall that was broken, raised it up to the towers and another wall without, and repaired Milo in the city of David, and made darts and Shields in abundance. And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city, and stayed comfortably to them, saying, Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor.
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Dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him. For there be more with us than with him.
With Him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us.
And fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah.
If you were to go to Israel today, one of the main tourist attraction is a tunnel that they believe Hezekiah built. To bring it was to not give water outside the city and to provide water inside the city.
This is these stories, by the way.
Are pure historical facts. You know this world mocks the Bible.
But not only can you get the story of Hezekiah in.
Physical infrastructure within Israel today you can get the story of the Assyrian attack written in their chronicles showing this conquest. In the result they hide what God did. They summarize it by saying we cage them up like a bird and don't say anything else about the fact that they 185,000 people died, but it's all there. This is this is complete reality.
You know, I just want to Hezekiah here, he brings water into the city and keeps it from people out. Back then, of course, the city was walled. They would surround the city, no food, no water could get in and out and they would starve you until you died. As this was happening, they would attack one city after another and it's 40 plus cities that fell in the attack of Israel in in the North and South.
The story of Lakeish, which is where we're going to get to shortly.
Is one of the most brutal stories of a city being destroyed that I've ever heard of.
And you know, Hezekiah recognized the need for water and didn't want to give it to the enemy, you know, do you recognize?
The need you know, the Holy Spirit is like a fountain that bubbles up within us. The Word of God is.
The Washington water by the Word is crucial in our life. The Lord's people need it. We talked earlier about today how important it is for us to test by the Word of God as to whether these things are really true.
Or not? Do you read the Bible? Do you read it every?
Single day. I'm not talking about your parents Bible readings, if they have them or don't have them and that is crucial. Do you as an individual read your Bible every day? You know, when Lindsey and I were married?
One of the only we were married by it was a pastor in Saint Thomas, very godly man who I very respect, very much respect. He took us through Ephesians 5 and what was written there and he said, you know one thing my wife and I try and do is read through the Bible every year.
And you know what, I can't say that I read through the Bible every year, but my question to you, you know, it's so easy for us to be critical of the systems, but.
Have you read through the Bible even once?
Answer that question to yourself tonight. Have you read through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation even once?
Do you know this story we're talking about tonight? Do you know it's chronology? Do you know what's in it? The word of God is essential to our life. Ron Mearns was telling me he's been sick all week. He prayed and he asked the Lord, do you want me to go to this camp? The Lord gave him a verse of encouragement. God speaks to us through his word. He wants us to read it. It's crucial.
Are you reading through the Word of God? And you know unless it becomes a habit, you're going to have a hard time?
Even getting through the books that these stories are in Second Kings, Second Chronicles and Isaiah, you know, the story in Isaiah is like a little bleep in the middle of a prophetic book, a very nice prophetic book, by the way. But you know, it is the word of God is important. Hezekiah recognized the need for water. The enemy wants to starve us of water. He'll put Facebook in our way. He'll fill our time with university and work and everything else.
And squeeze out anytime for the Lord.
Until we shrivel and he can attack us and conquer us, It's a real thing.
I struggle with it every day. I go to work at 7:00 in the morning. I'm not home typically until just after six. Then I have to get the kids ready for bed. We spent a little bit of time together and the enemy just wants to squeeze every oz out of a city can and leave nothing for himself. You know, Hezekiah brought the water into the city. He also repaired the breaches.
00:40:19
And.
Umm, to protect the city. You know, if there's breaches in our life, things that need to be repaired, it's nice and we can repair them. I'm not going to go into detail here, but.
He does that, and you know, our time is going by. We only have 15 minutes. But I'm not going to get into this up until this point. So this is the first 14 years of Hezekiah's reign. He's 40. I just turned 40 a week ago. He hits a midlife crisis.
And he gets it packed.
You know, the attacks of the enemy are real in our life, and if we don't prepare for them, if the doors of the Lord's house are not opened.
If there's defilement in our life if we don't have an opportunity to praise the Lord, he will conquer us. You know there's three specific tasks mentioned I'm not going to time to go into them of Hezekiah. They're not not given chronologically in any of the books of the Bible his thicknesses after the attack and.
If you look at the timeline, it probably just before around the same time of the attack, but.
He's he's tested with sickness, he's tested with the attack of the king of Assyria and he is tested with.
Answered prayer in success. You know his biggest failure was an answered prayer and success.
You know, this heat, up to this point, you would say his life had been totally glorifying the Lord. He is done all of these things. He's brought water into the city to protect it against the siege. He is.
He is fortified the city and then comes the attack and what does he do?
We don't read about it in Chronicles, and for those of you who know the difference between kings and Chronicles and Chronicles, the failures of the kings are very often overlooked. In Kings, they're more explicitly given.
He tries to pay off the king of Assyria. You know, I'll readily confess that you know the Lord, I was attacked this week and I before he can talk to my wife. I was not the nicest person to be around A couple days ago I was very grumpy for various reasons, which was completely wrong and I openly acknowledge it. You know the and the enemy would say, oh, Mark, why are you speaking? If there isn't consistency in your life, you know the enemy will.
Hezekiah here he he takes everything he can give to the king of Assyria and says here take this hoping that will go away. This is after he prepared everything and told the people to trust the Lord and the people were going to trust what he says. Let's just read it quickly. It's only in in kings. We can go back to kings first kings, sorry, second King's 18.
13 to 17.
No, in the 14th year of Hezekiah king did Sennacherib, king of Assyria come up against all the fence cities?
Of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lakish. And again I mentioned I saw a historical overview of what happened at Lakeisha and it was absolutely brutal. He sends to him at Lakeish.
Saying, I have offended return from me, I would thou puttest on me will I bear. King had said to pay an impossible amount of money. The king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Hezekiah came to him, gave him all the silver that was found in the House of the Lord, and in the treasures of the King's house that time.
Did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord?
And the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
You know, it's very easy for us to follow the Lord, but when the enemy attacks.
Who are we trusting?
I don't blame Hezekiah for a second. I think if you had been there and realized what was happening in Israel at the time.
And that you are one little tiny city stuck out in the middle of nowhere and the entire army of one of the biggest empires the world was attacking you. To think that God would save you would seem ridiculous.
00:45:12
Well.
Hezekiah, you know.
While they're fighting this other king, this other city lakeish, they send up this man Rob Shaka to Israel and he goes outside the city walls and just gives spews out an incredible rant about God not saving them. And the Hezekiah tore down the altars that were supposed to be to God and none of the gods of the other areas rescued them and.
Just absolutely blast Israel and says why are you trusting this king? He's just a fool.
And you know.
This was after Hezekiah failed, by the way.
Hezekiah, Where does he go?
He goes into the House of the Lord. Let's just look at it quickly. Second Kings 19.
1:00 to 8:00.
Came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it. The rent is closed. Covered himself with sackcloth and went into the House of the Lord.
He sent a lion which was over the household and shoving of the scribe and the elders and the priests covered with a sackcloth to Isaiah the prophet, the son of a laws. They said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, this day is the day of trouble and of rebuke and blasphemy, for the children are come to birth, and there was not enough to bring forth. I just, you know, I this that comment about getting ready to give birth and not being I said, why would that be in there?
You know.
I've been thankful to be with my wife when we've had our children. And you realize that that is a tremendous moment. But, you know, I was thinking, you know, Hezekiah had prepared for the attack, and here he was. It just seems like they got there and they don't have the strength to deal with it. Do you ever feel like that in your own life?
You know, the Lord comes in a beautiful way, just unbelievable, to rescue Israel.
Rob Shaka goes back to Lakeish. The king has actually left and gone to fight someone else because he heard that a king had come up.
From Ethiopia. And so there's a partial delay. You know, the Lord Hezekiah had to humble himself because he had failed and he cast himself to the Lord in the Lord's house.
You know there is no substitute for the Lord's presence.
Whether it's.
Our body, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost, or whether it's His collective presence.
Something that is essential, you know?
The Lord just allows the king to go away and you know, at Rabshak, I think was a little bit shocked at what had happened. He sends a letter back to he sends a letter back to Hezekiah and says, Hezekiah, don't you dare believe that your God rescued you. I'm we're still going to come and get you.
You know.
The Lord and it's tend to. Now I won't go into this in too much detail, but.
They come back and the attack is Jerusalem.
The middle of the night the Angel, the Lord, comes out, and he just 185,000.
Mighty men of valor dead.
Here you have.
One of the greatest kings in the world.
Coming against Israel, a little tiny city who's put their trust in God and God rescues them for not, you know, the Lord's power. We're going through the book of Daniel in our readings in Reno Ferry.
Nebuchadnezzar tries to bring the mightiest men in the entire country together to worship an idol and get them to bow down.
At the end, he sends out a decree.
That all peoples, nations and tongues need to honor or or shouldn't. The boss being their God, You know he totally turns the greatest power of the world is crumbled to nothing and changes the mind of Nebuchadnezzar was amazed ground the greatest man in the world. Here we have this Assyria and God just shuts them down and sends them home and he gets killed by his own sons.
A few years later, you know God won a complete victory. They go back, they write the story of the conquest of Israel. They get to that part where 185,000 people died and all they can write is we caged Jerusalem like a bird and God rescued them. You know, God's power is greater than we can imagine. You know, if it's not real in our life, we're not going to tap into it when we're attacked.
00:50:09
This was.
The first attack we only had 10 minutes. I'm not going to go into the next.
2IN much detail, but you know, I'll just tell them you can read them to yourself on your own, Hezekiah.
He gets sick around this time.
He's given 15 more years. This happened in the 14th year of his reign, so it would have been at the start of the 14th year that he gets sick for prophetic reasons. It's mentioned afterwards. As I said before, he cries out to the Lord.
The Lord heals them and promises them that he'll deliver them from Assyria, it would seem like.
If he hadn't healed them, they wouldn't have been delivered from Assyria.
A Hezekiah asked for a sign on a sundial that his father had made. He has, and he asked whether the sundial should go down or go up.
And as the guy said, well, it's an easy thing for the sundial to go down, but it's a very difficult thing for the sundial to go back. The sign is given to him. The sundial was back. He's given 15 more years of his life. What? Why do I comment on that? I enjoyed a thought when I was just reading some ministry on this that said, you know, Israel's sundial and it says this.
Had gone down.
God was going to come in because they had totally disobeyed the first commandment. Everything He had said about whether they would be taken out of the land, they'd done it. He was ready to take them and move them out of the land. But Hezekiah, in his desire to please the Lord and what he did, it's almost like the Lord turned that sundial back a little bit, Turn time back a little bit. Israel's given a little bit more time.
You know.
And.
The Lord heals him in a mighty way and.
After this he actually fails more. The Lord tests him with.
With.