HEZEKIAH'S CRY- Isaiah 38

Preached July 3, 2011
from
Isaiah 38

Theme: God gives grace to those who humble themselves under His disciplining hand.

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(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

We’ve been studying lately from the life story of King Hezekiah. And as we’ve done so, we’ve found him to stand out among the kings of Judah as a great man of faith. There’s much to learn from such a man. But he was a great man of faith who also had faults. And since we have faults too, there’s much for us to learn from such his faults.

This morning, we look at a significant event in Hezekiah’s life; and from it, learn how this great man of faith responded to God’s loving discipline for a fault that any of us can fall into very easily.

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The story of this fault follows after the story of two other events in Hezekiah’s life¹. The first event was the remarkable spiritual revival that God used Hezekiah to bring about for his people. At Hezekiah’s lead, the people of Judah had returned to the God of their fathers and resumed a faithful worship of Him. And the second event—following after that great spiritual revival—was the test of Hezekiah’s faith because of the threat of the dreaded king of Assyria. The vast army of Assyria surrounded helpless Jerusalem; and Hezekiah cried out to God. As a result, God brought about a great victory for His people—sending out His angel to slay 185,000 mighty Assyrian soldiers in one night!

Please turn in your Bibles with me to 2 Chronicles 32 in order to see what happened next in the life of King Hezekiah. I believe it gives us some important background to this morning’s story. In verses 22-23, you find these words;

Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. And many brought gifts to the LORD at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations thereafter (2 Chronicles 32:22-23).

After God graciously rescued faithful Hezekiah and his people from the threat of the Assyrians, He then poured out His blessings upon them in a remarkable way. He caused the surrounding kings and nations to bring their treasures to Hezekiah and to Jerusalem; so that Hezekiah “was exalted in the sight of all nations thereafter”.

But it was because of this that a new challenge came—not externally as from a foreign king, but internally as from the sinful tendencies of our fallen nature. Hezekiah responded wrongly to the rich blessings that God poured out on him; and his heart began to be lifted up in a prideful way. The verses that follow give this morning’s story to us in just a few words:

In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death, and he prayed to the LORD; and He spoke to him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor shown him, for his heart was lifted up; therefore wrath was looming over him and over Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah (vv. 24-26).

The story of this third great event in Hezekiah’s life, then, is the story of a heart lifted up in pride, brought down low into humility through illness, and then restored to an even greater faithfulness toward God. And that provides a great lesson for us to learn from.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; before we get to far along, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to be very clear on something. I want to be extremely careful not to communicate—in any way—that I believe that the times of illness that we may suffer are always brought about because of sin in our lives. That’s an idea that some people teach; and I think it’s one of the most cruel errors anyone can ever propagate. It’s simply not the case that all illness is the immediate result of personal sin.²

But as our story this morning shows us, God may, at times, permit illness to strike one of His beloved children who are in rebellion against Him³ in order to chasten them, and humble them, and lead them to a more faithful walk with Him. That’s what appears to have happened to Hezekiah because of his pride.

What a horrible thing such pride is! Hezekiah was proud because God had blessed him richly! Why is it, dear brothers and sisters, that we are so sinfully inclined that we can’t even receive an outpouring of God’s undeserved blessings upon our lives—blessings that He loves and longs to pour out on us—without spoiling it with pride? Why must we ruin it all by acting as if we deserved any of it or brought it about for ourselves? Why can’t we seem to even suppress pride in our hearts just a little bit, without getting proud of ourselves for having done so? I don’t think we should come down too hard on Hezekiah for his failure. If we had been blessed so much as even a portion of the blessings God gave him, we would surely have fallen further into the sin of pride that he did.

If we were to summarize the lesson of this morning’s passage to us, I don’t think we could do much better than to think of 1 Peter 5-6; where we’re told to

be clothed with humility, for

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time . . . ( Peter 5:5b-6).

God loved and blessed Hezekiah so much that He humbled him—and all so that He could love him and bless him even further. May God help us to learn, from the story of Hezekiah, how God gives abundant grace to those who humble themselves under His disciplining hand.

* * * * * * * * * * *

So then; let’s consider this story in greater detail. The fullest account it is found for us in Isaiah 38. There we read;

In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death (Isaiah 38:1a).

What was the nature of this sickness? As we read on in the story, we find that it was a boil that had apparently become infected. It had become so infected, in fact, that it made Hezekiah gravely ill. And there’s something terribly humbling in just that much of the story, isn’t there? Imagine such a great and powerful king brought to death’s door, not by a mighty army, but by an infected zit! How frail even the best of us are! What right do we ever have to be proud? It doesn’t take much at all to cut us down to size. Just a boil is enough to do the job.

The seriousness of this illness was brought to Hezekiah in the form of a word from God given through Isaiah;

And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live’” (v. 1b).

Now; that may sound like nothing more than an example of really bad ‘bedside manner’. But in reality, it was an act of God’s grace. After all, if God had truly meant for Hezekiah to die, He wouldn’t have had to say anything. He would have simply said nothing to him, and allowed the boil to do its job. But when we take the story as a whole, it becomes very clear that the giving of this information through Isaiah was intended by God to be a test of Hezekiah’s faith. He had lapsed into pride; but what would the proud king now do with the news of his impending death? Would he abandon his pride and self-sufficiency, turn once again to the God that he had neglected, and cry out to Him for mercy?

By the way; I don’t think it would be any abuse of this passage at all if we were to occasionally look in the mirror—right in the midst of all our pride and self-sufficiency—and say to ourselves, “Set your house in order, for you too shall die and not live.” Death will eventually come to us; and choosing not to believe it or to think about it won’t change it or postpone it one bit. I admit, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to do that too often. You’d get a little depressing to be around after a while. But it’s good to do it occasionally; and to be motivated by it to ‘set our houses in order’ while we can. We don’t know when we’ll be called to stand before God. Have we made our peace with Him? Have we abandoned our pride and our sense of self-sufficiency? Have we humbly trusted His Son Jesus Christ as our Savior? Are we ready to meet Him when our time comes—as it absolutely will?

So; what did Hezekiah do? This great—but fallible—man of God set the example for us. He humbled himself and cried out to God for mercy. We’re told that, after receiving this news from God’s messenger, he “turned his face toward the wall”—which suggests that he was bed-ridden; but it also suggests that he turned himself away from everything else in order to do serious business with God—

and prayed to the LORD, and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly (vv. 2-3).

There are several things that need to said about this. First, we shouldn’t be too quick to assume that Hezekiah was ‘bargaining’ with God on the basis of his good works—as if God were being unjust toward him, and that he really deserved to live. With his face toward the wall, and the news about his impending death fresh in his ears, he made a careful and reflective review of his life; and he was able—in all integrity—to claim a life of loyalty to God. It may be true that he had, at that time, been guilty of a lapse into pride; but God knew the whole story of all that was in his heart. God is not so unjust as to forget the loyalty of those who truly love Him. If Hezekiah was truly about to die, he knew that he could at least make the general claim to God of a good conscience; and that’s a precious thing to be able to have on one’s deathbed. Would that, in Christ, we all invested in such a good conscience now while we can!

Second, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge Hezekiah for not wanting or welcoming death. It’s true that the apostle Paul—when faced with the real possibility of dying—was able to say, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). But Hezekiah was an ‘Old Testament’ saint, and couldn’t see things in the clear ‘New Testament’ light that Paul did. As Dr. Harry Ironside once wrote;

Our Lord Jesus Christ has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10). He has revealed the truth as to that which God has prepared for those who love Him. Having gone down unto death and come up in triumph, He has annulled him that had the power of death, even the devil, and so delivers those who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. 2:14, 15). We know now that for the believer death simply means to be absent from the body and present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8), and that this is far better than any possible earthly experience (Phil. 1:23). But all this was unknown in the days before the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, who declared, “If a man keep My sayings he shall never see death” (John 8:51).4

And third, we should consider that his reasons for weeping may not have been entirely selfish. This took place around the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign⁵; which would have made him thirty-nine years old⁶. The son of Hezekiah would not assume the throne until the age of twelve⁷—fifteen years from the time of this story. Hezekiah’s son, then, would have been born for another two or three years. This meant that Hezekiah would have been lying in a bed, dying of an infected boil, without having yet left an heir to take his place! What then would happen to the covenant promise of God to King David that his throne would be established forever, and that a son that would come from David’s own body would be the Messiah?⁸ Was the Messianic hope of Israel about to be lost because Hezekiah’s lapse of pride? Would fallen mankind’s hope of a Savior—the Christ—be lost because of a boil?

Well; of course not. God will never let any of His promises fail. This was, quite obviously, a test of Hezekiah’s readiness to repent. And he responded to it rightly—he repented. How long it was after all this that an assuring word from God came to Isaiah is something we’re not told. But it did come! We’re told;

And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city”’(vv. 4-6).

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; this is where things in our passage seem to be a bit out of order; but the proper order of events is not hard to construct.

First, we notice that near the end of our passage, in verse 21, we’re told, “Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover”. Ancient writings of the time suggest that figs were recognized as having a healing property⁹; and if this was the case, then God was simply blessing the use of natural means to accomplish His purpose.

But second, we’re told in verse 22 that Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”—that is, that he would still be able to worship God in the land of the living. In the fuller account of 2 Kings 20:9-10, we discover that—as an unmistakable way of God confirming His promise to him—Hezekiah was given a choice:

Then Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?” And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees” (2 Kings 20:9-10).

And so, as Isaiah goes on to say in our passage,

And this is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken: Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.” So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down (vv. 7-8).

How such a thing happened is something we’re not told. But God is able to not only work through natural means to accomplish His purposes, but He is also ‘free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.’¹⁰

* * * * * * * * * *

What we’ve looked at so far are the facts of the story. But God wanted us to know more than just the facts. He also wanted us to feel the emotions and to walk through the heart-transformation that occurred within the king throughout it all; so that we, like Hezekiah, could fully appreciate the lesson God was seeking to teach. And so, in verses 9-20, we’re given a poem that describes the emotional and heart-transformational part of the story. As verse 9 tells us;

This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness . . . (v. 9).

You can divide this fascinating poem into two parts. The first part has to do with the anguishing cry of Hezekiah at the news that he would die. It begins with the words “I said . . .” (v. 10). The second part has to do with Hezekiah’s response after God promised to heal him. It begins with the grateful words, “What shall I say? He has both spoken to me, and He Himself has done it” (v. 15).

Consider the first half—his anguished cry at the news that he would die;

I said,
“In the prime of my life
I shall go to the gates of Sheol;
I am deprived of the remainder of my years.”
I said,
“I shall not see YAH,
The LORD in the land of the living;
I shall observe man no more among the inhabitants of the world. (vv. 10-11).

The great sorrow of Hezekiah’s heart was not simply that he would experience death. It was also that, because of death, he would no longer be able to praise God in the land of the living. Suddenly, abruptly—as if in the course of a single day—his life on earth was to be brought to an end:

My life span is gone,
Taken from me like a shepherd’s tent;
I have cut off my life like a weaver.
He cuts me off from the loom;
From day until night You make an end of me.
I have considered until morning—
Like a lion,
So He breaks all my bones;
From day until night You make an end of me (vv. 12-13).

And so, he made his cry:

Like a crane or a swallow, so I chattered;
I mourned like a dove;
My eyes fail from looking upward.
O LORD, I am oppressed;

In all this, Hezekiah sets a great example for us. He’s not an example of how to be perfect, of course. But then, we wouldn’t have been able to follow a perfect example anyway. What we need is an example of how, in times of discipline and chastening, fallible people should cry out to God—and of how faithful God shows Himself toward those who humbly cry out to Him.And do you notice how that first half ends? It ends in Hezekiah’s appeal to God—in his darkest moment—that He would ‘undertake’ for him or come to his aid.

God truly was faithful. Look at how the mood changes in the second half of the poem:

“What shall I say?

He has both spoken to me,

And He Himself has done it (v. 15a).

It’s clear that the trial of Hezekiah’s illness was meant to wean him of his pride. And he learned his lesson:

I shall walk carefully all my years

In the bitterness of my soul (v. 15b);

or, as it’s translated in the New International Version, “I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul.”

O Lord, by these things men live;

And in all these things is the life of my spirit;

So You will restore me and make me live.

Indeed it was for my own peace

That I had great bitterness;

But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption,

For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

For Sheol cannot thank You,

Death cannot praise You;

Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.

The living, the living man, he shall praise You,

As I do this day;

The father shall make known Your truth to the children (vv. 16-19).

Perhaps those words about ‘the father’ and ‘the children’ were just a hint of an affirmation that Hezekiah would, indeed, live to see a son take the throne, and the Messianic promise that God made to David would indeed be fulfilled. And what’s more, the great anguish of his heart would be answered. He would live to praise God in His temple among the living:

“The LORD was ready to save me;

Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments

All the days of our life, in the house of the LORD” (v. 20).

* * * * * * * * * *

I wonder, in all of this, if anyone here today has felt the Holy Spirit gently tugging at your heart. It may be that you have been in quiet, secret rebellion against God. It may be that pride has risen up in you—as it did in Hezekiah. Or it may be something else. But perhaps you are even feeling the hand of God pressing upon you in some way because of it.

If you feel that hand, you should take it as very good news. It means that God loves you. As it says in Hebrews 12:5-11;

“My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD,

Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

For whom the LORD loves He chastens,

And scourges every son whom He receives.”

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons (Hebrews 12:5b-8).

And if you do feel that chastening hand from God, then Hezekiah’s example shows you how to humble yourself under it—and also how ready God is to bless you and lift you up if you’ll do so. As Hebrews 12 goes on to say;

Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (vv. 9-11).

Jesus, God’s sinless Son, has taken all our guilt upon Himself, so that we are absolutely free to come humbly to the Father for forgiveness—not just for the first time in order to be saved, but for every time we fail in our walk with Him from then on. May we learn, then, this great lesson from the life of Hezekiah—and humble ourselves under God’s disciplining hand, so that we may receive the grace He longs to give to those He loves.

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¹Most scholars place the events of our passage this morning before the great victory over the Assyrians in 701 B.C. One of their strongest reasons for doing so is because of God’s promise to defend Jerusalem from the king of Assyria found in 2 Kings 20:6 and Isaiah 38:6. I, however, lean strongly toward placing it immediately afterwards. Arguments for both views can be made, and both positions have their merits and faults. But my two greatest reasons for placing it afterwards is (1) because of the fact that all of the accounts of Hezekiah’s life report the story of his illness after the defeat of the Assyrians; and (2) it makes more sense of the series of events as they are described in 2 Chronicles 32:22-26. As to the promise from God to defend Jerusalem, I believe it’s important to remember that the king of Assyria lived for another twenty years or so after the defeat at Jerusalem. He would naturally have been considered by Hezekiah to still present a threat long after his humiliating defeat; and perhaps even particularly so if he were to hear that Hezekiah was stricken and made vulnerable by illness.

²That it is an error can be demonstrated by Philippians 2:25-30. Paul spoke there of his fellow-worker Epaphroditus who was “sick almost unto death”; but concerning whom Paul called the people to “hold such men in esteem; because for the work of Christ he came close to death, not regarding his life, to supply what was lacking in your service toward me.”

³That this can happen is shown to us in 1 Corinthians 11:30-32; where Paul wrote about Christians who were abusing the Lord’s Supper: “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.”

⁴Harry Ironside, Expository Notes on The Prophet Isaiah (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1952), p. 228.

⁵See Isaiah 36:1.

⁶See 2 Kings 18:2.

⁷See 2 Kings 21:1.

⁸See 2 Samuel 7:12-16.

⁹Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), vol. 2, p. 529.

¹⁰Westminster Confession, V. III.