Two Important Lessons From The Life Of Hezekiah

there is a lot that you and I can learn from the Old Testament in fact Romans chapter 15 verse 4 says that the things that were written aforetime before the time of the New Testament the things that were written in the Old Testament were written to teach us and we should read the Old Testament with that in mind that there are lessons here it's not just a history book it's a it's authored by God to help us and teach us in our life we're going to go back to 2nd Kings chapter 18 we're going to read out of the life of Hezekiah and I want to focus on two lessons that we can really learn and one of those lessons is even if you're doing right in the sight of God even if you're doing the best you can sometimes things just don't go right that's as simple as it is and you know there's a lot of I'm going to say Christian mythology out there that says well if things are going right in your life or obeying God and if things are not going right in your life you're disobeying God you know that just isn't the testimony of Scripture the spiritual war around us is raging so intensely that there's a lot of times that we're doing absolutely the will of God and things go wrong like crazy and then there's other times where we might be outside of the will of God and yet our life seems to be okay see we don't judge whether we're in God's will or out of God's will by what's happening in our life we judge it by the standard of the Word of God are we being obedient to what God says or are we not being obedient so the first lesson 2nd Kings 18 from Hezekiah is that even if you're doing right things may not go right the second lesson is prayer can really help sometimes I mean help in a way that you can see a dramatic effect of Prayer now prayer always helps but a lot of times we don't see the result of prayer we pray and we pray and and things don't seem to happen things don't seem to change but there are type rare always helps and there are times when that really shows up in the physical world and it certainly did in the life of Hezekiah so let's go to 2nd Kings chapter 18 and we're gonna look at those two lessons so in 2nd Kings chapter 18 verse 1 it says now it came to pass in the 3rd year of Hoshea a son of Elah king of Israel that Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign so here we're already talking about two kingdoms we're talking about Israel and Judah when Solomon died the year that Solomon died the twelve tribes of Israel broke into two kingdoms there was a northern kingdom consisting of ten of the tribes and that retained the name of Israel and then there was the southern kingdom dominated by the tribe of Judah and so it took the name of Judah so Hezekiah was the the king of the tribe of Judah and verse 2 tells us he was 25 years old when he began to reign that's pretty amazing he's a 25 year old and you know you can tell I mean 25 year old men are typically they're not as wise perhaps as they should be or as mature as they should be but Hezekiah was wives he was mature he was focused and it shows us what what can be done if people focus up and get the job done and he was he was 25 years old we began to reign he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem and then it goes into his mother's name verse 3 he did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh according to all that David his father had done so Hezekiah really worked to do God's will he did that which was right in the eyes of God and that becomes really important because Hezekiah is father didn't do that Hezekiah is father a has reigned 16 years and he did bury evil in the sight of God Hezekiah had no role model at all and no training from his father and how to be godly and frankly the word is fairly silent on what happened in Hezekiah life that made him so godly I can tell you one thing that might have helped him is one of the one of the pagan practices that Hezekiah is father a has participated in was child sacrifice and so there were brothers of Hezekiah that were burned to death in the fire to pagan gods and Hezekiah life was spared and sometimes I wonder if that didn't have a huge impact on him and he was thankful to God he was thankful to Yahweh that his life was spared that could have had been one thing that happened in Hezekiah his life and so verse 4 talking about Hezekiah says he removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah and he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made for in those days the children have been of Israel burned incense and to smoke perfume to it and he called it Nahash tan which is related somehow to like that brass thing might be a possible translation of Nahash tan so what we learn is that not only was Hezekiah not an idolatry was a worshipper of Yahweh but he obeyed God when God said destroy the pagan altars destroy the pagan things of worship and he did now we've got to understand here he is he starts his reform when basically he's 25 years old did that make him really popular no it wouldn't have in the 16 years that his father reigned the idolatry of the culture had permeated quite deep into a number of the people which is why there were high places and altars all over the kingdom and so for Hezekiah the King to give the command and have those broke and have those altars torn down have those sacred pillars smashed that there were a whole lot of people that were really upset by that I talked about two lessons from hazard but here's the third you can't please all the people all the time and very often when you take a stand for God that doesn't make people happy make some of the people happy but there's always gonna be somebody who's really unhappy that you're taking a stand for God Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of God and he just moved forward in spite of making ungodly people unhappy and sometimes that's what we have to do in our lives as well and so it goes on to say in verse 5 he trusted in Yahweh the God of Israel so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah that came after him nor among those who were before him for 6 for he held fast to Yahweh he did not depart from following him but kept his commandments which Yahweh commanded Moses verse 7 and Yahweh was with him see Hezekiah was obeying God and God was with Hezekiah now as we're gonna see that doesn't mean that everything goes right and it says wherever he went out he prospered and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve Him because sending tribute every year to a pagan King was not the thing to do with God's money so Hezekiah took a stand now in this case like as in many cases when you take a stand for God there are consequences that show up in the physical world what second Timothy say yes everyone who lives a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted so you live a godly life you think everybody's gonna be happy with that no I wish no it's not going to be that way and so there's going to be persecution see when you take a stand and do what's right in the eyes of God very very often in the physical world there are consequences for that be prepared for it again if we're all caught up in this Christian mythology that if I'm doing what's right in the eyes of God everything goes right in my life then when when persecute when problems arise then all of a sudden we think that we've messed up or something no all we've done is get the devil's attention and and the persecution ratchets up you know what there's that saying in Christianity new level new devil you bring your walk up to a new level the adversary notices you and comes at you a little more intensely and it's very important that we if things start to go wrong around us that we don't we don't lose our enthusiasm for God we don't get confused and say oh I must be doing something wrong and the next thing you know we stop doing what was right which was frankly doing right in the eyes of God and producing the persecution anyway and we stopped doing what's right and we can't do that we've got to know from the Word of God what's right and then we push forward so verse seven says Yahweh was with him well verse 13 we go down and says now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them so Hezekiah is doing everything right but he's not paying tribute to Assyria anymore and the king of Syria gets upset with us and he takes his huge army any attacks little Judah and according to the Assyrian records the Bible doesn't say how many cities were captured but according to the Assyrian records which may be a little exaggerated the king of Assyria captured 46 cities so when it says here came up and against the fortified cities of Judah and captured them put yourself in Hezekiah place he was the one that stopped paying tribute to Assyria he was the one that decided he would take a stand and not pay money to a pagan king and now that pagan King has come down and attacked Judah and he's been very successful he's conquered the fortified cities and you could sit there and say gosh did I do the wrong thing was I supposed to pay money to a pagan King and these are tough things to think about and there's no Pat answers and that's a great lesson to a lot of times in life there's no answer we just do the best we can to walk according to the Word of God if we've got chapter and verse we do our best to walk it out and here's the situation where the the king of Assyria came and caused great harm to Judah because of the stand you had taken verse 14 Hezekiah here makes a choice was it the right choice the wrong choice he makes a choice verse 14 then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria and Lakeisha lackeys Lakeisha was a fortified Judean city and the king of Assyria was attacking Lakeisha at this time so he says Hezekiah sent Allah keep saying I've done wrong in other words I stopped paying you I've done wrong withdraw for me stop attacking my city stop killing my people whatever you oppose upon me I will bear and the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold that's a lot of money but that's what the king of Syria wanted to back his army off verse fifteen so Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasures of the King's house it wasn't just that Hezekiah gave away money that was that really was the priests or was God's Hezekiah went into his own house into his own Treasury and sacrificed that also for the well-being of his people pretty cool lesson there and sometimes we need to make personal sacrifices to help out other Christians we see it here in Hezekiah he made a personal sacrifice to help out other believers anywhere to get the money it says he cut off the gold of the the doors of the temple in verse 16 what's intriguing then is the king of Assyria who was a pagan ruthless and a liar he demanded all the silver and gold from Hezekiah and Hezekiah paid it and then the king of Assyria broke his treaty he's like okay I'm taking your gold your silver that you gave me and I'm still gonna attack your city that's astounding you know when it shows us sometimes people in the world can't be trusted and so here's Hezekiah he's got wrong piling up upon wrong that's going on you know wrong going on in his life verse 17 then the king of Assyria sent tartan and Rab Sarris and Rob Shiki from Lakeisha to King Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem so here comes the army of Assyria and and so now the Assyrians talk to Hezekiah in to the people of Judah to discourage them and again what did I say about one of the lessons that we learn from Hezekiah is when you're doing everything you know to do right and when you're obeying God there are times in your life when things go wrong and all we can do at that point is the next best thing and sometimes the next best thing isn't all that clear we ask counsel we go into our heart and we do the best we can before God and that's what Hezekiah did absolutely he did the best thing he could do and so he heard the words of the king of the of Assyria and so 2nd Kings chapter 19 verse 1 says it came to pass when Hezekiah heard it now Hezekiah is not only seeing the army of Assyria which has just destroyed a number of his fortified cities and now he's now he's given them gold and silver and yet he sees the army of Assyria camped outside the walls of Jerusalem and he's heard the words of the king of Assyria about how and I didn't read this part to you in 2nd Kings 18 which is something I wanted to say anyway which is I'm having to skip over some verses but it's really important if you want to get the fullness of this that you go back and read 2nd Kings 18 and 19 for yourself great great lessons back there but the king of Assyria had even said what I yeah wait old me to come here and attack this city I mean there's so much misinformation going around fake news if you will you know going around and so when Hezekiah heard it he tore his clothes covered himself with sackcloth that you and I would basically his burlap very scratchy very uncomfortable he's making himself uncomfortable in the sight of God and he goes into he does two things number one he himself goes into the house of Yahweh to to pray to be with God to see if he's going to get some guidance on to what to do he does that and he also sins to Isaiah the prophet to see if he gets a word from the Lord through the Prophet and in verse three when his messengers come to the Prophet verse three they say to him - Isaiah this is what Hezekiah says this is a day of trouble of rebuke and of rejection for the children have come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them and one of the things I love about that prayer is it's not Pollyanna you know God tells us in Hebrews to approach the throne of grace and then so many versions say with boldness but the Greek word power he Jie means with frankness of speech if you're going to talk to God be honest it's not like God doesn't know the situation it's not like if I use flowery language and pretend everything okay is okay that God is somehow fooled or he doesn't know what's really going on what's God interested in God is interested in an a pure honest heart an honest communication and a deep personal honest relationship with him and Hezekiah is in trouble and he sins and here's what his messengers say this is a day of trouble of rebuke and of rejection and that was really true and honest and I bet that perked God's ears up because here's here's somebody who's not just painting a nice rosy picture he's saying God we need your help here's the situation absolutely and he says the children have come to the point of birth and there's no strength to deliver them and in the ancient world that meant the death of the mother and the death of the child so it was a very very difficult time as what he's portraying verse 4 it may be that Yahweh your God will hear all the words of Rob Shiki he's the messenger of the king of Assyria his master has set to defy the Living God and will rebuke the words that Yahweh your God has heard therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left and now Hezekiah and self is praying Isaiah is praying other people in the kingdom are praying and like I say sometimes you pray and it doesn't seem like it makes a big deal and as much of an impact but in this case it really did because they prayed verse 35 and it came to pass that night that the angel of Yahweh went out and struck a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians and be when men rose early in the morning behold these were all dead bodies so God intervened and killed off the Assyrian army in one night and protected Jerusalem absolutely and that's one of the places where we see where in our physical body our human body and our human resources there we just simply can't get the job done and we need God to intervene and when we need God to have what to intervene like that then the place to go is is prayer repentance and and changing your behavior if there's any sinful ways and then praying to God that he would intervene and sometimes he does and sometimes he does dramatically and I think there are things going on in our nation right now and in fact the world that require serious repentance serious change and serious prayer what we learned from Hezekiah sometimes when you're doing everything right things still don't go right and sometimes when you pray things really go right so let's not give up on prayer let's learn from the Old Testament let's get our lives in alignment with God so we are doing right because we're going to be rewarded for that no matter what happens and let's pray and pray for the best god bless you thank you so much for watching liking and commenting on this video and please hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out on any of our future content and if you'd like 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Channel: Spirit & Truth

Views: 12,131

Rating: 4.9619045 out of 5

Keywords: Bible Study, Bible teaching, TruthOrTradition, John Schoenheit, 2 Kings, Hezekiah, life, lessons, christian life

Id: VQjVXOIieIQ

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020