Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Pastor Bill Luebkemann with a Bible-based perspective on prayer. The Bible says that when we pray, we're participating with God in what he wants. We're praying that his will be done. That puts us on the same page as him. It doesn't put him on the same page as us. We are going to get on his page, or we're going to be on the wrong page. You know the old saying, if God is your co-pilot, you're sitting in the wrong seat.

Guest (Male): Thanks for dropping by today. This is Hope From the Word, the radio ministry of Calvary Chapel of Marlton with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. Pastor Bill has been taking us through the book of Second Kings. We've been looking at the story of King Hezekiah here lately, and in chapter 20, it's toward the end of his life.

Up until now, he's made some good moves, but that's not the case in this chapter of his life. This is so reminiscent of people today, isn't it? They're serving God, submitting to him, and then they blow it just before they reach the finish line. Let's make sure that's not our story. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: We looked at King Hezekiah, and we saw that he was 25 years old when he became king. He reigned for 29 years. So, 29 plus 25 is 54. We're going to see that if you subtract 15 from 54 and divide by the square root of pi—no. Look, if he was 25 plus 29, that's 54. Subtract 15 off of 54 and that's 39. So, that's how old Hezekiah is at the beginning of chapter 20, where we are tonight.

We saw that he was a good king. In fact, he was the best king that they ever had in Judah. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. We saw how he was challenged by the Assyrians. Sennacherib was threatening Jerusalem, and we saw how he didn't answer Sennacherib. Instead, he took it to the Lord in prayer. He sought the Lord about it, and the Lord called Sennacherib back to his own land where, some 20 years later, Sennacherib was killed by his own offspring.

We saw that the Assyrians trying to conquer Jerusalem didn't happen at this point in time. So, here's Hezekiah now. It says in the beginning of chapter 20, "In those days," so that would be in the days when what was going on in chapter 19 was happening, when the Assyrians were confronting him and when he was seeking the Lord and when Sennacherib got called back to Assyria and when the Lord gave them a bit of a reprieve.

Eventually, of course, they were carried away into captivity. That was by the Babylonians, obviously, and that was maybe a hundred years after this. So, in those days, in the time of the Assyrians and the time of this threat and the time when Hezekiah was seeking God, in those days, and he was 39 years old—you'll see how I calculated that here in a minute—Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death.

The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him and said, "This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover." Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, "Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Now, again, he was 39 years old now, so he was 14 years into his 29-year reign because we're going to see here in a minute that he gets 15 more years of life after this. Since he reigned for 29 years and he gets 15 more years after this, he must have therefore been king for 14 years at this point. He got a notice here that few people, if any, ever get. Most of the time, you don't really know when you're going to die. And if you do get ill, unless it's really something super bad, a lot of times you still are hopeful that you might become cured or that you might be cured.

But in this case, it was an illness unto death at this point. The Lord sent Isaiah the prophet to him to tell him this: "Put your house in order. Put your affairs in order. Make sure your life insurance is paid up. Take care of all the bank accounts and make sure all the paperwork is settled because your time is ending. You're not going to recover from this illness."

It's amazing that the Lord would actually come to him and tell him this. The response of Hezekiah, I think, is interesting here. He didn't complain to Isaiah. He didn't say to Isaiah, "Well, you go back to the Lord and you tell the Lord this. Let me just give you a piece of my mind that I can't afford to be without." Hezekiah did not speak back to Isaiah. He didn't even speak towards him.

In fact, it says he turned his face to the wall and prayed. He prayed in that secret place. He prayed in a quiet place, in his prayer closet, if you will. He didn't pray publicly. He didn't pray so that other people could see him. He wasn't looking for accolades. He did it between himself and the Lord. In fact, I don't think we should even see here that Isaiah heard him praying. You'll see why I say that in a minute also.

He turned his face to the wall. This may very well have happened after Isaiah had left the room. He may have delivered the message, may have offered his condolences, maybe Isaiah may have left already, and that's when Hezekiah prayed. He prayed privately. He prayed just between himself and the Lord. He didn't involve anybody else in his prayer. He reminds the Lord, as if the Lord needs to be reminded, of course, but he reminds the Lord of how he has walked faithfully with him and wholeheartedly, and that he's done what is good in his eyes. He wept bitterly.

The Lord heard this prayer. Now, this is probably not the kind of prayer that you'd want to pray today because he was attempting to justify himself by what he had done. This was all he could do in the Old Testament times. Today, we would pray in the name of Jesus. It's because of what Jesus did that we're saved. If we have any hope of being healed of some disease, that's because of what Jesus did also. Anything we have, it's because of him.

But Hezekiah didn't have that understanding yet. What happened after death was still a little fuzzy at this point. They didn't have a great understanding of what the future held. They didn't have the name of Jesus to call upon. All throughout the Old Testament, the people were blessed when they followed God and they were judged when they did not follow him. We're going to see some judging here in the next chapter.

So, this is within the framework of Old Testament times where he's reminding the Lord what he had done and how faithful he had been and how wholehearted his devotion was, and he did everything that was right in the Lord's eyes. He wept as if to say, "How could I die so young?" or "How could you let this happen to me?" Some people would say this is an example of God changing his mind. There's a school of thought out there where it says that God changes his mind. In fact, I used to know what it was called, but I can't remember the name of it. It might come to me.

But there are those people who say that God does not know the future, and they'll quote this kind of verse as one example. They'll say God changed his mind because he didn't know the future because he didn't realize that Hezekiah was going to pray, and when Hezekiah prayed, then God said, "Okay, well, I'll change my mind. I'll give you another 15 years." But that's not true. God does know the future. God knew what he was going to do even before it happened. He knew how long Hezekiah was going to live. He knows how long every one of us is going to live. He knew it all before he created the heavens and the earth.

There's nothing strange about it. It simply would seem to me that God simply wanted Hezekiah to ask. Many times when we pray, it's not our idea to pray. We might think it is. We might be praying for something that we want, and maybe it is something that we want, but maybe it's also something that God wants. If we're praying for something that we want that happens to be something that God wants, then that's going to happen.

It would seem that the Lord already had it in his mind to give this guy 15 more years, but he wanted him to pray and he wanted him to ask for it. I don't have a problem with the context of these verses like some people do who say, "Well, this clearly shows a God changed his mind and therefore he must not know the future because if he changed his mind, the only reason you would change your mind is if the circumstances changed. If you knew the future perfectly, you would never have to change your mind." But that's not at all what the Bible says.

The Bible says that when we pray, we're participating with God in what he wants. We're praying that his will be done. That puts us on the same page as him. It doesn't put him on the same page as us. We are going to get on his page, or we're going to be on the wrong page. You know the old saying, if God is your co-pilot, you're sitting in the wrong seat.

Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, 'This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now, you will go up to the temple of the Lord. I will add 15 years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.'"

So, this prayer was immediately effective. Isaiah hadn't even left the area. He probably left the room. I assume he was on his way out. Here's Hezekiah praying in his bedroom, maybe, or somewhere in private. Isaiah is out there in the middle court, some part of the palace or some part of the building that he's still in, and the word of the Lord comes to him: "Go back and give Hezekiah this message. This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: 'I've heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you.'"

This gives us hope today that we can pray for healing today. Many people pray for healing and don't get healed. Other people pray for healing and do get healed. God does it according to his will and his purpose, whatever his purpose is. Here's a guy he was going to let die, but because the guy prayed, he allowed him to live. It seems like the Lord wanted him to do just that. It seems like Hezekiah was connecting with God in the place where God wanted him to be.

The Lord tells him, "I've heard your prayer and seen your tears, and I'm going to heal you. Here's how it's going to happen: On the third day from now, you're going to go up to the temple of the Lord." He must have been sick or in bed or unable to get around, or this was really bothering him. He couldn't leave his house. It doesn't really exactly say what his illness was or why he was unable to go into the temple of the Lord. It may have just been that he couldn't go there because he was impure in some fashion.

We're going to see later on that he had some kind of a boil or something, so maybe it was oozing and there was something coming out of it that made him unclean. But God is telling him, "On the third day from now, you're going to go up to the temple of the Lord. And I'm going to add 15 years to your life. And I'm going to deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria."

So, somehow, these events were happening sometime around the same time when the Assyrians were harassing them that we saw in the last two chapters. It might have been synonymous with or approximately at that time. The Lord says, "I'm going to deliver you. I'm going to give you 15 years, and I'm going to deliver the city from the Assyrians. I will defend the city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David." We keep getting reminded here that God keeps his word. He told David, "I'm going to do this for your descendants," and here he is still keeping his word all these years later.

Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a poultice of figs." So, they did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered. So, he was cured. God had him cured by medical treatment, if you will. They took some figs, they put this thing together, they applied it to whatever this was on his skin, and he recovered from it. You know, if anybody says when God heals you, it's got to be done miraculously. When God heals you, it's got to be done completely and totally.

People say today, if it's a miraculous healing, it's got to be complete and total and immediate, like the beggar that got up and was jumping around when Peter and John spoke to him outside the temple courts. He was healed instantly. It doesn't always happen that way. Here, by the word of the Lord spoken by none other than the prophet Isaiah, the guy had to follow some procedure.

Perhaps not unlike when Naaman went down to the River Jordan and had to dip himself in the river seven times. God could have healed him on the spot. If he went to the river, he could have dipped himself in there one time, or two times, or three times. Why seven? It's what the Lord had a purpose for that. Sometimes God works through medical treatment. Some people today won't go to the doctor—some really far-out folks will never go to see a doctor because they say they believe God heals them. Well, but there's cases in the Bible where medical treatment of some sort was used.

Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't work. But under no circumstances does the Bible say we shouldn't seek medical treatment. This was a miraculous healing, but it came about in a kind of a normal kind of a way. Somebody who heard about this afterward, when this story was told a year or two years later or ten years later or when he was telling his kids or whatever, they could look back and say, "Well, you know, it wasn't really a miracle. They just got this idea that the figs were going to do it. There's probably some kind of enzyme in the fig and when that leaches out, that was able to counteract the effect of this growth or whatever this boil was that was on his skin."

Someone could look at this later on and say there was no miracle here. Often, I think when God works, it doesn't necessarily look like a miracle. Someone who's a non-believer will say, "Well, you know, you just were lucky," or "Some people recover and some people don't. It had nothing to do with God." When God does something nowadays, if God does something in your life, you're going to know it. The next guy who you're talking to may not believe you, but you're going to know it. This guy knew he was saved by the Lord. He knew it by an act of divine providence here where God himself spoke to him and said, "Here's what you're going to do and you're going to be healed."

But there's enough plausible deniability in here, if you will, that the unbelievers could look at it and say, "Hey, look, you know, that wasn't God. That was just some new medical treatment that we have to remember that for next time somebody gets that disease." Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?" Isaiah answered, "This is the Lord's sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?"

"It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps," said Hezekiah. "Rather, have it go back ten steps." Then the prophet Isaiah called upon the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz. Some translations say "sundial" here. So, here's what happened: Hezekiah now wants proof of this. Remember, he's sitting there sick. He's been told in three days he's going to recover. He says, "How do I know that's really going to happen?"

I think that's the wrong thing to say to Isaiah the prophet, by the way. But God still honors that. Isaiah could have said, "What? You don't believe the word of the Lord? Guess what? Now you're not going to get healed." A lot of things could have happened here. He was doubting God's word. When the father of John the Baptist was approached by the angel and told that your wife is going to get pregnant, even in this late age, even in her late age, and he said, "How do I know that's going to happen?" the angel said, "What? I'm Gabriel. You don't believe me? You're not going to say a word until the baby is born."

For the rest of that time until John the Baptist was born and on the day that he was dedicated, that's when he was able to speak again. You kind of wonder why the Lord didn't do something like that here to Hezekiah. But the Lord was gracious to him. He not only heard his prayer, not only healed him, but he was gracious to him and gave him a sign here. He even gave him a choice of two signs.

As the sun goes through the sky, the shadow moves on this sundial. The shadow moves. God's going to give you a choice. He can have the shadow move forward ten steps or backward ten steps. Which would you like? Now, some people say God made the earth turn back or he moved the sun. I don't know if he did that or if some cloud came or some angel was standing there with a big mirror, reflecting sunlight this way a little more or that way.

It doesn't say what God did or how he made this happen. It only says the shadow could go forward or back. Hezekiah said, "Well, it's no big deal to make the shadow go forward ten steps. That's easy. Make it go back ten steps." Now, I don't see how one is any easier than the other. The shadow's moving forward at a certain speed, right? To move forward faster is, in my opinion, just as hard as making it move backward. If you're going to turn the earth forward faster or backward or just the sun or whether you have the angel with that mirror there, to me, it's the same both ways.

But in Hezekiah's mind here, he said, "Well, it always goes forward. Throughout the day, time goes forward. So, let's have it go back." The prophet Isaiah called out to the Lord here, and the Lord made the shadow go back ten steps. That's how Hezekiah could know that this was really going to come to happen. Sorry thing is here, as we continue here, you'll see that the Lord gave him 15 more years. So, 39 to 54 was how long he was going to live now.

It was a good thing that he gave him 15 more years. I don't know, maybe it wasn't so nice knowing when his life was going to end. But maybe it was okay when you're 39 knowing you have 15 more years of life. When you're 53, if you only have one more year left, maybe that's not so good. Either way, God blessed him with 15 more years. He's happy about it. You would think knowing that you've got 15 more years now, you'd think, "Man, I served the Lord before. I'm going to serve him even better in the next 15 years. I've been doing all this stuff for 14 years. I'm going to even do more. I'm going to do twice as much. I'm going to work harder, serve the Lord better, pray more, read the Scriptures more."

You would think that he would want to make the next 15 years better than the previous 14 years, but it turns out that it seems like the opposite is what happened. He gets caught up in a few things during this 15 years and maybe it might have been better if he didn't even have this 15 years. The first thing he gets caught up in is a little bit of pride here in verse 12.

At that time, Merodach-Baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent Hezekiah letters and a gift because he had heard of Hezekiah's illness. Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses: the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil, his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

This guy here received a message from the king of Babylon. History tells us that Babylon and Assyria often fought each other. Some people feel that the king of Babylon wanted to recruit Hezekiah to be on his side against the Assyrians, especially since Hezekiah now had fended off the Assyrians. Hezekiah there, the Assyrians came at him, you'll remember, and an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of the Assyrians in one night. The king went home and got killed by his sons.

Now, the king of Babylon is thinking to himself, "Man, I'd like to get that guy on my side so that I can be protected from the Assyrians as well." So, some people feel that the king of Babylon was trying to recruit Hezekiah and that Hezekiah kind of got a little proud at this. "Well, the Assyrians are calling me—isn't that something?" or "The Babylonians, rather, are calling me. Isn't that something? We're hot stuff here." You get the idea here that he was showing off his stuff.

It says he showed them all that was in his storehouses. It doesn't say here that he gave credit to God. It doesn't say, "Look at all God gave me here. Look at what the Lord did. Let me take you into the temple and tell you about our Lord here and how we do the sacrifices here. Let me tell you how the Lord fended off the Assyrians and how the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of them in one night. It wasn't us. It was him."

It doesn't say that he said that here. It doesn't specifically say that he didn't either, by the way. But you kind of get the impression here that he was showing off. He received the messengers. He thought, "Well, I'm hot stuff now, even got the Babylonians coming over saluting me." He showed them everything he had. Bad idea, showing your enemy where all your stuff is. This guy needs to change his passwords, but instead, he's showing them, "Look at this silver, look at the gold, the spices."

In their heads, they're just ringing up the dollar signs. Now they're starting to think somewhere down the line, Babylon's going to come and haul away all this stuff—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil. He showed them everything: his armory, all the treasures. It says here he showed them everything, and then it says there was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that he did not show them. I always think when God says the same thing twice in a row, he really means for us to learn something from it or to pay attention. He says he showed them everything, and then he says there's nothing that he didn't show them. Everything, they saw it all.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann's study of Second Kings. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find your podcasts.

If you've been thinking about visiting us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton, where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10:00. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You can also livestream from home whenever you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you're learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website, ccmarlton.org, or just call us at 856-983-1662. There's more to come from Bill's study of Second Kings, and we'll have that for you next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.