2 Kings 20

[0:00] scriptures let's go to second kings look at second kings chapter 20 second kings chapter 20 before we get into our text we will pray together but second kings chapter 20 we will look at the entire chapter tonight it will be our text and we'll spend our time looking at it hopefully gathering not only instruction but guidance through that as well so so let's pray father thank you so much for this day thank you that we get together to be the church we have the opportunity lord just to have to be blessed by the fellowship of the believers to be encouraged in our our daily walking and and lord we just thank you for witnessing the church being the church in every aspect for every opportunity that you give us to do we continue to pray for brother jerry we pray for miss kimberly we pray for mike and lisa and jamie tonight as they continue to minister there and others that will minister and we pray for the hospital we pray for doctors staff and paramedics thanking you for the work that's already been done we pray oh god that tonight you would open our hearts and our eyes and our minds to the word of god and you would speak to us we pray that through our study of scripture that we would gain a greater understanding of not just the word of god but the people of god and we would gain a better understanding of the god we serve and we love and we worship so father we ask that you would help us by the power and presence of the spirit to understand your word and lord jesus would you be glorified through our time together we ask it all in jesus name amen amen you know you know recently and i shared this with some i don't know if i've shared it with any of you that were in here other than my wife but with the um updates on our website so steven monroe and others are working on it and we're the website's building and i hope that you've taken time to look at it really it's they're doing a fantastic job but there's other parts and pieces to the website that are not yet public that you can't access yet so one of those is like the about or the info page and so steven was waiting on me and he's like i need whatever you want posted on the about page i need that and and that's hard you know i took a lot of time it took me a lot of it took me about two weeks i was thinking because when someone clicks on the about page what they read is their perception of the church i don't know if you've ever researched churches and so how do you put into words the body of christ so um hopefully i did it justice there um uh you know i tried to just you know sure i shared at the very end uh our uh cooperative efforts with who we are associated with but i tried to also display who we are but in that you know i uh i made the statement that we are committed to we're committed to community but the first community that we're committed to is a community of members because membership's important so we're committed to one another and then we want to commit to the community that we're a part of but again just a wonderful testimony as i you see it lived out in front of you um you know we've been able to minister to the community the last two days this were friday and saturday and then minister to the community of our members uh today so again just thank you church uh second kings chapter 20 okay um get us caught up so that we can go back okay so in scripture what we have seen is the encampment of the assyrian army around the city of jerusalem we've seen hezekiah crying out we've seen him first sending a letter to isaiah or sending messengers to isaiah saying isaiah won't you pray to your god and ask him to move and then later on we see this letter comes from sinicrib and

[4:01] uh the leader of the assyrian army and uh and hezekiah takes that before the lord and he lays it out in the house of lord and hezekiah prays isaiah prays the lord answers those prayers and all this is in the chapters preceding this and says they won't set a sword or shield or a rampart against this city god goes in and slays 185 000 of their choice men they leave sinicrib goes home and is worshiping his god lowercase g in the house of his god and two of his children come and they slay him there and then his son becomes king so all that's taking place now there's a lot that we have to put into context uh and we'll start putting together here in just a moment um because following that is the events here some will state that these events and in our interpretation more than likely happened prior to the account we just described so what we have before us that we're going to read this evening would have taken place prior to the assyrians encampment around jerusalem when we go to second chronicles uh and it seems that there's the implication that it didn't it happened following that account and hopefully i'll show you why in just a moment uh we're just really want to see the truthfulness of scripture whether it happened prior to because there are two interpretive issues here um and i think when we interpret it happens this is sunday night we can think a little bit deeper uh right really detects how we interpret the passage if it happened prior to the encampment around the assyrians then we understand that there are certain ways we can interpret it if it happens after the deliverance from the assyrian army as seems at times to be implied by scripture at times it doesn't um then we interpret it another way but hopefully we'll see it but let's read the chapter together it says in those days hezekiah became mortally ill and isaiah the son of the prophet amaz came to him and said to him thus says the lord set your house in order for you shall die not live then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the lord saying remember now oh lord i beseech you how i walked before you in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight and hezekiah wept bitterly before isaiah had gone out of the middle court the word of the lord came to him saying return and say to hezekiah the leader of my people thus says the lord the god of your father david i have heard your prayer i have seen your tears behold i will heal you on the third day you shall go up to the house 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 that's one interpretive matter of why it happened before what we have read preceding this and i will defend the city for my own sake and for my servant david's sake then isaiah said take a cake of figs and they took and laid it on the boil and he recovered now hezekiah said to isaiah what will be the sign that the lord will heal me and that i shall go up to the house of the lord the third day isaiah said this shall be the sign to you from the lord that the lord would do the thing that he that he has spoken shall the shadow go forward 10 steps or go back 10 steps so hezekiah answered it is easy for the shadow to decline 10 steps no but let the shadow turn backward 10 steps then isaiah the prophet cried to the lord and he brought the shadow on the stairway back 10 steps by which it had gone down on the stairway of ahaz at that time beradoc baladan a son of baladan king of babylon sent letters and a present to hezekiah for he heard that hezekiah had been sick hezekiah listened to them and showed them all his treasure all his treasure house the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil and the house of his armor and all that was found in his treasuries there was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that hezekiah did not show them

[8:06] then isaiah the prophet came to hezekiah king hezekiah and said to him what did these men say and from where have they come to you and hezekiah said they have come from a far country from babylon he said what have they seen in your house so hezekiah answered they have seen all that is in my house there is nothing among my treasuries that i have not shown them then isaiah said to hezekiah hear the word of the lord behold the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to babylon nothing shall be left says the lord some of your sons who shall issue from you whom you will beget will be taken away and they will become officials in the palace of the king of babylon then hezekiah said to isaiah the word of the lord which you have spoken is good for he thought is it not so if there will be peace and truth in my days now the rest of the acts of hezekiah and all his might and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of judah so hezekiah slept with his fathers and manasseh his son became king in his place second kings chapter 20 admittedly what we are reading is a combination of events that take place over an extended period of time i do believe probably interpretive wise that the sickness of hezekiah may have preceded the encampment of the assyrians in the same manner i think the envoy of the people from babylon came after the deliverance from the army of the assyrians and hopefully we will see why in just a moment again this event is recorded also for us in the book of isaiah we find the record of this event along with the song or psalm of hezekiah it's one of those rare psalms that are recorded in scripture outside the book of psalms the psalm of hezekiah when he sings praise to the lord for the deliverance from this sickness are found in isaiah chapter 38 and 39 there are different aspects of this same or these same events recorded for us in second chronicles second chronicles 32 really is a briefer account but in that brevity also gives us a little bit more understanding hopefully a little bit more clarity of why these matters are happening we read it and it stands out to us at the end that hezekiah seems to be pleased with the declaration of the coming um enslavement of his people and it does read that way but we also know that the reason it reads that way is because he says to himself at least it'll be peaceful in my day but i want you to see really what's going on or what i believe is going on here in the text and something that we can learn from it i want you to see he is a man tested what we have here is the testing of hezekiah god will test him in the down times and then again there will be a testing in the good times because it is one thing to be drawn to the lord when everything falls apart it's a whole nother thing to be drawn to the lord when things seem to be going well we call that valleys and mountaintops but throughout the text before us this evening we have a man tested hezekiah one of the good kings if not one of the better kings since david who does so much to re-establish the proper worship and the the aspects of the jewish people here now is the testing of who he is and it is coming probably not really at the end of his life historically but at the end of his life biblically in scripture because we're about to move into the reign of manessa which will be one that we will be very glad to get away from because it's only a chapter and we'll read it and we'll want to move away from manessa really quickly just kind of a little bit of foreshadowing there he does not reign the way his father does but we see this testing of him number one we see that it is the humbling

[12:09] of the man it says in those days hezekiah became mortally ill now no matter where we put this in those days we have this understanding it is either in those days after hezekiah had done so much to re-establish the worship after he had opened the temple after the all the good and all the gold and all the silver was brought into the temple in those days he became ill or if it is after the deliverance of the assyrians which seems to be the implication of second chronicles it tells us that when he became ill it was in those days he became ill because following jerusalem's deliverance from the assyrian army hezekiah became a very popular man on the worldwide scene the assyrians were the powerhouse of that day and his fame began to spread it tells us in second chronicles 32 among the nations around judah because they had you know perceptively it looks defeated the assyrians without fighting a battle 185 000 valiant warriors of the assyrian empire dies and they have to flee and never even fight a battle so all of a sudden hezekiah becomes a popular man with the smaller nations around them and it tells us in second chronicles 32 that hezekiah becomes so popular that the nations and the people around are bringing gifts to the lord and bringing gifts to yahweh it is re-establishing because here is the question where did all this treasure come from that hezekiah shows the envoy from babylon because we know that he emptied his treasuries when he gave it to the assyrians he paid the king of assyria a high ransom and emptied his treasuries cut the handles off of the doors of the temple he emptied the goat out of the temple but by the time the people from babylon get there the treasuries are full again well the answer to that question is found in second chronicles 32 because it says that when the assyrians were delivered then all of a sudden the people around were bringing all these gifts of precious metals and gold and silver and they were presenting them to the lord therefore they're going into the temple and they're also giving them to hezekiah therefore they're going into his storehouses right and if we read it in that light it says in those days he became sick that is at the height of his popularity at the height of all of a sudden not only is he a good king among the people of judah he seems to be a powerful king to the kingdom smaller kingdoms of the world because they have just overcome the assyrians who have been sweeping across the land and people are hearing about this great deliverance therefore he becomes a very popular man and in those days he becomes sick and it tells us he becomes mortally sick and isaiah comes in and says get your house in order for you're going to die now that's not really a prophecy that you want to hear but isaiah comes in and makes this declaration he says the time of your departure is at hand god is not compelled to announce to anyone the ending of his days but yet he does so to hezekiah through isaiah and isaiah comes in and makes this declaration but look at the humility or the humbling of the man because in those days it says and he turned his face to the wall and began to cry out in prayer it says that he began to weep bitterly he was broken why because hezekiah realized that neither his riches nor his fame nor his power nor his position could deliver him from the inevitable thing called death he began to cry out to the lord and he reminded the lord of how he had labored for him he reminded the lord of the work that he had done for him he reminded the lord not trying to force the lord's hand but just making this open confession and he is declaring his reliance upon the lord now this is one of those strange times where it would have been okay to be a prophet because isaiah has just walked into the

[16:10] room says hey get your house in order you're about to die he doesn't even leave the center courtyard of the house before the lord tells him to go back and his message is completely changed as one bible translator said our bible scholar said unlike jonah he didn't get upset when the message changed why because isaiah doesn't have to get upset he's just the mouthpiece of the message he's not the one who gives the message right he's just the mouthpiece of what the lord says but we see the humbling of the man because hezekiah now is broken in those days where he was on the top of the world and everyone was coming to him and everyone was bringing gifts to him all of a sudden something came up that he could not overcome and god humbles him now here's a good place of testing will you be faithful in your humility and he is he cries out to the lord he doesn't look to his riches he doesn't look to his popularity he doesn't look to anybody around him he cries out which leads us to the second thing not only the humbling of the man we see the honor shown the man as he cries out in prayer i just mentioned it but isaiah doesn't even get out of the compound of the king's house before the lord answers it says that isaiah was walking before he got out of the middle court the word of the lord came to him what an honor god responded to the prayers of a man who had been humbled he responded in very rapid fashion as well immediately it says isaiah came with a simple message get ready you're going to die he walks out before he can even make it out hezekiah didn't have to pray long he didn't have to petition long god answers how amazing that god answers but notice what god says i have heard your prayers and i've seen your tears right i've noticed your brokenness and god honors him by not only answering his prayer not only responding to his prayer by extending his life as well he says okay you'll live and then he pronounces the number of days he'll live 15 more years i will extend your life what an honor god gives this honor and he bestows it upon hezekiah and now hezekiah knows the number of his days he understands how long he will live it is the psalmist who cries out lord teach us to number our days now he knows them he can live intentionally right so we would think because he knows i have 15 more years and and god honors him but there seems to be this kind of going back and forth and these things may have happened because god says and i will bless you and i will deliver the city i will defend the city now this has either application to the encampment around the assyrians or the ongoing deliverance of the city around the assyrians if we also take the interpretation that when the assyrians left jerusalem it was a couple of years before sinecrib was killed in the house of his god so the threat was still present quote unquote so god says not only will i heal you but i will also deliver you he says i have heard your prayers i will heal you i will add 15 years and i will defend this city now pay attention to this for my own sake he doesn't say for your sake he says for my own sake and for david my servant's sake this is something that we need to understand and comprehend is that everything that god does god does it for his own glory now why does he say for david my servant's sake not because david gets any glory from it because david's body is already laid in the ground and as it tells us in the new testament already began the decaying process by this time but because of the covenant that he had made with david everything

[20:10] that was flowing through judah and the lineage there was based upon the davidic covenant so therefore it was also tied to the honor of god that all that god does in the way that he moves in the way that he fashions the healing and the deliverances and all these things are done for the sake of god not for the sake of man it is to promote his glory now we must accept that and even though we say well then that means that god has just got a there's a god complex no he has no god complex but he is a god who longs to reveal himself to mankind he is a revelation god and he reveals his glory by the ways he works right his people are to be displays of his glory based upon what he does for his own namesake it is so that people now we pay attention to this little thing here because what follows it so stay with me and you'll understand why this is so important you say well pastor you keep talking about this and why are we talking so much about this because this has direct implication and application based on what follows god says i'm doing this for my own sake that's a good way of saying what i am about to do i am doing it so that people will know who i am so that i get the glory so that i get the recognition that's why god is doing this and he is honoring hezekiah by allowing hezekiah to be an instrument and a display of his glory when god does a work in our lives we are the recipients of that benefit but it is not for our glory right it is for his namesake and for his glory so our prayer and our heart cry ought to be father glorify yourself in this manner we need to understand that because it will be a sign of glory for the lord now hezekiah says okay i'm going to be healed to take a fig cake and set it up on the bowl and it's healed not because there's anything miraculous in fig cakes just because that's the way that god wanted to do it right he can speak through a rooster he can talk through a burning bush he can cause a donkey to speak to a man and he can take a cake of figs and cure a boil by setting it on it that's just how he works but hezekiah asks the question says how will i know again pay attention how will i know that i'm healed how will i know that on the third day i'll get to go up to the house of the lord so isaiah says do you want the shadow to move forward 10 steps or back 10 steps i believe it was john macarthur said this is our very first reference in all of scripture for telling tom i know in our picture we've all seen the children's book and we've seen the steps and the shadow moving down the steps in the hallway and i don't want to be one who paints a different picture but in scripture more than likely what he's referring to is the steps of the sundial what we would call a sundial it is a instrument of time telling that ahaz has set up in the house to tell tom so he literally says let's roll the clock back and god does it he causes the shadow to move back 10 steps on the dial so that time was reversed pay attention to this pay attention to this because this is a testimonial sign that god honors hezekiah with but god has already declared he does it for his own glory okay so we see the humbling of the man the honor shown the man number three look at the heart of pride within the man so he's healed he becomes fully healthy has 15 more years and it says and at that time this king of babylon hears about it again let's go to second chronicles 32 what does he hear about

[24:17] it tells us here that he hears about he had heard that hezekiah had been sick and he wanted to come and give his congratulations to hezekiah for overcoming his sickness but when you open up the book of second chronicles and we get as paul harvey would say the rest of the story it tells us that what they also heard about was the rolling black back of the clock not only did they hear that hezekiah had been sick they also had heard that god testified to his healing by making the shadow go back 10 steps so they had heard the word of god's testimonial sign had extended all the way to the babylonian region if you're looking at a map you got to go across a vast desert before you get there so more than likely some time had transpired but the traders had eventually come back said have you heard hezekiah was sick hezekiah was miraculously healed we know the lord did it because this is what he did so this testimony again what did god say for my own name's sake will i do this right and so now not only were they hearing that hezekiah had been healed they were hearing that the time had been reversed and that it was a testimony to all these things and so when we read it here in second kings that's all we see but when we read the fullness of the account we see and we thank god for the fullness of scripture this is why we need to read scripture all together that it testifies to us that they heard about his sickness they heard about his healing but they also heard about the sign so now it begins to make more sense when they show up it tells us and hezekiah listened to them now what do you think they came talking about it says hezekiah listened to them they came this far and they came to him said we heard about the sickness surely they would have said what about the sundial or the steps what about the shadow going back 10 steps this is what they've heard about this is what they want to know about but what does hezekiah do shows them his treasuries shows them his storehouses shows them his silver his gold his gold his wealth do you notice at oftentimes in scripture it is almost just as telling what is not declared as what is declared do you notice what hezekiah does not do he never mentions the glory of the lord in the healing he never speaks of the shadow going back 10 steps he never says anything about the cake of figs that was laid upon the bowl he never says anything about his weeping and his crying out in prayer he never says anything about this he wants to show them all of his glory but he forgets that the healing was to be for the glory of the lord and not the glory of man it tells us again in second chronicles that god left him alone when the babylonians came that he may know what was in his heart do you know how you know what is in someone's heart it's what they talk about it's what they declare it's what they want to show you when you show up at their place that's how you know what's in their heart it tells us clearly in scripture that even when the babylonians came god left him alone he didn't intervene he wanted to know what was in the heart of the man and truly what was in the heart of the man was pride here's a man that just some short time had been humbled and he was crying out in prayer he had been healed oh but how time cures in a number of things right because pride comes in very quickly when these people from a foreign field come all he wants to show them is all the treasuries all of his glory all of his splendor he's trying to do what every other king would do and he wants to impress them with who he is rather than being the evangelization of the world impressing them with who his god is because by the way that is the purpose of the people

[28:18] of the lord they were to be a billboard to the world of what god was like that's the purpose of the church to be a billboard to the watching world of the holy god we worship and serve and when they come into our presence if all we talk about is who we are then we are doing exactly like hezekiah we're opening up our own treasures friend listen when someone comes into our presence it matters little what we have in our storehouses of treasure what matters is the one who owns the storehouses of treasure it matters little what we have put aside and we can show them who we are what matters is that we show them who he is because what happened with hezekiah is there was the heart of pride within the man that's why isaiah shows up isaiah is always showing up isaiah shows up and says who were they where did they come from oh they're from a faraway country of babylon they won't do anything they're way over there right what did you show them i showed them everything that was in my treasuries everything that was in my house there was nothing i didn't show them well then what does isaiah say all that stuff will be taking away everything you've trusted in everything you thought brought you glory everything you thought would bring you position everything you thought was worth showing to those who came because they heard what god had done it's gone to be taking away now god is faithful god declares that these matters will come about and he declares that some of the offspring some of the very seed of hezekiah will be taken and they will be set up in the courts of babylon there will be officials in the palace these matters are spoken over a century before it happens it's about a hundred years plus before daniel shadrach meshach and abednego you remember them right end up in the courts of the king of babylon but yet god declares that it will happen just because it doesn't happen immediately doesn't mean it will not happen so we see here the heart of pride within the man fourth and finally we notice the heritage left behind by the man so he passed the test when he was humbled in sickness he seems to have failed the test when he was on the mountaintop in health but now we see the heritage he leaves behind verse 20 tells us now the rest of the acts of hezekiah and all his might and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of judah hezekiah's tunnel the underground aqueduct at some points was over 65 feet deep in the earth wasn't excavated until early 1900s and it was at that point was still full of stuff from the fall of jerusalem in ad 70 hezekiah's tunnel that served as an aqueduct to the city of jerusalem until its fall in ad 70 is one of the wonders of the ancient world he was a good king we noticed that all the things that he did all the restoration of worship that he brought back to the people all of the things that he put in order the magnificent works his strengths and everything that he did he was good we acknowledge that we acknowledge the reality that there was very very much good that he did that his worship was right he had a weakness and that weakness was pride we see it here but the reason it is here for us at the end of the account in scripture of his life i do not think that it was how he ended his life but i think that is the last account we have of his life before he dies is because it also declares to us so hezekiah slept with his fathers that is he does for all this goodness for all the right things that he did for all the worship that he restored for all of

[32:21] the levites and the priests that he brought back for all of the festivals that he he re-began and all the things that took place during his reign all of the the great construction work and all the maddie ways that god used him he still does we've said this before and i think it bears repeating um it's because there's this ever constant reminder that this isn't the king we're looking for why are there weaknesses shown to us why do we have this testing is because this isn't the king we're looking for there's still another king there's another king from the lineage of david that we're hoping for we're longing for he leaves this heritage of the good things he did those things don't last manessa really one of the overarching reasons that the nation of judah would be carried into babylonian captivity are because of the sins of manessa hezekiah's son now hezekiah begins the process by showing all the babylonians everything that he has but that's the small matter and compared to what manessa does and really the sins that began with manessa and all the rain there and all the atrocious things that he did that's his son that's the very next king we'll run into it is just this ongoing reminder that we have not yet reached the king we're looking for there will when we come to scripture and we make our way through here we find this lineage of kings we find this lineage of kings and we see them over and over again and sometimes in the historical writings it gets a little mundane but then when we open up the pages of our new testament we find one who comes on the scene one who comes on the scene and he is baptized by john the baptist in the jordan river the very gates of heaven open up god makes the declaration behold this is my son with whom i am well pleased the spirit leads him into the wilderness and there he too is tested for 40 days and 40 nights the difference is at the end of his testing we find perfection he is not a king that is tested at the end of his reign he's a king that is tested before he even begins it and it shows us here is the king this is the king we want this is the king we've been waiting on the difference is is that king is on his throne but he's not ruling over it all yet but that day is coming hezekiah leaves us a heritage of wanting more he did good he did right but he fell short and so what we're looking for is the true king the king of kings and lord of lords the one who passed the test the one who is tested in the moment in the garden of gethsemane the one who is tested on the mountain of transfiguration the one in the highs and lows of every aspect of his life the one who passes every test and shows himself perfect because hezekiah does not because friend he's a man just like we are he has the same weaknesses and stumblings that we do and it tells us that he slept with his fathers because he is not the king we're looking for there's another king coming second kings chapter 20 let's pray oh god we thank you so much for your word we thank you for your faithfulness to your word we thank you that in your word we find the realization that there is none perfect but one lord you use people in a mighty way and you display your glory in a wondrous way but there is only one who is perfect so lord jesus we come to you the all perfect omnipotent complete one and we praise you for being the king that we are looking for the long expected king the king which we look to heaven until you come again the king who reigns on high we lay our burdens down before you and we ask that you move in a mighty way

[36:25] we ask that you'd help us to be focused on you throughout this season for your glory and honor be with us as we leave here be with us as we go out of these doors and may we be lights in our community and encouragement to the people around us and may you work for your glory and may we be certain that it is your glory that is declared when others ask us deliver us from that heart of pride help us to walk humbly in the glory of the father and we ask it all in christ's name amen thank you guys i really really appreciate your time this evening thank you thank you thank you thank you