Exposition by Max A Forsythe
In the last century the great London preacher, Charles Spurgeon, labored through a prolonged sick spell to complete his best loved commentary on the psalms: The Treasury of David. By the Lord's grace he was able to complete the monumental eight volume analysis and historical treatment of the Psalter. Unfortunately, his life was cut short at age fifty-seven. In the introductory notes to the various volumes of The Treasury of David, there is a real sense that he was laboring against time with the aid of several seminary students. Volume by volume his race against an untimely death was indicated again and again. Providentially our Lord spared him long enough to finish the work.
In a similar, but more dramatic manner, so did the Lord prolong the life of Judah's second greatest king: Hezekiah. As you remember, Hezekiah was caught up in the whirlwind of Near-Eastern geopolitics during the eighth century before Christ. In the process of the Assyrian onslaught, he felt the strain of declining strength, of more and more cities laid waste, of his own military being shut up in Jerusalem, of financial ruin to buy peace, of his own political intrigues bearing bitter fruit. He too felt near physical death! In verses one to eight of our text today, we see the King on his deathbed, a good king who had not yet consolidated the religious reformation which he had begun. His friend and the Lord's Prophet Isaiah brought bad news of imminent death. Hezekiah prayed and wept. Isaiah returned with better news from the Lord. Hezekiah's life would be spared for another fifteen years. God's promise was sealed with a miraculous sign.
Later, when he was stronger, Hezekiah wrote some lines of verse celebrating his physical and spiritual recovery: These we see in verses nine to fourteen, where Hezekiah reports what he had said and thought in his utter disappointment. He had questioned God's wisdom: "must I go .." He had even accused God of robbing him of years. He continued with several examples of Shepherd and Weaver. Day and night he thought he was very near to death. He felt like he had lain helpless while a wild lion broke his very bones apart as he lay breathing his last. Yet, the last breath came not. He remembered his cries and moans. His eyes had grown weak. He looked to heaven and was troubled. He prayed a final prayer: "I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid!" And the Lord came and spoke to him; his prayer was answered, His life changed. And he gave God the Glory due His name. Hezekiah was evidently afflicted by God for a purpose. We find in the record of 2 Chronicles specifically what he needed to learn. 2 Chronicles 32: 24-26 "In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. But Hezekiah's heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord's wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord's wrath did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah."
This reminds me of a man that I once met many years ago. He was an older Presbyterian Elder. For over fifty years he practiced the faith diligently. He was proud of being Reformed and was vain about his keeping of the laws and regulations of God. He was so righteous, very few people could stand him. He was very influential and while people did not always agree with him, neither did they contend with him for the proper witness of their Church. Finally he got on in years and began to see that his Church would probably not survive him, just as Hezekiah probably realized how transitory was his hard work. He began to examine his prideful heart. At a late age he finally realized the necessity of repentance from sin. He, like Hezekiah found forgiveness and the grace of God. From that time on, life had a focal point. Just as our calendar is centered on the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, so his and Hezekiah's lives were finally centered in the right place. Both men were able to See the beginning of their spiritual life from the apparent end of their physical life.
We come now to our key verses for this Lord's Day morning. Today we will do something unusual? As we consider these next six verses we will do so in reverse order. The reason for this is to bring your focus today upon one particular idea. And that idea concerns the method of how we are called by God! Let us proceed to wrestle with that thought. Isaiah 38: 20 "The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord." This is our common assent. We have agreed to believe that the Lord is sovereign in His salvation process. We understand that unless the Lord effectively calls us we would not want to be saved. For this we are grateful. We do gather to sing praises to our Lord each Lord's Day. We like Hezekiah have agreed to certain reforms made in the practice of the faith.
Yet, do we realize that all of our work is transitory? Like the proud Hezekiah, we count upon the right of salvation without regularly practicing the responsibility of witnessing. Just before Hezekiah announced his gratefulness of worship for salvation, he emphasized the responsibility of witnessing. Isaiah 38: 19 "The living, the living - they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about your faithfulness." Is this our common practice? We are alive, we stand in a place that needs to hear what we have learned about the faithfulness of our God. What we must do is praise God by sharing His word. This is how God is praised, in the telling of his faithfulness. If we do not do it while we live, how can we? Before he stated the need to witness to his children, Hezekiah realized the utter lostness of those who go down to the grave without knowing God's faithfulness. Isaiah 38: 18 "For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness."
A few years ago, I was rereading some literary material to make plans for teaching English. I was going through some of Edgar Allan Poe's writings. Now there was a man with a deep spiritual problem. He was gravely addicted to the spirits of the bottle, and possibly died as a result. He also regularly suffered deep bouts of depression. In one of these fits of depression he wrote a short story entitled The Pit & the Pendulum. In that story he wrote about a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. First, the prisoner was strapped to a table beneath a gigantic swinging pendulum which threatened to cut him in half. Tick tick tick went the pendulum as it swung down its deadly course. Fatefully, the prisoner was able to escape this particular death. Second, the prisoner found himself in a large circular room in pitch black darkness. As he explored his cell, he tripped and fell, just barely escaping a deep darker pit directly in his path. Third, the prisoner found himself threatened with heated metal walls forcing him ever closer and closer to the pit. But just as he was about to be forced down, the walls suddenly stopped and retreated. The prisoner was saved by a victorious French Army. He was grateful for his life being saved! Now we know that Mr Poe did not go on record with any particular Christian witness during his life. Yet, we can see in some of his writings, especially this one, his recognition for the hope of being saved.
You see, the Pendulum, swinging like a clock is symbolic of that course of time which eventually will run out for us all. The pit is that hopeless place which the dying not in Christ find so utterly fearful. Most of the time, this fate can be ignored in the playful niceties of enjoying life to its fullest. Yet, every once in a while the heated walls of imminent death come in, forcing people to face their predicament. Like Edgar Allan Poe, many people realize their utter helplessness. What they need is a precious hope. What they need is a savior!
King Hezekiah found himself between the pit and the pendulum. He realized the eternal value of the experience. Let us go back to the previous verse to see this. Isaiah 38: 17 "Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back." But Hezekiah was like my older friend. In his affliction he found that blessed hope that Mr Poe evidently missed. He found that he must be saved by the grace of God. Now this saving process is better explained by Paul after the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Romans 8: 29-30 "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." Here we see the process of God's plan for salvation. He takes the initiative; he calls us to Himself that He might justify us through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. And it is only in Christ that we have hope of glory. Now Hezekiah did not know all of the details of God's plan of sending His only Son, yet if he had heard Isaiah speak he must certainly have known that the Messiah was coming.
We step backwards another verse to see what Hezekiah actually knew. Isaiah 38: 16 "Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live." Yes, he is given renewed physical life, yet he knows that his spirit will live on because God has acted. What event is it that can have such a power over a man's life? Or how does the Holy Spirit apply to us the redemption Christ bought? Paul instructs us with these words from Ephesians 2: 8 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -” The Shorter Catechism sums Hezekiah's and our experience of being called in this way: "The Spirit applies to us the redemption Christ bought by producing faith in us and so uniting us to Christ in our effective calling." Yes, you say and believe this is true, but what do we really mean?
We come now to the focal point of the message today. The words, the theme, the experience that gave Hezekiah physical and spiritual life: Isaiah 38: 15 "But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul." Hezekiah has been called by the very word of God. It produces change, a new life and Hezekiah learns to live humbly before his maker. Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart because he God spoke to him. This is what we in our Reformed Churches name Effective Calling. God loves us so much that he goes to extreme lengths to catch our particular attention. Now I realize that most of you here have been called by God and have worshiped Him these many years. For you the words of the confession remind you of your blessed closeness to Jesus Christ through His word.
But, there are two further needs that I must speak to this morning. Once you have heard God speak, you cannot leave that experience in the past. You must continue to seek new light from Scripture. Besides being called, you must also carry the salvation process through to the end. You must be justified, sanctified, and some blessed day when He comes, be glorified. You must study his word. You must listen and learn and grow in grace. You must realize your particular sin, like my elderly friend who wasted his fifty years opportunity to witness effectively. Yes, like Hezekiah, he was eventually saved when his pride was finally overcome. And he has had a few years since to undo his past witness. But what of you today? Have you been called? Are you willing to spend time in Scripture to work our your own salvation in fear and trembling? I sincerely hope so.
Second, for those of you who have worked out your salvation, there is one more lesson to be learned from Hezekiah. Take another look at verse fifteen, the last half of the verse. "I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul." That elderly friend I was talking about spent his whole life in a shrinking church. When he was a boy, there were three congregations of his denomination where he lived. By the time he lost his pride and accepted Christ's forgiveness for his sin, there was only one, and that one was not too healthy. Since he and his fellow Christians have learned the essential lesson of humility from the Word of God, do you know what has happened? God has added to the numbers of that particular congregation. For the first time in this century, there is actually growth in that Church! May the Lord speak to us and teach us the humility of service and grant to us the desire to witness. Amen.
Resources Used:
Smith, George Adam. The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah.
Poe, Edgar Allan..
The Pit & The Pendulum.
Williamson, G.I..
The Westminster Confession of Faith.
The Holy Bible. New International Version (1984 Edition) NOTE: I am not able to automatically recommend any future editions.