AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH – September 7, 2008

A CONTINUATION OF THE ORIGINAL THRUST AND BASE OF
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA,
ON CHANGELESS BIBLICAL LINES

SICK TO DEATH OR ALIVE TO HIS WORD! 

Sequence from Sickness

PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER

How splendid was the reign of Hezekiah ? Till towards the end, it was a great reign, reformatory, refreshing, restorative, zealous. How amazing were the works of the Lord ? Most outstanding, was the personalised destruction of the Assyrian force (II Chronicles 32:21) with its empty but pungent godless threats (Is. 37, II Chronicles 32:1ff.). How sick was Hezekiah ? Very sick - sick to the point that death was the natural result (Is. 38:1).

But was he encouraged from the first moment he was sick ? FAR from it: quite to the contrary, he was told to set his house in order, for he would die. This suggests that following the repulsed assault of Assyria and the miraculous power used to achieve this result, there may have been some degree of wallowing on the part of Hezekiah, some pride, some carelessness, some personalised appropriation of the sense of triumph and greatness, which of course clearly belonged in this matter ONLY to the Lord. Who ELSE healed him! After all, if you ask someone great for a favour and you gain it, are you then going to exalt yourself, or show how great you are because someone great did you a kindness! Scarcely. Yet human nature is such, in its fallen state, that such things are entirely possible. Those who humble themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves will be humbled! that is the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no case of N/A! (Luke 14:11).

In fact, this gives us a lesson eager to be learned in the spiritual sphere. NEVER congratulate yourself. If the LORD has done a good or even a great work through you, PRAISE HIM! If you begin to draw greatness from Him who did it, then you deflect the perfection of God to where it does not belong. Let HIM praise you if He will! How often do you PRAISE God ? They say, Eat two fruits and five vegetables daily in order to reduce the risk of bowel cancer; and doubtless many do, to increase if possible, their longevity, or health or both. But when it is said that we should praise God, and that praise is comely, beautiful, seemly, fitting for the upright in heart (cf.  Psalm 150, 33:1), do we engage in it, praising God in the heart because of its fulness, as it is written, "Open my lips, and my mouth will show forth Your praise!" Must pressurized praise escape! or is His praise  like breathing ?

If not, why not ? Does a person feel hypocritical in such a case, as if a wife would say to her husband, Tell me that you love me! The man might feel that if it does not show, it will not go, and be embarrassed. When however it comes to God, there is no possible misunderstanding! If you love and worship Him, then to tell Him so is not to inform Him, it is not to seek to charm Him, for He knows our inward thoughts through our spirits, each one like a candle, by which He examines our inward parts, our psyches (Psalm 20:27). Why then not praise Him as you praise an excellent apple pie, or action of nobility and sacrifice on the part of some hero ? Does THAT embarrass you ?

In other words, difficulty in actually getting round to praising God suggests a coldness of heart. It does not then need to be warmed up, like left over mutton, served with sauce, but to be renewed like living flesh, so that such warmth is then NATURAL to it, because life pulses within it.

UNPLEASANT FACTS

This has been, for us, a needful prelude to the case of Hezekiah, for we have today to learn some significant further facts about him. Few there are without flaw, and though Satan loves to make it appear that any flaw is fatal, or any error is habitual, and so to induce critics to lie, thus increasing the errors by defamation, yet the flaws themselves do appear. It was not different with Hezekiah.

We learn, perhaps with some measure of astonishment, following the reformation and the deliverance from  Assyria, with the miraculous sign given to him, for which he asked - the answer being even greater than he might have supposed, that things went awry.

In fact, "Hezekiah was sick and near death.” We find also that “he prayed to the LORD, and He spoke to him and gave him a sign." Indeed, we have seen the astronomical height of this sign, and reasons for such grand a divine act. Now however, we are looking at the sequence in the heart of Hezekiah, following this. We read:

"But Hezekiah did not repay according to the favour shown him, for his heart was lifted up."

If then you are praising God, this is evidence that you APPRECIATE what He has done for you, does for you and is willing to do. It COULD be very different if He were curmudgeonly, or cruel or indifferent, or pre-occupied; but it is not so, for the Lord "humbles Himself" (Psalm 113:5) "to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth," and indeed as we learn in Psalm 145:17-19, He hears the cry of those who are His, of whole-hearted believers.

WHY then should we not be in the spirit of praise! If not, there is that lurking question: Are we  UNGRATEFUL,  and worse, unperceptive, closing the eye to the realities of life ? May it not be so, but let the test be applied freely to our hearts, just as you might seek to find if your car is burning oil, and have its various emissions checked. OUR emissions should be in good spirit, good praise and good works!

Alas, the heart of Hezekiah after all his deliverances, became lifted up. We learn this, but are not told the actual reason for this, but one possibility we have already considered. Like cancer, whatever the cause of it, the thing disease itself is the point! What we see here then in this development, is this, that "wrath was looming over him and over Judah and Jerusalem." How dangerous for all: often a politician, however bucolic or bovine, is merely reflecting in the popularity of his election, the futility of the electors whose pride has brought them down and him up to office! Now when wrath arises, like a fiery day of 42 degrees centigrade, there are numerous troubles. Extreme heat can make roads tarry, weak hearts afflicted, lazy spirits slack, complaining minds irascible, gardens wither and water to evaporate before ever it reaches human lips!

Similarly, when one provokes or grieves the Lord, there can be numerous afflictions to probe, to expose like a physician's scalpel, to cut off dead 'flesh' and to evacuate false hope. Thus Hezekiah, for all his wonderful acts of mercy and peace, of restoration, reformation and zeal, now not only failed to continue as he should and could, but provoked the Lord; for if there is one thing He hates, it is pride, the very first resource of the devil himself, that father of lies, that self-exalting ignorer of truth concerning himself and his Creator, making his own rules and fools.  

I

SUCCESSIVE RESULTS

These unhappy results followed this … elevation of heart in the King. Even though Hezekiah humbled himself (II Chronicles 32:26) so that the land was not exposed fatally to Assyria, that might have stripped it, yet there were sad results and they were soon to take visible form.

It is marvellous how the Lord, good and gracious, is so willing to have happy things, gracious things, repentance and revival, though man aborts;  hence the poignancy of His lament, over blinded Jerusalem, "If you have known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that are for your peace? But now they are hidden from your eyes!" (Luke 19:42). Ruin was to come! Let us make here a parallel, for 19:42 reminds one of the year 1942, when the Japanese were exceedingly close to invading Australia, only some battles which the Lord allowed to be victorious on the sea, precluding this. I myself was in that year on the sea for a trip, not knowing the danger, and the ship which sailed when our own, delayed, was supposed to do so, was torpedoed. This brought home the intense peril the nation faced, war surging with the ocean.

Then our land was delivered, when in vast peril, mounting dangers. ARE WE THANKFUL, and does this nation continue to thank the Lord ?

Does it heartily and practically thank Him for aversion of what might have meant slavery ? for the Burma railway project of Japan at that time indicated something of the misled religious error then gripping much of that race, prescribing worship of an Emperor who assuredly was no set-forth son of God! Of those, there is but one, the incarnate Lord Himself (Hebrews 7:26-27, John 5:26, 1:1, 8:58), all of us who are Christians being ADOPTED through His purge of sin, vicariously on the Cross, and His resurrection in power (II Corinthians 5:17ff., I John 3:1ff.), as the sublime Shepherd.

Now, it seems that due praise to the Lord is somewhat hard to find in any breadth in this land, as vast dangers now in water and pollution raise themselves like fiery dragons, evaporating much, and man muddles with self-interest and compromise, oddities and ideas, as if God were not there.

Now notice what God resolved to do, when this situation arose in Hezekiah (II Chronicles 32:31). He "withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that as in his heart."  Whether it was “He” or “he”, we do not know, the text does not show this.  Whichever it was, the point was that KNOWLEDGE should be displayed; that what might have been hidden, as parts of life may be when things are smooth and uniform, was NOT going to have this privilege! Hezekiah was no longer given that sweet, compelling, impelling, constraining spirit of grace in such a way as he once had. No more was the cry to God normal, habitual and cardinal, cordial and as natural as breathing. The test came.

This is merely one of the reasons why Christians, or at least those supposedly so,  who INSIST on having this or that EXPERIENCE in order to believe or to believe some part of the matter, are so wrong. It is not just that it is too vague a thing to trust in feeling by itself, but rather that such an insistence bespeaks a pettishness, or preciousness; and this may IN ITSELF be the REASON WHY any such experience as that desired is deliberately withheld from them! In the case of the godly Hezekiah, the point was this: if he was to be lifted up, to what extent was being lifted up becoming a substitute for BEING UP, sitting in heavenly places (as in Ephesians 2), in the very blessed presence of God, as grass is up before the sunshine (when it is not covered with mud...).

Thus the test came. Envoys from Babylon, the next Empire to succeed Assyria, were sent. Hezekiah  (II Chronicles 32). The King  had become very rich, had been very prudent and had much to show for his labours. The king of Babylon saw fit to recognise his new and notable status IN THIS WORLD, and so sent to have him congratulated on his return to health. That was as if the US President sent the Secretary of State to France, to congratulate its President on recovering from pneumonia. It is always possible that such actions are free, genuine and sincere; but the fallen human heart being what it is, they have ulterior, not so savoury intentions. In this case, it may well have been so. If you inflate, then the cover is thin, as in a tyre tube, and tried,  readily breaks.

Hezekiah seems NOT ONLY to have provoked the Lord by being lifted up, haughty, vain, self-exalting, or something in this domain, but when disciplined in order to exhibit his heart more clearly, he did not even actively consult various principles. To the Babylonian envoys, from that pagan, dissolute empire, multi-culturally multiplied with idolatrous 'gods', the misled King showed the whole Temple, everything! He admitted as much to Isaiah, and this apparently without even then realising the enormity of his action (Isaiah 39:2-7).

The result we will consider in one moment.

THE SAD SEQUENCE IS NOT RESTRICTED TO ANCIENT KINGS,
BEING MODERN TO THE UTTERMOST, AND MUCH WORSE

Meanwhile, consider this. There are many adventures in folly, in which Christians, true or apparent, freely show, share, or have fellowship with what is ungodly. Such, for example, is the Alpha course, one now widely acclaimed. In this, various meetings are held in which the unconverted are encouraged to speak their minds, leaving scope for a negative outpouring in the field of Christ, His salvation and ways relative to man; but the godly are here not supposed to take the floor, floor the faults and show the flaws in such criticisms of the things of the Lord.

Theirs is not to remedy the attacks, expose the follies and put things right in the name of the Lord as did the apostle Paul (Galatians 2:4-6), who, horrified at erroneous confrontation, swiftly corrected attacks on truth, not giving place for one hour! and teaching such as example! Indeed to the Galatians, he was apostolically holding forth precisely this mode of action of his in principle! (cf. II Corinthians 11:1). You see it indeed as early as Acts 9:22, where he "confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ." The defence and confirmation of the Gospel is one of the ways in which he designates his mission (Philippians 1:7). Where any would listen, this was the modus operandi, whether with introductory remarks or not.

In the synagogues, he did not cease to argue! It was constant procedure: information, confrontation, argumentation, division, sheep and goats.  Did he mildly hear them out like a dumb dog, associate for weeks in this milieu! Scarcely: he ARGUED it out, and so exposed the errors and evils that commotions arose, divisions occurred, and vigorous results came like a whirlwind! Did Christ lead on His opponents, banquet them in sweetness, or rather expose their errors crisply at least if need be, giving them NO scope, but rather drubbing division with a finality and finesse so great that THEY STOPPED EVEN ASKING HIM QUESTIONS!

Man is not appeasing psyches for God, but showing the way to escape divine wrath (as in Hebrews 6:19, Romans 1-2, Galatians 1:10). A diplomat to make terms for man with  God ? far from it, Paul was ambassador, if need be, in bonds. To please men ? if this were so, he would not be the servant of Christ, he exclaims. In fact, money-mindedness (as in II Peter 2:1's prediction for the last times of the era) or desire for popularity can make another religion very quickly, with Christ's name but a means!

It is apparent that we have two different religions here. One preaches as the oracles of God (I Peter 4:11), and indeed "if any man speaks" it is to be as the oracles of God; but the other speaks as a serpent, enticing the victim to be charmed into exposure. Overall is the prohibition to have fellowship with unbelievers (II Corinthians 6:14ff.), a thing taken as so obvious that it is likened, if broken, to having Christ in fellowship with the devil. We recall how in FACT, Christ dealt with that seditious spirit, as seen in Matthew 4.

As to Hezekiah, he was vamped, it seems, flattered by this attention from the great in this world, and perhaps exalted enough to share with the great, great things, in his case, those in the temple, with all its symbols and preciousness, as if mere specialties.  To share the 'unsearchable riches' of Jesus Christ, in some sort of mutual manner with unbelievers is just the same.

Many stay in churches which PREACH  and PROMOTE rebellion, pagan views and news, and thus habitually do this, whereas Hezekiah did it only on one unhappy occasion. Some may even join an Alpha course, or stay in a Church which runs one, even if it does not AT ONCE repent of such folly, knowing that its use of the conception of the Spirit of God is such in principle that new things can arise readily, so that all that Romanism does is free for endorsement (for the course is most eminent in the eyes of Romanism), just to take one example.

Who knows whatever else may be allowed, since NEW DOCTRINE outside the Bible is NOT forbidden in this course (if it were Romanism would jump on it like a cat on a mouse, for it would exclude it), whilst the revelatory work ,in this approach attributed to the Spirit, opens up who knows what paths. This is despite the prohibition on such emphasis (I Corinthians 14:15-19) and such liberty (Revelation 22:18-19), so that one may neither add to the THINGS of the Lord nor subtract from the words). Let this be a warning to all such.

Hezekiah ? He was forgiven, having merely had an EPISODE of this kind; but for all that, the KINGDOM was to fall, the capital to be captured and the next generation after the King's death, to suffer vastly. Lamentations, that book through Jeremiah, shows just how MUCH they suffered. To be sure, Hezekiah was not the only cause, but Isaiah linked the coming judgment directly to what he had done. May the good Lord awaken many who either take such courses as Alpha or stay in churches which endorse and use it, or other false teaching and liaison in ecumenical extravaganzas! On the other hand, may all the LORD'S people PRAISE Him, and stay with His word, loving it, for it is very wonderful, and never imagining for one moment that ANYTHING may be added or subtracted, or that its commands, as in Romans 16:17, may be ignored with impunity, or its words de-emphasised with impunity.

IF you love Me, Christ indicated, you will keep My words. What better words than this are available to the human race! If the word of God is not enough, what life then is being lived ? But if it is enough, then live in it, with it and by it, in the Lord. Then as you abide in Him and He in you, you may ask what you will and find it from Him (John 15:7). Great is His reward! (Psalm 19).