Latest / Faith by annm2705 / 727. Bible Study: Isaiah 38 and 39 (Times of Trouble, Restoration, God extends Hezekiah's life 15 years)
Transcript
- 0:00Chapter 38 from the book of Isaiah.
- 0:03Let's first pray. Dear God, please help us to gain
- 0:08wisdom and insight as we read through this and learn from the
- 0:11words that you gave Isaiah to document so that we can apply it
- 0:15to our lives. We ask for this in Jesus name,
- 0:18Amen. Hezekiah's illness.
- 0:21In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of
- 0:25death. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amos
- 0:28went to him and said this is what the Lord says, put your
- 0:31house in order because you are going to die, you will not
- 0:35recover. Now, wouldn't that be a
- 0:38incredible, not in a great way, but kind of shocking if you had
- 0:42a prophet who was known to tell things that did come true come
- 0:48and tell you that, get your house in order, you're going to
- 0:52die, you will not recover. That would really be shocking.
- 0:57Not the greatest unexpected news to hear at the moment.
- 1:03So look what Hezekiah does. Hezekiah turned his face to the
- 1:06wall and prayed to the Lord. Remember, Lord, how I have
- 1:11walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, and
- 1:15have done what is good in your eyes.
- 1:18And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came
- 1:22to Isaiah. Go and tell Hezekiah, This is
- 1:26what the Lord, the God of your father David, says.
- 1:29I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.
- 1:33I will add 15 years to your life, and I will deliver you and
- 1:39the city from the hand of the king of Assyria.
- 1:43I will defend the city. This is the Lord's sign to you,
- 1:48that the Lord will do what he has promised.
- 1:50I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the 10 steps.
- 1:56It has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
- 2:00So the sunlight went back the 10 steps.
- 2:03It had gone down. So isn't.
- 2:07I mean, that's really interesting that, you know, God
- 2:10gives him a sign. There's the study Bible kind of
- 2:13talks about, you know, speculates, I guess what why
- 2:18that all happened because when we have scripture like this, we
- 2:22don't really know. I mean, all we can do is take
- 2:25Scripture for what it says. We don't know anything outside
- 2:28of this. We can guess things outside of
- 2:31this, but there's no real way of knowing anyway.
- 2:35And then it says a writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after
- 2:39his illness and recovery. I said, in the prime of my life,
- 2:43must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest
- 2:48of my years? When I read that, I was
- 2:51wondering like I just pictured Hezekiah being this old man and,
- 2:56and as I was reading this, I thought, I wonder how old he
- 2:58was, you know, because I don't know, maybe it's just his name
- 3:02that made me think he was older or something.
- 3:04I don't know. But anyway, I so I searched and
- 3:08it, it's approximately, I found, I searched like when did
- 3:12Hezekiah king of Judah die? And there's a range of ages that
- 3:17about, you know, like, but it's somewhere what it the oldest was
- 3:22like 54. And so that would make him 39
- 3:26years old when he was in the prime of his life because if God
- 3:29gave him 15 more years, he was 39 when he said this prayer or
- 3:32somewhere around that time. So he said, I said in the of my
- 3:38life, about 39 years old, must I go through the gates of death
- 3:41and be robbed of the rest of my years.
- 3:43I said I will not again see the Lord himself in the land of the
- 3:48living. No longer will I look on my
- 3:50fellow man, or be with those who now dwell in this world.
- 3:55Like a shepherd's tent, my house has been pulled down and taken
- 3:59from me. Like a Weaver I have rolled up
- 4:01my life and he has cut me off from the loom.
- 4:04Day and night you made an end of me.
- 4:06I waited patiently till dawn, but like a lion he broke all my
- 4:11bones. Day and night you made an end of
- 4:13me. I cried like a swift or thrush.
- 4:16I moaned like a mourning dove. My eyes grew weak as I looked to
- 4:20the heavens. I am being threatened.
- 4:22Lord, come to my aid. But what can I say?
- 4:25He has spoken to me and He Himself has done this.
- 4:29I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my
- 4:34soul. Lord, by such things people live
- 4:37and my spirit finds life in them too.
- 4:41You restored me to health and let me live.
- 4:44Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish in
- 4:49Your love. You kept me from the pit of
- 4:52destruction. You have put all my sins behind
- 4:55your back. So I want to stop for a minute
- 4:58on that sentence because I can, I can relate to that.
- 5:04And, and I think many of us can, it was we sometimes go through
- 5:10anguish and a lot of times it's when people hit rock bottom that
- 5:14they turn to the Lord. And he's saying here that he
- 5:18suffered such anguish. He said surely it was for my
- 5:21benefit. So when we're going through
- 5:25tough times, it doesn't seem like there's any good at all to
- 5:29it. But in hindsight, looking back
- 5:33on it, you can see that the Lord is doing something with a person
- 5:38that he allows to go through this.
- 5:41There is it, I mean it, it's just referred to throughout the
- 5:45Bible, you know, like the, the pressing of the olives, you
- 5:48know, to create the olive oil and, and there's just like
- 5:51there's the crushing of people before they can be refined and
- 5:56pure. So a lot of times people have to
- 5:59go through very trying times or they would never become the
- 6:04people they become after those trying times.
- 6:07If everything went great all the time and you never had anything
- 6:11to, I don't know, to, I don't know, any tough times, you
- 6:17wouldn't have the necessarily have the strength, the outlook,
- 6:22the you, you know, when God restores something in your life,
- 6:27then you can look back and you can say, here's what it was.
- 6:30I mean, it gives you hope that you can then see a lot of these
- 6:34things are noticed after the fact.
- 6:36So when you're going through during the process, it's not
- 6:41fun. It doesn't seem like it's ever
- 6:42going to end. And it seems like why I know I
- 6:45asked myself that or ask God that question myself, just like
- 6:50why am I going through this? Because in my life, my
- 6:53experience was that I turned to God, but then bad things started
- 6:57happening to me and I was pleading with God.
- 7:00Like why? This is like, you know my
- 7:02intentions, you know my heart. And now why are all these bad
- 7:06things happening? But God kind of brought me to
- 7:11see the book of Job. This was before I read the
- 7:13Bible. And the book of Job is all about
- 7:16testing. And so when we turn to God,
- 7:20there are sometimes there's this like pulling away of everything,
- 7:25taking away of everything, stripping you down of
- 7:29everything. So to humble us, to make us
- 7:34really closer to God in our in our relationship with God, if we
- 7:39choose to do that. Now, some people when you get
- 7:41torn apart like that, you turn away from God.
- 7:43Some people do that, but other people turn to God and don't
- 7:48turn away from him. And I don't know, I mean, it's
- 7:52all we all, we all have free, free will, free freedom to make
- 7:56whatever choice we want. And so in my circumstance, when
- 8:00that happened to me, I continue to stay with God, especially
- 8:05after he I would, I will say like he kind of showed me the
- 8:09book of Job because I had this Bible that was closed on my
- 8:12night stand and I was kind of, you know, in this desperate
- 8:16mode. I'm like, OK, I'm going to open
- 8:18this book somewhere and hopefully this it answers my
- 8:22question. And it, it did.
- 8:24It was the book of Job. So that was the very first book
- 8:28that I read from the Bible. And then that made me eventually
- 8:33desire to read the whole thing, which I've done.
- 8:36So anyway, it was the the point is that I experienced what I
- 8:41think Hezekiah is saying. It was surely it was for my
- 8:44benefit that I suffered such anguish.
- 8:46And then he says in your love, you kept me from the pit of
- 8:51destruction. You have put all my sins behind
- 8:54your back. So in doing this, creating this
- 8:58hardship, he's actually saving us from destruction.
- 9:02And looking back personally on my life, if I would have just
- 9:06kept going on my same path, yes, I would have been LED into the
- 9:10pit of destruction. But God saved me from that.
- 9:15And, and it's, it's just an interesting passage to read in
- 9:21Isaiah that does have meaning to some of us.
- 9:24So he continues on. For the grave cannot praise you.
- 9:28Death cannot sing your praise. Those who go down to the pit
- 9:32cannot hope for your faithfulness.
- 9:34The living, the living, they praise you as I am doing today.
- 9:39Parents, tell their children about your faithfulness.
- 9:42The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed
- 9:45instrument all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord.
- 9:49Isaiah had said, prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to
- 9:53the boil and he will recover. Hezekiah had asked Will, what
- 9:58will be the sign that I will go up to the temple of the Lord?
- 10:02And so that's the end of chapter 38.
- 10:07I guess I'll read the questions and answers from the Study Bible
- 10:10for that chapter and we'll go into 39 because it's a very,
- 10:12very short chapter. So chapter 38 wasn't the
- 10:15Assyrian threat resolved in the previous chapter?
- 10:18Yes, it was. That's why most scholars believe
- 10:21that the events in chapters 38 through 39 actually took place
- 10:25before the events described in chapters 36 through 37.
- 10:30One reason why the chapters might have been arranged in this
- 10:33order is that the focus of the book now shifts from Assyria to
- 10:37Babylon. The phrase in those days is
- 10:40similar to at that time. In fact, all of these events in
- 10:45of chapters 36 through 39 may have occurred within a rather
- 10:49brief period of time. How did the sun's shadow go
- 10:53back? We can only guess what might
- 10:55have happened. Some point out that untold
- 10:58physical consequences would have occurred had the sun gone
- 11:03backward because of an actual reversal of the Earth's
- 11:06rotation. They suggest that the shadow
- 11:09moved as a result of some type of refraction or reflection of
- 11:12sunlight. But nothing is beyond the
- 11:15possibility for God, and there are many times in the Bible when
- 11:18God intervened in nature, like in Exodus and Joshua, and also
- 11:25in Isaiah, our first Samuel. Perhaps this particular sign was
- 11:30chosen to signify that just as God can move time backward, so
- 11:36he could add time to Hezekiah's life.
- 11:39Why was this sign even necessary?
- 11:42Perhaps Hezekiah had asked for a sign because he felt his faith
- 11:47needed to be strengthened. After all, he had he had heard
- 11:51two opposite predictions. God obliged the King's request
- 11:55as a pledge that he would perform what he had promised.
- 11:59So why did God change his mind? Some say God cannot change his
- 12:03mind with without contradicting his unchanging nature.
- 12:07They say that God intended all along to heal Hezekiah.
- 12:11Withholding that news from Hezekiah then served to
- 12:14stimulate the intensity of his prayer.
- 12:17In this view, Hezekiah didn't change God's mind.
- 12:20But prayer helped Hezekiah discover God, God's purpose so
- 12:24that he could align his life and his actions to it.
- 12:28Others have another view. They agree that God doesn't
- 12:32change his mind the way people do, but they suggest a sovereign
- 12:36God can change his course of action in response to our
- 12:41prayers. His ultimate purposes are
- 12:44unchangeable, they say, but there are various ways to
- 12:48achieve his purpose. They recognize God's flexibility
- 12:52to accommodate the various responses of people.
- 12:55In this view, God is similar to a traveler who plans a
- 12:58destination but allows freedom to change the route or make
- 13:01spontaneous side trips along the way.
- 13:04God's methods, they say, aren't necessarily set in contract.
- 13:07Concrete people's actions can make a difference in the way God
- 13:11works. The Bible recounts other
- 13:14examples of times when God seems to have changed his mind.
- 13:17God had intended to destroy the Israelites, but did not do so
- 13:21when Moses interceded for them after saying he would destroy
- 13:25Nineveh. God didn't do so because the
- 13:28Ninevites repented. On the other hand, God did not
- 13:33change His punishment in response to David's repentance.
- 13:39And God told Jeremiah and Ezekiel that he would never He
- 13:43would not even listen to the request of leniency for Judah.
- 13:48Their time was up and judgment was at hand.
- 13:53I also when I was thinking about that, I also thought about Lot
- 13:58in Sodom and Gomorrah because it says that God remembered
- 14:02Abraham, his prayers about his nephew Lot, and God saved Lot
- 14:07from the destruction that had that occurred at Sodom and
- 14:11Gomorrah. So, but it specifically in
- 14:14Scripture it says that God remembered Abraham's Abraham and
- 14:18spared Lot. So was Hezekiah afraid to die?
- 14:22Hezekiah words may reflect lament more than fear.
- 14:26Some think he worried that a short life he was probably in
- 14:29his late 30s, indicated he had failed to live a good life,
- 14:33since in Old Testament times long life was considered a
- 14:36blessing. Hezekiah, who is deeply
- 14:39interested in the Psalms of David and Asaph, composed this
- 14:43poem in two stanzas, similar to many of the Psalms.
- 14:47In verses 10 through 14, he voiced his complaint about his
- 14:51past affliction, and in verses 15 through 20 he offered praise
- 14:55for God's healing. What did Hezekiah think would
- 14:58happen after death? The people of that time had no
- 15:01concept of the resurrection and believed that all the dead, both
- 15:05the godly and ungodly, went to a fearsome place beneath the earth
- 15:09called shale, which can be which can refer to the literal grave
- 15:14or the netherworld. They believe that though God was
- 15:17present and she'll, no one praised him there.
- 15:21On the other hand, some confidently looked forward to
- 15:24glory, which they perceived as redemption from shale.
- 15:30Was this unusual treatment for boils?
- 15:33Figs were a poultice for boils. When applied, the figs caused
- 15:37the boils to swell until the infectious material was
- 15:41released. Like the New Testament use of
- 15:43oil, such means was not reckoned incompatible with divine
- 15:48healing. Why do these verses seem out of
- 15:51order? The very end of chapter 38?
- 15:54Perhaps they serve as a footnote clarifying what prompted
- 15:57Hezekiah's writing. These verses tie up the loose
- 16:00ends of the story. Writers today sometimes use this
- 16:03technique called flashback, to depart from the natural sequence
- 16:07and tell about an earlier event. Now we'll go on to chapter 39,
- 16:12Envoys from Babylon or modern day Iraq.
- 16:17At that time, Marduk Baladon, son of Baladon, king of Babylon,
- 16:21sent Hezekiah letters and a gift because he had heard of his
- 16:24illness and recovery. Hezekiah received the envoys
- 16:27gladly and showed them what was in his storehouses, the silver,
- 16:31the gold, the spices, the fine oil, his entire Armory and
- 16:35everything found among his treasures.
- 16:37There was nothing in his palace or in all the Kingdom that
- 16:40Hezekiah did not show them. Then Isaiah the prophet went to
- 16:45King Hezekiah and asked, What did these men say and where did
- 16:50they come from? From a distant land, Hezekiah
- 16:53replied, They came to me from Babylon.
- 16:56The prophet asked, What did they see in your palace?
- 17:01They saw everything in my palace.
- 17:03Hezekiah said, There is nothing among my treasures that I did
- 17:06not show them. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah,
- 17:09Hear the word of the Lord Almighty.
- 17:13The time will surely come when everything in your palace and
- 17:18all that your predecessors have stored up until this day will be
- 17:24carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the
- 17:28Lord. And some of your descendants,
- 17:31your own flesh and blood who will be born to you will be
- 17:36taken away and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the
- 17:40king of Babylon. The word of the Lord you have
- 17:45spoken is good, Hezekiah replied, for he thought there
- 17:49will be peace and security in my lifetime when I read that peace
- 17:54and security. There's another verse in
- 17:56Scripture that says when they say peace and security or peace
- 17:59and safety, then come sudden destruction.
- 18:02So it just doesn't seem like whenever I mean, it's almost
- 18:07like, I guess people would say, well, that's a negative
- 18:10perspective, but that's we, we know from Jesus that war will
- 18:16continue to happen, war after war until the return of Jesus.
- 18:22So when there's a time, I mean that it refers to something in
- 18:28the end times where it says when they say peace and safety will
- 18:31come, sudden destruction. We should always be prepared for
- 18:36sudden destruction. Not that we live in fear because
- 18:41look at how many years go by when nothing does happen, but
- 18:45the preparation meaning that we, our relationship with God should
- 18:49be right because sudden destruction does happen
- 18:53occasionally. It could be a weather related
- 18:55disaster, it could be war, it could be all sorts of things.
- 18:58It could be your own death, sudden destruction.
- 19:01So the point isn't to be fearful of living.
- 19:04You got to live life and you know that if you are, if your
- 19:08relationship is good with God, you have nothing to fear because
- 19:10you know where you will be even if even if you do die in that
- 19:16event. So, but the point is, don't walk
- 19:20around unprepared. That's what you should fear.
- 19:23You know, it always says fear. The fear of the Lord is the
- 19:26beginning of wisdom. So the wisdom is make sure that
- 19:29you're prepared, make sure that your relationship is good with
- 19:31God. Make sure that if anything
- 19:34happens that you know where you're going to be in God's
- 19:37Kingdom because you have a good relationship with him and you're
- 19:40not, you're not being rebellious to him.
- 19:42You're not doing things that God would not be happy with because
- 19:47when if you're doing things knowingly that God is not happy
- 19:50with, it's very questionable whether you will have a good
- 19:58result from that. That's all I'm going to say
- 20:00because the rest of it's in God's hands.
- 20:02But God warns people all throughout Scripture repent.
- 20:08You know there was that repent for the Kingdom of God is near
- 20:12so. We're not to live in a way that
- 20:16is compromising what God says because it can happen at any
- 20:21time. So that's really what the
- 20:23preparation is. And even when it gets to, you
- 20:25know, end time discussions or anything, natural disasters or
- 20:28anything, just put all your trust in God and make sure that
- 20:35you're in communication with God all the time and just, you know,
- 20:42have a good relationship with God.
- 20:44And it's, and that's really just about being in a conversation
- 20:48with God. And also, you know, asking for
- 20:50the Holy Spirit to guide your life to change you where you
- 20:55need to be changed so that you can live according to what the
- 20:59way God wants us to live. And God says be holy because I
- 21:02am holy. So he wants all of us to become
- 21:04holy. The Holy Spirit is how we do
- 21:07that, because if we had to try on our own, it wouldn't work out
- 21:10so well. So that's why we the Spirit and
- 21:12Jesus said that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you
- 21:15need to be born again. You need to have that Holy
- 21:17Spirit, He said born of the Spirit.
- 21:19That's in John chapter 3. So that's about enough of that.
- 21:24I'm going to go through the questions and answers on this
- 21:28chapter and then we'll conclude. So why was Hezekiah so eager to
- 21:33show his wealth to a potential enemy?
- 21:35Perhaps Hezekiah was demonstrating that he has
- 21:38something to offer as a potential ally against the
- 21:40Assyrians who were likely to invade Judah at this time.
- 21:43Hezekiah may have been wooing the Babylonians, hoping their
- 21:47protection might prevent further trouble with Assyria.
- 21:51Or he may have been putting too much stock in his wealth and not
- 21:55enough in God's power. Either way, he was trusting in
- 21:59human resources rather than in in the Lord.
- 22:03That's something that only when you have a good relationship
- 22:07with God will you trust Him. And that doesn't necessarily
- 22:12happen overnight. You just can't trust somebody
- 22:14that quickly. But over time, that trust in God
- 22:19you will. There will be things in your
- 22:20life that will happen where you can truly trust God in all
- 22:25circumstances. And that's what God wants.
- 22:29That's where God wants us to be. God wants us to not rely on our,
- 22:33our human resources. He might call us to do
- 22:36something, but not to be fearful and, and take all of these
- 22:39precaution, not be this like, I guess doomsday planner where
- 22:44you're kind of like stocking up all this stuff and you're, you
- 22:47know, just doing all these things to prepare.
- 22:53Because ultimately when God's judgement day comes, none of
- 22:56that stuff is going to help you help us.
- 22:59It's but God's provision. However, if God speaks to you
- 23:04and says, well, I want you to store up these things.
- 23:06That's like what Joseph did in Egypt.
- 23:10He stored up all of the excess food grain, whatever they had.
- 23:15It was able to get the Egyptians and the Israelites actually who
- 23:20came to visit his family. They survived 3 years of famine
- 23:25because he had stored up all this grain.
- 23:27So God can do both things. It's just that we don't it all
- 23:33should be guidance from God, not our own personal reasons for
- 23:37doing so. And we should pray to God about
- 23:39it. And God will he will let us know
- 23:42what he wants us to do in preparation.
- 23:44But most importantly, spiritually, we should be
- 23:48prepared with our relationship with God and make sure that you
- 23:52know we're seeking him. It says if we seek him, he will
- 23:55be found by by us. So if we seek him, He will
- 23:59communicate with us, and if we're obedient with Him, He will
- 24:02communicate more so with us. So then let's see.
- 24:07There's a couple more questions and answers.
- 24:09Why would Hezekiah think God's judgement was good?
- 24:12Maybe Hezekiah pronounced this judgement good because he felt
- 24:15he and his people deserved much worse.
- 24:18God could have brought about judgement during Hezekiah's own
- 24:21lifetime. Another possibility is that good
- 24:25simply meant that Hezekiah felt the judgement was appropriate.
- 24:28Just because he agreed with the judgement doesn't mean Hezekiah
- 24:31didn't care about the future of his descendants.
- 24:34He was grateful that there would be peace and security in his
- 24:37lifetime, but he realized that hard times were in store for his
- 24:41descendants. It's unlikely Hezekiah was
- 24:44thinking only of himself. Kind of reminded me of like
- 24:48Solomon. Because Solomon during his reign
- 24:51there was peace, but then afterwards chaos really ensued.
- 24:57So question and answer why would the Babylonians turn men into
- 25:01eunuchs? Castration was a sign of
- 25:04humiliation, but it also precluded sexual relationships
- 25:09between those men and women in the King's harem.
- 25:12Some point out though that the opening scene of the Book of
- 25:15Daniel mentions Israelites from the royal family being taken
- 25:19into service at the King's palace in Babylon and the Hebrew
- 25:25and the Hebrew for court officials in Daniel chapter one
- 25:28verse 3 can be translated eunuchs.
- 25:32So the kings did that so that none of the the court officials
- 25:39would be having sex with anybody in his in his harem.
- 25:42So pretty drastic measures happen when control is required
- 25:48and control is not of God. So something to remind
- 25:52ourselves, nothing controlling is of God.
- 25:55God gives us free will and lets us decide, but there are
- 25:59consequences. So anyway, hope you come back
- 26:02for the next chapter 40 and subscribe and stay in the word
- 26:09with me.