come to the time in God's Word I do invite you to open your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 38 found on page 710 in your Bibles. Isaiah 38. We are continuing to read in the narrative portion of God's Word in Isaiah and really following the story of King Hezekiah And the last few weeks, we've seen that God has done an incredible work in Hezekiah's reign, where though he was taunted and surrounded by the godless Assyrians around the city of Jerusalem, as he laid those taunts before the Lord in prayer, God miraculously delivered his people, striking 185,000 Assyrians dead in one night and driving the Assyrians away. And that's an incredible thing. But I think what we're going to read about and think about tonight is even more incredible in the life of Hezekiah. And so I'll begin in chapter 38. I'm actually going to read the next chapter. It's a little shorter, and it just all fits together, I think. So I'm going to read these two chapters to you. Please hear God's word. In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, came to him and said to him, Thus says the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die. You shall not recover. Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said, Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight. Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah. Go and say to Hezekiah, thus says the Lord, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and the city out of the hand of the king of Assyria and will defend the city. This shall be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that He has promised. Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps. So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined. A writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness, I said in the middle of my days I must depart. I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. I said I shall not see the Lord, the Lord of the land of the living. I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent. Like a weaver, I have rolled up my life. He cuts me off from the loom. From day to night, you bring me to an end. I calm myself until morning. Like a line, he breaks all my bones. From day to night, you bring me to an end. Like a swallow or a crane, I chirp. I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed. Be my pledge of safety. What shall I say? For He has spoken to me and He Himself has done it. I will walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live. And in all these is the life of my spirit. O rescue me to health and make me live. It was for my welfare that I had great bitterness. But in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back. For Sheol does not thank you. Death does not praise you. Those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. The Living, the Living, He thanks you. As I do this day, the Father makes known to the children your faithfulness. The Lord will save me and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord. Now Isaiah had said, let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil that he may recover. Hezekiah also had said, what is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? At that time, Baladdon, the son of Baladdon, king of Babylon, had sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, what did these men say, and from where did they come to you? Hezekiah said, they have come to me from a far country, from Babylon. He said, what have they seen in your house? Hezekiah answered, they have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord, and some of your own sons will come from you, whom you will father. They shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good, for he thought there will be peace and security in my days. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing. Heavenly Father, as we bow once again before your holy word this evening, we ask that your spirit would bless us, that we could take these stories found here in the life of Hezekiah and see what you desire for us to see here, oh God, together at this time. And that, Lord, that we would be blessed by you to comprehend what you have for us and find the right application in our own lives and hearts as your people. Father, hear our prayers, we ask and pray through Christ, amen. When we come to the Scriptures and we read narratives, historical portions like the one before us, we do need to read it as history, but we have to be careful not to read it only as history. What do I mean? Well, we know that this is the Bible. It's the Word of God. And yes, it is like a history book in places, and that history is vital and we have to understand it. We also have to realize that God's Spirit has more than just the bare facts that we read in front of us this evening. In his book, he gave us stories, Richard Pratt reminds us of the tension between the distance of the biblical accounts, which are thousands of years in the rearview mirror, so to speak, and our need today to have spirit-filled application. And he reminds us of the promise of Romans 15, verse 4. Whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. And this story, as strange as it can be in some places, has been put together in a marvelous way to actually give us great hope as the people of God And so let's look at the story and apply some keys to it that will help us to open it up some and really see the hope that God has here for us. First, what we do need to do is to set the facts straight in our minds. So I want you to get some of the facts of the story straight in your own minds. And then second, we will let the story begin to sink into our soul. And then finally, get the message of the Spirit into your hearts. And so that's how we're going to work at it this evening. First, set the facts straight in your minds. There are five main facts in the story that I want you to see as we think about this evening of Hezekiah's illness and the way that God responded to it and some of the other things going around in the story. And first we want to think about, the first fact is the angel's appearance that we saw last time. When the angel of God came and destroy God's people, because I think the story is set up in such a way that it's wanting us to remember what we've just read. In essence, chapters 38 and 39 are a little bit of a flashback. What do I mean by that? Notice in verse 1 it says, in those days. What days? Well, it's the days that we've just looked at the last few weeks. And I want to do a little math here with you. Anytime I can teach a little math, I like to do so. So I want you to just think I want you to think of a timeline, and this is the middle of the timeline. This is 0 BC right here in front of me, the time of Christ. So you guys are, you know, it's 2025, you're way over here. So we go this way. We know Hezekiah died in 687 BC. So that means he got sick 15 years prior to that, which would have been 702 BC. He got sick then. We know the Assyrians that we've been reading about came in 701 BC. And so what that means is that this illness, the prayer, and the visitation of the Babylonians came in between Hezekiah's illness and the time the Assyrians came. And that's important to the story. That's the way the story is being told Right around the time before the Assyrian invasion, there was a six-month period or so for this illness, his recovery, and the reception of this Babylonian party. And so again, chapters 38 and 39 are not in chronological order. They're really functioning here in this story as a flashback. That the story has been put together to just remind us that the Assyrians were struck by this angel. So that's one of the first facts we have to keep in mind. A second one. It's pointed out here that Hezekiah is David's descendant. He's David's descendant. As we hear about this mortal illness, Hezekiah gets news that none of us would want to hear if you went to the doctor this week. You need to get your affairs in order. because you don't have long to live on this earth. None of us would want to hear that if we went to the doctor, but that's exactly what Hezekiah heard. And so he prays. And we're going to see this answer that God gives to him. But I want you to notice in verse 5 that after he prays his first prayer there, in verse 3, Please, O Lord, remember how I've walked before You in faithfulness with a whole heart, done what is good in Your sight." He wept bitterly. And then God tells Isaiah to go to Him and say this to Hezekiah, "'Thus says the Lord, the God of David, your Father, I have heard your prayer.'" And He's going to give him 15 more years to live. Why is that important? He draws to Hezekiah's attention that he is a descendant of David the king. Well, there are certain promises given to David the king, primarily which is found in 2 Samuel 7. I will raise up your descendants after you, God said to David, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name. I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever. Your throne shall be established forever." He is in the line of the Messiah. He is in the line of the great King that is yet to come. And actually, this extension of His life allows Him to bear the Son that would continue on this line. He is a descendant of David. That's the second fact. The third one is this, the sign in the sky. The sign in the sky. The way that this story is told in the Kings and the Chronicles, we are told that Hezekiah is actually asked if he'd like a sign. It's just what had happened to Ahaz, his father, who was asked if he would like a sign. He refused it, but in this case, Hezekiah was given this sign. And of course, what is this sign that will promise that he will be healed from this life-taking disease? It's the sign, as it says there, that the shadow will go forward ten steps, or will it go back ten steps? He's presented with an option, as the story is told in the rest of Scriptures. And we're told that Hezekiah answered, it's easy for the shadow to decline ten steps, but no, let the shadow turn backward ten steps. What does this mean? Well, it's pretty obvious there was a staircase in Jerusalem used somewhat like a sundial to tell time. Probably it went eastward. There was a building in front of it, and as the sun moved west, it cast a shadow. And as the further the sun went down, the longer the shadow got. And it was easy. It was easy for the shadow to go down the stairs. But it's a whole other thing for the shadow to go back up the stairs. And that's exactly what Hezekiah asked for, and that is what God granted. How did this miracle take place? Did God reverse Earth's rotation? I don't know what he did, but he made this incredible astronomical sign in the sky. take place. That's the third fact you need to remember tonight. Here's the fourth one. A miraculous healing. Hezekiah is healed. Verse 10, he said, in the middle of my days I must depart. I was consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. He's right in the middle of his life. And he's told that he's going to lose his life And as he, in this long prayer beginning in verse 10, recounts his disease, what it was like to feel death coming upon him, he uses many metaphors. It's like a shepherd rolling up his tent for the final time. Or like a weaver rolling up the cloth and cutting it off from the loom. It's the end of my life. He describes God like a lion crushing His bones in His jaws. He uses the imagery of birds chirping and a dove moaning to talk about how downcast He felt. Yet, in verse 17, He praises the Lord for keeping His soul from the pit of destruction And so in the middle of his days, he was supposed to die. And yet God saved him from that pit of destruction. And I want you to look at verse 5. Verse 5, what God says to Hezekiah. And then I want to read to you the same words that are found over in 2 Kings chapter 20. And you're going to hear there just an additional phrase that's added to the recounting of this. where God says to Hezekiah, 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. In the middle of his life, on the third day, Hezekiah was saved from death. The fifth fact, a visit from the east. as these things are going on, that we all think when we hear Babylon and this great empire, at this time in history, Babylon was still somewhat insignificant. It was really a vassal state to the great kingdom of Assyria. But, but, during the reign of Meredith Baladon, he had rebelled and thrown off some of the Assyrian power over him. He had regained control over his own nation. And he wanted alliances with other countries that were fighting against Assyria. And so in the hope of allying himself with Judah, he had sent this delegation to pay tribute to Hezekiah for his healing. But in the text, there's another reason given for him sending this. It says, and this is from 2 Chronicles 32 verse 31, in the matter of the envoys of the princes of Babylon who had been sent to him to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land. You see, not only had they heard that the king of Judah had been healed miraculously, but they had noticed that there had been this astronomical sign in the land. And they wanted to hear more about that as well. The Babylonians worshipped the sun and the stars. And so when they heard about this reversing wonder, they sent delegates to interact with Hezekiah and his people. Well, you know what Hezekiah does. As these envoys come from Babylon, he gladly welcomes them, but then he begins to show them everything that he has. His house, his armory, the land. And again, elsewhere in Scripture, it says that God left Hezekiah alone to test him to see what was in his heart. And what was the result? Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received because his heart was proud. Therefore, wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. And we see the ominous warnings about this in our own text here. In verse 6, Behold, the days are coming, Isaiah said to Hezekiah, and all that is in your house that your fathers have stored up to this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord." Hezekiah, when he had the opportunity before these foreign envoys to give praise to God and to thank God for healing him and to declare to these people the wonders of God's sign in the sky, instead, he took pride in God judges as a result. Those are the five facts that you've got to get straight in your own mind so that now you can let the story start sinking into your soul. Let me summarize what we've heard so far. Hezekiah, the Davidic king, was visited by an angel was given a sign in the heavens, was granted healing on the third day, and was visited by rulers from the east. And yet, he failed to honor his God. Now at this point, I want to ask what that old Christmas carol says. Do you see what I see? Do you see what I see? Can you see how Hezekiah is a type, a figure, a foreshadowing of Christ? Though he fails to be all that Christ will be, he is representing to us the true Davidic King that will come. For Jesus was visited by angels, both of His earthly his parents, his father by adoption, his mother by birth were visited by angels and told of the wonders of his coming into this world. Joseph being told that he would be the Savior of all people. Angels visited the shepherds out in the fields to declare his birth as he grew up went into His public ministry. They ministered to Him after His temptations in the wilderness. They appeared to Him even in the Garden of Gethsemane before He went to the cross to strengthen Him. They announced His resurrection to the women who came to visit His tomb. Angels were a part of our Lord's life. And I can tell you, they spend all their days and nights adoring and praising Him even now. And Jesus was certainly born of the line of David, of Hezekiah listed as one of his ancestors. He was born in the city of David, in the town of Bethlehem, which was all in accordance with the prophecy that Micah gave. And you remember those magi that came to find Him? Why did they come? Because of a sign in the sky. A star in the east that directed them to Judah. And where did those Magi come from? Scholars tell us they came from the land of Babylon. There's something else about that sign in the sky. The sign in the sky for the Magi led them from the east to the west. But when Hezekiah asked for the sign, the sun moved from the west to the east. In the Scriptures, direction is important. When you go from east to west, it's usually a sign of promise and salvation, like Abraham going into the promised land. Or like people coming in from the east to the west to enter into the temple. of salvation and promise, but to go to the east? It's a sign of judgment. The east of Eden. Are God's people being sent into captivity to the east in Babylon? Hezekiah didn't realize it, but his request for the sun to move in that direction corresponded with the judgment that God was going to bring upon him. And yet for here, what we're really interested in now is that that star moved from the east to the west bringing worshipers from Babylon before the true David, before the true King. And we know what happened to our Lord. He lived the life that Hezekiah couldn't live. And in the middle of His days, He was asked to bear a great disease. And he asked the Father there in that garden, before that angel came to visit him, Father, if it's your will, remove this cup from me. Don't make me drink the bitterness of this death. And yet he added to that prayer, not my will, a mature will be done. And he humbled himself, drank that cup to give his people throughout all the nations of the earth life and salvation through his death. But, but, on the third day, God healed him. God raised Him up from the grave to show His power and victory over death and sin. Jesus Christ is the King of kings. He is the Lord of lords. He is Lord even over death, the Scriptures proclaim. And that's the beauty of what's happening but we're to really be reflecting upon as we look at the story of Hezekiah is to look through Hezekiah and see the true King, the wondrous King of glory. Sinclair Ferguson says the majority of illustrations of salvation in the New Testament are actually drawn from the Old Testament. And he goes on to say as we get to see the Scriptures more intimately, we begin to see patterns deeply embedded in the Bible that begin to reveal to us more and more of who Jesus is for us as His people. And then he says, just as crucially, as we come to know Christ more intimately and to love Him better, we develop the instinct to reason and see all of Scripture as taking our minds to Christ. Amen? Amen. Let that story sink into your soul so that you can then get the message of the Spirit deep into your heart. And I think He would give us at least these three applications this evening. First and foremost, never doubt the presence of Christ. in the midst of your life. Never doubt the presence of Christ in the midst of your life. Speaking of Sinclair Ferguson, he has a wonderful little podcast called Things Unseen. It's just Sinclair at his finest, five or six minutes, just meditating on the scriptures. I commend it to you. But what I want to say to you is this. There are so many things unseen going on in your life, people of God, all the time that you so often were just so unaware of. The hand of the Lord moving in ways that we can't, we could never have planned for. And yet he begins to reveal them to us. Our friends here, Chaston and Avery, were just talking about this trip. How many things have happened on this trip that they just would never have thought could occur? And that's the way of the Lord. We should never doubt His care, His presence, His provision for us. That was Hezekiah's problem. He should have seen through his healing that the last thing that he should do is to not give God the glory for what He'd done when people heard about it, the news spread, and they come to Him and He had the opportunity to praise the name of the Lord and He failed to do so. We need to know that He is there. He's our Emmanuel. God with us. As we heard recently, He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. Even when it seems the direst of situations, He is there with us. And He showed Hezekiah this again and again. He should have known it, but He didn't. May that not be said of us. May we say we know this is of Christ. We know that He is with us. He's at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Never doubt His presence. Never forget His covenant. Never forget His covenant. The Lord never forgets His covenant. 200 years after David, He's reminding Hezekiah about it. Eight more centuries pass and then He fulfills it by sending His Son. He has not forgotten His covenant. John the Baptist's father Zacharias, when his mouth was finally opened, said it this way, He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of the holy prophets from old, salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember His holy covenant." Do you remember His covenant through your weeks, my friend? Do you bring to mind again and again the promises of God to you fulfilled? in Jesus Christ, that every promise of Scripture is yes and amen in Jesus, and we can live by those promises, and we can hold on to those promises, and we can know those promises. Sin's bothering you? Ruining parts of your life? Creating struggle in your soul? Remember that cup he lifted up. He says this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. And remember that He has a cleansing blood that can remove any sin, any stain upon your soul if only, only you go and ask for a fresh application of the blood. Never forget His covenant with you. He cleanses you. He forgives you. Sometimes I have people in my studies and study, and they're struggling with sin. And they say, I've asked God to forgive me for this. I don't know how many times. I just don't think He can forgive me again. And I turn it around and I say, well, how many times does He ask you to forgive people when they sin against you? Seventy times seven, right? In other words, you have to keep forgiving. Do you think He can't do that? He can't forgive you? Remember His covenant. You're wandering in your walk. You're heading east, so to speak, instead of west. Friends, remember Jesus has become a guarantee of a better covenant. He is a shepherd. We've been hearing that today. He is a shepherd of His sheep. We've been focusing on the eldership, but as Ian reminded us, thought about as a class earlier this afternoon. Yeah, there are elders who are to be shepherds, but as we were told, they're under-shepherds because there's a great shepherd of the sheep. The great shepherd of the sheep. And we hear about him in Isaiah 54, the mountains may be removed, the hills may shake, but My lovingkindness will not be removed from you. My covenant of peace will not be shaken, says the Lord, who has compassion on you, and He will find you and seek you out because of His great covenant love for His people. Friends, never forget this covenant. There's not a day in almost 40 years And I can go a day forgetting my wife. I just can't. I just can't. I couldn't. I wouldn't want to, but I can't forget my wife. Don't forget your savior. Don't forget your savior. You're in covenant with him that's deeper than marital bonds. And friends finally never fail to honor your king. Again, Hezekiah did. It's one of the great tragedies and ironies of this otherwise wonderful stories that he failed the proper time to give glory to his King. We always have to do what I was told to do long ago by Dr. Roy Blackwood. Whenever God's blessing you, whenever God's bringing something good your way, and someone may say something about it to you, praise you, acknowledge you. Here's what you do. This is what you were made to do. It's what it means to be made in the image of God. You deflect the glory. You say, well, praise the Lord. Please use that in your life for me. Praise the Lord for what He's done. We're only reflecting His glory at best. And so when anything comes our way, we need to deflect the glory. back to Him. Brothers and sisters in Christ, honor your true King. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we do thank You for this account of Hezekiah's life and for the way that it helps us to see Your Son more fully. We ask, O God, as we go forth in this particular week, having been challenged today, to be thinking about our Lord as the great shepherd of his sheep, having been encouraged to remember that he is our true king, having been called upon to make sure that we are witnessing to our neighbors faithfully, we ask God that you would give us the strength and the ability to do so. Hear our prayers, oh Father, for we ask in Christ, amen.