Turning now to the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 38, and verse 1. Isaiah, chapter 38, verse 1. In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came unto him and said unto him, thus saith the Lord, set thine house in order. for thou shalt die and not live and our subject is very simply prepared for eternity. Now Hezekiah was king of Judah and this event took place a little before the year 700 BC. Hezekiah and his reign is commemorated, if you like, in the British Museum in a very large gallery called the Lakish Room, and adjacent galleries also, which are made up from floor to ceiling of giant sculptures which were taken from the palace of the Assyrian emperor, Sennacherib, depicting his invasion of Judah and his taking of more than four dozen of the walled cities of Judah and then menacing Jerusalem, called away for a time to deal with an uprising elsewhere and then back to Jerusalem with the aim of destroying it. And just before that happened, well, it's commemorated there. It's marvellous work in the British Museum. Hezekiah also commemorated in the great National Archaeological Museum in Paris by a plaque taken from the centre of Hezekiah's tunnel in the period before the invasion of Jerusalem by the siege that he would attempt, plan to attempt of Sennacherib. Well, Hezekiah realised that the city would need a water supply to hold out against that enemy, and so a remarkable tunnel was dug, and you've probably heard of it, all the way from the Spring of Gion outside Jerusalem, leading into the Pool of Siloam. It's still there, the tunnel, and so is the Pool of Siloam. It was never actually put to the test, the water ran through that underground channel and the plaque that I referred to, well that was taken from approximately the middle of this 1500 foot tunnel and it bears the words, this is the spot, well I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember the actual words. This is the point at which the workmen met, pick upon pick, working from opposite directions. What extraordinary engineering, for so long ago. And working from opposite directions, they met in the middle. And the tunnel was completed and the water flowed. There used to be a copy of that, like a plaster cast, in the British Museum. but it's rather long since now been removed. You have to go to Paris to see it. I don't think it's ever been re-erected in the British Museum. Anyway, that's about Nezikar. And it's a matter of historical fact that Sennacherib, in accordance with the prophecy of Isaiah, did seek to attack Jerusalem and return, but his army was destroyed in the biblical record by the angel of the Lord. And certainly, for many years, there was no further Assyrian aggression. They didn't have the military capacity. So this is about Hezekiah. I spent some time on that. But a real figure and a ruler and yet while the godly men reformed the worship back to the standards of the covenant of God and did all manner of good things, but he also made some mistakes, Hezekiah. And I suppose you might call it peer group pressure, but some of his statesmen wanted him, I won't go into details on this, it'll take too long, but wanted him to take certain political steps for the security of the realm, and he believed them. instead of the prophet Isaiah. And so he was going to be punished for it by God. And this is the punishment, that because he did not heed the Lord, his life would be cut short, and he'd die before his time. So the words were said to him, set thine house in order. They're famous words, aren't they? Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live. Actually, it's a slight paraphrase in our King James Version, because the Hebrew says something like, give instructions concerning your house. So the translation is not exact, but it's marvelous, I think. Set thine house in order. And that's stuck in the English language and in the English mind all these years. but we're looking at those words, at that text. Thus saith the Lord. It's short. It's direct. You can't tamper with the word of God, or ignore it, or twist it, or turn it away. God will one day say, thus saith the Lord, and you'll be called to account. Tidy up your affairs, King Hezekiah. This is the word, your life is going to be taken from you. Nominate a successor, I think that means. Hezekiah's son at this stage was far too young to be king. There must be a regent, somebody appointed beforehand. There were various other things that Hezekiah would have wanted to sort out, I'm sure. had to do all kinds of things. There were defences needing repair. There were bad influences in the country to be dealt with somehow. There were laws he wanted to pass that were yet unpassed. He naturally felt he had a lot to do. He was something of a reforming king at heart. But here are the words, set thine house in order. We just want those words. Now for everybody here, Death means pretty similar things. If you know that death is approaching, you might be young, but if you had some intimation, well, you've got to make sure you've got a will. And if you've had a longish life and you've done some unworthy things, maybe, perhaps, you'll feel there are some wrongs to be put right, some apologies to be made. Maybe you're in a muddle, and either in business life or personal life, there's a lot of rubbish to be cleared up, a lot of things to be sorted out. Then there are people to be provided for. I'm sure there are all kinds of things you could think of if you had to, which only you can do, or you feel that only you can do them. But I want to take these words spiritually. Set thine house in order. Set your house in order. Because they refer also to the house of your life, the house of your soul. Is it well? Are you ready to go? Do you know what will happen in eternity? Do you know where you stand before God? And really this is a summary of the message of the entire Bible. Set thine house in order. Make sure you are ready and you have standing before the living God. So we'll view it spiritually. We'll talk about the soul. And we'll talk about the departments of the soul. There's an inventory coming for all of us, an examination. We will have to give account. I don't know what goes on now, but you know, years ago, if you took a holiday letting, you know, a self-catering holiday letting somewhere, it used to be that on the final day, the owner of the place would come around and check the inventory. I can remember years and years ago being in places where they counted every spoon. And you had to give an account or pay up. And there was a piece of paper there pinned inside a cupboard in the kitchen. A spoon, so much. A cup, so much. A plate. Anything broken had to be replaced. I think everyone's a bit more relaxed about things these days. But you think of the end of life. Every aspect of your life is coming under examination. You give an account before God, and where you stand, do you go to heaven or do you go to hell? Now, you may not believe in hell, and that's a tragedy to begin with. It's not a very good idea not to believe in things that happen to be true. It's not a good idea not to believe in things that Christ the Lord has spoken of, that he came to deliver us from, to provide a way of mercy and a way of escape for us, so that we do not have to be judged and everlastingly condemned. And for a created human being to choose to write such things out of God's universe, that's extraordinary. Now we have to be ready and so we're just going to view briefly the house of the life and the departments of the soul. Now some of these things I've said before but what's your character like? What's your soul like and its state? Does the house of your soul have dirty windows? so that you can't see where you are. You can't see out of the house. You don't know what's happened outside. And there are some people like that, or countless people like that. They don't know the purpose of life, they don't understand the context of life. They don't understand where really they fit in to the eternal scheme of things at all. They can't see any of that. They're ignorant of spiritual things. And the interior of the house is dark. And they have no real deep happiness, and no purpose, and no direction in life. What's your house like, really? And then there's damp rot in the house, well because we're depraved, we're fallen creatures, we're separated from God, and we're sinful beings. And there's peeling paint, unsightly marks all over the house, warts of character. Things that are wrong. And the mirrors are corroded over. We can't see ourselves. No good looking into a mirror. In the house of the soul, it's all brown stains. So that I can't see my pride. I can't see the extent of deceit which is flowing out of me. I can't see my, whatever your problem is, my temper tantrums, or my selfishness, or my greed. The mirrors are all tarnished over and we can't see ourselves. And we think, well, I have nothing to fear from judgment or from God. I'm a nice personality. Really? We can't see ourselves as the holy God sees us. And then the doors are off the house. So every temptation comes flitting in, nothing to shut it out, comes right through our character and soul and we succumb to it and there are the smells of sin and the stains of guilt That's the state of our house before God, and there's a broken kitchen in the house, so there's unwholesome food, no food, pure food for the soul. So I need to explain those things. Set your house in order, says God, through the prophet Isaiah. Now, here are very quickly the five departments of your soul. Your soul. is the immaterial part of you. It works, of course, through the brain, which is a very material part of you. It seems that things, everything that goes on with us, in our minds, in our bodies, is directed by the brain. But the invisible, immaterial part of a human being, the soul, is behind these things. You have inherited character traits, even in your personality, and yet you are a distinctive being. You're not quite like your parents, your brothers, your sisters. You are a distinctive individual. Because your soul, which is really the seat of your personality, is not your brain. Somehow it works through it, but it's given you by God. It's distinctive. That is the historic teaching of the scripture. And this soul has five parts to it. We often speak of three of them, the mind, the heart, and the will. That's because in the book of Proverbs, that's how it's laid out. But the Bible speaks of another two departments also. So I'm going to mention briefly all five. First of all, your mind, your rational faculty, your mind. But the trouble is, it's out of order. It isn't functioning properly. It can do maths. It can study things. It may be very nimble and capable. It may be equipped with an excellent memory. But when it comes to moral matters and matters of principle and conduct, your mind is out of order, like a broken down house. You plan to sin. with your mind. It's an errant mind. You plan in your mind to serve yourself and please yourself, this precious, precious department of your soul. It's a factory of lies, of exaggerations, of of slanders of other people, of many unpleasant thoughts and schemes and ideas, and they flow. The mind's so out of order, planning and thinking and reacting to things all the time. It's the mind from which flows all our self-pity and our greed and our self-justification. And sometimes the mind also is fogged with unclean ideas and thoughts that begin to possess it. They invade it, then they begin to take it over. It's also the script room. of arguments against God so that we defend ourselves against any possible fear of having to give account to God for the kinds of people we become. That's the state of the mind. We're not fit for eternity. We're not fit for God. You may have some good desires. You may have some good things flow out of your mind. But you think of all the muck and the filth and the horror that also flows out of the mind. And that's why we need a saviour. And that's why we need God's forgiveness. And that was a painful and a costly matter for Christ to achieve for us. Then there's the second department which I'll mention. This is not strictly academic order, but for ease of our dealing with these things. The second department of the mind is the affections, or the heart, the feeling system, the emotions. That's in the Bible a distinct department. But the trouble with our emotions is they're moved by earthly things only, not by heavenly things and spiritual things, sensual things even, debased things we enjoy, coarse things. It's from the out-of-order emotions, the hearts, that uncontrolled tempers come. Do you have uncontrolled tempers? That's your emotional department, your heart, your affections, grossly out of order, detaching itself from your mind, from your rationality, and firing off out of control. Lusts come from the heart. No pleasure in our Maker, no pleasure in truth in the Word of God, no gratitude to God, capable of great disloyalty and betrayal of husband, of wife. Why? Because the emotions have fixed themselves on somebody else. They're out of control. They're disloyal and they're treacherous. That's awful. What a heart! to stand before God with. The mind is out of control, the heart is out of control, and then the third department quickly is the will, the decision faculty of the soul, the volitional part of us. And that's out of order too. We can make good decisions, We can choose between right and wrong, but this executive office in the house of the soul is out of control. It's a law to itself. It gives way to whims. It opts for now rather than for eternity. It's pledged to materialism and self. It's in the pocket of the heart or the emotions rather than the mind and rationality. It's not what ought to be that the volitional decision-making part of me does. It doesn't listen to rationality. It listens just to what I want, what I feel I like. directly from the heart. It's out of control, especially in moral matters. Then I go to a fourth department of the soul. Do you know what it is? Department number four? It is the conscience. The conscience is the fourth great department of the soul. It is your magistrate within. It is the warning bell which you have been equipped with, which tells you when you're breaking the commandments of God, when you're acting in a way that is mean or unclean or selfish or rotten, when you're about to do or say or think that the bell should ring. But the trouble is, we've messed it up and it doesn't work most of the time. We've hurt it and spoiled it. We've denied it so often. When it's rung that bell, because I am about to tell a lie, or I'm about to do something wicked, or wrong, or selfish, or cruel, or whatever, when it rings that bell, I muffle it. I put something over it, wrap things around it, shut it up. And if you do that once, twice, three times, four times, it doesn't ring anymore. And we've done that hundreds of times. And now you've probably come through childhood, into late teens, maybe into twenties, and the conscience isn't ringing anymore. It's perfectly useless. You've ruined it. You've got to give an account of that. One day, what have you done with your conscience? You've silenced it. In his great allegory, The Holy War, John Bunyan has the conscience of the town of Mansoul shut in a dungeon and shut it up so that they can't hear it anymore. And that's really what we do. You see how we've ruined the soul. And we've got to give an account for the soul. And some people try to reprogram the conscience. And they say to themselves over and over again, no, such and such a sin isn't wrong, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright. If you say that to yourself enough times, you can superficially reprogram the conscience. That's what many people do. That's what modern atheism is all about. That's what's going on all around us. I could name the sins, but I won't do that at the present. Such and such a terrible thing, an evil sin, is no longer wrong. We'll make it right. and we'll gather together and we'll say to ourselves as a company of people over and over again and pass laws to say it's no longer wrong, it's right, it's no longer wrong, it's right. You're maiming, mutilating the conscience. Of course, the trouble is that one day the conscience will break free and all the muffling and tying up of the conscience, the conscience will burst out and you'll feel terrible. You'll feel awful at the things that you've done, especially in the day of judgment. But that's the fourth department of the conscience. And the fifth, I don't know why it's the fifth. It really ought to be the first. And I'm sure you'll agree with me when I tell you what it is. But the fifth department of conscience, don't want to keep you waiting, but I think it's the fifth, just for convenience, but it ought to be the first. The fifth department of conscience, of the soul, I beg your pardon, is the spirit. The spirit is the fifth department. The faculty that God gives us to communicate with him. Now, in a way, The soul and the spirit may be said to be one and the same. But in the Bible, the soul is everything. Heart, mind, will, conscience, spirit, it's seen as a kind of department of the soul. But really, You can equally say the spirit is the same as the soul. The soul describes the immaterial part of the human being. The spirit describes the soul when it is specifically operating Godward. when it's on that spiritual plane, when it's in prayer, in worship, in praise, or responding to the Word of God, then the spirit is operative. So, your soul is always functioning, but the trouble is, your spirit is probably dormant. It's like a dead limb. You don't use it. You use your mind, but not as God intended you to. You use your emotions, but not as God intended you to. You use your will, but not as God intended you to. You've bound up your conscience, you won't use that, and you never use your spirit. Because you never pray. You never call upon God. Isn't that awful? That's the house of your soul. What a state we're in, if we're unconverted. What shriveled people we are, with so much of us not functioning at all, and much of us functioning wrongly. That's the picture of our spiritual need. And I hope I haven't made it too complicated. I could talk about the financial affairs of the soul. The financial affairs of the soul? Whatever does that mean? Well, it's just an analogy. Your soul is in debt. That's another picture used in the Bible. Your soul has dues and obligations and it hasn't paid them. You haven't paid the rent for your soul. You haven't worshipped as you ought to do. You haven't loved God as you ought to do. You haven't served him. You haven't obeyed him. You haven't wanted to study him or to think of him. and that was your obligation. So your soul is in serious debt. It's never paid its way. It's in massive debt with all the sinful deeds and thoughts and words and desires. How much we need the forgiveness of God or one day we have to be banished from his presence forever. This is your life. this is what you're really like. This is what we're all like until we come to Christ. We're in a serious state. Are you not ashamed? That's amazing, we're generally not ashamed. Not one bit. Wouldn't you be ashamed if Well, you're not somebody who can't help it, but by some circumstance you're obliged to go out of your house and walk down the road in rags. Wouldn't you want to hide away so that nobody saw you? And yet here we are, we brazenly strut around, we speak cheerfully to each other, and the soul is a mess. A mess of sin and of guilt and of horrible things and unused parts. A complete mess. We're like an overgrown garden. And you know there are people, they can just leave the garden and the weeds get so high and it's total chaos out there and they look out of the back window of the flat or house and they don't mind. Doesn't disturb them at all. over the fence either side, the neighbours, well they may not have elaborate gardens but they've kept them tidy. They've mowed it, kept it short and so on. It's all very pleasant. But yours, a mess, and it never occurs to you. You don't feel any shame. That's how we are with the house of the soul, with our spiritual faculties. and we insult God by these things. Dear friends, it is the reaction of Hezekiah was this. Let me read it to you. Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz came unto him and said unto him, thus said the Lord, set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed unto the Lord. I hope you'll do that, dear friend. When you hear the state of your soul, and maybe for the first time in your life, you'll find a quiet place and you'll pray to the Lord. Lord, I didn't know. I should have known. What a fool and a wicked creature I've been. I didn't pay any attention. I didn't care. I was so in love with my sin and myself, I never saw the state of my life, really, and the state of my soul. Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, that's deep shame in his culture of long ago, and prayed unto the Lord. And said, remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. He's thinking about his earlier life, before he disobeyed. He's really repenting. And Hezekiah wept sore. And in that little phrase, he said, I've fallen. I did terrible things. I did not obey my God, and I sinned against him, and I deserve this judgment. We know that's what he means because he says so as the passage goes on in so many words. And our time is almost up, so I just go down to verse 15. What shall I say, says Hezekiah? He's looking back at this time. He hath both spoken unto me and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul, which means ashamed of myself. Doesn't mean bitterness quite as we mean it. I shall say, well, if my life is cut short, I did it. I am to blame. I depend upon the mercy of the Lord. And we need to respond to God with repentance, confessing our sin to him, trusting in the way of forgiveness which God has provided. Do you know what that is? Do you know what God has done to enable us not to have to pay by punishment the wreckage we've made of the house of the soul and our willful disobedience to him and rejection of him. I'm sure you've heard, Christ has come and he's suffered and died on the cross of Calvary to bear the punishment that was due to me if I repent of my sin and trust in him. to bear the punishment due to me instead of me. That is amazing. When Christ died on Calvary, it wasn't just the pain of the nails through his hands and feet. It wasn't the wounds from the scourging, the terrible scourging that he'd received prior to his crucifixion. It wasn't the hanging in the heat of the sun It was something infinitely worse than that physical torture, because God put upon him all the guilt of the sin of those who would be forgiven. And the Father veiled his face and punished the Son of God in our place. That is astonishing. All our pride all our headstrong ways, all our rejection of God, everything that we're guilty of, and Christ was ready to come and pay that price for his enemies, for his despisers. Oh, there is no greater act of kindness and condescension in the history of the world. The death of Christ for us on Calvary's cross. That's the way of forgiveness. That's the way of forgiveness. I repent of my sin and in his mercy he begins to repair the house. My mind begins to think spiritually. My emotions begin to love him and to love the things of God. My will becomes very diligent in obeying him. My conscience becomes active and warns me of sin and I follow it. And my spirit comes to life and I can pray and love him and call upon him. and he deals with me and blesses me and gives me certainty and gives me assurance. There is no greater saviour, there is no greater experience in the world than conversion to Jesus Christ. Before that time we have only a fraction of a life and it's very predictable. But once we come to Him, all things are new. All things are different. Dear friends, remember Hezekiah. God extended his life because he repented of his sin. And God blessed him magnificently. And that's what we must do. Repent of our sin and we receive eternal life. Let's pray together. O Lord, look upon us all. Help us this night. Do what the preacher cannot do. O Lord, so work in our hearts that we may see ourselves in our need of Thy forgiving love and long for Christ and come to Him. O Lord, may there be those here this very night who come to Christ and trust in his atoning death on Calvary, and find him and know his touch. Lord, come and bless us in our souls. We ask these things in our dear Saviour's name. For his sake. Amen.