Second Kings chapter 18. And I realize that we're ending right in the middle of a story. We'll look more at that story next week. 18 verses 1 through 17. Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places, and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord had commanded Moses. The Lord was with him. He prospered wherever he went. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and did not serve him. He subdued the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city. Now it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hosea, the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. And at the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Hala and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant and all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded. And they would neither hear nor do them. And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them. Then Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria, Lachish, saying, I have done wrong. Turn away from me. Whatever you impose on me, I will pay. And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the Temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria. Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsarus, and the Rabshecha, from Lachish, with a great army against Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah. When they had come up, they came and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on the highway to the fuller's field. Thus far, the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Almighty God, show us Yourself in this text. Free us from distraction. Help us to pay attention. Help us to focus on Your Word. Help me to speak boldly and accurately and powerfully those things which declare the mind of the Spirit in this text. We pray in the name of Christ and all God's people said, Amen. Well, Hezekiah gets three whole chapters in this book. No king since Ahab has gotten that much space. Clearly Hezekiah is fairly important to the authors of 2 Kings. Remember in chapter 15 we saw seven kings in one chapter. Now we see three chapters devoted to one king. Hezekiah, the preeminent thing in his life, the preeminent theme that comes up over and over is this theme of testing. He was a faithful man And yet his reign is the story of test after test. God rewards great faithfulness with great trials. That's not a reason to doubt him, of course. Unbelievers also experience great trials. But unbelievers don't have God to lean on in those trials. They're on their own. But in his trials, Hezekiah, in general, held fast to the Lord and did not depart from following him. What we'll see tonight is that faith will be tried, but it will triumph. Following God wholeheartedly leads to success and to huge trials. So we see this point really in two, three points. Hezekiah's character, Hezekiah's milieu, and Hezekiah's tests. What was he like? When did he live? Where did he live? How was he tested? Now his character is stellar. At last we have somebody who did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. Wow. Only two monarchs of Judah were like David. Hezekiah, and then his grandson, Josiah. The others were pretty good, but not like David. Some of them were pretty good, some of them were very bad. Hezekiah is everything God wanted in a king. And it goes to show, of course, that God had one son without sin, but no sons without suffering. Hezekiah shows the stability of God's promise. The narrative begins, for the last time, with the synchronism with Hoshea, the son of Elah, king of Israel. And of course, if you just read 2 Kings 17 and you've just come off an entire chapter describing the brutality that Assyria inflicted on northern Israel and how Assyria completely destroyed Samaria and hauled 27,000 Samarians into captivity. Now, from Jerusalem to Samaria, not a very long distance, about 60 miles. Jerusalem is only 10 miles or so, 12 miles from the southern border of northern Israel. Well, these events are not happening far, far away. They're happening virtually on the doorstep. Certainly, we can all imagine that if a foreign power had conquered Buffalo, we and Gillette would not say, oh, that's a long way away. that they'll never come to Gillette. No. Assyria had just run rampant in their next-door neighbors, bordered 12 miles away. And what happens? During this period, Hezekiah begins to reign, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. Now really, this was not a good time to be a monarch on that Mediterranean seaboard. Assyria was in the process of conquering everything along the Mediterranean coast. We talked about that to some degree last week. But all the smaller states of that Mediterranean coastal area, Edom, Judah, Philistia, Tyre, Lebanon, all of them were being conquered by Assyria at this time. piece by piece. Even Syria, which was a little bigger then, as it is now, was under major threat from Assyrian forces. So it's into this environment that Hezekiah becomes king, and yet he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. This is the stability of God's promise to David. The narrator is highlighting for us, God said, I will put David's son on the throne. And God is keeping that promise at a time when we would expect that promise to fail. It seemed like Judah's days are numbered. Israel's days were numbered. Edom's days were numbered. Philistia's days were numbered. And here's Judah, a little tiny territory of a thousand square miles or two thousand square miles, right in the center of it all, somehow remaining independent in this sea of Assyrian dominance. That's the stability God's promise brings. And then, the rest of this summary description of Hezekiah's reign, I think we should read it all in the light of the beginning of verse 7. The Lord was with him. Of no monarch since David has it been said that the Lord was with him. We read that of certain other key figures in the Bible, like Joseph, The whole chapter that contains the story of Potiphar's wife repeats over and over about Joseph that the Lord was with him. The point of that chapter is that when the Lord is with you, you don't sleep with Potiphar's wife. And it seems to be the same here. The Lord was with him. Well, what do you do when the Lord is with you? How do you act when God is with you? We simply need to look at Hezekiah's life to see kind of a sample of what he did because God was with him. First thing he did was to care what God thought. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord. And as God was looking at him, judging his actions, he did what was right based on God's standard of what was right. He cared what God thought. How do you make decisions? Do you care what God thinks? Or is your default to do what the people around you are doing, what you want to do, what appears to be popular, the path of least resistance, etc.? Hezekiah did what was right in the sight of the Lord, again, according to all that David had done. Well, who was his model? In other words, who did Hezekiah look like? He looked like David. He looked like the Lord's anointed king. And ultimately we could say he looked like Christ, the true David. When God is with you, you will begin to look more and more like Jesus. That was at least what Hezekiah did. Like David. If you spend time in God's presence, if you can say, yes, God is with me, you'll resemble David, you'll resemble Hezekiah, you'll resemble the Lord Jesus. He removed the high places, verse four, and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made that was called Nehushtan. Now Nahushtan is probably, you could render it in English by saying a viper of copper which they called copper viper. Nahoshet is the Hebrew word for copper and Nahash is the Hebrew word for viper. So Nahushtan basically is the Hebrew equivalent of the English copper viper. This was the snake that Moses made to put on a pole Israelites looked at it and they were healed. And Christ himself, of course, positively sighted this snake and said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Basically, whoever looks to Him will be healed and not die. Hezekiah didn't preserve this. He didn't put it in a museum of antiquities in downtown Jerusalem. He destroyed it. He destroyed all the idolatrous paraphernalia he could find. And why is that? Well, God was with him, and when God is with you, you don't maintain things that you use for idolatry. Even something as ancient and hallowed as this snake that Moses used to heal people 700 years previously, something that antiquities commissions everywhere would love to find, Hezekiah said, if this is a stumbling block in the way of the people of God, it's gone. Is that our attitude towards the paraphernalia of idolatry? Now obviously, most of the things we're tempted to worship today have a legitimate use. Well, I can't just destroy my bank account. I can't just destroy my job. I can't just destroy my grandkids. And certainly you shouldn't destroy those things. But at the same time, if you're leaving the door open for yourself to worship them, you're making it easy to pick that thing up, to look at that thing, to derive your meaning and your value from that thing, then you are pursuing Nahushtan. call it whatever you will, a thing that God himself authorized as a symbol of Christ can become an object of idolatrous worship. And that of course is true of anything that we use here in the church. People can worship the Bible. People can worship their pastor. People can worship their church building. I was talking to a fellow minister just the other day, and he said, it's ridiculous. When visitors come to my church, the congregation show them around the building, tell them this is our building. This is so wonderful. They even show them the broom closet, he said. Well, there's nothing wrong with a beautiful church building, but if that's the most important thing you have to tell a visitor about, there's maybe something wrong with your heart attitude towards your church building. So don't worship this copper viper. Obviously that's not a temptation to us. But don't worship the paraphernalia of idolatry. Don't worship money, pleasure, power, convenience, the gods of our age. Don't do it. Hezekiah destroyed those things. And he trusted and obeyed God. He held fast to the Lord. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel. He was most notable for faith. Josiah, who we'll read about in a few weeks, was most notable for obedience. It's also said of him that there was no one like him with respect to how he obeyed God. There was no one like Hezekiah with respect to his faithfulness. He held fast to the Lord. What's the best way to let go of Christ? It's to grab a hold of some sin and refuse to let go of that. If you're hanging on to a sin, then you cannot hold fast to the Lord. But the Lord was with Hezekiah, and so he held fast to him. And what Hezekiah did when God was with him, he prospered wherever he went. And he had these two victories. Verse 7, he rebelled against Assyria. And verse 8, he subdued the Philistines. Now, what's the idea there? Well, really you could say he broke off ungodly relationships. As a king, it was his job to avoid entangling foreign alliances whereby Israel would come to trust, Judah would come to trust in military might instead of in the living God. And so he broke off this alliance with Assyria and he attacked the Philistines so that they wouldn't be in his rear harassing him when the Assyrians came to attack as they inevitably would. But this brings up the question for us, are you willing to break off ungodly relationships? If you're dating a non-believer, if, you know, Assyria was a really bad ex, They were known to come and destroy anyone who tried to break up with them. The point here is you need to get rid of idolatrous ungodly relationships in your life. It's easy to see, of course, someone who's having an affair needs to not talk anymore to the person they're having an affair with, break off that relationship. Okay, that's an easiest one, that's an obvious one. Easiest one, easy one, obvious one. But in addition, dating a non-believer, heading towards a romantic relationship with a non-believer, Or other kinds of toxic relationships that pull you away from Christ, that dilute your commitment to the Word of God. It might be a relationship with pop culture, with a TV show, with a book, with a comic book, with a particular band or entertainment group of any stripe. All of these can be relationships that turn your heart away from God towards whatever worldly thing that is. Hezekiah didn't say, well, the stakes are just too high right now. I cannot break off this relationship with Assyria. That would be dangerous. Let's wait a little bit. Let's wait until Assyria is occupied in the east fighting Babylon, and then we'll think about rebelling. Let's not declare independence from Assyria while an Assyrian army is next door in Edom. Hezekiah, in other words, was so committed to doing what God wanted that he did things that made him almost seem to lack common sense. People would look at him and say, really Hezekiah? Right now? Are you sure this is a good time? Do you really want to antagonize the king of Assyria? Sennacherib is not very friendly. What did Hezekiah say? Basically, God is with me. I will not serve Assyria. I will not maintain a relationship with anyone who's going to turn us away from following God. Sorry, not gonna happen. If you think the stakes are too high to obey God right now for yourself, you need to talk to Hezekiah. Is God's opinion more important to you than anything else is. That's really the question the verses 7 and 8 bring up to us. And also, in historical terms, again, Hezekiah subdued the Philistines to get them out of the way, and that conflict with the Philistines was just sort of the appetizer for this larger conflict with Assyria that was about to happen. Already the theme of testing is being introduced. The narrator seems to be reminding us, any small victory you win is only a prelude to a harder test. If you can beat the Philistines, that's great. Your next job might be to beat the empire of Assyria. So beware. The fact that you come through one test well does not usually exempt you from a second test any more than failing a test exempts you from a second test. Our enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hezekiah triumphed over the enemies of God's people. Our call is to triumph over the enemies of God's people, too. Not by subduing Philistines, but by subduing our own flesh. Fighting the world by resisting the devil. Well, where did Hezekiah live? Verses 9 to 12 are a straight repeat of what's in the previous chapter. And the narrator thinks, oh yeah, wow, everybody has already forgotten what they read about 20 verses ago. I better remind them. No, he knew that we could remember chapter 17, but he brings it up again just to say, hey, remember, remember when Hezekiah was reigning. Hezekiah reigned in a time of danger when the other nations around him were being eaten alive by Assyria. And Hezekiah lived in a time of judgment. The reason the other nations were being eaten by Assyria, verse 12, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God. God judged his people for being just like the nations around them. We looked at that last Sunday. It's as if to say Hezekiah lived in a time when God was judging those who imitated the practices of the pagan nations. This was the milieu into which Hezekiah was crowned king. And it's in this milieu that he did what he did. He decided that he was going to serve God rather than trying to play the political games of the nations. His goal was not to fit in, but rather to please God. What's your goal? So after these acts of faithfulness, as Chronicles puts it, in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And Sennacherib's own records indicate that he conquered 60, 70, 80 some cities in and around Judah. So the text here is not exaggerating at all when it says, all the fortified cities of Judah. Anything that had a wall, anything that had some military defenses, anything that was anything, strategically speaking, Sennacherib captured that. He was fighting against Lachish, you see in verse 14. That was maybe the second largest, most prominent city in Judah after Jerusalem. So he had picked off everything except the two biggest cities. That's the scenario. Hezekiah was being tested. A test is not a punishment. A test is not God sending retributive justice on you to punish you for your sins. It might be chastisement whereby God is reminding you, don't do that. I don't want you to do that and if you do that you're going to suffer. That's discipline, not punishment. There's a difference. And Chronicles does say that God sent Sennacherib to discipline Hezekiah for his pride. But this is a test, clearly. Hezekiah, what are you going to do? You trust God. You're more notable for faith than any other king of Judah. And when a real test like this comes where your job is to be king of Judah and all of Judah has been invaded except for Jerusalem and Lachish, two cities, what are you going to do, Hezekiah? So what does Hezekiah do? Well, he fails the test. He sends a messenger and says, please accept my apologies. I should not have fought against you. I shouldn't have declared my independence how about I pay you my tribute money and he sent over three tons of silver and over one ton of gold to the Assyrian king and he's again robbed the endowment of the temple he took everything that was in the temple endowment everything that was used to run the temple day-to-day and do capital repairs and stuff he took everything that was in the treasury and he even undecorated the temple he had covered two doors with gold. He took that gold off, melted it down, sent it to Assyria. Again, what does this say? We've talked about this. This says national security is more important than worshiping God. Politics is more important than religion. When push comes to shove, I need to be safe more than I need to honor and glorify God. Hezekiah caves in, sends this money to the king of Assyria. And don't we do this too? Of course we do. We fail tests all the time and show what's in our heart. God, I gave you my future. But now that future looks like if I keep obeying you, I'm going to be trapped in this loveless marriage, this dead-end job, this podunk place, this horrible, horrible situation that I don't enjoy at all. And so I know I gave you my future, but I'm taking it back, and I'm going to do what I got to do for me. Sorry, Lord. That's what Hezekiah did. God, I know I gave you gold-plated doors, I take it back. I need that gold right now. I know I gave you my kids, but I gotta take them back. I know I gave you my bank account, my job, my house, my car, but I need it right now. I gave you my time, but this person's really annoying me and making demands on me and harassing me. I'm gonna take over and do what you say not to do. Now again, to fail a test is not to lose your salvation. It's simply to come to the realization that your heart is not as good as you thought it was. Remember, this is the king of Judah who is most notable for faith in the history of Judah. 400 some years of monarchy. This guy was more faithful than any of the rest. And as soon as Assyria came, he caved. God left him to try him to see what was in his heart, and he found out what was in his heart. To fail a test is not to lose God's favor, it's simply to reveal to yourself how much more you need it than you ever thought. So that's where Hezekiah was. But failing that test did not exempt him from the next test, verse 17. The king of Assyria had conquered the rest of the cities of Judah and now his officers show up in front of Jerusalem with a massive army. Oh boy. So Hezekiah gave them everything that he had and they came to attack him anyway. Failing a test won't exempt you from more testing, saying, I can't handle this anymore. God, this is too hard. I'm just going to sin now. God won't say, OK, I'll make it easy. Sometimes he doubles down. That's what he did here. And again, once we get through this test with the king of Assyria, at the end of chapter 19, God sent more tests. Hezekiah gets sick. Hezekiah gets recognition from Babylon. We'll look at those in weeks to come. The point, really, of this section of text is that God will test you. God wants you to know what's in your heart, and He's not afraid of sending you a difficult test. Your faith will be tried. So rejoice that faith conquers. Hezekiah, in faith, conquered the Philistines, subdued the enemies of God's people, refused to serve Assyria because he was heaven-bent on serving God. Rejoice that faith does that. Seek God's presence with you, whereby your faith can triumph. But at the same time, prepare for faith's trial. Know that you will be tested, and it probably won't look exactly like Hezekiah's test. You're not likely to have a foreign army showing up on your doorstep tomorrow morning demanding your surrender, or at least a nice hefty bribe. Somehow, in some way, God will test you and expose to you what's in your heart. So prepare for those trials now. He tests you for your prophet that you might share His holiness. Do you want to share His holiness? If you do, trust Him even in the test. He's faithful. He brought Hezekiah through all these tests. He'll bring you through too. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we need Your presence. We are tempted, tried, and sometimes failing. We pray that You would be with us. That we would seek at all times to do what pleases You. And we would love Your good opinion more than we love the good opinion of the world. More than we love doing what feels good to us. More than we enjoy any of those things, Father. Help us. Teach us to enjoy You. We ask these things, Father, in the name of Christ, Your Son, who passed the hardest test ever, was resurrected in glory, declared to be the Son of God with power. We thank You that He passed all the tests, and that in Him, we do too. It's in His name that we pray, Amen.