Isaiah 38 & 39

Isaiah chapter thirty eight and thirty nine, two chapters back

in Isaiah so exciting.

Let me ask our.

Scripture reader to come and read our sermon text for us,

and you can read along as he reads aloud.

Isaiah thirty eight and thirty nine.

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, oh Lord,

Remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness, with

a whole heart, and have done what is good in

your sight. And 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 this city. Thus

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

I'm sorry. So the son turned back on the dial

the ten steps by which he had declined a riding

of Hezekiah, King of Judah. After he had been sick

and recovered from his sickness, I said, in the middle

of my days, I must depart. I am consigned to

the gates of Shiel for the rest of my years,

I said, I shall not see the Lord, the Lord

in the land of the living. Shall 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

call myself until morning like a lion, 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 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. Oh, restore me to health

and make me live. Behold, 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 shield

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 said, what is the sign that I shall

go up to the house of the Lord. At this time?

Meredoc Balayden, the son of Baladen, the king of Babylon,

sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah Fridi.

He had 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. When 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 come when all that is in your house,

and that which was your father's, that which your fathers

have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon.

Nothing shall be left, said the Lord. And some of

your own sons who will come from you, whom you

will father, 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. Is the word

of the Lord.

Amen.

Any of you like to use a prayer journal, I

often do find it helpful. Many of you also find

it helpful keep track of what you've been praying for

and how things continue to unfold. I don't know if

you've used one of those prayer journals that has the

dates already printed in them, right, like like one page

per day, and you see the you know, each day

of the year throughout. Dangerous thing to do, because as

you flip back through looking at the way in which

you have been praying, you also will see blank pages.

And as you see those blanks, and as you track

the happenings that have been going on in life and

in your family and in.

Your church, it.

Is a remarkable thing to consider the record of your prayer,

the happenings, the happenings in the life of Jerusalem and Hezekiah.

That Isaiah has arranged here in a very specific way,

is that chapter thirty nine of Isaiah is the hinge,

it's the pivot. These happenings lead us right up to exile.

It's you might even call it the cliff. This white

space after chapter thirty nine is some of the most

painful white space in all the Bible. At the conclusion

of this again, as Isaiah has arranged, it is the

mark of exile and discipline. And that's why chapter forty

starts with comfort, Comfort my people says, You're God. And

the way that Isaiah has arranged these happenings is he's

taken two incidents and he's placed them side by side

for our consideration, the incident of the sickness and the

incident of the envoys. He puts them next to each

other thirty eight thirty nine and draws our attention to humble,

dependent prayer, so powerfully present in the first incident, so

powerfully conspicuously consequentially absent.

In the second incident.

Have you gone through seasons, seasons where prayer is powerfully

present and seasons where prayer is powerfully consequentially absent. Let's

take a look at these incidents and Isaiah has arranged

side by side, and consider this question. What might be

the most powerful pages in your prayer journal. Look at

the first incident, the sickness. Right each of these incidents,

you see this sort of pattern. You have a situation

and God's word about it. Then you see Hezekiah's response

both externally and internally.

And then how God acts.

And so here's the first piece of that in the

first incident, the situation and the word about it. It's

right there in verse one. In those days, Hezekiah became

sick point of death, and the word of the Lord

comes to him. This way, set your house in order.

You're gonna die, You're not gonna recover. It's a hard word.

He gets a word about a situation, and sometimes we

get a word about our situations, usually not from the

mouth of Isaiah, but sometimes we get a word it's

a medical diagnosis, here's some news, or sometimes we get

a word straight from scripture to our consciences that there's

some aspect of our life that's headed for a dumpster

fire because of the way we've handled it with mistreatment

or neglect. Sometimes we got a sense of where things

are going. But here's Hezekiah's response, both externally and internally,

humble dependent prayer. We see that externally. He turns to

the wall. The word says, he privately turns to face

the wall and praise. The word says to the Lord, please,

oh Lord. He weeps bitterly, humble dependent prayer. He said, well, maybe,

I mean, do you see how he talks about himself.

That doesn't seem very humble. What does he say about himself?

Verse three?

Remember how I've walked before you in faithfulness, with a

good heart and have done what is good in your sight?

Is that humble? I mean? Is this the sort of

thing that.

Reminds us of what Jesus was speaking about regarding the

Pharisee and the tax collector, when the pharisee and the

tax elector went to pray, and the tax collector said,

have mercy on me a sinner, and the Pharisee said, Lord,

I thank you that I'm doing pretty good. No, it

doesn't seem to be that kind of prayer at all.

It is humble. In fact, what we find is at

the end of the Book of Kings and the end

of the book of the Chronicles, right second Kings and

Second Chronicles, we get commentary on Hezekiah.

And this incident.

We get to get some insights on this, And what

Kings says about Hezekiah is that he's telling the truth.

Here it says he trusted.

In the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there

was none like him before, none like him after. He

held fast to the Lord. So he's just sharing his heart.

He's not bragging on himself. He's just saying, God, you

know my heart, I'm humbly dependent upon you. That's what

it looks like on the outside. And interestingly, we get

to see what it looks like on the inside because

Scripture takes this magnifying glass and holds it up to

the internals of Hezekiah's heart by way of giving us

a page out of his prayer journal. And here is

the humble dependent prayer that we see the middle of

my days verse verse ten, I must depart. I'm consigned

to the gates of shield plucked up, he cuts me

off from the loom. Verse thirteen. You bring to an end.

In other words, my life and death, my coming, and

my going is entirely in God's hand. I am dependent

upon him. He himself has done it, says in verse fifteen.

And then he comes humbly pleading, Oh restore me to

health and make me live. Behold, it was for my well,

for my welfare, and that I had great bitterness. But

in love, you have delivered my life. You cast all

my sins behind your back.

I love.

Verse nineteen, the father makes known to the children your faithfulness.

He's committed, like I am going to testify to the

goodness and the deliverance that you have shown me. And

in fact, in verse twenty, he says, the Lord will

save me and we will play my music. I'm writing

songs about this on stringed instruments all the days of

our lives. At the house of the Lord. I depended him,

I cried out to him. He delivered me. He didn't

have to, but he did. And I am going to

testify and praise. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful prayer. You

might notice that a lot of the words are straight

out of Psalms and straight out of job. So if

you ever feel like, hey, man, I don't have the

words to pray like this, well just use God's words.

You fill up your prayer journal with God's own words.

How does God act in response to this humble, dependent prayer?

Well, it's right there.

In verses four through six, go say Hezekiah. Thus says

the Lord, the God of David, your father, I have

heard your prayer.

I've seen your tears.

I'm going to add fifteen years to your life. I'm

literally gonna roll back the clock. That's the sign that

God gives him. There's a sun dial right the dial

of Ahaz, and God gives him a sign I'm gonna

roll back the clock on you. And he actually rolls

the clock back as a sign of his healing. And

I'm gonna deliver this city and you from the Assyrians.

I've heard your prayer. I've seen your tears.

Psalm sixty five says this.

Oh you hear, Oh you who hear prayer, Oh you

who hear prayer. By awesome deeds, you answer us with righteousness.

And as the original readers are receiving these writings already

in exile and reading this account of Hezekiah, the moral

of the story is just so obvious. We need to

be a people of prayer and follow a king of prayer.

And let me.

Say this morning, if you're here and you're like, I'm

not a Christian yet, you might wonder.

Is this Christian faith.

A matter of sort of appealing to God for what

we want or need.

Is that what this faith is about.

But the answer is yes and no.

No.

The Gospel is way more than that. The Gospel of

the Bible says that this kind of covenant relationship with

God is available to all who will lay hold on

Him and his grace, as He has extended it by

sending his son to become a person and live perfectly

as a person, and die under judgment. For all persons

who would repent and trust in him, praise the Lord,

trusting him his work, his grace, his reign. That faith

is what we call saving faith. That faith makes you his,

That faith makes you a Christian. That faith is something

we regularly see people step into for the first time

around here. And if that's you, like after the service,

let's talk at step one.

We'll help you.

That faith is more than a matter of just appealing

to God for what you want or need in life.

But listen, listen, it's more than that. But listen, it's

not less.

If you are His by Christ's sacrifice, then you should know.

God says to his people, call upon me, and I

will answer you. In the day of trouble, you will

glorify me. The Scripture says God is near to those

who call on him. He Brews for says, because of

Jesus' sacrifice, because of his high priesthood, you, if you're his,

you should enter with confidence the throne room of grace.

Get in there, You've been sprinkled clean. Approach the throne.

Christ is literally beckoning you to humble dependent prayer.

The one who made you his, the one who paid

the price. He's saying, come and pray.

The one who stands beside you, and stands beside God says,

come with your humble dependent prayer. The one who made

you worthy, the one who intercedes for you, the one

whose spirit conveys things too deep for words, is saying,

come and fill your days with humble dependent prayer, and

I will answer you. And so we come, and we

fill our small groups with humble dependent prayer. We fill

this place with humble dependent prayer. We fill our prayer

closets and our prayer journals and our prayer walks. And

the presence of this humble dependent prayer is a thing

of power. All of God's word testifies to that I

can testify to that is there anything that comes close

to the powerful presence of prayer. Maybe how about the

powerful absence of prayer. Remember Isaiah is holding two incidents

side by side. We see another situation and another word

spoken about it. Now it's the second incident, the incident

of the envoys.

What happens? What's the situation.

Well, the king of Babylon sends envoys to Hezekiah. He

had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and recovered. And

Hezekiah brings them in and he gladly spends his time

showing them.

All of his resources.

What's going on? This is more than just hospitality Hezekiah.

Hezekiah is thinking about Babylon, and he's thinking about Assyria.

He is.

Under pressure from Assyria. They have invaded. He needs to

repel them, and he sees Babylon. He's like, they could help. Hey,

let me show you. Let me show you what a

great partner.

We would be.

I've got all of this stuff. Let me show you

my armory, let me show you my wealth, let me

show you everything. And you notice every pronoun in this

passage is about my stuff, my stuff, my stuff.

Let me show you. We're both big dogs.

We should help each other out. Nowhere in here does

it say that he takes these envoys to the sun.

Dial of A has to say, now, let me testify,

like I said, I was going to, let me testify

to the goodness of the God of Israel, who miraculously

healed me.

None of that.

Just let me show you around. And Isaiah shows up

and says, so, who are those dudes, What are y'all doing?

Would you show them?

Isaiah says this.

Your plan is going to backfire.

When you relied on the Lord, you were blessed beyond expectations,

and relying on worldly alliances is going to bring you

pain beyond expectations.

In fact, he says, there's a day.

Coming that all that's in your house that your fathers

have stored up and be carried away to Babylon. Some

of your own sons who will come from you, whom

you will father, shall be taken away and they shall

be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

Ouch is this harsh?

I mean?

We have we properly represented Hezekiah's intentions here?

Is he? Is he really proud in his conduct? Well?

Remember I said, the Book of Kings and the Book

of Chronicles give us insight into what was going on

with Hezekiah. And that's exactly what Chronicles says about Hezekiah

in this instance, says, but Hezekiah, this is in Chronicles

thirty two. But Hezekiah did not make return according to

the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud.

God had shown him how he responds to humble dependent prayer.

But now he is proud to build an alliance. He

is proud to show off his resources. He's too proud

to testify to God's awesome deeds. And when he receives

this hard word from the Lord, as he had received

a hard word before, in this case, he's too proud

for humble dependent prayer instead. Here's Hezekiah's response, both external

and internal Verse eight. The word of the Lord that

you have spoken is good.

What you good with that? It's all right. I can

live with that.

Can you imagine any of Hezekiah's boys reading this after

the fact.

You're good with that?

What happened to please, Oh Lord? What happened to weeping bitterly?

What happened to humble dependent prayer? Like in the first

incident when you received a hard word from the Lord,

especially after you saw his rescue, you saw the word,

you saw the sign, you saw the healing. You have

a prayer journal entry to memorialize it.

What happened.

Here. You have some of the most powerful pages in

your prayer journal, Hezekiah telling them the salvation of God.

And now in this incident, your prayer journals pages are.

Blank.

And how does God act exile discipline? As I said

at the beginning, the white space between chapter thirty nine,

verse eight and chapter forty verse.

One is some of the most painful in the Bible.

And it may be.

That the white space and Hezekiah's prayer journal here.

Is some of the most powerful. Have you become a person.

Who believes that the presence of prayer is powerful, but

has somehow lost track of the fact that the absence

of prayer is powerful, consequential, tragic.

You say, what is it? Is it?

And the Book of James screams, you have not because

you ask not? And our Lord says, abide in me.

Apart from me, you can do nothing, You bear no fruit,

you wither up, and prayerlessness is is the opposite of abiding.

How tragic would it be if the most powerful pages

in your prayer journal we're blank, especially since Christ himself

has thrown open the doors of the Throne room wide.

He has made you righteous for prayer. He has sprinkled

you clean with his own blood for prayer. And won't

you come in humble dependent prayer. Consider the power our

full presence of prayer and tragically, the powerful absence of prayer.

They are two sides of the same coin. And listen,

this is not about manipulating God. This is not about

you being in control of the universe. God is sovereign.

He's sovereign in all things, and he has ordained the ends.

But he has also ordained the means. Your humble dependent

prayer is a part of the means that God has

ordained to bring about his work.

Consider Christ beckons you to ask seek.

Knock abide to enter the Throne room with confidence because

of His sacrifice and by his grace. Listen, Church, by

his grace you can, you must. By his grace, the

prayer that is present in the days of your life.

As you fill your life.

With humble dependent prayer, will be powerful. That's my prayer

for myself and for you and for this Church. May

the most powerful thing about our prayer lives.

Be the presence of prayer.

And not the absence. Would you stand with me in prayer?

Lord God, we ask that you would grow us and

strengthen us in prayer, that.

You would draw us to yourself in humble dependent prayer.

Or the flesh is weak, the spirit is willing, the

flesh is weak. This is what you spoke about your

own disciples as you called them to prayer, As you

told them, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.

The these things are connected. Our prayer and falling into temptation.

These things are connected. Lord, But yet you acknowledge the

spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Lord, we

ask that you would strengthen us in humble dependent prayer.

We asked that you.

Would put spine in You would put steel in our spines,

that we would be firm in prayer. We asked that

you would put zeal in our hearts. And we know

that you are strengthening us and moving us and drawing

us to yourself in humble dependent prayer, because you're doing

it even this morning through your word.

You are taking your word about prayer amongst your.

People, and you are you are holding it in front

of our hearts as your people, and calling us forward Lord,

we are ready to be obedient to that call. You've

opened our eyes this morning afresh to the need that

we have, and so we're stepping forward. Lord, we're stepping forward.

Continue in us that steal, continue in us that zeal

we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen, let's sing