Bible Study: June 7, 2023

Okay, so tonight we're going to cover chapters 38 and 39 because they cover another significant event in Hezekiah's life. Last week, you'll remember, we reviewed Hezekiah's life really from the first year of his reign to the time of his 14th year of reign, when he was challenged by the king of Assyria, Sennacherab. Remember that he laid out the letter before God turned to God and looked to him completely for his deliverance because he knew there's no way that they could defeat that army. And God answered their prayer and their faith in an amazing way. So when we pick it up in chapter 38, we're right in that same time. It appears that we're in the same time of the 14th year of Hezekiah's reign. At this time, you remember, he was 25 years old when he became king in Judah. So in his 14th year, he'd be around 39 years old. And in chapter 38, verse 1, he becomes sick. It says, in those days, we bring back to the days that we were just in, that we began in in the 14th year, the day of the Sennacherab challenge and everything that went on during that time. In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, went to him and said to him, Thus says the Lord, Set your house in, O herder, for you shall die and not live. Now, I mean, that's in the midst that when we set the stage here of what's going on in those days, and it's everything that Hezekiah has done, the challenges from Sennacherab, the people, you know, this Rapsheka, the governor, if you remember, they're bellowing from the wall. No one can defeat us. Your God is powerless against us. And on and on and on among all that Hezekiah, whether or not that occurred before or after God delivered them from Syria. And verse 6 in chapter 38 here indicates that, you know, it might have been before God delivered them. You can imagine what this news would have, how it would have just hit Hezekiah. It would hit any of us that way. If even a doctor, you know, if we went to our routine checkup and the doctor came back with our lab results and said, You better set your house in order.

You have something that indicates you're not going to live very long. We would be, it would strike us.

And here we have Hezekiah, 39 years old, in the midst of all this. And he's not a doctor. It's the prophet of God coming and telling him that. So we have this unique situation here. We have just read in chapters 36 and 37 about Hezekiah's tremendous faith that I think is an inspiration to all of us as we look at it and say, Hezekiah, he didn't try to run out and get any allies. He didn't muster up any forces. He just simply went to God with his people and asked God to deliver them. And God did. So here's another challenge. One is a challenge, you know, to his kingdom, if you will, to Hezekiah's kingdom last week.

And then here's a threat on his life, right, that his life could end. So how does Hezekiah respond to this?

So in verse 2, it says, Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and he prayed. He prayed to God.

Took him by surprise. He has all these other things going on. But it's notable his reaction.

You know, he prays to God and he says, Remember now, O Lord, I pray how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart and have done what is good in your sight. And he wept bitterly. And indeed, you know, Hezekiah did walk in truth. We talked last week about everything that he had done.

His father, Ahaz, had shut up the temple, had stopped all the services, worship ceremonies to God, pretty much tried to put God out of Judah. But Hezekiah went. He opened up the temple. He restored Passover. The people were glad. The people observed it for another seven days because they were so happy. Hezekiah threw out all the trash in the temple. Got everything set up right again as this threat from the Assyrian nation. And now this. So you can see where Hezekiah is. But I think it's notable that, you know, what he did was turn to God.

His first thought was turn to God. We don't see a moment's hesitation there, like, what should I do? Should I seek this person? What should I, you know, his first thought is I'm just going to turn to God. I'm going to turn to God. And that's what he did. We see at the end of chapter 37 there with Sennacherib. You know, face all those threats. He didn't think I'm going to go out and try to get Egypt to a lie with me or any of the other things.

He just turned to God, and he follows the same pattern here. Now you read some of the commentaries, and they will talk about the development of Hezekiah's faith. Some of them, not many, but there's some interesting suggestions in there. Because you'll remember last week, we read in, I think it was in the account in Second Chronicles of Hezekiah. And before he, you know, did the thing with the letter, laid the letter out before God, remember it said that he paid a tribute. He paid a tribute to Hezekiah and gave him some gold. And that seems to be a reasonable thing. If someone says, I'll leave you alone, if you'll just pay me a tribute, we, you know, we might pay a tribute and say, fine. Hezekiah learned these guys aren't trustworthy now that they've taken that as a sign of weakness. So they're back, just like the Black Mite people, right? Okay, you give me this. Okay, I give it to you. But then now I'm now I'm stuck. I'm having to pay more and more and more. And some commentaries, and I'm going to say some commentaries suggest, suggest, as we talked about last week, that Hezekiah learned faith. He learned you can't rely on man and turn only to God. He's the only one you could rely on. And I think there may be there may be something of that. I don't know. Only God knows what was in Hezekiah's heart. But as a result of that, when he came to the sickness, it was my faith is only in God. I'm not trusting in any man for anything I will trust only in God. So whether that's part of what we're seeing here in this sequence of events to come back to back, I have no idea. At any rate, Hezekiah has learned faith in God. That is exactly what he's doing here. Now, there are other kings that didn't rely on God. Even though they might have lived, they may have lived in faith in their early years with God. But when it came, when they got older and they ran into some health problems, they didn't rely on God. Hezekiah's, let me say, would that be his great grandfather, Uzziah. Remember, Uzziah, we talked about him. He was a man of faith. But as he grew older and his kingdom increased and his wealth increased, he started looking more and more at himself. Now, when he took matters into his own hands and started doing things that were reserved for the priests to do, God struck him with leprosy. And he died. He died a leper. But the Bible doesn't indicate he ever turned to God and asked God for healing. He never repented before God and asked him, can you take this leprosy away from me? Somewhere along the line, his faith moved from God to himself and man. Another one would be Asa. Let's turn back and just look at King Asa for a moment in 2 Chronicles 16. When I speak of King Asa, often I'll talk about preparing your heart.

Because he did do that in his early days, but then he lost it like Uzziah did. He was very faithful to God. God gave him great triumphs over enemies during his early days. But then later on in life, he kind of lost it. If we pick it up in verse, let's just read a little bit of it to get the flavor of it here.

God had given him a great victory, but later on in life when he was challenged and he was going to war, he looked to allies. He didn't rely on God. He looked for allies.

In verse 7, we see the prophet coming to him. He said, And he came to Asa and said, Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand. Were the Ethiopians and the Lubim not a huge army with many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the eternal, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord were on to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him. In this he says, Asa, you have done foolishly, therefore from now on you shall have wars. Then Asa was angry. You know, again, when someone gets a review from God, and we get angry, we might want to, you know, if it lasts for more than a few seconds, sometimes all of us react not well with someone who wants to correct us or something. But if it goes on and we're angry, we might want to check what our spiritual, you know, where our pride level is, right? Because Asa doesn't respond at all. You would think if you get this message from a prophet from God, you might stop and think, well, what am I doing? But he's angry with the seer, put him in prison, for he was enraged at him because of this. He just lost complete control, apparently, with this man because he said, he did this foolishly. So you did not turn to God first. Asa was angry, and Asa oppressed some of the people at that time. So not only was he angry at God, but angry at the prophet, and he pressed some of the people at the same time. He was just mad, and he's going to take it out on everyone. And then on verse 12, it says, in the 39th year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe. An opportunity to turn to God, to kind of review our lives, go to God with faith, the kind of the faith that he had before, became diseased in his feet, that his malady was severe, yet in his disease, he didn't seek the Lord, but the physicians.

And he died. Now, you know, that's those kings who had a relationship with God, but they let time and age and pride and thinking, we can do all these things, right? They let, they let, get away from them, and they, they, they miss the boat in their older age. It's a warning to all of us. Always have faith in God. Don't think that we are in control of things. Now, there's nothing wrong in seeking a physician, right? You know, I think the lesson that we, we see here in Isaiah 38, if we turn back there, is, you know, turn to God. In time of trouble, turn, turn to God. Think of him.

Think of him first. Ask him first. Ask him to lead. Ask him to guide. Ask him to heal. He doesn't need doctors. He doesn't need medicine to heal, but that doesn't mean that there aren't things that we don't do either. It's a very difficult conversation that we can have some time on healing. We're going to see later on in chapter 38 that, again, you know the story I know that, you know, Hezekiah's healed, but God does tell Isaiah, give him this poultice of figs.

So he did have to do something physical and saying there are times we have to do something physical, always with reliance on God first, though, and knowing He's the healer. No matter what we're doing, it's not we that are healing ourselves. It's not doctors that are healing ourselves. It's God who heals us. Yet there are things and processes that we go through, but we ask God, lead us, guide us in the things that we do, always reminding Him that we know it's Him who will heal us.

So I said turn to Isaiah 38, but let's, let's turn back to James 5, because we've been remiss not to talk a little bit about healing and read this New Testament verse that everyone knows, but as we talk about healing, because it's a huge issue, and as America, America as a nation gets sicker and sicker, and we have, you know, many with health problems around us, it's good for us to rehearse these things and remind ourselves there's many benefits that God gives us. The first thing or the second thing is either the first or second thing in Psalm 103, when God lists the benefits through David of knowing Him and worshiping Him, healing.

Healing is there at the top of the list. He can heal, and we should never forget that or leave sight of it, and always have faith in Him, and sometimes just wait in patience. We've talked about that a few times through the book of Isaiah. Wait for God. Have complete faith in Him. He doesn't always answer immediately. Sometimes He does. Sometimes He doesn't. But through that waiting period, we develop continued and stronger faith that we just keep reminding ourselves God can heal and don't let doubt come in.

Just continue to keep your eyes on Him. So in James 5 and verse 14, it says, there is anyone among you sick? Well, certainly, you know, Hezekiah was. Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over Him, anointing Him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise Him up, and if He has committed sins, He will be forgiven. So God says, this is the process. This is what you must do, right? Certainly pray for yourselves and ask God, you know, I'm relying on you and ask you to heal me, but do what He says.

You know, go call the elder in the church. Ask Him to be anointed. There is that process that God says, and He gives it for a reason. It reminds us of who He is. The oil reminds us of His Holy Spirit, reminds us of the suffering that Jesus Christ did that our disease couldn't be healed. As it says in Isaiah, the Peter repeats in His epistle, and reminds us who we are subservient to, and that is God.

We are reliant on Him. He will answer our prayers, and we should continually pray and keep our faith in Him. Of course, when Jesus Christ was on earth, you know, we read that everyone who was brought to Him, He healed.

We know what God's will is. We know what God's will is, you know, here in James 5, it talks about the prayer of faith. God's going to look on us, and our faith is there. He gives us opportunities to build faith. I think if we talked with everyone who's online who has had a serious illness and you know God healed Him, it's built your faith. It's been, it was an experience that you look back on, and you only think of the positive.

I'm stronger in faith, and I trust God more because I know He healed me. It wasn't what I did or a doctor did. It was God who did that. And, you know, I think that's all I want to say to it. I mean, if somebody wants to add anything to it, but it is about, it is about faith. Yeah, Debbie, do you have a comment? Yes. So in reading the Bible, you know, we get a little bit here, a little bit there, and if we ask God for something sprinkled throughout the Bible, He tells us what type of person we need to be or what He is looking for in us.

Like He says in James 4.8, Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. And then in James 4.10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up. And of course, my favorite is Isaiah 66.2, To this man will I look, even to him that is humble, contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

And there's only one other scripture that I think we kind of don't really put much emphasis on. And if I can find it, I don't know. But it's okay.

Let's see. It's back in Deuteronomy. I just recently did a study on prayer, connecting all the dots and everything, and it really was very helpful. And I can't find it. But the one scripture is in Deuteronomy. And even though it's in Deuteronomy, it says to obey God. You know, if you obey God, there's things that we have to do to be healed. I mean, we have to do the things God wants us to do.

He will chase at us if we don't judge ourselves. He will judge and chase at us, but it's for our own good. But anyway, that's how I want to say it. No, no. Those are very good points, right? I mean, God does say he will heal. He will provide what we want or what we ask for when we ask for the right.

But we have to be living the life, right? We have to be living the life he has called us to do, not just use him as sometimes they say is, you know, a land, whatever they call those, like a magic lamp or whatever that you were of and hey God, it's also healed me. Because we even read in John 14, right? In 15, we talked about the Holy Spirit. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments and whatever you ask in my name I will give. If you are following and obeying me and as you have faith in me, when Christ healed, you know, he would say your faith has healed you.

For the Roman centurions of a woman who had 12 years, you know, of the malady that she was there, we have to have that faith in God and know that he will do it and have faith in him. Yeah, Brenda. You're muted, Brenda. Okay, hear me now? We can hear you, yes. Okay, I was thinking about also when Paul had said that he had prayed several times about his affliction and the Lord said, you know, my strength is sufficient enough for you.

We were never told, I don't believe, if Paul ever got the healing he was seeking, just that sometimes is the answer. You know, sometimes the Lord, I think, chooses not to completely heal people or maybe to make the focus be more on him, you know, or something or just to strengthen them in some way or another.

But, you know, I was just thinking about that. Yep, I agree with you. I think, you know, we're not told, you're right, we're not told that Paul was healed, but every time Paul had that, he would know, I think he would probably be having faith in God when you're ready to heal me, but I'm not going to let it stop me from what you need to do. I'm not going to let this illness stop me from having faith in you doing what you want me to do, and to the extent that we're physical capable of that, to keep doing what God wants us to do, and don't ask him to give us the strength to get it.

Okay, so with all that, let's go back to Isaiah 38. So we see Hezekiah's attitude here, and his attitude in chapter 37 and 38 are exemplary. He is just looking to God, and so he asks, you know, and he reminds God it's not bad to remind God. You know, the other thing, you know, we can ask God in the midst of, in the midst here of what Hezekiah is going through, he's got all this, all the situation going on with Assyria. We don't know his entire prayer. This might be his entire prayer, but Hezekiah has something to live for, too, right? And I know sometimes if we ask God, what is, what, why do we want to keep on living, right?

I mean, is there more we can ask God, give me life because, because of any number of reasons, you know, I want to learn more about you, I want to serve you more, I want to understand you more, I want you, I want to be developed more, so that I'm ready to serve you in your kingdom. What is the attitude we have here? We don't know that Hezekiah wasn't just, hey, I, you know, Judah, we got Judah here, I need, I want to live, too, right?

Because he wanted to live. That's the, that's the key. He wanted to live, and he knew that God could give you life. Now, I'm putting, I'm putting words in Hezekiah's mouth I don't mean to put, but sometimes when we find ourselves in a situation, I want to live because, not selfish reasons, but because what a guy can do, because look, he says, I've walked before you in truth, with a loyal heart. It's you I'm serving, it's you that I'm, I'm doing your will, and I'm doing what you want done, and he wants to, he wants to continue living it.

God saw that. In verse 4 there, Isaiah 38 says, the, you know, the word of the Lord came to Isaiah saying, go tell Hezekiah, thus says the Lord, the God of David, your father, I've heard your prayer, I've seen your tears, I've heard what you said, I've seen the attitude with which you approach me.

He didn't get angry, he didn't say it's not fair, it's like this is what it is, but God you can turn the situation around. I've heard your prayer, I've seen your tears, surely I will add to your days, 15 years.

And that, that's an interesting thing too. I mean, I, maybe there's another one that I'm not thinking of, I don't know that there's another man that God has given a specific time frame that they're going to live, right? I'll give you another 15 years. Hezekiah may have happened, not in the Bible perhaps, but 15 years, right? And for Hezekiah that was enough, you know? Okay, fine. So I will, and then in verse 6 he says, kind of maybe gives us a little bit of where the time frame is. I will deliver you in this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. Well, in chapter 37 we've already seen that that happened, right? God did defend. Zennacherib went back, he was called away on another, from another nation in a war, went back to his land, got killed in the temple of his pagan god, and Judah was delivered. But here we say, you know, and God says, this is the sign I'm going to give you that I'll defend this city. And this is, this is, well, the sign is really important, so let me get, let me get ahead of myself. I will deliver you in the city from the hand of Assyria. So how all that fits together, we know it's that time frame right in there, so there's a lot going on in Hezekiah's life. He had true, tremendous opportunities to build faith in God, and he built them. He built them. He passed those, he passed those opportunities and used them well. And then God gives him a sign, a very unique sign, right, that has only happened once in the history of the, of the earth, probably not even a sign that Hezekiah could have ever come up with if he was asked to give him a sign. And remember, God did ask Ahaz, remember Ahaz, who resisted God, and God, in chapter seven, said, Ahaz asked me anything you want, asked me anything you want, I will give you the sign that I'm with you, that I'm with Judah, and I will be your God, and Ahaz would have nothing to do with it.

And that's when God gave the sign of the Messiah and some others as well. And this is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing which He has spoken. Heal you, deliver you from Assyria. Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, 10 degrees backward. So, you know, we would look at that and say, well, that's an antiquated thing, the sundial, right? I meant to look it up. My guess is there wasn't a sundial behind before Ahaz. So, He had this thing that they could kind of see where the sun was and everything like that, and God was going to give him something utterly impossible, you know? I will I will bring the shadow on the sundial down by 10 degrees backward. Not forward, but backward. I'm going to set it all back. Now, if we turn back to 2 Kings 20, it gives us a little bit more information about that event. 2 Kings 20. 2 Kings 20. I think it's 2 Chronicles 16. 2 Chronicles 16. 2 Kings 19. 2 Kings 20 a little bit later. 2 Chronicles 16.

What? Yep, sorry about that. 2 Chronicles 16. No, that's not. Okay, hold on. It's back in 2 Kings 20. 2010? 2010? Okay. 2010. Do I have to go down? Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. What do I say? Maybe you're in first. Oh, maybe I was in first Kings. Okay, 2 Kings 20.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I was looking much later in the chapter, it appears. Okay, so 2 Kings 20 verse 9.

This is what we just read in Isaiah 38. Isaiah said, This is a sign to you from the Lord. The Lord will do the thing which he has spoken and he asked to this account. He asks Hezekiah, Should the shadow go forward 10 degrees or go backward 10 degrees?

And Hezekiah answered, It's an easy thing. No, not really, but it's an easy thing for the shadow to go down 10 degrees. But no, let the shadow go backward 10 degrees.

We know the sun moving.

Can you imagine that? Yeah, the sun. Yeah, the sun actually had to reverse course, right? It's like, everything is in motion, as we know. So to have this happen, literally the world would have had to stop and the sun would have had to go back, yeah, through it all. Everything kept moving. It boggles the mind. If you look at the science of what happened here, that could have happened.

So he says, Now, make it go backward 10 degrees. So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and he brought the shadow 10 degrees backward by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz. So they could actually see the miracle happen because the sundial was just reflecting. So you could actually see it go backwards by 10 degrees. Now, you read the commentaries, and some of the commentaries that aren't like, just commentaries on the Bible when they talk about this.

They can't even come up with an explanation of it because it's, how could a man even devise this miracle and put it in there?

That it had to be of God. Some will attribute some of the time things that had gone on in the world, you know, with this that happened, that something got, you know, altered. They talk about, I think it's Joshua where the sun stood still so he could complete the battle and all these other things.

It shows us that it is physically impossible for that to happen. Physically impossible for that to happen, yet God made it happen. Nothing, nothing, there is nothing impossible from God for God. And this is certainly one of those instances.

Now, I saw that, Garden, did you have a comment? I saw the yellow light. Yeah, you just mentioned the incident with Joshua were basically a comparable thing, where basically God held the sun, they saw it, which is unbelievable.

Held it still so that battle could be completed.

So, you know, I think we read these things and, you know, it's like, and they're words to us. But when you stop and think and even look at what scientists say about that, it's just, and you know what the motion of the earth is, it's just impossible, yet God did it. So, quite a sign for Hezekiah and quite a confirmation of Hezekiah's faith, right? I mean, he's already demonstrated faith. If you see something even much minor than that, you would be like, whoa, God is there. He really is there and He's with us. And it's the thing that you and I should feel all the time that God is with us and leading us.

You're good, Shaby. Yes, yes.

Yeah, what you mentioned about the healing is also true because even Hezekiah, I think, mentioned somewhere that he had to apply some sort of cream of fix to his feet, the boil. So he had to do something to heal. Yeah, that's going to come on later on in this chapter. So yeah, what it shows, I mean, God doesn't need us to do those things, right? But sometimes we have to change. We have to do something that God tells us to do just like Naaman, to be healed of leprosy.

I'm sure you remember that, you know, when, was it Elisha? Elisha said, go dip into Jordan for seven times. He said, I'm not going to do that. Jordan's a filthy river. And the little Israelite girl said, really? If he told you to do something, you wouldn't do it. And when he did what God told him to do, not when he was healed.

So back in Isaiah 38, though, you know, Hezekiah, you can imagine, right? So he writes this song, if you will, this writing in verses nine through the rest of the round nine through 20, it looks like. And he talks about what he's just been through, that God has saved him and rescued him from his life. So in verse 10, we read, you know, we read it. He says, I said, I'm in the prime of my life. Remember, he's 39 years old. He's still a young man, 25 plus the 14th year of his reign. I'm in the prime of my life. I shall go to the gates of Sheol. I'm deprived of the remainder of my years.

So I haven't even lived a complete life. I said, I shall not see YAH, the Lord in the land of the living. I shall observe man no more among the inhabitants of the world. I'm probably more faced with death or catastrophic illness. Some of these thoughts go through our mind.

We appreciate life more. I won't be doing this anymore. I won't see my old age. I won't understand what that is. I won't be able to observe man anymore and see, you know, see how he is on earth. I shall observe man no more among the inhabitants of the world. My lifespan is gone, taken from me like a shepherd's tent. I've cut off my life like a weaver. He cuts me off from the loom from day until night. You make an end of me. So it's like, and this disease apparently came on really quickly on Hezekiah. It wasn't something that was building. It was like, one day he's fine. The next day the indication is that he's, you know, he's very quickly, maybe not the next day because he had to send for Isaiah. You know, this disease came on pretty quickly and then it's pretty much a death sentence he gets.

I have considered until morning like a lion. So he, God, breaks all my bones. From day until night you make an end of me. You're taking my life away from me like a crane or a swallow. So I chattered. I mourned like a dove. My eyes fail from looking upward. I continue to look to you, God. That's where my salvation is. That's where my hope is. That's where everything comes from. Something that you and I need to remember, too. All our salvation, everything comes from God and always to look to Him. Oh, Lord, I am oppressed. Undertake for me or speak for me or listen to me or take care of this. I can't take care of this myself. Only you can heal the situation that I'm in.

Verse 15, what shall I say? He has both spoken to me and he himself has done it.

He spoke to me and said, I'll be healed, and I am. And he himself has done it. I shall walk carefully all my years in the bitterness of my soul. And I meant to look up bitterness what it meant there, and I didn't. So I don't think it means bitterness as in he's... I think he's rejoicing before God, but also remembering what God has done for him. I shall walk carefully all my years in the bitterness of my soul. Maybe it means that he is aware of his mortality. He takes life. Doesn't take life for granted. He's going to...

I always like seeing that word carefully because it reminds me of we obey God carefully, earnestly, and diligently. I'll walk carefully all my years in the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit. So you will restore me and make me live. It's God who gives life. It's God who gives life.

Indeed, it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness.

Someone... I wish I had taken the time to look up that. Some of me could look at that word, bitterness, if you've got an importance there with you, and see what that means, because now I'm very curious.

I forgot to look that up more. So indeed, it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness.

And well, and I guess, bitterness, I mean, it's very sour when you're told you're sick, or you're feeling sick, and you're unto death. It's like for my own peace. It's kind of like what I was saying before. When you come through it and you realize God did it, it does produce calm and peace and faith in God. It was for my own peace. It was good for me to go through this and see that God was there with me. But you have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption. You have cast all my sins behind your back. For Sheol can't thank you. So here's what Hezekiah said. Sheol, I can't praise you from the grave. The grave doesn't praise you. Sheol can't thank you. Death can't praise you. Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your truth.

Hezekiah was always looking for God's truth, always looking to what God. What does God want me to do? How do I make my life there closer and closer to what he wants me to do? What is the truth in his Word? Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your truth. But when we're living, we can. When we have life, we can. And our life should be for the searching of truth, and making ourselves more and more the way God wants us to.

Yeah, Dale?

Yes, Mr. Shavey. I looked up the Hebrew for bitterness. It says, Me'ra, M-A-R-A-H.

It also means to be angry or discontented.

You know, like it reminds me of the waters of Me'ra.

Related to that as well, where the Israelites complained about not having enough water. Okay. The water is bitter.

So I guess that was a bitter time in his life. Not that he was bitter against God, but it's a bitter pill to hear that you're sick and to feel that way, and that your immortality is gone. So yeah, and to realize, and to anytime we realize our mortality, you know, should draw us closer to God, too. Okay, okay.

But you see what's in Hezekiah's heart. I'm going to hope for your truth. Living, verse 19, the living, the living man, he shall praise you.

Praise God every day of our lives. As I do this day, the Father shall make known your truth to the children.

You know, there's that verse at the end of Malachi, the last verse. It says, I'll turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children of the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. I mean, it is our responsibility to teach the truth to our children, to others, to live the truth, to do the truth, and see the focus that Hezekiah and his life. I hope for your truth.

We are people who have that same hope, the truth of what God is going to do, sending Christ back, the hope of the resurrection, everything that his plan entails.

Verse 20, the Lord was ready to save me. Therefore, we will sing my songs with stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of the Lord. He was there to save.

Now, I should as I read that, I mean, here in Hezekiah's case, you know, we are all mortal men. We all are going to die.

You know, it may be that some of us live until the time of Jesus Christ's return, but it says in Hebrews 9.27 or 10.27, it is appointed to all men to die once.

So, God, we remember, does heal. Does heal. When those who die in faith are resurrected, they will be resurrected with perfectly healthy body, all the ailments, all the maladies, all the pain. That's all gone. This physical life is just part of the life that God has in mind for you and me. We can't forget that. I know some things have happened in the last week with just some people we know and some incidents I've been involved with. That's come clear to me.

Yeah, this is just one part of life. Paul saw that clearly. Sometimes when God is, He knows what our time is. Never lose faith in God. Always know that He knows what's best for us.

There's a reason He does everything. We may not understand everything in this lifetime, but we will. We will when the resurrection comes and we see how it affected other people as well and the strength of them. Yeah, Dave?

Yes, sir. As we're going through this, and like what you just said, God, He always knows what's best. It's always good for us to always remember what our overall purpose is. Our purpose is to prepare for the kingdom of God, to grow in a holy righteous character. These things that we always go through and all of us go through them, they're designed, as you were saying, to help us grow in faith and prepare to be in God's family. Even though we look at things humanly and short term, God always sees a big picture, like you were saying, and He always knows what's best.

He'll handle things the way that He knows is best. We may not like it at times, but He always knows what's best. Keeping that ultimate goal in mind, that we're baptized, we're begotten children of God. We're going to be born into God's family when Christ returns. That's an incredible purpose. That's an incredible future we have. I know for me, I need to at times go back and remind myself, wait a second, okay, what's the big picture? What's God really doing here? Keeping that in mind helps me to just calm down some and just like, okay, God knows what's best. He's taking care of it.

My goal and our goal is to be born into God's family, and He'll work all of that out because He always knows what's best. Very good. Sherri? You know, when my husband died during the COVID stuff, I think a lot of people thought I was going to fall away, but the only thing that kept me going was God because there was nothing else. And if I didn't have God, I wouldn't have lived.

It's just, and I know there was, and Mr. Wentz said something to me. He said, how'd he say it? He said, he goes, you will see Him again, and when God raises Him, and He'll ask Him, and He'll say yes, and you'll be there. That just alleviated all my being so upset. It just, and he said, rely on God. That was it. Yep. And there is tremendous comfort in that. When you just give it to God and realize He knows there's nothing I can do about it, there's nothing that can be done except trust in God. Trust in God and give it to Him and keep moving forward. That's what those who die in the faith before us would want us to do, and that's what we need to do, and keep our focus on God the whole way because there is a reason, and even though we don't know the reason, we just keep increasing our faith in Him. You know also, that's where that the peace that surpasses understanding. I experienced that, and I was amazed, and I was like, I never thought I'd experience anything like that, but if there was some just peace, so I'm grateful. It is. Never underestimate, right, when someone dies and you pray for God's comfort on them, do pray for God's comfort on them because it is really, it is really, really real. And I don't think, you know, I say, I don't know that we appreciate except in times of trouble or something happens that we realize how comforting it is that we know God and what His plan is. If we were people in the world where we were relying on everything except God, life would be meaningless. Back when you were talking, Sherri reminded me of John 6 and the last person there where many of Christ's disciples left. Remember when he talked about, I'm the bread, you eat of my, whoever eats of my flesh, you ever drink of my blood, and many disciples left, and he asked his disciples. They didn't understand exactly what he was saying at that time, and he said, do you two want to leave? And it's like, they didn't really understand, but they, well, where else are we going to go? There is no other, there is nothing else on, there's nowhere on earth we could get the comfort that we need. That's the case always, no matter how bad things are, it's God. It's God. It's not man, our smart, our, or whatever. It's always God. That's the rock, the refuge that we turn to. It's never, yeah. Thank you. Okay, Isaiah 38.

Oh, yeah, okay, two more verses than Isaiah 38. Isaiah had said, so he writes this, he writes this very in, you know, we don't know exactly what is in mind, but you know, when he writes these things, and he's praising God, he's continuing to look for God's truth, Isaiah had said, told him, God's going to heal you, but let them take a lump of figs and apply it as a poultice on the boil.

Some commentaries say it was like an inflamed ulcer that wasn't going to be healed, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover. So, you know, I kind of looked it up, what is it about a poultice of figs, right? That has any kind of value at all. And it's very interesting when you type those things into, you know, Google and see what comes back, and it talked about the milky substance of this poultice of figs and whatever, and the health it has in it. And just reading about figs, right? Because they have a prominent place in the Bible. You know, Christ was looking for the figs on the tree. They do have some very good qualities about them and nutrients that are in those. But here they, you know, God says, put this poultice on him. So there are things that we can do. There are things we can do with our health, right, to help the healing along. God doesn't need us to do that, but sometimes we need. We need to make some changes in our life, just like we do in our spiritual lives. When God calls us and we're looking for him to spiritually heal us and forgive our sins, we make changes in our lives. And when we're looking for God to physically heal us, we might examine what we are doing and start doing living the health laws and making sure we are, you know, doing those things that he would have a student that have a healthy life. Always remembering he's the one who heals. It wasn't the poultice of figs, but God did give this example here, you know, you got to do something. You do this and you'll be healed. And, you know, he was healed. Hezekiah had said, what is the sign of the shewah? Go up to the house of the Lord.

Anyway, going into chapter 39, then, we have kind of an interesting chapter. Now, interesting that it follows in 37 and 38, we have this extreme faith in God, the Hezekiah, just extreme faith that is admirable, that is inspiring, that you and I can have, too, in the face of similar situations that we might encounter. In chapter 39, then we find something that, you know, might be a raise a few questions in our minds about Hezekiah, like, what were you thinking? Right? At that time, it says, so we're the same general time frame here. At that time, Meridach Valadan, the son of Valadan, king of Avalon, not Assyria, but it would be Babylon, remember, who would eventually conquer Jerusalem in 586 BC. King of Babylon sent letters in a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and had recovered. Just like we might send to get well cards and flowers to someone, you know, get well cards or whatever, Babylon did the same thing to the king of Hezekiah. And Hezekiah was pleased with what he had received, and he was he was pleased with the king of Babylon, and then he had something interesting. He showed them the house of his treasures, the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, all his armory, all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them. Now, it's an interesting thing for Hezekiah to do. Why would he do that? You know, was there some pride in this? Was something sneaking in that would be like, look what I've done? Look how much I've... who knows? But the account in 2 Chronicles 32 sheds some more light on this. Here God has, you know, Healed Hezekiah. He's delivered him from Hezekiah. He's given him this tremendous sign of the sundial, the sun going backwards 10 degrees.

And in 2 Chronicles 32, we read about it because now God has given Hezekiah these extra 15 years to live.

And God's always, always working with us, right? 2 Chronicles 32 and verse Yeah, anyway, let's look at verse 31. Before this, you see where he was sick and everything.

And everything. So in verse 30, verse...

Let's look at verse 27. Hezekiah had very great riches and honor, and he made himself treasuries for silver, for gold, for precious stones, for spices, for shields, and for all kinds of desirable items. God blessed Judah during his time. They became a very rich nation. He had storehouses for the harvest of grain, wine, and oil, stoles for all kinds of livestock, and folds for flocks. Moreover, he provided cities for himself and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given him very much property. This same Hezekiah, remember he did many noble or very great things. This same Hezekiah also stopped the water out of the upper Gaihan, brought the water by tunnel. That's Hezekiah's tunnel that is still a tourist attraction if you go visit Jerusalem. Brought the water by tunnel to the west side of the city of David. Hezekiah prospered in all his works. He followed God. His heart was with God. God blessed him. However...

And we always pause when we see the word, however... However, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, whom they sent to Hezekiah to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God withdrew from Hezekiah. Why? In order to test him. How are you going to handle this? Someone's coming, probably flattering him. Boy, Hezekiah, you have done a great job. What a wonderful nation you have. I mean, your God has blessed you richly. I mean, you probably have riches we don't even understand. And so here it is. And God withdrew him from him. Doesn't mean that he forsook him or whatever. It's just like, well, let's just see what's in Hezekiah's heart. In order to test him, that he might know all that was in his heart. And that's all it says about that in that case. So we see what happens here is Hezekiah... You know, one of the reasons it's important for us to pray. God lead us, guide us. You know what's in my heart. Show me what's in my heart. What is the motivation I have? Because I want everything I do to be pure in your sight, to do your what your will is. Here in this case, Hezekiah did something that wasn't pure in heart. It was pride. So if we go back to Isaiah 38 with that background, and we see the king of Babylon coming in, or Isaiah 39, we see he just opens up the whole treasuries to him. I'm going to show you everything I have. Look what a wonderful king I am. Kind of reminds you of those other kings and their pride. I'm going to show you everything. And so, okay, before I go on verse 38, Igarto, did you have something you want to say? About Hezekiah, I mean, he was an interesting character because of what you were just explaining. I compare what he did also to what King David did once when he did a census of Israel. That is something that God, the spirit of God, probably left him alone to see what he was going to do. And what's wrong, you know. And then, as a guy, I guess the other thing about him is that the king that followed him was his son, was Manasseh, and he was a pretty bad king. So I guess he did not instruct it. I don't know what happened, but I mean, it's interesting the contrast from Hezekiah to Manasseh. Yeah.

Manasseh was so evil that even when he repented, God said, I don't forget the evil that you did. Judah is still going to go into captivity, right? Yeah. So that's how bad, yeah, the the just the warp between father and son is incredible in that.

Okay, so then Hezekiah opens up everything. He shows him everything. And I guess there's a lesson in this there. It's just like, God may bless, but we don't take pride. It does tell us God gave him, and it tells us in Deuteronomy 8, it's God who gives you the power to get wealth. It's not us. He gives us, He gives us that power. So Isaiah goes to Hezekiah in verse 3, chapter 39, went to King Hezekiah and said to him, What do these men say? And from where did they come to you? And Hezekiah said, They came to me from afar country from Babylon. And Isaiah said, And what did you show them? Or what have they seen in your house? Hezekiah answered, They've seen all that's in my house. There's nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them. So he was honest, but he didn't even recognize that there was a problem with that. 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 what your fathers have accumulated until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the eternal. Like, Whoa, okay, you showed them all you have. So one day Babylon's going to come and everything that you have is going to be carried off to Babylon. Now there's a lesson in that, you know, is was should Hezekiah have learned a lesson? Boy, we don't have to show everything when Tries mixed with it, because maybe Babylon was hoping he would do that. And now that we know how much riches is in Judah, this is a land we should be conquering, right? I mean, you don't know what people are doing. You don't have any idea when they flatter and get your attention. What is the game that they've got going? What are they wanting to learn? But God wanted to see what Hezekiah's response would be. He learned, and Hezekiah, I hope, learned, okay, pride got a hold of me at that time. I have to kind of always just give God honor. Just give a God honor and say, yes, He blessed us richly. So, you know, we won't take the time, of course, to read Jeremiah 52, but you can read Jeremiah 52 and see everything that's written in these next three verses is exactly what happened. Exactly what happened to Judah with the fall of Babylon. Verse 7, He says, And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will be get, and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Well, you kind of surrendered to Babylon in a way. You yielded yourself to Babylon. You exposed yourself to Babylon.

Judah is going to pay a high price for it. So in verse 8, then, and in my Bible references, Daniel 1, 1 through 7 there, you will see that that happens. Of course, we know Daniel is one of those. Daniel, Shadrach, Abednego, those young men who were carried away in various times that Babylon was conquering Judah until they finally fell. Ezekiel was one of them as well. So Hezekiah, and then he's got an interesting verse, right? God gives him this punishment and says, this is what's going to happen. This is going to happen, you know, later on your sons who will descend from you are going to be captives. They're going to be eunuchs of the court of Babylon. And Hezekiah has, I don't know, just kind to me, kind of like a flippant little response. So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, the word of the Lord which you have spoken is good. I think what he means by that, God is just. That's exactly the punishment that I deserve. But there's this little twist. At least there will be peace and truth in my days. That's someone else's problem, right? So at least in my days, I will be okay. And I don't know. The God doesn't condemn him. I don't know.

I don't know. We'll just leave it at that. And we'll finish with chapter 39 there, and I will, I see Xavier's got his hand up. So Xavier, go ahead. And any comments, questions, or?

Back to Second Chronicles in chapter 32, starting on verse 24. It gives the context that when he was sick, verse 25 said, but Hezekiah responded not again according to the good bunch, where his heart was lifted up. Therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. And in verse 26 says, not withstanding Hezekiah humbled himself with the pride of his heart in all the people of Jerusalem. The wrath of God did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah.

So there was a little issue. We all have it, right? It's a Muslim thing, but apparently he had a up and down problem. Yep, yep, indeed. And we see nowadays in secular world, people always, what they call flocks, they show off and then people rob them. So this was the first secret example of someone showing off their goods and then someone showing off their goods. That's right. I mean, if we show the whole world everything we have, we probably set ourselves as a target, right? For some reason. So, yeah. Hey, bud, or Gloria?

Take a watch.

Hello. Yep. That's my control.

When you're almost a year ago, I had a terrible accident. I broke my back with my wife, Gloria, and I were in this accident. And I spent up to a year suffering from the accident.

But I have faith that Christ will do what He tells us He will do. He said, ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. But what I found out is before the accident, I had sympathy for people that suffered. Now I have empathy. I mean, tears come to my eyes when I think of people that are suffering or they are abused. So getting back, but I had faith that Christ would do what He said He would do. But what I didn't realize at the time, yes, unless it's going against my will and purpose in your life, I will do it. But I had what I want to develop in you is empathy. And so I still believe that Scripture, by the way, and the other 400 plus scriptures that are promises in the Bible.

Over. Very good. You have learned a lesson from that, right? We go through things.

You're talking reminded me of 2 Corinthians 1, where it says, he's the God of all comfort. He comforts us so that we can comfort each other. And so sometimes we have to experience the pain so we can really empathize and pray more fervently for others who are going through pain. That's a very good point. Yeah, Dale. Yeah, thank you. Father, maybe you asked about the word that bitterness. Yes. And Mary. Yeah, I thought maybe I better explain. It seems like, would you agree, Hezekiah was kind of in a lot of sorrow more than anything. It seemed like maybe more like King David, you know, when King David was afflicted and his enemies were after him.

And Hezekiah here seems like it's more about sorrow when he praised the God for it to be healed and given extra life, right, extension of his life. It seems like it's more about sorrow and not really, and maybe somewhat discontent, but not, I don't, it doesn't seem to be about him being angry with God or anything. Yeah. Would you agree? I would agree. He doesn't look angry with God. He does look sorrowful, right? He wants to live. He's got all, and in the midst of all that, He's got, we always have a reason to live. I don't mean to sound like that, but I mean, He's got a lot going, I don't know how to explain it, but yes, I don't think He's mad at God. I don't think He's angry at God. He just is looking to God, give me more life, and reminding Him of what He has been doing in His life, that He is seeking His truth and seeking Him, and I think that's those things. So yeah, yeah, yeah, He's in the scene to be in the right attitude about it. Yeah, yeah, indeed.

Thank you. Hey, Berta.

Oh, you gotta, you have to unmute yourself, Berta. Sorry.

I might comment what it says in verse 8, in 1 Samuel 3, 18. That's very interesting. You can read it if you want.

1 Samuel 3, 18. 1 Samuel 3, 18. Let me get there.

1 Samuel 3, 18. Then Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him, and he said, it's the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. Right. Okay. So he's leaving God's tent. That's very wise, isn't it? He's God. He's God. Just let him do what he wants. Again, Jeremiah 29, 11 says, I only have thoughts of good for you. So whatever he puts us through is for our ultimate good. Yeah. Difficult at times, but always for our good.

Okay. Anything else? I guess we have, while you're thinking, we have completed another section of Isaiah here, a very short section on Hezekiah.

I'm going to try. I don't know that I'm going to have time to get a quiz together by next Wednesday, or even before then, since we're going to be up at the Canadian Ministers' Conference from Friday through Monday.

I've got several things to prepare for that before I go there. But you'll either get something from me by Monday, or we'll be starting a new section in chapter 40, and then I'll plan to have something with it the next week or so after that. I'll start working on it, but I don't know that I'm going to be able to get it done by time for next week. But anyway, start a new section next week. A whole new section. We'll talk about that as well.

We go back into some of these prophecies that God has had. These are hopeful leading up to for the next several chapters, but we'll talk more about that next week.

I heard that Bud had their hands up, but I have a feeling you just didn't have your hands up. And then that's okay. Mr. Shabir, Bud Bailey. Oh, yeah, Bud. I want to say that the quality of our Beyond Today programs are outstanding. Really outstanding. And we're getting the gospel message out to the world. Hopefully, where doors will open for those programs to go into other areas.

They're just outstanding with the 3% and wow, why?

It's just breathtaking to me. Yeah, we had an all-day meeting with the media people. We talked about the message and the things we need to do in more ways. But yeah, we know we need to step up the message. It'd be a little more powerful. I think the series that Daris and Steve and Gary have done, Gary's hasn't debuted yet, the viewership, the number of views of those programs have increased. And of course, in many markets, I don't think we have any going in Florida right now. We have some in the Midwest. We have some 30-second ads going on that are showing some pretty favorable results from what we were seeing in the number of new subscribers to our Beyond Today channel, the number of views, and things like that. So we're exploring more ways to get that gospel out and honing that message. Honing that message as well. Yeah, but please pray for that. That God leads us into what we need to do. We know that He knows the message He wants us to be sending out and the tone and everything. So ask Him to guide us and direct us in that. So okay, with that, I am going to sign off. Those of you who live in the Toronto area, we will look forward to seeing you this Sabbath. The rest of you have a wonderful rest of the week in Sabbath, and we will see each other next Wednesday, I hope. Okay?