Hezekiah

LIFE LESSONS
HEZEKIAH
DR. JIM DIXON
2 KINGS 18:1-7
OCTOBER 12, 2003

In the year 1880, two boys were wading in the ancient Pool of Siloam in the city of Jerusalem. They made an incredible discovery. They found a plaque which today is called the Siloam Inscription. The Siloam Inscription was inscribed by the order of King Hezekiah, King of Judah, in the 8th century before Christ. Today the Siloam Inscription may be found in the Turkish Archeological Museum in Istanbul. It tells the story of the building of Hezekiah’s Tunnel.

It was King Hezekiah, King of Judah who, in the 8th century before Christ, commanded that a tunnel be built to bring water supply from outside of the city of Jerusalem into the city of Jerusalem. So, he commanded that the water from the virgin fount, from the Gahan Spring, that water be brought by a newly constructed tunnel into the city of Jerusalem, into the Pool of Siloam. He commanded that the cave in which the Gahan Spring was located be sealed off and this tunnel, actually 1700 feet long, be built by his group of engineers and that it might bring the water into the city of Jerusalem, into the Pool of Siloam. This fortified the city of Jerusalem so it had an unassailable water supply in a time of siege. That tunnel, Hezekiah’s Tunnel, remains to this day. Some of you have gone over there as tourists and you’ve walked through it, crawled through it in places. The Siloam Inscription remains in Istanbul today.

For many people, when they think of King Hezekiah, this is what they think of. They think of Hezekiah’s Tunnel; they think of the Siloam Inscription. That’s too bad because Hezekiah was one of the great kings of history. We should think of him not simply in terms of his fleet of engineers and the building of a tunnel. We should think of him as a good and godly king, the best king of the Kingdom of Judah.

We have two life lessons this morning from King Hezekiah. The first life lesson concerns prayer. It concerns the power of prayer. God wants you to know today that prayer is powerful. We come to 2 Chronicles, chapter 32; we come to 2 Kings, chapter 20; we come to the Book of Isaiah, chapter 38. In each of those passages, we’re told the same story. We’re told how King Hezekiah, in the year 701 B.C. became ill. He became gravely ill. He was near to death. The Bible doesn’t give us enough detail about the illness to know exactly what it was. Some Bible scholars believe it was cancer. Some Bible scholars believe that it was leprosy. Some believe it was the plague, but we know that this disease was terminal.

Isaiah the Prophet was sent by God to the King of Judah, to King Hezekiah, and he said, “This disease is going to take your life. Set your house in order; you’re about to die. King Hezekiah, the “praying king,” knew what to do. He went to his room, into his chamber, and he got down on his knees and he began to pray. In the midst of his tears, he began to pray. He cried out to the Lord his God and he reminded Him how his heart was after God’s own heart and how he had always tried to serve the Lord with all of his heart. He asked God to give him more years. God heard his prayer and God spoke to the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah came to the King of Judah, and Isaiah said, “The Lord has heard your prayer. He will heal you of this disease and extend your years. You will live for 15 more years. And so, it was.

I know that God has done the same for some of you. I know that there are some of you here who we’ve prayed for and God has extended your years. You’ve had serious disease and medically you were not expected to live, but God has extended your years, and you’re here this morning because God has extended your years. There are some of you here who have been completely healed of what was deemed a terminal disease. God has extended your years in such a way that you may live to the fullness of years, this all by the power of God.

There is a great mystery to healing, and we all acknowledge that. It’s a mystery as to why God sometimes intervenes and comes supernaturally and heals us and why other times, He withholds His healing power. We don’t understand all of those things, but we know we are to pray and we know that prayer taps the power of God.

We come again to 2 Chronicles, chapter 32, and we come to 2 Kings, chapter 18 and we come to Isaiah, chapter 36 and we’re told of another incident in the life of King Hezekiah. Once again there was a problem, a different kind of problem. The Assyrians wanted to conquer the Kingdom of Judah. The vast army of the Assyrians under King Sennacherib came to conquer the nation of Judah. All of the border cities that Hezekiah had built along the borders of Judah were just demolished by the massive forces of the Assyrian armies. Sennacherib and the Assyrians approached the Holy City of Jerusalem. They sent an emissary. He approached the gates of the city of Jerusalem. The emissary told the people to surrender. He mocked the armies of Judah, and he mocked the God of Hezekiah, the one true God.

The people inside the city of Jerusalem trembled in fear, but Hezekiah knew what to do. He went into his chamber and he prayed. He got down on his knees and he prayed. He prayed for God to deliver Jerusalem. Once again God spoke through Isaiah the Prophet. Isaiah came to Hezekiah and Isaiah said, “The Lord has heard your prayer and He will spare Jerusalem. In fact, not one Assyrian arrow will approach the city.” That very night, the Bible tells us, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers died in their sleep. King Sennacherib and his remaining forces returned to Assyria in shame. He was assassinated by two of his sons. You might be thinking, “Well, I’m not sure I believe that.” You might be thinking, “Well, that sounds a little incredible to me,” and perhaps you’re incredulous. You just don’t believe that story from the Bible. But once again the Bible is confirmed by Para biblical literature and the Assyrian records themselves confirm this event in history.

You can go to the writing of Herodotus, the Greek historian who examined so much of the Mediterranean world and the Middle Eastern world, seeking to determine their histories. Herodotus wrote 9 different history books. In book 2, chapter 141, he tells the story of the destruction of the Assyrian armies as they approached the siege of Jerusalem. According to Herodotus and the reports that he received from Assyrian people, unheard numbers of field mice just came in droves by the thousands into the Assyrian encampment and devoured their bowstrings and the quivers for their arrows so they had nothing to keep their arrows in. The mice brought some unheard of devastating deadly plague throughout the encampment. Incredible!

Of course, all the Bible tells us is that God answered prayer. God answered prayer. He wants you to know that. There’s great power in prayer. Prayer transforms us. Prayer brings us into the presence of God and incredibly into intimacy with God and with His Son Jesus Christ. Prayer affects the events of our lives. In the year 1884, a young man took a trip to Europe. There were so many places this young man wanted to see, but as he was in Europe he came down with typhoid fever and he died. His parents, that same year—1884, were devastated because they loved him so much. They journeyed to Europe to retrieve his body that they might bring it home to America. As they were on the ship coming home, they resolved that their son would not have lived in vain. They resolved that their son would be remembered in memorial, that they would establish some lasting memorial in the name of their son. Their son had been a great student, brilliant in his studies.

They went to Harvard University. At Harvard University, they approached Charles Elliot who was the President of Harvard. They said they wanted to establish a memorial in the name of their son. Charles Elliot said, “Well, we can establish a scholarship in the name of your son here at Harvard so that every year a student can come to Harvard under your son’s scholarship.” The parents weren’t satisfied with that. They said they were looking for a greater memorial, something more substantial. Charles Elliot, President of Harvard, looked at this couple, looked at this mom and dad and the clothing they were wearing and he thought, “They don’t look very wealthy to me,” and so, he said, “Let’s just leave it at the educational scholarship in your son’s name.” The parents politely refused and they left the office. Charles Elliot really didn’t think about it anymore. It was out of sight, out of mind, until one year later.

Charles Elliot was reading the newspaper and was stunned to see the name of this couple, the parents of the young man. He was stunned to see that they had indeed established a memorial in the name of their son. They had established that memorial with a gift of $26 million, an unheard-of sum of money in 1885. They had used all of that money to establish, as their memorial to their son, a University named in honor of their son, Leland Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Charles Elliot, President of Harvard, understood he had missed an opportunity.

Isn’t life like that? There are a lot of missed opportunities in life. History is just filled with missed opportunities and your history is filled with missed opportunities if you haven’t been a person of prayer. I promise you if you’ve not been daily in prayer, if you’ve not been fervent in prayer, you’ve missed incredible opportunities because prayer taps the power of God. Your future can be different if you would become a person of prayer.

The NFL season comes to an end next year, on February 1 when the Super Bowl is played. That’s when the Super Bowl will be played next year, February 1. It’s a single sports event with a greater audience than any other sports event in the world. More people watch the Super Bowl than any other singular sports event. Of course, a lot of people watch the Super Bowl because they really want to see the commercials. They want to see the humor of the commercials and the creativity of the commercials.

On Super Bowl XXXVII, there was a humorous FedEx commercial. You might remember it. It showed a FedEx employee whose plane had crashed. The commercial was kind of a mockup of Tom Hanks and the movie, “Castaway.” This FedEx employee looked amazingly like Tom Hanks. He finds himself marooned on this island. He has a FedEx package, still unopened. He resolves not to open it because he’s a FedEx employee and he still, someday if he ever gets off the island, is going to deliver it to the address that’s on the package. Well, he’s marooned on the island for five years. At the end of five years, he’s rescued and he takes that FedEx package to the address on the package. A woman opens the door and he gives her the FedEx package. She takes it into the house, opens it, and looks into the box. She doesn’t take anything out. The FedEx employee is curious and he says, “Hey, before I go, I’ve just got to know what’s in the box? What was in the box?” She said, “Nothing particularly important. There’s just a satellite telephone, a global positioning instrument, a compass, an air purifier and some seeds”—a package that would have done him a world of good during those five years.

There are a lot of packages left unopened that could bless you. God’s got some packages that are only opened through prayer. If you would become a person of prayer, you would see those packages open and you would see the blessings of God in your life and the blessings of God, perhaps, in the lives of people you love and pray for.

Hezekiah illustrates the power of prayer. We have a second teaching from Hezekiah and that concerns worship and the purity of worship. Hezekiah was the king who purified the worship of Judah, the worship of Israel. I know that many of you have heard of Antiochus IV. Antiochus IV was King of the Seleucid Empire in the second century before Christ. He ruled much of the territory that had been conquered by Alexander the Great. Antiochus IV was often called Antiochus Epiphanes because he had taken the title Theos Epiphanes which means, “God manifest.” Antiochus Epiphanes had a massive ego. He minted coins, incredibly, with his face on the coin, the rays of the sun descending upon his head, and the Greek words, “Theos Epiphanes,” “God manifest.”

Many of the people in the Greek world referred to him as Antiochus Epiphanes, a similar sounding word, but Epiphanes means “madman.” Perhaps he was mad but he was also brilliant. He was powerful. His Seleucid armies were massive. The year was 168 B.C. when Antiochus Epiphanes took his Seleucid armies south towards Egypt. He was going to conquer Egypt. He was going to conquer the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt. He knew he had the power to do it. He knew he had the greater armies. He knew he had the greater might. He was about to conquer Egypt in 168 B.C. What he didn’t know is that Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, had entered into an alliance with the Roman Empire.

Antiochus Epiphanes was approaching the borders of Egypt, in that year, 168 B.C., and there came a Roman fleet to the shore. It was led by a commander named General Popillius Laenas. He brought his Roman Legion onshore. His army, the Roman Army, was not nearly as large as the forces of Antiochus Epiphanes, but he approach Antiochus Epiphanes and he drew a line in the sand is what historians tell us. He said, “Rome has entered into an alliance with Egypt. If you cross this line, you are not only at war with Egypt, you are at war with Rome.” Antiochus Epiphanes knew that he had the army to defeat Egypt. He knew he had the army to defeat that small force led by Popillius Laenas, but he also knew he could never face ultimately the might of Rome. He had studied in Rome. He had seen the power of their legions. He knew he was not ready to go against Rome, and so, he turned his Seleucid armies around. He knew he was not ready to go against Rome, and so, he turned his Seleucid armies around. He began to march north. His ego was damaged and his rage was great.

He took his Seleucid armies into Jerusalem because Judah and Israel was a vassal state of his. In his wrath, as he took his armies into Jerusalem, they just slaughtered men, women and children in the streets. Members of his army raped Jewish women in the streets. Soldiers from his army went into the Temple on Mt. Moriah and they desecrated the temple itself, putting up some kind of a pagan shrine in the Holy of Holies, a desecrating sacrilege.

Over the next three years, the Jewish people revolted. It was called the Maccabean Revolt led by Judas Maccabeus. In the year 164, the Jewish people prevailed and they retook the Temple and the Temple Mount. They went in and they cleansed the Temple and they purified it. They consecrated it, and they rededicated it. Of course, that is all celebrated by the Jewish people today at the Festival of Hanukkah which will be celebrated again this year in just a few months.

When we think of the purification and the cleansing of the Temple, perhaps we think of Hanukkah in that event. And yet it was Hezekiah who purified the temple from a debauchery that was every bit as great. It was Hezekiah, King of Israel, who in his time purified the Temple from a desecration of prior Kings of Judah, a desecration that had lasted for decades and for centuries. Hezekiah went into the Temple with a heart devoted to God, and he purified it. He removed all the pagan altars and the pagan shrines from the Jerusalem Temple. He purified the Holy of Holies. He opened up the portions of the Temple that had been closed. He reinstituted the Levitical Priesthood. He reestablished the Festival of Passover, and he called his people to come and worship the One True God.

When we think of Hezekiah, we should think of the purity of worship. Now, we see two simple little things in King Hezekiah with regard to the purity of worship. First, concerns the purity of focus. If we’re going to worship in purity, our focus on Christ, our focus on God, needs to be pure. It needs to be pure. Hezekiah was concerned that the Jewish people had a pure focus on God. And so, the Bible tells us he did four simple little things. They’re actually big things. First of all, he removed the high places. God wanted the people to focus on Yahweh Elohim, the One True God, in the Temple in Jerusalem so he went around Judah and he removed all the high places. Most of them had become pagan shrines. He tore them down. Then we’re told he broke the pillars. Hezekiah broke the pillars.

We might think, “Well, what does that mean?” The Hebrew word for pillar is not the word, “malmute” which is the normal word for architectural pillar. The Hebrew word that is used here for pillar is the word, “masabauth.” This word masabauth referred to a special kind of pillar called a “minhir,” called a “megalithic monument.” He broke the megalithic monuments.

Do you want to know what it is to break a megalithic monument? I want you to see a humorous brief clip from the movie, European Vacation:

“See that? That’s Stonehenge. Fantastic, eh? Take a last look, kids. One of man’s most curious creations. It was built to stand the test of time and the elements, war, you name it. It’s a thing of glory for a million future generations to see and we were here!” The whole thing is “domino crashing” behind them.

And so, it was that the Griswold family destroyed Stonehenge. Of course, Stonehenge is a megalithic monument. The word megalith just means, “large stone.” In a megalithic monument, each stone is called a menhir. Each stone weighs 25 to 100 short tons. They are huge. They couldn’t really be moved by a little car. I mean they are HUGE. When the menhirs, when each individual stone is arranged in a circle, it’s called a hinge. When they are arranged in lines like at Karnack in France, it’s called an alignment. But sometimes the menhirs are individual megalithic monuments. They were found throughout the biblical world in the time of King Hezekiah and throughout Judah.

There were these megalithic stones, these megalithic monuments, these menhirs. Most of them were dedicated to Baal and most of them were shaped like a phallic symbol because Baal was a fertility god. These were all over Judah. They were at the high places and even in the Temple. It was Hezekiah, King of Israel, who purified the focus of Israel’s religion and just shattered and broke the pillars.

We’re told he cast down the Asherah. Asherah was the name of the fertility goddess who was the consort of Baal. Those shrines dedicated to her were called Asherah. It was Hezekiah who cast down those shrines and temples. We’re told that Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. You can go back to Numbers, chapter 21, and you can read about the serpent that Moses made—a bronze serpent. He made it by the will of God and by the commandment of God, and put it on the end of a pole. The people of Israel who had defied God were being bitten and diseased and dying from serpents. The power of God was released through that bronze serpent. If the people would just look at it, you remember, they were healed.

Well, that bronze serpent was kept by the people of Israel. It was placed, perhaps, in the Temple. They had begun to worship it and burnt incense to it. It was a kind of good snake gone bad. And so, Hezekiah came and he destroyed it. He wanted the people, you see, to focus on nothing but God. You really go back to the first two commandments of the Decalogue, “You shall have no other Gods besides Me. You should not make for yourself any graven image. Don’t worship any ONE or anything besides God.” Let your focus be pure.

If we would worship with purity, we need a pure focus. Of course, we worship a Triune God, a Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Really as Christians, we see God uniquely through His Son because it’s the Son who brings and who gives the Spirit and it’s the Son who reflects the Father. “No one has ever seen the Father. The only Son who was in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. He is the visible image of the invisible God.” Jesus said to His disciples, “He who has Me has seen the Father.” Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.” Our focus is Christo-centric. As we worship God, we see God through Christ. That focus needs to be pure if our worship is pleasing. That focus needs to be pure.

Hezekiah also shows us that our heart must be pure. I mean, if we’re really going to worship, our focus needs to be pure and our heart needs to be pure. The Bible tells us that King Hezekiah had a pure heart, and he trusted the Lord, the God of Israel. There was none like him among any of the kings that came after him nor amongst any of the kings that were before him. There were none like him. He trusted the Lord and he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him. He kept His commandments. His heart was pure.

Of course, if we’re to have a pure heart, we need to cleanse the temple. The Jerusalem Temple is no more. The Temple of Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587. The Temple of Herod was destroyed by Titus and his Roman Legions in 70 A.D. The Bible says, “The only temple that remains is the temple of the church, the saints.” YOU are a temple. You became a temple when first you believed and you asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. You became a temple and the Spirit of Christ came to live and reside and dwell in you. You became a house of God, a temple. If our worship is to be pure, we need to make sure that the temple is cleansed, and we need to come in repentance, confession. We really need to do that every day, that we might be pure of heart as we come to the Lord.

I think sometimes purity is misunderstood. Sometimes some of you will write me a letter. You’ll send a copy to Sean. Or you’ll write Sean a letter and you’ll send a copy to me, complaining about our music. And as though it reflects impure worship. If our worship were pure, we would be singing more hymns instead of praise songs. If our worship was pure, our praise team would be standing still instead of moving so much because that physicality somehow indicates impure worship. I think that’s such a misunderstanding. In the Bible, worship varies so much, but God cares about a pure heart. That’s what God is looking for. It doesn’t matter whether we sing a praise song or whether we sing a hymn if our heart is pure and our focus is on Christ.

It doesn’t matter whether we’re standing still, whether we’re kneeling on our knees, whether our heads are bowed, our eyes closed or whether we’re dancing if our heart is pure. I mean, you look in the scriptures and worship sometimes involves dancing and shouting and hands raised. David worshipped dancing in the nude which I promise we’re not going to do. But, you see, God was pleased. God was pleased because God looks at the heart.

I think sometimes we’re confusing taste with purity. We all have different tastes. That’s true in food. I mean there are a lot of you who like Feta cheese. My wife loves Feta cheese. I can’t stand Feta cheese, and there seems to be some kind of Feta cheese movement out there. You see Feta cheese in salads… Even in sandwiches now you see Feta cheese. I saw a Feta cheeseburger the other day. I don’t like feta cheese! I can’t stand the smell of Feta cheese. I can’t stand the taste of Feta cheese. I don’t want to be near Feta cheese. But, you see, I’m not to the point where I would call Feta cheese evil. I know Feta cheese is not evil. It’s just a matter of taste. Some people like it. Some people don’t.

That’s how it is with music. It’s a matter of taste, but God looks on the heart. Some of you like praise songs. Some of you like hymns. Some of you like contemplative worship. Some of you like celebratory worship. Some of you like people to stand still. Some of you like people to dance around. It’s all okay to God. He’s looking at the heart.

Some of you will write me and say, “It’s performance.” You don’t know that because that would be a matter of the heart, and we’re not to judge. God judges the heart. I think when we get to heaven, worship is going to be diverse. Some of you are going to complain. You’re going to try to explain worship to God. You see, God will tell you it’s about purity—purity of focus, purity of the heart.

So, what we’re going to do is have the praise team come up here and the band come out and we’re going to have a little time of worship. We want to remember that worship focuses on God, through His son Jesus Christ, with that pure focus, with no distractions. Worship is a matter of the heart. With the temple cleansed, having confessed sin, having been forgiven by the shed blood of Christ and with a pure heart before Christ. I just would remind you too about prayer. Prayer is powerful. Come Thursday night to a prayer service we have at 7:00. Open a few packages. Let God bless you and those you love. Prayer has great power. Thank you.