Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, ’s Disease 1 | P a g e Series title slide We are going thru the from Genesis to Revelation this year.

In the last couple of weeks, we are in the historical books section of the that talks about the kings who ruled in Israel and Judah.

Today, I have a graphic that will help us to see the big picture of the kings.

Show Kings of Israel & Judah graphic There will not be a test on this later. This is just an aid to help you understand the OT a little better.

Saul is the first king. He was not a good king, hence the black graphic next to his name. Then God chose . David is a man after God’s heart. He is a white king. Then when David dies, his son becomes king. Solomon starts out faithful to God, but then strays.

Then Solomon’s son becomes king. But, shortly after Rehoboam is crowned, there is a civil war against him over forced labor. And the kingdom splits.

10 tribes in the north breakaway and make someone called Jeroboam king And then they are then called Israel.

2 tribes in the south, and all the , stay with Rehoboam and they are called Judah.

Both sides go on to have 20 kings for a total of 40 kings.

All the kings in the north in Israel are unfaithful to the Lord. They are all coded black.

The kings in the south in Judah – some are faithful. They are white. And some do some good and some evil. They are gray. And some kings of Judah are unfaithful to God and evil. They are black.

This morning I want to tell you the story of a king in the south in Judah called Hezekiah. Hezekiah is king in Judah around 700 years before Christ. We will see is an ALMOST entirely a good king. He should maybe have a little black line near his midpoint.

Most kings in the books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles, get ½ a chapter or a chapter. But, Hezekiah is such a good king, he gets 3 large sections in the Old Testament.

We find his story in –20, –32, & 36–39. because Isaiah was a prophet for God in Judah during the days of Hezekiah.

Perhaps you can take time later today to read these chapters through on your own.

Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 2 | P a g e And here’s the beginning of Hezekiah’s story in the book of 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 29:1-6 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in twenty-nine years. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. 3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the LORD and repaired them. 4 He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side 5 and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the LORD, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. 6 Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the LORD’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him.

So the temple was boarded up. There were no sacrifices taking place at the temple. There was no worship of God at the temple for years. And it was in disrepair and even had pagan things in it and done in it before it was shut.

But the people had not forgotten the Lord. And when Hezekiah becomes king, in his first month, in his first year, he changes that.

We talk about what our presidents get done in their first 100 days or first 30 days. Hezekiah, returns his nation to the Lord in his first month!

He gathers the priests. Because they are ’s family line, they still know who they are. And the Levites. That’s one of the tribes that’s responsible for the temple worship. He tells them to consecrate themselves, to purify themselves for service.

And they do some spring cleaning in the temple. It takes them 15 days to clean the whole temple area.

They return to their places all the temple furnishings and objects that the Levites saved when Hezekiah’s father had the temple shut.

Then, Hezekiah gathers all the officials in Jerusalem and they go to the temple And they make sacrifices. They make sin offerings for all the people and the leaders lay their hands on the heads of the offerings as representatives of the people.

They get out the musical instruments, harps and horns, and they sing and play and worship as the offerings are made.

Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 3 | P a g e Check this out. 2 Chronicles 29:30 (NIV) King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the LORD with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed down and worshiped.

What are the words of David and Asaph the seer? They are the Psalms! They sang the Psalms just like we find many of the Psalms described to be done.

The people all brought animal sacrifices as thank offerings and sin offerings, They brought so many animals for offerings that the text says there weren’t enough priests ready and trained to skin them fast enough.

That’s one of the good things Hezekiah does. He restores the temple.

(Blank) Then, Hezekiah announces to all the people that they were going to Celebrate the . He even sends invitations to all the tribes in the north to come.

The Passover is the meal that remembers and celebrates the time that God saved Israel from the Egyptians and set them free.

God had told the Israelites that every year in the first month they were to do it as a nation. But, when Hezekiah leads this revival, it’s already the second month of the year. But they can’t wait a whole year for the date to come around, so they do it in the wrong month on the wrong day.

It’s like if has been forgotten and then there’s a huge revival, And the people say, let’s celebrate Easter. And someone says, but Easter’s true date was last month. And they say, let’s do it anyway!

Then, when the people come from the lands in the north in Israel for this Passover, many of them haven’t consecrated themselves properly. So, the priest have to prepare their lambs.

And Hezekiah prays to God for them, saying: :18-20 “May the LORD, who is good, pardon everyone 19 who sets their heart on seeking God—the LORD, the God of their ancestors—even if they are not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.” 20 And the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people.

Sometimes we get the impression from some things in the OT that God is all about rules. But, this shows us that what’s truly important to God is setting our hearts on seeking Him! Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 4 | P a g e And then, it even goes further. The Passover usually is a meal that is followed by a week-long harvest festival. So all the Israelites would go to Jerusalem for a week long feast of Thanksgiving.

But in Hezekiah’s Passover, they are having such a great time, They all decide to stay for a second week. Hezekiah gives them a thousand bulls to sacrifice and eat. And the city officials give food for all the people. And the festival lasts 2 weeks!

It’s like your family comes home for Thanksgiving, And everybody has such a great time, that they all decide to call off work on Monday and stay an extra week!

Who here would love that?!?

That’s another one of the good things Hezekiah does. He Celebrates the Passover.

(blank slide) After this, when they all disperse and go home, they go throughout the land and destroy the sacred stones, the Baal worship places, and they tear down their Asherah poles and their altars and high places all thru the land.

That’s another good and right thing Hezekiah does.

Then, Hezekiah called on the people to return to giving God a , a tenth of all he provided.

2 Chronicles 31:4-5 He ordered the people living in Jerusalem to give the portion due the priests and Levites so they could devote themselves to the Law of the LORD. 5 As soon as the order went out, the Israelites generously gave the firstfruits of their grain, new wine, olive oil and honey and all that the fields produced. They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything.

They restored their temple. They got back to worship. They had great gatherings as a people on their holy days. They sought the Lord with all their hearts. They repented of their sins. They went through their houses and land and cleaned out all the idolatry. And then the rival even made it into their wallets!

Who here knows sometimes the last thing to get saved is the wallet?! 

Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 5 | P a g e They brought their to the house of God, it says, so the Levites and Priests could devote themselves to the Law of the Lord.

So the priests and the temple workers and the teachers of God’s Word didn’t have to do other work to feed their families, the people gave to support them.

That’s God’s plan. Thank you to all of you who trust God and do this for we who serve and who receive their support thru here.

They gave so much from their harvests over the next few months that the grain and produce and things dedicated to the Lord began to pile up.

The NIV Bible calls them heaps. They heaped things on piles so high that Hezekiah told them to build storerooms for it.

That’s another good and right thing Hezekiah does.

Everything is awesome! But then, :1 After all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, king of came and invaded Judah.

The Assyrians were the first terrorists. They used terror to win their wars.

We have stone carvings from the Assyrians still today that show the horrible way they treated their enemies. They show men impaled on poles from their bottoms up through their bodies. They made the carvings & put them on the walls of their cities to terrorize would-be attackers.

During Hezekiah’s father’s days, the Assyrians had conquered Israel, the northern tribes. When they won, they took all the men and women and children who could work and carried them off to Assyria to make them slaves.

They left only the old and feeble and the few that escaped capture or who defected.

And now, about 20 years have passed. It’s 10 years into Hezekiah’s reign, and Sennacherib king of Assyria comes for Judah.

The people of Judah, the Jews, all run into their fortified cities. The Assyrian army surrounds Jerusalem, the capital.

And they sit like that for a looong time. They want the people to starve so they’ll give up. Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 6 | P a g e Eventually, Sennacherib sends his official to read a letter to Hezekiah’s officials and to all the people sitting on top of the city wall.

And he mocks the Lord. Saying “has any other god saved any other people from me?”

And the other Assyrian officials say all kinds of things against the Lord.

Hezekiah is delivered a copy of Sennacherib’s letter. Look what Isaiah says he did with it. :14 Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: 16 “Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17 Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.

And who knows what happened?

Isaiah 37:36–37 Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to and stayed there.

The angel of the Lord wiped out 180,000 Assyrian soldiers outside Jerusalem. It’s not wrong to say that maybe he did that by some toxin or disease in their water supply.

So, Hezekiah prays humble prayers and he trusts in the Lord and the Lord delivers him.

That’s another good thing Hezekiah does.

But, there are a couple things Hezekiah does that aren’t so good. They are written at the end of his story in each of the places in the Bible, Even though they seem to have happened some time earlier.

One of them is this. :1–5 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 7 | P a g e 2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 “Remember, LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5 “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.

So Hezekiah gets sick. He has some kind of skin disease – maybe leprosy or plague.

Isaiah comes to him and says, the Lord says “to put your house in order.” Wow! That’s stunning right?

Maybe he’s saying decide who is going to succeed you as king. Maybe he’s saying something spiritual.

He prays and the Lord is gracious. He gives Hezekiah 15 more years.

That’s why I have called Jack Wilkinson Hezekiah. He’s been in rough shape several times, but the Lord keeps giving him more years.

But in this, Hezekiah does something that’s not so great, he says “Lord, remember how good I am.” “Lord, remember my good works.”

The writer of 2 Chronicles tells it a little more that way. He writes: 2 Chronicles 32:24–25 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the LORD, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the LORD’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.

Hezekiah, seems to have had a problem with pride. “It’s all about me! I do it. I’m great. I get the glory.

And at some point, he seems to have forgotten that it’s the Lord who’s doing everything for him.

If you have a serious illness, it is absolutely fine to pray to the Lord for healing. And to trust him . and even ask for Hezekiah’s blessing.

But, in that prayer, let it not be your own good works you appeal to. Let your appeal be to the pure unmerited grace of God that you have because of the good work of his Son, Jesus Christ. Amen! Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 8 | P a g e And then that pride comes out in this last event.

2 Kings 20:12–19 At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah’s illness. 13 Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine olive oil—his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them. 14 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come from?” “From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came from Babylon.” 15 The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?” “They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.” 16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD: 17 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. 18 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 19 “The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”

So, Babylon is the other superpower in the region during this century. The Assyrians are north. The Babylonians are off to the east. They hear Hezekiah is sick and the king sends his son with a get well card and a gift.

And Hezekiah shows them everything in his treasure house and everything in his armory. All his money and all his weapons. ?!?

Either he is thoughtlessly and gullibly showing off, Or, he is trying to show the Babylonians that he’s a worthy ally against Assyria. Either way, both go back to his pride.

Hezekiah had a great opportunity to tell the Babylonians about his sickness, his prayer, and what God had done. If he was remembering God in this moment, there would have been no need to show off or impress them as allies. Because it would all have been about God’s glory, not Hezekiah’s.

And this is the part that really gets me. Isaiah, the prophet of God, tells him because he has shown these things to the Babylonians, One day everything in his palace will be carried off to Babylon. Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 9 | P a g e And some of his sons or his grandsons, will be carried off too. And they will be castrated – powerless, servants in the Babylon.

And what is Hezekiah’s response? He says, “the words you have said are good Isaiah,” because, he thought, this means I will have peace and security in my lifetime!

Do you see that?! “Oh, because of what I’ve just done in my vanity, my kingdom, my children, and my people will one day be conquered and carried off. But just as long as it happens after I’m gone, it’s all good. ?!?!

Hezekiah is only interested in himself. He makes no prayer for help now. He doesn’t repent and beg for another reprieve. He says, “Oh, as long as it doesn’t affect my lifestyle now, that’s fine.”

(Blank slide) And here’s the thing this makes me wonder, “Is this us?” “Is this our generation in our world and in our country?”

We are exhausting our world’s natural resources. They won’t be there for our children or grandchildren.

Water itself will likely be a scarce resource in our children or grandchildren’s lifetimes.

And are we doing enough to conserve? Or are we saying, as long as I have peace and security in my lifetime, it’s all good?

We are causing the extinction of 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal every day. That’s nearly 1,000 times the rate that would occur naturally.

We are polluting our earth and filling our atmosphere with carbon dioxide at an unprecedented rate causing sea levels to rise from warming. 2016, 2015, 2014 are the 3 warmest years on record. 1, 2, and 3.

It is getting harder to deny this. Some who deny this, do it for purely selfish economic reasons. “Why should we stop if other countries like China won’t.”

Others claim it’s not a problem under the theory that the earth has these fluctuations naturally and will rebalance itself.

That is possible, but we are betting our grandchildren’s world on our theory. Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 10 | P a g e Will there not be peace and security in our lifetime? Then, we’re good.

In this country we are 20 trillion dollars in debt. That’s nearly $60,000 dollars debt for every man, woman, and child in our country.

And yet we spend and spend. And we can’t stop spending because many of our politicians are as spineless and self-interested and would never do what needs done because they’d never get reelected..

We owe 20 trillion dollars. And this year we will borrow another 440 billion dollars to spend on things we want, And we kick the problem of paying for it all to our children and our grandchildren.

Governmental agencies and private oversight groups say we are nearly at the point of insolvency. If we do not change, we will someday go bankrupt as a nation.

And in recent history, When nations go bankrupt, their people lose weight because they don’t eat.

Will there not be peace and security in our lifetime? Then, we’re good.

We should start calling this Hezekiah’s Disease.

The prideful delusion that one gets after having it so good for so long, that it doesn’t matter what consequences our actions have on others, just so long as we have everything we want in our lifetime.

America has Hezekiah’s Disease.

I heard a talk radio piece a couple weeks ago about a book that was recently released called A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

The author Bruce Gibney argues that the disease is sociopathy. Sociopaths don’t care about how their actions effect other people. They don’t care about how their actions affect society. They don’t care how their actions will affect their children. They don’t plan for the future. They are unable to have empathy – to care about how other people feel. Sermon, 2017-03-26, Genesis to Revelation, Hezekiah’s Disease 11 | P a g e He doesn’t deny that not all Baby Boomers act this way.

But as a generation, we (and I am on the very end of the boomers) have presided over our country as policies have been enacted that have led to the problems we are in – and we are content to let our children and grandchildren suffer from our mess, just so long as we get all the entitlements we must have.

Will there not be peace and security in our lifetime? Then, we’re good.

We could call it Hezekiah’s Disease. You can read the book and see if it’s right to call it Sociopathy. Or we could just call it ... pride.

Pride.

Read about Hezekiah. Follow the good examples he gives to us and how they apply to us. Pray about these things and reflect on them. Get yourself out of debt. At some point it may get harder to get out if you are still in it. Make wise investment choices. Support persons for service in our government who are wisely trying to cut spending. Be a good steward of this earth that God has given us. Support those who work to protect it for our children and grandchildren. Live a life that’s centered on others, not on you. Pray for God’s grace.

One thing we can look forward to though, when people can no longer depend on themselves, when they can’t trust in man, when they can’t trust in their own ability to fix their problems, they return to the Lord.

Suffering creates a need for God.

I want my children and grandchildren to want God. I am willing that they even need God in their lives. I do not want that need to come from suffering for my sins. None of us do. I want them to seek God with their hearts because of his love. Let’s pray.