Episode Transcript
Good morning.
It's 10 o'clock.
Time to begin our Sunday school class.
Our adult Bible study.
And we had just begun to study 2nd Kings Chapter 20 verse one last week when the Clock interrupted us.
So we'll turn back right back there and redeem the time we have this morning. 2nd Kings Chapter 20 verse one.
And let's reread verse one and then we'll move from there.
I'll wait till everybody gets there.
Alright, 2nd Kings Chapter 20 verse one in those days was Hezekiah sick unto death and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amos came to him and said unto him thus sayeth the Lord set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live.
And we were reminded last week when we began began to study that verse that no matter how righteous.
Or evil a man is.
No matter his position in life.
We will all be sick unto death in one way or another.
Now it may be a long drawn out illness, or it may be a very sudden death.
We don't really get to choose that.
And upon that premise that Hezekiah would die, we further read there in verse one.
And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos, came to him and said unto him thus sayeth the Lord.
Now we'll stop right there.
Isaiah is about to deliver a blunt message to King Hezekiah.
And boy, let me tell you, he's not afraid to do it either.
He's speaking to a king, the King of Judah.
A godly King.
And he's not afraid to tell him.
This very blunt message.
But let me direct your attention to something here that I think is wonderful.
And we know that Hezekiah, excuse me, that Isaiah was a prophet of God.
And the words he spoke were God's words.
So on his deathbed, Hezekiah was about to hear God's words.
Now let me tell you something.
I don't know when I'll die or how I'll die, whether it'll be a disease or an accident or some other means.
But if I happen to spend my last earthly days on a sickbed and you come see me, would you do me a favor?
Would you read God's words to me?
I know Doug will.
If he comes to see me, all I'll have to do is just point at that Bible and he'll say, I know what to do.
And that's what I'll need more than anything else.
After all, a Christian on his deathbed is about to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
And after my death or the death of any Christian and throughout all eternity, God's words are going to be all that we hear anyway.
That's all that's going to rule the day is God's word.
And that's all that I'll speak is God's word and all that I'll know.
And while I live on this earth, even in my last moments, the only words I really need to hear are God's words.
Now I hear a lot of other words.
I hear words from my supervisors and from my family and from the fellow across the street and the nosy neighbor, but I don't need to hear all those words to live, but I do need to hear God's words.
And as much as I love my family and my friends, their words didn't save me.
Their words can't save me.
Only the gospel, God's words, can do that.
Man's word didn't give me life.
And when I trusted in man's word, it often let me down.
Just like I let people down if they trusted in my words.
And when I sought wisdom in man's words, they often led me astray.
When I spoke them, they often showed me to be a fool.
And therefore, I earnestly covet that it would be God's words that I hear above all others when I am as Hezekiah is in this verse.
And Isaiah told him, look back in verse one at the end of the verse, "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live."
And this is the blunt message that Isaiah gave to Hezekiah.
Now from a carnal standpoint, from a worldly standpoint, Isaiah did not bring words of peace and comfort to Hezekiah.
But from a spiritual standpoint, he did.
Remember, Hezekiah in this verse is not sitting on his throne, playing with his grandchildren, enjoying good health.
He is sick unto death.
And he must be in terrible pain, hanging on to life barely.
And he was told, "Set thine house in order."
And that phrase is from three Hebrew words and two of them are the same.
The word set and the words in order are from the exact same Hebrew word.
And they mean a command.
And then the words thine house is referring to his household, not just the building, the castle, the palace, or any of that, but the household, the family, the servants, the possessions and commitments, all of that is his household.
So by the word of Isaiah, which was the word of God, Hezekiah was to give commands concerning how his house should be commanded.
And although we're not told what those commandments would be, it probably has to do with telling each person what his duties were or how property was to be divided and so forth.
It replaced the writing of a will as far as I can tell.
And Hezekiah now knows what he has to do before he dies.
He was told, "Set your house in order, you're going to die."
Now if you think about those very few words being the words that Isaiah told a dying man, a dying Christian king, "Set your house in order, you're about to die," then that means setting your house in order is very important.
If you're a Christian, you're already going to be with the Lord when you die.
But what about your household?
Now you can't make people in your household become Christians, but you can set your house in order.
And that's the command here.
The words "thine house" tell us what should be important to a man before he dies.
Not right before he dies only, but at any time before he dies, which is right now, isn't it?
If you're alive, then this is before your death in case you needed help with that.
This is before you die.
And your house is, as we said, more than the building in which you live, it's the sum total of everybody in your house, your family, your possessions and commitments and contracts and what have you.
In fact, the word "house" here in our text is translated as the word "family" and also the word "temple" in the Old Testament.
Listen for that word "temple" here in 2 Kings 11 verse 10, which we've already studied.
But 2 Kings 11 verse 10 says, "And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give King David's spears and shields that were in the temple of the Lord."
The word "temple" is the same as "house."
It's the same word in our text.
And then 1 Chronicles chapter 6 verse 10, 1 Chronicles 6 verse 10 says, "And Johanan begat Azariah.
He it is that executed the priest's office in the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem."
And again, that word "temple" is the same as the word "house" in our text.
And just those two verses from 2 Kings and 1 Chronicles tell us the temple or the house of the Lord was more than a building.
It contains items inside.
It has a priesthood.
And if it had a priesthood, then those priests had certain beliefs and certain duties that were dictated by a certain doctrine.
You know, when the Lord gave Moses the pattern of the tabernacle and its furnishings when He gave commandments concerning the priesthood and the garments they were to wear and the duties they were to carry out and all the details that pertain to it, that house was to be a house of order.
What did Isaiah tell Hezekiah?
"Set thine house in order."
In Exodus chapter 25, God gave commandments to Moses about the offerings and the Ark of the Covenant, the table of showbread and the golden lampstand.
And those were... the Ark of the Covenant, of course, was in that Holy of Holies.
The table of showbread and the golden lampstand were in the holy place just before the Holy of Holies.
But listen to what God said to Moses there in verse 40.
This is Exodus 25 verse 40.
Speaking of these things, He said, "And look, that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount."
Now, a pattern is a plan, isn't it?
And it describes how something should be formed.
It puts things in order.
And even though the Lord commanded or gave commandments about the order of every single thing and every single person who pertained to that tabernacle, man turned it into disorder.
And if you have read or if you remember reading, we've done it here through those very fine details of the making of even the hooks on the curtains and what they're made of and how many they're supposed to be and how far apart they're supposed to be.
And you just get dizzy reading all that.
Listen, that is a house of order.
God gave the pattern.
He gave it exactly like He wanted it built.
And when they took it down and put it back up, they were to put it back up exactly the way they put it up the first time.
It was a house of order.
Matthew chapter 21 verse 12 through 14.
Now here's what happens when man takes something that God put in order and he messes around with it.
Matthew 21 verses 12 through 14.
And Jesus went into the temple of God.
Now what is that?
That's the house of God, isn't it?
And cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold doves and said unto them, it is written my house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them.
Now do you think for a minute that Jesus would have done this if the house of the Lord were in order?
You think He'd have gone in there with a whip and driven these people out?
Not if His house was in order.
He'd have worshiped with them.
They'd have worshiped Him, the one true God, the one who the temple was all about.
He'd have been pleased that His Father's will was obeyed.
But what was out of the order about the Lord's house in that passage?
Well, there are a couple of things at least.
One, it had become a house of commerce rather than a place of sacrifice and offering.
Nowhere in the Old Testament do you read of God commanding the selling of animals or the exchanging of money, which is banking, in His house.
They were to bring money.
They were to bring animals for sacrifice.
But God didn't say, oh, and you guys set up shop inside that tabernacle or in the temple later on and, you know, make some money while you're in there off these people who don't have the animals.
He never gave commandment concerning that.
He never said to do that.
And the second thing that's out of order in the Lord's house was the lack of prayer.
When Jesus drove those money changers out, those thieves out, He said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you've made it a den of thieves."
So what was out of order is that it was not a house of prayer.
And you might ask yourself, well, how is the temple or the tabernacle a house of prayer?
I'm not real sure.
Well, what about that altar of incense?
You remember that?
That was one of the pieces of furnishing there.
The altar of incense in the Old Testament tabernacle was placed right before the entrance to the Holy of Holies.
That was the last thing the priest saw.
Well, he saw the curtain, but the last furnishing he saw before, the high priest, before he went into the Holy of Holies once a year, was that altar of incense.
And the incense burning upon it symbolized the prayer of the saints, and you'll find that in Revelation 8 verses 3 through 4.
And I've referenced that quite a few times actually when we've taught on incense.
It's Revelation 8 verses 3 through 4.
So the incense burned there symbolized the prayers of the saints.
And concerning that ministry at that altar, at that incense altar, listen to what God told Moses in Exodus chapter 30 verse 8.
Exodus 30 verse 8.
And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.
Now perpetual means it never ceases.
It never stops.
And Aaron the high priest represented the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our high priest.
And do you know what?
Jesus' prayer ministry for us never ceases.
It's perpetual.
Just like the burning of that incense was supposed to be.
In fact, in Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25, Hebrews 7 verse 25, speaking of Jesus says this, "Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."
Now intercession is prayer.
It's prayer that mediates, that goes between God and man.
And that's what Jesus does.
The Bible says there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
So that is his continual ministry of prayer.
He continually intercedes for us.
That's one reason you cannot lose your salvation.
Jesus always gets his prayers answered and he always prays.
He never does stop.
But see, that perpetual ministry of prayer, of intercession was not honored by those who were in the temple in that day when Jesus entered and drove them out.
Therefore, it was in disorder.
And Jesus got rid of the disorder by driving away the disorderly people.
And therefore, their disorderly practices stopped.
Now what a simple truth we can learn here, but it's powerful at the same time.
If your house is disorderly, only Jesus can drive out that which is disorderly.
Now you can try to reform it.
I've seen people try it.
You can try to make it smell good, put Febreze on it, whatever you want to do, but it will still be disorderly unless Jesus drives out the disorder.
Now how would it be that Hezekiah could set his house in order according to Isaiah's command to him?
Well, there was only one way and that was to commit his house to the Lord, commit his whole family, everything to the Lord.
And you know when a man commits himself to the Lord, then he'll commit his house to the Lord.
It just follows.
And when his house is committed to the Lord, then everything that springs from that would be godly and orderly.
Because if it weren't, the man would say, nope, that's out of order.
Jesus, drive it out of here.
God's word drives it out.
And that's the only way that this can be done.
And that's the only way Hezekiah would have his house in order is for him to commit it to the Lord.
You know the -- do you know why we have to have things like wills and trusts and powers of attorney?
And man, you think you're on top of all that, and there's another one that'll creep up.
You'll have a medical power of attorney.
You'll have a durable medical power of attorney.
Oh, it wears you out.
Do you know why we have to have all that?
Because men's houses have not been set in order.
There's arguing over who has say-so when dad's on his sick bed.
There's bickering over who gets mom's jewelry when she dies, or how the land and the houses and the bank money should be divided, or when grandma's too sick to make a decision.
And if a man's house were truly in order, he would need none of those things.
The problem is, even though a righteous man may try to set his house in order, the people of his household may not stay in order.
If a man knew for a fact that his surviving family members and business associates would be honest in their decisions, he wouldn't have to say a word to any of them on his deathbed.
He wouldn't have to have wills, trusts, contracts, long drawn out documents like that.
There'd be no need for mediation or probate hearings when he dies.
But you know mankind's house overall is not in order because for the majority of the people, Jesus is not the head of their home.
And just as Isaiah warned Hezekiah, you also need to remember to set thine house in order.
Because we all live in corrupt, dying bodies, then we may truly say that all of mankind is on his sickbed.
Now this is a real positive message this morning isn't it?
I'm just trying to shoot straight with you, just teach what the Bible teaches.
And in this short life, man ought to learn to trust his creator and believe in the redemption that he provided by his dear son.
And such a man will agree with what God says is order.
When God says this is orderly, then a righteous man will say yes Lord, that's orderly.
And then he'll teach his children to be orderly in God's sight.
Now look back in the text, he said set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live.
Which teaches us that we can't wait till we die to set our house in order.
It's got to be done while we're alive.
Don't think for a moment, well you know I won't bother my children about all this, but when I die they'll see that their godly daddy or mama passed away and that'll turn them to the Lord.
Might not.
We don't know.
We can't depend on that can we?
We've got to teach them while we're still here and be that example to them.
But you notice the cause effect relationship.
Set thine house in order for or because thou shalt die and not live.
The very reason that Hezekiah should set his house in order is because he was going to die.
Now if you look at Hezekiah's life, Hezekiah was a better king than David.
We read that early in our introduction to him.
He was more righteous than David his father.
And if he could just stay alive all the time then he wouldn't have any need to set his house in order or tell someone else to set it in order.
It would just stay in order because Hezekiah's alive.
Hezekiah can't always live.
I can't be around for eternity to keep my house in order.
And it's the way with you all too.
And if Hezekiah's house were not in order when he lived, then it's probably not suddenly going to come into order whenever he dies.
So what did Hezekiah do upon hearing this news?
I mean after all that would shock you if Isaiah walked in and said, "Sister, so and so set your house in order.
You're going to die and you're not going to live.
You're not going to get well from whatever's ailing you."
It says here in verse 2, look back in your text about Hezekiah, "Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed unto the Lord saying," and we'll look at what he said in a moment, "He didn't go out into the marketplace and make a big scene.
He was too sick.
He couldn't even make his way to the house of the Lord as he had before.
But he could do what every single conscious person can do.
He prayed unto the Lord."
Now there are many people who will pray when things go bad for them.
They'll ask others to pray, and I put it in quotes again because I'm not real sure what they're wanting, to pray for this person or that situation, and many of those people are not in the regular practice of prayer in the first place.
Lost people pray for things they want or for bad things not to happen, but Hezekiah was a godly man, so he prayed.
James chapter 5 verse 13, and put the little letter A next to it, James 5, 13, little letter A.
"Is any among you afflicted?
Let him pray."
Boy, that fit Hezekiah's situation, didn't it?
He was afflicted.
Absolutely.
When you're on your sickbed, pray.
But you know what?
When you're on the mountain, pray.
When you're enjoying good health and prosperity, pray also.
Because when you pray, you're committing your situation and its outcome to the Lord in His hands.
You're putting it in His hands.
That's what we do every time we meet for corporate prayer during the middle of the week, even with our unspoken that we, I don't know about, you know, Brother Eddie has an unspoken, I don't know what it is, God does, and he didn't know what mine are, God does.
But we just commit those into the Lord's hands.
Say, "Lord, I don't know what to do with this.
I can't fix it, and I can't fix it for someone."
But you can.
You can make it however you want to make it.
You can make it glorify you, and that's what we want.
Hezekiah did right by praying.
Now let's listen to what he prayed.
Look in verse 3.
He said, "I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight."
And Hezekiah wept sore.
He said, "I beseech thee, O Lord."
And beseech means to pray, and the manner of that prayer is an exclamation.
In fact, the same Hebrew word translated as beseech is translated as the word O, O-H, in a few places, including Daniel chapter 9 verse 4.
Now the Bible, it'll just be the letter O, capital letter O.
Daniel 9 verse 4, where he wrote, "And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments."
So where he said, O Lord, that word O is beseech.
So you get the idea of what it's like to beseech the Lord.
You're crying out to God.
It's an exclamation point on that prayer.
The one doing the praying is crying out to God urgently.
Notice also the two pronouns in there.
I beseech thee, O Lord.
You have the word I, and you have the word thee.
This prayer is from Hezekiah, who's the I, to the Lord, and that's thee.
It's not some general prayer to some general divine being.
Perhaps you've heard someone say, well, I'm just praying everything goes well with my job situation.
Okay.
Well, to whom is that prayer directed?
Or is that just a saying?
I think for some it probably is, and others have taken that petition to the Lord.
He's the one to pray to anyway if you need a job, because if you're seeking a job according to God's will, He's never going to lead you to be a drug dealer or a thief.
He's going to lead you to an honest profession.
And if that person's not praying is Hezekiah, I, to thee, O Lord, because that's who the prayer was to, then it's just an empty saying.
It's about the same as hoping for luck, which is a bogus construct in the first place.
If you believe in the Lord, you don't believe in luck, and I know people sometimes say, well, I feel lucky today.
Well, think about what you just said.
In fact, here's your Bible for that.
There's no such thing as luck.
Here's your Bible, Romans 8, 28.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
How about that?
You don't ever get lucky.
Things, all things work together for good to them that love God.
No matter what happens, you say, well, boy, what about this terrible thing that happened?
All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
My uncle Riley Casper McKinney, boy, that's a good Irish name, isn't it?
He died of a stomach cancer back in 1986.
And on his deathbed, he was a Christian.
On his deathbed, he said, well, either way, it's going to get better.
I'm going to either get healed of this stomach cancer or I'm going to go to be with Jesus.
All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
And that's exactly what he claimed.
He didn't lay there and moan and groan.
And I sure would have.
I think I'd have moaned and groaned if I had stomach cancer.
That's a terrible way to die.
And he was in pain.
But his spiritual outlook was what blessed my heart and what encouraged me.
I was there to encourage him.
He encouraged me by his faith.
And no matter what happens, God has ordained that it work together for good to us who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
So next time you hear someone to whom misfortune has fallen, say, well, that's just my bad luck, you can say no.
That event will work together for good to them that love God.
Don't know how it will happen, but because the Bible says it, we know that event has a purpose.
And God has a purpose in allowing it or directing it.
And our prayer is not based on some kind of spiritual fad like you see on social media.
It's based upon a relationship between I and Thee, oh Lord, just like Hezekiah prayed.
And when we meet on Wednesday nights and take our prayers and praise to the throne of grace, it is we praying to Thee, oh Lord.
And I love that special time.
I love my daily prayers that are I to Thee, oh Lord.
And I love my weekly corporate prayers that are we to Thee, oh Lord.
And now for what has Hezekiah beseeched the Lord?
Look back in the text.
He said, remember now how I have walked before Thee in truth.
That's interesting.
He asked God to remember something.
And when we ask God to remember something, we're not saying, Lord, you must have forgotten it.
We're simply asking Him to bring it to mind.
Lord, of all the things you know and you know everything, would you put this one front and center or bring it to mind?
And do you know what's neat about that is God never forgets to remember.
He asked Him, Lord, would you remember this?
He does.
He remembers it.
Our first look at the word remember is found in Genesis chapter 8 verse 1.
Genesis chapter 8 verse 1.
Now set the stage for you here.
Well, let me read the verse and I'll tell you why I thought that was so neat.
It said, "And God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the cattle that was with him in the ark.
And God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters assuaged."
Now in that verse, we have to remember just before then that the earth was completely covered with water.
And those flood waters had prevailed upon the earth 150 days according to Genesis 7 24.
Now from man's point of view, it'd be easy to say, well, looks like God's kind of forgotten about old Noah and everybody and all the animals in that ark.
I mean, they've been floating around for 150 days, almost four months, or almost five months.
But God had given them enough provision to survive that flood.
Back in Genesis 6 21, when He was preparing them to go into the ark, God said, "And take thou unto thee of all the food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them."
Now Noah had to believe a lot of things.
But one of them was that the amount of food that was taken aboard would be sufficient, just as God said it would.
And he didn't know how long he was going to be on that ark, in that ark.
He wasn't on the ark, he was in the ark.
We don't want to miss that.
And Noah also trusted that the Lord would destroy the earth and all the living creatures that were outside the ark with flood waters.
After all, he'd been preaching God's judgment for 120 years.
But what Noah also believed was that God would remember His covenant with Noah.
Now here's that covenant, Genesis 6 17-19, Genesis chapter 6 verses 17-19.
God said, "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die.
But with thee will I establish My covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee.
And of every living thing, of all flesh, two of every sort, shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee, they shall be male and female."
What was the covenant?
It was to save from the flood all who were in the ark.
And that ark was a picture of Jesus, who promised to save all who were in Him according to the gospel.
You think about the maturity of Noah's faith, on a dry land, he preached the judgment of God to an unbelieving people for 120 years and was mocked by everyone except his own family.
But even so, he preached until the day God shut him into that ark, shut his family in there, shut the animals in, and all their provision.
And even though the flood waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days, what was that to Noah?
What was five months of waiting in an ark with everything you need safely sealed in that ark by the Lord Himself?
What was that compared to 120 years of preaching to wicked generations of men and women?
Never forget that God always remembers His covenants.
So what was it that Hezekiah wanted God to remember in his case?
Look back in the text, he says, "How I have walked before thee in truth."
Now his walk, we would call his manner of living, not just the physical footsteps he was taking.
And by walking in truth, what he was saying was, "My manner of living has been according to truth, the truth of God's word."
Now we have to reconcile something here, don't we?
How can a man make the claim to God that he has walked in truth before him when man is a sinner from birth?
It's a good question, isn't it?
Colossians chapter 2 verses 6 through 7, and here is your answer.
Colossians 2 verses 6 through 7, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.
Rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving."
That's how you do that.
It's not you walking.
It's you in the Lord walking.
The passage teaches us that the result of receiving the Lord Jesus Christ is that we walk in Him.
And until a man has received the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, he cannot walk in Him.
He can try to, he can dress up like a holy person, whatever that's supposed to look like.
Put all the garments and the garb on and you know the Pharisees were pretty good at that.
Man they had these broad phylacteries, they'd wear them on their foreheads.
They had all these robes and you name it.
Saying all these words over and over again, vain repetitions.
Man they know how to look holy, sound holy, and they were everything but holy.
The unbelieving ones that is.
But a lost person cannot rightfully say, he cannot rightfully say that he walks before the Lord in truth when he's not walking in Christ.
If he's not in Christ, he can try his best.
He's not walking according to truth.
And if you're not walking in the Lord, then you're not walking in truth.
You can come to church all you want and we're glad to see you.
You can tune in all you want.
We're glad you're tuning in.
You can read Brother Fulton's books.
You can pass out gospel tracts and follow us along with our studies.
But if you're not in Jesus Christ, you're not walking in truth.
And for Hezekiah to walk before the Lord in truth was for him to be in Christ, who was the only one to ever walk in truth all of his days.
The only one.
And further Hezekiah asked God to remember that he also walked, look back in your text, with a perfect heart.
With a perfect heart.
And this means a whole heart.
W-H-O-L-E.
One that is just.
One that is peaceable.
And the heart of, is the inner man.
It's not talking about the organ that beats right here.
It's the inner man.
In fact, it's even the understanding or the mind as it's been translated in the Old Testament.
And this phrase, the perfect heart, cannot be true of a person who has an unregenerated heart.
That's the inner man of a lost person, is an unregenerated heart.
It can only be true of one who is born again.
And the only thing perfect in me is Christ in me.
That's it.
Everything else is corrupt and is going to die.
And what He does in me shows on the outside as well.
A perfect heart doesn't have any reservations about obeying God's Word.
He doesn't dismiss God's truth.
That's how He walks in truth.
It's not that we never fall.
Because when we sin, we don't sin in the Lord, we sin in the flesh, don't we?
That's our problem is this flesh that we're in right now.
Those two natures that are fighting each other.
There were two kings who loved God, but who did not have a perfect heart in this context.
Second Chronicles 25 verse 2, Second Chronicles 25 verse 2 says this about Amaziah who was the king of Judah at one time.
It said, "And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart."
And in 1 Kings 11 verse 4, 1 Kings 11 verse 4, "For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect before the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father."
Now think about that.
Let this sink in.
The perfect heart doesn't mean that the man himself was perfect without sin.
We know David sinned.
We know David was a Christian.
We know David sinned.
He sinned in the adultery.
He sinned in sending the adulterous, his husband back to the front lines and having him killed.
I mean, we know he sinned.
We know Solomon sinned, but they were both Christians.
But their heart was not perfect with the Lord in the sense of walking in truth as Hezekiah did.
And we're not judging Hezekiah.
We're just going by what God said about him.
And although these two kings did right in the sight of the Lord, their hearts weren't perfect toward the Lord.
They dismissed some of God's truth in favor of their own desires.
Solomon knew when his wives turned his heart to those other gods, he knew that was wrong.
And boy, when you read the book of Ecclesiastes, you'll see what kind of regret he had about that.
It was all vanity.
Every bit of it was vanity.
And I know it's hard to understand, but remember this judgment about the perfect heart is one that God gives us about the hearts of these men.
And He's the only one who can truly know your heart.
All right, we'll stop right there and pick up next week with that verse.
Father, thank you for what you've done for us today.
Thank you for Your Word and for each person who came and those who've tuned in and will tune in later.
And Lord, we pray You just bless this truth to us.
Teach us throughout the week.
Help us to meditate upon it.
In Jesus' name, amen.
