Episode Transcript
All right, good morning.
It's 10 o'clock.
Time for us to begin our lesson.
Glad some of you who were sick are back.
2 Kings chapter 20 verse 13 is our text this morning, just as it was last week.
2 Kings 20 verse 13.
And while you're turning there, I was reading something a while back about a Christian who'd been in church a long time and who was talking to another Christian, and the one Christian said, "You know, I'm ashamed.
I don't remember most of the sermons that have been preached to me.
I don't know why."
And the other Christian said, "I don't remember most of the meals I've eaten in my life, but I know that at the time I ate them, they nourished me.
And I know that about God's Word, that even though I don't remember what the message was four or five, six years ago, I know it nourished me.
And so that's kind of the way I feel.
Sometimes I forget what I preached last week, but I know the study of it fed me, and I hope it feeds you as well."
If you're one of God's sheep, it does.
It just does.
It's God's Word.
So let's reread verse 13 and finish up with what we started toward the end of our last lesson.
"And Hezekiah hearkened unto them and showed them all the house of his precious things, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor and all that was found in his treasures.
There was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not."
Now, he showed the Babylonian ambassadors these things.
If you weren't with us, you can catch up watching those lessons on Facebook.
They're all recorded in order, and I would encourage you to do that.
From the words "precious things" in our text, last week we launched into some spiritual truth about what is really precious.
More so than gold and then silver and spices.
And by the way, Brother Rick told me that's a person right below that clock right there.
So if y'all see me look up there, I'm not looking at the clock.
I'm looking at that camera.
So our online audience can see my gaze, and I appreciate that.
I'm glad to have a coach like Brother Rick.
He's helped us a lot with how we do things up here.
And so the things that we looked at, the precious things, represented in the spiritual sense very profound truths.
And they were more important to us, or they ought to be, than the corruptible precious earthly things.
And last week we learned and read scripture that said Jesus is precious, and His blood is precious.
And I gave you verses about each one of those.
Now we see not only is Jesus precious and His blood precious, but thirdly, His saints are precious as well.
Isaiah chapter 43 verses 1 through 4.
Isaiah 43 verses 1 through 4.
Let's see if you can figure out who he's talking about here.
"But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee.
I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.
I gave Egypt for thy ransom," listen to this, "Ethiopia and Sheba for thee, since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee.
Therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy life."
Now was God describing only the earthly nation of Israel when He said, "For I have redeemed thee?
I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine?"
Well, of course not.
It wasn't limited to them at all.
He was speaking to His church, not the one built with wood, stone, metal, but one built with people.
Listen to the song about the church that is sung by the four beasts and the 24 elders in Revelation chapter 5 verses 8 through 9.
Revelation 5 verses 8 through 9.
"And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb," now that's with a capital L, that's Jesus Christ, "having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sung a new song, saying, 'Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.'"
The church is a redeemed people.
"Redeemed by the blood of Jesus and redeemed out of every kindred, tongue, and people and nation, not just out of the land of Israel.
And he said, 'I have redeemed thee,' and he also said," back in the text I read you in Isaiah 43, "'I have called thee by name.'"
Romans chapter 1 verses 1 through 6.
Romans chapter 1 verses 1 through 6.
"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name."
Here it is.
"Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ."
Paul was called to be an apostle.
God did not just randomly throw that assignment out there into the air and see who would receive it.
And the ones to whom Paul preached the gospel were the called of Jesus Christ.
Those who were called into him.
And that would be those who receive him, by the way.
Romans chapter 8 verse 28 tells us, "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."
The who are called according to his purpose.
And he has called us by our name.
And then in Isaiah, God said not only had he redeemed us, had he called us by thy name, but he also said, "Thou art mine."
In his prayer to his father in John chapter 17, Jesus said this in verses 8 through 10.
John 17 verses 8 through 10, "For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
I pray for them.
I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them."
Friend, what God said through Isaiah the prophet about Israel is important, because he's talking about the church, and that's us.
And as we read at the end of the Isaiah passage, God said about us, "Since thou was precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable and I have loved thee."
That's right.
The saints of the Lord are precious in his sight.
You notice that God said Israel was precious in his sight.
That means it was God who determined their value.
He set the value upon Israel.
He called them precious.
Now, they're certainly more precious than the gold and silver and the ointment and spices and all of that that man holds dear and precious.
But the Gentiles, who would include these Babylonians, did not think the children of Israel were precious.
In fact, to them, the children of Israel were nothing more than potential slaves.
Notice the order at the end of that passage.
First, Israel was precious in God's sight.
After that, they were honorable and he loved them.
They were honorable and loved because they were first precious in God's sight.
Don't you see?
God determining that we are precious to him is what makes us honorable and loved in his sight.
He determined our value himself apart from what we did.
Apart from how the world sees us.
God didn't say, "Hey, Gentiles, what do you think about these people who are called by my name?
You don't like them?"
"Well, I don't like them either then."
He didn't do that.
He determined our value and he did not love us because we were honorable.
Because we certainly weren't.
And we're not, except in the person of his son.
We were honorable because he loved us.
First John chapter 4 verse 10 explains this a little bit to you.
First John 4 10, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Because we were precious to God, he sent Jesus to die for us.
His precious son shed his precious blood that we who believe could be precious in his sight.
Jesus is precious, his blood is precious, his saints are precious, and now one more thing.
The death of his saints is precious.
Now that's a hard one to wrap your mind around if you're thinking about it from a worldly, carnal view.
How can it be that it's precious when someone dies?
For us it's a terrible loss.
When our loved ones die we miss them, we endure much sorrow and we long to see them again.
And it just never stops.
But let's look at this from God's perspective.
Because he gives it to us from his perspective here in his word.
First of all, we need scripture that tells us that the death of saints is precious.
Psalm chapter 116 verse 15.
Psalm 116 verse 15 says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."
There it is.
What is the one thing that separated us from God?
The one thing that cut us off from our source of life?
It was sin.
Sin has separated us from God and God hates sin.
God punishes sin.
And it's sin that causes us to die both a physical death and a spiritual death, which is called the second death in the book of Revelation.
And because God is holy he cannot allow that which is wicked to stand before him.
Twice in Ezekiel chapter 18 the Bible says, "The soul that sinneth it shall die."
Now that includes everyone, doesn't it?
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
And it's awfully hard to love something that is dead.
So how can someone who is dead be precious to the Lord?
Well, that someone has to be made alive.
You know, when we look at our loved one in a casket, we don't love that they're in that casket at all.
It breaks our hearts.
It pains us.
It doesn't bring us any joy or happiness.
What would bring us joy or happiness is if that person were resurrected back to life.
We'd say, "Oh good, it was a bad dream.
My grandpa really is still here.
My brother really is still here."
But that's not what happens except with God.
And that someone in this case has to be made alive.
And not alive again into an earthly body where sin once again reigns over it.
Now that's the last thing I would want.
Knowing about sin, knowing why God tossed Adam and Eve out of the garden so that they wouldn't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and live forever as sinners, knowing good and evil, knowing all of that, as much as I've missed my loved ones who've died, I would not want them to be made alive again forever in that mortal body they inhabited because then they would live forever as corruptible sinners.
I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
But when we're made alive in the glorified image of Jesus Christ, who is precious, who is elect unto his Father, then that's precious.
When the saint dies, he no longer struggles with sin.
Sin has no more dominion over him.
His sinful body dies that first death and we grieve, but God said it's precious when it happens.
Because a spiritual man lives in the presence of the Lord waiting on the resurrection, the rapture, when we have those glorified bodies that meet our spiritual man.
And on the day of our death while others grieve our passing, God sees it is precious.
We get to be with him without sin, never to suffer the second death.
And that's precious to him and it is to me too.
It's the only thing that can bring us back from the dark times we go through when our loved ones pass away.
And not only did Hezekiah show the precious things, here meaning the gold and the silver and the ointment and the spices, to these Babylonian ambassadors, but he also showed the protective things to them.
Look back at verse 13.
Down there in the middle of the verse it says, "And all the house of his armor."
So he showed them all the house of his precious things.
And now we see he showed them all the house of his armor.
Now armor means an instrument or a weapon.
It's not limited to just a shield or something you put over yourself like a coat of mail that a knight might wear in medieval times.
And it also means vessels and furniture when it comes to the items that were in the tabernacle or in the temple here.
So there is a wide variety of uses for the Hebrew word that's translated as armor.
And as far as the warfare aspect of this word, this Hebrew word, armor protects the one who wears it.
And the wearer of the armor protects the king and therefore the country.
That's how that works.
So when you show your enemy your armor, you're allowing him to see what you have in the way of defenses.
And that's a military no-no.
I recently read in the news that 1,500 active duty servicemen, many of them Marines, were being sent to the Texas border.
Now I have a really hard time understanding why specific information about numbers and specific locations gets revealed to the public.
I do not understand that.
And you guys who are in the military, you know what I'm talking about.
You don't tell the enemy how many you're sending.
In fact, one of the principles of military strategy is that you want the enemy to think there are a few of you when there are many and that there are many of you when there are only a few of you.
It's a mistake, in my opinion, to reveal certain information unless it's for the purpose of throwing an enemy off.
So I don't know why that stuff gets leaked out.
I'm glad it's happening that we're sending people to the border to protect our country.
I am not glad that we say, "Oh, yeah, we'll send 1,500, and they'll be there at 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon.
That way the enemy can set up on them," right?
Well, another of the translations of the Hebrew word for armor, as I mentioned earlier, are the words "vessels" and the word "furniture."
Now here's a verse using that word "vessels."
It's in Exodus chapter 25, verses 39 through 40.
Exodus 25, verses 39 through 40.
Speaking of the things made for the tabernacle, it says, "Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it with all these vessels," same word as armor, "and look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount."
So using this translation of the word, the armor includes the vessels made for the tabernacle, now the temple, as well.
So showing the house of all those vessels or armor.
Think about this.
To show them those vessels in the temple, these Jews, Hezekiah, had to bring Gentiles into the temple.
Now that desecrated the temple.
They weren't allowed in there.
They were unbelievers.
And look back in your text, and it said, "All that was found in his treasures."
That's in the, toward the end of verse 13.
Now treasures would include anything that's in the storehouse or in the armory, not just gold and silver.
There was, and it goes on to say, "There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not."
Babylon got a first-class, high-level security clearance to see anything and everything that was valuable in all of Hezekiah's dominion.
Now, what was Hezekiah thinking?
Was he trying to impress Babylon?
Was he trying to win over the Babylonian king?
It's hard to know, but what we do know is that what he was doing was not wise.
Now look with me in verse 14.
And boy, this is a big uh-oh right here.
"Then came Isaiah," he's in trouble.
"Then came Isaiah the prophet unto the king, and said unto him, 'What said these men?'"
Now remember, Isaiah had already left the immediate area where Hezekiah was, and it must have taken some time for these Babylonian ambassadors to come and bring the letters in the present, and then to be shown everything that was precious, all the treasures, all the armory in Hezekiah's dominion.
I don't know how long that took, but it must have taken some time.
And of course, God let Isaiah know what was going on, as you'll see by what he says here in a few moments.
But what Isaiah knew is that certain men came to Hezekiah and spoke to him.
Because he didn't ask him, "Did anybody come see you?"
He said, "What said these men?"
He knew exactly who these men were.
And being that Isaiah was a prophet of the Lord, it's pretty evident to me he already knew the answer to his question, and to the next question, and to the next one.
And he asked--Isaiah asked in verse 14, secondly, "And from whence came they unto thee?"
So he said, "What said these men, and from whence came they unto thee?"
Again, Isaiah would probably have already known the answer to that question as well.
And what the men said, and where they came from, were two very important questions.
Really, you could turn those into three questions.
We'll see that in a minute.
But let's see why this might be the case.
What the men said would be compared to what Isaiah said, which would be what God said.
And the last thing God said to Hezekiah through Isaiah is found back in verse 9.
So look back up there in verse 9.
And Isaiah said, "This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken.
Shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?"
Now that's the last thing Isaiah said to Hezekiah.
And we know all of the wonderful things God did for Hezekiah, both before and after that.
How he healed him, how he added 15 years to his life, how he delivered--promised to deliver Judah from their captors, or from their enemies.
And so, when--if you go further back, be reminded here that Isaiah told Hezekiah at one point he would die and not live.
Then he told Hezekiah God would heal him and deliver Jerusalem.
Then God performed this wondrous sign of making time go backward ten degrees.
And after all that, after all that, shouldn't Hezekiah have been greatly emboldened to withstand his enemies?
With the new lease on life that he had, and the preservation of the kingdom of Judah, shouldn't Hezekiah have listened only to the one who delivered him to God?
Do you see how quickly man steps out of the straight and narrow way?
We know how good a king Hezekiah was because the Bible told us there wasn't any before him or after him that was like him.
But even Hezekiah, or we can say here we Christians, in moments of weakness or pride or some other emotion, feel the need to show our precious things, our treasures, our armor, to the world.
Now this second question he asked him was, "From whence came they unto thee?"
These men came from somewhere, didn't they?
They were sent from somewhere, just like Isaiah was sent from somewhere to the king.
And it's not just from where they were sent, it's also from whom they were sent.
In any case, Hezekiah's answer to Isaiah looking back in verse 14 at the end, Hezekiah said, "They are come from a far country, even from Babylon."
Now put these things together.
Isaiah was sent from God to Hezekiah with the words of God.
These men were sent from Babylon with the words of the king of Babylon.
So both groups, or both Isaiah and then the men from Babylon, had a message and they were sent from somewhere by someone.
In fact, everyone who brings you words of any kind came from somewhere, didn't they?
Whether physically or spiritually speaking.
And they were sent by someone, whether physically or spiritually.
Three great questions to ask someone who brings you tidings, who brings you words, are these.
Who are you?
Where did you come from?
And who sent you?
Who are you?
Where did you come from?
And who sent you?
That's essentially what Isaiah asked Hezekiah about these men.
So to the spam caller on the phone, who are you?
If you choose to answer the phone, I just say don't answer it.
But if you do and you have a little time on your hands and you're feeling cute that day, who are you?
Where are you from and who told you to call me?
And you probably won't get an answer.
They'll hang up and go to the next person, somebody more gullible than you are.
To the person with a certain religious doctrine, who are you?
Where did your doctrine come from?
And who sent you to tell it to me?
If the message, its origin, and its sender are legitimate or illegitimate, it won't take long to find out by asking those kinds of questions and demanding the answers to them.
If the religious words are legitimate, the messenger will be a servant of the Lord.
That's the answer to the question, who are you?
I'm a servant of the Lord.
I'm Brother Andy.
I'm Brother Doug.
I'm Sister Becky.
The message will be from the Bible.
That answers the question, from whence came your doctrine?
Where did your doctrine come from?
And the sender will be God.
That answers the question, who sent you?
All three of those answers have to be present and correct for this message to be legitimate.
Yet Hezekiah chose to receive illegitimate words from an illegitimate country whose words were sent by an illegitimate king.
Now let's examine how this played out going all the way back to the Garden of Eden when the serpent deceived Eve.
Genesis chapter 3 verse 1.
Genesis chapter 3 verse 1.
"Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
And he said unto the woman," now here he is, what's he doing?
He's bringing her words, isn't he?
"He said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Now Eve was deceived into believing it was all right to listen to this serpent.
But she had no idea who she was really dealing with.
That's how slick he is.
And the answers to the three questions that she should have asked are as follows.
Who are you?
Well, I'm a serpent.
Where did you come from?
Well, I came from the kingdom of darkness.
Who sent you?
Satan.
That's the truth about those words.
But even without asking those questions, Eve should have known that any word that contradicts God's words are from the kingdom of darkness whose leader is Satan.
So Isaiah's questions to Hezekiah are just as appropriate for us to ask in our day.
Learn them, teach them to your children, your grandchildren, your friends.
One thing I want you to see in Hezekiah's answer here is that he knew where these ambassadors were from.
And he admitted the same thing to Isaiah.
He said they're from a far country, Babylon.
He knew their words were sent by a king who served their previous enemy, Assyria, rather than teaming up with Israel.
Yet he hearkened to them anyway.
Our pastor and I have spoken to many people in the course of our ministries over these decades that God has chosen to use us.
And there's one group of people that I don't understand.
I really don't.
And this is a group of people who consist of those who identify themselves as Christians.
And here's an example.
A man says he's no longer in love with his wife.
And he wants to leave her for a woman with whom he is in love.
And so I show the man where Jesus said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."
God hates putting away.
Now that right there ought to be the end of the matter.
That man has heard a servant of the Lord sent by God with words from God.
He didn't hear a serpent from the kingdom of darkness bringing the words of Satan.
And yet such a man who's identifying himself as a Christian can say, "Well, I know what it says, but I feel like what I'm doing is the right thing, and that's what I'm going to do."
Now that man has identified himself as a Christian, has sought the counsel of a servant of the Lord, and knows that the servant of the Lord is going to give him the scriptures.
And yet that man is willing to leave, knowing what God's Word says, but willingly ignoring it.
Hezekiah knows what God said.
He knows what God did.
And yet he hearkened to the letters and the present of a king from a far country who was not his friend.
Now look in verse 15.
As Isaiah continues, "And he said, 'What have they seen in thine house?'
And Hezekiah answered, 'All the things that are in mine house have they seen.
There is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.'"
So here Hezekiah openly admits to Isaiah what he's done.
Do you know what this means?
In my estimation, at this time, Hezekiah didn't believe he did anything wrong.
He feels justified in his actions because he proudly stated them.
He didn't lie.
He didn't hedge.
He said, "Oh yeah, I showed them everything."
Now with Hezekiah believing he was right in what he did, let's look at Isaiah's response in verse 16.
"And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, 'Hear the word of the Lord.'"
Now for a Christian who has sinned, this is exactly what we need to hear is the word of the Lord.
Verse 17, and here is the word of the Lord.
"Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon.
Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord."
The things in Hezekiah's possession were things he laid up as well as things his fathers, his forefathers laid up.
And all of those things were blessings from the Lord.
And even though Hezekiah's father was a wicked king, Ahaz, both he and the kings before him had accumulated many treasures and precious things and ointments and armor and so on.
So what we learn here is that Hezekiah's sin would not only cost him his possessions, but also all the possessions that were left by his fathers.
It would do a lot of damage.
You know, Hezekiah had a good name.
He was a good king who's now made a terrible mistake.
And there are two verses that tell us how valuable a good name is.
Proverbs 22, 1 says, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold."
He gave up a good name to show off his riches and his silver and his gold.
And Ecclesiastes 7, verse 1.
Ecclesiastes 7, verse 1.
"A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth."
Hezekiah showed off the precious ointment too, didn't he?
He showed everything.
There was nothing he didn't show.
The Babylonian ambassadors.
He showed off his riches, he showed off his precious things to an enemy nation who would not appreciate them for what they were.
That enemy nation would not admire the God of Judah for His grace in giving these things to the children of Israel.
Imagine what the people of Jerusalem would say when they found out the reason all of these possessions were carried away was because of Hezekiah.
Why his name would be tarnished among those people.
That good name would be despised by many.
Now verse 17.
"Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day shall be carried into Babylon.
Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord."
You know, if you think the Grinch is bad, wait till you see what Babylon's done to Judah.
Often a person has to lose everything precious to him before he changes his mind about his own actions.
He has to have nothing left before he repents.
I've had alcoholics in my family, and I love them, but they were self-destructive.
Their precious things were their spouses, their children, even their jobs and their homes.
One of my loved ones lost his wife because of the drink.
His sons disowned him, and he died many years later without having reconciled with his own sons.
So of his original precious things, he had nothing left.
Verse 18.
"And of thy sons that shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
Now this is far more tragic than losing your gold and your silver and your precious ointments and your spices.
His own sons, whom he raised in the king's house, would be taken away from him.
They weren't going to a foster home.
They were going to Babylon.
And it said, "They shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
And as we learned in our study in the book of Daniel, a eunuch is not always a male who's been castrated.
Although that happened, the Hebrew word translated eunuch is just as often translated as the word officer and the word chamberlain in the Old Testament.
And although these were positions of official service, they were positions of service.
The people who did them were servants.
So the point of this is that Hezekiah's sons would no longer be princes in their father's palace, but servants in a stranger's palace.
That's exactly what sin does to you, by the way.
The judgment upon Hezekiah went further than he thought it would.
When he showed the Babylonian ambassadors all of his precious things, he did not realize that his actions would negatively affect his sons.
Adam and Eve did not realize that their sin in the garden would do the same thing to their children.
Just think if God had given them children in the garden somehow.
Those children would have lived as princes in the house of their father.
But when Adam and Eve sinned, their children were sent to serve as eunuchs in the palace of the king of darkness.
And so we as well.
And I'll close with Genesis 3, verse 16.
Genesis 3, verse 16.
After the sin in the garden, God said, "Unto the woman," He said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, and sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.
And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
Their children were born outside the garden, sinners from birth and servants to the king of darkness, hopeless without redemption.
But thank God for redemption.
Thank God for it.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for the wonderful truth we've learned from it today.
And as we continue into our next service, Father, I pray you'd give the same grace to our pastors you've given to me as I studied in the last few days, that we may again hear from the book of Daniel and be fed and edified as a church.
And we'll praise you for it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
