The sermon by Scott Brown, titled 'Set Your House In Order,' explores the biblical story of King Hezekiah, who was gravely ill and received a message from the prophet Isaiah to set his house in order because he would die. Hezekiah's earnest prayer to God, characterized by humility and integrity, led to God's intervention, adding fifteen more years to his life and delivering Jerusalem from Assyrian threats. This narrative highlights God's sovereignty, emphasizing that His plans unfold through the prayers of His people. It underscores that sickness can be closely related to godliness, challenging prosperity gospel teachings. The sermon calls believers to actively engage with God's will, not through passive resignation but by setting their houses in order, which involves spiritual preparation, family order, relationships, provision, and information management. The story is a reminder of God's enduring promises and His commitment to defend His people for His own glory and the fulfillment of His covenant with David.

I say at 38.1 through 8. In those days, Hezekiah was sick and near dead. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, Thus saith the Lord, Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live." This Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed to the Lord and said, Remember now, O Lord, I pray how I have worked before you in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, Go and tell Hezekiah, that said the Lord, the God of David, your father, I have heard your prayer.

I have seen your tears. Surely I will add to your days for fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. And this is a sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do these which he has spoken behold I will bring the shadow of the Sun dial which has gone down with the Sun on the sun dial of Ahaz ten degrees backwards so the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down. Let's pray.

Oh Lord, We humble before you and cry out to you. Lord speak to us today, help us. Change our hearts, bring salvation to our house, to our church. Bring the truth to us and help us to glorify you. For the love of your name, help us forgive our sins.

Help our pastor today to speak the truth. Use him to speak to us. We need you Lord. Every moment Father, the life is short. We don't know what's going to happen next minute.

We need your mercy. We live only because of you and thank you. Thank you because of your mercy. It's in every moment. Thank you because your love is upon us every second of our lives thank you father and I'm begging you father bring salvation to our church, to our nation, to our houses.

Help us, Father. In Jesus' name, Amen. In this passage, God is continuing to disclose through Isaiah and to Hezekiah how he will preserve his people, how he will glorify himself throughout all of history, through every event that takes place. And the heart of this matter is spoken very clearly in verse 6 and I think it explains the purpose of all that what we'll be reading in chapter 38 and also this entire historical section that we're in, where he says, I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David." And here what we find is another one of those astonishing moments in history where God is proving something. He's proving that He's going to defend this city.

And of course, Last week we spoke about what the city means and the city really is the people of God and the kingdom of God. And you see this back in chapter 37. If you look at chapter 37 verse 35, you'll see he uses this exact same language that we find in verse 6 in our text this morning. And so I want us to see the continuity of this message, that we're not coming into a new message, a new issue. We really are just defining the previous issue with using another example with the sickness unto death of a man, the king Hezekiah.

So this is why you read in chapter 37 verse 35, for I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake." Here in that passage, God is declaring that the reason that Sennacherib's army was destroyed was to declare that God will defend his city and that he does it for his own sake. Now in the sickness of Hezekiah that very same purpose is declared. So this sickness is set before us as an example, another example, that God is giving us to help us know that He is going to defend His city, Jerusalem, that He's going to protect His people, that He's going to walk with them, He's going to talk with them, He's going to heal them, he's going to raise them up, he's going to bring them experiences that cause them to glorify Him. This is the purpose of God in the world, that He is going to defend His city. And so this text before us today, another astonishing moment in history, is designed to show us, his people, something that we should never forget.

And that is that God has chosen his people and he will preserve them and that he will keep his promises and he uses this example of the sickness of Hezekiah to do that. And we also find here as well is that God's people are not a passive people. They don't fall into resignation. They don't give up. They pray.

They cry out to God. They desire to see God move both heaven and earth, and He does do that. So you have this picture of the great sovereignty of God, but at the same time, you have this urgency in the souls of men and women who cry out to God to change the direction of things. And that's exactly what Hezekiah does. And so We are to people a passive resignation of the things that are going on around us.

They set their houses in order and they pray and heaven and earth moves and that's what we see here. And so this event here in the Sickness of Nezekiah is designed to build our faith, to help us to recognize who we are, that when we get sick, we are still the people of God, that there is something that God is doing in our midst as a result of that. And in this historical section that we're finding ourselves in, there are three major events that are identified. And of course, the first is the destruction of Sennacherib and his army in chapters 36 and 37. And now at the beginning of chapter 38, we find ourselves in this moment of Hezekiah's sickness.

And then further on, we'll find the story of Hezekiah and his pride and how he shows the riches of his kingdom to the king of Babylon, which was a disastrous thing to do. But this is just a continuation of Isaiah's letter of encouragement. Remember chapters 36 to 39 are an interlude, their historical interlude. They take all the prophecies and the judgments that were given before and set them in a historical context. And What God is doing here is He's saying, this is the history that explains the integrity of my name and my love for my people and how I will protect them, and how I will protect them from the greatest threats and the gravest sicknesses.

That my plan will not be frustrated by any threat or by any sickness or any calamity that ever happens in the Earth. So this historical section is proving and explaining the previous section. And it's also forming a bridge and and and really Helping us to understand the next section of Isaiah, which is Isaiah 40 through 66 And what I think this section is saying is perfectly exemplified in Chapter 40. That's why Chapter 40 starts out with comfort. Yes, comfort my people says your God.

These stories are here designed to comfort you and me so that we would see not only our greatest threats but even the greatest sicknesses and calamities that might ever come, that we would know that these things were meant for our comfort as well. And then If you go on in chapter 40, you'll see even this verse 9, I think, speaks of these very moments that we're speaking of here in chapter 38. Oh Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain. Oh Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up.

Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God." That's exactly what's happening here. God has brought a section of scripture to us to help us to say, Behold your God. And then this is why Isaiah 40 ends the way that it does, where he says, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint." This is the whole message that we're in the midst of now. So when you read here on Hezekiah's sickness, think of comfort. Think of tidings of joy. Think of the beautiful fact of all those who've entered the kingdom of heaven, that they can walk and not grow weary and they can run and not faint.

This is the love of God. This is a passage about the love of God. And this dramatic example of Hezekiah's sickness is meant to explain it. So, now, Hezekiah, I just want to pause for a moment and speak about Hezekiah to set this sickness in its context. Hezekiah was a king that you would want to rule over your nation.

He was a good king. His heart was toward the Lord. He is everything that we pray for in a king. He led his nation back to God. His father Ahaz was a wicked king.

Don't ever say that a wicked father always bears a wicked son. It's not true. That's a lie. God is greater than the sins of all fathers. And he leads his whole nation back to God.

And this is what made him One of the most important kings in Israel probably second only to David he took very courageous actions That turned the affections of the people back to God he destroyed the high places He went and gathered the people He restored the celebration of the Passover and worship in the temple, and he sent the word out far and wide. Yes, some scoffed, but many were saved. And the Scriptures say that there was more joy in that city than there was even from the time of Solomon when the temple was dedicated there. It was a time of great joy and happiness. The beauty of the Lord was upon the people.

And this culture of joy and Thanksgiving was growing. There was a revival of joy and happiness as the Kingdom of Heaven was spreading there in that land. And you know, when he first took over as king, he was only 25 years old. And the most astonishing thing to me about this 25 year old king was that within two months of the time he was installed in King there was a revival going on in the nation. Within two years.

It was just absolutely amazing. And two months, I'm sorry. Ahaz was leading, had led this nation into idolatry and his son now is leading them out. At the time of this story in chapter 38, Now Hezekiah is 39 years old and he is sick at the point of death and Isaiah visits him. Isaiah makes a pastoral call to his beloved friend.

You can see the relationship of Isaiah and Hezekiah. It was a beautiful one. And in this pastoral call, he gives Hezekiah the worst news, and that is, you're going to die. So the pastor shows up, the prophet comes and says, yes, you are going to die. And then he receives a command to set his house in order and his first impulse is to turn to the wall and to pray.

And through those prayers, God will keep his own house in order. The line of David will continue, because God is proving that he will sustain his people. He will fulfill the sure mercies of David. He will defend his people. So that's the introduction here.

So let's look at verse 1. In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. The first thing we need to deal with is when is this? In those days, what days are those? And, you know, when you look carefully at the three passages of Scripture that report this situation, I think that there are two options, and I'm not perfectly sure which one it is.

This is happening either just before the fall of the Assyrian army or just after the fall of the Assyrian army. If it's before the fall then Isaiah is inserting a flashback into the narrative. And that's quite possible. This happens often in scripture. Like when you go to verse six, it says that he will defend the city in the future.

So it's possible He's saying that the city hasn't been quite defended yet, but even verse 6 could be interpreted a different way as well, because Sinakarab is still an active military man, and Perhaps it's just a promise that he is not going to come back. Or it could be just after the fall of the Assyrian army. Now, it's right in this time zone in the 14th year of Hezekiah when he's 39 years old. It was probably in either 702 or 701 BC. And I'm not really, really confident.

But where you want to go to 2 Kings 18 versus 13 through 18, you want to go to 2nd, that's the primary place you can go to second Kings 20 verse 6 and and you can kind of try to figure this out But I'm not confident which one it is. But whatever it is, either he is sick just before the situation with the Rav Shaka, or he experiences the thing with Rav Shaka and the army is destroyed, and he is sick and healed after that. Whatever it is, I think one thing we can say, God often lays upon people one calamity after another, sometimes in short succession. Have you ever thought, what's the next wave that's gonna come over me and my family? What's the next bad news that's gonna come?

You know, times in your life are often like that, where one shoe drops and then another, and you just don't know if he can handle it all. But the truth is you can. God has brought it. He's brought it for a purpose. He brings all these things in order to declare his faithfulness, to tell you again and again with every shoe that drops that he's faithful, that he is going to preserve his people and he is going to preserve you and yes you can make it.

That's what is happening here. Now, now Hesekiah is sick and near death so we know that he contracts a very serious illness that brings him right to the brink. He's in a severely weakened state and it's the kind of illness that people would observe, you know, as lethal. And you know, When people saw this weakness, they knew that it would kill them. Maybe it's the same kind of thing when your doctor sees a certain form or a stage of cancer, and he says, you have one month to live, or something like that.

Or you go to the hospital, and there are all these people in the hospital that are hurt and the triage nurse is looking at that one person and saying, that one is not going to make it. And that's the idea that we have here. He has a very, very serious disease. Now I think we should recognize the fact of disease in the world. As a result of the fall, sickness and disease are everywhere on planet Earth.

I don't know how many diagnosed or diagnosable diseases there are in the world. I've seen numbers from 12, 000 to 100, 000 different identifiable diseases. I really don't know. Maybe some of the doctors in the house here know. But There are many infectious diseases.

There are diseases of the blood. There are diseases of the circulatory system, of the heart, of the digestive system, diseases of the skin. There are just so many kinds. And Hezekiah has some kind of disease that has produced a boil of some kind. Now, why do I want to camp on this?

I think I want to say, I want to drive a deep stake in the ground and to say that sickness is sometimes next to godliness. Sickness is sometimes next to godliness. Hezekiah was a godly man. He was at the peak of a great revival And he fell ill during this time. This man of truth, this man with a loyal heart, he had wholly devoted himself to the Lord, this is what the Bible says about him, and that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord.

And yes, even though he was a godly man who walked in the ways of the Lord, he was at the point of death. And so here before us is an example of sickness being next to godliness. Now this is in sharp contradiction to the prosperity gospel preachers who say that if you're sick you're not godly. And we do have examples of people who were sick because they were ungodly. Uzziah, one of the kings that Isaiah ministered to, got leprosy, but it was because of his disobedience.

You can read about it in 2 Chronicles 26, verses 16 through 21. You might remember Miriam, the sister of Moses, who slandered him and took up an offense against him, and she too was leprous because of her divisiveness. And so there are sicknesses that are related to sins. You know, the man who is lifted down through the roof in the days of Jesus Christ by his friends, And the Lord Jesus Christ made it very plain that his sickness was because of his sin. But here we find a contrast.

Sickness is next to godliness in this case here. And There doesn't seem to be any evidence that Hezekiah's illness was a kind of a punishment. We do know that it was a sanctifying sickness. We do know that it drove him to things that were a blessing. We also know that God has given us an entire book of the Bible to illustrate that sickness is not always the result of ungodliness.

The book of Job displays a righteous man who is afflicted. Afflicted. And his affliction was not because of his sinfulness, but it was to prove to the devil that he really did love God from the heart, regardless of his earthly state. And so there are times when godly men will fall ill for the glory of God. And God, through these afflictions, teaches godly men and women to trust Him in their time of affliction, to pray like they've never prayed before.

And I would just suggest it always helps the godly to see their sins more clearly when they are sick, to humble them, and also to cause the people around them to pray. There are reasons for the godly to be sick. Here you have this example here that even the godly can get sick. And he felt he would die, and others felt he would die. And there are some men who did know that they were going to die in Scripture.

They're not very many. Elijah, Peter, Moses, Ahab was told that he would not return from battle. Jesus spoke of a man who built more and more barns for more and more business and he told him, you fool today, your soul will be required of you. So there are some in scripture who have been told that they would die. Here Hezekiah is one of those men who was told.

You know, And what does he do? He turns and he cries out to God in prayer, and it seems to be an anguished prayer. And you know, Hezekiah was like every man. There's an impulse in every person to keep on living and to keep on contributing. You know, we don't feel that we've done enough.

We don't feel that we've lived our lives quite as fully as we hoped to. And there are many things that we want to do. Now, there are times when our sinfulness is revealed through this impulse. Often our desires are foolish and they're irrelevant. And we create these ridiculous lists of pleasure and personal accomplishments so that we can say that we did certain things.

I was reading this week of the top ten items that are on bucket list. You know what a bucket list is? I'm here to hear the things I'm gonna do before I die. Well, here are the top ten. Become a billionaire.

Travel the world. See the Northern Lights. Walk the Great Wall of China. Completely pay off your mortgage. Go to the Inca Trail in Peru.

See the seven wonders of the world. Visit the pyramids of Egypt. Invent something that changes lives. Visit Antarctica. This is what people often feel that they ought to do in order to fulfill themselves and complete their lives.

I think Hezekiah had a completely different kind of thinking behind his grief about the ending of his own life. He was a godly man. I don't think he was making a bucket list. I think he was making a list to glorify God in his nation, in his days. That was his...

It wasn't really about him at all. It was about God and his glory. He wanted to glorify God. That's so plain in everything that he did. But here God is telling this man that he's going to die.

And I think this is a helpful thing for us. Here we are, most everybody's pretty healthy around here, but we're all going to die. And it's a good time for us to consider our ways, to consider our trajectory, to consider what's on our list to do. Is it relevant or irrelevant? And you know, God has determined the day of your death, and you should not ignore this reality.

God has already demonstrated that he is in control of an Assyrian army. He says, Assyria is my rod and my axe. He controls armies. He can move armies and kill armies. And now he is showing that he controls the day of your death as well.

And I think that we should prepare to meet that day, to consider the moment that you'll face death. The Bible says that in Adam all died, and in Christ we will all be made alive. It's appointed to man once to die. We should consider that reality here. That Jesus Christ has made a world so that there would be a time of departure from this world.

And at that time of departure, the state of your soul is absolutely the most important thing. It won't matter if you walked the Incan trail or bungee jumped off that bridge. There's only one thing that matters. Behold your God, because that is what matters. In Deuteronomy chapter 32, Moses says this.

He says, I am God and there is no other. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal, nor is there any who can deliver from my hand. This is just a mere statement of God's control. I'm grateful that God is in control of the day of my death and yours as well.

We're not in control of it, but God is. And here, I think that We are at another one of those great statements that demonstrate the mighty sovereign hand of God. How many times have we been here in Isaiah? And here we are again. I so gladly proclaim it again.

We will be proclaiming it a few more times in Isaiah, but I'm so delighted again on another Sunday morning to proclaim the sovereignty of God. We've seen so many examples of this over the last several months, that God is in control of all things. You know, I'll tell you, I've been especially glad to be able to preach the sovereignty of God over and over again for our young people who are hearing this. There's nothing more important for a young person to embrace other than the gospel, but to know deep within your heart that God is in control. And I've been very self-consciously speaking to our young people about the sovereignty of God.

You need to know that God is in control. You need to know that all is well. You need to know that nothing can hold back his hand, whether it's health or sickness, God is in control. And I think it's such a marvelous opportunity for us to speak the truth that God has put us in this earth to declare the wondrous things that He has done. Like it says in Psalm 78, we will not hide them from our children, telling them the generation to become the praises of the Lord and His strength and his wonderful works that he has done.

That's what we're doing here. Here's what I want to say. God is in control. There you have it. What a blessing it is.

And then after this disclosure again of how God is going to defend his city for his own sake and for the sake of the servant David. Isaiah comes to Hezekiah and he gives him this counsel. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, went to him and said, thus says the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die and not live." So there's this counsel here, set your house in order. And this is a command that Isaiah brings. And the word that Isaiah uses here refers to the household, including all of your affairs, I believe.

And to set, to set in Hebrew is literally to command, to charge, to give orders, to appoint, to ordain. So to set your house in order is to command things to be done, that things would would change from a place of disorder to order. And the theological word book of the Old Testament gives this definition of to set. To set is used for the instruction of a father to a son for Samuel 17, 20. A farmer to his laborers, Ruth 2, 9.

A king to his servants, 2 Samuel 21, verse 4. It reflects a firmly structured society in which people were responsible to their right to rule by God's command. The leader was then in a position to command the people and to expect their obedience. God commanded the world into existence. All creatures and elements therefore obey his command.

God also directs the course of history by decreeing crucial events. Indeed, no determinative event happens without God's ordaining it. Indeed, he decrees that his people be victorious. So to set your house in order is to decree, to command, to put things in a right way. This is the kind of thing that God has done here.

Now, there are many passages of Scripture that speak of this. Now, let's recognize who is given this responsibility? Hezekiah. Hezekiah, the head of his house, is given the responsibility to set his house in order. He is responsible for His own house, not everyone else's house.

And this is perhaps part of what Joshua meant when he said, as for me and my house, We will serve the Lord. God gives households heads so that they would lead, so that they would set their houses in order. And so it's appropriate to prepare for death. How do you prepare for your death? You set your own house in order.

That's how you prepare. Don't wait to the very end to try to set your house in order. Set it in order now. Keep setting it in order. And when it gets out of order, put it back in order.

That's usually the experience of most of us. You know, you may be planning your vacation next year. You may be sitting here planning your career plan, things you're going to do, maybe even on Monday. But are you planning in such a way to prepare yourself for that day? Somebody said, you ought to prepare in such a way that when it comes time to die, all you have to do is die.

And what does it mean to set your house in order? I'm just going to give you six things here that are necessary for setting your house in order. I think first of all, the setting of your house in order requires that you set your heart in order, that you consider your spiritual condition, that you don't delay to make peace with God, that you know who you are. Are you a child of God? Are you a sheep?

Are you a goat? Are you of the light? Are you of the darkness? Who are you? If you would set your house in order, you should first answer that question.

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sins? Are you following Him? Have you seen the fruit of His work in your life? Have you seen the Holy Spirit work and change you?

If so, if so, you have rightly prepared your house. If not, the day of destruction is coming upon you. Secondly, set your family in order. Is there proper order in your family? Families are meant to be orderly.

They really are. And are there areas of repentance required in your family? Is there something in your family that needs to be made right? There's another area in your relationships. Number three, set your relationships in order.

Is there forgiveness necessary? Is there communication necessary? Is there restitution necessary in your relationships? Set your house in order. Number four, set your provision in order.

The Bible says, He who doesn't provide for his own is worse than an unbeliever. Set a way of provision for your family. If you're a husband, you're a father, you may die before the time that you'd hoped. And what will your family do? Is your, is is their provision laid out for your family?

Set your resources in order. Number five. Number six. Set your information in order. This could include your will.

Do you have one? Do you have a personal financial statement that your wife can look at when you die so she knows what's going on? You know, several years ago, one of my dear friends died in his early 30s, and I was charged to go and set his affairs in order after the fact, to go find what was there. And it just became very clear to me how important it is that there is a level of orderliness in the financial records and the information that's in your family. It takes off an enormous amount of pressure on a wife.

Is it clearly known whatever assets or social security information or credit cards or automobile titles or insurance policies or funeral instructions or anything like that, any known deaths, anything like that, is it clear? Is your house in order? And if you did die, you know, would your wife know that she has a place to look in order to know these things? But this setting your house in order was about the impending death of a man who was getting ready to die. You know, this phrase, set your house in order, was also used by a hippothell who set his house in order and then he committed suicide.

I think that this is a very different kind of thing that Hezekiah is doing. Let me also suggest that setting your house in order is not just something for adults to do. Everyone has a life, everyone has a house, figuratively. And is your house in order, even as a single person? Well, Hezekiah has his family and his kingdom in mind, and he's charged to set his house in order.

Again, I think we should recognize that the Christian life is, I think, clearly understood on this matter, and that is the people of God are not in passive resignation about what's going on around them. If there is a day of death, then they do something about it. They take action. Yes, they do believe that God is sovereign, but they don't sit on their hands. This is what Christianity is.

And then Hezekiah cries out to the Lord in verses 2-3. This is the second section in these first 8 verses. Hezekiah cries out to the Lord. He turned his face toward the wall, and he prayed to the Lord. And he said, remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart and have done what is good in your sight.

And Hezekiah wept bitterly. So the news has fallen upon his ears, and he does what a godly man does, he prays. Has Achaia had a useful and a zealous and a holy life? And now, as part of that stream of consciousness in his life, his heart turned toward God. When he hears the worst news, I think it was somebody in Bible studies who said he wouldn't throw on pots and pans and kick in the cabinets.

He turned to God and he prayed. He did what a godly man does. But the news of his death did not cause him to enter into some kind of depressed resignation. He prayed. He cried out to God.

He took action. He didn't just accept the moment. He brought the moment to God in the same way that he did when the threatening army was there. He took his prayer, he took the letter from Sennacherib and laid it out before the Lord. Now he turns his face to the wall.

I think in a way of seeking the Lord in a private and quiet way. Christians do not passively and carelessly just want things to happen. When their spirits are disturbed within them, they seek the Lord. They throw themselves in front of the train. They do something about it.

And here this is what Hezekiah does. He doesn't just accept it and go to sleep. He cries out to God. This is what Christians do. You know, when sin is gaining the upper hand in your society, If something is happening that's disturbing, then we move into action.

You know, belief in the sovereignty of God does not mean that you don't care what happens. Belief in the sovereignty of God means that you do care. And you also work with God, who is sovereign, to execute His will. Now, interestingly enough, The answer to this prayer was almost immediate. You know, Isaiah starts walking out of the temple and he doesn't get halfway out of the palace that the prayer is answered.

And he's commanded to go back to Hezekiah. And he tells him. But he prays privately, he prays fervently, he prays with a recognition that God will judge him. And he does not pray that God would give him 15 more years of life. He doesn't pray that.

At least it's not recorded. Perhaps he did pray it, but it wasn't recorded, but I think we can safely say that he did not pray for 15 more years, but somehow God designed to get it to him. Now, when you read this prayer, you may think, well, this sounds like a boastful prayer. There are some interpreters who have taken it this way, that it was some kind of a sign of weakness in his life, and it was a self-righteous prayer where he's extolling his goodness. And I don't take the prayer that way.

You do see prayers like this in the Bible. David has some prayers like this, some songs like this. Nehemiah prays like this. He says, Remember my righteousness. And I don't believe this is a sign of his weakness, but rather it's a sign of his integrity before God, that he's a man who's stood before God in the integrity of his heart.

He knows deep within his heart that he loves God. He knows that he has wanted to do the will of God. I don't believe he's claiming any kind of perfection. In fact, I would suggest he understands very clearly his lack of perfection. He says later on in this in a song that he writes, we'll deal with this next week, that God has put his sins behind him.

He acknowledges his sinfulness. So this is not a self-righteous prayer. He's not bargaining with God, he's not raging against God. I think it's the prayer of a real Christian. And like all prayers, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses.

But Hezekiah is not one who sorrows like those who are without hope, that Paul spoke of in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13, that God lays sicknesses upon men and women for their own good. And Hezekiah is going to end up saying the same thing that godly, other godly people have have said in their affliction. Like David, it was good that you afflicted me. He's going to say that later on. And so I regard this prayer as a godly prayer, a truthful prayer.

You know, Hezekiah had no heir, as far as we can tell. Perhaps he was crying out to God for that. Manasseh was not born yet. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king. Hezekiah was given 15 years of life.

So Manasseh wasn't born for three years after this time. Maybe he was crying out for an heir. Hezekiah was attentive to the glory of God and the protection of his people Israel and he would know if there wasn't an heir that it would be a disaster. So he's crying out to God and then God gives him the years necessary to have an heir to carry on the line because God has designed a foolproof plan to save his people. The sure mercies of David will be completed.

He will save his people. Hezekiah understood that And I believe that Hezekiah was praying under the shadow of that promise made to David that he would fulfill his righteousness in his people. So Hezekiah prayed and God worked through his prayers. Now here's something we should recognize about the sovereignty of God and prayer. The decrees of God and prayer.

And this is something that I think this passage helps us to see with bright clarity and that is this. God works out His sovereign decrees through the prayers of His people. That's the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in prayer. God works His sovereign decrees unbreakable through the prayers of His people. It's such a marvelous thing.

There are many examples in Scripture where God changes the world through the prayers of His people. And there are examples where God changes the trajectory as a result of the prayers of His people. Here's how A.W. Pink speaks of this in his book, the sovereignty of God. The same God who has decreed the end has also decreed that His end shall be reached through His appointed means, and one of these means is prayer.

He says God has decreed that certain events shall come to pass, but He has also decreed that they will come to pass through prayer. God has elected certain ones to be saved, but he has also decreed that those ones shall be saved through the preaching of the gospel. The gospel then is one of those appointed means for the working out of the eternal counsel of the Lord. And prayer is another. God has decreed the means as well as the end, and among means is prayer.

That's what we see here. We see The sovereign decree of God and we see prayer. And the contents of the prayer are very clear. Remember O Lord, I pray how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart and have done what is good in your sight. We know that that prayer is true because God proclaims that this was true of him in another place.

So he was praying something that it was true. So it wasn't presumptuous or self-righteous prayer at all, But it was prayer for the glory of God. It says that he wept bitterly. I think we should talk about that just briefly. The word bitterly in the Hebrew has a sense, its primary sense is intensity.

That there's great urgency and intensity in his weeping. And it's not bitterly in the sense of angrily or spitefully at all. It's not that kind of bitterly. It was a severe intensity with which he prayed. He cried out to God that way.

His weeping was for a good cause. It was a prayer of anguish. Of anguish? You know, did God change his mind on this? Did God threaten in vain?

You know, God told him he was going to die. You know, are all these things contradictory to his nature? And the answer to that is no. God was not contradicting. God was showing his glory to his Son.

He was bearing witness to his true nature. He's bearing witness to his true nature. He's a merciful and compassionate God who is slow to anger, who listens to the prayers of his people. He was showing who he is. He is being perfectly consistent by listening to his people.

Even though he has stated he will do something, he will listen to his people. And I have no idea how to explain that. But that's what we find here. But he is declaring who he is by this very story, not contradicting who he is. Second Chronicles, I think, makes this very clear.

Second Chronicles, chapter 7, verse 14, If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray. I will hear from heaven and I'll heal their land if my people pray. I will hear and I will do something about it." This is the mercy and the love of God. And here in this story, in the sickness of Hezekiah, we're reminded again of the love of God for mankind, and how God has designed to work with his sons and daughters intimately, like father-son, like friend-to-friend. And he's saying he's going to use these things to defend his city for his own name's sake.

And he's saying that his people are not a people of passive resignation, But they rise up and they pray. They see what's going on and they cry out for those things. In setting their houses in order, they pray. And then, in the final section, in verses 4 through 8, Hezekiah is given 15 more years of life. Now, this is one of the quickest answers to prayer in all of scripture, most likely.

The prayer, you know, Hezekiah gets the answer to his prayer right away, and then there are three days between that and this sign, the way I understand it here. If you can go to 2 Kings chapter 20 verse 5 And read this, I'll read it for you. Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of my people. Thus says the Lord God of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Surely I will heal you.

On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, and I will add your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David." So, he is going to go up to the house of the Lord on the third day. Why the third day? Well, you might want to think about that for a little while. In this section, there is a presence of a term, I will, I will, I will, I will.

Four times God says, I will. God is going to do these things. Again, it's the power of God working in response to the prayer of a man. God's will is activated by the prayers of man in this passage of scripture. You know, this is why it's been so clear in the previous sections about prayer, our prayers should be deadly specific because God hears the prayers of His people.

You know, there are places in Scripture where God says He's going to do something and then He relents. Exodus 32, verses 7 through 14 is one of those. God is angry with his people. God declares that he's going to destroy his people. Moses cries out and says, Have mercy.

God has mercy, and he doesn't destroy them. In Genesis chapter 20 verse 3, God says to Abimlak, you're a dead man. What seemed to be an actuality had a condition tied to it, a divine order. In Jonah chapter 3 verse 4, Jonah goes to the people of Nineveh and he says in 40 days God's gonna overthrow this city. Often in scripture the conditions are not communicated.

God doesn't always state the conditions and I think that's possibly what happened here. God didn't state the conditions of Hezekiah's getting a longer life and recovering from his disease. And perhaps the condition was his prayer. I don't know. But God doesn't always state his own conditions in the very context in which he makes a declaration about someone's impending doom.

But God keeps His promises, and He makes a promise, and He gives a sign, the sign of the sundial. He says, I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. This is amazing. I think this statement should be big in our minds as we think about this.

I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. You know, Psalm 56 says, you number my wanderings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? You know, God, God is kind.

God is a loving God. He's merciful. He's patient toward his people. And he's given his people prayer in order that he would demonstrate his love toward them. So that they would see how they cry out to God and how He hears them and how He cares for them.

So he adds 15 more years to his life as a result of the prayer. And there's this sign in verse 7, and the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing which he has spoken, Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz ten degrees backward. So he's speaking of the sundial of Ahaz. We're not exactly sure what this is. Perhaps it was a sundial that you might be familiar with.

Others think it was the steps of Ahaz's house where the shadow would fall upon the steps and give him the time as he was walking into his house. I'm not sure what that is, but the sun was going to return 10 degrees. Some believe that God miraculously just moved the shadow by bending the light. Others say, no, there are five hours that we're lost here. We found these five hours through all these calculations.

I have no idea of any of this. I don't think that's the point of this. I think what the point is is that God moves heaven and earth. God can do what is necessary to preserve his people. And there isn't anything that is going to stop God from preserving his people.

And he will give signs that are reliable, signs that no one else can give. Ahaz refused the sign of Emmanuel, but Hezekiah received the sign from God. Well I want to just give you a few things to think about regarding this beautiful passage. I think first of all, We need to recognize that God has many times moved heaven and earth in response to people's prayers. And God has it so that He would give us trials and tribulations.

We consider it joy when we encounter these trials. And we consider it joy when we encounter these trials because it moves us to prayer. And our afflictions are often just designed to move us in a direction. And I think we should ask ourselves, what afflictions are upon us that are really designed to move us to move heaven and earth. You know, this was a sickness for the glory of God in every way.

And God is using this sickness of Hezekiah to continue the revival among his people. And God may make you sick to drive you to a place to pray so that the revival would continue on in the world in the way that God had ordained. You may get sick, you're terrified, it drives you to long for God's face, and you cry out to God. And what God does is that He harnesses sickness for the purpose of revival among His people. Because often sickness is given to righteous people so that they will pray more intensely than they prayed before.

And God raises up these painful moments so that they'll be monuments of His grace. The second thing I want to say is there's nothing more important in getting your house in order than to pray, to turn your face to the wall and pray, to begin to set your house in order by looking to God and crying out to Him for what you ought to do. And this is one of the ways that God defends the city, is when His people pray. You know, Prayer has been on our radar screen for quite a while in this narrative section. And these narratives prove the fact that we should never say something.

We should never say, I don't have an impact in this world. I can't have an impact in this world. We should never say that our presence here is meaningless. We should never say that we're just subject to the forces that are out of control. Because God made the world where His people pray and He responds.

And what that means is that your life is not meaningless with prayer. That God gave you prayer so that you wouldn't live in vain. He gave you prayer so that you wouldn't live a meaningless life. But that you would actually take action, you would rise up against the things that are contradictory to the love of God. And you would marshal your energies and you would pray.

And that means that Your life is not meaningless, that God created you to live and move and have your being and move heaven and earth by crying out to Him. Do you see the love of God in this? Do you see how kind God is in this sickness that comes upon this man. And the question really is if, if, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, Then I will hear from heaven and heal their land." The question is if the people of God will pray. And you don't have to ask why God put you in this world.

Here's why He put you in this world, to pray, to bring heaven down. And so Hezekiah is a man of prayer, and he stands as a Marvelous example of the impact of a man or a woman that they can have in the world. I think we should consider the value of the cycles of crisis and relief in our lives. This is the story of your life. It's the story of cycling, of crisis and relief.

Crisis and relief. That's the story of your life. That's the story of my life, too. God has designed it that way. But He designs the cycles so that you would pray, so that you would glorify Him, so that you would be the kind of person in the world that He intended you to be.

The cycles are not curses, they're blessings from heaven. You know, finally, I just, I can't read this without trying to put myself in Hezekiah's place and how amazed he must have been when he heard such good news like this. You know, he heard the news that Snackers Army was going to fall dead. That was good news. And now, and he hears this news here, that he's given 15 more years of life.

It was remarkable news. You know, you think of news that you get, you know, the young unmarried man hears a woman say, yes, you know, you go into the doctor and he says the tumor is benign, you know, You go, you know, you're at the hospital and the doctor says, it's a girl. But, you know, the judge says, you are innocent. And here, God gives an example so that we would understand the nature of His intentions for us. And the nature of His intentions are all wrapped up in good news.

He is going to defend this city. He is going to complete the sure mercies of David. And what that means is that there is salvation in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. All of this is a figure of salvation that is in Jesus Christ. All this is a figure of the fulfillment of all the promises to people that If you repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

And that's the greatest news that anybody can ever have. And that's why when the Lord Jesus Christ was being announced as coming in Luke chapter 2, where we read, An angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shown around them. And they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all the people.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord." Again, we find Hezekiah was made sick in order to foretell the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ that He will come and save His people. He will heal them. And along the way, he'll use his people to change the world through prayer. If you pray with me. Father, I praise you that you have promised to defend your city, to carry your people all the way home, to bring them the news, the good news, to help them know of the joy of your salvation, of your passion to defend your name, how through all sickness, through all war, through all calamity, you will defend your name and preserve your people.

Lord I praise you for that. And I praise you for all of your people who are here today, whom you're promising to defend for all eternity in the midst of the cycles of their lives, the ups and the downs and the hardships, for your sake and for the sake of your servant David. Amen.