Participants:
Series Code: PJU
Program Code: PJU190011A
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00:01 Were the people in the Bible any different to us today
00:06 or ordinary people like you and me? 00:14 What can we find out from their lives that will help us? 00:25 Find out with Pr. Geoff Youlden and Rosemary Malkiewycz here on 00:33 People Just Like Us. 00:38 Life is full of ups and downs, good times and the worst 00:42 of times. So what do we do when these changes come suddenly 00:47 and what do when that happen? During bad times we may turn to 00:51 God for help, yet during the good times we often forget all 00:56 about Him. Is this the smart way to behave? Let's look at the 01:01 story of the best king in the world and see what lessons we 01:05 can learn from his life. Who was this best king Pastor Geoff? 01:13 Well let me ask this question before I tell you. Oh okay. 01:18 There are two chapters in the Bible that are identical and 01:24 when I say identical I mean word for word, pretty well word for 01:27 word. And I often ask folks where are those chapters found? 01:33 What books are they found in? 01:36 I know one's in Isaiah. 01:38 Yes, one's in Isaiah and the other is in Kings and it 01:43 concerns King Hezekiah. God said he was the best King that Israel 01:47 ever had. The very fact that the story is recorded twice in 01:54 the Bible would say to me that God regards this as being very, 01:59 very important. 02:00 An important story. 02:01 Very important. And we pick out the story here in 2 Kings if 02:07 you'd like to turn with me 2 Kings 17:1. It says... 02:24 The Bible says he did evil in the sight of the Lord; That's a 02:28 sort of recurring statement. 02:30 Oh the same thing. 02:31 but not as the kings of Israel who were before him... 02:40 And as you read on there in verse 6 it says... 02:51 ... In other words this is the attack against the 10 northern 02:55 kingdoms because at this time Israel was divided into two 02:57 sections. There was Judah, the southern kingdom, and Israel 03:01 referring to the 10 northern kingdoms and because of the 03:05 apostasy of Israel, the 10 northern kingdoms, God allowed 03:09 the Assyrians to come down and to take them captive. And it's 03:14 not because they didn't have warning. Verse 13 of 2 Kings 17 03:17 says... 03:19 ... and so forth. In other words every prophet of God upheld 03:32 the commandments and pled with the people to come back to truth 03:38 and to be obedient, but unfortunately verse 16 says 03:42 they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, made to 03:43 themselves a molten image and two calves and so forth and 03:49 served Baal and as a result the Lord was very angry, verse 18... 03:58 so this is the division. Then it says in verse 19, a very sad 04:02 verse also... 04:09 and as a result of that 04:15 God allowed the Assyrians to come down now against 04:19 Judah. And we pick up the story because like a plague it spread 04:23 because like a plague it spread and the Assyrians came down and 04:30 they said in chapter 18 and verse 1... 04:45 and the Bible says... 04:55 and verse 4 says... 05:00 The sacred pillars were the symbol of sun worship and... 05:08 Now they were worshiping this bronze serpent 05:18 And then verse 5 makes a statement... 05:28 In other words, he was just a wonderful, wonderful good man. 05:32 You see the Assyrians at this time were the mightiest nation 05:37 on the earth. And very cruel. Very cruel. They would skin 05:42 their captives alive. Terrible. I mean if you thought the 05:48 Assyrians were coming down back in those times the fear would 05:53 shudder through you. And they had already conquered at this 05:58 stage Samaria. Now Samaria was the capital of the Northern 06:03 kingdom and there was a conquered Megiddo which was the 06:07 fortress to protect Samaria. Now they were down at Lachish 06:10 which was the fortress to protect Jerusalem and King 06:15 Sennacherib had already conquered Lachish and he wrote Hezekiah a 06:23 letter from Lachish and he says you might as well throw open the 06:28 gates because we're coming down God or no God. In fact, his 06:34 statement is made in verse 35, this is chapter 18 and verse 35, 06:43 he says,... 06:52 You can see what he's saying. Don't you get any idea that your 06:55 God is going to protect you because no other God has 06:57 protected them from me. So you might as well throw open the 07:01 gates. 07:02 Each nation had their own God in those days and it used to be 07:07 when one nation went to war with another nation it was basically 07:11 their God fighting the other God and they expected the same would 07:17 happen here with Judah just as it had with Israel. Israel 07:21 apparently had the same God as Judah and they had defeated 07:24 Israel so their God hadn't protected them. But Israel was 07:27 not following God, so He wasn't protecting them. 07:30 Correct. And so Hezekiah in chapter 19:14 it says received 07:36 the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it and 07:39 Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before 07:42 the Lord. And you can just see the fear of the Assyrians coming 07:48 and Hezekiah takes the letter and puts it in the church, in 07:53 the temple and spreads it out and asks God what am I going to 07:58 do? And these two chapters that are identical, 2 Kings 19 and 08:03 Isaiah 37 record that incident and the prayer of Hezekiah. 08:09 See, Hezekiah when he took that letter and laid it before God 08:16 I find it very encouraging and it gives me hope because when 08:21 things happen in my life because of what Hezekiah did I feel like 08:26 I can go to God and place it before Him and say, I can't 08:30 handle this, it's too big for me; you'll have to do it for me 08:34 and I leave it with you. Then I can walk away knowing I've given 08:39 it to God and it's His business. And that's basically what 08:43 Hezekiah's doing here. I can't handle this Lord. It's too much 08:47 for me; I need you to take care of it. 08:49 Well verse 19 is his statement when he says that. He says... 08:53 ...and you can hear him saying it. And then he gives the reason 09:09 In other words, he wasn't just praying for his own skin. He was 09:13 actually praying that God's name would be honored and glorified 09:18 among all the nations around as they see this mighty deliverance 09:22 This chapter is such an amazing chapter. 09:25 A very important thing for us to learn here too is how 09:31 prayer is so important, as important for us as much as us 09:37 just talking to God. It strengthens us. But previous to 09:41 this when Hezekiah when the king of Assyria had taken Lachish, 09:47 Hezekiah sent him gifts. He said impose on me whatever you want 09:54 me to pay. And he did. It says in 2 Kings 18:14 that he gave 10:03 him 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Now to get an 10:07 idea of how much money was that King Hezekiah had that he gave 10:14 to the king of Assyria to sort of basically say, here it is, go 10:18 away. I'm giving you money, just leave me alone. A talent is 10:25 is equivalent to around 33 kilograms. Currently silver is 10:32 worth, and I looked all this up, silver is worth over $566 U.S. 10:38 a kilo. Now remember in one talent there are 33 kilograms. 10:47 That's $18,700 U.S. per talent and the 300 talents of silver 10:58 would be 9,900 kilos which is over five and a half million 11:06 U.S. dollars currently and the gold is $48,000/kilo U.S. at 11:14 the moment and it would have been worth over $45,000,000, 11:19 equivalent today. That was a lot of wealth that Hezekiah had that 11:25 he gave away to try and get peace, but he didn't. Assyria 11:29 said right, if I got that much, let's get the rest and they 11:32 came down again. 11:34 Well, it's interesting, Rosemary that when you're reading chapter 11:37 19:35, God answers Hezekiah's prayer and he answers it in the 11:43 most amazing way. Because chapter 18:35 has the defiant 11:47 attitude of Sennacherib, who among the gods has delivered 11:52 them, but God answers in exactly one chapter later, chapter 19:35 11:55 And it says... 12:09 I always smile at that one. Have you ever seen a live corpse? 12:12 Well the King James says there were all dead corpses. So yes I 12:15 do smile at that too because a corpse is a dead person or a 12:19 dead body. 12:20 I mean, think of it; one angel comes down from glory and slays 12:26 185,000 of the world's toughest soldiers, wipes out Sennacherib's 12:33 army. We ought to talk a lot more about the angels, the power 12:39 of the angels, because the Bible says all of us have a guardian 12:41 angel. The angel of the Lord encamps about them that fear 12:45 Him and he will deliver them. Of course, when Sennacherib got 12:52 back to Nineveh he said to the priest, how come this happened? 12:57 So when you read in verses 36 and 37 of chapter 19... 13:15 Now what tradition tells us, this is not in the Bible, but 13:17 the story tells us that the priest over in Nineveh said well 13:23 it's very easy to explain because Hezekiah's father 13:27 Abraham was going to offer his son as a sacrifice to his God 13:32 and Sennacharib thought well okay, I've got three sons. If I 13:38 _and sacrifice them I'll become invincible like Hezekiah. 13:46 But the trouble is the boys heard about it and they got rid 13:48 of father before he got rid of them. Just an interesting side 13:53 light to the story of Sennacherib and it's interesting 13:57 that in the next chapter, chapter 20, an amazing thing 14:00 happened. After this amazing, amazing deliverance of wiping 14:04 all of that enemy, just amazing. Then the very next news that 14:09 comes to poor old Hezekiah is 14:24 Now that's the pronouncement. 14:25 Well it is. Thus says the Lord: This is it. 14:29 Set your house in order. 14:31 And it's interesting, if you look back and work out 14:35 Hezekiah's age, he was 39 when the happened. Entering the very 14:40 best years of his life. Someone wrote a book some years ago, 14:42 Life Begins at 40. Do you know whether that's true. 14:46 I don't think so. 14:48 I can't work out whether that's true or not. But the facts are 14:51 that his philosophy was that you've learned a few things up 14:54 until the age of 40, you still got the youth of your years 14:58 to be able to put it into practice. Once you get after 40 15:01 it's you know downhill all the way. Whether you believe that 15:07 I'm not pushing it, but I'm just saying here that Hezekiah was 15:12 39 years of age when this news, get your house in order because 15:14 you're going to die. 15:16 He wasn't an old man. 15:17 No. Hezekiah didn't want to die and as we read the story he 15:21 pled with the Lord and Isaiah goes back and says all right 15:28 We've heard your prayer Hezekiah the Lord heard your prayer and 15:32 will extend your life 15 years. 15:35 See God hears prayers. 15:37 Yes. But Hezekiah still was finding it difficult to believe 15:42 God so he said you've got to give me a sign. And as you read 15:46 here, the sign that he gave him was that he would put the sun 15:50 back 10 degrees, which of course meant that the day would be 15:55 longer and so when the Lord put the sun back 10 degrees, that 16:02 made a big impression on the Assyrians and the Babylonians 16:05 because they worshiped the sun. Much of the mathematics that we 16:08 have today comes to us from the Babylonians and the Assyrians 16:14 they worked out on the 60 system we work out on the decimal 16:18 system on 10 and 10 is divisible by 5 and by 2, but 60 is 16:23 divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. So they worked the system out 16:29 that's where we get 60 seconds to the minute, 60 minutes to the 16:34 hour, 360 degrees in a circle. All come from the ancient 16:38 Babylonians. And the imperial measurement is 12 inches in a 16:43 foot and 3 feet into a yard and it all works with 6 into all of 16:49 those things. 16:52 Yes, well the Babylonian system worked on this principle and so 17:00 they worshiped the sun and they saw the sun go back, so they 17:04 sent over a big delegation because they heard that it was 17:08 they heard that it was the God of Hezekiah that actually 17:12 shifted their God. I've often thought too about this 15 years. 17:21 If the Lord said to you, You've got 15 years left, I'll extend 17:25 your life another 15 years. I'm not so sure that's good news. 17:28 It may be good news while there's 15, but what happens 17:31 when it gets down to five, four, three, two, and then you get 17:41 into the last year. I mean talk about stress, I reckon you'd be 17:46 experiencing. So it's probably a good thing that we don't know 17:48 when our demise will come, that God has that kept secret from us 17:54 because I think we'd all stress. 17:56 Even doctors try to predict sometimes how much people have 18:00 got left and it doesn't necessarily work. 18:03 Well this delegation as we read on in the story, this delegation 18:07 came over from Babylon, from Assyria, and in chapter 20 and 18:13 verse 13... You can imagine. These are the world's very best 18:18 mathematicians. They're the best leaders and they all come 18:24 over to sit at Hezekiah's feet to learn from him and he has a 18:28 rush of blood that goes to his head. Instead of being humble 18:34 and being recognizing, it's interesting to see what Hezekiah 18:38 does. Now remember this is the king that God says is the best 18:40 man, none before him and none after him in being good. 18:44 And he helped him with the Assyrians and he gave him 18:49 another 15 years. 18:51 All right, and it says in verse 13...And Hezekiah was attentive 18:53 to them, this was the delegation that comes from across the way. 19:15 You'd think he had nothing left to show them after he gave 19:19 all that money to the Assyrians. 19:20 Well evidently he did. He showed them everything. You know, often 19:23 I think about this story because when someone comes to visit us 19:27 what's the impression that we give them? You know, we might 19:31 have a nice home, we might have a nice cow, nice this, nice 19:35 that, nice farm, a lot of things nice business. What's the 19:41 impression that we give to people. Is it like foolish 19:48 Nebuchadnezzar said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built. 19:51 In other words, he took the glory to himself. Is that 19:53 that exactly what Hezekiah was doing? Because he said fellas 19:57 come here and I'll show you this and he shows them this and he 19:59 shows them that and shows them everything else. Well there's 20:03 not one statement there that you read where he talked about God. 20:07 Well the record says Hezekiah was... 20:25 In other words, it was all about Hezekiah and he made a 20:30 dreadful mistake and the fellows were very happy to chat with 20:36 Hezekiah. Then they went on their way back. And God called 20:38 Hezekiah and said Hezekiah I've got something to say to you. 20:41 Seeing that you haven't told them anything about Me, I'm 20:44 going to allow them to come down and they're going to take 20:48 everything that you showed them, they're going to come down and 20:51 take the lot. And Hezekiah, as you read the record; this is 20:54 part of the Bible I wouldn't have written in if I'd been 20:56 writing the Bible because it says Hezekiah says, Well may it 21:01 not happen in my day, may it happen in my son's day. You know 21:08 here's the scoundrel. He makes the big mistake and doesn't want 21:09 to take the consequences of the mistake, and let his son do it. 21:14 Yeah be it in my son's day... 21:18 One of the things I learned from this story is that Hezekiah 21:21 shows them all his stuff and not his God. And so, he missed an 21:28 opportunity that God had given him through this miracle to show 21:35 those from another country that God who did this the God who 21:40 moved their God and so God had to do it another way. Through 21:48 captivity with Nebuchadnezzar, he finally who finally converted 21:54 to the truth of God. Through the kings of the Medes and Persians 22:02 This is the problem which is why the Bible is emphasizing 22:08 this point because 22:12 Hezekiah, he made two tragic mistakes and they all happened 22:16 in the added 15 years of his life. Up until the 15 years 22:21 there's nothing recorded against Hezekiah. I'm not suggesting he 22:25 was perfect but there's nothing in the Bible recorded against 22:30 Hezekiah. The big mistakes that he made were all made in that 22:35 added 15 years. Now that says something to me that God knows 22:39 best. You know we think that we know what we should pray for. 22:44 Hezekiah was actually convinced that he ought to have lived 22:48 longer. But God saw that it was best that he die. And it would 22:53 have been better for Hezekiah to die when he died 22:56 than to live on because he made that mistake but he also made 23:01 another mistake and the other mistake is recorded in chapter 23:05 21 and verse 1 where it says... 23:16 And verse 2 says he did evil in the sight of the Lord according 23:20 to the abominations of the nations that the Lord had cast 23:22 out before the children of Israel. And if you read the next 23:25 few verses it goes on and on and on about the terrible things 23:30 that Manasseh did. In other words, the worst King that 23:34 Israel had had was king Manasseh. Now he should have 23:36 never been born because how old was he? 12. 12 which means that 23:42 he was conceived and born in the added 15 years. So the world 23:49 would have been a better place if Manasseh had never been born. 23:52 And Manasseh should never have been born. And there are some 23:55 people that are born that should never have been born and some 24:00 people live too long. For example: Lot lived too long. In 24:06 other words, if Lot had died before he did die then we would 24:12 never have had the Edomites and the Moabites. They plagued 24:15 Israel all through their journey because they came from Lot's 24:18 incestuous relationships with his own two daughters. So one of 24:24 the big issues that I learn from this lesson of Hezekiah is that 24:30 we must always learn to pray God's will be done, because the 24:35 temptation is that we think we know everything. We know what is 24:41 best. We know that someone ought to be healed from their sickness 24:44 We know that we ought to be healed or we know that we ought 24:45 to do this or do that or_ We think we know but in actual 24:52 fact we don't know. That's why we must always pray thy will be 24:55 done. God knows the future, we don't. 24:59 We don't and like this story that has been recorded in the 25:03 Bible to show us that the best of men are only men at best. 25:07 Even though Hezekiah did all those wonderful things. You know 25:13 sometimes we look at individuals and we think they're wonderful 25:16 It always reminds me of these grandparents who went over to 25:19 China and bought this beautiful Chinese vase and it was just 25:23 exquisite because it fitted into their decor in their home and it 25:27 was beautiful. You could almost see through it, it was so 25:29 beautiful. And they brought it back and the grandson came over 25:32 one day to visit them and he was hanging on the mantel piece, 25:36 swinging on the mantel piece, he didn't mean it but he knocked 25:40 the vase down, it fell on the carpet. But because it was so 25:44 fragile it did break into 100s of pieces. And of course, what 25:49 can you say, it's the grandson. But the grandfather spent hours 25:55 and hours and hours. He got some superglue and he stuck it all 25:58 back together again and put it back on the mantel piece. 26:01 But every time he came into... and grandma goes into the lounge 26:06 room all they can see are these terrible cracks. I don't know 26:09 why it took them so long but one day they realized while they 26:11 were eating lunch together, we remember they said that if we 26:15 ever wanted anything more we could send there to China and 26:18 they'd send it back. So they sent it back and they said we 26:21 want one exactly the same as this one. And they addressed it 26:25 to the place that they had the card from and some month or two 26:29 later the card came in the post saying that there was a parcel 26:34 down at the post office, they understood exactly what it was. 26:38 So when they opened it, there it was with the cracks and all 26:45 because when you're a china man over in China and you see you 26:49 want one exactly the same, you look up in the dictionary, 26:52 it says exactly the same. And that's what happens if we 26:55 pattern our life on anyone else except the Lord Jesus Christ. 26:58 This story has been recorded to teach us that the best of men 27:05 are only men at best. And if we could only learn that lesson 27:09 that the only person, the only superman that there is in this 27:13 world is Jesus. 27:14 Jesus is the best king. He's the only king that we should follow. 27:18 So pattern your life on Jesus and you will not make a mistake. 27:23 We'll see you next time. |
Revised 2019-11-25