Hezekiah, Part 2. Rick Kabrick

Hezekiah, Part 2. Rick Kabrick.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Hezekiah restores the Israelites’ and Jews’ spiritual life and brings many who went astray back to the Lord.

God allows Hezekiah to be the one to defeat the Assyrians.

Compromise always has a price… and the price of compromise is always increasing.

Hezekiah sins and repents and is given 15 years more to live.

Hezekiah had a basis of thankfulness in his life.

Hezekiah recognized the need to do the right thing quickly.

Hezekiah did not wait for a crowd.

One man plus the true God is always an unbeatable combination.

His love for other people, and his desire for outreach.

GEN 32:24-29 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.Â
Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.

After the death of Saul was David, a man with a heart for God. His great failure came when he sinned with regard to Bathsheba and Uriah.

“You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.”

Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant.

Nevertheless I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.

Throughout human history, kingdoms and empires have often divided or fallen as the result of a single unwise decision made by a human leader.

PRO 8:13-17 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the forward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. By Me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By Me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love Me; and those that seek Me early shall find Me.

PRO 24:21 Fear the LORD and the king, my son, and do not join with the rebellious,

Daniel 2:21 He changes times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

So the kingdom had been divided for well over 200 years by the time Hezekiah arrives on the scene.

2CH 29:1-2 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah (“My Father is Yahweh”). He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done.

Unlike David, he (Ahaz) did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and also made cast idols for worshiping the Baals.

2CH 28:3 He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

Yet Hezekiah was thankful for life, and he was committed to serving God. Perhaps it had something to do with his mother.

2CH 29:2-3 He (Hezekiah) did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the LORD and repaired them.

2CH 28:24-25 Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the LORD’s temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the LORD, the God of his fathers, to anger.

2CH 29:3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the LORD and repaired them.

2CH 29:4-6 He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the LORD, the God of your fathers. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. –

– Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the LORD’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him.”

Truth is truth, truth was truth before it was uttered, truth was truth after it was uttered, and truth is truth whether you believe it or not.

2CH 29:6-10 “For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him and turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and have turned their backs.”