daily java

Daily Java:

Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to rule over Judah in the third year of King Hoshea’s reign in Israel. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestor David had done. He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had been offering sacrifices to it. The bronze serpent was called Nehushtan. Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time. He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. So the Lord was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did. He revolted against the king of Assyria and refused to pay him tribute. (1 Kings 18:1-7)

What if you were sick and about to die and God gave you ten more years?

He did this with Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah. Hezekiah was a good king who tried his best to do what God had wanted. He was one of a line of both good and bad kings. Some had tried to do what God wanted, some had not cared.

But almost all of them failed in doing the one thing God told them especially to do: get completely rid of all of the pagan altars. Only two kings did that and by the time the second one came along, it was too late for Israel. God had already decided to destroy them.

Hezekiah tried his best to serve God. He got rid of all of the pagan altars, all of the idol worship that so plagued Israel and he began again to give service and worship to God. He was, all in all, a good man and a good king.

But what made him so good was his absolute trust in the power of God.

The King of Israel, Uzziah, had brought Israel (the top ten tribes of the old nation Israel) to the brink of extinction. They had disobeyed God time and again and God was tired of them. on top of it all, Uzziah decided to thumb his nose at the emperor of Assyria, the world’s most dominant empire at the time.

Assyria invaded Israel and conquered them. Then he set his sights on their neighboring tribe Judah (the bottom two tribes of the old nation Israel). He sent a delegation to Hezekiah and told him in no uncertain terms that Hezekiah’s God had told him to invade Jerusalem just as he had invaded Israel. He was insulting and cruel in his comments.

Hezekiah took the letter to God, laid it on the altar and asked God what he was going to do about Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God (1 Kings 18). Sennacherib, the King of the Assyrians had even told him that his God, the Lord Almighty, was lying to him about delivering him.

But Hezekiah believed in the power of the Lord and, in many ways due to his belief, destroyed the Assyrian army.

But immediately afterwards, Hezekiah got sick. Isaiah the prophet even told him that the Lord said he would die. This filled him with sorrow and he turned his face to the wall and began to cry. He told God how faithful he had been and how hard he had worked for God.

Before Isaiah even got out of the house, the Lord told him to go back and tell Hezekiah he had ten more years. He even asked Hezekiah what kind of sign he wanted as proof. Hezekiah chose to have the shadow on the sundial to go back ten hours.

Hezekiah was a man of strong belief, of strong faith. He knew what God wanted of him and he did it. He made mistakes, of course. At one point, he took the ambassador of the new empire, Babylon, through the palace and showed him all the wealth he had. Isaiah told him that because he did that, one day all he had would be taken from his sons and they would become captives.

His thought: at least it will not happen in my lifetime (1 Kings 20:19).

But even though he was a flawed human being, as we all are, he was also an example of the faith that says God will take care of us no matter what, and that we can count on him.