Hezekiah – role model in trust

Date: 1 Novem­ber 2020 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: 2 Kings 18–20, 2 Chro­nic­les 29–32
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

King Heze­ki­ah had an extre­me­ly dif­fi­cult inhe­ri­tance to bear. His father did ever­y­thing the Lord had for­bidden. Heze­ki­ah bro­ke away from his fami­ly histo­ry and took a stand of his own. He bur­ned all the idols and uten­sils of ido­la­try in the Kidron Val­ley and rein­tro­du­ced wor­ship. Cha­rac­te­ristic of Heze­ki­ah is his trust in God. Becau­se of this, he suc­cee­ded in ever­y­thing he did. When he was death­ly ill, God gave him an addi­tio­nal 15 years of life. They were not good for him. He ove­re­sti­ma­ted hims­elf, which hin­de­red his trust in God. The peo­p­le of Isra­el had to bear the con­se­quen­ces after his death.


It is worth taking King Heze­ki­ah (750 – 696 BC) as a model, for he was a well-hee­led man. At well-to-do we under­stand suc­cessful and pro­spe­rous. That was Heze­ki­ah. Howe­ver, it comes from well-to-do from the Hebrew word batuach off, which trust means. «Heze­ki­ah trus­ted (batuach) in the Lord, the God of Isra­el. Neither befo­re nor after was the­re a king in the land of Judah like him»(2 Kings 18:5 NL). Can it be that peo­p­le who trust God are bles­sed people?

Trust versus family tradition

Hezekiah’s father was cal­led Ahaz. He tried ever­y­thing to suc­ceed. In the pro­cess, he intro­du­ced occult prac­ti­ces and sacri­fi­ced to various idols. Among other things, he even had his son burnt in the fire as a sacri­fice. When he heard that the­re was just a gre­at wave of suc­cess in Damas­cus, he had a priest flown in from the­re who had to pro­du­ce the same dei­ty in Jeru­sa­lem. Ahaz also pro­mi­sed hims­elf suc­cess if he would sacri­fice to this built god. In order to give this for­eign dei­ty the space it deser­ved, he had the enti­re temp­le area rebuilt. Alt­hough he left no stone untur­ned, he suf­fe­r­ed one defeat after ano­ther. To his advan­ta­ge, he also wan­ted to buy the gre­at Assy­ri­an empire. To get the money, he plun­de­red the gold and sil­ver from the temp­le. The money was gone, peace did not come. During this dark peri­od, even the temp­le was clo­sed. Ser­vices were no lon­ger held, which was a fron­tal attack on the Jewish religion.

Heze­ki­ah was born into this situa­ti­on. It says about him: «In the very first month of his first year in office, Heze­ki­ah had the doors of the house of the Lord unlo­cked and repai­red. […] Our ances­tors were unfaithful to the Lord and did what disp­lea­sed our God. They for­so­ok the Lord and his sanc­tua­ry; they tur­ned their backs on him.» (2Chronicles 29:3,6 NL). From the begin­ning it beco­mes clear that Heze­ki­ah wants to go a dif­fe­rent way than his father. His trust began when he bro­ke away from the fami­ly and bro­ke with his father’s beha­viour. It is noti­ceable that Heze­ki­ah does not talk up or down about his father’s actions. He breaks with it becau­se it was wrong. The­re are fal­se depen­den­ci­es in fami­lies that need to be bro­ken. Never should we hide behind the beha­viour of par­ents. «The child­ren are not punis­hed for the sins of the par­ents and the par­ents are not punis­hed for the sins of the child­ren. The righ­teous are reward­ed for their righ­teous­ness, the ungod­ly are punis­hed for their ungod­li­ne­ss»(Eze­kiel 18:20 NL). We are not respon­si­ble for what our par­ents did, and ulti­m­ate­ly for what our child­ren do. Ever­yo­ne is respon­si­ble for their own life and whe­ther they take cer­tain steps or not. Heze­ki­ah was awa­re of this and lived accor­din­gly. Quite often we have to take steps in our fami­ly if we want to grow in trust. This invol­ves clea­ring up fami­ly his­to­ries, distancing ones­elf from cer­tain things or, for exam­p­le, detaching ones­elf from occult machinations.

Apart from sol­ving the pro­blem, it is also about taking a clear posi­ti­on of one’s own. Under Ahaz, thou­sands of peo­p­le went to their deaths in unneces­sa­ry wars. Heze­ki­ah took a stand and said, «We trust in God again.» As a result, a gre­at bles­sing came upon the who­le nati­on. It is also important for us to take a clear stand in the fami­ly. A gre­at bles­sing will come from this.

Trust requires radical decisions

«He cal­led all the priests and Levi­tes to him and gathe­red them in the squa­re to the east. He said to them: «You Levi­tes, lis­ten to me! Puri­fy your­sel­ves so that you can car­ry out your ser­vice again! Puri­fy also the temp­le of the LORD, the God of your ances­tors, and remo­ve from the sanc­tua­ry ever­y­thing that belongs to ido­la­try».» (2 Chro­nic­les 29:4–5 Hfa). Heze­ki­ah deci­ded to trust in the living God again. This invol­ved thro­wing out all the rub­bish. «The priests went into the temp­le and car­ri­ed ever­y­thing that belon­ged to ido­la­try out into the outer court. The Levi­tes took the objects and car­ri­ed them away from the city to the Kidron Val­ley.» (2 Chro­nic­les 29:16 Hfa). Heze­ki­ah threw the­se uten­sils not only out of the temp­le pre­cinct, but into the Kidron Val­ley out­side the city. Unli­ke some of his pre­de­ces­sors, he clea­ned up radi­cal­ly. He pro­ba­b­ly bur­ned the idols so that they could never be rein­tro­du­ced. For Heze­ki­ah it was clear that such things had no place any more. In addi­ti­on to this clea­ring out, he also bro­ke away from the king of the Assy­ri­ans, to whom his father had sold hims­elf. Heze­ki­ah took the risk of stan­ding up to this bru­tal world domi­na­ti­on. He trus­ted the Lord and kicked out ever­y­thing that hin­de­red this trust.

Some­ti­mes it also takes a con­sis­tent approach in our lives, thro­wing into the Kidron Val­ley the things that hin­der wor­ship, trust in God and com­mu­ni­on with God in our lives. What hin­ders our trust in God? The con­sump­ti­on of media? Our pro­spe­ri­ty and wealth? Our repu­ta­ti­on? Let’s ask Jesus to shi­ne a light on us and point out the things that dimi­nish trust in Him – and then off to Kidron Val­ley with it!

«He had the high shri­nes des­troy­ed, the memo­ri­al stones hewn down and the Ashe­rah images over­tur­ned. He bro­ke the bron­ze ser­pent that Moses had made becau­se the peo­p­le of Isra­el had begun to wor­ship it by bur­ning incen­se befo­re it. The bron­ze ser­pent was cal­led Nehusht­an»(2 Kings 18:4 NL). Cer­tain cults had beco­me estab­lished in Isra­el that ori­gi­nal­ly had a good pur­po­se. The bron­ze sna­ke was very important after the Exodus from Egypt. The peo­p­le of Isra­el muti­nied and were unfaithful, so God sent poi­so­no­us sna­kes. In distress, Moses cried out to God and was com­mis­sio­ned to erect a bron­ze ser­pent. Ever­yo­ne who loo­ked at this sna­ke was hea­led (cf. Gene­sis 21). This is the ser­pent of life that can be seen at every phar­ma­cy today. This ser­pent, which was remi­nis­cent of a spi­ri­tu­al high­light, beca­me a sym­bol of ido­la­try becau­se peo­p­le had for­got­ten that it was about trust towards the living God and not about the ser­pent its­elf. Peo­p­le ido­li­sed the ser­pent by giving it incen­se. I can ima­gi­ne that Heze­ki­ah faced a lot of resis­tance: «This sna­ke saved the lives of our ances­tors! You can’t just throw it away.»

The­re are also pious, reli­gious things that pre­vent our trust in God. This can be a pas­tor with inspi­ring You­tube ser­mons, a good book that once spo­ke into our lives, even the Bible if I value it more than Jesus. So quick­ly we put our trust in a per­son or an ideo­lo­gy ins­tead of God. Such things also need to be reco­g­nis­ed and uproo­ted from the root. Heze­ki­ah took a radi­cal approach to such things.

The good news for us is that we no lon­ger have to go to Kidron. 700 years after Heze­ki­ah, the­re came one who also went out of the city. «So Jesus also suf­fe­r­ed and died out­side the city gates to sanc­ti­fy his peo­p­le through his shed blood» (Hebrews 13:12 NL). The same prin­ci­ple appli­es here: becau­se filth belongs out­side the city gate, Jesus had to suf­fer out­side Jeru­sa­lem. Sin has no place near the sanc­tua­ry. Jesus took with him to the cross ever­y­thing that wants to des­troy our trust in God. We speak of sin. Sin does not pri­ma­ri­ly mean a moral offence, but sin is when I put my trust in some­thing other than the living God. Jesus died so that we can have this rela­ti­onship of trust: «His grace is so gre­at that he bought our free­dom with the blood of his Son, so that we are for­gi­ven our sins»(Ephe­si­ans 1:7 NL). HE went to the cross that our trust in the living God might be restored.

Confidence versus overconfidence

«The­r­e­fo­re, the Lord was with him and gave him suc­cess in ever­y­thing he under­took»(2 Kings 18:7 NL). Heze­ki­ah trus­ted God and was thus a well-off man. After reig­ning for 14 years, he beca­me death­ly ill. He prays: «Remem­ber, O Lord, how I have always been faithful to you with all my heart and have always done what plea­sed you. And Heze­ki­ah wept bit­ter­ly»(2 Kings 20:3 NL). He was then told by the pro­phet Isai­ah that the Lord wan­ted to add 15 years to his life. From that moment on, his mot­to was «one more». Isai­ah put a fig cake on the ulcer and he got well. As if the exten­si­on of life was not enough, Heze­ki­ah mas­sa­ged hims­elf to demand one more sign from God. In doing so, God not only rea­ched deep into the «bag of tricks», but also into the geo­me­try of the hea­vens. He chan­ged the direc­tion of the earth’s rota­ti­on so that the shadow of the sun­di­al went back ten hours.

The­se events cau­sed a huge stir far bey­ond the country’s bor­ders. Peo­p­le came from all over to mar­vel at Heze­ki­ah. Heze­ki­ah could not hand­le fame well and pro­vi­ded con­fir­ma­ti­on of the pro­verb «pri­de comes befo­re a fall». Sud­den­ly, nega­ti­ve sen­ten­ces about Heze­ki­ah also appear: «But Heze­ki­ah did not app­re­cia­te the kind­ness the Lord had shown him, but beca­me arro­gant» (2 Chro­nic­les 32:25 NL). In the gre­at pro­spe­ri­ty, Heze­ki­ah not only beca­me richer and richer, but also prou­der and prou­der. He real­ly let hims­elf be admi­red. But then Isai­ah had to make the fol­lo­wing announce­ment on behalf of God: «Let the Lord tell you this: The time will come when ever­y­thing you own – ever­y­thing your ances­tors have gathe­red to this day – will be brought to Baby­lon. Not­hing will remain here, says the Lord. Your own des­cen­dants will be car­ri­ed off. You will ser­ve the king of Baby­lon the­re in the palace» (2 Kings 20:16–18 NL). Heze­ki­ah hum­bled hims­elf. The announ­ced cata­stro­phe is not can­cel­led, but only post­po­ned – until after Hezekiah’s death. Did God per­haps even reg­ret giving Heze­ki­ah 15 extra years? In any case, during this time, which was mark­ed by pro­spe­ri­ty, suc­cess and ans­wers to pray­er, he fell into a self-ove­re­sti­ma­ti­on that tor­ped­oed his trust in the Lord.

The first 14 years of his minis­try were chal­len­ging and dif­fi­cult, but spi­ri­tual­ly a time of flou­ris­hing. Heze­ki­ah ser­ved God, trus­ted Him and reli­ed ful­ly on Him. The given exten­si­on of life of 15 years was a flou­ris­hing time world­ly, but spi­ri­tual­ly it was downhill. When ever­y­thing goes smooth­ly in our lives and we are real­ly suc­cessful, the­re is a gre­at dan­ger that we for­get Jesus.. Dif­fi­cult years in which we expe­ri­ence cri­ses and suf­fe­ring are often spi­ri­tual­ly very valuable.

 

Trus­ting the living God is the best thing we can do. To do this, we have to detach our­sel­ves from events in our fami­ly histo­ry and take a clear posi­ti­on our­sel­ves. Then it is a mat­ter of clea­ring out and dis­po­sing of all that hin­ders trust in God on the cross. Whoe­ver trusts in the living God in this way is well-dis­po­sed. This is much more than wealth and honour. It is suc­cess. Suc­cess is wal­king in step with God.

 

 

 

 

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: 2 Chro­nic­les 29:1–11.15–19

  1. What does it mean to trust God?
  2. Heze­ki­ah lived radi­cal­ly dif­fer­ent­ly from his father. Are the­re also inci­dents in your fami­ly histo­ry from which you have to detach yourself?
  3. Have you taken a clear posi­ti­on in your fami­ly for a life with God? What is pre­ven­ting you from doing so?
  4. What things in your life hin­der you in your rela­ti­onship with God? What does it mean today to burn them in the Kidron Valley?
  5. What is sin? What defi­ni­ti­on of sin is found in the sermon?