2 Kings 20-21

Don’t be a show-off.  That’s the message I take tonight from the story of Hezekiah.  After the Lord healed him of a terrible disease…and after the Lord altered time as we know it (causing the shadows to go backwards)…Hezekiah apparently contracted Big-Head-Itis.  When envoys from Babylon came to visit, Hezekiah showed them everything he had.  I don’t think that he had an attitude of thanksgiving towards the Lord for all his blessings.  At that point in his life, did he think maybe the Lord blessed him so much because he deserved it and not simply because of the Lord’s goodness?

The Lord responded by telling him that one day Babylon would come and take away all the treasures, and the Israelites would be wiped out.

And that’s what happened.

Note to self: don’t be a show off.  Be humble.

And on a different note…be bold in prayer.  Hezekiah turned his face to the wall after hearing the pronouncement that death was near.  He wept, and he reminded the Lord how he had walked faithfully (which he had done, up to this point).  The Lord relented and gave him another fifteen years!

I wish I had one of those Isaiah pipelines sometimes, don’t you?  I have something better: the Holy Spirit.  Only thing is, the flesh side of me wants to get answers from someone in the flesh!  I don’t need a sign…I don’t need the Lord to turn back the clock for me…but He knows what’s on my heart and in my body…in fact, He knows what I need even when I don’t know myself.  Even though I don’t have the prophet Isaiah standing here next to me, I know the Lord hears me.