SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 38:1-22
OBSERVATION:
Hezekiah prays to God on the basis of his faithful and wholehearted devotion, with bitter weeping.
God responds to his tearful prayer by granting him an extra 15 years, and protection from Assyria.
God offers a miraculous sign – the shadow of the sun moves back 10 steps. Did the earth stop in its rotation? Did God roll back the clock?
Hezekiah speaks as if death separates us from God completely (vv.11,18). Technically he is right, this is the curse of death, but God has postponed that eternal consequence. When we die, our spirits remain (where? see Luke 16:19-31) until final judgment – then we will join God or be separated from Him completely!
Hezekiah admits that it is God’s will for him to be sick, and then to live the extra years (v.15). He also recognizes that his anguish was for his own good (v.17).
Hezekiah affirms that it is God’s mercy that protects us from the “pit of destruction” (i.e. eternal hell), and that by His mercy we will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (compare v.20 with Psalm 23:6).
APPLICATION:
God may not work this way for all people (postpone death, move the sun’s shadow back), but He does respond to our prayers as He sees fit, and we ought to pray wth heart and sincerity and passion, like Hezekiah, trusting that God is good, He will work out His mercy for us.
By grace we will be spared the “pit of destruction” (i.e. eternal hell). God sent Jesus to go there so that we don’t have to (see 1 Corinthians 15:53-57). Like Hezekiah, we can be confident that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus – neither illness or death or the pit of destruction.
Hezekiah claimed his own righteousness when he prayed for mercy, we are invited to claim Christ’s perfect righteousness when we pray for mercy. God hears us not because we are so good, but for Jesus’ sake.
God saves us so that we can praise Him, by telling others about His mercy (v.19). Who am I telling?
PRAYER:
Lord, I know people who are praying and weeping bitterly. I have prayed like this for others, and sometimes I feel You do not answer these prayers. Help me to not give up, to pray with passion and perseverence, and to trust that You do hear and answer our prayers, in ways beyond our understanding and appreciation. And help me to continue to praise You to others, no matter how You answer my prayers. Amen.
Just sharing my reflections on the Jan 9th devotions from Isaiah 38:1-22.
Using the SOAP accronym ……
SCRIPTURE This is the story of Hezekiah being told that he was not going to recover from his sickness and that he would instead die from it. Then his pleading with God and then God working his healing hand for Hezekiah. Verses 10-20 give a summary of Hezekiah’s feelings and train of thought he went through in the whole process.
OBSEVATION In verse 17 Hezekiah admits that he knows that there was something in his soul, some type of corruption that God lovinly had to deliver him from. In verse 19 & 19 I hear Hezekiah reasoning, pleading with God that death cannot praise or glorify him ….(our ultimate purpose). No, only a living person can do that. As well a dead person cannot teach his children about God’s Truths.
APPLICATION I hear God speaking here to me/us also in this, When sickness or poor health strikes us, we want to get better too and we ask God to heal us just like Hezekiah. I am sure that Hezekiah tried all kinds of cures for the boils that he had; yet they were not healing him. When we accept that God is usually working on healing a different area of our lives than where we want him to cure us, then only can God really help us. As Hezekiah, I must also accept God’s pruning and then I can plead/reason with him to not destroy me but to heal me so that I too might praise and glorify him …..and to pass his Truths on to the next generation.
PRAYER Lord, thankyou for your patience with me. Help me to accept your pruning in my life and let me live to praise you.