Can I pray for you in any
way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian
Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend
requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of
The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
At that time Marduk-Baladan son of
Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard
of his illness and recovery. Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed
them what was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine
olive oil—his entire armory and everything found among his treasures. There was
nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
Then Isaiah the prophet went to
King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come
from?”
“From a distant land,” Hezekiah
replied. “They came to me from Babylon.”
The prophet asked, “What did they
see in your palace?”
“They saw everything in my palace,”
Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear
the word of the Lord Almighty: ‘The time will surely come when everything in
your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will
be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. ‘And some of
your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be
taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”
“The word of the Lord you have
spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and
security in my lifetime.”
Isaiah 39
This ends this
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The words were hard to get out.
My neighbor, a good friend and
member of the Sunday School class I teach had come over to talk with me and I
could tell that something was bothering him.
“I have been diagnosed with cancer,”
he told me.
I started to immediately sympathize
with the news he had received as my mind searched for words of comfort to speak
to him but before I could even get anything out, he followed up the report with
these words:
“I trust that God is going to get
me through this and help me win this fight.”
It was right then and there that I
knew he was going to be fine. He had the right perspective, a perspective
grounded in certainty even though he was surely facing uncertain times.
You see, my friend was looking at
the glass half-full.
Yes, he had cancer and yes, the
road ahead was going to be rough as he endured a difficult treatment regimen
but he also knew with bold confidence that he wasn’t going to journey through
the valley alone. He knew the Lord would be there with him every step of the
way.
The months to follow were hard.
Really hard. Four rounds of chemotherapy left my friend without hair and weak,
weak in strength and weak in immunity. He was in isolation most of the time,
trying to do what he could do with what little strength he had. Work was out of
the question. So was exercise and this was a man who like to exercise
regularly. He was just too frail to exert himself.
The fall came and brought a
conclusion to his treatments, followed by a recovery period and the wait to see
if the chemotherapy had been effective. This all came to a head right after
Christmas when my friend went to New York City to have his scan looked at by
one of the nation’s premier cancer treatment centers.
The report after the scan review?
My friend was told he was
cancer-free. He had made it with the Lord’s help and he testified as much when
he returned to our class for the first time. He was a major inspiration to so
many of us and a great example of the power of positive thinking and the
benefits one gleans from keeping a glass half-full attitude.
So how do you look at the matters
in your life? Do you tend to always take the pessimistic, glass half-empty
view? Or do you, like my friend, keep the faith and remain anchored to an
optimism that says the glass is half-full.
As we look at our scripture passage
today, we find King Hezekiah getting some final words from Isaiah and they aren’t
ones that would make you want to celebrate necessarily. Look at these verses
again:
At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent
Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of his illness and recovery.
Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his
storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine olive oil—his entire
armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his
palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did
those men say, and where did they come from?”
“From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came to me from
Babylon.”
The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?”
“They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing
among my treasures that I did not show them.”
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: ‘The
time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your
predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon.
Nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. ‘And some of your descendants, your own
flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will
become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”
“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For
he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.” Isaiah 39
The gift and letters sent by the
Babylonian King Baladan’s son upon news of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery were
received with gladness by Judah’s king. The envoys who delivered the items were
treated to a tour of the palace and storehouses where they saw everything that
Hezekiah possessed, all the silver, gold, spices, fine olive oil, armaments,
and treasures. Scripture tells us that there was nothing in his palace or in
all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
After the envoys departed, Hezekiah
found himself questioned by the prophet Isaiah who asked where the men had come
from and what they had seen. Hezekiah responded by telling Isaiah that the men
were from Babylon and had seen everything, all the treasures that the king
possessed.
What followed was harrowing news
from the Lord as Isaiah shared the following prophecy:
“Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: ‘The time will surely come when
everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until
this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.
‘And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to
you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king
of Babylon.’” Isaiah 39:5-7
The people of Judah and Jerusalem
may have dodged the bullet with the Assyrians but they would not escape
judgment completely. No, instead everything would be carried off to Babylon,
all the treasures and all the people. Nothing would be left.
Not exactly words that would make a
person jump for joy, unless you happened to be a glass half-full kind of person
like Hezekiah. For as we see, the king didn’t fall down and throw a fit because
of what was ahead. He didn’t sit around and wallow in self pity because of the
consequences soon to come his way. No, he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he
said this:
“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. v. 8a
Huh?
Babylon was coming to take
everything in Judah and Jerusalem into its custody, leaving nothing behind, not
even a remnant. All would be gone and yet Hezekiah said this was good news.
How in the world could he say that?
Didn’t he get what was going to happen?
No, actually he got it exactly but
through a glass half-full attitude, he was able to take the negative and make a
positive out of it as he simply thought to himself, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime” (v.8b).
In other words, Hezekiah’s view was
that although judgment was coming, it would not be coming for awhile, not at
least in his lifetime, and so they may as well make the best out of the peace
and security while they have it. The glass was not half-empty but rather
half-full. The God that Hezekiah respected and served faithfully would be with
them, as He always had been, and that was reason to celebrate, no matter what
might come.
Friends, we will all come to places
where we face pending hardship of one kind or another, like my friend who
experienced and overcame cancer or Hezekiah who was told of the Lord’s pending
consequences. How we respond to these
hardships will all depend on whether or not we maintain our faith and hope in a
God who is always with us, ever ready to help us through when we walk through
life’s valleys.
When we place our trust in the
Lord, the only One who can help us get through whatever life brings us our way,
we can face our challenges head on and see the glass half-full because the Lord
will never leave us empty or forsaken, just as He promised.
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment