Thursday, January 17, 2008

Another Lesson from Hezekiah

If you’ve been following this blog for a couple of weeks, you know that I have been meditating on and writing about some of my reading in the Old Testament. Specifically I’ve been considering some of the lessons to be learned from Hezekiah’s life. According to 2 Kings 18:3 he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. In verse 5 we read that he trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. And in verse 7, the Lord was with him; he prospered wherever he went.

Given his character, it’s interesting to me that when the king of Assyria came against him, he basically tried to bribe the king not to attack. He gave him all the silver that was found in the temple including the gold off of the doors!

It didn’t do a bit of good because in verse 17 the king came back and threatened to besiege the city. To me this is a picture of our attempts to make a deal with sin. We somehow believe that if we pay Satan or sin a “small” payment, we’ll be free from further attack. But the reverse is true. Satan comes back with greater fury and takes us for everything we have.

For all of Hezekiah’s righteous living, he wasn’t able to pass on this trait to his son. Was this act of compromise one of the first steps down the wrong road? Ken comments more on this in his blog here.

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