DEATH AND THE CHRISTIAN - SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER FOR YOU SHALL DIE AND NOT LIVE – WAS HEZEKIAH’S TIME UP?
[A]. INTRODUCTION
{{Isaiah 38 v 1 In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER FOR YOU SHALL DIE and not live.’”}}
We see here that Hezekiah is mortally ill and told to set his house in order for he is to die. Literally, the expression means, “Give orders to your house,” which means, “make or update your wilI.” Isaiah’s message was blunt as a lot of warnings and conclusions in the word of God are. God is direct and what He says is to the point and vital. It is man that wants to make a story out of every fact and cloud and confuse the issue. God’s brevity is amazing. Nicodemus came to Jesus and wanted to engage in a dialogue but the first thing Jesus said to him was – {{John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “TRULY, TRULY, I SAY TO YOU, UNLESS ONE IS BORN AGAIN HE CANNOT SEE THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”}} Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
We have Hezekiah who was terribly sick being given the frightening, exact message for his future, from God in just 12 English words, much fewer in Hebrew. Barnes wrote, [[“There is no species of cruelty greater than to suffer a friend to lie on a dying bed under a delusion. There is no sin more aggravated than that of designedly deceiving a dying man, and flattering him with the hope of recovery when there is a moral certainty that he will not, and cannot recover.”]] Is this not true also in the spiritual realm? I can picture the apostles saying to a dying man, “If you die in your sins you are going to Hell,” but we avoid the matter, maybe thinking, “We don’t want to upset the person,” or we might say, “I hope you recover and wish you well.”
What this sickness was, we can’t be absolutely sure, but most likely, because of Isaiah 38:21 where Isaiah commanded a cake of figs be placed on the boil, then it was a boil, but not any boil, probably it was a pestilential boil. The pestilence or plague is attended with an eruption or boil; a fiery redness. [[“No one,” says Jahn, “ever recovered from the pestilence unless the boil of the pestilence came out upon him, and even then he could not always be cured” (Biblical Antiquities, Section 190)]] The pestilence was, and is still, rapid in its progress. It terminates the life of those who are affected with it almost immediately, and within three or four days.
What reaction would a person have to this news? Death is an event which demands preparation - a preparation which should not be delayed to the dying moment. In view of it, whether it comes sooner or later, our peace should be made with God and our worldly affairs so arranged that we can leave them without distraction, and without regret. People are told every day that they need to set their house in order – 2 months, 6 months. Such news comes as a shock the younger we are. What is our attitude to all this? How do we digest it mentally and emotionally? What preparations are needed and how do we set our house in order? I want to look at these points.
[B]. ATTITUDE TO DEATH ESPECIALLY FOR THE CHRISTIAN
There is nothing more mixed than one’s attitude to impending death. These words describe some of the feelings, emotions and responses – sorrow, alarm, regret, apprehension, uncertainty, bitterness (as in feeling cheated), relief, expectation, joy, and neutrality such as in “so be it” “such is life” “we must all die sometime”. The unsaved person can have most of those reactions. A saved person can have all those reactions as well, but many more of them will have the joy and expectation for the home ahead. I am only theorising now but I would not be surprised if the Lord graciously comforts a dying Christian in the last days and weeks on earth, as if His hand is extended to His beloved one. It is not an area I have had experience in with people. What is our individual attitude to approaching death? Well, like most of us, we subconsciously put it out of our minds with the sole recognition it will happen one day, but NOT NOW, so “Let’s put it away in the cupboard.”
I need to say this – any reaction a Christian has to impending death must not be counted against him. There are some Christians who don’t really seem to live in the real world, but in a doctored-up version of it in their own minds. They think a Christian must be happy-clappy all the time, and express no judgement, or criticism of anything. There is one thing Christians must be in the current world, and that is, be realists. We need to be real and honest with ourselves. One class of Christians may be in nursing homes, old and frail, and in pain often. They can be so happy in the Lord and are waiting with joy to see their dear Saviour, but I think they are in a special class.
Consider Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus. They were very sorrowful and filled with regret, {{“Martha therefore said to Jesus, “Lord, IF You had been here, my brother would not have died.”}} In other words, “Lord, if you had not delayed,” for the Lord waited that extra time to effect an even greater miracle. I wonder if death sometimes affects the ones left behind more that the one who is facing it. It is harder to deal with death when a younger person has to confront it, rather than a 90 year old who has passed the threescore years and ten. Consider a 25 year old who has been given 6 months to live. All his thoughts will go to the earthly years he will never have, all those dreams and desires young people have, and also to his family, whatever those circumstances are.
Consider the rich man who pulled down his barns and built bigger; who lived in ease and selfishness – he was not really given notice of his death, “This night your soul is required of you.” Belteshazzar had no more than the shortest time to consider his fate as he rioted in drunken, godless partying with the holy vessels of the Lord. He was found very wanting.
If you are called on to minister to a dying Christian, or one who has been given a sudden death notice by the doctor, don’t expect you will see leaping and jumping up and down on the spot, with the person praising God and wanting to go home straight away. All of us have different reactions and none of us knows until the time how we will feel or react. Accommodate the feelings of the person and comfort him or her with the “absent from the body, present with the Lord.”
[C]. THE EARLY CHURCH FATHER – IGNATIUS - HOW HE HANDLED IMPENDING DEATH
There was an interesting early Christian martyr called Ignatius who had been delivered up and was being taken to Rome to face the wild beasts in the arena – the Colosseum. Christian Roman citizens were beheaded, never sent to be torn up by wild beasts, but non-Romans were executed in that way, and in every other way the cruelty of man could devise. Christianity was a crime because the Christians did not offer up incense to the Roman Emperor who was deemed as god. Christians were considered atheists because they denied the Roman gods. While on the way to Rome, he wrote letters to churches giving instructions to them, but also speaking of his expected fate if God did not deliver him. Here are some of the comments he made about what lay ahead before he was martyred in February 107 A.D. in the Arena at Rome under Emperor Trajan –
[["I am God's wheat and shall be ground by the teeth of wild animals. I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God's wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ's pure bread.”]] ??
[["Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God. No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sake is my one desire."]]
[[“The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathise with me because you will know what urges me on.”]]
[["The prince of this world is determined to lay hold of me and to undermine my will which is intent on God. Let none of you here help him; instead show yourselves on my side, which is also God's side. Do not talk about Jesus Christ as long as you love this world.”]]
[[“For though I am alive as I write to you - still - my real desire is to die. My love of this life has been crucified, and there is no yearning in me for any earthly thing. Rather within me is the living water, which says deep inside me: "Come to the Father." I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world.”]]
[D]. SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER – PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD
Before we move back to Hezekiah, I want to speak about preparation and setting one’s house in order, along similar lines to what Amos referred to – {{“Prepare to meet your God, O Israel”}} (Amos 4:12). Don’t you consider it is God’s grace that gives you notice of death, but that is not always a guarantee? Amos’s message was to a sinful Israel, warning and inviting them to repent and turn back again to God. They were given time to do that, but they ignored the Lord, all to their devastating peril. God does not always give notice of a soul’s departure from this earth. In the case of sudden accident, stroke or heart attack there may be none. All I can say is, “Do not presume on the grace of God, and so, take the opportunity even today to get right with God. Set your house in order.” Setting your house in order applies not just to bringing to account all your business and family matters and accounts, but applies to the house of your body and soul. One applies to physical life; the other to spiritual destiny. In other words, “Get right with God”, and if you are right with God, then make sure the pathway is not cluttered by materialism, neglect, sin and incorrect motives. Whether we are saved or unsaved at this point we must all attend to setting our house in order.
I believe there are a goodly number of people who have gotten right with God in the comparatively short time they had left in their physical existence. It is often a shattering calamity that will open the door to sense and reason. We have a striking example of that in the New Testament found in Acts 16. There was an earthquake, and the whole prison at Philippi shook and creaked and that happened at midnight. Disasters that happen at night are worse for our state of mind than disasters that happen in the day. What we can’t see, we fear more. I have been through three cyclones, actually through the eyes of the three, but all of those came in the day and were not more than a category 2 except one wind gust at 200 km/hour. I shudder to think what night would be like in a very severe cyclone with the screeching of wind gusts, the cracking of tree limbs, and the bashing of debris.
In Psalm 91:5 it speaks of the arrow by day and the terror by night; the pestilence that stalks in darkness, and the destruction that operates at noon. However in that wonderful psalm we are given these reassuring promises in the first 4 verses - The Most High has a shelter in which we can abide. The Lord is our refuge and fortress. God delivers you from the trapper’s snare and the deadly pestilence. The 4th verse I will quote – {{Psalm 91:4 “He will cover you with His pinions and UNDER HIS WINGS YOU MAY SEEK REFUGE. His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.”}} The remainder of the psalm contains other glorious promises.
However, looking further at that incident at Philippi, the jailor who had been entrusted with the prisoners, in particular Paul and Silas, was shaken to his core, and fearing the prisoners had fled was about to take his own life, for if he did not, then the Roman authorities would have. When Paul intervened, his response was, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Calamity focuses men and women on higher planes, and God’s grace uses that to bring them into the kingdom. In WW2 in Britain, church attendances really climbed but with the passing of the calamity, attendances then waned. That is sad. God gives opportunity but man’s sin, resists.
[E]. CHRISTIANS AND DEATH
Setting one’s house in order is not just for the unsaved as already mentioned, but equally applies to Christians. Christians have accounts that need to be settled; wrongs to be put right; and relationships to be fixed. Set your house in order. Two of the absolutely pivotal verses in this regard are these written in AD 96 by the Apostle John – {{1John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”}}
It has often been said by preachers that every day lived here should be lived as if it is our last day on earth. If we did so, then most of us would live vastly different lives from those we usually do. Alas, we are flesh and blood, and too often fail in priorities and motives. I think Paul had a similar thought in mind when he used that phrase, “redeeming the time for the days are evil.”
I will say one more thing before I return to Hezekiah. It is an important thing. Christians must not fear death. Why do you think Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” What he clearly taught there, and in 1 Thessalonians and alluded to by the Lord in John 14, is that death is merely the door through which we pass immediately into the Lord’s presence, for to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord, for to be with the Lord is far better, and you are in a far better place.
One verse in Revelation 1, I firmly believe we must all take, and make it part of our lives all the time. This is the verse, and the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking – (just placing it in context) {{Revelation 1:17-18 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man, and He laid His right hand upon me saying, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, and the living One, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I HAVE THE KEYS OF DEATH AND OF HADES.”}} Are you getting that picture? There is the blessed Lord who has passed through death, alive from the grave, and is alive forever. But note what follows. He possesses the keys of death and hell. The picture there is of a doorkeeper who has the keys of all the locks in the grand house on a large round key ring hanging at His side. The Lord has ALL the keys. He has your key on that ring, and until he takes your key, puts it into the lock and turns it, He is leaving you on this earth, but the moment He takes your key and inserts it into your lock, then He is calling you to Himself, and He then walks beside you though that door, for He has been that way Himself, and His is the DOOR of death! He is THE DOOR. It is one of the greatest assurances we have in the entire bible.
Here are two stanzas of a poem of mine that is about death for a Christian -
At His side are hanging down
The keys of death and hell.
Jesus has the sole control -
He keeps them very well.
My key too, as well as yours,
Is hanging in His care.
Not until He takes your key
Does Jesus want you there.
Then you’ll see His lovely face
And be with Him always.
Then your worship will break forth
Through endless, golden days.
================================
Death’s the shutting of the book
Upon this earthly life;
Final chapter of our race
In this world with its strife.
Death’s the concrete stairs of faith
That rise to realms above;
Stepping stone on glory’s path
That enters to His love.
It’s a gateway op’ning wide
Upon the heav’nly scene.
It’s a call from our dear Lord
To follow where He’s been.
{{Psalm 31:15 “MY TIMES ARE IN YOUR HAND. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me,”}} but it is the first part that is precious – “My times are in Your hand.”
Now we must move back to Hezekiah. Set your house in order. Following the news he was going to die, this is what Hezekiah did –
[1.] Isaiah 38:2-3 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight,” and Hezekiah wept bitterly.”}} He prayed, and it is a very touching prayer in verses 2 and 3, but nowhere in that prayer does he request that extra time be given to him. He asked the Lord to remember him, his walk and person. Hezekiah was one of the good kings of Judah.
[2.] Isaiah 38:5-6. “Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. “I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria and I will defend this city,”’}} Following that, the Lord gave him a twofold promise – God will add 15 years to his life on earth, and that Jerusalem which was being besieged at that time, would be delivered. God is so gracious and is going to deliver Judah because of its righteous king.
[3.] Isaiah 38:7-8. To confirm all that, the Lord gave a sign which I will read – {{Isaiah 38:8 “Behold, I will cause the shadow on the stairway, which has gone down with the sun on the stairway of Ahaz, to go back ten steps,” so the sun’s shadow went back ten steps on the stairway on which it had gone down.”}} This has been mocked by skeptics and ridiculed by the wise of this world. They mock saying that the bible says God turned the sun back (turned the earth back in fact). Nonsense. God altered the shadow, not the sun or the earth.
God bless you all
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
