CRITICAL DECISIONS
By Pastor Jim May
Scriptures used:
2 Kings 18:1-3; 1 Peter 4:17-18; Exodus 20:2-6; 2 Kings 18:13 & 19; 2 Kings 19:6-7; 2 Kings 19:10-13; 2 Kings 19:14-15; 2 Kings 19:32-37; 2 Kings 20:1-3; 12-15; Matthew 7:6; 2 Kings 20:16-20
2 Kings 18:1-3, "Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did."
Hezekiah was the 14th king of Judah. He came upon the scene, inheriting the throne from his father, Ahaz, at a time when the 12 tribes of Israel, divided into the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the Northern Kingdom of Israel were facing some really tough times.
Ten of the tribes of Israel had separated themselves from the two tribes that made up the kingdom of Judah and formed a distinct, separate nation with their own king. The Northern kingdom of Israel had become absolutely corrupt and idolatrous over a 200 year period of time. God’s patience had finally run out and Israel collapsed under its own weight of sin as the Assyrian army invaded and conquered them, captured their king and exiled many of the Jews.
Hezekiah’s kingdom of Judah shared a common border with Israel. The ten tribes of Israel were not only blood relatives to Judah, but next door neighbors.
To make matters worse Judah, as a nation under King Ahaz, had begun to fall into the same spiritually and morally corrupt condition as Israel and had became increasingly involved in idolatry. It seemed that, unless God intervened, Judah would soon suffer the same fate as Israel.
But God had mercy on Judah and intervened, sending them King Hezekiah.
Hezekiah faced some very critical decisions during his reign as King of Judah. Let’s look at four of them and see what we can learn from Hezekiah.
1) The first major decision that Hezekiah faced was the absolutely most critical decision of all – What would he do about serving God? Would he follow the example of his father and continue to lead Judah into idolatry, or would he renounce the ways of Ahaz and turn back to God?
I am convinced that every man, born into this world, must face that all-important and most critical of decisions – What will you do with Christ?
Every other decision we make, whether its financial, ethical, moral, economical or whatever, will be influenced by this first, most important decision.
Most of the world today has chosen to follow the ways of Ahaz and to live as idolaters. They place anything and everything above God in their worship. The whole world worships the gods of brick, stone, gold, silver and stubble. Mankind will serve a job, a lifestyle, power, fame, fortune, education and the satisfying of self, but he will not bend his knee to serve the true God of Heaven.
Thank God for the remnant who serves God. It is that remnant that is the only force on earth that keeps powers of hell back. If it weren’t for the true Body of Christ, the true church, how bad could this world be? Just read what happens in Revelation if you want to know. Once the Bride of Christ, the church, is taken out of this world to be with Jesus in the air, all hell will be released upon the earth and there will be a time of trouble, death and destruction worse than we can imagine. The world will finally experience the power of the devil to kill, steal and destroy man who is created in the image of God.
I’m so glad to be a part of the Body of Christ. I’m so glad that you are too. But I am very disturbed, greatly burdened, and truly concerned for those who don’t know Jesus.
1 Peter 4:17-18, "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"
But to be a part of the Body of Christ that will rule and reign with Jesus, we must all face that first, ultimate decision – What will we do with Jesus? My friend, there is no other decision that you will ever face that can carry such a tremendous impact on your life, on your family and upon where you will spend eternity!
What will you do with Jesus? Will you accept him as your Lord and Savior? Will you surrender your life to His will? Or will you follow the same path that most of the world will walk as they blindly walk right into the pits of hell?
If you have made that decision to choose Jesus, that’s wonderful. If not, then its decision time for you right now. You can decide today, right now, at this very moment whether to become a Christian, or to follow the devil in his war against God Almighty. I think that this is a “No-Brainer” decision, but the fact is that most will choose to follow the devil on the losing team. Which will it be for you; Jesus or the devil; Heaven or hell; eternal life with God, or eternal punishment with the rebellious majority in the Lake of Fire?
That’s the most powerful decision you will ever make, and it was the same for Hezekiah. Thank God that Hezekiah chose to follow after God and to turn Judah back to God.
Hezekiah became a godly king who led major reforms in the spiritual and moral condition of Judah and did all he could to restore Judah back to God.
He did what was right in God’s sight just as did his ancestral father, King David had done. He began to destroy all the idols that Ahaz had set in place, even destroying the bronze snake that Moses had used for the healing of Israel in the wilderness because that religious symbol had become an idol also.
How many of you know that you can make a religious symbol into an idol? How many statues of Mary, of the disciples, of even Jesus hanging on the cross, do you see everywhere? Are not these made into idols to a degree? Do not men kneel before them and pray to them?
It is no wonder that God listed as his first, and greatest commandment, in Exodus 20:2-6, "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."
Mary isn’t able to hear and answer prayer anymore than my grandfather who I know is in Heaven with her right now. The disciples can’t answer your prayer now anymore than they could work miracles without Jesus’ power while they were yet alive on the earth. And Jesus is longer on the cross – he is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. So why do we treat these images as idols when we know there is no power in them?
Because Hezekiah made that first critical decision to follow God, he was blessed and his kingdom prospered. But living for God doesn’t mean that you won’t have some other critical decisions to make, and it wasn’t long before Hezekiah faced a real crisis.
2) The time had come for Hezekiah to face his second critical decision as King of Judah; whether he would trust in God or prove to be unfaithful in his duties to Almighty God.
2 Kings 18:13, "Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them."
Sennacherib was the same king that had already conquered the ten northern tribes and now his sights were set on Judah as well. How could Hezekiah with an army much smaller than the Assyrians hope to win this war? The enemy army was inside Judah’s border now and, already, several of the fortified cities had fallen. What could Hezekiah do? It was time for a critical decision!
Sennacherib sent his messengers named Tartan, Rabsaris and Rabshakeh to deliver an ultimatum to Hezekiah!
Here are the terms they offered to Judah:
"We will starve you until you surrender, and you know we can."
"Your God cannot save you; no one else’s god has saved them."
"Your king cannot save you; if Hezekiah says he can, he is a liar."
"If you surrender now we will treat you well and you will enjoy a very good life."
Let us stop right here for a moment and examine this in light of how the devil works in our lives as well.
Even though we have chosen to follow after God, those times of crisis will come in our lives. There will times when we are oppressed and attacked by the powers of hell. The devil will sit on your shoulder and attempt to invade your mind, sometimes even getting a foothold on your life. He will come in like a flood and we don’t even realize what’s really happening before he has caused us to falter and fail. That’s when we are at the point of making another critical decision in our lives just like Hezekiah.
The devil will tell you that he is more powerful than you are and that you can’t defeat him and you know it – and you have to admit that he’s right.
The devil will bring doubt and fear into your life and tell you that even though God CAN deliver you, do you know for sure that He will? Look at how many other people thought they could win and still lost the battle! What makes you think that you can do better than they did? Did Jesus deliver them? Did God give them the victory? And sadly, you will have to say that they were defeated. They weren’t delivered and they don’t live in victory!
The devil will tell you that the preacher doesn’t know what he is talking about. He will tell you that the Word of God won’t stand this time! He will strike fear into your heart and soul!
Finally, as a last resort, the devil will begin to let you see just how successful, how wealthy, and how much better off many of the people in the world are than you. How many times have you seen ungodly people who had an easier life than those who followed God? How many people have been led astray because they fixed their eyes on the things of this world rather than upon the things of God? That’s one of the devil’s most powerful tools because he knows that we all are selfish people and we want what we want and we want it now!
Just as Rabshakeh did to Judah, the devil is giving you an ultimatum!
2 Kings 18:19, "And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?"
2) Now Hezekiah faced a third critical decision in his reign as King of Judah – would he continue to trust in the God of David, seeking the will of God, or would he surrender to the pressure and threatening of the king of Assyria?
When Hezekiah heard the message, he sent his servants to tell Isaiah what was said asking Isaiah to pray to God about the situation.
It’s always good to have a good, stable, Christian brother and sister to call upon in your hour of need. It’s good to have friends who will pray with you and for you until the answer comes to your need.
2 Kings 19:6-7, "And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."
Now Hezekiah had his answer. God had given his Word, through the prophet Isaiah, that Judah would be saved and Assyria would be defeated. Finally the king could rest in peace – or could he?
How many of you know that the devil won’t give up that easy? No sir – I wish I could say he would, but it takes a continual resistance to the fiery darts of the devil. We must be ever vigilant and ever resisting him, or we may yet lose the battle.
2 Kings 19:10-13, "Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah?"
Hezekiah did what we all should learn to do at this point. When it seems that you have heard from the Lord, but the devil just won’t leave you alone, and the attack of the enemy just seems to get worse and his voice in your ear seems louder than ever – there’s only one thing left to do – get on your face before God until the answer comes!
2 Kings 19:14-15, "And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD…"
God’s answer to Hezekiah was fast in coming.
2 Kings 19:32-37, "Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped"
So God was faithful and Hezekiah learned to lean upon the Lord and put his trust in God and continued in his faithful service as the King of Judah. It seemed like a fairy-tale ending for a good king in Judah but was it really?
I want us to look quickly at two more critical decisions that Hezekiah had to make. You see, even when you have won the battle and God has proven His faithfulness, there are yet more battles to fight and a war to be won against the devil. Life always seems to have just one more critical decision to make.
2 Kings 20:1-3, "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying, I beseech thee, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore."
3) Hezekiah’s third critical decision helped him to learn what we all must learn – that God sometimes allows a real test to come against us just to prove our faith and love for Him.
Sometimes troubles come in spite of our faithful service. Sometimes sickness comes no matter how hard we try to do what’s right for our bodies. Sometimes even terminal diseases threaten us even though we are trusting and believing God for complete deliverance.
What will we do then? Will we give up on God and walk away in disillusionment and frustration, or will we place ourselves in the hand of God and trust Him anyway?
Because Hezekiah continued to trust God and prayed, God honored him and healed him. If Hezekiah had not continued with God, I am convinced that this would have been the end of his reign, for God had set the time of his death.
I am also convinced that, had Hezekiah allowed God’s will to be done, for Hezekiah to go to his grave as God had said, that Hezekiah’s service as king of Judah would have ended untarnished. But that was not to be the case!
How many times have we questioned God concerning untimely death of a loved one? Why could God take them when they are so young? Why would God allow a mother of small children, or a father in the prime of his life with a growing family, or a teenager with a promising future, to be taken away? It all seems so unfair sometimes.
Perhaps we should learn from Hezekiah’s life that God sees things in the future that he knows can destroy us. Maybe God loves us too much to allow us to serve him for a time only to be defeated and lose our soul in the end. God, who knows all things and sees all things could well have seen where, to let our loved ones live, would have led to their being eternally lost and He just didn’t want that to happen so He took them home. That’s why we must never forget that He is a sovereign God and we should not question His motives.
4) Hezekiah lived but he faced one more critical decision that would bring a black spot on his record as King of Judah and leave us with a terrible feeling of just how far he was from perfect. It was a decision based upon his own desires and not in the best interest of the nation that he governed.
This last critical decision of Hezekiah is the same decision that so many fail in making correctly today. I believe it all had to do with pride and selfishness.
Pride and selfishness has been the downfall of many of God’s faithful children. When we become too proud to give God the glory for what He has done; when we become too proud to think that we need to pray anymore and we do things the way we want to instead of the way God wants to; and when we become so selfish that we think of only what’s best for us and no one else, that’s when we will lose many of life’s greatest battles and the testimony of our lives that we have worked so hard to build, can be utterly destroyed in a moment of time.
2 Kings 20:12-15, "At that time Berodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. And Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and shewed them all the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country, even from Babylon. And he said, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All the things that are in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them."
Jesus warns us in Matthew 7:6, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."
Sometimes, in a moment of selfish pride, we allow the devil to steal the victory from us that we have worked years to gain.
Later the prophet Isaiah came to Hezekiah and pronounced God’s judgment for Hezekiah’s sin against God and against Judah.
2 Kings 20:16-20, "And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD. Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days? And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?"
What a selfish way to think! Never mind what my actions may bring for my children, my grandchildren, and to future generations – I’m going to be blessed and that’s all that matters.
It’s a shame that Hezekiah’s record has to end with such a terrible story but that’s they way life is all too often. Someone who has lived a life of service and sacrifice can erase all the good that they have done in one moment with a bad attitude and selfish spirit. That’s one critical decision that too many people make that ruins their testimony and their life’s work.
Let’s be careful of making these critical decisions.
Let’s choose to follow Jesus. Let’s choose to trust Him and lean upon Him no matter what. Let’s choose to believe in God even when we don’t understand or can’t see why He is allowing some things to happen. And finally, let’s keep an humble and right spirit before God and not allow our freedom and calling in God to become a source of pride and selfishness.
These are only four of many critical decisions that we must make – decisions that will have vast, eternal consequences for us and for our children, and generations to come.
Have you made some wrong critical decisions already? Are you facing some right now and you don’t know what to do? Just call on God, repent of past mistakes and seek God’s will for the decisions yet to come.
God can make even your wrong decision to work out for your good if you choose to serve Him.
