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 armoury 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
We had some friends whose front
door-mat bore a message. It wasn’t Welcome to our home! or Home,
sweet home or anything schmaltzy like that. It was Oh no, not you again.
They were in fact a lovely family
and very welcoming, so we enjoyed their joke. But it did raise a serious point…
Do you ever say one thing while thinking something
completely different? Perhaps I greet my neighbour Harry with a sunny smile and
a friendly “How are you?”, but inside I’m thinking, “But Harry is such a
crashing bore! Do I really have to be nice to him?” Does that mean I’m a
hypocrite?
When I first started reading the Bible seriously Hezekiah became
one of my earliest Bible heroes: a good and righteous king under whom Judah
prospered. But Isaiah 39 tells a story about him and the prophet Isaiah - and
when I discovered it I felt a real sense of let-down. (You can read his story
in 2 Kings 18-20 or 2 Chronicles 29-32.)
Put briefly, Hezekiah has been careless and really pretty stupid
in allowing a delegation from Babylon to have a thorough look around his
kingdom. When Isaiah learns about this, he comes along and gives him a ticking
off. In verses 5-7 he tells him in no uncertain terms that the day will come
when Judah will suffer for this.
For me, reading about Hezekiah’s folly was bad enough. But the
real killer verse was his response to Isaiah’s rebuke (verse 8). He sounds very
“spiritual”, even devout: “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good”. But
the writer goes on to tell us what he was really thinking: “There will be peace
and security in my lifetime”. In other words, “I’m all right, Jack”, or, in the
words (of some French king?), “Après moi le deluge”.
My hero suddenly seemed diminished, just ordinary rather than
special.
(Mind you, perhaps I learned an important lesson that day: of
course, by all means respect, admire, indeed love people who have truly blessed
you; but don’t be shocked if/when the day comes that they let you down! Only
Christ will never do that. Even the finest and most admirable Christians will,
at some point, turn out to have feet of clay.)
I asked earlier the question: does saying one thing and thinking
another make you a hypocrite?
Very often, no doubt, it does, if we are deliberately play-acting
in order to deceive others or to vaunt ourselves.
But we need to be careful; a lot may depend on motivation.
Go back to Harry. True, he may not be the easiest person to have
an interesting conversation with, so it may be a real effort of will to greet
him and give him a few minutes of my amazingly precious time. But… if I truly want
to be kind and friendly – if I genuinely want to be a kind and friendly person in
my overall character – then taking the trouble to act that way may
be the best way of learning to actually be kind and friendly. (I think
that makes sense!)
In life in general, many of the things we force ourselves to do
because we honestly want to become better people are hard work when we start
out, but become second nature with practice. That applies to kindness, honesty,
generosity, also to courage, humility, patience and good humour. The person who
regularly loses his temper and shrugs it off with, “Well, sorry, but that’s
just the way I am”, needs to start accepting responsibility – even if that
means doing a bit of “acting”.
Of course, only God can judge Hezekiah for his behaviour that day.
But surely he would have done better to look Isaiah in the face and say, “Yes,
I am sorry! I was stupid in what I did. But those Babylonians were so friendly!
and the message from King Marduk-Baladan was so sympathetic about my illness!
And he sent a gift too! But I know that I have no excuse. Please pray, Isaiah,
that what you have predicted won’t happen…” Wouldn’t that have been better than
a mealy-mouthed pious-sounding platitude?
I write knowing that I have no right to judge Hezekiah. When you reach
your seventies, as I have, it’s very easy to look at the world’s sorrows – wars
and rumours of wars, rampant wickedness, immorality and corruption, widespread
disease, floods and fires, poverty, persecution, you name it – and think, “Oh
well, I’ve not had it so bad, and I’ll be dead soon and with the Lord, so all
that’s no real concern of mine”.
Wrong! It is still a concern of mine. Until the day I die I am called
to be active in the service of God. True, I may not live to see the grim things
of twenty or thirty years hence, but does that mean I shouldn’t care any more?
Oh, and another thing occurs to me. Could it be that in fact boring
old Harry has far more to teach me than I have to teach him?
Father, please protect me from the sin of
hypocritical play-acting. But help me too to cultivate habits of holiness by
self-willed, Spirit-led and cheerful discipline. Amen.
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