2 Chron. 32:31.

Hezekiah was a man of God."He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him " (2 Kings 18:5). He had done much to restore in Judah the divine order of things, and undo the evil done by his own father and others.

He had been very ill a while before our present notice of him. He had besought the Lord for recovery, and it had been granted him. Moreover, as a pledge of that recovery, a wonderful sign had been given him:the shadow on the sun-dial had turned ten degrees backward. All creation bows before sovereign grace and creation-glory must stand back when "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ " appears.

Such great notice and favor from the God of heaven is too much for man, however. It excites his pride. So '' Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up" (ver. 25).

What a lesson for us! What an explanation of much, which otherwise would be but mystery, of that which happens constantly before our eyes to them who have been most favored of God, individually or collectively!

After recounting the great things of his beautiful reign, the chronicler goes on to say, "Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart" (ver. 31).

Here then is the secret! In all these beautiful features and works of his life he had not yet learned his heart. This is the most profound and most costly lesson with man. He will learn anything else more readily than this. It attacks the strongest and most formidable walls in his moral being. The outward works were carried when he learned he had no righteousness of his own, and found refuge in Christ, but they are by no means all. He may think that because he has learned the great and magnificent counsels and purposes of God, and can straighten many things thereby, that he has reached the end of all, but he may not know his own heart yet.

Paul knew his own heart. He had learned it with God, and so, though caught up to the third heaven and honored as none probably before him, nor since, he does not need, when he comes down, to be left to himself to be tried and learn his heart through failure. Yet he needs help against it. Hezekiah had not so learned his heart, so "God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart." Flattered by the notice of such great ones from Babylon, and the interest they express in "the wonder that was done in the land" he displays before them that in which such men, and from such quarters, could only see the glory of Hezekiah-not of Jehovah. He plumes himself with what grace had wrought. He is an object of admiration with men who know not the secret of the Lord, and judge as men. How sad ! What a downfall for that man of God. And he drags others down with him:"There was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem" (ver 25). But "Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so. that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah" (ver. 26). Thank God for this blessed door ever open to us.

But why so insist upon our knowing our own heart? Why "left" of God to acquire such knowledge at such cost and dishonor ? Why so much government in the house of God in relation to it ?

It is because God values the heart of man more than all else beside. He values more the being known by man than all the service which can come out of man, good as that indeed is. And we know God only as we know ourselves. We read into the heart of God only in the measure in which we have learned to read into our own; and we can in truth say to Him, " Thou art my hiding place," only as in truth we have been driven out of ourselves by the abhorrence of what we find there. Here lies perfection in Christian character, "He must increase, and I decrease." We " decrease " through learning our own heart. He "increases" as we learn His.

This explains the immense place which the government of the house of God has all through the Scriptures and in all true Christian experience. And it is because of the painful and distressing seasons through which the soul must needs pass from time to time, under that government, in view of its holy ends, that God has taken such pains to establish us in His grace. He must first have us know and rest in the fact that nothing whatever can turn His love from us; that His grace has put us in a place-in Christ Jesus-which nothing can ever change; that, through the Cross, His love has found a righteous way to ever abide with us, and never give us up.

Thus established He can now proceed to form Christ in us (Gal. 4:19), for we can then "endure temptation."We know what the trying of our faith is for (Jas. 1:), and "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28).We know that His omnipotent hand can grasp even the Serpent by the tail, and turn it into a rod of perfect blessing. We therefore cling to Him under the sufferings of His government, patiently endure that which otherwise would only excite rebellion in us, and at the end we shall reap unto all eternity the blessed results. Moreover, viewing those results, we can say with the apostle, '' I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Rom. 8:18).