Isaiah 39:1-8
Hezekiah, King of Judah, had been sick. The King of Babylon sent messengers with letters and a gift to Hezekiah by way of sympathy and to congratulate him on his recovery. Hezekiah accepts the gift from the King of Babylon and entertains the messengers on an elaborate scale, taking advantage of the occasion to make a big display before them of all his worldly possessions and riches. He then allows the messengers to depart without so much as mentioning the things of God to them. It was a God-given opportunity for Hezekiah to testify to the goodness of God that might well have led the messengers to trust in the living and true God. But Hezekiah failed to embrace the opportunity so God sent the prophet Isaiah to him with three searching questions that might well be put to every professing Christian today.
To the first question, “WHAT SAID THESE MEN?” Hezekiah made no reply. Well he knew what had been the theme of their conversation. It had been a worldly conversation pure and simple and God had not been brought into it at all. So Hezekiah hung his head in guilty silence.
And how many of God’s people today would bow their heads in shame if their social evenings with the ungodly were interrupted by the searching question, “What manner of communications are these that ye have the one with another?” (Lu. 24:17).
Did you speak to your ungodly friends of their sins and warn them to flee from the wrath to come? Nay, verily!
The second question was: “WHENCE CAME THEY UNTO THEE?” Hezekiah confessed they came from Babylon that typifies this ungodly world in rebellion against God and whose religious systems have captivated the people of God and caused them to put their harps upon the willows (Psalm 137:2). They were representatives sent by Babylon’s king who typifies Satan the god of this world. And they brought a gift with them—as did your worldly friends—another little bit of Babylon to seduce you. Maybe it was the very latest style in Babylonish garments that could in no wise be called “modest apparel”, or perhaps the latest Babylonish novel calculated to inflame the flesh and dethrone the Son of God from your affections.
“WHAT HAVE THEY SEEN IN THINE HOUSE?” Did they see any Gospel texts on your walls, or copies of the Word of God here and there? They did not. As for appropriate Gospel tracts, they were conspicuous by their absence. But in keeping with the occasion the house as far as possible was made to resemble a Babylonish residence just to make your guests “feel at home.” And it was coincidence that a Babylonish magazine was lying here and there!
After all it was a social evening and you justified yourself by saying, “There is a time for everything,” and, “We don’t believe in preaching to people all the time.” So you sang Babylonish songs, played Babylonish games and discussed Babylonish topics. But like Samson of old you “wist not that God’s presence had departed from you” (Judges 16:20).
But what said the Lord to Hezekiah? “Behold the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon, nothing shall be left,” said the Lord. “And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget shall they take away: and they shall be enriched in the palace of the King of Babylon” (Isaiah 39:6-7). In other words, all Hezekiah’s possessions would soon be carried to Babylon and his children doomed to become servants to the king of Babylon.
And so with you, dear worldly Christian. Like Lot who pitched his tent towards Sodom, but was soon in it with his family, so you will eventually land in the world and your loved ones will grow up bond-slaves to its King.
Be warned in time and hear the clear call of God. “Come out from among them and be ye separate,” saith the Lord, “and touch not the unclean and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters,” saith the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:17-18).
—R.T.H.