2 KINGS 19 AND 20 (SUMMARY OF AN ADDRESS)
[p. 208] 2 KINGS 19 AND 20 (SUMMARY OF AN ADDRESS)
2 Kings 19: 1 - 37; 2 Kings 20: 1 - 21
The king of Assyria was an external and blasphemous power which God used as the rod of His governmental dealings so that the remnant of His people might be exercised and humbled, and might return to Him in true self-judgment and confidence in Him. When the humbling was accepted God looked after the remnant that escaped of the house of Judah that it might take root downward and bear fruit upward. That is what God has in view in all pressure that is allowed to come upon His people. The tendency with us all is to be superficial and not well rooted. By self-judgment our roots get deeper down. God always has in view a deepening of things in the souls of His people, for bearing fruit upward is largely dependent on taking root downward. Bearing fruit upward is bearing fruit to God. It is well to remember that the governmental ways of God help this; we get, as it were, a fresh start with God as things are deepened with us. As we judge ourselves our roots go deeper down into His love and goodness, and in result there is more for Him. They had some root at Corinth, but they were not well rooted. It is evident from 2 Corinthians 7: 9 - 11 that there had been distinct deepening with them, and we have all observed that as saints come under chastening there is more fruit from them for God. The measure of how spiritual things are prospering with us is the measure of fruit that God gets.
In the third year there had to be diligence in sowing and reaping and planting vineyards; the first two years [p. 209] Jehovah would give in sovereign goodness, but in the third year there must be diligence on the part of the people. In the first place with all of us God gives in His sovereignty, but He looks that this shall be followed by diligence on our side to secure fruitfulness. Then the remnant takes on its true character and comes out definitely for God. Fruitfulness ensures a supply of good food, and as we get good food we “know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good” (Isaiah 7:15; Isaiah 7:21,22). I gather from this that if we nourish what is of God, even though it may appear to be very small, it will nourish us. But this is the result of care and diligence on our side. It is not like the first two years when things grew of themselves; in the third year things have to be diligently and intelligently cultivated. We are all conscious that God has ministered a great deal to us on sovereign lines; He has given us much food in sovereign love and mercy; but He looks now that we should take up the exercise of the food supply ourselves. We are not to be merely passive receivers of things. Isaiah 7 has remnant conditions in view. It is having good food that enables us to take up the exercises of 2 Timothy.
But the government of God goes on with us all, and it is intended to have a great effect on us. He brought up the Assyrian upon His people, and he reached to the neck; it was nearly a submerging of everything. But the result was that the remnant returned to God in self-judgment and true confidence. The time of pressure resulted in this for God. The Assyrian represents any external pressure which may come upon the people of God. When it has produced its proper effect God can easily deal with any instrument which He has used in His disciplinary ways.
But in chapter 20 Hezekiah has to go through a deeper lesson. It is not now external pressure, but the direct dealing of God with him, bringing in death upon him. It would help us if we keep in mind that this history has in [p. 210] view the future when the Assyrian will come up in the last days, and God will intervene on behalf of His people. But then they will have to learn, too, that death is on them selves, which is a more serious matter than the Assyrian. It is part of God’s disciplinary ways with us that we should learn that death is on us. This is essential if we are to come out in true remnant character.
We shall hardly realise that we have life in Another if we are not brought to the consciousness that death is upon us.
Paul had learned this great lesson, for he said, “But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead”, 2 Corinthians 1: 9. If I am really as good as dead in my own thought of myself there is nothing for me but to trust in God who raises the dead. But this was not merely an inward conviction with Paul; he was put through circumstances which made death a very great reality to him experimentally: “We were excessively pressed beyond our power, so as to despair even of living”. But at that point he proved the delivering power of God, “who has delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver; in whom we confide that he will also yet deliver”, 2 Corinthians 1: 10. God allowed such a persecution to come upon Paul that there seemed to be no escape from death but this was discipline for him that his service might be carried on more purely in the power of God who raises the dead. So he could say, “For we who live are always delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh; so that death works in us, but life in you”, 2 Corinthians 4: 11, 12. Death as a discipline was always on Paul, but it was that life might work in those whom he served, so that it was really a spiritual gain.
John in Revelation 1 had the experience of death: “And when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead”. He had never had such an experience before but it gave occasion for the right [p. 211] hand of the Son of man to be laid upon him, and for that glorious One to say, “Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades”, Revelation 1: 17, 18. If John was as dead there was One who was the living One, and by the strength of His right hand His bondman could serve Him. There was great spiritual gain through the experience, reducing as it was. The family at Bethany went through the sorrow and discipline of death in a very real way, but it prepared them to know the Son of God as the Resurrection and the Life.
God brought the weight of death on Hezekiah’s spirit, but it was really that he might learn how God could intervene in the power of resurrection so that he might go up on the third day to the house of Jehovah. But before going up there must be the application of the “cake of figs”. It is clear from Scripture that the characteristic of the fig is sweetness; see Judges 9: 11. So that I understand the “cake of figs” to be a symbol of the sweetness of divine intervention where all was apparently hopeless. Hezekiah wrote after he had recovered, “But thou hast in love delivered my soul from the pit of destruction”, and, “Jehovah was purposed to save me”, Isaiah 38: 17, 20. He learned the love of God at the low point to which he was brought. It is terrible to us naturally to realise that death is upon us as before God, but it is just there that the love of God comes into contact with us. “For we being still without strength, in the due time Christ has died for the ungodly. For scarcely for the just man will one die, for perhaps for the good man some one might also dare to die; but God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”, Romans 5: 6 - 8. The thought prominent in this Scripture is not that the claims of God have been met; that aspect of the truth comes out in the blood as put upon the mercy-seat. But here it is that God’s love has been expressed in Christ having died for us, and this love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. The love of God is thus applied to us as the cake of figs was applied to Hezekiah. How wonderfully sweet it is to find that Christ has been into death to give expression to the love of God, and this is made a personal reality to each one who has the Spirit.
Many believers have never definitely faced the fact that death is upon them; such have a very vague idea of what life is according to God. Hezekiah could say, “Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit; and thou hast recovered me, and made me to live ... The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I this day”, Isaiah 38:16; Isaiah 38:19. It was not simply that he recovered in a natural way, but his spirit was made to live as knowing the intervention of God for him as under death. So that he lived Godward in praise. Those who live by the Spirit in relation to God, as having God’s love shed abroad in their hearts by the Spirit, know that it is in death that that love has reached them. “Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned ... but death reigned from Adam until Moses ... death reigned by the one ... sin has reigned in the power of death”, Romans 5:12,14; Romans 5:17,21. It is as the full weight of this comes on our spirits that we are prepared to appreciate that this dreadful thing, death, has become in the death of Christ the expression to us of the love of God. And the Holy Spirit delights to apply that love to us by shedding it abroad in our hearts. The death of Christ thus becomes to us peculiarly full of sweetness. It is not simply that we believe that God loves us, but His love is shed abroad in our hearts, and it becomes a power of life there. We are then amongst “the living” who can praise God for His love known through the death of Christ. The assembly is made up of such living persons. Normally one who has the Spirit [p. 213] is occupied with God and with Christ and with the death of Christ. Of course if we grieve the Spirit by some allowance of the flesh we may be as unhappy as if we had not the Spirit at all.
But there is something more: “On the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah”. That implies the power of resurrection. The sign of it was that Jehovah “brought the shadow back on the degrees by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward”. It needed God to reverse the whole natural course of things. This was the wonder which was done in the land. I think the fact that the shadow went ten degrees backward intimates that death is removed in the power of resurrection in a way that is known to faith before the time when death will be publicly swallowed up in victory. While we are still here in the responsible life, where death is still manifestly upon all men, and, as to what is seen publicly, upon us too, we may know the power of Christ’s resurrection, and we may be risen with Him by the faith of the working of God who raised Him from among the dead. Going up on the third day implies the truth that is brought out in the epistle to the Colossians. Saints can be risen with Christ before they are actually risen. Every one of us should apprehend this as a divine possibility. Going up to the house of Jehovah would be for us entering into the privileges of the assembly. The youngest of us should understand that we come together in assembly first of all to think of the great witness of divine love in the death of Christ. Then it is our privilege to magnify Christ in every aspect of His Person and glory, and in all that He is to the assembly as her glorious Head. Even the youngest and feeblest believer can say ‘Amen’ to every utterance which praises and magnifies Christ. And this would prepare us in a very blessed way to go up into conscious association with Him as risen with Him, and to know that even as ascended to the Father [p. 214] He owns us as His brethren. It is well to ask ourselves whether all this is known to us as a spiritual reality. How could any lover of Christ keep away from the assembly if he realised that such precious things could be known there and enjoyed experimentally? It is sorrowful to think that any believer could willingly remain away from the Lord’s supper, for it is the Lord’s own personal appeal of love intended to rally all His own. But He would not have us to think that His supper is everything; He would have us to know something of what “the third day” speaks of, and of going up. “And we will play upon my stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of Jehovah”, Isaiah 38: 20. As we go up in association with Christ as His brethren there is an answer to God’s great thought, and He is praised in the same way that Christ praises Him as having come up out of death. “Stringed instruments” suggest that a great variety of notes can be sounded, and that spiritual skill is evidenced by those who play upon them. The musical services that are carried on in the christian profession are an imitation in a material way of the true spiritual service; they do not require spiritual skill, for those who do not know God can take part in them. But those who have come up out of death by divine quickening can praise with Christ. He is the Chief Musician, for as having glorified God in death and sin-bearing He can utter in resurrection every note of praise that is due to God. The praises of the assembly take character from the praises of Christ, for He hymns God in the midst of the assembly, and who would think of raising a divergent note? If we have known the pressure of death, and how divine love has reached us there, it is in view of our being free to go up in company with Christ to praise God whom He has made known to us in such a wondrous way.