1. "Isaiah 39 is to the book of Isaiah like the setup man is to baseball. It’s not the starter that chapters 1 to 35 are, and it’s not the closer that chapters 40 to 66 are, but it plays a humble and important role to set us up for hope."

2. "When we have to confront the sin or the foolishness of another, we should remember this reality: a question pricks the conscience, but an accusation hardens the heart."

3. "Hezekiah showing off everything in his kingdom is about as absurd as someone showing copies of their bank statements to visitors right after they get back from the hospital, or giving dinner guests a tour and pulling open the top drawer to show where they keep all their underwear."

4. "This is the kind of judgment that multiplies upon itself. All that is in the king’s house shall be carried away, his descendants shall be taken away as slaves, and the blows just keep getting worse and worse as God’s word of judgment comes down on him."

5. "There’s a dissonance between Hezekiah’s speech and his heart. Outwardly he says the right theological words, but inwardly he’s essentially saying, ‘That sounds horrific, but at least I’ll be okay for the rest of my days.’ He didn’t mind if others suffered for his sins, so long as he didn’t have to."

6. "Generally speaking, our prolonged fears are often wrongly resolved in little momentary compromises to trust in anything or anyone other than the Lord alone. When filled with fear, don’t cower and grasp for other saviors; instead, seek to trust in Christ."

7. "It is not wrong to have things, but it is wrong when things have you. We should never be possessed by our own possessions, because the king’s stuff wasn’t even his; ultimately it was the Lord’s, and he was meant to be a steward, not a show-off."

8. "This passage is emblematic of the reality that spiritual compromise always brings spiritual consequences. Compromise with the enemy always means enmity before God. Yet if a person recognizes their sin and turns or returns to Jesus Christ in repentance, God promises to redeem even the worst of our failures for his good purposes."

9. "You can be justified, you can be reconciled to God, not on the basis of what you have done, but on the basis of what has been accomplished for you by Christ. Our sin has been imputed to Jesus, and his righteousness can be imputed to us in the sight of a holy God."

10. "Where Hezekiah failed miserably as king, and where you and I as Christians fail miserably as disciples, Jesus Christ, the perfectly righteous Messiah, succeeded. Our perfect King is yet to come, and when he does come, he will bring comfort and he will bring salvation for all people."

Observation Questions

1. Read Isaiah 39:1–2. Who comes to visit Hezekiah, what do they bring, and how does Hezekiah respond to their arrival?
2. According to Isaiah 39:2, what specific things does Hezekiah show the envoys, and how comprehensive is this tour described to be?
3. In Isaiah 39:3–4, what questions does Isaiah ask Hezekiah, and how does Hezekiah answer them?
4. In Isaiah 39:5–6, what does the “word of the Lord” say will happen to everything in Hezekiah’s house and all that his fathers have stored up?
5. What additional judgment is described in Isaiah 39:7 concerning Hezekiah’s descendants, and what will be done to them?
6. In Isaiah 39:8, what does Hezekiah say in response to Isaiah’s prophecy, and what does the narrator tell us he was thinking?

Interpretation Questions

1. Based on Isaiah 39:1–4 and the sermon, what do Hezekiah’s actions in welcoming the envoys and showing them everything suggest about the fears and desires in his heart?
2. Why is Hezekiah’s failure to seek the Lord or consult Isaiah before dealing with Babylon (Isaiah 39:1–4) such a significant spiritual problem within the wider message of Isaiah?
3. What does the severity of the judgment in Isaiah 39:5–7 (loss of treasures, exile, and sons made eunuchs) teach us about the seriousness of spiritual compromise and misplaced trust?
4. How does Hezekiah’s mixed response in Isaiah 39:8—outwardly accepting God’s word as “good” while inwardly relieved it won’t happen in his days—illustrate a divided heart, and how did the sermon help you understand this tension?
5. In light of Hezekiah’s failure as a Davidic king in Isaiah 39 and the promises of a righteous king in earlier chapters (e.g., Isaiah 7, 9, 11), how does this passage deepen our longing for and understanding of Jesus as the true Messiah?

Application Questions

1. Think of a recent situation where fear strongly influenced a decision you made; how might remembering God’s past faithfulness and promises (like Isaiah 41:10) help you respond differently if a similar situation arose this week?
2. Where are you most tempted to “show off your storehouses” (your achievements, resources, experiences) rather than boast in the Lord, and what is one specific change you could make in how you talk or post online to give God more glory?
3. Can you identify an area where small compromises have slowly pulled your heart away from full trust in the Lord (relationships, money, work, entertainment, etc.)? What concrete step of repentance and “returning to the Lord” will you take in that area this week?
4. Like Hezekiah should have done with Isaiah, who is one godly person you could invite to help you discern a significant decision or struggle right now, and what specific question will you ask them for counsel or prayer?
5. As a church community, where might we be tempted to rely more on human alliances, strategies, or resources than on God Himself, and what shared practice (e.g., more intentional prayer, testimonies of God’s help, corporate repentance) could help us re-center our trust on the Lord?

Additional Bible Reading

1. 2 Chronicles 32:24–31 — Parallel account of Hezekiah’s sickness, pride, and the Babylonian envoys, giving more detail about how God tested his heart and how he responded.
2. Isaiah 7:1–17 — Introduces the promise of Immanuel to the house of David, highlighting God’s plan for a coming king in contrast to the failures of Judah’s current rulers.
3. Isaiah 9:1–7 — Describes the child who will sit on David’s throne and rule with justice and righteousness, pointing to the perfect king that Hezekiah ultimately is not.
4. Isaiah 40:1–11 — Begins the section of Isaiah that moves from judgment to comfort, showing God’s promise of salvation after the kind of judgment announced in chapter 39.
5. Jeremiah 9:23–26 — Warns against boasting in wisdom, might, or riches and calls God’s people to boast in knowing Him, reinforcing the sermon’s call to humble dependence on the Lord rather than pride in our own resources.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: Baseball's Setup Man and Isaiah 39's Role in Scripture

II. Historical and Literary Context of Isaiah 38-39

III. The Narrative Account: Hezekiah's Encounter with Babylonian Envoys (Isaiah 39:1-8)

IV. Three Ways to Persevere in Faith: When Filled with Fear, Trust Only in the Lord

V. Three Ways to Persevere in Faith: When Puffed Up with Pride, Boast Only of the Lord

VI. Three Ways to Persevere in Faith: When Compromise Brings Consequences, Turn Only to the Lord

VII. The Gospel Hope: Looking Forward to the True Messiah

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I don't know about you, but I have been enjoying Major League Baseball a lot more this summer than in summer's past. Maybe because I went to a few more games than I have gone to in the past. Early in the season, I went to a Nationals game, and of course, they lost.

So much has changed since they won the World Series back in 2019. So in order to see a win, I had to drive up to Baltimore. Go see an Orioles game. And that was really enjoyable. Sorry to all you loyal national fans out there, it's the reality that we're living in here in DC.

A couple weeks I'll be back in my hometown and I'm going to get the privilege of going to a game together with my dad to go see our beloved Milwaukee Brewers. So I'm looking forward to that. If you're familiar with the positions in baseball, you might know that in a game, usually more than one pitcher pitches. In those nine innings. I'm going to go slow here, okay, because I know I'm preaching to CHBC and Mark does not give us a lot of sports analogies most times.

There's normally more than one pitcher in a game, and this is called a pitching rotation because there's a handful of players that rotate in and out to pitch. There's starting pitchers, there's relievers, a variety of relievers, and then there's a pitcher called a closer. And when the starting pitcher began to lose some steam, there's a handful of release pitchers that a team could use depending on the circumstances of the game, whether you're winning, losing, how many runs you're ahead or behind. And one of these relievers is called a setup man. A setup man.

The setup man is probably the most humble position in all of baseball. The setup man is not famous and well paid like the starter. He's not necessarily the guy that's clutch under pressure to finish off a win in the ninth inning like the closer. For these guys, there's no big contracts, there's no big end-of-the-season awards, no one buys your jersey at the team store because it's not even available. There's no baseball cards made up for the setup man.

When kids stand in line for autographs, silently they whisper to each other, who's this guy again? Which pitcher? What? Who?

The setup man doesn't get any love. Even when a setup man pitches good, there's barely any statistics that he can attain. But when he pitches bad, those stats are actually held against him. The setup man is the unsung hero of the game of baseball. He helps the team, but he gets none of the glory.

Isaiah chapter 39 is to the book of Isaiah like the setup man is to baseball. Chapter 39 is not the starter that chapters 1 to 35 are in Isaiah. In the book of Isaiah chapter 39 is not the closer that chapters 40 to 66 are. But Isaiah chapter 39 plays a humble and important role to set us up for more prophecies to come in Isaiah about the Messiah who, to extend the metaphor, It's promised to come out of the bullpen, be the closer, and get the save.

Painful, I know.

So as we look into chapter 39 this morning, which is on page 599 of your Pew Bible, this short chapter is gonna teach us a lot about the problem of pride. It's also gonna teach us a lot about humility along the way. And in order for us to understand this account, we need to wade into some of the historical and literary context on the front end for a bit. The book of Isaiah on the whole is filled with great judgment in chapters 1 to 39 and in the second half of Isaiah, it is filled with great hope in chapters 40 to 66. Where we've been these last two weeks in chapters 38 and 39, they serve as a bit of a couplet showing the narratives of the final years of King Hezekiah's reign over the southern kingdom of Judah.

The first phrase in this chapter, at that time, in verse 1, sets this account just a few months after Hezekiah was healed there in chapter 38, which we saw last week. And while chapters 38 and 39 are to be understood together in order, one key thing to note is that these two narratives actually take place chronologically before the events of chapters 36 and 37. Which if you can recall, recounts the greatest battle that never happened. When the Assyrian army was outside the city walls of Jerusalem, ready to attack, and through Hezekiah's prayer for deliverance, God promised to protect and defend the city. And so he did.

So why are these two accounts in chapters 38 and 39 not written in linear chronological order here in Isaiah? Well, because Isaiah is intentionally presenting a thematic cliffhanger. Of sorts here in chapter 39. While chapter 38 ends on a positive note of healing, today's text, chapter 39 does not. It instead ends in a quite dark, impending judgment.

And all of this is preparatory work from Isaiah 31 to 39. All of that work is showing off the truth that God alone is the one to whom Judah should be trusting in alone for their help. So here's what we're going to do this morning. First, we're going to look at the text and better understand it with a sort of running commentary. And then I want us to pull out three points of application for our lives.

And finally, we're going to see how this text connects us to our longing for the hope of a Messiah as if we were reading this in real time in Isaiah's day. So let's pick up this narrative account here, chapter 39, verse 1. Let's see how it all unfolds. At that time, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and had recovered. And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly, and he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses.

There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. As we look here in verses 1 and 2, Isaiah kind of recounts the scene. At this time in chapter 39, which was around 700 BC, while the northern Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria had for some time been the greatest threat to Judah and their existence, things began to shift on the geopolitical scene and now there emerges a new ascendant power who would eventually become stronger than the Assyrians and soon overtake them. And who's this new empire on the scene? Well, it's the empire that was previously prophesied earlier in the book of Isaiah and reintroduced here in this chapter as a foreshadowing of what would come.

It's this new empire, the Southern Mesopotamian Kingdom, of Babylon. So the king of Babylon sends some ambassadors to Judah to meet up with Hezekiah. And these ambassadors bring a get well soon card. They bring some flowers. They bring one of those dollar store balloons.

Because they had heard a thousand desert miles away that King Hezekiah was sick but that he had miraculously recovered. And why did these envoys from Babylon come all this way? Well, the main motive is Why they came to Jerusalem was to see if they could leverage Judah to become a new ally in a military alliance against their arch enemy, Assyria. Meanwhile, Hezekiah himself was seeking something, sadly not the Lord's help of protection, but protection through a political alliance with Babylon. And since Assyria is bearing down on Judah and the holy city of Jerusalem, the king is at the moment fearing the worst.

This interaction in Isaiah 39, it kind of reminds me of like a mob movie set in New York City. You have two major mob bosses who are in the same city but in two different boroughs. You have Assyria up north in the Bronx and you have Babylon down south in Brooklyn. And everyone's fighting over territorial control of Mesopotamia. I mean Manhattan.

And just a little further west in Jersey, I mean Jerusalem, they see another smaller family there in Judah who's been amassing their own wealth, their own power, and it's just a matter of time until one of those big New York bosses either buddies up with a smaller New Jersey family or just tries to put a hit out on them. That being the case, verse 2 tells us, surprisingly, that Hezekiah welcomed them in gladly.

But is the fact that he welcomed them in gladly, is that all that surprising? I guess Hezekiah probably thought, as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But did King Hezekiah crave respect? Did his fear of Assyria motivate Hezekiah to accept these Babylonians? Did Hezekiah think that Judah was too weak to fend for themselves?

Perhaps Hezekiah thought God himself was was too weak. Or was Hezekiah mainly motivated by pride? To be honest, as we look at just this text alone here in Isaiah 39, it's tough to pinpoint Hezekiah's motivations in this text alone. So to pick up the narrative again, not only did Hezekiah unwisely welcome these men in without much discernment at all, but then we see that he showed them everything in his kingdom there in verse 2. The treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oils, the whole armory, all that was in his storehouses, the text notes, there was nothing, nothing that was in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

Now because I'm married to one, I know that Middle Easterners are renowned for their hospitality, but truthfully, this is a little bit excessive. Okay, these ambassadors from Babylon must have been giving each other winks and raised eyebrows and silent looks out of the corner of their eyes and every single room that they walked into to they were shown in and out of. They must have thought, Whoa, we had no idea there is so much more here in this little kingdom to exploit than we thought. All the while, Hezekiah didn't realize that he was getting the wool pulled over his eyes. Did he realize it?

Apparently not. Not only was the king blinded by his fears, but apparently he was also blinded by his own pride. Look at verse 3 as the prophet Isaiah now enters in and the narrative shifts. Verse 3 says, Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, 'What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?' and Hezekiah said, 'They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.' He said, 'What have they seen in your house?' Hezekiah answered, 'They have seen all that is in my house.

There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them. Notice another one of the major failures of Hezekiah in this text. When presented with this alliance with Babylon, the king didn't first call for Isaiah to gain his prophetic wisdom. He didn't say, Men from Babylon, I'm so glad you made it. Let me introduce you to my spiritual advisor, Isaiah.

Everything that you say goes through him first. In fact, Isaiah comes to the king only after he must have heard the rumors of some foreigners who were being shown around this king's house and his kingdom. So like a good, godly friend and counselor, Isaiah confronts Hezekiah. And notice he does so patiently and he does so wisely and he does so through the use of questions. This is a good reminder for us of the truth when we have to confront the sin or the foolishness of another.

We should be reminded of this reality that a question pricks the conscience, but an accusation hardens the heart. And so as Isaiah asks three successive questions, you get the impression that Hezekiah is a bit defensive here in answering, even a bit evasive and coy with his answers. He only actually technically answers two of the three questions, questions that are asked there. Isaiah asks, what do these men say? And Hezekiah gives no answer.

So then Isaiah asks, Where do these guys come from? And Hezekiah simply says, From a far country. So Isaiah presses a little bit more. Which country? Oh, from Babylon.

Isaiah presses in a bit further beyond that and he says, what have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah is like, Uh, everything. And Isaiah's like, Everything? You showed them everything. The foolishness of this is astounding.

Hezekiah showing off everything in his kingdom is about as absurd as someone showing copies of their bank statements to the visitors who come to their house right after they get back from a stay in the hospital. That's essentially what's happening here.

Who does that? This would be like giving your dinner party guests a tour of your home, and when you get to your bedroom, you pull open the top drawer to show them where you keep all your underwear. The vulnerability of this is astounding. If you're young enough, or maybe if you're old enough, you might catch this reference. This account is like a bad episode of MTV's Cribs.

In these moments, Isaiah has got to be thinking to himself, Hezekiah, why did you do this? And we even see a bit of boasting in his heart that peaks through in Hezekiah's answer. In his own pride, he says, well, they came to see me.

So as a result of this lapse in Hezekiah's judgment, Isaiah receives a word there in verse five. And when Hezekiah, excuse me, when Isaiah begins by saying, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts, this is not a word from Isaiah himself. This is not a word from just any man this is a word from the Lord God Almighty. And Hezekiah, the king, would have known over the course of years after hearing prophecy over and over and over again from Isaiah that when the prophet speaks the words, thus says the Lord, that the king should be receiving either a word of hope or a word of judgment. Like whenever Isaiah comes on the scene to speak, you could be getting a blessing of a hopeful pat on the head, but you also could be getting a prophetic judgment of a spank on the bottom.

And in this instance, a heavy prophecy of judgment comes down there in verses five to seven. Verse five says this. Then Hezekiah said to, pardon me, then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and that which your fathers have stored up until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.

And some of your own sons who will come from you, whom you will father shall be taken away and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. In these verses, Isaiah prophesies that the days are coming and, well, they did eventually come. Just about 125 years later than this prophecy here, the word comes down on Judah and then in 586 BC the Babylonians come down on Judah as well. And they destroyed Jerusalem, they dismantled the temple, they displaced God's people and they put them into captivity and exile. Isaiah was right here.

Or rather we could say the Lord stayed true to his word. All this judgment that was prophesied in the past, it came to pass. And sadly, Judah realized the hard way that the enemy of my enemy is my friend until that friend, of course, becomes an enemy again. And one of the most shocking realities of this prophecy that we see here is the graphic nature of it. The news of this prophecy is like a second death sentence in the last two chapters.

That Hezekiah has received. Hezekiah, you're going to die, chapter 38. And then yet again here in 39, Hezekiah, you and your descendants, done.

Not only that, but all the possessions that Hezekiah showed to Babylon in verse 2 are going to be taken away in verse 7. Hezekiah's own biological sons and future descendants are going to be taken away against their will and they're going to be castrated. They're going to live as slaves. If you look back at verses 6 and 7, just the simple word and there in this text should feel like a pummeling to Hezekiah. Blow after blow of this prophecy of judgment, it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse as God's word comes down on the king.

All that is in your house and that which your fathers, namely, of course, Kings David and Solomon have stored up for you shall be carried away and nothing shall be left, and some of your own sons and descendants of your sons shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs. This is the kind of judgment that multiplies upon itself, and it's just devastating news. So what's Hezekiah's response to all of this? Judgment and the weight and the darkness of this prophecy? Well, we see it there in the very last verse, verse eight.

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, the word of the Lord that you have spoken is good, for he thought, there will be peace and security in my days. When you read that, you have to be thinking, what kind of response is this from Hezekiah? Like, what is that? How should we interpret this? Are Hezekiah's words a humble acknowledgement of receiving the will of the Lord or is this the king's expression of ultimate self-centeredness?

In order to best interpret this and seek out an answer, it would be best for us to look at a parallel passage here in this narrative. So if you would turn to 2 Chronicles, keep your finger in Isaiah 39 but turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 32 if you're using a Pew Bible or an ESV Bible from Crossway, it's on page 384. 2 Chronicles 32, and then we're going to look at verses 24 and 25. We're going to look at a few verses here, but we're going to look at them chronologically, kind of as they happen. 2 Chronicles 32, verses 24 and 25.

It says this, In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death, and he prayed to the Lord, and he answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore, wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem. So there it is, plain as day. Hezekiah was prideful.

Now look down to verse 31. 2 Chronicles 32:31, and so in the matter of the envoys of the princes of Babylon who had been sent to him to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land, God left him to himself in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart. God left him to test him to see what was in his heart. And sadly, what was found in the great and godly King Hezekiah's heart was pride. But also now look back up at verse 26 where we do see a little glimmer of hope.

Verse 26 says this, but Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah. That sheds a little bit more light on what's happening here internally to Hezekiah, doesn't it? If you would turn back to Isaiah 39, as we turn back to our question, are the king's words a humble acknowledgement of God here in verse 8? Or are they an expression of self-centeredness? What we can see here, and I believe at this moment, it's actually, it's both.

It's both of those things. Hezekiah proves to be a divided man. And I think the textual clue to see this lies in the fact that there's quite a dissonance between the first sentence of verse 8 and the second sentence of verse 8. Look at it again. The first sentence, the king verbally says one thing, which is actually theologically and selflessly the right thing to say.

But in the second sentence of verse 8, Hezekiah internally thinks something very different to himself. There's a dissonance between his speech and his heart. There's a difference between what is said outwardly and what is happening as he says something to himself inwardly. Essentially, he's pridefully and selfishly saying, oh God, that sounds horrific, but if it is your will, I know that it's good. But at least for me, I'll be okay for the rest of my days.

Sadly, the king didn't mind if others suffered for his sins so long as he didn't have to. Do you see the duplicity there? Taken as a whole, Hezekiah has displayed in both his words and his actions that he is arrogantly self deceived. And he's relying on his pride, his possessions, his own prominence, seemingly all for the ends of his own self preservation in this chapter. It's a very dark chapter in the history of God's people and this whole passage kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn't it?

So with all this textual understanding as a backdrop then, we should be asking ourselves, what should we be gathering from this text applicationally? What should we be doing this for our own lives? I think anytime we see a negative example like this, we should seek to spiritually succeed in the places where God's chosen servants have failed. We should seek to persevere in our faith in the ways that Hezekiah fell flat in faith. And so anytime we see a negative narrative example like this, we should all be asking the question, how can we do the opposite of what Hezekiah has done?

How can I persevere in the faith? That's the question we want to answer right now. The first point of three aspects of application in this text under the heading, three ways to persevere in faith. So if you're taking notes, write this first one down. Number one, when filled with fear, trust only in the Lord.

Three ways to persevere in faith. Number one, when filled with fear, trust only in the Lord. There is no denying the fact that Hezekiah had trust issues, didn't he? Rather than fearing Assyria, he should have been trusting God. In his fears, he should have reminded himself of all the ways that the Lord had been faithful to him in the past.

We mentioned it last week, but it bears repeating again. God's faithfulness in the past secures his promises for the present so that we might trust him for the future.

Decision making under fear often causes us to compromise our trust in the Lord. And our trust in the Lord alone. This is a truth that King Hezekiah did not see because in these moments, his greatest fears clouded his best perceptions of God. He feared the things that were in front of him and he thought them to be more mighty than what he knew of the Almighty. And so his trust in God was compromised.

And in a singular device, excuse me, singular decisive moment, he chose to trust in Babylon and not in the Lord. So yes, we see displayed here, Hezekiah has trust issues. What about you? What about me? We carry these kind of trust issues as well.

This is exactly how it is for us too, isn't it? Generally speaking, our prolonged fears are often wrongly resolved in the little momentary compromises to trust in anything or anyone other than the Lord alone. So we should heed this negative example from Hezekiah's life and instead of cowering in fear, instead seek to trust in Christ. And if there was ever a truth that if possible Hezekiah needed to hear at this moment, it's what actually Isaiah wrote just a few years later after this count, just one page turn over. If only in his fear, Hezekiah could have had the privilege that we have to turn just a chapter or two later to mine the golden truths of Isaiah 41:10, which says, Fear not, for I am with you.

Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. These realities bring us to our second point of application, Number one, when filled with fear, trust only in the Lord.

Number two, when puffed up with pride, boast only of the Lord. When puffed up with pride, boast only of the Lord. It's often been said that pride is the only disease known to man that makes everyone sick except the person who has it.

Isn't it interesting to note that when welcoming this out of town envoy, Hezekiah didn't go out of his way to consult the Lord in prayer. He didn't seek out the prophet Isaiah for his wisdom. Hezekiah's lack of humility clearly showed off how he was puffed up with his own pride. When these nonbelievers from Babylon were on the king's turf inquiring how he was healed, where did they worship? What did the temple look like?

How did you amass all this wealth, Judah? It's shocking, isn't it? That Hezekiah doesn't seem to tell of God's goodness or speak of God's glory to them. Not only this, Hezekiah is showing off his weakness and discernment even while he was showing off his pride and possessions. The king should have been sharing the gospel with these guys, but instead he was so caught up in showing off his stuff.

And this is always a good reminder in texts like this to think of this reality. It is not wrong to have things, but it is wrong when things have you. It is not wrong to have things, but it is wrong when things have you. We should never be possessed by our own possessions. And truthfully, Hezekiah's stuff wasn't even his.

Ultimately, it was the Lord's. And as the king, Hezekiah was to be a steward, a servant of these riches. The things that were passed down from generation to generation, going all the way back to the reigns of King David and Solomon. But sadly, Hezekiah is so caught up in his fear, he's so puffed up with pride that instead of boasting in God's goodness and displaying his glory, he gets caught up in boasting about himself and in his stuff. J. Oswald Sanders in his book Spiritual Leadership says this, Nothing is more distasteful to God than self-conceit.

The first and most fundamental sin in essence aims at enthroning self at the expense of God. He continues by saying this, Pride is a sin of whose presence its victim is least conscience. Pride is a sin of whose presence its victim is least conscious. If we were honest, Sanders says, we will measure ourselves by the life of our Lord who humbled himself even to death on a cross. We cannot be but overwhelmed by the tautness and shabbiness and even vileness of our own hearts.

How true that is in this passage of Hezekiah and how true of that is also for us in our own hearts. But the biblical alternative to being puffed up with pride is to boast only in the Lord. Jeremiah 9:23 and 24 reminds us in moments of pride, whatever stripe they are experienced or expressed, Jeremiah 9:23 says, Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For these things I delight, declares the Lord. So three ways to persevere in faith: number one, when filled with fear, trust only in the Lord; number two, when puffed up with pride, boast only of the Lord; and then number three, when compromise brings consequences, turn only to the Lord.

Turn only to the Lord. I've heard it said, that a man is more tested by his prosperity than by his adversity. And in the last chapter, 38, Hezekiah passes the test of adversity, but in this chapter he fails the test of prosperity. This passage is emblematic of the reality that spiritual compromise always brings spiritual consequences. And this passage reminds us that compromise with the enemy always means enmity before God.

But here's the good news: the good news of the grace for those who are caught in the compromise of their own sin. That any of us, if we would choose to turn to the Redeemer, God promises to redeem. That is to say that if a person recognizes that in their sin they have compromised their relationship with God through turning or even returning to Jesus Christ in repentance, God promises to redeem even the worst of our failures for his good purposes. This reminder of a true turning in repentance is repeated all over the scripture. If you want, just jot down a few of these references here and you can look at them later.

Jeremiah 24, verse 7. Joel 2, verses 12 to 14. Zechariah 1:3. Malachi 3:7, James 4:8, all of these verses essentially remind us that even when we are stuck in our sin, we can turn back to the Lord in repentance and receive the promise of God's presence and a forgiveness that only he as the Lord can provide. These scriptures essentially all say the same thing: Return to me, the Lord says, and I will return to you.

So Hezekiah's sin in chapter 39 is the antitype of all that we should be doing in seeking to obey Jesus as Christians.

But also I find an affinity with Hezekiah because he's used by God in great ways but also in his sin he fails miserably. It's kind of like me and kind of like you. Hezekiah was a man like us, full of both pride but piety. He's simultaneously both a sinner and a saint. In the 16th century, Martin Luther coined a term in Latin Simul Justus et Pecator, which translated means at once righteous and a sinner.

And what Luther was explaining is the state in which all Christians find themselves. We are at the same time both justified by faith but sinners in the flesh. Before a holy God, we are still sinners who sin. We are sinners because we sin and we sin because we are sinners. Yet at the same time, by the grace of God through faith in Christ, we are justified before God.

These are the things that we've been reflecting on through Romans 4 as Pastor Mark's been leading us through this past summer. And this is the very heart of the gospel. To ask the question, will I be justified by my own righteousness or that which has been imputed to me through the work of Christ? That is the question. We are incapable through our own righteousness to redeem ourselves.

It is only through the perfect work of the righteous death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes the good news of the gospel glorious for sinners and compromisers like Hezekiah, like you, and like me. The good news of the gospel is simply this: you: can be justified, you can be reconciled to God, not on the basis of what you have done, but on the basis of what has been accomplished for you by Christ. So our sin has been imputed to Jesus and in the sight of a holy God, his righteousness can be imputed to us. If you're here this morning, Christian or nonbeliever alike, and you are stuck in your sin today, turn and trust in Christ and find in him the forgiveness that the Lord holds forth to reconcile you back to him. Connect with a pastor at the doors.

We'd love to pray for you, care for you. We'd love to have a conversation about the good news of the gospel with you before you leave today. Lastly, this morning as we wrap up this chapter and really as we wrap up the entire first half of Isaiah, a task that actually took us through these 40 chapters since 2017, where does this leave us in our understanding of redemptive history? Where does this leave us in understanding the promises of the coming Messiah within the book of Isaiah? Well, while this chapter leaves us with quite a cliffhanger, sin is abounding, the king is failing, a prophecy is declared, the people desperately need a deliverer, the good news is that there is hope on the horizon.

The first half of Isaiah shows us, especially in chapters 7 and 9 and 11, that there would one day come an anointed one who would be the messianic king, and his name would be Immanuel, God with us. And he would come forth from the stump of Jesse to sit on David's throne, and he would be the kind of king that's a king who would reign in true, pure righteousness.

And here we see quite clearly that although King Hezekiah was a righteous and godly ruler, he's not a perfect king. He's by no means impeccable. Certainly some would have hoped and maybe even asked, Is Hezekiah the Messiah? Is he the liberator or the savior of God's people that's been prophesied? But of course, Hezekiah's rise in these chapters is also preceded by his fall.

And because of this, coming to the end of chapter 39, the reader realizes that Hezekiah is not the Messiah. And so we should wait for the one who is. Where Hezekiah failed miserably as king, where you and I as Christians fail miserably as disciples, Jesus Christ is the perfectly righteous Messiah who succeeded. The dark judgment that closes down on chapter 39 eventually will lead us to the second half of the book of Isaiah, which opens up the bright hopes that we'll see next week in chapter 40. Our perfect king is yet to come, but when he does come, he will bring comfort and he will bring salvation for all people.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your words which were written and recorded for us for our instruction. We thank you for these Old Testament examples, the ways in which we see the Messiah coming forth. We thank you, Lord, in the ways in which the same realities that we should be turning and repenting in for those Old Testament saints or the same realities that we're called to today. So, Lord, help us to trust you more. Help us, God, to boast in you alone.

Help us, God, to turn from ourselves and from our sin and closer to you, Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.