Vainglory Rebuked!

"Soon after this, Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent Hezekiah his best wishes and a gift, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been very sick. Hezekiah welcomed the Babylonian envoys and showed them everything in his treasure-houses—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the aromatic oils. He also took them to see his armory and showed them all his other treasures—everything! There was nothing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them." 2 Kings 20:12-13

And what of that? Was it not the most natural thing in all the world to do? Who among us would not have shown the strangers our house, and our garden, and our library, and have pointed out to them any little treasures and curiosities, which we might happen to possess? And what if Hezekiah was somewhat proud of his wealth? Was it not a most natural pride that he who was a monarch of so small a territory should nevertheless be able, by economy and good government, to accumulate so large and varied a treasure? Did it not show that he was prudent and thrifty; and might he not commend himself as an example to the Babylonian ambassadors, by showing what these virtues had done for him? Exactly so; this is just as mansees. But God sees after another sort: "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart." Things are not to God as they seem to us.Actions which apparently and upon the surface, and even so far as human judgment can go, may appear to be either indifferent or even laudable, may seem to God to be so hateful that his anger may burn against them. We look upon a needle, and to our naked eye it is as smooth as glass, but when we put it under the microscope, it appears at once to be as rough as an unmanufactured bar of iron. It is much after this manner with our actions. They may seem in our own judgments, and in the judgments of our fellow creatures, to be as bright and smooth as the needle for their excellence, but when they come under the inspection of the all-seeing God, they are full of all manner of roughnesses of sin. Our lilies may be the Lord’s nettles, and our gardens nothing better than a wilderness in his sight.

Yet another reflection which strikes one at the very first blush of this affair, namely, that God has a different rule for judging his children’s doings from that which he applies to the actions of strangers. I can believe that if Hezekiah had sent his ambassadors to Berodach-baladan, that heathen monarch might have shown the Jewish ambassadors over all his treasures without any sort of sin- God would not have been provoked to anger, nor would a prophet have uttered so much as a word of remonstrance or of threatening. But Hezekiah is not like Berodach-baladan, and must not do as the Babylonians may do. Baladan is but a serf in God’s kingdom, and Hezekiah is a prince. The one is an alien, and the other is a dear and much cherished child. We have all different modes of dealing with men according to their relation to us. If a stranger should speak against you in the street you would not feel it, you would scarce be angry even though the statement might be libelous. But if it were the wife of your bosom it would sting you to the heart, or if your child should slander you it would cut you to the quick.

When we admit people into intimacy and reveal our hearts to them, we expect them to act toward us with a tenderness and a delicacy which it were utterly unreasonable to expect in strangers, and we judge of their actions by a peculiar standard; we weigh, as it were, the actions of ordinary men in the common rough scales which would not turn with an ounce or even a pound. But the doings of our friends we weigh in such sensitive balances that even though it were but a feather from the wing of a fly the scale would turn. It is a solemn thing to be a favorite of heaven, for where another man may sin with impunity the beloved of God will not offend without grievous chastisement. If you lie in the bosom of heaven, you must take care that your soul is chaste towards God; if you are favored with the secret of the Most High you must peculiarly be among them that fear him; for if not, he will say unto you as he said to his favored Israel, "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore will I punish you for your iniquities." It might be treason in a courtier to speak of the king as a stranger might safely do; and he who is admitted into the cabinet must not only be beyond fault in his loyalty, but even beyond suspicion.

We remark then that the act of Hezekiah here recorded is not upon the surface a sinful one, but that the sin is to be found, not so much in the action itself as in his motives of which we cannot be judges, but which God very accurately judged, and very strictly condemned. And again, we remark thatthis sin of Hezekiah might not have been sin in others at all, that even with the same motive if done by others it might not have so provoked God; but seeing that Hezekiah above even most of the scriptural saints, was favored with singular interpositions of providence, and distinguished honorsfrom God’s hand, he should have been more careful. His sin, if little in others, became great in him, because of his being so beloved of God.

A man with a worn and stained garment may walk without spoiling his robe where another clothed in white might not venture; a spot might not show upon a filthy garment, but the cleaner the robe the more readily is the spot discovered. And from the very fact that Hezekiah was so superlatively a holy man, and a man favored of God, his sin showed itself, and God visited it at once with chastisement.

I. In order to bring out what Hezekiah’s offense was, it will be best for me to begin by describing HIS CIRCUMSTANCES AND STATE AT THE TIME OF THE TRANSACTION. We shall need rather a lengthened description. In the first place, we may remark that he had received very singular favors. Sennacherib had invaded the land with a host reckoned to be invincible, and probably it was invincible by all the known means of warfare of that age. He had ravaged every state and taken away innumerable prisoners, besides despoiling every city to which he laid siege. But when he came near Jerusalem he was not able even so much as to cast a mound against it, or to shoot an arrow at it, for God singularly interposed, and the host of Sennacherib, smitten by the sudden breath of pestilence, or by the deadly air of the simoom, fell dead upon the plain.

This was a memorable deliverance from a foe so gigantic as to be compared to leviathan, into whose jaw the Lord thrust a hook, and led him back to the place from whence he came. Beside this, the king had been restored from a sickness pronounced to be mortal. He had been granted a singular escape from the gates of death; where another man must have died, he was enabled within three days to go up to the house of the Lord. Added to all this, in connection with his recovery, God had seen fit to do for him what he had only done for Joshua before, namely, to interrupt the order of the heavens, and to make the sun go back ten degrees upon the dial of Ahaz as a token by which his servant’s faith might be comforted. This was no small thing when death from below and heaven from above were both stayed in their courses for the favored child of heaven, when the shades of the grave and the brightness of the sun alike were moved for him to prove the loving-kindness of the Lord.

In addition to all this the Lord gave Hezekiah an unusual run of prosperity. Everything prospered. If you read the statement given in the Chronicles, and also that in Isaiah, you will find that he was enriched both by presents from the neighboring kings, who were probably overawed by the fact that Sennacherib had been destroyed in the country of Hezekiah, and he was probably also enriched by trading as Solomon had done before him.

Hezekiah, though but a little prince, suddenly found himself a wealthy man, having moreover one thing in his treasury which could not have been discovered among the riches of any other living man, namely, a writ from the Court of Heaven, that he should live fifteen years. What would not some monarchs have given, if they had been sure that their lives would have been preserved from daily jeopardy during that length of time? No weight of coral or of pearl would have been considered too great a price for such a boon. Hezekiah was in all respects a prosperous monarch; the man whom the King of kings delighted to honor. This great prosperity was a great temptation, far more difficult to endure than Rabshakeh’s letter, and all the ills which invasion brought upon the land. Ah friend, that is a much-needed prayer: "In all times of our wealth, good Lord deliver us." Many serpents lurk among the flowers of prosperity; high places are dangerous places; it is not easy to carry a full cup with a steady hand; a loaded wagon needs a strong axle, and a well-fed steed requires a tight rein.

We must not forget that Hezekiah, at this time, had become singularly conspicuous. To be favored as he was, might have been endurable, if he could have lived in retirement; but he was set as upon a pinnacle, since all the nations round about must have heard of the destruction of Sennacherib’s host. Sennacherib was the common foe of all the smaller potentates, and even the great kings, like the king of Egypt, stood in mortal dread of the power of Assyria; it was therefore sure to be known far and wide, that the tyrant’s wing had been clipped in the land of Judah. The going back of the sun must also have struck all nations with astonishment. It appears that the Babylonian ambassadors came to enquire about this wonder, for they were a people much given to observe the heavenly bodies. The world’s mouth was full of Hezekiah. Everybody heard of him.

Everybody spoke of him. His cure, his victory, and his wealth were common talk in every place where men met together. What a temptation is this! When many eyes are upon one, they may, unless grace prevent, act like the eyes of the fabled Basilisk, which fascinated their prey. To walk before the Lord in the land of the living is happy and safe walking; but to walk before men is full of peril. To be saluted with applause, to bask in popularity, is always dangerous. A full sail needs much ballast, or the vessel will be overturned. Much grace was needed in the case before us, but this the king did not seek as he should have done.

Hezekiah had remarkable opportunities for usefulness. How much he might have done to honor the God of Israel! I scarcely know of a man, except he were an inspired prophet, who had so noble an opportunity of declaring the greatness and goodness of the Lord; for while everybody spoke of him, it was in connection with two wonders which God had wrought, which should have brought to the Great Wonder-working Jehovah a revenue of praise. Why, Hezekiah, had you been in your right senses, and had grace kept your wits about you, what a sermon you might have preached with death beneath you and heaven above you for the text, and the eternal power and Godhead for the theme! Brethren, he ought to have made the courts of princes ring with the name of Jehovah. He should have placed himself in the rear of the picture, and have filled the earth with his testimony to the glory of his God. How well he might have exclaimed in the language of triumphant exultation, "Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?" Which of these delivered the nations from Sennacherib? which of these could raise up their votaries from mortal sickness? Which of these could say to the sun’s shadow, "Go back upon the dial of Ahaz"? But Jehovah rules over all; he is king in heaven above, and in the earth beneath. My brethren, it seems to me that if like Moses he had composed some triumphal ode; if he had made the people sing, and bidden the women dance like Miriam, while the exultant shout went up to heaven, "Oh, come let us sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously!" it had been far better work for him than to have been showing these ambassadors over his treasury, and exalting his own name among men.

He, above all men, was under obligation to have loved his God, and to have devoted himself wholly to him. All life is sacred to the Giver of Life, and should be devoted to him; but life supernaturally prolonged, should have been in an especial manner dedicated to God. He whose breath is in his nostrils, wherein is he to be accounted of? Why should he boast himself? but he whose breath has been given back into his nostrils by miracle must not spend it in magnifying himself. Unto God be the glory of our life though it be but given to us once; but oh, with what emphasis should God have all the glory of it if it be given to us twice! But it is written of him in the Chronicles, that "he rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up." He enjoyed the blessings, but bowed not before the Giver; he remembered the fruit, but he forgot the tree; he drank of the stream, but did not enough regard the fountain; his fields were watered with dew, but he was not sufficiently grateful to the heaven from which the dew distills. He stole the fuel from the altar of love, and burned it upon the hearth of pride.

My brethren, we must not too hastily condemn Hezekiah. It is for God to condemn, but not for us, for I am persuaded had we been in Hezekiah’s place we should have done the same. Observe now wherein his pride would find food. Here he might have said to himself, "Within my dominions the greatest of armies has been destroyed, and the mightiest of princes has been humbled. He whose name was a sound of terror in every land came into my country, and he melted away like the snow before the sun. Great are you, O Hezekiah! great is your land, for your land has devoured Sennacherib, and put an end to the havoc of the destroyer." Remember also that he had this to try him above everything else- he had

the certainty of living fifteen years. I have already given you a hint of the danger of such certainty. Mortals as we are, in danger of dying at any moment, yet we grow secure; but give us fifteen certain years, and I know not that heaven above would he high enough for our heads, or whether the whole world would be large enough to contain the swellings of our pride.

We should be sure to grow vain-gloriously great, if the check of constant mortality were removed. The king might in his self-complacent moments have said to himself, "Not only am I thus immortal for fifteen years, but the very heavens have been disturbed for me. See what a favorite of Heaven I am!" He did not say with David, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have ordained, what is man, that you are mindful of him?" but he heard a Satanic whisper in his soul, "How great are you that even the sun itself, light of the day, and eye of heaven, must go back to do you pleasure!" Besides, it is not so easy to have life spared, and yet to feel that we ourselves personally are of little consequence.

What are any of us to God? He could do without us all. The greatest men in the world, if they were wiped out of creation, would involve no more loss to God than the loss of a fly to the owner of empires! And yet, if life be spared, we are very apt to suppose that we are necessary at least to the church if not to the divine purposes themselves. Then when Hezekiah surveyed his treasures, he would see much to puff him up, for worldly possessions are to men what gas is to a balloon. Ah, my dear friends, those who know anything about possessions, about broad acres, gold and silver, and works of art, and precious things, and so on- know what a tendency there is to puff up the owners thereof. He must have felt as he walked through his armory, and his spicery, and his treasury, "I am a great man." Then all the ambassadors came in from the different countries, and cringing at his feet payed him reverence because of his present fortune. It was too much for his poor head to stand, and as the heart was getting away from God, it is little wonder if vainglory took possession of Hezekiah’s mind.

To complete our description of the circumstances, it appears that, at this time God left his servant in a measure, to try him. "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." It seems that through his being lifted up, the grace of God was for a time withdrawn in its more

active operations- not that God left him in such a sense as that he ceased to be a saved soul, but he was left in a measure to try him, to let him see what he was. He was getting so great, priding himself so much upon the favor of God, that self-righteousness probably had crept in, and he began to say to himself, "I am not as other men are. Surely I have walked before the Lord with a perfect heart." Some degree of self- righteousness is we think manifest in his prayer when he turned his face to the wall. He was diseased we fear at that time with two diseases, not merely a swelling boil, but a swelling self-conceit, and God left him to let him see that he was a poor silly sinner after all. Here, dear friends, is quite enough to account for his folly, for if the grace of God should leave the best of us, the all-knowing God alone could foretell what we should do.

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