Our Daily Bread - Today Isaiah 38 ++

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Isaiah 38:1-22
Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery
1About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill, and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to visit him. He gave the king this message: "This is what the LORD says: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die. You will not recover from this illness."
2When Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3"Remember, O LORD, how I have always tried to be faithful to you and do what is pleasing in your sight." Then he broke down and wept bitterly.
4Then this message came to Isaiah from the LORD: 5"Go back to Hezekiah and tell him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will add fifteen years to your life, 6and I will rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. Yes, I will defend this city.
7"'And this is the sign that the LORD will give you to prove he will do as he promised: 8I will cause the sun's shadow to move ten steps backward on the sundial of Ahaz!'" So the shadow on the sundial moved backward ten steps.
Hezekiah's Poem of Praise
9When King Hezekiah was well again, he wrote this poem about his experience:
10 I said, "In the prime of my life, must I now enter the place of the dead? Am I to be robbed of my normal years?"
11 I said, "Never again will I see the LORD GOD while still in the land of the living. Never again will I see my friends or laugh with those who live in this world.
12 My life has been blown away like a shepherd's tent in a storm. It has been cut short, as when a weaver cuts cloth from a loom. Suddenly, my life was over.
13 I waited patiently all night, but I was torn apart as though by lions. Suddenly, my life was over.
14 Delirious, I chattered like a swallow or a crane, and then I moaned like a mourning dove. My eyes grew tired of looking to heaven for help. I am in trouble, Lord. Help me!"
15 But what could I say? For he himself had sent this sickness. Now I will walk humbly throughout my years because of this anguish I have felt.
16 Lord, your discipline is good, for it leads to life and health. You have restored my health and have allowed me to live!
17 Yes, it was good for me to suffer this anguish, for you have rescued me from death and have forgiven all my sins.
18 For the dead cannot praise you; they cannot raise their voices in praise. Those who go down to destruction can no longer hope in your faithfulness.
19 Only the living can praise you as I do today. Each generation can make known your faithfulness to the next.
20 Think of it—the LORD has healed me! I will sing his praises with instruments every day of my life in the Temple of the LORD.
21Isaiah had said to Hezekiah's servants, "Make an ointment from figs and spread it over the boil, and Hezekiah will recover."
22And Hezekiah had asked, "What sign will prove that I will go to the Temple of the LORD three days from now?"

Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~Lena’s Journalin’ Today~
There is so much here to take note of. I pray your own thoughts will be inspired by the Holy Spirit, who is our faithful Teacher and the expounder of His own Truths, which come from His own Words.
Hezekiah is a “Christian”, a man of God, who becomes ill with the sickness of death. Death tries to take him out of the earth early, outside of a place of the use of God, to be taken away from being a part of and a participant in God’s plans during his particular lifetime.
Why? Wasn’t he trying to serve God? He was trying, he had certain ideas about it, which he was implementing. ( i.e. going to church, giving to the poor, trying to be a nice guy, trying to love his neighbor etc..) There was something missing somehow in all that. There was a door of disobedience to the onward outward call of God somewhere. He was doing what was right to himself, but was he doing what was right to God?
When the prophet came to deliver the message from the Lord about the end of Hezekiah’s life, he was saying (possibly with Hebrew words, which say what is really meant here), “You are about to die before your time, you are about to expire prematurely! You are about to be taken out before your true, set by God purpose, has been accomplished.”
This caused Hezekiah to seek the Lord passionately (wouldn’t it you, or would it?)He made a change. He turned from where he was at, spiritually speaking, His ideas obviously were not correct before, and this Encounter here was showing that to him very clearly. What does it take for us to see that what we’ve been thinking even in our faith walk may be incorrect? Does it take tragedy? Does it take a death threat? Or whatever, do we recognize the alert system set up by God, do we recognize the voice of prophetic people that God sends our way to call for change before it is too late?
Hezekiah’s prayer was like this, “Lord, I’m so sorry, I thought what I was doing and how I thought and how I was doing it all, was the way You wanted me to do it”. Have you ever come to that point in your faith walk, reevaluation time? Face the Wall time? Face the Father time or face death (or life) time?
When he saw where he’d been, that his ideas about walking before God were exactly that- His ideas and that it was not the best place to have been, that his obedience meter could have been turned up more, he wept the genuine cry of repentance.
The cry of true repentance is like no other cry. It is a cry that stops heaven, makes heaven move towards earth. Fills in every breach. It sounds to me like Isaiah had delivered the message and left, as the King pondered the words and took them before the Lord. Yet the cry of repentance reached his spiritual ears also. It is one moving cry. It is the cry of change. God told Isaiah that things were changed because of this cry. Even to the extent that the things set up on earth, the very laws that govern the working of days and how days are seen or not, the way the very sun shone that day, was different. The earth responds to repentance!
Laura, notice time was made up for, when repentance was heard in the earth. Not in heaven after Hezekiah died, but in earth while he was yet alive! He made the cry in the earth. The earth is waiting to respond to that cry. Time is even waiting to move for that cry.
Let me give you an example- you’ve been “working” on someone, you are a harvester in God’s kingdom, you are faithful to share your faith with that person because you sense the love of God for them, you’ve been sharing God’s love with them for years now, still no response. God brings you to a place as He did Hezekiah, a place of evaluation, a matter of life or death ( maybe it is death or life for the person’s you’ve been “working on”) He shows you a way you need to be walking that you’ve not known before, You accept His directional change and make a change (repent), suddenly that person “get’s saved”, just like that. Time responded.
Maybe you’ve been waiting and waiting for an answer to a specific prayer question and you feel like you have no answers at all, but God leads you towards obedient change and you change with His lead and help. All of a sudden the floodgates of heaven open up and you can’t shut off the voice of God in your ears. Time responded.
What once took years to do, now takes days in this place of newly realized obediences. You now awake and ask God to change you, you seek change, you seek to know Him more and make Him known asking Him what, if anything is in Your way. Is there anything about my lifestyle that offends You or will bridge that gap of time for so and so? Is there anything You want me to be convicted of? Is there anything else You’d like for me to see that will draw me closer to You? Is there anyone’s words (as the words of another in Isaiah were given, as the Words of Pastor’s Fred & Phyllis or your pastors or a sister or brother in the faith or another leader – or a donkey….haha) You want me to listen to and Obey? That right there is part of the turn around, especially in our culture, that we would listen to anyone other than ourselves. Let me so graciously say right here this is the siren alert of a rebellious spirit against God, that we, as Christians, would not listen to or heed the voice of anyone else except our own and what we think we hear for ourselves before God. That is the very spirit of the Anti-Christ and is the rebellious prideful nature of satan. He stood in the face of God and pretty much said, “Don’t tell me what to do.”
IF we do not love or submit to or support those we do see, we are hypocritical to say we love and submit to and support God, we are deceived in that. God set people inside of our lives to be His witness in our lives, His voice in our lives, His guides in the earth, His hands upon us, to mold us.
Last night I was thinking of how Rahab was the lineage of Jesus Christ, yet a prostitute. He , a perfect man, came out of her ovary. She was NOT perfect, but perfected by the act of covenant, her covenant was with God Almighty, but was visible to people, was acted out with people, imperfect people! God chose to come through her, to have Jesus follow after her life. That is confounding to the natural mind, and so is listening to and following people, especially if we do not really have a strong faith in God. It’s downright dangerous. One could lose his life over it! Exactly J
In Hezekiah’s illness, he said to himself sympathetic words of plight. He started to be sorrowful (only Godly sorrow leads to change) he started out, woe is me…This part is SO profound…I cried out all night long- Lord send me help, like, God, don’t you care about me? God was saying to his heart and is saying to our hearts today- Do YOU care about ME, My will? My Kingdom on earth? My people? My plans? What have you done for My purposes to be fulfilled before you die? What have you done to bring time back? Do you care about others being so sick that they might die before their time, before time has moved for them? Hezekiah had an Encounter with God, face to face, he was able to see truth unveiled. He was able to see himself in the picture, where before he was so involved with himself, he couldn’t see. He was in the scuffle of confusion, set up by an enemy to devour him, without him knowing. He thought he was serving God, he thought he had it good, he thought he was obedient! His words in the first few verses said, he thought his faith walk the way he walked it out was fine, great, all he needed. Maybe it was all he needed, but was it what God needed?
Is there bread in the house for God? If He were hungry, would we know it? Would we care to ask, Lord, are You hungry? What are You hungry for? I can guarantee God is hungry and for food we may not know. The food and the drink He is hungry for is His will being done to the accomplishment of His purpose in the earth.
Where do we or can we find that will best? In the midst of the people of God, The lump of figs? Lump means dwelling, that means I stay with the people of God to live, I listen to His voice there, I apply it to my live and I live long and I satisfy Him, as I do the words I hear there. Anything else is death to me, and I’m too young to die! How about you?

Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored.
19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.