Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the Lord: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who shall be born to you, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good." For he thought, "Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?"
Hezekiah was actually one of the good kings in Israel's history. He walked in the footsteps of his father David. (Father, as in his ancestor.) But like David, we still see weaknesses.
Hezekiah had just gotten through showing off his wealth to an envoy from Babylon. He did not spare showing them anything. He was showing off. And pride goes before a fall...
But the fall, in this case, was prophesied to happen years later to his house, his descendants. The exile into Babylon is here prophesied. This is surely not good news to receive. How does he take it?
He seems to take it far too well. Hezekiah is happy just to realize that it is not going to happen to him. He breathes a sigh of relief to know that he isn't going to feel the consequences of his pride. His descendants are out of sight, out of mind.
I don't follow politics too closely. But it seems to me that in America we had a boom, we have had a lot of wealth, a lot of pride. We have flaunted it. And pride goes before a fall...
But maybe we could take the time to think about future generations. What sacrifices and what discipline are in order in the present to hand future generations a better America?
And what about the Great Commission? Many do not know the Gospel. How could they know without hearing it? These people become far too easily out-of-sight, out-of-mind for us. But our love should be for these peoples, not for our own skin or our own comfort.
Jesus bore the curse of the sin of hundreds of generations who were not even born yet, including ours... He thought of those future generations as he shouldered the cross in all that it meant. For this we should be thankful.
I thought this was just an interesting story from a part of the Bible I don't read very often, 2 Kings 20.
