2 Kings 20:19
“The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and truth in my lifetime?”
[Day of Thanksgiving for Peace in 1816.]
By many it is thought that a knowledge of futurity would contribute to their happiness; but we are persuaded that it would prove only a source of misery. The good that would be foreseen would lose more than half its zest, while the evil that was anticipated would embitter the remainder of their days. It was as a punishment, and not as a favor, that an insight into futurity was given to King Hezekiah. He had displeased the Lord by his prideful conduct towards the ambassadors of the king of Babylon; and God sent him word what calamities should befall both his family and nation through the instrumentality of that monarch. This judgment however was tempered with mercy; the execution of it being deferred to a generation yet unborn. Hence the judgment was submitted to with pious resignation, “The word of the LORD you have spoken is good. For he thought: Will there not be peace and truth in my lifetime?”
It is not our intention to enter any further into the Jewish history than just to fix the precise import of our text. The text is applicable to all people in every age, and particularly so to this present season. We shall therefore take occasion from it to show,
I. What blessings God is now conferring upon us.
What we are to understand by “peace and truth” will be best seen by a reference to the preceding context.
God had declared that the king of Babylon would invade Judea, and take all the wealth of Hezekiah for a prey, and carry captive his children, and entirely destroy the whole Jewish polity. But, inasmuch as these judgments should be deferred, Hezekiah, instead of beholding the subjugation and captivity of his children, would have “peace;” and, instead of seeing the abolition of the temple worship, would have “truth” continued to him.
Now these are the very blessings for which we are peculiarly called to render thankfulness to God on this day.
“Peace” is now happily once more restored; and such a peace as places our country in a state of greater security than it has ever enjoyed since it became a nation.
“Truth,” also, with an undisturbed enjoyment of all religious ordinances, is now secured to us. We are no longer in danger of having the churches of our God converted into barracks for a licentious soldiery, or magazines for the implements of war. No longer have we any reason to fear lest a victorious enemy should deprive us of our religious liberty, or a yoke of superstition be imposed upon us as the only worship tolerated in the land. Blessed be God! we enjoy the Gospel in all its purity; and every man throughout the whole land is permitted to serve his God in the way that seems to him to be most agreeable to the Divine commands.
Such blessings being now insured to us, let us consider,
II. In what light our blessings should be viewed.
The continuance of them to Hezekiah was deemed by him a mercy, a great and undeniable mercy, “Will there not be peace and truth in my lifetime?” To us then is the possession of them,
1. A rich mercy.
How rich a mercy “peace” is, we who have never had our country the seat of war, are but ill qualified to judge. It is our happiness indeed that we cannot judge of it; since it can only be known by an experience of those calamities which war brings in its train.
Nor can we adequately conceive how much we are indebted to God for the possession of “truth.” To estimate this aright, we should behold all the degrading superstitions of heathen nations, and see what self-tormenting methods they practice for the obtaining of peace with their senseless deities of wood and stone. We should see also how the far greater part of those who call themselves Christians are blinded by ceremonies of man’s invention, and debarred the use of those sacred oracles which are “able to make them wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Before we can rightly estimate the value of the Savior, through whom the vilest of sinners find access to God, and obtain all the blessings of grace and glory—we must go up to Heaven and behold the felicity of the saints made perfect; and go down to Hell to behold the miseries of the damned! “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins! Colossians 1:13-14.”
2. An undeserved mercy.
Hezekiah felt that he might justly have been deprived of these blessings, and been made to experience in his own person all the calamities which were denounced against him in his posterity. And what was Hezekiah’s fault? It was that when the ambassadors came to congratulate him on his recovery from a dangerous illness, he neglected to commend to them the God of Israel, by whom their souls, and the souls of their countrymen, might be saved; and sought rather to aggrandize himself by an ostentatious display of his own wealth and power!
Now we are far from wishing to extenuate his guilt; it was surely exceeding great; and the pride of his heart merited from God the severest chastisement! 2 Chronicles 32:25-26.
But what was Hezekiah’s guilt when compared with ours? We scarcely hear on any occasion the glory of our successes ascribed to God; nor do we find one in a thousand who relies truly and simply on God for a continuance of them. Self-glorying, and confidence in an arm of flesh, are the leading features of our whole people; so that we might justly have been left to experience defeats answerable to all our victories.
And how is the “truth” improved among us? As, on the one hand, there is not a nation under Heaven where truth shines with purer luster, so neither, on the other hand, is there a nation under Heaven where truth is treated with greater contempt. And as to those who profess to value it, how little are its fair and beauteous lineaments visible in their hearts and lives! Well indeed might our mis-improvement of the light have long since provoked God to “take away his lampstand from us;” and it is a most unmerited mercy that “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God” is yet continued to us!
3. A mercy that may well reconcile us to all events connected with it.
We are not to suppose that Hezekiah was indifferent about the welfare of his posterity; it was nothing but his sense of the greatness of the mercy given to him, that led him to acquiesce so meekly in the sentence as it was denounced against him. The prospect of the calamities that would come on his posterity was surely a source of bitter anguish to his mind; but it was a great matter that he had obtained a respite, and that the judgment was not inflicted instantly upon him. This favor therefore he acknowledged as a mercy, which might well compose and tranquillize his mind.
Now it is certain that the blessings which we enjoy are far from coming without alloy. They will, it is to be feared, prove in the outcome a source of misery to many. The peace, which leads to the disbanding of so many thousand troops, will leave multitudes in a state unfavorable to their best interests. Many will find it difficult to return to the employment of honest industry; yes perhaps may find it difficult even to get employment; and many who in the scenes of war have been accustomed to blood and pillage, may bring home with them a disposition to exercise among their brethren the same evil habits which they deemed allowable among their enemies. Thus our domestic security may be invaded, and the perpetrators of these crimes be subjected to an untimely death by the hands of the public executioner. This is an evil felt at the termination of every war; yet must it by no means indispose us to acknowledge the blessings of peace.
The very truth of God also, even the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, brings on many, through their rejection of it, a heavier condemnation. It would have been good for many, if they had never heard the Gospel! Yes good, if Jesus Christ had never come into the world to save our ruined race. It was declared at the very time that he did come, that “he was set for the fall, as well as for the rising again, of many in Israel, Luke 2:34.” And that, though he should be “a sanctuary to some, he should prove to others a stumbling stone and a rock offence, Isaiah 8:14.Thus does the Gospel itself, that greatest gift of God to mankind, “become to some a savor of life unto life, but to others a savor of death unto death! 2 Corinthians 2:16.”
Still however we must not allow these things to diminish our value for the Gospel. If some abuse their food to intemperance, we must not therefore be unthankful for our food; nor if men abuse the Gospel, must we impute it to any defect in the Gospel, but to the depravity of their own hearts, which turns the blessing into a curse! We say then, that whatever evils may be accidentally connected with the blessings we have received, even though those evils should fall upon our own children—it befits us to adore and magnify our God that those blessings are not withheld from us, but that we are privileged to possess them in our days. “How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? Hebrews 10:29.”
4. A mercy which should be gratefully and diligently improved.
A state of peace, and a quiet enjoyment of Gospel ordinances, is extremely favorable for the attainment of vital godliness. So it proved to the Christian Church in its infant state, Acts 9:31; and so it will be to us. Do we ask: In what way we should improve the present occasion? We answer: In the way that David and Solomon improved their circumstances, when God had favored them with the blessings which are now conferred on us. David bethought: What can I do for God? I will build him a house that shall be worthy of his divine Majesty, 2 Samuel 7:1-2. Solomon also adopted precisely the same resolution under the same circumstances, 1 Kings 5:4-5. The same holy zeal should now inflame our hearts. We are not indeed called to build for the Lord a house of wood and stone, but a house of “living stones,” that shall be “a habitation of God through the Spirit” to all eternity!
O see what myriads of stones there are lying in the quarry of corrupt nature, that through your instrumentality may be formed and fashioned to build the temple of the Lord. Look at the blind obdurate sons of Abraham, and see what may be done to bring them to the knowledge of that Savior whom they have crucified. Look at the Gentile world, all lying in darkness and the shadow of death; and see what may be done for the enlightening of their minds, and for the saving of their souls alive. To employ our time, and property, and talents according as God shall give us opportunity—in such works, will be the best return that we can make to God for the light and peace that we enjoy. If we exert ourselves diligently in these labors of love, truly we shall have reason to all eternity to say, “The word of the LORD you have spoken is good. Will there not be peace and truth in my lifetime?”
Charles Simeon