Introduction:
We Believe Firmly in the Power of Prayer.
Matthew 7:7 - Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
James 5:16 - The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
The Testimony of Hezekiah and Literally Everyone Else Who Believes Firmly in the Power of Prayer (Isaiah 38):
- Desperation leads me to prayer. (Isaiah 38:10-14)
- Prayer leads me to Provision . (Isaiah 38:15-17)
The Testimony of Hezekiah and Literally Everyone Else Who Believes Firmly in the Power of Prayer (Isaiah 38):
- New Perspective
- Your Answer
- Forgiveness
- God's provision leads me to Worship . (Isaiah 38:18-20)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:41-00:42
This is who we are.
00:43-00:48
We saw a couple of weeks ago, we proclaim the authority of God's Word without apology.
00:49-00:49
Why?
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Because God's Word always succeeds.
00:53-00:54
God says His Word is like rain.
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from heaven to earth, goes where it needs to go, accomplishes what it needs to accomplish, which is life and growth.
01:01-01:06
"We lift high the name of Jesus in worship," was the message last week.
01:07-01:12
That worship in music is how we love God with our emotions.
01:12-01:13
That's why we do it.
01:14-01:16
Today, this is who we are.
01:17-01:19
We believe firmly in the power of prayer.
01:20-01:25
I'd like you to open up your Bibles with me, please, to Isaiah chapter 38.
01:25-01:29
We believe firmly in the power of prayer.
01:30-01:31
Isaiah chapter 38.
01:32-01:42
We're going to go back to about 700 to 712 BC in the days of King Hezekiah, who was a good king who God used to bring revival to Judah.
01:44-01:50
Isaiah 38, verse 1, it says, "In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death.
01:51-02:00
And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, 'Thus says the Lord, "Set your house in order, for you shall die.
02:01-02:03
You shall not'" Stop there.
02:03-02:16
So King Hezekiah became sick. Apparently, we're going to find out in verse 21, he had an infected boil. And all of God's people said, "Ew.
02:17-02:21
I don't make up the messages, I just broadcast them, but that's what he had.
02:21-02:27
And Isaiah showed up to King Hezekiah to give him a really hard spoiler alert.
02:27-02:45
And you saw very clearly in verse 1, here's the message, "You're going to die. You are not going to recover." All right, verse 2 says, "Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord." Why did he turn his face to the wall?
02:46-02:47
Because this wasn't for show.
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Hezekiah wasn't making some spectacle or performance of this prayer.
02:55-02:58
This was just between him and God, right?
02:58-03:00
Like Jesus had taught us to pray.
03:01-03:02
Go in your room and shut the door.
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I think that's what Hezekiah was doing here.
03:04-03:12
He's like, "Hey, this is just between me and the Almighty right now." Verse 3, this is his prayer.
03:12-03:32
"King Hezekiah said, 'Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight.' And Hezekiah wept bitterly." A very raw and passionate and real prayer, sort of reflecting on his life.
03:32-04:10
But if you look at his prayer, "Remember how I walked faithful, wholeheart, done what is good." look at that prayer, let's be honest, doesn't it just sort of look like kind of a self-righteous prayer? Like, "Look at me, look what I did, look what I did, look at me." And you're like, "Jeff, what King Hezekiah prayed, was it appropriate?" "Yes." And you're like, "Well, should I pray this way?" And I would say, "Absolutely not." You're like, "Well, how can it be appropriate that you're telling me I should never pray this way?" I'm going to tell you later, all But let's look at verse 4.
04:10-04:22
It says, "Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, 'Go and say to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father, 'I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears.
04:22-04:25
Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.
04:25-04:37
I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and will defend this city.'" So Hezekiah repented and was given life, and he was actually given a timeline, fifteen years.
04:37-04:42
And he was also given deliverance from the Assyrian invasion of Judah.
04:42-04:49
Verse 7 says, "This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he has promised.
04:50-05:04
Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps." So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.
05:06-05:16
Hezekiah was promised an extension of his life, and God says, "I'm even going to give you a sign." God says, "I will turn back time." Right now we're thinking of that Cher song, right?
05:17-05:19
That was the whole turning the shadow back.
05:19-05:23
Obviously, it was God turning the clock back.
05:23-05:24
It was symbolic.
05:24-05:28
It was God's way of saying, "I'm going to give you more time," right?
05:28-05:30
There was a symbol to go with the sign.
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That's what happened.
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We at Harvest Bible Chapel are committed to preaching the Bible in a certain way.
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It's one word, begins with an S, it's a long word, the word is "straightforwardly." We are committed to preaching the Bible straightforwardly, meaning when we come to God's Word, we don't look at it as a puzzle book to say, "Well, let me try to figure out what He really..." I believe that we should receive God's Word as He presents it, okay?
06:00-06:08
that God wants to communicate His love and His gospel and His truth to us in a straightforward way.
06:08-06:13
So, that's how we read and study and preach the Word of God at Harvest Bible Chapel.
06:14-06:20
That said, many years ago, I was in a discussion with a Hyper-Calvinist.
06:20-06:25
Now if you're a Hyper-Calvinist, you are still my brother, maybe even my friend.
06:25-06:34
But we were discussing this question, "Does prayer move God?" And I brought up this passage that we just looked at.
06:35-06:42
But this is what the Hyper-Calvinists said to me, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." You see, God did not change His mind here because of the prayer.
06:43-06:44
God...
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Here's what's happening, Jeff.
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God knew that Hezekiah was going to repent with Isaiah's message, and God had planned it like this all along.
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This was all part of the plan.
06:56-07:04
And my response was this, "Well, if that's all that's going on in this passage, then God is a liar." If that's what's going on.
07:04-07:22
In other words, in order to force Hezekiah to pray, in order to force Hezekiah to repent, in order to force Hezekiah into heaven's agenda, God told him very clearly in verse 1, "You will not recover." Right?
07:22-07:23
Isn't that what he said?
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Well, if God knew the whole time that He was going to recover, then that means, in verse 1, God lied.
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And I don't believe God lies.
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And look, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.
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You could make a list of the ten billion greatest theologians, and I'm not even on it.
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I'm just going to tell you what I see in this passage.
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Here's what I see.
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God said, "Hezekiah, you're going to die." Hezekiah cried out in prayer, and God instead extended Hezekiah's life.
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Is that what you see?
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Is that what you see?
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What I see in this passage is prayer moved the hand of God.
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That's what I see.
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And I have to ask myself, if Hezekiah was here right now, what would he say about prayer?
08:12-08:13
Or like your kinship?
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What did you learn about prayer?
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Maybe he'd say something like Jesus said.
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Remember what Jesus said about prayer?
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We had a sermon on this once upon a time.
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"Ask and it will be given to you.
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Seek and you will find.
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Knock and it will be opened to you." I bet Jehezekiah would say something like that.
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Or maybe he would say what James said, in James 5.16.
08:34-08:46
It says, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." Like I said, I just believe the Bible straightforwardly.
08:47-09:00
And because of that I just don't understand why we talk our way around the simple and clear and life changing truth that God moves as a result of prayer.
09:01-09:04
I don't understand why we as Christians just can't say that.
09:04-09:05
Why I do understand.
09:06-09:12
It's because at some point we prayed for something that didn't get answered in the way that we thought it should get answered.
09:12-09:23
we want to use some theological acrobatics and talk our way around the clear simple truth as presented in God's Word that God moves as a result of prayer.
09:23-09:35
I mean in the church, when we consider the question, "Does God really answer prayer?" Like if I pray this specific request to God, is He going to give me the thing that I asked for?
09:36-10:39
Even in the church, people that have been walking with the Lord for a long time somehow want to talk their way around that. And we say things that are true, but as a way of sort of giving God an out for not giving me what I want when I want it. We say things like this, "Well, you know, prayer is really about lining up your will with God's will." Or we say, "You know, every prayer is going to be answered ultimately in heaven." Or we say, "You know, prayer is about drawing nearer to God than it is about getting an answer to your request. Now, are all those things true? Yes, they are. But you know what else is true? What else is true is that God moves as a result of prayer. And at Harvest Bible Chapel, our third pillar is we believe firmly in the power of prayer. As Hezekiah learned, look at verse 9, passage goes on, "A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after He had been sick and had recovered from his sickness.
10:39-10:44
This is his testimony under inspiration of the Spirit recorded for us.
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And we're going to look at it under this heading on your outline.
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"The Testimony of Hezekiah and Literally Everyone Else Who Believes Firmly in the Power of Prayer." Sometimes, Dan, I have a hard time shortening these, so I just have to just say what I'm thinking.
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There we go.
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"The Testimony of Hezekiah and Literally Everyone Else Who Believes Firmly in the Power of Prayer." Number one, draw this down, desperation leads me to prayer.
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Desperation leads me to prayer.
11:10-11:13
Look at verses 10 through 14 here with me, please.
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This is what Hezekiah said as a response to all of this.
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He said, "I said in the middle of my days, I must depart.
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I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years.
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I said, I shall not see the Lord.
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The Lord in the land of the living.
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"I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.
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My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent, like a weaver. I have rolled up my life.
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He cuts me off from the loom.
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From day to night you bring me to an end." So just a very poetic way, he's like, "My life is like a camping trip that's over.
11:52-12:04
Tent folded up, thrown in the car, done." He said, "It's like somebody weaving something on a loom, and like, project's done, it's over." He said, verse 13, "I calm myself until morning like a lion.
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He breaks all my bones.
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From day to night, you bring me to an end like a swallow or a crane.
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I chirp, I moan like a dove.
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My eyes are weary with looking upward.
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Oh, Lord, I am oppressed.
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Be my pledge of safety." Desperation leads me to prayer.
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And we saw in verse 3 that Hezekiah wept bitterly.
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They're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
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If he was faithful and he was a believer, which obviously he was, what about, you know, no fear of death, and to die is to be in the presence of the Lord, and what about all of that?
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Like, why does he seem so scared of death?
12:47-13:11
Why is he weeping here?" We have to understand in the Old Testament, they didn't have the revelation that we have, living on this side of history, this side of the cross, this side of the New Testament being written. They didn't have all of the information that we had. That's why in these verses, and you're going to see it again in verse 18, he talks about Sheol. What's Sheol?
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Sheol just means the grave, right? Sheol just means like when I die, they're going to put me in a cemetery. You're like, "Well, what happens then?" "I don't know. I go beyond the grave. They called that place Sheol. They just didn't know everything about what happened after you died. His point was, you know, my life is over. It was done. So you see it was a prayer of complete desperation. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been there?
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See some heads nodding. You have. Been to that place where I don't know what I'm going to do? Maybe it's because you have a sick child. Or maybe you get that phone call that somebody's been in a horrible accident and you need to get here right away. Or maybe you just found out that in two weeks you're not going to have a job. And you're like, "Now what?
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What am I going to do now?" Well, for a lot of people, being in pastoral ministry, I've heard this testimony over and over and over. And people get to this point, They say to me, "Jeff, you know what?
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I prayed like I've never prayed before.
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Have you ever been there?
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That's where Hezekiah was.
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I prayed like I never have before." But you see, this is where the whole thing breaks down for a lot of people.
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Because for a lot of you, desperation hasn't led you to prayer.
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It's led you to princes, or it's led you to purses, or it's led you to pouting, or it's led you to self-pity.
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But these are not the places where God is drawing you.
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You see, God is drawing you through these desperate scenarios that we face.
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You know what God is doing?
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He is drawing you into a situation where you have no option other than Him.
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He's bringing you into this situation where you're like, "Unless God shows up and intervenes on my behalf, it is all over.
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I don't have a chance anywhere else." And I've got to tell you, that is a glorious place to be, because you're going to see God do something that you can't explain with human words or reasoning when He brings you to that place.
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God's like, "I'm about to do something that only I can do.
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Watch this." And you know, that's when prayer gets real, that you're not saying your prayers, you're not reciting some canned poem, you're not just giving God a list.
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You are praying.
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You're getting alone.
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You're facing the wall, and you're crying out to God.
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Desperation leads me to prayer.
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I would just say parenthetically it shouldn't always have to be desperation that brings me to prayer, but I found often even in my own life that it's desperation that brings me to real prayer.
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How about you?
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It's reality, right?
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Number two, jot this down.
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Prayer leads me to God's provision.
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Let's look at verses 15-17.
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Hezekiah says, "What shall I say?
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For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it.
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I walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.
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O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit.
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O restore me to health and make me live!
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Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness, "And in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back." Prayer leads me to God's provision.
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Like Hezekiah, when you get to this place where you pray like this, you will not only see prayer answered, but you're going to find that you get way more than you were expecting from God.
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Way more.
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Do you know God always over delivers?
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Every time.
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Right, but what do you mean?
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Look at verse 17 again. I want to read it again.
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You can't miss this because you're going to see this show up in your own life when you pray like Hezekiah prayed.
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Passionately, sincerely, he says, "Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness.
17:19-17:28
But in love, you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back." There's three things that God gives you in prayer.
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Three things that God gives you, they're right here in verse 17.
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The first one is new perspective.
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New perspective.
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God's not a vending machine.
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Like, well, I have this thing that I want, so I just go to God in prayer and I press, you know, like A7 and out comes the Milky Way Midnight and then thanks, I got what I want, I'm out of here.
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God's not like that.
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He doesn't just want to give you the thing you're asking for.
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He wants you to get to a better place.
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And you pray and you want God to change things.
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But when you really pray, God also changes you.
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And Hezekiah saw that ultimately, this is so profound.
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Hezekiah saw ultimately his bitterness was for his welfare.
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He says, "God, you allowed these things to happen "in my life for my own good." So one thing that Hezekiah got in prayer was a greater understanding of the ways of God.
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I think Hezekiah understood the ways of the Lord better than he ever had as a result of this trial that he went through.
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So God in prayer gives you a new perspective. Letter B, three things God gives you in prayer again, verse 17, God gives you your answer. God answers prayer. In his way, in his time, God answers prayer. Hezekiah clearly got a direct answer to prayer. He got his life extension.
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And somebody right now is like, "Well, he still eventually died." Yes, but can we not miss the fact that God very clearly gave him the very thing that he was asking for?
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And I have to ask you, I guess I have to ask me first, but I have to ask you too.
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Do you pray expectantly?
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You pray in faith.
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Do you pray watching to see how God is going to answer?
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Because He will.
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Three things God gives you in prayer, a new perspective, your answer, and letter C, forgiveness.
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Listen, if you have not received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can experience the forgiveness of sin, and it's just a prayer away.
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That's how close it is.
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You don't have to go somewhere and do this or that, or jump through all these hoops, or light all these candles or whatever.
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Forgiveness of sin is a prayer away if you have not received Jesus Christ.
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Get alone with God and say, "God, I realize I'm a sinner.
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I have really messed things up in my life, and I've messed things up in other people's lives and God, I've made a mess of myself, but God, you sent your Son to die on that cross in my place.
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God, I believe Jesus Christ took my sin on the cross.
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God, I believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead so that I can have eternal life.
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You get before the Lord and pray like that, sincerely.
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You have forgiveness.
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If you're someone here that's like, "I've received the forgiveness of Jesus," then I would encourage you, let your forgiveness in Christ move you just as forgiveness moved Hezekiah to thank God for taking away your sin.
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Thank God for that.
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Do you see that?
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Verse 17, he says, "You've cast all my sins behind your back." God just took Hezekiah's sins and was like, "Whoop, done, gone." That's what God does with sin to the person that comes to Him sincerely.
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That's what Christ has provided through His death on the cross.
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One more.
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"The testimony of Hezekiah and literally everyone else who believes firmly in the power of prayer." Number three.
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God's provision leads me to worship.
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Look at verse 18.
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"For Sheol does not thank you.
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Death does not praise you.
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Those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness." He's basically just saying there are worship services happening at the graveyard.
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He says, verse 19, "The living, the living, he thanks you as I do this day.
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The Father makes known to the children your faithfulness.
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The Lord will save me and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord." Yeah, there might not be a worship service happening at the graveyard, because I'll tell you where one is.
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I plugged in my electric guitar at the house of the Lord, and we are jamming our worship.
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God's provision leads me to worship.
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He was saying, "If I went to the grave, God, I can't thank you here.
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I can't praise you here.
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I can't tell others about you here.
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I can't sing to you here, but the living, the living." verse 19, "I will thank you, I will praise you, I will glorify you, but worship is always the end game of God at work." That's always the end. When God shows up and answers prayer and does the thing that only God can do, the end result is always worship. You know, I could say so much more about that, but that was last week's sermon. Available on our website, listen again, but God's provision leads me to worship.
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We get to move on now, look at verse 21, it says, "Now Isaiah had said, 'Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.' Hezekiah also had said, 'What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?'" Verse 22, it's almost like under inspiration of the Spirit when this was being recorded, it was like, "Oh yeah, there was that one thing I forgot to include." When Hezekiah said, "What's the sign?
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I should go up to the house of the Lord," we know what he was saying was, "How do I know I'm going to get healed?" And we know that that's what he meant because if you look at 2 Kings 20.8, it totally clarifies that.
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Like, "Hezekiah, you're going to be totally healed." Like, "Well, how do I know?
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How do I know I'm going to be healed?
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How do I know I'm going to eventually end up back in God's house?" Well, here's the sign.
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But it was just kind of tacked on the end here.
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That's all that's going on there.
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But look at verse 21 closely.
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Isaiah the prophet had said, "Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover." I need to say this, P.S., God uses medical means to heal sometimes.
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God here gave very clear direction to Isaiah.
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Looking at that statement, he says, "Take a cake of figs, put it on the boil," and then that last phrase, "that he may recover." In other words, recovery for Hezekiah was to come through some medical intervention that admittedly I don't understand, okay?
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I'm not a doctor.
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So I can't tell you how fig cakes clear up an infected boil.
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And because I'm not a doctor, I feel it's my obligation to tell you that I cannot recommend using fig cakes to heal other things.
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Okay?
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Don't try to use fig cakes on COVID-19 or apply fig cakes to grandma's gout.
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I'm not giving you medical advice.
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I'm just telling you what happened, and here's what happened.
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Sometimes God heals instantly and supernaturally.
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True or false?
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True! We have seen that so many times in this church.
24:53-25:04
I could keep you here until the Super Bowl telling you stories of amazing, supernatural, instantaneous healing as a result of prayer.
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He absolutely does that.
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But other times, and I would say I believe most times, God uses doctors and medicine as part of the process.
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So, our conclusion, when all has been said, is this.
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All healing is God's healing.
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You know, our situation recently was a lot like Hezekiah's in this.
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We had a situation with my son, who was having extremely violent, aggressive outbursts.
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And I can't even paint a picture for you how horrific some of these episodes were.
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And I can't tell you all the times racing home from this building, and I think I have shared with you in sermons in the past, crying out to God in the car on the way to arrive at a horrific scene.
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And this had gone on for three and a half years.
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Well, a lot of you at this church that have been here for a while will remember our friend A.J., the young man who would sit in his wheelchair, sometimes backed by guest reception, sometimes at the top of the stairs.
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and unfortunately he had passed away.
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I had his funeral, and sometime after his funeral, I got a call from a lady.
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And this lady's name is Christy, and she's sitting here today.
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And I said, how can I help you?
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And she said, the Lord told me to call you.
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And I said, well, I'm listening.
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Like, what else do you say, right?
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I'm making an extremely long story very short, but if you want to buy me lunch or Starbucks sometime, I'll tell you the whole story.
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But Christy had led us to a doctor that was able to prescribe the right medication to help my son.
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And we've entered a completely different chapter of life as a result.
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That I can't even describe to you how that mode of living has changed for us.
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But here's the point, church.
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My story, like Hezekiah's, was a combination of God's direct intervention and medical intervention at the same time. Do you see that?
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So the question is, who gets the glory? Does Christi get the glory? No.
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What about Dr. Morgani? Does she get the glory? No.
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What about the medication that she prescribed?
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Do we do worship psalms unto the medicine? No.
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God gets the glory, because all healing is God's healing.
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So listen, bag the notion, "If I have enough faith, I don't need to go to the doctor." Bag it. Bag the notion, "Well, if you have enough faith, you don't need to take your medicine." Bag that. That is not biblical. It's stupid.
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And people think they sound so ultra-spiritual saying stuff like that.
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It is not biblical. We have proof right here.
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And I am absolutely positive that God loves and uses doctors.
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Do you know how I know that?
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Because God had a doctor write about half of the New Testament.
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So, all healing is God's healing.
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Oh yeah, earlier, Hezekiah's prayer, verse 3, go back to that for a second.
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Hezekiah's prayer.
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"Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight." Remember when we talked about that way back when?
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And I said, "Was Hezekiah's prayer appropriate?" Yes, it was.
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Should we pray like that?
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Absolutely not.
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How can that be?
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Well, listen to this.
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Hezekiah lived under the old covenant.
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And under the old covenant, don't miss this, Under the Old Covenant, blessing was dependent upon obedience.
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Leviticus chapter 26, Deuteronomy chapter 28, God says, "Here's how it works.
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You want blessing, you obey Me. You disobey Me, you get cursed." That was the Old Covenant. But we don't live under the Old Covenant.
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We live under the New Covenant.
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Do you know what the New Covenant teaches?
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that every spiritual blessing has been given to us because of Jesus Christ.
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So we are not to pray like Hezekiah.
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You see, he prayed according to his obedience in order to get blessing.
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In other words, we could rightly say, "Hezekiah prayed in his own name." Hezekiah prayed, "Bless me because of who I am, God.
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Bless me because of what I've done, God." That's not how we pray under the New Testament, under the New Covenant.
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We pray, "Father, bless me because of who Jesus is.
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Bless me because of what Jesus has done for me." And this is what it means to pray in the name of Jesus.
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Have you ever wondered what that meant when we pray, "In Jesus' name, Amen. In Jesus' name, Amen." And it's the classic prayer closure, "That's how we know we're done." What does that even mean?
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This is what it means.
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That God, I'm not coming to you, appealing to you based on my horrible track record and very limited occasional obedience.
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I'm not coming to you, appealing to you based on that.
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I'm coming to you as you told me to.
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Jesus said, "Whatever you ask in my name, it will be given you." God, I'm coming to you based on the obedience of your Son.
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I'm coming to you based on Jesus Christ.
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I'm not praying in Jeff's name, I'm praying in Jesus' name because of what you have guaranteed me in Jesus Christ.
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So you see, church, when we pray, we don't get on our knees and, "Oh, we hope and we wish that we get some kind of a blessing from God because of our obedience.
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"Oh God, you know I've tried, and God, you know I've done my best, and God, you know my heart." We don't pray in our name.
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We pray in Jesus' name, where we say, "God, I know that I'm guaranteed to receive the blessing because of Jesus' obedience, in Jesus' name." Let me ask you, how would you pray?
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How would you pray if you really firmly believed in the power of prayer?
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How would you pray if you knew the blessing was already guaranteed because of Jesus Christ?
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Bow with me, please.
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Our Father in Heaven, God, I just don't know what to say, except I'm sorry for the times that I treat prayer like part of the job, or part of the walk, or part of the routine.
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And I might read a list to you, and I might get ultra-distracted, but God, bring us to the place where we pray as if we believe what Your Word says about prayer.
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We've seen Your hand at work in so many ways.
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God, we believe You will continue to be at work.
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Father, I pray that You would help us to understand the means by which we come to You.
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Our road is not paved through our works or intentions, but it's been provided through the work of your Son.
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Thank you, Father, for this glorious privilege that you've given us to come before you, cry out to you right before the throne of the King of the universe.
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Father, let us receive everything that you want to give us.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Isaiah 38
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Tell of a time you experienced a clear and direct answer to prayer.
Why does God often employ “medical means” to bring about healing (Isaiah 38:21)?
Why did Hezekiah pray as he did, recounting his good works (praying “in his own name”)? Explain what it means to “pray in Jesus’ name” (See John 14:13-14)?
Breakout
Pray for one another to grow as pray-ers.