Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
King Hezekiah was one of the best men who ever lived. He did everything just right. The Bible says nothing evil about him. In his days, he led the nation to celebrate the finest Passover they had observed in centuries.
There is not the slightest whiff of evidence that he will not find a place in the Lord’s eternal kingdom, when the resurrection occurs at the second coming of Christ (“the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first,” 1 Thess. 4:16).
But when he is resurrected, he will have to learn about the history that followed him. Revelation 21:4 does not say that there will be no tears on the resurrection morning--there won’t be any tears in the earth made new.
When Hezekiah was only 49, the Lord sent him a message by the prophet Isaiah that he should “set [his] his house in order,” for the time had come in the Lord’s infinite wisdom that he should die (2 Kings 20:1). But this time the good king rebelled against the Lord’s will, set his face against the wall to cry; he told the Lord that it’s not fair--he’s been a good king, etc. So the Lord added 15 years for him to live.
During that added space of grace, he sired a son, Manasseh, who became the worst king the nation had ever had. Hezekiah would have been wise when the Lord said, “The time has come for you to die,” if he had said, “Amen, Lord! I trust You. Thy will be done” (see the story in Isaiah 38:1-5).
The word of the Lord, even if it comes with disappointment, is always the word of love that the Lord has for us. May He give us of His much more abounding grace to believe it. If, for that grace, He extends our life, may we use it for His glory. Then we will be happy in the resurrection morning.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 21, 2008.
Copyright © 2014 by "Dial Daily Bread.
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