Isaiah 38

Can a Christian staggering with fears about his spiritual condition praise God that he is elected and justified? No, the living, the living, he shall praise you (Isaiah 38:19). Such as are enlivened with assurance, they are the fittest persons to sound forth God's praise.

He can do [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], more than we can think (Ephesians 3:20). He can suspend natural agents: he sealed up the lion's mouth, made the fire not burn; he made the waters stand upon a heap, he caused the sun to go ten degrees backward in Ahaz's dial (Isaiah 38:8).…

But deliverances of the godly are in love (2 Samuel 22:20): He delivered me, because he delighted in me. (Isaiah 38:17) You have in love to my soul delivered me from the pit of corruption; or as in Hebrew, Chashiacta Naphshi, You have loved me from the pit of corruption. A wicke…

God has restored us from the grave. May we not write the writing of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:9), when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness? When we thought the sun of our life had been setting, God has made it return to its former brightness.

4. If God be our Father, he will take notice of the least good he sees in us; if there be but a sigh for sin, God hears it (Psalm 38:9). My groaning is not hid from you; if there be but a penitential tear comes out of our eye, God sees it (Isaiah 38:5). I have seen your tears.

If he has received a wound, and will not apply balsam, he hastens his own death. God appointed Hezekiah to lay a lump of figs to the boil (Isaiah 38:21). If he had not used the lump of figs, he had been the cause of his own death.

We sometimes fear what the issue of things will be; men grow high in their actings; let us not make things worse by our fear. Men are limited in their power, and shall not go one hair's breadth further than God's providence will permit: He might let Sennacherib's army march towa…

When Hezekiah thought he was about to die, what gave him comfort? This, that he had done the will of God: (Isaiah 38:3) Remember, O Lord, I ask you, how I have walked before you in truth, and have done that which is good in your sight. It was Augustus his wish, that he might hav…

And if through all these discouragements your condition proves worse and worse, so that you cannot pray but are struck dumb when you come into his presence (as David in Psalm 77:4: 'I am so troubled I cannot speak') — then fall to making signs when you cannot speak. Groan, sigh,…

This (as we may also read, 1 Kings 2,) was the practice of good King David: when he was about to die, and as he says, to go the way of all flesh, he calls for Solomon his son, and makes him King in his stead, and gives him a most notable charge concerning Gods worship, Verse 3;…

Which wonderful recovery, he obtained by means of his faith, which he showed in time of his sickness, by a prayer he made unto God; the substance whereof, stood in these two things: First, being very sick, he prayed for the pardon of his sins. This appears by his thanksgiving, u…

Nor is there so in the Syriac: their [in non-Latin alphabet] is nothing but [in non-Latin alphabet]. The Hebrews express the thing by [in non-Latin alphabet] to order, dispose, give command concerning the house or household of a dying man (Isaiah 38:2; 2 Samuel 17:23). But they…

Now we know that clouds and mists which appear for a time, are afterward by the sun utterly dispersed. And king Hezekiah when he would show that the Lord had forgiven him his sins, says, God has cast them behind his back, alluding to the manner of men, who when they will not rem…

'Tis against the nature of God's dispensation; whom he maketh to persevere, he maketh them to persevere in the use of means. Hezekiah had assurance from God of life for fifteen years, yet he taketh a lump of figs, and applieth it as a plaster to the boil (Isaiah 38:5, with 21).…

I trow not. No, then Religion appears with the most beautiful face, then a man finds inexpressible sweetness and satisfaction in it; then a smile of God's face is more worth than a thousand worlds; when a man can say with good Hezekiah, Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before…

Psalm 102:24, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. Isaiah 38:10, I am deprived of the residue of my years. And Proverbs 10:27, The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.

All which must be shut up with setting order for all things at their death, with especial exhortations and prayers for religion, for uprightness in their callings, for peace and order after them. [Isaiah 38:1. In those days Hezechiah was sick to death: Esaiah the son of Amos the…

We often find more fault, and first blame in Christ, if not only, before we see our own provocations. Hence the complaints of Job (chapters 6, 13, 16, 19) and of Jeremiah (chapters 20, 15) of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38) of Asaph (Psalm 77) of Heman (Psalm 88) of the Church (Isaiah 49:1…

Were I once assured I am within the circle and compass of that love of election; I should not be afraid that the chariot can be broken or turned off its wheels; Christ's chariot can go through the Red Sea, though not dried up: he shoots arrows of love and cannot miss, he rides t…

Observe it, There is not a believing prayer but it is upon the file, and on record in heaven, though offered up by an obscure person and in an obscure place; indeed God knows the meaning of his Spirit in the hearts of his people, though the troubled saint cannot tell whether it…

Jonah preaches that Nineveh shall be destroyed within 40 days, and he conceals the condition of repentance. The like did Isaiah to Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:1). Thirdly, a difference must be made between lying and feigning: which some call simulation: not dissembling, but rather sembl…

Now the former places speake onely of the perfection of parts: and that is such a perfection in which we are to acknowledge our imperfection, and it is no more but a true and generall indeauour to obey God. Isa 38:1. Obiect.

It falls out often, that men in extremity of danger confounded in themselves, know not what in the world to say, or do. Hezekiah in his sickness could not say anything, but chatter in his throat, and mourn like a dove (Isaiah 38:14). Some lie under the sword of the enemy, others…

First, that all our actions (specially in the worship and service of God) be grounded upon the will and word of God; and not upon will-worship, or human inventions: otherwise it will be said, Who required these things at your hands? Secondly, that we perform all our actions sinc…

Such a boldness therefore is to be suppressed, to the end we may content ourselves with those which God offers us. Now there are two sorts of signs: some extraordinary; which we may call supernatural: as that whereof the Prophet will speak anon, and that which was given to Hezek…

Gideon asks a sign, (Judges 6:17,) and God is not angry, but grants his request; and though Gideon becomes importunate and asks another sign, yet God condescends to his weakness. Hezekiah does not ask a sign, and it is offered to him, though unsolicited, (Isaiah 38:7, 8.) Ahaz i…

But this shall not be corporally and visibly to the eye, but so and in such sort as it is set down in Psalm 55. They shall not live out half their days: that is, Death shall catch hold of them sooner than they think, so that they shall be driven to say as Hezekiah did (Isaiah 38…

Hezekiah was a good man; but yet his weakness and corruption was bewrayed by the alterations Providence made upon his conditions. When sickness and pains summoned him to the grave, what bitter complaints and despondencies are recorded? in Isaiah 38. per tot. and when Providence…

For, (1.) Have not some of us fallen, and that often into very dangerous sicknesses and diseases, in which we have approached to the very brink of the grave? and have or might have said with Hezekiah, Isaiah 38:10 I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of…

A diseased body unfits the mind for holy duties. The prayer of sick Hezekiah is called chattering: "Like a crane or swallow, so did I chatter" (Isaiah 38) — it was rather chattering than praying, such a disquietness and uncomposedness was upon his spirit through the infirmity of…

Believers are styled so, 1. For their innocent nature (Matthew 10:16). 2. For their tenderness, and trembling at the word of the Lord (Hosea 11:11; Isaiah 38:14). Hezekiah mourned as a Dove.

The physical indisposition to pray does not take away the moral obligation to pray then. 2. Though pain and extreme soul-heaviness that the man cannot speak (Psalm 77:4), and Hezekiah can but chatter as a crane or a swallow (Isaiah 38:14), and the Church can scarce breath out a…

1. Sometimes the unwritten bill is answered (Isaiah 65:24), and the Lord yields to our blank papers, and subscribes them. 2. Sometimes he hears the dumb man's signs, and his breathing, instead of his praying (Isaiah 38:14, 20; Lamentations 3:56; Psalm 6:8; Psalm 102:19, 20). 3.…

But if the Scripture hold forth, as it does, that the Lord by his strong and invincible dominion does indeclinably, and without any possible failing bring forth his decreed effect, some impulsion of God immanent, transient, or mixed, which is terminate upon all second causes the…

2. The children of God appear dead, cold, and unbelievingly to complain in the beginning of praying, and of a Psalm, as is clear in David (Psalm 22:2, expounding that of him, as some verify it has in some points of him, verse 2), and in Hezekiah in his song (Isaiah 39:10), in Jo…

We are created anew to be his holy frame and workmanship, and then hardly can we but consent; nor bought we his love-influences. Yes, nor is the Lord obliged to give the Sun-influences for shining and moving, nor the fire for casting out heat: he has interposed his sovereignty i…

Holy sovereignty should meeken and silence all men (Zechariah 2:13): Be silent, O all flesh before the Lord. Supreme sovereignty cannot err; and the faith of this quiets the heart under all sufferings; Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:15): What shall I say? He has spoken to me, and himself h…

But the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebukes him (Zechariah 3:1, 2, 3, 4). 4. There is a narrowness that comes from ignorance, until God give spiritual wisedome and largeness of heart (see 1 Kings 4:29), when we mistake God, and unbelief represents God as a lyon or a bear (Lam…

Unlike to this was the temper, or rather the distemper of David, who then was not like a man after God's own heart, when he was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzza (2 Samuel 6:8), as if God must have asked David leave thus to assert the honor of his Ark. Whe…

Many like promises there be in Scripture, and many approved prayers grounded on those promises whereby the truth of the doctrine is confirmed to us. Hezekiah makes the good service he had done to God and his Church, a ground to obtain longer life (Isaiah 38:2-3): so others. For…

And (Micah 7:19) You will cast all their sins into the depth of the sea. (Isaiah 38:17) You have cast all my sins behind your back. It shall not be remembered, nor laid to their charge any more.

And a godly man, every time his life and comforts are in danger, has a pardon renewed at that time. (Isaiah 38:17) You have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for you have cast all my sins behind your back. They are loved out of danger, and loved out of…

Of this we are most sensible in case of danger and sickness, when there is but a step between us and death: for then the old bond begins to be put in suit, and God comes to execute the sentence of the law, and deliverance in such a case is called forgiveness and remission, and t…

"He was to me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places." (Isaiah 38:13) "I reckoned until morning, that as a lion so will he break all my bones: from day even to night will you make an end of me." It fills us with misconceptions of God, as if he were terrible.

We cannot utter and express ourselves in a way of obedience without God's concurrence. Use: Whenever you would undertake for God, get God first to undertake for you, as Hezekiah does (Isaiah 38:14): O Lord I am oppressed, undertake for me. Let every earnest prayer be accompanied…

This is a ground both of patience and comfort (Psalm 39:8): I was dumb, and opened not my mouth, because you did it. So Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:15): What shall I say? he has both spoken to me, and himself has done it. It is time to cease, or say no more; why should we contend with t…

He is freed from wrath, and has his discharge from the curse of the old covenant; he is taken into favor with God, and has as much of temporal relief as is necessary for him; his condition is made comfortable to him. A comfortable passing out of the world: (Isaiah 38:3). Remembe…

God gives many gifts to wicked men, but does not give them his love. This we should look after, that we may find our comforts to be sprinkled with love, that if God deliver you out of any strait, he may love you out of it (Isaiah 38:17). 2. For the manner, I have sought your fav…

Consider the end and fruit of his mercy, it is to manifest his special love to us, and engage our hearts to himself. (Isaiah 38:17) You have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, or you have loved me from the grave, otherwise God may give things in anger. C…

Otherwise God may give in anger, (Hosea 13:11) I gave them a king in my anger: as he gave the Israelites meat for their lusts. (Isaiah 38:17) You have loved me from the grave; this commends all experiences; makes us love God again. 4. Compare yourselves with others your betters,…