Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

HEZEKIAH

February 22, 2010

The rogue's gallery of sleaze-ball kings throughout 2 Kings takes a time-out when we meet King Hezekiah. At the very least it would do us well that we would enjoy more Hezekiah's and fewer or no Ahabs. I guess that applies to us as well.

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He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made...Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him...
- 2 Kings 18:3-6 TNIV
 

Of other kings we occasionally read, "He did right in the eyes of the Lord..." But of Hezekiah it says not only this blessing, but also, he cast aside the other gods, the idols, the traps that had ensnared even some better kings before him. Evidently Hezekiah knew that he could not co-mingle a good heart with the traps of other lesser passions and false gods. Hezekiah knew this, and it made him one of the greatest.

We live in a co-mingling world, a world that even exalts such compromise as progressive and good--the ever-present virtue of tolerance. Yet when it comes to our God, and our personal faith, co-mingling is a life-threatening snare. Maybe Hezekiah has something to teach us.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson