WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN NOBODY’S LOOKING?
2 Chron. 32:31
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: THE COLLEGE STUDENT
1. A third year SAM (SHSU) student, Steve, was delivering pizzas for Pizza Hut. One evening he delivered a meal to Bernie’s house. He hands over the pizza & Bernie pays the bill.
2. Steve keeps standing there and Bernie finally says, begrudgingly, "I suppose you also want me to give you a tip?"
3. Steve doesn’t answer immediately, but looks at Bernie for a few seconds before replying. "Yes, sir, that would be most appreciated, especially as the guy who normally delivers to this area told me that I shouldn’t expect much from you. He said I should be thankful if I got $2"
4. "Well," says Bernie, "just to prove your friend wrong, here’s $5 for your efforts." "Thank you very much," says Steve. "This will go into the fund to pay for my education."
5. "Really?" says Bernie. "So what is your major?"
"Applied Psychology," replied Steve.
B. TEXT
2 Kgs 18:3 [Hezekiah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles…. 5 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.
13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 19 The field commander [approached Jerusalem and] said, 32 “Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ 33 Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?” 19:35 The angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 [men] in the Assyrian camp. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
2 Chr. 32:24 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. [God made the Sun go backwards ten steps!] 31 But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign [KJV “wonder”] that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.
2 Kgs. 20: 13 Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold…all [in] his kingdom. 16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: 17 The time will surely come when everything in your palace…will be carried off to Babylon. 18 And some of your descendants…will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
C. THESIS
1. We’re looking at a man who experienced some of the greatest miracles of the O.T.. God made him a possible “star witness.”
2. We’re going to look at his remarkable experience with God, the testing he received, and how he did when he didn’t think God was paying attention.
3. The title of this message is, “What Do You Do When Nobody’s Looking?”
I. HEZEKIAH’S REMARKABLE WALK WITH GOD
A. HEZEKIAH’S FAITH & OBEDIENCE
1. Not only did he live up to the “gold standard” of David his father, he far surpassed him, and all other kings who ever reigned in Judah! 2 Kgs. 18:3,5.
2. He restored the Temple and Levitical priesthood and the prescribed sacrifices to worship God & atone for sin. He led all Israel in renewing their covenant to worship & serve Jehovah only (2 Chr. 29).
3. He demolished and destroyed all idol worship throughout the land of Judah. He even destroyed sins that had been practiced since the time of Moses – worship of the serpent of brass (1452 B.C.- 726 B.C. = 726 years). He destroyed it! (2 Kgs. 18:4)
4. For the first time since Solomon was King, He gathered all Israel to celebrate the Passover in national joy (2 Chr. 30:26; it hadn’t happened for 250 years!).
5. God was with him, even giving him military victory over the Philistines and, eventually, the mighty Assyrian army, the military superpower of that day. (2 Kgs. 18:7-8).
6. Hezekiah was a modern David, reestablishing the worship of Jehovah and freeing Israel from oppression from their enemies!
B. GOD ANSWERED IN 3 GREAT MIRACLES
1. SENNACHERIB’S DEFEAT. Sennacherib, the Assyrian King, came and blasphemed God. Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before God. God put 185,000 of them to death. They withdrew.
2. ILLNESS, RECOVERY. Next Hezekiah became ill. Told he would die. Pleaded for extension & got it: 15 more years.
3. MIRACULOUS SIGN – SUN BACKWARDS. Hezekiah was told to ask for a sign & asked for the Sun to go backwards on staircase of Ahaz. What an awesome career!
II. GOD TESTS HEZEKIAH
A. WHAT IS CHARACTER?
1. God had given Hezekiah favor and success. Hezekiah had faced dire threats: a national invasion and imminent death.
2. If ever Hezekiah should have been close to God, humble, and relying on God, it should have been then.
3. But the visit of dignitaries from Babylon became the occasion of his character being tested by God.
4. CHARACTER (def.) - “A strong mental or moral nature in a person that makes them resist doing wrong (when others are doing it) or causes them to do what’s right even when threatened by danger.”
5. “Your character is what you are when nobody’s watching.” That’s why the Bible says that when the envoys arrived from Babylon “God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart” 2 Chron. 32:31.
6. That means God quit offering him moral support and let him stand on his own character
7. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” ― John Wooden
7. There are many areas where people slip on their character:
a. We cheat a little on our income taxes;
b. We tell lies to escape a bad situation;
c. We fail to keep commitments, promises;
d. We say flattering things to those we want to impress;
e. We say unflattering things about our coworkers or boss;
f. We’re mean-tempered with our spouses because we can get away with it;
g. We let our anger flare up against our kids;
h. After we know we’ve been hurtful to someone, we don’t apologize—we just ignore it.
8. HUMOR: The back seat champion
a. Bertha couldn't ride in a car without telling whoever was driving what to do, when to do it, etc. She was, bar none, the worst back seat driver in the world.
b. Her husband Morris told her so, but she would deny it. She claimed she seldom, if ever, made comments about his driving. Then suddenly, there was proof.
c. One day, Morris was driving Bertha and their grandson Tommy to the shopping mall when little Tommy piped up, “Grandpa, before you married Granny, who told you how to drive?"
B. WAYS WE ARE TESTED
1. Difficult circumstances over a long period of time (like Joseph, Gen. 39-40);
2. Physical & emotional hardship (like Job 1-2);
3. Delayed fulfillment of God’s promise (like Abraham & Sarah having a son, or Joseph’s dreams being fulfilled);
4. Difficult test of Obedience (Abraham & Isaac, Gen. 22);
5. Times of spiritual dryness in the believer’s life. ALL THESE TEST OUR CHARACTER!
C. HOW TO RESPOND TO TRIALS
1. Learn to Trust God & be faithful; maintain godly character and be obedience, even if it hurts.
2. REMEMBER THE PURPOSE: “[God] knows the way I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold” Job 23:10.
3. Being tested isn’t necessarily a sign of God’s disfavor, it may be a sign of His greater purpose! Like Gen. 22:16-17.
III. GOD’S INTENT IN HEZEKIAH’S TEST
A. WHY THE AMBASSADORS CAME
1. Everybody was talking about Hezekiah. His name was on the lips of nations far and wide. Kings from a thousand miles away were talking about him. Why? Because they’d heard of, or seen, the 3 remarkable miracles – the Hebrew says “wonders” – God had done in Judah for him:
2. How God had annihilated Sennacherib’s army, the most ruthless and the most invincible army of that day—striking down 185,000 soldiers in a night.
3. They’d heard, over 700 miles away, how God had healed Hezekiah from certain death – an absolute miracle.
4. The Babylonians were some of the most advanced astronomers. They were astonished that God actually made the Sun move backward as a sign for Hezekiah. They watched it go backwards! It messed up all their astrological charts! What a mighty God this Hezekiah must serve!
5. So they send ambassadors to meet Hezekiah and to hear about the wonders God had done for him.
6. The Bible says, “And Hezekiah hearkened unto them . . .” 2 Kings 20:13. What that really means is, Hezekiah felt like a celebrity. When he was mobbed by people wanting to know his secret, he only bragged on his own accomplishments.
7. 2 Chron. 32:25 MSG captures what happened; “But the sign, instead of making Hezekiah grateful, made him arrogant. This made God angry, and his anger spilled over on Judah and Jerusalem.”
8. We get the idea that Hezekiah told the ambassadors about HIS own efforts, HIS successes, HIS accumulation of riches, etc. Hezekiah evidently made it all about himself!
9. What an opportunity! Like us he had a chance to uplift Jesus! Not to talk about politics; not to talk about Sports; not to talk about the weather. But to talk about the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; the Way, the Truth & the Life, the Light of the World, the Light of the World!
B. WHAT GOD HAD HOPED HE WOULD DO
1. God sent word through the Prophet Isaiah and said the equivalent of, “What did you say to them? What have they seen of your house?”
2. Was Hezekiah able to send back the message, “They heard from my lips words of praise, reverence, and thanksgiving to God. I told them there is no god like our God; that He works wonders and gives victory to His servants, and if the Babylonians will believe in Him, He will save and help them too!”?
3. The Bible says, “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives.” Prov. 27:21 NIV 1984.
4. Since God had attracted the attention of neighbors for 1,000 miles around, God undoubtedly expected Hezekiah to give Him the glory. He didn’t.
5. Hezekiah’s bragging on himself instead of God and ended up “tempting” the foreign nations into coming and taking the things he bragged about!
6. Hopefully, we’ll show better character than that! Listen to these 2 Olympians who gave glory to God, not themselves;
http://www.naycrumors.com/articles/olympic-divers-proclaim-christ-rio-2016/ [play the first 1:24]
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CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. Henry Snowden pulled in to the drive-up window at the Burger King in Deltona, Florida. He ordered, paid for his meal, and eased away from the window. When he finally pulled over to eat, he got the shock of his life.
2. There was nothing wrong with his burger or fries. But the clerk working at the window had shoved two bags out the window at the 31-year-old man.
3. Snowden discovered $4,170 in the second bag (obviously the receipts for an hour or two). What happened was a mistake, yet it challenged Henry Snowden's character.
4. There was no camera at the Burger King. It was a dark & busy night. The cash was untraceable. He could be over $4,000 richer and nobody would know about it.
5. All he had to do was to be quiet about it and keep driving.
But in his heart, he knew that taking it back to the restaurant would be the right thing to do.
6. He said, "I've got to admit I was definitely tempted!" He overcame the temptation and returned the money.
7. "I'm glad I was able to do the right thing," he said. "And I feel better than I've ever felt." A good conscience will do that for a person! [Rubel Shelly]
B. THE CALL
1. Is there something you do when nobody’s looking? If you don’t overcome it, there may be some terrible consequences. down the road. If that’s you, signal by waving a hand.
2. Do you want to have greater moral character? Raise hand.
3. Do you need to be a better witness for God?
4. Call for Salvation.
[This sermon used some parts of W.A. Criswell’s “The Tragic Sin of Good King Hezekiah” and some of the notes from the Fire Bible on 2 Chron. 32:31.]
