Mortality and Eternity, Pt. 2 (Various Scriptures)

Death and taxes.  Two seemingly immutable and unavoidable realities.  I got a notice this week from our friends at the IRS stating how much I owe for last year’s taxes, and how much of a penalty they will charge (plus interest) if I don’t cough up the money by May 26.  It seems like the only way to avoid paying taxes is to die.  But even then, they want a piece of the action.  Or inaction, I suppose.  There seems to be no escape from taxes.  But let’s thank and praise the Lord there is deliverance from death.  More specifically, according to Ps 68, God is a God of deliverances.

19 Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, The God of our salvation!  Selah 20 Our God is the God of salvation [literally “deliverances”]; And to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death. (Psalms 68:19-20, NKJV).

We’ve all seen thousands of escapes from death.  They are a dime a dozen on TV.  It is the stuff Hollywood is made of, and it is mostly fiction.  But no one escapes death except temporarily.  So when David writes in Psalm 68 that God is a God of deliverances, and that escapes from death belong to Him, to what is he referring?

David escaped death many times.  He was in danger of death as a shepherd boy guarding his father’s sheep from lions.  The giant Goliath could have easily killed him, had the Lord not been with him.  King Saul chased him all over Israel for years.  Absalom, his own son, almost killed him.  When David speaks here in Psalm 68 of deliverances from death, he speaks from experience.

The word “salvation” does not always refer to a spiritual experience.  It simply means to be delivered, rescued, or salvaged from some situation.  There are many kinds of deliverances: from physical death, from disease, from poverty, from punishment, from an enemy, from bankruptcy, from pregnancy, etc.  In the case of pregnancy, both the mother and the baby are delivered.

But in this passage, we read that God grants escapes from death in particular.  While much of the time, we read of salvations and escapes from death in the Old Testament in the context of physical deliverances from physical death, the saints of Old Testament Israel, those who were among the redeemed as we are, understood there was also an escape from the grave itself.  They did not have as clear an understanding as we do, but they were believers in the resurrection.  That is why when we get to the New Testament, we see the Pharisees and the Saducees debating that topic.  The resurrection is not only a New Testament Christian concept.

I want to point out to you one peculiar escape from death found in the Old Testament.  We could mention many: Noah, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Samson, Gideon, Lot, and the list goes on.  But one of the most notable escapes, or deliverances, or salvations from death is found in 2 Kings 20.

1 In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death.  And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: `Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.'" 2 Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying, 3 "Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight."  And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 5 "Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, `Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you.  On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. 6 "And I will add to your days fifteen years.  I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David."'"

This passage raises a lot of questions, the biggest one probably being, did God change His mind?  The short answer to that question is no, and for now, that is as far as I can go with that.  I don’t want to miss the primary point for the sake of debating a secondary matter.  What I see as the primary lesson in these verses is this: Our God is a God of deliverances; and to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death.

It might be helpful to understand some of the background of King Hezekiah.  He is the son of one of the most evil kings Judah ever had.  He winds up being the father of THE most evil king.  During this time of sickness, and during the years prior to this deadly illness, the kingdom of Assyria has come against the northern kingdom of Israel and completely destroyed it.  There is no nation of Israel at this point.  They have been quite literally assimilated by their enemies.  In more recent days, the king of Assyria has come against the southern kingdom of Judah, Hezekiah’s kingdom.  2 Kings 18:13 says:

13 And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. (2 Kings 18:13, NKJV).

Not a whole lot of elaboration on that.  Sennacherib came and took all of Hezekiah’s cities and the people who lived in them.  Now all that is left for him to take is the heavily fortified city of Jerusalem.  The entire kingdom has been captured except the capital.  That’s next on the Assyrian army’s to-do list.  All of that is the broader context of King Hezekiah’s life.  Then the prophet Isaiah comes with a word from the Lord saying he is going to die and not live.  Things were bad before.  But now, in addition to being next in line for conquest, the king is about to die.

Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying, 3 "Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight."  And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

What is the first thing this man does when he finds out he is going to die?  Prayer.  He prays.  Illness is often like that.  It causes people to take an interest in prayer.  The news that your illness is terminal often causes an immediate reaction of prayer, intense prayer, fervent prayer marked by “bitter weeping.”  That is the case here, even with the king.  He is not exempt from the fears that typically accompany death and dying.  So he prays, and he cries.  The king weeps.

I do not think he is weeping only for himself.  He understands his nation and his people, his kingdom is under attack.  It’s a really bad time for the commander in chief to die.  Their enemies are virtually at the gates, and not only is he going to die, but it appears quite possible that they will all die.  This is a bad day for king and country.

And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 5 "Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, `Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you.  On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. 6 "And I will add to your days fifteen years.  I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David."

“I will heal you.”  I will add to your days fifteen years.”  “I will deliver you and this city from the king of Assyria.”  How can God do this?  Because “to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death.”  And what an escape it is!  Not only is Hezekiah well enough to go to the temple in three days, but listen to what happens to Sennacherib.  Hezekiah prays this prayer:

15 Then Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said: "O LORD God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16 "Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17 "Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18 "and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands--wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. 19 "Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone."

Grant us an escape from death!  That is what this prayer is about.  But it is not merely for the purpose of saving lives.  It is more about the glory of God.  Sennacherib has his gods.  Hezekiah has his God.  Let’s see which one can win this confrontation.

35 And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses--all dead. (2 Kings 19:35, NKJV).

God glorifies Himself as the God of His people Israel by destroying their (and ultimately His) enemies all in one night.  One hundred and eighty-five thousand of them.  He spares the people inside the city while annihilating an entire invasion force outside the city.  To God belong escapes and deliverances from death, that is true.  But it even goes beyond that.  Revelation 1:18 expands on this theme and gives us a much clearer picture.  It is Jesus Christ who is speaking when He says:

"I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”

It is the Lord Jesus who holds the keys, who holds the reigns, who determines who lives or dies, when that happens, where that happens, and what eternity holds for all beyond the grave.  Jesus is the sovereign ruler over life and death, heaven and hell.  He holds the keys of death.  He holds the keys to the place of the dead.

He demonstrates that fact in John 11.  You are familiar with the story.  Lazarus gets sick and dies.  Jesus hears about it and stays away until Lazarus is really dead, not just mostly dead.  By the time Jesus shows up, Lazarus is so dead that when He tells them to remove the stone from the entrance to the tomb, Martha says, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days!”  But to God belong deliverances from death.  So they remove the stone, and God commands the dead man to come out of his tomb.  Jesus has the keys of death and the place of the dead.  He can do with death whatever He chooses.  In this case, He reverses it.  He undoes death.  He has total and absolute sovereign authority over it.  Even death itself must submit to the Son of God!  So Lazarus comes out.

But do you remember what Jesus said to Martha?  “Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26, NKJV).

Jesus is the God to whom belong deliverances and escapes from death.  He is the one who determines that Hezekiah will live, and he will live for fifteen more years.  Not fourteen, not sixteen.  Jesus Christ is the one who is able to preserve Hezekiah’s life from every possible threat, whether it is an illness or an army.  Jesus is the one who determines that Jerusalem will be spared death, while 185,000 Assyrian soldiers are not spared.  In fact, the text tells us it was THE Angel of the LORD who went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand.  The Angel of the LORD is Jesus Christ.

This past week, we saw in the news about the cyclone that hit Myanmar and apparently killed more than 100,000 people.  Those 100,000 people are all people whose lives fell under the authority of Christ.  But the hundreds of thousands who did not die, remain alive because of Jesus Christ.  The many thousands of people who have been involved in our war with Iraq, on both sides of the conflict, each individual person who has fallen or been spared, has continued to live or has died because Christ Himself has ordained it.

Listen to what God says of Himself in Deut 32:39. `Now see that I, even I, am He, And there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39, NKJV).

“I kill, AND I make alive.  I wound, AND I heal.  Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.”  Why is that the case?  Because deliverances from death are the possession of God and no one else.  It is God, through the person of Jesus Christ, who possesses all authority over life and death.  So why am I making such an issue of this?

A little over 20 years ago, I buried two of my children.  My father just turned 90.  A little over a month ago, I was in the hospital for radical cancer treatment.  It could have been an incurable cancer.  Or there could have been any number of complications which could have been life-threatening.  I have a son in the National Guard during a time of war.  I have a nephew leaving for Iraq in about 7 months.

These are things that have been close to my heart for a while now.  As I laid in my hospital bed in Pittsburgh and contemplated the fact that my condition was not terminal, I thought of Hezekiah.  He was dying, but God determined, for reasons unknown to us, to give the king 15 more years of life, and to deliver him from his enemies.  God just decided to give him 15 more years.  He can do that if He wants to.  Apparently, in some sense, from a purely human perspective, He has given me some extra time too.  I don’t know why He would do that except that He just wanted to.

God can do whatever He wants with what He has made, including us.  “For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." (Romans 9:15, NKJV).  To many people, even to many Christians, that is a very scary thought.  God can kill or make alive.  God can raise the dead, or not raise them.  Jesus Christ has been given all authority over everything, including death and the place of the dead.  He alone is sovereign over all men, everywhere, all the time, even in the life to come, whether in Heaven or Hell.  Who else would we want to rule over such things?

But secondly, we should be contemplating what kind of power this is.  What should our response be to Christ in light of these truths?  You and I exist because He says so.  We continue to live because it pleases a good God to allow it, in spite of our sinfulness against Him.  We will die according to His timetable, not ours.  And our eternity is determined by His judgment, and His alone.  He holds the keys.  Who else would we trust with such things?

But remember what Jesus said to Martha.  This man who possesses the keys to forever said,  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

Then He asked her a question: “Do you believe this?” What do you believe about life and death and Jesus Christ?  What do you believe about Heaven and Hell and Jesus Christ?  “He who has the Son has life.” To have the Son is to have Him who possesses escapes from death.  But, “he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.  These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. " (1John 5:12-13, NKJV).

Everything, absolutely everything, for eternity, revolves around Jesus Christ.  Do you believe this?