1.
“O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live” (Isaiah 38:16).
So wrote King Hezekiah, who was “sick to death.” God miraculously added fifteen years to his life, giving him a sign in that the sun-dial of Ahaz should return ten degrees.
What did Hezekiah mean? What did he mean by “live”? Sickness is the negation of health, the opposite of energetic life. How then could Hezekiah’s sickness be the means of life?
It is interesting to trace in Scripture what God calls life. We read, for instance, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Life in Scripture is life lived in relation to God. So much is this so that Scripture views the unbeliever as “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), and what he needs is life. “God … even when we were dead in sins has quickened us together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). The fact is, a man may be a brilliant success in this life, in scholarship, in the world of finance, in political or military or social life, yet, if he is unconverted, his life is a colossal disaster. He has not known true life at all. He has merely grasped the mere shadow of a brief life in this world, and failed to get the eternal substance of real life.
In nature this is apparent. Let this earth of ours be out of relation to the sun, the controlling factor in our particular universe, for a short time and what would be the result? Utter destruction! And yet man with all his powers will live and die as if God did not exist.
The lesson that Hezekiah learnt was learned by others yet further back in the history of the world Job, tried in his circumstances, even more than Hezekiah, cried out, “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty” (Job 5:17). The Psalmist learned the same lesson. “Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law” (Ps. 94:12). The wisest of men, Solomon, gave good advice to his son. If that son were Rehoboam, then we can pity the wise father that he had such an exceedingly foolish son. “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: for whom the Lord loves He chastens; even as a father the son in whom he delights” (Prov. 3:11-12). In Hebrews 12:5-13 these wise words of Solomon are quoted, and given an enlargement and scope that are well worth pondering.
The fact is, sorrow, tribulation, trial, the things we shrink from are the very means God uses to teach us what is really life. If life were all blue skies and beds of roses we could do without God, would do without Him, if left to ourselves. But He is too kind to leave us thus. Hezekiah wrote, “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life OF MY SPIRIT.”
There is one great difference between nature and grace. In nature the sun is above the clouds, and let the sky be overcast no sun is to be seen. It still exists, it still shines, but above the clouds and invisible to those who look up and see nothing but the clouds. In grace the clouds of sorrow, bereavement and tribulation overspread our sky, but the sun of God’s love shines below the clouds. Nothing can separate the believer from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord
Did Seth, the son of Adam, learn this lesson when he named his son, Enos or Enosh? Enos or Enosh is a Hebrew word signifying frail mortal sinful man. We read, “Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26). They touched life when they realized their personal need of the Lord. We cannot do without Him. We realize this in the great crises of life. The pity is we do not realize it in every phase of our lives—big or little, in joy or in sorrow. It is good when we take our joys into the presence of the Lord, taking them as from His hand. Our sorrows often drive us into His presence. Our joys test us. We never find any life in Scripture that was lived outstandingly for God, that was not marked by the discipline of sorrows.
Look at Joseph. Destined of God at thirty years of age to be the food controller of Egypt, to be in the way of providence the saviour of a famine-stricken world, he suffered the ignominy of being sold into Egypt by his brethren, of imprisonment for years because of his resisting the blandishments of an immoral woman. We read in Psalm 105 of his feet being hurt with fetters and the iron entering into his soul. Thus was formed in the school of God character that became him in his relation to God.
Look at Moses. Destined of God to face Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel across the desert, He used circumstances that compelled him to flee from Egypt, to leave the palace and no longer to be counted the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and for forty long years he was caring for sheep at the backside of the desert, till God had tempered him into a steel He could use. God taught him to be nobody in order to make him somebody.
Look at David. Follow his history and the same thing is observed. He went through seas of trouble, was often in danger of his life, before he reached the throne. God had to train him.
It is not all who are called to eminence in the service of the Lord, but God loves us too much to leave us to ourselves. We learn God by our sorrows and the knowledge of God it is by which we reach spiritual growth—it is the way by which we learn what life really is.
If ever one comes across a suffering saint one generally finds one who has learned of God, one who is bright in soul and a vindicator of God in all His ways.
May we discern the loving hand of a Father, who makes no mistakes, in the discipline of life, and ever thank Him as much for clouds as for sunshine, for sorrows as for joy.
2.
What was the occasion of this outburst on the part of Hezekiah, one of the few godly kings of Judah? He had been stricken down by an alarming illness, and told by the Prophet Isaiah that he would die and not live (Isa. 38:1-3). In sore grief he turned his face to the wall, wept before the Lord, and prayed earnestly. God graciously heard his prayer, and granted him recovery, but not before he had learned important lessons. Hence this confession, “By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit” (Isa. 38:16).
He had been brought face to face with death, and had realised the frailty and brevity of sinful life, and on the other hand the compassion, tenderness and power of the living God over death. He was brought to realise that which was really life. He connected this with what he called “my spirit.” The spirit is that part of man that is peculiar to him alone, and not shared by the rest of animate creation. It carries with it at least two things. One is the knowledge that there is a Supreme Being, and therefore we have to answer to His claims. The other is the possession of a discriminating faculty between that which is good, and that which is evil, in which conscience plays its part.
It is true that we learn what is really life from our sorrows rather than by our joys. So the wise man tells us, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better” (Eccl. 7:2-3). There is no shadow of doubt, that when the tried and suffering saint gets to glory, and sees things in heavenly light, he will realise that it was his exercises in times of sorrow and stress, that taught him most precious lessons, proving to him what life really is. It was well sung:
“And many a rapturous minstrel,
Among those saints of light,
Will say of his sweetest music,
I learned it in the night.
And many a rolling anthem
That fills the Father’s Home,
Sobbed out its first rehearsal
In the shade of a darkened room.”
We have many instances of the truth of this in the lives of the saints as depicted in the Scriptures.
Take Abraham, who stands out pre-eminently in Scripture as the great example of faith. God bade him leave his country, his kindred, his father’s house, to sojourn as a pilgrim and stranger in a strange country. In the eyes of the world this was a step of pure folly unadulterated. Why? The secret of it all was, that this erstwhile idolater was brought into touch with the God of heaven. The God of glory had appeared to him, and henceforth he was for ever different. His faith looked for a city, “whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).
Take the case of Jacob. He had mourned deeply over what he believed to be a violent death of his favourite son, Joseph. Thereafter all the old man’s love was centred round his son, Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother. Then came the terrible famine, that drove Jacob’s sons to the land of Egypt to seek food. Next time they would come to Egypt seeking food, the Lord of Egypt, speaking roughly, demanded that they should bring with them their youngest brother, Benjamin, and so prove they were honest in their tale. When Jacob heard this his grief was intense. In his anguish he bewailed, “Me have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me” (Gen. 42:36). Little did he think that his great sorrow was soon to be changed to joy greater than his sorrow. All these things were emphatically not against him. Instead of losing Simeon and Benjamin, he was about to gain the knowledge that his son Joseph lived, and to experience his loving care for him all the few years left to him in the fertile land of Goshen.
How like Jacob many Christians are today, who see no mercy in God’s discipline, and little dream of the plannings of divine love, so that the clouds we so much dread, are, in the words of the poet, big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on our head.
Take the case of Joseph. He dreamed of his future eminence. He saw his sheaf standing, whilst the other sheaves, representing his brethren, made obeisance to his sheaf. He further dreamed how sun, moon and eleven (the number of his brothers) stars made obeisance to him. His jealous brothers, enraged by these dreams of their young brother, made away with him, selling him to passing merchants, who took the lad to Egypt, and sold him as a slave. This did not look like the fulfilment of Joseph’s dreams of future greatness. It was indeed a very sorrowful road to the answer of his dreams, but it was THE road.
A mere stripling of a shepherd lad, seventeen years old, needed severe discipline to fit him for the brilliant future that lay before him. For thirteen long years he was immured in prison. His feet were hurt with fetters, the iron entered his soul. One day more he awoke to the dreary experience of prison life. Before the sun was set, he was proclaimed to be next to Pharaoh in the land, the Food Controller of a mighty empire. His discipline under the hand of God had fitted him for the fulfilment of his God-given dreams.
Take the case of Moses. For a member of a despised nation of Hebrew slaves, in the providence of God he occupied a most remarkable position. He was adopted as son by the mightiest woman ruler of that time. He was near to the succession to the throne of Egypt. Yet he had to learn bitter lessons. He had to flee from Egypt in disgrace. This man of transcendent leadership had to learn the slow lesson of patience. For forty years at the backside of the desert he kept sheep, learning to live in obscurity, to perform the daily task. Thus was he fitted for the colossal task of leading the children of Israel across the desert. When he had learned his lesson, no longer fearing the wrath of the king, he carried out the task for which God had commissioned him.
Take the case of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. Even as a very young man he gave promise of taking a prominent position in the Jewish nation. Educated in the university city of Tarsus, sitting in Jerusalem at the feet of the most learned rabbi of all time, Gamaliel, he was the master of two languages—Greek and Hebrew—and a strong personality with a brilliant brain. He had, as we say, the ball at his feet. All at once this was flung as loss, as though it were dung, behind him. Stopped in an instant in his wild career of persecuting the saints of God, blinded by the light shining on that Damascus road brighter than the sun, he heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4). Thus He identified Himself in the glory with the despised Christians on earth. No longer could Saul believe that Jesus was an impostor, and his bones lying dishonoured in a Jewish grave. He recognised that He was the risen triumphant Saviour, long promised by the prophets all down the ages.
His whole life was changed in a moment. His Master had been crucified. He would be persecuted, now he had thrown in his lot with the Christians. He turned his back upon his brilliant prospects for something infinitely better and more enduring. He knew what it was to be scourged, stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, in perils by sea, by land, in the wilderness, among false brethren, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. It was worth it all, if only he could win Christ. What a triumph! “For to me,” he exclaimed, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). He could say, “If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things, which concern mine infirmities” (2 Cor. 11:30).
May we not learn a lesson from all this, and believe that sorrow, trial, bereavement, disease, even the austerity of the present time, are permitted of the Lord for good. The Christian can take all these things from the Lord, seeking to get true gain from them, even the formation of Christian character, which will be for God’s glory, the blessing of those we come in contact with, and for very rich blessing to ourselves. May the Lord graciously grant this for everyone of us. Let us live in the light of eternity. Let us live what is really life.