Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome, friends, to
Preach it Girl Podcast, where we
aren't just sitting aroundwaiting for Jesus to return or
Skinny Pop to make us skinny.
I mean, those things are boundto happen.
But while we wait, join me,auntie Lala, for a jump through
the scriptures so lively you'llthink they were written just
yesterday, not thousands ofyears ago.
And today we are jumping intosecond Kings with a king,
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hezekiah.
He was a Judean king, afterIsrael and Judah had split and
Israel had already been takeninto exile because they had
disobeyed the Lord and hadturned from their God, who gave
them the land in the first place, and started worshiping these
other gods that, these othernations who had been displaced
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by the Israelites.
They started worshiping theirgods.
They were worshiping the godsof the heavens, like you know
the moon, the stars.
They were doing all kinds ofcrazy hanky stuff.
And the Lord he told them ofcrazy hanky stuff.
And the Lord he told them ifyou continue to worship the one
true God, the God who deliveredyou from slavery, then I will
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bless everything that you do, Iwill protect you from your
enemies, I will keep you well,I'll bless the land that you're
in so that it will provide youfood and financial gain and
whatever you need.
I am here to help you.
I want to be in relationshipwith you.
I love you and I'm going totake care of you.
But if you decide to walk away,you have free will and I'll let
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you.
But I love you so much I'mgoing to warn you in advance
that when you're prosperous,don't forget who brought you
here, who delivered you fromslavery into the promised land
dripping with milk and honey andyou know what.
Oh my God, we're forgetful,y'all so forgetful.
And so things had not gone well.
But here comes King Hezekiah,and when we look back through
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all the kings, I mean it's justcrazy to go from king to king
and this one served the Lord,but this one didn't.
I tried to find like a patternwhat if the father served the
Lord?
Would the son serve the Lordtoo?
And it was never a guarantee.
So Hezekiah comes in and it sayshe pleased the Lord, he honored
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the Lord, he opened the templeback up, which had been closed,
and he had the priests, theLevites, to get everything back
together so that they couldactually worship the Lord in his
temple.
He reestablished the festivals.
They did a Passover after nothaving done a Passover.
For years and years, hezekiahsent out invitations to not just
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Judah but all of Israel andinvited them come on, come
celebrate the Lord and what hehas done for us.
I mean, hezekiah did it up.
They said they partied so hardfor the Lord at this Passover
for seven days that it was justso much fun.
They did it another seven daysand Hezekiah, in his generosity,
was providing all these animalsfor sacrifices to the Lord and
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thanksgiving sacrifices and sinofferings for the Lord, so that
the people could be purified andrededicate their hearts to the
one true God, the God whoactually does things for people,
who intervenes in our everydaylife.
Meanwhile, these other godsthat they would worship and
sacrifice their children to wereimpotent.
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They had no power.
It was just crazy stuff.
Here we come into Hezekiah'slife.
He is this great king.
He has brought the people backto faith, because whenever the
king worshiped the Lord, thepeople would follow, and that's
why the Lord held the kingresponsible for leading people
to him or leading people awayfrom him.
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So we got Hezekiah.
I like to call him Hezi.
He was doing such a good joband anyone that came to attack
him, the Lord would deliver them.
And so as Hezekiah continued toreign in his kingdom I mean, he
was receiving gifts for theLord, but he was also receiving
his own gifts.
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And you know what happens whenwe get kind of rich and well off
and things are going great andwe're successful, Lord, here it
comes we get a little forgetful,we forget how good God is and
we actually start attributingour success to us.
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And I'm not saying you're notout here working to make a
paycheck, right, but the Lordenables you to work, gave you
gifts when he created you.
He created you with a purpose,with an identity, with giftings
and maybe it's art or with yourhands, or in math and science or
whatever it is that kind oftickles your fancy.
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God put that there and he'sequipped you to do amazing
things for others through yourwork.
But you know, once we're doingreally well, it's easy to forget
.
And let's just talk about whatHezekiah did.
It says he was just doing sowell and getting so rich and so
powerful that other kings weresending him gifts and tributes.
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And you know what it says thathe got a little prideful, so he
did get sick and the prophetIsaiah came to him and said
Hezekiah, you need to get yourthings in order because you're
going to die.
Hezekiah knew the power ofprayer and the power of God.
He broke down and wept bitterly.
Isaiah had delivered themessage and it says before
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Isaiah even got out of thecourtyard of the palace, god
sent him back with a new word.
This is what the Lord says I'veheard your prayer and seen your
tears.
You know what.
God hears our prayers and hesees every tear.
The Lord hears Whenever we turnto him.
He is ready and willing to helpus.
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And so that's what Isaiah istelling me.
The Lord says I've heard yourprayer and seen your tears.
I will heal you In three days.
You'll be well and you'll liveanother 15 years.
Can God give me a sign that Iwill know that I'm going to be
healed in three days?
Isaiah says the Lord could, andyou get to pick whether the
shadow on the sundial will moveforward 10 spaces or move
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backwards.
And Hezekiah was like well,gosh, the shadow always moves
forward.
Have it move back, because thenyou know it's the Lord and
nothing else gonna do that.
And sure enough, the sundial'sshadow went back 10 spaces.
And not only that.
It says an angel army destroyed185,000 of the soldiers of the
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Assyrian army.
And when the other soldiers whosurvived woke up, they were
surrounded by corpses Y'all.
Can you imagine that?
185,000 corpses.
Can you imagine the fear thatwould have instilled in those
other soldiers?
You know they got the heck outof Dodge y'all.
We's out, because we're notfighting against, we don't even.
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We didn't even see whathappened, but they was just all
dead.
Wow, I'm going to read a littlepassage here.
Soon after this, a king ofBabylon, soon after all the
success of the Assyrian army wasdefeated, hezekiah got well,
and so the Bible says that soonafter that, the king of Babylon
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sent Hezekiah his best wishesand some gifts, for he had heard
that, hmm, royal treasuries.
There was nothing in his palaceor kingdom that Hezekiah did
not show them.
But Hezekiah did not respondappropriately to the kindness
shown him by the Lord and hebecame proud.
He was wealthy and highlyhonored.
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He built treasury buildings forhis silver, gold, precious
stones and spices and for theshields and other valuable items
.
He also contracted manystorehouses for his grain and
wine and olive oil and madestalls for his cattle and for
his flocks of sheep and goats.
In the beginning we seeHezekiah giving all these things
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away.
He was giving precious items tohave the temple restored.
He was giving his flocks andcattle to the Lord for
sacrifices for the people.
And now, later in his life, hekept building bigger storehouses
so he could store it all up.
And you know what came to mymind when I read that was Jesus,
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when he was telling the storyof the rich fool.
Let's get back in there.
Let's get back.
That's in Luke.
So Jesus told them a story.
A rich man had a fertile farmthat produced fine crops and he
said to himself what should I do?
I don't have enough room forall my crops in my storehouses.
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Like, I mean, I guess it neveroccurred to him to give some
away.
But he said you know what, Iknow what I'll do.
I'm going to build some biggerones, some bigger storehouses,
and then I'll have more thanenough wheat and all these other
goods.
And I'll sit back and say tomyself friend, you have more
than enough stored away foryears and years.
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Now, take it easy, eat, drinkand be merry is the New Living
Translation.
But God said to him you fool,you will die this very night.
Then who will get everythingyou worked for?
Yes, a person is a fool tostore up earthly wealth but not
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have a rich friendship with God.
So how did this King Hezekiahstart off with this fervor and
zeal for the Lord that he turnedthe entire nation back to God
and celebrated all that God haddone for them and did such a
great job for many years Towardsthe end of his life?
He became so successful, sofull of pride.
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Maybe he was giving himselfcredit instead of giving the
Lord credit for how wealthy hewas and how well things had gone
.
I kind of imagine him showingoff.
I have a feeling he wasn'tgoing.
Let me tell you about the timethe Lord did this for me.
Let me tell you about how thisstorehouse got full because of
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all God did for us.
Because of his great mercy andkindness, god restored our
fortunes.
I don't think Hezekiah wassaying that.
I think he was saying look whatI did, and then trying to
impress them.
And oh, here comes Isaiah withanother message from the Lord.
Hezekiah, you've done it now.
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Then Isaiah, the prophet, wentto King Hezekiah and asked him
what do those men want?
Where were they from?
Hezekiah replied they came fromthe distant land of Babylon.
What did they see in yourpalace?
Isaiah asked.
It's like the Lord Jesus oftenasked a question he already knew
the answer to.
They saw everything.
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Hezekiah replied I showed themeverything.
I own all my royal treasuries.
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiahlisten to this message from the
Lord the time is coming wheneverything in your palace, all
the treasures stored up by yourancestors until now, will be
carried off to Babylon.
Some of your very own sons willbe taken away into exile.
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They will become eunuchs whowill serve in the palace of the
Babylonian king.
That is heartbreaking.
And remember how Hezekiahprayed and wept bitterly when he
heard that he was sick andmight die.
You know what he said this time.
He said the message from theLord is good.
Why, the Bible says because hewas thinking at least there will
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be peace and security during mylifetime.
Y'all, that's a chilling changeof heart from where he started,
wow.
But King Hezekiah's heart hadgotten cold towards the Lord.
He wanted to be comfortable.
And my, hadn't he beencomfortable?
And I have to remind myselfy'all, and I am sure we all do,
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it's easy to get comfortable inthis country that we live in,
that's full of good things.
God has been gracious to me inour home and now, you know you
go out to dinner and ifsomething's not quite up to par,
it's tempting to hmm, thisisn't good enough or, excuse me,
this wasn't cooked quite right,and we can all fall into this
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trap.
This is a little wake-up call.
Don't forget that zeal you hadfor the Lord when you came to
Jesus.
Don't forget what pit you werein before you came to Jesus, the
times that you've cried out toGod, save me.
And he did.
Sometimes, if it's a few yearsago or a couple of decades ago,
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we forget and we look around andthink, oh, I put all this
together.
Oh, I'm so talented.
You know, I'm making all thismoney.
I'm not y'all, I'm an artist.
But all that to say.
The Lord is good and he willcome to you when you cry out to
him.
But just don't forget to cryout to him.
Don't forget to thank him.
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Keep that thankfulness fresh.
Can you imagine if you didn'thave your eyes?
Suddenly they didn't work.
We take for granted our sight.
We take for granted that we'regoing to wake up the next
morning.
But we need to thank God forthe little things and the big
things and remember the ways hehas been good to us and that
will help us.
Let's sum it all up.
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So Jesus said a person is a foolto store up earthly wealth but
not have a rich relationshipwith God.
You guys, let's think aboutthat.
How can we enliven ourrelationship with God?
Are we rich in a relationshipwith God, with Jesus?
Is there a place where we aretaking the credit that belongs
to God?
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Ooh, I don't want to do that.
So let's think about that thisweek.
If God were to test what'sreally in our heart, what would
he find?
Because God knows ourmotivations and our inner
thoughts, which is good, becausethat means he knows you inside
and out.
There's nothing you can hidefrom God.
So he already knows.
So come to him, confess, say Ihave taken you for granted.
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Lord, please forgive me.
And he does.
He promises he will.
I mean we just have to turnback.
That's what repentance is.
It's a lie that I am doing allthis on my own.
The truth is, god has enabledme and as long as he does, I
want to praise him and thank him.
So remember that.
Another little thought to keepin mind that you know, not
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everyone that brings you a giftis a giver.
They might be coming forsomething else, like that
Babylonian king.
They were currying favor withthis gift, but they were
checking out all he had and oneday they were going to take it.
So that's something to thinkabout you guys.
I love you so much and I can'twait to see you again next time
on Preach it Girl.