The Sentence Of Death

Turn your Bible to Isaiah 38, to begin with verse 9.

The preaching will be particularly on verses 9 through 16, but we will read all of verses 9 through 20.

Please stand when you have that for the reading of God's Word. A writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness.

I said in the middle of my days I must depart. I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years.

I said I shall not see the Lord, the Lord and the land of the living. I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent, like a weaver I have rolled up my life.

He cuts me off from the loom. From day to night you bring me to an end. I calm myself until morning.

Like a lion he breaks all my bones. From day to night you bring me to an end.

Like a swallow or a crane I chirp. I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward.

O Lord, I am pressed. Be my pledge of safety. What shall I say? For He has spoken to me and He Himself has done it.

I walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit.

Restore me to health and make me live. Behold it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness, but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction.

For you have cast all my sins behind your back. For Sheol does not thank you. Death does not praise you.

Those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living,

He thanks you as I do this day. The Father makes known to the children your faithfulness.

The Lord will save me and we will play my music on stringed instruments all days of our lives at the house of the

Lord. Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for opening up your

Word to us today. We ask that from this psalm of Hezekiah, you would reveal to us who you are, who we are, our own weakness and your great strength, in Jesus' name, amen.

As you remember from the earlier part of Isaiah 38, Isaiah has become sick to the point of death.

The Lord has miraculously healed him and guaranteed him salvation on the third day. He will be delivered from certain death.

And it is through this that not only he but his whole nation will be saved from death.

So as a response to this, he writes this psalm. It says in verse 9, this is a writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness.

This is not just a personal writing for his diary. This is something that he has written for all his people to hear, all his people to sing.

And the final statement which says, the Lord will save me and we will play my music on stringed instruments, this is one of those things that should be sung, that should be remembered.

This is one of those things that should be set to music. This song here, the song of salvation.

Now he writes this in present tense as though he is currently undergoing a trial. Sometimes he speaks in past tense, sometimes he speaks in present tense.

And so he speaks reflectively of the sentence of death that he was under.

And God through death reminds us of our weakness and of our need for Him.

Through various kinds of illness, through various kinds of sickness and pain, we are reminded of our need for God.

There was a particular time in my early 20s where I sprained my ankle, that's a fairly minor injury as far as injuries go, but it really just crippled me for about a month.

I could not do much. It was very difficult for me to get around to the places I need to get around to.

And I just remember thinking a lot about the fragility of humankind, just how little.

You know, a young man, very able in a lot of ways, and I jumped off something that's probably about as high as this ledge right here and just landed on my ankle just slightly wrong, not even very wrong.

And I just became incompetent to do a lot of basic things for the next month.

And it just made me realize, and I thought a lot of spiritual thoughts about how frail humanity is and how great and strong God is.

And that is what His purpose in death is, that is what Hezekiah brings to mind here in this psalm, is these afflictions that God had put him under, this trial of sickness was designed to point him to the need for God's strength, to His Word, which is strength, which is life for us who are in need.

We will look more at the answer to all these things when we get to the next passage, the next time we are in Isaiah, but here focusing on verses 9 through 16, we'll simply see that need for the strength that God gives, human weakness and the sentence of death.

Just by way of describing the contents of this, I'd like to break it down first into the times that Hezekiah describes and the places and then his speech and his demeanor.

So times, places, speech, demeanor is going to be the first part of our small outline here.

It says, I said in the middle of my days

I must depart. When he's speaking of this time, of the middle of his days, what is he referring to?

Some translations more literally translate this noon, that in the noontide of his days he is going to be taken away.

What is that? That is the middle of life. So generally, God gives man a number of years, it's the psalms that say that 70 years are the life of a king,

Hezekiah is a king, but he is not getting the full 70 years that he's supposed to get. He is being cut off short here as God has afflicted him with a sickness that is headed towards death.

You may be familiar with the riddle of the sphinx. What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and then three in the evening?

Right? The answer is a man. A man crawls on four legs in his early days, in his noon he walks upright on two, and in the later days he uses a cane.

All right? So this is the noontide of man's days where he is being taken away. Then he says in verse 12, at the end of verse 12, from day to night you bring me to an end.

I calm myself until morning, like a lion he breaks all my bones. From day to night you bring me to an end.

It may appear that he's speaking of continual affliction, and that may be part of the case, but given some parallel passages, especially one in Job, it seems that he's talking about his life being cut short from day all the way up until night, night being the finality of it, cutting short.

From day to night he is being brought to an end. And so, all these statements about times are things talking about cutting his life short.

And then he talks about places. He says, I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years.

What is Sheol? Sheol is hell, scribing, judgment, and wrath.

Many people look at Sheol throughout the Old Testament, and they conclude because so many righteous people, including

Hezekiah, speak of going to Sheol, that it's talking about the common grave of mankind. I'm somewhat sympathetic with that view, but I believe that it more accurately should simply be regarded as hell.

When you see it translated into the New Testament, it's referred to as Hades, and every time

Hades is mentioned, it's very clearly hell. It's not common grave of mankind. And moreover, whenever you look at any of these passages, even if it is a saint, even if it's

Jacob, even if it's Hezekiah, when they speak this way, they're speaking of being underneath the judgment of God.

They are talking about headed towards judgment. This is the case here when he talks about being consigned to the gates of Sheol.

He is not merely talking about some amoral death. He is talking about being under the hand of God's judgment.

He has sinned against God in trusting enemy nations, and now he is facing death for his sins, and he is consigned to the gates of Sheol.

And the New Testament talks about the gates of Hades will not overcome the kingdom of heaven. Gates of Hades, gates of Sheol, it's referring to the same thing.

There's a particular irony here when he says this because what is the role of the king?

The role of the king is to sit in the gate and make judgments, and yet he will ironically continue in the gate.

It will just not be the gate of Jerusalem, it will be in the gates of Sheol. Now he speaks next to the land of the living.

If Sheol is the world below, the place of judgment, the land of the living is the place above.

He speaks of this realm where man lives, and then he also speaks of his dwelling that he's plucked up and removed.

It's like a shepherd's tent. This is an image that is used in the

New Testament also, in 2 Corinthians, the tent, the body being a tent. When he's talking about his dwelling, he's primarily talking about his body.

My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me. His palace will continue. The dwelling that is plucked up is his own body.

It is like a shepherd's tent. Shepherd has to travel from pasture to pasture, from one place to another. No other tents.

They're a little more stationary. They stay up, especially in that ancient world where some tents are meant to last a little longer.

You know, our tent out here is one that has...it's not one that you...it's not like a camping tent that you set up for a little while and then take down quickly, but a shepherd's tent would be.

Shepherd's tent is one that does not last for very long in a particular place, so his life is like a shepherd's tent.

It was up for a little while and then down very quickly. You know, also like a tent, it looks like something small...or

it looks like something large and then it collapses into nothing, basically. This is his life.

He speaks also of his speech and demeanor. He says, "'I calmed myself until morning, like a lion he breaks on my bones.

From day to night, you bring me to an end.'" And calming himself, he speaks of trust of God, and yet in the morning, he says, like a swallow or a crane, "'I chirp,

I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward, O Lord, I am oppressed, be my pledge of safety.'"

Speaks of calling out to the Lord, his eyes weary with looking upward, meaning that he despairs.

You know, if you're looking upward, you're looking to God, and your eyes grow weary, they fail, they stop looking upward.

You know, he is...he is calling out to God, but he is losing the strength to even do that, to even call out to God.

All these things together showing the picture of Hezekiah's pathetic condition, his pitiful state.

So, there's a number of things to take away from this passage. The life is temporary, it's temporary, it does not last forever.

This is obvious. But not only is it temporary, it is short, it is very short.

Now what is it short compared to? You have to compare it to something. Obviously, it's short to eternity.

It's very short compared to eternity. I cannot even describe how much longer eternity is in the shortness of our life.

But if you look at lives of the early people who lived in the Bible, living 600, 900 years, if you think of these things as being more...if

life were to be something temporary, if it were to be something that does not last forever, then what is the kind of natural length of it?

If we were to try to find some natural length that we could compare our 70 years to, would we not look to these early men who lived and lived 600, 900 years?

And what do we get? A tenth of that. Hardly anything at all. Life is short. It is very short.

You know, there's nothing in the Bible that commands this particular view, but I am fairly convinced that the

Neanderthal skeletons, you know, the things called Neanderthals that we dig up, where the forehead is very receded, etc.,

are simply very old men. What happens as you grow older and older? Your forehead recedes more and more, you know, you start looking like that.

If you were to live 600, 900 years old, that's what you would look like. Okay, so there we have skeletons of people who have lived that old.

This is what a fuller life would look like, and yet we get a very, very short one. And you only realize how short it is later in your life.

You know, when you're a one -year -old, a year of your life is a whole lifetime. To live another year is a whole lifetime.

When you're a ten -year -old, think, okay, that's 10 % of a lifetime. That's a really long time. When you're 50 years old, you know, years, starting to get much less at that point, right?

If you manage to make it to 100 years old, it's only a tiny percent of your life, right?

And so you only begin realizing how short life is as you get older and older, and each year seems like it's a successively smaller and smaller piece of your life.

It's going faster and faster. And so the truth that needs to be appreciated early in life, many times people only appreciate it far later in life, that life is short, and that shortness is supposed to point you to a need for one who is eternal.

And so, all of this put together shows that man, apart from some external salvation, is hopeless.

These conditions are things that the Bible describes as not just being the case for someone who is being cut off in the middle of his years, like Hezekiah, cut off from the loom as though, you know, fabric that's coming off the loom and then suddenly rolled up and turned into nothing.

This is something that applies to everyone. Job 7, 1 says, "'Has not man a hard service on the earth?

And are not his days like the days of a hired hand?' Just a short little contract, not very long at all.

Psalm 102, 25 says, "'Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away.

But you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure. Their offspring shall be established before you.'"

They will all roll up. So it's not just mankind. It's all of creation. All of creation has a short lifespan, not even just the life of a man.

And so, there is no hope apart from some external salvation. Hezekiah speaks as a pitiful, hopeless man apart from the

Lord. And interestingly, what is the nature of his affliction?

The nature of his affliction is not something that has come from the outside that is not the

Lord. It is actually the Lord Himself. The only hope he has is the same One who is afflicting him.

In verse 13 it says, "'Like a lion, he breaks all my bones from day to night.

You bring me to an end.'" God is the one who is bringing him to an end. It is because of God that there is, his bones are broken.

Psalm 38 .3 says, "'There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin.'"

This is because of man's sin that his bones are weak, that he breaks them, that he becomes sick, that he falls ill, that he dies.

All these things are penalties for sin that come not from some other place, but they come from the

Lord. Not only that, but the Lord has committed Himself toward the sin.

Verse 15 says, "'What shall I say? For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it.'"

God's speech, God's actions, they are both committed toward the death of man. What can man do in return?

What hope is there to fight off God who is against him, who is as strong as a lion breaking his bones?

There's nothing that can be done. And he responds at the end here, "'O

Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit. O restore me to health and make me live.'"

By what things do men live? It's the words and action of God.

He had said in the previous verse, "'For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it.'" God's speech,

God's actions, those very things that are killing Him are the very same things that make man alive.

And so He turns to the One whose words and speech are killing Him to give Him life. Matthew 4 .4,

quoting Deuteronomy 8 .3, says, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

It is through the word of the Lord that man has life. And God has brought death into the world in order to teach us this truth.'"

In Psalm 102, the answer to man's shortness of life is

God's eternality. We just sang one of my, one of my favorite hymns.

I say that, I guess, I mean I have a lot of favorite hymns if this is one of my favorite, but, you know, in the top, in the top percentile,

I really like that hymn, Great God, How Infinite Thou Art. Speaking of God's eternality, the answer to man's temporality is

God's eternality. Psalm 102, which we just read the end of, speaks of that.

It says, "'For my days pass away like smoke and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered.

I forget to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning, my bones cling to my flesh. I'm like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places.

I lie awake. I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.'" A lot of similar imagery to what

Hezekiah was saying, right? He sounds like a dove, sparrow, etc. "'All the day my enemies taunt me.

Those who deride me use my name for a curse, for I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink.

Because of your indignation and anger, for you've taken me up and thrown me down. My days are like an evening shadow.

I wither away like the grass.'" He's temporary. His life is short. Verse 12, "'But you,

O Lord, are enthroned forever. You are remembered throughout all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion.

It is the time to favor her. The appointed time has come.'" The answer to man's temporality is

God's eternity. God, in order to show us our need for His eternality, has made us temporary, has afflicted us with death.

And so what is the answer to all this? The answer is salvation by His Word. It is the resurrection.

A lot of the things in here are using the kind of Old Testament language that speaks of the resurrection.

It says, "'I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living. I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world,' describing his state of hopelessness.

And yet, what is the hope?' In Job 19 .26, "'And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh

I will see God.'" He will see God. He will see man in the land of the living. He will not just see

God dwelling with him. He will also see man.

There is a fellowship that is to be enjoyed in the resurrection. So remember, in Isaiah 38, it said, "'I shall not see the

Lord, the Lord in the land of the living. I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.' And yet, the promises were given in the resurrection is that we will see the

Lord in the land of the living. We will see other men in the land of the living." 1 John 3 .2

says, "'Beloved, we are God's children. He now appears. We shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.

And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.'" Through Jesus Christ, through the resurrection, man is brought to life, able to dwell in the land of the living to see

God, to see other men. How to see God? To see Jesus Christ, the one who is resurrected before us all.

And so he asked for God to be his pledge. He says, "'O Lord, I am oppressed. Be my pledge of safety.

Be the one who is Himself payment for us in order that we will dwell secure.'"

Jesus Christ is that payment. We have the seal of the Holy Spirit, that pledge of safety in order that we would be resurrected, live.

If you are one who is trusted in God, you have that pledge of safety. And so through all this, through the resurrection, through the cross,

Jesus Christ is defeated death. What is the danger here? The danger here of bones being broken, of being destroyed, like a lion,

God attacking. How can you defend yourself if God is attacking you like a lion? Breaking your bones?

Well, the answer is, if you trust in God and He is a lion, then it is the enemy whose bones are broken.

Have you ever considered what is the significance of the fact that Jesus Christ, His bones were not broken when

He was on the cross, right? This is the affliction of being under the wrath of God in a final way that is hopeless.

But Christ, though He's under the wrath of God, because He can withstand that, will be raised to new life because of His perfection.

His bones are not broken. He is able to survive and live, being resurrected from the dead, in a way that we are able to enjoy this with Him.

And He, being that strong lion, breaks the bones of the enemies. In Numbers 24, 8, describing the salvation of God, it says,

God brings Him out of Egypt and is for Him like the horns of the wild ox. He shall eat up the nations,

His adversaries, and shall break their bones in pieces and pierce them through with His arrows.

He breaks their bones in pieces. And then what happens when Daniel is thrown in the lion's den for all his bones to be crushed by the lions?

He's let out and all his enemies are thrown in to be crushed by the lions. This is what happened when the lion is on your side.

When the lion is against you, your bones will be broken, but because He has defeated death, because He has withstood it,

His bones not being broken, He goes and, as a lion, breaks the bones of the enemy.

And so what are the takeaways for us? We must remember that life is short.

It says in Ecclesiastes 3, 11, that God has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

We have, that verse, I think, speaks to several truths, but one of them is just that we tend to think of ourselves as always existing.

We don't really think of our beginning as a beginning. We kind of feel like we've always been around. You don't remember a time when you didn't exist, right?

I don't remember when I didn't exist. And the idea that you will someday end feels very foreign.

And because of that, that means there is a weakness to forget the fact that death is ahead. And so we should remember how short life is, and that should point us to the eternality of God as the answer.

And then with all that, of course, we should trust in the Lord. We should trust in the Lord who has defeated death. We should trust in Him who has given us

His Spirit, that pledge of safety, in order that we would be secure forever. Do not be oblivious to the fact that death is awaiting every man.

Do not be oblivious to the fact that man needs an answer for these things, but trust in the Lord. You may think that as a

Christian, you already have these truths down, but the reality is even many Christians live their lives as though they will live for much longer than they do.

They think very little about the end. They do very little long -term planning. And then they find themselves at the end of their years, and what are they doing?

Oftentimes they're regretting their misspent youth. They're regretting their misspent middle years, and they're regretting that they have not thought much about preparing for the end, because they have not, as they ought, have been stealing themselves in the eternality of God, securing themselves by contemplating

His greatness. And many people, sadly, even those who identify as Christians, and perhaps some who have even been born again, end up facing death in somewhat shameful ways, avoiding the truth, preferring not to speak of it to others, whereas we should go boldly, having been saved by an eternal

God, being able to say with Psalm 102, Zion's time has come,

Zion's time has come. If the

Lord has given you illness and death in order to teach you of His eternality and you refuse to be educated, do not be surprised when you end up in summer school, okay?

Do not be surprised if you end up being taught more and more lessons by Him if you refuse to learn.

But if you learn from Him, it is a rich and great blessing that will allow you to appreciate life and to look forward to the life to come, amen.

Please turn to hymn number—excuse me, I'll go ahead and pray for us first. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank

You for Your kindness, we thank You for Your great eternality, and we ask that You would help us to rightly contemplate our own fragility, our own short lives, and that we would be secure in the eternal life that You have provided through Your Son in the pledge of Your Spirit, in Jesus' name, amen.