Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Free Grace Media

Of Princeton, New Jersey

 

AuthorClay Curtis
TitleThe Adding of Days
Bible TextIsaiah 38:5
Synopsis How does God give eternal life? Listen.
Date13-Mar-2011
Series Isaiah 2008
Article Type Sermon Notes
PDF Format pdf
Word Format doc
Audio HI-FI Listen: The Adding of Days (32 kbps)
Audio CD Quality Listen: The Adding of Days (128 kbps)
Length 36 min.
 

Title: Adding of Days

Text: Isaiah 38: 5

Date: March 12, 2011

Place: SGBC, New Jersey

 

Would you like to have days added to your life?  What if you knew today was your last one?  Most everyone wants to live a long life.  

 

In our text, the Lord gives Hezekiah 15 more years to live in this earth.  But those 15 years and the way Hezekiah had those 15 years added to his life is an illustration to us of how God gives eternal life.

 

Isaiah 38: 5: Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.

 

I. CONSIDER HEZEKIAH—v5: Go, and say to Hezekiah

 

Hezekiah was a dying man in need of mercy (Isaiah 38: 1) This is true of everyone in this room right now. If you are not in Christ by faith—you are spiritually dead, sick unto death right now.  If you are in Christ by faith—sin is still in your body and very soon our flesh will return to the dust in death.  The reason sinners do not take this as seriously as Hezekiah, is because we do not think it will be today.

 

Ecclesiastes 8: 11: Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

 

II. CONSIDER THE WORD OF THE LORD--v5:…Thus saith the LORD

 

Are you at all interested in what the LORD has to say? 

This is the LORD you will face? 

 

Naaman said, “I thought.”  Men and women hear the gospel, read what is preached in God’s word, see it in black and white right there on the page, then say, “I don’t agree with that.”  When Isaiah came back into Hezekiah’s room and said, “Thus saith the Lord”—do you think Hezekiah was hanging on every word with his mouth shut?

 

A sinner will fight against the word of the LORD until the day the LORD says invincibly to you: “thou shalt die, and not live.” Spiritually, when he reveals what a horrendous, dead, dying sinner you are before him. Then the sinner will stop spouting off at the mouth and start begging God to save!  Then your only desire will be to hear what the LORD has to say…

 

III. CONSIDER THE LORD?---v5:…the God of David thy father (let’s spend some time here)

 

David was indeed Hezekiah’s father.  But David is a picture of Christ.  Christ is the last Adam, the everlasting Father of all his children. As the Second Person in the Trinity, Jesus Christ is God—but as Mediator—Prophet, Priest and King—Christ said, “…go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” John 20: 17.  As David was the man after God’s own heart, so God is well-pleased with Christ for his Righteousness sake. 

 

The active fulfillment of the Mosaic law is “love.”  True faith works by love. By faith and love Christ fulfilled the law and satisfied divine justice, purging his children of all our sin. 

 

Faith of Christ---

When Christ willingly submitted himself to the LORD to be made sin for his people—he did so knowing the judgment of God would follow, knowing separation from God would follow, knowing that the wages of sin are death and that he would die and be buried in a grave. But he did so trusting God to raise him again. David’s words are Christ’s words of faith serving as the righteous servant of God:

 

Psalm 16: 9: I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. 10: For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

 

Peter gives us the commentary on Psalm 16 in:

 

Acts 2: 25: For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: 26  Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: 27  Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 28  Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. 29  Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. 30  Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; 31  He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

 

Do you see the faith of Christ—trusting the word of the Father?

 

Love of Christ

Christ endured the cross out of love for his God--to declare the God and Father he loved just and the justifier and out of unfeigned love for those given him of the Father to save his people from their sins.

 

His suffering and death was the fulfillment of the penalty of the law for his people.

For justice to be satisfied and God to be just--every sinner he saves must suffer exactly what every enemy will suffer—death (the wages of sin is death) and hell (separation from God is hell). When Christ cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me—he suffered the hell of separation from God in place of al he represented (What a mystery!)  When Christ died, he paid the wages of sin for his people.  Jusitice is satisfied, sin is purged—it is finished!

 

We started this point showing how that God is well-pleased with David who stands a picture of Christ—Christ fulfilled the law in precept and penalty.  He declared that God is worthy to put all our trust in and he did all out of love—and in doing so he fulfilled the law and purged his people of all sin.

 

Php 2: 9: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him; and given him a name which is above every name: 10  That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11  And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 

And if God saves you or me, it will only be for the sake of Christ Jesus, typified here by the LORD saving Hezekiah and Jerusalem for David’s sake.  The LORD is saying in our text, “Hezekiah, because I am the God of David thy father and because you are David’s son (Isaiah 37: 35; 38: 6.)

 

What do we say to these things?—Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be consumed.  Did Hezekiah do that?

 

IV. CONSIDER REPENTANCE AND FAITH

This is the order of salvation ordered by the Father and carried out by Christ the Head of the Church through the Spirit of God.

 

1. God sent Isaiah (as a prophet he is a picture of Christ the Prophet, we see him speaking to the heart of his child by the Holy Spirit through his earthen vessel, Isaiah, as Isaish delivers “thus saith the LORD”.

 

2. The word first strips us--Thou shalt die and not live

 

3. Then he left Hezekiah to mull it all over—I have cut off my days and now the LORD has cut me off forever

 

Illustration: Remember Bethel?  The Lord wrestled Jacob down, broke his bones, pinned him—then the Lord removed from him—and that is when Jacob cried out for mercy—then Jacob prevailed with the Lord—that is what we see happening with Hezekiah—the LORD delivered his word then removed from him until Hezekiah cried out, “V14: O LORD, undertake for me”—repentance and faith

 

4. Then came the word of grace.  God sent Isaiah, picture of Christ speaking through the Holy Spirit through his earthen vessels (Isaiah 38: 5.)  Prayer represents faith—O LORD undertake for me; Tears represent repentance—Hezekiah turned from self—he was crying over all the works of righteousness he was in the middle of—but he forsook them for God, willing to die for God rather than those works he was doing—O LORD undertake for me

 

Galatians 5: 6: “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”

 

When God works grace in our hearts—the believer is born of the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of Christ is imparted into us so that we are partakers with the divine nature (we love what he loves and hate what he hates.) By this work he turns us from self, from our works of righteousness, to faith in Christ in whom we have established the whole law of God perfectly   Now the constraint of Christ’s love for us moves us to do all in faith which works by love for God and our brethren.

 

The believer is as free from the law as a dead man and as alive unto God as Christ is now.  Even as those saints already in glory with him.  Do you think the law of God is in glory?  What need is there for law in a place where all are eternally, unchangeably one with God in Christ.  Believer, you have not come to Mt. Sinai, but to Mt. Zion.

 

V. CONSIDER ETERNAL LIFE—Isaiah 38: 5, 6:…behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years…7: And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken; 8  Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

 

God made time.

God made the atmosphere of grace, where grace would be carried out to manifest his glory.  So God turned the sun back ten degrees declaring God is eternal and no way bound by time.  These 15 years which were added is an illustration of God giving eternal life to those he brings to cast all their care on Christ.


Isaiah 53: 10: Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

 

“He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.” (Ps 21:4 AV)

 

“His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” (Ps 89:29 AV)

Do you behold your sin?  Are you sick unto death?  May you find yourself this day crying out, O Lord, undertake for me!  He promises to do so for all who trust in him.

 

Amen!