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Preached on 12-12-99

THE BRINGING BACK OF THE SHADOW

A Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"And this is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken: 'Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.' So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down." (Isa. 38:7-8)

WHY DID THE LORD TAKE so long to come? Why, after people had fallen into evil, did it take the Lord so many years -- hundreds, indeed thousands of years -- to be born on this earth? Why did the Lord delay His coming?

It is an important question. We know, of course, that the Lord desires, more than anything else, the salvation of the human race. Yet at times it might appear as if the Lord is reluctant -- reluctant to come and help people.

It is the same with us, for we too, in another way, look forward to the coming of the Lord. As the men of old waited and waited for the birth of the Messiah, so too do we wait and look forward to the time when the Lord will enter our minds. We all want the Lord to be with us. We want Him to fill our minds with His peace and with His love. Yet so often the Lord seems far away. So often our minds are possessed by evil and selfish thoughts and feelings. We focus on our own welfare, and on worldly concerns, and we forget -- yes, forget -- about the Lord. When, we ask ourselves, will the Lord come to us and disperse those evil spirits which so often surround us? Why does He delay?

Part of the answer to this question may be found by considering the story of two kings of Judah, each of whom received a prophecy of the Lord's advent. One of these prophecies is very well known. The other is seldom quoted.

The first king we would talk about is King Ahaz, who reigned over Judah from 732 to 716 B.C. It was he who was told by the Lord: "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isa. 7:14). The prophecy was a beautiful one -- and a clear and obvious prediction of the Lord's birth. But King Ahaz himself was evil. He worshipped idols and turned from the worship of the Lord. Indeed, so perverse was his worship, that Ahaz even sacrificed one of his own sons (2 Ki. 16:2-4).

The second king we would consider stands in sharp contrast to Ahaz. King Hezekiah was one of Ahaz's children, and inherited the throne of Judah from his father. Unlike his father, though, Hezekiah proved to be the best of all the kings of Judah. He had the idols cut down, and he turned to the Lord. We read in the Second Book of Kings that, "He trusted in the LORD God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him" (2 Ki. 18:5). Hezekiah also received a prophecy concerning the Lord's coming, but it was not a clear one. He was told by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah that the shadow of the sun would go back ten steps on the steps of Ahaz. This is also a prophecy of the Lord's coming, though this is by no means obvious from the literal sense.

Now, we might ask, why was it that a clear prophecy of the Lord's advent was given to a very evil king, whereas an obscure prophecy was given to a very good king? The answer is, surprisingly enough, that the clear prophecy was given precisely because Ahaz was evil, and the obscure prophecy was given to Hezekiah precisely because he was so good.

The Writings make it plain that one of the things that had to happen before the Lord's coming was that evil had to reach its height. People had to become so evil, and the church had to decline so far, that there was virtually no genuine good remaining on this earth.

And so we read in the Writings that if Ahaz had been followed by equally evil kings, the church would have quickly come to an end with the Jews (AE 706:16). Therefore it was that the evil of Ahaz brought the Lord's coming closer, and there was therefore a clear prediction of the advent. But then Ahaz was followed by a very good king, and the fact that Hezekiah was good delayed the rise of evil, and thus delayed the advent of the Lord.

This indeed is the meaning of the prophecy to Hezekiah. Hezekiah did not realize this -- he understood it quite differently. He had been sick, and had been told by Isaiah that he would die. At this news he wept bitterly, and asked the Lord to remember that he had been a good man. The Lord heard Hezekiah's prayer, and sent Isaiah to him. Isaiah told them to place some figs on the boil that Hezekiah had (Isa. 38:21). Isaiah told Hezekiah that he would live another fifteen years. In addition, he and his kingdom would be protected from the Assyrians. As a sign of this, the sun was to return ten steps on the steps of Ahaz. It was a miraculous sign -- to see the sun go backwards. We need not suppose that the sun actually did go backwards, or that the earth changed its rotation momentarily, but rather that it appeared to do so. And so Hezekiah saw the sun going back . . . he saw a shadow move ten steps backwards on the steps of Ahaz -- on the steps that his father had had rebuilt.

On the surface, this sign of a shadow of the sun retreating meant only that Judah would be protected from Assyria, and that Hezekiah himself would live another fifteen years. But who was Hezekiah? He was the king and therefore the representative of the Jewish nation, with whom the Lord's church was established. It was this church which was sick. And Hezekiah's critical illness was a representative of this sickness. He was very sick indeed. He had a fatal infection from a boil. Yet because Hezekiah was good, he had encouraged the worship of the Lord amongst his people, and the state of the church had improved. And so, it was not only Hezekiah that recovered. The church also recovered. And it was not only Hezekiah's life that was prolonged: so too was the life of the church. The end of the church amongst the Jews, and the subsequent coming of the Lord, was therefore delayed.

What had healed the church was no real increase in spiritual good. The Jews of that time did not really understand the Lord any more, nor did they really love Him any more. They did, however, return to the prescribed worship of Jehovah and carry out, in a natural way, the commandments that had been given through Moses. This was natural good, a good represented by the figs which were to be placed on Hezekiah's boil. With this natural good came a healing of the church, and with it, a delay in the Lord's advent.

We need not conclude from this that the Lord changed His mind. The Lord's advent was imminent. Yet it could not occur until evil had risen beyond bounds. With the evil reign of King Ahaz, His coming became a matter of urgency. And in response to the evil of Ahaz, the Lord gave a clear and unmistakable prophecy of the Advent -- a prophecy which comforted those who longed for good, and who despaired at the evil ways of the king. With the reign of good King Hezekiah, though, the Lord could then remind those in good -- and especially the angels -- that He did not have to come immediately -- that His coming was not as close as might have appeared during the reign of Ahaz. Changes in prophecy did not reflect a change in the Lord -- but rather a change amongst men and angels, for whom these prophecies were given (Cf. Coro. 59:2).

We would, however, return to that very important question as to why there was a need for prophecy at all. Why could not the Lord simply come, instead of comforting those in good with promises of His coming? Why did the Lord delay until evil had reached its height? Why did the Lord appear reluctant to come?

The Lord, of course, was not really reluctant. The reason He did not come before the proper time was that it would have done no good. The Lord came to show Himself to people so that they, or at least those who were good, might receive Him as the only source of salvation. He came so that people might see that only in Him could they receive what was truly good. Yet this was something people would not have been able to see while the Jewish church still maintained a outward semblance of order. People would have looked around them and wondered why they needed the Lord to teach them, when so many people around them already appeared to be good on the surface. They would have seen no need for a Christian Church while the Jewish Church continued to function in a orderly way.

Hezekiah helped heal the Jewish Church. He had people return to the external worship of the Lord. And while people remained externally faithful to that worship, the Lord could not yet come. While they lived well on the plane of the natural, while they were in natural good, the Advent was delayed.

Now it is the same with us. We may often wonder why it is that the path of regeneration seems so difficult and so long. We may wonder why it takes a lifetime for us to come to a state in which the Lord can draw close to us. Part of the answer lies, of course, in the fact that we tend to disobey the Lord. We do things that are wrong, things that are evil. Obviously the Lord cannot be very close to us while we stubbornly persist in doing what is wrong. But even if we obey the commandments, even if we try our utmost to live a life of good, we must still wait for the Lord. There is something else which delays His coming into our lives. It is the same thing as that which delayed His coming into the world.

What prevents His coming is our own natural good. The very fact that on the surface we appear to live good lives is something which can prevent us from receiving the Lord. Natural good, as we have seen, is represented by figs. Figs are sweet. As we look at our lives -- at the way we live -- we can view ourselves sweetly -- with a certain fondness and satisfaction at the way we are. This is natural good. Natural good, at least in one sense, is the good that people do naturally. It is the good we do in order to appear good before others on the natural plane. It is the good we do and take credit for.

We all have this good. We do good things -- things that benefit other people. Now we must of course benefit others. The problems arise, though, when we then feel good, not because we have served the Lord, but because we think that we, by ourselves, are basically good people. This is sweet. It is sweet to think of ourselves as basically good -- good all by ourselves.

Yet can we not see that this very attitude delays the Lord's coming? The Lord comes to us as our Savior. His name is Jesus -- Jesus which means, "Jehovah is salvation." He cannot come to us if we do not feel that we need His salvation. If we feel that we are good people -- good all by ourselves -- we do not feel that we need a Savior. We do not feel that we have anything to be saved from.

It takes many, many years for the Lord to gently guide us to see for ourselves that our natural good by itself means nothing. To appear good before others does not make us good within. Indeed, we are not good within -- not without the Lord. This is something we must come to see. We must come to see this from the bottom of our hearts.

King Ahaz was a wicked king. And the truth -- the truth we must come to acknowledge -- is this: King Ahaz is us. King Ahaz is a representation of what we are all like inside before we turn to the Lord. Once we believe this, then the Lord's coming is imminent. Then He will no longer delay. He will be born into our hearts as He was born into the world so very long ago. As the Lord Himself promised the wicked King Ahaz: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel."

It might seem too beautiful a prophecy to have been given to such an evil king. But within this lies hidden the very secret of the coming of the Lord. The Lord comes to us when we need Him. He comes to us when we see that we need Him. When we reach outward, reach upwards, for salvation, then it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, our God and our Savior, can be born within our hearts. "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev 22:20)

Amen.

Lessons: Isa. 7:10-16; Isa. 38:1-8; AE 706:16