“The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.” (Isaiah 39:8, NIV)
Not everything about Scotland is golf. Or whisky. Or friendly people. There are the castles.
Atop a hill above Cruden Bay—and here let me interject some golf: as a guy who has often experienced Monterey Peninsula’s golf wonders, I can tell you that the course at Cruden Bay is as spectacular as they come—sits Slains Castle. Well, what sits there are its remains. Built in the 16th Century, it is today a wreck of stones.
Walking around Slains, you can still make out towers and turrets and walls. You can look out the windows and view the morning sun glinting off the North Sea. But the people you find there will be just like you: curiosity hunters. No nobles, no prominent guests, no staff. The life has gone out of the place.
But in Slains Castle, there is a living reminder for us. If we are in Christ, we are those who have been given abundant life as one of his great gifts to us. In summary, let’s be careful never to let this life fall into disrepair. The damage can extend to generations, as it so often did to those who showcased their own position and wealth in the castles of old.
Such a careless royal was Hezekiah, king of Judah, whose life stories are told in three separate books of Scripture: 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Isaiah.
A circumspect man would have held back in revealing the whole of his treasures, but Hezekiah’s pride arose and he showed off every last goodie.Hezekiah was honorable in many ways, serving the Lord faithfully for much of his life. When that life was to be cut short, Hezekiah pleaded with God and was given another 15 years. But Hezekiah was also a prideful man. He repented of this sin, but also fell back into it at one critical time late in his life.
The king of Babylon sent envoys to investigate Hezekiah’s wealth, which was reputed as great across the far plains of the Mesopotamian region. News reached Babylon, a rising power looking to consume yet more wealth for itself. Would Hezekiah have something the king of Babylon wanted?
A circumspect man would have held back in revealing the whole of his treasures, but Hezekiah’s pride arose and he showed off every last goodie. The envoys were impressed; their king would be, too.
When Isaiah, the prophet of God, learned what Hezekiah had done, he issued a grave warning to his king: “The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
Hezekiah’s response was a tribute to selfishness: at least, he reasoned to himself, it won’t happen to me.
Oh friends, let us be so careful with the treasures King Jesus has given to us. Let us prize and protect his grace and our salvation. Let us live righteously to the end of our days. May our children’s and grandchildren’s faith be a legacy held fast.
—
Jeff Hopper
August 21, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
Photo by the author