PRAYING FOR OURSELVES

As we have been talking, prayer is FAR more than bringing our needs and requests to God, but that is where we often start. The Model Prayer gave us a different approach. When we use the Model Prayer, the prayer is essentially half over before a single personal request is made. We need to focus on God. We need to seek His honor. We need to concentrate on His Lordship and Will. After doing these things, we are in the best mind-set to present our daily needs to Him. Then we can take our needs and requests to God daily and trust Him to answer. However, as humans, we may forget to do this daily. So, we need ask God to remind us to turn to Him first. The Holy Spirit is there to give us that reminder. We are then ready to ask God to supply our needs.

Read Mathew 6:11b and Isaiah 38:1-3

When we pray “Give us today the food we need”, we are acknowledging that God is our sustainer and provider. It is a misconception to think we provide for our needs ourselves. We must trust God daily to provide what He knows we need.

We need to note the order of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. The first three petitions have to do with God and with the glory of God; the second three petitions have to do with our needs and our necessities. That is to say, God is first given his supreme place, and then, and only then, we turn to ourselves and our needs and desires. It is only when God is given his proper place that all other things fall into their proper places. Prayer must never be an attempt to bend the will of God to our desires; prayer ought always to be an attempt to submit our wills to the will of God.

The second part of the prayer, the part which deals with our needs and our necessities, is a marvelously wrought unity. It deals with the three essential needs of man, and the three spheres of time within which man moves. First, it asks for bread, for that which is necessary for the maintenance of life, and thereby brings the needs of the present to the throne of God. Second, it asks for forgiveness and thereby brings the past into the presence of God. Third, it asks for help in temptation and thereby commits all the future into the hands of God. In these three brief petitions, we are taught to lay the present, the past, and the future before the footstool of the grace of God.

Turning to Isaiah, the narrative shifts its center of interest from national welfare to the personal health of the king. It shows us how ancient Israel understood one part of the prophetic office and how it understood the prayer relationship between people and God. Here is the first time that Isaiah faced Hezekiah personally. The prophet had a stern prognosis: death. Hezekiah found the proper prescription: prayer. The content of the prayer is interesting. As so often in the Psalms (Ps. 7; 17; 26; 59), a confession of innocence appears. Hezekiah had always done God’s Will and attempted to serve God without fail. So, he did not think he deserved the fate received, He went straight to God with his complaint. Hezekiah did not have a self-righteous attitude.

In those days – That is, his sickness commenced about the period in which the army of Sennacherib was destroyed. It has been made a question whether the sickness of Hezekiah was before or after the invasion of Sennacherib. The most natural interpretation certainly is, that it occurred after that invasion, and probably at no distant period. The only objection to this view is the statement in Isaiah 38:6, that God would deliver him out of the hand of the king of Assyria, which has been understood by many as implying that he was then threatened with the invasion.

  Was sick – What was the exact nature of this sickness is not certainly known. In Isaiah 38:21 it is said that it was a boil, and probably it was a pestilential boil. The pestilence or plague is attended with an eruption or boil.  The pestilence was, and is still, rapid in its progress. It terminates the life of those who are affected with it almost immediately, and at the furthest within three or four days. Hence, we see one ground of the alarm of Hezekiah. Another cause of his anxiety was, that he had at this time no children, and consequently he had reason to apprehend that his kingdom would be thrown into contention by conflicting struggles for the crown.

Unto death – Ready to die; with a sickness which in the ordinary course would terminate his life.

Set thine house in order – Give command to thy house, that is, to thy family. If you have any directions to give in regard to the succession to the crown, or in regard to domestic and private arrangements, let it be done soon. Hezekiah was yet in middle life. He came to the throne when he was twenty-five years old 2 Kings 18:2, and he had now reigned about fourteen years. It seems that he had as yet made no arrangements in regard to the succession, and as this was very important to the peace of the nation, Isaiah was sent to him to tell the necessity of leaving the affairs of his kingdom so that there should not be anarchy when he should die. The direction, also, may be understood in a more general sense as denoting that he was to make whatever arrangements might be necessary as preparatory to his death.

Notice how Hezekiah responded to the bad news. He turned to God, prayed and then wept bitterly. He didn’t ask Isaiah to plead with God for him. Neither did he explode in uncontrollable anger out of a sense that God had mistreated him with an injustice. Instead, he went to God in prayer. Previous experience had taught him the value of spending earnest time with the Lord when he faced a crisis (37:14-38).

Read Isaiah 38:4-6

The parallel account in 2 Kings 20:4 reveals that Isaiah left Hezekiah and was on the way to departing from the palace, being as far as the middle court, when the Word of God came to Isaiah again, instructing him to reveal that the Lord had heard his prayers and was extending his life by some fifteen years. “So swiftly does God answer the prayer of faith!” From this we may conclude that God approves of our prayers for health, for life and for strength.

The Lord God of David thy father – is mentioned here, probably, because Hezekiah had a strong resemblance to him 2 Kings 18:3, and because a long and happy reign had been granted to David; and also because the promise had been made to David that there should not fail a man to sit on his throne (see the note at Isaiah 37:35). As Hezekiah resembled David, God promised that his reign should be lengthened out; and as he perhaps was then without a son and successor, God promised him a longer life, with the prospect that he might have an heir who should succeed him on the throne.

Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life – This is perhaps the only instance in which any man has been told exactly how long he would live. Why God specified the time cannot now be known. It was, however, a full answer to the prayer of Hezekiah, and the promise is a full demonstration that God is the hearer of prayer, and that he can answer it at once. We learn here, that it is right for a friend of God to pray for life.  However, when we study Hezekiah’s prayer closely, we observe that he didn’t ask the Lord to heal him. Who can tell but that God often  spares useful lives when worn down with toil, and when the frame is apparently sinking to the grave, in answer to prayer? He may not indeed work miracles as he did in the case of Hezekiah, but he may direct remedies which had not before occurred; or he may himself give a sudden and unlooked-for turn to the disease and restore the sufferer again to health.

And I will rescue you and this city – The purport of this promise is, that he and the city should be finally and entirely delivered from all danger of invasion from the Assyrians. It might be apprehended that Sennacherib would collect a large army, and return; or that his successor would prosecute the war which he had commenced. But the assurance here is given to Hezekiah that he had nothing more to fear from the Assyrians (see the notes at Isaiah 31:4-5; Isaiah 37:35). In the parallel place in 2 Kings 20:6, it is added. ‹I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David‘s sake.‘ In the parallel passage also, in 2 Kings 20:7-8, there is inserted the statement which occurs in Isaiah at the end of the chapter Isaiah 38:21-22. It is evident that those two verses more appropriately come in here.

Read Isaiah 38:15-17

What shall I say? In a way of praise and thankfulness, for the mercies promised and received; I know not what to say; I want words to express the gratitude of my heart for the kindness bestowed. What shall I render to God for all his benefits? He has both spoken to me, and himself has done it; the Lord had sent him a message by the prophet, and assured him that he should recover, and on the third day go up to the temple; and now he had performed what he had promised, he was restored, and was come to the house of God with his thank offering; whatever the Lord says, he does; what he promises, he brings to pass. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. Before he did not reckon of a day to live, now he speaks of his years, having fifteen added to his days, during which time he should “go softly”, in a thoughtful “meditating” frame of mind^F18; frequently calling to remembrance, and revolving in his mind, his bitter affliction, and recovery out of it, acknowledging the goodness and kindness of God unto him: or leisurely; step by step, without fear of any enemies, dangers, or death, having a promise of such a length of time to live: or go pleasantly and cheerfully, after the bitterness of my soul, as it may be rendered; that is, after it is over, or because of deliverance from it.

O Lord, by such things men live – The design of this and the following verses is evidently to set forth the goodness of God, and to celebrate his praise for what he had done. The phrase “these things” refers evidently to the promises of God and their fulfillment; and the idea is, that people are sustained in the land of the living only by such gracious interpositions as he had experienced. It was not because people had any power of preserving their own lives, but because God interposed in time of trouble, and restored to health when there was no human prospect that they could recover.

Behold, for my own well-being I had great bitterness. Meaning not that instead of peace and prosperity, which he expected would ensue upon the destruction of Sennacherib’s army, came a bitter affliction upon him; for he is not now dwelling on that melancholy subject; but rather the sense is, that he now enjoyed great peace and happiness, though he had been in great bitterness; for the words may be rendered, “behold, I am in peace, I had great bitterness”; or thus, “behold my great bitterness is unto peace”: or, “he has turned it into peace”; it has issued in it, and this is my present comfortable situation: “but”, or rather, and thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: the grave, where bodies rot and corrupt, and are quite abolished, as the word signifies; see Psalm 30:3 or “thou hast embraced my soul from the pit of corruption^F23“; it seems to be an allusion to a tender parent, seeing his child sinking in a pit, runs with open arms to him, and embraces him, and takes him out.

For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back; as loathsome and abominable, and so as not to be seen by him; for though God sees all the sins of his people with His eye of omniscience, and in His providence takes notice of them, and chastises for them, yet not with his eye of avenging justice; because Christ has taken them on Himself, and made satisfaction for them, and an end of them; they are removed from them as far as the east is from the west, and no more to be seen upon them; nor will they be any more set before his face, or in the light of his countenance; but as they are out of sight they will be out of mind, never more remembered, but forgotten; as what is cast behind the back is seen and remembered no more. The phrase is expressive of the full forgiveness of sins, even of all sins; see Psalm 85:2, the object of God’s love is the souls of his people; the instance of it is the delivery of them from the pit of corruption; the evidence of it is the pardon of their sins.

A New Testament connection with Hezekiah’s poem can be made with Romans 8:28-29. In that passage, Paul urged believers to trust the Lord to be at work in us so we can grow toward maturity in Him. He intends to shape us through our experiences in life so we can be more like Christ. Therefore, we live in the assurance that God answers us when we pray. He also strengthens and benefits us in ways we had not anticipated, especially when “Praying for Ourselves”.

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