We have seen that Hezekiah was a man distinguished by his trust in God. We have seen how his trust in God led him to act in times of peace. His trust in God led to personal religion, to practical effort, and to prosperity in life. We see here how he acted when troubles came. Depend upon it, the man who makes his peace with God when all is going well with him - he will have peace within his spirit when the time of trouble comes. The man who does not allow the flowing tide of worldly prosperity or worldly pleasure to draw him away from God, he will find that God is near to him in the hour of danger and of need. It was certainly an hour of danger and anxiety with Hezekiah. With a vast army, Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, was threatening Jerusalem. The very name of Assyria was at that time a terror to the nations, just as for a long time the name of Napoleon was a terror to Europe. One by one, nation after nation had gone down before the triumphal progress of the Assyrian arms. Sennacherib, conscious of his past successes, conscious of the mighty host that accompanies him, looks down with contempt upon Hezekiah and his attempt at resistance. He sends him a letter, in which he points out how futile his efforts at resistance must prove. The gods of the other nations had not been able to deliver them, and let him not think that his God whom he served would deliver him. This letter and Hezekiah's action regarding it suggest to us some instructive lessons.

I. SENNACHERIB'S LETTER, AND THE TEMPTATION IT BROUGHT. (Vers. 9-13.) The drift of Sennacherib's letter was entirely to lead Hezekiah to distrust God. Sennacherib was confident of victory; but he wanted Hezekiah to surrender to him, so that he might obtain as much tribute as he could, and at the same time incur no loss of life in his own army. So he turns into ridicule Hezekiah's faith in his God. "Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the King of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed? Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hens, and Ivah?" In a similar way Rabshakeh, one of Sennacherib's generals, had already spoken to the people of Jerusalem. He had sought to influence their fears. He had sought to tempt them by bribes. He had said, "Let not Hezekiah deceive you... neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the King of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come ye out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern: until I come and take you away into a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and. vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The Lord will deliver us." It is easy to imagine the effect of such statements upon a people few in number compared with the Assyrian's mighty host. The horrors of a protracted siege were in prospect. The longer they continued their resistance, the more desolation and devastation would be committed by the Assyrian army in their fields and homesteads. Many of them doubtless were already murmuring at Hezekiah, and some of them perhaps ready to make an agreement with the enemy. It was a trying position for Hezekiah. Both the letter of Sennacherib, and the circumstances in which he was placed, were a strong temptation to him to distrust God. He might have said, "Is this the reward which my service of God has brought me? I have been faithful to God's commands. I have restored the temple; I have restored the service of God. I have thrown down the altars and high places, and broken the images in pieces. Even the brazen serpent, which the people valued so highly as a relic of the past, I have ground to powder, because their idolatry of it was dishonoring to God. And now is it thus that God rewards me?" This is just the temptation that our difficulties and troubles constantly bring to us. They tempt us to distrust God.

1. It is so in the growth of our own spiritual life. How often the young beginner in the Christian life is discouraged by the difficulties which arise, and which he did not calculate on! He finds that there is still an old nature within him which has to be grappled with and conquered. He meets, perhaps, with opposition and discouragements from the world without, and perhaps even from those from whom he expected sympathy and help. These difficulties tempt many a one to distrust God. Many there are still who, like the disciples when difficulties arose, "go back, and walk no more with" God. One of the common difficulties which tempts us to distrust God is the prosperity of the wicked. Everything seems to prosper with men who have no respect for the Law of God. The temptation is for us, in distrust of God's promises, to imitate their godless practices. We begin to say, "There is no use in our being too scrupulous." Ah! what a mistake that is! Supposing we had all their prosperity, would it compensate us for the loss of a quiet conscience? Prosperity is dearly bought, business is dearly bought, for which we have to sacrifice one commandment of God, or silence the still small voice of conscience that speaks within. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Whenever this difficulty of the prosperity of godless men troubles you, and success which seems to be reached by questionable and unscrupulous means, remember the grand words of the thirty-seventh psalm, "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Commit thy way unto the Lord: trust also in him; and he will bring it to pass."

2. In the same way there are difficulties in Christian work. How common a thing it is for Christians, who make much profession of their faith in God, to be dismayed and discouraged by difficulties that arise! Very often they are hindered from engaging in Christian work at all just by the difficulties that exist. I do not mean to say every person will suit every kind of work. There may be many kinds of work in which a man should not engage, because he has no fitness for them. But every Christian ought to be engaged in some work. If you are doing nothing for the Master, may we ask you why? What is your reason? What difficulty is in your way? No difficulty an excuse for idleness. You may think yourself too young, or too inexperienced, or too humble; you may find others hard to work with; you may meet with discouragement and opposition; but no one of these things is any excuse for idleness. If difficulties were a reason for doing nothing, no Christian work would ever have been done - no churches built, no missionaries sent forth, no schools erected - for there never was a Christian work yet that had not its difficulties. Let us learn to take as our motto in Christian work, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Each one of you, no doubt, has his or her own difficulties to contend with - difficulties in your daily employment, difficulties from those you come in contact with, troubles and anxieties of spirit, cares and worries of various kinds. My message to you is this. Be not unduly cast down by your difficulties. Don't make too much of them. Just do with them as Hezekiah did, and you will see how soon they will disappear altogether, or at any rate they will be very considerably diminished.

II. HEZEKIAH'S PRAYER. (Vers. 14-19.) Hezekiah had learned by experience. As he grew older he became wiser. A short time before, when Sennacherib was capturing his cities, and had advanced upon Jerusalem, Hezekiah sent a message to him, saying, "I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear" Sennacherib appointed him the exorbitant tribute of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. Hezekiah was in great straits for means to meet this demand. In his difficulty he imitated the foolish action of his own father Ahaz, and took the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, besides cutting off the gold from the doors and pillars of the temple, and then sent this as a peace offering to Sennacherib. But notwithstanding all this, Sennacherib did not give up his warlike intentions. He once more threatened Jerusalem. This time Hezekiah acts differently. He had learned now the mistake of rashly yielding to difficulties. It is a lesson we all need to learn. If we yield to our difficulties, they will return again, and with renewed force. One difficulty yielded to makes the next one harder to resist. One difficulty resisted makes the next one far easier to overcome.

1. Hezekiah's first act, after he had read Sennacherib's letter, was to go up into the house of the Lord. There he showed his wisdom. If we want advice in sickness, advice as to our bodily health, we go to the house of our physician. If we want to purchase food or clothing, we go where these necessaries of life are to be obtained. Hezekiah was now in a difficulty where human help could be of little or no use to him. So he goes to the one place where alone he might expect help - to the house of the Lord. The very act of going to the house of the Lord is a wise one. It reminds us that there is another world than that which is seen - the world of spirits, the world of the invisible. It reminds us that there is One in whose hand every human life is, One to whom in all ages human hearts have turned, in every time of sorrow, of difficulty, and of helplessness, and One whose power and whose goodness men have acknowledged by raising temples for his honor and for their own and others' good. Every true Christian must testify what a blessing the house of the Lord has been to him. How should we have fared without its precious privileges? How often have we felt, when the Sunday morning came round, and we joined in the song of praise, and approached the mercy-seat in company with other anxious, sinful, troubled, human hearts like our own; as we listened to the words of everlasting life; as we heard of him who is the "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," as we heard him saying to us, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" - how often have we felt that the difficulties of the week vanished; the burdens of the week were lightened; the cloud of sorrow that hung over us seemed suddenly to lift; we went forth again with new hope in our hearts, and with new strength in our lives; and upon our lips, perhaps, were such words as these -

"Goodness and mercy all my life
Shall surely follow me,
And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling-place shall be!" Hezekiah, then, did a wise thing in going to the place where blessing was to be found. But he did more than that.

2. He spread the letter before the Lord. What a faith in God's presence that showed! - a real presence, indeed, not of body, but of that ever~ present Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being! What a confidence it showed in God's interest in the affairs of all his people! What a lesson it is for us all! The best thing we can do with our difficulties is to spread them out before God. Perhaps when we begin to spread them out before him, some of them will seem hardly worth talking about hardly worth spreading, and the very act of doing so will bring us relief. But whatever it may be that gives us trouble, even though it be a small matter - something unkind that has been said about us, an unpleasant letter that we have received, an unexpected loss in business, let us spread it out before God. Your Sunday morning, before you go into God's house, would be well spent in thinking over the mercies you have to thank God for, the sins you have to confess, and the difficulties which trouble you, and then you would go into God's house asking just for what you need. I know a servant of God who told me that he always made it a rule to be in his place in church at least five minutes before the service began. That gave him Tame, he said, to calm his mind, and to look into his own heart. The good seed then fell on prepared ground, and he said that whenever he did not do so,-he did not get at all so much benefit from the service.

"What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry.
Everything to God in prayer!

Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!" Hezekiah's confidence in God had two results.

(1) It encouraged others. He gathered the captains of war together in the street, and said to them, "Be strong and courageous, he not afraid nor dismayed for the King of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles" (2 Chronicles 32:7, 8). And so great was the confidence which the words of the king inspired, that we are told that all the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah King of Judah. What a power the quiet influence of one believing man can exercise! What a power it gives us to live near to God!

(2) Their confidence was not misplaced. God's people never trust in him in vain. Hezekiah's prayer was answered. That very night the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men.

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever were still!

"And the widows of Asshur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!" Let us learn from this lesson that there is nothing too hard for God. Let us ask his help and guidance in every undertaking and event of life. Let us abide in his presence continually. Let us cling closer to the Rock of Ages. And then, come weal or come woe, come sickness or come health, come adversity or come success, we shall always be resigned to our Father's will, and shall possess within our hearts the peace which passeth all understanding. - C.H.I.

Why are we told of this fact? Holy Scripture, as a general rule, passes over the lives and deaths and exploits of the mere great men of the world in a most cursory way. Only one incident, for example, is mentioned in the life of Herod the Great. Nothing is told us of the Roman Emperor, Augustus, except his office and name; and not so much even as that of his successor, Tiberius. Why then have we related to us so particularly the death of this king, taking place, as it did, so far to one side of the usual path of God's word? The answer will be found by a reference to the past. If we consider,

I. THE CHARACTER OF HIS LIFE. Two things had distinguished it towards man — excessive violence and much pride. You have seen pictures from those Assyrian palaces brought to light again of late years. A favourite subject in most is the victorious king, commanding his captives to be slain, or himself blinding them perhaps with his spear. These pictures, we may be quite certain, are only too correct. What the artist portrayed with such vigour had frequently been in his sight. That almost brutal bodily strength, those stiff and barbarous adornments, those merciless and unrelenting features, were observable, in that ferocious dynasty, to the life. And this Sennacherib, perhaps, of all these sovereigns, was the most successful, and so, the worst.

II. THE CHARACTER OF SENNACHERIB'S DEATH.

1. We have seen the nature of his challenge. We have now to notice the reply. God replied, first, to his pride. Who can stand, the king had said, before me? God answered him, not in battle, not by spoken rebuke, but, as it was prophesied, by a "blast."

2. God replied, next, to his violence and bloodshed. "With what measure ye mete," etc. (Matthew 7:2; see also Judges 1:7; 1 Samuel 15:13; Matthew 26:52). The same kind of rule seems to have been observed in this case. After the king had returned to his own kingdom and city, the weapon he had so often employed was employed on himself.

3. Jehovah answered the man's blasphemy and profaneness. The challenge had been delivered, if not within hearing, certainly within sight, of God's house, in the ears and language of the people who sat on the wall. No answer came at the time. God, who sometimes waits to be gracious, often delays to destroy.

(Homilist.).