2 Kings 20:12-18 - Homiletics

The sunshine of prosperity a greater danger than the storms of adversity.

When Sennacherib threatens, when his messengers blaspheme, when the huge battalions of the most powerful kingdom in the world have entered his territory and are about to march upon his capital, the Jewish monarch remains firm; his faith is unshaken; he casts his care upon God, looks to him and him only; believes in him, trusts in him, regards prayer as the only door of safety. Similarly, when disease prostrates him, when a painful and dangerous malady confines him to his bed, and the prophet, instead of bringing him words of comfort, is commissioned to bid him "set his house in order; for he shall die, and not live" ( 2 Kings 20:1 ), his faith fails not, in God is still his refuge, to God alone he betakes himself, and prays and weeps sore ( 2 Kings 20:2 , 2 Kings 20:3 ). The blasts of calamity cannot tear away from him the cloak of faith; he clutches it the tighter the more the storm rages; nothing will induce him to let it go. But the danger past, health restored, the admiration of foreign kings attracted, his car besieged by congratulations and flatteries, his court visited by envoys from "a far country," and at once his grasp relaxes, the thought of God fades from his heart, his faith slips from him, and he is a mere worldling, bent on winning to himself a seat alliance, and obtaining the aid of an "arm of flesh ' against his enemies. And so it is and will ever be with most of us. We can bear the world's frowns, the buffets of fortune, the cruelty of oppressors, the open attacks of rivals and enemies; we can resist them, defy them, and still maintain our integrity; but let the world smile, let fortune favor us, let riches increase, let friends spring up on all sides, and how few of us can stand the sunshine! How few of us can remain as close to God as we were before! How few of us but drop the habits of prayer, of communing with God, of constant reliance upon him, which were familiar to us in the darker time, and substitute a mere occasional and perfunctory acknowledgment of his goodness! Alas, how few! Oh! may our cry, the cry of our heart, ever be, "In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth … good Lord, deliver us!"