Hezekiah seems most concerned for himself. When he is told that he will soon die his
prayers are fervent to the Lord and the Lord heard and added fifteen years to
his life. He is concerned about the
veracity and dependability of the word so asks for and receives a sign, the sun
went backwards in the sky that day. The Babylonians
are replacing the Assyrians as the power of the region at that time and the king
of Babylon sends emissaries to Hezekiah, perhaps he has heard the story of why
the strange solar activity occurred. Hezekiah shows them his riches not the God
who had caused the sun to retreat. Of what
is he most proud? He had an opportunity
to share the most important thing he had with these emissaries and he chose to
show them his wealth. Ultimately, this
is his downfall but, like Ahab, the punishment will fall on his children. He is nonplussed about this situation, it
won't directly affect him, he will be dead and gone. He did many good things but there were
certainly chinks in the armor.
Jesus raises a widow's son from the dead, just like Elijah
and Elisha had done in their time. Here,
however, there is no connection between Jesus and the widow whereas in the
other two cases the prophets were relationally connected prior to the death of
the son. Jesus takes pity on the widow
and stops to command the young man to rise and restores him to his mother. The people were, according to Luke, seized
with fear and understood that this could only mean two things, a great prophet
had arisen and that in this the Lord was visiting His people. Jesus shows us how to turn our lives inside
out, concerning ourselves with others rather than self. He always paid attention to what was going on
around Him, was never so self-concerned that He missed an opportunity to reach
out to others.
I am not sure Herod could have done much more to ensure
Peter didn't escape. He was chained,
sleeping between two soldiers, behind a locked door, and sentries were posted outside
the door. It's no wonder that Peter
thought he was dreaming, it was too impossible to be reality. No one was immediately willing to believe it
was true. His friend James had been
killed by Herod and now it seemed probable that the same fate would befall
Peter. Why did the Lord allow James to
be murdered but rescue Peter? It wasn't
the right time for Peter to die. He would
ultimately die a martyrs death like James but the time wasn't yet. The prayer of the disciples here was answered
so miraculously that no one actually believed it could be done, just like the
widow of Nain and just like the sun with Hezekiah. What we do with answered prayer and the signs
that provides makes all the difference. They are meant to increase both our
faith and our boldness. He has proven
Himself to us, now go and tell.
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