ness of life, and he rededicated himself of God. This is the effect which every great sorrow and struggle has upon a noble soul. They bring back into time a sense of eternity. Note “Sorrow’s subjects, they are our Hezekiah; wrestlers with death, our veterans; and to the rabble hordes of society they set the step of a nobler life. Read Ch. 39 21 Reverend Lawrence L. Blankenship
reveals, Hezekiah did not remain true to his psalm of deliverance. There is always the danger that those who have come conquerors out of the struggle with death may fall a prey to common life. How awful to have fought for character with death only to squander it upon life. Then follows the difference that Jesus Christ has made to our meeting with death. Hezekiah had no sure faith in life beyond the grave. To him to die was to leave all his friends, even God himself. “I said I shall not see the Lord…in the land of the living; I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world … They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth” verse 11; 18. Remember death for Hezekiah was postponed for fifteen years, but at the end of that respire lay the certainty of going out into darkness, and death would have the last word. He might face it with heroic resignation, but a faith that is good for this life alone, and not equal to the challenge of death, fails the soul at the crucial point. The author is point out more information concerned this subject. The subject deals with longtime sickness and death. It is the glory of the Christian faith that it holds for all time and eternity. Jesus Christ has taken the measure of sin and death, and is therefore able to save unto the uttermost. Because of his victory and his love we are persuaded that not even death “shall be able to separate us from the love of God” Romans 8:38-39. That faith has transfigured life for untold multitudes who have faced death clear-eyed and unafraid because of their trust in their Jesus Christ and Savior. This is the secret of the peaceful hearts, the unfaltering spirit of those who were persuaded that Christ was able to keep that which they committed unto him against the day of death. The account of Hezekiah’s mortal sickness is told with great vividness and detail in II Kings 20:1-11, a passage which stands as an illustration of the superb narrative power of Hebrew genius. Our chapter, however, is enriched by the inclusion of Hezekiah’s prayer of thanksgiving on his recovery. There is here a wealth of material for the interpreter. We are confronted throughout with the solemn question, “What is a man or woman’s hope as he or she faces death?” Considering that no one can escape, it is the more strange that men and women so generally refuse to face that last sure fact. They are reluctant to think about it, much less talk about it. Yet probably the final revelation of man or woman’s character, his or her courage, his or her faith, is the way in which he or she meets it. Why should we be so unwilling to entertain the idea of dying, when it is the one experience common to the race? We need not become morbidly concerned about it. Morbidity is al-