We have often wondered why a godly person may sometimes not live to old age. Most of us desire and pray to live up to a very ripe age, which is fine and reasonable. Even so, it is good to realise that the entire gamut of a long life are essentially just a few years.
It is therefore not about how many days we have here on earth but what uses we put them to. A believer who walks in the spirit knows when his or her time is up, when their work is done.
The Book of 2 Kings, chapters 20 and 21 offer us some useful insight into this issue. God sends the prophet Isaiah to tell Hezekiah the king of Judah that he should put his house and affairs in order because his time was up.
Now Hezekiah did not consider himself an old man and he still had a lot of things laid up he was yet to do. He had goals set up and a residue of ambitions yet to be accomplished. He pleads with the Lord to give him more time. I find it impressive that even though a notable figure in God’s kingdom had been sent to him, he turns to talk to the Lord by himself. He had a standing relationship with God.
Isaiah has hardly gone beyond the ground of the palace when God sends him back. God gives him an additional 15 years to live.
Many would jubilate at this kind of news. Hezekiah’s prayer had been answered. Now the bitterness of death was removed. What happened to Hezekiah in the remainder of his life presents a number of lessons however.
The first being that those additional years completely reversed his great legacy and standing before God. It was during those added years that two things happened that rewrote his story. He produced a son named Manasseh in the third year. Manasseh became king after his father at the age of 12 and he did evils which surpassed even those committed by Jeroboam the son of Nebat! Human sacrifices on the altar of Molech were the order of the day. Of course Molech, Baal and every imaginable idol of the nations were honoured with altars of their own within the very temple of Solomon on the orders of Manasseh.
Moreover, after Hezekiah’s recovery, the king of Babylon sent his emissaries to congratulate him. This made him excessively joyful and he gave the ambassadors a guided tour of his house and the temple of God. This was a very costly mistake. God sent to inform him that the people he led through his home would eventually return to strip all his treasures bare!
I must mention here how risky it is to make peace with those God is not at peace with. Misguided godliness, or some general good naturedness, desires to be at peace with everyone at all times. This is gross error in the light of the scriptures. Men fall to their own thoughts when they do not know the Lord in His word. Even Paul who admonished Christians to “follow peace with all men”, placed a caveat there.
King Ahab was similarly told he would pay with his life when he mended fences with Benhadad, the king of Syria. Someone God had “appointed to destruction”.
A longer life is desirable, but things are best left to God. What counts is to end the race as praise-worthy. To live, such that, we can live again, according to the singing Gospel duo, MaryMary.