Holy Hezekiah Blues, by DianaDee Osborne

HOLY HEZEKIAH BLUES

ALBUM:      Amazing Word 'n' Worship
Song location:   http://dianadeeosbornesongs.com/2009---2011-Song-List.php 
Song Story:  THE  MUSIC -- JAZZ  SHUFFLE TIMING.  In my list of  25 music-related prayers I wrote at the ALIVE  Music Festival in 2006 and then prayed daily almost at the gym, and often at the altar, for years --- Item 20 was asking God to give me Jazz song ideas for worship.  God did!  (It's surely not MY creativity to think up a jazz song that shows God at work in ancient history!)  Dedicated to our God of the Ages, 27 January 2011.  Re-dedicated with joy upon completion, 23 Aug 2011.

LYRICS

1
Hezekiah became king of Judah in the South.
Second Chronicles 29  tells us how
this young king refused to leave God   for Assyria.
Led his people to decide to
depend only on LORD God.
Only did what GOD called “Right.”
Opened temples, destroyed idols.
Repaired bad things Ahaz did. Re-
fused to be like his daddy.
       Holy Hezekiah loved God with all his might!
2
Only 25  when evil   Daddy Ahaz died.
727   B.C.    was Hez's time.
Hezekiah listened to God    through Isaiah's words.
Made people tear down high places
where they'd  worshiped false idols.
Second Chronicles 29 tells how Hez led people to God.
Invited the Israel men to  come back to Jerusalem.
Holy Hezekiah loved God with all his might!
CHORUS
    WOULD YOU   TAKE A STAND  FOR GOD?
    Worship Him no matter what the consequences were?
    God is HOLY.  God calls YOU to be holy like Him --
        First Peter 1: 15   tells you to.
3
Hezekiah stood up against    leaders  in the church.  Told them,  “You  SHALL  clean your acts and SANCTIFY yourselves.”
Warned that if they did not consecrate themselves to The LORD,
Holy God would turn His back to them -- and they would surely die.
All the people worshiped God!
BOWED THEIR HEADS AND SANG TO GOD.
Gladly brought gifts to  LORD GOD,
because their Leader  TAUGHT  them why:
           Holy Hezekiah loved God with all his might!
Spoken:     GOD'S WORD CONTINUES through the end of  Second Chronicles 31:  
          “Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah, and he did what [was] good and right and TRUE  before the LORD his God. And in EVERY work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandment, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart. So he prospered.”
            BUT -- As the years passed, HEZEKIAH began to drift in his determination from  age 25  to be seek to follow the Lord in holiness and doing God's Word.  

Hezekiah BEGAN TO TURN TO FOREIGN KINGS for alliances, 

TRUSTING  HUMAN [wisdom and calls for]   DIPLOMACY,   

RATHER THAN trusting in  GOD. 

Spoken:     Fourteen years later,  the king of Assyria, named Sennacherib, had conquered all the fortified cities of Hezekiah's kingdom of Judah.  Then, in Isaiah 36, God's word says that the Assyrian king sent a diplomat WITH a great ARMY  to Hezekiah's people at Jerusalem to preach at them to  stop  believing Hezekiah's  faith   that the   Lord would again save them. 

    WHY DO YOU  CARE   ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED 

27 CENTURIES AGO? .... 

Because  [NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU LOVE GOD,]  

 this  WILL  happen to you   if you do not DETERMINE to stay on your guard.  

(Ephesians 6: 10 to end protection) People, and sometimes Satan The Liar (John 8:44, Jesus's description), 
will tell you to question our great Lord God's ability or willingness to save you, or to question 

God's very existence.
    Like the Assyrian king, they may ask, “Has any god really saved anyone?”   When this happens (WHEN - not “if”, because it WILL happen),  look back to all that God has already done for you.  Keep a list of prayer answers to prepare for the questioning times ahead that will come.  Just as Hezekiah looked back and remembered all the times the Lord had saved him when Hezekiah chose to follow God's Word in holiness rather than human concepts of self-centeredness and self-reliance that ignores God's loving desire to help you.
    The end of this story is really cool.  It's in Isaiah 36: 21:  After God's enemy has preached and preached that Hezekiah is wrong to trust God,  Hezekiah's people,  the tribe of Judah, “held their peace and answered him  [the Assyrian King]  not a word; for the king's  [Hezekiah's]  commandment was, 'Do not answer him.'” 
    And Hezekiah's nation tribe of Judah was, with the tribe of Benjamin, one of the only two out of Israel's twelve tribes who showed their  TRUST  in Lord God. 

REFERENCES:    above

©2011 DianaDee Osborne (all material), all rights reserved.  FREE personal usage; see website