A good start to a new year. (Preached in Tavistock FPC) Many kings and political leaders make good starts to their regimes. However, few fulfill the promises made at the outset of their rule. Hezekiah was an exception to that rule. He was an exceptional man. "He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him," 2 Kings 18:5. Much of what he became was down to his mother's influence. For that reason she was named in verse 1. Her name means "Jehovah is may father." I believe she trained her son up in the way he should go and he did not depart from it. As Hezekiah waited for the hour of his enthronement, how he must have grieved over the state of Judah! Christian, does the state of the Kingdom of God today trouble and grieve you? If it does, Hezekiah sets before us how we can do something about that matter.