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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Hezekiah received
the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of
the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord:
“Lord Almighty, the God of Israel,
enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the
earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear; open Your
eyes, Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule
the living God.”
“It is true, Lord, that the
Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have
thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but
only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, Lord our God, deliver us
from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You, Lord,
are the only God.”
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a
message to Hezekiah:
“This is what the Lord, the God of
Israel, says: Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of
Assyria, this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:
“Virgin Daughter Zion despises and
mocks you. Daughter Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have
ridiculed and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted
your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!”
“By your messengers you have ridiculed the Lord. And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its junipers. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’”
“Have you not heard? Long ago I
ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone. Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.”
that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone. Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.”
“But I know where you are and when
you come and go and how you rage against Me. Because you rage against Me and
because your insolence has reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and
My bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came.”
“This will be the sign for you,
Hezekiah: ‘This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year
what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and
eat their fruit. Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah will take root
below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out
of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will
accomplish this.’”
“Therefore this is what the Lord
says concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an
arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp
against it. By the way that he came he will return; he will not enter this
city,” declares the Lord. “I will defend this city and save it, for My sake and
for the sake of David My servant!”
Then the angel of the Lord went out
and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When
the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So
Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and
stayed there.
One day, while he was worshiping in
the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with
the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son
succeeded him as king.
Isaiah 37:14-38
This ends this
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The threat was clear, present, and
highly dangerous.
A large Assyrian army led by a
field commander had been dispatched by the Assyrian King, Sennacherib, to lay
siege to the holy city of Jerusalem. They had arrived and were perched on the
doorstep of King Hezekiah and the city’s inhabitants, the field loudly commander
communicating threats as he yelled toward the city. His threats were laced with
encouragement for the people to surrender and blasphemy unto God, trying to
convince the Israelite people that God was really on his side and not theirs,
trying to steal away any hope they had of the deliverance that Hezekiah had
told them would come.
It was a scary time of uncertainty.
Of this, there is little questioning. But as see in our devotion today and in
the three to follow in this four part series, we serve a God who is in the
deliverance business, for He is truly our very present help in times of trouble
(Psalm 46:1).
Look at this prayer of Hezekiah as
he and the Israelites in Jerusalem looked down the barrel of peril and
perishing:
“Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You
alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and
earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to all
the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.”
“It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these
peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and
destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by
human hands. Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the
kingdoms of the earth may know that You, Lord, are the only God.” vv. 16-20
Note here three main steps used by
Hezekiah as he sought deliverance for himself and his people in the midst of
their dilemma, steps we should use as well when we face difficulties of our
own:
Step 1: Acknowledge God for who He
is.
“Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You
alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and
earth.”
Hezekiah didn’t dive right into his
problem. He was not the object of attention here. Instead, he placed his focus
on the only One who could rescue and save him and his people, the Lord God
Almighty of Israel. The points of emphasis here are telling.
You alone are God.
You alone are over all the kingdoms of the earth.
You have made heaven and earth.
There is no one else who had the
power to liberate Jerusalem from the Assyrian threat except God. No one.
As we face times of difficulty, we
need to remember this. No one else has the power to free us from our troubles,
to grant us the guidance and direction we need to see our way through, to give us
safety and shelter from hard when we need it most. No one can do this but God
and so He needs to always be the object of our attention and every prayer we
speak should begin with Him being the focal point. He deserves nothing short of
our fullest respect and admiration.
2. Petition God to consider your
situation.
“Give ear, Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to all
the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.”
Yes, God knows what we are going
through before we even ask but that doesn’t mean we refrain from bringing our
needs to Him when we have them. The scriptures clearly urge us to do so (Matthew
7:7-8, Philippians 4:6-7).
Hezekiah asks the Lord to hear his
prayer and the concerns of his people, to see the situation they are in, and to
listen to the blasphemy that Sennacherib spoke, literally lying to the
Jerusalem Israelites by convincing them that God was actually on their side and
not on the side of Jerusalem and its people.
When we are going through tough
times, we should reach out to the God we acknowledge as omnipotent, omniscient,
and omnipresent, the God through which nothing is impossible. We should detail
our circumstances and do so with the confident assurance that they are not too
big for God, even when they are too big for us or anyone else. God is greater
and has worked greater miracles than helping us through our hardships. We need
to always keep that in the back of our minds.
3. Seek God’s deliverance.
“Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms
of the earth may know that You, Lord, are the only God.”
Note here that when Hezekiah is
asking for deliverance, he isn’t doing so for his life’s sake or the sake of
the people he led. No, he was asking God to deliver Jerusalem from the Assyrian
threat so He might glorified and honored, that all the nations would know that
there was only one God on earth and that was the God who created it, the Lord
God Almighty. And that's just what happened. Jerusalem was spared and the Assyrians, including their king, received God's judgment.
Again, the object of attention here
is God, even when we are looking for our own salvation. We look to be saved for
His glory, not our own. We ask for His rescue so He might be the One who
receives all the honor and praise. His delivering us and setting us free from
our tribulation is all the reward we need.
Friends, thanks be to God that He
is our Strong Tower (Psalm 61:3), our Protector and Refuge (Psalm 91), and our Rock
and Redeemer (Psalm 19:14). He and He alone is Lord and our deliverer in times
of trouble.
Tomorrow, we’ll see how He delivers
us from sin.
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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