Meet me in Second Kings Chapter 19 as we complete this chapter
tonight. By the grace of God, many of us
have been taught that when we are visited by crisis, we should
never hesitate to run to God in prayer.
But I'm not sure. How many of us are equally
equipped to know how we should pray in crisis?
And to our great encouragement, the Holy Spirit provides us
guidance in our text this evening as we look at Hezekiah's
strong example in this area. Yeah, I'm reminded as I've been
studying this this week, of the single incident where the
disciples asked the Lord directly to teach them about
something. It's found in Luke Chapter 11
where they said Lord teach us to pray as John taught his
disciples. There was something about the
way Jesus prayed, how he prayed, when he prayed, that moved his
closest followers to inquire about the mechanics, the motives
of true prayer. And I believe that's what the
Lord has in store for us tonight.
We are going to learn how to pray specifically when we are
visited by devastating news, and it's going to be through
Hezekiah's example in the beginning of this study.
You know, people often ask, how do I seek the Lord effectively,
consistently, confidently? And one way that God has given
us instruction is by giving us models of prayer.
Men and women of God in the Scriptures who have poured out
their hearts before the Lord in different situations in order
for us to be fully furnished in our understanding of what it
means to come before the Lord and his presence to seek his
hand. And right from the beginning, we
are going to consider 4 essential characteristics of
effective prayer when real problems arrive.
These are not the only. Characteristics, but key ones,
and we're going to see them, I'm sure, by just looking at the
first handful of verses in Second Kings 19, beginning in
verse 14. Now some of these points are
going to serve as reminders, while others might introduce new
insights into how we bring our troubles before God.
Let's read together Second Kings 19, verse 14.
Hezekiah received a letter from the hand of the messengers and
read it. And Hezekiah went up to the
House of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.
And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord, the God
of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You
alone of all the kingdoms of the earth.
You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and
hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see
and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent
to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of
Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have
cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the
work of men's hands, wood and stone.
Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us
please from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may
know that you, O Lord, our God, alone so powerful. 4 essential
features of effective prayer in times of turmoil #1 you and I
must acknowledge the majesty. Of God always before Hezekiah
speaks about his problems, he fixes his mind on the
magnificence of his God. Do we not see it here?
I'm afraid that Christians often forget to include this in their
prayerful pursuit of relief right away.
Hezekiah in verse 15 says, O Lord, the God of Israel, and
thrown above the cherim, you are the God.
You alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, You have made heaven
and earth. Listen, when you and I
intentionally confess the attributes of God, that alone
contains the power of placing everything in its proper
perspective. And there even comes moments
where you and I do so, and we are drawn into a time of worship
that helps us forget the very fear of frustration that drove
us to pray in the 1st place. Has that ever happened to you?
But in order for this to be true of us, in order for this to
actually succeed in our attempts, we have to understand
who God is according to His Word.
Your prayers and mine have to be biblically informed, and it is
in God's Word alone, as you know, where we are taught who He
is. And so I want you to look back
at these verses and consider and you can actually answer out loud
of some of the things that Hezekiah says that proves that
his prayer life was instructed by his understanding of
Scripture. What does he say here?
What does he highlight about the Lord?
Anything stand out to you Again, you're welcome to speak out loud
if you're if you're willing, the God of Israel.
That is not unimportant. Anything else.
OK, there you go. Who is seated above the
cherubim? Absolutely anything else he.
Acknowledges that God. You are the God of all the
kingdoms. You made heaven and earth
beautiful, wonderful. Now let's look at these things
one by one. When he says God of Israel,
again, that's not an insignificant thing.
Hezekiah is reminding his own soul that God has a special
covenant with the people of Israel, that the people of
Israel have this pledge granted to them by the living God.
It's an unconditional promise. And one of the most important
things about this specific promise is that God assured this
people that he would preserve the divinic dynasty
unconditionally. And so essentially what Hezekiah
is doing from the beginning is that he is setting before his
mind at the forefront of his intercession, the faithfulness
of God. I am speaking to the God who has
made promises and has never broken one of them.
What a way to prepare your heart to seek the Lord.
What a way to frame your intercession, the God of Israel.
But it doesn't end there. Beyond that.
Now he says of the same God who is seated where above the
cherubim. I know one thing about Hezekiah
based on this, that he studied the book of Exodus because in
Exodus 2522 we read there that God promised Moses that he would
be found seated above the mercy seat between the cherubim.
And from that place he would speak to Moses to give him the
instructions that he was to give to the people of God.
So what is Hezekiah essentially appealing to when he says you
are the God who is seated above the cherubim?
Well, the cherubim are part of the mercy seat.
I believe what this man is doing is reminding himself that he is
coming to the Lord, comforting himself that he is making this
plea on the basis of God's mercy.
That Lord, when you chose to symbolically be enthroned on the
earth, you chose the seat of mercy.
Now I'm coming to you and asking for mercy when you and I come
before God. It is absolutely vital that we
recall his heart, even while we entreat his hand, as important
as it is to yes, think about his power, his omnipotence, his
abilities, Do not disconnect that from his compassion, his
tenderness, his kindness. He's not indifferent to us.
You see, some people when they come to the Lord and ask Him of
anything, they think they have to try to convince God as though
God is reluctant, as though God is there with his arms crossed.
Isn't my Son Jesus enough for you?
Is not the gospel enough for you as much as the gospel
sufficient? We learned there that yes, the
Lord has given us His Son. How much more than is He willing
to give us? And so you have to understand,
I'm coming to the one whose heart is for me.
He is merciful. He's sympathetic.
He invites me to him. I don't have to try to get his
attention by persuading him with my string of sentences.
All I have to do is come to him and trust that his heart, he,
he's a, he's kind to me. And then we.
See something else? Because at the same time he does
speak of God's power. It's not here though, it's in
the parallel account. So we find the same scene not
just in Second Kings, we find in Second Chronicles 32, in Isaiah
37. But look at Isaiah 37 where the
same prayer is recorded. Isaiah 37 verse 15.
Yes, the Lord is majestic, not just in His power, but in His
willingness to move in our lives.
But He does still underline His power.
Isaiah 3715. This is not mentioned in the
text of Second Kings 15 and 16 reads.
And Hezekiah pray to the Lord, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, we
cover that, and thrown above the cherubim, we cover that.
So what does he add here, O Lord of hosts?
What can that be translated as, O Lord of what armies?
Angelic armies? So Hezekiah here is
intentionally bringing to his own mind something that is
relevant to his crisis. Why would he say, oh Lord of
hosts, because he's surrounded by an army?
It makes sense, and this is something for you and I to
consider, that if we want to do our faith any good, we should
know how to address God in a way that makes sense to the thing
that is before us, the object of our worry, the cause of our
frustration. How familiar are you with who
God is and all that He is? Do you need encouragement?
Well, do you know that in Romans 15, five God is called the God
of endurance and encouragement? You and I know about the Holy
Spirit, but you also know that. He's called the Spirit of Wisdom
and Revelation and Ephesians 117 do you need?
Clarity, call upon Him who is the spirit of wisdom and
revelation. And so we have to we have to
equip ourselves if we're going to come boldly and effectively
in the place of prayer, acknowledge the majesty of God.
But you have to be informed about it first.
And Hezekiah is a biblicist. He's not ignorant of the
Scriptures and it fueled his prayer life and a few yours as
well. That's just the first
characteristic. We now come to the second one.
We have to understand that there is an invitation that we must
make. For the wisdom of God.
And while we make that invitation, we should rest.
So here's a way of titling this. Invite and rest in the wisdom of
God. That's what we find here in
verse 16 of Second Kings 19, after describing who God is and
verse 16, he says, incline your ear, O Lord, and hear.
Open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear the words of
Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.
You know what's so beautiful about this invitation?
You don't get the sense that Hezekiah has a clue how God is
going to solve this situation, nor does he presume to give God
step by step ideas of how he should do it.
It's as though he's just coming in absolute simplicity.
Lord, just look at this, please. Lord, just see this.
Please hear this, please. And it doesn't go beyond that.
And here's the wonder of this. That's all that was required for
God to take action. You know, some of us have an
understanding of God as though he is some kind of employer.
You know, there's a lot of bosses that ask of their
employees, hey, if you have a problem, I don't want you to
just approach me with a problem. Come to my desk with what?
A solution. That's how some Christians think
God is like that. If you're going to come to him,
you should put together some plan of action that that you
should come prepared, so to speak, with how this should come
about. Not so.
We're children of the King. You and I have been granted
access to the throne of grace, and we can just come and spread
our needs before Him and call His attention to it and trust
that He will wholeheartedly move on our behalf or give us the
wisdom to know how to proceed. Paul tells us that the Spirit
helps us in our weakness. We just hear that, I think, OK,
yeah, I'm generally weak. No.
What kind of weakness is he Speaking of in that place in
Romans 826? For we do not know how we ought
to pray. We're very weak in prayer, are
we not? But we're guaranteed that the
Spirit is right there with us, translating every word
perfectly, bringing it before God so that nothing is missed.
Then, even if our prayers are reduced to size or repetition
because you don't know how to eloquently present yourself
before the power of God and the might of God and the authority
of God, we are, we are comforted to know that He knows exactly
what you need. My mind went to King David when
he was expelled from his own Kingdom because of Absalom, his
son, that rebel. And while he was enduring a
whirlwind of emotions, he was being reported to with different
updates. And one of the most terrifying
updates was that one of his chief counselors, Ahithophel,
sided with the rebels. And so weak, so dejected.
The only thing that this man could say on his way to safety
was, oh Lord, please turn the Council of Ahithophel into
foolishness. And God took that and he did
much more on behalf of his servant David.
He put a permanent end to a thoughtful so.
So it's a beautiful thing, is it not, that we can come fumbling
and unsure with how we're going to speak about these things.
And God calls us to still invite his wisdom and rest in it.
Rest in it. Thirdly, be honest before God.
1/3 Characteristic of effective prayer and time of crisis.
Be honest before God. Look at verse 17.
Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste to the
nations and their lands. I love that.
Yeah, there's some Christians who have very strange ideas
about what faith looks like. Faith that pleases God.
And to some believers, faith means that you should minimize
the severity of a situation, downplay it, maybe even outright
deny it. There are many ways that we do
this. A common way that I've seen in
my own life is that let's say, for example, that there is a
doctor, doctor's diagnosis or a report, and it's tragic.
You also, you have some believers who will, in their
response to faith, rebuke that. And they will even verbally
rebuke it, never to revisit it in their thoughts, never to
bring it up to anybody else, never to even bring it before
God. And that's not what Hezekiah
does here. He assesses what this problem
entails, how real it is, and he brings it before God in total
honesty. And if there's any instruction
here, it's it's quite obvious, I think, that this dispels any
notion that we shouldn't come before the Lord transparently.
You have every right to do that. Last Wednesday at our prayer
meeting, we were meditating before we started praying on
that famous verse in Hebrews 416.
Let us then with confidence. Approach the throne of grace.
That we may receive grace, or receive mercy and find grace in
times of need. You know what that word
confidence means and some of your translations might say.
Let us come what boldly it actually means in the original
to speak freely, to speak openly, to be frank.
No concealment. Be blunt.
That's not to say that we should speak without reverence, but it
does mean that we can speak honestly.
And so the invitation there is that we can come before the Lord
and express in words. This is what's confusing me.
I am confused. This is what's annoying me.
He's the one who is annoying me. She's the one who's bothering
me. This is what's making me
fearful. I'm terrified.
And what Hebrews tells us in that context is we have a high
priest who sympathizes with us as we do, so does this scoff at
us. It doesn't belittle us, We're
told by the Holy Spirit. Come with that kind of
confidence, Come with that kind of freedom.
Spill your heart out, whatever is in there.
This makes prayer more inviting. You'd be amazed at how many
Christians are intimidated, not just in corporate settings, even
in their own prayer lives. Be honest before God.
But as much as being honest before God about the
discouraging things are important, we should also, at
the same time, if you want to build your faith in prayer, have
the presence of mind to acknowledge other things, the
good in the midst of our pain. Now this doesn't mean that you
try to wishfully think or make up things to try to soothe your
soul, but it does mean that you should widen your your own
perspective and understanding the the the landscape, the total
landscape of what's taking place so that you can be built.
Up as you approach the Lord and believe Him for more.
One of the things in my life when I've been persecuted and
all of us in some way, I'm sure I've been persecuted.
Is as I cry out to God, I remind myself of the support system I
do have of the people in my life that love me and that are with
me and are standing by my side that has done me good.
And the way Hezekiah is doing it here in this situation is what
look at verse 18 and have cast their gods into the fire.
For they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wooden
stone. Yes, sure, Assyria bulldoze over
lands and kingdoms and armies, but those nations didn't serve
real gods. They serve things that were
created by men. So he's getting his facts right.
He's he's realizing I, I serve the true and living God.
You see how he's broadening his understanding.
Be honest before God. Be truthful to yourself.
And part of being truthful to yourself is also looking at the
good, seeing the positive, seeing the blessings, being
thankful. That will charge you up in the
place of faith and prayer and adoration before God.
Lastly, this is an obvious one, I'm sure, but all how we need to
be reminded of it. Seek, seek the glory of God.
Look at verse 19. So now, O Lord our God, save us,
please from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may
know that you, O Lord, our God alone.
This is why David is a man after God's own heart in it, or
Hezekiah in his own respect. He imitates David in this way
because his truest desire in this predicament is that the
Lord's honor would be known. It's not his own reputation.
It's not his own preservation. It's not anything else.
More than anything, it's God. I desire that through this
answer, people would recognize who you truly are and so use
this. Problem as a platform for you to
show up in your power and your grace and your might.
I don't know how that's going to look, but I'm just inviting you
to it. And a passion for the Lord to be
exalted in all things at all times will undoubtedly shape the
way you and I pray. In fact, it's the very motive
and ambition that will compel you to pray.
When you're moved by that, when you live for that, for God to be
known, then you will be driven to that place of inviting God
and seeking God for the sake of God's name.
And that's precisely what this man does.
What's the result? What's the result of Hezekiah's
praying? Look at verse 20.
Then Isaiah the son of Amos sent to Hezekiah saying, thus says
the Lord the God of Israel, your prayer to me about Seneca of
king of Assyria. I have heard.
Now Isaiah records his own words here differently, a little
differently, not in a contradictory way, but in a way
that completes what he says to Hezekiah.
So go to Isaiah 37. This will be worth it.
And look at verse 21 of Isaiah 37.
Then Isaiah the son of Amos sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says
the Lord the God of Israel, because you have prayed to me,
Because you have prayed to me, concerning Seneca of king of
Assyria, implying what if you had not prayed, I wouldn't have
answered. But Hezekiah, because you took
the time to be strategic and intentional of coming to my
house, laying this request before me, I will do something
about it. What's the encouraging thing
about this verse God hears when we pray.
What's the warning if you don't pray?
God might not move, so why not pray when things hinge on our
prayers? I know we can sit across the
table and debate about the sovereignty of God and how that
works with our prayers. And I'm not here to debate
anything. I'm here to take the Word of God
at face value. There are things that will not
happen in my life or yours unless we pray.
Full stop. So instead of spending my energy
trying to understand all the intricacies and all the
mechanics of this, I'm simply going to do what?
Pray, Pray and trust that God will do something because I
prayed. Now I gave you 4 characteristics
of essential effective prayer, but I want to give you a bonus
one. And the bonus 1 is not in Second
Kings 19. It's not in Isaiah 37.
It's in that other book, Second Chronicles 32.
Look at verse 22nd Chronicles 32 while we have Bible study people
cut their grass Second Chronicles 32 verse 20 Then
Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amos prayed
because of this and cried to. Heaven.
You know, when people come to this story in Second Kings, they
are often moved by the imagery of this royal man leaving his
throne, leaving his palace, making his way to the public
sphere of worship, and taking this letter and spreading it
before the presence of God, saying, Lord, you need to do
this. And it is a moving sight.
It's a wonderful picture, but people tend to forget this side
of Hezekiah's praying. What does he do?
He invites the prophet to pray with him.
So don't just limit it to Hezekiah.
I see here this king calling his companion a man of God, saying
let's pray and cry out to God in unison.
What a sight that is. Here you have the king and here
you have the chief prophet of the time lifting up their voices
together for God to come end up moving.
He should be moving, and I believe something similar takes
place in this very sanctuary, week after week on Wednesday
nights. Can I ask you something In the
surprising afflictions of your life, in the seasons of
challenges, have you ever considered calling a friend?
A friend who prays, a friend who fears God, a friend who loves
God and inviting them to the House of God so that you and him
or her can intercede on behalf of a wayward child, a struggling
marriage, financial strain, a dead end situation.
Has that ever occurred to you? Let this be your inspiration.
I'm calling so and so. And we're going to go to the
House of God. We're going to hold hands, we're
going to put our arms around each other and we're going to
seek the Lord together. If this, if this moves me, if
Isaiah and Hezekiah coming together and seeking God moves
me, how much more do you think it moves God?
And that's not just a way for you to come to prayer on
Wednesday. It's never mind Wednesday night
prayer meeting. When's the last time you and I
have considered? To call a friend and saying, you
know, this is what's going on in my family.
This is what's going on in my own heart.
This is what's going on in my own spiritual journey.
Will you commit with me to pray for one week And let's just
bombard heaven and let's acknowledge the majesty of God
and let's invite the wisdom of God.
And let's just be honest before God and let's let's seek God's
glory in this matter together. And let's see what God does.
This is the second time that Hezekiah went to the House of
God when he was visited. By a threat two out of two 100%
of the time. What kind of inspiration was
this for the people of Israel? Remember he went to the House of
the Lord. As much as we need our own
prayer clauses. This man went before others and
they saw wow the king. Prays what a leader showing the
people what they should do when they don't know what to do.
Oh, I pray parents, that you have that same conviction that
your kids when they see that things are going wrong, when
uncle so and so or or Grandpa so and so we get we get together
and pray we seek the Lord. May the Lord give us the grace
to remember this as a reflex. Now the rest of this chapter
contains the detailed response God gave to Hezekiah through the
prophet Isaiah. And the Holy Spirit could have
simply summarized this and said the Lord heard His Servant and
acted on his behalf. But he doesn't do that.
We read here and said that there's a lengthy, specific
answer, and clearly this is important for us.
And more than that, not just because it's it's long here,
it's detail, it's because it's found also in Isaiah 37.
So whatever Isaiah is ready to say, it's repeated.
And it's meant for us to investigate more closely what
the Lord is revealing in it. So here's how we're going to do
this. We're going to comb through
these verses lightly and make brief comments every other verse
perhaps, or in a collection of verses, and see what the Lord
wants to say to us in a specific promise that He gives to the
king. Let's begin here in verse 21.
This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him.
She despises you. She scorns you, the virgin
daughter of Zion. She wags her head behind you,
the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom have you mocked and
reviled? Against whom have you raised
your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights against the Holy
One of Israel? By your messengers you have
mocked the Lord, and you have said, With my many Chariots I've
gone up the heights of the mountains to the far recesses of
Lebanon. I felt its tallest Cedars, its
choices cypresses. I entered its farthest lodging
place, its more most fruitful forest.
I dug wells and drank foreign waters, and I dried up with the
sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.
So with this cluster of verses, I want to make one simple point.
God not only hears very carefully the cries of the
righteous, he also remembers. The Bose, the taunts and the
blasphemies of the wicked. Look back at verse 23 again.
Remember now he's speaking to Hezekiah about what he is saying
regarding Senekreb, the king of Assyria, and about Senekreb he
says in the middle of verse 23. And you?
Have said, and you have said so God is not just aware about the
letter that Senekreb gave to Hezekiah, He's also aware of
what he said prior to. This.
And what's the essence of what Seneca was saying?
That his army was essentially unstoppable.
Look at some of the language again.
I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far
Reese's of Lebanon. I felt its taller Cedars, its
choices Cypress. I entered it.
He's saying that there is nothing and no one that could
stop me earlier. He says my many Chariots have
gone up the heights of mountains.
Chariots don't go up mountains. They can only work with level
ground. But he's saying my Chariots, Oh
no, they can go up any mountain. Oh yeah, there's some natural
borders, some seas and rivers and Niles.
But look what he says in verse 24.
I dried up with the sole of my foot.
All the streams of Egypt, the amount of men that I have when
we crossed creeks and rivers, that kind of impact made those
things dry. And the Lord says I I've heard
all your boasts. All your accolades.
Not only is he aware of the words, look at verse 27.
We didn't read it yet, but just to give you an idea, he says
he's of Seneca. But I know you're sitting down
and you're going out and coming in and you're raging against me
because you have raged against me and your complacency has come
into my ears. I'll put Hook in your nose and
my bit in your mouth and I will turn you back on the way by
which you came. I know where you go.
I know where you come from. I know when you stop.
I know when you accelerate. So essentially what the Lord is
saying is I know everything about you.
Now, for for somebody to have such a detailed understanding of
someone else means that he's very passionate about it.
And what I learned here is that God is passionate about his
dealings with the proud. Remember Job?
We all do. I'm sure by the end of the book,
the Lord appears to Job and challenges him because Job was
questioning the sovereignty of God.
Job was essentially challenging the sovereignty of God.
And so the Lord responds to the challenge and he says, let's see
if we're alike. And it begins to list all these
different things that he does. And from time to time, he says.
Are you aware? Of when this happens.
Can you do this if so, then we we can have this conversation,
but it just one after the other these different abilities of the
Lord presents of himself and there's one thing that I think
people miss about God and his sovereignty.
It's in Job 40 verse 11. God says this man, pour out the
overflowings of your anger and look on everyone who is proud
and obeys him. Look on everyone who is proud
and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand.
And the verse is out there. He says if you can do this, then
you can save yourself. In your knowledge of the
sovereignty of God, have you ever considered God's ability to
humble absolutely everyone who's proud?
That's fascinating to me. We think of creation, we think
of salvation, we think of healing, we think of miracles.
No, no, add this to the category of God's sovereignty.
He's able to humble every arrogant person on the earth,
and if you wanted to, you could do it at the same time.
So we see here that God feels very strongly.
About the proud as much as he is passionate about the prayers of
his people. He's also very fervent about
hearing what men say in defiance of God and uplifting themselves
and dealing with them accordingly.
So here's what I learned looking at this this afternoon.
If God feels this way about pride, how do I protect myself
from it? That's a good question, right?
Are we susceptible to pride as Christians?
If you say no, that's an indication that you're probably
struggling with it, of course. Is there any clue in Second
Kings 19 that can help my heart be shielded against this venom,
this poison called pride? Absolutely.
Look at verse 25 of Second Kings. 19 We didn't read it yet.
After he reveals that he knows what Senekrep said in verse 25,
he says something to Senekrep. Have you not heard that?
I determined it long ago. I planned from days of old, what
now I bring to pass, that you should turn fortified cities
into heaps of ruins, while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the
field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops
blighted before it has grown. What is God saying, Seneca?
Here you are Tooting your own horn, telling yourself and
everybody else how wonderful you are, how how you're the
superpower of a nation, how you take over anything and anyone.
And I'm here to inform you that I am the one who gave you such
success that what you're realizing now has been
foreordained. That in my Providence I have
weakened these other nations. And I've raised you up as the
rod of my anger to chastise these other people groups for
their iniquity. In other words, the reason why
Seneca was so proud was because he believed that it was his
wisdom and his strength and his training and his resources that
brought about his success. And the Lord's here to tell him,
no, it's actually because of my sovereignty.
That's the essence of you and I. That's the antidote against
pride. Constantly being mindful that
every ounce of intelligence. Of creativity, of wisdom.
Any open door, whether small or very wide, is because God
permitted it, because God enabled you.
And when you and I lose sight of that and began to look at
ourselves and praise ourselves and boast in ourselves, you're
treading on dangerous ground. You know what's amazing about
this is that God confronts Senekreb about his sovereignty.
Even though Senekreb was not in a relationship to God, he was
not. He was not in covenant with God.
He was an enemy of. God, and this is not really
spiritual, is it? God's not talking about his
sovereignty over your spiritual gifts and your knowledge of
scripture and your holiness. He's talking about your
innovative abilities, your ability to to think about things
and strategize. Any aspect of life must be
acknowledged as God's goodness in your life.
Any good, any anything, any prosperity, any power has to go
back to Him as the permitter, and only when you live.
Under that revelation, are you protected from exactly what's
going to get Senek Rebbe in trouble?
So he says. I'm here to tell you, because
clearly you didn't hear that. I determined all of this a long
time ago. I authored this.
Unfortunately, Senekreb is not going to humble himself
regardless. So what do we find next?
Well, we see here that Senekreb is about to be visited by a
surprise. And before that surprise comes,
we see something else here in verse 30.
We read verse 28. Let's read verse 29 and verse
30. And this shall be the sign for
you. And now he's speaking to
Hezekiah. This year eat what grows of
itself and in the second year what springs of the same.
Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat
their fruit. So he promises Hezekiah with a
sign of how he will know that this victory over Seneca will be
of God and it will be a lasting peace.
You know the the brutality of a siege when a an army surrounds a
city. Is that essentially they
confiscate all their foods, all their goods, so they starve to
death. Essentially they're starving to
surrender. And the difficulty there is not
only do they confiscate, they also limit the people from being
able to produce their own food, right?
They're stuck within the city walls.
And So what the Lord says, the essence of the sign is you're
going to eat what grows of itself and in the second year
with springs of the same. So once I put a hook in
Senecabbs nose, put a bit in his mouth and pull him back to his
hometown. You know why the Lord?
Said that by the way, because that's what the Assyrians would
do to their victims. Historically speaking, this is
how vicious this people group were.
Wonder why Jonah was hesitant to go and preach to them when they
would take over, when they would have they when, when they would
have victory over a people group, they would so demoralize
them that they would make them seem like beast and they would
put actual sharp objects in their limbs, in parts of their
body and drag them back to their own demise.
You're going to do that to people.
I'm going to do it to you. And he says to Israel, he says
to Judah specifically. Here's the sign that you know
that I've done this well and it's a complete job.
For the first two years after, you're not going to have to sow
anything. The earth is going to produce
itself. And by the third year, there's
going to be the natural course again of farming and
agricultural cycles. And you'll go back to normal
watch. You're going to be able to go
back to the way life was without any interruption.
You're going to have peace again.
I'm going to bring this peace. And so they were comforted with
this, but but farming wasn't the only thing that God had in mind.
There was a different kind of revival.
Look at verse 30. And the surviving remnant of the
House of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit
upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a
remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the Lord will do this.
So remember, before Jerusalem was surrounded, there were all
these neighboring towns in Judah that were that were taken over.
And the Lord says there's a remnant left.
But I want to promise you this, that the remnant will go
downward in their roots and they will bear fruit upward.
In other words, they're going to be planted in this land and they
are going to flourish right here.
Nothing is going to change that. And so it's wonderful assurance.
But I want to tell you something.
In verse 30, Do you see the spiritual principle there?
Look at it again. The surviving remnant of the
House of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit
upward. How do you and I bear fruit?
According to this verse, it's impossible unless you first
invest in inner hidden rootedness.
You and I cannot even fathom making any kind of spiritual
impact unless we find our souls deeply invested in the things
that caught God calls us to be invested in.
And so if there's going to be anything on the surface, if
there's going to be anything that's worthwhile outside,
observable, tangible, there needs to be something in the
secret place of my heart, my affections and my ambitions have
to be deeply rooted and nourished by primarily the Word
of God, my relationship with God, the presence of God.
You, you and I cannot grow on accident.
There needs to be a determination that we will first
plant ourselves where God calls us to be planted and to remain
there for the life of God to come through and for there to be
true fruit. And I can tell you this,
wherever there is shallow Christianity, it's inevitably
because of shallow roots. So we even see something of a
proverb here, do we not? I believe so.
Be encouraged by that. Before I move on to the final
verses, look at the last statement of verse 31.
The Lord signs off on this promise by saying what?
The zeal of the Lord will do this.
You know what that means? Here's how you can translate it.
My passion for this 'cause will bring about the reality of it.
I was looking at this today and here's the thought that crossed
my mind. If God is passionate about His
work, how much more us God is passionate about his will.
The zeal of the Lord will do this.
We see, we see this phrase in different places in Scripture
and I'm invited to do what God calls me to do, but I don't want
to just obey his commands. I want to do it with the passion
that God calls me to have for it.
Don't settle for just mechanical routine observance.
If you and I really want to get things done for the King of God,
we have to tap into a spirit inspired zeal.
What was said of Jesus zeal for your house has consumed me the.
Zeal of the Lord. Will do this in Deuteronomy.
Where it went wrong for the people of Israel is when they
stop serving the Lord with joy and gladness of heart.
Don't allow this to condemn you. Allow this to be an invitation
for you. Lord, I want zeal.
I need zeal. Supply that zeal, Be inspired by
it and trust that God is able to provide it.
If He is passionate about His work, let us also be passionate
about it. Speaking of passion, this really
convicted me. This actually bothered me.
Every time I go through kings, this never ceases to irk me.
I'm going to skip over verse 32 and verse 34.
We'll read that at the end. Look at verse 35.
That night the Angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000
in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in
the morning, behold, these are all dead bodies.
Then Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went home
and lived at Nineveh, And as he was worshipping in the House of
Nisraj, his God Ajahmalek and Shahrazar, his son struck him
down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat.
And Esther had on his son reigned in his place.
Did you see it? What stands out to you about
Sennacherib's response to his defeat?
Anything. He goes to his God.
Guess what he does? He worships.
Does that bother anybody else? What bothers me about it is the
sheer determination of this Pagan, his commitment to his
false God, his resilience in. One night you lost close to
200,000 of your men. You were put to shame because of
one man's prayer. This man, Hezekiah didn't shoot
1 arrow, he didn't fling one sword, he didn't do anything.
He just got on his knees and cried out to God and you were
defeated. In less than 24 hours.
And what does this man do? Does he go and he topples his
idols, Burn them? Renounce his deities?
What does he do? He worships his God.
And here we have some believers. Not here.
That's a general comment. In our day we have believers.
All it takes is a little trouble, a little persecution, a
little suffering. I forget this God.
I didn't sign up for this when I said I would follow Jesus.
You want to be. Provoked.
Look at Senekreb. That's the only place where I'll
ever say look at Senekreb. He goes straight back to his God
and he worships. After all this loss.
After being embarrassed, after being defeated on a world scale,
a loser, and he goes before a Pagan God and he worships.
And here we have our God who's never been defeated, who loves
us more than you can imagine, who and everything in our lives,
even the painful thing that are being applied to the masterpiece
of the testimony that he's trying to create and we are
ready to turn away from him, may not be so of us.
Let's come to the final verses, verse 32.
Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria,
he shall not come into the city, or shoot an arrow there, or come
before with a shield, or cast up a siege mount against it, by the
way that he came. By the same he shall return, and
he shall not come into the city, declares the Lord.
For I will defend the city to save it for my own sake, and for
the sake of my servant David. Tell you why I'm ending here?
Because there's a gospel truth tucked in it.
Don't we see it? God makes it so incredibly
clear. The reason why I'm going to come
and intervene and defend you is because, yes #1 for my sake, but
also because I made a promise to one man, David.
David lived long before this time.
David was in a tomb. And yet this generation would
benefit from one man's covenant with God.
And here we are, hidden in Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the
greater King, who's given us a greater covenant.
And any reward that you and I enjoy, any promise of eternal
life, any blessing that we are recipients of, is solely because
of who He is and how we are related to Him by faith.
Not as though God is hesitant to work in our lives or be good to
us, but because Jesus stepped in and was willing to be the
mediator between a very reluctant God and a stubborn
people. That's not so.
The Father is just as much invested and included in this
plan of redemption and the blessing that would come in
Christ. But we have to understand, it's
because I bear His name. I'm clothed in his
righteousness. I, I live in Him that God will
do what he alone can do. That's why you and I pray in
Jesus name. We're not coming in our own
name. We're not coming with our own
merit, with our own righteousness.
We're coming on the basis of the Son of God and how he stood in
the gap for us. And that is something that the
Lord God Almighty will always smile at.
And so be refreshed today. So much is available to us
because of Christ and us. And I want to invite you today
in this brief moment, that if you've come here like Hezekiah,
even though in the background nobody may even know about it,
you are trying to solve something that seems impossible,
that is sucking the life out of you.
You barely made it into this very room.
Just acknowledge His Majesty. Invite Him, and when you invite
him, rest in the very wisdom that you're asking for.
Trust of the Spirit in your weakness will translate
everything that you're trying to communicate, and a perfect plan
will be on its way. Be honest before God and and
maybe you've never done this before.
Maybe you've only seen prayer as a way of getting God to do
something for you. But let tonight be the the
beginning of a new way of praying for the glory of God,
Deliver, save, provide, protect, intervene, solve Lord.
And that through this people would say that God is a real
God, that God is a God who loves his people.
Can we pray now? Let's do it.
We gladly, Father, in our collective weakness, come before
You. So many things have been said.
It can actually be overwhelming at times.
What we trust that You will bring to remembrance what is
needed at the right time. And we ask that You help us
retain these truths that have been shared tonight, Lord, where
there may be a lack of zeal. We pray that you breathe fresh
wind into our sails, that we may have this zeal that you have for
your doings. Where there may be a weakness in
prayer, let that change tonight. Where there may be a temptation
to even for a season, pull away from you in our anger and our
disappointments, or may never be so.
If Seneca can worship his dumb idol, how much more are you
worthy of our consistent adoration in all things?
And Lord, with everything else that was expounded on tonight,
we just pray that you would receive glory in our response.
We just want to acknowledge you and thank you for who you are.
You never failed to touch our hearts.
We glorify you now as your church in Jesus name, Amen.
Let's stand and worship the Lord together.