Isaiah Day 90 - Uh Oh...
36 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that
Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah
and took them. 2 Then the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh with a great army
from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stood by the aqueduct from
the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. 3 And Eliakim the son of
Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of
Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.
4 Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the
great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust? 5
I say you speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. Now
in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me? 6 Look! You are trusting in
the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into
his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
7 “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He
whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah
and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?”’ 8 Now therefore, I urge
you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two
thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them! 9 How then
will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your
trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10 Have I now come up without the
Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this
land, and destroy it.’”
11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak
to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in
Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
12 But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to your master and to
you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat
and drink their own waste with you?”
13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew,
and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 Thus says
the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver
you; 15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will
surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of
Assyria.”’ 16 Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make
peace with me by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from
his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink
the waters of his own cistern; 17 until I come and take you away to a land like
your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any
one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of
Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of
Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 20 Who among all
the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the
Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’”
21 But they held their peace and answered him not a word; for the
king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.” 22 Then Eliakim the son of
Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of
Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the
words of the Rabshakeh.
Allow me to translate this
standoff into junior high language. The King of Assyria (Sennacherib) sends his
chief bully (the Rabshakeh) to Jerusalem with a message. A few of
Hezekiah's(king of Judah) officials come out to try and meet him quietly. He
wasn't interested in quiet. He wanted the whole city to hear his message. It
went something like this:
"Your King is a loser. You
are losers. Your people are losers. Egypt can't help. Your God can't help you.
No one can help. We could give you 2000 horses and you couldn't even find
warriors to ride them. You better pay up because we are the only ones who can
protect your pathetic lives and if you don't..."
This is the bully who steals your
lunch money on an international scale. Judah is backed into a corner and it
appears there is no way out. Note how Sennacherib through the Rabshakeh is
careful to point out that no other nation was saved by their gods. Note also
that Sennacherib is not ignorant of the reforms Hezekiah has undertaken in
Judah by tearing down the high places and worshipping God simply on altars just
as Noah and Abraham had done before them. The simple altar on which is
symbolically placed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world.
Even in this seemingly hopeless situation Jesus is quietly but surely there,
the Deliverer of all who trust in Him.
We'll find out what happens next
tomorrow...
Isaiah Day 91 - How Do You Pray?
37 And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his
clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 2
Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the
elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amoz. 3 And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of
trouble and rebuke and blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but
there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 It may be that the Lord your God
will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has
sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your
God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said to
them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Do not be
afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king
of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he
shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by
the sword in his own land.”’”
8 Then the Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring
against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9 And the king
heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with
you.” So when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you
shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you
trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the
king of Assyria.” 11 Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done
to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? 12 Have
the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan
and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is
the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim,
Hena, and Ivah?’”
14 And Hezekiah received the 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. 15 Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying: 16 “O Lord of
hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You
alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17
Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear
all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 18
Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their
lands, 19 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 destroyed them. 20 Now
therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the
earth may know that You are the Lord, You alone.”
I don't think the story itself
needs much explanation at this point but it did challenge me so it's only fair
that I pass the challenge on to you. Notice what Hezekiah is praying for. He is
asking God to save them so the other nations will know that He is One True God.
Here's what is challenging me and
I'm going to leave it with you to think about because at this point that's what
I'm doing. The challenge is this:
Is Hezekiah being humble and
exercising faith as the story seems to suggest or is he seeing God as a
narcissist(self-obsessed) and he is trying to use God's self-obsession against
Him in order to secure what he wants from Him? Or is it a mixture of the two?
Let me think out loud for a
minute and then leave you to think about it. The tearing of the clothes etc...
indicates they feel hopeless on their own. The fact they are bringing the mess
to God indicates they obviously believe He is able to save them. It's the
appeal to selfishness that has me scratching my head and wondering what kind of
God they think He is. "Save us so you can show them You are the Man!"
What do you think? It seems quite
different from the approach of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3.
Isaiah Day 92 - Why Do We Pray?
37:14 And Hezekiah received the 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. 15 Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying: 16 “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the One
who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of
the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and
hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib,
which he has sent to reproach the living God. 18 Truly, Lord, the kings of
Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, 19 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 destroyed them. 20 Now therefore, O Lord our God,
save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are
the Lord, You alone.”.
It's not a long prayer but it is
intense. Judah is on the ropes. Hezekiah has no answers.
Before we go any further this
scene is a marked contrast to King Ahaz who we met earlier. He is no longer the
king. Hezekiah is now on the throne. When Ahaz faced the news that formidable
foes we're coming against him he wanted nothing to do with God or His promises.
In fact it was his unequivocal unbelief that made Judah a vassal of mighty
Assyria and now power hungry Sennacherib wants more than tribute money. He
plans to take full control.
Hezekiah is definitely not like
Ahaz. He believes God can help them. He believes that God is their only hope.
He enters the structure that represents His house. He unrolls the scroll before
Him there as if God needed to be made aware of the situation. As silly as that
picture may seem it does underline the intensity of the moment. It underlines
Hezekiah's sense of his own smallness and helplessness.
When Jesus was here helpless
people facing insurmountable problems fell at His feet. Some did it loudly,
some in stealth mode. We can question the purity of Hezekiah's motives but we
can't question his belief that God was able.
Yesterday I challenged you with
the thought of why did Hezekiah seemingly appeal to God's self-obsession? The
truth is God has no self-obsession but we often think He thinks like we do and
so we treat Him as if He does. "Come on God, the stage is set! It's time
for you to jump on stage and show the world Who You are!"
Something in that seems wrong. I
thought about it off and on all day. Other Bible characters and situations
entered my mind. Elijah wanted God to put on a show on Carmel and settle the
issue of Who was the True God. He obliged but nothing changed, at least not
overnight... Then I thought of Joshua. He gets less attention than he should.
He was a mighty man of faith and he often prayed asking God to intervene and
help them and he would say "Do it for Your Names sake." It sounded
like Joshua was asking God to be selfish but when you read closer that wasn't
it. Joshua knew his people. He knew the nation was wishy washy at best. He knew
some of Egypt was still in them. He knew they didn't deserve God's help. Joshua
was saying "I can't ask you because we deserve You, so I'm asking You
because I know You. I am appealing to Your Name (character). Show us and the
other nations all over again how good and gracious You are."
Hezekiah has watched other religious nations
fall all around him. He knows their gods were helpless to save them because
they were just manmade imaginary deities. He knows that often in the past the
True God was also helpless to save Judah because they refused His help, refused
to trust Him, refused to position themselves for deliverance. Hezekiah is not
about to repeat that mistake. He is pleading at the throne of mercy for the God
of love to demonstrate to every watching eye and every reachable heart that He
is alive and well and as willing and able to save as ever.
Is that why we pray today? Is our
number one motive to have the world see Him?
Prophecy tells us that at the end
of time the character of God will be made known to the entire world by those
who love and trust Him. It seems an impossible task. It is an impossible task.
Men and women and young people, even children will figuratively enter His
house. They will lay before Him the daunting impossibility of the task. They
will ask Him to rise up and do it for His names sake. They will ask Him to do
it for the sake of the watching masses who know Him not.
Tomorrow we'll see what happened
then and it will give us a glimpse into what is yet to happen...
Isaiah Day 93 - Because You Prayed...
37:21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says
the Lord God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king
of Assyria, 22 this is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him:
“The virgin, the daughter of Zion,
Has despised you, laughed you to scorn;
The daughter of Jerusalem
Has shaken her head behind your back!
23 “Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice,
And lifted up your eyes on high?
Against the Holy One of Israel.
24 By your servants you have reproached the Lord,
And said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots
I have come up to the height of the mountains,
To the limits of Lebanon;
I will cut down its tall cedars
And its choice cypress trees;
I will enter its farthest height,
To its fruitful forest.
25 I have dug and drunk water,
And with the soles of my feet I have dried up
All the brooks of defense.’
26 “Did you not hear long ago
How I made it,
From ancient times that I formed it?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
27 Therefore their inhabitants had little power;
They were dismayed and confounded;
They were as the grass of the field
And the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops
And grain blighted before it is grown.
28 “But I know your dwelling place,
Your going out and your coming in,
And your rage against Me.
29 Because your rage against Me and your tumult
Have come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back
By the way which you came.”’
30 “This shall be a sign to you:
You shall eat this year such as grows of itself,
And the second year what springs from the same;
Also in the third year sow and reap,
Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
31 And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah
Shall again take root downward,
And bear fruit upward.
32 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant,
And those who escape from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
33 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:
‘He shall not come into this city,
Nor shoot an arrow there,
Nor come before it with shield,
Nor build a siege mound against it.
34 By the way that he came,
By the same shall he return;
And he shall not come into this city,’
Says the Lord.
35 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it
For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’”
Read verse 21 again. God says to
Hezekiah "Because you prayed..." Does prayer make a difference?
Apparently it does. Jesus plainly said "You don't receive because you
don't ask..." Jesus also also said "Ask and you will receive, seek
and you will find, knock and the door will be opened..."
King Ahaz didn't believe and
because he didn't believe he didn't pray and because he didn't pray he was left
on his own which only increased his woes. Hezekiah believed there was a God in
the heavens who created all things and was more than able to protect them.
Because he believed he prayed and because he prayed God answered. In fact God's
first words of response were "Because you prayed..."
If you are like me part of you is
saying "But I have prayed before and all I got was deafening
silence."
When I look back over my life the
only prayers that got no response were the ones where I told Him what He had to
do and when. That isn't praying, that's demanding, that's treating God as a
servant, employee, or magic genie. Hezekiah's prayer is not like that. He just
laid his burden before the Lord and left it there. He didn't tell God when or
how to fix the situation. He just surrendered it to Him. I mean think about it,
if we don't have the power to rescue ourselves or solve the problem(s) we're
facing what makes us think we are wise enough to know what needs to be done?
The truth is God is so gracious
that when He can without bringing us further trouble He will even answer when
we treat Him like we're in charge.
So why is prayer so important? If
He knows best and doesn't need our "wisdom" or "counsel"
what's the deal? Here it is in the simplest terms I know.
The earth was made by God and
given to Adam and Eve. They in turn turned it over to Satan. We now live under
his rule. Where life forever would have been the norm, now we have death
everywhere. Peace would have reigned but now strife and war. Health has been
replaced by diseases of all kinds. Strength has turned to weakness and wisdom
to foolishness. Does God love us less? Not a chance. However there are rules in
the great war between Good and Satan and one of them is that God can't
interfere in this domain we handed to Satan unless someone here asks Him to.
When we pray we are freeing God
to act without Satan being able to accuse Him of illegal tampering.
So pray, not to tell Him what to
do, but to grant Him the freedom/permission to bind the evil intentions of
Satan as He sees best, when He chooses for the greatest good possible. Garth
Brooks had a popular song a few years back called Unanswered Prayer. The key
line of the song is that one of God's greatest gifts is unanswered prayer. Why?
Because He is wise enough and loving enough to answer as we need, not as we ask
or tell Him to do.
Don't advise Him, just ask, seek,
knock, and leave the who, what, where, when, why, and how to Him.
Isaiah Day 94 - Don't Miss This
Here is the sum of God's answer
to Hezekiah's prayer:
33 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:
‘He shall not come into this city,
Nor shoot an arrow there,
Nor come before it with shield,
Nor build a siege mound against it.
34 By the way that he came,
By the same shall he return;
And he shall not come into this city,’
Says the Lord.
35 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it
For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’”
36 Then the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the
Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in
the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria
departed and went away, returned home,and remained at Nineveh. 38 Now it came
to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons
Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into
the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
For a very long time modern
skeptics claimed this miraculous defeat of Sennacherib never happened.
Archaeological research eventually unearthed the truth. When God makes a
promise He keeps it. Every. Single. Time.
There is something in God's
response I want us to note. It is extremely important. He said He was going to
intervene for His own sake, and for the sake of David. What's implied but not
stated is that this deliverance has no connection to the faithfulness, or
remorse, or change of heart of the people in Judah at the time. They don't
deserve this. They haven't earned it. Time will reveal they didn't learn or
grow from it. In fact in time we find out it only added to their national
arrogance and pride. They came to see themselves as the untouchable favourites
of God. About a century later when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against
them and God told them to submit to his rule they flatly refused. They felt
Good would never allow them to suffer defeat even though within their own walls
they were as corrupt as they had ever been if not worse.
Pride is an evil thing. Arrogance
is it's ugly offspring. When God does not deliver us, we blame Him or turn from
Him, or claim as Sennacherib did that He is powerless or worse non-existent.
When God does deliver us we tend to take the mercy, the grace, the second
chance and live on as we always did.
As the expression goes He is
d@mned if He does intervene and d@mned if He doesn't.
In order to show that He is not
happy with their current state He boldly states why He is defending them. For
His own sake, and for David's sake. What does that mean?
For His own sake because He loves
every living human being and He wants to keep the reality of His love and mercy
alive in the earth despite our persistent rebellion. Remember Jonah and the big
fish? That happened about fifty years previous to this event. It happened in
Sennacherib's hometown of Nineveh. It's quite possible he was a young boy when
it happened. If not he certainly would have heard about it as he was growing
up. We know ultimately Nineveh returned to her old ways and was ultimately
destroyed but not without many finding God in the interim. This intervention by
God for Judah was not just for Judah. It was a reminder to Nineveh, all
Assyria, and all the watching nations that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
was still alive and well and the Promised One who would some day come and rule
in line of David was still on the way. His throne was waiting. The promises
were not forgotten. The Seed would come. David did not reign and hope and
believe in vain.
Never allow His mercy to harden
you in your rebellion. Sin destroys and if we don't pursue His sin eradicating
power the promises will be realized without us. Sennacherib went home defeated
not because Judah was good but because God is good. Will we join His kingdom or
just try and use His mercy against Him for our own gain?
Isaiah Day 95 - It Can't Work
37:36 Then the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of
the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early
in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. 37 So Sennacherib king of
Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. 38 Now
it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his
sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped
into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
Sennacherib was an evil
self-obsessed man. If narcissism could be defined/encapsulated by a single
photograph it would be his picture. Archaeologists and historians have
discovered that one of the reasons skeptics believed this defeat at Jerusalem
never happened was because of his self-obsession. They had many archaeological
records from Assyria but nothing about this battle or defeat. They have since
found out why. Sennacherib never mentioned failure. He had monuments etc...
made to celebrate his victories. Detailed records were kept of his successes
but not a word was written down of his defeats.
In the end he was murdered by his
own sons.
There is a reason why God is
going to ultimately intervene to put an end to the rebellion Satan started. If
He does not the entire planet will self-destruct. The flood was not a mission
of destruction from God. It was a rescue mission to save us from ourselves. Sin
like cancer spreads ruthlessly and if left unchecked and unchallenged it will
win and by win I don't mean anything good.
Satan became obsessed with
himself. That's how this all started. He had to be on the top. He had to rule.
He had to be top dog. Sennacherib was just like him. That spirit of having to
be top dog spreads. It infects everyone "below" you. They can't rest
or be satisfied until they are on top. Sennacherib was killed by his own
children. Herod killed his children to maintain his throne. So did Saddam
Hussein. Self-obsession is ruthless, deadly, and can never work. It doesn't
build, it destroys. If God withdrew and gave Satan free and full reign, death
and destruction would be the norm until there only one being left standing at
most. Nothing is more destructive, more toxic, or more shockingly ruinous than
self-obsession.
Love on the other hand would
rather lose than harm and finds more joy in the success of someone else than in
their own. Love builds. Love develops. Love supports. Love empowers. Love never
fails and in the end love will win. The mighty armies of darkness will suddenly
come to nothing and the war will be forever over.
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