February 7, 2010 (2 Chronicles 29-31, 2 Kings 18-19, Psalm 46, 48, 80, 135)

My reading today didn't quite stick with the plan. I was only supposed to read the first 8 verses of 2 Kings 18, but read the whole chapter. After that, I had to see how it ended, so jumped ahead to the day where I was supposed to read the rest of chapter 18 and chapter 19. Finally, a breather in the 'judgment' stuff! And why was that?

2 Kings 18: ⁵ Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was never another king like him in the land of Judah, either before or after his time. ⁶ He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. ⁷ So the Lord was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did.

Finally, a king that followed the Lord! And we see blessings instead of cursings! This next part I thought was really interesting. The King of Assyria came to King Hezekiah, basically telling him to watch out, because he was about to come against him and conquer him. Here are some of the Assyrian king's words:

^{2 Kings 18:19} “This is what the great king of Assyria says: What are you trusting in that makes you so confident? ²⁰ Do you think that mere words can substitute for military skill and strength? Who are you counting on, that you have rebelled against me? ²¹ On Egypt? If you lean on Egypt, it will be like a reed that splinters beneath your weight and pierces your hand. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is completely unreliable!

²² “But perhaps you will say to me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God!’ But isn’t he the one who was insulted by Hezekiah? Didn’t Hezekiah tear down his shrines and altars and make everyone in Judah and Jerusalem worship only at the altar here in Jerusalem?
²³ “I’ll tell you what! Strike a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you 2,000 horses if you can find that many men to ride on them! ²⁴ With your tiny army, how can you think of challenging even the weakest contingent of my master’s troops, even with the help of Egypt’s chariots and charioteers? ²⁵ What’s more, do you think we have invaded your land without the Lord’s direction? The Lord himself told us, ‘Attack this land and destroy it!’”

²⁸ Then the chief of staff stood and shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall, “Listen to this message from the great king of Assyria! ²⁹ This is what the king says: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you. He will never be able to rescue you from my power. ³⁰ Don’t let him fool you into trusting in the Lord by saying, ‘The Lord will surely rescue us. This city will never fall into the hands of the Assyrian king!’

³¹ “Don’t listen to Hezekiah! These are the terms the king of Assyria is offering: Make peace with me—open the gates and come out. Then each of you can continue eating from your own grapevine and fig tree and drinking from your own well. ³² Then I will arrange to take you to another land like this one—a land of grain and new wine, bread and vineyards, olive groves and honey. Choose life instead of death!

³³ “Don’t listen to Hezekiah when he tries to mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us!’ ³⁴ What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? ³⁵ What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem from me?” Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria?

As I read this I thought, "What lies is the enemy telling me?" What lies am I believing, instead of trusting in God?

So when Hezekiah and all the people heard these words, here is what Hezekiah did:

¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: “O Lord, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. ¹⁶ Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God.

¹⁷ “It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. ¹⁸ And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. ¹⁹ Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”

So instead of believing the lies of his enemy, he brought them before God, and basically asked God, for His own sake and for the sake of His name, to save them. Faith. He believed God and trusted God. And how did God answer him?

³⁵ That night the angel of the Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. ³⁶ Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there.

³⁷ One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.

God fought for them. And He will fight for us when we put our faith and trust in Him.