daily java

Daily Java:

After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, 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. Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God. “It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. 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. 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.” (Isaiah 37:14-20)

An interesting picture. The Assyrian army, the most powerful army in the world at the time, is camped outside the gates of Jerusalem ready to take the city over. God was rapidly becoming finished with Israel because of their wickedness, but every once in a while a good king would come who would turn to the Lord in obedience.

Hezekiah was such a king.

His father was Ahaz who had closed the temple and set up pagan altars of worship all over. And even though he himself was a good king, Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, was the king whose debaucheries provided the final tipping balance for God. He was so evil that God said he would destroy his favored nation of Judah.

Even though Hezekiah was good and righteous, the nation’s DNA had gotten so corrupt that goodness was more of an aberration than the norm. And God was through with them.

But for now, there was Hezekiah, trying his best to be a godly man. And the Lord rewarded him for it.

Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, sent a letter saying that the God of Israel was so weak that he could not stand up before the Assyrian gods. And he said that he would treat Israel just like he treated all of the other countries. He would conquer them, burn their God and assimilate them into the Assyrian culture.

Hezekiah put the letter on the altar and asked God what he would do.

God answered strongly.

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. Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. (Isaiah 37:36-37). 

Sennacherib was killed not long after he got back to Nineveh by his sons who were staging a military coup.

And it was all because Hezekiah placed the letter on the altar before the Lord and asked him for help.

That does not always work, but it does more than not.

God promises his presence when things are bad and he tells us we can tell him what we need.

And just as Hezekiah heard so strongly from God, so can we.