FAITH-GROWING TRIALS
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Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, the gift of your Son Jesus as our Savior gives me every reason to trust you completely. Indeed, you are altogether trustworthy!
Read 2 KINGS 19
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jerusalem’s Deliverance Foretold
19 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord. 2 He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3 They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the moment of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. 4 It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”
5 When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 Listen! When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’”
8 When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.
9 Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush,[a] was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: 10 “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ 11 Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? 12 Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Harran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”
Hezekiah’s Prayer
14 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. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, 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. 16 Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.
17 “It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. 18 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. 19 Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”
Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib’s Fall
20 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. 21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:
“‘Virgin Daughter Zion
despises you and mocks you.
Daughter Jerusalem
tosses her head as you flee.
22 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!
23 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 parts,
the finest of its forests.
24 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.”
25 “‘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.
26 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.
27 “‘But I know where you are
and when you come and go
and how you rage against me.
28 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.’
29 “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.
30 Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
31 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.
32 “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.
33 By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city,
declares the Lord.
34 I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.’”
35 That night 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! 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
37 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.
Footnotes
- 2 Kings 19:9 That is, the upper Nile region
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
In what ways have you seen your trust in God grow? What caused that growth?
Three rounds of threats posed by Sennacherib are recorded in chapters 18 and 19. First, Sennacherib comes to attack Judah and forces Hezekiah to pay tribute (18:13, 14). In response, Hezekiah gives in completely (18:15, 16). In the second threat, Sennacherib sends his messengers with an army to threaten Judah to surrender (18:17–37). In today’s chapter, Hezekiah responds to the crisis by turning to God and seeking counsel from Isaiah (vv. 1–7). In the final round, Sennacherib sends a hostile letter to Hezekiah (vv. 9–13). In this exchange, Hezekiah responds to Sennacherib’s written threat by turning to God directly. Instead of asking Isaiah to pray for the people, he utters a lengthy prayer expressing his complete trust in God (vv. 15–19).
Throughout these three crises, Hezekiah’s faith in God is growing progressively as the enemy’s hostility rockets. It is noteworthy that God’s intervention on Hezekiah’s behalf over the Assyrian threats intensifies accordingly. God seems to remain silent in the first crisis, which encourages Sennacherib to boast of himself and despise the God of Judah (cf. 18:30; 19:10). Responding to the second threat through Isaiah, God promises to make Sennacherib return to Assyria, where he will be killed (19:6, 7). In reaction to the third threat, God promises to deliver Jerusalem. Eventually, God ends the whole crisis by killing 185,000 of the Assyrian army and having Sennacherib assassinated.
To sum up, the divine intervention on Judah’s behalf corresponds positively with Hezekiah’s growing trust in the Lord, which eventually brings an end to the continual threats from Sennacherib.
Apply
‘… without faith it is impossible to please God.’1 When we step out in faith, we are stepping into God’s promises, with a golden opportunity to encounter him vividly.
Closing prayer
Lord God, thank you for the faith you have given me. Use your Word and your grace and mercy that I experience each day to build that faith and increase my trust in you.
1 Heb 11:6
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