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Hezekiah: God Brings Victory

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Hezekiah: God Brings Victory HEZEKIAH: GOD BRINGS VICTORY I. 2 Kings 19:14-37 Colossians 2:13-15 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 (To read all about Hezekiah, see: 2 King 18-20; 2 Chronicles. 29-32; Isaiah 36-39) A. King Hezekiah has been our topic for the past few Sundays. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Assyria was the evil super power of their day, conquering nations and expanding their empire from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. The Assyrian war machine was essentially unstoppable and their reputation for cruelty is documented in their own histories and artifacts. B. Hezekiah was reigning at the time Israel (the northern ten tribes) were conquered and exiled by Assyria. He saw Judah invaded and 46 of her cities fall at the hands of king Sennacherib, including Judah's prized city of Lachish. Now the massive army of Assyria is encamped outside of Jerusalem. Their imperial spokesman, Rabshakeh, has given Hezekiah an ultimatum to surrender or face extermination. 2 Kings 18:27 sums up Rabshakeh's nasty taunts: “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?” C. Hezekiah responds by ripping his garments, donning sackcloth, and going to the temple to cry out to God. He also dispatched his key priests to get the Word of the Lord from Isaiah the Prophet. Prophet, priests, and king are all seeking the Lord for an answer. 2 Chronicles 32:20 sums it well: "Then Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this and cried to heaven." D. 2 Kings 19:14-37 (ESV) is Hezekiah's prayer and God's Word through Isaiah... 1) V14-16: 14 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 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. (He begins with worship) 16 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. (Hezekiah contends that the Assyrian king has not only insulted Judah, he's insulted and mocked the Most High God!) 2) V17-20: 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 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. 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, are God alone.” 20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. ("I have heard your prayer!" How many of you would rather God hear your prayer and say "no" then for Him ignore your prayers altogether?) 3) V21-22: 21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him (Sennacherib): “She (Judah) despises you, she scorns you--the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you--the daughter of Jerusalem. 22 “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! ('When you mock and threaten my children you're mocking and threatening Me!') 4) V23-28: 23 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said (Foolishly boasted), ‘With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon; I felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses; I entered its farthest lodging place, its most fruitful forest. 24 I dug wells and drank foreign waters, and I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.’ 25 “Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? ('Guess Who's responsible for your alleged success?') I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins, 26 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 is grown. 27 “But I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me. ('I know where you live!') 28 Because you have raged against Me and your complacency (OV arrogance; insolence) has come into My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came. (An unearthed Assyrian obelisk depicts the Assyrians with four captured enemy kings with hooks in their noses. God is now saying the tables will be turned!) 5) V29-30: 29 “And this shall be the sign for you: 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. 30 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. (Complete deliverance with full recovery.) 6) V31-34: 31 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. 32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city (Jerusalem) or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.” (Remember Romans 8:31: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Without God you cannot win! With God you cannot lose! So what's gonna happen?) 7) Hezekiah has prepared Jerusalem for a fierce defense. He's extended and fortified walls, manufactured weapons, and trained his people for battle. He's diverted water from springs outside the city walls thru a masterfully engineered tunnel, readying his people for a long siege. 2 Chronicles 32:7-8 (ESV) are Hezekiah's words to Judah even before Isaiah spoke: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah king of Judah." (Someone said, "Fear is faith in something or someone other than God." But camped just outside Jerusalem is a relentless army that does not lose. No one can rescue them but God!) 8) V35: 35 And that night the angel of the Lord (singular not plural) went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. (185,000 is the combined population of Fairfield and Perry Counties! The death toll at Hiroshima was 140,000! The U.S. combat death toll for the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, WW I, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq & Afghanistan, combined, was around 155,000. One angel takes out 185,000! Just think what two could do! Or a myriad! When Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus upon Jesus' arrest, Jesus says in Matthew 26:53: "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels?") 9) V36-37: 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. (Modern day Mosul in Iraq) 37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place. E. So what might the Lord be saying to us with regards to the woes of life we face? It's tough to sit with your loved one and hear the doctor say their time is short. Even tougher when the person is you. It's hard to have to move your parents into a nursing home. It's even harder when you're the one being moved there. It's heart-wrenching when a child or grandchild is taken suddenly from your life. "The smaller the coffin the heavier it is to carry!" Few things are worse than: finding out your best friend has been cheating with your wife; or you're falsely accused and facing the loss of a stellar career; or you see everything you've worked for suddenly taken from you by theft or betrayal or some horrible disaster.
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