Hezekiah: Deliverance
Today we are looking at the last of four
parts on the Life of
King Hezekiah. We follow on in Chronicles
with the same chapters
that we have been using. This part
of the story is in the 2nd
Chron 32nd chapter. But we find more details
in the Books of
Isaiah, and particularly in II Kings 18-20.
In these chapters we
find the story of deliverance
It was in the 14th year of Hezekiah's reign
that trouble broke
out for Judah. Perhaps because Hezekiah
stopped paying tribute,
maybe because the nation had destroyed
the Assyrian gods that
had been placed in the temple, possibly
because Hezekiah had
been making treaties with other nations,
or building
fortifications, or even conceivably for
a mixture of these
reasons, the king of Assyria, Sennacherib
came against Judah.
Like in a game of chess, Sennacherib took
the fortified cities
one by one in preparation for taking
the prize, the city of
Jerusalem. As Sennacherib was doing this,
Hezekiah was doing
some preparation of his own. Perhaps
you have heard of
Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem.
That was part of the
preparation to stand against Sennacherib.
It channeled the
water from outside of the city to within
the city gates. After
that was done, all the wells around Jerusalem
were filled up,
and the springs were stopped up to keep
the invading army from
having a water supply.
There was one city that guarded a pass
in the mountains that the
king had build particularly well.
Hezekiah knew that if the
Assyrians could be stopped there that
they would go no farther,
at least not without a lot of trouble.
But the Lachish got into
trouble. Lachish was probably one of the
last cities to stand
against the Assyrians, and it was
important to Judah for
protection, and to the conquerors as proof
of their power.
Knowing that it was important to save as
much as he could of the
land, Hezekiah. sent a messenger to Sennacherib,
and Said "I
have offended return from me; that
which thou puttest on me
will I bear."
Sennacherib was not going to let Judah
off easy. He asked for a
tribute of 300 talents of silver, and
30 talents of gold. Now
that may not seem like much to you, but
if you put it in terms
or our weight measurements, some scholars
feel that represented
about 11 tons of silver and 1 ton of gold.
That's over $6.5
million of silver and around 30 million
worth of gold. It was an
amount that took all the silver in the
temple, and to get the
gold, Hezekiah stripped the gold off of
the walls and doors of
the temple. By putting everything that
he could get together, he
was able to send Senacherib the tribute.
I think that
Sennacherib probably thought that it would
be impossible for
Hezekiah to get this much treasure from
so small a kingdom,
because of his actions after he received
the tribute, for
instead of breaking his siege of Lachish,
he continued until the
city was destroyed. Then he sent three
of his generals with
185,000 soldiers to Jerusalem to demand
that Hezekiah surrender
unconditionally and allow their people
to be taken into
captivity.
I think that either Sennacherib intended
to take Jerusalem all
along, and he was just teasing Hezekiah.
With the fall of
Lacish, There was just one city between
Sannacherib and
Jerusalem, and he went to that city to
begin a siege there. He
did this while the three leaders of the
Assyrian army camped
around Jerusalem. And their mission
was to break down the will
of the Judeans, and get a revolt going
against Hezekiah. They
gave a message to be carried to Hezekiah,
and we find that
message in:
2 Ki 18:18 (TLV) "They demanded that King
Hezekiah come out to speak
to them, but instead he sent a truce delegation
of the following
men: Eliakim, his business manager; Shebnah,
his secretary; and
Joah, his royal historian."
2 Ki 18:19 "Then the Assyrian general
sent this message to King
Hezekiah: "The great king of Assyria says,
'No one can save you
from my power!"
2 Ki 18:20 "You need more than mere
promises of help before
rebelling against me. But which of your
allies will give you
more than words? Egypt?"
2 Ki 18:21 "If you lean on Egypt,
you will find her to be a
stick that breaks beneath your weight
and pierces your hand. The
Egyptian Pharaoh is totally unreliable!"
2 Ki 18:22 "And if you say, "We're
trusting the Lord to rescue
us"--just remember that he is the very
one whose hilltop altars
you've destroyed. For you require everyone
to worship at the
altar in Jerusalem!'"
2 Ki 18:23 "I'll tell you what: Make
a bet with my master, the
king of Assyria! If you have two thousand
men left who can ride
horses, we'll furnish the horses!"
2 Ki 18:24 "And with an army as small
as yours, you are no
threat to even the least lieutenant in
charge of the smallest
contingent in my master's army. Even if
Egypt supplies you with
horses and chariots, it will do no good."
2 Ki 18:25 "And do you think we have
come here on our own? No!
The Lord sent us and told us, 'Go and
destroy this nation!'""
2 Ki 18:26 "Then Eliakim, Shebnah,
and Joah said to them,
"Please speak in Aramaic, for we understand
it. Don't use
Hebrew, for the people standing on the
walls will hear you.""
2 Ki 18:27 "But the Assyrian general
replied, "Has my master
sent me to speak only to you and to your
master? Hasn't he sent
me to the people on the walls too? For
they are doomed with you
to eat their own excrement and drink their
own urine!""
2 Ki 18:28 "Then the Assyrian ambassador
shouted in Hebrew to
the people on the wall, "Listen to the
great king of Assyria!"
2 Ki 18:29 "'Don't let King Hezekiah
fool you. He will never be
able to save you from my power."
2 Ki 18:30 "Don't let him fool you
into trusting in the Lord to
rescue you."
2 Ki 18:31 "Don't listen to King
Hezekiah. Surrender! You can
live in peace here in your own land"
2 Ki 18:32 "until I take you to another
land just like this
one--with plentiful crops, grain, grapes,
olive trees, and
honey. All of this instead of death! Don't
listen to King
Hezekiah when he tries to persuade you
that the Lord will
deliver you."
2 Ki 18:33 "Have any of the gods
of the other nations ever
delivered their people from the king of
Assyria?"
2 Ki 18:34 "What happened to the
gods of Hamath, Arpad,
Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they
rescue Samaria?"
2 Ki 18:35 "What god has ever been
able to save any nation from
my power? So what makes you think the
Lord can save Jerusalem?'""
2 Ki 18:36 "But the people on the
wall remained silent, for the
king had instructed them to say nothing."
2 Ki 18:37 "Then Eliakim (son of
Hilkiah) the business manager,
and Shebnah the king's secretary, and
Joah (son of Asaph) the
historian went to King Hezekiah with their
clothes torn and told
him what the Assyrian general had said."
2 Ki 19:29 "'This shall be a sign
to you: You shall eat this
year such as grows of itself, And in the
second year what
springs from the same; Also in the third
year sow and reap,
Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them."
2 Ki 19:30 "And the remnant who have
escaped of the house of
Judah Shall again take root downward,
And bear fruit upward."
2 Ki 19:31 "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.'"
2 Ki 19:32 ""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."
2 Ki 19:33 "By the way that he came,
By the same shall he
return; And he shall not come into this
city,' Says the LORD."
2 Ki 19:34 "'For I will defend this
city, to save it For My own
sake and for My servant David's sake.'""
2 Ki 19:35 "And it came to pass on
a certain night that 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."
2 Ki 19:36 "So Sennacherib king of
Assyria departed and went
away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh."
2 Chr 32:20 (NKJV) "Now because of this
King Hezekiah and the prophet
Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried
out to heaven."
2 Chr 32:21 "Then the LORD sent an
angel who cut down every
mighty man of valor, leader, and captain
in the camp of the king
of Assyria. So he returned shamefaced
to his own land. And when
he had gone into the temple of his god,
some of his own
offspring struck him down with the sword
there."
2 Chr 32:22 "Thus the LORD saved
Hezekiah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib
the king of Assyria,
and from the hand of all others, and guided
them on every side."
Again, what does this story have to say to us today?
God, through His Holy Spirit, is continually
calling us to
repentance, revival, and reformation.
God is always ready and
willing to bring us deliverance.
There are many things that as individuals
we need to repent of.
And hanging onto those things is a barrier
to revival,
reformation, and ultimately the deliverance
that are so
necessary to our salvation, and peace
of mind.
Perhaps first on the list should be pride.
My way is the best.
No one can do that right except me.
What I think is right.
Then, perhaps gossip should follow.
More churches have been
destroyed by the fire of the tongue wagging
than any other fire.
Then there are those things which
destroy our body and cloud
the mind. That includes good things
used intemprerately.
Selfishness with the resources that God
has given us is another
barrier to growth in our Christian life.
Ingratitude for what
God has done for us. Failure to
properly use our influence to
bring glory to God. Failure to take
as seriously as we should
the gift of our children that God has
given us.
Repentance preceeds those other gifts
that God wants to give
us. Because I believe that repentance
is a gift given through
the Holy Spirit -- If we don't quinch
it. Revival is a gift
given to us. Reformation is a gift
that is given us. And
deliverance is a gift that is given to
us.
But those gifts come in their order.
Let me ask, do you feel that deliverance
is going to be given to
God's people, particularly in the last
days, if they have
refused to follow the Spirit's lead day
by day to a more
Christ-like lifestlye? Do you think
that when the enemy
surrounds our souls, and begins trying
to batter us down, that
then all of a sudden you begin repenting?
Well that does
happen, but it is not the best way.
So where does that leave us?
Just quickly back through our text.
Hezekiah led out in repenance. The
nation engaged in revival in
which the Spirit brought great joy to
the people. As a result
of revival, and to continue growth, reformation
came about.
After that, when great difficulties came
upon God's people, they
knew where to turn. Deliverance
was a working out of what had
already happened in the lives of God's
people. Do you see that?
Going on. When the enemy came into
the land, Hezekiah began
strengthening his position. He enlarged
the walls. He provided
for a steady stream of water. He
left nothing that would give
the enemy advantage. At the same
time, he relied on God.
When the enemy began his psychological
warfare, Hezekiah and
the people depended upon their God for
survival.
And God worked in a mighty way to deliver his people.
And He wants to work in your life that
same way. Do you believe
that? Do you want that? If
you do, you need to let him begin
working in your life in the less dramatic
ways.
That's how God's people are delivered.
Deliverance does not
come when the dramatic trouble happens
so much as a step at a
time.
At the end of time, God does not deliver
those who have not
taken any of the 3 steps.
Now is the time to prepare. Once
the Assyrians were in the
land, surrounding the city it was too
late to build the wall. It
was too late to flee to the city. It was
too late to make sure
of the water supply. Now is the time to
prepare for the
onslaught of the Devil. We are to fortify
our minds. Build walls
around them, fill them with food, water,
and the other
necessities of spiritual life. We might
even want to build
double walls around ourselves to shield
us from the attack of
the enemy. And following the example of
Hezekiah, it might be
well to make the surroundings inhospitable
to the Devil. We
build a tower of a power when we get on
our knees to pray to our
Lord. Satan knows he's in trouble when
we pray. We might want to
remove from our surroundings those things
that might cause us to
inadvertently open the gates to the enemy.
God has assured us in His Word that
He will prevail. He will
overcome the forces of the enemy. The
word comes to us that we
will be saved. We will remain until He
shows his salvation. It
may not look like it. I believe
that Ps 91describes that
tensions of that time. God's people watch
as those who mock them
have blood to drink for water. They
see the terrible incurable
sores on their bodies. They see the sun
become unbearably hot,
and on and on, as the last plagues are
poured out. But we only
experience it with our eyes.
We live in exciting times. We are living
in the time of the
end, and soon to come is the end of time.
As this comes closer,
the children of God will more and
more persecution. They will
be deprived of their gold and silver.
They will soon have
nothing left but life itself. There will
be nothing to do but to
depend on the Lord for all of their needs.
But as the Christians
depend on the Lord, He does have all that
they need, while the
enemy, while denying God's children their
necessities, find that
they loose their own because of the plagues.
God's children will
be bribed, coerced, despised and hated.
But they know that they
must remain close to their Lord. Soon
it will come to the point
where the whole world decides that it
is best that they be
destroyed. It is at that time that deliverance
comes in a mighty
way. What a day of rejoicing that will
be.
Brothers and sisters, I need that
deliverance. I want that
deliverance. I want the power of God to
deliver me from sin now,
and I want that same power to see me through
the end of the
world. But the path to strength begins
here, now.
How important is Jesus to you? Is
He the focus of your life?
Have you repented of your straying, of
your lack of love for God
and the people you deal with every day?
Have you experienced
the revival of God's Spirit? Is
the Spirit starting to re-form
you to a better way of living?
Deliverance comes through these steps.
Today, If you have felt a call to repentance
for the sins in
your life,
Today, if you want to feel the power of revival in your life
Today, if you acknowledge your need for change in your life,
As a sign of these things, I invite you
right now to kneel with
me. Talk to your Lord about your
spiritual needs. Then claim
the promise of deliverance from the enemy.
I invite you to do that with me right now.