The Un-Series: Week 8 Day 2
Summary of 2 Kings 18:6-21:
King Hezekiah trusted completely in God and was successful in everything he did. In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign the Assyrian King, Sennacherib, sent his field commander and a large army to threaten Hezekiah, mocking God and creating doubt in God’s ability to save Jerusalem. The prophet Isaiah reassured King Hezekiah that God had heard his prayers about the threats of Sennacherib. God promised that the Assyrians would not enter Jerusalem and that they would return home and King Sennacherib would be killed, showing God’s deliverance.
2 Kings 18:22-27
22 But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? 23 Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 24 How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 25 Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”
26 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 27 But the Rabshakeh said to them, “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?
Look how confident and arrogant the Assyrian field commander was as he mocked Hezekiah by stating that the destruction of the high places, altars, and calling for worship in Jerusalem was not God's will. He mocked the truth, telling them that the Lord told them to march against the Hebrews, and he mocked the armies of Hezekiah, doubting whether Hezekiah’s army was able to resist. Most importantly, the Assyrian field commander mocked God. To further attempt to spread his lies, he insisted on speaking in Hebrew, to make sure that everyone could hear his threats and give up; he sounded so convincing!
It matters where we get our information, whether it’s a Bible study, preacher, podcast, or news source, we need to be very discerning. We need to look into who we are using as a source for information. The evil one loves to mix truth with lies; he is very good at deception. Our responsibility is to be in God’s Word, in prayer for discernment, and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal any source of false information that we are taking in. The evil one likes to use “our language,” the way we talk, and the things that concern us, to confuse truth.
The Hebrew King had Isaiah and we have the Holy Spirit and the truth in God’s word. Let’s be sure we are using these wonderful resources bestowed to us!