The Lord Saves

Ready Isaiah 36-37
 
Isaiah 37:1-2 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.
 
WE have been reading God’s promises to remove Assyria from Judah’s borders. Here it happened. These two chapters read like an action-adventure drama, because it is. God’s destruction of the Assyrian army is also recorded in 2 Kings 18 and 2 Chronicles 32. This is one of God’s great deliverance miracles in the Bible. It ranks in the same category as the Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea and Jericho’s walls crumbling against Israel’s faithful trumpet blasts.
     In addition to God’s powerful hand to rescue his people, there is another common element present in each of those three stories. God has chosen and formed a faithful leader to follow his commands.
     See Hezekiah’s response to the aggravating, disrespectful words form the Assyrians. Instead of seeking help from other nations as his predecessors did, Hezekiah seeks the LORD God. He tears his clothes in a symbol of submission and grief before  the Lord. He knows the circumstances have no earthly hope of Judah’s safety. So he turns to the one who created the heavens and the earth, the only One who can help.
     Hezekiah goes to the temple and lays out before he Lord. He mourns for his people and prays for God’s power. He seeks the Lord’s Word from Isaiah. In his distress, he waits on the Lord’s answer, willing to submit to God’s Word.
     In many of our lives, God presents to us such a choice. Where do we go when the armies of grief, despair, loss, hopelessness or death rage against us? What happens when weakness and helplessness besiege us? Isaiah has given us the answer. The LORD God arranged these circumstances just as he did the Red Sea and Jericho. He raised up a leader to obey his commands. Each impossible circumstance then became a display of God’s magnificent power and protection for those who are faithful to trust him.
     Do you know you can claim the victory in the Lord? But do you live in that faith, confident to seek and obey him? Do you go before God in all circumstances to prepare for what God will say to you? Are you willing to lead others into God’s victories?
 
Isaiah 37:35 “I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!” 36 Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning – there were all the dead bodies! 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. 38 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.