2Ch 32:9 After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, (but he himself laid siege against Lachish, and all his power with him,) unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying,
2Ch 32:10 Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust, that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem?
2Ch 32:11 Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst, saying, The LORD our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
2Ch 32:12 Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar, and burn incense upon it?
2Ch 32:13 Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?
2Ch 32:14 Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand?
2Ch 32:15 Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you on this manner, neither yet believe him: for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand?
2Ch 32:16 And his servants spake yet more against the LORD God, and against his servant Hezekiah.
2Ch 32:17 He wrote also letters to rail on the LORD God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand.
2Ch 32:18 Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city.
2Ch 32:19 And they spake against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man.
2Ch 32:20 And for this cause Hezekiah the king, and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz, prayed and cried to heaven.
2Ch 32:21 And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword.
2Ch 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 other, and guided them on every side.
2Ch 32:23 And many brought gifts unto the LORD to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.
Outlasting discouragement will never happen to you on accident.
Doubts will move in and move out. There will always be the voices in your life and in your world that will challenge you as to whether or not it is really worth it to continue on with God. Some of you will be tempted to quit, quit on your families, quit on your ministry, quit on your church, quit on what you once knew for certain was God’s crystal clear plan for your life.
Much of our lives are supernatural. Not all of it can be measured and boxed in and illustrated and diagramed, because there is an enemy that you can’t see to ... who seeks to keep you from trusting a God that you can’t see. So all that we do, if it is ever going to amount to anything is done by faith and that is where he has put his bull’s eye. He has put
his bull’s eye on your faith. He wants you to doubt. He wants you to fear and he wants you to tremble about your future.
Let’s talk about that doubt that leads to your discouragement. Let’s analyze and utilize this narrative from 2 Chronicles 32 and let’s make application to our lives today. Let me talk to you about the agenda of your enemy.
In verse number nine here is the agenda. It is seen in Sennacherib that
King of Assyria, the godless man who is coming to destroy the people of God. It says: “...who was besieging Lachish with all his forces, sent his servants to Jerusalem to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem.”
The agenda of the enemy here, just like the agenda of the enemy in your life is aggressive. He is not passive. He is not got his hands behind his head with his feet propped up. He has a strategy. He has a scheme. He has a plan and he has got, in his mind, all the time in the world to make sure that his desire for your life is accomplished.
Sennacherib was this individual who had been allowed by God to conquer so many other places, other lands and people that bowed to other deities and they were no match for the Assyrian army. They came through and they destroyed, they ravaged, they plundered, they stole and they kept taking territory and now they are about 25 miles southwest of
Jerusalem in a place called Lachish.
But notice how he comes when he does want to gain their hearts and minds. Notice before he fires a single arrow, before there is any catapult lifting up fiery ammunition to go inside the city walls, he wants to defeat them in their minds, in their hearts before he defeats them in their lives. The accusation of your enemy is addressed in verses 10 and
11. It says here is the note that he sent, the word that the sent, the message that he sent.
“Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘On what are you trusting, that
you endure the siege in Jerusalem? Is not Hezekiah misleading you, that
he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst, when he tells you,
“The LORD our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of
Assyria”?3
You see, the messengers came forth prior to the army beginning a military onslaught. The messengers came forth and they said, “Are you crazy? Don’t you see we have got you surrounded? Don’t you understand that you are not going to make it out of the hand of the King of Assyria, that when Hezekiah is speaking confidence in your God, all he is doing is all you to go day after day starving and thirsting, because ultimately you are
going to die? Hezekiah is lying to you. He is deceiving you. It is all over.”
Your enemy today wants to undermine one thing more than anything else in your life. He wants to undermine your confidence in the character of God. He wants to tell you that God is toying with you, that God is
dangerous. He says one thing, but it may not turn out like you think so be prepared that something negative is going to happen. He tells you that you are not strong enough and, by the way, God is not engaged enough to meet you at your weakness. He tells you that God may have a plan, but you can’t really know it, and don’t trust that king of yours.
Don’t look to Jesus. Don’t look to the king because you can’t trust him either. He is just shepherding you along as a sheep that is going to die in the valley of the shadow of death. Ultimately the enemy comes accusing your God to you.
and the accuser comes in and says, “Are you
really sure? Are you really sure he is that good? Well, if he is that good, how do you explain this in your life? How does that jive with the goodness of God?” And let me tell you. Satan has had the entirety of human history to perfect his accusation. He knows how to get us thinking twice about the goodness of our God. Well, it goes further. Verse number 12 we see the arrogance of your enemy. Listen to what Sennacherib says concerning Hezekiah. He says to the people of Israel:
“Has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, ‘Before one altar you shall worship, and on it you shall burn your sacrifices’?”
Do you see the arrogance of Sennacherib. Sennacherib is what we call a polytheist. That is just a three dollar word that means he worships many gods as all the lands did in that day. They worshiped a god of sex and a god of crops and a god of the waters and a god of the season and a god of prosperity and they worshipped a different god for all the different things. And yet when Hezekiah was leading Israel back to the one true God, he
had all of his servants tear down those pagan altars, tear down the altars there, tear down the altars on the high places. Tear down the altars to Chemosh. Tear down the altars to Baal. Tear down the altars to Ashera. Tear them down. We worship one God. And when you worship God you will worship him here with your people in Jerusalem at the temple.
And now Sennacherib is saying, “Oh, really. Do you really believe that this narrow way is something that is going to please your God?
And what he did is he arrogantly brought into Israel his own polytheistic theology. They could worship all the gods they wanted, because none of their gods were real anyway. But Israel had the one real and living God. And they were to worship him according to the way that God prescribed.
Notice the accounting of the enemy in verses 13 and 14. This is where he teaches that the odds are against you when he says:
“Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands at all able to deliver their lands out of my hand?” Rhetorical question there, because everybody knew that every place Assyria went they conquered. And then he asked: “Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand?”
Do you see what he is doing? He is saying, “Why don’t you be reasonable about this? Don’t you realize the odds are stacked against you? Don’t you realize that other people and what is so special about you that you are not just like them? The fell to us just like you are going to fall to us. Their gods that they trusted, that they sang to, they were sincere before their gods and their gods let them down. Don’t you realize it is about to happen to you? Do the math, Israel. Nobody beats Assyria. Nobody conquers us. And your defeat and, lo, your doom is sure.”
I understand that what we start off strongly and determined and confident we know God is with us, who can be against us. And we are
quoting all sorts of wonderful Scripture that is meant to galvanize our heart and strengthen our faith and the Lord our God is with us
whithersoever we go and we will not fear. We will not be dismayed. We will look confidently upon our Lord. We will call
unto him in the time of trouble and he shall rescue. He is our refuge. He is our strong tower. He is our buckler. He is our shield. And we know all of those verses.
Let me remind us that that spirit does not come from God. It is very interesting to me that when Paul was writing to young pastor Timothy, his second letter, early on in that latter, as a matter of fact, in what is our first chapter and seventh verse Paul makes sure that Timothy understood that. He said, “Listen, Timothy.” And Timothy seems to be a young man who struggled with timidity, a little hesitancy, a little anxious, kind of self
conscious and insecure. And Paul comes up and he says, “Timothy, God has not given us the spirit of fear, but he has given us the spirit of power and love and self control or a sound mind. Timothy, you have got to get a hold of yourself. You have got to think more than you feel in this instance and, Timothy, don’t believe the hype.”
You see, brothers and sisters, if it is not consistent with what Scripture says, God did not send it. And yet often when we are doubting, we are not thinking scripturally. We are analyzing and we are tallying and we are prognosticating and we are saying, “If this happens, this is going to happen. What if this doesn’t happen?” And we start rearranging all of the pieces of the puzzle and none of them fit. Instead of looking to the Lord and the enemy makes a hay day out of that in our lives.
Listen, he wasn’t content. I want you to see verse number 15. This doubt that leads to discouragement comes from an accusation. It comes from an agenda. It involves you doing the accounting and here comes the assault, verse number 15. Notice what he says.
“Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!”7
Do you see what he is doing? He is coming at them from all angles. First of all, he is speaking about their human leader and he says, “Oh, that guy is a deceiver. He is inept. He is incompetent. He doesn’t know what he is talking about. You listen to him and you are going to get off track. Don’t believe what he is saying to you.” That is what he ultimately says. He says, “Don’t believe what Hezekiah is saying.”
By the way, let’s just refresh ourselves. Hezekiah was speaking the truth. Hezekiah had told them this battle belongs to God. Don’t fear. Don’t be afraid. Let’s prepare for battle, but God is going to come through. And now the enemy of the people of God says, “Don’t believe that.”
Friends, I am going to go ahead and bring some elementary into the process. Ultimately
most of the conflicts in your life and most of the testing and the trials of our faith can be reduced to this. Am I confident that God will work according to his character? Not am I confident that I understand everything God is about to do and how it is going to work out
and how I am going to respond and all that? No, no, no. Ultimately, every test of my faith boils down to this. Do I trust the unchanging, reliable, faithful nature of God? And when I don’t, I doubt. I fear. I struggle. But when I do, I rest. I march and I experience victory. That is what it boils down to in your life and mine.
Therefore, that is why the enemy comes against you with all of his forces in this one respect and he says, “You can’t trust God. You can’t trust God with your past. You should not trust God with your present. And you must not trust God concerning your future.” And when we abandon that confidence in God, especially when thinking of the future, we start processing all the contingencies.
Well, I better do this and I better do this and if this happens I got to do this. And all of the sudden, guess who is on the throne? Me. You. We are now lord. We are now responsible for anticipating everything,coordinating everything, handling everything, ordaining everything, sovereignly limiting the other things. We are now in charge and that is why
we fear, because for the Christian we know we are insufficient to be able to lead solo in the battle.
But often that is what happens when the enemy says, “Don’t believe God. Don’t trust the king.”
Well, verses 16, 17, 18 and 19 bring us to our next thought
I like the fact that Hezekiah is still doing everything right. I mean, he was the last time we were together and this army started moving forward towards him and he is reassuring the people. Remember, we spoke about encouraging. He spoke courage into their hearts and in their lives. But the situation is getting worse.
Sometimes when you do exactly what God wants you to do, your circumstances become worse.
Look at what happens with Hezekiah now. The derision which enhances your discouragement. Here it comes more powerfully, more precisely, more pin pointedly here. And, again, it is in the forms of communication, what they are saying and what Israel was hearing. Relentless words in your ears. This is one of the ways the enemy brings you to discouragement and doubt.
Speaking of Sennacherib it says: “And his servants said still more against the Lord GOD and against his servant
Hezekiah.”8 So they weren’t trying to, you know, kill everybody. This is the mindset behind this . If we can so discourage them and terrify them and frighten them and get them not to listen to their leader, inwardly they will have no resistance so that when we come up physically they will throw down their weapons. They won’t fight us and the city will be
ours. He wants to defeat them in their mind and so what does he do? He communicates deceit. He communicates. The Bible says they said more and more. They just kept hitting the same thing on the head.
Listen. Let’s talk about experience for a moment. Some of us have wrestled with the same issue in our hearts for years. And we have victory in so many other places in our
lives. But when it comes down to this one thing,. And you call out to the Lord and you are experiencing victory and answered prayer in all these other areas of your life, but in this
one area you are discouraged and you stay that way. And you are defeated and you are doubting and you are troubled. And there are certain days where you can’t focus on all the things that are going right. You have to address this one issue and you haven’t prospered or grown a bit in this area. Why? Because the enemy is continually speaking to you in deception about who you are and who God is in the context of that one area in
your life.
. Your enemy still has more to say to you about why you
should be defeated in the area you have been defeated in. He is never going to run out of ammo. Here is my concern. Are you really starting to believe what he says? Do you really believe that the character of your God is so woefully inadequate that there can’t be triumph in that area? Have you just decided to take the new high road which you say,
“Well, that is just part of who I am. It is just a weakness in our life and weakness in my family’s life. It is just a place that we are never going to have victory in. But, praise God, it is my thorn in the flesh. It is my sin in my life and God’s grace is sufficient.”
Well, I would have to say that if you think that way and use that kind of legitimization of that, then you are mishandling the Scripture. The enemy will speak deceit to you becausehe likes you bound. He likes you in error. He likes you hobbled. He likes you wronged. He goes further. Verse 17.
Occasionally there are the direct assaults against your faith. Listen to the openness of these words. “And he wrote letters to cast contempt on the LORD, the God of Israel and to speak against him, saying, ‘Like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my
hand.’”
Sennacherib said something that can cause Hezekiah and the others to doubt in ways that we do. Notice what Sennacherib didn’t say in that
one verse. He did not say God is not able to deliver you. He said God won’t do it. He said he will not.
I admit I have lingered in that shadow before where we feign
glorious praise to the God who can and then we rob him of that praise by saying, “You are not the God who will. You are the God who could, but you are not the God who does.” And there is a siege on the castle of our heart, cutting off all inflow of nourishment and hope and health.
We probably need to do this in these days. We probably need to go ahead and hunker down and really find out what we believe about the character of God. You will never live above your concept of God. Never. You can’t. It is the concept that—speaking to believers—your concept of God is the ceiling under which you
I want to tell you something. The devil accuses the goodness and the will of your God to you. You have to wrestle this out. You have to ask yourself who is he. Who is God? Am I believing In the God of the Bible or have I fashioned my own idol and called it my God?
Verse number 18. We see some specific strategies to rob your hope. Look at this, what the enemy does. Please remember back in the context of Assyria surrounding Jerusalem. “And they shouted it with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, in order that they might take the city.”10
When it speaks of them shouting the news, here the ... in 2 Kings you are going to find a more amplified account of what was going on. This is condensed in 2 Chronicles, but as they were delivering these messages, they were delivering it from a contingent of Assyria to a contingent of Judah. And when Hezekiah refused to give in, the contingent form
Assyria said, “Ok, you want to play hardball? We will play hardball.” And they started shouting out in the dialect of the people of Judah, speaking their own language. And the contingent from Judah said, “No, no, don’t talk to them in their own language.” And they say, “We are going to talk to them in their own language. Why? We want them terrified.
We want them discouraged. We want them frightened, because we want this city.”
Why would I even linger over this point? Well, I guess to amplify even further that the message of discouragement is often the loudest message in your life if you are not entrenched in the gospel.
The purpose was very clear, to get you to be afraid in your life, so that you are not walking confidently. You are not walking boldly. You are not walking assured in grace. You are walking with micromanaging every thought, guessing, second guessing, planning, counter planning, anticipating contingencies. You live under the banner of what if this, what if this, what if this? And the devil loves it.
Here is where it all went wrong for Sennacherib, verse number 19. These were the miscalculated steps which doomed Assyria’s cause.
“And they spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands.”11
In a moment you are going to find that all of the pressure, all of the intensity, all of the blasphemy drove Hezekiah and Isaiah to their knees in prayer. They had nowhere else to
go. The odds were clearly against them. All of the data backed up what Sennacherib was saying. The thing that Sennacherib was doing was that he was relegating the God of Israel to the same level as all of the other pagan gods which weren’t gods at all. The reason why Sennacherib could defeat all of these other lands is quite simply he had a bigger army. It wasn’t that these gods were involved. There are no other gods. And so Sennacherib is saying... and notice what Sennacherib doesn’t say. The best I can recall,
Sennacherib does not say in this passage, “My god beat your god.” He says, “Your gods fell to me.” And so he says to Israel, “And your God, Israel, is going to fall to me.”
Now I am going to say this probably irreverently, but I am going to say it the way I feel it. God don’t play that. God is not content to allow a proud hearted man thump his chest in the face of God and say, “Bring it on.” As a matter of fact, the Bible says that pride goes before what? And a haughty spirit goes before destruction.
Unfortunately for him, Sennacherib had crossed a line and God moved. Let’s see how he moves. Let’s see how you must outlast the ministry of discouragement coming against you. Here is the deliverance. Which defeats your discouragement. It begins with desperate prayers from troubled hearts and that is something we ought to be really proficient at. I recommend high levels of desperation in your life. If you are not
desperate in one sense of the word, you are blind.
“Then Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this and cried to heaven.”12
These were two praying men, anyway. You have got the chief prophet and you have got the King of Israel, both of whom in their biblical testimony are praying men. But this prayer was different. It was specific. It was motivated by the urgent need that was so much greater than their human capacity.
Again, Chronicles is condensed and doesn’t give it, but let me lift the actual prayer out of 2 Kings 19 and read it to you.
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. And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD the
God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you
alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.
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. Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations
and their lands 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. 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.”13 Sennacherib contests and blasphemes the glory of the God of Israel, the only God. Hezekiah powerless, resourceless, answerless, takes the foul testimony of Sennacherib and lays it before God and says, “God, he steals your glory and takes it for himself. But I, Lord, and Isaiah, we give you the glory, because you alone are God. Therefore, for your glory save your people.”
Now let me give you verse 21, because it is not overly dramatic in 2 Chronicles. It is very succinct, undeniable response from mighty God.
“And the LORD sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he came into the house of his god, some of his own sons struck him down there with the sword.”14
There was a line that could not be crossed by Sennacherib and had to be crossed by Hezekiah, one line, two different destinies. Sennacherib crossed in pride the line, the invisible line that God drew and God said, “You will not live if you cross this line.” He crossed this line. If I can use my sanctified imagination, invisible, holy, glorious, almighty God dispatches one angel from the myriad of angels and says, “Go take care of
the fool called Sennacherib and his army.” One angel. 2 Kings tells us that 185,000 Assyrian warriors died that day from one angel in response to one prayer.
Sennacherib crossed the lie. He ended up going back to his God. And he goes in to worship or pray or do whatever he did and his two sons see their father who is now a very inglorious man and they kill him, murdered by his own sons. He crossed the line.
However, this same line Hezekiah had to cross in a very different way. The line was a point in time. It was this battle. Hezekiah had to trust God all the way up to that line and when he reached that line God said, “Now I act.”
, let me tell you why you don’t quit. I am a firm believer that God honors faith that targets his glory. I believe that when you as a believer
says, “I do not know what I am going to go through. I do not know how or if or when the answer will come. I do not have the right to demand for God to take it easy on me. I must set my heart for his glory. I have set my heart for his glory. I yield. I surrender. Whatever you want, Lord, you have me. Use me for your glory.” When you come to that point, I
believe that you should fully expect amazing, unprecedented activity of god in your life.
You may think that that is a little bold or presumptuous, I do not. I believe that rare is the individual that will approach that level of faith and so resign himself or herself to the overall care of God that they are able to say it doesn’t matter what happens as long as you are glorified. We sing about that. We just don’t live it. And so Hezekiah had to come up to that place.
You quit and you won’t get there. Don’t you quit on your family. Don’t you quit on your parents. Don’t you quit on your children. Don’t you quit in this war for sanctification in your life
Look at what happened with Hezekiah. There was a reversal of circumstances after his faithful endurance.
So the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the
hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies,
and he provided for them on every side. And many brought gifts to the
LORD to Jerusalem and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that
he was exalted in the sight of all nations from that time onward.15
Let me tell you what a complete reversal was. When we opened the passage the people are being bombarded with discouragement and doubt, being tempted to fear. They are surrounded by the enemy army that is coming up against them, blaspheming their God, telling them to quit, telling them to give up. Tell them it is not worth waiting. That is how
the passage begins. Then god intervenes, destroys the enemy, exalts truth and by the end of the passage you see not only Assyria defeated, but all of the other neighboring lands that mighty have been thinking about taking advantage of an opportunity, they step back and say, “Did you see what happened to Assyria when they came up against them folks?”
And so they said, “Let’s not only call off the battle plans, let’s bake them a cake and let’sgo make friends.”
“When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”16
I am wondering how long the dim bulb of discouragement is going to shade your thinking. I am wondering if God is not literally waiting on a few of his children to say, “From this point on, no matter what, no matter
how, no matter when, my life is for your glory. Send me forth, God, and use me.”
