Hidden Heroes Of Faith: Hezekiah Series

No hope. None. Not only could the people of Judah see it with their very own eyes, but now they had just heard it with their ears. Rabsheka, a messenger of their enemy, detailed it plainly. 1. By trusting in your counsel and might for war, you have placed your faith in empty things. 2. You cannot trust in Egypt. They are not nearly as strong as you think. 3. You can’t trust in your God. Many other nations have trusted in their own gods and look at where they’re at now. 4. The Lord sent me against your brothers to the north. They are gone. Does not this same prophecy now hold true for you?

By all means, Judah was lost. Rationally speaking, there was no hope. Rabsheka’s speeches were prime examples of logic, politics, and military might. So, before us lies two questions. 1. How did Judah get to this point? And, 2. What could they do?

A few hundred years before this event, there was a young boy named David. God had handpicked him to become the next king of Israel. David, in spite of his many sins and failures, followed his God as a man after the Lord’s own heart. However, as is the way with all men, unless God intervenes, David eventually rested with his fathers. Succeeding him was his son, Solomon. Solomon is the wisest man ever to live thanks to a gift from God. Yet, even with all of that wisdom, Solomon made foolish decisions. He took for himself many wives and concubines and may eventually have been led astray by them. He too, like his father, went to the grave. After his death, the country split in two. Israel or Ephraim to the north, Judah to the south. That happened in the year 930 BC.

Jumping forward hundreds of years to the year 722BC, God raised up a servant for himself in the form of the Assyrians. They were a cruel and powerful force, showing no mercy in the face of opposition. After defeating an enemy, they would remove them from their homeland and replant them somewhere else. The northern kingdom, Ephraim, was no exception. Due to their repeated sins of idolatry, God sent the Assyrians to Ephraim and sent them away into exile forever. No one truly knows what happened to that people.

Assyria, though, was not done. Around twenty years later, they now their eyes set on all of Judah. Having captured many of the fortified cities, they began to prepare for the capital, for Jerusalem herself. The people had tried to prepare. They had built a well so that they might have fresh water for their people. They had tried to buy Assyria off with the gold and treasures from the temple, but Assyria had taken that and continued in the conquest. Literally, there were no options for them. Military might was out of the question, so were allies, so were treaties.

Yet, in the face of this all stood a man by the name of Hezekiah, King of Judah. He had sent out his advisors to listen to Rabshekah, spokesman for Assyria. Both they and the people listened to his speech. And yet, they listened to their king’s command and remained silent. In a way, their silence demonstrated faith in the Lord. Often it is better to remain silent in the face of arrogant unbelief. Even Jesus said not to cast pearls to swine.

Having heard what he had to say, they tore their garments, marking this as a solemn and serious situation. They returned to King Hezekiah and reported everything. What comes next is one of the most beautiful illustrations of faith in action of the bible. 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.

Was Hezekiah upset? Absolutely. Only a fool would not be. Yet, his God-given faith rose above the panic, and thus he walked by faith and not by sight. First, he made use of fellow believers. In his situation, would you have done that? It’s commonplace that when we feel weak, and when we are need of each other, that we don’t want to let others know of our pain or our confusion. Let me make this as plain as possible. Like Hezekiah, you are weak. There are no options for you. There is no natural strength, no hidden reserve from which you can draw. You’re nothing on your own. Like a lone piece of charcoal, there is no way to stay lit. God designed you in such a way that you need fellow believers simply to survive. Stop being so arrogant to think that you by yourself can actually handle this thing you’re currently dealing with because you can’t. You need us and we need you.