October 18, 2023 • 24 mins
Experience the power of trust as we journey through the life of King Hezekiah, revealing the profound impact faith can have in overcoming adversity. We promise to guide you through the pivotal moments of Hezekiah's reign, drawing parallels to our own lives, and showing how trust in God can help us confront our biggest fears and challenges. We'll be peeling back the layers of the world's false promises and the devil's deceptions, emphasizing the joy of choosing life by abiding in God.
As we recount the epic battle between Hezekiah and the fearsome Assyrian king, Sennacherib, we'll uncover the profound lessons of humility, dependence on God, and the miracle of divine intervention. Here's a promise; you'll leave with a deeper understanding of the importance of shifting our trust away from worldly things and placing it wholly on God. This story also serves as a reminder of the power of repentance and the grace of God's protection and provision.
Prepare to be inspired as we share the extraordinary story of Gladys Alward, a missionary who, in the throes of World War II, trusted God and carried His message across China. We delve into her faith-filled journey, drawing inspiration and motivation from her unwavering trust in God despite the lurking danger. Let's be encouraged to foster a deeper relationship with God, entrust our lives to Him, and faithfully respond to His call, just as Gladys did. Trust us; this episode is one you won't want to miss.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Thanks for tuning in to the Feat Sheep podcast,
dedicated to help you hear God'svoice, follow His lead and
thrive as a disciple.
I'm Dan Schilling, your guideon this adventure, so glad to
have you with us today.
Let's dive in and discover thatpath to a thriving life.
Hey, welcome to Feat Sheeppodcast.
We're back again.
We had a rich discussion on ourprevious episode and decided to
(00:30):
break it into two episodes, soI just want to encourage you
today as we pick back up.
The second part of thisdiscussion that Mike and I had
is we're looking at the story ofHezekiah and second kings, and
it's just an amazing journeythat we see this king, who was
one of the kings of Judah, whowas following the ways of God
(00:54):
closer than many of hispredecessors, and how God
intervenes in his life becausehe placed his trust.
It says that he trusted Godlike no one before or after, and
we're going to see how Godintervenes.
It comes to his rescue, if youwill, because he placed his
trust in open.
I know you may be facing somethings right now.
I think I need that type ofintervention by God, so we want
(01:17):
to encourage you on your journey, building those trust muscles
and seeing God work in you andwhatever you're facing right now
.
So we want to help you here.
Follow grab.
So let's pick up on ourdiscussion.
Interesting, becauseDeuteronomy also has the same.
I said before you life and death.
Choose life.
I heard a guy say this one time.
It's like God gives you amultiple choice test and then
(01:39):
gives you the answer.
I said before you life anddeath.
Choose life A, life B, death,choose A.
And yet what happens is themajority of us still choose B,
which is I'm going to do it theway of the world or do it my own
way.
And, interesting enough, thismessenger says hey, choose life,
choose the way of the Assyrian.
(02:01):
That is life.
Your God's way has a Kaia's way.
That's death.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And we know that the reality of this promise, what
concord nation is given thisright?
It's like oh hey, we're goingto come treat you so well slaves
.
Yes, the reality isn't.
It wouldn't be anything likethat.
But even see the picture of theIsraelites as they leave Egypt
as slaves and they're groaningto Moses and the wilderness and
saying, pretending like they hadthis posh, comfortable
(02:30):
lifestyle with grain and herbsand food.
And you guys were slaves and wewere beaten and they made us
like make 10 times as much whenthey got mad and wait a minute.
And the promise is never as goodas it seems.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
A promise, a false promise, and not in the ways of
God and in the ways of man.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, no, no the promise of the world Like the
promise is do it this way Don'tdepend on that and you're going
to have everything you want.
Like, why would you want?
It's like the promised landversus Egypt.
We'll go back to Egypt.
That's going to be better.
No, the vine and fig tree is inthe promised land.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, but the devil is still trying to do that same
thing with us today and theculture and the world around us.
The deception oh, you don'twant to be like those Christians
because that means your life'sgoing to be terrible.
I mean, you're not going tohave all the fun things of life
and you're not going to get funAgain.
Maybe I don't have all the whatpeople call fun things, but
we've talked about helpingpeople here, follow and thrive.
(03:27):
And as we want to be on thatjourney here, follow and thrive,
that thriving is not found inall these temporal comforts
they're not bad things to havebut the thriving actually comes
when we are putting our hope,our trust, walking in a here and
follow relationship with theGod of the universe.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Choose life instead of death.
True life, true life, that'sright.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So, let's keep going.
What's he going to continue tosay next?
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I don't listen to Hezekiah when he tries to
mislead you by saying the Lordwill rescue us.
Have the gods of any othernations ever saved their people
from the king of Assyria?
What happened to the gods ofHamath and Arpad?
What about the gods ofSifrvayim, hina and Eva?
Did any God rescue Samaria frommy power?
What God of any nation has everbeen able to save its people
(04:19):
from my power?
So what makes you think thatthe Lord can rescue Jerusalem
from me?
And the people were silent, didnot utter a word because
Hezekiah had commanded them donot answer him.
And then says then Eli-Kayyemand the son of Hezekiah, the
palace administrator, shabna,the court secretary these guys
get their resumes read a lot,apparently.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, why it repeated so many times?
And Joah still the royalhistorian son of Asaph went back
to Hezekiah.
They tore their clothes indespair and they went in to see
the king and told him what theAssyrian chief of staff had said
.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, another continued assault.
Don't believe in a way ofsaying we are the supreme
authority, we rule and no oneelse can.
So don't be foolish, all right,it's like that somebody's
negotiating with you, trying totell you who your identity is.
And what's interesting to me asI think about this for a second
(05:20):
, michael is Hezekiah.
Raised by a mom whose namemeans my father is the Lord, and
when you know who your daddy is, hezekiah probably had a real
good understanding of knowingwho God, his father was as a
protector, as a provider, andthese things probably even from
(05:41):
his mom, presupposing this basedon who her dad was and who she
was, and maybe who she had andhow.
What we see in him in his earlydays of his reign as king, and
what we're going to see from himhere in chapter 19, and how he
responds to this essentiallyassault that's being threatened
(06:06):
upon them.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, and I think that choosing life and death,
the importance of understandingwhere life is, is so important.
And so his picture is hisfather and he knows his father
and he's pursuing that, and it'sa very different picture than
thinking that life here and nowis where you're going to find
whatever it is you're lookingfor.
Again, thinking about Abrahamand Isaac and the passage of all
(06:32):
these people that says theywere seeking a better country,
that is a heavenly time.
Yes, right, they're seekingsomething else.
Their hope wasn't here and theywere going to the place where
God is preparing a city for themand a place for them.
And when that is life, thenthese things of I'll give you
your honey and your food andwhatever you want here, but you
(06:52):
realize that's temporal, even ifit satisfies me for a moment,
and so we have to come back tothat.
I have to know God as my father.
God is trustworthy and trustthe promises that he's given.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And when these things come into our life, as we're
going to see here next is wheredo I go?
Right, and you know, when I'mon the playground and if I know
my dad is not too far away andsomebody's threatening to beat
me up, I go run into the safetyor the shelter, so to say, of
his wings.
Right, like just so.
(07:26):
What I love about this nextthing is, this is what we see
Hezekiah do, and so let's pickup here in verse one though this
is second Kings 19, verse one.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
All right.
When King Hezekiah heard theirreport, he tors, closed, put on
burlap and went into the templeof the Lord and he sent a like I
am the palace administrator,shabna, the court secretary and
the leading priest, all dressedin burlap to the prophet Isaiah,
son of Amos.
They told him this is what KingHezekiah says today is a day of
trouble, insults and disgrace.
(08:00):
It is like when a child isready to be born but the mother
has no strength to deliver thebaby.
But perhaps the Lord, your God,has heard the Assyrian chief of
staff sent by the king to defythe living God and will punish
him for his words.
Oh pray for those of us who areleft.
After King Hezekiah's officialsdelivered the king's message to
(08:20):
Isaiah, the prophet replied,said your master, this is what
the Lord says.
Do not be disturbed by thisblasphemous speech against me
from the Assyrian king'smessengers.
Listen, I myself will moveagainst them and the king will
receive a message that he isneeded at home.
So he will return to his landwhere I will have him killed
with a sword.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So what we're going to see here in this next portion
is the outcome.
But just for a second, let'slook at these here as we kind of
process through what we want tosee in each of our lives, of
building our trust muscles.
So the first thing that wereally saw is that he needed to
ignore the naysayers.
(09:01):
Right, sometimes you can't beand not ignore, like you don't
hear it, because obviously he'soh no, this is not good,
struggled, struggle, but don'tlike.
Oh man, we're, it's over.
But he the next thing I thinkthat you see him do is he
humbles himself, and theseleaders also humble themselves,
(09:22):
and that's what that?
That place of tearing theclothes but on the burlap, that
it's that place of oh God, wehave, we're nothing without you,
right, and posturing of ourheart, and have them then go.
I think the next thing that Isee here is a part of that
process of building our trustmuscles is to seek counsel,
(09:42):
right, and so in that era, you,the prophet, go beseech him.
Okay, god, speak to us.
What do you?
How do you want to communicateyour word to us in this season?
And so I was there today.
The good news, michael, that weknow is that we have a Holy
Spirit, we have had Jesus, whois the son.
Make provision by his blood sothat we can enter into the
(10:07):
presence of God, have thatrelationship with the Holy
Spirit, so we now can go and askwe don't have to go through,
not that we can't have peopleprophetically speaking to our
life still, even today, but thatwe can go get counsel from the
most high when we're faced withan impossible situation.
Because this is a prettyimpossible situation.
They're facing the superpowerof the world at the time.
(10:29):
Who's threatening them?
And they don't have many people.
It's not like they are a bignation, big army.
So they know they're in troublemathematically or medically.
Right, they know like we're nota good spot.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, they're not going to win.
No, yeah it's maybe the trashtalk isn't so good when you're
that much better.
It's like a varsity team trashtalking, a junior high team.
You're like good for you guys.
You're great, you're going tobeat up on a bunch of 12 year
olds.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
The other thing here I think that is important to see
is they didn't deny the troublethey were in.
They admitted it and theymourned it and they went and
said we need help and theyremember where their only place
of help was and hope.
And sometimes I think we get tothese places where we need to
be taken, to a place where weliterally we have no choice
(11:22):
because there's nothing elsethat will help us, there's no
other solution we have.
And I find comfort in thesethat God still is gracious to
them.
If it took that for them toturn to God and say help us, and
he still helps them.
Yes, he's drawing us, even inwhen it takes us a long time to
get to that place.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
We said this something in the previous
episode or two.
Maybe that it's easy to say wetrust God until we're in a place
where we have to trust him, andsometimes we have to be willing
to allow God to take us to ascenario like this where you say
, man, there's no way.
But God, god, if you don't showup, okay, great.
I'm glad you finally read it,cause the dangerous is when we
(12:02):
think we don't.
Oh, I got this one, I can takecare of this one, and we can see
throughout the history of theIsraelites, whether it's in the
kingdom of Judah or you knowthat they would get their
confidence in themselves and I'mlike, okay, I'm gonna have to
send you off to another landbecause you're not willing to
just to trust me, to be under myauthority, to show your love
(12:24):
and affection toward me.
You're gonna show your love andaffection towards these other
nations, their gods, theirprotection, which is what, like
the whole thing about Egypt wesaw a little bit ago, like God
doesn't want us to put our hopeand trust in the things that are
in the world around us, and heallows us, if we're willing, to
be taken to a place sometimesand say, okay, I got nothing
else but you, because he lovesus and it's not he wants to harm
(12:48):
us.
It's to bring us to a closer,intimate relationship with him
as our heavenly father.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Which is why it's so hard.
Power and prestige andpossessions, and all of these
things that can be used for theglory of God and can be used for
good things to help humanityflourish all of these things,
but inherent in each one of themis the tendency to start
thinking it's about me, it'sabout my provision, it's about
my power, my whatever, andfailing to remember oh wait, who
(13:15):
gave it to me, where, who putme in this position, and so
that's the caution of so oftenwe have to be taken to these
places where we don't have those, to realize that actually it is
God who's doing it, and so wehave a harder time seeing that
when it's no, it's that guy inpower, we need to go to him and
ask him, because he's got theone power.
It's like, no, you've got theone in power.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I wanna land a plane here just to give a couple of
quick things, and we're gonnaget to the kind of a crescendo
of the outcome of the story,which is probably one of the
coolest things here.
So Sennacherib is the king andhe sends a message in verse 10,
don't let your God, in whom youtrust, deceive you with the
promises that we're not gonnacome take care of you.
(13:57):
We're not in a good way, we'regonna come eliminate you.
And you know perfectly wellverse 11, you know that
everywhere we've gone, we'vedone this right.
You know who we are.
We always win, and don'tbelieve on any of this other
nonsense.
None of their gods have everrescued them either.
And he lists a bunch of that,and then it says it has a.
(14:17):
Kaia receives this message, goesthen after he gets that message
and goes back to Lord and praysand says God, you are the God,
you're the God of all creation,you're the.
Your kingdom is above allkingdoms.
You're the created heavens,earth.
So hear what he's saying, andyou know this.
He's not taking us.
He's talking against you andacknowledging, yes, it's true,
(14:40):
they have done all this, butyou're God.
And so I just wanna say this.
There's sometimes in our life,when these things are all coming
at us.
We're hearing all this andthere's that I've heard people
say that then there's, but Godcan, he's not limited, he's not
wanting us.
So the God, don't you see allthis?
Like we said, like with Abraham, god don't you know, if I kill
the son, the promise is gonna behard to fulfill, isn't it?
(15:04):
But I am the giver of life.
And that's where I think thatone part where it says Abraham
believe that he could, thatIsaac could be raised from the
dead.
It's okay, god, I trust you,I'll take that next step of my
journey and my faith, and Ibelieve that's what God's always
looking for us, not from us, hedoesn't need it from us but he
wants for us to experience.
Because when that happens, wehave, like you said in that
(15:27):
Hebrews 11, those moments thatare those impressionable moments
and us as clay right, that justgoes.
And we have, like that, 700families that turned away and
like for us oh my gosh, god, youmade a way, and I didn't even
know how impossible it was, butyou made a way where there is no
way People can put their hopein all kinds of things, kind of
(15:48):
what you're going on here to saybut you're the God who rescues
us, takes care of us.
Everybody will know, if youtake care of us in this
situation, that you, god, arethe one alone.
Lord, god of all the kingdomsof the earth.
So I just I love that, I lovewhat he's doing there.
And then we're not gonna readthrough this, we're gonna wrap
(16:09):
up here.
Isaiah essentially sends amessage to Hezekiah and gives
him a new.
You all can look through that.
Let's have you read 35 and 36,which is really fulfillment,
because we read earlier he saidI'm gonna send him back to his
nation.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So let's pick up there that night, the angel of
the Lord went out to theAssyrian camp and killed 185,000
Assyrian soldiers.
When the surviving Assyrianswoke up the next morning, they
found corpses everywhere, andthen King Sennacherib of Assyria
broke camp and returned to hisown land.
He went home to his capital ofNineveh and stayed there.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We can see that in the next part actually says that
he was worshiping in a templeand his sons kill him, which was
prophesied.
But, michael, I can't help butthink about this story.
Every time I look at it it justmakes me smile to think, oh my
gosh, these guys are militaryguys.
I don't know if they're sealtrain type guys, but they would
(17:11):
be elite.
You think soldiers?
Right, to some extent theseguys are battle trained ready.
And somebody even whispersyou're awake that literally in
the middle of the night, 185,000dudes that you're ready to go
into battle with are life suckedout of them.
(17:32):
And when you wake up you didn'thear it, you didn't, not a peep
.
The God is the giver of lifeand breath, literally without
even waking up.
Anybody can take the life outof 185,000.
Not that I wish anybody dead,but you say God's authority in
our life, the protection for usto take care of us, that you can
do anything he needs to do toshow us I'm gonna take care of
(17:55):
you.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And truly fought on their behalf.
They didn't have any gold left.
That was one part of what weskipped, and I have anything I
have to offer this king.
All they had was to surrenderand become slaves or go out and
be slaughtered, Like those werethe two options.
So they thought it's likeAbraham again.
I have two options, like I canignore, disobey God, or I can go
(18:18):
kill my son.
There's my two only options.
Maybe God will do something.
He had enough faith to knowthat God has oftentimes a plan
we can't see.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I just wanna tie this up and finish today with this
thought is these ways that ourtrust muscles are built are
through humility, through reallyrepentance, turning from all
those distractions of thingsthat are trying to keep us from
the things God wants for us,ignoring those things around us
that are trying to distract us,the naysayers, the things that
(18:51):
are trying to keep us from that.
That we seek counsel, that we go, lay our burden before the Lord
.
We lay it between at the altarof God, but also at the hands of
other people around us, and say, would you show me, is there
anything I'm missing?
Is there anything that I needin this journey so that my trust
in him can be built?
(19:12):
And then, really, the lastthing I wanna just mention here
is that when things happen, thatwe thank God for the results
and that sometimes we just getto see a God's sovereign hand,
whether it's I made a way foryou, even though there were 700
other families who wanted to getin this school, or I'm gonna
take care of these 185,000, andthat wasn't killing people to
school, obviously, but like thathe provides in a way that helps
(19:36):
us to see that I am going totake care of and provide for you
and everything you need.
So final thoughts for us today.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, I'm just real briefly.
I'm reminded of a missionarystory, gladys Alward, and she
was this basically housekeeperwho wanted to go to China and
couldn't go over with anybody,so she bought a ticket and went.
Her story of even getting thereis pretty miraculous.
It was during the beginning ofWorld War II and when Japan
invaded China and that type ofextraordinarily dangerous and
(20:07):
violent and here she is byherself, finds a woman she went
to meet and this woman dies andshe's alone in the remote parts
of China and is trying to runthis in to minister, to people
in all, and has no idea how tofund it because no one even
basically knows she's there, wow, and she's thinking how do I
provide?
(20:28):
And in walks the head of thegovernor effectively and says
you're my new foot inspector.
I mean because it becameillegal to have bound feet at
that point and she fit thecriteria that he needed and
effectively he didn't ask her ifshe would.
It was a conscripting of thisis what you are, but it enabled
(20:52):
her to go out to every.
She had to go to every singlevillage and every single farm
and inspect the feet and so shegot to show the gospel with
every single person and everysingle farm, and just think
about the idea of this womanliterally went with nothing.
She went with two pennies andGod provided in a place that she
(21:12):
had no resources to call upon.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You got to imagine her family probably wasn't like,
oh great idea.
Like you're a woman going, doyou even speak Chinese?
No, she didn't.
Do you even have all the thingsin life right, the practical
things that you could say, whatare you doing?
And yet, when we get toeternity, that to me that's
(21:42):
another one of those Hebrews 11stories that are continuing on
right.
This isn't to try to make any ofus feel guilty or condemned or
we're not but what things mightGod want to plant inside of us
that are going to live farbeyond us for the sake of His
kingdom?
And not just to come, but whathe wants to do inside of us, and
(22:08):
that I guarantee you, eventhough there probably were some
days she thought, well, what amI doing?
But in the midst of that time,when she's getting to go around
and share the gospel and do thethings like God, thank you so
much, thank you.
I had no idea and she couldhave just said I could play it
safe, I could stay at home andjust, I'll go to church and go
to my Bible studies.
I don't know if you're wrong orevil, but I think God wants to
show up in our life in amagnificent way and sometimes
(22:34):
we're keeping from because thisarea of trust.
You don't want to see thathappen.
I don't want to see it in myown life.
I don't want to see it in thelives of you, michael, or
anybody else that we're on thisjourney with.
Let me pray for us for the wrapup.
Thank you that it is your desirefor us to walk in intimacy with
you.
And God, today, help us.
(22:55):
We don't have the strength, wecan't overcome these things
around us, these things thatseem so present, so real, like
you're going to get beat up ifyou go do this, you're going to
be hurt if you go do that.
So, god, we don't want to dothese things because we think
you're going to love us more,care for us more, because we
(23:17):
know that's already beenestablished.
But you want us to experience agreater intimacy with you and
fulfillment of life.
You want us to hear your voiceand to follow your lead and
thrive as disciples, followersof you.
And so, god, have your way,lead us and guide us.
Help us today to draw closer toyou in this way, just availing
(23:38):
ourselves today, where we're at.
It might not be to go to China,but just today, to be faithful
to what you call us to.
So help us, give us thestrength to do that.
We love you.
Thanks for our time.
We love you In Jesus' name,amen, amen.
Hey, thanks for tuning in to theFiji Podcast.
We'll see you again next time.
Good night,
Thanks for tuning in to the Feat Sheep podcast,
dedicated to help you hear God'svoice, follow His lead and
thrive as a disciple.
I'm Dan Schilling, your guideon this adventure, so glad to
have you with us today.
Let's dive in and discover thatpath to a thriving life.
Hey, welcome to Feat Sheeppodcast.
We're back again.
We had a rich discussion on ourprevious episode and decided to
(00:30):
break it into two episodes, soI just want to encourage you
today as we pick back up.
The second part of thisdiscussion that Mike and I had
is we're looking at the story ofHezekiah and second kings, and
it's just an amazing journeythat we see this king, who was
one of the kings of Judah, whowas following the ways of God
(00:54):
closer than many of hispredecessors, and how God
intervenes in his life becausehe placed his trust.
It says that he trusted Godlike no one before or after, and
we're going to see how Godintervenes.
It comes to his rescue, if youwill, because he placed his
trust in open.
I know you may be facing somethings right now.
I think I need that type ofintervention by God, so we want
(01:17):
to encourage you on your journey, building those trust muscles
and seeing God work in you andwhatever you're facing right now
.
So we want to help you here.
Follow grab.
So let's pick up on ourdiscussion.
Interesting, becauseDeuteronomy also has the same.
I said before you life and death.
Choose life.
I heard a guy say this one time.
It's like God gives you amultiple choice test and then
(01:39):
gives you the answer.
I said before you life anddeath.
Choose life A, life B, death,choose A.
And yet what happens is themajority of us still choose B,
which is I'm going to do it theway of the world or do it my own
way.
And, interesting enough, thismessenger says hey, choose life,
choose the way of the Assyrian.
(02:01):
That is life.
Your God's way has a Kaia's way.
That's death.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And we know that the reality of this promise, what
concord nation is given thisright?
It's like oh hey, we're goingto come treat you so well slaves
.
Yes, the reality isn't.
It wouldn't be anything likethat.
But even see the picture of theIsraelites as they leave Egypt
as slaves and they're groaningto Moses and the wilderness and
saying, pretending like they hadthis posh, comfortable
(02:30):
lifestyle with grain and herbsand food.
And you guys were slaves and wewere beaten and they made us
like make 10 times as much whenthey got mad and wait a minute.
And the promise is never as goodas it seems.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
A promise, a false promise, and not in the ways of
God and in the ways of man.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, no, no the promise of the world Like the
promise is do it this way Don'tdepend on that and you're going
to have everything you want.
Like, why would you want?
It's like the promised landversus Egypt.
We'll go back to Egypt.
That's going to be better.
No, the vine and fig tree is inthe promised land.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, but the devil is still trying to do that same
thing with us today and theculture and the world around us.
The deception oh, you don'twant to be like those Christians
because that means your life'sgoing to be terrible.
I mean, you're not going tohave all the fun things of life
and you're not going to get funAgain.
Maybe I don't have all the whatpeople call fun things, but
we've talked about helpingpeople here, follow and thrive.
(03:27):
And as we want to be on thatjourney here, follow and thrive,
that thriving is not found inall these temporal comforts
they're not bad things to havebut the thriving actually comes
when we are putting our hope,our trust, walking in a here and
follow relationship with theGod of the universe.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Choose life instead of death.
True life, true life, that'sright.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So, let's keep going.
What's he going to continue tosay next?
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I don't listen to Hezekiah when he tries to
mislead you by saying the Lordwill rescue us.
Have the gods of any othernations ever saved their people
from the king of Assyria?
What happened to the gods ofHamath and Arpad?
What about the gods ofSifrvayim, hina and Eva?
Did any God rescue Samaria frommy power?
What God of any nation has everbeen able to save its people
(04:19):
from my power?
So what makes you think thatthe Lord can rescue Jerusalem
from me?
And the people were silent, didnot utter a word because
Hezekiah had commanded them donot answer him.
And then says then Eli-Kayyemand the son of Hezekiah, the
palace administrator, shabna,the court secretary these guys
get their resumes read a lot,apparently.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, why it repeated so many times?
And Joah still the royalhistorian son of Asaph went back
to Hezekiah.
They tore their clothes indespair and they went in to see
the king and told him what theAssyrian chief of staff had said
.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, another continued assault.
Don't believe in a way ofsaying we are the supreme
authority, we rule and no oneelse can.
So don't be foolish, all right,it's like that somebody's
negotiating with you, trying totell you who your identity is.
And what's interesting to me asI think about this for a second
(05:20):
, michael is Hezekiah.
Raised by a mom whose namemeans my father is the Lord, and
when you know who your daddy is, hezekiah probably had a real
good understanding of knowingwho God, his father was as a
protector, as a provider, andthese things probably even from
(05:41):
his mom, presupposing this basedon who her dad was and who she
was, and maybe who she had andhow.
What we see in him in his earlydays of his reign as king, and
what we're going to see from himhere in chapter 19, and how he
responds to this essentiallyassault that's being threatened
(06:06):
upon them.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, and I think that choosing life and death,
the importance of understandingwhere life is, is so important.
And so his picture is hisfather and he knows his father
and he's pursuing that, and it'sa very different picture than
thinking that life here and nowis where you're going to find
whatever it is you're lookingfor.
Again, thinking about Abrahamand Isaac and the passage of all
(06:32):
these people that says theywere seeking a better country,
that is a heavenly time.
Yes, right, they're seekingsomething else.
Their hope wasn't here and theywere going to the place where
God is preparing a city for themand a place for them.
And when that is life, thenthese things of I'll give you
your honey and your food andwhatever you want here, but you
(06:52):
realize that's temporal, even ifit satisfies me for a moment,
and so we have to come back tothat.
I have to know God as my father.
God is trustworthy and trustthe promises that he's given.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And when these things come into our life, as we're
going to see here next is wheredo I go?
Right, and you know, when I'mon the playground and if I know
my dad is not too far away andsomebody's threatening to beat
me up, I go run into the safetyor the shelter, so to say, of
his wings.
Right, like just so.
(07:26):
What I love about this nextthing is, this is what we see
Hezekiah do, and so let's pickup here in verse one though this
is second Kings 19, verse one.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
All right.
When King Hezekiah heard theirreport, he tors, closed, put on
burlap and went into the templeof the Lord and he sent a like I
am the palace administrator,shabna, the court secretary and
the leading priest, all dressedin burlap to the prophet Isaiah,
son of Amos.
They told him this is what KingHezekiah says today is a day of
trouble, insults and disgrace.
(08:00):
It is like when a child isready to be born but the mother
has no strength to deliver thebaby.
But perhaps the Lord, your God,has heard the Assyrian chief of
staff sent by the king to defythe living God and will punish
him for his words.
Oh pray for those of us who areleft.
After King Hezekiah's officialsdelivered the king's message to
(08:20):
Isaiah, the prophet replied,said your master, this is what
the Lord says.
Do not be disturbed by thisblasphemous speech against me
from the Assyrian king'smessengers.
Listen, I myself will moveagainst them and the king will
receive a message that he isneeded at home.
So he will return to his landwhere I will have him killed
with a sword.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So what we're going to see here in this next portion
is the outcome.
But just for a second, let'slook at these here as we kind of
process through what we want tosee in each of our lives, of
building our trust muscles.
So the first thing that wereally saw is that he needed to
ignore the naysayers.
(09:01):
Right, sometimes you can't beand not ignore, like you don't
hear it, because obviously he'soh no, this is not good,
struggled, struggle, but don'tlike.
Oh man, we're, it's over.
But he the next thing I thinkthat you see him do is he
humbles himself, and theseleaders also humble themselves,
(09:22):
and that's what that?
That place of tearing theclothes but on the burlap, that
it's that place of oh God, wehave, we're nothing without you,
right, and posturing of ourheart, and have them then go.
I think the next thing that Isee here is a part of that
process of building our trustmuscles is to seek counsel,
(09:42):
right, and so in that era, you,the prophet, go beseech him.
Okay, god, speak to us.
What do you?
How do you want to communicateyour word to us in this season?
And so I was there today.
The good news, michael, that weknow is that we have a Holy
Spirit, we have had Jesus, whois the son.
Make provision by his blood sothat we can enter into the
(10:07):
presence of God, have thatrelationship with the Holy
Spirit, so we now can go and askwe don't have to go through,
not that we can't have peopleprophetically speaking to our
life still, even today, but thatwe can go get counsel from the
most high when we're faced withan impossible situation.
Because this is a prettyimpossible situation.
They're facing the superpowerof the world at the time.
(10:29):
Who's threatening them?
And they don't have many people.
It's not like they are a bignation, big army.
So they know they're in troublemathematically or medically.
Right, they know like we're nota good spot.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, they're not going to win.
No, yeah it's maybe the trashtalk isn't so good when you're
that much better.
It's like a varsity team trashtalking, a junior high team.
You're like good for you guys.
You're great, you're going tobeat up on a bunch of 12 year
olds.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
The other thing here I think that is important to see
is they didn't deny the troublethey were in.
They admitted it and theymourned it and they went and
said we need help and theyremember where their only place
of help was and hope.
And sometimes I think we get tothese places where we need to
be taken, to a place where weliterally we have no choice
(11:22):
because there's nothing elsethat will help us, there's no
other solution we have.
And I find comfort in thesethat God still is gracious to
them.
If it took that for them toturn to God and say help us, and
he still helps them.
Yes, he's drawing us, even inwhen it takes us a long time to
get to that place.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
We said this something in the previous
episode or two.
Maybe that it's easy to say wetrust God until we're in a place
where we have to trust him, andsometimes we have to be willing
to allow God to take us to ascenario like this where you say
, man, there's no way.
But God, god, if you don't showup, okay, great.
I'm glad you finally read it,cause the dangerous is when we
(12:02):
think we don't.
Oh, I got this one, I can takecare of this one, and we can see
throughout the history of theIsraelites, whether it's in the
kingdom of Judah or you knowthat they would get their
confidence in themselves and I'mlike, okay, I'm gonna have to
send you off to another landbecause you're not willing to
just to trust me, to be under myauthority, to show your love
(12:24):
and affection toward me.
You're gonna show your love andaffection towards these other
nations, their gods, theirprotection, which is what, like
the whole thing about Egypt wesaw a little bit ago, like God
doesn't want us to put our hopeand trust in the things that are
in the world around us, and heallows us, if we're willing, to
be taken to a place sometimesand say, okay, I got nothing
else but you, because he lovesus and it's not he wants to harm
(12:48):
us.
It's to bring us to a closer,intimate relationship with him
as our heavenly father.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Which is why it's so hard.
Power and prestige andpossessions, and all of these
things that can be used for theglory of God and can be used for
good things to help humanityflourish all of these things,
but inherent in each one of themis the tendency to start
thinking it's about me, it'sabout my provision, it's about
my power, my whatever, andfailing to remember oh wait, who
(13:15):
gave it to me, where, who putme in this position, and so
that's the caution of so oftenwe have to be taken to these
places where we don't have those, to realize that actually it is
God who's doing it, and so wehave a harder time seeing that
when it's no, it's that guy inpower, we need to go to him and
ask him, because he's got theone power.
It's like, no, you've got theone in power.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I wanna land a plane here just to give a couple of
quick things, and we're gonnaget to the kind of a crescendo
of the outcome of the story,which is probably one of the
coolest things here.
So Sennacherib is the king andhe sends a message in verse 10,
don't let your God, in whom youtrust, deceive you with the
promises that we're not gonnacome take care of you.
(13:57):
We're not in a good way, we'regonna come eliminate you.
And you know perfectly wellverse 11, you know that
everywhere we've gone, we'vedone this right.
You know who we are.
We always win, and don'tbelieve on any of this other
nonsense.
None of their gods have everrescued them either.
And he lists a bunch of that,and then it says it has a.
(14:17):
Kaia receives this message, goesthen after he gets that message
and goes back to Lord and praysand says God, you are the God,
you're the God of all creation,you're the.
Your kingdom is above allkingdoms.
You're the created heavens,earth.
So hear what he's saying, andyou know this.
He's not taking us.
He's talking against you andacknowledging, yes, it's true,
(14:40):
they have done all this, butyou're God.
And so I just wanna say this.
There's sometimes in our life,when these things are all coming
at us.
We're hearing all this andthere's that I've heard people
say that then there's, but Godcan, he's not limited, he's not
wanting us.
So the God, don't you see allthis?
Like we said, like with Abraham, god don't you know, if I kill
the son, the promise is gonna behard to fulfill, isn't it?
(15:04):
But I am the giver of life.
And that's where I think thatone part where it says Abraham
believe that he could, thatIsaac could be raised from the
dead.
It's okay, god, I trust you,I'll take that next step of my
journey and my faith, and Ibelieve that's what God's always
looking for us, not from us, hedoesn't need it from us but he
wants for us to experience.
Because when that happens, wehave, like you said in that
(15:27):
Hebrews 11, those moments thatare those impressionable moments
and us as clay right, that justgoes.
And we have, like that, 700families that turned away and
like for us oh my gosh, god, youmade a way, and I didn't even
know how impossible it was, butyou made a way where there is no
way People can put their hopein all kinds of things, kind of
(15:48):
what you're going on here to saybut you're the God who rescues
us, takes care of us.
Everybody will know, if youtake care of us in this
situation, that you, god, arethe one alone.
Lord, god of all the kingdomsof the earth.
So I just I love that, I lovewhat he's doing there.
And then we're not gonna readthrough this, we're gonna wrap
(16:09):
up here.
Isaiah essentially sends amessage to Hezekiah and gives
him a new.
You all can look through that.
Let's have you read 35 and 36,which is really fulfillment,
because we read earlier he saidI'm gonna send him back to his
nation.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So let's pick up there that night, the angel of
the Lord went out to theAssyrian camp and killed 185,000
Assyrian soldiers.
When the surviving Assyrianswoke up the next morning, they
found corpses everywhere, andthen King Sennacherib of Assyria
broke camp and returned to hisown land.
He went home to his capital ofNineveh and stayed there.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We can see that in the next part actually says that
he was worshiping in a templeand his sons kill him, which was
prophesied.
But, michael, I can't help butthink about this story.
Every time I look at it it justmakes me smile to think, oh my
gosh, these guys are militaryguys.
I don't know if they're sealtrain type guys, but they would
(17:11):
be elite.
You think soldiers?
Right, to some extent theseguys are battle trained ready.
And somebody even whispersyou're awake that literally in
the middle of the night, 185,000dudes that you're ready to go
into battle with are life suckedout of them.
(17:32):
And when you wake up you didn'thear it, you didn't, not a peep
.
The God is the giver of lifeand breath, literally without
even waking up.
Anybody can take the life outof 185,000.
Not that I wish anybody dead,but you say God's authority in
our life, the protection for usto take care of us, that you can
do anything he needs to do toshow us I'm gonna take care of
(17:55):
you.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And truly fought on their behalf.
They didn't have any gold left.
That was one part of what weskipped, and I have anything I
have to offer this king.
All they had was to surrenderand become slaves or go out and
be slaughtered, Like those werethe two options.
So they thought it's likeAbraham again.
I have two options, like I canignore, disobey God, or I can go
(18:18):
kill my son.
There's my two only options.
Maybe God will do something.
He had enough faith to knowthat God has oftentimes a plan
we can't see.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I just wanna tie this up and finish today with this
thought is these ways that ourtrust muscles are built are
through humility, through reallyrepentance, turning from all
those distractions of thingsthat are trying to keep us from
the things God wants for us,ignoring those things around us
that are trying to distract us,the naysayers, the things that
(18:51):
are trying to keep us from that.
That we seek counsel, that we go, lay our burden before the Lord
.
We lay it between at the altarof God, but also at the hands of
other people around us, and say, would you show me, is there
anything I'm missing?
Is there anything that I needin this journey so that my trust
in him can be built?
(19:12):
And then, really, the lastthing I wanna just mention here
is that when things happen, thatwe thank God for the results
and that sometimes we just getto see a God's sovereign hand,
whether it's I made a way foryou, even though there were 700
other families who wanted to getin this school, or I'm gonna
take care of these 185,000, andthat wasn't killing people to
school, obviously, but like thathe provides in a way that helps
(19:36):
us to see that I am going totake care of and provide for you
and everything you need.
So final thoughts for us today.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, I'm just real briefly.
I'm reminded of a missionarystory, gladys Alward, and she
was this basically housekeeperwho wanted to go to China and
couldn't go over with anybody,so she bought a ticket and went.
Her story of even getting thereis pretty miraculous.
It was during the beginning ofWorld War II and when Japan
invaded China and that type ofextraordinarily dangerous and
(20:07):
violent and here she is byherself, finds a woman she went
to meet and this woman dies andshe's alone in the remote parts
of China and is trying to runthis in to minister, to people
in all, and has no idea how tofund it because no one even
basically knows she's there, wow, and she's thinking how do I
provide?
(20:28):
And in walks the head of thegovernor effectively and says
you're my new foot inspector.
I mean because it becameillegal to have bound feet at
that point and she fit thecriteria that he needed and
effectively he didn't ask her ifshe would.
It was a conscripting of thisis what you are, but it enabled
(20:52):
her to go out to every.
She had to go to every singlevillage and every single farm
and inspect the feet and so shegot to show the gospel with
every single person and everysingle farm, and just think
about the idea of this womanliterally went with nothing.
She went with two pennies andGod provided in a place that she
(21:12):
had no resources to call upon.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You got to imagine her family probably wasn't like,
oh great idea.
Like you're a woman going, doyou even speak Chinese?
No, she didn't.
Do you even have all the thingsin life right, the practical
things that you could say, whatare you doing?
And yet, when we get toeternity, that to me that's
(21:42):
another one of those Hebrews 11stories that are continuing on
right.
This isn't to try to make any ofus feel guilty or condemned or
we're not but what things mightGod want to plant inside of us
that are going to live farbeyond us for the sake of His
kingdom?
And not just to come, but whathe wants to do inside of us, and
(22:08):
that I guarantee you, eventhough there probably were some
days she thought, well, what amI doing?
But in the midst of that time,when she's getting to go around
and share the gospel and do thethings like God, thank you so
much, thank you.
I had no idea and she couldhave just said I could play it
safe, I could stay at home andjust, I'll go to church and go
to my Bible studies.
I don't know if you're wrong orevil, but I think God wants to
show up in our life in amagnificent way and sometimes
(22:34):
we're keeping from because thisarea of trust.
You don't want to see thathappen.
I don't want to see it in myown life.
I don't want to see it in thelives of you, michael, or
anybody else that we're on thisjourney with.
Let me pray for us for the wrapup.
Thank you that it is your desirefor us to walk in intimacy with
you.
And God, today, help us.
(22:55):
We don't have the strength, wecan't overcome these things
around us, these things thatseem so present, so real, like
you're going to get beat up ifyou go do this, you're going to
be hurt if you go do that.
So, god, we don't want to dothese things because we think
you're going to love us more,care for us more, because we
(23:17):
know that's already beenestablished.
But you want us to experience agreater intimacy with you and
fulfillment of life.
You want us to hear your voiceand to follow your lead and
thrive as disciples, followersof you.
And so, god, have your way,lead us and guide us.
Help us today to draw closer toyou in this way, just availing
(23:38):
ourselves today, where we're at.
It might not be to go to China,but just today, to be faithful
to what you call us to.
So help us, give us thestrength to do that.
We love you.
Thanks for our time.
We love you In Jesus' name,amen, amen.
Hey, thanks for tuning in to theFiji Podcast.
We'll see you again next time.
Good night,
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