War Boots

War Boots

One Step Deeper, part 2

Prayer is the spot where many get stuck.

• Boots on prayer: Times we take specific problems to God. We pray hard over them, like troops going into battle.
• Boots off prayer: Talking to God throughout the day. It is to enjoy his company, talk to Him, receive direction from Him and allow him to guide your movements.
• Prayer is our spiritual tank.

2 Kings 18-19:

1. A Great

• King Hezekiah good king of Judah.
• He was 25 when he became king.
• Hezekiah reigned for 29 years. He “walked in David’s footsteps” meaning that like David he had a heart after God.
• 18:3, he “removed the high places.” Those were places people set up on hills and other places to worship God any way they wanted. Sacrifices were held in God’s name, but not in the place or way God had commanded. (It’s like today’s, “I just worship God how I want.”)

Notes on The Bronze Snake:

• Breaking the bronze serpent (Nehushtan) is a reference to numbers 21:4-9. God punished Israel with venomous snakes. However, to show them mercy, God had Moses make a bronze snake, and all who looked on the snake were healed. However, it appears the Hebrews kept the bronze snake, and eventually began to worship it instead of the God who had healed them. They treated it as a spiritual or magic object.
• To show true and pure passion to worship God, Hezekiah crushed the bronze snake. It appears to me that he did this personally. He didn’t assign and underling to take this task on. The King himself with his own foot crushed Moses’ bronze snake to show that the God of Moses was worthy of Moses, not the things of Moses.
• In John 3:14, Jesus compared himself to the bronze snake. That is, just as people looked upon the snake and were physically healed, so also those who look to Jesus will be spiritually healed. In the wilderness, God did a physical thing, eh sent snakes. Snakes you see, hear, feel their bite. We can feel the bite of sin and death. It hurts family, emotions, our culture our every identity is struck. But then God offered them physical salvation: Moses made a tangible bronze snake. They could look on it physically and be saved. Jesus did that for us spiritually.
• In 1857, The British preacher, Charles Spurgeon preached a famous sermon titled, “the Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent” and this passage from John’s Gospel in 1857.

Hezekiah made some bad decisions:

• He rebelled against Assyria.
• When Assyria got a new King, Sennacherib, he sent forces to attack Judah’s towns. Hezekiah had fortified the walls of Jerusalem and prepared for a siege, however, he was greatly outnumbered.
• To try and get Sennacherib to go away, Hezekiah offered to pay him tribute. The agreed-on sum amounted to 11 tons of silver and one ton of gold. To pay this huge sum, he stripped the temple bare and emptied the kings treasury.

How did Hezekiah get in this mess? He didn’t pray.

He was a good king, but he did not put a high enough value on prayer. Hezekiah was doing the best he could, but he was not doing the best God could.

2. A Mega

• Even though Hezekiah paid tribute, Sennacherib sent his army to take control of Jerusalem. They started with intimidation tactics, hoping not to have to break down the battle walls, but instead convince the people to come out peacefully.
• The field commander for Sennacherib (Rabshakeh), urged the people of Jersualem not to put their hope in God. (2 Kings 18:19-35)
• In 2 Kings 19, Hezekiah makes a huge decision. He went to get help from the prophet Isaiah. (yeah, that Isaiah!) In 1 Kings 19:6-7, Isaiah promises victory. And for a moment things look better because the Assyrians have go fight other wars. Before leave, he sends a letter to Hezekiah: (2 Kings 19:10) “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

3. War

• Hezekiah took the letter the enemy sent him to the temple and laid it out before God.
• After this event, Hezekiah would become addicted to prayer!

4. He got A

• God promised through the Prophet Isaiah that he heard the King.
• 2 Kings 19:25 accuses the enemy of mocking the Lord. God then lays out the terms: He will not be beat with chariots. If they try to hide in the mountains, he is the one who cuts down the trees. He brings water from the ground, and he is also the one who dried up Egypt’s “streams.” (Red Sea ? or turning the streams to blood?) God says tat he planned everything long ago.
• 2 Kings 19:27, He says he knows both when the king is at home and where he goes when he rises up to leave his home.
• 2 Kings 19:28, God says hew ill treat the enemy like a stupid wild animal which only needs a hook in the nose to be lead about like a slave.
• 2 Kings 19:29-32 is a series of signs for Hezekiah.

The Miracle:

2 Kings 19:35 that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

John Oakes writes:

Sennacherib left behind a report of his campaign against Judea. The document is in the British Museum. It is known as the Sennacherib Cyllinder. Here is a translation of the inscription:

As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke. I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts, and to the countless small villages in their vicinity. I drove out of them 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting and considered [them] booty. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.

What is interesting about this report by Sennacherib is that he says he conquered all of Judea except Jerusalem. Then he surrounded the city of Jerusalem with his massive army. He trapped Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage.” Then the story ends right there. No more comment. The question is this: So, what happened next? Why does the great emperor and general tell us what happened? Generally ancient rulers only reported on their victories, not their defeats. It is not much of a stretch for us to join the facts in 2 Kings 18-19 and Isaiah 36-37 with Sennacherib’s account and realize what happened. He trapped the Jews in Jerusalem, like a bird in a cage, but then his army was mysteriously destroyed. The two accounts agree in every detail, and the biblical account explains the missing information in Sennacherib’s account of the campaign in Judea.

II. How can I take one step deeper in my prayer life?

1. *Boots On.

There are three great prayers of Hezekiah.

• The prayer for deliverance. (2 Kings 19)
• The prayer to recover from terminal illness. (Isaiah 38:1-2)
• The prayer of thanksgiving. (Isaiah. 38:9-20)

2. (Hezekiah got Isaiah.)

3. Lay

Hezekiah’s prayer, 2 Kings 19:15-16

• The reference to God being “enthroned above the cherubim” is interesting because Hezekiah is in the temple. That reference is to the ark, which is the earthly throne of God. Hezekiah is near the ark as he prays. He calls not just on God of heaven far away, but the God who is right on earth, on his throne, ready to move on his behalf.
• 2 Kigns 19:19, similar verbiage to David facing Goliath, “that all the earth may know…” that there is a God in heaven

2 Decisions:

1. Boots off: I’m going to begin talking to God constantly.

2. Boots on: I’m going to bring every problem to God.