2024 REGIONAL PRAYER SUMMIT

PRESENTING YOUR ARGUMENT IN PRAYER

2 Kings 19:14–19 “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, 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.”

1 John 5:14 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”

INTRODUCTION

I will start today’s sermon by quoting Tim Chester

The Message of Prayer: Approaching the Throne of Grace (Chapter 1: The Conversation of Friends (Genesis 1 to Revelation 22) > Part 1: The Foundations of Prayer)

Prayer is the conversation of friends. It is not a mere convenience for letting God know what we are thinking or what we want. Prayer is that for which we were made. It is at the heart of God’s plan of salvation. To understand the tremendous privilege and import of prayer we need to see it in the context of God’s purpose to have a relationship with his people. ‘It is not possible for us to say, I will pray, or I will not pray, as if it were a question of pleasing ourselves; to be a Christian and to pray mean the same thing, and not a thing which can be left to our own wayward impulses. It is, rather, a necessity, as breathing is necessary to life.’ In other words, prayer is part of the definition of what it means to be a Christian. A Christian is someone who knows God through Jesus Christ, and to know God is to converse with him.

Psalm 65:2 “O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.”

from this statement we can infer certain things

That it in the nature of God to hear prayer unlike other gods who don’t

That God expects all flesh to come to him in other words have a relationship with him

he also expects man to depend on him because God never created man to be independent of himself we see this in the statements Christ made in It is written,  Matthew 4:4 “But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ and Luke 18:1 “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”

From this scripture we can also see interconnection between the spiritual(God) and the physical which is flesh and also establishing the that indeed the spiritual is greater and powerful than the physical.

Again the bible teaches us there are several kinds of prayer in Ephesians 6:18, “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”

some kinds of prayers are

. Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a grateful acknowledgement of benefits or favor. Psalm 100:4 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!”

Adoration

To adore is to give reverent homage – to gaze upon the beauty of a thing. A prayer of adoration is one in which we acknowledge and proclaim the reality of who God is. Adoration is the natural response to viewing God rightly. Psalm 145:1 “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.”

Intercession

Intercession is an intervening or pleading on behalf of another person. Or more simply, praying for someone else. 1 Timothy 2:1 “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,”

Supplication

Supplication simply means to ask or petition based on God’s word (promises or prophecies)

And as a church this week our focus is centered on the prayer of supplication where are presenting our petition to God with an expectation of answered prayer.

Again as the scripture says in Romans 15:4 “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

so we will consider a character in the bible who engaged in this kind of prayer (supplication or petition) draw some lessons and then we pray.

who was King Hezekiah?

2 Kings 18:1–5 “In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.”

RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

From this verses we can clearly see that this King was in a relationship with God,walked before God perfectly and did what was pleasing in the sight of God. The reason why this is important was that there are other instances where people called on God and because they did not have the right relationship with God,He did not answer them but allowed their enemies to oppress them

For example in 1 Samuel 28:5–6“When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets.”

Also Isreal who was a sister nation had been conquered and taken captive by these assyrians all because they were not in the right relationship with God.

2 Kings 18:11–12 “The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.

A DAY OF TROUBLE

2 Kings 18:13 “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.” The scripture talks about the day of trouble,indicating that the fact that you believe in Jesus and walk rightly before him does not give you immunity from troubles.

Psalm 50:15 “and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Ephesians 6:13 “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Matthew 13:21 “yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.”

Hezekiah was attacked because he rebelled against the assyrian king 2 Kings 18:7 “And the Lord was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.”

THE ARM OF FLESH

In the Kings initial response to the attack he resorted to do it himself out of fear but it did not work.

2 Kings 18:14–17 “And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer’s Field.”

FEAR THE STRATEGY OF THE DEVIL

1.He questions Hezekiah’s trust in the Lord, claiming that Hezekiah has offended God by removing the high places and altars, where people used to worship (misinterpreting Hezekiah’s reforms which centralized worship in Jerusalem).

2. Psychological Warfare (Verses 26-30):

• The Rabshakeh speaks in Hebrew (the language of the people), trying to demoralize the inhabitants of Jerusalem by spreading fear and doubt.

• He urges the people not to trust Hezekiah, claiming that no god of any nation has been able to resist Assyria, so the Lord will not be able to save Jerusalem either.

• The Rabshakeh offers the people of Jerusalem terms of surrender, promising them peace and prosperity if they submit to Sennacherib.

3. Sennacherib’s Blasphemy (Verses 31-35):

• The Rabshakeh continues to undermine Hezekiah’s leadership, falsely claiming that the Lord Himself has sent Assyria to destroy Judah.

• He further insults the God of Israel by comparing Him to the powerless gods of other nations that Assyria has already conquered, implying that the Lord is no different.

SEEKING GOD’S HELP THROUGH PRAYER

2 Kings 19:1 “As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord.”

When someone in the Bible tears their clothes, dons sackcloth, and sits in ashes, it is a dramatic, outward expression of their deep inner anguish, sorrow, or repentance. It is a way of physically manifesting their grief or remorse, often in a plea for God’s intervention, mercy, or forgiveness

Also the sending his messengers to the prophet shows that he expected a response from the Lord after he prayed

After the King prayed the first time 2Kings 19:1 concerning the first threat in 2 Kings 18: 19-25 God responded to his prayer 2 Kings 19: 6-7 but however there seemed to be no physical manifestation and then a second threat came another time 2 Kings 19:10-13. We see again that the king went to God a second time in prayer 2 Kings 19:14-19 and God again responded to the King through prophet 2 Kings 19:20-34

We see here that the devil will continue to roar and threaten us but we should also keep resisting him in prayer

This attitude of the King shows that we should not give up when we don’t see any physical manifestations yet to our prayer

We should keep on praying.

Prayer points.

1.Thank God for his word

2.Pray that you will walk before God faithfully and if you have not ask for his mercy and forgiveness

3.Now O Lord rescue me from the power(individual needs) then everyone will know that you alone are God

4.Pray that the Angel of the Lord will go into the camp of the enemy

Response from God

2 Kings 19:28 “Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.”

2 Kings 19:32–34 ““Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.””