We are Doing a Series On Sunday Nights Called “Radical Change”

We Have Been Looking at People From the Old and New Testaments…

Who Experienced Radical Change By and For the Lord

But Tonight I’ve Decided to Switch it Up a Little Bit

Instead of Looking at a Person Who God Radically Changed…

We are Going to Look at a Situation that God Radically Changed On Behalf of One of His Faithful People

God is Able to Bring About Radical Change to the Circumstances in Our Lives

Tonight We are Going to Read a Story that Could Make Hollywood a Lot of Money

And This Story Involves a King Named:

Hezekiah

Hezekiah was a Really Good King

He was One of the Great Restorers of the Kingdom of Judah

He Destroyed Idols and Brought the People Back to True Worship of God

But When the Assyrians Arrive at His Doorstep with Expectations of Conquering Jerusalem…

He Has a Moment of Faithlessness

We Read About this Moment in:

2 Kings 18:13–16 (NIV)

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.” The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah Had Been so Faithful/Trusting in God

But the Big, Bad Assyrians Caused Him to Have a Brief Lapse in His Faith

He Began Giving the Assyrian King Whatever Valuables He Could Find

Even if that Meant Ripping it Off the Temple of God

Though He Had a Moment of Faithlessness…

2 Chronicles 32 Tells Us that He Eventually Began to Push Back Against the Assyrians

But King Sennacherib Doesn’t Like When People Don’t Give in to Him

2 Kings 18:17–37 (NIV)

The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field. They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.

The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? You say you have the counsel and the might for war—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?

Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. But if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?

“ ‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’ ”

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the people sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”

Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

“Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death!

“Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.

The Assyrian Rulers are a Ruthless, Blasphemous, and Arrogant People

After Receiving This Message, Hezekiah Immediately Sends His Officials to Isaiah the Prophet

Isaiah Tells Hezekiah to Not Be Afraid

God was Going to Take Care of This

Sennacherib Will Soon Meet His End

But Sennacherib Wasn’t Done Yet

He Sends Another Letter to King Hezekiah, Saying:

2 Kings 19:10–13 (NIV)

“Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered?

Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Harran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”

This Time, Hezekiah Isn’t Going to Respond in Fear

Notice How Hezekiah Responds:

2 Kings 19:14–19 (NAS)

Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, who are 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 listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated 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. So they have destroyed them.

“Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God.”

What a Beautiful Prayer of Faith

After Hezekiah’s Prayer, Isaiah Sends Him Another Message

The Message was: “God Heard Your Prayer!”

God Through Isaiah Pronounced:

Condemnation Against the Assyrians

And Salvation for Judah

2 Kings 19:35–37 (NIV)

That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.

The Unstoppable Power of the Entire World, Assyria…

Was Defeated Outside the City of Jerusalem

And the People of Judah Never Had to Lift a Single Sword

Because of Their Faithful King Hezekiah…

And His Faithful Guidance and Faithful Prayer On Their Behalf…

The People of Jerusalem Were Spared the Terrible of Fate of Assyrian Destruction

God Radically Changed the Situation that Hezekiah and the People of Judah Were in

Don’t You Know that He Can Radically Change the Situation You are in?

I Know Some of You are Going Through Things that You Deeply Desire to Be Radically Changed

If God Can Defeat an Army of 185,000 Soldiers in One Night…

There is No Doubt He Can Take Care of What You are Dealing with

Hezekiah was Not a Perfect Man

He Had Moments of Faithlessness and Foolish Decisions

But Overall, He was Faithful to His God

And When Trouble Arose, His First Reaction was to Run to God, Not Away From Him

He Sent for Isaiah and He Went to the Temple to Pray

And When He Prayed, He Literally Laid His Troubles at God’s Feet

And God Listened

1 Peter 5:6–7 (NAS)

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

Our God Cares for Us

He Cares About Our Sufferings, Our Problems, Our Circumstances

And He Invites Us to Cast Our Anxieties On Him

Not Only is He Able to Bear Them

But He is Able to Radically Change Them