Year 2, Day 17: 2 Kings 19

Repentance Staves Off Destruction

2 Kings 19 begins the process of repentance that I spoke of yesterday.  Imagine you were in Hezekiah’s shoes.  You tried to stand up to Assyria, but when the Assyrian king saw your meager refusal to pay tribute he sent his army (or a portion thereof).  The army is massive, but there is a little time to send some messengers with a gift.  So you strip Jerusalem of its wealth and send it to the king of Assyria hoping that it will appease him.  It doesn’t, and the army continues to march upon Jerusalem.  Now you hear the words of these three messengers from the king of Assyria who are so confident in victory that they essentially come to your front door and taunt you.  And you know that you have nothing left in Jerusalem to offer in order to try and sue for peace.

That’s what Hezekiah is now facing.  He tried to show some backbone and stand up, but it brought about a really tough situation.  Now he doesn’t seem to have what it takes to make good on his demonstration of courage.  He fears the inevitable, and he suffers from the tunnel-vision that comes when disaster is imminent.  He needs something to come along and expand his vision beyond that which he can see under his ability to deal with these circumstances.

To make matters worse, Sennacherib (the Assyrian king) sends a threatening letter to Jerusalem reminding him of all the other nations who put their faith in their gods and who were not delivered from the hands of the Assyrian army.  The move is bold, but good politics.  Sennacherib is bent on destroying Jerusalem because of their insolence in not paying a tribute, and he wants to make sure that morale is as low as possible before he arrives to do so.  This is a tactic of war, and it almost works.

Hezekiah takes the letter and does the only thing he can do.  He takes the letter and brings it before the Lord.  Understand what this means.  Not only is Hezekiah repenting and turning to the Lord, but he is doing it in a very humbling context.  Hezekiah has just stripped all the wealth out of Jerusalem – and even out of the temple.  He has just handed all that was God’s over to Sennacherib.  Now he must go before God and worship in a temple that is bare because of his own lack of faith.  He must go to God and humble himself in a place that cries out for vengeance. 

If God were filled with human emotion, there is no way would God listen to Hezekiah.  God would tell Hezekiah that “he has made his own bed and now he has to lie in it.”  God would tell Hezekiah that if he wanted help he should have thought of it before he stripped the temple bare and defaced God’s space by giving what should have been God’s to Sennacherib.  If God were human, this story would end substantially differently than it does.

But Hezekiah says the key words when he humbles himself.  Hezekiah reminds himself in his repentant speech that what is important is that God’s name is praised.  What is important is that the whole world would know that God is righteous.  Hezekiah’s humble repentance is not self-serving, but self-sacrificing.  Hezekiah declares that if God spares Jerusalem, it will be to God’s glory and not to the glory of those humans who put the plan of defense into motion.  This is about God and our relationship with Him; this is not about us and God’s relationship with us.

God Gives Grace

God then takes care of business.  God sends Isaiah to comfort Hezekiah while God sends forth an angel of death to take care of the Assyrian army.  This is really fitting for Hezekiah’s repentance, for the record.  Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem did nothing in defense of the town except to wake up in the morning and count dead bodies.  There is no way that they could take the credit for the defense of Jerusalem.  The town was saved because God was gracious and merciful.  There can be no other justification for this act.

So it is with the Christian.  God is moved by grace and mercy when we are besieged by sin in our life.  When we have stripped his temple {See 1 Corinthians 6:19 as a reminder that our body is the temple of the Lord} and we have defaced His glory and we are besieged by sin in our life, all we need to do is repent.  All we need to do is acknowledge that life is not about us and our glory.  All we need to do is acknowledge that life is about Him, His glory, and His work.  And He will save.  It is His promise.  He is a God of salvation.

<><