Year 3, Day 330: 2 Chronicles 32

Sennacherib Invades

Here we find the danger of works based salvation.  We see in this story the pitfall of believing that “if things go well God must love us.”  Because the flipside of this argument is that if “things go poorly God must be angry with us.”  The reality is that while this is occasionally true, it is not always true.  We cannot look to the people in the world who are incredibly successful and declare that God is with them.  God is with some of them, for sure.  But God is not with every successful person.  For the record, we cannot look at the poor in the world and assume God is angry with them.  Sure, God may be angry with some of them who are not following Him.  But for sure, God is with some of them as well.  Success in this world is not a measure of God’s love.

Let’s bring this concept back to Hezekiah.  Shortly after Hezekiah brings about all of this religious reform, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, comes to Judah’s doorstep and invades.  You see, I highly doubt that God is angry with Hezekiah after he made all of these reforms and brought the people back to a relationship with God!  It would be easy – if Hezekiah had the wrong frame of reference – to think that God was displeased with him because Sennacherib came to invade.  In fact, it would have been easy for Hezekiah to assume that the gods of the Assyrians were stronger than God because Sennacherib comes at what Hezekiah knows is the height of his reform!

But this is not Hezekiah’s reaction at all.  At the moment that Sennacherib’s forces surround Jerusalem, Hezekiah pronounces that God is with them and God will fight by their side.  Hezekiah announces that Sennacherib has a vast army, but the army that fights with Judah eclipses the might of the Assyrians.  Hezekiah could have seen the coming of Sennacherib’s army as an omen of God’s anger; instead, he sees it as an opportunity for God to demonstrate His glory.

Here we have the effect of eliciting a worldview that is not based on prosperity.  When we assume that prosperity equals God’s approval then we are blind to many of the opportunities for God’s glory.  After all, God is not only capable of demonstrating His greatness in the moments of our success.  He is quite capable of demonstrating His greatness in the moments of our weakness.  In fact, Paul Himself says that when he is weak, God is strong.

Therefore, a moment of life where I struggle against the world needs not necessarily be a bad thing.  In fact, a moment of struggle might be God’s opportunity to demonstrate his power in life.  That is how Hezekiah relates to Sennacherib’s approach.  That is what a man of faith looks like.  The people around Hezekiah are strengthened in their own moments of weakness because of Hezekiah’s faithfulness.

Sennacherib’s Folly

Upon seeing the people of Judah shut themselves into Jerusalem and divert the water supply so that it cannot help Sennacherib’s army, Sennacherib becomes arrogant.  Sennacherib tries to threaten the people into believing a false reality.  Sennacherib tries to intimidate the people of Judah.

Notice the logic and the reasoning that Sennacherib uses.  He has a mindset that success equals divine will.  He tells the people of Judah not so much about all of his military victories but rather how none of the other nations’ gods have been able to protect them.  In other words, Sennacherib believes that because he has been able to dominate other nations that his gods are stronger.

This is a very deceptive and unhealthy mindset.  It simply feeds the human ego.  When we believe that success equals God’s approval we set ourselves up for living under the wrong agenda.  Sometimes the reason we aren’t successful is because God works through our weakness, not because God doesn’t love us.

That’s actually the lesson that God has planned for Sennacherib.  Hezekiah prays to the Lord.  The Lord hears him.  The Lord sends out an angel to cut him off from his army.  Sennacherib returns home.  Mind you, this was no small miracle.  The author of 2 Kings informs us that 185,000 soldiers perished in the onslaught of the Lord’s angel.  {See 2 Kings 19:35}  When Sennacherib returns home defeated, his own sons cut him down in the temple to his god.  It would seem that they have an issue with a theology that equates divine favor and success, too.

Hezekiah’s Folly and Recover

As we close the chapter, we have a summary of the remainder of the rest of Hezekiah’s life.  We know from 2 Kings 20 that Hezekiah has a moment of pride.  He falls into illness and is told that he will die.  But he humbles himself and repents to the Lord and the Lord gives him an additional 15 years to live. 

It is during this time that Hezekiah sets about the task of copying and distributing the copies of the Law.  As we hear here in 2 Chronicles that this is the time that Hezekiah places wealth back into the temple and his own palace.  We know that he creates storehouses for the harvest so that the people can live without fear of drought.  We also hear in the account in 2 Kings that at this time the Lord gives Hezekiah an heir so that the lineage of David can continue.

Even the greatest of kings falls into sin.  Especially the greatest of kings would fall to pride.  It is nice to know that we who sin are not alone.  It is also nice to remember that God is a forgiving God.

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