30/09/2012 - Don’t fear any threat!

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Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; and he shall not come into this city,’ says the LORD.

II Kings 19: 32, 33

Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, had subdued many lands and, being decided to dominate the kingdom of Judah, he sent messengers to scare King Hezekiah off and to achieve that he made use of grievous words. Yet, he made a huge error, “he compared The Lord, The Guard of Israel, with one of the gods of other nations”. Those gods were man-made fabrications, yet The Lord – The Creator of The Heavens and earth – is The True God.

That king wasn’t aware that Hezekiah really served God and that’s the reason he ended up failing his assault against Judah. As a matter of fact, he didn’t know that in Jerusalem there was a prophet called Isaiah who was actually a true servant of The Most High. So, the plans of the ruler of Assyria were altogether aborted. In fact, where the fear of God is present – a respect towards The Word of The Lord – no evil shall ever prevail.

Sennacherib’s predecessor had invaded Israel and taken into captivity the rebellious inhabitants of the kingdom of The North. According to that king’s point of view there were clearly no obstacles; yet, he didn’t know that The Lord Himself was The One who used him to make His Word be fulfilled. Many people still don’t fully understand that their success is due to the fact of the divine plan for their lives being fulfilled. If they paid respect to The Word they’d be much more successful in life than they are now.

Prophet Isaiah was straightforward in conveying the message reported in the verse above, “the king of Assyria will not enter this city”. Hezekiah did neither need to fear nor to get desperate before the impending threat of that foreign invasion. Sennacherib really owned enough military force to tear down the tiny kingdom of Judah but the people of God were under the protection of the divine promises. Whatever critical moment you might be facing now you ought to listen to the directions of The Lord and believe in His Words addressed particularly to you because they’ll indeed come true.

Whenever The Lord speaks up, the plans of the enemy are undone. The Most High stated that Sennacherib would not even be able to cast any arrow against His people. Humanly speaking it was altogether unpractical such impediment to happen considering that the mighty Assyrian king was determined to break into Jerusalem. Yet, a prayer of a servant of The Almighty can change any circumstance (James 5: 16) and Sennacherib wasn’t acquainted with that reality. The adversary doesn’t know what our God can do on behalf of those who put in Him their trust.

The sentence given by the prophet ended this way, “By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; and he shall not come into this city,’ says the LORD.” Nothing else was to be done then except for praising The Lord for what He had promised. Thus Jerusalem was saved and Sennacherib defeated.

As Sennacherib went against Judah whose king was zealous for respecting The Lord he realized that his reasoning was altogether wrong. He went back grieving to his homeland as he saw that 185 thousand of his soldiers had mysteriously died. The Lord promised to be the enemy of our enemies. Therefore, if your life is being kept by Him you mustn’t fear any threat!

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares