KEY TEXT
2 Kings 18:1-8 (RSV)
V1- In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, King of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, King of Judah began to reign.
V2- 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.
V3- And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.
V4- 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 burned incense to it; it was called Nehushtant.
V5- 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.
V6- For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses.
V7- And the LORD was with him wherever he went forth, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and would not serve him.
V8- He smote the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
1. Human under pressure
True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure – the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.
2. War zone for Christians
Christians are not exempted from living under pressure. In fact, the pressure upon Christians is greater than that of an unbeliever. This is because we have just added one more relentless enemy – the devil to our two existing enemies – the world and the flesh. These three – the devil, the world and the flesh oppose us but not in the same way. The devil attacks our minds, driving us to DOUBT; the world attacks our hearts, seducing us to CONFORMITY; the flesh attacks our wills, luring us to INDULGENCE. As long as we are on earth, we will face their opposition and attack, constituting to pressures in our lives.
3) About 2 Kings 18
There is much to be learned about living under attack by those occasions in the Bible when good people found themselves under great opposition. In this section of 2 Kings 18-19, it is a relief to meet a good and godly king – Hezekiah. His story is told three times in the Old Testament (2 Kings 18-20; 2 Chronicles 29-32; Isaiah 36-39). Each account has its own emphasis. The focus in 2 Kings is on the time when Hezekiah found himself under the pressure and attack from Assyria, the superpower of his time.
4) Title
This morning, I would like to share from the life of Hezekiah. I want to glean some spiritual truths from his experience of living under pressure. The title of my sermon is therefore – LIVING UNDER ATTACK.
MAIN POINT
Hezekiah and his nation were attacked by the Assyrians.
What does the word “Assyrians” symbolize?
The word “Assyrians” symbolizes REASONINGS.
• It is REASONINGS contrary to the Word of God.
• It is SUGGESTIONS of the enemy (one’s own wisdom; one own’s intellect) to overwhelm and torment you.
• It is NEGATIVE WORDS sent to paralyze you, constantly to berate you
• It is SPIRITUAL DEPRECATING REMARKS that immobilize, incapacitate you, making you ineffective.
• It is words that promote FEAR, WORRY and HOPELESSNESS to weigh heavily upon THE MIND OF THE SPIRIT.
• It is the feeling of being weighed down heavily MENTALLY OR PHYSICALLY.
Hezekiah was living under these kinds of attack. Are you too today?
What are the lessons we can learn from the failures and victory of Hezekiah when he was living under the attack by the Assyrians? Let’s look at the five stages of his experience: –
1. HEZEKIAH’S STRONG BEGINNING
Hezekiah had every reason to view himself as the VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES. Following his father’s death in 715 B.C, he assumed the throne and reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. Young as he would have been (twelve, if he was twenty-five in 715 B.C.), he had gained firsthand exposure to his father’s SPIRITUAL REBELLION, his pro-Assyrian policies, and the offering of one of his brothers as a sacrifice to a pagan god (2 Kings 16:2-4).
AHAZ had been a disaster as a king and even more so as a father and spiritual influence. In addition, Hezekiah had seen the brutal power of Assyria as it obliterated the nation of Israel. Hezekiah also would have been aware of his own nation’s sin as it followed the destructive path. It would be easy to excuse Hezekiah if he had simply perpetuated the past, taking the path of least resistance.
Instead, we read the strongest affirmation of a king in 2 Kings, rivaled only by that of his great-grandson, Josiah. HE DID WHAT WAS RIGHT IN THE EYES OF THE LORD, ACCORDING TO ALL THAT DAVID HIS FATHER HAD DONE (verse 3).
• He removed the high places (verse 4)
• He smashed the sacred stones (verse 4)
• He cut down the Asherah poles (verse 4)
• He broke in pieces the bronze serpents (Nehushtan), turning it from an object of worship into scrap metal. (verse 4)
Hezekiah was the polar opposite of his father, Ahaz.
Hezekiah’s God-pleasing life was not an accident. There were three qualities in his character that caused him to do what was right:
• His RESOLUTE TRUST in the Lord
Verse 5- 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.
It was this resolute and implicit trust in the Lord that made him very distinguished (famous). No one in the history of that time could match his resolute trust in the Lord.
It was this quality of faith that would be most directly tested by the Assyrian attack.
• His EXCLUSIVE LOYALTY to the Lord
V6a- For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses.
He never loosened his grip on God unlike Solomon who held fast to his wives.
Question: How about you? Are you holding fast only to God when you are young but after you start working, or marry or have children, you start loosening your grip on God? Are you like Solomon, holding fast to God in your young glory days but when you become old, you hold fast to your family more than God?
• His CONSISTENT OBEDIENCE to the Lord
Verse 6b- but kept the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses.
CONSEQUENTLY: –
• The Lord was with Him. (verse 7)
• He was successful in whatever he undertook. (verse 7)
• He rebelled against the King of Assyria. (verse 7)
He rebelled against all the crafty suggestions and reasonings of the world in His mind. He rebelled against all the oppression in his life.
• He smote the Philistines, thus enabling him to regain areas lost by his father (verse 8).
He regained the watchtower and all his fortified city.
“Philistines” according to the Strong’s Bible Concordance means “wallowing” or “to wallow self” The dictionary says that WALLOWING means “roll about in or to give oneself over to, or revel in, a feeling or way of life.”
Now we read in the Bible that there are five lords of the Philistines. This interprets our five different aspects of “SELF-NATURE’ in regards to wallowing which are:
• Self-pity
• Self-depreciation
• Self-importance
• Self-indulgence
• Self-pleasure
Application: Look at the EXPLOITS that faith in God can do in your life. Hezekiah’s resolute faith in God gave him the courage to rebel against the Assyrians and to overcome SELF-NATURE in the form of self-pity, self-depreciation, self-importance, self-indulgence and self-pleasure.
Questions: How about you? Is your faith so resolutely and implicitly implanted in God that it gives rise to loyalty and obedience to the Lord? Does your faith propel you with the courage to rebel against idolatry of all forms; worldly and ungodly reasonings and suggestions in your mind? Does your faith help you to overcome the wallowing of self-nature? Does your faith enable you to regain all lost ground and to restore the watchtower and fortified cities back to your life?
The secret to Hezekiah’s early success is HIS FAITH IN GOD.
Application: Whatever background you may come from, it will be your faith in God that distinguishes you from your predecessors because your faith will spur you to make godly choices that will change your destiny so differently from them.
2. HEZEKIAH’S SLOW AND GRADUAL EROSION
Verse 9- In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, King of Israel, Shalmaneser King of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it
v10- and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
V11- 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,
V12- 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.
After four years of being on the throne and riding high in his faith in God, Hezekiah witnessed the attack of his brother-nation- the Northern Kingdom by the King of Assyria. King Shalmaneser “came up against Samaria and besieged it and at the end of three years HE TOOK IT” (verse 9-10). Hezekiah saw his fellow Israelites being taken to Halah, Habor, the river of Gozan and the cities to the Medes.
All these names were places of the Assyrians and they have spiritual meaning:
• Halah means “painful”
• Gozan means “a place of cutting stones”
All the places mentioned here are likened to be “beyond the mountain of darkness.”
The people from the Northern Kingdom were exiled there primarily due to their disobedience to the Lord.
Application: There will come a time in your life when you will get to witness the lives of your loved one or even people you know being besieged by the Assyrians. And after a while, you’ll see them totally being defeated and taken by the oppressor. Then you will see them being exiled by the oppressor of their lives to a land that is painful; a land where their lives are being cut by stones and it is as if they have been exiled beyond the mountain of darkness. And you know that their painful experiences are due to the fact that they are not living the life of obedience to the Lord. They have been transgressing against Him.
Now, how do you feel inside?
The very king whom Hezekiah had rebelled against was now successful in attacking, conquering and vanquishing his brother-nation. I believe that scenario like this did set in a slow erosion of faith in Hezekiah. The erosion was not immediate because it would take years to see its negative effect.
E.g. I have the permission of Cheng to share a story of her best friend by the name of Ann. In October 2015 Ann was operated due to breast mass. The result of the surgery was low malignancy but no staging was set. In June 2017, she was hospitalized due to a bad cough, only to find out that she had pneumonia and that she had stage 4 lung cancer. Then she went for chemotherapy and in less than a week, she died. This death impacted Cheng negatively, who personally also has 16 cysts in her breast. Just a while ago, the doctor told Cheng that one of the 16 cysts may be cancerous. Cheng shared with me and our DJCG prayed and interceded for her. After the surgery, the doctor tested the cyst and found it as non-cancerous. Now when Cheng compared her situation with Ann’s, there was this fear. The Assyrian besieged the mind of Cheng and suggested to her that she would face the same fate as Ann’s. To compound the problem, Cheng received another bad news recently about her first cousin who is 2 years older than her that she was just diagnosed to have endometrial cancer. And every one in her family is saying that their genes are predestined to have the big C sooner or later. Now- this is what I called being besieged by the King of Assyria, pressuring our mind and belief for the worse, bombarding our minds with all the worrisome and fearsome possibilities, weighing down our spirit. If Cheng is not careful in fortifying her mind, her faith that was put there by God would erode slowly.
Application: What are the things that you have seen happen in the lives of others – their destruction by the enemy (be it cancer or accident); their painful state of life; their fractured life – a life that was cut up by stones (the harshness and hardness of life) – that is affecting your faith in God adversely? Maybe today you are seeing menopausal women undergoing depression, and so you are beginning to think that such negative experience will also attack you one day. Is your faith slowly being eroded by what you see happening to others?
3. HEZEKIAH’S LAPSE OF FAITH
The erosion of faith takes ten years to manifest its full negative effect on your own life.
V13- In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah Sennacherib King of Assyria came up against all that fortified cities of Judah and TOOK THEM.
Due to this gradual erosion of faith in you, what you see happen to others ten years ago, is now happening to your own life. It is no more others being attacked by the enemy but it is your own lives now being attacked.
This erosion led to Hezekiah’s LAPSE OF FAITH. For a while, Hezekiah flopped in his faith in God.
What did he do under this mounting pressure and attack by the Assyrians?
HE CAVED IN TO PRESSURE………….
• By confessing his wrong to the enemy
Verse 14- And Hezekiah King of Judah sent to the King of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong…”
Application: Lapse of faith means collapse of faith which gives rise to FEAR. And fear causes you to AGREE with the devil that you are wrong and he is right.
• By begging his enemy
Verse 14 -withdraw from me;
Application: Instead of resisting the enemy and command him to flee from you, Hezekiah pled with the enemy to withdraw from him.
Are you begging the devil today because of the mounting pressure and attack upon your life?
• By giving in to the demands of the enemy
Verse 14 – whatever you impose on me I will bear.
Application: It is foolish to give a blank check to the devil to sign any amount he wants when you are under attack. Why? Because he is not a gentleman. He will exact heavy tolls or tributes on you- way beyond your ability to pay. I call that OPPRESSIVE DEMANDS.
Questions: Are you under any attack today? Are you under any pressure today? Like Hezekiah, instead of standing firm on your faith, have you let fear come in to cause you to NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR ENEMY WHEN UNDER PRESSURE? Are you caving in to pressure this morning?
The demand of the King of Assyrian upon Hezekiah was “THREE HUNDRED OF TALENTS OF SILVER AND THIRTY TALENTS OF GOLD” (verse 14).
Application: When you give the devil an inch, he will exact a yard from you. Never cut a deal with pressure or the enemy for you will always end up getting the shorter end of the stick.
Hezekiah could NOT pay this oppressive amount demanded by the King of Assyria. Therefore, Hezekiah….
• TOOK ALL THE SILVER FROM THE HOUSE OF THE LORD
Verse 15- And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD……
David and Solomon left much silver in the temple of the LORD. These silvers were booties gained from the war and the contribution by the people of God. They were also the personal contribution from these two kings and the wealth of the riches of the nation.
Sadly, Hezekiah took all these silvers FROM THE HOUSE OF THE LORD to give to the enemy.
What does silver symbolize in the Bible?
• Timely advice
Proverbs 25:11- A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
Application: In our journey of life, God will give us a “word fitly spoken”. These are the timely advices from His people, pastors or prophets in the form of pastoral counselling and prophetic downloads. Yet, even with all these timely advices or prophetic downloads, we may trade all these away with the devil when we are under pressure. Paul exhorted Timothy, “Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well’ (1 Timothy 1:18 NIV). Many of us always forget about the prophecies we receive from man of God when we are under pressure and we give them away to the devil. As a result, we couldn’t fight the battle well.
Question: Can you still recall the prophecies or the prophetic utterance a certain servant of God has given you? Where is that timely advice and prophecies? Are you still keeping it and walking by it or are you trading it off so that you can lessen the pressure posed on you by the enemy of your soul?
• Teachings of God
Proverbs 2:1-5 (RSV) – My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the Lord.
The teachings of God come in the form of His words and his commandments. When we RECEIVE them; TREASURE them; LISTEN [ear attentive] to them, OBEY them [inclining our heart]; HUNGER for them [ cry out] and SEEK them, INSIGHT, UNDERSTANDING AND THE FEAR OF THE LORD will come upon you.
Yet, in times of pressure, many of us trade off all these teachings of God -sacrificing our obedience to the Lord and His ways; our insight and understanding of the Lord’s way and the fear of the Lord just so to satisfy the demands of the enemy.
E.g. We throw away our church attendance when our call center job pressure us to submit to their schedules. We cast off our God-seeking time; we stop reading the word of God all in the name of PRESSURE – no time. Job is making hefty demand on my time and so I have to pay it off at the expense of the teachings that come from the church. The silver Hezekiah gave to the King Assyria was silver from the house of the Lord which is the church.
• Promises of God
Psalms 12:6- The LORD’S promises are pure like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over.
When under pressure, we forego the promises of the Lord and give them to the enemy.
• Precious refined works of our heart
Proverbs 17:3- The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold and the LORD tries hearts.
All the dealings of God upon our hearts produce a purified and refined life like a silver. I call that the transformed life. Yet under pressure, we cast that transformed life away, wasting away all the spiritual lessons God has taught us during our ordeals.
E.g. We see that frequently in the life of Rahabs. They came to our church as a raw sinner- filled with vices and sins. After God saved them, filled them and changed them, they went back to the world again due to pressure from their persecuting family.
• Atonement and Redemption
Exo 30:16- And thou shalt take the ATONEMENT money [Hebrew – keseph -silver] of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make atonement for your souls.
Gomer -the prostituting wife of Hosea was redeemed back from prostitution with 15 shekels of silver. Christ was betrayed or sold off for 30 pieces of silver.
Christ atoned for our sins by dying on our behalf. Then he bought us back from slavery to the world, the flesh and to the devil with his own blood and brought us to his kingdom of light. That is called Redemption. Yet under pressure, like Gomer, who belonged Hosea, we throw away our atonement and redemption just to service our pressure.
These are all the silvers Hezekiah took from the house of the Lord to give to his oppressive pressure. Many of us today are guilty of trading off the timely advices we receive from the people of the church, the word and the commandments we learn in the church; the promises of God; the transformations the Holy Spirit has wrought in our lives while we are attending church and worse the atonement and redemption Christ has won for us at the cross. We sacrifice them in order to cope with the pressure posed by our oppressive boss and life.
• TOOK ALL THE SILVER FROM THE TEASURIES OF THE KING’S HOUSE.
Verse 15- 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.
These silvers are from the treasuries of the king’s house [palace=royalty]. This implies trading off our ROYAL IDENTITY, ROYAL RICHES AND PROVISIONS FROM KING JESUS AND OUR ROYAL AUTHORITY to the pressure of life.
Application: Like what I shared last week, you trade off your identity as eagle Christian to live as chicken Christian. You can’t cope with living under pressure. You can’t live under the attack by the Assyrian. You can’t cope with fear and worry in your mind. You can’t cope with all the crafty suggestions that the devil has flooded your mind with and so you trade off your identity as the sons and daughters of the king of kings and submit to the demands of the devil. You cave in because of lapse of faith in God.
• STRIPPED THE GOLD FROM THE DOORS AND DOORPOST OF THE TEMPLE
Verse 16 – At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the doorpost which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
Fourteen years ago, Hezekiah restored what his father had stripped from the temple of God. Now he had to undo his work.
Application: When you are under pressure, the enemy will force you to UNDO YOUR RESTORATION, REVIVAL, DEDICATION AND SACRIFICE.
Whether it is in the tabernacle or the temple of Solomon, fixtures are normally made of Acacia wood and then overlaid with gold.
Acacia wood symbolize our frail humanity. Gold symbolizes divinity. Meaning our humanity must be overlaid with the divine nature of Christ.
The door and the doorpost of the temple here refer to the entry point to the gospel or the truth and teachings of God in the church. It also refers to our human heart – the entry point for the word of God. By stripping the gold from the door means we remove the spiritual and the divine aspect of the gospel making the gospel a seeker-friendly gospel, void of the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.
Application: Do not remove the full gospel that highlights all the four aspects of Jesus – His Kingly ministry [Matthew – Lion of Judah], His manly ministry [Mark-man]; His servanthood ministry [Luke -Ox]and above all – His divine ministry [John – The eagle]. He is both God and man. Do not remove the trinitarian teaching. Give equal importance to each member of the Holy Trinity.
By stripping the temple door of gold, you are showing only the weak and human method of man. You are failing to show the spiritual and supernatural side of the gospel. Do not insult the finished work of Christ by preaching a weak and man-made gospel that are full of gimmicks and craftiness of man’s wisdom but void of the supernatural and divine nature of Christ.
4. HEZEKIAH’S UNDER ATTACK
Did the tributes paid off by Hezekiah to King Assyrian stop the attack and the pressure? No!
Verse 17- And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris and the Tabshakeh 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 Fuller’s Field.
The Assyrians didn’t play by the rules. Rather than withdrawing, the king sent his military officers with a LARGE ARMY to negotiate with Hezekiah. Actually, he had no intention of settling for anything less than Judah’s full surrender.
This time the Assyrian would come against Judah with an even larger army and he would use a combination of truths, half-truths, threats, promises, mockery to deride Judean confidence. As if it wasn’t enough, he would sow doubts about Hezekiah in the minds of the children of Israel and then he would deride the credibility of God Himself.
Application: Your compromise, sacrifice and sell out to the devil will not work. He will come back again in fuller force to attack you. The pressure in any form is to UNDERMINE YOUR TRUST AND CONFIDENCE IN GOD AND HIS LEADER OVER YOU.
You will be under full attack by the enemy even after you have given in to his hefty demands.
Questions: Is it worth it to give away all the silver from the temple of God and from your royal palace? Is it worth it to strip the divinity and spirituality from the gospel of Christ? Is it worth it to remove the divine power from our heart? Nothing can appease the devil until we are totally destroyed or annihilated. His negotiation is fraudulent and he will still attack you even after you take away and strip so many things from the church, family and heart for him.
5. HEZEKIAH’S RECOVERY
How did Hezekiah recover from his lapse of faith? He fell into a posture of humility. He commanded his people not to answer the taunts and mockery of the enemy.
In order to be victorious over any attack and pressure of the enemy in your life….
• ENGAGE IN A PROPHETIC ACT
2 Kings 19:14- 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.
The prophetic act for Hezekiah was to spread the letter from Sennecherib before God.
There are many prophetic acts that God may want us to engage in. Prophetic act like King Joash, at the direction of Elisha, taking the arrows and striking on the ground with it to prophetically declare future victory over King of Syria (2 Kings 13:13-20); prophetic act like sash clinging to waist (jeremiah 13:11); prophetic act like Prophet Agabus taking the belt of Paul to bind his own hands and feet (Acts 21:10-11).
• ENGAGE IN PROPHETIC PRAISE AND PRAYER
V15- And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said; “O LORD the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, thou art the God, thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.
Hezekiah praised God first before petitioning his needs to God. In His praise, He declared the greatness and the sovereignty of God.
V16- Incline thy ear, O LORD and hear; open thy eyes, O LORD and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God……
Hezekiah besought God to hear and see all the words of mockery by the enemy against Him. Hezekiah didn’t take matters into his hands but he committed all the lies, mockeries, taunting and accusations of the enemy to the Lord in prayer. From verse 16-19, Hezekiah prayed earnestly to God to save him and his nation from the attack.
• GET A PROPHETIC WORD FROM GOD
Hezekiah received a prophetic download from Prophet Isaiah.
Verse 20- Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib King of Assyria I HAVE HEARD.
Question: Have you prayed to such a point till you have received an assurance from the Lord in the form of a prophetic download or even from a rhema that He has heard your prayer?
• DECLARE THE PROPHETIC WORD AGAINST THE ENEMY
Verse 21- This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him (King of Assyria)……
Application: God will give you His words against your pressure; oppression and enemy. You have to take that and declare the prophetic words against the enemy.
• BELIEVE THE PROPHETIC SIGN FROM THE LORD
Verse 29-31- And this shall be the SIGN for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same; then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward; for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.
The sign was a three-year sign which was the same sign that God gave to Etab in 2013.
OUTCOME
God fulfilled His prophetic promise. The “spirit” that caused Sennecherib to break camp to retreat came because of an ANGELIC VISIT reminiscent of the visit of the ANGEL OF DEATH on the first Passover night in Egypt (Exodus 12:29-30). Details are sparse. We are told only that THE ANGEL OF THE LORD…. put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp (verse 35). Those not directly affected slept through the night but they awoke to find dead bodies everywhere. No wonder Sennecherib broke camp and withdrew (verse 36). Twenty years later while Sennacherib was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons assassinated him (verse 37).
There will be a supernatural intervention resulting in a supernatural defeat of your enemies or anyone or anything who pressurizes and oppresses you.
CONCLUSION
Pressure, Pressure, Pressure! Who don’t have that! We are living under pressure in one form or another. But when pressure mount so high to attack us in order to annihilate us – are you going to cave in by trading off silver and gold from the temple of God and from the palaces of your life to the enemy? Are you going to dilute the gospel of Christ just to lessen the pressure of being disliked by people? Are you going to give in or are you going to press in faith and in prayer to overcome your pressure? True character is revealed in the choices you made under pressure. Hezekiah made godly choices in the beginning despite the pressure to perpetuate the ungodly legacy of his evil father. But he did not cave in. Then in the middle of his reign, he experienced a lapse of faith. He caved in. Thankfully he recovered quickly by humbling himself before the Lord in prayer. And the Lord restored his confidence and trust by giving him a prophetic word, sign and declaration and with that he experienced a supernatural intervention and victory. Don’t cave in to pressure!
End
PREACHED AT ETAB 1ST ENG SERVICE ON 30 JULY 2017
