How one acts at the time of catastrophe

Isaiah 37:1-17

What happens when disaster happens in your family, not the loss of a child, something of much lesser importance, like the loss of your source of income?  Hezekiah is not only being told he is going to lose his kingship but his kingdom, his wealth, his family, and his people.  History is a wonderful thing if only we would revisit it and learn from what is recorded, but as my dad often said, “We learn nothing from history or we would not repeat it.”

The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed.

On “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, the market lost $14 billion, making the loss for that week an astounding $30 billion. This was ten times more than the annual federal budget and far more than the U.S. had spent in WWI. Thirty billion dollars would be equivalent to $377,587,032,770.41 today.  After the initial crash, there was a wave of suicides in the New York’s financial district. It is said that the clerks of one hotel even started asking new guests if they needed a room for sleeping or jumping. (Taken from Random Facts)

At first thought it amazed me, they committed suicide over loss of stuff, but it was so much more than wealth, they were losing their kingdoms, their identity, and the question that Jesus asked came to my mind: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” 

If only these men had spent time in the Creator’s handbook on living life on planet earth, 

they may have chosen the approach of King Hezekiah when faced with losing his kingdom.   

These were his actions: “As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered 

himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. And he sent Eliakim, who was 

over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, 

to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a 

day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there 

is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of 

the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and 

will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the 

remnant that is left.’”  (Isaiah 37:1-4 ESV)

The king humbled himself before God and his people, and sent for Isaiah, it is recorded in 

verses 14-17, “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. And 

Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, 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 hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.”  

And it is recorded God heard and acted on Hezekiah’s prayer.

How one acts at the time of catastrophe will always give away the mysteries of their hearts, 

or as the country boy would state: “When one gets squeezed what is in them comes out.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice