“The sacrifices of God"

Isaiah 37:21-38

Have you heard the saying; “Prayer changes things” and yet, you or I might have prayed and things did not change?  Now I do not mean for stuff, but very serious prayers for the life of a family member who is dying of cancer, or maybe for the nation you live in to come back to God.  When the person dies or the nation seems to go even farther from the ways of God, His precepts, and commandments, the enemy of our soul tells us God does not care, and even brings up the question, why are you crying out to a God who will not answer?

Before you buy into Channel One the (Deception Channel) maybe you need to look at what King Hezekiah did when faced with the loss of his kingdom, his family, and his nation; he went into the house of the Lord.  You may be wondering why would anyone want to tear good clothes and what is sackcloth?  Those are great questions and we need to understand the culture of Hezekiah’s time to have any understanding of his action, and what those actions meant to the LORD.   The tearing of clothes was a sign of grief, and the blasphemy in the speech of Rabshakeh, and the putting on of sackcloth was self-humiliation before men and God.

The great King David, a man after God’s own heart, tells us God is looking for this in a person who comes to him in prayer: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”  How often we go to God with a serious request and yet have not examined ourselves as David did in Psalms 51:3, where he stated, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” 

King Hezekiah had other kings to learn from other than David, one was Jehoshaphat who lived in the time of the prophet Elijah and the Moabites, the Ammonites, and some of the Meunites were coming against Jehoshaphat to do battle.  Now bad news is not what the king wanted to hear, but some men came and told him a great multitude is coming against you from Edom.  Scripture tells us in 2 Chronicles 20:3,4, “Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.  And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD. Now listen to Jehoshaphat’s prayer in verse 12, “O our God, will you not execute judgment on them?  For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

Now the great news, God reminds Hezekiah that He is and always has been in charge, and the king of Assyria will never come into this city or shoot even one arrow, but by the way they came they will return.  If only we were as concerned about God’s name as He is then we would have the right heart attitude.  Verse 35, “For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”  And what God does next is send the angel of the LORD and he struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians.  Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home.  Now the Scripture does not say how fast he departed, but I bet it was on a fast horse.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice