Isaiah 36:11-20 – Preparing the Defences
After all these sticks, Rabshakeh holds out a sweet, tasty carrot. ‘Give up. Give up and we’ll be nice to you. Throw open the gates, come on out, and everything will be fine. We’ll leave you alone for a while. And then we will move you to someplace that’s even better. Come on. It’ll be nice.’
He says, ‘Even if Jehovah were inclined to help you out, He can’t. I mean, look at these other lands. We’ve rolled right over them. Their gods couldn’t stop us.’ Well, here was the huge error that the Assyrians held to, for the so-called gods of these different places didn’t exist.
When Hezekiah came to the throne, he was a believer. He was diligent to be rid of idolatry, and there were covenant renewal and all kinds of good things. Consistent godliness often brings trouble, trouble from the wicked. And that’s exactly what happened here. It can be very tempting to the godly to say, as the psalmist in Psalm 73 starts out saying, ‘I’ve washed my hands in vain’, but by God’s grace, we see no evidence of this here. Hezekiah faithfully prepared the defenses. You can see this in 2 Chronicles 32:1-8.
Someone might say, ‘God has promised to defend it. You’re not showing much faith by building walls and doing these big engineering projects to protect the land. Aren’t you trusting in God?’ Sure he was. He was avoiding presumption. He was avoiding putting God to the test. When we pray, as the Lord Jesus taught us, to give us this day our daily bread, we don’t sit and wait for food magically to show up. God works normally through means. Thus, Hezekiah built up the walls and did what he could to get water into the city and deny water to the besieging armies. He prepared the weapons, he prepared all the stores that he would need. And most importantly of all, he prepared the people by pointing them to Jehovah.
Questions
- What was Assyria trying to persuade the people to do?
- What preparations did Hezekiah make?
Prayer Points
- Pray that we would prepare ourselves for spiritual battle.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.