I saw myself in 2 Kings 18-19 this morning.
Perhaps you’ll see yourself, too.
It’s the passage that describes the assault upon the Southern Kingdom of Israel by the king of Assyria. You can read it here.
Here’s the brief recap. The pagan King Sennacherib is rampaging through the Southern Kingdom in search of riches and power. Hebrew King Hezekiah knows he’s outgunned and pays the ancient thug 11 tons of silver and a ton of gold in hopes that he’ll take his 185,000 Assyrian soldiers and go away.
You can guess what happened. Sennacherib took the money and didn’t go away.
Instead, he targeted Jerusalem in order to have a slam-dunk domination of God’s chosen people and chosen city.
Sennacherib then sent some messengers to trick the city into giving up without a fight.
With blasphemous words, mind you.
When Hezekiah recognized all that was happening and the seeming certainty of defeat and decimation, that’s when he finally decided to pray for God’s help.
You really should read this biblical account by clicking the link above.
It will speak to you as it spoke to me.
God did intervene in a miraculous way, of course.
God is in the business of answering sincere prayers that exalt Him and reflect a heart genuinely embracing Him.
If only Hezekiah would have gone to the Lord with sincere prayers before trusting the devilish lie that he could buy his way out of trouble.
It’s crazy for us Christians to think that throwing money at a problem can be a substitute for heartfelt, humble prayers to God.
But we’ve all done it.
Perhaps your Sennacherib problem is that you’re not getting along with a spouse or child. The easy way out says to buy them something in hopes that they’ll be pleased and appeased.
At least for awhile.
Prayers for wisdom and strength to do and say relationship-building things would be better, but that takes time in prayer, large doses of humility and perhaps even the dreaded “I have to say I’m sorry?” realization. Even so, it’s the better path.
Perhaps your Sennacherib problem is that you’re not learning more about the Bible because you “don’t have time” to read 10 minutes a day.
The easy way out says to buy a Christian movie DVD or latest “hit” album from a Christian band and play it until you’re tired of it. Won’t that be enough to grow and mature my faith?
These things are great in measured doses but are no substitute for prayerfully confessing a lack of spiritual discipline and a need to see Bible-reading as spending time with Daddy.
Perhaps your Sennacherib problem is that you have feelings of guilt because of sinful choices away from church. It’s all too easy to throw extra “blood” money in the offering plate in hopes that our conscience will be soothed and that God will grant us an indulgence-like pass from accountability.
Listen, money is never to take the place of prayers of repentance and restoration.
Prayer first. That’s the lesson from this story about Hezekiah’s deliverance.
Let’s save ourselves a lot of anxiety and wasted money. Let’s pray first when problems come against us.
It’s what God has been waiting for.
As always, I love you
Martin
