Hezekiah's
Response to International Intimidation. 2 Kings 19
Intimidation has always been a
tool that armies and others have used in order to gain the upper hand in any
kind of a conflict or physical confrontation. This was especially true of the
Assyrian empire which was perhaps one of the cruelest of all nations in
history. Their attempt was to so fill their enemies with fear and dread that
they would win a large part of the battle before anything physical had ever
occurred. They realized that mental attitude is more than fifty per cent of the
battle.
We need to keep our focus on
where our strength actually lies and not get our focus on the problems, on our
weaknesses, on ways in which we could lose and on past failures. We have to
develop in life a tough mental attitude spiritually. This is exhibited by
Hezekiah and it is exhibited again and again in Scripture. When we see the men
of God, the prophets of the Old Testament, up against impossible odds,
realizing that ultimately the battle is the Lord’s, they clearly understood the
importance of mental attitude. It is understood by terrorists. The goal of
terrorists is to strike fear into their enemies so that they begin to win the
battle. When they so induce fear into their enemies their enemies begin to change
the way they live, the way they act, the way they talk so that they will modify
terms and phrases so that they are not offensive and might not create a
reaction from the terrorists. By this they have already won a large part of the
battle because their threats are reaching their targets. This is just the modus
operandi of any bully. Once he knows he has the upper hand then he can get his
victim to do whatever he wants him to do. Hezekiah is facing a bully in terms
of the Assyrian empire.
We in the western world face
the bullying tactics of the Islamic terrorists and they have won a lot of
battles. They have gotten us to change a lot of terminology. There is a
challenge, for example, to the way some things are stated in school, textbooks
and how Islam is described. Soft, non-offensive words are used to describe the
advances and expansion of Islam during the 7th and 8th centuries,
that it was just the expansion of empire. There is no mention of how violent
they were and the way they would torture and kill Jews and Christians if they
would not submit to Allah. There is so much fear that something may be said
that offends them and create a reaction. On the other hand, when there are
descriptions of things that
When we lose our spiritual
moral and moral compass in relation to eternal absolutes then we can’t identify
correctly what the problem is and we can’t stand with the right solution; we
become weak and inferior.
What is our authority that we
are going to that gives us a value system to make a decision that something is
right or something is wrong? That brings us to the most basic level which is
the level of what is called metaphysics or discussion about God, the nature of
ultimate reality: is there a God or not? Is there a Creator who has spoken or
is there just empty silence out there in the universe? It is the pressures of
life that force us to think about ultimate reality, our relationship to God,
and about how that informs our day-to-day actions and decisions. It is out of
that framework, then, that we come up with applications.
Islam is a pagan worldview, a
religion and legal system known as Shariah law—it can’t
be separated from Islam—and Muslims seek to impose this law and to dominate the
West. And they are making inroads every single year. They have made tremendous
inroads in
The Bible again and again
presents the struggle in the Christian life in the framework of a war. It is in
the angelic conflict that human history began as a way of bringing resolution
to that conflict because it was in and through human history that God would
demonstrate His justice and His righteousness, and that His justice and righteousness
were not incompatible with His grace, His compassion and His mercy. One of the
most significant books for understanding this is the Old Testament book of Job.
God’s question to Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job?” Satan replies: “The
only reason Job worships you is because you have given
him everything.” So it was put to the test. The conflict is resolved through
the evidence given through those who are loyal to God and who trust Him in the
midst of that conflict. Then in the New Testament in Ephesians 6:10 we are told
that we are in an invisible warfare. Our war is not against flesh and blood, it
is against the principalities and powers, etc.; it is a spiritual conflict. In
2 Corinthians 10 we are told to take every thought captive for Christ. That is
the battle, a battle that rages between our ears, not a physical battle. But
the issues are the same, there are so many parallels that we can’t let the
enemy, the world system or Satan, intimidate us and put us in a position where
we are on the defensive in the sense that we are running or in retreat. We are
to stand firm on the basis of God’s Word and rely upon God to be the one to
protect us and to defend us. When we understand that we understand that we are in
just as much of a position of siege as Hezekiah was in 2 Kings 19.
We live in a time in the
history of this nation when we are in a decline. We have demonstrated in our
response to situations such as terrorism a moral cowardice and a spiritual
cowardice. We have demonstrated that we are basically led by wimps, those who
do not have the moral/spiritual courage to take the stands they ought to take. Why?
Because they are afraid they might lose their comfort, their sense of security
in the nation, and so we allow our security to truly erode. This was pointed
out in the late seventies by Francis Schaeffer in the series that he did on “How
Should We Then Live?” Speaking in Dallas, Texas, he said “in the next fifty
years the West is going to abdicate its position of leadership and the real
basis for the prosperity that we have because as our security is threatened and
our sense of meaning and purpose and our wealth is threatened we are going to
gradually give away our freedoms and give up our liberties in order to maintain
the façade of still having strength and power and prosperity.” His words have
been very true.
There is another famous
response to this question on the decline of civilizations that has been
mentioned many times in different circumstances. It has been attributed to at
least three different people but none of those people have been able to prove
they are the actual source of this quote. It is a true historical observation
and it has been called the cycles of civilization: “Man begins his existence in
bondage and rise from bondage to spiritual faith. From spiritual faith he
derives courage, and from courage the ability to gain his liberty. From liberty
he is able to have abundance, but once abundance and the comforts of abundance begin
to set in there is a shift to self-absorption—from abundance to selfishness, from
selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to
dependence, and from dependency back into bondage. We are somewhere in those
last three in terms of western civilization. We have become complacent and
apathetic with regard to the eternal values of life and as a result we no
longer have anything on which to base our living, so we are willing to give up—a
little this year and a little next year, and a little more next year. Over a
period of fifteen, twenty or thirty years we will look back and see how much we
have given up just to maintain the façade of security and prosperity. By then
it will be too late because we will either be in dependency or in bondage.
As he is faced with the
intimidation techniques of the Rabshakeh he goes to
God in prayer in 2 Kings 19:1. The principle is that the source of our strength
is God. The key principle is humility, submission to the authority of God. Then
he sends several messengers to seek divine guidance, God’s answer. 2
Kings 19:2 NASB “Then he sent Eliakim who
was over the household with Shebna the scribe and the
elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of
Amoz.” They are going to call upon Isaiah to p[ray. The prayer isn’t given here. It is assumed because
what Isaiah gives them is an answer. The basic message is given in verse 3: “They
said to him [Isaiah], “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day
is a day of distress, rebuke, and rejection [NKJV: blasphemy];
for children have come to birth and there is no strength to {deliver.}” The
word “blasphemy” here is an important word because that shows us that the focus
isn’t on the single dimension of the physical reality of battle. Blasphemy
brings in the religious dimension, if you will; it brings God into the picture.
He is not just looking at this battle from the physical dimension but he
recognizes that the ultimate issue in this battle is a spiritual issue and the
glory of God. Here is the important principle: every conflict we face in life,
every challenge we face in life, every time we are tempted to give up, to
compromise, to cave in to anger or worry or frustration and defeatism, it is a
spiritual issue. The battle has to be won at the spiritual level in terms of
our relationship to God, not at the physical level. The issue is our mental
attitude focus on God. He recognizes here that the issues are ultimately
related to the integrity of God and His honor.
This is the same thing we saw with David
and Goliath. Day after day Goliath is saying, “Trust in your God.” But nobody
goes out. Then one day David is there bringing supplies to his brothers and
Goliath utters his challenge. David turns to his brothers and says, “Who is
this guy to blaspheme the living God? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?”
When he uses the word “uncircumcised,” remember circumcision was the sign of
the Abrahamic covenant, the promise God gave him that
this land was their land, that God would give this land to the descendants of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not to the Philistines. David immediately interprets
the battle within the broader and correct spiritual framework that this guy had
no ground to stand on. God gave them the land. He interprets the issues
spiritually within a correct spiritual or divine viewpoint framework, not in
terms of just a simple physical reality.
2 Kings 19:4
“Perhaps the LORD your God
will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master
the king of
Isaiah
responds. 2 Kings 19:6 NASB “Isaiah said to them, ‘Thus you shall
say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with
which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.” This is important
to recognize because when we put our faith and hope in the living God who
reigns over the affairs of men then there is no basis for fear. Fear is
replaced by confidence. Rather than be intimidated by Islam we should have
confidence because we know that the ultimate reality is that there god is not
real, their belief system is fake and phony, and our belief system is true and
right because it is grounded upon the living God. But we don’t have a
civilization anymore that believes in the living God; it doesn’t believe in
anything. And when we are going to prop ourselves up with nothing we will fall
a long way before we hit bottom, because we can’t lean on thin air and that is
all that we have left. We have eroded the basis of our culture by the
consistent attacks against God and against the entire Judeo-Christian
worldview. But the Scripture says that we are not to be afraid, we are to have
confidence in God.
We have
various passages in Scripture that we can be reminded of. Genesis 15:1 NASB
“After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a
shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.’”
Deuteronomy
Joshua 8:1 NASB “Now the LORD said to Joshua, ‘Do not fear or be
dismayed. Take all
the people of war with you and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into your
hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.’” Ultimately we trust
God for the victory but that is not at the expense of the secondary means. So
we trust God to protect us as a nation but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have
a strong military, a strong law enforcement against criminal elements, there
has to be both; but we can’t forget God and just trust in politics, military,
law enforcement, because that is no protection if God is not the ultimate
source of our confidence.
Joshua
Judges
Psalm 27:3 NASB
“Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not
fear; Though war arise against me, In {spite of} this I shall be confident.”
Psalm 112:7 NASB
“He will not fear evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.” I am not going to yield to propaganda,
to the threats of Islamists who threaten to blow things up and to kill people
by sending assassination squads. You can’t have the kind of moral courage to
defend yourself against an enemy like that if there is not spiritual strength
and courage at the core. When that is gone then all that is left is implosion.
Psalm 118:6 NASB
“The LORD is for me;
I will not fear; What can man do to me?”
Isaiah 41:10
NASB “Do not fear, for I am with you; Do
not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely
I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My
righteous right hand.”
How should
Christians respond to Muslim assaults? First of all we have to always think in
terms of a Biblical worldview, that is the way things
actually truly are. There is a God in heaven, He created angels, there was a
rebellion among the angels, that is the introduction of evil into the universe,
and Satan is trying to secure ultimate authority and domain over the earth. He
already has a temporary dominion over the earth, he is called the prince of the
power of the air and the ruler of this age, but he has to defeat God to gain
that ultimate victory. So we are in this warfare, and Paul writes Ephesians
6:11, 12 NASB “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be
able to stand firm against the schemes [strategies and tactics] of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the
spiritual {forces} of wickedness in the heavenly {places.}” We stand against
him. Not on the basis ultimately of technology or finances or any other things
because we have the spiritual strength from the armor of God.
Ultimately
the battle is not against Islam, the battle is against what inspires Islam,
which is Satan. All false systems of thought get their inspiration out of satanic
thought. We have to recognize that conflicts on the earth reflect Satan’s strategy
of world domination through false religion and false philosophies.
All of the
other nations—the Assyrians, Babylonians, Edomites,
Samarians, etc.—are all gone; they have been assimilated into other ethnic
groups and nations, but the Jews march on.
As
Christians our prime directive is to present the gospel, not to destroy Islam
or to kill all the Muslims. Tension, though, for us comes when the spiritual
warfare irrupts as international tension, war or criminality; when Christians
are called into the army to fight against Islamic terrorism they have two
missions as an individual. One is to kill the enemy. That is their mission as
soldiers. Their second mission is to give the gospel.
When it
comes to our response to Islam we have a tendency, motivated by the sin nature,
to react in terms of personal animosity—like burning a Koran. That is wrong,
and two wrongs don’t make a right. On the other side there is placation of the
enemy as a result of intimidation, and that is wrong. One example of placating
came from the Massachusetts Bible Society. They said: “As people of the Book we
are joined to Islam and Judaism in a special way, and as an organization that
has sought to put that Book into people’s hands for 201 years we cannot stand
idly by while the sacred text of a sister religion…” Islam is not a “sister
religion”; Allah is not another version of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Allah wants to kill all the Jews and all the Christians; it is not the same God
at all. So they are compromising themselves at this point. It is not a sacred text,
it is not a sister religion, and they are operating on a wrong response. “… in
response to the Reverend Jones’ despicable act (burning a Koran) we are
prepared to give away two Korans for every one that the Reverend Jones burns.”
That is placating the enemy. Islamists will take anything or nothing as a
pretext for violence. Whether we are going to burn Korans or whether we are not
going to burn Korans is not the issue, they will take anything as an excuse.
God rules in human affairs. He may not always solve problems through some sort of direct interference, as He did with the Assyrians through some sort of supernatural intervention, but God is the one who always protects us. And if we have removed Him from being the foundation and support of our thinking then we have nothing to rely on but ourselves, and that is nothing to rely on.