Jump Start # 1080

2 Kings 19:19 “Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God.”

Our verse today comes from a prayer. It is how the prayer ended. It was the prayer of a king that realized that his country was in trouble. He knew his only help was in the Lord. Hezekiah, the Judean king prayed these words to God, acknowledging that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was devastating the nation. These simple words reveal several great thoughts to us.

  First, Hezekiah realized the serious trouble that his nation was in. He called upon God to help. Some people never see the danger that they are facing. Troubled marriages, troubled teens, troubled churches, troubled hearts, many deny that there are any problems or worse than that, they believe in a fantasy that everything will get better. I’ve heard folks say that to a scared and broken heart, “I just know it will get better for you.” You know that! Really? It’s great to be optimistic. Optimism without a plan is pure fantasy. Hezekiah realized that his nation would be captured by the Assyrians unless God helped them.

  Second, Hezekiah did not tell God what to do. He wanted divine help with the Assyrians, however he left the details up to God. His prayer says, “I pray, deliver us from his hand…” Just how God was going to do that was left to God. If we are not careful, we tend to tell God how to do His job. We work out a plan ourselves and expect God to stick with our thinking and our plan. That doesn’t work. Jesus understood this. In the garden He prayed for the cup of suffering to pass. He didn’t tell His Father, how. He also acknowledged God’s will be done. If Calvary was the will of God, which it was, then Jesus would accept it.

Sometimes we like to sit in God’s chair and tell how things ought to be. We play God and believe that how we have thought things out is the way that it should be. Isaiah reminds us that God’s ways are higher than our ways. God is holier than we are. God is more merciful than we are. God sees the entire picture, and we don’t. God’s will prevails and we often do not grasp what all God’s will involves.

Deliver us recognizes that God can do that many ways. In Egypt, it involved plagues and death upon the first born. In the days of King Saul, it was a teenager with a sling and a rock that routed the Philistine armies. For Noah, it was an ark. For Lot, it was being led out of a city by angels. For the apostle Paul, it was being lowered over the city walls in a basket in the middle of the night. God has delivered many ways. Hezekiah did not lock God into one specific way. He allowed God to be God. We must do the same. There are many ways that God can open a heart to receive His saving message. There are many ways God can protect, save and rescue His people. Believing the prayer, “Deliver us,” puts trusts in God and not a plan. It’s not the plan that saves, it’s God that saves. The plan without God is doomed to fail. With God, anything can happen. Hezekiah understood that. Do we?

  Third, Hezekiah named names in his prayer. In his prayer, Hezekiah told God about Sennacherib and the terrible destruction that he caused upon other nations. Hezekiah said the name Sennacherib. This prayer was specific and concerned specific people and specific problems. There is a place for that, especially in our private closet prayers. Generic prayers too often are not asking God for help and they are too hard to see the answers. Specific people. Specific problems. Hezekiah had a problem with Sennacherib. Hezekiah was not in the position to do anything about it. He prayed. He told God what was upon his heart.

Have you done that? Got a problem with someone at work, in the neighborhood, the family, or in the congregation? Have you named that person in your prayers? Have you asked God for deliverance from the problems that they are causing? Could it be that we really do not have a problem with another, we simply don’t like them? Possibly, we are jealous. Maybe, we feel inferior to them. They may have had more success than we have. We don’t like them and we allow them to bother us. That’s different than what Hezekiah faced. He had a national problem. His country was about to be invaded and he couldn’t stop it. The track history of Assyria is running through nation after nation. No one could stop them. Now Judah was in their sights.

We let other people bother us much too often and we fail to take that to God in prayer. Maybe someone doesn’t understand you or your faith. Pray about that person to God. Maybe someone is being mean to you for no reason. Pray about that person to God. Remember our second point. Let God be God. Don’t tell God what to do with that person.

Throughout the New Testament, putting other people’s names in prayers is very common. Sometimes it was to thank God for them. Other times, it was to seek divine help. I heard a guy once pray, “Lord, we pray for those that we are supposed to pray for.” What does that mean? If we are supposed to pray for others, why not actually do that? Why not thank God for those who have helped you? Why not pray for those who are not Christians to receive the Gospel? Why not name the sick, physical and spiritual?

The story ends in 2 Kings, with the angel of the Lord coming at night and killing 185,000 Assyrians. All of them were dead. Sennacherib returned home and never again bothered the people of God.

In the model prayer that Jesus taught His disciples, we find the expression, “but deliver us from evil.” Deliver us. The prayer of Hezekiah. The example of Jesus. The work of God.

We might worry less, sleep better and be more at ease, if we prayed more about the people that trouble us.

Roger