Praying Through the Bible #25 | with Daniel Whyte III
TEXT: 2 Kings 19:1-8
We are in a series of messages titled “Praying Through the Bible: A Series on Every Passage and Verse Regarding Prayer in the Bible”. The purpose of this series is to encourage and motivate you to pray to the God of the Bible. We highlighted each of these over 500 verses and passages in the new Prayer Motivator Devotional Bible. So far, we have done 24 messages in this series.
This is message #25 titled “What to Do When You Receive Bad News.”
Hezekiah was the sixteenth king of Judah. He reigned during the time of the divided kingdom, when Israel had her own king and Judah had her own king. Hezekiah was a good king who led the nation in the proper worship of God. He destroyed the idols and pagan altars that previous wicked kings had set up. He renewed the celebration of the Passover. He also presided over the building of the now famous Siloam Tunnel which allowed water from the Pool of Siloam to be carried into the city of Jerusalem which was especially important when the city was under attack. Part of this construction is still visible in the Old City of Jerusalem today. The Bible says that Hezekiah “did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did…He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.”
Hezekiah was a good king who ruled his kingdom well. However, one day Hezekiah received some bad news.
1. Notice the bad news Hezekiah received. If we flip back to Second Kings 18, we find that the King of Assyria was on a war campaign in the middle east. He had fought against and conquered many other small nations, and now he had turned his attention to Judah. While he was engaged in warfare in the south of Judah, he sent “a great host” under the command of three of his leaders — “Tartan”, the commander in chief; “Rab-sa-ris”, the chief eunuch; and “Rab-sha-keh”, the chief cupbearer. These leaders and their army laid seige to the city of Jerusalem.
2. Secondly, notice Hezekiah’s reaction to the bad news. We have seen already that Hezekiah tore his clothes and covered himself in sackcloth. But the Bible tells us that Hezekiah did two other things. First, he “went into the house of the Lord.” The second thing Hezekiah does is he requests the prayers of the prophet Isaiah.
3. Thirdly, notice God’s answer to the bad news. After Hezekiah’s officials share the problem with Isaiah, Isaiah says, “Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”
Gospel Light House of Prayer International 