Praying Through the Bible #26 | with Daniel Whyte III
TEXT: 2 Kings 19:8-37
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 25 messages in this series.
This is message #26 titled “Take it to the Lord in Prayer.”
In our last message in this series on prayer we were introduced to King Hezekiah of Judah. We learned that King Hezekiah was a good king who ruled his kingdom well. However, one day he received some bad news in the form of an Assyrian army at the gates of Jerusalem. We saw that King Hezekiah immediately went into the house of the Lord and then he asked the prophet Isaiah to pray for the city regarding this matter. God answered the prayers of King Hezekiah and delivered Jerusalem from destruction by causing a distraction for the Assyrians in the form of an Egyptian army that had to be dealt with before the Assyrian king could carry on his assault against Jerusalem.
While Assyria’s occupation with the Egyptian army provided a reprieve for the city of Jerusalem, it did not resolve the conflict. As we see in our passage today, the Assyrians turned their attention to the Jewish people once again. Let’s look at this passage, and once more, we will see the power of God in response to prayer.
1. First of all, notice the repeated threat. When the King of Assyria heard that the Egyptians were on the march, he did not leave the land of Judah without repeating his threat to the city of Jerusalem. He told his officers to write a letter to King Hezekiah. In the letter he told Hezekiah, “Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered?”
2. Secondly, notice the reaction of the king. Verse 14 tells us that “Hezekiah received the letter, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.” Hezekiah did exactly what any child of God should do in such a situation. He spread the matter before the Lord. First Peter 5:7 says that we should cast all our care upon Him because He cares for us. One of the greatest mistakes you can make in this life is to try and bear all of your burdens alone when Jesus Christ is there with you and he wants to carry those burdens if you will just let go of them. You have to stop wanting to control everything and place everything in God’s hands.
3. Now, notice the result of Hezekiah’s prayer. The Bible tells us that “Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard…” Have you ever tried to talk to somebody, and it seemed as though they were not really listening to you. They may have been nodding their head and acting as though they were listening, but they were not really hearing what you were saying. Well, it is such a blessing to know that God does not treat us that way. He listens to everything we have to say to Him. And in this passage, we see where He gives Isaiah a message that starts out by saying, “Hezekiah, I have heard your prayer.”
Gospel Light House of Prayer International 