Isaiah 37-39; Psalm 76

King Hezekiah reminded the Lord about the insults spoken about Him by Senncherib in this prayer:

⁶ “O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷ Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.¹⁸ “It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. ¹⁹ They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. ²⁰ Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God. ^[b] “

It’s interesting to note that Hezekiah had just received an insulting letter from Sennacherib, and as he prayed to the Lord, the Bible says that he spread the letter out before the Lord in the temple.

Basically, he laid it all out on the table.  And God delivered him in a mighty way.  How?

³⁶ Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

I’ll bet he ran as fast as his legs could take him.

I’m encouraged tonight to read how Hezekiah didn’t give up.  He didn’t just wave the white flag and hand over everything to Assyria.  He gave the battle to God.

That’s a battle plan worth following.