SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/29/2013
9:28 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Invasion
Crisis PT-2 (Reproach)
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah
36:4-21
Message of the
verses: “4 Then Rabshakeh said to
them, "Say now to Hezekiah, ’Thus says the great king, the king of
Assyria, "What is this confidence that you have? 5 “I say, ’Your counsel
and strength for the war are only empty words.’ Now on whom do you rely, that
you have rebelled against me? 6
"Behold, you rely on the staff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt,
on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh King
of Egypt to all who rely on him. 7 “But if you say to me, ’We trust in the LORD
our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken
away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ’You shall worship before this
altar’? 8 “Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of
Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part
to set riders on them. 9 “How then can you repulse one official of the least of
my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10 “Have
I now come up without the LORD’S approval against this land to destroy it? The
LORD said to me, ’Go up against this land and destroy it.’"’"
“11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said
to Rabshakeh, "Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it;
and do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the
wall." 12 But Rabshakeh said, "Has my master sent me only to your
master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall,
doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?" 13 Then
Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean and said, "Hear the
words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14 "Thus says the king, ’Do not let
Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; 15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD,
saying, "The LORD will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into
the hand of the king of Assyria." 16 ’Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for thus
says the king of Assyria, ’Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat
each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his
own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a
land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 ’Beware that
Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, "The LORD will deliver us."
Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the
king of Assyria? 19 ’Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods
of Sepharvaim? And when have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 20 ’Who among
all the gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the
LORD would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’" 21 But they were silent and answered him not a word;
for the king’s commandment was, "Do not answer him.’”
We would have to search the Scriptures thoroughly to find
a more blasphemous and insolent statements found in the Scriptures. I will have to admit that some of the things were
true, but the motive in which he gave them was not right. He was saying these things in the language of
the people of Judah, and doing it deliberately too, for this was psychological warfare
at its finest. He was speaking great
things about the king of Assyria, but terrible things about the Great God of
Israel. Hezekiah had sinned when he made
a treaty with Egypt to help Judah and although he did not call it sin, he did
know that Egypt was a “weak reed” something Isaiah had already told Hezekiah.
He wanted the people to hear so that they would put pressure
on Hezekiah, and he offered the people comfortable homes in Assyria if they
would just give up. I suppose that this
was easier for the Assyrians if they could get Judah to surrender so that they
would not have to fight against them, but this was not the way the Lord wanted
this to happen.
We are told by the Assyrian commander that it was
actually God who told the Assyrians that they should destroy Judah, and he did
have one thing right it was God who was in control of all things. Dr. Wiersbe writes, “According to the field
commander, Judah could not trust in its strategy, its military resources, or in
its God. Nor could its people trust in
their king (Isa. 36:13-20).”
Dr. Wiersbe sums up his commentary on this section by
writing: “God summons us to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). To those Jews in Jerusalem who were living in
unbelief, the field commander’s arguments must have seemed reasonable, and his
evidence compelling. But God had
promised to deliver His people from the Assyrian army, and His Word would
stand.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: In this evenings
message at church we heard from one of the presidents of a mission’s organization
about how God helped the mission in many different ways, and one of the statements
that he made was about faith in the Lord to provide what was needed at just the
right time, and that does not mean in the timing that they thought was
right. Hezekiah demonstrated great faith
in the Lord in the keeping of His Word, and faith is a very important aspect of
the Christians walk with the Lord. The disciples as Jesus to help them have
their faith increased and He told them if their faith was as small as a mustard
seed that would be enough. Faith the
size of a mustard when placed in the Lord and in the will of the Lord is
enough.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to not allow me to go too low
after being on such a Spiritual high because of the visit I made with a person
that I have not spoken to in 38 years just last week. I cannot underestimate how special this
person is to me and how great it was to me to meet with them.
Memory verses for the
week: 2 Peter 1:1-6
1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus
Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the
righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3
seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to
life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own
glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and
magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
5 Now for this very reason also, applying
all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence,
knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control,
perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Solomon.”
Today’s Bible
Question: “Who said ‘I found an altar
with this inscription to the unknown God’”?
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
9/29/2013 10:09 PM
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