“Glory to the Precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Isaiah 26: 13

O Lord our God, masters besides You have had dominion over us; But by You only we make mention of Your name.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen

We, the bride, the church should not leave the Lord and lose the way and should not be deceived but live depending upon the Lord. 

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the portion of the Bible that we meditated upon in the past days, we meditated that we, the bride, the church should not fall by the cunningness of Satan.

Next what we are meditating upon is that 2 Kings 18: 17 – 19 Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish, with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they went and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. 

And when they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them. 

Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?

When we meditate upon the above-mentioned words, when the king of Assyria sent his people to king Hezekiah they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they went and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. And when they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them. Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust? And in 2 Kings 18: 20 – 25 You speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me? 

Now look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, 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 trust in him. 

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 said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?” 

Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them! 

How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 

Have I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’

The above-mentioned words when the people of Hezekiah such as Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” But Rabshakeh said to them in 2 Kings 18: 27 – 36 But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”

Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and spoke, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! 

Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you from his hand; 

nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 

Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from his own vine and everyone from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; 

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, a land of olive groves and honey, that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” 

Has any of the gods of the nations at all delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim and Hena and Ivah? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 

Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’”

But the people held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”

All the above-mentioned words fearing that the people through Hezekiah will trust only upon the Lord the king of Assyria using Rabshakeh called out with a loud voice so that all the people will know and so that all the people will serve the king of Assyria he proclaimed these things. The people of Hezekiah who heard the things that he said tore their clothes and came to Hezekiah and told him these words. 

The above-mentioned facts the Lord has kept for us as a pattern. That is, high places and idols should be removed, and the breaking of the bronze serpent showed that Hezekiah lived depending only on the Lord and if the Lord is by his side for everything then the people will seek only the Lord and because he had such a fear so he is thinking that he can make all the people to leave the way of the Lord and in this manner to remove them from the Lord he is doing these things. In this manner only, in our soul the deeds of Assyria will remove us away from the Lord and will work to make us live with decorations of the world. Therefore we must not give our soul to these wicked facts but must depend only upon the Lord and submit ourselves to live in this manner.

Let us pray. May the Lord bless you all abundantly. 

       - To be continued