(Through the Bible) 2 Chronicles 28-36 — Chuck Smith

Ahaz’s Wicked Reign and Judah’s Spiritual Decline

So we turn now to 2nd Chronicles chapter 28. We are now moving into the final stages of the deterioration of this nation prior to its destruction. Ahaz is now the king. He is 20 years old when he began to reign.

And he is an extremely wicked person. And it is really during his reign that the kingdom sinks to a lower level spiritually than it ever has. And this begins the final downward trend. There are few respites.

Hezekiah, his son, was a very good king. Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, was a wicked king. And then the son of Manasseh, Josiah, was again a very good king. But each time you get to the wicked kings, it seems like their wickedness is just a little deeper or greater than the previous ones.

Now among the things that Ahaz did was to walk in the ways of the kings of Israel in the north, establishing the worship of Baal. And in establishing the worship of Baal caused his children to pass through the fire.

Now some people wonder why God ordered the extermination of the Canaanites when the children of Israel came into the land. And it seems a very cruel thing for God to order them to wipe out all of the inhabitants of that land as they moved in.

And it has created great problems for some people. How could a God of love order the extermination of a whole race of people? But if you will get into the practices of their worship and you begin to study their whole cultural system, you will see why God ordered their extermination.

Because they had come to a place of such depravity, even in their concepts and worship of God, that they would in time destroy themselves. One of the practices in the worship of Baal was to cause your children to pass through the fire.

They would heat the little iron or stone images of Baal until they were glowing hot. And then the little images of Baal have always arms that are straight out from the body with the fingers turned up.

And that was so that they could hold the infants. And these little images, when they would turn molten red, they would place then their little babies in the molten red arms of the image of Baal and sacrifice their babies unto Baal.

And so this king Ahaz was actually guilty of causing his own children to pass through the fire. And he got into all of the pagan practices in their religious system. Forsaking the worship of the true and the living God and following after the worship that was common in the nations that God ordered exterminated.

God ordered to get rid of them completely. Because of their disobedience to God and their failure to utterly exterminate these nations, gradually the practices of these nations became sort of inculcated into the life of the people of God.

And they polluted the people of God and ultimately caused the fall of God's people. So God was only seeking to protect them from this poison, this venom, in order that they might continue in the land and continue to serve the Lord.

And it was their failure of obeying God that led to their ultimate downfall as they began to pick up the practices of the people round about. Now, as we are in this particular period of history, as we are dealing now with Ahaz and then subsequently Hezekiah, this is about the time Hezekiah's reign.

He has only reigned for 16 years. Hezekiah was the time when Isaiah was the prophet of God. And you can go into the book of Isaiah and you can read how he speaks against those who had followed after the astrology and the stargazers and the monthly prognosticators and so forth.

And he speaks of the things that they became involved with in false worship. As we move on, after Hezekiah, in the period of Manasseh, it was Manasseh actually who ordered Isaiah the prophet sawed in two.

He didn't want to hear any more of God's word. But God raised up another prophet during the time of Josiah, the prophet Jeremiah. And Jeremiah is the prophet who, talking to the people at this period of history, he said, has there ever been such a thing before that a people will turn from their God, which are no gods.

In other words, those people that worship false gods won't turn away from their God. They'll continue to worship false gods generation after generation after generation. Of course, the reason is, is that in the worship of false gods, there is an appeal to the flesh.

Thus, there is no spiritual struggle. To worship the true and the living God does create a conflict within. The moment I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior, begin to serve the Lord, there is a conflict, an internal conflict that is set up within me, the flesh warring against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh.

These two are contrary. This battle begins. But in worshiping the false gods, they are extremely appealing to the flesh. And thus, there is no conflict set up. And thus, people who worship false gods will continue in the worship of false gods from generation to generation.

And so, Jeremiah points out, he said, have you ever seen such a thing, that people will turn from their God, which really aren't gods. They're not even true gods, but people won't turn. They're very loyal to them.

And yet, God said, you have turned away from me. You have left me the fountain of living waters. Living waters is a running stream. You have left me the fountain of living waters. And you have hewn out for yourself, carved out for yourself cisterns, which are great caves that they carve out in the limestone over there in Israel, in order that they might be water reservoirs.

But they collect the water in the winter rains and then hold them through the summer season. But you know what water does that's collected in a cistern like that. It soon begins to get stagnant. The little wiggle tails and all in it.

So, cisterns can only really hold stagnant water at the best. But here you have forsaken me, God said, the fountain of living water. And you cut out for yourself cisterns. You followed now religious systems that really...

But he said concerning their cisterns, they can't hold water. Every once in a while, they carve out a cistern and there would be a fracture in the rock. So by, you know, you set the whole thing up and you pray for the rain and then you've got the thing all designed.

You got all your little dikes built and you direct all of the rain to the hole that you've put in the top of the cistern. And you watch the water running in down your dikes and in and you hear it splashing.

And all right, now this is great. And so you go out the next morning to draw a bucket of water out and there's no water in it. Suddenly you've discovered after three years of picking away at this rock and carving out your cistern, there's a fracture in it somewhere and it won't hold water.

And so you use it for a tomb. And interestingly enough, there is a tomb on the Mount of Olives just below the Intercontinental Hotel that was originally a cistern, cut out for a cistern. Didn't hold water, so they used it for a tomb.

So God's complaint against the people, you've turned from me. Ahaz, turn from God, follow the practices. Now, you see, in following these practices, in getting into these horrible, abominable practices, it was for these things that God brought His judgment upon these nations.

And now His own people are following these same things. The reason why God ordered them exterminated is so that they would not infect His people with these practices. But their disobedience led to their infection, which led ultimately to their destruction.

And so Ahaz, an extremely wicked king, and because of his wickedness, there was a rapid deterioration of the strength of the kingdom. Verse 5,. So the Lord delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria, and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and he was brought with them to Damascus.

And he was delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter. That is the northern kingdom. And a hundred and twenty thousand of his men were killed in one day of battle.

They were all very valiant men. Because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. And then the children of Israel carried away 200 ,000 of their brothers and their children and women as captives.

But when they brought these captives unto Israel, some of the old men of Israel said, Hey, that you can't do. They are actually our brothers still, and you can't bring those of Judah as slaves. They were going to make slaves out of them.

And some of the older men in the northern kingdom of Israel spoke out against this, and so they brought the people back again from that particular captivity. Now in verse 16, the king sent to the... Ahaz took money and sent to the king of Assyria to come and help him.

Because the Philistines had moved against him and took several of the cities. The Edomites moved against him and took several of the cities of the southern portion. The Philistines were taking the cities of the western portion.

The Israelites were taking the cities from the northern portion. He was getting wiped out on every side. And so he sent for the king of Assyria to come and help him. And rather than helping him, he also just took his money and did nothing to help him in his distress.

Verse 19, for the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz, the king of Israel, for he made Judah naked and transgressed sore against the Lord. And Tilgath-Pilneser, the king of Assyria, came unto him and distressed him and would not help him.

And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord. This is that king Ahaz, for he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him, and said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, therefore I'll sacrifice unto them that they may help me.

But they were the ruin of him and all Israel. And so the reason for, of course, his problems, his forsaking of God, clearly declared. And in his distress, rather than turning to God, he just went deeper into the abominations, beginning to worship the gods of the Syrians, saying, Well, because the Syrians wiped us out, their gods must be stronger than our God, and began to worship them.

Hezekiah Restores the Temple and the Worship of God

And he and his practices became the ruin of the people, these false, the worship of these false gods. Now, Ahaz died, and his son Hezekiah began to reign in his stead. Hezekiah was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for 29 years.

Now, it is interesting to me that as wicked as was Ahaz, Hezekiah was a very good spiritual king. Perhaps he saw the folly of his father. Perhaps he saw what his father's reign had done for the nation.

But it is interesting how that such an ungodly man as Ahaz could have a son as Hezekiah, who was so spiritual. And Hezekiah began to reign, but Hezekiah was strongly influenced by Isaiah the prophet. And no doubt the relationship of Hezekiah and Isaiah is the reason why Hezekiah was such a good king.

Now, Hezekiah, when he began to reign, immediately sought to undo the blasphemous work of his father in the tearing down of all of these idols and images that his father had established and set up. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.

In the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and he repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and he gathered them together into the East Street. And he said, Sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord, God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

For our fathers have trespassed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him and turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord and turned their backs. And they have shut up the doors of the porch, and they have put out the lamps, and they have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel.

And wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to the hissing as you see with your eyes. For lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.

And it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel that His fierce wrath may turn away from us. My sons, be not now negligent, talking to the priest. For the Lord hath chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, that you should minister unto Him and burn incense.

So here the first thing that Hezekiah does is reestablish the worship of Jehovah. The temple had been shut. It would have been filled with just a lot of junk, filthiness, pollution. And the doors had been shut.

They had not been offering the daily sacrifices. They had not been keeping the lights of the menorah lit. They had just forsaken the worship of Jehovah God completely during the reign of Ahaz. And it is Hezekiah's purpose to reestablish.

Now calling the priest together and saying, Okay, now you fellows, sanctify yourselves and let's get back. I'm determined to make a covenant to worship God. And so Hezekiah was the instrument to forestall the judgment of God in the fact that he was turning the people back to the worship of God once again.

And so they gathered their brothers, they sanctified themselves according to the commandment of Hezekiah by the words of the Lord to cleanse the house of the Lord. And the priest went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it.

And they brought out all of the uncleanness that was found there in the temple of the Lord. And they carried it down to the brook Kidron and dumped it down there in the bottom of the valley. And they began the first day of the first month to sanctify.

And on the eighth day of the month they came to the porch of the Lord and they sanctified the house of the Lord. So they started going through sanctifying everything. Now there was a ritual by which things had to be sanctified and the purification rites.

There was a whole ritual to it and it took several days. And they would go one area at a time, sanctifying the holy of holies again, then sanctifying the holy place, sanctifying the table of showbread, sanctifying the altar of incense, sanctifying the candles.

And it took eight days actually to formulate the oil that was burned in the candles. So you'd have the sanctified oil to burn in the sanctifying lamp and the whole thing. And so they started this process.

And the first day of the first month they began this process of sanctification. And it was coming, of course, now you're in the first month. You've got the great feast of the Passover coming up. But they didn't have time to get everything all set for the feast of the Passover in the first month.

Now there was a provision in the law of Moses that if a person could not observe the feast of the Passover in the 14th day of the first month, that he could do it on the 14th day of the second month. And so they determined that they would have the feast of the Passover once more.

It is something that was, you know, back in their history. They hadn't done it for a long time. And they determined that they were going to start the feast again. That they would observe the feast of the Passover unto the Lord.

And so they sent messages throughout all the land inviting the people to come to the feast of the Passover in the second month. And it is interesting that they even sent messages on up into the Northern Kingdom, into the areas of Samaria in the Northern Kingdom, inviting the people that they should come.

And so there was this great celebration of the feast of the Passover. They restored the worship of the temple and all. And then in chapter 30 we get the Passover. But in the restoration of the worship in the temple, verse 27,.

And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offerings upon the altar. And when the burnt offerings began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets and with the instruments ordained by David, the king of Israel.

David had invented a lot of musical instruments and ordered the singers and all. And as they started to burn the sacrifice, they began to sing and worship God once more. And so the beautiful sight, really, of the worship of God reinstituted there in the temple.

All of the congregation worshiped. And the singers sang. And the trumpeters sounded. And all of this continued until the burnt offering was finished. Now the burnt offering was the offering of consecration.

They offered a sin offering because they had sinned against God. But then the burnt offering, you remember He said, I have made a covenant to serve the Lord. That's what the burnt offering was all about.

The burnt offering was the offering of consecration. It is the consecration of my life to serve God. And so the Bible says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you'll present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Not a sin sacrifice, but a burnt offering sacrifice. Holy and acceptable unto God. In other words, here God is my body. I sacrifice my body to you. That is, I am consecrating my body and my life to serve you.

That's what the burnt offering sacrifice was all about. The offering of consecration. And so, Hezekiah the king, the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the seer.

So they began to sing the Psalms, with which you are familiar. And they sang praises with gladness. And they bowed their heads and worshipped. Then Hezekiah answered and said, Now that you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord, come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.

And the congregation brought in the sacrifices and thanked offerings, and as many as were of a free heart burnt offerings. Now, sometimes there is a mistaken notion that we can legislate righteousness.

It's impossible. The worship of God must always arise out of a free heart. You cannot force people to worship God. That always has to come from the free heart. It should never come out of coercion. It should never come out of pressure.

Whatever you give of yourself, that which you have, should always be done freely and willingly from your heart. And so the people, as many as were of a free heart, came and worshipped. And Hezekiah rejoiced, verse 36, and all the people, that God had prepared the people for the thing was done in a hurry.

Actually, this was a hurried up deal. And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and to Judah, and he wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh. This is up in the northern. That they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover unto Jehovah, God of Israel.

For the king had taken counsel and his princes and all the congregation in Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the second month inasmuch as they could not keep it at this time because the priest had not sanctified themselves sufficiently and neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem.

And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation, so they established the decree to make the proclamation from Israel from Beersheba, which is in the southern portion towards the desert, even unto Dan, which is up almost at the base of Mount Hermon in the northern part of the Hula Valley above the Sea of Galilee.

So the messengers went out with letters from the king and his princes throughout all of Israel and Judah. And according to the commandment of the king, they said, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.

So notice they are now addressing themselves to the remnant that had escaped out of the hands of the king of Assyria. And they were up there in the northern tribes, Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon and all. And be not like your fathers and like your brothers which trespassed against Jehovah, God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as you see.

Now be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord. Enter into His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever. Serve the Lord your God that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you.

And if you turn again to the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away His face from you if you return to Him.

Now Hezekiah is sending out this letter. You see, the Assyrians had come and they had taken now the northern kingdom. They had taken the people captive and just a remnant of people were left. He writes to them and he says, look, come and let's turn back to God.

If we'll just turn back to God, God will work and your families that have been carried away captive, they can be returned again. Let's really turn with all of our hearts to God. Come on down and let's worship God.

And it was an endeavor to unite again the people and draw those from the northern kingdom back to the worship of the Lord. A very beautiful attempt on the part of Hezekiah. And then his statement to them, if you will do this, surely God will bless.

For God is gracious and merciful. There is a false concept that the Bible actually portrays two gods. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament being a God of wrath and vengeance and the God of the New Testament being a God of love.

Not so. In the Old Testament, God is revealed as a God of compassion. And as Hezekiah said, for God is gracious and merciful. And He is presented in the Old Testament as a gracious, merciful, compassionate God.

However, for those that reject His grace and mercy, their own lives bring upon themselves destruction. God is compassionate. God is merciful. But God will not shield you forever. And ultimately, the fruit of your own wickedness is going to catch up with you.

And then people want to blame God for the judgment. The judgment that is constantly around them. And the only thing that keeps you from that judgment is God's protecting hand. Now, in the New Testament, God is portrayed as a God of love.

Yes, God so loved the world. But also, a God of judgment. If you want to read Revelation, chapters 6 through 18, you'll find all about the God of justice and the God of judgment. As He allows to come upon the earth the fruit of their own rebellion.

And as He pours out His wrath against the ungodly. So, those people who say, well, there are two gods revealed in the Bible, the God of wrath in the Old Testament, the God of love in the New, just really don't know the Bible.

They've never really done a serious study of the Bible. It's ridiculous to say that there are two gods revealed. One God. He is a God of love, a God of mercy, a God of compassion. Revealed both in the Old and the New Testament.

But He is also a God of righteousness and of justice. And so, Hezekiah's encouragement, turn to the Lord. Nevertheless, the people in the Northern Kingdom just sort of laughed at the messengers who came.

Sort of put them down, put down their message. However, many of them, many of them came on down to celebrate the Passover. And a great multitude gathered in Jerusalem. This is going to be a momentous event.

Here the worship of God had been forsaken for so long. And now the great holy day, the day of Passover. And they were going to gather together and the multitudes gathered together in Jerusalem for this Passover.

And, even to gather for the Passover, it was necessary to go through a purification rite. They had, what you'd have to do is actually shave your head. And then you'd have to come into the temple every day and go through certain bathings and so forth to be sanctified, to cleanse yourself really from the defilement of the Gentile world.

And this was especially true of those who had been living in Gentile nations and would come back to Jerusalem for the holy days. It was necessary to sort of cleanse yourself from all of the pollution of the Gentiles.

So they had this whole purification rite. You remember when Paul returned to Jerusalem and the feast day was coming and Paul wanted to participate in the feast day in Jerusalem as long as he was there.

And so he started into the purification rites. And he started sponsoring a couple of young men in the purification rites because you couldn't work during this time. So you really needed someone to sort of sponsor you even if you didn't have the bucks yourself.

And so James said, now Paul, they hear that you've been stirring up the Jews and the Gentile cities and you're not really being a good Jewish boy and you've been following the practice of the Gentiles and all now.

A lot of the church is quite upset. They hear that you're sort of radical and out there among the Gentiles. So why don't you just sort of settle them all down and take the part of a good Jew boy and just go ahead and go through the rites and sponsor these two boys and show everybody that you're still a Jew.

So Paul, to keep peace, went into the temple, went through the purification rites, but it was there that some of the Jews from Asia who were also being purified, saw Paul and they said, this is the fellow who has created all the problems through Asia and the big tumult where Paul was saved actually from a lynching mob by the Roman guard and taken into the fortress of Antonio where as he was going in, he said to the guard, let me talk to these people a minute.

And the guard said, okay. And so Paul began to preach. He waved his hand, quiet folks, and they were all out there yelling and screaming, kill him, get rid of him. And so, let me talk to you fellows, quiet a minute.

And they all hushed and Paul began to tell them, hey, look, I know how you feel. I know where you're at. I was just like you are. Look, the Pharisees, they'll testify that I was one of them. In fact, I was persecuting the church.

I thought I was doing God a service just like you do today. I know where it's at. I know exactly how you feel. In fact, it was when I was on my way to Damascus that I was apprehended by Jesus Christ. And he said, why are you persecuting me?

And I said, who are you Lord that I might serve you? And he said, I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. And Paul said, and so he spoke to me and said that he was going to send me to the Gentiles. Now when he said the word Gentiles, things just broke loose.

People began to rip off their clothes, throw dirt in the air, start screaming and all. And he was talking to the people in Hebrew so that the Roman captain couldn't understand. He of course knew Latin, but he didn't know what Paul had said.

And the crowd started rushing and he said, grab him inside quick. And they took Paul inside the fortress there. And he said, find out what he said to those people. Scourge him, make him tell. Now the scourging was actually the Roman third degree.

They would take and whip you with this leather whip with little bits of lead embedded in it and broken glass. And they would lay it across your back, ripping open your back until you'd scream out your crime or whatever.

And so he said, examine him by scourging. Find out what he said. Created such a tumult out there. And so Paul was going through this same purification thing. Now the people had come, but here they were straggling in and the time for this ceremony had arrived and they just came.

They didn't have time to go through the whole ritual of sanctifying themselves. So Hezekiah said, Lord, have mercy on these poor people. They've come so far and here they are to worship you. Let them get by without the rites.

Let's bypass the whole ritual and just receive them, Lord. And the Lord spoke and said that He would receive them without the rituals for them to go ahead and observe the Passover. And so it was a turning point again for the people in turning them back to God and Hezekiah prayed for them saying, the good Lord pardon everyone.

I like that. That prepares his heart to seek God. And Jehovah, God of the fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary, and the Lord hearken to Hezekiah, he healed the people.

And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread for seven days with great gladness. Such a great celebration they decided to go on for another seven days. And so they went on for seven more days worshiping the Lord.

And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord. And they did eat throughout the feast for seven days offering peace offerings, making confession to the Lord God of their father and then determined to go on for seven more days.

So there was great joy in Jerusalem. For since the time of Solomon there had never been an occasion like this in Jerusalem for many, many years. Then the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people and their voice was heard and their prayer came up to the holy dwelling place even unto heaven.

Revival, Idolatry, and the Assyrian Threat

Now when all of this was finished, all of Israel and those that were present went out of the cities of Judah and they broke the images in pieces. They cut down the groves, they threw down the high places, the alders from Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim and Manasseh until they had utterly destroyed them all and all the children of Israel returned every man to his possession into their own cities.

So it was a spiritual revival, spiritual movement as these guys went back up to the north. They broke down all of the images, the idols of Baal, places of worship for the pagan gods that had been established in the northern kingdom.

And they just went through sort of cleansing the land from all of the remnants of their idolatry that they had fallen into. And Hezekiah appointed the courses for the priests and the Levites that each man might serve the Lord according to his own course.

And he appointed the king's portion of his substance for the burnt offerings, for the morning and evening sacrifices. He commanded the people who dwelled in Jerusalem to give the portion to the priests and Levites and that they might bring in the tithe of all things.

And the people brought in abundantly. And so there was plenty for the house of the Lord. And thus did Hezekiah throughout all of Judah. He brought that which was good and right and truth before the Lord his God.

And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God and in the law and the commandments to seek God, he did it with all of his heart and he prospered. Now in chapter 32, we find that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was coming against them.

He entered into Judah and he encamped against the fence cities he thought to win them for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with the princes and with his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city and they did help him.

Now he said, why should they come and find all of this water here? Let's stop up all of these springs so that they won't know where the water supplies are that are outside of the city of Jerusalem. So they went about and they stopped up all of the springs on the outside of the city of Jerusalem and they set the captains of war over the people.

They gathered them together in the street of the gate of the city and speak to them saying, Be strong and courageous. Be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria nor for all of the multitude that is with him.

For there are more with us than with him. For with him is the arm of flesh. But with us is Jehovah our God to help us and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah the king of Judah.

So Hezekiah gathered the people together in the streets of Jerusalem. He said, now don't be afraid, don't be dismayed. There are more with us than with them. Now with the Syrian army there were at least 185 ,000 fighting troops.

And here's the king saying, don't be afraid, don't worry. There's more that are with us than with them. Can you imagine what 185 ,000 men would look like coming over the hill? That's a lot of people. Don't worry, don't be afraid.

More with us than with them for with them is the arm of flesh. But with us is Jehovah God. Oh, how we need to realize that if God be for us, who can be against us? There is always more for us and with us than is with the enemy.

Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. As a child of God, you should never be fearful or terrified of the enemy. Never. We need to have that awareness and consciousness of God's presence with us.

With them the arm of flesh, with us. Jehovah our God. We've got Him outnumbered. We've got Jehovah on our side. And so the people, it said, rested in the words of Hezekiah, which is beautiful. Now, Sennacherib sent these guys to Jerusalem.

He was busy in battle at Lachish. And he sent these messengers to Hezekiah with these threatening letters telling them to surrender or get wiped out. And he said, don't trust in the words of Hezekiah, your king, saying that your God is going to deliver you.

Where are the gods of the Syrians? Where are the gods of the other kingdoms that we've destroyed? No god of any of the kingdoms have been able to deliver their people out of our hand. And these letters were actually blasphemous letters against the Lord who Hezekiah was encouraging the people to trust in.

And these messengers were there and they were speaking in the Hebrew language to the people standing on the wall, taunting them, saying, don't trust in the words of Hezekiah. Surrender. Give up. Because if we come with our armies, we're just going to rip you up.