William Shakespeare wrote, “Doubt is a thief that often makes us fear to tread where we might have won.” But faith calls you to step into the victory that God has already won on your behalf. You see, when you have the Lord in your life, you are never alone—you are not even in the minority. You plus God always equals a majority! Ask God to open your eyes to the spiritual realm around you, for there you will see that the Lord of hosts is fighting your battles for you. You are on the winning team, so you have no reason to doubt, nothing to fear! What are you battling today? The Lord has put all of heaven at your disposal; His ministering spirits will fight on your behalf, for the battle is the Lord’s!

A Simple Prayer for Spiritual Confidence:

The law of sowing and reaping is an unstoppable law of creation, as certain as the law of gravity. What that means for you is that what you put into the soil of your life will be produced in kind. Today, in the many and various things that you will do, you will be planting seeds—whether you are conscious of it or not. So learn to stop and think about what you later want to harvest, and make sure the seeds match.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 25:21

So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.

My dad was a great father. He was a hard worker, a good provider, was always there for us—he was dependable. Unlike some fathers today, he was involved in the lives of his children. Whether it was sports, or academics, or music, he encouraged us to be our best and to reach for the stars—and he was there to make sure we did. He was a great Christian man.

We knew he loved us, that was never in doubt. He was kind, compas­sionate and patient. But there was a limit to his patience, and we experienced that from time to time. And on a few occasions (okay, many occasions) I found myself on the business end of my father’s commitment to justice.

As we come to the end of 2 Kings, we find that the infinite patience of God has run out with Israel. After hundreds of years of rebellion, corrupted worship, comprised morality, and flat out rebellion against God’s ownership, Israel has pushed God over the limit. After scores of prophets had warned them and called them to national repentance—to no avail—the nation of Judah will now face the consequences of sin.

Years ago I came across two different sermon titles that aptly describe this sad part of Israel’s history. Charles Swindoll called it, When God Says, ‘That’s Enough.’ Likewise, the well known Baptist preacher, R. G. Lee was spot on in his sermon title “Payday Someday!” Either of those would be apt titles for 2 Kings 25.

The wrath of God is not a pleasant fact, but it is an undeniable reality. There is an end to God’s patience and a time when judgment is not only appropriate, but to withhold it would be for God to impugn his own character, emasculate his grace and empty his love of any real power. Judah had reached that point because of their continued wickedness—so God allowed their city to be destroyed, along with their cherished temple, and the children of God were sent into exile among the godless Babylonians.

There are some pretty sobering reminders in Judah’s story for us. For one, we need to be reminded that absolutely nothing escapes the watchful eye of God. Galatians 6:7 tells us, “Don’t be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” In other words, there will be a payday, someday. And we need to take that very seriously, because God does. He is a holy God who cannot tolerate sin. He won’t tolerate it in sinners, nor in saints. Murder, adultery, lying, cheating—God will deal with those “big” sins. Likewise God will not let us get away with the “little” sins either—anger, gossip, critical spirits, un-forgiveness. We need to be very sensitive in allowing the Holy Spirit to convict us of those things that are displeasing to God—and repent of them quickly.

Another reminder from Judah’s fall is that sin deafens us to God’s loving warnings. Judah didn’t see that the line-up of imprecatory prophets were really their friends, calling them back from the brink of disaster. You see that sometimes in rebellious teenagers rejecting the discipline of their parents or in people leaving their churches because their pastor has confronted them on some tough issues. Proverbs 27:6 reminds us, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are profuse.” The next time you hear a warning from a friend, or a tough message in church, open your ears—and your heart. It is really a message of love.

In reality, do we take God’s demand for holiness all that seriously? He never winks at sins—either big ones or little ones. “You will always harvest what you plant.” (Galatians 6:7) So the next time you have a difficult conversation about this with a friend, or hear a solemn message about sin in church, open your ears—and your heart. It’s really God sending you a message of love.

Finally, Judah’s fall reminds us that God is always rich in mercy, abounding in grace, and he relents from sending calamity. King David, after his fall, said “a broken and a contrite heart God will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) Ultimately the Jews humbled themselves and returned to God. God always responds to sincere humility, and we would do well to cultivate it.

The law of sowing and reaping is an unstoppable law of creation, as certain as the law of gravity. What that means for you is that what you put into the soil of your life will be produced in kind. Today, in the many and various things that you will do, you will be planting seeds—whether you are conscious of it or not. So learn to stop and think about what you later want to harvest, and make sure the seeds match.

The biblical idea of God’s judgment is an inconvenient truth in our modern culture, but there is a cumulative corporate sin that God must judge if he is to be God. There is a time coming for judgment of systems, businesses, conglomerates and nations for the sheer wickedness that they have either surreptitiously or blatantly perpetuated: poverty that could have been alleviated, starvation that could have been prevented, the sex trafficking of children, abuse, wars and genocide that could have been stopped. How could the merciful God not call a halt to human evil with the final judgment of which his prophets have warned for millennia? I don’t know how God will bring justice to bear on non-human entities, but he will.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 24:1-4

During Jehoiakim’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded the land of Judah. Jehoiakim surrendered and paid him tribute for three years but then rebelled. Then the Lord sent bands of Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Judah to destroy it, just as the Lord had promised through his prophets. These disasters happened to Judah because of the Lord’s command. He had decided to banish Judah from his presence because of the many sins of Manasseh, who had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. The Lord would not forgive this.

God is both merciful and just. He is not one or the other. He is not one without being the other. God is the perfect blend of loving kindness and divine justice. He wouldn’t be God if he weren’t, and when we step back and really think about it, we would not want it any other way. Now personally, when we are under his hand of judgment, we might wish that he were all mercy. And when we are under the cruelty of man, we might wish that God were all justice. But objectively speaking, God by definition must be both/and: perfect justice and perfect mercy.

In this chapter, after a few centuries of Judah’s back-and-forth flirtation with sin—mostly flirtation, if not full on dating—God’s patience has run out. Prophet after prophet has warned the nation by pointing out their sin, calling them to repentance, then giving them reprieve when they renounced their evil and returned to God. But the sin that occurred under Manasseh was beyond forgiveness.

Really? Beyond forgiveness, doesn’t God’s Word say otherwise? Haven’t you heard that no one is beyond God’s reach in previous chapters? Yes I have. In this case, God forgave wicked King Manasseh when he humbled himself in a Babylonian prison and begged the Lord to pardon his many transgressions. God did, and even returned Manasseh back to his throne in Jerusalem to finish out his life making up for some of the evil that had been inflicted during his reign. So yes, God can and will forgive the repentant heart of the most evil.

But there is a cumulative corporate sin that God must judge. The blood of innocent people cries out from the earth for God’s justice; blood that men and women in power have shed, or stood by and allowed to be shed when it was in their power to stop it. There is a time coming for judgment of systems, businesses, conglomerates and nations for the sheer wickedness that they have either surreptitiously or blatantly perpetuated. I don’t know how God will bring justice to bear on non-human entities, but he will.

Such was the case with Judah at this point in their history. There had been a brief reprieve under the repentant Manasseh, but the sons that followed him were thoroughly steeped in evil. And because the cumulative reservoir of sin from the last few generations was now spilling over the dam of God’s mercy, swift and sure judgment came at the hands of the Babylonians. End of story for Judah!

Do you suppose that will happen on a worldwide scale sometime soon? Do you get the feeling that the cumulative evil that has been inflicted on humanity for the past several hundred years, especially in the past century, will be called to account in the presence of Almighty God? When you think of the poverty that could have been alleviated, the starvation that could have been prevented, the sex trafficking of children, abuse, wars and genocide that could have been ended, how could the merciful God not call a halt with the final judgment of which his prophets have warned for millennia?

Yes, he will forgive the truly repentant—so stay in that camp—but the build up of evil he will tolerate only for so long. And we would not want it any other way.

If we want spiritual awakening in our land, revival in our churches, and renewal in our hearts, our actions must align with our desires. We must ruthlessly eliminate all the things that dishonor God, or even detract in the mildest way, from our full devotion to him. Does that sound a little fanatical to you? Isn’t that going just a bit overboard? Isn’t that calling for spiritual extremism? Yes! Yes! Yes! What else could the Scripture mean by a fully devoted heart? We must become rigorous in our refusal to allow people, places and things to get between us and our radical devotion to God. Perhaps then God will revive us again.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 23:3, 25

King Josiah took his place of authority beside the pillar and renewed the covenant in the Lord’s presence. He pledged to obey the Lord by keeping all his commands, laws, and decrees with all his heart and soul. In this way, he confirmed all the terms of the covenant that were written in the scroll, and all the people pledged themselves to the covenant…Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.

King Josiah truly loved the Lord God with all his heart, mind and strength. He offered his full devotion to God and his passionate commitment to God’s Word like no other king of Israel or Judah, except for King David. And not even for a moment, at least that we know about, did he drift from his pure love and obedience from the Lord as David did in the sordid affair with Bathsheba. Josiah reformed the nation of Judah at a time when it had drifted morally and spiritually the farthest it had ever been from God. But under this God-following king’s reign, revival happened!

In Josiah, God finally found that man with a fully committed heart, as we are told in 2 Chronicles 16:9, that he desperately scoured the earth to find,

For the eyes of the LORD search back and forth across the whole earth, looking for people whose hearts are perfect toward him, so he can show his great power in helping them.

In modern times, we often speak of the need for revival in our personal lives, renewal in our churches, and spiritual awakening in our desperately drifting nation. We long for it and sometimes we pray for it, though probably not nearly, consistently and urgently enough. We pine for the days when God will light the flames of our waning passion, bring the backslidden home and inexorably draw the godless to his heart. And several times in our nation’s history, there have been significant seasons of spiritual awakening when the sovereign hand of God intersected the repentant hearts of people, and revival happened.

That brings us to the two critical conditions of a spiritual awakening: the sovereign timing of God and the humble, determined, repentant heart of man. For revival and reform to take place, our part must be a desperate determination to align our lives to the will and ways of God. We must come to the point where we are ready to offer actions that back up our cries for revival.

That is what King Josiah did, and that is why God sent a season of refreshing to Judah. No less than thirty times in 2 Kings 23 do we read words that demonstrate the king’s ruthless commitment to purge his kingdom of sin. Thirty times we read of the king smashing pagan altars, destroying idolatrous shrines, removing false priests, burning implements used in godless rituals, tearing down, grinding, executing, scattering, desecrating, defiling and carrying away anything that had to do with the spiritual unfaithfulness and moral filth that had been taking place in Judah over the years.

Josiah didn’t just talk about revival. He didn’t just pray for it. He did something about it. He put his money where his mouth was and he took action. And he became one of the greatest kings in the history of God’s people because his actions spoke louder than his words. He proved the full devotion of his heart by the passionate commitment of his hands to do away with anything and everything that violated the covenant that God established with Israel under Moses.

The point to all of this is obvious: If we want spiritual awakening in our land, revival in our churches, and renewal in our hearts, our actions must align with our desires. Like Josiah, we too, must ruthlessly eliminate things that dishonor God, or even detract in the mildest way, from our full devotion to him. Does that sound a little fanatical to you? Do you think I am going just a bit overboard with this, perhaps a tad legalistic?

Yes! Yes! Yes! What else could the Scripture mean by a fully devoted heart? I am not sure we need to become legalistic in the same sense of the Pharisees of Jesus’s day, but we must become rigorous in our refusal to allow people, places and things to get between us and our devotion to God and his Lordship over us.

There must come a time when our actions speak louder than our words, and then, perhaps God will revive us again.

God’s merciful gift of repentance should cause us to offer continually grateful lives to him. He is a God who loves to forgive us, and has made it possible to reset our wayward lives before we come under his much deserved judgment for our sin. He doesn’t have to, but he does, and the fact that he gives us opportunity to repent should create a passionate desire to live uprightly before him, and when we discover that we haven’t, to quickly come before him in heartfelt and humble repentance. Thank God for this divine reset. We should hit it as often as we need.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 22:10-13

Shaphan also told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a scroll.” So Shaphan read it to the King Josiah. When the king heard what was written in the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes in despair. Then he gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the court secretary, and Asaiah the king’s personal adviser: “Go to the Temple and speak to the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah. Inquire about the words written in this scroll that has been found. For the Lord’s great anger is burning against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words in this scroll. We have not been doing everything it says we must do.”

Josiah became king when he was only eight-years-old, and he loved God as not too many kings of Israel and Judah had. We are not entirely sure of his upbringing, but some godly person exerted a powerful influence upon the boy. His father has been and done evil in the Lord’s sight, and his grandfather, King Manasseh, although he repented in the latter years of his long reign, had been one of the most brutal and vile kings ever. But Josiah loved the Lord with all his heart. He passionately pursued the welfare of both God and Judah, and became known as the reformer king. King Josiah was a jewel.

He was incredibly sensitive to the Lord, and responsive when he discovered that the nation, both past and present, had violated the law of God. On the occasion of the discovery of a prophetic scroll condemning the nation for its systemic pattern of sin, he humbled himself and wept before the Lord. He brought his spiritual advisors around him and sought their wisdom on how to right Judah’s listing ship. And through his heartfelt repentance, God promised to delay the much-deserved judgment that he would one day bring upon his sinful people.

Thank God for repentance. It is truly his life-saving gift to the human race. Repentance is the divine reset button for mankind. In his mercy and by his grace, God made provision for fallen human beings, both individually and collectively, to realign their wayward lives to his Word through the act of repentance—acknowledging their sin, humbling themselves before God, seeking his forgiveness, then turning for their wicked ways to follow the path of righteousness.

If God had not provided us the opportunity to acknowledge sin, seek forgiveness and make restitution where called for, the human race would be helplessly under the righteous judgment of Almighty God. The fact of the matter is, without this gift from God, I would not be writing this devotional, you would not be reading it, and none of us would even be taking in oxygen right now. We would have been destroyed as a race millennia ago. The prophet Jeremiah summed up this whole idea of grace and mercy in one of my favorite verses, where he wrote these words:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22)

Now from Josiah and Jeremiah, here is a critical truth we should understand about God: He is not a God who loves to visit trouble on his people. That is not his character. He is not a God of judgment first, but of love and compassion first.

Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. (Joel 2:13)

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgressions of the remnant? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. (Micah 7:18)

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Now the hard truth is, unless we take God up on his gift of repentance, his wrath will be poured out upon us. 2 Peter 3:10 goes on to say, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” Of course, Peter is speaking of the final judgment to come upon the earth. And that looming reality ought to lead us to live soberly and righteously before the Lord.

But it should also cause us to live gratefully before him as well. He is a God who loves to forgive, and has made it possible to reset our wayward lives before we come under his judgment. The fact that he gave us that gift from his gracious and merciful heart should create a passionate desire to live uprightly before him, like Josiah. And when we discover that we haven’t, to quickly come before him in heartfelt and humble repentance.

Thank God for the divine reset. Hit it as often as you need.

One of the things about heaven that is likely to surprise us will be the people who actually made it there. That is because no one is beyond God’s reach. We might write people off as unredeemable, but God never does. And he will go to great lengths to bring them home to himself. History is filled with testimonies of prodigal children who found grace when they finally came home to the Father. So never give up on people. God never does.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 21:1-6

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years…He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, following the detestable practices of the pagan nations that the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. He rebuilt the pagan shrines his father, Hezekiah, had destroyed. He constructed altars for Baal and set up an Asherah pole, just as King Ahab of Israel had done. He also bowed before all the powers of the heavens and worshiped them. He built pagan altars in the Temple of the Lord, the place where the Lord had said, “My name will remain in Jerusalem forever.” He built these altars for all the powers of the heavens in both courtyards of the Lord’s Temple. Manasseh also sacrificed his own son in the fire. He practiced sorcery and divination, and he consulted with mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight, arousing his anger.

Your first response to the text I have selected for this devotional is likely to be one of incredulity. Maybe you are thinking, “Dude, you need to get better inspirational material!” Well, I agree, except this is about all I have to work with from 2 Kings 21. Manasseh was a very bad, no good, rotten man, and he reigned as king in Judah longer than any of the other kings. For fifty-five really awful years, God endured this insufferable king; a half-century of the same evil leadership guiding the nation to new depths of sin.

Truly, this man was Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin wrapped into one. Now in today’s world, we often invoke those awful people to demean the leadership of someone with whom we disagree, but the impact is always lost because that leader is nowhere near the awful, evil person with whom we compare them. We simply don’t like them, or we vehemently disagree with their policies, so we call them the worst name possible. But in Manasseh’s case, the comparison is appropriate. There is a line in the description of his reign that reveals the darkness of Jerusalem under this king:

Manasseh also murdered many innocent people until Jerusalem was filled from one end to the other with innocent blood. (2 Kings 21:16)

Needless to say, God was none too happy with this king: “He did evil in the Lord’s sight,” (2 Kings 21:2) … “He did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight, arousing his anger,” 2 Kings 21: 6) … “Then the Lord said through his servants the prophets: ‘King Manasseh of Judah has done many detestable things. He is even more wicked than the Amorites.’” (2 Kings 21:10-11) God was so disgusted with Manasseh that he would wipe the entire nation of Judah away, including even the remnant that he always preserved for himself:

So this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “I will bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle with horror. I will judge Jerusalem by the same standard I used for Samaria and the same measure I used for the family of Ahab. I will wipe away the people of Jerusalem as one wipes a dish and turns it upside down. Then I will reject even the remnant of my own people who are left, and I will hand them over as plunder for their enemies. For they have done great evil in my sight and have angered me ever since their ancestors came out of Egypt.” (2 Kings 21:12-15)

This isn’t getting any better, is it? I still haven’t found a way to turn a corner into a more uplifting look at 2 Kings 21. And I am not going to turn that corner; there isn’t one. But you get the picture: Manasseh was as bad as they come. If anyone could be beyond the reach of God’s mercy, grace and love, it was this man.

Or was he? You have to go to another part of the Bible to find this, but the story has a redeeming end to it. In 2 Chronicles 33:10-20, we find that under severe judgment, evil Manasseh finally turned to God. God allowed the Assyrians to attack Jerusalem, and they took the king captive. They humiliated him by putting a hook in his nose and literally dragging him into captivity. It was there in a dark, dank Babylonian prison of despair that we are told,

In his distress Manasseh sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. (2 Chronicles 33:12)

And the Lord took pity on him. He even restored Manasseh to the throne in Jerusalem—which would have been an exceedingly rare thing for a captive king to be returned to his throne in the ancient world. But God did it for the repentant monarch. And in the final few years of his life, Manasseh did his best to restore all that he had done wrong in the Lord’s sight. He ended well. There were probably those who never forgave him for the evil he had inflicted upon Judah, and there were those who probably thought his conversion was a sham, but the Lord knew. And the evil king finished with a flurry as a good man in God’s sight.

The truth is, no one is beyond God’s reach. You and I might write people off, but God doesn’t. And he will go to extreme lengths to bring them home to himself. History is filled with testimonials of prodigal children who found grace when they finally came to their senses and came home to the Father.

I suspect that one of the things that will surprise us in heaven will be the unlikely people who made it there. So never give up on people. God never does.

“ Mercy for the sinner, help in the hardest place, everything for nothing, that is grace! —C.C. BEATTY

It’s possible that God might give us what we crave, but to our own peril. Since our hearts are desperately wicked, on our best day (Jer. 17:9), we must be careful with what we want. God has promised to grant the desires of the heart to those who delight in him, but even still, our hearts remain flawed. That’s why it’s vital that we saturate our supplication from beginning to end with this plea, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” Perhaps we should learn to pray as Francis Asbury, “My God, keep me through the water and fire, and let me rather die than live to sin against thee!”

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 20:1-6

About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill, and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to visit him. He gave the king this message: “This is what the Lord says: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die. You will not recover from this illness.” When Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember, O Lord, how I have always been faithful to you and have served you single-mindedly, always doing what pleases you.” Then he broke down and wept bitterly. But before Isaiah had left the middle courtyard, this message came to him from the Lord: “Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the Temple of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own honor and for the sake of my servant David.’”

Can we negotiate with God? If you are in a surrendered relationship with him, he does sometimes afford you the space to ask him for something different than what he has stated. Case in point: Hezekiah’s terminal illness. This godly king contracted a horrible boil when he was thirty-nine-years old and still in the prime of his life. The prophet Isaiah came to him with a direct message from the Lord that he would not recover. He needed to get his affairs in order and prepare to die.

But Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and began to cry out to God. He reasoned with the Lord that he had been a faithful king, that he had done much good for Judah, and that God should therefore spare his life. And amazingly, the king prevailed with God, who then granted him fifteen more years of life. Hezekiah stayed the hand of God. Now we don’t know for sure if this was just a test of faith for the king, that is, if God was waiting to see if he would appeal the Lord’s generosity by asking this huge request, or if his passionate supplication in this moment literally moved God’s heart in that moment. Did Hezekiah negotiate with God and get a better deal? Well, it kind of looks like it, doesn’t it?

Why was the Lord going to allow the king to die at such a young age? Perhaps God knew that at thirty-nine, Hezekiah was at the zenith of his godly career, and that serious pitfalls would exist for the king down the road if he lived any longer. The Lord, who lives outside of time, saw around the bend to a time where Hezekiah would become prideful in his accomplishments, and disobedient in his walk with the Lord, and make decisions that would hurt the nation in the long run. Maybe for those reasons, God’s plan was to allow Hezekiah to die early rather than live to fifty-four, the age at which he ultimately passed away. It could be that in God’s sovereignty, he was going to spare Hezekiah the pain of not finishing well.

2 Chronicles 32 preserves additional information about Hezekiah’s reign for us, and it proves the point. You see, that is exactly what happened in those extra fifteen years. The king became prideful in his accomplishments, careless in his stewardship of the temple and palace treasures, and a bit unconcerned with what would happen to the nation after he died. Consider the narrative from 2 Chronicles 32:25-26, after the Lord had graciously extended his life:

But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown to him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah.

One of the things that Hezekiah’s pride led him to do was show the Babylonian governmental entourage all the treasures of the temple and the palace—something that made a lasting impression on an empire that would soon raze Jerusalem and carry off those very treasures. We are told that God actually exposed Hezekiah to a test to see if he would brag to these enemy representatives about how great he had become. (2 Chronicles 32:31) When Isaiah rebuked the king for exposing this information to the Babylonians, he seemed to take a “whatever” stance toward the coming judgment that God would bring upon Judah through the Babylonians after Hezekiah had died:

“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” for Hezekiah thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime.”

Yes, it is possible that God might give us what we crave, but to our own peril. Since our hearts are deceitfully wicked, on our best day (Jeremiah 17:9), we must therefore be very careful with our wishes. God has promised to grant the desires of the heart to those who delight in him, but even still, our hearts remain flawed. That is why it is incredibly important that we begin, end, and saturate throughout our supplication this prayer, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.”

Yes, we must be sober-minded about all that we desire, for God may just give us what we request!

“ My God, keep me through the water and fire, and let me rather die than live to sin against thee! —FRANCIS ASBURY

When we find ourselves like Hezekiah—standing before a Big Hairy Audacious Giant of a problem—our best response is to do what he did: He went to God in prayer. He took the threatening message from the King of Assyria and literally spread it out before the Lord. It’s not like God didn’t already know, but Hezekiah showed him the letter anyway. And the best part of this story? God heard…and God saw…and God acted…and a great testimony was made!

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 19:14-16, 20, 35-37

After Hezekiah received the threatening letter from the King of Assyira, he went to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord, and prayed. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God…Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah, “God has heard your prayer.” …That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons killed him with the sword.

Do you have any BHAG’s in your life? You know, Big Hairy Audacious Giants!

God does some of his best work in our lives when we are facing BHAG’s. That was true for David when he faced Goliath of Gath, and it was true when King Hezekiah was facing King Sennacherib of Assyria. Goliath was an intimidating and imposing warrior and Assyria was an intimidating and imposing army. Both were giant problems standing between Israel and God’s will. In both cases. God helped his people to defeat these BHAG’s in stunning fashion. And we are still talking about these amazing victories today.

BHAG’s are the raw materials of great testimonies! God does his finest work when we are facing our giants, when our backs are against the wall and we have nowhere to turn. Perhaps the reason that he allows us to get into these impossible situations in the first place is for the simple reason that he will receive all the glory and praise when the deliverance comes. There will be times in our lives where neither our brainpower nor our brawn, neither our bank account nor our buddies will be of any help. The only rescue we will experience will come from the Lord, and it will be perfectly clear that he alone is responsible. We never like to find ourselves in those kinds of situations, but those are the kinds of stories of which great testimonies are made.

When we find ourselves like Hezekiah—standing before an Big Hairy Audacious Giant of a problem—our best response is to do what he did: He went to God in prayer. He took the nasty message from the King of Assyria and literally spread it out before the Lord. It’s not like the Lord didn’t already know, but Hezekiah showed God the letter anyway. He poured out his complaint before the Lord in an honest and humble way. And here’s the awesome part of this story:

God heard…and God saw…and God acted…and a great testimony was made!

What about you? Are you up the creek without a paddle? Do you have nowhere else to turn? Do you have an overwhelming enemy breathing threats against you? Are you facing a Big Hairy Audacious Giant right now?

Do what Hezekiah did: Tell it to Jesus!

Edmund S. Lorenz composed a hymn back in the late 1800’s that I would recommend you meditate on if you’re facing a BHAG. Allow the words to sink into your spirit. You will be encouraged:

Are you weary, are you heavy hearted?
Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus.
Are you grieving over joys departed?
Tell it to Jesus alone.
Do the tears flow down your cheeks unbidden?
Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus.
Have you sins that to men’s eyes are hidden?
Tell it to Jesus alone.
Do you fear the gathering clouds of sorrow?
Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus.
Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow?
Tell it to Jesus alone.
Are you troubled at the thought of dying?
Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus.
For Christ’s coming kingdom are you sighing?
Tell it to Jesus alone
Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus,
He is a Friend that’s well known.
You’ve no other such a friend or brother,
Tell it to Jesus alone.

You can never go wrong doing what Hezekiah did: tell it to the Lord!

“ God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him. —JIM ELLIOT

Intimidation—that is one of the chief strategies of your Enemy, the devil, to weaken your spiritual resolve and diminish your dependence upon the sufficiency of your God. He has used that bluster against God’s people from the beginning of time, and you will not be an exception. Sooner of later, Satan will throw the book of spiritual intimidation at you, hoping to steer you away from full surrender to God to full surrender to him. When that happens, don’t carry on a conversation with the Intimidator, talk to God.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 18:33-36

The Assyrian king’s chief of staff said, “Don’t listen to Hezekiah when he tries to mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem from me?” But the people were silent and did not utter a word because Hezekiah had commanded them, “Do not answer him.”

Intimidation—that is one of the chief strategies of your Enemy, the devil, to weaken your spiritual resolve and diminish your dependence upon the sufficiency of your God. He has used that bluster against God’s people from the beginning of time, and you will not be an exception. Sooner of later, Satan will throw the book of spiritual intimidation at you, hoping to steer you away from full surrender to God to full surrender to him.

That is exactly what he did with the citizens of Jerusalem. Through the commander-in-chief of the greatest army in the world of that day, the Assyrians, threats were loudly and publically proclaimed as they laid siege to Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, their intimidations and threats weren’t just bluster, the Assyrian army could actually back it up. All one had to do was look as the devastation they had caused to the north as Israel lay in ruins. What they were saying was true.

But that is beside the point. You see, they were not in charge; God was. They may have been the greatest military in the world, and they may have been riding a winning streak of one victory after another, but they failed to realize that they were only successful by God’s permission. He had the Assyrians on a leash, and they had mistaken slack in that leash for permission to go wherever they chose and do whatever they wanted. Not true. And God was about to yank their chain.

Do you know that is true of your life as well? Your circumstances, as dark as they may be, are not free to wreak whatever havoc they desire on you. They are on a leash, and while there may be slack in the leash for now, God can yank it back whenever he choses. One day, sooner or later, he will, and when he does, you will be okay, because you have put your trust in him.

So don’t talk to your intimidator. He, or she, or whatever that may be for you, will never back down simply because you talk back. Give him credit, Satan is persistent: just because he will ultimately lose, and he has no doubts that he will, has never led him to just give up and go away. Don’t give him the time of day, for you will only give away your confidence in God if you engage in a dialogue. Though he is no longer king, follow Hezekiah’s order: don’t utter a word.

Rather, take it to Jesus. Pour out your complaint to him. Dump your fears in his lap. Cast your cares upon him, for he cares for you. (1 Peter 1:7). Give God your worries and let him worry about it (by the way, he never worries). Present your needs and concerns to God through prayer. Do that, because the act of supplication is actually renewing your confidence in the sufficiency of God.

When you do that, here is what happens—every time. It happens not just because I say so, but because God says so: “The peace of God, which transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) God will command his peace to protect you while he is taking care of the threat against your security.

That happened for Hezekiah; it will happen for you, too. That is God’s promise!

“ The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. —F. B. MEYER

What God’s Word says of Israel’s destruction may be something that we should consider when pain and hardship come into our lives. Just because we no longer like to assign the law of cause-effect to behavior doesn’t mean that God’s law is suddenly inoperable in the modern age. The writer of 2 Kings was not shy about saying “this happened to them because of that.” On a personal level, it may just be wisdom to consider the possibility with contrite hearts and corrective steps.

Going Deep // Focus: 2 Kings 17:7-9,18

This disaster came upon the people of Israel because they worshiped other gods. They sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them safely out of Egypt and had rescued them from the power of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They had followed the practices of the pagan nations the Lord had driven from the land ahead of them, as well as the practices the kings of Israel had introduced. The people of Israel had also secretly done many things that were not pleasing to the Lord their God. … Because the Lord was very angry with Israel, he swept them away from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah remained in the land.

Assigning responsibility to God for the hardships that befall us is a practice that has fallen on hard times in modern generations. We think it poor form to blame God for bad things that happen in the world. If a highly visible Christian takes to the media to proclaim that the latest hurricane is God’s punishment, or that an earthquake came because of sin, or devastating flooding can be traced back to a region rejecting God, the intelligent world goes nuts. And I tend to agree.

But not too many generations ago, the folks kind of believed that. If the crops failed, the people repented of their sin. If sickness ravaged the community, they believed that fasting and prayer would reveal the reason for this divine displeasure. When bad things happened, people assumed they were bad and God was simply punishing their waywardness.

Now I am not promoting that we return to that approach. I don’t think we need to blame God for every bad thing that befalls the earth. God is not responsible for evil; the devil is. Yet sin—stubborn, un-repented, in-your-face sin among God’s holy people—will cause the blessing and protection of God to lift from our lives. So, then, are hurricanes and earthquakes and floods God’s judgment against the sinful world? I don’t know; that’s a few steps above my pay-grade. But I kind of doubt it. For sure, there will be devastating judgment some day leveled against the unbelieving world, but I think God is holding off on that until the end.

But when it comes to Christians, what we do know is that the Lord disciplines those he loves in order to bring them back to full devotion to him. The writer of Hebrews calls us to “endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children.” (Hebrews 12:7) In order to redeem our souls, break us of sinful patterns, and reposition us to a zone of bless-ability, God will allow pain to get our attention. C.S. Lewis’ profound observation in his book, The Problem of Pain, is worth noting:

We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and everyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

My point in all of this simply is a call to consider that what God’s Word says of Israel may be something that we should consider when pain and hardship befalls our lives. Just because we don’t like to assign a cause-effect consequence to behavior doesn’t mean that God’s law is suddenly inoperable in the modern age. The writer of 2 Kings was not shy about saying “this happened to them because of that.” Israel fell, the northern nation met its end, and the reason why is very clear: they stubbornly persistented in flagrant sin.

On a personal level, it may just be wisdom to consider the possibility of a cause-effect consequence when hardship happens in your life, with a contrite heart and corrective steps. I would not suggest that you go around proclaiming this for the sinful world at large, or even for people that you know. Unless they have invited your opinions, it is best to keep them to yourself. But on a personal level, give it some thought.

It may not be the case that you are under the Lord’s discipline, but then again, the writer of Hebrews said, “Endure hardship as discipline.”