You
Good evening everybody. Welcome to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
If you would, please find your seats and we'll begin our service this evening.
When you find your seat, grab a hymnal and turn to
song number 127.
Song number 127, tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.
Song number 127.
Thank you.
this evening. Please fill Pastor Erneston with your Holy Spirit as he
preaches your Word unto us, and it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right, next
turn to song number 45. Back to song number 45, when I can read my title
clear. Song number 45.
and slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside we have our service time Sunday mornings
at 10.30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
Tonight we will be in second Chronicles 32.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below
as well as Salvation and Baptisms.
Of course we had 11 baptisms on Sunday to add to that.
And then across the page, we've got the wedding coming up
just a couple days away.
This Saturday, everybody's invited right here
at four o'clock for Isabella and Micaiah.
And so all church members are invited to attend.
Don't be shy.
If you don't know them, you can show up
and figure out who are these people.
And so that's this Saturday at four o'clock on the back.
We've got the note about the baby shower
coming up on February 2nd.
That's for all ladies and teenage girls.
And that's from two to four right here on that Sunday.
Online soul winning marathon.
This is through like face to face video chatting software.
And they had six soul winners with 42 salvation.
So good job to everyone involved with that.
And then that's about it for announcements.
A week from tonight, we've got Pastor Aaron Thompson
preaching, and so be sure to be here in your place
one week from now to hear Pastor Aaron Thompson
get to meet him in person.
And then on February 19th,
we've got Pastor Jonathan Shelley preaching.
And so that's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning
from the past few days.
Anything to report from Monday?
Okay.
All right, anything else from Monday? How about Tuesday? Okay, gotcha in the front
Okay, got it
Got it
Okay
All right. Oh got it
Okay, and then
Today, we didn't get a total for the van or anything. Did you get a total for the van?
Okay, is that including mine?
So, okay, so three from the van.
What about outside the van?
Okay.
Was that in the van total or no?
Okay, got it.
All right, very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, there should be an insert in the front of your camera with the song entitled,
Sweeter as the Years Go By.
Sing all three verses, starting on the first.
It's a mercy for a keeper than the seed, and higher than the nevus, my theme shall ever be.
sweeter as the years go by, sweeter as the years go by.
People wronged about this very grace you've done.
He who killed the broken hearted,
had it far to find to see.
And still, we pray for your forgiveness,
give love for even me.
Sweeter as the years go by.
For Jesus' love is sweeter, sweeter as the years go by.
But why does love explain for us to suffer loss?
Till there we have to learn to please change the shoulder cross
With saints, we need them glory.
Let us, our voices ring till death and earthly end.
And don't win it all, the evil sprays.
Sweeter as the years go by.
Rage of woe and evil, Jesus by the speeder.
Sweeter as the years go by.
Timmels. Song number 288, I am resolved. Song number 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 288, 28
He is the true one. He is the just one. He has the words of life.
I will extend to him. This is the land free.
to say your name through each day.
Keep what he said through what he willed.
He is the living way.
I will listen to him.
He is the living way.
I will listen to him.
Alright, this time we will pass our offering plates around as the plates go around.
Let's turn our Bibles to 2nd Chronicles, chapter 32.
2nd Chronicles, chapter 32.
As we always do, we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Corbin Brock as he reads.
2nd Chronicles 32, starting in verse number one.
After these things and the establishment thereof,
Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered into Judah
and encamped against the fenced cities and 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 his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the
fountains
which were without the city and they did help him.
So there was gathered much people together who stopped all the fountains and the brook that ran through the midst of the land saying
Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?
Also, he strengthened himself and built up all the wall that was broken and raised it
up to the towers and another wall without and repaired Milo in the city of David and
made darts and shields in abundance.
And he set captains of war over the people and gathered them together to him in the street
of the gate of the city and spake comfortably to them, saying, Be strong and courageous,
be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is
With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles and the people
Rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah
After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, but he himself laid siege
against Lekish and all his power with him under Hezekiah king of Judah and under all Judah that
were at Jerusalem saying, thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, whereon do you trust that you
abide in the siege in Jerusalem? Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by
famine and by thirst, saying,
The Lord our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the King of Assyria, hath not the
same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem
saying, You shall worship before one altar and burn incense upon it.
Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands, were the
Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my father's utterly destroyed that could deliver his people out of my hand that your
God should be able to deliver you out of my hand now
Therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you on this manner now
They neither yet believe him for no God of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand and
Out of the hand of my father's how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?
and his servants spake yet more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah,
he wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel and to speak against him saying,
as the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people
out of my hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of my hand.
Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech under the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall
to affright them and to trouble them that they might take the city.
And they spake against the God of Jerusalem as against the gods of the people of the earth,
which were the work of the hands of man.
And for this cause, Hezekiah the king and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos, prayed and cried to heaven.
And the Lord sent an angel which cut off all the mighty men of Valor and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria.
So he returned with shame of face to his own land.
And when he was come into the house of his God, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword.
Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria,
and from the hand of all other, and guided them on every side.
And many brought gifts unto the Lord of Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah, king of Judah,
so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thence forth.
In those days Hezekiah was sick to the death, and prayed unto the Lord, and he spake unto him, and he gave him a sign.
But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him, for his heart
was lifted up, therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.
Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came out upon them in the days of Hezekiah,
and Hezekiah had exceeding much riches in honor, and he made himself treasuries for
and for precious stones and for spices and for shields
and for all manner of pleasant jewels.
Storehouse is also for the increase of corn and wine
and oil and stalls for all manner of beasts
and coats for flocks.
Moreover, he provided him cities and possessions of flocks
and herds in abundance, for God had given him substance
very much.
This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gaihan and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David
and Hezekiah prospered in all his works.
How be it in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land,
God left him to try him that he might know all that was in his heart.
Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death, and the nastiest son reigned in his stead.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to gather here today and hear the preaching of your word.
Lord, please open up our ears to hear and please open up our hearts to receive the message and to apply it to our lives.
And please bless Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit so they may preach your word boldly in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
2 Chronicles 32 we come to the final chapter in the story of Hezekiah and everything's been
really positive up to this point. If you remember in the first chapter that we looked at with Hezekiah
the first thing that happened was that as soon as he began to reign he opened the doors of the
house of God and he set things in order. He purified the house of God and then if you remember
in the next chapter he has that great Passover feast to start things off and he evangelized
the adjacent northern kingdom of Israel
and invites them to come down
and have the Passover with them.
And then we saw that last week,
he gets into a routine after breaking down some idolatry.
He gets into a routine.
He sets people up in their courses day in, day out,
serving God.
And so everything has been going great
because Hezekiah has been doing all the right things.
He's making all the right decisions.
He's serving God.
And God's blessing him.
nation as a result. His leadership is being heated by the people. Everybody's on the same page.
Everything's going great. Well, here's the way life works. You know, when everything's going great
and when you get a system and you're going to church and you got a routine for Bible reading
and you got a routine for soul winning, unfortunately, that's not the way life works because you just
think, okay, I'm serving God now. I fixed everything. I got sent out of my life. I've got a routine
Wednesday night, and you just want to just live a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
You just want to serve God.
You just want to move forward.
It is never going to be that simple.
It just isn't.
And so that's why we come to this chapter, where now there's
a serious, serious threat.
And there's something very serious that's upsetting the
worshiping the Lord, Hezekiah's Kingdom, everything's in jeopardy now because of the
king of Assyria.
And what you have to understand is that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, is one of the most powerful
rulers in the world.
This is a massive army and if you think about it...
Israel has never been a huge country, right?
Judah was never a massive country.
It wasn't like a superpower on par with the United States
or something or Soviet Union or, you know,
other nations like Great Britain or, you know,
throughout history, there had a lot of power and empire.
that is just not the case. We're talking about a little small nation and so these giant powers like
Egypt or Assyria or Babylon are a threat to a small nation like Judah or like Israel and unless
God's on their side they're really in trouble here because Sinacharib is a very powerful leader.
and he wants to take over everything, including Judah.
And so it says in verse 32,
after these things, and it was all,
that's all the good things that we saw last week
and the last several weeks,
after these things of the establishment thereof,
Sennacherib, king of Assyria came and entered into Judah
and encamped against the fence cities
and thought to win them for himself.
And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherub was come
and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem,
he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men
to stop the waters of the fountains
which were without the city, and they did help him.
So they were gathered much people together
who stopped all the fountains and the brooks
that ran through the midst of the land saying,
why should the kings of Assyria come?
and find much water and so here you can see a little bit of a hint of the seriousness of the
situation because when Sinakarib is coming with the host of the Assyrians they start basically
sabotaging their own countryside
Just so that when Sennacherib shows up he doesn't find water because these
Militaries that come to another nation they have to kind of live off the land when they get there
They can't bring all the food and water. They're gonna need for the siege
They have to basically get that stuff from the countryside and if you stop and think about the history of the United States with the American Revolution
We have the British coming across the Atlantic Ocean and fighting
against the revolutionaries, and think about it, they have to feed and house and
clothe all of those British troops. And
Britain was a much more powerful nation than the fledgling
American colonies. So how did the American colonies back in the 1770s, early 1780s,
how did we win our independence from Great Britain when Great Britain is one of the most powerful nations in the world?
And again, the United States is just a small nation,
kind of a ragtag army in a lot of ways,
not the best training, equipment, advantage.
Well, the way...
that we won was basically just by outlasting the enemy,
just out surviving the enemy, right?
Because it's costing Britain a whole bunch of money
to have those troops over here, they gotta pay them,
and then they have to try to figure out, again,
the logistics of just feeding and taking care of them.
And so the strategy of George Washington and others
was what's called a Fabian strategy,
which is where you basically just don't have a decisive
battle with the enemy necessarily but rather you just sort of survive you just don't get wiped out
and time is on your side because you live here and the other guy had to come across the ocean and
you just kind of outlast them it'd be like if you were in a fight or something and the other
guy's a better fighter but you just have better endurance so you just kind of outlast the other
So here's the thing, this army, the Assyrians, is coming to besiege Judah, they're going to need
food, water, supplies, and they're just going to get that from the countryside.
And so Hezekiah's first step here is to just start stopping up.
fountains, messing up wells and fountains and water spouts
so that when they show up,
they have a hard time having water for their troops.
But the reason that I bring that up is just to show you
that obviously he's kind of harming his own nation, right?
Because he's jamming up his own wells,
his own water supplies.
He's messing up his own infrastructure, right?
You think of other situations in more modern times
where armies blow up bridges in their own countries
and destroy roads in their own countries and everything
enemy army can't advance as easily,
but when you're destroying your own infrastructure
and harming your own water supply and everything,
you're obviously pretty scared to be taking
those kind of drastic measures.
So they're in a lot of danger here.
And again,
Things in your life will be going great.
You're serving God.
You got all your spiritual ducks in a row.
And then there's always something that's gonna happen
just to throw a monkey wrench into things.
And that's the true test of your Christianity
is when you can get through this kind of a crisis.
And it's gonna get ugly sometimes.
And you're gonna go through pain and suffering
and trials and tribulations.
And it's gonna set you back, it feels like.
Maybe financially, emotionally, spiritually, whatever.
It's gonna set you back a little bit
you're plugging up your own wells and fountains,
but you've got to endure that trial
and survive and get through and keep serving God.
And that's what Hezekiah is trying to do.
You know, he decides, look,
I'm not just gonna roll over and die here.
I'm not just gonna give up.
I'm not just gonna quit.
I'm gonna fight back.
And that's what we've got to do, right?
We're not just gonna let the devil
just throw a monkey wrench into our life
and then we just get, oh, that's it.
I'm done, I'm out and just quit on God.
No, we need to double down on Bible reading, double down on our soul winning, double down
on church attendance.
When things get ugly, we need to dig in and fight and win and keep serving God for the
entire year, yay for the rest of our lives.
And so that's what we can get from this spiritually when we see Hezekiah doing all the right things
and yet he faces a very serious ordeal.
So it says in verse 5, also he strengthened himself and built up all the wall that was broken and
raised it up to the towers and another wall without and repaired Milo in the city of David and made darts and
Shields in abundance. So when the attack comes right when the devil attacks or when enemies of God's work attack
You've got to work on the arsenal, right? You got to put on the whole armor of God. You got to read your Bible
get some ammunition to stand against the wiles of the devils that you can stand in the evil
day, right, extra Bible reading, right, making sure to hit those church services and get what
you need to stand strong in the evil day.
He sent captains of war over the people and gathered them together to him in the street
of the gate of the city and spake comfortably to them.
Now again, we talked about this recently that the word comfort in the Bible means something
like strength or encouragement, right?
The comforter strengthens, encourages, fortifies us.
fortifies us, and so he speaks comfortably to them, he's encouraging them, he's motivating them,
he's strengthening them, and he says to the captains of war, be strong and courageous,
be not afraid, nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him,
for there be more with us than with him.
Now this is really a difficult thing that he's asking them to do because when he says don't be afraid
It seems easy from where we're sitting in 2025 America, but here's what you have to understand, you know their
Nation is about to be destroyed seemingly
And they're going to be holed up in Jerusalem behind those walls that they're building to keep the enemy out.
They're going to be surrounded by one of the most powerful militaries in the world.
And here's the thing, if they surrender, they'll probably survive.
Right? In the ancient world, if one of these powers comes and wants to take over,
if you surrender, become their servants, become their slaves, let them carry you away captive or whatever, at least you'll probably survive.
Whereas if you hold out if you fight back there's a pretty good chance that they're just going to kill all of the men
Maybe take the women and children as slaves, but they're probably just going to kill all the men
And so this is a scary situation to be in and really humanly speaking the odds are far against them
numerically
Technologically Assyria on paper has got them beat. Okay?
But then Hezekiah says there are more that are with us than with them now
He's not talking about the number of troops because that would just simply not be true
But he explains the next verse verse 8 with him is an arm of flesh
But with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our
Battles and the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah and they're taking a leap of faith here
to rest on those words of Hezekiah, because again, humanly speaking,
this is not a sure thing at all. Now if your faith is in the Lord,
of course it's a sure thing, but it takes a lot of faith in the Word of God
and in this case the Word of Hezekiah who's speaking the Word of God.
And so he says, God is with us to help us and to fight our battles.
And here's the way that you get God fighting your battles is that you got to get on the
Lord's side.
You got to get in the Lord's army, right?
The Lord's not just ready to just get on your personal bandwagon and join your personal
cause for your personal agenda because frankly, your personal agenda isn't really why this
universe was created or anything like that, right?
I mean, if you think about it, all things are and were created for his pleasure.
It's for his glory at the end of the day. We must decrease. He must increase life's not about me life's not about you
Life is about the gospel of Christ and his work going forward, but at the same day we kind of care what happens to us
You know we care about our agenda, right?
And so you know, but is God really just ready to just do everything for us?
Well, here's the thing if you want God to fight your battles
You need to get aligned with God's agenda so that then, as you do the work of God,
God is on your side because you're on his side.
It's sort of like when Joshua goes out to meet the captain of the Lord's host, which
is an Old Testament appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's one of those Christophanies of the Old Testament.
And Joshua says to the man that he encounters with the drawn sword, who turns out to be
the captain of the Lord's host, which is, of course, the angel of the Lord, which is
actually a pre-incarnate, you know, appearance of Jesus Christ.
And what does he say? No.
And that wasn't a yes or no question.
He says are you for us or are you for our enemies?
He says nay, but as the captain of the Lord's host of my come. He said no, no, I'm in charge
I'm not for you or for your enemies. I'm actually the leader here, right?
And so that's the attitude that we need to get and if you are on the Lord's side
If you are a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, then God is on your side because you're on his side
and it's a reciprocal thing.
That's why the Bible says,
if God be for us,
who could be against us?
But in order for God to be for us, how do we get God to be for us?
We've got to be doing his work.
We've got to make his agenda our agenda.
And that's what Hezekiah has done.
I mean, Hezekiah has made Judah the center of worshiping the Lord.
He's got the temple opened.
Sacrifices are being made to the Lord.
And the Word of God is being preached even in the neighboring lands.
He's evangelizing.
He's doing all the things he's supposed to be doing.
There's more that are with us than with them because we got the Lord on our side and God is
going to fight our battles because the battle is the Lord's. And so if you want God to go to bat
for you, you got to make sure that you're doing something for God because if you're not doing
anything for God, if you're just living for self, then why would you expect the God of the universe
to just get on your little personal program that has nothing to do with the kingdom of God or the
You've got to align your interests with God's interests if you want to succeed as a Christian.
And so it says here, with him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to
help us and to fight our battles, and the people rested themselves upon the words of
Hezekiah, king of Judah.
You know, sometimes there could be huge numbers of people that are siding against the Word
of God, that are siding against the truth, and it might seem like you're outnumbered
or you're all alone or whatever.
But you know what?
The Bible says one of you will chase a thousand.
Two of you will put 10,000 to flight, right?
If you have God on your side, I heard one person say, you know, one person plus God
You know it doesn't matter what the so-called majority thinks because me plus God is a majority if God's on my side
Then I'm in the only majority that matters because God's vote supersedes everybody else's vote
And so we got to make sure that we don't just go like this to see what's popular or what people want to do.
We got to do what's right.
Okay. And if we do what's right, we can withstand any onslaught of the enemy.
David said, I will not be afraid though 10,000s of people encamp themselves against me roundabout.
I'm not going to be afraid because God's on my side.
God's with me.
So, it says in verse 9, after this did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, so after Hezekiah has done
all these preparations and he's bolstered the wall, he's made extra weapons, shields,
he's preached the motivational sermon to his warriors and the leaders.
After this did Sennacherib, this is the king of Assyria, send his servants to Jerusalem
But he himself laid siege against Lekish and all his power with him.
And so, again, what you have to understand is that...
Jerusalem in God's sight is obviously super important at this time
because it's the center of worshiping the Lord.
But on the world stage, again, it's not the most important place.
It's not a massive superpower or something,
which is why there are two battles to be fought, Jerusalem and Lakers,
and he kind of sends the B team to Jerusalem.
and the A team is with Sennacherib over at Lake-ish.
And so, you know, this is not really the number one
most important battle.
Obviously for God's people it is, you know,
but in the world's eyes,
it's not the biggest, most important battle.
And here's the thing, you know, when we think about how the world looks at Christianity,
they probably think that the really important churches, you know, and the really important
movements in Christianity are like a bunch of TV preachers or a bunch of guys who have
books on the shelf at Barnes and Noble or something, you know, they're looking at these
mega churches.
ecclesiastical history of the 20th century or the 21st century,
they're going to be talking about these kind of big name,
big players, big important people,
and then they would just kind of scoff at the little independent,
fundamentalist Baptist churches, you know, whatever.
They are not even going to get a footnote in the history book.
But yet, if you stop and think about it, in God's sight,
churches like ours are super important.
Why? We're out there literally winning thousands of people to Christ. We're out there evangelizing
literally tens of thousands of people. On the Internet over the years we've literally
reached tens of millions of people with Bible preaching.
over the years like huge impact and it's not just us other fundamentalist Baptist churches all over America over the past
Several decades that have been knocking doors consistently
I mean they're winning over the course of their lifetime
Thousands and thousands and thousands of people the Lord face-to-face. I mean, that's a huge impact. That's a major impact
I mean look at the map over there of Phoenix and tell me that's not a big impact
You know what I mean like that the thing is almost filled in
There's like, that represents like almost 4 million people on that map and we've knocked
almost all those doors.
You know, it's a huge impact, but again, we're nothing in the world site.
We're just, you know, send the B team over to fight Faithful Word Baptist Church.
The real battle's over at Lake-ish or whatever, right?
Obviously, we are despised of this world and when I say despised, I mean we are made light
of or thought little of, we're not important to them, but you know what?
To God, the work that we're doing is huge.
To God, us winning tens of thousands of people to Christ as a church and reaching, you know,
millions and millions of people on the Internet, you know, that's a big deal for him and for
the Kingdom of God.
And so this world sees it this way, but in a sense, God is kind of using this in some
ways to protect Jerusalem.
because I mean if you're sitting in Jerusalem you don't really want the A team coming over and besieging you.
You'd rather that the smaller force, the less powerful force, comes over and fights against you.
And so that works to their advantage.
And it says in verse number 10,
Thus saith Sennacherib, king of Assyria.
Whereon do you trust that you abide in the siege in Jerusalem?
Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst
Saying the Lord our God should deliver us out of the hand of Assyria
So again this messenger is gonna blaspheme God and say hey these other gods couldn't protect
These other nations so your God's not gonna protect you either the Lord's just like every other God
And, of course, we know that the Lord is the only true God, and so that's not true.
But he says, you're just going to starve and thirst to death because, remember, they're locked up in the city.
So they can't get their shipments in and out, they can't get food and drink in and out.
So just whatever they have in the city, they have to ration that and they can only hold out so long.
So the way that these sieges would work in the ancient world is that it's sort of like a battle of the wills.
between the people outside the walls and the people inside the walls, right?
Because the people outside the walls, they want to go home too.
They don't want to just be out there forever.
They might be running low on water as well,
because remember Hezekiah stopped up all the fountains of water.
So they might be running low on supplies,
but the people on the inside have it worse, right?
But...
the people on the outside can only have so much patience as well.
So it's kind of this waiting game of who's going to break first,
the people inside or the people outside.
And so there's a lot of smack talk here to try to demoralize
the people inside because it's kind of a psychological game here,
okay? And so they're saying, oh, you're going to starve to death,
you're going to die of thirst, Hezekiah is telling you
And then look what he says in verse 12.
Have not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars
and commanded Judah and Jerusalem saying,
ye shall worship before one altar and burn incense upon it?
Here's what he's basically saying.
Well, why would God protect Hezekiah
when Hezekiah is shutting down altars to the Lord?
I mean, you'd think that the Lord's up in heaven wanting to get maximum worship.
Hezekiah went around and broke down a bunch of altars to the Lord,
broke down a bunch of high places to the Lord,
broke down a bunch of images of the Lord.
He broke all that stuff down.
God's probably mad at Hezekiah, that's probably why I'm here.
But what's the true story?
According to the Bible, worshipping in those high places is wrong.
Worshipping at all those other altars and the high places,
having these graven images to the Lord.
There's no graven image of the Lord
So, if no man has seen God at any time, you can't have a graven image of the Lord.
And so therefore, you know, what we're seeing here is somebody who's a heathen, who's not
a worshipper of the Lord, he's going to tell you about your religion, but he doesn't know
the Bible.
He's not coming from a place of having read the Bible.
If you read the Bible, he would know that the sacrifices are supposed to be brought to the place which the Lord shall choose, which is Jerusalem.
There's supposed to be a centralized worship at Jerusalem, not just everybody doing their own thing with the graven images and idols.
God wanted him to break down those images and idols, but this foreigner is basically trying to say, hey, you know, he's breaking down these images.
He's displeasing to the Lord because he doesn't know the Bible. Isn't it funny when atheists and agnostics try to tell you how to be a Christian?
I mean, didn't Jesus teach love and didn't Jesus say to love your faggot neighbor and
love your lesbian neighbor and let, you know, it's like they're always going to have all
of these pieces of advice for you as a Christian telling you how to be a Christian, telling
you what it means to live for God when it's not coming from the scripture though.
It's just what it's just their rationale their logic. Well, I just believe in a God that x y and z
Well, you okay you made up your own God in your mind. I
Mean, I just think God would rather just have more churches than fewer
I just think you'd rather have more the more alters the merrier
You know when in reality false apostate churches aren't abomination in the sight of God if their doors closed
It's a blessing
You know churches that are against God's will should be shut down. You know we want them to fail
We would love to see the Latter-day Satan church fail
We would love to see just the Mormon church just go out of business and just go out of existence
And you know lots of false Christian denominations have died over the years and wouldn't it be great if the Jehovah's Witnesses would be one of them
or the Mormons would be one of them or, you know, these other false religions,
we would love to see them fail.
Wouldn't just be, well, it's just sad to see, you know,
less Christian churches.
No, because they're not actually worshiping the Lord in spirit and in truth.
And so that's what we see here.
This guy is some atheist, agnostic, pagan dude, whatever he is,
trying to tell God's people.
how their own religion works, totally ignorant of what the Bible says, okay?
Hezekiah, the man of God, actually knows what the Bible says and actually did the right things.
And so it says in verse 13,
No ye not, what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands
were the gods of the nations of those lands, any ways able to deliver their lands out of my hand?
Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my father's utterly destroyed that could deliver his people out of my hand that your
God should be able to deliver you out of my hand now therefore let not hessakai to see you nor persuade you on this manner
Neither yet believe him for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand and out of the hand
Of my father's how much less now here's what he's not even saying your god is on par with these other gods
He's saying, how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?
He's saying, Jehovah God is not even as cool as some of these other gods that we already defeated.
Now, you can see here that there's an agenda of destroying the worship of the Lord and destroying the Lord's reputation.
You know, Assyria wants to take over and not just extort money out of Jerusalem and Judah,
but also, you know, they want to culturally also, you know, impose their way on them and
impose their religion on them and their way of life and they want to discredit the Lord.
by saying, well, we defeated you, your God couldn't protect you.
That's kind of their agenda here.
So, Sennacherib's kind of making this a thing of
our God versus your God, or just me versus your God.
Right? Just, I defeated these other false gods, I'm going to defeat
the Lord as well. That's what he's basically saying.
And so it says, now therefore, verse number 15,
let not Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you on this matter,
neither yet believe him, for no God, if any nation or kingdom,
was able to deliver his people out of my hand,
and out of the hand of my father's, how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand.
And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God
and against his servant Hezekiah.
He wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel
and to speak against him saying,
as the gods of the nations of other lands
have not delivered their people out of my hand,
so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver
his people out of my hand.
Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech
under the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall
to affright them and to trouble them
that they might take the city.
So they're doing like a psychological warfare here,
trying to scare the people in the city
And they spake against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth,
which were the work of the hands of men.
And for this cause has Akai of the king and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos, prayed
and cried to heaven.
Now here's the thing.
The battle today is very similar to the battle in Bible times because it is a psychological
battle that has to do with overcoming fear, okay?
Because just as they will be okay if they trust in the Lord, if they follow Hezekiah's
godly leadership, God is going to come through for them, but it doesn't feel that way at
Hezekiah is a bad guy, don't listen to him.
God can't protect you.
It's useless trying to scare them.
And we're gonna have people coming at us
all the time trying to discourage us from serving God.
telling us it's not going to work,
you know, your church is bad, your pastor is bad,
you know, fundamental Baptist or bad or whatever, and you know,
it's not going to work, you're not going to be able to win souls,
you know, what about your bad past, you can't overcome that,
who do you think you are, all of a sudden you're putting on all these spiritual
heirs,
we know what you're really like, we know who you are, you know,
and all the things that people could say to discourage you, try to drag you down,
soul winning, you're not good at preaching, you're not good at whatever, you know, just
trying to just discourage you and dishearten you, telling you that your marriage can't
work, telling you that your family is not going to work, that the work of God that you're
involved in isn't legitimate or that it's not going to succeed or whatever the case
is.
You're going to have these voices in your life trying to tear you down and drag you down.
There's not really as much detail in this particular account in chronicles
But we could go over to other books like in Isaiah and in second Kings and we could get other parallel accounts of this
and you'll find that
The Jews the leaders of the Jews are telling
Sinakarov's men don't talk to us in the Jews language
And that's why it says here that they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech under the people that are on the wall.
They're kind of bypassing the leadership, they're bypassing the diplomats and the people that they were negotiating with
and just kind of yelling directly to the common man on the wall in the Jews' language, trying to tear him down and discourage him.
And if you remember, the leaders in Judah are telling them, hey,
Don't speak in the Jews language. You know, you can talk to us in your native language because we understand it
We speak your Assyrian language. Let's talk in your language, and they're like, no, we don't want to talk to you
We want to talk to them. We want to talk to these people, right?
And so the idea is that has a kaya and the leaders of Judah, you know
They're kind of not wanting the people to hear this kind of discouraging stuff
And then if you remember also the people on the wall that they do yell to in the Jews language don't respond to them at all
Because Hezekiah had said unto them answer them not a word
Do not respond do not engage with them
And the idea here is that you don't want to spend too much time in your life
listening to people that are negative about the Word of God and the work of God.
You don't want to spend a bunch of time listening to all the naysayers
and the people that are negative about Christ, negative about the Bible,
negative about church, negative about the work of God.
You don't want to listen to too much of that stuff because it can drag you down.
It can eventually wear you down if you're just constantly listening to these shoulder devils
telling you all this stuff. Also, it's not typically worth it going back and forth with
people like this, right? People that are just super negative toward God, blasphemous,
and just hateful toward you and the work that you're trying to do, going back and forth with
And so usually it's best to just ignore certain people,
just ghost certain people,
because going back and forth with them is a waste of time.
It's not profitable and it just drags you down.
You know, what you want to be doing
is you want to be listening to Hezekiah.
You want to be praying.
You want to be encouraging yourself in the Lord.
You want to be listening to Isaiah the prophet.
You want to be listening to King Hezekiah.
You want to be reading your Bible, praying
and have more positive things coming in
than negative things coming in.
Right and and and obviously it's tempting sometimes to just want to kind of listen to all this negative stuff or to
try to
engage with the atheists and the and the and the haters and people of false religions and things like that and
Obviously we want what we're constantly engaging with the heathen because we're constantly evangelizing
So it's not like we're living in this echo chamber or we're up on some ivory tower somewhere
or just cut off from the real world or something like that.
I mean we're engaged with this world, at least we should be because Christ didn't want us
to be taken out of the world, he just wanted us to be kept from the evil.
And so here's the thing, we don't want to be in an echo chamber, okay?
And I think it's an important point.
I want you to really think about what I'm about to say here,
because I think this is kind of a key point tonight, okay?
We don't want to be in an echo chamber in the sense
that we just are surrounded by people who believe like us
and agree with us, just only yes men in our lives.
And we're just in an echo chamber where everybody's
with us, everybody's on our side.
And you know, nobody's ever challenging anything
that we say or believe or think,
because yeah, obviously that can be unhealthy.
because then we could have wrong ideas that persist
because they're never challenged.
Or we could sort of miss out on cross-pollination of ideas
of hearing what other people have to say and everything.
And sometimes when people kind of just,
you know, get in that echo chamber,
they get more and more radical and unbalanced and whatever.
It's not good to be in that echo chamber.
Amen.
And one of the things that helps us as independent, fundamental, soul-winning Baptists,
not to be in that echo chamber, is that we're out there in the world every day,
and hopefully we're out there a lot sharing our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ with the lost.
And so when I knock on a door, that's not just some yes man that's just going to tell me I'm right about everything.
Right? When we're out there talking to the heathen,
and talking to people you know what obviously our views are going to be challenged and we're
going to have people that don't agree with us our buddies at work that we share Christ with
are going to challenge us people at school are going to challenge us you know we're going to have
conversations and dialogue with people and we're going to hear a lot of different points of views
and you know what I'm totally comfortable also getting together with pastors who believe differently
and even pastors who believe very differently than me and getting together and talking with them
Well, you know, what do you believe about this?
Why do you believe this and everything?
And kind of going back and forth with these guys.
Okay, look, I'm all for not being in an echo chamber
and interacting with people different than us,
especially for the purposes of reaching them
with the gospel and evangelizing them.
But there's a big difference between
hanging around with the friendly crowd and hanging around with the heathen and
the world and all the different people out there and hanging around with just
these foaming at the mouth haters. There's zero benefit. It's like well you know I
don't want to just be in an echo chamber I don't want to just be surrounded by
yes man so let me just bring Satan to the table.
You know maybe I just listen to some demons some demoniacs, you know
Maybe I should just bring in some full-blown homosexuals over to dinner or something like do you see the difference?
You see look and a lot of people say oh, you don't want to be in an echo chamber
But but here's the thing when people are writing haste a hateful
slanderous
Messages to me on any social media. They just get blocked immediately
People that are preaching false
Gospels and people that are just
Attacking me personally dragging me down telling me that I'm this and I'm that they just get blocked immediately
It's not because I'm living in an echo chamber being surrounded by yes, man
But you know what it is those people add nothing to me
They do not help me at all. They do not bless me at all
They do not make me a better person at all. They are just these devils that need to be silenced
So don't listen to them. I'm not gonna listen to them
I don't care what they have to say, nuts to them.
And you see, here's the thing, when you're Hezekiah,
when you're the children of Judah, here's the thing,
you don't need to listen to what Sinakarib
and the Assyrian host is out there saying,
hey, you know, the Lord isn't gonna save you
and he's just like all these other gods
and you know, you're gonna eat your own dung
and drink your own piss in there.
You know, that's what they say in Second Kings
and in Isaiah in the parallel passage.
You know, just demoralizing them, why would you hang around with people who demoralize
you like that?
Why would you hang around with people that tell you that you're trash and that you're
wicked and that you're stupid, just tearing you down?
Just cut those people out of your life.
And there's a difference between being surrounded by yes men and cutting out the no men.
I get rid of the no men.
I'll surround my, I don't mind being around the neutral people.
I don't mind just being with worldly people in general, just average people, normal people,
even if they're sinful, even if they're part of false religions, even if they're ungodly,
even if they're not fundamental Baptist.
Hey, that's the mission field.
And you know, some of them might even have something good to teach me in another area,
right?
And I'm not saying that every hater is a reprobate because, hey, there are a lot of people that are even saved Christians
that are haters, that are just discouragers, that are just dragging you down and they're not encouraging you
and they're not a blessing and they're just there to slander and gossip and criticize and just be a pain in the butt, cut them loose.
They add no value to your life.
And so there's a big, do you see the difference here?
Because a lot of people conflate this and say,
oh, well you just only want to be surrounded
by people that agree.
No, no, no, I love hanging around with people
that don't agree with me.
But I don't love hanging around with people
who hate me and want me to fail.
Why would you want to hang around with someone
who hates you and wants you to fail
or hates your church and wants your church to fail?
That adds no value.
That is Sennacherib.
That is the Assyrian army.
Don't listen to them. Don't answer them. They are a waste of your time and
Again, I'm not saying to only hang around with people who agree with you
No hang around people who disagree with you
But not people who hate you and want you dead or want your church to fail or something. You see the difference
It's a big difference my friend
And I'm telling you, a lot of people today go through a lot of unnecessary pain, suffering, heartache, frustration, anger and fear and anxiety because of just listening to idiots on social media or in real life.
And just talking to toxic people because they went to fourth grade together or whatever. It's like, time to just cut that person loose.
If you have toxic people in your life and you know what if they're relatives if they're toxic
Don't spend time with them
You know because honestly, it's you know some people that were related to suck. So don't spend time with them
You know life's too short to just well, you know, I gotta hang around with you know aunt Plutie or whatever because she's my aunt
You know what if aunt Plutie hates the Lord nuts to her
She can go have Thanksgiving by herself in front of the TV with a TV dinner watching CNN with a you know with five masks on
You know or whatever?
You know what I mean if she if she's just a pain if she's just dragging you down if she if she doesn't have anything nice to
Say about the Lord Jesus Christ and just wants to just tear you down and criticize you criticize the way
That you're doing your life or your family and look we all know people like this in our lives that tear us down
Cut them loose
You know spend time with the people who actually love you
Or spend time with people that there's hope of reaching you know and so yeah
You know the best one of the best ways to not be in an echo chamber is soul winning
interacting with people out in the world through your job,
other endeavors that you do in the community.
Hey, I'm all for getting plugged in in the community,
plugged into the workplace, plugged into different groups
and circles of friends and everything like that.
But not the haters.
You know not people that are enemies of the work of God. It just doesn't make any sense
And so there's a time sometimes to just say hey, I'm not gonna answer these people a word
I'm not gonna listen to these people and so use that block button smash that block button on if you're on social media
If you don't have anybody blocked. I don't even know are you even on social media?
I mean, you know, I'm just scared that someday there's going to be a limit, that it's going
to, that one day, this is my biggest fear, you know, brothers they grew up, we serve
in my greatest fear, you know, my greatest fear is that one day I'm going to go to block
someone, it's going to say, hey, you've already breached your limit, you can only block 300,000
people and you can't, you can't block anyone else, you know, our servers can't even hold
the list of people that you've blocked anymore.
You know and then here's the thing and then then you know what then if I go on social media
I can actually enjoy it and
Not just have a bunch of junk coming at me
Bunch of trash thrown in my face not interested
I'm too busy being happy. I'm too busy rejoicing in the Lord. I'm too busy having my best year ever
Then to sit here and go back and forth with Sennacherib and his army
And so, let's get back to the text here.
He sends all these letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel.
You know what? Just return to sender.
Right? When these letters show up to, you know, it's just like,
sorry, I've already blocked you.
I'm not even getting those texts.
I'm not even getting those emails.
I'm not even getting those messages
when you're sending all these letters to rail.
And so it says in verse number 21 because, well, let's go back to 20 and revisit it quickly.
For this cause has a chi of the king and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos, prayed and cried to heaven.
And the Lord sent an angel which cut off all the mighty men of Valor and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria.
So he returned with shame of face to his own land.
So God ends up supernaturally intervening.
And probably what happened, the Bible doesn't really give a lot of detail here.
There's a parallel passage of course that we could look at and everything.
But probably what we're looking at when it says that the angel of the Lord comes through and smites them and kills them
is they probably seemingly died of disease.
Basically they're there, they're in the siege, and you know from their perspective
they just got sick and died, like a bunch of people got sick and died.
But obviously from God's people's perspective. It's like God killed these people the angel the Lord came through and killed those
Because he's smoked them with that pestilence or whatever
Because typically when you have the angel of the Lord smiting people, that often is
them getting a disease in the Bible.
Like for example, remember when David numbers the people and you have the angel of the Lord
with a drawn sword to destroy Jerusalem.
And what do we see is people dying of pestilence, three days of pestilence destroying the people.
So again, that's not explicit in the text.
you know, studying the rest of scripture, that that's probably what happened.
But one way or another, God killed key people throughout the host of the enemy.
And so, you know, it's always a scary thing to be fighting against the work of God, to
be fighting against the man of God, the people of God, the work of God.
And apparently a lot of people don't fear God in 2025, but it's a scary thing to be
fighting against the Lord's people.
And so the angel of the Lord, he cuts off the mighty men of Valor, and they end up going
back with shame of face to their own land.
Look at halfway through verse 21, it says, when he was come, it's an acorib that is.
into the house of his God.
Day that came forth of his own bowels, right?
So these are actually his biological sons.
It says, day that came forth out of his own bowels,
slew him there with the sword.
and the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
from the hand of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria,
and from the hand of all other,
and guided them on every side.
And you say, oh, well, man, you know,
Sennacherib had these really rotten sons
that murdered their own dad.
Yeah, well, unfortunately, Hezekiah also has a super rotten son
that we're going to read about next week.
Manasseh.
But the difference is, you know, the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib.
God fights against the Assyrians, kills their key leaders.
They go home having failed the mission and he is assassinated.
And where is he assassinated specifically in the house of his God, right?
So, in the act of worshiping his false God, and I think that the purpose of that is so
that the Lord is basically sending a message of, hey, here's why you guys failed.
Here's why you lost, because you said God was like all the other gods.
Well, apparently not, because God did deliver us from your hand
and kill your key leaders. And not only that, when you're back worshiping your
false God,
not only can he not protect you on the battlefield,
not only can he not give you the victory on the battlefield,
he can't even protect you even on your own home turf
and your own sons are going to murder you.
because your God can't protect you.
And again, so the message comes through
that no, there is something special
about the God of the Hebrews.
He is the Lord of the earth.
And so it says in verse 23, actually verse 22,
the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
from the hand of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria,
and from the hand of all other,
and guided them on every side,
and many brought gifts unto the Lord, to Jerusalem,
and presents to Hezekiah, king of Judah,
so that he was magnified in the sight of...
all nations from henceforth.
So in the end, what happens?
Senakarib, the big bad, powerful Senakarib.
Oh man, I have so many achievements
and I defeated all these other countries.
He goes home in shame
and Hezekiah ends up in the end being magnified.
You know, he ends up actually having a good legacy
to where to this day,
everybody thinks of Hezekiah as a good king.
Now, I think that a lot of people in Christianity
know who Hezekiah is.
He's a pretty well-known guy in so much that there's even a joke that people will often
tell.
They'll try to mess with young people to get them to believe that there's a book of the
Bible called Hezekiah.
And people who haven't really read the Bible and don't know the 66 books will fall for
this and think, oh yeah, that's in Hezekiah 2.15 or whatever, and they'll fall for that
because it sounds believable because Hezekiah is a big name guy that people think about
Talk about and we're talking about him in 2025. We're preaching about him right now
Whereas like Sennacherib to the general public is pretty much meaningless
Even though there was a time when he was super important in the world. I mean, who's ever known a kid named Sennacherib?
Right Sennacherib what but it's just you know, it's just
His name just isn't important unless you're just really geeked out on ancient history
You don't know who Sennacherib is unless you're just really into ancient history,
which is a very small segment of the population.
And if you're that into history, then you probably know way more about Hezekiah
than you even know about Sennacherib because you're probably into the Bible too.
And so the Bible says here that he was magnified in the side of all nations from henceforth.
Verse 24, in those days Hezekiah was sick to the death and prayed unto the Lord.
And what we have from verses 24 through 33 is kind of just a really condensed version of some longer stories.
So you really have to read the longer version of these in like 2 Kings or Isaiah.
But the author of Second Chronicles just is just kind of quickly flying through them
It's almost as if he expects you to already know these
From other literature like he maybe is kind of expecting that you already know about either the book of Isaiah or
Second Kings because Second Chronicles a much later book than Second Kings and Isaiah. It's written centuries later
And so there's just kind of a glossing over of these things.
But here's the thing, even when things are glossed over
like this, it's still worth reading for a couple reasons.
Number one is that it's a good review.
because even if we're not going to cover these stories in detail,
it kind of reminds you, oh, that's right,
that was something that happened to Hezekiah.
So it can kind of jog your memory and reinforce or review things that you read in Second Kings or Isaiah.
But then also, sometimes even passages like this will have little nuggets or little details that are left out in the longer account.
You know, like if you think about, for example, the Gospel of Mark, right?
Like almost like 97% of the material in the Gospel of Mark is found in either Matthew or
Luke.
But yet in spite of that, there's a ton of really interesting stuff.
in the Gospel of Mark where it'll just be like one word will be different
or two, three words will be like an extra phrase
so it's not a big percent or something, but it really sheds a light on that story
or really changes the way that you think about that story
or even just putting things in a different order.
And so, you know, all scripture is profitable.
It's nice to have all these different parallel accounts
to sort of reinforce things.
And so, just, we're pretty much out of time,
but just to quickly, I'm kind of like the author of Second Chronicles 32,
where he was kind of running out of time.
and starts kind of condensing stuff.
So that's kind of where I'm at too.
So he's kind of just like,
all right, I'm ready to get on to monastic.
I'm kind of done with Hezekiah.
So let me just, you know, quickly write,
and I'm joking of course.
But obviously God is behind it being this way.
But the Bible says in verse number 24,
in those days Hezekiah was sick to the death
and prayed unto the Lord and he spake unto him
and he gave him a sign.
But, Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him.
So this is kind of the first negative thing that we've seen about Hezekiah, I mean we
read about him for the last three and a half chapters, it's all been really positive.
But then it says he rendered not according to the benefit done unto him, first heart
was lifted up, therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.
Now withstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.
This is really interesting because what it tells me, and I'm glad this is here, you
say, did we really need those three verses?
What's the point?
But I'm glad these three verses are here because I don't know about you
But when it when a character in the Bible is a little too perfect
It's a little hard to relate sometimes
You know when a guy's just kind of doing everything right then it kind of makes you feel like oh man
There's something wrong with me because I'm this is not that perfect
But when you get to these parts and you see like, okay, even a great leader like Hezekiah,
even a great king, even a great man of God who's doing the right things in general,
can go through a period where he does some wrong or where he's at a spiritual low or something like that.
And then you can see how he could come out of that.
And then it can encourage you in your Christian life when you hit those spiritual lows to think,
okay, you know what, it's not over for me.
I get pushed through and, you know, stop being prideful or whatever because the problem
here is that Hezekiah was prideful and so he humbled himself and, you know, maybe your
spiritual lows are not necessarily going to be based on pride and humility.
and bring you down spiritually, but the good news is that even a great man like Hezekiah,
he went through it and he came out the other side and got back on the horse and continued
serving God. And so it's nice to know that the people in the Bible are human and that when we
make mistakes, you know, we can come out of it and come out better on the other side and so forth.
And it says, you know, in verse 27 that Hezekiah had exceeding much riches, and then it just
kind of spends the next several verses talking about that.
Verse 31, how be it in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who
sent unto him the inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him to try
him that he might know all that was in his heart, meaning that God allowed Hezekiah
All of his stuff to the Babylonian ambassadors because the Babylonian ambassadors were nice people and they showed up with good intentions
But, unfortunately, Hezekiah kind of just gets a little carried away boasting and saying,
hey, man, let me show you my coin collection and whatever, and he starts really just taking
them into the recesses of the palace, showing them all his wealth and treasures, and they
obviously report that stuff back to Babylon, and then some day, way off in the future,
they're going to be saying, hey, I know where we can steal some money.
because we sent some guys there many years ago they came back raving about the stuff that Hezekiah
showed them. And again, this is worded very differently than it is in 2 Kings and this is
kind of a detail that you get here in Chronicles that's different about how God sort of just let
Hezekiah do the wrong thing in that situation. He kind of just left him to do whatever he was
Let Hezekiah do that in that situation, right?
Because, and let's just look at the exact wording again,
verse 31, it says, God left him to try him,
partway through verse 31.
Meaning, and what that means is,
it doesn't mean God left him like God abandoned him.
What it means is that God left him to his own decision.
But you know what that tells me is that other times,
God is guiding Hezekiah's decisions.
So sometimes when we're right with God and doing the right things in all thy ways acknowledge him and he will what?
Direct thy path so a lot of times God is gonna guide us and he'll cause us to make the right decision in a situation
Or lead us or push us in one direction or another where we're kind of like
I don't know what I should do and then we just kind of feel like we just chose it random
But then looking back was like oh God knew that I had to make that decision
Other times God might just kind of leave us to our own devices and that can tend to be the times that we might screw things up
And so it says in verse 32, the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness behold there written in the vision of Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amos, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
And Hezekiah slept with his fathers and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David.
So he gets a primo plot at the cemetery and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death.
And Manasseh, his son, reigned in his stead.
And of course, Manasseh ends up being a super evil rotten.
It's just like, what in the world?
What is going on, right?
Because here, you've had a succession
of a bunch of good kings.
Then you had one bad king, Ahaz,
that screwed everything up.
Then you have Hezekiah come back in and fix everything.
And he fixes everything, he's serving the Lord,
everything's great.
And then his idiot son, Manasseh, is just going to screw everything up now.
Next week, spoiler alert, but next week it's going to be a bad king, bad news for Judah.
And so there's a lot we can learn from the life of Hezekiah, and the final thought I just want to leave you with as we close
is just that often great victories in the Bible are followed by either great defeats or great challenges and ordeals.
And so victories are often followed by defeats.
So if you have a great spiritual victory,
let's say you just got your Bible reading on track,
you just got soul winning going,
you just got signed up for that mission strip,
you just got into your proverb of the day
and your Bible reading and you're reading the New Testament
and you're doing all that stuff.
And you're finally
feeling like you've got to handle on the Christian life and that things are going good.
You know what, just I wish I could tell you that it's going to be smooth sailing in 2025.
But I know from experience and I know from reading the Bible
that often that's when the devil and his minions will come
and throw a monkey wrench into your plans
and set you back and just, you know, mess things up.
But if Hezekiah can do it, we can do it.
We can get through it and whatever that I don't know what the devil's gonna throw at me in 2025
I don't know what he's gonna throw at you, but I know this
That the Lord will not tempt you above that you're able and that there's always gonna be a way of escape
There's always gonna be a way to win and so that's why I am totally confident that I can win that you can win
That we can win this year and every year
Okay, but just don't expect it to always be smooth sailing.
Don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trial,
which is to try you as though some strange thing happened
to you, okay?
Everybody's gonna go through it.
Let's borrow this and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for Hezekiah
and his godly example.
Thank you also for showing us that he wasn't perfect because we're not perfect either Lord help us to do our best and
To make sure that we're always fighting your battles so that you can fight our battles and Lord
We know that if you're with us, we're in the majority and that's all that matters
So Lord God, please just continue to bless our church bless us now personally as we go our separate ways and in Jesus name
We pray amen
Amen. Lastly, let's turn it in our hymnals to song number 152. Song number 152. Security.
More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Sing it out on the first.
And his will also surrender.
What he takes or what he gives us shows the mother's love so precious.
We may trust his purpose, O leave, dis his children.