He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. For he clung to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses (2 Kings 18:5-6).

This description of Hezekiah's faithfulnss to the LORD is one of the most remarkable in Scripture. His righteousness matches David's iconic rigteousness, and he is esteemed above kings before and after him. As an example for believers, Hezekiah would be a model leader to mimic. 

One particular phrase caught my attention in this description: "He clung to the Lord" (highlighted above). The Hebrew word is dabaq and is used also of a man leaving his mother and father in order to "cling" or "cleave" to his wife, so that they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). It highlights devotion and loyalty, the strogest of connections such that the fate of one is intimately tied to the other. Such devotion is beautifully expressed in the words of Asaph:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever (Psalm 73:25-26).

Friends, do we cling to the Lord? Is He our chief desire, or are we more enamored by earthly relationships and pursuits. What is the essence of our prayers? Do they echo the concern of the Lord Jesus, who prayed at the most agonizing juncture of His life, "Not my will but Your will be done"? If not, let us reexamine our faith and truly cling to the Lord.

--------------------

‘Have you not heard?
Long ago I did it;
From ancient times I planned it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps (2 Kings 19:25).

Speaking of the power and achievements of Assyria, the LORD clearly says that He did it; that is, He planned it and also brought it to pass. In other words, God was both the strategist and the enforcer. Assyria was simply His chosen tool, where any tool would do. 

Friends, someone has criticized small-minded thinking in believers. It is thought that believers should plan big things, pursue impossible dreams, and expect grand results. Why? Because God can do all these things. The problem is that such a perspective can limit the greatness of God by subjecting it to our whims. If we plan little things, pursue mediocre dreams, and expect simple results, are we by this in any way diminishing God's greatness? 

The Lord is great regardless of the littleness or greatness of our thoughts. He is not more exalted when we put Him to the test by pursuing impossible aims. Satan tried to deceive the Lord Jesus in this way (Matthew 4:1-11), but Jesus clearly answered Him with the clear perspective of Scripture: "Do not put the LORD your God to the test" (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16).

Friends, God's greatness is shown in us not by the greatess of our initiative but by the purity of our devotion to trust and obey Him. 

He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan (2 Kings 18:4).

The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived (Numbers 21:8-9).

There is a chronological span of 700 years between the original event in Numbers and Hezekiah's act in 2 Kings. Originally, God commanded Moses to make this bronze snake for a very particular time and purpose, namely, to heal those that were bitten by venomous snakes, which God brought to punish the Israelites for murmuring against God and Moses in the wildnerness. God never commanded the people to worship this image. In fact, it was explicitly prohibited in the Ten Commandments: 

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them (Exodus 20:4).

Yet, the people of Israel preserved the bronze serpent and "burned incense to it", which was an act of worship and devotion. Thus, in doing so they were committing idolatry and violating the command of God given to Moses in the Law. They took what God gave them for their good and turned it into an evil graven image. What was designed to remind them of God's mercy and cause them to worship the invisible God became a stumbling block, so that they worshipped the creature (the bronze snake) rather than the Creator God. 

Paul has a similar reflection on the condition of sinful man in the Book of Romans:

[They] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles (Romans 1:23).

Friends, let us not make evil of what God has given us for our good. Everything in creation is designed to glorify God and to help us see God as our supreme delight. Thus, we read, 

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands (Psalm 19:1).

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

This is why the first lesson of the Westminster Catechism asks, "What is the chief end of man?" and answers, "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." 

If at any point we confuse God's benefits for God, then we are guilty of idolatry. Everything we receive from Him must draw our affections back to Him, the Source of every good thing (cf. James 1:17). As the Psalmist declares, "Nearness to God is our good" (cf. Psalm 73:28 NASB). Therefore, in the same psalm, he declares,

Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever (Psalm 73:25-26).

Friends, what do we count as precious in this life? Is it our families? Is it our middle-class prosperity? Is it our health? No, it is none of these things. It is the Lord, for He is the strength of our heart and our portion forever. He is our chief delight for which everything else pales in comparison. He is our heart's desire, compared to which every other relationship looks like hate. This is God's purpose for everything and every relationship, that by them we can more fully enjoy Him in various and sundry ways.

What do we count desirable in heaven? Is it our salvation? Is it eternal bliss? Is it the freedom from the limitations of sin, sickness and death? All these are good, but they are empty and dark apart from the Lord. There is no salvation apart from God. There is no bliss apart from the joy of the Lord. There is no freedom from sin apart from His forgiveness. There is no power to heal and to live forever apart from the Source and Giver of life. It is in Him and from Him that all these good things flow.

Friends, let us not forget this. The LORD, He is our joy! Therefore, let us hold everything and every relationship loosely, so that idolatry might not be found in our hearts if ever God were to take away from us any of these things. Let us have the attitude of Job, who suffered the loss of his prosperity, his family, and his health, yet still declared, 

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
    may the name of the Lord be praised (Job 1:21).

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him (Job 13:15).

And if we find anything in our lives competing with our affections for Christ and our obedience to God, let us be willing to completely and decisively shatter it, just as Hezekiah shattered the bronze snake.

Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.

Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel and took its people captive. Then, it set its sights on Judah. We are told that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, successfully seized all the fortified cities of Judah and was en route to take Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah.

Hezekiah tried to appease Sennacherib by giving him whatever he demanded. But even after he gave this to the Assyrian king, rather than stopping Sennacherib's advance, it only emboldened him to demand the surrender of the capital city of Jerusalem. 

While we ennoble King Hezekiah, who declared his trust in the LORD in the face of the threats by the great Assyrian army, what we should understand is that this trust seemed to be of last resort. He had lost all the fortified cities of Judah to Sennacherib. He had enriched Sennacherib with all the temple gold and silver. What reason would Sennacherib have to keep Hezekiah alive even if he surrendered Judah. After all, since Sennacherib did not withdraw after receiving what was required from Judah, why would he show mercy to Hezekiah in surrender. Feeling cornered and having exhausted all earthly options, Hezekiah prayed to the LORD. 

It appears that if it were not for the Assyrian king's foolishness in proudly challenging the LORD, there may have been a different outcome. 

The LORD says through the prophet Isaiah, "Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you" (2 Kings 19:20). 

I wonder. Did Hezekiah not pray when the Assyrian king was besieging and capturing the surrounding fortified cities of Judah? Did he perhaps think that he could resist or repel the Assyrian army by his own strength or cunning? Were there seeds of pride here that would later appear again with the Babylonian envoy? Or having exhausted all other options, and even all the gold and silver, he was only left with prayer. 

But pray he did, and God answered his prayer. God answered Hezekiah's prayer in a grand display of sovereign power. God Himself decimated the Assyrian army (even 185,000 of them) in their sleep. Then, not long after, he took the life of Sennacherib, even as he was bowing before his false god.

Friends, let us not pray to the Lord as a last resort. Let us not live according to our own strength or wisdom but follow the Lord Jesus, who said, "I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me" (John 8:28). Peter also wrote for us,

If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen (1 Peter 4:11).

The point of this kind of God-dependent living is not to deny our humanity or freedom but rather to affirm God's sovereignty and give Him all the glory. When we carefully obey God's Word, we do this. When we humble ourselves and confess our helplessness, we do this. When we earnestly pray for His will to be done and His Name to be exalted in us, we do this. 

Hezekiah affirmed God's sovereignty and gave Him glory. Sennacherib did not. God always works in such a way that He is most glorified, for to do otherwise, He would be going against His very Nature. If we understand this, and all of Scripture gives repeated testimony to this, then this will govern all that we do in this life. We too will always work for God's greatest glory. This is also what it means to pray in such a way that we learn to align our wills with God's will. 

In every situation, whether easy or hard, let us be true to this calling. It does not matter if you live but a few years sheltered by cardboard walls extending from a pile of trash in a garbage dump in Mexico City or if you live many years in a magnificent penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows in Manhattan, our calling is the same. Whether rich or poor, whether hungry or well-fed, whether in hardship or in ease, we all have the same mission as Paul, who said, "For me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21).

 To God be all the glory!

Assyrian army marched against the northern kingdom, conquered the land and removed all the inhabitants out of the land. The conquest did not stop there and continued down south to devour Judah. King Hezekiah determined not to subjugate himself and Judah to Assyrian king at the time and, in consequence, all the cities and towns fell under Assyrians except for Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem is under siege and the Assyrian king demands complete surrender, blaspheming the name of the Lord, enticing people of Jerusalem to revolt against their king. King Hezekiah was a great, sincere, and godly king among many in Judah. Even today's text says,

"He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. ⁶ He held fast to the LORD and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses. ⁷ And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook."

King Hezekiah humbled himself before the Lord instead of asking and complaining to God why this foreign king was harassing him. God sent Isaiah and comforted him with prophecy about the Assyrian king,

"This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. ⁷ Listen! When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword."

Miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from the hands of Assyrians came just as the Lord said through His servant Isaiah. The formidable Assyrian army did not even shoot an arrow or build siege ramp against the city of David but many of their fighting men were killed by His angel. The Lord truly showed His mighty power to Israel and her enemy.

I once again realized that my godly life before the Lord is not a guarantee for absence of calamities, misfortunes, and all the negative things in my lives. My dad had a car accident and almost lost his life a couple of days ago. A truck ran into him at a full speed but barely missed him and hit the rear side where gas tank inlet is. If he had been hit directly, he wouldn't be here today on earth with us any more. I have been praying for his salvation for a long time. Now he goes to church at least even though he hasn't accepted Christ into his life yet. I know this happened to him for God's purpose that I can't see with my finite knowledge. We pray to God and tell Him about our dire life situation just as King Hezekiah did. Then God hears our cry and delivers us from whatever the formidable threats are. We may question why negative things are happening in our lives, being blinded by them and many times losing sight of His love and faithfulness. Let us not forget the truth that God really cares and His deliverance comes not maybe as fast as we expect but surely! If anyone goes through any difficulties, let us amass our strength to attain the victory that has been already secured on the cross!!

²⁵ " 'Have you not heard?
       Long ago I ordained it.
       In days of old I planned it;
       now I have brought it to pass,
       that you have turned fortified cities
       into piles of stone." - 2 Kings 19:25

Sometimes I forget that everything that has happened and will happen God already knows will take place.  Trusting completely in this fact can change the choices we make.  Would I resist "going through the desert" or weathering the seemingly bad circumstances I find myself in rather than being disobedient and not taking action or steps of faith because I am looking at how others who I may feel are less faithful are being blessed and aren't having to deal with the same hardships. How easy it is to fall in the trap of comparing one's faith to another's or what one has to another etc.  (Thou shalt not covet, right?  God knew.)

Even when, or rather especially when, we are going through our darkest times we may feel all alone but God is right there with us.  In fact he often leads us there to be tempted or tested in accordance with his great plan for our lives.  Sometimes it is the only way for us to grow in faith.  I am thankful for those times of hardships for the simple fact that God is with me wanting me to grow.  Blessings.