116 - The Divine Solution: Prayer Changes Things [C]

The Divine Solution: Prayer Changes Things. 2 Kings 19:14-19

In this chapter the emphasis is on how the prayer of Hezekiah changed the historical circumstances. Prayer is not just a psychological exercise that somehow makes us feel better because we have taken some time to meditate or to formulate some thoughts and therefore it helps us merely on the psychological basis to think differently about things. Prayer is communication with God based upon the principles that God has given us in His Word for how we are to come into His presence and how we are to communicate with Him. He has not only given us specific direct statements in Scripture to teach us how we should pray as we ought but He has also given us many examples in Scripture of prayers made by Old Testament saints and New testament saints that give us a pattern for prayer. There are many different kinds of prayers that we find in Scripture: prayers of confession, prayers simply of praise expressing adoration and awe for God and all that he has done, prayers of gratitude, prayers of intercessory petition where we are praying for others as well as prayers for one's own life and situations—supplication. Prayer can be long or rather short.

What we see again and again as we look at the prayers in the Scriptures is that they are well organized and well articulated. They are not necessarily prayers that are just on the spur of the moment, prayers that are just random ideas that come into the mind of the individual, but they are well thought out and well structured. That doesn't mean that every time we pray we have to spend fifteen or twenty minutes sitting down writing out a prayer and structuring it and organizing it, but on the other hand it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do that more often than we probably do do that. What we see in these prayers is that they have a consistent pattern of being grounded on certain promises, certain covenants that God has made with man in Scripture, and it is on the basis of those promises and covenants that the people of God in both Old and New Testaments go to God and outline an argument—like a legal argument, not an argument in the sense of a disputation but an argument in the sense of presenting a case for why God should act on their behalf, why God should intervene in the normal flow of history in order to change things. These prayers are crafted on the basis of prior revelation of God, so if we do not know the Word of God then we cannot pray effectively in this manner. It is interesting in the book of Acts how the apostles would take different elements from different psalms, put them together to form an appeal to God, to His grace, to His power, to His faithfulness and to act on their behalf.

Again and again what we see in the Scriptures is that the prayers focus on the character and attributes of God—praying for God to be faithful, praying on the basis of His omnipotence, His veracity, etc. This is exemplified in the prayer by Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19. One element of his prayer that we see is that it is effective and God intervenes in a miraculous way to solve the problem that is facing the southern kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem—specifically in this case that they have been surrounded by the armies of Sennacherib. They had been under siege for a lengthy period of time. Isaiah indicates that it had an impact on the economy of the southern kingdom for three years. The siege did not last that long but it lasted for some time, and this had laid waste to the economy. God answers Hezekiah's prayer and intervenes in history, changing what would normally happen.

A lot of times people, even though they may not be of a strong Calvinistic mindset, get influenced by a certain degree of fatalism: well God is in control, why should I pray for this and that? I don't know what God's plan is, I'm just not going to pray for things; and we somehow abuse the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and use that as an excuse not to pray, not to plead with God to change circumstances. James 4:2 ^NASB "…You do not have because you do not ask." He goes on to say that they ask for certain things but they ask wrongly, and because they were asking maybe for right things but in a wrong way from a wrong motivation; but he also condemns them because there are things they should have asked for that God would have granted and would have intervened in history to change things. Prayer really does change things, and we have a tendency to lose confidence in prayer. Many people end up taking prayer for granted.

Sometimes in a prayer meeting situation people don't feel comfortable praying out loud. People should not feel they are under compulsion to pray out loud when they go to a prayer meeting, they can just sit there quietly and pray to the Lord and that's fine, the Lord hears one way or the other. We have the promise in Scripture, too, that we don't always know how we are to pray for things or precisely what we ought to pray for, but we are to pray. We are also told that we are to pray for specific things, but God the Holy Spirit is the one who superintends our prayer life so that even when we pray for things and it is not quite right or we don't really understand the way things should be God the Holy Spirit somehow transmits those prayers in a way that makes them acceptable.

Hezekiah's second prayer in 2 Kings 19. The first prayer isn't really stated in the first verse, we are just told that he went into the house of the Lord and prayed. But then there is another circumstance. The Rabshakeh had come and had a meeting with Hezekiah's representatives and had emphasized that the Jews just couldn't trust God. They blasphemed and belittled God in their confrontation but Hezekiah's representatives were wise in that they said nothing. That was the immediate cause of Hezekiah's going into the temple for the first prayer covered in the first seven verses.   

But now there will be a second confrontation. Again the Rabshakeh's attack is formulated in theological terms. We have drawn the parallel between certain threats that the United States faces today from Islam, that this is a theological war from their perspective. They are on a mission the Koran sends the followers of Mohammed and Allah on, a mission to dominate the world, to bring all of the world into submission to Allah. Allah means submission, and if you are not in the house of peace/of Islam then you are in the house of war. The only place where Islam is a religion of peace is to those who are in the house of Islam or the house of peace. If you are not a Muslim you are outside of the house of peace and are in the house of war. So it is fine to lie, to cheat, to steal, to engage in any level of subterfuge in order to further the cause of Allah in this task of world domination. After Europe defeated the armies of Islam as they were trying to invade Europe there was about 400 years when Islam was unable to pull their act together and to attack the west. But that doesn't mean that they gave up on the concept. Now, since they have petrodollars to fund them, they are engaged once again in the task of world domination. The sad thing is that in the west we have be3come so deeply and profoundly secular that we cannot understand and comprehend a people that are energized and motivated so completely by a view of "God" and a theological system. So our leaders discount it because it is beyond their understanding, and so they compromise themselves at the very foundation of thought by denying the existence of God. Therefore they can't interpret reality correctly anymore and this opens us up to a very dangerous threat which has been going from the Shiites on since the overthrow of the Shah if Iran in 1979.

This is the same kind of thing that Hezekiah faced as he saw the rise of Assyria and is now at the tragic point of where they are actually under direct assault. Sennacherib phrases all of this within a theological context: your God can't save you; in fact He has deceived you by telling you he can protect you. We see the arrogance of Sennacherib here in thinking that he is more powerful than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He doesn't understand the real issue here, which is that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the one and only true God who is the creator God of the heavens and the earth and the God who rules in the affairs of men. 

Hezekiah now receives a letter from the hands of the messengers and we see his response. 2 Kings 19:14 ^NASB "Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD." He is not doubting God's ability to know what the circumstance is but he is emphasizing the seriousness of the circumstances. He wants God to be sure to understand that this is a serious situation in the life of Israel and what we see from the way Hezekiah is addressing God, he understands and wants God to understand that this is a threat to every promise that God has made to Israel through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in terms of the Abrahamic covenant, to Moses through the Mosaic covenant, and to David through the Davidic covenant. The foundation for understanding his prayer is to realize that Hezekiah is going to God as the God who has made these unconditional promises.

2 Kings 19:15 ^NASB "Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said, 'O LORD, the God of Israel, who are enthroned {above} the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth." We can learn a lot from this. It is not that we repeat exactly the way Hezekiah said this but it show us how he is crafting his thought and it reveals that there is a lot more going on in Hezekiah's mind than simply what he says. This is a very short prayer. [16]  'Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. [17] Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands [18] and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. [19] Now, O LORD our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.'" The prayer probably took about 30 seconds.

What we see here is that there is an initial address to God, v. 15. Then there is an appeal to God, v. 16. In v. 17 he reminds God or restates the past history of the Assyrian army and how they had been victorious, and then he comes to his conclusion in v. 19 expressing his petition to God.

First of all, his address to God focuses on the reality of this prayer. It is not some subjective prayer that is just some psychological or emotional exercise on the part of Hezekiah—which is how modern psychologists and psychologized religion wants to interpret prayer: something which has just subjective value. He addresses God as the Lord God of Israel; he uses the sacred name for God [YHWH], Yahweh. Whenever this name is used of God it is always associated with the Mosaic covenant, so this is the covenant name of God. Hezekiah prays to Him in terms of that name and identifies Him as the Elohim of Israel. He is appealing to God by using this phrase "the God of Israel" and it doesn't mean that God did not act on behalf of Gentiles who believed in Him but that God was in a specific covenant relationship with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and in that covenant relationship He had made certain promises to Israel. Then there was the third covenant, the covenant with the house of David, that one of David's descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever and ever. So the house of David could not be destroyed without endangering God's promise. All of this is embedded within this title, O Lord God of Israel; and then he expands on that and says, "who are enthroned between the cherubs." This is a reference to the ark of the covenant which was built to represent the holiness and righteousness of God. The cherubs in Scripture are always associated with protection of some sort and frequently with the holiness of God. In Exodus 25:22 ^NASB "There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel." Hezekiah is in the temple and he recognizes in that dispensation that God dwelt and was enthroned between the cherubim, and so he is in God's presence.

In poetry in the Old Testament cherubs are often used as a symbolical representations of the winds of heaven. So there are passages such as 2 Samuel 22:11 ^NASB "And He rode on a cherub and flew; And He appeared on the wings of the wind." We often see this relationship, this connection to the wind and to God coming in judgment. In Ezekiel 10:2, 7 there is mention also of the cherubs pouring out judgment upon a city, and this indicates part of their role as associated with judgment. Cf. Psalm 18:10. So when Hezekiah begins by emphasizing that He is the one who dwells between the cherubim this is tying it again to Israel, to God's presence in Israel and to His protection and judgment upon those who violate His covenant.

"You are God, you alone." This is another very important aspect that we see in the Old Testament, the emphasis that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the unique God. The word translated "alone" could easily be understood as "unique" or "one of a kind." He is the true God and what distinguishes Him from all of the other gods is that He is the one who made the heavens and the earth. He is distinct from the creation. What we see here is something that is unique and distinct and integral to the very person of God that we worship: He must be understood as the creator God in the way that he describes His creation in the Scripture. This is why creation is such a battlefield today, because in the Scripture this is one of the ways that God is distinguished from all of the other gods and this is what makes Him unique. Isaiah 45:18 ^NASB "For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it {and} did not create it a waste place, {but} formed it to be inhabited), "I am the LORD, and there is none else." Cf. Isaiah 40:18ff. 

Three observations:

1.  The uniqueness of the God of Israel cannot be separated from His identification with the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant and the Davidic covenant. The reason of bringing in the Davidic covenant is 2 Kings 19:34 ^NASB "For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake."

2.  The uniqueness of the God of Israel cannot be distinguished or separated from His role as the creator God who therefore has the right to rule in human history. Exodus 20:11 says that in six days God created the heavens and the earth. If God didn't create in six literal 24-hour days then the whole basis for the mandate to observe the Sabbath is destroyed. The whole law for the Sabbath is built upon an understanding that Genesis chapter one must be understood to speak of literal 24-hour days. The core of the Ten Commandments which is the sign of the Mosaic covenant, the Sabbath, is based on a literal understanding of Genesis chapter one, and this reverberates throughout the Old Testament. Exodus 31:17 ^NASB "It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased {from labor,} and was refreshed." Psalm 96:5 ^NASB "For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the LORD made the heavens." Jeremiah 32:17 ^NASB "Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You."

3.  Prayer presumes that God has the right to intervene in our lives and to change things. That is why Hezekiah is praying.

Conclusion: Prayer to the sovereign God of Israel is based on the literal reality of the Genesis account of creation. Hezekiah's verbiage comes right out of those passages in Exodus and Genesis chapter one.

The starting point of an effective prayer is understanding who you are praying to, and truly believing who He is as the God who can intervene in the affairs of history and human history, and truly provide solutions to the problems that we face.

Illustrations