Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrian army, and according to the logic of man, it was doomed.
In desperation, King Hezekiah took the surrender papers sent by Sennacherib, laid them out before the Lord, and there he prayed (Isaiah 37).
Hezekiah first looked to the glory of God’s presence, and that the God of heaven be seen for who He is: God of all the kingdoms of the world. Then Hezekiah asked God to look upon and listen to the contempt that Sennacherib had for His name.
It was customary for conquering kings to insult all the gods of the lands they had defeated. The Assyrians thus spoke of YHWH as if He were just another local god; one to join all the other idols that they had thrown into the fire—and anyway, who had stopped them to date?
God heard Hezekiah’s prayer.
In fact, the result was such, that any believer should recoil at the thought of underestimating the power of prayer!
Isaiah writes the staggering results of this prayer prayed in faith: “Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead” (Isaiah 37:36).
God had intervened, delivering His people from death. If He hadn’t, they would have died of starvation, disease, or eventual slaughter.
The forces of evil surround you and me too. Satan and his demonic armies are ever closing us in or closing us down. It may do us well to physically write out the evils that beset us daily, lay them before the Lord, and pray over them as Hezekiah did.
God hears and God does what needs to be done – No matter how big the forces that surround us may be!
John Staiger
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