{"id":222,"date":"2016-07-19T14:44:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T14:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/?p=222"},"modified":"2016-07-19T14:44:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T14:44:01","slug":"the-lord-your-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/?p=222","title":{"rendered":"The Lord your God"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Isaiah chapter 36 a mighty army of Assyria comes against Jerusalem. It is an army that the people have no hope of repulsing. It is so bad that the messenger from Assyria says to the people “How then can you repulse\u00a0a single captain<\/strong> among the least<\/span> of my master’s servants?<\/em>”<\/p>\n

What is worse, this message is delivered:<\/p>\n

Moreover, is it without the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0that I have come up against this land to destroy it?\u00a0The\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a message delivered by the messenger of a pagan nation to the people of God in Jerusalem. You see distance that the people have made between themselves and God in how Hezekiah, the King in Jerusalem, makes his request to Isaiah the prophet. The people, apart from God<\/p>\n

It may be that the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0your God<\/strong> will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0your God<\/strong> has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for\u00a0the remnant that is left.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The king of the nation of God’s people is saying “the Lord your<\/span><\/strong> God”, not “our” God, not “my” God or any such thing. He knows of the distance he himself\u00a0created.<\/p>\n

Isaiah sent the king back a message of encouragement. After that the king responded well in Isaiah 37:14-20.<\/p>\n

14\u00a0<\/span>Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the\u00a0Lord<\/span>, and spread it before the\u00a0Lord<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a015\u00a0<\/span>And Hezekiah prayed to the\u00a0Lord<\/span>:<\/span>\u00a016\u00a0<\/span>\u201cO\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0of hosts, God of Israel,\u00a0enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth;\u00a0you have made heaven and earth.<\/span>\u00a017\u00a0<\/span>Incline your ear, O\u00a0Lord<\/span>, and hear; open your eyes, O\u00a0Lord<\/span>, and see; and hear\u00a0all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.<\/span>\u00a018\u00a0<\/span>Truly, O\u00a0Lord<\/span>,\u00a0the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,<\/span>\u00a019\u00a0<\/span>and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.<\/span>\u00a020\u00a0<\/span>So now, O\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the\u00a0Lord<\/span>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is Hezekiah returning to God. There is no deal making here, only acknowledging the truth about the situation and the truth about God himself. The truth about God always trumps our situation. Humbly returning to God allows him to close the distance between us.<\/p>\n

Good news, the people were saved and you can see that Hezekiah re-entered a personal relationship the true God of all creation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Isaiah chapter 36 a mighty army of Assyria comes against Jerusalem. It is an army that the people have no hope of repulsing. It is so bad that the messenger from Assyria says to the people “How then can you repulse\u00a0a single captain among the least of my master’s servants?” What is worse, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}