Colossians 1:12-23, Jesus is the Image of God

III.                  Jesus is the image of God, Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3.

You may remember in a previous post we noted Jesus’ words to His disciples in Luke 24:39: “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”  We were talking about how God is “spirit” and is therefore invisible in His essential nature or form.  You may have wondered how Jesus could be God and yet have a body.  He was obviously human, having a body.

The answer to this is that Jesus was and is God who came to earth as a Man.  The Bible says that Jesus “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  God, who is by nature “spirit” took on the human form.  Jesus was “in the form of God” but humbled Himself, coming to earth “in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:5-8).  He was still fully God, but was now fully Man.  The Bible, speaking of Jesus, says in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form (Col. 2:9, NASV). 

How could this be?  The answer is that Jesus was “the image of God.”  Let me explain.  Jesus was a real man which means He was made in the likeness of God, just like Adam was.  But because Jesus was born of a virgin and conceived in her by the work of God (Luke 1:35).  Therefore, the image of God in Jesus was not marred by sin; He did not receive the sinful nature like we have at birth from our fathers.  Unlike Adam, Jesus lived a sinless life.  Because as a Man He was made in the likeness of God, and that likeness was not marred or damaged, there was no conflict between His Deity and His Humanity.

The next question is, why did God do this?  Why did God come to earth and take on the form of Man?  The answer takes us back to the Garden of Eden.  God had told Adam that in the day he ate from the forbidden tree he would die (Gen. 2:17).  Sin brought, and continues to bring, the judgment of death on sinful men.  Adam’s situation was hopeless.  He could not go back and undo his sin.  The only hope would be if someone else would be able and willing to take Adam’s punishment for him.  This One would have to have no sin; then He would not have to die for His own sin and could die for the sin of Adam and all the other sinners.

In Gen. 3:15 God promised just such a Man.  This promise was in words God said to Satan in the Garden of Eden: I (God) will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman (Eve), and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.   This One would be a Man because He is said to be the Seed of the woman. 

People began to hope for this Savior.  God gave instructions that people could show their faith in Him, that He would keep His promise, by sacrificing an unblemished animal as an act of worship.  The animal was not the Savior because it was not a human.  But this act would remind people that someday the Savior would come and would die for the sinner.  Generation after generation went by.  People continued to hope.  Several thousand years later people were still hoping for the Savior.  And finally the Savior came.  It was announced to shepherds on a hillside near the middle eastern village of Bethlehem: There is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Lk. 2:11).

Jesus of Nazareth, the One who was the very image of God, He was the Savior!

Gen. 3:1-6; Rom. 8:18-23, The Marring of our Likeness to God

II.                  Sin marred the image of God in all men, Gen. 3:6.

“Marred” is the best word I can think of to describe what happened.  Sin did not destroy this likeness to God in Man; we are still made in God’s image.  But it did do severe and significant damage. 

Sin, at its core, is lack of conformity to God.  When we sin we are not like God.  Adam sinned and became deeply sinful.  He was radically changed.  This radical change was passed on to his descendants.  How this happens is mysterious.  Some say it is done by God in judgment.  Adam was a representative for us, and when he failed then God afflicted Adam with a sinful nature and it became the norm for all humans thereafter.  Others suggest that in some way Adam was afflicted with the sinful nature and that nature is passed on at birth to every succeeding generation.

However it happened, it did happen.  Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned (Rom. 5:12).  For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners … (Rom. 5:19a).  We are still “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14), but David knew, “in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). 

The effect of sin in the lives of human beings is clearly evident.  Adam was supposed to rule over creation; instead, we now see ourselves as in bondage to creation (today’s Romans 8 passage speaks of this).  No longer in the Garden of Eden, Adam struggled with providing for himself from the earth (Gen. 3:17-19). 

Furthermore, Adam’s relationship with God changed for the worse.  He was now afraid of God and ashamed to be in His presence (Gen. 3:10).  Here is how the Bible describes humans in sin: But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).  The “natural man” is any and every person born into this world since Adam.  He thinks God’s truth is foolishness.  How different that is from Adam’s relationship with God before sin.  And something has happened to the “spiritual” part of our existence.  We are unable to discern what God says.  We must have help of some sort. 

We no longer have a desire to do right.  Our natural desire is to do wrong.  There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God … there is none who does good, no, not one.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:10-12,23).  Even the writer of Ecclesiastes could look around him and see the same thing: For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin (Eccles. 7:20).  Mankind is defective, powerless to properly rule God’s creation, unable to know God and God’s truth; unable to have a relationship with Him.  The situation seems hopeless.

Gen. 1:24-31, Made in God’s Image (2)

What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

·       Another way Man is like God is that we are able to understand right and wrong.  Again, go back to the very beginning in the Garden of Eden.  God was able to provide Adam with an opportunity to obey or disobey.  It was simple then: do not eat of the tree in the midst of the Garden.  The Apostle Paul would tell us later that God placed His moral law in Humans; he referred to it as their “conscience” (Rom. 2:12-16).  Adam could understand accountability.  This is the way God “thinks” if you will, and He made man to be a “moral” creature.  Animals do not have this.  In the Bible, if a man/person/human acts in total disregard of morality that one is said to be like a “natural brute beast” (Jude 1:10; 2 Pt. 2:12).  The word “brute” means they lack or are contrary to reason.  The word “beast” refers to something that has life.  If you put the two together, you have an animal, your dog, the deer that eat in our back yard, etc.  They lack reason and they are not moral creatures.

·       Another thing we can say about God and Man is that both have an emotional element.  What do we mean by this?  God has the capacity to love, to rejoice, to sorrow, to be angry and so forth.  This in no way means that God is “flakey” or inconsistent, driven by emotions.  That is a problem that sin has brought upon Mankind but it is not fundamental to being an emotional person.  This is so important for us.  Again, your pet does not have this ability.  You feed your pet; thus your pet is tightly connected to you.  But your pet does not love you.  If that is your definition of love then you, again, are being like a brute beast.  Instincts are at work when the deer are mating in the Fall; it’s not love.  To be “in rut” is a physical thing, not emotional.  Instincts are at work when the grizzly is chasing the herd and the doe separates from “Bambi.”  It's not a moral failure on the part of the rest of the herd if they do not protect the weak ones.  The dog’s wagging tail is a physical response to some stimulus; the dog does not experience the deep joy a human can experience when he or she is at peace with God.

·       Here’s another thought, and it relates to all we have said: Man, like God, is spiritual.  Man is also physical, given a body with all it’s intricacies.  But that body is home to an “inner man.”  We are not talking simply about the “soul.”  The soul is that part of the inner man that connects the Man with the rest of creation.  Man is a living being.  But beyond that is the “spirit” of the Man, that which connects the Man with his Creator.  Man is a spiritual being. 

If you want to know what it is like for a Person, made in God’s image, to live from day to day, you must look at Gen. 2.  That’s the only place.  It involves Man from the time he was created until Gen. 3 when the Man disobeyed God.  From that point on it all changed, and definitely, not for the better!

Gen. 1:26-27; 2:15-24, Made in God’s Image

You may have noticed we have been a bit tardy lately in our posts.  It is the Christmas season so I could lay the blame on that.  We have, as we hope you have, spent time with family, making a circle around the western half of Montana in order to visit family.  If the different parts of the clan can’t all get together for the usual clan celebration then it seems to fall on the parents/grandparents to see them all.  So, we put a lot of miles on and thank the Lord for His protection.

But the larger reason for our disorganization is an ongoing medical situation with our daughter.  Her complicated issues go back a long time, but then on Monday night after Christmas an infection caused some very dangerous symptoms.  We are thankful to the Lord that He brought her through this.  And in addition, we thank the Lord that the situation led the medical folks to take some major steps in her care that needed to be done.  They had been hesitant, fearing that the she would not be able to handle the procedure, but she came through well and we are thankful. 

Why get personal now?  After all, this blog is not much about our personal lives (outside of the trips to Israel).  We mention it in order to ask for prayer for her and her family that loves her deeply.  Certainly, pray for her healing.  But more, pray for her submission to God.

I would like to finish 2022 and begin 2023 with a simple gospel presentation.  It is based on the concept of “the image of God.”  It is a simple presentation, but will take some time to consider the realities of the Gospel message.

I.                  All men are made in the image of God, Gen. 1:26-27.

To be created in God’s image means that men/humans are like God in some way.  The first thing we should understand is that the “image of God” is not physical.  The reason is simple: God, by nature, is not physical.  Jesus Himself said this: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).  What does it mean to be “spirit?”  Again, Jesus said to His disciples after His resurrection, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.  Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Lk. 24:39).  In other places the Bible is clear, that God is by nature invisible.  “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Tim. 1:17; cf. also Col. 1:15 and Heb. 11:27).

But what can we say positively about our likeness to God?  There is not some place in the Bible where there is a list of these “likenesses.”  But I believe there is clarity on this subject.  For one thing, we could think about the differences between animals and humans.  Human are the only ones said to be “in the image of God.”  Humans are not simply more well-developed beasts.  They are uniquely created by God.  Having said that, consider these things.

·       The context of God’s announcement that man was made in His image (Gen. 1:26-27) also says that God gave man dominion over the rest of creation.  The Creator gave Man this dominion.  It was God’s, because He is the Creator; and He made Man to be able to rule as He does.  We are like God in this way.

·       An amazing thing (you may have missed it because it is so simple) is that in the Garden of Eden God communicated with Man.  Have you ever wondered what it would be like for creatures from outer space to land on earth.  Would we be able to communicate with them?  The question would not be, do we speak the same language?  It is so much deeper than that.  We would need to know if they understood “truth” as we understand it.  Do the words they use have the same meaning as the words we use?  When they talk about “trees” to they have the same thing in mind that we have?  Is there a planet like ours in this regard?  (By the way, I do not believe this will ever happen; I believe that the Creator has indicated to us that humans on earth are unique in the universe.)  But now think about Adam being able to understand God’s words.  He must have been made to think like God thinks.  Call it “rationality” if you want.  But the point is we are made like God to understand Him and to talk with Him and hear Him.  The Bible calls this “fellowship with God.”  We were made for this.

2 Chron. 32:22-33, Isa. 38:9-20, Hezekiah Tested

A key interpretive passage of these events of Hezekiah’s life is 2 Chron. 32:31: However, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, whom they sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart. 

Like Abraham (Gen. 22:1), God tested Hezekiah to see what was in his heart.  Because of Hezekiah’s faithful stand in the Assyrian situation, Hezekiah was rewarded with great possessions and glory (cf. 2 Chron. 32:27-30).  But then Hezekiah became ill and God told him he was going to die.  Hezekiah pled with God and God extended his life by 15 years.  Because of the sickness the Babylonians had sent ambassadors with a gift to Hezekiah.  Hezekiah’s response to these men was to show them all his wealth, a revealing of the pride in his heart.  Thus, God told Hezekiah that the day would come when the Babylonians would take all that wealth for themselves, but not until after Hezekiah died.

There are two passages that give us insight into Hezekiah’s response to this test.  The first is Hezekiah’s prayer for healing: Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight (2 Ki. 20:3).  His attitude was that he deserved better from God.

The second passage is his response to God’s promise to heal him, found in Isa. 38:9-20.  Again, v10-14 emphasizes how terrible his death would have been.  He was in the “prime of life,” and if he were to die he would no longer be able to praise God.  As you read on, however, you see that God’s testing of Hezekiah also was beneficial for the great king.  There is a deep view of suffering in v17.  It includes a great picture of forgiveness: God “cast all my sins behind Your back.”  Our sins have been placed in that “middle of the back” spot that you cannot reach.  God has forgiven and will not bring them up again.  It concludes, as do many of the Psalms, with a promise to give praise for the rest of his life. 

What Hezekiah experienced is, as 1 Cor. 10:13 puts it, “common to man.”  Even when we know that our accomplishments and deliverances are solely the work of God, we still cannot help ourselves.  We begin to think that somehow we are responsible for our successes, that it was our hard work or good investments or our “being in the right place at the right time.” 

I recently spent a little time in Psalm 105, and in the opening verses was reminded of what must be our attitude toward our successes.  The question is, “how do we make God known to those around us?” (105:1).  We sing and talk of His works (v2), and we seek the LORD and His strength in times of struggle (v3-4).  For the children of Israel there was a specific work of God they needed to always remember.  That “work” was His keeping the promise He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ((v8-10ff).  That is exactly what God did for Hezekiah.  He saved them from the Assyrians who had dispersed the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  He kept His word.  That is what needs to be the testimony of our lives.  God has been faithful to His word.  We live out of His great and precious promises.  Let us remember that and declare this to those around us.

2 Kings 20:1-11, Biblical Chronology

To begin our final posts on Hezekiah we should talk about something that I suppose should have been considered in the very beginning.  It is a subject that befuddles me to say the least.  It has to do with the chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah.  I have limited myself to the Biblical clues on this matter as we have studied Hezekiah.  So when we said, for example, that Hezekiah in the first month of his reign began to restore the temple, that is what it means (2 Chron. 29:3).  When 2 Chron. 29:1 says he was 25 years old when he became king and reigned 29 years, that is what happened. 

There are some Biblical scholars who believe there are several coregency situations, particularly in the kings of Judah, where the reign of one king overlapped with his father or son.  I recently began to look through the “Regnal Chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel” by Chris McKinny.  This led me to go back and renew my familiarity with the Biblical chronology of Edwin R. Thiele whose great work, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (pub. 1951) is considered by many to be the “final word” on the subject. 

Without going into great detail, I came across this recently: four things that must be considered in chronology of kings (according to Thiele).

1.    Which calendar was in use when the Bible says Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king?  Was it the religious calendar (established by Moses when Passover was established, Ex. 12:1-2; first month Nisan, around April)?  Or was it the agricultural calendar where the Jewish New Year was in the fall, around October (first month Tishri)?  To me, if Scripture is not clear, the difference between the two would not be particularly significant.

2.    Usually, the new king’s reign did not start on New Year's Day, whether that day was in Nisan or in Tishri, but at some other time in the year. Was this first partial year to be considered as year one of the monarch (called non-accession reckoning), or as year zero (accession reckoning)? Again, in my view, if Scripture was not clear on this, the effect would be minimal. 

3.    Several Scriptural references indicate that the reigning king, especially in Judah, established his son as coregent during his lifetime. There is some evidence of something similar to this in Scripture.  For example, David had Solomon anointed before he died.  We don’t know exact dates but it doesn’t seem to be very long.  King Azariah of Judah became a leper (2 Ki. 15:5) and his son Jotham was over the affairs of the royal house from then until Azariah’s death.  Again, the exact number of years for this is unknown in Scripture.  Rehoboam appointed Abijah to be leader over his brothers in anticipation of being king (2 Chron. 11:22).  In my view, these do not establish a regular practice of “coregency.”  Nor are these necessarily “coregency” relationships.  In David’s case, anointing Solomon could have ended the 40 years of David’s reign and started the 40 years of Solomon’s reign.  In Rehoboam’s case, appointing Abijah was just a “grooming” of his son for the responsibilities of king. 

a.     In the case of Hezekiah, the “coregency” may have been much longer, even though there seems to be no Biblical case for it.  In the case of Thiele, Hezekiah reigned 29 years, (716-687 BC), with the last 10 years in a coregency with his son Manasseh who became king upon Hezekiah’s death. 

b.    McKinny goes further.  He sees Hezekiah as co-regent with his father Ahaz for 14 years (729-715 BC), then 29 years as king of Judah (715-686 BC), with the final 10 years being in coregency with Manasseh.   

c.     These years of Hezekiah before and after the primary record of his life in Scripture seem to me to confuse the story, and do not in my view have a valid basis.  Both Ahaz and Manasseh were extremely wicked kings.  Hezekiah has no observable effect on either of them, which would indicate he was not a “king” in either coregency situation.  It also raises questions about the concluding events of Hezekiah’s reign: his illness, the extension of his life by 15 years, and the resulting visit of the Babylonian envoys.  If Manasseh was 12 when he became king, does that not mean he was born during the time of the extension of Hezekiah’s life?  That would not be the case if Manasseh’s 55 years of rule began 10 years before Hezekiah’s ended.

4.    Another question to be considered about the years of the kings is where the Hebrew kingdoms used the same calendar or same “year of ascension” formula.  But again, it seems this is not a particularly significant issue. 

What is the point of all this?  For me it goes to both the truth of Scripture and the usefulness of Scripture.  In the issue of Creation/Evolution I always want to avoid the perceived necessity to conform Scripture to what Science says (not what Science has discovered by the true Scientific Method but just what people of science claim to know).  Likewise in archaeology and history I want to avoid the demand of some to adjust the chronology of Scripture to conform with what historians have claimed to be true.  I am willing to study these things out, but in the end, I am going to use the Bible as my ultimate and absolute guide.  The archaeologist and historian will have to continue to plug away at their skills.  As we have often seen, more digging reveals new facts.

Psalm 96

Again, what a blessing to be in the Psalms.  This great Hymn not only leads us to praise; it teaches us what our lives are all about.  Let us begin with the immediate context.  Israel was called to witness to God’s greatness and glory, a message that was to go to all the nations.  That is the essence of this song.

·         96:1-3: The redeemed are called to sing a new song, a song that proclaims the good news of salvation and the glory of the name of the Lord! This proclamation is to go to all the earth, among the nations and all peoples.

·         96:4-6: This song would simply be the expression of the way it is.  The Lord alone is great for the Lord alone made the heavens.  He is real!  All the gods of the people are idols (Heb. eliyl, meaning nothing, good for nothing, vain, worthless).  But God made the heavens.  Honor, majesty, strength and beauty fit Him perfectly.

·         96:7-9: Thus the families of the peoples are called to come join in the worship of the Lord, to tremble before Him, to give Him the glory due His name.

·         96:10-13: The one thing the nations need to know is it is the Lord who reigns and He is therefore the One before whom they will stand when He judges the people righteously.  The rest of creation will rejoice to see that day!

What a great testimony!  And in a sense it is not that complicated.  Just call attention to Him, giving Him the glory for the good things of life.  As a matter of fact, this approach to witnessing was practiced by the Apostle Paul and is thus commended to us in our context.  I am talking about Acts 17 in his sermon on Mars Hill.  But it’s not necessarily a sermon; he is bearing testimony, giving God the glory. 

·         17:22-23: Gentiles (the nations, the families of the peoples) tend to be religious.  But they have not found the true God.  Yet!

·         17:24-28:  The true God made everything and gave life to all.  He is, as the Psalmist said, a God of honor, majesty, strength and beauty.  He has made us and enriched our lives so that we might seek Him.

·         17:29: They ought not to think God is like their useless images.

·         17:30: Rather they should repent, turn away from that ignorance and turn to the true God.

·         17:30: Because the day is coming when they will stand before the judge, the Man who was God come in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see how the Apostle declared God’s glory to the nations.  That is how our testimony should begin: by word and deed that indicates we are living for the glory of God!  Declare His glory among the nations.  Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.  For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised.  Like Israel we, the redeemed Church, are God’s witnesses to the nations. 

And finally, this is Christmas, of course.  We have not changed our approach to Sunday posts.  But sure enough, Psalm 96 speaks to the glory of the birth of Christ.  The Incarnation was a great declaration of God's glory to the nations.  Apart from Christ's coming to earth there is no hope for Israel or the nations.  This Psalm should be a blessed meditation on this day.

Micah 1:8-16; Nahum 1:14-15, Prophecy Fulfilled!

What a terrifying thing it should have been for Sennacherib to know that the LORD had heard how he belittled the God of Israel (19:28).  Verses 29-34 give God’s specific response in this situation.  First, outside of Jerusalem, in the Judean countryside, which had been devastated by the Assyrians, there will be a return to normal life (planting and harvesting).  Those of Judea who escaped will again “take root.”  This “remnant” for the most part was sheltered in Jerusalem (v31) and so would “escape from Mount Zion.”  The certainty of this is bound up in one fact: The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. 

Second, the LORD prophecies concerning Sennacherib himself.  The LORD says that the king of Assyria will not enter Jerusalem nor even build a siege mound.  Remember that when Isaiah utters these words for the LORD a massive Assyrian army is camped outside of Jerusalem.  But the prophecy is that Sennacherib will return home the way he came.  And the certainty of this prophecy is that God will do it for His own glory AND for the glory of David.  God had promised an everlasting King on the thrown of David; if Sennacherib were to take the city certainly the line of David would be obliterated.

Before we move on to the fulfillment of these prophecies I want to make reference to two other prophets.  Micah also prophesied during this time.  He spoke of this Assyrian situation in Mic. 1:8-16.  He refers to several cities that were taken by the Assyrians, including Gath (Philistine city), Lachish and Moresheth Gath.  The cities he mentions were in the Judean hill country and the lowland, although the exact locations do not exist for several of them. The key part of the prophesy is that Micah says twice that trouble and disaster have come “to the gate of Jerusalem” (v9,12).  This would be a good time to return to “Sennacherib’s Prism” where the king detailed his successes in the invasion of Israel (we posted pictures of this in our 12/16/22 post).  He talked about taking many captives and destroying fortified cities.  And then he said concerning Jerusalem, “He (Hezekiah) himself I locked up in Jerusalem his royal city, like a bird in a cage.”  Every time I read that I want to laugh out loud!  Sennacherib spoke accurately but twisted the truth.  He never did enter the city.

The other prophet is Nahum.  He predicted the fall of Assyria.  In Nah. 1:14 he says of Assyria, The LORD has given command concerning you: ‘Your name shall be perpetuated no longer.  Out of the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the molded image.  I will dig your grave, for you are vile.’  God will always glorify Himself and He will not share His glory with any other so-called ‘god’ because they are not gods.  I see this fulfilled in the death of Sennacherib.

·       2 Ki. 19:35-37: God’s word fulfilled.

First, the LORD devastated the army of the Assyrians, 185,000 in one night.  Then Sennacherib went home, having never entered Jerusalem.  And then two of his sons killed him while he was worshiping in the temple of his gods.  That is what Nahum said.  The LORD would be glorified by the weakness of Assyria’s gods.  How weak these gods who cannot even protect their man in their own house.

Isaiah 37:21-35, The Explanation of All Things Good or Bad

·       2 Ki. 19:20-34: God’s response to Hezekiah.

Hezekiah went to the temple and spread out the letter of Sennacherib before the LORD.  The first thing Isaiah says in response, speaking for the “LORD God of Israel” is that God has heard because Hezekiah prayed.  According to the word of God, prayer is effective!  Forgive me for not entering into a lengthy discourse on understanding the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.  What I must do is believe what God’s word tells me, and this response from God affirms what the Epistle of James says: The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (Jas. 5:16).  The obvious “other side of the coin” here is that if Hezekiah had not prayed, the LORD would not have heard, which also fits our brother James: you do not have because you do not ask (Jas. 4:2).

God’s response in this matter allowed the people of Judah and Jerusalem to mock the Assyrian king (19:21) who mocked God, the Holy One of Israel (v22-24).  Let me refer again to the famous “Song of Moses” (Dt. 32), where God promised Israel that after her sin and rebellion and being removed from the land, He would still honor His name by bringing judgment on Israel’s enemies.

Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; their foot shall slip in due time; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things to come hasten upon them.  “For the LORD will judge His people and have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power is gone, and there is no one remaining, bond or free (Dt. 32:35-36).

Consider those words and the situation Hezekiah faced.  Certainly, the power of Judah was gone.  They were no match for the Assyrians, as the Rabshakeh had said.  By crying out to the LORD Hezekiah brought into the matter the God who is the Judge of the whole earth.  And His justice is true justice. 

The LORD then laid out the truth.  According to 2 Ki. 19:25-26, the Rabshakeh was correct in saying that YAHWEH had sent the Assyrians to Israel and Judah to carry out His, YAHWEH’s judgment.  Sennacherib was God’s servant.  But then it went to his head.  In his arrogance Sennacherib exalted himself above the LORD (19:27-28).  Again, note how this fits Deut. 32: Had I not feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is high; and it is not the LORD who has done all this’ (Dt. 32:27).

Let us pay attention here.  Take the United States for example.  We look back in our history and believe that God has protected and used this country.  This is not just my idea; it was a popular thought throughout our history.  But we don’t talk at all like that today.  Today our greatness is because by our own ingenuity we have the greatest economy in the world and the greatest military and we are the most generous nation and so forth.  We give God no credit.  We are on borrowed time.

Take modern Israel as an example.  It was a miracle that there were enough Jews left after the Holocaust to establish a nation.  We believe God worked to bring about the return of Israel as a nation.  He used a Christian nation, the United Kingdom, in special ways to bring about the Balfour Declaration.  He used another Christian nation, the USA, to bring about a positive vote in the UN, giving Israel status as a nation.  There is tremendous evidence that in 1948 (War of Independence), 1967 (6-Day War) and 1973 (Yom Kippur War) Israel received supernatural help to win against tremendous odds.  Yet, that is not what one hears in Israel among the populace, the media, even the governing officials.  It all gets explained in human terms.

Let us take ourselves now.  Are we an example of people God has blessed, only to have us give the credit to ourselves, our educators, our doctors, or our political parties and platforms?  As my life moves on (I am now 75 years old) I see the temptation in this area more and more.  The explanation of our blessings as well as our difficulties must be centered on the glory of God.  God is always at work in us, to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

Isaiah 37:8-20, It Is ALWAYS for God’s Glory!

·       2 Ki. 19:10-13: Sennacherib’s letter to Hezekiah.

There were two prophecies declared by Isaiah.  The first, that the king of Assyria would return to his own land, came true immediately (19:36).  The second, that the king would fall by the sword in his own land, happened sometime after he arrived at home (19:37).  The king returned to Assyria, but before he left there was another “disaster” from the LORD (2 Ki. 19:35).

Before leaving Jerusalem, the king wrote a letter to make sure Hezekiah knew that he was not off the hook.  Sennacherib did not play the card, “oh, the LORD has sent me to judge you,” as had been said earlier (18:25).  Instead, the king boldly ridiculed Hezekiah’s God, declaring Him to be no more of a “God” than any other “god” that faced the Assyrians and were defeated. 

Suffice it to say, we need to understand the events of our lives, all of them, in terms of how they exalt or demean the Lord.  It is not always as clear as it was in the words of Sennacherib.  When an unexpected financial or relationship or health event takes place, we need to seek to understand how God’s honor is at stake, and pray accordingly.  Our God tells us to “be anxious for nothing” (Phil. 4:5), to fear Him and no one else (Matt. 10:28), and to please Him in all things (Col. 1:10).  “Nothing, no one and all” are terms that tell us God’s glory is ALWAYS at stake.

·       2 Ki. 19:14-19: Hezekiah’s prayer.

Aren’t you encouraged by Hezekiah’s every move?  Upon receiving the letter, he went to the house of the LORD, letter in hand.  And he spread it out before the LORD.  The entire matter, all that Sennacherib said, was being brought to the LORD.

The prayer itself is “classic” and powerful.  When we say “classic,” we mean it is the way we are supposed to pray: he addresses God in a way that fits the situation.  Hezekiah is at the temple, the house of the LORD, which is His resting or dwelling place on earth.  The exact place of God’s dwelling was over the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, between the golden cherubim that were one piece of gold with the mercy seat (Ex. 25:19-22).

He also addressed God as the only God of all the kingdoms of the earth.  Every nation had their “god.”  But only Israel’s God was truly God.  Specifically, He was the God who made heaven and earth. 

Isa. 40:25-26: “To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing.  40:28: Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.  His understanding is unsearchable.

Isa. 45:18: For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’

When you come to the Lord with your burdens, do you pause to think what it is about your God that makes Him the exact One that you need to cry out to in your need?  That is how the men of God did it.  They meditated on God, they knew God, and out of this they addressed Him accordingly.

Isa. 37:1-7, Hezekiah Calls Out to the LORD’s Prophet

·       2 Ki. 19:1-4: Hezekiah’s message to Isaiah.

Having heard the report of his advisors, Hezekiah humbled himself and went to the temple.  Remember how Hezekiah, in the first month of his reign, began to restore the temple.  It is now several years later, but he still has the attitude that he must first go to the LORD!  Torn clothes and sackcloth are not the normal apparel of kings; but it is always the “heart apparel” of those who seek God.  Oh, that I might be that man!

It was intended that the King would hear from God through the mouth of the prophet.  But Hezekiah was not about to leave the temple, the “house of the LORD,” the LORD’s “resting place” (Ps. 132:8).  One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple (Ps. 27:4).  So Hezekiah stayed at the temple and sent Eliakim and Shebna to inquire of Isaiah.

You might say from v3 that Hezekiah “has a way with words.”  But I would suggest that these are words that come from deep within a burdened heart.  Cast your burden upon the LORD, and He shall sustain you (Psa. 55:22a).  But I would also say that Hezekiah came with a “strong argument.”  I like to call it “leverage” with the LORD.  Isaiah was the prophet through whom the LORD said, “I, even I, am the LORD, and besides Me there is no savior” (Isa. 43:11); and “I am the LORD, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images” (Isa. 42:8).  Hezekiah knows this; he has listened to God’s prophet.  So his prayer is perfect: perhaps when the LORD hears what the Rabshakeh said, He will rebuke those words.

·       2 Ki. 19:5-9: Isaiah’s response to Hezekiah.

Isaiah’s answer is fairly brief, and it seems that he has already heard from the LORD; it doesn’t take long to answer Hezekiah. 

Do not be afraid …

the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

Oh, how God stands with His people!  The Rabshakeh made it a point to not only threaten Hezekiah; he proclaimed his terrifying message to all the people on the wall who would eat their own fecal matter and drink their own urine (Isa. 36:12).  But he is threatening the people whom God calls the “apple” or “pupil” of His eye.  A later prophet, Zechariah, would tell the post-exile people, “For thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘He sent Me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye” (Zech. 2:8).  That Messianic prophecy is a fulfillment of the promise in the great Song of Moses (Deut. 32), where God reminds Israel how He “found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye” (Dt. 32:10).  David prayed for this: “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings” (Psa. 17:8).  Hezekiah was on solid ground.  And He knew it.  If we live for God’s glorious name, if we “seek first His kingdom,” we too will be on solid ground when we cry out to our Lord!

2 Kings 19:1-13, Exalting the Name of the LORD

The Assyrians were arrogant in speaking of the God of Israel.  Their mistake was that they made God the issue.  “Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” (2 Ki. 18:32b-35).  The Rabshakeh was only concerned with making known the greatness of his king. 

King Hezekiah, on the other hand, was concerned with making known the greatness of his King, his God!  That put Hezekiah in the right place, because God, out of His love for mankind, wants to make His name known!

Jer. 32:20: You have set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, to this day, and in Israel and among other men; and You have made Yourself a name, as it is this day.

Isa. 64:1-2: Oh, that You would rend the heavens!  That You would come down!  That the mountains might shake at Your presence – as fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil – to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence.

John 17:6,26: “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world … And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

You might think that our God must be a bit egotistical.  But you would be wrong.  He does this because, Those who know Your name will put their trust in You; for You, LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you (Ps. 9:10).  God is the Creator, and He is the only hope for sinners, those who live in rebellion against Him.  They need to know His name, who He is and what He requires of them, and how He loves them and has provided for their salvation.  There is great benefit for those who trust in His name:

Ps. 54:1: Save me, O God, by Your name, and vindicate me by Your strength.

Ps. 91:14: Because he has set his love upon Me, there I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.

Ps. 124:8: Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Here’s what happened.  First, Hezekiah sent messengers to Isaiah, telling him the situation (2 Ki. 19:1-4).  Isaiah prophesied relief would come, and the Assyrians decided to leave Jerusalem.  But before leaving King Sennacherib sent Hezekiah a letter with more threats (19:5-13).  Hezekiah spread the letter out before the LORD, and prayed over it (19:14-19).  God responded in word (19:20-34), and His word was fulfilled (19:35-37).  We want to spend a little time on all this in future posts.  But the point now is that what Hezekiah did, after the Assyrians demeaned the LORD, was to exalt the name of the LORD.  Both made the LORD the issue.  The one who exalted the name of the LORD was the one who was helped!

2 Ki. 18:23-35, Inducements to Give In to the Devil

The commander of Assyria has questioned the “confidence” of the leaders of Jerusalem.  As inducements he offers them more horses than they need (v23), reminds them that they are no match for the Assyrian power (v24), and tells them that it is their God, YAHWEH, who has brought him to Jerusalem to destroy it.  This is a reminder of their sin and how much they deserve the wrath they had been receiving.  They are being told that their God is actually against them.

This reminds me of the temptations of Satan.  They should: both the Rabshakeh and Satan have a plan to get God’s people not to trust in God.  When we are in a trial, rather than wait on the Lord, we might be tempted to take an unrighteous shortcut and leave the narrow path.  We might think the shortcut will improve our financial bottom line.  I remember a time, years ago, when we were tempted with putting our trust in the government for our daily needs (“its there for you; just take it") rather than to put our trust in God who had proven Himself.  It was an important time in our lives to learn of God’s desire to “give us this day our daily bread.”

Satan might also seek to entice us with the thought that the problem we are facing is just too difficult.  Do you remember when, on two occasions, David fled to the Philistines for protection when he was running from King Saul?  The first time (1 Sam. 21:10-15) he had to fake insanity and cry out to God (Ps. 56) for help.  The second time (1 Sam. 27:1) almost put him in a position where he had to fight with the Philistines against Israel.  Both times David gave in to fear of Saul, rather than trusting God who had told him he would be king someday. 

Satan, called in Scripture “the accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10), likes to remind us that we are sinners, undeserving of any help from God.  Of course, we are undeserving.  That’s why we are dependent on the grace and mercy of God.  But if Satan can keep us from meditating on the Lord Jesus Christ who is the grace of God in bodily form (Titus 2:11), then he can lead us into discouragement.  In that state of mind we will not stand up for Christ in our world.  This was a part of the attack on our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Yet he stayed the course.  He put His confidence in His Father. 

I see in this story the usual three enticements of 1 John 2:15-17.  Two thousand horses: that’s the lust of the eyes, the things in which we trust.  Fear of the enemy: that’s the lust of the flesh, the feelings we allow to overcome us.  Discouragement: that’s the pride of life, when we depend on our own righteousness to earn God’s goodness rather than depending on God’s love and grace.  Satan would have us do anything but say, as our Commander announces, “not My will but Thine be done.”  The commanded announced these same things to the people on the wall (18:27-35).  Their response was to be silent.  There’s no arguing with the devil.  As the people obeyed their King (18:36) so we must steadfastly wait upon the Lord!  “Submit to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

Psalm 95

What a wonderful Psalm again we have for meditation.  Let us consider the progress of the Song.

·         95:1-5 are a call to loud, joyful praise.  The people are to come and with great energy to worship the great God … the great King above all gods.  How great is our God?  The deepest valleys and highest hills of earth are His.  The sea and the dry land are His.  It is His for He made it!  And it is all His because He had no help.  He shares His glory with no one else.

·         95:6-7a are a call to humble submission before our God.  He is the same One: the One who made us.  We bow before Him because He is the great King.  We graze in His pasture and we are fed from His hand.  What a great King He is when we realize how blest we are to be in His kingdom/flock.

Before we note the last part of the Song let us remember Jesus Christ.  Everything said about the Lord in the opening verses (v1-7) is true of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The Bible makes it clear.  He is the Creator.  Everything was made by Him, through Him and for Him (Col. 1:19).  No one helped Him; without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3).  He is the King whose every enemy will bow (Phil. 2:9-11).  He is our great God and Savior (Titus 2:13).

It is no surprise then that the writer of Hebrews referred to the admonition at the close of this great Hymn.  Ps. 95:7b-11 are quoted in its entirety in Heb. 3:7-11.  The concern in Hebrews is that people who seemed to have come to trust or rest in Christ will turn from Him and go back to that which never did nor ever could give them rest.  Through our great Savior, a great salvation has been provided (Heb. 2:3).  To turn away from that salvation is to denigrate the great One who provided it, to trample the Son of God underfoot (Heb. 10:29).

·         95:7b-11 is a warning not to harden our hearts against God.  The illustration of how one might do this is a story from the Old Testament.  It is the first occasion when the people of Israel came to the edge of Canaan.  Twelve spies were sent in, 2 came back ready to take possession of what God promised, but 10 feared the giants in the land.  The 10 carried the day; the people rebelled even though they had seen God’s great works in Egypt and in the wilderness. 

Do you see the connection?  In our own lives, in the testimonies of others, and especially in the record of Scripture, we know the God of the Bible is a great God.  There is no other God, none like Him.  And to fail to trust Him today, in light of what we know from previous days, is to treat Him as nothing, to make light of Him, to consider Him ordinary. 

Friends, today, in your day of trial, come joyfully into God’s presence because He is a great God.  Bow before Him because He is a great King.  Trust Him, rest in Him.  He is no different this day than He was yesterday.

2 Kings 18:23-25, Isaiah 10:1-12, What Confidence? (2)

The Rabshakeh, an officer in the Assyrian army, is talking with advisors of King Hezekiah outside the walls of the City of David.  The question he asks is, “What confidence is this in which you trust?”  Are you counting on your superior military strategy, or weapons, or even the Egyptians?  Then he wonders if they are trusting in their God (v22): But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ …

What could be wrong with that?  His understanding of the situation is interesting to say the least.  Is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?’  The Assyrians had heard about what Hezekiah did when he restored true worship in Judah.  We have shown pictures from Beersheba (the altar stones that had been part of worship in that city) and Arad (the miniature temple, even with a ‘holy of holies’).  These cities of Judah had first been fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chr. 11:5-12).  They had these “high places” that were sometimes being used for worship and sometimes not.  But as recent as the reign of Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, “in every single city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked to anger the LORD God of his fathers” (2 Chron. 28:25).  Hezekiah had removed all this idolatry and destroyed the high places.  I can imagine there were some people who opposed this, though they may not have been very vocal lest they be guilty of a crime.  But look what happened: there was no longer worship in these cities, and all these cities were now under Assyrian control.  Perhaps the Rabshakeh has that in mind.

The fact is, of course, that Hezekiah’s insistence on worship (meaning the temple worship with it’s sacrifices and offerings) in Jerusalem was God’s plan from the beginning (Deut. 12).  But that is not the only misunderstanding on the part of the Assyrians.  In 18:25 we hear the Rabshakeh say these words: “Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it?  The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”  It is true that the LORD had sent the King of Assyria as the rod of His wrath on His people (Isa. 10:5-6).  But the prophet then says that because the king’s heart was lifted in pride, thinking he would do to Judah just as he did to Israel (Isa. 10:7-11), the LORD will use Assyria to work on Judah and Jerusalem but then God would “punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks” (Isa. 10:12). 

So what the Rabshakeh, and the King of Assyria, did not know was the mercy of the God of Israel?  They did not realize that God could pour out his judgment on His people, and that He could also have mercy on them.  In both situations, judgment and mercy, God would totally honor His name!

The Rabshakeh took his verbal attack to another level by yelling out his threats so that the people on the wall would hear.  He knew the people understood the terrible trial they would experience if Assyria set up their siege ramps at Jerusalem, that they would “eat and drink their own waste with you” (Isa. 36:12).  They heard his harsh words, but they did not respond, as per Hezekiah’s command (Isa. 36:21).

So far the Assyrian officer’s words show the pride of the Assyrians.  His attack on God would get ratchetted up once again, which we will talk about in the next post.  But for now we should remember that the LORD is God and there is no other God.  He will not share His glory with another.  In this situation the pride of the Assyrians is becoming obvious; and the faith of Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem who know the LORD will begin to rise.  The LORD will honor His name, and the more the Rabshakeh speaks against God, the greater will be God’s response.  That is still true for God’s people today.

2 Ki. 18:17-22; 2 Chron. 32:1-8, What confidence?

Hezekiah’s 3 men have gone out of the city, into the valley below the eastern walls of the City of David, and are meeting with the military officers of Assyria.  Speaking for the king, the Rabshakeh asks a critical question: “What confidence is this in which you trust?”  What a question, both for Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem and also for me and us!  As we live life, how do we expect to handle its ups and downs?  On a regular basis there are situations that are beyond our ability.  

The people of Jerusalem are aware that the Assyrians have wreaked havoc in the rest of Judea.  In Nineveh (Assyria) a cylinder with cuneiform writing was discovered that dated back to the time of Hezekiah.  It contained the following account of what the Assyrian king claimed he had done in Judah.

“As for Hezekiah the Judean, I besieged 46 of his fortified walled cities and surrounding smaller towns, which were without number.  Using packed down ramps and applying battering rams, infantry attacks, and by mines, breaches and siege machines (or ladders) I conquered (them).  I took out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle and sheep without number, and counted them as spoil.  He (Hezekiah) himself I locked up in Jerusalem his royal city, like a bird in a cage.”

If you were a resident of Jerusalem at the time, and knew the feared Assyrians were outside, intending to take Jerusalem as they had taken 46 other walled cities, you might be asking the same question: What are we going to do?  What is Hezekiah going to do?

Anticipating the response of Hezekiah’s advisors, the Rabshakeh mentioned four possible answers to his question (18:20-22).

·       Strategy.  Remember that Hezekiah had done several things to prepare for the anticipated Assyrian siege.  He diverted the water of the Gihon so the Assyrians wouldn’t benefit from it (2 Chron. 32:4).  He improved the walls around the city (32:5). 

·       Military strength.  Not only had Hezekiah made plans; he had improved the military.  He made weapons and shields in abundance (32:5).  He organized the military and sought to encourage them with a rousing speech about trusting God (32:6-8). 

·       Egypt.  In Hezekiah’s reign there was at least a “political party” that advocated for making an alliance with Egypt.  Isaiah prophesied against these people who sought help from Egypt but not from God (e.g. Isa. 31:1-3).  Hoshea, the last king in Israel, had conspired with Egypt against Assyria.  This was a “popular” idea among God’s people when it came to figuring out how to stand up against the Assyrians.

The Rabshakeh also asked if they were going to trust in YAHWEH (18:22).  We will reserve that for our next post.  We will also consider why the Rabshakeh considered these to be faulty “confidences” for Judah. Suffice it for now to note that God in His word through the prophets had made it clear to His people that they were to trust in Him.  All these other objects of faith would disappoint Judah.

Psalm 118: 6 The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?  8 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.  9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes. 

Isa. 31;1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD!

Cuneiform cylinder of Sennacherib, King of Assyria

with Judah-related section in English.