Our Daily Bread Today Isaiah 37 ++

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Isaiah 37:1-38
Hezekiah Seeks the LORD's Help
1When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray. 2And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They told him, "This is what King Hezekiah says: This is a day of trouble, insult, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it. 4But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian representative defying the living God and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!"


5After King Hezekiah's officials delivered the king's message to Isaiah, 6the prophet replied, "Say to your master, 'This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king's messengers. 7Listen! I myself will make sure that the king will receive a report from Assyria telling him that he is needed at home. Then I will make him want to return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'"
8Meanwhile, the Assyrian representative left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah. 9Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia F90 was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent this message back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem:
10"This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let this God you trust deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. 11You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have crushed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? 12Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all! 13What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the LORD's Temple and spread it out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the LORD: 16"O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 17Listen to me, O LORD, and hear! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God.
18"It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says. 19And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 20Now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
Isaiah Predicts Judah's Deliverance
21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: This is my answer to your prayer concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria. 22This is the message that the LORD has spoken against him:
'The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem scoffs and shakes her head as you flee.
23 'Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look in such proud condescension? It was the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord. You have said, "With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests.
25 I have dug wells in many a foreign land and refreshed myself with their water. I even stopped up the rivers of Egypt so that my armies could go across!"
26 'But have you not heard? It was I, the LORD, who decided this long ago. Long ago I planned what I am now causing to happen, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
27 That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.
28 'But I know you well— your comings and goings and all you do. I know the way you have raged against me.
29 And because of your arrogance against me, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. I will make you return by the road on which you came.'"
30Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Here is the proof that the LORD will protect this city from Assyria's king. This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 31And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will take root again in your own soil, and you will flourish and multiply. 32For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passion of the LORD Almighty will make this happen!
33"And this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: His armies will not enter Jerusalem to shoot their arrows. They will not march outside its gates with their shields and build banks of earth against its walls. 34The king will return to his own country by the road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the LORD. 35For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend it."
36That night the angel of the LORD went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. When the surviving Assyrians F91 woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. 37Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. 38One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.
FOOTNOTES:F90: Hebrew of Cush. F91: Hebrew When they.


Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’ Today~
Hezekiah= “Jehovah is my strength”.
So the enemy comes forward with all kinds of accusations against you, against what you heard from God, against the people you’ve told God’s words to….against the people you were sent by God and set in by God to lead (could be your family, both natural and spiritually speaking), You get reports contrary from all you are being asked by God to say in faith, reports of the dis-unified nature. It tells you that what you’re believing is no where near what is, what will be or what ever will be; that there’s no resemblance of truth in where you are going at all…
What do you do, about that?
Who’s report do you believe?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been extended?
For whom was our Lord Jesus Christ wounded anyway? (Isa 53 again)
Do you continue to listen to wrong voices? Allowing them to continue to taunt?
Hezekiah went to the very place all of his strength came from, He went back to his original source, which was God. He ran to God, not away from Him. The guys who came to bring the alert for the need to go to God were “God will raise up” and “Vigorously”, promises confirmed in living messengers. The Lord may alert us to an evil plan, it will always come with and answer, a promise!
He said, it seems like we don’t have what it will take to bring this thing to pass, to make what we believed God said to do, to happen. It looks like it is impossible, like there’s no unity, no strength to deliver. BUT…
A message WAS delivered to you- REMEMBER? The promise? The dream? The word? The goal or strategy? Remember? Why would He who is higher than any other also not deliver you?
THE Lord says- DO NOT be disturbed! It is only words that come against God’s words! LIES. I have a strategy for our enemy. Do you?
Even after receiving a strategy from the Lord and a confirming word from God, des not the enemy come again, with what? Words and lies. He presses us, he won’t let go, are we that determined to keep God’s words to us, or do we easily give them up and let them go? Sometimes it is about who holds on the longest, even God wants to know how much His words mean to us. Are we basing our faith in God on past experiences? On how it worked out for others? Or how it didn’t?
PUT the words of the accuser before the Lord, take them into God’s presence and drop them off there and leave them there! Hezekiah, did not “ignore” the threat, but he took the threat before God and re-iterated to his soul, there is only One God and only One voice that I trust and rely on for anything, and to Him alone all glory and honor should be given for victory always. What did God do with the accusations? He took them personal (God sent His own Son, that’s pretty personal!). He took it so personal, that He fought and won the battle for His people.
Did you notice when God defeated the enemies of His people, the motivation He voiced concerning it? He said, the passion of the Almighty did this! What is passion, where does it come from? It is the action taken by love, love is the motivator. The people of God had proven they loved God immensely, they showed it by refusing any other gods. They solidified it by not moving off of that love relationship faith for any reason. That passion moved God’s heart to do it all for them and not hold any of Himself back either.


Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.