Isaiah 37 Not Letting Go

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 Translation


~ Lena’s Journalin’ ~
This passage today is about promises. We have personal promises, or shall I say dreams, that we look for, hoping for fulfillment of. But greater than any personal promise is the promise or dream God the Father of the universe has for the earth and all of its inhabitants.
We are God’s children, His chosen race sent to earth to redeem it from the curse of sin, to reverse the effects of sin. There is only one way for that reversal to happen in the earth and that is by believing in, relying on, and trusting in the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Through the power of the cross all mankind can be rescued out of the grip of eternal death and its proposed dominion over people.
Once a family member comes to rely on Christ and live for Him all of their earth days, their goal in life is to pass along the saving-rescuing message they have received, especially to their children. Children can be and are, both naturally speaking and spiritually speaking. Anyone who comes to know Christ through another is regarded as that person’s “child”.
We have a responsibility in Christ to father children for God, to bring forth holy seed that will remain in the kingdom for life as we are in the kingdom for life. Our newfound faith is more than a contract or even a commitment we make with other humans that can eventually run out or expire. Our relationship is one of covenant with God, which never ends.
Those who understand, live, and believe this are constantly at work, mentally, physically and spiritually speaking to establish His kingdom power and glory in the earth. The propitiation of His kingdom is their life’s focus; it is their very own adopted promise. His will, is their will, His children their children.
“Fathering” can only happen through discipleship. That means one teaches and trains another in a certain way, one follows after and copies another in the faith walk.
People disciple people all of the time; teachers in school, disciple pupils, employers disciple employees, and parents children. It is discipleship of the ways of the Lord I’m speaking of.
This puts a load of responsibility on the “teacher”, who must model Christ as an example. Modeling Christ is not automatic to humankind who has lived under a curse and the sway of a sinfully natured world. Teachers must have help, their help comes from the same place their faith comes from, the Lord Jesus Christ. Prayers and intercession is made, especially in the areas of weakness. The teacher must grasp a hold of the promises of God, and not let them go.
So what happens if it does not look so good, or a teacher has not been the best model and a student, disciple or “child” does not want to follow any more, or they have other offers, or are being influenced by other forces? What happens when a thief comes knocking at their door, tells them lies hoping to deter their faith, and the promise of the propitiation of the holy seed of God meant to be carried on by their living vessel is threatened? What happens if what we thought was supposed to happen does not appear to be happening? Even if we did everything just so and lived righteously there is an enemy out there after the word of God planted inside of any human being.
He’s so interested in stealing the word of God he will go to great lengths and use tremendous strategy to bring the word of God in a person or the faith the person received and try to nullify it and the promise that launched it.
We thought we’d gotten ahead, we thought the promise was about to come forth, everything was/is in order, but it looks like nothing is gonna happen as planned. What do we do then?
Maybe we won a person to the Lord, and the enemy came as expected and lied to them about the faith and they seem to be turning towards believing those lies. Maybe you were as good of a parent as you knew to be, you trust God for your children and want to see Christ formed in them, but at the time that is crucial for them to decide about life’s choices, they seem to be choosing everything but God. Maybe you did nothing right before the Lord as a person or as a parent, but you got saved and now you want what is best for your children, you pray, you hope, you believe for your household to be saved, your boss to be saved, your co-workers to be saved, but all hell seems to have broken loose and rather than seeing promises, it seems defeat has come as victor.
This is the very onslaught of the enemy against not only us, but against God.
We must realize that enemies come to defeat God, and those made in His image, they come to destroy any resemblance of the image of God propitiated in the earth. God’s will is to fill the earth with His image, likeness, glory, the enemy’s will is to steal kill and destroy His images.
We have got to stand up in faith, bow down to God, not to the works and threats of evil. We must fear God enough to believe Him, believe in His power to overcome in all of these areas and more. To not believe in what appears to be, but to believe in what He has said, in His will. He’s looking for human people who are willing to stand with Him in the earth for the accomplishment of His will. He’s looking for a people who are determined to win, to not take no for an answer, to believe Him to bring to pass the seemingly impossible!
Ok, it looks bad, ok it appears like defeat has come, so what?
Believe God, let Him know you desire His promises as much as He does. Lay the bad threatening reports before His face and worship Him anyway, no matter what appears. He set a table for us in the presence of our enemies, let’s set one before Him. What He told us is true, whether we see it yet or not. How determined are we to see His kingdom come and will be done? We are the ones send to execute the will of God, if not us who will? God is not waving a magical wand over the earth, He sent men as executives. If the executive does not see to the will, then who will? No one. His will won’t be done in earth without representation, without representatives who have the same mind, heart and will to accomplish what is written. Words are cheap without faith filled action. When a man rises up agreeing with the will and insisting on the will with his mind, heart and body, that man will have the executioners of heaven backing him.
So the new convert doesn’t want to come to church? Take that before the Lord, don’t get sad, depressed, feel like a failure. Believe God for their soul to be saved! Tell the enemy they belong to God, we insist on it!
So, your child seems to be making wrong decisions, your boss acts like a tyrant, your employees are disrespectful, etc. Don’t try to reason with them or talk them into obedient action, share truth, unadulterated and do warfare in the spirit for their souls. Don’t agree with the adversary and complain about stuff. Speak faith, faith is in who and what we do not yet see, but desire to come to pass. Unbelief is really faith in defeat, complaints solidify the defeat. Let’s not give the enemy any glory! The glory belongs to God, as we agree with God, it is He who will bring the unseen promises to pass.
All 185,000 bad reports, lies, inflictions, afflictions, threats and real life situations can be defeated by the overcoming power of the Most High God who will offer every resource available to those who live in faith before Him. Faith spans time and will even take the promises of God beyond where our own natural eyes can see. The promises may come to fruition in another generation, don’t limit God, believe for it all, and the legacy of faith to be carried on way beyond what even your natural eyes can see. It does not matter what it looks like, faith goes beyond seeing.
Faith sees the face of God and does not let that go.

Daily Meditation/Recital/Question
Ask myself daily: “What Page Am I On?”