How to Win the War

He appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate and encouraged them with these words: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.

2 Chronicles 32:7-8

Every true Christian is engaged in spiritual warfare every day. This warfare, the Bible tells us, is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, especially against the devil, who is the god and prince of this world. In this conflict we will either be knocked down or we will knock down the devil. As children of God we must learn how to win this war. The life of King Hezekiah of Judah tells us how we can do so.

The Bible devotes eleven chapters in three different books-2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Isaiah-to Hezekiah. That tells us the Holy Spirit considers his life very important for our spiritual instruction. In fact, the Bible says there was no one like Hezekiah among all the kings of Judah, either before or after him. Because Hezekiah was a man of righteousness and wanted to rule his kingdom in a righteous, God-pleasing way, he faced retribution from his Assyrian overlord Sennacherib, the head of the mightiest nation on earth at that time. With God’s help Hezekiah was able to resist Sennacherib successfully.

In this study we want to look at three points: the righteousness of Hezekiah; the retribution of Sennacherib; and the successful resistance of Hezekiah.

Context

Hezekiah comes from the Hebrew word chazak, which means “to be strong.” Hezekiah means “Jehovah is my strength,” or “the Lord is my strength.” We wage war against the devil, not in our own strength, but in the strength of the Lord. Therefore we are told by Paul, “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” (Ephesians 6:10). Hezekiah relied on the Lord of the covenant in his warfare against Sennacherib.

The kingdom of Judah had become indolent and self-confident during the prosperous years of Hezekiah’s predecessors, King Uzziah and his son Jotham. Jotham’s son Ahaz, who was the father of Hezekiah, became extremely wicked during his reign. The great prophet Isaiah brought the word of God to Ahaz, as we read in Isaiah 7, but Ahaz rejected it. Abandoning the Lord of the covenant, Ahaz became a pagan and introduced idolatry into Judah. In fact, we are told that he closed the doors of the temple, put an end to true worship of Jehovah God, and even burned his own son in the worship of Molech. The reign of Ahaz was a very dark time in the history of the kingdom of Judah.

It was during this time of apostasy that Hezekiah was born, probably in 740 B.C. Internationally, Syria had been defeated by Assyria in 732 B.C. and Samaria, the northern kingdom, was defeated and made a province of Assyria in 722 B.C. During this time Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, became a vassal of Assyria as well.

Hezekiah became the sole king of Judah around 715 B.C. at the age of twenty-five. All around him was apostasy and paganism. The temple was closed and idolatry was everywhere. The spiritual climate was similar to that of our own country today. Would Hezekiah follow in the footsteps of his pagan father, Ahaz, or would he pattern his life after the good kings of Judah who followed God?

Hezekiah Opens the Scriptures

When Hezekiah became king, he began to throw off paganism. While reading the Scriptures, Hezekiah discovered God’s way of righteousness and began to embrace the Lord of the covenant and his kingdom. He set his heart to submit to the God of Israel, the Sovereign Lord of all nations, the God of David. Contrary to his father’s policy of rejecting the words of God’s prophets, Hezekiah sought out the prophet Isaiah so that he could hear the word of the Lord from him. In the prevailing darkness of the time, Hezekiah was a shining star of non-conformity. He became a man of true repentance and a lover of righteousness.

I am sure Hezekiah read the Pentateuch, especially the book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 17:18-20 he read about how a king should govern:

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Hezekiah began to conform himself and his kingdom to the word of God, as we read in 2 Chronicles 31:3, 4 and 21. His father Ahaz had closed the Scriptures and closed the temple doors. Hezekiah did the opposite, opening the Bible and the temple doors on the first day of the first month of the first year of his reign. The Bible says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” and that is exactly what Hezekiah did. He opened the Scriptures not merely for information, but also for reformation. He opened the Bible not merely for doctrine, but also for obedient doing. He opened the Bible not merely for mental stimulation, but also for moral conformity. Hezekiah was a man who said, “God said it; I believe it; and this is what I will do.”

Hezekiah Opens the Temple

As we said, not only did Hezekiah open the Bible, but he also opened the door of the temple and reestablished temple worship, putting into operation the system of worship David had ordered centuries ago. He told the priests and Levites to consecrate themselves so that they could function according to God’s word. He also destroyed all idols and began to repair and purify the temple.

Because Hezekiah believed in salvation by the shedding of blood, he began to offer the sacrifices prescribed by God: the sin offerings, the burnt offerings, the thank offerings, and so on. In 2 Chronicles 29:23-24 we see the great knowledge Hezekiah had of salvation by grace. There we read, “The goats for the sin offering were brought before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. The priests then slaughtered the goats and presented their blood on the altar for a sin offering to atone for all Israel, because the king had ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel.” This demonstrates Hezekiah’s belief in substitutionary atonement. The animals were brought before the king and the people, who laid their hands on them. If they confessed their sin, it would be transferred to the animals. The animals would then be killed and their blood sprinkled to make atonement for the sins of the people.

Hezekiah also restored the festivals of Israel, especially the festival of Passover, which celebrates Israel’s redemption from Egyptian bondage by divine intervention. He appointed singers to once again praise and worship God in the temple, as David had ordained. Additionally, Hezekiah ordered people to bring all the tithes into the storehouse in order to sustain this temple and its worship. To Hezekiah’s surprise, when the people responded, they did so with such great generosity that the offerings had to be piled up temporarily until the priests and Levites could deal with them.

The Righteousness of Hezekiah

As a godly leader, Hezekiah led his nation back to the Bible. You see, everything depends upon the leader. If your father and husband is not a spiritual person, he will bring damage to the family. If the president of a country is not spiritual, he will bring damage to the entire nation. If the pastor is not a godly man, he will destroy the church.

Hezekiah brought godliness to the nation by calling the people back to the Bible, back to their covenant obligations. He studied the Bible himself and in 2 Chronicles 7:14 he found this principle given by God: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and will heal their land.” This certainly motivated Hezekiah

In 2 Chronicles 30 we find an amazing letter written by Hezekiah as he was reading the Bible and beginning to understand biblical principles. Hezekiah sent this letter to all the people of Israel, including the people of the northern kingdom, inviting them to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem:

People of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Do not be like your fathers and brothers, who were unfaithful to the LORD, the God of their fathers, so that he made them an object of horror, as you see. Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; submit to the LORD. Come to the sanctuary, which he has consecrated for ever. Serve the LORD your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. If you return to the LORD, then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him (2 Chronicles 30:6-9).

Hezekiah’s letter demonstrated the principle of repentance: Return to God and he will return to you. Because Hezekiah studied the Bible, he understood that God is gracious and compassionate, a God who will come to us if we humble ourselves, seek his face, pray, and turn from our wicked ways.

When the people of Israel and Judah received Hezekiah’s letter, they did humble themselves, begin to seek the Lord, and turned from their wicked ways. Even from the north some people came to this great assembly to honor the Lord with great worship and prayer. In verses 26 and 27 we read, “There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel, there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place.”

God is good and he can be trusted fully. When we humble ourselves and seek him, we can be sure that he will come, he will bless, he will forgive, he will heal, he will accept us, and he will deliver us. The people prayed, their prayer reached heaven, and the Lord blessed them through the priests. What was the result? Great joy.

In 2 Chronicles 29:10 we read that Hezekiah also renewed the covenant. The covenant and the Scriptures had been abandoned long ago. But Hezekiah discovered the covenant and renewed it, by which I mean he made a public confession, saying, “The Lord is my king and I am his vassal. If this is true, I don’t want to be like my father, a vassal of Assyria.” Thus, Hezekiah rebelled against the king of Assyria.

The righteous Hezekiah was doing God’s thing. If you want to wage war successfully and win, the precondition is to be righteous. In Proverbs 28:1 we read, “The wicked man flees though no one pursues, righteous are as bold as a lion.” You cannot be righteous in the Christian life if you don’t fear God and do his will.

The righteous Hezekiah worshiped the true and living God as his covenant Lord, so he rebelled against Assyria and King Sennacherib. It is like a very small, weak country rebelling against the United States today. Assyria, the world-dominant power at the time, did not like rebellion among its vassals. In due time Sennacherib came against Judah to enforce his rule.

The Retribution of Sennacherib

Satan does not like it when we decide to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, so he comes in all sorts of ways to seduce us, trying to bring us down. The retribution of Sennacherib is a metaphor for the devil and all his continuing temptations against God’s people.

Hezekiah’s father Ahaz had been a shrewd politician. When he looked at the world, he saw the rise, not of Syria or Samaria or Egypt but of Assyria. Demonstrating great political acumen, he abandoned the Lord and became a vassal of Assyria rather than joining the alliance of Samaria and Syria. Isaiah had been sent by God to Ahaz to tell him, “Don’t worry. Believe in the Lord and he will help you against Samaria, Syria, and even Assyria,” as we read in Isaiah 7. But Ahaz refused to believe the word of the Lord. Isaiah said, “Ask for a sign, in heaven or on earth, to help you believe and God will give you a sign,” but Ahaz rejected that word also, saying, “No, I don’t want to do that.” Why was Ahaz so afraid? He was a pervert. Because he was not righteous, Ahaz was afraid. In fact, in the book of Isaiah we read that Ahaz shook like the leaves of a tree from fear.

By Hezekiah’s time the international situation had changed. Syria and Samaria had already been defeated and Assyria was now the great power, with Sennacherib, son of Sargon, as king. Hezekiah reigned for several years, together with his father, as a vassal of Assyria. Because he trusted in the Lord to help him, Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria. Sennacherib said, “All right. I am going to come and deal with you.” In 701 B.C. he came with one hundred and eighty-five thousand mighty men with horses and chariots. Sennacherib was sure of victory, having already conquered Syria, Samaria, and Philistia, as well as destroying forty-six fortified towns of Judah.

Now Sennacherib was at the gates of Jerusalem, besieging it. Soon the city would either fall or its people would starve to death. Who can oppose the great king of Assyria and his brutal and fierce army? The field officer was sent to intimidate the people of Judah through psychological warfare. He made the following points to the people of Jerusalem: “First, if you are going to depend on Egypt, remember that it is already a broken reed that cannot save you. Second, if you are depending on your God, Jehovah, don’t you know that he is just like any other god? No god has ever delivered any people from my hands. Third, don’t you know that I, Sennacherib, am almighty? Who can stand up against me?”

We are told that Hezekiah was in serious distress when he heard the threats of King Sennacherib. In 2 Kings 19:1 we read, “When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord.” Then he sent messengers to the prophet Isaiah, who told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them.'” Hezekiah was shaken, rebuked, and humiliated.

Sennacherib blasphemed Hezekiah, his people, and, above all, his God. As a result, it seemed that Hezekiah and his people would soon be crushed. When we study this incident in the life of Hezekiah, we should ask the question, “When we try to live for God, when we get back to the Bible, when we get back to the God of the Bible, and when we begin to do God’s thing, why do we encounter serious opposition?” There are several reasons:

1. Our enemy hates those who serve the living God; therefore, he will try to turn us away from the true and living God and bring us back into slavery.
2. Our God ordains serious opposition to us in order to test our faith and see if it is genuine. In other words, such opposition is a trial of our faith.
3. Our God desires growth in our faith. The more we are tried, the more we look to him and discover how competent he is to help us in our trouble. God appreciates people who look to him for salvation.
4. Our God desires to reveal himself powerfully when we are in distress to save us.
5. The purpose of it all is that we may praise him, worship him, and glorify him for all the blessings we receive.

The Christian life is never smooth sailing. If we are intelligent Christians, we will understand there is going to be retribution from the devil, here represented by Sennacherib. The children of God are always in warfare against the evil forces of the heavenly realms. We must expect wind, storm, and trouble.

How to Resist the Devil

In order to win the war, we must be righteous and practice righteousness, as we see in the life of Hezekiah. If we are morally corrupt, we will not be able to boldly look into the eye of the devil and resist him.

First, then, we must be righteous. How do we do that? Get back to the Bible. Get back to the God of the Bible. Begin to trust in God implicitly. PGM Order our lives in accordance with God’s infallible word, no matter what the cost. Believe in the truth that if we return to him, he will return to us. Humble ourselves. Pray to him. Seek his face. Turn from all sins. When we do these things, then we can be bold.

Hezekiah began to resist the devil. But first “he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord,” as we read in 2 Kings 19:1, 14. It speaks about repentance and humbling himself before almighty God.

Second, not only did Hezekiah go to the temple in his distress, but he prayed to the Lord. “We have trouble, O Lord. We are humbled and disgraced, rebuked and humiliated. Have mercy on us in our distress.” Then he asked Isaiah to pray for him and for the country. It is good to have some godly people with whom you can join when you are in deep trouble and say, “I know you are a man of God. I know you love God and seek him. Please pray with me.” Hezekiah came to Isaiah and they prayed together about this very serious problem.

Finally the word from Isaiah was given to the king: “Don’t worry. Salvation is coming. Not even one arrow will come into the city. Everything will be all right.”

Hezekiah’s Response

In 2 Chronicles 32:7-8 we find Hezekiah’s directions to his people in response to the threat of Sennacherib. They were based on the word of God, which Hezekiah believed.

First, Hezekiah gave four imperatives. He told the people, “Be strong.” Remember, that is the meaning of Hezekiah’s name. In other words, Hezekiah was saying, “Be like me. Be strong in the Lord.” We find this type of encouragement throughout the Bible: Be strong-not in yourself and your own righteousness, but in the Lord. Next, he said, “Be courageous,” or “be bold.” Then Hezekiah said, “Do not be afraid,” and finally he said, “Do not be discouraged.”

These are the commands of God to us as well. It is just like when the Bible says, “Rejoice,” or “Husbands, love your wives.” When we face the opposition of Satan, God commands us, “Be strong, be courageous, be not afraid, be not discouraged.” What should we do when we hear these commands? We must do them.

First is the imperative; second is the reality. God does not negate reality. We must face facts as they are. What was the reality of the problem, according to Hezekiah? The greatest military might of the time was coming against little Judah. Hezekiah told his people, “Be not discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him.” That is reality. Who was the king of Assyria? Sennacherib of Assyria, the great king of the time! What type of army did he have? A brutal, fierce army of vast numbers of soldiers and chariots! But what did Hezekiah tell his people? “Don’t worry about it. God will save us.”

Then Hezekiah spoke in indicatives about the greater, unseen reality of God and the forces of heaven. First, he told the people, “There is a greater power with us than with him.” We must understand this. It is not a subjunctive, hope-so statement. It is a statement of fact that God is greater than any earthly king.

In 2 Kings 19 we find more indicatives which bolstered the confidence of Hezekiah and his people. In Hezekiah’s highly theological prayer we read, “O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men’s hands. Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God” (2 Kings 19:15-19).

What are the indicatives Hezekiah referred to in his prayer?

1. God is greater than all that we can conceive of in the entire universe.
2. This God is our God. That word “our” is so important. If you cannot say, “God is our God,” you are not saved.
3. This God is with us.
4. This God is the God of Israel, whom God has chosen for himself as his inheritance. This God made a covenant of love with Israel, the apple of his eye, to save and defend her.
5. This God is immanent, which means he dwells in Jerusalem with his people.
6. This God has come to help us.
7. This God alone is God and there is no other. All other gods are nothing. That is why Sennacherib was able to destroy them.
8. This God is over all the kingdoms of the earth.
9. This God created all things.

What did all these indicatives tell Hezekiah, and what do they tell us? That God is in control and he will always take care of his people, no matter how great the problems are that we face. He is with us to help us, to deliver us, to heal us, to forgive our sins, to encourage us, to make us strong and to enable us to stand firm.

In 2 Chronicles 32:8 Hezekiah told his people, “With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” What does “flesh” mean, according to the Bible? Something that is weak, nothing. Egypt is flesh. America is flesh. All earthly powers are flesh. Only God is Spirit and only God is mighty.

In Isaiah 31:3 we read what the great prophet Isaiah, who was a friend of Hezekiah, said about leaning on the arm of flesh. Here he was speaking not about Assyria but Egypt, which was also a great power of the time. Isaiah says, “But the Egyptians are men and not God; their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, he who helps will stumble, he who is helped will fall; both will perish together.”

In Jeremiah 17:5-7 we read more about the might of the enemies of God: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.'”

So Hezekiah told the people that God was with them to fight their battles. Sennacherib had said, “No god ever delivered anyone from my hand.” God heard his boastful words and told Hezekiah, “I am going to teach this king a lesson. I have come to help you.”

The Greatness of Our God

This idea that God is greater than all the forces of evil gathered against us is seen throughout the Scriptures. In Numbers 14:9 we find this understanding in the words of Joshua and Caleb to the people of Israel: “Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not be afraid of the people of the land because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” Out of half a million people, only two of them, Joshua and Caleb, discovered this wonderful truth that God is greater than our enemies and God is with us to save us.

In 2 Kings 6 we find the story of Elisha and his servant. The servant was afraid because he saw the Syrian army surrounding them in Dothan. Beginning in verse 15 we read, “‘Oh, my lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” The servant saw the spiritual reality that God was with them. God is always there but we do not always see him. We are blind, so we must ask the Holy Ghost, “Holy Spirit, open my eyes that I may see by faith that I am surrounded by God and his great army.”

David discovered this truth as well. In 1 Samuel 17:45 we find the young David telling Goliath the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied.'”

In Zechariah 2:5 we find God’s own description of his relationship to Jerusalem and Israel: “‘And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the Lord. . . .” In other words, as Jerusalem expanded, a wall would no longer be needed because God himself would be the wall of fire around his people, protecting them. Not only that, he adds, “‘and I will be its glory within'” What a way to live! God dwells in the midst of us, but he is also the firewall all around us. God is greater than anything else and God is with us to fight our battles.

In Ephesians 6:12 Paul tells us, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” Then he says in verse 13, “And after you have done everything, to stand,” and God will enable you to stand. In 1 John 4:4 John writes, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” That is what a Christian is and what the church is. A Christian is one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells and a church is the body in which the Spirit of God dwells. Who is this One who dwells in us? He is the greater One-greater than the devil, greater than the world, greater than death, greater than all.

Winning the War

What about you? Do you want to resist the devil? If so, you must resist in terms of the indicatives, as Hezekiah did. We are told that the people drew comfort and confidence from Hezekiah’s words. They trusted in the indicatives-the certainties of who God is and what he does in our behalf-and one night one angel came and killed all one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers of the Assyrian army. When Sennacherib, the mighty king of the world, saw this great defeat, he retreated to his home country where he himself was killed twenty years later. The Lord delivered Judah from this great king who thought he was invincible. Once again the Lord showed that he alone is God.

In time this God became man in Jesus Christ. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). This One, whose name is Immanuel, meaning “God with us,” alone is perfectly righteous and without sin. He alone was unafraid of the prince of this world, for the devil had no hold on him. No man could convict him of sin, but he who knew no sin became sin for us and died on the cross for our sins. He destroyed the devil and death for us, and by his death he has set all who trust in him free from the dominion of sin and Satan.

It is this One, the Lord Jesus Christ, who makes us free and righteous. We are in him and he is in us; therefore, we can resist the devil and he must and he shall flee from us. Just as Sennacherib could not stand against Hezekiah, so no devil can stand against us who are in Christ Jesus because he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. By his resurrection he holds the keys of hell and death. This God, who is greater than all, is with us and for us-who can be against us? Our God will help us, for he fought all battles once for all on the cross. That is why Paul could declare with great confidence, “Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ.”

May God help us to learn many lessons from the life of Hezekiah. May we get back to the Bible and to the God of the Bible. May we learn to obey the word of God and be righteous people who practice righteousness. May we learn to pray to the living and true God and receive his words of comfort. May we learn to be strong, courageous, not afraid, and not dismayed. May we trust in the truths that our God is great, that he is with us, that he is for us, that he will help us, that he will fight our battles and that he will deliver us. And if we have not forsaken our sin, may we do so today, humbling ourselves before the Lord as Hezekiah did, so that we may ever thank and praise him for the great salvation he has given us in Jesus Christ our Lord.