How to Pray to A Winning God!

You don't get to fight God's people without fighting the God of the people! When the enemy is in your face and you are being threatened there's no need to panic. We serve a God who never runs out of ways to win. Join us in as we look at this prayer from Hezekiah the book of 2 Kings.

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Transcript

PRESS means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation, He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through and in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. 

Welcome to the press podcast. 

Today, we meet a man by the name of Hezekiah. He was a king and a great king. The Bible lets you know that he was one who trusted in the Lord and believed in the Lord. The Bible says he did that, which was right in the eyes of the Lord and he removed the high places and break down the images and cut down the groves and the brazen serpent of Moses because the children of Israel burned incense to it. In other words, he took down everything they worshiped that was trying to take the place of God. Hezekiah loved the Lord and the Lord was with him, but he lived in a turbulent time where he's king of Judah and the king of Israel is actually at war with the king of Syria and he's captured and it's a tumultuous season.

There's war all around him and then the war shows up at his front step. The Bible lets you know that there's a man from Assyria by the name of Radpishika who comes threatening the children of Judah at their front door and he's talking heavy. He talks in chapter 18 of 2 Kings about all the people he's beat up before them and he even goes as far as to say the Lord has sent me against you. He's talking about their God. He's the kind of man that when he shows up in Judah, he is speaking their language and making these threats in their language. Even though he came to see the king and the people who work for the king are saying, hey, could you not? You can just talk to us. He's like, nah, he's talking in a way that he wants everybody to be scared and everybody to be nervous and he's such a bully, but the Lord moves. If you've not read this story in 1 Kings 18 and the beginning of 19, you should. The way the Lord moves to me is so amazing because Hezekiah actually sends a word to the prophet Isaiah and he said to Isaiah, this day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and blasphemy for the children are come to birth and there's that strength to bring forth. In other words, we're on the brink of something, but we can't push this through. Hezekiah's in mourning and he's asking Isaiah for a word because he knows Isaiah can access the Lord. He said, it may be that the Lord God will hear all the words of Rabshekah, whom the king of Assyria, his master, have sent to reproach the living God and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard. Wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left. So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah and they said all that the king had said and Isaiah tells them, don't worry about the words that you've heard because Rabshakeh is going to hear a rumor and he's going to return to his own country. And that is exactly what happens. He hears a rumor that the king of Assyria is at war and Rabshakeh is gone. I just want to pause there because we haven't actually got to the prayer for today yet. To say, isn't our God creative? 

He really doesn't need our suggestions. He sent the enemy away with a rumor. We've seen it where he destroys the enemy by making them blind. We've seen it where he destroyed the enemy by letting a building fall on them or even by making the sun stand still. But God is not out of ideals of how to give us the victory. And I think that's important to remember as we're fighting, as we're talking about enemies and things that come against you.

Our God has not ran out of wins. I heard somebody say something very similar, a name was Sister Darian Foster. He knows how to do this. We serve a winning God. So let's continue this story. So he temporarily gets rid of Rabshakeh. But Rabshakeh sends back a letter to Hezekiah. And the letter says let not thy God in whom thou trusted deceive thee, saying Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold thou has heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly, and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed as Gozin and Haran and Resith and the children of Eden which were in Thalazar? Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad and the king of the city of Savar Vayim of Hina and Iva? And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers and read it, and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.

Raph Shega is the definition of harassment nowadays. He's come to your front step. He is threatening your friends, your family. He's told them not to follow you. You're going to lead them along. And now even though he's been sent away temporarily, he's sending letters to threaten you further, just to let you know you're not getting away. So Hezekiah the Bible says he takes the letter that Raph Shega sent and he laid it out before the Lord. I remember being at team youth camp many, many moons ago. It was probably in the late 1900s, maybe early 2000s. I'm not sure. But Sister Hara shared with a group God can read. And I don't know why that was so revolutionary, because in thinking about it, of course God can read. But I believe it was so impactful, because we still live at times like God might miss something. And He's not. He knows. He's seeing. But Hezekiah takes the details and he spreads them out before God. You can take your details and spread them out before God. Don't let something just threaten you. Take it to Him. And that's what Hezekiah does.

And he says, O Lord God of Israel, which dwells between the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. So he's worshiping. Just because this fight is threatening does not mean the identity of God and what He has been and what He has done changes. He says, Lord, bow down thine ear and hear. Open, Lord, thine eyes and see. And hear the words of Sennacherib, which have sent him to reproach the living God. Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods.