Day 149: The God of Heaven's Armies 2

May 29

Today's Connected Passages: 

• 1 Kings 20:1-34 
• Isaiah 36:1-37:38 
• 2 Chronicles 20:1-30

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. I am very grateful you've decided to join us here on day number 149 of the Canon Connected. Yesterday we had a very special episode to kick off this four-part series under the huge series of how God is sovereign by talking about how God is the God of heaven's armies. Some translations use phrases like Lord God of hosts, but that's what it means. The host is his armies. And so yesterday we had Liam on just to discuss David and Goliath, because David did say, You come at me with spear and sword and javelin, but I come at you in the name of the Lord who rules over all. David had to be good with the sling for sure to win that battle. God wants us to be practiced. He wants us to be to use our skills. He wants us to be skilled. But ultimately, human, you know, skill is nothing without the power of God. And so we saw yesterday and kind of setting the foundation from Psalm 20, which I'm going to read again. Now I know the Lord saves his anointed. So David knew this. This is part of what he experienced with Goliath and many other times. He will answer from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the Lord our God. They have bowed and fallen, but we have risen and stood upright. Save, O Lord, may the King answer us in the day we call. And so this is how David understood God, and this is how these passages that we we did one yesterday, and I'm going to cover the two that we didn't cover because I wanted to give Liam just the opportunity to speak to David and Goliath, and I didn't want to spend too much time, you know, talking about the other passages. So we're going to cover them today. But that that's what we see repeatedly, four days worth of just uh, you know, so many wars that God won, so many times where he told his people not to be afraid, um, even though they should have been humanly speaking. And so we didn't do it yesterday. It was part of the reading yesterday, but I want to just comment on it briefly today, and that is the Gideon battle from the book of Judges, because Gideon, as you know, probably, if you read yesterday, you definitely know. He went into that battle with 300 people by God's design for the sole purpose of him as him saying, the Lord said to Idium, the people with you are too many to get the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, My own hand has saved me. This is what David understood. His own skill with that sling didn't kill Goliath. It was God who ultimately did it. David had to practice, but God ultimately won the war. And so, Midianite army, probably a hundred thousand is a good guess, and they went with three hundred, and they, you know, Gideon heard the dream from the enemy, and he heard it, and he said, he uh he worshiped, and he returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand. Gideon knows. He's had so much doubt, he seems to be so jaded, you know, and all Gideon just seems to have serious, deep-seated issues with faith, and yet here he is. He knows what God is about to do. Arise, for the Lord uh has given the host, the army of Midian, into your hand. And then when they all again, all they had, three hundred men, you know, jars, torches, you know, trumpets, when they blew the three hundred trumpets, the Lord set every man's sword against his comrade and against all the army, and the army fled as far as Bethshetai towards Zerarazarerah, and as far as the border of Abel Moalah by Tabeth, and the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Esher and from Almanes as they pursued after Midian. The three hundred overthrew the one hundred thousand, or however many it was, because God won the war by his design, by his strategy, not human design, human strategy. Included Judges chapter eight, because again, there's there's uh there's more to that war, even more than what we just read, but God still used the 300 men, and God is still the victor, clearly. Um, and then 2 Kings 18 and 19. Oh boy, man, this is a story. Oh, this is a story. And so, you know, it's obvious from the story that again that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and all in his and his army, much like Nineveh that we discussed in their day, the this is the bully, this is the undefeated champion. Nobody's overthrowing this. And we see this from the taunting, or in modern, you know, terminology, the trash talk we even see from Rabshak to Hezekiah. And so this is one of the things he says in verse 28 of that first chapter. Then Rabshak stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus saith the king, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus saith the king of Assyria, make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat of his own vine, each of his own fig to tree, and each of you will drink the water of your his own cistern, and until I come and take away to a land like your own, like a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered the land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphat? Where are the gods of Shivim and Hennah and Evda? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand? That the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Oh, isn't this a setup? Isn't this not good storytelling? Isn't this the master craftsman God telling this story? And I'm sure this is historically accurate. I have zero doubt about that, but the way God made it all happen is absolutely perfect. And so, Rhabshaka, he sent messengers to Hezekiah again, saying the same thing. You shall not speak, uh, therefore you shall speak to Hezekiah. Do not let the God whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be taken out of the hand of king of Assyria, because who what other god has ever won against us? Have the God of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozin, Haran, Rebesh, and the people of Eden who were in Telasar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Severim, the king of Hana, and the king of Eva? And then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned abroad the cherubim, you are the God, you alone of all kingdoms of the earth, you have made the heavens and the earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear, open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear the words of Senakram, Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations in their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord Yahweh, O God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone. And this is the word from Isaiah that has been spoken concerning him. She despises you, she scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion, she wags her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem, whom have you mocked and reviled, against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel, by your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, With many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains and the far recesses of Lebanon, I felled the tallest cedars, its choicest cypress, I entered the Father's lodging place, its most fruitful forest, I dug wells and drank foreign waters, I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from the days of old what I will now bring to pass, that you shall turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins, while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the house tops, blighted before its grown. But I know you're sitting down and you're going out and coming in, and you're raging against me, because you have raged against me, God's word to Sennacherib, and your complacency has come into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way in which you came. The zeal of the Lord will do this. Verse 31. Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Israel, he will not come into the city, he will not shoot an arrow there, he will not come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege, or mount against it. By the way he came, the same he shall return, for he shall not come into the city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David. And Hezekiah and his people didn't have to lift a finger, they didn't draw a weapon, they didn't mount an attack, they didn't develop one second of strategy. And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And then Sennacherib departed, and he was he was killed by his own brother, or his sons, excuse me. Struck him down with the sword. Then we see the same thing happen, and even happen with Benedict Benadad, the king of Assyria, in the days of Ahab. It's so amazing to me that God would have done it even in Ahab's day, as wicked as he was. But they thought again, their gods are the gods of this, you know, this land, this part of the land. But no, you know, they we we can't beat them in the in the in the hills, we can't beat them in the valleys because God is undefeated. God's gonna win every time, everywhere, because it does not matter what the other army is like or their strategy or their strength or their power. God always wins. And Isaiah 36 is the same story of Hezekiah that we read yesterday. Again, it's the same story from Isaiah 36, 37, and 38. And we close with uh the story of Jehoshaphat from 2 Chronicles 20. Same kind of circumstance. After this, the Moabites and the Amorites and with them the sons of the Munites came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Some of the men came and told Jehoshaphat, A great multitude is coming against you from Edom and beyond the sea, and behold, they are in, and Hazaron Tamar, that is in Gedi. Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all of Judah. It says, and Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah in Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before a new court and said, O Lord God of father of our fathers, are you not in heaven? You rule over the kingdoms of the nations, in your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of the land, your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend? O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. And thus saith the Lord to you, do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow you will go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you. Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshipping the Lord. And the Levites and the Kohites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. And they rose early in the morning and went into the wilderness of Tekoah. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established. Believe his prophets, and you will succeed. And when he is taking counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in the holy attire, as they went before the army to say, Give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever. And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. Behold our God, seated on his thrones. Come let us adore him. Kings and nations tremble at his voice. All creation rises to rejoice. This is the God of Christianity, and he is undefeated, and he cannot be thwarted. And he will always win because he is the God of heaven's armies. And these stories are just a you know a compounded reminder of that to me. So again, that's just two days. We have two more coming up. And so I hope that these stories of God, the God of Heaven's armies, are absolutely just you know turning over in your heart and mind to remind you of the nature of our God and what he's like and why we can trust him and why we don't need to be afraid, and why we don't need to worry about the future, because God always wins. God of heaven's armies. Come back and be with us again tomorrow on day three of this topic as we continue to read the connections, see the connections, study the connections. Thank you.