"Have You Not Heard..."

February 29, 2016

“Have You Not Heard…”

Blessings folk!

God has a plan.

We see it through the Word.

Nothing “catches the Lord unguarded”.

He has a plan.

A plan from the foundation of the world/creation.

Let’s look at a couple of Scriptures related to such.

In this first account, Judah was being besieged by Assyria.
Assyria was “on a roll”.
They had defeated everyone.
Now they were literally surrounding walled Jerusalem and shouting taunts…
“don’t listen to Hezekiah…he will get you killed”
“don’t trust in your God…let us take you to a better place”

Hezekiah had told the people to not respond.
They did so.
Silence before the taunt.

Then, Hezekiah receives a letter from the Assyrian king.
We are not told what the letter said directly, though I think we can glean from God’s response.

Read the extended passage…we will examine it slowly. Happy

Note what Hezekiah did.
Note what God did.

2Ki 19:14-31
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD.
And
Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.
Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.
Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and 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 our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.”Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
This is the word that the LORD has 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 my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
its most fruitful forest.
I dug wells
and drank foreign waters,
and 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 days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should 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 housetops,
blighted before it is grown.
“But I know your sitting down
and your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.
Because you have raged against me
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
by which you came.
“And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.


Hezekiah received a threatening letter.
He took it before the Lord and laid it before the Lord…so we should do with all things.
Hezekiah prayed.
The Lord responded through Isaiah the prophet.
The Lord reveals much…especially that He has a plan.

“Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old…


Then why do we worry?
Why do we fret?
The Lord has a plan.
We must abide in Him.
We must be obedient.