Prayer of King Hezekiah

Series 5 Prayer 2 ( Biblical Prayers for Today)

I indirectly addressed this prayer several times, the most notable was in my post  Defending the Great Name of God through Prayer. In that post the purpose was to show how we have a responsibility to defend the Name of God. That particular post more than any other was met with a lot of resistance, I think because it asks the lay Christian to come out of his comfort zone and actively engage the devices of Satan in battle, through prayer. I am  not sure why Christians, who are supposed to be praying people refuse to pray the will of God with such dogged resistance. However that was that post.

The Victory Prayer of King HezeKiah

Today we turn our attention more to the details of this  prayer and how to apply it life today. However before we can do this we must get some base information about the circumstance.

Who is Sennacerib

King Sennacherib  (suh- na-kuh-rib) was an Assyria King from around 704 to 681 B.C.. during the beginning of his reigned his massive army of around 200,000 men invaded  Judah. In an effort to convince the King of Assyria, from destroying Judah,  King Hezekiah sent all the silver found in the House of the Lord, and everything of value in his own treasury ( 2 Kings 18:15) to Sennacherib. But once the Assyrians had advanced to the walls of Judah, Rabshakeh an official of Sennacherib,  delivered a speech in which he warned the delegation of King Hezekiah to surrender without a fight.

On the advice of the prophet Isaiah King Hezekiah refused. A second message was sent to King Hezekiah demanding him to surrender without a fight, and again the Prophet advises the King not to submit to Sennecherib’s demand (2 Kings 19:32)So we pick up with the prayer of King Hezekiah

And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.  Lord, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath 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, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.  Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only (2 Kings 19:15-19)

If  I can I want to jump straight to verse 17 where King Hezekiah says “it’s true the King of Assyria has destroyed and laid waste to every land that has stood against them”.  Here we see a very powerful thing; first a fear that was in the heart of King Hezekiah, and second a lie that had been accepted as the truth.

 The fear was real, there was an advancing army at the walls of Judah. However in verse 11-13 we find a lie told by the Assyrian King which Hezekiah accepted as the truth. Sennacherib gives a laundry list of the nations he destroyed and the inability of their God to protect them against his army. The lie was infered, that because the false gods could not protect the nations against King  Sennacherib's army that the God of Judah was likewise impotent aganist the army of the Assyrians.  We see because King Hezekiah tride to bribe the Assyrian that for a moment he believed that lie.  We can only imagine that the prophet Isaiah had to persuade King Hezekiah of the truth of the Gods of the nations the Assyrian army had destroyed. The truth which was that they were not gods at all, but creations of their own hands and were unable to protect. 

However, Hezekiah was not praying to some moon god, but the God that created the moon, and the sun and the stars, and the earth. His prayers were to a living God, not a god made by the hands of man, but a true and living God whose hands made man.  

 

Consider this meditation,

Meditations on Jehovah Nissi

At first I feared when all was against me, when the adversary came in like the waves of an evening tide against my peace;  pounding at the foundation of my heritage, saying I’m not a son of the almighty God. All that was wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, as armies circumscribe me from all sides, there no place for me to run. So I looked to the hills from winch cometh my strength.

Evil came to discomfit my life, while those I thought were my friends, like ravenous wolves bit at my hind side.  They revile me, for Your Sake, and by my past and called me as evil as they are. The chaos of the Accuser tried to confound me with doubt and by my past iniquities enticed me with wickedness. They tried to choke the salvation out of me, and chase my soul, to Sheol.

But I will run  to Golgotha and no further, would I run. Here is my confidence; I have rested my head under the blood stained banner of Jesus Christ Victory is mine.  My strength is renewed, like an eagle I am mounted up on new wings, I will not grow weary, I will not grow faint. Because I am a new creature in Christ!

O Death, where is your sting? O Sheol, where is your victory? Do you not know that Jehovah Nissi  gives me the victory through my Lord Jesus Christ?

Tc Pearsall © 2011

Please do not copy the above meditation  without the expressed written  approval of the author

Soli Deo Gloria
Your Brother in Christ
Troy “FireSpeaks” Pearsall

Other prayers in this series
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prayer of Agur   

Prayer of Agur

New Series  (Biblical Prayers for Today!)

It has been a few weeks since I wrote anything. But while I was stumbling on the internet, I can across a prayer that rang so deeply in my mind. Because this prayer was so fascinating  I wanted to share it with everyone and make this prayer the first in my Series of Biblical Prayers.

Additionally since this is  my first installment of the new year, and the first installment of my series on prayer  I wanted to challenge us with a prayer that would bring us to new levels. I therefore challenge you to pray this prayer until you mean it.

Series 5 Prayer 1

The Prayer of Agur

( I dare you to pray this prayer)

I would say 95% of all Christians have heard of the prayer of Jabez, but only about 5% of the those Christians would tell you where it's located in the Bible. This is just the opposite with The Prayer of Agur,  of the very few Christians that have heard I would guest that nearly 100 % of those Christians knows where it can be located in the Bible. Why this is so, we will address later, right now lets look at the prayer. 

Proverbs 30:7-9
Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die:   Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:   Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.(KJV)

In this prayer a man named Agur ( identified in proverbs 30:1) ask God for two things,

1.      That God’s sustaining Grace will keep him from falling into sin because of his vanity and lies 

2.      That God would meet his needs

a.      …but not so abundant, that he will forget that God is the source of all good things in his life.  

b.       ….and not so sparingly that he has to steal to meet his own needs. 

This is a difficult prayer to pray it deals with or vanity and pride, the lies that we tell and that others may tell us, and our lust for money and fear of poverty. However Agur does not ask God to help him stop lying, but to keep him out of the situations and circumstance that may tempt him to lie,  or that may cause him to act in vanity or pride; to keep him out of circumstances where others are likely to have him as a subject of their lies.

We are cursed with the false belief that we can handle riches in our life , but this is far from the truth. When the options for large amount of money becomes a subject of our interest we almost universally see it as an opportunity to to get more things. I heard Christians who would never play the lottery, say things like “if I won the lottery I would buy…” you fill in the blank. The fact is, the natural man desires the gifts, and blessing of God greater than he desire God. It is for this very reason that God will not answer a prayer from us that would take us from his presence.

James 4:3 (Amp) says “ [Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures.”

Agur was a man of wisdom, he knew his own fear of want, and the temptation that being impoverished has on mankind. So he prayed God don’t hold your substance from me so much that I am out of my lack will steal and defile your name.

The question we must ask ourselves are we willing to admit that we are unable to subdue our vanities, and pride ? Are we willing strip ourselves bare of the curse of plenty, so that we may live upright in the presence of Christ?  

Soli Deo Gloria

Your Brother in Christ 

Troy " FireSpeaks" Pearsall


Victory Prayer of King Hezekiah 

The Thanksgiving of Habakkuk

For 389 years the United States of America  has set aside one day to give thanks to God, creator of heaven and earth, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Giver of His Holy Spirit,  for His gracious sustaining of us all 364 days that preceded.

When the Pilgrims began this tradition it was not meant to be greater than their worship, (as it has become) but an outpouring of their worship a way to express the gratitude and love for our God and a celebration of Him, through our Lord Jesus Christ.  It included food, but much more it included praise and song and dance.  There was family and friends both old and new, but much more there was an  inward love and praise of our Father and through our Lord Jesus Christ that overflowed into the outward celebration. 

This was commanded of us in Ephesians 5:20 (KJV) Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

However sometimes we get it wrong we confuse things and circumstances with the blessing of our Father, and when this happens we don’t see the blessing, we miss the things we should give thanks for. we may even assume we have not been blessed, or have nothing to be thankful for

The trials of this world can weight us down but our Father has has given us instruction for those times. He says when this happens “Count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations”  (James 1:2) Our Father wants us to know that  “In everything ( that we go through we should )Give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus” (1Thess 5:13)   for the perfecting of our soul

One passage from the bible that radiates the mindset of gracious thanksgiving is  even though this man of God seen no way out of his situation he praise God and Gave thanks! The Amplified Bible puts it this way;  The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!Habakkuk 3:19

I imagine if he was here today He would praise his God, with power, saying

“I’m flat broke and been jobless for over a year, no money in my pocket, no food on my table, and I don’t know how these bills will get paid. I spend all day long at the free clinic, but the pain is only getting worst; my children are on drugs, gay, strung out and my spouse emptied the bank account and left me for a younger man. Yet will I rejoice, even though I’m going through all this, I will rejoice in the Lord, no matter what my circumstance are I will be joyful in God my Savior, regardless of what’s going on in my life. I will continually praise him.

This is the thanksgiving of Habakkuk

Soli Deo Gloria
Your Brother in Christ
Troy "Firspeaks" Pearsall

Voting Kingdom Minded

So he brought the men down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, Everyone who laps up the water with his tongue as a dog laps it, you shall set by himself, likewise everyone who bows down on his knees to drink.  And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. Judges 4:5-6 _(KJV)

For entirely too long we as Christians and Evangelicals have pledged our allegiance to the republican party, or if African American or Latino the Democrat party. The Right to vote is a gift of God and we cannot sell it into whoredom to the first politician that says the word God in his speech.  We must be smart enough to know that they (the politicians) know at least enough about our beliefs to say just what we want to hear, and to get our vote, so they can ignore our faith, and their promises to us completely until the next 4 years comes.

For the last 24 years Christians have been voting their faith, yet no president has done anything for us whatsoever. Slowly they have eradicated God from our schools, and then from our courtrooms, and now even from our elections. No president has done anything to turn back the moral decay and the blatant animosity against our faith. Yet we foolishly support them.  Is there anything we can do about it? of course there is.

Gideon with 300 men change the direction of an entire nation. (Judges 7:4–7 )Yet because of our spiritual impotence we think we can flex our voting muscle in righteous indignation against one politician over another. Don’t be fooled election time is not a battle between and Christian and a Roman, nor an Israelite and a Midianites. Both of the candidates are Midianites! In the natural we have to see this election as a lose lose situation. There is not win without God and there is not God in politics. 

 If we vote against gay marriage and abortion, then we are voting for a false religion, and against the deity of Jesus Christ?  Juxtapositionally,  if we vote against Mormonism, we vote for abortion. Which of these has God put his stamp of approval on? Which one of these two men should the Body of Christ look to to execute God’s will? Do you not know that a vote for one is a vote against another, and a vote against the other is a vote for the first? (Matthew 12:30)

We Christians and evangelicals, must know that God is not a republican nor is He democrat nor will any of God commandments ever be filled in the office of the president.  Those in the presidential race care nothing about God,  their auxiliary compliance to God’s law is at most coincidental. To insinuate that through voting we can restraint sin is both foolish and disrespectful to my intelligence. Restraint of sin is God’s duty not our. moreover, saying that we hate the sin of gay marriage, but love the sin of idolatry. and denying the deity of Jesus Christ is not a better way they, are both evil in God’s eye. (Ephesians 5:11)

However, we cannot blame them, we have created them. We have created them because we have failed to proselyte the gospel to every creature We have created these presidential candidates because we have allow of faith to be an incidental issue in the eyes of the world. 300 men of God are worth the accumulation of 300 votes to both President Obama and Governor Romney, 300 votes are nothing in a country of of nearly 240 million registered voters, but if we voted with spiritual power! 300 men of God would be more than enough.

See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men’s ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ - Colossians 2:8 _(AMP)

Voting is a privilege that many men, in many nations desire, but God has been given us this privilege to vote graciously (by God not man). Yet even as the offer of salvation is rejected by the reprobate mind, so is the right to vote rejected by the ignorant. I would suggest that it is sinful not to vote ( though this is just my opinion) so that we may see the mercy and graciousness of  this most privilege gift of God.  Our vote is the spiritual power which can shape our world. But if we vote our of righteous indignation thinking that we know God’s will or that one man is the devil and the other is not, we make our vote impotent unable to impregnate the will of God in this country. 

Conversely if  we vote out of allegiance to a party, or because our parents or friends said they would vote for one party over the other. Like lemmings we are blind followers of parties allowing one candidate to take for granted our vote knowing that he can fail us, or completed ignore us in his promises (Luke 6:39)

This is man's kingdom where power makes the king. Each presidential candidate seeks the power that comes with this kingship.  Each one offers us materialist promises to sway us under his banner. And once we are under his banner, it is only by what we have of value that we can trade for anything in his world.  The quality of our citizenship is measured by what we have to offer the kingdom. Those that have nothing to trade, are the lesser in this kingdom. The rich have much in this kingdom and the poor have nothing. It makes no difference if it is President Obama or Governor Romney that presides over the kingdom of these United States, the system will remain the same (Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7, John 12:8)

If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world’s crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules and regulations?—such as] - Colossians 2:20_(AMP)

But in God’s Kingdom we have a King who is in complete opposition to the the very ways of this world. He became King not by the strength of His might but by being weak and dying on the cross. It is not by what we have to offer, but by complete and contrite declaration of the fact that we are totally bankrupt, having nothing worthy, that we are given citizenship in His kingdom.

So my brother and sister don’t  take your vote lightly, let us vote kingdom minded. Be in prayer about whom God wants you to vote for. Taking into consideration nothing of this world, putting your faith in the promises of God not the promises of man. So that when you leave the ballot booth you know that no matter what the outcome, and who becomes the president that he would have no power if it were not given him  from above. (John 19:11 )

Soli Deo Gloria
Your Brother in Christ
Troy “FireSpeaks” Pearsall

Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

And God blessed them, and God said  unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.  (Genesis 1:28)

A few days ago someone asked me Did Cain marry his sister? Originally this was a conversation developed out of simple text message, but later I realized much more was needed.  In order to give a clear answer I was forced to send a lengthy letter. From that letter I am publishing this brief excerpt.

Discerning What's Really Being Asked

1. First  I could hear the truth of what was being asked, for its contempt of the word of God  I perceived it as “If God is so righteous then why does he condone incest in the bible?”.  I prepared myself to defend  the Word of God as we should. Please don’t listen to those that would teach that God can defend Himself ( of course He can) However, the Bible requires us to defend the word of God (1 Peter 3:15)
2. Secondly, in knowledge of the will of God which is again a Biblical requirement to those that are in the faith that we study to show ourselves approved [before God] (2Timothy 2:15). It is in this studying that we are able to defend the word of God, (for he that has no knowledge can neither have a defense of or any faith in God). I’m going to say that once more, so that there is no mistaking what I’m saying. “He that has no knowledge can neither have a defense of, or any faith in God.”  (Romans 10:14)  

So I added this to my newsletter because it’s about defense of the word, I hope for mine and your sake.

Answering not a Fool (Proverbs 26:4)

I start this letter with a warning, “Never let anyone put  your faith against the wall.  The enemy will try to get you to think in the natural,(like the rest of the world) so that he can persuade you to address is attacks without scripture.  They will ask you things like "can you explain God without the bible?"  Don't be foolish that like explaining  the theory of relativity without using  a science book, Or going to a gun fight with no weapon at all!  It just cannot, and should not be done.  Question about God formed this way have the purpose of disarming you and make your gospel impotent.

For instance in this question it would appear that the devil’s intent was to receive a biblical answer, but in truth he wanted you to reason according to the modern worldview, not with Godly wisdom. Be not deceived this is a tool the enemy uses to turn you away from God, to cause you to doubt God, and to cause you to fail to walk as a Christian. Now please understand, I am in no way calling the person that asked the question a devil, nor am I saying that he/she had in any way evil intents. However, all of us can and will on occasions be used by the devil, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unwittingly. No one is above the devil's schemes.  Unwittingly he employs even men and women of God as his minions to fill our heads with doubt; through science, and intellect, logic and reasoning even the most innocent sounding questions of the enemy has a hidden motive.(Mark 12:13, Luke 11:54) With that said let us address the nature of the question.

The question says in the natural “If God is so righteous than why does he condone incest in the bible?”  This question set you up to accept uninteligable logic and cause you to come against scripture because it is written with the intent of forceing you to cling to a non-christian worldview as correct.  The non-christian worldview says incest is bad, and if God is good, than God would not allow incest.

 Let us intelligently reason the truth. By virtue of numbers alone and God’s commandment it was necessary that there would be  inter-family marriage (notice I did not say incest?).   (Genesis 1:28) Since we believe creation to mean only Adam and Eve then we can be sure that their sons intermarried with their daughters, and the second generation had to marry their cousins and with each generation they would be removed from that family member exponentially.

Because the bible teaches that in the beginning God created only Adam and Eve, though there are those that teach God created others the Bible never speaks of such a second creation and such teaching is purely in error. Instead we find this answer in Genesis 5:4 “ And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:” it is these sons and daughter that make up the first generation of all the people in the world.

However, it is important to distinguish between inter-family relationships prior to God commanding against them (Leviticus 18:6-18), and incest that occurred after God’s commands had been revealed. Until God commanded against these types of marriages it was not incest. It was just marrying a close relative.

The reason we are against incest today is because our genetic chain is so impure that the child born of an inter-family marriage may have birth defects.  However at the time of Adam and Eve it was pure. And no genetic defects were possible.  In Adam and Eve was the DNA of every type of person there is today.    We see this truth foreshadowed in the story of Cain and Able where God says to Cain “The Voice of Your Brother's Blood Cries to Me From the Ground.” (Genesis 4:10) and more specifically When the Bible speaks of the decedents as being in the loins of their ancestors (Hebrews 7:9-10) “Levi pays tithe to Melchizedek while still in the loins of his father’s Abraham.”

Genesis 10 tells us that Noah, his wife and his 3 sons and their wives were the only survivors of the flood. Therefore we can say that the entire world is the descendants of the three sons of Noah. Consider how the Bible tells us this;

1. Biblically we know Ham to be the father of the darker people, south Egypt and all of Africa and South America, the Bible identifies these people as Hamitic;
2. Shem was the Father of the middle people, Arabic, Middle East and Asia, the Bible identifies these people as Shemitic.
3. And the third son Japheth was the Father of the northern people, Europe and north those whose skin was pale in color, finally, the Bible identifies these people as Japhetic Eurasia

Now even though these people are three different races that came from one family of Noah.  And in order for mankind to survive they would have had to intermarry amongst their cousins as well. This is why until God had commanded man not to intermarry, by intermarrying (which was needed) man was being obedient to the will of God  for that time (Genesis 1:28)

By the time of Moses, the human genetic code had become so polluted that close family intermarriage was no longer safe. So, God commanded against sexual relations with siblings, half-siblings, parents, and aunts/uncles. It was not until many centuries later that humanity discovered the genetic reason that incest is unsafe and unwise. However, on some occasions even before God commanded against it inter-family copulation was sinful if one party was not in agreement. (Rape)  Take the case of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:31-39) though it happened before the law  because one of the parties involved was an unwilling participant in the copulation  it was called rape. Because in mankind is the moral knowledge of rape being wrong (no one has to explain why rape is wrong you just know it) rape has always been a sin against God.

When we think of incest today it can bring up feelings of anger, or disgust which is perfectly good, but unlike the world which does not see why God makes things so, we who are in the faith see the will and love of God works itself in the action of men even today.  In the days of early creation,  man was made with the fullness of perfect DNA.  And therefore  inter-family marriage was not an  issue for humanity; in fact had there been no  inter-family marriages there would have been no you or me. What occurred between Adam and Eve’s children, Abraham and Sarah, and Amram and Jochebed, (Exodus 6:20) should not be viewed as incest, but the love and knowledge of God which worked in the very loins of man, in the beginning that we could multiply, and now that same love and knowledge of God working in us which restrict inter-family marriage that we may remain strong.

Soli Deo Gloria 
Your Brother in Christ
Troy “FireSpeaks” Pearsall