When the Going Gets Tough

The transcript below has been slightly edited to make it easier for reading.

Father, we thank You for our brother's testimony. We thank You for the work that You've done, not just in his own life but in the lives of others as well as in our own lives, that we can remind ourselves of Your faithfulness towards us: how You seek us, how You pursue us, how You bring us to faith in Christ. Father, we ask that You help us all to understand Your Word better. In our times of trials, when we face the challenges of this world ,we ask Lord that You would give us Your Word to hold onto for Your Word is truth. Speak to us now as we open Your Word and reflect on it. We ask that Your Holy Spirit would teach us. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.

We've been going through our series on the life of Hezekiah in a combination of sermons and small groups. As we've been going the life of Hezekiah, I realized I could probably preach about eight to ten different sermons if we wanted to. But we focused these four weeks to this coupling between sermons and small groups.

We've looked at the priority of worship. How do we regain our momentum? It's by first getting worship right. When God is on your side, you don't need to fear others. Then, we looked at how we live a lifestyle filled with grace. It's one thing to say, "I worship God," but as we relate to others, we need to go into a world filled with difficulties. To do that, we need to be men and women - we need to be a church - that's focused on grace.

Today we want to look at what happens when we face challenges. Invariably, when we start trying to regain momentum in our life, when we make the decision that we're going to do something great for God, Satan comes and attacks you. The very first thing that hits you is the reality, "What did I just do? What did I get myself into?" We see this in 2 Kings 18:13 - 19:7. Please read along with me:

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In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field. And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”

Then the Rabshakeh 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 says 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 says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, 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 his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? 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?’”

But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.” When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

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It's the story of a king who has sought to please the Lord. While he sought to please the Lord, you would think his life would be going perfectly. He had started a great revival in Israel and many people began to turn back to the Lord and worship the true God. It's everything you would have wanted if you were God. But then things turn for the worse and Hezekiah is now facing a crisis, a struggle, and whether or not he will be faithful to the task which God has given him.

Maybe in the past couple weeks some of you have rededicated yourself to the Lord, committed yourselves anew to living the way God wants you to live, to doing the things God wants you to do, and to be the people God wants you to be. If you've done that, perhaps some of you are thinking, "Now my life's going to be better." But the minute you start out, you quickly realize things haven't changed. You're stuck. It's hard to regain your momentum. Sometimes we want to achieve something, we want to have it. However, there's a lot of obstacles to overcome if you want to be men and women of moving in the work of God and seeing it done to completion.

I was reminded of the time I went to Yosemite National Park. If you ever get a chance to go to America and go to California, you have to go to Yosemite National Park. It's an amazing place because of the view of Half Dome Rock. You go in this valley and you see Half Dome. There's this one place you can hike up to see the view, it's called the four mile hike (about 6 kilometers). The four mile hike goes up this bluff or this cliff on the right and side, and it just like a trail. It's not difficult, it's not challenging, it's not like you're scaling wall. But it goes up, back and forth, for four miles from the base of the ground up to the top. 

I went to Yosemite thinking, "I'm going to go and do what everyone else does who’s my age. We drive around that cliff up to the top. There's an access road which gives you the beautiful view of Half Dome." I had every intention starting out to drive my car around this bluff up to the top and get some good pictures.

But that's not the way I'm wired. I get to the base of the cliff, pull my car off to the parking lot that's at the bottom, and look up at this cliff and I think, "It can't be that hard. It's only 6 kilometers! How hard is it to walk 6 kilometers? I walk 6 kilometers all the time. Granted, this is uphill but it can't be that hard. I've got hours to do it." So I leave my car in the parking lot with all those other people that never get momentum going in their life to get started. There's a lot of people that look at the obstacle and say, "God be with you. I'm comfortable where I'm at." But I'm not one of those people. I get out and decide I'm going to climb to the top. Driving is for wimps. Us real men, regardless of age, climb. 

What happens is, you start to go and it's sloping up to the base of this cliff. It's not so bad because you're in the trees. Then you get up to the base of the cliff and that's where reality hits you. You quickly now go on the switchbacks going up the face of this cliff. After about 10 minutes, you're completely spent and wasted.

That's where most people quit, isn't it? That's where most of us, who see this opportunity before us and with great enthusiasm, get out of the parking lot. We proceed through the trees on a challenging uphill slope, but it's not that hard. We're getting some momentum going, we're getting some energy, and then we hit the obstacle. Very soon into this obstacle, it all grinds to a halt. Can we make it? Will you persevere to the top? When we think of momentum, we think it's all speed going downhill. I can go fast when it's all downhill. The question is do I have enough momentum to get to the top of the hill?​

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Our Christian life is going up the hill, trying to reach the top. Just as we read in this passage, you see Hezekiah starting out full of enthusiasm, doing the right things. You would expect in verse 13 of chapter 18 after all the things Hezekiah has done, you would read something like this, "Hezekiah cleaned the Temple, he had the Passover, and God blessed Hezekiah with the perfect wife, the perfect kids, and he never aged or had a gray hair his entire life." That's what you'd expect it would say. After all, he's doing everything that you would want in a king. But instead, what do we read?

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

Wait a second, what's God doing? That's not the kind of momentum you were expecting. I was expecting if I start doing what's right, God's gonna bless me. God's going to give me everything I want. What's going on here?

I think this is an important lesson for us. When you and I begin to do the work of the Lord, Satan doesn't sit there quietly. In this entire passage, over and over again we see this picture of the king of Assyria. I think this picture of the king of Assyria is one that represents the devil - all that opposes the work of God and His covenant promises. The minute you start to live for God, the minute you put worship of God first and foremost in your life, Satan comes upon you just like the king of Assyria came upon Hezekiah and took the fortified cities of Jerusalem.

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Struggling with Satan

The first thing I want us to look at here is how in chapter 18 we see Hezekiah struggle against Satan. As you and I seek momentum, you and I are going to struggle repeatedly with the devil who first and foremost is going to attack you through your mind by putting doubts in your mind and in your thoughts saying, "What am I doing? What did i get myself into?"

At the foot of the mountain in Yosemite, I looked at the cliff going, "I can do it. It's only four miles, 6 kilometers. I can do this!" Ten minutes into it, I'm full of doubts, gasping for breath, thinking, "Can I do the next step? Can I keep going? Will I have a heart attack and keel over right here in Yosemite?" Doubts. The minute you and I begin to do the work of the Lord, doubts fill your thoughts.

It's remarkable when you go to Nineva to visit the king of Assyria's palace, he had a special room built for people to wait before their audience with the king. This was his waiting room. It's not a room filled with chairs, sports magazines, and women's magazines. It's not a place for you to sit and kill time because the doctor's late. This was a place designed to strike terror in the hearts of the people around you.

They've taken the relief off the walls of the palace in Nineva and brought it to the British Museum in London. This relief from the palace of Nineva retells the story of the capturing of the city of Lachish that you read about in 2 Kings 18. This was the military fortress. This was the gateway for people to get through from Egypt going north and from the north going down to Egypt. It's the city that protected Jerusalem.

Anybody who wanted to come and see the king of Assyria had to wait in this room that was a propaganda display to tell you about how powerful the king of Assyria is. Let me show you one picture from the relief: men impaled on poles stuck through their bottoms coming up through their mouths to torture and kill them, so they would rot in the sun. Other pictures have men bowing down, kneeling before the king of Assyria to ask for clemency and that lives might be spared.

These pictures on the walls of the palace were designed to make you terrified of the king of Assyria - the greatest war machine in the Middle East in that day, the undefeated army of that time. I can't imagine the doubts that would fill your mind when you came to see this king. As you looked at his propaganda machine, you would think, "I can't do it. How could I ever oppose someone like this?"

That's the very doubt Satan wants to put in your mind when you try to be an ambassador for Christ, go into the world, and face people who live in the kingdom of darkness. Satan is there trying to tell you, "Be quiet. Don't stand out. Be a Christian, but keep it to yourself. Don't pray before you eat. Don't have a Bible verse on your phone. Just exist. Be quiet, be nice, and maybe you'll get through this okay." Satan cast doubts by causing you to fear in the very promises that God's given you.

Hezekiah is trembling because now that Lachish has fallen, the one and only thing separating Hezekiah from the king of Assyria is the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Hezekiah himself has no army to fight back. 

Secondly, we see that Satan continues his efforts to wear out your strength. He's constantly trying to get you to fight him on the human level, because he knows his strength is so much greater than any strength you have. All of your efforts to try to be more clever, to overcome Satan, results in nothing except exhaustion and tiredness on your part.

What did we see in Hezekiah? First, he begins with this false confidence. This story of Hezekiah appears in three parts of Scripture: Isaiah 37, 2 Chronicles 32, and also here in 2 Kings 18. If you read the account in 2 Chronicles 32, you see Hezekiah's first act is to refortify his city, make some new battlements. He's trying to do everything in his own mind that he can do in order to defend himself and his position. But all he's doing is he's wearing himself out thinking, "I'm able to do it myself. I'll find the right strategy to overcome my challenge."

But let me tell you, none of your worldly strategies will ever be enough to overcome the challenges the devil gives you. You will never be smarter than the devil. You will never be stronger than the devil. Whenever you put confidence in yourself, "I can resist this temptation. I can overcome this challenge. I can do God's work," the minute you begin to focus on yourself, your confidence is in the wrong place. Hezekiah puts his confidence in his treaties with Egypt, his defensive maneuvers, and the walls of the city of Jerusalem. But none of these things can aid him against the Assyrian king.

We also see that Hezekiah makes a number of bad choices. In 2 Kings 18:14 it says he goes into the Temple and begins to take all the the money out of it - the silver out of his own treasury in the in both the Temple and the royal treasury in the palace. Then he strips the gold off the temple doors. 

Hezekiah is no longer trusting God for his salvation. We'll look at this next week, but somewhere along the line Hezekiah, who started so good, has shifted to relying on himself rather than on God. Now he's racking his brain trying to think, "What can I do? How can I solve this problem? How can I escape this mess?" He begins to make bad choices.

When you think that you can solve a problem that is spiritual, you actually can't do it and you overvalue yourself. Then it leads you into a series of choices that are not God-honoring, not God-trusting, and eventually leads you into a dead end of despair and hopelessness.

Hezekiah strips the door off the temple - massive doors doors maybe two to three times the size of our ceiling here in this room. He strips the gold off the temple doors. As bad as things have been in Jerusalem for hundreds of years - as armies, famine, war have come - never once did it reach the point of needing to strip the gold off the temple doors to pay for an escape.

What bad choices are you wearing yourself out with? How has it been as you face these challenges today in your life? How has it been as you've been relying on yourself -confident in your previous experience, your previous cleverness, thinking, "I can once again escape this mess because I've done it before?" Satan's strategy is to get you to wear yourself out.

Thirdly, we see that Satan then brings accusations ringing in your ears. Satan doesn't just fill your minds with doubts and wears out all your strengths, but then he begins to turn it all around on you and accuse you. This story that we read is important because what you find happening is that the king sends his representative, they’re at the walls of the city of Jerusalem, they have this massive army surrounding Jerusalem, and they're shouting to the king's representatives on the walls saying, "Don't be deceived! Look at what Hezekiah’s doing to you."

Satan is constantly trying to ask you the question in verse 19:

On what do you rest this trust of yours?

What do you rest this trust of yours on? Satan is coming to you and saying, "You’ve been trying to oppose me, but you can't do it because you're trusting in the wrong stuff. What you need to do is trust in me." Then Satan turns it around with all these accusations and begins to say, "Look at what you've been trusting in." This is what Satan does. He puts an obstacle in your path, he comes upon you, he besets you, and he attacks you. In the middle of attacking you, he then turns it around and accuses you, "See, you're not faithful."

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He starts by getting you to talk about yourself. First, Satan says, "What strength do you have?" He basically says, "You've been looking at yourself." In verse 20 he says, "You don't have the strength to oppose me. You don't have the wisdom to oppose me. No matter what you do you're going to fail because you you are not enough." Let's face it, you are not smarter than Satan, you are not stronger than Satan, you will never be able to withstand the attacks of Satan, you will fail.

Very quickly after this he starts up with another accusation against Hezekiah and he says, "All of your friends are going to desert you." Hezekiah has been saying, "I'll take the money and I'll bribe the king of Assyria. If that doesn't work, I'm going to take all the money and ask Egypt to send some chariots and horsemen, an army to come to my defense." The Assyrians turned around and said to Hezekiah, "Where are the Egyptians?Nobody's here to help you. All of your friends have left you to face me alone."

But it doesn't end there. Up to this point, the worst attack that came upon Hezekiah is just that you will fail and your friends will desert you. But then he says, "Your God will not come to your aid. God is not going to come. He's not going to help you. You're completely on your own."

In the Middle East, people had the concept that if you wanted God on your side, if you wanted your idols to protect you, you had to build a lot of worship places for them - a lot of altars on this hill and that hill and this home. You had statues, you had places of giving sacrifices, and that was able to protect you. You wanted your land covered with idols of your god so there was prosperity and protection.

What has Hezekiah done? He removed them all. He tore him down. He said, "You can't worship other gods. You only worship Yahweh." Now the king of Assyria and his army are coming and saying, "You think God's going to protect you? You have no strength. We know that you're hopeless. Your friends, don't hope in them. They're trying to protect themselves. They're not going to come to your aid. Do you think that God whom you have offended by tearing down all those altars is also going to come to your aid?" The Assyrians don't understand who God is.

In the moments of your doubts, Satan comes and twists around the Word of God. This is the most dangerous attack of Satan on the Christian. After all, isn't it the very attack that Satan used on Jesus in the wilderness? When Jesus was in the wilderness fasting 40 days and 40 nights, Satan came to him and starts attacking Jesus by quoting the Word of God. That's exactly what's happening here. The Assyrains come and they say, "You think God's going to protect you? Listen, I've got some news for you. God's the one who told me to come and do this to you. Give up. Give in. It's hopeless. Why are you even bothering to oppose me?"

Is Satan speaking like that to you today? Satan is speaking to you, "Give up. Give in. It's pointless." Are these accusations ringing in your ears? This is Satan's strategy. The first thing he does is he fills you with doubts. Then he tries to get you to rely on all your strategies and cleverness to turn you away from God so you don't do what God wants and rely on Him. 

Satan turns you away from God so you rely on yourself, and then he gets you to start sinning because you're relying on yourself and your own ways instead of God. The minute you do that, the minute you start relying on your own efforts, Satan is right there to say to you, "See, you're such a bad Christian. You say you follow God, look at that. You think God's going to come to your help? You think you can take care of me?" See how clever Satan is? See how much more scheming Satan is than we are?

We think we can outsmart him, but in fact he's got us in a trap that's closing and closing around us which results in a complete sense of hopelessness eroding our confidence. Doubts, being worn out, and accusations leave us despondent and hopeless. Imagine the picture of the people in Jerusalem at this time. They're sitting on the walls, listening to the speaker of the king of Assyria, surrounded by this massive military machine ready to destroy their city. 

What's the words the speaker is saying? All the words that are chosen are meant to speak hopelessness into their lives. He says, "If you choose me, Sennacherib, if you bow down to the king of Assyria, I'll give you a land of milk and honey." Where did you hear that before? That's what God promised Israel. He's taking the promises of God and twisting them around. He said, "I'll give you the land of milk and honey. If you can't have it in this land, I'll take you to my land my land. It's even better. I'll give you all these things. Everything that God has promised you, I'll be the one to give it to you. Don't fight. If you fight, you're going to die. Make peace with me. Those who make peace with me will get all the blessings that this world has to offer."

Doesn't that sound the way Jesus was tempted by Satan? "Bow down to me one time and I will give you all the kingdoms of this world." Sennacherib is acting just like Satan is acting before Jesus. He has come to Israel and said, "I am your Messiah. Don't wait for God's promise, it's not coming. I am here right now before you, your Messiah. All of the promises of life and prosperity that God has promised through His Messiah, they're not coming apart from me. Make peace with me. Worship me. Bow down before me."

That's our Christian life. You and I are thrust into a world that opposes the Kingdom of God. When you and I try to bring the Kingdom of God to the place where we live and work, Satan is there to oppose us. Just as he offered through Sennacherib to Hezekiah a choice that was wrong and tempted Hezekiah to choose it, and just as Satan tempted Jesus to choose the easy way rather than God's way, so too as you and I set out into this life trying to regain our momentum, he's offering you a choice today: do you choose God or do you choose Satan?

Satan says, "I'll give you everything you need without the struggle." God says, "I give you what you need through the struggle, because through the struggle you come to know Me greater." The reality of our life is we face these struggles, we face these battles with Satan.

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Resting in God

So how is it that Hezekiah was able to repel this struggle? Where is it that you and I will find the ability to repel all that Satan is doing in our life? We find it by resting in God, by having faith in the covenantal promises of God. You and I need to move like Hezekiah does in this story from self-reliance to dependency on God.

Oftentimes without realizing it, we slip into a way of life where the good times come, the threats aren't around us, we feel we've got our worship in order, we're living a good Christian life, we're going to Bible study, and things are okay. We begin to skew our faith away from dependence on God to more and more reliance on self. When Satan attacks, and those attacks will come, the only thing you can do is run to God, to rest in His covenantal promises. That's the very thing that Hezekiah does here. He turns to god in the midst of this struggle.

How does he do this? The first thing he does is he rests in the unbreakable covenant that he has with God. You and I need to meditate, need to understand ,need to believe the unbreakable covenant that God has made between Himself and us. Sennacherib comes and says, "God has sent me to punish you because you disobeyed that covenant." He's got faulty logic here. He doesn't understand that God does have a covenant in which there's punishment, but this covenant is unbreakable between God and His people.

When you and I are in the midst of our struggles with Satan, we need to first start by putting our mind squarely on the promise that God has given you because the covenant is what explains the struggles we face. God had said that if you worship idols, this is what's going to happen. It explains to us why God has to punish sin.

But the covenant at the same time gives us hope that in the depths of your struggle, through repentance God will renew Himself to you and draw Himself close to you (and you to Him) in an everlasting covenant of love. How confident are you in the covenant that God's made with you? How confident are you in the promise of eternal life that God has given you? Are you willing to face the mountain? Are you willing to face the struggles in your life knowing that success or failure in this struggle has no bearing on how much the Lord loves you?

You and I are called into a battle against Satan. We know that that just as Assyria was an instrument of judgment in the hand of God, we understand that Assyria is not the real problem. God can take care of that problem. You and I need to understand the covenant of God is all the foundation and basis we need to move forward in our struggles against Satan.

Secondly, we see the unfathomable relationship between God and us. In 2 Kings 19:1 it says that when Hezekiah heard this report, he went into the temple. The very first thing Hezekiah does in the midst of this challenge, in the midst of the attacks of the king of Assyria, is he runs to God. The very first thing you and I need to do whenever we face challenges and the attacks of Satan in our lives is to go to God. There is no better place to be.

Because the Temple has been cleaned and the doors have been opened, Hezekiah is able to run into the very presence of God. Think about it, God dwells in you. As I've been memorizing Romans 8, it talks about how the Spirit gives life because we have the spirit of Christ who dwells in us. It says:

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

God says, "I dwell in you. You're a temple of the Holy Spirit. I dwell in your mind." As we face the challenges of this world, we know we can do it with full confidence because we can go into the presence of God.

We also can do it because we know that he's a God who speaks to us. Part of the struggle here with Hezekiah is he's feeling hopeless. Satan has been talking to him and filling his ears, so he turns to Isaiah the prophet. The whole point of being a prophet is that he gives you the words of God. The words of Satan are filled with lies and half truths that twists the Word of God. What we find happening with Hezekiah is he turns to God's prophet who has the true Word of God.

Our relationship with God is so wonderful because not only does God dwell in you, but God speaks to you. This is very different from our spiritual-but-not-religious people in the today's society - the millennialists. People who feel that God is everywhere, that everything is one, and that God is part of everything. They believe that God is in me, that I'm God, that everything's God, and let the force be with you. The problem is they might believe that God dwells with them, but God is not personal. He's impersonal. God can't speak to them.

What is it most needed when you're facing a crisis is you need advice, you need truth to help you find the way. I know my daughters, whenever they have a problem, they call me up and they go, "Dad, it's so hard to be an adult." I say to them, "Tell me about it, I'm still trying to figure it out." "Dad, what am I supposed to do?" Unlike my church members, when I tell my daughter stuff they do it. You need advice. You need somebody to speak into your problem.

What we have with God is that God doesn't just come and say, "That's okay, it'll all go away," but He speaks into the problem. He tells us what to do and how to do it. He gives us wisdom that supersedes all the schemes and strategies of the devil. He tells you to keep trusting God daily - trust Him for all your needs and that you're struggling with.

Are you listening to what God is saying to you today as you face these struggles? As your facing the mountains in the path of your life today, are you listening to the words God is telling you to do? Often the struggle isn't hearing God, quite honestly the problem is wanting to do it.

Too often the problem is we know what God wants us to do, but we don't want to let go of the thing that we have. I know God wants me to to stop dating this girl or this guy, because they're not bringing me closer to God - they're bringing me away from God. I know God doesn't want me to be cheating people in my business. I know He doesn't want to do this, but I just can't let go. Satan is telling you, "You can't rely on God for your happiness. Rely on me. Do it my way." God says, "I'm speaking, are you listening? I'm speaking, are you obeying?"

Not only does God dwell and speak with us, but He's also a God that listens to us. God says, "Pray to me for your daily bread." Some of us today are struggling to eat. Some of us today are struggling to just do what's the next thing. Our businesses are going bankrupt, our lives are going bankrupt, the pressure and stress of being single is too much, I just can't go on. God says, "I'm here to listen." Ask! God answers prayer. God says, "Pray to me for your daily bread, pray for me for the invading armies. I do it all - from the smallest to the greatest needs."

God listens. The question is, what are you praying for? It's not that God doesn't hear your prayers. I think oftentimes we're not praying. We've become men and women who are so dependent on Google, technology, the way we can find ease of doing things, connections, who we know, and how to do it, that we stop turning to prayer. I think that in times like this, God is telling us to do the opposite. He's saying, "Pray bigger prayers. Ask greater things of Me. You have no idea how big this enemy is surrounding you today."

If God was to open your eyes to the work of Satan in your life today, you would be shocked to see the strength of the opposition against you. I know that you're not aware of it because you're not spending your time in prayer, you're spending your time playing Candy Crush. God says, "Turn to Me. Pray bigger prayers, because that army - it's gone. That obstacle cannot stand before Me. I can take care of it. If only you'll pray and trust in what I can do."

Thirdly we see not just the unbreakable covenant and the unfathomable relationship, but we see the unconquerable power of God. Isaiah comes back and he says, "Tell this to Hezekiah: do not be afraid." Can you imagine Hezekiah looks at his wall, and he sees his army - a mere handful of people not enough to put in chariots and horses to fight the Assyrian army. Then he looks outside of the walls and sees the undefeated mega superpower of the Middle East. In the middle of this, Isaiah speaks the Word of God and says, "Don't be afraid."

I'm sorry but if I was Hezekiah, I would be tempted to think, "Is God on medication? Does He know what's happening here?" The difference is, God knows exactly how strong Satan is, but He also knows exactly how strong He is. Even though you feel your opposition is insurmountable, "There is no way I can do it," God looks at and goes, "Don't worry, this is simple. Leave it to me." 

Philippians 4 says that if we meditate on God, focus on God, and think about the things that God does, the peace of God will guard your minds. Do not be afraid. The more I think about God's power and less about Satan and his opposition, the peace of God floods my mind so I can sleep at night in confidence that the God who has covenanted Himself to me has all the power needed to take care of this enemy. 

That's why He says, "I will handle this situation. I'm gonna take care of it. I'll cause him to go back." We know in 2 Chronicles it says that the Assyrian king will go back and into his temple, and there he will die. Isn't it ironic? The Assyrian king is accusing Israel saying, "God is not going to help you. God can't protect you. No God can ever stand before me." Then he goes in the place where he should be the most secure: the temple of his own god who is supposedly conquering the world. He goes into his own god's temple and there he dies. Ironic isn't it? The place that he should be most secure is the place that's most dangerous for him. But Israel, Hezekiah, and the city of Jerusalem finds itself most secure because they're in the hands of the Lord and nothing can take them out of that.

Isn't that a beautiful picture of what you and I face today in this life? The promises of God are true in your situation. God will not desert you. So as you face this momentum killing mountain today, how do we respond? We respond by focusing ourselves on who God is and moving forward in the work that He's called us to. ​

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Striving by Faith

Let me help us to get our minds around this. We need to strive towards God by having a heart that's ruled by peace. We need to have a heart that is so flooded with the peace of God, that we can face all these problems that are around us. Go home and meditate on Psalm 46:6, 

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

How's that for a picture for you? Let the nations rage. Let Satan rage against you. All God needs to do to the armies that Satan is bringing before you today, is to speak His word. He’ll do it all. Let your heart be at peace. Have confidence the truth of what God is going to do for you both now and throughout eternity.

Secondly, let your mind be ruled by confidence in His sovereignty. We need to think about why God permits trials to happen. Why couldn't God dispel the army of the Assyrians before they marched on Jerusalem? After all, He's going to get rid of the army anyways. Why couldn't He do it earlier? Because God has a purpose for your trials. In God's sovereign plan, He is using your trials to purify your faith so that you continue to depend on Him rather than rely on yourself.

Thirdly, let your soul be ruled by His glory and not your comfort. Let your soul be ruled by the fact that God is trying to glorify His name through and in you, and your comfort is one of the tools that He uses. He may permit suffering to happen, but God is there in the midst of this suffering, redeeming it and using it to glorify His name. God's honor is greater than your comfort. Let us anchor our minds and our thoughts on the truth of God and His protection for us.

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Father, we thank You that You're a God who has promised to us an unbreakable love. A God who has supplied us with the peace that rules over our hearts, that floods our hearts and our minds in the midst of our challenges. Today as we face our mountains, we admit that we underestimated the struggles that we find ourselves in. But Father, we come to You now and throw ourselves upon You. We go to You and You alone. Strip away our self-reliance. Remind us of Your great care and love for us. Father, we wait for You to act. Just as You promised Hezekiah that You will do it, so too in full confidence we know that You will cause Satan to turn away from us, that You will set us free from the oppression that we're under, that You will do a great and mighty work to glorify Your name so that You get the credit and the glory. Only You deserve to receive it from us. Thank you, Father. We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.