Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-137 (Expository Sermon)

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD 2 Chronicles 32:1-22

by Rod Benson

A desert nomad woke hungry in the middle of the night. He lit a candle and began eating dates from a bowl beside his bed. Taking a bite, he saw a worm in the date, so he threw it out of the tent. He bit into a second date, found another worm, and threw it away too. Reasoning that he wouldn’t have any dates left to eat if he continued, he blew out the candle and quickly ate all the remaining dates.

I suspect that nomad made a wise choice. But often it is foolish to close our eyes and pretend that what we fear or what we dread is not happening. It is so easy to escape into a world of few surprises, and few tests of our character, a world of our own making where we’re not called on to be heroes or role models or mentors for others.

But that kind of living saps us of courage and vision. That kind of living limits our potential for growth into the people God wants us to become. That kind of living reduces our sense of dependence and reliance on God.

That’s not the kind of living God expects from us: people who run from fears and challenges, people who blow out the candle and sit munching in the darkness instead of finding better dates or a better place to live. God is seeking people who faithfully pray, and who live authentic lives, and who give him the opportunity to demonstrate his power and love, and proclaim his victory, and change their world.

Hezekiah changed his world ————————–

Seven hundred years before Christ, a man named Hezekiah inherited the throne of the southern kingdom of Judah on the death of his father Ahaz.

At the age of 26, Hezekiah found himself leading a small, weak and declining nation. Israel, the northern kingdom, had been annihilated by Babylon seven years earlier, and already Sennacherib of Assyria (the Saddam of eighth century BC) was menacing Judah’s borders. Hezekiah possessed extraordinary leadership abilities, but above all he was a godly man who yearned for his people to know and experience God. In 2 Chr 29-32 we learn how he modelled and encouraged spiritual vitality.

The spiritual and military crisis facing Judah was overcome by four principles that Hezekiah championed: spiritual vision, personal revival, generous giving and faithful prayer.

The people of God lack vision, and Hezekiah casts a bold vision – a picture of a better future that produces a passion in them (29:3- 36).

They have hard and cold hearts, and Hezekiah urges them to return to the Lord, and experience his grace and compassion, and pursue holy and godly living (30:1-31:1).

They are not giving their best to the Lord, and Hezekiah encourages them to give generously out of love for God, and obedience to God’s word, and enthusiasm for God’s work (31:2-21).

They are in danger of defeat by the Assyrian armies massing on their borders, and Hezekiah’s prayers change history (32:1-23; cf 2 Kg 18:13-19:34; Isa 37:1-35).

Applying these four principles, Hezekiah changed his world. Today I want to focus on the last principle – the practice of faithful prayer – and let God’s word challenge us to be proactive in prayer, and change our world.

Sennacherib and his military commanders are seasoned soldiers and brilliant strategists. As their huge forces build up on Judah’s borders they prepare to besiege Jerusalem, and they wage a clever propaganda battle. Using their voices and distributing written material, they seek to undermine the people’s faith in God and their support for Hezekiah’s leadership. They want them to despair.

The Assyrians question the basis for the nation’s confidence in God (v 10). They allege that Hezekiah is misleading and deceiving his people (vv 11, 15). Again and again they say, “Do not listen to Hezekiah” (see 2 Kg 18:29, 31, 32). Sennacherib’s officers speak directly against the Lord (v 16). Sennacherib himself writes letters to Hezekiah insulting God (v 17). They offer a bribe of 2000 horses if they will give up and walk away (2 Kg 18:23).

The Assyrians try to instil fear into those who are defending the walls (v 18), and Sennacherib’s field commander claims he is acting on God’s command in coming to destroy Judah (2 Kg 18:25).

Hezekiah has not been idle. He has advised his people not to respond to the propaganda (2 Kg 18:36). He has sent leaders and priests to the great prophet Isaiah (2 Kg 19:2-7). He goes to the temple (2 Kg 19:1; 14-19).

Now, in the context of fear, apparent hopelessness and potential despair, Hezekiah brings out his most powerful weapon. He prays to God (v 20). Hezekiah and Isaiah both cry out to God about the crisis, and God responds, sending an angel to annihilate the soldiers and officers. Sennacherib returns home and is assassinated by his own sons (v 21).

“And so,” writes the Chronicler, “the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all the others. He took care of them on every side” (v 22).

A challenge to pray ——————-

Hezekiah changed his world through prayer. But what would have happened if he had not prayed? If he had fallen for the propaganda? If he had been godless like his father? If he had not had Isaiah’s support? Do you feel compelled to pray, but you don’t pray? Or you know it is right to pray, and you admire it in others, but you don’t pray? There is no doubt that prayer can change your world, but we can all grow spiritually lazy, spiritually unfit.

Last week I took my family to Perisher [in Australia’s Snowy Mountains] for some snow skiing. It was twelve years since I last skied, but I found that I remembered most of the techniques and skills I had learned in the past, and I had a fantastic time. Michelle enjoyed the slopes too, Michael had his first ski lessons, Samuel loved throwing snowballs at us all, and Zachary apparently tolerated his child minders and did a lot of sleeping in the warmth inside.

But slowly my body told me that it wasn’t in condition for the extreme physical exercise of snow skiing. Muscles burned and ached, joints ached, fatigue set in. I was mentally alert and motivated by the alpine environment, but I was physically unfit.

It happens in the spiritual realm as well, and for both forms of unfitness the solution is disciplined exercise and goal-focused perseverance. The reality is, though, that when it comes to the spiritual discipline of prayer, we find excuses for inaction.

We convince ourselves that we face an impossible situation, or that this crisis we are facing is actually too trivial to mention to God. We convince ourselves that God could change the world without us if he wanted to. We say, “It’s not my job – it’s the job of the pastor or elders or prayer team.” We argue that someone else can do it – perhaps better than us. We claim we don’t know how to pray, or our lives don’t measure up to God’s standards and there’s no point in praying because God won’t listen. We are not in the habit of wearing and bearing the “whole armour of God,” as Paul put it (Eph 6:10-18). Or we just like our world as it is and we really see nothing specific or strategic to pray about.

God is not interested in our excuses. He will listen to them, but he wants us to rise above them. He wants to hear our voices, and he wants to bless us, and he is looking for opportunities to change our world.

Praying should be like breathing – automatic, almost unconscious. As breathing is the natural response of physical life to the presence of air, so prayer is the natural response of spiritual life to the presence of God. Former Principal of Spurgeon’s College Raymond Brown said, “To be prayerless is to be guilty of the worst form of practical atheism. We are saying that we believe in God but we can do without him. It makes us careless about our former sins and heedless of our immediate needs.”

For his part, Hezekiah was neither godless nor prayerless. He was neither careless about his sinful past nor heedless of his immediate needs. God answered his prayer in a swift and certain and sweeping manner (v 21).

God answers our prayers ———————–

God answers prayer, and he will answer your prayers too – although not necessarily in the way you expect. But we all need to become disciplined pray-ers. In The Pleasures of God, John Piper writes:

The crying need of the hour – every hour – is to put the churches on a wartime footing. Mission leaders are crying out, ‘Where is the church ‘s concept of militancy, of a mighty army willing to suffer, moving ahead with exultant determination to take the world by storm? Where is the risk-taking, the launching out on God alone?’

The answer is that it has been swallowed up in a peacetime mentality. Thousands of Christians do not hear the diabolic bombs dropping and the bullets zinging overhead. They don’t smell the hellish Agent Orange in the whitened harvest of the world. They don’t cringe or weep at the thousands who perish every week. They don’t reckon with spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places and the world rulers of this present darkness.

In fact, it is not dark, they say. It is bright and comfortable and cheery – just look at my home and car and office and cabin and boat. And listen to my new stereo and look at my new video equipment.

We know what he means, don’t we? But we really are in a war, and we have options, we have choices, and we have excellent wisdom and guidance in the Bible, especially the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus, to help us make a difference that counts for eternity.

Trust God to answer your faithful prayers, and send his angel, and change your world. Trust God to demonstrate his love and grace and compassion in your experience this week. Through prayer you really can change your world.

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E132 Copyright (c) 2003 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).

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