On Whom Are You Depending?

Someone asked a Sunday School teacher, “What are sins of omission?” After some thought she said, “They’re the sins we should have committed but didn’t get around to.”

A man asked his doctor if there was anything that could be done for his snoring. The doctor asked if it disturbed his wife. The man answered, “No, just the rest of the congregation.” I know you’re enjoying those new pews when I hear snoring. J

The title of today’s sermon is “On whom are you depending.

We all depend on something or someone in life. The question is, who do you ultimately rely on? Yourself? Your family? Your Church? Your government? Your bank account? Your friends? Or do you rely on God?

Today’s sermon comes out of 2 Kings 18 & 19 if you want to follow along. It’s the true story of good King Hezakiah, the prophet Isaiah and the evil King Sennacherib of Assyria. It will help you to understand this story better if you know up front that King Sennacherib is a type or representative of Satan and that King Hezekiah is a type of representative of a sinner saved by grace.

Backdrop:

18:1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)

5 Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses. 7 And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. 8 From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory.

9 In King Hezekiah’s fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. 10 At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel. 11 The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes. 12 This happened because they had not obeyed the LORD their God, but had violated his covenant-all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.

13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. (This is a historical fact as documented by archiology. Sennacherib killed many Jews and took 200,150 Judean Jews captive and exiled them to Assyria.)

King Hezekiah was about to have a personal crisis of faith, but he thought he could take matters into his own hands and solve this problem himself. So listen to what he did:

14 So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me." The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15 So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

16 At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the LORD, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

King Hezekiah was a good king. He was a religious king. He followed the teaching of Moses and he did things that were an expression of his religious beliefs – like tearing down pagan altars and making the Jews worship God at the Temple in Jerusalem.

However, King Hezekiah did not have a personal faith in God. He had a superficial relationship with God at best. Up to this point in his life, if you would have asked King Hezekiah the question “On whom are you depending?” He would have had to honestly answer that he was depending on himself.