I AM the LORD YOUR GOD (Part nine)

Does that mean that I can live as I want? That I don't have to listen to Him? Not hardly. In His role as the Great Almighty, God expects everyone to listen to Him and will act when He is not listened to. Isaiah 37:10-33 shows me this: “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely, And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them – the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where then is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?” Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: "O LORD Almighty, God of Isreal, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD and hear; open your eyes O LORD and see; listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.” Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word the LORD has spoken against him: 'The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against who have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down the tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’ Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In the days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stones. Their people drained of power are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up. But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me. Because you rage against me and because of your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came. This will be the sign for you Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows up by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant; and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it.” After all those who live in Jerusalem, those who truly love Him and will follow Him and know that they must go to Him are truly living in the spiritual kingdom, in His Holy City. He will always protect it, and just as Assyria could not prevail against Jerusalem, neither can my sins and satan, both the result of my selfishness by their nature, cannot prevail or destroy me. God will not allow it because I have asked Him to have mercy. I have, as James so aptly put it in the New Testament, humbled myself in the sight of the LORD. God’s will shall be done, regardless of the stubbornness of man and the haughtiness of kings and business executives.