Atlanta Daily World

Sunday School Lesson

International Sunday School Lesson for May 29, 1955

MEMORY SELECTION: "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."-Ps. 124:8.

LESSON TEXT: II Chronicles 32: 1-8, 32, 33.

For more than a quarter of a century, the Kingdom of Judah had been menaced by the Assyrians. Ahaz had done homage to the Assyrian king and his son, Hezekiah at the age of only 25, inherited not only a throne, but all the difficult problems connected with trying to protect a small nation from the imperialistic plans of larger and more powerful surrounding countries.

There is a strange parallel in the position in which Hezekiah found himself and the position of some of the smaller nations of the world today. Expediency, rather than wisdom, dictated that Judah enter into an alliance with a stronger power to protect itself against the growing encroachment of neighboring powers.

Although the prophet Isaiah warned vigorously against it, Hezekiah joined in a rebellion against the Assyrian overlordship in an attempt to throw off the annual tribute. Senacherib immediately sent his troops westward, and after conquering Phoenician towns invaded Judah and blockaded Jerusalem, but did not take it.

Seeing such a state of affairs as probable, Hezekiah had prepared for it by having a conduit for water built, and plans made within the city to withstand a long siege. Judah, however, suffered greatly as a result of her alliance with Egypt and Babylonia and Isaiah was not slow in reminding the king and his people of their losses.

While Hezekiah was certainly not without fault in the matter, he has been placed very high among the kings of Judah after the fall of the monarchy. II Kings 18:5 declares of him there was "after him, none like him among the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him."

In the first month of his reign, he reversed the policy of his father Ahaz and opened the doors of the house of the Lord." To his credit, he set out to restore the Mosaic forms of worship, removing every possible likeness to God from the places of pagan worship. Even the brazen serpent, which the people had come to worship, was broken to pieces. He sent letters of invitation to all the tribes, north and south to attend the official restoration of the historic liturgy of the Hebrews.

The boldness of his reformation was practically nullified by the fact that the whole movement tended to make worship an affair of the state rather than an affair of the heart. Ceremonial religion, carried even to its hideous extreme of human sacrifice, has never saved anyone. Zeal for God and his righteousness, not zeal for ritual, will give strength to meet the problems and perils of the day.

It is to Hezekiah's credit that he kept the prophet Isaiah close to him as his counsellor, although he did not always heed the warnings of the man of God. Not only was Isaiah a man who had surrendered his life to God's call, he was a real statesman, with the courage to speak his convictions at all times and in all places braving the wrath of kings, princes, priests and false prophets.

Having utmost faith in God, Isaiah believed that while God would not save a sinning people for their own sakes, in spite of their sins, for grounds sufficient to him, God could and would overrule the evil designs of Jerusalem's enemies in order to further his purpose of bringing a Saviour to all the peoples of all the earth.--(Isa. 40:18-31).

Hezekiah had abundant proof of the soundness of the advice of Isaiah, when he told him to depend on God for protection against the foes of his kingdom. When Sennacherib king of Assyria, wanted to capture Judah to make that kingdom serve as a sort of buffer state between Assyria and his enemy, Egypt, Hezekiah was greatly alarmed. He went to work to prepare the city of Jerusalem for a siege, digging wells and preparing the breaks in the walls. He had a double wall put around the city and watch towers erected at strategic places. He counseled with his people, encouraging them to be brave and courageous.

Sennacherib was busy too, sending spies among the people to Judah to try to undermine their confidence in their own king and his God. preparations. Not unaware of what was happening, Hezekiah put on the traditional garb of humility sackcloth and ashes-and went to the Temple to pray, in the mean time sending for the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah gave him a message from the Lord-that Hezekiah could rest assured that God would win out over the Assyrians. The miraculous deliverance of the people of Jerusalem from the Assyrians can be read in II Chron. 32. With his first troops dead in the field of some sort of plague Sennacherib returned to Ninevah, where he was soon killed by his own sons as he was worshipping his pagan gods (2 Kings 19:36, 37). Thus, with God's help, Hezekiah met a real crisis in the life of his people. So always God stands ready to help those who honestly seek His aid.