Someone's Been Reading My Mail!

Did you ever feel that way? 
Say you're sitting in church, minding your own business and suddenly the minister begins talking as if he's been reading your mail?

Or your wife anticipates your next move and offers a full analysis of your motive for that move ... and she's right!

That's kind of eerie when it comes from friendly forces - it's really scary when it comes from an enemy.

I am slowly reading through the Bible - really, really slowly ... on purpose.

I started a few years back and just decided to take each chapter and chew on it awhile - read it over a few times during a week - maybe contemplate on it during my drive to work.  It's been fun and enlightening; and I have to admit that it is also a little grueling at times. Recently I discovered that one accidental benefit to this process is that it puts me more in the place of the character in the story.  By spending several days on one portion of the story, while being unaware of the outcome that awaits in the next chapter - I find that I experience a little more realism.  It puts me in touch with the fact that God doesn't often tell us the whole story at one time.

Over the past week or so, I have arrived at the story of Hezekiah, a king of Judah (2 Kings 18), this guy really had reason to believe someone had been reading his mail.

The Pastoral staff at my church like to emphasize the fact the the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be found almost anywhere in scripture - Old and New Testaments - and so of late, I have been trying to read the Old Testament with that in mind - searching for Jesus and the Gospel.  I find, however, that I am not really wired that way so it goes against the grain.  Stories are what I am passionate about and I love the texture and authenticity of Biblical characters - Hezekiah is one such character.

Hezekiah was a righteous king - a king of reform.  He swept into office on a wave of change.  He destroyed idol worship left and right.  He even destroyed a monument held over from the Hebrew's Wilderness days - the bronze serpent that Moses had mounted on a long pole.  Idol worship had amassed such a grip on the people that they began to worship the bronze serpent.  Well, Hezekiah put a stop to that.

He also went in and made repairs and improvements to the temple, restoring a proper worship of Jehovah God.

The reforms Hezekiah put in place began to reap rewards.  The nation began to rise economically and militarily.  Hezekiah had done mighty things on God's behalf and God was rewarding him.

But suddenly, things seemed to turn:  another country was also on the rise militarily - Assyria - and Judah was paying protection money to them in the form of tributes.  The money kept Assyria at bay.  Hezekiah stopped paying them tribute.

 Over about a three year period, Assyria besieged the nation of Israel (at that time a separate government from Judah) and eventually led the whole nation away into exile.

So when Israel fell, Assyria came calling and Hezekiah was afraid and began to try and pay them off.  He was so afraid that he performed some very literal cutbacks on the House of God - he had the golden plates cut off the doors in order to raise a tribute for Assyria.

But, Assyria wasn't satisfied - they wanted to be sure Judah and Hezekiah learned a lesson so they sent a team to threaten them.

At one of the crowded gates of the city of Jerusalem, three high-mucky-mucks from Assyria's military showed up one day and spoke to members of Hezekiah's cabinet. 

In the hearing of all the people milling around the gate - and in the Hebrew language - these military moguls spewed their terrorizing talk. 

"Please!" one of the cabinet members spoke up, "speak to us in your own language - we understand it; but not in Hebrew ... in the hearing of all these people!"

But that was their purpose - to strike fear and doubt in the hearts of the people - so they went on and talked as if they had been reading Hezekiah's mail.  They spoke of how the people should not be fooled into believing that their God was any stronger than the gods of all the nations Assyria had already destroyed.  They told the people not to let Hezekiah trick them into resisting the irresistible force of Assyria.  They said that Hezekiah's way would reduce them to being forced to eat and drink human waste.

It was despicable what they said... and it sounded as if they knew what they were talking about.  For Hezekiah it must have seemed that his brief run of success was over and that ultimately following God wasn't such a great idea.

I got caught up in the emotion of this moment.  I found myself asking why things would happen that way when it seemed Hezekiah was doing the right things.

Then it dawned on me - no I think God dawned it on me - this wasn't the end of the story.  I remembered why I liked this story so much the other times I've passed through.  Though things would even seem to loom darker for Hezekiah God had a major turnaround in store.  God was going to set things right.

I will let you do your own investigation of the rest of the story; but today, does this post find you at one of those "enemies in the gate" moments?  Does it seem that the enemy knows all your secrets and is just waiting to move in for the kill?

Take heart.  Sovereign God is watching and He has a plan to set things right. . . it could be just around the next chapter....