Isaiah 37:14

SPREADING THE LETTER BEFORE THE LORD

Isaiah 37:14. And Hezekiah received the letter, &c.

The letter was an insolent cartel of defiance from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, full as much of blasphemous defiance against God as of insolence to God’s servant. It represents the conflict between Assyria and Judah as being a struggle between the gods of one nation and the God of the other. The point of it is: “Don’t let the God in whom thou trusteth deceive thee, saying Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hands of Assyria. Thou hast seen what Assyria has done to all lands, and is thy God any better than theirs?” So the king of Judah, very simple and child-like, picks up the piece of blasphemy and goes up to the temple and spreads it out before God. A very naïve piece of unconscious symbolism! The meaning of it comes out in the prayer that follows: “Open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see,” &c. It is for Thee to act. That is the essential meaning of Hezekiah’s action.

I. It was an appeal to God’s knowledge. For his comfort it was necessary to make this appeal. That which influences and agitates us, we need in some way to spread before the Lord. When some great anxiety strikes its talons deep into our hearts, we need to have the truth made clear to ourselves. The Eyes up yonder see all about it. A plain old piece of commonplace, but, oh! there is a deep, unutterable consolation when a man realises this. “Thy Father which is in secret, seeth in secret.”

II. It was an appeal to God’s honour. His prayer was this in effect: “Hear all the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent to reproach the living God. I say nothing about myself, but it is Thine honour that is threatened. If this insolent braggart does the thing which he threatens, then it will be said, ‘Forasmuch as this Jehovah was not able to save His people, therefore He let them perish;’ those who worship other gods will say, ‘Jehovah is a name without meaning’—Thy name, which is above every name!” If a man has not got something like that in his prayers, they are poor prayers. With all humility, yet with all self-confidence, ask Him, not so much to deliver you, as to be true to His character and His promises, to be self-consistent with all that He has been; and let us feel, as we have a right to feel, that if any human soul, that ever in the faintest, poorest, humblest manner put out a trembling hand of confidence towards His great hand to grasp it, was suffered to go down and perish, there is a blight and blot on the fair fame of God before the whole creation which nothing can obliterate. But the feeblest cry shall be answered, the feeblest faith rewarded! Let us grasp the thought that not only for our own poor selves—though, blessed be God, He does take our happiness for a worthy object—but because His honour and fair fame are so inextricably wound with our well-being, He must answer the cries of His people (Ezekiel 36:22-24).

III. Let us take out of the story, not only what we ought to do when we go to God in prayer, but the kind of things we ought to take to Him. Every difficulty, danger, trial, temptation, or blasphemy by which His name is polluted, should be at once spread out before the Lord. But most of all the common things of everyday life! The small boy, whom one of our writers tells of, who used to pray that he might have strength given him to learn his Latin declension, had a better understanding of prayer than the men of the world can understand (H. E. I. 3756, 3757).IV. Another lesson: If you have not been in the habit of going to the House of God at other times, it will be a hard job to find your way there when your eyes are blinded with tears, and your hearts heavy with anxiety. Hezekiah had cultivated a habit of trusting God and referring everything to Him; so he went straight into the Temple as by instinct, where he could have found his way in the dark, and spread this letter before the Lord as a matter of course. It is a poor thing when a man’s religion is like a waterproof coat, that is only good to wear when it rains, and has to be taken off when the weather improves a little! If you want to get the blessedness of fellowship with God and help from Him in the dark days, learn the road to the Temple in sunshine and gladness, and do not wait for the bellow of the pitiless storm and darkness upon the path, before you go up to the Temple of God (H. E. I. 3877–3879).V. What do we get by this habit of spreading out everything before God?

1. Valuable counsel. I do not know anything that has such a power of clearing a man’s way, scattering mists, removing misconceptions, letting us see the true nature of some dazzling specious temptations, as the habit of turning to prayer. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the thing that perplexes us is that the steadiness of the hand that holds the microscope is affected by the beating of the heart and the passionate desires and wishes, and so there is nothing defined and clear; it is all a haze. Firmness of hand, clearness of vision, come in prayer to the man who is accustomed to take the harassing “letter” and spread it out before the Lord (H. E. I. 3741–3743).2. A very accurate and easily applied test. I do not wonder that so many of us do not like to pray about our plans and about our anxieties; it is either because the plans have no God in them, or the anxieties have no faith. Anything we cannot pray about, we had better not touch. Any anxiety that is not substantial enough to bear lifting and laying before God, ought never to trouble us. Test your lives, your thoughts, your affairs, your purposes by this. Will they stand carriage to the Temple? If not, the sooner you get rid of them the better. And then, “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God; and,” in spite of all the blatant Sennacheribs who have poured out their insolent blasphemies, “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.”—Alexander Maclaren, in Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, pp. 81–85.