We all need help.
I need help right now… this Psalm, as much as I’ve sat with it, has been a dry well. Perhaps it is because the experience of war is so foreign to me that I have nothing to relate it to, much less know what it is like to see God bring a mighty army to its knees.
Hezekiah faced a dire situation some 2700 odd years ago. The northern kingdom of Israel was gone, devastated at the hands of the Assyrian Empire. King Sennacherib was on the march toward Jerusalem and toward global domination. No nation had been able to stand before him, and Judah was an irritation to be swept away. The King’s act of mercy was to offer the Israelites the opportunity to come out and surrender. But, as “pride cometh before the fall,” it seems he forgot his place in the grand scheme of things, and in his method of persuasion, openly mocked not just the king of Judah – Hezekiah – but the King of Kings, the Lord God himself.
Ravi Zacharias made a comment once which i greatly enjoyed. It was something along the lines of: opposing God is like “putting on a sneaker and kicking a tank.” Hezekiah, standing on the walls of Jerusalem, surrounded by this great Assyrian army numbering hundreds of thousands. It was a hopeless fight. Except, Hezekiah could see that King Sennacherib had just “put on a sneaker and kicked the tank.”
Hezekiah took the message of mockings and threats by Sennacherib up to the temple of God, into God’s presence, and spread it before the Lord. He then declared God’s sovereignty: “You are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.”
I love this story.
Why do I love this story?
Because Hezekiah didn’t even address King Sennacherib, but took it straight before the Lord, and before he received an answer, God was already dealing with Assyria. It says, “And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians.”
When I return to Psalm 76, I can now see something new of the God whom we have been saved by.
“But you (God), you are to be feared!” God’s rebuke is sufficient to render both rider and horse stunned. Even the wrath of man is somehow turned around to praise God (try figure how that works!)
I may not understand, but I can certainly ponder and reflect in wonder of a God that is so mighty, and be ever thankful that He has brought to us salvation, stripped death of its sting, and called us His own. I have nothing to fear, for I know the Lord, and the Lord knows me.
You are my light and salvation, whom shall I fear?
You are the strength of all my days
Of whom shall I be afraid?
Though war may rise against me
Of this will I be sure
that I will bless the Lord forever
I’ll bless His Holy Name.
– Douglas Smythe