Hezekiah’s prayer prevailed. The besieging army was destroyed; whether, as Kingsley suggests, “by a stream of poisonous vapours as often comes forth out of the ground during earthquakes and eruptions of burning mountains, and kills all men and animals that breathe it,” or by a pestilence, or by the simoom, we cannot tell. But it was God’s delivering hand put forth in answer to Hezekiah’s faith and prayer—1. That His people might learn to put their trust in Him; and 2. That all the earth might know that none can defy His power and prosper.—W. Osborne Lilley: The Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i. pp. 521–524.
A Christian Prayer.
xxxvii. 20. Now, therefore, O Lord our God, save us, &c.
The conclusion of Hezekiah’s prayer. Sennacherib had accomplished the conquest of several countries, notwithstanding the protection of their gods. He declared that the God who Hezekiah trusted would also be unable to deliver him. What could the king do better than spread the letter before the Lord, cry for help, and make the reproach of the Almighty’s power the principal plea? God’s honour was at stake. If Jerusalem was saved it would be a demonstration of God’s exclusive Divinity to all the nations around. The result was that the angel of the Lord destroyed the Assyrian camp, so that Sennacherib returned to Nineveh. It is one of the most remarkable answers to prayer.
This is pre-eminently a Christian prayer—that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that the Lord is God alone. It is the end toward which all Christian desire and effort is directed. We will consider it in this view, and notice—
I. The consummation which is desired.
It is that all mankind may believe in the one true God. Most of the nations of ancient times believed in a multiplicity of divinities, as the inhabitants of India do now. But many of these peoples were devoted to some one god in particular, who was supposed to take their country under his protection. The gods were local. They did not exclude each other. In time of war the question, so far as the gods were concerned, was not which nation was protected by the true God, but which god was the strongest.
The spirit of Judaism was entirely antagonistic to this. The unity of God was its great doctrine. It was not missionary; it was a silent protest. So far as they were faithful to the teaching they had received, the belief of the Jewish people was, that while the Divine Being stood in special covenant relations to them, He was the exclusive Divine Being; that until the nations should become acquainted with Him they had no God at all.
Christianity occupies a similar position, only the position is extended. When it commenced its career, it made itself felt, not as a silent protest, but as an active aggressive agency which aimed at the overthrow of all idolatry. It assumed the position that all the religions of the earth are false, while it is the only religion for man. From that position it has not descended. To do so would be to efface itself, therefore it cannot accept the modern paganism. It cannot take its place as one of the many forms, perhaps the most enlightened, in which the religious sentiment is expressed. It cannot accept the courtesies of “thoughtful men” on these terms. It must be all or nothing. It is the channel through which the one God has revealed Himself as the redeeming God. The consummation desiderated by the Christian Church is that all the nations of the earth may be brought to the knowledge of Him as thus revealed.
II. The reason why it is desired.