March 6, 2016 - Group Worship

Tony and Michelle Pawlak

MEMORY VERSE
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. (NIV)
Psalm 100:1-2

A few weeks ago we learned about Israel's most evil king: King Manasseh.  Manasseh had led Israel into worshiping false gods and paid dearly for it before returning to worshiping the one true God.  (You will find this story in II Chronicles 33:1-20)

     This week we learned about one of Israel's greatest kings: Manasseh's father, King Hezekiah.  This story is so important that God put it in the Bible three times: II Kings 18-19, II Chronicles 29-32:23, Isaiah 36-37.  When Hezekiah became king, Israel had been worshiping idols placed by his father, King Ahaz.  Hezekiah, however, loved God and "...did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (II Kings 18:3) and "...kept the commands that the Lord had given Moses" (II Kings 18:6). As soon as he became king, Hezekiah began smashing all the altars and monuments to false gods as well as removing any unclean thing from the Temple; a process that took sixteen days to complete!  
     After all this was done, Hezekiah invited all Israel to come to the Temple to worship the one true God as a group.  They had singing, musicians, and many sacrifices.  So proper worship to God was restored in all Israel and everything seemed great...for awhile.  
     King Sennacherib of Assyria began going through Israel, conquering it city by city.  King Hezekiah knew Jerusalem would soon be next so he wrote a letter asking King Sennacherib what he could do so the Assyrian army wouldn't attack.  Sennacherib said he wanted three tons of silver and one ton of gold! Hezekiah, wanting to protect his city, gave all the gold and silver in Jerusalem, even the gold from the Temple doors, to Sennacherib.  Sennacherib took the money but sent his army to attack Jerusalem anyways.
     The Assyrians surrounded the city and shouted taunts at the people making fun of King Hezekiah and the God of Israel. Hezekiah knew what to

do.  He dressed in sackcloth and bowed before God in the Temple. God sent the prophet Isaiah to tell Hezekiah that Sennacherib would soon go back to Assyria.  This came true but Sennacherib left his army at Jerusalem and sent a letter to Hezekiah telling him to give up.  In the letter he said that God could not save Jerusalem any more than the gods of the other nations he'd conquered could save them.  
     Hezekiah took the letter to the Temple and showed it to God.  Hezekiah and Isaiah prayed to God, asking for help from Jerusalem and God spoke to Isaiah telling him that, "I will defend this city and save it," (Isaiah 37:35a) and that not even an arrow would be fired against the city.  
     That night, God sent an angel to kill 185,000 men of the Assyrian army.  The next morning they woke up to find their fellow soldiers dead.  Seeing this, the Assyrian army decided to break camp and go back where they came from.  
     When we worship God, alone or in a group, we can be confident to lay our problems before the Lord like King Hezekiah did and know that God can fight the battles for us.  Things can get hard sometimes but we must always trust and worship God.

Colored pictures from freebibleimages.com