{"id":626,"date":"2019-05-09T09:38:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T13:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/?p=626"},"modified":"2019-05-09T09:38:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T13:38:36","slug":"gods-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/gods-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cHezekiah\nreceived the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and\nHezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it\nbefore the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: \u201cO Lord, the God of\nIsrael, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of\nall the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your\near, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to\nmock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria\nhave laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their\ngods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands,\nwood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the\nkingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.\u201d\u201d \u2013 2 Kings 19:14-19 (ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the faithful kings of Israel, Hezekiah, was known\nfor walking sincerely before God. However, he made a mistake during his 14th<\/sup>\nyear of reign. When confronted by Assyria, he took the silver and gold from the\ntemple of the Lord and gave it to the king of Assyria in hopes that the king\nwould be appeased. But as we can see, the appeasement failed. At that time,\nAssyria was the most powerful nation in the world. Their military conquests\nwere nothing short of impressive. They toppled nations and slaughtered powerful\nkings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 When the\nappeasement failed and the king of Assyria threatened to destroy Hezekiah,\nmocking the nation\u2019s faith in God, what did Hezekiah do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went before the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love that Hezekiah went to God. He recognized that his\nalliance with Egypt (no small power at that time) would not help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will always be many times in our lives when we face\nsituations beyond our capacity and resources to handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 46:1 (NIV) declares: \u201cGod is our refuge and strength,
\n    an ever-present help in\ntrouble.\u201d<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hezekiah\u2019s situation was impossible. The king of Assyria\nwasn\u2019t full of pompous wind when he said that Egypt\u2019s military alliance would\nnot save Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite Hezekiah\u2019s initial mistake of trying to appease\nthe enemy, God answered his prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because Hezekiah completely gave himself and the\nfate of Israel up to the mercy of God. Hezekiah recognized the best course of\naction and took it. The world will always mock our faith in the Lord, but we\nneed to stand firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When things in life bring us to the brink of destruction,\nwhen we feel like death is near, let\u2019s remember God\u2019s response to Hezekiah. And\nhave faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you ready for His mercy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: \u201cO Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven … Continue reading God’s Mercy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627,"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nyhanmaum.org\/EM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}