– As we are getting older with time we can see that our life’s wishes often have not been happened at all, especially for big things like changing a life, a change in society or in a nation.

– In our experience, there have been many times that we wanted to get rid of a bad habit, or wanted to adopt for ourselves a better character, or wanted to see a change of our families fortunes or a change of direction for our nation, but they seemed impossible to happen, or never would.

– But what humans cannot do, God can make it happens much easy than turning a page in a book, as it was written in the book of Daniel:

DANIEL 2: 21 – He changes times and seasons; He deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

ĐA-NI-ÊN 2: 21 – Chính Ngài thay đổi thì giờ và mùa, bỏ và lập các vua; ban sự khôn ngoan cho kẻ khôn ngoan, và sự thông biết cho kẻ tỏ sáng.

– To have an example, we can look at the story of how Hezekiah was rescued from the army of Sennacherib to understand the way God had changed the fate of a nation.

– According to the Bible, when Judah was under the reign of Hezekiah at Jerusalem, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, had brought a big and powerful army to invade the kingdom:

2KINGS 18: 13-16 – In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me”. The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

2CÁC VUA 18: 13-16 – Năm thứ mười bốn đời Ê-xê-chia, San-chê-ríp, vua A-si-ri, đến đánh các thành kiên cố của Giu-đa và hãm lấy nó. Ê-xê-chia, vua Giu-đa, sai sứ đến La-ki nói với vua A-si-ri rằng: Tôi phạm lỗi. Cầu vua lìa khỏi nước tôi; hễ vua đòi tôi điều gì, tôi sẽ chịu. Vua A-si-ri bắt Ê-xê-chia, vua Giu-đa, phải trả ba trăm ta lâng bạc, và ba mươi ta lâng vàng. Ê-xê-chia nộp cho người các bạc ở trong đền Đức Giê-hô-va và trong kho tàng của cung vua. Bấy giờ, Ê-xê-chia gỡ vàng của các cửa và cột đền thờ Đức Giê-hô-va mà chính mình người đã cẩn vào, rồi nộp hết cho vua A-si-ri.

– But it was the first time. Sennacherib came with his big army a second time and after successfully conquering most of the land of Judah, he brought his army to the wall of Jerusalem and put it under a siege:

2KINGS 18: 17 – The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field.

2CÁC VUA 18: 17 – Song, vua A-si-ri ở La-ki sai Tạt-tan, Ráp-sa-ri, và Ráp-sa-kê, đem theo một đạo binh mạnh, đến Giê-ru-sa-lem đánh vua Ê-xê-chia. Chúng đi lên Giê-ru-sa-lem và dừng lại tại cống ao trên, ở bên đường ruộng thợ nện.

– Sennacherib sent a letter to Hezekiah, in which he insulted God, the king of Judah and the whole nation. He proudly proclaimed that even God could not save Jerusalem from his hands, and then he told Hezekiah to surrender:

2KINGS 18: 18-30 – Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew: Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says: The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

2KINGS 18: 18-30 – Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?

2CÁC VUA 18: 28-30 – Đoạn, Ráp-sa-kê đứng tại đó, cất tiếng la lớn lên bằng tiếng Giu-đa mà rằng: Hãy nghe lời vua A-si-ri, là vua lớn, nói. Vua nói như vầy: Chớ để cho Ê-xê-chia lường gạt các ngươi, vì hắn không tài nào giải các ngươi khỏi tay ta. Cũng chớ để người dỗ các ngươi tin cậy nơi Đức Giê-hô-va, mà rằng: Đức Giê-hô-va sẽ giải cứu chúng ta, và thành này sẽ chẳng sa vào tay của vua A-si-ri đâu.

2CÁC VUA 18: 33-35 – Những thần của các dân tộc khác há có giải cứu xứ mình khỏi tay vua A-si-ri chăng? Thần của Ha-mát, và thần của Ạt-bát ở đâu? Thần của Sê-phạt-va-im, thần của Hê-na, và thần của Y-va ở đâu? Các thần đó có giải cứu Sa-ma-ri khỏi tay ta chăng? Trong những thần của muôn nước, có thần nào đã giải cứu xứ họ khỏi tay ta chăng? Há Đức Giê-hô-va có thế giải cứu Giê-ru-sa-lem sao?

– At that time, everyone knew the savages and destruction that the Assyrians had brought with them to the region and the brutal way that they treated its inhabitants.

– Those knowledge about the Assyrians made Hezekiah understood that he could not fight them and expel them from Judah nor surrender to them.

– That’s why Hezekiah brought the letter to the front of God in His temple at Jerusalem and cried out to Him, asking for help.

ISAIAH 37: 14 – Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.

Ê-SAI 37: 14 – Ê-xê-chia đã nhận thơ tại tay sứ giả và đọc rồi, thì lên nhà Đức Giê-hô-va, mở thơ ra trước mặt Đức Giê-hô-va.

– What Hezekiah did pleased God and He listened to Hezekiah’s prayer then answered him quickly. That night He sent one of His angels into Assyrian’s camp and killed all of them in one instant.

2CÁC VUA 19: 35 – Trong đêm đó, có một thiên sứ của Đức Giê-hô-va đi đến trong dinh A-si-ri, và giết một trăm tám mươi lăm ngàn người tại đó. Sáng ngày mai, người ta thức dậy, bèn thấy quân ấy, kìa, chỉ là những thây đó thôi.

2KINGS 19: 35 – And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.

– As we can see, an army of 185,000 soldiers was extremely large at that time, but one angel of God could eliminate them in just one night without any commotion.

– It’s an example to encourage us spiritually to trust God and ask Him to work wonder in our lives, because God is Almighty and He can do everything that impossible to human’s capabilities. And He also wants us to ask for help from Him, as it was written in the book of prophet Jeremiah:

JEREMIAH 33: 3 – ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know’.

GIÊ-RÊ-MI 33: 3 – Hãy kêu cầu ta, ta sẽ trả lời cho; ta sẽ tỏ cho ngươi những việc lớn và khó, là những việc ngươi chưa từng biết.

– As Hezekiah was rescued by God, Christians could also be rescued, too, from troubles in this life if we asked for His help with all our hearts.

– Although the Bible tells us that only Hezekiah prayed to God and asked for His help, but surely the whole nation of Judah also wanted to be rescued from the Assyrians, too. Certainly their hearts had been heard by God. Because of that, God answered them with miracle: their desire was satisfied, their problem was resolve and their nation was free from aggressors.

– Therefore, the best way to change anything is asking for God’s help, and Christians should follow Hezekiah’s example when he and his kingdom faced the army of Assyrians.

– But might be someone would argue that there were lots of nations around the world that were rescued from their enemies without calling to God. For example, Vietnam was freed from Mongolese and Chinese aggressors in the times of Tran’s and Le’s dynasties.

– That’s true, but we all know that they had paid a heavy price for the freedom of our nation with the blood of young men, lots of them, as the cream of the societies at that times. There are always casualties in wars. It can’t be avoided.

– But with God’s help, not a single Israelite’ life lost by the hands of the Assyrians on that particular night.

– That is the big difference between asking for God’s help and relying on a country’s manpower alone.

– But as it has been mentioned above, the Israelite’s victory over the Assyrian army did not come by Hezekiah’s prayer alone, but came by the wish to be rescued by the whole kingdom. As the history of that particular period tells us, nobody wanted to be put under the slave’s bondage of king Sennacherib.

– Because the Israelites united in their wish to be rescued and be freed from the Assyrians, God had intervened and destroyed the most powerful army in the ancient time.

– To make sure we remember the power of uniting in prayer, we should look back at the time the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and how God had heard their prayer and rescued them.

– After slaving in Egypt for 430 years, the Israelites called to God for help and He sent Moses to rescue them from the slave’s bondage. But because they did not unite in their prayers sooner so that’s why they suffered for 430 years long:

EXODUS 3: 7-10 – The Lord said: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt”.

XUẤT Ê-DÍP-TÔ KÝ 3: 7-10 – Đức Giê-hô-va phán rằng: Ta đã thấy rõ ràng sự cực khổ của dân ta tại xứ Ê-díp-tô, và có nghe thấu tiếng kêu rêu vì cớ người đốc công của nó; phải, ta biết được nỗi đau đớn của nó. Ta ngự xuống đặng cứu dân nầy khỏi tay người Ê-díp-tô, dẫn từ xứ ấy lên đến một xứ kia đẹp đẽ và rộng rãi, đượm sữa và mật, tức là nơi dân Ca-na-an, dân Hê-tít, dân A-mô-rít, dân Phê-rê-sít, dân Hê-vít và dân Giê-bu-sít ở. Nầy, tiếng kêu rêu của dân Y-sơ-ra-ên thấu đến ta, và ta đã thấy dân Ê-díp-tô hà hiếp chúng nó thể nào; Vậy bây giờ, hãy lại đây, đặng ta sai ngươi đi đến Pha-ra-ôn, để dắt dân ta, là dân Y-sơ-ra-ên, ra khỏi xứ Ê-díp-tô.

– If they understood the power of united prayers when the suffering started and all of the Israelites prayed fervently to God, they were surely rescued right away.

(will be continued)