Episode Transcript
It's 10 o'clock.
2 Kings 19, verse 23 was our stopping place last week.
2 Kings 19, verse 23, and we'll begin there again this morning.
And while you're either opening your Bibles or logging on to your Bibles or whatever you're doing, would you mark Leviticus chapter 14, please?
We're going to come back to Leviticus chapter 14 later in the lesson.
So if you already have it marked or you have a page opened on your phone with it, that'll speed things up.
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, tried to threaten and intimidate Judah and therefore Israel with this phrase, "With the multitude of my chariots I am come."
That means I'm coming.
We learned that he has not been the only one to have such an arrogant attitude in railing against the Lord.
Just as Sennacherib had also done, Thomas Andrews claimed that God could not sink the Titanic.
John Lennon said Christianity will come to an end.
And I gave you those quotes last week.
We then begin to look at what God thought about the multitude of chariots.
We use the example in Judges chapter 4 of Jabin who had been afflicting Israel for 20 years.
And Sisera was the captain of his host.
And Sisera brought a multitude of chariots against the children of Israel.
And to God they were nothing.
And as God delivered those chariots, those multitudes of chariots into the hands of his people, listen to Judges 4.15, "The Lord discomfitted Sisera and all his chariots," that means he destroyed them, "and all his host with the edge of the sword before Barak, so that Sisera lighted down of his chariot and fled away on his feet."
So there is mighty Sisera, mighty as long as he had the chariots and the multitudes.
But in the end he was a coward.
He got off of his chariot.
He didn't fight to the death.
He ran away like a coward, didn't he?
And this morning we're going to look at another passage that teaches us how God deals with the multitude of the enemy's chariots.
And this is how we ought to see the multitudes of the enemy's chariots and how Israel should have seen them in Judah in the day we're reading about.
In Exodus chapter 14, the children of Israel were marching toward the Red Sea.
You're all familiar with this, I believe.
And they had been delivered from Egyptian bondage.
And the Pharaoh and his army and all the chariots of Egypt were in pursuit of these fleeing Israelites.
And by God's command, as they came to the Red Sea, Moses lifted up his rod and parted that Red Sea.
And as the children of Israel passed over on dry ground, this multitude of chariots of the Egyptian Pharaoh followed them.
And in verse 23 of Exodus 14, it says, "And the Egyptians pursued and went in after them."
Now I highlighted that phrase in my notes.
"Went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen."
So here's the picture.
The children of Israel are at the banks, the western banks of the Red Sea.
And God not only opens up the Red Sea, but he dries up the ground.
And his people go across.
And in the midst of the sea, this wasn't a little narrow creek passage.
This was a long trail across the Red Sea.
And in the midst of, right in the middle, Pharaoh and all of his army were still pursuing the children of Israel.
Can you imagine what those fearful Israelites were thinking when they saw these Egyptian horses and chariots closing in on them?
Or maybe they heard the rumbling of the chariot wheels and the hoofs of the horses.
Perhaps some of them said, "We're doomed.
We're trapped in this narrow strait, and we're on foot.
And these horses and chariots are going to overtake us.
After all, the Egyptian army had every earthly advantage over the children of Israel.
The Egyptian army was trained in warfare.
The children of Israel were not.
They were slaves.
They were on horses and chariots, and the children of Israel were not.
They were on foot.
They had women and children and elderly people with them to slow them down even more.
And you know, if you look at the condition of the children of Israel, that's exactly where the sinner is.
He's weak.
He's even helpless compared to the enemies of Satan and sin and death.
In fact, looking at the one phrase that I underscored in my notes, there in the Exodus passage, I noticed that there is an emotional state that has overtaken many people in this world.
And that phrase in the text is, "Went in after them."
The Egyptians pursued and went in after them.
They went after the children of Israel.
They sought to devour the children of Israel, just like our enemy does to every person who's ever lived.
There in 1 Peter 5, verse 8, we read it frequently, in fact, where he said, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour."
And seeking is exactly what it sounds like when it's translated from the Greek language.
It's not a secret word.
Seeking.
And the first use of that Greek word, remember in the New Testament, it's translated mostly from Greek.
The first use of that Greek word for seeking is found in Matthew 2, verse 13.
Matthew 2, verse 13.
"And when they were departed, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, 'Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.'"
So to understand what this word seek means, so we understand what the devil is doing, Herod wasn't just trying to find the baby Jesus.
He was going after him.
He was going after him just like the Egyptian army went in after the children of Israel, just like the devil walks about seeking whom he may devour.
He's not just looking for us and saying, "Oh, there's a Christian and there's a Christian."
He's seeking to devour us.
And that's what Sennacherib is trying to do to Judah, just like he did to the northern kingdom of Israel.
I mentioned that many people today are afraid.
They're afraid of what is coming after them.
The Egyptians went in after the children of Israel.
The children of Israel no doubt looked back and said, "Oh no, here they come."
Which is exactly where God probably wanted them to be.
So that he could once again show them his great deliverance from the Red Sea.
He had already delivered them from Egypt.
But that wouldn't be the last deliverance they need.
A sinner who is delivered from his Egypt, from his sin, is saved.
He doesn't have to be delivered unto salvation spiritually over and over again.
That's a done deal.
But let me tell you what he needs deliverance from, those everyday trials and tribulations.
Every time we run into one, we need God to deliver us.
And that's what's happening there in the Red Sea.
We could put this many ways, but Satan is coming after people.
He always has.
And he seeks to devour them.
He didn't seek to have fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden.
He sought to devour them.
And that's why he walks about like a roaring lion.
You can be afraid of him, or you can trust the Lord to disconfit him like he did Cicero's army, to drown him in the lake of fire, which is where he's going to go.
And the only way I can be free, I'm speaking of me, Andy Shepard, the only way I can be free from the fears and anxieties that Satan brings about is to remember what God has done and will do to Satan and what he's done for me.
If I can keep those things in the front of my mind, then every fear and every anxiety that comes my way, I can say, God's already taking care of the author of that, and he's already taken care of me.
That fear and that anxiety, even if it slays me, as Job said, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.
In the Exodus passage that I read, once the children of Israel were safe on the other side of the Red Sea, listen to what the Lord did with that frightening multitude of chariots and their captains.
Exodus 1428, "And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of the Pharaoh that came into the sea after them.
There remained not so much as one of them."
God destroyed every single one of those Egyptians who pursued Israel, every single one, and he is going to destroy every single one of your enemies.
I don't mean your personal enemies, the the boy who picked on you at school or your neighbor who you can't get along with.
I'm talking about your enemies because they're enemies of the cross, the ones whom Satan has sent to afflict you and to torment you on this earth.
Friend, you and I don't have to be afraid of the multitudes of the chariots.
We don't have to be afraid of the multitude of the horsemen or the multitude of Satan's messengers because by the grace of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, those chariots and horsemen and messengers, in fact the head of the operation center of their power, has no power over the redeemed of the Lord.
None at all, so we're not to fear them.
And they, just as Sennacherib, have reproached the Lord by saying, "With the multitude of my chariots I have come."
And with those chariots, Sennacherib said, "He was come."
Now we're going to look at some pronouns for just a few moments.
Notice that part of the passage.
Look back in your text please.
There in 2 Kings 19, 23 he says, "With the multitude of my chariots, I am come up."
And I emphasize those two pronouns, "my" and "I."
Both of them are first person, both of them are singular, and "my" is possessive.
And by the use of these pronouns, Sennacherib is admitting that it is he who is coming against the children of Israel.
And therefore it is he who is coming against the Lord.
And the chariots he is bringing against the children of Israel, by his own admission, are his chariots.
Now we get the picture.
That by attacking the children of Israel, Sennacherib is attacking God.
In other words, it is Sennacherib versus God.
What a foolish man he was.
In Job chapter 15, in Job chapter 15, one of Job's four friends whose name was Eliphaz was describing the wicked man.
And in verse 25, as Eliphaz described what a wicked man does, Job 15, 25, he said this, "For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty."
Now himself is a third person singular pronoun.
You thought you got out of grammar school, didn't you, sister?
I know.
We're just never through reviewing the basics.
And his is a third person singular possessive pronoun.
And these are the same types of pronouns Sennacherib used.
Only he used them in the first person.
He said "my" and "I."
And Eliphaz describes the wicked man in the third person.
You know, I sometimes I'll chuckle when I'm doing a study because something will flash into my mind.
Man, my mind just goes 100 miles an hour half the time.
But I thought if Sennacherib was woke, he would have said "my name is Sennacherib and my pronouns are 'I' and 'my.'"
You know, those are actually the worst pronouns when you're talking to God.
"I'm going to do this and by my power I'm going to do that."
Looking back in verse 23, Sennacherib tells the destination of the multitude of his chariots.
Let's look at that.
He says, "With a multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains."
And remember that when anyone went to Jerusalem, they went up.
If they left Jerusalem, they went down from Jerusalem.
So in an earthly sense, Sennacherib says he has come up to the height of Jerusalem.
That's what he's physically doing.
An unbelieving gentile, Sennacherib's presence in the city of Jerusalem was an abomination.
In fact, his presence anywhere was an abomination to God.
And he certainly, had he entered Jerusalem, he certainly would have had no right to tread the courts of the temple of the Lord.
He was arrogant.
Let's look at where this sort of arrogance comes from.
Isaiah 14 verses 12 through 13.
Isaiah 14 verses 12 through 13.
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations?"
Now listen to Lucifer's pronouns here.
"For thou has said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north."
Did you notice Satan's pronouns are also "I" and "my"?
And to sit in the sides, that's what we see in that passage from Isaiah.
To sit in the sides or to sit beside someone is to make yourself equal to that person.
Now let's just think of it in a physical setting only.
If you're sitting below someone as you are me today, and it's not because I'm better than you, it's because I can't see all of you and you may not be able to see me if I stand down here on the floor.
Our auditorium is not situated that way.
Certainly would be the case if we had a lot of people here.
I'll take the ones I have by the way, just fine.
And so if I sit, what happens if I come down there and I sit next to Allison and Luke, then we're sitting beside each other.
And what happens if I came down and I sat on the floor next to Nelda?
Now I'm sitting below her.
This is an easy picture to draw in your minds.
Lucifer, who was lower in status, in other words, he was sitting on the floor and God was up here at the pulpit, if you will.
Lucifer was lower in status than God, so he tried to make himself equal with God.
He tried to get up here on the podium, if you will, with God.
Now he's already been thrown out of heaven.
He's already been cut down to the ground because he'd weaken the nations.
Now he who is less than God wants to be made equal with God.
He wants to go up to the height of the mountain.
And just as Lucifer, Sennacherib wasn't going to be satisfied with sharing his glory or being the co-ruler at the height of the mountain.
He didn't say, just as Lucifer didn't say, "Well, we'll just stand there together and that'll be good enough with me.
We'll run this show.
We'll be partners."
It will not be good enough for Lucifer or Satan now to be equal with God.
He wants to be God.
And the only way to be God is for Lucifer to get off the floor and come up here next to God and then tell God, "You go down there."
And that's not going to happen, but that's what he's essentially doing.
And Sennacherib is not going to share the throne with Hezekiah.
He's not going to say, "Hey, I went to what, home goods, and I found a chair that looks just like yours and I'm going to sit next to you and we'll do this together.
We'll take shifts."
How about that?
No, he doesn't want to share the throne with Hezekiah.
Sennacherib wants to be the king, not a king.
In fact, this truth is also seen in future events that are described by the apostle Paul.
I'll read to you from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 3 through 4.
2 Thessalonians 2, 3 through 4.
Speaking of the day of Christ, Paul wrote, "Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition, who apposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God."
You see what he does?
He exalts himself above all that is called God.
Or that is worshiped so that he as God, with a big G, he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
It's not good enough for him to be down there and God to be up here.
It's not good enough for him to be up here with God.
He wants to sit in the temple as God and to do that he has to put God down.
And of course we know he cannot do that.
But did you hear that?
The man of sin in the Thessalonians passage I read you will exalt himself above all that is called God.
He's a representative of Satan on this earth.
He won't be content to share the throne.
And there can only be one king over Israel.
And there can only be one God over creation.
And that's the one who already is and who always has been.
Ephesians chapter 4 verses 4 through 6.
Ephesians chapter 4 verses 4 through 6 says, "There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all..."
So what does that mean?
If he's above all that means nobody else can be above him.
It also means nobody else can be equal to him.
He is above all.
That is, he is above all and through all and in you all.
Now this presents a problem for the man of sin, doesn't it?
That very passage.
Just like it presented a problem for Lucifer in heaven.
If there's only one God then someone has to go.
Someone has to be the loser and it's not God.
And in the case of Judah, God put king Hezekiah on that throne.
And there was not room for another king.
Sennacherib didn't want to share Hezekiah's throne.
He wanted to take it for himself.
And he further describes the destination of these multitudes of chariots to not only what we just read about there, the heights of the mountain.
But look back in your text.
It says to the sides of Lebanon.
To the sides of Lebanon.
Back in your text in verse 23.
Now Lebanon and the world will find this hard to believe today.
Lebanon was originally given to Israel.
God gave Lebanon to Israel.
Lebanon was supposed to be part of Israel.
In fact God gave it to them all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter 1.
If you'll write down Deuteronomy chapter 1.
If you don't know how to spell Deuteronomy put DEU period.
How's that?
Deuteronomy 1 verses 7 through 8.
Where God said turn you and take your journey and go to the mount of the Amorites and unto all the places nigh thereun too.
In the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the seaside to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
Behold I have set the land before you.
Go in and possess the land.
Right there God told them you go to Lebanon and you possess it.
Go in and possess the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give unto them and to their seed after them.
God had already promised that land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before Moses.
And right now this time in history Israel is invading Lebanon to stop the massive onslaught of attacks by Hezbollah which is an Iranian proxy.
That means Iranians.
Iran is using Hezbollah to try to destroy Israel.
But had Israel been obedient to the Lord and not allowed its enemies to remain in the land as the Lord originally commanded, then this war that we're reading about would not be going on today.
Joshua chapter 13 verse 6.
Joshua 13 verse 6.
"All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto misrefoth Maim and all the Sedonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel.
Only divide it by a lot under the Israelites for an inheritance as I have commanded thee."
So God said it's yours and you're going to divide it up but it's going to be divided among the tribes of the children of Israel.
And it was.
So for Sennacherib to encroach to the sides of Lebanon with the multitude of his chariots is for him to illegitimately take by force that which God had already legitimately given to Israel.
That's what he's trying to do.
The only reason God ever allowed this taking over of lands that belonged to Israel was to punish his people for their sin.
When Israel was walking with the Lord and doing his commandments, when they had a good king on the throne like Solomon, at least until the very end, they had peace.
They had peace from all their enemies.
God didn't give Lebanon to the Gentiles because he was persuaded to by the likes of Assyria.
And in trying to take by force that which did not belong to him, Sennacherib said, "Once his multitude of chariots arrived in the height of the mountains and the sides of Lebanon, he would look back at your text.
He would cut down the tall cedar trees thereof and the choice fir trees thereof."
Now when you take this literally it doesn't make much sense.
After all, why would Sennacherib mount such a furious attack just to gather some lumber from Lebanon?
Boy, he could have done like Brother Fulton does.
Put a trailer on the pickup and go around and look for wood that falls in the barditch, cut it up, stack it at the house, and have free firewood.
I love that.
Every time I see a fallen tree in a barditch, I think of my pasture.
I think of him a lot, but especially when I see that.
I have to be careful what I say because he works out while he's listening to my Sunday school and I don't want him to drop a weight on his foot in laughter.
So I try to restrain my comedy in cases like that.
But he said he would cut down the tall cedar trees thereof and the choice fir trees thereof.
Well there's more to it than just cutting down a bunch of trees, as you can imagine.
And to begin with, just like we often do, let's go to the first place where the Hebrew word for cedar is found.
And that is in Leviticus chapter 14, which I hope you've already turned to at the beginning of our lesson.
And I'm going to read, and I want you to listen for the word cedar.
It's Leviticus chapter 14.
I'm going to read verses 1 through 7.
"And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, 'This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing.'"
Now let me stop right there.
That means the leper's already been physically cleansed.
He's gotten over his leprosy.
He's going to be welcomed back into the camp.
It hasn't killed him.
There's a ceremonial cleansing that follows that.
And it says, "He shall be brought unto the priest, and the priest shall go forth out of the camp, and the priest shall look, and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper, then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood."
There you go.
That's the first time you see the word for cedar in the Old Testament.
"And cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop, and the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water.
As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them in the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water.
And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field."
That sounds an awful lot like the scapegoat, doesn't it?
One of the goats is killed.
One of the goats is let to go free taking the sins far away, or the strong man carried them, carried them far away.
So I, there's a lot to teach right here, but I want to focus on the cedar wood because that's what we're looking at in our text.
"Leprosy represented sin.
Leprosy was a disease that made a person physically unclean.
Sin makes us unclean spiritually.
Oh, it makes us unclean physically too, but even more so spiritually.
And there is great significance in the things God commanded the priest to use to pronounce the leper clean, and one of those things was cedar.
So along with the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, the cedar wood was dipped into that blood, and then it was sprinkled onto the leper so it could, so he could be pronounced clean.
Although the Hebrew word here for cedar is a noun like a cedar tree, it comes from an adjective that means firm.
That's really important here.
It comes from an adjective that means firm.
The roots of the cedar tree were firm.
The cedar tree itself is firm and durable.
In 2 Samuel chapter 5, 2 Samuel chapter 5, Hiram, the king of Tyre, sent King David cedar trees to build his house.
And so cedars were among the strongest of trees.
In 1 Kings chapter 6, which we studied probably a year ago, cedars were used to build the house of the Lord in Solomon's day, because again they're very strong.
You would want the strongest wood available to be used to build your house.
And that's one thing we learn about cedars is they represent strength and firmness.
They're durable.
And our text uses the word tall cedars.
You can go back to the text now there in verse 23, "And we'll cut down the tall cedar trees thereof."
That's what Sennacherib said he's going to do.
Cut down the tall cedar trees thereof.
If cedar is strong and firm, then it also represents that which cannot be corrupted.
Now in Central Texas where I was a highway patrolman for a few years and where I went to college, cedar trees are everywhere.
And if you're allergic to them, then you just better move.
But cedar trees were used to make fence posts.
And once a cedar post is there, it'll probably outlive you unless it gets burned up.
Very durable.
And I know there are different kinds of cedars all over the world, but it represents that which cannot be corrupted.
And in that case, the use of cedar wood dipped in that blood for the cleansing of the leper represents that which is firm.
That which cannot be corrupted and has the power to cleanse.
In that way, it represents the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if a cedar tree represents the Lord Jesus Christ, then what are the tall cedars?
The tall cedars are those whom he has redeemed, the righteous.
Yeah, in fact, listen for that truth.
I got Bible for that.
I didn't just come up with that.
The Bible did.
Psalm 92 verses 12 through 15.
Psalm 92 verses 12 through 15.
And this is beautiful.
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree.
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
What does that cedar in Lebanon represent?
It represents the redeemed of the Lord.
Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.
They shall be fat and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright.
He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him.
So what is the purpose of the cedar trees representing the righteous?
What is the purpose of them flourishing and growing and bringing forth fruit even in their old age?
As the Psalm said, it's to show that the Lord is upright.
That's what it says.
To show that the Lord is upright, just like a cedar, just like a rock.
And as the cedar is firm, representing in corruption, so is Jesus because there is no unrighteousness, no corruption found in him.
His roots are firm, his trunk is firm, his branches are firm.
Now take what we learned about the cedar and apply that back to our text.
Sennacherib was coming to cut down the tall cedars of Lebanon.
He was coming to the place the Lord already gave his people.
And he was coming to cut down the people who belong to the Lord because that's what Israel represents.
Whether all those Jews were saved or not, Israel spiritually represents all of the believers of all time who are truly the Israel of God, as the Apostle Paul says.
He was coming to cut those people down.
But we also see another type of tree mentioned here.
Look back in your text, it says the choice fur trees thereof.
F-I-R, fur trees.
Of course, we want to look at the first mention of a fur tree in the Bible.
And we find that in 2 Samuel chapter 6 and verse 5.
Listen for the word fur.
"And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fur wood, even on harps and on saltries and on timbrels and on cornets and on symbols."
Fur was the wood used to make instruments that were played when the Ark of the Covenant was being moved from the house of Abinadab to the city of David.
Now it didn't make it there in this setting.
It went to the house of Obed-Edom because when it was on its way to the city of David, remember Uzzah reached out and steadied the cart that it was on.
He touched the Ark and he died just like that.
Fur was also used to make floors and doors and ceilings.
In Isaiah 14 there's a prophecy about how the Lord will destroy the wicked.
It's Isaiah 14.8 and in there he says, "Yea, the fur trees rejoice at thee and the cedars of Lebanon saying, 'Since thou art laid down, no feller has come up against us.'"
And it does say feller in there.
That's not just in East Texas saying.
That word is, that goes all the way back to the 17th century.
No feller has come up against us.
So once again here we see the fur trees associated with rejoicing and the instruments were made of, that were made of fur were played by David and those who were with him when they rejoiced at the coming of the Ark of the Covenant as it was being moved to the city of David.
So what are the fur trees in our text?
If the cedar trees represent the Lord's people who are redeemed, then the fur trees represent the Lord's people who are rejoicing.
And if this typology holds true, then Sennacherib not only intends to cut down the redeemed of the Lord, but he also intends to remove their rejoicing as well.
And by no means have I exhausted what either the cedar tree or the fur tree represents.
There are certainly more applications to be made there spiritually, but at least we have a taste of how they're used in the Bible so we can have a better understanding of what Sennacherib is threatening to do.
Now that we've seen the destination of the multitude of Sennacherib's chariots and the destruction he plans to undertake when he arrives there, let's look at the displacement he intends to cause when he arrives.
Look back in your text.
He said, "I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders."
A lodging is where someone lives.
For the enemy to enter your lodging is for the enemy to displace you from your lodging.
When an army travels a long distance, one of the things the army has to have is food, and it's a tricky balance for a traveling army.
On one hand, it would be easy to travel light, just carry a canteen of water, and say, "The first city we come across, we will plunder and take their food and enjoy it, and then we'll go to the next city and do the same and do the same."
But the risk there is they might starve, especially if the enemy scorches the earth behind them as they flee.
On the other hand, an army could take months worth of food with them to keep the men sustained, but that food could spoil.
That food would slow down the army because of the large carriages used to transport it and all the equipment used to prepare it.
So it looks like in our text, Sennacherib has elected to travel light and enter the lodgings of the people.
And besides a place to live, what else does a lodging represent?
And we'll look at that next week when we come back.
Father, thank you so much for the words in this text.
Thank you for our Bibles, that we have the opportunity and the privilege and the freedom to study and to expound upon, help us to take from your word today the truths that you want us to have and to live by them, to meditate upon them, and to share them with others.
In Jesus' name, amen.
