"Defended by God's Power"

       Because your rage against Me and your tumult have come up to

       My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose and My bridle

       in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came."

                                      ISAIAH 37 :21-35

       The Lord responded to Hezekiah's prayer through the voice of Isaiah and assured the king that He would save His people. Isaiah pronounced a declaration of judgement against Assyria for its boasting against God and its presumptuous belief that it could defy heaven itself by the power of its armies. As David wrote in Psalm 2, God though little of Sennacherib's boasting: "why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The king of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, againdt the Lord and against His anointed. . . He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then theybshall speak to them in this wrath, and distress them in deep displeasure. 

       The Lord spoke to the king of Assyria and told him that he would not touch the city of His Children, and that he had done a foolish thing to blaspheme the name of Jehovah. Sennacherib though himself so powerful, but God was the one who made the city of Jerusalem: "Did you not hear long ago how I made it, from ancient times that I formed it?" It is a foolish thing to think that one can tear down what God has created, for He has established His people  and nothing can brake them when He stands with them.

        God's people will be under His contiual protection because He has chosen them. It is as if He says to His enemies, "I have founded the church, and therefore the salvation of the church shall always be My care. I will not leave unfinished the work which I have begun, but will carry it forward yo perfection." He reiterated this point in verse 35 when He said, "for He will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David sake." Because of the covenant He had made with His people, He would deliver would them from their enemies.

       The Lord defends and preserve His work because it involves His honor and our salvation. He is the Maker of the church, for we are His workmanship, created anew by His zspirit. This work of sanctifying and glorifying His church is more excellent than the whole Creation. God's love and cate for His church never wanes. It was a foolish thing, therefore, for Sennachrib to think that He could defy God himself and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, judt as is foolish for anyone today to think he can tear down the church of Jesus Chtist.