Can I be honest? Sometimes I just want God to vanquish my enemies. I want Him to expose their sins, topple their pompous platforms, and reduce their evil ideologies to ash. I read from Psalm 46 that He “breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two” and “burns the chariot in the fire” (verse 9). In Psalm 47 “He will subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet” (verse 3). Psalm 75 tells us, “He puts down one, and exalts another” (verse 7). I read these and similar passages and cry, “Get ’em, God! Take that, evildoers!” Sometimes, in reading the Psalms, I feel as if I’m watching the best superhero movie ever.
Dealing With Injustice
Do you connect emotionally with the Psalms? Specifically, do you love the passages that assure us that the current state of things, in which evil seems triumphant, will not last? If so, you’ve probably experienced these large-scale dynamics of good and evil in your own life. For example, have you ever been lied about? Suffered the effects of a jealous, slanderous tongue? Seen goodwill disintegrate because others believed the false narrative? Watched doors of opportunity slam in your face because of an unjustly tarnished reputation? Have the very people you’ve blessed turned on you with cursing? Have they mocked or monsterfied your principles? Have you cried to God to break their bow and cut their spear in two? If you have, you’ll relate to the story of Kings Hezekiah and Sennacherib, found in 2 Chronicles 32.
Hezekiah is the king. He’s a good king, and God blesses Him for His faithfulness. He has reinstituted temple services, including the Passover, and removed idolatrous shrines. All this leads to the flourishing of his realm, which stirs up the jealousy of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. The pagan king lays siege to Jerusalem hoping, by a combination of seduction and persecution, to persuade the people of God to break ranks with their nation and defect to Assyria.
Hezekiah doesn’t dawdle or gloat. He immediately orders the water sources stopped and protective walls fortified. He exhorts and then positions his military, promising, “There are more with us than with him” (verse 7). The people received strength from his words.
But make note that Sennacherib is no lightweight. One of the most notable rulers of ancient Mesopotamia, he has distinguished himself through both building enterprise and military might. A worshipper of the pagan god Nisroch, who is presented by demonologist Johann Weyer as the “chief cook of hell,”[1] he strove for political domination of the entire realm. Cooking up a conspiracy to conquer Judah, Sennacherib sends messengers to deceive and threaten Hezekiah’s citizenry. The conspirators’ message: “We kill people who oppose us. Your king knows that, so he must not care about you, or he’d surrender.” Sennacherib follows with a letter restating the same manipulative lie.
Knowing they were indeed no match for the enemy, Hezekiah spread the letter out before the Lord. God prompted the prophet Isaiah to assure the king He’d heard his prayer and would deliver His people. Here’s what happened:
“Then the Lord sent an angel who cut down every mighty man of valor, leader, and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned shamefaced to his own land. And when he had gone into the temple of his god, some of his own offspring struck him down with the sword there” (verse 21).
We’re told in 2 Kings 19’s parallel account that the angel of God killed 185,000 enemy soldiers (verse 35). That would be Yankee Stadium filled four times, or more than twice the number found at the General Conference Session.[2] Can you imagine that number of enemy corpses strewn across a battlefield?
We should be kind to our enemies, but that doesn’t mean we should support them in their evil enterprises.
What a miraculous victory! Reading accounts like this reminds me that God is able to slay the persecutors of His people. Do they typically drop dead, as in the days of Hezekiah? No, but He can put to death their lies, delivering His children to the shelter of His dwelling (see Ps. 27:5, NIV).
Attacks Don’t Stop When We Do Right
Here are the lessons from this story that jump out at me:
Hezekiah had done much good. It was “after these deeds of faithfulness” (2 Chron. 32:1) that Sennacherib attacked. The enemy loves to punish us for good deeds. He tries to foist shame upon the innocent. If he can’t numb our conscience against conviction, he’ll bludgeon us with false guilt. God designed us to be influenced by what others think of us, so we often take accusations personally. But don’t forget that the enemy attacks us for what we do right.
Hezekiah drew boundaries. He did what he could to protect himself and his people, literally cutting off his enemy’s water supply. If he’d been on social media, he may have blocked the trolls. He didn’t unwisely try to fight in his own strength, but he also didn’t enable the enemy to cause harm. We should be kind to our enemies, but that doesn’t mean we should support them in their evil enterprises.
Hezekiah leaned on the prophet. The book The Ministry of Healing didn’t exist in his day, but if it had, he’d have read something like this:
“Under a storm of stinging, faultfinding words, keep the mind stayed upon the Word of God. Let mind and heart be stored with God’s promises. If you are ill-treated or wrongfully accused, instead of returning an angry answer, repeat to yourself the precious promises.”[3]
Going Vertical
Hezekiah prayed like crazy. Being attacked by others tempts us, as nothing else, to get caught up in and add to human drama. How essential, then, that we “go vertical,” reconnecting with the eternal source of wisdom and strength. This strengthening of the vertical axis breaks the momentum of tit-for-tat reactive cycles, opening up a channel through which we can receive help from God.
Do you, like me, want the demise of evildoers? It’s actually biblical. But how essential that we lean on God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, whether it be slaying 185,000 Assyrians or stopping a few slanderous tongues. God doesn’t belittle our comparatively small battles. He gives us epic war stories to help us face them.
[1] George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, “Demonology,” The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary for General Knowledge (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1883).
[2] Yankee Stadium fits about 46,000 people; the GC Session can draw more than 70,000.
[3] Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1905), p. 486.