Sennacherib has replaced Shalmaneser as king of Assyria and
his thought it to expand his kingdom even further. His father, Sargon II, had been vice-regent
with Shalmaneser and had taken over in 722BC, the year that Israel/Samaria was
taken into captivity. Now, nearly twenty
years later Sennacherib saw what he thought was low-hanging fruit on his border
and came against Judah. Hezekiah reacted
in fear and sent tribute of all the gold and silver he could lay his hands on
to appease the Assyrian king. Was this the
reason the Assyrian didn't stop at his early conquests, if the Judean king had
so much gold he could send along all this was there not surely more to be had? He also was trusting in the protection racket
he had with Egypt to whom he also paid tribute, to come and protect him from
the Assyrians. Is it any wonder then
that the two emissaries from Assyria came and taunted him regarding his
trust? They make valid points, that he
says he trusts in the Lord but it looks far more like he trusts in his alliances. Where are we guilty of this same hypocrisy?
What is this narrow gate we are to find in order to enter
the kingdom? In John 10 we are told that
Jesus said that He is the gate of the sheepfold and only those who enter by
that gate will be saved. That being
said, Jesus says that a one-time confession of Him isn't enough. We have responsibility for trusting Him
always as the savior and living in obedience to His will and ways. Part of the issue of trust is that we put all
our trust in Him, for everything in life, and we believe that His ways are not
only the best ways but also the right ways.
He says not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the
kingdom but the one who lives as though He truly is Lord, the one who does the will
of the Father will enter the kingdom. Those
two things have to be coupled, confession and obedience, to make up the whole
of what it means to have faith. If you
de-couple the two you never have what is properly called faith. Hezekiah said he had faith and he worshipped
like he had faith but in the end he was trusting in his gold to buy off the
Assyrian king and in Egypt to protect him if that failed. He didn't fully trust the Lord.
Paul's argument regarding eating food sacrificed to idols is
quite simple. We know that these idols
are not gods at all, there is only one God and one Lord, Jesus Christ, so there
is no actual harm from eating food that has been sacrificed to idols. The problem comes here in that in Corinth
there was much idol worship so some in the church were previously worshippers
of idols. We are all idolaters but some
particularly name their idols and gods and believe they have real power. In Asheville that is a common thing, there
are many gods and goddesses recognized or believed in here. For those who have come out of such idolatry
it was scandalous and frightening to them that Christians were eating food that
had been sacrificed to idols. They knew
too well how seductive that can be and they assumed that these Christians were
syncretistic. Paul advised then that
Christians in Corinth not partake of such things in the presence of these
others who had come out of idol worship as a matter of brotherly love. Once an idol has been given some power by us,
it is difficult to ever strip it completely.
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