2 Kings 19:20-28
"20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. 21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:
“She despises you, she scorns you—
the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
the daughter of Jerusalem.
22 “Whom have you mocked and reviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
23 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
its most fruitful forest.
24 I dug wells
and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
all the streams of Egypt.’
25 “Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into heaps of ruins,
26 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field
and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
blighted before it is grown.
27 “But I know your sitting down
and your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.
28 Because you have raged against me
and your complacency has come into my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
by which you came."
Hezekiah's prayer is given immediate answer through Isaiah, who pronounces the word of the Lord concerning the situation. 'I have heard', said the Lord - not merely the king's prayer, but everything else also, and had discerned the true issues that were involved. The seriousness of Sennacherib's invasion was not merely that it had been aimed against God's people but against God Himself (22). 'I know... thy rage against Me ...' (27) - that was the real issue, and because of this, the Lord humbled him and set him at naught. That this carries an up-to-date application should surely be clear. Modern dictators whose arrogant and blasphemous pretensions insult the majesty of God will likewise be brought to book and humbled to the dust in His good time. This does not necessarily mean that all will be well for those who meantime fear them. It so happened that Hezekiah shared in the victory of God on this occasion because his heart was towards Him, but had he been an evil king like his predecessors or his neighbours in the north, God would certainly have allowed Sennacherib to devastate Judah first before dealing with the tyrant. What we must never forget is that these great powers were instruments in God's hands of His sovereign will and used of Him to punish His sinning people, but used in such a way as in no wise to implicate Him in their arrogance or to excuse them for their barbarous dealings with His people. By this token, we may learn that God will not hesitate to use Communism to chastise the impenitent Western nations, and if need be, bring them into subjection, while reserving the final demolition of its godless might until such time as He wills.