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Morning Manna | 2 Kings 19:6 | Be not Afraid of the words

“And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.” (2 Kings 19:6)




Fear is the greatest weapon in Satan’s arsenal; it is worse than an actual blade or bullet. It begins to cause pain long before the first shot is ever fired. It has caused men to draw their weapons on themselves just to be delivered from its grips and has caused nations to surrender long before they were ever defeated. Fear is anti-faith, and faith is our victory over this world. It is the Christian’s kryptonite, and if Satan can overcome you with fear, then he does not need to overcome you with lust, complacency, or any of his other tactics. I believe Rabshakeh, the King of Assyria’s field officer and messenger, and Sennacherib, the King of Assyria show us some of the tactics the enemy likes to use on us to overcome us with fear.



The first fear tactic is the channel whereby all the others flow, it is words. If you read 2 Kings 18&19 you’ll see Rabshakeh never drew one sword on Jerusalem. He intended to overcome them with words, and in 19:6 Isaiah tells the messengers who first received these threats to “Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard.” Satan has quite a way with words, he knows exactly what words to give us to insight fear, lust, envy, or a myriad of different emotions and thoughts that lead to action. If we can learn to resist, these words then we have cut off the chain of command. In psychology, there is a chain of command: triggers - thoughts, actions - consequences. Words are the first link in this chain of events and if we can learn to trust God’s word above all other words then we have broken the chain. By the way that is the definition of faith, Trusting God’s word above all else, and it is our victory over the world (1 John 5:4). This is why we are never commanded to engage in an argument or to entertain the words of the enemy but rather to resist and that is all, simply resist the words of the enemy, fear them not, ignore them, no matter how threatening they may be becasue God has a word that that is the beginning link in the chain of faith, [Romams 10:7]. 


I also noticed that these were actually the words of King Sennacherib but were spoken by a messenger of his. It reminded me of the issue that Paul dealt with in his day. He too had a “Messenger of Satan to Buffet him.” Often it is not Satan himself that comes against us, but he will put his words in one of his minions' mouths. We can’t go around deeming people messengers of Satan on a whim, but a good test to run is to compare what those people are saying to what God has said. If it is running contrary to God’s word, then rest assured they are being used to trigger fear in the life of the believer, and their words should be avoided. 

Then the enemy is resilient, Hezekiah deals with them on three separate occasions in chapters eighteen and nineteen. Many times the enemy does not win the battle on the first attempt, so he comes back and if still he hasn’t prevailed he will come again. At first, our will is strong and our faith is firm, but like a continual dropping on a very rainy day, we are defeated by the persistence of that nagging voice of doubt. 


That is exactly what this messenger was instilling in the hearts of the people of Jerusalem. He tells them in Chapter 18:30 “Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD,Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern:” Then in chapter 19:10 “Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.” He is directly defying God’s words of comfort and faith and trying to convince the people and Hezekiah that The King of Assyria should be trusted above the God of Israel. That is exactly what Satan does, he is trying to win over the faith of God’s people in himself rather than in God. Satan slivered into the garden and used this exact same tactic and still today, he’ll sliver, slide, or walk into your life and directly oppose everything that God has ever told you. "Trust me" he says, "I have the truth, you shall be like gods, you will have vines and fig trees." If the fearful words don’t work at first then he’ll come with his deceitful lies to entice us. The remedy is the same as before, “resist the devil and he will flee from you.”




Hezekiah Praying
“And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.” (2 Kings 19:14)

Lastly, Hezekiah teaches a valuable lesson about what to do with such words from the enemy. He did not run to engage in an argument with Sennacherib or his messenger Rabshakeh, instead, he ran to the Lord, “And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.” That is what you do with the words of the enemy, take them to the LORD, spread out the case before him, let him fight them, let him rebuke them, and in the process, he’ll have a word of faith to comfort your heart, “Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.” Dear reader, if you have been under an attack, do not engage with the enemy, resist and instead bring their words before the King of kings and let him sort them out. In the process, I wouldn’t be surprised if God had some words of faith to override the words of fear. This has been my experience through the years, that when my heart has been gripped with fear I could spread my case before the Lord and he would take up my case, fight my battles, and deliver my life from destruction and my heart from Fear.


“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7

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