“Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, 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: 32 Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. 33 Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34 Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand? 35 Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?” 2 Kings 18:31-35

 A young boy traveling by airplane to visit his grandparents sat beside a man who happened to be a seminary professor. The boy was reading a Sunday school take-home paper when the professor thought he would have some fun with the lad. “Young man,” said the professor, “If you can tell me something God can do, I’ll give you a big, shiny apple.” The boy thought for a moment and then replied, “Mister, if you can tell me something God can’t do, I”ll give you a whole barrel of apples!”

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was on the verge of attacking Hezekiah and the nation of Judah.  Sennacherib was a powerful ruler who was well-seasoned in battle, and humanly speaking was well able to soundly defeat Judah.  Judah was in a long line of nations that were set to fall to the power of Assyria.  In preparation for the battle, Sennacherib sends one of his men, Rabshakeh, to speak to the men of Judah and tell them the words in the verses above.  He believed the lack of help from the gods of this world was an indicator that Judah would also not receive any help from her God. 

What Rabshakeh and this world fails to understand is that our God is not like the gods of this world!  Praise God that when we go to our God for help, He is alive, He is listening, and He can do something about our situation.  The Rabshakeh’s of this world will never understand our God, and they will try to argue our God cannot help us; but they are fundamentally flawed because they begin from a point of believing our God is like any other god.

May God help us to trust in the arm of the Living God!

Share this post
Jason Atwood

Jason Atwood, Assistant Pastor

Jason Atwood grew up in the Corpus Christi, Texas area, and in November 2006, Pastor Atwood was called to be the first pastor of Heritage Baptist Church of Corpus Christi. The church was meeting in a small one-bedroom house. God blessed, and they moved to a new 5-acre site to allow continued growth. In 2019, God led Pastor Atwood to join our staff. He is a tremendous help to Pastor Trieber in both the church and the college ministry. He is married to Aimee, and they have three boys — Will, Connor, and Jack.