Someone once said to me, “Pray as though everything depended on God. But work as though everything depended on you”[1]. I’ve never forgotten the principle. It seems to hint at what James was getting at when he wrote, “But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18, NKJV).
But what does this look like in action?
It can be true of Christians, especially those young in the faith, to have a naïve understanding about how and to what degree God will intervene in our circumstances. Such notions can take the form of fairy-tale favour, where we believe God will stop and solve every problem the world throws at us or rescue us from every stress and distress so that we won’t have to experience discomfort. It is true that throughout Scripture, God gives those that He calls promises. But superhero-like intervention that casts God as a genie in the bottle, granting us the wishes of every prayer for deliverance is not one of the promises; God doesn’t promise us protection from trials, he promises us protection in trials.
And for good reason: it’s in the crucible of life’s tempests that we grow. Where we are forced to bring to bear our mental and emotional faculties onto the problems we face, thus “exercising our senses”, not only produces wisdom but produces in us essential character. It is through trials that faith is forged with works to produce something godly in us. It was this faith working with wisdom and effort in the life of Hezekiah that not only produced a mini-wonder of the ancient Near East, but a deliverance that has inspired the Bible reader of today.
Displayed on the walls of the British Museum is the Lachish Relief stretching some nearly 20 metres, taken from king Sennacherib’s palace walls in Nineveh, it depicts the siege and defeat of the Judean city, Lachish. Boasting soldiers, fire arrows, and missiles, this is a running commentary of Sennacherib’s army’s overwhelming force. Lachish fell, along with 46 other cities. But this wasn’t the end of the story.
Lachish Relief, British Museum
The king of Israel at this time was Hezekiah. A reformer, a man who restored the true worship of the true God, faithful to God. He knew what the Assyrians had done to the northern kingdom of Israel just a generation before, conquering and then deporting them into captivity. In Jerusalem, he questioned whether this would be his fate, too. He knew only God could deliver him, but he also knew he had to act! He had to prepare. He had to do everything that was in his power and leave the rest to God.
Using his wisdom and effort, Hezekiah undertook the most “ambitious water engineering feat” that the ancient world had ever seen. If Jerusalem was to be under siege, surrounded like the rest of the cities, he had to ensure a water supply. The Gihon spring on the hillside of Jerusalem was the only water supply Jerusalem had. But it needed to be directed into the city walls. So Hezekiah had an idea. Starting from opposite ends, men hewed out of the rock a tunnel through the sloping hill and into the city, nearly a mile in length! Hezekiah had not been naïve in his approach to this trial, he did not just have faith, he had works.
This tunnel with a tale is a must-see if you go to Jerusalem. Nestled on the slopes of the City of David, south of the Temple Mount, the dark but inviting entrance has the continuous sound of gushing water. To think that this spring has pumped water for the last 2,700 years and more, adds to your awe of this feat of hydro-ingenuity. As you enter the pitch black of the tunnel, with the cold current of water lashing at your feet and up to your knees, the walls and stone cry out with the incontestable truth of a story that happened 2,700 years before. As I walked the winding tunnel, narrow, and at times crouched, the only light source being my small torch, I realised I was walking through history; history that had been penned down long ago, history that I could believe in, rely on, and most of all, see for myself to be true.
Inside Hezekiah’s Tunnel, Jerusalem
But Hezekiah’s trials did not stop there. Some say it was wisdom, others say it was weakness, but as was the custom, Hezekiah entreated Sennacherib with tribute (tax): “Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; turn away from me; whatever you impose on me I will pay.” And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold” (2 King 18:14). Amazingly, this detail is recorded not just in Scripture but in Assyrian secular history, too. Discovered in Nineveh and known as the Taylor Prism, it records Sennacherib’s military campaigns throughout Mesopotamia. This most fascinating biblically authenticating Assyrian account had on it the following testimony from the Assyrian perspective, “Fear of my greatness terrified Hezekiah. He sent to me tribute: 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver[2], precious stones, ivory and all sorts of gifts, including women from his palace”[3]. This dual history testifies of the historical accuracy of Scripture, astonishingly recorded in the histories of both peoples.
The Taylor Prism, British Museum
“As for Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to forty-six of his strong cities…Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage”.
taylor prism
But Sennacherib came against Jerusalem, nevertheless. Sending his generals with a message to those in Jerusalem, “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed…?’” (2 Kings 19:10-12). Sennacherib had destroyed those lands, and many of the cities of Judah. What would happen to Jerusalem? This was a test of faith.
Hezekiah had done everything he could. He had nothing else to give. He only had God. And it was to God he turned in a beautiful act of faith: “And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: “O Lord God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God… Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone” (2 Kings 19:14-16, 19). Hezekiah knew the possibilities that God would not deliver. And God heard and intervened.
When Hezekiah was weak, it meant he was strong because he fully turned to God in faith for supernatural deliverance. Shortly after Hezekiah’s prayer, “it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh” (2 Kings 19:35-36). Sennacherib was sent packing. What a miracle!
The Taylor Prism even hints at this truth that Sennacherib did not enter Jerusalem. Out of all the cities that he said he came against and took, it does not state that he took Jerusalem. Instead, he records, “As for Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to forty-six of his strong cities…Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage”[4].
Curiously, historians are have wondered why the rampant Assyrian army did not continue their military campaigns south into Egypt, but instead, history shows the Assyrian military abruptly stops their western invasion once they enter Judah. Professor George Rawlinson of Oxford notes, “Sennacherib during his later years made no expedition further westward than Cilicia; nor were the Assyrian designs against Southern Syria and Egypt resumed till toward the close of the reign of Esarhaddon”[5]. Is this silent proof of the miracle of God stopping the army in its tracks?
Hezekiah’s example to us of the faith-works relationship is helpful in understanding how we should act and react in trying circumstances. “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows”, as the Rocky quote goes, and it most certainly isn’t. Despite our conversion and calling, we experience the toil and trouble of what it is to live in a broken world. God is there, of course, but that doesn’t abdicate us from our responsibility to do everything in our power to overcome and work through our problems. The rest we will have to leave in God’s hands.
[1] Attributed to either St Augustine or St Ignatius
[2] There is a discrepancy between the amount of silver given in both records. The reason for this may be because even though the method of weighing gold was the same for both Judah and Assyria, when it came to calculating silver, the Assyrian ‘silver’ could include other items as well.
[3] http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/meso/sennprism1.html
[4] Ibid
[5] Rawlinson, George. Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament. 1873. n.p.
Photo Attribution:
Relief from the palace of King Sargon II | Relief from the p… | Flickr
Siege of Lachish (701 BCE) – Lachish reliefs – Wikipedia
Hezekiah’s Tunnel | Hezekiah’s Tunnel and Gihon spring. 2016… | Michael Lusk | Flickr