希西家
Last week Brad took you into the story of king Uzziah, a king who was a very mixed bag and whose pride ultimately led to his downfall. After Uzziah’s reign, the nation of Judah continued to go downhill spiritually and morally for the next several decades. Uzziah’s grandson was king Ahaz, who was one of Judah’s most evil kings. But then Ahaz’s son ascends to the throne, and we suddenly have this new king Hezekiah who brings with him a renewed faithfulness to God. Hezekiah’s reign is summarised in v3, which says: “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.” That’s a simple phrase but incredibly significant. It had been said of other kings before Hezekiah that they did right in the eyes of the Lord, but always with a qualification. They did not tear down the high places, which were the pagan idols in the land. With Hezekiah however, he did right in the eyes of the Lord, and in the very next verse we read that he removed the high places and smashed all of the pagan idols that had been used to direct worship away from God. 上周 Brad/布拉
上週Brad带着你们了解了乌西雅王的故事，他是一个好坏参半的国王，他的骄傲最终导致了他的垮台。在乌西雅统治之后，犹大国在接下来的几十年里在属灵上和道德上继续走下坡路。乌西雅的孙子是亚哈斯王，他是犹大最邪恶的国王之一。但随后亚哈斯的儿子登上王位，我们突然有了这位新国王希西家，他重新带来对上帝的忠诚。（王下 18 章）第 3 节总结了希西家的统治，说：“希西家效法他祖先大卫，做耶和华视为正的事。”这是一个简单的短语，但意义非凡。据说在希西家之前的其他好王所做的在主眼中是正的，但总是有些限定（缺陷）。他们没有拆毁地上的异教偶像。然而，对于希西家，他在主眼中是正的，在下一节我们读到他拆除了丘坛，并粉碎了所有用来引诱远离敬拜上帝的异教偶像。
With Hezekiah there is a sense that a new king like David had emerged. He followed the Lord just as his Father David had done. This was almost too good to be true, it was like the dawning of a new day after a very long, dark night in Israel’s history. Finally a king had come along who was fully devoted to God. Finally a king had arisen who was restoring Israel’s worship, who restored, refurbished and renewed the temple, who led the people back to God. It was almost as if David had come back to life. With this new king, anything was possible! Maybe now, finally God’s favour would again turn toward his people, God’s blessing would again fall upon his people, God’s eternal kingdom would be established upon the earth and the fullness of God’s promises to Solomon would be realised. Hope was thick in the air with the rise of Hezekiah to the throne.
希西家给人一种像大卫王那样的新王已经出现的感觉。 他跟从主，就像他祖大卫王所做的一样。 这简直太好了，令人难以置信，就像以色列历史上一个漫长而黑暗的夜晚之后新的一天开始了。 终于出现了一位完全献身于上帝的王。终于一位国王兴起，他恢复了以色列人的敬拜，他修复、翻新并且更新了圣殿，带领人民回归上帝。 就好像大卫王复活了一样。 有了这位新王，一切皆有可能！ 也许现在，上帝的恩惠终于再次转向他的子民，上帝的祝福再次降临在祂的子民身上，上帝永恒的国度将在地上建立，上帝对所罗门的应许将完全实现。 随着希西家登上王位，人们充满了希望。
But although Hezekiah brought great hope, he ruled over Judah during a time when things were very precarious in the life of this little nation. In Hezekiah’s day the great world superpower was the Empire of Assyria, which lay to the north-east of Judah. Assyria was an aggressive and barbaric Empire, ruled by a king with a thirst for conquest at all costs. They had a huge and powerful military and were pursuing a dominant strategy of expansion throughout the region. In 721 B.C. Assyria attacked the northern kingdom of Israel and completely conquered the entire nation. They defeated the capital of Samaria and carted off the Israelites into exile back in Assyria. The Judeans in the south watched on in horror as all this unfolded. Imagine the Judeans looking on in horror as their neighbouring Israelites were conquered and carted off into exile. 但是，虽然希西家带来了很大的
希望，但他统治犹大的时候，这个小国岌岌可危。 在希西家时代，世上的超级大国是位于犹大东北部的亚述帝国。 亚述是一个充满侵略性和野蛮的帝国，由一个渴望不惜一切代价征服一切的国王统治。 他们拥有庞大而强悍的军队，并在整个地区推行扩张的主导战略。 公元前721 年 亚述进攻北方的以色列王国，彻底征服了整个国家。 他们击败了撒玛利亚的首都，并将以色列人赶到亚述流放。 南方的犹大人惊恐地看着这一切发生。 想象一下，当他们的邻国以色列人被征服并被流放时，犹大人正惊恐地看着他们。As the northern kingdom fell, Hezekiah knew that Assyria wasn’t going to stop there but would now keep moving south to the tiny nation of Judah.
随着北方王国的衰落，希西家知道亚述不会就此罢休，而是会继续把魔抓向南伸向犹大这个小国。
To give you a sense of what this would have been like for the nation of Judah, let me play you a brief video clip. A couple of years ago a competition was run in Australia based around the idea of a new national holiday: Invade New Zealand Day. The competition was to create a video advertisement promoting the invasion of New Zealand by Australia which would be known as Invade New Zealand Day. I saw a couple of the video entries. This was my favourite one [play].
为了让你了解当时犹大国的感受，让我播放一段简短的视频片段。 几年前，在澳大利亚举办了一场关于定立一个新的国定假日的竞赛，它的主题是围绕着入侵新西兰的一个想法，就称之为：入侵新西兰日。 比赛的内容是制作一个宣传澳大利亚入侵新西兰的视频，这将被称为入侵新西兰日。 我看到了几个视频。 这是我最喜欢的[请播放]。
You have to admit that’s petty clever. And it actually makes you a little bit nervous doesn’t it? It brings out all our insecurities as a small nation, in a funny kind of way.
你不得不承认这有点小聪明。 它实际上让你有点紧张不是吗？ 它以一种有趣的方式带出了我们作为一个小国的所有不安全感。
We can have a good laugh at that but of course that’s because we live in a country where there is not the immanent threat of war. We don’t actually face an attack from a neighbouring nation with far more military power than we have. It would be a very different story if we were living in Ukraine right now, where they have been invaded by their neighbours and this situation has been playing out in real life for them. Or if we lived in the Gaza Strip at the moment, with Israeli jet planes flying overhead. For many people in the world today, the threat of attack from other nations is a daily reality that they live with and have to constantly be prepared for. We can be grateful that we live in little old New Zealand at the bottom of the world, and that the Aussies are generally a pretty friendly bunch most of the time.
我们可以对此开怀大笑，但这当然是因为我们生活在一个没有战争威胁的国家。 我们实际上并没有面临来自比我们拥有更多军事力量的邻国的攻击。 如果我们现在生活在乌克兰，情况将完全不同，他们在那里被邻居入侵，这种情况在他们的现实生活中一直在上演。 或者，如果我们现在住在加沙地带，以色列喷气式飞机在头顶飞过。 对于当今世界上的许多人来说，来自其他国家的攻击威胁是他们日常生活所要面对的残酷现实，他们必须不断为此做好准备。 我们应该庆幸我们生活在地球之极的古老的小新西兰，而澳大利亚人通常大部分时间都非常友好。
This fear of an immanent attack from a neighbouring nation is one that the nation of Judah was facing at the time of king Hezekiah. And it wasn’t long before this fear became a reality. Not long after taking the northern kingdom, Assyria started making incursions into Judah. They started by demanding a tribute from Hezekiah, basically allowing him to continue ruling as a puppet of Assyrian. But Hezekiah refused this and would not submit to Assyrian rule. So the Assyrians responded by sending in the military and conquering several cities in Judah. They then turned their attention to Jerusalem itself, the capital city. Hezekiah tried to pay off the Assyrians, sending gold from the temple to the king of Assyrian. But by their stage the Assyrians were intent on taking Jerusalem for themselves. 这
种对来自邻国的攻击倾向的恐惧是犹大国在希西家王时代所面临的。 不久之后，这种恐惧就变成了现实。 占领北方王国后不久，亚述开始入侵犹大。 他们首先要求希西家进贡，基本上只允许他作为亚述人的傀儡政权继续他的统治。 但希西家拒绝了这一点，不愿服从亚述人的统治。 因此，亚述人的回应是派遣军队并征服了犹大的几个城市。然后他们将注意力转向首都耶路撒冷本身。 希西家试图将圣殿中的黄金送给亚述王以抵消他的进攻意图。 但是当时候到了，亚述人就打算将耶路撒冷据为己有。
The supreme commander of the Assyrian army came to Jerusalem and stood outside the city. He gave a big speech to anyone who was listening, which was basically a big propaganda speech urging the Judeans to surrender to Assyria. He described how no other nation had ever been able to escape the might of the Assyrian army. He described the terrible horrors that would unfold in Judah if they refused to surrender to the king of Assyria. He tried to undermine Hezekiah by telling the people that Hezekiah was misleading them into thinking that God would deliver them. He figured that if he could turn the people against their own king, the Assyrians might be able to take Jerusalem without having to fight at all. When that didn’t work the king of Assyria sent a letter to king Hezekiah threatening him with all the might of Assyrian empire if he didn’t surrender. 亚述军队的最高统帅
来到耶路撒冷，站在城外。 他对所有在场的人高谈阔论，这基本上是一次强大的舆论宣传和蛊惑，敦促犹大人向亚述投降。 他宣称了没有其他国家能够逃脱亚述军队的勇力。 他威胁说如果他们拒绝向亚述王投降，犹大将会大祸临头。 他试图告诉人们希西家误导他们，认为上帝会拯救他们，试图以这样的蛊惑来破坏希西家。 他认为，如果他能让人民反对他们自己的国王，亚述人也许可以不战而胜以占领耶路撒冷。 当这不起作用时，亚述王给希西家王写了一封信，威胁他如果不投降，就用亚述帝国的全部军力来威胁他。
Let’s press pause on the story there for a minute and think about how this relates to our lives. The reality is that sooner or later we are all going to face our own Assyria. It won’t be the same Assyria that Hezekiah faced—not many of us are going to face a foreign army in our lives— but we all face battles in our lives of one kind or another. Some of you are fighting them now. It may be health issues, or financial issues or relationship issues or struggles with our mental health, or the sheer complexity of life. They may be battles you’re still facing from your past, or battles that you can see coming up in your future that are already making you nervous. Don’t think that just because you are a Christian, you’re not going to face major challenges in life. Here is Hezekiah, one of the most faithful kings in Israel’s history and he is facing the biggest threat the nation has ever faced. You can be a follower of Jesus and walk faithfully with God, and Assyria is still going to come for you. You can do all the right things and Assyria is still going to arrive at your doorstep.
让我们暂停一下那里的故事，想想这与我们的生活有何关系。现实情况是，我们迟早都会面对我们自己的”亚述”。它不会是希西家所面对的同一个亚述——我们中没有多少人会在现实中去面对外国军队——但我们都面临着这样或那样的征战。你们中的一些人现在正在与它们作战。可能是健康问题、财务问题、人际关系问题、心理健康问题或纷繁芜杂的生活。它们可能是你过去仍然面临的征战，或者是你可以看到未来即将到来的已经让你紧张焦虑的征战。不要认为仅仅因为你是基督徒，你就不会面临生活中的重大挑战。这是希西家，以色列历史上最忠实的君王之一，他正面临着这个国家所面临的最大威胁。你可以成为耶稣的追随者，忠心地与 神同行，但“亚述”仍会来找你。你可以做对所有的事情，但“亚述”仍然迟早会来到你家门口。
The key here is the way that Hezekiah responded to the Assyrian threat. The very first thing Hezekiah did when he got this letter was to go to God in prayer. He received the letter and he went to the temple. The temple was the place where he met with God. He took that letter to the temple and I love the way the text describes Hezekiah spreading this letter out before the Lord. You can just imagine him spreading out all the pages of this letter and saying, ‘God, here it is. This is the threat; this is our enemy; this is the battle we are facing. I just hand it all over to you God.’
这里的关键是希西家应对亚述威胁的方式。 希西家收到这封信后做的第一件事就是向上帝祷告。 他接过信，就去了圣殿。 圣殿是他与上帝相遇的地方。 他把那封信带到了圣殿，我喜欢文字描述希西家在主面前展开这封信的方式。 你可以想象他摊开这封信的所有页面并说，‘主啊，它在这里。这就是威胁； 这是我们的敌人； 这是我们面临的战斗。 我单单把它交托给你，主。
Think about the way you typically respond to the battles that we face. When bad things happen to you, when tough situations arise, what do you do? Well I know what I do. I worry. My first response is to worry. And I like to make sure I’ve spent a good amount of time worrying about the situation before I do anything. I really like to let it consume me on the inside before I take any further steps.
Then I might talk to someone about the issue. Then I’ll worry some more. Then I’ll try and think my way out of it. I’ll strategise, I’ll hypothesise, I’ll theorise, I’ll catastrophise. Then I’ll worry some more. Then I’ll Google the problem. And after I’ve done everything else, when I can’t think of anything else to do then maybe, just maybe, I’ll pray about it. I’m ashamed to say that prayer is often the last thing I do when things go wrong, rather than the first.
But what Hezekiah shows us is that prayer shouldn’t be our last resort when bad things happen, it should be our first response.
想想你面临征战通常的反应方式。当不好的事情发生在你身上，当困难的情况出现时，你会怎么做？好吧，我知道我在做什么。我担心。我的第一反应是担心。而且我喜欢在我做任何事情之前我已经花了大量的时间来忧虑这种情况。在我采取任何进一步措施之前，我真的很喜欢让它消耗我的内心。
然后我可能会和某人谈谈这个问题。然后，再担心多一些。然后我会试着想办法摆脱它。我会制定战略，我会假设，我会理论化，我把问题会灾难化。自然我的忧虑就更多一些。然后我会谷歌这个问题。在我做完其他所有事情之后，当我想不出其他事情要做时，也许，只是也许，我会为此祷告。我很惭愧地说，当问题出现时，祷告往往是我做的最后一件事，而不是第一件事。
但希西家告诉我们的是，当坏事发生时，祷告不应该是我们的最后手段，而应恰恰该是我们的第一反应。
What Hezekiah shows us is that when we face these battles, our first response should be to bring these battles to God. There is an old chorus that says, “oh what peace we often forfeit; oh what needless pain we bear; all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” So true, isn’t it? We make things ten times harder for ourselves because we insist on fighting our battles without God. We insist on carrying our burdens alone. All the while God is waiting there saying, ‘come to me.
Bring your troubled heart to me; bring your problems to me. Let me carry your burdens for you.’ Like Hezekiah, God wants prayer to be the natural reflex of our heart when we face difficulties in life. He invites us to do exactly what Hezekiah did—to spread out our problems before him like Hezekiah spread out that letter; to pour out our hearts to him and bring all of our stress, worry and exhaustion to him.
希西家告诉我们的是，当我们面对这些征战时，我们的第一反应应该是把这些带到上帝面前。 有一首古老的诗歌唱到：“哦，我们经常失去平安； 哦，我们承受了多少不必要的痛苦； 这一切都是因为我们没有在祷告中把一切都带到上帝面前。” 如此真实，不是吗？ 我们使自己的事情变得困难十倍，因为我们坚持在没有上帝的情况下进行争战。 我们坚持独自承担我们自己的负担。 上帝一直在那里等着说，‘到我这里来。 把你烦恼带给我； 把你的问题带给我。 让我替你背负重担。 就像希西家一样，当我们面对生活中的困难时，上帝希望祷告成为我们内心的自然反应。 祂邀请我们做希西家所做的事——像希西家摊开那封信一样，在祂面前摊开我们的问题； 向祂倾诉我们的心声，把我们所有的压力、担忧和疲惫交托给祂。
War Room…quote about fighting through prayer…”God showed me it wasn’t my job to do the heavy lifting. That is something only he could do. It was my job to seek him, to trust him and to stand on his word.” This is the role that we have in the battles we face. Not to try and fix every situation; not to change and change things that are beyond our control, but to get on our knees and seek God, calling upon his name and seeking his face and bringing our battles to him. When we fight our battle on our own we exhaust our own strength so quickly—we become tired and worn down, discouraged and defeated. But when we pray, we stand in God’s strength and we come to see that his resources are far greater than our own, his strength is far beyond ours, his power is infinitely more than our power. And we come to rest in his sovereignty and his providence over our lives.
《战争房间》（美国基督教剧情片）……引用关于通过祷告作战的名言……“上帝告诉我，做繁重的事不是我的工。那是只有祂才能做到的事情。 寻求祂、信任祂并信守诺言是我的。” 这就是我们在所面临的战斗中所扮演的角色。 不要试图解决所有情况； 不要改变（自己）和改变我们无法控制的事情，而是跪下来寻求上帝，呼求祂的名字，寻求祂的面，将我们的征战带到祂面前。 当我们独自战斗时，我们会很快耗尽自己的力量——我们变得疲倦、疲惫、灰心和失败。 但是当我们祷告时，我们在 神的大能之中，我们会看到祂的资源远大于我们的资源，祂的力量远超我们的力量，祂的威力无限地超过我们的。 我们安息在祂的主权和祂对我们生活的看顾中。
I know that sometimes when you are going through a really tough time, it feels almost impossible to pray. The burden is so heavy and the pain is so great that you just can’t bring yourself to speak to God. It is in those times that you need to have other people praying for you. In 2 Chronicles we learn that when Hezekiah went to pray, he took Isaiah the prophet with him. The two of them knelt there in the temple and prayed to God together—it’s a great picture isn’t it, the prophet and the king lifting their voices to God together. When we face battles in our lives, we need an Isaiah who will pray for us and pray with us. Who have you got in your life that you can call on and say to them, ‘can I ask that you pray for me at the moment?’ You don’t even have to give them all the details of what you are going through, God knows. Just ask them to pray. Their prayers can carry you when you don’t have the strength to pray yourself. And the knowledge that someone else is upholding you in prayer and carrying you to the throne of God is a huge encouragement when you are at the bottom of the pit yourself. So find your Isaiah who you can call on to pray for you. 我知道有时当你经历一
段非常艰难的时期时，感觉几乎不可能做祷告。负担如此沉重，痛苦如此巨大，以至于你无法让自己与上帝说话。正是在那些时候，你需要让其他人为你祷告。在历代志下中，我们了解到，当希西家去祷告时，他带着先知以赛亚。两个人跪在 神殿里，一起向 神祷告——是不是很美好的画面，先知和国王一起向 神发声。当我们面对生活中的争战时，我们需要一位为我们祷告并能和我们一起祷告的“以赛亚”。在你的生活中，你有谁可以打电话给他们，“我可以要求你现在为我祈祷吗？”你甚至不必告诉他们你正在经历的所有细节， 神知道。只是请他们祷告。当你没有力量自己祷告时，他们的祷告可以托起你。当你自己处于深坑，知道别人在祷告中支持你并将你带到 神的宝座上是一个多么巨大的鼓励。所以找到你的“以赛亚”，你可以召唤他为你祷告。
Let’s look at how the story continues after Hezekiah and Isaiah pray. Have a look at 2 Kings 19:35-36.
What an incredible night. God sends his angel to decimate the Assyrian forces in the middle of the night, wiping out 185,000 of them. That’s a lot of casualties! Imagine the remaining Assyrians waking up and finding that most of their army had mysteriously died in their sleep. They would have been terrified. The king of Assyria withdrew from Judah in humiliation and returned to his home country.
All this happened without the Israelites having to lift a finger! The tiny nation of Judah had fended off an attack from the world’s dominant superpower, all without having to fight a single battle! This is an extraordinary victory that God wins on behalf of his people and is a dramatic example of what Psalm 33 says: “No king is saved by the size of his army…but the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him.”
让我们看看希西家和以赛亚祷告后故事是如何推进的。 参看列王纪下 19:35-36。
多么不可思议的夜晚。 上帝派祂的天使在半夜消灭亚述军队，消灭了其中的 185,000 人。 那真是伤亡惨重！ 想象一下剩下的亚述人醒来，发现他们的军队主力在睡梦中神秘地死去。 他们会被吓坏的。 亚述王屈辱地离开犹大，回到他的国。
这一切都发生在以色列人不用动一根手指头的情况下！ 犹大这个小国，竟然不用动兵就抵挡住了世上的霸权超级大国的进攻！ 这是上帝为祂的子民赢得的非凡胜利，也是诗篇 33 篇所描述的戏剧性反转的范例：“君王不能靠兵多取胜，……但耶和华看顾敬畏祂、仰望祂慈爱的人。。”
This truly was one of the great victories that God won for his people in the Old Testament. It went down in the history books as an incredible act of God’s power against Israel’s enemies. This victory is probably behind some of the Psalms that rejoice in God’s strength and victory on behalf of his people. It was a momentous victory. But great as this victory was it is only a foretaste of a greater victory that happened further along in the biblical story. The way in which God defeats the Assyrians here is a dramatic foreshadowing of the greater victory that God ultimately won through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Just think about the parallels. In this story Judah faces an enemy that they couldn’t possibly defeat—they were overwhelmed by the size of the Assyrian army. In the same way, Jesus came to deliver us from an enemy that we couldn’t possibly defeat on our own. The evil one held all of humanity in the clutches of sin and death and there was no possible way for us to escape on our own. We were powerless, helpless and hopeless, facing the overwhelming odds of our own making.
这确实是上帝在旧约中为祂的子民赢得的伟大胜利之一。它被载入史册，记述了上帝用大能对抗以色列敌人的不可思议的作为。这种胜利可能是诗篇里一些赞美上帝大能和为祂子民征战得胜的背后的故事。这是一个重大的胜利。但是，虽然这次胜利是伟大的，然而这只是圣经故事中进而发生的更大胜利的预兆。上帝在这里击败亚述人的方式戏剧性地预表了上帝最终通过耶稣的死亡和复活赢得了更大的胜利。无独有偶。在这个故事中，犹大面临着一个他们不可能击败的敌人——他们被亚述军队的规模压倒了。同样地，耶稣来拯救我们脱离一个靠我们自己不可能战胜的敌人。邪灵将全人类置于罪和死亡的魔掌中，我们无法独自逃脱。当我们被自己的罪压倒。我们无能为力，无助和绝望。
Yet just as God went out and defeated the Assyrian army without Israel lifting a finger, Jesus won an incredible victory against the evil one, without us doing a thing to help. Through his death and resurrection Jesus defeated Satan, robbing him of his power, robbing him of his dominion, robbinghim of his authority, robbing him of his territory. Through the cross and the empty tomb Jesus defeated sin, defeated death, defeated the grave, defeated evil, defeated every power and principality that stands against God, and he brought about freedom, reconciliation, rescue and redemption for all those who belong to him. Great as God’s victory over Assyria was, it was eclipsed by the victory that God won through Jesus. And, like the Judeans, all we can do is receive this victory that God was won on our behalf. All we can do is say, ‘thank you God for the cross; thank you for the empty tomb. Thank you that the battle is won; thank you that victory is secured; thank you that you have done it all.’ All we can do is receive it; all we can do is take hold of that victory in our lives and stand in the grace that God has won for us. 然而，正如上帝在以色列人未动丝毫的情况下就出去
打败了亚述军队一样，耶稣在没有我们任何帮助的情况下也已经战胜了邪灵，取得了令人难以置信的胜利。透过祂的死和复活，耶稣打败了撒旦，夺走了他的权力，夺走了他的统治权，夺走了他的权柄，夺走了他的领地。透过十字架和空坟墓，耶稣战胜了罪，战胜了死亡，战胜了坟墓，战胜了邪恶，战胜了一切敌对上帝的政权和执政者，祂为所有属于祂的人带来了自由、和解、拯救和救赎。上帝对亚述的胜利已然伟大，却不及祂透过耶稣而赢得的胜利。而且，就像犹大人一样，我们所能做的就是接受上帝为我们赢得的这场胜利。我们所能做的就是说，‘感恩上帝赐下十字架；谢谢你让坟墓变为空墓。谢谢你赢得了这场征战；谢谢你，胜局已定；谢谢你已经成就了这一切。我们所能做的就是领受它；我们所能做的就是抓住我们生命中的胜利，在上帝为我们赢得的恩典中站立得稳。
So what does all this mean for us now, when we face battles in our lives? We know that God has won the greatest battle for us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still face battles in our lives that are difficult, painful, and exhausting. Assyria is still going to come along. Come back one more time to this text and to the words of Hezekiah. In 2 Chronicles the author records the words that Hezekiah said to his people, to encourage them in the face of the Assyrian attack. Here is what he says in 2 Chronicles 32:7 [read v7-8a]. Isn’t that a great word of encouragement?
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. 8 With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.
Hezekiah is saying ‘this huge army that you’re all so afraid of is just a human army—they only have the arm of flesh. But we have Yahweh, the living God, on our side. There is a greater power with us than with them. Doesn’t it remind you of that verse in the NT, “greater is he who is within us than he who is within the world.”
We need to remember that when we face battles in our lives, the one who is with us is greater than the one who is against us. Troubles may come, challenges may mount up, but the power of God is greater than any of the battles we face. The power of God is far greater than the marriage problems you are having right now. Those problems may seem insurmountable, but just remember, the power of God is greater. The power of God is greater than the health challenges you are facing right now.
The power of God is greater than the financial difficulties you are facing; the power of God is greater than the problems you are having at work. Whatever battle you are facing today, remember that
God is for you, and if he is for you, then who can be against you?
那么，当我们面临生活中的争战时，这一切对我们意味着什么？我们知道上帝为我们赢得了最伟大的胜利，但这并不意味着我们在生活中不会面临艰难、痛苦和疲惫的征战。“亚述”仍然会出现。再回味一下这段经文和希西家的话。在历代志下中，作者记录了希西家对他的民众所说的话，以鼓励他们面对亚述人的攻击。这是他在历代志下 32:7 [阅读第 7-8a 节] 中所说的话。这不是一个很好的鼓励词吗？
“你们当刚强壮胆，不要因亚述王和跟随他的大军恐惧惊慌，因为与我们同在的，比与他们同在的更大。 8 与他们同在的是血肉之臂，但与我们同在的是耶和华—我们的 神，他必帮助我们，为我们争战。”百姓因犹大王希西家的话就得到鼓励。
希西家是在说‘你们所害怕的这支庞大的军队，只是血肉之躯的军队——他们只有血肉之臂。但我们有耶和华，永生的 神，站在我们这边。我们拥有比他们更大的力量。它是不是让你想起新约中的那句经文，“在我们里面的圣灵比在世上运行的邪灵更有能力。”我们需要记住，当我们面对生活中的征战时，与我们同在的那位比反对我们的邪灵更大。麻烦可能会来，挑战可能会增加，但上帝的大能大过我们面临的任何征战。 神的大能远胜于你现在的婚姻问题。这些问题似乎无法克服，但请记住，上帝的力量更大。上帝的力量大过你现在面临的健康挑战。神的大能胜过你所面临的经济困难；上帝的力量大过你在工作中遇到的问题。无论你今天面临什么征战，请记住上帝是为你而来的，如果祂是站在你这边的，那么谁能与你为敌？
What Hezekiah promises is not just that God’s power is greater than those who are against us, but that he will fight our battles for us. This is not the first time in the Old Testament that God has made this promise to his people. When Israel escaped from Egypt and faced Pharaoh’s army at the red Sea, God said to Moses: the LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. Then when Israel was at the edge of Canaan, preparing to go in and take possession of the Promised Land, Moses said these words: The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes.” In the great battles they had already faced, God had already assured his people that he would go before them and would fight for them. And he had! He wiped out Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. He wiped out the Canaanites as Israel entered the Promised Land. And he defeated the Assyrian army before Hezekiah’s eyes. Time and time again Yahweh has proven himself to be the God who fights on behalf of his people.
希西家所承诺的不仅是上帝的力量大过那些敌对我们的，而且祂会为我们而战。这不是旧约中上帝第一次向祂的子民作出这样的应许。当以色列人逃离埃及，在红海面对法老的军队时， 神对摩西说：耶和华必为你们争战，你们要保持镇静。当以色列人在迦南地的边缘，准备进入应许之地时，摩西说：在你前面走的耶和华你们的 神必为你们争战，就像在埃及为你们争战一样，就在你们的眼前。”在他们已经面临的伟大战役中，上帝已经向祂的子民做出应许，祂会走在他们的前面，为他们而战。祂做到了！祂在红海消灭了法老和他的军队。当以色列人进入应许之地时，祂消灭了迦南人。祂在希西家王眼前打败了亚述军队。耶和华一次又一次地证明自己是为祂的子民而战的 神。
And he will do the same for us today. When we are attacked and stressed and worn down and confronted by adversity and compounded with pain, God says to us, ‘I am with you and I will fight your battles for you.’ You don’t need to feel that the pressure is all on you to have to fight this battle on your own. Don’t feel like you have to try to do everything, fix everything, control everything, solve everything. God is saying, ‘just hand it all over to me. Give it all to me. Cast it all on me and let me fight this battle for you.’ Letting God fight our battles means entrusting the situation to his sovereign care. It means saying, ‘God you’ve got this. I don’t understand how; but I know you’ve got this. And I trust that you are at work in this situation; I trust that you are releasing you power into this situation, I trust that this battle belongs to you.’ Letting God fight our battles means that when we can’t seem to get a handle on the situation, we know that God has his arms around the situation.
Letting God fight our battles means knowing that when we are knocked down by the pressures of life, God is still on the throne. Letting God fight our battles means know that even though your situation seems chaotic and out of control, God is still in control—he holds all of that within his providence and he will work it out somehow. Letting God fight our battles means saying,
‘God I can’t see a way through this but I trust you will make a way and you will show me the way.’
We get so worried about things but God is saying, ‘I’ve got this. This is my battle to fight not yours.’
We can just be still and know that he is God. That doesn’t mean all of our problems are going to go away but we know that God is actively engaged in every battle we face. God doesn’t always fight our battles in the way we expect, or in the way we can see, but he is working, he is moving and he is fighting our battles for us everyday.
祂今天也会为我们做同样的事。当我们受到攻击、压力、疲惫不堪、身处逆境和痛苦时，上帝对我们说：“我与你同在，我会为你而战。”你不需要自己扛着一切压力必须靠自己去打这场仗。不要想自己尝试承担所有事情，修复所有事情，控制所有事情，解决所有事情。上帝在说，‘把它们全部交给我。把它们全给我。把这一切都放在我身上，让我为你打这场仗。让上帝打我们的仗，意味着把问题归到祂至高无上的权柄之下。这意味着说，‘上帝，你来掌控这个情况。我不知道该怎么做；但我知道你掌控它。我相信你在为这个情况而做工；我相信你在这种情况下释放你的力量，我相信这场征战属于你。让上帝为我们而战意味着当我们似乎无法掌握情况时，我们知道上帝手臂正在围绕这个局面做工。
让 神为我们争战意味着知道当我们被生活的压力击倒时， 神仍然在宝座上。让上帝为我们争战意味着知道，即使你的情况看起来混乱和失控，但上帝仍然在掌控之中——祂将所有这一切都放在祂的旨意当中，祂会以某种方式解决它。让上帝打我们的仗意味着说，
“上帝，我看不到解决办法，但我相信你会开辟道路，你会告诉我出路。
”我们非常担心，但上帝在说，“我”有这个。这是我的征战而不是你的。
'我们可以保持静止并知道祂是上帝。这并不意味着我们所有的问题都会消失，但我们知道上帝正在积极参与我们面临的每场征战。上帝并不总是以我们期望的方式或我们所看到的方式为我们争战，但祂在工作，祂在行动，祂每天都在为我们争战。
As God fights our battles for us he will also uphold us in the midst of our battles. As we come to him and surrender our battles over to him, God will place his armour around us to protect us. He will hand us the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. The evil one will fire his flaming arrows at us, they will come. But what protects us is the shield of faith—the shield of trusting and resting in who God is—our defender, our refuge and strength, our strong tower, our mighty warrior. God will be a fortress around us, protecting our hearts and minds through the battle, enveloping us in his presence so that he absorbs the attack of the evil one and those flaming arrows don’t penetrate our souls.
当上帝为我们而战时，祂也会在征战当中保守我们。 当我们来到祂面前并将我们的征战交托给祂时，上帝会用祂赐的盔甲包裹我们保护我们。祂将信的盾牌交给我们，我们可以用它来消灭邪灵所有的燃烧之箭。 邪灵会向我们发射燃烧的箭矢，他们会来的。 但保护我们的是信的盾牌——信靠和安息于我们的守护者 - 上帝，祂是我们的盾牌——我们的守护者，我们的避难所和力量，我们坚固的堡垒，我们强大的统帅。 在征战中，上帝将为我们筑起堡垒，在战斗中保护我们的心，将我们妥妥地围拢在祂的面前，这样祂能吸收邪灵的攻击，而那些燃烧的箭不会穿透我们的灵。
Story of my own experience of battling anxiety. The anxiety doesn’t disappear but it is transformed by the experience of Jesus being with me in that space and absorbing my anxiety. God is fighting my battles for me.
我自己与焦虑征战的经历。 焦虑并没有消失，但耶稣在那个战场与我同在并吸收我的焦虑，这种经历改变了我。 上帝正在为我而战。
There’s a song that has been really powerful for me in time when I’ve faced difficult battles. I’ve come back to it again and again when I’ve hit challenges or when my anxiety has flared up. It’s a song by Phil Wickham called Battle Belongs. Let me read you a few of the lyrics [read]. Isn’t that great? What an encouragement that our perspective is not God’s perspective. That when we see defeat and ashes and a huge mountain ahead of us and a heavy cross to bear, God sees beauty, he sees victory, he sees the mountain moved and he sees the empty tomb. And that song is a great reminder of the role that I have to play in this battle, which is to pray. The way that I fight is on my knees, in prayer. That’s our role in the battle—to bring it all to God and lay it before him like Hezekiah did, and to cry out to God, declaring who he is in the midst of this battle—our Almighty fortress—and asking God to work, to move, to intervene, to bring about his kingdom and fulfil his purposes.
当我面临艰难的战斗时，有一首歌对我来说真的很有力量。当我遇到挑战或焦虑情绪爆发时，我会一次又一次地回放它。这是菲尔·威肯的一首歌，叫做《争战在于祢》/ Battle Belongs。让我给你读几首歌词[阅读]。那不是很棒吗？上帝的观点不同于我们的，这多么令人鼓舞 - 当我们看到失败和灰烬，前方有一座大山，有一个沉重的十字架要背负时，上帝看到了美丽，看到了胜利，看到了山挪移，看到了坟墓空荡荡。那首歌很好地提醒了我在这场争战中所必须扮演的角色，那就是祷告。我争战的方式就是是跪下，祷告。这就是我们在战斗中的角色——像希西家一样把这一切带到上帝面前，把它摆在祂面前，向上帝呼求，在这场战斗中宣告祂是谁——我们全能的堡垒——并祈求上帝做工，挪移，干预，带来祂的王国并成就祂的旨意。
Whatever the Assyria is that is threatening you or attacking you or worrying you this morning, I want you to know that the same God that Hezekiah prayed to is with you today. The same God who wiped out 185,000 Assyrians stands beside you today ready to sustain you and fight your battles for you. In the midst of whatever battle you are facing, I want to encourage you not to fight this battle on your own but to bring that battle to God today. Spread it out before him like Hezekiah and hand it over to him. Stop trying to deal with it all in your own strength—you are only exhausting yourself and wearing yourself down. Turn to God today and seek him face—let him fight your battles for you. Trust today that God is for you and not against you and that as you hold firm to him he will not let you be shaken, no matter how severe the battle gets. And decide today that you will take up the mantle of prayer and fight this battle in the right way—on your knees. That’s where the power is, that’s where the strength is, that’s where the battle is won. And let’s thank God that we do all of this knowing that he has already won the victory for us through Jesus Christ. Amen.
不管“亚述人”今天早上如何威胁你、攻击你或让你担心，我想让你知道，希西家所求告的同一位上帝今天与你同在。曾经消灭了 185,000 名亚述人的同一位上帝今天就站在你身边，随时准备支持你并为你而战。在你面临的任何争战中，我想鼓励你不要自己打这场仗，而是今天把这场争战带到上帝面前。像希西家一样在祂面前摊开，交给祂。不要再试图用自己的力量来处理这一切——你只会让自己疲惫不堪、筋疲力尽。今天转向上帝，寻求祂的面——让祂为你而战。今天相信上帝是支持你而不是敌对你，当你坚定地紧紧抓住祂时，祂不会让你动摇，无论争战多么激烈。今天就下定决心，你将披上祷告的外衣，用对的方式打这场仗——跪下。这就是力量所在，这就是优势所在，这就是制胜法宝。让我们感恩上帝，我们做这一切都是因为知道祂已经透过耶稣基督为我们赢得了胜利。阿门
