We all have problems, troubles, worries and fears. Life is filled with temptations, battles and enemies—or what appear to be enemies. Our toughest battles are often with ourselves. But God says you can be free from all this!
Jesus Christ is often pictured as dead, hanging from a cross. He is actually a living Savior who came here to deliver us from problems, and He even has a mission to fight your battles, to perform miracles for you to win those battles. Why do we try to fight our own battles when we have a living Savior with tremendous power wanting to fight those battles for us? He really does live and He really does have all that power. He makes that power available to us so we can know and understand what true freedom is all about and be free from those worries, troubles and temptations.
We make the mistake of relying on ourselves for one of two reasons: Either we don’t fully understand God and His power like we should; or we lack faith, or neglect, to call upon that supernatural power.
Remember God’s foremost desire for us, as relayed by the Apostle John: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (3 John 2). God wants you to prosper and enjoy good health, not be crippled by fear and stress!
In Romans 15:1, the Apostle Paul wrote that the strong ought to help the weak. How? “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (verse 4). Paul is referring to the Old Testament—it has examples that show us how God will fight our battles for us, and He will win them. That’s a wonderful way to live.
“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). These examples are for us. If we apply them spiritually, they can relieve us of our worries and troubles. “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (verse 12). You and I need to learn from biblical stories!
I want to focus on one such Old Testament example, which shows how God will fight and win your battles for you.
Bribing the Enemy
King Hezekiah was one of the best rulers ancient Judah ever had. He followed David’s example by obeying God and eliminating false religion (2 Kings 18:3-4). “He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him” (verse 5). Hezekiah was an outstanding king.
“And the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not” (verse 7). Because he had faith in God, Hezekiah resisted Assyria, even though the Assyrians took the 10-tribe nation of Israel into captivity (verses 9-11).
The Assyrians were the most militant people in all of history. They were the forebears of the modern-day Germans, who started World War i and World War ii, and who are prophesied to shock the world when they start World War iii! Germany already dominates Europe, and they have all kinds of power today.
Eight years later, Assyria attacked Judah: “Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them” (verse 13). Hezekiah trusted God to protect his nation, yet God allowed Sennacherib to quickly conquer many fortified Judean cities. Why? Hezekiah needed to strengthen his faith.
Notice what happened after Sennacherib conquered these cities of Judah: “And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold” (verse 14). Hezekiah agreed to pay Sennacherib the modern equivalent of more than half a million dollars in silver and nearly a million dollars’ worth of gold!
Hezekiah failed to seek advice from the Prophet Isaiah, choosing instead to do something Isaiah never would have supported. Making matters worse, from where did he get all that precious metal to pay off Sennacherib? He plundered it from Solomon’s temple—even stripping the gold directly from the doors and the pillars! (verses 15-16). This was an abominable sin and showed a shameful lack of faith! At one time, Hezekiah had cleansed and restored the temple. What a fall from grace!
God’s Church today is His spiritual temple (Ephesians 2:20-22). We must be sure we are building the temple and not taking away from it.
Instead of trusting God, and rather than turning to Isaiah for counsel, Hezekiah tried to buy his way out of the problem. After handing over piles of silver and gold to Sennacherib, Hezekiah thought the Assyrians would leave Judah alone. They did not. In fact the tribute payment only encouraged Sennacherib to march on Jerusalem and take more! (2 Kings 18:17).
This was a battle Hezekiah could not win. He still had to learn to go to God’s prophet for direction to solve a gigantic, terrifying problem like this. Whenever he didn’t do this, he made horrific mistakes! And in this situation, he was helpless.
It was at that point that he took a different path.
‘Spread It Before the Lord’
“And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz” (2 Kings 19:1-2). Finally, Hezekiah went to God’s prophet.
Isaiah presented God’s solution. “So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 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. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land” (verses 5-7).
Hezekiah didn’t just speak to God’s man; he cried out to God. “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. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. Lord, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God” (verses 14-15).
Hezekiah brought Sennacherib’s taunting letter directly to God. He praised God as the living, all-powerful Creator of all. He acknowledged God as the only true God (verse 19).
Miraculous Answered Prayer
Hezekiah’s and Isaiah’s fervent prayers got results. “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” (2 Kings 19:32). God promised to protect Jerusalem. Not one arrow would be shot in the direction of the city!
God fulfilled His promise that very night: “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses” (verse 35). This mighty superpower came with 185,000 soldiers against Jerusalem to destroy it. But they never even shot a single arrow. God sent one angel to kill all of them—185,000 battle-hardened warriors!
Hezekiah didn’t have to send out one soldier to fight. Not one Jew had to lift a weapon. The enemy army was completely wiped out overnight! Just think about that!
And this wasn’t the end of Sennacherib’s punishment. “And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead” (verse 37). This arrogant king had recorded the defeat of Lachish on his palace walls, and had recorded trapping Hezekiah in Jerusalem. But it didn’t end well for him. Judah’s archenemy was humiliated, then murdered by his own sons.
Will God fight your battles for you?
Paul wrote that this example was written down for us today—along with many others in the Bible (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11).
We have to look at this spiritually, but it also applies physically. Our nations would never have to worry about Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, a unified Europe or anybody else if they would just trust God. God has saved nations before, and He’s willing to do it again. He’s also ready to help you and fight your battles—physically and spiritually.
There are times we must realize that we are helpless and cannot fight the battle or the enemy before us. But God says He will fight for you. Do you have enough faith to trust Him to do that? You must build the faith to let God fight your battles.
One More Example
King Jehoshaphat of Judah also faced national devastation. “It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazontamar, which is Engedi” (2 Chronicles 20:1-2). Judah was surrounded by several enemy armies.
“And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord” (verses 3-4). Prayer and fasting is an excellent formula for success!
“Behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit. O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee” (verses 11-12). Jehoshaphat acknowledged his helplessness to confront the threat. He trusted God to fight the battle.
Then God sent a message: “… Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (verse 15). Jehoshaphat didn’t need to do the fighting. God wanted to fight that battle for them, and He wants to fight those great battles for you.
In the middle of this epic history, Jehoshaphat taught the people this glorious lesson: “Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper” (verse 20). Notice that! We must believe God, and have faith that He will deliver us! And we must believe His prophets as well. Really, that lesson is strong in both of these awesome examples. We have to look to God—and also to the man He is using as His messenger. That is true even in our day: We must believe God’s prophet today (request our free booklet Who Is ‘That Prophet’? to learn how to identify God’s prophet in this end time).
Look at the outcome of the Israelites obeying that formula: “And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped” (verses 22-24). Not a man had escaped! Not one!
When you are being besieged with problems and difficulties, do you think God can’t take care of those problems? He is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). He will help you! He wants you to trust Him and put your faith in Him, and He will remove all those worries that you have. He wants to give you the freedom and joy you ought to have in this life!
Let Him do so. Let God fight your battles!