Worship Unrestrained

Worship Unrestrained

O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.

Isaiah 37:16

IN WORD When Hezekiah received the message from Isaiah that the God-mocking Assyrian would be thwarted, he had a couple of options: He could continue in his anxiety, or he could worship God. There was no other alternative. He had been given no allies to persuade and no plan to execute—only a promise that God would save. Worship would be a statement of faith. Continuing anxiety would be the opposite.

Hezekiah chose to worship. His heart was compliant enough to know God’s voice when he heard it. If God said He would deliver, He would deliver. The living God, the faithful and true, does not lie. Why should He? He has nothing to hide and lacks no power to accomplish His purposes—so none of the reasons we lie apply to Him. He has absolutely no lack of integrity. Hezekiah believed God’s promise to save.

But Hezekiah did more than believe. He prayed. He could have worshiped God in advance for the victory and waited for it to happen. He knew, however, that there’s a difference between the promise of God and the execution of the promise. The promise was given to provoke faith. Prayer—the kind that banks on the promise, not just hopes that it might come true—was the natural response. God tells us what He is going to do so that we will ask Him to do it. Hezekiah, unlike many of us, seemed to understand that.

IN DEED That dynamic of promise, then prayer, then fulfillment is a running theme throughout Scripture. God affirmed it to Hezekiah a few verses later, telling him that the word would be fulfilled “because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib” (v. 21). It’s a dynamic we need to learn and relearn. The promises of God are not fatalistic guarantees; they are a call to prayer. They are intended to dispel our fears, stir up faith, and put us on our knees. We won’t see them simply by sitting on a couch and letting them happen. Accept your call to arms. Get stirred up. Pray the promises of the faithful and true God.

The Word of God represents all the possibilities of God as at the disposal of true prayer.

—A. T. PIERSON