Save Thou Us Out of His Hand

I loved the way that the story of Hezekiah and the Assyrian threat to Jerusalem was told by Dr. Joshua Sears in this podcast for the Come, Follow Me lesson this week. One of the things that was highlighted was how Hezekiah responded to the threating words of Rabshakeh who told the people not to trust in their God to save them from destruction at the hands of the Assyrian army. After Rabshakeh followed up his diatribe to the people with a personal letter to Hezekiah, telling him how Jerusalem was about to be destroyed, “Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord” (2 Kings 19:14-15). We can imagine him, distraught and knowing there was nothing he could personally do to defend his people from the attack, he went to the house of Jehovah and pled for help. Those are two of our best defenses against the attacks of the adversary upon ourselves and our families—we must go to the house of the Lord and we must pray with all our heart. Hezekiah’s prayer was a heartfelt petition to God in the face of grave danger for his whole people, and he pled, “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…. Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only” (2 Kings 19:15-16). When facing our own Rabshakehs who threaten our peace and spiritually surround us to try to destroy our faith and commitment to the Lord, we must bow down and plead with the Lord for His hand in our lives. Hezekiah had nowhere to turn but to the Lord—he was powerless against this great army of Assyrians but he knew that the Lord had all power to save them from their enemies.

                In his final talk in the most recent session of general conference, President Nelson warned us of the opposition from the adversary that we face. He said, “The adversary never sleeps. There will always be opposition to the truth. I repeat my urging from this morning to do those things that will increase your positive spiritual momentum…. Positive spiritual momentum increases as we worship in the temple and grow in our understanding of the magnificent breadth and depth of the blessings we receive there. I plead with you to counter worldly ways by focusing on the eternal blessings of the temple. Your time there brings blessings for eternity.” Like Hezekiah, we too must go up to the house of the Lord for strength and protection from the world. The Church is making every sacrifice to build temples, and there are now 284 listed on its temple page either operating, under construction, or announced. So too must we continue to make sacrifices in our own lives to worship in the temple of the Lord and to find strength there. As he said in his message last year in general conference, “Whenever any kind of upheaval occurs in your life, the safest place to be spiritually is living inside your temple covenants! Please believe me when I say that when your spiritual foundation is built solidly upon Jesus Christ, you have no need to fear. As you are true to your covenants made in the temple, you will be strengthened by His power. Then, when spiritual earthquakes occur, you will be able to stand strong because your spiritual foundation is solid and immovable.” The temple is for us a place of safety and our covenants there stand as a protection against the adversary. I love this assurance from the dedication of the Kirtland Temple: “We ask thee, Holy Father, to establish the people that shall worship, and honorably hold a name and standing in this thy house, to all generations and for eternity; That no weapon formed against them shall prosper” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:24-25). If, like Hezekiah, we seek the Lord at His house and pray with all our hearts, holding fast to our covenants we have made with Him, no weapon formed against us will prosper. This is what the Lord miraculously showed to Hezekiah: “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” (1 Kings 19:35). As we symbolically face our own Rabshakehs and Assyrians, we can trust that as we seek the Lord with all our hearts He will also come and save us.