READING:
One-year plan: 2 Kings 18-21
Two-year plan: Psalms 83-85, 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5
———
I am struck by this story every time I read it. Assyria had conquered many nations and lands, even “throwing their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but made with human hands—wood and stone” (2 Kgs 19:18). These false gods could not defend their own people from the powerful Assyrian forces. The threat of those same Assyrians attacking God’s people drove Hezekiah to pray for the Lord’s intervention—and the prophet Isaiah assured the king that God had heard his prayer.
Indeed, God struck dead 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians, so their king, Sennacherib, broke camp, returned home, and lived in Nineveh. Then, on a day when the king was worshiping in the temple of his god, Nisroch, Sennacherib’s sons murdered him. The false god of the nations could not protect their own people from the Assyrians, but the false god of the king of Assyria could not protect his own king, either, from his own sons. That’s the nature of false gods no matter what peoples or nations that turn to them: they simply have no power.
There is only one true God.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you leaning into any false gods in your life today?
PRAYER: “God, I praise You as the only true God, the Almighty king.”
TOMORROW’S READING:
One-year plan: 2 Kings 22-25
Two-year plan: Psalms 86-88, 1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4
MEMORIZATION VERSE (April 16-31):
“May all the peoples of the earth know that the Lord is God. There is no other!” (1 Kgs 8:60)