God’s Control Over the Affairs of Mankind - 2 Kings 19-21

 2 Kings 19:25-28 (ESV)

“Have you not heard

that I determined it long ago?

I planned from days of old

what now I bring to pass,

that you should turn fortified cities

into heaps of ruins,

while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,

are dismayed and confounded,

and have become like plants of the field

and like tender grass,

like grass on the housetops,

blighted before it is grown.

“But I know your sitting down

and your going out and coming in,

and your raging against me.

Because you have raged against me

and your complacency has come into my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth,

and I will turn you back on the way

by which you came.

The above words are spoken by God, through Isaiah the prophet to King Sennacherib, the king of Assyria.   Sennacherib had recently come to besiege Jerusalem and their king, Hezekiah.   Sennacherib’s commanders made great proclamations and boasting about Assyria’s accomplishments.  As a leader of the most powerful nation on earth, at that time, Sennacherib had a complex about his greatness.   In the above passage God reminds him (as all leaders of the world should know), it is God who makes the plans and the one in charge of the world’s movement of power.   It is amazing how quickly a mere mortal can assume they are more than temporal and flesh.   As a result of these words, notice what god does to Sennacherib’s army and commanders:

2 Kings 19:35 (ESV)

And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

The world does not understand God’s sovereign rule over the nations.  The powers in governments around the globe believe they are totally in charge.   Yet, it is God who directs, plans, establishes and determines their boundaries:

Acts 17:26-27 (ESV)

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

We can worry about our political leaders and fall into the same trap that Hezekiah and Judah did when Sennacherib came to flex his muscles.   Or, we can trust the truth that it is God who sets up one and takes down another:

Psalms 75:7 (ESV)

but it is God who executes judgment,

putting down one and lifting up another.