Hezekiah: A Conversation With the Enemy

By Liz Lyon-Hall

On what are you basing this confidence of yours?

Have you ever wanted a peek at the devil’s playbook?

This six-week Bible study does exactly that, as revealed to us through Isaiah Chapter 36. Utilizing the framework of the king of Assyria’s threats to Judah’s King Hezekiah, this spellbinding Bible study delves into the enemy’s attack strategies and our best defensive tactics, while expounding on God’s purposes and character.

This Bible study does a line by line examination of Isaiah Chapter 36 analyzing each statement from the enemy and either provides pragmatic ways to refute the accusations or else demonstrates the fallacy in the enemy’s logic through word studies and other scriptural references.
The six weeks of study are grouped into Introduction, Initial Attack, Temptation, The Fall, Choosing to Stand, and Deliverance. Join Liz Lyon-Hall as she:
• Delves into subjects such as how God uses Satan for His purposes, suicide, atheism/agnosticism, and the consequences of sin.
• Reveals the devil’s weapons including his use of shame, secrecy, doubt, deception, and other strategies targeting Christians today.
• Discusses practical ways to counter these attacks.
• Encourages stimulating conversations in small group study.

God’s character shines through this study to encourage and enlighten readers to fight the good fight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: May 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662906497

Book preview

Introduction

BIBLE STUDY SAVED my life. No exaggeration. If I hadn’t fallen in love with the Bible, I would likely be divorced, childless, possibly homeless and potentially in jail. Despair would have overtaken me, and my heart would have been frozen over. I would have been alone, at the bottom of the deepest pit.

Thank God Jesus loves us too much to leave us as sheep stumbling along without a shepherd. Praise God that he gives us a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. Our guide is Jesus and our light is His Holy Word. God uses it to teach us, guide us, and correct us. But this awesome tool is useless if it isn’t put into practice. And to practice it, you must read and study it.

Without going into details, one night I faced an enticement from the enemy that was a clear defining point in my life. I wrestled with the choice all night. I had two choices. I could either give in to the desire and do something I knew I shouldn’t, with a well-developed plan to rationalize it away, or I could make the opposite choice and step away from the temptation.

I tossed and turned all night. It was a battle for my soul and my obedience to what I knew was right. Was I a Christian in name only, or did I know what Jesus wanted me to do? More importantly, would I obey Him?

Have you ever thought about how much your soul was worth? I did that night.

Although I couldn’t see the battle at hand around me, I have no doubt it was taking place. That’s what Hezekiah, A Conversation With the Enemy is about. It explores how the devil tempts us and how we can stand firm against his attacks and triumph over him.

This study is divided into six weeks of study, five days per week. At the end of each week, there will be some discussion questions taken from the study as well as a few new ones. These questions were developed by my own small Bible study group, as we worked through the material together. We meet every other week to review one week’s worth of reading. You can follow this same format or you can find what works best for your group. Sometimes we would have such long conversations about a topic that it took two meetings in order to cover it all. The reading is of course primary, but the discussion time as you fellowship together is equally as important to your growth and maturity as a Christian.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to prepare this material for you. I pray that God puts it into your hands at the right time and uses it to speak directly to you.

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

In His name and to His great glory,

Liz Lyon-Hall

WEEK ONE

Introduction

• Day 1 – Why Engage in Bible Studies

• Day 2 – The Monarchy

• Day 3 – King Hezekiah

• Day 4 – The Assyrian Threat

• Day 5 – Encouragement Before Battle

DAY ONE

Why Engage in Bible Studies?

IHAVE HEARD MANY times that God speaks to Christians through the Bible and that sometimes when you read it, a portion can come alive or speak to you. For me, this happened for the first time about four years ago. A year or two prior, I participated in my first real Bible study and fell in love with the Bible. Raised as a Christian, I believed Jesus was God’s son and put my faith in Him for salvation. I prayed to Him and have read the Bible my entire life. By then, I had read and re-read the entire Bible all the way through, several times. But my reading was merely surface reading, without any real depth. I only had a basic understanding of it. I had a hard time understanding many of Jesus’ parables and couldn’t see any real connection between the Old and New Testaments.

I was struggling at that time with some sins in my life that had been building for years. I revealed them to a kind friend, and she listened without judgment. She later approached me and suggested starting a Bible study and offered to do it with me. It would just be the two of us, as it addressed the very personal and intimate issue of low self-esteem and some of the consequences thereof. God had prompted her to buy it several months before and although she flipped through it, this study never spoke to her enough for her to start it. But after we spoke, she pulled it out and showed it to me. I felt like it had been written just for me and just for this time period in my life. We were both in awe that God had put this in place for her to purchase months ago, before either of us knew I needed it.

Have you ever experienced a time where it was clear that God had prepared something for you days/months/years before you knew you needed it? If so, please write about it below and be prepared to share it with your small group (if it’s not too personal).

That first Bible study changed my relationship with Jesus and how I read the Bible. First and most significantly, I realized that although I had put my faith in God, I had never given him full access and lordship over my life. He and I would work on one issue at a time (like greed, trust, tithing, etc.) and then we would move on to another, so I could witness His activity in my life. Yet, I still held back my deepest longings and feelings from Him. Once I started opening myself to Him fully and aligning my thoughts to be in obedience to His word, everything began to change. 2 Corinthians 10:5 became my goal and my mantra.

Please read 2 Corinthians 10:5 and write it in the space below:

The Message version of 2 Corinthians 10:5 is enlightening. Please read it below.

We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.

How do you take your thoughts captive in order to be obedient to God? How can you implement this in your life immediately?

Secondly, reading the Bible through a structured Bible study helped me put the puzzle pieces together. I needed guidance from another person in order to find the connections between the Old and New Testaments and even between varying portions of the New Testament. I could now read Abraham’s story of the sacrifice of Isaac and draw the parallel to Jesus’s substitution for humanity’s sins on the cross. Through reading carefully selected verses aimed at teaching God’s viewpoint, I started to apply those verses to change my behavior. I can now see dramatic results in my own life. Once I started understanding what I was reading on a deeper and more thorough level, and seeing how it could translate into my life, I was hooked.

Is this the first Bible study you have ever done? If you’ve participated in small group Bible studies before, or even hosted one on your own, did you see an impact afterwards? How did your life change?

I have heard people say they prefer to read the Bible themselves rather than read other peoples’ comments on it through Bible studies. Although I do agree that everyone should read the Bible for themselves, I don’t think anyone should be ashamed to get help understanding what they are reading. We are truly blessed to find ourselves in a time where there are innumerable resources available to us. All of these resources can help increase our comprehension and deepen our faith.

For several years after that first precious Bible study, I feasted gluttonously on the word of God. I participated in multiple studies, both with church groups and with a small group of friends, and I learned so much. My relationship with God was more intimate than it had ever been. I had ceased the behaviors I knew to be sinful and sought to live righteously before God, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And yet I still had never experienced a specific Bible verse leaping off the page at me until that summer day in 2016.

Has a Bible verse ever come alive to you when you were reading it? How did it fit into your life at that time?

My husband, two daughters, and I were attending my brother’s wedding in Seattle, Washington. It was east of Seattle and the Cascade Mountains in Leavenworth, and we had rented a small house for several days. This was the first long vacation I had taken in a few years and I reveled in my quiet time. I believe I was reading Isaiah 36, but honestly, since the same passage also appears in two other locations in the Old Testament, it could have been any of the three occurrences of it. While I was reading the section, it was as if a veil had been drawn back from the basic plot it was describing, and an entirely new meaning and parallel message were revealed to me. I was awestruck by what I thought Jesus was showing me. I felt I understood his true intention in the writing of this historical story. My eyes were also opened to the realization that God could communicate to an individual such as myself through this ancient document. I was exhilarated by it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t document the event in any sort of journal, but I thought of it often afterwards and over the next couple of years. I re-read the passages several other times and could still see the same parallel meaning, but the joy of discovery could not be replicated. I read several commentaries on the passages but did not find any authors who shared my newfound understanding of it. So, it’s possible this interpretation may be completely off base. But if it causes us to read and analyze Old Testament biblical passages that we may not have focused on before, and research some corresponding New Testament verses, then it will still be to our benefit. I believe the Holy Spirit can still teach us through this study regardless of the flawed teacher. It’s also a good idea to start off each day’s reading by praying that the Holy Spirit will give you wisdom and discernment to understand what you are reading. It is also beneficial to have an open heart and mind so that He may teach, convict and/or instruct you (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

That being said, this Bible study is going to be different from any other study you’ve done in the past. Why? Because we are starting off with the premise that what the passage says is not what it means.

This Bible study is going to be different from any other study you’ve done in the past. Why? Because we are starting off with the premise that what the passage says is not what it means.

I want to share with you my belief as to what Isaiah 36 may be trying to teach us, based on the revelation I received, so that you understand my hypothesis and how I am structuring this Bible study. But please don’t jump ahead and read Isaiah 36 just yet. We will get to it at the allotted time. After reading the entire passage as a whole, we will analyze each verse, one at a time.

When I read Isaiah 36 several years ago, I felt as if my eyes were opened to a parallel meaning beyond what the passage was literally describing. Technically, Isaiah 36 is a conversation between the King of Assyria’s troops and the King of Judah’s troops right before the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, attacks Jerusalem. Sounds like just another historical passage in the Old Testament with no real relation to our lives today, right? But when my eyes opened to what the Lord wanted to show me, I found another meaning to it: this conversation between troops sounded similar to how Satan attacks and tries to defeat believers. Several of the verses jumped out at me as strategies the devil uses to belittle us or God, shake our confidence, and cause us to doubt.

Was God giving me a peek at the devil’s playbook? Maybe. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 tell us that we do not wage war as the world does, with the world’s weapons. Therefore, we better be prepared to arm ourselves for combat.

We will read Isaiah 36 all at once and then proceed to analyze it verse by verse. Through this study of Isaiah 36, we will look at some of the enemy’s tools to weaken our faith, as well as talk through our responses, both good and bad. We will also discuss larger topics such as, does God allow the devil to assault us and why, the effects of sin, eternal judgment, atheism/agnosticism, suicide, and the foreshadowing of Jesus in the Old Testament. We will start this week with an overview of the historical context though, so that we can have a good understanding of the backstory prior to meeting our two kings. Please persevere through the history lesson – it is for our deeper understanding of the focus passage.

Historical Context

I’m excited to start this study with you! Thank you for sharing your precious time with me; it is truly a privilege. Before we begin, we need to put the passages into their historical context. There is a tremendous amount of history leading up to King Hezekiah, the ruler of Judah, at the time of our story. To finish out this day’s work, we are going to skim the first seven books of the Bible like a fast walk so that we start to understand where Hezekiah fits into the Jewish narrative. Tomorrow, we will pick up the story at Samuel and quick march up to Hezekiah himself.

The Torah, or the first five books of the Bible, deals with