How to Pray to A God Who Already Spoke...

Has God ever made a decision, but you wanted Him to change it? Can you ask God to change his mind after He has told you what will happen? Will He hear you? Join the host and special guest, Emeri McCann, as we look at 2 Kings 20- the prayer of Hezekiah!

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Transcript

PRESS means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us.

Welcome to the press podcast. So glad that you are tuning in with us today and we're excited to be on this prayer journey with you. Today, I have a special guest host, Ms. Emeri McCann. Hi. Hey, girl. And she's really going to be leading the discussion for us as we pick up our journey in second Kings chapter 20. So Emeri, welcome. First of all, tell everybody how old you are, who you are, that kind of thing. 

I am 20 years old. I attend IUPUI, currently a psych major in my third year. Almost done.

Praise God. Studying to be possibly a counselor, I'm not sure, but the end goal is to help minority youth deal with childhood trauma and introduce them to Christ in the process. 

Well that is awesome, and I know that's really important to be able to give back to the community.

Anyway, I'm glad you're excited to be here today, so let's take it to 2 Kings chapter 20, it's on here. 

So, for the prayer that we're talking about today, it is Hezekiah's prayer for a longer life. He had just received a word from the Lord through the prophet Isaiah that he had to get his house in order. But prior to this, he's the king of Judah and they were just under attack by the king of Assyria and there was a whole plethora of things that happened with that situation and the Lord blessed them and he brought them out of that. And immediately following this, the Lord came to him through the prophet Isaiah and told him to set his house in order. And the Bible says that he turned his face to the wall and prayed unto the Lord, saying, I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee, in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.

And it came to pass, before Isaiah was gone into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Turn again and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, thus saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears, behold, I will heal thee, on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord, and I will add unto thy days fifteen years, and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for mine own sake and for my servant David's sake. What stuck out to me in this prayer is that Hezekiah never actually asked God for long life. He just asked him to remember how he had walked before him. And that raised the question, it raised two things. One, we don't always have to come to God with a request. The Bible talks about how he's touched about the feeling of our infirmities. He already knows what we're in need of before we ask him. But it also pointed out to me that we can't come to God any kind of way.

Hezekiah pointed out who he was and what he had done and that made me do a deep dive into who King Hezekiah was. And he had walked before the Lord and as soon as he came into his reign, he was tearing down false idols and false gods and brung all of his people together and said, We will serve the Lord. And he really stood on that. And that's part of where the strife with the King of Assyria came because he refused to serve him.

The King of Assyria wanted glory for himself and Hezekiah refused. Something else has stuck out to me in his life is that when he prayed to the Lord and asked him for help regarding the situation, when he received the word from the Lord that he would help him, the Bible says that the Lord said that he would send a rumor to send him away. And the King of Assyria, his response to that wasn't scared. He wasn't fearful. He sent another letter to Hezekiah and was like, You really think your God is going to deliver you? No. And I admire Hezekiah's response and he admonishes people not to respond. And he went to the house of the Lord and he sought God yet again.

So he just really truly had faith in God and lived before him as he should have. Regarding God's response, he answered him and he gave him longer life.