2Chronicles 32-33

You Can Do It!

You can’t do it!  How often have those words haunted us in our desire to live “a spiritual life?”  Haunted us in our desire to have a closer relationship with God?  Haunted us in our desire to overcome a habitual sin we hate?  Haunted us in our desire to behave like Jesus would in our relationship with others?

This was the message that Hezekiah and the people had to listen to from Sennacherib as he came to make war against Jerusalem.  As Hezekiah tried to encourage the people to be strong and courageous, Sennacherib continues to harp on the message, “You can’t do it.” 

2Chronicles 32:11 Does not Hezekiah persuade you to give yourselves over to die by famine and by thirst?

13 Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their lands out of my hand? 

14 Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand?

“You can’t do it!”

But what we read is, they did do it.  Did it in such a way that we are told that Sennacherib “returned shamefaced to his own land.” (2Chronicles 32:21)

Actually, though, they did not do it, the Lord did it.

What they did was pray and cry out to God.

20 Now because of this King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried out to heaven.

What the Lord did is respond to this prayer and cry.

21a Then the LORD sent an angel who cut down every mighty man of valor, leader, and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria.

22 Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.

When we struggle with the phrase, “You can’t do it” on a personal level of, “I can’t do it” we are probably right.  What we don’t want to do is take it to the next level, like Sennacherib did, that God cannot do it. 

Hezekiah, Isaiah and Amoz, did not believe what Sennacherib said and as a result, they prayed and cried out to God and in His timing and in His way He delivered and saved them. 

Next time you come face to face with the phrase, “I can’t do it” use that moment as a reminder to once again pray and cry out to the Lord for His deliverance, in His timing and in His way.  You can’t do it, but He can!