Heart Tracks - Two Invitations

        I was struck by something I read in the Bible the other day.  It had to do with the "invitation" that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, placed before the nation of Judah in 2 Kings 18:32.  Judah, under the leadership of a godly king, Hezekiah, had refused to surrender to and become the subjects of Assyria, the mightiest of nations at the time.  Sennacherib had brought his vast army into Judah, and had sent representatives to Jerusalem and Hezekiah.  Breathing threats and the consequences of refusing him, they told the people that if they would refuse to listen to Hezekiah and God, Sennacherib would see to it that they were brought into a different land, but that it would be a lovely land, a place where they would be happy and content.  "A land of plenty."  They said to the people and king, "Choose life instead of death."  

    This invitation came from the heart of the enemy and darkness.  It promised much, but would deliver nothing.  The people would be the slaves of the Assyrians.  They would live where and how Sennacherib willed.  The bountiful country they promised them would not be so.  The "life" they called on them to choose would not be life at all.  They would live out their days in "another country," which would not be the country their Father God had brought them to.  The enemy's promise of life was, as it always is, veiled in darkness and death.  His invitation to life always ends in death. His ploy is to try to make his death look like life.  It has been so since Adam and Eve, and will always be so.  The words and phrasing of his message may change, along with the circumstances of his offer, but the end will not.  The end will always be death.
    Contrast this with the Father's invitation spoken through Moses in Deuteronomy 30.  The people are about to enter into Canaan, the land promised them by God.  Whether they lived in the fullness of that land would depend upon the life choices they made there.  The Father invited them to enter into all the fullness of that land, that life.  He knew that though the land was their's for the taking, that the enemy would not cease in putting forth his counterfeit invitation.  An invitation filled with deception and death.  From His heart, He cried out through Moses, "Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessing and curses.  I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.  Oh that you would choose life that you and your descendants might live."  Two invitations.  Two promises.  Both offered, promised, life.  One was a lie. The other was truth.  Today, do you and I know the difference?  The evidence of our lives gives proof as to which one we've accepted.  What is the evidence for your life and mine?

    Proverbs, the book of wisdom, says that "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death."  For the people of Judah, for Hezekiah, as they looked upon Sennacherib's huge army and and seemingly limitless power, it would seem right to accept the invitation and promise of the Assyrians offer of life.  To choose the Father's would make no sense....to the flesh.  Yet His offer was not based upon what could be seen or understood by that flesh, but by the power of His life, and His unchanging Presence in all of life.  This is what Hezekiah and the people stood upon.  They chose the invitation of the Father, and beheld the workings of the Father as He broke up that great army, brought the mighty king Sennacherib back to his own land where he was soon killed by his own sons, and the nation entered into its greatest era of power and prosperity since Solomon the king.  They chose the promise of Truth, and not the invitation and lie of death.  What are you and I choosing in our day to day lives?  In our thought life, our attitudes, temptations and tests?  Do we choose to think, believe, live, according to the invitation of darkness and death, or light and life?
    Moses said that heaven and earth would witness the choice of the Israelites.  They still do as concerns yours and mine.  What are they witnessing?  What will they witness today.  Two offers of life.  One from the kingdom of darkness, and the other from the Kingdom of Life.  Which will we accept?

Blessings,
Pastor O