Use these for group work, or to assist your personal reflection.

1. Discuss in your group whether you believe that the Commander was doing God’s will, and if so, why?
2. Why was Jerusalem invaded by Assyria when they had just attempted to reform their worship of God? Read 2 Chronicles 29-32 to help answer this question.
3. Does God work through every situation we face?

Use the programme which can be found on the link ‘discipleship challenges’. The ‘worksheet’ will help you follow through anything you feel is right to take up. The following notes are for your interest and consideration.

Personal comment: I have had to be careful with myself as I have studied for this work today; the background material is not all that it seems, and one is pulled to and fro in one’s sympathies for the people of Jerusalem. I have learned that only by keeping the whole prophecy of Isaiah in mind can I get the context of each part of the book right. I hope you have followed this!

Ideas for discipleship programme

• Read through 2 Kings 18,19 and 2 Chronicles 29-33 in order to gain a fuller picture of the life and times of Hezekiah and Isaiah.
• If you have friends with whom you can have a good conversation, ask them ‘what is the hope in which you have placed your trust?’ See how they respond!
• Go on a long walk and ask yourself this same question; ‘what is the hope in which you have placed your trust?’

Dear Lord. You have seen everything that has happened to us, and You are gracious to us still. Receive our confession of wrongdoing, and convince us about how we should change our behaviour for the better. Keep us in Your will, we pray; AMEN