This post is Day 8 in a series of studies about “The Fig Tree”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

Feel free to comment below with your own thoughts about each verse and how you will be acting on each thought. Also, if you haven’t yet signed up to receive the notifications of new studies, you can do that today (the form is at the bottom of the page).

The Fig Tree – Day 8

This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me! Come out and give yourselves up to me! Everyone will eat from his own grapevine and fig tree and drink from his own cistern. Then I will come and take you away to a country like your own.

2 Kings 18:13 & 30-32 (also in Isaiah 36:16)

The king of Assyria was provoking God’s people and holding siege against them. In verse 13 we read:

In Hezekiah’s fourteenth year as king, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

In v30 Sennacherib threatened Jerusalem.

Don’t let Hezekiah get you to trust the Lord by saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us, and this city will not be put under the control of the king of Assyria.” Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me! Come out and give yourselves up to me! Everyone will eat from his own grapevine and fig tree and drink from his own cistern. Then I will come and take you away to a country like your own. It’s a country with grain and new wine, a country with bread and vineyards, a country with olive trees, olive oil, and honey. Live! Don’t die!

The Thought

In chapters 17 and 18 of the second book of Kings, and also in Isaiah 36, we read of the threats of the King of Assyria, who came against the people of Israel. This heathen king quoted from Moses’s last speech to the Israelites before they moved into the Promised Land. Do you know that satan, the enemy of your soul knows the Word of God better than most christians do?

Remember he quoted it to Jesus when he was in the desert (Luke 4). Jesus’ only answer to each of satan’s temptations was to quote more of God’s word. Take time to read 2 Kings chapters 18 & 19, and there you will discover what gave the enemy access to the Jewish people, and how king Hezekiah resolved the problem by seeking the Lord.

Action

Pray for the leaders of your country to seek God and recognise their need of Jesus, so that each of us may “eat from our own fig tree”!