After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered Judah; he encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that his purpose was to make war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his leaders and commanders to stop the water from the springs which were outside the city; and they helped him. 2 Chronicles 32: 1-3, NKJV.
Dear God, please teach us the benefits of working together. May Your Holy Spirit convince us of Your plan for us as we work together. This is our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Getting their employees to work as a team is so important to many corporations, that they will invest a lot of money to accomplish this in the workplace. Perhaps this is so difficult in big corporations because there are a lot of big egos, all fighting for the supremacy. Sad to say, they are also to be found in the church! There is one situation however, when even the biggest ego will bow to another, and that is when one’s life is at stake.
Note the kind of people that king Hezekiah consulted, “leaders and commanders.” These are the men who were at the top of the decision-making ladder. Our Scripture says “and they helped him.” That is team work! That is what we are longing to see in the church of the Living God – team work! There is still a lot of work to be done before Jesus returns. It will take “all of God’s people,” working together, as a team, to make contact with all of the unreached souls with the message of a dead, buried, and risen, Savior, “and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24: 14).
It is no small wonder that Jesus spent as much time praying for His people to be one (John 17: 21-23). It is not a coincident that it was when they were together as one, in one place, of one accord, that the Holy Spirit fell upon them (Acts 2: 1-4). An old adage says, “United we stand, divided we fall.” That is still true in the twenty-first century.
When the leaders of Hezekiah’s army realized that they were under attack by the most powerful army in existence at that time, they knew that it was not time for each of them to be seeking their own glory. No one wanted to impose his military tactics on everybody else. Everyone wanted to put their plans together, to produce the perfect army! And it worked! Notice that when they came together and agreed to help the king, that was all God wanted from His people. God did the rest:
“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. So he returned shamefaced to his own land. . . 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” (21-23).
God is the same God today, as He was in the days of Hezekiah! He is still waiting for His people to get it right and come together as one! May God help us to join our talents and our natural abilities into a perfect team to finish His work. Then God will do the rest!