The King of Assyria was laying waste to everything in the known world and as his conquests spread, he sends messengers to Jerusalem to let King Hezekiah know what was about to happen – he was going to take Jerusalem. The messenger starts by saying this;

The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah:“‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? Isaiah 36:4 (NIV)

He then goes on to say – is it Egypt you are relying on? Following quickly by questioning whether it was the Lord they were depending on. The messenger ensures that the people in the city can hear his boasts. He tells them not to listen to Hezekiah and instead to put their trust in the King of Assyria and bow to him. Hezekiah is distressed by all that he has been told but the prophet Isaiah tells this to his attendants

Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 Listen! When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’” Isaiah 37:6-7 (NIV)

This is exactly what happens. The King of Assyria is distracted by another battle but still sends a letter to Hezekiah informing him that he will take Jerusalem. Hezekiah spreads the letter before God and prays to Him. God responds and here is what happened to the king of Assyria not long after.

Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king. Isaiah 37:36-38 (NIV)

I’m not expecting that many of us will experience a story exactly like this but I wonder when our backs are against the wall, whatever the situation, what our answer to that question would be

On what are you basing this confidence of yours?

This story in the Bible regarding the plight of Jerusalem without God is impossible, the odds are stacked against Jerusalem but yet God does the most unbelievable thing that no one could have predicted. Why can He not do that today? Regardless of how impossible it might seem, our confidence is not based on circumstances or human thinking but on the supernatural, all consuming power of the Holy Spirit – all things are possible.