For example, in the 14th year of Hezekiah, the King of Judah, Sennacharib, the great and terrible King of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. Jerusalem was left isolated against hundreds of thousands of armed Assyrian soldiers. All there was in Jerusalem was a frightened people, a prophet named Isaiah, and a praying king. The Assyrian emissary, the Rabshakeh, stood by the conduit outside the city on the highway that leads to the Fuller's field and mocked the people. He said Egypt would be no more help than a reed to lean on. It would pierce their hand. He taunted them, saying that he would even give them 2,000 horses if they could find the men to put on them. He scoffed at the Lord God: “Has any of the gods of the nations delivered His land out of the hand of the King of Assyria?” (Is. 36:18). And he threatened to starve the city until people would eat their own dung and drink their own urine (Is. 36:12).

Eliakim, the king's steward, listened to all this and then brought the Rabshakeh's word to King Hezekiah. The king tore his clothes and went up to the house of the Lord. He sent word to Isaiah the prophet and said, “Lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left” (Is. 37:5). Isaiah responded with a promise of deliverance: the King of Assyria will hear a rumor and pull back from Lachish to fight on another front. And it happened. But the threat was renewed and the emissary of the king sent a letter to Hezekiah saying that they were coming back and they would destroy everybody and everything.

This time Hezekiah goes straight to God himself, without asking Isaiah to pray. Listen to his prayer. This is the kind of prayer that triumphs over the enemies of God and expands His kingdom in the world. Isaiah 37:14-20 says that Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread Sennacharib's letter before God and said:

O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacharib, which he has sent to mock the Living God. Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone are the Lord.

When Hezekiah had prayed that prayer, Isaiah, without even being told about it, received a word from the Lord and sent it to Hezekiah:

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: “Because you have prayed to me …" this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning [Sennacharib] … "Because you have raged against Me and your arrogance has come to My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back the way by which you came … The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this … For I will defend this city to save it, for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David” (Is. 37:21-22, 29, 32, 35).

And then with the sovereign rights of the one and only God, who reigns above the cherubim and who made heaven and earth, and owns everything in them, God killed 185,000 soldiers in the camp of the Assyrians, and the sons of Sennacharib slew their own father in the temple of Nisroch, his god.

Now the tremendously important point of this story is seen in the words of Isaiah in Isaiah 37:21-22, “Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacharib, King of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him.” Because you have prayed! Because you have prayed, 185,000 enemy soldiers lie dead on the plains of Judah. Think of it! Just think of it. Does prayer win battles? Hezekiah, because you have prayed, the strongest king in the known world is gone—off the scene of history. Hezekiah, because you have prayed, the witness of My covenant love for David and My zeal for My Name has spread throughout the nations. Because one man prayed.