“One final observation from the book of 2 Kings concerns the subtlety of the enemy in seeking to convince God's people that He is pleased with their will- worship. When the king of Assyria attacked Jerusalem under Hezekiah’s reign, he sent one of his officers called ‘Rabshakeh’, whose job was to wage a propaganda war against the city, filling the hearts of the people with doubt and undermining their confidence.

One particular statement deserves close attention. Look again at verse 22: ‘But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’? In verse 22, the Rabshakeh suggested to the people that the Lord was angry with them because of Hezekiah’s reforms-that He actually preferred the worship of the high places and was offended by the ’narrow’ insistence on ‘the altar in Jerusalem.’

How clever is the enemy, who seeks to convince men that God delights in their innovations and would actually be offended with them if they removed them and returned to pure worship according to His commands! It is a common tactic of the devil to raise questions within us concerning matters of reformation. If he can cause us to confuse matters of faithfulness with legalism, then he can convince us that we offer less offense to God by continuing to treat His commandments lightly. May God open our eyes to his subtle devices, and give us courage to pursue comprehensive reform.” (Comin, 119-120)