2 Chronicles 32:22. "So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies; and he gave them rest on every side."

God delivered Hezekiah and Jerusalem from the threatening Assyrian army by sending an angel "who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria." (2 Chronicles 32:21)  This happened immediately after Hezekiah and Isaiah prayed and "cried to heaven" (2 Chronicles 32:20), but it also happened because Hezekiah was a good and faithful king.

From the moment he took the throne, Hezekiah instituted reforms to bring back proper worship of God in Jerusalem, including reopening the temple which had been closed by his father (2 Chronicles 29:3). Unlike his father Ahaz, who "became yet more faithless to the Lord" in his time of distress (2 Chronicles 28:22), Hezekiah had laid the groundwork to be answered by the Lord in his time of need by being in right relationship with Him.

Often we pray in our moments of need and we don't get the relief we are seeking. Sometimes this is because we have not laid the proper groundwork. Perhaps we have been taking God for granted, or allowing ourselves to be led further into the idolatry of the world, as Ahaz had been. Then, when enemy forces threaten, we pray for relief but no angel is sent to defeat them for us. This does not mean that God did not hear our prayer, it means He's answering us by showing us the consequences of our lax attitude toward Him.

When we learn that we have to have a relationship with God in order to be saved by Him, we will have learned the most important lesson of all. It is a lesson worth the cost of not being saved by an angel when we thought we needed it most.