Isaiah 36–37

0:00 If you know the enemy, and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but you do not know the enemy, then for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. And if you know neither the enemy, nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. Knowing the enemy's plans is vital.

0:34 The ability to discern his strategy and recognize his intentions allows one to counter them effectively. It is through this understanding that one can disrupt the enemy's plans, exploit his weaknesses, and turn them to one's advantage. Therefore, study your enemy diligently. analyze his tactics, study his patterns, and understand his objectives. By doing so, you will be well prepared to anticipate his moves, respond effectively, and secure victory on the battlefield.

1:19 Anybody know who wrote that? Art of War, Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese war strategist. If you didn't know that, though, you were probably thinking this was like, you know, some kind of Christian book, right? And the enemy there is Satan. Because what Sun Tzu is saying there, he's this ancient Chinese guy, he's never heard of Jesus Christ, he's never heard of Satan, he's never heard of any of that. What he's saying there is literally strategy for the art of warfare against other armies, and yet it makes so much sense when we apply it to the Christian life, doesn't it?

1:51 And we don't much like to think about it as Christians. We like to think in nicer terms, but the Christian life is a matter of warfare. Paul tells us that in several of his books. In one place, he says, our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places. There's a cosmic war on between God and Satan, between the angels and the demons and you and I, As the people of Jesus Christ the King, as the redeemed sons and daughters of him are stuck in the middle.

2:26 In this cosmic tug of war, it turns out that we are the rope. So it's important to come to grips with that fact. It's important to understand that we're in a war for our very survival, for our very life. And it's important, therefore, to learn how to fight that war. And one way, as Sunsa put it there anyway, is knowing our enemy and his tactics. That's what we're going to talk about today as we look at these next two chapters of the book of Isaiah. We're actually continuing a study that we've been in in Isaiah. I think we're about six weeks into it now.

2:57 I'm not exactly sure. We're going to do something like 11 weeks total in the book of Isaiah. But we're dropping right into the middle of it, really kind of the center of the book. And we're looking today at only two chapters that I think as we read them will seem very familiar to you if you've been here at Third Avenue for more than like, oh, four months or so. I'll tell you why it should sound familiar in a few minutes. First of all, though, before we get to the text itself, let me just remind you a little bit about the book of Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet in the ancient nation of Israel who prophesied somewhere around the years of 750 B.C. to about 700 B.C.

3:34 You know, he may have pushed on in his life more to something like 680 B.C. But basically, he was prophesying in the nation of Israel some 2,700 years ago, 700 years before the birth of Jesus. He prophesied in the southern kingdom that was called Judah after the Israelite civil war. And he prophesied during an incredibly dangerous time, historically speaking. That's because this was a time, 700 to 750 B.C. It was a time for the rise and clashing of empires. And this little divided kingdom of Israel found herself basically surrounded by great powers on every side.

4:09 Whose strength in terms of military might and economic power and diplomatic sway and all the rest. she was never in a million years going to be able to match. There was no way Israel was going to be able to match the military might of Assyria in the north or Egypt in the south or the rising Babylonian empire over here in the east. There was just no way. She was surrounded, and she had her back up in the west. She had her back up against the Mediterranean Sea, so there really wasn't anywhere to run either. So it was a dangerous world, and that's the world that Isaiah prophesied into, And his message was one that was calculated, basically, to brace the Israelites' spines for life in this difficult world.

4:50 He wanted them not to collapse in their faith, but rather to stand firm in their trust and faith in God, even in the face of these threats. So his message, again and again and again, we've been looking at it for 35 chapters now, was something like this. it was, look, no matter how bad things get, no matter how out of control they seem, or even worse, no matter how much in control of your enemies things might seem, it turns out that God is still the sovereign master of history. And he's going to, without a doubt, keep his promises to save his people. That was Isaiah's message. Now, looking at the whole book and just kind of giving you a a sort of orientation to where we are as we look at chapters 36, 37.

5:32 We've said over and over again that Isaiah's book is divided into three parts. There's 1 through 37, which is the book of the, this is interactive. 1 through 37, the book of the, yeah, coming king, right? There's 38 to 55, the book of the, yep, and 56 to 66, the book of the anointed conqueror. Those are the three main sections of the book. as we've said, you know, the thing that marks each one of them is that they're all organized around one central saving figure, the king, the servant, the conqueror. And as you read the book, you start to see that, oh, king, servant, and conqueror are all the same guy, right? And it comes to pass in the New Testament that that guy, king, suffering, servant, conqueror, is Jesus Christ. That's the main structure of the book. Well, today, as we look at 36 and 37, we're wrapping up the book of the king. Now take a Bible and turn over to Isaiah chapter 36 and 37. That's where we're going to be. If you're using a Red Pew Bible, it's going to be on page 596. That's where it starts, moves on to 597, 598. If you're not familiar with the Bible, I'm not going to give

6:36 you a whole intro to it, but it's made up of 66 different books, we call them. Isaiah is one of those books. If you look at page 596 there, you'll see a big number 36, big number 37. Those are what we call chapters, and then down inside each of those chapters, you'll find what we call verses, little bitty numbers that mark out various sentences and phrases and that sort of thing. So verses, it doesn't have anything to do with music. I'm not exactly sure why we call them verses, but if you hear me say something like, you know, look in chapter 36, verse 7, what you need to do is look inside 36, go down until you find verse 7, and you'll be able to see the phrases that I'm working with there.

7:14 Anyway, look at chapters 36 and 37 of Isaiah. If you look at them, just kind of let your eye roll over them, you can see immediately that something is different about them than what we've seen in really the whole rest of the book of Isaiah. Because where most of Isaiah so far has pretty much been made up almost exclusively of poetry. You can see that on various, you know, pieces of this page even. Or if you flip back to like 34, 35, flip back one page, you can see that all of that is poetry, right? It's set off and it looks like poetry.

7:46 36 and 37 are not like that. It's not set off because it's not poetry. This is just blocky prose. In other words, it's narrative. And we haven't had a whole lot of that in Isaiah yet. Another difference. You remember those outlines that I have given you in every sermon of Isaiah so far? You probably noticed that there's not one today. Well, the reason I've given them to you over the course of this series is because each section of Isaiah, it turns out all of these poems, they have an exquisite structure to them that helps us see their meaning.

8:22 Now, that structure is not always easy to see, but once you do see it, and, you know, we've been studying this book as Jews and Christians for 2,700 years now, so we've pretty much got it nailed. Once you see that structure, there's like this aha moment, right? oh I see it now and all of a sudden what Isaiah is saying here is not just this mushy bowl of you know gloopy judgment spaghetti it's a sword and you're like wow this thing's got a structure it's got a weight it's got a point it's got a parallel to it if you remember all those different you know handouts that I gave you it just kind of jumps out at you well you don't get a handout today because there's really no exquisite structure here this is just a story it just goes from the beginning of chapter 7 to the, or 36, all the way to the end of 37, and it just, it's just a story. But like every other part of Isaiah, this story in 36 and 37 is not just a story. It's doing something. It's driving at something. It's accomplishing something, and basically what this

9:25 story in 36-37 is doing is that it's dropping a sort of capstone into the arch that is Isaiah 1 through 37, the whole book of the king. It's dropping sort of the last piece into it that makes the whole thing go solid, right? That's what's going on with it. Well, how does it do that? Well, think about it. The whole book for 35 chapters now has basically been driving home the point that God is the master of history, not just the master of Israel's history, but the master of every country's, every people's, every tribe's, every empire's history. He's the master of history.

10:00 He is completely in control of how history works out, and he's going absolutely without fail to keep his promise to send a great king in David's line, on David's throne, wearing David's crown, who's going to set everything right. But for 35 chapters, all of that has just been a matter basically of assertion and promise. It's just God saying, I am the master of history. That's an assertion, and I am going to set a king on the throne to set it all right.

10:33 That's promise, but it's just assertion and promise. It's just words. Well, here, though, God basically takes the time in these two chapters to underline and establish those promises and assertions with a real event in the real stuff of history. He proves by action both that he's the Lord of empires and that he'll stop at nothing to make sure the throne of David is established forever. So that's what he's doing in these chapters. Let's go ahead and read them. Look at chapter 36 of Isaiah, beginning in verse 1.

11:04 We're just going to read the whole thing. And Shevna, the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder. And the Rav Shaka said to them, Say to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, On what do you rest this trust of yours?

11:40 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting in Egypt that broken reed of a staff which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, no, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and altars King Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar alone? Come now, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria.

12:12 I will give you 2,000 horses if you're able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it. Then Eliakim, Shevna, and Joah said to the Rav Shaka, please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. But don't speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall. But the Rav Shaka said, has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you alone and not to the men sitting on the wall who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?

12:54 So the Rav Shaka stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, the Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, make your peace with me and come out to me. And then each one of you will eat of his own vine and each one of his own fig tree and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

13:34 Beware, lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, the Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sefervayim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand? That the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand. But they were silent and answered him not a word. For the king's command was do not answer him.

14:06 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who was over the household and Shevna the secretary and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rav Shaka. As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shevna the secretary and the senior priest, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos. They said to him, thus says Hezekiah, this day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace.

14:41 Children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rav Shaka, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to mock the living God and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant that has left. When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, Say to your master, thus says the Lord, Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.

15:17 So Rav Shaka returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Livnof, where he had heard that the king had left Lachish. Now the king heard concerning Teraka, king of Cush, he has set out to fight against you. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying, Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah. Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction, and shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my father destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the people of Eden who were in Telassar?

15:54 Where's the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sefervayim, the king of Haino, or the king of Iva? Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.

16:29 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands. They've cast their gods into the fire. But they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. And 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. Then Isaiah, the son of Amos, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him.

17:04 She despises you. She scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion. She wags her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel. By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said with my many chariots, I have gone up the heights of the mountains to the far recesses of Lebanon to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest.

17:36 I dug wells and drank waters. I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins while their inhabitants shorn of strength are dismayed and confounded and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops blighted before it is grown. I know you're sitting down and you're going out and coming in and you're raging against me.

18:09 Because you have raged against me and your complacency 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 on the way by which you came. And this shall be the sign for you. This year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that, and then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. For the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward, for out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion, a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

18:45 Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return. He shall not come into this city, declares the Lord, for I will defend this city to save it for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David. And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

19:20 Then Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, Adremelech, and Sharazar, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Ezra Haddon, his son, reigned in his place. Okay, now most of you, if you didn't sort of nail it immediately in your minds, are probably right now trying to chase down this nagging sense in your own brain that you have heard this story before.

19:54 And you're wondering, where did this come up? Where did I see this? Was it like a Sunday school lesson when I was a kid, and I've just kind of forgotten it, that I read it earlier in my quiet times? Why does this seem so familiar to me? And why does this Rav Shaka fella in the movie theater of my mind look exactly like the mouth of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings? Well, truth in advertising, we looked at this story several months ago, about three months ago, I think, when we were studying the book of 2 Kings. In fact, the story appears in 2 Kings and here in Isaiah in almost, but not quite, word for word, the exact form.

20:31 In fact it's so close that what it looks like to me is that one of them, either a much later editor of Isaiah 200 years after he wrote, or the author of Kings, basically had to have memorized it from one book and just copied it down into his own. That's a really fascinating historical mystery. Which book had it first? Did Isaiah write it first and then the author of Kings copied it? Or did the author of Kings write it first and then a later editor of Isaiah write it? Fascinating historical mystery, but I'm not going to spend any time on that. There would be like five of you that are interested in that, and all five of you can come see me at the door, and I'll tell you all about it.

21:08 But far more important than understanding those kinds of historical mysteries is understanding the message that Isaiah is trying to get across by telling of these events. And it's this main idea. We're finally there. The enemy will always try to turn your trust away from God. The enemy will always try to turn your trust away from God, but hold fast, and God will act to keep his promises. The enemy will always try to turn your trust away from God, but hold fast, and God will act to keep his promises. Now we're in a little bit of an odd situation today because I did in fact just preach this same passage like almost word for word a few months ago in 2 Kings. So when we've come to it again here in the book of Isaiah, we kind of have the luxury of doing something a little different than usual, which is basically to drive down a bit deeper into some of the details of it. So I'm not going to give you everything that I gave you in the book of 2 Kings when we talked about it there. I'm not going to give you all the historical background and all of that that

22:10 I did in that 2 Kings sermon. You can go to the website, listen to that sermon if you want all of that. Instead, what we're going to do is look very carefully at three parts of the story, three different things that happened in the story. We're going to kind of drill down and look at the details of it. So we're going to look at, these are not the point titles. I'm just telling you where we're going. We're going to look at the Ravsaka's taunt in some detail. We're going to look at Hezekiah's response to that taunt in some detail. And then we're going to look at what the Lord did in response to all of that, right? So that's where we're going. Those are the things we're going to drill down on. Here are the points of the sermon. The enemy's attack, the believer's defense, and the Lord's response. The enemy's attack, the believer's defense, and the Lord's response. So let's dive into it, see what we can learn. First of all, the enemy's attack. This is where the Rav Shaka comes and taunts the people of Israel. Chapter 35, if you remember, of Isaiah ended with this just kind of fireworks display of God's grace and salvation as he brings his captives home, right? He's bringing his people from really all the nations of the world home to

23:11 Jerusalem to worship him and to be and to live in the land forever and ever and ever. It's this idyllic picture painted there at the end of chapter 35, and it is shattered immediately at the beginning of chapter 36. I mean, if in chapter 35, you know, the author Isaiah had a soaring into the heavens and thinking about the new heavens and the new earth and all the rest, if that was what was going on in chapter 35, then 36 drops us hard into the dirt of history, specifically into the 14th year of the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah, and Hezekiah is in trouble. Now, why is he in trouble? Well, in 705 BC, so 705 years-ish before the birth of Jesus Christ, a new king named Sennacherib had ascended to the throne of Assyria, way up in the north. And as was normal, any time in the ancient Near East when you got a new king, especially of an empire that was far flown across the known world, you would get rebellions that would crop up all over your empire, and that's exactly what happened to Sennacherib. He was met with this series of rebellions throughout the

24:14 empire, and one of those rebels was Hezekiah in Judah, who probably thought he could get away with it because he thought, wow, everyone is rebelling against Sennacherib. I'm just this little guy down in Jerusalem. He's got bigger fish to fry, so maybe I can just get away with it because Sennacherib will be distracted. Well, he did not get away with it. In fact, in 702, three years after he ascended to the throne, Sennacherib brought his armies flooding down into the south, conquering cities left, right, and center as he went, and eventually he came to the capital, Jerusalem, and he says in his own annals that he had Hezekiah the king trapped like a bird in a cage there in Jerusalem.

24:55 And that's where we meet the Rav Shaka. Now, I told you last time that we studied this passage in 2 Kings that this guy, I think, is one of my favorite minor characters in the entire Bible. Probably the Rav Shaka is just some high-ranking official of some kind in the army. The word, if you translate it, means cupbearer. But given what he does in this story, he's probably not the cupbearer. That's probably an ancient name that had some honor and eventually became a military thing, yada, yada, yada, right? But he's the Rav Shaka, he's the cupbearer, it's a high-ranking official in the army.

25:28 That's probably all he is. But his words in this story are so arrogant and so self-assured the entire time that in my mind's eye, as I play this movie in my head, I just literally cannot help but think of him as the mouth of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies. I mean, you've seen this guy, right? He's got this big old helmet on, covers up his eyes, so you can't see his eyes, and his mouth is like ten times the size that it's supposed to be. And you can just see this Rav Shaka in all of his arrogance sounding and looking kind of like that guy, right? You know, he just has that vibe to me.

26:02 And I can't help it, and every time we come to this story, I'm going to tell you that same thing. At any rate, he comes to what verse 2 there calls the conduit of the upper pool, which is not important except that anybody know why it is important? Well, it's because back in chapter 7 the conduit of the upper pool is exactly where Isaiah had met the prior king Ahaz to call on Ahaz to trust the Lord instead of trusting in his alliance with Egypt.

26:35 So now at the very same place the conduit of the upper pool Hezekiah, the new king, faces a similar test. Are you going to trust the Lord like Isaiah called Ahaz to do? Are you going to trust God or are you going to panic and put your trust somewhere else? Ahaz failed that test. He was a wicked king. He didn't trust the Lord. He trusted Egypt. He failed and the question here now at the conduit of the upper pool again is what is Hezekiah going to do? Well in verse 4 the Rav Shaka starts to speak and that speech runs all the way through the rest of chapter 36.

27:10 This speech, it's just mesmerizing to me in a few different ways. For one thing, we read it a few minutes ago, so we're not going to read it again, but just think back to what he says. For one thing, it's important to notice that the Rabshakeh here is not just popping off with generic points that he makes to every kingdom. That's not what he's doing. He knows the situation in Jerusalem at this time. He knows the political situation. He knows the pressures that King Hezekiah is going to be under right now. He even seems to be aware of Isaiah's own preaching, which is incredible, isn't it? And the enemy knows the circumstances of God's people, and he knows how to exploit those circumstances to undermine their faith. Here's another thing that makes this speech mesmerizing. It's just exquisitely calculated to get a crowbar underneath the faith of the Israelites to try to get them to

28:11 abandoned their faith in God and surrender to Sennacherib. That's what the whole thing is designed to do. It's designed to get a crowbar underneath the boulder and move it just a little bit so that the Israelites go, okay, our faith in God is misplaced. What we need to do is surrender to Sennacherib and give up. That's fascinating. But third, and I think here's what's most important. Here's what I want you to see as a church this morning. This speech of the Rav Shaka through most of chapter 36 is basically a master class in exactly the kinds of strategies that Satan uses to undermine and destroy our faith in God. It's the same set of tactics that Satan used in Eden against Adam and Eve. It's the same set of tactics that he used against Jesus in the wilderness.

28:58 And friends, it's the same stuff that he's going to fire at you too. So it's worth taking a close look at what he says, and then thinking about how to be on guard against this very same kind of attack when Satan throws it at us. So let's look at it. If you look at it closely in these verses, the Rav Shaka basically makes six points. That's what he does. He makes six very quick but very well calculated points to try to undermine the faith of the Israelites. So if you look at verses 4 and 5, he puts the question that forms the point of the whole chapter really, really pointedly and eloquently. Who are you trusting in? And what are you basing your trust on? It's a powerful question. And he doesn't know it, but that's exactly the question that's facing Hezekiah and the Israelites. In whom are you trusting that you've decided to rebel against me? That is the question. Who are you going to trust? Then starting in verse 6, he starts to fire his guns at the Israelites' faith. Let's look at the six things that he does. First of all is that he says there

30:01 in verse six that they're trusting in Egypt to save them, and Egypt is going to fail to do that. Egypt is like a broken reed that pierces the hand when you lean on it. I mean, it's an arresting image, right? You think about a stick, you know, a thin reed, a stick, and you break it so that it's got a pointy end, and then you try to put your weight on it, and ah, it goes through your hand, right? You think it's going to hold you up. You think it's going to be reliable, but oh, it pierces the hand. That is what Egypt is like, the Rabshakeh says. And here's the thing, he's right.

30:33 What he says about Egypt is exactly right. Israel in the past has already tried to lean on Egypt, and Egypt had proven to be completely worthless as an ally. Way back about 30 years prior to this, Egypt had come, Israel was under attack from another thing. Ahaz concludes an alliance with Egypt, Egypt comes up and basically fights a fake battle against the enemy and then hightails it back home. They're utterly unreliable. They didn't fight. So the Rav Shaka is right. Your trust in Egypt, Israel, is going to fail. Okay, now think about it. How is pointing that out a strategy of our enemy?

31:18 Well, here's the answer. Friends, Satan has no problem pointing out to you and making you aware that your false faiths are going to fail. He has no problem pointing that out to you. He is glad to point that out to you. He is glad for you to become aware of that fact so long as that realization just leads you to another false faith. He's happy for you to know that your false faiths are going to fail just as long as that doesn't lead you into the arms of God but into the arms of another false faith.

31:54 See, that's what the roughshackle wanted. By pointing out that Egypt is unreliable, he's not trying to drive them to abandon Egypt for God. He's trying to get them to abandon Egypt for Sennacherib. Friend, you're going to see Satan trying to do the same thing on you for the rest of your life. He's going to whisper into your ear, That's not going to work. See, it failed you again, you loser. So try this. And your mind is going to turn to the very next thing. Okay, so maybe money can't give me security, but what about power? What about sex? What about pleasures?

32:25 What about this? What about this? What about this? And Satan is just going to hold one card up in front of your face at a time and let you come to the realization over the course of years that none of them are worth your faith. And then he's going to drop you into the grave, having never figured out what really is. Satan doesn't care if you're aware that your faith is false. So long as it just drives you to do something else that's false. He's going to wear you out. Tap dancing your soul from one false faith to another.

32:57 It's exactly what the Rav Shaka wanted the Israelites to do. Second thing, look at 7. We're just going to kind of make our way through these verses. Look at verse 7. If you say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, Is it not he, that God, whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed? Saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar. What's the play there? What's the Rav Shaka's play there? Well, the story is that at the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, Hezekiah had done exactly the right thing. Israel was sunk in idolatry.

33:28 They were sunk in false worship of Yahweh. And so more than any other king before him, going all the way back to David, Hezekiah did the right thing. He tore down the Israelites' idols. He tore down their high places, and he even tore down false altars that were dedicated to the God of Israel. And that was the right thing for Hezekiah to do, because the law said that worship is to be in Jerusalem. But here, even though Hezekiah did the right thing, the Rav Shaka actually uses that against him. He says to the Israelites, you want to be protected by this God, by Yahweh, by the God of Israel, But Hezekiah tore down all his altars throughout all the land.

34:07 Why would that God save you? Friends, the enemy is often going to do that. The enemy is often going to try to use even your doing of the right thing to make you doubt God's faithfulness. And you know how he does it? He does it by telling you that doing the right thing always ought to lead to peace and ease and comfort. But it doesn't. And when it doesn't, Satan will whisper into your ear, you see, God has abandoned you.

34:45 Friends, it's simply not true. It's simply not true. We as the people of God do what is right, like Hezekiah did, and even if the enemy rails against us for and tells us that God has abandoned us when it doesn't result in peace and ease and comfort. Yet we do what the word of God says. It's the strategy of the enemy. Third, look at verse 8. He basically offers the Israelites a deal here. Look, we'll give you horses. We'll give you 2,000 horses. That's a deal that my master will make to you.

35:16 We'll give you 2,000 horses if you can come up with 2,000 horsemen to ride them. It's a taunt, but it's also a classic ploy of just inviting the Israelites to look on their own weakness and despair. You guys can't even put riders on these 2,000 horses that we give you. You're weak, you're pathetic, you can't fight this battle. That's what he wants them to believe. Friends, one of Satan's great strategies is exactly that. And he uses it over and over and over in believers' lives to neutralize them, nullify them, and take them out of the fight.

35:50 Look at you. You're a sinner. You're weak. You're worthless. You're pathetic. God's not going to use you. You can't be a part of this fight. You can't tell other people about Jesus. I mean, look at you. If you even say the name of Jesus, you're going to be a hypocrite because you're a sinner. Maybe God has saved you. That's fine. But what you need to do with your Christian life is go sit over there in the corner like the hypocrite that you are and be quiet.

36:23 It's a classic ploy of Satan. But friends, that's just the thing. That's just the thing. What Israel should have done to the taunting of the Rav Shaka is say, look, you're right, you're right. You can give us 2,000 horses and we don't have 2,000 men to sit on them. You can give us 5,000 chariots, but we don't have even four charioteers to put in the chariots. But you know what? Our faith is not in the power of horses and chariots. Our faith is in the power of the name of the Lord our God. And friends, when Satan comes to you with the same kind of junk, You do the same thing to him.

36:55 Yes, Satan, you're right. I'm a sinner. Without Christ, I'm worthless. Without the power of the Spirit, I can't do anything. What I deserve is to go sit in the corner. But you know what? My sins have been paid for by the King of kings and Lord of lords, by the great Redeemer. And so I'm at war with you for the rest of my life. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the one who saved me. Look at the fourth thing he does there in 10.

37:28 Moreover, he says, is it without the Lord? Is it apart from the Lord that I've come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it. What does that mean? Well, it means that Sennacherib and the Rav Shaka have heard about Isaiah's preaching. He's heard some of the stuff that Isaiah's been preaching about how Assyria is a war hammer in God's hand and that he's going to use Assyria to destroy Israel. I mean, spies are not a new thing. The Assyrians would have had spies in Jerusalem and they'd have listened to Isaiah and they'd have heard him say, Assyria is a war hammer in my hand and he's going to destroy this nation.

38:03 And they would have gone, ah, that's awesome. And they would have run back to Sennacherib and Sennacherib's now bringing word. I've heard the preaching. It's the Lord who said to me, go up against this city. So what he's saying to them is, look, even God is against you. Have you ever heard Satan whispering that in your ear? Look around, look around, look around. Look how bad stuff is in your life. Stuff is so bad in your life, your circumstances are so out of whack that even God must be setting himself against you.

38:35 See, that's what the Rav Shaka wanted Israelites to believe. He wanted them to believe that because they were in hard circumstances, God had abandoned them. But of course, you and I know that God put them in those hard circumstances so that he could use that to bring glory to himself and good to them. Your friends, learn in your Christian life to make that theological move. Don't let Satan just stop it before it comes to birth. What Satan wants you to do is say, bad circumstances, therefore God is against me. And if he can get you to stop in that cesspool, then he's perfectly happy.

39:09 What you should do, though, as a Christian is say, bad circumstances, all things work together for good to the glory of God and the good of his people. You have to learn how to make that mental, spiritual, theological move in your mind. The Rav Shaka wanted them to believe that God was against them because it would make them want to give up on God. And friends, that's what Satan wants you to believe too. Here's the fifth thing. Jump down to verse 16. Right there in the middle, those middle verses, you've got Eliakim and the rest asking the Rav Shaka to speak to them quietly.

39:43 And so the Rav Shaka starts to yell, you know, in the common language to the men on the wall. But you can see the next thing he says there to try to pry their faith away from God in 16. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, make your peace with me and come out to me. And then each one of you will eat of his own vine and each one of his fig tree and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. You see what he's saying there? He's saying, I will treat you better than God will treat you.

40:19 I'll give you things that God will not give you. God, if you trust in him, is just going to give you dung in the street and make you drink your own urine. I will give you bread and a vineyard. That's how Satan always comes. Promising you the world. And yet there's always a hook in it. There's literally always a hook in it. Do you see the hook in this one? It's all good, good, good through verse 16 and then verse 17. Until I come and take you away.

40:51 There's the hook. There's always a hook in Satan's promises. Because we know what he means by that. Come and take you away. I mean, their minds may have just been drunk on all the promises that Sennacherib can give us. And they missed that part. Until I come and take you away. What he meant is we're going to take you out of your land with hooks in your noses. We're going to make you slaves. We're going to scatter your children throughout Assyria so your entire nation and the memory of it is wiped off the face of the planet. That's what he meant. Friends, Satan always does this. He always promises the world, even when he means to deliver destruction.

41:25 Eat this fruit, Eve. It will make you like God. Bow down to me, Jesus, and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. Surrender the city, Israelites, and I will give you a vineyard. Friends, we are hardwired as human beings to disbelieve that God is giving us his best. We are hardwired to disbelieve that God is giving us his best.

41:58 And it's been that way since Eve and Adam reached out and took a bite of that apple. Do you know what they were doing? Do you know what they were doing? They were saying, God, you have withheld good things from us. You've given us the whole world. But you are withholding some kind of good from us. You are that kind of stingy, crabbed God. And the good that we want is in this apple. And they bit it. You're withholding from us. And what one theologian calls the Edenic poison of doubting that God is good went into the bloodstream of all of us as human beings.

42:33 and it's what we struggle with every day of our lives. Is God really good? Is he really giving us his best? Or does the world have something out there somewhere that will be better than what God has given us? It's an Edenic poison that runs through our veins. Friends, don't believe that. Don't believe it. Learn to recognize the effects of that Edenic poison in your own mind and in your own heart when you start to look at the world and think maybe that's better than what God has to offer me.

43:05 When you start to look at the church and you think, well, maybe that's not good enough for me. Maybe I need that thing out there in the world to make my life complete. Just know that that's the Edenic poison giving you a fever of the world. Don't believe it. Friends, what has Satan been promising you lately? Security, pleasure, relief? How are you going to answer him? Are you going to answer him like Eve, like Adam and bite the fruits? Are you going to answer him like your King Jesus?

43:36 Thus it is written, God and God alone shall you worship. Sixth, look at verses 18 and 19. See, that's where the Rav Shaka overplayed his hand. And right there in 18 and 19 is where you can almost see God's eyes rise up in fury. Because all of a sudden, the Rav Shaka is not just anymore calling the Israelites to abandon God. He's actually counting the God of Israel, the God of all creation, as one of the false gods of the pagans.

44:09 Do you see that? And that God will not have. But you know, in the final assault on your faith, that is exactly the same tactic that Satan uses against you as a believer. What Satan wants more than anything is to so dim the glory of God in your eyes and so exalt the false glories of the things of this world that you start to think of the God of the universe as just one more self-help item on your buffet of life.

44:47 He wants you to relegate God to the ranks of worldly things so that you forget him and overlook him and just put him on the shelf of your life. Be on guard. You see the point of all this? You see, these six things that we've been talking about, these six strategies that the Rav Shaka uses, you see the point, right? The Rav Shaka is not just the mouth of Sauron, he's the mouth of Satan. He's tempting the Israelites to abandon their faith in God and put it in Sennacherib.

45:17 And you see the theme that runs through it all? It's blood-chilling. The theme that runs through all of it is that the Rav Shaka and Satan uses truth to try to slingshot the people of God into believing untruth. That's what he does. He uses certain slivers of the truth to try to slingshot you into believing untruth. It was true, it was absolutely true, that Egypt was an unreliable ally. But it was false that the thing to do, therefore, was trust Sennacherib instead.

45:49 It was true that the Israelites couldn't put riders on the horses, but it was false that that meant that they were helpless. It was true that Sennacherib would give them vineyards. It was false that that would be a good gift worth having. Brothers and sisters, be careful that you don't let that strategy of Satan work on you. Be more discerning than that. When Satan holds up a true thing to you that tempts you to lose trust in God or to run after the world or to disobey God, Be more discerning.

46:20 Be able to say, yep, yep, yep, yeah, I see that. That's true, Satan. What you're saying there is true, but it doesn't mean that I have to do now what you are suggesting. Yes, it's true. I'm a sinner. But that doesn't mean that I have to despair now. It means instead that I get to live in the light and the power of the forgiveness of my Savior. Yes, it's true that circumstances are beating me down right now, but that doesn't mean I have to drop to my knees and surrender and give up my faith in God. It means that I need to stand up and redouble my faith that God is faithful.

46:54 And look forward to the day when he'll set everything right. Stand against the strategies of Satan. How? Well, that leads to the second point, the believer's defense. The believer's defense. So what's the believer's defense against all this? When Satan is firing these kinds of darts our way, what's the right response? Well, if you look at verse 21 of chapter 36, I think you start to get a little bit of a look at it. What's the first thing they do when the Rav Shaka has finished talking?

47:29 Nothing. They just be quiet. That's what they do. They don't answer him. They don't talk back. They don't rush to give their own arguments. They don't rush to destroy Satan's arguments. They don't have this burning need to prove themselves right. No. They just keep silent. And they take it to the king. You know, there's some huge value in that little bit of kind of pre-strategy when Satan attacks you. When Satan causes doubts to rise in your mind, when Satan causes temptation to rise in your heart, you don't have to have an answer immediately on the tip of your tongue.

48:05 You don't have to beat Satan in a game of chess right now. Sometimes it's best just to say, look, I think, I think that that must be Satan putting that thought in my mind. It seems to have a little bit of truth to it, but I know that that's the kind of thing that Satan does. And I'm not sure quite how to answer that argument from Satan. But you know what? I'm not going to panic. I'm not going to move right now. I'm just going to be quiet for a little while. I'm going to take it to the king.

48:38 What a friend we have in Jesus. all our pains and griefs to bear. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pains we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Just take it to the king. Well, when they do, what does Hezekiah do? Well, there are two stages to it, really. In the first few verses of chapter 37, Hezekiah, if you read it well, doesn't actually seem to be in a good place. Now, he does some good things there at the beginning of 37.

49:10 He acknowledges the situation he's in. He even seems with that word a time of rebuking. He seems even to acknowledge some guilt in getting himself into this bad place that he's in. And, of course, he takes the whole matter to Isaiah to hear the word of the Lord. All that's good. That's important stuff that Hezekiah has taken. He's taken some steps toward faith and toward trust in God. But at the same time, you notice in this that he doesn't exactly seem to be a pillar of like solid faith and trust here, right? He tears his clothes, he wails, and in verse 4, he asks Isaiah to pray.

49:45 He doesn't do it himself. You'll notice also throughout that section that he constantly refers to God as your God, Isaiah. Ask your God to save the remnant that remains. It's always your God, your God, your God. Well, for the next few verses, here's what happens. Isaiah immediately speaks and tells Hezekiah that Sennacherib will not take the city. God's not going to allow it, right? That's the next thing that Isaiah does. Now, I want you to notice something interesting there. Hezekiah comes to Isaiah and says, please pray for us.

50:18 And Hezekiah doesn't pray. Or, sorry, Isaiah doesn't pray. He just speaks. Now, why does he do that? Why doesn't he pray when Hezekiah asks him to pray? Well, because Isaiah knows that God has already spoken on this matter. He doesn't need to ask God for another word about this matter. He doesn't need to ask God his opinion about the Assyrian armies. He knows God's opinion, and so he doesn't pray.

50:49 He just speaks the word of God that he already knows. Friends, listen to me on this. sometimes there are questions and decisions that you actually don't need to pray about because God has already spoken about them. You know what? I just need to pray really hard about whether I should date this non-Christian person. No, you don't. You do not need to pray about it because the Holy Spirit is not going to tell you anything that God has not already said in His Word.

51:24 You do not date the non-Christian person. You pray for the non-Christian person to become a Christian and then you date them. Look, here's the point. That's funny, but don't ever, friend, don't ever, ever, ever use prayer as an excuse to disobey God's word. Don't ever use prayer as an excuse to disobey God's word. For that matter, don't ever use some off-the-wall understanding of calling to disobey God's word. God will never give you a word that is different from his written word.

51:56 He will never call you to anything that he has declared off limits in his word. Never. If you try to make that happen, it'll lead to disaster. Anyway, for the next few verses, you get more of the Rav Shaka spouting off. He's getting himself into even more trouble as he mocks God. But then look at 14, 37, 14. And contrast it to what he does in the first instance. Hezekiah received the letter, more words from Sennacherib. Received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it.

52:27 And Hezekiah doesn't rip his clothes. He doesn't wail. He goes up to the house of the Lord and he spreads it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. Now that's something entirely different. This is a brand new Hezekiah. Isaiah has spoken and said that the Lord will not let this man take this city. And that has fortified Hezekiah's faith. And he's a new man. There's no tearing of clothes. There's no wailing. There's no panicky asking of somebody else. Pray to your God, Isaiah. No, he just walks calmly to the Lord and places Sennacherib's mocking letter on the altar, spreads it out before God, and he prays.

53:03 Friends, what do you do in a crisis? What do you do in a crisis? I mean, a crisis hits and you're just like electric chihuahua, right? Just your hair on fire. What do we do? What do we do? Five alarm fire. What do we do? Or you just look at the crisis, read it, lay it before the Lord stretch it out and say Lord what are you going to do about this look at this look at this situation because I know that you already know how to deal with it and then look at this prayer that Hezekiah prays and it's just a model of steel spined faith in the Lord and the first thing he does there is acknowledge that God is the maker of heaven and earth and therefore he's enthroned over all the kingdoms of the earth and the Rav Shaka wanted him to relegate God down into the pantheon of all of these defeated pagan gods. That's where he wanted Yahweh, but Hezekiah is not going to have that now. No, not now. He understands that God's the creator of the universe, and so he's even placing the kingdom of Assyria under God's feet.

54:07 Look at the next thing he does. He calls God's attention to the situation. He knows that God is not uninterested in his people's plight. He's not this God up in the heavens that just winds up the earth and then lets it go. You know, that's deism, right? There's a God who has nothing to do with this. That's not the God of the Bible at all. He knows that this is a God who is intimately concerned with the circumstances of his people, even that God would stoop down from his throne in heavens to hear the word of this two-bit boy king who's gotten himself in trouble by sticking his neck out too far. He knows that God cares about that. Third thing he does is he acknowledges the situation like he's not he's not soft coating it right I know the Assyrians have done this this is a bad situation they've basically flattened every other god who has stood before them I know that he's wide-eyed and clear about what's going on but then fourth he notes the difference this time those gods that Sennacherib managed to flatten were not alive they were just blocks of

55:12 wood. And so he appeals to God as the living God to save him. I want you to notice something here. What is the heartbeat of Hezekiah's prayer here? Like, what is he most concerned with? Even in the midst of laying out his circumstances before God, even in the midst of asking for help, what's he most concerned about here? Is he most concerned about getting himself out of trouble? Is it his request that he's most concerned about? I mean, look at it. Where even is the request?

55:47 Where even is it? You're going to have a little bit of a hard time finding it, because it's just 11 little words beginning in verse 20, at the very beginning of verse 20. 11 little words in the English. The rest of this prayer is fired with concern, not for Hezekiah's circumstances, but for God's glory. That's what he cares about. Save your people, O God, for your glory. Friends, does that mark your prayers? Why do you ask God to do what you ask him to do? I know you do ask him for things, but why? Like, what's the motive behind it? Is it just to get yourself out of trouble or to get yourself to a better place? Why do you ask God to do the things that you ask him to do?

56:31 I'm telling you right now, if you start to approach prayer through the lens of asking God to glorify himself, if you run your request through the filter of God's glory, your prayers will change. They will get bigger. And God will answer them. Because he's in the business of glorifying himself. Not just making you comfortable. Well, God's response is swift, and so will be this last point.

57:05 Number three, the Lord's response. God's response to Hezekiah's prayer is swift and terrifying. I mean, basically, at the end of 3720, chapter 37, verse 20, Hezekiah says, Amen, and then in 21, it's like there's this rush from heaven. Then Isaiah, the son of Amos, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria, This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him. Now, here's what I find super interesting about this. This is set off in poetry form. Do you see that?

57:36 This response from God about, you know, I'm going to put my hook in your nose. It's all set off in poetry. And most of the time in Isaiah, the poetry is just exquisite. I mean, everything rhymes. The meter is correct in the Hebrew. Everything. I mean, he's clearly, it seems, spent some time on it. This one's not like this one. This is a poetic mess. Nothing rhymes. The meter is off. It's clear that he's trying to write a poem, but he's in too big of a hurry to get it done. and get the word to Hezekiah, and so it's just a mess, because it's like, oh, here, Hezekiah, here's the answer. The message from heaven comes swiftly, and what God says there is exactly how it happened. Look at the end, 36. Chapter 37, verse 36, the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians, and when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

58:29 I don't want to go into it too much, but some people have doubted. I mean, it's just a fantastic story. So some people have doubted whether this really happened because you can look at historical records and Sennacherib actually kept really detailed records of his conquests. Very self-exalting, very arrogant records. And the thing is, we have them. Like here in the 21st century, we have Sennacherib's own records of his conquests and he never, ever, not once in his records mentions getting whooped at Jerusalem, so people will look at that and say, well, we got the Bible on the one hand, and we got Sennacherib, who's an obvious clown on the other hand. Let's believe Sennacherib. It never happened, they say, but there are a couple of interesting things to think about, even in the non-biblical sources. Number one, here's two really interesting things, and then we're going to be done. One, in the British Museum over in London, in England, I've seen it, We have these reliefs, they're like flat carvings is what a relief means, flat sculptures.

59:28 We have these reliefs that cover the walls of the palace in Sennacherib's home and they show a conquered city bringing tribute to Sennacherib as he's seated on a throne. There are all these people bowing down before him and offering him crops and gold and all kinds of stuff. And there's an inscription at the bottom of that relief. And what it says is, Sennacherib, king of the universe, king of Assyria, sits on a throne and the spoils of Lachish are paraded before him. Lachish.

59:59 That's the town that he conquered before he got to Jerusalem. It's like a two-bit nothing town. I mean, it would be like some great conqueror trying to take over Kentucky. And he fails at Louisville, but he says, you know, I am Calipari, the great ruler of the universe, right? I conquered Taylorsville, right, with no mention of Louisville. That's what it's like. Second thing, Sennacherib's records do actually mention that he laid siege to Jerusalem.

1:00:32 He wrote that part too early. He even says that he had Hezekiah, like I said, locked up like a bird in a cage. But then, normally when Sennacherib would wax eloquent about himself and how awesome he is and how he conquered this city and here are all the people I killed and yada, yada, yada. It just goes silent. And the very next sentence in it is, I had Hezekiah locked up like a bird in a cage and Sennacherib returns to Assyria. That's all it says. So what does that mean? I mean, you put all that together and what it means is that Sennacherib actually, in fact, in history, got his tail kicked at Jerusalem and tried to assuage his wounded ego by trying to make a big deal out of his conquest of Taylorsville.

1:01:12 This two-bit town down the road. And nobody would have expected it. This huge army, these crushing enemies, boasting in the power to subdue gods. But then Sennacherib foolishly exalted himself against the God of the universe. And 185,000 of his soldiers were wiped out in a single night. Friends, I want you to notice two things there. One, this is the God with whom we have to deal. This is the God in whom we have to deal.

1:01:42 This is not some white-haired old man who sits up in heaven just doling out advice. That's not who he is. He's the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He's the God of the universe who will at the last day judge you. This is the God with whom we have to deal. Second, this God, because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, is also our friend and our father. He's a God who can wipe out an Assyrian army in a night.

1:02:17 And yet he is also the very one who calls us to come to him in prayer and to trust him and to put our lives in his hands. Let's do that. Let's pray. Our Lord God, we praise you as the king of the universe, as the one who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, The one for whom the earth itself is your footstool. You, Jesus, who are the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The one who destroys armies with a breath. The one who is moving history to your own intended purposes.

1:02:50 Lord, we bow our heads before you and acknowledge you as our God. And yet, our Lord, we also lift up our heads to you and see nothing but love and compassion and welcome in your eyes because of what Jesus, our Savior, has done for us. Father, we pray that you would steal our faith for life in this hard world. And we pray, oh God, that with every year that we live, with every step that we take toward heaven, our desire would be to remain faithful to you. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.