Hello!

I’m David Petts and this is the first of a few talks I’ve been asked to give to encourage you at this difficult time.

As many of us are in isolation at the moment, I’m going to be looking at some Bible passages where God’s people were in isolation.

Today we’ll be looking at Isaiah 36 and 37 which is one of the most exciting passages in the Bible.

The Challenge

 

Sennacherib king of Assyria has invaded Judah and captured all the fortified cities with the exception of Jerusalem.

Most recent to fall is LACHISH 36:2 just a few miles from Jerusalem.

From a bas-relief in British Museum we know they were being decapitated, impaled on stakes, and even skinned alive!

Now Jerusalem itself is surrounded by a great army of the Assyrian forces and threatened with a similar fate.

The entire city is cut off from the outside world.

Its inhabitants are in fact in isolation. Defeat seems inevitable.

Sennacherib’s field commander tells the people to surrender.

It’s your only option.

It’s the only way to escape the horrors of Lachish.

There’s no one who can help you.

 

What are you basing your confidence on? 4

 

Your own strength? 8

You haven’t even got 2,000 men left, even if we gave you the horses for them!

 

Other countries? 6

Egypt

 

Your leaders? 14

Hezekiah

 

All the enemy has said so far is true! And the broad principles remain the same for us today.

 

But what does he say about God?

This is the crux of the matter and brings us to the first aspect of the answer to the challenge.

 

The Answer to the Challenge

 

1. Discerning the truth from the lies of the enemy

 

Notice how the enemy combines truth:

1. Hezekiah has annoyed God by taking down the high places (7) T&F
2. God is on MY side – he has told me to come and destroy you (10) F
3. The gods of the nations haven’t saved them (18-19) T
4. So your God can’t save you F

 

2. Doing what our leaders tell us

 

Look at 36:20-21

 

“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.””

 

Hezekiah wanted to hear what God had to say rather than letting the people give an answer to the enemy.

 

3. Hearing what God is saying

 

5. When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah,
6. 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.
7. 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.'””

 

He was in tune with God. His answer was ready

 

4. Knowing how to pray 37:16-20

 

16 “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 have made heaven and earth.

17 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.

18 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire.

19 For they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.

20 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.””

 

worship (16).   Recognition of God’s sovereignty

request (17)

statement of fact (18)

statement of faith (19)     understanding truth from fiction

motive (20)

 

5. Trusting the supernatural power of the true and living God

 

Isaiah 37:21-36

 

21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz 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:

‘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. I dug wells and drank waters, to dry 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…

 

‘I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. 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.’

 

33 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, and 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 people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

 

About 700 years later, an even greater victory was won outside those same city walls.

 

Not by an angel, but by God himself. He let them impale him on  a stake…

But what looked like defeat he turned into victory.

 

Col.2:15

“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

Colossians 2:15 NIVUK

 

The ultimate victory over anything and everything the enemy throws against us is Jesus’ victory on the cross.

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