God’s Deliverance & Grace – Isaiah 36-39 — A Christian Growth Message

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Transcript

We are walking our way slowly but surely through the book of Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, and this is the 9th of 9. We come today to a passage where God’s people are brought to a kind of a precipice and then God rescues and releases them from the trouble.

One of the life-changing discoveries, which was 1801, was the vaccination experiment of Edward Jenner. You may remember the story, he gave a little boy some a little dose of cowpox, and then a little dose of smallpox, tiny tiny doses. In order to prevent the full-blown disease, and Jenna was widely and wildly criticised. There were cartoons in the paper with people with small cows coming out of their arms and legs as a way of frightening the people.

But the process worked, and of course now hundreds of millions of people have benefited from the vaccination process. Now it’s a little bit like this in Isaiah 36 that we come to today because God’s going to give His people just a little taste of defeat. He’s going to bring a powerful nation, the nation who’s called Assyria, what we would today call Syria, and he’s going to bring Assyria to the gates of Jerusalem, and this took place in 701 BC, and he brings the people of Assyria to the gates of Jerusalem to frighten his people.

So that they might turn to him. With some sanity and dependence.

Now there was no defeat of Jerusalem by Assyria, in fact, God whipped Assyria. But it was a lesson, you see, to teach his people to go back to him.

And trust him, just as God regularly steps in for Christians today who drift, and you may have experienced this in your own Christian life, you’ve just become a little casual and careless, and so God uses something to bring you back to your senses. So over the last 9 or 8 or 9 Sundays we’ve picked out bits of Isaiah 1 to 39, and we’ve seen the prophet of God, Isaiah, warning the people of God to stop compromised living. And to be serious about faithfulness.

Today, we leave the preaching of Isaiah. We come to a section which is a section of history or what people call narrative. It’s a kind of true storytelling; it’s a piece of history.

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And Isaiah 36-39, which is our big section this morning, describes the Assyrian threat to Jerusalem. They’re the enemy. And the king, king of Israel, his name is Hezekiah, his very godly response to the threat.

And so God in this section today gives his people a taste of war or a taste of fear or a taste of defeat in order to make them see their need of God, because God, of course, believe it or not, is the source of power and strength, much more powerful than anything that we could ever come up with.

And we’re who are today familiar with invasion because we’ve seen it in the last year or two, from Russia and from Hamas. We understand the fear of a nation coming to the doorstep and threatening to invade. So we’re on page 1071 in your Bibles if you’d like to turn this up, we’re daring to look for a few minutes this morning at Isaiah 36-39, and you’ll be interested to know that I’ve divided it into two parts this morning.

The first is called Faith going Forwards, this is chapter 36 and 37, faith going forwards, and then Faith going Backwards, chapters 38 and 39.

So first of all: Faith Going Forwards

And you’ll see in chapter 36 that a very sinister message comes to Jerusalem, to God’s people.

The king is, as I say, Hezekiah, he’s a good king. There’s about 15 chapters devoted to Hezekiah. And Hezekiah is a good name to give to a boy, if you’ve got a boy on the way, think about Hezekiah, it’s a great godly name for a boy.

Assyria, as I say, was the superpower and you’ll see in chapter 36 verse 1 that Assyria was now moving around in the promised land, defeating towns and cities.

And now they’ve come to Jerusalem, and they’re basically saying to Jerusalem, look, it’s been easy, we’ve conquered towns and cities all through the promised land, and now we’ve come to Jerusalem, and the commander, verse 4, stands up, the Assyrian commander, this pagan commander of this superpower, and he makes a brilliant speech, and he terrifies the people of God.

And the thing about the speech which is so like the work of the devil, is that it’s got lots of truth in it. Had lots of evil in it.

Just enough truth to trick you.

And just enough evil to ruin you.

You remember the devil in the garden saying to the man and the woman:

Look, the fruit is delicious.

And it was.

And if you take it, everything will be so much better for you.

Which was a lie.

Or you remember the devil in the wilderness saying to Jesus, look, you’re desperately hungry. Nobody’s looking after you. You really ought to take some rocks and just turn them into bread.

And he was very hungry.

But it was not the plan.

To serve himself.

And so this is what the Assyrian commander said, just look at chapter 36 verse 4, this is the big question. God’s people, who are you trusting? Who are you counting on? Who are you depending on, that’s the big question, verse 4. Verse 6, is it going to be your friend? Egypt? They’re hopeless. Verse 7, is it God? And then the commander says this, didn’t your king Hezekiah remove all the worship centres from your country?

And it was true, Hezekiah had removed a whole lot of worship centres from the country because they were idolatrous.

Well, the commander goes on in verse 8, and he says, look, you’re so weak, so weak, look at verse 8, you couldn’t even put soldiers on horses if we gave them to you.

And then he says verse 10, this is the really, really sinister sentence: do you not realise that your God has sent us to punish you?

So much of this speech is true, it is true that that Egypt will not help God’s people, it is true that the false meeting places have been demolished, it is true that their army was weak, and it was true actually that God had sent Assyria.

But it was not true that God was not to be trusted.

It’s been said that the devil has 3 basic weapons, lies, doubts, and temptations. You can see all of them here. There are lies about God being untrustworthy, there are doubts about who’s really in control, and there are temptations to give in to evil.

And so the people of God who had been sent out to meet the Assyrian commander, were completely shaken, and you’ll see in verse 11 they asked the commander to lower his voice and not speak so loudly because he was frightening everybody, but in verse 14, the commander gets even louder, and he calls out verse 14, don’t trust your king Hezekiah, and verse 15, don’t trust Yahweh. Verse 16, you should make peace with us. And we will give you the peace and the plenty, we’ll give you the promised land, come with us, says the commander, and we’ll take you to the land of plenty. And then the commander says verse 18, has any god beaten us so far? And the answer is no, nobody has beaten them. Verse 19, did that capital city Samaria up in the north survive? No, it did not.

But you’ll see the commander has crossed a line because the commander has said that God can’t be trusted. And that’s a blasphemy.

And those of you who know the Lord’s Prayer will know that one of the first things we pray when we pray the Lord’s Prayer is that his name would be honoured.

And that’s why I don’t know whether you find this, but when people today blaspheme God or blaspheme Christ, it’s painful for the believer. I hope you find this. And dear friends, if you are in the building today and you still throw God’s name around. If you’re still one of those people who says, “oh God, ohhh God“, or whatever it is, just remember that one of the first things that should take place in a Christian’s life is a new desire that his name be honoured, not blasphemed or thrown around.

And so God is going to defend his honour, that’s what he’s going to do.

Mark Twain once said that lies travel around the world while truth is still tying on its shoelaces, and this is why we need the word of God so much today, because the lies of the world are so clever.

I mean just think back to a few years ago where the signs were being held up all over the place, love is love, it’s such a clever sign. Love is love, what can you say, well of course love is love.

But does that mean incest is good?

Does that mean paedophilia is good?

You have to be so careful with these slogans which just completely bamboozle, we need the Word of God.

And there is such a lot of confusion in the church as well, because the lies of the world come into the church, and it’s only the Word of God, which will give us the clarity and the weapon that we need to keep us from spinning or being knocked over.

David says in Psalm 119, I’ve stored your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

So you see, Isaiah 36 is this sinister message that comes to the people of God, and what are they going to do? It sounds so persuasive. The message is basically this, stop trusting your silly piety.

Stop thinking that prayers will work, stop thinking that God cares, it’s time to get with the politics of Assyria.

What will they do? Well, here’s the response, Chapter 37, it’s a faithful response, this is the faith of Hezekiah going forward very wonderfully. We see Hezekiah in chapter 37, he’s the king, he’s the godly king. There were not many godly kings in Israel, but Hezekiah was a godly king, and we see in verse one, the first thing he did was he tore his clothes because he couldn’t bear the blasphemy.

And verse 2, he sent his officials to the prophet Isaiah, we want to know what God says. It’s almost like he opened his Bible. He sent his officials to the prophet Isaiah, and in verse 3 and 4, they told him, they went and told Isaiah, God has been mocked.

Now you’d expect, wouldn’t you, at this point, that Isaiah would say something like, well this is terrible, you know, we must be, we must be frightened. This Assyrian superpower is so great.

And Isaiah with the living God in his mind and heart, comes back in verses 5 and 7 and he says this 1. don’t be afraid, 2. the Assyrian king is going to move off. He’s going to push off, verse 3. he’s going to leave you and he will eventually be cut down completely.

It’s an incredible message because you wouldn’t think anybody humanly could talk like that.

Can you imagine me saying to you today if we were in the Ukraine and the Russians were coming with renewed force against us, let me tell you, don’t be afraid, the whole Russian army is going to turn around tomorrow and just disappear, and Putin will die.

Who talks like that?

And here’s Isaiah talking like that, and he’s exactly right, it’s exactly what happened.

So Hezekiah the king got down to pray, and this is surprising, isn’t it, because he might have said, well that’s good news, let’s go and have a party.

But what Hezekiah did was he got down to pray and we had the prayer read to us this morning. It’s in chapter 37, 14 to 20, and it’s a most beautiful prayer, it’s only 5 verses and it goes like this:

Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, that’s the little figures on top of the Ark of the Covenant, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth, give ear Lord and hear, open your eyes Lord and see, listen to the words that the Assyrian king has sent to ridicule you. It’s true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands, they have thrown gods into the fire and destroyed them because they were not gods, just wooden stone. Now Lord our God. Deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only God.

You see, Hezekiah has had a message from Isaiah, all will be well. And he turns it back into prayer. Lord, you’ve said all will be well. Do it.

Spurgeon used to talk about the promises of God as cheques from God waiting to be cashed.

We take the promise and we turn it back into prayer, and it’s a beautiful prayer, you’ll see that he first of all says in the prayer that God is mighty but also near to them. He’s over the earth, but he’s beside his people, he’s the creator of the heavens and the earth and therefore Assyria is perfectly under his control.

That God has eyes and ears, nothing escapes Him.

Whatever you’re up to, whatever you’re facing.

Whatever you’re planning, whatever you’re plotting, God sees it.

And the request is so simple, Lord, deliver us.

It’s not a vague prayer, is it?

And the motive is so that the earth will know.

And again, here’s this great concern that God’s name would be hallowed around the world.

We do remember, don’t we, that our prayers are very weak, we sometimes hear people say the power of prayer, well, prayers are actually very weak. They’re just little breaths that come out of our mouth. But they go to a God who’s very strong, and this is a prayer about God, and it’s to God. And maybe the first answer to the prayer is that Isaiah the prophet then goes and finds the king Hezekiah, and he tells him what God’s going to do to the Assyrians. So you remember the question that the Assyrian commander called out at the gates, who are you trusting? Who are you leaning on?

And the answer comes back 37:23, we’re trusting the Holy One of Israel. And he’s perfectly capable.

I want you to see our friends, the might of God. Because there has been a lot of boasting against God. And sometimes it looks helpless and hopeless for the people of God. But God is perfectly capable of running and solving everything.

And God says to Assyria in verse 33 of chapter 37, and I love this:

1, you won’t enter the city.

2, you won’t fire a single arrow.

Verse 3, verse 34, you’re going to leave and I’m going to defend my city.

That’s what God says. You’re not going to enter the city. You won’t fire a single arrow. You’re going to leave. Because I’m defending the city. And we read in chapter 37 verse 36 that one angel from God, went out and decimated the Assyrian army. And they woke up the next morning and the whole army had been decimated.

One angel from God decimated the Assyrian army.

And the king of Assyria therefore withdrew exactly as he should.

And some years later down the track, his own sons killed him.

A victory in a day.

I’m reminded of the day when Christ died on the cross. And he called out – I’ve done it. It’s finished.

Victory in a day.

So this is a picture, these two chapters of faith going forwards because God goes forwards, and when his people go forwards with him, Faith goes forwards.

Now briefly, I want to now look with you about faith going backwards because sadly Hezekiah’s faith goes backwards in chapter 38 and 39.

I heard a minister say once that he wakes up in spiritual reverse every morning. He said I have to get up in the morning and I have to deliberately put my Christian life into forward, because I wake up in reverse, and it is the sad fact isn’t it, that the human heart naturally goes backwards spiritually.

And if you know yourself, you’ll know this to be true, we naturally go backwards, we need to deliberately by the grace of God, walk forward with him, sometimes you see this in fellow Christians, they have been going forwards, and now they’re going backwards, their life has been marked by joy and usefulness, and suddenly it’s not.

And this sad reality is true for Hezekiah. It would be lovely, wouldn’t it, if we could say today that Hezekiah was just a giant of faith and faithfulness, and he just went forward all his days. But sadly he went backwards. It’s worth seeing how the decline took place. The decline took place because in chapter 38 verse 1, he got sick. Fatally sick, and in verse 2 of chapter 38, Isaiah went to tell him to get ready to die. It’s hard to know whether Isaiah had any bedside manner or not, because it looks a fairly blunt thing that he just basically went to him and said, put your affairs in order because you’re going to die, but we could hope, couldn’t we, that there was a lot of compassion, as Isaiah spoke to the king, some people are good at the bedside and some people are not.

But we discover that when Hezekiah chapter 38, verse 2 and 3 has been told that he will die, he turns to the Lord and he asks him to have pity on him because he says, I’ve been so faithful. It’s quite a sad and tragic little prayer really.

It’s got nothing of the greatness or the grandeur of the prayer in chapter 37, he’s now praying just pitifully for himself.

And I think we must sympathise with this because personal sickness does bring out the child in us. You remember that Job was incredibly heroic in the face of all his losses until he got very sick himself. And then everything fell apart.

Anyway, God hears the prayer of Hezekiah even though it’s a sad little prayer, and he gives him 15 more years of life.

And Hezekiah writes this up in chapter 38 in verses 9 to 20, it’s like a page in his diary, he says, I was down in the pits, you know, my life was about to be robbed away, but God has restored my life and he records this down and this up. Maybe when he recovers, because he does recover, it prompts him to be a little reckless. Because when he gets well, the king of Babylon, that’s another country, hears that he’s well.

And decides to pay a visit to him, and maybe the king of Babylon was saying, I think it would be good to go and talk to Hezekiah, because he’s now strong and well and maybe we can sort of team up together, especially against a country like Assyria, so that we’re both well protected.

Anyway, Hezekiah in chapter 39 welcomes the Babylonian visitors into the Jerusalem palace, and he shows them around, and maybe he also is thinking, well, I’m well, and now I could do with some political friends like Babylon, especially if Assyria comes knocking at the door again, and so Hezekiah shows all the Babylonian visitors around the palace. Does it sound reasonable to you?

Was Hezekiah on a bit of a high now that he was well?

Well, the response of Isaiah was completely negative. The prophet comes to him and says, You’ve shown your kingdom to the Babylonians, do you realise that they now know everything about you? And do you realise that down the track they’re the ones that are going to really attack you and they’re going to take you off to their land, into exile?

See, it’s not that it was so sinful that Hezekiah let the Babylonians in, it’s just the symptom that he’d completely forgotten who he was to trust. He’d started to play a game of political allies, he’d forgotten entirely what he’d learned before. And so his faith started to go backwards, he dropped his guard.

And when the prophet Isaiah says to Hezekiah, you know that there’s going to come a day where the Babylonians will come now and they’ll take you off into exile, do you know what Hezekiah says, it’s absolutely chilling.

He says in verse 8 of chapter 39, well, who cares? It’s going to be long after my time. I couldn’t care.

Dear friends, you remember how the New Testament cautions us to remember that we’re in a spiritual battle all the time. And that we need the armour of Jesus Christ every morning, that’s why Jesus has built into the Lord’s prayer, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Every morning, if you’re a believer, you’ve got to get up and say it’s not just a playground. It’s a battleground.

And I’m not independent, I’m very dependent and I need to put my trust in the Lord and I need to have him wrap around me like the armour that I need, because the message which you see Isaiah has been giving all through this little series is that God is the is the one we must stick close to.

Now I think I’ve said this to you before, but I did hear the great John Piper once say in a talk, and I’ll just pass this on to you again, he taught as an aside what he called the IOUS. And I found this so helpful in my Christian life, and I hope you have either heard it or will hear it this morning.

John Piper took 4 little phrases out of the Psalms:

One of them says, incline our hearts to you, Lord.

And the next one is open our mind to your word, Lord.

And the third one is unite our will with yours, Lord.

And the 4th one is satisfy our soul with you, Lord.

When you get up in the morning, you see, and you think I don’t know what to say.

And you say to the Lord, I’m capable today of going backwards and I’m capable of doing the devil’s work. Incline my heart to you. Open my mind to your word. Unite my will with yours. Satisfy my soul with yourself.

Isaiah, you see, in the chapters we’ve been looking at in this little series, has been telling us to look to God and to lean into God and to walk with God, because that’s where we will find not only our safety, but that’s where he will be honoured, and if Isaiah was here this morning, he would say to us,

Look, dear friends, to the Lord Jesus, who has loved you, risen from the grave, is completely in authority, loves you deeply, has the best plans for you, lean into him, walk with him, and he will lead you forwards and not backwards.

Let’s pray, let’s bow our heads.

We’re gonna pray again, a prayer from the Anglican prayer book.

Lord our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God.

We thank you for bringing us safely to this day.

Please keep us by your mighty power, grant that today we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger, but lead and govern us in all things, that we may always do what is righteous in your sight, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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