Through the Bible Study — 2 Kings 18–19

Great are you, Lord. What a way to kick off our service this evening. You all want to stand with me and I'll open us up in a word of prayer?

Lord, Lord, as we come before you this evening, God, I just pray that you would just meet us here. God, that we would be, that you just draw us near to you, draw us near to each other. Lord, I just pray that your spirit would be here to minister to us. Lord, I just pray that our hearts would be aligned with your will, that we can truly and honestly worship you this evening. I just pray this in your name. Amen.

So here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me all day. Oh, so highly exalted, glorious in heaven, a weak became.

So here I, here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether a sin. Upon, see my sin. Upon, I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me all day. And stories of what they think you're, and you tell that you're pleased in that I'm

never as you call as you call for the sun to for my sleep still in front to abide be my strength my song in the night treasure my be my strength my song and i just thank you that no matter what we're going through lord we can abide in you and god any pain lord that we endure lord you have endured on the cross for us already god i just pray that no matter what we're going through no matter how painful it is we can just continue to pick up our cross and follow you lord because at the end of the day the cross is what brings us closer to you lord i just pray that as ryan comes up this evening lord that your spirit would just be fresh on him god that he would boldly proclaim your words in your name amen

good evening if you would open up in your bibles to the book of second kings chapter 18 second kings chapter 18 well it's been a week hasn't it i don't want to relive this month ever again in my life so um i just full disclosure on my part um i've debated on what i need to teach on what i need to do and i decided i'm going to continue on for tonight where we are here i will be doing a special message sunday because i feel like there's a lot of healing that needs to take place um from this past week and this past month and so um so we're going to continue on with this i promise some things will come up the lord ministered a lot of things to me today but uh but here we are okay so picking up where we left off in second kings last time that we were

together in second kings we saw the fall of the northern kingdom and we saw the fall because of sin and basically chapter 18 we saw the fall of the northern kingdom and we saw the fall of the kingdom chapter 17 was not just about the fall it was a very small portion of it but most of it was about the reasons behind the fall the anatomy of the of the fall of the northern kingdom and so in the midst of all of that going on in the northern kingdom of israel in the southern kingdom a really good king is about to take over and we're going to see reforms take place that were unlike anything israel had seen really up to this point in time at least in the land of judah and so we

pick up the fall of the northern kingdom and we're going to see reforms take place in chapter 18 verse 1 learning about a guy by the name of hezekiah it says it came about in the third year of hoshea the son of elah king of israel that hezekiah the son of ahaz king of judah became king he was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 29 years in jerusalem and his mother's name was abi the daughter of zachariah and he did right in the sight of the lord according to all that his father and his mother did and he did right in the sight of the lord according to all that his father david had done now this man hezekiah is one of a handful of very very good kings that judah had israel the northern kingdom had none after the split of the

two kingdoms israel didn't have any good kings but but the southern kingdom had a handful of good ones and this is one of the good ones one of the guys that really just did a fantastic job of ruling and reigning as a matter of fact one of the few good kings even that it says he did right in the eyes of the lord just like hezekiah the son of ahaz king of israel and hezekiah the son of ahaz king of his father david had done and um and he's going to bring about some reforms in the nation so basically what we're going to see in these first handful of verses is we're going to see sort of a a summary of his life and then we'll dig deeper into uh what is a story that leads to this summary

of his life but but the first thing that i take note of is this and that's who his father was because his father was a guy by the name of ahaz and if hezekiah is one of the best kings that judah had ever had ahaz was potentially the worst king in the world and hezekiah was one of the best kings that judah had as a matter of fact ahaz was was considered besides manasseh the worst king in the nation of judah because of the evil that he perpetrated through idolatry through uh through uh the sacrifices that he made and and uh building uh altars to foreign idols he was just a terrible king and yet and yet after him comes his son named hezekiah who's going to be such a fantastic man of god

and going to bring about reforms unlike anything that had been seen up to that point in time and and i'm reminded of something in this and and what i'm reminded of is that god is bigger than our family history god is bigger than the generational curse that you feel like you deal with he's he's bigger than the uh than the than the bad history that you have in your family i think sometimes we we put ourselves in categories based upon well this is the way that my grandfather was and this is the way that my dad was and so this is the way that i'm going to end up being and and we think that that's just who we are and now we now we're labeled by this by this thing

because of our family name or or because of of the dad that raised us or or the mom that raised us or you name it and we forget that god is so much bigger than that and god is in the business of of redeeming families and redeeming family names and um and he's so much bigger than than your past and he's so much bigger than than your history because because honestly if you weren't raised by a very good dad, if you weren't raised by a very good mom, you can still find that God is still gracious enough to take you and to fashion you into who he wants you to be in spite of all of the things that had come before you. And that's what we see here with Hezekiah is that

God was so much bigger than his family history. And I believe that part of the reason why is because he was influenced by a guy named Isaiah, who will go on to be one of the greatest prophets that the nation of Israel had seen. And so it says that, verse 3, he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. And then it introduces the reforms that he brought. It says he removed the high places, he broke down the sacred pillars, and he cut down

the Asherah, and he also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it, and it was called Nehushtan. And he trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that after he had done all of the things that he had done, he would be able to none was like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him, for he clung to the Lord. And he did not depart from following him, but he kept his commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses. Now there's three main reforms that we see that Hezekiah

brought to the land of Israel. The first thing it says is that he tore down the Asherah poles and the idolatrous altars that had been built. He went through and just started ransacking all of the garbage that he had built. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that he had made. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that he had made. And he

needed to be dealt with. Can you imagine what the reaction among the community was? Can you imagine how the people living in Judah at that point in time probably called him a radical king, and all of the things that they said about him because he was taking the law so seriously, and he was taking following God so seriously? I bet terrible reports were put out about him, about how he was taking away the rights of the people, and all these kinds of things to be able to worship how they wanted to. Because that's what we do when reforms are brought about. Because when someone

takes following God seriously, the people living in compromise label them as a freak, right? They label them as being radical, when really what they're doing is just simply being obedient to what God had called. But so the first thing he did is he tore down all the altars and the Asherah poles and all those kinds of things. But the second thing that he says he did, did you notice it? It says that he tore down the high places. Now every good king that you read about

in Judah, the one area of compromise they had is that they did not tear down the high places. Now while sometimes the high places were a place where idols were worshipped, oftentimes the high places were places where God was worshipped, but in a way not prescribed by the Mosaic law. In other words, they said, I want to worship God, but I want to do it my way. I want to worship God, but I want to do it the way that I want to, and in the place that I want to. Even though God has said, when you

worship me, you need to go to the place where I have established my name, which is where the tabernacle, soon to be the temple, was. And it was supposed to be in Jerusalem, where God had established these high places and said, I want to worship God, but I want to do it my way. Well, Hezekiah came in and he was the one king that was bold enough to say, not only are you going to worship God, but you're going to do it the right way. You're going to do it the way that the law has prescribed to do it. We are going to hold fast to what the Word of God has to say. But then there

was the last thing that he did, and this last thing that he did was kind of interesting. Because the last thing that he did is it says that he broke in pieces the bronze serpent. Now if you don't know what that is, let me give you a little bit of a background here. When the children of Israel were in the wilderness, there was one of the many times when they complained, as one of my students said, the children of Israel complained again. One of the many times that they

complained, God sent serpents in to begin to bite them, fiery serpents. And people were dying because of the rebellion against God, and they're complaining against Him. And so the people cried out to the Lord, and God told Moses, here's what you need to do. You need to fashion a bronze serpent. Bronze, of course, being the picture of judgment. Fashion a bronze serpent and put it up

so that anybody that looks at the serpent on the pole will be saved. Beautiful picture of the cross. That's what Jesus said in John chapter 3, verse 16. He says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Actually, that's verse 15. And then in verse 16, he says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever

would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Well, what they had done is they'd taken this bronze serpent that was a representation of the salvation of God, and they had turned it into an idol. And they'd begun burning incense to it and worshiping, oh, the bronze serpent. The bronze serpent that brought salvation. No, God brought salvation. He just

used the bronze serpent. You see, they took something that God had meant for good, and they turned it into an object to be worshiped. We're pretty good at that as human beings, aren't we? Do you ever have those things in your life where, like, God did this great thing, and now you've established a memorial to it? You've established a monument to it, and you've attached some sort

of thing, and sometimes God has to remove that thing from your life in order to get your eyes back on Him and not the thing, right? Well, that's what He did here. He took that, and He destroyed it because it simply had become nehushtan. Now, that's a really fun word, right? And literally, it just means thing of bronze because that's all it was. And so He destroys that as well,

something that had been worshiped. Those are the reforms that He brought. But take a look at the summary of His life, sort of His character. The first thing it says about Him is, about His character in verse 5 is that He trusted in the Lord God of Israel. He put all of His trust in the Lord. He was a man who was known as someone who trusted that God was able to take

care of him, that God was able to take care of the nation, and if He would obey God, that God would always supply and take care of the people. The second thing that we read about His character is that He clung to the Lord. I love that phrase that's used there because the phrase that's used there, clung to the Lord, carries the idea that He gave His entire self to holding on to everything of God, in particular, in obedience. But I love that idea because when I think about someone clinging to the Lord, I think about a small child in a scary situation, right? You ever take a little kid to maybe a place where there's a bunch

of people around, and some stranger wants to lean down because they're cute and say hi to them, and what's the first thing that they do? They cling on to your leg, right? Or they cling on to you, and that's kind of the idea. I want to stay so close that nothing can separate me. And that's what He did. His character was not only that He trusted in God, but His character is

that He clung to the Lord with everything in Him. And what did that look like? He did not depart from following Him, but He kept the commandments which the Lord God had commanded Moses. And I want you to notice God's response to His character. It says in verse 7,

And we're given this picture of the victory that God gave Him. Now, the last thing that we see in summary in this chapter is the summary of the fall of the northern kingdom. It says, Now, in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came against Samaria, and he besieged it. At the end of the three years, they captured it. And in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the

ninth year of Hezekiah, they captured it. And in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was captured. And the king of Assyria carried Israel away into exile and put them in Hala and Habor, the river Gozan, and the cities of the Medes, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant. Even all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded, they would neither listen nor do it. Now, that's the summary.

And I point that out because I kind of struggled with this just a little bit today as I was studying, because what it's going to present for us here, or what it presented for us here in the first set of verses is that Hezekiah was this fantastic follower of God, that he trusted in the Lord, that he clung to the Lord, and that he obeyed the Lord. But now we're given a little bit of a deep dive into his life, one particular story of his battle with the Assyrians. And what we're going to see is a couple of instances of a lack of faith on his part. We'll point that out when that comes up. And I found it kind of interesting because,

well, let's just look at the story, and I'll tell you why I find it so interesting, okay? So it says, now, in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and he seized them. And then Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, I have done wrong. Withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me, I will

bear. So the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver which was found in the house of the Lord and the treasuries of the king's house. And at that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold door, the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorpost which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. Now, this is where I start to go, this is the guy that

trusts in the Lord. This is the guy that clings to the Lord. He's basically bowing down to the king of Assyria and saying, oh, listen, I'm really sorry for the fact that I rebelled against you. You just tell me what I need to do to keep you from absolutely destroying us too, and I will do whatever you want to do. Now, that doesn't seem like a great deal of trust in God. Can we all agree

with that? It doesn't seem like someone who's really clinging to the Lord. Can we all agree with that? And this is where I think this is important and what I really paid attention to. How does Hezekiah go from being the guy who seems to lack a little bit of faith here to being known as a man who trusts the Lord, unlike anyone else before him, as a man who clung to the Lord,

unlike anyone else before him, as a man who God was with because he trusted and he clung to the Lord. We see he became a man who trusted the Lord because he went through this story, because he went through these things. Because what we're going to see is we are going to see God build his faith as he takes some mistakes that he's made, as he takes some difficulties that he goes through, and as he watches God be faithful in spite of his faithlessness, and as he watches God be faithful in spite of the situation is that he's about to face. He watches God be faithful to where at the beginning it looks like he lacks faith, but as we get to the end, we realize he is a man

who now trusts the Lord. You know why I think that that's kind of neat? Because we have to go through times like this to become people who are known as those who trust in the Lord. Wouldn't it be great if we never had to go through a hard thing in life and we could just be mature? That we never had to go through something difficult in life and we would just be people who are

solid in our faith? And strong in our faith and we trust that God's going to take care of things? Wouldn't it be great if we could just arrive there without going through hard things? But you know what's true of life? And you know what's true of our faith? You can't become mature if you don't go through difficulties. You can't become mature if you don't go through the hardships of life. And this is

where I think this week God has really spoken this to me. As he said, Ryan, you have to keep going through the hard things. You have to keep going through the hard things. You have to keep going through the hard things. Because this is where faith is produced. When you go through the things that are really difficult, this is where your faith begins to shine through like gold. Because

I'm here to tell you right now, I keep thinking to myself, maybe it's going to get easier. Maybe life is going to quit throwing curveballs at me all the time. And you know what God says? Nope, more curveballs to come. I thought this week, back to my time in ministry, and I'm like, why has my entire time in ministry been filled with grief? It just has. It started that way. And

it's been that way the entire time I've been in ministry. So when I was in Bible college, side story, when I was in Bible college, we studied through all the way through with Chuck, and we were all going through the book of Jeremiah together. And you know what Jeremiah is known as? Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. Now, I don't know if you realize this or not about me,

but I'm kind of an emotional human being. I know it takes most people off guard when I tell them that. But all of my friends knew that about me. And I remember them looking at me and saying, oh my gosh, you're Jeremiah. And I was like, oh, I don't want to be Jeremiah. That sounds like a terrible thing to be the weeping prophet. And then we all kind of laughed about it, because that

probably wasn't going to be the case, right? This week, I thought, dear God, I'm Jeremiah. I get to be the weeping prophet. I didn't choose that life. I would never choose that life. I like to laugh. Sometimes it's kind of hard to laugh. But I'm reminded that in every next stage of my life, God is building my faith. But it takes hard stories, where sometimes I lack a little bit

of faith, to build me into who God wants me to be. And that's what God's going to do here in this congregation. That's what God's going to do in your life, is the more that you face difficulties, the more that you face the hard things of life, the more God is going to build your faith. I wish there was another way around it. I wish there was an easier way. I wish there was an easy button that we could hit, that all of a

sudden we would be mature. But God has seen fit that the way that we will be matured is by going through the hard things of life, and by Him being, just like He was with Hezekiah, with us through all of it. And so we find Hezekiah in this place where his faith is waning just a little bit. And he's paying off, he's basically paying ransom money to the king of Assyria, so that hopefully he won't go over. Only, you know what the problem is? When you give evil an inch, it wants to take a mile. And

that's what happens with the king of Assyria. So starting in verse 17, it says, Then the king of Assyria sent Tartan. I'm going to really just screw these names up. Like, if anybody actually knows how to pronounce these, please just shh. I'm just going to do the best I can. Then the king of Assyria sent Tartan, and Rab-Saras, and Rab-Shaka. I mean, it's like a Kansas guy, right?

That's all there is to it. From Lachish to King Hezekiah. With a large army to Jerusalem. So they went up and they came to Jerusalem. And when they went up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller's field. And when they called to the king, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, came out to them. And then that guy

said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What is this you have? You say, But they are only empty words. I have counsel and strength for war. Now on whom do you rely that you have rebelled against me? Now behold, you rely on that staff of the crushed reed, even on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh, king of

Egypt, all who rely on him. But if you say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose high places we trust? Is it not he whose high places and whose high places we trust? Is it not he whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah in Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem? Now therefore come, make a bargain with my master, the

king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse one official of the least of my master's servants, and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Oh man, he comes after him. He says, Listen, why do you have any kind of confidence? First of all, why do you have any confidence in Egypt? Now what does he mean

by that? Well, apparently there was some sort of an alliance that he had made with Egypt, reached out to Egypt. What does Egypt represent in Scripture? It represents the world. See, another small little lapse of faith on the part of Hezekiah. He used worldly wisdom and sought help from the world against this king of Assyria. And that wasn't going to work. Honestly, he's kind of right in

this. Why are you relying on Egypt? Because they're not going to do you any good. But then he says something interesting. He says, And why do you have so much confidence in the Lord? This is where he doesn't really understand godliness. He goes, Isn't it God's altars that he's torn down? Well, no, it was false altars that he had torn down. But he doesn't understand that. He said, Don't you know that your army is weak?

Because if I could give you 2,000 horses, and you could even put riders on them, one of my weakest warriors could take all of you guys out. That's some serious trash talk, right? Well, he goes on to say, Verse 25, Now, do you think God really told him that about Judah? I don't think he did. Now, I think God told him that about the northern kingdom. But he, of course, has overstepped his bounds. But watch how

they respond. Not a lot of confidence here. Verse 26, Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, Speak now to your servants in Aramaic. That was the diplomatic language of the day. Speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand that. And do not speak with us in Judean or Hebrew, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall. But he said to them, Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these

words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you? And he stood, and he cried with a loud voice in Judean, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, Don't let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hand. Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver you, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Don't listen, for thus says the king of Assyria, Make peace, and come out to me, and eat

each of his own vine, and each of his fig tree, and drink each of the waters of his own cistern, until I come and take you away from me. And he said to Rabshakeh, Speak now to your servants in the land of Israel, and bring your way to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die. But don't listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath

and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Eva? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? And at that moment, the whole thing is sealed, right? He just said, God can't do this. And God's like, well, we can't have any of that. But he tells them,

why would you put any kind of trust in what Hezekiah has to say? God can't deliver you. No king has been able to deliver anyone up to this point in time. No god has been able to deliver any of their lands up to this point in time. Make a treaty with the king of Assyria, and bring your people with us. Surrender, and we'll make sure all of your needs are met. We'll make sure you have

everything that you want. Bear in mind, they're living under siege at this point in time, and they don't have food coming in, so they probably are very hungry. And he tells them, you can have everything you want if you just bow down to me. Does that kind of sound familiar? Does that sound familiar to anyone else? That's what the enemy wants us to do, right? Because he's whispering

in our ear all the time, listen, if you'll just do what I want you to do, I promise you will have temporary pleasure. If you just do what I'm telling you to do, then I promise you will have temporary peace. The problem is temporary peace and temporary pleasure are just that. They're temporary, and they have no lasting effect in our lives. And yet, in the world today, how many of the people, and I'm not talking the

people of the world, I'm talking the people of the church, have sacrificed eternal peace for temporary pleasure? They've listened to the lie of the enemy who said, just give in a little bit, and you'll have everything that you want. Well, they're not listening. I want you to notice how they respond. It says in verse 36, But the people were silent and answered him not a word. For the king's commandment was, don't answer

him. And Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him the words of Rabshakeh. Now, what's he going to do? He's tried paying him off. That's not working. He's tried an alliance with Egypt, and that's not working. He's made all of these reforms. He's done everything right, except a couple of lapses of

faith. What is he going to do now? Because an army that's bigger, an army that's stronger, an army that's proven has come against him, and he's made him, if you will, an offer he can't refuse, and now he has a decision to make. What's he going to do? How is he going to stand strong in the midst of this kind of pressure coming against him? Look at chapter 19, verse 1.

He tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and he entered the house of the Lord. And this is going to be the first time that we see him do this, and he's going to do it again, but can I just tell you, that's how you handle it in a moment, in a moment where you've lapsed in faith. That's how you handle it in a moment when all of a sudden you're going, all the things that I've been doing aren't working. All of the other means of me trying to be delivered aren't working.

All of the other things in my life aren't working. What am I going to do now? Because now the pressures are greater than I can handle. Now the difficulty is greater than I can handle, and honestly, surrender kind of seems like the best way to go. Honestly, giving up seems like the best way to go. You know what you do then? You get into the house of the Lord.

And listen, I think that this is not only personally, but I think that this is congregationally, because you know what happens to us as people when difficult times hit? You know what we want to do? We want to separate ourselves. We want to get away from people. We want to not be around anyone for a while, because it's just going to be too hard. We want to get away from people. We want to get away from people.

It's hard to be around people. It's just going to be too, no one's really going to understand me. But the greatest thing that you can do in the most difficult of times is to get into God's house and get around God's people. Because I'm here to tell you right now, that fellowship is one of the greatest things that you can imagine in your life. To be surrounded by the people of God who love God and love you is one of the greatest things

you can do in the hardest times of life. Oh, but what if they see the ugly? Who cares? Who cares if people see the ugly? Quite frankly, I think sometimes we need to take the makeup off, and we need to strip ourselves of all of the pretense that we come in with, and we just need to let ourselves be a little bit ugly with each other. Because that's when we can really start

to minister to each other. Because that's when we can really start to love on each other. Did you notice how he entered the house of the Lord? First of all, he tore his clothes. Now, I don't know how you picture this, and I don't even know fully how I always picture this. When I was a kid, I always pictured him just being like, right? Sort of like that he, man, thing. Or like the Incredible Hulk. Like, dude, just ripping robes all the way open.

Probably there was a little something right here, and it was just a short little tear that they put in it. But the idea is that his grief was so great that he expressed it with the tearing of his clothes. But then he put sackcloth and ashes on himself, which is a means of humbling oneself. So do you know how he entered the house of the Lord? He entered the house of the Lord,

stripped of all of his pretense, and completely humble. And we do that not only with each other, but listen, we do that with the Lord. Because in your own personal life, sometimes you need to get into the house of the Lord. Sometimes you need to get into your own personal prayer closet, and you need to strip away the pretense. You need to strip away all the right words. You

need to strip away all the right things you're supposed to say, all the right attitudes that you're supposed to have, and you just need to get down and honest with God. Because he sees it all. He knows it all. He understands it all. And sometimes you just got to get real honest. And that's what he does here. He strips down all the pretense. He humbles himself before the Lord,

and he goes into the house of the Lord. And notice what it says in verse 2. Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household with Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet. Ah, that's who he needs to go talk to. To Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. And they said to him, thus says Hezekiah, this is a day of distress.

Rebuke and rejection. For children have come to birth, and there's no strength to deliver. Perhaps the Lord will hear all the words of that guy whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for the remnant that is left. So the servants of Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

Now, if you're taking any kind of notes in the margin of your Bible or something, you might write Isaiah chapter 7. And you're going to hear the words of Isaiah. And you're going to hear the words of Isaiah. It may even be through 37 and 38. It may even be through 39. But I know it's 37 and 38. Because this is an exact retelling of this story in Isaiah, from Isaiah's perspective.

And it's kind of an interesting comparison to how it's told. But they go to Isaiah. And I love the fact that he goes to Isaiah, not with all of the right words. He doesn't go to him and paint some flowery picture. Listen, life's great right now, but there's a couple of things that could be better. No, what does he tell him? This is the worst life. It could possibly be right now. This is a desperate situation. And I don't know what we're going to do.

He gets really honest with him. I love what Isaiah has to say. Verse 6. Thus you shall say to your master. Thus says the Lord, don't be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.

He says, don't worry about it. Don't be afraid. God's heard everything that he said. And there's two things he's going to do. Number one, he's going to hear a rumor that's going to want to make him run. Number two, he is going to be slain by the sword. Oh, that feels pretty good. All right. Life's going to be okay. Everything's going to be great, right? Problem solved. God's going to take care of it.

Well, come now to verse 8. Verse 8.

And when he heard them say concerning that guy, king of Cush, Behold, he has come out to fight against you. He sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, Thus you shall say to Hezekiah, king of Judah, Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, 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 the lands, destroying them completely. So you will be spared.

Did the gods of those nations which my fathers destroyed deliver them? Even Gozon and Haran and Rezeph, the sons of Eden who were in Tulasar? Where is the king of Hamath? Where is the king of Arpat? The king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Eva. Okay, so he hears a rumor, and he gets ready to move his army. But before he moves his army, he sends another threatening letter,

hoping to get Hezekiah to surrender. One last ditch effort, one last threat. And it was a very threatening letter that he sends him, and it absolutely terrifies Hezekiah. So I want you to notice what Hezekiah does again. Verse 14. Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and he read it. And he went up to the house of the Lord, and he spread it out before the Lord.

And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone. Of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and open your eyes. Or incline your ear in here and open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living king.

Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands, and they have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. Now, O Lord, our God, I pray, deliver us from this hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are God. I love what Hezekiah does.

He receives a threatening letter, a letter that says, we'll do business if we have to. And he reads the letter, and he reads the letter out loud. And what's he do with it? He takes it into the house of the Lord, and he spreads it out. He spreads it out before the Lord, and says, this is what he's saying. And then he prays. And what does he do when he prays?

Well, he reminds himself of who God is, that he is the God who is enthroned above the cherubim, the only one true God. But he reminds himself in God of the gravity of the situation. I love this because it's not some positive confession garbage. He's like, dude's right, man. Like, they have absolutely wiped out every nation that they've come against. And you need to understand, when the Assyrians wiped people,

people out, it was not a pleasant experience. Like, sometimes we read this, and we sanitize it with our Western culture. And we sanitize it because it's just black and white words written on a page. And we forget that this was a real life that they lived, and this was a real threat that they faced. And these were very cruel people. There was a reason why Jonah did not want to go to the people of Assyria,

which is Nineveh, by the way. There's a reason why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh and preach the gospel to them. It's because they were in incredibly cruel people, who when they wiped you out, they wiped you out. And we talked about it last week. They led you captive by putting hooks in your jaw. This was a difficult situation that he was facing, and he presented the absolute truth of the difficulty of it to God.

He said, he's right. They have destroyed the nations, and they have thrown their gods in the fire. But he also reminds himself of a reality. But those gods are gods of wood, and they're gods of stone. You Lord, show yourself to be the one true living God. I have a question for you. What do you need to go spread out before the Lord? What do you need to take before God and just lay it before him and say,

this is the gravity of the situation? I know what it is for me this week. It's probably the same thing it is for a lot of you this week, where you just have to take it before the Lord and say, I don't know what I'm going to do with this one. This is a serious situation I'm dealing with here right now. This is reality. But Lord, you're still God. Lord, you're still the one true living God.

And in this, I need you to prove that you are the true living God. What is it for you? What do you need to take to the throne room of God and lay before him and say, here's the reality. Be God in this situation, because he is longing to prove himself to be God. Because I want you to notice his response to Hezekiah. Verse 20, it says, Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says

the Lord God of Israel, because you have prayed to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you. Listen, I got all kinds of highlighting going on in here right now. Because there's some great lines in here. But if you don't want to highlight anything else in your entire Bible, highlight that. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, because you have prayed to me, I have heard you.

I don't know who needs to know that here tonight, but maybe somebody like me needed to be reminded today that when you pray to God, he hears you. That when you take those things to God, he hears it. And he doesn't just hear the words that you say. He hears the heart behind the words that you say. He doesn't just hear the words you say. He hears the words you can't say.

He doesn't just hear the words you say. He hears the emotion behind the words that you say. Because he really truly hears you. I don't know who needs to hear that besides me tonight, but I needed to hear it this afternoon. He said, because you've done this, I heard you. God has a great message for him. He says, and this is what the Lord has spoken against him.

He's spoken against the plante in God that would say, you know what? I see that God is dear to me. I see what you see without you, even if I were waiting for something to happen. But he's born into me with this life. But if he suddenly knows from his heart or out, I don't understand what he wants. But he will say, I know my Lord and how someone thinks. I know one thing about God.

He did what he said he was going to do. He didn't want to argue. He didn't want to serve God. And you have said, with my many chariots, I came up to the heights of the mountains, to the remotest parts of Lebanon, and I cut down, emphasis on my part here, and I cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypresses, and I entered its farthest lodging place, its thickest forest.

I dug wells and drank foreign waters, and with the sole of my feet, I dried up all the rivers of Egypt. Have you not heard? Long ago, I did it. Look, from ancient times, I planned it, and now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore, their inhabitants were short of strength. They were dismayed and put to shame.

They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops is scorched before it's grown up. But I know you're sitting down, and I know you're going out, and you're coming. And I know you're coming in, and you're raging against me. And because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up to my ears, therefore, I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way in which you came.

Man, I just love it. Listen, when God unleashes, it's always with such intensity, right? He's like, who are you talking to now? It's the most high. You're trying to say that you did all of this, you're trying to say that you're the one that has all of this victory. No, no, you didn't have anything to do with it. I had everything to do with it. You know why you were able to take them over?

Because I made them weak. You know why you were able to cross those rivers? Because I dried them up. You know why you were able to have that victory? Because I gave it to you. And now, I'm going to make you pay the piper. Because now, I'm going to put a hook in your nose. And I'm going to drag you where you don't want to go. Listen, if there was ever a moment for one's knees

to knock together and for one's bowels to become loose, it would become at that moment right there when God says things like that. And then he gives them a sign. It's not just a message. I could just picture Hezekiah going, right? Because he just knows, oh man, God's angry now. Everything's going downhill for those guys. It says in this, verse 29, shall be the sign for you.

You will eat this year what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, and plow. Plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Remember, they'd been under siege, which meant they weren't able to really plant crops as usual. They'd been stuck inside of the city of Jerusalem. He says, you're going to be taken care of for the next two years.

But in the third year, you're going to be able to plant and grow your own food. And then the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem will go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the Lord will perform this. Therefore, thus says the Lord, concerning the king of Assyria,

he will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there. He will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came, by the same way he will return, and he shall not come to this city, declares the Lord. And I love verse 34. For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake. Isn't that great?

God says he's going to defend it. God says he's going to defend these people. And all because Hezekiah prayed. Because when he prayed, God heard it. When God heard it, God answered. Because that's what he does. God answers in these times of difficulty. And he answers powerfully. Well, there was a final victory that took place here. It says, Then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord

went out and struck 185. 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. What a powerful verse. One angel of the Lord took out 185,000 of the enemy. My understanding from what I've read in other sources is that it was an army of around 200,000.

And that's a pretty intense. Number one angel of the Lord. Do you remember when Jesus was about to be taken prisoner and and in order to go and be crucified and Peter gets the sword out, he's trying to knock heads off and a steady knocks an ear off. And he says, Listen, chill out. At any point in time, I could call down a legion of angels to defend me. Well, if one angel can take out 185,000,

imagine the power. 185,000. That's the power behind Jesus in that moment. So if you don't think Jesus was in charge, you really don't know very much about Jesus. He says, I could call out legions of angels and take care of this situation. This one angel wipes out the entire. Or can you imagine waking up and 185,000 of your closest friends all just got wiped out?

And you're like, well, probably time to go home now. Only shoot, he escaped. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was not part of that. He goes back home. But I thought he was supposed to die by the sword. One more verse. It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his God, that Adrammelech and Sherezer, I don't know if that's how you say those or not,

they killed him with the sword and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon, his son, became king in his place. Bear in mind, this was 20 years after the story of chapters 18 and 19. Listen, when God makes a promise, he keeps it. Sometimes he keeps the really good promises. Sometimes he keeps the really bad promises. But he always keeps his promises.

And that story is why Hezekiah was known as a man who trusted in the Lord with all of his heart, and he clung to him unlike anyone before. Because he went through a hard time where his faith was tested unlike anything any of us can imagine. Because the trials that we go through produce perseverance. And perseverance produces faith. Amen? Father, thank you so much

for the example of your word. I thank you that whether we intend for it to or not, it always speaks to us in the place where we are right now. And so, Lord, I pray that you would continue to do your work in our hearts and lives. Father, that we would know and understand the great faith, faith that you are producing in us as pure as gold through the trials that we go through.

Father, we thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. Be blessed.