The Bible Binge: Distress Signals (Isaiah 37:14-20)

Distress Signals

Earlier this year, a cargo ship hit a Baltimore bridge in the middle of the night and the bridge collapsed. Unfortunately, six people who were part of a construction crew working on the bridge lost their lives. However, in the days that followed, it became apparent that the death toll could have been much higher. The cargo ship lost power. And when it became evident that the ship was going to hit the bridge, the pilots sent out a distress signal and immediately requested that traffic on the bridge be stopped. That distress signal saved countless lives that night.

Today we continue our Bible Binge in the book of Isaiah, one of the longest books in our Bible. And we’re considering the story of King Hezekiah, who shows up in the middle of the book of Isaiah, and in the text we’re looking at Hezekiah is sending up a distress signal.

There is no mistaking that the nation of Israel is in distress. The book of Isaiah contains the prophecies of Isaiah, or better thought of as the sermons of Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet to the king, a spokesperson for the true King of Israel, God himself.

And the message being preached by Isaiah is that judgment is coming. Isaiah lays it out in the first 39 chapters of this book. Israel has been living in unbelief and disobedience for decades. Centuries, even. And time has run out on God’s patience. Harm is coming. There’s going to be chaos. This time around, God’s not going to stop it. In fact, Assyria and eventually Babylon are going to be His instruments of judgment on his people. And over the course of the book, Assyria destroys Samaria and lays waste to the 10 northern tribes of Israel. And they march all the way up to Jerusalem, lay siege to the city.

Assyria’s threats

By the time we get to chapter 37, our text today, Assyria is knocking on the door of Jerusalem… their military has set up camp just a few miles to the north. They are basically in Jerusalem’s back yard. The king at the time is King Hezekiah. And King Hezekiah was one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel. In many ways, King Hezekiah was the second coming of King David. Many had hopes and dreams that maybe Hezekiah might be the expected Messiah. Hezekiah brought true worship back to the temple. He reinstituted the feast of Passover, remembering the night God rescued Israel from Egypt hundreds of years before.

And now Hezekiah fears for the life of the nation. Sennacherib, the King and military leader of the Assyrians, has been threatening to do to Jerusalem what he has done to all of the other nations, including the 10 northern tribes of Israel. He has laid them to waste. He has destroyed them all. And not only is he threatening Jerusalem, he has been mocking the God of Israel. His last communique was along the lines of:

“Don’t listen to Hezekiah when he tells you God is going to save you. After all, all the other gods of all the other nations didn’t save them. Your God, Hezekiah, is a nobody.”

It’s funny. That sounds an awful lot like the giant Goliath talking to David and mocking David’s God. This is deja vu all over again. And it really does seem like Jerusalem is doomed. Sennacherib isn’t completely wrong.. those other nations’ gods didn’t save them. Assyria is the world power, and they are ready to crush King Hezekiah and Jerusalem. Hezekiah senses this. He sends word to Isaiah, God’s spokesman. Hezekiah wants God to step in. and he says:

Isaiah 37:3 “They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace. It is as if children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.”

They have their backs against the wall, and at any moment, Sennacherib and his army are going to be charging through the gates and over the walls and Jerusalem will be toast. Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace. Hezekiah has no where to turn but to God, so he asks Isaiah to pray for a miracle. But there’s more to it...

“Are you listening to this?”

Hezekiah also does this. In asking Isaiah to pray, he basically says, Is God listening to this? Does God hear Sennacherib mocking him? Are you going to just let this go? You hear what he’s saying about you? Hezekiah is sending up a distress signal to God himself. We’re goners. And oh, by the way, he’s mocking You.

Have you ever resorted to the “you should hear how they’re talking about you” line of motivation? That’s Hezekiah. He is desperate. Are you listening to all of this? Are you going to defend yourself?

Isaiah tells Hezekiah, yes, God’s going to take care of this. But before God does anything, it’s funny how all this plays out. No sooner does Hezekiah get word that God is going to save Israel, he gets another memo from Sennacherib. And it’s all the same stuff. We’re coming to destroy you, and your God is nothing. He can’t save you.

This is twice that Sennacherib has sent a mocking letter to Hezekiah. And we don’t know how much time lapse between all of this back and forth between the two kings and Hezekiah and Isaiah… but this last bit sends Hezekiah over the top. It’s almost like “Oh, c’mon, already. God, where are you?”

What follows is a prayer for the ages. We read this moments ago.

Isaiah 37:14 “Hezekiah took Sennacherib’s letter from the Assyrian messengers’ hands, read it, then went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.”

No more going to Isaiah. No more waiting around. He goes straight to the temple and straight to God himself. You can sense the desperation. This is a prayer with the bad guy banging on the door, ready to kick the door in and come after you. And Hezekiah, with the letter still in his hand, takes it to the temple and “spreads it out before the Lord”.

This is as real as it gets. We’re used to thinking of God high in the heavens and sitting on his throne of glory, almost as if he is too detached and too holy to bother. After all, God is already omniscient. He knows it all. Of course he knows about Assyria. He’s the one who sent them in the first place… if we’ve been reading Isaiah up to this point. He knows what the letter says. But here’s Hezekiah, as if God is a real person, who hears, who speaks, who cares.. and he’s saying “look at this letter. I need help here.”

We know Hezekiah knows God is not detached by the very first words of his prayer.

Isaiah 37:16 “Lord of Armies, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you are God—you alone—of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.”

Two things to see here: first… Lord of Armies. This is the second person of the Godhead, Israel’s ruler and warrior who has fought for Israel through her history… the King in charge of heaven’s military. But not just the Lord of Armies.. “enthroned between the cherubim.” This is a reference to the ark of the covenant in the inner Sanctum of the temple, the holy of holies. That ark was God’s throne on earth, the true King of Israel. So Hezekiah has this letter, and he is making his appeal facing THAT throne. He can’t go into the Holy of Holies… only the High priest could, but you can be sure that Hezekiah is in the court of the temple facing the big curtain between himself and that ark-throne… with that letter.

And he reminds God, acknowledges God as the One true king.. not just of Israel, but the whole earth. He’s bigger than Hezekiah and he’s bigger than Sennacherib. After all, he created the whole world.

But Hezekiah is also very real with God in his appeal:

Isaiah 37:17–18 “Listen closely, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see. Hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

Listen. And hear. Open your eyes, and see. Again… he’s holding that letter. It’s not listen to me, or look at me. No, this is Hezekiah again saying.. do you hear what he’s saying? Listen and hear. Hear all the words of Sennacherib. He’s mocking you. And then, Hezekiah utters the words, what he’s really after. He wants God to defend himself, but in defending himself.. save Israel:

Isaiah 37:20 “Save us from Sennacherib’s power so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are God—you alone.”

Save us. Save us. Still holding that letter. Save us. This is as real as it gets. This is desperate. This is laying all the cards on the table in front of the Only One who can do anything about the distress Jerusalem is in. Does God already know? Of course he does. But God is a God of relationship. This is how he wants his people to engage with him. This is the kind of confidence and faith that he not only desires, but gives us.

Because you prayed

So what does God do? I think the next verse is one of the most amazing verses I’ve seen in the Old Testament.

Isaiah 37:21 “Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Because you prayed to me about King Sennacherib of Assyria… he will not enter this city. I will rescue Jerusalem.”

Do you see what God says there? “Because you prayed to me about King Sennacherib...” Because you prayed. Prayer changes things. You’ve probably seen the “prayer changes things” put in frames for decorations. But there’s also another popular phrase for some that attempts to suggest that because God is in control and controls all things and has decreed everything from the beginning, that “prayer doesn’t change things. Instead, prayer changes you.” This verse flat out says, “because you prayed”, this is what I’m going to do. We don’t have to figure out how this is compatible with God’s sovereignty over all things. Both are true at the same time.

What we are supposed to see is that God wants to hear from us. He wants to hear. He wants us to show him what we need saving from. He wants to hear about the threats to your faith. He wants to hear the desperation and hear the faith made verbal.

Enter the “Angel of the Lord” (Again)

You want to know what the Lord of Armies did because Hezekiah prayed?

Isaiah 37:36 “Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!”

There’s that angel of the Lord again. The second person of the Godhead fighting on behalf of His people. Single-handedly wiping out the enemy army. 185-thousand troops. Sennacherib had no army. He had to go home. There’s no more threat. God again saves Israel.

And once again, we have the Lord of Armies, who is the Angel of the Lord, the second person of the Godhead, stepping into history in real time and real space to preserve the Messianic line. Because that’s really what’s at stake here. Salvation history is at stake. God’s promise to save us from sin is at stake. Any time you have someone threatening to wipe out Israel in the Old Testament, you have a threat from the serpent to wipe out the family line of the Messiah. And those threats are consistently met with God himself intervening to save his people and to save His Promise of a Son, a King, a Champion, who would deal with the devil once and for all.

A church in need of saving

Jesus does just that. He deals with sin, death, and the devil at the cross. But that doesn’t mean that the devil is going to go down quietly. In the New Testament, the very first recorded prayer of the early church is found in Acts 4. And when their backs were against the wall and they were being threatened with extinction by the same Jewish leaders who put Jesus to death, they pray Hezekiah’s prayer. And this is what they say:

Acts 4:29 “And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness,”

It’s the same language as Hezekiah’s prayer. They see Hezekiah’s situation as their own. Only they are praying, not to have the enemy wiped out, but they want boldness to speak the Gospel. To talk about Jesus. Boldness to talk about their Savior, the Lord of Armies, the angel of the Lord who has become a human and died and rose and lives and provides life and forgiveness. the same One who saved Hezekiah and Jerusalem from being wiped out.

What the early church sees in the story of Hezekiah, is what we need to see. This is a picture of our salvation. This is Who Jesus is for us. And what He does for us in our salvation. Whatever evil or threat to your soul you are facing, you have One who is stronger than the Devil. You have the King of the Universe who wants to hear from you. Who wants to hear your cry for help. Who wants to hear and see your distress signal. Who has saved you. Who will save you. He promises to be with you, to rescue you from anything that would harm your soul. He promises to be your life, your peace, your rest, your Savior.

Let’s Pray

The Table

This Table is Jesus fighting for us. Saving us from sin, death, and the devil. Again. Whatever threats there are against our souls end here. Jesus’ body, given for you. Jesus’ blood, shed for you. So we bring our sin, we bring our fears and we lay them out before the Lord right here and He delivers on His promise to forgive, to save, to give us His life. Again.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26 May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.