Hezekiah and the Assyrians

Isaiah 37:21-29

Message from Assyria

Go ahead and look down at v4 Isaiah 36:4-17

So we see this messenger from Assyria come out and give this message to the Israelites

(Think of this guy from Lord of the Rings)

And he’s trying to get them to fear Assyria. He says we’re going to invade you and there’s nothing you can do about it

Israel’s military might doesn’t stack up against Assyria’s

Even if they were to combine forces with their ally (Egypt), they still aren’t strong enough

And if you are planning on relying on your God, He won’t save you because he’s given you into our hands

Is everything he said true? A lot of it was

When he starts talking about the Lord, that’s when he starts wading in some untruth

But the stuff he was saying about Israel and Egypt were certainly true

If Assyria invades, and Israel is only relying on her strength and the strength of her allies, she will certainly lose

This is exactly what Satan does to us - He lies to us with twisted truths.

One of the reasons why his temptations work a lot of the time is because they’re technically true

You sin, and you will sin for the rest of your life

You will lose out on some of the “fun” of the world if you keep being a Christian

And what he will do is he’ll lock onto these truths to twist them and make them worse than they actually are so that you will despair

You will sin - you are a sinner

You lose out on the desires of the flesh - God cannot satisfy you like the world can

Be very careful of any thought that enters your mind that causes you to despair. Despair is not of God

And by despair I mean lose hope

Don’t lose hope, that’s not of God

But if you surrender, you’ll have peace, prosperity, and comfortability

Satan wants to lure you out from behind the walls

But here’s a reminder: you don’t have to leave

Heresy

Go ahead and look down at v18 Isaiah 36:18-22

Here we see the blasphemy that’s uttered against our God

Notice the shift that happens from the previous verses to these verses here

We go from “The Lord will not rescue you” to “The Lord cannot rescue you,” and there’s a big difference

The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, will sometimes choose to do something that we don’t agree with, or not do something when we think He should

But the one thing we take absolute confidence in is that there is absolutely nothing the Lord cannot do - and there is no being, whether natural or supernatural - that can defeat him

And the question that’s posed to us in ch 36 is this: who are you relying on?

Israel relied on her own power. Israel relied on her allies, and the Assyrians are right for calling her foolish

And it’s easy for me to stand up here and say: Don’t rely on anything other than God! But you know why I think we rely on so many things that aren’t God?

Why do we go to our phones to relieve stress? Why do we go to people for advice? Why do we go to substances and addictions to calm our nervous systems? Why do we do everything in our own power to fix our own problems?

It’s because those things yield tangible results

If I’m feeling stressed, I could go to the Lord in prayer, but the last time I did that I didn’t feel anything

On the other hand, I can doomscroll on my phone and I know I’m at least going to feel something

Listen—when we tell ourselves this, we’re believing the lie of the enemy that God cannot save us

I would lay at your feet this suggestion: that maybe a quick and easy and reliable tangible experience is actually not what’s going to heal your soul

You know what’s going to heal your soul? Glorifying God

Hezekiah, Isaiah, and God’s response

Go ahead and look down at ch 37 Isaiah 37:1-7

Here we meet the king of Judah at the time, King Hezekiah, and he’s definitely one of the good kings

When he hears what the Assyrians have to say, he mourns, he prays, and then he calls others to pray

He sends for Isaiah and basically says: Pray that the Lord doesn’t put up with this blasphemy

And Isaiah reassures him that the Lord won’t put up with the blasphemy of Assyria, and He will respond

One thing I’d very quickly like to point out is that God is patient. He will put up with a lot of sin and a lot of nonsense

But there comes a time where He will respond in judgement

And I think one of the things we see from Hezekiah is that it is good for us to pray that the Lord glorify himself, and that He would respond in power to any blasphemy that’s levied His way

And we see this judgement start to take place with Isaiah’s prophesy:

The king will return home, and there he will die

But Israel is still in danger

And we see in verses 8-13 that the Assyrian messenger is, once again, levying blasphemous words towards the Lord and Israel

Hezekiah’s Intercession

So then we see Hezekiah’s intercession in more detail. Go ahead and look down at v8 Isaiah 37:14-21

So we see the Assyrian king hurl more words of blasphemy towards the Lord in the form of a letter

And when Hezekiah receives it, he goes to the temple, lays it out on the ground, and prays fervently to the Lord that He respond so that He might glorify himself

And what is the response of the Lord from the mouth of Isaiah? Because you prayed, I will do it

It is because of Hezekiah’s fervent prayer that the Lord responds, and our passage from today is the Lord’s response

And this raises a question, why didn’t the Lord just do it? It’s His own honor after all

The Zeal of the Lord

Go ahead and look down at v32 Isaiah 37:32-38

I love how the king of Assyria yaps for nearly a whole chapter about how much greater he is than Israel, and the Lord just dismantles him in the span of 3 verses

But I want to focus on v32. I love how the ESV puts it: “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this”

The reason why the Lord did not choose to move for the sake of His honor until Hezekiah prayed is because it is good for us to share in the zeal of the Lord of hosts

Have you ever shared a song with someone and they were bored? Showed someone your favorite movie and they’re on their phone for the best part?

Why does that bother you? Because we want for the ones whom we love to share in the things we’re passionate about

That’s one of the reasons why I think we love playing team sports so much, because there’s something about being with a group of people that are all zealous for the same thing

That is why the Lord waits to move until Hezekiah prays, because it is good for Hezekiah to get on his knees and pray that with fervor and zeal that the Lord glorify His name and bring shame upon His enemies

And we, like Hezekiah, must also learn to get on our knees and fervently ask that the Lord show His glory to our friends and family, to the Rogue Valley, to the US, to the world

God is a passionate and zealous God, and we miss out on something crucial when we don’t join in with His zeal

Remember how I said that the glory of the Lord is going to heal your soul more than tangible experiences ever could? This is what I mean

You might receive the temporary stress relief from TikTok, you might receive feelings of fulfillment through success in this life

But if you never pray and seek the glory of the Lord, you will never feel the fire of the zeal of the Lord

Praying fervently, believing that the Lord can and will move is a godly burden we have been called to bear, and the fire of the Lord is better than any temporary thing you can receive in this life

So pray

The persecuted church

Your friends and family

This church and the youth group

That lies and sin be dismantled in our nation and world

That His kingdom come and His will be done