A Rally to Prayer (Part C)

Yahweh is sovereign, and God sent the Jews against the Canaanites as His instrument of judgment. Likewise, God sent the Assyrians, the wicked Assyrians against the wicked people of other kingdoms as well as the northern kingdom to be an instrument of judgment. Isaiah chapter 10, woe to Syria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation.

And so Isaiah is saying, yeah, God used the Assyrians as an instrument of judgment, but Assyria is going to get judged too. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2nd Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick with his study called, A Rally to Prayer, in 2nd Kings chapter 19. In verse 11, look, Rapsheka still speaking, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them, and shall you be delivered? He said, are you kidding me?

Look at the facts and the stats. Everywhere we have gone, they have fallen. What makes you, what gives you the audacity to suppose that somehow your prayers are going to be answered? They were praying too. Hezekiah will acknowledge the fact that they have been conquering all the places that they have invaded in his appeal to God. And in that appeal, he appeals to God to make new facts, and God is going to do that. So this propaganda is your God is no better than anybody else's God, although the Assyrian God is superior. We hear that today. People tell us, what makes you think Christianity is so good? How come the other people say, I don't know, it's almost boring to hear them say it. But we have to, hopefully, if the Spirit leads, we can help them with that if they let us. But some people, they're, you know, they're just adamant.

There's nothing you can say. The ground could, you could part the Red Sea, and they still will say, well, it's just a scientific thing. Mars must have been lined up with Saturn or something. Verse 12, he says, have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed? And if you feel like you want to recite those nations, go ahead. Verse 13, where is the king of Hamath?

And he names the other nations. These were Syrian. These are, Rapsakah is Assyrian. Syria is a separate kingdom at this time. Modern day Iraq is ancient Assyria.

Nineveh is modern Mosul by the Tigris River. Anyway, their gods were impotent against our God is the meaning, and he insisted that prayer does not work no matter the religion, and that is the voice of the devil. Verse 14, and Hezekiah received a letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh and spread it before Yahweh.

And Hezekiah prayed, verse 15, before Yahweh and said, O Yahweh God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim, you are God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. Verse 16, incline your ear, O Yahweh, to hear, open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see, and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. And so he takes, they read the letter to him, they give it to him. He takes that letter, and he takes it to God, and he says, here it is in writing.

This is what they said about you and your people, this is what they're doing. And the king, his heart was always in the Lord's house. As in verse 1, initially he goes right to the Lord's house, and there he's inspired, you know, got to get Isaiah involved in this, and he sends to Isaiah.

Something the other kings, not all of them, but most of them, refused to do, all of them in the north, they just didn't want to hear the men of God. He talks about the mercy seat, he talks about the fact that we have a monotheistic triune God, as we, the Trinity, you know, the Godhead, which distinguishes us from all the religions of the world. And the Jews were in habit of pointing out that Yahweh is the creator. Of everything you see, there's only him, and he makes it clear, there's no other gods, there's all, you know, bogus, can't help but love Hezekiah. At the time of crisis, man, he's just leaning on his faith, and he does nothing else to win except pray.

Well, he did fortify the city, but they never, you know, they never needed it. In fact, the Assyrians don't even get to put a siege mound against it, which is interesting because that tells us that their army was intending to do it, but was wiped out before it happened. Verse 17, truly Yahweh, the kings of Assyria, have laid waste the nations and their lands.

And he's acknowledging, yep, the facts. Verse 18, because he's going to talk about other facts, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone, therefore they destroyed them. Verse 19, now therefore, oh Yahweh, our God, I pray, save us from the hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, God, you alone.

So you know, again, he's a humble man, he's not saying, you have to save us, we're your people. I demand to be, you know, is very, very careful how he phrases his words and presents his case to God. I think God wants us to articulate things. There are times, of course, when we're in heavy, you know, there's no words, there are groans and grunts, even tongues. But I think most of the time, God wants us to say, to learn how to talk to him. And I've found when you, when you do this, you got, you know, you want to say something to God and you feel the Lord said, now you know that's not right, so you don't even say it.

You say something better, something true. Anyway, there's no denying the overthrow of the false gods, there's no denying that the vanquished northern kingdom, who would not heed the prophets, have perished. This made Hezekiah distinct among the kings. Verse 20, then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, thus says Yahweh, God of Israel, because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard you. Isaiah is always bringing good news, is he not? How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news. You know, Isaiah said a righteous man stops his ears for bad news, I don't want to hear anymore. I can't fix it, stop pouring this out on me, it's dragging me down.

I like good news, I love good news, it's just hard to get sometimes. Well because you have prayed to me, he says in verse 20, against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard you. What if he didn't pray to him?

Well we have no doubt what would have happened, we just look at the northern kingdom, that's what would have happened. But God had a man on the throne that was righteous, verse 21, may that be said about our homes, that God has a man, and I don't mean male necessarily, but God has His people there who will call upon Him. Verse 21, this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning Him, the virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, left you to scorn, and the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back. So Isaiah said, this is what God says, that she's thumbing her nose at you. Jerusalem is mocking you, that's the idea, the prophecy is in metaphor. And he says, this vulnerable little maiden, whom you've come to abuse, she's gonna laugh in your face, and he declares that the chosen people are laughing at the blasphemous invader, this is the faith they have, this is, you know, this is just Isaiah the prophet on the authority of God, saying we're not gonna put up with this. So she mocks you because her God is stronger than your little fake gods, and Isaiah wanted to assure the kingdom that the Lord was with them, well, John the apostle did the same thing when the church was being invaded by Gnosticism, you know, the really smart guys that were really deep thinkers and had really deep secret spiritual connections, they're still around, they just learned to be more sophisticated.

That was the Gnostics, and they crept into the church, and they did a lot of damage, and it's the fault of the people who listened to them over the apostles. Well John says, these things I have written to you that you may believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. You're trying to encourage him, he says, I want you to be sure of your salvation, stop it with this, am I sure, there's better stuff out there. Anything that messes with blessed assurance is not from God. God wants his people to know he loves them, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, Jesus said. I mean the thief on the cross, Christ didn't say, you know what, let's just talk about your messed up life, and your ugly face, and you know, she doesn't do anything like that.

And yet we've got all these deep thinkers that come along and complicate the whole thing. I would love to tell somebody that you could be in paradise with the Lord, today, you know, if they're on their deathbed, and some of you have these experiences, you've led people to Christ, or you know of stories of people leading people to Christ on their deathbeds. A deathbed confession is just as valuable to the one saved as the one who was just born in the house of righteousness and all their life knows the King, is salvation. So, my point, Isaiah wanted to assure the people to build them up, and we should want to do the same thing. But we can't do it by lying and telling people false things, you know, well yeah, you know, you can be a Mormon and still, you know, no you can't, and if there's anybody in heaven that was a Mormon, it's because the Lord knew a way around it, not us. He will not undo his word, but he's got moves that we, that are just beyond us. Abraham, you know, shall not the God of the universe do right?

It just, it's just so simple, so simple. God is always going to do right, and when you can't figure it out, he has. But we are responsible to adhering to the scripture, and that's how it goes. Verse 22, whom you have reproached and blasphemed, against whom you have raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high, against the Holy One of Israel.

Well, Assyria would have scoffed at this until it was too late, and the angel wiped out their troops. God is trying to give all who are listening a theological education, that they will not perish if they trust the Lord. But this phrase, the Holy One of Israel, this is peculiar to Isaiah.

Hezekiah is using it. That means, again, he's been listening to the prophet, he's come under his pastorate. Even though he is king, when it comes to spiritual matters, as men go, Isaiah is king. And you see it coming out of his life, and here's an example of the use of this phrase, the Holy One of Israel.

Second Kings, it's found once, right here. In the Psalms, it's found three times. Jeremiah uses it twice, Isaiah uses it 25 times.

This is his, you know, he's just known to say this. And Hezekiah is using it in his prayer with God, and I think it's just a beautiful thing. So here he is, this is the word of the Lord, which is spoken concerning the virgin daughter.

Hezekiah is listening to this, taking it all in. Verse 23, by your messengers you have reproached Yahweh and said, by the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the limits of Lebanon, I will cut down as tall cedars as choice cypress trees, I will enter the extremity of its borders to its fruitful forests. And so this was the plan of invasion, to strip the land of whatever resources they needed to feed their army, to build their war machines. Verse 24, I have dug and drunk strange water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all their brooks of defense. And so here in this discourse, what we're hearing is the boast of the Assyrian army, they are being personified in their monologue to expose their heart. Verse 25, did you not hear long ago how I made it from ancient times that I formed it? Now I have brought it to pass that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps and ruins.

And so the dialogue moves back and forth, you've got to kind of follow it by the context and just pay attention to it. Verse 26, therefore their inhabitants had little power, they were dismayed and confounded, they were as the grass of the field and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and the grain blighted before it is grown. So he's getting a little wordy here if you ask me, but Yahweh is sovereign and God sent the Jews against the Canaanites as his instrument of judgment. Likewise God sent the Assyrians, the wicked Assyrians against the wicked people of other kingdoms as well as the northern kingdom to be an instrument of judgment, Isaiah chapter 10. Woe to Syria, the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. And so Isaiah is saying, yeah, God used the Assyrians as an instrument of judgment, but Assyria is going to get judged too because they were still wicked. Same thing will happen with Babylon. God is sovereign for his purposes, but not against Judah, they're not going to be an instrument of judgment against Judah. The reference to the housetops being green, the foliage on the housetops is because they were organically constructed.

They put wooden beams up and then they pile up brushwood and mud and as you know the wind blew and the seeds landed up there on the mud and everything, you would get grass growing. Not nice lawn grass or anything like that, but that's what he's, in case you were wondering, verse 27, but I know your dwelling place, you're going out and you're coming in and you're rage against me. So God says I see it and I'm holding you accountable. Incidentally, if God judges every idle word, what does he do with every anointed prayer?

I like that thought. God says to those who are not saved, look, you know, little idle things, little remarks, you know, Jesus Christ, you know, those little things you think are little cheap shots, I'm remembering them. Well, what about when the righteous make prayers, whether they're granted or not? I think the Lord remembers them too. We see that in Revelation where we have the incense that contains the prayers of the saints.

I find comfort in that. It means God is on the ball. He is there and we have to learn that that is good enough. If Jesus says I will never leave you or forsake you, and he does say that, that does not mean he is obligated to dodge in front of every bullet or frying pan thrown at us. And you say, well, then what's the comfort of him being there?

Well, you've got God's presence with you because you belong to him and you have an eternal future that is unmatched and your knowledge of his presence there is an indication that you are saved. More information against hell's propaganda. Verse 19, listen to the language here, because you rage against me and your tumult have 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 which you came. Well now that's how you treat an enemy. God says that he will steer him as he steers a beast and the Assyrians did this to people they conquered.

They would, you know, put hooks in their jaws and lead them on. Second Chronicles 32, then Yahweh sent an angel to cut down every mighty man of valor, leader and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria, so he returned shamefaced to his own land. So it's not going to be this glorious retreat. But your rage, your tumult, my ears, my hook, your nose, my bridle, your lips, God is on the ball here. Verse 29, I don't know how it feels out there for you listening to me read all this.

I enjoy it, except the names, but I hope you're listening, especially you young'uns and not you know thinking about what you're going to eat when you get home. Sharpen the mind, let it work a little bit, don't let it get weary without protest. Verse 29, this shall be a sign to you, you shall eat this year such as grows of itself and in the second year what springs from the same, also in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them and the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward for out of verse 31 Jerusalem shall go a remnant and those who escaped from Mount Zion, the zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this. And so there's the promise that there's going to be an abrupt change, a return to normalcy, but it will be gradual and by the third year they would recover and the population would again thrive, verse 32 and well if you're living there, imagine if you were in London in the 1940s being bombed by the Nazis and some prophet comes along and says don't worry five years from now we will be back to where we were, if you believe that prophet you would be encouraged.

So this is what is happening, imagine if a prophet came and said listen don't worry by the next general election we'll be rid of these people, we'd be encouraged, hopefully that's prophetic. Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria he shall not come into this city nor shoot an arrow there nor come before it with shield nor build a siege mound against it. Oh you've got to be saying to this, boy this is a lot, you sure I say, you sure God's going to do all this? He's not even going to put a siege mound against us which was routine, verse 33, by the way that he came? By the same way he shall return and he shall not come into this city says Yahweh.

What would you have done if this happened and you didn't believe it and then it happened? You'd have to reevaluate your faith for sure, these are promises to reinforce the people, again that they didn't build the siege mounds in the case their army was destroyed before they could get it done. That would have been very shocking because again that was standard, you want to conquer a city, put a siege around it so nobody can get in or out and they'll starve to death or they'll surrender. Verse 34, for I will defend this city save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake. Well the Masiatic line and the covenant and its promises would not be stopped by any human force. Verse 35, and it came to pass on a certain night that an angel of Yahweh went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000 and when people arose early in the morning there they were, corpses all dead. Well when they found it they didn't know how many, they just knew it was an army of dead men.

This record would be settled later, they'd find out the Assyrians would like to try to cover the story up but it would leak out. There are times that the angel of Yahweh when that phrase comes to us in scripture is of course Yahweh in human form, Yahweh himself for instance when he shows up in the book of Judges a few times or when he shows up to Abraham. At other times the angel appears distinct from Yahweh, it is not him. We get that in Exodus when the Lord said I will send my angel with you and Moses says oh objection, if you don't go the angel's not good enough. So you got again the context will answer it for you, it will make it very clear and we understand context even apart from scripture.

So here Yahweh appears an angelic, well sins an angelic being to do his work. This reminds us of the lepers in Samaria when they came into the camp and the armies fled but also Exodus 14.30 when the pharaoh's army was wiped out so Yahweh saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Oh man, what a sight, part of it is horrific, the other part is man that would have been us if they had caught us, they'd see us dead, verse 36.

So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went away, returned home and remained at Nineveh, an understatement, so he returned shamefaced to his own land as the chronicles tells us, Nineveh again on the east bank of the Tigris River, modern Iraq, the city of Mosul. Verse 37, now it came to pass as he was worshiping in the temple in Nishrock, his god, in the temple of Nishrock, his god, that his sons, and you can struggle with their names, struck him down with the sword and they escaped to the land of Ararat, then that guy, his son reigned in his place. So the 20 year gap, when it says, and it came to pass, and that's what the Bible does, throws those little shots in there, you know, it came to pass, that's 20 years, sometimes there's even more.

The irony, men go to the temples for sanctuary, and he went to the temple, you know, to be safe with his god and his own children killing me, yeesh sin, well let's pray. Our father, may we never separate your presence from the facts of history, whether it is in scripture or in eternity, we Christians know that no matter how good or bad you are at something in this life, in the end it will come down to that relationship with Jesus Christ. And may we never be weakened because we are strengthened by these truths, they are glorious. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 2 Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the book of 2 Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross Reference Radio.