Turn on God and I'll make you comfortable somewhere else.
He just told him you can have your own vine, your own cisterns, but he doesn't really mean it. It's just like Satan. Just bow down to me, I'll give you the kingdoms of the world until you die. I can't take you any further than that. If we find ourselves leaning towards cowardice, run towards Christ.
That's the antidote. Proverbs 18 10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run into and they are safe. 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 Isaiah. 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.
Now here's Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 36 with this edition of Cross Reference Radio. Verse 11, then Eliakim Shebna Joah said to Reb Sheka, please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall. Well, there were those that were manning the wall. They were protecting their envoys as best they could and they were listening or trying to listen. They were in earshot or arrow shot at least and the Aramaic seems to have been the language of treaty and trade in the ancient world. It was like a pig Latin in African mines or in airports, all the airports all around the world use English.
So it was a standard language. What the Hebrews are saying to Reb Sheka is can you tone it down? We don't want our troops to hear this is a diplomatic exchange.
It's not for them. Well, that backfired. You can't reason with Satan and expect to have success.
It's hard enough reasoning with good people sometimes. Then you imagine with Satan. Well, verse 12, here's where it backfires. Reb Sheka said, has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak to these words and not to the men who sit on the wall who will eat and drink their own waste with you? So we got a lot to say about this. Satan expands his filthy speech by warning the Jews of an inevitable slow and awful death, starvation and death from thirst if they refuse to surrender.
Chronicles rings in on this. Here's what it says about Hezekiah. Does Hezekiah persuade you to give yourselves over to die by famine and thirst saying Yahweh our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria? That's the voice of Satan. Your pastor is trying to convince you to trust God? Are you going to die of starvation and thirst?
You're going to miss out. Romans again, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? So persecution or distress, well tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword.
Paul rules out all the big dogs. He says those things are going to break our faith. But it's more to it here. He's insisting that the men on the wall have a right to hear what Hezekiah is going to get them into. They have a right to hear that Hezekiah is going to get them killed in an awful way.
That's what Rabshakah is saying. Has not my master sent me to speak to you and to those on the wall who are going to die because of Hezekiah? Talking about the famine, he uses foul language, Satan's terror tactics.
I don't think we should miss the head games Satan is employing here because he does it to this day of course. The New King James softens the language. The Old King James is closer to the literal Hebrew and I'm not going to even read it. Maybe if you have the Old King James you can read it yourself. By our standards the New King James is vulgar language. It's not when it was written. We shouldn't consider it vulgar but the standards of today would. So I'll use the English Standard translation as an alternate because it's an accurate translation also. He says doomed with you, the men on the wall, doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine. You see the vulgar language Mr. Pottymouth is using? He's trying to terrorize them into submission.
He's showing who he really is. The righteous will pick up on it instantly. The unrighteous however would be in turmoil. These are not endorsements the way that the Bible words these things. The younger Christians must learn to recognize when Satan speaks, how he conducts business.
You must be able to identify the genuine from the counterfeit and the only way you're going to do that is by handling the genuine enough so that on touch you can instantly discern, say this is not right. Something is wrong with it. So he said the Jerusalemites would be forced to consume their own body waste to counter the famine that's coming. This is the devil's speech and the devil dangles suffering before our eyes to get us to cave in in our faith. You sure you want to stand up for Christ? You're going to be laughed at, you're going to be fired, you're going to be this, you're going to be that. How about I be faithful? I wonder if Eve had said wait right here one second and went and got a big rock and clunked them upside as if all violence wasn't around then.
She wouldn't have thought of that but again she should not have been in the vicinity and that alone is a lesson. It's like Samson. Samson was a Nazarite. What's he doing in a vineyard where the lion met him? He's snacking on grapes. You can't tell me he's just, you know, oh I just take him to the vineyard.
It's a shortcut. He was where he wasn't supposed to be if nothing else. Well, verse 13, then Rabshakah stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew and said, hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. See there's the backfire. They asked him to tone it down. He's going to shout it out with a loud voice now. So potty mouth gets louder.
He gets a microphone. Demonstrating again the futility of reasoning with the devil. You don't have to reason with him. We stand firm. We deliver a message.
We're not discussing a situation when we preach the gospel to people. We are delivering a message. Here's a telegram for you from God. It says, unless you repent, Luke 13, you will likewise perish. That's the message.
Have a nice day. Well, of course we don't leave it at that. There's so much more. We hope the door's open. Well, we continue to verse 14. Thus says the king, do not let Hezekiah, he's shouting this out, deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. Very Satan-esque, is it not?
God can't save you. That's what he's saying. Well, what was the response of the men in Daniel chapter three? So, that was their response.
Very simple. Even if he doesn't know king, we're not bowing down to you. It ain't happening. Verse 15, nor let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, excuse me, saying Yahweh will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Still refusing to address King Hezekiah as king. Don't let Hezekiah.
He's demoting him and he's humiliating him. He is insisting that their faith is useless in the face of real trouble. We have whole pastors like that. We have whole churches. They reduce a pastor to a moral traffic cop. Don't go this way, go that way.
This is so, this is righteousness, this is sin. But when you've got a real problem, go to the psychologists. Go to the psychiatrists. But don't come to the Bible.
We'll even pay them to help you out. Because after all, what could a pastor possibly say about your life? You can't see the hair on my neck at the moment. But it is standing up. It is, you know, Lord, may I not have a plank in my eye on this? May it, I don't mean to sound, I mean to treat them like the shaman that they are. And I make no apology. And I'm going to come back to that in a minute because I think it is that important. It is a sacred cow now in this country. Well, you know, they're so caring and people have problems.
Nobody denies that they have problems and no one denies that we're caring. Do. But it is to the Word of God, as Jeremiah said, and that they do not speak according to this word, what wisdom could they possibly have?
A little ad lib there. Verse 16. Do not listen to Hezekiah, again, not calling him king. For thus says king of Assyria, there's a sharp contrast.
Make peace with me by a present and come out to me. And every one of you eat from his own vine and every one of you from his own fig and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern. You'll have your own wells to drink from. What he's going to get to in a moment is, and then I'm going to take you away, as I did the northern kingdoms. You're going to say that to them because he knows they're too stupid to figure it out.
They just want to save their skin, according to him. And so what he is saying, live the good life. It doesn't matter where you end up, which we know to be hell. We have people that have sold their soul to the devil. They will not deny themselves. They will live the life of luxury, and they will do it. Paul calls us out in the last days, men will be lovers of pleasure instead of lovers of God.
That's exactly what's happening here. He says, listen to my kingdom, not yours. The persistent gall of the man. Do not listen to Hezekiah. Listen to the king of Assyria. When Joshua said, if it seems good to you to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. See, Christianity, biblical Christianity does not jam the gospel or truth down anyone's throat.
We deliver the message, they make the choice. He says, whether the gods of your fathers, the gods plural, served, now here it comes, listen to this, that were on the other side of the river. We have Christians who serve gods that are on the other side of the river. They're not part of the scripture.
They're philosophies and teachings that are on the other side. He continues, Joshua does, he says, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. In other words, you want to serve the gods of the people you defeated.
You don't want to get this right. You're now in the promised land. You defeated these people because Yahweh blessed you, and now you want to go worship their gods.
He doesn't say it here unless you can really look between the lines where he says, you can't be that dumb. He says, but as for me and my house, we'll serve Yahweh. So simple.
Nothing complicated about that. No, we're going to go ahead and you have all these, you know, we're just going to serve the Lord according to his word. And that word factors out alternative ideas about God and life.
His divine power has given to you all things that pertain to life, said Peter. But Peter was a dumb fisherman. What did he know? Yet scholars come along and study him and just to disagree with him. Anyway, he's enticing them with false peace to save their own skin. Alan Redpath, and Alan Redpath has a commentary on Isaiah.
It's hard to find. Anyway, I'm quoting from his commentary in this section. He says, then the Assyrian came up with an agreement. Satan always wants that, but there can never be any agreement between God and the devil, and for us to attempt, it is fatal.
Then he also says this. You know nothing of the wiles of the devil until you are out and out for God and for souls. You really don't face the devil if you're not involved in ministry of some sort. You'd get just a hard life, but so does the unbeliever get that. What makes the difference is when you start serving Jesus Christ, and that's when the voice of the devil will really start coming your way, with all sorts of things.
You know, I'll give you an example. There was a guy on an island in Strandev, for ten years, and finally had seen no human for ten years. They find him, and they're on the island and they're talking with him. They're rescuing him, of course, taking him off, and he's got these three huts, and he said, what are the huts?
He said, well, this is where I live, this one here. Well, what's this one? This is where I worship.
Well, what's the third one? That's where I used to worship. I don't go there anymore. You see that mindset? It's a joke, but it is practiced every single Sunday in America. Every single Sunday somebody leaves a good church, and there's no way to stop it.
I don't even know why anybody would talk about it. Verse 17, until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. You hear that? Now he gets to it. Captivity for cowardice. Turn on God, and I'll make you comfortable somewhere else.
He just told him you can have your own vine, your own cisterns, but he doesn't really mean it. It's just like Satan. Just bow down to me, I'll give you the kingdoms of the world. Until you die, I can't take you any further than that. If we find ourselves leaning towards cowardice, run towards Christ. That's the antidote. Proverbs 18, 10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run into, and they are safe. The devil, so impudent, impudent enough to share with his victims just how stupid he thinks they are.
That's what he's doing here. You want your vineyards, you want yours, just have it. Surrender to me until I take you away. And you're so stupid, you're going to buy what I'm telling you.
We see it happen, and it shouldn't happen. Just remain with us in the simplicity of the gospel. Not a simpleton, but in the simplicity of the gospel. Verse 18, beware lest Hezekiah persuade you saying, Yahweh will deliver us. Has any one of the gods of the nations, any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Incidentally, in verse 17, he's telling them, look, I'm telling you in such a way that if any of those prophets come back and try to encourage you, it ain't going to work. So he's, you know, I kind of should have pointed that out. Verse 17, do not listen to Hezekiah and the king in verse 16. And so he's trying to just prime them, prep them for anybody who might encourage them against his lies. Satan does the same thing. Now remember, when you go back to that church that pastor's going to try to undo what I'm telling you by telling you about the Bible.
Yeah. Verse 18, beware lest Hezekiah persuade you. There it is again, saying the Lord will deliver us.
Has any of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the kings of Assyria? So he's trying again to intercept that he has natural history on his side. He just doesn't have God on his side. And God is the God of natural history also. He is stating statistics.
Has any of the others, he's going to name the lands that they conquered in the next verse. But before we get to that, let's not bow down to stats. The game has to be played.
You can't say, boy, this guy, this team, their batting average is higher than yours. Don't even bother playing the game. Let's not believe just anything the lab coats and high hats tell us. We should have learned this at COVID.
It just came right to the front. Do worldly scientists lie? I don't mean down to sleep. I mean, do they tell false truths? Of course they do. And they lie big.
Give you some examples. Evolution, they know it's not possible. They know it is not possible, but they continue to push it because the alternatives to them is too scary. Climate change. There will be a climate change at the time of death. You will either be hot in hell or no humidity in heaven.
You know, it's going to be a climate change. Diets. How long have they been lying to people about diets? No, I'm not saying they all don't work, but a lot of them don't.
Or else there'd be only one. I've never had to diet, so I guess I don't have a right to talk about it, but I'm talking about it. Psychotropic drugs. You have chemical imbalance.
Well, did you take a test of what chemical, incidentally, is imbalanced? How do you measure that? Well, you can't. We just guess. We just, we look at you.
You look like you're messed up. Ethics. Do scientists have ethics? We caught them lying about climate change.
Big letters came out how much they were lying. On and on. This is Satan. And the people who continue to go with it, the Bible preaches against this behavior. Verse 19. He continues.
Here's his stats. Where are the gods of Hamath? Arphad. Where are the gods of Sepharaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
Well, first off, those gods are where they always have been in the imagination of men lying to themselves. They're not real. So this is a false comparison. It is misinformation. It is misapplication of information. Satan doesn't care about that. You can bust him straight out. If you want to learn, look at political liberalism and you can see people who facts don't matter to them.
The only thing that matters is they get what they want at any cost to you. That is the voice. That is the style of Satan. And you say, why don't people see this? Because it's spiritual. And if you are spiritually blind, you're not going to see it. Well, coming back to this, verse 20. Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?
And there it is. Look at the stats. Nobody's been able to beat the Assyrian army. What makes you think your god's going to help you when their gods did not?
Look at the statistics. Well, those gods didn't deliver them because they weren't gods. And the cities of Judah, she's conquered because you were God's instrument. At some point, human reason against God drifts into blasphemy. You find somebody that starts out very polite with why they don't believe the Bible and give them a little time and they will start the blasphemy.
They will strike out against Christ because it's the voice of the devil behind their philosophies. Hezekiah knew why those places were defeated. And he tells us in chapter 37. Here we go, verse 18. Truly Yahweh, the kings of Assyria, have laid waste all the nations and their lands.
So he says the stat is right, but not the reason. Then he continues, verse 19 of Isaiah 37. And have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods. But the work of men's hands would stone.
Therefore, they destroyed them. So here's Hezekiah. He's got his theology in place because he got Isaiah as his buddy.
And he's submitted to that. And Isaiah is submitted to Hezekiah as king. You're the king.
You run the nation. But if you mess with God, I'm going to sit straight. And Isaiah Hezekiah is like, I'm good with that.
They don't come out and we don't have that exchange in print. But that's what it ends up being. And so here Hezekiah is saying, yeah, Assyria wiped out those people because they have false gods. And he got the Jewish cities because they were apostates. But he's not getting Jerusalem. The combatants of Jesus Christ regularly lump him in with all the false gods. And that's what Reb Shekeh is doing here. Oh, Jesus is just like any other system of religion.
Yeah. If you go to your grave thinking that, you're going to find out the hard way, like that outlaw on the cross that wanted no parts of Christ. And that's what he got in the end. No parts of Christ. He's in hell.
The other one went to paradise. To them, Jesus is just another god. And as with the Assyrians, they don't have to worry about him. That's what the Assyrians, they don't have to worry about Yahweh. He's not a real god.
He's like any of the other ones. Well, that night, 185,000 of them became bird food. Verse 21, but they held their peace and answered him not a word for the king's commandment was, do not answer him. Now that irritated Reb Shekeh because in verse 11, he enjoyed when they spoke. Hey, hold it down.
He goes louder. Well, they not saying anything now. They've learned the lesson.
The king was right. We should just shut our mouths. Don't you love it as a parent when you're right and you just look at your kid and say, I told you, I love it. I gloat. Sometimes I hire mimes to act it out. No, I don't. That would be carnal. I don't.
I like being right, but I don't like gloating unless I'm joking. Anyway, verse 22, then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of Reb Shekeh. We're almost done, obviously. Their faith naturally shaken. They probably did not tear their clothes in front of Reb Shekeh, but after they got behind the walls, they were hard at work. Verse, look at Isaiah 37, verse 5 through 7. So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah and Isaiah said to them, thus you shall say to your master, thus says Yahweh, do not be afraid of the words which you have heard with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Surely I will send the spirit upon him and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. They go to Isaiah first, the prophet, with their clothes torn and Isaiah lays out a prophecy, ah, don't worry about this guy, God's going to deal with him. And just that, we're getting a good look at righteousness.
Leaving those earlier chapters were pretty tough, necessary. Now we're getting into boots on the ground Christianity. Let's pray.
If the children's workers show up with pitchforks and lanterns at the door, it's because you went long. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new additions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.
