Our scripture lesson tonight comes from the book of Isaiah, starting in chapter 36, verse 1. Isaiah chapter 36, starting in verse 1. Hear now the word of our God. In the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. and the king of Assyria sent the Rabbi Sheikah from Lakish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field and there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who was over the household and Shebna the secretary and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder and the Rabbi Sheikah said to them Say to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, on what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar? Come now, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you 2,000 horses if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How can you then repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it. Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabbi Sheikah, please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall. But the rabbi said, has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you and not to the men sitting on the wall who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine. Then the rabbi stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah. Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying the Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria, make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine and each one of his own fig tree. And each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, the Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sefer Vayim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, do not answer him. Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna, the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabbi Sheikah. As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna, the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz. They said to him, thus says Hezekiah, this day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace. Children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabbi Sheikha, whom his master, the King of Assyria has sent to mock the living God and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant that has left. When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, say to your master, thus says the Lord, do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard with which the young men of the King of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land. The rabbi Sheikha returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libna, for he had heard that the king had left Lakish. Now the king heard concerning Tirhaka, king of Kush, he has set out to fight against you. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying, thus shall you speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah. Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by promising that 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 lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Aden, who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Amath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Eva? Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord, our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord." Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah saying, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, because you have prayed to me concerning the Sennacherib King of Assyria. This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him. She despises you. She scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion. She wags her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel. By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, with my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains to the far recesses of Lebanon to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. I dug wells and drank waters to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I plan from days of old what I now bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it has grown. I know you're sitting down, and you're going out and coming in, and you're raging against me. because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth and I will turn you back on the way by which you came and this shall be the sign for you this year you shall eat what grows of itself and in the second year what springs from that then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit and the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall take root again downward and bear fruit upward for out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria he shall not come into the city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with shield or cast up a siege mound against it By the way that he came by the same he shall return and he shall not come into the city declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David. And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people rose early in the morning behold these were all dead bodies. Then the Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, Adrammelech and Sherezer, his sons, struck him down with a sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Ezrahaddon, his son, reigned in his place. This is the word of the Lord. Our passage tonight contains a war of words. Whose word carries weight? The Rav Sheikah says, thus says the great king, thus says the king of Assyria. Eliakim and Shebna say, thus says Hezekiah. And finally Isaiah says, thus says the Lord. This passage teaches us not to boast in empty words. If you know the word of the Lord, by all means say it. But if you don't know what God is up to, what should you say? Go with Hezekiah on that one. Thus says Hezekiah, please pray. For the last eight chapters, we have been hearing Isaiah's prophetic warnings about the treaty with Egypt. We heard six woes proclaimed against those who trusted in Egypt rather than in the Lord. There was the woe of the proud crown of Ephraim in chapter 28, warning against entering a covenant with death. There was the woe of Ariel, the altar hearth in chapter 29, as the fire of judgment was about to fall. The woe of those who hide their counsel from the Lord, and the woe of the stubborn children. The woe of those who go down to Egypt, where God declares he will deliver his city, A king will reign in righteousness and his spirit will be poured out from on high. And finally last time we heard the woe to the destroyer where Isaiah warned that God's judgment is coming upon the whole earth. Blending images of present deliverance with future messianic glory, Isaiah spoke of the coming kingdom of God. when the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing everlasting joy shall be upon their heads they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away so after having all of Isaiah's preaching in view now in chapters 36 and 37 we get to hear what God did in history to fulfill the word that Isaiah had preached In the 14th year of King Hezekiah, in the year 701 BC, Sennacherib of Assyria captured all the fortified cities of Judah. All the fortified cities. Only Jerusalem is left standing. We've heard this language of the rising flood of the nations, and that's the Assyrian army. The Assyrian army is like a flood that has filled the whole land Jerusalem is now left as the one last little beacon of light left in the midst of the darkness of the nations. The last fortified city to fall was Lachish, about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. And with the fall of Lachish, Jerusalem has no defenses left. So Sennacherib, having conquered the city of Lachish, now sends his commander, the Rabbi Sheikah, from Lachish to Jerusalem with a great army demanding surrender. and now he stands by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field. We've been here before. I know, it's been a while. Think back. This is where King Ahaz was back in chapter seven, inspecting the defenses. 25 years earlier, Isaiah had come to the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field with his son Shear Yashuv, whose name meant a remnant shall return. And he came to meet Ahaz and to give Ahaz a sign, the sign of Emmanuel. It was here that God promised that Assyria would remove the threat of Damascus and Samaria. Remember back at the beginning of Isaiah, the threat wasn't Assyria. The threat was actually that the northern kingdom of Israel and the Syrians, Damascus and Samaria, were allying together against Assyria and were trying to drag Judah into their alliance against Assyria. And Ahaz, rather than listening to the Lord and rather than listening to Israel and Damascus, had instead allied with Assyria against Israel and Syria. And now he's getting his comeuppance, although Ahaz is now dead, but now it's his son, Hezekiah, who is faced with the Assyrians. God had warned that because Ahaz had trusted Assyria, someday Assyria would come for them. And now a quarter century later, Ahaz's son is facing the judgment his father was warned about. Ahaz had surrendered the sovereignty of Judah in exchange for Assyrian protection. That meant that Jerusalem had become the vassal of Assyria, essentially paying protection money every year to Assyria. But Hezekiah has now rebelled against Assyria. He's no longer paying protection money to Assyria, and so Assyria is showing up and saying, hey, you haven't been paying, pay up. So now it is not the king of Jerusalem who stands at the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field. It is the Rabshakeh. It is the commander of the Assyrian army. And there's no prophet who comes out to meet him, but the lackeys of the king, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah. We've met Eliakim and Shebna before as well. In chapter 22 we heard that Shebna was over the king's household but that he was proud and haughty and his office would be handed over to Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah. And here in chapter 36 we see that that has in fact happened. Eliakim is the one who is over the household. Shebna has been demoted to secretary. Eliakim is now the secure peg that Isaiah had said he would be. But do you remember what Isaiah had said would happen to that secure peg? He wouldn't be able to hold the weight and he'd collapse. So the Rabbi Sheikah comes and says to them, tell Hezekiah, thus says the great king. the king of Assyria. On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? The Rabbi Sheikha is no idiot. He understands, he's been fighting now in Judah for some time. He has been, he's been understanding his enemy. Any good general is going to try to understand the logistics of the... And he understands that if you want to get at the people of Judah, you go after their religion. Now, it may seem odd at first when he says, sort of, Hezekiah has removed all the high places of Yahweh. Because we're used to thinking of, well, they weren't supposed to work for the high places, the king is being faithful to God when he's reforming all this. Well, yes. But think about the experience of the people. For centuries, the people of Judah had worshipped Yahweh in their own way. They had worshipped Yahweh at the high places. Now, God had said not to do this, but that didn't stop them from doing it. So they had been worshipping Yahweh at the high places. They weren't worshipping other gods, they were worshipping Yahweh. They were like, the temple, we'd have to go all the way to Jerusalem for that, that's a long ways away. We just want to worship God in our own little, in our tongues. And our fathers did this before there was a temple, so what's wrong with keep doing it? Hezekiah had insisted that, no, actually Deuteronomy says we're supposed to worship the Lord at the holy place, at the temple, the place he chooses. And he did that in Solomon's day. And the temple is the place where we're supposed to worship. But you can see how the Rabbi Sheikah is playing people off each other. the people who were offended by Hezekiah's reforms, who are Yahweh worshippers, who like worshipping at the high place, that's right, it's Hezekiah's fault for removing all these high places. Yahweh is now offended, he's upset with us because we listen to Hezekiah. You can easily see how this works. And so the Rabbi Sheikah mocks Hezekiah. Come now, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you 2,000 horses if you're able on your part to set riders on them. Judah is hilly terrain, rather dry. It's not an ideal place for pasturing thousands of horses, so they never really had trained riders, certainly not 2,000 of them. You're relying on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Obviously the Rabbi Sheikha knows pretty well the politics of Jerusalem. You've been trusting in Egypt. You think Egypt's going to rescue you? And it even seems that the Rabbi Sheikha is aware of Isaiah's prophecies because he declares that Yahweh said to me, go up against this land and destroy it. Hadn't Isaiah preached 25 years ago in the days of Ahaz that Assyria would come and wipe out the land? Is the Rabbi Sheikah entirely wrong when he says, Yahweh sent me? He's a clever diplomat, that's for sure. And within the hearing of the walls, he says all this in Hebrew so that his words might work their poison throughout the city. Wait a second. This is the guy who said, do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? He sure seems to think so, because he thinks words are the way to win this. It's important for us to remember that words are indeed powerful. Now, the Assyrians also had a really impressive army, but as we'll see, words, are actually what makes the difference in this battle. Now, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah are like, don't say all this in Hebrew. Talk in Aramaic, the language of diplomacy. We know it. And the rabbi Sheik is like, yeah, right. Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you and not to the men sitting on the wall who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine? Hey, people, listen up. We're here to kill y'all. Don't trust in the Lord, trust in the King of Assyria. And he promises that if you listen to the King of Assyria, make your peace with me, come out to me, then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Listen to the king of Assyria, and he will give you everything that Yahweh promised you. After all, how has your God been doing with all this? He can't even seem to protect you from me. Assyria has issued a challenge, not merely to Jerusalem, not merely to the Lord's anointed king, Hezekiah, He has issued a challenge to the city of God, to God himself. He has declared that Yahweh cannot deliver his city. No God has ever withstood the armies of the Assyrians. Indeed, Judah has fallen. Every fortified city has been captured. The Assyrian flood is lapping against the very gates of Jerusalem, and the city of God is the last island in the midst of this ocean of darkness. glimmer of light before night falls. And in our day, we hear the clamor of the city of man, again insisting, your God is never going to make things right. Give up. Come join us. We're doing all that God could not possibly do. We hear the Rabbi Sheikah calling us to trust in the word of the King of Assyria. And the messengers are faithful to their master. They don't try to answer him. The king had said, do not answer him. So they go back to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabbi Sheikah. Now, if you think about what we've seen so far about Hezekiah from the book of Isaiah, we haven't seen much yet that would lead us to think highly of him. If you're familiar with the portrayal in the book of Kings and Chronicles, then you tend to think well of Hezekiah. But Isaiah's preaching so far would not be... I mean, sure, we have the reference that Hezekiah did do the reforms to say we only worship in the temple. Okay, that's great. You could also very easily imagine a king who would do that for self-serving reasons. It's not entirely clear all the time that Hezekiah was really doing so well up until this point. After all, somebody's got to be saying, we should go to Egypt and send... Who has the authority to send emissaries with tribute to Egypt? That would be Hezekiah. But now, when pushed against the wall, Hezekiah tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Leviakim, who was over the household, and Shevna, the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz. And he said to him, thus says Hezekiah, this is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace. Children have come to the point of birth and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. Remember, all that's left is Jerusalem. The Assyrian army has already taken every other fortified city. We've heard that Sennacherib is in Lachish. We know from the king's palace in Nineveh that the siege of Lachish was a massive affair. He commemorates it afterwards by creating this huge panel in relief on the wall of his palace. And so we know how much the king of Assyria had done in destroying and conquering the cities of Judah. And all that's left is Jerusalem. All that's left is this one city left standing in the midst of the Assyrian destruction, this remnant that is left. And the contrast with Sennacherib is crucial. Sennacherib says, trust me. Hezekiah says, please pray. When you don't know what God is doing and all you know is that the powers of this age are coming after you, This is not the time to take matters into your own hands. Instead, pray and ask others to pray for you and with you. James says that the prayers of a righteous man avail much. So ask the righteous to pray for you, which is precisely what Hezekiah does with Isaiah. And when Isaiah hears this, Isaiah responds by calling Hezekiah to hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. He doesn't say the general, he says the young men. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land." Isaiah promises that the threat will be lifted. And sure enough, the Rabbi Sheker returns to Lachish and finds the king of Assyria fighting against Libna, for he's heard that the king had left Lachish. And Tirhaka, king of Cush, this is actually the Cushites were in fact in charge of Egypt. So this is basically the Cushite king of Egypt is attacking. would be awfully tempting to say, ah, see, our trust in Egypt was well placed, they showed up just in time. But, Sennacherib goes out and crushes the Egyptian attack. And Sennacherib sends a note back to Jerusalem and says, you're so weak and helpless, I'll just come back and deal with you later. Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that 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 lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations ever delivered them from my hand? It's one thing for the rabbi Sheikah to say, don't trust in Egypt, or even to some extent, don't trust in the Lord. But to compare the Lord to the gods of the nations is very dangerous. To mock Yahweh is to awaken a curse that no man, no army can withstand. And Hezekiah takes this letter to the temple and spreads it out before the Lord. Read this, O Lord. See what they're saying about you. They're saying that you're just another village deity. So we see this, we see Hezekiah coming before the Lord humbly and seeing clearly that his only hope, Jerusalem's only hope is in, O Lord God of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim. Here you have echoes of Isaiah's vision in chapter 6. You are the God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore, they were destroyed. But you, God, you're not like them. So now, oh Lord our God, save us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord. In spite of his dalliances with foreign alliances, Hezekiah here proves himself to be a true son of David. He remembered the Lord his God and turned to him in his darkest hour. The gods of the nations are but idols, the work of men's hands, wood and stone. You are different. You are the creator of all things. Hezekiah's prayer is properly centered on the glory of God. Notice how, even in the midst of his troubles, he's not self-centered in his prayer. And this is a good warning and example to us. When you face your darkest hour, do not become self-centered in your prayers. When you think about what Hezekiah is facing, a prolonged siege with no hope of victory Humiliation and degradation at the hands of the Assyrian army. His own certain death. Exile and destruction of the whole nation. I mean, yeah, we've faced some bad things in our lifetime. We haven't faced that. Hezekiah keeps his prayer centered on the glory of God. He prays that God's name would be exalted through the salvation of his people. If you think about it, all of Hezekiah's political scheming came to nothing. The alliance with Egypt failed. His attempt to buy peace was a disaster. 2 Kings 18 tells of how Hezekiah gave all the silver and gold in his treasuries to Assyria to try to keep them from invading. Here they are anyway. And finally, he turns to the Lord. How often has this happened? You've tried everything. That was part of the problem. You tried everything. And finally, you turn to the Lord. Prayer is the only refuge of the believer in times of trouble. And God answers his prayer through Isaiah the prophet. verses 21 to 35 are framed to the word the Lord has spoken concerning Sennacherib in the context of Zion, verse 22, and by a closing reference which summarizes what Yahweh says about the king of Assyria in the context of this city, in verses 33 to 35. And he starts with this mockery of Sennacherib. You tried mocking me? Well, I'll tell you what. My city, Zion, mocks you. Speaking to Assyria, Isaiah declares, she despises you. She scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion. She wags her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem. This is pretty brazen. Jerusalem sits alone with only a little wall and a few soldiers to defend it against the mightiest army of its day. All the Assyrians have to do is sit tight for a few weeks and Jerusalem will starve. Yet, Zion is mocking the Assyrians because the Assyrians were so foolish as to mock the Holy One of Israel. Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! If all you had done is besieged the city and said, you know, that's what... No, you dared to mock our God? The sovereignty of God is plainly set forth as God says to Sennacherib, Have you not heard, verse 26, that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins. I was the one who raised you up. I was the one who made you great. And so now, I'm going to cast you down. What God has established, God can also destroy. A serious downfall was its failure to acknowledge God. Instead of thanking God for his providential governance whereby they had become the most exalted nation in the earth, they raged against the Lord and now sought to overthrow his city. And so God will put his hook into Sennacherib's nose and a bit into his mouth and will turn him back on the way by which you came. And the Lord gives a sign to Jerusalem in verses 30 to 32. This shall be the sign for you. This year, you shall eat what grows of itself. The harvest has been disrupted by war. And in the second year, what springs from that? It's still going to be a little while before you can get back to planting. Then in the third year, sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And because of this, the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root. Shear Yashuv, a remnant shall return. There's a reason why there's that reference to the pool, the washer's pool, at the beginning of chapter 36, because Isaiah is reminding us of what he had said 25 years ago. A remnant shall return. God will restore his people and his city. There's a way in which, for my own sake, God says, and for the sake of my servant David. God will do this not because his people have been so wonderful and good. He will do this for his own sake and for the sake of my servant David and his promises to David. There's a sense in which the conclusion of the story is almost anticlimactic. The angel of the Lord strikes down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians, and there's all these dead bodies, and Sennacherib goes home and dies, and is killed by his sons. And you're sort of like, well, you spent all this time building up the story, and now just, that's it. Now, what's interesting is that the Assyrian records do not tell this story. According to their chronicles, nothing bad ever happened to their armies. Now, on returning home to Nineveh, Sennacherib commemorates his great victory over the city of Lachish. He mentions Jerusalem in his annals that he humbled the city and took tribute from them and went home. But the victory over Lachish, which by the way, Lachish was a fortified city, it wasn't a little podunk village, but it's also by no means the greatest city that Sennacherib ever sacked. And yet he has this 16 panel relief sculptor on the wall of his palace commemorating his great victory over the city of Lakish. Almost like he's overdoing his great victory in order to sort of maybe minimize the fact that he lost an army outside Jerusalem. And there's an inscription saying, Sennacherib, the king of the universe, king of Assyria, sits on a throne and the spoils of Lachish are paraded before him. Historians have been puzzled by the failure of Sennacherib to take Jerusalem and also by his rather ostentatious display of his victory over Lachish. Herodotus tells us about this and says that there is a multitude of field mice that descended on the Assyrian camp, devouring all the bow strings and forcing his army to flee. It's worth noting that even the secular historians recognize that there was something really important happened, and field mites. But it's not surprising, actually, that kings don't want to admit their failures. After all, neither do we. We like to think that we're in control, that we can manage things, we can keep... And so if we can just minimize our losses and sort of hide those in corners and pretend they didn't really happen, we're not that different from Sennacherib. Hopefully our ending will be though, because 20 years after the siege of Jerusalem, the Assyrian annals do tell us about the assassination of Sennacherib in 681 BC. Ironically, he's assassinated in the house of his god, Nisroch. Yahweh had protected his own city and his king, but Nisroch, the god of Sennacherib, did nothing for him. Assyrian sources tell us that Sennacherib had passed over his older two sons in favor of Esarhaddon, and wanted Esarhaddon to be king after him. The older sons, Adrammelech and Sherezer, sought to overturn this. They thought if they assassinated their father that they could seize the throne. Well, that didn't go so well. The nobles of Assyria didn't approve of their actions, so they had to flee and run away, and Esarhaddon became king anyway. Now, what do we do with this? We had six woes covering eight chapters that prepared us for this. And then we got 57 verses describing the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem. And then in three verses, we got the salvation of Zion. We've come to the conclusion of the first part of the book of Isaiah. The book of the king is now ended. The Assyrian threat is over. The Assyrians have come and gone. And the son of David is still sitting on his throne in the city of God. God has protected his city. He has delivered his people. But the warnings of Isaiah 1 through 37 still ring in our ears. This people draw near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. Even though God has delivered Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, The people's hearts are still hard. Their eyes are blind. They do not seem to see the wonders of God. They do not hear his word. God has tested his people. He has tested his king. And they have failed the test. They fled to Egypt for refuge. And as we'll hear next week, they also fled to Babylon. It's not like they seem to have learned. As Ahaz had bargained with Assyria in order to counter the Northern Alliance, So now his son has bargained with Egypt and now with Babylon against the Assyrian threat. Is God enough for you? Is it sufficient that he be with you? When trouble comes, will you cling to him? Or will you go running after someone else to save you? there's a very real way in which the threats that Hezekiah faced are just, we get them, it's in a different form and we're not kings of mighty, well, mighty nations. Judah was not a mighty nation. We're not even kings of podunk little towns in the hill country. But we face the same temptations to trust in other forces people, to trust in other powers, and God calls us to trust him, to put our hope in him in the midst of the threats before us. And that's why Jesus came, because Jesus is the faithful king who did trust in the Lord, even when they put him on a cross, when he said, into your hand I commit my spirit. And so that's where, as we face the trials and the troubles of this age, hear the word of the Lord. And remember that the Rabbi Sheikha said one thing rightly, do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? Well, yes, they are. Because the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten son of the father. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word that you have given to us. We thank you that your word is truly powerful because your son, your word came in our flesh and dwelt among us and your glory was made known in him and we have beheld his glory as he now sits at your right hand having triumphed over the powers of sin and death and the devil. We thank you. that he now reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And we ask that you would have mercy upon us for his sake, that you would help us to live as your people, trusting that your word is truly powerful for strategy and power for war, that we may go forth in the power of your spirit, fighting a battle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, against the forces of evil. in heavenly places, that we might trust you in the midst of all the uncertainty and the difficulty around us. Help us to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, knowing that your word will continue to go forth and accomplish the purpose for which you have sent it, and that we need not fear the troubles of this age, because just like the king of Assyria, they will vanish and pass away Help us, Lord, to have confidence, because, Lord, sometimes it's a long time in coming, but as you have taught us that your purposes are sure and certain, help us to have confidence that in the midst of the troubles of this age, you will not be slow in accomplishing your purposes, because you are always on time. trust your time and to see your time and to believe your time. Father, we pray that you would have mercy on us in all the situations that we face, in the struggles and the sufferings and afflictions and the trials and temptations. Lord, as you have promised, so continue to do as you have said and strengthen us in the midst of affliction and bring healing and comfort and peace in the midst of our trials. Keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus and help those who are afflicted. Help Wade as he recovers from his surgery. Lord, have mercy on him and bring healing to his body and comfort to his heart. Have mercy upon each of us who are going through afflictions and darkness and suffering of body and soul. Lord, have mercy. Grant that in our homes, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in each place where you put us, Help us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and so see clearly the things that are happening around us and help us to speak wisely. Above all, Lord, help us to pray that we might bring all of these things to you and trust that you will do that which is right and pleasing in your sight and you will give us wisdom to do that which you call us to do. Have mercy on your church, that in all the nations, may your word go forth with great power, that as your word has gone forth this day throughout the nations, may it continue to bear fruit in the lives of your people and in the lives of those who did not know you at the beginning of this day. But may your word penetrate their hearts, that they might hear and know and believe the glorious gospel of Jesus. We pray this in his name. Amen.