Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / Isaiah 37 - God’s Protection of His People

Transcript

Isaiah 37 - God’s Protection of His People · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

0:00
Welcome to Tabernacle talk. Tabernacle talk is a Bible study
0:03
podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
0:07
I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
0:10
you to know Christ, grow in his word and show his love to
0:14
others. Let's dive right in.
0:15
Welcome back to Tabernacle talk. We are in Isaiah chapter 37
0:19
today. Last episode in chapter 36 we
0:23
jumped into seven O 1 BC as the southern Kingdom of Judah is
0:30
experiencing an invasion by the Assyrian army and king
0:35
Sennacherib. And as the Assyrian army was
0:40
going through the southern Kingdom of Judah, they had
0:42
already destroyed and taken over several of the fortified cities
0:47
and now they were slowly making their way towards Jerusalem
0:51
itself. The Assyrian king had sent one
0:55
of his spokesman to come and to encourage Judah to surrender, to
1:03
encourage Hezekiah to surrender, and basically gave the challenge
1:11
that none of the gods of the nations all around Judah had
1:16
been able to stop Assyria from winning and defeating them.
1:21
And so the spokesman said, who in the world is this Yahweh that
1:28
he would be able to deliver? You?
1:30
Don't. He told the people of Jerusalem.
1:33
Don't listen to Hezekiah when he tells you that Yahweh will save
1:36
you. None of the none of the gods of
1:39
any of the nations or of any of the cities around were able to
1:43
save them. And so Yahweh is going to be no
1:45
different. You should surrender now.
1:49
We're going to deport you, but it'd be a lot easier for you if
1:53
you didn't have to fight or go through a heavy siege.
1:57
And so this is what we read. Then in response to that, as
2:01
King Hezekiah of Judah hears this report, chapter 37, verse
2:08
#1 When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his
2:11
clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went to Yahweh's
2:15
temple. He sent Eliakim, who was in
2:18
charge of the palace, Shebna, the court secretary, and the
2:22
leading priests who were covered with sackcloth to the prophet
2:26
Isaiah, son of Amos. So Hezekiah, he puts on like his
2:32
grief, his sadness clothes. He goes, man, we are in trouble.
2:36
And so he sends people from his court.
2:39
He sends the leading priests who also have like grieving clothes
2:43
on to Isaiah to go, all right, we need help from God.
2:50
I want to encourage you. Are you the type of person that
2:54
people would be able to come to and know they're going to pray
2:59
for me, They're going to go to God for me, they're going to
3:01
give me God's wisdom if I ask them for counsel or for advice.
3:07
May we seek to be those kinds of people.
3:09
And can I encourage you, when you go through hardships, don't
3:12
just go through it yourself. Reach out to the body of Christ.
3:17
Reach out to other godly individuals.
3:19
You might go, well, you know, I have the Holy Spirit.
3:22
I have personal access to God. Amen.
3:24
What a joy that that is. And part of what God has given
3:28
you is the body of Christ at large.
3:32
Don't be the thumb that runs away from the body.
3:35
Be the thumb that receives, you know, nerve endings and the, you
3:40
know, synapses and blood and strength and bone from the rest
3:46
of the body. Be if you will, don't be so
3:52
dependent on strictly people that you don't reach out to the
3:56
Lord that you don't be in his word that you're not personally
3:59
praying, but be interdependent with the body of Christ so that
4:04
you would be able to say, man, I I can't really imagine going a
4:08
week without connecting with someone in my church or in the
4:13
body or not reaching out to someone for prayer.
4:17
Like that is what the body of Christ is here for.
4:19
We're here to build one another up on our faith in the Lord, to
4:24
pray for one another, to encourage one another, to
4:27
provide good godly counsel, to warn one another, to encourage
4:31
one another. All of that is what we are
4:33
supposed to be doing. And so be here, be like the
4:37
prophet Isaiah here, that when other people need to hear from
4:42
God, when they need encouragement, when they need
4:44
prayer, they know who they're turning.
4:46
And I want to be that kind of person, and I want to encourage
4:49
you to be that kind of person as well.
4:51
And obviously, certainly Jesus is the one that is most
4:56
applicable in this scenario, that it didn't matter if a
5:00
person was a king or a priest or someone that was high up in
5:03
military when they actually needed the blessing of God.
5:08
They didn't turn to finances, they didn't turn to religion.
5:12
They turned to a relationship with God and the one who would
5:16
speak to God on their behalf. And Jesus is ultimately that one
5:20
for us. So they go to the prophet Isaiah
5:25
verse #3 they said to him, This is what Hezekiah says.
5:29
Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace.
5:34
It is as if children have come to the point of birth and there
5:38
is no strength to deliver them. Perhaps Yahweh your God will
5:42
hear all the words of the royal spokesman whom his master, the
5:45
king of Assyria, sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke
5:50
him for the words that Yahweh your God has heard.
5:54
Therefore, offer a prayer for their surviving remnant.
5:57
Basically he has a guy says, all right Isaiah, here's what the
6:01
Assyrians have been saying. This is offensive to God.
6:04
Like this is ridiculous, but right now it seems like we're
6:09
really in trouble and we've come to the moment where God needs to
6:13
deliver us and we don't know how he's going to deliver us.
6:16
So like Isaiah, pray for us that God would come through on the
6:21
prophecies and the promises that he has made.
6:24
Verse #5 S. The servants of King Hezekiah
6:27
went to Isaiah, who said to them, Tell your master, Yahweh
6:31
says this. Don't be afraid because of the
6:34
words you have heard with which the king of Assyria's attendants
6:38
have blasphemed me. I am about to put a spirit in
6:43
him, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land,
6:47
where I will cause him to fall by the sword.
6:52
So Isaiah says, God sees, God hears, God is going to take care
6:57
of it #8 When the royal spokesman heard that the king of
7:01
Assyria had pulled out of Lakish, he left and found him
7:04
fighting against Libna. The king had heard concerning
7:08
King Tarhaca of Kush, that is Egypt.
7:12
He has set out to fight against you.
7:14
So when he heard this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying,
7:18
Say this to King Hezekiah of Judah.
7:20
Don't let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising
7:23
that Jerusalem won't be handed over to the king of Assyria.
7:27
Look, you've heard what the kings of Assyria have done to
7:29
all the countries. They completely destroyed them.
7:32
Would you be rescued? Did the gods of the nations that
7:35
my predecessors destroyed rescue them?
7:38
Gozan, Haran, Rezaf and the Edenites And Telusar?
7:42
Where is the king of Hamas, the king of Arpad, the king of the
7:45
city of Safar, Vahim, Hina or Eva?
7:49
This is like Turkey, Syria, Middle East, all around.
7:53
Those areas are where those cities are from.
7:58
Verse #14 Hezekiah took the letter from the messenger's
8:01
hands, read it, then went up to Yahweh's temple and spread it
8:06
out before Yahweh. Then Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh,
8:10
Yahweh of heaven's armies, God of Israel enthroned between the
8:16
cherubim that is think the mercy seat, the ark of the covenant
8:20
that has the most powerful spiritual beings.
8:26
Think back in Isaiah 6. The combination creatures, so
8:32
the strength of a lion, the power, the mobility, flight of
8:39
an eagle, the strength of an ox, the wisdom and cunning of a
8:43
person, like all that kind of stuff, all combined into one
8:46
spiritual being. That there were two cherubim.
8:49
It might be 4 cherubim. I'd have to look back in Exodus,
8:54
I think, to look at how the Ark of the Covenant was put
8:56
together. But you had cherubim there on
8:58
the lid of the Ark of the Covenant and it was called the
9:01
mercy seat that the picture was. God is sitting on the throne of
9:08
the Ark of the Covenant and the cherubim are at his feet.
9:13
And so he is there and the cherubim worship at his feet.
9:17
Obviously we don't make graven images of God.
9:21
It's one of the 10 commandments. And so there was no picture of
9:24
God, but you could make pictures of the angels as God instructed
9:30
them to. I would need to look back at
9:34
Exodus 20 at the 10 commandments because I think he does specify
9:37
some things about listen, don't make graven images.
9:41
You are the image of God in the image of God.
9:44
He created them male and female as we would read in Genesis 126.
9:49
So I have oh verse #16 so he says, Yahweh of Heaven's armies,
9:55
I, I need you to start a war against Assyria.
9:59
He says you are enthroned between the cherubim.
10:01
You are God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth.
10:06
You made the heavens and the earth.
10:09
Listen closely Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see,
10:13
hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to mock the
10:17
living God, Yahweh. It's true that the kings of
10:20
Assyria have devastated all these countries in their lands.
10:23
They've thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not
10:26
gods, but made from wood and stone by human hands.
10:30
So they've destroyed them. Now Yahweh, our God, save us
10:34
from His power, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know
10:38
that you, Yahweh, are God, you alone.
10:42
I love this prayer. I also love here.
10:44
What Hezekiah does is he gets this letter.
10:47
He doesn't bring it to Isaiah. He knows even here that he can
10:51
pray to God. He can pray to Yahweh.
10:55
So he goes into Yahweh's temple. He lays out the letter.
10:58
He didn't have to travel to the temple in order for God to see
11:02
it, but it's a wonderful reminder even to him as he is
11:06
there within that holy place, that he recognizes God.
11:10
You're sovereign, You're in control.
11:12
And I need you to work in an incredible way.
11:15
I need you to protect and to save and for whatever is
11:20
plaguing your life. Like it could be a text that you
11:23
got from someone. It could be a bill that came in
11:26
the mail. I'd encourage you to lay it out
11:28
before the Lord. Pray over it.
11:30
Ask for God's provision, ask for His wisdom, ask for Him to
11:36
restore what is broken. And may we find over and over
11:40
again that our God answers prayer.
11:43
It won't always be in the way that we want Him to, but He will
11:47
always answer our prayer. And we can ask God, would you
11:50
change me? I'm asking that you would change
11:52
my circumstance. But I know that as I come to you
11:54
and as I surrender, you are going to change me in the
11:57
process. Verse #21 Then Isaiah, son of
12:01
Amos, sent a message to Hezekiah.
12:04
Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, because you prayed to me about
12:09
King Sennacherib of Assyria. This is the word Yahweh has
12:13
spoken against him because you prayed, something is happening
12:18
because Hezekiah didn't reach out to Egypt.
12:22
He didn't reach out to, you know, some other nation.
12:25
He said God is the one that can protect.
12:27
God is the one that will save. And so God says, all right,
12:31
here's what I'm saying about King Sennacherib of Assyria.
12:36
Virgin daughter Zion despises you and scorns you.
12:40
Basically, Jerusalem thinks that Sennacherib is stupid.
12:43
Here's the prophecy. Daughter Jerusalem shakes her
12:46
head behind your back. Who is it you have mocked and
12:49
blasphemed? Against whom have you raised
12:52
your voice and lifted your eyes in pride?
12:55
Against the Holy One of Israel? You have mocked the Lord through
13:00
your servants, You said. With my many Chariots I've gone
13:04
up to the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses
13:07
of Lebanon. I cut down its tallest Cedars,
13:10
its choice Cypress trees. I came to its distant heights,
13:13
its densest forest. I dug wells and drink water in
13:17
foreign lands. I dried up all the streams of
13:20
Egypt with the soles of my feet. Basically anywhere I wanted to
13:23
go and great things I wanted to do, I accomplished all of it.
13:28
Verse #26 God says this to the king of Assyria.
13:31
Have you not heard? I designed it long ago.
13:35
I planned it in days gone by. I've now brought it to pass.
13:40
And you've crushed fortified cities into piles of rubble.
13:43
Their inhabitants have become powerless, dismayed and ashamed.
13:47
They're plants of the field, tender grass, grass on the
13:51
rooftops, blasted by the east wind.
13:54
But I know you're sitting down, you're going out and you're
13:58
coming in and you're raging against me because you're raging
14:02
against me and your arrogance have reached my ears.
14:06
I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth.
14:10
I will make you go back the way you came.
14:13
So even as you look back at Assyrian drawings and carvings,
14:19
one of the ways that they really enjoyed taking captives or
14:24
deportees away from their homeland was through putting a
14:30
hook in their nose. It was incredibly demeaning.
14:34
And so God says, this is what I'm doing to you.
14:36
You're going to have to go back home in shame.
14:39
Verse #30 God says this will be the sign for you this year.
14:43
You will. Oh, sorry, He's saying this now
14:46
to from God through Isaiah to Hezekiah.
14:52
He's now ended the portion against King Sennacherib of
14:56
saying you're going to go back home, you're not going to
14:59
destroy Jerusalem. So then Isaiah tells Hezekiah,
15:03
this will be the sign for you that this will take place this
15:05
year. You will eat what grows on its
15:07
own, and in the second year what grows from that, but in the
15:11
third year, sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
15:15
The surviving remnant of the House of Judah will again take
15:18
root downward and bear fruit upward, for a remnant will go
15:21
out from Jerusalem and survivors from Mount Zion.
15:24
The zeal of Yahweh of heaven's armies will accomplish this.
15:28
Therefore, this is what Yahweh says about the king of Assyria.
15:31
He'll not enter the city, shoot an arrow here, come before it
15:35
with a shield, or build up a siege ramp against it.
15:38
He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter the city.
15:42
This is Yahweh's declaration. I will defend the city and
15:46
rescue it for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.
15:50
So God in essence says right now there's the difficulty with the
15:55
crops, land being torn up, burned, etcetera by Assyria.
16:01
And so this coming year you're only going to be able to eat
16:06
what just grows by itself. It's not super sustainable, but
16:10
that's what you're going to experience this year.
16:13
Next year you're going to be able to eat from the plants and
16:17
the seeds that came from those things that you eat this year.
16:20
So but then in the third year, you are going to be able to do
16:23
the regular sowing and reaping. And so basically God says
16:28
there's going to be a three-year process here, but each year that
16:32
passes, you are going to be able to say, man, God took care of
16:35
us, God protected us. And so God must have a plan for
16:39
us. God intends for us to continue
16:41
in our existence. And God says the king of Syria
16:46
is not going to accomplish this big siege that he is hoping to
16:50
do. He's not going to enter the
16:52
city. He's not going to take it over.
16:54
None of that is going to happen then.
16:56
Verse #36 Then the Angel of Yahweh went out and struck down
17:01
185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.
17:05
When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead
17:09
bodies. So King Sennacherib of Assyria
17:12
broke camp and left. He returned home and lived in
17:16
Nineveh. So couple things happen here.
17:20
Number one, this work of the Angel, at least from some of the
17:24
commentaries and things that I've seen, I always had in my
17:28
mind when I was a kid reading the different passages of
17:32
Scripture that you had like an Angel with a sword or something
17:35
and that he was like individually killing people.
17:38
Same thing with like Passover, that type of thing.
17:42
The much more common way that I see it expressed in Scripture
17:47
would be in in commentaries looking at the words of
17:51
Scripture would be the Angel kills by means of something
17:56
else, very often disease or something like that.
18:00
We can even see this take place in the life of one of the king
18:04
Herod's in the book of Acts where an Angel strikes him but
18:08
he strikes him by means of parasitic worms.
18:12
Which is just a super kind of interesting thought there.
18:15
So large amount of the Assyrian army that dies at the same time
18:21
King Sennacherib gets word from back home that there are
18:25
difficulties, uprisings, battles, that kind of thing.
18:28
And so Sennacherib leaves. And then we would read in verse
18:32
#38 what Sennacherib eventual demise was.
18:37
So the Syrian Army they leave with their king, and it says one
18:42
day while he was worshipping in the temple of his God Nishrock,
18:45
his sons Adra, Melek and Sharizer struck him down with
18:50
the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat.
18:53
Then his son Essar Haddon became king in his place.
18:58
So Sennacherib dies murdered by his own sons.
19:04
And So what God had said came to pass, that Sennacherib never
19:09
entered Jerusalem. And though much destruction had
19:13
come on the land, God made it so that Jerusalem would be able to
19:18
build back and they would eventually be OK.
19:22
I want to encourage you today you might go through some very
19:24
dark valleys and you might be laying out that letter before
19:28
God, going God, I don't know what to do with this.
19:31
I don't know how to win. You are the one who is in
19:36
command of everything and so God, I need you to act on my
19:40
behalf. And when we do that, we can see
19:43
our God work. Now be aware 21 years prior
19:47
Israel and its capital city of Samaria, they were destroyed by
19:53
the Assyrian Empire and in 586. So that would be. 115 years from
20:05
this day, 115 years later, the Babylonian Empire would come and
20:12
destroy Jerusalem and Judah for their wickedness and decades of
20:17
evil and idolatry that would come after Hezekiah's time.
20:22
So it will not always be that God preserves this or that or
20:28
allows this or that to experience supernatural
20:32
restoration or protection. That's not always guaranteed.
20:35
And in your life and in my life, we're not guaranteed any
20:38
specific outcomes of our prayers.
20:41
But lay it before the Lord. You will never know what God
20:44
will do until you ask. So may we ask and call out to
20:48
Him because He does hear and He does care and He loves us.
20:53
So looking forward to next episode.
20:55
We're going to see a time in Hezekiah's life where he prayed
20:59
and God once again answered in an incredible way.
21:04
And I'm looking forward to that. The next two episodes will
21:07
continue our kind of narrative portions of Isaiah before we get
21:11
into some more areas of it's kind of like poetry.
21:14
It's a lot like Psalms in some different ways and so looking
21:17
forward to that. As always, don't forget to like,
21:20
share, subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
21:23
Podcasts, wherever you listen. If you made it to the end of
21:26
this episode, comment the word Angel and would love to hear
21:31
from you if you have any questions or anything.
21:33
God bless. Have a wonderful day.