["Pomp and Circumstance"]
Good evening. We're in Isaiah chapter 36, and the Bible reads,
It came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah.
At Sennacherib, king of Assyria came up against all the defense cities of Judah and took them.
And the king of Assyria sent Rabsheka from Blachish to Jerusalem under king Hezekiah with a great army,
and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the folder's field.
Then he came forth onto him Lachaim, Lachaim's son, which was over the house,
and Shevna the scribe, and Joah Asaph's son, the recorder.
Rabsheka said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria,
What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? I say, sayest thou, but they are but vain words,
I have counsel and strength for war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebelled against me?
Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed on Egypt.
For on if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it.
So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places
and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away and said to Judah and to Jerusalem,
He shall worship before this altar? Now therefore give pledges, I pray thee,
to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses,
if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.
How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants
and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
And I might now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it?
The Lord said unto me, Go up against this land and destroy it.
Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah and to Rabshakeh speak, I pray thee,
unto thy servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it,
and speak not unto us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words?
Had he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung
and drink their own piss with you?
Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language and said,
Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.
Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you.
Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us.
The city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
Hearken not unto Hezekiah, for thus saith the king of Assyria,
Make an agreement with me by your presence, and come out to me,
and eat ye everyone his vine, and everyone his fig tree,
and drink ye everyone the waters of his own cistern,
until I come and take you away to a land like your own land,
a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us.
Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
Or are the gods of Hamath and Arphath?
Or are the gods of Sepharvaim?
And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
Who are they among all the gods of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand,
that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?
But they held their peace, and answered him not a word,
for the king's commandment was saying, Answer him not.
Thank him like him, the son of Hezekiah, that was over the household,
and shapen of the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah,
with their closed rent, and told him the words of Rebshechah.
Let's pray.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the King James Bible.
Dear God, we thank you for his church.
Thank you for our pastor, dear Lord.
Please bless him as he preaches your word.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Okay, we're in Isaiah chapter 36 tonight.
And up until this point, we've been covering a lot of preaching from the prophet Isaiah.
And of course, Isaiah's preaching against Judah,
and just talking about some of the bad decisions that Judah has made using Israel and Samaria as an example.
Whereas here in chapter 26, all the way to chapter 29,
really is more of a narrative of a particular story regarding Hezekiah during his conflict with the king of Assyria.
So we obviously know that Assyria was going to be used by God to destroy Judah,
and to chastise Judah, to chastise God's people.
Well, now this is essentially the section where that actually takes place.
And these next couple chapters is going to highlight that,
his conflict with the king of Assyria, his victory,
and then we're going to see some of the bad decisions that he made even after that.
So this story here is actually found in a few places in the Bible.
Of course, we have it here in the book of Isaiah,
but we also have it in 2 Kings chapter 18 and 2 Chronicles chapter 32.
Now, one of the reasons I believe that God actually placed this story multiple times in the Bible,
is because it actually highlights a very important spiritual truth.
And that is that when we are faced with struggles, tribulation, persecution,
this is the answer, prayer, right?
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
And here we see that, of course, in chapter 36,
we're not going to necessarily focus on that part because that comes after that,
that's in chapter 37, 36 and 37.
But here in chapter 36, we see what the threat is, right?
We have the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, making this brazen threat to God's people.
He has taken some of the land already.
He is making these threats and he basically wants to conquer them.
And, you know, he's saying all these wicked things to them.
And so he's causing the hearts of the people to fear.
And, you know, a lot of times people when they fear, when they're afraid,
they can make irrational decisions, right?
They can do things and make decisions that are not biblical,
that are not according to God's word, and thereby hurting themselves in the long run.
But, of course, we know the story, Hezekiah does not do that.
He actually ends up praying unto the Lord and God actually delivers them mightily
to the point where he supernaturally delivers Judah by smiting 185,000 soldiers, right?
Just overnight brings an angel and just kills a bunch of them.
And it's a great story.
But let's focus on the threat here by Rabsheka and Sennacherib.
We see in verse number one, it says,
Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria,
came up against all the defense cities of Judah and took them.
So keep in mind, Assyria at this point has already conquered Israel.
He's already taken Samaria. He's already conquered them.
Now he's starting to focus on the southern kingdom of Judah.
And, of course, the place that he really wants to conquer is what? Jerusalem, which is the capital of Judah.
But in order to do that, he's obviously making his way inward.
And so here it tells us that he's already taken the defense cities of Judah.
So Hezekiah already knew that this was going to happen.
So obviously he's preparing the cities that are prior to Jerusalem.
He's defending them. He's putting up walls.
He's doing what he can on a practical level to defend himself against Assyria.
But the Assyrian army is so strong, so mighty that they basically just kind of plow through those cities.
And so he takes them. He is destroying them.
And historically, it's noted that he essentially has taken about 200,000 people from the land just by those particular cities.
So he has captured at least 46 fortified cities, 200,000 people,
and now he's trapped Hezekiah and his people at the capital in Jerusalem.
So if you could just picture this, you know, they're kind of making their way towards the capital.
And as they're doing so, they're just taking all these cities here.
So obviously, you know, Judah and Hezekiah are on the losing end.
And this is pretty discouraging if you think about it, you know what I mean?
It's just like, oh man, we're, this is basically we're at our wits end.
Judah's being taken captive. Assyria's not messing around.
Sennacherib is actually fulfilling his threat against Judah.
We're going to look at Sennacherib's propaganda of war by intimidation.
Look at verse number two. It says,
And the king of Assyria sent Rabsheka, however it is that you pronounce his name, Rabsheki,
we'll call him Rabi, I guess, from Lakish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with the great army.
And I want you to notice this. It says that he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field.
Now, that is a very intentional move by Rabsheki.
Why is that?
Well, the upper conduit is obviously referring to the water source that Judah has, right?
And specifically he's going to the highway of the fuller's field.
The fuller's field, the fuller is a person whose job is to clean clothes,
essentially, you know, just kind of clean clothes, and they're using that water conduit to do so.
So if he's going there, there's obviously a lot of people in that area.
A lot of the common people are there.
Just every day, Joe Shmo, who's working, is present when he comes and he stands there.
And of course, he's going to give this great speech, this great threat against Judah,
and he's doing it intentionally at the conduit by the fuller's field because he wants everyone to hear it.
He doesn't just want Hezekiah to get the message.
He doesn't want just his emissaries to get the message.
He wants the common man to hear this message as well.
Why? Because if he can get the common man to become afraid, fearful, they can hear the threats,
they can essentially put the pressure on Hezekiah to compromise, surrender, and eventually be conquered by Sennacherib.
And so he's there at the upper pool of the fuller's field, and he's there to negotiate, quote unquote, with Hezekiah.
Look at verse number three. It says, Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hezekiah's son, which was over the house,
and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the recorder.
So these are the emissaries of Hezekiah.
And if you remember, Eliakim is the guy who has the keys of the house of David.
OK, he's actually the one who replaced Shebna.
You know, Shebna was a treasurer, and he ends up getting replaced from God by or by God with Eliakim.
So these three guys are going out there to essentially hear what Rav Shiki is going to say, whatever his terms are there.
Look at verse number four. It says, Rav Shiki said unto them, Say ye not to Hezekiah, thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria,
what confidence is this wherein thou trustest? I say, sayest thou, but they are but vain words.
I have counsel and strength for war. Now on whom dost thou trust that thou rebelest against me?
So what is he saying? You know, he's trying to cause Hezekiah and those under them, under him, to question Hezekiah's, essentially his, his, his leadership.
OK, because he's going there and he's saying, you know, so how are you going to defeat us?
How is it that you are going to, you know, prevent this conquest from happening?
Who are you trusting in? Right, because obviously the Assyrian army is a very intimidating army.
They've already conquered the northern kingdom. They've already conquered a lot of Judah, the fortified cities there.
And so he's saying, you know, I have counsel and strength for war.
And he's like, who are you trusting in to deliver you? Because you're not doing a very good job of defending yourself.
OK, look at verse number six. It says, lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed on Egypt, wherein if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it.
So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. So what do we see here?
Well, we're going to see Rav Shiki. What he's doing here is he's showing contempt for Judah's beliefs and their faith.
And specifically, what he's doing here when he's bringing up Egypt is that he is reminding Hezekiah of his bad decision that he made in the past.
OK, now this is actually something he said, well, how so?
Well, if you remember, Hezekiah was trying to make affinity with Egypt to protect them against Assyria.
Right. And, you know, they took all these resources and treasures to Egypt and they were rebuked for it.
Egypt didn't even end up helping them in the long term. It didn't work out for them.
Well, you know, Assyria knows about that. And so Assyria is like, hey, you're trusting in Egypt, this broken staff.
It's going to go into your hands, going to pierce you. And this is how Pharaoh is going to be unto you.
Now, this is embarrassing because here's the thing is that, you know, trusting in Egypt was not God's will.
God rebuked Hezekiah. He rebuked him for trusting in Egypt.
He rebuked him for trusting in Pharaoh. But now the enemies of God are even reminding him of that bad decision as well.
So this is embarrassing. Now, let me say this is that this is something that Satan will often do to you.
He will often do to me. Well, what will he do? Well, he is the accuser of the brethren.
And it's for that reason that sometimes he'll rub your bad decisions in your face in the future when you're trying to serve God.
He's like, oh, remember when you trusted in Egypt? Remember when you trusted in Pharaoh?
Remember this really bad decision that you made? So you think you're going to come out winning in this end?
Don't you remember all the bad decisions that you made in the past? You don't really have a good track record.
You know, he'll often try to do that to us in order to discourage us from stepping out in faith and obeying God.
That's basically what he's trying to do. Reb Shik is trying to do to Hezekiah.
He's like, you know, I heard about this affinity you're trying to make with Egypt. How did that work out for you?
And by the way, he's right. Right. You know, what he's saying in verse number six is essentially what Isaiah preached to Hezekiah.
He's saying you're trusting in Egypt where if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it.
You know, Pharaoh and Egypt are going to fail you.
But then you have the enemies of God just kind of adding insult to injury by reminding him of that.
And, you know, as Christians, we make bad decisions in the past.
We've done things that maybe are not pleasing unto the Lord. Maybe we made an embarrassing decision.
And but here's the thing is that you can't allow that if that's you to prevent you from making good decisions in the future or from trusting in good judgments in the future.
Right. You know, one bad decision doesn't have to characterize your life.
OK. And we're sinners. We make mistakes. We are fallible men and we're going to make bad calls, bad judgments.
That's going to happen. But you can't allow that to discourage you from making a good decision in the long term.
And, you know, especially when it comes to making decisions for the Lord, serving God, calling a shot, making the decision.
You have to make sure that you trust in God's word, trust that God's leading you.
And obviously you got to make sure you have your ducks in order if you're going to make right decisions. Right.
Am I walking with God? Do I know what the Bible says about this particular decision that I'm making?
Or if the Bible is not very clear about the specific subject, am I at least using the principles and guidelines of the Bible to lead me in this particular decision that I am making?
Right. At that point, you know, if you've already gotten counsel from someone who's godly, whether it's, you know, a friend you have in the church who's been saved for a long time
or you've gotten counsel from your pastor, you know, at that point, you know, you're pretty much safe. Right.
Because in the multitude of counselors, the Bible says there is safety.
And so you're like, well, yeah, but, you know, I made a really dumb decision, a financial decision.
I made a really dumb decision with my family one time. And I just don't know if I can trust my decision maker, you know, in the future.
Well, you know, at least you gain some experience. And as long as you don't make the same decision you made before, then you're still in the green. Okay.
And so don't allow Satan to try to discourage you from making progress in the future even though you did something dumb in the past. Okay.
We've got to forget those things which are behind, press forward to those things which are before and make sure that we are making biblically sound decisions in our life regardless of what happened in the past.
Okay. And so Rabshake is kind of throwing that in his face. He's kind of saying, I know what you're trusting.
You're not really trusting in God. And he's going to bring that up later on. But he's kind of covering all the bases like you're trusting in another nation to protect you.
But that's not going to help you. Look at verse seven. But if thou say to me, we trust in the Lord our God. Now Rabshake is pretty crafty if you think about it.
Because he knows what Hezekiah is going to respond with. You know, if Rabshake comes up and says, no, you're trusting in Egypt, Rabshake knows that Hezekiah is going to say, no, we trust in the Lord our God.
So he already knows that he's going to pull that card out on him, right? He says, if thou say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ye shall worship before this altar?
So, you know, Rabshake thinks he's really good with this argument here. Because what he's implying is what happened in Second Kings chapter 18.
And we're not going to go there for the sake of time. But in Second Kings 18, Hezekiah, who's a righteous man, he comes and he sees that the land is worshiping an idol known as Nehushtan.
Right? And what is Nehushtan? It's the brazen serpent that the children of Israel used in the wilderness. OK, if you remember that story in the Book of Numbers,
you have the children of Israel doing what they do best, rebelling against the Lord and making God mad. And so God sends serpents to afflict them and to destroy them.
And so then he commands Moses, because Moses intercedes, to create this brass serpent, a brazen serpent, that if any man looked to that brass serpent, they would be healed of their bites.
Right? It would be healed of the serpent's bite. And obviously there's a spiritual application to that serpent. The serpent's bite is likened unto Satan, sin.
But anybody who looks to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is pictured by this brass serpent, you know, would be healed.
They will receive salvation, essentially. But apparently Israel kept that brass serpent.
And, you know, they're not keeping it because, you know, they're reminded of the salvation of the Lord. They end up turning it into an idol.
So they're worshiping it. They're actually calling it Nehushtan. They're burning incense to that brass serpent.
And, you know, this kind of shows us that, you know, people just can't handle physical objects that may have been used in biblical times.
You know, they'll end up worshiping it. Right? Using it as a relic of sorts.
You know, and this is why I believe, this is one of the reasons why I believe God had to bury Moses himself.
Because when Moses died, like, he had one pallbearer, and that was the Lord.
You know, I don't know, he levitated his body, just threw it somewhere super deep into the earth or something.
Because he knew that if the children of Israel would ever find that corpse, they'd be like the Catholics and start worshiping that dead body.
And Catholics do that. You know, there's some teenager or whatever that died a couple years ago who helped the Roman Catholic Church with, like, some internet stuff or whatever.
And he got canonized, and they have him, like, in a glass coffin, you know, and people go there to worship that thing.
And, you know, I saw a video of it on social media, and they're going to it, and you can see him, and I'm thinking to myself, like, people are like, oh, he looks so peaceful.
I'm like, trust me. Trust me. The man is dying inside. He's burning eternally because the guy is in hell right now.
And, but, you know, Catholics do this. I don't know, it was last year or something that they had supposedly the hand of Jude, right, that was passing through Orange County.
And it was just like, it's like, dude, that's not Jude's hand. That's some dead body of some random dude. They cut off the hand off of him, and then they just used that.
It's probably not even real, honestly. But, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people are just lining up to just kiss this glass case that has this, you know, dismembered body in it.
The point that I'm making here is that the natural inclination of people is to worship things that maybe God used in the past for a particular purpose.
If that stuff stays around, they're going to use it to worship it. I mean, this is why the Ark of the Covenant cannot be found, okay?
This is why Noah's Ark cannot be found. I don't care what anybody says if it's at Mount Ararat or whatever. Why? Because, you know, God doesn't want that stuff to be worshipped, okay?
And we see here that a clear example of Nahushtan that's being worshipped, and what does Hezekiah do? He gets rid of it. He destroys it, okay?
Now, the consensus of the land was that, you know, they're worshipping God by worshipping this brass serpent.
So when, you know, Sennacherib and the Assyrians hear about the fact that Hezekiah's getting rid of this brass serpent, they're like, oh, man, sacrilegious.
You know, Hezekiah's a sacrilegious person. He doesn't really worship the God of the Bible because of the fact that he's getting rid of Nahushtan.
And obviously, the guy doesn't know anything about the religion of Judah, okay? What Hezekiah did was a righteous thing.
It's like, you know, a couple, it was like a year ago, two years ago, there was a fundamental Baptist in Mexico, Pastor Kevin Wynn, who pastors a very large church in Mexico,
and I believe he's in Mexico City, but he had a large idol of the Virgin Mary, and he took a sledgehammer to that thing.
He preached, and he's just, like, destroying it, and, you know, he had, like, the Virgin Mary on one side, and then he had La Santa Muerte on the other one.
You know, he destroyed both of them. And, you know, he was even joking about it as he was doing it.
He said, some of you, when you guys get married, your wife looks like this, but in the morning she looks like this.
And, you know, and then he's just, like, taking the sledgehammer, and everyone, obviously Catholics were just losing their minds, but even Christians were, so-called Christians were losing their minds.
How can you do that? You know, that's sacrilegious. But why is that? Because they're idolaters, that's why.
Okay? It's the same exact thing. And so, you know, they're criticizing him for removing Nahushtan, but that's God's will to remove Nahushtan and destroy that thing.
It's an idol. And so he thinks he's got a really good card with this. He's like, oh, you're saying you're trusting God, but here you are destroying idols.
Obviously, he's not calling it idol, but you're destroying the high places and the altars, and you're telling people to come worship here.
Well, that's God's will for people to worship at a specific geographical location, not at the groves or the altars that are set up by false prophets.
You know, God's will for the children of Israel was to go worship at the temple in the Old Testament. Of course, previous to that, in the tabernacle that was mobile, right?
And just as today in 2024, you know, God's will is for God's people to worship at the house of God, which is the local New Testament church.
Not in their house with an unordained pastor, someone who doesn't qualify as being a pastor.
You know, we need to be in the house of God with God's people, with an ordained pastor that are fulfilling God's purpose for the church.
And so he's criticizing him for that, and he's basically saying you don't really trust in God because you got rid of this idol.
Look at verse number 8. He says, now therefore give pledges. Oh, let me also say this. You know, what also is Rabbi Shaky doing here?
He's basically trying to redefine what it means to be a believer. Okay?
And he's saying, you know, you're not really a believer because you're getting rid of this thing of worship here. You're not really worshiping the God of the Bible.
But here's the thing is that Rabbi Shaky, who are you? To tell me what a believer is. You're not saved. You're an Assyrian. You're a heathen.
You're wicked. You know nothing of the God of the Bible. And you know, there's a lot of Rabbi Shaky's out there, right?
Who try to tell us what a Christian is. They hear our sermons, our content, they know about what we believe, and they'll try to come to us and criticize us.
Oh, Jesus wouldn't do that. You don't know Jesus, though. You've never even lifted up a Bible or opened a Bible in your life.
But somehow, some atheist agnostic out there hears us say the word faggot or something, and they're just like, well, Jesus wouldn't say that.
Well, actually, you know what? You're probably right. He wouldn't use the word faggot because he does and doesn't speak sometimes. He just destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. How about that?
He actually did a lot worse, okay? And in fact, Jesus Christ, you know, created hell. How about that?
But, you know, you have these unsaved people who always try to redefine what it is to be a Christian.
Or you're going to scare people away like that, you know, from the message or whatever. Jesus wouldn't do that, and Jesus wouldn't say something like that, and Jesus this and Jesus that.
But your Jesus is like the long-haired dude wearing a dress. He's the transvestite. That's not our God.
Our God, our Savior, would do something like that, would preach hard like that, because we have those examples in the Bible.
But this is a perfect example of when the unsaved try to correct us and how we're supposed to act.
We're not taking requests as Christians. Like, how do you think we should act as Christians?
Why would you ask an unregenerated, natural person how a Christian should act? They don't have the Spirit of God. They don't know the Bible.
You know, they have this misconstrued conception of what it means to be a Christian, but it's not from the Word of God itself.
And so, sorry, Rabshakey, I don't care how many places you've conquered, how many people you've taken over, you know, how many gods you've destroyed, our God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords.
And so, you're not going to tell us how Christianity should be, okay?
Verse number eight says, Now therefore give pledges, I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses if thou be able on thy part to set riders on them.
How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
What is he saying? Well, it's a very arrogant statement here, okay?
And obviously it's intended to intimidate the children of Judah here, because what he's saying here is that, he's like, look, even if I gave you two thousand horses to fight us, can you even find anybody to ride those two thousand horses to fight us?
He's basically saying, like, even if I gave you the artillery, the horses, the resources necessary to fight in this war, you don't even have the manpower to accommodate the horses that we give you to fight us.
He's basically saying our army is greater than yours. That's basically what he's telling them.
He's like, you can't even, he's disdaining and mocking Hezekiah's armies, what he's doing, right?
And this is very common with those who hate the Lord. You know, oh, what are you going to do with your little church over there?
What are you going to do meeting in a strip mall, you know, in the place of, you know, in this office space, what are you going to do?
Well, apparently I'm doing enough because I'm pissing you off by my sermon.
Obviously I'm doing something. You know, this week we just got, our email just got spammed by these reprobates saying the most vile, disgusting things.
Trying to disdain God and the Bible and talk about how he doesn't exist, then why are you talking about him as though he does?
But this is how the enemies of God work to try to disdain, to try to belittle Christianity.
But you know what, if it was a dying religion, then why even focus on it?
I'll tell you why, because it's affecting you and it works.
You know, he's mocking Hezekiah's army, but at the end of the day, you know, if God before us, who could be against us?
And us and God make the majority. And they're going to learn that in a very hard, embarrassing way.
Because 185,000 of them are going to die without Hezekiah even lifting a finger.
He just lifts up his voice to heaven by praying, and then God miraculously delivers them.
So he's mocking them, disdaining them, saying, look, we'll give you the horses, but you don't even have enough people to ride on those horses.
Look at verse 10. He starts to get really disrespectful here.
He says, And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it?
The Lord said unto me, Go up against this land and destroy it.
So now he's saying, like, you know, I'm not coming here for no reason. God sent me here to do this to you.
God sent me here to say this unto you.
Now, obviously, God would be using the Assyrians to chastise them, but he's not sending him to say all these things to blaspheme the God of the Bible.
But what is he doing? He's speaking on God's behalf, right?
And so this is why it's important for us to just not believe every Tom, Dick and Harry that claims to be preaching the Bible and think that they're of God.
Just because the sign says Jesus, just because the sign says church, just because the sign says Bible, just because they claim to be a Christian doesn't mean that they're Christian.
You know, it's important for people to vet these churches and not just think that every single church that claims to be a church or claims to believe the Bible or claims to believe in Jesus,
that they're a legitimate church, because there's a church out there that for sure is not a legitimate church, and they have the name Jesus on there.
It's called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's not the house of God.
They claim to be speaking on God's behalf, but they're agents of Satan.
OK, and so how do we know then? How do we know what's legitimate and what's not?
Well, does the message actually match up with the Bible?
You know, what is the wheat of the chaff? God gives us the stipulations in Jeremiah chapter 23 that we need to look for if someone is actually sent from the Lord.
Right. But, you know, a lot of people nowadays claim to speak on God's behalf.
And that's what Rabshakey is doing is like, well, I'm sent from God to do this to you.
You know, I'm sent from God to say this unto you. And really, then why is it that one hundred eighty five thousand of you are going to die?
Look at verse 11.
He says, Then said Eliakim and Shevna and Joah unto Rabshakey, speak, I pray thee unto thy servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it, and speak not to us in the Jews language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
So, you know, what are they saying here, the emissaries?
They're basically saying like, hey, can you not speak in our language? You know, can you speak in the Aramaic language? Because we don't want people to start like losing their minds.
This is the common man. They're in the fullest field. They're doing their job. And obviously it's a pretty dumb request if you think about it.
You know what I mean? You think this guy's your friend? He's just going to like, you know, help you with this.
Look at verse 12. But Rabshakey said, hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words?
Hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own piss with you?
So we see the Judean appeal and Rabshakey's response. And what is Rabshakey saying?
He's saying, no, no, I want the common man to hear what I'm saying, because I want them to know that they're going to eat their own dung, referring to their excrement, and drink their urine, their piss is what he's saying there.
Now why is he saying that? Well, this is part of the tactic of a siege, right? When an enemy would besiege a city, they're trying to cut off all resources.
Cut off the water resources, cut off the food. And obviously Jerusalem, for example, might be able to hold out for a couple of months, maybe even a couple of years, maybe a year or so.
But after a while, the resources are going to run out. And when people go into starvation mode, people do a lot of weird stuff. Eating cow's dung, you know, or dove's dung, excuse me, they eat, you know, a donkey's head, we see that in the Bible.
And he's basically saying here, hey everybody, I just want to let you know that if you don't submit to us, and you don't surrender, eventually you're going to eat your own dung and drink your own piss, because you're going to be starving.
This is very vulgar. It's a very vulgar threat that he's making here. And it's meant to cause the people of God to fear.
Now what's one thing we can learn from this? You know, we have to make sure that we are not only careful with what we're listening to, when it comes to the enemies of God, whether that be on the internet, you know, whatever conspiracy is out there.
Why? Because, you know, a lot of the times that stuff can cause us to fear, right? And that is the purpose of Satan, is that he wants you to be afraid. Oh, don't serve God, because you're going to end up being in this situation here.
You know, if you try to go to that church, or serve God, or win people to Christ, you're going to incur the wrath of the world, people are not going to like your message, they're going to harass you, they're going to hate you, they might harm you, you're going to drink your own piss and eat your dung.
And that message is meant to cause people to be disheartened, and not to actually serve the Lord, right?
And you say, well, what do we do, you know? Well, number one, you can just turn that stuff off. But let's say you just can't avoid it at all. What you do is you do it anyways. You serve God anyways.
And you say, God is able to deliver me, but if not, we will not bow down. Okay? Last night, at Faithful Word, I preached a sermon called, I Hope You Die.
That was the title of the sermon. That was what I said throughout the sermon. I said, I hope you die. And I wasn't telling them to commit suicide or anything like that.
But I was referring to the fact that I hope that they die to self, right? The apostle Paul said, I die daily. And how we are delivered all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
And the way we could accomplish things for God is by what? Denying ourselves, dying to self, crucifying the flesh with the affections and lust, right?
And my last point in that sermon was that, you know, a corpse can't get offended. You know, and I brought two guys up and they're supposed to be both dead.
And I told them, you know, just lie there, act like a corpse. And I started saying, you know, your mama jokes and, you know, you're ugly.
And one guy, he did really well. He didn't flinch. The other guy, I started talking about his sweater, his university sweater, and he just came to life.
He was offended. And it was a very natural reaction, actually. And I was like, you're supposed to be dead. And he was just like, don't say that, you know, or whatever.
But the point that I was making is that, you know, when you are crucified to the world and the world unto you, people can make threats like this all they want.
It doesn't really affect you. You know, oh, eat my own dung and drink my own piss? Good thing I'm not alive. Good thing I'm just denying myself.
Because, quite frankly, you know, it doesn't really matter what happens to me. I must decrease that he may increase, right?
And, you know, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ delivered to me.
And so, you know, we will, as God's people, if we're serving God, we're winning souls to Christ, you're going to get some backlash from family.
You will get some backlash from friends. You will get some backlash from strangers. People will threaten you, they'll mock you, they'll say all manner of evil against you.
And you kind of have to just let it be like water off a duck's back. And it's, you know, the people who, they allow it to affect them, and I'm guilty of this from time to time,
are people who are still, hold themselves in high reputation. They think that they're something, right?
And I have to remind myself, when these things get to me, and I hear about them, I read about them, and it bothers me, I just think to myself, oh, I think I'm someone.
Because why should it bother me? You know?
And so the threats of the enemies of God are meant to do what? To dishearten us, to discourage us, to cause us to become disillusioned, and to give up and to compromise,
but we can't necessarily listen to those things. We have to realize that God can still protect us. Look at verse 13.
Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.
Thus saith the king, let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you.
So he's obviously trying to strike fear in the hearts of the people because of his army.
He's trying to strike fear in their hearts by saying that they're going to eat their dung and drink their piss.
But he's also trying to cause them to question their authority, which is Hezekiah.
Because the people in the foolish field are listening to this and they're like, oh man, this sounds pretty bad. He's threatening to do this stuff to us.
And he follows up by saying, hey, don't let your king deceive you with these things, as if God's going to deliver you or something like that.
And you know, that's dangerous, right? Because they have to trust in their king. They have to trust in their leader.
And they actually literally have to write off of the faith of their leader.
Because their leader has the faith that God will deliver them. Right?
But what Rabshakeh is trying to do is trying to cast doubt on that. Okay?
He says in verse 15, neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying the Lord will surely deliver us.
This city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
He's like, don't listen to that because it's not going to happen. He's trying to cast doubt.
And you know, obviously a pastor is not a king, but a pastor has an authority in the church.
And part of my job is to create faith in you through the preaching of God's word.
I feel like that's that's always my job is that I have to make you believe that God will provide for you.
You can step out in faith that, you know, God will deliver you.
You know, my job is to help people weather the storm when we go through a storm.
And that's a challenge. I'll be honest with you. You know, we just went through something like that within the last two months or so.
And my full time job just thinking about it, just helping people weather the storm.
And, you know, sometimes people's faith, they lack faith.
And that's normal. God's people can lack they lack faith and they don't believe.
And it's just like empty promises to them. And it's almost as if I want to tell them, like, well, just then use my faith.
Just believe me what I'm saying. Just like ride with me until it all clears.
You know, but you know, what Satan likes to do is say, well, you know, don't believe Pastor Mejia that God will deliver you.
Don't believe that he has the right judgments or the right decisions to make.
Don't believe that, you know, he will do that because Satan one of Satan's tactics is to drive a wedge between you and your authorities to question your authority,
whether that's your parental authority, it's your pastoral authority.
Why? Because, you know, the situation, the circumstance seems too big and it's just like, I don't know.
I'm looking at, you know, you know, this situation here. I'm looking at what's going on.
And you say that it's not going to happen. You say that God's going to provide for me.
God's going to be there, you know, but I'm looking at the circumstance.
Yeah, but I'm looking at the circumstance through the lens of scripture, though.
And you're not. Sometimes people don't do that.
They lean on their own understanding.
Whereas the Bible specifically tells us not to do that.
In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
Trust in the Lord.
And so when situations arise, whether it's in my personal life or in our church, I have to make sure that I'm reading it through the lens of scripture, through prayer.
I got to trust that God is leading me.
And you know what? You have to trust that God is leading me, too.
Don't let Rapshecky try to deter you from following the leadership that God has placed in your life.
OK, don't let Rapshecky come with his great army and his eloquent speech.
You know, to you and try to get you to turn on your authorities and question your mom and question your dad and question your pastor.
You know, God has placed those authorities in your life for a reason.
OK. And so, you know, I don't know what the people are thinking at this point.
I don't know if they're still even washing clothes at this point.
You know, they're probably just like. Sounds gross.
I guess we'll see what happens. But let me say this. Keep washing clothes, though.
You know, if that ever happens, just keep washing the clothes, just keep doing what you're doing.
And here's a great piece of advice that I can give you if you ever go through a hard time.
Just don't make any hasty decisions.
The worst thing that people do, Christians specifically, is when something goes awry in their lives,
they feel they automatically right now have to make a decision as if like someone's putting a gun to their head or something.
I got to look for a new church. Why?
What do you think will happen, even if you were to leave our church?
What do you think will happen if you stay for another three months?
What will change?
You know, never make a hasty decision when you're going through a tough time.
And we don't have anybody leaving our church, OK? I'm just throwing that out there as an illustration.
We're a cult, so we don't let people leave our church.
We lock the doors, we have all your information, social security number, driver's license, we have all that.
Bank statements, we have it all. I'm just kidding.
But you know, when difficulties come about, people make really just hasty, dumb decisions.
And the hastier the decision, the dumber it is, actually.
And in fact, you'll realize it, and you don't realize it when you make it.
It's not until like four months down the road, when you got your head screwed on right,
that you look back and you're like, oh man, I trusted in Egypt.
That was stupid. That was dumb. Yeah, that was a dumb decision.
You say, what do I do to avoid it? Just don't do anything. Just keep coming to church.
Keep reading your Bible. Keep soul-wanting. Yeah, but I just feel like I got to do something.
Well, that's the problem. You're too feely.
Stop being so feely about everything.
You know, and I'm not saying that we can't have feelings. I'm saying, but don't be like led by your feelings, though.
Because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?
You know, look, if I ate everything I feel like I wanted to eat, oh man, the bulk would just go incredibly.
In fact, I'm kind of feeling that way this month. You know, I'm like Solomon.
I'm just kind of eating whatever my eyes are set on, you know.
But if we just did everything we felt like doing, then we'd be a mess.
Because everything that we do should be led of the Spirit, making rational decisions, biblical decisions, decisions based off of wisdom.
You're like, well, I don't have the wisdom right now then. Okay, then just don't make a decision. You just pray for wisdom.
Why do you feel like you got to do something right now?
Oh man, that pastor right here did this. Okay, I got to go. Why?
Six months down the road, you're going to regret it. You're going to see the error of your ways.
It's better to pace yourself in the Christian life and realize that Satan wants you to make a hasty decision.
Because he knows how valuable that is to him. Because people make really dumb decisions when they make them hastily.
So the point that I'm making here is that he's trying to cause them to question their authority by downplaying who Hezekiah is.
But Hezekiah is a godly man. He's a righteous person. Has he made mistakes in the past? Of course, he's a sinner.
But you know what? He's being led of God. The Lord is with him.
And whoever is a little weenie and is scared of the Assyrians and wants to leave the kingdom, then you know what?
You're going to miss out on God's deliverance. Look at verse 16.
He says,
So what does he say? Hey, I'll make it easy on you. Bring me a present.
I'm not going to take your vineyard away from you. You eat of it. Drink of your own cistern.
Eat of your fig tree. He's trying to be gracious with them, right? But he wants them to surrender.
But you know, I would have been like, well, how about I do all those things and not surrender?
Like, how are you going to give me permission to eat of my own food?
He's like, I'll give you permission to eat. Keep eating your own food. Like, I was going to do that anyways.
But he's trying to make surrendering look appealing.
OK, so the first 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
He said, look, you guys keep living like that. Eat of your vineyard.
Eat of your fig tree. Drink of your own water until I come and take you away.
And I'll take you away to a land that's basically like this one.
Well, the difference is, is I'm ruling over you. And this is how Satan works.
He tries to make sin look appealing, surrendering to the desires of the flesh, appealing.
Right.
And he's like, you know, get out of church for a little bit, missed a couple of services, get out of church, go do whatever X, Y and Z.
But then you realize later on, actually, the Assyrian land is garbage.
The world is garbage.
Why don't I just stay here?
Being in God's will, being in church, serving God, keeping sin out of your life is a superior way of living than surrendering to the Assyrians,
to the desires of the flesh and of the mind, to the temptations of Satan, to the lust of the world, the pride of life.
Who cares how he makes it look?
You know, we have the book here that tells us that when you bite into it, thy mouth shall be filled with gravel.
You know, it may look tasty, it may look appealing, but when you bite into it, it tastes nasty, it's disgusting.
So he's trying to make surrendering look appealing.
He's trying to make being taken captive look appealing.
Oh, man, if you leave church, you can do all the fun stuff.
You can drink now, smoke pot every once in a while.
You can finally start dating that one person, whether they're Christian or not.
You can date that guy, date that girl.
You can go out and do all that.
You won't have all these rules, getting kicked out of church.
You don't have to do all this.
Yeah, but let's talk about the hangover, though.
Let's talk about the venereal diseases.
Let's talk about bastard children.
Or how about this?
Here's a big one.
Here's a really big one that people don't think about.
Let's talk about the shame that you will experience for the rest of your life.
How about that?
Because, you know, there's going to come a time when you come to your senses like the prodigal son,
and you're going to get back in church, you're going to serve God again.
But you know what?
There's this little thing, it's called shame.
Embarrassment that that happened.
Embarrassment that you allowed yourself to go through that situation, right?
And so, you know, Sennacherib is just like, oh, sin, you know, you can still do this.
I'll let you do this.
I'll take you into a land.
Yeah, captive, not by my free will.
And so the offer of peace under the Assyrian rule doesn't look very appealing when you really think about it.
And this is why I say don't make hasty decisions.
You know, you need to think of the end of the matter.
Oh, man, if I date this girl, she's so beautiful.
Wait a minute, but that's not going to work out.
She's not even saved.
She's not even in church.
Oh, man, if I do something really bad like fornicate, we might have a bastard child or something worse can come about.
I mean, just think of the worst possible case scenario.
That's the best thing to do when you're tempted with sin.
Think of the worst possible outcome that can happen.
Wasn't that exaggerating?
No, because it could happen.
The worst possible case scenario could actually happen to you, especially over the fact that you're a child of God.
God could allow the worst possible outcome to happen in your life.
Look at verse 18.
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying the Lord will deliver us.
Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Syria?
No, because they're all false gods.
That's why my God is different.
So he's casting doubt in their faith toward their authorities and casting doubt on God that God would deliver them.
Verse 19 says, Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad?
Where are the gods of Sepharvayim?
You say, well, man, who are these gods?
I mean, it must be some gods of some heathen land, huh?
Must be some false gods of some straight heathen nations that don't know the Lord.
It says, And have they delivered, listen to this, Samaria out of my hand.
What is Samaria?
It's the capital of Israel.
Anybody home?
He's basically saying, hey, did Hamath, Arphad, and Sepharvayim deliver Israel?
What is that showing you?
It's showing you that Israel is worshiping these false gods.
That's embarrassing.
You know, they're probably listening to Arphad.
Who's worshiping that?
It's like, well, those who were in Samaria, the northern kingdom, are worshiping these false gods.
So he's using Samaria as an example.
He says in verse 20, Who are they among all the gods of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand,
that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?
So he's trying to use comparison.
He's saying, look, we destroyed all these lands.
No one's been able to deliver them.
And what he's trying to do, he's trying to make God look small and make themselves look big.
And I know this is very cliche, but it's actually very true that a lot of the times we get ourselves into messes
or we just lack faith in God because God is really actually not big in our sight.
We don't believe God can do it.
And we think to ourselves, well, you know, I know so-and-so and, you know, it didn't work out for them.
Yeah, but was so-and-so even in church, though?
So-and-so reading the Bible, are they serving God?
You know, don't compare yourself to other people because you don't really know what situation they're in.
And look, me as a pastor in California, I have to do this all the time.
Because apparently I'm like in the trenches over here.
Apparently, like, I have like the worst lot in life being a pastor in Comifornia.
In southern, how do you do it?
People always ask, like, how do you do it?
And just how do you survive out there in southern Comifornia as a fundamental Baptist pastor?
Are you a God?
Yeah, but they're Gavin Newsom, though.
Here's the thing, though, like, I've never seen him.
Never met the guy.
Never talked to him.
Yeah, but what about all the laws?
I'm interested in God's laws.
And, you know, what I see a lot is Christians making governments, governors, mayors, and their, you know, oppression bigger than God.
But in my eyes, God's bigger.
And I believe that.
I've always believed that, but so much the more, especially because I'm in Comifornia.
You know, and it's just like, yeah, but, you know, all those things that they're doing over there.
You know, this and that, I'm just like, no weapon formed against me shall prosper, though.
And I guess I'm the exception to the rule.
And you know why I'm the exception to the rule?
Because I'm serving God.
I'm reading the Bible.
I'm in church.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we all are.
But still, you know, it's a blue state.
I mean, you know, it doesn't really affect me at all.
God is able to deliver us.
He's blessed our church tremendously.
Our church will be here to the second coming of Christ.
And so, you know, we've got to make sure that we keep God big and keep, you know, the enemies of God small in our eyes.
And never think and have this mentality that somehow they're able to get a foot on us or take advantage of us.
Not if God's on our side, because if God before us, who can be against us?
Verse 21, but they held their peace.
That's good.
These emissaries are listening to all this and they're just like, are you done?
Are you done?
You know, just like.
And answered him not a word, for the king's commandment was saying, answer him not.
He's saying, look, let them, you know, as a sheep before shearers is dumb.
So he opened not his mouth, the Bible says, of Jesus, right?
And Hezekiah is just like, let him say whatever he's got to say.
You just zip it.
Don't say anything.
Then came Eliakim, the son of Hezekiah that was over the household in Sheba, the scribe in Joah,
the son of Asaph that recorded to Hezekiah with their clothes rent and told him the words of Rapsheki.
So they're just like, they go back and their clothes are rent or they're just completely saddened by the state of what's going on.
Obviously, they're struggling with this, but we're going to see that obviously the Lord will end up delivering them in the long run.
Now, you know, holding your peace is a hard thing to do sometimes.
But, you know, vengeance is mine, say the Lord, I will repay, give place unto wrath, the Bible tells us.
And sometimes we don't necessarily need to answer back.
You know, when I read some of those emails, I'll be honest with you, sometimes I answer back.
And in fact, I did answer today.
I got a good response to this one.
Send, you know.
And then I'm checking back like, did he read it? I want to see if he read it, you know.
But, you know, sometimes, you know, I need to not answer those.
Sometimes I just need to look at it and say, Lord.
Can you destroy this person, please?
Can you punish them? Look at their violence, look at all the wickedness that they're saying, look at all the vulgar language that they're using against God's people.
Look at this madness of this person.
And I'm talking about spamming the most disgusting, filthy things.
To even look at letters, making those words is disgusting.
It's just like, man, sometimes you just got to go, Lord, this person is like, they hate you.
Can you please make them go down quick into hell?
Can you destroy them? Can you afflict them?
Can you break their teeth?
You know, and to a fault, sometimes I do answer a word.
I tell Rapshecky to go jump in the lake of fire, you know.
I give him the thumbs up, you know, not using the thumb.
Because I'm just, I'm a normal human being.
You know what I mean? Sometimes you got a good comeback.
But, you know, sometimes you just need to be like, are you done?
All right, and then go to the Lord and say, Lord, please kill that person.
Destroy them.
You know, just, they're so wicked, so evil.
Look at all the stuff that they're saying against God's people.
They're saying that you can't deliver us.
They're saying that you're incapable.
They're mocking you. They're mocking God's people.
They're making us afraid. Lord, do something.
And you know what? This is basically what Hezekiah does.
He takes that letter and he prays it before the Lord.
And the Lord answers his prayer in a miraculous way.
But we'll get there next week.
The point of this Bible study tonight is just to realize that we don't have to answer every threat.
We don't have to answer every comment.
Especially for those of us who aren't really good at doing it.
It's probably more tempting for us.
And I'm included in that because I'm good at doing comebacks.
You know, it's just, it's kind of my thing, you know.
When you have like a witty comment, you just want to say it.
You know, sometimes you just got to answer not a word.
And just take it to the Lord and say, Lord, please do something about this.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for the example here, Lord, of these threats to be seen given by Sennacherib and Rabsheki.
Help us as your people to respond like Eliakim, Shebna, and Hezekiah.
And that we answer not a word, Lord.
Help us as your people to be as a sheep before shears is done, Lord.
And to just give place unto wrath, to take it to the Lord in prayer.
And maybe even increase our impregatory prayers, Lord.
Knowing full well that you can deliver us from the reviling of the people,
from the threats of the people who hate you and hate your church and hate the Bible, Lord.
May you bless us as we go on our way. Give us a great weekend to follow.
Help the people who are sick in our church to heal, Lord, and to get better.
And may all things be done for your honor and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.