(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, we're here in 2 Kings, 2 Kings chapter 15, and I want you to look down at verse number 17 to start, 2 Kings 15 verse 17. And the name of this sermon is, throw down the Assyrian empire, throw down the Assyrian empire. That's what we're dealing with here in 2 Kings 15. And it says in 2 Kings 15 verse 17, In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah, king of Judah began Nahum the son of Gadai to reign over Israel and reign ten years in Samaria. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel a sin. And Paul the king of Assyria came against the land, and men ahem gave Paul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And men ahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria, so the king of Assyria turned back and stayed not there in the land. And so what you're seeing here in 2 Kings 15, Assyria at this time is the most powerful empire in the world. Or not. It's not even close. They're a lot more powerful than Egypt or any other empire. And basically he comes against the land, and what does men ahem do? He gives them a thousand talents of silver. You say, why? Because he's afraid. He's afraid that the Assyrian empire is just going to take over and destroy them. So he basically just says, hey, here's money, please don't kill us, please don't destroy us. And he just gives them money. Notice in verse number 20, where does he get this money? He takes it from the mighty men of wealth. Fifty shekels of silver from each of the mighty men of wealth. Now, obviously if you have money then maybe you have some despair, but if you work for that money, it's your money. Nobody has the right to come in and just take that money from you. That's what's going on here. Why? Because he's afraid of the king of Assyria, so basically he steals money from the people of the land and gives it to the king of Assyria. It's like a peace offering, please don't kill us, please don't destroy us. Now turn to Nahum chapter 2. And so I'll give you a little bit of a background here on the Assyrian empire and see what the Bible says about them. Because if you think throughout history, you know, we all know about the Egyptian empire, we all know about the Roman empire, we all know about the Greek empire, you know, those are known in history, they're not forgotten. There's not a lot known about the Assyrian empire. And you might ask that question, why is it? I mean, think about Greece. If you think of the most famous king in the history of Greece, you're going to think Alexander the Great. Everybody knows who that is. You think of Rome, you think of Julius Caesar and a lot of famous people in history. You think of Persia, you think of King Cyrus. You think of Babylon, you think of King Nebuchadnezzar. You think of Assyria, who's the famous king in history? You don't know. You say, why? Because God destroyed Assyria, because they were wicked. Look at Nahum chapter 2 verse 8. The Bible reads, But Nineveh is of old, like a pool of water, yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry, but none shall look back. Now, remember in the book of Jonah, Jonah comes up to the land of Nineveh, which is the capital of the Assyrian empire. And basically, God says that you're going to be destroyed. And the king of Assyria basically turns back to God, and God spares him for a time period. You go two books later in the Bible, and you get to the book of Nahum. And then the book of Nahum is basically, you're out of chances. You're done, you're going to be destroyed. And so in the book of Nahum, what it says about Nineveh is of old. Is of old. Now turn back to Genesis 10. See, one thing that made the Assyrian empire so arrogant was because they had been around for a long time. And they figured, wait a minute, we've been the top dogs for a long time. For 400 years, they basically ruled the world. They were the powerful empire. And they had been around for like 2,000 years. I mean, when you've been around for that long, it's very easy to say, we'll never be destroyed. Like in today's world, what do you think the United States of America thinks? Nobody's ever going to destroy us. I mean, we're the United States of America. We're the most powerful empire in the world. We basically rule the world. Nobody's going to destroy us, right? That's the attitude the U.S. has. By and large, the politicians and people around the world. That's the way the Assyrian empire felt, okay? They had been around for a long time. Notice how accurate the Bible is when it says it is of old. Genesis 10, verse 8. Shortly after the flood, and Cush begat Nimrod, he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Arach, and Achak, and Calne, and the land of Shinar. Notice verse 11. Out of that land went forth Asher, and buildeth Nineveh. And the city Rehoboth and Calah. Asher is where you get the name Assyria, okay? And he's building Nineveh, okay? So that's the capital city of Assyria. This is shortly after the flood. They were of old. They had been around for a long time. They were not a new empire. They were not a new country. They had been around basically right after the flood, okay? They had been around for a very long time. Now if you've studied history about the Assyrian empire, even me and brother Matt were talking yesterday and I was telling some stuff about it, and he had actually seen what I was talking about. If you look at the own depictions from the Assyrian empire, their own art of what they were as a people, they will show you that they were literally ripping people's eyes out of their bodies. They will show you that they were ripping the skin off of their enemies' bodies. You say, why would they do that? Because the god of Assyria was a god of war. That is what they worshipped. And so in their minds, as we destroy other empires, we kill other people. It just shows our god is really powerful. I mean, think about the world today. Isn't the Islamic religion pretty evil? See, if you're a good Muslim, then you're going to hate people like us. If you're a good Muslim. If you actually believe what the Quran teaches, you're going to hate people like us. Why? Because in their book, we're evil, right? You can see certain verses in the Quran, and it talks about chopping off their legs and things like that. That was the Assyrian empire. And they got their glory by destroying other empires. This is not other people's depiction of them. In their own art, they're showing that they're destroying and torturing people. And to them it was normal, because that just showed that their god was more powerful than the other gods. Now that kind of helps bring to light this story, because you can see why the king's afraid. It's not just that they're going to conquer us, but if they conquer us, they might just take out my eyeball. They might just rip off a leg or something like that. Literally, in their own art, that's what they were doing. I can understand why he's afraid. I can understand why he's like, hey, I'll just take money from all the rich people. I'm not afraid of that. I'll just give you this money. It's a peace offering. Please don't destroy it. Because the Assyrian empire, they basically destroyed everybody that they came across. So if you look throughout history, the most evil empire that existed was the Assyrian empire. Now, it's interesting because I watched a lot of documentaries and read a lot of stuff leading up to this. And what I just told you, a lot of historians say the same thing, that the Assyrian empire was extremely wicked. Now, keep in mind that thousands of years ago, over 3,000 years ago, they worshipped a god of war. There is a remnant of Assyrians today, and they are very defensive about the fact that they used to be very evil. And it's like their religion now is sort of like Catholicism or Orthodox. It's kind of similar. It's kind of their own spin, but very similar. And it's like your god's a different god. It doesn't matter what they did 3,000 years ago. They were worshipping a false god. I mean, do we really care what Lapu-Lapu did like 600 years ago? I don't care. I mean, if he was some wicked person, I mean, he was some sort of Muslim, right? It's a different religion. It doesn't affect us today. I mean, you just need to admit the fact that not just in secular history, you can look at the Bible and see how evil the Assyrian empire was. And for us as Christians, we can know that because Egypt was not completely destroyed, were they? Assyria was. And Assyria's name has been put out of remembrance. Why? Because they were more wicked, they were more arrogant, they were worse than the other empires that existed. Now, turn back to 2 Kings. Go to 2 Kings 16. And so that's a little bit of a background on the Assyrian empire. So honestly, it makes sense why people would be afraid of them. Okay? I would be afraid to fight somebody if I realized if I lost that match that I could lose a body part, you know? You know, I've boxed cringe for fun before, but, you know, I realized that if I lose and he knocks me out, then I'm going to wake up and still have all my body parts, okay? I don't have to worry about waking up and having some big problem, okay? But with the Assyrian empire, when they destroyed empires, they completely destroyed them. And in the Bible, they're mocking their enemies, okay? You see that throughout the Bible. 2 Kings 16. Now, this is a bit of a unique sermon because there's really only one point to this sermon. It's kind of drawing to a climax to our final point of throwdown of the Assyrian empire. There's really only one point in this sermon. 2 Kings 16, verse 5. Then Resin, king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to war, and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. At that time, Resin, king of Syria, recovered Ahlath to Syria and drank the juice from Ahlath, and the Syrians came to Ahlath and dwelt thereon to this day. Now, an important distinction you must know is that Syria is not the same as Assyria. They're completely different, okay? They're spelled very similar, Syria and Assyria. They're completely different. So if you're reading the Bible, you're going to come across Syria, Assyria. These are not the same, okay? They're different empires, okay? They're different countries. They're different nations. And so Syria in verse 6 is different than in verse 7 where it says, So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pilaser, king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Assyria and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me. Now, here mentions Tiglath-Pilaser, and in history, he's known as Tiglath-Pilaser III, okay? Oftentimes kings had the same name. You think of like King Henry VIII. Usually with lineage, you'd often name someone who would be the next king the same name as, you know, their father or grandfather or something like that. So he's the third that was basically the king. Now, this is actually the same king, though, as Paul let's mention in 7 Kings 15. Before he became the king, oftentimes when you become the king, they rename you. His name in secular history was known as Pulu. P-U-L-U. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Okay, but P-U-L-U is very close to P-U-L. As you read this story, and I don't have time to go into it, you can tell this is the same king. It just has multiple names. In the Bible, Peter had multiple names, right? You think of Simon, you think of Simon and Peter. A lot of people had multiple names. This is actually the same king. But notice how basically this person is saying, Hey, come and save us out of the king of Assyria, okay? Same sort of thing. Everybody realized that Assyria was the most powerful one. Now, why would this king, though, save them? Well, notice what it says in verse 8. And A.S. took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king's house and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria. So he says, basically, save us. We're afraid of Assyria. We'll pay you money and save us, okay? Why? Everybody realizes Assyria is the most powerful empire in the world. And they say, well, just give you money and protect us from Assyria, okay? Notice where he takes this money from. Found in the house of the Lord. It's wicked to take money from your ordinary citizens, but to take it from the house of the Lord. I mean, last week we gave you guys the charts of how we spend all of our money, right? Can you imagine if you had a section that said 45% to the king of Assyria? I mean, wouldn't that make you mad if you were donating money and we were just giving it to, you know, whatever, you know, religion or country or whatever? And we said, hey, you know, 45% to the king of Assyria. That would make you mad, right? Because that money was meant for the house of the Lord. Now, it makes sense why that they're afraid, but look, when you're taking money out of the house of the Lord to fund something, there's a problem there. You're not using it for sole winning. You're not using it for the building of the house of the Lord. You're using it because you don't want to get destroyed, okay? They're taking money from the house of the Lord because they're afraid. They're afraid of Assyria and they're afraid of us, Assyria. They're afraid of both of them, okay? Notice what it says in verse number nine. And the king of Assyria hearkened on to him, for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it and carried the people out of it, kept it to her and slew Reza. So the king of Assyria comes up and he basically takes the money and just basically destroys them. Why? They're the most powerful and higher. They can easily destroy basically anybody that they wanted to, okay? Now, keep in mind that this king most likely is probably some wicked, evil reprobate, okay? Most likely he's some wicked, evil reprobate. So you're basically getting money, some really wicked person, why? Because of fear. You know, people let fear drive their entire lives. I mean, there's literally people that, you know, would not come to this church because they're afraid. Oh, I'm afraid of, you know, I need my own church, my family, my friends, they're afraid. I mean, people, you know, don't go soul winning, why? They're afraid to go soul winning. There's a lot of times people just let, you know, other people rule their lives, why? Because of fear. They're afraid to do what's right. They know what is right to do, but they're afraid to do what's right. Yeah. When I'm talking about throwing down the Assyrian empire, I'm not talking about a battle that you're fighting and losing sometimes. I'm talking about a battle that you're not fighting. See, this is what's going on. Basically, here's the money, we don't want to fight this battle. It's not worth it to us to stand up to this wicked king. We'll go to second king seventeen. Second king seventeen. Here's the problem you have when you don't stand up to that Assyrian empire. If you don't stand up to the Assyrian empire, that Assyrian empire is going to bug you your entire life. Yeah. It's never going to go away. You must just decide to stand up to it, and if you never stand up to it, you've got to live with the fact your entire life that Assyrian empire is going to bother you. It's going to bug you. Eventually, you need to just decide to stand up to it and fight that battle. And if you do not fight that battle, it's going to bug you your entire life. Amen. You say, well, you know, one day I'll fight this battle. No, you probably never will. You've got to just stand up and fight that battle. Second king seventeen verse one. Against him came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and Hoshea, the king of servants, and gave him presents. So now we have a new king of both Israel but also of Assyria. Now we have Shalmaneser. And guess what? Shalmaneser is the same as the king of Assyria before. He's going to do the exact same thing. Verse number four. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to sow king of Egypt, and brought no presents to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. So basically he tries to go kind of half way. He's afraid of the Assyrian empire and he hopes the Egyptians can help him out. Okay. Now if you understand history, Assyria basically was around for a long time but they didn't really peak for a long time. And they basically peaked for four hundred years and basically at the height of their power they were destroyed. Okay. Egypt's kind of different. They basically start right after the flood as well. And they're basically powerful throughout history. And they basically, they get lessened, they get weakened, but they don't have a time period where they go from being the top dog to nothing to collapse. And they don't get destroyed like Assyria was. Basically Egypt was the most powerful empire for a while, then they lost power, they became the most powerful again. You can even look to secular history and right before the time of Jesus Christ, if you remember, you have Mark Antony with Cleopatra, which Cleopatra was from Egypt, and basically that was like one of the big empires in the world. Because they're basically battling it out with Rome. Because Mark Antony basically kind of left Rome. It's hard to tell what he was actually planning to do because he fell in love and fell in lust with Cleopatra just like Julius Caesar had. And so basically if they had won that battle, then Egypt might have been the empire again. But Rome basically went out and they're basically destroyed. That is only shortly before Jesus Christ, like less than 30 years before Jesus comes on the scene. And Egypt is still a legitimate power. Now during the time of the Bible, Rome is in power, but Egypt basically, they sort of control but not fully. But anyways, what I'm saying is Egypt was powerful this entire time period. And so they go to the king of Egypt, because Egypt is still powerful, and they basically give the king of Egypt money. They said we don't want to fight the Assyrian empire, maybe if we give Egypt money it will help us overcome Assyria. Now just reading that, that's kind of a foolish thing to do. Because you're still going to be paying money to somebody else. And Egypt might not be as scary or as powerful as Assyria, but we're still a lot more powerful than you. And if you just give them money, you're just going to be paying them tribute forever. So basically they say, well instead of paying you tribute to Syria, we're going to pay tribute to Egypt. And hopefully Egypt can help us feed Assyria. Well I've noticed it doesn't work, because he gets thrown in prison. Why? Because the Assyrian empire was a lot more powerful than Egypt. They weren't going to be able to stand up to the Assyrian empire. Verse number 5. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Lucia, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria and placed them in Hela and Hebor by the river Gozen into the cities of the Neves. Now, notice this, that the king of Assyria basically takes the people out of the land and replaces them elsewhere. Now I heard recently that we almost had a war with Canada or something, like my parents told me that. I don't follow the news, because I don't even know this in our own country. But it's just like, can you imagine though, like, obviously we'd never fight with men in war. Can you imagine if we fought Canada in a war and then just next week we got removed from Canada? I mean, I don't want to live in Canada. That's a cold place. I don't like cold weather. That's too cold for me. But can you imagine just being taken out of your country and just being placed in another country? Nobody wants that to happen to them. Right? Against your will you just get thrown in another country, but Assyria basically takes over and does what they want to do. So that's second Kings 17. Look at second Kings 18. Second Kings 18. And so we go through the story of Assyria, and basically every chapter they're the dominant empire. And nobody's willing to stand up to them, and eventually King Hezekiah comes on the scene. Second Kings 18, verse 5. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he claimed to the Lord and departed not for following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not. So finally we have a king that's willing to stand up against the Assyrian empire. Look, if nobody stands up to the Assyrian empire, it's always going to bother you. It gets passed on from generation to generation to generation. Look, there are people that are in this church that the Assyrian empire in their life was basically coming to this church, like leaving their old dead church, and they basically ripped off the bandaid and they came here. But look, if you never just made that move to come here, you're going to complain about your boring sermons for the next 20 years. You're going to complain that your church doesn't go so many for the next 20 years. And look, people in this room don't really want to hear your complaints. Why? Because of the fact you can easily just leave. You can stand up to the Assyrian empire. And it's like people that complain about their dead church. Look, if you have a good church that's near you, you have no reason to complain. I get it if you live in a country and you have no good church to go to. If you have a good church, you have no excuses. If that's the Assyrian empire, you've got to conquer that empire. And King Hezekiah is willing to stand up against the Assyrian empire. Notice what it says in verse number 9. And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Boshiach son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and Beseeched it. So, Shalmaneser becomes a king and he carries away Israel. But eventually what happens is Hezekiah ends up rebelling. But what you're going to see is a new Assyrian empire, not a new empire, but a new king takes over. See, in history, Shalmaneser was considered a very weak king. In secular history, he's known as being a very, very weak king. Now, what they consider a strong king is basically a king that comes over and conquers lands and basically kills all the people. But this king basically was a bit of a pushover. He wasn't as strong, he wasn't as powerful, he wasn't as intimidating as former Assyrian kings. But see, after Shalmaneser comes the most intimidating king that we have. And notice what it says in verse number 13. Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up against all the thin cities of Judah and took them? So remember earlier in verse 9 it said the fourth year of king Hezekiah. Verse 13 is the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah. So what's going on is that Hezekiah is standing up to Shalmaneser, but then when Sennacherib comes, he doesn't stand up either at first. This is ten years later and he's afraid. Why? Because the Assyrian empire is even more intimidating than they were before. And Sennacherib, being the new king, he's a very scary person. Now one thing to mention here in verse number 13 is that Sennacherib was basically a co-regent king. What a co-regent king means is that there's multiple kings at the same time. In history, in between Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, and also you can find this in the Bible as well in the book of Isaiah, there's a guy by the name of Sargon who is the king of Assyria. And Sennacherib is the son of Sargon. So what's happening is Sargon basically becomes the king and he appoints his son as the co-regent king. You say, why would you do this? Because if you're trying to conquer the world, if you leave your empire to conquer a new land and you don't appoint a successor, somebody will try to take that throne while you're gone. So if you're smart, what you do is appoint somebody and you give them basically full authority and full power so people can't question the authority. If I left this church for like a year, if I went on what they call furlough, we basically go back to the U.S. and you make people for money again, which obviously we don't do that. I mean literally people that are on the mission field, they'll be gone for like eight months and they go around to every church and say, please still give us money. I'm not teaching the close to your rapture, don't worry, please still give us money. We won't do anything controversial. But then they'll be gone on furlough for a while. What would happen after eight months? I mean who knows? I mean if you're gone for eight months, anything could happen. If you run a company and you just leave for a year and don't appoint somebody as the person in charge with authority, then anybody could try to take that authority. And so this is something that was very common in history because oftentimes people would try to conquer new lands. And look, if he's going to be gone conquering a new area, he needs somebody in charge while he's gone to take over an area. So basically his son is the person who's going to eventually become the king, so at a young age Snapper gets appointed as the co-regent king to take over lands. This is very common in history. Alexander the Great, before he was like the top dog, he was the co-regent king under his father Philip. This is the very common thing in history. So during this time period, Snapper, he is the king of Assyria, but he's the co-regent king. Which means his father is still basically an ultimate authority, but he leaves his son with authority in his absence. Now Snapper is basically known, and you can tell in the Bible as being like the most vicious, the meanest king of Assyria. Now remember before Assyria was pretty scary. They would basically torture their enemies when they killed them. Imagine if you have a scarier king that takes over. So Hezekiah before was willing to fight the battle, but now we have an even more intimidating king. And now, guess what? He's afraid to fight that battle. Verse number 14, Bob reads, And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to lay him, saying, I have offended, to basically apologize, I have offended, return for me, and which thou putest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria point on to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. So basically he apologized, I'm so sorry that in the reign of Shalmaneser, I rebelled against the king, forgive me, here's money. See the Assyrian empire was fought, but now a more powerful empire comes, and we go back to the same thing. Here's money, please don't destroy us. Verse number 15, And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king's house. Now, Hezekiah is mentioned as a great king, and he was in the Bible. He's a great character in the Bible, but at this point, he doesn't look that great. Because he is doing the exact same thing, he's taking money out of the house of the Lord, why? He's afraid. He's afraid to fight the battle against the Assyrian empire. Verse number 16, At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. Now, I don't envision us to ever have gold doors. I know we're having problems with our lock today, we're not going to get a gold door. But can you imagine if we just took off the parts of the door, we took off the parts of the wall, basically we just said, hey, we'll give you the air conditioning, we'll give you the fans, we'll give you the sound equipment, we'll give you the baptistry, here go the chairs, we'll just sit on the floor. No pulp and no stage, nothing. That's basically what's going on. They're basically just Hezekiah is taking the money from the house of the Lord and giving it to the Assyrian empire. Why? Because it's afraid. Turn to 2 Kings 18, verse 28. And in 2 Kings 18, verse 28, Bob reads, Then Rabshaki stood in pride with a loud voice in the Jews' language in space, saying, Hear the word 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 out of his hand. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Rabshaki's being sent on behalf of the Sennacherim, and he's basically mocking them. And he says in the Jews' language that the great king is the king of Assyria. Now who do we believe is the great king? We believe Lord Almighty, right? And so basically it's a backhanded jab at their religion as well. They're saying the great king is the king of Assyria. And then he says a few verses later, don't think that the Lord's going to deliver you. He's not going to deliver you. Nobody delivers out of the hands of the Assyrian empire. We're the most powerful empire in the world. Now look at 2 Kings 19. You see, it's one thing if people mock us, but when they mock what you believe, when they mock the God that we believe in, that's when you can get offended. You know, just yesterday somebody in the park, you know, Brother Bo ran into a Filipino Jew, I guess a Filipino that converted to Judaism, and they were mocking Jesus on the cross, and basically pretending to be in pain and doing these phases and things like that. Just mocking that he died on the cross. Now look, I usually don't get offended out solely, but that would offend me quite a bit. I'd be pretty angry about that. I let false prophets make fun of me, mock me, say I'm scared and debated, whatever. I don't care. When you mock Jesus Christ, that's pretty bad. That is what the Assyrian empire is doing. And what you have to understand is it's getting worse. See, the Assyrian empire was bad before they were taking money. Now it's getting worse. You're taking money from the house of the Lord and they're mocking what you believe right in front of your face. Now look, that's not something I want to take. You can only be pushed so far, and then you've got to defend what you believe. 2 Kings 19, verse number 1, if I were to read it, And it came to pass when the king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. Now we skipped a lot for the sake of time, but Rabbi Shaki just mocks their God. He mocks the God we believe in, he mocks them, and then King Hezekiah, he rents his clothes, covers himself with sackcloth, and he goes into the house of the Lord. He's afraid, but basically realizes we've got to stand up and fight this battle. Verse number 6, And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall he say to your master, Thus say to the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and shall return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. And Isaiah says, Don't be afraid of the Assyrian empire. I can understand the fear, because if you don't fight this battle, then at least you won't be killed. You just give them money. If you choose to fight this battle and lose, not only could you be killed, you could be tortured to death. See, it's one thing to die. It's another thing to be tortured to death. If you go back to the Dark Ages, and when people left the Roman Catholic Church and got baptized, they got saved, look, the Catholic Church would brew to kill people, and oftentimes what they would do is they'd basically burn you to death, but they'd use wet grass or wet straw. Basically, so you would burn very, very slowly. It's one thing to die. It's another thing to be tortured. That's obviously a lot worse. I'm not really afraid to die, but you know what? Being tortured, that's not really something fun to think about. And they understand that if we fight this battle and we lose this battle, we could be brutally killed. That's what the Assyrian Empire did, and you can see that in the Bible, how they mocked their enemies, but also the secular history. That's what they tell you. 2 Kings 19, verse 14. And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and he read it. And Hezekiah would have been in the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwells between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou wast made heaven and earth. Lord, bow down thine ear and hear. Open, Lord, thine eyes and see, and hear the words of Sennacherth, which hath sent him to reproach the living God. Basically what he's saying is, you're the true God. You're hearing that He is mocking you. He is mocking what we believe. He is mocking you. Hear His words and be angry about it, God. He's asking God to deliver him. Now, look, I believe that God's going to protect us from harm that happens to us. But if you remember in the story of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they believed that as well, but they also said, If not, we will still not have it. There is the possibility that God will allow us to do more. Now, it's hard for us in this day to really understand that because there's no persecution right now. Throughout history, there's been a lot of persecution against Christians, whether it came from the Romans, whether it came from the Jews, whether it came from the Catholic Church. Look, when you stand up for the things of God, those that don't believe what we believe, they're going to persecute us in situations. They have that power. They have that ability. In today's world, there's no persecution. Look, we knock doors, and the worst thing that's going to happen is somebody slams a door in our face. That's not persecution. Man, I got persecuted. I was out soloing and somebody said, I don't believe that. That's not persecution. Somebody yelled at me, that's not persecution. It's a fun story, but it's not persecution. But we don't get persecuted in 2019 here in the Philippines for standing up for the truth. We're able to freely preach the gospel. But throughout history, oftentimes you did get persecuted. During the end times, you better believe you will be persecuted for what you believe. And if you want to stand up for what you believe and stand up for the truth and still go soul winning and preach the things that the Bible teaches, you're going to have to stand up against the persecution in your life. And so here what we have in 2 Kings 19 is we have true persecution that's coming. Verse number 17, Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations in their lands. So Hezekiah understands, yes, you know what, Assyria basically just killed anybody that they wanted to. That was known by everybody. The Assyrian empire was the top dog. Verse number 18, 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 have destroyed them. And so the Assyrian empire, they would destroy an empire and they would take the other country's gods and basically destroy them. Now this doesn't really seem too weird at first because you think if it's a different god, it would destroy them. But quite honestly, throughout history, when an empire takes over another country, they usually don't destroy the idols. They usually adopt them as one of their idols. They say, we'll add that god to our list. Hey, that's a cool god as well. But we'll add whatever god, our god, whatever god they want to add. That's usually what people do. That's not what the Assyrian empire did. They didn't try to assimilate the culture into theirs, keep the traditions, keep their idols. They basically just killed them all. That's what they did. They destroyed their idols. Now obviously, we believe in the true god. So obviously we hate idolatry. But the secular world by and large doesn't. Most people will look at a statue of Buddha and they're like, oh, that's so cool. I just want to rub that belly and get some good luck. They look at the Hindu gods. They look at those idols. They look at a big statue of Mary. Oh, that's so beautiful. Oh, the Feast of the Black Nazarene. That's so amazing. That's great. Now we look at it and it's terrible. It's wicked. It's idolatry. You're not supposed to make any great image. That's in the Ten Commandments. We look at it and hate it. But look, the world doesn't hate that stuff. They love it. So it is actually strange that the Assyrian empire would take their false idols and actually destroy them. That was not really a common practice amongst empires when they would take over another land. They usually assimilate them as their own. Verse number 19, Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only. Then Isaiah the son of Amaz said to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to be against, Sennacher of king of Assyria, I have heard. If we're going through trials in life, the best thing you can do is get down on your knees and pray to God and ask, Hey, it is not logical that they could have killed the Assyrian empire. That was impossible. That could have never happened. They would have never been able to beat the Assyrian empire without God on their side. See, there are a lot of battles in life that we cannot logically overcome. It's impossible. But the question you have to ask yourself is, did you ever go down on your knees and beg God to basically help you overcome that battle? Or did we just kind of look at it logically and say, You know what? It doesn't make sense. We can't conquer this and basically give up. Have you ever actually tried to fight that battle? That's the question. And oftentimes in life, it's not that we're fighting battles and losing them. We're just not fighting those battles. You just say, You know what? It's not worth it. We're not going to win the battle. You've been defeated before you even started. And you don't even try to fight that battle. That is what's going on here with the Assyrian empire. People do not even want to fight this battle. Hezekiah, though, he's under so much persecution and I'm sure he feels guilty. He's taking money from the house of God. This is a righteous and good king. He's taking money from the house of God because he's afraid. And I'm sure he feels bad. And when they start mocking the God that he believes in, it's kind of like you can only be pushed so far. You push me so far and I'll stand up and fight. And that's what Hezekiah does. He gets pushed so far and he decides to stand up and fight. Look, I'll be honest with you. When people mock the things that we believe as a church, I actually like it because all they're doing is pushing people so far to say, You know what? I'm done with this church. I'm going to leave here if you're going to mock the things that I believe. It's okay if you disagree with me, but when you mock what I believe, it's like you can only push me so far. If you're calling them a cult, you're calling me a cult. It's like, You know what? I'm not going to take those words. I like it when people want to criticize us. You know? Fine. Because it just kind of shows that it forces people to make a decision. Whose side are you on? Sometimes in life, you've got to be forced into a position where you've got to decide, Hey, what do I believe? When you give people the gospel, don't they have to make a decision whether or not they believe what you believe or whether or not they don't? It's like yesterday, me and Brother Mark were giving the gospel and we talked to this guy for a long time. This guy had to be either his girlfriend or his wife or whatever. We talked to him for about 25, 30 minutes and I was like, Hey, do you believe this? We showed him so many verses and explained, and he's like, 50-50. It's like, you can't be 50-50. Either you believe Jesus died for all of your sins or you don't. Either you believe it's a free gift or you don't. Because if you think that it requires one pay show, that's not a free gift. That is still your own religion. You can't be 50-50. You either put your faith in Jesus Christ or you trust in what you do. You can't be 50-50. You can only be pushed so far. That's what's happening here with King Hezekiah. In verse 35, we see the end of the matter with Sennacherib. It says in 2 Kings 19, verse 35, And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out to smote in the camp of the Assyrians in hundred four score and five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. This is a hundred and eighty-five thousand people. Now in today's world that doesn't seem like that much. The population is not as big during this time period. When you announce a war, from what I read online, usually your army consisted of between 150,000 to 200,000 men, even with the most powerful armies in the world. So basically you lost a lot of your life right there. A hundred and eighty-five thousand people killed. After this event in history, Assyria is still powerful and not a hundred percent destroyed, but they're no longer just ruling the world. They're just another empire amongst a few. They're not more powerful than you took after this time period. And so a hundred and eighty-five thousand people were killed like that. See, God can destroy something like that. In secular history, think about the Black Plague. The Black Plague killed one third of Europe. One third. Millions upon millions upon millions of people. I would presume it's a curse from God for something that whatever did, I don't know. I actually try to look it up in history. It's kind of hard to tell what would make God so angry, but a third of Europe was killed. But God can kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand people like that. It's nothing. In today's world, we could have an earthquake, we could have a mountain in a tube or something like that, and then rule tons of people. It could happen like that. It could happen overnight. God is that powerful. In Hezekiah, he realizes we can't beat Assyria. He gets down on his knees. He prays. He decides to stand up and fight the battle. And God kills a hundred and eighty-five thousand people in Assyria. It says in verse number 36, So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went and returned and bought at Nineveh. So basically, Sennacherib is used to just mocking everybody's God and saying, what are you going to do to us? You're not going to be able to defend yourself against us. And then all of a sudden he mocks the God that we believe in. It's the same God today. The true God that we believe in. And then a hundred and eighty-five thousand people for men get killed. Now, Sennacherib seems to be kind of smart. He's like, all right, this is a battle we don't want to fight. He's not like Pharaoh, you know the Bible, who just kind of dives in into the Red Sea. He says, I'm still going to fight this battle and ends up dying. He ends up just saying, you know what, it's not worth this battle. Now, verse 37 does not happen overnight. It comes a while later in history. But let's see the end of Sennacherib. This all-powerful, scary king that nobody wanted to fight that mocked his enemies. Verse 37. And it came to pass as he was worshipping in the house of Mizrach, his god. So he's worshipping a false god that Adre-Melech and Sherazir, his son smote him with a sword and they escaped in the land of Armenia. And as Azar hated, his son reigned in his death. So he ends up being killed by his kids. Now, if you look at Sennacherib and he gets killed by his sons, I mean, that's a pretty weak way to go down. He used to mock all these other empires and then your sons end up killing you. Now, in secular history, most people don't say that two of his sons killed him. Two of his sons killed him. It's kind of a vague debate. Now, the Bible's very clear. Two of his sons killed him. In secular history, they say, well, maybe one of his sons, maybe multiple, maybe one of his friends. They're not real sure. What's so stupid about this is that there's so much more facts behind the Bible than anything else. There's so much more proof of the Bible than any history text. And so the Bible's going to tell you something that's historical. They should just believe it. I mean, there's nothing in this verse that they should deny this verse. This has so much more evidence, so much more proof, so many more copies of things that have been written down that this is how he died. And yet in secular history, they're like, we're not really sure. It's like, so you just don't want to believe what the Bible says. And you're not sure. You say, well, maybe the Bible's right. Well, why would you question it? Because there's more proof of the Bible than any other book that's been written. There's more copies and things that have been passed down than any other book that was written. He ends up dying because two of his sons end up killing him. They say, well, Brother Second, what is the moral of this sermon? What's the main point? I want you to understand exactly what I'm talking about. I am not talking about battles that you fight and that you lose sometimes. When you try to get worldly music out of your life, sometimes that's a battle that you fight, and you win, and then you lose. You win, you lose. You win, you lose. You're still fighting that battle. At least you're fighting that battle. I'm not saying that there's something in life that you keep getting overcome by. You keep losing, but you're trying to fight it. You're battling it out. I'm talking about things where you basically say, here's the money from the house of the Lord. Here's the money from the church. I don't want to fight that battle. I'm talking about that unsaved cousin that you have. That unsaved cousin that, you know what? You say they'll never get saved in one day but preach the gospel. But you just refuse to preach the gospel. It's not that you gave them the gospel and you lost the battle. Look, when we preach the gospel, we don't lose any battles. I preached the gospel yesterday that 13 people and 6 people got saved. I won all 13 of those battles. All we need to do is preach the gospel. They've got their decision whether or not they're going to believe or not. We can't force them to believe. But I'm talking about that person in your family that you refuse to preach the gospel to because you're worried. Oh, if they don't get saved, I'll be the outcast of the family. Look, if you stand up for the things of God, God, you're not the outcast of the family anymore. That's just the way it works. But if you're refusing to preach the gospel to them, it's not that you're fighting the battle and losing it. You're just refusing to preach it. Now turn to Nahum chapter 3. What do you think about raising your kids? In the secular world today, they will tell you not to spank your kids. And a lot of people, the reason why they don't spank their kids is they're worried about, oh, what's my mom going to think? What's my dad going to think? What is so-and-so going to think? Look, it doesn't matter what your mom or dad think. You do what the Bible says. You say, well, I'm afraid I'll be ousted from the family. Look, you've got to fight that Syrian empire. Otherwise, your parents will be raising your kids for your entire life. Look, I love my parents, and they did a great job raising me. But you know what? My wife and I are the ones raising our kids. And if they believe something that's different than us, that's fine. You're welcome to their opinion. But I'm not going to let them make the decisions for my household. And it should be the same for all of us. You don't let other people just make your decisions when you know it's not right. There are certain things that we believe that's different than most people. Look, and it's your choice what you want to do, but our son was not vaccinated. I don't need a vaccination. And if you do, that's fine. We can vaccinate your kids. That's up to you. But that's my whole point. You should do what you think is right, raising your kids. I should do what I think is right, raising my kids. You don't let somebody else make your decisions for you, especially when you know what's right. All of these kings knew that they should stand up to the Syrian empire. It's not like it was a gray area where maybe it's okay to just pay him money. No, you're stealing from the house of God because you're afraid to fight the battle. It's pretty obvious that's a battle that you need to face. You eventually need to just stand up to that Syrian empire and throw down that Syrian empire. Now, one thing that's known about Assyria or said in history is that history proclaims Assyria to be the first true empire. Most historians that I've read and when I watch documentaries, they say, Assyria was the first true empire. Now, quite honestly, a lot of what they said about Assyria is correct, but that is not correct. Assyria was not the first true empire. Because the Bible says in Nahum chapter 3, verse number 8, Nahum chapter 3, verse 8. Now see, in secular history, if you remember even in the Bible, in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, there was this statue, and he was the head of the Chaldean empire centered at Babylon, the Babylonian empire. And after Babylon came King Cyrus and Persia. The Medes and the Persians were basically co-recharged. Persians were a little bit more powerful, but they took over for Babylon. And then ends up coming the Greek empire. And the New Testament was written in Greek because Alexander the Great, when he conquered, he basically set up a lot of libraries and schools so the language would never be forgotten. He wanted to be immortalized. And so after Greece, you see Rome. Rome was in power when the New Testament starts. But before those four empires, there were two empires in the book of Revelation and Incept. Two powerful empires. Those empires were Assyria and Egypt. See, here's the problem with calling Assyria the first true empire and the most powerful empire that ever existed. The Bible says Egypt was more powerful. I'll prove that to you. Nahum chapter 3, verse 8. Nahum chapter 3, verse 8. Art thou better than Populus know? Let me reword that. You're not better than Populus know. That's what it's saying. It's like, are you any better than Populus know? That was situated among the rivers that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was a sea, and her wall was from the sea. You say, how do you know this refers to Egypt? Because if you go to the book of Ezekiel, you'll see no and naught appear interchangeably. This is basically their main city. And if you look at the next verse, Nahum chapter 3, verse 9. Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite. But little more than that helped. Now, Ethiopia is its own country, but it's under the power of Egypt. And so this capital city, basically, of Egypt, where they were sinner at, was more powerful than Nineveh. See, the book of Nahum is about the destruction of Nineveh. And in verse number 8, it says to Nineveh, basically, you're not better than Populus know. And you say, well, how do you know for sure that it's saying that they were more powerful? Because in verse 9, it says, it were her strength, and it was infinite. What does infinite mean? Basically, as powerful as you possibly can be. See, what was said about Egypt and their sinnering city is basically, her strength, it was infinite. So basically, Nineveh, you're not better than Egypt. Assyria, you're not more powerful than Egypt. Egypt was more powerful than you. Egypt, her strength was infinite. You can notice in these verses how it talks about being situate among the rivers. It's known that the Nile River was basically the source of Egypt's strength. It got its strength from the Nile River. That's where it was able to produce everything and be very successful. So basically, Egypt is more powerful than the Assyrian Empire. See, history is wrong when they say the Assyrian Empire was the most powerful empire. Assyria was the scariest empire. They were not the most powerful. Those are different. And look at verse number 10. Notice the end of Egypt as it said in Nineveh. Yet was she carried away, referring to Egypt for no, populous no. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. So basically, Egypt, they were powerful for a long time. They were known as the top dog, and if you read the Bible with the story of Moses, it's pretty obvious that Egypt is very powerful. But basically, Egypt, as they decline, it's a slow decline, and eventually Assyria becomes more powerful than Egypt. But here's what you have to understand logically. It came to the point where Assyria was number one and Egypt was number two. But if number one and number two fight, what ends up happening? Number three might be number one, of course. Just because you're more powerful than Egypt, it doesn't mean that you can destroy Egypt. So basically, as Assyria had three to four hundred years of power, they basically were increasing in strength and Egypt was getting weaker to the point where Assyria was basically able to eventually battle Egypt and defeat it. Now, Egypt rises again and they're still powerful after that. But basically, before Egypt started to fall, at its peak, it was higher than Assyria ever got. That's what we see in Neptune. Its power was infinite. You say, what is my point? Here's what my point is. That battle that you're refusing to fight in life, it might be the scariest battle you've fought when you probably fought and conquered bigger enemies than Assyria before. Like I mentioned earlier, for some of you coming to this church, that was the big empire. For some of you, that was not an Assyrian empire. That was basically an Egyptian empire. Even more powerful because you knew when you did that, I could say goodbye to all my friends. My family will forsake me, they'll mock me, they'll criticize us. I'm saying goodbye to all of them. And that was more powerful than anything you might find. But then there might be something in your life now that you're just refusing to fight. Now when it comes to thinking of battles that you're refusing to fight, let me just raise my hand and say, you know what, I can think of things in my life that I need to conquer. Battles that I'm just not choosing to fight. Because sometimes what can happen is, as you go soul winning, you go to church or read the Bible, you kind of develop this attitude that, you know what, I'm already doing enough for God, I'm doing more than 99% of people out there. Is it really that big of a deal if I fight this extra battle? I've already fought and conquered so many battles that you want to rest. But life is a series of battles. The battles will never stop. You must be willing to conquer every Assyrian empire that ends up coming up in your life. And this one might be the scariest one, but honestly it's probably not the most difficult one to talk about. Now quite honestly when you think of Assyrian empires in your life, there's a good chance you have a lot of Assyrian empires and you don't even realize it. You say, why is that? Because you've chosen not to fight that battle for so long that you forgot it was a battle. I mean people sometimes they hear a sermon and it's just point blank, hey, this is what you need to do. And then they just say, yeah, you know what, that's right, and they choose not to fight that battle. And eventually what happens? Yeah, it's not that big of a deal. I mean it's a really bad big deal if I go home and listen to Guns N' Roses, Led Zeppelin, whatever's on the radio now, I have no idea. In the Philippines it's like, you know, Celine Dion and Disney, that's what I always hear. It's always playing. But you know, is it really that big of a deal if I don't fight these battles? Because yeah, you know what, it is a big deal. And when you hear the sermon, what you need to do is you need to make that change immediately. Now what that Assyrian empire for me is probably going to be different than for you. There's some battles that are basically kind of universal. When you get right with God, every single person has to fight that battle against abuse. That's why it's so easy to mention them. Because every single one of us, before we're saved, before we're living for God, we're listening to something that was not a Scotland. And when you hear that sermon, what you need to do is throw away that bad music immediately. You don't do it slowly. No, you conquer the Assyrian empire like that. So I want you to basically take away from this sermon, think about what are those battles in your life, those battles that you need to fight. And you have to understand that if you choose not to fight that battle, it's going to bug you your entire life. Are you okay with that? Are you okay with basically just giving in and doing wrong your entire life because you don't want to fight that battle? You say, but it's so scary, it's intimidating. Yeah, but it's probably not the toughest battle you've ever fought. You probably fought tougher battles, and it might be scary, it might be intimidating, but don't we believe that we can pray to God and He can help us overcome that? Because King Hezekiah was looking at certain death. There was no way around it. Logically, there was no way that they would have been able to be spared. But he prayed to God, and 185,000 people were killed like that. If God can kill 185,000 people immediately, then that battle that you don't think you can win, honestly, there's a good chance God can help you in that battle. Let's close the war in prayer.