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All right, second Kings chapter number 18. We called the pest control company about our winged mammal out there. We'll see what happens. All right, second Kings chapter number 18. So last week we talked about the fall of Israel and a lot of information about what that meant. So really if you have that Kings chart, and actually regarding the Kings chart, brother from Mountain View Baptist Church sent me a better one, but I couldn't print it out. So I'll work on that and I'll forward that one to you cause they actually spent the time to like make it nice. Not like ours, just like a preformed deal that's just like, here you go, have it. But I'll work on that. But it's gonna start, like I said last week, it's gonna start to get much easier because the Northern Kingdom of Israel is now gone. So basically all we have left to deal with is the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And that is primarily gonna take us through the rest of the book. And tonight we're gonna be talking about King Hezekiah and a lot of stuff about his life and his reign. Now I titled this sermon this evening, the ATM of Jerusalem, the ATM of Jerusalem. You'll see why here in a few verses. But let's get started here right away cause we've got a lot of verses to go through. Look down at verse number one of 2 Kings chapter number 18. So the Bible says, Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abby, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father did. Now I don't know about you, but that's a nice change of pace, isn't it? Cause we've been primarily focused on the kings of the northern kingdom and it's just like evil, evil, bad, bad. Just wicked. And now that we're back down to the southern kingdom, they obviously had more kings that did right. But Hezekiah does really good in his lifetime. And he does something very unique here in the next verse. Look at this, verse four. The Bible says he removed the high places. Okay, now how many kings did that? You know, not too many. You know, we've been going through the list and it's like, the Bible's like, but he did not remove the high places, but they still went to groves. Whereas Hezekiah, the Bible says, he removed the high places and break the images and cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made from to those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called it Nehushtan. Very interesting, you go back to Numbers chapter 21 and you can read that account where the children of Israel were suffering from fiery serpents that the Lord had unleashed on them because of their disobedience. And so what he did is he told Moses to put a brass serpent on a pole. Well, obviously a serpent moves horizontally, poles vertical, that represents a Christ, I'm sorry, the cross of Christ. It's a picture of humanity being bitten by sin and Jesus being the one that heals that. So we look to the cross and kind of like we talked about this morning, everything points to Christ and the Bible and hopefully you start to see that. But what happened after Moses was told to do that? Well, it went in for a memorial into the tabernacle and then later on became a piece of idolatry basically is what it became. And so Hezekiah's like, look, we're in deep trouble because of my father for one, Ahaz, the king before him and we need to start making things right. So he gets down to details and he starts to take away the high places. They start to break down the images and the groves and he even goes as far as to remove this Nehushtan from Judah, from their nation there so that it can no longer be used in a negative way. Verse five, it says 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. You're gonna see some parallels tonight with Hezekiah and David and also some contrast. Hezekiah is going to do something that David probably would not, but we'll get to that here in a second. Look at verse six, it says for he claved to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. Again, I don't know about you, but this is definitely a refreshing break after reading about all the kings of Israel and even a lot of the kings in Judah. You got these kings in Judah, they're, well, I'll go beat the Edomites and then make their gods my God. Just these kings doing the most absurd, insane things and here we have somebody finally who's doing right, who's doing very well and trying to follow the Lord the best that he can. And look at verse six and this is the result. It says for he claved to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses and the Lord was with him and he prospered whether so ever he went forth and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not. So he's on a roll here, he's getting rid of the idolatry, he's getting rid of the high places, all of these things that have been plaguing their nation for so many years under so many different kings. He's finally getting right and he's like, look, I'm gonna rebel against the king of Assyria. I'm not gonna allow him to put us to tribute any longer and so it just gets even better. Look at verse eight. He smote the Philistines even unto Gaza and the borders thereof from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. Verse nine and it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. So, I mean, there's a lot to be said right here. You know, this guy here, he's on a roll, he's battling with the Philistines, he's rebelling against the Assyrian empire and for the moment in his fourth year, or in his, yeah, his fourth year as king, the northern kingdom is being taken captive, okay? They're going away, which has gotta feel somewhat lonely because they are the brethren of this nation, you know, they are all Hebrews and, you know, Hezekiah's just probably thinking, well, they're preoccupied up there, you know, I'm just gonna keep doing my thing and not have to worry about it in the meantime. But look at the verse again, look at this closely here, I want you to see this. It says, and it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. So you have the southern kingdom now, they finally have a king that's doing it right and serving the Lord and God is literally, you know, pleased with him, He's with him, you know, He's bringing the nation back to God and then you have this contrast up north where they're literally, God's just done with the nation. He's just, you know, like I've had enough and I'm going to basically cease you from being a nation. You're gonna be completely gone. The Assyrians take out the Hebrews, the 10 tribes from the northern kingdom and they replace them with other nations and they become known as the people of Samaria or the Samaritans. Remember, we talked about that extensively last week. So just kind of interesting to point out there what's going on. You have a good thing going on down in the southern kingdom and then obviously you have this very unfortunate thing going on in the northern kingdom but they brought it on themselves, you know. They did not have to go out that way. They could have followed the Lord, they could have turned around, they could have heeded all the prophets that God sent them. How many times did God warn them through prophet after prophet after prophet, you know, and they just ignored it just about practically every time. Look at verse number 10. It says, and at the end of three years, they took it even in the sixth year of Hezekiah that in the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. So you're kind of getting like a meanwhile. So you read chapter 17 and it's detailing the captivity. Well, it's not really a captivity, it's just a complete removal of the northern kingdom and while that's going on, Hezekiah is getting this southern kingdom strengthened, he's recovering from what his father had done and getting everybody pushed back to God and things seem to be going well for him. He's like, well, you know, my brethren are gone, we've got new neighbors now. It is what it is. Look at verse 11, it says, and the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halal and in Abor by the river of Gosan and in the cities of the Medes and then it tells you why, verse 12, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed his covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded and would not hear them nor do them. So just very simple. You know, and I talked about this last week. You know, why is it so important that we understand this? Well, one, so that you don't get fooled by what's going on today because today there's a nation called Israel and people are like, oh, the Jews are back in the land and this and that and, you know, they're the apple of God's eye and if you say anything at all negative about them, you're an anti-Semite and, you know, you're not saved and you're going to hell and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, look at that nation and what they're trying to do. Okay, I think right now, I don't know if this has actually passed but they're actually trying to ban like pretty much Christianity as a whole. Like all Christianity, even Christianity we don't agree with. You know, the Orthodox are just all of it. They hate Jesus Christ. Now I'm not saying that every single individual in that nation does. I believe there are saved people that live there. Yeah, there has to be. And we've talked about why in the past but I'm saying, you know, the Jews that run that place and their politicians are just like ours here. In fact, the reason why they're in power is because of the people that put our people in power. They're all friends. They all work together behind the scenes, okay? But you think Benjamin Netanyahu loves Jesus Christ? No, you know, whoever the prime minister is, whoever the politicians are, they hate Christ. The Jews are the synagogue of Satan is what the Bible says. This is what they are today. Hey, oh, you're an anti-Semite. No, they're doing all the stuff that we just read about the last 17 weeks studying the Northern Kingdom. And God said, I've had enough, they're done. Okay, so you can look at their history and what upset God and why God removed them. And then you can look at what's going on today and what we're being fed by the media and fed by fake Christianity and be like, wait a second. We need to wake up here. That doesn't line up with what makes God happy, okay? So obviously we've got a pretty serious problem here, okay? And so again, there's a reason why these things are not read in churches today because it wakes people up to the reality of what's going on in our world today and the deception that's being sown by pretty much these people, okay? So let me get that out of the way. Let's move on here to verse number 13. Now this is gonna kinda take a little bit of a turn here and bring you back in to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And this is very important for you to understand because I mean, just Israel as a nation, I mean, they've fallen so much. And if you just read through this, you might kinda miss what's about to be said here. But I mean, you've got the whole Northern Kingdom is gone, okay? You're left with the Southern Kingdom. And then what you're gonna see now is they're pretty much gonna be reduced down to just Jerusalem. Look at what it says here in verse 13. It says, now in the 14th year of King Hezekiah. So 10 years after what we just read happened, after the Northern Kingdom is gone, Hezekiah's steamrolling people is doing good, doing well, he rebelled against the King of Assyria. We're gonna see that comes back now as a test for him. Look at this, verse 13. Now in the 14th year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib, King of Assyria, come up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them, okay? So what does that mean? Well, it means they took over 40 cities, if you really get the geographical studies down, and they took them away from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. So really they're just left with Jerusalem and in that area. I mean, think about it. Think about the days where God rescued them from Egypt and established them and gave them the law. And then, you know, you read Joshua and they got the promised land all figured out and they got settled. You know, and they had the time of the judges and you think about that nation and that time period and now it's just down to Jerusalem, right? And, you know, when you study the life of Hezekiah, which we're obviously doing tonight, we'll be doing next week and the week after. He's gonna cover three chapters in the Book of Kings. You know, you're gonna see a preview of their own captivity, of the Babylonians coming in and actually taking them and removing them from the land because of their coming disobedience after Hezekiah's reign is over. But it says here in the 14th year, verse 13 of King Hezekiah did to Nacharib, king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them. Now, why did they want those fenced cities and why were they fenced? Well, because there were major trade routes, okay? All the kings had wanted them previously. God actually gave them, this nation, those cities for a reason so that they could be prosperous economically, so that they could have a military advantage, you know, throughout their history. And here we see them being taken away with a verse 14. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lakish saying, I have offended. Return from me that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto king or unto Hezekiah king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Now, I don't know how much that is. I've heard different things. I've heard it several times, you know, I'm not sure. But if you could imagine that it says even before his fourth year as king, he just quit paying. He's like, I'm done. I'm rebelling against the king of Assyria. I'm not paying him, you know, a cent. And then 10 years after that, they want their money. Okay? They want their tribute and they're pretty puffed up. The Assyrians are like, look, we just removed an entire nation. We just took all these Hebrews from their nation, removed them, put other people in. We're taking out other nations that we're not even talking about now. And so they think it's gonna be an easy job to come in and just steam roll the southern kingdom of Judah. And why wouldn't they think that? They have already captured all the fenced cities. Okay? So they're pretty puffed up in their heads. And what you're seeing now is this is Hezekiah's Goliath. David, remember, he had his Goliath. Well, Hezekiah has his, and he's gonna have to deal with it. And it's gonna take him a little bit longer than it did David. You know, David was like, look, I've got no problems. You know, let me just go down there. I will fight him. And there are people tell him, you know, don't do it. You're just a lad. You're just a young buck. You can't do it. Whereas Hezekiah does struggle a little bit. Okay? He struggles a little bit with this concept, but it's really the same thing here. You know, he's doing well. He's serving the Lord. God is with him. He's got victories. He's doing the right thing. He's rebelling when everyone's telling him no. And then all of a sudden, this giant empire is coming after him. And he's afraid. He doesn't know what to do. And here's what he does. It's the first thing that he does. Verse 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. So that's why I'm calling this sermon the ATM of Jerusalem. You see, you know, remember all the way back, First Kings chapter eight, when this temple was dedicated, what was Solomon's prayer? I mean, Solomon basically, in his wisdom, formulated a word for word prayer that these kings would just have to say. And God agreed, if they just say these words and ask for my help, and they point towards this temple, I will come and help them. Okay, that's what Solomon had said. But here, Hezekiah gets confronted with that very same thing. They're in this because of the sins of the prior kings. And what do they do? They don't go and point towards the temple yet and pray and ask God for help. What they do is they say, well, we're just gonna go in there and use this like an ATM machine, you know, an automated teller machine. Just go in and just extract all the gold and the silver and pay this guy off here because we don't know what else to do. Verse 16, at that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors, remember the hinges were gold, it says 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. So he's even have to go, he's going back and he's having to undo work that he has already done. And he's not the first king that has done this, okay. We've talked about this in the past. Other kings have been like, well, I'll just go into the temple and you know, just make a quick withdrawal and pay off my debts here. This is one of the things that they did. Again, highlighting the fact that the thing in Deuteronomy that the kings were told to do, what God told the kings, God said, hey, in Deuteronomy 17, when you guys get rebellious and you decide you're sick of my system and you don't want the judges anymore and you guys appoint yourself a king, make sure he copies himself down this law. And if they would have done that, you know, and kept with the scriptures, you know, maybe this wouldn't have been the first decision, okay. Now Hezekiah, you'll see next week, does actually do this. He does finally go that route, but it would have been better if he'd have done that first, you know, because he wouldn't have had to go into the temple and take out all the gold and undo all the work and repairs that he had to do because of the damage from the king's prior. Look at verse 17. It says, and the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabseras and Rabshukha and from Lakish to King Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem and they went up and came to Jerusalem and when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pole, which is in the highway of the fuller's field. And so it's detailing the situation this way so that you can see the desperation that they're in. So that you can see how bad this really is, okay. I mean, think about it. They went from being the southern kingdom of Judah, having the fence cities. Now they are basically just confined to the capital of, which is Jerusalem. That's pretty much all they have left. And so they're literally like, I mean, just almost gone. You know, just almost completely done for. Look at verse 18. And when they had called to the king, there came out to them Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder. So what you're gonna see now from verse 19 all the way until the end of this chapter is psychological warfare, okay. The better that you understand verse 19 all the way to verse 37, the better you're gonna have people figured out, the better you're gonna have just basically negative situations figured out, the better you're gonna have even our church situation figured out. You know, why is it that, you know, clan boy and the reprobator out there again, you know, making sure they're chalked and get smudged by the rain earlier. You know, why is that? Why are they so against us? Why do these things happen? Why do we get attacked from within? You know, why do these things happen? What happens because we stand firm upon the truths found in the Bible and we're not backing down, okay. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God, okay. So what you're gonna see right off the bat, the very first thing that is going to get attacked is faith, the faith of the people, the faith of the scribes, the faith of the king, that is going to be attacked here. So pay attention to how they do this because you see the same formula all throughout the Bible. You know, I heard somebody say this one time and I believe this is true. You know, it's like there's a playbook on how to leave a new IFB church if you're a bad person. Okay, there's a playbook out there. And no matter what church of our sort you go to, they have all been through it. You know, and those people literally follow this same format. Now there are people that leave quietly. They're just like, this church isn't for me and they just leave and they're great. That's no problem. But then there are people that do stuff like this, okay. And then they want to attack your faith and attack your character and attack everything about you. And really what they're telling you without telling you, I mean, if you think about it, those people are leaking. They're no different than these freaks that are out here protesting us and calling us perverts and calling us whatever, you know. It's funny, we were walking on the sidewalk earlier and it's like, this church grooms children. It's like. Yeah, we're grooming them to be righteous. We're grooming them to follow the Lord, you know. You're grooming them to must them is what you're doing. And that's actually a fact. That guy out there with the American flag, that bum, and you know which one I'm talking about, okay. The one that looks like a bum with a cardboard sign that you can't read. That guy, and I've told you before, he goes down to the libraries and he advocates for pornographic books to be read to children without parental consent. Like, and he's like, you're not a real Christian. You need to come talk to a real Christian. He told me this morning, you're gonna have a millstone hung about your neck. Really, I don't think so. I mean, I have got like no response other than, you know, you must be on fentanyl, you know. You must be on the latest drug or something because that is absolutely crazy. But let's get back to the psychological warfare here and let's begin. So it starts in verse 19. And look at what goes on here. It says, in Rabchaka said unto them, speak ye now to Hezekiah, thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria. What confidence is this wherein, and here it is, thou trustest. What is the first thing that he attacks to the people? What are they trusting in, okay? And obviously they trust in their king who is trusting in God. And they know this, look at verse 20. Thou sayest, but they are but vain words. I have counsel and strength for the war. Now in whom dost thou trust that thou rebelest against me? So what Rabchaka is doing there is he's elevating himself above God. But he's just not saying that, okay? But that is literally what he's doing and he's mocking God and he's trying to test their faith. He's trying to, and not in a good way. He's trying to basically knock their faith down by elevating himself and making it seem like there's no way out of the situation that you're in. You're gonna lose. The odds are against you. You're surrounded. You're reduced to practically nothing. There's no way for you to get through this. Verse 21. Now behold thou trustest upon the staff of this bruise reed even upon Egypt on which if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him. Well, yeah, we talked about this last week too. They were not supposed to trust in Egypt. They were supposed, sorry, they're supposed to go to the God of heaven and yet here they're just making this assumption. Well, Israel did that. You know, they tried to do that. You're probably gonna try to go down and get Egypt's help as well. And that's not gonna help you. Verse 22, but if you say unto me we trust in the Lord our God is not that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem you shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem. I mean, this here could literally be a sermon all by itself. So this goes back to the reason why God said I don't want the high places. You know, and this is why as you're studying these things out, you know, this nation here has been in so much turmoil and so much trouble that even when they got a king that was halfway decent, God was like, well, you did right in the eyes of the Lord but the high places were still here. And God was just like, all right, I'll take this. At least take the fact that you don't hate me, that I am your God, you know. But God doesn't want the high places and the groves and the altars and things that went with that because it was exactly what the Canaanites would do. It was exactly what the world would do. And now look, you have the world coming after the nation of God. And they assume that those things are ordained by God. You know, it's kind of like people today that aren't even saved telling us, well, I went to your church and you don't have an altar call, right? I went to your church and you don't have the rock band. I went to your church, you don't have the smoke machine. I went to your church, you're not using multiple versions. Where's your diversity? You see, the world is so messed up because they see professing Christianity or the Northern Kingdom of Israel out there doing all these crazy things, worshiping the golden calf in Dan and Bethel. And then they assume, well, that's Christianity, right? And we bust out the Bible and say all that stuff's wrong. And then they want to attack us and say, you know, oh, you know, your pastor is such a strict jerk and took away the altar and took away this and took away that. Not like we ever had it to begin with, but I'm just saying we don't follow those things. But just look at, I mean, this is the result. Okay, this is the rule. This is why we preach against all these other churches out here that are going crazy and going against the Bible. You know, because they are painting Christianity in a bad light. And they are giving false information to the world. And then that's what the world thinks. And, you know, it's just this web that we have to fight through. So look at the verse again, verse 22. But if he's saying to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is not that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah had taken away and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem. Well, what Hezekiah did is he took away those things because that's what was written. That's the way it was supposed to be. And, you know, but they're making it seem like Hezekiah's this mean guy and said, no, you're only gonna worship here because I said so. It's like, no, it's because God had said so. And that was the deal. And that's like going back to the fundamentals. The Bible says that the foundations be destroyed. What can the righteous do? Great question. You take away this foundation here. You take away the truth. You take away the King James Bible from a Christian. What are they gonna do? They're gonna doubt God. They're not gonna be able to work. They're not gonna be able to do great things for God because they don't have that foundation to continuously build on. All they have are lies and maybes and what ifs and in the original, you know, that kind of junk. Look at verse 23. Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my Lord, the King of Assyria. And I will deliver thee 2,000 horses if thou be able on thy part to set riders on them. Okay, so more mocking, right? Did you see the psychological warfare going on here? It's just casting doubt, casting doubt, attacking what they're trusting in, obviously misrepresenting truth, misrepresenting what they believe in their way of worship and that's what people constantly do. It's what your family is and what your neighbors do to you. You know, do you really have to go to that church? You know, it's so strict and this and that. It's not strict. Just show up and sit down. It's all good. I mean, you know, you wanna go to strict churches, you know, they're out there. They'll put you on probation real quick and their pastor will become your parole officer, okay? That's a legit thing. You know, go join the Mormon organization. They'll automatically take your 10%. Look, there are businesses around here. You know, you even say you like the Mormon church, they'll take 10% out of your budget, you know? We don't do stuff like that. Good grief. So here he is, you know, I could give you infinite supplies, but you don't even have enough people to, you know, use them all. Verse 24, 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 whores. Keep bringing this up, you know? When did Hezekiah ever say, well, I'm gonna go down to Egypt? Yeah, he went into the temple and just started making withdrawals, but he never said or anything like that, yeah, I'm gonna go up to Egypt. But they just keep pushing that and that's what the enemy will do to you. They'll just start making assumptions, just say that about you and just keep repeating it and just to mess with you, just to get your mind off track, get your mind off faith, which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen and onto the unknown, okay? And that's what we don't want. We don't want ourselves ever in a position, what are we gonna do, oh no, and where we're just fearful and scared, okay? Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Verse 25, am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it. Now here it is, this is another thing that your enemies and our enemies will do to us. They will mix truth, okay? Now God did allow them to come up against the Hebrews. He did allow them to conquer the northern kingdom of Israel and take them out, okay? But he never said you're going down to Judah to do it. That's important to understand. But here, Rabshikah is like, I'm just gonna roll off of that brief that we had and just push that on everything and cast doubt. And keep in mind, they're saying this in front of the people. That's what they're doing. They're saying this in front of the people. And by the way, that's what bad people will do. We've talked about this several times, okay? They want to get to the people. They want the pastor out of the way and they wanna pick up that phone call and start sowing discord. Oh, did you hear Pastor Sherman on Wednesday? It was bad, it was terrible. Get out of here. Verse 26, then said Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshikah, speak I pray thee to thy servants in the Syrian language for we understand it and talk not with us in the Jews language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall. So you see what's going on here, okay? Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah and Shebna, these guys, these men of Judah here, they understand what they're trying to do. They're trying to weaken the people. And so real quickly, they just say, hey, speak in the Syrian language because they know that not every one of their people speaks that language, okay? And they know that they're mature enough to actually handle the words that are being said. They may not be aware of what they're gonna do yet, but they understand that it's gonna minimize psychological damage to their people. But the problem is Rabshikah knows what he's trying to do. Look at verse 27. But Rabshikah said unto them, hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall? That they may eat their own dung and drink their own piss with you. That's not psychological warfare. Then what, I don't know what is, okay? So he's basically saying, and he wants the people to understand, if you don't do what I say, this is gonna be your menu from here on out, okay? And they're literally in a situation where they just had all of their fancities taken. You know, it could be pretty believable that that could be a reality. Verse 28. Then Rabshikah stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language. So again, he just completely disregards the request. And saying, hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Another little nugget of truth here, which I know a lot of you already know this. It doesn't pay to back down to bullies an inch, not even a second, okay? I mean, think about it. They made this request, hey, speak in the Syrian language. And they're like, yeah, right. We're gonna keep doing what we do. There's no value in trying to reason with people like this, okay? It's like that clown this morning, you know, come talk to me, come talk to me, come talk to me. You never talk to us is one of the big things that they'll all say out there. You never talk to us. Because you're a dog. You ever try to talk to a dog? There's a communication problem. A big communication problem. Yeah, you can train some of them to do tricks and that. But that dog is still capable of turning around and rending you or your furniture or what have you. Hey, you're not gonna have a theological discussion with that animal. It's just not gonna be productive at all, okay? And we've got them trained a little bit. So, I don't know. Verse 29, thus saith the king, let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand. So look at the arrogance here that comes into play, okay? He's sure, you know, don't trust in Hezekiah. He's not on the Lord's side. He's not following the Lord like we're following the Lord. We were sent by God. We're on the Lord's side. Gee, where have I ever heard that before? Look at verse 30. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying the Lord will surely deliver us and the city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Interesting here. I mean, they're pretty much leaking right here. Okay, they know that they're trying to undermine the faith of these people. And they know that Hezekiah is going to call upon the name of the Lord at some point. And he's gonna trust in faith. And so they're trying to attack that before it even happens. Verse 31, harken not to Hezekiah. For thus saith the king of Assyria, make an agreement with me by a present and come out to me and then eat ye every man of his own vine and every one of his fig tree and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern. So again, notice the psychological trick. They put the bad thing first, right? You're gonna drink your own piss and eat your own dung if you don't do what I say. But on the other hand, if you make a bargain, you know, you basically submit to us. Okay, we're gonna give you all this good stuff here, all this resource and stuff. It's kind of funny that somebody was telling me there's a sales trick you can do. I'm not a salesman, but sometimes my job requires me to go down that road a little bit. And like, you wanna give them the bad news first and then end with the good news. And it does work. It does work with people. You have an estimate for some repair or something that somebody needs to do and you give them the bad news, but then you give them the good news. I've been trying it out lately. It does work, okay? I'm just saying, it's biblical, I guess. It does work. And that's what these guys are trying. They know, it's like they know this, you know? And so they put the bad thing first and they're like, oh, we don't want that and then they insert that good, but you can have this, okay? And so their heart's like, okay, well, maybe we should. And that's how a lot of people break. That's how a lot of people cave. And that's literally a demonic thing. That is what your enemies will do to you. And that's what they do to us. If you don't stop saying those things, we're gonna keep showing up every single service. If you don't keep your mouth shut, I'm gonna do something to you. Somebody told me that recently. Verse 32, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, land of olive oil and of honey, that you may live, not die, and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying the Lord will deliver us. So again, Hezekiah's reputation has already gone through this empire. They know what Hezekiah eventually will try. And now he's trying to pay back the debt and stuff, but also notice, he's trying to pay back the debt and they're like, no, we want more than that. We want this whole thing. We wanna take this whole nation over and you're gonna submit to us. So again, that's another reason why we don't back down to bullies. Verse 33, hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Verse 34, where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharviyim, Henna, and Ivah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? And of course, the answer is no, because God ordained this, God appointed that this would happen. That's the only reason the Assyrians were even successful is because God gave the okay. Verse 35, and we're getting close to being done here. Look what it says. It says, who are they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their country out of mine hand? That the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand. So again, he's just systematically going through all these reasons why they will not win, why they should not listen to Hezekiah. And that's what the enemy does, okay? Especially when you're dealing with issues within the church, okay? These spiritual type matters, they will always try to take you away from the person who was either ordained, they'll try to take you away from the word of God. It's just a constant battle, a constant casting doubt on those things. Don't let the pastor tell you this. Don't let the pastor say this. You know, it's just what they do. It's what they're doing here, they're going after the king. Don't let Jesus say this. It's too late, it's already in the Bible. Verse 35 again, it says, who are they among all the gods of the countries? Of course, they're just dumb idols that don't speak. I mean, you know, it's kind of funny how he accepts that and he knows that here, but he's so drunk on pride, he has no idea what's going to eventually happen to him. But it says, who are they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand. And of course, that statement there is going to get God very angry because now he's gotten so prideful, he's actually attacking God again. Verse 36, but the people held their peace and answered him not a word, for the king's commandment was saying, answer him not. So this is a good thing here. All that prep work that Hezekiah had done, those 14 years where he was steamrolling and just doing good and getting all the wickedness and idolatry out of land, it paid off. They actually listened to him and they say, okay. You know, in their hearts, they might've been fearful and thinking like, man, how are we going to get out of this, we've never been in this situation. We've been down and out, we've had bad judges, we've had bad kings, we've been under oppression, you know, we've been under the Midianites, we've been under all these heights, you know, temporarily, but we've never had our land taken from us. But because of the work of Hezekiah and because of his faith, honestly, you know, they trust him and they just do not answer. Verse 37, then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household in Shebna, the scribe and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder to Hezekiah with their clothes rent and told him the words of Rab-sheka. And of course, that's the end of the chapter there. We're going to cut it off there. Next week, we will pick up with what Hezekiah does this time, okay? And now you're going to see next week, he actually does the right thing and gets his act together. And this is going to take a complete turn and the Assyrians are going to be in for a very big surprise. But again, the big lesson here is understanding this psychological warfare. Anytime you see something like this in the Bible, where there's an exchange like this, pay very close attention and go home and read it and just kind of think about it and then think about some of the battles that you've had or maybe your church has had and just try to just solidify that in your heart because it's going to increase your discernment level and you're going to be able to see these things as they appear later on in life. And not even just in church, but even at work. Even just with people that you know that are wanting to attack you for what you believe and why you believe it, you always come back here. Oh, I know what's next. You're going to say something along these lines. I'm telling you, this is a playbook here from the devil to attack your faith. That is the main thing that they are going after. Do you really have to go to that church? That's what they were saying this morning. You know, there's other Baptist churches. You don't have to go to this one. Don't go to this one. There's a lot of other Baptist churches. That's saying something though, isn't it? And think about that, saying something. They want you to go to any other church in the Treasure Valley, but not this one. That means there's something here for you every single week, hopefully. So we're going to stop right there. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, again, for these great accounts that you've saved for us so we can learn from them and receive admonition and become better at navigating life. We just pray that you bless the fellowship after the service. Bring us back again safely on Wednesday. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.