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

But we're there in Isaiah 36 and we've also been looking, as we go through the chapters of Isaiah, we've also been looking at the numbers, the books of the Bible by the same corresponding number. So what I want you to do, before we read too much in Isaiah 36, come with me to the book of Zephaniah. The book of Zephaniah, and that is the 36th book of the Bible, the book of Zephaniah. While you're turning there, I just want to tell you about Isaiah 36. And what we're coming into now with Isaiah 36 is a very different feel to the book of Isaiah. Now much of Isaiah so far, chapter by chapter, has been prophecies about the future, about the judgment of God that's fallen upon the land of Judah. And God will sometimes use the Assyrians as the view of chastisement, or sometimes Babylon. And then sometimes God will turn the story of Babylon into the end, times, events, Babylon. And so one of those things, it's quite hard to read through and to understand, even to preach from. And sometimes, you know, with these prophecies, God uses poetic language or, you know, He uses, you know, like very cryptic language sometimes. And you've got to figure out what is God speaking about? He's speaking about current events, He's speaking about near-time future events for Isaiah. He's speaking about future events for us, you know. And, you know, it's one of those challenges in the book of Isaiah as we're going through chapter by chapter. But once we hit Isaiah 36, it's very simple. The next four chapters, 36, 37, 38, 39, they are a historical telling of events. It's not about prophecy. Isaiah's not prophesying of the future. What he has been prophesying of is playing out. And this is what Isaiah records as events that took place from Isaiah 36 all the way to 39. So these chapters, these four chapters, are pretty simple. They're easy to understand, easy to digest, compared to the previous chapters that we've seen so far in the book of Isaiah. But the reason I got you to turn there to Zephaniah is because in Zephaniah, we have the prophecy of Babylon ultimately destroying Jerusalem and the city of Jerusalem. And what we're going to look at soon, you don't need to come back with me to Isaiah 36, but keep your finger in Zephaniah. Keep your finger in Zephaniah. But I want to show you the parallel with how God uses the judgment of Babylon on Judah and how the king of Assyria uses the same kind of language as the chastisement upon Judah. Okay, but even though they're different empires, they use similar language to speak of the same judgment or wrath of God to come. And what I want you to notice there in Isaiah 36, look at verse 16. The first words say, Harken not to Hezekiah. Harken not to Hezekiah. Hezekiah is the king of Judah at this point in time. He's the king of Judah. He's a godly man. He's one of the last few really faithful godly kings of Judah. And then things progressively just get worse and worse as the future kings come into play. And so what we have here is that the king of Assyria has sent his servant to tell the people of Jerusalem, don't listen to Hezekiah. Now, what we're about to read in this chapter is almost identical to the story. I mean, it is identical, but even the wording, even the way it's written down is pretty much identical to 2 Kings 18, verses 17 to 37. And you don't need to turn there. We've actually turned to that chapter a few times as we've gone through the book of Isaiah just to show you where sometimes the cryptic prophecies are about this historical event that took place when Jerusalem was under siege by the king of Assyria. God had allowed the Assyrian army to come and wipe out the northern kingdom and then they overstepped their mandates and went into the southern kingdom and caused havoc to Judah. Now, this is Isaiah writing these historical events. And what's quite interesting, because 2 Kings is very similar, it shows us a little bit of how the books of Kings and Chronicles were put together. Because when we think about the books of the Bible, you know, a book like Isaiah, we know who the author is. The author is Isaiah. You know, there are books like the book of Matthew. We know Matthew wrote the book and Mark wrote the book of Mark and even the book of Revelation, we know that was the apostle John. But if you try to figure out who wrote the books of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, it's kind of unknown. There might be multiple authors or, you know, it's generally understood that it was written quite a long way after the events that played out in the historical tellings in the Kings and the Chronicles. But what we see here is that Isaiah lived through these events and he wrote them down and then whoever the editor was that wrote 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles took what Isaiah wrote as historical context and that was a portion that you can read about in 2 Kings 18. Alright, so what we're going to see here is a very important, a very significant event in the time of Hezekiah. It's recorded for us three times in the Bible. Okay, yes, Isaiah 36 is one time and then 2 Kings 17 and I forget the other reference, some place in 2 Chronicles. This same event is recorded three times for us in the Bible. So it's definitely something that God wants us to pay attention to. Now I told you, I'm taking the title there from Isaiah 36, 16, Hark unto not Hezekiah because Hezekiah is a king. Now I'm not going to just retell the story because I've gone through it quite a few times so far in the book of Isaiah. I thought I would take a different approach this time. If you've got people, if you've got the Assyrian army saying don't listen to your leader, don't listen to your king, I thought we could take some principles from this chapter to show you how some people will act, how they'll behave when they're trying to overthrow leadership. So the title for the sermon tonight is attacks against leadership, attacks against leadership. I want you to just see some things that people do to make you cause, to be, cause you to turn against leadership or to turn, you know, just to lose confidence in leadership. This can be in a church, this could be in a church environment where some people might say, hey, let's turn against the pastor and you'll see some things that play out like that. I mean this can be in your workplace. This can be in any kind of situation where you've got leadership and people are trying to convince you to turn against the leadership and come with them because they've got a better plan for your future, or whatever, you know, position, or however they position it toward you. But let's start there in verse number 1, Isaiah 36 verse number 1. Now it came to pass in the 14th year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the defence cities of Judah and took them. Like I said, God allowed the Assyrians to take over the northern kingdom of Israel, but now the king says, oh, I've succeeded, let's take the southern kingdom. God didn't allow them to do that. But they've come and they've conquered all the defence cities, like all the towns, all the cities. They've really conquered most, pretty much all of Judah, okay? The Assyrians have captured almost all of Judah except the capital city of Jerusalem. Now, I asked you to turn to Zephaniah, sorry, so come with me back to Zephaniah. I just want to show you some parallels here. Zephaniah chapter 1, please, Zephaniah chapter 1 and verse number 16. Zephaniah chapter 1 verse number 16, again. Zephaniah is God's judgement against the Assyrians and he uses also Babylon as that picture. But in Zephaniah chapter 1 verse number 16 it says, a day of the trumpet, an alarm, look at this, against the defence cities and against the high towers. So I want you to notice, when God uses Babylon to come and bring judgement upon, yes, Judah and also the surrounding nations, even Assyria, God uses language that they're being used to defeat against defence cities. And what we saw in Isaiah 36 about the Assyrians, it says they came up against all the defence cities of Judah. So a lot of the same language being used there. Now you're in Zephaniah, come with me to Zephaniah chapter 2. Come with me to Zephaniah chapter 2 and verse number 13. Zephaniah chapter 2 verse number 13. This is about, speaking about God, it says, and he will stretch out his hand against the north, look at this, and destroy Assyria and will make Nineveh a desolation and dry like a wilderness. So here we have in Zephaniah, God judging the Assyrians, right? And Nineveh is the capital city of Assyria. You know, God's saying, look, he's going to judge them and the city of Nineveh is going to be emptied out. And so we have the Assyrians in Isaiah 36 causing problems to the Jews and then in Zephaniah, God's saying, no, I'm going to cause problems to the Assyrians. You're going to be wiped out. And again, the Assyrians got wiped out or got taken over by the Babylonian empire. I hope this is not going too much over your head. I know I'm throwing a lot of historical references at you, but I'm kind of hoping that you've just followed along chapter by chapter. And a lot of this should kind of already be making sense, right? If you've been following along so far in the book of Isaiah. Come back with me to, you can keep a finger in Zephaniah, but come back with me to Isaiah 36 and verse number two. Isaiah 36 and verse number two. And the king of Assyria sent Rabcheki from Lakish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army and is stood by the conduits of the upper pool in the highway of the fooler's field. So the king of Assyria sends his servant Rabcheki with a large army. They're putting on the show. We're here to take over Jerusalem. They're showing their might. They're showing their strength. And it's no small coincidence that they're standing by the conduits of the upper pool because that is one of the main sources of water into the city, all right? And so they're kind of showing, hey, like, I mean, it's not clearly laid out for me, but what I can see here, if you've got your enemy right there near the main source of water into your city, they're showing, look, we can stop this if we want. We can stop the water coming into your city and, you know, like the threat of siege. Like we can cause you to not have any food coming in. The water's going to stop. You're not going to be able to, you know, supply your needs and you're going to go for a time of famine. That's what I see as they stand by this water pool. And it says in verse number 3, then came forth unto him Eliakim. So instead of Hezekiah coming out, Hezekiah sends his servants, right? Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hezekiah's son, which was over the house, and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the recorder. So Hezekiah wants to make sure that everything they speak about gets written down, gets, you know, documented, all right? And verse number 4, it says, and Rapture Key said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? What confidence? They're going, why do you have the confidence that we're not going to overtake Jerusalem? We've already conquered all your other towns, all your other cities. We've conquered your defense cities. Look at our great army as we come around here in Jerusalem. And it's saying, what confidence do you have that we're not going to take over Jerusalem? So the point, the first point that I have for you tonight, guys, attacks against leadership, is those that want to rise up against leadership will attempt to convince you that the leader has minimal strength or minimal influence. Okay? They're going to, look at my great army, look at my influence, look at my ability, you know? And they're going to say, look, that pastor or that boss at work, they're garbage, they're rubbish. You know, what confidence should you have in them? They can't even defend, you know, they can't even defend these other cities that they've got. What chance have they got to defend against Jerusalem? They really try to diminish the leader's, you know, ability to lead, to strengthen, to guide. Look, there's a reason, and I'm not trying to speak highly of myself, because truly, brethren, I think of myself as really nothing. You know, in many ways, I'd just rather not be the pastor. I'd just rather be Brother Kevin in many ways, right? But there's a reason why people rise up in leadership, okay? It's because, you know, especially in a position of a church, it's because God sees equality in that person, even if it's in their weakness. But that ability to, in their weakness, rely upon God, and for God to lead and direct. And look, even leaders are going to have times of weaknesses. Even leaders are, they're just human beings, okay? But someone within church that wants to rise up against that leader will start pointing and showing you why you can't trust them, why they're a weak leader. I mean, how can someone be a weak leader if they rose up into a position of leadership? Unless they were just handpicked by Dad or something like that, right? Unless it was just like a favoritism type situation. But as far as I've seen within churches, I mean, the churches that I've been part of, when pastors rise up, it's not because of favoritism. It's because of their example, because of their testimony, because of their experience, because of the years that they've lived in the world, and as good examples as someone that fears the Lord, that knows God's word. But you have people rise up and say, oh, this leader, they're weak, they've got low influence, we can easily overtake them. Look at our strength. Attacks against leadership. Be careful, because, you know, I love church. I love Blessed Old Baptist Church, I love New Life Baptist Church. But I love church in general because it's the body of Christ. And, you know, the Bible tells us that his body is one. And when it talks about the oneness, it talks about the unity that we ought to have in the body of Christ. And when you have people within the church trying to rise up or speak badly about the leader, brethren, that person is not out for your benefit. They're not out for the best of the body of Christ. Be careful when people rise up against a pastor or against your boss at work, okay? You know, be aware of the techniques that they use that we can take out of this chapter. Look at verse number five. This is quite interesting. They're saying to Hezekiah, how dare you rebel against the king of Assyria? And I'm wondering, how is he rebelling? You're the one that entered his land. Like, you're the one threatening to lay siege of the city. And you're saying Hezekiah is the rebellious one. No, he's the king of this land, right? But I want you to notice what they said there in verse number five again. These are the words of the servant of the king of Assyria. I have counsel. What are they saying? He says, look, we all agree. You know, I've spoken to everybody, and we all agree that Hezekiah is the rebellious one. We all agree. Now, is that true? No. They're the rebellious ones. They've overstepped their mandate that God has given them. They're the one that has entered into a land that does not belong to them. They're the ones throwing threats, and they're saying, oh, no, it's your leader that's rebellious. The second point I just have here is that those that seek to rise up against leadership will seek counsel to take down leadership. They'll try to get others involved. You know, look at our army. Look at our strength. Look at the people. We're all in agreement that the pastor's the problem. He ought to step down. Now, look, there are times when pastors need to step down. Don't get me wrong. You know, if a pastor's disqualified himself, you know, got himself into major sinful activity, a pastor starts preaching just damnable heresy. Like, I won't say heresies in general, because heresy just means false doctrine. Like, if anyone's going to get up to preach, someone's going to say something wrong at times, you know? But, like, obviously, if they're preaching, you know, things that are contrary to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, you know, they're preaching contrary to the gospel message, you know, just damnable heresies. You know, teaching you about some other god, not the god of the Bible. You know, preaching a word-space gospel. Yeah, I believe that pastor ought to step down. But, look, they're going to tell you, look, we're just in agreement. Why are you in agreement? Well, because they're rebellious. How's he rebellious, though? He's the king of the land. He's been given that authority by God, you know? But they'll say, but we're all in agreement. Who's the all in agreement? Be careful when people try to get you alongside, come, come, brother, I need to talk to you about the leader, even in the workplace. We need to talk about the boss at work. He's like, why? He's the boss for a reason. And he's not perfect either. Who says the boss at work's perfect? No one believes that. The boss himself doesn't think that. But they will seek counsel to take down leadership. You know, we all agree, we've all agreed that you must step down. You failed as a leader. Let's continue there, verse number six. Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed on Egypt. And that's correct. If you read the historical writings, the people of the land of Judah at this point in time did run to Pharaoh. Because they knew the threat of Assyria was coming, okay? And they said, look, if the Assyrians come to our land, can we depend on you to support us? You know, Pharaoh, you've got a great army, you've got great strength, can we depend on you to help us fight against the Assyrians? So look, this is a mistake of Hezekiah. This is a mistake. They shouldn't be trusting Pharaoh. They shouldn't be trusting Egypt, right? And so this is actually a good point. It says thou trustest in the staff of the broken reed on Egypt. Whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. So guys, if you think you can just lean on Egypt, that you can just trust in him, now really it's going to be like this sharp, it's just, he's going to pierce your hand. It's going to cause you more damage to trust in the king of Egypt. He can't help you, Egyptians can't help you, and that's actually correct. You know, Hezekiah should have only put his trust in the Lord his God. But we see the weakness of a leader sometimes, it turns out it happens. There are going to be times that even I as a leader make the wrong decisions in life. But that's not necessarily time to just step down and say we demand another leader. Like I said, leaders can sometimes make mistakes, all right? But it's true, Hezekiah was wrong to depend on Pharaoh here. But look at verse number seven, it says, But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, and that's the right thing, they say this, Is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah have taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar? Now you might not capture what is being said there. Now verse number seven is incorrect. They're making a false accusation about Hezekiah. Cause what the Assyrians are saying here is, let's read it carefully, verse number seven. But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, not Egypt, we trust in God instead, all right? He says, all right, well, is it not he, is it not Hezekiah, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah have taken away? No, no, that's not right. You know, when we talk about the high places that were set up, these were false gods. These were idols. But they're saying, look, your Hezekiah took down the high places. Yeah, cause that's not the Lord our God though. Like Hezekiah actually did the right thing. And he says we ought to worship before this altar. Like we ought to worship the true God who set up this altar, the sacrifices of course, as a picture of Jesus Christ. Like Hezekiah did the right thing here, okay? But you've got these people that want to overthrow the leadership saying, no, they've done the wrong thing. They're making false accusations. The third point that I have for your brevity is those that want to raise up against leadership will claim that good decisions of the leader are bad decisions or are the wrong decisions. And look, again, I can look at the almost seven years that I've been as a pastor and every time I've made a decision, I'm just being honest, I feel like it was the right decision to make at that time. We have the information that I had available to me at that time. Can I look back in hindsight at times and go, man, if I know what I knew five years ago, I would have dealt with that differently? Yeah, I can definitely say that. I mean, who can't say that in life, right? You know, as we mature, as we grow, as we get more information available to us, there are times in our life that we look back and go, yeah, I could have made a better decision. But while I'm in that position, especially as a servant to the Lord God as a pastor of this church, I believe the decisions I've made were the right decisions for Blessed Hope Baptist Church and New Life Baptist Church. But those that want to attack the leadership will say, no, that was the wrong decision. That was the bad decision, even though it was the right decision. It was a good decision at the time. And, you know, one thing I've learned and, you know, if anyone ever wants to be put in a position of leadership, I mean, even if you're a father, you're a husband, you're in a position of leadership, is that you're never going to satisfy everybody. You can't make everybody happy. And you have to learn to accept that. Okay, if you ever have employees under you and you decide to take the business in a certain direction, make certain decisions, and you think, man, this is the best decision. This is going to help us work more efficiently. You know, we're not going to have to work so hard. You know, we're going to have a bit more time to focus on other areas of the business. And you make like the best decision, and you save the business money, or you increase the profits, and you think everyone's going to be happy. I'm here to tell you, no, that's not true. Not everyone's going to be happy at you. And that's just life. That's how it is. You know, sometimes as fathers, you've got to make decisions for your family. You think all your wife and your kids are always going to be in agreement with you and think that was the best decision. No, but you're the leader. And you're trying. Your goal is to make the best and right decision for your family, for your wife and kids. And so, yeah, people that want to take down leadership are going to claim that good decisions were actually the wrong decisions. Let's keep going there in verse number 8. ...and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen. So he's essentially telling the people of Jerusalem, look, surrender. Therefore, give pledges. Come and surrender. Come and surrender to my master, the king of Assyria. But it sounds like he's saying something nice. If you do that, I'll give you 2,000 horses. But it sounds nice, but he's mocking. He's actually mocking the people that live in Jerusalem. Because then he says, if they'll be able, on thy part, to set riders upon them. Do you even have 2,000 people that can ride horses? He says, look, if you want to come and surrender to the king of Egypt, we'll get your best man or horse back. They can ride to the king and they can surrender, officially surrender. But have you even got enough riders? Like he's mocking. Are you going to find the riders out of Egypt instead? So he's mocking, again, their ability, their strength. Like it's showing off. We can just give you 2,000 horses, but you can't even have enough riders to get onto them. So he's asking them to surrender, but also making mockery of their ability to surrender. And in verse number 10, he says, And am I now come up against the Lord, against this land to destroy it? The Lord said unto me, Go up against this land and destroy it. Destroy it. Tim's... Yeah, you're right, Tim. He says, God told me to come here and destroy your land. No, God never said such a thing. God never said such a thing. Which brings me to my fourth point. Those that want to attack leadership, especially leadership in a church, they will claim that it is the will of the Lord to take down the leadership. This is what the Bible says. This is how we need to handle it. The pastor. God's telling, this is the way, this is the godly way, this is the righteous way to do it. God never said such a thing. Boy, I've said it so many times to you guys how scared I am as a preacher to say things to you that God never said. I want to preach you God's word faithfully and truly and not let my opinions and my thoughts cloud the judgment that God clearly lays out for us in the Bible. Even a man would rise up and say, God told me, God said so, but God never said such a thing. It's no surprise to me that if you know this story later on, you know, spoilers, but God ends up wiping out this army. God performs a miracle. Hezekiah did not need to raise an army to fight them. God did it. I can understand, God's saying, I've never said such a thing. You're going down. God says, you're going down because you're saying things that I never said. I know I say it all the time guys, but I want you to know that is my heart. I have a great fear of God. I never want to lie to you. I never want to say to you that God said something they never said. I believe that that's one way that God has continued to bless my life because I truly just want to speak what His word clearly says to us. But those that want to attack leadership will claim that it is the will of God to take down that leadership. Let's continue, verse number 11. Then said Eliakim and Shebna, so now they respond, okay? Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabsheki. Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language for we understand it and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall. Alright, so they say to Rabsheki, speak to us in Syrian, in your Syrian language. What language has he been speaking so far? Hebrew, right? The Jews' language. Because these people are trying to negotiate, like the kind of ambassadors to King Hezekiah, they're trying to sort it out. Like, don't speak in our language because the people on the wall, the people in Jerusalem are hearing you speak. Like, you're saying these horrible things about us. They're hearing you. We can speak in your language. Let's keep the matter private between us. Let's try to sort it out between us. Like, not everybody needs to know about it. To speak to us in the Syrian language. Look how he responds. Rabsheki said, verse 12, but Rabsheki said, Have my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? Have he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own piss with you? What is that? Again, the threat of a siege. Look, he's saying my master doesn't really care about you guys. He wants the people on the wall to hear it. Okay? Because if you guys don't surrender, you know, he's saying basically you're going to have to end up eating your own dung. I'll use the Bible word. Okay? Because again, a siege, they can't get the food. They're not going to get the water source. So what are you guys, how are you guys going to survive? You're going to have to eat your own dung and drink your own piss. Is that like, he's saying to him, look, this is the threat. You know, we're going to lay your city under siege until you guys just starve to death. And like, it's very clear that, you know, Rabsheki here, Rabsheki, Rabsheki is wanting everybody to be aware of this conflict. Right? Instead of just dealing with it in the Syrian language in private. No, I want everyone to know. I want everyone to know. And it continues there in verse number 13. Then Rabsheki stood, look at this, instead of just dealing with it privately, then Rabsheki stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language and said, hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Be careful, brethren, when this starts to develop. You'll start seeing it. Okay? Point number five, those that want to attack leadership, is that they will refuse to deal with conflicts in a private manner. They're going to refuse to deal with it in a private manner. They don't want to deal with it in a private manner. They don't want to sort out differences. Because their goal is to take down leadership. And they want everybody to know. Instead of just keeping matters private. I just want to quickly read to you, keep your finger there and come with me to Matthew 18. Matthew 18 please. Matthew 18, this passage we're about to read is so important. I've really preached sermons on it, but I might have to preach another one on it. Okay? But Matthew 18, Matthew 18 and verse number 15. Look, I want to give you a promise. This is the promise that I have for you. There's going to come a time when you're going to have a conflict with somebody at church. It's going to happen. Say, pastor, I've been going to church for the past ten years, it's never happened. Okay, well next ten years, it's probably going to happen. At some point, at some point there's going to be some conflict. Okay? So what do we do? Well, God gives instructions here in Matthew 18, 15. Matthew 18, 15. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him are alone. Alone. If he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother. Reverend, when you and I have a conflict, okay, we need to sort it out alone. The two of us. We talk it out. In the Syrian language. We keep the matter private between us. We try to sort it out. There is so much wickedness in the heart of even believers, even brethren when they want to tell everybody about what somebody has done toward them. Offences. And you know, sometimes offenses aren't even real offenses. It's just the interpretation of the action that appears to be an offense. And instead of just talking about it, and quite often, if you deal with it one on one, someone's going to say to your brother that wasn't my intention. Like, I'm sorry you received it that way, but I definitely did not mean to upset you or that wasn't against you. I meant it like this. You've misunderstood it like that. But look, I'm sorry. If you've understood it that way, please forgive me. You sort it out, and more often than not, when you just deal with an issue one on one, it goes away. And you gain a brother. Like, your brother becomes more of a friend than they were originally. You've gained him. And that's what Hezekiah's trying to do, right? The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, sends his ambassadors. King Hezekiah goes, alright, I'll send my ambassadors. Let's just deal with this in the Assyrian language. People in Jerusalem don't need to know about it. We can sort this out. We can fix this. And you can see how Rapture Key deals with it. Oh, I want everybody to know I'll speak in the Hebrews language. Again, those that want to attack leaders, they will refuse to deal with conflicts in a private manner. They want it to be very public and very open. And look, it continues in Matthew 16, 15. Let's just keep reading there. Verse number 16. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more. Okay, so if you try to take it one on one, and they refuse to make peace with you, refuse to listen to you, alright, then you can take others with you at that point. You can take two or three. That in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. Why do we need two or three witnesses? To side with you? No. They can hear every word. They can establish every word. They can determine who is it that's trying to make peace and who is it that's trying to be rebellious. Okay, that's the point of the two or three witnesses. Because you might say, oh brother, so and so doesn't want to make peace with me, so I'm going to get two or three witnesses, but the two or three witnesses come and they listen to everything. They go, no, hold on, you're wrong. He is trying to sort things out. You're the one that doesn't want to make peace. You're the one that doesn't accept his apology, or whatever it is. That's the point of two or three witnesses. Not to side with one side or the other, but to hear both sides of the argument and to determine who's in the wrong here. Like, not necessarily who caused the offence, okay, but who's not trying to sort it out. Who's trying to make this a very open and public issue, rather than just dealing with it one on one. And then look at verse number 17. Like, if out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, if our party does not listen to what those two or three witnesses say, then it gets progressed in verse number 17. And if he shall neglect to hear them, so he is the one whoever is the one that's in the wrong here, alright, neglect to hear the two or three witnesses. Tell it unto the church. But if he neglects to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Heathen man is an unbeliever, a publican is, well publicans were disrespected, they didn't have a high respect, right, often tax collectors were cheating people, so treat them as an unbeliever, treat them as someone that does not have their best interest in the house of God. So they're kicked out of the church essentially, okay. But before that even comes to that issue, verse number 17. The Bible makes it very clear, if you have a conflict brethren you don't need to even come to me. Don't come, like, I'd rather you not even come to me, just listen to God's word. You've got a conflict with brother so and so or sister so and so, just go and speak to them one on one. If you want, ring me, pastor I've just got an issue, can you pray for me? You don't even tell me, don't tell me who you have the issue with. I have an issue, I have a situation, can you please pray for me pastor? Yes, I'll pray for you. I'll lift you up and pray. God knows, God knows already. Okay, so we'll leave it in God's hands and you go and make peace with your brethren. But I have a really, like, I see red flags when people want to bring conflicts in some very public dispute. You know, skipping over these steps of resolving conflicts in a private one on one manner. Come back with me to Isaiah 36, Isaiah 36 and verse number 14. Isaiah 36, verse number 14. Thus saith the king, Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you. Now again I just want to compare this accusation that Hezekiah will not be able to deliver you, which is kind of correct which is why God delivers them. But anyway that statement, he shall not be able to deliver you just come back with me to Zephaniah chapter 1 and verse number 18. Zephaniah chapter 1, verse number 18. And again this is God speaking about his judgment and some of Zephaniah is also about the end times events, but that's a rabbit hole we won't go there right now, okay. But in Zephaniah chapter 1, verse number 18 it says, Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them. This is from the judgment of God. In the day of the Lord's wrath but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy. For he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land. I just want to show you the use of the language in Zephaniah and Isaiah 36. The inability to deliver you, to keep you safe in the end times your wealth your possessions will not keep you safe from the wrath and the judgment of God to come. I just want to compare, I think I have one more reference afterwards. Just showing you the parallels. I'm actually enjoying looking at other books of the Bible and comparing it chapter by chapter to Isaiah. And I've spent most of my time as I've been doing that. I've spent most of my time just showing you similar languages or similar situations. But one key area that I've not looked at because it just takes too much time, is that many times these chapters carry the same themes in these these chapters carry the same themes as the books of the Bible. But to go through that and explain the theme and tell you the whole story that's like a whole sermon in of itself alone. So I've avoided doing that. But I'm trying to show you references where the phrases and the situations are very similar to what we see in the corresponding books of the Bible. But look at verse 15 in Isaiah 36 verse 15. It says... Well again that is actually what took place. It is. The Lord is the one that delivered them in this scenario. But we'll read about that next week. Verse 16. and drink ye everyone the waters of his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own land. A land of corn and wine. A land of bread and vineyards. So what is being told to the people of Jerusalem? Look, surrender. Make an agreement with me by a present. Give me a gift. Show me that you do want to surrender to the king of Assyria. King Sennacherib. You can eat out of your own vine. You can eat out of your own fig tree. You can drink water out of your own cistern instead of drinking your own piss. You can drink the waters. And we'll take you away to another land like your own land. A land of corn and wine. A land of bread and vineyards. We'll take you to a beautiful place. The last point that I have for you. Point number six. Those that want to attack leadership. Is that they will position you to appear like they're looking out for your best. The reason we need to rise up against the leadership is because we've got a better way to do things. I can promise you things will be better for the church if we replace the pastor. If we rise up against the boss, I promise you you'll get your pay rise when you're doing strike action. Strike, strike, strike for our best. Man, you're striking. You're destroying the business you're working for. You're making them lose profit. How are they going to give you a pay rise and then ask for a pay increase at the same time? You know these people that want to attack leadership they'll position their defiance to appear like they're looking out for your best. I just love you brother. I'm just doing the best I can for all of us. We need to take down the leader. We need to take down King Hezekiah. Man, that sounds tempting. What is that of my own sister instead of drinking my own piss? I mean, things were good under Hezekiah. But look how they position it. He's going to make you just eat your own dung. That's going to be your life. It's garbage. You know when the Roman soldiers asked John the Baptist, you know, what should we do? He said, look, be content with your wages. That's how it is in work sometimes. You're just not being paid enough. And look, I understand. I'm like you guys. I'm trying to work and look after the needs of our family and things like that. Sometimes you look at your wages and, man, there's a gap and we need to increase it. But the Bible also tells us to be content. We have to be content with what God has given us as well. There's this fine balance between trying to make sure we have what we would like to have, but as well as appreciating what God has given us. You know, what God has given the city of Jerusalem, the city of Judah, He's given them King Hezekiah. And look, King Hezekiah, and I've shared it with you before, there were times of weakness. There were times that he made major mistakes. There's one story where the king of Assyria is asking for like a tribute. And so King Hezekiah comes and takes it. He realizes there's not enough gold and silver so he goes to the house of the Lord and takes the gold and the silver from the house of the Lord and gives it to the king of Assyria. I mean, he loves the Lord. King Hezekiah loves the Lord. He's a great king. Like, overall, he's a great king. But there are just these times of weaknesses that he makes a wrong decision, a bad decision. But overall, he's a decent guy. But you know what? When you have people that are trying to convince you to rise up against leadership, they're going to just point out all their problems, all their mistakes, instead of just being content for the good that the leader has done. Let's go to verse 18. Beware. Lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, the Lord will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the land of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvayim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? So they're saying, your gods, just like the other gods of the land. The other gods that we've, the other lands, the other nations that we've taken over, their gods not help them. You think your gods are going to help you? Okay, just lowering gods, just other false gods that cannot deliver them. Verse number 20. Who are they among all the gods of these lands? That have delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand. But they held their peace. So these are the ambassadors from King Hezekiah. They held their peace, meaning they did not respond. And answered him not a word. For the king's commandment was saying, answer him not. This is actually really good advice from King Hezekiah. So when they start speaking stupid things against God, don't answer, don't respond. It's actually a biblical principle. Answer him not. I'll just quickly read to you from 2 Timothy 2. 23. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strifes. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strifes. You know sometimes people ask you stupid questions for the purpose of strife. For the purpose of argumentations. And when that happens, don't respond. Just let them be foolish. You don't need to become foolish with them. With these stupid questions that they ask. Can you look at Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 7. Zephaniah chapter 1 and verse 7. Again just showing you similar language with the judgment of God. In Zephaniah 1.7 it says, hold thy peace. Now we've seen that before, that's hold your tongue, right? Hold your peace at the presence of the Lord God. For the day of the Lord is at hand. For the Lord has prepared to sacrifice and have bid his guests. Now again this is a different context. This is God's judgment upon a wicked world. But the idea there is that once God begins to judge the wickedness of this world, in the end times, the trumpet and the vile judgments, that nobody can truly stand up and say God, why are you doing this? There'll be no response. Well similar language there is being used by King Hezekiah. Don't answer and the context is different, but it's Syria. Hold your peace. Don't open your mouth. Don't enter into these stupid arguments. Don't get involved. I've been told sometimes, Pastor, why don't you speak up? This person is speaking out against you. Because I'm avoiding the foolish and unlearned questions. They gender strife. You need to learn at some point as you mature in the Lord there are times to respond. There are times to give answers. But those answers are to be given to those that want to learn. Right? If someone asks me a question, like you at church, you might say, Pastor, you went through Isaiah 36, I just didn't understand verse number 7. Can you please repeat that to me? I can't turn around and say, ah, you're an idiot. Foolish question. No, I can see in your heart your desires just to know to have the question answered. But if your purpose of asking a question is for debate and argumentation, I'm just not going to respond. I'm not going to answer your question. It's stupid. It's a foolish question. So you need to determine if someone is asking with sincerity because they want to learn, it's not a stupid question. It's not an unlearned question. It's not a foolish question. Answer questions. When your little kids ask you questions, you might think they're foolish, but they just want to know. Things that might seem so obvious to you when little kids ask you, you've got to just come down to the level, give them the answers. If you just run your kids off, they're not going to trust you to come and ask you questions. They're going to go into the world and seek the answers that you haven't given them. But again, if people have just been idiots and they just want to fight and cause strife, I'm not interested in entering the arena of answering foolish and unlearned questions. I want you to understand why there are times that I respond and there are times that I do not respond. And if you've messaged me, by the way, and I've not responded to you for one week, it's not because you've got a stupid question. I just get too many and I fall behind. And sometimes I forget. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. But obviously, if your purpose is just to argue, pasta, you're wrong on this issue, let me show you what... Look, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. You can show me with love. You can show me with kindness. I'm not perfect. Alright? But sometimes people ask questions because they just want to argue. And I get messages like that many times. I get emails like that many times. It's like, you taught this, but this pastor taught that. You read the Bible and ask God what it says. You've heard my position, you've heard that pastor's position, you read the Bible, ask God. If you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit of God living within you and figure it out. Read the Bible and instead of trying to learn only from men, why don't you open God's Word and ask God to show you the truth of his Word? You know why? That pastor said that, that pastor said, what do you say? They're trying to cause you to fight with that pastor and to fight with that pastor and to say something that could be misconstrued. Did you know this pastor said this instead of that? It's like, I don't know. I don't listen to those other pastors. I'm here to teach you God's Word. I'm not here to teach you the sermon from this pastor over there. I'm here to show you God's Word what it says. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But stupid, foolish, unlimited questions, avoid. And that was really good advice from King Hezekiah. When they start saying stupid things about God, just close your mouth. We're trying to be at peace. We don't want this to become this full scale war that we obviously can't win by the strength of their army. That's why God ends up saving them, delivering them from the hand of the Assyrians. Last verse please. Isaiah 36, verse number 22. So that's how the chapter ends. So they come back to King Hezekiah. At least King Hezekiah has these loyal servants. Again, they close their rents because that's a sign of sorrow and stress and worry. They come, they're like King Hezekiah. We tried, but this guy's causing problems. This guy wants to take you down. There's nothing that we can do to bring peace between us and the Assyrians here. And so they come like this to Hezekiah. I'm glad they remain loyal to Hezekiah. I'm glad. I'm glad that they just go, you know what? You're right. We surrender. We surrender. No, they come back to King Hezekiah. Say, what do we do from now? Where do we go from here? All right, well, you'll find out next week. All right, when we get to Isaiah 37, what happens next week. But the title for this sermon was Attacks Against Leadership. Again, instead of just repeating the story that you've heard before, I've thought I'd take it a different direction. And I think we do see a lot of the same elements that I've seen anyway when people want to rise up against leadership. It's the same playbook time and time again. And God tells us these stories and we learn from them. And so if there's anybody ever, let's think about our church, that wants to rise up against this leadership. First of all, if I've done something so horrible, I'd probably just step down. Because that's the kind of person that I am. I'd probably just say, you know what? There's probably a better man that can be the pastor. If I've done something that deems me to be unqualified, I'd probably be the first to step down before someone has to force me into that position. Murmurings and issues within the church about the pastor. Even if you're never part of this, if you're part of some other church ever in the future, a good God-fearing church with a good, godly pastor, don't entertain these wicked people. When you start hearing these kind of commotions, then understand that these people don't have the best intentions in mind. They want to destroy and they want to take over a position of leadership that does not belong to them. Our text against leadership. Let's pray.