II Kings 18:1-20:21

[00:00:00] Come now to what we call the period the single kingdom, or the single kingdom of Judah. [00:00:09] We have only a few chapters really to traverse. Now this evening we are not going to take a lot. We're only going to take four chapters because we want to dwell for a while upon the most important crisis in the history of Judah. [00:00:30] You remember that the scripture in the second division of the two books of Kings, the period of the divided kingdom, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, spent quite a lot of time on the reign of Ahab, because his reign was, as it were, vital to the whole purpose of God as far as Israel went. [00:01:04] You remember that it was just at that point of crisis that two of the greatest prophets arrived on the scene around that period. First Elijah, followed by Elisha. [00:01:18] Now we have come to the last great division. It's a period that covers 135 years, not a very long period. But this 135 years is perhaps more than any other period in Scripture, crowded with prophetic ministry. [00:01:46] Many, if not most, if you look at the board of the great prophets, all ministered, lived and ministered during this short period, from Isaiah and Micah right through to later Daniel and Ezekiel. It sees all of them within its orbit, and I think we need to remember that. [00:02:14] And furthermore, within this very short period of eight reigns, only two kings of the eight were good kings, the rest were evil. That is, if you add up their years, there were 54 years of good kingship and there were 82 years of bad kingship. [00:02:44] This period is particularly instructive in a variety of ways. [00:02:51] We find within it the two greatest reformations or revivals of the whole history of Judah. [00:03:01] You see the little blue patches there that mark revivals or reformation, while in Asa and Jehoshaphat's day, it seems to be a very long reformation. It was a very, very superficial one, really. [00:03:15] In Hezekiah's day and later Josiah's day, we find the two greatest reformations recorded in Scripture. [00:03:27] They were quite deep and their influence spiritually is lasting. Although as far as the people went, their influence was not very far reaching. It very, very quickly disappeared. For instance, take Hezekiah. You find that in Hezekiah's reign a tremendous reformation is effected by the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Yet Hezekiah is immediately followed by the most evil of all the kings of Judah, a man whose name is abhorred even to this day by the rabbis manasseh. [00:04:09] In his 55 years, he more than undid the work of Hezekiah. He set the country on a path which even the reformation of Josiah could not in any way divert. [00:04:27] And then I think we have to take great note that although in Hezekiah's reign and in Josiah's reign, these two men, Hezekiah and Josiah, was a very real reformation that was more radical than any other reformation in. In the history either of Israel or Judah. Yet in both cases, immediately the king died, immediately his reign ended, the whole country turned again to far, far greater evil than it had previously. In other words, each period of reformation was succeeded by a very terrible period of rapid decline and disintegration, the latter. In the latter case, it ended in exile and captivity. [00:05:26] So we have the rather short, sad history of the single kingdom of Judah. The other 10 tribes, or approximately, to vanish now off the face of history. [00:05:42] They've gone. We're left now with the little tribe of Judah, Judah, Benjamin, and possibly quite a number of different ones from the other tribe. And Levi, this little group left this remnant hillside, calls them continually in his prophecies, this little remnant of the Lord. Yet even this remnant, in spite of the terrible judgment that they had seen, even this remnant itself has got to be purged, that out of a remnant there should come a remnant. [00:06:18] Perhaps that's one of the most terrible, terrible facts in biblical history. [00:06:25] The terrible testimony to the nature, to our nature. It will not die, cannot die, through all the successive dealings of God, through the successive experiences that it passes, in spite of all the obvious nature of God's instruction, yet there it is, as evil as ever, as ready to rebel as ever, as ready to run into wayward paths as ever, in spite of all the instructions, you would have thought that with all the ministry of Micah, who not only ministered in the kingdom of Judah, but in Israel as well, foretelling the terrible destruction. And believe me, the destruction of Samaria was not child play. The most abominable thing happened. Any of you want to read something which will give you nightmares with. Then you want to read something of the end of Sumeria, how all the male members of the city were stripped naked and flayed alive till they died. And so it went on. That's just perhaps the better side of it. The most terrible cruelty, practice against all. It was his child's play. And it and Judah watched. In the reign of Hezekiah, she saw the whole thing enacted before her eyes. She saw the judgment of God fall upon the people in the most terrible way, can only be described by the wrath of God upon an evil and adulterous generation. And Even in spite of the fact that she saw all that and in spite of the fact that God was dealing with her as a people, yet at the end you find that the children of Judah are as prone to Egypt and as ready to run in the ways of the nations as ever Israel was. Indeed, in the end, the Lord's verdict on Judah is simply, she is worse than the nation that I drove out before her. [00:08:35] So this is not exactly a happy record, although in it we find two very, very beautiful jewels, and that is the reign of Hezekiah, followed a little later by the reign 57 years later by the reign of Josiah. [00:08:55] What we need to know is this, that although we see and we don't think we ought to learn something, although the Scriptures speak of reformation, and although it is quite obvious that the reformation was a genuine one, in both cases it was genuine and real and sincere, it went quite deep in its own way. Yet the thing we have to note is this, that really it did not affect all the people deeply. [00:09:31] It is quite obvious that the reformation was really confined to a number of people. Now, in that lies a very big secret. [00:09:43] I think we could say that the reformation of Hezekiah and the reformation of Josiah was more like salt. You know how the Lord Jesus described salt as the great counteracting force in corruption. So this reformation of Hezekiah was as if the Lord had got, as it were, so many grains of salt in a terribly corrupt situation, which was checking the whole downward path, counteracting the whole evil influence for a while, causing a halt and purifying the whole atmosphere as it were, holding everything for a while before God. [00:10:22] Only later, immediately that influence is removed. Only the real condition of the people manifests itself. It would seem. You see that Hezekiah, Isaiah, Micah, Joah, and one or two others, Eliakim and one or two others were men who knew God and loved God, and because of that they were the source of the earth, as it were, as far as Judah was concerned. You remember in Isaiah's prophecy he speaks very severely and harshly of Sheba. And it is therefore quite obvious that there were quite a number amongst the king's counsellors who were not faithful men. [00:11:02] They were not true and genuinely faithful to the Lord. This is a point we have to remember. And it is why in Josiah's day, immediately Josiah dies at a very young age, the whole nation is given over to the most terrible corruption. [00:11:21] I say this because otherwise you get the world when they read these passages lasting, because they cannot understand how a good king can Affect such an amazing reformation to be followed by an evil son who turns everything exactly as inversely, and then the whole nation follows, as it were, wholeheartedly in his way. How can that be if there's been a real reformation? The point is really that it was in a number, quite a large number of people in Hezekiah's day, but it did not deeply affect all. It was something which in many ways was superficial in the masses, but it was very real in quite a number of leaders. I believe that this is the very thing that is happening in our own day and generation. If God would give them just a group of people that he could put into key positions who were, as it were, the salt of the earth. You would find many situations held, many situations checked, a purifying atmosphere. Immediately, immediately those people are taken, will find the whole thing will collapse instantaneously. This is exactly what is going to happen when the very last day the church is taken, when it's gone, the sordid atmosphere that will instantaneously break out all over the place will just be an eloquent testimony, though a terrible one, to the fact that man himself is indescribably easy. [00:13:01] Well, we must learn those simple things because when you remember these few facts, I think it will perhaps bring it more home to you. [00:13:16] Take, for instance, Hezekiah. [00:13:19] Do you know the house of God was only roughly twice or three times at the very most, the size of this room that was the holy place and the holiest place of all, about three times the size of this room. [00:13:35] It took them 16 days to get the rubbish out of that room, working from early morning to late at night, 16 days. It took all the Levites getting the rubbish out of that room. [00:13:50] And they weren't lazy either. [00:13:53] Now, it wasn't the court, it expressly said it was not the court. For the very first thing they had to do was to open the door when they got in. What does this mean? It simply means that the Lord's house being used as a lumber room, she's just being used as a store for storage. It was the court that was used, if you remember. Do you remember how he has changed the altar in the court, put the Lord's altar on the north and put his own altar that he copied from Assyria in the center and then offered all his sacrifices. He closed the doors of the Lord's house and then on top of the roof of the Lord's house, he put all kinds of little altars to the stars, the hosts of heaven, the zodiac sign practiced that worship of the heavenly host. [00:14:46] Well, it took them 16 days to clear the rubbish out before they could get down to putting the place right and opening it and having the gatherings once more properly carried out a little bit. Then again, you must remember this. Do you know that King Josiah discovered the book of Deuteronomy? [00:15:08] He discovered the book of the law, which we believe to be, if not holy, part of our book of Deuteronomy. He discovered it. And do you know that when he discovered it amongst the rubbish in the holiest place, that's where they discovered it. He was so utterly surprised that he asked it to be read to him. And when it was read to him, he burst into tears and caused a halt to everything and asked them to go to hozar prophetess and inquire of her about this book of the law. What is it? He said Josiah the King, an educated, cultured man, had to ask what the book of Deuteronomy was and what it was about and whether it was really right. [00:15:51] Now this makes us realize how the people of God had fallen. [00:15:57] You see, it wasn't just conditions that were a little bit compromised. They were conditions that were appalling. [00:16:04] The people had completely forgotten the Lord Jehovah, whom they worshipped, was an altogether different God. He was one of these nature gods. He's one of these idols of the nations. [00:16:16] And consequently, when you read of Josiah opening the doors of the Lord's house, sometimes because it's our scriptures, we just gloss over that. We don't think what I mean, it says it was great. He opened doors of the Lord's house. If it was a tremendous thing to do to open the doors of the Lord's house, it was just simply that the place had been sealed off, clothes off, it was just filthy and dirty. And it just makes you wish you knew what had happened. But course, some of you may well think that that's what's happening today. [00:16:57] You've got thousands of Christians, but the house of God, its doors are still. It's like a lumber room. [00:17:07] You won't even find hardly the church as a heading in many hymn books, let alone in many other aspects of Christianity. It's something that's just not mentioned, not thought of as very important. It's a kind of lumber room where we just sort of talk rather happily about all the little things. Either we're all very loosely one in Christ, or you evidently choose your church like you choose your grocer. You go to the one you like best, suits you best. [00:17:36] That kind of attitude that just Relegates it all to something that's just cheap and something that's just not very important. [00:17:48] You just. [00:17:51] Well, that's the scene in which we find this period set. [00:17:59] Now, if you look at 1:2 kings and chapter 18, you will note from verse one to verse 12 that it expressly tells us that Hezekiah, there was none like him before and none since. [00:18:23] His reign was unique since the reign of David. [00:18:29] It was the greatest reformation ever carried out in the period of Judah's history in the kingdom period. [00:18:38] Just you look at the record. Now, I want you to note a very important thing. [00:18:46] You might ask yourself a question about this, which we'll learn, we shall learn together. Another lesson. [00:18:52] Why does king dwell upon the Assyrian offensive, an invasion, Judah and very. [00:19:05] And hardly tells us anything about the Reformation. [00:19:13] It dismisses it in a very few words. Yet Chronicles does the exact opposite. It tells us the most remarkable things. It tells us about a tremendous Passover. It tells us exactly how they cleared the rubbish out the temple, exactly what they did inside, how the singing was restored, how the song of the Lord began. It says the song of the Lord began. Love this verse. Think about it. The song of the Lord began. How everything, as it were, all started up again. Yet in kings, that's not here now. Why? Why did it dwell upon the Assyrian offensive? Because King, you remember, the key to king is kingship and authority. [00:20:00] And it's simply telling us this, that every assault upon the house of God or upon the people of God is an assault upon God's king and upon God's grace. [00:20:13] It brings the throne into the earth. Yet have I set my king upon my own place of life. [00:20:22] This is the conflict that kings always is setting. This tremendous conflict that rages around God's king and God's church. [00:20:35] Well, that's why in kings we're not told such a lot about the reformation. [00:20:42] We are told just very simply in those first 12 verses that Hezekiah smashed the pillars, he cut down the groves, the Asherah, the Asherim, he closed down the high places. He was the first king ever to close down all the high places of the land. Now that's a tremendous mark in his favor. You remember, the Holy Spirit always puts his finger upon the high places. Hezekiah CL down every high place in Judah and he went beyond Judah. If you read in Chronicles, you find that all those that he invited to come to the Passover from the northern tribe, when they went back, they break in pieces, the golden calf at that. [00:21:26] In other words, they undid even the Sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebab. [00:21:32] Even the high place of the law, which were now devastated by the Assyrians, were broken down because of the influence of the this little group who were faithful to the Lord in Jerusalem. [00:21:50] And he did another remarkable thing. He says even, even the scripture puts this in. Even he even broke in pieces Moses brazen serpent. And he called it Nehushtan, which means a piece of brass. [00:22:07] Now that doesn't seem quite the thing to do with a holy relic, does it? But you see, the people were worshipping this holy relic. They were evidently burning incense in front of it. It had now come to them to be very much like a graven image, something they worship, something they felt. There was peculiar power in Hezekiah went so far. The Lord had done such a deep work in his heart that every sentimental link with tradition and history was smashed. He even was prepared to take Moses brazen stubborn and break it in pieces and to call it a piece of God. Actually at the time of Christian either a serpent or a piece of brass. [00:22:54] So we find that this is all a key to the spirit of Hezekiah. He did more than that. He might shock some people. He not only destroyed the high places, he desecrated them. [00:23:10] He did things upon them and to them that desecrated them in the eyes of everyone so they would not be able to worship there again. Now that just shows the spirit of this man. He hadn't got the fanatical zeal, the natural fanatical zeal of Jesus. His was the zeal of the Lord's house which had eaten him up. [00:23:31] There was something that empowered him, something that inflamed him and something which was that kept him in balance before the Lord would not allow him to stop until he had dealt. Suddenly there's this whole situation that was like a cancer in the nation. [00:23:50] Well, there we are. On the positive side, it wasn't merely that he pulled up and broke down and destroyed. But on the positive side, it says he clayed holy to the Lord. It says he trusted the Lord all the days of his life. There was something about Hezekiah that there was not like about any other king, Saint David, indeed, all the time the Lord referred him back to David. He, as it were comparing Hezekiah with David, he oh, there was something about. He was absolutely of the same spirit as his great great grandfather. [00:24:28] It was because the Holy Spirit had done the same kind of work. [00:24:32] I believe that one day when we get to there'll be a family likeness about us all even with Abraham. [00:24:39] Wait. When you get to glory, you won't find Abraham to be such a stranger as you think. There'll be a family likeness around him. And Isaac and Jacob, they'll find all those. They'll be just. They won't be distant patriarchs that we think of that would tremble at the very sight of. But we'll Josephine work if that person come to Halford House we would have been absolutely at home. May make you amuse you but that is so. That is absolutely so. [00:25:06] All the way through down to the line. God dealing with all his people for the family line. Something that just means they belong to each other. And so there I say there's something very, very wonderful about the positive spirit of Hezekiah. He was a man wholly gave himself to the Lord and the Lord was therefore committed holy to Hezekiah. Now we shall see that Hezekiah had some very real failure. [00:25:34] But the Lord was committed to Hezekiah as he was committed to no other king before him. The Lord just gave himself. Here was a spirit, here was an attitude, here was something that loved the Lord even though it was a weak there were weaknesses about it. It loved the Lord and it gave the Lord his rightful place. [00:25:55] Now I want you to notice a few things about the reign of Hezekiah. Just simply five things I've noted down I would like you to note. The first is that much of what happened in this reformation was being actually performed at the very time that the tragedy in Israel was being enacted. [00:26:21] Never underrated the value of that. [00:26:26] In other words, at the same time that in Judah and Jerusalem a tremendous reformation was underway in Samaria. There was awful carnage and we are told, we understand from the time Talmud and from Josephus that the refugees were falling in from the north. Many brought the chronicles of the kings of Israel. They brought the archives, the royal archives with them. They brought the precious treasures that recorded what Elijah had said, what Elisha said. They very carefully fled with them. The faithful fled from Israel to Judah. It must have been an awe inspiring sight to see. Day after day the refugees pouring in from the north with the most terrible story of the carnage and evil that was overtaking the land. Especially as at the Passover, they had laughed Hezekiah to scorn when he sent messengers throughout the north. And kings, they come to Jerusalem to ho to celebrate the Passover that many had lost him to school. [00:27:39] Now they were dead or in captivity. We must never forget that they had a very great influence in Hezekiah's reign because the people saw that what the prophets had said had actually come to pass. [00:27:56] And then the second thing I want you to note, and this is a very wonderful thing, is the influence of Isaiah. [00:28:02] In both periods of reformation, there were two prophets, particularly in Josiah, it was Zephaniah and Jeremiah. In Hezekiah it was Isaiah and Malchus. You know, these two men are entirely different. Isaiah was a courtier, he was a very cultured man. He was a very educated person, as far as we can make out. He was a rather poetic man, a delicate type of man, but a man of very, very deep, deep feeling. When God burnt his lips with that coal from off the altar, he did something which broke him, burnt him and purified him, so that his constitution and temperament were utterly, utterly under the hand of God from that day. And so we get the prophecies of Isaiah, nothing like them of the whole Scripture, for their absolutely unbelievable flight into the hill. [00:29:05] Such language, such beauty that graphic way can describe. [00:29:10] And yet by his side, as it were, though he wasn't always by his side was Micah. [00:29:16] Micah was the roughest man you could imagine. Evidently he was almost wild as far as appearance went. He was a shepherd, he just wore skin, he was rough, he was a country bump. He could hardly speak the language of the courtiers of Jerusalem. And yet Michael had his tremendous part to play in the reign of Hezekiah. So if you read the prophecies about of Michael, with all their allusions to country themes and country habits and customs, and if you read also Isaiah in the light of all this, you'll get some idea of the influence of these men. They had seen Isaiah's day, great prosperity and corruption. Then they saw Ahaz, that evil man, the father of Hezekiah and all the eagle that took him in the reign of Ahab. And then their ministry, as it were, came to its culmination in the reign of Hezekiah and saw the tremendous reformation. [00:30:22] That's something I think we need to take very great account of. You know, in every period of real reformation in any way, there's been fellowship. [00:30:33] And here you've got these different folks, different backgrounds, different temperaments, blended together in one great movement of the Spirit of God. I do think that you ought to read, if you can, the prophets of Isaiah. They're rather a lot, but you ought to read them to give you a great understanding of the way the Hezekiah. [00:30:56] You know, it was in this reign that Isaiah said, who had believed our and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? [00:31:06] There was such a time as this that Isaiah knew that in spite of the reformation there was that in the people just didn't understand. Indeed, tradition tells us that Isaiah was marked later by being sworn upon us the terrible end to a great man. Today you are. That's always the way, isn't it, that God made. [00:31:34] I think we should demark that and mark the way in which these prophets did undoubtedly deeply influence the reign of Hezekiah. Then another thing I want you to note which may interest many of you, particularly with unsaved families and I hope it doesn't fear into those of you with children that Hezekiah is a most remarkable man in the sense that he had the worst king of Judah as his father and the worst king of Judah, the very worst, as his son. [00:32:07] This good man is in between the two most evil kings of Judah. [00:32:14] Now go away and think about either there's no exploitation nations. Why? Why, Josiah? Why Hezekiah's son should be so utterly useless? [00:32:25] It's something that I think we just have to question ourselves. What exactly is obvious not passed from father to son. That's quite clear. [00:32:35] There's something there we can think about. And then another question I would like to ask you. Where do you think Hezekiah's change of heart took place? Have you ever thought of it? [00:32:46] What happened? Was it his mother? Certainly wasn't his father? Who to whom? Can we honestly say that Hezekiah, humanly speaking, owed his conversion as such? Well, if you would like to turn to two scriptures that I think you'll find very interesting. One is Jeremiah 26, Jeremiah 26, verse 18 and 19 Micah, the Moorish type, prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king Judah. And he spake to all the people of Judah, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a come. He and the mountain of the house is the high places of a forest. Did Hezekiah, king of Judah and all Judah, put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord? And the Lord repented him of the evil which he pronounced against them. Thus should we commit great evil against our own saints. Now this is an altogether new angle upon the life of Hezekiah, because it suggests that the Lord had spoken in judgment at the beginning of the reign of Hezekiah, and that when Micah came into the court and spoke, and it must have been a shock to the king to see this country man come, evidently some of the councils thought it would be wiser to have the man executed. [00:34:22] And this very incident saved Jeremiah's life because he was exactly the same to the king. They were going to execute Jeremiah. [00:34:32] Then if you Turn back to 2 Chronicles Bearing that scripture in mind, 2 Chronicles 29 and 36, we read this. [00:34:53] This is about the great Passover at the very beginning of the reformation. Hezekiah rejoiced in all the people because of that which God had prepared for the people. For the thing was done suddenly. Now I wonder whether that's the key to the conversion of Hezekiah. It might. It would seem almost as if Hezekiah was going to go the way of his father when he. When the word of the Lord came to him, the young man. [00:35:19] And instead of rebelling and refusing the word of God, he humbled himself before the Lord and the result was the greatest reformation in the history of Judah. I think that's something that we should bear in mind. [00:35:35] And then again, one other point that may interest many of you, technical point, but he was one of the greatest periods of literary activity in the whole history of the children of Israel. In his reign, we believe proverbs were copied. The proverbs were copied and compiled. We believe that the books, the five books of the Psalms, actually reached their final. More or less their final. At least the four books first four books, their more final setting and order. [00:36:09] The songs of the degrees, you know, those lovely little sets of that little miniature PSALTER From Psalm 120 to Psalm 134 were written, we believe. Ten of them, we believe, were written by Hezekiah, because they're called the songs of the degrees or the steps, which we shall see in a moment. [00:36:29] There are 15 little Psalms in that Psalter, which may well, so the rabbi tells anyway, were a product of the men of Hezekiah. It appeared a tremendous literary activity, particularly because of Isaiah, who wrote much of his message down. And consequently there was great activity to compile things and collect things together and as it were, formulate things and put them in more decent order. [00:37:01] In actual fact, the rabbis believed that the song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, as well as Proverbs and Psalms, as well as Isaiah, were due to the literary activity in the reign of Hezekiah. [00:37:20] Well, then we come to this. That takes most of these chapters in 2 Kings from 18 to 19. It is this great Assyrian offensive. [00:37:40] We must understand one or two things because it's not all completely clear. As you read it a little earlier, in the first 12 verses of chapter 18, we have already been told Told that Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria. Judah was a tributary state. [00:37:59] It was dependent, a dependent vassal state to Assyria. But at the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, they broke free and they paid very bitterly for it. [00:38:15] The Nacharist brought up a very large army and surrounded Jerusalem. He took quite a number of cities captive in Judah. And the only way that Hezekiah could get out of it was by paying or agreeing to an exceedingly large fine and a yearly tribute which was imposed upon them by the king of Assyria, by Sennacherib and his forces. [00:38:48] This meant that Hezekiah had to more or less give all the gold of the silver of the Lord's house as well as his own treasures away. It says in the word here that he even had to strip the gold off from the doorposts of the Lord's house in order to pay. It evidently must have been a very, very heavy fine and tribute indeed. [00:39:10] It was this that so grieved Isaiah. And if you want to read about it, you'll find it in Isaiah 22, when the people, instead of mourning and crying and bewailing, rejoiced. [00:39:26] They were so glad that the armies were called off that it says, they flew oxen and they drank wine and they said, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. [00:39:38] And it was this that so grieved and distressed Isaiah that he spoke very, very, very strongly and said, this thing will never be forgiven until you die. [00:39:53] In that way, Hezekiah bought off what would have been the complete destruction of Jerusalem. [00:40:01] But if you read on in these verses, in chapter 18, from verse 13, you read on to verse 17, you suddenly find, and they're the only explanation for it, that Sennacherib decides now that he's got the fine money and the tribute money to lace siege to Jerusalem. [00:40:29] He'd got the money. He had, as it were, called off his campaign against Jerusalem. Now he deals treacherously with Hezekiah. And he sends these three men. The Tartan was the commander in chief of the army, a very good name. [00:40:50] The Ramsaris was a high military officer, and the rabshaker was the head of the civil service. These three men were sent to quite a large army to demand that Hezekiah completely submit. Now they knew very well that Hezekiah had no more money to give. [00:41:15] The people had to strip themselves. The house of the Lord was stripped. The king's treasurers were stripped. There was nothing left. They knew that it could only mean one thing, and that was that if they would either be all destroyed. Or they would. They would put themselves entirely into the hands of the king of Assyria for deportation. That is why the R makes no bones about it. He tries to make deportation very, very attractive. He says, if you'll only all come out from the city walls and not listen to heather car, then you'll all be able to be happy until plans are made and put into operation for deporting the whole lot of you to a very nice country a long way off. You'll be very, very happy there and all the rest of us. [00:42:00] It's interesting that when Sennacherib undertakes his second great campaign against Jerusalem, he uses methods which I think nearly all of us have some time or other known. We've all known them corporately, if we haven't known them individually. [00:42:22] And I think it's there that we learn some of our greatest lessons. I don't know whether you've ever known the enemy come to you and assault you. [00:42:32] The way out is never to come to terms with the enemy. Never. [00:42:37] This was the thing, that distressed island. [00:42:41] You see, if you come to terms with the enemy, as many of us very foolishly do in our offices or at home or elsewhere, we compromise. We think, well, it's the easiest way out. Then we find we're the poorer for it. We're not only the poorer, but we haven't got anything to meet the next attack. We can't buy off the next attack, the next attack. We are absolutely laid open to the enemy. There's no way out when the enemy comes again and the enemy always comes back. [00:43:13] You can never, as it were, satisfy Satan. He's too hungry. He will come for something and you will give him something. And you think you brought him off, but he'll be back, and he'll be back for more. And then you think you've bought him off again, but he'll be back for more until in the end he devours you. That's why the scripture always speaks of him as one who always seeks to devour. He will devour everything bit by bit or altogether. But his plan is to devour us entirely. In the Finnish So you see, this attack on Hezekiah is not really so foolish or so distant from our us as we might think. [00:44:00] There are one or two other things we ought to note. They're again technical. I told you about the three who led the attack. I always feel the devil has big sounding names in his front line of attack. Whenever, especially corporately, they'll always find there's a lot attached to it. I remember once reading a little timing article about Gashmore. I expect many of you read Gashmore. [00:44:28] There's always a big name. There's always a name attached to anything that's said. You know, so and so said, or I've got it on the highest authority, or I know beyond many shadow of a doubt that such and such and such and such and such and such. So the enemy always comes with his big names and his big words and his big clothes. [00:44:49] The enemy is a great bluffer. That's why he's called a liar, and that is why he is called a deceiver. He never tells the truth. He only ever tells part of the truth. Now, that is why when Sennacherib launched this challenge, it was partly based on truth. Why is it angering about Egypt? Because he knew that in the back of many of the people's minds was Egypt. They thought, well, perhaps Egypt will come to our help at the last moment. There's a new king of Ethiopia who's a very strong man. Perhaps he will get here in time and save us. So you see, the devil's very clever. First of all, he'll get us to try to sort of get into an alliance with worldly things and worldly people, and then he will taunt us with the very alliance that he's achieved, he's forced us into. He will come and he will be very cruel about the alliances he's put us into. I don't know if any of you have ever known such a thing. You've been forced by the enemy out of faith in the Lord into something that isn't absolutely pure and clean and open before the Lord. And then the enemy comes and taunts you and as it were, flings it down before you, tries to make out that you're caught. You're absolutely quit. [00:46:14] Very interesting thing that the rabshaker spoke Hebrew. This was a very big shock to the cabinet ministers of Hezekiah. They didn't like it. Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the day, and they asked if they would kindly speak in the diplomatic language. It wasn't done to address the king in his own time. But their plan was a very clever one. Their plan wasn't to come to terms with Hezekiah at all. It was to drive a very big wedge between Heather Carr and his people. [00:46:51] If they had only been able to do in a little section, just a little section that would have come and opened the gate, a little section that would have just played the traitor, they would have won the Day. So their plan was to speak as loudly as you possibly can so that everyone on the houses built on the wall can hear what's happening and they'll tell everyone else. [00:47:11] So Very, very loudly. They spoke about these different things. It's very interesting, isn't it, the way. First of all, have you ever known an attack like this? We have. Again, corporate, this kind of method, you know what you're doing. [00:47:28] The altars that you've cut down, the groves that you've smashed, the high places that you've ended. [00:47:40] You see, you actually grieve the Lord. [00:47:47] Sennacherib is just simply saying, do you not listen to this newfangled man with his newfangled notions, his idea about cutting down all those altars, those high places, those groves? He's grieved the Lord. And do you know, the Lord's told me to come up to this land and to destroy it. [00:48:08] Now, that's the very method. Whenever the Lord has any people who are out in the clear with himself and are moving on, as it were, into things, you'll always have the little voice that cries and says, you're doing wrong. [00:48:23] You can't break with traditions like that. You can't cut those things out like that. You can't speak like that. You can't behave like that. The Lord will leave you. [00:48:35] These are the voices that are always raised in every new move of the Spirit of God, whether it was from the very beginning, Luther's day or Fox's Day or Wesley's Day or Derby's Day. Whatever day it's been, it's always been the same. [00:48:53] You can't. You can't. And so you see Sennacherib's plan, a very, very clever one. Smash their confidence. [00:49:03] Smash their confidence in leadership. Smash their confidence in the north. Make them think that. That we also are the instrument of the law. [00:49:15] There's truth in that now. There's truth in that. Assyria was the instrument of the law. And later on, the Lord through Isaiah says, do you not know that I raised you up to ruin cities and to ravage land? The Lord himself said so. He sees with taking little grains of truth and using them for his revenge. And later on, he comes right out into the open and to don't let Hezekiah deceive you cometh. [00:49:43] Now the people's reaction is a very, very blessed one, and one that I think we should all take account of. They were silent. When in doubt, say nothing. [00:49:55] Never, never speak with the enemy. Do you know that many of us are Always caught out on this simple liberal, almost tried method of safety to get us talking. [00:50:09] Oh, he loves people who talk. [00:50:12] They will only talk if they will sit down at the table and parley with him. If they will only start exchanging epithets, they'll only get into a slanging match with him. He's quite happy, doesn't mind, doesn't mind at all, anything like that, as long as he don't silence. [00:50:31] Satan hates the silent people because silence at times can be the most eloquent and loud testimony to faith. [00:50:46] It's when we come down to talking with the enemy or querying the remarks of the enemy or entertaining the thoughts of the enemy. And sometimes the enemy comes as a minister of righteousness and an angel of light. [00:51:01] Sometimes, I'm afraid, he takes the old nature and each one of us and comes at one another through each other. [00:51:08] And we only have to get down to talking it, reciting it and paring over it on the court. Silence is the way it moves in big we resist the devil not by talking, but by faith in the Lord. [00:51:24] And they resisted in this silent way because the king had told them, answer him, not a bird. [00:51:31] But I want you to note their reaction is very wonderful. [00:51:35] It displayed utter dependence upon the Lord. They were so weak. Why didn't they answer? Because they had no conversation. [00:51:45] They knew that the parley was in woodle doings wouldn't put him off, wouldn't stop him. They were so weak, they were made weak. They were afflicted people. They couldn't fight, they couldn't talk, they couldn't criticize. [00:51:58] All they could do was rend their clothes and put on cap. [00:52:05] That shows dependence upon the Lord. Utter, utter dependence upon the Lord. Whenever the Lord's doing a great thing for himself, he always has an afflicted people. He will get an afflicted people by a variety of ways and means, but he will always have an afflicted people. They will be people who, when things happen, they don't know what to do but fall on their faces before the Lord. This is the thing the Lord's been teaching me about Moses every time those I can only call them at times. Wretched people moaned and groaned. They didn't like the and they were given it something more, a change of diet. Then they didn't like that. Then they had no water. Then they wanted to go back to Egypt. Then they were tired of this. Then they didn't like Moses then. And so but you know, Moses never, never came to the place where he argued and parlor you almost get tired of it when it keeps on saying, and Moses and devil fell upon their face. [00:53:10] That was the only way. The only way they could, as it were, find relief in a situation. [00:53:17] This was exactly what Hezekiah did. It says, he went into the house of the Lord, he rent his own clothes, he put on sackcloth, and he went to the house of the Lord. [00:53:28] Now whenever the enemy comes for you, the secret of everything is not to go out against them, not to try and, as it were, hit the enemy. How do you resist the devil? By going into the house of the Lord? [00:53:42] By fast, by pressing further into fellowship, by getting more deeply related with your brother's sister? That's the way that you're always the way through, the way of deliverance. [00:53:54] If only Hezekiah had come out on the wall and started talking with these three high ranking officials of Sennacherib's cabinet and army, he would have been lost. [00:54:07] But he wept, and he wept his way into the house of the Lord. [00:54:12] He was so weak, you see, all his silver and gold have gone. He couldn't buy them off. He was an afflicted man. He hadn't even got his wealth to rely upon. Now he had nothing. He hadn't even got a son to his name. He had none. He could only go into that house of the Lord. Well, there we are. First it's dependence upon the Lord. Silence. Then it's dependence upon the Lord. Then it's getting into the house of the Lord, and then it's the word of the Lord. Now if you want a word from the Lord about any given situation, and if you are coming into right relationship with the Lord's purpose, the only way you will ever get his word is by being right with your brothers and sisters. Now if you go elsewhere, it will not be the same. You can go to chapels, you can go to religious organizations, and the Lord will speak to you directly, quite rightly directly, whatever happens around you. But once you come onto church ground, the moment you come out of church ground, God deals with you as members of a household. He deals with you as living stones related. And therefore all the principles of the house come in, even if you don't understand them, they're all opposite. [00:55:28] And so you see, where do we find the word of the Lord? It might come directly to you. It may not come through someone else. It may come directly to you, but it will come to you as you are rightly related to your brothers and sisters. [00:55:41] So dear Hezekiah, in the heart of the house of God sent his brothers as it were his, the senior priests and the others, he sent them to inquire of Isaiah. And the message came back and you're not Tabir, you're not Tabir, you're gonna be alright. [00:56:05] And that very night something happened and the high officials vanished with their army because they heard the king of Assyria had gone out, had moved his camp. [00:56:16] There was some real conflict somewhere. [00:56:21] But and here again, never think the enemy called off all his assault. When you have a day or two of quiet and rest a letter came. And I might say sometimes that letters are often the method of the enemy. I sometimes feel that what some people can't say publicly and openly or to person say is they have to put in black and white on paper. [00:56:46] And so this time the enemy sends a rather nastily worded letter. [00:56:53] It's right out in the open. This time it just simply says do you really think the Lord's going to. What's he done for all the other Nanns all round about? They've all gone. [00:57:03] So you better come to town straight away. And don't think because I've called off the army from your front door, but that means I'm not coming back because I'm coming back very swiftly. I'm going to wipe you out. [00:57:16] Hezekiah had not become as it were, proud or arrogant. [00:57:26] Neither was he careless. It is as he rent his clothes again. He went into the house of the Lord and he took the letter and he spread it out from the Lord. [00:57:38] It was as if he would say, now Lord, here's the evidence in black and white. [00:57:44] See what he says. [00:57:49] He has as it were blessed feel the name of the living God now Lord, do something about it. [00:57:58] If you ever get a letter like that, just you do the same thing. [00:58:02] I've had one or two in my time, years past. I've always read them out before the Lord. [00:58:07] Don't answer them, never answer them, just hold it before the Lord to get the Lord to do the answer. [00:58:16] Oh well, you know what happens. [00:58:21] The Lord gives a very full answer to Isaiah without any Isaiah being off. Isaiah comes right in and says this is exactly what the Lord feels about this situation, don't you? [00:58:37] And then the tidings came to Jerusalem, 180,000. [00:58:46] Now there's a very strange but interesting legend, an Egyptian legend that it was mice that ate through the bow strings of the army. I think that's a little bit far fetched probably, but it is very highly probable that it was field mice because it is not only a legend of Egypt. [00:59:09] And it may well have been that they took the plague into the camp, whatever it was. [00:59:16] The army of Assyria were absolutely laid waste. And Sennacherib returned immediately, a very humiliated man, to Nineveh. And some years later he was murdered by his own two sons as he was worshipping in the house of his God. [00:59:41] So the Lord's word came absolutely true. Well, there's something there, I think, for us to be greatly encouraged about over the word of the Lord. [00:59:51] Sometimes evil men seem to be the strongest in the strongest position that it's possible to be. It seems they wield power which is absolutely almost almighty. It will seem that they can utter the most terrible threat. They can taunt us, they can blaspheme, they can hold us in derision, they can smear at us. They can, just as it were, seemingly play cat and mouse with us. [01:00:18] But then suddenly there comes a day when the Lord's word is utterly fulfilled. And, you know, it's a terrible thing sometimes to watch the Lord's Word being fulfilled in a situation. Oh, how did mills of God grind? Slow but exceeding sure. Once they grind nothing on earth to construct them, they just grind on to the end. [01:00:43] And so you have here some very, very wonderful lessons for all of us to learn. [01:00:52] The last part of Hezekiah's life. He is ill. [01:00:58] I don't think it was a mistake that he asked the Lord. [01:01:01] He was very afraid of dying. Some people think it was a big mistake of Hezekiah to ask, but I don't think so. The Lord's word to him was, set thy house in order or thou shalt die and not live. [01:01:15] Hezekiah, very human pursuit. [01:01:18] He turned himself over, it says, and looked at the wall and wept. He didn't want anyone to see him weeping, so he looked at the wall and he wept. [01:01:27] And then he let his whole heart come out to the Lord. [01:01:31] Isaiah had left him. I think Isaiah was probably very moved and he left him. But it says he was only in the middle court of the king's house when the Lord said to him, isaiah, turn round, go back, I have something to say. When Isaiah came back, the Lord, as it were, contradicted his first words. He said to Hezekiah, the Lord has heard you, and he's going to add 15 days, 15 years to your. [01:01:58] And you know how he asked? Isaiah said, get a little cake of figs and put it on the tumor. Put it on the tumor. And Hezekiah covered for three days. He was worshiping in the house of the Lord. [01:02:13] But he asked for a sign. [01:02:17] And the sign that he asked for was that on the sundial. It was Ahaz's sundial. It was a Babylonian illustration. There were steps going down from the king's house and a pillar. And as the sun struck the pillar, it cast a shadow down the steps from the king's house. He could probably see those steps in the shadow. He could tell the time as the sun went down. So the shadow came up the steps, you see, and he asked that it should go back 10 steps. And it went back 10 steps, 10 degrees, 10 steps. This was fine. [01:02:58] And I felt really, it was any more satisfying key to the problem of the 15 Psalms of Songs, of the steps, or the degrees, really, than that the little collection of Hezekiah. [01:03:17] 10, probably by himself, and 5 added. If you look your final 15 years added to his life and the 10 that he himself gave, however, you know what happened. This incident did not follow on the rest. That is the important point to remember. It was in these days he was sick. [01:03:42] And if you look very carefully, you'll find in chapter 18, verse 13, it was in the 14th year of Hezekiah. If you look at chapter 18, verse 2, he only reigned 29 years. And then we're told the Lord added 15 years to his life. So it must have been just before Nacharib attacked Jerusalem that he fell so sick. And it was then that he did a very, very foolish thing, which I think afterwards in God's dealings with him, he learned. And that was he received an embassy from Meredith Baladan, king of Babylon. [01:04:24] It was supposed to be because he was so glad to hear that Hezekiah recovered. But in actual fact, he wanted to make an alliance with Hezekiah against Assyria. And you remember what Hezekiah did. He showed him all his treasures. [01:04:38] And Isaiah came to Hezekiah. He said, hezekiah, what have you done? [01:04:43] And Hezekiah told him what he did. He said, because you've done that, all those pleasures will be lost. [01:04:49] It's interesting that that incident is put at the end of Hezekiah's life. Is it not a key to a man to whom the Lord wholly committed himself, who was capable of failing? He failed. But his failure was not, regrettably, the recording finished at this point.