Introduction - Historical Division

We want to think with you about the section which begins with Isaiah, chapter 36. You will notice that this chapter begins with a date found in the words of verse 1:

ISAIAH 36

As soon as you notice that date, you realize that we are entering a new section of the book, devised by the Holy Spirit. When we began our discussion of the book of Isaiah, we told you, as we have told you about every book in the Bible, that with each book there is an outline or natural divisions which are placed there by the Holy Spirit. We said that in relation to the book of Isaiah, it is divided into two parts. Chapters 1-39 make the first division, and chapters 40-66 make up the last division.

The first part, chapters 1-39, is divided into sections which are indicated in two ways: First, the subject matter contained in them, and in most instances we have noticed those divisions on the basis of subject matter, and if we were to notice this particular section in this lesson solely on the basis of the subject matter, we would see that we are entering a new section of the book of Isaiah that begins with chapter 36 and concludes with chapter 39 and might be referred to as an historical section of the book, a matter of history; second, by the dates, which indicate divisions of much greater length than the subject matter divisions.

The last date that we looked at was in chapter 14, verse 28, and it was a date referring to the year that King Ahab died, introducing us to the reign of King Hezekiah. Now, way over here in chapter 36, we are introduced to a historical division of the book of Isaiah, which is going to describe some events which began with the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hezekiah.

Most of what we have been considering, we have been considering in the light of prophecy, for most of it is prophecy. As we come to this section, however, we are noticing not prophecy, but history. You may wonder why. Why, suddenly in the middle of a book of prophecy, is there inserted four chapters dealing with history?

The answer can be found in one word, and that word is transition. These chapters represent a transition between what we have found up to this point and what we are going to find in the second section of the book of Isaiah.

I might make this clearer by suggesting to you that up to this point the chief enemy of Israel has been Assyria, but in the second division of the book of Isaiah, the chief enemy of Israel is going to be Babylon. In these four chapters we are going to see how Assyria fades into the background and Babylon emerges into the foreground, and then we will be ready for what is recorded in the last half of the book of Isaiah.

We are going to notice something else that will be pointed out as we go along, and that is that in this particular division is the fulfillment of some of the prophecies which Isaiah made earlier in the book. As we notice those, we realize once again that the guarantee of unfulfilled prophecy lies in the prophecy which has already been fulfilled.

We might suggest to you, if you want a more detailed account of what is transpiring in chapters 36-37, that you read II Kings, beginning with chapter 19. Then you read II Chronicles, beginning with chapter 39.

In Isaiah, chapter 36, is the historical record of what happened when the King of Assyria came up against the defensed city of Judah, as was mentioned in verse 1, but more particularly, against the very heart of Judah itself---the city of Jerusalem.

We have been fortunate enough in this land of ours, in the late years at least, not to have war that touched our shores; but if you use your imagination, you might be able to grasp some of the feeling of the people involved in this chapter. Imagine that some conqueror began on the west coast and took one city after another as he marched toward Washington, D.C., and suddenly he was outside the city of Washington, sending word in, ``I have taken every city that is in my path, and now in the next few hours I will take the capitol itself."

This was the position in which the Israelites found themselves, for all the defensed cities of Judah had been taken. Look at verse 2:

ISAIAH 36

You will recognize that the word Rabshakeh is not a name. It would seem so, the way that it is translated in our King James version, but the word Rabshakeh, is really a title. It means literally ``cupbearer." The cupbearer of any heathen king was the most trusted individual in the kingdom, because it was his responsibility to take the first taste of wine to be sure that it wasn't poisoned. If he lived through the first taste, then the king could drink freely.

You will recall that Nehemiah was a cupbearer to a Persian king. Quite often, because these individuals were so trusted, they were sent on very important missions for their king, as Nehemiah was sent back to the land of Judah by Cyrus, king of Persia. Rabshakeh was sent by the Assyrian King Sennacherib to King Hezekiah with a message. He met King Hezekiah's emissaries, we are told, by the conduit of the upper pool.

You remember back in chapter 7 of the book of Isaiah when an attack was proposed against Jerusalem, in the days of King Ahaz, he was in this very same place, concerned about the water supply of the city. That is the reason Rabshakeh came to this particular place. In all of his words and in all of his actions was the threat of turning off all the water supply of the city. Look at verse 3. We are going to read through the chapter pointing out these various truths to you. In verse 3, we read:

ISAIAH 36

Three officials of the Jewish government which were tantamount to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, and the press representative, were sent out by Hezekiah to listen to what Rabshakeh had to say.

May I suggest to you that in verse 3 there is a fulfillment of prophecy, because in chapter 22 of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah said that Eliakim, who was a comparatively unknown personality, would suddenly be made the prime minister and would have a very important place in the government. Here we find in chapter 36 the prophecy fulfilled. You realize, of course, that the prophecy is not only related to the distant future, as we have learned in a number of instances, but it was prophecy related to Isaiah's day as well.

In verse 4, Rabshakeh begins to speak:

ISAIAH 36

``You say to King Hezekiah, `Where is all of your bravery coming from? Where is all of your courage?'." Then he lists five things, and one after the other, he knocks them over as tenpins, so to speak, with such alacrity that the representative of Hezekiah said, ``Don't talk. If you have to say anything, say it in the Assyrian language. Don't say it in the Hebrew language, because all the people are over the walls listening to what was being said." These emissaries of Hezekiah's said, ``We speak Assyrian fluently. You can talk to us in Assyrian instead of Hebrew. These people don't need to be upset." Of course, they left the door wide open for Rabshakeh, because he immediately said, ``Oh, you don't want them to hear what I have to say. All right, you people listen to me." Here we have the best illustration in the Old Testament of the power of propaganda that you could possibly imagine. The only difference between then and today is that today we have radio, television, and modern means of communication that spreads the propaganda to much farther places than one man could send it.

I would like for you to notice the five things that he brings to their attention. In verse 5, he said:

ISAIAH 36

That is the first thing. ``You are talking about how powerful you are. Do you think that your words about your power are any match for the armaments that we have? There is a lot of talk of preparedness," he said, ``but you're really not prepared." He tries to undermine the faith of the people in the defenses that were rightfully theirs.

The second thing that he says in verse 5 is:

ISAIAH 36

Do you see what Rabshakeh is doing now? Not only is he robbing the people of confidence in their defenses, he is robbing the people of confidences in their allies. He said, ``Sure you have treaties, and you think everything is going to be all right. Well, we want you to know that the people with whom you have made treaties are not going to stand by you when the real critical hour comes." This is one thing about which he was right.

Notice the third thing in verse 7:

ISAIAH 36

He says, ``You're going to trust in God, are you. You're saying that you believe God can deliver you. Well, we wonder if He can." Then notice in verse 7:

ISAIAH 36

When Hezekiah came to the throne, he set in motion a great many reforms. The nation of Judah had slipped so far away from God that they had forgotten what God had said---mainly that in Jerusalem and in Jerusalem alone should people come to worship God. It was too much trouble to travel to Jerusalem, so anybody set up an altar wherever he wanted to set it up and offered his sacrifices there. They said, ``We don't want to be too fanatical. After all, all that God is interested in is a sacrifice. It doesn't matter where the sacrifice is made. It doesn't matter how it is made, so don't bother going down to Jerusalem; let's just make our altar here." Jotham and Ahaz had permitted all of this. When Hezekiah came to the throne, he said, ``This isn't right." He sent out men, and he tore down all of those altars, and he said, ``You come down here to Jerusalem to worship."

The enemy heard about it, as it created quite a bit of talk. They misinterpreted it. They thought that Hezekiah was doing violence to the truth of God instead of conducting what we might term today reformation or revival. So he said, ``What makes you so sure that your God is going to help you? You have been tearing down all of His altars. He couldn't possibly be interested in helping you."

He gets very smart-alecky in this next statement. Notice the fourth thing that he says to them in verse 8:

ISAIAH 36

You see how he was making fun of him. He said, ``You talk about all of your protection. If we gave you 2,000 horses, you wouldn't have enough riders to put on them." Verse 9:

ISAIAH 36

``What makes you think that you can even defeat one small company of the Assyrian army, let alone the entire army?"

The fifth thing he said was rather strange to hear him say, but it was true, and this is the thing that struck terror into their hearts. He said in verse 10:

ISAIAH 36

I don't know whether Jehovah God spoke particularly to Sennacherib or whether Sennacherib had learned of the prophecies of Isaiah, but in chapter 10 of the book of Isaiah, it is recorded that God said that He would use Sennacherib as an instrument in His hand to chasten the nation of Israel if they didn't repent and get right with God. It could be that Sennacherib had heard about it some way, so he used this bit of news as good propaganda and said, ``Really, I am coming up against you at the command of your God."

As I said, this struck terror into the hearts of those who listened, so in verse 11, we have these three emissaries asking Ramshakeh to speak in the Assyrian language instead of the Jewish language, and in verse 12, he said, ``I'm not going to do it. These people need to know the doom that's coming upon them." Then in verse 13:

ISAIAH 36

Mind you now, he is appealing to the people. He said in verse 14:

ISAIAH 36

``Don't have any faith in your elected leader. Don't have any faith in the individuals who are in authority. They are deceiving you, and they will not be able to deliver you."

May I remind you today that we should look critically upon the action of any public official, for we have that responsibility, but as we look critically upon such actions, let us be sure that we are not providing fodder for the cannon of the enemy to undermine faith in the democracy in which we believe. One of the most influential activities in our day, I believe, is innocent people who do not investigate thoroughly enough various movements with which they become associated---those innocent people being used as dupes in the hands of our enemies to undermine this land of ours.

Look at verse 15 where he said:

ISAIAH 36

They were saying, ``Regardless of what your leaders say, and regardless of what the reliable people of your society do, you make an agreement with us. If you make an agreement with us, when everything is over, you will be in the places of leadership, and you will have an easy time." Do you see the modern methods of undermining society are not so modern after all? The Bible is a universal Book.

Look now to verse 18. This is the third time that he warns them against being misled by religion, if we put the term very broadly. That must have worried them. They must have been more afraid of people's faith in God than they were of anything else. May I remind you that our enemies, likewise, are more afraid of our faith in God than they are of anything else. That is why they are making every effort in insidious ways to undermine our faith in God. The sad thing about it is that the very people that ought to be guarding faith in God are going right along with the plan. Read verse 18:

ISAIAH 36

``Every god has fallen before me. Who is your God that He should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?"

I want you to remember that statement, because he went too far then. What he said about the people didn't matter. What he said about Hezekiah didn't matter, but when he threw a challenge in the face of God saying, ``Who is your God who is able to deliver you?", he went too far. His doom was sealed.

It takes a little time for it to come to pass, because God has limited Himself to the prayers of His people. That is a strange thing, but it is true. You say, ``If God knows I need something, why do I need to pray?" Because God said, ``I'm not going to do anything about it unless you do." You say, ``If God knows that our enemies are about to swallow us up, why do we need to pray about it?" Because God says, ``I'm not going to do anything about it until you do."

In chapter 37, we have presented to us what happened when God's people prayed. I would like to suggest to you that this is an illustration of the greatest deterrent to the most powerful enemy that this land of ours will ever know.

When Rabshakeh was through speaking in the last part of chapter 36, everybody kept quiet because the king had said, ``Don't anybody answer him." Then the three men went back with their clothes rent, torn as a sign of mourning, and told Hezekiah what happened. We read in chapter 37:

ISAIAH 37

He covered himself with sackcloth, and he tore his clothes, and he went into the house of the LORD. Who did this? Not a few preachers who got together for prayer, not a few old women in cottage prayer meetings scattered around the country, but the leader of the nation himself. It is one thing for the president to call a day of prayer, but it is another thing for him to pray. It is one thing for the leader of the nation to say, ``God will take care of you," but it is another thing for him to prove his sincerity to God.

I would like to suggest to you that the power of personal prayer is a tremendous thing, but you don't want to stop there. I want you to notice what else he did in verse 2:

ISAIAH 37

He not only prayed himself, but he got some help. He sent for somebody who knew how to pray. One thing that the Devil uses to deceive the people of God in our day is to suggest that you shouldn't burden other people with your problems. He is always suggesting, ``Now, you can pray about that. You don't need to ask anybody else to pray." Beloved, you need to follow the procedure of getting in touch with people who can pray.

You will pardon this personal reference. Most of you know it, but it will drive the truth home. The night before I went into surgery in Houston, I said to my wife, ``Send a telegram to every praying person we know in this whole country." I don't know how many telegrams we sent out. You say, ``Didn't you pray about it?" I did. ``Didn't you think you were in good hands?" I did, but I believe there is power in prayer, and I don't believe that you can get too many people assailing the battlements of Heaven in prayer. If you have any problem, Beloved, don't try to battle it through yourself. Get some people to pray about it.

He said, ``Isaiah, you pray for us." There is one good thing about Isaiah. He was a prayed-up individual. He didn't have to run when trouble came to pray. He was prayed-up, and he already had the answer. He said in verse 6:

ISAIAH 37

Do you notice why I said that he went too far? The Rabshakeh said over there in verse 20, ``What makes you think your God can deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? No other god has been able to do it." God said, through His prophet Isaiah, ``You say to your master, Hezekiah, don't you be afraid of what he said, because he has blasphemed Me, and the battle is no longer with you; it is with Me."

I wish you could realize that that is true of most of our battles. If you listen closely, you would hear the LORD saying, ``The battle is not yours, but the LORD'S." How often we try to fight the battle by ourselves instead of letting the LORD fight the battle. Look at verse 7:

ISAIAH 37

You will notice the words ``Behold, I will send a blast upon him." That is not a good translation. It is literally, ``Behold, I will send a spirit to him, and he will hear a rumor, and he will return to his own land." You say, ``Is this unusual?" There are other instances of it in the Bible where God sends a message to the ear of a ruler and he acts upon that message. Sometimes that message is for his own destruction.

You and I might have a hard time getting the ear of any leader in this world, but God can get his ear any time He wants to. All He has to do is send a spirit to implant a thought in his mind. He has done it over and over again. He can wake him up at night if He needs to and plant a thought in his mind, and that individual will act upon the thought.

You see why I say to you that prayer is the most potent weapon we have. We can do so little about so many of these things, but we can ask God to plant a thought in the heart and mind of the man involved, and he will act upon it.

Do you know what God did? The rest of the chapter tells us. That spirit went and whispered into the ear of Sennacherib, ``Do you know what is happening? Ethiopia is marching toward Assyria while you're up here at Jerusalem." Sennacherib thought about it and said, ``I don't know what to do. I don't have enough men to stay here at Jerusalem, and go to Ethopia also. I just hardly know what to do." He says in verse 9, ``I will scare Hezekiah really good before I leave. I will scare him so bad that I won't need any army here."

He wrote him a letter, but it does not appear that he wrote a letter until you get down to verse 14, but the letter actually begins in verse 10, where he said:

ISAIAH 37

That is what he wrote to Hezekiah. Now, look at verse 14. I have always loved this passage of Scripture, and I have put it into practice any number of times. It is really a little bit silly. If someone saw you do it they might think you daft. They might think you have something wrong upstairs. Hezekiah took the letter; he read it, and then he went into the house of the LORD, and this is a little bit ridiculous, spread it out before the LORD. He just laid it out there, and he said, ``Now, LORD, you read it."

For an omniscient God who knows our down-sitting and our uprising, wasn't this a rather foolish thing to do? Why do you suppose He did it? I believe it was Hezekiah's contact with faith. It made the whole thing so real to him. He laid it out before the LORD, and he said, ``LORD, here it is. You read it. This is the evidence. I need your help."

I could spend the rest of this time telling you how I have spread things out before the LORD and talked to God about them and have seen God work. I have had bills to pay, and I had no money to pay them. I would take that bill, and I would sit down beside the bed, and I would lay that bill on the bed and say, ``LORD, here is this bill. Look at it, LORD. Here is the amount, and I don't have any money to pay the bill. You promised to supply every need I have, and I, by faith, expect you to do it."

You ought to try to lay things before the LORD and make your prayer life real. That is what Hezekiah did. Notice the way that he prayed in verse 16:

ISAIAH 37

He went on to say in so many words, ``LORD, he is not lying. He has the power. He can do everything that he says." Then in verse 20:

ISAIAH 37

``LORD, save us. Save us for Thy glory." Look at verse 21. Right in the middle of it God said:

ISAIAH 37

Doesn't that sound strange? Should you be praying against somebody? Yes. If there is no other way to handle them, then pray against them. You say, ``Well, that is not very nice. Where is the love of God in your heart?" It is where it has always been. Pray against them. I see no reason in the world why if there is a man in authority that is contrary to God, that Christians should not pray against it. That's what God said Hezekiah did, and He said, ``Because you have, here is what I will do. I am going to fix it so that before this is over, you are going to be laughing at him. Right now, you are trembling, but you are going to be laughing before this is over, and you are going to be laughing because he has blasphemed Me." Notice verse 23:

ISAIAH 37

Then He goes on to describe the manner in which God is going to cut him down, and reminds him in verse 27 that he could not do a thing if God had not permitted him to do it. It might be wise to remember today that if the people of God are in the center of the will of God nobody---nations or individuals---can do one thing against them that God does not permit them to do, but you had better be sure that you are in the will of God. Look at verse 29:

ISAIAH 37

God is able. You see what He said He would do with Sennacherib. He said, ``Sennacherib, you have gone far enough. I am going to put a hook in your nose and a bridle in your mouth, and I am going to turn you around and send you back home."

We may be no match for our enemy, but we have a God Who is, and we should learn to depend upon God and ask God to put a hook in the nose and a bridle in the mouth, for God is able to give the victory.

Look down in verse 35. After He had described what Sennacherib will not do, He said:

ISAIAH 37

Here is the basis upon which God always operates. He operates on the basis of His glory, and He operates on the basis of His Word. He said, ``Hezekiah, you have been alarmed; you have been concerned, but really, I couldn't let this blasphemous, evil king take this city. My glory is at stake. I couldn't let this blasphemous, evil king take this city. I made a promise to David, and I am going to keep it."

Then what happens? You say, ``Oh, suddenly Egypt came to the rescue of Judah," or you say, ``Suddenly Judah realized a source of arms that she didn't know she had." No. In verse 36, we read:

ISAIAH 37

You say, ``What happened?" I wish I knew. I don't know. Some people say that a pestilence broke out in this army that killed them all over night. About the most ridiculous thing that I have heard is what is suggested by our brethren who boast of their intellectual ability. They say that a horde of field mice came into the camp that night and chewed the bottom out of all the quivers; their arrows fell out on the ground, and they chewed the strings off the bows, so that when the soldiers got up the next morning to put an arrow into the bow, there wasn't anything but the bow. There was no string, and they could not find the arrows because they were scattered about.

I think it is a lot better to say that an Angel of the LORD, which is the Old Testament title of the Lord Jesus Christ, went among them and passed a sentence of death upon them. I don't believe there had to be a pestilence. I think if an unsaved person comes in contact with a holy God, death is the natural result.

God had made a special prophecy about Sennacherib, so he didn't die, but he looked around him and there were so few left that, we see in verse 37:

ISAIAH 37

He went into the house of his god, Nisroch, and he said, ``I don't understand all this," and while he was talking to his god, two of his boys who didn't like him plunged a knife in his back. They took off to save their lives, and another one of his boys, Esarhaddon, became the king of Assyria. He never amounted to anything much, and Assyria faded from the stage, and Babylon became the prominent nation and the enemy of Israel.

If you have followed my meditation today, you see who was responsible for the victory. God. Yes, God, but remember, had it not been for the people of God to move the hand of God, Israel might have died that night.